I'm confused now.I have been overwhelmed with this thought for few days. I think it has taken a big chunk of my life nowadays. When Ko Billy said every person has "keterikatan", I also have this kind of keterikatan. Ko Billy said his keterikatan is that he always wanted to continue his study in Germany, which he is doing right now.
I think keterikatan proves that I don't depend on Him. I can't enjoy the freedom that He has given and prefer to be bounded by something else. It's one of worst sin for Christian when keterikatan becomes your idol, which I think it's the case for me.
I'm in the state of refusing to let it go, I have hopes and dreams about it. I'm praying for His answer. I know that for every answer that He would give me, it would be very difficult for me. Am I ready to sacrifice? I still can't escape from my keterikatan, from my past, from the thought of my future. I think this is one of my "worst sin", I cannot escape from idolatry, I keep doing this although I know it's wrong. Forgive me, Lord. Let me surrender to Your will. Amen.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
SEMANGAT mode!!
Lagi dengar banyak berita yang amazing seputar KKR minggu nanti. Pertama, ada temen sharing berhasil ngajak temannya yang atheist untuk datang ke KKR. Selanjutnya, lebih amazing lagi. Ceritanya waktu pembina remaja meeting, ada usul untuk ke sekolah2 publikasi KKR. It's almost impossible in Singapore, dimana kegiatan agama dilarang di sekolah2. Well, aku memang agak kurang iman and very skeptical about this idea. I even asked my friend who is hall guardian, tp dia bilang ga bisa lewat jalur resmi sekolah.
These few days, some people came to some schools to publicize the event, and amazingly the principals of each school agree to encourage their teacher and invite their student to come to KKR since it will be translated to English. Thank GOD for this amazing opportunities, thank GOD because I can see God worked through my friend (although not me). It inspires me more to invite people to KKR. Once again, God makes the impossible possible.
These few days, some people came to some schools to publicize the event, and amazingly the principals of each school agree to encourage their teacher and invite their student to come to KKR since it will be translated to English. Thank GOD for this amazing opportunities, thank GOD because I can see God worked through my friend (although not me). It inspires me more to invite people to KKR. Once again, God makes the impossible possible.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
In Memoriam Pak Harto (between justice and hope)
Yeah, it's not a new news. Everyone knows it, I'm one of the latest person who knows about the news. One of the issues about him is the unsolved case about corruption. For Christians, we believe there is a final judgement where human cannot escape from his action in world.
People often asked, if God is justice, why there's no justice in this world? Atheist concludes there's no God since there's no justice, there's suffering! Christian worldview is not based on worldly seen things, but based on faith and hope we have in Christ. Christians always have hope, that's why suicide is impossible for Christian. Suicide is done by someone who doesn't have hope in this world.
Christians have both hope in this world and world after death. We do know that injustice in world would not escape from God's punishment. We often heard about faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13). These three things are correlated to each other. Faith without hope is not real faith, hope without faith is not true hope, love without faith and hope is not genuine love. When Christians have faith in Christ, he must have hope in God and love to Christ and others. Christians have faith there's always hope in Christ. This is very complicated and I honestly think I cannot explain the relationship between them by words.
People often asked, if God is justice, why there's no justice in this world? Atheist concludes there's no God since there's no justice, there's suffering! Christian worldview is not based on worldly seen things, but based on faith and hope we have in Christ. Christians always have hope, that's why suicide is impossible for Christian. Suicide is done by someone who doesn't have hope in this world.
Christians have both hope in this world and world after death. We do know that injustice in world would not escape from God's punishment. We often heard about faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13). These three things are correlated to each other. Faith without hope is not real faith, hope without faith is not true hope, love without faith and hope is not genuine love. When Christians have faith in Christ, he must have hope in God and love to Christ and others. Christians have faith there's always hope in Christ. This is very complicated and I honestly think I cannot explain the relationship between them by words.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
ends justify means?
I'm no mood to blog, more precise no mood to do anything. Being melancholic person is always moody, and when you are in no mood, you can't do anything. You prefer to be lonely, not to be disturbed, enjoying loneliness. What a mellow man!!
