The healer of the broken hearted

Is there a wonder adhesives or miracle glues? I wonder with all our know-how there must be a way to fix anything. Yet science has yet to discover a product strong enough to mend broken heart. Then how, for this we have to go to the Person who specializes in such matters. He is our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who, in the final days of His life on earth, surveyed the city of Jerusalem...... and what He saw made Him weep. "O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem... how often I have longed to gathered your children together....but you were not willing" Matthew 23:37. What was His tear about?

From Adam's day to ours, tear have been shed, and a wail has gone up from the broken-hearted. And it remains a mystery to me how all those broken hearts can keep away from Him who has come to heal them. Jesus must have often looked up to heaven and sighed. I believe it was because of so much suffering around Him.

It was on His right and on His left.........just everywhere on earth. And the thought that He had come to relieve us of our burdens, yet, yet....yet so few would accept Him, must have made Him sorrowful. Do you think that there is a heart out there so broken that it cannot be healed by Him? Yes He can and will heal them all. But the great trouble is that people won't come.

Jesus wept over a city, not for its building, but for its people. People like you and me.... broken hearts and broken spirit. People in need of repentance and repair. Though He wept, He can tenderly wipe the tears from our eyes. For He is the mighty God who cares. He is the mighty physician, capable of healing every wounded heart brought to Him. But we must be willing to put ourselves under His care. He has so much to give, but so few are willing to receive. I pray let those few include you. God bless.

Where is my family, I am lonely?

The long weekend has started, just wondering how many will be there for this Sunday worship service as all the students have made the exodus back home. Suddenly I am overwhelmed by the loneliness in my own study praying and reviewing my sermon for tomorrow. Where is my extended family? Is there a glue to hold the family together? Yes surely yes! The "it" of that oft-voiced sentiment may be a place, a person or even a tradition. But whatever the "glue", it is certain to be something that the whole family shares in common. Christian too are members of a family. And the glue that holds this diverse family together is the Holy Spirit. I am glad I still have the family no matter where they are, thus I can sigh with relief that I am never alone, they are linked together with me through our Lord. The more important one is, I am in His family...He is my FATHER. O God I am link and hook up with YOU.
The word "communion" signifies "having in common." It is used of our fellowship with one another and with God. The bond of such fellowship is always through the Holy Spirit. The blessed Spirit unites the Person of the Trinity to each other, and us to them, and secures the oneness for which our Saviour prayed.
How wonderful it is to have the privilege of this divine fellowship! That we need never be alone again; that we can at any moment turn to Him for direction; that we may draw on His resources for every need; that it is impossible to exhaust His willingness to counsel and sustain; that there is no service or suffering into which He is not prepared to enter with us! Surely, if we would but give ourselves time to realize these marvelous privileges, there would be no room for the despondency which threatens to deprive us of hope.
Such divine union as lies within our reach certainly demands on our part watchfulness, a tender conscience, a yielded will, and a heart which has no other love, nothing that is inconsistent with the Spirit's fellowship.
"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" 2 Corinthians 13:14. God bless you all.

Pleasing God!

Sin has a subtle way of taking hold of us. Sometimes it is almost parasitic, slowly maturing until it encrusts our heart with its deadly growth. Each day has its own challenges, responsibilities and problem. Each can be faced only one at a time. How I want to hear your voice so as not to harden my heart in order to encourage others.

We may get the things which tempt our desires; and there will be no illusion at all about the reality of the pleasure. But another question must to be asked. "You have received the things you wanted; what then? Are you much the better for it? Is it as good as it looked when it was not yours?

"Is it as blessed now that you have stretched your hand and make it your own as it seemed when it danced there on the other side? "Having attained the desire, do we not find that it fails to satisfy us fully?

Lord I want to please you, teaches me how to avoid sin. Help me to listen carefully whenever You speak to me through its pages. Cause me to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ and to draw strength from their example and fellowship. Above all, Lord, grant me a soft, teachable heart, one that beats strongly for You, one that will not be enticed by worldly pleasure. Lord, keep my heart focused on pleasing You.

