Extending Grace to Others: Randy Alcorn's book

A short excerpt from Randy Alcorn's book, The GRACE and TRUTH PARADOX

One of the key takeaways from the book was:

Extending grace to others.

1.  Our debt to God is infinitely beyond our capacity to pay. 
2.  Our debt to God is infinitely greater than any person's debt to us. 
3.  When we truly experience God's forgiveness for our sins, we will be transformed into forgiving people. 

Extending grace frees us from the terrible burden of resentment and bitterness. Bad as they may be, anyone's offenses against me are far less than my offenses against God. If He's forgiven me, by His grace I can forgive them. 

News of our excusion to North Carolina: Samaritan's Purse. The Cove

 We went to The Cove in Asheville, North Carolina with our good friends Ron and Dolores Blust.

The Cove is a Christian Retreat Center in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina.

http://www.thecove.org/

Ruth Graham prayed The Cove would be a place for retreat, rest, relaxation, and renewal, a refuge where hospitality is a ministry. Her desire was to create an environment where people can meet with the Lord Jesus personally and privately—and never be the same again. Each year those prayers continue to be answered for tens of thousands of guests.

It was all this and more! Beautiful setting, fantastic food and great teaching!

Will be updating soon  with ADDITIONAL insights from The Cove, Samaritan's Purse and The Creation Museum!

Hopefully, Ron & Dolores will give me some of their insights which I will include, so come back in a few days. 

At The Cove, Randy Alcorn from Eternal Perspectives Ministries.  www.epm.org Spoke on:

 Four Central Truths of a Biblical Worldview

Randy Alcorn presentation at The Cove

Oct. 2-4. 2012

Life on earth is a d-o-t.

If begins. It ends. It’s brief.

●  L I N E    Life in Heaven is an unending line extending from that dot.

We all live in the dot.

If we’re wise, we’ll live for the line.

Live for the LINE

Not the dot. 

Four Central Truths of a Biblical Worldview

1. Heaven

2. Suffering

3. Money

4. Grace-Truth

  1. Heaven

    We were made for Heaven.
    How we view the future affects how we live now. 
    We don't need a "Bucket List".
    2nd Peter 3:10 tells us that everything on earth will be destroyed.
    V. 13 tells us that we should be looking forward to a new earth!
    When we die we will be in the "Presence" of God. 
    People we prayed for will greet us. 
    We should be Kingdom minded, storing up treasures in Heaven, not on earth.
    As Christians we should think and live differently that non believers. 
    As we get older we get closer to our "treasures".



How to summarize so much of what Randy said?
1. So much of what we believe about Heaven is unbiblical. 
2. "Set your hearts on things above  where Christ is seated at the right hand of God".   (Colossians   3:1
3. Since we'll spend the next lifetime living in Heaven, why do we spend so much of this life thinking about our life here and not spend time preparing for Heaven?
4. So many people think of Heaven as their default destination. It is NOT.
5. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". (Romans 3:23). So unless our sin problem is resolved, our default destination is Hell. 
6.  Randy talked about the Present Heaven and the Future Heaven.
7. Spoke about if we will know everything when we get to Heaven. 
8. Will we know what is happening on earth.

Randy have a great book  HEAVEN. Explains everything we would want to know about Heaven. 

  2.  We encounter suffering

     He has reasons we don't understand.
     "All things work together for good for them that love God".
     God knows what He is doing. 

Our Worldview is how we view the world!
Biblical worldview is in accordance with God's word. 
Satan is involved, but can't trump God's control. 

We are unprepared for suffering!
Scripture promises that we are under His curse. 
God doesn't always answer our prayers like we want Him to. 

Suffering is NOT because of a particular sin. 
God has a higher purpose for our suffering. 
Read the last 5 chapters of the book of Job. 

God permits what He can use for good. 

A Biblical worldview does allow for deep sorrow and real grief. 

