Saturday, September 10, 2016

Night Light for Couples - Dream Lover

The challenge of sustaining an intimate, faith-based marriage in today's “hurry-up” society has never been greater. Night Light for Couples, the couples' devotional from Focus on the Family ministry founder Dr. James Dobson and his wife, Shirley, brings spouses together each evening, helping them stay connected with each other and their Lord. Stories that strike an emotional chord, Scripture readings, provocative questions, prayers, and personal commentary from the Dobsons encourage men and women in their homes and spiritual lives. More than just another devotional, Night Light is a practical, uplifting guide for every couple who longs to experience the joyous, intimate, “three-person” marriage covenant God intended.

by Patrick o’Neill

The clock radio was playing a gentle tune, and I woke up to another day of infinite wonder and promise. “Morning, sweetie,” I said, my head still snuggled in my pillow. “Who’s Angela?” my wife asked me in the tone Mike Wallace uses when cameras are chasing some poor jerk down a sidewalk in Newark, New Jersey.

Thousands of years of evolving and adapting have given married men a kind of sixth sense that tells them when to be absolutely truthful, answering all questions fully and without reservation.

“I don’t know any Angela,” I said.

“Oh, I know you don’t,” Kathleen said, sitting up and slamming her hand on the alarm button. “This is so ridiculous. It’s just that I had this dream last night, and in it you left me and the kids and ran off with some Angela woman. I’ve been awake for three hours getting madder and madder.”

“Silly girl,” I said, snuggling deeper into the blankets. “I promise I didn’t run off with anybody. Not last night or any other night. And especially not with any Angela.”

Kathleen threw back the blankets with considerably more force than the circumstances required and got out of bed.

“It was just a dream,” I said, wishing desperately for two more minutes of unconsciousness. “I don’t know an Angela. I’m here with you and our children. I’m not leaving. Never, ever.”

The shower door banged shut, and I drifted off. Suddenly a wet towel hit me in the face.

“Sorry, hon, I was aiming for the hamper,” Kathleen said. “Anyway, you and Angela were living together in one of those luxury high‐rise condos downtown.”

116

“Ha. See how crazy that is? Child support would wipe me out. I couldn’t afford to live under a bridge if I left you. Which I have no plans to do.”

“Angela’s a surgeon,” she said as if she were talking to a complete idiot. “With an international reputation. She’s filthy rich. Or don’t you realize that either? Oh, of course you don’t. Just a dream.”

“Listen, I know dreams can seem pretty realistic sometimes. But you’re the woman of my dreams. Okay? What kind of surgeon?”
From the bathroom came the unmistakable sound of toiletries being destroyed.

“You want to know what really got me?” she said. “The kids. The kids went to visit one weekend, and you know what that—you know— Angela did? She made teddy bear pancakes. With little raisin eyes. The children talked about those for days: ‘How come you never make us teddy bear pancakes, Mom?’”

“Teddy bear pancakes? That sounds kind of cute. They’d probably be pretty easy….”

“Oooooh,” Kathleen said. “This is so dumb. How can anybody get upset over a stupid dream about her husband running off with a world famous surgeon who can sit down at a piano with the kids and play all the television theme songs by ear and knows all the verses and can put your daughter’s hair up in a perfect French braid and show your boy how to play ‘stretch’ with a jackknife and teach aerobics?”

“Kathleen, I couldn’t love a surgeon. Surgeons are notoriously self‐centered and egotistical. But maybe Angela was different.”

“Angela works among the poor,” Kathleen said. “Here’s that tennis shoe you’ve been looking for…. Oops, are you all right? Anyway, the president gave her some kind of plaque. I saw it on TV. In my dream. There she was with those cheekbones and that mane of black hair. ‘Others deserve this far more than I do, Mr. President.’ I just about threw up.”

The tennis shoe bruise probably wouldn’t show unless I went swimming or something.

“What with teddy bear pancakes, humanitarianism, and piano lessons, Angela couldn’t have much time left over for a guy,” I said. “I mean, a guy like me.”

“Oh, no. The kids told me how she spent hours rubbing your shoulders, and sometimes she sat at your feet on that spotless white carpet— ‘It’s like snow, Mom’—and stared up at you, laughing at every stupid little thing you said. Darn! Your watch fell in the sink. Sorry, sweetie.”

“I think you’re being a little hard on Angela,” I said. “She sounds like a pretty nice person who’s only trying to make a life for herself.”

“She’s a vicious little home wrecker, and if you ever so much as look at her again, you’ll need more than a world‐renowned surgeon to put you back together again!”

