In Times Like These 2c2iq

In Times Like These

D. CHONGO MUNDENDE

Copyright © 2012 by D. Chongo Mundende.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012912501 ISBN: Hardcover Softcover Ebook

978-1-4771-4103-8 978-1-4771-4102-1 978-1-4771-4104-5

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Unless otherwise stated, all Scripture references are from The Holy Bible, New King James Version (NKJV). (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995).

Scripture references marked KJV are from The Holy Bible, King James Version. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995).

Scripture references marked NIV are from The Holy Bible, New International Version. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1984).

Scripture references marked NCV are from The Holy Bible: New Century Version (Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1991).

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CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1 No Ordinary Man

Chapter 2 An Alternative Kingdom

Chapter 3 The Fall

Chapter 4 God Is Love

Chapter 5 Savior

Chapter 6 Love Unlimited

Chapter 7 A Matter of Choice

Chapter 8 Loving the Unlovable

Chapter 9 First Things First

Chapter 10 Jesus in the House

Chapter 11 Back to Riches

Chapter 12 Ultimate Gratitude

Chapter 13 More than Able

Chapter 14 Broken Down Barriers

Chapter 15 Amazing Grace

Chapter 16 No More Condemnation

Chapter 17 As Jesus es By

Chapter 18 Designed Rest for Restless Humanity

Chapter 19 A Race of Our Life

Chapter 20 I Cannot Wait

Chapter 21 Redeemer

Chapter 22 More Questions than Answers

Chapter 23 In Times Like These

For my late father Jackson Mwenya Mundende Chifuta and late mother Monica Lombe Mangu Mwenya for showing me the Way, the Truth, and the Life believing I can trust Him

Preface

Few things give me greater joy and pleasure as reading the Scriptures and studying the life of Jesus do. Jesus’ life has intrigued me since childhood. I do not the first time I heard of Him, but one day my older brother took me to church where I learned that Jesus was actually God who became a human being in order to live among us and rebuild personal relationships that had been broken after our sins separated us from Him. He performed great kind and loving deeds for people, especially children. I sat transfixed as the teachers dramatized the events in Jesus’ life. I instantly fell in love with Jesus. One day, I learned about His violent death on Golgotha that was orchestrated by the Jewish leaders. I became angry when I heard about how that just Man was unfairly and cruelly treated. I learned that while on the cross, He prayed to His Father so that He [the Father] could forgive those who were crucifying Him. How I wanted to find those bad people and punish them! In fact, I wanted to beat them up. I was disappointed to learn that they lived and died two thousand years before my time. The picture changed as I grew older and learned that my sins had actually put Jesus on the cross. Now I wanted to beat me up; only I couldn’t. I loved myself too much to inflict pain on myself. I learned that He left the splendor of heaven to die for a sinful and thankless humanity. I learned that if I was the only sinner in the world, He could still have come to die for me. I was not better than the people who betrayed, arrested, unfairly tried, convicted, and drove nails in His hands and feet. Beginning with Adam, all men and women have sinned and constantly fall short of the glory of God. Frankly, I didn’t think it was fair to attribute Adam’s sins to me. However, I have discovered that I don’t need Adam to help me sin. Adam has nothing to do with my rebelliousness today. I do that just fine by myself. I am a sinner and have a choice to make concerning that death on a cruel cross—to believe or not to believe in Jesus. I have been schooled in positivism—a branch of science that emphasizes empiricism—things that must be observed and measured. If something can’t be seen, observed, and measured, then it doesn’t exist. My skepticism intensified in

college where professors advised me, and I took them seriously, to question everything I read, observed, or heard. Ironically, now as a college professor, I teach my students to be skeptical of what they read, observe, or hear. However, I challenge them to test all the teachings before they make their choices on what they want to believe, and to seriously think about their God, tasting Him to see if they can find Him to be all-sufficient for them. I believe that life without God is meaningless. To live a fuller life you need to have faith in God. Faith in God is one of those things you can’t measure because you can’t physically see God, although I always see Him in other people doing His biddings. At college I almost became an atheist. Criticisms that Christianity was the religion of the weaklings and wimps and a means of the powerful Western countries to steal wealth from unsuspecting poor, underdeveloped countries generated a lot of questions in my mind and started to make sense. Growing up during the time of an intense Cold War competition between Communism and Capitalism, such teachings seemed to make sense. Along the way I learned that religion is the opium of society that makes people drugged while they are being robbed of their existence and their will to live. As a young Christian, this statement was hard to take although it made a lot of sense. Only later did I realize that not all that makes sense is helpful in life. The net result was that I considered Christ to be a wimp who could not even liberate His own people from the oppressive Roman domination. Instead of fighting, He advised them to turn the other cheek. How many cheeks did they have? I asked. However, the more I questioned and studied Him, the more I became fascinated with Him, and the more I discovered my parents’ enthusiasm in Jesus. I concurred with them that if I was to be lost, it wouldn’t be because Jesus wasn’t Lord; it would be because I didn’t choose to believe He was. This book is about Jesus and His love for you and me. God’s love is greater far than a few individuals’ writing will ever show. If everyone in the world was an author by trade, we still would not exhaust His love. Jesus’ amazing grace is more than sufficient for you. So come and taste His goodness, appreciate the great things He has done, and enjoy the fellowship He has planned for those who believe in Him. I have been a leader for a discussion class in my church since 1978. I can safely claim that the Jesus I knew when I started teaching is not the same Jesus I know today. Whereas I knew God to be exacting, always on the rampage looking for

ways to catch me doing something wrong so that He would keep me out of heaven, I’ve found Him to be so loving and kind that He does everything to get me into heaven. Whereas hitherto I found God to be ruthless and impatient, now I see Him to be very merciful and patient. God patiently works to make my salvation sure. He does not want anyone to be lost. He came and died for us so that any willing humans may have eternal life. Over the years I have found Jesus to be full of contradictions. He is God and Creator of all, yet He became poor. The Creator of thousands of sheep on the hillsides was born in a poor family. He lived in the despised town. Nobody has taught or will ever teach like Him. Full of comion and empathy, He is an amazing God. Personally, I have tasted His grace, goodness, promises, and mercy, and have found Him absolutely true to His word. His love has changed my life. He has blessed me beyond measure. He is a great God. He has been so good to me that I cannot tell all His benefits and blessings. I pray that you will also experience and appropriate Christ’s love. Ask Him to increase your faith. Jesus is coming soon to take us home, the blessed and glorious land where cancers, pain, sorrows, tears, death, and diseases never exist. His coming is sooner than when we first believed. His coming is even at the door. Today, many people are in the valleys of indecision concerning what to do with their lives. They are looking for happiness that can be found only in Christ Jesus, the Desire of nations. Following Him is the best choice anyone can ever make in life. In times like these we need a Creator who will lift us up from the problems of this world and comfort us. We need Someone who will assure us that in spite of the problems we face, all will be well. In times like these we need to cling on to Someone who is bigger than our problems and who has been tested and yet did not sin. We need a Commander who has never lost a battle. In times like these we need a sure Rock of Ages, the Rock of our Salvation, to assure us that we are not an accident on this earth. He made us for His good pleasure. In times like these we need a Sure Anchor who can never move. In times like these we need Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

D. Chongo Mundende Edmond, Oklahoma

March 2012

Acknowledgments

Many people have helped me in my Christian journey. I owe tons of gratitude to my deceased parents: my father Jackson Mundende Mwenya Chifuta and mother Monica Lombe Mwenya, for showing me the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and advising me to love Him back. Their influence has kept me in the fellowship of Jesus from the time I was a very young child. Their love has sustained me. I thank my wife, Grace, for loving me. In more ways than one, she has shown me how God’s grace works. Our children, Chongo, Mulenga Chonya, Mwenya Chifuta, Kangwa, and Lombe Mangu, are my inspiration. They have taught me glimpses of God’s amazing grace that I never knew. May they experience His favor as they grow into men and women of God! The Edmond Seventh-day Adventist Church will always remain dear to my heart. It has showed me that with God everything is possible, what the love of God is all about, and what a Christian life should be. To my many friends throughout my life, thank you. To my editors at Xlibris, who have transformed a manuscript into a book, a million thanks are not enough. And to God be the glory for all the great things He has done! Without Him I would not be here and this book would never have been written.

Chapter 1 No Ordinary Man

Jesus came to Planet Earth at a critical moment of Israel’s history. To the Jews, He couldn’t have come at a better time. Ruled by King Herod, a ruthless Roman monarch, they were desperately looking for a messiah who could liberate them from the yoke of Roman bondage. They were looking for a political leader who could restore justice for which they had been looking for some time. They received the news that a Savior was born from the shepherds with joy and anticipation. The shepherds had heard the angels proclaim, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, good will toward men!” (Luke 2:14). The interesting thing is that even today, “thousands of years, in the midst of excruciating suffering that has darkened their long history, Jews have cried out for the redemption promise of a Messiah. Christians believe the Messiah has already come”¹ and will come again.² Looking for a king to rule over them, like King David did in ancient Israel, not a Servant-King, the Jews were disappointed in Jesus. His birth circumstances raised issues about the morality of his parents. The Jewish leaders rejected Jesus partly because He didn’t fit their expectations. Many rebelled against His teachings and finally influenced the Romans to crucify Him. Today some of the Jews are still looking for a messiah. As recently as 1994, the Lubavitch Jews considered Rabbi Menachem Schneerson to be their longawaited Messiah. A descendant of King David, his sufferings were held to be the fulfillment of predictions found in Isaiah 53. When intravenous tubes were inserted into his hands and feet, the followers saw the direct fulfillment of the prophecy that predicted that the messiah was to be pierced. He died at the age of 92 years, and his faithful followers are still awaiting his resurrection.

Divided and Conquered Jews

When Jesus came to Planet Earth, the Jews were effectively divided in their stand against Rome and in their understanding of the Scriptures; a situation that Rome exploited to its advantage. Five groups stood out among others: the Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, Sanhedrin, and Essenes. The Sadducees were the political party of aristocratic priests “in charge of the temple, its services, and concessions.”³ They held the formal leadership in the Sanhedrin and collaborated with the Romans. As a group, they expounded a humanistic theology and sought to preserve past practices and traditions. They accepted the Pentateuch as the ultimate authority.⁴ The Sadducees enjoyed life to the fullest. Because of their privileged position in the Roman political system, they took care of the daily business and fought to maintain the status quo. They did not believe in divine intervention. To them what happened in life happened. They therefore denied the existence of angels and demons. And “since there [was] no future system of reward and punishment, a person might as well enjoy the limited time on earth.”⁵ Being the rich party of the skeptics and aristocracy, they “courted the favor of the ruling power in order to maintain their own position and authority.” As a group, the Sadducees were social conservatives who had the hardest and most skeptical questions for Jesus, especially questions about heaven. They didn’t believe in the resurrection or life after death; a topic Jesus loved to talk about. One day, they asked Jesus who the husband of a woman would be in heaven if she had seven husbands on earth. Jesus informed them that no marriages existed in heaven (Luke 20:27-40; Mark 12:18-25; Matt. 22:23-30). The Sadducees were social conservatives who opposed the Pharisees, whom they didn’t think much of. However, the two groups ed forces in opposing Jesus. The Sadducees’ hatred toward Christ was not as bitter as that of the Pharisees’.⁷ Comprising one of the largest and most popular middle class parties, the Pharisees vacillated between collaboration with and separation from Rome. “They controlled the synagogues and exercised great control over much of the population.”⁸ Pharisees means “separated ones.” The Pharisees separated themselves from the masses and devoted their time to the study and interpretation of the law. They hated the Romans, “longing for the time when they could throw off the yoke of

the conquerer.”¹ They held high standards of purity, especially those concerning Sabbath observance and ritual cleanliness. Jesus often censured them (Luke 11:39, 42; Matt. 5:20; 16:6; 21:43; 23:2, 13), held strong controversies with them (Luke 5:30; 11:39; 16:14; Mark 2:18; Matt. 9:34; 19:3), and worked hard to change their attitude and behavior. But “The Pharisees thought themselves too wise to need instruction, too righteous to need salvation, too highly honored to need the honor that comes from Christ.”¹¹ Although Jesus had most scathing remarks against the Pharisees, He loved them very dearly. Several of them invited Him to their homes (Luke 7:7-50; 11:37-43; 14:1-14). The Pharisees were scholars and teachers who developed both oral and written law, and taught that obedience to the law was the only way to God. They carried out daily activities in the Sanhedrin and in due course transformed Judaism into a religion of the law. They were very legalistic, depended on their own wisdom, trusted in self, and insisted on being saved by their own works. They did not understand that “A legal religion can never lead souls to Christ; for it is a loveless, Christless religion.”¹² They did not tolerate foreigners (non-Jews or Gentiles), and were cautious to follow anybody who called himself the messiah, especially if that individual performed miracles. Therefore, “Instead of converting people to God they made clones of themselves. They complicated the gospel with odd myths and superstition. They took pride when it came to tithing, but took naps when it came to serving.”¹³ The Pharisees were the progressives of the day who had little interest in politics. Unlike the Sadducees, they believed in the afterlife and the existence of angels and demons.¹⁴ The Pharisees carefully picked their battles, except when a principle was at stake; then they would put their lives on the line to defend it. They often chastised Jesus for refusing to accept their interpretation of the law, especially the one concerning the holy Sabbath and socializing with the so-called sinners. Later, in order to get rid of Jesus, they sided with their bitter enemies, the Herodians and Sadducees. Previously, “The Pharisees had ever chafed under the exaction of tribute by the Romans. The payment of tribute they held to be contrary to the law of God. Now they saw opportunity to lay a snare for Jesus.”¹⁵ The Zealots “were the extreme wing of the Pharisees,”¹ who believed that only God could rule over the Jews. They therefore advocated armed revolts to overthrow the impure foreigners like the Romans. They were separatists, some of whom specialized in acts of political terrorism against Rome. They tolerated no marriages between Jews and Gentiles, and believed in lynching those who did

not toe the Jewish line.¹⁷ “They were willing to fight and die for [their] belief.”¹⁸ The Zealots did not think much of Jesus when He interacted with the Samaritans. Interestingly, one of Jesus’ twelve disciples was Simon the Zealot. The Sanhedrin was the highest Jewish council in the first century. Headed by the high priest, its hip was composed of individuals from the Pharisees and Sadducees, and mainly from of the priesthood, chief rulers, and teachers of the nation. These men were well versed in Jewish religion, history, and general knowledge.¹ The were married “men advanced in years, though not aged… the Sanhedrin was the supreme court of the nation, possessing secular as well as ecclesiastical authority.”² The Sanhedrin shared power with the Romans because the Romans gave the religious council limited autonomy and authority, except for issues calling for capital punishment. They cooperated on secular-political matters with the Romans on whom they depended on enforcing religious laws. The Sanhedrin therefore wielded power and a strong influence in civil and religious matters. The scouted and reported signs of insurrection and worked to prevent uprisings and reprisals among the Jews. The council often sent spies to check if John the Baptist and Jesus were a threat to peace. If they were, then they would report them to Rome. They did not care for John the Baptist because “John had not recognized the authority of the Sanhedrin by seeking their sanction for his work; and he had reproved rulers and people, Pharisees and Sadducees alike.”²¹ When the people received the teachings of Jesus with great joy and enthusiasm, the Sanhedrin felt the need to stop Him, even by death.²² The Sanhedrin did not like what Jesus taught. Caiaphas, the high priest, had said of Jesus as they plotted to kill Him, it “is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish” (John 11:50). Jesus was considered to be the number one enemy of the state and disturber of peace. The Sanhedrin declared Him guilty even when they knew that He was both innocent and holy (Luke 20:24). The Sanhedrin played a major part in secretly arresting (Matt. 26:14-16), trying (Luke 22:66; Matt. 26:59-60; Mark 14: 55-56), and condemning Jesus (Mark 15:1-15). It fabricated charges and employed false witnesses against Him. But at trial, false witnesses became confused and contradicted themselves. The Essenes are not mentioned in the New Testament but they lived in the desert

area of Qumran near the Dead Sea, in an active community near Jerusalem.²³ Although they were pacifists by nature, the Essenes were the most separate of the groups. Rather than actively resist Romans, they withdrew into monkish communities in caves. A few married but the Essenes practiced celibacy and adopted male children in order to perpetuate their group. They considered Roman occupation as punishment from God for their failure to keep the law. They devoted themselves to the study of Scriptures and sured the Pharisees in the strict understanding and interpretation of the law.²⁴ They took ritual baths daily, maintained a strict diet, wore no jewelry, took no oaths, did not defecate on Sabbath, and held goods in common.²⁵ When one ed the Essenes he surrendered all his possessions to the community.²

Endnotes

1. Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 256. 2. Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Vol. 4 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1976), Chapter 24. 3. Clayton Harrop and Charles W. Draper, “Jewish Parties in the New Testament” Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, Tennessee: Holman Reference, 2003), 917. 4. Ibid. 5. Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 62. 6. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 405. 7. Ibid., 537. 8. Harrop and Draper, “Jewish Parties in the New Testament,” 916.

9. Ibid. 10. White, The Desire of Ages, 405. 11. Ibid., 279. 12. Ibid., 280. 13. Max Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 1992), 107. 14. Harrop and Draper, “Jewish Parties in the New Testament,” 917. 15. White, The Desire of Ages: 601. 16. Harrop and Draper, “Jewish Parties in the New Testament,” 917. 17. Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, 62. 18. Harrop and Draper, “Jewish Parties in the New Testament,” 917. 19. Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, 62. 20. White, Desire of Ages, 133. 21. Ibid., 132-133. 22. Robert J. Dean, “Sanhedrin,” Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, Tennessee: Holman Reference, 2003), 1445. 23. Harrop and Draper, “Jewish Parties in the New Testament,” 917. 24. Ibid., 918. 25. Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, 61. 26. Harrop and Draper, “Jewish Parties in the New Testament,” 918.

Chapter 2 An Alternative Kingdom

A Different Teacher

Jesus was a radical who turned the teachings of Jewish leaders topsy-turvy. Whereas some people collaborated, sabotaged, or even rebelled against the Roman rule, Jesus called them to a kingdom of love and humility. The Pharisees and Sadducees in particular found His teachings problematic. Jesus pointed them to the kingdom of God that went beyond the Jews and the Romans; beyond collaboration or non-cooperation with Rome, to the chagrin of the Pharisees. His was an everlasting kingdom that included all of the people, both Jews and Gentiles. Many people believed that He was the Messiah, miracle worker, and forgiver of sins (Mark 2:5-11). Jesus taught things contrary to traditional beliefs and teachings, including those concerning the ceremonial laws of purification (Luke 11:37-41; Mark 7:6-13), healing the sick on Sabbath, and claiming to be the Lord of the Sabbath. “Over the course of Jesus’ ministry, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other religious leaders repeatedly questioned Him about His violations of the Sabbath, about His authority to forgive sins, about the resurrection, even about whether or not the Jews should submit to Caesar.”¹ I suspect that if I had lived during the time Jesus lived on earth, most likely I would have reacted the same way the Pharisees did. I would be suspicious of anyone who called himself a messiah and yet seemed bent on dismantling old teachings. Also I would have easily identified with the Sadducees. More times than I want to it, I feel too comfortable living here, forgetting that this world is not my home. Heaven is my home. I am just a pilgrim and a stranger ing through this earth. Jesus reminds me not to be too comfortable in a world headed for destruction. Therefore,

In order to keep us from becoming too attached to earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life—longings that will never be fulfilled on this side of eternity. We are not completely happy here because we’re not supposed to be! Earth is not our final home; we were created for something much better.²

Furthermore, I suspect that I would have been a zealot. There are times my zeal for Jesus takes over and I tend to exhibit little tolerance for those who don’t exactly see it the way I see it. But through it all, Jesus has allowed me to see myself as I am; a sinner saved by grace. In this world, in order for one to forge ahead, one has to work hard, have strong arms, have good genes, have good looks, be beautiful, have connections, trample others, or be lucky. It is not so in God’s kingdom. To enter His kingdom, the needed qualities include acceptance of and dependence on Jesus, sorrow and repentance for sin, as well as a humble and willing heart to follow Jesus. We all have fallen and deserve to die (Rom. 6:23). All of us need God’s amazing grace as a safety net to make it to heaven. The good news is that Jesus has already paid our penalty for sin.

The Risk

As was true with the people of long ago, today, I run the risk of questioning Jesus instead of trusting Him. I may miss Him even when He is near. I need to be open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit concerning Jesus. The Jews missed Him because they expected to see a different messiah.

The words which the priests and rabbis so much desired to hear, that Jesus would now restore the kingdom to Israel, had not been spoken. For such a king they had been waiting and watching; such a king they were ready to receive. But one who sought to establish in their hearts a kingdom of righteousness and peace, they would not accept.³

The people rebelled. “The Jews objected so strongly to Jesus because, despite his audacious claims, he did not match their conception of what God is like; they rejected him for not measuring up.”⁴

A Kingdom of Grace

Jesus was an extraordinary human being. He was a Master Teacher. The leadership hated His teachings partly because they didn’t teach Him. He was so effective in communicating His message to His audience that even children could understand Him. He could teach for hours on end without getting the people bored or tired. He remarkably engaged mixed audiences of both children and adults. It puts my one-hour teaching sessions to my students a shame. One year, a colleague and I taught a class together. One of the students was bold enough to let him know, and he was gracious enough to tell me about her comment. She told him, “Sir, it’s not the content of the course or that the class is not interesting, that we seem to have problems with. You’re simply boring.” Not with Jesus. He could engage and captivate His audience for days (Mark 8:13). He always felt comion for them because they did not eat while He taught. On several occasions, He requested His disciples to feed them. At one time He fed 5,000 people from two fishes and five loaves of bread (Luke 9:10-17; Mark 6:30-44; Matt. 14:15-21). One of the teachings that rubbed the Jewish leadership, especially the Pharisees, the wrong way concerned salvation through good works. Some individuals strongly believed that they could gain their salvation by right living and strict obedience to God’s commandments. They thought that they could earn their way to heaven by performing good works. On the contrary, Jesus taught that only God was good; everyone else was not. He told them that to get to heaven they had to go through Him because He was the Door (John 10:7) and the Way (John 14:6). Such teachings didn’t go very well with the Pharisees, priests, and scribes. One day, Jesus told them a parable about a tax collector and a Pharisee who went to pray at the synagogue. The Pharisee prayed, “God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector”

(Luke 18:10-11). The tax collector prayed, “God, be merciful to me a sinner” (verse 13). Jesus said the tax collector went away from that place justified (verse 14). The Jews found teachings of justified tax collectors and condemned Pharisees hard to swallow. They had developed an elaborate caste system in which Gentiles, women, and other “insignificant” groups were excluded. The Pharisees considered tax collectors to be the chiefs of sinners and traitors. Tax collectors were well-educated individuals who were fluent in both Greek and their native tongue.⁵ Many Jews felt that tax collectors had sold out to the Roman government on whose behalf they collected taxes. They overcharged the people and pocketed the difference. The Pharisees could not accept tax collectors’ money as alms for the poor or for any use in the temple because they considered it to be tainted or bad money. To make matters interesting for them, Matthew, one of Jesus’ disciples, was a tax collector. We are not different today because “Every society has ‘tax collectors,’ and every society hates them.” Although we feel that we are better than others in our moral behavior, the Bible clearly points out that we are all sinners in need of a Savior. When we compare our lives to that of Jesus’, we fall short. We cannot point a finger at people and declare them to be worse than we are. We need just as much grace as they do. My father often reminded me to look at Jesus before I could point a finger at anyone. Indeed, “When we see what we are really like from God’s perspective, it has a way of shutting us up when we want to point the finger at others.”⁷ Jesus taught and demonstrated to His listeners that God is love, and that He extends that undeserved love, free of charge to all the humans. We are all God’s children. To demonstrate that love Jesus associated with anybody and everybody. The poor, rejects, adulterers, thieves, coveters, prostitutes, tax collectors, robbers, brigands, murderers, derelicts, and reprobates found comfort and peace when He was around. These people readily accepted His teachings and told others about Him. Yes, “The instrumentalities to be used in the gospel work are those souls who gladly receive the light which God sends them. These are the agencies for imparting the knowledge of truth to the world.”⁸ Jesus also associated with the rich. He visited the Pharisees in their homes. To their dismay, He transcended their caste system. He socialized with children, sinners, lepers, Samaritans, and the disabled. He touched the sick, including the

lepers, without going through the cleansing ritual system. As someone who claimed to come from heaven, they expected Him to know that anyone who touched a leper became unclean (Lev. 13:1-4:32). They did not want to it that when Jesus touched a leper, that person became clean without Jesus being soiled. Jesus never met a disease He couldn’t cure, a birth defect he couldn’t reverse, or a demon He couldn’t exorcise. But He always met skeptics He couldn’t convince and sinners He couldn’t convert. Some people sought His life every step of His life, beginning at birth. Throughout His 33½ years on earth, Jesus was a marked man. He is still a marked man today. “Why is it that [H]is name, more than the name of any other religious leader, causes irritation? Why is it you can talk about God and nobody gets upset, but as soon as you mention Jesus, people so often want to stop the conversation?”

Life in a Look

Through God’s matchless and infinite grace, every human being is a candidate for heaven. Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, learned about this truth when he visited Jesus at night (John 3). Jesus expounded to the learned leader the familiar forty-year journey experience the children of Israel made from slavery in Egypt to freedom in Canaan. Tired, thirsty, and hungry, they grumbled and complained against God and Moses, saying, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and our soul loathes this worthless bread” (Num. 22:5). God also became angry and removed His protection, allowing the serpents to invade the camp and bite people. Many died. When they saw their helplessness and hopelessness, they repented and asked Moses to pray to God to rescue them. God advised Moses: “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live” (verse 8). Moses did as he was advised. He made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Anyone who looked at that snake became well again (verse 9). Some did not look and died. Yes, there is a life in a look at the sacred cross of Jesus. Jesus invites us to look at Him and live. The sad news is that not everyone looks at Him. Many people

would rather die than believe in Jesus, the Creator, Savior, and Sustainer. Yet all they need to gain eternal life is believe in Him. Nicodemus knew that story very well. Jesus told him,

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:1416).

Nicodemus did not fully understand the impact of that statement until much later when He saw Jesus hanging on the cross. And “On that Sabbath, when Christ lay in the grave, Nicodemus had opportunity for reflection. A clearer light now illuminated his mind, and the words which Jesus had spoken to him were no longer mysterious.”¹

He Lived and Taught Love

Jesus lived and taught love. This revelation should not surprise us because He is love (1 John 4:8). What matters most in life is not our intellect but what lies in our hearts. Our abilities to think do not matter as much as our abilities to love do. Only through being loved can we show love to others. We are loved. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). John explained it this way: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:10-11). It is true, “Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow men.”¹¹ Human love is not an easy thing to dispense. Unlike God who loves us

unconditionally, most often we base our love on feelings or on acts of kindness done to us. Sometimes we feel like we love some people and sometimes we feel like we do not love them. It is natural; we love those who love us. That’s why Jesus’ love is awesome. His love is unconditional and consistent. He loves the unloved and unlovable, including His enemies. Humans even hate their brothers. “It is bad to hate an enemy, worse to hate a friend, and still worse to hate a brother.”¹² Our capacity to love is very limited. We find it difficult to love someone who puts us down, or someone who figuratively thrusts a spear in our chests. Many people advocate capital punishment for inmates who did something awful to them or their loved ones. Few people can love someone who spits in their faces, robs them, or mistreats them. Only Jesus could love with all of His heart, with all of His soul, and with all of His mind. Other things being equal that act alone qualified Him to be the Savior for struggling humans. He went further. He died for them. During His last hours on Planet Earth, Jesus underwent verbal and physical abuse beyond human understanding. He suffered alone. He was interrogated, beaten, and mistreated so that we could have eternal life. Angels could hardly stand the sight of their suffering Commander. They were ready to come to His rescue with only a “Go ahead” nod from God the Father, but they could not because God’s Son had to tread the winepress alone. With the anguish of spirit, feeling forsaken by His Father, as the heavy weight of sin of the world pressed hard on His heart, Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34; Matt. 27:46). “It was a symbol of the agony and horror that weighed upon His heart. No eye could pierce the gloom that surrounded the cross, and none could penetrate the deeper gloom that enshrouded the suffering soul of Christ.”¹³

Our Mission

Information about the suffering Messiah is good, but what we do with that information is more important, because that information is transforming. Jesus seeks to develop a relationship with us. What we do with the Man called Jesus Christ will define our best or worst decision of our lives. We have a choice to make. Either we accept His salvation or reject it. When He walked the streets of

earth, His message was largely rejected. He was condemned as a criminal for sins He didn’t commit. We are in danger of repeating that history today. Alternatively, we can do as the disciples did, accept Him as our personal Savior and communicate the good news—God’s reconciling love—to others. We need to welcome people of all races and social classes, love by caring for Christ’s weakest children, and love mercy in addition to justice and righteousness. Then one of these days, He will welcome us with the most coveted words, “inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:40). In times like these we need to know that Jesus’ love is both eternal and supernal. He is coming soon to take us home. He is our hope. His coming is vital for us. Why? Because “To the degree that the church loses faith in Christ’s return and contents itself to be a comfortable part of this world and not the advance guard of a kingdom from another world, to that degree we risk losing faith in a sovereign God.”¹⁴ It’s our duty and privilege to inform all the candidates (that means everyone alive) for heaven about Christ’s Second Coming. His coming is near; even at the door.

Endnotes

1. Michelle L. Chin, “How Do We Experience the Cross Today?” Adventist Review, 184 (9) (March 22, 2007), 10. 2. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), 50. 3. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 138. 4. Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 26. 5. Paul E. Miller, Love Walked among Us (Colorado Springs, Colorado:

NavPress, 2001), 18. 6. Ibid., 55. 7. Ibid., 102. 8. White, The Desire of Ages, 279. 9. Josh McDowell, More than a Carpenter (Wheaton, Illinois: Living Books, 1977), 9. 10. Ibid., 775. 11. Mohandas Gandhi, Quoted in Tony Castle, A Treasury of Christian Wisdom. (London: Hodder & Houghton, 2001), 50 12. Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Vol. 4 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1976), 958. 13. White, The Desire of Ages, 754. 14. Yancey Philip, The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 252.

Chapter 3 The Fall

It was a day to , not because we did something right, but because thinking of it now, I don’t know how we pulled it off. I was acting captain of the University of Zambia’s volleyball team in Lusaka, Zambia. Generally volleyball and football (soccer) teams had the same schedules. When one team had a game, usually the other team had a game also. So, the teams traveled together for games. Teams were made up of all walk-ons who played their hearts out as if their college careers depended on playing for the university. This weekend, the University of Zambia (UNZA) was scheduled to play away games at Malcolm Moffat Teacher Training College, in Serenje. But we had a problem. Because of reasons I can’t , not all of either the football or volleyball team showed up for this trip. I was disappointed because I had never been to that college before. I was interested in going. Somehow we managed to get the fans and a few players to force the driver to take us to Serenje. On our way to Serenje, someone assumed the role of captain for the football team. He asked for volunteers who were willing to play, what positions they could play, and made up a team. Knowing that I would not raise a volleyball team, I volunteered to be the goalie. When we arrived, we found the other teams ready. We forfeited the volleyball game. As we began playing football, I believe our opponents quickly realized that we were not the regular team because first, we didn’t coordinate as a team, and second, players got tired very quickly. To our credit, we fought gallantly and held the other team to the same score at half time. The story was different in the second half. Our team were so tired that the opponents started to run circles around them. I had not seen an attack on the goal before as I saw it that day. It appeared as if it was time for the goalie to play with eleven opponents. I can’t the score, but when the match was over our opponents had scored several goals. I had never been so glad to see the match over as I did that day. I was even happier it was not played in Lusaka, our

hometown. Thinking of it, that incident wouldn’t have happened in Lusaka. Putting it gently, we filed off the field as if lightning had just struck and killed one of our teammates. We were exhausted, humiliated, and afraid of what to say when we returned to Lusaka. There was a lot of explaining to do when we returned; questions concerning who had authorized the trip, and questions concerning who had appointed the captain of the team. That was probably the worst defeat in the annals of the University of Zambia, the best team in the collegiate league at that time. The record was seriously tarnished. Yes, we had the desire and will to play for our university, but it takes more than the will and desire to win. Winning takes character, a lot of practice, continuous training, a lot of coordination, and preparation. Winning requires authority. Besides, we needed to play as a team, not as individuals or just-off-the-street-want-to-be-football players we were.

The Battle of Our Life

This incident reminds me of Lucifer before he became Satan or the devil. When the devil came to Planet Earth he thought he could take it over from Christ. In many ways, he has temporarily achieved that goal as is reflected in the pain, violence, struggles, suffering, andheartaches that affect the people around the world. But Satan didn’t know what God knew—that as he was defeated in heaven he would be defeated on earth too. That he was not the creator and had no authority to rule anyone. But Satan was determined to dance around God’s people for a while, causing rebellion and havoc. Whether we know it or not, like it or not, or believe it or not, we are in a battle of our life. We are engaged in a cosmic conflict which God and Satan have been fighting. This brutal battle involves a lot of pain, sorrow, misery, and heartaches. The interesting thing about this battle is that Lucifer started it right there in heaven. Lucifer, a highly honored angel, rebelled against God and His government. Before Lucifer became Satan or the devil, he lived in God’s presence. Mysteriously, slowly but surely, and little by little, Lucifer became dissatisfied with God and started to question God’s love, judgment, and character. He spread his dissatisfaction among the angels. When Jesus tried to

persuade him that his intentions and actions would lead to very sad and disastrous consequences, and that he should reconsider and reverse his decision, Lucifer refused to listen and instead decided to go to war with Jesus. “And war broke out in heaven: Michael [Jesus] and his angels fought with the dragon [Lucifer]; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they [the dragon and his angels] did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer” (Rev. 12:7-8). Since then, Satan has caused much pain around the world, some of which is reported and much of what goes unreported in the eyewitness news broadcasts, although some atrocities are too gruesome to escape the attention of the world. For example, the atrocities of the holocaust concerning Jews in and Europe before and during World War II, the massacres among the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda in the 1990s, ethnic cleansings in Bosnia in the 1990s, the perpetual conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the tragedies in the Darfur area of Southern Sudan in the 2000s, and civil wars around the world, just highlight the results of sin. We can add to the list the pain of losing loved ones through accidents, disease, cancer, and terrorism that human families undergo every moment of the day. Two major terrorist incidents in the United States have been especially painful. On April 19, 1995, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was destroyed with a homemade bomb. One hundred and sixty-eight people lost their lives and many others were injured. Twenty-one of those who died were children in a preschool. On September 11, 2001 (appropriately labeled 9-11), nineteen hijackers took control of planes and commandeered them into the twin towers in New York City, killing over three thousand people. Another plunged into the Pentagon Building in Washington, D.C., killing hundreds of people. Many people were injured as a result of these attacks. The engers and crew resisted the hijackers in another plane that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania, killing all its crew and engers. Many lives have been scarred for life as the events have traumatized them. Many people have suspended traveling by air; maybe forever. It now takes a long time to board a plane, an event that used to take only a few minutes. It is humbling to stand in a line for 2 hours in order to take a 45 minute flight. When we see such incidences, we ask why. Why should a gracious, merciful,

and loving God allow such events to happen? Death at any age is both premature and excessive, and yet every moment we see thousands upon thousands of people die prematurely from accidents, cancers, illnesses, and other causes. Death causes the same amount of pain whether the one affected is young or old, rich or poor. Everyday we see people wasted and we ask why, especially when the death touches a family member, close relative, child, or friend. Why him? Why her? It does not make sense that someone could be born and live only for a few hours and then die. Everyday many people live in abject poverty in nations sagging with wealth. Many people die from preventable diseases around the world amidst the latest advances in medicine.

Because of Sin

The Holy Bible suggests that death is foreign to God’s loving character. The Bible shows that humans are engaged in a cosmic conflict between good and evil. We die because of sin, the beginning of which is a mystery. No one can explain sin because to explain it is to excuse it.¹ Sin is inexcusable and unjustifiable. Sin brought death in a perfect world that was created and sustained by a loving Creator. Death is the ultimate consequence of sin (Rom. 6:23). When sin entered the world, God knew that death was going to be part of human experience. Because He loved His creation, He already had found a way He was going to destroy sin without destroying the sinners. The battle between Jesus and Satan was going to be intense. Humans had no match for it. The penalty for the sins of humans was to be decided by the death of God Himself. God was going to die in a sinner’s place. God the Son was going to atone for a sinner’s sins. Thus, whosoever accepted His atoning sacrifice would not die. Those who didn’t would die in the end. About two thousand years ago, God came down and walked among us. He revealed the true nature of God and exposed the plans of the devil. One day Jesus was led to Calvary and nailed to the cross for the sins He didn’t commit. He did what we couldn’t do—perfectly keep God’s commandment as a human being. That victory sealed Satan’s fate. Satan will pay for his crimes against humanity and both sin and death will be eradicated, once and forevermore. Eternity will begin when Jesus will come and take His children home. There,

God will reign with those who had renounced sin while on earth (Rev. 21:1-5). But the rejection of sin must come voluntarily. “In the work of redemption there is no compulsion. No external force is employed. Under the influence of the Spirit of God, man is left free to choose whom he will serve.”² So, today, we have to choose whom we will serve: God or Satan.

The Origin of Sin

How did sin begin? The Scriptures provide a window into how we got into this mess. God used the King of Tyre, an evil and morally bankrupt monarch, to reveal that sin started with His trusted angel, Lucifer, the anointed cherub (Ezek. 28:12-17). God told Lucifer,

You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you. By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within, and you sinned; therefore I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, that they might gaze at you (verses 15-17).

Lucifer was perfect until he started to harbor sin and rebelled against God. Eventually, after unsuccessful attempts to persuade him to rethink his course, he was sadly forced to leave heaven (Rev. 12: 7-8).³ He was cast out of heaven because of his pride and desire to be equal with God (Isa. 14:12-15). He was proud of his beauty that corrupted his wisdom. As a created being, although he was the leader of angels, Lucifer should have realized that he was lower than Christ. He refused to recognize this reality and openly rebelled against the Creator of the universe and waged war right in heaven. Unfortunately, because he didn’t want to die alone, Lucifer spread his dissatisfaction among angels. He convinced a third of the angels to believe his lies. And they also want many people to die with them.

I don’t see anything wrong with Lucifer’s desire to be like God, except that his desire was misconstrued. There is nothing wrong in being like God in hating sin, loving His creation, serving others, and forgiving those who do wrong. “Lucifer desired God’s power, position, authority, and glory; not His love, His benevolence, His mercy.”⁴ In other words, Lucifer wanted Jesus’ position but not His character. Lucifer,

Not content with his position, though honored above the heavenly host, he ventured to covet homage due alone to the Creator. Instead of seeking to make God supreme in the affections and allegiance of all created beings, it was his endeavor to secure their service and loyalty to himself. And coveting the glory with which the infinite Father had invested His Son, this prince of angels aspired to power that was the prerogative of Christ alone.⁵

Today, Satan is active among human beings. He claims to be the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4). His mission is to lead astray (John 14:30), “to steal and to destroy” (John 10:10) as many lives as possible (John 8:44). Knowing that his time is limited to conduct his business, Satan walks like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. 5:8). That is what would happen to anyone who forgets and glories in his or her own beauty, achievements, or wisdom. No power or ecclesiastical position is a safe guarantee against sinning against God. Safety is only found in continually looking to Jesus and humbly submitting to Him. If that is not done, we run the danger of repeating Lucifer’s mistakes.

Similar Danger

We are in a similar danger of repeating what Lucifer did if we don’t fortify our minds with God’s Word and believe what the Word says. Rebellion begins by questioning God’s authority and power as they are revealed in His Word. It is especially easy to do so these days because of the increase in knowledge and the

major accomplishments humans have done. Pride and self-glorification led to Lucifer’s downfall. They will lead to our fall. Only God is worth to be glorified. It is important to realize that:

Satan’s rebellion was to be a lesson to the universe through all coming ages—a perpetual testimony to the nature of sin and its terrible results. The working out of Satan’s rule, its effects upon both men and angels, would show what must be the fruit of setting aside the divine authority. It would testify that with the existence of God’s government is bound up the well-being of all the creatures He has made. Thus the history of this terrible experiment of rebellion was to be a perpetual safeguard to all holy beings, to prevent them from being deceived as to the nature of transgression, to save them from committing sin, and suffering its penalty.

