Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. We're continuing our series through 2 Peter.   Today, we're in chapter 1, verse 6. Let me read 5, 6, 7, and 8. "Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”   We have this process that's going on in our life that begins with faith, and then we bring moral excellence and knowledge and self control. And today, in addition to our self control, we want to bring perseverance. And then to perseverance, we will bring godliness. Perseverance is necessary because if you're like me, persevering is one of those things that requires energy.   Just because I can make myself be operating under self-control today, doesn't mean I'll do it again tomorrow. Perseverance takes time. It's difficult for us to tame ourselves and train ourselves in self control, and therefore we must persevere. Perseverance is the natural next step. Just because we begin self-control today, doesn't mean we will persist in it. Persisting in it requires this perseverance, and so we must bring perseverance. It's important because we will not achieve godliness. Godliness is being like God, doing the things that God would have us do. We want to be God-like.   Our goal is to be like Jesus Christ, to model Jesus Christ in our lives and to our friends. That requires that we are godly people, that we become like God, that we do the things that God would have us do. It's interesting because this word's clearly translated godliness. I believe that's the natural result of this process.   We stepped through from moral excellence to knowledge to self control. When we persevere in our self control, the result that we produce is godliness. We become like God. We do the things that He would do.  Today. I want to challenge us. Let's persevere. Let's chase after God hard. Let's keep going. Whatever one more day, one more hour, I'm speaking again to myself. I chose this entire passage because it's talking to me.  We need to prepare ourselves and grow up in our faith, and this process, we step through these different qualities. We iterate through this process, and we grow as followers of Jesus Christ. And He puts us to work in more and more opportunities with our friends and the people that we work with. Today let's grow. Let's keep growing. Let's persevere. Hang on, go one more time. Do another lap. Exercise for another few minutes. Let's persevere so that we move on into godliness to being like God, so that we can make Him visible in our world every day.  I want to challenge you today. Pray. Ask God to help you persevere. Ask Him to help you remain present with the people that you interact with. Ask Him to help you make a difference in the lives of every person that you interact with today. You will become more like God as you do that, as you listen to Him. You ask Him for guidance and listen to Him, and then do what He says.And so that's what we want to do today.  Thank you for being a marketplace minister and thank you for spending your energy and trying to grow up in your faith so that you will glorify God. That's what we try and do in Follower of One. I'd like to invite you to become a part of our online community. Join us at https://community.followerofone.org. You can join our online community for free, take part in a Marketplace Mission Trip, and begin to practice these traits in your life and grow up in your faith. Thanks very much.

Welcome to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr., and today, we're continuing our conversation through 2 Peter chapter 1 in this progression of character traits or things that we should pursue as followers of Jesus Christ. And today we're in 2 Peter 1:6. "And in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness." Self-control is the core reason why I chose to study this passage, and to make a series of podcast episodes, or devotionals, on this topic. Self-control is what I need to focus on as a human being and as a Christ-follower.   We spoke earlier about how we were to supply moral excellence in our faith. Moral excellence, I believe, is this pursuit of trying to get where we are living according to the best that Jesus has for us. We take the knowledge that we have of Him in our first set of faith, in the first faith that He gives us, and we apply our lives to that knowledge. We act according to what we believe. Self-control comes after knowledge. So knowledge follows moral excellence, and then self-control follows knowledge.    Now this is a different command. This is about managing ourselves. Managing ourselves toward what's best from God, and toward what's best for others. Self-control is this ability to keep my body tamed; to keep my mind and my spirit and my energy within the control of myself, and also submitted to the Lord. I can overeat or I can lose my temper, and where I lose self-control, I'm not a God-honoring person. I'm not all aligned. There's another reference to self-control in 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 24 and 25. It says, "Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things." This self-control is subordinating my own desires to my long-term goals. This is where I have the biggest problem. I give myself a pass. I claim that I don't want to eat sweets, but then in the evenings, I decide I want to have some sweets. I give myself a pass. I give myself a "bye." Do we give ourselves a "bye" in and around our friends and in, and around those people that we are with? Self-control is one of these characteristics that we have to bring to the Lord. He gives us the faith, and then we bring these other attributes, and self-control is a key piece in this puzzle. Today, I want to challenge us. Where do we need to exercise some self-control? The Holy Spirit will tell you where you need to do this. Just ask Him. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show you where you need to exercise self-control. And while you're praying, you can pray for me, because I need to exercise self-control too. Ask the Holy Spirit to help me exercise self-control; to do the things necessary to achieve the goals that I want to achieve. Just like in this passage in 1 Corinthians 9, I exercise self-control so that I can achieve the goals that I have. My rational mind has these goals. The Holy Spirit gives us a passion and a desire to accomplish certain things. Do we want to allow our own lack of self-control to take us out and to disqualify us?  Today, I'd like to challenge you, pray and ask the Holy Spirit to show you where you need to use more self-control, and ask Him to give you the strength and the energy to add that to the knowledge and the moral excellence that you brought to your faith already. Ask Him to allow you to add self-control to the knowledge and the moral excellence that you've already added to your faith. Let's keep this process going so that we can glorify God daily in our workplace. Thank you for being a marketplace minister and thank you for making a difference in the lives of the people that you interact with every day. Your self-control matters. All of our effort in this area matters. And so, let's continue to add these features to ourselves and to our faith so that we can glorify God in our workplace. Thanks again for being a minister in your marketplace. And also we're getting ready to have another Marketplace Mission Trip. Go check that out at https://FollowerOfOne.org. Thanks very much.

Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr., and our goal is to help you to be a full-time minister in your regular job. We've been going through a series on 2 Peter chapter 1, and today, we want to talk a little bit about adding knowledge to moral excellence. We're in verses 5 and 6. "Now for this very reason, also applying all diligence in your faith, supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance..." I stated before that I see this as a circular progression.  It begins with faith as we spoke about in the last episode, and the first thing we add to our faith is this moral excellence. This commitment to doing what's best to choosing- to live a life that's morally excellent; that lines up with God. Our choice to obey is the key first step. What we add to our faith is our choices to obey, and then God gives us more.  He gives us more intelligence. He gives us more opportunities. He gives us this knowledge, and that's why I believe knowledge is second. We obey our way into knowing Jesus, we don't simply study our way into knowing Jesus. Our truth of knowledge, our growing up in Christ, comes first from obedience, and that opens the door to knowledge. But we have to work on our knowledge. And then when we learn new things, we can't unsee them. We can't unlearn them. So then we must begin to control ourselves to live according to the knowledge that we've gained. Knowledge and self control go together.  This whole series that we began on 2 Peter verses 2 through 8, it was motivated by my own goal to focus on self-control. So please know that I'm speaking to myself as I often say. This is my time to remind me what needs to happen in my life today too. Self-control is the ability to dictate to ourselves what we're going to do. And in my case, I tend to give myself a pass. We'll talk about this more tomorrow, because what follows self-control is perseverance, and we'll still be in verse 6 tomorrow. Today, I want us to concentrate on adding knowledge, studying about Jesus.  Do you read the Bible every day? And then do you let that Bible reading transform you? Take a few minutes every day, and read a little bit of the Bible. You can read a proverb, you can read just a few passages of scripture. Many daily reading plans are only a verse or two or three long. I would encourage you to get more of the Bible in, if you can, to grow your knowledge, to take in more.  There are places in the Bible that require some work, and there are other places in the Bible that may call for memorization. Let's focus on knowing Jesus. Let's obey Him and study Him, and the way we know Him is we obey Him and we study Him some more. The knowledge and the obedience go together. Add to your moral excellence knowledge, and then to your knowledge, self-control. Today, let's read the Bible. Let's ask God to show us Himself through our scriptures, and then let's look for opportunities to obey what we read today at work. Watch how often Jesus will use what you read this morning in your workplace today. It will surprise you.  Thank you for being a marketplace minister. And thank you for making a difference in the lives of the people that you work with every day. We are excited to live our faith, and I hope that we help you live your faith on a daily basis. That way we can enjoy our relationship with Jesus and glorify Him as we do our daily job and as we do the things that we enjoy. Also, if you'd like to learn more about our community, check us out at community.followerofone.org, where you can sign up to become a member, take part in our community, and even go on the next Marketplace Mission Trip. Thanks very much.

Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry Sr., and we've been talking through the first chapter of 2 Peter. We're in verse 5 today. "Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge". The title of today's post is about “Why is faith first?” What we're talking about here is growing into the God-life. I mentioned the God-life in the previous episode, where it says that we become partakers of the divine nature in the New American Standard. We actually get to start living the God-life. That's our salvation.    And it's God's divine power in verse 3 that grants us everything pertaining to life and godliness. We get everything pertaining to life and godliness through the knowledge of God. That's in verse 2. And all of this begins with faith. In verse 1, Simon Peter says, "to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours." We get the faith first.   Faith is the down payment. It's what God gives us when He gives us the Holy Spirit, and He gives us faith, and as we exercise that faith, we grow into this God-life. And that's what I think this whole exercise - these next four verses - are about. They're about how we grow into the God-life. I want to put it on like a jacket, or I want to grow into it.   I want to learn how to use the professional tools instead of just the amateur tools or the kids' tools. I want to grow up in my faith. I want my faith to be something that is applicable and makes a difference in the lives of my family and myself and the people around me. And so I have to grow up in my faith.   We come to our faith in the Lord from death. Remember in Ephesians, it says we were dead in our trespasses and sins. And what we've done is we've come to the life. We've come to this new God-life through faith. Faith is first. And he says that he begins this verse, "Now for this very reason, also". He's tying together those first four verses.   And then he challenges us to apply all diligence. Diligence is "persevere with careful or painstaking attention and effort." This is hard. We broke the world, and restoring these- this God-life, rejoining the God-life requires effort and work. God summoned us. He's given us this responsibility. He brought us to this challenge.   Our work is to grow into it. And that's where we supply moral excellence. That's the first thing that we apply to our faith. We get our life right. We get morally excellent. We live as if we believe God. Moral excellence is this idea that I abstain from certain things. I do other things that I might not do if I were not a follower of Jesus.    In doing these things, we start to grow up. It's like doing practice. When you start, when you first begin to golf or when you first begin to take part in any sport, you take the baby steps first. You do the small things first. The small things first are moral excellence.   Moral excellence is where we are called to line our lives up with God and with His life. We want to live according to what we know about God. I want to talk about this more in the next episode. So we'll continue in 2 Peter, 1:5. We'll continue in that verse tomorrow, as we go through these different characteristics that we bring to this God-life and grow up in the God-life.    Today I want to challenge us as followers of Jesus. Let's ask God to show us where our own life doesn't line up with the things that God wants in us.    Let's supply moral excellence by lining our lives up with what we believe about God. Ask Him to show you where your life doesn't line up with what you know is consistent with your beliefs, and then do something about it. Take some action, and do something about it. Let's not let another day go without pursuing moral excellence, because it's the first step in growing into the God-life.    Thank you for being a marketplace minister, and thank you for making a difference in the lives of the people that you interact with every day. Our job as ministers is to help other people move one notch closer to Jesus.   I'm excited that you listened to this podcast, and that you consider how you might be able to help other people move one notch closer to Jesus. Your actions make a difference in our world. And I'm grateful for that. Thank you very much.

Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry, and today we continue our conversation about 2 Peter chapter 1. Today we're in verse 4, “For by these, He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” Maintaining consistency, that's the New American Standard, and the reason why I'm continuing in this translation, it's natural to me. It's the translation I've been reading for a long time.    This particular passage is a little bit difficult in that verse, in that translation. In the CSB, it says "By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire." I think that's a little more natural language for speaking how this passage- what this passage means.   “By these” is a reference to the previous episode. It's by the power of God. It says, “through true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” I think the "by these" is to His glory and excellence, although it also refers to His power in that verse. So that's the "by these" of 2 Peter 1:4. By these, He has granted us His promises. He gives us the promises, and then He grants them.   And that way we get to, it says "become partakers of the divine nature." In the CSB it says "that we may share in the divine nature." That divine nature is really- it's the God-life. We get to share in the life and the character of God. We get to take part in that, because we've escaped the corruption that is in our world because of the evil desire of us, people. Our sin corrupted our world.   We get to escape that corruption through our relationship with God, and through His promises. We get to escape the corruption. I want to ask you today to escape the corruption in our world, to enjoy and take part in the God-life, because as we join God in His life, and we escape this corruption, that's where we get the power to do the things that we'll be talking about in the next few verses as well.   We get God's life and His strength and His power, and we can make a difference in the lives of the people that we interact with every day. Just simply because we've chosen to enter the God-life, we've been given this access. He talks about in these first four verses of 2 Peter, God gives us this access. And because we have it, we can choose to step into the God-nature and escape the corruption. That calls us to live this God-life in the presence of our peers and our friends.   We're part of God's marketing plan. We're part of His idea to help us live His life in the presence of our friends, so that they might want a piece of that too. They might want to join Him and experience the same life and the joy and the peace that we experience. So today, I want to challenge us. Can we live a life of joy and peace?   Can we celebrate in our own heart, His precious and magnificent promises? And that way, we get to enjoy the God-life and escape the corruption in our world. This is all part of His divine plan. We get to take part in that today, by focusing on Him and joining Him in His life. I want to ask you today to make it a purposeful, intentional act that you want to join God in His life at your workplace.   God's life enters your workplace when you do, and that way, you become a marketplace minister. Ministry is nothing but helping other people move one notch closer to Jesus. When we live His God-life, we make Him visible in the lives of our friends and our family. Thank you for being a marketplace minister, and thank you for making a difference in your job and wherever you are today.   And you can check us out and you can join us and find a community of people who are trying to concentrate on living this God-life on a consistent basis. Our website is followerofone.org. Thanks very much.

