​     Do you remember the show “Let's Make a Deal” hosted by Monty Hall? The people dressed up like pickles and dolls and other crazy things in hopes to make a deal. The host would come along and probably because of a person’s wacky outfit or someone’s personality he’d pick a contestant and then the dealing would begin. The show played into our tendency toward materialism and our desire to deal our way to something better. All the contestants hoped to avoid making that terrible decision by which they’d lose out on the big deal.
     The show was entertaining, but if we take the thought process behind the Let’s Make A Deal show and bring it over into the church and act like God is some kind of Monty Hall Deal-Maker we are wrong! If you view God as throwing out offers and waiting for you to counter His offer you are way off base on whom God is. If you think something along these lines: God, I'll give you some of our Sunday mornings, but I'm expecting some tangible blessings pretty quick or I may quit worshipping, praying, and giving. That is wrong thinking! There is something ugly in the thought process that thinks God owes you anything at all, especially grace. However, what a blessing it is to know that God always gives us more than we deserve!

Clark Tatum

​     The grace of God is best expressed as getting God’s absolute best when we deserve the absolute worst. Before a person becomes a Christian, he lives in a spiritual graveyard (Romans 3:23). The coroner’s report from God declares all have fallen short of grace and in essence exists in a spiritual mortuary. Now there may be varying degrees of decay. Some are sick and dead, others poor and dead, some white and dead, some black and dead, but all are equally dead, meaning without the life of God in them. The Apostle Paul wrote by inspiration Ephesians 2:4-7, and the powerful words should leap off the page and grab our attention. God’s grace rescued us from the eternal and hideous consequences of sin, while we were yet ignorant of our impending tragedy. God made us alive with Christ when we were dead in sin.
     I like the story of an Indian who had become a Christian. Some of his brothers began to observe how different his lifestyle had become, they asked, “What has caused such a change?” He looked on the ground and found a worm; then he put it on some leaves and set them aflame. Just before the fire got to the worm, he reached down and rescued the worm out of the flames and held it before his friends and said, “Me, worm.” That is what God’s grace does for all who look to Him by faith in Christ (Galatians 3:26-27). 

Clark Tatum

​Jesus can bring a new dimension to your life. He can take you from a world of black and white to a world rich with living color. He can fill your life with a peace that defies description. He can fill your life with purpose and with satisfaction that comes from helping others. He can fill your life with the assurance that comes from knowing that you belong to Him for all eternity. The Bible says in Acts 8:12, But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women (NIV).
 
Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says this about the word believe, “…to be persuaded of, hence, to place confidence in, to trust, signifies, reliance upon, not mere credence.” Believing the good news is not just something that happens between our ears, it is something that happens in our heart. There are people who have been partially connected to religion, but never fully connected to Jesus. To believe in Jesus is to be moved in our heart to obey the Lord’s teaching and be united with Him in the waters of baptism (Romans 6:3-7, Galatians 3:26-27). Baptism into Christ is the way you enter the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13, Acts 2:47). Following Jesus is the greatest adventure in this life that leads to eternal life.

Clark Tatum