April 26

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.“ (Abraham Lincoln)

“I was asked to pray for our Congress, but I looked at the Congress and prayed for our country.” (adapted, Edward Hale)

“Take courage. We walk in the wilderness today and in the Promised Land tomorrow.” (D L Moody)

The economy is bad for the mob. Yesterday, they had to lay off three politicians.

Have you thought..... If someone could invent the microwave television set, we could watch a one hour show in six minutes.

The focus of the eyes reveals the desire of the heart.

“Do not have your concert first and then tune your instrument afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and go first of all into harmony with Him.” (Hudson Taylor)

These are all by Thomas Paine, from his Common Sense (1776):
(1) “Tyranny, like Hell, is not easily conquered.”
(2) “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
(3) “What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly.”
(4) “It is dearness only that gives everything its value.”

Question. What was the first incoming call on Alexander Graham Bell‘s new telephone? Answer. “Alex, this is your mother, why haven’t you called?”

"Like fire, money itself is neither good nor evil. It is neutral, its character determined by the eye of the perceiver, the hand of the user." - Jerrold Mundis,

Only 42 percent of Americans have calculated how much money it will take to retire. - Source: U.S. Department of Labor

"When the heart is not being fascinated, when the heart is not being won over, it will pursue anything to move it and is therefore ripe for the seeds of compromise to be planted." - Dwayne Roberts, One Thing

"Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile." - Billy Sunday

Nearly a third of public high school students in the United States will not graduate. - Source: Newsweek (April 17, 2006)

What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.

Heaven is a gated community.


We keep chasing after stuff. We're somehow convinced that if we could just have more somehow, if we could have what we wanted, if we own something, possess something, that somehow our lives would be happier. One researcher has suggested that every seven seconds you're given the message that your life is valued, it's measured, based on your stuff. What we have, what we own, how we present that to others is a measure of who we are as people. So we get into that trap. A person by the age of 20 has seen over a million commercials, and they're designed to say to you that you're not fulfilled yet, you're not content, your life doesn't have what it needs but you could have it. So we end up chasing that in a way that often gets us into a ton of trouble.
A recent study showed that if the 6 billion people who lived on the planet consumed goods the ways Americans consume goods, it would take 4 planets our size to provide the resources. Are we ever satisfied? Is money the problem? Money isn't the problem; it's symptomatic of a problem. You're the problem.

Seen on a birthday card:
Forget about the past, You can't change it.
Forget about the future, You can't predict it.
Inside: Forget about the present, I didn't buy you one.

A religion without mystery must be a religion without God. Jeremy Taylor
A sign posted on the wall of an Army mess read: "Don't Waste Food -- Food will win the war."

Beneath someone had written: "That's fine, but how do we get the enemy to eat it?"

Jesus did not command the whole world to go to church. Jesus commanded his church to go to the whole world.

The gospels of the New Testament do not demand that we understand Christ. Rather, they offer the burden-lightening insight that Christ understands us. We do not have to understand Easter to experience Easter.

The presence of Christ among us does not depend upon the quality of our understanding of Christ or even upon the nature of our reception of his presence. Christ appears in the midst of people not even looking for Him. C. Welton Gaddy,

Not Paradise People: Garrison Keillor once said, in one of his famous Prairie Home Companion soliloquies, "My people are not Paradise people. We've lived in Minnesota all of our lives and it has taken a lot out of us. My people aren't sure they'll even like paradise: not sure perfection is all its cracked up to be. My people will arrive in heaven and stand just inside the gate, shuffling around. It's a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be, they might say. We'll say, "No thank you, we can't stay for eternity, we'll just sit and have a few minutes of bliss and then we have to get back!" Garrison Keillor, Prairie Home Companion


Surprised by Joy Few authors have shared the good news of the Christian gospel as compellingly as C.S. Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia. In one passage the characters Eustace, Jill and Aslan weep over the dead King Caspian. After Aslan is wounded with a pierced paw and his blood splashes on the dead king the king is wonderfully revived; "his sunken cheeks grew round and fresh, and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leaped up and stood before them—a very young man, or a boy." When he turns to the children, he gives a "great laugh of astonished joy."
When Aslan is asked if Caspian hadn’t died, the great lion speaks in a voice that sounds like laughter. "He has died. Most people have, you know. Even I have. There are very few who haven’t." The resurrection invites laughter. The kind of laughter we sometimes experience when something so impossible happens we can do nothing else but laugh.

