I don't know about you but just this Saturday I got the chance to a dear friend of mine to the Saturday service of VCF, where later we also had the time to get together with other friends to eat pizza.And after a while we and another friend that I was discipling were about to start our regular Bible study the dear friend that I invited suddenly came into a frenzy of excuses and reasons why he shoudn't be in that place with us at that moment to cut the story short he was sort of frightened when I grabbed the Bible from my bag so as to start the Bible Study, so I just let him leave me and my other friend to our study, and though I said it that its okay, I must admit that I was offended not because of the fact that he left but because of the fact that he so easily dismissed the action to be by his standards I guess 'corny' or not his thing.And I cannot help but marvel and at the same time feel sorry for such since it they blatantly dismiss the Gospel without any hesitation of their refusal to heed it and yet chose continue to live in the confusion of their lives, the Bible does not speak of a special formula or of criterias and standards and of initiations it basically just speaks of the fact that we are all bound to die someday and that our present decisions have eternal consequences and that we are separated by sin from God who in the first place created us, but at the same time gave us the freedom to have 'free-wills' knowing that one way or another we'd end up making wrong decisions, and that the Bible also tells us that our wrong decisions could be justified in the eyes of God by giving us the gift of salvation, which has no secret formula other than to believe in our hearts that Jesus died and rose from the dead to rescue us from our previous wrong decisions.Now is that so hard to comprehend but then again, there are other invisible powers that blind our minds. This is just a simple case of having to relate to a good new and the bad news, but sad to say we'd rather just choose to listen to the bad news and dismiss the capability of the Good News to restore us from the pits that we are dwelling in right now.So how does this then apply to the event that I mentioned earlier, well very much this is just a part of God's working in me so as to build character and to elevate my dependence on Him to a higher level, and for that reason I hope that everyone who's read this, who've ever encountered harsh opposition of the Gospel message be encouraged to pray that the Lord will open the eyes of the hearts of those whom we are trying to reach out and also to admonish ourselves to continue in contending to live a life that can backup what we preach. May we all continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord.Thanks.

posted by m35b @ Monday, July 19, 2004

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