TNT-Cell

Thursday, March 01, 2007

4:44 PM

hello everybody!

Do hope your week's been good. This week has been an awfully long one for me, or so it feels. Work has been piling both in and out of school and I never like lagging behind schduele. So I was struggling to keep up with work and all and really getting so tired that one evening I broke down during prayer. and then I kept quiet. It is good to be still for the realization hit me almost instantly; the very fact is this, I do not live to work, I do not live for work. I live for Christ.

Thank God for His grace and mercy. While preparing for cell later that day, I came across 1 John 2:28-3:3,

And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that every one who does right is born of him. See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

One of the overriding concerns that John has in this letter is for Christians to be confident that God is for them now and will be for them forever. God hears our prayers and He listens to our most innermost cries. And through it all, He is working in and through us, all for a greater glory, for His glory. It is tiring when we live for the world, when we look to the world for recognition and love but how different is it when we live for Christ!

There are moments when I question God, moments when I feel I cannot trust. But when I return to Him in prayer, in praise, regardless of my feelings - however depress I am, however frustrated I may be - He is always there. When I abide in Him, I have the confidence to live this life. But our doing what is right and our abiding is Jesus is not the ultimate ground of our confidence—it's an essential signal but it is not the foundation of our confidence. Thank God that the foundation of our confidence is not what we do, but rather the ultimate ground of our confidence is in what God has done for us. When I think of all that God has done for me and what He is planning to achieve in me, I find strength to carry on. I cannot be perfected through the works of my own hand, I cannot be made whole even if the world redeems me. Only in Christ do I find that saving grace and therein is hope for the future.

As you prepare for your exams or await your results or camp out in the fields, may you find strength in this faith we share. It is real and it is powerful for our God is real and powerful. The life we lead as Christian is just as any other life on earth; life is like a sea of bobbing crescents but at the end of the day, we have hope everlasting, a God unchanging, His love unfailing. With these we have more than enough to keep us going until the very end.

And this is my prayer for us : that we who abide in Jesus will experience the confidence that John is writing about; that it will be more than words on a page; that it will be a real experience of the heart.

In His Love
Rachel

+ AMEN

Children of GOD

We believe in one God,
Christ Jesus.

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"For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus."
Galatians 3:26

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