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My Contract with God

My Contract with God

Heavenly Father,

My whole life is not enough to express how much you mean to me nor will I ever do enough to repay what Jesus did on the Cross for me. I am a trophy of your grace, an example of your love, a testament of your power. I will forever live in gratitude.

September 2009 in Singapore will always remain fresh on my mind-staring death in the eye, coming face to face with my own mortality, asking the deep and difficult questions, wondering whether I have lived, loved, and lead well.

I still don’t have all of the answers. But as long as I live, for the rest of my life, I will...

a.       Be who you want me to be;  do what you want me to do;  and go wherever you want me to go

b.       Be a Christian first, a husband second, a father third, a pastor fourth, and a teacher fifth. The rest can fall by the wayside.

c.       Nurture and sharpen the three core passions and gifts you have entrusted to me-preaching, teaching, and leadership. Within the bounds of my PTL, I will be all things to all men, in order to save as many as I can by your grace and power. I am open to other gifts, burdens, and calling you might want me to have, but until then, I will say NO to other things and opportunities in order to say YES to my 3 main things.

While alive, I will work, dream and pray...

d.       For revival in my church and country; and the fulfillment of the Great Commission in my generation.

e.       For unity in the Body of Christ. Together is not only better, but it is the ONLY way to make disciples of all nations

Before I close my eyes for the last time, I beseech you to

f.         Please prepare godly husbands for  my three daughters who will not only care for them financially and physically, but also nurture them spiritually

g.        Allow Horizon to own our property, so that the next generation of leaders can concentrate on giving more to missions and church planting

h.       Make the next generation of leaders BETTER than ours, for that will be my generation’s legacy for them.

In the fulfilling of this contract, there will be many stumbling and failing, so I continually ask you to be merciful to me. I will strive to do this with honor and integrity.

Lord, I offer this contract solemnly to you. Receive it along with my praise and adoration.

Sincerely Yours,

Manric Tan Pascual

Bond Servant of Christ

Why Not Us?

Last April 9, many of us attended ''The Power Of A Dream'', led by our Mentor-Tatay Rafy Panlilio at Word of Hope. We expected a full house, since tickets were sold out in advance. But God surprised us by giving us an overflow crowd, which resulted in WOH opening its other sanctuary for the very first time for a conference. More than 4,000 dreamers sang, danced, worshiped, listened, and gave birth to their own God-given dream. I was one of them.

While the festivities were ongoing, I can't help but ''see'' Horizon having its own sanctuary, our worship and dance team leading thousands into God's presence, yours truly preaching God's Word to multitudes.And that's just on the inside. Outwardly, I also ''see'' our church planting hundreds of other churches, helping the poor, uplifting their lives through a combination of gospel preaching and holistic ministry, and Kingdom Connection training and equipping thousands of pastors until ''no church is left behind and no pastor is left alone.''

I said to God, ''if grace is real, then anyone can dream, even for someone like me!'' A pivotal moment came when Ptr Rafy mentioned onstage,''imagine that what you are seeing and experiencing right now is not a conference, but your very own church service.'' I knew that was for me!

I love Christians, more specifically my fellow pastors and church leaders. I love to help them in any way I can and see ther churches and ministries grow. Bu I'll be honest. I also said to God,''Lord wala naman sigurong masama kung ako mismo mangangarap para naman po sa Horizon. Kung ano ang pangarap ko para sa iba, sana maisakatuparan muna sa church namin.''

Horizon champs, kung may ible-bless na rin na church ang Panginoon, bakit hindi rin lang tayo? If God will use churches to revive the Philippines, why not that church be us? If God can bless anyone, why not us?

If I may be bold enough to pray, ''Lord, we've seen your hand in other churches and ministries, pwede po ba na kami naman po?Hindi kami karapat dapat, but by your grace and by faith, we ask your anointing and favor to be upon us. Use Horizon mightily not just for the Philippines, but to the nations. For Jesus' sake. Amen.''

Passion

I recently bought a business book to upgrade myself in the area of management and administration only to find a most pleasant surprise. There was a U2 story on it :)

To those who live in caves, U2 just happens to be the greatest band in the world. PERIOD. Their music and lyrics touch the deepest parts of my soul like no other musicians can. The author shares a story from many years ago, while he was still in college. U2 was still an unknown entity then and were scheduled to perform along with four other bands at the University of North Carolina football field. A strong rain was on that day, and most of the bands have decided to cancel their performance. Many of the students have already left and just as the remainder of the audience were all set to leave (including the author), the announcer came out and said,''The last band on the roster has decided to perform.''

