How great is our god

char(:

Thursday, May 29, 2008

its been amazing how God has been speaking to me so much recently, using my devotion guide and keann! haha.

was telling keann online that sometimes i feel that some people are missing out on alotalotalot. and we had a debate about it, but i went offline thinking that i was still right. until i opened up my Daily Bread and the title of the reading was A community of mercy.

"We have all been saved by God's mercy, so it's utterly foolish to think of ourselves as superior to any other Christian. If we have faith, it is given by God. Any gifts we have are just that - gifts of God's grace."

And the gifts given by the Spirit are found in 1 Cor 12: 7 - 11

"Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines."

my point is that it cannot be denied that not all Christians have the exact same beliefs. that's why we have so many denominations. but yet at the same time it also cannot be denied that we were all sinners saved by God's grace, so who is to say that just because i have certain gifts of the Spirit and you don't, i can proudly say that i am closer to God in any way?

also recently an issue that has come up is the issue of submission to authority. i know people who're against the Singaporean government, others have an issue against authority on a smaller scale, against teachers. it has always been my belief that we must submit to authority, respect our leaders, and all that. and i was convicted when han asked me if i was respecting a teacher. he annoys me to hell and back alot of the time, so i wasnt being nice to him either. i tried to defend myself, but after that i realised how hollow the words sounded. so i came home, and i made a resolution that i would respect that teacher. the last lesson we had, sad to say i still felt traces of resentment, but i tried my best to respect him (:

on the issue of grassroots opposition to the goverment, during devotion Romans 13:1 jumped out at me.

"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God."

immediately i thought to myself, aha! and highlighted it as evidence that we should not oppose the government. but then right after that, in the commentary on the passage:

"These are some of the most abused verses in the New Testament. They were used to combat Christian opposition to Nazi rule in Germany, and to justify apartheid."

oh, right.

it goes on to say that:

"All authority is God's, including that of governments. But this does not mean that God approves of the policies or methods of any government."

As Christians, we are to practice "revolutionary subordination" - the voluntary subordination of people who know that another kingdom is one that really matters, and who follow one who overcame the powers through the cross. Therefore we should rightly challenge any regime that relies on abuse of power.

i hardly think Singapore's government is one that can be considered a "regime that relies on abuse of power" though.

besides God speaking to me, i was very encouraged when two nights ago, youying asked me to pray for her cos she was afraid she got dengue. After the blood test, she was cleared of it though. yay (((:

and yesterday, the break was the most fulfilling it'd ever been. i faced unparalleled opposition akin to THE atheist in acsi, except that this time it was directed right at me, not at a class of believers. questions about the Anglican faith were shot at me, and sorry to say i dont know my own history.

weida said that the Anglican denomination was founded by some Henry guy because he was angry that the church did not want to grant him his divorce when he wanted to marry some young girl, i was like, who's Henry?

but Google turns up something different.

"There is a public perception, especially in the United States, that Henry VIII created the Anglican church in anger over the Pope's refusal to grant his divorce, but the historical record indicates that Henry spent most of his reign challenging the authority of Rome, and that the divorce issue was just one of a series of acts that collectively split the English church from the Roman church in much the same way that the Orthodox church had split off five hundred years before."

tada! not true.

yesterday was the day that i felt quite unequipped to deal with pre-believers. a shame because the Bible tells us to always have an answer for the hope that we have. i realised that im more comfortable dealing with people like my psixers, people who are already Christian but lack the knowledge about the Bible and God. and i have tried to train my psixers for some questions that their pre-believing friends might ask. but those questions are really indirect, questions that someone who is really shy but a lil curious about Christianity might ask.

but yesterday questions like "God parted the Red Sea for the Egyptians, but why dont things like that happen nowadays?"

my reply was, "God parted the sea for the ISRAELITES, and did you even ask for such a thing to happen? and even if you did, you dont believe that it will happen, so it wont".

these are the questions of an intelligent brain who knows what he's talking about: he searches for the evidence, tries to piece things together, then comes and fires a question at a believer, in order to create a loophole in our belief.

a Christian friend's response was to tell me not to bother, and not to answer his questions. I saw where she was coming from, because i told weida directly that his heart is closed and no matter what i say, he will not accept it. but then again, to the pre-believer whose questions are ignored, it serves to reinforce his belief that you have zero tolerance for people who challenge you, either because you take it as a personal attack, or worse, because you simply dont have an answer, which they take to mean that it's because your God is not real.

but i say that even if you dont have an answer, fear not, because if we are able to understand everything about God, who He is and why He does certain things, would our God be considered so great and so mighty? would He even be a God in the first place?

and weida goes, not in his exact words: so if God has determined that someone will be saved and someone wont, then it's not my fault that im like that!

thank God i remembered a passage that spoke about just that argument.

Romans 9: 18 - 23

"Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?"

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "

Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath - prepared for destruction?

What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory - " ...

so yes, God hardens the hearts of some, but that is for His greater glory. It is nothing we can argue about, because we are merely His creation, and cannot dictate what God can or cannot do.

aside from all those theological questions, there were the simple and innocent ones:

"Why do you believe in God?"
"Do you believe in spirits?"
"How can you be so sure you will go to heaven?"

the answer to all of that is simply faith. Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain for what we do not see. and in a gp presentation later on in the day, a point was brought up that religion should be considered undebatable, because the moment someone uses faith as the basis for their belief, everything is subjective and the argument is forcibly brought to a fullstop right there.

so yup, my answer is faith.

period. (:

trembling at His voice,11:46 AM
You are worthy of our praise