Spititual fatigue

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? The last few days I have been reading of so many heart tearing struggles seemingly out in the blogsite. I remember an old hymn -
Art thou weary, art thou liguid,
Art thou sore distress?
"Come to Me", saith One, "And coming Be at rest."
Hath He marks to lead me to Him
If He be my Guide?
In His feet and hands are wound-prints,
And His side.
Finding, following, keeping, struggling,
Is He sure to bless?
Saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs,
Answer, "Yes".
As I read this and the many postings there was a silent sigh in my heart, a twinge of spiritual fatigue...... a deep and abiding weariness. Why Lord do you permits us to go through all this? Lord I want to join the crowd and wave the white flag, shouting, "I surrender! I give up!" I have decided to bail out, to throw in the towel, to give into discouragement and give up. There is nothing wrong with that or is it?
Our pace, the noise, the interruptions, the deadlines and demands, the daily schedule and the periodic feelings of failure. I am getting very weary of the fight, of the constant bombardment and shelling targeted into my life, hey I did not ask to be in a war zone?
I was brought back to earth as I remember Paul writing in Ephesians 2:14, "For He Himself is our peace" and the very word of our Lord in Matthew11:28 " Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. for My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
There is nothing wrong with feeling weary, but there is everything wrong with abandoning ship in the midst of the storm. Growing weary is only natural and the consequence of many experiences, they are not bad but exhausting. Many of the things we go through maybe fine with many others but as for us our strength has its limit, we are make different. Before long the fatigue will cuts our feet out from beneath us. The longer the weariness lingers, the more we face the danger of that weary condition clutching our inner man, strangling our hope, our motivation, our spark, our optimism, even our encouragement. Oh how I want to "sustain this weariness" As I mediated on the passage I had a new understanding that God does not dispense strength and encouragement like a doctor filling out a prescription for our sickness. The Lord does not promise to give us something to take so we can handle our weary moments. He promises HIMSELF. That is all and that is enough. In the place of our exhaustion and spiritual fatigue, He will give us rest. All He asks is that we come to Him, that we spend a while thinking about Him, meditating on Him, talking to Him, listening in silence , occupying ourselves in Him totally and thoroughly lost in the hiding place of His presence. "Consider Him..... so that you will not grow weary and lose heart" (Hebrews 12:3).
Don't lose heart! Are you weary? Heavy laden? Distressed? Come to our Lord. Come immediately, come repeatedly, come boldly, give Him your load of care and be at rest. God bless you.

Being God's servant

Still thinking of my morning sermon. Yet another Sunday has slip by with this questions flicking on my mind. What standard of measurement do I tend to use to measure my work for God? How does God measure my success for Him? If I feel weak, limited and ordinary,what kind of material am I?
The call to salvation is a call to be on mission with God as He reconciles a lost world to Himself through Christ. This calling requires that I be a servant of God. Jesus gave me the best model of servanthood, which was both humble and obedient. As a servant I must be moldable and remain available for the Master's use.
Even I am just another ordinary person, I know and pray that God will prepare me and then He will do His work through me, revealing Himself to a watching world.
Yes God, that is my one desire today to be your servant, to see You accomplishing things through me that only You can do. Yes I can do nothing on my own.I know that I cannot achieve the success that You call me to achieve. I depend entirely on You to do Your work through me. I know You can do anything You choose to do. I give myself to You completely.Work though me any way You want to work. Show me where You are at work and include me in that work. I will not question Your call, I will do the work You show me. Help me to build your church which you have put unto my care. Lord accept the worship of Your servant today.

An Anchor in the Storm of life

Trust and obey, trust and obey for there is no other way. As as I remember this Sunday school song I just wonder how true the Christian concept of hope is not a wishful "I hope so" attitude, but a confident expectation .

In this world, we do not stand on firm ground but are tossed about as as if we were on the sea. Satan incessantly stirs up innumerable storms that would sink our vessel if we did not cast our anchor fast in the deep. Waves arise and threaten us. But as the anchor is cast through the waters into the dark and unseen place and keeps the vessel from being overwhelmed, so must our hope be fixed on the invisible God. But with this difference, the anchor is cast down into the sea with the earth as its bottom; but our hope soars aloft, for in the world it finds no created things on which it can stand. It rests on God alone.

As the anchor joins the vessel with the earth, so the truth of God is a bond that contacts us with Him. Thus when we are united to God, though we must struggle with continual storms, we are still beyond the peril of shipwreck.

Faith in God has been likened to a leap in the dark. In reality, it is leap from the dark into the light of truth.God's word is a spotlight for those yearning to follow God's will. "Your word is a lamp to my feet and alight fro my path" (Psalm 119:105).

