Contents:
CONTACT MIRACLE
NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS
AFRAID TO DIE
SOME KIND OF SMART
MAN
Hi, everyone. It’s been another week… a rough one over here… grading papers and exams… Wednesday night, I slept about 30 minutes around 1:30, and graded straight until 7:00 a.m., when I slept until 9:30. But I’m almost done… almost…
In any case, it’s good to be able sit down and share a few more thoughts
with “allyuh”. =)
I have to start by giving God thanks for a miracle he worked for me last Saturday. I wear contact lenses, and I after putting them both in and heading out of the house for church, I discovered that something didn’t seem right with my vision. Opening and closing an eye at a time revealed that one eye was not giving me a clear image. Unsure of whether or not the sunglasses were dirty, I waited until getting to church before confirming that a contact was missing. This was about 9:15 a.m. I hurried back home to see if I could find my small, expensive, transparent piece of plastic somewhere in the house, but with no luck. All the way, I was praying that God would do for me what I couldn’t do for myself.
I couldn’t find it at all. I searched the sink, the carpet, the
bathtub, the ground outside my front door, but to no avail. So I
headed back to church, and after Sabbath School, went up to another local
church, had lunch there, and went over to a third church for a meeting.
After the meeting, around 5:30 p.m., I returned home, and after a little
while of searching decided to go to bed. So I went to brush my teeth,
praying one final prayer, and as I leaned over the sink, I saw it.
Sorry, I mean, I SAW IT! It was sitting on the holder of my Gillette
SensorExcel shaver… and so I quickly put it in its holder, filled with
solution, said another prayer and went to bed. And in the morning
I praised the Lord, because that contact lens, which sat in the bathroom
for 8 hours, came through alright! And the glory goes to God.
I got a report from one of the high school students at the high school that shares the College campus. Apparently a student was suspended for three weeks for saying something inappropriate to the daughter of one of the college administrators. And the interesting thing is that the teacher who allegedly scolded the student did so because of who she happened to be related to, apparently using the words, “How could you say that to <insert title>’s daughter?
Now I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any of the details, as I have no official reports. But it brings me back to a conversation I had with a high school student who felt that there was a discrepancy between how people were treated depending on who their parents were. If your parents were pastors or worked in “that building over there” (motioning to the Science Complex) then the teachers treated you as if you were somebody. Otherwise… not. You know, I think all of us have within us a desire to be close to people who are popular, or good-looking, or talented. We have an affinity to treat well those who might reward us, and ignore those who we think can do nothing for us. This should not be.
In James 2:1, we are reminded of the partiality of people – that two men will come to a church meeting, one apparently rich, and one apparently poor. The rich man will receive a seat of honour, and the poor man will be told to sit on the floor! In the House of God. Jesus preached a gospel of an upside-down kingdom, where the first would be last and the last would be first. He blessed the poor, telling them that they would inherit the kingdom of heaven. (Luke 6:20) In fact, if there is any partiality, in the kingdom of heaven, we could say that it is to those who least deserve it, those who are cast aside by society. It is these people that need to receive the best treatment by those of us who claim to follow Jesus Christ.
Because it is only when He is reflected in us that the people of this
world will take Him seriously.
Luke 9:24, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall find it.”
There is power in the blood. Plenty power. Enough power to save anyone. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done, there’s power to save you. And there’s power to save all of the people you might think won’t make it… you know, the wicked ones, the ones who lie, and steal, and get drunk. The ones who sneak out of the house to go to Carnival. The ones who you think will never make it. That blood reaches to the highest valley and flows to the lowest valley. The blood of Jesus Christ is all that we need.
We have listened to the story of Job – we heard about Job’s three friends. Job’s three friends looked at him, and condemned him – because of what they saw happening in his life. They looked on the outside, and based on what they say, they wrote Job off. They didn’t believe that he could be right with God if so many things were going wrong in his life. They didn’t understand what Job was going through, and so since they didn’t understand they judged. They didn’t believe that even if what they thought of Job was true, the blood of Jesus is strong enough to save. Strong enough to save.
