Poster Archive : JULY 2009

Message: a txt msg frm God

Bible verse: Acts 13:26 To us has been sent the message of this salvation.

At the end of 2008, on a single day, New Year's Eve, an estimated 43 billion text messages were sent wishing people a happy new year. The number was probably so huge because people sent group messages to everyone in their phone. Entire phone address lists spammed with something like, 'Happy New Year - Have a good one in 09 - Cheers Danno'. Boring, predictable, though very friendly and nice.

It makes one wonder how we'll cope in the future when everyone we've ever met or bought anything from sends us a New Year's Eve greeting. Perhaps our personal robots (the smart phones of the future) will gently mention that we've got 'greetings from many current and former friends', and if we ask, "Oh, who from?", well the robot phone can tell us if we really want to know.

That's the challenge of the age we live in, so much communication. It's hard to separate the essential from the mundane. However, one piece of communication we really do need to know about is a text message from God.

Most text messages are short and tell you something you can forget about like, 'I'm running 15 mins late'. The Bible isn't like that. It's pretty long, but, being the word of God, it's not the kind of information you can dismiss quickly. And the Bible doesn't muck around. Like all text messages, it tells us what the other person is thinking. In this case God tells us that He made us, loves us, and also that He's both sad and angry that we ignore Him and do wrong things.

The best part of God's text message to the people of this world is that it contains what's called the Gospel. Gospel means 'good news'. And the incredible news is; God sent Jesus into the world to save us from the judgment that is coming. Jesus died on the cross to pay the price of our sin.

But have you noticed God's text or have you been too busy? The New York Post early this year reported that Reina Hardesty from California has been texting 484 messages a day. Maybe she just needs to put the phone down. Maybe that's you too?

Prayer: Dear God, please help me to read your text message and give it the attention it deserves. AMEN.

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