In his second letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul refers to an earlier letter written to them which was an apparent forgery. The writer of the letter claimed to be Paul, but Paul disowns the letter. He had not written it. 1 THESSALONIANS 2:1-2 "Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand."

Notice how Paul tells them not to be shook up by this letter "as from us" or as some translations put it "letter supposed to have come from us."

Paul goes on in closing his letter to them by saying in 2 THESSALONIANS 3:17-18, "The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."

Paul is here stating that he ends all of his letters with a distinguishing mark or phrase. It is his special token. Any letter claiming to be from him that did not have his token was clearly a forgery. What was Paul's token? It was the phrase "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you."

Here's the evidence from all his other letters:

ROMANS 16:24: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."

1 CORINTHIANS 16:23-24: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen."

2 CORINTHIANS 13:14: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be wlth you all. Amen."

GALATIANS 6:18: "Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen."

EPHESAINS 6:24: "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen."

PHILIPPIANS 4:23: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."

COLOSSIANS 4:18: "The salutation by the hand of me Paul. Remember my bonds. Grace be with you. Amen."

1 THESSALONIANS 5:28: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."

1 TIMOTHY 6:21: "Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen."

2 TIMOTHY 4:22: "The Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen."

TITUS 3:15: "Al1 that are with me salute thee. Greet them that love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Amen."

PHILEMON 1:25: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen."

It is interesting to note that the letter to the Hebrews, which some doubt was written by Paul, ends with (HEBREWS 13:25), "Grace be with you all. Amen."

The Apostle Peter refers to a hard-tounderstand letter written by Paul to the same Hebrews he was writing to. 2 PETER 3:15-16: "And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you: As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." All of Paul's other letters were written to Gentiles, not Jews. The evidence, therefore, from both Paul and Peter, points to the authorship of Paul for the letter to the Hebrews. It ends, as does his other letters, with Paul's token.

A few years ago, a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of baskets of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly-missed boarding.

All but one. He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.

He told his buddies to go on without him, waved goodbye, told one of them to cal1 his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad he did.

The 16 year old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping, and no one to care for her plight.

The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them into the baskets, and helped set the display up once more. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.

When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $20 for the damage we did. Are you okay?"

She nodded through her tears. He continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day too badly."

As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him,
"Mister..."

He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes.

She continued, "Are you Jesus?"

He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his head: "Are you Jesus?"

Do people ever mistake you for Jesus?

That's really our destiny, is it not? To be so much ]ike Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live our life and interact daily with a world that is blind to His love for all mankind.

If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It's actually living by His example as our life unfolds day to day. You, too, are the apple of God's eye even though we all have been bruised by a fall.

He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit.

Let us all live like we are fully worth the price He paid.

It was touted as the "miracle mile" - one of the greatest mile-run match-ups ever to take place. The race was between Roger Bannister, the first man in the world to ever run a four-minute mile and John Landy, the second man to accomplish that feat. It was Bannister's strategy to relax during the first three laps and save everything for his finishing drive. As they entered the final lap, the two runners were neck and neck. Then Landy began to pour it on and took the lead by several yards. Bannister felt that he was going to lose if Landy did not slow down. Then came the famous moment (replayed thousands of times in print and on film). As they reached the home stretch, Landy compulsively looked back to see where Bannister was - a fatal lapse of concentration. Bannister launched his attack and won the race by five yards.

Landy's lapse serves as a modern example of what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said: "Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith." (Hebrews 12:1-2) If we take our eyes away from Jesus, the end-goal of our race, we will not be victorious. It is significant that the writer used "Jesus" rather than the title "Christ" in this verse because he wanted us to focus on Jesus' humanity as he lived it here on earth. His entire earthly life was the very embodiment of trust in God.

Jesus is the "perfecter of our faith." It was his absolute faith in God that enabled Him to endure the mocking, crucifixion, rejection and desertion by his friends - and made Him perfect in faith. F.F. Bruce wrote "Had He come down by some gesture of supernatural power, He would never have been hailed as the 'perfecter of faith' nor would he have left any practical example for others to follow." Only because he suffered these things and felt them as a fellow human being did He uniquely qualify to be the "author and perfecter of our faith."

If we are to win this race we must deliberately lift our eyes from other distracting things and focus with utter concentration on Him. Our central focus must be on Jesus. We must be totally absorbed with Jesus. We must live as He lived, fixing our "eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:18)

How was Jesus able to do this? The rest of Hebrews 12:2 tells us how: "who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Jesus didn't focus on the shame and suffering of the cross - He kept his eyes on the victory that the cross represented in God's great plan of salvation for the world. He focused on the joy of being reunited in heaven with His Father and being crowned with honor and glory and sitting down at the right hand of the throne of God and having all things put under his feet. He focused on bringing many sons to glory, and making us part of his joy.

Will there be hardships, pain, and other distractions in this earthly race? Yes, of course there will. But hardships can do one of two things to us. They can distract us from our focus on Christ, forcing us into a spiritual "Landy's lapse" - so that we are slowed down, or even drop out of the race. Or they can intensify our focus on Christ, because we consider these trials as blessed discipline from the Lord - a sign that we are loved by Him and in family relationship to Him "because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and punishes everyone He accepts as a son."

