“…let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)
We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won't need to tell anybody it does. Lighthouses don't fire cannons to call attention to their shining -- they just shine.
-- Dwight L. Moody
#4423
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Monday, September 17, 2018
FREE TO FORGIVE
“…and forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.” (Matthew 6:12 NLT)
The words "you are forgiven" are the most hopeful words we can hear. When we are laboring under a burden of guilt over things we have done and things we should have done but didn't, we can despair of ever being whole and free. Someone has said of guilt, "It's a gift that keeps on giving." Guilt has a way of gnawing away at our spirits until all that remains is discontentment, unhappiness, and fear of facing our sins. As the psalmist wrote, "When I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all the day long" (Psalm 32:3). Forgiveness heals us by making whole a life torn apart by guilt.
With forgiveness comes hope for a new and restored relationship with God, others, and self. Once the crushing burden of guilt is lifted, we need not be "paralyzed"; we are free to live the full and abundant life God wants for us. We are free to forgive.
-- Adapted from Robert Martin Walker in “Prepare Him Room”
#4422
The words "you are forgiven" are the most hopeful words we can hear. When we are laboring under a burden of guilt over things we have done and things we should have done but didn't, we can despair of ever being whole and free. Someone has said of guilt, "It's a gift that keeps on giving." Guilt has a way of gnawing away at our spirits until all that remains is discontentment, unhappiness, and fear of facing our sins. As the psalmist wrote, "When I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all the day long" (Psalm 32:3). Forgiveness heals us by making whole a life torn apart by guilt.
With forgiveness comes hope for a new and restored relationship with God, others, and self. Once the crushing burden of guilt is lifted, we need not be "paralyzed"; we are free to live the full and abundant life God wants for us. We are free to forgive.
-- Adapted from Robert Martin Walker in “Prepare Him Room”
#4422
Friday, September 14, 2018
KNOWING CHRIST
Jesus prayed… “Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” (John 17:3 NIV)
Christianity is not primarily a theological system, an ethical system, a ritual system, a social system, or an ecclesiastical system -- it is a person: it’s Jesus Christ, and to be a Christian is to know Him and to follow Him and believe in Him.
-- John Stott
#4421
Christianity is not primarily a theological system, an ethical system, a ritual system, a social system, or an ecclesiastical system -- it is a person: it’s Jesus Christ, and to be a Christian is to know Him and to follow Him and believe in Him.
-- John Stott
#4421
Thursday, September 13, 2018
RESTORING LIFE
“While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. ‘Your daughter is dead,’ they said. ‘Why bother the teacher anymore?’ Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, ‘Don’t be afraid; just believe.’… He took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with Him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha koum!’ (which means ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up!’). Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.” (Mark 5:35, 40-42 NIV)
A business executive became depressed. Things were not going well at work, and he was bringing his problems home with him at night. Every evening he would eat his dinner in silence, shutting out his wife and five-year-old daughter. Then he would go into the den and read the paper, using the newspaper to wall his family out of his life.
After several nights of this, one evening his daughter took her little hand and pushed the newspaper down. She then jumped into her father’s lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and hugged him strongly. The father said abruptly, “Honey, you are hugging me to death!” “No, Daddy,” the little girl said, “I’m hugging you to life!”
This was the greatness of Jesus. He took people where they were and hugged them to life.
-- James W. Moore and Bob J. Moore in “Lord, Give Me Patience!... And Give It to Me Right Now!”
#4420
A business executive became depressed. Things were not going well at work, and he was bringing his problems home with him at night. Every evening he would eat his dinner in silence, shutting out his wife and five-year-old daughter. Then he would go into the den and read the paper, using the newspaper to wall his family out of his life.
After several nights of this, one evening his daughter took her little hand and pushed the newspaper down. She then jumped into her father’s lap, wrapped her arms around his neck, and hugged him strongly. The father said abruptly, “Honey, you are hugging me to death!” “No, Daddy,” the little girl said, “I’m hugging you to life!”
This was the greatness of Jesus. He took people where they were and hugged them to life.
-- James W. Moore and Bob J. Moore in “Lord, Give Me Patience!... And Give It to Me Right Now!”
#4420
Wednesday, September 12, 2018
THE SEED AND THE TREE
“See what an incredible quality of love the Father has shown to us, that we would [be permitted to] be named and called and counted the children of God! And so we are! For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, we are [even here and] now children of God, and it is not yet made clear what we will be [after His coming]. We know that when He comes and is revealed, we will [as His children] be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is [in all His glory].” (1 John 3:1-2 Amplified)
Christianity teaches that salvation is not merely a posthumous experience, but starts here in this life on earth; the life of grace is incipient already in our earthly sojourn; it sprouts here though it blossoms and fructifies in heaven. The relation between the “this-world life of grace” and “the next-world life of heaven” is that of the seed and the tree.
-- Jacob Kattackal
#4419
Christianity teaches that salvation is not merely a posthumous experience, but starts here in this life on earth; the life of grace is incipient already in our earthly sojourn; it sprouts here though it blossoms and fructifies in heaven. The relation between the “this-world life of grace” and “the next-world life of heaven” is that of the seed and the tree.
-- Jacob Kattackal
#4419
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