P.E. in heaven!

As we were driving along in the car the other day, Peter (my 8 year old) out of the blue declared, "I can't wait to get to heaven 'cause we won't have to do any schoolwork." (We had just spent about an hour struggling with spelling homework!) He went on, "But don't even talk to me about P.E.! P.E. is going to be amazing in heaven!" Can you guess what he tells me everyday was his favorite part of the day?! Yep, we know heaven is going to be incredible and so it must include lots of P.E.!

When we daily ponder heaven, it puts everything else in our lives in perspective. When Peter shared this, I was reminded of an illustration I heard several years ago. The great old preacher, John Newton wrote: "Suppose a man was going to New York to take possession of a large estate, and his [carriage] should break down a mile before he got to the city, which obliged him to walk the rest of the way. What a fool we would think him if we saw him ringing his hands and blubbering out all the remaining mile, 'My carriage is broken! My carriage is broken!'"

And yet how often is this my foolish attitude! I have the infinite joys of heaven just before me, and I am blubbering "My energy is broken! or My parenting is broken! or My finances are broken!..." I have God's unbreakable Word that tells me He loves me and cares for me and guides me and strengthens me and renews me, but I am blubbering about my broken carriage--and the city is only a few minutes away! John Piper put it this way: "Picture this life as a journey on your way to receive a spectacular inheritance. It will protect you from idolatry and make all your burdens lighter, and quell all your murmurings."

Lord, forgive all my murmurings, my love of things and comfort and ease, my failure to be truly and continually and overwhelmingly thankful for the abundant life You graciously offer us now and the infinite and eternal joys of heaven in the future. It's less than a mile to the city...and all that fabulous P.E.! To God be all the glory!

When God says no

Sometimes God answers no to our most fervent requests. Physical healing, restoration of a relationship, fulfillment of long cherished dreams or desires, victory or success in a sporting event or school subject or business opportunity. We all love to joyfully share the affirmative answers to prayer--that is when God answers them the way we want them answered--and we are quick to give Him all the praise and glory.

But how about when His answer is no? Are we quick to thank Him and tell others about how great and sovereign and omnipotent He is?

I don't even need to answer that--at least when it comes to yours truly.

But God's no answers are just as sovereign and gracious and worthy of our faith and gratitude. Why? Because He is God, that's why. Because even when I can't see it or understand it, He sees fully and knows absolutely everything, and He knows what is best, pleasing and perfect. Because He loves us more than we could ever even begin to imagine, and so, like a loving parent, He always always always wants the very best for us. Because His Word promises us over and over again that He works all things together for good and that all His plans for us are good, and He loves us with an everlasting love.

Yet how quickly we forget! I am so often like a spoiled child with the "what have You done for me lately?" attitude. I can't see past my own nose to the bigger, beautiful picture He has spread out in front of me. How often I settle for infinitely less than He longs to give me, because I am so insistent that my way is the best way.

No, I will never understand horrific earthquakes and genocide and cancer. But I just have to trust that my Savior does, and what a glorious day that will be when He reveals His mysterious purposes behind all of the pain and suffering and we will truly understand for the first time.

But in the meantime, I choose to thank Him for His "no's," even when I don't always feel like it. I do it in faith and trust based on my knowledge of my Savior. I do it, because, just as I read last night in Streams in the Desert, "This thing is from Me." (I Kings 12:24). "My child, I have a message for you today; let me whisper it in your ear, that it may gild with glory any storm clouds which may arise, and smooth the rough places upon which you may have to tread. It is short, only five words, but let them sink into your inmost soul; use them as a pillow upon which to rest your weary head. 'This thing is from Me.'"

Nothing happens to any of us unless and until it passes through our loving, all knowing Heavenly Father. That's all I need to know--this thing is from Him so I can trust that somehow, someway it will be to my greater good and His greater glory.

I just read today's Caring Bridge entry from the husband of a mom about my age who is dying of cancer. Hospice has been called in, and her time on this earth is short. He writes: "It is a peaceful time, and we have been spending our time at home with footrubs, singing from various friends and family members, listening to praise hymns and Chris Rice CD's and trying to walk with the Lord each day that He provides us. He has told us not to worry about tomorrow; He will guide us with His perfect guidance and He in fact is holding our right hand as we go on this journey through life. We know that He leads us to Glory in eternity, and there is nothing that can separate us from His presence...[He thanks everyone for all their prayers and kindness] They are all being answered. We are prepared for each new day and what it is that God has in store for us. Rain, sleet, snow or shine, each day is a blessing because He knows His plan for our lives and it is GOOD!"