Welcome back to the Follower of One podcast. I'm Mike Henry with Follower of One, and today, we're talking about 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 3, "seeing that His divine power has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence."   The reason why this is pulling this one verse out of a sentence fragment, I spoke in the previous episode about grace and peace being multiplied to us, how we multiply grace and peace. And we're able to do that because of the knowledge of God and Jesus, our Lord, but here in this passage, I want to notice something.   This is something I want to remember all the time. His divine power, Jesus' divine power, has granted us everything pertaining to life and godliness. I don't live like I have everything pertaining to life and godliness. I'm constantly buying something else, or eating some sweets, or doing something that basically sends the message that I really don't believe that I live as if I have been granted everything pertaining to life and godliness. And I want to challenge us a little bit. I think our ability to multiply grace and peace, our ability to be these people who bring grace and peace into every circumstance comes from this true knowledge of the fact that we have everything pertaining to life and godliness. Do you believe that? Do you believe what Peter's saying here? Do we have everything pertaining to life and godliness? The only two answers I can realize from this are if I think I don't have them, then I'm questioning God and His word. And if I think I do have them, then why don't I live trusting that?    Why am I worried about finances? Why am I struggling to do different things or pressing to get things done in a particular timeframe? Why am I sensing pressure if I have been granted everything pertaining to life and godliness? I think this verse also explains to us part of the gap, "through the true knowledge of Him who called us." The gaps are my knowledge where I come up short that may equal exactly the gap in my own knowledge.   I'm not trusting Jesus and I don't know Him well enough, and that's where these gaps show up. But as I know Him better, then I experience everything pertaining to life and godliness. I will be praying about this verse for both you and me. I pray that we can live knowing Christ more and experiencing more and more everything pertaining to life and godliness.   We'll talk about this some more in the next verses too. The whole reason why I want to go through at least verse 8 is because this passage is this great example of how we can be grace and peace multipliers. We remember, first of all, that we are being granted everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of Jesus.   I want to challenge us today. Let's sharpen our knowledge of Jesus and live like we know that we have been granted everything pertaining to life and godliness. Those places where we sense the gap, those may directly correlate to someplace where our knowledge comes up short where we don't know enough about God and we don't trust enough about God to see Him working through everything that's happening in our life.   I hope that your faith makes a difference in the lives of the people that you work with. I hope that you can intentionally walk with Jesus today and ask Him to show you how His divine power has granted us everything we need pertaining to life and godliness. Thanks for being a marketplace minister, and thank you for making a difference in the lives of the people that you interact with every day.   One moment at a time, we can choose to follow Jesus and watch Him put us to work in the lives of the people that we interact with. Thanks very much.

