A Season of Joy, Praise and Worship

By Yeng Remulla

“when they saw the star, they were overjoyed” – Mt 2:10

This year we went to Baguio 6 times. Every time we travel, the pressure and boredom of long drive sets in. I hear my son from the back asking “are we there yet?” (usually 30min intervals) For me, the STAR logo of CALTEX or Shell Select in NLEX reminds me of the same STAR the Magi saw. Joy sets in knowing that I can stop and relax for a while to buy chocolate, chips, ice
tea, cinnabon, siopao, chicharon, atbp, just to fight the boredom of driving. After 3 hours of driving, I see another star……STARbucks! (Sta. Lucia) Now, I am not only happy but also awake and revived.

The Magi traveled from a far place but when they saw the star, they were OVERJOYED. First thing I do from travel is to unload the baggage, then freshen up, and then drink coffee. First thing the Magi did when they reached the house was to BOW down and WORSHIP Him. Then they presented their gifts to Him afterwards.

For us Music Ministers, let this season be a season of Joy, Praise and Worship. This is not the time to be pressured with hectic schedules, neverending parties, performance, gift giving, etc. Let Joy, Praise and Worship be in our hearts and lifestyle.

It’s a season we celebrate, not merely an event, but a loving person. Jesus.

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. – Psalm 95:1-2

Yeng Remulla is a volunteer who helps with the leadership of the music ministry. While this article was written to volunteers in the music ministry, the message about the season being about Joy, Praise and Worship is for everyone!

Church...Preparing as a Bride for the Coming Wedding - Sonny Oaman

It's amazing that the Bible starts and end with marriage! The next major thing He did after the creation is to institute marriage and one of the last major thing that will happen is the marriage of the Lamb! I believe that with this we can understand God's heart.

If we are so excited and looking forward on our wedding day here on earth, God is more excited on that day that we'll, as the Bride of Christ, meet Him and be with Him forever! The Bible says, that as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride so will our God rejoices over us (His Church). but before that glorious day comes, I believe that the Church, corporately, should prepare as the Bride of Christ. There will come a day that the wedding of the Lamb will come and the bride has made herself ready.

Jesus loves His Church so much that He gave up Himself for her so we can be set apart for Him to be holy. He will be presenting her to Himself as a radiant Church, without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish.In short, He is doing a lot of things in the Church today as part of the preparation for that special day! He is the One preparing the Church and we ought to cooperate with Him.

We need to be careful how live our lives until Jesus returns for us. I believe we need to live a life that honors and pleases God. And best of all, let's remain faithful to our Groom as we wait for His return.

Are you prepared to meet your Groom?

UPDATES: Be Inspired!

Instead of "Be refreshed" we're calling this section "Be inspired" instead! We want to highlight the podcasts we provide! Check out the new icon!

Feature Articles and Podcast

Hello! We have decided to split our original Be Refreshed feed into two! We now have a dedicated feed for the podcast (still the same URL as before) and dedicated this blog for feature articles.

What are feature articles? Glad you asked. Imagine a friend of yours blogs (publishes) something so incredibly refreshing you ended up crying, thanking God, and sharing it to 20 friends. Well we want to provide that kind of stuff right here! We will scour the blogosphere to find such articles, but at the same time will need YOUR HELP to send those to us. After we review it, you may just see it here! We also want to link bloggers in our church family who regularly share these God-stories and insights to the world!

Got something refreshing? Share it with us! We'll share it with the world!

Be Refreshed!

Not only do we have a news blog, we have this multimedia resource blog which you can subscribe to through an RSS reader or through iTunes or another podcast reader! We will be uploading our Sunday Sermons here and a lot of other media files so stay tuned!