October 3
Scripture: Matt 8:3
Source author: James Stuart Bell
October 13
Seeing Is Believing For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost but now he is found! —Luke 15:32
My younger sister Cate always looked up to me—except when she looked down at me in terror when we were little and I convinced her to climb up a neighbor’s outdoor antenna ladder. She would do anything for me, including jumping on the backs of bullies. I largely ignored her, and when I went away to college, I got involved in the worst of the early ’70s youth culture, while she remained on the straight and narrow. I then came home fired up with the message of Jesus, and my parents were greatly relieved that I had cleaned up my act. I thought intellectual arguments would help them embrace the truth. But they weren’t immediately convinced that my gospel Christianity was real. But my sister did receive the message. When I started loving my sister in multiple ways and we became close friends and went to fellowship meetings together, my father was blown away. He then saw that I was transformed by a power greater than myself, the power of the love of Jesus.
They’ll know we are transformed when our behavior truly changes. — James Stuart Bell —