After looking at the construction of the English word "UNDERSTAND", I was amazed.
The word has two parts, "under" and "stand", mean "put in under my feet, and stand on top of it." How wonderful it is. You could only depend on something after you fully see the pros and cons of it. Walking in the muddy road, you only want to move your next step to a solid rock. Depends on something only after you fully know it, that is understand. Otherwise, for sure, you would in trouble, big trouble.
Twenty years ago, a friend of mine who was working as a truck driver told me, the first thing when you put your hand on a truck you never drove before is to speed up on an empty road, and then hit the brake as hard as possible. In that way, you will know how well its brake works. That's the first thing you must do to a truck new to you, as you don't want leave any chance for that to fail.
----------------------
But talking about Bible, how many of us is depending on it without fully understand the meaning of it. That's like standing on a piece of grass without knowing whether it's on top of a rock or mud.
----------------------
Talking about Jesus, how did he deal with it?
Everybody believe that the New Testament of Gospel is derived from the Old Testament. It's an extension of the plan and teaching of God.
Yes, I agree that Jesus built the gospel upon the Old Testament. But did he made use of every single piece of the Old Testament? How about the violence and blood bath of Israelites during the early history?
To Jesus, the Old Testament is a piece of land full of mud; upon it he built the foundation of the New Testament. But he only selectively picks the solid rocks as his support, because that's the thing he want, and that's enough. He did not take the whole testament and trap himself inside.
Apparently, the New Testament is not only meaningful to us by telling us the truth. It is more important by setting an example of establishing and exploring new truth and how to treat teachings that we don't really understand or agree.
But he doesn't fight with the mud, just leave them alone. Fighting does not really help.
How should we do then?
Lost sheep
Mathew 18:12-14
“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost”
看来， 家花不如野花香是从那时候开始的耶。谁不觉着她们都原本属于自己的呢？哈哈
“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost”
看来， 家花不如野花香是从那时候开始的耶。谁不觉着她们都原本属于自己的呢？哈哈
(Archive) The evolution of holly spirit.
One news item (in Chinese) from web caught my attention, and triggered some thinking about the evolution of "holly spirit" concept.
http://news.wenxuecity.com/messages/200906/news-gb2312-873714.html
Of course, the holly spirit concept itself never changed, I mean the evolution of my own perception of Holly Spirit.
When I first heard Christian teaching about Holly spirit, I was thinking holly spirit was something through miracle. Like the way the spirit symbolized by a dove entered Jesus' body after he got baptized. It’s some kind of special "spirit" with special power that came from God.
Later, when I read Genesis, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, then they started to know evil from good, then I thought mind that tells good from evil must be the holly spirit. God has been putting the holly spirit in our body since the very beginning of our creation; but we were not able to appreciate it and actually use it to do our judgment.
More latter, I realized, knowing the good from evil does not really help much, if we do not behave accordingly. Then for a very long period, I have been thinking, God gave us instinct to distinguish good and evil, but holly spirit give us courage to stay with good and fight with evils that come from outside and inside. Holly spirit is something that turns our good thinking into actions.
Finally another question comes, is the instincts of our judgment of good and evil always right? A real evil man might have been thinking that what they were doing were right. Then according to the above theory they should have been following their “holly spirit”. Then Adolf Hitler will also have a lot of excuses to go to heaven. There must be something wrong. I am not totally against Adolf Hitler go to heaven, but that must come from mercy and forgiveness of God and other people, not in this way.
When reading the above posting, it reminded me of the prostitute that got saved from being stoned by Jesus. Stoning the prostitute was the law, do things according to the law must be a very righteous thing to do. But there are something else more important from Jesus than the law, but it could not be written in the law. That is love.
This is why Jesus said that he did not come here to destroy the law but to fulfill the law. The missing part in the law was love.
Love has more rich meaning than righteousness.
But why when Jesus remind people about the unseen part, people actually followed. This was not because Jesus had the supper power to control people’s mind. (He might had the power, but I doubt he actually used it.)
The reason is that the spirit of love is already planted by our creator deep in our mind. We just did not realize it. That is like the mustard seed talked in the Gospel. Jesus came here gave us sunshine and water, so that it started to grow. He knew our seeds better than ourselves because he came from God.
So holly spirit is something about love. It has more content than righteousness. It's the mind of caring about others but not only ourselves. It reminds us to make the right choice when we are in the party privileged. Even when it seems like the privilege is from the law by God.
So when the land of Israel was first given to Israelite, sure everything was from God's will. (At least they believed so at that moment.) Did that mean they had the right to take the unmarried girls and kill all the men, boys and married women? Their sin was because they only saw the law but had forgotten love.
In the story mentioned in the Gospel, when people caught that prostitute, for sure they could stone her. That was the law, but the law was not everything.
When I read the paper mentioned at the very beginning, I deeply felt guilty for our privileges we got in this world from God. I was deeply impressed by the story told through the Gospel from Jesus.
Another story, I remember one year after Virginia shooting at VT, people built a monument to memorize the dead. Among the names appeared on the wall, the killer's name was also listed. And people actually even put flowers there. At the moment, I was thinking, if he could see this scene from somewhere, he might want to redo his video again to confess his sin.
Indeed the killer should be punished and condemned, but us, as normal people, should the tragedy trigger some thinking inside of ourselves. Sure all the victims in the shooting were innocent, but at least they have been happy during their (short) lifetime in this world. But look at this poor little Korean boy, I doubt he ever had one day of happiness during his childhood. Whose fault was it after all?
Love means caring for others. Love means understanding and forgiving. Love makes us rethink about what to do when we think God blessed us (for what). Love gives the power to forgive when the law says punishing.
God sowed a tiny seed inside our mind. But we never cared about it, and we never noticed it. It’s like a mustard seed hide deep inside the soil.
Jesus’ teaching is like shower and sunshine, with the Gospel teaching the seed start to grow. Finally it blossom into a beautiful flower.
The flower is so beautiful that I said to myself: it does not belong to me, but my whole body, everything from me, have to belong to her.
It is indeed beautiful experience, but which part of this process should be called Holly Spirit. I really cannot tell.
Who cares!
http://news.wenxuecity.com/messages/200906/news-gb2312-873714.html
Of course, the holly spirit concept itself never changed, I mean the evolution of my own perception of Holly Spirit.
When I first heard Christian teaching about Holly spirit, I was thinking holly spirit was something through miracle. Like the way the spirit symbolized by a dove entered Jesus' body after he got baptized. It’s some kind of special "spirit" with special power that came from God.
