Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Our Colour!

Was thinking about this today... It was really meaningful.

By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. —John 13:35

In Thailand, the people greatly love and admire King Bhumibol (Rama IX), who has led them for over 60 years. To display their respect for the king, the Thai people wear bright yellow shirts every Monday, because yellow is the official color of the king.

As we seek to live for our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, we should also show our colors of allegiance and appreciation for all He has done for us. But how? What are the “colors” that declare to the world that we serve the King of kings and Lord of lords?

The night before His crucifixion, King Jesus told us what our “colors” should be when He said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). His disciple John echoed this when he wrote, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

When we display Christ’s love for our fellow believers, it is more than just kindness or care. It is one of the most tangible ways we can show our love and devotion for the Savior.

As we interact with fellow Christ-followers, let’s be sure to show our colors. That will honor our King before a watching world. — Bill Crowder

Friday, August 8, 2008

The dark knight






THE DARK KNIGHT
This movie is a hit! I've already watched it twice, and the storyline is still fresh inside my brain!!!
To me this movie was class, as the story was perfect and the casting was perfect. This movie consisted of a crusading hero (Christian Bale) and a sneering villain of Joker (Heath Ledger), but what surprised me most was the role of Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) , a prestigious district attorney who played the hero of locking every villain in jail in becom.



THE TWO FACED HERO/VILLAIN
His fall at the end of the story reminded me about a two-faced heart. He quoted saying that "You either die being a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." He lived long enough to see himself become the villain. Harvey Dent and Two-face
is a big contrast of Chance and freewill, good and evil, hero and villain, justice and chaos, sacrifice and suffering. Two face would rather put his faith in "unbiased chance" than our human freewill. He even quoted saying "You thought we could be decent men in an undecent world. But you were wrong; the world is cruel, and the only morality of this world is chance"


The people involved involved in Jokers two ship experiment showed great humanism by showing that we humans do have a freewill, and from that freewill comes something good.
One ship consisted of prisoners, and the other consisted to normal passengers. Both had their chances to blow each other up. Both ships came to a conclusion that they should blow up the other ship to save their own lives. But yet as the clock struck twelve, nothing happened. They left their lives to chance, that the other ship would not blow them up. This reminds me of the chinese proverb, whereby it says that 人之初,性本善.
Are we really born with something uncorruptable? whereby we do have some good inside all of us?
Joker showed exactly, how to show the worst face of humanity, but yet forgetting that good always triumphs over evil.

And lastly, the movie ends with the unconvincing hero, the main character of the movie, the dark knight. I felt that he transends this superhero to become an everyman, conflicted and troubled by pain and brokenness in life. He is like us, everyday trying to find his identity while trying to maintain some morality.

His bat symbol was even broken due to his sacrifice. Gotham had rejected their only surviving hero. Batman quotes "Sometimes, truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded." Truth isn't good enough?Many of us prefer to build our lives, our significance on things that are not true; we place our faith in the goodness of humanity (when humanity has not been good to us). We insist on believing that being successful and family-oriented will bring us true happiness (while money corrupts and families divorce). We place our faith in a lie, a lie that temporarily rewards our faith, only to crumble seconds later under the weight of truth-sized hope. The truth isn’t good enough because we have been believing lies.


The Savior of Gotham
This bat becomes the savior of Gotham. A scapegoat. This dark knight, not one in shining armor, shows a truth, a truth that we all need someone to bear our sin, and also our refusal to stand on this truth, choosing to believe what movies and magazines portray life. We ourselves are in need of a savior, a hero who can identify with our humanity and bear our burden. Someone who will take our sin into his own hands, that we might be known as righteous. Contrary to the dark knight, we need a faith greater than what we can manufacture, to find a God greater than man-made philosophy. We need a God-man...