We Have Become Dull
"If a dead man is raised to life, all men spring up in astonishment. Yet every day one that had no being is born, and no man wonders, though it is plain to all, without doubt, that it is a greater thing for that to be created which was without being than for that which had being to be restored. Because the dry rod of Aaron budded, all men were in astonishment; every day a tree is produced from the dry earth ... and no man wonders ... Five thousand men were filled with five loaves; every day the grains of seed that are sown are multiplied in a fullness of ears, and no man wonders. All wondered to see water once turned into wine. Every day the earth's moisture, being drawn into the root of the vine, is turned by the grape into wine, and no man wonders. Full of wonder then are all the things which men never think to wonder at, because they are by habit become dull to the consideration of them. " St. Gregory the Great, Moralia (translated: Morals on the Book of Job, 1844–50). Gregory I (540–604) is a Catholic Saint and was Pope (590–604).


A Time of Transition
Years ago the Standard Oil Company changed its name from ESSO to EXXON. Perhaps you remember the public campaign. For months, the famous “put a tiger in your tank” tiger was pictured on a large sign climbing a stepladder to the top of the local gas station’s ESSO sign. With a big smile on his face, the tiger held in his arms the new EXXON sign. Then one day, Standard Oil stations across America no longer had their old ESSO signs, but new EXXON signs. It was a clever campaign. If the new EXXON signs just showed up one day without any warning everyone would have been confused. “What happened to the ESSO station?,” people would have wondered. It took a time of transition.
In the early church it took time for Jesus’ followers to realize that the post-Easter Jesus, the Risen Jesus, was the Jesus they knew in Galilee, but also different in important ways. That’s what the resurrection appearances in Matthew, Luke and John are for. They helped those first disciples recognize the post-Easter Jesus. Before Easter they knew him by the sound of his voice, the muscle of his arm, the stride of his gait. After Easter they would learn to recognize Jesus in new ways.

"If we don't know WHAT is beyond the grave we do know WHO is beyond the grave." - William Sloane Coffin


Do You Believe
Do you believe that John F. Kennedy was shot and killed? Probably all of us say yes. Anybody here in Dallas and see it happen? At the hospital when he was pronounced dead? We do have videotape though. But what about Abraham Lincoln? No videotape. No eyewitnesses alive now. Do you believe Lincoln was assassinated? Of course. Reliable history.
Based on all the evidence of the eyewitnesses, the historians, what happened afterward and to this day there is only one logical reasonable answer to the resurrection story. It actually happened. Jesus actually rose from the dead. Any other explanation just doesn’t make sense.
Is it a Sin…?
Sociologist and evangelist Tony Campolo once spoke to a group and asked this question, "Is it a sin to own a BMW?" Then he added, "If Jesus had forty thousand dollars, would He buy a BMW or use that to feed or house the needy in the Third World?" Wow, that's a tough one. That's the kind of question we would prefer not to even think about. People get crucified for asking questions like that. It's a challenging question, even a disturbing one. One woman, however, was so struck by Campolo's talk that she wrote his ministry a check for the same amount that she paid for her new custom drapes. Her gift built three houses in Haiti.
It is so easy in this affluent society for us to forget who we are and what Christ has called us to be. It is so easy for us to become so preoccupied with our work, with our family, with our own needs that we forget our essential call to feed Christ's sheep.

Value of a Smile
The following came from an ad regarding teeth whitener:
1. Over 92% of the American population gains first impressions based on one's smile.
2. Smiling releases endorphins and makes us feel better.
3. A newborn shows a preference for a smiling face over a non-smiling face.
4. A smiling person is judged to be more pleasant, attractive, sincere, sociable, and competent than a non-smiling person.

April 19

"Whatever you are most devoted to will determine how your life is shaped." -- Tod Bolsinger

"Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are." -- James Allen

"Tell me, and I'll forget. Show me, and I'll remember. Involve me, and I'll learn." -- Marla Jones

"There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men." -- Billy Graham

"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up." -- Paul Valery

"What we see depends mainly on what we look for." -- John Lubbock

Always be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of someone else." -- Judy Garland

"Conversion without discipleship is openly implied in much of our evangelical teaching. It has become strangely possible to be Christ's without taking up the cross." - C. D. Alexander

Too often are we so preoccupied with the destination, we forget the journey.

