The Great Exchange

Don Mance

Copyright ©2012 by Don Mance

Smashwords Edition

Cover Photo by Mandi Mance

Cover Design by Collin Gibson - info@collingibson.ca

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®.  Copyright ©1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.  Used by Permission.  All rights reserved.

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Acknowledgements

I dedicate this work with great love and gratitude to my beautiful wife, Mandi.  This book would not have been written without your encouragement and gentle prompting.  I love you and very much treasure you.  You were worth the wait!  Thank you for everything.

I also dedicate this work to my late father, Forrest, whose life epitomized the word picture I have tried to capture with this book.  Thanks dad, for pointing me to the way of the cross through your selfless love, your devotion to God and your desire to be changed by Him.

To Jesus – for Your glory

The Great Exchange

By Don Mance

Introduction

I’m writing this book, dear friend, to challenge what you think you know about God.  Therefore, as you read it, I need you to do something if it is to truly have an impact on your thinking and on your life.  I need you to lay aside any preconceived notions you have about God, through your good or bad experiences with organized religion.  I also need you to set aside any conclusions you have come to on your own, or through what you have heard and what you have been taught.

Will you please do that?  What do you have to lose?  You may at the end of this book you choose to reject its conclusions.  You are absolutely free to do so.  I very much thank you for taking the time to read it.

However, you can also choose to embrace the conclusions offered in this book. If you do, I believe you will begin a wonderful, thrilling journey that will leave you with no regrets.  You will also undoubtedly develop a profound sense of God’s love for you and perhaps an understanding of the higher purpose He had in mind when He created you.  I would like to offer up a simple prayer to ask precisely these things for you:

Lord, thank you for the reader of this book.  I ask that by Your grace, he or she will let go of any preconceived notions about You, as well as any hurts or wounds experienced that would hinder the wonderful good news contained in this book.  May Your truth carry the day, dear Lord.  May that truth penetrate the deepest parts of the heart, mind and soul of the reader.  May he or she connect with You in a profound, life-changing, everlasting way as he or she discovers the depth of Your love, grace, kindness and goodness.  I ask these things in Jesus’ most holy and precious name.  Amen!

One

Works Don’t Work

Many sincere people, when asked the question, “Do you believe you are going to heaven?” answer “Yes.  I’m basically a good person.”  That is, of course, assuming that the person responding believes in heaven in the first place.

It is an understandable but quite incorrect line of thinking.  In every sphere of human existence, a man or woman achieves success through work.  A student studies hard to pass a test.  A worker works hard and perhaps even takes on extra responsibilities to secure a promotion.  We succeed in life based upon what we do.

It is difficult for the human mind to grasp that God loves us not because of what we do, whether good or bad, but apart from what we do.  That is, however, precisely what He does!  Even many people raised in the church struggle to really understand this concept over the course of their lives.  You and I have value and worth to Him, simply because He created us to know Him and to love Him as He loves us.  He desires fellowship with you and me, not just here and now, but through all eternity from everlasting to everlasting.  Before you drew your first breath, God knew your name, the number of your days, and everything else about you.  He created you to have a living, vibrant, intimate relationship with Him.

God doesn’t just give perfect love, He is perfect love.  He loves you and I just as much on our bad days, when we seemingly can’t get anything right and are not living in a way that’s pleasing to Him, as He does on our good days, when we are doing just the opposite.  How marvelous is His love!  You and I cannot earn it, we don’t deserve it, but He freely gives it.  It is an unconditional gift to be treasured.

God is also divine and perfect in all of His other attributes.  One of those attributes is holiness.  He is without spot or blemish.  He is absolutely perfect in goodness and purity.  No sinful flesh can dwell in His presence.  That means that our best simply is not good enough.  Any impure thought that is entertained, even the subtlest of offenses would preclude us from being with Him for all eternity, if we could initiate right standing with Him in any way.  The Bible says in Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”    No matter how hard we try in life, we fail.  As good as we believe our efforts to be, each day we disobey God’s precepts and thwart His desires for how we should live.

