For the next several weeks, I will be utilizing the chapters of a book called Give Life that was published by Youth For Christ USA several years ago. It chronicles a bit of our journey in this incredible and wonderful 72-year-old mission…
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. ~ Ezekiel 36:26
I saw Shelby’s face for the first time at the end of a lunch table. There were twenty other people in the room, but there was something noteworthy about Shelby.
Our YFC introduction to her had been in a juvenile detention center a couple of years before. Unlike many of the young people that we work with, Shelby’s sin and rejection of God were out in the open.
Our team believed in the power of relationship.
A Godly and committed mentor came alongside Shelby and Jesus broke through.
Now Shelby’s eyes are electric. Her smile is that of a soul set free. She radiates the love of Jesus.
This shapes her identity. It redeems the waste.
From an inmate to a daughter, she has been given life.
Sweet contagious love. Sweet redemptive hope. Jesus. Shelby.
I was…
Jesus describes the final judgment in one of the last teaching moments of His earthly life.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was…
hungry and you gave me food
thirsty and you gave me drink
a stranger and you welcomed me
naked and you clothed me
sick and you visited me
in prison and you came to me.’
Jesus gives us a glimpse at life’s final exam. It’s a test of the fruit we produce in light of His grace.
The test doesn’t qualify us – it exposes us.
It shows whether or not we live in the light of faith in Jesus.
I was…
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