The Value of Human Life

Please listen, at least for a few minutes.

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Forfeiting Grace

"Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." Jonah 2:8

One idol I cling to is the opinion of others. My concern for the view others have of me causes me to forfeit God's grace of accepting me as His beloved child just the way I am.

It is much better to remember John 1:16 - "From the fullness of His grace we have all received one blessing after another."

God's grace is free and full. It is worth clinging to.

Humility

"...for I am gentle and humble in heart..." Matthew 11:29

In John 1 John the Baptist says that he is unworthy to loosen the thongs of Jesus' sandals. The NIV note says that although disciples did many tasks for their teacher, the loosening of sandal thongs was expressly excluded. This was a job only for a slave. I wondered about Jesus washing the disciples feet in John 13. Did he loosen the thongs of their sandals? And what could be more lowly than washing their feet? Grandma says that most people who reject Christ do so because of pride. And I think it is our pride that keeps us from depending on the Holy Spirit each day to help us. Perhaps learning to be humble is our most difficult lesson.

New Year Resolutions

My verse for this year is Psalm 119:37: Turn my eyes away from worthless things and revive me in Your ways.

Don't waste time on worthless things. Proverbs says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Guard your heart from worthless activities. Everything has a consequence.

And don't put worthless things into your body. We have one body to last a lifetime and we should take care of it.

I also want to focus on God's grace. I cannot earn His favor - He gives it freely.

Grace changes everything. Rely on God's goodness and grace. "By grace are you saved, through faith. It is a gift of God, not of works, so that no man can boast."

Love,
Mom

Proverbs 3:13-18

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,
the man who gains understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver
and yields better returns than gold.
She is more precious than rubies;
nothing you desire can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.
Her ways are pleasant ways
and all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life to those who embrace her;
those who lay hold of her will be blessed.

Drifting

One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience, and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.--DA Carson

Seven deadly sins according to Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi:

• Wealth without Work
• Pleasure without Conscience
• Science without Humanity
• Knowledge without Character
• Politics without Principle
• Commerce without Morality
• Worship without Sacrifice