WEDNESDAY, December 2 (Channing Moore Williams)

Whether I have an ivory palace or a shack, just being able to speak and see the great I AM is enough for me!!!

It is difficult for those who are dependent on religion alone and who take their authority by the position they hold in the church, to be humble and ask for mercy, whereas the tax collectors and harlots of Jesus time would have been ashamed of the things they had done. These will be the first in this life and the next to ask for mercy.

Sometimes I think we forget that it is the posture of the heart and not the position of the person that is the reason we need this Savior. We forget the Bible is our standard for whether or not we are righteous. It is easier to see the unrighteousness of those whose sins hang on the outside of their lives like filthy rags, but the Bible says that we are all like filthy rags on the inside. The heart is decietful and desperetly wicked. It will try and tell us I'm okay, and you're okay, but we are really not okay unless we have recognized we need a Savior for the same reasons as those who stumble around us every day with those outward sins we all shake our heads at. We are desperetly in need of a Savior. I think each of us has to measure our own hearts and lives by the Bible and not the bottle or the brothel. For sure I nailed the Savior to the tree just as securely as those whose sins hang on the outside of their lives. And for sure, I am keenly aware of how easily I can take my eyes off the standard of God's Word and put them on the chaos in the world around me these days and pat myself on the back because I live in some measure of sanity compared to others. But there are so many sins that live in the heart that many do not see but God. These are the ones hard to recognize, and even harder to confess. But once we do, they are washed away by the blood of Christ as easily and surely as those who confess and call for cleansing that have those remarkable testimonies of deliverence and changed life. thanks for listening.