Later, when I read Genesis, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, then they started to know evil from good, then I thought mind that tells good from evil must be the holly spirit. God has been putting the holly spirit in our body since the very beginning of our creation; but we were not able to appreciate it and actually use it to do our judgment.
More latter, I realized, knowing the good from evil does not really help much, if we do not behave accordingly. Then for a very long period, I have been thinking, God gave us instinct to distinguish good and evil, but holly spirit give us courage to stay with good and fight with evils that come from outside and inside. Holly spirit is something that turns our good thinking into actions.
Finally another question comes, is the instincts of our judgment of good and evil always right? A real evil man might have been thinking that what they were doing were right. Then according to the above theory they should have been following their “holly spirit”. Then Adolf Hitler will also have a lot of excuses to go to heaven. There must be something wrong. I am not totally against Adolf Hitler go to heaven, but that must come from mercy and forgiveness of God and other people, not in this way.
When reading the above posting, it reminded me of the prostitute that got saved from being stoned by Jesus. Stoning the prostitute was the law, do things according to the law must be a very righteous thing to do. But there are something else more important from Jesus than the law, but it could not be written in the law. That is love.
This is why Jesus said that he did not come here to destroy the law but to fulfill the law. The missing part in the law was love.
Love has more rich meaning than righteousness.
But why when Jesus remind people about the unseen part, people actually followed. This was not because Jesus had the supper power to control people’s mind. (He might had the power, but I doubt he actually used it.)
The reason is that the spirit of love is already planted by our creator deep in our mind. We just did not realize it. That is like the mustard seed talked in the Gospel. Jesus came here gave us sunshine and water, so that it started to grow. He knew our seeds better than ourselves because he came from God.
So holly spirit is something about love. It has more content than righteousness. It's the mind of caring about others but not only ourselves. It reminds us to make the right choice when we are in the party privileged. Even when it seems like the privilege is from the law by God.
So when the land of Israel was first given to Israelite, sure everything was from God's will. (At least they believed so at that moment.) Did that mean they had the right to take the unmarried girls and kill all the men, boys and married women? Their sin was because they only saw the law but had forgotten love.
In the story mentioned in the Gospel, when people caught that prostitute, for sure they could stone her. That was the law, but the law was not everything.
When I read the paper mentioned at the very beginning, I deeply felt guilty for our privileges we got in this world from God. I was deeply impressed by the story told through the Gospel from Jesus.
Another story, I remember one year after Virginia shooting at VT, people built a monument to memorize the dead. Among the names appeared on the wall, the killer's name was also listed. And people actually even put flowers there. At the moment, I was thinking, if he could see this scene from somewhere, he might want to redo his video again to confess his sin.
Indeed the killer should be punished and condemned, but us, as normal people, should the tragedy trigger some thinking inside of ourselves. Sure all the victims in the shooting were innocent, but at least they have been happy during their (short) lifetime in this world. But look at this poor little Korean boy, I doubt he ever had one day of happiness during his childhood. Whose fault was it after all?
Love means caring for others. Love means understanding and forgiving. Love makes us rethink about what to do when we think God blessed us (for what). Love gives the power to forgive when the law says punishing.
God sowed a tiny seed inside our mind. But we never cared about it, and we never noticed it. It’s like a mustard seed hide deep inside the soil.
Jesus’ teaching is like shower and sunshine, with the Gospel teaching the seed start to grow. Finally it blossom into a beautiful flower.
The flower is so beautiful that I said to myself: it does not belong to me, but my whole body, everything from me, have to belong to her.
It is indeed beautiful experience, but which part of this process should be called Holly Spirit. I really cannot tell.
Who cares!
(Archive) The Evolution Of the World Religions and Christianity
Vision 1:
At the beginning, the world was full of mystery and unknowns, like the water body of a great lake;
God the creator was its bank. Our ancestors were swimmers in the lake, in their eyes, everything was darkness and unknown. They don't have enough knowledge and intelligent to look throw the unknowns and see God, or even understand the water. They were so scared like a swimmer in a big lake.
They were created with a mind and spirit to feel loneliness, horror and their own desire for love. In front of the great nature filled with water of unknowns, everything was more powerful than them selves. Without faith, they would see no hope, only loneliness, horror and suffering.
Vision 2:
God wanted to show mercy and give guidence to people. Through some hints he gave, he helped people build some faith to support themselves. This way people felt stronger when facing greater, stronger enemies around them, even death.
This was like woods casted into the water surface of the lake. So that people can cling to them when they felt tired and weak.
Vision 3:
As people grew in their intelligence, they collect those floating woods to build bigger boats. (God helped them.) People were better organized through religions, this was the coming of various religions.
Religions were good, as they help people to be more organized. When swimmers see those boats they feel safer there. And they preferred to stay there and didn't want to go back to swim in the water (of unknowns) again.
But religions also created some problems: on different boats lived different people. They all took their own boat as homes, it's their "bank" of dry land comparing to the dangerous lake. Although they didn't see the real bank to the great lake yet, and they prefer not realize there home was just a boat.
So when there two boats came together, people on them would fight with each other. "My boat is the real bank of dry land to support the water, yours is just a floating wood, it will sink soon!"
But they didn't know, underneath all of them were both just boats.
But still the arguments between them were great. This even caused violence, great violence. The violence was even worse than when all of their ancestors were swimming in the endless lake water.
So sometimes God thought, "it might have been better if these boats did not exist at all."
Vision 4:
So God sent Jesus to the world with Christianity.
Christianity was not a boat, it was not sent to to world as a religion at first place. It was a methodology for people from different background and nations and religions to deal with each other and live together. As then center piece of Christianity was to love your enemy. It was sent to world to full fill the law will love, to chain different religions with the chain of solid faith. It was the religion of religions.
It's like a pre-build framework in order for every boat to have a docking station. And they could happily deal with each other without the damaging great violence.
This came from the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ and love of God.
Vision 5:
But people did not see it. Either from inside and outside of Christianity.
Outside of Christianity, they still shouted: "Ours is the real bank, Christianity is just another boat, it will sink sooner or later also."
Inside of Christianity, they gradually lost the origin meaning of Christianity within the first couple hundred years. they destroyed the pre-build deck for other boats to harbor. Took those outsiders violently. Christianity really became another religion, a boat floating on the water surface of the great lake. The lake of unknowns without the access to God and his love.
Another boat, another religion. As blindness as other to the solid truth.
Vision 6:
As human being growing their knowledge and intelligence, there grew out the the modern science and technology.
This is like swimmers in the water gained advanced equipments and telescopes to explore water and everywhere. This is what those swimmers found: all the banks people claims to be in-sinkable are just boats floating on the surface of the water. As a matter of fact, there are no bank of solid land to support the water at all, "Otherwise, why we could not see it even after we explore through all the water thoroughly and systematically?"
