{"id":7333,"date":"2020-05-22T00:10:33","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T05:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.brethren.org\/?p=7333"},"modified":"2020-05-22T00:10:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T05:10:33","slug":"good-news-youth-devotional-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/2020\/05\/22\/good-news-youth-devotional-30\/","title":{"rendered":"Good News Youth Devotional"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"66\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/39\/2020\/05\/Good-News-Youth-Devotional-2020.cropped.green_.small_.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7319\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><em>By Walt Wiltschek (Pastor at the Easton Church of the Brethren (MD) and at-large editor of Messenger magazine)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ephesians 2:1-10 &#8220;&#8230;it is by grace you have been saved through faith&#8230;&#8221; <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of my favorite Southern sayings is, \u201cGrace is like grits. It just comes.\u201d And it\u2019s true. When we used to travel to visit my relatives in Texas, if you stopped in somewhere for breakfast\u2014and sometimes for other meals\u2014you would find a pile of grits on your plate when it arrived. It usually didn\u2019t matter whether or not you had ordered them. They just appeared. It\u2019s like a \u201clagniappe\u201d in New Orleans: a bonus gift that comes unexpectedly with your purchase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Ephesians, Paul tells the church that God\u2019s gift of grace comes much the same way. They didn\u2019t deserve such a grand gift. They had screwed up. They had disobeyed. They had made mistakes. But God loved them anyhow. And because of God\u2019s grace through Jesus Christ, they had been saved from all of that\u2014not because of anything they had done to earn it, but simply because they were \u201cGod\u2019s handiwork.\u201d And for those who accept that, the grace just comes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Good News:<\/strong> How do you come up with any better news than the gift of God\u2019s grace? Ask forgiveness for the places and times that you\u2019ve screwed up, and experience it for yourself.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Discussion Question:<\/strong> Take a look at the lyrics of the hymn \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d by John Newton. Are there any verses or phrases that particularly grab you? Why? Are there parts you still wonder about? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Go one step further: Check out a video of Chris Tomlin\u2019s contemporary take on the hymn \u201cAmazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone).\u201d You can find one set to some beautiful scenery below. Soak in the words. What does grace mean to you? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone) - Chris Tomlin (with lyrics)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Jbe7OruLk8I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Walt Wiltschek (Pastor at the Easton Church of the Brethren (MD) and at-large editor of Messenger magazine) Ephesians 2:1-10 &#8220;&#8230;it is by grace you have been saved through faith&#8230;&#8221; One of my favorite Southern sayings is, \u201cGrace is like grits. It just comes.\u201d And it\u2019s true. When we used to travel to visit my<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[391,516,1197],"class_list":["post-7333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional","category-youth-young-adults","tag-ephesians-2","tag-good-news-youth-devotional-2020","tag-walt-wiltschek"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}