OCTOBER 24-25

"God showed His love for us when He sent His only Son into the world to give us life. Real love isn't our love for God, but His love for us. God sent His Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven." 1 John 4:9-11

Documentary footage on TV covering World Wars 1 & 11 brought to mind a book I had read some time ago, by Ernest Gordon, and the horrors of the death camps.

At the outbreak of WW2 a scot, Ernest Gordon, enlisted with the Argyle and Sutherland Brigade. Hand to hand combat in Burma was horrific. Gordon was captured by the Japanese. He endured enforced hard labour in the jungle swamps, daily beatings and slow starvation. Diphtheria set in and he soon couldn't walk or feel his body and was put into Chungkai Death House. Sharing his bed with flies and bedbugs in the baking heat, he was left to rot, surrounded by groans of the dying and stench of the dead....the pictures of Chungkai with this blog give only a hint at the camp conditions....Scotland and home seemed far away.

Allied soldiers stole from each other, fighting over food scraps – robbing the dying – even slop and stale bread they called food was siphoned off by the servers. Gordon looked forward to dying.

Then, it happened – one day God's grace and compassion entered the camp in the shape of two new prisoners – men who had hope, and though captured, they lived by a higher code. They shared their food and volunteered for extra work. The men bathed Gordon's ulcerated sores and massaged his atrophied limbs, giving him his first bath in 6 weeks. Slowly, strength and dignity returned.

You know, goodness is contagious. Gordon too, began caring for the sick, sharing his rations and belongings with others in greater need, and soon others were doing the same. The camp changed – sacrifice replaced selfishness and after a time, worship services and Bible studies replaced the previous barbarism.

20 years later, Gordon, by then, Chaplain of a university, described the transformation in his book “To End All Wars”: “Death was still with us – no doubt about that. But we were slowly being freed from its destructive grip....Selfishness, hatred....and pride were all anti-life. Love....self-sacrifice....and faith, on the other hand, were the essence of life....gifts of God to men....Death no longer had the last word at Chungkai.” Gordon had been spared to receive God's love in action!

What a tremendous testimony!

Thank God it's unlikely that we'll experience the horror's that Gordon did, but consider; we have not been promised material wealth, physical health or protection from hardship, danger or tragedy as our right. Neither are we necessarily liberated from injustice and ill treatment. Trouble of some kind will inevitably come into our lives Does that mean we bring on the “eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” reaction? That way had been so easy in Chunkai, until the day the two new prisoners arrived to spread God's love and compassion in the jaws of hell itself.

Jesus the Son was their example, and he's ours too. He's there when the effort seems too great, the pain too much to bear. He gives us His grace and strength and asks us to be His eyes, His mouth, His hands, His feet - to reach out to others – stand with them, right where they are, in His name. Will we do that?

“When There's No Hope, There is Grace” - our song for today echoes the hope of Ernest Gordon in Chungkai. Singers? The Dunaways.

       

     Housekeeping details for you

     The point of this short blog will become clear if you decide to use this reading in the way we intend it. Netherfield Seventh-day Adventist Church believes in healthy churches. You can see what that means if you head to the relevant Healthy Churches page of the website. We also want other churches to be healthy. That means you can join in our campaign to create healthy churches, with healthy people serving the people in those churches.

     A healthy church is one where Jesus comes first. A healthy church is one where the people work together to put Jesus first. One thing we are doing is to join people together to spread that news. I would like you to look at our prayer partners page. This will explain how we want you to use this short devotional. Very basically we want you to find a like-minded Christian friend who you will join with to : choose to pray together every day, decide together on a way to serve other people together, to help them grow as Christians - and to invite the Holy Spirit into your life every day. This blog that you will receive every day simply gives a common spiritual purpose. If you are a newcomer and want to join the blog with this object in mind click here