1/27 amos

Editor’s note: Amos is a church mouse, unable to use the keyboard shift keys and unschooled in the art of punctuation. Last week, Amos was trapped by Marcellus the cat, and he was reflecting on Oliver Owl’s sermon about how the Apostle Paul’s difficulties were “divine wood cutters” to make way for the Gospel.

making way for good news

part two

so you see oliver hooted

paul said his circumstances

were divine wood cutters

cutting a way through the

opposition so the gospel

might be advanced

but look at his circumstances

says oliver how can this be

paul s liberty was gone -

he was chained to a roman

soldier night and day -

god had built a fence around

the apostle - he had put

limits around him - he had

placed handicaps on him -

but paul says that they

are god s wood cutters

making a way for the gospel

and he was right oliver said

the gospel was being proclaimed

from the pulpit of the entire

roman empire

the royal guard of ten thousand

hand-picked roman soldiers

were hearing the gospel from

the soldiers chained to paul -

they had to keep changing them

because they were continually

being converted to christ

the other preachers and

christians in rome became

bolder in their preaching of

the gospel because of paul s

circumstances

and so it is with us

in our christian walk says

oliver - the things that

hedge us in - the things that

handicap us - the tests that

we go through - and the

temptations that

assail us - are all

divinely appointed wood

cutters used by god to hew

out a path for our sharing

and demonstrating the

gospel of jesus christ

it may be that our fondest

hopes can not be realized -

we may be in difficult

circumstances -

illness or sickness may be

our lot - yet if we are in

the center of god s will -

all of these are contributing

to the spread and progress

of the good news

they draw us closer to

the lord so that the

testimony of our lives

will count more for god

so thank god for the

handicaps and the testings

for they are blessings in

disguise

when we have limitations

put on us we do our best

work for the lord

because at that moment

we are most dependent

on him

amos

p s - by the way boss

tommy got saved - it seems

that since marcellus was

so preoccupied by me that

willifred the white rat and

freddie the flea got a chance

to share jesus with him