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An
Outreach Publication of the Church of Christ at
Creekwood |
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A Father's Example A small boy was consistently late coming home from school. His parents warned him one day that he must be home on time that afternoon, but nevertheless he arrived later than ever. His mother met him at the door and said nothing. At dinner that night, the boy looked at his plate. There was a slice of bread and a glass of water. He looked at his father’s full plate and then at his father, but his father remained silent. The boy was crushed. . . . The father waited for the full impact to sink in, then quietly took the boy’s plate and placed it in front of himself. He took his own plate of meat and potatoes, put it in front of the boy, and smiled at his son. When that boy grew to be a man, he said, “All my life I’ve known what God is like by what my father did that night.” * Because we ALL sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), we ALL deserve the wages of sin: DEATH (Romans 6:23). But
THIS is what God is like: He is a JUST God (Psalm
89:14), but He is also a LOVING God (1 John 4:7-8). Because
He is a JUST God, He must punish sin.
Because He is a LOVING God, He provided a way
for us to have forgiveness.
That way was through the gift of His Son,
Jesus, to die on the cross for the sins of the world
(1 John 2:2). A
wonderful exchange is made possible through Jesus
Christ: He took the punishment for our sins and He
offers us His righteousness. “For
He [God] made Him who knew no sin [Jesus] to
be sin for us, that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians
5:21). The
“exchange” is activated when we: believe
in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), repent
In
the exchange of dinner plates, that small boy learned
the meaning of GRACE from his father.
Grace is something we NEED but we do not
DESERVE. Won’t YOU accept His grace through your faithful obedience today? God bless you! David A. Sargent, Minister Church of Christ at Creekwood * J. Allan Peterson To Subscribe to "Living Water" send a blank e-mail to:
HTML version: subscribe-livingwater@lyris.dundee.net Follow this link to locate the church of Christ nearest you: www.churchzip.com Archived issues of "Living Water" can be accessed from our website at: www.creekwoodcc.org
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