Inside and Outside

If a person who is inside envies people outside, we can guess that s/he is in a prison or does not have any freedom.
If a person who is outside envies people inside, we can guess that s/he is a homeless person.

Which one is better? Prisoner or Homeless person.

body and spirit

After school on the way home with Eunyou and John, I see there are many kinds of action of them such as walking, running, chasing, jumping, dancing, laughing, or picking some leaves. Following them behind, I think many things. Aha! They are busy in their body and I am busy in my spirit.

What would be difference between a deer and me?

Oh Deer! You are coming to the front field of this apartment everyday. Let me ask some questions to you: Do you know your birthday? Do you have your birthday party? Do you know your social security number? Do you know that you are USA deer? Do you have a driver license? Do you pay your apartment rent fee every month? Do you worry about what to eat tomorrow? Do you know Jesus Christ? Do you write some articles? Do you say some history of your family to your children? What do you do and what do you know? Do you just come to eat the grass? Is that enough for your life? Don’t you feel uncomfortable in your life without answering to those questions?
You were born in this world and will die some day. I was also born in this world and will die some day. You exist here and now and I exist here and now. Whether answer or not to those questions seems not to be important. Then what would be an important difference between you and me?

Jesus’ Life

the trace of Jesus’ life could be the image of “W” which has five points: The Son (in the Triune God)  The Cross  The Resurrection  Galilee  Ascension. If one cuts horizontally the middle part from the bottom, it means to accept dualism. If one accepts just the bottom parts (the Cross and Galilee), it means to accept God’s immanence or God’s self-limitation alone. If one accepts just the upper parts (the Son in the Triune God, the resurrection, and ascension), it means to accept God’s ascension, or God’s self-unlimitation alone. Thus we need to see this picture as a whole. If one cuts vertically at any part, it cannot express the succession of Jesus’ life.

Smile and Tears

If our smile is the smile which consists of tears of others’ suffering, let us do not show the smile to others. If our tears are the tears which consist of smile of others’ happyness, let us do not show the tears to others. Why? Do they not also at least smile in this suffering world? Let us show the smile and shed tears, which are regardless of smile and tears of anyone else, in front of God. Was this not human Jesus’ compassionate mind?

Hebrews 9:27-28

Word of God: Hebrews 9:27-28
Title: For Those Who are Waiting for Him

Introduction
1) When is your birthday?
Sometimes there are people who do not know their birthday. Why? In such a case if their parents died earlier, they cannot know their birthday. However, most people usually know their birthday.

2) How about your death date?
Is there anyone who knows his/her own death date? If someone suicides, he or she can know their death date. However, they cannot remember their death date.

3) We can celebrate our own birthday in our life. So we sing a song, “Happy birthday to you.” But we cannot commemorate our own death. We cannot sing a song for our death.

4) Even if we do not remember our death date, can we say that there will be no death to me? No. Why?

5) Because everybody dies. Because our life consists of beginning/birth and end/death.
Ecclesiastes 3:2, “There is a time to be born and a time to die.”
a) Beginning/birth is in a sense a happy thing. For example, the birth of a baby is beginning, so not only his or her parents but also even those who do not know the baby can celebrate and can join the party.

b) However, the end or death is not a happy thing, but rather a sad thing. Why? Because if we die, we cannot see our family any more. Because if we die, we have to separate from this world. However, that’s life. So, life consists of both birth and death.

6) Then we have to ask, what will happen after death? When will Jesus come again? We need to recognize the signs.

Contents
1. Background:
1) Matthew 16:3, “You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”

a) If you see the sky, you can guess the weather.
b) If the sky is clouded, you can guess it will be raining.
c) If the sky is fine, you can guess it will be fine.

We can guess the weather everyday, but cannot guess the signs of the times. What are the signs of the times? It means the signs of the second coming of Jesus Christ. We do not know the exact day of Jesus’ coming.

2) Then how can we recognize the signs of the times? We need to wake up and to pray to God and to try to listen to the Word of God.

Why? Everyone will die. And then we will go to either heaven or hell. Where do you want to go? Heaven or hell? No one wants to go to hell. Everyone wants to go to the heaven and have eternal life.

2.
Then, we have to ask how?
Hebrewes 9:27-28,
“Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people, and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”

1) Everybody dies.
2) Everybody faces judgment by God.
3) However, Christ died for us to take away our sins.
4) Jesus will come again to save us.
5) Thus we must wait for Him. That is, we must believe in him.

In order to be saved, we must believe in Jesus Christ. There is no way to be saved without Jesus Christ. There is no way to have eternal life without Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the only one way to have eternal life.

Many people complain when Jesus come. We do not know when He will come again. We have to just wait for him. Although we cannot see him in our life, we have to wait. Why?