However, there is no need to struggle and strive and try to win God’s love or earn His acceptance.  It is already ours.  This should be a liberating truth to all people everywhere on the Earth.  Indeed, just as the righteous deeds you and I do don’t earn us a place with God, so also our sinful deeds do not disqualify us.  Many people wrestle with guilt and shame for things they have done.  They feel very distant from God and are certain He could not love them.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

God reached out to us in love to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.  Through the obedience of One, He rebuilt the shattered relationship that sin created.  Jesus Christ died an atoning death for you and me and covered all our sins: past, present and future.  He declared “It is finished!” before He expired on the cross.  That selfless act of love for you and me took the judgment that was due all human beings upon Himself and made us, through Him and Him alone, right with God.

The obedience of Jesus even unto death has a multitude of marvelous effects for us, both now and for eternity.  I’ll address the eternal implications in a later chapter.  The rest of this book will be dedicated to making you conscious of the implications for the here and now.

Two

The Cross, the Empty Tomb and the Holy Spirit

What distinguishes Christianity from all the world’s other major faiths?  There are many differences, but I would like to focus on the three I believe to be the most important:  the cross, the empty tomb and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

If the story of Jesus Christ ended on Good Friday with His painful, torturous death on the cross, the good news would not really be good news at all.  However, it does not end there!  Jesus rose and sin, death and hell were vanquished once and for all.  Because He lives, you and I will live.  We will live eternally and we can live victorious and abundant lives here and now, thanks to the indwelling presence of His Holy Spirit.

The belief that God left His place in heaven; humbled himself by taking the form of frail flesh and died in our place makes many scoff and consider it all too far-fetched.  The Bible goes on to claim that He then rose, ascending into heaven and subsequently sending His own Spirit to dwell in sinful, fallen human beings.  That makes it even harder to wrap one’s head around the story of Jesus Christ.

The Bible declares in 1 Peter 1:10-12 that even the angels in heaven look with wonder after God’s divine plan of redemption for the human beings he loves so much.  It states, “Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.  To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven – things which angels desire to look into.”

As you consider that God would come to Earth and dwell as a human being, consider the ramifications of that reality.  He needed to eat and drink while He was here to survive.  His body functioned just as yours and mine does each day He walked among the humans He created.  The Bible even mentions that He wrestled with temptation, but didn’t sin.  Each day He was confronted with the choice to obey God the Father, or to disobey.  Every day He chose to obey and remained perfect and sinless!  Hebrews 4:15-16 notes that truth, and how you and I should live as a result.  It states, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

A well-rounded view of Jesus embraces both His divine nature and His humanity.  On one hand, He was and is and always will be Emmanuel, God with us.  This was demonstrated through the supernatural signs and wonders He performed.  On the other hand, He was human and experienced both the pleasures and pain of living as a man.  This balanced view helps us to acknowledge the all-powerful, sovereignty of God while also understanding that He is not distant from us but understands our daily struggles.

It is very easy to approach a God that you know is powerful enough to protect and provide for you and at the same time is able to empathize with you. Jesus, being both fully God and fully man, fits that description precisely. He walked on the Earth for approximately thirty-three years and experienced many of the things you and I experience, including rejection and betrayal.

The wonder of the cross, the empty tomb and the indwelling presence of God in us is that through the redemptive work of Jesus, we have hope for eternal life through Him and power to live for Him right now.  It comes through a trade I like to call The Great Exchange.

Three

The Great Exchange

Spend five minutes observing humanity, whether it is at home, on the road, in the workplace, or even the church and you quickly see why we all need a savior.  Human beings left to their own devices tend to be very selfish.  Even those trying to live for God stumble and fall, and apart from the Spirit of God are capable of very bad behavior.

The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we do not have to needlessly strive with our flesh and wallow in self-pity as we repeat the same mistakes over and over again.  By the power of Holy Spirit, through the resurrected Christ, we can overcome our fleshy ways and become the people God has destined us to be.  It is a process.  It does not happen overnight.  We also must be mindful that through our free will, we can still consciously choose ways that are opposite of God’s will for us.

