Enjoy Life, Enjoy God

GRACE, PATIENCE AND COLE PORTER

November 12, 2009

Many of you may not know the name Cole Porter. He wrote many wonderful songs back in the 1930s and 40s: "Night & Day," "I've Got You Under My Skin," "I Get a Kick Out of You," and "Anything Goes." "Anything Goes" is a delightful song, and may describe the times, but...

I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering...
- Revelation 2:21.22 TNIV

That scripture passage is part of the letter to the Church at Thyatira, that church had a portion of its people practice the following principle: "anything goes." But the angel tells John, "No." Grace, yes! Patience, yes! But not without a summons to turn away from "anything goes." "I have given her time to repent..."

The teaching of grace through faith in Jesus Christ is the best news you and I have ever heard, but it is not a license to anything goes. It is a summons to turn to Christ, and to serve him, to follow him today.
Joyfully,

Dale Patterson