One of thoughts today: does ends justify means/tools? A lot of phragmatical Christian thinks this way. Christian is happy religion, so why need to learn so many about doctrines. Why make things so complicated? If the ends is good or if I have good motivation, why I can't do this? A lot more similar questions were thrown by a pragmatist.
I have no mood to discuss this issue concisely. Just a brief summary: both ends and means have to be good. A lot of people who think like Robin Hood, to help by stealing. In worship to God, God not only judges our heart, but also what we offer in worship. Both heart and offerings have to be the best. Can you imagine if a very rich person only give a dollar for his offering? He would say he is very sincere, and he is joyful to give that dollar to church, but it is certainly not his best. Both his heart and money is not for God.
A Christmas reflection while I was Indonesia taught me one thing. If I love God, not only I give offerings sincerely, joyfully, but also I have to feel the pain of giving. I know that this money is worth to me, but I sincerely give it for the kingdom of God. It's paradox; Christian life is always full of paradox.
This is a very often debated issue: if rock music can bring other people to Christ, why not we use it? For discussing this, people who knows music would offer better explanation than me. Does ends justify means? The answer is obviously no. That's why Christian ethics is always not easy.
One of thoughts today: does ends justify means/tools? A lot of phragmatical Christian thinks this way. Christian is happy religion, so why need to learn so many about doctrines. Why make things so complicated? If the ends is good or if I have good motivation, why I can't do this? A lot more similar questions were thrown by a pragmatist.
I have no mood to discuss this issue concisely. Just a brief summary: both ends and means have to be good. A lot of people who think like Robin Hood, to help by stealing. In worship to God, God not only judges our heart, but also what we offer in worship. Both heart and offerings have to be the best. Can you imagine if a very rich person only give a dollar for his offering? He would say he is very sincere, and he is joyful to give that dollar to church, but it is certainly not his best. Both his heart and money is not for God.
A Christmas reflection while I was Indonesia taught me one thing. If I love God, not only I give offerings sincerely, joyfully, but also I have to feel the pain of giving. I know that this money is worth to me, but I sincerely give it for the kingdom of God. It's paradox; Christian life is always full of paradox.
This is a very often debated issue: if rock music can bring other people to Christ, why not we use it? For discussing this, people who knows music would offer better explanation than me. Does ends justify means? The answer is obviously no. That's why Christian ethics is always not easy.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Minority Report
I finally watched Minority Report (MR) today, coz of someone who made me curious about it!! During a conversation with few ppl in PU, I told them in MI (dunno I or II), Tom Cruise used other person eye lens to open one of the safety door. She told me about eye plantation in MR. So I decided to rent this movie while taking my rest at home.
In the first part of the movie, I was thinking I really don't like this kind of movie. The technology is beyond logic to me. Anyway, I won't say much about the sci-fiction part. I would like to analyze the philosophy behind the story.
Danny Witwer about Pre-Cogs "In a way, they give us hope, hope of the existence of divine. It's interesting that some people have begun to deify the Pre-Cogs."
Jad (one of officer) replied "Well, come on chief. The way we work, changing destiny and all, is clearly more like clergy than cops."
First of all, it is clear that almost all human are looking for something eternal. That's why they created a divine image through statues or natures. Human created their own god!! Well, exactly the same in this movie, they created Pre-Cogs and deify them. But wait!! I didn't see any human worship to the Pre-Cogs. Of course NOT!! If they worship the Pre-Cogs, that would be "kerusakan manusia yang terhebat" (I don't know how to say in English lolz). As Pak Tong said before, the most corrupted sin is that human created a creator, then worship the creator that he created.
Deification is not only about worship like in church or worship to baal. So, what does deify mean? How can I say they deify the Pre-Cogs? Deification always comes with these two characteristics: Faith and Dependence. It is clear that Tom Cruise said many times that the Pre-Cogs is infallible!! He has faith 100% that the Pre-Cogs would never fail to predict any event in future. Although they never explicitly deify the Pre-Cogs, they depend so much on them to decrease murders. They can't even do their precrime task without these Pre-Cogs.
