Journey mercies

My Christmas break has started! We go back to work only on the 2nd of January, which makes me so happy! But I will be working on the 27th of December, which I volunteered to, since it will be good to use the quiet time in the office to prepare for the new year.

My flatmates have gone back to their respective countries - Spain, Italy and Germany to spend Christmas with their families. I'll be joining my aunt and her family for Christmas.

The week has been quiet, not just because a number of people started their Christmas break earlier, so business is slower, but also because church activities have also quieten down. It's great now that I've got more time for myself and feeling less frenzied. Being alone in my flat, the peace is allowing me to gather thoughts and emotions.

The year will end pretty soon, and usually, about this time, I start reflecting back on the year and think about the new year. But I don't feel that... 'closure'? As I usually do at the end of the year. Maybe because I've only recently moved to London in August, and it feels like my 'calendar year' starts then, and I'm only half way through the year, rather than ending it.

Looking back on the year, and years, I see the Lord's goodness shining through it all. There has been difficult moments, but it all pales in comparison. Those moments have already begun to fade in my mind as the memory of His goodness grows stronger.

I never fail to wonder, how people who do not know God, survive in this world. If I did not have His peace, joy and love that surpasses all understanding, I am certain that I would not survive.

What is the chief end of man?

The only thing that spurs me forward, the reason I live, is so that at the end of this life on earth, when I have breathed my last breath, when the life as I know fades from my eyes, and I stand before my Maker, on that first encounter with the full glory of God unveiled, I may stand before Him without shame.

Without fear.

Without regrets.

I had a conversation with a friend who scoffed at the simplicity of salvation. Can man simply be saved and accepted by God through believing that Jesus, God entering this world as Man, died as a sacrifice as an atonement for our sins?

You offer up tables of food as offering to ancestor shrines, and hold lit josticks in your hands as you ask them for blessings?

You slit the neck of a cow as korban (sacrifice) and expect that by the blood of animals, can atone your sins?

You give money to monks or temples or churches and in doing so, by sacrificing what you hold most dear, hope to be found good?

If you were God, who created all, owns all, would you not scoff at that? What can man give to God that He did not first create? Do you think that God, who created the stars in the universe, will find food, animals and money worth His while? Really? And you really think that God in the form of man dying on the cross foolish? Really?

And so you say, that's why I don't believe in God. When you stand before Him, say that one more time. It will, I assure you, throw a whole new dimension to the word foolish.

I have nothing to lose by believing in Him. You have all to lose by disbelieving Him.

And so you ask, what do I really have to lose?

Punishment of sin is described as a lake which burns with fire and brimstone and is eternal. Close your eyes and put your hand through fire and take that pain and amplify it by a hundred times. Now imagine that that pain goes on and on and on.

No respite, no quench.

No amount of crying for forgiveness and a second chance will matter by that time.

Do you really have nothing to lose?

If you're not scared by such a fate, I am.

This is in the final book of the Bible (Revelations 21:1-8), vision of the end of days revealed to John:

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.

Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.

"And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."

Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." And He said to me, "Write, for these words are true and faithful."

And He said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.

"He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.

"But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."

Some may ask, how can one be sure to find the true God? If, at this very moment, you humble yourself to admit you are a sinner in need of forgiveness, and ask God in your heart, I want to find You and believe in You, the true God, please help me to find You and believe in You, then you are at the start of an amazing journey my friend.