Aches and Praise Four Hundred & Ninety

January 28, 2021
 
 
Dear friends,
 

On Monday morning, my heart was filled with different emotions: sadness, as I watched the funeral service of a dedicated servant of God – Rod Tenorio – who died two weeks after preaching at Bethel Baptist Church in St. Laurent and gladness as I read the following story:

“An African king had a long-time friend who always looked at everything positively, always saying ‘This is good!’ even in the face of the most difficult situations. Hunting one day, he was preparing the king’s guns. When the king took his first shot, his thumb was blown off. Though the friend realized that it was his grave mistake for not properly setting the gun, and even in the face of this furious, bleeding king, he looked at him and said, ‘This is good!’ The king was LIVID and ordered that his friend be thrown in jail immediately.

A year later the king was hunting in an area where he should have stayed clear and was suddenly captured by Cannibals. They tied him up and were preparing to cook him when they realized he had no thumb. They didn’t eat anyone who was less than whole so they released him. On his way home, the king pondered the event that had taken his thumb in the first place. He went straight to the jail, told his friend what happened, and apologized in tears for sending him to jail as he did. His enthusiastic friend looked at the King and replied: ‘This is good!’

The king, taken aback once again said ‘What do you mean ‘this is good!’?’ I sent you mercilessly to jail and you’ve been suffering here for an entire year – how is that good? His friend responded unwaveringly, ‘Well if I had not been in jail, I would have been with you!’”

In his radio message today, Dr. David Jeremiah tells the story of a Scottish man who lived in the 19th century. He made a discus (based on what he read in a book) that weighed almost four times as much as the one used in competitions and trained with the goal of reaching the distance of the current record. When he entered his first competition in England, the discus felt to him like a tea saucer and he set a new record. This story appeared in a book called “The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God” by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge, who summarized the athlete’s prowess with this phrase: “Train under a great burden.” You can listen to this message at: https://www.davidjeremiah.org/radio/player?id=3468.

Are you going through a difficult time right now? The Lord Jesus wept when He heard that his friend, Lazarus, died (see John 11:35), but He did not stay sad for long. He went to the tomb where the body of Lazarus was and, after thanking His Father for hearing Him, Jesus shouted “Lazarus, come forth!” After His friend rose from his grave, wrapped in cloths, Jesus said: “Loose him, and let him go.” In his commentary on this miracle, Dr. Jeremiah writes: “Jesus would perform the miracle, but He wanted someone to take away the stone, demonstrating that human obedience often has a place in His supernatural work. In telling others about Jesus, the Christian may need to roll away the stone of ignorance, error, prejudice, or despair. But it is still God – not the effectiveness of a person’s witness – that ‘raises the dead.’”

Maybe you are reading this and you aren’t sure that you would go to be with Jesus in heaven if you were to die tonight. Please read the gospel of John and note how many times that Jesus declared “I am,” including John 11:25 (please see “Scripture for the weekend”). If you turn from your sins and receive Christ as your Saviour, He will forgive your sins and welcome you into His family. You will no longer walk in darkness, but you will have the light of the Lord and the power of His Word to guide you … all the way to heaven!

Scripture for the weekend: “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26 (NKJV)

Thought for the weekend: “It has been said that nothing dispels a lie faster than the truth; nothing exposes the counterfeit faster than the genuine. Clever counterfeit dollars may be unnoticed by the untrained eye. What every counterfeiter fears is that someone will examine his bogus bill while holding a genuine one next to it. The presence of Jesus represented the presence of the genuine in the midst of the bogus. Here authentic holiness appeared; the counterfeiters of holiness were not pleased.” – Dr. R. C. Sproul (from his book “The Holiness of God,” published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, IL)

 

By His grace,
 

Steve


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