Here is the Great Exchange in a nutshell:  We meet Jesus at the cross and give Him ourselves completely.  We consciously choose to nail our selfish, self-seeking ways to the cross and declare ourselves dead to sin through Him.  He in turn accepts and rejoices in our faith in Him, and gives us a robe of righteousness in Him and through Him alone.  Our declaration is that it is no longer we that live, but Christ that lives His life in us!  We become partakers in His divine nature, through the sealing and the indwelling presence of His Holy Spirit, as He comes into us to live.  We literally have God dwelling inside of us.  How marvelous and wonderful that the King of the Universe, perfect in all of His ways, would inhabit those who become His followers.  That is exactly what He does!

It gets even more wonderful still.  God the Father, through our faith in Jesus, adopts us as his sons and daughters.  He sees us as His children!  I’m not sure what kind of man your earthly father was or is, but I don’t want you to think of God the Father as having any of your earthly father’s weaknesses or imperfections.  God the Father is divine.  He is perfect and pure love, life and light.  He loves you just as you are, but far too much to leave you just as you are.  In light of the Great Exchange, life takes on a new wonderful outlook every day.

As I write this book, I’m celebrating, yes, truly celebrating twenty years as a Christian.  I never get nostalgic or sentimental for my old life before I met Jesus Christ.  I was like a rudderless ship, being tossed to and fro, wondering what possible purpose there could be in human existence.  I was a very unhappy young man, often turning to alcohol to drown my sorrows.  I would wake up with the same sense of futility and a hangover to go with it!  When I heard, truly understood, and embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I felt like at my young age of twenty-two, life was beginning again.  What is even more wonderful is that every day is like that.  In spite of any failures, mistakes or outright sins I commit during the course of a day, each day with Him is new and is a fresh start.  I simply confess to Him my sins, reject them outright, and recommit myself to Him and to His plans and purposes for me.

I want to caution you that committing your life to Jesus does not automatically wipe away all of your problems.  Anyone who has told you otherwise has done you a disservice.  Jesus said in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”  God does not ever promise that your life will not be touched by pain, injustice or suffering whether you choose to follow Him or not.  What He does promise is to lead you in the midst of these things and help you to overcome them.

My conscious decision to reject my old life and embrace God’s ways has made me misunderstood at times and cost me a few close friends.  As wonderful and rare as good friends are, I would rather stay on His path for me and not compromise my core values and beliefs.  God’s ways are not always the most convenient or easy to follow, but they sure reap the highest rewards, both now and for eternity.  However, I must choose them every day.

Four

You Make the Choice

Before God sent His beloved Son into the world to die for your sins and mine, He gave humanity another very precious gift: the gift of free will.  It was that gift that ultimately allowed Adam and Eve to disobey God in the Garden of Eden.

When you give your life to Jesus Christ you do not become a robot or a zombie.  You retain the right to take back your life, to stop living for God and to declare that you will chart your own course.

Place a glove on a table or somewhere else near you where you can see it.  It can be any type of glove, perhaps a winter glove or a driving glove.  The glove is lifeless just sitting there.  Now, pick up the glove and slip your hand into it.  The glove retains all of its own properties, but there is animation in it now.  Your hand can flex the fingers of the glove, or clench a fist and ball it up.  At any time you can take the glove off and toss it back on the table.

It is the same with your life in Christ.  The Spirit of God comes to dwell in you.  Through the power of God’s Word and His supernatural presence in you, He works in concert with your free will to help you make the best, most informed decisions.  However, the decisions are ultimately still yours.

One does not make the choice to invite Jesus Christ into his or her life only once.  It is a daily choice.

The Holy Spirit does not lead through coercion, fear or intimidation.  He does not try to browbeat you into submission.  It is always your choice to invite Him into your life, to allow Him to fill you to overflowing and to live His life in you, providing you with the power you need to fight the good fight of faith daily.

If there is one key reason why Christianity and Christians are not having more of an impact on the world today , it is because too many of us are still far too preoccupied with ourselves.  We want what we want.  We want ourselves, our families and those we love to do well.  We are far less concerned with those we don’t know.

I see a lot of really bad human behavior on the roads while driving.  Many drivers speed in and out of lanes, sometimes even failing to use their turn signals to make their intentions known to other drivers.  “Get out of my way.  I’m late.  I want to get home.  My day has been hard.”  The problem is the human condition.  Our default ways are self-seeking and self-promoting.

