Sermon Central
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I'll Give You My First Paycheck
Contributed by Sermon Central on Aug 4, 2011 (message contributor)
I'LL GIVE YOU MY FIRST PAYCHECK
Craig C. had been an alcoholic for more than a dozen years. He'd lost everything he had, including his wife and son, due to his selfishness and addiction. Things began to change after he gave his life to Christ, but he still fell regularly into his old habits. It didn't help that he'd lost his well-paying job and was clerking at a local grocery store that was well stocked with all his favorite drinks. After a few years of going back and forth between Christ and the bottle, he finally cut the ties, and, out of obedience to Christ, quit his job.
With no income and hope only in Christ, he was in desperate condition. After an interview with a sheet metal company down the street from his new church, he cried out to God. "God, if you give me this job I will give you my first paycheck." Surprisingly, he got the job.
Craig clearly remembers the day when he got his first paycheck. Stacks of bills needed to be paid. Penniless but determined, he endorsed it over to the church and walked it to the church office without waiting for the Sunday offering. That was the moment, he says, that changed his life because now he understood what it meant to trust God.
As of today, according to Pastor Bill White, Craig has been sober for 25 years, he's a manager at that sheet metal company, and he serves as an elder at his local church.
(Bill White. From a sermon by C. Philip Green, The Holiness of Grace, 4/29/2011)
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