"Mom always loves you"

Even in disasters do we see touching moments, or maybe, the touching moments in disasters are more precious than that during normal times.

In the recent earthquakes in China, a mother, in the attempt to protect her 3 month old baby, shielded her baby underneath her, and she bore all the weight of the torn-down pieces of the building and lost her life.

The baby was sound asleep when she was rescued, and there was a mobile phone found there, and this message was found on the screen "My baby, if you can survive, remember, Mom always loves you"

What a touching story.

What prompts a mother to sacrifice her life for her baby? It's her love, is it not?

Inevitably, it reminds me of the story of Jesus. He came down, laid aside the adoration in heaven, laid aside His omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence; became a man, bound by the law of nature, subject to tiredness, pain, hunger, thirst; and He took every step of His life relying on His Father.

Walking towards the cross, His agony caused Him to sweat blood; carrying the cross, He told the women not to mourn for Him; on the cross, He refused to save Himself, but cared to tell John to take care of His mother, and to give the thief next to Him a promise.

Then when the guilt of the whole world crushed Him, He could not see Himself as a victorious conqueror beyond the grave, in His eyes, the grave was His destination. In utmost agony, He cried out, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me"

People were mocking Him, Oh, if only He wanted, He could have saved Himself and left the ungrateful world to its own course. No, looking at the ungrateful world, He, not only had forgiven them, but chose to sacrifice His eternal throne in Heaven so that we may go in.

Sin is so evil that Jesus could not even see His Father.

If this was not enough to demonstrate us how much God loves us, what will?

I believe the baby rescued from the earthquake will believe she had a loving mother when she is told how she survived the earthquake; will we not believe how much God loves us, that even when faced with the equivalent of eternal destruction Himself and us seeing what God is like, and saving Himself and slain the ungrateful crowd; He chose self-sacrifice.

And I wish to ask, isn't this enough to convince us there is nothing to be afraid of our God, but He wholeheartedly wants to be our best friend?

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Christians and politics?

Although compared to the US, Australia's politics is less dominated by ideological issues and religious movements, more or less, its policies are still influenced by various religious groups. Christian Democrats have little influence now, but in the Federal Senate, Family First still holds a seat, and performs as the balance of power with the Greens and the South Australian independent member.

Looking at US politics, it is even more so; Religious Right groups seek to exert their points of view, and that is fine, but quite often, they seek to legislate morality; and that is very unfair and counter productive to the cause of the Kingdom of Heaven.

There are some Christian denominations and sects that totally abstain from politics, and I respect their choice; but I do not believe it is a rule for all Christians to abstain from politics.

In fact, there are quite a few examples in the Bible where followers of Yahweh were involved in politics. Starting from Joseph, Moses, Daniel, King David, King Solomon, Esther though was not directly a politician, used her privilege as the Queen to save Israel, even King Nebuchadnezzar, a gentile king, was so loved by God that he experienced so many miracles, including dreams and a fulfilled prophecy--turning into a cow, which finally led him to the knowledge of Yahweh. (Funny though, I always had this misconception that in the Old Testament time, all gentiles were condemned and only Israel was saved; now looking back, though in totality Israel was the elect of God, most of them were rebellious and did not really know God on a personal level.)

If the followers of God could be politicians, why can't we? But before we jump into the other extreme and start trying to advance our "religious cause", let us learn something from the Old Testament politicians, I believe there are somethings that we can learn from them.

First of all, these politicians all did stand as a witness of God. They were not perfect, some were better behaved than the others, but their hearts were all toward God. They served their position for the good of the people of that land.