Later that day, I sent flowers to Kathleen’s office. It’s just a start, of course. When somebody like Angela comes into your life, it takes a while to patch things up.

LOOKING AHEAD …

Most married partners can admit it: At one time or another we have felt some anxiety about our spouse’s commitment, whether because of a serious threat to the relationship or just a dream like Kathleen’s.

Underneath the humor of Kathleen’s “anxiety dream” is a very real issue—to trust or not to trust. The uncertainty many feel about trust is, unfortunately, a sign of the times. Infidelity and straying affections are far too common, and in some circles they are even accepted as inevitable. As Christians, we know that we can place unequivocal confidence in the Lord. But absolute, unquestioned trust in our spouse? That can be harder to bestow. The truth is, it must be earned over time—word by word, deed by deed.

Relationships dominated by fear and insecurity will never reach their potential, but marriages founded on trust and safety will flourish. You can see why it is so important for married couples to commit themselves to build trust together. In the week ahead we’ll help you understand how trust happens and how to make it the bedrock of a secure and growing relationship.

- James C Dobson
  • From Night Light For Couples, by Dr. James & Shirley Dobson
    Copyright © 2000 by James Dobson, Inc. All rights reserved.
  • “Dream Lover, Where Are Yoo‐Oo‐Oou?” by Patrick O’Neill. Taken from the Tuesday, October 3, 1989 issue of The oregonian, © 1989, Oregon Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

NIV Devotions for Couples - Beauty in Submission

1 Peter 2:11—3:7

Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. 1 Peter 3:1–2

For many people, the word submission implies serving someone else hand and foot. Submission seems dehumanizing. We assume that such deference would sap a marriage of the mutual respect and service that a marriage ought to have to make it strong and vital.

In 1 Peter 3, Peter was addressing a specific situation: how the wives of unsaved husbands might influence them to become Christians. He counseled the women to submit, but he was thinking of the kind of submission that is deeply catalytic, a potent secret remedy for a lost loved one.

The secret of a Christian wife’s submission is found in three phrases. The first is in verse 1: “in the same way.” It refers back to the Christlike submission described in the previous verses (2:21–24). In the same way that Jesus trusted God to work redemptively through his submission, we can trust God to work through our submission.

The second key phrase is in verse 2: “when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.” Purity and reverence ennoble a person; they are signs of spiritual strength. They are the marks of carefully guarded relationships with people and with God. Submission without purity and reverence has no potency, but when someone is the recipient of your humble submission and realizes that it springs not from his or her power over you but from your relationship with God, the person is changed by the experience.

The third important phrase is in verse 4: “a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” A gentle and quiet spirit is the opposite of a fearful spirit. Wives of unsaved husbands in Peter’s day had a lot to be afraid of, but those who learned to quiet their hearts in the promises of God took on an inner beauty that no dress or makeup could give them, a beauty that attracted others to Christ. The message, both then and now, is that while Christian wives serve their unsaved husbands, they are depending on God, and that is a transforming experience.

Notice that the goal is not a dominating husband, but a godly husband. God-shaped submission makes the people around us better, not worse. Furthermore, even if an unsaved husband never responds to Christ, the Christian wife may grow in such beautiful godliness that others will be attracted to Christ.

Peter didn’t apply to believing husbands the same recipe for winning over an unsaved wife, but we can be assured that the principles are similar. Paul instructed Christians to “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21). If a husband has an unsaved wife, his loving and sacrificial behavior toward her will show her a picture of Christ’s love for the church (see Ephesians 5:25–32).

Lee Eclov


Let’s Talk
  • How can Christian submission as Peter described it actually empower rather than dehumanize us in marriage?
  • How does fear sour submission (see 1 Peter 3:6)? What is it like to be around a fearfully submissive person?
  • How does the purity and reverence of our lives change the character of submission?

The Daily Readings for September 10, 2016

Job 38:1-17
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind: "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements-- surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? "Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?-- when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'? "Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? It is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment. Light is withheld from the wicked, and their uplifted arm is broken. "Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

Acts 15:22-35
Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers, with the following letter: "The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds, we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell." So they were sent off and went down to Antioch. When they gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. When its members read it, they rejoiced at the exhortation. Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. After they had been there for some time, they were sent off in peace by the believers to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, and there, with many others, they taught and proclaimed the word of the Lord.

John 11:45-54
Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, "What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation." But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed." He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they planned to put him to death. Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples.

