August 23
Are we standing on the promises or sitting on the premises
The late Studs Terkel recorded a conversation of teen-agers about the Great Depression. Lily: “My grandmother’d tell us things about the Depression.” Roy: “They’re always tellin’ us that we should be glad we got food and all that, ‘cause back in the Thirties they used to tell us people were starving and got no jobs and all that stuff.” Lily: “The food lines they told us about.” “Roy: “Yeah, you had to stay in line and wait for food. Lily: “And everything. You got when it was there. If it wasn’t, then you made without it. She said there was a lot of waiting.” (“Hard Times,” p. 22)
Heavenly Father, help all parents to teach their children that life is more than possessions. On second thought, teach that to us all!
Samuel Chadwick said, “The one concern of the devil is to keep saints from prayer. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray."
Christianity is not engrossed by this transitory world, but measures all things by the thought of eternity. J. Gresham Machen
Americans worry about a big national debt and a government bureaucracy that never seems to stop growing.
In 1801 President Thomas Jefferson worried about the same things. After all, the number of government employees had grown to 130 and the debt had ballooned to all of $17 million, an amount equal to the hourly interest on the debt in recent times.
Today in Washington more people spend more money than that on a typical federal agency Christmas party.
Eve’s Mistake - When Eve listened to the serpent, it wasn’t necessarily sin. But by entertaining a viewpoint other than God’s, it put her on a slippery slope that quickly led to disobedience.
Do you find yourself listening to the world’s way of thinking? It’s pervasive. It comes to us through TV, magazines, movies, friends, malls, and catalogs. A steady diet of worldly influences will shape our view of what’s valuable, what’s beautiful, and what’s important.
We can’t expose ourselves to the world’s false, deceptive ways and expect to come out unscathed. Eve’s first mistake wasn’t eating the fruit. It was listening to the serpent.
As you and I listen to input today, let’s remember the words of Psalm 1: "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night." ~Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A visiting speaker was impressed by the enthusiasm our Christian school students showed in their physical education class.
"I exercise, too," he sighed, faintly smiling at our pastor. "Every morning I awaken to the alarm, jump from bed, and run around the block six times."
As our pastor expressed surprise and offered hearty praise, the man continued, "Then I kick the block under the bed and go back to sleep."
Two mothers met for coffee. "Well Ruthie, how are the kids?"
"To tell you the truth, my son has married a real tramp!" says Ruth. "She doesn't get out of bed until 11. She's out all day spending his money on Heaven knows what, and when he gets home, exhausted, does she have a nice hot dinner for him? Ha! She makes him take her out to dinner at an expensive restaurant."
"Oh! What a shame. And how about your daughter?"
"Ah! Now there's a lucky girl. She has married a saint. He brings her breakfast in bed, he gives her enough money to buy whatever she needs, and in the evening he always takes her out to dinner at a nice restaurant."
Grandpa was always going on about the good old days and the lower cost of living, in particular.
"When I was a kid, my mom could send me to the store and I'd get a salami, two pints of milk, six oranges, two loaves of bread, a magazine and some new blue jeans all for a dollar!"
Then Grandpa said sadly, "You can't do that anymore. They got those video cameras everywhere you look."
A New York boy was being led through the swamps of Louisiana by his cousin.
"Is it true that an alligator won't attack you if you carry a flashlight?"
The cousin smirked and replied, "Depends on how fast ya carry the flashlight.
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine with only interests."
"If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won't, you most assuredly won't. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad."
Difficult Sayings
That great American writer, Mark Twain, wrote: "Most people are bothered by those passages in Scriptures which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always notice that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand."
I suspect that, at times, we all would like to walk away from the church and never come back. We want a God different from the one we find in Jesus.
Flesh and blood? Yes. But demanding? No.
Resurrected? Yes. But crucified? No.
Salvation? Yes. Repentance? No.
Love? Yes. Commitment? No.
Unfortunately you cannot have one without the other. The rose comes with the thorns. The pains come with the birth. Night come with day. The best of times can only be lived because there are those times that are so bad.
A missionary in Brazil visited a market town on a religious holiday, and saw a sale sign in a store's window advertising "Cheap crosses for sell." We may look for cheap crosses - no sacrifice, no commitment, no cost, no pain - but there is no such thing. Jesus' disciples have to follow the way of the cross.
