29 April, 2014

‪#‎sepenggal_cerita_untuk_hari_ini‬

‪#‎sepenggal_cerita_untuk_hari_ini‬

Pagi yang cerah di bawah langit kota Manado, roda kehidupan kembali berputar bersama kerasnya kehidupan ibu kota. Seorang kakek berumur lebih dari 70 tahun berbalut pakaian usang memikul beban melebihi berat badannya, jalannya sempoyongan, tidak berimbang. Tapi itulah harga dari sepiring nasi di Kota Manado.

Wanita itu umurnya hampir mencapai 80 tahun. Tapi mengapa ia duduk di taman itu? Taman yang biasanya dihuni oleh para penjajak seks? Saya menghampiri wanita itu, keliatan lesu dan malu. Akhirnya saya membuka percakapan dengan menanyakan alasan kenapa dia menjual dirinya? "saya lapar dan harus membayar kontrakan".
Jawabnya. Matanya berlinang, wajahnya yg keriput dengan nada yang serak, wanita itu berusaha untuk mengkisahkan kehidupannya yang kurang beruntung, kotor, dan terbuang.

Pada saat saya melihat bangunan gereja megah yang dibangun dengan uang miliyaran rupiah. Pikiran saya kembali ke saat dimana saya bertemu dan berbicara langsung dengan seorang pengemis tua yang sedang mengais sampah untuk mencari sepiring nasi dari hasil memulungnya.

Saya selalu bertanya dalam hati selama bertahun-tahun menjadi seorang kristen; "Mengapa kehidupan memperlakukan orang-orang seperti itu dengan tidak adil?"

Namun...
Sejenak disaat saya memalingkan pandangan saya. Saya melihat seorang laki-laki dengan setelan mahal menutupi hampir seluruh tubuhnya. Saya membayangkan uang ratusan juta rupiah berinkarnasi menjadi arloji dan sepasang pakaian rapi. 
Saya pun bertanya dalam hati; "mengapa kehidupan memperlakukan mereka dengan adil?"

Pikiran saya kembali ke saat dimana saya bertemu dan berbicara langsung dengan seorang wanita tua PSK yang rela menjual dirinya agar dapat bertahan hidup ditengah kerasnya kehidupan ibu kota. Dan itu pun hanya untuk mengisi perutnya yang keroncongan.

Melihat sisi lain kehidupan kota Manado yang mayoritasnya adalah orang beriman, sontak membuat hati ini perih. "seandainya Tuhan...." keluh hati ini.

Ahhhrrrggghh......
Mereka membutuhkan penyelamat, tidak hanya untuk jiwanya saja. Tapi untuk kehidupan mereka di dunia ini. 
Ketika mereka lapar. Saya (gereja) perlu memberi mereka makanan. Ketika mereka haus. Saya (gereja) perlu memberi mereka minum. Ketika mereka membutuhkan tempat. Saya (gereja) perlu menyediakan kebutuhan mereka.

Siapakah mereka itu?
Matius 25:40 
Dan Raja itu akan menjawab mereka: Aku berkata kepadamu, sesungguhnya segala sesuatu yang kamu lakukan untuk salah seorang dari saudara-Ku yang paling HINA ini, kamu telah melakukannya untuk Aku.

The End

The End of Competition

Trust defines the meaning of living by grace rather than works… It's over for all huffing, puffing piety to earn God's favor; it's finished for all sweat-soaked straining to secure self-worth; it's the end of all competitive scrambling to get ahead of others in the game.

 
brennan_manningBrennan Manning





The Fruitful Life


How can a poor tree bear good fruit? Only by grafting… We cannot tell how God has done his work in us, but it is done. We can do nothing and need do nothing to bring it about, for by the resurrection God has already done it. God has done everything. There is only one fruitful life in the world and that has been grafted into millions of other lives.

