This is the new day with which the Lord has blessed us to live, to love,
and to serve Him. This is a day fraught with His Fresh
grace and new mercies. We are in the midst of a heat wave as a precursor
to the sizzling summer 2016. The Lord blessed us with a
wonderful Wednesday gathering of fellowship and study. The food was
sumptuous once again the fellowship was heart warming. The Bible Study
was inquisitive and provocative.
"Morning
sun, morning glories
Pouring down the hill
Through my window
I can feel the ocean breeze
Pouring down the hill
Through my window
I can feel the ocean breeze
Noisy sparrows fill the
oak trees
Swallows can't stay still
And in the glad commotion
Lord, You speak to me
Swallows can't stay still
And in the glad commotion
Lord, You speak to me
If rain clouds come
Or the cold winds blow
You're the one who goes before me
And in my heart I know"Fernando Ortega
Or the cold winds blow
You're the one who goes before me
And in my heart I know"Fernando Ortega
Philip
Yancey, in his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, tells the amazing
story of grace and miracle. “A vagrant lives near the Fulton Fish Market
on the lower east side of Manhattan. The slimy smell of fish carcasses
and entrails nearly overpowers him, and he hates the trucks that noisily arrive
before sunrise. But midtown gets crowded, and the cops harass him there. Down
by the wharves nobody bothers with a grizzled man who keeps to himself and
sleeps on a loading dock behind a Dumpster.
“Early one morning when the workers are slinging eel and halibut off the trucks, yelling to each other in Italian, the vagrant rouses himself and pokes through the Dumpsters behind the tourist restaurants. An early start guarantees good pickings: last night’s uneaten garlic bread and French fries, nibbled pizza, a wedge of cheesecake. He eats what he can stomach and stuffs the rest in a brown paper sack. The bottles and cans he stashes in plastic bags in his rusty shopping cart.
“The morning sun, pale through harbor fog, finally makes it over the buildings by the wharf. When he sees the ticket from last week’s lottery lying in a pile of wilted lettuce, he almost lets it go. But by force of habit he picks it up and jams it in his pocket. In the old days, when luck was better, he used to buy one ticket a week, never more. It’s past noon when he remembers the ticket stub and holds it up to the newspaper box to compare the numbers. Three numbers match, the fourth, the fifth - all seven! It can’t be true. Things like that don’t happen to him. Bums don’t win the New York Lottery.
“But it is true. Later that day he is squinting into the bright lights as television crews present the newest media darling, the unshaven, baggy pants vagrant who will receive $243,000 per year for the next twenty years. A chic - looking woman wearing a leather miniskirt shoves a microphone in his face and asks, “How do you feel?” He stares back dazed, and catches a whiff of her perfume. It has been a long time, a very long time, since anyone has asked him that question.
“He feels like a man who has been to the edge of starvation and back, and is beginning to fathom that he’ll never feel hunger again.”
The poor beggar did nothing to do deserve receiving several million dollars. Absolutely nothing! He had not even bought the winning ticket. All he did was pick it up and cash it in to receive his prize. Someone else had thrown it away as though it was useless, but he saw its potential worth. He had not worked for a long time. He did not earn the money. The check was given to him as a free gift, without conditions. He did not have a job or an education. He did not have to do anything but accept the check. Having a relationship with the Lord does not depend on how well we do or how perfect we are. It is based solely on the mercy and grace of God. This is good news for us failures. We read in the book of Titus: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4_5). Here is the unique message of the Christian faith. As it says in 2 Corinthians: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). This frees us from guilt and legalistic perfectionism. We understand that we can never be perfect and that our relationship with God is based solely on grace. The Bible says, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4_5).
This amazing Grace with its sweet sounds inspires us to no longer live in sin. Guilt and fear are poor motivators, but love motivates us inwardly, from the heart, to do our best. As the apostle Paul said, “The letter [of the law] kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). He said, “Christ’s love compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). Once we realize what the Lord has done He has taken away our guilt and shame. He has taken our sin and wretchedness upon Himself and given us His favor and new life. We want to serve. We want to live in freedom and walk in liberty, glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.
“Early one morning when the workers are slinging eel and halibut off the trucks, yelling to each other in Italian, the vagrant rouses himself and pokes through the Dumpsters behind the tourist restaurants. An early start guarantees good pickings: last night’s uneaten garlic bread and French fries, nibbled pizza, a wedge of cheesecake. He eats what he can stomach and stuffs the rest in a brown paper sack. The bottles and cans he stashes in plastic bags in his rusty shopping cart.
“The morning sun, pale through harbor fog, finally makes it over the buildings by the wharf. When he sees the ticket from last week’s lottery lying in a pile of wilted lettuce, he almost lets it go. But by force of habit he picks it up and jams it in his pocket. In the old days, when luck was better, he used to buy one ticket a week, never more. It’s past noon when he remembers the ticket stub and holds it up to the newspaper box to compare the numbers. Three numbers match, the fourth, the fifth - all seven! It can’t be true. Things like that don’t happen to him. Bums don’t win the New York Lottery.
“But it is true. Later that day he is squinting into the bright lights as television crews present the newest media darling, the unshaven, baggy pants vagrant who will receive $243,000 per year for the next twenty years. A chic - looking woman wearing a leather miniskirt shoves a microphone in his face and asks, “How do you feel?” He stares back dazed, and catches a whiff of her perfume. It has been a long time, a very long time, since anyone has asked him that question.
“He feels like a man who has been to the edge of starvation and back, and is beginning to fathom that he’ll never feel hunger again.”
The poor beggar did nothing to do deserve receiving several million dollars. Absolutely nothing! He had not even bought the winning ticket. All he did was pick it up and cash it in to receive his prize. Someone else had thrown it away as though it was useless, but he saw its potential worth. He had not worked for a long time. He did not earn the money. The check was given to him as a free gift, without conditions. He did not have a job or an education. He did not have to do anything but accept the check. Having a relationship with the Lord does not depend on how well we do or how perfect we are. It is based solely on the mercy and grace of God. This is good news for us failures. We read in the book of Titus: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:4_5). Here is the unique message of the Christian faith. As it says in 2 Corinthians: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). This frees us from guilt and legalistic perfectionism. We understand that we can never be perfect and that our relationship with God is based solely on grace. The Bible says, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4_5).
This amazing Grace with its sweet sounds inspires us to no longer live in sin. Guilt and fear are poor motivators, but love motivates us inwardly, from the heart, to do our best. As the apostle Paul said, “The letter [of the law] kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). He said, “Christ’s love compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). Once we realize what the Lord has done He has taken away our guilt and shame. He has taken our sin and wretchedness upon Himself and given us His favor and new life. We want to serve. We want to live in freedom and walk in liberty, glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.
In Jesus,
Brown
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