Credo : I believe in God

A very deep word. I believe. I believe in who? In God. In God we trust says the American Dollar. But what they do know? In dollar we trust. A great theme shifted from what the root was.

I believe, I, means for me that it is me and no other people imposed that on me. Yes we can say or declare something that we dont want to, but regarding faith, it is you, I, yourself, myself, he, she who declare it. It is your/my responsibility. No other can be blamed when you yourself find your believe now in your religion now is misleading, vain, fault, futile, and leads you to nowhere but the everlasting wrath of God. No, to the everlasting regret, why why why I was so bold to reject the free offer of gospel when I was alive.

The theme of choice, individual choice, is so firmly held as one of the basic right of every human. But the same right will lead human to either everlasting death or everlasting life.

I believe in God is a very bold statement. Believe is often used to refer to a blind trust of something. But for Christian, believe is the most fundamental aspect before we can know what we believe. No one know first then believe, it is believe first then you will know whether what you believe is true or not.

I believe in santa claus probably heard so familiar when we were a children. But this believe is abandoned when we grew up as we know it was our parents who always gave us what we thought santa did. So we believe first and in the end we know that it is wrong. Or let's say we in the first place did not believe that or in other words we choose to believe that it does not exist. And as time goes by we learn from culture that santa was invented and we learn from others that it was their parents who gave it. So that is right.

But what about believe in God?
Which god/s?
What kind of god/s?

Credo

Apostles' Creed from Common Book of Prayer

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven,

he is seated at the right hand of the Father,

and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Berubah atau tidak berubah?

Tuhan berubah atau tidak berubah?

It is a very tricky question to be answered. Yes it is. The very moment I was asked about this question I answered "no of course". But suddenly another question was raised from the passage that showed God does "change" such as in Moses' conversation with God that showed God somehow took back his word about destroying Israel.

Some interpreter said that "no, God did not take back his word, see, in the end the Israel was indeed punished by God severely. God just somehow delayed his work but it did not showed God changed"

Yes, it is right. It will give a very nice answer to everyone who simply just want to ask ask and ask without looking any further to the truth.

But again, God DID change at that time right? How can a person who has an emotion does not change?

Well probably the answer lies on what dimension of "changing" that we are talking about.

God in eternity of course never change in the sense that his attributes are the same forever. His attributes that he is omnipresence, omniscience, love, justice, etc

But in the relation to his creation, he does change in the sense about how a relation work with human, how he act before the human by making a covenant, how he ask his people to come back to him while in other time he somehow turn his face back. Or course that when he is angry he indeed angry and when he is pleased with his servant, it is impossible that he is angry also at the same time. He changes

again, paradoxical condition

better ask before we answer what "change" is that

What is The Cross for You?

Well I saw this from Jessica's blog. It is not the first time for me to see the cross is mocked. Not the first time also for me to read the prophecy about the end of days when people will think cross is foolish; to believe in the cross is another kind of stupidity in this world, that of course for the one who is called the cross is the strength, the joy, the sign of God's love.

But I just wonder that this day people who are categorized as the mocker are not utterly the one who maybe wears a demonic clothe, or use a gothic makeup to express a hellish environment. They are actually just an ordinary people around us that probably you wont notice that deep inside their heart they are actually mocking the cross while their mouth does not.

1. Ignorant people
"No, I dont want to talk anything about religion" "What is religion to me?" "Why God so bother to punish human for their mistake?"
Yes they actually THINK that they are mocking the evangelist, they dont think they insult Christ since they do not know him and do NOT want to know him and THINK they dont need him.
But Paul stated it very clearly that this age is considered as the age of God's mercy where God keeps his anger and wrath later for the last day (even though we still can observe some, but I believe we cannot imagine what will happen at that omega time when the wrath of God is revealed).

Hard to evangelise people, but it is harder to evangelise ignorant people ...

