Good Morning! - Eph.4:30 - Being Confident

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in youwill perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: (Php 1:6)

And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph_4:30).

The Best Commentary – by J. Vernon McGee . (The length has been cut in half.)

Because this is my life verse (Phil.1:6) and therefore very meaningful to me, I hope you won't mind if I tell you about it. I was a very poor boy when I went away to college. My dad had been killed in an accident in a cotton gin when I was fourteen years old. My mother took my sister and me to Nashville, Tennessee.

I had to get a permit that allowed a boy of fourteen to go to work, and I worked for a wholesale hardware concern. I had to be up by five o'clock in the morning to pick up the mail and have it sorted and on the desks of all the officials in each department. I should have been in school, and I wanted to go to school. Later I had the privilege of going back to school because a wonderful friend acted as a father to me. He had a son who was a drunkard. He had wanted his son to get a college education, but he didn't; so the man helped me get a job, and I was able to go to college.

Every year I thought it would be my last year. I never thought God would see me through—I had very little faith. The last year I was in college was during the depression; 1928 and 1929 were bad years. I couldn't get a job and had no money.

On graduation day, after receiving my degree, I returned to my room in the dormitory, still in my cap and gown, and sat dejectedly on the edge of my bed. My roommate came and asked, "What in the world—did somebody die?" I said, "Just as well to. I thought God had called me to the ministry. I'm through college, the depression has hit, and I don't even have a job for this summer. I haven't a dime to go to seminary next year."

While we were still talking, the phone rang. It was for me. On the other end of the line was a dear little lady who asked me to stop by her home where she lived with her sister. They were both widows, and they looked as if they had come out of the antebellum days. They attended the church where I taught a class of intermediate boys, and I herded the boys into the church service every Sunday morning.

The sisters sat in the pew behind us, and I always thought they disapproved. But in their home that day each handed me an envelope in memory of her husband. I left as soon as it was polite to go, hurried around the corner, and opened the envelopes. The first contained a check for $250; I hurriedly opened the other envelope and found another check for $250. Do you know what $500 was like during the depression? I felt like a millionaire!

That night the Sunday school had a banquet for me, a farewell banquet, and they gave me a check for $100. So now I had $600! That is the money with which I went to seminary the next year. That night at the banquet someone gave me this verse: "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." That has been my life verse ever since that night (McGee).

Memory Verse This Week:

Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels (Mar 8:38).

Write the verse on a 3x5 card and say the verse five times a day, reference before and after the verse. Write the verse several times a day on a card or paper carried in your pocket for that purpose. Say the verse to a friend or family member once a day. After this week, repeat the verse daily for several weeks until it pours out without effort. It takes about 60 days to thoroughly memorize a verse. It takes a lifetime to obey and practice a verse.

Dan Carr