several ways to die trying.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

2:17 AM

okay here's something else i learnt during QT. it seems like God really spoke to me. yeah been real busy with God's work and stuff, it seems like, when we are faced with such discouragement and weariness, does God meant it to be this way? or is it just that im not up to standard?

sure i had accompained my parents to their church on Christmas itself. Wesley Methodist Church. yup it was cool to see where my parents were married, and it was way packed. okay whatever the matter i really wanted to know like whether my parents felt God or whether they still had that resentment towards people who had wronged them from church some time ago. i guessed i had been too persistent when i bluntly asked them over lunch after service, "okay tell me, what have u learnt from service today?" i guess they were taken aback, and i guess i was too harsh. and my mom said, "well i dont see why i must learn anything from service, i just wanted to enjoy it."

yes definitely i felt discouraged, coz i knew that the other time they would most probably be back at church would be during Easter. it felt as though i had let that once chance this Christmas had to offer slip by. like am i really not capable of bringing and connecting them back to church!? no definitely i am able too. "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?"(Romans 8:31)

Yes it certainly been very encouraging. God uses me? Well, yes He does. He had and still is, and im thankful for that. And He uses you too.

" Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."

Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."" - John 19:19-22

The sign was more than a sign of mockery. it was also used to reveal God's desire to reach the world. Please note that the sign bears immediate fruit. Remember the response of the criminal on the other cross beside Jesus? Moments from his own death, in a maelstorm of pain, he turns and says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom"(Luke 23:42).

He doesn't beg, and he doesn't plead. it was an appeal of a servant to a king. Why does he refer to Jesus' kingdom? Perhaps he had heard Jesus speak, or maybe he was acquainted with Jesus' claims. Or, more likely, he read the sign:"Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

Luke makes the connection between the reading of the sign and the offering of the prayer, with only 4 verses down after the reading of the sign by the thief do we read the petition of the thief: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

The thief knows that he is in a royal mess. He turns his head and reads a royal proclamation and asks for royal help. It might have been this simple, and the sign would very well be the first tool used to proclaim the message of the cross. And because of a sign, a soul was saved.

Imagine what it might have felt in heaven when the thief realised who had put up the sign, which saved his life. No not John, neither was it Peter. But dear O Pilate.

Pilate did not intend to spread the gospel. In fact, the sign said in so many words, "This is what becomes of a Jewish king; this is what the Romans do with him. The king of this nation is a slave; a crucified criminal: and if such be the king, what must the nation be whose king he is?" Pilate had intended the sign to threaten and mock the Jews. But God had another purpose.. Pilate was God's instrument for spreading the gospel. He took dictation from God and wrote it on a sign. And the sign changed the destiny of a reader.

Take the case C.S. Lewis for example, and how by his pen has helped millions of people come to know Christ. And it would be hard to find a more peculiar evangelist than the one who lead Lewis to Christ.

He didn't mean to, mind you, for he himself was not a believer. His name was T. D. Weldon. He, like Lewis was an agnostic. But he made a comment one day that rerouted Lewis's life. He had been studying a theologian's defense of the the Gospels. "Rum thing, that stuff of the Dying God. It almost looks as if it really happened." Lewis could hardly believe what he had heard. At first he wondered if Weldon was drunk. That statement -though offhand and casual- was enough to cause Lewis to consider that Jesus might actually be who He claimed to be.

A thief is led to Christ by one who rejected Christ. A scholar is led to Christ by one who didn't believe in Christ.

God used a bush to call Moses and a donkey to convict a prophet. To get Jonah's attention, God used a big fish.

There is no person He will not use.