Today's Passage - John 9:26-34

River of Life Christian Church ︳www.rolcc.net/english John 9:26-34   ....Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow's disciple! We are the disciples of Moses! We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from."  The man answered, "Now that this is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes.  We know that God does not listen to sinners.  He listens to the godly man who does his will.  Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.  If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." To this they replied, "You are steep in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.   The real issue with the Pharisees was that they wanted to place God into their principle of rationalism.  But in reality, from man's point of view, we have no clue of how God works.   No matter how hard we tried, we cannot understand why   God allows temptations from Satan, and how man would eventually be brought back to God? Isn't there a better way? Why did Jesus have to die on the cross and resurrected in the third day?   Is there a better way for salvation?  Why is tribulation good for us? Why doesn't God render His healing power through a single prayer?  Why do we need to come before God time and time again? Why are there different responses from different people when the Holy Spirit is working: some would speak in tongues, some shiver and others would fall on the ground?   Perhaps we may provide so called "standard answers", but the reality is, "we simply don't know."  But we do know our God is one who performs miracles!  He is not the genie from Aladdin, but He is a God with absolute sovereignty, who works according to His will and goodness. I recall a speaker once defined God's sovereignty as, "God sovereignty is: He is God and you are not!" Hallelujah! This is just that simple - He is God and we are not!  Brothers and sisters, we need to submit fully to Him, otherwise we will be forever asking: "Why, God?"   When I learned to write Chinese characters with a computer, I learned the easiest method of input, because my secretary told me, "this way you only need to input the first and the last strokes, a number of characters will be listed for you to choose." It seemed easy at first, but in reality I encountered many difficulties because my first stroke was quite different from that of the computer, and I could not find the characters I wanted!  Initially I was mad at the computer, but later I realized it was laughable because I recognize my logic is quite different from that of the computer. Similarly, when we come before our God, we do not understand how He works, and as a result we are trapped in our own logics running into a dead end.  Therefore, we should surrender to our Lord, and as we recognize that He is the God of all miracles, His grace will then come upon us.                                    Pray with Pastor Tong           Dear Lord, we submit completely before you because you are the God of miracles. We welcome you into our lives and work according to your will and time so that we may be filled with your grace. With thanks we pray in the victorious name of Jesus, Amen!