I was listening to Ravi Zacharias sermon and I thought this was very helpful and interesting.
He read Ezekiel 10 and said he didn't know what Ezekiel was trying to say.
Ezekiel was describing the glory of God which was departing from the temple.
He used 3 words which describes the 3 levels of conversation. 1) Univocal - using the same word to mean same thing E.g. I love you, God loves you.
You can safely assume the word love means similar things.
But the problem lies is that human's love and God's love is different. So,
2) Equivocal - same word came mean different things
If use same word, but give it different meaning, how will you know what a person means he means? So,
3) Analogical - using analogies to explain the difference
When a person says 'I love you', but when you do not love him back, he hurts because he lost something.
But when God says 'I love you', but when you do not love him back, he hurts not because He lost something, but because you lost something.
(Ravi Zacharias is good eh)
Anyways, going back to the glory of God, his point is, it's difficult to use words to explain. That's the difficulty Ezekiel is facing. (Paul too when he went to the third heaven, his conclusion was there's no words to describe the glory of God, Peter and John when they were at the transfiguration, Jesus became so white that was beyond human's understanding.)
But he drew a link in the different episodes of God's glory. Point: Where the glory of God dwells, there the voice of God is heard.
Example 1: When the spirit of God came on Jesus, God spoke:"This is my Son, with Him I am well-pleased". Example 2: Ezekiel saw glory of God and described the voice of God was like the roar of rushing waters.
And if the voice of God is being heard by you through His word, there the glory dwells. If the voice of God is not communicated to you, you have reason to question whether the glory is accessible to you.
4 messages/implications derived from why glory is departing
1) Righteousness is to be internalized. (in context of the Pharisees who were prejudiced towards the person of Jesus, thus they would not acknowledge His works)
Because righteousness has not been internalized. Go listen to RZ's examples, it's holarious. Basically, the Rabbis of those days came up with so many laws and they think they are righteous because they obey the laws. But they failed to see that righteousness is internal.
2) Self-aggrandizement is fatal.
If you are proud and brag to a point of building yourself up, God can cut you and I down.
He has His way of leveling ourselves down at the foot of Calvary.
I experienced that many times.
3) Obedience to known-truth is crucial.
When the people in Ezekiel's time requested for God to speak to them, God says He will not speak to them until they have listened to what God has ALREADY said to them.
God stops teaching you new truth until you obey and internalize the old truth. This is very very painful and terrible that Martin Luther said:
"Bless us O Lord, even curse us, but please do not be silent."
Knowing God's truth and obeying it is pivotal to knowing more truth.
God is speaking. When you understand it, He reveals more. The thrilling part each day is studying God's word, when that is gone, the thrill of life is gone.
4) Responsibility is personal.
We cannot push the responsibility to other people for our disobedience. The problem lies in us.
That is so true. I love his way of organizing. If you can, go listen to him. The title of the broadcast is Ichabod: Where is the glory.
blessed by Father; wHeE
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Growing up can be painful.
Realizing that growing up is painful, is more painful.
I think it's very painful to be a sociologist. You question why things happen that way.
So as a sociologist for this semester (I'm taking a soci module), ...
In the process of growing up, you make more friends, and you get "socialized" more. Many times, you become very much like the person who's beside you. This process is called socialization.
When you become a sociologist, and you start realizing this, you start to observe the values of people around you. And you go crazy. (Okays, I almost went crazy)
These values very subtly creep into you when you are not careful.
But to think too much, and not allow the value to "creep" into you is very horrible, on the other hand.
My conclusion is: It's fun to be a sociologist, but it's not fun to be a sociologist.
This is a pretty confusing post eh.
blessed by Father; wHeE
Monday, April 06, 2009
I hate writing scientific papers. I really do.
4 more days.
blessed by Father; wHeE
Saturday, April 04, 2009
I felt like a fool.
After all this while, all the trials and struggling, I'm seeing light in what's happening in my life.
Yet, I can't help but say I'm still responsible for the plight I was in.
This is very ambiguous but... In other words, I felt like the Israelites. Just as they were brought the longer way before they reached the Promised Land, I felt so. Just as they were wandering in the wilderness, I felt so as well for the last 3 months. (Okays, I'm studying Exodus lah)
I don't think I'm near the Promised Land yet. But I learnt and grasped many things. It think if I were to flip my prayer journals, many of these things were my questions to God.
In all these dotness (the diao feeling), I believe that God has allowed all these to happen for a good reason. I don't know yet though.