Too often we place our trust and our confidence in things that cannot save… things that claim to be strong, but when put to the test eventually fail. There was a boat… they said it was unsinkable. It was carefully designed and constructed with hulls with many compartments, built so that if it were to meet any misfortune, a good number of the compartments could be breached and fill before the boat would be in any jeopardy. They called it the unsinkable and it launched from England headed for New York. The people placed their confidence in the greatest wonder that mankind had built. And that ship hit an iceberg, and sunk.
They trusted in that which could not save them. They built their house on the sand, and when the storm came, their houses fell. How many of us are building our houses on sand? How many of us are living lives where we know how important it is to spend time with God daily to build on the rock, but somehow can’t find the time. How many of us live complacent lives, as if we don’t know the times in which we live. How many of us believe that our houses and security systems can protect us from thieves? How many of us think that we are safe from disease, dry season fires, the hurricane that we’re sure will never come? When we think about it, we are just dust. Simply here one day, and gone the next.
We need to know where our salvation is. We can’t survive in this world without knowing where our salvation is. If we don’t know where our salvation is, we might end up succumbing to the temptation to find ourselves some gramoxone when the pressure gets too high. We might end up trying to satisfy our desires with things that are only temporary, that can never satisfy ourselves with the things of this world. There is no way we can fit a square peg into a round hole. We need to know where our salvation is, and claim that salvation.
We need to be able to shout like Job, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the end he will stand on the earth”, and we have to have the confidence that by His amazing grace, we will stand with Him. YOU will stand with Him. Just because of Jesus, we share victory! Just like He did it for Job, He can do it for you.
There’s another story of a boat I want to share with you – another big boat, another unsinkable boat. The storm raged against that boat for 40 days and 40 nights, but still that ship kept going. The captain of that ship was named Noah, and by faith, Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Noah preached for 120 years and no-one came into the boat. He preached for 120 years and people believed that the rain would not come. They trusted in what they knew. They trusted in the wrong things. But Noah trusted in the word of the Lord. And if you trust in the name of the Lord, you will never have to worry. He is our refuge and our strength. And He invites you to get on board His boat. He offers to you salvation, and freedom, victory and life! There’s power in the blood, and we need to daily wash in that blood.
If you want to, with me, rededicate your life to washing in that blood.
To daily accept Jesus’ sacrifice for you. And to sharing that offer
of salvation with those who need to hear it.
“You must think I’m some kind of smart man,” he said, as he begged me
for just $10 to get down the road and collect his things that were stranded
in the out-of-gas taxi. Over the past 2 days, I have had encounters
with a young man named Schehazard Shazard where he has:
- told me his wife was in labour
(but how could he leave her to go search for money, why not flag
down a passing car or taxi instead?)
- told me his wife had died in childbirth
(boy, three hours between the first visit and this one and she
had died… an unlikely story)
- brought me his wife’s death certificate, which actually turned out
to be his father’s death certificate from 1993 (with 2 of the 3’s altered
to look like 8’s, which means his father has not yet died – October 1998…)
- brought me a check stub (ostensibly claiming it to be a check that
he could cash), a pension check from 1993
- given me his (expired) driver’s license to hold as security
- given me his (quite valid) national identification card to hold as
security – I still have this one
- brought me four books and a pau-pau
- wondered if I was believing his story…
And in all of this, I have given him a grand total of $79TT (about $12.54US) and he has promised to take me with him to collect his salary on Friday, at which point he said he would give me back $100. Not that I asked for it, but I’m just seeing if he’ll eventually turn out to be a man of his word. ‘Cause I called the hospital maternity ward, and they have no record of his wife, and I called the funeral home he said his wife was in, and they had no body by that name. He said the funeral’s today… So, I dunno.
This is the kicker:
He carries a very small Bible with him all of the time, and one time he held the Bible in his hand and swore to be telling the truth. I think he’d better be careful with that.
I give him money, ‘cause I don’t think he’s a drug addict, and I know that he needs it. But I want him to understand that (if he’s lying) it’s not the right way to go about it. Time will tell.
One thing that annoys me, is how he seems to like to come between 2 and 3 in the morning, “when he gets off work”… I don’t think that’s the safest time to be interacting with someone, even though I’m behind locked doors and barred windows…
I think that’s it for this week. We’re now in the middle of registration and it’s going to be another busy quarter. At least this one I only teach 3 classes and not 4. =)
Have a good week!
Yours,
Dave.