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Grady's Gravelings...

Good Friday Morning to you,
How many of you believe in “second chances”? I know I do. God’s people throughout history have disappointed Him. They’ve been very disobedient and inconsistent. One moment they are serving and being obedient to God and the next they are turning away to other gods or no gods. Think about the Israelites that left Egypt. They left Egypt praising God and so excited and thankful that God had rescued them from slavery. But just a short while after they crossed the Red Sea (on DRY ground I might add), while Moses was receiving the “Ten Commandments” from God they turned away and began worshiping idols and committing all kinds of heinous sins. But God gave them a second chance. In a similar way Methodist, in the early days, were joyful worshipers of God, unashamed disciples of Jesus Christ. For many years Evangelism was the number one priority or mission of the churches. Methodism grew especially here in America. Souls were being saved, the sick were being healed and there was fellowship among the saints that knew no equal. However, society and culture started chipping away at Methodist’s resolve to remain obedient to God’s Holy Word. We lost site of the main mission of the church … seek and save the lost. The church started emphasizing a social gospel. Society was saying to the church “be like us”. Spend your time and energy on social issues. I’m sure Satan loved every moment of this change in emphasis. He was probably telling churches all over America “ Don’t worry about people’s souls”. To make things worse Methodist started listening to the world and it’s declining moral values. Satan was saying “get with the times, don’t keep those old fashioned ideas. You can’t believe everything in that Bible of yours, you can’t take it literally, anyhow, some of it is antiquated now. It doesn’t speak to our times. And so very many Methodist fell for Satan’s deception and lies. That’s where the United Methodist are today. Operating at the whim and social pressure of society with Satan leading them to destruction. But Thanks be unto God! He is a God of second chances and a group of Methodist who would not be bought or sold out to this heretical theology, but defended the Bible and its Divine authorship. They said we will not be deceived. We will not fall for Satan’s lies. We are going to stand on God’s Holy word. We’re going to return to the “Old Ways”. We can be the church of Acts 2 again. We can be a spirit filled, Holy Spirit led church again. God’s Holy Spirit can fill our churches again, souls can be saved again, the Love of Jesus can be as a beacon again radiating out of our church houses into the world. We can make a difference. Notice for me how many times I used the phrase “we can”. But, I ask you today “will we”? Will we be what Brother Fred. Well, here it is. Will we be the church that accepts God’s second chance and do something with it. This is what I call a Holy moment that we are in as the people of God known as Methodist. We have this opportunity to be the church that God wanted. But it’s going to be up to each one of us to commit ourselves to be the hands of Jesus to minister to a needful world. It’s going to be up to us to be the feet of the great commission to go and make disciples. It’s going to be up to us to be the voice of God to tell the world about salvation in Jesus alone. We have a second chance … please don’t miss this opportunity God has given us through his mercy. Don’t neglect so great a salvation!

May God Bless You Richly
Brother Fred