September 14
Disney World: A people-trap operated by a mouse.
The lions showed no interest in Daniel. Why should they? After all, he was nothing but backbone and gut. --Max R. Hickerson
Eight-year-old Sally brought her report card home from school. Her marks were good ... mostly A's and a couple of B's. However, her teacher had written across the bottom:
"Sally is a smart little girl, but she has one fault. She talks too much in school. I have an idea I am going to try, which I think may break her of the habit."
Sally's dad signed her report card, putting a note on the back:
"Please let me know if your idea works on Sally because I would like to try it out on her mother."
Many of our fears are tissue-paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them. --Brendan Francis
Discipleship in Community
Very few people are expert in anything all by themselves. They need a supporting community. Do you know a good musician who was not trained, nurtured and sustained by the music community? Show me an athlete who achieves excellence all alone, apart from the athletic community. Very few wise men become so without the accumulated wisdom of the centuries as expressed in colleges and universities and libraries. Medical people are more like ensembles and symphonies than soloists. What business tycoon does it all on his own without dedicated experts in finance, engineering, personnel, and marketing? Excellence requires participation in, and support of, a community of like-minded people.
Likewise in the church -- a forerunner of the new kingdom. Very few achieve Christian maturity all by themselves. Seldom is the Bible studied diligently without the aid of scholars and teachers. Rarely are people led to generosity by their own impulses. Maurice A. Fetty,
"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall." - Confucius
Corporate Effects of Sin
A man is on a boat. He is not alone, but acts as if he were. One night, without warning, he suddenly begins to cut a hole under his seat.
The other people on the boat shout and shriek at him: "What on earth are you doing? Have you gone mad? Do you want to sink us all? Are you trying to destroy us?"
Calmly, the man answers: "I don't understand what you want. What I'm doing is none of your business. I paid my way. I'm not cutting under your seat. Leave me alone!" What the fanatic (and the egotist) will not accept, but what you and I cannot forget, is that all of us are in the same boat. Elie Wiesel
Be Direct
Would that Christians would follow the steps Jesus outlines! Instead we talk in the parking lot or talk to a neighbor about our sister's sins. And they really are not sins anyway. They are usually just something we don't like. Once a church member complained that her children were disgusted with all the negative talk in the church. Her children would not attend anymore. I asked her from whom her kids were hearing this talk. Sheepishly she responded that the kids had been listening to their parents. What Jesus outlines is pretty much commonsense. If we have a problem with someone, we must talk to him not someone else. If we just talk to other people, nothing happens other than our being labeled a bore. John D. Keeny
Work - God planned for us to work: work was a part of God's good creation. Martin Luther said, "God gives every bird its food, but he does not throw it into the nest."
Our society can buy that. Kennan Wilson, the founder of the Holiday Inn chain said, "I believe to be successful, that you have to work at least half a day - it doesn't make any difference which half, the first twelve hours or the last twelve hours!" As someone has wisely noted, the only place success comes before work is the dictionary. David Leininger
Thoughts for the week: "He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass, for every man has need to be forgiven."
"There are no hopeless situations. There are only people who have grown hopeless about them." - Clare Booth Luce
"Love cures people-both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it." - Karl Menninger
Forgiveness Written in Stone
A story is told of two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand, "Today my best friends slapped me in the face."
They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from nearly drowning, he wrote on a stone, "Today my best friend saved my life."
His friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?" The other friend replied "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase itaway. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."
So real forgiveness keeps on leaving the sins of others and our hurts in the past. Yet Jesus understands the difficulty of such forgiveness. To keep on forgiving is a God-like characteristic. It is contrary to human nature.
Many Christians Have Stopped Going to Church - Washington Times religion editor Julia Duin says many Christians have stopped going to church because they're not getting meaningful worship, teaching or fellowship.
In her new book, "Quitting Church," Duin says church dropouts often feel like they've heard all the sermons and served their congregations for years, but have simply burned out. As a result, she says many faithful Christians have replaced Sunday worship with private devotions or informal home groups.
She adds that many churches are so focused on families that they pay little or no attention to baby boomers, the elderly and young singles.
Duin urges pastors to first become aware of the problem and then ask people why they're leaving. Too often, she says, church members believe rightly that if they leave, no one will care or even notice.
When asked what they would try to do when wronged, American adults chose forgiveness over revenge six to one. A Gallup Poll found that 48 percent would "try to forgive" while 8 percent would "try to get even." Other responses: discussing the problem (48 percent), overlooking the offense (45 percent), praying for comfort and guidance (27 percent), and praying for the offender (25 percent). And while 14 percent said they would hold their resentment inside, 9 percent said they would try to do something nice for the one who hurt them. -- Pentecostal Evangel
The lions showed no interest in Daniel. Why should they? After all, he was nothing but backbone and gut. --Max R. Hickerson
Eight-year-old Sally brought her report card home from school. Her marks were good ... mostly A's and a couple of B's. However, her teacher had written across the bottom:
"Sally is a smart little girl, but she has one fault. She talks too much in school. I have an idea I am going to try, which I think may break her of the habit."
