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MaxLucado.com: Grace Chooses to See Forgiveness
Victoria Ruvolo doesn’t remember the 18-year-old boy leaning out the window holding, of all things, a frozen turkey. He threw it at her windshield. Crashing through the glass, it shattered Victoria’s face like a dinner plate on concrete.
John 13:14-15 says: “Since I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. Do as I have done to you.”
Victoria Ruvolo did. Months later, she stood face to face with her offender in court. No longer cocky, he was trembling, tearful, and apologetic. Six months behind bars, five years’ probation. Everyone in the courtroom objected. He sobbed, and she spoke: “I forgive you. I want your life to be the best it can be.”
The reduced sentence was her idea. “God gave me a second chance at life, and I passed it on” she said!
Grace chooses to see God’s forgiveness!
From GRACE
Psalm 121
A song of ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Read: 1 Corinthians 3:1-10
Divisions in the Church
3 But I, brothers,[a] could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?
5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it.
Fighting Off Jealousy
September 24, 2012 — by Marvin Williams
For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? —1 Corinthians 3:3
The story is told of two shopkeepers who were bitter rivals. They spent each day keeping track of each other’s business. If one got a customer, he would smile triumphantly at his rival.
One night an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers in a dream and said, “I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your competitor will receive twice as much. What is your desire?” The man frowned and then said, “Strike me blind in one eye.” Now that’s jealousy of the worst kind!
The self-destructive emotion of jealousy had the potential of tearing apart the Corinthian church. These believers had received the gospel but had not allowed the Holy Spirit to change their hearts. As a result, they became jealous of one another, which led to a divided community. Paul identified their jealousy as a sign of immaturity and worldliness (1 Cor. 3:3). These believers were not acting like people who had been transformed by the gospel.
One of the clearest indicators that the Holy Spirit is working in our lives is our contentment and our thankfulness for what we have. Then, instead of experiencing jealousy, we are able to genuinely celebrate the gifts and blessings of others.
God, You are so good! You have provided all
we need and so much more. Help us to be content
with what we have, knowing that without You
we would have neither life nor breath.
The remedy for jealousy is thankfulness to God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
September 24, 2012
The “Go” of Preparation
If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift—Matthew 5:23-24
It is easy for us to imagine that we will suddenly come to a point in our lives where we are fully prepared, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished. In fact, it is a process that must be steadily maintained. It is dangerous to become settled and complacent in our present level of experience. The Christian life requires preparation and more preparation.
The sense of sacrifice in the Christian life is readily appealing to a new Christian. From a human standpoint, the one thing that attracts us to Jesus Christ is our sense of the heroic, and a close examination of us by our Lord’s words suddenly puts this tide of enthusiasm to the test. “. . . go your way. First be reconciled to your brother. . . .” The “go” of preparation is to allow the Word of God to examine you closely. Your sense of heroic sacrifice is not good enough. The thing the Holy Spirit will detect in you is your nature that can never work in His service. And no one but God can detect that nature in you. Do you have anything to hide from God? If you do, then let God search you with His light. If there is sin in your life, don’t just admit it— confess it. Are you willing to obey your Lord and Master, whatever the humiliation to your right to yourself may be?
Never disregard a conviction that the Holy Spirit brings to you. If it is important enough for the Spirit of God to bring it to your mind, it is the very thing He is detecting in you. You were looking for some big thing to give up, while God is telling you of some tiny thing that must go. But behind that tiny thing lies the stronghold of obstinacy, and you say, “I will not give up my right to myself”— the very thing that God intends you to give up if you are to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
The One Step We Miss - #6706
Monday, September 24, 2012
It all started with an S.O.S. from a counselor at a conference where I was speaking. I just extended an invitation for young men and women who wanted to make a commitment to following Christ. There were many young people in the counseling room after that, and a counselor came back and said, "You've got to talk to Kelly. She's really hard."
Well, I went back and sat down with her, and she seemed to really shut down. After some small talk to try to break the ice, I said, "Kelly, why are you here in the counseling room?" She said, "I want to know Christ." I said, "Well, that's great. Why?" She said, "Because part of me is missing."
I showed her some Scripture where Christ was who was missing from her life. And I said, "It sounds to me like you're ready to open your life to Jesus." And then her face turned very, very unexpressive and she said, "If you only knew how many times I've come and prayed and accepted Christ and nothing has ever happened." I was stuck for a moment. What do I do, just have her go through it again? It was always meaningless; it didn't work. I said, "Lord, if there's something You know and I don't, would you tell me what it is?" And then He gave me one question for Kelly, and it made all the difference. It might change everything for you.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The One Step We Miss."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 7:10. It identifies for us that step we so often miss. "Godly sorrow," it says, "brings repentance that leads to salvation." Now, in that conversation with Kelly, the question I asked her that broke the log jam was this: I said, "Kelly, all those times you've made a commitment to follow Christ, did you ever tell the Lord you're really sorry for your sins, you're sad about your sins, and you're ready to change?" She said, "No." Oh, Kelly had said yes to Christ a number of times, but she missed the other step of salvation - saying "no" to sin.
I explained to her, "You can't hold Jesus in one hand and junk in the other - the junk that He died for; that's the junk that killed Him." When you start to name the sins of your life and you start to confess them to the Lord, you finally realize what it is you need a Savior for. And then you go to that cross to be saved from that sin; from your sin. Repentance is so often the missing page in our Gospel. In God's Word it says you have to have Godly sorrow that leads to repentance that leads to salvation. Sometimes we skip over sin lightly in our rush to get people to Jesus. It's like going right to the cure before a person has even faced their disease. There's no real conversion until you repent. There's no real power in your life if you keep sinning; until you let your heart be broken over your sin because of what it did to Jesus; what it took for Him to pay for it on that cross.
When I told her the step she had missed, tears came to her eyes. She said, "I'm so sick of the junk! I want to get away from it." Then confession began, and then saving faith. She was ready to be reborn.
Could it be that the reality you've been looking for begins with you being sorry for the sins that have broken God's heart and that drove His Son to the cross? Maybe this could be the day that it really comes together for you. If you say to Jesus, "You know, Lord, you were supposed to run my life. I hijacked it. I've been running it, and I know now that I have broken your heart. It has cost you your life to pay for that rebellion against you. And I turn from the running of my own life; I resign as the driver of my own life, and Jesus, I am now pinning all my hopes on what you did on the cross. When you died on that cross it was my sin you were dying for. Jesus, right here, right now I'm Yours."
Listen, if you want to make sure you belong to Him, our website is there for that purpose. I hope you'll check it out...YoursForLife.net.
Repentance...maybe that's the one step you've missed.
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