2. Religious people
Other religion peobably the worst of all. Just imagine, if you have a husband or wife that one day you know he/she has another affair, then what will make you even angrier, this happening or he/she simply ignore you?
Well, atheist I can say they are simply "ignore" God, but other religion mean you have another affair... Even by natural logic we can deduce that the "ignore" better than "ignore+find the other"
"So how they can mock the cross since they even ignore it and dont want to think about it?"
Yes the answer is that even the previous question is already included as an insult since the cross should be proclaimed and at the end of the days no mouth will not confess that Jesus is the Son of God

Find Us Faithful

Ada satu lagu yang menceritakan tentang bagaimana sebenarnya sebagai communion of saint kita itu harus bersikap. Lagu ini pertama kali gw denger waktu di pemberkatan nikah temen. Lagu ini pas sekali dan menceritakan bagaimana sih posisi kita yang adalah salah satu dari sekian banyak orang kudus dari segala abad dan tempat sedang berjalan menuju rumah Tuhan yang kekal.

Lagu ini menurut gw menekankan pada unsur keturunan. Kemana arah anak kita berjalan? Kemana arah anak didik kita berjalan? Kemana anak rohani kita berjalan? Apa dia menuju tempat yang kita tuju? Atau dia ternyata pergi lewat jalan lain?

Jalan yang kita tempuh adalah jalan yang akan mereka lihat saat mereka harus mulai berjalan bersama Tuhan. Seharusnya jalan yang kita tinggalkan adalah jalan yang penuh dengan petunjuk dari apa yang sudah kita lakukan bersama Tuhan. Petunjuk itu menjadi salah satu penerang buat mereka sebagai salah satu kesaksian dari diri kita sendiri bahkan dari hidup kita untuk membawa mereka percaya pada Tuhan.

Hal ini lah yang membuat tugas sebagai orang tua adalah sangat berat sebenarnya. Memang tugas kita adalah BUKAN untuk memaksa anak-anak kita menurut jalan yang kita tempuh, tapi jelas tugas kita adalah light their way so that they can find the way that every saint walk through.

Ya benar, tugas orang tua lah yang mendidik anak supaya dia pada akhirnya mengaku dengan mulutnya sendiri bahwa Yesus adalah Tuhan

So let they find us faithful in our way

Studying Institutes ... (3)

Chapter 2 book 1

The knowledge of God must produce a pious life for it is an abnormality when the piety does not take place in the life of man who clearly states he knows God. This knowledge that Calvin is referring to is the "simple and primitive" knowledge about God as a Father, author of Salvation, etc. We have to seek our help only in him as the fountain of goodness, and seek in no other place. That in the end, our obedience is a sincere and voluntary obedience because we have place our entire happiness in him.

Ok intinya disini calvin argue bahwa knowledge of God itu sama aja bohong tanpa diikuti dengan piious life. Pious life disini adalah konsekuensi logis setelah semakin mengetahui Allah. Seperti disinggung dalam bab 1 bahwa semakin kita mengetahui diri sendiri yang bobrok, maka semakin kita mengetahui Allah yang maha suci, jadi semakin kita sadar bahwa hidup kita harus betul2 suci dihadapan Tuhan. Tapi Calvin menambahkan bahwa hidup suci ini bukan karena terpaksa tetapi justru kita akan secara sadar akan kemauan sendiri menyetujui akan hidup suci tersebut

Studying Institutes ... (2)

Chapter 1
The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self (my own devotion)

Here is the first part of Institutes which stunningly declared that to know your self better cannot be separated apart from the journey of knowing God. Which one precedes the other?
From the bible we can see the example from many giants of faith that when they encountered God in their life, what the first thing they remembered is that they are totally depraved, they are totally wicked, a sinful creature, not even a single thing can be compared to the glory, holiness of God that is declared through his revelation.

So there Calvin argued that by knowing God we know that we are sinful, and by knowing how wicked we are, we can know God in a fuller way. That in the end he states that the first knowledge should precedes the latter.

When we see ourselves sometimes we see a very perfect creature are here. We try to elevate our pride, ego, dignity that we are the one. And even the worse is that we always compare that with the other, and usually we see the other are even worse than us. If compare the other and think that we are better in any ways.

The truth comes out when we try look upward to the sun. Our eyes are blurred and know we start to see our surrounding not so clear as before. That is what will happen if we try to compare ourselves with God.

We sometimes do not realize that there exists the one who ontologically is holy, just, righteous. We sometimes feel satisfied by our condition and forget the truth. We neglect God. By that we will never ever know him. And the worst of all that we will never ever know ourselves.

When we know that we are totally wicked when we see ourselves, we are compelled to look upward to God and by that we can know him in the true way as by his grace we will be given the salvation.