Monthly Archives: August 2013

Life & Love

Quiet Birthday

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It was my 59th birthday yesterday and unlike in my previous birthdays, I received hundreds of greetings at Facebook. Before Facebook, I have always kept my birthday quietly with no big celebrations and the day normally passes by with only a few noticing that its my day. This time, I guess I was successful in intentionally keeping it “secret” on Facebook haha! It was just another day yesterday for me sending my kid to school, paid my water bill and went to the auto repair shop to have my car’s defective stabilizer link replaced. Just another ordinary day for me.

This time, I was able to keep it somewhat “secret” except for a few who still remembered me and greeted me privately yesterday. There was even an early bird who sent me a text message which woke me up! My morning wake up call all the way from Mindanao haha!

Simple Birthday Celebration

Of course my family did not forget the day. My wife made a cake and today my daughter and her classmates who are doing their class assignment at home, sang a birthday song for me before they enjoyed the cake (with one little candle haha!) and their lunch. Well, that was a little belated celebration at home. I thank the Lord for another year. If the Lord would bless me with longer life, it would be exciting to become finally a senior citizen next year!

Life & Love, Who is God?

Let’s Repent of Our Mental Baggage

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My wife and I have been married for some 40 years now. I’m happy she still loves me and I feel the same way. We’ve been through a lot together and life for us and my family has not always been easy. There are challenges here and there from time to time. But I’m glad she’s with me all the way since we were still teenagers up to now. I would say that we have a good loving relationship despite our faults and weaknesses.

Broken Marriages

A relationship between a husband and wife can sometimes go from bad to worse and then end up in a broken marriage. It’s heartbreaking when this happens. After living together for some time, one or both of them are frustrated because their mate is not really the person of their dreams in their fantasy world. What they really wanted to get married with was a mate which was a creation of their own imagination—the perfect prince charming or the perfect princess of one’s own dream in fairy land.

Know and Love Your Mate

We could never really come to know the other person and build a lasting relationship if we continue to recreate our mates according to the image that we have invented in our own minds about him or her. If we only relate to our mates according to the figment of our own imagination, most likely we will often get frustrated and soon it will end up in a broken relationship.

It’s sad when marriages break up because the couple have not really come to know each other and have learned to grow in love with one another. A couple needs to learn to forgive one another and understand each other’s faults and weaknesses. Accepting one another in love is a key to a lasting marriage relationship.

Getting rid of this mental baggage about our mates is the ideal if the marriage relationship is to blossom to maturity. Let’s all get to know our mates and love them for who they really are — warts and all. Let’s not transform them or “reform” them according to our “specifications” based from our fantasy land. We will be happier that way.

Knowing Jesus

The same thing is true with our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. We can never really come to know the real Jesus if our Jesus is merely our own ideas that we have created about him and not really Jesus Christ that is revealed in Scripture. Some serious repenting* of the way we think is a must. We have to change our minds, get rid of our mental baggage, and get to know the real Jesus, who he is and what he has done for all of humanity and all of creation as revealed in the Bible.

Ask God to open your minds so that you will know who our loving Triune God really is as revealed in Jesus Christ. God created us to have an everlasting relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We can begin to enjoy everlasting life and love now and forever more with the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn’t have to end in a broken relationship.

*The word repent in the Bible comes from the Greek word, metanoia which means change of mind.

Suggested further reading:

Who is God?

Differing Views About Christ

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So who is Jesus Christ? Are you sure you know? Throughout the centuries a lot of differing views about Christ (Christology) has come up and this has caused a lot of confusion, division in the church and animosities among Christians up to our time today.

Photo credit: Google

Here are some of the various views on Christology which I was able to get from the book, Incarnation by Thomas F. Torrance:

  • Adoptionism – the theory that Jesus was born human but adopted to be the Son of God.
  • Apollinarianism – the doctrine that in the incarnation the eternal Word took the place of the human spirit or mind (nous). This was condemned at Constantinople in 381 on the ground that it impaired the perfect humanity of Christ because it meant Jesus did not have a normal human mind.
  • Arianism – the doctrine condemned at Nicaea in 325, that Jesus was not of the same being as God and therefore not God but the highest of creatures, created by God for a mediatory and creative role.
  • Docetism – the theory that while Jesus was God, he only appeared to be human (from the Greek, dokeo, to seem or appear). Generally, any theory which denies the full reality of Jesus’ humanity.
  • Ebionism – the view that Jesus was not God but an ordinary man adopted to become Son of God.
  • Eutychianism – a doctrine of ‘two natures before the incarnation and one after’. This was condemned at Chalcedon in 451 on the ground that it implied Christ’s human nature was no longer the same as ours but had been swallowed up by his divinity.
  • Monophysitism – the view that there is only one nature (divine) in Christ not two (divine and human), [from the Gk, ‘monos’ one, and ‘physis’ nature]. Condemned at Chalcedon in 451.
  • Monothelitism – the view that Christ only has ‘one will’ (a divine will) and not two (divine and human), [from the Gk, monos one, thelein ‘to will’]. Condemned at Constantinople in 680.
  • Nestorianism – the theory of a conjunction of two persons, divine and human, in Christ. Although Nestorius (died c.451) did affirm the oneness of Christ and a union of will, rather than a hypostatic union of divine and human in one person, was seen as compromising the unity of Christ and was condemned at the Council of Ephesus in 431.
  • Sabellianism – a form of modalism, the Father, Son and Spirit are not eternal persons in God himself but modes of ways that he successively reveals himself.
  • Socinianism (Socinus (1539-64)) – a unitarian theology which teaches that Christ is not divine, but a mortal man begotten through the Holy Spirit and then re-begotten in the resurrection to be immortal. Though not an atoning sacrifice, his death was accepted as a ground for forgiveness and was important for its revelation of the love of God.

These are some of the views on Christology that I found listed in the book, Incarnation. Some other views about Christ may not be listed here or maybe some views maybe a variant or a combination of various views.

So which one is you version of Christ?

Life & Love, Photography

Photo Shoot in the Rain!

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According to the weather report, there’s a typhoon out there and the weather is bad. It’s raining outside and the day is gloomy. But look who’s out in the rain! That’s my daughter enjoying her vacation taking snapshots of whatever she finds interesting to shoot out in the rain. Oh dear haha!

For the Love of Photography

I guess she got it from me. I began to get interested in photography while I was in college taking up Architecture. Ever since she was a young kid, she has seen me taking photos of almost anything that interested me. I guess it’s in the family haha! She’s a graduate of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines – Diliman Campus. She loves painting, water color, freehand drawing and of course photography as an art expression. Check out her blog site.

Who is God?

Jesus is Fully God and Fully Man

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Jesus is fully God and also became fully human to save mankind and bring him back again to a right relationship with God as it was in the Garden of Eden. This is a difficult concept for many to accept. But this view on the dual nature of Christ was affirmed centuries ago by the early church leaders. They made this declaration to fight against various heresies that crept in during their times and continue to surface again and again throughout the centuries up to our time today. Heresies continue to surface and the church needs to continue to be on guard against all sorts of false doctrines and beliefs.

It is interesting to note that even after Jesus has already ascended back to heaven, the apostle Paul said that Jesus Christ continues to be fully human even as he continues to be fully God. “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).