Christian Encouragement

God blessed Moose with a Godly wife, who has gone to church by herself every Sunday for many years. She and Moose raised two daughters, who grew up to love God and today are elders' wives in their respective churches. The two daughters now have daughters of their own, five beautiful young women who also love God and serve him. Two young great-grandchildren already show signs of serving God like their ancestors before them.

The only puzzling thing about the whole story is Moose himself. Through all those decades, Moose never made the decision to give his life to Christ. He never talked to me about it, and I never asked why.

Moose's health hasn't been very good the last few years. A couple of weeks ago, I came in and my wife said, "There's a message on the machine you will want to listen to." So I sat down and pushed the play button. I heard Kim, one of Moose's daughters, say "We're just leaving Abilene, and we wanted to let you know that Pampa Moose was just baptized into Christ."

I just shook my head as tears filled my eyes and I silently praised God for his grace and his patience with us. God had waited patiently for a very long time for Moose, and now hundreds of prayers had been answered.

One of the most unbelievable stories Jesus ever told was about some farm workers. Some were hired around 6 am, some were hired at 9 am, and others at noon, 3 pm, and 5 pm. At the end of the day, the workers hired last received the same pay as those hired first, not because they deserved it, but simply because the manager wanted to be generous. This story doesn't sit well with Americans, because we believe in fairness and earning what you get; like the first-hired workers, we feel that the 5 pm guys received an unfairly good deal at the other men's expense.

Maybe that's why grace is so hard for us to comprehend. When logic tells me that I've earned a greater reward than Moose, grace tells me that all the "work" I've done for God is worthless and can't cover the least of my sins. When pride tells me that I've given more to God so I should receive more, grace tells me that if I could give God every thing in the world it would not begin to pay for my salvation. As I consider the miracle of Moose's new birth, I am reminded again and again that God's gift of salvation is truly free, truly generous, truly amazing.

When John Newton wrote his best-known hymn, Amazing Grace, this is what he was writing about. Newton's life had been wicked even by the world's standards, and he knew that for grace to forgive and cover him, it must be truly amazing, truly unbelievable.