file: /pub/resources/text/Our.Daily.Bread: db940319.txt
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          OUR DAILY BREAD                        Saturday, March 19, 1994
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          Read:  Philippians 3:1-11

                                CAPTIVES IN CHURCHES

                  ...not having my own righteousness, which is from
                 the law, but that which is through faith in Christ.
                                  --Philippians 3:9

          Unbelievable, yet true; bizarre, yet it happened.  A  16-year-old
          girl  was kidnapped and held prisoner for  4  months.  Where?  In
          the attic of a church in Memphis, Tennessee.

          Week  after week that congregation gathered to worship, to  sing,
          to  pray,  to enjoy Christian fellowship -- and for 4  months  in
          that very same building there was a terrified human being needing
          to be rescued.  Until she was discovered and released by two  men
          on  the  church's  maintenance staff, that girl  was  a  helpless
          captive.

          Imagine!  A  prisoner  in  church!  But perhaps  there  are  more
          people  hidden  away in church than we realize--people  who  have
          been taken captive by God's diabolical enemy (2 Tim. 2:26).  Like
          the apostle Paul before his conversion, they may even think  they
          are  living  for God while they are dead in  sin.  There  may  be
          people in our churches who have not experienced spiritual freedom
          through faith in Jesus Christ.

          Evangelist Billy Sunday quipped that taking a horse into a garage
          doesn't turn it into an auto, nor does merely taking a  sin-bound
          person into a church change him or her into a child of God.  Only
          personal faith in Jesus does that.

          Are you a captive, or have you been set free?

          Author:  Vernon C. Grounds

                             Salvation is a gift of God.
                            Not something earned or won;
                            He freely gives eternal life
                              To all who trust His Son.
                                       --Sper

          THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
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          True freedom is found in captivity to Christ.

          THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:   Judges 1-4

          


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