MLworship#8 My daughter Sarah

Being an indulgent father, one who in the wee hours of the morning, massages the children's toes to warm them up from their sleepy stupor, changed them, get their tooth brushes ready and wear their shoes, it is inevitable that we increased their dependency.



This morning, our sins caught up with us and my daughter reached the school without her school bag(thinking that I had takened in on her behalf).



Naturally, one reversed course for home and being late by 20secs, she was left standing forlornly, at the locked school gates.



Human failings, we can laugh over. But it does captures vividly, what it means for us all should we be left outside the pearly gates of heaven, when our Lord returns.



To all of you, my friends, who have been kind to prod through the sometimes less than perfect prose of my personal thoughts the last few mths, do forgive me. The intent is not to impose one's beliefs on anyone but for all of you on my email list, I will not count myself as your friend if i do not share the good news and its importance to all, if one believes in it.



How does one know that God exists?? You will first have to believe.



'Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now,

you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.'

1 Peter 1:8



This personal experience of inexpressible and glorious joy,

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sums up for us whom God has filled with the Holy Spirit.

Our lives are never the same: irrationally rational and at peace.





'not by work of righteousness which we have done,

but according to His mercy He saved us,

by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit;

Titus 3:5





Our response when we receive the revelation of God

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'Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another,

God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us.'

1 John 4:12





Finally, back to my daughter.

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While sometimes heartrending, it is good for her character to go through momentous but temporary trials. Yesterday, after our worship, God led me to the chapter on Mathew 27:32-44, which talks about the cruxification of Jesus Christ.



This story is real but not unfamiliar to all of us. However, yesterday, it took on greater clarity for me.

That is:

- it is not just a question of God giving us the salvation

- it is the image of the ultimate sacrifice of one who is perfect, redeeming all of us without any preconditions, the inperfect

- it puts all our anger with God's perceived unfairness in the correct perspective.



'Let God rescue him now if He wants him'

Mathew 27:42



'And about the nineth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying

Eli Eli, Lama Sabachthani?

that is to say,

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Mathew 27:45-46



Once our sinful anger recedes, when we learn to trust God, we will see His reassurances and will understand that all things He does are for our good, at His timing, not ours.



Jesus died to put to death the stranglehold sin(and Satan) has on all of us. His resurrection 3 days later signifies the overcoming of death and God's promise of eternal life to all.





In Mathew 27:45-55

we read of the very clear indications of God's awesome powers and His reassurances



'and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent, and the graves were opened,...

........................they feared greatly, saying,

Truly, this was the Son of God'



God bless