That is not to say that we go around seeking to be the doormat of anyone and everyone that wants to wipe their feet all over us.  We have every right and indeed the responsibility to remove ourselves from those who abuse us.  We should never allow ourselves to be controlled by others.  Most importantly, if we are in imminent danger from those around us, we should get ourselves as far away from the offender as we possibly can.

My point is simply that we should always choose His ways.  Those ways include being genuinely concerned for those around us, not just those we know.  They also include loving unconditionally, and esteeming others more highly than we do ourselves.  We should show consideration to others as those made in the image of God, valued and loved by God Himself.

It takes more than just good intentions toward others to make this change in our lives.  It takes power from above.

Five

Power to Live

I am pleased to report that you don’t have to fight your own sinful nature in your own strength.  The power to live the Christian life comes from God Himself, through His Holy Spirit.

Your bad habits, your weaknesses and your character flaws are engrained in you through years of selfish living, through bad teaching, through your hurts and wounds at the hands of others, and many other factors. On the surface, trying to overcome them would seem daunting.  However, the fight to overcome them is not yours alone.

The Spirit of God begins working in you immediately after your decision for Christ to begin to conform you to His very likeness.  He works in concert with the Bible, the inspired and authoritative Word of God, to show you who God is and how He desires you to live.

The most tragic circumstance I find in life apart from the person who doesn’t know God is the person who comes to a saving knowledge of God through Jesus Christ and stops there.  A person receives Jesus, declares himself or herself “saved” and proceeds to go forth and live just like the rest of the world does.  Would you say your first word as a baby and stop there?  Or would you take your first awkward step as a toddler and declare yourself finished?  You most certainly would not.  Yet, when it comes to spiritual growth, many people do the equivalent to that.

God doesn’t just want you to know Him through eternity. He wants you to know Him through your life here on Earth.  He created you with purpose.  He made you the special collection of gifts, talents and abilities that you are so that you can impact others for Him.

He also created you to be an overcomer.  Your past does not have to define you.  God has come to dwell in you and join with your spirit to make you a new creation in Christ Jesus.  No matter what you have done, you have not left yourself in a place where God cannot redeem you.  Isn’t that wonderful news?  You failures, mistakes and outright sins of the past do not have to dictate your future.  A life yielded to God is a powerful and beautiful life.  It truly pleases God and it brings Him great glory.

I can think of no greater example of this than the life of my earthly father.  My dad struggled with alcoholism for most of his adult life.  He was not a bad man, but his addiction drove his life.  He saw everything through the prism of his alcoholism.  In his early fifties, he had a life-changing experience and discovered the self-destructive road he was on as a result of his addiction.

My dad did an extraordinary thing.  He chose to face his addiction head-on and, using the power of a twelve step program and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, asked God to help him.  God did!  The bitter, angry man I knew through my early years was replaced by a kind man, concerned with others and no longer considering himself to be the most important person in any relationship.  Others noted the incredible changes in him as well.

We had an incredible, joyous fifteen years together until God called him home in 2007.  At his memorial service, many people stood up and declared how his positive spirit, his genuine love and concern for others and his selflessness had impacted their lives.

There is no mysterious formula, no unattainable secret that made the transformation of my dad a reality.  He declared himself powerless to change on his own, confessed a need for God to help him, and then dedicated the rest of his life, day by day, to becoming a new man.  He spent time reading the Bible and communing with God in prayer.  He attended AA meetings regularly to confess his faults and struggles to others in a loving, non-judgmental environment.  As the days passed, the old man became a distant memory and the new man became a living reality.

The power that helped my dad is available to you!  You must simply surrender and stop trying to do it in your own strength and your own way.

Six

Abundant Life

An eternal perspective is a good thing to have, but many Christians get so caught up in the eternal ramifications of their lives, they forget that God came to give them abundant life here and now.

Jesus declared this in John 10:10, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”

Many people are afraid that if they give their lives to God, God will call them to the mission field in a far away and dangerous place.  Others are concerned it will mean giving up the things in life they love and hold most dear.

