Praise the Lord for
this new day with which the Lord has blessed us. I woke up this morning
before the morning doves and the other morning birds, and I am praising
the Lord for another day in His Kingdom, full of His promises and His
tender mercies. The Lord blessed us with a super Sunday, the Lord's
day. He blessed us in worship with His presence and His Joy. We welcomed
the graduates and Dads with great Thanksgiving and praise.
There was a mega-reception with a great banquet following the worship
service. Jesus, the host, prepares the table before us.
The table was extravagant and overflowing, and running over with his
love. Our friends Ron and Shawn prepared the BBQ chicken on a real wood
fire early Sunday morning. Every thing was ready with almost full
perfection before the morning worship. The men and women of the church
served with joyful hearts and jubilant feet.
I
spent some time visiting some family and friends yesterday. One of the
saints of the church whom I visited is 89 years old. He lives in his
own house. Two of his daughters live very near to him. He
loves the Lord and he loves the people of the Lord. He and his wife
accepted Christ while watching the Billy Graham Crusade that was telecast from
the Madison Squire Garden in NY City decades ago. He and his wife served
the Lord faithfully during their married lives. His wife has gone to be
with the Lord. His wife and he have been a source of great blessings to
us and to the church.
Our
daughter Laureen spent the weekend in Philadelphia visiting her niece and her
sister Jess. Sunita is flying to overseas today with her work. She
is taking Asha with her. Please pray for them.
Our Lord Jesus was a wonderful story
teller. Indeed history is His
Story. He tells two "lost and
found" stories in the Gospel according to St. Luke, chapter 15, one about
a lost sheep and another story about a lost coin. The Scribes and
Pharisees, the most religious people of our Lord's time on earth, came up
to Jesus one day, and Jesus, knowing their attitude towards the outsiders, the
lost, told them this story: There once
was a shepherd who had one hundred sheep, but one got lost, and so the shepherd
left the 99 to find the one. Jesus told
them a second parable. There was a
woman who lost a precious coin, not just any coin, but the most precious coin that she had. She swept and swept that house
ever so carefully, looking for that lost precious coin. God is deliberate and careful as our
Lord searches for the precious lost.
Our God comes after us when we are lost.
Our God is like a shepherd who searches diligently for a lost, precious,
sheep; our God is like a woman who searches carefully for her lost precious
coin. Every so often we may think that God has given up on us, that we
are so persistently sinful that God has finally given up on us, that our
character defects seem to be so inescapable, that God finally gives up on
trying to get through to us. This story, however, tells us clearly
of God’s forever wanting to find us. Indeed, our Lord Jesus came
seeking and finding that which was lost... He gave His life as a ransom.
I
love the poem, Hound of Heaven, by
Francis Thompson. It goes like this: I fled Him down the nights and
down the days I fled Him down the arches of the years I fled Him down the
labyrinthine ways Of my own mind, and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and
under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated Adown
titanic glooms of chasm-ed fears From those strong Feet that followed, followed
after. But with unhurrying chase and unperturb-ed pace, Deliberate speed,
majestic instancy, They beat — and a Voice beat, More instant than the feet:
“All things betray thee who betrayest Me.”
“..... with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace; with constant
speed and divine instancy. .....And a
voice, more persistent than the feet, spoke and said: You are my precious one. I will not let you go.” Yes, that is the way God
is. He is so persistent, so diligent, so
untiring in his pursuit of us when we are lost. "For the Son of man
is come to seek and to save that which was lost."Luke 19:10
No comments:
Post a Comment