BUT A POOR REFLECTION: What can I say?

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

What can I say?

Until today I didn't hear about the shootings in Colorado Springs where five people, including a gunman, died in the attacks at New Life Church and at the Youth With a Mission missionary center in the Denver suburb of Arvada. Five others were wounded.
Please also have a look at this video from Persecution blog (I found out about this tragedy through Stacy L Harp's email newsletter).
My prayers are with the families of the victims and the relatives of the gunman. I feel upset and angry about yet another senseless act of violence, but I am too impressed by the testimonies of my brothers and sisters in Christ to stay angry about this. What can I say? Look at this video and you can see the love of Christ in action - no power from hell can overcome the grace of Jesus. We have an eternal perspective, we have a hope that will become reality. We have a Lord and Saviour who has overcome the world. "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)
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2 comments:

David said...: Thanks for posting the video Paul. These shootings certainly, as you say, senseless. Although the story no longer makes headlines, we should remember in prayer all those who were injured or lost loved ones in this and other tragedies.; 12/20/2007 3:26 pm
Carol Douglas said...: My feelings about this are divided, Paul.

I am of course unequivocally opposed to the cult of gun violence in the United States and mystified as to why it exists, except of course that Satan roams the world. And my heart bleeds for the families of the victims of this tragedy (as with all the myriad victims of gun violence in my country).

However, I have reservations about YWAM and I don’t think this is a clear-cut case of psychopathy as other incidents have been. This is intuitive; I can’t tell you why; just wish to watch the situation unfold. And I could certainly be wrong since I have no evidence whatsoever to cite to you. But my prayers are also for the soul of the young murderer.; 12/23/2007 6:46 pm

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God loves us

Have you ever wondered why God gives so much? We could exist on far less. He could have left the world flat and grey; we wouldn’t have known the difference. But he didn’t. He splashed orange in the sunrise and cast the sky in blue. And if you love to see geese as they gather, chances are you’ll see that too. Did he have to make the squirrel’s tail furry? Was he obliged to make the birds sing? And the funny way that chickens scurry or the majesty of thunder when it rings? Why give a flower fragrance? Why give food its taste? Could it be he loves to see that look upon your face?

Max Lucado - He Chose the Nails

Sadhu Sundar Singh

I do not condemn theologians wholesale, but it is unfortunately the fashion in Western thinking to doubt and deny everything. I protest this tendency. I never advise anyone to consult theologians, because all too often they have completely lost all sense of spiritual reality. They can explain Greek words and all that, but they spend too much time among their books and not enough time with the Master in prayer. It is not that I oppose all education, but education without life is certainly dangerous. You must stop examining spiritual truths like dry bones! You must break open the bones and take in the life-giving marrow.

Oswald Chambers

In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, July 29th)