Believe and Be Saved: What Does It Mean to Believe in Jesus Christ?

Originally published January 21, 2015

Archive note: This article reflects my evangelical Christian understanding of salvation and the authority of Scripture. The original version has been edited for clarity, theological precision, and a more respectful treatment of Christians who interpret some passages differently.

“…what must I do to be saved?”
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”
— Acts 16:30–31

Few questions are more important to Christianity than this:

What must a person do to be saved?

When the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas that question, their answer was remarkably direct:

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 10:9 likewise says:

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

For me, these passages point to the heart of the Gospel: salvation is found in Jesus Christ and received through faith in Him.

But What Does It Mean to “Believe”?

The word believe should not be reduced to simply acknowledging that Jesus existed.

James 2:19 reminds us that even the devils “believe” that there is one God.

Saving faith is therefore more than agreeing with a religious fact.

To believe in Christ is to trust Him; to place our confidence in who He is and what He has done rather than in our own righteousness.

The Gospel proclaimed by the apostles centered on the death and resurrection of Christ. Paul summarized it in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4: Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again.

Christian faith rests upon that Gospel.

Salvation Is of the Lord

Long before the New Testament, Jonah declared:

“Salvation is of the LORD.”
— Jonah 2:9

That truth remains fundamental.

A church cannot take the place of the Savior.

A pastor cannot take the place of the Savior.

A priest, minister, denomination, religious tradition, or Christian organization cannot take the place of the Savior.

The church has an important place in Christian life. Christians are called to worship, fellowship, learn, serve, and grow together.

But the church does not become Christ.

Peter declared:

“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
— Acts 4:12

And Jesus said:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
— John 14:6

The Christian claim is therefore ultimately personal: salvation is in Christ.

Saved by Grace, Not Earned by Merit

This is also why salvation cannot be treated as something we accumulate through enough good deeds.

Ephesians 2:8–9 says:

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Grace means that salvation begins with God, not with our ability to make ourselves worthy of Him.

Titus 3:5 expresses the same principle:

“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us…”

This does not mean good works are unimportant.

The very next verse after Ephesians 2:8–9 says that believers are created in Christ Jesus “unto good works.”

That distinction is crucial:

Good works are not the price we pay to purchase salvation; they should become part of the life produced by genuine faith.

James similarly warns that faith without works is dead.

So the biblical message is not:

Live however you want because you once said you believed.

Nor is it:

Become good enough and perhaps God will save you.

It is:

Trust Christ, receive God's grace, and let that faith begin transforming the way you live.

Faith, Repentance, Confession, and Baptism

Christians have long debated the precise relationship between faith, repentance, confession, baptism, the sacraments, and perseverance.

Those differences should be acknowledged rather than pretending they do not exist.

But Scripture repeatedly places faith in Christ at the center of salvation.

When Romans 10 speaks of believing in the heart and confessing Christ, it describes faith that is openly identified with Jesus.

When the apostles call people to repentance, they are calling them to turn toward God.

When believers are baptized in the New Testament, baptism publicly identifies them with Christ and His people.

From my evangelical understanding, none of these should be treated as human achievements that force God to grant salvation.

They belong to a person's response to the Gospel.

Examine What You Believe

My original article spoke harshly about Christians who relied on church traditions rather than reading Scripture for themselves.

I would put the challenge differently today.

Tradition is not automatically wrong simply because it is tradition. Every Christian community, including evangelical and Baptist churches, develops traditions of its own.

The better question is:

Can what we believe withstand examination in the light of Scripture?

Christians should read the Bible.

We should study its context.

We should examine what our pastors, priests, teachers, churches, and denominations teach.

And we should be willing to examine our own assumptions as carefully as we examine everyone else's.

Faith should not fear serious study.

Why Jesus?

Matthew 1:21 says of Jesus:

“Thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”

Jesus is not merely presented in Christianity as a moral teacher.

He is presented as Savior.

John 3:16 declares:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

And Isaiah 45:22 says:

“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.”

This is ultimately why the message “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” matters.

