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Who is Ed Hochuli? He is a veteran NFL referee who made a terrible call in a Chargers - Broncos game. Instead of hiding or covering up his mistake, he fully admitted it and apologized. Matthew J. Darnell on Yahoo Sports said, "It's hard to hate a guy who knows he screwed up and feels bad about it."
Covering up sin doesn't help anyone, but God forgives and restores those who confess.
A Native American and a white man were deeply moved by the same sermon. That very night the Native American received Jesus as his Savior, but for days the white man refused to accept Christ. At last he, too, repented and enjoyed the sweet peace of having his sins forgiven. Later he asked his Native American friend, “Why did it take me so long, while you responded right away?”
“My brother,” he replied, “I can best explain it by this little story: At one time a rich prince wished to give each of us a new coat. You shook your head and replied, ‘I don’t think so; mine looks good enough.’ When he made the same offer to me, I looked at my old blanket and said, ‘This is good for nothing,’ and gratefully accepted the beautiful garment. You wouldn’t give up your own righteousness. But knowing I had no goodness of my own, I immediately received the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness.”
Michael McCartney
The Resurrection of the Dead
Avijah Powers felt moderately sure nobody would recognize him when he registered under an assumed name at the little inn. It was more than twenty years since he had left the town--a hard,
reckless boy, running away from a good father and a devoted mother because he hated goodness and loved lawlessness and his own way.
For years he had led the life of a vagabond. Then the spirit of adventure was aroused in him by the stories of the wealth of the Klondike. He joined one of the earliest parties, in that hazardous search for gold, and succeeded beyond his dreams. Now he had come back, with his old instincts, but with the wealth of a millionaire, and some strange compulsion led him to the village where he first drew breath.
He did not even know whether his parents were living or dead. It was altogether likely they were dead. With that conviction and without asking a question, he made his way in the August twilight to the graveyard, and to the spot where for three generations his ancestors had been laid.
Yes, there were new stones placed since he had been there. The sight moved him strangely. He bent to read the inscription on the first one. It was to the memory of his father, "Died, 1884. ’Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.’"
The date cut the man to the heart. His father had died a year after the only son had run away! And his mother had been left alone! But perhaps she had followed her husband mercifully soon. Again he bent to read, this time with tear-filled eyes, "Died, 1902. ’And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’"
His mother had been alone for eighteen years! She was but just dead -- in poverty, perhaps; certainly in loneliness. He drew himself up as if to shake off a hideous dream.
But the other stone - whose grave could that mark? They had no relatives except some distant cousins. Perhaps some one of them had done for his mother what he ought to have done in her long, desolate years. Again he stooped to read - his own name. "Abijah Powers. Born 1870; died--. ’The only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’"
It was his own gravestone, set up by his mother when her hope of his return was dead. Out of the depth of his memory there flashed up the story of the widow of Nain, and the gracious presence which spoke the word of life to her dead son. How many times his mother must have read and re-read the page, and how frequently she must have prayed that her boy, bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh, might be given back to her arms!
The thought was anguish to the graceless son, and it brought him to his knees beside his own empty grave. With his hand resting over his mother’s head he wept as he had not wept since he was a child. They were gracious drops. Out of the mother’s love, which had found its cold comfort in the words of scripture for the grave that was no grave, there came, indeed, the resurrection of the real, living soul.
The widow’s son went out of the graveyard that night a new man. The world wondered what had happened to him. Money did not often make a man over from a devil to a saint; but that miracle seemed to have been worked in Abijah Powers. Nobody knew that the transformation did not come from the touch of Klondike gold, but from the power of love -- reaching from beyond the vale, and speaking from the cold marble of a gravestone.
--Youth’s Companion
In the NT, the word for peace means “to reconcile or join.” Some missionary Bible translators were working very hard to find a word for peace in a particular tribal language. At last, a native who was working with them found a combination of words that captured the concept—“a heart that sits...
John Newton:
What think you of Christ? is the test,
To try both your state and your scheme:
You cannot be right in the rest
Unless you think rightly of him.
As Jesus appears in your view,
As he is beloved or not,
So God is disposed to you
And mercy or wrath is your lot.
Some take Him a creature to be,
A man or an angel at most;
Sure these have not feelings like me
Nor know themselves wretched or lost:
So guilty, so helpless am I,
I durst not confide in his blood,
Nor on his protection rely
Unless I was sure He is God.
Some call him Saviour, in word,
But mix their own works with his plan,
And hope he his help will afford,
When they have done all that they can;
If doings prove rather too light,
(A little, they own, they may fail)
They purpose to make up full weight
By casting his name in the scale.
