35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Throw the old ways as far as the East is from the West
Everyone deserves a new start. The beginning of a new year brings
new hopes and dreams. It also affords us the opportunity to begin again. The book of Genesis in the Bible is a book meaning new beginnings. The book is full of stories of common people like us who made mistakes and
started anew. The scripture affirms its own realism by reminding us that even
the choicest of God’s servants sometimes fail.
Is your plan procrastination or are you willing to walk with God now? 12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Psalm 90:12 (KJV)
The following was written by a chaplain of an Ohio regiment
on May 18th, 1863, near Carthage, Tennessee, after he was asked to pray for a condemned
spy:
“I found Mr. Smith exceedingly anxious to converse upon the
subject of his soul’s salvation, about which, until the time of his arrest, he
had felt no interest…He had been a soldier in the rebel army, from whom he
deserted some time before his arrest…Those who had been acquainted with him
represented him to be a very wicked and cruel man…His wife and children seemed
to absorb his whole attention. ‘What will become of my poor wife and children?’
he exclaimed, while at the same time his whole frame shook with agitation…We
knelt together, and his cries for mercy and forgiveness, intermingled with
earnest solicitations for his wife and children, were truly distressing…as he
met me in passing from the jail to the ambulance which conveyed him to the
place of execution [he said] that he was ready to die; ‘the Lord has pardoned
my sins.;
I rode with him, seated upon his coffin, to the scaffold,
led him, assisted by the executioner, to the platform and in the presence of
2,000 (at least) soldiers heard him express the same hope…The white cap was
then placed over the prisoner’s face, and in a few moments his spirit was
launched into eternity…”
How tragic that a person would wait until his hour of death
to repent of his sins and trust Christ. Many who enjoy the pleasures of sin
think they will one day give their lives to Christ.