God has a way of loving us and blessing us that is so much better than fair. Think of the ways God has blessed us that transcend what we "deserve." Every good thing that has ever come to us is a gift of God's grace. If you and I could ever stop being self-centered long enough to be honest, we would have to say that we are not entitled to any good thing. We have no right to demand anything. And the last thing we really want is for God to just be "fair" with us. What we want and what we need is grace, the love that is better than fair. And grace is exactly what we ultimately receive from the God who is better than fair, even when life is less than fair. --Charles E. Poole, in Is Life Fair? Good Words for Hard Times, 1996, Smyth & Helwys, Macon, Georgia
Southern Californians are always saying that they can ski on snow in the mountains in the morning and ski on water on the ocean in the afternoon. But have you ever heard of, or met, anyone who has actually done that? Sometimes we Christians do the same thing. We talk about Christ controlling our lives but in fact we do as we please.
"You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage -- pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically -- to say 'no' to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside. The enemy of the 'best' is often the 'good.'" -- "I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars." -- Og Mandino
"You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose." -- Lou Holtz
"You can't succeed at anything unless you're willing to risk failure." -- Anonymous
"If you want to hit home runs, you need to be willing to strike out. Remember, the year Babe Ruth broke all records for hitting the most home runs, he also broke all
records for the most strikeouts." -- Anonymous
"A high jumper never knows how high he can jump until he reaches his failure point." -- Robert Schuller
WINNERS VERSUS LOSERS
1. A winner says, "Let's find out." A loser says, "Nobody knows."
2. When a winner makes a mistake, he says, "I was wrong." When a loser makes a mistake, he says, "It wasn't my fault."
3. A winner goes through a problem. A loser goes around it, and never gets past it.
4. A winner makes commitments. A loser makes promises.
5. A winner says, "I'm good, but not as good as I ought to be." A loser says, "I'm not as bad as a lot of other people are."
6. A winner tries to learn from those who are superior to him. A loser tries to tear down those who are superior to him."
7. A winner says, "There ought to be a better way to do it." A loser says, "That's the way it's always been done here."
The late Studs Terkel recorded a conversation of teen-agers about the Great Depression. Lily: “My grandmother’d tell us things about the Depression.” Roy: “They’re always tellin’ us that we should be glad we got food and all that, ‘cause back in the Thirties they used to tell us people were starving and got no jobs and all that stuff.” Lily: “The food lines they told us about.” “Roy: “Yeah, you had to stay in line and wait for food. Lily: “And everything. You got when it was there. If it wasn’t, then you made without it. She said there was a lot of waiting.” (“Hard Times,” p. 22)
Heavenly Father, help all parents to teach their children that life is more than possessions. On second thought, teach that to us all!
Samuel Chadwick said, “The one concern of the devil is to keep saints from prayer. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray."
Christianity is not engrossed by this transitory world, but measures all things by the thought of eternity. J. Gresham Machen
Americans worry about a big national debt and a government bureaucracy that never seems to stop growing.
In 1801 President Thomas Jefferson worried about the same things. After all, the number of government employees had grown to 130 and the debt had ballooned to all of $17 million, an amount equal to the hourly interest on the debt in recent times.
Today in Washington more people spend more money than that on a typical federal agency Christmas party.
Eve’s Mistake - When Eve listened to the serpent, it wasn’t necessarily sin. But by entertaining a viewpoint other than God’s, it put her on a slippery slope that quickly led to disobedience.
Do you find yourself listening to the world’s way of thinking? It’s pervasive. It comes to us through TV, magazines, movies, friends, malls, and catalogs. A steady diet of worldly influences will shape our view of what’s valuable, what’s beautiful, and what’s important.
We can’t expose ourselves to the world’s false, deceptive ways and expect to come out unscathed. Eve’s first mistake wasn’t eating the fruit. It was listening to the serpent.
As you and I listen to input today, let’s remember the words of Psalm 1: "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night." ~Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A visiting speaker was impressed by the enthusiasm our Christian school students showed in their physical education class.
"I exercise, too," he sighed, faintly smiling at our pastor. "Every morning I awaken to the alarm, jump from bed, and run around the block six times."