AMEN! So when God anwers no, it is really always yes in His perfect plan for each of our days. All our waiting on colleges with answers we don't necessarily like? It's yes in Him! How I love what he wrote--"each day is a blessing because He knows His plan for our lives and it is GOOD!" This from a loving husband watching His beloved wife die from cancer.

So thank You Lord for the yeses and the no's and everything in between! Help us all live our lives every single day with gratitude and joy and peace and trust that You are there, in perfect control, and "this thing is from" You--our loving, omnipotent Papa. To You be all the glory!

Waiting!

Waiting. Who likes to wait? No one (and certainly not me!). At Christmas this year, our annual letter was all about waiting, and how God works and moves and uses our waiting periods. It seemed like nearly every person involved in the Christmas story was waiting--from Mary and Joseph to the shepherds to the wise men to Simeon and Anna to the angels. And aren't we all called to wait?

But the last few days, God has been teaching us a bit more about waiting (and about my own sinfulness!). This is one of those blogs I hope and assume no one will read, but here goes! We have been waiting to hear if our son would get into a particular college yesterday (Jan. 31st). He got all the necessary paperwork in by the early november deadline so it's been almost 3 months of waiting since that time. The date to let everyone know online would be Jan. 31st.

So, starting shortly after midnight, we kept checking the website to see the results. Early the next morning, we kept checking. Every single one of his friends, except one, had heard by that morning (and most with good results). We kept checking, but the website continued to indicate that it was not yet available. Apparently, the website had some kind of malfunction and a small number of students could not yet get their results. So we waited and kept checking.

By the evening, the website malfunction had been cleared up, but there were still 150 students who had still not been reviewed yet. They would be reviewing these last students and let us know in the next couple of days. So we continued to wait.

So here's the confession part: I handled it pretty well until late yesterday afternoon. Then I started to feel pretty frustrated and discouraged, thinking, "why does this kind of thing always seem to happen to us?" "We have waited so long and I'm sick to death of waiting and just want to know something!" I was just generally in a grumpy, self-pitying mood and even got irritated with our dog for taking too long sniffing every blessed tree on our walk!

Of course, I am so thankful that My Lord does not let us stew in our sin and sinful attitudes. As I sat in the bathtub last night, He suddenly brought vividly to my mind the tragic sight of that poor father sharing brokenly about his daughter who had not yet been found in the rubble of Haiti. She had gone with a mission group from her school, and they had initially been told she had been found and had survived. They joyfully flew down to Florida to go meet her, but when they arrived, they were told the first report was incorrect, and they have still not found her. So they wait tearfully.

O Lord Jesus, I wept, forgive me selfishness and shallowness and sinful attitude. Boy, I really flunked that test of waiting. How quickly self-pity and pride and selfishness can swallow us whole if we are not on our guard. What a terrible, sickening sight it is to see how full of sin this heart can be.

But as I've shared so many times before, like John Newton, I cry out: how great a sinner I am and how great a Savior I have! What kind of God would take a spoiled, self-preoccupied, prideful sinner like me and offer complete and total forgiveness and a new start? As the song says, "there is no God like our God!" Those nails should have been mine. That beating belonged to me. That humiliating nakedness and desperate thirst deserved to have been mine. That betrayal and rejection--all mine and not the perfect sinless Creator of the galaxies.

But "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor. 5:21 Because of my Savior, I can crawl up into the lap of my Abba, my Daddy, and tell him I'm so sorry and know that He loves me totally and forgives me completely. And He truly does make all things new! A God of 2nd and 3rd and 4th chances--unbelievable... but true! We can never fall so greatly or fail so miserably that His grace and love and mercy are not deeper and greater still.

So we are still waiting, but now we wait with joy and peace and patience. Because we are waiting with our Heavenly Father who has forgiven us and redeemed us and filled us. And after all, He's in charge of it all, from the tiniest microscopic cell to the largest galaxy--so what do we have to fear wherever we are waiting? No medical prognosis or relationship struggle or financial strain or seemingly hopeless situation is beyond His promise to use "all things" for His glory and our greater good. And so we wait and declare joyfully, to God be all the glory!

