A quiet morning [Written on July 22; published on July 28]

The Holy Spirit of God has already reminded me three days in a row to put this down on paper; and when God reminds you three times relentlessly about something, you know it's important.
Serve God and worship God, even if it means going to hell at the end of the road.

I pause, as you contemplate on the words written above.

Dear friend, if you are a Christian, this is not to remove the assurance you have received from God concerning your salvation. This is not to say that you are destined for hell if you serve God and worship God (with the power of the indwelt Christ of course). BUT, this is to say, continue to serve and worship God, even if life looks dim, as if no bright future beckons; even if you are called to recant or deny Jesus, and threatened with death and torture upon refusal to do the fore-mentioned - yes, serve God and worship God, even if it means going to hell at the end of the road. Why? Because He is worthy to be obeyed and loved and adored, He deserves all of our undivided attention and service.

I was listening to a sermon by Paris Reidhead, titled "Ten Shekels and a Shirt", and he made a similar statement in his sermon. This was on Sunday night (July 18). I had listened to the sermon a few times a few months back, and never quite made sense of how brother Reidhead could say something so harsh and so insensible as to the effect of "serving God even if it means going to hell at the end of the road". But when human reasoning receded, and the Holy Spirit of God began to pour out the wisdom of the ages, my eyes were opened.

In the days of Noah, when he was building the ark in preparation for the Great Flood, he was also a famous preacher - famous in the sense that everybody knew him, but did not welcome him. Can you imagine how Noah and his family were rejected, ridiculed, mocked at, perhaps even threatened by society at large? You have to remember, the Bible records this age as a time of exceeding evil.

Let us recall the Apostle Paul as well. His life was far from a life of comfort and painlessness. Read and see how he was persecuted and tortured time and again; when he was locked in jail, he sang songs of praises (Acts 16:25); when he was imprisoned on a ship, caught in a storm, seemingly devoid of hope. he preached to the soldiers a message of hope (Acts 27:21-25).

Or even of our dear Lord Jesus, whose life was a living example of a living hell, or so we think. And yet he was devout to The Only Father, he continued his life of obedience, adoration and worship. He continued it all, even unto death on the cross.

Dear reader, there will come a time in your walk with Christ, or perhaps it has already come, where life on earth will seem like a living hell. God is not mad at you, and God has not forsaken you; on the contrary, God is sharing with you the very nails that pierced those hands of compassion - fellowship with God is meaningless if we do not share in his sufferings. Look to the glory that is set at the end of the road, where we will be raised in new bodies of glory that can never perish, spoil or fade.

If you are living in an atmosphere of extreme comfort, detached from all the trials and sufferings that the Lord Jesus went through, which present day martyrs have gone through as well, I want to gently rebuke you for your unwillingness to suffer for Christ. If you are suffering for the righteousness of Christ, and life seems like a living hell, and you are going through a dried, parched and weary stage of life, be encouraged, God has not forsaken you and holds true to His promised deliverance. Life may seem like hell now, but ask for sight from the Lord Jesus, and He will teach you the future glories that are in store.

I close with these verses - 1 Peter 1:6-7.
"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."