UCB Word For Today

There is a saying in baseball: ‘Three strikes and you’re out.’ We tend to play life the same way. We give people two or three chances, but no more. But God never gives up on us. It’s not in His nature. When Peter asked Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother, Jesus set the gold standard. Peter answered his own question by saying, ‘Seven times.’ But Jesus ups the ante to seventy times seven (see v. 22 NLT). Then He ups the ante even more with a story of a master who forgave his servant a 10,000-talent debt. Let’s do a currency exchange. One talent totalled 180 months’ wages – that’s fifteen years! And that’s just one talent. So a 10,000-talent debt totalled 150,000 years of wages. Using today’s average life expectancy, it would have taken his servant 2,232 lifetimes to pay off the debt. Of course, the average life expectancy in the first century was less than half of what it is now, so it would have taken twice as many lifetimes to pay off the debt. But instead of years, let’s put this debt into pounds. Using a minimum wage of £12.21, let’s take a nine-to-five job, Monday through Friday. That’s an annual income of over £25,000. That might not seem like much, but when you multiply it by 150,000 years, it totals £3,750,000,000. (Three commas means billions.) Now here’s the thing: by virtue of what Christ accomplished on the cross, your sin debt – past, present, and future – is paid in full. That’s a truth you can be confident in and stand on.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

Several men went on a mission trip to Haiti where they met a nineteen-year-old young man who loved Christ deeply. So they invited him to visit them in America and paid for his trip. The young Haitian felt as if he were in another world. He’d never slept between sheets, had three meals a day, used indoor plumbing, or tasted a hamburger. When it was time to return to Haiti, they asked him for his impressions of what he’d experienced, and he replied: ‘I have really enjoyed my time here with you. But I am also very glad to be going home. You have so much in America that I’m beginning to lose my grip on my day-to-day dependency on Christ.’ Paul spoke of a time of trouble in Asia in which he was ‘crushed and overwhelmed’ (2 Corinthians 1:8 NLT). Then he wrote: ‘As a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God’ (v. 9 NLT). And God wants to bring you to that place also. Yes, He wants you to use the gifts and resources He has provided, but His desire is that you rely completely on Him. Only then can He provide everything He desires to give you, because then you will be open, ready, and mature enough to receive it. ‘Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear [reverence, respect, obey] the LORD’ (Proverbs 3:5-7 NLT).

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

Unlike jealousy, which is the fear of being displaced, envy is ill-will towards those who possess something you want. Jealousy says, ‘I’m afraid you are going to take what I have.’ Envy says, ‘I want what you have, and I resent you for having it!’ Envy is one of the most frequently concealed emotions. You may be more likely to admit to an uncontrollable temper, a phobia, or any other negative emotion than to acknowledge that you are envious. Envy inevitably leads to resenting and criticising the person you envy. And once you allow envy and resentment to enter your heart, they act like free radicals producing an emotional cancer. Eventually they will manifest themselves in some destructive way, whether it is in the form of taking mood-altering substances, overeating, shopping excessively, lashing out, being sarcastic, or physically harming others. If you harbour envy towards someone, it’s time to deal with it. David wrote: ‘You desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow’ (Psalm 51:6-7 NIV). If you covet what someone else has, ask yourself, ‘Am I willing to pay the price they paid to obtain it?’ The world has a saying: ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch.’ Everything – except salvation – has a price tag. So whether you want to be thin, rich, educated, or whatever, stop envying the success of others, and ask God to help you succeed in the assignment He has given you for your life.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

We often think of great artists and musicians as having ‘bursts’ of genius. But more often, they’re models of painstaking patience and perseverance. Their greatest works tend to have been accomplished over longer periods and through extreme hardships. Beethoven is said to have rewritten each bar of his music at least a dozen times. Joseph Haydn produced more than 800 musical compositions before writing The Creation, the oratorio for which he is most famous. Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment is considered one of the twelve master paintings of the ages. It took him eight years to complete, producing more than 2,000 sketches and renderings in the process. Leonardo da Vinci worked on The Last Supper for ten years, often working so diligently that he forgot to eat. When renowned pianist Paderewski was quite elderly, an admirer asked him, ‘Is it true that you still practise every day?’ He replied, ‘Yes, at least six hours a day.’ The admirer said in awe, ‘You must have a world of patience.’ Paderewski said, ‘I have no more patience than the next fellow. I just use mine.’ It is said that in the Kentucky Derby, the winning horse effectively runs out of oxygen after the first mile and runs the rest of the way on heart. Basketball legend Michael Jordan says, ‘Heart is what separates the good from the great.’ In the Bible, James wrote, ‘As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.’ Those who are ‘blessed’ with success are those who keep persevering and refuse to give up.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

The Bible says, ‘If you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction’ (vv. 19-20 MSG). That means it’s possible for a true believer to do this. It also means we must never put our convictions on the shelf. If we don’t make a deliberate effort to stay close to the truth of God’s Word, we will wander from it. After all, we live in a world with lots of distractions. Today many people are on a quest for ‘unity at all costs’ and are therefore devaluing the importance of the truth as revealed in God’s Word. Knowing he would soon die as a martyr for his faith, the apostle Paul wrote to his successor Timothy: ‘Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of’ (2 Timothy 3:14 NIV). Then in 2 Timothy 4:2-5, he encouraged Timothy: ‘Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship…discharge all the duties of your ministry’ (NIV). So the word for today is – stay true to the truth of God’s Word.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.