Watchman Nee





Freed from Sin's Power and Penalty

In Romans 6, Paul deals with the natural mind's tendency to misunderstand the grace of God. "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase?"… The natural mind thinks, "If grace covers my sin, why not continue so that grace can be magnified?" Its definition of grace would be that grace frees me from the penalty of sin, so I can go satisfy myself with no fear of punishment. This is obviously tempting to those of us who experience the painful compulsion to indulge in addictive behaviors. But such an assumption is a total misunderstanding of the grace of God… The focus of God's grace is not just on the penalty of my sin, but my bondage to sin on this side of heaven. Grace did not come just to pay my penalty so I could live in the bondage of working sin. It came to set me free from the power of sin in self-consciousness in my own life and even from my bondage to those who have sinned against me… God desires not only to free you from the penalty of sin but to free you from the power of sin. That's why it is foolish to believe you can be a partaker of grace and continue on nonchalantly in a life of ungodliness.

 

Dudley_HallDudley Hall





You Are Not a Victim

Religion has played into the victim mentality because it's the easiest way to explain away failure. The church has not been effective in helping people overcome things like sickness and financial problems, so they fall into the sacred cow belief that God is allowing this for a reason. God isn't allowing the bad things in your life. The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives on the inside of every believer, and He is waiting on you to resist the devil and appropriate what He has already provided through Jesus.

Andrew Wommack





Advice to a Vacillating Friend

You must not remain in this state. It will never do to be mean and beggarly to yourself. Stand upright, and look at yourself, and see if you were never meant to be like a toad under the harrow, afraid for your life either to move or to stand still. Do have a mind of your own. This is not a spiritual matter only, but one which concerns ordinary manliness. I would do many things to please my friends; but to go to hell to please them is more than I would venture. It may be very well to do this and that for good fellowship; but it will never do to lose the friendship of God in order to keep on good terms with men.

 
SpurgeonCharles Spurgeon (1834-1892)





The Faithful Promise-Keeper

If a man has made me a promise, he cannot refuse to keep it on the ground that I am unworthy; because it is his own character that is at stake, not mine. However unworthy I am, he must not prove himself to be unworthy by failing to keep his word. "If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny himself." Everything hinges upon the character of the Promiser.

CH Spurgeon





Fun Followers

Christians ought to be celebrating constantly. We all ought to be preoccupied with parties, banquets, feasts, and merriment. We ought to give ourselves over to veritable orgies of joy because we have been liberated from the fear of life and the fear of death. We ought to attract people to the church quite literally by the fun there is and being a Christian.

red-balloonRobert Hotchkins






O Happy Day!

Too many people see the cross only as an act of divine justice. To satisfy his need for justice, God imposed the ultimate punishment on his Son, thus satisfying his wrath and allowing us to go unpunished. That may be good news for us, but what does it say about God?… His wrath wasn't an expression of the punishment sin deserves; it was the antidote for sin and shame… His plan was not just to provide a way to forgive sin, but to destroy it so that we might live free… Don't think God was only a distant spectator that day. He was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. This is something they did together. This was not some sacrifice God required in order to be able to love us, but a sacrifice God himself provided for what we needed. He leaped in front of a stampeding horse and pushed us to safety. He was crushed by the weight of our sin so that we could be rescued from it. It's an incredible story.

Wayne Jacobsen & Dave Coleman

Mixed


by; Yusuf Wiryonoputro

Seringkali, pelayanan yg membawa mixed antara Grace & Law begitu membuat sy merasa tak nyaman. Seolah spt BEBAN yg harus sy tanggung ketika sy harus berada di tengah-tengahnya.

Dalam kondisi hati yg lemah, suatu ketika Roh Kudus berikan saya ayat ini: "Tetapi kepada kamu, yaitu orang-orang lain di TIATIRA, yang tidak mengikuti ajaran itu... Aku berkata: AKU TIDAK MAU MENANGGUNGKAN BEBAN LAIN KEPADAMU. Tetapi apa yang ada padamu, peganglah itu sampai Aku datang." (Why.2:24-25).

Mendengar ini, seperti BEBAN berat sy terangkat, dan sy alami kelegaan.

