file: /pub/resources/text/Our.Daily.Bread: db941021.txt
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OUR DAILY BREAD                      Friday, October 21,1994
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READ: Hebrews 10:19-23


                         "PROMISE KEEPERS"

                     He who promised is faithful.

                          - Hebrews 10:23

Joe was a behind-the-scenes kind of person - quiet, unassum-
ing, often unnoticed. To see him, you wouldn't think he had
been carrying a heavy burden for more than 11 years. But
Joe carried it well.

Every so often I would think about Joe. I hardly knew him,
but just knowing what he had to live with encouraged my
faith in God. Joe was being faithful to his wife, who for
11 years lay in the hospital following brain surgery. With
the exception of just 2 or 3 days, Joe visited her in the
hospital every day until she died.

Such unfailing fidelity is the stuff God-fearing men and
women are made of. It's the fruit of the Spirit rooted in
the hearts of people who hold firm to God's love through
life's trials. And when you talk with these people, they
take no credit for their fidelity but give God all the
credit. One Sunday at church before Joe's wife died, I told
him what an inspiration he was to me. He said humbly, "It's
all by God's grace."

As we appropriate God's grace in Jesus Christ and persevere
in faith, He gives us what we need to keep the promises we
make according to His will. And when one day He says to us,
"Well done," we will respond, "It's all because You were
faithful in keeping Your promises to us."

Author: Dennis J. DeHaan

        In scenes exalted or depressed,
        Thou art our joy and Thou our rest;
        Thy goodness all our hopes shall raise,
        Adored through all our changing days.

        - Doddridge

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
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Because God is faithful to us,
  we can be faithful to our promises.

The Bible in One Year: Matthew 23-25


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