Christian salvation is not confidence in ourselves.

It is not confidence in our religious achievements.

It is confidence in Christ.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ

Christians should therefore continue preaching the Gospel of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.

But we should do it with humility.

We cannot force anyone to believe.

We cannot insult someone into faith.

We cannot substitute religious arrogance for the Gospel.

We can proclaim Christ, explain why we believe, answer questions as faithfully as we can, and invite others to consider Him.

And after all the theological debates, denominational disagreements, traditions, arguments, and interpretations, I continue to return to that remarkably simple exchange in Acts:

“What must I do to be saved?”

And the answer:

“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.”

Salvation is of the Lord.

Grace comes from Him.

And faith ultimately points away from ourselves and toward Jesus Christ, the Savior.

— J.P. Abecilla

Freedom to Live, Freedom to Believe, and Freedom to Express

Originally published January 17, 2015

“And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.”
— Acts 22:28

Freedom is one of the most valued ideas in human society.

We want the freedom to live, to think, to believe, to speak, and to express ourselves without unnecessary interference from others or from the state.

But freedom has never meant that every action is without consequence.

A society that values freedom must therefore wrestle with an equally important question:

Where should one person's freedom end when it begins to harm the freedom, dignity, safety, or rights of another?

Freedom Is Not Absolute

In 2015, debates about freedom of expression and religious belief became particularly intense.

After the deadly attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the world was forced to confront difficult questions about religious offense, violence, satire, and freedom of speech. Twelve people were killed in the January 7 attack on the magazine's Paris office, prompting an international debate that continued long after the tragedy.

Pope Francis made an important distinction at the time: violence committed in the name of God cannot be justified, but freedom of expression also carries responsibilities.

That distinction is worth considering.

No person should be murdered, threatened, or physically harmed because of something he writes, draws, says, or believes.

At the same time, possessing the legal freedom to say something does not automatically make what we say wise, truthful, respectful, or morally good.

A right protects our ability to speak. It does not guarantee that everything we say is right.

Freedom to Believe

Religious freedom is particularly important because belief reaches into a person's conscience.

A Christian should be free to believe in Jesus Christ.

A Muslim should be free to practice Islam.

A person should likewise be free to reject religion altogether.

The Philippine understanding of religious liberty makes a useful distinction: the freedom to believe is protected within the realm of conscience, while actions arising from those beliefs may still be regulated when they affect public welfare or the rights of others. The Philippine Supreme Court has described religious liberty in essentially these terms.

This distinction protects everyone.

Christians should not want a government powerful enough to dictate another person's faith, because the same government could someday dictate ours.

Faith imposed through coercion is not genuine faith.

Freedom to Express

Freedom of expression is equally necessary in a healthy society.

People must be able to criticize governments, religious institutions, politicians, cultural traditions, and even ideas considered sacred by others.

Without that freedom, societies become intellectually stagnant and political power becomes much harder to challenge.

But freedom of expression also requires maturity.

We should be able to distinguish between:

criticism and defamation,

disagreement and hatred,

satire and deliberate cruelty,

evangelism and coercion,

and conviction and contempt.

Religious people should not demand protection from every criticism or offense.

Likewise, secular society should not treat religious convictions as automatically irrational, hateful, or unworthy of public discussion.

True freedom requires space for disagreement.

Freedom to Live

Freedom is perhaps most visible in the way we live.

We choose our careers, relationships, beliefs, lifestyles, political opinions, and personal priorities.

But every choice exists within a network of consequences.

My freedom cannot legitimately require another person's imprisonment merely for disagreeing with me.

My religious freedom cannot justify violence against someone who rejects my religion.

My freedom of expression cannot exempt me from criticism.

And my personal freedom does not mean that society must declare every decision I make wise or morally good.

Freedom and responsibility must therefore coexist.

Without freedom, responsibility becomes coercion.

Without responsibility, freedom can become recklessness.

Faith and Freedom

As a Christian, my understanding of freedom goes beyond political liberty.

The New Testament presents another kind of freedom—the freedom that comes from truth.

