Love to Christ is the mainspring …

By: Steve Huston

Personal note:

The world rushes around shopping and spending getting ready for the big day. Large corporations have been madly marketing for this day called Christmas yet so readily (in some cases anxiously) remove the name for the season replacing Christmas with holiday.

Christ IS the reason for the season! He came to redeem sinners. I am a sinner. I will never forget. I read the following words this morning from the old theologian/pastor – J.C. Ryle.

Love to Christ is the mainspring of work for Christ. There is little done for his cause on earth from sense of duty, or from knowledge of what is right and proper. The heart must be interested before the hands will move and continue moving. Excitement may galvanize the Christian’s hands into a fitful and spasmodic activity. But there will be no patient continuance in well-doing, no unwearied labour in missionary work at home or abroad, without love. The nurse in a hospital may do her duty properly and well, may give the sick man his medicine at the right time, may feed him, minister to him and attend to all his wants. But there is a vast difference between that nurse and a wife tending the sick-bed of a beloved husband, or a mother watching over a dying child. The one acts from s sense of duty; the other from affection and love. The one does her duty because she is paid for it; the other is what she is because of her heart. It is just the same in the matter of the service of Christ. The great workers of the church, the men who have led forlorn hopes in the mission-field and turned the world upside down, have all been eminently lovers of Christ.
Many great Christians have left a mark on the world. And what was the common feature of their characters? They all loved Christ. They not only held a creed. They loved a person, even the Lord Jesus Christ.
[Taken from Daily Readings from all four Gospels, J.C. Ryle]

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Match Grant update:
Double your gift!

We have just 08 days to make the match challenge that was extended to us earlier in the year and then renewed also in recent months.

Our match numbers are as follows as of December 23 (12:15 pm)
102 gifts totaling $9,653.06

We are trying to reach our goal of $10,000 in gifts from new donors or those who haven’t given since before 2007.

To donate online:
https://americandecency.org/folder.php?f=donate
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American Decency Association
Bill Johnson, President
P.O. Box 202
Fremont, MI 49412
ph: 231-924-4050
https://americandecency.org

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