It is the water supporting the "banks", rather than some solid land supporting the water. Everything is just floating boat, only the water is in-sinkable.
These convinced a lot of people originally taking their boats as land and in-sinkable home. They blame the boats are the reason of various violence. And jump into water to become swimmers, science believers.
As people could understand the water now, it's not unknown and mysterious to them any more. "Being free from religion is great!" they think!
But people staying with their boat still stays there. Their feelings keep telling them, "there must be some dry land as our home, and this is it."
For the people prefer to swim in the water, where they feel safer rather than the boat. The water is their real boat.
I would say, modern science is just another religion. It has its own limits, just people inside of it cannot see them. They thought modern science could explain everything.
But indeed, it is just another boat. But why it does not sink and seems like in-sinkable. Because God made it so.
Vision 7:
Although the situations in the modern world seem to be in chaos. Everything indeed is just a fallacy, one way or the other. Every religion is a fallacy, if you take it a religion. Modern science is another fallacy, just God made it so that it does not look like a fallacy but a system of solid truth (Maybe it is indeed solid truth if looked from that way.).
But this is made by God in purpose, so that the people can explore the real meaning of love, the real meaning of Christianity.
Through these Chaos, people in the world will more clearly see through the truth behind every religions and modern science. Understand the real meaning and purpose of the creation of the world and all the religions and Christianity from God.
The real Christianity will be restored, the flower of love will blossom. People from everywhere will stand together and love each other, regardless of their difference in religious background and nationality.
Through which we will rebuild the frame work of docking stations, every boat of religion will find it's safe home and peacefully live with its neighbors. That's the real meaning of Christianity. True Christianity is not a religion any way.
Eventually, there will come this giant boat through chaining all the religions, nations, people with various background together through the spirit of love, the spirit of Christianity.
Yes, the whole world is all water without a dry land, but throughout Christianity, we will build our own land ourselves.
That's the Kingdom of God and return of Jesus Christ. That's the bank, the bank of love, the eternal home of human beings from the grace of our creator, our loving God.
-------------------------------
If you ask me why I have said that modern science is also a fallacy. Please rethink about it after read the following statement.
Every single discipline in the modern science all depends on one single assumption to build their whole system of laws, theories and methodologies. This assumption is:
If we observe some phenomena in the lab and prove it to be consistently reproducible, then given the same condition, the same phenomena will ever and has been always happen(ed) repeatedly any time in the past and future.
If this assumption does not hold, no law in any scientific field would be able to stand any more.
By taking a counter example: it has been widely agreed among all the scientist in the world, (it has been almost taken as a solid truth), that at the very beginning the universe, during the first fraction of second, 2/3 of the mass of the Universe were generated from nothing. This tells us that the most principle physical law in the world today does not hold at that moment. (the total amount of energy and mass does not increase or decrease, but only transform from one form to another.)
What does this fact tell us: the very critical assumption I previously mentioned that all the modern science build upon are false. Thus we might be able to say that all the modern sciences are fallacies.
But actually they are not fallacy because of one reason. Because these scientific laws are all created by God. All these laws stand because God made them so. God made them this way so that we could learn from it and depend on it for our living. Just as we give our children toys to play with so that they could gain their skills.
These scientific laws will not be fallacies as long as God let them hold and we human beings still need them. But they will turn into fallacies if we deny God because of the existence of these scientific laws.
Someday, those scientific laws might stop working. But even then, we don't need worry about that if we have faith on God. Because God loves us, he must stop these laws because he found us a better eternity.
When Jesus said that he came to the world not to break the law but to full fill the laws. The term "law" must have some more generic meaning than the ten commentments from Moses.
If he also refering to those scientific laws, then: Chrisitianity is not for breaking those laws in the scientific field, instead, Christianity is here to fulfill these scientific laws. Fulfill them with love and faith upon God, which by the nature of natural science, does not come within the scietific laws, theories and methodologies themselves.
At the beginning, the world was full of mystery and unknowns, like the water body of a great lake;
God the creator was its bank. Our ancestors were swimmers in the lake, in their eyes, everything was darkness and unknown. They don't have enough knowledge and intelligent to look throw the unknowns and see God, or even understand the water. They were so scared like a swimmer in a big lake.
They were created with a mind and spirit to feel loneliness, horror and their own desire for love. In front of the great nature filled with water of unknowns, everything was more powerful than them selves. Without faith, they would see no hope, only loneliness, horror and suffering.
Vision 2:
God wanted to show mercy and give guidence to people. Through some hints he gave, he helped people build some faith to support themselves. This way people felt stronger when facing greater, stronger enemies around them, even death.
This was like woods casted into the water surface of the lake. So that people can cling to them when they felt tired and weak.
Vision 3:
As people grew in their intelligence, they collect those floating woods to build bigger boats. (God helped them.) People were better organized through religions, this was the coming of various religions.
Religions were good, as they help people to be more organized. When swimmers see those boats they feel safer there. And they preferred to stay there and didn't want to go back to swim in the water (of unknowns) again.
But religions also created some problems: on different boats lived different people. They all took their own boat as homes, it's their "bank" of dry land comparing to the dangerous lake. Although they didn't see the real bank to the great lake yet, and they prefer not realize there home was just a boat.
So when there two boats came together, people on them would fight with each other. "My boat is the real bank of dry land to support the water, yours is just a floating wood, it will sink soon!"
But they didn't know, underneath all of them were both just boats.
But still the arguments between them were great. This even caused violence, great violence. The violence was even worse than when all of their ancestors were swimming in the endless lake water.
So sometimes God thought, "it might have been better if these boats did not exist at all."
Vision 4:
So God sent Jesus to the world with Christianity.
Christianity was not a boat, it was not sent to to world as a religion at first place. It was a methodology for people from different background and nations and religions to deal with each other and live together. As then center piece of Christianity was to love your enemy. It was sent to world to full fill the law will love, to chain different religions with the chain of solid faith. It was the religion of religions.
It's like a pre-build framework in order for every boat to have a docking station. And they could happily deal with each other without the damaging great violence.
This came from the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ and love of God.
Vision 5:
But people did not see it. Either from inside and outside of Christianity.
Outside of Christianity, they still shouted: "Ours is the real bank, Christianity is just another boat, it will sink sooner or later also."
Inside of Christianity, they gradually lost the origin meaning of Christianity within the first couple hundred years. they destroyed the pre-build deck for other boats to harbor. Took those outsiders violently. Christianity really became another religion, a boat floating on the water surface of the great lake. The lake of unknowns without the access to God and his love.
