Be Thankful

Be Thankful

 
Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt was sent to me and is by an unknown author and the Scripture is Colossians 3:15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 
 
A young man was getting ready to graduate from college.  For a long time he had admired a beautiful sports car in a dealers showroom and knowing his father could well afford it, he told his Dad that was all he wanted. As his graduation day approached the young man began looking for signs that his father had bought the car.  Finally on the morning of his graduation, his father called him into his study and told him how proud he was to have such a fine son and he told him how much he loved him.

He handed his son a beautifully wrapped gift box. Curious, but somewhat disappointed, the young man opened the box and found a lovely leather bound Bible with the young man s name embossed in gold.  Angry, he raised his voice to his father and said, With all your money you give me a Bible? and then he stormed out of the house, leaving the Bible.

Many years passed and the young man received a telegram telling him that his father had passed away and had willed all his possessions to his son so he needed to come home and take care of things. When he arrived at his father s house sadness and regret filled his heart. He began sorting through his fathers papers and saw the still new Bible just as he had left it years ago.  With tears in his eyes he opened the Bible and began to turn the pages and a car key dropped from the back of the Bible. It had a tag with the dealers name and on the tag was the date of his graduation and the words paid in full.
 
Let us pray for a grateful and thankful heart and receive the gift that our sins are paid for in full by Jesus.
 
Have a great week!-David Vining
 

Deadly Silence

Deadly Silence

 
Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is by Ron Hutchcraft, and the Scripture is Romans 10:14-15 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

Jack Phillips was a senior radioman on the maiden voyage of the ill-fated Titanic. On that fatal night when two-thirds of her passengers and crew would die, Phillips received a message from a ship called the Masaba. That ship was reporting a major ice field ahead and the message gave the coordinates where the Titanic could expect to encounter those icebergs. It was the place where just two hours later, the Titanic would, in fact, hit one of those icebergs; the one that would sink what was supposed to be the unsinkable ship. The message with the warning of what was ahead - would you believe it – did not get delivered. Jack Phillips was really busy at the time, and he stuck the message on a spindle to be delivered sometime later, and it never was. That one decision would cost the lives of 1,500 people and the life of the radioman himself.

Life-saving information never delivered. That is a tragedy that has been repeated countless times, as followers of Jesus Christ fail to deliver the life-saving message God has given to them. The message of how His Son s death on the cross paid the penalty for our sin and made the way for our sin to be forgiven for us to go to heaven. But if those who know it never tell those who do not know it, lives will be lost forever. That is the deadly silence.

If you belong to Jesus, you may not fully realize the reason you are where you are and the incredibly important role you play in the plans of God and the eternal destiny of the people you know. God has positioned you where you are so you can help save the lives of the people there by pointing them to Jesus; the only one who can save them.  It is a risk to tell them how they can be cured of the cancer of sin and how they can live forever, and you will not take that risk if you are thinking about yourself. You will take the risk if you realize that the greatest risk of all is that they will die without the information that could have helped them go to heaven with you. We cannot be this close to them for so long and never tell them the life-saving information we know.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Thy Will Be Done

Thy Will Be Done

 
Dear Champions,
 
The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is Mark 14:36 Abba, Father, Jesus said, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.
 
To pray Thy Will Be Done is to say, I owe you my submission and my allegiance whether I understand it or not, is the greatest opportunity for growth that you can possibly have.  If the essence of sin is not breaking the rules but it is making certain things too important to us, then the only way that you are going to get freedom from that is if God crosses your will and keeps something from you that is very important to you.  What if money is way too important to you?  You are probably not going to know it and as long as you have money you will be in a state of spiritual weakness.  You will be dependent on money for your significance and for your security instead of on God.  In other words, if you have your will when it comes to money, you are in a state of weakness, and you do not even know it.  Only when He crosses your will in an area like that will you start to get free.  Don t you want to be in a position where stuff and circumstances do not bother you, where nothing really gets you down, scares you, or angers you?  How would you get into that situation of freedom?  It will happen only when God crosses your will at so many places where you are too dependent on something, and you learn to say, My real riches are in Jesus.
 
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining