Devotional Guide For the week of April 20, 2008
GETTING THROUGH
About grace
To read the Bible in one year, today read Psalms 67-69
To Know:
³You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be
carried
away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability. But grow
in
the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the
glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen² (2 Pet.3: 17,18)
The midway teemed with people and one of the hucksters had drawn the
lionıs
share of the crowd. His come-on to the people was pitched as a giveaway.
Everyone who handed him a dime received a dollar in return. When he asked
the folk for a dollar they were rewarded with ten dollarsı worth of
knives.
Within ten minutes he was thronged by fairgoers handing over their money
just as fast as they could. Finally, the dollar became a hundred dollars
for
which each was given a cheap plastic sewing machine. The machines were
elaborate toys, but the con-man had blinded the crowd by giving back
dollars
for dimes and knives for a dollars. These otherwise savvy folk surrendered
a
weekıs pay for a piece of junk. The lesson is plain: greed is a powerful
motive.
Christianity is still going and growing. The motivating force of the
gospel
has yet to wane even after two thousand years. Adolph Hitlerıs
thousand-year
Reich lasted only twelve. The Dot.Com. boom went bust within a decade.
Most
dieters end up weighing more than before. The gospel of Jesus Christ
continues to claim sinners. What is it that motivates a man or woman to
turn
to Christ? Is it not the grace of God?
Grace motivates us in a way that greed never can. Grace is the undeserved
and unearned love of God. Grace is the love of God in action. Grace
reproduces itself. ³God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.² (Jn.
3:16)
In one im****tant way, God is like that huckster. He took the crowd into
his
confidence step by step. Faith is a step-by-step walk with God. We are to
trust him in the little things that we might be made strong to trust him
in
great things. Even so, the end of faith is Christ likeness, not some cheap
plastic trinket.
04238$-04238
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