While staying on the island of Mull for a few days one afternoon I sat by the waters’ edge on the South shore of Ben More. I was feeling a bit depressed and disappointed at my attitude as a Christian. It was the summer holidays, and our Sunday school was on holiday for a number of weeks but was due starting again soon. I really was not looking forward to getting back into harness again and felt guilty about this, knowing how much Jesus had done for me.

It was while I was weighed down and feeling like this that I sat on a stone right by the waters’ edge. I was reading a little booklet called “The Heart at Rest” by Saint Augustine. The title of the article I was reading was, “Freely, Freely,  you have received.” It read like this: – “Are only those  whohave not sinned blessed? No, those are blessed whose sins have been forgiven. That grace is given to us freely: we have no good works to show yet he forgives us our sins.” (See Ephesians 2:8-9, Titus 3:4-5).

I looked away from my book to meditate on those words and discovered the tide was at this very moment beginning to turn. It was starting to retreat.So it is in a person’s  life when the tide of sin begins to overflow the soul, faith in the free gift of salvation without works turns the tide. A great release from drowning in sin is experienced.

“When the enemy comes in like a flood, The Spirit of the LORD will lift up a standard against him.”(Isaiah 59:19 NKJV)

Donnie Black
Donmoir Cottage
Kilmacolm
Renfrewshire
Pa134th