Lucifer was very cunning and deceitful. Although he failed to replace Christ in heaven, he succeeded in deceiving our forefathers in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3). He still continues his same ways on earth. He has succeeded in making people to devise their own theories about the origin of the world. If only humans can believe that Jesus didn’t create the world, then it would be easier to lead them astray. That’s why we have so many “isms” in the world today because Satan hides in human institutions of “isms.” Evolutionism is simply a tip of the iceberg. The truth is, “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), except the name of Jesus who not only created us, but also died for us. Today, with twisted logic Satan accuses God of being unfair to him. How could God punish him [Satan] and let sinners like you and I go free? Is that fair? If God is holy and just as He is, and His law is broken with impunity everyday, why shouldn’t He punish all those who have violated His law? What Satan has forgotten is that he was given his chance to repent, right there in heaven but he didn’t take that opportunity to turn his life around. Had he done that, he would have spared the universe and especially God heartaches of seeing His creation suffer for so long in order for everyone to see a glimpse of the consequences of Satan’s action. So, the evil one has no excuse. Understandably,

At the beginning of the great controversy, the angels did not understand… [that] had Satan and his host then been left to reap the full result of their sin, they would have perished; but it would not have been apparent to heavenly beings that this was the inevitable result of sin. A doubt of God’s goodness would have remained in their minds as evil seed, to reproduce its deadly fruit of sin and woe.⁷

Also, Satan has forgotten that when Jesus hang on that cruel cross; that when the loving God stretched out His arms on the cross, embracing all who would come to Him, as the drops of blood fell from His broken body to the ground; they covered our sins. God forgave us. Our sins are covered under the blood. Those who refuse God’s grace will die, but death was never a part of God’s plan for humans. It still is not. It was the punishment reserved for Satan and his angels. Isn’t it humbling to know that humans will judge Satan and his angels (1 Cor. 6:3)? It is important to realize that,

Through Jesus, God’s mercy was manifested to men; but mercy does not set aside justice. The law reveals the attributes of God’s character, and not jot or tittle of it could be changed to meet man in his fallen condition. God did not change His law, but He sacrificed Himself, in Christ, for man’s redemption. ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.’⁸

Thus, Christ became human to save us from sin (Isa. 9:6; Matt. 1:23; Phil. 2:512). By His death on Calvary, sinners were reconciled to God and made righteous (2 Cor. 5:18-21). Those who believe in Him become saints. When God looks at them, He doesn’t see their scarred lives but the merits of His Son. Calvary means a lot to God’s saints. That death on the cross signifies that God is willing to save to the uttermost and to receive anyone who believes in His Son. That death atoned for human sins (Rom. 3:23; 5:12, 19).

Satan Is Powerless

As helpless human beings, we tend to forget that, “In the whole Satanic force there is not power to overcome one soul who in simple trust casts himself on Christ.” When tempted God will provide the wherewithal to overcome or withstand the devil (1 Cor. 10:13). As long as we breathe, we all will face temptations, but God is faithful to keep us from falling. He always provides a way of escape. We have the assurance that,

Of everyone He [God] expects loyalty, and to everyone He grants power according to the need. In His own strength man is strengthless; but in the might of God he may be strong to overcome evil and help others to overcome. Satan can never gain advantage of him who makes God his defense. ‘Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength’ (Isaiah 45:24).¹

So, in times like these, we have a choice to make. I don’t believe the choice can be any clearer. Jesus died so we might live, but Satan lives so we might die. Therefore, all of us must choose whom we will believe and follow. We must choose whom we will worship. Not choosing Christ is by default choosing Satan. Logically speaking,

The Creator of the universe is the true and only object of worship. No man, angel, is worth of worship. This is the prerogative of God in contrast with false deities (Jer. 10:11-12). The appeal to worship God as Creator has become especially timely in the years following the initial preaching of the first angel’s message, because of the rapid spread of the theory of evolution.¹¹

Lucifer rebelled because he wanted freedom that he still promises to those who follow him. But human experience testifies that real freedom is only found in Christ. The broken homes, bodies, relationships, and governments strongly tell

us that Satan is a liar. The joy, peace, and happiness that come when one believes in Christ tell us that God is good, merciful, and kind. It is good to know that,

In the change that takes place when the soul surrenders to Christ, there is the highest sense of freedom. The expulsion of sin is the act of the soul itself. True, we have no power to free ourselves from Satan’s control; but when we desire to be set free from sin, and in our great need cry out for a power out of and above ourselves, the power of the soul are imbued with the energy of the Holy Spirit, and they obey the dictates of the will in fulfilling the will of God.¹²

God’s desire for humans is that they be happy in Jesus. What did God see when He had finished creating the world? “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). God’s ideal for humans includes peace, harmony, love, kindness, selflessness, and happiness. On the other hand, Satan’s aim is to sow anger, shame, guilt, disobedience, pride, disharmony, jealous, and death. The good news is that God will restore His kingdom. Scriptures say, “[We] are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). In our trip to Malcolm Moffat Teacher Training College, we neither had the authority nor the power to go out of the campus to play football on behalf of the University. We didn’t have the stamina and strength to play a full 90 minutes. We were humiliated by losing terribly. Frankly, it didn’t matter whether we won or lost. We had taken affairs in our own hands. Similarly, the devil has always wanted to take over the affairs of this world with the sole purpose of denying us eternal life and joy in Jesus. But he has neither authority nor power to make us do what he wants unless we allow him to. In times like these we need to know that some day soon God will make the devil to face the results of sin and pain he has caused in the world. Why should you the devil by not believing in a God who loves you, first by creating you and then by dying for you so that you don’t have to die? Eternal fire was never created for humans. It was created for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). We should not allow him to drag us into the lake of fire with him.

Endnotes

1. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1939), 492. 2. , The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 466. 3. One of the best and clearest explanations on the great controversy is by Ellen G. White who has wonderfully explained the story of redemption in The Story of Redemption. (Washington, D.C: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1980). 4. The cosmic conflict between Christ and Satan, Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide Teachers Edition (Washington, DC: Office of the Adult Bible Study of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2002), 10. 5. Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1911), 35. 6. Ibid., 42-43. 7. White, The Desire of Ages, 762. 8. Ibid. 9. Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1941), 155-157. 10. , Prophets and Kings (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1917), 175. 11. Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Vol. 7 (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1976), 828. 12. White, The Desire of Ages, 466.

Chapter 4 God Is Love

Many things intrigue me about Jesus. How was it that the Creator of the universe was born in such poverty and disgrace, in a minority race that was under a harsh and ruthless regime? Why did God die as a prisoner? I am also intrigued by the mediocre human response to God’s amazing grace. I often wonder: Is there really any alternative to believing in Jesus? How can one be happy without God in his or her life? If the truth could be told, “There is within every soul a thirst for happiness.”¹ We all spend our lifetimes seeking for happiness and many never find it because happiness is found only in Jesus Christ. God’s plan from the very beginning of time has been to make us happy. But that plan was derailed right in the Garden of Eden when our first parents disobeyed God. Ever since that time humans have shed many tears and experienced innumerable heartaches. Even amidst heartaches, God has been good to us and has given us enough happiness to enjoy this world. But happiness will always be incomplete until sin is wiped out, forevermore, never to raise its ugly head again.

The Beginning of Trouble

As Chapter 3 outlines, in his rebellion Satan marshaled his angels and equipped them with plans to disrupt happiness in the Garden of Eden. They were going to trick Adam and Eve in disobeying God through cunning and deceit.² God sent angels to warn Adam and Eve about Satan’ plans. “They told Adam and Eve that God would not compel them to obey—that He had not removed from them the power to go contrary to His will; that they were moral agents, free to obey or disobey.”³ The angels

told them that Satan purposed to do them harm, and it was necessary for them to be guarded, for they might come in with the fallen foe; but he could not harm them while they yielded obedience to God’s command, for, if necessary, every angel from heaven would come to their help rather than that he should in any way do them harm.⁴

We know what happened. Adam and Eve failed the test, but God had already made contingencies for them. Right there, in the presence of Satan, disguised as a serpent, God promised Adam and Eve a Savior who would die for their sins. Rebuking the serpent, God said, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15). The lines were drawn. The serpent and its seed represented Satan and his followers while the woman [the church] and her Seed represented the Savior [Jesus Christ]. The angel told Joseph when he was contemplating to leave a pregnant Mary, “And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). The experience would be brutal: the Savior’s heel would be bruised but He would crush Satan’s head. And the end result would be forgiven sinners. “Our first parents fell because they believed the devil rather than God. They’d forfeited their right to life and God’s presence; they were now slaves to the evil one. But God gave them hope.”⁵ God instituted a system that pointed them to a Savior that would come to redeem them. To receive forgiveness, a repentant sinner would bring a sacrificial animal that had no blemishes. The sinner would place his hand on the sacrifice and confess his sins (Lev. 1:3-4). This act represented the transfer of sin from the sinner to the animal. The sinner then killed the sacrifice, an act that showed the sinfulness of sin. The animal died to spare the sinner’s life, confirming the understanding that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission” of sin (Heb. 9:22). When Jesus died on the cross,

The ancient enemy exulted that day. He’d dogged Jesus’ footsteps all along the way. He’d tried to get Him killed as a babe; he’d tempted Him to short-circuit His saving mission in the wilderness; he’d tried to make Him turn back as the woes of the human race pressed upon Him in the garden; he’d taunted Him as He hung upon Calvary. And he saw Him expire, saw Him laid in Joseph’s rockcut tomb. But the serpent only bruised Jesus’ heel. On Sunday morning before the first light He rose from the dead, burst its bands, and went forth a mighty conqueror, Lord of heaven and earth, Lord of life and the grave. Praise God for our mighty Deliverer!

Jesus is “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Jesus sacrificed Himself, “Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh” (Heb. 9:12).

Most Important Decision in Life

The most important decision one can make is to choose life found in Jesus Christ. Especially in a world steeped in the scientific method, which stipulates that truth can only be understood in a laboratory and in things that can be observed, measured, and touched, some people find it difficult to believe in God. Of course, when you use wrong instruments, you will reach at wrong conclusions. Belief in Jesus requires faith, something that cannot be measured in a scientist’s laboratory. Faith cannot be manufactured in human’s laboratory. Only God supplies that faith. Faith and truth reside in Him. Truth does not reside in the scientific method nor does the scientific method bring us the truth we need to live in this world. Only Jesus can. God told the children of Israel through Moses: “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;

that you may obey His voice, and that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and for the length of your days” (Deut. 30:19-20). God advises people to seek Him so they can live (Amos 5:1-4). The choice is between loving good and hating evil (Amos 5:14-15), and loving evil and dying eternal death (Rom. 6:23). There is no middle ground or vacillation. To choose one is to reject the other. God says choose life. That is a great choice. Life is good, but life is found only in Jesus (1 John 5:11-12). In fact, He is our life (Col. 3:4). He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). Besides, there is no other name in heaven or on earth through which humans receive redemption other than the name of Jesus (Acts 4:12). God has been warning people to turn away from idolatry and evil. The Bible calls everyone to believe in Jesus. He is the Creator. We must live to reveal this God and reconnect people with Him. God created life and turning away from God disconnects us from the very Source of life. If we can it it, all the people look for a god; and find him: either as the living God in whom they live, move, and have their being (Acts 17:31), or an idol, self, or an ideal. God has already revealed Himself to humans. It’s up to them to respond to Him and accept the salvation He offers. God is a personal God. He knows us. Our God is the God of the second chance. He calls us to repentance. He is not interested in the death of a sinner. He desires that we seek Him, not as an intellectual exercise (as in academic debates, theory building, doctrinal discussion, or theological debate), but as a personal Creator and Savior. Seeking God means experiencing Him personally, and not just having much factual information about Him. It means loving Him “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,” and loving “your neighbour as yourself” (Luke 10:27, NIV).

Jesus Christ—God Incarnate

Jesus is God Incarnate. The God who became a man actually was the Creator of

all the things in heaven, on earth, in the sea, and everywhere. “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16). “All things were created through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3). The name Jesus Christ is both a name and a title. The name Jesus is derived from the Greek form of the name Jeshua or Joshua, which means “Jehovah-Savior” or “The Lord saves.” The title Christ comes from the Greek word for Messiah or the Hebrew word Mashiach. It means “the anointed one.” “Two offices, king and priest, are involved in the use of the title ‘Christ.’ His title affirms Jesus as the promised priest and king of Old Testament prophesies.”⁷ The Scriptures assume that there is a God. We didn’t arrive here by accident. Jesus created and redeemed us. Jesus claimed to be the Messiah from God. While He wore “the face of a Jew, [He] had the image of the Creator.”⁸ We have the sure word of testimony of those who worked with Him—the disciples turned apostles—who wrote so “that [we] may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing [we] may have life in His name” (John 20:30-31). How can it be clearer? The Apostle Peter wrote:

For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty… And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:16-21).

The apostles were so convinced Jesus was the Messiah that they were willing to die for Him through painful deaths. Andrew, Bartholomew, James, the son of Alphaeus, Peter, Philip, and Simon were crucified. James, the son of Zebedee, and Matthew were beheaded by the sword. Thomas was speared to death. James, the brother of Jesus was stoned. John died of natural causes. Tradition has it that he was exiled to the Island of Patmos after boiling him in oil didn’t kill him. “It

would be hard to find eleven people in history who died for a lie, knowing it was a lie.” The disciples couldn’t have done what they did if they knew Jesus was a hoax. Jesus is both Creator and Savior. The Bible confirms that statement. God, through the Holy Bible, tells people how they came here, what happened when they arrived, what the solution was to their problem, and how the world will end. So, do you know where are going and the One who is going with you? But the plan to rescue humans didn’t start when humans fell. Jesus was “foreordained before the foundation of the world” (1 Pet. 1:19-20) to be “the sacrifice for sin, to be the hope of the human race”¹

A Fulfiller of Prophecy

The coming of the Messiah was prophesied thousands of years before He was born. All the Scriptures that identified the Messiah in the Old Testament were fulfilled in Christ. Here are a few highlights. Isaiah prophesied, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). Luke reported, “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Isaiah predicted, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). The angel proclaimed, “‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel’ which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matt. 1:23). Even the city where He was to be born was prophesied (Luke 2:4; Micah 5:2; Matt. 2:6). The snapshot of His life was predicted in Isaiah 53. When Jesus began His ministry, He opened the Scripture and read,

The Spirit of the L ord

God is upon Me, because the L ord has anointed Me to preach the good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the L ord , and the day of vengeance of our God (Isa. 61:1-2; Compare with Luke 4:1819).

A close friend was to betray Him (Ps. 41:9), a prophecy one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, fulfilled (John 13:18; 18:2) for thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 11:12; Matt. 26:14-15). They spat on Him (Isa. 50:6) and gambled for His clothes (Ps. 22:18; John 19:23-24). His side was pierced (Zech. 12:10) but none of His bones was broken (Ps. 34:20; John 19:32-34, 36-37). People beat Him and condemned Him to die by crucifixion (John 19:1-16; Luke 23:14-15; Matt. 26:67). Jesus was born and baptized as was prophesied in the Scriptures (Dan. 9:24-27). He died for His people at the prophesied time. “For indeed Christ, our over, was sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7) so that those who believe should have eternal life (John 3:16). Jesus died to redeem us not

with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from [our] aimless conduct received by tradition from [our] fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that [our] faith and hope are in God (1 John 1:18-21).

Surely, “Someone who lived as Jesus lived, taught as Jesus taught, and died as

Jesus died could not have been a liar.”¹¹ Christ claimed and His apostles confirmed those attributes that are reserved for God. Christ is omniscient. In Him “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). He is omnipresent. He told his skeptics, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). He promised, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). He is omnipotent. His Father in heaven had given Him all authority in heaven and on earth (John 17:2; Matt. 28:18). In Him was life (John 1:4). He made no apologies concerning His mission to earth. He came to give life to people by dying for them. No other person has ever lived to fulfill that mission. Besides, “A character so original, so complete, so uniformly consistent, so perfect, so human and yet so high above all greatness, can be neither a fraud nor a fiction.”¹² Therefore:

A believer in Jesus Christ today can have complete confidence, as did the first Christians, that his faith is based, not on myth or legend, but on the solid historical fact of the risen Christ and the empty tomb. Most important of all, the individual believer can experience the power of the risen Christ in his life today. First of all, he can know that his sins are forgiven. Second, he can be assured of eternal life and his own resurrection from the grave. Third, he can be released from a meaningless and empty life and can be transformed into a new creature in Jesus Christ.¹³

More important, Christ changes lives, nations, and circumstances. No person in human history has changed as many people as Jesus has. A relationship with Him leads to changes in people’s lives. Those whose lives have been transformed tell of His glory and the joy and happiness they have found in Him. And that change is not only for a short time. “Wherever Jesus has been proclaimed, lives have been changed for the good, nations have changed for the better, thieves are made honest, alcoholics are cured, hateful individuals become channels of love, unjust persons become just.”¹⁴ Those who accept Him bear fruits of joy, peace, love, kindness, goodness, self-control, longsuffering, gentleness, kindness, and faithfulness (Gal. 5:22-23).

No Viable Alternative

There really is no alternative to believing in Jesus. We have to accept Him and His sacrifice or we have to accept the devil. The Bible clearly states that: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8-10). Most important, “One day the ancient enemy will receive his due. One day he who has brought death to so many will himself die under God’s hand as the serpent’s head is crushed forever.”¹⁵

In spite of the condition of our planet, it still has God’s imprints on it. Everywhere you go, “God is love” is written upon every opening bud, upon every spire of springing grass. The lovely birds making the air vocal with their happy songs, the delicately tinted flowers in their perfection perfuming the air, the lofty trees of the forest with their rich foliage of living green—all testify to the tender, fatherly care of our God and to His desire to make His children happy.¹

Endnotes

1. Thomas Aquinas, Quoted in Josh McDowell, More than a Carpenter (Wheaton, Illinois: Living Books, 1977), 117. 2. Ellen G. White, The Story of Redemption (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1980), 29. This is a recommended reading for a deeper understanding of the great controversy between God and Satan, between good and evil, especially the first four chapters. 3. Ibid., 30.

4. Ibid. 5. William G. Johnsson, Glimpses of Grace: Scenes from My Journey (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2001), 119. 6. Ibid., 119-120. 7. Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter (Wheaton, Illinois: Living Books, 1977), 11. 8. Max Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 1992), 100. 9. McDowell, More Than a Carpenter, 62. 10. Seventh-day Adventists Believe . . . A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines (Silver Spring, Maryland: Ministerial Association, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1988), 38. 11. McDowell, More Than a Carpenter, 30. 12. Ibid., 29. 13. Ibid., 98. 14. Ibid., 28. 15. Johnsson, Glimpses of Grace, 120. 16. Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2000), 4.

Chapter 5 Savior

If you could choose a method in which you would leave this world, what would it be? Would it be painful or peaceful? If you could choose an age at which to die, what would it be? Would you choose to die at a young or old age? At what age would you consider to be old? If you were the creator of the universe, would you die for your creation? If you were God, would you die for people who you know will reject you, spun your love, condemn you as a common criminal, and give you capital punishment as your sentence for loving them? Would you live among such people, fully knowing that they would spit in your face and crucify you? Would you forgive people who mistreat you? Would you like to be Jesus? Consider the following statement:

By any measure Jesus led a tragic life: rumors of illegitimacy, taunts of insanity from his family, rejection by most who heard him, betrayal by friends, the savage turn of a mob against him, a series of justice-mocking trials, execution in a form reserved for slaves and violent criminals. A pitiful story, to be sure, and that is the heart of the scandal: we do not expect to pity God.¹

It amazes me that our hope, the Christian hope, is based on a Man “who came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). Our hope is built around a Man who was born to die for His creation. Our hope lies in the Creator of the universe and yet was born in a barn. His first bed was a manger. His parents were poor residents in a despised town of Nazareth. He came fully knowing that He would suffer “many things and be rejected by [His] generation” (Luke 17:25), especially “the elders and chief priests and scribes” who would work extra hard to kill Him (Luke 9:22). Their obsession with killing Him seemed to overshadow their actions all the days of His life to the extent that they aligned themselves with their archenemies, the despised Herodians (Luke 6:6-7; Mark 3:3-6; Matt. 12:10-12).

Wasn’t it easier for Jesus to simply create a new earth and inhabit it with new people who would do His will when Adam sinned? Wouldn’t it have been easier to create robotic people—people who would always obey Him without questioning His motives? Why didn’t He create robots that could do whatever He asked them to do? Why didn’t He make people who couldn’t think on their own? He had the power. He was the Creator and needed no permission from anybody to do whatever He pleased. Why did He bother about a few individuals when He had other beings in His vast universe and illimitable space? Why didn’t He just wipe them out? Why didn’t He just take out Lucifer even before he convinced other angels to side with him? Knowing what He knew, why didn’t He just squash sin when it raised its ugly head? Why did He make people in His own image when they would be such a poor representation of His kingdom and what He stood for? Why did He give them the power of choice?

An Amazing God

The answers to these questions are not easy, but I believe they are summed up in one short statement: God is amazing. God is love (1 John 4:8). God is merciful and His mercy endures forever. He is gracious and patient. It is true, “God alone knows what pleases God.”² For some reason only known to Him, it pleased God not to do what a typical human being would do. He decided to die for His creation, taking the punishment its inhabitants were supposed to receive. Jesus hung His hope on His ability to change the lives of people. He decided to be gracious and erase sins. By His grace, a costly and painful experience, Jesus died by hanging on a cruel cross. Jesus was different from anybody that ever lived or will ever live. He was God and yet did not use His divinity to His advantage. Instead, in His divinity He touched humanity. God came and dwelt among us, fully knowing He was going to die for the ungodly (Rom. 5:6). In His appearance there was nothing that indicated He was God’s answer to the evil one. He didn’t call attention to Himself either. It had been foretold of Him, “For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isa. 53:2). Even His own brothers didn’t believe in Him (John 7:5).

God became a man, dwelt among us, and experienced pain no one had ever endured before Him, or has ever endured since then, or will ever endure. Pain was so intense that He sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. He lived in abject poverty so we could become rich. “For [we] know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for [our] sakes He became poor, that [we] through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9) in His love, mercy, and spiritual life. Even geography didn’t work in His favor. He didn’t choose the most powerful nation for His earthly citizenship. Instead, He identified Himself with a small, conquered nation. He didn’t choose Jerusalem (the capital), Bethlehem (David’s city), or Ramah (the city of the prophets). He chose a small and despised city of Nazareth. Therefore, to most people, Jesus was just a poor carpenter in Galilee until they had a chance to hear Him. Excited that he had found the Messiah, Philip told Nathanael, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, and also the prophets, wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45). Nathanael sneered, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (verse 46). How bad could Nazareth have been to earn such a reputation? How could God choose such a place for His Son, the Messiah to grow up in?

The Suffering Messiah

What we do with the Carpenter from Nazareth has eternal implications. How we wait for His second coming is extremely important, if we do not want to miss His blessings. When He left palatial heaven to be born in a cattle shed the first people to learn about His birth were not “the strong and the mighty, the elite and the learned, [but He] revealed the glad tidings to shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night.”³ From the very beginning of His life He identified with the poor and the downtrodden. He gave strength to the powerless and power to the weak. Probably that was why Jesus had a difficult time with the Jewish leaders. He was not one of them. One of His closest friends betrayed Him: “Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?’ And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver. So from

that time he sought opportunity to betray Him” (Matt. 26:15-16). Thirty pieces of silver was the price of a slave or a prince (Zech. 11:13). How could it be that the Creator of the universe could be sold for the cost of a slave? (Not that slaves do not matter.) And why had it to be by one of His disciples? The answer is not assuring. Do I consider myself His best friend? How many times have I betrayed my best friend? How many times have I sold Him for “thirty pieces” of silver by working on Sabbath when He wants me to spend time with Him, soaking in His love and basking in His goodness? How many times have I sold Him by belittling the people for whom He died? Is Judas worse than I am? I don’t think so. In God’s sight we are all sinners saved by grace (Rom. 3:22-23). There is hope for me because God has great plans for me (Jer. 29:11). I still have a golden opportunity to make changes in my life that Judas doesn’t have. Today, Jesus continues to experience the pain of verbal abuse, rejection, and betrayal. How many times have I kept quiet when I should have said a word for Him when people have mocked His name in my hearing? I know that silence is golden that is rarely misinterpreted, but is keeping quiet when my Lord and Savior is being mocked not the same as betraying Him? Am I ashamed of Him? Why can’t I say with Paul, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith”? (Rom. 1: 16-17). Jesus suffered physical pain He didn’t deserve. The gospels are replete with examples of the abuse and pain Jesus bore, especially during His last hours on earth. That was one reason Jews rejected Him as Messiah because they expected a conquering king, not a suffering king.⁴ A few days before His death, Jesus called His disciples apart and told them about His impending arrest and death (Mark 8:31-35). Peter was shocked to learn about a dying Messiah. Was Jesus out of His mind? He took Jesus aside and rebuked Him. I can hear him say, “What do You mean You’re going to die? Be positive, Jesus. Messiahs don’t talk like that, later on die.” Jesus rebuked him back with the stunning words, “Get behind Me, Satan! For you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men” (verse 33). Why He chose to die the way He did I will never fully understand, except to

acknowledge that He loves me that much. For what crime? “Now the chief priests, the elders, and all the council sought false testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, but found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none” (Matt. 26: 59-60). The only link to crime was His statement that He was “able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days” (verse 61). Caiaphas was infuriated more even though he had been looking for an opportunity to kill Him when Jesus answered his statement, “I put You under oath by the living God: Tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God!” (verse 63). Jesus answered him, “It is as you said. Nevertheless, I say to you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven” (verse 64). Caiaphas thought that was blasphemy that deserved the punishment of death (verses 65-66). The people’s reaction was horrendous. They spat in His face and beat Him. They blindfolded and struck Him. They taunted Him saying, “Prophesy to us, Christ! Who is the one who struck You?” (verse 68). “Prophesy!” (Mark 14:65). He suffered alone. The pain of a Roman scourge that lashed across His back (Matt. 27:26), the pain of bleeding from a crown of thorns (Matt. 27:29-30), the nails that pierced His hands and feet (John 19:24; Luke 23:34; Mark 15: 24; Matt. 27:35), and the spear that cut through His muscles and tendons (John 19:34), probably were not as excruciating as the pain of rejection He suffered from the people He came to serve. But God had seen that experience before it happened: the oppression, affliction, and pain that His accs were going to level against His Son, and yet God was silent. And thus Jesus “was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth” (Isa. 53:7).

Nailed to the Cross

Jesus went through all that pain because He loves us. It is written:

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace

was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (verses 4-6).

He loves us so much that He was willing to bear the death of shame and the pain of the cruel cross. He consented to live with the scars in His hands forever, “And one will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’ Then he will answer, ‘Those which I was wounded in the house of my friends’” (Zech. 13:6). For our benefit Jesus died. On Golgotha, while hanging on the cross Jesus defeated death by dying. He forgave our sins by taking them and learned sympathy for humans by experiencing no sympathy. No wonder! Jesus understands our sorrows. What love! What a Savior!

The spotless Son of God hung upon the cross, His flesh lacerated with stripes; those hands so often reached out in blessing, nailed to the wooden bars; those feet so tireless on ministries of love, spiked to the tree; that royal head pierced by the crown of thorns; those quivering lips shaped to the cry of woe. And all that He endured—the blood drops that flowed from His head, His hands, His feet, the agony that racked His frame, and the unutterable anguish that filled His soul at the hiding of His Father’s face—speaks to each child of humanity, declaring, It is for thee that the Son of God consents to bear this burden of guilt; for thee that He spoils the domain of death, and opens the gates of Paradise. He who stilled the angry waves and walked the foam-capped billows, who made devils tremble and disease flee, who opened blind eyes and called forth the dead to life,—offers Himself upon the cross as a sacrifice, and this from love to thee.⁵

A Death That Changed History

The cross made and still makes a difference in people’s lives. For those with questions, “most, if not all, of God’s answers are found at Calvary.” Jesus’ death changed the course of history. He turned a symbol of shame—the cross—into a

symbol of pride, hope, and victory. For the Jews, anyone who was crucified was accursed (Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13). For the Romans, the death of crucifixion “was the cruelest form of capital punishment, reserved for murder, slave zealots, and other heinous crimes in the colonies.”⁷ And yet, God died on the cross. On the cross, no hand was extended in pity to Jesus. No hand wiped the drops of sweat from His brow. Although He did not receive sympathy, Jesus prayed for the very people that were nailing Him to the cruel tree, saying: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). That prayer embraced everybody, including all His enemies then and now. He didn’t contemplate His suffering as much as He considered the tribulation to come for His persecutors.⁸ I am glad to know my sins are covered by His blood. I know that Jesus has prayed over my frailties and sins. The good news about that death is that because of the cross, Satan is a defeated enemy. Yes, he will continue to throw darts at me, but I also know that when Jesus called out “It is finished” (John 19:30), my salvation was sealed. At the cross, the destruction of sin and Satan was forever made certain, the universe was made eternally secure, and human’s redemption sure. Forever! It is frightening to know that, “Could one sin have been found in Christ, had He in one particular yielded to Satan to escape the terrible torture, the enemy of God and man would have triumphed. Christ bowed His head and died, but He held fast His faith and His submission to God.” I believe in the Christ who died on Calvary; that He has the power to change lives today because He changed my life. Therefore, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

What Do We Do with Jesus?

Isn’t it awesome to know that when a believer prays, heaven responds and when a sinner repents, the whole of heaven rejoices? It is worth repeating that what we decide to do with the Man that died on Calvary will determine where and how

we will spend eternity. This is the truth the dying thief came to realize as he also hung on a cross when he realized he was hanging beside the dying Lamb. The thief saw his sins covered under the blood when Jesus assured him He would him in Paradise (Luke 23:43). Yes, people could spit on Him, flog Him, strike Him, but they couldn’t take away His power to forgive sinners. What we decide to do with Jesus affects our cosmos. Disciples deserted Him. We are in the same danger of repeating their experience. But they should be given credit. They came back and defended His course with power and conviction that they turned the world the right side up. It’s our time. We need to seek Him while He can be found (Jer. 29:13). If we can’t see His presence, it may be that we are not looking in the right place. On the cross, God transformed the worst deed in human history into His greatest victory when the Savior died, resolutely, triumphantly, and unscathed by sin. Because He died and lives I can confidently face tomorrow. Many people mocked Jesus, arguing that since He saved others, He should save Himself (Luke 23:35-37; Mark 15:29; Matt. 27:39). I am glad Jesus didn’t save Himself. He could not save Himself and save us too. If He had saved Himself, we would be eternally lost. He had to die to save us. “But it is because He would not save Himself that the sinner has hope of pardon and favor with God.”¹ That was one reason He refused to perform a miracle to satisfy the whims of Herod. “He will not turn inward and seek human glory, nor be ruled by his feelings. He says ‘no’ to his own desires. He trusts [His Father]. He loves to the end.”¹¹ In the end, Jesus could say, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). I know I am forgiven. I am redeemed. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what pain I have to go through, even if I have to walk through valleys of the shadow of death, I need to “lift up my eyes to the hills—From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth” (Ps. 121:1-2). If there is any consolation, God appeared silent when His Son hang on the cross because that was the only way He could save us. Besides, when God is silent, it is then that He is working miracles for us. When He looks most vulnerable and powerless, it is then that He is most powerful. “Because of Jesus, God fully understands what it means to be human.”¹² Therefore,

We must gather about the cross. Christ and Him crucified should be theme of contemplation, of conversation, and of our most joyful emotion. We should keep in our thoughts every blessing we receive from God, and when we realize His great love we should be willing to trust everything to the hand that was nailed to the cross for us.¹³

The cross remains the sole means of redemption that has been a bone of contention among people, especially those who want to be saved by their own works of merit. Brian Jones points out that:

To them the assertion that human beings at their best are sinners and that the Cross is the sole means of redemption [is] an offense and stumbling block because of its unconditional negation of creature merit and its bringing all of humanity, Jew and Gentile, onto an equal plane of need (see Romans 9:30-33). From the days of its wilderness wandering, Israel conceived of its whole system of religion as one of righteousness by works.¹⁴

Therefore, the cross makes a difference in a Christian life. It offers unspeakable joy and limitless happiness, attributes that get overshadowed when we reflect on our lives. That’s why we look forward to that glorious time when all the tears we have shed, the blows we have received, the emotional pain we have suffered, and the heartaches we have endured as we have seen loved ones depart, will come to an end. In the earth made new no scar of pain, hurt, discouragement, disappointment, or frustration will ever exist because these former things will be wiped away (Rev. 21:1-5).

Endnotes

1. Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 136-137.

2. , The Jesus I Never Knew (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 235. 3. William G. Johnsson, Glimpses of Grace: Scenes from My Journey (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2001), 110. 4. Paul E. Miller, Love Walked among Us (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2001), 141. 5. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise: Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 755. 6. Joni E. Tada, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001), 202. 7. Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, 220. 8. White, The Desire of Ages, 745. 9. Ibid., 761. 10. Ibid., 749. 11. Miller, Love Walked among Us, 146. 12. Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God, 138. 13. Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2000), 76. 14. Brian D. Jones, His Wondrous Cross. The Story of Our Redemption (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2004), 91.

Chapter 6 Love Unlimited

If you are a teacher, you know students are setting you up when they begin their conversation by complimenting you. “Professor that was a splendid lesson,” they would say. Before accolades settle in your head you hear, “But Professor, don’t you think… ?” I must it that I generally enjoy such conversations because they often lead me to clarify what I was really trying to put across in my class. Sometimes such comments even lead to new ideas that I never thought about before. At times I even sort out the confusion students may have about a particular subject. Most often both of us go away happy having discussed the topic a little bit more. At times I feel my authority being challenged and I have to defend myself. But that is one finer pleasure of teaching. Jesus explained God’s unconditional love for humans at a strange hour to Nicodemus (John 3). Nicodemus was not only a Jew; he was also a learned Pharisee, a Jewish leader, a pious man, and a member of the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Council). Nicodemus means “leader of the people.” He was one of the best examples Judaism could offer because He took Scriptures very seriously. He had heard about the good and great work Jesus was performing and determined to go and talk with Him. Being a Jewish leader, he could not openly go out to see Jesus in broad daylight. So one night, using the shadow of darkness to hide him from his fellow Jewish leaders, Nicodemus visited Jesus. “There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him’” (John 3:1-2). Nicodemus was right: Jesus was an outstanding teacher. Who never called Him a Master-Teacher? But He was more than that. He was a great prophet. He was more than a prophet. He was more than a good man. Jesus was God Incarnate.

More Than a Great Teacher and Good Man

Jesus never bored anyone—whether it was an audience of one or an audience of thousands. He explained eternal truths so simply through various illustrations that everyone understood Him. However, many people still didn’t know who He really was. One day, Jesus asked His disciples, saying, “‘Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?’ So they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets’” (Matt. 16:13-14). Nicodemus knew that Jesus was a great teacher and miracle worker because no one could do those “‘signs that You do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God’” (John 3:3). Jesus knew that Nicodemus had a personal decision to make in as far as his salvation was concerned. He needed a transformed life through Christ. He needed God to “Create in [him] a clean heart… and to renew a right spirit within [him]” (Ps. 51:10). That was why he came. He wanted to learn about eternal things of God. Jesus knew that God could pour His spirit into Nicodemus and teach him new truths. He told Nicodemus that he first needed to be born again. The statement confused and stunned Nicodemus. He asked Jesus, “How can these things be?” (John 3:9). “Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (verse 4).

When Learned Men Are Not Smart At All

Nicodemus became more interested and excited when Jesus talked about being born again—being born of water and of the Spirit. Then He talked about entering the kingdom of God. Trying to understand all that heavenly jargon, Nicodemus asked the obvious question: “How could a grown up person like me be born again?” Nicodemus thought he was missing something. Christ asked him, “You are Israel’s teacher… and you do not understand these things? I tell you the truth, we

speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony” (verses 10-11, NIV). Nicodemus had not received such a lesson before. That probably was what was discomforting and disconcerting to him about the whole episode. He shifted uneasily and asked himself why he had come. Why hadn’t he, like others, just left this Man alone? Why did he bother to come? If other leaders didn’t care, why should he? When Jesus told him that He knew what He was talking about, Nicodemus started to listen again as Jesus asked a rhetorical question: “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (verses 12-13). When Jesus told Nicodemus to be born again, He wanted His visitor to understand that “The Christian’s life is not a modification or improvement of the old, but a transformation of nature. There is a death to self and sin, and a new life altogether. This change can be brought about only by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit.”¹ Besides, how could Nicodemus understand the things of heaven if he did not understand things he was familiar with?

A Difficult Wilderness Experience and a Changed Man

Jesus continued,

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:14-17).

Jesus hit a note Nicodemus could understand and relate to because of the forty-

year experience of the children of Israel in the desert. He had studied and recounted that experience over and over again. Every Jew, especially a member of the Sanhedrin, knew that history very well. It was the story about a very difficult journey in the wilderness as the children of Israel moved from Egypt to Canaan. The journey was marred by many trials, tribulations, and detours. One day, when the sojourners complained about a lack of water and bread, God let snakes loom loose in the camp and bite the people (Num. 21:4-9). When the people asked Moses to intervene to God on their behalf, God instructed Moses to make a brazen serpent, hang it on a tree, and advise everyone that whoever would look at the serpent would be healed. That’s what happened. Those who looked at the serpent were healed. Those who refused to look died. Nicodemus knew the story pretty well. He listened more attentively as Jesus continued:

He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been in God (John 3:18-21).

Thus, Jesus explained God’s unlimited love to a person who was searching for truth. Nicodemus left that place a changed individual. He could not resist the calling. That’s what happens to those who sit at His feet, earnestly searching for His light to shine in their hearts. They come out blessed. They don’t even have to go to him at night. They can go to Him at any time and bask in His unsearchable light and sunshine! Jesus will receive them with open arms. A better truth has never been spoken than this message to Nicodemus because all of Jesus’ life was leading to Golgotha. When He hung on that cruel cross, your sins and my sins were nailed to the cross and your records were cleared. The only catch is that you have to accept that sacrifice in order for Jesus’ death to be effective. When Jesus cried, “It is finished” (John 19:30), He sealed your

salvation. And when He rose from the grave, all of Satan’s powers were defeated and his shackles broken. Satan could no longer condemn you because Jesus conquered the devil through death and resurrection. After Nicodemus’s visit, the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest Jesus but they returned empty handed. When the priests and Pharisees asked the officers why they had not arrested Jesus, the officers replied, “No man ever spoke like this Man!” (John 7:46). Upset and angry, the leaders asked them, “Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed” (verses 47-49). Nicodemus asked his colleagues, “Does our law condemn anyone without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?” (verse 51, NIV). Obviously, his friends were not impressed with his question and quickly retorted, “Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee” (verse 52). Nicodemus knew better than they knew. He had been with Jesus. He had checked the Man out. He was His disciple. He understood better the impact of the words of Jesus told him when he saw Him hanging on the cross that over Friday. Nicodemus went and bought spices and perfumes: a “mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds” (John 19:39) for his Master and Lord.

God’s People Are Everywhere

This story illustrates that God has His people in unlikely places. Are you one of them? If not, would you like to be one of them? Nicodemus went to Golgotha as the Sabbath drew near. He saw his Master hanging on a rugged tree and ed the words, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15, NIV). He saw two criminals, one on each side of Christ. It could have been him. He surmised. He knew that this was the death not only of a good Man, but also the

death of the Son of God who was led to the cross as lambs were taken to the slaughter. “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:4-5). Nicodemus could not agree more with Isaiah that day. The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us. God became like us in order to win us back to Himself. God became a man so that through His grace we could be like Him. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4). Yet, “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God” (verses 11-13). On that cruel cross Jesus paid the price for you and for me. There is life in a look at the sacred cross because no one looks at the dying Lamb of God and remains unchanged. The record states that, “When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, beat their breasts and went away. But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things” (verses 48-49, NIV). At the cross, Jesus was given a crown, not a crown of diamonds, pearls, gold, and such precious metals, but a crown of prickly thorns. The crowd mocked Him and gave Him a bitter liquid instead of water that He asked for. After scourging Him the very people He came to save nailed Him to a tree. Yet, the whole purpose of His brief life on earth was to come to that point in time when He could be nailed to the cross. Jesus died in anguish and pain, the pain of a broken heart. Why? Because He loves you and me with an unlimited love, He was willing to die, even die the death of the cross. Surely,

God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been

reconciled, we shall be saved by His life! (Rom. 5:8-10).