With that, a very young Bono came onstage and shouted,''What in the world! It's only a little rain.Where we came from (Dublin, Ireland), it rains every day. I want to thank all of you who stayed. We hope we won't disappoint you.'' Soon, everyone was on their feet, clapping and shouting to the songs, having a great time and oblivious to the rain.

The author distinctly remembers his brother whispering next to him, ''I have a feeling these guys will become pretty big soon.''

To which he replied,''I think you're right.''

And of course they were right!

People who make it to the top have this one thing in common-PASSION. Passion is what keeps you going even on rainy days. Passion is being committed to the few who have chosen to stay because they too deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and to be served with excellence. Passion is giving your best, in public or in private, because you believe that what you do makes a difference. Passion is going it alone if it need be. Passion is staring at what Japan just recently went through-earthquake, tsunami, nuclear threat, and finding the courage and strength to get back up again!

Indeed, passion is what will make us great again.

I recent shared in a Sunday message,''Before the miracle in the mountain, you must first make a choice, a stand, a commitment in the valley. Mountains are for rewards, but valleys are where character and convictions are formed. Who you are in the valley determines the kind of rewards you will receive when you are on the mountain.''

If you are walking through the valley just like me right now, it's time to make a decision. It's time to make a stand. Would you hang on or would you let go? Would you love or be indifferent? Would you keep your promise or break your word? Would you stay in faith or doubt? Would you stay passionate or grow cold?

As for me, I have chosen to sing and dance in the rain.

No Easy Road

I live an incredibly blessed life. I am well loved and loved well by God. I have a great family-the best wife any man can hope for and three beautiful daughters. I have loyal and faithful mentors, peers, and friends at my side. I get the privilege to teach emerging leaders at Messiah College. I am honored to pastor a wonderful church at Horizon Ministries.

Yet with all honesty, life has never been easy for me. I am not naturally gifted nor a born leader and achiever.  I am at best, average. Everything I have and accomplished so far, though clearly only by the grace of God, I have to work hard for and dare I say the word-struggle for.

I have more unanswered prayers than answered ones. I have more dreams unfulfilled than those realized.The sacrifices outnumber the successes. There are more disappointments, discouragements, and disillusionment than I care to remember.Horizon Ministries is a perfect mirror of my life. We officially have  292 members but only around 100 of them are active. That means we have more members lost  than those who have chosen to stay and grow with us.

I know, I know. I should not wallow in self pity. I should look on the bright side.I should count my blessings. And that's the thing I'm doing now. At the very least I would like to say I'm struggling well.

By now I have accepted this to be a norm for my life. No more ''pie in the sky'' stuff for me.No more simplistic statements like ''if you can see it, you can achieve it'' hogwash. The truth is  I am blessed, but I accept the reality that everything I dream of, care for, and want to achieve will be done through sacrifice, pain, hard work, and agonizing prayer. That's just the way it is for me. It is what it is. No explananations needed.

Many of my church members know I live by a code, a number of them actually (think of them as principles for living). I call them my Code 27 (twenty seven representing the number of Codes there are.) Right now, I'm adding a Code 28, and Code # 28 says Embrace the struggle. Struggles are a part of life, and since they refuse to go away, might as well embrace it as a friend instead of treating it like an enemy.

It's not a contradiction to say you are blessed and at the same time acknowledge that life is hard, even for a believer.That's the path God has chosen for me, and I know for so many of you also. 

Life is not fair. It's not fair that some of you were molested as a child. It's not fair that you have irresponsible parents. It's not fair that your children who are selfish. It's not fair that you grew up in poverty. It's not fair that the people you trust betrayed you. Hell, it's not fair that life isn't fair. Simply get over it!

May we have the faith to believe in the face of these realities that God is still good and will and have already blessed us.That's the one thing we should never get over with!

Let's choose to live in hope. Tomorrow can be better than today. It won't be easy, but so what? Nothing good and worthwhile comes easy anyway.

So there. Embrace the struggle and fall into the embrace of God.