Hands

“GIVE YOUR HANDS TO SERVICE, AND YOUR HEART TO LOVE.” – Mother Teresa

Heart

Jigsaw

“You are my missing piece,” is written on the packet I saw in a gift shop. Inside the small packet you find a necklace with a piece of a jigsaw.

Looking into the shop windows at the present time here in Kaitaia you can see advertisements like this:

“Valentine’s Day

Tuesday 14 February 2017″

Heart

Looking up The Collins Concise Dictionary I find that a valentine is “a card or gift expressing love or affection on Saint Valentine’s Day”. After St Valentine, who was a 3rd-century A.D. Christian martyr.

Let me close with what Augustine said:

“OUR HEARTS ARE RESTLESS UNTIL THEY FIND REST IN THEE.”

About “Reward for Obedience” we are taught in Leviticus 26:1-13. I arrived at the book of Leviticus at the present time in my reading of the Bible from cover to cover. (I started at Genesis at the beginning of 2017.) And it was a real blessing to read about the rewards for obedience.

WATER CARRIERS

Almost at the same time, only yesterday, I am reading in one of our newspapers, The Northern Advocate, Saturday, February 4, 2017, the headline: “Fifth drought in eight years.” The minister for Primary Industries visited a farmer not far from us in Okaihau.

What really struck me when I read about the rewards for obedience in Leviticus 26:1-13, was, that the first reward mentioned is rain.

It says in Leviticus 26:3,4:

”’IF YOU FOLLOW MY DECREES AND ARE CAREFUL TO OBEY MY COMMANDS, I WILL SEND YOU THE SEASONAL RAINS. THE LAND WILL THEN YIELD ITS CROPS, AND THE TREES OF THE FIELD WILL PRODUCE THEIR FRUIT.'” (NLT)

The “Reward for Obedience” is followed by “Punishment for Disobedience” in the same chapter.

“WUNDER STAERKEN UNSEREN GLAUBEN, KEINE WUNDER STAERKEN UNSEREN CHARACTER.” – Andreas Frischknecht