Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Grace”
Our Bible verse for today: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden in light.” Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “Do your part.”
We’ve learned a lot about God’s grace this month. We’ve learned what it is, how we get it, and what we should do with it. When it comes to God dispensing His grace, we can count on Him to do so abundantly and joyfully. All of creation is crammed full of His common grace; and any who will come to Him through faith in His Son Jesus will also be overwhelmed with generous portions of His special grace. So God will do His part.
Therefore I want to end this month with a note about us (the Church) doing our part. As we’ve learned, in addition to receiving God’s grace, we have a responsibility to share God’s grace. It’s through the ministry of Christians serving in the name of Jesus that the world gets to experience the most and best of God’s grace.
That being the case, the church gatherings should be times of enormous grace. This should be the time and place when people experience God’s blessings more than anywhere else. If God’s people are to be the conveyers and dispensers of His grace, then when they’re gathered together there should be oceans of grace washing over everyone in the place.
The famous evangelist Dwight L. Moody often referred to the church as “A colony of heaven in a hostile world.” Moody also said “Only one man out of a hundred reads the Bible. The other ninety-nine read the Christian.”
The truth is that it’s a big, bad, and often cruel world out there. People are getting beat-up and they’re being hurt (emotionally and sometimes physically). When they come to the gatherings of God’s people they should experience a wonderful outpouring of God’s grace. After all, the church is a colony of heaven in the midst of a hostile world, right? The church should be the place Jesus described in Matthew 11:28-30, a place where people encounter Him and find rest, care, and nurture.
As we conclude our study of grace I want to leave us with the reminder that not only are we the fortunate recipients of God’s grace, but we are to be the conveyers of it too. We can count on God to do His part. He loves to pour out His abundant grace on all who will receive it. But can He count on us to do our part? I encourage you to go out and be a blessing to others today.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 