Jesus said:

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
— John 8:32

This does not mean Christians possess political authority to force everyone else to accept our understanding of truth.

Christianity itself teaches that faith involves a personal response.

People may accept Christ.

People may reject Him.

Christians may preach, persuade, teach, write, and defend what we believe.

But genuine belief cannot be produced by force.

That should make Christians among the strongest defenders of freedom of conscience.

Truth Does Not Need Coercion

There is also an important lesson for religious people.

Defending truth does not require silencing everyone who disagrees with us.

If Christianity is true, Christians should be willing to expose our beliefs to serious questions.

We should be capable of explaining our faith rather than merely demanding that others respect it.

First Peter 3:15 instructs Christians to be prepared to give a reason for their hope—and to do so with meekness.

This means Christian expression should combine conviction with humility.

We can disagree.

We can challenge ideas.

We can defend Scripture.

But we should not confuse insulting people with defending the faith.

Let Freedom Ring

Freedom to live.

Freedom to believe.

Freedom to speak.

Freedom to question.

Freedom to disagree.

These freedoms should not belong only to people who think like us.

A genuinely free society protects them even when people arrive at completely different conclusions.

But freedom also asks something of us.

It asks us to think before we speak.

To consider the consequences of our actions.

To respect the humanity of those with whom we disagree.

And, from my Christian perspective, to remember that freedom reaches its highest purpose not merely when we can do whatever we want, but when we are free to pursue what is true and good.

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

— J.P. Abecilla, January 2015

Is God Really Good and All-Powerful?

Originally published November 10, 2013

Archive note: I originally wrote this article in the immediate aftermath of the 2013 Bohol earthquake and Super Typhoon Yolanda. It has been revised to preserve my Christian conviction while expressing the problem of suffering with greater theological care and humility.

One of the oldest and most difficult questions raised against belief in God is this:

If God is good and all-powerful, why does He allow suffering and evil to exist?

The question becomes especially difficult when suffering is not theoretical.

On October 15, 2013, a magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck Bohol and shook much of Central Visayas. Less than a month later, Super Typhoon Yolanda devastated communities across the central Philippines.

Homes were destroyed.

Families lost loved ones.

Communities were changed in a matter of hours.

In circumstances like these, saying simply that “God is good all the time” can sound painfully inadequate.

Yet I still believe God is good.

The harder question is why.

The Problem Cannot Be Solved by Counting Survivors

When I originally wrote this article, I pointed to circumstances that seemed merciful to me: the Bohol earthquake occurred in the morning rather than while most people were asleep; it happened on a holiday; Yolanda struck during daylight; and my own family survived the storm.

I remain grateful for those things.

But gratitude is not the same as proof.

If my survival proves that God is good, what should I tell the family whose loved one died?

If protection is always evidence of God's favor, does tragedy mean that the victims had less faith?

I do not believe that conclusion is biblical.

Jesus Himself challenged simplistic explanations of tragedy.

In Luke 13, people told Him about Galileans who had been killed. Jesus asked whether they were worse sinners than other Galileans because they suffered.

His answer was:

“I tell you, Nay.”

He then referred to eighteen people who died when the tower of Siloam fell and again rejected the assumption that their deaths meant they were more guilty than everyone else.

That should make Christians cautious about declaring why a particular disaster happened.

Does Disaster Mean God Is Punishing Someone?

My original article listed several possibilities, including the idea that disasters might be God's punishment for sin.

Scripture certainly contains occasions when God explicitly judges people or nations.

But that does not give Christians authority to identify every earthquake, storm, disease, or tragedy as God's punishment upon particular people.

The book of Job should make us especially careful.

Job's friends repeatedly tried to explain his suffering by connecting it with wrongdoing. Their explanations sounded religious and logical—but God ultimately rebuked them.

Likewise, in John 9, Jesus' disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth and asked whether the man's condition resulted from his own sin or his parents' sin.

Jesus rejected the premise.

So when disaster strikes, Christians should resist the temptation to speak where Scripture has not spoken.

We may believe that we live in a fallen world.

