I was brought up in a devout, very strict Christian  home, where the Bible was read aloud twice every day to us children. I was brought up knowing that there was a certain life after death in either of two places….heaven or hell! I also knew that I was a wicked little sinner, because I knew what a scheming, disobedient  and stubborn little rascal I was in my soul. I was eight years old when I was convicted about doing something about my sin.

When I look at my eight year old great-grandchildren, I wonder just how much a small child is capable of understanding such great matters of eternal life and death. I have to remind myself that I was only eight when these things became a great burden to me.

I  knew  that I  had  to confess my sin  if  I wanted to go to  heaven. But  I  had  the greatest  struggle  to  do  this. This conviction  was clear and  plain to me, and I would argue with the voice of God speaking to me mostly after I went to bed. It was a continual battle.

I would hear the voice of God saying “You HAVE to do something about it!”

I would answer, “But I don’t WANT to!”

I might silence the voices for that night, but they would start up again after a few nights. This kept going on for so long, that one night, I gave in and slipped out of bed, and kneeling there I told God that I was sorry for my sin and asked Him to take it away. Oh, the relief !!

I didn’t become a Christian because my parents were….I have known many people who were brought up in equally devout Christian homes, and they have decided against it for themselves, and have never turned to the Lord.

I didn’t become a Christian because of any good things I might have done….I hadn’t lived long enough to do any good deeds with that thought in my mind.

I didn’t even become a Christian because I went to church regularly (which I did).

I became a Christian because I knew deep down that I was a sinner, child that I was, and I knew I had to listen to God for myself, and ask forgiveness for my stubbornness and rebellion against what I knew God wanted me to do.

I knew I was a sinner because I was born that way….I wasn’t a sinner because I had sinned; I sinned because I was a sinner!

I can honestly say I have never had any doubts that my sins are forgiven and that I have my ticket to heaven.

But it has not been a story of happy ever after…..I haven’t always been what I should have been, and then the contact between me and my Lord has been broken. But He has patiently waited for me to turn back to Him, and then has graciously taken me up again.

He will do the same for all those come to Him…there is a verse in the Bible that says….”A broken and a contrite heart, O Lord, You will not despise”.    (Psalm 51:17)

A testimony is something that a person can testify to, of something that they have seen or experienced. It is usually a very personal thing that has affected them deeply. These testimonies that I’m including are those of other people that I have either heard about or known, as well as my own, mostly of a spiritual nature.

A testimony is not always a positive thing, sometimes it has a negative side which can be used as a warning to us. When we see how a person has reacted against God and what the end results are, we are to take heed that we don’t do the same thing with disastrous results.

Some of these stories are from a child’s perspective while others are from an adult’s, so lets read about them and see what we can learn…..

“Could you run down to the grocery store and get me a couple of things please Honey?”      Debbie asked her new husband.

“Why sure”, Jeff replied only too happy to oblige.

“I’ll give you a list”, Debbie went on.

“No, no” Jeff insisted, “I’ll be OK. What do you want?”

“Well, I need some self-rising flour, and a packet of Twinings tea”, she said as she wiped her hands on the towel.

Jeff bounded off, happy to do his beloved’s wish.

He got to the shop and found the section for baking needs. “Flour” he muttered, and then looked at the array of different sorts of flour before him. “Now what sort did she ask for?” he asked himself. High grade, plain white, brown, self-rising, bread flour. Her instructions flew out of his mind.

It was in the days before cell phones, so he made a wild guess and picked a packet off the shelf.

It was the same in the tea section. “Tea”, he muttered, “Now what sort did she ask for?”

Green tea, black tea, cheap tea, expensive tea…. Nerada tea, Bell tea, Choysa tea, Twinings tea? He made a stab and picked a packet up and put it in his basket.

When he got home, Debbie saw what he had brought. “Those aren’t the ones I asked for Jeff”, she wailed, “Why didn’t you listen?”

“Well, I did get flour and tea”, he said.

