Thursday May 5, 2011

Read  2 Peter 1:1.  Romans 4

Put yourself in these shoes. While you are shopping with your young son you catch him from the corner of your eye. As he walks past the lolly aisle he quickly reaches out, slips a chocolate bar in his pocket and pretends that nothing has happened. As you work through the issue of repentance and forgiveness, you offer him complete forgiveness and promise to love him freely. Of course you do. He’s your son!  But as you shop with your son the very next time, he repeats his actions! He again slips a lolly into his pocket thinking that he’s fooled you and gotten away with it. When you talk to him he says bluntly, ‘But you’ll forgive me anyway!’.

If you can begin to feel that father’s pain for His son, you can probably feel some of the pain that God feels when we sin against Him and throw forgiveness into His face. When we deliberately sin, thinking that God will forgive me, we are causing infinitely more pain to God than the son caused His father.

Our forgiveness before God, our justification should not cause us to sin more but should motivate us to sin less. The love, the grace that saved a wretch like me, should be driving us and motivating us to live a life that pleases God, not one that hurts Him and causes deep anguish in His heart. In the movie Dangerous Minds, Michelle Pfeiffer stars as a renegade teacher who takes on the worst class in the worst school. But rather than condemn the students she gives them straight A’s. That one act of grace slowly but surely transforms the students and causes them to strive to be all that they can be. God, in justifying you, has given you a straight A. He has given you the perfect record of Christ Jesus. Rather than move you to more wilful sin, that one act of grace should motivate you and cause you to strive to be all that you can be in Christ.

Having been given the gift of faith, what are you striving for? What are you aiming at? Having received the baton of faith, what are you running for? In which direction are you running?

Prayer:-

V Pray for the Chaplains at Harristown Primary and High School. Pray that we will see many children come to the faith through their witness and work.  Pray that the regulations on their work will not cause barriers. Pray for open doors to share the gospel.

V Pray that each public school and state high school in Toowoomba will have the required number of SRE teachers so that every child/student receives the full number of SRE hours allotted to them. Pray that God will raise up an army of disciples in these schools.