The concept of God in Pre-Cogs certainly was not taken from Christian Trinity. Pre-Cogs to some extend disagree with each other, while Holy Trinity's will and action is always synchronous. Probably, the concept of God was taken from Hinduism, where one of their gods creates more impact than others. I won't comment further about this.
However, the point is human created gods in this movie!! Why? Because human wants to become god!! This movie is created in humanistic spirit, what they want is to reduce the crime by their own way. Human always see phenomena; crimes are phenomena, while sins are actually the cause of the problems. In this movie, Precrime is acting as god, they can change so-called destiny or fate of other people. They can see what will happen in future with Pre-Cogs help and try to prevent the murder.
Jad "The way we work changing destiny and all, is more like clergy than cops."
Well, this case mostly happens in Indonesia as well. If you watch the advertisement, ketik REG RAMAL to 9388. People always want to know their future, and try to alter it as if they are god. What I am thinking is: why they want so badly to know their future? I think this is because the spirit of evolutionism. Tomorrow is always better than now. Today is always better than yesterday. With the hope of technology development, it always gives false hope to give better life for people. What I can say is the better technology doesn't necessary make human better, but it always makes human feel and think themselves as god!!
This writing is my subjective opinion for no one is objective!! It might be extreme. Yes, probably. But it also reminds us that thousands movies out there probably are not biblical. Every day when we read books, see advertisement, or watch television, there are some values which are unconsciously implanted inside our mind. Therefore, it's important to learn the right worldview, so we know how wrong is others!!
In the first part of the movie, I was thinking I really don't like this kind of movie. The technology is beyond logic to me. Anyway, I won't say much about the sci-fiction part. I would like to analyze the philosophy behind the story.
Danny Witwer about Pre-Cogs "In a way, they give us hope, hope of the existence of divine. It's interesting that some people have begun to deify the Pre-Cogs."
Jad (one of officer) replied "Well, come on chief. The way we work, changing destiny and all, is clearly more like clergy than cops."
First of all, it is clear that almost all human are looking for something eternal. That's why they created a divine image through statues or natures. Human created their own god!! Well, exactly the same in this movie, they created Pre-Cogs and deify them. But wait!! I didn't see any human worship to the Pre-Cogs. Of course NOT!! If they worship the Pre-Cogs, that would be "kerusakan manusia yang terhebat" (I don't know how to say in English lolz). As Pak Tong said before, the most corrupted sin is that human created a creator, then worship the creator that he created.
Deification is not only about worship like in church or worship to baal. So, what does deify mean? How can I say they deify the Pre-Cogs? Deification always comes with these two characteristics: Faith and Dependence. It is clear that Tom Cruise said many times that the Pre-Cogs is infallible!! He has faith 100% that the Pre-Cogs would never fail to predict any event in future. Although they never explicitly deify the Pre-Cogs, they depend so much on them to decrease murders. They can't even do their precrime task without these Pre-Cogs.
The concept of God in Pre-Cogs certainly was not taken from Christian Trinity. Pre-Cogs to some extend disagree with each other, while Holy Trinity's will and action is always synchronous. Probably, the concept of God was taken from Hinduism, where one of their gods creates more impact than others. I won't comment further about this.
However, the point is human created gods in this movie!! Why? Because human wants to become god!! This movie is created in humanistic spirit, what they want is to reduce the crime by their own way. Human always see phenomena; crimes are phenomena, while sins are actually the cause of the problems. In this movie, Precrime is acting as god, they can change so-called destiny or fate of other people. They can see what will happen in future with Pre-Cogs help and try to prevent the murder.
Jad "The way we work changing destiny and all, is more like clergy than cops."
Well, this case mostly happens in Indonesia as well. If you watch the advertisement, ketik REG RAMAL to 9388. People always want to know their future, and try to alter it as if they are god. What I am thinking is: why they want so badly to know their future? I think this is because the spirit of evolutionism. Tomorrow is always better than now. Today is always better than yesterday. With the hope of technology development, it always gives false hope to give better life for people. What I can say is the better technology doesn't necessary make human better, but it always makes human feel and think themselves as god!!