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind but now I see.

These words are from the most popular hymn in Christianity. There is something so appealing about grace: being excused for our transgressions. Yet, so many Christians don't really understand grace and how we are to receive it from God and extend it to others.

When I was about 17 and a senior in high school, I learned first hand what it means to receive grace. I was dating a guy at the time named Mike who was four years older than me. We went out on a Friday night with some of his friends to dinner and a movie in the city (downtown Chicago). At the end of the night, Mike had to drive one of his friends home on the other side of the city. We hit a huge amount of traffic because a festival was letting out at the same time, so by the time Mike got me home it was a good 50 minutes to an hour later than I had told my parents. When Mike dropped me off, I told him, "I hope you had a good time, because I probably won't be able to see you for a month."

My parents were already in bed (it was almost 1:00 AM), but I knew they were still awake (they always knew when I got home). The next morning when I got up, my dad says, "You got in late last night." I explained what happened with Mike's friend and the festival getting out and prepared for the wrath of my father. Instead, my dad just looked at me and said, "Don't let it happen again." I can't even explain the relief I felt! I had been pardoned! And for those of you who know my dad, that was an amazing gift! It was like a weight was lifted off of me. My father showed me grace. I had broken the rules and deserved punishment, but instead received none.

I've thought a lot about that incident recently. I realize that the reason I so appreciated my dad's grace was that usually, when I broke the rules, disobeyed, etc, I (rightfully so) received a punishment. If he always said, "Oh, don't worry about it" every time I broke a rule, I would have learned that rules in our home didn't matter. But, the power of that grace I received was that rules did matter. My dad had spent 17 years of parenting on the principle that when I disobeyed, lied, etc, I received a punishment. There was never any question: my dad didn't "threaten," he followed through. Because he had established his power and right to dole out punishment, when I received grace, it was truly amazing. And it inspired me to want to please him and obey. I was never EVER late from a date again!

That's just like the grace we receive from our heavenly Father. God (rightfully so) punished plenty of sinners in story after story in the Old Testament. He established his power and right to punish. A just God must have a payment for sin. However, He decided to send His son to receive the punishment for us. And because we are pardoned, even though we deserve punishment, we are inspired to please our Father and obey. My prayer is that I continue to learn how much I have been pardoned so that I understand the grace I've received and want to please my heavenly Father more and more each day. I pray that for you, too.

Rebekah Gets the Water
Genesis 24

Imagine you’re living in the year 1945 B.C., and you’re lugging a rope, a bucket, and the largest water container you can manage. Now, you’re walking to a well which is outside of your town, Nahor. As you approach the well, you see a traveler, his entourage, and ten camels laden full of stuff. They’re all just standing there doing nothing. What would you think?

Well, I’ll tell you what I would think! I’d think, “What kind of nut travels through the desert with ten camels full of stuff and doesn’t bring a rope and bucket?”

Thankfully, Rebekah didn’t share my critical nature. You see, she happily drew water and gave it not only to the weary travelers, but also drew water for the ten thirsty camels. That’s a lot of water to draw!

So, who is this traveler? It is Eliezer, the chief and eldest servant of his master, Abraham. You see, Abraham’s wife, Sarah, had died, and Abraham himself was quite old. Their son, Isaac, was unmarried, and Abraham was concerned that Isaac wouldn’t be unequally yoked with a local Canaanite woman. Therefore, he gave Eliezer a mission: find a wife for Isaac that was his own kind.

This mission brought Eliezer to this well, far from home, in the city of Nahor. Upon arriving, Eliezer asked God’s blessing on a test he devised. The woman he sought would be the woman who drew water for him and his camels. Rebekah was that woman.

Now, Eliezer was no slouch. He gave Rebekah a gold earring and two gold bracelets for her effort, after which she offered them lodging in her father’s house. The camels were fed and bedded down, Eliezer and his entourage were given lodging, their feet were washed, and a lovely meal set before them.

But Eliezer would not eat until he explained to Rebekah’s father, Bethuel, and her brother, Laban, why he had come. Upon understanding the situation, they gave their blessing to Eliezer’s intentions. This time Eliezer brought forth gold, silver, jewels, and fine apparel for Rebekah, Laban, and her mother, Milcah.

The next morning, it seems Laban was having second thoughts. Eliezer was ready to leave, but Laban wanted them to stay a week or so. It was decided to let Rebekah choose. Rebekah said, “I will go.”

“I will go.” I believe those words epitomize Rebekah, a woman full of good will and faith. Nobody told Rebekah to help the strangers with the camels and no rope or bucket, but Rebekah said, “I will go and get the water.”

It reminds me of another woman willing to help and get the water for a stranger. We don’t know her name, but we know the name of that stranger, because he is no stranger to us; Jesus. She gave him H₂O, and Jesus gave her living water.

Rebekah and the Samaritan woman got water for strangers. A simple, yet profound, action which yielded wonderful, marvelous, and extraordinary results. No wonder our friend Peter expounds, “Use hospitality one to another.” 1 Peter 4:9