~May Your Light Shine :D~

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

i happened to be reading xiaxue's blog as well as the many comments to one of her recent post about her friend's death. i shan't be a hypocrite and say im deeply saddened by her friend's death, since i do not know him but i agree that his death was truly tragic and its sad when someone dies young.

anyway in response to her post about how a pastor is considered insensitive when he evangelised at a funeral. i was shocked to read that some ppl who called themselves christians actually disagreed with the pastor. to me, he did no wrong in preaching the gospel at the funeral, perhaps the manner in which he said it was insensitive cuz he did not know the guy who passed away but his action and motive cannot be deemed wrong esp in the eyes of chrisitians. if u happened to be attending another chirstian funeral, the pastor would probably be saying something along the same lines.

now why is this so? simply becuz the death of a loved one causes us to pause and think of life's fragility and how transient we all are in this lifetime if we are not too preoccupied with grief. many ppl fear death simply becuz they do not know where they will end up? my mum says that after knowing Christ, she no longer fears death because she knows that when she dies she will be with the Lord. aint that a comforting thought?

Being a Christian is more than just waiting to go heaven, it means having a relationship with God our Father, obeying Him, loving Him and others as He instructed us to, living our life on earth purposefully. The reason why Christians seem so keen on 'mass-conversion' is because of our Great Commission - Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation (Mark 16:15). it is the Lord's wish that everyone is saved and yes, if one does not have Christ as their Saviour, he or she will go to hell, for "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). Believe it or not, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23) . Yes, God is love. But He is also holy, hence He cannot condone sin. If we sin, we cannot enter heaven. So to solve this, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him, will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

An entry into heaven is as simple as that! i guess in our complicated world, when things are presented so simply to us, it seems too good to be true, so we simply dismiss it. let me tell you that God's grace is beyond human understanding. being as kiasu that we are its ironic that we are refusing to accept this free gift, no strings attached. exactly what is stopping ppl out there from receiving Christ as their Saviour?

as for why would God allow suffering perhaps ur should take time to read this articles:
Why would a good God allow suffering? - http://www.rbc.org/ds/q0106/
Why would God allow bad things to happen to "good" people? - http://www.rbc.org/questions/answer/god/character/allowbadthings.xml
i'll elaborate on this another day, after im done with the bible study. =)

For those who read this, please take time to think about what i said. Thanks. God bless!

Lydea blogged at 12:40 AM

May your light shine...
in the darkness...