Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Grace”
Our Bible verse for today: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “We can learn to be gracious by spending time with others who are gracious.”
“The way of excellence starts by copying the excellence around you.” I read that quote just the other day and I like it. I’m also convinced it is true. We learn to do something well by studying others who already do that thing well.
The great philosopher Plato spent years studying at the feet of Socrates. He learned to think like Socrates, debate like Socrates, write like Socrates. In time Plato developed his own style and he was very much his own man, but he learned philosophy by studying under a great philosopher. Beethoven spent many years studying and copying the music of Mozart. The great home run hitter Barry Bonds learned the skill of hitting a baseball by studying the style of the great home run hitter Willie Mays.
Yesterday I confessed to you that I am not by nature a gracious person. God has had to teach me grace by continually keeping me in the presence of other people who are gracious. I can think of four men in particular over the last twenty-five years whom God has placed in my life as models of grace. As far as becoming gracious, I have a long, long way to go compared to them, but their examples have inspired me to want to be better than I am. This is what Solomon was referring to in Proverbs 27:17. We can help each other to be better than we are.
Once at a Promise Keepers Conference I heard a speaker say, “Every person should have three key relationships in his life, you should have a Paul, a Barnabas, and a Timothy.” You should have a Paul – a person who is more spiritually mature than you are and who will build into your life. You should have a Barnabas – a person who is on an equal footing with you spiritually, who knows you well, and who will tell it to you like it is. And you should have a Timothy – a less spiritually mature person whose life you can build into.
When it comes to the spiritual attribute of grace, and of being a gracious person, we all need to be around others who are more advanced in this business of graciousness than we are. “The way of excellence starts by copying the excellence around you.”
I encourage you to seek out gracious people in your church family, observe them, learn from them, and strive to be more like them.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 