The Forerunner Times

"A life journal by Nathan J. Elias, called under God's grace to be His forerunner and restorer for His glory."

I came back from campus two days ago and look what I found lying in my room….

A package from Inex! I wonder what it could be… let’s open it and see what’s inside….

 

Sarah Brightman’s “One Night in Eden” and “Harem” concert DVDs! Finally! I now have a complete collection of all three Sarah Brightman concert with these two DVDs. Thank you Inex for fulfilling my hard-to-fulfill Christmas Wish, you really gone a long way to find these DVDs for me and for that I thank you lots lots and lots… loph u~ loph u~ loph u~

Now let’s see the DVDs in details shall we? Oh and you can click all images in this page (2 above included) to open a higher-resolution image so you can see all the finer details of the DVDs! And be sure to hover your mouse over the images to see my comments!

This is the Sarah Brightman “One Night In Eden” concert DVD. It was her first world tour in 1999, and so it was simple, the stage was small, with minimal but BEAUTIFULLY MADE stage acts, but I liked it! This is where she truly sang with magnificence and even without the creative stage acts seen on her latter concert, it works best. You have to see for yourself how she made for amazing scene acts, giving an image of a sea, a castle and the sky in different songs just with a piece of curtain and light work. Simple, but works beautifully, although still loses to La Luna, which has a better stage performance (of course, by La Luna she was already more famous, and her stage for that concert was A LOT bigger than this one, and she used many props for that concert, where for this one she only used curtains and stage lighting play, that works fine I must say). For this concert I rate the musical quality 8.0, the stage acts 8.0, and the total entertainment factor 8.0. Since this is her first concert, she didn’t have too many songs and the concert only lasted 92 minutes.

 

Okay, now let’s move on to the next one. This is her latest tour in 2004, “Harem”, conducted in Las Vegas. Well, it was too flashy in my opinion, too many stage acts, too many sexy dancers that distracts attention. And hey, she doesn’t sing too well here too, when she inhales during singing to take a breath, it was REALLY noticeable! If you compare it with Eden and La Luna you will see a whole lot of difference. The songs from the Harem album are also not too nice, so overall in this concert I only liked a few parts of it, maybe not even half of it, but it’s okay. But when they’re good, the stage acts are REALLY good and creative, and I must say this is maybe the best stage acts she ever thought of, though a bit over-the-top. I liked her flying angel and her swing scenes, they were magnificent. So in the end, for the music quality I rated 7.0, stage acts 8.0, and overall enjoyment 7.5.

 
 

So, after watching all three concert, I still stand by my opinion that La Luna (2001) was the best concert. It has the best blend and strikes the perfect balance between superb music (her La Luna album is magnificent) combined with superb stage acts (she really manages to use the “moon” theme really well) resulting in a very satisfying experience in which I enjoyed going through all her songs - and who could resist Sarah Brightman having a duet with Josh Groban? For La Luna I still give the music 9.0 and stage acts 9.0 - leading to an entertainment level of 9.0!

Definitely, you must watch all three, each have its different strength and weaknesses with uniqueness. As Sarah said, in every concert she brought a new world of fantasy into her audiences, and it is different for every concert. But as far as quality is concerned, La Luna is the one that you really must see. And thus, these three DVDs will go into my music library as part of my prized priceless collection. Thanks Inex, you really made my day!

Those who go down to the sea in ships,
    Who do business on great waters,
They see the works of the LORD,
    And His wonders in the deep.
For He commands and raises the stormy wind,
    Which lifts up the waves of the sea.
They mount up to the heavens,
    They go down again to the depths;
    Their soul melts because of trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man,
    And are at their wits’ end.
Then they cry out to the LORD in their trouble,
    And He brings them out of their distresses.
He calms the storm,
    So that its waves are still.
Then they are glad because they are quiet;
    So He guides them to their desired haven.
Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness,
    And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
Let them exalt Him also in the assembly of the people,
    And praise Him in the company of the elders.