It’s not true.  More often than not, you will find yourself working in the same job, enjoying the same activities and maintaining the same relationships.  They won’t be different, but you will be.

It is a tragic mistake to give your life to Christ and then to retreat in some religious bubble.  It is far more biblical to engage the world, while not conforming to their expectations.  Jesus said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

As I noted before, I’ve been a Christian for twenty years.  In that time, I have not stopped enjoying many of the things I did before Jesus came into my life.  I love to watch football, particularly my beloved Detroit Lions.  I enjoy having coffee with friends.  My friends outside the church know where I stand and what I believe.  They all pretty much respect my beliefs, and even engage me in conversation about my faith sometimes.  A few have even accepted invitations to see me preach or attend other church events.  None of that would have been possible if I locked myself away in a monastery and severed all human contact with those that didn’t share my convictions.

Don’t be afraid of being corrupted by the world’s distorted values and beliefs.  Rather, commit yourself to meeting people wherever your life takes you and conveying the love of Jesus to them right where they are.

That is certainly not to say that your new life in Christ will not change your point of view and your priorities.  A loss by the Detroit Lions is not the end of the world to me.  A friend that grows distant because he or she doesn’t understand or accept my boundaries as a Christian is not really worthy of my friendship.

I have lived, by many standards, a pretty exciting life to date.  I served in the Air Force in Europe during the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall.  I’ve preached in diverse places and published a book about my experiences.  None of these things compares to a moment of knowing Jesus and the feeling of security my life in Him brings to me.

At the end of the day, all that really matters is God’s opinion of you.  It should be a very liberating truth to know that He is always for you.  He is not always necessarily for what you are doing, particularly when you are disobeying Him.  However, His love for you never fails.  It is consistent and constant.  God’s love for you is one of the few things you can depend on to always be there for you.

It is in the light of that truth that we should live all of our days.  Life is not always easy or fair.  Good people sometimes suffer horrible things.  However, God has showered us with many blessings and will deliver us from the things that hold us back from being all He has destined us to be.  God has filled our lives with good things, not the least of which is new life in Him through the death and resurrection of His Son.  When we consider that truth, everything else pales in comparison.

Seven

Eternal Hope

I remember the first time in my life when I was deeply impacted, and quite frankly disturbed, by the death of another person.  I was preparing to leave for my enlistment in the Air Force when a girl in my neighborhood was tragically killed.  She was a friend of mine.  She was an intelligent, beautiful and talented girl with a bright future.  She and some of her friends were out one night with a driver who had had too much to drink.  The car they were in crashed and my friend was dead.

I attended her funeral, which was at a Catholic church within walking distance from my home.  At the end of the service, the priest threw holy water on her casket.  There was something about that action that brought home the reality that she had lived her last day here on Earth.

I walked home and sobbed along the way.  I had experienced death before, having lost aunts and uncles in my own family.  However, this was the first time I saw someone younger than me being laid to rest.

I was struck by the waste of a human life being cut so short.  Further, having not really embraced the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I was under the impression that this was the end of the girl I had considered to be my friend.

I look back on the event now with a different perception.  I still mourn the tragedy of a life cut short by the selfish and sinful actions of a drunken driver.  However, I no longer view that as the end of my friend, but merely her transition from life, to death, to life eternal.

We all face the inevitability of death.  We all lose people we love along life’s journey.  Eventually the specter of death comes to each of us.

Thanks to the redemptive work of Jesus at the cross and His glorious resurrection, death is no longer a thing to be feared.  We can breathe our last breath with confidence that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, as the Apostle Paul wrote by inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Throughout this book, I have tried to present to you, in the easiest possible terms to grasp, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is time for you now to examine the entire case I have presented to you, to weigh it, and to make a determination for yourself.

If you remain unconvinced, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this book and to do so with an open mind.