3.
Matthew 24: 35, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”
Mayple story? Wii? Computer game? Even You and I pass away.

This world will also pass away, but God’s words will never pass away, because it is truth.

Conclusion
This life is important. But the next life after death is more important.
So we have to believe in God in order to go to heaven.

Rob Bell: Love and Freedom

인간의 자유를 인정하지 않는 하나님의 사랑은 진정한 사랑이 아니죠. 하나님의 전능을 이야기 했을 때 그것은 하나님이 우리 인간의 자유 내지는 자연 법칙에 상관 없이 무작위로 간섭하거나 침범하는 그런 전능이 아닌 우리의 자유와 자연 법칙을 존중하는 그런 사랑의 전능일 것입니다. 예가 될지 모르겠지만 “논쟁적 책읽기” 그룹에 들어가는 것은 물론 규칙이 있겠지만 그러나 그 누구도 자신의 의지와 상관 없이 가입이 되어 있다면 그것 또한 짜증이 날 것이고 또 반대로 의지가 있음에도 불구하고 들어오지 못한다면 그것 또한 짜증이 나는 일 아니겠습니까? 그렇다면 우리 인생에서 우리의 선택의 자유를 무시하는 하나님의 개입이 있다면 우리는 어떻게 받아들여야 할까요? 그 하나님이 과연 사랑의 하나님일까요?

“[L]ove, by its very nature, is freedom. For there to be love, there has to be the option, both now and then, to not love. To turn the other way. To reject the love extended. To say no. Although God is powerful and mighty, when it comes to the human heart God has to play by the same rules we do. God has to respect our freedom to choose to the very end, even at the risk of the relationship itself. If at any point God overrides, co-opts, or hijacks the human heart, robbing us of our freedom to choose, then God has violated the fundamental essence of what love even is.” (Rob Bell, “Love Wins,” 103-104).
“Love demands freedom. It always has, and it always will. We are free to resist, reject, and rebel against God’s ways for us. We can have all the hell we want.” (Rob Bell, “Love Wins,” 113).
“If we want isolation, despair, and the right to be our own god, God graciously grants us that option. If we insist on using our God-given power and strength to make the world in our own image, God allows us that freedom; we have the kind of license to that. If we want nothing to do with light, hope, love, grace, and peace, God respects that desire on our part, and we are given a life free from any of those realities. The more we want nothing to do with all God is, the more distance and space are created. If we want nothing to do with love, we are given a reality free from love.” (Rob Bell, “Love Wins,” 117)
“If we want hell, if we want heaven, they are ours. That’s how love works. It can’t be forced, manipulated, or coerced. It always leaves room for the other to decide. God says yes, we can have what we want, because love wins.”(Rob Bell, “Love Wins,” 118-119).

Rob Bell, parables of being lost

“Jesus tells a series of parables in Luke 15 about a woman who loses a coin, a shepherd who loses a sheep, and a father who loses a son. The stories aren’t ultimately about things and people being lost; the stories are about things and people being found. The God that Jesus teaches us about does’t give up until everything that was lost is found. This God simply doesn’t give up. Ever.” (Rob Bell, “Love Wins,” 101).

돈 잃어 버리고 기뻐하는 이 없을 것이고, 자기 양 잃어 버리고 기뻐 춤추는 목자 없을 것이고, 자식 잃어 버리고 사람들 불러 모아 잔치 베푸는 부모 없을 겁니다. 만약 이런 이들이 있다면 상담이 필요할 뿐만 아니라 부모 같은 경우는 경찰서로 가겠죠. 그렇다면 하나님이 잃어 버린 자들을 보고 기뻐하실까요? 우리가 하나님을 그런 무자비한 하나님으로 만들어선 아니될 것입니다. 그러기에 하나님이 포기 하지 않는 생명을 우리 인간이 포기하는 것은 어떤 의미에서 가장 큰 신성 모독일 수 있다는 생각이 드네요.

Hartshorne: supernatural

“The supernatural is real; but the supernatural is God, not humanity. In the supernatural reality of God, unbounded in space, unborn and undying, the bounded, fragmentary reality of each of us is imperishably included, a definite quantum in the Life which is all-in-all, or in which ‘we live and move and have our being’” (Acts of the Apostles: 17, 28). Hartshorne, “Omnipotence and other Theological Mistakes,” 49.

Rob Bell, Hell

“We need a loaded, volatile, adequately violent, dramatic, serious word to describe the very real consequences we experience when we reject the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us. We need a word that refers to the big, wide, terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden deep within our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God’s world God’s way. And for that, the word ‘hell’ works quite well.” (Rob Bell, “Love Wins,” 93).