No compromise, no attention

We are reviewing the book of Daniel one last time in Bible study before we start 1 Peter, so I have to go back to the well one more time and look at the convicting example of this godly man. In looking at Daniel 6, I was struck by 2 things I had not noticed before (and how many times have I read this chapter?! God's Word is so amazing and always new and fresh!). Daniel has learned of the decree that anyone who worships any god or man other than the king "for the next 30 days" will be thrown into the lions' den.

The decree only lasted for 30 days! I've never seen that before! In other words, all Daniel had to do was to lay low for 30 days, and then he could worship God without fear of recrimination! Would I have been tempted to compromise? "Well, just for the next month I'll pray silently in my heart. God will understand. After all, He needs me here as His representative to these hopeless pagans." Surely Daniel could have justified some sort of compromise for that short period of time--but he didn't. Instead, he went to his room with the windows opened wide for all to see, got down on his knees, and prayed 3 times a day, just as he had always done. (v.10) No whiff of compromise whatsoever! And don't forget this was a very busy and important man who was one of 3 administrators of the entire kingdom. Surely he had little or no free time available.

What does it take for me to compromise? A funny look, a snide comment, a desire not to offend or to please? Or how often have I excused missing my quiet times because of my busy schedule? I think I'll get back going when things has "calmed down" (which, of course, they never do) or I have more time or I feel better... Daniel's example challenges me that there truly are no excuses for being not being faithful to God. It's time to step up and step out in faith and trust that God will use whatever happens to our greater good and His greater glory. And no matter how busy the day, I must daily choose to put Him first and trust He'll enable me to get all those other responsibilities finished as well.

But the second thing I noticed in reading chapter 6 were the snide comments of the jealous men who went to the king to tattle on Daniel. "...Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day." v.13 I had to laugh at the attempt to put Daniel down with the reference "one of the exiles from Judah." By this point in the story, Daniel is in his 80's and has lived in Babylon for close to 70 years, and he has served as a top adviser to a number of kings of both Babylon and the Medes and Persians. Somehow, I don't think his status as a former exile would be the first thing that people would think of when it came to this distinguished old man. Yet they bring it back up in order to put him down and remind the king that he was not "one of us."

Moreover, you have to love the fact that they characterize him as paying "no attention" to the king or his decree! In other words, this guy is a fanatic, a rebel, a troublemaker. He is not a team player! He has some misguided notion that his God is far more important than the king or the king's (ridiculous) decrees. You get the feeling that nothing in this world could tempt or deter this man of God from loving, obeying and worshipping His Lord.

Boy, I want to be more like that! How often the siren song of the world's allures draw me in and away from the Lord I love. O, I "pay attention" to what the world is saying and doing and in the process, I miss the blessings God longs to give me if my focus was fixed upon Him. It really does come down to that: fix your eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2). When we pay attention to something, we focus upon it, we look intently upon it. So I want my attention and my focus on Christ and not the world. It's okay to look but just not to focus. It is the gaze, not the look, that sanctifies.

Help me Lord to daily fix my eyes upon You and to pay no attention to that which seeks me to draw my affections away from You. We are called to be in the world and to be salt and light in that world, but even in the midst of the world (just as Daniel in the very heart of that pagan empire) we keep our focus, our gaze upon Christ. To God be the glory!

p.s. The snow is so beautiful today! Wow, what a wonderful transformed white landscape outside my door! What kind of a Creator would think of snow?! If the earth needed rain, He could have just created rain, but instead He created the unique, miraculous beauty of each snowflake! He is a Creator who did not just consider function but extraordinary beauty and wonder! There truly is no God like our God!

Sin overpromises and underdelivers

"Sin overpromises and underdelievers everytime." I just heard this brief snippet on the radio today, and it really struck me how absolutely true that is. On the front end, sin always overpromises: happiness, success, satisfaction, reward--all with minimal cost and little or no downside. We have an enemy whose daily delight is to deceive and destroy. "No one will ever know." "You deserve this." "Just this once." "It's time you finally enjoyed a little happiness." "This won't hurt anyone else." "Everybody else is doing it (or enjoying it or possesses it).

And then every single time, that sin gives birth to pain and disappointment and regret. When we choose to sin, we choose to suffer, for our enemy will always always always underdeliver. I cannot help but see the various sexual scandals swirling around right now, and can just about guarantee that those individuals never imagined the heartache and humiliation and betrayal their actions would eventually reap.

