Daily Encouragement For July 04:

Make Me Like Joe

Joe was a drunk who was miraculously converted at a homeless mission. Prior
to his conversion, he had gained the reputation of being a dirty wino for
whom their was no hope, only a miserable existence in the ghetto. But
following his conversion to a new life in Christ, everything changed.

Joe became the most caring person that anyone associated with the mission
had ever known. Joe spent his days and nights hanging out at the mission,
doing whatever needed to be done. There was never anything that he was
asked to do that he considered beneath him. Whether it was cleaning up
the vomit left by some violently sick alcoholic or scrubbing toilets after
careless men left the mens room filthy, Joe did what was asked with a
smile on his face and seeming gratitude for the chance to help. He could
be counted on to feed feeble men who wondered off the street and into the
mission, and to tuck into bed men who were too out of it to take care of
themselves.

One evening, when the director of the mission was delivering his evening
evangelistic message to the usual crowd of still and sullen men with drooped
heads, there was one man who looked up, came down the aisle to the
alter and knelt to pray, crying out to God to help him change. The
repentant drunk kept shouting, "Oh God! Make me like Joe! Make me like
Joe! Make me like Joe!"

The director of the mission leaned over and said to the man "Son, I think
it would be better if you prayed, 'Make me like Jesus.'"

The man looked up at the director with a puzzled look on his face and asked,
"Isn't Jesus like Joe?"

What a great testimony it is unto the Lord that people will come to Jesus
because of the great work that Jesus makes in us.

Author Unknown

“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” - Philippians 1:6.