兒子，恭喜你！

這幾天，阿丹獨自遠赴美國中部，叄加為期近一週的跨年2012 Urbana基督徒學生宣教大會(Urbana 12 Student Missions Conference)。圖中雪景固然令他興奮，但我覺得他在臉書上所記講員David Platt所講的一段話，讓他開始正視信仰的真正挑戰，特別是後半段講員丟出似炸彈般的反思!

「我們要非常小心，不要按著我們所喜好的重新界定基督教…我們不要把聖經中的耶穌按照可以讓自己感覺舒適的方式扭曲祂。我們要祂長得像我們、思想像我們、說話方式像我們。我們認為耶穌不在意物質主義、祂要我們中庸、祂要我們不要陷入極端，總之，祂要我們避免一切的危險。…
真正的危險在於，我們是按照我們自己的形象來塑照祂，一個外貌像我們、思考方式像我們的溫和小北美耶穌。…
真正危險的是，我們認為我們在敬拜祂，但，我們究竟敬拜的是祂？還是我們自己？」

兒子，邁入2013年之際，恭喜你進入信仰的深層與真實，神對你而言不再單單是父母親的神了!

/瀟碧 12. 31. 2012
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"Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega
He is the Beginning and the End
He is the First and the Last
He is the Final, Amen
He is the Bread of Life
Christ our Creator, our Deliverer, our Everlasting Father
He IS GOD
He is the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd, the Great High Priest, the Holy One.
He is the image of the invisible God
The Judge of the living and the dead
He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords
He is majestic and mighty
No one compares to Him
The Only Begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth
He is the Power of God
The Resurrection and the Life
The Supreme Sacrifice
The Way, the Truth, and the Life
Jesus is the very Word of God made flesh"

"Jesus is all of these things"

"And we have reduced Him to a poor, puny Savior Who is just begging for us to accept Him into our hearts. Accept Him?
As if Jesus needs to be accepted by us. He doesn't need our acceptance.
Jesus doesn't need you or me at all. We need Him!
We need Him for every breath we breathe...."

"For far too long and in far too many ways, we have minimized the majesty of Jesus in the Church. And we have diluted what it means to be His disciple in the world."

"Almost seems like Jesus is trying to talk three guys out of following Him."
"'Eat My flesh, drink My blood' John 6"
"...Jesus has said these things to us... to love Him in a way that makes our closest relationships in this world look like hate in comparison"
"He has called us all to die, to die to ourselves"

"But we don't believe this. We take texts like these and we say 'What Jesus really meant was...'And this is when we need to be really careful, because this is where we start redefining Christianity according to our preferences.
This is where we start taking Jesus of the Bible and twisting Him into a Jesus we are a little more comfortable with.
A Jesus Who looks like us, and thinks like us and talks like us.
A Jesus Who is okay with nominal devotion, Who doesn't mind materialism.
A Jesus Who wants us to be balanced, a Jesus Who wants us to avoid dangerous extremes.
And, for that matter, a Jesus Who wants us to avoid danger altogether"

"But here's the real danger, when we treat Jesus like this. When we mold Him into our image, a nice little North American Jesus that looks like us, thinks like us. The reality is, now, when we gather together in our Churches in our conferences and we sing our songs and we lift up our hands"

"The reality is that we are not worshiping Jesus of the Bible. We are singing songs and lifting up our hands to ourselves.
The danger is we think we are worshipping Him"

"Is this the Jesus that you are following?"
David Platt