Daily Thoughts about God Posts

by John Grant
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“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised thing and the things that are not,  to nullify the things that are. 1 Corinthians 1:26-27

There is a book I probably would not have read unless asked, but when both my daughter and my wife asked me to read it, I did and it profoundly impacted my life.

A Same Kind of Different as Me, is the story of a modern day slave from the bayou country of Louisiana and a rich international art dealer from Dallas and the unlikely woman who bound them together. It’s a book that tells the unlikely story of the unlikeliest of friends—Ron Hall and Denver Moore.

Ron Hall is a wealthy international art dealer who travels the world buying and selling rare and expensive works of art. He has grown rich but also selfish and drawn away from his family. Denver grew up as a sharecropper in Louisiana. Living a life that seemed little different from the life of his slave ancestors.

They become fast friends who endure a tragedy together and who soon grow in their love, respect and admiration of each other. Each man teaches the other about life and faith. Somehow the story of the relationship between these two men is fascinating and inspiring. It offers a glimpse into two worlds that are nearly opposite and shows what happens when these worlds come into contact with each other.

Paul writing to the church at Corinth noted that God usually doesn’t call people who are great by human standards and it was President Lincoln who said that God surely must have loved the common man because he made so many of us.

Together, Lincoln and Paul remind us of a biblical reality when it comes to God. He is not interested in where you came from or how common you might appear to others. God can take care of the common and turn it to His purposes so that He will be revealed through us.

God loves to shower His purposes on those who appear ordinary and cause them to become extraordinary. He always has, right from the beginning. Throughout the Bible, it was not the social and political elite that God called, but average citizens, like most of us… like Joe the Plumber of recent fame. God doesn’t call the equipped. He equips the called.

The point of the story is that no matter who we are or where we come from, God makes us basically the same and we don’t have to be wealthy or well educated for God to use us. We just have to surrender. Read the book. It will change your life! 
(a thought on life from John Grant)

You can comment on this devotional online at:
https://thoughts-about-god.com/blog/2008/12/08/jg_different/

Thoughts by All thoughts by John Grant Thoughts by Men

by John Fischer
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If you are anything like me, you have probably caught yourself trying to make your own sin out to be something less than the big sins that everyone else commits. You know, the biggies that are in the Ten Commandments like murder, adultery, stealing, lying … stuff like that. Certainly I’m not that kind of sinner. No, I’m a minor sinner. When I sin, it’s more like “sin lite.”

Thinking like this creates a ridiculous state of affairs when it comes to Christ dying for all our sins while we attempt to rationalize them. Sure I’m a sinner and all that, but my sins are mostly the private ones that don’t hurt anyone else. Oh sure, they may not hurt anyone else but they killed Jesus! Let’s think about that the next time we’re considering one of those little private sins. Did Jesus die less for my little sins than for anyone else’s? Did my sins only make Jesus die a little bit? If sin means missing the mark (which it does), by how much I miss it is a non-issue. No one’s out there measuring how far we missed it by. We missed it. Line up for the death penalty. (Thank God, this is where Jesus comes in.)

When you’re dead, you’re dead. I’m not a medical professional, but I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as being just a little dead. Yet try telling your rationalizations that. Look at the silly consequences we create whenever we try to rationalize the truth.

There is no such thing as a little sin. Sin is sin, and the wages of sin is death, says the Bible, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) You can’t any more sin a little than you can get a little eternal life. There is only one way this works: Sin, death, gift of God, and eternal life, in that order, and they’re all big time – full strength. Whenever we sin, we sin big, and we die big; but Jesus died big time, so that God could give the gift of eternal life … and that’s big too! That’s forever! To belittle any one of these is to belittle the rest.

So if you ever catch yourself comparing your sin to others and trying to tell yourself that your sin is less significant, just remember Christ died for our sins, and there’s never anything little about that!

No one can be just a little bit dead.

You can comment on this devotional online at:
https://thoughts-about-god.com/blog/2008/11/29/jf_dead/

Thoughts by All thoughts by John Fischer Thoughts by Men