God knows best...

"'I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said.'" - Luke 1:38 (NIV)


Parents know that in training their young children, much of the time is spent repeating themselves. After a while, it moves to threatening to punish the child if he does not obey his parents.


The Bible is full of stories of people and nations that God wound up having to punish after they turned away from him and sinned mightily. Some went as far as sacrificing children to false gods and pursuing sins of the flesh and wealth instead of following God like he commanded.


However, there were some who followed God no matter what was commanded, no matter how ridiculous it may have sounded at the time. Noah followed God's command to build an ark, even though rain was not heard of at the time. Moses went up against Pharaoh, the most powerful ruler on Earth at the time, to free the Israelites from captivity despite his own personal shortcomings and fear.


Then there was Mary. Some accounts of her life say she was only a teenager, pledged to be married to an older man. However, God picked her to be the mother of the Savior of mankind, Jesus Christ. The only question she asked, despite her fears of being an unwed mother (she was only pledged to Joseph, not married to him just yet) and carrying the child of another, was "How will this be since I am only a virgin?" After the angel answered her concern, she simply said, "I am the Lord's servant."


In our lives, God indeed knows best. He knew us while we were still in our mother's womb. Like with Esther, He knows the time and place we are to be born and be the most use for His kingdom. He also is faithful, and will not let us bear more than we are able.


No matter what the situation, God has proven time and time again that we can trust Him, and that includes our salvation.

WANTED

WANTED: Missionaries and church planters

Matthew 28:19-20 tell us, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Some have devoted their lives to this, living behind family, friends and familiar places to go off to distant places in the United States and beyond to tell others about Jesus Christ. These are those who have decided to dedicate their lives completely to serving in a particular place and spend the bulk of their waking hours telling others about the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.
It doesn't matter whether they are doing it outside of the United States or picking a spot in this country to minister. The Disciple Beacon is looking for missionaries and church planters who are willing to talk about their experiences and why they do what they do.

The easiest way to introduce yourself would be to contact the editor of the Disciple Beacon.

I would love a chance to write these fine people and interview them for a bit on this site about their experiences and what motivates them.

Thank you and God Bless!

'Let others know what you have seen'

"Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' " - John 20:17 (NIV)

It had been a time of sorrow for the followers of Jesus.


Their leader, the man they believed to be the Messiah, was dead, crucified at the hands of the Romans and the Jewish religious leaders of the day. Howver, when two women came to dress Jesus' body for final burial, they discovered the tomb was empty.


Obviously, the women who first made this discovery and later Peter and the other disciple who came to investigate had reason to be concerned. They knew that people would say that Jesus' followers had come and taken the body so they could say He had been resurrected (indeed, the Jewish religious leaders worried about this happening that they convinced Pontius Pilate to post a guard outside of the tomb).

But Jesus slowly made Himself known to His followers, particularly to Mary Magdalene, who had been one of His earliest students. She had remained at the empty tomb crying, and was desperately hoping that whoever had taken Jesus' body would return it so the persecutions from the religious leaders and the Roman authorities would ease up.

He tested her by asking why she was crying, to make sure that indeed it was Him that she was looking for, that she hadn't turned away like others had when He was arrested and later crucified. When He revealed Himself to her by merely saying her name, she knew right away that her hopes that He had been right all along about His pending resurrection was true, that her and others' following of Jesus, who they believed the long-awaited Messiah, had not been in vain.

However, Jesus also told her to not just sit there, but to go and tell the others what she now knew to be true. He said to not just hold on to Him, but to let the others what she knew to be true.

That is the call to the church today as well. Too often, religion is to be a private matter so not to offend others.

If we know something to be true, something that is so unbelievable, that our merely having faith and putting our trust in it has eternal implications, then we are obligated to say something about it. We are to tell others that not only isn't Jesus not dead and buried, but also alive and eventually, coming back.