Our Daily Gospel 08/31/14 Our Daily Prayer Dear Lord, please watch over, bless and keep in Your caring and loving hands us, the children, our home, family, friends, and finances. Lord, as we follow the ways of Your Son, Jesus, please let our words reflect the love and caring of You. Father, as we interact with others, may our lives and words show Your loving grace. Help us to share the gospel with love and truth. Give us the strength to praise and show of love You have for us all. We thank You now, Lord, for the recent blessings we have received and for the blessings yet to come because we know You are not done with us yet. Thank You Lord for all that You have done to help us free ourselves from the things that so easily ensnare us. The things that act as thorns and thistlees are quickly removed as we are reminded of Your Sons suffering on the cross. In You the Father, Your Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit Name, we pray, Amen. Our Daily Bread Burning the Implements of Sin Acts 19:19 A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. Thoughts for Today: ......In Pauls time, as a rule of thumb a drachma was worth the rough equivalent of one days pay of a highly skilled worker. The United States Department of Labor tells us that the average national salary in 2007 was $861 per week or $172 per day. That means, in todays economy the value of the scrolls burned exceeded $8,610,000. Thats a seriously expensive bonfire. Some might even think it was a gigantic waste of money, but was it? ......Our devotion today is titled, Burning the Implements of Sin; I chose that title because the dictionary defines an implement as a tool (a useful piece of equipment, usually a specially shaped object designed to do a particular task). Let me pose a question in todays terms: Is a Playboy magazine an implement of sin? Of course it is because the editors of the magazine have specifically designed it to generate and ignite lustful thoughts in men for women who are not their wives (Proverbs 6:25, Do not lust in your heart after her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes). That brings us back to the bigger question of the day and that is As a Christian, if you inherited a home from a distant relative and found abandoned in the garage a collection of Playboy magazines worth $8,610,000 -- would you burn them or sell them? Your answer will tell you a lot about where you are spiritually. Questions to Ponder: ......What do you do with the implements of sin in your life when you want to change? Do you keep them around so as not to be wasteful; place something on EBay and sell it to the highest bidder; or completely destroy it? We know what the believers in Ephesus did -- they brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. I always think its interesting how we can passively agree with Scripture about how fifty thousand drachmas worth of scrolls were burned, then not be as resolute about doing so in our own lives. What residual of sin do you still keep around? Perhaps its time to do some house cleaning and have a bonfire of your own; it might be expensive on the surface but priceless in Gods economy.-------------------Pocket Testament League Earnest R. Stone The one who kneels to the LORD can stand up to anything.For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. (Matt. 6:8)
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 07:59:50 +0000
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