He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31
Previously... on Stronger-Than-Yesterday... We see differences between Inner Strength and Outer Strength, the Strength of God and the Strength of Man... And it is plausible to conclude from the verse today that our strength will one day fails us, if all we depend on is outer strength and our own strength.
But the Bible gives us this assurance that when that day comes, there is an alternative far better: to receive strength and power from God. And this promise is available to anyone who's willing to relinquish their own and put on Christ. Jesus says this:
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28
That rest that Jesus gives comes as we "wait on the Lord". And the Bible says that as we wait on the Lord, God will renew our strength. Interestingly, the word "renew" in the original Hebrew means "to pass on or away, pass through, pass by, go through, grow up, change, to go on from", "to come on anew, sprout again (of grass)", "to show newness (of tree)", and "to change, substitute, alter, change for better, renew".
So, to "renew" your strength requires a certain passing away and dying of the old strength. It requires a "change, substitute, alter, change for better, renew". That's why the process of waiting on God is not just a passive "waiting", but an active one, where you are changed and renewed.
So the big question/s right now is this:
- Are you coming to the end of your own strength?
- Do you need rest from the work you are doing?
- Are you waiting on God to renew your strength today?
Let's all become 昨日の自分より強く... Stronger than the you of yesterday!!!
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Monday, October 01, 2007
Heroes-of-Faith #03: John Calvin
John Calvin was born on 10th July 1509 in Noyon, Picardy, some seventy kilometres north-east of Paris, the second son of Gerard Cauvin (Calvinus was the Latinised form of his name) and his wife Jeanne la France of Cambrai.
John was religiously inclined from an early age, and his father, a diocesan legal official, sent him to Parish University to take an arts degree in preparation for the priesthood. By John's graduation, however, his father had changed the plan and directed his son to Orleans University for legal studies.
Then came John's "sudden conversion" from papist prejudice to Protestant conviction, and this brought with it a spiritual quickening that made legal studies seem tame and dull by comparison with Scripture and theology. Soon Calvin was preaching, teaching, and pastoring informally among his peers, though his wish to enjoy a life of a leisured, learned, quiet-living Protestant Erasmus remained - as he wrote later, "literary ease, with something of a free and honourable station." In 1532 he produced a commentary on De Clementia of Seneca, a Stoic philosopher believed at that time to have had Christian sympathies. Calvin hoped that this would establish him as a humanist scholar. But this was not to be.
In 1534 the French Protestants were posting placards in the major towns attacking the Roman mass. Official persecution then threatened, and Calvin moved to Basel, where in March 1536 the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion appeared. In the Preface, addressed to the King of France, Calvin stated, "My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness." His Preface was a fine apologia for the Protestant faith, and the six catechetical chapters into which his 516 small-format pages were divided (on the Law, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the dominical sacraments, false sacraments, and Christian liberty) were brilliantly written. The work was an immediate success, and it was as a distinguished young Protestant author that Calvin arrived in Geneva five months later.
In fact Calvin was on his way to Strasbourg when someone recognised him and too him to meet one of the leaders there, William Farel. Farel told Calvin he must stay and help, and when the latter pleaded other plans, he replied, "You are following only your own wishes, and I tell you, in the name of God Almighty, that if you do not help us in this work of the Lord, the Lord will punish you for seeking your own interests rather than his." So Calvin stayed and continued his Geneva ministry without a break (apart from three years of banishment between 1538 and 1541) till his death in 1564.
Calvin's goal in Geneva was a teaching, nurturing church, embracing the whole of society, and honouring God by orthodox praise and obedient holiness. There should be daily gatherings for psalm singing and expository preaching, monthly administration of the Lord's Supper (Calvin wanted this weekly but could never secure it), and an autonomous ecclesiastical court for censuring, and if necessary, excommunicating delinquent members.
Bible-centred in his teaching, God-centred in his living and Christ-centred in his faith, he integrated the confessional emphases of Reformation thought - by faith alone, by Scripture alone, by Christ alone, for God's glory alone - with clarity and strength. He was ruled by two convictions - that God is all and man is nothing; and that praise is due to God for everything good. Both convictions permeated his life, right up to his final direction that his tomb be unmarked and there be no speeches at his burial, lest he become the focus of praise instead of his God.