You see, Jeff had heard, but he hadn’t really listened. This what so many of us are like with what God tells us. Yes, we hear that God loves us, but we don’t listen to the fact that He is a holy God and can’t stand sin. We hear that He wants to bless us, but we don’t listen to the fact that He only blesses those who give their lives to Him and do their best to follow Him. We may even know that verse that says that “all things work together for good”, but we don’t take notice that is only for those who love God and are doing what He wants them to. Let’s make sure that we REALLY listen to what God is saying to us, and then act on it. If Jeff had really LISTENED to Debbie, he would have taken the right things home for her!!

This is why Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”. He wants those who hear His Word, to act on it….this is true hearing, obedience.

    We have had two unexpected deaths in the last two weeks in our small community….both people in younger age brackets, and both accidental, sudden tragedies.

One was a fit man in his late forties, who was taking his young son to the local BMX circuit for an afternoon of fun and exercise. He sent his boy ahead of him and then set off behind him. As he went over one of the jumps, something went wrong and he flipped off his bike landing on his head, and breaking his neck. The doctors said that if he had survived, he would have had no quality of life at all. Small comfort to his family.

Then a woman in her thirties was walking down the street towards the local park. As she was going down the slope, she noticed a car seemed to be stuck on the verge and was revving its motor up trying to get out. She skirted around the back of it and at the very moment she was directly behind it, the driver’s foot slipped and with a jolt the car reversed into her, squashing her against a brick wall  behind her. She didn’t stand a chance and died at the scene before the ambulance could get to her.

Neither of these people knew when they left home that they wouldn’t be returning that day, or ever again. These incidents show us how uncertain life is. We aren’t promised tomorrow. We aren’t even promised the end of the current day. The only moment we have is NOW.

The only certain thing about life is that it is going to end one day. Whenever there is a birth, there will be a death. But no-one knows when.

There is a verse in the Bible that says, “Teach me to number my days (consider my mortality); so that I may live wisely” (Psalm 90:12) 

   Let’s make sure that we consider these things and be ready to meet our Maker, no matter how suddenly or unexpectedly it may happen.

 “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”…..

As I read those words in my morning Bible reading recently, my mind went back many years ago to the time when we HAD put confidence in what people had told us and were badly let down. We were contemplating buying a commercial building with two tenants leasing it. The tenant downstairs seemed reliable enough, but the we had some doubts about the ones upstairs. We asked them how long they were likely to need the lease for, and they said as long as they didn’t expand, there was no likelihood of them moving. So with that assurance, we bought the building.

For a few months, everything went well, and then the tenants upstairs gave notice that they were moving but would continue paying their rent until the end of their lease in six month’s time. This was a blow that we had hoped we wouldn’t have to face. Once the lease ran out, we were left with only half the income we had reckoned on, and as time went by we were unable to lease out the top floor. It was either too big, or there wasn’t enough parking. It was certainly never classed as being too small by any prospective tenant!

Things were not easy and we began to wonder if we had made a mistake in “putting our confidence in man “. We had prayed about the proposition before buying it and done our homework as thoroughly as we could, but now the only conclusion we could come to was that we must have made a mistake in buying the place.

During this time, my morning Bible reading was about the time when the Lord told His disciples to row across the lake, all the time knowing what was going to happen. He knew the storm was going to come and toss them about. Yet He still told them to go. They hadn’t made a mistake in setting off across the lake….they went at His bidding. He didn’t divert the storm, He allowed things to work out their course.  He knew He would meet them in their hour of desperate need and calm the storm.

After reading this story, my mind settled down somewhat. We hadn’t made a mistake after all, the Lord just wanted to teach us that He was in control and would release us from the situation in His good time. It didn’t happen overnight but the building eventually sold and we were released from the situation we were in. How relieved we were and overjoyed at not having to go through this hard time any more!!

I now know that whatever comes our way, God is always in control. If things are easy, we must give Him thanks, and when things come tough, we are to tighten our belts (figuratively) and still give Him thanks that things are no worse than they are! Above all, we are not to put our confidence in what people tell us, but to always trust in God and what He says.

    There was a newcomer in the town basin among all the other sailing boats. She was sleek, shiny and polished and everyone wondered who she was and where she had come from. She was beautiful, a real lady if ever there was one!

    There was a notice pinned to the bollard she was tied up to giving her name, port of origin and owner’s name. She had come from overseas across the Pacific Ocean and found a haven in our Town Basin. There was no doubt that she was very well cared for.

