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Daily Recharge
Mal Fletcher
God Forgets Nothing You Do for Him
27 April 2024
Luke 12:6 'Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.' (NIV)
William Tyndale grew up near the border between Wales and England. He had only one great passion: to translate the Bible into the plain language of English people. He thought it a great crime that the Catholic Church had kept the Bible imprisoned behind the walls of the Latin language for centuries. Because of his work translating the New Testament and other parts of the Bible, Tyndale was forced to spend most of his adult life on the run, a fugitive moving from city to city far away from his beloved England. He paid for the publishing of his Bibles and they were smuggled them back into England, where the authorities tried to burn a every copy they could find. In the end, Tyndale's powerful enemies captured him and burned him at the stake. Then, just to be sure they had wiped out his influence forever, they burned his bones and cast the ashes into a river. Today, we have no idea what Tyndale looked like. His enemies are all celebrated in paintings, but not Tyndale. He would not allow people to draw his likeness, because he knew it could lead the authorities to him, so that his work would end. We haven't seen Tyndale's face, but we do know that he had a massive effect on the language and ideas of the English-speaking world. If you've ever read the King James Version of the Bible, many of the words -- especially in the New Testament -- belong to this great man. Nothing you do in God's will, for the sake of his word, is ever forgotten by him. Not even humble sparrows are forgotten by him. You don't need to be a celebrity in your generation to impact the future of the world.
Prayer: 'Dear Lord, please keep me from being preoccupied with status in this world. Help me, like Tyndale, to work for something that lives on when I die. Help me to keep moving forward in your purposes, no matter what comes against me. In the end, you are with me and I will win!'
© Mal Fletcher 2003-2004
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