Aku minta kepada TUHAN

Aku minta kepada TUHAN
Setangkai bunga segar
DIA beri aku kaktus yang berduri
Aku minta kupu-kupu
DiberiNYA ulat

Aku kecewa dan sedih
Tapi tetap bersabar

Namun, tak lama kemudian kaktus itu berbunga indah sekali
Dan ulat itu menjadi kupu-kupu yang cantik.

Begitulah cara TUHAN mengasihi kita
Selalu indah pada waktunya

Dying to Live

One by one. I've had to lay down my lofty ideals even the ones I thought were godly and worthy of my love and life. My most precious friendships, my most selfless ambitions, even my childlike innocence; Nothing was spared but each one was taken from me and systematically dismantled and destroyed beyond recognition.

Against my will.
Despite my strong protests.
My pleas disregarded.
My tears unnoticed.

Till I am standing stripped of every thing I treasured and worshipped.
My hands empty.
Till I am bleeding; torn without remedy.
My heart irreparably broken.
Till I despaired of ever being restored.
Drunk blind with disillusionment.

Is there hope for one such as I?

Can God put me together again?

Yes He can. He did not bring me this far to abandon me. His love for me is unfailing and eternal. He will restore this weary soul.

I WILL BE GOOD AGAIN. I KNOW IT.

But not the way I was before.

Minus my selfish pride,
Minus my smug self-righteous ways,
Minus my suffocating self-pity,
Minus my self-reliance,
Minus my need to vindicate self.


You see, Self is the only real enemy.

How will He accomplish this? It's not for me to know.

I only know God ordered this path for me. It was He who escorted me to Golgotha's hill. It was His hands that nailed mine to that cross. It was His spear that pierced my side. And finally it was He that left me there to die.

But I did not die alone. We died together. We suffered humiliating shame and crushing defeat, together. We felt the sting of betrayal and the pain of rejection, together. Together we drank from the cup of suffering and together we swallowed the last bitter drop.

But it was needful. Just as it was needful for Jesus to die on the cross so He could buy your freedom and mine.

In order to heal, I had to hurt.
In order to live, I needed to die.
To greet the dawn, I must endure the night.

I'm waiting for the 3rd day. When the tomb will be opened. And the dead will come alive again. Resurrected by the power of God. Filled with the Spirit of God. Complete and whole again.

But you won't recognize me.

Instead you will behold the Christ. HIS righteousness. HIS Faith. HIS Truth. HIS love. HIS Compassion.

A new creation. Conformed to the image of Christ - God's beloved Son.

All of Him and none of me.
He must Increase but I must Decrease.

God, don't let me interfere with the process. Don' let me tell you what to do. Don't rescue me; don't release me until I am well and truly dead to the carnal fleshly me.

So that I may know what it is to truly Live.

Galatians 2:20-21
20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

Matthew 10: 38, 39
and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

An uncomfortable truth - Part 3

The Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus declared to us, is not one that is earthly. It will help if we understood the unique characteristics of this ‘out of this world’ kingdom.

It is not man-made for God alone is the architect.
It is eternal, a kingdom that will endure forever.
It is unshakeable, unstoppable and comes in God’s power.
It is capable of existing in this world but is not overcome by it.
It is not sustained by earthly monetary currencies
It rests in the hearts of the true disciples of Christ.
It seeks the surrender of the human will, not the exertion of human effort.
It is received in the simplicity of a child.
It is entered into by repentance and change of heart.
It is increased in those who submit to God’s government.
It is acquired by giving up everything of worldly value.
It is learnt by heeding the voice of God’s beloved Son.
It is discovered by the revelation of God’s Holy Spirit
It demands the daily discipline of carrying one’s personal cross .
It prefers the least over the greatest.
It is evidenced by the fruit of God’s character.
It is established upon God’s righteousness and truth.
It defies human logic & intellect and acts in opposition to it.
etc

The kingdom Jesus spoke about is no fairy tale. But it exists NOT in the natural sense but a spiritual one. The common mistake we make when trying to understand the Kingdom of God is by naturalizing it to meet our standards of morality and goodness. That's how we have treated much of God's Truth. Treated and tempered it to suit our natural and moral tastebuds.

It is not uncommon to hear God's kingdom referred to in corporate and even political terms at times. But Jesus is not the CEO of heaven neither can we refer to him as a 'leader' (the way some Christian writers like to) . The bible calls him the “suffering servant & lamb of God” which means one who had no special rights or privileges, did what he was told and was dispensable. Jesus himself testified that he did nothing that God the Father did not tell him to do! Now, that’s a follower not a leader! Go chew on that one!!

