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.

Studying Institutes ... (1)

Institutes of Christian Religion is one of the masterpiece written by John Calvin. This book was written initially to provide a statement of faith regarding the reformed faith. In a few starting pages, this book provides a long prefatory from Calvin addressed to the King of France.

In the prefatory, Calvin declared that it was a very unjust and totally not at the right place all the calumnies from the Roman Catholic at that time that:

1. Reformed faith is novel and not sealed by the miracle fro God.
This statement is not right since reformed faith declared what the holy scripture has taught. Reformed faith drives the people to regain the true understanding of the teaching of the apostles which is of course already supported by the miracle when the apostle preached the gospel.

2. Reformed faith is not rooted from the tradition and against the teaching of the holy fathers of the church.
Calvin stated that actually the one who against the teaching of the holy father is these pious sons but sadly the wrong part they followed but the truth from the bible they corrupted, neglected, differed it; "since their belly is their god" Calvin said.
Even Calvin claimed that actually they who did the perversion of the teaching of the fathers.
Calvin mentioned some statements from the fathers that the Roman Catholic at that time failed to do and even worse they corrupted the teaching.

(for the other statement, better you read it by your self)

Jadwal Semester 2 year 2 (revisi)

Jadi waktu itu ceritanya sama Ronald ga dilolosin appeal gw buat dapet index lab yang gw mau which is selasa pagi. Yah jadinya terpaksa rombak semua jadwal dan akhirnya jadwal ini lah yang dipilih

1. PAP212 Electromagnetism
Prof Huan yang ngajar, dan sudah di beri peringatan akan "susah" lah pelajaran ini dalam satu semester ini. Sepertinya sudah ditunjukan dengan jumlah soal tutorial yang lumayan "banyak" untuk ukuran tutorial yang selama ini diberikan di NTU. I think shd be fine for me for this sem since I need some exercise hahaha. Holiday is enough to make my physics is frozen.

2. PAP231 Optical Physics
Well this subject shd be a continuation from wave subject that I got in 2nd semester last year. I found it to be "interesting" subject that the lecturer himself already mention at the very beginning of the lecture that 90% of the material should be an old stuff for you who study well enough about optics. (Oh no...) But somehow I feel it is ok since it is another opportunity for me to do something in optical area =P

3. PAP352 Chaotic Dynamical System
Well, one of the weird thing that even probably outsiders will think the people like me also a weird person to be interested in this subject. Well just for your information, chaos is one of physics branch and it is a very useful (or I can say another "I dont know what for it is" thing?).
More or less I find the challenge to know not only a well defined behavior but also a chaotic behavior.

4. HW102A Art of Academic Writing
yeah yeah yeah another communication subject that will make me a little bit busy with all the reading materials and also writing materials

5. HS808 Understanding Culture and Globalization
Well, the first time I attended the class somehow I feel a "click" in my mind that I was in my high school time again listening to a sociology subject. Well hopefully the subject will not end like that =P

6 PAP219 Lab
yeah you shd know about it just by imagining it