  3.  Money

We are stewards of what belongs to God.
We should ask Him what He wants us to do with the money & resources He has given     us...and  then be content. 
We should want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant".

Randy talked about developing a "strategic lifestyle" and how to make a difference in the world. 
He talked about debt, budgeting and tithing. 

Randy has a great book, MONEY, POSSESSIONS AND ETERNITY.

  4.  The Grace and Truth Paradox 

     Grace-We don't deserve it
     Grace is the way we live
     We should respond with Christlike balance. 
     We should view everything in light of Grace & Truth...our spouses, children, neighbor.....

First time I had ever heard or read about this subject!

So many times, we as Christians are out of balance. We tend to go to extremes-either emphasizing Grace or Truth. And by doing that we don't really show the love of Jesus and push people away from Jesus.

We need the directions of truth to know where to go. Then we need the empowerment of grace to help us get there. Only by the power of the Holy Spirit can we do this.

More on the subject!

A paradox is a statement or phrase that seems to contradict itself but, in fact, is true. One of the greatest paradoxes of the Christian faith is the interplay between grace and truth. Grace, by itself, may permit deception and moral compromise. Truth, by itself, leads to self-righteousness and crushing legalism.

Jesus' life demonstrated that grace and truth can coexist. He expressed them in perfect balance, showing that God's absolute truth cannot be compromised and His amazing grace cannot be denied. The Bible describes Jesus as "full of grace and truth". (John 1:14)

The challenge for believers today is how to express grace and truth in balance, as Jesus did. It's an important issue because the world will draw conclusions about Jesus from what it sees in us. If we fail the truth test, people won't see Jesus. If we fail the grace test, pepole won't see Jesus. ONLY by expressing BOTH qualities in balance can we accurately show Christ's character to the world.

Lesson for today...as we approach the political election coming up:
Often, conservatives emphasize truth (moral), and liberals emphasize grace (compassion). Conservatives want to conserve what's right: liberals want to liberate from what's wrong.

Liberals' commitment to fighting racism in the sixties was commendable. But sometimes liberals fight against true standards, like the beliefs that abortion, fornication, adultery, and homosexual behavior are wrong, They embrace tolerance as a grace substitute. Liberal Christians often end up being liberals first Christians second.

Conservatives want to restore lost values. They want to go back to the days when prayer was allowed in schools. But they forget that the same schools that allowed prayer didn't allow black children! By trying to conserve so many things-even things that were clearly wrong-conservative Christians have sometimes been conservatives first, Christians second!

There is also a WORKBOOK with 5 weekly lessons. Good for a study group.

In the meantime.....See video below about volunteering at The Chapel at The Cove. 

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Thanks for taking the time to look at my blog!

In Jesus Christ God gives us our identity, our purpose and our meaning in this life and in the life to come.1 Peter1:1-12

As you scroll down on this blog, you will see some videos that I hope you will find interesting.
Each ministry video is from a ministry that we support in some way.

On the right hand side of the blog are links to these and other ministries we believe are worthy of your interest and support. 


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I have copied some of my Linkedin Profile information here.  


Lord Jesus, I pray, make me transparent so that when people look at me, they see only You!

● Looking 4 opportunities to leverage my church staff, volunteer work,corporate purchasing and agricultural background 4 exponential growth 4 impacting the Kingdom of God, both locally and globally.

● Enjoy launching new initiatives. Getting projects moving forward.

● Global Ministry:
Connecting faith based organizations with latest drip irrigation techniques to use for community development, poverty and drought alleviation. Good to Great in the Non Profit Sector principles.

Using social media to help Christian non profits get the Word and their word around the internet!


 ● Local Ministry:
Eastbrook Community GROUP on Linkedin. Tool to help develop community at our church.


SPECIALTIES:

● Connecting individuals and organizations to technology, resources, projects, ideas and people with a passion to accomplish strategic goals. Good to Great Concept

The Chapel at THE COVE: Volunteering