But lest I grow self-righteous, there but by the grace of God go I. The Lord knows the selfishness and pride and envy and ugliness that festers in my own soul. When I pass along that morsel of gossip or talk harshly to my husband or indulge my desires at the expense of someone else, I am giving in to sin just as putrid in the eyes of a holy God as that of the most hardened criminal. "For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me...Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!.." Rom. 7:18-20,24.

What excuse do I have for having a complaining, ungrateful, self-pitying heart when I have been not only forgiven so much, but enabled to live a life of righteousness through Christ?! I who deserve condemnation and instead receive mercy and commendation through the righteousness of Christ? I who am so unworthy have been declared more than worthy all because of my Savior?

I cannot help but reminded of Charles Colson's account of visiting a Brazilian prison several years ago that had been handed over to 2 Christian layman who planned to run it by Christian principles. The prison has only 2 full time staff and all the rest of the work is done by the inmates. Each prisoner must either join the chapel program or take a course in character development. Here are Colson's words:

"When I visited the prison I found the inmates smiling--particularly the murderer who held the keys and opened the gates to let me in. Wherever I walked, I saw men at peace. I saw clean living areas. I saw people working industriously. The walls were decorated with biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs. The prison has an astonishing record. The recidivism rate is 4 percent, compared to 75 percent in the rest of Brazil and the U.S. How is that possible? I saw it with my own eyes. When my inmate guide escorted me to the notorious punishment cell once used for torture, he told me that today it houses only a single inmate. We walked down a long cell block, a long corridor of steel doors, and came to the end and he peeked in. He paused. 'Yes, he's in there,' he said. Then he turned to me and asked, 'Are you sure you want to go in, Mr. Colson?'

'Of course,' I replied impatiently. 'I've been in punishment cells in 600 prisons all over the world.' Slowly the inmate swung open the door and I saw the prisoner in the punishment cell. I walked in and turned to the right and there on the wall, beautifully carved by the inmates, was a crucifix. The prisoner Jesus was hanging on the cross. 'He,' said the inmate, 'is doing time for all the rest of us.'"

Thank You Jesus for doing my time and taking my sin and my punishment. O might I live a life of gratitude and grace in response to what You have done and are doing. You are in that cell in Brazil and in those flattened buildings in Haiti. You are doing time in slums and palaces. Wherever there is sin and hopelessness and despair and death and defeat, You are there doing time, offering hope and redemption and renewal. In the darkest corners of the earth and the darkest recesses of my heart, You are there, ready to turn wretchedness into righteousness. What more can this overwhelmed and grateful heart declare than "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Sin might overpromise and underdeliver but our Savior does abundantly more than all we could ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20) Lord, to You be all the glory!!

Go your way till the end!

This past week we are looking at Daniel 12 in Bible study. Now, I confess that I have struggled a bit with the last couple of chapters of Daniel. I loved the first 6 chapters, but, boy, the 2nd half of Daniel is tough sledding. I know every word in God's love letter to us is inspired, eternal, true, enlightening, and vitally important. But, these dreams and visions and beasts and mysterious conflicts seem so confusing and convoluted and, frankly, far removed from my everyday life. Sorry, Lord, I know I am supposed to love end times prophecy, but You know my fickle heart anyway so I may as well admit the truth!

But chapter 12 has turned it all around for me (though I still don't understand it too well!). Our hero Daniel, faithful in a faithless, pagan culture, has been given these myriad visions, and finally in 12:8 he responds to "the man clothed in linen" (who I assume is the pre-incarnate Christ) "I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, 'My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?'" The Lord responds, "Go your way, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end." (v.9) In other words, "Don't worry about it, Daniel. You don't understand and you're not going to understand any time soon, but just keep on keeping on. Understanding is not a prerequisite to faithfully staying the course."

And then, I read the last verse in Daniel, and it's got to be my favorite! The Lord urges Daniel "As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance."

Did you catch it? "Go your way till the end." That could be Daniel's theme song! Way back in chapter 1, we saw Daniel resolving not to defile himself with the king's food and wine (1:8) and at the end of the chapter, we learned, "Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus." In chapter 6 (Daniel in the lion's den), we see Daniel defying the royal edict to only worship the king. "Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had before." (6:10) Day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade, this faithful man has worshipped, obeyed, and served His Lord. The threat of hungry lions does not deter him. The tempting pleasures and delights of a decadent pagan culture cannot deter him. The intrigue of new kings and assassinations and power struggles cannot deter him. Extraordinary busyness when he is the king's adviser cannot deter him. Old age and loneliness and being pushed to the side cannot deter him. He just keeps praying, keeps obeying, keeps loving His God whether he understands what God is doing or not.

