Seeing God in Doing His Work

This morning, I was blessed to hear from Pastor Russel Ames, a very powerful and interesting insight on "Seeing the face of God". I have interspersed Pastor Ames's message with some of my own thoughts and the result is as under.

Being a Christian and having professed my love for Christ, I have sometimes wondered what it would be like to 'see' God face-to-face. Moses saw the Glory of God but before his time, Jacob saw God face to face. He wrestled an entire night with God and for what? He wanted God to bless him. He fought with God for a blessing. And this was the same Jacob, who had taken the birthright of Esau. The same Jacob who was returning to meet his brother, fearful of his wrath, fearful of death and while he was mentally tormented with visions of what would happen the next morning, he wrestled with a man, whom he believed was God. And he does prevail. He receives his blessing. God puts his hip out of joint and in this deformity, he is blessed as he is recognized.

The next morning, Jacob sends his cattle, his wives, his sons and his servants in front of him as he approaches his brother Esau. Why? He is petrified that his brother will rebuke him and might even kill him. His is a peace offering but how does Esau react. Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept. (Genesis 33:4)

Esau forgives Jacob and refuses his gifts saying that the LORD has given him enough. To this Jacob answers, ".. Nay, I pray thee, if now I have found grace in thy sight, then receive my present at my hand: for therefore I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me.(Genesis 33:10)"

Jacob said that He saw the face of the LORD in Esau's face. What did he really mean? How can you see the face of the LORD in the face of your relatives or friends. Ps. Ames explained this using the example of Mother Teresa and her service. In every destitute that she served, in every tear that she wiped, she saw the face of the LORD. She saw the face of Jesus. Indeed she did as these verses from Mathew Chapter 25:35-36 testify...

"For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me."

Serving Jesus can only lead to one thing in a physical world.Pain, suffering and rebuke but looking beyond the boundaries of a physical world, there is much more to be achieved. Yes, in serving Jesus there is the one real chance to see HIM and to meet HIM, face-to-face and to be in HIS presence forever and that would be really something worthwhile.

A camping experience and a message of Hope

This weekend, I was blessed to hear an amazing and inspiring message at OCF Caulfield's Annual July camp, held at Lyrebird camp site, located 300 kms south-east of Melbourne. The camp in itself was an exhilarating experience and it was one of the few instances in the year when I managed to keep myself away from a laptop for over 24 hours.

The camp offered excellent lodging facilities and it gave the perfect opportunity for a group of 35 odd young university students and one software guy to bond. Over the last three days, two nights, we all came one step closer to experiencing the magnificent love of Christ, the Lord.

The highlight of the camp, for me was the awe inspiring, immensely practical and throughly relevant message given by Pastor Ted Fabiyanic, from CityLife church, Hobsons Bay.

Pastor Ted spoke on the need and the importance of Hope in our lives. He explained how we were living in an imperfect world and were susceptible to the everyday frailties of life. Even if we believed that we are living according to God's will, misfortune will befall us at times. We may lose money in a business deal, fail an examination, lose a loved one and feel that we have been betrayed and cheated by God.

At such moments, it may not be possible to think clearly and understand God's plan but what we need to do is understand that God does not cause these events to give us pain but 'uses' them to remove our imperfections. HE uses them and give us a choice, a choice to choose and change our life for the better. The past is gone, the future is here.

Living in the past and dwelling on negative moments, bad choices, depressing events will only keep us in the past. What is required is to make a choice, to move forward in the right direction. We have several examples of successful people in our world, who have repeatedly failed before succeeding and when they did succeed, they succeeded big time.

Pastor Ted explained that God has forgotten and forgiven us for all our past mistakes and now only two people remembered them. We, ourselves and Satan.And by continuing to remember our mistakes, we were living in the past and refusing to move forward.

In our journey of life, God is a constant companion. HE is walking not behind or in front of us but alongside us. HE has given us the tools to succeed and to live in Hope and the most significant expression of this promise has been His son, Jesus Christ. God prepared Christ for His mission of giving Hope to the teeming millions. As a part of this mission preparation, Christ suffered on the cross physically and mentally but His worst moment of anguish and suffering came when God left Him alone and lonely on the cross for a moment. For that one instant that Christ was alone,He experienced utter hopelessness and despair.

The reason that God led Christ into this suffering was that He would know and understand the meaning of not having hope before He could become the fountain of Hope himself. After all, one cannot under stand the suffering and pain of another human being, unless one has experienced it first hand.

Pastor Ted used the life giving words of Psalm 23 to recite the promise of Hope that had been given to us by the LORD. He reiterated that God had a plan for us all (Jeremiah 29:11). To implement this plan and succeed in life, we are required to Act and not live in a world of wishful thinking. An important step towards achieving our goals is surround ourself with positive people and shun negativity. It is the will of God that our past doesn't define our future, if we choose it not too.

The choice is ours. We have to make it, starting now.