Another boat, another religion. As blindness as other to the solid truth.
Vision 6:
As human being growing their knowledge and intelligence, there grew out the the modern science and technology.
This is like swimmers in the water gained advanced equipments and telescopes to explore water and everywhere. This is what those swimmers found: all the banks people claims to be in-sinkable are just boats floating on the surface of the water. As a matter of fact, there are no bank of solid land to support the water at all, "Otherwise, why we could not see it even after we explore through all the water thoroughly and systematically?"
It is the water supporting the "banks", rather than some solid land supporting the water. Everything is just floating boat, only the water is in-sinkable.
These convinced a lot of people originally taking their boats as land and in-sinkable home. They blame the boats are the reason of various violence. And jump into water to become swimmers, science believers.
As people could understand the water now, it's not unknown and mysterious to them any more. "Being free from religion is great!" they think!
But people staying with their boat still stays there. Their feelings keep telling them, "there must be some dry land as our home, and this is it."
For the people prefer to swim in the water, where they feel safer rather than the boat. The water is their real boat.
I would say, modern science is just another religion. It has its own limits, just people inside of it cannot see them. They thought modern science could explain everything.
But indeed, it is just another boat. But why it does not sink and seems like in-sinkable. Because God made it so.
Vision 7:
Although the situations in the modern world seem to be in chaos. Everything indeed is just a fallacy, one way or the other. Every religion is a fallacy, if you take it a religion. Modern science is another fallacy, just God made it so that it does not look like a fallacy but a system of solid truth (Maybe it is indeed solid truth if looked from that way.).
But this is made by God in purpose, so that the people can explore the real meaning of love, the real meaning of Christianity.
Through these Chaos, people in the world will more clearly see through the truth behind every religions and modern science. Understand the real meaning and purpose of the creation of the world and all the religions and Christianity from God.
The real Christianity will be restored, the flower of love will blossom. People from everywhere will stand together and love each other, regardless of their difference in religious background and nationality.
Through which we will rebuild the frame work of docking stations, every boat of religion will find it's safe home and peacefully live with its neighbors. That's the real meaning of Christianity. True Christianity is not a religion any way.
Eventually, there will come this giant boat through chaining all the religions, nations, people with various background together through the spirit of love, the spirit of Christianity.
Yes, the whole world is all water without a dry land, but throughout Christianity, we will build our own land ourselves.
That's the Kingdom of God and return of Jesus Christ. That's the bank, the bank of love, the eternal home of human beings from the grace of our creator, our loving God.
-------------------------------
If you ask me why I have said that modern science is also a fallacy. Please rethink about it after read the following statement.
Every single discipline in the modern science all depends on one single assumption to build their whole system of laws, theories and methodologies. This assumption is:
If we observe some phenomena in the lab and prove it to be consistently reproducible, then given the same condition, the same phenomena will ever and has been always happen(ed) repeatedly any time in the past and future.
If this assumption does not hold, no law in any scientific field would be able to stand any more.
By taking a counter example: it has been widely agreed among all the scientist in the world, (it has been almost taken as a solid truth), that at the very beginning the universe, during the first fraction of second, 2/3 of the mass of the Universe were generated from nothing. This tells us that the most principle physical law in the world today does not hold at that moment. (the total amount of energy and mass does not increase or decrease, but only transform from one form to another.)
What does this fact tell us: the very critical assumption I previously mentioned that all the modern science build upon are false. Thus we might be able to say that all the modern sciences are fallacies.
But actually they are not fallacy because of one reason. Because these scientific laws are all created by God. All these laws stand because God made them so. God made them this way so that we could learn from it and depend on it for our living. Just as we give our children toys to play with so that they could gain their skills.
These scientific laws will not be fallacies as long as God let them hold and we human beings still need them. But they will turn into fallacies if we deny God because of the existence of these scientific laws.
Someday, those scientific laws might stop working. But even then, we don't need worry about that if we have faith on God. Because God loves us, he must stop these laws because he found us a better eternity.
When Jesus said that he came to the world not to break the law but to full fill the laws. The term "law" must have some more generic meaning than the ten commentments from Moses.
If he also refering to those scientific laws, then: Chrisitianity is not for breaking those laws in the scientific field, instead, Christianity is here to fulfill these scientific laws. Fulfill them with love and faith upon God, which by the nature of natural science, does not come within the scietific laws, theories and methodologies themselves.
Infinite Power
There are infinite number of points on a piece of paper, but that does not mean that piece of paper could cover the whole world, or even the points from another piece of paper.
God has infinite power, that doesn't mean God has the knowledge to know everything or capability to do anything he want to do.
If he has the power to have the full control of the time axis (like some legend story in some animation films), he did not have to be "grieved that he had made man on the earth", and "filled his heart with pain." So much that he had to wipe out mankind with the flood. (Genesis 6:5-7). He could just simply travel back through the time tunnel to the beginning and fix the flaws and come back and enjoy.
It is very likely that he does not remember the beginning moment of his own life, unless somebody told him. Or he might have got some clue on how he came to life by guessing, but he could never be 100% sure how that happened.
Most likely, he is not really sure he would one day, like everyone else of us, pass away. The only thing he knew is that everything got created and go to destruction in some way some day. Although he think he has the eternal life, but how can he be 100% sure about it. Who can give him a proof? Himself? How?
Although, God has infinite power, but that does not his power can cover everything he intended to do. Is it possible for him to give us happiness without the suffering, I guess the only answer is, he want to do that, but he could not.
God has infinite power, but there is something that even God does not have the power to do, or he need to figure out the way to do it. Through learning, learning from himself, or the human beings, his creation.
-----------------------------------
So it is the sciene, when at the earlier stage, we saw science grow and explore new knowledge in a rapid stage, withing couple handreds of years, it almost covered all the areas of unknowns we human beings could possibly imagine.
At that moment, everybody believes that science has infinite power, and soon, it would be powerful enough to answer us every question we want to ask.
But it turned out, science has its own limits, and as the boundary expands, we only found out to be faced with more unknowns.
As everything about science is about observation, experiment, evidence and proof, it sets its own limitation.
As the principle law of physics, it must cost some energy in order to observe any phenomena. Natural science cannot really look much deeper beyond nuclear level. As the energy on that level could not split any more, impossible for scientist to observe. The only way to explore them is guessing, congestion and imagination. But how far you can go in that way, how can you convince me your theory is right.
On the other end, natural science limits its power by the speed of light. Regardless the advancement of science and technology, we can only be able to reach a very tiny part of the Universe (roughly 1000 light year v.s. 168 billion years) . Anything else that beyond that limit is just through derivation and congestion.