If faith has stirred your heart, I implore you to act on that faith now.  The prayer printed below is like a tool in a toolbox.  It is to assist you in settling the matter in your heart once and for all that God loves you and desires a relationship with you, both now and for eternity.  If you are ready to receive the gift of salvation through the shed blood of Jesus and His resurrection from the dead, simply pray this prayer:

“Father God, I am a sinner.  I consciously choose now to turn away from my sins and to turn to You.  I ask you to forgive me.  I receive the wonderful gift of eternal life through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Come into my heart Lord Jesus.  Be both my Lord and my Savior.  By your grace I will live for you and serve you all of my days.  Fill me with the indwelling presence of your Holy Spirit, to equip me and empower for the new life in You I choose this day.  I thank you and praise You for Your mercy and grace.  I pray all these things in Jesus name.  Amen.”

That prayer is meant to be a new beginning and not an end.  What a wonderful new beginning it is!  Angels in heaven rejoice when a sinner comes to the end of him or herself, and asks God in!  The Bible says so in Luke 15:10, “Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” It is something to be celebrated.

Bearing that in mind, I want you to do one more thing.  I want you to tell someone what you have just done.  It is the most important and best decision of your life.  Be sure to choose someone that will not mock or ridicule you.  Choose someone that will be truly glad for you.

My prayer for you is that you would grow mightily in the knowledge of the grace of God and His steadfast love for you.  I pray that you would walk with boldness into the wonderful things He has in store for you, that you may be fruitful in every good work for Him until He returns or calls you home.  Holy Spirit, empower and equip this dear one with all wisdom and discernment to proceed in this hour.  Lord, let these things be so, in the mighty, holy name of Jesus.  Amen!

Eight

A Marathon

The Christian life is a marathon and not a sprint.  You may be enthusiastic about the decision you have made for Christ.  You should be!  However, you cannot survive on enthusiasm alone.

The world is a turbulent and unpredictable place.  It seems to be growing increasingly confused, chaotic and dark.  We are experiencing financial turmoil and social unrest in all of the corners of the globe.  Governments are failing and falling.  Institutions are crumbling.

You may be tempted, when your enthusiasm wanes and hard times hit close to home, to just quit and settle for less than God’s very best for you.  Do not let these feelings dictate the terms of your life!

Difficult times inevitably come to us all, whether we are serving God or not.  The difference for the Christian going through these times is that he or she understands where to place his or her confidence.  We are surrounded by human beings.  Even those we love dearly will disappoint us from time to time.  God is always with us.  Even when we don’t understand what is happening, we can have confidence that He is working on our behalf to strengthen us and grow us up in Him.

There is no better place to be right now than close to the Lord.  Pray daily.  Read the Bible.  Participate in a church that declares Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life and allows you to use your God-given gifts and talents in service to Him and to others.  Silence the voices that compete for your attention with Him and put yourself in a place to hear from Him on a daily basis.  God still speaks to those who would hear Him, not necessarily with an audible voice, but very definitely in times of intimate communion with His saints.

No matter how dark the world gets, always remember that the Kingdom of God is within you!  Don’t be afraid, nor discouraged.  God has not destined us for wrath.  He promises to lead us in the midst of the fiercest storms and the most overwhelming catastrophes.

We can be secure in His love for us and His eternal commitment to us.  The King of the Universe loves you with an everlasting love.  He spared nothing, not even His own Son, so that you could have a place at His table now and forever.  Should you misuse that grace and stumble, pick yourself up, renounce your old ways and return to His path.  Do not mistake conviction with condemnation.  Conviction is the inner voice of His Spirit gently nudging your spirit to confess and repent of your sinful ways.  Condemnation is a deception of the devil to throw you off track with a lie that you have sinned further than the grace of God can bring you back.

Dearly beloved of the Lord, do not give up.  He will continually cover you with His peace, love and mercy throughout your journey.  His grace will surely carry you to the finish line.  I look forward to seeing you, either on this side of heaven or there someday. I’d like to close with a prayer for you to seal that request!

“Lord, bless this dear one.  Protect him or her through the days ahead and keep his or her heart and mind fixed in Christ Jesus.  Stay the hand of the evil one and preserve this precious one in true faith in You, unto everlasting life.  In Jesus name I pray.  Amen!

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Introduction

One Works Don’t Work

Two The Cross, the Empty Tomb and the Holy Spirit

Three The Great Exchange

Four You Make the Choice

Five Power to Live

Six Abundant Life

Seven Eternal Hope

Eight A Marathon