We may believe that God is sovereign.

But we should not presume that we know God's specific reason for every tragedy.

Natural Causes Are Still Real Causes

There is also no conflict between acknowledging natural causes and believing in God.

The Bohol earthquake was a tectonic earthquake. PHIVOLCS identified its magnitude as 7.2 and its origin as tectonic.

Typhoons are physical weather systems governed by atmospheric and oceanic processes. PAGASA describes tropical cyclones in terms of pressure, heat, moisture, wind, and the release of energy within the atmosphere.

Understanding those mechanisms does not automatically answer the theological question of why God permits such a world to exist.

But neither should Christians treat scientific explanations as threats to faith.

Saying how an earthquake occurs is not necessarily the same as answering why God permits suffering.

Those are different questions.

Then Is God Really All-Powerful?

Jeremiah 32:17 says:

“Ah Lord GOD! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.”

Christian belief affirms that God is sovereign and powerful.

But God's omnipotence does not mean Christians should pretend to understand every act of providence.

When Yolanda struck, I prayed.

I remember hearing our neighbors shouting after part of a roof was blown through the air and nearly hit someone. I continued praying, and by the end of that day, no one around us had been seriously hurt.

I remain thankful.

As a believer, I can interpret that experience through faith and thank God for protection.

But I cannot use my experience to explain why another Christian prayed just as sincerely and still lost a home, a child, a parent, or a spouse.

Prayer is not a formula by which we control God.

Faith is not a guarantee that Christians will escape every disaster.

The Bible itself is filled with faithful people who suffered.

Christianity Does Not Promise a World Without Suffering

Christianity actually begins with the assumption that something is profoundly wrong with the world.

Romans 8 describes creation itself as groaning and suffering.

Human beings experience disease, decay, conflict, injustice, disasters, and death.

Christians understand this within the larger biblical story of a creation that is no longer as it should be.

That does not make suffering emotionally easier.

But it means Christianity does not teach that believing in God guarantees a trouble-free life.

Jesus never promised that.

Instead He repeatedly prepared His followers for suffering.

The Christian hope is ultimately not that nothing painful will ever happen, but that suffering and death will not have the final word.

The Cross Changes the Question

For Christians, the strongest response to suffering is not a clever philosophical argument.

It is Jesus Christ.

Christianity teaches that God did not remain distant from human suffering.

Christ was rejected.

He experienced grief.

He was beaten.

He suffered injustice.

And He died.

The cross therefore prevents Christians from describing God as someone who simply watches human suffering from a safe distance.

The Christian claim is much more radical:

God entered it.

And the resurrection is Christianity's answer to the apparent finality of death.

That does not explain every earthquake.

It does not tell us why one child lives while another dies.

It does not remove grief.

But it gives Christians a reason to believe that suffering is not ultimate.

Where Was God During Yolanda?

That question can be asked in several ways.

Where was God when homes collapsed?

Where was God when the storm surge came?

Where was God when families cried for help?

I do not pretend to have a complete answer.

Some Christian answers to suffering become cruel because they try to explain too much.

Perhaps Christians sometimes need to learn to say:

I don't know why this happened.

The Bible itself contains people crying out to God in confusion.

The Psalms ask, “Why?”

Job asks why.

The prophets lament.

Even faith can grieve.

Belief does not require pretending that suffering is easy to understand.

What Should We Do After Disaster?

This may be the more immediate question.

Instead of using tragedy to speculate about who God is punishing, Christians should ask:

Who needs help?

Who needs food?

Who needs shelter?

Who needs medicine?

Who needs comfort?

Who needs someone to mourn with them?

In the aftermath of the Bohol earthquake and Yolanda, Filipinos responded through rescue operations, donations, volunteer work, prayer, relief drives, and acts of extraordinary generosity.

That human response does not erase the devastation.

But compassion in the middle of suffering is itself something worth recognizing.

For Christians, faith should move us toward suffering people—not merely toward explanations of their suffering.

Is God Still Good?

I continue to say yes.

But I would express that conviction differently today.

