Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Aftermath of forgiveness

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Hebrews 10:10-14
We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

Anne Rice wrote her first novel, Interview with the Vampire in 1976. It was an immediate success. Thirty years and twenty novels later she wrote something completely different, a novel called Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt.

In the mid-1990's at a family wedding, Ms. Rice was surprised by the changed spirit in her deeply Catholic family. She had left the church and with it her belief in God decades before. Where previously she would have experienced rejection because of this, she felt acceptance and love. The church to which she had been so attached in her childhood and adolescence had been transformed.

Emotional, romantic Anne was overwhelmed by her family's love. Her adopted atheism didn't crack, but over the next few years it took many more hits and finally she surrendered to Jesus. She accepted God's forgiveness and was remarried in the Catholic church.

Within a short time her husband of 40+ years died of a brain tumor and she nearly died in a diabetic coma. Her weight ballooned and many of her fans turned against her.

But last year she published Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, and in it she writes:

My story has a happy ending because I have found the Transcendent God both intellectually and emotionally. And complete belief in Him and devotion to Him, no matter how interwoven with occasional fear and constant personal failure and imperfection, has become the true story of my life.

Anne Rice now rejoices as she drinks the blood and eats the body of Jesus. For all time she has been redeemed by Jesus' death and resurrection. He will always love her. Just like He will always love me. And will always love you.

I am poor and needy, Lord; please think of me and do not delay. I know you have lifted me out of the slimy pit and mud and mire, and you have set my feet on a rock. Put a new song in my mouth today, Lord, a hymn of praise.

Devotions Archive

Aftermath of forgiveness

Wednesday, March 25, 2009