INTERFERENCE

Let us suppose that we are watching a hockey game and a giant comes along and asks what the struggle is all about. We tell this giant that the object is to get that little black puck into the net at either end. So, the giant thinking to please us, walks on the field, knocks men right and left, picks up the puck, brushes off the goal keeper and puts the puck in the net. What a riot he would create if this happened. All of us would cry, “Interference. You can’t play the game that way. The game is ruined.”

For God to interfere with our choices would make the game of life meaningless.

Choice is what makes man unique. If we didn’t have choice we would be puppets. Choice makes us accountable and responsible for our actions. God has blessed us with free will.

There are three crucial questions for life: “Where Did I Come From?” “Who Am I?” and “Where Am I Going?” A study in the Bible  helps us answer these questions. First, I am a creation of God because He made me. Secondly, I am an adopted child of God through His Son, Jesus. He gave me the ‘right’ to become a child of His.  John 1:12 “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name.  He gave the right to become children of God.”  Thirdly, He promises His adopted children His kind of life now and forever more. In Christ Jesus, God has provided for my salvation. Man must accept His gift.

In Genesis, we learn the origin of sin. Adam and Eve knew God’s conditions for Life and they disobeyed Him. Therefore, by their own choice they lost Paradise and eternal life. What God promised to man in the beginning, perfect harmony with Him, man can have back by man’s deliberate choice of faith in Jesus Christ.

CHOOSE CHRIST AND LIFE, NOT SIN AND DEATH.   I am told that on the desk of the late President,  Harry S Truman  “The buck stops here.”  It is up to you as to what choice you make.

 

THE MAN WHO CARRIED CHRIST’S CROSS

Somewhere along the way between Pilate’s court and the hill of crucifixion, Jesus stumbled under the weight of the cross, unable to carry it any farther.  His body had been so abused He  could stand the weight of that cross no longer. He fall beneath that load. The Roman soldier in charge of the execution did not know what to do. It was beneath the dignity of a Roman soldier to carry the cross and no Jew would touch it, making himself unclean.  The whole procession was halted momentarily as the soldiers considered the situation. It was at this crucial moment that Simon appeared on the scene.  Here was the man, ready-made for the job. It was evident that he was a foreigner and best of all, it is believed, since coming from Africa that he was black. That must have been a grim day for Simon of Cyrene.  He was compelled to lift up and carry that cross of Jesus.

Countee Cullen wrote about Simon in this poem:  “He never spoke a word to me, and yet He called my name.  He never gave a sign to me, and yet I knew and came.
At first I said, “I will not bear His cross upon my back. He only seeks to place it there because my skin is black.
But, He was dying for a dream. And He was really weak. And in His eyes there shone a gleam men  journey far to seek.
It was Himself my pity bought.  I did for Christ alone what all of Rome could not have wrought with bruise of lash or stone.”

You will say that Simon was forced to carry the cross, that it was not of his own will.  The Scripture states that Simon was compelled to carry the cross, that is, he was pressed into service.  But, wouldn’t it be true that some compulsion must be laid upon each of us to get us to bear the cross?  Perhaps your compulsion is your family, or your sin, or the sin of the world, or a new look at Jesus.  I don’t know what will compel you to share the cross, but this I know, Jesus won’t carry the cross alone.  You’ll have to get under the responsibility if Christ’s cause is to flourish.  A great responsibility is laid upon every Christian to deny self and take up the Cross of Jesus, proclaiming the good news of salvation through Christ to everyone.  Accept Jesus and the pardon available for you flowing from the cross of Christ.

“Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free?  No, there’s a cross for everyone and there’s a cross for me.”

WAIT THREE DAYS

“On that beautiful Easter Monday morning, I noticed the old flower lady sitting in her usual place inside a small archway.  At her feet corsages and boutonnieres were parading on top of an out spread newspaper.  The flower lady was smiling, her wrinkled old face alive with some inner joy; on impulse, I said to her, “My, you look happy this morning.” “Why not?” she answered, “Everything is good.” She was dressed so shabbily and seemed so very old that I couldn’t help saying, “Don’t you have any troubles?”
“You can’t reach my age and not have troubles,” she replied, “Only it’s like Jesus and Good Friday.  When Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, that was the worst day for the whole world.  When I get troubles, I remember that, and also what happened only three days later, Easter and our Lord’s resurrection.  So when things go wrong, I have learned to give God a chance.  I’ve learned to wait three days knowing things somehow will get better.”   And she smiled goodby.
But whenever I have troubles, her words still follow me: “Give God a chance.  Wait three days.”     By Pat Barnes – The fishing Line

George Tyrrell spoke this truth when he said,  “Again and again I have been tempted to give up the struggle but always the figure of that strange Man hanging upon the Cross has sent me back to my task again.”

We must understand that there can be no crown without the cross.  This we can see in the life and death of Jesus, that you cannot obtain the crown unless you have first conquered the cross.  Seeming disaster and defeat had to come to the life of Jesus before victory and triumph followed.  The cross was difficult for Jesus but it was a means to an end. Christ did not just bear the cross, He used it.  When life threw a cross at Jesus, He took hold of that worst thing that could happen to Him and made it into the best thing that could happen for all mankind.  It was hate and He turned it into a revelation of Love.  God turned the darkest day into the brightest day and it only took three days.

The power of God as exhibited in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead affords the hope for the confused, weary, sin sick world today.  The same divine power that conquered sin and death is available to each one of us.  CHRIST IN US, THE HOPE OF GLORY.

 

EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION

We ask the question as sung by Peggy Lee, “Is This All There Is?”  We want to believe that there is more to life than this span of time.  We have made up lies to deceive ourselves into believing in a resurrection.  Such as: Winter turns into Spring, all dead in the winter and than back to life in Spring. Not so, for if the vegetation was really dead it would never  come to life.   A beautiful butterfly comes to life from a cocoon like a resurrection from the dead.  Not true, for if you really crushed (killed) that cocoon, there would never come forth a butterfly.
What can substantiate our wishful thinking for life after death?  SOMEONE WHO CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD.
The only one that I know that has done that is JESUS CHRIST.

Allow me to give you some Biblical evidence for His resurrection:

1. Fulfilled Prophecy… Luke 24: 44-47   The Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would come, suffer, die and then rise from the dead.
2. Physical Evidence… Luke 24: 36-39   Jesus appeared to the disciple and allowed them to touch Him.
3. Eye Witness Testimony… Mary Magdalene  John 20:16-18; Other women Matthew 28:5-10; Two followers on the Road to Emmaus Luke 24: 33-35; Simon Peter Luke 24:34; Disciples (ten) without Thomas John 20:19-20; Thomas present a week later John 20:26-28; Sea of Galilee John 21:7-14; Mount of Olives (Ascension) Mark 16:19-20; James 1Corinthians 15:7; Paul Acts 9:4-6; More than 500 Brethren I Corinthians 15:6  These people all lived and died for a Risen Jesus not for a corpse.

Roger Chambers said, “Faith is not a belief in the irrational; it is belief in the invisible.”

“We live by faith, not by sight.”  2 Corinthians 5:7  Our faith is based on the testimony of others. Faith comes from trust in the Word of God.  John 20:31 “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.”

How do you know that Jesus rose from the dead, that He is alive?
“JESUS LOVES ME THIS I KNOW FOR THE BIBLE TO TELLS ME SO.”