Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Grace

This morning I woke up earlier and found something that I thought should be shared here.

Young women and men must be aware of two dangerous "DRAGONS" - activism and materialism. Activism says, "You are what you have accomplished." Materialism says, "You are what you have acquired or accumulated." Both activism and materialism produce misery or destroy lives.

The Bible shows that our worth in God's eyes has nothing to do with how successful we are by this world's standards or how much we have accumulated. Our worth is found in the fact that God created us in His image and gave us the authority to rule over the earth as His representatives. (Gen. 1: 27-30, Ps 8)

Excerpt taken from: Finishing Well.

Then I also stumbled upon this which made me smile. Something that had nothing to do with what I was trying to find.

Do you think that religion is always good?


In some ways religion can be dangerous and damaging.


Instead of bringing us to God, it can keep us away from God.


Here's the link to the rest of the passage: Parable of the Talents.


And here's also some lines that I LOVE so much that I HAVE to write them down here. :-)))

Not ours to know the reason why
Unanswered is our prayer,
But ours to wait for God’s own time—
To lift the cross we bear. —Anon.

When we pray, God wraps us in His loving arms. - Bill Crowder.

6 comments:

  1. Nice one.

    I think religions were invented by humans trying very hard to worship and understand God. I think when they are used with love and sincereity they are very beautiful and wise. I also think that when other people use religion for power or to control others they become a terrible thing that must depress God a lot.

    I like the Bible, but I think people have written it. I know some of those people knew God well and have tried very hard to express what they think God is, and wants of us, but in the end I always trust my own heart, even when it disagrees with the Bible or any other point of view.

    That is because I believe the Holy Spirit is the strongest and most important gift God has given us - we can call it Spirit, or gut feeling, but in the end it is the same thing. It is, I believe, God quietly telling us what we should do.. from within our own selves.

    I think we could be close to God withoiut Bibles or any religious books, but I also think there is wisdom in them.

    A minister once told me he saw the Bible as a travel guide rather than a police law book. I like that. I think that God is capable of using anything He wants to teach us - a religious book, a song on the radio.. another person.

    So I trust the Holy Spirit first and take it from there. :-)

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  2. THX for the comment, Michelle. I still believe God inspired the people to write the Bible, so I still believe in the Bible but I'm trying my best to balance everything in my life so as not to become a fanatic.

    And yes, I agree that God can us anything to teach us. :-))))

    And yes, I also agree about the Holy Spirit being God's strongest gift to mankind. :-)))

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  3. Oh sorry Amel, I said that all wrong. I do believe in Divine inspiration, I do believe a lot of the Bible was Divinely inspired, I just don't believe every word in the Bible is written by God because it has been edited every time they change the language.

    I had a Bible teacher who spoke Greek and Hebrew point out errors. Don't worry, they're not important errors, but knowing there were errors kind of threw me.

    One I think is sad is that Jesus uses three words for "love" - Agape, Eros and another one I can't remember. They mean romantic love, Spiritual love and family/friend love.

    I think those should be in the Bible. I think that is a loss. Not big, but still a loss. I'd like to know which "love" Jesus was meaning of each time he spoke about it.

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  4. Ahhh...I get it now. Yeah, I understand that it's almost impossible to translate everything to another language precisely. I worked as a translator back in Indo and since English is a richer language, it's sometimes hard to translate the whole nuances to Indonesian.

    I think you meant Philia. :-)))) Well, gladly in Indo, our religion teachers taught us about Eros, Agape, and Philia. And we get to hear them also in sermons. :-)))) But yeah, I understand what you say that it can be counted as a loss.

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  5. Philia!!

    Thank you! :-D I've been looking everywhere for the third word.

    I must write it down this time.

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  6. UR VERY welcome, Michelle! :-)))

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