Sunday March 28, 2021

God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. 1 John 3:20

[Jesus] knew what he was going to do. John 6. 6

Filled with astonishment, they said : He does everything wonderfully. Mark 7. 37

Know the Lord - Proposed Reading : John 13. 1-15

Before his crucifixion, Jesus is with his disciples. He “gets up from supper and puts aside his clothes ; then having taken a cloth, he hugged it around his waist. Then he pours water into the basin, and begins to wash the feet of the disciples and to wipe them with the cloth with which he was girded ". Jesus had raised Lazarus, walked on water, performed so many miracles and wonderful things, and now he is there before them to wash and dry their feet, a task usually performed by slaves. Pierre does not understand, does not want to accept this. The Lord answered him gently : “What I am doing, you do not know now, but you will understand it later”.

How many times do we not understand what our God is doing! We do then like Peter who did not accept to see his Master in the position of a servant. We are often guided by our common sense rather than the wisdom of God.

Do we have to understand everything in order to submit and obey God, to follow the Lord ? Do we have to know everything to trust him and let him act ? God knows what is good for us. Everything he asks of us, everything he allows is for our good. He is never wrong. “All things work together for the good of those who love God” (Romans 8:28).

To know the love of our Lord, to be convinced of the perfection of what he does, and to forget oneself, these are the bases of our spiritual progress, the key to our happiness for each day.

Source (The Good Seed)

Saturday March 27, 2021

Be kind and compassionate to one another ; forgive each other as God forgave us in Christ. Ephesians 4:32

The testimony of Koeun (2)

“Finally, I had found and understood the truth that I had been looking for for so long. It was Jesus who, by my side, protected and guided me, even though I did not know him at the time. He alone, always. alive, was powerful in influencing my destiny. I owed him my survival. I owed him my life. I owed him everything."

One thing, however, still held Koeun back. On the cross, this Jesus whom he discovered had forgiven his executioners. He will never be able to forgive the Khmer Rouge... It was only after a bitter internal struggle that he agreed to give up all the bitterness and hatred that had filled him. "I suddenly felt that a heavy burden was lifted from my shoulders. I felt light. Hatred and the desire for revenge had darkened my gaze for all these years. Despite the surrounding darkness, I finally had it. I felt like I could see clearly. A feeling of peace then filled my heart. I was free, truly free. It was not physical or political liberation, as I had hoped for. But I had found the true freedom, the one that did not depend on the circumstances, the one that no one could ever take away from me whether I was locked up within the four walls of a prison, or whether I was a war refugee on the other side of the world. was now at peace. Free in my heart from the chains of guilt, doubt, hatred, all the feelings that gnawed at me. Jesus himself had come to me, he had found me, and given his peace."

(extract from "Rescapé despite me", Koeun Path)

Source (The Good Seed)

Friday March 26, 2021

They wandered in the desert, on their way in arid places, without finding a city where they could live. They suffered from hunger and thirst ; their soul was downcast. In their distress they cried to the Lord, and he delivered them out of their distress : he led them in a straight way, that they might come to a city where they might dwell. Psalm 107. 4-7

The testimony of Koeun (1)

Koeun, a young Cambodian, said : "I was fleeing the Khmer Rouge to save my life. After weeks of wandering, in the cold, hunger and fear, I found myself a prisoner in a neighboring country. There, a person came. tell me about the God of the Bible, so different from the deities invoked by my family and my people. These deities had ignored me in my desperate flight, but did this God of the Bible see inside the Khmer Rouge and beyond ? 'Inside me ? Was he aware of what I was thinking and feeling ? I often had thoughts that I was not proud of, and I was very relieved to know that I was the only one who knew them. Ah, if God came to judge me for all my actions and all my intentions, I would be doomed !"

He then turns to his visitor and says to her : "You tell me that after death, I will be judged by God, and you call that good news ?

- When Jesus Christ died on the cross, she answers, he took the condemnation that we all deserved. If you place your trust in him, you can escape condemnation, be forgiven, and receive the unmerited gift of eternal life. This is the good news of Christianity : an undeserved gift... This notion left me wondering. In the law of Karma Buddhism, there was no place for gratuitousness. That someone could take the consequences of my bad actions upon themselves seemed unthinkable to me. This good news was very different from anything I had heard before."

(end tomorrow)

Source (The Good Seed)

Thursday 25 March 2021

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered ! Psalm 32. 1

Love covers a multitude of sins. 1 Peter 4. 8

Sin covered

In the Bible, the expression "to cover up sin" does not mean to hide evil or to pass over it. When someone repents and turns to God, God covers his sin, that is, he takes it away from him and does not remember it (see today's verse). If God does this, it is not at the expense of His righteousness or His holiness. His eyes are "too pure to see evil" (Habakuk 1.13).

But for those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior and who confess their faults to Him, evil is definitely removed by His blood shed on the cross. God would be unjust to his Son if he made a believer bear the weight of confessed sin. Every Christian relies on this biblical affirmation : "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1. 9). Confession to the Lord always brings forgiveness. Knowing the price Jesus paid for this forgiveness, we seek to please him by avoiding making the same mistakes again.

Personally, in my Christian life, what should I do if I hear that a Christian friend of mine is doing wrong ? First, and this is imperative, I "cover" it too : I don't tell anyone about it, except God. Then I go to my friend and I talk to him face to face to get him to recognize what he has done wrong, to confess this fault and to abandon it. It is essential for my friend to find a healthy relationship with God.

Source (The Good Seed)