Depth – March 24, 2026 (116/365)

Inalok ako ng isang ahas

Pula’t matamis na mansanas

Pilit ko man hindi makaiwas

Sa mata ng Diyos

So, yeah. I want to talk about last Saturday.

I grabbed on to the opportunity for a free ticket to watch Wolfgang, a classic Filipino rock band very prominent during the 90’s and the early 2000’s (and if Git happens to be reading this, I meant what I said when I said ‘thank you’, and again I say thank you); And aggressive me was over-satisfied with songs that I knew that they sung (Arise, Atomica, Halik Ni Hudas) and a whole bunch of others that I just resorted to banging my head to.

Everyone was requesting for them to sing ‘Mata Ng Diyos’, which they finally did after greeting the Bassist a happy birthday, right before he opened with the bass intro of the aforementioned song.

I’m only now going through it, and reviewing the lyrics, when I saw that last line. It got me to imagine – Eve KNEW the Lord knew, and she still fell for the words of the serpent. It was like she was weighing pros and cons before she actually took a bite off of the fruit in her hand. She was evaluating good and evil before eating from the knowledge of good and evil.

It’s as Christ said – say something hateful about someone, and you’ve already murdered that person. Think deeper about that random lady with the summer dress and you’ve already committed adultery with her – sin done before even getting the ‘pleasure’.

The lies preceded the fruit. The unbelief and doubt preceded the act. The seed of sin was planted, and only confirmed at first bite.

And God saw all of it.

What am I to learn from all of this? In this world full of lies, we are constantly in danger. We are constantly brought to wrestle with all sorts of temptations, and we’re in a position of compromise as soon as we give more attention to the deception.

But this is precisely why, amidst all the noise – hindi lang tayo nakakaiwas sa mata ng Diyos, pero on the other hand, the Holy Spirit is hard at work, convicting us and the rest of the world – of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

One more thing: ‘But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.‘ Romans 10:8-9

And another thing: For He says:

“In an acceptable time I have heard you,

And in the day of salvation I have helped you.”

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.2 Corinthians 6:2

I admit that I wasn’t as faithful in listening to Basti Artadi and Wolfgang back in high school – Ask me about Pearl Jam or Live, though, and we’ll probably have a whole series of articles about their songs.

Two things that come into mind during those two-plus hours of musical anger management:

First, man, it’s as if Basti and the band never aged – see, way way back, we had the privilege of watching them for free in a concert with Razorback, and we had the privilege of joining in the harmony of hype-driven hearts and youth-enhanced musical and lyrical depth, expressed oh-so perfectly in the rain-seasoned mosh-pit that formed conveniently close to the speakers left of the stage.

And I said the second thing – the depth. You could barely hear Basti’s lyrics because of the sheer volume and/or because the sound mixing could have been just a bit better, but it wasn’t too much of a problem. Why? The majority of the crowd was singing along – passionately – when they knew the song. And these were folks who were in their 30s, their 40s, or even in their 50s (and I refuse to categorize us as ‘millennials’, ‘boomers’, or any of that nonsense), who carried those words with them as life just happened.

There was passion in the crowds just as there was passion on stage – and even if you didn’t know the song, you were grooving with the rest of the folks who had the lyrics and the music with them. I recall and realize that the way I was just staying silent was totally different compared to when we were with Incognito last 2024, where I knew so much more about their music – from the lyrics to the musical stops and flows and so on.

But whether I was quiet and bobbing my head to the beat, or excitedly singing along while keeping my phone steady – The passion was present. And it all came from depth. It doesn’t matter if it was Basti or Bluey – they dared themselves and their teams/bands to go just a little deeper into their compositions, so what they create doesn’t just please the senses, but resonates into souls – their own, primarily.

Fortunately, for all of us in the body of Christ, we don’t merely have a feel-good set of daily affirmations. We don’t have a collection of methods to provide immediate pleasure and comfort to our senses. We don’t even have mantras that supposedly soothe our souls to presumably, consequently soothe our bodies and minds.

No, through Christ and His finished work we have a literal living Spirit who sticks to us closer than a brother, and we have a Word, a Truth that is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. We have a Word that actively judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12)

We may not necessarily be creative according to the definitions of the world, but we do have our Creator with us, as a Father so close to us, that not only are we present in Him as He is in us… The Word and the Spirit are the Depth within us, that we are passionate by His design.

So no matter how the world bombards us with noise, let us not fear; Let us abide in perfect love.

This perfect love surrounds us by way of the Spirit who continues to convict us of the Truth which stands, no matter how the literal air is saturated with deception.

This perfect love edifies us from within, by way of the Word that is alive deep inside of us, keeping us focused on the Truth no matter how our beings are distracted.

We are held together in the depths, embraced to the core.

Passionate, by His design.

I’m sorry if this this all over the place. I believe we got things together here, one way or the other.

We’ve seen yet another aspect to our salvation, yet another reason to thank God, to praise Him.

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