SATHYA PERIMPANAYAGAM: Gentle Faith
“Only one life it will soon be Past; only what’s done for Jesus will last.”
What are the things in life that are eternal?
1 Cor 13: Paul says: Love is eternal
Sathya demonstrated this.
E.g 13:5:
Love is not Rude
There is an epidemic of rudeness today.
People are annoyed: you see this on the roads.
People have been bad, hypocrites
—people live with wounds inflicted by such.
God’s love can heal such wounds.
Sathya often struggled with discouragement
over her recent Struggles with illhealth etc
She questioned God about why she is going through such
This is healthy. We do not need to play act!
God understands our struggles.
But she was never rude.
In fact she was always polite; always had her pleasant smile.
When you see some suffering people, you say,
“she’s disappointed with life”
“He’s an angry person”
Not Sathya. She was always her gentle, polite self.
Love is Kind (13:4)
She expressed kindness in her desire to serve God.
Her family gave YFC a house free of rent in Jaffna for 15 years.
I have stayed in that house many years.
It was a haven of rest for God’s servants
in a very difficult time
I was surprised when her niece Pritheeva
came all the way from Canada to see her.
At an inconvenient time.
She talked to me about her kindness.
Paul: For one will scarcely die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die (Rom 5:7 ESV).
There is a quality of goodness that invites costly commitment.
Sathya seems to have had that quality.
She loved people and people loved her in return.
This is how I heard her speak about her husband.
And how her husband spoke about her.
Perhaps it was partly her personality
That is how I remember her mother—as a kind Christian woman
But it also because of a relationship with the God who is Love
SATHYA LOVED GOD.
We love because he first loved us. (1Jo 4:19 ESV).
When you love God;
God’s love comes into you and you want to love people.
Sathya was eager to know about God more
and also to know God more.
Beside her bed were a Bible
and several books about the things of God.
Reading has gone out of fashion today.
But it is one of the best ways to grow in God’s love.
She would read
and when we visited her,
She would ask things about which she had read.
WHEN YOU LOVE GOD, YOU LONG TO SEE HIM
Death is the great ambition of the Christian.
Paul: 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell.
23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
24 But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. (Phi 1:21-24 ESV)
He stayed because he wanted to serve.
But his great desire was to depart and be with Christ.
For us, this is the real beginning of Life:
Bonhoeffer when taken to be killed: This is the end; but for me this is the beginning of Life.
When you are in love with God; you long to see him.
We visited Sathya when Perimps was abroad or out of town.
You could see the longing for him to return—and he did,
The joy is even more when we see the face of Jesus
Fanny Crosby: hymn writer—e.g. Blessed Assurance.
A minister told her: It is a pity that you are blind.
She said: If I had a choice; this is how I would have wanted it. Because the first face I will see is the face of the one who died for me.
This longing has been fulfilled!
Now there are those who mourn.
But may they too be consumed with this longing.
The most wonderful experience one could ever hope for is the experience of seeing the face of the one who died for us!