On Saturday, 25th June, 2011, Geenu and I went to Singapore Zoo and had a good time in zoo. Later we did some shopping from Little India before returning home. We made delicious chicken curry and rice after reaching home.
On Sunday, 26th June, we woke up at 7:30 am to attend worship service at City Harvest Church in the Suntec Convention Center. This week’s message was by Dr. A.R. Bernard, the guest speaker and the chairman of the advisory committee for City Harvest Church. He’s one of the most influential New Yorkers and pastors a church of 33,000 members in the city of New York.
After a wonderful praise and worship music, Dr. A. R Bernard preached the message about storms in life, the reason for storms, and how to overcome them.
Storms may come in life, when you disobey God. When you know what’s right but you’re doing it wrong anyway or when you let someone else talk you to do something like Adam heeding the voice of Eve and ate the forbidden fruit. The solution is to repent. This is what happened with Jonah when God told him to go to city of Ninevah and preach but Jonah headed towards Tarshish to flee from the Lord. The Lord sent a violent storm that threatened to break the ship. Finally, on Jonah’s request, the sailors threw Jonah into sea when he was gobbled by a huge fish and when inside the belly of fish, Jonah repented. Jonah Ch. 1 & 2.
Storms may also come in life when you’re in the perfect will of God. Jesus told his disciples to get into boat to go to the land of Bethsaida – Mark 6:45. When the disciples were in the middle of lake, they encountered wind against them and were straining hard against the wind. Jesus saw them straining and went with them. Immediately the wind died down.
Morale, if you’re obeying God and encounter storm, Jesus can calm the storm. In the Book of Acts, the apostles suffered all kinds of persecutions, nakedness, robbery, stoning due to their obedience to preaching the Gospel.
Storms may also come in your way due to somebody else action. Apostle Paul on the way to Rome to stand trial before Caesar encountered a life threatening storm, due to decision by the centurion, who heeded the voice of ship’s captain and the boat owner, instead of Apostle Paul’s warning about the calamity Acts 27:9.
Morale of the passage is God’s faithful and will grant you strength to endure the hardships and make you come out of the storm successfully even if the storm you face is due to somebody else’s action.