Morning Psalms

Psalm 55 Exaudi, Deus
1   Hear my prayer, O God; do not hide yourself from my petition.
2   Listen to me and answer me; I have no peace, because of my cares.
3   I am shaken by the noise of the enemy and by the pressure of the wicked;
4   For they have cast an evil spell upon me and are set against me in fury.
5   My heart quakes within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
6   Fear and trembling have come over me, and horror overwhelms me.
7   And I said, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.
8   I would flee to a far-off place and make my lodging in the wilderness.
9   I would hasten to escape from the stormy wind and tempest."
10   Swallow them up, O Lord; confound their speech; for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
11   Day and night the watchmen make their rounds upon her walls, but trouble and misery are in the midst of her.
12   There is corruption at her heart; her streets are never free of oppression and deceit.
13   For had it been an adversary who taunted me, then I could have borne it; or had it been an enemy who vaunted himself against me, then I could have hidden from him.
14   But it was you, a man after my own heart, my companion, my own familiar friend.
15   We took sweet counsel together, and walked with the throng in the house of God.
16   Let death come upon them suddenly; let them go down alive to the grave; for wickedness is in their dwellings, in their very midst.
17   But I will call upon God, and the LORD will deliver me.
18   In the evening, in the morning, and at noonday, I will complain and lament, and he will hear my voice.
19   He will bring me safely back from the battle waged against me; for there are many who fight me.
20   God, who is enthroned of old, will hear me and bring them down; they never change; they do not fear God.
21   My companion stretched forth his hand against his comrade; he has broken his covenant.
22   His speech is softer than butter, but war is in his heart.
23   His words are smoother than oil, but they are drawn swords.
24   Cast your burden upon the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous stumble.
25   For you will bring the bloodthirsty and deceitful down to the pit of destruction, O God.
26   They shall not live out half their days, but I will put my trust in you.


Evening Psalms

Psalm 138 Confitebor tibi
1   I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I will sing your praise.
2   I will bow down toward your holy temple and praise your Name, because of your love and faithfulness;
3   For you have glorified your Name and your word above all things.
4   When I called, you answered me; you increased my strength within me.
5   All the kings of the earth will praise you, O LORD, when they have heard the words of your mouth.
6   They will sing of the ways of the LORD, that great is the glory of the LORD.
7   Though the LORD be high, he cares for the lowly; he perceives the haughty from afar.
8   Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you keep me safe; you stretch forth your hand against the fury of my enemies; your right hand shall save me.
9   The LORD will make good his purpose for me; O LORD, your love endures for ever; do not abandon the works of your hands.


Psalm 139 Domine, probasti
1   LORD, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
2   You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways.
3   Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O LORD, know it altogether.
4   You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.
5   Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
6   Where can I go then from your Spirit? where can I flee from your presence?
7   If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
8   If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
9   Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast.
10   If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night, "
11   Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.
12   For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
13   I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
14   My body was not hidden from you, while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth.
15   Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb; all of them were written in your book; they were fashioned day by day, when as yet there was none of them.
16   How deep I find your thoughts, O God! how great is the sum of them!
17   If I were to count them, they would be more in number than the sand; to count them all, my life span would need to be like yours.
18   Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God! You that thirst for blood, depart from me.
19   They speak despitefully against you; your enemies take your Name in vain.
20   Do I not hate those, O LORD, who hate you? and do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
21   I hate them with a perfect hatred; they have become my own enemies.
22   Search me out, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my restless thoughts.
23   Look well whether there be any wickedness in me and lead me in the way that is everlasting.


New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The New Revised Standard Version Bible may be quoted and/or reprinted up to and inclusive of five hundred (500) verses without express written permission of the publisher, provided the verses quoted do not amount to a complete book of the Bible or account for fifty percent (50%) of the total work in which they are quoted.

The Forward Day by Day Meditation for September 10, 2016

From Forward Day By Day
Written by Jonathan Melton

Psalm 55:1-3 (NRSV) Hear my prayer, O God; do not hide yourself from my petition. Listen to me and answer me; I have no peace, because of my cares. I am shaken by the noise of the enemy and by the pressure of the wicked.

By whose noise am I shaken? Who is shaken by my noise? As the psalmist names these questions, this mirror-psalm confronts us with the conflicts we wish we could hide. It is hard to know that there are people who don’t like us, who won’t like us, who consider us their enemies, never mind whether we consider these same people as our enemies. Noise shakes us, and pressure shapes us. These are true statements about the world and about the kingdom of God.

How can we know our enemies? How can we come to terms with being seen as an enemy by others? We know that we will be shaken and shaped by the challenges and chances of this life, but we also know that God is not hidden from us, is not far from us in those tender and tight spots. God hears our prayers, gives us peace, and bids us to be peace in the world. The psalms are grace for all of us.

