<p><span class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold">For Reading and Meditation:</span><br><span class="italic">     <span class="scriptRef" ref="2co+5:11-21">2 Corinthians 5:11-21</span></span></p><p>Now that we have looked at the aspects of our faith which make it unique among all world religions, we must face some other important issues before finally drawing to a close. Being Christians does not mean we therefore have to believe that all other religions are completely wrong. As C. S. Lewis pointed out: "If you are an atheist you have to believe that the main point in all religions is simply one huge mistake. But if you are a Christian you are free to think that all religions, even the queerest of them, contain at least some hint of truth. Being a Christian, however, does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic there is only one right answer to a sum and all other answers are wrong. But some wrong answers are much nearer to being right than others." While never budging from what we believe, we must show a loving disposition toward those of other faiths. A group of adherents to the Muslim faith gathered outside a church in one of Britain's northern cities shouting: "Jesus, Yes; the Church, No." Their complaint was based on the fact that the minister and people of that particular church had pushed thousands of leaflets through local mailboxes stating: "Islam is a devilish religion; only the Christian religion is of God." We can be passionate in our faith without being discourteous to people. We may disagree with what someone believes, but we must disagree agreeably. As one old preacher quaintly put it: "To win some we must be winsome."</p><p class="center-it italic bold mlr40 mtb20">Father, I see from the text before me today that You want me to implore people to come to You, not intimidate them. Make me a firm but loving witness - one who can disagree without being disagreeable. In Christ's Name I ask it. Amen.</p><div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="1co+9:19-27">1 Corinthians 9:19-27</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="ro+10:1">Romans 10:1</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="mt+10:16">Matthew 10:16</span></li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>What was Paul's approach to people?</li><li>What approach were the disciples to take?</li></ul></div></div>

Let a little light into your soul every day with this wonderful devotional from English pastor Selwyn Hughes.

Every Day Light with Selwyn Hughes

"We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God." (v. 20)

<p><span class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold">For Reading and Meditation:</span><br><span class="italic">     <span class="scriptRef" ref="ro+3:21-31">Romans 3:21-31</span></span></p><p>Herbert Spencer, whom we quoted earlier, wrote: "The task of religion is at-one-ment: atonement. If it fails to do this it fails at the vital point." Its ritual may be beautiful, its sanctions may be ancient, its precepts may be good, but if it fails to bring men and women into correspondence with God it fails vitally and irretrievably. All else is useless, for if the problem of evil is ignored or passed over, we are like the person who dreams about and plans next year's happiness while an incurable disease is eating at his vitals. The wonderful distinctive of Christianity is this - Jesus Christ has done something about the problem of being out of correspondence with God. He puts the hand of a penitent sinner into the hand of a pardoning God. Because of the nature of the problem - the problem of evil - no other solution is possible. Salvation is a task which only God could engineer. As one theologian puts it: "It is a task worthy of God." The ancient Greek playwrights used to warn their students that when writing a tragedy they should not bring a god onto the stage unless there was an entanglement worthy of a god. The presence of evil in this world, I suggest, presents an entanglement worthy of God. But it is no mere stage affair. It is a tragic fact. To deliver men and women from evil was a problem that challenged God's power and made the deepest claim upon His love. The cross is the answer. If we don't take God's way of salvation, then nothing else will do. </p><p class="center-it italic bold mlr40 mtb20">Father, I rejoice that You have brought me to Your way -t he only way. Help the millions who strive to earn their salvation see that the penalty for sin has been fully paid. And all they have to do is humbly receive. In Jesus' Name I pray. Amen.</p><div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="1jo+2:1-2">1 John 2:1-2</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="1jo+4:10">1 John 4:10</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="2co+5:11-19">2 Corinthians 5:11-19</span></li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>What is at the heart of atonement?</li><li>What did John assure the believers?</li></ul></div></div>

"God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood." (v. 25) 

<p><span class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold">For Reading and Meditation:</span><br><span class="italic">     <span class="scriptRef" ref="joh+8:31-47">John 8:31-47</span></span></p><p>Jesus publicly made the challenge: " Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?" Here we are face to face with a kind of person who had not been seen since Adam in his pre-fallen condition - a man without sin. The disciples had shared every kind of experience with Him that mortals can share, had seen Him at all hours of day and night, had seen Him tired, hungry and disappointed, scorned, abused and hunted to death, had ridden with Him on a wave of popularity and hidden with Him from inquisitive miracle-mongers, yet they certainly could find no fault in Him. It is quite possible to know too much about some people. A gardener who was employed by a minister was asked why he did not come to hear him preach. Half in jest but half in earnest he replied: "I know too much about him." But none of the disciples ever said that concerning Jesus. They saw no flaw in Him. Moreover, not only were His intimates unable to discover sin in Him; He had no awareness of it in Himself. He lived intimately with God His Father, but the holiness of God did not rebuke Him. It didn't because it couldn't. He was sinless, spotless, perfect. If it be granted that Jesus was a good man, and if it be granted that a good man is ready always to tell the truth, are we not constrained by His own words to believe that He was something more than a good man? He is much much more than a good man; He is the God-Man. </p><p class="center-it italic bold mlr40 mtb20">O Jesus, my Savior and my God, when I think of how You, the sinless One, took on Yourself my sins and bore them all away, I feel it must be too good to be true. But yet I know it is too good not to be true. Thank You, my Father. In Jesus' Name. Amen.</p><div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="2co+5:1-21">2 Corinthians 5:1-21</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="isa+53:9">Isaiah 53:9</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="heb+4:15">Hebrews 4:15</span></li><li><span class="scriptRef" ref="1pe+1:18-20">1 Peter 1:18-20</span></li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>What did the centurion declare?</li><li>How did Peter describe Christ's sinlessness?</li></ul></div></div>

"Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?" (v. 46) 

<font size="2" face="Verdana">
<p align="justify">
<i>If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. But all things are of God. (2 Corinthians 5:17,18 ASV)</i></p>

<p align="justify">The all-inclusive rule of the
new creation is that "all things are of (out from)
God." Concerning this fact the Apostle Paul uses the word
"but" – "<em>But</em> all things are of God"
– as though he would anticipate, intercept, or arrest an impulse
to rush away and attempt life or service upon an old creation
basis, or with old creation resource. The great question then is: What
does it mean that all things in this new creation are out from
God? What kind of a life will such a life be? To answer that
question adequately would be a very comprehensive task and the
most revolutionary thing conceivable. </p>

<p align="justify">To begin with, we should have to
be settled regarding the <i>difference </i>between the old and
the new creations, and then as to how far-reaching that
difference is. In addition, we should need to see that God has
put these two creations asunder, utterly and forever, and however
gracious and forbearing He may be with us in our ignorance and
slowness of apprehension, He never accepts the overlapping or
intertwining of the two. Then there would be the further need of
an inward, intelligent judgment and power by which we are made
aware of the Divine veto upon the one and energy toward the
other....</p>

<p align="justify">It is not what is done for God that will last, but what is
done by God. The measure of spiritual value is determined by the measure in
which God promotes it, not the measure of human activities
according to human judgments and energies in the name of God.  </p>



</font>

<p>This devotional contains short daily portions from a selection of Mr. Austin-Sparks' messages. In his own words, “Perhaps this is just like a window opened into heaven. If you get the right window you can see quite a lot. You can see great things and you can see far things. But the best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through it you are seeing one thing - how superior is Jesus Christ to all else, and how superior is the dispensation into which we have come, and how superior are all the resources at our disposal to all that ever was before!” </p><p>Open Windows messages have been selected and compiled by Austin-Sparks.Net from the works of T. Austin-Sparks. In some cases they appear in abridged form. The introductory verse and its associated Bible version have been selected by the editor and did not always appear within the original message.</p>

Open Windows

A New Creation

<font size="2" face="Verdana">
<p align="justify">
<i>I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel. 
(Galatians 2:2 NIV)</i></p>










<p align="justify">How important it is that every fresh undertaking in work for God should come 
by revelation to those chosen for it. Because God has so spoken and given 
revelation to some chosen instrument and a truly spiritual work has been done, 
others have taken it as a model and have sought to imitate it in other places. 
The result has been, and is, that they are called upon to take responsibility 
for it – find the resources of workers, funds and general support. This, in turn, 
issues in many sad and pathetic, if not evil and worldly, methods and means 
being employed, and those concerned find themselves in a false position. 
Conception, not imitation, is the Divine law of reproduction. Anointing, not 
human selection, is the Divine law of succession. The fact is that the work of 
God has become a sphere for so many<em> natural</em> elements 
to find expression and gratification. Man<em> must</em> do 
something, see something, have something. Ambition, acquisition, achievement, 
etc., have found their way over to Christian enterprise, and so, very often (let 
us be quite frank) things have become 'ours' – '<em>our</em> work,' 
'<em>our</em> mission,' '<em>our</em> field,' 
'<em>our</em> clientele'; and 
jealousies, rivalries, bitterness and many other things of the flesh abound.</p>
<p align="justify">It is a very difficult thing, a crucifixion indeed, for the natural man to do 
nothing and have nothing, and especially to <em>know</em> nothing. 
But in the case of His most greatly used instruments, God has made this a very 
real part of their training and preparation. The utter emptying of all 
self-resource is the only way to have "<em>all</em> things 
of (out from) God" (2 Cor. 5:18). On this basis, even Christ elected to live. We 
need not remind you of Moses' "I am not eloquent" (Exo. 4:10), and Jeremiah's "I 
am a child" (Jer. 1:6), and Paul's "that we should not trust in ourselves" (2 
Cor. 1:9). These were of a school in which the great lesson of the difference 
between natural and spiritual was taught experimentally.</p>



</font>

What is Man? - Chapter 5

 Annointing not Imitation 

<p>God … has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. § God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.</p>

Daily Light on the Daily Path or Daily Light is a Christian daily devotional scripture reading published by Bagster & Sons about 1875. It has been reprinted continually since then. It consists of brief groupings of scripture passages which speak to prominent Biblical themes—two themes (morning and evening) for each day of the year. It appends no commentary, but simply allows scripture to speak for itself.

Morning Daily Light

 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that  whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

<p><span class="bible-text "> <sup class="verse-num ">18 </sup>All this is from God,   who reconciled us to himself through Christ   and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: </span></p>

All this is from God,<cr>1</cr>  who reconciled us to himself through Christ<cr>2</cr>  and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

2 Corinthians 5:18

 18 All this is from God,   who reconciled us to himself through Christ   and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

From Wikipedia: 

The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society). The NIV was published to meet the need for a modern translation done by Bible scholars using the earliest, highest quality manuscripts available. Of equal importance was that the Bible be expressed in broadly understood modern English.

The NIV is published by Zondervan in the United States and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. The NIV was updated in 1984 and 2011 and has become one of the most popular and best-selling modern translations.

OT: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia; additional sources;
NT: UBS Greek New Testament; Novum Testamentum Graece; additional sources;

New International Version

 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

<p><span class="bible-text ">All this is from God,   who reconciled us to himself through Christ   and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: </span></p>

 All this is from God,   who reconciled us to himself through Christ   and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

Bible Verse of the Day

October 12, 2020

2 Corinthians 5:18 NIV

Verse by Verse Bible Study

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