GRACE....

The boy stood with back arched, head cocked back and hands clenched defiantly. "Go ahead, give it to me."

The principal looked down at the young rebel. "How many times have you been here?"

The child sneered rebelliously, "Apparently not enough."

The principal gave the boy a strange look. "And you have been punished each time have you not?"

"Yeah, I been punished, if that's what you want to call it." He threw out his small chest, "Go ahead I can take whatever you dish out. I always have."

"And no thought of your punishment enters your head the next time you decide to break the rules does it?"

"Nope, I do whatever I want to do. Ain't nothin' you people gonna do to stop me either."

The principal looked over at the teacher who stood nearby. "What did he do this time?"

"Fighting. He took little Tommy and shoved his face into the sandbox."

The principal turned to look at the boy, "Why? What did little Tommy do to you?"

"Nothin', I didn't like the way he was lookin at me, just like I don't like  the way your lookin at me! And if I thought I could do it, I'd shove your face into something."

The teacher stiffened and started to rise but a quick look from the principal stopped him. He contemplated the child for a moment and then quietly said, "Today my young student, is the day you learn about grace."

"Grace? Isn't that what you old people do before you sit down to eat? I don't need none of your stinkin' grace."

"Oh but you do." The principal studied the young mans face and whispered. "Oh yes, you truly do..."

The boy continued to glare as the principal continued, "Grace, in its short definition is unmerited favor. You can not earn it, it is a gift and is always freely given. It means that you will not be getting what you so richly deserve."

The boy looked puzzled. "Your not gonna whup me? You just gonna let me walk?"

The principal looked down at the unyielding child. "Yes, I am going to let you walk."

The boy studied the face of the principal, "No punishment at all? Even though I socked Tommy and shoved his face into the sandbox?"

"Oh, there has to be punishment. What you did was wrong and there are always consequences to our actions. There will be punishment. Grace is not an excuse for doing wrong."

"I knew it," Sneered the boy as he held out his hands. "Lets get on with it."

The principal nodded toward the teacher. "Bring me the belt."

The teacher presented the belt to the principal. He carefully folded it in two and then handed it back to the teacher.

He looked at the child and said. "I want you to count the blows."

He slid out from behind his desk and walked over to stand directly in front of the young man. He gently reached out and folded the child's outstretched, expectant hands together and then turned to face the teacher with his own hands outstretched. One quiet word came forth from his mouth.

"Begin."

The belt whipped down on the outstretched hands of the principal.

Crack!

The young man jumped ten feet in the air. Shock registered across his face,

"One" he whispered.

Crack! "Two." His voice raised an octave.

Crack! "Three..." He couldn't believe this.

Crack! "Four." Big tears welled up in the eyes of the rebel.

"OK stop! That's enough. Stop!"

Crack! Came the belt down on the callused hands of the principal.

Crack! The child flinched with each blow, tears beginning to stream down his face.

Crack!

Crack! "No please", the former rebel begged, "Stop, I did it, I'm the one who deserves it. Stop! Please. Stop..."

Still the blows came, Crack! Crack! One after another.

Finally it was over. The principal stood with sweat glistening across his forehead and beads trickling down his face. Slowly he knelt down. He studied the young man for a second and then his swollen hands reached out to cradle the face of the weeping child.

"Grace...

Christian Embassy, on "Wifely Submission"

"Session 3 "THE WIFE CHALLENGE"

OBJECTIVE FOR TODAY'S LESSON - Help military husbands and wives understand God's expectations for wives, and how to apply them within their marriages.

KEY SCRIPTURES: EPH 5:22-24 (NIV) "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."

See also 1 Peter 3:1-6 which encourages wives to be submissive to win over unbelieving husbands and to display the "unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit..."

INTRODUCTION:

1) The wife's primary command:

It is helpful to think of your husband as primarily a big ____.

2) The wife's standard:

To submit _______. Not because the husband ___

or ____ it. It is based out of respect for Jesus!

Note for husbands: The easiest way to encourage a wife's submission is to actively demonstrate __________.

*Remember the best way to destroy a husband's love and respect for a wife: ______ - the exact opposite of submission.

3. A virtually fool-proof way for a wife to evaluate her effectiveness in the above is to____________.

4. What should a wife do when feels her husband isn't loving or leading?

5. Victoria's comments on the role of a Christian wife:

In the Hebrew "helper" means ______. Therefore the woman was designed to be a _____ not a _____.

(19-23) "Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, `This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.'"

Elizabeth Elliot has stated:

Woman was made ____ the man.

She was made _____ the man.

She was brought ____ the man.

She was named ____ the man.

Note that before God made man's helper he had Adam _______.

This made Adam aware of _____. Something was missing!

In verse 21 God performs divine surgery!

Verse 24 states God's purpose for creating the woman. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."

Through becoming one flesh, the woman completes the man, _____, _____ and ______.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS AND PRAYER"