As our pastor expressed surprise and offered hearty praise, the man continued, "Then I kick the block under the bed and go back to sleep."
Two mothers met for coffee. "Well Ruthie, how are the kids?"
"To tell you the truth, my son has married a real tramp!" says Ruth. "She doesn't get out of bed until 11. She's out all day spending his money on Heaven knows what, and when he gets home, exhausted, does she have a nice hot dinner for him? Ha! She makes him take her out to dinner at an expensive restaurant."
"Oh! What a shame. And how about your daughter?"
"Ah! Now there's a lucky girl. She has married a saint. He brings her breakfast in bed, he gives her enough money to buy whatever she needs, and in the evening he always takes her out to dinner at a nice restaurant."
Grandpa was always going on about the good old days and the lower cost of living, in particular.
"When I was a kid, my mom could send me to the store and I'd get a salami, two pints of milk, six oranges, two loaves of bread, a magazine and some new blue jeans all for a dollar!"
Then Grandpa said sadly, "You can't do that anymore. They got those video cameras everywhere you look."
A New York boy was being led through the swamps of Louisiana by his cousin.
"Is it true that an alligator won't attack you if you carry a flashlight?"
The cousin smirked and replied, "Depends on how fast ya carry the flashlight.
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine with only interests."
"If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won't, you most assuredly won't. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad."
Difficult Sayings
That great American writer, Mark Twain, wrote: "Most people are bothered by those passages in Scriptures which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always notice that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand."
I suspect that, at times, we all would like to walk away from the church and never come back. We want a God different from the one we find in Jesus.
Flesh and blood? Yes. But demanding? No.
Resurrected? Yes. But crucified? No.
Salvation? Yes. Repentance? No.
Love? Yes. Commitment? No.
Unfortunately you cannot have one without the other. The rose comes with the thorns. The pains come with the birth. Night come with day. The best of times can only be lived because there are those times that are so bad.
A missionary in Brazil visited a market town on a religious holiday, and saw a sale sign in a store's window advertising "Cheap crosses for sell." We may look for cheap crosses - no sacrifice, no commitment, no cost, no pain - but there is no such thing. Jesus' disciples have to follow the way of the cross.
God has a way of loving us and blessing us that is so much better than fair. Think of the ways God has blessed us that transcend what we "deserve." Every good thing that has ever come to us is a gift of God's grace. If you and I could ever stop being self-centered long enough to be honest, we would have to say that we are not entitled to any good thing. We have no right to demand anything. And the last thing we really want is for God to just be "fair" with us. What we want and what we need is grace, the love that is better than fair. And grace is exactly what we ultimately receive from the God who is better than fair, even when life is less than fair. --Charles E. Poole, in Is Life Fair? Good Words for Hard Times, 1996, Smyth & Helwys, Macon, Georgia
Southern Californians are always saying that they can ski on snow in the mountains in the morning and ski on water on the ocean in the afternoon. But have you ever heard of, or met, anyone who has actually done that? Sometimes we Christians do the same thing. We talk about Christ controlling our lives but in fact we do as we please.
"You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage -- pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically -- to say 'no' to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside. The enemy of the 'best' is often the 'good.'" -- "I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars." -- Og Mandino
"You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose." -- Lou Holtz
"You can't succeed at anything unless you're willing to risk failure." -- Anonymous
"If you want to hit home runs, you need to be willing to strike out. Remember, the year Babe Ruth broke all records for hitting the most home runs, he also broke all
records for the most strikeouts." -- Anonymous
"A high jumper never knows how high he can jump until he reaches his failure point." -- Robert Schuller
WINNERS VERSUS LOSERS
1. A winner says, "Let's find out." A loser says, "Nobody knows."
2. When a winner makes a mistake, he says, "I was wrong." When a loser makes a mistake, he says, "It wasn't my fault."
3. A winner goes through a problem. A loser goes around it, and never gets past it.
4. A winner makes commitments. A loser makes promises.
5. A winner says, "I'm good, but not as good as I ought to be." A loser says, "I'm not as bad as a lot of other people are."
6. A winner tries to learn from those who are superior to him. A loser tries to tear down those who are superior to him."
7. A winner says, "There ought to be a better way to do it." A loser says, "That's the way it's always been done here."
posted by joypastordon at 7:49 PM
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