Reflections...

In a few days, it will be Good Friday. That's when Christians all over the world will take time to remember the death of Jesus on the cross, a death He died so that our sins might be forgiven. His death and subsequent resurrection gave us the keys to salvation. Yet sometimes we forget that we have been saved. What I mean is that we forget that salvation is ours the moment we entrust our lives to Jesus. We forget that if we have entrusted our eternal destiny to Him, that we have also entrusted to Him our remaining days on the earth. Then when we struggle to get through each day, we feel ourselves becoming weighed down by everything that seems to demand our attention.

I don't mean to make light of anything any of you are going through. The thing is, all those years ago, Jesus endured all kinds of ridicule, He knew that He was not liked by certain people, and He was of course subject to the worst kind of physical torture and ultimately the most degrading form of capital punishment. Did He do all this for nothing? Of course He saved us, but did He in His very life not show us what we were to expect if we truly follow Him? When He tells us to carry our cross and follow Him, it is a challenge to us to follow in His very footsteps. In sunny Singapore, we are hardly going to be beaten and crucified. But should we not expect to be mocked, ostracised, plotted against, and betrayed?

Dear brothers and sisters, whatever you are facing in your life right now, remember that Jesus has seen and been through it all, and that He is facing your present difficulties together with you, for that is what He meant when He promised that He would be with us till the end of the age.

In the marathon that is life, we have Jesus' living water to sustain us every mile, the Holy Spirit to pace us, and God who has planned each step we take before we have taken it. Tell me, what other marathon comes with such a great goodie bag? Keep running, the end is in sight.