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Standing Strong Through the Storm - DISPENSING GRACE

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13
 
How can Christians dispense grace in a society that is or seems to be veering away from God? As we noted in earlier devotionals, Elijah hid out in caves. On the other hand, his contemporary Obadiah worked within the system running Ahab’s palace while sheltering God’s prophets on the side. Esther and Daniel were employed by heathen empires. Jesus submitted to the judgment of a Roman governor. Paul appealed his case all the way to Caesar. In his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey shares:
  1. Dispensing God’s grace is the Christian’s main contribution

    The one big thing the church has over the world is showing grace. Jesus did not let any institution interfere with His love for individuals. Here is where the fruit of the Spirit are so important in our lives. Jesus said we are to have one distinguishing mark—neither political correctness nor moral superiority, but—love.


  2. Commitment to grace does not mean Christians will always live in perfect harmony with the government

    Kenneth Kaunda, the former President of Zambia has written, “…what a nation needs more than anything else is not a Christian ruler in the palace but a Christian prophet within earshot.” Jesus warned that the world who hated him would hate us also. As the early church spread throughout the Roman Empire, the slogan “Jesus is Lord” was a direct affront to the Romans. When conflict came, brave Christians stood up against the state, appealing to a higher authority. Through the years, this same energy continued. In all of this, we are to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. All our actions—and even counteractions—are to be seasoned with grace. When we show just the opposite, then we must consider the wisdom of our choices.


  3. Coziness between church and state is good for the state and bad for the church

    Herein lies the chief danger to grace. The state, which runs by rules of ungrace—the entire “world” does—gradually drowns out the church’s sublime message of grace.

    The church works best as a force of resistance, a counterbalance to the consuming power of the state. The cozier it gets with government, the more watered-down its message becomes. Can you imagine any government enacting a set of laws based on Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount?” A state government can shut down stores and theatres on Sunday, but it cannot compel worship. It can arrest and punish murderers, but cannot cure their hatred much less teach them love…It can give subsidies to the poor, but cannot force the rich to show them compassion and justice. It can ban adultery but not lust, theft but not covetousness, cheating but not pride. It can encourage virtue but not holiness.[1]
RESPONSE: Today I will operate in the world I encounter and in my church dispensing grace.

PRAYER: Help me, Lord, to be a person who is known for my ability to live like Jesus—with grace.

1. Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 1997), pp. 219-227.

Un Dia a la Vez - Desesperación Testimonio de sanidad (cuarta parte)


La oración de fe sanará al enfermo y el Señor lo levantará. Y si ha pecado, su pecado se le perdonará. Santiago 5:15

¿Cuántas veces has vivido una prueba donde pasan los días y las semanas sin ver mejoría, ni cambio, y te desesperas? Lo que sucede es que lo que vemos y vivimos no coincide con lo que nos promete Dios.

Eso me pasó a mí. Tuve momentos en los que lloré amargamente. Tenía la promesa de que Dios me sanaría, pero mi condición me mostraba lo contrario, pues a duras penas podía caminar. Ni siquiera pude ingerir alimentos durante dos meses. Entonces, cuando pude comer, mi organismo rechazaba la comida. Era muy difícil sentir que no tenía control de mí misma, hasta tenía que usar pañales. Así que solo decía: «Dios puede sacarme de esto».

Fue una verdadera prueba experimentar el insomnio y pude entender a las personas con esta condición. Mis días eran eternos, largos, interminables. Por el día mi mente estaba un poco ocupada con las visitas y mi familia, pero cuando se iban todos, me quedaba en ese cuarto sola con un frío que me calaba los huesos sin poder dormir. Tuve extensas conversaciones con mi Dios donde le pregunté un sinnúmero de cosas y muchas no recibían respuestas.

No obstante, en medio de esa quietud obligada pude entender el propósito por el que estaba allí. En primer lugar, Dios me mostró que había descuidado mi salud y, en segundo lugar, que era muy autosuficiente. Estaba en tal vorágine de trabajo que no tenía tiempo ni para escuchar a Dios. Así que esa fue la única manera en la que, estando inmóvil, pude ver su voluntad para mi vida.

Daily Devotional by John Piper - How to Fight Anxiety

Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. (1 Peter 5:7)
Psalm 56:3 says, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in thee.”

Notice: it does not say, “I never struggle with fear.” Fear strikes, and the battle begins. So the Bible does not assume that true believers will have no anxieties. Instead the Bible tells us how to fight when they strike.

