Like His Likeness

And they took knowledge of them,

that they had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13

This week we are in Acts 3 at church and I found this verse striking. Studying it further, I found Spurgeon wrote about it too, thought provoking when we look at ourselves the way people see us.

(by Charles Spurgeon)

A Christian should be a striking likeness of Jesus Christ. You have read lives of Christ’, beautifully and eloquently written; but the best life of Christ is His living biography, written out in the words and actions of His people.

If we were what we profess to be, and what we should be, we would be pictures
of Jesus; yes, such striking likenesses of Him, that the world would, when they once beheld us, exclaim, “He has been with Jesus; he has been taught of Him; he is like Him; he has caught the very idea of the holy Man of Nazareth, and he works it out in his life and daily actions.”

A Christian should be like Christ in his boldness. Never blush to own your religion. Be like Jesus, very valiant for your God.

Imitate Him in your loving spirit; think kindly, speak kindly, and do kindly, that men may say of you, “He has been with Jesus!”

Imitate Jesus in His holiness. Was He zealous? So be ever going about doing good. Let not time be wasted; it is too precious.

Was He self-denying, never looking to His own interest? Be the same.

Was He devout? Be fervent in your prayers.

Had He deference to His Father’s will? So submit yourselves to Him.

Was He patient? So learn to endure.

And best of all, as the highest portraiture of Jesus, try to forgive your enemies, as He did; and let those sublime words of your Master, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” always ring in your ears.
Forgive, as you hope to be forgiven. Good for evil, recollect, is godlike.
Be godlike, then; and in all ways and by all means, so live that all may say
of you,

“He has been with Jesus!”

Update Oct 25 2011

October Video Update.

THEIR VOICE

A Thorn That Turns Grief Into Joy.

Still in John 16, we come to this section:

²⁰ Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.

Jesus was talking to his disciples. They did not really understand what they were in the middle of. They had seconds where the mist lifted, and they could glimpse of what was going down, but then as quick again, they became confused and in a moment, things did not make sense again.

One can understand their situation, I would struggle too, to make head or tails of what was going on, of what the real purpose were and why all these things were happening around me.

But then Jesus gives them this, and with 20/20 hindsight, it makes complete sense. The world rejoicing after crucifying Him, the disciples sad and unsure of what was going to follow.  AND THEN HE RISES FROM THE DEAD!! Suddenly they can look back on everything that happened, the mist lifts for the last time, and suddenly they understand completely.

Understand so completely, that they would now be willing to die for what they know to be the truth. There was a joy in knowing the truth, and that knowing didn’t come easy or without pain or effort or endurance.

Someone else that understood that from grief comes joy was Paul:

 Corinthians 12:7-10

⁷ or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. ⁸Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I really love this part of scripture. There is so much to hold on to in here and, to me, one of  the rules to live by:

“For when I am weak, then I am strong”

This tells me to not try and drive my own boat, but to follow in His steps. It tells me not to force my time-table, but have faith in all things working for good in its perfect time. It tells me I don’t have to be the best plan maker, but just have to be ready to march when my orders are given. It tells me that the best way to solve my problems is to lay them at His feet.

It tells me that if I acknowledge that I am powerless, and He is all, I instantly have the power to overcome, Through Him that gives me that power.

SO

The devil may be a thorn in my side, he may cause me grief, but I have the 20/20 hindsight, right now, to know that if I acknowledge my inability and His ability, I already have the power to overcome…

And you can’t tell me there is no joy in knowing that!!

We Came, We Saw, We Took.

 

Ever so often  something  would happen that would make you stand back and look at what we do, and why we do it, from the outside, looking in.

Last night someone broke into the hall at the Leratong base. This is not the first time someone has broken in to take something really stupid, which if they asked, we probably would have given them. Every time we have a break-in, the time wasted to fix and secure the buildings and the frustration that goes with that far outweighs the value of what was taken, and last night was no different.  They just made a mess, took things that have zero value, and left…super frustrating.

Usually, these things that take the joy out of your day, will come by, and after cleaning up, fixing and replacing what was broken, you would just move on with life. But then sometimes, usually after a few of these incidences, the energy to smile and move on disappears. You don’t feel like getting back on the wheel that you know, somewhere down the line, will bring you right back to this same place. It just does not make sense.

This morning when I had to get up and travel to QwaQwa to clean up the mess the thieves created, I was thinking that if those we are here to serve, cannot value what we provide them with, then maybe we should go somewhere else…

Well, not so fast there, Sparky….

John 16:33. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Mmmm…this is from this coming Sunday’s scripture (remember we go through the Bible chapter by chapter, so this is no “pot luck” verse). And how true that is. In this world we will never have peace. There will always be times when people and occurrences destroys our peace. That, we can be sure of!

But it would be wrong of us to measure our peace, on the regularity of negative events. Our peace, the REAL peace, the important peace, that peace that REALLY counts…should be coming from the knowledge that through Christ, we have eternal life!!

I totally do not deserve Christ dying for me. I am 100% unworthy. But that notwithstanding, He still gave His life, so I can have life. And He never turns His back on me, even though I do just that, repeatedly.

So what is the lesson here?

1) Thinking we would have peace, when we don’t have problems, is a lie.

2) I would rather have no peace,  living with unsolvable problems crowding my life every day, than have no peace about my salvation.

3)My service to please my Savior, cannot have any strings attached.

______________________________________

I decided to take the motorcycle to go to QwaQwa this morning, to clear my mind and get my thoughts together. Even though it was slightly chilly (mid-winter here right now), riding my motorcycle is one of those things that somehow brings clarity when things gets crazy. Who needs a shrink, I say……

Lesotho – Update

Sometimes there are moments where you feel like you stepped through into another weird and unreal dimension. You know what I mean?

As I was driving towards Butha Buthe this morning there was a taxi driving real slow in front of me. Every now and again it would veer sharply into the oncoming lane, drive on the wrong side of the road for a while, and then just as unpredictably swing back. The driver did this quite a few times, but since I was in no hurry I kept way back and tried to figure out what was going on. But then they slowed down to near walking speed and by then I was ready to race past and get as far as I could from this accident waiting to happen.

Just as I was coming up to overtake, the guy moved to the middle of the road swung back and stopped dead, blocking the road completely. At the same time the rear doors flew open and all 4 guys jumped out. I did not wait to find out what was going on but floored the gas and drove by on the dirt shoulder, stones and dust flying!!

I was sure this was a car jacking going down, and fully expecting them to jump back in their car to chase me down, I watched them in my mirror, but strangely they just stood there next to their car, in the middle of the road, with doors all open, looking as confused as I was…

So after this bit of excitement we were able to buy (hopefully) the last batch of cement to finish John’s house and its floors.

Buying cement is always an amusing activity. I always ask John how many bags we would  need and then add 10-20 more. Every time we end up just short. For his house he says we need 10 more bags. So this afternoon they delivered 20 bags for his house and another 20 for the new daycare just down from Matlakeng (we need to give it a name at some stage). People from that village have been collecting stones to increase the size of their daycare and it was a good opportunity to get the cement to our building so it is there when they need it.

We also ordered another 3000 bricks that I trust will take his building to roof level.

The church the container is sitting at, at least agreed today that we can continue with the project on their premises. Right in the beginning we agreed that we would work together on the feeding program, but about 2 months ago they wanted us to pay both for keeping the container on their premises and for people to help. Me and John started looking for alternative places to put the container, and I was ready to move it off their premises. Today though we came to an agreement that will benefit both of us and won’t drain our funds too much…so the project can continue again.

Sometimes these hold ups can take the wind right out of your sails, but praise God for answered prayers, we are on the move again!!