~ Psalm 107 (Thanksgiving to the LORD for His Great Works of Deliverance) ~

Yesterday,
A day of blessings. Even in the midst of the worst day of my stomach acid illness, I pushed myself and relied upon the LORD to carry me through the ministry. As I rode the taxi to the church, I saw a little cross hanging upon the rear view mirror, just like the one I had worn before as a necklace before this one. It was God’s sign of love, a proclamation that “I have watched over you and cared for you, even since the beginning, the past, the present and into the future”. It was a great experience of putting my entire trust on the LORD, and the LORD heed and answered my call. Truly, there is none like the LORD, so loving and so merciful, that listens to even the most trivial need of His children. I shall continue to trust the LORD for the rest of my life.

But today,
My temperament issues were at the worst moments it could be. Six years backsliding, went back to the point in 2001 where I did the same immature thing. Shouted at people, blamed other people for my own mistakes, kick things in anger (this time it’s a steel trash bin, back then it was my friend). As I was getting nearer and closer towards the destination, the attacks intensified. When my spiritual and ministry life leaves no holes in the wall to be attacked (thanks to the prayers and supports from brothers and sisters at GPO), the enemy decided to break down my daily life, which holds more troubles and temptations. Succeed he may be at this moment, but there is always tomorrow, and I have belief in tomorrow that the LORD will carry me up under His wings with love and truth.

Lead me o LORD, do not let me walk alone in this, for I cannot do this on my own. Ye hath promised “there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it”. Lead my soul, grant it rest, make way for my escape, for I can no longer bear this, o LORD. No longer that I want to hurt others, no longer that I want my words to pierce the hearts of others. May my words be those of loving kindness, not despise, hatred, vengeance, malevolence, rejection, envy, lies and deceit.

Teach me o LORD, change my heart o GOD, mold me, make me so I may be like You. Else people will say “Where is your God? Where is He now in your daily life? Is He only there in the church, that you are free to do as you please outside the church?” O GOD, let not me be a stumbling block for others, but a blessing. Even though the path might be difficult, be with me, bear with me, hold me and carry me through. In You only I trust. None is like You. Forgive my trespasses o LORD, that I might start anew, and truly be a light for your Mighty Name.

Even though I might fall, I shall rise again.
I will not let myself be defeated, my God shall carry me.
Through the storms of life, I may travail.
But I shall not be afraid, for my God shall be with me.
He will not leave me, nor will he forsake me.
Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good, His mercy endureth forever.
May the name of the LORD be praised.

No, there’s no typo in the title. It’s imaging Jesus, not imagining Jesus.

It is a “day one” concept that was very important but I have seemingly forgotten until today when I was just reminded again of it in my first cellgroup meeting. I was lost and as you know, I was even looking for my own self image in the previous post. I don’t know what I should become. Then my friend strikes me with a question, “If now I ask you what kind of person you should become? What is all Nathan really should be like? What will be your answer?”. I paused for a moment to answer this question and I even went with some ‘general answers’ like must be mature and God-loving and all that. Then in a flash of the moment, the answer came.

I should be like Jesus.

My friend snapped his fingers and said “That’s it!”. But then I continued to discuss about how it is very difficult to assess what Jesus was like. We have no clear -animated- depiction of Him and a full account of Him like His habits, activities, what he’s doing in His spare time, even how he talks, unlike some other characters we can clearly see presented in movies or so. Then he continued to discuss about how actually a lot on Jesus’ character is presented if we care to delve deep enough into it to see more into His personality.

Jesus was a fun person, and maybe even a fun-loving one. We see this part in how the children seems to like Him so much that the adults have to try keeping them away from Him. Of course children wouldn’t want to draw near to Jesus is He was scary, too serious or too ’strict’, right? So we might conclude that He is a fun person and children like Him. But at times when He have to, He can also be firm and strict. He is not easily swayed by other people and He holds on to what He knows is true.