We All Need a Savior

As good as corporate belief is concerned, we all individually, need a Savior. In times like these, we each need Jesus every nanosecond of the day. He died for everybody, but He especially died for you and for me as separate individuals. It doesn’t matter where we have been or what we have done. What matters is where He has been and what He has done. That death was the ultimate sacrifice God could give to show His love for us. Jesus was more than an excellent teacher as Nicodemus found out that night. He was the Creator-become-Man whose main objective was to buy back fallen humanity. As Nicodemus talked with the Messiah face to face, I too long to talk to Jesus face to face! I yearn for that moment I will meet my Prophet, Messiah, Savior, Redeemer, King of kings, and Lord of lords face to face! Surprise! Surprise! I have access to Him every moment, twenty-four hours a day, 365¼ days a year. I don’t have to wait until I get to heaven because I can do so right now, but face to face communion will be awesome. What a joy that will be! Nicodemus learned that night that it doesn’t matter what group in life one belongs to, Jesus loves individuals in that group. He realized that it is not the regularity of church attendance that matters, neither is how strictly we observe God’s statutes that will lead one to the heavenly Father, nor the worthiness of the causes we champion that is important. It is the relationship one builds with the Son of God. One must be born again. One must accept Jesus in one’s life. That is the bottom line.

Are You Born Again?

It used to bother me when a stranger would approach and ask me, “Are you born again, brother?” Or when someone would ask, “Are you saved, brother?” I

wasn’t brave enough to tell them to get a life, but I did in my heart. I thought that these were arrogant questions paused by corky hypocrites. Didn’t they know that salvation was personal? I thought that by asking those questions they were exhibiting a holier-than-thou attitude, which in my opinion, was exhibiting pride by want-to-be-Christians. I now believe that these are important questions I must answer. Am I saved? Am I sure? If Jesus would come tonight, would I go with Him to heaven? Jesus asked Nicodemus, “Are you not the teacher of the law and yet you do not know these things? You must be born again.” Everybody needs to answer the question: when the books in heaven will be opened and his or her name will come up, will a B.A. (Born Again) follow that name? That B.A. qualifies us to stand before the throne of mercy and sing, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12). That B.A. will entitle us to sing and shout the songs of victory. As Jesus invited Nicodemus to be born again, He is inviting us to do the same. He calls us to follow Him wherever He goes. We need to surrender our will to His will, as well as our life, feet, lips, and love to Him. We should cherish that rugged cross until that day we will lay down our crowns at His feet. There is no other name like Jesus. The very mention of that name dispels our fears and spells hope. He is our God, the High Priest, the Author and Finisher of our faith. He is Immanuel, God with us. He is the very express image of God. He is the Healer, the Great Physician, the Balm in Gilead. He is the Wonderful Counselor, the Word that became flesh so that we could touch and live with Him, as well as taste how great our God is. He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is the Lily of the Valley and the Rose of Sharon, the Bright and Morning Star. He is the First and Last and beside Him there is no other God. He is the Christ, the Branch, and the Messiah. He is the Provider, Sustainer, and Protector, the Shelter in the time of storm. He is the Prince of peace, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. He is the conquering King, the Lion of Judah. He is my Savior and your Savior too. One day, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that He truly deserves to be praised (Rom. 14:11; Phil. 2:10-11). That day may be today. Today, we have a fountain filled with blood that has been drawn from Immanuel’s veins. Sinners who plunge in that flood lose all their guilty stains.

Guaranteed! I want to dive in there and have my sins washed away. Nothing can cleanse my sins other than the blood of Jesus because there is power in the blood. Jesus frees us from the burdens of sin. The good news is that the evil one cannot accuse us any more. Without the cross, there could be no forgiveness of sins nor eternal life for us. We need to come and kneel down at the cross and receive our forgiveness. “The Cross distinguishes the way of Christ from every other way. All other ways may be philosophically brilliant, logically adequate, intellectually stimulating, but woefully inadequate in providing what the human heart needs most: forgiveness.”² William Barclay links the cross and the crown together: “For Jesus the Cross was the way to glory; had he refused it, had he evaded it, had he taken steps to escape it, as he might so easily have done, there would have been no glory for him. It is the same for us… It is an unalterable law of life that if there is no Cross, there is no crown.”³ I hope you can do as Nicodemus did after meeting the Messiah. Forgetting that he was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin, he diligently devoted his life to Jesus. His life was transformed that night in a few moments he spent with Jesus. We too need to go to the Savior and spend a few minutes with Him every day. We will never remain the same. Guaranteed!

Endnotes

1. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 172 2. Adult Teachers Sabbath School Bible Study Guide. The Gospel of John (Silver Spring, Maryland: Office of the Adult Bible Study Guide, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 2004), 45. 3. William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible: John 1 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975): 134-135.

Chapter 7 A Matter of Choice

In her book, The God I Love, Joni Eareckson Tada, shares the struggles she faces as a paraplegic.¹ She fondly re intimate memories of a bubbling childhood and teenagerhood to those of a life confined to a wheelchair. She states that she initially felt bitter about her experience until she fell in love with her God. She intimates that since she made that choice her life has become more meaningful than before. I used to be defensive about my belief in God. When someone would ask me why I believed in a God who didn’t exist, I would answer, saying: “You might be right. God may not exist. So let’s suppose that there’s no God, as you believe, and both of us die. I’ll have no regrets for the life I’d have led because I’d have lived a fuller and safer life. But let’s suppose God is there, as I believe He is, and both of us die. Then what? I’ll still have no regrets because I’ll have gained heaven. On the other hand, you’ll have regrets because you’ll miss out on the best part of your life. So, whether God is there or not, I still come out a winner. You—a loser.” I am sure you have heard that statement before. I wish I was the first one to say it. I do not recite that statement anymore. My response now is that life is a matter of choice. The greatest choice concerns eternal salvation. Everyday, I choose where I want to spend eternity by choosing whom I believe—Jesus or myself, God or fellow humans. There is more to life than the heartaches and joys we experience or share everyday on Planet Earth. We need to believe in Jesus with all of our hearts, all of our minds, and with everything we have. Jesus is the best Man that ever lived. When He claimed to be the Son of God, was He crazy or was He what He claimed to be? C.S. Lewis is right,

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral leader. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man

who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make a choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a man or something worse.²

So, how do we relate to Him? Do we reject Him? Did He begin a scam that has been perpetrated by His followers? If so, it is the biggest scandal in the whole world. The choice is ours. The power of choice is beautifully illustrated in the story of Moses, the son of Amram and Jochebed. By the time Moses was born Pharaoh had decreed that all baby Hebrew boys had to be killed because he feared the Israelites might become too numerous and take over his kingdom (Exo. 1:16). Amram and Jochebed disobeyed Pharaoh and hid their baby boy until they could no longer safely keep him at home. One day, Jochebed started to make a basket of bulrushes, daubing it with asphalt and pitch. When the basket was complete, she put her baby in it and secretly took and hid her precious bundle in the river among reeds, praying for the safety of the baby. “And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him” (Exo. 2:4). We do not even know Moses’ Hebrew name because it was Pharaoh’s daughter who named him Moses saying, “I drew him out of the water” (verse 10). I have a suspicion that the parents named him ‘Deliverer.” Miriam, his sister, asked the princess if she could find a nurse for her. When permission was granted, she took Moses to their mother. In those years the mother and son spent together, Jochebed taught Moses who he was, a Hebrew and a son of slaves, and why and how she believed he was alive. She taught him to fear God of the Israelites. When she was about to surrender him to Pharaoh’s daughter, she reminded him that although he was going to live in the king’s palace, he should never forget where he had come from. Moses had a difficult choice to make. In many ways, he was a man without a country. He had every earthly thing to gain by becoming a king, and from a human viewpoint, everything to lose by aligning himself with slaves who had neither prestige nor status to ire. But God can use any circumstance to serve His purpose. Without Pharaoh knowing so, God used him to prepare Moses to acquire leadership skills that came in handy many decades later. Pharaoh made sure Moses had the best education, military training, leadership training, and all

the trappings a future prince of Egypt could have. In spite of these privileges, Moses chose to align himself with a people without a nation. By faith Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, and instead chose to suffer affliction with his people in Goshen rather than to enjoy the ing pleasures in the king’s palace. He looked for greater riches that Christ would bestow later (Heb. 11:23-28). Knowing what he knew about himself, life in the palace was not easy for Moses. He also had pressure from his adoptive mother—Pharaoh’s daughter. I imagine that when she came to learn that he wanted to return to his people, she sat down with him and pointed out all the things he would inherit if he decided to become a pharaoh. Did she ask him, “Son, how could you do this to me after all I have done for you?” Moses bit his tongue when someone told a rude joke about the Hebrew slaves. He did the same when the Hebrews taunted him for his privileged position, including his palatial manners and accent.³ Moses took advantage of his position, until the two worlds collided. Earlier in his life, Moses believed he could deliver God’s people in his own strength, perhaps by killing Egyptians one person at a time. One day, when he went out to visit a work site, he saw an Egyptian beat a Hebrew. He checked to make certain nobody was looking before he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. He returned to the palace as if nothing had happened. He went back to the work site the following day. This time two Hebrew men were fighting, and when he tried to mediate between them, he found out that the news had spread that he had killed an Egyptian (Exo. 2:11-14). One of the fighters asked, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” (verse 14). Knowing that the murder had been made known and reported to Pharaoh, who issued a death warrant for him, Moses fled to Midian (verses 14-15), where he ed the University of Self-Distrust and Patience and forty years later he graduated with a degree in Humility. There, God had plans for him. For forty long years Moses looked after sheep, a training that prepared him for the heavy task ahead. One day as he watched the sheep near Mount Horeb, Moses saw a bush burning without being consumed. He became curious and wanted to get nearer to make

sure he was not dreaming (Exo. 3:2-3). God spoke to him, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground” (verse 5). Then God introduced Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He explained that He had seen the oppression of His people in Egypt and that He had a proposition Moses could not refuse: “I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt” (verse 10). ing how and why he had left Egypt, Moses became afraid for his life and felt grossly inadequate to lead anybody. Moses thought I AM was late by a few decades. He had spent forty years tending sheep. Forty years earlier Moses would have gladly accepted that invitation. But then a poor shepherd and a fugitive, he could not face Pharaoh. His people would not believe or trust him. How would they know God had spoken to him? Although they knew their hope and deliverance lay in God’s hand, they would ask where had He been the past four hundred years? Wasn’t Moses trained by the oppressor? Where had he himself been the past forty years? Besides, wasn’t Egypt the most powerful nation in the world? If God was really serious about this mission, Moses argued, He would do better by sending an eloquent, charismatic leader. He stammered: “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Exo. 4:10). The Lord answered him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you will say” (verses 11-12). Moses thought about the invitation, now a command. Convinced, he returned to Egypt, met many obstacles, and the rest is history. He learned that God equips whoever He sends. He led God’s people out of Egypt.

The Battle Belongs to the Lord

This story illustrates that first and foremost, God listens to the sufferings of His children. He knows their challenges in life. All they need to do is to trust Him and lay their burdens at His feet. Sometimes they may have to carry the burdens for a long time, but the burdens fall short by far in comparison with the glory they will enjoy. Whether it takes 400 years, 40 years, 4 years, 4 days, 4 hours, or

4 minutes, they should rest assured that God understands their situation better than they do. There is no need to despair! God is in control and always answers right on time. He will always send help in time of need. Second, the teaching children receive when they are young is extremely important. Parents have strong influence and responsibility over their children. They need to teach children things that are important to life eternal. Scriptures say, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). The few years Jochebed and Moses spent together had implications of eternal value to them and their people. Parents ought to introduce Jesus early as the center of their children’s lives. Third, the battle over sin is the Lord’s. Until Moses distrusted himself about what he could do to save the children of Israel, God would not use him. Time, knowledge, and skills all belong to God. He will use any servant who is willing to be taught of Him and by Him. In our own strength we can do nothing (John 15:5), but through Christ we can do anything (Phil. 4:13). The Holy Spirit will show us everything we need for specific events (Mark 13:11). Many times we become stumbling rather than enabling blocks in the work of God. We need to let God lead out. The battle is not . It belongs to the Lord. The battle is about Jesus. The fearless Moses had learned big lessons over the years. A former impulsive, self-confident person came to depend on God. As God loved Moses, He loves us in spite of our failures, “with a pure, stubborn, everlasting love.”⁴ Moses is called the “meekest man on earth.” How could that be? Because he had learned the secret: he could not figure out God. What did God see in Him to ire? Leadership qualities mingled in God’s amazing grace. When God had had enough of the Hebrews’ whining and ungratefulness and wanted to let them die in the desert, Moses reminded God of His mercy, asking Him to let him die instead. That moment transformed him from a good leader to a great leader.

Four Basic Choices

As a living, breathing person, I have four basic choices. First, I have to make a choice concerning God. Whether I like it or not, want to it it or not, there’s a

God. I am not that God. Neither is any human being, dead or alive. I believe that the Christ who died on Calvary is my God and Savior. He has power to change lives today just as He has been doing from the beginning of creation. He is in the business of transforming lives. When He changed my life, He gave me a new lease on life. He is the immortal, invisible, and almighty God. Second, there are many principles by which I can live. I have chosen to live by His principles. Because He made me, He knows what is best for me and supplied a manual—the Holy Bible—to live by. I do not think that there are better choices than those the Creator Himself has provided. I need the Bible for everything I do. It is the best reading I will ever have. It is more than a reference manual because it contains all the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. I need to consult it everyday. Third, justice demands that whoever sins must die, but mercy demands that someone else die in that person’s place. I cannot save myself. My best efforts on my best moment are just as good as my worst efforts on my worst moment. As a sinner, I have nothing in myself that can recommend me to God. I need God’s grace to make it through the day. That’s where Jesus comes in. He saved me before I knew Him. As a sinner saved by grace all I need is to accept His sacrifice. In Him I am a new creation. He is my Savior, Redeemer, and Friend. I therefore want to sit at His feet, soak in His love, and listen to Him. Fourth, I choose to prepare for His coming. The Bible says that He is coming soon in His glory, and the glory of His Father and of angels. I long to see that day. I yearn to live with Him who loved me so much that He died for me. When at last my work here on earth is done I will meet my Savior and throughout the ceaseless years of eternity, it will be my privilege to sit at His feet and be blessed. Now is the time to prepare for that celestial shore. Now is the time to believe in His sacrifice and love.

Not a Mummy

Moses was one of the greatest and most powerful heroes of all time. He literally changed the course of history for the Israelites, because “no individual, ever, anywhere, accomplished so much for so many people in so many different

domains. His influence is boundless, it reverberates beyond time.”⁵ In 1988, I had a rare chance of visiting the Museum of Natural History in Chicago, IL. The major attraction was the exhibit of mummies from Egypt. As I saw mummy after mummy a thought struck me. If Moses had made another choice other than listening to God, he would have become a pharaoh. Probably he would have become the greatest pharaoh ever. If so, he would probably have been among those mummies I saw that day or in some Egyptian exhibit elsewhere. But because he “was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10, NIV); because he chose a better place, he cannot be exhibited among mummies. Although he did not set his foot in the Promised Land as leader of the children of Israel, he later did so at the Mount of Transfiguration, when he came to encourage His Savior (Matt. 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9:28-36). Thus God honored Moses by taking him to heaven. He is now in heaven, working side by side with the Lord and waiting for you and me to them. It is absolutely true, “In God’s eyes (and that’s what matters), the greatest heroes of faith are not those who achieve prosperity, success, and power in this life, but those who treat this life as a temporary assignment and serve faithfully, expecting their promised reward in eternity.” God works wonders in people and for their own good. “In forty torturous years [God transformed] a stuttering shepherd, shy of leadership and haunted by his crime of ion, [into] . . . one of the giants of history whose achievements changed the planet forever.”⁷ The Bible is full of individuals who are the bulwarks of faith. All of them had a choice to make, usually at time of crisis. Abraham climbed Mount Moriah to sacrifice his child of old age. David had to flee for his life, hiding in caves when he was anointed king of Israel. Job endured the torment of his friends as he scratched his boils. Elijah had to flee from Jezebel after a triumphant display of the power of God at Mount Camel. Jesus was crucified to the cross for sins He did not commit. “Confused and in the dark, they faced a turning point: whether to turn away embittered or step forward in faith. In the end, all chose the path of trust, and for this reason we them as giants of faith.”⁸ Hebrews 11 inducted some of them in the Hall of Faith. But,

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them

afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city (Heb. 11:13-16).

More people have been inducted in the Hall of Faith since then I am sure. What a privilege to be included on the list! So, let us get with Christ. How? By listening to Him. How? Through studying the Bible. Let us talk to God. How? By praying to Him. Let us work with God. How? By sharing what we know about His love with others. All these things begin by claiming the gift of faith that God bestows on each individual. As Reinhold Niebuhr has stated, we need hope, love, and faith to carry on in this life. For we understand that,

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.

Life is a matter of choice. And we must choose wisely. Moses reminded his listeners in his farewell speech about this choice. He told them that God had said, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments.” (Deut. 30:15-16). Later, he reiterated the point,

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your

descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them (verses 19-20).

We often forget that God is always in control. With Him on our side, life will be bright even if we can see only faintly. It is up to you and me to choose the destiny He has prepared for us at His own expense. Grace is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Can you and I trust Him with our lives? Can we call Him our Savior and Lord? We have a choice. For me that choice is obvious: I will choose Christ!

Endnotes

1. Joni E. Tada, The God I Love (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003). 2. C.C. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan Co., 1960), 52. 3. Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 79. 4. Ibid., 490. 5. Elie Wiesel, Quoted in Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read, 100. 6. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), 51.

7. Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read, 76. 8. Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 54. 9. Reinhold Niebuhr, Quoted in Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God, 96.

Chapter 8 Loving the Unlovable

We see them everywhere we turn our eyes. These people don’t look, live, or think like us. They are different from us. To some of us even Christ’s atoning sacrifice cannot redeem them. If they have to become our friends, many roadblocks and barriers have to be removed. Unfortunately, some barriers, such as gender and race, cannot be changed. The best solution is to leave these untouchables, unloved, and unlovables alone. But look at Jesus. He goes out of His way to make social and embrace such people and then lavishly pours His life into them, showering them with His love. As a result, their cups overflow with joy. Who are these people? These are the individuals “who matter little to the rest of society but matter infinitely to God”¹ Jesus cannot leave them alone, just like He cannot leave anyone alone. Everyone is precious in His sight. Everyone matters to Him.

The Good Samaritan

One day, Jesus was teaching when

a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?” So he answered and said, “You shall love the L ord

your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:25-27).

Jesus replied, “‘You have answered rightly; do this and you will live.’ But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (verses 2829). Jesus told a story about a certain man from Jerusalem on his way to Jericho who was waylaid by robbers who ambushed, attacked, badly wounded, and dispossessed him of everything he had. They stripped him naked, and left him thinking he was dead. Several people ed that way, including a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan. The priest saw the injured man and ed the other way. The Levite was a bit curious. He stopped to look at the body, but he too, ed the other way. What he saw troubled him, but he convinced himself that there was nothing he could do. Then the Samaritan came. He saw the man. He stopped to attend to his needs. He washed him, bound up his wounds, dressed him up, put him on his horse, found him a room at an inn, and paid for his stay there. He promised to pay more if the cost was going to be higher than what they had estimated. Jesus asked the lawyer, “‘So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?’ And he said, ‘He who showed mercy on him’” (verses 36-37). The lawyer could not even mention the word “Samaritan.” Jesus advised him, “Go and do likewise” (verse 37).

An Age-Long Human Problem

This story illustrates the problem of prejudice, which leads us to categorize people into those we can help and those we cannot help. We have those we can love, and others who don’t deserve our love. There are those we can serve, and those we cannot serve. Prejudice divides people into friends and enemies; and

into touchables and untouchables. The touchables and lovable are people who look, talk, smell, and dress like us. The untouchables and unlovables don’t look, talk, smell, dress, or have mannerisms like us. We don’t want to work, live, or be near them. The greater the physical and social distance between them and us, the more comfortable we become. We then draw circles around us and around them. The more circles we draw around us the more comfortable we seem to become. Contemporary history shows the results of circles we draw around ourselves. The examples include the conflicts between Jews and the Arabs in the Middle East, the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, the Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda, the ethnic cleansing carnage in Bosnia, deaths in Darfur in the Sudan, Shi’ites and Sunnis in Iraq, and the liberals and conservatives in church. Today in the Middle East, in spite of peace accords that have been signed, the area still foments with ethnic troubles. A week does not by when we do not hear about suicide bombs in Israel and Palestine, or terrorist incursions into Palestine or Israel. Leaders and groups of individuals from each side accuse the other side of perpetrating the atrocities. Although generally people are for peace, there are some who are diametrically opposed to those peace accords. Former Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rubin lost his life by his own people who felt that he was selling out to Arabs and Arab causes during the peace talks. I came to appreciate the enormity of the Arab-Israel conflict when I was selected to organize an international seminar on the “Hot Spots” of the world. A hot spot was defined as that country or area where a political conflict was going on. We had two of staff who had links to both Palestine and Israel. We thought of featuring them so that they could help us understand first hand the issues that engendered and perpetuated conflicts in the Middle East and the problems associated with the Israel-Palestine conflict. Their response was disturbing, unnerving, and discouraging. They refused to participate in the discussion as long as the other person was going to sit at the same table. They were very comfortable speaking one after another as long as each did not share the same table with the other. We requested for substitutes. The alternates had the same answer. We chose another hot spot, and as a result, we did not hold that muchanticipated seminar. That experience humbled me. I now understand the Arab-Israel problem differently. The failed discussion made me appreciate what Christ was talking about in the story of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan crossed cultural,

religious, and political boundaries. Culturally, the Samaritan would have been just too happy to see another Jew in that precarious position. The Pharisees, scribes, and priests would not have cared for a Samaritan. “They spent their lives in a round of ceremonies to make themselves pure. with the ignorant and careless multitude, they taught, would cause defilement that would require wearisome effort to remove.”² The Samaritan did not see a Jew in that person. He saw a human being in need of assistance that he was in position to render. He

did not question whether the stranger was a Jew or Gentile. If a Jew, the Samaritan well knew that, were their condition reversed, the man would spit on his face, and him by with contempt. But he did not hesitate on of this. He did not consider that he himself might be in danger of violence by tarrying in that place. It was enough that there was before him a human being in need and suffering.³

That is the type of life God requires His followers to live today. We need to love one another and embrace the beauty of people inside. Unfortunately, we often look at people’s skin color, hairstyle, gender, hair color, clothes, height, weight, and socioeconomic status.

Careless Words

Sometimes we do or say mean things without pondering the impact of such statements. For example, I never knew I was prejudiced until I blurted it out, and it was too late to retrieve it. What I said one evening surfaced several years later, and still makes me wonder why I said it. I had forgotten about it but not the person I said it to. Yasmina Bouraoui, a fellow student and friend at Michigan State University (MSU), desired to go to the University of Zimbabwe on an overseas study program for a year. I told her it was time she visited the “Real Africa.” Her father was a Tunisian. Both Tunisia and Zimbabwe are African

countries. Tunisia is in northern Africa. It is usually lumped with the Middle Eastern or Northern African countries. Zimbabwe is in southern Africa. It is grouped with the Sub-Saharan or Southern African countries. The point is, irrespective of what region one prefers to put them in, both Tunisia and Zimbabwe are African countries. I first heard the phrase “Real Africa” just before I went to Michigan State University, from the Zambian soccer team that had gone to play a match in Tripoli. The players and fans informed us that the day after their arrival, the headline in a Tunisian newspaper read: “Zambians jet in from Africa.” Zambians did not take that statement kindly. Apparently I didn’t. When I had an opportunity to express my own opinion, I did so to an innocent person, who had no idea what I was talking about. She was so smart she did not blow out into my face. But several years after her study tour in Zimbabwe, Yasmina reminded me of the statement, telling me that she did not appreciate it. I had forgotten my parents’ teaching. They said,

Be careful with what you say. Words are like an egg. Once you break an egg, you cannot put it back together. Similarly, once you’ve blurted them out, you cannot retrieve your words. More important, you may forget what you said, but not the person to whom you said it. That person will always .

I humbly stood chided and asked for forgiveness. She forgave me but how I wished I had not said anything that made me to apologize. My smart-aleck comment wasn’t meant to hurt her, but it did. Similarly, church should be careful what they say around others. Some words may draw people away from church. “As a people who profess God’s name in these last days, may He give us words that heal instead of wound, that build up instead of tear down, that encourage and inspire—grace words. May our speech be like Jesus’, seasoned with salt.”⁴ In the story of the Good Samaritan Jesus taught that He, Christ Himself, came to rescue us from the bondage of sin that had dominated the world. The devil had ambushed us and destroyed the harmony that existed between our God and us and the harmony between each other. Jesus rescued us, gave us dignity, clothed

us with His righteousness, and paid for our sins with His precious blood.

Man had been deceived, bruised, robbed, and ruined by Satan, and left to perish; but the Savior had comion on our helpless condition. He left His glory, to come to our rescue. He found us ready to die, and He undertook our case. He healed our wounds. He covered us with His robe of righteousness. He opened to us a refuge of safety, and made complete provision for us at His own charges. He died to redeem us.⁵

What love! What comion! Although we cannot erase the past, we can obviously learn from it. More important, we need Jesus. He never said or did anything that hurt people. By beholding Him we become changed into His likeness. His love for us becomes our love for others. Jesus did not discriminate against anyone. He touched everyone that came to Him, including the blind, invalids, disabled, physically challenged, mentally disabled, sick, and diseased. He healed them from their physical pain, suffering, spiritual bankruptcy, and general malaise. He then died for them.

Love Is the Key

Jesus loved people. He saw each of them as a candidate for heaven. He loves people just the same today. Most often I feel that we see people as candidates for hell. Although not all of us can be foreign missionaries, all of us can be missionaries all the same. We can touch somebody right where we are. It is easy, convenient, and comfortable to associate with people with whom we have similar characteristics such as ethnicity, education, religious persuasion, social class, political orientation, and heritage. That’s why we tend to avoid at all costs any person who does not have traits we have. However, Jesus wants us to experience a paradigm shift and love each other especially those we do not like

the best. The Scriptures are clear:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:7-11).

Besides, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from him: that he who loves God must love his brother also” (verses 20-21). In fact, “We don’t have to want to love. We don’t have to feel loving. We are to love out of obedience to God.” Loving the people Jesus loves is a Christian duty because they matter to Him. If people matter to Him they should matter to us also.

Who Is My Neighbor?

Don’t you think the Samaritan had excuses for not helping? First, the injured person was a Jew. The woman at the well asked Jesus, “‘How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?’ For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (John 4:9). Second, the Samaritan risked his life. From the look of things, he was rich—a robbers’ dream for loot. The robbers could have been lurking around, looking for more victims on that notorious “wild, rocky ravine, which was infested by robbers, and was often the scene of violence.”⁷

Third, the Samaritan might not have wanted to spend his resources on a Jew. He didn’t know him. Fourth, he was unduly delayed and he probably arrived late at his destination because he offered to help someone. We can think of more excuses, but he didn’t make any. He saw the injured person and he had love and comion for him. Who then is my neighbor? It is anyone who needs assistance. It is not what we say that matters but what we do in light of what we say that counts. Jesus says when you see someone struggling or hurting, don’t just walk by, stop and help. James says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). We all are neighbors to each other. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. In Jesus, “there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him” (Rom. 10:12). Christ died to break every barrier down, however deeply entrenched it might be. If we show the same love to others that Jesus has for us, when He shall return He will say, “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34), because “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (verse 40).

The Christian’s Duty

The Christian’s duty is to love the unlovable, give hope to the hopeless, be a friend to the friendless, and encourage the discouraged. We have to be pleasant to the grouchy, courteous to the rude, and generous to the needy. We should use our God-given physical, mental, social, and spiritual abilities to the glory of God and the benefit of humankind. In God’s kingdom, there are no unlovables, only people for whom Christ died. “In the story of the good Samaritan, Christ illustrates the nature of true religion. He shows that it consists not in systems, creeds, or rites, but in the performance of loving deeds, in bringing the greatest good to others, in genuine goodness.”⁸

The secret of a successful life is to love as Jesus loved. Martin Luther King, Jr. was right when he said, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” Today, do we have people who can testify that we have made a difference in their lives? When we have brief encounters with people, what do they most ? Do they see Jesus living in us? Do they hear about the love of Jesus and His sacrifice? I believe our reason for being is to assist one another, and help someone else succeed. Do we have someone who could write the following words at the end of the day?

I learned a great many new things today. I can’t them all. We talked about the weather, family, friends, and our occupations. But what I most are Jesus, eternal life, love, hope, and a vibrant, happy life. These words made my world to blossom for me, like Aaron’s rod, with flowers. It would be difficult to find a happier person on earth than I am right now as I lay in my bed at the close of this eventful day and live over the joys it has brought me. For the first time, I cannot wait for tomorrow.

As long as we shall live, there will be certain cultural practices or people we will disagree with. We might even consider them misguided. They might even be wrong or offensive, but God calls us to be sensitive to them. Portraying a spirit of arrogance and superiority will alienate them farther from us and the Savior whom we want revealed. We have Someone much better than they will ever have—Jesus Christ the righteous. He offers more abundant life (John 10:10). Let us point everyone to Him. My neighbor is everybody who needs my help, everybody who has a need, every soul who is wounded and bruised by the devil, and anyone whom God created and redeemed. It is time to act. As Christians, we should that before people care about how much we know, they must know how much we care. That is why Christians tread on dangerous grounds when they engage in bickering, backbiting, name-calling, and criticizing. They should instead share a caring attitude, showing love to everyone, even to those with whom they disagree. Let us therefore not shoot the injured but bind their wounds. We have a great commission to fulfill: loving God and the people for whom Christ died to

redeem. Everyday I pray that God will fill my heart with so much love that I will feel and experience Jesus’ wonderful love. I pray to God to teach me how to love, especially those individuals I would rather not care about. I pray to God that He will teach me not to keep scores, but imbue me with the right Spirit that will lead me to try to remedy wrongs. It is only then that I will experience and enjoy His kind of patience, faith, hope, and love (1 Cor. 13) that will make me love Him and the people He loves so much. Why? In this mean, unjust, and vengeful world it is very easy to feel sorry for myself and try to right wrongs in my own way. Vengeance belongs to the Lord. I have learned that love is risky. You can get killed if you live a loving life. However, the bottom line is that we need to love each other. The process begins by loving God first. “If a person will love God the way he ought to love God, he will then love others the way he ought to love others; and when he loves God and others the way they ought to be loved, he will never need a psychiatrist.”¹

Endnotes

1. Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999): 205. 2. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1911), 498. 3. Ibid., 503. 4. William G. Johnsson, Glimpses of Grace: Scenes from My Journey (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2001), 74. 5. White, The Desire of Ages, 503, 504. 6. Tada, Joni E. Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001), 181. 7. Ibid., 499.

8. Ibid., 497. 9. Martin Luther King, Jr., Quoted from Tony Castle, A Treasury of Christian Wisdom (London: Hodder & Houghton, 2001), 149. 10. Paul Tournier, quoted in James Merritt, How to Impact and Influence Others (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2011), 30.

Chapter 9 First Things First

Life can be hectic. In spite of timesaving gadgets and devices many of us possess, we still have too many chores undone by the time we put our heads on the pillow at the end of the day. That’s why we need to pray. I do not know where I would be without prayer first thing in the morning. Early every morning, I pray that God should be first and last during the pending day. I pray to make Him best in everything I will do. At the end of the day I thank Him for yet another eventful day. I am often reminded of the words Jesus spoke on the Mount of Blessings when He advised His listeners, saying, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:33-34). Most of us do well when life is going well. We enjoy life more when we have mountaintop experiences. But when things change, many of us tend to literally fall apart and drift away in the never ending abyss of self-pity, partly because we forget to do first things first. This is especially true when we meet the storms of life with our weak foundations of faith. “As long as [our] problems are not greater than [our] ability to cope, [we] do fine. When [our] problems grow larger than [our] inner strength [we] crumble. Without a solid foundation [we] cannot cope with the seismic shocks of life.”¹ On the Mount of Blessing, Jesus told His listeners not to worry about their life— what they were going to eat, drink, or wear. He asked, “Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? . . . Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” (verses 25-27). He concluded, “[Y]our heavenly Father knows that you need these things” (verse 32). Seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, and all other things will be given to you as well (verse 33). Sometimes it is difficult not to worry. It is difficult to think of the kingdom when one’s fridge is empty. It is difficult to concentrate on the kingdom when there is too much month left at the end of the money. Due to many job layoffs, it is not easy to focus on anything else when one does not know whether one will have a

job the following day. It is difficult not to worry about one’s education when there is not enough money for tuition or textbooks, or when one is not doing well in class. In some areas, it is not easy not to worry because of high crime rates and drive-by shootings that make residents wonder if they will be alive the following day. For them, a prayer for one day at a time is not a hope but a stark reality. Looking like combat zones, some schools are no longer safe environments for either faculty or students. How can one not worry about one’s life when even the latest technology cannot sometimes detect earthquakes or the brightest intelligence on earth cannot detect acts of terrorism? In some parts of the world people’s hearts are in constant fear because of political and socioeconomic instability. All these situations, and there are many others, lead to worry and depression. As a result, “We worry about money, about what we need to have and to know, about whom to compete with, and what is slipping out of our control.”² May I suggest that we ought to leave all of these things at the feet of Jesus!

What to Seek First

When I was fifteen years old, I heard two statements that left an indelible mark in my life. I still them as if they were spoken today. First, the late Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of the Republic of Ghana, advised Ghanaians to “Seek first the political kingdom and everything else shall be added unto you.” Everything else included education and socioeconomic opportunities that were to follow political independence. At the height of colonial rule in Africa, Africans took his advice seriously and fiercely fought Britain, Portugal, and for political independence. They won political independence. We now know that political independence alone does not necessarily lead to economic independence, political stability, or spiritual growth. We know that without God this world is a dark, unforgiving place for one to live in. Rajah Kunda, my first high school heaster (principal), made the second statement. Emphasizing that education could open many doors of opportunities, he stated during his first assembly, “Dr. Nkrumah has advised us to seek first the

political kingdom. I say seek first the academic kingdom and everything else will be added to you.” Kunda had just graduated from Makerere University in Uganda. Education had opened many doors for him. Shortly after that statement he became a Member of Parliament and later a cabinet minister in the Zambian government. Indeed, education can lead to many opportunities, but we know that education alone does not lead to everything else. For example,

Some people think goodness is a matter of the head, that right thinking leads to right living. Today every politician feels the need to give lip service to the importance of education. They give the impression that improved education is the panacea for practically every problem. Yet education of the head, without equal emphasis on integrity of the heart, will produce only clever devils.³

The world is full of bookworms who have spent many years in school, collecting certificates, diplomas, and degrees, who do not acknowledge the Source of those blessings. The Bible calls them fools (Ps. 14:1; 53:1). But on that assembly, I received my heaster’s instructions with great enthusiasm. Being one of the few students who were selected to go to secondary school that year, education had started to open doors for me. Since then, education (actually Providence) has opened more doors. I must confess that the two statements confused me. Before I left home for boarding school, my father and mother emphasized that the most important thing in life was to seek God first. I my father saying, “You’re now going away from us. You’re going to be solely responsible for your decisions and actions. Whatever you do, always God from whom all blessings flow. Make Him first and last in your life. Second, don’t do anything that will bring shame on the family’s name.” To this day, this statement reminds me to keep my priorities straight. Even at my young age, I thought that both Nkrumah and Kunda had twisted the Scriptures. But probably it was due to Kunda’s advice that I studied so hard and continued to do well in school. I believed him. More important, I thank God for my parents. Though deceased, I can still “hear” them say, “We don’t care how much

schooling you will eventually have, or how wealthy you will become, you should always and acknowledge the Source of those blessings.”

Why Seek God First?

Sometimes everyone should ask the hard questions such as who am I? Where am I in my station in life? Why am I here? Where am I going? How am I going to get to where I am going from here? Who is going with me? Answers to these questions reveal what we consider to be our priorities in our lives. If answered honestly, they reveal the One we consider our authority. We are here for a purpose: to fulfill God’s plan in us. All of us are headed either for eternal life or eternal death. If Jesus is going with us, we are headed for heaven. If the devil is leading, then we will end up dead. Literally dead. Forever. The destination depends on our choice today and the priorities we make. Why? Because many of us have our priorities mixed up. For many, the priority is to have a good home, marry the most wonderful person, land the best job, make the most money, own the coolest car, or finish college. The list is endless. The most interesting thing is that once we achieve our goal, we develop another one. Accomplishing these goals is not wrong. The danger is that these things may come between us and our God, or His Kingdom and His righteousness and us. A good education, home, car, spouse, and health may make life easy, but according to Jesus they are byproducts of a living relationship with God, given automatically when priorities are right. They are just one of “these things.” Earlier, Christ had talked about laying up treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust exists. He said our hearts are always where our treasures are stored (Matt. 6:19-21). If we put heaven first, then heaven will be real to us because we will trust God. We should not spend time amassing material wealth and securities before we secure our spiritual treasures. We do that by being faithful to God, by working for treasures that have eternal value—love for God and kindness and goodness to our fellow human beings. We do that by building relationships with God first. Additionally, we should seek His righteousness because our righteousness is like filthy rags (Isa. 64:6). Without Christ’s righteousness none of us will see God.

When Satan will be destroyed, God will usher in His planned kingdom that will last forever. If His kingdom was first and will be last, is it not incumbent upon us to seek it first? We can only live life and have a peaceful sleep at night when we know that God is in control. As minute expressions of Infinite Intelligence, we need a faith that will tune us to Him and draw upon His power, the Creator and Controller of the universe. Faith is the prerequisite to a relationship with the Creator, because without faith it is impossible to please Him (Heb. 11:6). That assurance begins with studying God’s Word. Daily, we need to study the Scriptures and meditate upon the truths they reveal. As we look at the Savior and His love, God’s Word will give us strength and stability we need to endure Satan’s darts all of the days of our lives. Looking upon Jesus we will grow into mature Christians. Faith in Him will enable us to withstand the storms of life. We should seek Him first because He is the source of happiness—that important something we spend our lives and fortunes seeking. Some of us think it abides in lots of money, or in wrong practices such as drugs, promiscuity, and crime. As many experiences have shown, these things cannot make us happy because happiness is tied to a Person, the Desire of all ages and Desire of all nations, Jesus Christ. Happiness cannot be found in things, in power, in fame, or in pleasure seeking. Human experience shows that money can buy more medicines but not health; bring acquaintances but not friends, and put plenty of food on the table but not appetite. One day, my friend, Isaac Mensah, put it this way, “It’s a tragedy to put making money before God. If and when I stop believing in God, then the reason for my existence will be gone.” We should seek Him first because He not only created us, He also left the splendor of heaven to come and die for us on a cruel cross to set us free from the bondage of sin. We all deserve to die because the wages of sin are death (Rom. 6:23), but thanks to Calvary, we do not have to die because Jesus has already paid the price. The Great I AM, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End came and died for the ungodly. God loved us too much to stay in heaven while we were lost. “What a thought is this! He who was one with the Father before the world was made had such comion for a world lost and ruined by transgression that He gave His life a ransom for it.”⁴ He first created us and then came to rescue us from the grip of sin by dying for us on the cross. Isn’t it just logical then that we seek Him first?

