"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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How deep have we probed into the character of God?

And the years of eternity, as they roll, will bring richer and still more glorious revelations of God and of Christ. As knowledge is progressive, so will love, reverence, and happiness increase. The more men learn of God, the greater will be their admiration of His character. As Jesus opens before them the riches of redemption and the amazing achievements in the great controversy with Satan, the hearts of the ransomed thrill with more fervent devotion, and with more rapturous joy they sweep the harps of gold; and ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of voices unite to swell the mighty chorus of praise. (Chap. 42, The Great Controversy, Ellen White)


It has been an amazing journey for me since the latter half of 2006 when I started to see a clearer image of God's character; with my old views rebutted and shattered, and learning to see God with new eyes, I have been experiencing more and more love of God.

Sometimes, it seems with my foundational image of Yahweh changed, I am so close to the full image of God; and immediately I'd exclaim, how naive am I!

Naive, because even Paul did not claim a complete image of God.

Mathematics is a deep deep science to me, with all the numbers, you can study maths and be rest assured there are always new laws to be discovered; but even more so is God's character. The character of God is our eternal pursuit, and this love between God and us will only deepen through the endless time.

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Jesus is coming soon! And?

There are two attitudes toward the Second Coming of the Messiah, one is "Hallelujah!", the other is, "Get Ready!"

There is a place for the message of "be ready", because the Bible tells us so! But I really want to probe into the mentality of both proclamations.

To respond the message of the Second Coming with "Hallelujah", expresses our hope for this event, that we look forward to the return of our Saviour; we rejoice at the thought of it, and we would love to see the face of Jesus because we know that He love us, and we, in turn, love Him.

While the proclamation of "Be Ready!" denotes another emotion.

Those who spread the second message may well say that the Second Coming of Christ is a blessed hope, but their message sounds to entail more fear and terror than hope and love.

"Jesus is coming again, and by then, we may not even be holy enough to see Him yet, Oh, I dread this thought, what if I'm not ready by then, I will perish!" To them, the concept of the Second Coming is like we as the whole human race is running a marathon with God, and we want to run ahead of God, so we can reach the destination before Him, and so when He gets to the destination we are already there, so we will be ready, and He will have to let us into heaven even if He doesn't want to; we will have our merit to show Him "Look God, we're ready now, so you can't send us to hell now!"

There really are problems with this mentality, it views God as our competitor, and we have to outrun Him, and I just do not see any love for God reflected in this mindset.

The Bible says Jesus is the bridegroom, and we are His bride. When the bride is waiting for the groom, she should be glad and happy and looking forward to her beloved. If the bride only dreads the arrival of the bridegroom, but tells herself that she has to be ready because if she doesn't, there's going to be trouble! Then, there certainly is no love in her heart for the man she is going to marry; and this marriage would better not to take place.

But if the bride says, I want to see my beloved, but I will have to get everything ready, so when I see him, I will not embarrass myself; and she would say "my beloved is coming soon, and yes! What a blessing! Now, before he gets here, let me get everything in place, so when he gets here, everything will be set. He will be comfortable and I will not embarrass myself."

Now this is a different attitude.

Christianity has been twisted so much that we are so self-centred, our goal is self-preservation, so God will not find a reason to cast us into the fire; we care so little about how beautiful God is, and that it is n fact a pleasure to know Him and to spend time with Him. And naturally, how can we be expected to look forward to the return of the Messiah?

They do not feel like children of God, but merely servants, and always afraid of God. They have no perfect love; because perfect love casts out fear.

They will keep God's commandments and do His works, but not for their love for God, but for their own preservation; but then, that is not commandment keeping at all, because the first principle of the Ten Commandments is to love God with all our heart!

I read this on a blog of someone

"A reading from the book of Python

O Lord, please don't burn us.
Don't grill or toast Your flock.
Don't put us on the barbecue
Or simmer us in stock.
Don't braise or bake or boil us
Or stir-fry us in a wok.
Oh, please don't lightly poach us
Or baste us with hot fat.
Don't fricassee or roast us
Or boil us in a vat,
And please don't stick Thy servants, Lord,
In a Rotissomat.

Thanks be to God.

I still vividly remember the seemingly endless "hellfire and brimstone" sermons from my childhood and youth in a Southern Baptist church. I also recall, that when I was "saved" at the age of 12 or so, it was because I was filled with fear and dread of dying "lost" and going to hell.

What I do not recall is having a sense of loving or being loved by God... What I had instead developed was an image of God as a taskmaster who kept a list of my sins and shoved a lightning bolt up my ass every time I messed up.

This sort of fear-based faith did not hold for me, and I left the church, any church for many years."

And who can say that this is not exactly what a "gospel of fear" would do to anyone?

If people are scared to heaven, but without love for God, then, even geographically they are in heaven, they won't love being there, because they are going to spend eternity with someone who they don't love, but only afraid of.

Isaiah 40:9
"O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!"

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incidence

At the station today, 3 young men yelled at me "Hey!"
I turned my face to them.
"Do you have 2 spare dollars?"
"Sorry, I don't"
Then, they swore at me.
Walking on the street, I got quite angry. First of all, they yelled at me "Hey!", did not even say "excuse me". Who is the one asking for favour? They were the ones asking for favour! Whether to help them or not was up to me. I didn't owe them. And they had the attitude.
I didn't have the spare money, and even if I had, I would not give them just for their bad attitude.
Why do I see young men like that a lot?
While I was feeling angry, I was thinking, it's in times like these I really wish there will really be a hell burning for an extended period of time, to let them know what they deserve.
Though I had another thought, they need the gospel, too; they could actually become Christians.
And then I had another thought, even if I could, I would not share the gospel with them, let them perish.
Then I realized just how evil my thoughts were.
Luke 9:
51 ¶ And it came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem,  52And sent messengers before his face: and they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him.  53And they did not receive him, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem.  54And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?  55But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.  56 For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they went to another village. 
Comparing the way I think to the way my Saviour thinks, I feel so short of His glory.
What happened to me was simply a few ungrateful young men, what happened to Yahshua was being crucified innocently, and that He volunteered for it. No one took His life, He freely gave it away.
Pondering on His story, His character, I feel embarrassed; yet again, feel attracted to His beauty, and actually feeling proud for worshiping a God like that.

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He Knows My Name

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