Life is Full of Problems

We live in an age filled with stress. Alcoholism, drug abuse, abuse against children, changing jobs, divorce and many more that we must face. Most of these problems is a sign of someone who could not handle the pressure, they do not rise up to face Goliath with courage that God has provided for us all.

Every stage of life has its pressure itself is no exception in the years of childhood and adolescence, even the suicide rate is rising among young people between the ages of thirteen and nineteen years old. Many of these young kids do not know how to handle the pressure, because their parents do not know how to handle pressure.

People who just got married and had pressures. On a pressure scale of one to one hundred, who had been married just shows the number fifty. So many adjustments that must be held as, financial adjustments, career adjustment, and adjustment of roles. Many young couples are not prepared to rise to the challenge. Even single parents (unmarried or married) also have huge pressures such as, financial challenges, loneliness, and adjustments in every area of life.
God did not give us wings to fly away from the problems. He did not lift us out of the world to keep us from the experience of pressure, but he gives us the strength to walk through the pressure and developed just as we are under pressure.

God allowed all three men of Israel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to come into a burning fireplace, but he maintains them. God will not always reduce the heat stress problem, but he will always go there with us and give us the strength to overcome whatever we face.
We can resolve issues with one of four ways is very well known, namely: First run away from trouble, the two went round the problem (just to face it again later), ignore all the problems the third, fourth or face problems with courage. Which way will we choose? Behavior David in 1 Samuel 17:48, reflecting the attitude of a winner because he ran to meet Goliath.

Courage is the attitude we need when we are facing danger, difficulty or pain. Courage is the nature of standing firm and not stepping back in time to face the challenges, when we act in a spirit of courage, we will face our enemies in the belief that we will win, David has never waited to face a Goliath, but he ran to meet Goliath and beat him.
We can come to our problems the same way as David did in 1 Samuel 17:45, "But David said to the Philistine, You come to me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come to you with the name of the Lord of hosts God of all the armies of Israel that you challenge it. "

We can not run away from trouble, we can not just circling around the issues or we can not ignore every problem we face, what God wants is that we deal with all our courage, because of His promise to Joshua is the same is his promise to us "Did not I have commanded you; and strong and of good courage? Do not be afraid and lose heart. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. "

Hidup Penuh Dengan Masalah

Kita hidup dalam zaman yang penuh dengan berbagai tekanan. Minuman keras, penyalahgunaan obat-obatan, perlakuan kejam terhadap anak, pergantian pekerjaan, perceraian dan masih banyak lagi yang harus kita hadapi. Kebanyakan dari masalah-masalah ini merupakan tanda-tanda orang yang tak dapat mengatasi tekanan, mereka tidak bangkit untuk menghadapi Goliat dengan keberanian yang telah Allah sediakan bagi kita semua.

Setiap babak kehidupan mempunyai tekanannya sendiri tak terkecuali dalam tahun-tahun kanak-kanak dan remaja, bahkan angka bunuh diri sedang meningkat diantara kawula muda antara usia tigabelas dan sembilanbelas tahun. Banyak dari anak-anak muda ini tidak tahu bagaimana caranya mengatasi tekanan, karena orangtua mereka juga tidak tahu bagaimana mengatasi tekanan.

Orang-orang yang baru menikah mempunyai tekanan-tekanan. Pada sebuah skala tekanan dari satu hingga seratus, yang baru menikah saja menunjukan angka limapuluh. Begitu banyak penyesuaian yang harus diadakan seperti, penyesuaian keuangan, penyesuaian karir, dan penyesuaian peranan. Banyak pasangan muda tidak siap untuk bangkit menghadapi tantangan itu. Bahkan orangtua tunggal (tak bersuami atau beristri) juga mempunyai tekanan-tekanan yang besar seperti, tantangan keuangan, kesepian, dan penyesuaian pada setiap bidang kehidupan.

Allah tidak memberikan sayap kepada kita untuk terbang lari dari masalah-masalah. Ia tidak mengangkat kita keluar dari dunia untuk menghindarkan kita dari pengalaman tekanan, melainkan Ia memberikan kekuatan kepada kita untuk berjalan melewati tekanan dan dikembangkan justru sewaktu kita berada di bawah tekanan.
Allah mengijinkan ketiga orang Israel; Sadrakh, Mesakh dan Abednego untuk masuk dalam perapian yang menyala-nyala, tetapi Ia memelihara mereka. Allah tidak akan selalu menurunkan panasnya tekanan masalah, namun Ia akan selalu masuk disana bersama dengan kita dan memberikan kita kekuatan untuk mengatasi apapun yang kita hadapi.

