A Twisted Crown of Thorns ®

Twitter is overall probably best known for its celebrity users and you’ve-seen-me-on-MTVs who discuss and indulge other lesser mortals with gold dust bits of their lives down to the most trivial detail.

It’s a crisp wintry December morning, a few more days and it will be Christmas. Seven days to Christmas to be exact. As the snow falls and blankets the beautiful country side landscapes in Britain, The Daily Mail runs a heart rending story of a said to be distraught mother from Merritt Island, Florida who posted serial messages on Twitter as emergency medical teams tried to resuscitate her dying son. The 30 year old started by sending ‘tweets’ just minutes after her two-year-old was found floating face down in the family’s swimming pool.

As the paramedics tried to revive the lifeless son, she continued to ‘tweet’ and post: ‘Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.’

Five hours later, after he was pronounced dead! She duly kept her blog up to date with, ‘Remembering my million dollar baby’.

She then took it to another level much to the chagrin of her 5,000 followers when she uploaded photos of her son!

Nobel Peace Award

Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness. Proverbs 20:6 KJV

The growth of micro blogging sites is due to people wanting to let others know about the good and wonderful things in the world they are in. They will ‘tweet’ it, ‘facebook’ it ‘my space’ it. Sometimes the deeds are worthy of bigger recognition than a micro blog. For these we have different awards, statues and wax works. Not to mention the walks of fame with names and faces engraved in them and we all love it. But…What about if there was a different standard of measurement of human achievement and humanity. Say a higher standard? When God looks at our best works and deeds, does He have the same jubilant expression of delight?

The story goes that God will throw a house party this Christmas in Heaven and has invited every body to it. Yes, even Santa and Rudolf are supposed to be there. Nobel Prize winners and Terrorists have all been invited together with commoners. But there is only one condition on the invitation card and it reads: Please come with your best foot forward: You have got to prove you deserve to be at my party. What would you do to deserve a date with the King?

Use Gods Moral Law

The best way to avoid embarrassment would be to use the mirror of God before darkening the steps of his steeple. The mirror of God is his perfect moral law-The Ten Commandments.

Have you lied? How many times have you stolen? Have you unjustly hated your brother-Jesus says he who hates his brother is guilty of murder in his heart? How about taking the name of God in vain-that is blasphemy. That is just four out of ten commandments.

Folks, we have all fallen short of the standard of God.(Rom 3:23). Just like the mother in the earlier story, the moral standard is too high to easily ‘tweet’ and boast about. The Bible says if we fulfil the whole  Law but break it at one point we are guilty of the whole Law. Our best foot forward is as filthy rugs to a Holy God.

We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind. Isaiah 64:6 New Living Translation

Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. 1 John 3:4 New Living Translation

I know we all have heard the saying that God is a loving God. That’s true. He is also a Just Judge who must punish Lawlessness and sin. The wages or the fine for sin is death.

There was once an Englishman by the name of Ebenezer Wooten. He had just concluded a preaching service in the village square. The crowd had dispersed, and he was busily engaged in loading the equipment. A young man approached him and asked, ‘Mr. Wooten, what must I do to be saved?’ Sensing that the fellow was trusting his own righteousness, Wooten answered in a rather unconcerned way, ‘It’s too late!’ The inquirer was startled. “Oh don’t say that, sir!” But the evangelist insisted, ‘It’s too late!’ Then, looking the young man in the eye, he continued, ‘You want to know what you must DO to be saved. I tell you it’s too late now or any other time. The work of salvation is done, completed, finished! It was finished on the cross.’

It was at the cross that God ‘tweeted’ his best message to humanity. He paid our fine by letting His own perfect son  face the wrath and fine for our sin. And He imputed His perfect son’s righteousness on us in exchange.

‘But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.’ Rom 5:8

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.  The fine was paid. We exchanged our sin for his righteousness? If there were ever a message that God would have wanted to tweet to any people then it is the Good News that it was finished on the cross.

It is finished.

‘It is finished’ Jesus said from the cross. God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, like a bird from the snare of the fowler. The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3:19 KJV

The life you live is then by faith in Jesus so that when you reach that Pearly Gate for that divine ‘Close Encounter’, your best work has got to be faith in ‘God’s best work’. You can only be justified by faith. For to God if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation the old things have passed and behold all things are new.

WWGT-What Would God Tweet?

This Christmas I hope God is not tweeting, ‘Remember my son’. Truth is we have forgotten about the cross; which ironically is the very reason why there is a Christmas. If there are any updates on God’s ‘Twitter page’ then we should be searching them out and holding on to them. The Bible is the word of God. It contains all you need to know and all He wants you to know. Examine yourself and see if you’re in the faith it says.

The very last ‘tweet’ and very last words of Jesus recorded in the Bible are in the book of Revelation 22:20. This Christmas read them out to your sons and daughters, read them to your neighbours. And wish them a Merry Christmas!

It says, “Surely, I am coming soon.”