A woman in our diet club was lamenting that she had gained weight. She'd made her family's favorite cake over the weekend, she reported, and they'd eaten half of it at dinner.
The next day, she said, she kept staring at the other half, until finally she cut a thin slice for herself. One slice led to another, and soon the whole cake was gone. The woman went on to tell us how upset she was with her lack of willpower, and how she knew her husband would be disappointed.
Everyone commiserated, until someone asked what her husband said when he found out. She smiled. "He never found out. I made another cake and ate half!"

On the Lighter Side
Once Winston Churchill received an invitation from George Bernard Shaw to one of his opening plays back in the early 1900s. The note read, "Enclosed are two tickets to the performance of a play of mine. Bring a friend--if you have one."
Churchill sent back this reply: "Dear GBS, I thank you very much for the invitation and tickets. Unfortunately, I am engaged on that night, but could I have tickets for the second night?--if there is one."

Where Diplomas Don't Count
At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, or how many great things we have done. We will be judged by "I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in." Hungry not only for bread--but hungry for love. Naked not only for clothing--but naked of human dignity and respect. Homeless not only for want of a home of bricks--but homeless because of rejection. Mother Teresa

"We generally change ourselves for one of two reasons: inspiration or desperation." -- Jim Rohn

A pirate walks into a bar with a paper towel on his head. The bartender says, "What's with the paper towel?"
The pirate says, "Arrr! I've got a Bounty on me head!"

If you have a guest room, before guests arrive or just to keep the bed fresh when unused, tuck several fabric softener sheets under the bottom sheet to keep it smelling nice.

A student from Korea was complaining about how difficult it is to learn the English language. He felt that American idioms were particularly difficult to comprehend. He said that he had studied English for nine years in preparation for attending the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. On his first day at the school, as he was walking across the campus, an American student casually greeted him with, "Hi, What's the good word?" The Korean boy stopped dead in his tracks. He thought to himself: "I don't know the good word! You would have thought that after nine years of studying English, someone would have told me what "˜the good word' was!"
Later, trying to solve this puzzle, he decided to turn the tables and ask an American, "What's the good word?" and listen to his reply. So, approaching a fellow student, he repeated, "Hi! What's the good word?" The quick response was, "Oh, not much. How about you?"
It was obvious that neither of these students knew what the good word was. It's a rather plastic greeting. But I can tell you the good word for today: Christ the Lord is risen. That's the Good Word. And because it is; it says a great deal about our lives.

The national debt
In 1973, the National Debt was approximately $466 billion. That was about $2,200 for every man, woman and child.
Last December, it was approximately $10.7 trillion, a 23-fold increase. And the per capita national debt had risen to nearly $35,000. This year’s budget deficit will raise the debt to approximately $12 trillion.
These total an estimated $52 trillion and the bill will begin to come due in 2011, when the first of the “Baby Boomers” reaches 65.
Sixty-four trillion—about $200,000 per man, woman, and child—and still climbing.

A New Shalom
When Jesus appeared to the disciples, his greeting was, "Peace be unto you." The Hebrew word shalom, for "peace," is a most comprehensive word, covering the full realm of relationships in daily life and expressing an ideal state of life. The word suggests the fullness of well-being and harmony untouched by ill fortune. The word as a blessing is a prayer for the best that God can give to enable a person to complete one's life with happiness and a natural death. If the concept of shalom became all too casual and light-hearted with no more significance than a passing greeting, Jesus came to give it new meaning. At Bethlehem God announced that peace would come through the gift of God's unique Son. The mission and ministry of our Lord made it quite clear that Jesus had come to introduce the rule of God and to order peace for the world.
Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don’t have any doubts you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.

"Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps." --David Lloyd George

If a man will begin in certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning (1605)

Thomas Jefferson ranks as one of our nations greatest intellects but not many people know that he rejected the notion of miracles. When he approached the scriptures he could not tolerate those passages, which dealt with the supernatural. So what did he do? He wrote his own bible. In the Thomas Jefferson Bible you will find only the moral teachings and historical events of Jesus' life. No virgin birth. No healing of Jairus' daughter. No walking on water. And, no resurrection. Here is how his bible ends: "There laid they Jesus and rolled a great stone at the mouth of the sepulcher and departed."
It is very easy to rewrite history. To say, "that did not happen." But the story remains that the disciples were witnesses to these events. Thomas Jefferson is in essence calling the disciples liars and that they continued throughout the first century, for 70 years, to propagate those lies. Furthermore, Jefferson's Bible has been robbed of its power. I am convinced that the church does not accomplish 2000 years of life inside the walls of a closed dark sepulcher. There is no power in that dark place; rather, the Church is alive because He is alive forevermore.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up: It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning, the lion wakes up: It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: When the sun comes up, you'd better be running.
When your feet hit the floor running in the morning what motivates you? Fear or a sense of mission?