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. Today, and for the next few episodes, I'm going to go through 2 Peter chapter 1, at least the first few verses of it. I so love this passage of scripture, and I've been focusing more on self control, even though I'm not winning the battle, and we'll come to that in verse 6.   But today, 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 1 and 2, I'm just going to go ahead and read verses 1 and 2. “Simon Peter, a bond servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and savior, Jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord...” Again, that's from the New American Standard. For those of you who listen to this podcast, you know, I generally read from that translation. It's just something that I've been in the habit of doing. Today, I want to talk about how we are called to multiply grace and peace. The model that we're given is Jesus.   Jesus came and brought us this idea that we can be distributors of grace and peace, and Peter's expounding on that idea today. Peter's saying, I want you to have grace and peace multiplied to you. Different translations say it's lavished, or in abundance. This multiplication of grace and peace is the idea that we would get more than we need, and it would be multiplied to us in the knowledge of God and of Jesus, our Lord.   In other words, as we know God, and as we know Jesus, grace and peace are multiplied to us. The gateway for this comes further on. We'll break this apart, and I'm not too sure I have it all mapped together, but my challenge for us: I want to make sure that we have a challenge every day as we go into the workplace. I have a friend whose target word idea for this year is “multiplication”, “multiplying”. And I like the fact that the word is used here.    Let's be people who multiply grace and peace in the world around us because we know God and we know Jesus, our Lord. We know them and we are associated with them. We follow Jesus, and that gives us the ability to take the grace and peace that are multiplied to us, and distribute that. We can share that with every person that we're with. Simply living with grace and peace makes a difference in the world around us. Sharing that and multiplying that to others makes a difference.   We have the power to do this, because we have the knowledge of God and Jesus. We received it. We received the faith of the same kind he mentions in verse one. Having received this faith, we get this knowledge of God and Jesus, our Lord, and therefore grace and peace are multiplied to us.    If you're living without grace, if you're living without peace, I can tend to live without peace. I can get all wrapped up in what's going on in my world. I can feel like I don't have extra to give away. I always feel like I need to give more than I feel comfortable doing, but I believe that comes from me focusing on things that are not God and Jesus, our Lord.   When I focus on what I know about God and Jesus, our Lord, I realize that I have grace and peace to spare. I have grace and peace and the ability to make a difference in the lives of the people that I work with today. And that's what I'd like to challenge us to do today. Find a way to ship some extra grace.   I believe if you ship it, you will find that you have more and more. And so let's ship some extra grace and peace into the lives of the people that we interact with today. Thank you for being a marketplace minister and thank you for making a difference in the world around you. Let's be intentional in our relationship with Jesus and ship this grace and peace to our friends.   And if you want to join a community of people who are trying to do the same thing, check out followerofone.org. Thanks very much.

Jim Lapinski and Tom Nohelty are two men who sought to share their faith in their workplace, both seeking to make an impact for God’s kingdom by completely surrendering. Their obedience led to the creation of Marketplace Impact.  Jim and Tom join me in this episode of Follower of One to share more about their global ministry and how they’re working to equip Christians to share their faith every day of their lives. Their like-minded approach to ministry is one of the reasons their course is becoming part of the Follower of One resource library. Don’t miss it! You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in... Learn how Jim and Tom connected [0:49]  The mission of Marketplace Impact: Living on Purpose [4:12] Creating marketplace impact by being obedient [9:18]  Making “Foundations” easily accessible worldwide [11:31]  What’s next for Marketplace Impact? [18:29]  Resources & People Mentioned Marketplace Impact Marketplace Impact on LinkedIn Friend on Facebook Connect with Jim Lapinksi and Tom Nohelty Connect with Jim on LinkedIn Connect with Tom on LinkedIn Subscribe to Follower of One: A Faith at Work Podcast Audio Production and Show Notes by - PODCAST FAST TRACK

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. Today I've chosen a passage from John chapter 3, verse 36. “He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”    This is from the New American Standard Bible, as I typically do, but there are several translations of this that either say “does not obey”; some say “do not believe.” “He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”    This word is translated, “obey”, or “does not obey” is "disobedient" in some translations. And I believe that's the accurate rendering because that word is translated most often as disobedience throughout the remainder of the New Testament.   John the Baptist is speaking here, and he's the last Old Testament prophet. And he's explaining about Jesus to his followers, to his disciples. And this is the last thing that he says about Jesus. He actually says before this, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. He who believes in the son...” Now he's talking about us. He's talking about those of us who believe in Jesus. We believe in the Son, we have eternal life. These are present tense.   