Week 7: Good Testimony

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Why Us?

I love checking up on the sky every now and then. No matter what time of the day it is, the sky looks beautiful.If you go to a rural area where there’s no light polution, the stars in the sky would blow you away with their awesomeness. Even in the city where haze will cloud your vision, the setting sun still manages to paint the horizon with glowing tints of pink and gold.

Sometimes I think that man must be the ugliest part of creation. You’ve got the cascading waterfalls, the clear pebbled streams, the rainbow-coloured fish and the graceful big cats and magnificent elephants. Look at the tiniest chick and the amazing blue whale. Even the insects are perfect in every detail, with their own array of colours.

Then look at us. We’ve got skin that only varies in shade, and two spindly legs and arms. Really. Take a good look at us. What’s up with that? Put a monkey on a rock by a waterfall in the middle of a lush, green jungle, and you’ve got a great picture. Put a human there, and somehow it just doesn’t work as well.Like the human’s out of place.

Psalm 8

³ When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

⁴ what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

Why us?

Why does God love us above all other creation? Why has He adopted us?

I can’t fully comprehend this; and the following verse only gives me a hint at why we’ve been put in charge of nature:

Genesis 1

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

We’re special because we’ve been made in God’s image. I think that a part of what that means is we’ve been given spirits and souls, as well as the physical body. We’ve been set above nature (and angels,even!) because we can have a relationship with God - we can love Him with souls, spirits, hearts.

This status of ours is not because of anything special we can do; I think it’s because we can reflect God’s glory in a way that nothing else in nature can.

While the beauty of nature glorifies God because it displays His creativity and power, we glorify God because we display His grace, His mercy, and His love. We are the only creatures who can glorify God by reflecting His personality - all of His goodness and holiness. Because we were made to be in His image.

We are at our best when we follow Jesus, who was all man was made to be and more, and what Adam failed to do.

All praise to God!

Jenna

Week 6: Joy Of Salvation

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"What Shall I Say? 'Father, save me from this hour?'" by Jenna Loo

It was Palm Sunday last week (really, I checked and double-checked), and the speaker delivered good sermon on the triumphal entry, which is when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. There were many good points in that sermon, but the one point that spoke to me was Jesus' words,

"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour?' No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!" (John 12:27-28)

At that point, Jesus was at the height of his popularity. All the Jews were rejoicing at his entry into Jerusalem, waving palm branches and shouting "Hosanna!" (save us, please). Everything seemed to be going well, but Jesus knew, and we know, that in just seven days the same crowd would be shouting "Crucify Him!".

Jesus would be betrayed by one of his closest friends, denied by his most ardent disciple, killed by some of the very people he probably healed. He would undergo excruciating pain - be punished when He was innocent, suffer the greatest injustice.

No wonder His heart was troubled.

This passage shook me - because look at what a 'cross' Jesus took up! It showed perfectly just what it means to live a life for God's glory. When we say, "Lord, we want to live for your glory," I think we sometimes don't know what we are saying. Are any of us capable of sacrificing so much? Are we willing to lose a friend, be betrayed, insulted, get hurt, lose our lives?

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26-27)

Jesus tells us to count the cost. He did, and he said, "Father, glorify your name!"