Like some of us, Jesus even had a run-in with tax collectors (see Matthew 17:24-27) and He followed the law. This tax was actually voluntary (com: Albert Barnes), but “from Peter’s reply, it is evident that our Lord customarily paid all taxes, tributes, etc., which were common among the people wherever he came. The children of God are subject to all civil laws in the places where they live - and should pay the taxes levied on them by public authority; and though any of these should be found unjust, they rebel not, as their business is not to reform the politics of nations, but the morals of the world.” (com: Adam Clarke).

Jesus experienced losses too. Although this point was debatable, if we see in the later chapters of the Gospels, Joseph was never again mentioned. Can it be that Joseph has passed away by the time Jesus started His ministry? Quite possible. And how about the responsibility to take care of our family? Jesus experienced it too. Think about it, Jesus was the firstborn son in Mary and Joseph’s family. If Joseph was gone, who would have the responsiblity to take care of the family’s well being? We see His love for His family. Even in the cross, Jesus thought of Mary and asked John to take care of her. So clearly we could see how Jesus behaves towards His family and parents here. Ever experienced family rejection? Jesus did too. If you read the whole story on Mark 3:20-35, His family thought Jesus has gone crazy and they went to take Him away (see commentary).

There are still a lot more to see on Jesus’ life and I can’t wait for the next cellgroup meetings to learn more about Him. My cellgroup leader have agreed that we will focus to study on Jesus’ life and try to image Jesus into our life. I think this will be very good for my personal and spiritual maturity development and I will continue to share more about it here as I learn more. Jesus is the only one we should try to learn from and imitate in our lives, the perfect embodiment of truth and life. I’m surprised that it took me all these long to finally learn of this very basic mistake of me that prevented me from growing any further in my spiritual maturity….

This is a small project I want to do for myself and I need your help.

For years, it is quite unknown for me what kind of person I actually am. I have not realized that I may have a crisis of self-image until only recently. I might have looked upon to many ‘idols’ in my life and assimilated them into my personality that in the end, I do not have a core personality of my own, but I am only a mixed-up product of many others.

The simplest example, ever since I got my PlayStation back then on high school, I played a lot of RPGs and I have modeled myself to a lot of them. Most notably are Cloud Strife (FFVII), which I shared a lot of personality with, like past bitterness, feeling of loneliness, seeking of forgiveness and helping the needy - to the point that I can relate with him in the Advent Children story; and Squall Leonheart (FFVIII) which I copied a lot in terms of physical likeness (hair model, hair color, clothings) which in the end made me a bit like Gackt too. Those two are the most prominent ones I can think of.

There are also other idols from movies and these are the ones I copied a lot, and many people have noticed I can change myself to resemble a movie character I just watched and liked, but often these do not stay long. At the moment, the prominent ones from this category are Capt. Jack Sparrow and Death Note’s L. Which, combined, makes me a bit of a quirky person and many people have even described as girly. I should have copied from the ‘better’ ones such as The Last Samurai’s Algren or Lord of the Rings’ Aragorn, but these characters are deeper and thus harder to assimilate. This is also the reason why, as many people have suggested to me, I cannot imitate Jesus.

This is where your help is essential. For those of you who have known me (even better if you know me in real life), leave a message in the comment system about your description of me as a whole. Be as detailed as possible, maybe noting my strength and weaknesses, interests, hobbies, preferences, special things or maybe little things you note about me and basically anything you can think on your mind about ‘truly what kind of person Nathan is according to me’. Don’t worry if you write it very long, I will be copying all your descriptions into a Word file, so if things get too slow to load I might delete some of the earlier comments that I have copied. Feel free to say and describe anything about me and go to great lengths for it. You can write in either English or Indonesian, it is up to you. Or if you like to be more personal, you can e-mail me at chaoticblue at gmail dot com.

Your help will be very much appreciated, thank you.