Jesus knows and understands our sorrows. He has been there. He is the only safe Hiding Place, the Shelter in the time of storms of life. We should seek Him in the morning before the worries of the world beset and cloud our minds, or the business of our hectic lives crowd the day. We need to seek Him at night as another day goes by. For in Him we all live, move, and have our being (Acts 17:28). He is our Provider, Sustainer, Source of everything good, and our best friend. Everything we have and are comes from Him and is because of Him. Although He is our Creator and Redeemer, He does not lord over us. In this world, influence, wealth, and education are used as a means to control others. In God’s kingdom our talents, authority, and power are to be used in service to bless others. We are called to serve each other, the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak and the rich to share their treasures with the poor. What a privilege! Therefore, we should not be hung up on things. It is not the number of letters before or after a name that is important. It is the kind of individual a person is that matters. It is not the type or size of car we drive that is important. It is the type of person behind the wheel that counts. It is not the bigness of the mortgage or the house that matters. It is the kind of people who inhabit the house that matters. It is not the number of years one spends in school that matters. It is what one learns and how one uses it that counts. One’s worth is determined not by the amount of money in the bank , but by how one treats and relates to others. Eternity is at stake. Putting first things first requires ordering our priorities and considering what is valuable in our lives. As Rick Warren puts it,

Your value is not determined by your valuables, and God says the most valuable things in life are not things! The most common myth about money is that having more will make me more secure. It won’t. Wealth can be lost instantly through a variety of uncontrollable factors. Real security can only be found in that which can never be taken away from you—your relationship with God.⁵

Why? Because “He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is

wise for a moment, but a fool forever.” Thus, we may be the poorest in material things, but the richest in spiritual blessings (Gal. 5:22-23). Being the richest in the eyes of heaven is what counts. Spiritual riches must be put before material riches because losing heaven means losing everything; and gaining heaven means attaining all the things. A good college education, dependable car, comfortable house, perfect mate, fat bank , and so on and so forth, are good to have, but they are just one of “these things” that Jesus promised to give to His followers.

Ordering Our Priorities

In times like these, let us that we only have one life to live and only one chance in life. This is it. We will never live this life again. Our priority should be to seek God first. Because wasted time cannot be resurrected, we should live today to the fullest, making it the first and best day of the rest of our lives. Yesterday is gone and no one can change it. Tomorrow is unpredictable and may never come. Philip Yancey is right: “I can only live the life directly before me.”⁷ I can only control my actions that presently confront me. That is, today is the only moment we have; we better spend it wisely. That begins by asking Jesus to order our steps to follow Him wherever He goes. Putting first things first means searching the Scriptures and hearing what the Master says.⁸ Why? Because “Our bodies are built up from what we eat and drink; and as in the natural economy, so in the spiritual economy: it is what we meditate upon that will give tone and strength to our spiritual nature.” Created in God’s image, we need to tell the world about Jesus and His love. Jesus advises us not to crowd today with tomorrow’s worries because tomorrow will worry about its own things. He knows what He is talking about. He holds tomorrow in the palms of His hands. Ancient history suggests that people of old cherished wisdom, wealth, and power because these things indicated fame, power, and fortune. We are not different. Today, we still cherish the same things. “None provides the kind of foundation a society needs; only trust in the living God can do that.”¹ The love of these things leads to idolatry. When you think of it:

It is a law of man’s nature, written into his very essence, and just as much a part of him as the desire to build houses and cultivate the land and marry and have children and read books and sing songs, that he should want to stand together with the men in order to acknowledge their common dependence on God, their Father and Creator.¹¹

Lest we forget, “You were made by God and for God—and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny.”¹² We better put Him first and last all the days of our lives.

Endnotes

1. Mark Finley, Solid Ground (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2003), 7. 2. Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 82. 3. James Merritt, How to Impact and Influence Others (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 2011), 103. 4. Ellen G. White, That I May Know Him (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2003), 35. 5. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), 29. 6. John Tillotson, Quoted in Tony Castle. A Treasury of Christian Wisdom (London: Hodder & Houghton, 2001), 78. 7. Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God, 80.

8. Samuel Koranteng-Pipim, “Inspired Book or Inspiring Booklet? Biblical Authority in an age of theological pluralism,” Adventists Affirm (Spring 1995). 9. Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1980), 88. 10. Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 189. 11. Thomas Merton, Quoted in Tony Castle, A Treasury of Christian Wisdom (London: Hodder & Houghton, 2001), 256. 12. Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, 18.

Chapter 10 Jesus in the House

Jesus had a way to work with people that left the needy happy and skeptics in a quandary, concerning what to do with Him. He empowered the weak and gave strength to the powerless. Professional mourners, doctors, priests, and selfrighteous individuals didn’t like to see Him around. When Jesus came, their services were terminated. Professional mourners hated Jesus because when He was “in the house,” the dead came to life, mourning ended, and the family rejoiced. Jesus was the only preacher who never preached at a funeral. The priests didn’t like Him. Lepers enjoyed being in His company. The priests’ cure for lepers was to send them away from society. Jesus healed them and integrated them back into society. When Jesus healed lepers, He sent them to the priests for examination before they could re society as the law required. Although the priests certified that the lepers were healed, they themselves had problems believing the Great Physician had anything with the healing process. They must have been busy too, because Jesus continually sent healed lepers to them, sometimes in groups. Physicians didn’t like Him either. Instead of seeking medical help from local physicians, as was previously the case, people flocked to Jesus for healing. His healing was much better. He never made them feel guilty as the others did, and He healed all manner of diseases and infirmities with a mere word or touch. There was no disease or infirmity He couldn’t cure. Besides, His services were free. I wonder; did those people He healed become sick again from the same illness? From what health problem did they die? In certain instances, Jesus didn’t respond immediately when people sent for Him. For example, when Lazarus was sick, his sisters, Mary and Martha, sent for Jesus, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick” (John 11: 3), Jesus didn’t go right away. He waited until Lazarus was dead and buried for four days. When He arrived in town, weeping was over because He raised the rotting and stinking Lazarus from the dead.

This scene was repeated over and over during Jesus’ ministry. The Pharisees hated Jesus the most because He spent too much time with people they considered low-life. The Pharisees strongly felt that righteous people were to avoid sinners. They didn’t care about Jesus either. But God’s ministry was a saving and healing ministry and the downtrodden who needed encouragement loved Him dearly. Jesus found time to sit down and eat with them. The story of Zacchaeus illustrates this point.

A Forgiven Sinner

The Jews generally hated tax collectors because they worked on behalf of the Roman Government. Pharisees were especially critical of tax collectors because they taxed people more money than was required by law so that they could skim some of it for themselves. Zacchaeus was a tax collector who had perfected the art of skimming so much so that he was promoted to chief tax collector (Luke 19:1-10). One day, Zacchaeus had an appointment with destiny. Jesus was ing through his hometown. At that time Jesus had started to command much interest and large crowds followed Him everywhere He went. As a geographer, I am interested in the spatial distribution of phenomena—how things are distributed over time and space. I imagine that as Jesus and His entourage traveled, the disciples surrounded Jesus. Next to the disciples were the biggest, strongest, and tallest people. On the fringes were the weak and short people. Zacchaeus determined to see Jesus. “Zacchaeus… sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to that way” (Luke 19: 2-4). Picture it: an “old” man running and climbing a sycamore tree. I believe there were other people, particularly children, who climbed trees in order to get a glimpse of Jesus. The story reminds me of the time Mrs. Geraldine Ferraro ran for the vice presidency of the United States. One of her many stops was Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, where I was a student. I was interested in seeing and hearing that famous lady. So I ed a large crowd that had gathered

that day. They had cordoned off the area near the Beaumont Tower where the rally took place. Luckily, I managed to stand at a vantage point, the spot she ed by after her speech, shaking hands with her irers. I almost shook her hand but she skipped me. There were so many hands to shake. I wasn’t the only one whose hand was not touched. I will always a brief moment when I stood face to face with the prospective vice president. When Jesus came to Zacchaeus’ hometown, He stopped under a particular sycamore tree. “And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him, and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house’” (verse 5). What a privilege! What a chance! Zacchaeus hastily came down and joyfully received Jesus at his home. Some people were not happy that Jesus had invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ home. They complained, “He has gone to be guest with a man who is a sinner” (verse 7). All these people saw was Jesus consorting with the chief of sinners. They didn’t see how Zacchaeus changed by meeting Jesus. He committed to giving back what he had skimmed and adding some more. “Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold’” (verse 8). Zacchaeus said the right things. His heart was in the right place. How? “Zacchaeus goes to the heart of the problem and fixes it so thoroughly that it can’t come back. First Jesus takes on Zacchaeus’ burden, then Zacchaeus takes on Jesus’ burden. By inviting himself to dinner, Jesus created a chain of love that now reaches hundreds of poor people.”¹ Jesus answered His critics, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (verse 10). Jesus had gone a step further. He had sought out Zacchaeus and had forgiven his sins. What a time it must have been to this despised individual to have the burden of guilt lifted from him! God came down to his level in order to save him. What Jesus did for Zacchaeus, He can do for you and for me. He came to seek and save those who were lost. All of us are lost.

They Touched People

Some people didn’t like to see Jesus perform acts of mercy. Particularly, they frowned on a Messiah who associated Himself with sinners. What kind of Messiah was He? Jesus did not listen to them or follow their attitudes or behavior. Today, Jesus continues to touch people and wants us to do the same. If we are not careful, we would miss the golden opportunity of touching someone else. For example, three very important people died in the same week. Most people heard only about two of them. Very few heard of the third person. The three people were President Mobutu Sese Seko, former president of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Princess Diana (Princess Di), former Princess of Wales, and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India. You guessed it. Most people heard of, mourned, and honored the latter two. Why? Because in my opinion, Princess Di and Mother Teresa touched people. Yes, the regal and elegant Princess Di touched people who were HIV positive, those who had AIDS, those who had been affected by land mines, as well as the sick and impoverished children of the world. She held the sick in her arms. Mother Teresa did the same thing. Her life was dedicated to caring for the most miserable people, the poorest of the poor, picked up from the streets in Calcutta, India, and from around the world. Who could forget the photos of her arms wrapped around a sick or dying child? One story particularly resonated among her audiences. It is written:

The story of how she rescued a woman who had been left to die on the streets of Calcutta was one which Mother Teresa would afterwards tell audiences throughout the world. What caused that woman to weep, she informed them, was not the fact that she was half-consumed by maggots and on the point of death, but that the person who had deserted her was her son, that she was alone and unwanted even by her own family.²

Mother Teresa and Princess Di imitated Jesus. They physically and emotionally touched people. People appreciated their acts of mercy, so that when they died, people around the world acknowledged and honored them. They were greatly mourned and are greatly missed today. On the other hand, Mobutu lived for Mobutu. He siphoned money from Zaire and stashed it in foreign banks. His already impoverished country continued to slide down the ladder of socioeconomic development. Aloof to the plight of his own people, few people around the world knew he had died, few people mourned him, and probably few people miss him today. I cannot judge Mobutu because I don’t know how his relationship with his Maker was or how he spent his last moments on earth. Only God knows what will happen in the end. As human beings we can only relate to what I observe. The larger lesson is that all of us are in the same grave danger of living for ourselves. We need to redeem our time and make every moment we breathe to make a difference in someone else’s life. That is what God is all about.

Jesus Touched People

Jesus touched people socially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And whomever He touched became clean and whole again—the blind saw, the deaf heard, the lame walked, the dead rose up, and the sick were made whole again. At evening, after sunset, people came to Him or brought others to be healed. And He healed them all, including those who were demon possessed (Luke 4:4044; Mark 1:32-34; Matt. 8:16-17). Jesus healed every sick and infirm person in the village He ministered in. One of the most debilitating diseases in Bible times was leprosy. The modern equivalent could be AIDS, but for different reasons. It is not the intent of this chapter to address the issue of HIV/AIDS, suffice it to say that it brings to mind the disease of leprosy in the Bible times in proper perspective. Leprosy was and still is a disease that leaves the victims with no ability to feel pain. The disease deadens nerves and because the victims have no ability to feel pain, they lose parts of their bodies—toes, fingers, hands, and feet. They can hold hot coals in their hand and get burned without feeling pain. Also, the disease disfigures them.

In Bible times, the lepers were ostracized from their families. Ostracizing them was probably more painful than the pain of the disease itself. The lepers could no longer have physical with their loved ones. They could not caress their spouses or hug their children. “Of all diseases known in the East the leprosy was most dreaded. Its incurable and contagious character, and its horrible effect upon its victims, filled the bravest with fear. Among the Jews it was regarded as a judgment on of sin, and hence was called ‘the stroke,’ ‘the finger of God.’”³ Because the lepers were shut out from others from society, they could only associate with other lepers at a leper colony. Whatever they touched was considered and pronounced unclean. Even the royal people were treated the same. “The law was inflexible in its requirement. Even kings and rulers were not exempt. A monarch who was attacked by this terrible disease must yield up the scepter, and flee from society.”⁴ When they got close to someone, they called out “Unclean! Unclean!” so that people would get out of the way. When Jesus came, there were many leper colonies. He soon changed that picture. When the lepers heard about His ministry, they sought Him for healing. And Jesus cleansed them all. One incident must have impressed Jesus’ disciples so much that it is recorded in three gospels (Luke 5:12-15; Mark 1:40-45; Matt. 8:1-4). Although one leper had initial questions concerning whether or not Jesus would heal him, he determined to meet Jesus and went into some considerable length to meet Jesus. He didn’t know where to find Jesus, but he was determined to find Him. “Though shut out from the cities, it might be that he could cross His path in some byway along the mountain roads, or find Him as He was teaching outside the towns. The difficulties were great, but this was his only hope.”⁵ God has promised: “And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). So the leper went out to search for Jesus and found Him teaching by the lake. Standing afar off, he caught some of the words Jesus was saying. He saw Jesus touch and heal people. Determined to meet Jesus, he drew nearer and nearer, forgetting the restrictions society laid on him as a leper. When people saw him, some fell back as others in vain tried to prevent him from approaching Jesus. “He neither sees nor hears them. Their expressions of loathing are lost upon him. He sees only the Son of God. He hears only the voice that speaks life to the dying.” Finally, he “fell on his face and implored Him, saying, ‘Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.’ Then He put out His hand and touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’

Immediately the leprosy left him” (Luke 5:12-13). Instantly, “His flesh became healthy, the nerves sensitive, the muscles firm. The rough, scaly surface peculiar to leprosy disappeared, and a soft glow, like that upon the skin of a healthy child, took its place.”⁷ Jesus advised the healed man to go and show himself to the priest as Moses had commanded, and not to reveal the source of healing. However, the man could not contain himself or his joy. Soon the “report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities” (verses 14-15). Jesus’ touch brought unspeakable joy to the people He touched. He not only restored the lepers to health He also restored the broken familial relationships. The former lepers went back to their families. What a reunion and joy! They hugged and caressed their loved once again. They re-established physical . It should have been tremendously exciting.

Do We Have the Touch?

The story of Jesus touching people leaves my generation short. Most of us are so wrapped up in our own little worlds, it appears as if we are immune to the suffering or needs of those around us. “Often we’re afraid to touch because, whether it’s physical or figurative, touching risks violating personal space and presumes intimacy. We never know what we’ll get into or how we’ll be misinterpreted.”⁸ Isn’t it humbling to know that we are the hands that Jesus has now? Jesus never worried about what people said or would say because His mission was to bring relief to the suffering and downtrodden. His thinking was different from the thinking of the people around Him. He was focused. He had come specifically to heal the broken hearted, the sick, and the discouraged. We too should have the same mind of Jesus. We are the body Jesus can use to reach the unbelievers and provide them with hope for their existence. We can make a difference in their lives by showing them the Way (John 14:6).

Johan Ericksson

A story is told of a young Jewish boy during World War II. Jews went through hard times, exemplified by the holocaust and trainloads of Jewish children escaping to places of safety. We have seen the atrocities in movies and read the s in books. Some of the children were only three or four years old. They would file off trains with no belongings except for large tags around their necks, designating their home city, name, and age. Large sunken eyes, pale skin, and melancholy gazes indicated they had already experienced things beyond their tender ages. In 1939, Johan Eriksson from Sweden accepted to take care of a nine-year old boy called Rolf. Initially, when there was a knock on the door or loud voices outside, Rolf would dive into the nearest closet and cover his head. This happened several times until the warmth and love of the home assured him that all was well. Eventually he overcame that fear and felt happy and began to laugh again. When an invasion by the Nazis seemed imminent, people warned Johan that he was risking his life and that he would be in great trouble should Adolf Hitler’s men know about Rolf’s whereabouts. If they could find him, they would take him away. Johan emphatically stated that they’d never take him as long as he was alive. When the War ended, Johan wanted Rolf to go back to his parents, but before the War ended Rolf had received an obviously hurriedly written letter to inform him that he would probably not hear from his family again. And he didn’t because his parents perished in the holocaust. In the letter they advised him to never forget that family and what it had done for him. Rolf later went to Stockholm and became a successful businessperson. One day, his mind snapped and he could not think right. Johan heard about this unfortunate experience and decided to get and nurse Rolf. Relatives reminded Johan that he had done enough for that man and that the government needed to keep him in a mental institution where he rightfully belonged. Johan couldn’t listen to such advice. He went and brought Rolf home and nursed him for a year

until his mind returned to stability and peacefulness. Rolf went back to Stockholm. He later married, had children, established his own company, and became very wealthy. He never forgot the man who had given him such unconditional love. Nothing was too good for Johan, and as the old man became more infirm, the relationship grew stronger. When Johan was on his dying bed, all the children hurried home, but Rolf beat them—he was the first one to arrive. The moral of the story is that even if Johan Eriksson had accomplished no other noteworthy thing in his whole life, he had excelled in sheltering one child from the cruel atrocities of the War, especially NAZI .

Where Do We Stand?

When Jesus is in the house, our thinking and perceptions change. We begin to do things differently. Our motives change. We look at people as candidates for heaven rather than candidates for hell. We look at the sick, poor, and infirm, as Jesus would. That is how things ought to be. The story of the leper clearly illustrates one point.

The work of Christ in cleansing the leper from his terrible disease is an illustration of His work in cleansing the soul from sin. The man who came to Jesus was ‘full of leprosy.’ Its deadly poison permeated his whole body. The disciples sought to prevent their Master from touching him; for he who touched a leper became himself unclean. But in laying His hand upon the leper, Jesus received no defilement. His touch imparted life-giving power. The leprosy was cleansed. Thus it is with the leprosy of sin,—deep-rooted, deadly, and impossible to be cleansed by human power… But Jesus coming to dwell in humanity, receives no pollution. His presence has healing virtue for the sinner.

Jesus wants us to love people as He loves us. So where do we stand in relation to

Jesus and His mission of mercy? We might be so callous to the suffering of others that we stop looking for their happiness. We have to be careful not to repeat the problem that existed before Jesus came. “Physical disease, however malignant and deep-seated, was healed by the power of Christ; but the disease of the soul took a firmer hold upon those who closed their eyes against the light. Leprosy and palsy were not so terrible as bigotry and unbelief.”¹ Furthermore, the stories illustrate that any time we want to meet the Savior, He will meet with us. He has already initiated the process. He is ing by our way. With faith and determination, we need to approach Him and ask for cleansing. We should focus our eyes on Jesus and Him only. We shouldn’t worry about what other people might say. Jesus will not only heal our physical ailments and infirmities, He will also heal our spiritual sins and callousness. More important, we should not close the doors for those who want to seek the Savior by exhibiting holier-than-thou attitudes. As Jesus pointed out, He came to seek and save those who were lost. That includes you and me. When Jesus is in the house, burdens are loosened, the doctors rest their paraphernalia, the sinners are forgiven, the dishonest become honest, and every seeking soul jumps, leaps, and praises God. And heaven rejoices! That’s the freedom I want. That’s the freedom Jesus wants all to possess.

Endnotes

1. Paul E. Miller, Love Walked among Us (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2001), 150. 2. Kathryn Spink, Mother Teresa, A Complete Authorized Biography (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 20. 3. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 271. 4. Ibid., 262. 5. Ibid., 263.

6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Miller, Love Walked among Us, 152. 9. White, The Desire of Ages, 266. 10. Ibid.

Chapter 11 Back to Riches

Jesus told a story about a wealthy family that had two sons. One day, the younger son told his father that he was tired of living at home and wanted to go away. But before he left home he wanted to get his fair share of the family’s estate as tradition dictated. The only problem was that his father was still alive. The young man said, “Father, give me my share of the estate” (Luke 15:12, NIV). I imagine the conversation to have gone something like this: “Daddy, you know that I love you very much, don’t you? I’d do anything for you. Do you know that, Daddy?” The father, suspecting that he was being set up, answered, “Yes, son. I know that you love me. I love you too.” “I don’t know how to put this, but… but… eh… I want you to do me a favor. You know, Daddy… . Eh… I don’t think anybody has ever made such a request before. So, please, be patient with me while I put my thoughts together. You see, Daddy, it’s like this. Now don’t be mad at me. Will you Daddy? Please, promise that you won’t be mad at me.” “How can I promise anything before I hear your request? Now son, come out with it! What is it you want?” “Okay! Okay Daddy! Now that you’ve put it that way, it’s like this. You know how my brother and I always fight over everything?” “Yes, son. I’ve seen that.” “It’s terrible, isn’t it Daddy?” “I’ve seen everything, but what do you want?”

“I want you to do something special for me. As I’ve said, no one has ever made that request before. Now, like you promised, don’t be mad at me, I want… No! . . . Father, give me my share of the estate. Right now.” The father protested, “But son, all I have is yours and your brother’s. If you want some money to spend, just tell me so. that when the proper time will come, you’ll get your every penny. Be patient, my son. You should realize that I’m advanced in age and ready to go and rest where my fathers are any time. Then all I have will revert to you.” “I don’t want pocket change, Daddy. You promised! You promised! I know that when you’ll die, my brother will take everything. I mean everything and I won’t receive anything.” “But he can’t do that.” “Yes, he will. As you’ve indicated yourself, you have seen how difficult my brother is even before you die. You know how selfish my brother is. What do you think will happen when you’re not there? Besides, you’ve seen how bloody the situations have been in some families, just over pennies. Can you believe that? What do you think will happen to our large fortune? I want to spare the family that agony. That’s why I want my share, right now.” Instant gratification? Scriptures do not suggest that, but I have a great suspicion that the father wondered where he had gone wrong in teaching his children family values. How could his son ask for every piece of his inheritance when he was still alive? After pondering the request, he decided to give his son the portion that he had requested for.

Into a Far Country

The Scripture says, “And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living” (verse 13). The young man went to a place where no one knew his name. In anonymity, he could spend “his” money the way he wanted to and with whom he liked, and nobody would try to stop him. There, no one could

advise him saying, “Do not do this, for it will be an injury to yourself; or Do this, because it is right. Evil companions help him to plunge ever deeper into sin, and he wastes”¹ his wealth. Mr. Big Shot flaunted and “spent his wealth on riotous living” (verse 13, KJV), that is, unrestrained revelry, or loose living. I believe he was generous too, and his newly found friends loved him very much for his money. “Easy come, easy go.” After a while, the money ran out and Mr. Big Shot became Mr. Destitute. Because he could not pay for his apartment, they booted him out of his home and thus he became Mr. Homeless Destitute. One by one, his friends deserted him. I picture him going to his former friends asking for shelter and/or food. He even volunteered to work for food as long as he had shelter, but none of his friends had any room for him. Some told him that they didn’t know him. Others sympathized with him but had no idea how they could help. They advised him to simply return to his home country. The idea was appealing. But reflecting on how he had left home, what he had done at his new place, the young man could not think of going home. How could he face his father, especially his brother having spent a third of the family’s estate and not having anything to show for it? What was he going to do? What were family going to do with him? Hadn’t he committed an unpardonable sin? How would his family pardon or receive him when he had disgraced his father’s name so much? As if his woes were not enough, a famine occurred in the land, and the population, including the young man, faced imminent starvation. Out of money and friends, and facing the possibility of dying from starvation, he decided to get a job. When a famine occurs in an agrarian or agricultural society, it is usually due to lack of rain. There being no rain, few jobs exist. And citizens suffer great hardships. Determined to make it in his newfound land, he “went and ed himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything” (verses 15-16). For a Jew to accept such a job was a step in the wrong direction. But to begin with, wasn’t going to that country a step in the wrong direction? God had specifically told His people not to keep or touch pigs. And “the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to

you. Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you” (Lev. 11:7-8). The man washed, fed, and slept with them and longed to share their ration.

Home Cooking

Pigs do not only smell, they smell-stink. In fact, that job was the last straw the fair-weather friends needed to abandon him. They could neither stand his poverty nor associate themselves with someone who stank like a pig. And as the distance between him and his former friends grew, the young man found himself getting closer to the pigs whose company he came to appreciate and enjoy as he worked them. So he became lonelier each ing day as he longed for human companionship. One day, while feeding the pigs, he ed home cooking and cried out,

How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants” (Luke 15:17-19).

The Son Returns Home

Hope revived his spirit. He went to his master and told him to find someone else to look after the pigs because he was returning to his parents. He then set off for his father’s house. “But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had comion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” (verse 20). All the years the son was away, the father did not stop thinking about him. The old man recognized his son from a distance. He stood up and ran to meet his son.

The father didn’t allow the son to finish his prepared speech. He told those in his hearing to immediately prepare a calf for a celebration. The father continued: “for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (verse 24). Amazing grace, how sweet forgiveness sounds in a sinner’s ears. The son had left home with a third of the household’s wealth and came back with nothing; yet that didn’t matter to his father. All the time the son was away, his heart and prayers were with him. Yes, he had another son in the house, but the circle was broken and the home incomplete when he went away.

Saved by Grace

This story is usually associated with people who leave the church and later come back or those who run away from God, do bad things, and then repent. It portrays people who leave God for any reason, compromise their principles, and then return to Him later. The reason could be irreconcilable differences. Some leave because their fellow brothers and sisters hurt them. In this parable, “is presented the Lord’s dealing with those who have once known the Father’s love, but who have allowed the tempter to lead them captive at his will.”² Have you ever paused to think that the story could actually apply to those who stayed in church and never went away? We all are sinners who have been saved by grace. The story could be about those individuals in the church who pursue money, career, school, training, or pleasures of this world such that God is no longer a priority in their lives. Have you ever left God even for a little while? Have you ever disappointed God, at least once? Have you ever kept wrong company because of peer pressure, company demands, or any such thing? Have you ever compromised your Christian values because it was the convenient thing to do? How comfortable are you dancing to the same tunes everyone else responds to? Is there a key church doctrine you do not believe? Have the pressures of this world made you have little time for your God? Have your jobs, careers, studies, or even families made you to neglect your Lord and Savior?

It is time to return home. You have been gone too long. You do not have to say much. All you need to tell God is that you are returning because He is the only one you need for your salvation. It is very easy to tell God that, “I have work to do. Some convenient day, when I have put my house in order—when I have my dream car, career, jobs, children, and complete my studies—then I’ll think of You.” And God allows separation to happen because He doesn’t force relationships. But even then, when we are out there, God reminds us, saying, “This is the way, walk in it” (Isa. 30:21). And when we decide to return, Jesus meets us halfway and asks everyone else to rejoice with others declaring, “for this my [child] was dead and is alive again; he [or she] was lost and is found” (Luke 15:24).

Unconditional Love

Notice how the father welcomes his son back. He does not give conditions or long lectures about how the young man had messed up his life, shamed the family, or squandered the family’s wealth. No comments are made concerning how awful he looks and smells. In fact he doesn’t tell his son to remove the rags before he puts a clean robe over the rags. The father doesn’t scold or whip him for wasting the family’s fortune. Instead, with outstretched arms he welcomes the son, hugs him, and kisses him. And then he gives him a ring, signifying acceptance. How can that be? One may ask. That is grace. Grace means one is forgiven having deserved to die. The young man did not deserve mercy, but he received it. The father’s grace made his son’s return sweeter. Yes, “the story of the prodigal son reveals a divine attitude of forgiveness-in-advance that may seem indulgent and risky, but it did restore a dead son to life.”³ If I were the father, I know what I would do. While he was away, I would have been preparing a special welcome speech that would include a lecturette and a full lecture on how disappointed the family was and how young people didn’t know anything. I would suggest that since he had squandered his part of the family’s wealth, he should not expect to get anything that belonged to his brother; and that if he didn’t like that idea, he should redeem himself by working

hard and repaying every penny he owed the family. And if he decided to leave again, he was very welcome but shouldn’t think of returning home. Other parents might add a few more regulations. But notice that the father didn’t do any of the things I can include. In fact, he didn’t ask his son any questions at all. He didn’t lay conditions to be met before the young man was accepted back into the family’s fellowship. He didn’t scold, harm, embarrass, or send him away. He welcomed him as if nothing had happened. He even wasted more resources by throwing a party for him. Marvelous grace! Wonderful grace! Yes, All I know is that there is great rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10).

The Love of God Is Great

That’s God’s attitude to wayward children. What a marvelous and comionate Father we have in God! “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1). God loves all of us irrespective of our station in life. “The Lord is very comionate and merciful” (James 5:11). We need to extend that same amazing grace and love to our struggling brothers and sisters. We cannot really run away from God’s love. We sure can and do try to run away. Although this young man had all the money he could throw away and many friends when he had that money, he still felt homesick. Why? Because when we have tasted the love of God, people will notice that love even if we try to disguise it. The prayers of the family , relatives, friends, or church for our safety and happiness will always follow us. The Holy Spirit continues to work in our lives to bring us back to Him. Also knowing what to do and not doing it leads the soul to agonize even more (Ps. 32). That’s why a conflict is born within us whenever we find ourselves in compromising situations. We become uncomfortable about our situation. This story depicts a father who waits for his children to come home. The God we serve doesn’t wait. He comes looking for us, even if we are trying to hide away from Him. He came to Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, to Moses in the burning bush in Median, to David when he committed adultery and murder

through Prophet Nathan, and to planet earth as the Messiah to die as a ransom for all. God doesn’t wait. He takes the first step. The church needs to answer some questions. When people decide to return to their God, how will we welcome them? Will we accept them as they will come? The older brother could not rejoice with the family. Will we pepper them with questions and lay conditions before we will receive them into our fellowship? Chances are we will try to test them, checking if they have really repented. In some churches individuals are never fully accepted even when they have shown genuine repentance. I am a teacher who often wonders what a student would say if one of the conditions to be itted into my class would be that the student should know all, or at least most of what I know. What would it be like to go to the hospital to be told that you are too sick to be itted or treated? When you begin feeling a little better, come and we’ll treat you. These may sound like ridiculous statements. But why does the church test those people who return to their God to check if they have really repented? Why don’t we leave that problem to God? Why can’t we welcome our brothers and sisters with open arms? Allow them to learn the teachings, but let them in first.

Time to Return

In spite of how one might be received, the story makes one point clear; when it is time to return to God, don’t agonize over how you will be received. Let others do the agonizing. Just stand up and go to Him. Just renew the commitment to Jesus and say, “I’ll arise and go to my Father. I’ll tell Him I have messed up big time. I don’t deserve to be His son or daughter anymore. Please make me a servant.” Jesus won’t allow you to say these words because:

If you take even one step toward Him in repentance, He will hasten to enfold you in His arms of infinite love. His ear is open to the cry of the contrite soul. The very first reaching out of the heart after God is known to Him. Never a prayer is offered, however faltering, never a tear is shed, however secret, never a

sincere desire after God is cherished, however feeble, but the Spirit of God goes forth to meet it. Even before the prayer is uttered or the yearning of the heart made known, grace from Christ goes forth to meet the grace that is working upon the human soul.⁴

God guarantees that “It shall come to that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear” (Isa. 65:24). Like the young man in the story you don’t have to make yourself clean before you return. You can’t. You have nothing to commend yourself to the Father. That’s why He’s there. He will make you clean when you come to Him. That is His specialty.

Satisfaction Is Not Found in Riches

The young man learned that real satisfaction does not lie in the abundance of things or pursuit of pleasure, but springs from a genuine loving relationship with God. Alone, in the pigsty, he ed how good it used to be at his father’s house. It was so good that even servants ate at the table, while he was dying of starvation in a foreign country. He learned that this world is full of fair-weather friends who will stick with you as long as you have what they want from you: fame, fortune, popularity, money, influence, and such good things. But they will drop you in a second when your chips are down. They will abandon you when you need them most. The young man learned that there is One who sticks closer than a brother does (Prov. 18:24). He is “A friend [who] loves at all times, and a brother [who] is born for adversity” (Prov. 17:17). You have a true friend you can always count on in times of sickness, health, poverty, and riches. That friend is Jesus. Because when everyone leaves, He is there, whether the skies are blue or gray, dark or clear. As good as this world is, it is not our home; we are just ing through. On this earth, we will always be strangers and pilgrims; heaven is our home. The earth is our motel; heaven is our home. It is time to go home to heaven, a place that is unlike any other place. It has streets of gold, pearly gates, the sea of glass, an eternal day, and the tree of life. The Creator Himself is there. Even then our

imagination fails us because “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9).

All Because of Jesus

We all struggle with individual problems that at times take us to the valleys; the lowest points in our lives. Of course, life is easy when we are at the mountaintop. There, we can easily talk of faith and hope. But when things change, when we are in the valley, things become different. The valleys appear so low and so wide that we fail to see our way out. But it is in those valleys where Jesus restores our faith and hope. Because when we are right in the valley, and on our knees, we have no one else to talk or turn to, but Jesus. There, in the valley we have nowhere else to look but up. That is why we have problems sometimes. There in the valley, Jesus takes our filthy garments and provides us with robes of righteousness and invites us to share His unspeakable joy. He removes our discouragement and gives us hope. When we are at our worst, Jesus gives us our dignity. He doesn’t treat us according to what we deserve because in His infinite power and mercy, He receives us back again. Unconditionally. The truth is that when we reach heaven, it won’t be because of what we have done, but because of what the Redeemer did for us on the cross. All of our sins are covered under the blood of the Lamb. The gospel is so powerful it transforms us. The thief becomes honest, the lazy industrious, the licentious pure, the drunkard sober, the cruel and unkind gentle, and the miserable happy. With Jesus on our side, strife gives way to peace and harmony. The end result is peace, joy, hope, and love. Even if there were no heaven to gain, I would be content with these attributes alone on Planet Earth. In times like these, we need to be reminded that one of these days we will be going home to be with the Lord. Yes, back to glory land, where we belong. We will be back to riches. What a day of great rejoicing that will be!

Endnotes

1. Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1941), 199. 2. Ibid., 198. 3. Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 45. 4. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, 206.

Chapter 12 Ultimate Gratitude

Desiring to show gratitude to Jesus, Simon invited Him and His disciples to his home for a great feast. Simon was well known because of his high reputation in the community in spite of his past as a leper. Jesus had cured Simon of his leprosy. This being Christ’s last visit to Bethany, it turned out to be a very special private occasion for Him. Because he was a Pharisee, Simon only acknowledged Jesus as a great teacher; or at best as a prophet. He had not yet accepted Him as the Messiah.¹ This story impressed the gospel writers so much that it is recorded in all the four gospels (John 12:1-8; Luke 7:36-50; Mark 14:1-11; Matthew 26:6-13). Jesus and His disciples were reclining at the table in Bethany; six days before the over and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and teachers of the law had made up their minds that Jesus had to be killed. They were constantly looking for the slightest chance to trick, arrest, and kill Him. Jesus was particularly popular in Bethany because it was there that He had earlier raised Lazarus from the dead. Because of that popularity, they were afraid that people might riot if they arrested Him (Mark 14:1-2). So, they cautiously stalked Him trying to find any cause to arrest Him. In fact, later that very week they would arrest, falsely accuse, try, and crucify Him. Word reached Mary that Jesus and His disciples were at Simon’s house (John 12:3). Some authors identify her as Mary, the sister of Lazarus.² Although she was not invited she determined in her heart to attend that party. She wanted to show gratitude to Jesus for raising her brother. The doubts she might have harbored before Jesus resurrected her brother were gone. More important she wanted to show gratitude to Jesus for transforming her life. She had heard rumors that He was about to die. Motivated by unselfish love and sacrifice, she managed to gate-crush that party and when inside stayed very close to Jesus as she had been accustomed to doing. But this time she had a special and very expensive gift made from pure nard for Him. She was going to be daring and exhibit her “Extravagant, risky, chance-taking love.”³ However, “She had sought to avoid observation, and her movements might have ed unnoticed, but the ointment filled the room with its fragrance, and published her

act to all present.”⁴

The Broken Alabaster Jar

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John differ in details of what the woman actually did. Luke says that “she stood at His feet behind Him weeping… began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil”⁴ (Luke 7:38). Mark writes, “She broke the flask and poured it on His head” (Mark 14:3). Matthew states, “she poured on His head as He sat at the table” (Matt. 26:7). John writes, she “anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair” (John 12:3). Each writer emphasized a different aspect of what transpired that day, and together they gave us a total picture of what happened in that house. We know that the woman knelt down, weeping. She moistened and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, and wiped them with her long, flowing hair. She also kissed His feet as she poured the contents of the alabaster jar on Jesus covering Him from head to toe. As could be expected, the woman’s selfless actions generated interesting stern rebukes and dissension from those around. The disciples complained, “Why this waste? For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor” (Matt. 26:9). “But there were some who were indignant among themselves, and said, ‘Why was this fragrant oil wasted? For it might have been sold for more than hundred denarii and given to the poor’” (Mark 14:4-5). A denarii was a coin equivalent to a day’s wages. Judas Iscariot had a higher price. He stated, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” (John 12:5). Interestingly, “This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief” and he used to help himself from the bank” (John 12:6). Simon, the host, “spoke to himself, saying, ‘This man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what kind of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner’” (Luke 7:39). The reactions are natural, normal, and human. Mary’s action was a waste of oneyear’s hard earned income poured out in probably less than an hour. But to Mary

this was a whole life of gratitude to her Jesus, her Savior. To her, nobody could put the cost on her love for her master. Such devotion is rare even among church boards today. Who could authorize or even recommend to the church to spend a year’s income on a bottle of perfume for the pastor? Hearing those comments from the group, Mary became embarrassed until Jesus spoke. He told Simon the story of a moneylender who had lent 500 denarii to one man and 50 denarii to another. Neither of them had money to pay him back, so he canceled and forgave their debts. He then asked Simon whom he thought would love the moneylender more between the two. Simon answered, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more” (Luke 7:43). Jesus added,

Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore, I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little (verses 44-47).

The woman did what the host had not done. As the host, Simon was supposed to provide a servant to wash the feet of the guests. Also, Simon forgot that Mary was doing what he was doing—showing gratitude to Jesus for the wonderful things He had done for him.

He was known as Simon the leper. But not any longer. Now he is just Simon. We don’t know when Jesus healed him. But we do know what he was like before Jesus healed him. Stooped shoulders. Fingerless hand. Scabbed arm and infected back draped in rags. A tattered wrap which hides all of the face except for two screaming white eyes. But that was before Jesus’ touch. Was Simon the one Jesus healed after he

delivered the Sermon on the Mount? Was he the one in the ten who returned to say thank you? Was he one of the four thousand Jesus helped in Bethsaida? Or was he one of the nameless myriads the gospel writers didn’t take time to mention?⁵

We will never know this side of heaven. All we know is that he was a leper whom Jesus cured and who was hosting a party in gratitude. Jesus had done so much for him by healing him. By curing him of his leprosy, Jesus reunited him with his family and friends. He was no longer shouting “Unclean!” as people approached him or as he came near them. So, Simon didn’t forget that kind act. How could he? The house was full of people whom he could not associate with had it not been for Jesus’ healing hand. Sometimes I wonder did he react that way because Mary beat him at his own game? Mary gave Jesus much more than he gave for his party. Mary’s gift was worth a year’s salary. Simon’s pharisaical instincts took over. He

was not so much offended by Mary’s gift as by the giver herself. He knew all too well about Mary’s soiled past, and he was shocked that Jesus would let a woman with her reputation touch Him. Most religious leaders would not permit so much as the shadow of a publican or prostitute to touch them in public for fear of losing the respect of the people.

To him, a prophet, better still a Messiah, wouldn’t allow an immoral person, such as that woman, to come near Him or touch Him. He would be defiled and become unclean. Was he wrong! Jesus had come to give such despised people, including lepers and prostitutes, a new lease on life. He allowed them to touch Him as He touched them. Whoever He touched and whoever touched Him in faith became clean. Consequently, many were blessed. Simon missed the opportunity right in his own home. What a position to be in!

