Self Deception - an interesting tale!

 

All photos courtesy of Storyblocks

Have you heard the story of the bank robber named McArthur Wheeler in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who was told that if he rubbed lemon juice on his face, he wouldn’t need to use a mask to avoid detection because his face would be invisible to the cameras? This is not a joke; it’s true! He bought a Polaroid camera and a couple of lemons, squeezed them and applied the juice to his face. He then pointed the camera at his face and clicked, rotated the camera and clicked. He finished up with a photo of the ceiling but no image of his face, and he fully believed that the lemon juice did the trick.

Forgiveness - how far does it reach?

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

One day Jesus told a story comparing the kingdom of heaven to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants by calling in all his debts.  As he began the settlement, a man who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to Him. In those days that was a considerable chunk of money, the equivalent of about £20 million. We’re not sure exactly how he ran up this kind of debt but it’s clear that he would never be able to repay the king.  So since he couldn’t pay the debt, the king ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had, had to be sold to repay the debt.” The king knew he could never recoup all his losses - he just wanted to get back whatever he could.

At this point, the servant did what most of us would have done. He fell on his knees and said, “Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything.” Even though he could never pay it back, he is now desperate. He cannot stand the thought of his family being sold because of the debt he ran up.  The king was moved. The Bible says that he was filled with compassion. And, he does something the man does not even ask for. The king not only releases him, he also forgives the debt. This is at great personal cost to the king. By assuming the debt, he allowed it to go unpaid and thus impoverished his treasury. He wiped the slate clean, erased the books, and cancelled the debt. Now the man owed him nothing.   

This is exactly what forgiveness is all about. To forgive is to cancel the debt. When we’ve wronged someone, and they choose to forgive us, they are in essence saying, “I cancel the debt. The slate has been wiped clean. You do not owe me anything - I release you from ever having to pay me back.” Now it is quite clear that the servant did not deserve this forgiveness; it was purely an act of grace and mercy on the part of the king. 

We are a lot like the man in the story that Jesus told. We stand before a holy God with our sins piled up higher than Mount Everest.  Our sins are like a £20 million debt that we can never repay. And yet, out of compassion for our moral predicament, and motivated by His love and grace, God sent His Son Jesus to pay off our spiritual debts.

We all need Divine forgiveness today.  We need to come face to face with God, own our sin, and then asked Him for release? We need to do it, if we have not already done so - forgiveness is our deepest need and God’s highest achievement. Admitting our sins to a holy God is the way to receive His forgiveness? If we have not done so, now is the right time. The cost of our sins is more than we can pay, but the gift of our God is more than we can imagine. 

Repentance is the key to being forgiven.  In the Bible book of Proverbs we learn that “he that covers his sins shall not prosper: but whosoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy." If we can confess it, we  can be forgiven of it! It does not matter what we have done, if we turn to God and confess our sins, He will forgive us of ALL unrighteousness... that includes anything we have done, that we are willing to bring before Him! So remember today, "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness."

Produced by Messages with Meaning and published by 542day - with permission

Give yourself a soul valuation!

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

Jesus said - ‘what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose [or forfeit] his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’.

 

·    The top ten companies in the world have combined revenues of      

     about £2000 billion per year.

·    All the gold above-ground in the world could be worth as much as 

     £1000 billion. 

·    The British government’s annual income is around £600 billion and

·    The ten richest people in the world have about £300 billion between 

     them.

 

These enormous figures are way beyond our understanding. The nearest some of us can get to this in our understanding is that the average wage earner in the UK might earn about £1,000,000 in a working lifetime, and the average UK house price is currently around a quarter of a million pounds. 

Have you realized you need God in your life yet?

                                                All photos courtesy of Unsplash

Have you realized you need God in your life yet?

I was speaking to some people at the weekend about a man in Bible times who welcomed Jesus into his home. He was quite a ‘well to do’ guy who had made a lot of money. From the information we have, it looks as if some of his wealth was accumulated through dishonest business practice. The moral of the story was that he was not happy or satisfied despite his prosperous lifestyle.  

He needed more!

Don’t we all!

Thankfully, he realized that he needed a relationship with God and that the Lord Jesus was the way to come to God.

How do you see your life? Have you come to the point yet where you have concluded that there’s something missing? Life is empty and pointless without God.

When you turn to God from all the things that have crowded Him out and confess your need of Him (and His forgiveness) He will come. The way to God is through His Son, Jesus, who died (and rose again) to make a relationship with God possible.

I will close with the words of the Lord Jesus - ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father but by me,’ John 14:6, the Bible.

Lessons in managing your income!

Picture courtesy of Unsplash - Damir Spanic

Picture courtesy of Unsplash - Nathan Dumlao 

Picture courtesy of Unsplash - Aron Visuals 

Imagine that there is a bank which credits your account with £86,400 every morning, every day. It carries no credit over from day to day. At the end of the day anything you fail to use in the day is wiped out and the following day you receive another £86,400.

What would you do?

It goes without saying that you would draw out every penny and use it. Only a fool would throw away such a resource. Surprisingly, every one of us has such a bank. Its name is ‘time’.

Christmas Spending - up up up!

During the Christmas season, vast amounts of money pass through the high street banks. This world is all about money. Making it, keeping it and spending it. And in order to get it, you usually have to work.

Shortly before His sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection, the Lord Jesus talked to His disciples about trading in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 25.14-30). He compared Himself to a businessman who gave varying amounts of money to people to look after while He was away. He wanted them to use the money to do business i.e. to trade. The word trade actually means to 'work or toil'. The Lord gave His servants resources to work with and He expected a 100% growth rate! The servant given five talents made five more, and the servant given two talents made two more. The Lord commended them for their faithfulness and gave them proportionate responsibility in His heavenly kingdom.

But there was a third servant who the Lord draws our attention to. He dug a hole and put his talent into the ground and on the Lord's return, presented it back to Him, untouched. His excuse was that the Lord was hard, austere and oppressive. That lazy servant got a stern rebuke and was cast out into outer darkness. At the very least he should have put the money in the bank to gain interest, let alone worked with it to make it multiply to full advantage. So, the Lord took the money given to the lazy servant and gave it instead, to the servant who had worked the hardest. He knew that it would then be used to full effect.

Serving the Lord begins when a person gets saved, when a person is born again and is filled with His Spirit (Eph. 1.13). An account is instantly opened in the ‘Bank of Heaven’ and the Christian starts the work of investing in heaven’s currency. It is hard work and the rewards are not measured in the currency of this world - money and material things. Instead the Lord Jesus expects us to make full use of the gifts and resources He gives us to show to others His love, like He showed God's love to us. That involves getting to know God as your Father, and behaving in this world like the Lord Jesus did. He did not seek high status even though He is the King of Kings (Rev. 19.6). Instead, in humility and godly fear, He served others, ministering to their needs and in purity of thought and action, demonstrating the principles of God's heavenly Kingdom. It is not possible to be made redundant from that job, or to be underpaid. And the rewards far surpass anything that can be accumulated in this world and are eternal (not left behind at the gates of death as the treasures of this world are). God promises to call all those who are born again His Sons (Rom. 8.15), not just his servants. He gives them eternal life immediately and promises the splendour of heaven in the future. In addition He rewards their faithful service with 'crowns of righteousness' (2 Tim. 4.8) and positions of authority in His future worldwide administration.  It is not possible to serve two masters; it is either the true God or the god of this world i.e. the devil (Matthew 6.24). 

Why not make 2016 the time when you choose to serve the Lord and invest in wealth that lasts forever? 

Written for FTMP by a guest blogger. 

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