Loved Before Time

“So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him,
because Jesus was going to pass that way.” — Luke 19:4

Photo by Larry Koester

God’s love for us goes before the moment we realise the beauty of it. Like how He loves Zacchaeus, the Sycamore tree has already been there all along awaiting for Zachaeus’
“God moment”.

 

Timely

Time is a commodity we often times neglect. 

We thoughtlessly waste it when…

we fail to make time for our families, conveniently;
we fail to make time for the people whom we claimed we love and value, indifferently;
we fail to make time for people in need especially those around us, intentionally;
we fail to make time for ourselves, selflessly; and worse…
we fail to make time for the LORD who gave His all for us, nonchalantly. 

When we fail to make time, we fail to love; for love is spelled, T-I-M-E.

“Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
    Remind me that my days are numbered—
    how fleeting my life is.
 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
    My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
    at best, each of us is but a breath.”
Psalm 39:4-5

Make the most of your time by making time. 

 

Would you…?

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 
“If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” 
But…the good Samaritan reversed the question: 
“If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”  

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

The truth that people have their own lives to live explains why they wouldn’t care more for others.
Giving extra mile for those who badly need them seem impossible to exist.
If they do, then it must be grace…it must be Christlike love.

 

Sharing the Gospel

How should you share the Good News, you ask?
Be vulnerable; let them know you’re no better than them.
But most important of all, stay human: consider their pain; 
in fact, share it; carry it as if it were your own.
Stay human, a human being with a difference —
a hope that is more true and more real
than the world’s construct of happiness.

 

What Really Works

“When we only do whatever works, in the end it really doesn’t work. Life has to have that ontic referent of the eternal from which the temporal must find its relevance.

Eternity is like the anvil; time is like the hammer – it beats away at the anvil of eternity.
Ultimately, the hammer will be thrown away; the anvil will remain.

So we must build our lives upon things that are eternal.” — Ravi Zacharias

“What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”
— Matthew 16:26 —

Profoundly true. Perfectly timely.

 

Beautiful Pain

It’s way different when we actually get a slap of truth about our realizations…
the ugly truth about how ugly one can be in all aspects and angles.
 
No wonder why one gets abandoned. 
No wonder why pain gets to dwell.
…No wonder.

Yet through this agony, one gets to cry out to the only One who truly listens.
No wonder why it’s a beautiful pain.
…No wonder.

“Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I call to you,
when my heart is faint.”
(Psalm 61:1,2)

“May your unfailing love be my comfort,
according to your promise to your servant.”
(Psalm 119:76)

 

 

Freed by Grace

And so the Lord says,
    “These people say they are mine.
They honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
And their worship of me
    is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.
Isaiah 29:13

Legalistic people should stay in God’s church. 
For although they don’t own the church, though they behave as if they do,
it’s a hospital for dying sinners not a museum for living saints.