Showtime!
Posted on May 16, 2010Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and God was tired of hearing all of the bickering. Finally God said, "Enough. I am going to set up a test that will run two hours and I will judge who does the better job."
So down Satan and Jesus sat at the keyboards and typed away. They moused. They faxed. They did spreadsheets. They wrote reports. They e-mailed. They e-mailed with attachments. They downloaded. They made cards. They did genealogy reports. They did every known job.
But ten minutes before their time was up, lightening suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, the rain poured and, of course, the electricity went off. Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld. Jesus just sighed. The electricity finally flickered back on, and each of them restarted their computers.
Satan started searching frantically, screaming, "It's gone! It's all gone! I lost everything when the power went out!"
Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of His files from the past two hours.
Satan observed this and became irate. "Wait! He cheated! How did He do it?"
God shrugged and said, "Jesus saves." --Anonymous
I really like this email... it reminds me so much of the story in the Bible where the 450 false prophets of Baal challenged God's true prophet, Elijah (1 Kings 18:20-40) to a showdown. Don't believe me, read the book! Baal was a false god that the people of Israel were worshipping rather than Yahweh--the one true God. So, in order to settle the debate, Elijah ordered that the both the false prophets and he set up an altar with which to offer up a sacrifice--each to his own God. Both would lay wood under the sacrifice and both had to call upon their God/god to consume the sacrifice (in other words, start the fire). So, in the morning, the 450 prophets began calling for their god. No response. By evening, they were wailing to the point of harming themselves and still no fire. Elijah, observing all this, called for his sacrifice to be drenched with 4 large pots of water. He then gathered all the people around his now soaking wet offering and called upon his God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel). Immediately fire came down from Heaven and consumed not only the sacrifice but all the water too!
So, I wonder, where are you today? Are you trusting in man-made idols? Are you bowing down to inanimate objects? Placing your faith in silver or gold? Is your trust in material or financial resources? Friends, our hope, trust, faith and peace can only be in one thing... Jesus. It is He who saves our very souls from the torment of hell. He, alone, carried all our burdens, pain and sin to the cross. Offer yourself up to Him today. Allow Him to consume your life and give you a renewed sense of purpose while yet, still here, on this earth. Sherry Anne