I do not believe God is good because an earthquake happened at a convenient hour.

I do not believe God is powerful merely because I survived a typhoon.

And I would not tell grieving people that their tragedy proves God was angry with them.

I believe God is good because goodness belongs to His character as revealed in the Christian Scriptures and, above all, in Jesus Christ.

I believe He is powerful even when I do not understand why He sometimes permits suffering that He could prevent.

That leaves a mystery.

Christian faith does not answer every “why.”

But neither does the existence of suffering automatically settle the question against God.

For me, faith means trusting God even when I cannot explain Him.

It means being thankful when I am spared while refusing to judge those who were not.

It means grieving with those who grieve.

It means helping people rebuild.

And it means holding to the hope that suffering, destruction, and death are not the final chapters of the human story.

God is good—not because life is always good, but because suffering does not change who I believe God is.

— J.P. Abecilla, November 2013

History and Historians in Question: How Do We Know What Really Happened?

Originally published October 29, 2013

I once posted this question on Facebook:

“If history contains truth, error, missing information, and religious or political manipulation, whom are we supposed to believe?”

It is a difficult question.

How much confidence should we place in documentaries, encyclopedias, historians, religious texts, newspapers, government records, or institutions?

How do we distinguish truth from interpretation?

And how can we know what really happened when we were not there to witness the past ourselves?

History Is More Than a Collection of Facts

History may look simple when presented in a textbook.

A date.

A person.

A war.

A revolution.

A document.

But historical knowledge is built from evidence that has survived from the past.

Letters, government records, photographs, artifacts, newspapers, diaries, eyewitness accounts, archaeological discoveries, religious texts, and many other sources help historians reconstruct what happened.

The difficulty is that evidence is rarely complete.

Some records disappear.

Some were never written.

Some witnesses remember events differently.

Some documents were produced for political, religious, or personal purposes.

And historians themselves must decide which evidence deserves greater weight.

This does not mean that history is merely opinion.

It means that serious historical study requires evidence, comparison, context, and critical judgment.

Can Historians Be Biased?

Of course.

Historians are human beings.

They live within particular societies, possess particular assumptions, and sometimes disagree sharply about the meaning of the same event.

But recognizing bias should not lead us to conclude that all historical accounts are equally unreliable.

A good historian does not simply ask:

Who wrote this?

The better questions include:

Why was it written?

When was it written?

Was the writer an eyewitness?

What evidence supports the claim?

Do independent sources confirm it?

What information might the source omit?

Does new evidence challenge an older interpretation?

This is why historical scholarship develops over time.

New documents become available.

Archaeological discoveries appear.

Old interpretations are challenged.

And historians debate which explanation best accounts for the evidence.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Do We Learn From History?

I originally paraphrased the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as saying that the only thing we learn from history is that nobody learns from history.

His actual point was more nuanced.

Hegel wrote that peoples and governments often fail to learn from history because each historical period has circumstances of its own.

That does not make history useless.

It warns us against assuming that the past gives us perfectly reusable formulas for the present.

History can show us patterns.

It can reveal consequences.

It can expose failures.

It can help us understand why institutions, nations, religions, and cultures developed as they did.

But studying history does not automatically make a person wise.

We still have to interpret what we learn.

What About the Bible?

For me, the question becomes even more important when history intersects with faith.

As a Christian, I believe the Bible deserves serious study rather than either blind acceptance or casual dismissal.

But biblical history also involves questions about manuscripts, languages, translation, textual transmission, archaeology, and interpretation.

My original article mentioned the Textus Receptus, Masoretic Text, and Codex Sinaiticus together as though they were directly competing versions of the same thing.

That needs clarification.

The Masoretic Text concerns the textual tradition of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament.

The Textus Receptus refers to a printed Greek New Testament tradition that later influenced translations such as the King James Version.

Codex Sinaiticus, meanwhile, is an ancient biblical manuscript containing substantial portions of both the Old and New Testaments.

These sources belong to different parts of the complicated history of biblical transmission.

For Christians who believe Scripture is inspired, studying that transmission should not be something to fear.

