Text by Jerald Chan
“Little boat, little boat, now you are twice mine. Once I made you, now I have bought you back.”
What a powerful story shared by Pastor Lawrence as he closed Saturday’s GenRev service on the 30th of October! I believe many of us present left the Rock auditorium with a sweet embrace of Jesus’ love that night. Just like the boy in the story who lost the boat that he made and later bought back, God has redeemed all of us at a price — the blood of His Son. These were the words our Abba Father embraced us with on Saturday night: “You are twice, mine; I have bought you back.”
Saturday’s service started off in Pastor Lawrence’s usual laid-back fashion — with a couple of jokes — one of which I clearly remember being centred on an ant and how “all good things come to it”. He went on to share about the experiences he had as a contract teacher in the past, and how the education system would brand students into various education “streams”, based on how well they fared in their exams.
Students in the less-than-ideal streams would quickly lose the motivation to study and would, more often than not, feel defeated. This led them into a vicious cycle of failure and defeat. He attributed this behaviour to the root of students believing they are not valued by society because of poor grades.
He wanted us to catch this: that it was important for a person to have the right belief that he or she is valued. In the world’s context, society places a premium on good looks and achievements, which are often tied to a person’s worth. It is imperative that we, as beloved children of God, do not fall into the trap of basing our significance and worth on our physical achievements and worldly possessions. We must base our value on something greater and unchanging — the Father’s love.
He illustrated this from the story of Leah in Gen 29:3, “When the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.”
As we know, Leah’s married life of always being known as the cast-off must have hurt her immensely. Leah’s father, Laban, had resorted to trickery to marry her off. Leah, who recognised that Jacob’s love for Rachel far exceeded his love for her, had tried tremendously hard to gain her husband’s acceptance and favour by bearing him Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah.
All this while, Leah believed that her physical ability in being fruitful would someday turn Jacob’s heart towards her. She didn’t realise that God and His immeasurable love for her was the source of her fertility. In the midst of crying out for acceptance, she had failed to see that God has loved and favoured her all along. In spite of that, God brought His beloved Son, Jesus Christ through the lineage of her son Judah, and had her name forever engraved in the book of Ruth as a testament of His unchanging love for her. God’s good opinion of her never changed!
Likewise, God’s good opinion of us never changes, because of the finished work on the cross. This is in spite of the silly things we might have done in our past to gain acceptance. Our human desire for love, acceptance, and approval is found in Jesus, and Him alone. He loves us, not for our good behaviour or achievements, but just because. What an amazing Father we have!
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