Secondly, for them being witnesses for God did not mean they were all using their power to enforce their religion to the rest. Well, King David was the King of Israel, which was the elect of God, so it was right for them to worship Yahweh. But in reality, God's kingdom is not of this world, but above. Israel was a symbol that pointed to the Kingdom of Heaven. And therefore, on earth, there is no single country or a political entity that is the Kingdom of Heaven. So the example of Israel does not apply. In fact, we are all living in the heathen land. That's why we could use Joseph and Daniel as our examples. They were both powerful men in the government of Egypt and Babylon respectively. And they did not command others to worship the same God they were worshiping. They did not force their religion upon everyone else. Their duty was to govern the nation, to serve the people. When Joseph was the Prime Minister of Egypt, the Pharaoh did not convert to Joseph's religion; when Daniel was the Prime Minister of Babylon, he stood as a witness for Yahweh the only and true God, he told the King who only could interpret dreams and explain prophecies, but in the end, King Nebuchadnezzar's conversion was entirely the work of God.

Too many Religious Right groups today see their involvement with politics being for the sole purpose to convert everyone else or to legislate morality. But don't they know faith is not something that can be forced, let alone love of God. If you cannot force anyone to love God, you have no way to force them to become Christians; and if they are not even Christians, what is the point to force them to live like Christians? As if they could be saved through living like Christians without the substance of Christianity which is, the love of God, a personal relationship with God?

No wonder many people hate Christianity today, and this hatred is not that they want to persecute us, in fact, to the contrary, it is their reaction to our persecution of them. The Bible's prophecy of true Christians is that we shall be persecuted, true Christians shall not persecute those who do not agree with us.

Jesus never exercised force to convert people, if we think we can use political powers to make people followers of Christ, we are seeing a wrong picture of God.

If Christians ever get involved in politics, it should be for the purpose of serving others. Not to force this world to become the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Earthquake

No words can express my agony when I open the newspapers and am faced with the heart wrenching photos taken in Sichuan, China.

It is only normal for people to cry, to weep, to mourn when such things happened, particularly when parents lose their children; as for children, they are not even supposed to lose their parents and become orphans. It is too much for them to bear, their lives have just started, and an earthquake crushed their childhood.

Yet, on the news, I have also seen a woman who apparently had no tears on her face, and at that sight, my stomach churned, others crying is totally normal and understandable; but this woman whose face showed no emotion, or perhaps I sensed some helplessness and a loss of direction; it made me wonder, what was going through her mind and heart at that moment? Maybe she did not even have the strength, the power and the energy to think anything, and maybe the devastation paralyzed her heart...

I can't tell.

And as I saw more and more photos taken of children buried under collapsed buildings, I could only feel my chest tightened with each new photo I saw; I was suffocating, but what is my pain compared to theirs?

This, could be one of those moments we lift up our faces, look into the sky, and ask "God, where were you when the earthquake happened?" And even this, is a modest question. I do not dare to get close to the notion some might claim "It's God's judgment, hallelujah!"

I shall not allow myself to dwell upon the process of reasoning the latter notion, because it will bring up a traumatising, sick, twisted picture of God. And I dare not to be traumatised.

I believe my God is good, He is love. I believe His heart hurt more than we could fathom when so many people were buried under the collapsed buildings. I especially believe Jesus was literally crying in Heaven when He saw the children had become orphans, and parents had lost their children.

No, it is not an act of God, the very idea such disasters could be an act of God tramples the character of my God. God's will is for us to live, and to live an abundant eternal life with Him.

But this world is a dying world, each earthquake, each tornado, each hurricane, each hailstorm, is merely a sign of our dying world. If not because of God's preservation, the human race would have committed total self-destruction thousands of years ago. The horror of sin is that if we are left to ourselves, we would even nail God to the cross. And we would not even have lived long enough to now when this earthquake happened.

The very fact that we are still here, though facing disasters, sorrows, stands to testify of our God's constraining love. For without God, we would have perished long ago.

And God will not leave the human race on this earth; one day He is coming back for us, and to take us to our true home, where there is no disasters, no sorrow; we will see the scars in His hands, His feet and His side; and we will not dare to think about starting the "great controversy" all over again. For we would all have tasted the sorrow caused by sin.

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