Pause

So there is sin. That is our doing, when we are too self-centered to follow God's way.

Salvation. Well, that's God's doing, reaching out through time and space to give us a chance to start again.

Consider now your willfulness. Receive now your salvation.

Listen

Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things."

Luke 24:44-48

Think

“Your mission, should you choose to accept it….” This one was more impossible than anything Tom Cruise ever faced. This group (Acts 1:15 says they were about 120 women and men) was sent out to preach to all the nations of the world. It must have seemed preposterous, this idea of preaching “forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name” to every living human being.

But Jesus wasn’t sending them out without special equipment. Wait in Jerusalem, he told them, until the Holy Spirit falls on you. No secret decoder rings or laser pens, but the power of God inside each of them, just the same as Jesus had. Just as you and I have, too, if we’re followers of Jesus.

The work isn’t done; and the mission still depends on ordinary Jesus-followers like us. Sometimes salvation feels like a really big challenge to undertake with others.

Richard Vinson

Pray

O God, help me, and all of us, to share your life with others. Amen.

Go

There is no falling that can keep you down forever.
There is no shortcoming that can leave you always in debt.
For God has determined to offer salvation
Every day,
Every time,
Every stride,
Every halting step.

Believe, and receive your salvation.