Thought of the Day !!

[Mary] will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
Matthew 1:21 (NRSV)

This verse is but a piece of the conversation that the angel of the Lord had with Joseph when Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant. The angel is telling Joseph to name the child Jesus, which means "God saves".

It's the gift of salvation that comes at Christmas. This gift of salvation is the gift of second chances. We all need second chances from time to time. We're sinful people who have had a tendency to put ourselves first throughout the history of humanity. And so God gives us the gift of Jesus...the gift of salvation...and we receive a second chance at being right with God.

Wouldn't it be great if we could have second chances in everything? Wouldn't it be great if we could turn back the clock and redo things? Think about what you would do if you had the chance to go back in time before you said something that hurt someone or did something that angered someone or made any kind of mistake. Given the chance, would you do the same thing all over again...make the same mistake?

Any sane person would try to correct the mistake. Don't you agree?

Well, God gives us second chances daily. And even though we can't actually go back in time and change what we did or said, we can still begin anew with God each day. So what will we do with our second chances? Will we continue to live the way we did before getting saved? Will we continue to make the same mistakes over and over? Will we continue to satisfy ourselves instead of God? Or will we change to be who God wants us to be?

Tomorrow is New Year's Day. Many will make resolutions tomorrow. Some will be kept. Many will be broken before January is over. What I will suggest is to make a daily resolution to make the most of our second chances. Some days we will fail. Other days we will succeed. But let us never give up trying to be the people that God created us to be. Lets be a people who are grateful for the second chances that we've been given and live accordingly.

In the love of Christ,
greg