So if you tell me the Universe is 10 billion years old, how can you convince me. If you tell me the Universe will one day collapse, and right now it is in its middle age of life span, why do I believe you?
Maybe it has already started to collapse at some point but you never have a change to observe it. But the boundary of the collapse can only travel at the light speed, and the big bang is still expanding the boundary of Universe at the same speed, then it would never catch up. So who cares?
So in some sense, science has its limited power. And it can be taken just as another religion; it also needs our faith to believe. At the frontier of science, everything also accounts to rational imagination and congestion; at least, not everything is solid. If it’s just plain fact that everyone could observe and prove, why we need science?
God has infinite power, that doesn't mean God has the knowledge to know everything or capability to do anything he want to do.
If he has the power to have the full control of the time axis (like some legend story in some animation films), he did not have to be "grieved that he had made man on the earth", and "filled his heart with pain." So much that he had to wipe out mankind with the flood. (Genesis 6:5-7). He could just simply travel back through the time tunnel to the beginning and fix the flaws and come back and enjoy.
It is very likely that he does not remember the beginning moment of his own life, unless somebody told him. Or he might have got some clue on how he came to life by guessing, but he could never be 100% sure how that happened.
Most likely, he is not really sure he would one day, like everyone else of us, pass away. The only thing he knew is that everything got created and go to destruction in some way some day. Although he think he has the eternal life, but how can he be 100% sure about it. Who can give him a proof? Himself? How?
Although, God has infinite power, but that does not his power can cover everything he intended to do. Is it possible for him to give us happiness without the suffering, I guess the only answer is, he want to do that, but he could not.
God has infinite power, but there is something that even God does not have the power to do, or he need to figure out the way to do it. Through learning, learning from himself, or the human beings, his creation.
-----------------------------------
So it is the sciene, when at the earlier stage, we saw science grow and explore new knowledge in a rapid stage, withing couple handreds of years, it almost covered all the areas of unknowns we human beings could possibly imagine.
At that moment, everybody believes that science has infinite power, and soon, it would be powerful enough to answer us every question we want to ask.
But it turned out, science has its own limits, and as the boundary expands, we only found out to be faced with more unknowns.
As everything about science is about observation, experiment, evidence and proof, it sets its own limitation.
As the principle law of physics, it must cost some energy in order to observe any phenomena. Natural science cannot really look much deeper beyond nuclear level. As the energy on that level could not split any more, impossible for scientist to observe. The only way to explore them is guessing, congestion and imagination. But how far you can go in that way, how can you convince me your theory is right.
On the other end, natural science limits its power by the speed of light. Regardless the advancement of science and technology, we can only be able to reach a very tiny part of the Universe (roughly 1000 light year v.s. 168 billion years) . Anything else that beyond that limit is just through derivation and congestion.
So if you tell me the Universe is 10 billion years old, how can you convince me. If you tell me the Universe will one day collapse, and right now it is in its middle age of life span, why do I believe you?
Maybe it has already started to collapse at some point but you never have a change to observe it. But the boundary of the collapse can only travel at the light speed, and the big bang is still expanding the boundary of Universe at the same speed, then it would never catch up. So who cares?
So in some sense, science has its limited power. And it can be taken just as another religion; it also needs our faith to believe. At the frontier of science, everything also accounts to rational imagination and congestion; at least, not everything is solid. If it’s just plain fact that everyone could observe and prove, why we need science?
Flying dove
Set you mind as if setting a dove to fly in a storm, there is strong wind pushing from both the left wing and right wing;
The wind from left wing is always telling: "See, God does not exist! ", "or God does not love you at all",
The wind from right wing always tells you: "Close your eyes, pretend you did not see anything, just simply obey." "because, that the way God wanted you to be."
It's easy if you stop flapping your wings, and simply follow the wind either from left, or right.
But there is the middle way, we need keep flying and balance between the wind from left and right. That's the art of flying. And that's what makes our life more interesting and challenging.
Otherwise, why God give you two wings, instead of made you just out of a balloon.
The wind from left wing is always telling: "See, God does not exist! ", "or God does not love you at all",
The wind from right wing always tells you: "Close your eyes, pretend you did not see anything, just simply obey." "because, that the way God wanted you to be."
It's easy if you stop flapping your wings, and simply follow the wind either from left, or right.
But there is the middle way, we need keep flying and balance between the wind from left and right. That's the art of flying. And that's what makes our life more interesting and challenging.
Otherwise, why God give you two wings, instead of made you just out of a balloon.
Plan B
When humble goes to extreme, one will be able to appear extreme proud.
When pride goes to extreme, one could also behave extremely humble.
All it takes is love.
That's why Jesus was willing to take the shoes off the servants, kneel down and wash out their feet.
But at the same time, he was also the same one, who shrug off whatever fall on him from the top religious authority or even the king. And claim himself to be the king of the heaven and earth.
All it took was love. As his love doesn't have boundary.
When love goes extreme, it can hold anything.
Love made him powerful, to be able to hold hatred, torture, crucification with peaceful smile. Love made him able to take all these suffering with great joy.
So there was a plan B!
When God made the plan for the great future of love and freedom for our human beings, even himself was not 100% confident of himself.
That did not mean he did not have enough faith. The two thousand years of hard work and patience is the best proof of his faith.
But still, even him, was not 100% confident on whatever he was trying to do was achievable.
So there was plan B!
What if after every efforts from God, but it only turned out that there would no formula to combine freedom, peace and hapiness together,
If the cost of freedom only means endless suffering, violence and agony of our human race, ...
Then God would send Jesus:
"And Jesus would say, let me be, the king of the heaven and earth, and give me all the power to rein.
"And give us eternal life, let love freeze and make memory last.
"If that's the only formula for the Love of God to be enjoyed.
But what kind of glory it is. When one sees all the ones he loved, must be kept with a turtle shell.
As the only way keep them away from violence is to give them each a turtle shell.
But if there are no other choice, that would the cost of love.
Then Jesus be sent:
Let me be the turtle shell to human beings.
The most glorious, but indeed would be deep suffering of love. Said Jesus, let me be!
Luckily, we didn't go to plan B.
As the Jesus's blood have been paid back, and the holly spirit has flourished. The kingdom of God is comming,
Not in the form of plan B, but as the best expectation of God, we accomplished successfully with plan A.
Authough it was with the great cost of suffering and sacrifice of Jesus, and many many.
Although it took God doubled patience of waiting, tripled effort of hard working, to the best expectation of God, his kingdom is coming.
Like the little mermaid in the great tale,
Would Jesus, watching his beloved ones live happily ever after, ...
vanish and become a buble of sea in the sunshine of early morning?
