Church News Volume 3, Issue 4

Dear friends,

Billy Graham's daughter was being interviewed on American television, the Early Show, and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" And Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe that God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman that He is, I believe that He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand that He leave us alone?"

Interesting reflections for us when we ask ourselves "Where is God in all this?"

Funny how simple it is for people to dismiss God and then wonder why the world's going to hell.

Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Scriptures say.

Funny how everyone wants to go to heaven provided they do not have to believe, think, say, or do anything that God says.

Funny how someone can say, "I believe in God" but still follow the ways of evil. (The Devil also of course believes in God!)

Funny how we are quick to judge but not to be judged.

Funny how you can send a thousand 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding God and His wish for humanity, people think twice about sharing.

Funny how the lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but the public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Funny how someone can be so fired up for God on Sunday, (or whatever is their holy day), but be an invisible believer the rest of the week.

Advent is a timely reminder to all of us that however much we might wish to block God out of our lives, He will return one day upon the clouds of Heaven to judge the living and the dead.

However we may long to divorce God from our lives He will have the ultimate say at the end of it all.

God promised through the Old Testament prophets that He would come to save His people. This He did when He allowed Himself to experience life as a human being in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem and whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

It was God who carried out His promise by experiencing life in all its raw emotions, knowing joy of love and companionship of friends, the pain of rejection and humiliation, undeserved death on a cross. This God showed us that death could be overcome and He promised that we too will follow and share in the resurrection of the dead. Just before He ascended back to heaven He promised that He would return through the power of the Holy Spirit - this He did at Pentecost. One more promise God made, still to be fulfilled, that He would return one day.

God may be "banned" from various aspects of life. We may live as though we are embarrassed to believe in Him. We may then blame Him for being absent and not acting in the world today!

He is still with us. If we don't want Him He waits, He respects our freewill.

God knows that one day we will not be able to reject Him because He will return to be our judge.

No one knows the date or time of His coming - all we can be sure of is that He will return one day. Will you be ready?

Revd Ian M. Finn

News Letter Archive.