This writing is my subjective opinion for no one is objective!! It might be extreme. Yes, probably. But it also reminds us that thousands movies out there probably are not biblical. Every day when we read books, see advertisement, or watch television, there are some values which are unconsciously implanted inside our mind. Therefore, it's important to learn the right worldview, so we know how wrong is others!!
Monday, January 21, 2008
Dilemma!!
Hidup memang penuh dengan pilihan. Di antara begitu banyak pilihan tapi tetap harus memilih juga, hidup memang dilemma!!! >.<...
Jumat ini ada PU HUT NUS-ISCF ke-8, I was expected to come (cieeee... orang keren sih ^-^). Terus baru dapet sms ada master class Pak Tong juga huhuhu. Really a difficult choice for me. What should I do? Which should I choose?
Jumat ini ada PU HUT NUS-ISCF ke-8, I was expected to come (cieeee... orang keren sih ^-^). Terus baru dapet sms ada master class Pak Tong juga huhuhu. Really a difficult choice for me. What should I do? Which should I choose?
Aku dan Dirimu
Disclaimer: Don't judge the content by its title >.<...
Kalau dilihat title doang pasti tema-nya tentang cinta. Well, partly true sih. Emang ada kaitannya tentang hal itu. Kalau yang baru balik dari Indo, pasti pernah denger lagunya Ari Lasso and Bunga Citra Lestari (BCL) kan, yg judulnya Aku dan Dirimu
Aku dan Dirimu
tiba saatnya kita saling bicara
tentang perasaan yang kian menyiksa
tentang rindu yang menggebu
tentang cinta yang tak terungkap
sudah terlalu lama kita berdiam
tenggelam dalam gelisah yang tak teredam
memenuhi mimpi-mimpimu malam kita
reff: duhai cintaku, sayangku, lepaskanlah
perasaanmu, rindumu, seluruh cintamu
dan kini hanya ada aku dan dirimu
sesaat di keabadian
jika sang waktu kita hentikan
dan segala mimpi-mimpi jadi kenyataan
meleburkan semua batas antara kau dan aku, kita
I dont want to discuss about love and music yang udah dieksploitasi di Indo. Let's talk about other more essential.
The bold sentence is very important statement for Christian. We live in the world only "sesaat", but we have essence of "keabadian". Every man has their alpha point, but no omega point. Lagu ini sangat duniawi, tapi ada unsur keabadian. Why? I believe although ada total depravity of men, tp ciri khas man as image of God never lost. They realized there is an eternity, but they do not know how man connects with eternity.
We can invite our friend to KKR Pemuda and Remaja 2008, 3Feb 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roTuii0YJGY .
Kalau dilihat title doang pasti tema-nya tentang cinta. Well, partly true sih. Emang ada kaitannya tentang hal itu. Kalau yang baru balik dari Indo, pasti pernah denger lagunya Ari Lasso and Bunga Citra Lestari (BCL) kan, yg judulnya Aku dan Dirimu
Aku dan Dirimu
tiba saatnya kita saling bicara
tentang perasaan yang kian menyiksa
tentang rindu yang menggebu
tentang cinta yang tak terungkap
sudah terlalu lama kita berdiam
tenggelam dalam gelisah yang tak teredam
memenuhi mimpi-mimpimu malam kita
reff: duhai cintaku, sayangku, lepaskanlah
perasaanmu, rindumu, seluruh cintamu
dan kini hanya ada aku dan dirimu
sesaat di keabadian
jika sang waktu kita hentikan
dan segala mimpi-mimpi jadi kenyataan
meleburkan semua batas antara kau dan aku, kita
I dont want to discuss about love and music yang udah dieksploitasi di Indo. Let's talk about other more essential.