But what a sea is that? billions of people he has ever loved, and given life to! live happily ever after.
What a bubble is that? love and enjoy the beautiful word with every one together!
Breathing the fresh air of every morning, singing in the sunshine without worry and suffering,
What kind of joy can be comparable to this?
That is really the greatest reward he could ever hope, from his love and the love of God.
Even if nobody could know who he is, and where he goes.
That is my understanding of the great confliction in the double sided personality of Jesus Christ. Both are from great love. It is the greatest of all, no matter it ends up with plan A or plan B.
The other confiliction comes from the difference between the reality and the bible description, one appreciate democracy, but the other is pointing to exactly the opposite direction on that sense. That was actually the division between Plan A and Plan B, both of which actually come from God.
When pride goes to extreme, one could also behave extremely humble.
All it takes is love.
That's why Jesus was willing to take the shoes off the servants, kneel down and wash out their feet.
But at the same time, he was also the same one, who shrug off whatever fall on him from the top religious authority or even the king. And claim himself to be the king of the heaven and earth.
All it took was love. As his love doesn't have boundary.
When love goes extreme, it can hold anything.
Love made him powerful, to be able to hold hatred, torture, crucification with peaceful smile. Love made him able to take all these suffering with great joy.
So there was a plan B!
When God made the plan for the great future of love and freedom for our human beings, even himself was not 100% confident of himself.
That did not mean he did not have enough faith. The two thousand years of hard work and patience is the best proof of his faith.
But still, even him, was not 100% confident on whatever he was trying to do was achievable.
So there was plan B!
What if after every efforts from God, but it only turned out that there would no formula to combine freedom, peace and hapiness together,
If the cost of freedom only means endless suffering, violence and agony of our human race, ...
Then God would send Jesus:
"And Jesus would say, let me be, the king of the heaven and earth, and give me all the power to rein.
"And give us eternal life, let love freeze and make memory last.
"If that's the only formula for the Love of God to be enjoyed.
But what kind of glory it is. When one sees all the ones he loved, must be kept with a turtle shell.
As the only way keep them away from violence is to give them each a turtle shell.
But if there are no other choice, that would the cost of love.
Then Jesus be sent:
Let me be the turtle shell to human beings.
The most glorious, but indeed would be deep suffering of love. Said Jesus, let me be!
Luckily, we didn't go to plan B.
As the Jesus's blood have been paid back, and the holly spirit has flourished. The kingdom of God is comming,
Not in the form of plan B, but as the best expectation of God, we accomplished successfully with plan A.
Authough it was with the great cost of suffering and sacrifice of Jesus, and many many.
Although it took God doubled patience of waiting, tripled effort of hard working, to the best expectation of God, his kingdom is coming.
Like the little mermaid in the great tale,
Would Jesus, watching his beloved ones live happily ever after, ...
vanish and become a buble of sea in the sunshine of early morning?
But what a sea is that? billions of people he has ever loved, and given life to! live happily ever after.
What a bubble is that? love and enjoy the beautiful word with every one together!
Breathing the fresh air of every morning, singing in the sunshine without worry and suffering,
What kind of joy can be comparable to this?
That is really the greatest reward he could ever hope, from his love and the love of God.
Even if nobody could know who he is, and where he goes.
That is my understanding of the great confliction in the double sided personality of Jesus Christ. Both are from great love. It is the greatest of all, no matter it ends up with plan A or plan B.
The other confiliction comes from the difference between the reality and the bible description, one appreciate democracy, but the other is pointing to exactly the opposite direction on that sense. That was actually the division between Plan A and Plan B, both of which actually come from God.
Right to forgive sins.
At today's service, when we ware in Lord's prayer, I got some inspiration from it.
Mark (2:3-7)
Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
Is our lord the only one have the authority to forgive sins. Everyone have sinned, and we sinned to each other.
We should ask everyone that we sinned against to forgive us. And we should also remember to forgive every one.
If everyone we sinned have forgiven us, we are sure would be forgiven by God. So everyone have the authority to forgive sins. Just do it if you can, if you cannot, make some effort to do it.
So don't just ask forgiveness from God, break the cycle from ourselves.
When Jesus said your sins have been forgiven, he was not speaking only to the person who was listening. He was speaking to all his believers.
Mark (2:3-7)
Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
Is our lord the only one have the authority to forgive sins. Everyone have sinned, and we sinned to each other.
We should ask everyone that we sinned against to forgive us. And we should also remember to forgive every one.
If everyone we sinned have forgiven us, we are sure would be forgiven by God. So everyone have the authority to forgive sins. Just do it if you can, if you cannot, make some effort to do it.
So don't just ask forgiveness from God, break the cycle from ourselves.
When Jesus said your sins have been forgiven, he was not speaking only to the person who was listening. He was speaking to all his believers.
What's in the left hand of God (a second thought)
Jesus is sitting in the right hand of God!
Left, or right hand, or to be hold between two hands, why such non important subtle detail so important, worth to be repeated by billions of people again and again?
What is in the left hand of God then?
Actually, the other side of God does not necessary to be left, it could be simply, wrong!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* If it's necessary, don't you think God has the power and patient to design the meaning of every word from English or any other language? If it's a coincident, don't you think God could make that coincident happen, if it is about a very important hint? That's about it!
Left, or right hand, or to be hold between two hands, why such non important subtle detail so important, worth to be repeated by billions of people again and again?
What is in the left hand of God then?
Actually, the other side of God does not necessary to be left, it could be simply, wrong!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* If it's necessary, don't you think God has the power and patient to design the meaning of every word from English or any other language? If it's a coincident, don't you think God could make that coincident happen, if it is about a very important hint? That's about it!
What's in the left hand of God
A while ago, I noticed a book in the library titled "the left hand of God". Inside of the book listed various facts about tragedies and violence caused by religious conflicts, which include quite some from christian churches in the history.
I did not want to read the book, not because I don't agree with the author. By reading the title and glimpse through couple of pictures I already agreed a lot on the view point of him. The facts listed in the book were not deniable, any way.
But there are more truth than straight forward simple fact list. I don't like the conclusion he draw from those facts. We should not deny God, or faith on his love because of those fact.
Then how should we look at these? In stead of trying to explain my opinion by throwing a lot of words here. I'd like to simply give my conclusion, give you the chance to make the judgment and the rest of the thinking.
What is behind the left hand of God?
God has two hands, left hand to split the people and make them different. The right hand works to mix them together so that they like each other. (Not make them looks alike, but to love and appreciate each other.)
Looks like the left hand and right hand are fighting each other, but they serve one purpose together: teaching us that the difference between us on color race, religious belief are not the reason to fight each other but to appreciate each other.