In the Institutes, Calvin uses the Biblical theme of the knowledge of God. Knowing God is religion, and what is known about God is theology. Both theology and religion are to be learned and taught from God's own teaching, i.e. from Holy Scripture. To know God means acknowledging him as he has revealed himself in Scripture and through Christ, worshipping him and giving him thanks, humbling oneself before him as a sinner and learning from his Word, loving the Father and the Son for their love in adoption and redemption, trusting the promises of pardon and glory that God has given in Christ, living in obedience to God's law, and seeking to honour God in all human relationships and all commerce with created things. This knowledge of God comes from the Holy Spirit, speaking in and through the written Word and uniting us to the risen Christ for new life.
John was religiously inclined from an early age, and his father, a diocesan legal official, sent him to Parish University to take an arts degree in preparation for the priesthood. By John's graduation, however, his father had changed the plan and directed his son to Orleans University for legal studies.
Then came John's "sudden conversion" from papist prejudice to Protestant conviction, and this brought with it a spiritual quickening that made legal studies seem tame and dull by comparison with Scripture and theology. Soon Calvin was preaching, teaching, and pastoring informally among his peers, though his wish to enjoy a life of a leisured, learned, quiet-living Protestant Erasmus remained - as he wrote later, "literary ease, with something of a free and honourable station." In 1532 he produced a commentary on De Clementia of Seneca, a Stoic philosopher believed at that time to have had Christian sympathies. Calvin hoped that this would establish him as a humanist scholar. But this was not to be.
In 1534 the French Protestants were posting placards in the major towns attacking the Roman mass. Official persecution then threatened, and Calvin moved to Basel, where in March 1536 the first edition of his Institutes of the Christian Religion appeared. In the Preface, addressed to the King of France, Calvin stated, "My intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who feel some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness." His Preface was a fine apologia for the Protestant faith, and the six catechetical chapters into which his 516 small-format pages were divided (on the Law, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the dominical sacraments, false sacraments, and Christian liberty) were brilliantly written. The work was an immediate success, and it was as a distinguished young Protestant author that Calvin arrived in Geneva five months later.
In fact Calvin was on his way to Strasbourg when someone recognised him and too him to meet one of the leaders there, William Farel. Farel told Calvin he must stay and help, and when the latter pleaded other plans, he replied, "You are following only your own wishes, and I tell you, in the name of God Almighty, that if you do not help us in this work of the Lord, the Lord will punish you for seeking your own interests rather than his." So Calvin stayed and continued his Geneva ministry without a break (apart from three years of banishment between 1538 and 1541) till his death in 1564.
Calvin's goal in Geneva was a teaching, nurturing church, embracing the whole of society, and honouring God by orthodox praise and obedient holiness. There should be daily gatherings for psalm singing and expository preaching, monthly administration of the Lord's Supper (Calvin wanted this weekly but could never secure it), and an autonomous ecclesiastical court for censuring, and if necessary, excommunicating delinquent members.
Bible-centred in his teaching, God-centred in his living and Christ-centred in his faith, he integrated the confessional emphases of Reformation thought - by faith alone, by Scripture alone, by Christ alone, for God's glory alone - with clarity and strength. He was ruled by two convictions - that God is all and man is nothing; and that praise is due to God for everything good. Both convictions permeated his life, right up to his final direction that his tomb be unmarked and there be no speeches at his burial, lest he become the focus of praise instead of his God.
In the Institutes, Calvin uses the Biblical theme of the knowledge of God. Knowing God is religion, and what is known about God is theology. Both theology and religion are to be learned and taught from God's own teaching, i.e. from Holy Scripture. To know God means acknowledging him as he has revealed himself in Scripture and through Christ, worshipping him and giving him thanks, humbling oneself before him as a sinner and learning from his Word, loving the Father and the Son for their love in adoption and redemption, trusting the promises of pardon and glory that God has given in Christ, living in obedience to God's law, and seeking to honour God in all human relationships and all commerce with created things. This knowledge of God comes from the Holy Spirit, speaking in and through the written Word and uniting us to the risen Christ for new life.
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