(Part 3/3 – A summary of the Sunday morning teaching on 06-Sep-15, in AFT Church, English service. From the series The Foundation For Victorious Living)
4) A LOVE THAT KNEW OUR TRUE VALUE
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:16
Value is accorded to us by the Creator. The Bible says that God created everything including us. In fact, the Creation account in Genesis says that God created different things every day and called them ‘good’. But when He created man, He called it ‘very good’.
Our value has been set by God Himself; it was set from the time of our conception.
In 1994, Mother Teresa while speaking at the National Prayer Conference in Washington D.C addressed the issue of abortion to a room full of powerful world leaders. She said, ‘Abortion is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child. From our children’s home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents and have grown up so full of love and joy’.
Human life starts not at birth, but at conception. When a baby is in the mother’s womb it is a living being. Mother Teresa was echoing the truth of Psalm 139. Invaluable life starts right from the moment the Master Craftsman plants a baby in the mother’s womb!
5) A LOVE THAT KNEW OUR PURPOSE
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you were born I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations.”
Jeremiah 1:5
God called Jeremiah to be His prophet. But Jeremiah expressed his inadequacy. God responded by saying that He knew him even before he was conceived in his mother’s womb. He had called him and set him apart with the specific purpose of being a prophet.
Similarly, when people criticized Paul as not being a true apostle, he defended himself in Galatians 1:15, 16 saying that, ‘But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, 16 to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentile…’
I started out my ministry in a small hut. One day, an American preacher called Ralph Mahoney came to preach at our Sunday service. At the end of his sermon, he prophesied that God would bring many people to the church and that the Gospel would go forth from our church to many nations. Well, looking around at the small hut, I couldn’t see how it was going to come true. But slowly, I learned to trust this God who knew me and had called me to do His Work even before I was born. I continued to go back to that love and knowledge every time I faced a setback. Today, I see how God has brought to pass what He promised several years ago through Mr. Mahoney.
Friends, God has called us and set us apart. Do we realize that? Do we have a sense of His calling for our lives?
6) A LOVE THAT KNEW OUR POTENTIAL
Genesis 1:26 says that God made man in His own image. Our abilities and potential are also therefore a reflection of God’s likeness. We can bring glory to Him by continuing to use our potential for Him.
Last week, I shared about the American football player Tim Tebow who sported the verse John 3:16 under his eye during football matches. Did you know that he was ruled for abortion while he was in his mother’s womb? His parents lived in Philippines. Once his mother contracted a disease, fell into a coma and received strong drugs to fight the infection. At around this realized that she was pregnant. The doctors were worried that the child would be affected by the high dosage of drugs. They advised her to abort the baby. She refused and continued her pregnancy. Soon she gave birth to a tiny baby boy and named him Tim. That puny boy grew up to be a famous 6’3’’ American football player. He met the potential that God had made him with and accomplished God’s calling on his life.
7) A LOVE THAT KNEW OUR FUTURE
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11
God affirmed the Israelites who were enslaved in Babylon that He hadn’t forgotten them. He had a great plan and future for them. He has a grand plan for our future too. Psalm 139:15 (Amplified Version) says, ‘My frame was not hidden from You, When I was being formed in secret, And intricately and skillfully formed [as if embroidered with many colors] in the depths of the earth’. Our lives are often like embroidery work. It has been carefully crafted so that a beautiful picture can emerge. Now the individual thread (which is often our situations) doesn’t see the picture. It only sees the other thread running over and tightening against it. It is puzzled by all the crisscrosses. But God knows the full picture. He knows what is happing. So instead of worrying let us trust that God will work the picture out beautifully and lovingly. One day we will be awestruck by the intensity of His love for us.