What hint was God trying to give us when he made the partner Eve to be a female instead of making them identical twin.
If God make us all identical and give us eternal life and let them into the kingdom of heaven. What kind of life will they live? To die, to stop thinking? How if their mind get divided again?
There is only one solution, we should accept or even appreciate our difference between each other. That's why God made his creation in great variation and this is the reason our life becomes so colorful.
Thanks to God!
I did not want to read the book, not because I don't agree with the author. By reading the title and glimpse through couple of pictures I already agreed a lot on the view point of him. The facts listed in the book were not deniable, any way.
But there are more truth than straight forward simple fact list. I don't like the conclusion he draw from those facts. We should not deny God, or faith on his love because of those fact.
Then how should we look at these? In stead of trying to explain my opinion by throwing a lot of words here. I'd like to simply give my conclusion, give you the chance to make the judgment and the rest of the thinking.
What is behind the left hand of God?
God has two hands, left hand to split the people and make them different. The right hand works to mix them together so that they like each other. (Not make them looks alike, but to love and appreciate each other.)
Looks like the left hand and right hand are fighting each other, but they serve one purpose together: teaching us that the difference between us on color race, religious belief are not the reason to fight each other but to appreciate each other.
What hint was God trying to give us when he made the partner Eve to be a female instead of making them identical twin.
If God make us all identical and give us eternal life and let them into the kingdom of heaven. What kind of life will they live? To die, to stop thinking? How if their mind get divided again?
There is only one solution, we should accept or even appreciate our difference between each other. That's why God made his creation in great variation and this is the reason our life becomes so colorful.
Thanks to God!
The Flower and The Fence
The flower and the fence
Why Israelites are so lucky to be selected by God, and their religion was chosen to be the foundation of the Christianity.
Jesus might have clearly told the reason through his teaching: "It is the sick that need a doctor."
I guess in that sense Israelites aren't special as all are sinners but one. But Israelites are selected special in that they have been kept the complete record of their sins with honest. Washing off their sins are more difficult. God wanted to show his mercy and fogiveness to everyone, even the most sinful ones.
Take the follwing parable:
In the late winter, when the wind is still freezing cold, but the spring has been already on her way. The smart gardener would sow the seed of most beautiful flower under the fence of his front yard.
Although the fence is cold and lifeless, it collects sunshine and helps the seed fight and survive the cold weather and late frost during the ealy spring.
Gradually, the seed germinate and start to grow. Inch by inch it grows. At the beginning, it still need the support of the fence as it is not strong enough. Finally, its beauty overshadow the fence and becomes greatest plant that dominate the fence which used to dominate.
Similarly, it might happen to many believers of our Christian church. Many of us began our journey of Christianity with a motivation not so of christian, sometimes even from selfishness. But the seed of holly spirit was sowed by Jesus under the fence of exactly that selfishness. As time goes, the sunshine and water comes to us as Jesus' Gospel teaching. Finally, the flower of holly spirit with solid faith and great love would finally dominate our minds.
(Nowadays, some churches need people to pass some kind of test or something alike to be baptized. Go and read the gospel again and compare, who give you the right to set that bar?!!!)
During this process, some time we need to remove our fence of selfishness or even evil thinking from our mind if it's harmful to the flower. More often we can just leave it there and let the holly spirit grow over it, but since our holly spirit are taking the control it won't do any harm. The selfishness could not cause damage but would only make our life more colorful.
From a friend of another church in Toronto (Gospel hall in Eglinton), I heard a very good story. Don was an elder member of a church, one day they ran across a lady and her daughter in front of their church. After a brief discussion, he invited them to visit their church. And the lady responded in a surprising way: "I will goto your church only if you could offer me a job."
But they were not surprised, they happened to have some part time work to do in the church, so they actually offered her a job. And the lady and her daughter were latter baptized one year after. (Actually the request might be quite understandable after you knew how tough the life sometimes)
Reminding me about a quote from buddhism, "if you see a buddha, kill him!". Actually this might be something worth deeper thinking. Here the word "kill" might not mean physically killing the buddha, but to fight with him. Actually fighting with the buddha is better than leave the buddha alone. As leaving the buddha alone won't do anything good for you. But trying to kill him (fight with him) will teach yourself some buddhism. With the effort to fight with it as a start point, you will really start to understand the truth, and eventually be saved. To be honest, killing a buddha is quite a evil idea at the first place from any point of view.
Christian is exactly such a buddha, after we saw Christian, before we fully understand it, our instinct tell us to deny it at first place. But the effort to deny it might be the first step of our chrisitian life. As this selfdefense effort builds a fence for Jesus to sow the seed of Holly spirit in our mind.
Many many things just work like that. Some other good things could also come out in a similar way. Love might come from selfishness. Friendship might start with taking advantage of other people. Of course, I am not suggesting to do wrong things knowingly and purposely and expect good thing comes after.
Follow the real heart, don't pretend! If your heart tells to deny Christian, just do it and fight. That might be a good start point. But don't let your mind die and stop working. (Reminds me a quote for Jesus: anyone speak against Jesus Christ would be forgiven, but any one speak against Holly Spirit will not be forgiven.)
Selfishness is like a wild beast in our mind. But if we use love as harness, and let holly spirit to rein it, this wild beast won't cause any damage. Its power could do some work for us. As more often than not, selfishness could generate more driving power of motivation to do work, that just the nature of our mind. The trick is we need to rein it.
Selfishness is like a fence, cold and lifeless. But if sow the seed of holly spirit under it and let it grow in the sunshine of Gospel teaching. The flower of love will blosom and lead us into beautiful spring. If we always appreciate holly spirit, the fence not only won't damage the flower, but help it be more beautiful and strong.
God know this trick very well, that's why he designed the world this way, the world of richness, combined with love and selfishness.
Jewish teaching is the fence, and under the fence, God sowed the seed of Gospel underneath it. After two thousand years, bit by bit, up and down, chrisitianity grew out as a beautiful flower, it blosom beautifully and overshadowed the fence. They have transformed our world of violence into the peaceful spring, that's the kingdom of God.
Going back to the question from beginning, are the Israelites really selected as a only nation to be treated specially. Observe the fact that Taoism and Buddhism all came in at around 2500 years ago, they both were caring similar birth mark of love, compassion, forgiving and considerative of others. The answer might not be that simple.
But there are something special with Christianity, because the Israelites' special loyalty to their old (sinful) religion and loveless laws, it cost much more for God to sow the seed. The strugle of Christianity establishment was by far the most painful. The result is that the fruit from that branch is also the most beautiful and rich in content.
Why Israelites are so lucky to be selected by God, and their religion was chosen to be the foundation of the Christianity.