He who believes, has; they're linked together. This alternate version though says “does not”, “but he who does not obey”. He's talking about the opposite and this is why I think belief and obedience are tightly linked.   When we- Jesus is here to do a job. The Holy Spirit is here on earth, doing a job. He's calling all people to Him. He's redeeming us and challenging us to choose to follow Him. Following Him isn't just mentally deciding that He's right, or mentally acknowledging that He's in charge, as I did for the first 30 years of my life. I believe that God created all this, but He left me alone and I left Him alone, and I felt like we were fine, but I didn't understand the scripture, and I wasn't reading the Bible. As I start reading the Bible, I see that the Son and the Holy Spirit are actively involved in the lives of every person on the planet, calling us to follow Jesus.    And following Jesus grants us eternal life, and I believe based on this sentence, that eternal life produces obedience. It produces us doing what Jesus would have us do, and that's the challenge I have for us today in the workplace. When was the last time you asked Jesus “Okay God, what do you want me to do?” Here I am. That's our kickoff prayer. We punch in, “Here I am Jesus. What do you want me to do today?” If I do not obey the son, then I will not see life. The wrath of God will abide on me.    But I want to obey Jesus. That's my bent. That's something that the Holy Spirit has been growing in me since the day I first trusted Him. And I want to continue to grow, and I get more responsibility by doing more. We'll talk about that in another episode. Today, I want to challenge us. Ask Jesus what he would have us do, but then solve for how.   Solve for how you can do what Jesus challenges you to do. If you get a wild idea while you're praying that you should give somebody an exorbitant tip, or that you should stay after work and help someone today, figure out how to make that happen. Don't question the challenge, solve for how.    I want to challenge us today. Let's link. Let's keep our belief in Jesus and our obeying Jesus tightly coupled, because this verse does the same, John the Baptist challenges us. Because we believe, we obey. That's the proof.    Thank you for being a marketplace minister. Thank you for paying attention to your relationship with the Holy Spirit and your relationship with your coworkers so that you can take part in Jesus's work in your world.   I challenge you also, check out our website at followerofone.org. Join a community of us who are working together to try and help one another do a better job of believing and obeying and making a difference in the lives of people around us. Thanks very much.

Hey, it's Mike Henry with Follower of One. Today I want to talk about 2 Kings chapter 6 verse 23. "So he prepared a great feast for them; and when they had eaten and drunk, he sent them away and they went to their master. And the marauding bands of Aramaeans did not come again into the land of Israel."     I talked about this a little bit on the episode proceeding, this.    This army of men came to capture Elisha who had been telling the king of Israel about everything that the king of Aram was planning. And so they sent this army of people there. And the chariots of fire were presented to Elisha's helper. That's what we talked about in the previous episode. And then Elisha spoke. He prayed and asked, and God blinded these- this whole army. And he directed them. He guided them to Israel. All the way down to Samaria, actually in verse 20, it says. And when they had come to Samaria, Elisha said, "Lord open the eyes of these men that they may see." So what Elisha did was he took this entire army of people down into the middle of the enemy camp and handed them over to the king of Israel. The king of Israel thought, "Well, should I kill these guys? They're the enemy." But Elisha said, "No, don't kill them." He suggested that they bless them. That they set bread and water before them and let them eat and drink and then go home.    And verse 23, they prepared this great feast and fed these men who came to kill Elisha. I think it's important to note and the point that I want to make today is the grace that we have as followers of Jesus should show up, even when people are trying to do us harm. That grace may not prompt you to do what these people did, but notice how the Israelites were feeding these people, and blessing them, and sending them away filled. They had grace for these people. They didn't kill them even though these people came to take Elisha captive.    I want to challenge us today as followers of Jesus. And this may be a little bit of a stretch from this passage, but we know what elsewhere in scripture.    Where can we bring grace? Where can we go beyond what is expected of us and deliver this grace so that other people might see Jesus? This question, "How can I ship grace into this environment?" Is a good question for us every day. How can we ship grace to the people that we interact with? Even people who would be our enemy.    Today on your marketplace mission trip, as you go into your own workplace, I want to encourage you to be a missionary, to take some extra grace, to build some time into your schedule and pray for the people around you. And then, let God give you the ideas of how to treat other people, so that they might see Him, not us.    The Israelites prepared a feast for their enemy, and we can prepare a feast for the people that we work for as well. Let's be grace distributors in our workplace today. Let's help the people around us move one notch closer to Jesus.    Thank you for being a marketplace minister, and thank you for making a difference, making your faith applicable and relevant in our daily lives. Your movement, your effort as a follower of Jesus Christ matters forever, and I'm grateful for you. If you want to join a community of people who are also trying to make their faith matter on a daily basis, check us out at followerofone.org. Thanks very much.