During our East Coast trip, my family was welcomed in by my dad’s old college friend to stay at his place in New Jersey. The friend and his late wife were both my dad’s college buddies back in China. Both don’t know Christ and my dad had been praying for them and loving on them for many, many years.
On our ride back from Longwood Gardens today, the husband told us that about two years ago, his wife was told that she had five months left due to stomach cancer. One day as she laid in the hospital bed, she could hear a church service going on and was moved to tears by the music. The nurse asked her and the husband if they wanted a pastor to come by.
The husband didn’t care too much for it but the wife insisted. The pastor came by, prayed for her and talked with her for the few remaining days of her life. On the last day, she accepted Christ. She wanted to be baptized. After the pastor had baptized her, she was gone within ten minutes.
The husband found it incredibly moving how the church had supported them during that time. He was intrigued that she had accepted Christ so close to her passing. However, he does not want to accept Christ. My father is still ministering to him. Keep him in your prayers.
I feel “spiritually insignificant” because I’m not off to some third-world country spreading the Gospel and curing cancer and diabetes in my free time for God. Pardon my tongue-in-cheek comment but often times, this is how I honestly feel. I feel jealous and prideful and I feel like I’m not being used by God or not being brave enough to live out my true potential. In any case, this is worth a read.
I never thought much about it. But I realize now that every time I had given something to the Lord, (whether it be time or talents or money or resources), He has been so, so, so faithful in taking care of me and my needs. To the point that it’s become ridiculous.
God fed the widow, her son and Elijah at Zarephath. The Bible says that there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and for her family. The jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry.
God paid off the another widow’s debts by providing the oil she needed to make money and live off of what was left. The cool thing here is that God let the oil flow and once she got what she needed, the flow of the oil stopped.
The thing is, God is still in the business of working miracles. Long story short, through many means, He has provided for me in a small, yet such a tangible, way that I just learned of through my mother just now, that it just makes me stand in awe of God’s sovereignty and His love that He would care over someone like me.
It feels so weird to be giving Biblical encouragement to my own parents. It’s always been the other way around. You’d think that encouragement would be like water, always flowing downstream, but I guess it’s not.
Here’s a good ol’ fashioned motivational video by Nike. And I absolutely love it. First of all, recognize that even though it doesn’t have explicitly Christian themes, there is a lot of truth here.
Nothing in life comes easy. Not even salvation. It was so hard that only God could do it. And Jesus suffered incredibly for it. He pushed through when all He wanted was to let it pass…it was so painful and agonizing that his sweat was like drops of blood on the ground. But God sent an angel to comfort his Son and He went to Calvary and paid a price that no one could ever pay. Every single sin was laid on his shoulders and God was so disgusted that he turned his back on his Son. This, folks, is hard. So when Jesus tells us to carry our cross and follow him, that does not imply an easy life. A Christian life is not a life of ease, it’s not a life of complacency nor is it a life of contentment in your position. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows and hugs and butterflies and brownies. No, it is day. by. day. doing. life. in. the. grind.
When you feel like quitting, don’t. You keep striving and pushing forward by God’s grace. You run the race with a purpose and a goal. You run in such a way as to get the prize. Discipline your body and make it your slave. When you fall down, you pick yourself up with God’s help. None of this, I’m just going to lie here and wallow in my self-pity and failure and woe is me. Fix your eyes on the author and perfect of your faith. He’ll bring you there and He does not forget His own. Cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it one day for a crown.
You wake up and work harder than anybody else. When everybody is sleeping, you are out there working. Turn your eyes away from that girl and start bench pressing the Word of God. Quit hitting that snooze button and start going into your mission field. All that people see are the results but what they don’t see is the hours of work and dedication behind it. Nothing comes easy. This is a fact.
Don’t waste the life that God’s given you. Don’t waste the talents that God has loaned to you. Don’t waste your borrowed time.
The video asks: what’s your motivation? My motivation is the fact that Jesus came and sought me and He bought me with His blood and that He rescued me. This is my motivation. This is what gets me out of bed each morning, no matter how hard, to lay it all down on the line for Him and to hold nothing back. Because He died and He saved me.
Isn’t that enough?
Go hard or go home.
Lord, discipline us, discipline the ones you love.
Oh, oh, so you think you’re all that superior? Because you’re comparing your strengths to others’ weaknesses?
I dare you compare your strengths to God’s weaknesses.
Oh, wait…
I slept, but my heart was awake.
A sound! My beloved is knocking.
“Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my perfect one,
for my head is wet with dew,
my locks with the drops of the night.”
I had put off my garment;
how could I put it on?
I had bathed my feet;
how could I soil them?
My beloved put his hand to the latch,
and my heart was thrilled within me.
I arose to open to my beloved,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with liquid myrrh,
on the handles of the bolt.
I opened to my beloved,
but my beloved had turned and gone.
My soul failed me when he spoke.
I sought him, but found him not;
I called him, but he gave no answer.
The watchmen found me
as they went about in the city;
they beat me, they bruised me,
they took away my veil,
those watchmen of the walls.
I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
if you find my beloved,
that you tell him
I am sick with love.
-Song of Solomon 5:2-8
Incredible. So much good stuff to learn from this. Aaaah, analogies!