Semenjak mulai mengenal Grace (Yesus), sy seperti membaca Alkitab dgn kacamata yg baru. Seringkali mendadak benang merah muncul merangkai kalimat2 yg sebelumnya tdk sy mengerti menjadi pengertian yg memerdekakan.

Jemaat TIATIRA di atas ditulis telah membiarkan wanita Izebel mengajar dan menyesatkan, shg hamba2Nya berbuat ZINAH dan makan persembahan2 berhala. Saya agak dikejutkan ketika mendadak menyadari bhw ZINAH ini menyangkut ZINAH ROHANI.

Kita (Gereja) adalah Mempelai Wanita Tuhan. Dulu kita mempunyai Suami Lama, yaitu Hukum Taurat. Melalui pengorbanan Yesus d kayu Salib, Dia sudah menebus kita, dan sekarang YESUS-lah Suami kita selama-lamanya! Ketika pelayanan kita mulai MEMBAWA HUKUM, di sanalah per-zinahan Rohani terjadi. Ketika kita mulai menambahkan Kasih Karunia dengan berbagai tuntutan untuk mengupayakan hidup benar, di sana kita mulai kembali pada suami lama! Dan ini adalah PERZINAHAN ROHANI!

HUKUM (Buah Pengetahuan Baik dan Jahat), memang begitu menarik hati, tapi akibatnya MEMATIKAN. Mengapa demikian? Di dalam HUKUM, kita berada di bawah PENGHAKIMAN. Berbagai KUTUK akibat dosa terjadi di sana. Dan SIAPAPUN kita tak mampu memenuhi tuntutan hukum.

Karena itu, jika anda menuntut orang lain hidup kudus, lihatlah apakah perbuatan anda sendiri sudah memenuhi standard sempurna Tuhan atas kekudusan? Sedikit pikiran cela saja sudah cukup membuat kita gagal, sama seperti orang lain yg kita lihat lebih besar celanya. Itulah HUKUM SEMPURNA Tuhan. Dan itulah sebab siapapun kita membutuhkan SAVIOR (bukan TEACHER, seolah kita mampu meneladani guru/Yesus). Kita perlu mengganti tuntutan dgn Yesus!! Law diganti Grace!!

Kepada wanita Izebel yg sudah mengajar jemaat Tiatira untuk menyelewang dari Yesus dgn kembali pada suami lama yaitu HUKUM, konsekuensinya sungguh berat. Di bawah Hukum/Penghakiman, yg nampak adalah SAKIT dan hidup TIDAK BERBUAH.

"Lihatlah, Aku akan melemparkan dia ke atas ranjang orang sakit dan mereka yang berbuat zinah dengan dia akan Kulemparkan ke dalam kesukaran besar, jika mereka tidak bertobat dari perbuatan-perbuatan perempuan itu." (Why.2:22) => SAKIT.

"Dan anak-anaknya akan Kumatikan... " (Why.2:23) => TIDAK BERBUAH.

Kembali pada HUKUM adalah kembali pada USAHA/PERBUATAN baik kita yg kita upayakan untuk memperoleh status benar di hadapan Tuhan. Pengajaran ini biasanya memberikan motivasi MALU dan TAKUT (takut akan kutuk, takut tidak selamat, takut tidak diberkati, dll) shg orang mulai mengusahakan kekudusan/kebenarannya sendiri. Mereka yg "berhasil" di sana akan merasa lebih kudus/benar dibanding yg lain, sehingga mereka nampak suka menegur perbuatan cela orang lain. Fokus mereka adalah menuntut orang berubah sikap (luar), tetapi sesungguhnya tak sanggup mengubah hati. Mengapa demikian? Karena pendorong-nya adalah rasa MALU & TAKUT. Berbeda dgn cara Yesus (GRACE), pendorongnya adalah CINTA! Cinta tidak terfokus pada perubahan sikap luar, tapi Cinta MENGUBAH HATI. Dari sanalah buah-buah yg baik akan muncul dgn sendirinya.

