August 17
A positive thinker does not refuse to recognize the negative, he refuses to dwell on it. Positive thinking is a form of thought which habitually looks for the best results from the worst conditions. Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) Cleric and writer
Only a fool would attempt to change the world with a simple message of love and peace. So we can conclude that Jesus was a fool. Only fools would agree to follow such a man. ...so we can conclude that all of us are fools....so let all happily admit that we are fools. Then we will happily commit ourselves to change the world. -- Saint John Chrysostom (4th century AD)
It's not what you think, it is what the Bible says!
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." --Mark Twain
"Knowledge seems to come to the person who seeks for it."
"Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen: even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind."--Leonardo da Vinci
There is power in prayer only because of Who is listening. I don’t believe in the power of prayer; I believe in the power of God. Therefore, I pray. The prayer uttered to a tree, even a big oak, is as powerful and effective as a request for a small loan from a pauper. --Scott Smyth
"Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a 'necessary evil,' it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil." ~ Sydney J. Harris
Note that Jesus never commanded believers to produce fruit. Fruit is the purpose of the branch, but it is not the responsibility of the branch. The branch cannot produce anything on its own. However, if it remains attached to the vine, it will receive life-sustaining sap, nourishment, strength, everything it needs. If it remains connected to the vine, it will inevitably hang heavy with grapes. The focus of a Christian’s activity is not to work hard enough to make fruit, but to keep his connection to Jesus Christ clean and strong. One way to do that is to absorb the teaching of God’s Word, the sixty-six books of the Bible. Read God’s Word... think about it, apply it, talk about it with others, ask questions, commit sections of it to memory. Strength and productivity come from staying connected…. Someone who fails to abide is someone trying to transform his or her own character in order to produce Christlike qualities without maintaining a connection to Christ, and that’s futile; it never works. In fact, it’s a perfect plan for drying up and withering away. Jesus, drawing upon Ezekiel’s analogy, calls such a life good for nothing. Not only does trying to produce good character on our own lead to futility, it often produces the very opposite of what we desire. —Charles R. Swindoll
I'm suffering from Mallzheimer's disease. I go to the mall and forget where I parked my car.
Quotes about computers...
- A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.
- A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history--with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.
- Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. --Pablo Picasso
- Computers will never take the place of books. You can't stand on a floppy disk to reach a high shelf.
- Hardware: the parts of a computer that can be kicked.
- It was not so very long ago that people thought that semiconductors were part-time orchestra leaders and microchips were very small snack foods.
- One thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse. --Jack Handey
- There is only one satisfying way to boot a computer.
- To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so.
- Wow! They've got the Internet on computers now! --Homer Simpson
When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her someplace expensive.... so, I took her to a gas station........and then the fight started....
On an international "red-eye" flight, a water leak developed in the galley and eventually soaked the carpet throughout the cabin of the 747 jet.
A very sleepy passenger who had become mildly aware of the dampness drowsily asked the flight attendant, "Has it been raining?"
Thinking fast, the attendant replied, "Yes, but we put the top up."
With a sigh of relief, the passenger went back to sleep.
Mr. Doggins was having trouble getting his neighbor to keep his chickens fenced in. The birds were ruining his prize winning flowerbeds.
The neighbor told Doggins that the chickens had the right to go where they wanted.
Two weeks later, a friend visited Doggins and noticed his flower beds were doing great. The flowers were even beginning to bloom! The friend asked, "How did you get your neighbor to keep his hens in his own yard?"
Doggins said, "Easy! One night I hid a dozen eggs under a bush by my flowerbed. The next day I let my neighbor see me gather them. I haven't been bothered since."
It is a glorious thing to get to know God in a new way in the inner chamber. It is something still greater and more glorious to know God as the all-sufficient One and to wait on His Spirit to open our hearts and minds wide to receive the great things, the new things which He really longs to bestow on those who wait for Him. --Andrew Murray
A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.
Gasoline is more affordable for American families now than it was in the days of the gas-guzzling muscle cars of the early 1960s. Prices are beginning to come down somewhat, but this was true even when the national average was at its summer peak.
How wonderful that God personally cares about those things that worry us and prey upon our thoughts. He cares about them more than we care about them. Not a single nagging, aching, worrisome, stomach-tensing, blood-pressure-raising thought escapes His notice. --Charles Swindoll
ExxonMobil CEO and chairman Rex Tillerson defended his company's staggering $11.7 billion in profits for the second quarter, saying that the company's earnings reflected the magnitude of its business operation.
