Welcome to another daily encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Arthur Jackson wrote today's reading entitled it Blessed Repentance.

Broke was the street name Grady answer to, and those five letters were proudly emblazoned on his license plates.

Though not intended in a spiritual sense, the moniker fit the middle-aged gambler, adulterer, and deceiver.

He was broken, bankrupt, and far from God.

However, all that changed one evening when he was convicted by

God's spirit in a hotel room. He told his wife, I think I'm getting saved. That evening, he confessed

sins he thought he would take with him to the grave and came to Jesus for forgiveness. For the next

30 years, the man who didn't think he would live to see 40,

lived and served God as a changed believer in Jesus. His license plates changed too,

from broke to repent. Repent. That's what Grady did, and that's what God called Israel to do

in Hosea 14, verses 1 through 2.

Return Israel to the Lord, your God. Take words with you, and return to the Lord. Say to him,

forgive all our sins, and receive us graciously. Big or small, few or many, our sins separate us from God.

But the gap can be closed by turning from sin to God

and receiving the forgiveness he's graciously provided through the death of Jesus.

Whether you're a struggling believer in Christ or one whose life looks like Grady's did, your forgiveness is only a

prayer away.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Hosea chapter 14, verses 1 through 4.

Return Israel to the Lord your God.

Your sins have been your downfall.

Take words with you and return to the Lord.

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