Some style him the pearl of great price
And say He’s the fountain of joys,
Yet feed upon folly and vice
And cleave to the world and its toys;
Like Judas the Saviour they kiss
And while they salute him, betray;
Ah! what will profession like this
Avail in the terrible day?
If asked what of Jesus I think,
Though still my best thoughts are but poor,
I say he’s my meat and my drink,
My life and my strength and my store;
My shepherd, my husband, my friend,
My Saviour from sin and from thrall;
My hope from beginning to end,
My portion, my Lord, and my all!
Reuel Howe illustrates redemptive love in the story of a mother and her eight-year-old daughter. The girl did something which caused her to feel alienated from her mother. Although her mother tried her best to help, the daughter finally ran out of the room in anger and went upstairs. Seeing her mother’s new dress laid out for a party that evening, she found scissors and vented her hostility by ruining her mother’s new dress, seeking to injure her mother. Later the mother came upstairs, saw the dress, threw herself on the bed, and wept. Soon the small daughter came into the room and whispered, "Mother." But there was no reply. "Mother, Mother." she repeated. Still no reply. "Mother, Mother, please," she continued. Finally the mother responded, "Please what?" "Please take me back, please take me back," pleaded the girl. The Love of Christ takes us back, often after one has intentionally done Him wrong.
WHITE AS SNOW
Ash Wednesday — it’s kind of a solemn day. It’s the start of Lent —a word which means “spring” in German. But more than this, it’s the time each year when we intently focus on the path Christ Jesus laid out for us to follow — to be true to his word, true to his calling, and true to the faith, hope and life we share in him.
You know though, sometimes it’s kind of hard to focus on spring when winter is in full force around us. Today it’s been snowing, and within the past week alone, the mountains surrounding our communities have received over 50 inches of fresh snow. For, while we’re beginning to look forward to spring, we have still have to live in the reality that we’re still surrounded by the billions of fluffy white flakes from the Lord’s heavenly storehouses.
Snow — the bible speaks of it often, likening it to that which is pure, clean, and righteous. Truly, the crystal formations of snowflakes are beautiful. There are many different shapes and sizes of snowflakes; amazingly, each and every one is unique.
But despite their uniqueness, snowflakes have one common thing: dirt at the core. Oddly enough, snowflakes start as tiny dust particles, which serve as the center of the snowflake.
Like snowflakes, we have been beautifully created by God. We are the greatest of all God’s creation. We are his pride, and his joy; and like snowflakes we are all created uniquely. Yet, like snowflakes, we too have dirty hearts. We’re all marked by sin; we’re all stained at the core of our being; we’re all dirty in the middle. But through Jesus Christ, we can all be made clean. The dirt at the core of our being can be washed way, and we can be made pure in Christ Jesus
Several years ago, I read Patrick Morley’s book “Walking with Christ in the Details of Life.” It is a book of meditations that includes one called “Revival: The Gospel of Addition.” In it, he said the following, “The American gospel has evolved into a gospel of addition without subtraction. It is the belief that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin. It is a change in belief without a change in behav...
A famous violinist once ordered a manufacturer to make for him the very best instrument his skilled fingers could produce. But when the violin was delivered, its tone did not please the sensitive artist. In indignation he smashed it.
The disheartened dealer tried to atone for his failure. Carefully gathering the broken pieces, he remade the violin and sent it back to the fastidious musician. This time the master was charmed with the tone, and was surprised to learn that the violin was the very one he had broken to bits.
"I have made it out of the fragments," revealed the proud manufacturer.
Likewise, God can take the fragments of the life shattered by sinful indulgence, and, putting its pieces together, He can produce in the regenerated soul sweet melodies.-By Ashely G. Emmer
DECEIVING OURSELVES: THE PENTIUM COVER-UP
Intel learned that its Pentium processing chip had a flaw. The chip would occasionally give wrong answers for division problems using large numbers. Intel believed this was a minor flaw, something they felt would affect the average user once every twenty-seven thousand years. So Intel decided not to make known the flaw and for months continued to promote and sell the flawed computer chip.
But by Thanksgiving word of the flaw began circulating among computer users. Intel finally acknowledged the problem, but tried to downplay its significance. They refused to exchange the flawed chip except in special circumstances. Only when IBM decided to stop selling computers with a Pentium chip did Intel back down, and agree to exchange the chip when anyone requested.
The Pentium affair was a huge black eye on the image of the company, less because their chip had a flaw, and more because they tried to cover it up.
(Craig Brian Larson, Encyclopedia of 15,000 Illustration)
• It is bad when a trusted company deceives us!
• But oh how tragic when we deceive ourselves!
(From a sermon by Larry Keith Wilson, Sr., An Argument in Eternity, 7/2/2010)
