No Dumbbells

June 18

"Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes." Ephesians 1:4

NO DUMBBELLS HERE

A drill sergeant barked out an order to a bunch of recruits: "All you dumbbells, get moving!" All but one obeyed. Angered by his seeming defiance, the sergeant marched up to him and growled, "Well?"

The young recruit replied, "There certainly were a lot of them, sir!"

It would be great if more of us as Christians felt that good about ourselves. It's not wrong to affirm our worth. The Bible does. We have been created to reflect the moral and personal nature of God (Genesis 1:26). Sin has marred that image, but because of love, God sent His Son to die for our sins. By trusting Jesus as our Savior, we are "accepted," just as the Father accepts Him (Ephesians 1:6).

We may feel unworthy of such love and grace, but we can still have a healthy sense of self-worth, belonging, and confidence. Because Christ has removed the guilt of our sin by paying its penalty on the cross, we know that we are fully accepted by Him. -- Dennis De Haan



As (Ephesians 1:.7-14) tells us, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.

“In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.

“In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.”

When failure, frustration, false friends, or foes denigrate us and devalue us, we come back to the truth stated by De Hann, that we are “fully accepted by Him.” We come back to the veracity of God’s own word that assures our inheritance is the measure of all Christ has died to supply to us; and we glorify Him for His “unspeakable gift,” II Corinthians 9:15.