My song this Easter Sunday is ‘One Pair of Hands’. This song was composed by Carroll Roberson who is an evangelist, gospel singer-songwriter, and author from Ripley, Mississippi. He read the Bible growing up but did not surrender his life to Christ until 1983. One year later, he was diagnosed with a cancerous growth on his throat. With no promise that he would be able to talk anymore, Roberson underwent thyroid surgery and was reportedly able to sing again within a matter of weeks. Shortly after, Roberson devoted himself to full-time ministry. After serving as Minister of a Baptist church in his hometown for two years, Roberson went into full-time evangelism, and since 1987, he has been preaching at revivals and crusades and singing his music to people around the world. Carroll has recorded more than twenty-five albums and written over one hundred songs.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Today’s song essentially tells the story of ‘The Creation’ as revealed in Genesis of what God achieved with ‘One Pair of Hands’. If you believe in the Easter Message that the crucified Christ died on the Cross to save mankind, and then three days later, he rose from the dead and instructed his apostles to go out and minister his Word to the world, you are a Christian. If you do not believe this, you are no more or less of a ‘good person’ as any Christian in the world. I honestly believe that it is by your actions that you will be known and judged, and not any religious affiliation.
Christians believe what is written in the 'Book of Genesis'. Genesis tells us that in seven days, God created the heavens and the earth. He filled it with birds of the air, animals of the land, and fish of the seas. He then gave life to the underworld and its creeping inhabitants, before creating all plant life and form of vegetation. When all this had been done, God gave life to his most beautiful creation of all; you! You are the living embodiment of God’s love! This is the essence of the Christian message.
After God created the earth and placed mankind on it, the world was set spinning in perfect motion on an axis of love. It was God who set the earth in motion, but it is the love of mankind that keeps life turning. I believe that it is the love of each of you, as expressed freely to one another, which keeps the world turning in harmonious revolution. How? You may ask. The bible says that Christ said, “By your deeds shall you be known”. I believe that it is through the deeds of mankind, and their consequences for both good or bad, that our Earth rotates either harmoniously or harmfully in its daily cycle. Climate change shows us that once we stop looking after our world then Nature no longer protects us from our worse consequences, as recent floods and the effects of weather extremities show.
I believe that our Creator endowed us with ‘free will’, and that we exercise the choice to both do right and wrong, and good and bad, to our neighbour, and to our environment and our natural habitat. It is through the choices that we make shall we be known and remembered when we depart this earthly life. It is through those choices we make in our earthly life that we shall be judged eternally. This I believe.
Today’s post is written by an unashamed Christian. I have never been a ‘bible basher’, as I consider that role to be a futile approach to ever adopt. Nobody would ever have a chance of convincing me or converting my opinion by hammering home one point repeatedly and clumsily.
Neither do I consider it essential for any reader to believe in any part of the Creation as espoused in the ‘Book of Genesis’ or in any part of the bible to be considered as being a ‘good person’. I know many non-Christians whose behaviour is as good as most Christians I know, as well as having known many professed Christians whose thoughts, feelings and actions are as un-Christian as one could imagine. The only definition of a ‘good person’ is someone whose thoughts, feelings, and actions are ‘good’, be they Christian nor otherwise. I believe that to behave in a good way is to behave in a Christian way, and vice versa! We can change the label on the tin as many times as we wish, but the contents remain the same!
Please, take one moment out of your life today and hold up your hands before your eyes. Look at your hands and know that what you do with these hands is essentially what you do with your life. You can use them to destroy or to build, to welcome or to drive away, to caress or to crush, to stroke or to strangle, to create or collapse, to love or loathe! The choice is yours alone to make. The Creator gave you this free will to choose. Please make the right one and become the good person you are meant to be. It is far better to shake hands with daily life than to close them in anger and contempt.
Love and peace
Bill xxx