There is a growing distance that I have to reach back between me and Jesus. Ever since I left Him that day on 25 December, I have never been able to win back that distance. Chette said that “Satan will destroy what is not his” and I think that during those last days in the previous year, I has been hit down hard. I lost all trace of relationships with Him during the three days with my family here where my schedule suddenly became so hectic and God become out of the picture. Just when my relationship with Him was getting closer and He was in all aspects in my life, I got knocked down hard and now struggling to reach that “summit” again.

It has been bad.

I lost my 40-days of Purpose Driven Life reading continuity in about the 12th day. Ever since I went on to read the 13th day onward, it has not been the same, I have not received the same kind of blessings and insights I previously got during the first 12 days. I tried to write to my journal but I could not jot down anything. I became so prone to the old sins I thought I have finally conquered in my life. All the peace and joy were missing during these days. It was like I fell down from the mountain of God and now how to retrace my steps again back to Him. It seems that now, there is a distance between me and God, and I know too well from Isaiah 59:1-2 that it is my sins and iniquities that have made that distance.

I cried during last Sunday’s Holy Communion service. How many times must God’s body be broken and His blood be shed to cleanse my sins? How worthless I am not to be able to repay, but to continue dwelling in the same sins over and over again? I feel disappointed with myself and I’m not sure if God would have felt the same. At this moment, the only verse that rings in my head is this one:

This verse gave me strength to rise again in my past trials, when I fell down hard and felt like I was a worthless man. This verse gave me belief of a better tomorrow, that our trials are there to make us stronger, to make us more like Christ. I will never surrender to the enemy. I shall keep on walking and find my God. My bond shall not be broken. God shall gave me the strength to move on. May the name of the LORD be blessed and glorified.

We’re getting stronger everyday, we’re getting braver in every way,
Hallelujah here we come.
We’re getting stronger everyday, push through the rains that fall our way,
Hallelujah here we come.
We’re getting closer everyday, chasing the dreams that heaven gave,
Hallelujah here we come.

I got the inspiration to write about this when I listened to this chorus part of Casting Crowns’ song, “If We Are The Body”:

If we are the body,
Why aren’t His arms reaching?
Why aren’t His hands healing?
Why aren’t His words teaching?

And if we are the body,
Why aren’t His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?

Sometimes, whenever we face difficulties in the church, difficult Christians, people who are not acting like they should, as believers and childrens of Christ - we hear people say “do not look at the people, but just look at Jesus”. For years I thought that this is the way to take when dealing with such people. But then I found out that this is not rightly so.

Sure, we fellow brethrens might be able to ignore such people and focus on Christ, but what about the people out there who haven’t yet met the “real” Christ? Then it is us that they see, as they cannot see the Christ that have died on the cross and gone to Heaven, it is us as the body of Christ that they can see, signifying to them the image of Christ.

But what happens if we, as the body of Christ, fails to understand this significance and in the end do not perform what God has commanded in the Bible? Love one another. Teach them and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What if we fail to do so? What if our arms aren’t reaching, our hands not healing, our words not teaching, our feet not going and our love fail to show them there is a way? What if we just live our lives just the way we want it, without even considering that we might be living the ways of the world, not the Christian way of life, simply because we think that our lives are ours, so we can do whatever we want with it?

Most of the time, we think the consequences of our actions will be only implied and judged upon ourselves, but as Christians, we bear the name of our Christ in our life and everything we do will not be judged only to ourselves, but also to Christ’s name. Simply put, if we do something bad, as we are the body of Christ, it is not only us the persons who will receive the bad reputation, but our Christ will also be humiliated and looked down upon. This is what is meant by being a “stumbling block” in the Bible, and surely we do not want that to happen. The Bible said that once you received salvation in Christ, “your life is not your own anymore, but it now belongs to Christ, as you have died and also been resurrected with Him”.

Now that you know this, start living your life for Him. As we have been honoured with the privilage to be called the children of God, we also have the responsibility to take care of His name everywhere we trail, as now we are associated with Him. Surely we do not want to put our Father to shame, so learn His words, obey His commandments and be a good witness. That way, when people see us - the body of Christ - they will get a glimpse into the image of what Christ really is.

