23 April 2009 - Come! All those of you who are weary...

There are 2 points that the psalmist wants us to grasp from his psalm (Psalm 107:4-32), i.e. calling to God and thanking God. In the psalm, he talked about 3 difficult situations. All of us can face any of them. Any of the situations could happen in our real life.

The first one depicts people who were lost in their journey. They could not find their direction. Everyone can experience this situation in any stage of their lives. We could lose our trust in others and become confused on whom to believe in. We could lose our sense of direction or our purpose of life, and become frustrated on why we should continue on living.

The second description tells us about people who were against the Lord and were imprisoned by their own sins. They lived gloomy lives and suffered the consequences of their own mistakes. We all have these dark moments in our lives. When we had not received Jesus, we often committed sins and felt the bitterness of them. Even when we believe in Jesus, we are still prone to sins. Often, we follow our own desires, but reap disasters from our decisions. We suffer for that.

The third situation describes skillful and capable people who were struck with problems that made them paralyzed and powerless. Human tend to be self-dependent. They think they can do everything by themselves. Those who have mastered some skills think that they are the best and no one can beat them. But life is not that straightforward. Disasters happen and unexpected situations turn up. We often become unprepared to face them and feel that all our skills cannot help us. Then, we lose our courage.

Although those 3 situations are different and each has its own level of difficulties, none is too hard to be solved if God is with us. In all 3 situations, the psalmist wrote that “Then in their trouble they called to the Lord, and He saved them from their distress” (Psalm 107:6,13,19,28). God can save all of us, no matter how hard our problems are. His power is limitless.

Similarly, in all 3 situations, the psalmist mentioned that “They must thank the Lord for His constant love, for wonderful things He did for them” (Psalm 107:8,15,21,31). He deserves our praises because He is a wonderful God who does a lot of wonderful things. We must not forget that when we are saved, it is all by God's grace, not by our own power or efforts. So, all the glory and praises shall be lifted up to Him.

21 April 2009 - Women in Our Lives

He formed a woman out of the rib and brought her to him. (Genesis 2:22)

Who is our influencer?

A famous movie star?

A talented singer?

A successful professional?

A charismatic leader?

A wealthy businessman?

A powerful orator?

A brilliant writer?

Often, the most influential person in our lives is not far from home. A mother. A woman. A unique creature that God created in equality to man. Being created from him does not make her less superior. In fact, she is often expected to be stronger to support him. She is delicate, soft, and tender on the outside, but inside she is strong like a steel. She has strong determination and strong resistance to difficulties, but shows up fragile, welcoming, and loving gestures.

Man is the steering wheel of a ship, the family. He directs where the ship will go. But woman is the body of the ship, the structure that keeps it together. With the love and sacrifices for her family, woman is often the most important figure that glues the family together, so they all move together in one direction. Without her, no matter how powerful the man in leading is, the whole family members often cannot move in synchrony. This underlines the role of women in our lives. Be it our mothers, our friends, our girlfriends, our spouses, our mother-in-laws, our grandmas, our aunties, our maids, our relatives, and other women around us, they all have reasons to exist in the world, just as everyone does.

If the whole world is a canvas where God paints His masterpiece, the presence of women will add more colors. If life is a banquet, women will add more tastes, more spices, and more varieties to it. If a man is a flashlight, a woman will be his battery. She will charge him with happiness, love, laughter, tenderness, and care. She gives listening ears to our problems. She shows truthful understanding to our situations.

Sometimes, when the whole world may seem to turn its back on us, when life feels so difficult, when the air is so tight that we cannot breathe, when we need someone to run to, she opens her arms to embrace us, she comforts us, she gives us fresh air to breathe, and she gives us her shoulder to rest and to cry on. God has reasons for making women in this world. They are here to act on God's behalf, to spread His love to everyone.

Selamat hari Ibu Kartini!

16 April 2009 - Body Care

What I mean, brothers, is that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in God's Kingdom, and what is mortal cannot possess immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:50)

Caring for the body is not wrong. Physical body is God's gift that has to be appreciated, thanked for, and taken care. But focusing our whole life around caring this physical body is not God's intention of giving us this body. When our lives are centralized on adorning physical beauty and attending to the physical needs, we can easily be diverted from our higher purpose, our spiritual means.

We are created with body and soul. But people tend to care for the body mostly. They feed the body with healthy supplements, they train the body to gain strengths and endurance, they shape the body into beautiful and balanced composition, they treat the defects and aim for perfection, and they maintain the fitness level of this physical body. It seems that what the physical body needs are all fulfilled, especially with advancement in science and technology. But what about our other component of life? The soul...