And so, this faithful old man, who has been praying 3 times a day and serving His Lord continually for so many years in such a barren and thankless place, refuses to quit no matter how hard the going gets, no matter how dark and confusing the future appears to be. "As for you, go your way till the end." That is exactly what Daniel has done all his life and will do to the end. Perseverance of the saints. I love the definition of this: falling down and getting up. Falling down and getting up. Falling down and getting up--all the way to heaven.

Winston Churchill, in one of his most famous speeches delivered during the darkest days of World War II, expressed this in a way I'll never forget. He stood to address a graduating class and simply but urgently declared: "Never give up. Never give up. Never, never, never give up."

We would do well to take his words to heart as Christians. We may not understand what God is doing. We may wonder why truth is "forever on the scaffold" and evil forever on the throne. We may grow weary in the battles of life. We may feel like the heavy burdens placed upon us are simply too much. But Daniel would urge us to keep going your way till the end. From the perspective he has now, he would encourage us that all the struggle and confusion and difficulty will someday be more than worth it. This is nothing profound, but sometimes I just need to be reminded not to quit. Not to give up or give in or give out. If Daniel can make it all the way to the end, then so can we. We have the same almighty God who enables us and sustains us. He has promised--and we can count on it. All the way to the end.

Rags for Righteouness

From Walter Wangerin, Jr. (one of my favorite authors), Ragman and Other Cries of Faith (I can't figure out how to underline that on my computer!):

Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear, tenor voice: 'rags!' Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music.

'Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!'

Now, this is a wonder,' I thought to myself, for the man stood 6 foot 4, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?

Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.

The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.

'Give me your rag,' he said gently, 'and I'll give you another.'

He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. she blinked from the gift to the giver.

Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had don, his shoulders shaking. yet she was left without a tear.

'this is a wonder,' I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.

'Rags! Rags! New rags for old!'

In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.

Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.

'Give me your rag,' he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, 'and I'll give you mine.'

The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran darker, more substantial blood--his own.

'Rags! Rags! I take old rags!' cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.

The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more in a hurry.

'Are you going to work?' he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head. The Ragman pressed him: Do you have a job?

'Are you crazy?' sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket--flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.

'So,' said the Ragman. 'Give me your jacket, and I'll give you mine.'

Such quiet authority in his voice!

The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman--and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman's arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.

'Go to work,' he said.

After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.

And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though eh was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old, and sick, yet he want at terrible speed. On spider's legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.

I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I needed to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.

The little old Ragman--he came to a landfill. He came to the garbage pits. And then I wanted to help him in what he did, but I hung back, hiding. he climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he sighed. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.

Oh, how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope--because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I sobbed myself to sleep.

I did not know--how could I know?--that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night too.

But then on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence.

Light--pure, hard, demanding light--slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the last and first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow nor of age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.

Well, then I lowered my head and trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off all my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice: 'Dress me.'

He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!"

May we never get over the wonder of what Christ did for us! What a picture of our Savior taking our filthy rags of pride and selfishness and greed and gossip and hatred and envy and giving us His robes of shining perfect righteousness! Again, I think back to that first verse in 2 Peter 1: 1b "To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours." We did nothing to earn it. We could never ever earn it or deserve it in any way whatsoever. But He who had no sin, out of His love for each of us, gave us His righteousness freely so we might have eternal life.

And not only do we have His righteousness, but we have the Holy Spirit that enables us to live the supernatural abundant life. Just as the Ragman bid the healed one-armed man, "Go to work," so He bids us to do likewise. He lives within us and enables us to love when we don't feel like it or enjoy peace in the midst of strife and stress or choose joy when circumstances are hard or forgive when we have been wronged or trust when we want to worry. We can "go to work" because He is doing the work through us, if we will choose to daily yield in obedience to Him.

Lord, thank You for the priceless gift of Your righteousness. Thank You for Your Holy Spirit that enables me to live the abundant life You long for me to experience. Thank You for your forgiveness and mercy when I fall so short again and again. And thank You for the grace that allows me to get up and try again. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ! To You alone be all the glory!