Winston Churchill had planned his funeral, which took place in Saint Paul's Cathedral. He included many of the great hymns of the church, and used the eloquent Anglican liturgy. At his direction, a bugler, positioned high in the dome of Saint Paul's, intoned, after the benediction, the sound of Taps, the universal signal that says the day is over. But then came the most dramatic turn: As Churchill instructed, as soon as Taps was finished, another bugler, placed on the other side of the great dome, played the notes of Reveille - It's time to get up. It's time to get up. It's time to get up in the morning. That was Churchill's testimony that at the end of history, the last note will not be Taps; it will be Reveille. The worst things are never the last things.

On Knowledge
The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.
Harry S. Truman (1884 - 1972) 33rd President of the U.S.

It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble.

It's the things we know that just ain't so. Artemus Ward (1834 - 1867)

"In real life, of course, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case, it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market."

Don't tell me that worry doesn't do any good. I know better. The things I worry about don't happen.

Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.

Life without a mission is a tremendous omission.

April 12 Easter

Last night, my wife and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."
So she got up, unplugged the TV, and threw out my soda.

A well-known statistic: A church which is 0 – 3 years old requires 3 attendees to reach 1 person for Christ. A church which is 3 – 10 years old requires 7 attendees to reach 1 person for Christ. And a church older than 10 years old requires 89 attendees to reach 1 person for Christ. In other words, as the church gets older and older, it becomes harder to keep evangelism on the front burner because of all the “compelling issues” that keep pushing it back.

Take the time to open this website. The pictures are beautiful and the message is great. America, My Beautiful America http://objflicks.com/mybeautifulamerica.htm

Edward Gibbons, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, offers five reasons why the Roman Empire crumbled:
* Family life disintegrated.
* All ethical systems were discarded.
* The world of entertainment became immoral and corrupt.
* The cost of maintaining the empire’s military system became enormous.
* The empire’s economy collapsed.

Food for thought in relation to today’s world!
* The Old Testament is an inspired account of a failed mission.
* The New Testament is an inspired account of a corrected mission.
* The history of the Christian church is a human account of a confused mission.

Importance of Walking
-----Walking can add minutes to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $5000 per month.
My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. Now she's 97 years old and we don't know where the heck she is.
I joined a health club last year, spent about $400. Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to go there.
I have to exercise early in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing.
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

Biblical Bumper Stickers:
Adam: "You are what you eat."
Eve: "At least he doesn't compare me to his mother."
Abraham: "I'm goin' not knowin'."
Noah: "Honk if you believe in treading water."
Moses: "From a basket case to the promised land."
Elijah: "When Jezebel ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."
Prodigal Son: "All roads lead to home."
At the Sinai desert: "Winding road next 40 years."
At the Red Sea: "Caution! Subject to sudden flooding."

According to a survey from Scott Paper Company:
* You can gauge a person's education by whether they read in the bathroom.
* More than 2/3 of the people with a master's degree and doctorates read in the stall.
* Only one in two high school grads read while in the bathroom, and 56 percent of those with college degrees do.
* Fifty-four percent of Americans fold their toilet tissue neatly while 35 percent wad it into a ball before using it.
* Seven percent steal rolls of toilet paper (hotels/motels)
* More than sixty percent prefer that their toilet paper roll over the top, twenty-nine percent from the bottom. The rest don't care.

A story is told of a little girl who while walking in a garden noticed a particularly beautiful flower. She admired its beauty and enjoyed its fragrance.
"It's so pretty!" she exclaimed. As she gazed on it, her eyes followed the stem down to the soil in which it grew.
"This flower is too pretty to be planted in such dirt!" she cried. So she pulled it up by its roots and ran to the water faucet to wash away the soil. It wasn't long until the flower wilted and died.
When the gardener saw what the little girl had done, he exclaimed, "You have destroyed my finest plant!"
"I'm sorry, but I didn't like it in that dirt," she said. The gardener replied,
"I chose that spot and mixed the soil because I knew that only there could it grow to be a beautiful flower."
God has placed us exactly where we are. We must trust him. In the trusting we eventually see that God is using our pressures, trials, and difficulties to bring us to a new degree of spiritual beauty. True Contentment comes when we accept what God is doing and thank him for it. Kevin Litchfield

The early bird gets the worm. But...the second mouse gets the cheese.