Faith should be capable of serious historical inquiry.

The King James Bible and Historical Evidence

I remain deeply familiar with and appreciative of the King James Bible.

But saying that one English translation has “stood throughout time” is not, by itself, a historical argument for every textual decision behind it.

A responsible study of Scripture involves examining the original languages, manuscript traditions, translation history, historical context, and the reasons scholars reach different conclusions.

That does not necessarily weaken faith.

For me, it can deepen it.

The same principle applies to secular history.

We should not believe something merely because it appeared in a prestigious documentary, encyclopedia, book, sermon, or website.

Authority matters.

But evidence matters too.

What About the Vatican Archives?

My younger self also wondered about supposedly “hidden” records inside the Vatican.

That language needs correcting.

The Vatican Apostolic Archive contains an enormous collection of historical documents spanning centuries, but it is not simply a secret warehouse completely closed to humanity.

The archive has been open to qualified scholars since the late nineteenth century. Today, qualified researchers may apply for access, and documents are generally available through the end of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII in 1958.

Access is restricted and regulated, as many major archives are.

That does not mean every document is publicly available online or that every historical question has been answered.

But “restricted archive” and “hidden conspiracy” are not the same thing.

That distinction matters when we talk about history.

How Should We Decide What to Believe?

Perhaps the better question is not:

Whom should I believe?

Instead, ask:

What evidence supports this claim?

That approach changes everything.

When reading history, we should:

compare multiple independent sources;

distinguish primary evidence from later interpretation;

check whether quotations are accurate;

consider the author's purpose and context;

look for corroborating evidence;

separate established facts from disputed interpretations;

and remain willing to revise our conclusions when stronger evidence appears.

That requires humility.

Sometimes we discover that something we confidently believed was incomplete.

Sometimes an argument we rejected turns out to have stronger evidence than we expected.

And sometimes the most responsible answer is simply:

We do not know enough yet.

Faith and Historical Inquiry

As a Christian, I still believe truth ultimately matters because truth is not something we are free to invent.

But belief in objective truth should make Christians more careful, not less careful, about evidence.

If something is true, serious investigation should not threaten it.

We should therefore avoid two extremes:

believing everything merely because it supports our worldview;

and rejecting everything merely because it comes from people who disagree with us.

Whether we are studying Christianity, politics, science, national history, or ancient civilizations, intellectual honesty requires us to follow the evidence as carefully as we can.

History Will Always Leave Questions

There will probably never be a time when every historical question is settled.

New evidence will appear.

Interpretations will change.

People will continue arguing about what the past means.

That is not necessarily a weakness of history.

It is part of the responsibility of studying a past that we cannot revisit directly.

We inherit fragments.

We examine them.

We compare them.

We argue about them.

And from those fragments, we try to understand what really happened.

For me, faith still has a place in that search.

But faith should never become an excuse for careless history.

And skepticism should never become an excuse for believing that nothing can be known.

Question the source. Examine the evidence. Compare the claims. And remain humble enough to keep learning.

— J.P. Abecilla, October 2013

The Rise of Volunteerism, the Death of Apathy

Originally published October 20, 2013

On October 15, 2013, a powerful magnitude-7.2 earthquake struck Bohol and affected much of Central Visayas, including Cebu. In the days that followed, aftershocks continued to bring fear and uncertainty to many communities.

But amid the fear, something encouraging also emerged.

People volunteered.

Instead of remaining passive in the face of disaster, students, organizations, private groups, government agencies, and ordinary citizens began working together to help those affected.

For me, volunteerism is one of the purest forms of public service.

People give their time, strength, skills, and resources without expecting payment, awards, political recognition, or anything in return.

They simply see a need and choose to help.

 

Designed by NSC Gov. Ray Anne Labra

    

  

Students Choosing to Serve

At Cebu Normal University, students from the Supreme Student Government, Nightingale Student Council, Educators' Club, and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Students joined relief efforts for communities affected by the earthquake.

By the time I wrote this article, some of them had already been volunteering for several days.

