The Best Deal Ever Offered

March 26, 2013

“God put the wrong on him who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God.”   (2 Corinthians 5:21, the Message)

So what is the biggest weekend in the Church year all about?  What does it mean to you and me personally?  The Apostle Paul put it in a nutshell. What it amounts to is the best deal ever offered.

Because of what happened on Good Friday God has offered to put all of our wrong on Jesus and in exchange put all that is right with Jesus on you and me.  That’s the best offer we ever had.  All we have to do to close on the offer is believe it!

In 1949 while I was doing social work in Pittsburgh, late one night a man asked if he could speak with me.  As we talked in the darkness outside a closed recreation center he told me he was wounded in the great Battle of the Bulge toward the end of World War II.  While still under fire he saw a chaplain crawling from one wounded man to another.  This chaplain apparently had something very important he said to those men.  He hoped the chaplain would make it to him but after taking several hits the chaplain didn’t move anymore.

He said he had been wondering for several years what it was the chaplain had to say to those men.  He said after watching me for a couple of month he told his wife he believed I could tell him what that chaplain was telling those wounded men.  I told him about the greatest deal ever offered.

This Easter do you have a message for dying people?  Do you have a message for people who are going to live?

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Posted by Dick Woodward

A Model Prayer

March 25, 2012

“But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Matthew 14:30)

The Apostle Peter is the only man besides Jesus Christ who ever walked on water.  Yet millions of us only remember that he took his eyes off the Lord and would have drowned if the Lord had not saved him.

We read that his magnificent faith was flawed.  He saw the wind.  Since we cannot see wind this actually means when he saw what the wind was doing, he lost sight of what Jesus was doing and he was afraid.  The remarkable thing here is that when he kept his eyes on Jesus he walked on water!

It was not until he was beginning to sink that he prayed this prayer that is a model prayer for us all.  Jesus taught that our prayers should not be long and we should never think we will generate grace with God by our much speaking.  If Peter had prayed a longer prayer, the words beyond the third would have been glub, glub glub! When Jesus caught Peter by the hand He gave him the nickname “Little faith” and I believe our Lord was smiling when He did. He literally asked Peter “Why did you think twice?”

Rick Warren took his entire congregation of twenty thousand people through the eight steps of what is called “Celebrate Recovery.”  When asked why, his response was: “Because we are all in recovery.  What do you think the word ‘salvation’ means?” When we truly understand the meaning of this word “salvation” we will frequently pray this model prayer.

Pray this three word prayer of Peter often and don’t think twice.  Don’t be a “Little Faith.”

Lord, save me!

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Posted by Dick Woodward

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