THE GIFT OF GRACE

The greatest need of any person is to be known and loved. The cry is strong; the human desire is deep. "I want to be somebody. I want my life to count." Closely related to the feeling of worth is the perception of who we are. When we esteem something or someone, we highly value it or the person. To esteem ourselves is to have high regard for ourselves. Many of the problems in human relations stem from a person's lack of self-esteem.

[However,]... our worth and value is given. We are called not to muster it up within ourselves, but to receive the gift given to us, a gift of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. God has declared our value. Our value is not rooted in self-esteem, based only on ourselves. Our value is discovered in grace, which is rooted in the greatness and graciousness of God...

God's love makes it possible to know we are valued. We cannot put ourselves down or debase ourselves. We can know our true worth because we are children of God. Our esteem is rooted in the amazing grace of God. Our esteem is grace-esteem.

-- H. Eddie Fox in Grace-Esteem

#2998

CHRIST WILL NEVER FAIL YOU

Be assured, if you walk with [Christ] and look to Him and expect help from Him, He will never fail you.  As an older brother who has known the Lord for forty-four years, who writes this, says to you for your encouragement that He has never failed him. In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, He has never failed me; but because I was enabled by His grace to trust [Christ] He has always appeared for my help.  I delight in speaking well of His name. 

-- George Mueller in Streams in the Desert

#2997

TWO ALTERNATIVES

I invite you to consider two alternatives and their consequences. One of them, to paraphrase atheist Bertrand Russell, is "You are the product of causes that have no purpose or meaning. Your origin, your growth, your hopes, fears, loves, beliefs are the outcome of accidental collections of atoms. No fire, heroism, or intensity of thought or feeling can preserve your life from beyond the grave. All the devotion, all the inspiration, all the labor of all the ages are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system. The whole temple of human achievement must inevitably be buried in the debris of a universe in ruins. That's what we're all headed for."

Or you can choose this: "You are the uniquely designed creation of a thoroughly good and unspeakably creative God. You are made in His image, with a capacity to reason, choose, and love that sets you above all other life forms. You will not only survive death, but you yourself were made to bear an eternal weight of glory you cannot now even fathom and you will one day know."

 -- John Ortberg in Faith & Doubt

#2996

GRADUATION ADVICE

Last spring I had a memorable day. My daughter graduated from college, I turned fifty years old, and I spoke at her commencement -- all on the same day. But the most memorable line of the day involved none of that. A man named David Winter had been president of her school for over a quarter of a century. Toward the end of his term, as he was looking forward to retirement, he suffered a disease that over a period of three weeks robbed him of his sight. As we processed up to the graduation platform, he had to hold the arm of another to guide him. And in his words of greeting to the students and parents, he said, "Never doubt in the darkness what God has shown you in the light."

-- John Ortberg in Faith & Doubt


#2995

ABSORBED WITH THE GLORY OF GOD

We may think the burning issue of life presently is to get our marriage in order. Or get on the right career path. Or get our finances straightened out. But as important as these pressing issues are, our greatest need must be to become absorbed with the glory of God. Why? Because only those who are consumed with God will be internally changed and, as a result, see their marriages, work, and finances put right.

-- Steven J. Lawson in Heaven Help Us!

#2994