Pengajaran Izebel yg MIXED, akan membuat kita ingin dinilai dari PERBUATAN kita. Membuat kita ingin diberkati berdasarkan pencapaian kita dalam membayar harga, melalui PERBUATAN2 baik kita !!. Di sini Tuhan bicara:

"...dan semua jemaat akan mengetahui, bahwa Akulah yang MENGUJI BATIN DAN HATI ORANG, dan bahwa Aku akan membalaskan kepada kamu setiap orang MENURUT PERBUATANNYA." (Why.2:23)

Wah, sungguh berat sesungguhnya jika kita ingin dinilai dari PERBUATAN kita!!!

Itulah sebab di awal pesan kepada jemaat Tiatira, Tuhan memperkenalkan diri sebagai "FIRMAN Anak Allah, yang MATA-Nya bagaikan NYALA API dan kaki-Nya bagaikan tembaga" (Why.2:18).

FIRMAN memang dapat menembus BATIN dan HATI orang. Surat Ibrani menuliskan: "Sebab firman Allah .... memisahkan JIWA dan ROH ... ia sanggup membedakan pertimbangan dan pikiran hati kita" (Ibr.4:12)

[Catatan: karena itu, penting kita menguji suara roh di dalam hati kita dgn Firman. Suara yg mengintimidasi kita dgn MALU & TAKUT bagai malaikat terang yg menunjuk dosa2 kita atau org lain bukanlah suara Roh Kudus. Roh Kudus akan selalu mengingatkan kita pada YESUS & kasih karuniaNya. Suara musuh selalu membuat kita berusaha mengupayakan kebenaran/status benar, tapi suara Roh Kudus akan selalu berkata "Kamu SUDAH dibenarkan krn Salib Yesus.. berjalanlah di dalam identitasmu yg baru ini" ]

Kepada Jemaat Tiatira, Tuhan juga memperkenalkan diriNya dgn "...kaki-Nya bagaikan TEMBAGA". Tembaga adalah simbol Judgement/Penghakiman. Tuhan kita ADIL. Pengadilan di dalam HUKUM membawa anda sebagai seorang terhukum. Tapi pengadilan di dalam KASIH KARUNIA, membawa YESUS mati menggantikan ANDA!

Masihkah kita ingin dinilai berdasarkan perbuatan baik kita??

Masihkan kita merasa "lebih benar" dari orang lain karena perbuatan kita??

Masihkah kita mengandalkan ketaatan kita menaati hukum untuk memperoleh status benar?

Ataukah kita BERHENTI MENGUPAYAKAN, dan REST di dalam KEBENARAN yg SUDAH YESUS BERIKAN?

Setiap saya melihat kata REST, seolah Alkitab menghubungkannya dgn DUDUK bersama Dia, MEMERINTAH bersama Dia. Saya ada share ini di tulisan sy sebelumnya mengenai Jemaat Laodikea.

Dan memang, inilah yg jemaat Tiatira akan alami:

:.. kepadanya akan Kukaruniakan KUASA ATAS BANGSA-BANGSA; dan ia akan MEMERINTAH MEREKA .." (Why.2:26-27)

qoute of grace

Afraid of Sin?

9OCT

For whatever reason, we've come to expect that church is a place where there isn't going to be any sin. It is just not true. If we don't know how to deal with sin, then we don't know how to deal with people. We inevitably create a culture of law in order to keep people from sinning. The message of this culture is: 'Contain your sin within yourself. Don't show it to me; I can't handle it.'…

(The Pharisees) were famous for being afraid of sin, largely due to the fact that the only remedy for sin in their day was various degrees of punishment. The fear of punishment ruled their hearts, relationships and culture. Jesus, on the other hand… was not in the least afraid of messes people made in their lives, and letting them happen around Him… Ultimately His love and the way He led people empowered them to rise above their mistakes and issues.

Danny Silk





What is Resurrection Life?

