Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 2-226 (Devotional)

MADE COMPLETE

by Peter Kennedy

“In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.” – 1 John 4:17

Jonathan Edwards was born in 1703 in East Windsor, Connecticut, where his father was pastor. The only son in a family of eleven children, he entered Yale when he was not yet thirteen and graduated four years later at the head of his class.

In 1728 he succeeded his maternal grandfather as pastor at Northampton, Massachusetts. The power of Edward’s gospel message in Northampton is credited with bringing about the first Great Awakening of American history. It began in 1734, when six sudden conversions in his parish turned into a flood of thirty per week, drawing people from up to a hundred miles away.

Edwards said the following about having boldness and confidence in Christ: “There is a false boldness for Christ that only comes from pride. A man may rashly expose himself to the world’s dislike and even deliberately provoke its displeasure, and yet do so out of pride. … True boldness for Christ transcends all, it is indifferent to the displeasure of either friends or foes. Boldness enables Christians to forsake all rather than Christ, and to prefer to offend all rather than to offend Him.”

It is when we truly love Christ that we are made complete and we can live confidently in Him. Today in prayer, ask the Lord that you may love Him with your whole heart so you may live confidently in Him.

“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man would stake his life on it a thousand times.”- Martin Luther

God’s Word: “Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident. One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” – Psalm 27:3,4

DEVOTIONS IN THE LETTERS OF JOHN

by Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2002, Devotional E-Mail

To subscribe direct, go to http://www.devotions.com