Christ defended Mary, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her” (Matt. 26:10-13, NIV). The woman was both brave and perceptive. She was brave to use perfume in that home, fully knowing its fragrance was going to fill the room. She was brave to touch Jesus’ body in the home of a Pharisee, fully knowing what Simon and his friends might think. She was brave to go to the house uninvited. But she was perceptive too. She had heard Jesus say He was about to be arrested and killed. She wanted to do something special for Him before that day arrived. She was eternally grateful and wanted to show her gratitude irrespective of who would witness her act. Jesus had touched her life in a way nobody else had. She did not want to wait until He died to tell His mother what He had meant to her. But she did more than that. She blessed everyone in the room with the sweet aroma. Who could match her gift? What a gift! What a privilege it was to be in Mary’s position! Jesus commended her for doing the right thing for Him:

The fragrant gift which Mary had thought to lavish upon the dead body of the Saviour she poured upon His living form. At the burial its sweetness could only have pervaded the tomb; now it gladdened His heart with the assurance of her faith and love… Mary, pouring out her love upon the Savior while He was conscious of her devotion, was anointing Him for the burial. And as He went down into the darkness of His great trial, He carried with Him the memory of that deed, an earnest of the love that would be His from His redeemed ones forever.⁷

God Unconditionally Loves Everyone

God unconditionally loves everyone, including the chief of sinners. Consider the

woman in the story and her bad reputation in Bethany. Few people wanted to associate with her or allow her to come near them. Similarly, how many of us are comfortable with people who show up at church or other functions and are not dressed “properly”? What do we think of them? Do we feel tempted to tell them to go change before we can allow them into our function? Could we allow them to sit on “our” pews, or do we move away, not to leave space for them, but to literally move away from them? What are our attitudes and behaviors to people “we know” are of questionable characters? Simon the host doubted whether or not Jesus was a prophet because He allowed Mary to touch Him. To him prophets needed to be discriminating concerning those with whom they came in . Jesus reminded him that there was room for everyone in His ministry. His mission was to seek and save those who were lost.

Something Special for Jesus

In many ways the story shows a natural reaction to someone for whom something special has been done—one good turn deserving another. How many people could blame Simon for reacting that way given the woman’s reputation? On the other hand, Mary showed total devotion. It was precisely because of the magnitude of her sins and the extent of Jesus’ forgiveness that Mary did what she did. With tears in her eyes and a heart full of iration and love, she poured all she had from that alabaster jar on her Lord, washed His feet with her tears, and wiped His feet with her hair. Nothing was too good or too expensive for her Master. She fell on His feet and worshiped Him, right there in front of everyone without any embarrassment. Additionally, Mary was not afraid of what the people might say about her. She was determined to worship her Lord and no obstacle was going to deter her in accomplishing her objective. Ever since that incident, Christians around the world read the story and glean gems out of it. The gratitude both Simon and Mary exhibited brought great joy to Jesus. Of the two only Mary provided risky love. In fact, “the rewards of risky love are always greater than its cost.”⁸ Jesus told those at the party, those who questioned Mary’s motive, “Wherever the Good News is preached in all the world, what this woman has done will be told, and people will her” (Mark 11:11, NCV).

What have we given to Jesus to show that we appreciate His death on Calvary? How much of our salaries or wages are we willing to bring to God’s storehouse for use in advancing His kingdom? Most of us don’t even return His tithe. For Mary, no money, place, or time would stand in the way to appreciate what Jesus had done for her. Jesus deserved the best gift and He appreciated her gift even more. What are we waiting for? When the treasurer of our church handed me the record of my offerings for the previous year, I found the record to be both dismal and pitiful. The year in which I made more money than I had ever made in any previous year, I had contributed less to the church than I had done previously. I determined in my heart to do differently from that year on. Mary gave a year’s worth of fragrance for her Lord; I find it difficult to give a month’s value of freewill offerings to the Lord’s cause. That is inexcusable. I constantly ask Jesus to forgive me, a sinner. Sometimes I think that if it were not for the smell of the perfume, few people would have noticed that Mary was there. They didn’t care about her messed up hair. But even then, they only noticed the brand of the perfume. All they could say was “What a waste!” What a waste to anoint Someone who was to die anyway! What a waste to spend a year’s income on ten minutes with Jesus! But Mary was not daunted. If there was the noblest cause to give to, it was for the best Person that ever lived. In times like these, Jesus is looking for a people who will serve Him unreservedly. He’s looking for a people who will follow Him no matter where He leads, and irrespective of what people might say. Are we willing to follow Him? Jesus’ cause leads to sneers and rude comments sometimes. He is looking for individuals who are not ashamed of Him. Are we ready to bear and grin such comments? That is our charge—to stand for Him no matter what people say. What I like best about the woman is that she broke the alabaster bottle. She didn’t carefully open the jar. She broke it. I have a feeling that if she had carefully opened the jar, she could have carefully closed it just after pouring a few drops on Jesus, especially when the aroma started to fill the room and people started to make comments. She could have changed her mind about the whole gift. Analyzing the reactions from those around, someone could have grabbed it from her to sell it later. Like the rest of the people she could have thought of “What a waste.” Because the jar was broken, she was going to use all of its contents on Jesus. She gave her whole to Jesus who in turn appreciated it

very dearly.

Now Is Our Turn

Should it be different with us today? How careful are we about coming to Jesus and sharing our resources? How much of our means are we willing to give to His cause so that His love, like that woman’s sweet-smelling fragrance, could permeate the earth? For those who may not have the physical means, how much of ourselves in of time are we willing to give up in the cause of Jesus? There is no better way on this earth than to be totally committed to Jesus. He Himself said it better than I can put it: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13). Paul is right. “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:7-8, NIV). This is the time to crown Him King of our lives and give Him the glory and His cause with “our” means. Just in case we forget what He has done for us, lest we forget His thorn-crowned brow, let us Gethsemane where He prayed in anguish and pain. Lest we forget Calvary, we should His love for each of us. He died so that we might have abundant life (John 10:10). I dream of a time I will have a chance to go to the Holy land before Christ returns and walk the streets He walked, see the tomb in which He was laid but is now empty, and visit Mount Calvary. But what if I die without having such an opportunity? What if Christ comes today? I don’t have to go to Israel to enjoy a living and loving relationship with my Savior. Jesus has prepared a better place. That’s where I want to go. I always pray that my response to His love will always be to say My Jesus I love You so much that I am willing to abandon my life of sin and shame. I want to love You Lord in this life and if it ends in death I will still love You. Allow me to praise You Jesus until no more breath comes from my body. Should I lie at my deathbed, and the death dew lies cold on my brow, allow me to sing that if ever I loved Jesus, it is still today. Right now. I want to dedicate myself to You more than I have done in the past. Consecrate me, Lord, for Your service. Help me

King of kings to love You, and let my love show. Help me Jesus, my Savior to love You more than I have ever done before.

Time to Rededicate Our Lives

Jesus is coming soon. I don’t know how soon, but I know that His coming is sooner than when we first believed. He is coming to take us home to heaven where we shall enjoy endless glory and delight. Jesus Himself will be there to welcome us home, and for ceaseless ages of eternity He will teach us as we will grow to appreciate Him even more. I can’t wait for that day to come. Today, in times like these, we all should rededicate our lives to God. Each of us, individually, can experience just a little bit of what that woman experienced— forgiven sins and a peace of mind. We cannot be too careful with our salvation. We need to pour ourselves onto Jesus. He will accept us. He loves us that much. We shouldn’t be ashamed of Him or fail to show our love for Jesus publicly, whether it is in our workplace, neighborhood, or restaurant. Is there something you have been postponing to do? Maybe writing a note to your friend. Maybe sending a thank you note for a kind deed. May be apologizing to somebody. Maybe simply doing a spontaneous thing for someone else. Today you have that chance. In times like these we need to show gratitude. It is the best risky investment of love you’ll ever make and live never to regret. Let somebody be blessed by your kindness or act of love. What are you waiting for?

Endnotes

1. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1911), 557. 2. Ibid., 558-559).

3. Max Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 1992), 49. 4. White, The Desire of Ages, 559. 5. Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent, 47. 6. Doug Batchelor, At Jesus’ Feet (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2001), 94. 7. White, The Desire of Ages, 560. 8. Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent, 51.

Chapter 13 More than Able

I have done many crazy things that have brought pain and apprehension in my life, but no experience has been as excruciating as the time my family decided to stay in the United States (U.S.). I came to the United States as an exchange scholar. When I completed my studies, I decided to stay in the U.S. to gain practical experience before returning to Zambia. Things changed soon after that. My family and I applied for change of status from student to permanent resident, but that application was denied. For many months I stayed awake, my soul agonizing with God, questioning my sanity for coming to the U.S. I was literally stuck in Oklahoma because I had no money to transport our family to Zambia or money to live on. I have haunting memories of hungry faces including that of a brand new baby and a two-year son. Our children had never heard about daddy having no money more than they did then, and I don’t wish anybody, even my worst enemy, to go through a similar experience. While writing this chapter eight years later, I was cleaning the garage when I stumbled upon Chongo’s (our daughter’s) entry in her diary one of those agonizing days. I don’t know why I opened the diary, but it fell upon an entry where she wrote, “I hate to hear Dad say he has no money.” I didn’t go beyond that statement because it brought tears to my eyes. I don’t even know the circumstances that prompted her to make that entry. I wished she knew why. I am just glad that our children were not old enough to even begin to understand the circumstances in which they found themselves, suffice it to say that for six months I had no authorization to work because I had no legal basis to stay in the U.S. For seven months I had no income to my family, and for much of that time we faced the possibility of deportation. Somehow I knew God was going to take care of us. And He did. How we survived, I don’t know, but I knew that if God could feed Elijah in a cave (1 Kings 17:4), or the birds of the air that do not sow or plant (Luke 12:24), He could surely take good care of us. So, how we came to find ourselves in that predicament and how God supplied our needs is the story I am about to share. I

want to share this personal experience with those who are facing problems they may feel are insurmountable, those doubting God’s leading in their lives, and also those who fully trust their Lord. I know I cannot fill the shoes they may be wearing. Only they can fill those shoes. I know that God is good and faithful. He makes certain that we have enough strength to face our challenges. He is strength to the powerless. He either takes away the load or gives us the strength to carry it. In most cases, He does both. I have been there and I know that He is more than able to save to the uttermost. I expected the unexpected, knowing that there was no mountain too high that could not be climbed or problem too hard He cannot solve.

Denied Applications

The whole problem began at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Office on March 30, 1994, when I went to renew my work authorization while the INS was working on our papers for permanent residence. When my name was called, instead of proceeding to the section where photographs for employment authorization cards were taken, I was ushered into another room. After I sat down, the officer looked me straight in the eye and said, “Mr. Mundende, we’ve made a determination on your application for permanent residence.” My face lit up and I sat up for the good news. The officer uneasily shifted in his chair as if to say, “Don’t hurt yourself because the news is not as good as you think.” He proceeded to read two letters, one stating that our applications for permanent residence and the other, my application for work authorization, had both been denied. I was informed that because first, as a J-1 visa holder (the University of Zambia—UNZA—partially paid for my studies), I could not change my status while in the U.S. without a waiver to my student visa. Consequently, I could not stay in the U.S. Second, I was an exchange scholar in the field both governments of Zambia and the U.S. had determined was important to Zambia. Since I had not yet fulfilled the two-year foreign country resident requirement, which meant that upon graduation I was supposed to have left the U.S. and stayed out for at least two years before I could apply. I could stay if I had a waiver from the U.S. government. I had applied for a waiver that

had been denied. My family was granted to June 15, 1994 to effect departure from the U.S. voluntarily or proceedings to enforce departure would be instituted against us. I had three strikes against me. I had no money to take my family to Zambia, no employment authorization to take care of my family, and no savings with which to pay my bills. I asked the officer, “Is there anything I can do?” “Yes,” he answered. “Do what these letters say.” “But, Sir, I have no money. I’ve six dependents and bills and… .” He interrupted, “You’re a lucky man. You’ve been working since 1990 and should have prepared yourself for this day. Sign here to indicate that you’ve received these letters. you’ve to leave the United States before June 15. You should inform this office about the arrangements you’ll be making to effect your departure.” I fell silent. I wasn’t ready to go anywhere, including leaving the INS Office without employment authorization. “What about employment authorization?” I asked, “We’re close to the end of the school year. Can’t I be allowed to teach until the end of the year?” “You’re free to put in another application for employment authorization. Right now, since your application for permanent residence has been denied, there’re no grounds for you to work.” I tried to reason with the officer, but realized that I wasn’t going anywhere in my dialogue with him. Grateful that my family was not there with me, I signed the letters and left the office utterly disturbed about what had just transpired. In the waiting room, a lady beaming with hope and anticipation, waiting for her turn asked, “How did it go?” “Fine.” I lied, forcing a smile. I was happy she didn’t ask me more questions. I stopped at the front desk and submitted another application for employment authorization. I knew I was headed for troublous times because instead of giving me a date to report back, as I had been given every six months before, the receptionist informed me the response would come in the mail. She was not in any mood to discuss the issue. I

unceremoniously exited the building feeling helpless and dejected. The appointment letter came about one and a half months later.

End of the Rope

I went home deflated. I related the news to my wife who was recovering from surgery she had undergone the previous month. She replied, “They can’t do that.” I told her that they had already done “it.” I showed her the letters of denial but I don’t believe she “saw” them even when she read them. I then reported the decision to my immediate boss at Langston University, who was very disappointed. I reported to personnel that I was unable to secure employment authorization. They took me off the payroll that very day. I volunteered my services until the semester was over but the University refused my offer. You know you are in deep trouble when someone refuses free labor. That evening I called the Staff Development Officer (SDO) at the University of Zambia (UNZA), explaining my predicament and requesting for tickets for our family. I thought she was going to be happy about my possibility of reing the university. Was I wrong! She was neither understanding nor sympathetic to my problem. She replied, “We expected you to come in 1990. You’re welcome to come and apply for reinstatement to the registrar, but don’t expect UNZA to send you tickets, not even for the baby.” I tried to explain my decision to stay in the U.S. after my studies. I explained that UNZA had not ed me all the way for my studies and I had accumulated debts that I was trying to clear. (UNZA had terminated the scholarship after three years of my studies that took five and a half years to complete.) She could not be persuaded to tell me if I had a job upon return. After 45 fruitless minutes of trying to get her to change her mind, we both said “Good bye” to each other. She then uttered the most painful words of the evening: “Good luck to you.” On any other day, I would have gladly received those words with greater joy, but not that night. Between March 30 and June 15, I consulted the Zambian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and many immigration attorneys. The Embassy couldn’t help us financially. The political attaché recommended writing to the University of

Zambia about the situation. I related to him that I had talked with the staff development officer who indicated that there was nothing she could do for us. He indicated that he was going to write to the U.S. government to waive the twoyear foreign residence requirement, but I needed to know that the Embassy had had little success in its recent endeavors. Immigration attorneys didn’t want to take up our case because we had J-visas. (I soon came to understand why.) The Catholic Charities refused to assist us. The attorney I really wanted to retain told me, “You’ve reached the end of the rope. If I were you I’d do as the INS has advised. You already have an approved labor certification and an approved visa petition. Go out of the country for 2 years and then come back.” He didn’t even charge me for the session. “You’ll need every penny.” He said. I knew that if I could go out of the U.S. I’d never return. I related my problem to a friend who had a similar problem before and was now a citizen. He told me it was impossible to change the J-1 status in the U.S. “Trust me. I’ve been there before. Do as the lawyer advised you.” I also knew that what was impossible with men, was possible with God (Mark 10:27). I believed that what God was doing for other J-1 visa holders He would do for my family. That advice just precipitated me to look for other lawyers. Some people even advised that I leave Oklahoma and go elsewhere and work without a visa. “There are many people in this country who work who have no documentation.” I confess that that advice was very appealing, and I considered it as a viable option, but breaking the law was out of question. At last, attorney Rex Friend agreed to help us. When I explained my situation, he stated matter-of-factly, “It’s difficult to change this visa to another one. I’m sure you’ve done everything you could have done. But let’s give it a try.” Those words—“Let’s give it a try”—were the sweetest music I had heard for some time. Then he advised, “As I work on your case, don’t do anything foolish that can give the INS any slight chance to deny your change of status.” My only answer was, How could I? Lawyers don’t work for free and aren’t cheap either. We discussed the issue of attorney fees. I thought he was very reasonable in his fees. He mentioned that I’d

have to pay more if the case went to trial. I told him I had no money to pay for his services. He said he needed at least 50 percent of the cost before he could start to work on it. In the meantime, I received employment authorization that allowed me to work from late April to June 15, when I was taken off the payroll again. Attorney Friend wrote to the INS requesting the officers to reconsider the decision concerning the denial of permanent residence for our family. Three months later, we received discouraging news. On August 9, the INS wrote us a letter that partially read: “On May 11, 1994, you requested an extension of your required departure date of June 15, 1994… . The extension is denied and you should depart the United States by August 16, 1994.” Hot on the heels were letters dated August 12 and August 25. Both of them rejected the motion to reconsider the order of denial. The lawyer went back to work on the waiver. Overdue bills skyrocketed. I approached the Edmond Seventh-day Adventist Church for help. It took over most of them (I was embarrassed to give every bill to the church). The Guthrie Seventh-day Adventist Church and friends donated food. More bills went into collection. I explained to the landlord, Dr. Donald Vincent, our situation. God bless this kind man. He sympathized with us and allowed us to stay in his house without paying a cent in rent, fully knowing that he may not get his money. He said, “You’ve been a good tenant. I know you’ll pay when you resume work.” When I resumed work I paid him the money we owed him. I owe him too much for his kindness. Where could one find such love and kindness? Considering the three responses from the INS in August 1994, our future looked as clear as mud. I had almost resigned to the idea that if the U.S. was going to deport us, at least it would offer us “free” transportation to Zambia. But God was working. In my opinion, there are fewer things that are more painful than for an ablebodied person who is willing to work to stay at home with five hungry children (two of them under two and a half years old), fully knowing he or she won’t supply the family’s needs. There is nothing worse than having the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness at the same time because you are not in control. I felt like I had been robbed of both my manhood and fatherhood. There is nothing

worse or more painful than looking into expectant hungry eyes of your children fully knowing there is absolutely nothing in your fridge and no prospects of receiving any, at least in the time you want it. Surprise! Surprise! Food came when we needed it. He who feeds the sparrows worked with others to help us. I felt abandoned by my two countries. I felt abandoned by my God. As I lay down on my bed awake, I imagined what I would be doing if I was in Zambia. Most of my friends were cabinet ministers, permanent secretaries, professors, or very important people. I knew I could have been one of them. But there I was; a nothing in a foreign land, far away from my family, relatives, and friends. There I was—hungry and going nowhere, together with six other innocent lives looking up to me. At times I came very close to calling one of my friends in Zambia to offer my services, or going to work illegally so that we could be caught and deported. Deporting us would have provided us with “free” transportation to Zambia. ing what I told Attorney Friend, I could not muster the courage to do so. When we moved out of the house we rented, the landlord donated it to the Edmond Seventh-day Adventist Church, where we held our hip. The most interesting thing is that Dr. Donald Vincent is not even a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I don’t understand how God works, but He works wonders in His mysterious ways. I have seen Him work in my life.

Needs Supplied

Human extremities are God’s greatest opportunities. In spite of those numerous anxious moments, deep down my heart I had no doubt that God was going to work out something in our favor. People prayed for us. I found comfort in the prayers offered by the midweek prayer warriors. I now believe in intercessory prayer more firmly than I did before as a result of that experience. Friends talked to friends on our behalf. Let me mention a few names. I know there were many others who worked behind the scenes. Only in eternity will we know everyone that worked on our behalf. Laree Reidenbaugh provided gas every week or whenever we needed it. She told us to call when we needed gas. When we didn’t call, she called. Sometimes she

just showed up and told me to follow her to the gas station. Lucy Torres paid our telephone, water, electricity, and gas bills and the car notes for two months as well as for the car tag. Jose Torres always encouraged us to the church if and when we needed something. I know he did more than that. Only God and his family know what he did and the extent of my gratitude. The Guthrie Church and Meshack and Rachel Sagini provided food. Orina and Mary Obiero visited and prayed with us, encouraging us to trust God even in those circumstances. Unknown to us, they too were going through a similar ordeal. Philip and Liliana Samson prayed, telling us God had already positively answered our prayers. It was just a matter of time before we received the answer. How did they know? My sixth sense tells me they must have done more than pray. Maxine DeCocq told us she was daily praying for us. How I appreciated to hear those words! Pastor Robert and Mrs. Diane Turner cried and prayed with us and talked to people on our behalf. The whole Edmond Seventh-day Adventist Church prayed. George Acquaah assured me that all was going to be well. That this was going to be my year of freedom. He was a great encourager. Surrounded by such love, our burden was a lot easier to carry. Don’t tell me God doesn’t work through people. Don’t tell me He doesn’t answer prayer, because I know He does. I am the beneficiary.

Joy Comes in the Morning

As the days started to become longer and more dreary, and as desperation set in, my faith in a God who answers prayer began to shake and flicker. I became discouraged. But it was not for long. On September 12, 1994, we received a copy of the letter the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) had written to the INS Office in Oklahoma City granting us a waiver to the two-year foreign residence requirement, and advising us to apply for permanent residence again. I quickly reported at the lawyer’s office. He had received his copy. He complimented, “Congratulations! I didn’t really think you’ll get this. It appears you’ve connections I don’t have.” I couldn’t agree with him more. I had Him who was more than able to influence decisions made on our behalf. He who has never lost a battle had won again. We

needed to submit new applications for permanent residence. We needed about $3,000 for medical exams and filing fees. We borrowed some money and the church gave us the difference. We finally submitted the application early in October. I went back to work on November 15, when I got employment authorization. I received the first paycheck since June the last workday in December.

God Is Faithful

What more could I say except that in every experience God brings valuable lessons for His children. This experience taught me several lessons, including the following. First, God is faithful. He takes care of His people. Nothing is too hard for Him. When we are in the valley, thinking nothing is happening and there is no deliverance, it is then that He is working to influence decisions. I tenaciously clang on the question God asked Abraham: “Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son” (Gen. 18:14). I knew that if God would give Abraham and Sarah a son in their old age, He could provide a way for us where there was no way. Absolutely nothing was too hard for Him. I knew that if He can’t remove the mountain, He removes the circumstance that led to the development of that mountain. If not, He provides the strength to scale it. I believe He did all of the above and more in our case. He is the greatest Provider. Second, Jesus’ free salvation is the best thing that ever happened to humankind. We cannot buy it or work for it either. I say so because when the church offered its assistance, I reluctantly accepted the offer, and I didn’t reveal all our needs even though we had no money. I didn’t want to put all my burdens on my church. The Bible advises us to cast all our cares on Jesus because He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7). Third, miracles still happen today. When I was learning how to draw maps, we had to practise free handwriting first (this was in the days before automated cartography or modern typesetting machines or geographic information systems), before we could use ink pens. One of the statements we practised writing was: “Impossibilities are done immediately. Miracles take a little while

longer.” I hang on this statement as our family waited on the Lord to do something. We needed nothing short of a miracle. Because the miracle took a little while longer to occur, it was sweeter than anything when it happened. We shared our story and looked for people who could help us anytime we had the chance. My family and I did everything we could to stay in the United States. We consulted with immigration attorneys. The immigration issue became the allabsorbing focus of my life. How I wish I could exert the same energy in doing God’s work! I know that if this was the case, my life would be completely transformed. Fourth, prayer works, and God works through people. I know God answers prayer. I am a firm believer in intercessory prayer. We are encouraged to pray for one another because “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (James 5:16). I saw the results of intercessory prayer as many people knelt before our God, petitioning Him on my behalf. Friends impacted my life through their prayers, love, and encouragement. Without their prayers it would have been very difficult to face another day. Fifth, God is so good that He always comes on time. All the time! The darkest hour comes just before dawn. When we submitted our applications for permanent residence, we were requested to provide our birth certificates. My wife and I were born during the colonial period when native Zambians were not given birth certificates. So we have no birth certificates. The INS gave us a month to produce affidavits from close relatives and a letter from a Government representative in Zambia explaining why we didn’t have birth certificates. Both my parents and my mother-in-law were deceased. Normally, a letter took two to four weeks to arrive from Zambia. A letter from a government department could take months before an answer could be given. (U.S. government agencies take up to three months to reply.) So in normal circumstances, the response from Zambia should have taken between three and six months. Here we were told to provide documents within a month. Miracle of miracles, we received the necessary documents two days before the deadline. Lucky? No. Providence! We rejoiced as we took the documents to INS. Yes, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Ps. 30:5, NIV). We finally received letters for permanent residence in December 1995 and green cards in January 1996.

The Greatest Miracle

As we face the many challenges life brings, we should that God is a miracle worker. He is more powerful than cancer and immigration problems combined and that Jesus still performs miracles just as He did beside the sea. The greatest miracle is a changed life. He is more than able to give us new hearts. Our perplexities and anxieties are His opportunities. He works through people. All of us can pray for each other. Do you know people who are hurting? Pray for them and if possible, let them know. Do you know people who have a difficult situation? Pray for them. Pour your heart to such individuals and assist them where possible. My confidence in Jesus has grown in leaps and bounds. I know that the One who raised the dead to life would easily solve any problem I present to Him. Often we fix our minds on what is coming tomorrow and lose the essence of living today. Like Martha and Mary who lost their brother through death, our faith may sometimes falter and we may blame Jesus for delaying His coming to our rescue. We need to be constantly reminded that He is the reason for our being and that He will not let us down. He is our best friend. And that He always comes on time. The pain of our experiences may crush our spirit and the long and dreary days of waiting may dampen our spirit, but we should rest assured that Jesus is still in control. He is still able to solve all our problems. I have been through many valleys and storms that have made me learn to trust in Jesus even more. I know that there would be no mountain if there were no valleys. Besides, there is no mountain Jesus cannot move. All I need is to depend on His Word. Sometimes the path will be hard, long, and hazardous, but He is there. There is no problem He cannot solve. He leads me by His strong hand. I just need to follow Him. So, when we go through the fire and floods of life, amidst the trials and tribulations of this world, we should meditate upon God’s goodness. When storms of life assail or our hearts faint we should that there is no storm He cannot calm. Therefore, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure,

whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things” (Phil. 4:8). And “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (Eph. 3:2021).

Chapter 14 Broken Down Barriers

It was in the beautiful and fertile Valley of Shechem, in the hilly country of Ephraim in central Palestine, that a life was restored. According to archaeological excavations, Shechem and Sychar, a village where Jacob’s well was located “are part of the same ancient settlement.”¹ Major ancient trade routes and main highways converged in Shechem.² The valley was located between Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, the twin mountains that played an important role in Israel’s early history and the history of Samaritans since 700 B.C.³ Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal have been respectively called the Mount of Blessing and Mount of Cursing, because Joshua, after crossing the River Jordan, divided the people and placed one half before Mount Gerizim and the other half before Mount Ebal. He then pronounced blessings on those who kept the law from Mount Gerizim (Deut. 27:12) and cursings on breakers of the law from Mount Ebal (Deut. 11:29; Jos. 8:30-35). The altar was built on Mount Ebal (Jos. 8:30). The valley was the first place Abram (Abraham) visited in Palestine (Gen. 12:67). He pitched his first camp and built his first altar there. Later, when Jacob left Paddan-aram, he bought a piece of land from the sons of Hamor and settled there (Gen. 33:18-19). He also dug a well and later gave the property to his son Joseph (John 4:5). Joseph was buried in that valley (Jos. 24:32). The valley is still the best-watered valley in Palestine. Fed both by surface water and groundwater, the well was both a cistern and a spring of cool and refreshing water. To date, Samaritans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike, adore this spot.

An Appointment in Samaria

Jacob’s Well was located one-half mile south of Sychar, the city in which a

certain woman was hurting and was terribly discouraged. One day, Jesus and His disciples ed that way on their journey from Judea to Galilee. The Bible says, “He needed to go through Samaria” (John 4:4), implying this was a necessary trip in the ministry of Jesus. He needed to go through Samaria to encourage one of His children. So when His disciples left for the city to look for food, Jesus did not go with them. As soon as the disciples left for the city, “A woman of Samaria came to draw water” (verse 7). Jesus always arrives on time. But there was something wrong with the scenario. First, “It was about the sixth hour” (verse 6). It was unusual for anyone to go to the well at that time of the day. Second, it was unusual for a woman to go to the well alone. Women usually went to the well in groups. Three possible reasons exist why the woman went to the well at noon and alone. First, she was alienated from other women. Other ladies didn’t like her company and often ed rude remarks when she was around. Second, her life had been widely published. She couldn’t bear the anguish of everyone suddenly becoming quiet when she ed a group. Alone, she could avoid cynical and dirty looks. She therefore was greatly discouraged and was hurting. Third, she had a divine interlude and an uninterrupted appointment with her Messiah. The woman was very observant too. When she arrived, she realized He was a Jew. Determined not to speak to Him, she made no eye and ed no pleasantries. She was not in any mood to talk to a total stranger, and a Jew for that matter. She hurriedly drew the water and was just about to put the water pot on her head when she heard Him speak in the most melodic voice, “Give Me a drink” (verse 7). The woman was taken aback. She “said to Him, ‘How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?’ For the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans” (verse 9). Call her brunt and prejudiced, but the woman was not ready to accommodate a request from a stranger from a rival ethnic group. Jesus said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (verse 10). She sneered, “You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us

the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” (verses 11-12). Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks that water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (verses 13-14). Today,

He who seeks to quench his thirst at the fountains of this world will drink only to thirst again. Everywhere men are unsatisfied. They long for something to supply the need of the soul. Only One can meet that want. The need of the world, “The Desire of all nations,” is Christ. The divine grace which He alone can impart, is as living water, purifying, refreshing, and invigorating the soul.⁴

Thinking of the prospects of drinking water that would last forever, or make her to never again take that lonesome trip to the well, she answered, “Sir, give me this water, that I may never thirst, nor come here to draw” (verse 15).

Confronting Oneself

There was a bigger problem Jesus wanted the woman to address before they could proceed further in the conversation. He asked her to go and call her husband (verse 16). ing the teaching on marriage and knowing that she was only civilly and not biblically married, she replied, “I have no husband” (verse 17). Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly” (verses 17-18).

Instantly, she realized that the stranger knew her better than she thought He did. How did He know those intimate and personal secrets? Why did she feel so comfortable around Him in spite of His knowledge about her? Although He did not condone her situation, He treated her with respect, dignity, and concern. He did not condemn her either. She detected no hidden agenda of coming back later. She was not used to that kind of treatment. She responded, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship” (verses 19-20). Jesus tactfully brought the discussion back to her. She sensed that He could be the Messiah she had been looking forward to meeting. Although His physical appearance meant nothing to her, His words were penetrating her spirit. She had been touched by His words. She realized her ethnicity could not block God’s love and transforming grace. She saw that love had no color, size, or shape. So did joy, honor, hope, and peace. She answered, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things” (verse 25). “Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He’” (verse 26). At that time, the disciples returned. They were surprised to find the two talking, but they did not question or interfere with the conversation. They had ed her on their way into the city. They wanted Jesus to eat, but He could not eat right then. He talked with the woman some more. The woman, filled with unspeakable joy she could not hide or keep to herself left the water pot and rushed to the city. She forgot about why she had gone to the well. She also forgot about the stranger’s need of water. With a heart full of gladness, she went into the village and invited the men to “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (verse 29). These words touched their hearts and struck a cord among those who heard her. They saw an exuberance and joy they had never seen in her before. She literally sparkled. They became curious and interested in meeting this Man. So, men, women, and children “went out of the city and came to [Jesus]” (verse 30). After listening to Him, “many… believed in Him because of the word of the woman” (verse 39). They urged Jesus to stay and for the next two days He taught them. And when they heard Jesus, many more believed (verses 40, 41). “Then they said to the woman, ‘Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world’” (verse 42, emphasis supplied).

Jesus’ Greatest Invitation

This story has value for people living in the 21st century. First, Jesus invites us, saying, “Come! And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely” (Rev. 22:17). He calls out, “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isa. 55:1). He promises, “I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts” (Rev. 21:6). The woman looking for the Messiah found Him at the well. In a very brief encounter, Jesus taught her that God was interested in relationships with His people. He showed her that all could claim and enjoy the fullness of God’s favor. She realized that life was more than water and food, and that irrespective of our station in life or how sinful we might be, Jesus is interested in us. Many of us have been seeking for things that do not satisfy, drinking from intermittent creeks and rivers. Jesus invites us to draw water from the Spring that will never run dry. He is that Spring of Living Water. As He provided for that woman at the well, Jesus desires to give those who are willing to accept His invitation, His undivided attention. It doesn’t matter where one comes from. Talking with the woman, “Jesus had begun to break down the partition wall between Jew and Gentile, and to preach salvation to the world. Though He was a Jew, He mingled freely with the Samaritans, setting as nought the Pharisaic customs of His nation. In the face of their prejudices He accepted the hospitality of this despised people.”⁵

Jesus Cares

Third, Jesus cares about me. He sees my problems before they happen. I am comforted to know that He loves me and desires only the good for me. In spite of His busy schedule of holding the world in His hands, listening to every

petition, and attending to every need, He is never too busy for me. He cares when the burdens press, cares distress, and the way grows dreary and long. Sometimes I feel He takes too long to by the well of my life. I often complain to Him about my problems, forgetting that Jesus is bigger than all my problems combined. As Jesus knew the intimate details of the woman’s life, He knows details of my life. Not to use the information to hurt me, or use it against me, but to rescue me from the bondage of sin. He knows my address. Jesus knows my name. He always assures me that I am His and He is mine. He tells me I matter to Him. What troubles me troubles Him. Yes,

Jesus knows us individually and is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He knows us all by name. He knows the very house in which we live, the name of each occupant. He has at times given directions to His servants to go to a certain street in a certain city, to such a house, to find His sheep. Every soul is as fully known to Jesus as if he were the only one for whom the Savior died. The distress of every one touches His heart. The cry for aid reaches His ear.

Time for Invitation

Fourth, the invitation is still open. I should accept His invitation to His salvation and invite others to drink from the Spring of Living Water. Like the woman at the well, I can invite others to “Come, see a Man who knows I am a profligate and yet walks with me, and talks with me, and tells me I am His own.” “Come, see a Man who paid the penalty for our sins.” “Come, meet my Messiah, your Savior!” The best news is that:

As the woman talked with Jesus, she was impressed with His words. Never had she heard such sentiments from the priests of her own people or from the Jews.

As the past of her life had been spread out before her, she had been made sensible of her great want. She realized her soul thirst, which the waters of the well of Sychar could not satisfy. Nothing that had hitherto come in with her had so awakened her to a higher need. Jesus had convinced her that He read the secrets of her life; yet she felt that He was her friend, pitying and loving her. While the very purity of His presence condemned her sin, He had spoken no word of denunciation, but had told her of His grace, that could renew the soul. She began to have some conviction of His character.⁷

Like the woman at the well, anyone who comes to Jesus will go out rejoicing. The woman went to the well sorrowful; she returned home happy. She went to the well brokenhearted; she went back home healed. She went to the well thirsty; she went back home satisfied. She came to the well dirty; she went back home clean. She came to the well with an empty life; she went back home with an abundant and overflowing life. She came to the well alone; she went back home with the whole city behind her. She went to draw water from Jacob’s well; she ended up drawing it from the Spring of Living Water. The world is observing God’s people for guidance and hope. “Our influence upon others depends not so much upon what we say as upon what we are. Men may combat and defy our logic, they may resist our appeals; but a life of disinterested love is an argument they cannot gainsay. A consistent life, characterized by the meekness of Christ, is a power in the world.”⁸

He Still Searches for His Own

Only in Christianity do we find a God who seeks for His wayward children. Jesus ed through Samaria to build a bridge between men and women, and between Jews and Samaritans. The bridge is now open to all who believe in Christ. He comes down to us to meet us at the greatest moment of need. Jesus had to go through Samaria because someone was hurting. He who had left the splendor of heaven es everywhere someone is hurting. Let us give Him our burdens, sorrows, and heartaches. There is no sorrow He cannot soothe. There is no burden He cannot lift. There is no headache He cannot heal. His love is

higher than the highest mountain, deeper than the deepest sea, and wider than the universe itself. The best news is that, “No circumstance of birth or nationality, no condition of life, can turn away His love from the children of men. To every soul, however sinful, Jesus says, If thou hadst asked of Me, I would have given thee living water.” In times like these we need to know that Jesus is merciful, kind, and loving. He is very patient. It is important to know that someday soon, He will return to take His people home. I believe the woman at the well will be there. I want to meet and talk with her. But more importantly, I yearn to meet with my Lord, Redeemer, and King face to face and hear Him say, “Welcome home, My precious, precious child. This is the place I’ve prepared for you. Enjoy it.”

Endnotes

1. Steve Bond, “Sychar,” Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, Tennessee: Holman Reference, 2003), 1543. 2. Rich Murrell, “Shechem,” Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, Tennessee: Holman Reference, 2003), 1478. 3. G. Frederick Owen, “Archaeological Supplement” The Thompson ChainReference Bible, New International Version (Indianapolis, Indiana: B.B. Kirkbride Bible Co., Inc., 1983), 1660. 4. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages. (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 187. 5. Ibid., 193. 6. Ibid., 479-480. 7. Ibid., 189-190. 8. Ibid., 142.

9. Ibid., 194.

Chapter 15 Amazing Grace

If you were asked to describe love to someone, how would you describe it? What does love look like? What is its color? Does it have a face, a heart, or an arm? Does it have eyes to see or ears to hear? What does it mean to love another person? With so many problems in our world today, many people feel unloved. As I begin to write this chapter, our oldest son and third born, Mwenya, thinks we don’t love him. He says we pick on him too much. Nothing can be farther from the truth. We love him more than he will ever know. In fact, we love Mwenya to death although he doesn’t see it that way. We tell him that; but he doesn’t believe us. As a family we have struggled with his choices—choices concerning his friends, education, and career. He is simply drifting along in this ocean of life, without a purpose. In my humble opinion, he’s headed and going nowhere in particular. He has made so many poor choices in his young life, including not listening to us, that I am worried about the future of the world if other parents are struggling with similar problems. On second thoughts, I wonder whether or not my parents thought the same thing about my generation as I feel about our next generation. Most of the parents tell me that they are struggling with similar issues. We realize that in spite of our challenges, God is in still in control and He is in the business of transforming lives. The good news is that God changes people and we believe our young ones are just ing through a difficult phase in their human development continuum. This phase will and our children will turn around. I believe that, but I ask: How long, Lord, will we have to wait for that time to come? Why can’t that time be now? I impatiently ask as I wait. We love Mwenya a lot. My wife, Grace, has an incomprehensible capacity for love for our children. Absolutely nothing comes between the children and her. She protects them like a lioness protects her cubs. If I could venture guessing, she has a softer touch for Mwenya than she has for Chongo, Mulenga, Kangwa, or Lombe (Mwenya’s siblings). She literally makes him get away with a lot of

stuff. Dealing with Mwenya has given me a glimpse of God’s amazing grace. How does God deal with billions of problems every nanosecond? In spite of all our problems He still loves us with everlasting love. Unconditionally. We’re precious in His sight. What a God! No wonder He looks forward to that day all life as we know it will cease, and all God’s children will dwell together in perfect harmony and genuine love.

Unconditional Love

Love requires the one doing the loving to do so unconditionally. Our son often goes contrary to our teachings and expectations. I know times have changed. I grew up in the days when the elders were obeyed, irrespective of what the young people thought or wanted to do. I often reminisce about that experience. Most often I feel that was the best thing that happened to young people growing up. They did what older folks told them. I couldn’t wait to grow up. Now that I am older, I know that growing up is not what it has been built to be. It comes with too many responsibilities and frustrations. But those days in which I was raised were different. My father did not have to raise his voice or even speak a word. One request and one look were enough instructions. He rarely repeated what he had just said more than twice. He was loving, kind, and did everything for our comfort, and you just wanted to do what he asked you to do. Our son seems to be oblivious to our teachings. He has broken curfew without explanations. He doesn’t think doing reasonably well in school is important. He has not followed specific instructions regarding being grounded. He continues to stretch the limits of our parenthood, and yet doesn’t understand why he constantly faces more and more restrictions. How different are we when it comes to things eternal? How often do we listen to God and do what He wants us to do? Don’t we have our own minds made up when we ask Him for specific things, and yet pray that His will be done? I often wonder: Does God give us children in order for us to taste our own medicine of rebelliousness?

There is a difference between God and I. God is so forgiving. I am not that forgiving. It doesn’t matter the number of times I have fallen to my face, asking for forgiveness, He has always forgiven me. He still loves me. He loves me when I question His authority. He loves me when with impunity I scorn His love. He does not erase the consequences of my sins but He still loves me all the same. He tells me His laws are for my protection. When all will be said and done; when time will come for sin to be destroyed; my living or not living with my Creator will depend on the choices I make today. His ways are the best. He desires that I stay close to Him, and do what pleases Him.

What Is Love?

