One Man's Death - Every Man's Guarantee

We all keep hoping for peace. World War I was "the war to end all wars." Then we found ourselves in the midst of World War II-again sending out sons, husbands, and fathers who may not return.
The wars kept coming. Korea. Vietnam. Iraq. Each one pouring out death and destruction to an extent the world hadn’t witnessed previously. If only military victory carried a lifetime guarantee of no more death, no more failure, no more fear. Or better yet, an eternal guarantee.
But only one man’s death carries that guarantee.
No human effort to build a better world can guarantee lasting peace in the Persian Gulf, or Somalia, or anywhere else for that matter. The freedom that costs the blood of our precious young men and women isn’t permanent. It lasts only until another aggressive power comes along, unjustly claiming supremacy over others. Then the bloodshed starts all over again.
Hope for a "new world" must rest in God, not man. Death is man’s legacy; life is God’s. The Lord Jesus Christ said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:25-26).
Good Friday, when we remember the cruel death of Jesus Christ on the cross, is a day that man made because of sin. But Resurrection Sunday is God’s Day. He made it. Only the power of God could have raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Man’s deepest yearnings for life, power, and hope find fulfillment in the meaning of Easter.

Life

Resurrection speaks of life. Jesus Christ is alive today! Here in the northern hemisphere, Resurrection Sunday comes in the spring. After a long, cold winter, nature comes alive. In the spring, one is prompted to think of resurrection. It’s a new beginning.
Death is our enemy. But life is ours in Jesus Christ. Death brings fear. The Resurrection gives peace. Thoughts about death often lead to depression. The reality of the Resurrection leads to hope. Death speaks of separation, but the Resurrection speaks of a life that is indestructible, in union forever with the risen Jesus Christ.
The Bible says, "When you were dead in your sins...God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins" (Colossians 2:13). We are alive to God because the risen life of Christ is our life. All of us who have Jesus Christ in our hearts know that He’s alive. That’s why we love to sing, "You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart." The Lord affirmed, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10). That speaks of His life in us!
When Jesus came out of the grave, having finished the work on the cross, having shed His blood, having taken the punishment for our sins on His own body, He was able to give us life, because He was alive, risen from the dead.
Do you have this life? Have you experienced what it is to come alive in Jesus Christ? Have you experienced what the Bible calls a "new birth"?
To be born again means that Jesus Christ actually comes into your life. Instead of being dead to God, dead to the things of God, not understanding what God is like, you come alive. You become a new person who can understand the things of God.
The Resurrection speaks of life; not only the life of Christ, alive from the tomb, but also an abundant inner life for us, here and now, daily.
Jesus Christ also opened a way into heaven. We no longer have to fear death, because we are united with Christ. A Christian has been resurrected with Jesus Christ. Christ’s victory is our victory both now and in the future. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus Christ destroyed him "who holds the power of death-that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14).

Power

Resurrection also speaks of power. Before the Lord was raised from the dead, the apostles were quite a miserable lot. What was wrong? What was it that they lacked? They lacked power!
Until the Lord Jesus was resurrected, was raised up into heaven and the Holy Spirit came down on the Day of Pentecost, the apostles were still afraid and in hiding.
But on the Day of Pentecost, Peter, who had earlier been afraid of the accusations of a servant girl, stood up in front of several thousand people and said, very boldly, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38). What brought on this boldness?
Peter now was filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit! He had the risen life of Jesus Christ in him. The power that brought Christ out of the grave is for us now. God’s power is not something that we work up ourselves. It comes only from the indwelling Holy Spirit.
If you lack power in your life, power to overcome temptation, power to witness for Jesus Christ, then you need to allow God’s Spirit to fill you. You need to acknowledge His life in you and let Him live through you.
The life of Christ dwells in every one who by faith receives Him. Your life can be filled with the power of the living Lord Jesus Christ. "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, and love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7).

Hope

Hope? Yes, resurrection also speaks of a secure hope. My father’s body is buried in a little cemetery in Argentina. But my father has been with Jesus Christ all these 48 years since his physical death. One day his body is going to be resurrected, just as the body of Jesus was resurrected.
For those who know the Lord Jesus, that fact is very real. The Lord is coming back! The Bible says that one of these days, we shall be changed "in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed" (1 Corinthians 15:52). What a marvelous reality!
When my father died, we sang a hymn at his funeral:
Face to face, O blissful moment.
Face to face, to see and know.
Face to face with my Redeemer,
Jesus Christ who loved me so.
Face to face I shall behold Him,
Far beyond the starry sky.
Face to face in all His glory,
I shall see Him by and by.
This is the hope that the Resurrection gives you. We know we shall see the Lord Jesus face to face in all His glory. Do you have that hope? Do you have that assurance? Do you know for sure that you’ll see Him?
If the resurrected Christ does not live in your heart and you die today, what hope would you have? There is no "reincarnation," no "second chance." But if Christ lives in you, then there is the secure hope of eternal life with the Lord Jesus, forever. "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish," He has said (John 10:28).
A minister’s son, 28 years old, married with two children, had cancer. Each of the several specialists who examined him said the cancer would take his life. I was the guest speaker at the minister’s church on the Sunday that his son died, early that morning. This pastor, who had suffered so much for two years seeing his son slowly dying, was at perfect peace. He described the last few hours he spent with him. His son had said, "Dad, tonight I’m going to be with Jesus."
"Aren’t you lucky to get there before me, David," his father said. "To think that tonight you will actually see Moses in person, and Peter, Paul, and John the Baptist!"
Then his father said, "But son, best of all, you’re going to see the Lord Jesus. And when you see Him, David, will you tell him that your father loves Him very much?"
The reason this man had such tremendous peace when I spoke with him a few hours after his son’s death was because his son was with the Lord Jesus. That’s what knowing Jesus Christ will do for you.
If the Lord Jesus returned today, would He welcome you into His presence? Have you opened your life to Jesus Christ?
You can receive the Lord Jesus by a simple prayer of faith. Believe in Him, invite Him into your heart, and become a child of God. Make sure that you will be part of that resurrection day when the Lord Jesus comes back for His own.
Make this prayer your own, quietly now, as you finish this article:
Dear Lord Jesus, thank You that because of Easter, You’ve made it possible for me to have a new beginning. Thank You for Your death on the cross, paying the penalty for my sins. Thank You for Your resurrection three days later. You’re alive and now You offer me new life, power and hope here and now and for all eternity. Please forgive my sins and make me part of Your family. I gladly receive You and put my trust in You. Amen

