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Forgiveness through Jesus

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LuAnn was a 20-year-old student at a local college. She told my wife and me her story. “I was recently in a relationship,” LuAnn said, “but that ended because I got pregnant. Now Im three months along, and Im considering an abortion.”

LuAnns situation broke our hearts. Obviously, the worst option for her would be to have an abortion. But, I knew that before LuAnn could make any decision about her baby, she needed to make a decision about Jesus Christ.

“LuAnn,” I said, “God, the Father, loves you with an everlasting love. God will not ever leave you, He will never forsake you, as Hebrews 13:5 says. He forgives and forgets, wipes clean, and then does new things in our lives.” After talking a bit more, LuAnn was ready to commit her life to Jesus. She also decided to keep her baby!

You know, the ability to start fresh, knowing that Jesus has forgiven all your sins, is so freeing! And, like LuAnn, there are many people today who are desperate for this kind of clean start. Yet often, they dont know where to look. Thats why God is calling you and me to be his Good News messenger.

Are you willing to share the hope that Jesus offers with a friend – perhaps this week?

A Valuable Lesson

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Bert and his wife, Colleen, have been missionaries in Peru for 56 years! They have had their own method of planting churches. They would go to a village in the mountains or on the coast, maybe along the river. They preached the Good News there for three or four nights and then went on to the next village.

Bert told me, “I think we learned one very valuable lesson: that our absence from those churches was as important as our presence.” They would come back in three months and the village would be up in arms about some theological issue. So they would find out what the problem was and give them the teaching they needed for that.

They didn’t stop anywhere for more than a month. They sowed the seeds and it worked. They might not have done things “by the book,” but God has worked tremendously through their efforts in Peru.

Sometimes our absence can make people realize God’s presence in us, and their need for Him. Jesus says in John chapter 12, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” Keep on shining the light of Christ even today. He will change people through you, in your presence and in your absence!