Sally's dad signed her report card, putting a note on the back:
"Please let me know if your idea works on Sally because I would like to try it out on her mother."
Many of our fears are tissue-paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them. --Brendan Francis
Discipleship in Community
Very few people are expert in anything all by themselves. They need a supporting community. Do you know a good musician who was not trained, nurtured and sustained by the music community? Show me an athlete who achieves excellence all alone, apart from the athletic community. Very few wise men become so without the accumulated wisdom of the centuries as expressed in colleges and universities and libraries. Medical people are more like ensembles and symphonies than soloists. What business tycoon does it all on his own without dedicated experts in finance, engineering, personnel, and marketing? Excellence requires participation in, and support of, a community of like-minded people.
Likewise in the church -- a forerunner of the new kingdom. Very few achieve Christian maturity all by themselves. Seldom is the Bible studied diligently without the aid of scholars and teachers. Rarely are people led to generosity by their own impulses. Maurice A. Fetty,
"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall." - Confucius
Corporate Effects of Sin
A man is on a boat. He is not alone, but acts as if he were. One night, without warning, he suddenly begins to cut a hole under his seat.
The other people on the boat shout and shriek at him: "What on earth are you doing? Have you gone mad? Do you want to sink us all? Are you trying to destroy us?"
Calmly, the man answers: "I don't understand what you want. What I'm doing is none of your business. I paid my way. I'm not cutting under your seat. Leave me alone!" What the fanatic (and the egotist) will not accept, but what you and I cannot forget, is that all of us are in the same boat. Elie Wiesel
Be Direct
Would that Christians would follow the steps Jesus outlines! Instead we talk in the parking lot or talk to a neighbor about our sister's sins. And they really are not sins anyway. They are usually just something we don't like. Once a church member complained that her children were disgusted with all the negative talk in the church. Her children would not attend anymore. I asked her from whom her kids were hearing this talk. Sheepishly she responded that the kids had been listening to their parents. What Jesus outlines is pretty much commonsense. If we have a problem with someone, we must talk to him not someone else. If we just talk to other people, nothing happens other than our being labeled a bore. John D. Keeny
Work - God planned for us to work: work was a part of God's good creation. Martin Luther said, "God gives every bird its food, but he does not throw it into the nest."
Our society can buy that. Kennan Wilson, the founder of the Holiday Inn chain said, "I believe to be successful, that you have to work at least half a day - it doesn't make any difference which half, the first twelve hours or the last twelve hours!" As someone has wisely noted, the only place success comes before work is the dictionary. David Leininger
Thoughts for the week: "He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass, for every man has need to be forgiven."
"There are no hopeless situations. There are only people who have grown hopeless about them." - Clare Booth Luce
"Love cures people-both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it." - Karl Menninger
Forgiveness Written in Stone
A story is told of two friends who were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand, "Today my best friends slapped me in the face."
They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from nearly drowning, he wrote on a stone, "Today my best friend saved my life."
His friend asked him, "After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?" The other friend replied "When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand where winds of forgiveness can erase itaway. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it."
So real forgiveness keeps on leaving the sins of others and our hurts in the past. Yet Jesus understands the difficulty of such forgiveness. To keep on forgiving is a God-like characteristic. It is contrary to human nature.
Many Christians Have Stopped Going to Church - Washington Times religion editor Julia Duin says many Christians have stopped going to church because they're not getting meaningful worship, teaching or fellowship.
In her new book, "Quitting Church," Duin says church dropouts often feel like they've heard all the sermons and served their congregations for years, but have simply burned out. As a result, she says many faithful Christians have replaced Sunday worship with private devotions or informal home groups.
She adds that many churches are so focused on families that they pay little or no attention to baby boomers, the elderly and young singles.
Duin urges pastors to first become aware of the problem and then ask people why they're leaving. Too often, she says, church members believe rightly that if they leave, no one will care or even notice.
When asked what they would try to do when wronged, American adults chose forgiveness over revenge six to one. A Gallup Poll found that 48 percent would "try to forgive" while 8 percent would "try to get even." Other responses: discussing the problem (48 percent), overlooking the offense (45 percent), praying for comfort and guidance (27 percent), and praying for the offender (25 percent). And while 14 percent said they would hold their resentment inside, 9 percent said they would try to do something nice for the one who hurt them. -- Pentecostal Evangel
posted by joypastordon at 7:16 PM
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