Kita dapat mengatasi masalah-masalah dengan salah satu dari empat cara yang cukup terkenal yaitu; Pertama lari menjauh dari masalah, kedua pergi memutari masalah (hanya untuk menghadapinya kembali kemudian), ketiga abaikan semua masalah, atau yang keempat hadapi masalah dengan keberanian. Cara manakah yang akan kita pilih? Perilaku Daud di dalam 1 Samuel 17:48, mencerminkan sikap seorang pemenang karena ia berlari menemui Goliat.

Keberanian adalah sikap yang kita perlukan saat kita sedang menghadapi bahaya, kesulitan atau kesakitan. Keberanian adalah sifat berdiri teguh dan bukannya melangkah mundur pada saat menghadapi tantangan, pada saat kita bertindak dalam roh keberanian, kita akan menghadapi musuh kita dengan keyakinan bahwa kita akan menang, Daud tidak pernah menunggu untuk menghadapi seorang Goliat melainkan ia berlari menemui Goliat dan mengalahkanya.

Kita dapat mendatangi masalah-masalah kita dengan cara yang sama seperti yang Daud lakukan dalam 1 Samuel 17:45, “Tetapi Daud berkata kepada orang Filistin itu: Engkau mendatangi aku dengan pedang dan tombak dan lembing, tetapi aku mendatangi engkau dengan nama Tuhan semesta alam, Allah segala barisan Israel yang kau tantang itu.”

Kita tidak dapat lari dari masalah, kita tidak dapat hanya berputar-putar disekitar masalah ataupun kita tidak dapat mengabaikan setiap masalah yang kita hadapi, yang Tuhan inginkan adalah kita menghadapinya dengan segala keberanian kita, karena janji-Nya kepada Yosua adalah sama juga janji-Nya kepada kita “Bukankah telah kuperintahkan kepadamu; kuatkan dan dan teguhkanlah hatimu? Janganlah kecut dan tawar hati. Sebab TUHAN, Allahmu, menyertai engkau, ke mana pun engkau pergi.”

Mount Decision

We can be satisfied with the burning bush and rejoice in our first encounter with a supernatural God. We can be satisfied with the revelation tablets carved by hand and the wisdom of God and everything else that God's doing.
But now we have arrived at the mountain's decision, we are at the "crossroads". God has pulled us out of sin and the world.

He has united us into a people. That's really the journey in the wilderness, God created a people of "the people who do not mean". :
1 Peter 2:10 says: "you who once were not God's people, but which now has become his people, who were not of mercy but now have obtain mercy". God raised slaves and servants who do not have a rough education and self-esteem and instill his own character into themselves and put his name on them.

He brought them out of Egypt and said, "now I'll make you all be my people." He literally created the bride for him. God led the descendants of Abraham to the foot of Mount Sinai, and it was not easy, when the crowd needed food, God wants them to look for him to get bread for them, but instead they just berate Moses and said it is better to return to Egypt.
However, Moses prayed and God provided "manna and quails' The same thing happens when they run out of water, they immediately discredit Moses to express grievances and to speak" how well the days of the past "which they spent in Egypt. God has something better for the people of Israel.

The sad truth in The Book of the output is that the diverse people of that led to the Mount Sinai is not a group of people whom he led across the Jordan River into the promised land. God called them and made them into a nation the first time in their history, he summoned them to a place. A place of blessing and their changes, which in fact they do not want to go.

The blessings they do not consist of places where rocky, but the Lord called them a little market where the treaty in him, a place of intimacy with their creator, who at that time was not offered to anyone else on this planet. It is a secret from the secret place.
Although the first generation of Israel that had gathered around the mountain believed ultimately to the scouts are a coward and retreat from the promised land because of fear, but the real cause of their failure occurs when they are at the foot of Mount Sinai. God meant for all the people of Israel came up to him on the mountain, but they feel uncomfortable.

Exodus 20:18 says: "The whole nation is watching thunder thunder, lightning continued-risk one, trumpets sounded and the mountain smoking. So the nation was frightened and trembling, and they stood afar off. They said to Moses: "You are talking to us, then we will listen, but let not God speak with us, lest we die." But Moses said unto the people: "Fear not, for God has come with the intention to try you, and with the intent to fear him is in you, that ye sin not." As the nation stood at a distance, but Moses went near a black dew in which God exists. "

They heard the lightning and thunder, and they retreated out of fear, they fled from his presence and not advanced as that of Moses. So the end result of their escape from the sacred intimate relationship with God is that they die before they or their children into the promised land. This is not God's plan for the first generation of Israelites to die in the wilderness, he wanted to bring those who had brought him out of the land of slavery to the promised land.

