Hi, friends in exile, got a minute?
Some years ago, World magazine recounted a story told by the pastor of an English church. The pastor was surprised to see two men kneeling together at the altar: one an ex-convict and the other the judge who had sent him to prison for seven years.
Later, the judge asked the pastor if he had seen who was kneeling to pray beside him. The pastor said yes. Then the judge said, “What a miracle of grace!” The pastor agreed and referred to the criminal’s conversion. The judge replied, “But I was not referring to him; I was thinking of myself…. That man knew how much he needed Christ to save him from his sins. But look at me. I was taught from childhood to live as a gentleman, to keep my word, to say my prayers, to go to church…, and eventually became a judge. Pastor, nothing but the grace of God could have caused me to admit that I was a sinner on a level with that convict….”[1]
I quote, “Religion is grace; ethics is gratitude.”[2] We all need what Jesus alone can do in our lives.
Smiley Mudd
[1] From In Other Words, World, 3/1/97, p. 26.
[2] Douglas Stuart and Gordon Fee, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Fourth Edition (Zondervan, 1981, 1993, 2003, 2014).