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Key Bible Verse: And each day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved (Acts 2:47). Bonus Reading:Matthew 11:28–29

I remember the first Sunday that Bob Brewster appeared in the back pew at the church I pastored in central Ontario. I learned later that morning that his wife had left him the previous week. He'd decided he couldn't cope alone. Since he had some friends at this church, he showed up with his two young daughters, wondering how to piece his life back together.

After two or three months Bob was sitting farther forward for Sunday worship. Later he became involved as an assistant Sunday school teacher.

For months I chose to say nothing to Bob about Chris-tian faith. It seemed best to let him be on his own. But after about a year he came to me and, with no prior warning, asked to be baptized. I asked then about his journey.

As he described a process that had taken at least a year, I realized that Bob would have never accepted God's love or given himself to God until he felt loved and accepted by the Christian community. No one person had been an evangelist to Bob; the whole church had been the vehicle through which he had embraced the love of God, come to understand the gospel and gained confidence to choose to follow Jesus.

—Gordon T. Smith in Beginning Well

My Response: What has drawn me closer to God?

Thought to Apply: You can't tell the exact moment when night becomes day, but you know when it is daytime.

—Source unknown

Adapted from: Beginning Well (InterVarsity, 2000) by permission.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

I thank you, God, that although Christ is the only way to You, You draw men to Him in many ways.

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