Ironically, whereas people live longer, healthier, and stronger, their spirits are not better than those living in old times, or even worse sometimes. Where are the love, gentleness, wisdom, solidarity, care, patience, self-control, and other inner beauties? Yes, human outer beauties are much better these days due to a lot care being given on them. But the inner beauty deteriorates as the time goes by. People are becoming more and more individualistic, selfish, uncaring, impatient, uncontrolled, exploitative, cold, and unloving. The clearest example is deterioration of spiritual life. Nobody cares whether God exists these days. Nobody cares much if their actions are unethical. Nobody attempts to realize whether their lifestyle harms other people and the environments.

These days many people leave the church, and revert their faith, especially in the western countries. These countries were once the center of mission efforts to reach out unbelievers. Now, they are some of those who need to hear about the Gospel.

Paul said that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in the God's Kingdom. Our pretty much adorned physical body cannot enjoy eternal life. This temporary body will age and decay. When we die, it will perish. So, why do we put too much care on things that will perish? We should rather put more efforts to pursue things that will last forever, shouldn't we?

Let's live this life with a new purpose. Adorn your inner beauties, practice love, compassion, and patient, befriend with everybody and be sensitive to the needs of others, be faithful to God and maintain strong relationship with Him, and be friendly to the environments. Balance your physical and spiritual needs, and you shall live a fuller life, a more purposeful life.

15 April 2009 - Disappointment

Because Your anger and fury, ashes are my food, and my tears are mixed with my drink. You picked me up and threw me away. (Psalm 102:9,10)

Everybody experiences disappointment in their lives. Usually, it occurs because of unmet expectations. We have planned everything carefully, but far from working well, it turns up to be a disaster. We prepare everything meticulously, but there are still some noticeable flaws. There is a disappointment when what we expect does not turn into reality.

The same facts of life applies in our relationship with God. We have expectations and God has His own expectations. Often, our expectation and His expectation do not match. We ask for what we want, but God is more interested in giving what we need. When our desires differ from God's plan, we tend to be upset and blame God for neglecting our prayers. But wait a minute... Aren't we the one supposed to listen to Him? Isn't God the One Who knows us better? Many times people forget this...

When sufferings come, we must not judge the situations too quickly. Don't come straight to the conclusion that God has abandoned us or God has opposed us. God never abandons His people, just like a father never neglects his children. When we face disappointments, it is not God who has disappointed us by not giving us what we want. But it is our expectation that has misaligned from His. God still gives us what we need. His promise is as sure as sunrise.

So, blaming God is not the solution to our disappointment. God will not follow our will even if we cry aloud insisting on what we want, if He knows that it is not the best for us. We will realize one day that our desires are not all beneficial to us. Thanks to God, He does not fulfill them straightaway. Instead of blaming, God let us be hopeful, like what the psalmist sang in his psalm. “He heard the groans of prisoners and set free those who were condemned to die (Psalm 102:20).” The time will come when God restores those who are broken. But until that day comes, keep on hoping and praying. Reflect on your expectations. Don't let your wrong expectations cause your sufferings.

Martina McBride sang “Do It Anyway”. God is great, but sometimes life ain't good. And when I pray, it doesn't turn up like I think it should. But I do it anyway. I do it anyway...

14 April 2009 - Self-control

But you must keep control of yourself in all circumstances. (2 Timothy 4:5)

Self-control is a very decent value observed by everyone regardless of religions, cultures, and nations. But at the same time, it is the greatest challenge to every people. Ironically, the hardest thing to control is not a multinational company, not a world organization, and not even a country, but oneself. Many problems in the world are caused by inability of human to control themselves. Many miseries in this life, either those fall on ourselves or on other people, are caused by the lack of self-control. For example, why is it so hard to control the global warming? Are the green campaign and other preventive measures not enough? Not really... What is definitely not enough is self-control of each of the earth's inhabitants. If we could have just controlled ourselves from using too much water, from wasting too much gasoline, and from using too much electricity, the world will be better than today's.

Furthermore, self-control is one the fruits of the Spirit. Paul encouraged Timothy to keep control of himself. When we lose control, many bad things can happen. But if we keep the control and if we even let Jesus to take the control of our lives, we will surely have more positive lives. The simplest practice is to control our mouth. Gossiping and insulting others can cause great problems in our relationships, and these are the results of our inability to control our saying. Isn't it better to offer words of encouragement and truthful praises to others? We all know what is wrong, but we cannot resist from the temptation to keep on doing the wrong things. Yes, we are weak, but maybe we are not even attempting to resist. We must look at ourselves and reflect. Have we put the control of our lives to Jesus?