4OCT

You have been raised to new life. This is not more of the same; it is brand new zoe-life. Christ is your life (Col 3:4)…

The grace cure is greater than the disease. One sin cell infected the entire human race with the fatal condition of sinfulness; grace not only cures us it inoculates us against re-infection. We have been made new. We have been rewired to resist sin and please the Father. Grace doesn't just remove all traces of past sins, it empowers us to sin no more! Grace is both favor and divine influence through the Holy Spirit. We're not just freed captives; we're kings and priests called to reign with Him. This is not some reference to the hereafter for Paul says we will "reign in life" (Rom 5:17) meaning here and now. Through the power of the Spirit we can reign over forms of death such as sickness and all the things that lead to sickness (e.g., bitterness, unforgiveness). We are no longer victims; we are more than conquerors through Him who called us.

Jesus has not returned us to the Garden, He has taken us to heaven (Eph 2:6)! From the position of rest we rule and reign with Him here on earth.

Paul_EllisPaul Ellis






Burnt Out? Good!

2OCT

How many times have you witness people doing a lot for the Lord, people really 'on fire,' only to watch them burn out?… Burnout is all around us… (Burnout means) one kind of fuel has finally been exhausted – burned out – and it's time for a new kind of fuel altogether. God Himself is the fuel for our lives….
God knows who we have become, so He works to exhaust our singular reliance upon false or insufficient resources (charisma, style, eloquence, talent, strength…) so He can be found and formed in us, becoming visible through us. What's more exciting than that?

Ralph Harris






Faith and Repentance

27SEP

These two things act and react upon each other: the man who is forgiven, therefore repents; and the man who repents is most assuredly forgiven. Remember first, that forgiveness leads to repentance… Repentance grows as faith grows… Faith and repentance are but two spokes in the same wheel, two handles of the same plough… Do not regard your repentance is the cause of your remission, but as the companion of it. Do not expect to be able to repent until you see the grace of our Lord Jesus…

SpurgeonCharles Spurgeon (1834-1892)





Quit Trying

25SEP

There are some believers who may not articulate it, but in their hearts they believe that without Jesus they can still succeed. By believing and acting on this, they fall from the high place of God's grace (His unmerited favor) back into the law, back into trying to merit and deserve success by their own efforts…
Beloved, let's learn quickly that without Jesus, we cannot succeed, and if we choose not to respond to His unmerited favor, He will not force it on us… Jesus is waiting for us to come to the end of ourselves.

Joseph Prince





Butterfly

20SEP

Ephesians 5:8: "For you were once the darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light." a good paraphrase would be, "You once were a worm; now you are a butterfly. Fly like a butterfly!"

Bob_GeorgeBob George





Mr Grace and Mr Law

18SEP

Mr. Law was a demanding husband who was never satisfied, regardless of how many right things you did. He didn't just claim to be perfect; he actually was perfect and he demanded the same from you… Mr. Grace is very different. Whatever He wants done, He just does Himself. Any burden He asks you to carry is light… Divorce from Him is impossible. I am one with Him 'until death do us part' and neither one of us is ever going to die!

Steve McVey





Doing Nothing for Jesus

13SEP

A few weeks ago I heard a story about a Navy Search and Rescue swimmer who went to the aid of a downed aviator. The aviator began to flail and flounder making the situation dangerous for both himself and his would-be rescuer. The rescue swimmer responded by diving down deeper into the water to get away and to wait for the aviator to give up struggling. In other words, he withdrew from the scene until the aviator exhausted himself.

This is exactly how it is with us and Jesus. We are saved by trusting in him, and we must do nothing to help. Trying to help only makes things worse and leaves us exhausted. And yet, we try. Ever since Adam took up sewing to hide his sin, it has been the nature of the flesh to take control and try and fix things. I can save myself from drowning. This is why we should thank God for the magnificent law which reveals the hopelessness of our situation. But you're in the middle of the ocean! You can't swim that far. And then thank him even more for good news of his grace that saves us. Jesus the Savior is here. Stop struggling and submit to his righteousness. 

