Luke 19:37-40

37 Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, 38 saying:

39 And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”

40 But He answered and said to them,
“I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”

This is the Saturday between when Jesus was crucified and died, and on the Sunday morning when He rose. What ever name you call it – it happened! Pontus Pilate did his best to seal him in the tomb with a troop of guards, but he was forgetting – Jesus is God – He created these mere pebbles that we strain our backs to move. I imagine that this massive rock that sealed his tomb when asked to move did so with a huge cheer for even the rocks obey our Lord.

Numbers 20:10-11

“Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?” 11Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank.

The living river did come forth from this rock, He rose to give life to all that let him in, but be not mistaken – you must choose a side for the war is here and when the final bell has sounded you will be sorted, the lambs from the goats.

What choice will you make friend?

I can not remain silent, I must speak out. It is like a river within me that rises and I cry out for the greatness of God. People goad and deride us Christians for believing in the bible, but it is much more than this. I believe the bible is the inspired Word of God, that Jesus did die on the cross and rose again, but more than this is that it was done for mine and your salvation – eternal life. That is the prize, given for free but paid with a hefty price.

The stars on the image show the constellation of Orion with Sirius following his master. Jesus followed His father’s will to die on the cross for all of us, even though he suffered so much – He did this to follow His Father, now our Father in Heaven through Jesus. When people deride us, we pray for them. When things go wrong and we are at a loss, then we pray and ask for God’s supernatural strength. When we snap and respond in anger or impatience then we have not followed our Lord but listened to our body.

The last two days I have felt extremely filled with the Lord’s Spirit. This is simply because I devoted some time to prayer – painful prayer because that is what it feels like when I pray and I feel the presence of the Lord. Like I am taking the concerns and pains of others and drawing them into myself, but release I as put these concerns to Jesus and He bears them away.

Be like a faithful puppy and follow Jesus, 
Be not afraid of derision or a little rain,
Be like a faithful servant and do your duty,
Be not afraid of work or trials of pain.

The stars show a plough, this symbolises work to be done, but work required labour, effort, pain and we are pulling this plough.

We are called to follow Jesus and that must be through trial and testing. It is a simple choice to follow Jesus but when the Spirit comes and He will, you must then choose to follow and change your life for the better. Pain comes when we cast away the worldly prizes and comforts and we seek to do God’s will. Self denial and following the Lord will bring that pain, but we must be joyful in it for the rewards and beyond this world.

No stars are named after our Lord, and why should they be – He created every single one of them. Imagine every time you do an act for the Lord then some creation is happening on a world beyond here. One day we will be able to walk the creation story of our life and laugh and cry at what we have created, everything will become clear through our Lord Jesus. But the work must start, we must not stop crying out, cheering our Lord for He has defeated death for all time, and the yoke that he asks us to bear is not heavy but light.

So turn to Jesus you mockers,
Open that door within you and see the change,
Ask for God to supernaturally change your life,
Ask for Jesus to sit and eat with you,
Ask for the Holy Spirit to shape you,

I pray that the love of God will come down onto you and your family,
for this is not some game were we can start again.
One life,
One choice,
One way to salvation,

Through Jesus Christ our Lord

Amen