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INSIGHTS from Bill Bright
Reflections from the late Founder and President/Chairman Emeritus of
Campus Crusade for Christ International
The Street Urchin
It gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom (Luke
12:32, NLT).
Dear friends:
Can you imagine a lowly street urchin striking it rich?
The story is told of a very wealthy man who took compassion on a street
urchin whose parents were dead. The boy was homeless.
The wealthy man asked his servants to bring the boy, grimy with dirt,
into his palatial home. They bathed him and cared for him, and over a
period of time the man began to love the boy as much as he would his own
son.
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Ultimately, the rich man loved the boy so much that he made the boy an
heir of his estate so that all he possessed would one day fall into his
hands and become his own property. This was all because this benevolent
and loving man cared enough to adopt him.
The little boy did nothing to deserve it. He was just his little dirty
self. But because of the rich man's great love, and as a free gift, the
street urchin became rich.
Isn't that just like our heavenly Father? We are less than street
urchins in all the grandeur and magnificence of the universe. I like to
say that in myself, I am nothing but a termite on a speck of a planet,
in a speck of a solar system, in a speck of a galaxy (one of more than
100 billion, according to the Hubble telescope finding), in the vastness
of creation.
But amazingly, as lowly as we are in our human selves, our heavenly
Father, who is love personified, looked upon us with His great
compassionate heart, then He sent His Son to redeem us.
"In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus
Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will -- to the praise of his
glorious grace" (Ephesians 1:4-5, NIV).
We are not only adopted into this Royal family, but like the street
urchin, "We are heirs -- heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if
indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his
glory" (Romans 8:17, NIV).
Sharing in His sufferings does not mean that we have to suffer on a
wooden cross. Jesus did that once for all and it never has to be done
again. But like the apostle Paul, we must "die every day" to self, that
he might be glorified in us (1 Corinthians 15:31).
Yours for helping to fulfill the Great Commission
each year until our Lord returns,
Bill Bright
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The late Dr. Bill Bright was Founder and President/Chairman Emeritus of
Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization which began as a campus
ministry in 1951 and now has more than 27,000 full-time staff and up to
500,000 trained volunteer staff in 196 countries in areas representing
99.6 percent of the world's population. In the past 50 years, Campus
Crusade for Christ has seen approximately 6 billion exposures to the
gospel worldwide. The film, "JESUS," which Bright conceived and funded
through Campus Crusade for Christ, is the most widely translated and
viewed film of any type ever produced. Since its use began in 1980, the
film has been translated into 839 languages and viewed or listened to by
over 5.7 billion people in 228 countries. Dr. Bright was also the
author of more than fifty books. Dr. Bright recently co-founded Global
Pastors Network to "Touch, Teach and Train" a group of 5 million new
house churches around the world 24/7/365 at
http://www.globalpastorsnetwork!
.org.
Copyright (c) 2003, Bill Bright. All rights reserved. However, readers
may copy and distribute this message as desired, without restrictions in
number, as long as the content is not altered. Forwarding this e-mail
to friends is encouraged. For many evangelistic and spiritual growth
materials, visit the Campus Crusade for Christ Web site at
http://www.ccci.org. See http://www.campuscrusade.org for Bill Bright's
own materials.
Additional devotionals are available from Crosswalk.com:
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