I remember a song by Carrie Underwood “Jesus Takes The Wheel”. When we try to hold the wheel and drive our lives wherever we think the best, we tend to lose our way, wander from the correct path, and lose control of our lives. It is all because we are sinners. The Bible says that our tendencies were all evil, until Jesus came into our lives. When He takes the wheel and drives our lives to where God wants us to be, we find our way again. When Jesus is on the driver's seat, we can get back the control of our lives. Instead of being constrained, we are being freed to do good when we surrender the wheel to Jesus. If we know someone's very good at driving, we would rather trust our car on his or her hands, wouldn't we? The same thing here. We believe that God knows what's best for us, then why don't we trust Him to lead our whole lives?

13 April 2009 - Sent

Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit...” (John 20:22)

When Jesus died on the cross, we said it is not the end because He was then rose from the death. He had victory over death. Then, was it finally the end? For Jesus, it was. He had accomplished His purpose on earth. He had done the will of His Father faithfully. He deserves all the glory for all that He has done for mankind. Indeed, He is exalted high in heaven and now He is seated in the heavenly kingdom with His Father. His death and resurrection are sufficient for redemption of all humankind.

But, is that the end for us also? God finishes the good work in Jesus. But God's works on earth still continue. Now He works through us, His followers and His children. Instead of becoming an end, it is the beginning for all of us. The moment we receive Jesus, our lives are renewed and that's where the new journey begins. Before He went up to heaven, Jesus gave His disciples the Great Commandments, which also apply to us. “Make disciples all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I will bless you until the end of time.”

God continues to work. He promises Holy Spirit to guide those whom He sends. Jesus promises blessings until the end of time. Given the command and the provisions, are we going to stay idle? After receiving the salvation, are we going to just sit around, do our stuffs, live our life feeling content enough with our faith? Are going to continue our daily routines, work, study, breathe, and live passively, waiting for Jesus to come for the second time and waiting for us to go to heaven? No! That's not what God plans.

Instead of living passively, we are to share the message of salvation to others who have not heard about it. In everything that we do, working, studying, relating with others, we should be able to let others see God who dwells in us (be salt and light). We should not limit our spirituality only in the church every Sunday, and live like people with no faith from Monday to Saturday. That's what Jesus called hypocrite. Instead, our spirituality should show up in everything that we do, every time, ever where, and in our relationships with everyone.

Remember the parable of talents. The servants who received 5 and 3 talents multiplied them to gain more. The master's absence did not make them passive and lazy. Instead, they felt responsible for what the master had trusted to them. However, the servant who received 1 talent thought the other way around. He hid the talent and did not make any effort to multiply it. When the master went back, the faithful servants were rewarded and the lazy servant was punished. Similarly, while waiting for our King to come for the second time, we should actively do what He commanded us to. So, when He comes back and evaluates our lives, He will say, “Good job, you good and faithful servant!”

10 April 2009 - His Life for Us

Through the Son, then God decided to bring the whole universe back to Himself. God made peace through the Son's death on the cross, and so brought to Himself back all things, both on earth and in heaven. (Colossians 1:20)

Good Friday. The English translation seems to underestimate the importance of this day. It is not just a good fine day. Everyday God places in our lifetime is good. But this particular Friday is especially important. We might call it Great Friday or Holy Friday to emphasize the importance. But the most essential thing is to understand what happened on that day.

Expectedly, all Christians should know what happened on this day about 2000 years ago. The Son of God died on the cross to bear human sins, so that all who came before Him and believe in God's promise through Him, and all who come after Him and believe in His name, shall be saved. Because of His death, we are now alive. That is why the day is a very glorious day. On this day, Jesus was sacrificed for the sake of our lives. Because of His obedience to the cross, we are now reconciled with God.

Many other people out there don't understand the importance of this day. They live as if nothing had happened. They do not realize that a man had died for them, so they could be saved. Not just any ordinary man in the history, but the Son of God Himself. All they need to do is to believe in Him. How would they know about Him, let alone believe in Him, if no one tells His story? As those who are privileged to have an understanding about the Gospel, we are responsible to tell others what happened on Good Friday, so everyone will have the same opportunity to receive God's grace.