Love is not an abstraction. Love is a Person. You can touch Him because love is Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches us, saying, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8). Scriptures are clear: we cannot claim to love God while we hate His creation. We ought to love one another. To understand love, one has to study Jesus and how He treated people. He treated everybody with the same dignity and care. Humans tend to ask: How do you love someone who doesn’t return your love? Isn’t love reciprocal? One turn deserving another? Isn’t love rewarded with love? To every action of love, isn’t there a reciprocal and equal reaction of love? We tend to think that love is conditional. It is only in Christ’s kingdom that we find unconditional love, affection, and forgiveness. In Jesus’ kingdom we find love that extends beyond friends and embraces enemies. One day, we were discussing the dimensions of love when a certain lady stated, “I don’t understand what people mean by love. All I’ve known in my life is dishonesty, hurt, and abuse.” She did not elaborate but explained that as a result of her experience, she found it difficult to trust or love others. She did not feel like trusting anybody again. “So, don’t talk to me about love,” she emphatically stated. We told her to try Jesus. We shared information about the Creator who loved and

died for her. We talked about a Savior whom the very people He came to save hated and abused. He had been where she had been. We studied about the Son of God who spoke like no person that ever lived. We assured her that He intimately and ionately knew her situation and loved her and invited her to lay her burdens on Him. We pointed her to Matthew 11:28-30, where Jesus invited her saying, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden light.” She did (not immediately), and what a joy came to her! Her life turned around. Her countenance beamed with a brightness she had not displayed before. She ended up marrying a preacher. Her joy in the Lord now bubbles over; all because of God who revealed Himself to humans through His Son. Jesus wants us to spread this sweet influence to others. Freely we have received forgiveness, and freely He asks us to dispense it to everyone, especially to those around us. Love is forgiving. Forgiveness is easier said than done. How do you love someone who has hurt you or your family? And yet Jesus instructed His disciples to pray, saying, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt. 6:12, NIV). Forgiveness is one of the most important ingredients in fulfilled lives. Forgiveness brings healing. Once you forgive someone the anger that may be eating you inside out is taken away. We know that “The single most powerful principle in emotional healing is forgiveness. When we have been deeply hurt by someone else, our emotions are damaged. Our ability to trust is destroyed. Our security is shattered. Forgiveness is God’s balm for broken hearts.”¹ Ultimate love is expressed in loving enemies. It is easy to love our friends or those we don’t know. Love means loving someone who doesn’t deserve your love. While hanging on the cross Jesus prayed for those who were nailing Him to the wooden tree, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34). Love is taking care of someone else’s burden. Jesus took our penalty. Because of the oppressive nature of the devil, many of us carry burdens we shouldn’t be carrying. When doubts and discouragement come, God’s promises do not seem to make sense until we let go, and trust Jesus. I have been there many times when I have seemed to carry the weight of the whole world on my

small shoulders. God seems to be too far away when I have been sandwiched between a rock and a hard place. Like the children of Israel at the Red Sea, mountains have suddenly appeared on both my right and left sides, the Red Sea has arisen in front of me, while the rampaging Egyptian army has lurked too close behind me. Obviously, the only logical option has been to look up to the Lord where my salvation has always come. In those circumstances, God has taught me that He can still be trusted. God does not require me to bear any burdens at all. He invites me to lay them down on His mighty shoulders. I need to stop and hear Jesus say, “Weary pilgrim, come and rest a while. I will give you rest. I have forgiven you and will give you power to overcome sin. Just relax and trust Me. Come to Me.” God’s plan for us to cope with life is easy. He wants us to take our yokes and learn from Him. Our modern world can make one very frantic. Evil has multiplied and we are so familiar with evil that nothing seems to shock us any more. How could God tolerate this much evil? Why can’t He come and put an end to this misery? We often ask. But then I ask myself, Am I not being too selfish to ask such a question? Where would I be if God had decided to come before I became a Christian? Besides, He will come in his own time. And He never comes late.

Marvelous Grace

God taught me a lesson I’ll never forget when I visited a corrections facility in Lexington, Oklahoma. For several years, I taught a class using a talk-backtelevision format—an earlier version of long distance learning technology. Talkback-television meant that I could teach a class at the main campus of Langston University and students in other areas from around the nation (but especially within Oklahoma) could take the class in a place near them where the class was beamed. The technology allowed them to see me and for us to talk back to each other. So, they could ask questions and I would answer those questions. However, I did not see them. Once or twice a semester I would visit the facility to assist the students with particular problems they had, especially the work related to their research.

The inmates were very intelligent based on their questions, class performance, and conversations I had with them. They performed better as a group and as individuals than the students I had physical interaction with in the classroom at the main campus. They were very articulate too. I became curious and asked them why they did so well in class. They told me that they had all the time to study and review the materials. They taped the classes and studied in a group, helping each other. Why didn’t the other students do so? What touched me most was the story of one inmate who was incarcerated for life and yet was determined to earn a Ph.D., fully knowing he will never use that degree. My brain went on fast forward when I first learned about his ambition. He was not alone. Others were equally eager to earn their degrees. Reflecting on the whole experience, I wondered why those intelligent people were in prison. I asked myself: Why can’t they use their intelligence to get out of there? Better still, why didn’t they use that intelligence not to do whatever brought them to prison? One day when the coordinator gave me a quick tour of the facility, I made a statement that I shouldn’t have made, but which in a way I am glad I made, for the purpose of illustrating my point. I asked my hostess, “Why are such brilliant and intelligent people incarcerated?” Her answer disarmed me and I often think about it. She replied, “Chongo, everyday I see them I thank God because it could be me. I am not different from them. It’s only by the mercies of God that I am not one of them, right now.” She was right. We are not different. We are all guilty because we have squandered God’s love. But God is gracious. We are the beneficiaries of love we do not deserve. If we are intelligent people, why are we still under the bondage of the evil one and not under the leadership of Jesus? Why is it that we choose slavery to sin over freedom from it? How come we all don’t worship our Creator and Redeemer? If we are so intelligent, why don’t we use it and run to Jesus? He is the only one who has our interests at heart. Thank God, I am free. I am free from the guilt of sin because Jesus took my place when I was condemned to die. Thank God for His salvation. I am glad to know that it’s because of His infinite grace that I am not consumed. We tend to forget that, “Grace is not sought nor bought nor wrought. It is a free gift of Almighty God to needy mankind.”² And that,

No matter what our situation in life may be, we all carry a load of cares. Jesus offers us a life, not without cares, but without the added burden of worrying about them. He tries to tell us that He loves us so much, loves us individually, that He will go ahead of us. He’ll lead us through this life and to our eternal home with Him.³

It is because Jesus died that I am alive today. It is because of His marvelous grace that I can face tomorrow. My future is secure because He holds tomorrow. Grace is unmerited favor. It means God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Grace lifts us up, wretched as we might be. “Without grace, the whole world would be like pawns in evil’s hand. Without grace, not one person would honor God. Without grace, every vestige of beauty, truth, and nobility would vanish.”⁴ Yes:

It is the grace that Christ implants in the soul which creates in man enmity against Satan. Without this converting grace and renewing power, man would continue the captive of Satan, a servant ever ready to do his bidding. But the new principle in the soul creates conflict where hitherto had been peace. The power which Christ imparts enables man to resist the tyrant and usurper. Whoever is seen to abhor sin instead of loving it, whoever resists and conquers those ions that have held sway within, displays the operation of a principle wholly from above.⁵

An Amazing Grace

God works through people. I began this chapter talking about my wife. She is as gracious as she is precious. She has taught me many things about grace that I would never have learned had we not been married together. We have different outlooks on life. She is as unpredictable as I am predictable. Just when I think I know her, she surprises me with something new. She has a keen interest in knowing many things about the lives of people she visits with—whether it is at

church, work, or any other place of interaction. She will begin to reveal intimate things about someone she met for just after a few minutes. She should have been a psychologist. I often ask her, “Why do you want to know so much about her?” “Oh! She told me.” “Is this all you talk about when you meet people? Can’t you talk about something else?” I’d ask. I wonder what she tells them about our family. But isn’t that what life is all about? How can I assist someone if I don’t know the problems he or she is facing? My wife gets to know the problems. All I can say is more power to her. Having been married for over thirty-two years, I have come to appreciate her individuality. I am still figuring out what marriage is all about. One day, it dawned on me that both of us were God’s candidates for heaven. If she was going to be in heaven, to which by the grace of God, I am also bound, I needed to have a different outlook and perspective towards her, and everybody else. I needed to love her for who she was in God’s sight. Didn’t I choose her among all the women in the world? Didn’t Jesus die for her? Since then, life has been much easier and sweeter for me. It is true, how can we say we love God, whom we haven’t seen, if we don’t love the people around us; the people we see every day? How can we claim to be God’s ambassadors if we are poor representatives in our homes? How can we comfortably claim to be Christians if we don’t live as Christ lived? He loved and loves people. If God loves everyone and if everyone is precious in His sight, then as a Christian, I have no choice but love everyone. This statement does not imply that I should agree with everything and everyone. I know some people are harder to love than others, but I have no choice because everyone is a child of God. Everyone includes those who are difficult, loving, and stubborn. And loving each other is a test of discipleship. Jesus says that people will know that we are His disciples if they see us loving each other (John 13:35). In case we forget, love is a Person. When people ask me to describe love, I point them to Jesus. In Him perfect love is manifested. He harbored no malice towards anybody including those He knew were going to murder Him. His love is amazing. His love is incredible. His forgiveness is perfect. He is an amazing God.

As I conclude this chapter, several years later, I am glad to report that God is awesome. Mwenya is now a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. His life has been transformed for the better. Sometimes I wonder if it is the same son I agonized about earlier. The future is bright, not necessarily because of our son, but because God is in control.

Endnotes

1. Mark Finley, Solid Ground (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2003), 44. 2. Billy Graham, Quoted in Tony Castle, A Treasury of Christian Wisdom (London: Hodder & Houghton, 2001), 102. 3. William G. Johnsson, Glimpses of Grace: Scenes from My Journey (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2001), 114. 4. Ibid., 121. 5. Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1941), 506.

Chapter 16 No More Condemnation

God’s grace is so wonderful that humans cannot fully understand or explain it and is so awesome that they cannot fully appreciate it. God, in His infinite and matchless mercy, forgives sinners. This grace is wonderfully illustrated in the story about a beautiful woman the religious people used while trying to get Jesus into trouble. It all began with an idea the chief high priests, scribes, and Pharisees concocted to silence Jesus forever because He claimed to be the Messiah. To them, that was blasphemy. The major problem was that many people followed Jesus. The Sadducees were unhappy with Him because He taught that a resurrection from the dead was not only possible, contrary to their teaching, but that He was the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). Didn’t He know that there was no life after death? Surprisingly, the residents of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee were getting intoxicated with His strange and dangerous teachings. Besides, when the Messiah would come, they claimed they would be the first people to know. They were God’s messengers. Didn’t these people know that the Messiah could not come from Nazareth, “a place of [no] prominence until its association with Jesus”?¹ During the time of Jesus, it was a small village nestled in the hilly area north of the Plain of Esdraelon, between the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea. “The hills formed a natural basin with three sides but open toward the south. The city was on the slopes of the basin, facing east and southeast.”² Nazareth didn’t have a good reputation (John 1:46). Because the religious leaders were not happy with Jesus, one night they had a brilliant idea that would put Him in trouble with either the Jewish leaders and/or the Roman authority. They planned it so well that early one morning when Jesus was in the middle of His teaching, there was a sudden commotion. “A group of Pharisees and scribes approached Him, dragging with them a terror-stricken woman, whom with hard, eager voices they accused of having violated the seventh commandment.”³ With a hypocritical show of respect, “when they had set her in the midst, they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in

adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?’” (John 8:3-5). They had carefully crafted their question. If Jesus said the woman should be stoned, He would be breaking the Roman law. They would report Him to the Roman authority because only the Roman leaders could put anyone to death. On the other hand, if Jesus said they should not stone her, they would accuse Him of breaking the law of Moses. Moses had commanded that anyone who committed adultery had to be stoned to death (Lev. 20:10). The leaders knew they had finally put Jesus just where they wanted Him to be. Nobody broke their laws and went unpunished. Of course,

Their pretended reverence veiled a deep-laid plot for His ruin. They had seized upon this opportunity to secure His condemnation, thinking that whatever decision He might make, they would find occasion to accuse Him. Should He acquit the woman, He might be charged with despising the law of Moses. Should He declare her worthy of death, He could be accused to the Romans as one who was assuming authority that belonged only to them.⁴

According to John 8:6-8,

This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as if He did not hear them. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”

And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. The accused woman knew her death sentence had just been pronounced. Being surrounded by so many holy people, she closed her eyes, made a short prayer, and waited for the first stone to

hit her. The woman didn’t know what Jesus knew. “He read the heart, and knew the character and life history of everyone in His presence. These would-be guardians of justice had themselves led their victim into sin that they might lay a snare for Jesus.”⁵ She waited and no one dared throw any stone. The people grew impatient and wanted some action. Wanting to know what Jesus had written, they pressed forward, one at a time. Now it was their time to tremble in case their sins were revealed to everyone else. Instead of the accused, they themselves stood accused, guilty, and condemned. They retreated away from her presence. “There, traced before them, were the guilty secrets of their own lives.” As they looked at the words He had written, they all were “convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst” (verse 9).

No More Condemnation

I imagine the woman shaking, probably ashamed for the first time for the life she had led. Wasn’t she the chief of sinners who had just been pardoned? Hadn’t she just experienced a near-death experience? Expecting to be stoned to death, she found herself standing alone before her Savior. The people, now standing at a distance, trying to figure out what had just happened, keenly watched to see what Jesus would do. If He was sinless as He claimed to be, then He should stone her. Were they mistaken! He had come to save not to destroy life. “When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accs of yours? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more’” (verses 10-12). “Neither do I condemn you.” These are the sweetest words spoken to a sinner. “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 8:1).

Sinners Need a Savior

How could that be? First, we are all sinners in need of a Savior. “For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:2224). Christ is the Great Equalizer. We all are the same before Him, and are saved the same way, by the blood of the Lamb of God. We are not, and cannot, be saved by the law. We are saved only by the merits of Christ. Why is it that the strictest law teachers didn’t stone the woman? It is because they too were convicted of their own sins. They could not stone a woman when their sins condemned them. Human nature dictates that we can observe sin in another person’s life when ours is equally bad, if not worse. My father used to say, “When you point a finger at someone, always there are three fingers pointing right back at you. Now, who is worse—the one with one finger or the one with three fingers pointing at him?” He would conclude, “If you think you’re better than others, it’s because you haven’t looked at the Savior lately.” Two individuals were caught in the very act that day. In fact, the woman was set up by the very people who brought her to Jesus. Weren’t they just as guilty as she was? My former room mate, Dr. Rida Shibli from Jordan, used to say that in the Middle East, adultery was very difficult to prove because proof required at least two eyewitnesses. So those who set the woman up had to be there to witness the very act. The law of Moses required that both adulterers be stoned. In fact, “It was the husband’s duty to take action against her, and the guilty parties were to be punished equally.”⁷ Where was the man? Was the law of Moses not applicable to him? Were the leaders justified in bringing only one party to Jesus?

Salvation Is Free

Second, as important as the law is, we break its precepts every day. Instead of killing us, because that was, and still is, the penalty for sin (Rom. 6:23), Jesus gives us a break because He came and kept it on our behalf. On the cross He died the death we deserved so that we in turn could not die. He was the only person who never committed sin. Am I suggesting that the law is not important

any more? No, but there are many motives for keeping it. The Pharisees and scribes were startled when Jesus asked them, “Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law?” (John 7:19). They were surprised because they thought that they were doing a great job in keeping the law until Jesus told them they weren’t. We may be very good at doing good things, and still miss heaven. Salvation comes through the belief in Christ Jesus. It is impossible to reach heaven without Him. Also, we cannot reach heaven by keeping the law. Our excellent works will never atone for a single sin. The atonement was made two thousand years ago when the Son of God died in our behalf. Therefore, when we accept Jesus, our lives are transformed by Christ who then fits us for heaven. As good and holy as the law is, it will never save anyone. But does this mean that we go break the law since we cannot keep it? To the contrary! The law reflects God’s character. We should uphold and establish it (Rom. 3:31). Jesus told the woman to go and sin no more. She had to live a new obedient life, and yet obedience was not the root of her redemption. She was already forgiven. All she needed to do from that time onward was to walk in the newness of life. Obedience was necessary because it “is the indispensable fruit that bears evidence of genuine conversion.”⁸ One cannot be saved and still live in the old ways. A new life comes with obedience to the precepts God has placed before His people. We should therefore know the difference. The Scribes and Pharisees were trying to earn their way to God by keeping the law. That was a wrong motive. We keep the law because we have been saved. That is the difference. The law is not only holy, it is also righteous and good (Rom. 7:12). The law shows us our defects and points us to the One who forgives and saves sinners. Jesus told the woman to go and sin no more because she could not be saved without obedience. Christ was going to work in her so that she could do of His good pleasure, what she could not do on her own.

In His act of pardoning this woman and encouraging her to live a better life, the character of Jesus shines forth in the beauty of perfect righteousness. While He does not palliate sin, nor lessen the sense of guilt, He seeks not to condemn, but to save. The world had for this erring woman only contempt and scorn; but Jesus

speaks words of comfort and hope. The Sinless One pities the weakness of the sinner, and reaches to her a helping hand.

God’s Love Is Amazing

Third, God’s love and forgiveness are beyond compare. God loves us all. He loves us unconditionally. Including the chief of sinners, bold, beautiful, small, big, dumb, ugly, young, restless, filthy rich, poor, old, educated, uneducated, famous, or nonentities. If Jesus could save a woman like that, I know He can save me too. Not because I am better than her, but because His grace is sufficient for both of us. When Jesus comes into one’s life, He replaces despair with hope, removes stony hearts and replaces them with new pliable hearts, takes the old directionless lives and gives them purpose, and replaces death with everlasting life. As humans, we enjoy shooting the wounded and adding salt to injury. We hate the sinner and love the sin. Christ is different. He hates the sin but loves the sinner. He is always slow to censure, quick to discern penitence, ready to forgive sins, and eager to set the captives free. He always looks for the interests of others. He sees the potential of what they would become—forgiven sons and daughters of God—fully rejoicing in His sunshine of love. Later, Jesus was led to Calvary. The woman went there too. She saw Him nailed to a rugged cross, hanging between two criminals and between heaven and earth. His hands and feet spiked to the tree. There, she identified herself with the two thieves. She saw nails lacerate His body. His side was pierced for her transgressions. She saw people mock and hit Him. Her heart pounded as people spat on her Savior. Then He died, not because of His sins, but because of her sins. He died for her, for you, and for me. Why? Because He loved us so much that He was willing to go through that gruesome and painful death. By His stripes we are healed (Isa. 53:5). After that death no one has the right to condemn us, because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who are called according to His promise (Rom. 8:1).

The Greatest Invitation

Human redemption requires the blood of Jesus because where there is no shedding of blood, there is no redemption (Heb. 9:22). Yes, there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins. Sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. It is our privilege to go to that fountain for cleansing because there is power in the blood of the Lamb to cleanse us from all our unrighteousness. All it takes is faith in God and His Son. God the Holy Spirit does the rest. The best news is that the grave is empty. Jesus did not only die, He rose from the grave and returned to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God. He is coming back. Now is the time to call on His name and be saved. No one that ever called on Him was left unanswered. No one stands before Him condemned. No sin is too large, too gross, or too bad that He cannot forgive. God says, “Come now, and let us reason together, . . . though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land” (Isa. 1:18-19). Therefore, let us come to the throne of mercy with confidence. Let us come to the cross, kneel down, and look into the face of the One who took our sins and bore our sorrows. When the world will judge us Jesus will uphold and defend us. There can’t be any more assuring words than the ones Jesus spoke one night, when He declared, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:1718).

Endnotes

1. Jerry W. Batson, “Nazareth, Nazarene.” Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, Tennessee: Holman Reference, 2003), 1177.

2. Ibid. 3. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 460. 4. Ibid., 460-461. 5. Ibid., 461. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Brian D. Jones, His Wondrous Cross. The Story of Our Redemption (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 2004), 92. 9. White, The Desire of Ages, 461.

Chapter 17 As Jesus es By

During the first century A.D., Jews believed that sin was punished in this life, and that sin brought suffering on the persons who had committed the sin or on their children. Thus, when individuals became ill, they wondered about what they or their parents must have done to offend God, and for Him to punish them in such a manner. Consequently, people usually blamed the victims who in turn blamed themselves or their parents for suffering. The cycle of guilt and self-pity ran wild and rampant on the sufferers and their families. There are some people living today who believe like the early Jews believed. They think that their suffering is a direct punishment from God. The truth is far from this assertion. Yes, suffering is a result of sin, but not in the same sense as the first century Jews understood it. Suffering was, and still is, the result of sin the devil engineered, but who in turn worked very hard to make the people blame suffering on the victim, and ultimately on God. The Scriptures reveal why suffering exists. “Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God,—as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on of sin. Hence one upon whom some great affliction or calamity had fallen had the additional burden of being regarded as a great sinner.”¹ Jesus never taught that suffering came to people who deserved it. “Not once did Jesus counsel someone to accept suffering as God’s will, rather he went about healing illness and disability.”² The story of a blind man is a prime illustration of such thinking. It is written:

Now as Jesus ed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:1-5).

When the disciples saw the blind man they knew someone was to blame for him being born blind. Logically, either the parents or the man himself must have sinned. Sometimes I chuckle when I read this statement. How bad can you be, that you actively commit sin even before you are born, right in your mother’s womb? Something to think about, isn’t it? The Bible states that all of us are sinners. Yes, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). In fact, God may pronounce a curse to the third and fourth generations. In this sense, everyone was and is a sinner. As has been mentioned many times already, we tend to forget that we all fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:22-23). But the good news is that we all are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (verse 24). His grace is sufficient to cover our sins. All of our sins. The disciples learnt something new that day. “Instead of condemning him, Jesus called his blindness an opportunity for God to work in his life. The man’s darkness [was] a door to God’s light.”³ Jesus told His disciples that the man was born blind not because of his personal or parents’ sins, but because God’s glory was going to be demonstrated through him. When the man heard that statement, he was the first person to be surprised because all the days of his life he had been told and led to believe that God was punishing him because either his parents, he himself, or both had sinned. Had he heard the man correctly? How he wished he could see the kind person who had made that statement! Alas, he was blind and couldn’t see Him. Before the man could utter a word, Jesus spat on the ground, made clay with His saliva, and smeared the clay on the eyes of the blind man (John 9:6). I am glad the man was blind and didn’t see what Jesus did or he might have refused that medication. Jesus told him to “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (verse 7). Notice, the man didn’t ask Jesus for anything, and yet Jesus ed that way to relieve him from suffering. The blind man received his heart’s desire—new eyes. Jesus knew the man’s desire before he spoke. That’s God! He has promised that He will come to our aid even before we know we have a problem. He says, “It shall come to that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.” (Isa. 65:24).

Unhappy Council

When the man went and washed in the pool called “Sent”, he received his sight and became a brand new person. His neighbors didn’t even recognize him because “when his eyes were opened, his countenance was changed and brightened, and he appeared like another man.”⁴ They asked among themselves, “‘Is not this he who sat and begged?’ Some said, ‘This is he.’ Others said, ‘He is like him.’ He said, ‘I am he.’ Therefore they said to him, ‘How were your eyes opened?’” (John 9: 8-10). The man told them a man called Jesus had healed him. They asked him where they could find Him. He didn’t know. They took him to the Pharisees who wanted to know what had transpired on that Sabbath day. According to their teaching the Sabbath was a day reserved for worship, not for healing (John 9:14). When the man told them what had happened, “some of the Pharisees said, ‘This Man [Jesus] is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath’” (verse 16). Why? Because,

The Pharisees hoped to make Jesus out to be a sinner, and therefore not the Messiah. They knew not that it was He who had made the Sabbath and knew all its obligations, who had healed the blind man. They appeared wonderfully zealous for the observance of the Sabbath, yet were planning murder on that very day.⁵

Then a split occurred among the Pharisees. Some felt Jesus was a sinner. Others asked, “‘How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?’ And there was a division among them. They said to the blind man again, ‘What do you say about Him because He opened your eyes?’ He said, ‘He is a prophet’” (verses 16-17). They didn’t want to hear that answer either. They asked him several times about it, hoping he would change his story, but the man gave them the same answer each time and many people came to believe Jesus because of his testimony. The

facts of the case were compelling. If the Pharisees’ reasoning could be followed logically, whoever cured people in the way Jesus did would not be a sinner. Anyone who relieved people from suffering would never be a sinner. The Pharisees couldn’t deny that a miracle had happened. They just didn’t believe Jesus had healed him or that he was born blind. So they called his parents and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he see?” (verse 19). Wasn’t it enough for them to believe the healed man who was standing right before them? No, his testimony wasn’t enough. “The Pharisees would rather deny the evidence of their own senses than it that they were in error. So powerful is prejudice, so distorting is Pharisaical righteousness.” They called the parents to prove the healing was a fraud. Fearing the Pharisees, the parents didn’t say anything to their son’s healing. They missed the greatest opportunity to witness for God. Why? Because the Pharisees had barred people from confessing that Jesus was the Christ. Anyone who confessed Christ Jesus would be put out of the synagogue (verse 22). No family wanted to go through that experience because during that time, “no child could be circumcised nor dead lamented in the offender’s home. The sentence was regarded as a great calamity; and if it failed to produce repentance, a far heavier penalty followed.”⁷ The parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but by what means he now sees we do not know, or who opened his eyes we do not know. He is of age; ask him. He will speak for himself” (verses 20-21). The Pharisees were not satisfied with that answer either. They called the man again and advised him to “Give God the glory! We know this Man is a sinner” (verse 24). He answered, “Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see” (verse 25). That was a profound answer. The devil can try to discourage you from believing what you believe and in whom you believe. But he can’t steal your confidence in whom you believe. He can even point to specific sins. If you have confessed them to the Savior, tell him to leave you alone. Your sins are covered by Jesus’ blood. That’s what counts. As the once blind man said, “I don’t know much about this Man Jesus. I don’t know whether He is a sinner or not. You believe

what you want to believe. One thing I know for sure is that I was blind but now I can see.” Few people could argue with him on that point because he was a living proof of Jesus’ healing power. He was talking about his personal experience. He clearly saw that Jesus was the true God of Israel while the “seeing” Pharisees became more blind to the truth because they could not agree with the claims of Jesus. They could not understand why Jesus could claim to be one with God and yet not mingle with them or follow their methods of teaching. They were angry with Him because He sympathized with social outcasts and not with them, the supposed guardians of society—the shepherds of the flock. Therefore, they rejected the only way of righteousness and salvation. In giving power to the weak and strength to the powerless, Jesus did more for them than they had ever hoped for. That’s one reason they loved Him so much and followed Him wherever He went. It is the same today. Christianity is not about knowledge and information about God. It is about personal experience and relationship with Jesus. The man had experienced something special that day that he wanted to share with others. His questioners could call Jesus whatever they wanted to call Him, but as far as he was concerned Jesus was his Great Physician. Before my father ed away, he developed cataracts and became literally blind. He underwent surgery to remove the cataracts that restored his sight for a short while before he became sightless again. I him saying that not being able to see was the most agonizing experience he ever went through. As the days became months and months became years he prayed and wished God would take away any other part of his body and restore his eyesight. I saw him struggle to find things by feeling his way around with a stick. One day, he picked up a snake thinking it was a stick. It didn’t bite him. I don’t even whether it was poisonous or not. All I is that the last years of his life weren’t easy for him. It was hard for me to observe him in that state. So, I feel for the man in our story. But notice how his faith grew from the time the man met Jesus to the time he appeared before the council for the last time. In verse 11 he simply identified Jesus as a “Man called Jesus.” In verse 17, he identified Him as a prophet. Later, he identified Jesus as a Man from God (verse 33) and lastly the Son of God (verses 35-38).

Realizing that they hated Jesus, he decided to have fun with them, and his sense of humor irked them even more. The Scripture states, “Then they said to him again, ‘What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?’ He answered them, ‘I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?’” (verses 26-27). Putting it in my own understanding, the man asked them saying, “It’s funny you want to hear the story again. How many times will I tell you before you believe that this Man is the Messiah? Level with me, are you His disciples too?” “Then they reviled him and said, ‘You are His disciple, but we are Moses’ disciples. We know what God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from” (verses 26-28). The man answered, saying,

Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes! Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him. Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing (verses 30-33).

I imagine that conversation going something like this. The man says, “Please help me understand this point clearly. Did you say God doesn’t hear sinners?” “Yes.” “And that a sinner cannot perform miracles?” “Yes!” “That only God can perform miracles?” “You’re right again!” “And this Man healed me?”

Silence. “Isn’t it then logical to conclude that the man who opened my eyes can’t be a sinner? Truly, He must have come from God. It’s surprising that you don’t see it that way. Do you realize that no ordinary man has ever done this before? What then do you think could be the only logical conclusion about a man who makes blind men to see?” More silence. Why had they allowed him to ask so many questions? They asked themselves? The man was convinced Jesus was not an ordinary person. God had sent Him. He was the Son of God. The Pharisees were quickly losing their authority. They had heard enough. They retorted, “You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?” (verse 34). Frustrated, and knowing they were losing the battle with the man and their audience, the Pharisees threw him out of the synagogue. The man knew better. But he became confused. Instead of the people rejoicing with him in his mountaintop experience, they were indifferent. Instead of welcoming him in their midst, they kicked him out of the synagogue. And of all the days, on the Sabbath! The man had heard Jesus deny that his being born blind was a result of his sins or his parents’. Besides, he had spent too many years of his life believing that lie. Not any more. Who was he going to believe? His accs or Jesus? Jesus obviously. The irony was that instead of the Pharisees rejoicing with the man, they cared “more about playing court to God and following the rules than coming to God’s presence as children.”⁸ They accused Jesus of violating the Sabbath law. He had earlier explained to His hearers that the Sabbath is not a day of human labor or idleness. It was a day of rest, worship, and fellowship. It was a day that reminded them that “heaven’s work never ceases and men should never rest from doing good.”

Jesus Comes to His Rescue

Jesus heard about what had transpired and looked for and found the man. Jesus knew what it meant to be rejected and despised by men (Isa. 53). Picture it.

For the first time the blind man looked upon the face of his Restorer. Before the council he had seen his parents troubled and perplexed; he had looked upon the frowning faces of the rabbis; now his eyes rested upon the loving, peaceful countenance of Jesus. Already, at great cost to himself, he had acknowledged Him as a delegate of divine power; now a higher revelation was granted him.¹

Jesus always comes to encourage, heal, save, forgive, and uplift. Jesus asked him,

‘Do you believe in the Son of God?’ He answered and said, ‘Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.’ Then he said, ‘For judgment I have come into the world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind’ (John 9:35-39).

The man fell at Jesus’ feet and worshiped Him. What a sight to behold! One of these days we will have the greatest opportunity to fall down at the feet of Jesus and cry “Holy” to the Lamb of God. One of these days we will sit down at His feet and listen to the redemption story like we have never heard it before because Jesus will be the narrator. I can’t wait to talk to Him about the things that have troubled me. I know He has an explanation for me. I just wonder how it will be when I shall see Jesus for the first time. I can’t wait for my Lord and Savior to welcome me home where I belong.

Man’s Adversity is God’s Opportunity

This fascinating story has many lessons. First, the devil is cunning. I call him the spoiler. He knows that he will die in the eternal fire, so, he really doesn’t care about Christianity. However, he doesn’t want to burn alone. Every moment he looks for opportunities to spoil our chances of believing in God. He is crafty too. He makes us blame God for the sufferings he brings about. You rarely hear people blame the devil for the bad things that happen to them. You always hear them question why God would do such things to them. Second, we are a stiff-necked people. In spite of the evidence that Jesus is no ordinary person, just as the Pharisees didn’t believe in Him, so are many people today. Yes, people can call Him anything but Messiah. They can call Him a good Man, Master Teacher, Rabbi, or Prophet. Few are ready to call Him Creator, Redeemer, or Lord. Who do we say He is? Jesus asked His disciples that same question.

Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven (Matt. 16:13-17).

What you believe makes a big difference. It makes a bigger difference knowing in whom you believe. You are in the same position the Pharisees were in if you have no connection with Christ. Here is the point,

The fact that although they could find no sin in Christ the Jews would not receive Him proved that they themselves had no connection with God. They did not recognize His voice in the message of His Son. They thought themselves

ing judgment on Christ; but in rejecting Him they were pronouncing sentence upon hemselves.¹¹

Don’t misunderstand me. The leaders of the Pharisees were good, moral people. But they missed the boat. They were impatient towards sinners and had little comion toward people they considered sinners. They were brutally honest in their opinions concerning such people. We are not different. We are so brutally honest that most often we tend to enjoy the brutality more than we enjoy the honesty. We often forget that in this world of pain and sorrow, people really don’t care about what we know and how much we know. We forget that people bruised by the devil need to be nurtured. They want to know that we care. Third, Christians are put on this earth to make a difference in someone else’s life. Everyday Christians should ask themselves the questions: Am I engaged in the activities that will add value to the mission and vision of our Lord? Have I made a difference in the life of someone else today? Jesus lived, breathed, and walked that mission. Everyday He lived to make a difference in someone else’s life. The gospels show that He brought peace of mind, love, joy, and grace to someone else even when He was hanging on the cross. Ask John, His Mother, the thief on the cross, and the centurion. Today, it is our opportunity to tell others about Jesus. I believe we can say to some wearisome traveler along this life’s journey: I don’t understand how God’s marvelous grace works or why He made His gracious love known to me that has brought such tremendous peace within my heart. I don’t know why He redeemed me or how His saving faith works. I don’t know when He will come. I don’t know how the Spirit moves either; convicting men of their sins while revealing Christ to them and creating faith in Him. I don’t know why He chose me. However, I know one thing. I know I am a sinner saved by grace. I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is my Savior, Redeemer, Friend, and coming King of glory. Besides Him there is no other Savior. I know that He is able to save me to the uttermost because I am the apple of His eye. That’s why He died for me on the cruel cross. I don’t need any other argument. I am blessed beyond measure because Jesus is mine. Therefore, on this earth we are expected to help somebody as we along and cheer the sad and lonely with a word or song of encouragement. On this earth,

we need to show the Way (Jesus Christ) to someone else traveling along this rocky and sometimes dangerous life’s way. Our duty is to point someone to Jesus. If we do so, our lives will be worth living. Jesus advises us today to work when there is still daylight, because night is coming when men and women will work no more. He is the light of the world and will provide the energy necessary for us to do our part in sharing the Good News. That’s all He did all the days of His life when He lived on earth. That is what He is doing right now in heaven. Can we do any different? Fourth, as Jesus es by we should call out to Him to save us and help our unbelief. And when He knocks at the doors of our hearts, let us invite Him in. When He calls, let us answer Him. He will transform us. If we don’t do that we will miss out on the best part of life—eternity with Him. He promises that we will find Him if we seek Him. In times like these we need to stand up for Jesus as the once blind man did. We don’t need to be eloquent or have many words. All the man said was, I know that I met my Healer today. I was as blind as blind could be, but now I see. He made me whole. Similarly, all we need to tell people is, “Come and see.” Who is Jesus to you? Nothing more than a prophet? A good man? An outstanding teacher? God? The Creator and Redeemer? Perhaps a prophet? Who is your Hope for tomorrow? Is it “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27), or is it someone else? More important, what do you do with Jesus? Let me help you. There are two choices:

You can reject him. That is an option. You can, as have many, decide that the idea of God’s becoming a carpenter is too bizarre—and walk away. Or you can journey with him. You can listen for his voice amidst the hundreds of voices and follow him.¹²

Our hope must be built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and His righteousness. In times of perplexity, we need to build our hope in the deep soil of eternal reality. We should rest our hope in Jesus who came and died for us. We should

seek Him while He may be found. It won’t be long before we will shout that great anthem, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isa. 25:9). And when we have a chance, we should tell His story concerning how He saved us. One day, the blind shall see and the lame leap like deer. And when we have been there ten thousand years, shining brightly as the sun, we will have endless days and ceaseless ages of eternity to sing of God’s grace, mercy, and love. I know some of us can’t sing that well or even carry a tune this side of heaven, but we will then. Hallelujah! What a privilege!

Endnotes

1. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 471. 2. Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 57. 3. Paul E. Miller, Love Walked among Us (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2001), 42. 4. White, The Desire of Ages, 471. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 472. 7. Ibid. 8. Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 55 9. White, The Desire of Ages, 207.

10. Ibid., 474. 11. Ibid., 468. 12. Max Lucado, And the Angels Were Silent. (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 1992), 169.

Chapter 18 Designed Rest for Restless Humanity

When it comes to work, I am a workaholic. Every moment of my life is programmed for some activity. I am not alone. In this fast-paced world, many people schedule something for every moment of their waking hours. In spite of all the time-saving gadgets we own and use, at the end of the day many people go to sleep exhausted, with still a lot of unfinished business. They rest for a few hours and wake up ready to tackle another busy day. Personally, I enjoy a day full of activities. My day starts very early in the morning and ends late at night. I tend to blame my father for this work ethic. My father used to rise up early in the morning before sunrise to go to the farm and returned at dusk. I called the time “From can’t see to can’t see.” To console myself, I tend to think God is a workaholic also. Since He holds the worlds in the palms of His hands, constantly watching over animate and inanimate things, when does God rest? Because He is omnipresent, He simultaneously looks after the affairs of all His worlds. Therefore, He doesn’t need to rest. The Scriptures declare,

Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep (Ps. 121:4).

So, the question is, how and when does God rest? When does He sleep? Does He even need sleep? We cannot compare ourselves to the Omnipresent and Omniscient. We are not God. He is God. In spite of our desire to work 24-7, 24-365, God created us to work and rest. Therefore it was not supposed to be news, but it was when I

learned and finally believed that days were not created equal. I learned that God has a special day He calls a holy day, the day of rest, or the Sabbath. On that day He expects His people to meet with Him. This understanding was news to me because I believed that people needed to work all the time, except for a few worship hours on Sunday. I came to learn the significance of the Sabbath from my elder brothers and sister who tried for years to teach me how to rest for 24 hours on Saturday, the Sabbath day. They taught me that it was God who required people to rest on Sabbath. I resisted their teachings and accused them of being legalists. I had nothing personal against them—they were good models for me. I frequently asked them: Why wasn’t their church like any other church? Why did they try to impose their peculiarity on others? They showed me from Scriptures that the Sabbath was not the church’s invention but God’s requirement. God wanted to spend time with His people on a special day that He had created and sanctified or set apart. But even with their Biblical references, I still did not believe them.

Turning Point

My faith was greatly tested when I went to the University of Zambia (UNZA) in Lusaka, Zambia, where I was for the first time taught to be skeptical of anything I saw, knew, read, or heard, including my Christian beliefs. I quickly learned that a college environment could be hazardous to one’s belief system. My classes allowed me to enmesh myself in an extensive and intensive study of Marx’s historical materialism, the evolution theory, the theories of dependence, and the theories of the development of underdevelopment in Third World countries. Philosophy dispelled the importance of religion in one’s life. According to philosophy, God didn’t exist. He was simply a figment of my own imagination. Religion, including Christianity, was a drug that forced Africans (and others especially from the developing world) to sleep while powerful European nations confiscated, ransacked, raped, and stole their land. I could not argue with the evidence that professors provided. Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa hit me like a hard rock straight between my eyes.¹ In my college freshman understanding, even today to a large extent, that

assertion made much sense. In spite of the supposed good they did, I learned that missionaries were an advance party for people with guns, traders, and later, settlers. How else could one explain the emphasis on humility? Missionaries were an advance party that came to convince Africans to humble themselves and not question authority. When Africans opened the eyes they were asked to close in prayer, they found that settlers had appropriated and alienated their land in exchange for the Bible. With very few exceptions, settler forces killed and subdued Africans who resisted colonization. Missionaries had done their job well in cultivating the African souls to receive the settlers. Science was not of much help either. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution did not need much power to persuade an eager freshman’s mind. The theory of natural selection where the powerful organisms weeded out weak organisms started to make sense. Powerful European nations subdued and subjugated weaker kingdoms and peoples in a dog-eat-dog world. Furthermore, the scientific method reduced everything to what was visible. If something couldn’t be observed, touched, or measured then it didn’t exist. Obviously no one could see God, touch Him, or measure Him. How could intelligent, college-trained intellectuals believe in Someone they didn’t see? As if enough damage had not been done, we were taught that nothing in the world was absolute. Everything was relative. What we had earlier learned as truth was not actually truth, because truth was relative. Friedrich Nietzsche in his book Beyond Good and Evil threw in another wrench in my confusion.² To him “God was dead.” Christians were mere weaklings and wimps who invented Christianity to make themselves feel good about their lack of backbone and misery. Their emphasis on humility, meekness, poverty, and submission instead of pride, wealth, and power was something Nietzsche looked down upon and scorned. He concluded that such an attitude to life was not only bad for society but also for individuals. It epitomized the glorification of the weak and promotion of ineffective value systems. Wow! Ouch! was my initial response. I didn’t know whom and what to believe. Although I was in a way glad to hear alternatives to Christianity, I was not prepared for all that I learned at once. I was confused for a while because my parents had taught me from my very beginning that God was a reality in their lives and they expected their children to have the same conviction. They always reminded us that, “No matter how educated you

become, always God from whom all blessings flow.” I began to argue that they too had been duped by a foreign religion that had actually usurped their traditional belief system. Besides they had never stepped their feet into the hallways of a university. What did they know? With so many teachings coming at me at the speed of light, I became very uncomfortable and reached the valley of my indecision. As much as I tried to shake off their teachings, I failed to dismiss the teachings of my parents. The wise man is right,

Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it (Prov. 22:6).

