Phi 3:10-11 All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, (11) in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.
What drives our life?
What keeps us on day by day?
What causes us to wake up in the morning for future anticipation?
What gives meaning to our lives day by day?
As Christians how would we answer these life questions? When we are facing difficulties, what is our source of strength?
One way that people argue is that Christ’s victory on the cross has gave us the strength, and we should live in this victory, dismissing every negative thoughts and mentality. Living a “Victorious Life” seems to be the magic word.
Besides, we often focus on looking good at the outside, we try to portray positivism, beauty, sophistication, strength, number, charisma etc. in our lives and ministry. We argue for excellence, we argue that God deserves the best, we argue that God is a God of excellence, success, victory.
But I would argue that living in such understanding is like living on a superficial box. It is not wrong by itself, I am not denying God’s glory and wonder, but such thinking reflects our spiritual immaturity in realizing who God is and who we are.
It is denying the realities of our fallen world
It is denying the depravity of our imperfection
It is denying the sovereignty of God to be ‘weak’
But Paul in 1st Corinthians says that the message of the cross is foolishness. The mere fact that the King of Glory left His throne above and die for mortal men like you and I, is ridiculous.
Many followers of Buddha admire the willingness of Siddhartha Gautama to leave his royal throne to live a simple monastic life. If that is awesome in their eyes, then how should we treat Jesus Christ who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who came down to earth, born in a manger, raised as a layman, walked alone, unmarried, rejected by the wise, mocked, ridiculed, beaten, suffered, crucified, died for the sins of mankind?
It is not by our mere positivism, or by our look-good portrayal, or sophistication that we gain our strength, but through our weakness. It is not by our wisdom, intellect, charisma, drive that determine our success and image, but it is the foolishness of the Cross.
It humbles us, it breaks our pride to realize our imperfection, our helplessness and draws strength from God alone. Like the passage above, it is through ‘sharing in His suffering’ that we draw our strength, and look forward to the resurrection. Through sharing in His suffering, then only we can see the hope in Christ Jesus. This hope cannot be clearly seen if we are to live our lives with superficial sufficiency. Only with this genuine hope in the midst of our suffering that drives us through the journey of life, fixes our eyes upon Jesus and brings the anticipation for the Second Coming of Christ.
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2 comments:
the Buddhists do not admire Siddharta merely by his willingness to leave his throne. but his willingness to leave his wife and his son who was born on that day itself in order to search for the real way of life. We also admire him for his patience in finding the ways to get rid of suffering which is certian in life, in that search, he hurt himself so much but ultimately, he found it by meditating.despite wut he has contribute to the mankind,he does not boast of wut he has done and ask for human to worship him. and Buddhism does not preach and convert ppl. because,we see all religions as equal. we dun ask u to leave n abandon ur religion just for us. Buddha is not God, he is neither a Supernatural, he is a person who understands everything that happened in this world. do not compare with wut u believe. anyway, u dun have to approve this. jz read it. thanks
Buddhists do not admire him merely by his willingness to leave throne but his willingness to leave his wife and his newly born son. he rather have his most-loved persons suffering than to have the whole world suffering forever. he sacrificed his own family happiness to help the world.and he does not leave his royal throne to live a simple monastic life but he left it to find the real way of life. a life where there is no more suffering.in his search for that, he had suffered too. he hurt himself by fasting for example jz to find the real way of life. but eventually, he found the only way to be free from suffering is by meditating. despite wut he has contributed to the mankind, he does not boast. he doesn't ask others to worship him.he doesn't preach nor convert others because he views all religions as equal. he doesn't said other religions wrong. Buddha said this ' i am not God, i am also not Supernatural, i am a person who understands everything that happen in this world. i have cultivating the good values in myself and eliminate all the ugly values in me.' From wut he said, he is also a human who is full with ugly sides but he cultivate himself. that's y i said it is practical because he himself have gone through series of lives which taught him loads. this is wut i know about buddhism.
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