    There were articles about her and her owners in the local papers and as time went by she became a fixture, and part of the landscape. We always looked for her as we went by. Nearly nine months went by, and it was announced that she would leave for warmer waters before our winter months. A new motor was installed, and the engineer who did the work shook his head as he looked at the engine bed. “I can’t in all good conscience sign this job off” he said, “I don’t like the look of the bottom of this boat”.

     The captain took no notice of these forebodings, and announced he was leaving shortly regardless. He went further north to another popular harbour, and slipped out into blue waters disappearing over the horizon with people barely realising he was gone.  However, he did keep in touch by radio for the first few days.

    He had left New Zealand waters by this time and a tropical cyclone was forming in the seas to his north. He made one last call giving his position before the storm hit. Then there was nothing more. Silence.  The yacht was never heard from again. People searched by plane and boat for some weeks without finding anything.

   We think this is a tragedy, and so it is. Yet there are millions of people getting ready for the greatest journey of their lives just polishing the surface of their ship without going any deeper to make sure that the ship is seaworthy at the bottom of the hull. We must ask ourselves if the hull of our life is seaworthy enough to get us there. And if we do get there, has the Harbour Master of our destination received our advance papers of entry? Will He recognize the name of our ship as we pass the harbour entrance?  How sad to arrive only to be told, “I don’t know you, your certificate of entry has not arrived ahead of you!”

   Jesus himself said this….        Not every one that says unto me, “Lord, Lord”, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father which is in heaven.  Many will say to me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your  name? and in your name have cast out devils? and in your name done many wonderful works?”

And then will I profess unto them, “I never knew you: depart from me, you who work iniquity”. (Matthew 7:21-23)

 What does the certificate of our arrival say?  And this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has  the Son has  life; and he who has  not the Son of God has not life.   (1 John 5:11-12)

How do we get this certificate? We just have to apply for it, ask for it, as simple as that! And what’s more it is freely given when asked for sincerely and wholeheartedly.

    Have you ever thought of life in this way? We went to a funeral the other day, and it struck me again of the brevity of life when you have come to the end of it. When we are younger, the years stretch ahead endlessly (we think) and there always seems plenty of time to do the things we want to, or the things we know we ought to do.

“Tomorrow” we tell ourselves, “We’ll do it (or think about it) tomorrow”.                               But you know, tomorrow never comes. A wise king in the Bible called Solomon thought about these things and this is what he had to say about life…..”To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:  A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance…” He wrote more on these lines in  Ecclesiastes 3:1-8…

His father, King David wrote these words….”As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourishes; For the wind passes over it, and it is gone; and its place shall know it no more.”

It sparked these thoughts…

Spring….         ages birth – thirty….      Seeds sown

This is the time of life that we lay our foundations….of education, relationships and careers. We learn more in these years than at any other time of life.

Summer ..        ages 30-50…                Weeds grown

These are the busy years…we are so busy raising a family, buying a home and getting established, that we allow the weeds of busyness to stifle any thoughts we might have towards God and the spiritual side of life.

Autumn…        ages 50-70…                Deeds  reaping time

It’s now the time of reaping what we’ve been sowing during the previous years. The habits we’ve formed, either bad or good; our families have grown and gone, and now we have time for the hobbies we’ve always promised ourselves to take up; we still have the energy to travel and see other parts of the world. Our habits take over and we are so busy having a good time that again we put thoughts of the future out of our minds.

Winter…          ages  70-?                    Needs…time’s flown!

Our grandchildren have grown and are now having problems which we can’t help taking on our own shoulders as we watch them flounder along making the same mistakes that we once made. Then we are brought up with a round turn by health problems, and we find that we have new needs. We have to downsize; things we once did with ease, now take all day. Then when we come to the next big-0 birthday, we realise that there is very little time left, and maybe no quality time at that. Our minds are not as clear as they used to be, and it is an effort to think of the future and spiritual things. “Well,” we say, “We’ve lived without God all these years, so we can die without Him too!”

This is the biggest mistake we can ever make. We should take time right NOW to think about the future and get ready to meet our Maker. Remember the trips we used to take and the preparations we made for them? The research we put into where to go and where to stay?  Our final trip is the greatest trip we will ever make….let’s make sure we are ready to go!