<:((((><


Seven Deadly Sins - One person said banks are engaged in “seven deadly sins”: greedy loan growth, gluttony of real estate, lust for high yields, sloth-like risk management, pride of low capital, envy of exotic fees, and anger of regulators.

"Jesus' resurrection is the first fruit of ours. His complete victory over death and sin is our promised complete victory over death and sin."

God Cannot Die Martin Luther once spent three days in a black depression over something that had gone wrong. On the third day his wife came downstairs dressed in mourning clothes. "Who's dead?" he asked her. "God," she replied. Luther rebuked her, saying, "What do you mean, God is dead? God cannot die." "Well," she replied, "the way you've been acting I was sure He had!"
Many of us have been caught in that trap. This is also what had happened to Mary.

Subject: 43c Stamp
I don't understand these complaints about the postal service. Time was, you could put a two-cent stamp on a letter and mail it, and it would arrive at its destination in two days...a penny a day. Now you put a forty-three-cent stamp on a letter and it can take five to six weeks to arrive..... Still only a penny a day!

"Talent made a poor appearance. Until he married Perseverance." -- Arthur Guiterman

"Laughter is inner jogging." -- Norman Cousins

I ask the Lord to bless you, as I pray for you today; to guide you and protect you, as you go along your way. God's love is always with you, God's promises are true. And when you give God all your cares, you know God will see you through.

April 5

"May there be just enough clouds in your life to make a beautiful sunset"

One thing taught large in the Holy Scriptures is that while God gives His gifts freely He will require a strict accounting of them at the end of the road. Each man is personally responsible for his store, be it large or small, and will be required to explain his use of it before the judgment seat of Christ. --A. W. Tozer

Even though a mosquito beats its wings 600 times per second it only travels about one mile per hour. That's because stopping to annoy people tends to slow you down.

Will Rogers once said, "Everyone wants to go to Rome to see where Saint Peter is buried, but nobody wants to live like him." Many people would like to go to the holy land to see where Jesus lived, but so many people will not let him live in their hearts.
Almost every person in this country believes in God, but how many people really put God first in their lives? Palm Sunday means Jesus confronts us with a choice - a desperate decision

PROCRASTINATION
"Some people procrastinate so much that all they can do is run around like firefighters all day -- putting out fires that should not have gotten started in the first place." -- Nido Qubein

"Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can." -- Mary Frances Berry

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." -- Anne Frank

"One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow." -- Vincent T. Foss

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God. Corrie ten Boom

*Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master.*
*Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.*
*Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer.*
*Had no army, yet kings feared Him..*
*He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world.*
*He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.*
*He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today.*
*Feel honored to serve such a Leader who loves us.

When Lincoln's body was brought from Washington to Illinois, it passed through Albany and it was carried through the street. They say a black woman stood upon the curb and lifted her little son as far as she could reach above the heads of the crowd and was heard to say to him, "Take a long look, honey. He died for you". So, if I could, I would lift up your spirit to see Calvary. Take a long look; He died for you.
"You must make a counterculture decision to focus on becoming more like Jesus. Otherwise, other forces like peers, parents, co-workers, and culture will try to mold you into their image. Sadly, a quick review of many popular Christian books reveals that many believers have abandoned living for God's great purposes and settled for personal fulfillment and emotional stability. That is narcissism, not discipleship. Jesus did not die on the cross just so we could live comfortable, well-adjusted lives. His purpose is far deeper: he wants to make us like himself before he takes us to heaven. This is our greatest privilege, our immediate responsibility, and our ultimate destiny." - Rick Warren


Lest we be too critical of Jerusalem, ask yourself this question: What city even today would not be shaken by Jesus' entry into it? Imagine Jesus entering New York, Belgrade, Washington, or even Memphis. Oh, I'm sure we'd welcome him with our hosannas - at first, anyway. We'd line the streets and strike up the band and have a grand parade right down Main Street. But I'm equally sure that, by the end of the week, we'd have him nailed to a cross, too. Why? Because the Kingdom Jesus came to establish still threatens the kingdoms of this world -- your kingdom and mine -- the kingdoms where greed, power, and lust rule instead of grace, mercy, and peace. And who among us really wants to surrender our lives to that Kingdom and that King?