"I saw someone characterize our profits the other day in terms of $1,400 in profit per second. Well, they also need to understand we paid $4,000 a second in taxes, and we spent $15,000 a second in cost," Tillerson told ABC News' Charles Gibson. "We spend $1 billion a day just running our business. So this is a business where large numbers are just characteristic of it."
The opening ceremony was unbelievable. The major nations marched in to cheers from their countrymen, but did you notice some of the smaller nations who paraded on the same stage with just a few competitors? They seemed ecstatic just to be there — just to compete. One of them will come in last in the marathon. Another will finish out of the medal count in weightlifting, but still, they bring their best game and give it all they have. They are and forever will be — Olympians!
When God called you, He did so with the full expectation that you would be a winner, not a whiner; that you would finish the race with joy, not drop out along the way. Paul looked back on his life and ministry saying, "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). And now, I am eligible for the prize ... the crown.
A STRANGER
A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. Mom taught me to love the Word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries, and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spellbound for hours each evening. He was like a friend to the whole family. He took Dad, Bill, and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars.
The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind, but sometimes Mom would quietly get up -- while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places -- go to her room, read her Bible, and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave. You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions. But this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house -- not from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four-letter words that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My Dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home -- not even for cooking. But the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (too much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man/woman relationship were influenced by the stranger.
As I look back, I believe it was the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. More than forty years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. But if I were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures. His name? We always just called him . . . TV!
Only a fool would attempt to change the world with a simple message of love and peace. So we can conclude that Jesus was a fool. Only fools would agree to follow such a man. ...so we can conclude that all of us are fools....so let all happily admit that we are fools. Then we will happily commit ourselves to change the world. -- Saint John Chrysostom (4th century AD)
It's not what you think, it is what the Bible says!
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." --Mark Twain
"Knowledge seems to come to the person who seeks for it."
"Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen: even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind."--Leonardo da Vinci
There is power in prayer only because of Who is listening. I don’t believe in the power of prayer; I believe in the power of God. Therefore, I pray. The prayer uttered to a tree, even a big oak, is as powerful and effective as a request for a small loan from a pauper. --Scott Smyth
"Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a 'necessary evil,' it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil." ~ Sydney J. Harris
Note that Jesus never commanded believers to produce fruit. Fruit is the purpose of the branch, but it is not the responsibility of the branch. The branch cannot produce anything on its own. However, if it remains attached to the vine, it will receive life-sustaining sap, nourishment, strength, everything it needs. If it remains connected to the vine, it will inevitably hang heavy with grapes. The focus of a Christian’s activity is not to work hard enough to make fruit, but to keep his connection to Jesus Christ clean and strong. One way to do that is to absorb the teaching of God’s Word, the sixty-six books of the Bible. Read God’s Word... think about it, apply it, talk about it with others, ask questions, commit sections of it to memory. Strength and productivity come from staying connected…. Someone who fails to abide is someone trying to transform his or her own character in order to produce Christlike qualities without maintaining a connection to Christ, and that’s futile; it never works. In fact, it’s a perfect plan for drying up and withering away. Jesus, drawing upon Ezekiel’s analogy, calls such a life good for nothing. Not only does trying to produce good character on our own lead to futility, it often produces the very opposite of what we desire. —Charles R. Swindoll
I'm suffering from Mallzheimer's disease. I go to the mall and forget where I parked my car.
Quotes about computers...
- A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.
- A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history--with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila.
- Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. --Pablo Picasso
- Computers will never take the place of books. You can't stand on a floppy disk to reach a high shelf.
- Hardware: the parts of a computer that can be kicked.
- It was not so very long ago that people thought that semiconductors were part-time orchestra leaders and microchips were very small snack foods.
- One thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse. --Jack Handey
- There is only one satisfying way to boot a computer.
- To err is human -- and to blame it on a computer is even more so.
- Wow! They've got the Internet on computers now! --Homer Simpson
When I got home last night, my wife demanded that I take her someplace expensive.... so, I took her to a gas station........and then the fight started....
On an international "red-eye" flight, a water leak developed in the galley and eventually soaked the carpet throughout the cabin of the 747 jet.