Love.

With the grace,
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

Comes the commandment,
“By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” (1 John 3:16)

These two “3:16″ verses written by John should underline the reason and the course of action for loving others. Only by having a sincere love of others can we become an embodiment of Christ. Through His love, we reach others, we heal others, we teach others and we go a long way to show them that there is more to this life and that there is a way to eternity, which is in Jesus Christ alone.

Let us become the body of Christ so that people could see Christ through us and in us.
Let people see Christ through us and in us, so that they will believe in His salvation.

Amen.

Written by Nathan J. Elias
(2007/01/04)

Happy New Year 2007 to my fellow friends and blog readers.

I bid you a happy and blessed year for 2007, though for myself, 2007 might not be a happy year and there will be a lot of changes, trials and challenges that I have to face. I have to enter a new world, the next step, the next phase in life, and in every options that I can choose to take, there is a price that I have to pay for each of the choices. To lay it out simply, here are the options that I can take on 2007.

A. Go home to Indonesia and continue parents’ business
This might by the “easy way out”, and the easy way usually brings a toll on the maturity development of a person. If I go this way, I will lose the chance to develop myself both in personal aspects and spiritual aspects towards maturity. I might never be able to become a fully grown man that is able to make choices, have responsibilities and take consequences with every actions that I make. At the moment, this is not the choice that I want to make and my parents also wished for me not to take this course of action. Besides, the emotional toll is quite high if I have to leave KP-GPO now. I have been with them for only four months and I still have a lot to do here for my growth. I feel the need to tackle on more ministries and I have yet to follow the developmental activities like cellgroups and bible studies, so at the moment, this option A is not an option to consider taking.

B. Stay here in Singapore and face the many new challenges
The more difficult option, albeit the most rewarding one (provided I managed to finish unto the end). Two more months left in my study equals to having to start many preparations such as writing resumes, filing in extension of stay to the Singapore immigration and many nitty-gritty issues. Coupled with the fact that I will enter a new phase of life, namely the working life, many things will have to change. My sleeping cycle (too late at the moment so I must try sleeping and waking up early), my poor health and stamina which may make me unable to work 8-9 hours every day and many more. It will be a steep challenge to face, but if I take it, I know I will grow and learn a lot, even if I fail somewhere, I know that I will be able to learn from the mistakes. No one can become successful without stumbling here and there, the difference between the successful and not successful people is that the former always learn and take something from the mistakes.

In spiritual development, as I stated above, KP-GPO gave many more room for spiritual growth than I had before in Indonesia. With cellgroups only bound to start this or next week, I definitely need more time in here. There are a lot of spiritually mature people whom I can learn from here as opposed to my prior settlement which is still fussing over “internal matters” even to this day, straying their focus from the more important things at hand, and definitely, from God. Option B might take as little as two years to as long as God wanted to, from six, eight years to maybe more than that. And that is if He intended for me to stay in here.

The plan to take?
Maybe option B. I know God is with me and I just need to take this step… or maybe leap of faith. If I don’t get out of my comfort zone, no good will ever come to me and I will not be able to let God shape me and mold me to His purpose and likeness. It is indeed hard, and I pray that I will be given strength to endure and overcome it all through the year.

In this event, I would like to give my thanks to…

• GOD, for His enduring mercies and protection during the year, even when I am not faithful at times. Thank you for everything and I can’t believe it has been almost one year I’ve been here in Singapore. Can’t do it without you, GOD. For all you’ve done in my life, I am eternally grateful.
• My parents, who have given me the chance to study here in Singapore, and probably, extend my stay here for some another few years. Yes, I know that’s very costly for you… I’m sorry.
• Special dedication to friends at KP-GPO, thank you for bringing light into my life after six months of ‘no-life’ here in Singapore. Thank you for accepting me and I hope we can bring more glory into the LORD in 2007.
• Blog friends, campus friends, net friends and other friends that have supported me and carried me through during the year. I thank you for all your support. Thank you very much.