Rather than hiding in fear, they chose to work.

They packed goods.

They coordinated relief efforts.

They gave their time.

They helped organizations such as ABS-CBN's Sagip Kapamilya in responding to the needs of affected communities.

That is something worth recognizing.

“And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.”
— Colossians 3:23

For Christians, service should not depend upon applause.

Whether people recognize what we do or not, helping others should come from a sincere heart.

It Is More Blessed to Give

Jesus said:

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
— Acts 20:35

Those words become especially meaningful during disasters.

Giving does not always mean giving money.

Sometimes it means giving several hours of your day.

Sometimes it means carrying boxes, packing food, coordinating volunteers, sharing information, donating supplies, praying, or simply being present for people who are afraid.

Every sincere contribution matters.

The full force of representatives from CNU-SSG, NSC, EC, and CLASS with SSG Pres. Danrey cooperating with ABS-CBN's Sagip Kapamilya. Photo by Cris Pauline.

Unity Beyond Organizations

One thing that particularly encouraged me was seeing students from different colleges and organizations working together.

We often speak about unity as an ideal.

But moments like this show what unity actually looks like.

People may belong to different organizations, courses, social groups, or backgrounds, yet when a community is suffering, those differences can become secondary.

People with the same desire to help can work together for something bigger than themselves.

That is the kind of student leadership and public service worth encouraging.

Bohol and Cebu Will Rise Again

The earthquake brought destruction, fear, and loss.

But it also revealed something important about people.

When tragedy strikes, apathy does not have to win.

Hundreds and thousands of people can choose instead to respond with compassion, generosity, courage, and service.

Government agencies, NGOs, private organizations, churches, schools, student groups, families, and individual volunteers all have roles to play in helping communities recover.

And for those of us who believe in God, difficult moments can also remind us to pray, reflect, help one another, and remain grateful for life.

Bohol and Cebu can rise again.

Not because disasters are easy to overcome, but because people are willing to stand beside one another when help is needed most.

When volunteerism rises, apathy begins to die.

— J.P. Abecilla, October 2013

How to cope with CRAMMING on the DAY of EXAM

Cramming may be hazardous to your health. Think of what would happen to your digestive system if you ate a week's worth of food in one meal. Sounds pretty disgusting, doesn't it? Yet cramming - that old school standby - is the mental version of that stuffing process. While it's self-destructive to count on cramming to get you through a course, it beats not studying at all. Keeping in mind that cramming should only be used as a last resort, here is how to use an 11th-hour sprint in the most efficient way possible:

a. Concentrate. The pressure of a big exam bearing down is the only way some people can really get down to business before a test.

b. Read your notes first to get a sense of what your teacher emphasized in class. This gives you an approach to the rest of the material if you have time to get to it. Reread three times anything you underlined or starred in these notes.

c. Go to your class text. Carefully read all the titles and subtitles at least three times. If you have time, quickly skim the material. If there's no time, just read the headings, opening and closing paragraphs of each section, and any points which were emphasized in class.

d. If you're being tested on rules, definitions, or spelling, read each term or word silently five times, then aloud five times.

e. If you're going to be tested on math or science problems, pick out two or three typical examples which have been stressed in class and work them out as quickly as possible on paper.

f. If you're being tested on novels and stories you've never read at all, you are in deep trouble. The only thing you can do is reread your class notes on that material, then try to get sense of the book by reading the first and last chapters or sections, as well as one chapter or section which has been stressed in class.

g. Get some sleep. Even a little sleep will help you process information better. Researchers have found that concentrated study followed by few hours of sleep works far up to the exam. Without any sleep, you'll be a zombie, and your chances of totally blanking out will be astronomical.

h. Obviously, these jamming techniques are slap-dash attempts at best. If you cram, you are going to wind up with lots of blank spots in your knowledge. When you do get to the test, spend the most time developing what you do know instead of trying to fake your way through things you know nothing about. A few solid answers may balance out those questions you can't answer at all.

Source: Scholastic's A+ Guide to Good Grades by Loiuse and Doug Colligan

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