Those are comforting words when the storm of life make shipwreck seem imminent. Have a blessed Sunday and the week ahead.

Waiting in the Strength of Hope.

Waiting, watching, working that is how life spins around us. Have been waiting quite a lot lately. Waiting for help, waiting till my ship finds its course or even comes in, waiting for sympathy, waiting for a friend without whose presence there seems to be nobody on the face of the earth. Waiting..........waiting!!!!!

There are two types of waiting: waiting because we have to, and waiting because we want to. The story about the people around the pool at Bethesda waited because they had to, they needed to bathe in the healing waters. One man had waited years to be healed. But when approached by Jesus, the man found himself being asked,"Do you want to be made well." These folks were all waiting, groaning, sighing. A sigh was a prayer, a groan was an entreaty, a cry of distress was a supplication.

This world is a hospital. The person who is in the most robust health today may be struck before the setting of the sun with a fatal disease. Only this week I received three tragic news, the sister of my former cell member has only a month to live says her doctor, a friend only 45 years old while driving had a heart attack and knock down two people, they are in critical condition as he is. Another former cell member was knock down by a motor cycle and is warded with a broken collar bone and eight fractured ribs. In the midst of life we are facing death.

"Life is a perpetual crisis; it can snapped at any moment." But blessed is that servant who shall be found waiting, watching and working when the Lord comes.

How then do I wait? Does waiting means patience, hope, contentment, assurance that God will redeem His promises and make the heart strong; or is it fretfulness, impatience, distrust and complaining, this kind of waiting wears out the soul.

O God, my Father teach me what it means to wait on You for my every need. You have promised to provide in Your time. Guard my heart from fretfulness and complaining, and make my heart strong to hope. Please take courage if you are trotting along this path like me, that one man who waited was healed so can we no matter what the situation is. God bless.

Cause and Effect of Spiritual Matters.

Our relationship with God, established by faith, is the only basis for peace of mind and satisfaction. Lately I have been pondering on the cause and effect expressed in this statement.

Scientific inquiry always looks for the cause and effect relationship between observable phenomena. But what if, like the chicken or the egg dilemma, the effect also happen to be the cause? This would ensure a vicious circle.

For the Christian there is another question that deserves an answer. "Which comes first - faith or obedience,unbelief or disobedience?"

Disobedience is the root of unbelief. Unbelief is the mother of further disobedience. Faith is voluntary submission within a person's own power. If faith is not exercised, the true cause lies deeper than all intellectual reasons, it lies in the moral aversion of human will and in the pride of independence which says "Who is Lord over us? Why should we have to depend on Jesus Christ? As faith is obedience and submission, so faith breeds obedience, but unbelief leads on to higher handed rebellion. With dreadful reciprocity of influence, the less one trust, the more he disobeys; the more he disobeys, the less he trusts.

Which cause/effect relationship is at work in my life: faith and obedience, or unbelief and disobedience? The question is worth careful study for eternity is at stake.

Perhaps John the Baptist said it best: "whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him." (John 3:36).

The chicken and egg controversy may never be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. But don't let that keep you from resolving the most important question in your life; your relationship to the Lord.

Confident Hope

It tears my heart when each time I see the enemy succeed in undermining the simple trust of a child of God and gotten him into self-accusation and condemnation.

It is a fearful place when the soul allows Satan to take the throne and act as God, sitting in judgment on its every thought and act, and keeping it in the darkness of ceaseless condemnation. This is Satan's objective point in all his attacks upon you: to destroy your trust. If he can get you to lose your simple confidence in God, he knows that he will soon have you at his feet.

But.......... "For my souls that has known the sweetness of God's love, to lose its perfect trust in Him is enough to wreck both the reason and the life. Beloved "Hold on to ............. courage ......and hope."

In the children's story "The little engine that could" the little engine climbs a steep incline by puffing, "I think, I can, I think I can, I think I can!" We can draw courage from a true story of infinitely greater importance - the story of "The Mighty Savior Who could........and Did!" And what did the Savior do? He conquered sin and death by climbing the hill of Calvary and declaring."It is finished!"

By looking to Him for courage, you can meet any situation that lies ahead of you."I can......I can.....I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. (Phil.4:13)