A very sleepy passenger who had become mildly aware of the dampness drowsily asked the flight attendant, "Has it been raining?"
Thinking fast, the attendant replied, "Yes, but we put the top up."
With a sigh of relief, the passenger went back to sleep.
Mr. Doggins was having trouble getting his neighbor to keep his chickens fenced in. The birds were ruining his prize winning flowerbeds.
The neighbor told Doggins that the chickens had the right to go where they wanted.
Two weeks later, a friend visited Doggins and noticed his flower beds were doing great. The flowers were even beginning to bloom! The friend asked, "How did you get your neighbor to keep his hens in his own yard?"
Doggins said, "Easy! One night I hid a dozen eggs under a bush by my flowerbed. The next day I let my neighbor see me gather them. I haven't been bothered since."
It is a glorious thing to get to know God in a new way in the inner chamber. It is something still greater and more glorious to know God as the all-sufficient One and to wait on His Spirit to open our hearts and minds wide to receive the great things, the new things which He really longs to bestow on those who wait for Him. --Andrew Murray
A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.
Gasoline is more affordable for American families now than it was in the days of the gas-guzzling muscle cars of the early 1960s. Prices are beginning to come down somewhat, but this was true even when the national average was at its summer peak.
How wonderful that God personally cares about those things that worry us and prey upon our thoughts. He cares about them more than we care about them. Not a single nagging, aching, worrisome, stomach-tensing, blood-pressure-raising thought escapes His notice. --Charles Swindoll
ExxonMobil CEO and chairman Rex Tillerson defended his company's staggering $11.7 billion in profits for the second quarter, saying that the company's earnings reflected the magnitude of its business operation.
"I saw someone characterize our profits the other day in terms of $1,400 in profit per second. Well, they also need to understand we paid $4,000 a second in taxes, and we spent $15,000 a second in cost," Tillerson told ABC News' Charles Gibson. "We spend $1 billion a day just running our business. So this is a business where large numbers are just characteristic of it."
The opening ceremony was unbelievable. The major nations marched in to cheers from their countrymen, but did you notice some of the smaller nations who paraded on the same stage with just a few competitors? They seemed ecstatic just to be there — just to compete. One of them will come in last in the marathon. Another will finish out of the medal count in weightlifting, but still, they bring their best game and give it all they have. They are and forever will be — Olympians!
When God called you, He did so with the full expectation that you would be a winner, not a whiner; that you would finish the race with joy, not drop out along the way. Paul looked back on his life and ministry saying, "I have finished the race, I have kept the faith" (2 Tim. 4:7). And now, I am eligible for the prize ... the crown.
A STRANGER
A few months before I was born, my dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer, and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around to welcome me into the world a few months later. As I grew up I never questioned his place in our family. Mom taught me to love the Word of God, and Dad taught me to obey it. But the stranger was our storyteller. He could weave the most fascinating tales. Adventures, mysteries, and comedies were daily conversations. He could hold our whole family spellbound for hours each evening. He was like a friend to the whole family. He took Dad, Bill, and me to our first major league baseball game. He was always encouraging us to see the movies and he even made arrangements to introduce us to several movie stars.
The stranger was an incessant talker. Dad didn't seem to mind, but sometimes Mom would quietly get up -- while the rest of us were enthralled with one of his stories of faraway places -- go to her room, read her Bible, and pray. I wonder now if she ever prayed that the stranger would leave. You see, my dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions. But this stranger never felt an obligation to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our house -- not from us, from our friends, or adults. Our longtime visitor, however, used occasional four-letter words that burned my ears and made Dad squirm. To my knowledge the stranger was never confronted. My Dad was a teetotaler who didn't permit alcohol in his home -- not even for cooking. But the stranger felt like we needed exposure and enlightened us to other ways of life. He offered us beer and other alcoholic beverages often. He made cigarettes look tasty, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (too much too freely) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I know now that my early concepts of the man/woman relationship were influenced by the stranger.
As I look back, I believe it was the grace of God that the stranger did not influence us more. Time after time he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked and never asked to leave. More than forty years have passed since the stranger moved in with the young family on Morningside Drive. But if I were to walk into my parents' den today, you would still see him sitting over in a corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures. His name? We always just called him . . . TV!
posted by joypastordon at 5:04 PM
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