Then one day, I came across two questions that brought me short. Jesus Himself was directly asking me saying, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 9:36-37). What will it profit you, Mr. Intellectual, if you gained all this knowledge and information this university could offer and lost your soul in the end? How much of it is worth your life? I had no idea how to answer these very important questions. They required a response. In the meantime, an older friend, Maurice Chishimba, who was a strong churchgoer at secondary school, had practically stopped going to church. When I asked him why he had stopped going to church and told him my dilemma, he challenged me that if I didn’t another church such as the Seventh-day Adventist Church, I too, would end up where he was—a skeptic— four years later. I didn’t like his position. But I did not care much about the Seventh-day Adventist Church either. I knew some of its . My older brothers and sisters were Seventh-day Adventists. Before we went on the long vacation, the chaplain encouraged us to study the Scriptures. He challenged us to study a topic or a New Testament gospel, preferably John. I decided to study the Sabbath, a commandment I felt was the most useless. The other nine made a lot of sense. For example, it made sense not to have other gods if one acknowledged the true God of heaven. Since I had never seen God it was important that I didn’t make any graven image of Him. If I didn’t want to be killed, then I myself should not kill. The same reasoning

applied to stealing, telling lies, and coveting other people’s things. Of course, my parents who brought me into the world had to be honored or they could take me out of it. I have never been eager to die. Those teachings made a lot of sense. But the Sabbath commandment was a different animal. There were seven days in a week. Why get stuck on a particular day? Why become a so called Sabbath observer? Why not become a seven-day observer? I would torment my brothers. I accused them and their church of being legalistic. Why did Adventists have to stubbornly go to church on a day most people were engaged in productive work? Why did they insist on worshiping on Saturday? What if they were wrong? Didn’t they know Paul’s advice concerning days, that

One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it (Rom. 14:5-6)?

As I posed those questions, I my brother Maybin saying, “When you come to know how sweet the Sabbath is, you’ll understand why.” I assured him such a time will never come; now I wonder how I survived without it.

The Sabbath

I studied the Bible more than I had ever done before. I wanted to know what it said about the Sabbath, mainly because I wanted to prove my brothers and sister wrong. But I didn’t want to end up like my friend, Chishimba. Believing in God was not the issue. My father used to say a schooled man without God has priorities mixed up. As confused as I was because of my new teachings from school, giving up on God was not an option. I believed in the Bible and was willing to do what it wanted me to do, but I had built up many fences that I revisited when a new doctrinal teaching came along. Some of the teachings came

easy, such as baptism by immersion, clean and unclean foods, and belief in Jesus as the Messiah. I asked: What would happen to our forefathers who had died before the message reached them? If the Bible was so clear on observing the Sabbath, why wasn’t the whole Christian world worshiping on Sabbath? Wasn’t salvation a result of belief in Jesus? What did the Sabbath have in common with salvation? All my life I had been taught to trust the Scriptures and to leave all the questions concerning judgment to God. Since He is God He will deal with those questions in His own way. I learned that the Sabbath is important in one’s life. It may not save anyone, but it is the cornerstone of all other commandments. The Sabbath allows personal close encounters with God (Exo. 20:8-11). After the belief in God the father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, observing the Sabbath is a good starting point in one’s Christian walk. So, I needed an attitude adjustment. I changed the way I studied my Bible. I learned to open the Bible with prayer, asking God for wisdom and understanding only the Holy Spirit could provide. I began letting the Bible talk to me. Before delving into a age I would ask God to get rid of my preconceived ideas and for Him to open my eyes so I could see what He wanted me to see and teach me things I needed to know. Just for that day. The more I studied the Bible, the more fascinated I became with Jesus Christ, the lawgiver and Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27-28). Right there in Eden, He not only gave us the commandments concerning the sanctity of marriage and life, He also provided the one on the Sabbath. The more I studied the Sabbath the more relevant I saw it in today’s busy world and why the devil doesn’t want many people to know its essence. I learned that God had not authorized the change of the day of worship from Sabbath to any other day. I didn’t find any scriptural evidence of the change of the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday. The Sabbath was instituted at the very beginning of human existence (Gen. 2:1-3). God says, “hallow My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God” (Ezek. 20:20). Even in heaven the Sabbath will be observed. “‘And it shall come to that from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before Me,’ says the Lord” (Isa. 66:23). The Sabbath is the cornerstone of the moral law that identifies to whom we belong and the extent of His dominion. God says,

the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the L ord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the L ord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the L ord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it (Exo. 20:8-11).

I found it ironic that the very day God wanted me to was the one I was bent on forgetting. The Sabbath “was set apart as a memorial of the work of creation. It points to [Jesus] as both the Creator and Sanctifier. It declares that He who created all things in heaven and in earth, and by whom all things hold together, is the head of the church, and that by His power we are reconciled to God.”³ The Sabbath points to God, “as the maker of the heavens and the earth. Hence it is a constant witness to His existence and a reminder of His greatness, His wisdom, and love. Had the Sabbath always been sacredly observed, there could never have been an atheist or an idolator.”⁴ The Bible says that today there “still remains therefore a [day of] rest for the people of God” (Heb. 4:9). After God finished creating the earth and all that is in it, He rested not because He was tired. “God’s rest was the result of neither exhaustion nor fatigue, but a cessation from previous occupation.”⁵ God rested because He was setting an example for humans to follow. He rested because He wanted to have a loving and living fellowship with His creation. He wanted to spend the day with the crown of His creation. The question I needed to answer was: If God rested from His work on Sabbath, and He was not tired, and now asks people to rest with Him on His holy day, who am I to suggest otherwise? Therefore, the Sabbath is a holy day and not just another day. It highlights aspects of creation, redemption,

and final restoration. Jesus informed His listeners that He was the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28). In this busy world the Sabbath is one of the God-given guarantees of His love for us. Yes, we need to pray and keep in constant touch with Him every nanosecond of the day because we can’t live without Him. But God is so good that once a week He invites us to spend a day with Him, a day He calls His “delight.” He challenges us saying:

If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy day of the L ord honorable, and shall honor Him, not doing your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words, then you shall delight yourself in the L ord ; and I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth, and feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father (Isa. 58:13-14).

“The Sabbath is a day of special communion with God in which we are invited to joyously celebrate His gracious activities in Creation and redemption.”⁷ It begins at sunset Friday evening and ends at sunset Saturday evening. Thus, “week by week the seventh day comforts our conscience, assuring us that despite our unfinished characters we stand complete in Christ. His accomplishment at Calvary counts as our atonement.”⁸ In this day, humans are encouraged to have an intimate fellowship with their Creator, soaking and reflecting in His goodness. No other day is that special. Besides, no one can make the day special or holy except God Himself. In fact, the Bible prophesied that someone will attempt to change the day of worship. The observance of Sunday as a day of worship by Christians is part of “the mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:7). In Daniel chapters 7 and 12, we find a power that would attack God’s people and God’s law. The little horn in Daniel

7:25 attempts to “change the times and law” and becomes very successful in deceiving most of the world. But notwithstanding this attempt, the Sabbath will be restored through a reform process (Isa. 56; 58). Many people don’t think it is that important to observe the Sabbath, but God says it is. The Bible does not show any change of the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday. God still calls for people to worship Him on the day He has designated; on the day He has set apart; the day He has blessed. Hence, the Sabbath is central to the worship experience that God desires and expects from His creation. It is not a day we feel we should honor. Although many people worship on the day He rose from the dead because without that resurrection our faith would be in vain (1 Cor. 15), there is no scriptural basis for it. Even when He died, Jesus rested on the Sabbath day. After He had accomplished the mission He had come to do, Jesus rested from His redemptive work, and rested in the grave.

Lord of the Sabbath

Hitherto I had known a lot of things about Jesus, but I have come to know Him. By spending time with Him I now realize the magnitude of His sacrifice for me. It is not knowing facts about Jesus that matters, but knowing Him that counts. It is the relationship between my Lord and I that matters. For without knowing the Lord of the Sabbath, one cannot appreciate the meaning and importance of the Sabbath. The Sabbath “comes to us from a sinless world. It is God’s special gift, enabling the human race to experience the reality of heaven on earth.” I often chuckle when I the “family discussions” we used to have when my brother would ask me what I believed concerning the day of rest. I would open the Bible and try to point out what it taught and he would do the same. I would show him our similarities and accuse his church of being divisive. I missed the point. Christianity does not consist of doing things or not doing things. It consists of knowing what Christ has done and continues to do in the lives of those who call on His name. Christianity means following God no matter the cost. For us, the cost is easy—belief in His Son. For Him, it took the life of His only Son. Besides,

In this cosmic age, the Good News of the Sabbath provides the basis for a cosmic faith, a faith which embraces and unites creation, redemption and final restoration; the past, the present and the future; man, nature and God; this world and the world to come; a faith that recognizes God’s dominion over the whole creation and human life by consecrating to Him the seventh day; a faith that fulfills the believer’s true destiny in time and eternity; a faith that offers Divine Rest for Human Restlessness.¹

For,

As the Christian takes heed of the Sabbath day and keeps it holy, he does so purely in answer to God’s command, and simply because God is his Creator. Thus, the Sabbath command comes nearer to being a true measure of spirituality than any other of the commandments, and, as in the days of Israel of old, it is often more a test of loyalty to God than is any of the others.¹¹

The facts are that the Sabbath was instituted at the very beginning of human existence (Gen. 2:1-3), as a sign between God and humans so that they can know that He is the Lord their God (Eze. 20:20). It is the cornerstone of the moral law that identifies whose we are and the extent of His dominion (Exo. 20:8-11). Jesus stated that the Sabbath was made for our sake and that He was the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:27-28). It will be observed in heaven (Isa. 66:23). In this busy world of the 21st century the Sabbath is one of God-given guarantees of His love where once a week God invites us to spend with Him a day He calls His “delight” (Isa. 58:13-14). It is God’s blessed and holy day of rest. In times like these we need to know that there is a designed day of rest for a restless humanity. In this frantic, fast food, microwave, Internet generation, we need a cure that is designed to let humanity pause and think about where it has come from, where it is, and where it is going. It is called the Sabbath day—a day designed for rest for the restless humanity.

Endnotes

1. Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (London: BogleL’Ouverture Publications, 1972). 2. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1966). 3. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 288. 4. , Patriarchs and Prophets (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1958), 336, emphasis supplied. 5. Seventh-day Adventists Believe . . . A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines (Silver Spring, Maryland: Ministerial Association of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1988), 220. 6. For a discussion on how the Sabbath features in creation, redemption, and final restoration, see Bacchiocchi, Samuele, Divine Rest for Human Restlessness (Berrien Springs, Michigan: Biblical Perspectives, 1988). 7. Seventh-day Adventists Believe, 263. 8. George E. Vandeman, When God Made Rest (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1987), 21. 9. Seventh-day Adventists Believe, 249. 10. Bacchiocchi, Divine Rest for Human Restlessness, 226. 11. Raoul Dederen, Quoted in Kenneth Strand (ed.) The Sabbath in Scripture and History (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1982), 302.

Chapter 19 A Race of Our Life

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were ed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are ed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. Rev. 21: 1-5

IN APRIL 2001, I accomplished something I had feared most, but which I had wanted to do for some time. I “ran” my first marathon. Yes, 26.2 miles, 26 miles and 385 yards, or 42 kilometers 195 meters of it. Truthfully, I didn’t fully understand what I was getting into when I ed to run until I completed my first race. I talking to one of the volunteers when I was ing who asked me whether I had run those many miles before. When I told her that I had never competed in a 3K race in my life, she recommended that I try running thirteen miles first. I ignored her advice, thinking that she was meddling in my race, and ed for the full marathon. Honestly, I just hoped that I would cross the finish line without collapsing, fainting, or dying. I further hoped that I was not going to be the last person to finish. I wanted to have witnesses other than my immediate family . Although I had enjoyed jogging for over 25 years, I had never jogged, walked, and/or run 26 miles in a day. My longest run was only 18 miles. I thought I was ready for the Inaugural Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon until I saw the competitors that April morning. You should have been there to see their shoes. If

completing the race depended on shoes, they already had completed that one. My shoes should have been retired a long time ago. Everyone looked readier than I was. I felt intimidated just looking at the athletes stretching and warming up by lightly jogging. I consoled myself by knowing that my day had come. I was pumped up and ready to go. The race started well and I was making good time. I soon caught up with Rex Friend, my mentor, friend, and an experienced ultramarathoner. He was the one who introduced me to the marathon. He had advised me about the long run that made me run a few 18 miles before the race. When he saw my pace, he advised me, saying, “Take your time. And if you’ve to walk, do so. It’s not how fast you’ll run, but whether or not you’ll complete the race that matters.” I took that advice seriously as I tried to keep up with him but he was not running at my pace. So I left him as we ran up the first “hill,” actually a bridge that took energy away from many runners.

A Race of a Different Kind

I had run 22 miles when my system shut down. Those last four miles were the longest miles I had ever run in my life. I walked more than I ran. There was nothing wrong with walking, but walking that much was not part of my strategy. I did not even know that walking in a marathon was a normal practice until that morning. I think that for every 2 minutes I ran, I walked for 10 minutes, and those two minutes felt like half an hour. People started to me in droves, an experience that dampened my morale. With only four miles to go, giving up was not an option. I was going to complete that race. I was going to crawl all the way to the finish line if I had to. But being so near the finish line and yet so far started to affect me psychologically. I was not prepared for what I was feeling. Spectators cheered and encouraged us on. “You can do it,” they shouted. My reaction was, It’s easier for you to say so. You aren’t the one running. You just don’t know the troubles I’m in right now. Finally, after what appeared to be an eternity, I turned the last corner and faintly saw the balloons at the finish point. I started to jog slowly and surprisingly

accelerated my pace until I finished the race. O! The joy of completing a marathon! The time: 4 hours, 45 minutes, and 11 seconds. That time was not too bad for a soon-to-be-forty-seven-year-old who had just run his first competitive race. It didn’t matter over a thousand people had crossed the line before me. I didn’t care. I was so excited. Why? I had completed the race. I had gone where I had never gone before and completed something I had never done before. The price? A finisher’s $6.00 T-shirt and probably a $5.00 medal. I had tortured myself for four and three quarter hours for a T-shirt and a medal. And to think that I had paid $60 for the privilege of participating in the race! But I can’t adequately explain the exhilarating feeling I had after crossing the finish line. Only someone who has completed a marathon could understand. If completing a marathon could be so thrilling and exciting, what will it be like to meet Jesus, face to face? How will I feel when for the first time I touch Him? How will it be like to lay down my crown at His feet and worship Him? How will I feel to see my Redeemer, one on one? Why did I run? My kids thought I was ing through the legendary midlife crisis. My wife thought I was crazy. She still thinks I am crazy running at my age. The family was not alone in this sentiment. While participating in the Dallas White Rock Marathon in December 2002, I saw a big sign among those who cheered us on that read, “You’re crazy.” But below those words were the sweetest words of encouragement that marathoners need: “You can do it.” Why did I run? Personally, running elevated my exercise program to a new level and I felt good participating in an event that raised funds for the Oklahoma City Memorial Museum. By December 2011, I had completed over fifty marathons, including one ultramarathon (more than 26.2 miles) and many other shorter distances. I intend to run the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon every year as long as I am healthy. I have learned that each race is different and comes with its own challenges. It never ceases to amaze me because every time I run, especially after mile 22, I question my sanity for running and think it will be my last marathon. It is interesting how that thought quickly evaporates when I cross the finish line because immediately I begin to prepare for another race.

We Are All in a Race

I just wish I had the same intensity and desire to dig deeper into the Word of God and share God’s love with others as I do share information about running. I wake up early in the morning to train, no matter what the conditions are outside, short of inclement weather. And yet I only spend a few minutes listening to Jesus. I have established a routine for studying God’s Word also, but I still feel I do not spend enough time with the Lord, for which I am determined to do. It works well during certain days and seasons, and not all the time. Sometimes I spend several weeks digging deeper and deeper into God’s word but the pressures of this world come and choke my study time. I begin to hurry in my studies. I know that if I’ve to stay connected with Jesus, I’ve to spend time with Him everyday. Therefore, everyday I pray to Jesus that no matter what kind of day I am having, I’ll still find time to commune with my Lord in the morning. Marathons remind me of our Christian journey.¹ Whether we know it or not, like it or not, ready for it or not, we are participants of a greater race on Planet Earth. This race will determine your and my destiny. It is a race of our life. The price? Eternal life Jesus Christ the Creator and Redeemer will bestow on those who love Him. Did you discover in your Christian walk that when you got baptized or when you first believed in Jesus, your Christian walk was much easier and sweeter than at some other time later? Did you think that if Jesus would have come then you were sure He’d have taken you to heaven? Have you doubted your Christian walk lately? Has the long wait of His second appearing thrown many obstacles in your way so that you now doubt why you still believe? The Apostle Paul advises us, saying,

Do you not know that those who run in a race run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown; but we for an imperishable crown (1 Cor. 9:24-25).

The crown that Paul wrote about was actually a wreath won by the winner of an athletic contest. Wreaths were also used in times of rejoicing. Paul encouraged Christians to view their life as a race. The good news is that every Christian who completes the race is a winner because everyone who sincerely believes in Jesus will receive everlasting life. Paul reminded us that those who compete in sports and athletic events are temperate or disciplined. He asked a rhetorical question: If runners who compete for perishable crowns must be disciplined in everything they do, how much more should the Christians be whose prize is eternal life? He advised us to run not just for the sake of running but to run in order to obtain the prize.

The Race Is Already Over

A marathon is not necessarily to the swift. It belongs to those who prepare and endure the test of completing 26.2 miles. The race is won by crossing the finish line, a journey that starts by putting one foot in front of the other. Some runners do so in just a few hours; others take a little longer. But they all cross the same finish line. Some people do not complete their courses. The Christian race is a different kind of marathon. Why? The race is already over. We do not have to run any inch because Jesus has already run and completed the race for us. The prize? A crown of life for everyone who completes the race. What a deal! Can we say with Paul that

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing (2 Tim. 4:7-8)?

A crown of glory is waiting for doing nothing other than believing in the best Person that ever lived. This is the best news anyone needs to hear. I know that sometimes life can be complicated. We rise and fall. The good news is that we

have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, who has ed this way before and sympathizes with us in our daily struggles. He says, “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death” (Rev. 2:11). Romans 8 reminds us that we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. When I feel discouraged and what Jesus has done for me; when I the height, depth, width, and length of Jesus’ love for me; when I that He died for me, my hope always is revived. His love is higher than the highest mountain, wider than the widest valley, and deeper than the deepest sea. How often have I failed Him or stumbled? Yet He calls me His precious child. I imagine Him picking me up in His loving arms and whispering to me saying that He loves me. He is wonderful. The precious blood of Jesus is worth more than anything this world will offer. The Christian journey is worth everything. Jesus loves us more than the devil hates us. I don’t understand why we become so timid when we are witnessing to others. Jesus defeated the enemy on the cross and rose from the grave. Therefore we should “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).

We Are Nearing Home

The greatest day will soon come. Jesus will come to take His people home (John 14: 1-3). Soon and very soon we will wear crowns in our Father’s house. Very soon, we’ll see the King of kings and Lord of lords. We are nearing a city where streets are paved with pure gold that is as transparent as glass and gates are made of pearls (Rev. 21:21). The wall is made of jasper and the city itself is made of pure gold like clear glass (verse 18). The foundations are laid with all kinds of precious stones (verses 19-20). A pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flows from the throne of God and of the Lord (Rev. 22:1). And there is the tree of life on each side of the river with leaves that are for the healing of nations (verse 2). Everyone who has accepted Jesus as his or her personal Savior will dwell in that city. Personally, I am not particularly impressed with golden streets, pearly gates, crystal rivers, trees of life, and mansions. Eternal life does not impress me either

except in the following context. Heaven is a place where God’s love rules supreme. God invites us to live with Him in a place where people purposely and unselfishly serve each other in earnest and in love. Heaven is a place where trusted relationships exist. A place where no one grows old, gets sick, or dies (Rev. 21: 1-5). God has a place where no stormy clouds arise. A place where “we shall see his face; and his name shall be in [our] foreheads” (Rev. 22:4). Jesus invites us to a wonderful place where there is no night and where nobody needs a lamp or light of the sun because “the Lord God giveth them light” (verse 5). A place where flowers never fade or whither. A place where everyone is a winner by associating with Jesus. That’s the place I want to live in. That’s why I believe. That’s why the inconveniences of this life do not bother me that much because I know that by God’s grace, when the saints go marching through those pearly gates I will be among their number. I have nothing in my hand with which I can atone for my sins, except to believe in the name of Jesus and His death on the cross, a propitiation for my sins (1 John 4:10). Oh, how He loves us! I ire Him more because He knew what He was going to go through before He came down to us. He knew He was going to be despised, hated, betrayed, spat on, cursed, and yes, even nailed to a rugged tree. Yet Jesus left the glory and splendor of heaven to come and die for you and me. Heaven was not a place to be desired if you and I were going to be lost. He died for us before we knew Him. He didn’t have to, but He did. Do you the thief on the cross? Hanging beside Jesus, he realized his sinfulness and asked for forgiveness. He rejoiced that day because instantly Jesus not only forgave him He also promised him eternal life in Paradise. Yes, people could scold Him, beat Him, spit on His face, and even spike Him to a tree, but they could not take away His power to save. He is a mighty Savior. Like the thief on the cross we should ask Jesus to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all our unrighteousness. Scriptures say that He will exactly do that (1 John 1:9). Foul as we may be, let’s cling on to Him. Let’s go to the cleansing flood and allow the fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins, to wash us clean. We will be whiter than snow. More important, let’s tell someone about Jesus. Let’s spread the Good News to others. That’s why we exist. It’s to tell the story of Jesus and His love. Many of

us act like secret agents to our faith. We hide Christ in us, the hope of glory. We need to share the reason for our hope with others.

O! The Joy!

A story is told of a young boy whose father had promised to take him fishing. The boy had never fished in his life, and had heard so many wonderful experiences from his friends who had done so. So he anxiously looked forward to that day with great patience and anticipation. Finally, the eve of the day arrived. In his excitement, the boy couldn’t sleep. He lay awake imagining how the following day will be spent. Because he could not sleep, he went to his father’s bedroom and woke him up. “Daddy! I can’t sleep. I am so excited about tomorrow.” The father understood his son’s excitement. He told him, “Son, go and get some rest. Before you know it, it will be tomorrow.” The son went to his bedroom but was too excited to sleep. It was just time for his father to fall asleep again when he received a big bear hug accompanied by the words. “Daddy! I want to thank you for tomorrow. But I can’t sleep.” The father understood the excitement. He took the boy into his arms and said, “Thank you, son. Go sleep now. If you want to enjoy tomorrow, you need to get some sleep.” I am excited about tomorrow. Are you? Because of His death on Calvary, we all will be in position to enjoy tomorrow. God says in Isaiah 43:18-19:

Do not the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing;

Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness And rivers in the desert.

God is making something new, even a way in our troubled times. He is transforming lives. He advises us to forget the past and look to the future with great anticipation. I can’t wait for tomorrow. I can’t wait to thank Jesus for all He has done for me. What a day of great rejoicing that will be when we all get to heaven and see Jesus face to face! Then we’ll sing and shout Hallelujahs to our King. What will it be like to be among that “great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues [standing] before the throne, and before the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9). What a sight to behold! What will it be to be there? Do you plan to be there? Do you want your friends to be there too? To get there, we have to desire to be there. No one will be there by accident. What are you personally doing to prepare yourself and them for His coming? I hope you won’t go there alone. We should tell someone that Jesus loves him or her. Everyone needs to hear about the Creator, Savior, and Sustainer who lives to make intersession for them so that they can live with Him eternally. In these times of heightened hopelessness and insecurity, we need the peace and security only God can give. Time is running out. As we near home, can you see the splendor gleaming from the domes afar? Can you see the glory streaming through the open gates? Soon we will enter through those pearly gates and never wander again. William Clark and Meriwether Lewis made an epic journey across the continent from St. Louis, Missouri, to Fort Clatsop, Washington. They experienced many hardships on their expedition that could have discouraged me, including losing a comrade to illness, encounters with grizzly bears, demoralizing coastal rains, and backbreaking toil in their dugout canoes. And yet they moved on, exploring the Missouri River’s entire 2,400 miles and then the snowy Bitterroot Mountains. Finally, Clark saw the vast Pacific Ocean. He saw the ocean waves and the

whitecaps as they flashed in the sun. He couldn’t help it but write, “Ocian in view! O! the joy.”² Every believer should hold on to his or her faith and help someone along the way to believe in Jesus. One of these fine days we will dwell in our eternal home. One of these days we will stand before the gates of heaven and exclaim, “Heaven at last! Heaven at last! O, what wondrous beauty, we’re in heaven at last!” O! What a joy it brings to just think about it! I plan to be there. I pray that you’re planning to be there too.

Endnotes

1. D. Chongo Mundende, Life Is a Marathon: What Running Marathons Has Taught Me about the Christian Life (Bloomington, Indiana: Xlibris, 2011). 2. Dayton Duncan, “Tale of the Corps,” AAA Oklahoma Home & Away (March/April 2003.), 16-18, 20, 22.

Chapter 20 I Cannot Wait

During the week of the first anniversary (and all the subsequent anniversaries) of the hijacked planes (September 2002), most of the news media in the United States focused their attention on the infamous September 11, 2001, or 9-11, as the day has been appropriately called. The year had ed by so quickly for some of us. I would imagine that the year might have been very slowly and long for others, especially the relatives of the victims, both dead and alive. Some of us asked ourselves: when did we go through the autumn, winter, spring, and summer? Where did the seasons go? As September 11, 2002 approached, the pain, terror, horror, and bewilderment of September 11, 2001 created fresh wounds as memories of the hijacked planes plowing into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and in the Pentagon in Washington, DC, were re-lived. Moments were just as tense as they were soon after September 11, 2001. A fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, did not make it to DC. Probably headed for the White House or Congress, it crashed in Pennsylvania, thanks to the heroism of the engers and notably Todd Beamer, a 32-year-old enger who encouraged his fellow engers to “Let’s roll,” and defied all threats to their lives and confronted the hijackers. We know that those engers had an hour of agonizing moments before they crashed. They knew they were going to die. We further know that they died so that others in Washington, DC, could live.

Impacts of 9-11

Only the affected families know the extent of the pain and anguish that fateful September 11 has brought. Only they know the strength it takes to keep focused on something else when their homes are empty and everyday somebody reminds them of their loss. Only they know the extent of the uncertainty and the fragility

of life. Only they are really qualified to speak about 9-11. Why? Because they have gone through the great loss and deal with it everyday, and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives as long as this world and their lives will last. They do not only have information they have heard or read about 9-11, they have experienced it and live it everyday. So I am not pretending to know what they have gone through or will endure in the future, suffice it to say that the effects of 9-11 went beyond the victims and their families. For one, business in the United States, and around the world for that matter, is no longer the same. The airline industry is now struggling to keep afloat. Some airlines declared bankruptcy and no longer exist, leaving thousands of individuals and families unemployed. At the time of writing this chapter, United Airlines, the third largest carrier in the U.S., if not the world, was contemplating filing for bankruptcy. Revising the chapter in March 2012, American Airlines had filed for bankruptcy. The hotel and restaurant industry, and businesses that depend on tourism for survival have either closed down or are simply limping along, wondering when they will serve their last customer. Over 100,000 jobs have been lost; and there will be more losses. It has been estimated that over $100,000 billion is needed to rebuild New York City. That is a 100,000 with a b. Life for the traveling public has not been the same, especially for air travelers. I have a colleague who has refused to go by air since 9-11. I am sure she’s not alone. Personally, there used to be a time that every time I was to go on a plane, I knew I was going to be almost strip-searched. And there was nothing I could do about that. I am not searched as much as I used to, but I have had a fair share of my searches. I expect to be searched the next time I will board a plane. My only advice is that if you want to travel by air, in addition to putting on clean underwear, put on clean socks. Do I like it? No! But I realize that this is one way the skies can be kept safe. I travel often and want to arrive safely every time. I used to arrive at the airport 15 minutes before departure time. Not any more. If I want to catch a plane I have to be at the airport at least one and a half hours before departure time. Why? It is because I never know what to expect when I arrive at the airport. Yes, the impacts of 9-11 have gone beyond the victims and their families. Rarely a day es without hearing or reading something related to 9-11, reminding us of the hurt and anguish that have torn our hearts. Our hearts are fearful, wondering when these people, or others like them, will strike again. In what

form will the next attacks come? Where? Indeed, Luke 21:26 can’t be truer, “men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth.” The U.S. Government has created a new Department of Home Security istration. The “War on terrorism” has diverted billions of dollars away from programs and services that equally need those funds. Don’t tell me 9-11 has not affected you or your family. Even if you do not live or reside in the U.S. you have been directly or indirectly impacted by events of that fateful 9-11 in 2001. I know I have been affected in more than one way.

The Two Enemies

The two enemies that you and I face in this life are death and the fear of death. The Good News is that Jesus took care of both of them. On the cross He conquered the power of death by dying for you and for me. Thank God, we don’t have to die because Jesus died and paid our price. But He did not stay in the tomb in which He was buried. Christ destroyed the power of the fear of death when He rose up from the grave. Let me try to explain. When Jesus died on the cross, there was a possibility, just a possibility that He could not wake up as He promised He would. I am glad to say Christ’s tomb is empty. Therefore, Christ is our only hope. All the other prophets and great religious leaders are dead. Jesus is the only one alive today. The empty tomb declares to us that we have nothing to fear for the future. God is in control. Christ died so that we could live. Because He lives we know we will be resurrected too should we die before He comes the second time. This is the Christian hope and assurance. The death and resurrection of Jesus guarantee and make our salvation sure (1 Cor. 15:12-19). Short of this assurance, we would be the most pitiful and miserable living creatures in the universe. Christ assured Martha and Mary that He was the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). And He proved it by resurrecting a rotting and stinking Lazarus from the dead. I don’t mean to appear insensitive, and I hope you’ll take my comments in the intended meaning. The events of 9-11 simply show the results of the sinfulness of sin. They confirm that left to ourselves we can decimate, yes even vaporize each other with impunity and without remorse. Nine-eleven says that we live in

an unpredictable and cruel world. So, allow me to refer to another time and another place, not as a cope out to or an escape from our world problems, but as the only answer to those problems. It is the blessed hope and assurance of the end of sorrow—the coming of the Lord—because I believe that in times like these, when we are reminded of our own mortality, we need something more permanent than our fragile lives. In times like these we need the comfort of Someone who faced death for sins He didn’t commit. We need to be reminded that although He died He is alive today and sits at the right hand of God. In times like these we need Jesus.

Promise of All Promises

Of all the promises given in the Holy Scriptures, probably none is more precious for strangers and pilgrims on Planet Earth than the assurance that Jesus will return to take His people home. It is the promise of all promises. This promise anchors all other promises. Jesus will return to wipe all tears from our eyes when He will usher in a new kingdom where no pain, misery, heartache, cancer, disease, tear, or death exists. Without this promise joy fades away. Jesus assures us, saying, “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work” (Rev. 22:12, emphasis supplied). He calmed His apprehensive disciples with the assurance that He would come again. Just before He was crucified He advised them, saying,

Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know (John 14:1-4, emphasis supplied).

The major goal for Jesus was, and has always been, to gather a people He would take to glory. That’s why He came the first time. That’s why He’s coming the second time. When He came the first time He gave His life as a ransom for all

(Matt. 20: 28; 1 Tim. 2:6). He paid the price for our sins so that we can go free. On His Second Coming, Jesus will come as King of kings to get all those who believe in Him. The certainty of His coming the second time is based on the certainty of His having come the first time. One advent would be meaningless without the other. The surety of His coming is reinforced by over 300 references in the New Testament alone. However, for most of us, Jesus’ second coming makes sense only in relation to our immediate concerns, like when we have to say “Good bye” to a loved one. Also, when we are diagnosed with a terminal illness, or when we lose our job, then we want Jesus to have come yesterday. Why? Because at such times we need Him to end our misery. It’s a human fact that in times of ease most of us would rather push His coming into some distant future. How many of us want Jesus to come before we marry our incredible sweetheart? Complete college? Drive our cool car? Get our next promotion? Live in our dream home? These questions remind me of a conversation I had with two sisters about the second coming of Christ Jesus. The younger sister in middle school was excited. She couldn’t wait to see Jesus. “Oh, I can’t wait to see Him!” She stated. The older sister in college retorted, “But I hope it won’t be before I finish my studies.” Her desire was granted. Jesus didn’t come before she finished her studies. The point is, we want Jesus to come, and we hope He comes soon, but not before we accomplish certain things. We want Jesus to come in a distant future because today we have more important and pressing things to take care of. He can even come tonight, but right now, at this very moment, we have a more pressing mission to accomplish. It is true, “Some Christians… will tell [you] Jesus is coming. But they live like he never will.”¹ The secret to life is that we need to live today as if Jesus will come today, but mindful that He may delay His coming until tomorrow. Our end may come today. It may come tomorrow. We just don’t know. The good news is that we don’t know when and how we will exit this world. So, we should live each day to the fullest, fully knowing that we may live tomorrow also. However, every moment should be lived to God’s glory. The world to come is better than our wildest imagination can take us. We know

that the “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9). As good as this world is, it can’t compare with the world Jesus has prepared for His children.

The Messiah Is Gone

I often wonder what it was like the day Jesus was taken up into heaven. Was there a father who had traveled from afar looking for Jesus with a request to heal his seriously sick daughter? Only to be informed Jesus was gone. Or was there a grieving mother, her face covered with tears, mourning for her only son, who came looking for Jesus? Only to be told Jesus was no longer living among them. Was there a leper who heard of Jesus, who eluded all and came to his family by the shadows of the night, inquiring where he could find the Great Physician? Only to be told Jesus was gone. Or perhaps, was there a discouraged son or daughter of Abraham who needed words of encouragement from the Messiah? Only to learn that the Messiah could not be found anywhere. I wonder. I fast forward the scene to our day in this early 21st century. I wonder if today you have questions concerning the meaning of life. Are you going through stuff that has made you so discouraged that you think life is not worth a penny? Have you asked the following questions lately? Are we born to simply live for a few days and die? Why so much suffering? Why so many headaches and heartaches? Why so many unanswered questions? How long Lord will we have to wait for answers? Why me? Why my family? Why my city? Why my country? You are not alone. Everyone is asking the same questions. Unfortunately, we have more questions and fewer answers to our pressing issues. I have good news for you. The answers are found in the Bible. In Acts 1:9-11, as the disciples marveled when they saw Jesus taken up into the sky, angels told them, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.” That same Jesus who went up into heaven will soon return to take us home. Before He was lifted up into the clouds, Jesus told His disciples,

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:18-20).

What might it have felt to see Jesus go up into the sky? When He was born only His earthly father Joseph and mother Mary were there in Bethlehem. But on that day, with His mission completed, Jesus took many disciples to Mount Olives who witnessed His Homegoing. They were anxious to know when God would usher in His kingdom. So they

asked Him, saying, “Lord will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8).

The time had come for His disciples to receive power and preach the Word boldly. He saw them standing before multitudes and rulers as they turned the world the right side up. That eventful day, when Jesus looked at His flock, He was satisfied. He had accomplished His mission. He had looked death in the eye and triumphed. He had battled with Satan and defeated him right in his neighborhood. Not everyone was happy. Many people He had come to save had rejected Him, spat in His face, scourged Him, and even nailed Him to a wooden cross. He had scars He was going to live with forever (Zech. 13:6). In front of Him was the most precious redeemed possession. And some of them didn’t even know He was going to take them with Him. His time had come to leave Planet Earth to meet His Father, an occasion that was in the making for thirty-three years. The Commander of Heaven was returning home. Love loomed at that mountain as the cool breeze blew quietly. The converted

Pharisees, Sadducees, Sanhedrins, Essenes, Zealots, poor, rich, cleansed lepers, ransomed prostitutes, and all the classes of people who believed in Him were there. Their lives had been transformed for the better. Now it was their turn to go preach the word. Jesus encouraged them to be faithful. Something spectacular happened on that mountain. Planet Earth could no longer hold Him. The law of gravity was suspended, because when He finished His last teaching,

With hands outstretched in blessing, and as if in assurance of His protecting care, He slowly ascended from among them, drawn heavenward by a power stronger than any earthly attraction. As He ed upward, the awestricken disciples looked with straining eyes for the last glimpse of their ascending Lord. A cloud of glory hid Him from their sight.²

How is your spiritual temperature today? Do you know your Savior and Lord? Do you feel the love Jesus has for you? Then love Him back and then love somebody else. Jesus says, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Tell someone today that Jesus loves him or her.

He Will Return

I didn’t see Him go up into heaven but I believe I will see Him when He comes down the second time. Scriptures are clear. Here are a few promises. For “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him” (Rev. 1:7). “For the Lord Himself will descend with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:16-

17). “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Cor. 15:51-52). We shall all be transformed when death will be swallowed up in victory and God will usher in immortality (verses 53-54). It will be a glorious homegoing. “Christ is coming with power and great glory. He is coming with His own glory and with the glory of the Father. He is coming with all the holy angels with Him.”³ For

Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him (Jude 14-15).

And yet nobody knows the day or time. “But that day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matt. 24:36).

I Cannot Wait

When we shall meet our Redeemer over on the other shore, we shall know Him by the nail prints in His hands. Just to be near Jesus will be glory for you and for me. The scars in His hands will provide constant reminders of our Savior’s love for us. The scars will also remind us of the sinfulness of sin. Therefore sin will not raise its ugly head again. We may not know the day or time the Lord will come, but one thing is for sure,

it is “high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent; the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the work of darkness, and let us put on the whole armor of light” (Rom. 13:11-12).

The Real World

No one can explain away the experiences of life we face such as betrayal, destruction, and death. In our heart of hearts we know Jesus could intervene to prevent evil but He chooses not to. That thought or feeling troubles us at times. I am comforted however by the thought that the One who created the world by the words of His mouth, and out of nothing, is still able today to create a soft, pliable heart from a stony heart. Therefore, whatever I go through, I know that even that will . When the situation is hopeless it is then time to place my trust in Him. It is a stark reality that,

God does not always step in to prevent evil, but He is still in control. We live in a world where bad things happen to good people. In the war between good and evil there are casualties. He is allowing evil to run its course, but He is there in the midst of suffering. He is there to comfort those who mourn. He is there to encourage the discouraged. He is there to strengthen the weak. He is there to inspire hope in the downhearted.⁴

I am not the only one who has asked the question: How long Lord Jesus is it before we shall sing the great song, “Christ returns” or “This is our Lord we have waited for”? I know that it won’t be long. It may be today for me. It’s a fact. Ready or not, want it or not, like it or not, Jesus is coming. He loves us so much He doesn’t want any to miss out on the good things He has prepared for those that respond to His love. And we will have a time in heaven that we have never known before.