He wants to give their land and their own heritage. Their destruction came when they looked across the Jordan to the promised land and began to retreat, they retreated from the presence of God in the clouds on Mount Sinai. That's where they ran from God and demanded Moses stood between them, the church has suffered the same problem since then.
We would prefer if there was someone standing between us and God, we have a something that is inspired from Hell, the human fear of the holy intercourse with God.
The root of this fear back as far back as the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve hid themselves in fear of embarrassing while God missed a sweet fellowship.

Gunung Keputusan

Kita dapat menjadi puas dengan semak yang terbakar (Keluaran 3:2) dan bersukacita atas perjumpaan kita yang pertama dengan Tuhan yang adikodrati. Kita dapat menjadi puas dengan loh-loh penyataan yang diukir oleh tangan dan hikmat Tuhan dan segala sesuatu yang lainnya yang Tuhan kerjakan.

Tetapi sekarang kita telah tiba di gunung keputusan, kita sedang berada di “persimpangan jalan”. Tuhan telah menarik kita keluar dari dosa dan dari dunia.
Dia telah menyatukan kita menjadi suatu umat. Itulah sebenarnya perjalanan di padang gurun, Tuhan menciptakan suatu umat dari “orang-orang yang tidak berarti”. :
1 Petrus 2:10 mengatakan: “kamu, yang dahulu bukan umat Allah, tetapi yang sekarang telah menjadi umat-Nya, yang dahulu tidak dikasihani tetapi yang sekarang telah beroleh belas kasihan”. Tuhan mengangkat budak dan hamba kasar yang tidak memiliki pendidikan dan harga diri dan menanamkan karakter-Nya sendiri kedalam diri mereka dan menempelkan nama-Nya atas mereka .

Dia membawa mereka keluar dari Mesir dan berkata, “sekarang Aku akan membuat engkau sekalian menjadi umat-Ku.” Dia secara literal menciptakan pengantin wanita bagi-Nya. Tuhan memimipin keturunan Abraham ke kaki gunung Sinai, dan itu tidaklah mudah.Ketika orang banyak membutuhkan makanan, Tuhan ingin agar mereka mencari Dia untuk mendapatkan roti bagi mereka, namun sebaliknya mereka justru mencaci maki Musa dan berkata adalah lebih baik untuk kembali ke Mesir.

Namun demikian, Musa berdoa dan Tuhan menyediakan “burung puyuh dan manna” Hal yang sama terjadi ketika mereka kehabisan air, mereka segera memojokkan Musa untuk mengungkapkan keluhan dan berbicara “betapa baiknya hari-hari yang silam” yang mereka lalui di Mesir. Tuhan memiliki sesuatu yang lebih baik bagi bangsa Israel.

Kebenaran yang menyedihkan dalam Kitab keluaran adalah bahwa kelompok umat Tuhan yang beragam yang dipimpin kegunung Sinai adalah bukan kelompok orang yang Dia pimpin melintasi sungai Yordan menuju tanah perjanjian. Tuhan memanggil mereka dan membuat mereka menjadi suatu bangsa yang pertama kali dalam sejarah mereka, Dia memanggil mereka ke suatu tempat. Suatu tempat berkat dan perubahan mereka, dimana sebenarnya mereka tidak mau pergi.
Berkat-berkat mereka tidak terdiri dari tempat-tempat yang berbatu tetapi Tuhan memanggil mereka kesuatu tempat perjanjian di dalam Dia, suatu tempat keintiman dengan pencipta mereka, yang pada saat itu tidak ditawarkan kepada orang lain di planet ini. Itu merupakan suatu rahasia dari tempat rahasia.

Meskipun generasi yang pertama bangsa Israel yang berkumpul seputar gunung pada akhirnya percaya kepada para pengintai yang pengecut dan mundur dari tanah perjanjian karena takut, namun penyebab yang sesungguhnya dari kegagalan mereka terjadi pada saat mereka berada di kaki gunung Sinai. Tuhan bermaksud agar semua bangsa Israel datang mendekat kepada-Nya di gunung itu, tetapi mereka merasa tidak nyaman.

Keluaran 20:18 mengatakan: “Seluruh bangsa itu menyaksikan guruh mengguntur, kilat sabung-menyabung, sangkakala berbunyi dan gunung berasap. Maka bangsa itu takut dan gemetar dan mereka berdiri jauh-jauh. Mereka berkata kepada Musa: “Engkaulah berbicara dengan kami, maka kami akan mendengarkan; tetapi janganlah Allah berbicara dengan kami, nanti kami mati.” Tetapi Musa berkata kepada bangsa itu: “Janganlah takut, sebab Allah telah datang dengan maksud untuk mencoba kamu dan dengan maksud supaya takut akan Dia ada padamu, agar kamu jangan berbuat dosa.” Adapun bangsa itu berdiri jauh-jauh, tetapi Musa pergi mendekati embun yang kelam di mana Allah ada.”

