His timing is perfect!

We have been praying for a missionary in Brazil who has been lost in the Amazon jungle. He has been missing for 10 days. Yesterday one of the search boats had mechanical trouble and the engine died. In the quiet of the jungle they heard someone yelling for help. It was the lost missionary. Had their engine not died, they probably would have just passed him by.

It makes me wonder why God allowed him to get lost in the first place. From our perspective life's circumstances don’t always make sense.

I am reminded of a story about a little city girl who was visiting the country for the first time. She had never seen the night sky away from all the city lights. She was totally in awe of how bright the stars were in the sky. She gasped and said to her mother, “if the stars look this beautiful on the wrong side of the heavens, how much more beautiful will they look on the right side!”

Down here things don’t always appear the way we think that they should. But every now and then we do get a glimpse of His hand working in the events of our lives.

When I look at my clock, I need to realize that things don’t always appear as they really are. Sometimes my clock runs too slow. Sometimes it runs too fast. I need to take time in His Word and get my clock back into sync with His clock because His timing is perfect!

Stinkin’ Graveclothes

As Easter approaches, we are reminded of the resurrection of our Savior. Paul describes His resurrection as being the "first fruits" for the resurrection of our own bodies (see 1 Cor. 15:20-23). We might say that Jesus was the forerunner or trailblazer for our own resurrection.

Paul gives us a glimpse of what our resurrection will look like in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. He writes, "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord."

The other day, I was wondering what that shout might be at the time Jesus descends from heaven. My mind went to another resurrection scene in which Jesus shouted with a loud voice. In John 11:43 we read that Jesus "cried with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come forth!'" Then I pictured Jesus descending from heaven with a shout crying, "Believer, come forth!" In verse 44, John tells us that Lazarus came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. You can almost picture him struggling to walk and half blinded by the cloth wrapped around his face. I wonder if the smell of decayed flesh was still present on those wrappings as he stumbled out of the tomb. Then Jesus said to those standing by, "Loose him, and let him go!" I can only imagine the relief to Lazarus as they removed those wrappings from him.

The thought of being released from those graveclothes brought me full circle back to 1 Corinthians 15. Paul goes on to describe our resurrection saying, "Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (vv. 51-53)."

When I was younger, I was full of energy and almost felt invincible. Now I have a hard time dragging my aching bones out of bed in the morning to go for my two-mile walk. The thought of exchanging these stinking graveclothes of my fleshly body and putting on immortality certainly does sound appealing.

Last month I mentioned that Sanford Bible Church would like to sell part of their property. We have signed contracts with a real estate broker and have 6 lots on the market. So far there have been a number of inquiries, but no definite buyers yet. We could really use the funds to replace our current air conditioning system which is about 30 years old. Please continue to pray with us about the sale of these lots. Even the sale of just 1 lot would help us fund needed renovations.

In Christ,

Bob

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I never preach a sermon without thinking that possibly the Lord may come before I preach another. -D.L. Moody