Prayer
List
Kenlie
Haskett is recovering from her infections.
Carmen
Loftice will be seeing a Neurologist Jan. 2 for her migraines. .
Monty
Randallph has begun radiation and chemo treatment.
Archie
Balzen is having heart problems.
A
friend of Kerry King, Leona Brown is home recovering from heart
surgery.
Friends of Kerry and Carla King,
Les and Mary Hamel need our prayers.
Don
and Dannie Baker, James, Florene and Tabatha Griffin, Kathy Hill,
Andy LeDane, Billie Phillips, Billie Bradford, Betty Clark, Mary
Hamel and her husband, Don Hickerson, Eddie Hickerson, Dorothy
Hodges, Angel Johnson, Bobbi King, and Beryl Miller,.
Serving
in the military; Cody Blomstedt, Tyler Davies, Josh Van Deren and
Kirk Johnson. All are in the U.S. at this time.
Let
us pray for our country and government leaders and those who are in
harms way, military and civilian personnel.
“The
effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much…
Our
prayers and sympathy go out the Cawthon family in the loss of Jack.
Funeral is at 2:30pm today at Scoggins Funeral Home in Van Alstyne.
Your
consideration:
Robert Embry has agreed to accept the position of Elder. If there is
no objection he will be instated Dec. 30.
Pantry
Item:
Sliced Pineapple
December
23 Prayers: Morning: Robert Courtney – Don Baker
Evening: Don
Harrington – Greg Counts
Scriptures:
Robert Embry
**********
Paid
in Full!
By
Joe Chesser
Years
ago when the final payment was made on an installment loan, the bank
would stamp in large letters on the original application “Paid in
Full!” In this electronic age I don’t know if financial
institutions still do that, but even if we don’t get a piece of
paper with the “Paid in Full!” stamp on it, when a loan is
finally paid off, it sure feels good. Making that final payment and
having a debt “Paid in Full!” is just plain exciting.
Jesus told
a story about a man who owed such a huge debt that he could never
have paid it off (Matthew 18). I mean he owed a man millions of
dollars, and that was in the 1st century! When the debt came due, all
the man could do was fall on his knees and beg for mercy. Try that at
your bank. It doesn’t work. But that time the unheard of happened.
The man felt sorry for the one who owed him so much and stamped the
parchment (or whatever) “Paid in Full!” He cancelled the entire
debt! The balance was now $0.00.
If that had been you, how grateful
would you have felt? And that’s just about money. We owe a debt
that we can never pay. Even if we have millions of dollars, billions
of dollars, we could never pay the debt we owe. It simply is not
within our power to pay off our debt because our debt is not about
something as frivolous as money. Our debt involves sin, which by
nature makes us objects of God’s wrath (Ephesians 2:3). And yet,
because of the love and mercy of God, our enormous debt can be
stamped “Paid in Full!” I said “can be” because not
everyone’s sin debt will be cancelled.
The other day I heard
someone say that, although everyone will die with their debt of sin
entirely paid, how sad it is that most will die without having their
personal debt cancelled by Jesus (Matthew 7:13-14). The cross
has the potential power to cancel every sin committed by every person
who has or will live on this earth. Unfortunately, only a relatively
few will accept the offer of forgiveness and obey the gospel to
access this grace. While the cross “Paid in Full!” the sins of
everyone, only those “in Christ” (see Galatians 3:26-27) receive
the actual cancellation of the debt of sin: “in him we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance
with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us …”
(Ephesians 1:7-8).
I dare say that no one would
refuse to have their mortgage paid off by doing something as equally
simple as God offers us to have our sin debt “Paid in Full!” by
obeying the gospel. It is shocking what we will do for a few dollars
and won’t do for forgiveness of sins! But for those of us who do
see the bigger picture, for those of us who do know that saving our
souls by the blood of Jesus is the most important thing we can
accomplish in this life, how very grateful we should be that Jesus
was willing and able to cancel our debt and mark it “Paid in Full!”
We cannot thank Him enough. But we can keep Him the focus of our
present life and the hope of our future life. And we can do whatever
we can to help as many other people come to know the awesome blessing
of the cross.