10/20
This is life eternal, that they might know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. John 17: 3
Purpose of Life
The purpose of life is to know God. And if suffering is essential for attaining to this aim, suffering is not a misfortune but a blessing. In the case of Job, his suffering accomplished this honorable attainment. Likewise, we too, passing through tribulation, shall arrive at this worthy aim. Jesus Himself was made "perfect through sufferings" (Hebrew 2:10). May we become like Jesus through experiences of suffering.
10/21
If you keep My commandments, you shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. John 15:10
Keep Commandments
Filled with Holy Spirit, we shall first abide in God's commandments. Prayer alone or Study of the Bible alone is not enough. Abide in God's commandments with firm determination and courage, and you will be bountiful inflow of the Holy Spirit, God's greatest gift for His children. The gift of the Holy Spirit can only be poured by our acts of faith. Study creates holy desire; prayer calls for it; and practice realizes it. Practice indeed is the most powerful prayer.
10/22
We are the circumcision who worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Philippians 3: 3
Heart of a Christian
What is a Christian heart to tide over life? It is to die of the flesh and to live of the spirit, that is to say, to terminate ego by the work of the Holy Spirit. Then any suffering will become blessing with joy and peace in the heart. We can be the righteous, shedding light upon the darkness around. Not alone Christian, but everybody in Christian's neighborhood also can enjoy the grace. This is the true path to the blessed home and society. Let each one of us be a light and a spring of the grace, so that every home and every society can be blessed.
10/23
When the gentiles, who do not have the Law, do by nature the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves; who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and the thoughts between one another accusing or even excusing one another, in a day when God shall judge the secrets of humans by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. Romans 2:14-16
Religion of Conscience
Christianity, after all, is a religion of conscience. As long as human has a conscience, and as long as human commits sin, Christianity cannot be dispensed with. Through the remission of sins by Christ, human can have true peace. The way of God that justifies sinners as righteous and redeemed them is only in Christianity. This is not the question of whether one agrees with science. But this is the question of whether one can have peace with one's conscience. Howsoever explained about its source, conscience is conscience; and human cannot decline its command. With sharpened conscience, anyone can reach Christianity. I too was obliged to take this way and believe in Him. The highway through the universe is driving a person towards Christ. Kant's "Stars ahead and moral law within" will be enough to make a person a Christian. Moral law leads to religion of conscience and religion ends in Christianity, namely, the way of Christ's cross. I followed this way to become a Christian.
10/24
Behold, they say, Our bones are dried and our hope is lost; we are cut off by ourselves. Therefore prophesy and say to them, So says the Lord Jehovah; Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, and will bring you into the land of Israel. Ezekiel 37:11-12
Question of Other World
Written to a father who grieved over the death of his 7-year-old daughter, much to his concern about her future life: "There are many unsolvable problems in human life. No human being throughout the world, can ever explain these questions satisfactorily. But we know one thing, that is, God is Love. And that the God of Love can never, in the world to come ill-treat the ones whom we love here. The Bible says Christ died for all the people. Not even a single person, in the universe, can be an exempt from the grace of Christ's redemption. All that the Bible teaches us to believe and bring to this conclusion: God is Love."
10/25
Lord, behold, Lazarus whom You love is sick. When Jesus heard, He said, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God might be glorified by it. John 11: 3-4
Use of Sickness
The sickness of the body is the rest of the spirit. We could not help but taking rest during sickness. Therefore sickness is a great grace, while the time of health is the time of working. For the servant of God, the healthy body is to serve for God and people, not for one's own. We have to serve to others from wakening up to going to the bed, considering little of one's self. But we are excused from this duty as soon as we are struck by sick and lie down the bed. The time of sickness is ours, and we can think of own self and communicate with God intimately. It is our rest when our legs do not move, our hands do not work, and our throat does not make voice. Our rest is during illness, not after illness. Once recovered from illness, we immediately begin to work. Thus the sickness of the servant of Christ is for rest.
10/26
For you have need of patience, so that after you have done the will of God you might receive the promise. Hebrews 10:36
Patience
Patience means to walk strait forward, whether the time is season or not, whether praised or ill spoken, whether approved or opposed, whether succeeded or failed. Walk straight forward by the command of God without hesitating or turning to the right or to the left. Patience needs time and long-suffering to keep working one thing. It cannot avoid simpleness and plainness. It is like breaking through a great rock by drilling with all effort and continuity. Patience needs steadfastness. We cannot fulfill patience as long as we attempt to make compromise with or to please this world. The road of patience is not the path of pleasure in spring field.
10/27
Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the teaching which you have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. For your obedience is come abroad to all person. I am glad therefore on your behalf; but yet I would have you wise to that which is good, and simple concerning evil. Romans 16:17-19
Protestantism
I am a Protestant. I protest against Roman Catholicism. I protest against English Episcopalianism, against German Lutheranism, against Scottish Presbyterianism, against American Congregationalism, Methodism, and Baptism, against every one of over six-hundred sects and isms that go under the name of Protestantism. Yea, I protest against my own ism, if I have any. The gospel I believe in is Jesus Christ and Him crucified; and I protest against any doctrine which goes beyond, or does not come up to, this simplest of all doctrines. Protestantism, I understand, is Christ versus human desires, faith versus churches. Simplicity of faith orders against complexities, living life opposes dead organizations.
10/28
All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will in no way cast out. For I came down from Heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all which He has given Me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day. John 6:37-39
My Faith
I do not attempt to propagate my faith to others, rather I wait someone to come to me voluntary. Even then, I do not accept all of those who come to me. I speak them the difficulty of the faith in Christ, especially for those who are attracted by my personality. I let them know my enemies and their accusation. I do not want to speak my faith anyone but the person of sincere who is compelled to come to me. I believe that I have not power to make mere a person a Christian by all means and effort. I also believe that those who God Himself called come to Christ unfailingly despite of all difficulty and obstacles, and stay with Him for ever. I believe that only the spirit of god makes a person a Christian, and not any means of humans. I pray that I can take part in the holy project of God, but by no means I make effort to gain power and influence in this world.
10/29
We also have a more sure word of prophecy, to which you do well to take heed, as to a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Daystar arises in your hearts. 2 Peter 1:19
History and Prophecy
Nothing is more untrue than the claim that statesmen and warriors make history. They raise ripples on the surface of human history; but the force of history is always the same mighty purpose of God as revealed through His prophets. The secular rulers such as Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II, or Woodrow Wilson, were all such ripple-raisers, remembered only by the foams and bubbles left by them on the steady current of history. Humans call them "great," but God calls them mere a creature "whose breath is in their noses" (Isaiah 2:22). Congresses and human intuition can never make true laws; they simply express the wills and desires of the people, too often unholy and shamefully selfish, entirely contrary to the holy law of God. Surely then we need pay no attention to what they did and do, but take heed to "a more sure word of prophecy."
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