Jesus might have clearly told the reason through his teaching: "It is the sick that need a doctor."
I guess in that sense Israelites aren't special as all are sinners but one. But Israelites are selected special in that they have been kept the complete record of their sins with honest. Washing off their sins are more difficult. God wanted to show his mercy and fogiveness to everyone, even the most sinful ones.
Take the follwing parable:
In the late winter, when the wind is still freezing cold, but the spring has been already on her way. The smart gardener would sow the seed of most beautiful flower under the fence of his front yard.
Although the fence is cold and lifeless, it collects sunshine and helps the seed fight and survive the cold weather and late frost during the ealy spring.
Gradually, the seed germinate and start to grow. Inch by inch it grows. At the beginning, it still need the support of the fence as it is not strong enough. Finally, its beauty overshadow the fence and becomes greatest plant that dominate the fence which used to dominate.
Similarly, it might happen to many believers of our Christian church. Many of us began our journey of Christianity with a motivation not so of christian, sometimes even from selfishness. But the seed of holly spirit was sowed by Jesus under the fence of exactly that selfishness. As time goes, the sunshine and water comes to us as Jesus' Gospel teaching. Finally, the flower of holly spirit with solid faith and great love would finally dominate our minds.
(Nowadays, some churches need people to pass some kind of test or something alike to be baptized. Go and read the gospel again and compare, who give you the right to set that bar?!!!)
During this process, some time we need to remove our fence of selfishness or even evil thinking from our mind if it's harmful to the flower. More often we can just leave it there and let the holly spirit grow over it, but since our holly spirit are taking the control it won't do any harm. The selfishness could not cause damage but would only make our life more colorful.
From a friend of another church in Toronto (Gospel hall in Eglinton), I heard a very good story. Don was an elder member of a church, one day they ran across a lady and her daughter in front of their church. After a brief discussion, he invited them to visit their church. And the lady responded in a surprising way: "I will goto your church only if you could offer me a job."
But they were not surprised, they happened to have some part time work to do in the church, so they actually offered her a job. And the lady and her daughter were latter baptized one year after. (Actually the request might be quite understandable after you knew how tough the life sometimes)
Reminding me about a quote from buddhism, "if you see a buddha, kill him!". Actually this might be something worth deeper thinking. Here the word "kill" might not mean physically killing the buddha, but to fight with him. Actually fighting with the buddha is better than leave the buddha alone. As leaving the buddha alone won't do anything good for you. But trying to kill him (fight with him) will teach yourself some buddhism. With the effort to fight with it as a start point, you will really start to understand the truth, and eventually be saved. To be honest, killing a buddha is quite a evil idea at the first place from any point of view.
Christian is exactly such a buddha, after we saw Christian, before we fully understand it, our instinct tell us to deny it at first place. But the effort to deny it might be the first step of our chrisitian life. As this selfdefense effort builds a fence for Jesus to sow the seed of Holly spirit in our mind.
Many many things just work like that. Some other good things could also come out in a similar way. Love might come from selfishness. Friendship might start with taking advantage of other people. Of course, I am not suggesting to do wrong things knowingly and purposely and expect good thing comes after.
Follow the real heart, don't pretend! If your heart tells to deny Christian, just do it and fight. That might be a good start point. But don't let your mind die and stop working. (Reminds me a quote for Jesus: anyone speak against Jesus Christ would be forgiven, but any one speak against Holly Spirit will not be forgiven.)
If we take another stand point, selfishness might be the cause of sin or even evil, but if we have love as steering wheel and holy spirit as the driver. Sometimes they can be utilized as a powerful engine and do work for us. The key is we should always keep the holy spirit at the driver seat.
Selfishness is like a wild beast in our mind. But if we use love as harness, and let holly spirit to rein it, this wild beast won't cause any damage. Its power could do some work for us. As more often than not, selfishness could generate more driving power of motivation to do work, that just the nature of our mind. The trick is we need to rein it.
Selfishness is like a fence, cold and lifeless. But if sow the seed of holly spirit under it and let it grow in the sunshine of Gospel teaching. The flower of love will blosom and lead us into beautiful spring. If we always appreciate holly spirit, the fence not only won't damage the flower, but help it be more beautiful and strong.
God know this trick very well, that's why he designed the world this way, the world of richness, combined with love and selfishness.
Jewish teaching is the fence, and under the fence, God sowed the seed of Gospel underneath it. After two thousand years, bit by bit, up and down, chrisitianity grew out as a beautiful flower, it blosom beautifully and overshadowed the fence. They have transformed our world of violence into the peaceful spring, that's the kingdom of God.
Going back to the question from beginning, are the Israelites really selected as a only nation to be treated specially. Observe the fact that Taoism and Buddhism all came in at around 2500 years ago, they both were caring similar birth mark of love, compassion, forgiving and considerative of others. The answer might not be that simple.
But there are something special with Christianity, because the Israelites' special loyalty to their old (sinful) religion and loveless laws, it cost much more for God to sow the seed. The strugle of Christianity establishment was by far the most painful. The result is that the fruit from that branch is also the most beautiful and rich in content.
Preface
Dear friends:
I set up this blog to expose some of recent thinking about some principle question about the purpose of life.
The idea of the topic was inspired by the ever well known book of Charles Darwin: "On the Origin of Species". The motivation of this discussion is to inspire people's thinking and remind us that the evolution theory is not the only explanation about the world. There might be more behind the creation of our world. Whether it come from pure nature or God our creator, or the collaboration of both.
The major piece would be to composing a story to describe the process of formation of our world by following the thread of love. Which, I believe, is one important missing part from the evolution theory, or even the whole modern natural sciece system.
Through this we are not to fight against the modern science system, but to full fill it. Fulfill it with Love. Just as Jesus said: (Matthew 5:17-18)
"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled."
Jesus might actually also referring to the scientific laws.
Sincerely Sean
I set up this blog to expose some of recent thinking about some principle question about the purpose of life.
The idea of the topic was inspired by the ever well known book of Charles Darwin: "On the Origin of Species". The motivation of this discussion is to inspire people's thinking and remind us that the evolution theory is not the only explanation about the world. There might be more behind the creation of our world. Whether it come from pure nature or God our creator, or the collaboration of both.
The major piece would be to composing a story to describe the process of formation of our world by following the thread of love. Which, I believe, is one important missing part from the evolution theory, or even the whole modern natural sciece system.
Through this we are not to fight against the modern science system, but to full fill it. Fulfill it with Love. Just as Jesus said: (Matthew 5:17-18)
"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled."
Jesus might actually also referring to the scientific laws.
Sincerely Sean
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)