From farming to films: how the web is changing Africa

Kenyan farmer Zack Matere, who discovered the cure for 'potato disease' on the internet.

Recently, when a potato disease ravaged Kenya, farmer Zack Matere searched "potato disease" on the internet and discovered that ants were eating his potato stems. On the same website, Matere found that the cure for his potato disease was to sprinkle wood ash on the crop. Two months later, his potatoes were back to shape and Matere knew it was time to invest in the internet. Online, he found a local buyer for his rescued crop. He now uses an internet-enabled phone to get real-time potato prices. All this happened in a region that only five years ago the Economist referred to as the "dark continent" because of its lack of electricity.
Technology started to influence the way Africa develops in a big way with the introduction of GSM services in the late 1990s. A mobile revolution has positioned Africa as the fastest growing region on Earth for the telecoms industry, and with it has come a significant shift – a recognition among African governments and people that an opportunity exists to leap the development gap through the implementation of technological solutions to some of the challenges facing the continent.
For many people in the rest of the world, life without the internet is hard to imagine. In Nigeria, many still remember queuing to use the Nitel (the country's national operator) phone in the village. In 2001, a sim card cost approximately $100 and local calls cost 33 cents per minute. By 2009, you could buy a sim card for $1.33 (a 98.6% reduction) and calls had reduced to 24 cents per minute. Billions of dollars of investment flooded in and, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), active subscriber numbers in Nigeria exceeded 100m lines earlier this year.
This explosion in mobile telephony preceded, and in many ways caused, an explosion in the number of Nigerians using the internet as a tool to communicate and to do business. The GSMA (Groupe Spéciale Mobile Association) has estimated that, in 2009, more than 31 million Nigerians accessed the web, with 30% or more doing so via mobile phones. From free instant messaging services that removed the relatively high cost of sending an SMS to the development of local applications to solve local problems, the internet and its access platforms are at the heart of emerging businesses.
New technology has the power to influence economic development as well as political accountability in numerous ways. As the experience of Zack Matere demonstrates, simple access to information can be fundamental to development. Likewise, in Ethiopia, the launch of a revolutionary new commodities exchange in 2008 was designed to provide real-time information to the country's smallholder farmers, who constitute 80% of the population and who were generally only aware of the price of their commodities at local markets. An automated toll-free telephone service now provides updated prices by the minute.
Businesses are also beginning to tap into the desire of millions of its consumers to access entertainment online. One of the best examples is in Nigeria, where the stunning success of Real Nolly Movies provides a benchmark for budding technology entrepreneurs across the continent.
Launched as a YouTube channel in March, Real Nolly has the digital distribution rights to hundreds of Nigeria's hugely popular Nollywood films, making them available to viewers free of charge. Already the channel is receiving millions of views and generating considerable monthly advertising revenues while helping to promote legal distribution of Nigerian content.
Technology is contributing, too, to Africa's growing presence on the global stage. The Egyptian uprising succeeded in part because the web allowed people to organise inside the country and attract support from outside. The recent deaths of prominent African leaders, such as Malawi head of state Bingu wa Mutharika, Ghanaian president John Atta Mills and, most recently, Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi, made headlines worldwide, and Twitter played a major role in disseminating information about them globally. If technology can help Africa gain a greater share of global news coverage and improve awareness of what is happening on the continent, interest and development will follow.
But we are only standing on the bottom rung of the ladder in terms of the potential new technology offers. Despite a flurry of activity in the development of infrastructure to improve internet connectivity across the continent, bandwidth remains relatively low and distribution is a problem, especially in Nigeria. If we take Real Nolly Movies, for example, a large part of its audience is in the west (among the Nigerian diaspora), where bandwidth is quicker and cheaper. Imagine its potential for growth as internet access and speed continues to improve.
George Bernard Shaw once said: "You see things and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were and I say, 'Why not?'" This relentless pursuit of the impossible lies at the heart of the internet's success and is what will drive its growth in Africa. The continent has only recently started to harness the power of technology and is already seeing significant dividends. How it exploits the internet over the coming years will be one of the defining contributions to its long-term development.