Mereka mendengar kilat dan guntur, dan mereka mundur karena takut, mereka melarikan diri dari hadirat-Nya dan bukan maju seperti yang dilakukan oleh Musa. Jadi hasil akhir dari pelarian diri mereka dari hubungan intim yang kudus dengan Allah adalah bahwa mereka mati sebelum mereka atau anak-anak mereka masuk kedalam tanah perjanjian.

Ini bukan rencana Tuhan bagi generasi pertama dari bangsa Israel untuk mati di padang gurun, Dia ingin membawa mereka yang telah dibawa-Nya keluar dari tanah perbudakan ketanah perjanjian. Dia ingin memberikan kepada mereka tanah dan warisan milik mereka sendiri. Kehancuran mereka datang ketika mereka melihat keseberang Yordan ke tanah perjanjian dan mulai mundur, mereka mundur dari hadirat Tuhan dalam awan di gunung Sinai. Di sanalah mereka lari dari Tuhan dan menuntut Musa berdiri di antara mereka, gereja telah menderita persoalan yang sama sejak waktu itu.
Kita lebih suka jika ada seseorang berdiri di antara kita dan Allah, kita memiliki suatu, sesuatu yang diilhamkan dari Neraka, yaitu ketakutan manusiawi terhadap hubungan intim yang kudus dengan Tuhan.
Akar dari ketakutan ini kembali jauh kebelakang ke Taman Eden. Adam dan Hawa menyembunyikan diri dalam ketakutan yang memalukan sementara Tuhan merindukan suatu persekutuan yang manis.

A Truth Itself

The trend is already well established within the church is to underestimate the nature of salvage, with no more than interpret such changes themselves, or the remission of sins, or personal passport to Heaven, or just as a personal mystic experiences, which have no social or moral consequences. Understanding of salvation should we free caricatures such as this, the doctrine of salvation we must show the full biblical sense because salvation is the radical transformation at the start now, be continued as long as we live in the world and perfected will be at the coming of Jesus' second coming.

As believers in Christ, we must be alert to the actual truth of separation is unity.

First, we should not separate the safety of the kingdom of God, because in the Bible both are synonyms, alternative models to describe the work of God the same. In Isaiah 52:7 says: "How wonderful it is visible from the top of the hills coming of anchor, a peaceful preaching and proclaiming the good news, which spread the news and said congratulations to Sion:" God is King! ".

They are preaching preach peace is also a good-news, that is, where God ruled there was rescue. Salvation is the blessing of his reign, so clearly that enter God's kingdom is synonymous with salvation.

If synchronized, there must have been us admit, then the notion of salvation rose gets a wider meaning. For the kingdom of God is the dynamic reign of God, who barged into the history of mankind through Jesus, face, fight and defeat crime, distribution of personal and communal well-being sustainable, protecting his people with blessing and a total claim as his own .

Church of the Kingdom was intended to be a community, a guiding model of a community that has been placed himself under the rule of God, and an alternative that becomes a challenge to secular society that enter into the kingdom of God is to enter into a new era, which has long already promised in the Old Testament, and now we're looking forward to the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God is perfect when our body, our society and the universe will be renewed, and all sin, pain, futility, illness and death will be abolished all of them.

Second, we should not be separated from Jesus as Savior Jesus Christ as Lord. It sounds almost absurd, but the reality is that many argue, should accept Jesus as Savior while they postpone surrender to Him as Lord.

From his position as supreme and sovereign authorities to act, He can bestow the gift of salvation and the Spirit. Precisely because He is God so He can save.

To His deity far beyond the small field of our religious life, and covers all areas of our experience is both open to the outside world and the hidden, at home, in church, as citizens, or the responsibility of the Church as well as our social responsibility.

Third, we should not separate faith from love. Christians have always emphasized the Faith. Solafide, "only by faith" is one slogan of the Reformation, which was not allowed to doubt.'Justification' or, more precisely we restore our worthiness before God, that's not happening because of good deeds we have done or what we can do, it occurred solely thanks to the grace of God, we really do not deserve, and are given only because the basis of willingness Jesus Christ to redeem us from sin and death through his death and in a simple way to put our trust in Him.

This central truth of the Gospel that can not be on the bargaining. But, although the recovery of human worthiness can only occur solely because of faith, but faith is not faith who are unemployed or stand idle. He was the authentic meaning of life and he will immediately manifests itself in the form of good deeds. If not she is a false faith.

Jesus himself had taught this to us in His image provided about the separation of 'sheep' of the 'goat' in the Last Judgement Day.