The bold sentence is very important statement for Christian. We live in the world only "sesaat", but we have essence of "keabadian". Every man has their alpha point, but no omega point. Lagu ini sangat duniawi, tapi ada unsur keabadian. Why? I believe although ada total depravity of men, tp ciri khas man as image of God never lost. They realized there is an eternity, but they do not know how man connects with eternity.
We can invite our friend to KKR Pemuda and Remaja 2008, 3Feb 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roTuii0YJGY .
Thanks be to God
I am grateful today. One of them is because I can attend church service today. Until last night I thought I would miss this week service. But I recover faster than I expected.
Begini ceritanya: Sabtu pagi2 sekitar jam 2, aku tiba2 bangun dan found out that I had fever. Sepanjang hari badan lemes, mulut kering, ke WC terus, kepala sakit, suhu badan naik turun 3x. I really want to go remaja, but cannot. Malamnya, aku pergi ke dokter and he was very kind to give me 2 days MC. Now, my fever is getting better and I can attend church although badan masih lemes.
Well, menyambung sharing-ku waktu PU NUS-ISCF kmaren, I realized that sakit itu ga enak, so was thankful for the health. Walaupun skarang masih sedikit flu and cough, but it was much better than yesterday. Intinya, I often takes grace for granted.
Dapo bilang manusia adalah makhluk yg paling kurang ajar, since so many grace that God has given, but manusia gak pernah bersyukur untuk hal itu.
Kol 3:17 "Dan segala sesuatu yang kamu lakukan dengan perkataan atau perbuatan, lakukanlah semuanya itu dalam nama Tuhan Yesus, sambil mengucap syukur oleh Dia kepada Allah, Bapa kita. "
Begini ceritanya: Sabtu pagi2 sekitar jam 2, aku tiba2 bangun dan found out that I had fever. Sepanjang hari badan lemes, mulut kering, ke WC terus, kepala sakit, suhu badan naik turun 3x. I really want to go remaja, but cannot. Malamnya, aku pergi ke dokter and he was very kind to give me 2 days MC. Now, my fever is getting better and I can attend church although badan masih lemes.
Well, menyambung sharing-ku waktu PU NUS-ISCF kmaren, I realized that sakit itu ga enak, so was thankful for the health. Walaupun skarang masih sedikit flu and cough, but it was much better than yesterday. Intinya, I often takes grace for granted.
Dapo bilang manusia adalah makhluk yg paling kurang ajar, since so many grace that God has given, but manusia gak pernah bersyukur untuk hal itu.
Kol 3:17 "Dan segala sesuatu yang kamu lakukan dengan perkataan atau perbuatan, lakukanlah semuanya itu dalam nama Tuhan Yesus, sambil mengucap syukur oleh Dia kepada Allah, Bapa kita. "
Sunday, January 6, 2008
About This Blog
Finally I created another blog after 1 year. My previous blog was not maintained due to my laziness. I named this blog Alpha Point. This was inspired by Pak Tong Master Class. Every opportunity has to be seen as Alpha Point (first opportunity) in fear of God. Therefore, we would give our best in every opportunity we have.
On the other hand, every opportunity also has to be seen as Omega Point (Last opportunity) so that we don't waste the opportunity. Many cultures and beliefs believe that opportunity will return as time goes on. Life is a roller coaster and so is opportunity. However, bible teaches that opportunity never returns. Every opportunity is unique and we have to grab it when it comes.
Therefore, in the beginning of 2008, I have decided to start a new blog, to write my perspective and journey throughout my days. Let this opportunity be a wonderful chairos for me and those who read. Let this opportunity would keep me faithful to maintain what I have started.
On the other hand, every opportunity also has to be seen as Omega Point (Last opportunity) so that we don't waste the opportunity. Many cultures and beliefs believe that opportunity will return as time goes on. Life is a roller coaster and so is opportunity. However, bible teaches that opportunity never returns. Every opportunity is unique and we have to grab it when it comes.
Therefore, in the beginning of 2008, I have decided to start a new blog, to write my perspective and journey throughout my days. Let this opportunity be a wonderful chairos for me and those who read. Let this opportunity would keep me faithful to maintain what I have started.
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