Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Grace”
Our Bible verse for today: “We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” Ephesians 1:7-8 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “People all around you are thirsting for grace.”
Philip Yancey once wrote, “The world thirsts for grace in ways it does not even recognize.” The more I’ve thought about that statement the more I’m convinced it is true. People thirst for grace; they have a deep yearning to be blessed and to experience kindness, compassion, and mercy. In a world that is all too often not kind or compassionate, people thirst for grace.
This probably explains why the hymn “Amazing Grace” is one of the favorite Christian songs ever written and why it remains immensely popular more than 250 years later, being sung many thousands of times every Sunday in churches all across the world. “Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
The place people should most often encounter the grace of God is in the church. We the people of God should be the dispensers of the grace of God. As Paul teaches, we are to proclaim the Gospel of grace and we are to be ministers of God’s grace.
Gordon MacDonald once observed, “The world can do almost anything as well as or better that the church. You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick. There is only one thing the world cannot do. It cannot offer (God’s) grace.
That, my friends, is what we have to offer the world – God’s grace. We must offer a clear and convincing proclamation of the Gospel of grace, and we must minister to people in the spirit of grace. Ephesians 1:7-8 speaks of the “richness” of God’s grace “lavished” upon us – which is exactly how we then must deliver it to others, richly and lavishly.
People all around you are thirsting for God’s grace and it is within your power to help them experience it. I encourage you to be intentional about doing that today.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 