A Better Resurrection
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It was just a week ago that we heard the story of students having been massacred at a university in Kenya. We were stunned but not surprised! Radical Islamic terrorists made their mark again!
But I would venture to guess, few of us have heard the following story of hope and deliverance in the name of Jesus. At least, I hadn't until I received an email from our brother in the Lord, Sammy Maina. Sammy is a pastor of a small congregation in Nairobi. (I posted his personal story of faith last year at Easter time.)
I was overjoyed to learn about the Lord's rescue, all because of the courage of the indwelling Christ in and through one young student. Here is Sammy's account in his own words:
These are the last of the last days and seeing ugly scenes are inevitable as happened when 147 people were killed in a college in my country by terrorists last week. The word of God must be fulfilled.
A man within the group of students attacked told the attackers that he would not denounce Christ just because they held a gun at him. He held his bible in a room that had others in dozens while saying these words. He said if God had seen it fit for him to die by the gun so be it! But he was not ready to denounce that Jesus is his Lord. These words from him made the gunman to shiver and his mind seemed to have been taken away from what he intended to do. He stood for a while just guessing amid the frightened faces of many in that cubicle, save for this bold young man. He asked them all in that cubicle to flee for their lives as fast as they could, not firing a single bullet at them. Thus this group of people that had hidden in that cubicle were all saved because of one man whose mind has been made up fully to live and die for Jesus Christ.
Christ the Messiah of God is the holder of our destiny. He knows our purpose for our living and what mission we must accomplish. If we have full trust in Him, we cannot perish if the reason of our coming is not fully met. We live predestined lives and our part is just to walk the path of that road as a train would move on a railway with its driver, less bothered about its motion for he is more than sure it is on the right track. I hear too that in aeroplanes, pilots would after reaching some heights just relax and take coffee as the plane just moves on its predestined air route. The Lord is faithful!
We all are part of something bigger than ourselves, aren't we?
I can't help but think of what I call my
worldview passage
, Hebrews 11 & 12. There we read of believer after believer who lived by faith. Sometimes good things happened as they walked by faith, but sometimes "bad" things happened as they walked by faith.
But no matter what the outcome, they persevered by faith. I especially love the following passage:
[By faith]
Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them.
Hebrews 11:35-38 NIV
That Kenyan student was hoping for a better resurrection as he stood firm in his allegiance to Christ. The world is not worthy of such as him. May we be encouraged to hold on to the reigning King of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, no matter the outcome on this earth...by faith!
