When someone dies...

A day ago at this time, she was still there...Now, her room is empty, the house quiet. You will never hear her calling your name again. The pain in your chest is so much, you want to cry out. At times, you do. When you wake up, you remember. She is gone, forever. 

When a close friend's mom dies and it seems like you can feel her pain, the best place to look for answers is the Bible. It is, after all, a book about life and death. The preacher in Ecclesiastes knows our uncertainty about these matters: "(man) does not know what will happen...who can tell him when it will occur? The living know that they will die" (Eccles 8:7,8 and 9:5)
What he says next is quite startling, unexpected. "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting for that is the end of all men. And the living will take it to heart." He goes even further: "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better (or pleasing)." 
The prayer in Psalm 90:12 confirms this. Lord, please teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. A heart of wisdom is one that seeks the Lord. It is quite obvious that the Lord allows death and mourning so that we can take it to heart, so that our hearts can be made pleasing for the Lord as we seek Him.
Men, women, young girls and even children will die. That is, however, not the end. The writer to the Hebrews put it like this: "And it is appointed for men to die once, and after this the judgement, SO Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many." Whenever someone dies, we need to look again at Christ's death. He died so that we could live.
No wonder the preacher says that it is good to be in the house of mourning. We can expect to find Christ there. Waiting, still, to impart His life to save ours.

"For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted, but the sorrow of the world produces death."   2 Cor 7:10

    

When hard things happen...

When hard things happen, most people ask God why. How strange it is that before the problem arose, they hardly ever spoke to Him. Never told Him anything. Not how they were feeling, what made them happy or upset or even asked Him for anything. 
Yet, when the hard thing happens, they ask. It is a personal thing to ask someone why they do something. Imagine asking your teacher why she gave you a bad mark for that essay you thought was quite good. Wouldn't you say you would have to know her quite well before asking such a question?  

Yet, without knowing the Heavenly Father at all, you ask and even demand why certain things turn out the way they do. If you walk with Him, you can talk with Him and He will tell you everything you need to know. Jesus said to His disciples that He called them friends and told them everything His Father had told Him.
If you have walked with Him all along and that hard thing happens, you will know that He is with you always. You will know that He has measured that thing exactly for you and that He is helping you all along to carry it. And you will know that as the two of you walk, He will reveal His reasons to you at just the right time.

God's letters to you

Next week it is Valentine’s day. There will be a lot of talk about love. What do you think is the best way to show love to someone? Maybe it is to say yes when he asks you to marry him? Or is it to care for someone who is very sick? Or to do something very romantic like writing the words “I love you” in the sky with the vapour stream of a private aeroplane?

When God wanted to show us His love, He wrote us a love letter. It is called the Bible and it consists of 66 books. Listen to the words from one of His letters:     

                   “Rise up, my love, my fair one,

                     And come away.

                     For lo, the winter is past,

                     The rain is over and gone. “

In John 15:13 Jesus says the following words: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. “

Why do you think Jesus said this to his disciples?

Do you think it is true or can one show your love for someone in a bigger way than this?

What was He trying to tell them?

If you receive a love letter or even a card from someone, would you not read it? If you receive word upon word from Almighty God, would you not read it?

Greater love.....don’t you long for that? Then read His letters to you.

                             

I

SPECIAL MATRIC MESSAGE

So often during the last two years have we  quoted these verses: For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
How wonderful that God speaks to us! Yet, we need to read on: Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.  
Now we are talking! If you went on a road trip recently, you would know how important it is to know the people you're travelling with. All sorts of problems pop out while we're on the road.
You are on a new one from today. Better make sure who's driving...I would suggest you get to know the One who knows what's lying ahead. You must be able to talk to Him, to get His take on things, to call on Him when you're in trouble.
Romans 10:8 & 9 makes it really simple: If you confess with your mouth the LORD Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 
Do we really need to be saved? You tell me...what about the bad habits you cannot shake, the wrong choices you've made? The Bible calls it sin and says we need to be saved from that and eternal hell. A future where there is no-one to share His precious thoughts with us and draw us near and say: "I know the thoughts I think toward you..."

These holidays I went to China and learned to pray...

Tengyung, Paoshan and Mottled Hill were my destinations, plain boiled rice my staple diet and high mountains my challenge almost every day. I slept in rat-infested huts, sludged through mud and tried to understand a foreign language. My companion was the famous missionary, James O Fraser, lover of the Lisu people from southwest China.
For me, to read a missionary story is like going on a holiday. It refreshes me. Not only do I get to "see" the world, but I learn valuable lessons about the Christian life.
James O Fraser's life is described in detail through letters that he wrote home to his mom who was his main prayer partner. As time passed and disappointments grew, the talented twenty-two year old realized that his battle for the souls of the demon-worshipping tribe was serious. He asked for eight or so more praying volunteers and "rolled the burden of his soul" for the tribe's salvation over to them. He instructed them how to pray: ask for specific things that you know God wants to do, wait for answers, ask God what He wants and be careful of asking for things that are so big that you cannot handle it. 
When God answered these prayers over the following years, thousands of Lisu came to know the Lord. A young American girl, Isobel Kuhn, heard Fraser speak at a missionary congress and decided to go to China as well. In her first book, By Searching, she tells her story. 
But that is another story for another holiday...   

In whose name are you travelling?

When you were born, you were given a name. You have it for the rest of your life and it is inseparable from who you are. You are.....(insert your name) and it is your identity. If you do something, people will say, so and so did it.  
The apostle John said in John 20:30, 31 that he wrote his book to help us believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we can have life in His name. We cannot have eternal life in our own name, because the Bible says that there is no other name on earth than that of Jesus Christ by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12). It wouldn't help to be a famous movie star, the president of the United States or Mother Theresa or to say we know them, they're related to us or they even know us. Only Jesus' name can save us from eternal death.   
John says it is by believing that we can have life in Jesus' name. He meant for us to read his story about what Jesus did when He was on earth. If you read chapter 20 you will see John himself running to the tomb, finding it empty and he "saw and believed". Mary did not understand straight away what happened and Jesus had to tell her He was going to God. She was not to cling to Him as she knew Him on earth, but understand that He had really come to connect her to God!
A third disciple, Thomas, wanted to see, feel and experience Jesus' death on the cross and His resurrection. Jesus allowed him to and he believed because of this proof. By believing, all these disciples received eternal life in Jesus' name.
Although we were not there at the tomb, all these things were written down by John so that we can believe that Jesus is the Son of God. If we believe, we have life in His name.