Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Friday, March 8, 2013

A word from God's Word: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."¹

"I read about a river town where sand was continually being dredged from the river bed and left in high piles by the river bank. This was a place where boys loved to play. Often times the sand piles, though dry on the top were still waterlogged beneath the sunbaked crusted surface.

"Some years ago two boys were late home for dinner so their parents went looking for them. When they found their bicycles outside the fence where the sand piles were banked high, they called for the boys, but no answer came. The family and other rescuers searched frantically in and around the sand piles and eventually found one of the boys buried up to his neck. He was barely alive when they found him and they dug furiously to rescue him. When he was freed from the waist up, and able to breathe properly, his panic-stricken parents and rescuers asked, 'Where's your brother? Where's your brother?'

"'I'm standing on his shoulders,' the boy said.

"One loving brother gave his life so his brother could live."²

And that's exactly what Jesus Christ did for you and me. We were spiritually lost and destined for a lost eternity without God and without hope. But because of his great love for us, Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, came to earth and gave his life to die in our place to pay the penalty for all our sins so we could be freely forgiven and receive God's gift of eternal life.

Have you thanked God for giving his Son as a sacrifice for your sins, and have you thanked Jesus for dying in your place to pay the penalty for all your sins. If not, please do that today.

Note: For further help click on the link below to "How to Know God and be sure you're a real Christian without having to be religious."

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for giving your Son, Jesus, to die in my place on the cross to save me from eternal damnation. And thank you Jesus for dying for me, and because of your sacrifice for me, I offer my life to you as a living sacrifice to live for you all the days of my life. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

Click on www.actsweb.org/christian for the article: "How to know God and be sure you're a real Christian."

1. Romans 5:7-8 (NIV).
2. Adapted from a story heard on a Campus Crusade for Christ broadcast.

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