Can you imagine if Jesus had been treated like a 20th-century celebrity as he rode into Jerusalem?
• Wolf Blitzer might have reported on rumors that Jesus planned to disrupt Temple business.
• Pundits would have argued about who he "really" was.
• Gail Sheehy would undoubtedly have written a psychological profile for Vanity Fair.
• Some tabloid would investigate Jesus' relationship with "the woman at the well."
• There would be in-depth analysis by cult specialists and modern-day Pharisees on MSNBC.
• A council of church officials would be in place to study the authenticity of Jesus' feeding the multitudes and walking on water.
• As he entered the dusty city, hundreds if not thousands would have snapped their throwaway Kodaks, and pointed their videocams while Katie Couric, along with Willard Scott, making a special appearance, would stand by to offer color commentary.

A Borrowed Donkey
A Roman leader would have ridden in a chariot pulled by magnificent white stallions... Jesus entered the city on a donkey, and a borrowed one!
A political leader would have been surrounded by security guards who would have kept crowds from close physical contact to prevent any personal harm to him...Jesus was surrounded by his disciples representing many walks of life and rode into the midst of the people, almost at their height.
A military leader would have galloped along the road, passing the crowds with perhaps a wave of the hand or a nod of the head if there were any recognition at all...Jesus on a donkey moved slowly with the people, accompanying the people, as well as accompanied by the people.
A religious leader in traditional, appropriate priestly robes would have moved sedately through the crowds surrounded by an orderly contingency of other religious leaders who would've prevented anyone who was unclean from touching him...Jesus, dressed in his usual attire, moved humbly through the crowds, surrounded by his diverse band of disciples, not shrinking from the touch of anyone.

"It is a remarkable fact that all the heresies which have arisen in the Christian Church have had a decided tendency to 'dishonor God and to flatter man." - Charles Spurgeon

A pastor once put sanitary hot air hand dryers in the rest rooms at his church, but after two weeks took them out. When asked why, he confessed that they worked fine, but when he went in there he saw a sign that read,
"For a sample of this week's sermon, push the button."

"God's promises are like the stars ... the darker the night ... the brighter they shine."

"Be grateful for your problems, for they stimulate an 'I-can-solve-it' new attitude." -- Mark Victor Hansen

"Dream so big that you MUST trust God." - Rick Warren

Eight Days
Eight days changed the world. These eight days have been the topic of a million of publications, countless debates, and thousands of films. These eight days have inspired the greatest painters, the most skilled architects, and the most gifted musicians. To try and calculate the cultural impact of these eight days is impossible. But harder still would be an attempt to account for the lives of men and women who have been transformed by them. And yet these eight days as they played out in Jerusalem were of little significance to anyone but a few people involved. What happened on those eight days? During the next eight Sundays of Lent and Easter we will look at these eight days in depth but for now let’s summarize:
1. On Sunday the first of the eight days, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey to the shouts of Hosanna, fulfilling an old prophecy in Zechariah 9:9.
2. On Monday he walked into the Jerusalem Temple overturning tables where money exchange occurred, Roman drachmas were being exchanged for Jewish shekels. Roman coins were not allowed. The image of Caesar was a violation of the second commandment. But the Temple authorities were using the Commandment as means to cheat the people and making the Temple a place of profit rather than a place of prayer.
3. On Tuesday Jesus taught in parables, warned the people against the Pharisees, and predicted the destruction of the Temple.
4. On Wednesday, the fourth day, we know nothing. The Gospel writers are silent. Perhaps it was a day of rest for him and his weary and worried disciples.
5. On Thursday, in an upper room, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. But he gave it a new meaning. No longer would his followers remember the Exodus from Egypt in the breaking of bread. They would remember his broken body and shed blood. Later that evening in the Garden of Gethsemane he agonized in prayer at what lay ahead for him.
6. On Friday, the fifth day, following betrayal, arrest, imprisonment, desertion, false trials, denial, condemnation, beatings and sentencing, Jesus carried his own cross to “The Place of the Skull,” where he was crucified with two other prisoners.
7. On Saturday, Jesus lay dead in a tomb bought by a rich man named Joseph.
8. On Sunday, his Passion was over, the stone had been rolled away. Jesus was alive. He appeared to Mary, to Peter, to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and to the 11 disciples gathered in a locked room. His resurrection was established as a fact.