by The Village Parson

Ephesians 3:8

It was time for the biannual visit from the pastor, and Mrs. Brown arranged her heirloom silver dinnerware and best china for the customary meal after the visit.

After the pastor left, she began cleaning up. She noticed that her heirloom silver spoon was missing from the pastor’s place at the table.

At the time Mrs. Brown didn’t think much of it and figured her silver spoon would show up sooner or later.

The pastor, she knew, was, of course, beyond reproach.

A few months went by with no sign of her spoon. She began toying with the idea of confronting the pastor. Finally she could bear it no longer and called him.

She asked him if he had the silver spoon.

After a gentle pause, he told her that he had put it in her family Bible!

In contrast, the following is a true story.

In 1949, the Communist party took over China and changed the country overnight. Pastors were arrested and church leaders fled. A terminally ill man, and his family sold all they had to buy medicine for him, but to no avail. He went home to die.

One night, his wife, who was a Christian, heard these words in her spirit….”Jesus loves you”. She was moved powerfully in her spirit to wake up their six children and they all together prayed for their father.

Within a week their father was completely healed and their 16-year-old son decided he wanted to know about Jesus! In those days if you were caught with a Bible you and your family were publicly beaten and the Bible was burned. He knew of a man who might have a Bible so he visited him, but the man did not admit he had one.

He told him to fast and pray. Taking the man seriously, he ate only a small bowl of rice, per day, for 100 days! One night he had a dream that a man would deliver a Bible to him. The next day the same man in the dream showed up at his house and handed him a Bible. Then he realized he couldn’t read the words for lack of education, but acquired a dictionary and studied the book all waking hours.

He quickly memorized the entire book of Matthew and the book of the Acts of the Apostles and would recite them at meetings.

Long story short, he became a leader, suffering many hardships. He was responsible for the spread of the gospel in the underground church. Thousands of people became hungry to know Jesus who loves us.

One moral of this story is, ….Prosperity did not bring about the abandon that Jesus was talking about, but adversity caused the eternal love of our heavenly Father to be understood and experienced, in the underground church.

One wife and mother was praying when she heard and …. believed….

“JESUS LOVES YOU”!

The love of Jesus is in us now through belief! How simple!

Falling in Love with a God who would endure the cross for what we deserved, and accomplished forgiveness for our sins is more in line with God’s will.

You don’t have to be a prophet to know that Christ’s loving return is imminent.

The views of the author of this column are not necessarily those of The Town Line newspaper, its staff and board of directors.