Good morning and welcome in everybody. Today we are going to take a look at a passage of Scripture, but before we do that, I wanted to tell you a little story.
It was a pretty cold morning when I arose from my sleeping bag and started a little fire to make some fresh coffee. Even the matches didn’t want to start because of the fresh dew that had permeated my clothing. Even though it was twenty years ago, I can still remember seeing my breath, as I sat down on a stump and enjoyed the heat of the warm fire. We had been camping for a few days up on the North arm by Ely Minnesota. Andrew and I had been handing out flyers and Bibles around the town during the day, but it was time to go back home. As everybody slept in, I began packing up things in the canoe, and after breakfast, we paddled for about half an hour to get to the car. But when I stepped out of the boat, I slipped on a rock that was covered with green moss. When I stood up, I realized that I’d hurt my ankle severely, and limped up the car. I still didn’t know I had broken it or twisted it, but eventually it turned black and I couldn’t put weight on it at all, and had to drive all the way home with my left foot.
This reminds me of the Christian Life.
Sometimes the things that we have to go through in our life are a learning curve. I learned that weekend that even though we might fall down, we need to get back up again.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”l 1 John 1:9
Sin is a terrible thing. The more that you get involved with it, the further that we fall away from God. It’s like a child who falls off a boat and cannot swim. It’s like traveling down a road that doesn’t lead anywhere. It’s like spending years of your life trying to attain something, but in the end it doesn’t amount to anything. Sin. What a wretched, wicked, and evil thing, confusing the hearts and minds of those who otherwise could be saved. But even though we might fall down, God gives us the grace to get back up again.
Romans 3 ²³ For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; ²⁴ Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
When I was in high school, I ran off the road and hit a tree. When onlookers ran up to me, they were yelling that I was surely dead because I had gone all the way through the windshield of the car, but I rose up without a scratch on me. The first motorcycle that I owned, I laid down on a tight corner on a wet afternoon and slid off the road through a barbed wire fence. I should have been cut in half, but the Lord saved me. One time I was driving a snowmobile and almost went off a four hundred foot cliff, but the Lord saved me from death. In the darkest hours of our own stupidity and ignorance, God reaches out to rescue us. He wants to help us, even when we can’t help ourselves.
1 John 4 ⁷ Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. ⁸ He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. ⁹ In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. ¹⁰ Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
God has been very merciful to a sinner like me. God’s love is the greatest thing that I have ever known in my life. For Him to lay down His own life for me is beyond comprehension. His love for me goes beyond any marriage, or any other relationship that I might have while on this Earth. God loves me like no other, and it permeates my entire life. It never fails, and is unending, unmovable and unchangeable.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20
Even though the Apostle Paul had done so many things against the Christian faith, God used him to write much of the New Testament that we have today. Even though we make mistakes, God can use us for greater things.
1 Corinthians 15 ⁸ And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. ¹¹ Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.
1 Corinthians 1 ²⁶ For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
²⁷ But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; ²⁸ And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
God shined down His love upon us
and now we must shine our love for Him.
Romans 5 ⁶ For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. ⁸ But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
God chooses to use people that we would never expect. He picks people who have slipped and fallen down. After all, look at what he did in the life of the Apostle Paul. Thank God for His grace. What matters is if you get back up, something I will always remember when I slipped up on….
…The North Arm
Let’s think about these things for right now. We can be found on your web browser by searching, tlkjbc where you can find our diaries distributed through various platforms. We are not associated, nor affiliated with any other religious groups. You can get our entire podcast feeds directly, along with transcripts at tlkjbc.com or I suppose that you could find us somewhere up here, in the Great Northern Minnesota woods. Peace to you all, and Lord willing, we will talk with you some more tomorrow. Till then, bye bye everybody.♥️
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 