For example, 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you.” It does not say, you will never feel any anxieties. It says, when you have them, cast them on God. When the mud splatters your windshield and you temporarily lose sight of the road and start to swerve in anxiety, turn on your wipers and squirt your windshield washer.

So my response to the person who has to deal with feelings of anxiety every day is to say: that’s more or less normal. At least it is for me, ever since my teenage years. The issue is: How do we fight them?

The answer to that question is: we fight anxieties by fighting against unbelief and fighting for faith in future grace. And the way you fight this “good fight” is by meditating on God’s assurances of future grace and by asking for the help of his Spirit.

The windshield wipers are the promises of God that clear away the mud of unbelief, and the windshield washer fluid is the help of the Holy Spirit. The battle to be freed from sin is fought “by the Spirit and faith in the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:13).

The work of the Spirit and the Word of truth. These are the great faith-builders. Without the softening work of the Holy Spirit, the wipers of the Word just scrape over the blinding clumps of unbelief.

Both are necessary — the Spirit and the Word. We read the promises of God and we pray for the help of his Spirit. And as the windshield clears so that we can see the welfare that God plans for us (Jeremiah 29:11), our faith grows stronger and the swerving of anxiety smooths out.

Хлеб наш насущный - Решение Иви

автор: Дэвид Брэнон

Идите по всему миру и проповедуйте Евангелие всему творению. Марка 16:15 
 
Иви была одной из двадцати пяти американских подростков в составе хора, который отправился на Ямайку, чтобы петь, свидетельствовать и показывать Божью любовь людям другой культуры и возраста. Для Иви один из дней во время той поездки оказался особенно памятным и радостным.

В тот день хор посетил приют, где ребята пели и общались со слушателями. После пения Иви подсела к молодой женщине, жившей в приюте. Ей было немного больше тридцати. Во время беседы Иви решила, что должна рассказать о Христе: Кто Он такой и что сделал для нас. Она показала несколько стихов в Библии, в которых говорилось о спасении. Через некоторое время женщина сказала, что хочет обратиться ко Христу. Так она и сделала.

Простое решение девочки заговорить о Спасителе стало причиной большой радости для всей группы.

В Евангелии от Марка сказано, что примеру Иви нужно следовать всем верующим. Вот как звучит этот текст в переводе Нового Завета «Весть»: «Идите повсюду и возвещайте Божью Благую весть всем и каждому».

Невозможно переоценить, как важно для человека услышать весть о спасении и прийти к Спасителю.

Господь, мне бывает непросто начать разговор о Евангелии. Прошу, пусть Святой Дух трудится во мне, чтобы я был способен и ревностно желал делиться Благой вестью со всеми, кто нуждается в Господе.

Верные свидетели не только знают, во что верят, но и говорят о своей вере.

© 2016 Хлеб Наш Насущный

Verse of the Day - September 10, 2016

Isaiah 46:4 (NIV) Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

Read all of Isaiah 46

Notre Pain Quotidien - La décision d’Evie

par Dave Branon

Allez par tout le monde, et prêchez la bonne nouvelle à toute la création. Marc 16.15

Evie était du nombre des 25 adolescents américains d’une chorale de lycée à se rendre en Jamaïque pour y chanter, évangéliser et témoigner de l’amour de Dieu à des gens issus d’une culture et d’une génération différentes des leurs.

Ce jour‑là, la chorale s’est rendue dans une maison de convalescence afin de chanter pour les résidents et de leur tenir compagnie. Après avoir chanté, Evie s’est assise avec une jeune résidente dans la trentaine. Tandis qu’elles amorçaient une conversation, Evie s’est sentie poussée à lui parler de Jésus – lui précisant qui il était et ce qu’il avait fait pour nous. Evie lui a montré des versets dans la Bible qui expliquaient le salut. Or, cette femme n’a pas tardé à désirer mettre sa foi en Jésus comme son Sauveur. Et c’est précisément ce qu’elle a fait.

Grâce à la décision qu’a prise Evie de lui parler de Jésus, notre groupe a célébré le jour même une nouvelle naissance dans la famille de Dieu.

Marc 16.15 nous dit que ce qu’Evie a fait est ce que Dieu s’attend à ce que fassent tous les croyants. Voici comment The Message (Le message) paraphrase ce verset : « Allez partout annoncer la bonne nouvelle de Dieu à tout un chacun. »

Puissions‑nous ne jamais sous‑estimer ce qu’il y a de merveilleux dans la possibilité que tout le monde, partout, entende la Bonne Nouvelle et accepte notre Sauveur.

Il est bien d’avoir la foi, mais encore faut‑il la démontrer.

© 2016 Ministères NPQ