Paul_EllisPaul Ellis





The Old Lawyer vs The 

Great Advocate

11SEP

Satan is a very old lawyer, he has been in the profession for many centuries, and he knows how to raise all manner of quibbles and difficulties, and he can argue and reason in a very crafty fashion; so, your best plan is not to answer him at all, except just to say, "I have put my case into the hands of my Great Advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have anything to say, you must say it to him."

CH Spurgeon





A Beautiful Story

6SEP

Christianity is a story. It is a meta-narrative. It is a grand over-arching story that enables us to make sense of human history. It is the story of how God is setting right a world gone wrong and doing it through Jesus Christ. It is the story that starts with Creation in Genesis and takes us all the way through to new creation in Revelation. It is a story with Jesus Christ at the center of it…

The end of the Christian story is beautiful. It is the beautiful "they lived happily ever after" culmination we long for. It's the true hope that myths and fairy tales allude to. It is restoration, new creation, the New Jerusalem, and all things made new. This is what we mean when we say Christianity is eschatological. The end is important, because it determines how we should act within the present as we head toward an appointed future. So we must be absolutely clear about this – the eschatological hope of Christianity is restoration and new creation. But the end of the story the Bible tells is an end that has been inaugurated.

brian_zahndBrian Zahnd





Out On a Limb

4SEP

We don't experience divine intervention until we get out on a limb — that's where the fruit grows. Most of us are hugging the trunk. We're afraid to get out there on the limb because we don't like swaying in the breeze. We want the stability of the trunk. To be fruitful, we have to let go of our security blankets and take a leap of faith.

Andrew Wommack





Divine Passion Never Runs Out

30AUG

Divine passion will take us further than human zeal can imagine. It will produce greater fruit and do it without sweat. It is that divine energy which propels one through obstacles in a quest for the object of its love. It's a simple fact: Causes require more resources than they create. When people are motivated by zeal, they can never produce the amount of energy required to complete the task.

Again, we are familiar with the cries for help from those who have given themselves to fulfill a mission or a dream. When they run a little short of money or a little short of energy or commitment, the tendency is to create a larger cause to create more anger, thus more resources. It happens on a national level, too. In the past we have had to portray the communists as bigger than they really were, the devil as bigger than he really is, the situation worse than we first had thought. All this to get people stirred up so that their anger will release enough resources to get the job done.

But here's another simple fact: Love has enough energy to accomplish the task it has been called to do. Love will never find itself without enough resources, because "love never fails" (1 Cor 13:8). 
Dudley_HallDudley Hall





The Cross Changed Everything

28AUG

Sometimes, when I hear the way some preachers preach, I really wonder, has the cross changed anything? The system of being blessed when you do good and being cursed when you fail was already in place before Jesus came. Why are they still teaching that we are under that system today?… Don't negate the cross of Jesus. The cross of Jesus changed everything.

Joseph Prince





Waiting in Galilee.

23AUG

On-and-off salvation never appears in the Bible. Salvation is not a repeated phenomenon. Scripture contains no example of a person who was saved, then lost, then resaved, then lost again… Trust God's hold on you more than your hold on God… "All of you will stumble," Jesus told them. Fall away. Turn away. Run away. Their promises would melt like wax on a summer sidewalk. Jesus' promise, however, would stay firm. "But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee" (Mat 26:32). Translation? Your fall will be great, but my grace will be greater. Stumble, I will catch you. Scatter, I will gather you. Turn from me, I will turn toward you. You will find me waiting for you in Galilee.

 
Max_LucadoMax Lucado





Frustration is Important

21AUG

We're prone to pretending, you and I, acting as though we're capable. But in truth, we're not. God has not invested Himself in our capability, but His own… He allows and sometimes even causes awful frustration to visit with us… Prolonged frustration and bother don't happen simply to goad us into good behavior or to teach us a lesson – they keep us from pretending we can do anything apart from Christ… Frustration is the beginning of the end of pretending… That's why frustration is so important! It keeps us bothered with this world and the stuff we go through every day so we'll not live by it or for it.

Ralph Harris