GOD HAS NO GRANDCHILDREN

“To all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”  (John 1:12)

Decades ago a pastoral colleague of mine shared in a sermon, “God has no grandchildren -- only children.” It wasn’t original to him, but it has stuck with me. Faith isn’t passed down like an heirloom; it’s born fresh in every heart by the Spirit.

That’s why watching my sixteen-year-old granddaughter declare her own faith this past Sunday and step into the waters of baptism filled me with such joy. She wasn’t leaning on her grandparents’ faith or her parents’ faith -- she was answering God’s call for herself. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9-10 ESV)

Before she was baptized my granddaughter shared her faith journey and concluded, “My worth was no longer determined by how other people saw me, my worth came from who I am as a child of God and from knowing that I am deeply loved by Him… Today I am being baptized to show everyone that I have placed my faith in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior because He died on the cross for me.”

One generation telling the next of God’s goodness and love, and each one making their own personal decision to accept the gift and become His child by grace. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith -- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God -- not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV)

The gospel moves forward not by inheritance, but by personal faith. God has no grandchildren – but I do! 

-- Rev. David T. Wilkinson, SOUND BITES Ministry™

#6443

THIS IS THE DAY

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!”  (Psalm 118:24 ESV)

Each day that we have is a gracious and generous gift from God. Each day provides us with many opportunities that will never come again. If you wait to select the perfect opportunity, you may miss the one opportunity that will benefit you most. If you wait to join the one perfect cause in life, you may never contribute anything. If you wait till you find the perfect job, you will be unemployed. If you delay participation in the spiritual life until things are just right, or until you think you are worthy, then you will miss out on life and faith and God. If you spend your life trapped in the utopian complex, looking for that perfect moment to do what you know you ought to do, and to be what you ought to be, you may well discover too late that life has passed you by…

Isn’t this precisely what the psalmist was talking about many years ago? He put it like this: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!”  In other words, don’t wait around for another day! This is the only day we are sure of.

Accept with gratitude this day! Embrace the joys of this day! Seize the opportunities of this day! Commit your life to God this day!

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I am not singing the old hedonist song, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.” That’s not what this is about. No! Rather, it’s about seeing life in this world as a generous gift from God our Creator. It’s about recognizing each day we have as a gracious gift from God our Father and celebrating that, and seizing the precious opportunities it offers. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “For God says, ‘At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.’ Indeed, the ‘right time’ is now. Today is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2 NLT)  

-- Adapted from James W. Moore and Bob J. Moore in “Lord, Give Me Patience!... And Give It to Me Right Now!”

#6389

CHILD-LIKE, TRUSTING FAITH

“People were bringing little children to Jesus for Him to place His hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, He was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ And He took the children in His arms, placed His hands on them and blessed them.”  (Mark 10:13-16 NIV)

Faith is sometimes equated with credulity, but it can be so equated only when the profound mistake is made of thinking of faith as primarily a matter of intellectual assent.  As the New Testament uses the word, faith is trust, acceptance, commitment, vision.  It is not a belief in this or that creed, it is a quality which lies rather in the realm of intuition than the intellect.  Faith has indeed an element of true simplicity; it is one of the qualities -- perhaps the fundamental quality -- of the child-like spirit without which no one can enter the Kingdom of God. 

-- Author Unknown

#6178

COMMITTED TO ONE ANOTHER

“Now you are no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven, but you are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian. What a foundation you stand on now: the apostles and the prophets; and the cornerstone of the building is Jesus Christ Himself! We who believe are carefully joined together with Christ as parts of a beautiful, constantly growing temple for God. And you also are joined with Him and with each other by the Spirit and are part of this dwelling place of God.”  (Ephesians 2:19-22 TLB)

When you became a Christian, you committed yourself to Jesus Christ. Now you can become a part of the local body of believers committing yourself to those people. That is what “church membership” is -- a commitment to other Christians. It is a decision to become a participant, not merely a spectator. You stop being a consumer and become a contributor…

Who can count on you? Can anyone? There is no such thing as a Lone-Ranger Christian. Koinonia, the Greek word translated “fellowship” in the Bible, means being as committed to each other as we are to Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). One way love expresses itself is in faithfulness to others [in the body of Christ, the church]. 

-- Rick Warren in “God’s Power to Change Your Life”

#5834

AN ACTIVE DECISION

“Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; Your Spirit is good. Lead me in the land of uprightness.”  (Psalm 143:10 NKJV)

I cannot make myself holy; only Christ can do that. But I can choose to exercise my will for God. Just as a married couple commits themselves to each other, I commit myself to Christ. This is an active decision, one that affects the way I live my entire life. Like marriage, however, it is not a decision that can be made once and then be done with it; instead, I must choose to commit myself to God’s will daily. 

-- Elizabeth Prentiss in “Stepping Heavenward”

#5607

COUNTING THE COST

“Then Jesus said to the crowd, ‘If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow Me.’”  (Luke 9:23 NLT)

Let’s face it: commitment is costly. It calls us away from self-interest into sharing our lives and ourselves with others. It calls us to make difficult choices, and to live with the consequences. It means we cannot spend our lives keeping all our options open.

To live as committed individuals is, in fact, to live life as costly ointment, poured out in love to others, poured out in worship to God.

Is it worth it?

To find out, we will have to relearn the meaning of words like “sacrifice.” And still harder: “self-sacrifice.” We will have to relearn the special pleasure of deference as compared to instant gratification. We will have to give up our quick-fix, magic-wand approaches to Christianity, and pay the price of entering into relationship with a God who created and redeemed us for fellowship with Himself. We will have to learn how to sometimes say a final and ultimate “No” as well as a meaningful, and even eternal, “Yes.” 

-- Maxine Hancock in “Re-Evaluating Your Commitments: How to Strengthen the Permanent and Reassess the Temporary”

#5432

FREEDOM IN CHRIST

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”  (Galatians 5:1 NKJV)

Those who are critical of Christianity say: God limits people's freedom. The very opposite is true. Only by committing oneself to an infinite freedom can a person be free in a world that in all things seems finite.

Those who are critical of Christianity say: God enslaves people. The very opposite is true. Only by committing oneself to God and His will can a person be set free from slavery to the powers and possessions of this world, of society and of history.

Those who are critical of Christianity say: God lets people say "yes" and "amen" to everything. The very opposite is true. Only his or her relationship with God enables a person to say "no."

Faith, then, gives us the strength to act, to be free, to be decisive, and to persevere.

-- Hans Kung in “Why I Am Still a Christian”

#5384

COMMITMENT TO WORSHIP

“Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.”  (Psalm 95:6-7 NIV)

In his book “Treasures of the Transformed Life”, John Ed Mathison tells the story of a Sunday morning when an ice storm shut down Montgomery, Alabama. Church leaders wondered whether anyone would be present for worship at Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church. Mathison was amazed when he saw one of the older women of the congregation making her way across the ice to the church. He told her he was surprised that she decided to come to worship on that icy morning. Quick to teach him a lesson, she told him that if she had waited until Sunday morning to decide whether she would be in worship, she might not have come. But she made the decision the previous fall when she made a commitment to be in worship forty-eight Sundays that year. She knew the four Sundays she planned to be out of town, and this wasn’t one of them. She had made a commitment to be in worship, and she intended to keep it. While acknowledging his concern for her safety, Mathison shared her story as an example of a personal commitment to corporate worship. 

-- James A. Harnish in “A Disciple’s Path: Deeping Your Relationship with Christ and the Church”

#5309