I can’t wait to meet and talk with Him face to face. He will be the first to welcome me. I can’t wait to sit by His side and thank Him for paying my penalty of sin. For selfish reasons, I can’t wait for the great reunion with my father, mother, uncle, and all the dear ones who have gone before. I can’t wait to live in a place where all is bliss, and nobody conducts funerals. I want to go to a place where flowers never fade and where no one utters an angry word. That day can’t come sooner enough! Everyday I pray that God will give me strength to believe in Him even when there is no basis for belief; when shadows loom large on my way and my situation looks impossible. I pray for faith, even that of a mustard seed. Everyday I consecrate my life to Him so that I will be ready to meet Him in the clouds of glory. If I go sooner than that day, I pray that when my time comes to go, I will be in that number that will shout, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him; we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation” (Isa. 25:9). Therefore, when it appears that all hope is lost and bombs make holes in our hearts or lives, rather than looking to ourselves, we should call God to take control. When the heart bleeds and shadows deepen, we should take heart, because no one understands our sorrows better than Jesus. He Himself can’t wait to take us to His home where no one sheds tears of sadness. He wants to take us to that place where no pain, sorrow, tears, cancers, Alzheimer diseases, and terrorists exist. A place where no one grows old. But that heaven begins now. Jesus is with us even at this very moment. Immanuel is with us by the Holy Spirit and is still directing the affairs of this world. He is right now changing lives even when we don’t see Him. He is a Heart Specialist. Helen Keller observed, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” It is so very true with salvation. Only those who love the Lord can see the beauty in His Word and leading. Concerning our salvation,

What happens here on earth affects the future of the cosmos. From God’s point of view, the future has already been determined, and the prophets spell out that future state in glowing detail: swords beaten into plowshares, a lamb recumbent beside a lion, a banquet feast. That is what God wants for this earth and that is

what God will accomplish on this earth. The end is settled. What remains is whether we will live believing it.⁵

We should always choose Christ. God emptied heaven with the loss of its Commander for 33 years so that we can have everlasting life. As good as this world is it is not our home. Heaven is. In this world of heightened insecurity Jesus is our security. When everything else around us crumbles like New York’s twin towers, Christ is still the Rock of our salvation. He tells us, “Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near” (Luke 21:28). One of these days, we will shed the last tear of sorrow. The families will experience their last heartache. The patients will take their last medication. The doctors will write their last prescription and make their last round. Disease will claim its last victim. One of these days, the preachers will give their last eulogy; and preach their last sermon. The educators will give their last lesson, grade their last paper, and correct their last exam. The students will prepare for and their last exam. Death will claim its last victim. Musicians will compose and showcase their last song. One of these days Jesus will make His last intercession for sinners, and then He will come. On that glorious day His redeemed “shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 7:16-17). Hallelujah! What a day that will be! I know that “This life is not all there is” because a better day is coming. I need it. I dream it. I feel it. I can see it. Can you picture it?

The great controversy is ended. Sin and sinners are no more. The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minute atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love.⁷

In times like these I pray to God for hope and faith. Hope that will make me transcend circumstances that make me feel hopeless and helpless. And faith that will make me believe things that cannot be proven or observed, or things of which I can never be sure, except that my Bible tells me so. I need that faith and hope that will constantly remind me that one of these days, we all will finally gather at the throne of God. With life restored, the deaf will hear. The blind will see. The lame will leap for joy like deer. The dumb, will with loosened tongues, praise God with joy and great appreciation. Our hope lies in this Creator who redeemed us before we knew Him. He came the first time. He is coming the second time. I don’t know when that day will come. All I know is that it may be today. “Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20). I can’t wait!

Endnotes

1. Max Lucado, When Christ Comes (Nashville, Tennessee: Word Publishing, 1999). No page number. 2. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 831. 3. , Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1941), 421. 4. Mark Finley, Solid Ground (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2003), 66. 5. Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 193. 6. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), 36. 7. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Nampa, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1939), 678.

Chapter 21 Redeemer

Every moment I wake up, I thank God for the privilege of living another day because many people who would have loved to be alive are actually resting in their respective graves. The next time they will wake up, some will receive eternal life while others will receive eternal death. I am full of joy and gratitude in the morning because I know that I still have another chance at my salvation. My faith in Jesus continues to grow. Do I have my anxious moments? Everyday. However, daily my desire to draw closer to Him intensifies because I get closer to His coming. I know that He ionately cares for me. I therefore want to walk with Him, talk with Him, sup with Him, and tell Him all that troubles me. Together, we have our intimate moments as I rest in His bosom. As we walk hand in hand together, I rest confidently in His everlasting and loving arms fully knowing that there is a heaven waiting for me. I believe that He is the Son of God. No one is like Him and no one will ever be like Him. As He traveled throughout the villages and towns, He raised the dead, healed the sick, forgave sinners, calmed storms, delivered those with demons, and fed thousands of people with a little food. He cultivated and spread hope and happiness to everyone. Every day and consistently. Only God can do that. At the end of His ministry He hang between heaven and earth, His arms outstretched, embracing the world and inviting everyone to behold Him dying for them. In that death He brought heaven and earth closer together. He had just accomplished His mission—saving the world, but the adventure did not end there. He rose from the dead after spending time in a borrowed tomb. The Creator laid down His life and picked it up again. The life and death of Christ are meant to stir up a loving relationship between humans and their Savior. Today, Jesus transforms human lives. His death melts hard and stony hearts, making them new, soft, and pliable. He seeks and saves the lost to the uttermost. He forgives the unforgivable and dies so they cannot die. Miracle of all miracles, He transforms profligates and sinners into saints, changing them into His image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:11). Irrespective of

what we think or want to believe, God exists. “Without God, life has no purpose, and without purpose, life has no meaning. Without meaning, life has no significance or hope.”¹ All of us want to live in a world filled with hope and a life full of meaning. That hope is God-given. God has established in us a desire to love and worship Him. Why? Because “We are wired for God.” Because “Our genetic blueprint has made believing in an Infinite Absolute part of our nature.”² This is one reason we feel uneasy and uncomfortable when we do something wrong. We are created to praise God in the spirit of praise, gratitude, and thanksgiving. We should and must magnify His name because He is worthy to be praised. God’s love knows no bounds or limits. God’s love is everywhere—in snow, rain, hailstorm, tears, sickness, health, joy, fellowship, sorrow, suffering, and want. It is found in disaster, death, and disappointment. It is found in smiles, love, joy, kindness, mercy, and happiness. Jesus says He cares for His own. He came to give His life a ransom for many. Through His death the captives of Satan were set free from the bondage of sin. Is anything too dearer than heaven? I don’t think so. Heaven emptied itself with the most important person in the whole universe—God Himself. Heaven came down and dwelt among us. We know that heaven rings with wonderful music, including “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!” (Rev. 5:12). The Christian life is not an easy road because it has bends and curves, trials, tears, and troubles along its course. But even in trials and troubles, bends and curves, one can still see God’s handiwork, working out circumstances in our favor. Jesus has made every provision so that when we are tried and tempted we will find strength, help, and grace in time of need. We only need to depend on His strength. As our Creator and Savior He knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows us better than anyone will ever know us. Because He has born all our sins, carried all our sorrows, and taken all our grief, no one understands us like Jesus. He looks at us with comion, sympathy, and tenderness. We “have the deepest, the richest, the most refreshing sympathy in the bosom of the great Shepherd. We have not an high priest who cannot sympathize with us, but One who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”³ We are not different from those who lived in days of old. We complain too much.

We complain when we receive rain, snow, cloudy days, blue skies, snow, and cool days. We complain when it is hot, or when it is cold. We complain when it doesn’t rain, and cry when it rains. The one who brings all good things to us is Jesus. Ironically, many people do not want to hear about Jesus. Isn’t it fascinating that anyone can talk about any topic and none reacts negatively, except when the topic changes to Jesus and His salvation? It is sad to know that “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). Today, Satan is working very hard to take the minds of people away from their Jesus, their Savior. At the time we should be walking worthy of the Lord and being fruitful in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God, according to His glorious power (Col. 1:9-14), most of us wander away, stiff-necked, bent on denying Him and His salvation. We will never escape from God’s love. We cannot run away from His love because it pursues us. He comes to us. God loves us more than we will ever know. John 3:16 says it all: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Jesus wants to draw near to us. That has been His one dominant purpose and desire. Only in Christianity do we see the Creator dying for His creation. God Almighty clothed His divinity with humanity, lived a life of humility, and took the form of a servant. He was despised, afflicted, rejected, and crucified by the very people He came to save. One who was one with the Father stepped down from a place of exaltation and inexpressible beauty, a place with unapproachable light and glory, to our world of want. Jesus came to a planet scarred and marred by sin to live among unappreciative humans. He submitted His life to insult, suffering, pain, mockery, and death of the cross so that we could escape eternal death. That is love. He brought love that reaches to everyone and is for everyone. We need to draw closer to Christ for the cleansing of our hearts. How He yearns to develop a deep relationship with us! A fellowship in which He will fight fierce battles for us—battles that rage in our lives that tend to rend our hearts. The good news is that the enemy was defeated long ago on Mount Calvary. We need to

Study day and night the character of Christ. It was His tender comion, His inexpressible, unparalled love for your soul, that led Him to endure all the shame, the revilings, the abuse, the misapprehensions of earth. Approach nearer Him, behold His hands and His feet, bruised and wounded for our transgressions.⁴

We should not delay in coming to Him. We can come just as we are: in our unworthiness, weakness, and sorrows. He stands at the door of our hearts and knocks. Will we let Him in? The best news is that we hold the key to the kingdom of God, and only we can open the doors to our hearts. Unfortunately, Jesus, our Lord and Savior, is never recognized for who He is. Even when He lived among us, the heavenly treasure was not discerned for who He was. The people whom He came to rescue did not recognize Him as the Messiah although they professed to be His special people. The divine Teacher sent by His Father and who spoke like no one else, was not acknowledged by many. Disguising Himself as one of the poorest human beings, people failed to recognize His matchless glory. Isn’t it humbling to realize that the Bread of heaven became hungry? The Living Water became thirsty. The Great Physician who healed wounds was wounded. And then the wonder of it all: the Resurrection and Life died. Isn’t it strange that it was God’s chosen people who were instrumental in putting the Creator to death? “The most refined religion of the day accused an innocent man [and found Him guilty], and the most renowned justice system carried out the [unjust] sentence.”⁵ It is great to know that the person who finds Christ finds heaven. All expenses should be garnered and spent on getting to know Him. If we can sacrifice everything we have in order to obtain worldly treasure, how much more should we be willing to spend to gain heaven’s matchless and glorious treasure (Matt. 6:19-20)? Jesus is the answer to all our questionings. The Man of sorrows is also the Lord of joy. He was crucified as a common criminal to save everyone, including criminals. He permitted what He hated (death) in order to accomplish what He loved (life). He became the victim of violence in order to redeem the oppressed. He chose to live in a tent so He could live close to His creation and eventually give them mansions. He became poor so we can become rich. What a God!

Therefore, the best thing one can do is to freely choose to follow Christ. He “is unerring in wisdom and infinite in goodness.” All we have is due to His goodness. Even before we knew Him, when we were yet still sinners, Christ died and paid a ransom for us by spilling His blood. We have been bought with a price, even with the precious blood of God Himself. We need Him to help us surrender our lives to Him. If you have not already accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, I beseech you to do so. Right now. Jesus is waiting to enroll your name in the precious records of heaven. Trying to express the extent of God’s love for His people, the Apostle John exclaimed, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1). He continued, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (verses 2-3). We shall be changed and will be like Him when He comes in glory. The scriptures are clear:

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs—heirs of God and t heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together (Rom. 8:14-18).

On this earth, we will continue to deal with the problem of sin. That is why He didn’t promise that the sky will always be blue. In spite of all the problems and anxieties we need to develop a faith in Him that will keep us believing even when we feel the need to doubt. As long as we depend on Him and call on His name we will come out more than conquerors. Apostle Paul says we can do all things through the strength of Christ (Phil. 4:13). Even in the most trying circumstances God will provide a way of escape for us. He is bigger than our problems. He is able and willing to solve all of our problems. He believes in us

and expects us to do great things for and with Him. Therefore, we should come boldly to the throne of grace and frankly tell the world that we are the precious children of Jesus. We should relate to Him all the handicaps we face. We cannot overburden Him. He has faced those same problems before. What if we do not feel like God has heard us? Not to worry. We need to understand that it is

Not because we see or feel God hears us are we to believe. We are to trust in His promises. When we come to Him in faith, every petition enters His heart. When we have asked for His blessing, we should believe that we receive it, and thank Him that we have received it. Then we are to go about our duties, assured that the blessing will be realized when we need it.⁷

Jesus knows His children by name because He is a personal God. He transforms His creation, one person at a time as they come close to Him. He honors those who believe in Him. Consequently, they become changed into His image and become more precious than gold. As they reflect His glory in their lives, moment by moment, they are changed from glory to glory. The longer one looks at Jesus, the more one yearns to look at Him again. The more one loves the more love one receives in return. What a deal! “Jesus is more precious to the soul that beholds Him by the eye of faith than is anything else beside, and the believing soul is more precious to Jesus than fine gold of Ophir.”⁸ God does all the work. He imparts the light and faith that are needed to behold the glory of Jesus. The reason is simple: until God reveals the mystery of salvation through the spiritual eye of faith, no one can discern the love of God. By faith the soul catches the divine light from Jesus. In this world there will always be troubles and room for doubt, but God has given us the assurance that all will be well for those who love and believe in Him. There is power in the gospel of Jesus Christ. The power that raised Lazarus and Jesus from the dead is still present today. In this world of care and sin, tragedies will happen, but a glorious day is coming in which the resurrection power of God will be fully manifested. Then those whose lives have been transformed and shaped by Jesus will know the full meaning and comfort only Jesus can bring.

God must and should be the most important being in our lives. He is the source of our being. In Him we live, move, and have our being (Acts 17:28). He desires to establish a living relationship with us. He loves us so much that He was thinking of us long before we ever thought about Him. Without God life is meaningless, senseless, and a nuisance. Without Him we would simply be drifting along; going nowhere in particular. With Him life is precious and enjoyable. With Him life is worth living. In times like these we need to know that Jesus is coming soon to take His children home. He is coming with great power and glory. Those who have enjoyed loving Him on earth will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Those who have made Him their refuge will reflect His image because they will be like Him and will see Him as He is. In times like these we need to be reminded that in the new world there will not be any pain, death, suffering, sorrow, crime, and unkindness to each other. But nobody will enter heaven by accident. Those who will get there will do so because they desired to be there and accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I want to be there. I want to see Jesus. Face to face. God’s love is supernal, immortal, eternal, enduring, and everlasting. No one can adequately explain it. Throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity we will sit at Christ’s feet as He will explain His love for us. If all of us were authors and writers by profession, and spent every moment of our lives writing about God’s love for us, we can use all the drops of water in all the oceans until they dried up. We can fill the sky with the wonderful words of Jesus, and yet there will be more things to write about Him. His love is so profound we cannot exhaust it. In heaven the more we will learn from Jesus, the more we will want to know more and the more we will love Him. I look forward to those studies, but they actually begin now. I thank Him for His plan of salvation and for dying for me on Calvary. There are many things I don’t know about God’s love. I don’t understand things about tomorrow. One thing I know for sure is that He knows and holds tomorrow. I love this Omniscient Jesus. While some may see Him as a carpenter, the Son of Joseph, I see Him as my Messiah, Savior, Lord, and King of kings. While some may see Him as a great prophet and good teacher, I see Him as my Creator, Redeemer, Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. While some may see Him as the Son of Mary, I see Him as Immanuel, God Incarnate, and God Omnipotent. He “emptied himself of many of the prerogatives of God in

order to become a man.” Even though He may not have had facial beauty to behold and appreciate Him, He is my Lilly of the Valley, the Rose of Sharon. He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world and the conquering Lion of Judah. No one is like Him or will ever be like Him. He is merciful and just. He is gracious in all His dealings with humans. He is my Jesus, my Savior. He wants to be your Savior too. He is my God. He is your God too. He created us for and by His purpose.¹ His plans for our lives are better than our wildest imaginations. His future is gloriously bright. I will clasp my feeble hand in His mighty hand and let Him gently and safely lead me home. I stand amazed and grateful that God would think of me as being worthy the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. What a sacrifice! I know that whatever He does is for my good. He deserves my praise. This Creator, Lord, and King: My Jesus, My Savior. My Redeemer, my Sustainer!

Endnotes

1. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 30. 2. Mark Finley, Solid Ground (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2003), 24. 3. Ellen G. White, That I May Know Him (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2003), 53. 4. Ibid., 56. 5. Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 142. 6. Ibid., 59. 7. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 200. (Emphasis supplied.)

8. White, That I May Know Him, 61. 9. Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 26. 10. Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, 18.

Chapter 22 More Questions than Answers

I am fortunate to have been born in a family that acknowledged the sovereignty of God. That background helped me when my faith was tested, especially in college. I believe I came out of college stronger because of what I learned. As indicated earlier, it appeared as if some courses were designed to persuade me to turn away from Christianity, the faith of my parents. Natural and physical sciences intrigue and fascinate me. In my opinion, natural and physical scientists are lucky. These individuals spend their lives studying things only some of us dream about knowing. To study the structure of DNA and the working of the human body, brain, cell, or universe and conclude that we are accidents on this earth does not make sense to me. As impossible as it might seem to some, and as much as many may hate to it it, nothing is an accident on Planet Earth. Both animate and inanimate things cannot have such elaborate structures and forms without a Master Designer. Behind their complicated structures and functions is the Master Creator. I call Him God. I therefore handle natural or physical sciences very well. Social science is another animal. Its take on religion and faith challenges me and makes me question the basis for my belief. Humanly speaking, social scientists’ explanation on injustice makes much sense. Religion consists of largely manmade teachings that are used by powerful men and women to unjustly control others or justify their actions. The God I know does not create, condone, or perpetuate injustices. All the injustices I see are manmade. The heartaches I observe are due to a group of people who desire to control and oppress others to advance their own selfish ends—not God’s agenda—saving lost humanity. The privileged few establish rules and regulations that put others into subservient relationships. The devil and his angels have a lot to do with those problems (Eph. 6:12). Therefore, before I suggest that God has anything to do with my problems, I need to know that there are powers and principalities involved that cannot be seen by naked human eyes whose mission is to inflict pain and torture. And God combats them on our behalf. Sometimes God will allow them to touch us as He did with His servant Job, or even kill us, as He did in the case of

apostles.

Questions and More Questions

Although I tend to believe that I have a good grip on understanding God’s love, when things go wrong I still find myself asking: Where did my God go? Where does He go when people begin to concoct horrendous schemes that hurt others? Why doesn’t He stop them cold in their tracks? Why does He become silent when I need Him most? Why does He allow so much suffering in the world today? He is the Almighty. He has the power. He can at any time thwart any scheme. Why doesn’t He step in to zap the evil before it raises its ugly head? As an African, I have been intrigued by the plight of Africans in as far as socioeconomic development is concerned when compared to other people in other continents. As a geographer, the inequities and inequalities that I observe are too grave to contemplate. Philip Yancey is bothered by similar questions. For instance, why is the richest continent, in of natural and human resources, on earth the poorest in material wealth? Why do millions of Africans go hungry and die from hunger when statistically Africa is the most aggressive Christian continent? Why do Africans suffer so much and lag behind in socioeconomic development when Africa has served Christianity well? Why are African descendants in the United States not as well off as others? Why are they the heaviest poverty-stricken on earth in the richest nation on Planet Earth? I cannot answer my own questions. I know that one of these days God will explain the intricacies of my dilemma, if there will be a need to. Lest we forget it was in Africa that Abram, before he was renamed Abraham, brought his livestock for green pastures along the River Nile when famine broke out in the Promised Land (Gen. 12). God saved His people from starvation when the famine occurred in Israel through Governor Joseph in Egypt (Gen. 41:3745:28). In Egypt God spared the life of Moses who later became the fearless leader to lead the children of Israel through the dry Red Sea on their way to Canaan (Exo. 14ff). When Satan tried to kill the Infant Christ, Joseph and Mary fled to Africa and only returned to Israel when it was safe for them to do so

(Matt. 2:13-23). It was an African, Simon, who helped the tired, thirsty, hungry, bruised, and exhausted Jesus to carry the cross for Him to Golgotha just before he died for the sins of the world (Matt. 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26). Soon after Jesus had ascended to heaven after His resurrection, one of the first disciples to be converted was an African (Acts 8:26-40). In spite of these great acts, Africa has the unique distinction of being the hungriest and poorest continent on earth, lagging behind all other continents in every socioeconomic indicator. And things are growing worse. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is more virulent in Africa, a continent that has fewer resources to deal with the disease. In certain countries one-third of the population is HIV positive. The continent now suffers from diseases associated with development (cancers and other chronic diseases) and diseases characteristic of developing countries (infectious and communicable diseases). And yet Africans are converting to Christianity like no other race in history. Why, Lord? Why my people? Yes, Why my people, Lord? Although suffering is not confined to Africans, I know that it will end for everyone when Jesus will come. But I know that questions will continue to be asked. I am not alone in asking these poignant questions. Philip Yancey has asked:

Why would God allow so much suffering in the world? Why did the good people, the innocent, suffer so much more than the evil and corrupt? Where were God’s justice and mercy? How could His goodness be reconciled with the fact that thousands were perishing… and so many of them children?¹

Of course, I know that God doesn’t answer “why” questions. Instead He provides evidence of His leadership and advises us to choose between life’s alternatives. All these considerations beg the questions, were we accidents on this planet? Were we an afterthought of some grandiose ideal? Of course, the answer is an emphatic “No!” God created us out of His great love. He uniquely designed us and gave us individual talents, skills, and abilities. The suffering we see or experience should point us to another source and another place. I know that God created us for a purpose.² He has our best desires and interest at heart (Jer. 29:11). The detours that we take in life that make us to question His purpose

for our lives are simply that—detours and distractions. He loves us too much to let us go. The greatest challenge for me is to believe in Him even if there is little or no evidence of His leading in my life; when my intellectual self advises and leads me to question and ultimately try to convince me to reject Him.

God Loves Us

Ever since I was a young boy, I have heard that God loves me. That God is crazy about me. Sometimes as the anguish of my soul has taken over, with tears in my eyes and when no one has been watching, I have questioned that statement. I have questioned Him especially during those circumstances He appears to be either too far away or silent. But even then, deep down in my heart, I know He is there. How I wish I could see and touch Him! I know that He loves me and does everything for me to be saved. That thought alone has sustained me. Once in a while I come to a point in crisis of belief. This is the moment when I am forced to evaluate my life and ask the inevitable question: Is this all to life? All of us must come to that moment and ask: Is this all to life? Are we here just for a brief moment, to simply live for a few years and evaporate like morning dew? Is there an answer to the madness of busy life? Is what or whom I believe in capable and able to take me to a higher plane in my belief system? Is there a balm for healing anywhere? Providentially, the answer is Jesus. Because we all have messed up in our lives, we need to come to Jesus for cleansing and offer Him our broken spirits and contrite hearts. He will heal and mend them. He is the only individual in the whole universe who has earned the right to be worshiped because of what He has done and continues to do for us. God created us and also sacrificed His Son, Christ Jesus, so we can relate to Him better. Are we taking advantage of His offer to live in us? God loves sinners! God loves us. Such love does not mean that sin doesn’t matter. It means that everyday God gives us new chances to begin our lives with Him anew. He loves you and me so much that He was willing to die in order to save us. He loves us so much that if we were the only sinner in the whole illimitable universe, He would still have come and died for us anyway.

Personally. Individually. That’s love! He loves His creation so much that He died on the cross for the sins He did not commit. “He went to the cross, where man’s utter despair collided with God’s unbending grace. And in that moment when God’s great gift was complete, the comionate Christ showed the world the cost of his gift.”³ At the cross, Jesus exchanged His “heavenly royalty for earthly poverty.”⁴ Now, He wants to forgive our sins, no matter what we have done. Above all else, He desires to establish a relationship with us, which begins when we receive Him into our lives as our Lord and Savior. There is no greater purpose in life than communing daily with the Creator, Savior, and Lord. Truthfully, the choices are very limited. We are to believe in Christ and live the rest of our lives for His glory. He is the only one who understands our situations. The best point is that we all are forgiven. But we need to accept and appropriate that forgiveness for ourselves. When I lived in Michigan, one day a state trooper stopped me for driving above the posted speed limit. Yes, I was caught speeding. I tried to give excuses he might have heard before. At the end of our conversation, he forgave me. He didn’t give me a ticket or any citation. He advised me about traveling safely on Michigan freeways and highways. He then advised me that other troopers might not be as forgiving. I thanked that officer and still thank him today. He had options. He decided to forgive. God is the same. He has options, but chooses to forgive. He loves us so much that nothing, absolutely nothing, will separate us from His intended purpose of loving us. He loves us ionately, unconditionally, and without hesitation. We need to respond. Scriptures are clear, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). That is the only condition He lays for us—to confess our sins and accept His leading. He does not have a whole list of conditions for us to fulfill before He can accept us. Jesus would rather die than see us die in our sins. All we need is to love Him in return. Therefore, “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). At the cross, as He was suspended between heaven and earth, His arms outstretched in one last invitation, our burdens and chains of sin fell off as Jesus’ death drew all men and women to Himself. Yes:

If God never did anything else for [me], he would still deserve [my] continual

praise for the rest of [my] life because of what Jesus did for [me] on the cross. God’s Son died for [me]! This is the greatest reason for worship. Unfortunately, we forget the details of the agonizing sacrifice God made on our behalf. Familiarity breeds complacency. Even before his crucifixion, the Son of God was stripped naked, beaten until almost unrecognizable, whipped, scorned and mocked, crowned with thorns, and spit on contemptuously. Abused and ridiculed by heartless men, he was treated worse than an animal. Then, nearly unconscious from blood loss, he was forced to drag a cumbersome cross up a hill, was nailed to it, and was left to die the slow, excruciating torture of death by crucifixion. While his lifeblood drained out, hecklers stood by and shouted insults, making fun of his pain and challenging his claim to be God.

And yet He said nothing, except to love us more. He died because He wanted us to share in His glorious eternity. He gave up everything so we could get all things. He died so we could not die. Jesus gave up many things and privileges in order to conquer sin. “He would rather go to hell for you than go to heaven without you.”⁷ His forgiveness includes the vilest offender. That includes you. That includes me. What a Savior! He surely deserves our worship. In times like these we need a Savior who sympathizes with our infirmities. In times like these we need Jesus more than we have ever needed Him before. In times like these we need to lean on the arms of Someone who has gone through what we are going through. And yet did not sin. Yes, in times like these we need Jesus. He is the only one we need. He is our Love! He is our Lord.

Endnotes

1. Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 71. 2. Joni E. Tada, Ordinary People, Extraordinary Faith (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2001), 80.

3. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002). 4. Max Lucado, The Gift for All People. Thoughts on God’s Great Grace (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 1999), 35. 5. Ibid. 6. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, 112. 7. Lucado, The Gift for All People, 43.

Chapter 23 In Times Like These

Philip Yancey relates a story his friend who worked with the down-and-out in Chicago told him. His friend said to him,

A prostitute came to me in wretched straits, homeless, sick, unable to buy food for her two-year-old daughter. Through sobs and tears, she told me she had been renting out her daughter—two years old!—to men interested in kinky sex. She made more renting out her daughter for an hour than she could earn on her own in a night. She had to do it, she said, to her own drug habit. I could hardly bear hearing her sordid story. For one thing, it made me legally liable— I’m required to report cases of child abuse. I had no idea what to say to this woman. At last I asked if she had ever thought of going to a church for help. I will never forget the look of pure, naïve shock that crossed her face. “Church!” she cried. “Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They would make me feel worse.”¹

This sad and tragic story begs questions that Christians ought to answer— individually and corporately. Why don’t people who fall into situations like this woman did come to church for assistance? Is your current church the first or last place they would come? Would they come at all? Why or why not? Is your church a hospital for convicted sinners or a social country club for perfect saints? As Christians we are challenged to create environments that are welcoming to all types of people. “If as , we create a church that arrogantly excludes and withholds love from those in unlovely situations, we’re robbing them of the love and God wishes to extend to them, through His human hands on earth,

His church—you and me.”² We often think of a church as a building. The church is people. As the church of Christ we have done a very poor job of representing our God when it comes to loving His people. However, the story of the woman from Chicago begs questions. Who in their right minds would tolerate what the woman did? What was the woman thinking to rent out her two-year-old daughter, and of all the reasons—to her drug habit? What kind of men would abuse and molest a two-year-old? Her story makes me sick to my stomach to just think about it. But it is the story of the days of our lives. It is the story of a human race gone wild. Her story simply shows how low we as a people have sunk and digressed from God’s ideals. This is not an isolated case. More horrendous, just as sad and incomprehensible, stories abound. What about Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer who murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991? He raped, killed them, dismembered, and ate them as snacks. (Of course, he didn’t put it that way.) His story begs more questions. He became a born again Christian in prison. What would you do if he showed up at your church and you learned that he had done such hideous crimes against humanity? What if he claimed that he regretted and repented of what he had done in the past and would not do it again? What if he told you that his sins were covered by the blood of Jesus? What if he said that he knew the church was the only place of refuge left for him? What would you do if he had done those gruesome things to a member of your family? Would you still forgive him? Would you even consider to give him positions in church that dealt with young people or to oversee the affairs of individuals like the ones he had victimized? Would you nominate him to be a church officer or a member of the church board? You don’t have to agonize over these questions. Dahmer never left the Columbia Correction Institution where he was incarcerated because an inmate beat him to death on November 28, 1994. As I write this chapter, several priests in the Roman Catholic Church have been found guilty of molesting about 11,000 children, mainly altar boys who worked under them. The parents and society are angry that the very men of God with whom they entrusted their young people were the ones who abused and misused them. Who could they trust if they can’t trust their own priests? The church has paid dearly and probably will continue to pay dearly in the future. The saints are angry that the so-called predator priests who have been implicated in the scandals have continued to be employed. They feel betrayed because most often

the “problem priests” were simply transferred to other dioceses rather than being fired. Why didn’t they lose their “jobs?” The victims, relatives, friends, and society at large have asked. Better still, why were they not incarcerated? In 2005, the Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi underwent the worst floods in history, especially by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Many people died partly (some would claim largely) because the federal, state, and local governments were not adequately prepared for the catastrophes. The heartrending images of people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on our television sets will forever be embedded in our minds. Actually, many mistakes were made in evacuating the stranded residents. Five months after the event (February 2006), we learned that some patients at the New Orleans Memorial Hospital were allegedly euthanized rather than rescued. s decided to end the lives of some patients. How could they? We asked. Would we do differently? How do you deal with a life or death situation? Are there people you think should not be saved? Every day, we learn about stressful news. Some events are so powerful that communities desire to forget the bad things that happened in their midst. For example, after condemning a house, on December 6, 2011, the City of Cleveland in Ohio demolished the home of serial killer Anthony Sowell. Residents called it the “House of Horrors.” Sowell had killed 11 women between 2007 and 2009, and stored them in his house to decompose. The city totally demolished the house and pulverized every piece of debris to prevent people from taking scraps from the residence. Sowell was convicted on multiple counts of aggravated murder and was sentenced to die. What would you do if Sowell showed up in your town, neighborhood, or church? What if he dated your daughter, niece, or granddaughter? The reality is that some of us will take up justice on our own and avenge the blood of the departed. The church is not far from that reality. We are intolerant to people who falter. By and large, in our zealous “holier than thou” and brutally honest attitude, we alienate many and prevent those fragile souls from coming to God whom they desperately need at their weakest moments in their lives. That was one reason Jesus had scathing remarks for scribes and Pharisees for doing the same thing (Matthew 23). The church represents Christ on earth. It should be a place of refuge “where we come to be loved, to feel loved, and to share love.”³

Convicted but Forgiven Sinners

The woman in Chicago was right in many ways. But notice that there were three lives involved: the woman, her daughter, and “the man.” I am not suggesting that people should not suffer consequences for their actions. They should and must. I am just stating that God loves us all with an everlasting love. He handles atrocities differently. Instead of killing us, He died for you, me, and them also. Christians are nothing more than convicted but forgiven sinners. We are all saved by the grace of Jesus. If our life stories were to be written and made public, very few of us would go for worship tomorrow. Why? Because all of us have pasts and closets full of skeletons we don’t want others to know about. That is why it is dangerous to point fingers at people because three fingers point right back at us. Ironically, we have the ability to see the mote in our brother’s eye and not the beam in ours (Matt. 7:3). Jesus advises us to remove the beam in our eye first so that we can see clearly before we cast out the mote in our brother’s eye (verse 5). We are all guilty. We may not have killed, but have entertained the thought of killing somebody, or right now hate our brother, sister, neighbor, or enemy. We may have judged someone wrongly or harshly. We are all guilty of floundering God’s love. Consequently, we deserve the harshest punishment God can prescribe. But because we are precious in His sight He covers our sins under the blood of His Son. He forgives and forgets our sins, making us stand before Him as if we had never sinned. What a God! Next to our names in the book of heaven is the precious word ever written: Pardoned! Forgiven! How could that be? It is because,

God re that we are dust. As Moses taught so clearly, evil is unpreventable and punishment is inevitable. But we have a God who consciously forgets our sins and consciously re our frailty. We have a God who travels by our side, who tabernacles among us through the vast and dreadful wilderness. We have a God of grace, who loves even the dusty ones—especially the dusty ones.⁴

Yes, we all are sinners saved by grace. There is no difference in that we all come short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:22-23). The punishment for sinners is death (Rom. 6:23). Thank God we don’t have to die because we have a Savior, Jesus Christ the righteous, unless we reject Him and His atoning sacrifice. We only have to turn to God who ionately loves us in spite of our sins and defects. God loves us so much that He pursued and sought us when we were running away from Him. From the very beginning of our lives, Jesus has relentlessly fought the devil on our behalf, forgiven our sins, and provided an escape for us. Through Jesus we will see friends and neighbors as individuals whom God dearly loves. Our Savior and Lord greatly and ionately loves us. He is crazy . In the eyes of Jesus, we all are candidates for heaven. Consider His closest associates. Among His disciples were a Zealot, a member of the super patriotic party; a tax collector, whom his own people considered a traitor; fishermen; and a thief who would eventually betray Him. Jesus praised His cousin, John the Baptist, whom many considered counter-cultural. He met with Roman centurions and spoke to a Samaritan woman when Jewish racial and religious policies and practices forbade Him to do so. He ate in a tax collector’s home and dined in a Pharisee’s home and a leper’s home. He rested in His friend’s home in Bethany. He mingled with the down and under. When He attended weddings He made them better. Class didn’t and still doesn’t matter to Jesus. What mattered was and still is the person. He loves everybody. Why should it be different with us, His representatives? Yes,

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they (Heb. 1:1-4).

Jesus, the Creator, left the splendor of heaven to show us another way of looking at and living a full life. He revealed just a little glimpse of what heaven is like. Heaven is a place where sin, sickness, and death never show their ugly heads. Why do I believe so? Because wherever He went there was no mourning, sickness, or pain. He healed every infirmity and raised the dead. There was no problem He could not solve. He healed every disease and illness imaginable with His word or touch. Most important, He healed people from the spiritual malaise they found themselves into. When His work on earth was completed, He returned to heaven and now sits at the right hand of God, bidding us to love God and love each other. He looks forward to that time the lame shall leap for joy, the blind shall see, the dumb shall speak, and death shall be banished forever. Heaven was made accessible through the death of Christ. His death is the cornerstone of our belief because looking at the suffering and dying Christ leads to changed lives. Nobody looks at the cross and remains the same. By beholding Christ we become changed into His likeness. On our own, we are hopelessly and helplessly incapable of changing. We have tried many things that have not worked and cannot work, including the use of force by government. The church even used force to effect obedience by invading other nations through crusades and silencing critics. We should know better. A change of heart does not come from forced obedience or from within us. It is a gift to us from a loving God above. The first thing to do is to be willing to be made willing to change. Nobody else can do that for us. It is true,

the state government can shut down stores and theaters on Sunday, but it cannot compel worship. It can arrest and punish KKK murderers but cannot cure their hatred, much less teach them love. It can laws making divorce more difficult but cannot force husbands to love their wives and wives their husbands. It can give subsidies to the poor but cannot force the rich to show them comion and justice. It can ban adultery but not lust, theft but not covetousness, cheating but not pride. It can encourage virtue but not holiness.⁵

There is a big difference between what the state can do and what God will do. To live a godly life,

The soul must be cleansed from vanity and pride, and vacated off all that has held it in possession, and Christ must be enthroned within. Human science is too limited to comprehend the atonement. The plan of redemption is so far-reaching that philosophy cannot explain it. It will ever remain a mystery that the most profound reasoning cannot fathom. The science of salvation cannot be explained; but it can be known by experience. Only he who sees his own sinfulness can discern the preciousness of the Savior.

God loves us so much that He wants all the people on earth to learn and understand that there is a way to live that pleases Him. We are not an accident on this earth. Though battered and scarred, bruised and maimed, God loves us the same. It is nice to know that there is a place where sins, temptations, weariness, painful disappointments, separations, and tears of sadness never exist. We should be preparing to go to that better place where Jesus is preparing mansions for those who believe in Him. He invites us to go home to His house in heaven. Our difficulties are only detours on the way to a grand destiny with the Savior who has already triumphed for us. A day is fast approaching when we will meet men and women from every generation: the antediluvians, judges, prophets, apostles, reformers, contemporaries, and many others. Will you and I be there? We all individually need to answer this question. By God’s amazing grace, let us plan to be there. It is a better alternative to anything we can imagine or dream of.

Everyone Needs God

This side of heaven, we will never live to our fullest potential or fully appreciate what God has done for us. In spite of how you feel right now, you need God in your life. You may have questions about God, as you have observed or experienced things that may have made you to become skeptical about life. Perhaps you want to figure out God before you can believe in Him. I hope you have realized that you cannot figure out God, largely because you are not God. Only God can figure out God. You are better off not trying to figure Him out because it is an exercise in futility.

You and I need our childlike faith—that faith that made our childhood life sparkle. Do you that time when you felt Him closer as you walked and talked with Him? That time you did not question Him because you knew He was there even though you didn’t see Him? That time you talked to Jesus as if to a friend, face to face? If Jesus had come then you would have made it into heaven. That time there was no care because God answered your prayers and took care of every burden. What happened to that faith? What happened to your relationship with your Lord? If a distance developed between you and God, guess who moved? The childlike faith says we will trust God because He is bigger than our problems. We will trust Him even when we cannot see beyond the next moment. If we could see beyond the perimeter of our despair, we would see clearly that God does not abandon His children. No matter what life throws at them God understands. He is always there in the midst, carrying them in His mighty arms of love. Honestly, does God seem to be silent and nothing seems to work for you? Do things seem murky and muddy? Do God’s promises to be close to you still hold true in your life? Or does everything seem to crumble around you? Trust God. Who else can you turn to? When Jesus asked if His twelve disciples were also going to abandon Him as many had just done, Peter asked, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). It is true, “The critical issue, the one that faces every person who endures a great trial, is the same question of response: Will I trust God with my pain, my weakness, even my fear? Or will I turn away from him in bitterness and anger?”⁷ When nothing works and the way grows weary and dreary, that is the time to trust God. That is the time you need God most. Therefore put your faith in Him because He is the only one who understands your sorrows and fears. We all need God in our lives. We have the evidence stored in the Bible. The Hebrews enjoyed a cooling shade of the cloud by day that protected them from the desert heat and which turned into a pillar of fire by night to protect them from the chilling desert cold in their journey from Egypt to Canaan. Yet they grumbled for forty years about His leadership. Only two individuals from millions that began the journey from Egypt entered Canaan. Their story shows that one can have a close with the Creator and still miss His blessings. Twelve disciples walked, dined, and slept with Jesus for three and a half years. Only eleven made it into apostleship—one hang himself after betraying his

Master. However, the Bible gives myriads of examples of people who struggled in their lives and yet made it into the Gospel Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11). That means that there is still hope for you and for me. In times like these you need a Savior. You need Jesus Christ, the righteous.

Endnotes

1. Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing about Grace? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), 11. 2. Michelle L. Oetman, “The Unfinished Church,” Adventist Review, 181 (16), April 15, 2004, 9. 3. Richard W. O’Ffill, Standing Firm (Hagerstown, Maryland: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2003), 39. 4. Philip Yancey, The Bible Jesus Read (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 103. 5. Yancey, What’s So Amazing about Grace? 251. 6. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1940), 494-495. 7. Philip Yancey, Reaching for the Invisible God (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 71.