Creati in Christo Iesu (Eph. 2:10)

A song from Indonesia entitled, “ Aku Bukan Boneka”  (I am not A Doll) has gone viral on You-tube in the last few days. Everyone around me, even my students, shared this video too. I think it is going viral because the song is commercial (easy to sing) and the singer is entertaining.

This song made me think more about the meaning of it. So, this verse popped up “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. We knew that we were created by God’s hands as stated in Gen. 1:27 with His image (Imago Dei). God created us not like a robot or a doll as depicted in this song to be alike and do the same thing. God created us with wellbeing so we can praise the Lord sincerely.

Adam and Eve fell because they had been tempted by the Evil. As a result, we inherit this sinful nature and become a doll of evil. But praise the Lord, He sent His mighty Son to save us all by sacrificing Himself on that cross. So we are now not a robot or a doll of the evil, but precious things and become the apple of His eyes (Deut. 32:10). Praise the Lord for that.

Sometimes, these days, we are not fully aware of the trick of evil and become his doll again. We oftentimes don’t realize that evil has taken control of us. Let us keep our eyes on the Lord (Ps. 16:8) and set our mind to Him by filling our mind with reading the scriptures daily and thinking of Him only. So, He will always be our guide and set us free from evil. May God Bless us all. Amen.

By YuliusTelaumbanua

Ad imaginem suam (Gen. 1:27)

I think each of us is familiar with the use of mirrors as it is oftentimes utilized by us in many ways. Most of the time, it is used to project how we dress up, how we beam, how we walk, and many more.  I even utilize it for rehearsing how to do public speaking or learning languages. What will happen if the mirror falls and it is shattered into pieces? Can it still function as it is supposed to be? It mostly can’t any longer!

How often in our lives, we look in the broken mirror to judge who we are? What is the broken mirror? It is the way we perceive and view ourselves and the way other people view ourselves. Our past bitter traumatic experiences have lots to do with our self-images.  These undeniably have shaped the way we think and make out ourselves. We can discern like we are not sufficiently good enough in the eyes of others. We are insufficiently lack of confidence and we become an attention seeker; to always look for others’ approval in everything that we do. We are thirsty for compliments and praises. Deep down, we feel profoundly insecure. If we heavily rely on the way people think and feel about us, it is an endless exhausting bumpy journey.

The way people view us is seriously limited and conditioned as they have their very own values and choices toward something. God’s word reminds us that the best mirror to look up about ourselves is God’s Himself because God made us.  God created us at first to be Imago Dei, the image of God. We are priceless not because of all things that we have but because we are created in Him and He died on the Cross for us. He died to suffer for our heart-broken, sins, and insecurity.  Grace alone enables us to have this sweet promise.  It is not by our good deeds and hard effort.  When we experience a deep and intimate personal relationship with Him, we surely feel loved and precious. Jesus is the best mirror that someone can have. Jesus, Jesus, what do you think of me?

By Deisyi, Indonesia.