 A daily, Bible-based perspective of hope, encouragement and exhortation. Monday, November 10, 2008  How fast the leaves are falling and we will soon lose autumn scenes like this photo we took as we drove home yesterday.  Listen to us share this message on your audio player.Play background music Note: Brooksyne wrote the message today since it's based on a recent conversation she had with a new friend. "Such Wondrous Love!" "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us" (I John 3:16). "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" (I John 3:1). "This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins" (I John 4: 9,10).  I began visiting Mary Lou in February of this year. I took over light meals and spent time talking to her. She was in obvious physical discomfort, but I also sensed that there was a pressing spiritual need. I talked to her about Jesus and learned that she had become very angry with God 48 years earlier when she was just 12 years old. A jolting loss in her life had caused her anger to turn to bitterness over the years and Mary Lou turned her back on God. During my months of immobility due to my broken ankle I lost touch with Mary Lou, but I went to visit her a couple of weeks ago and saw an immediate change in her countenance. Bibles were sitting on her coffee table and she had a bookmarked copy of a Christian book she was reading. Our conversation flowed and she told me that she had asked God back into her life and asked Him to forgive her. He had restored her joy and peace. But the one thing she couldn't fully comprehend is how God could love her so much that He would give up His only Son to come to this world and die for her sins. Our warm conversation refreshed my spirit and reminded me that I often take God's redemptive and inexhaustible love for granted. I read the following message from an article by Regis Nicoll that especially deals with the subject of God's inexhaustible love: "At the heart of love is other-centeredness. From small acts of kindness to the laying down of life for another, love is lived out and authenticated through personal sacrifice. It is thus, in the Incarnation, that we find the highest expression of divine love. For there we find a God who refused to exempt Himself from the stinging injustice of a world gone wrong. For a brief moment in history, God set aside His omnipotence to be the Son of Man—the Advocate who presents God to man and man to God. Making Himself as one of us, God invaded the world, not as sovereign king but as a helpless infant. Associating with the downcast and outcast and ministering to the least and the last, He was shunned by His brothers, rejected by His countrymen, convicted on phony charges, tried by an illegitimate assembly, sentenced to an unjust death, spat upon, beaten, cursed, scourged, nailed to a tree, and, crying out in anguish, killed in infamy with common criminals as the hand of his Father was withheld. If anyone knows, from first-hand experience, about injustice it is He. Because He walked in our shoes, He is the only deity who can understand our pain, sympathize with our suffering, and be patient with our questioning hearts. The Incarnation is the shocking and irrefutable display of inexhaustible Love." Mary Lou and I sat together and discussed how impossible it is to fully understand this kind of inexhaustible love the Father has for His creation. In fact it made her weep as she realized how gracious God is to forgive her 48 years of walking away from this incredible love she had once known as a young girl. We can't fully understand it, but by faith we can accept it! I hope you have done so today. Be encouraged today, Stephen & Brooksyne Weber Daily Prayer: Father, we ask that out of Your glorious riches that You might strengthen your children with power through Your Spirit in their inner beings, so that Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith. We pray that they, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge that they may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. In the precious name of Your Son, Jesus, we pray. Amen. Brooksyne has written the full story about Mary Lou's heartbreaking childhood experience that embittered her and the physical struggle she faces today in Mary Lou's Story. Today's Suggested Music and Supplemental Resources (Click on the link to open and play) "How Deep The Father's Love For Us" Audio "The Love Of God" Video "Amazing Love" Video Today's quote from Regis Nicoll is from an article titled "Is Heaven Worth It?" |
 Stephen and Brooksyne Weber "We want to encourage you daily in your walk with Christ!" Personal Ministry Update Revised 10/21/08  Each weekday morning Brooksyne and I prepare these messages and distribute them at no cost to you and many others all over the world. Would you please consider a financial offering to support us in this daily encouragement ministry? Donations are tax deductible and will be receipted directly by my chaplaincy endorsing ministry. Thanks! See here for details. (2008 YTD financial offerings to Daily Encouragement Net through 11/9/08: $16,761.00) SUBSCRIPTION INFO  Were you forwarded this edition of Daily Encouragement Net? To receive these free "Daily Encouragement" devotionals each Monday-Friday through email see this page to subscribe. This newsletter is never sent unsolicited. It was sent to you because you signed up to receive it OR a friend forwarded it to you. You can also subscribe to the rss feed.Cancel: We respect and value your time and privacy. If this newsletter no longer meets your needs we will be happy to remove your address from the list immediately. To remove your address merely use the link automatically inserted by the mailing list software at the very bottom of each message. Weekly Version: The weekly version is designed for those who do not check their email regularly. It is merely the Friday message with a link to previous messages. To receive the free weekly version, send a blank email to this address. (To change addresses cancel your old address and then join again using your new address.) Please feel free to pass these messages on! "A Daily Prayer" - A blog simply posting the daily prayer. We keep this up each day since it's merely the prayer from the Daily Encouragement Net message! "Clear Minded" - Longer, periodic articles on specific issues impacting the faithful believer and church. "A Little Foolishness" - A humor/satire blog (a great outlet for non-serious writing but at times with a subtle message!) I haven't had time or "inspiration" for this for awhile but it has several stories that get regular page views. "Hymns of Hope" - Brooksyne along with two friends made a CD using classic hymns. Brooksyne tells the background story of the 11 hymns. We are distributing this CD without charge in our ministry. All of these songs are also available for download on the site. If any reader in this series would like a CD merely write us and request one.  Daily Encouragement Net is an affiliate of Christianbook.com. Any orders placed to Christian Book Distributers using this link or any specific product link to a recommended resource in a daily encouragement message will help our Daily Encouragement ministry through a small commission on the sale. Thank you for using these links when purchasing online through CBD!Personal Mission Statement "I am created by God to bring Him glory. Through God's Son Jesus Christ I have been redeemed and I make it my life's goal to please the Lord. My mission in life is to honor God through my faith and obedience and to prepare myself and all whom I may influence for eternity."  How to become a child of God Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: New International Version. © 1984 by International Bible Society; NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, New King James Version (NKJV) Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. and the King James Version. © Copyright 2008 Stephen C. Weber - All Rights Reserved Daily Encouragement Net Stephen & Brooksyne Weber 495 Kraybill Church Road - Mount Joy, PA 17552 Contact us |
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