Jesus challenged the leaders to destroy the physical temple in Jerusalem which took some 40 years to build and claimed he would raise it again in 3 days! Seriously now, was Jesus considering to restore Solomon’s ancient architectural wonder after He reduced it to rubble? Of course not! He was speaking of a different kind of temple. One that had no geographical location. No home address. Not made of brick and mortar. Not built by human hands.

The Kingdom of God is a heavenly one and cannot be compared to any existing earthly model regardless of how ‘biblically ordered’, ‘morally upright’ or ‘divinely inspired’ it is. Even in their most ideal forms, the kingdoms of this world are no match for the Kingdom of God's Son. Heaven does not share our definition of perfection. In fact, Scripture tells us what is most valued among men is detestable in God’s sight (Luke 16: 15b)

Today's Church (or what I call the Organized Religious Institution) has created her golden calves and calls it the Christ. I am reminded of the OT Jeroboam who propagated his own gospel as a substitute for Moses’ law.

Read I Kings 12:26-33 for the story.

Jeroboam made 2 golden calves and presented them to Israel, “ Here are your gods O Israel who brought you up out of Egypt”. He ordained priests who were not Levites and installed them in shrines he built in high places. He offered sacrifices on the altar he built in Bethel to the gods he had made and ordered festivals in the month of his own choosing!

But God had left clear instructions with Moses :
Only one place of worship was allowed ie. the temple of Jerusalem.
Graven images were forbidden and bowing to them was a big no no.
Festivals were strictly during the month of God’s choosing.
Only Levites were qualified to be priests and offer sacrifices.

Blatant disregard for God’s Word led to his downfall.

Jeroboam was afraid the people might return to the rule of David and he came up with his convenient and cost-free option for God’s people. (I Kings 12: 26-27).

Friends, the gospel of Jeroboam IS NOT the gospel of Christ. In fact, the spirit of Jeroboam is dead set against the spirit of Christ. Christ is a threat to its existence and continuing influence because it knows only He is worthy of our complete obedience. Because once God’s people realize they have made their allegiance to a gilded bull, they will repent and begin to follow the Christ who is the head of his Body (the bible calls it the Ekklesia in the original Greek).

In church, there is always a need for volunteers - people are constantly being enlisted to make refreshments, serve coffee, drive the church van, direct Sunday traffic, make announcements, greet visitors, dust pews, host speakers, sponsor flowers, play the keyboards, babysit, arrange chairs, record sermons etc. There is no disgrace in these little things that many humbly and selflessly perform. The real shame is we have glamourized these menial tasks for mass appeal. We’ve got people thinking they are ‘ministering to God’ with their ‘gifts’ and that God is immensely pleased when people ‘serve’ the agenda of the church.

I may be shattering some illusions here but God’s goal for your life is infinitely more sacred and satisfying than passing the collection plate and washing the communion cups.

The point I am trying to make is this.

Christ DID NOT come so we could serve a man-made institution and be subject to her wardens.

Were that his mission, Jesus should have made it his life’s work to

Reform religion
Regulate worship
Revamp theology
Reorganize resources
Replenish finances
Recruit members
Raise leaders
Reduce conflicts etc

(And all the million other things church leaders do before they crash and burn to the ground!)

The blessing of owning land, numerous descendants, having more than enough and being a blessing to all the nations of the earth - This was the proud legacy left behind by Abraham, their founding patriarch. But Israel’s king would seize all of this for himself and his own. What a tragedy! God already knew what His people were capable of when they became a great nation. They would quickly forget the God who delivered them after more than 400 years of slavery in Egypt and reject Him for worthless gods. Freed from one bondage, Israel goes seeking for another.

That’s History repeating herself. And we are guilty of no less!

By faith, we became heirs of Abraham’s promise and citizens of God’s kingdom. But like Israel we reached for the very thing that put us in its power. And before we know it, we’re slaving for a counterfeit kingdom and its self-serving agenda. But as long as Christ is not the King, it will not stand.

The answer is not finding the right church to belong to. Its being connected to Christ who is the Head. St. Paul said WE BELONG TO CHRIST - not an institution (even if it dates back 1,700 years!)

When we are rightly connected to Christ then we are His church!

Don't believe anyone who tells you that you NEED to belong to one. It's a lot of Bull! (pun intended!!)