HOSEA 14:2
Forgive all our sins and
graciously receive us.

BLESSED REPENTANCE

“B ROKE” was the street name Grady answered to and those five letters were proudly emblazoned on his license plates. Though not intended in a spiritual sense, the moniker fit the middle-aged gambler, adulterer, and deceiver. He was broken, bankrupt, and far from God. However, all that changed one evening when he…

1 PETER 1:18–19
God paid a ransom to save you [with] the precious
blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.

PERFECT SACRIFICE

The $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, with great anticipation of the images it would send back to Earth of the far reaches of space. When astronomers viewed the first photographs from this expensive…

COLOSSIANS 4:6
Let your conversation be
gracious and attractive.

GRACE-GIVERS

E arly in Clair’s role as an executive editor, a serious typesetting error slipped by him and went into print. He was depressed about the mistake and even avoided his colleagues at coffee breaks for a couple days. But one afternoon, he looked up from his desk to see the president of the company…

MATTHEW 26:28
This is my blood, which confirms the covenant
between God and his people. It is poured out
as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many.

HUNGER FOR RECONCILIATION

T he film Places in the Heart tells the story of Edna Spalding, a mother of two whose husband, Royce, is accidentally killed by a boy named Wiley. Set in Texas in the…

PSALM 130:4
You offer forgiveness.

HE FORGIVES

M ark’s hand shook as he maneuvered his touchpad, scrolling through his online history. The page seemed endless. It contained several years’ worth of every date and time he’d logged in to an online gambling site. “God already helped me overcome my addiction,” Mark said, “and I know He’s forgiven me. But when I stumbled upon…

1 JOHN 1:9
If we confess our sins to him,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.

RETURNING ROCKS

K arina and her family visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which spans two southern states in the United States. In a letter to the park’s rangers, she expressed her particular enjoyment of Tom Branch Falls. She loved it so much, she…

LUKE 23:34
Father, forgive them, for they
don’t know what they are doing.

SECRET HISTORY

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” Longfellow’s words are an important reminder that every person has a context—a story. There were events that contributed…

2 CORINTHIANS 5:17
Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new
person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

A NEW LIFE

As the at-risk teenagers took their seats in the youth room, William bowed his head, breathed a silent prayer, then spoke. “Some people don’t let me forget I’ve been in jail,” he said. “Sometimes, I’m the…

EPHESIANS 1:11
We are united with Christ . . .
for he chose us.

CHOSEN, LOVED, AND VALUED

In the 1981 film Chariots of Fire (recounting the 1924 Olympics competition between two British athletes, Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams), Liddell explains why he runs: “When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” Abrahams (who faced lifelong ridicule as a Jewish immigrant) gives a very different…

1 CORINTHIANS 1:18
The message of the cross . . .
is the very power of God.

HIDDEN TREASURE

A fter Hurricane Hugo ripped through Charleston, South Carolina, in 1989, construction workers found hidden treasure. While cleaning up the rubble in a decimated church, they saw the cross still standing. Unable to move it—even with a crane—they eventually discovered that pure gold filled the…

He Himself has said….So we may boldly say… —Hebrews 13:5-6

My assurance is to be built upon God’s assurance to me. God says, “I will never leave you,” so that then I “may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear’ ” (Hebrews 13:5-6). In other words, I will not be obsessed with apprehension. This does not mean…

Be strong and courageous. . . . Do not be afraid or terrified. Deuteronomy 31:6, 8

While most German church leaders gave in to Hitler, theologian and pastor Martin Niemöller was among the brave souls who resisted Nazi evil. I read a story describing how in the 1970s a group of older Germans stood outside a large hotel while what appeared…

If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven. 2 Kings 1:10

Andrew lives in a country that’s closed to the gospel. When I asked how he keeps his faith a secret, he said he doesn’t. He wears a button that advertises his church, and whenever he’s arrested he tells the police that “they need Jesus too.”…

Be strong and courageous. 1 Chronicles 28:20

Among a display of male statues (Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, and others) in London’s Parliament Square, stands a lone statue of a woman. The solitary woman is Millicent Fawcett, who fought for the right of women to vote. She’s immortalized in bronze—holding a banner displaying words she offered in a tribute to…