I want to say loudly, “you can’t do anything you want with Jesus!”. You cannot use him, abuse him or get him to justify your loony ideas. The message of the Bible is never “have a look at Jesus and see what you like about him – try Jesus for size – fit him into your life where you can . . .” You can’t fit Jesus in. The message of the bible is “Jesus is Lord, what are you going to do about it?”
Soul Survivor Magazine, Aug 97, p28, J John
It is extraordinary that a peasant man from a poky, backwater town in Galilee, who never wrote anything, who died the death of a petty criminal, should continue to intrigue and excite more people than ever.
Soul Survivor Magazine, Aug 97, p28, J John
It’s a fascinating story that comes out of the 1989 earthquake which almost flattened Armenia. This deadly tremor killed over 30,000 people in less than four minutes. In the midst of all the confusion of the earthquake, a father rushed to his son’s school. When he arrived there he discovered the building was flat as a pancake.
Standing there looking at what was left of the school, the father remembered a promise he made to his son, “No matter what, I’ll always be there for you!” Tears began to fill his eyes. It looked like a hopeless situation, but he could not take his mind off his promise.
Remembering that his son’s classroom was in the back right corner of the building, the father rushed there and started digging through the rubble. As he was digging other grieving parents arrived, clutching their hearts, saying: “My son! “My daughter!” They tried to pull him off of what was left of the school saying: “It’s too late!” “They’re dead!” “You can’t help!” “Go home!” Even a police officer and a fire-fighter told him he should go home. To everyone who tried to stop him he said, “Are you going to help me now?” They did not answer him and he continued digging for his son stone by stone.
He needed to know for himself: “Is my boy alive or is he dead?” This man dug for eight hours and then twelve and then twenty-four and then thirty-six. Finally in the thirty-eighth hour, as he pulled back a boulder, he heard his son’s voice. He screamed his son’s name, “ARMAND!” and a voice answered him, “Dad?” It’s me Dad!” Then the boy added these priceless words, “I told the other kids not to worry. I told ’em that if you were alive, you’d save me and when you saved me, they’d be saved. You promised that, Dad. ‘No matter what,’ you said, ‘I’ll always be there for you!’ And here you are Dad. You kept your promise!”
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, “Chicken Soup for the Soul.”
One Sunday I was entertained in a farm home of a member of a rural church. The intelligence and unusually good behavior of the only child in the home, a little four-year-old boy, impressed me.
Then I discovered one reason for the child’s charm. The mother was at the kitchen sink, washing the intricate parts of the cream separator when the little boy came to her with a magazine.
“Mother,” he asked, “what is this man in the picture doing?”
To my surprise she dried her hands, sat down on a chair, and taking the boy in her lap, she spent the next few minutes answering his questions.
After the child had left, I commented on her having interrupted her chores to answer the boy’s question, saying, “Most mothers wouldn’t have.”
“I expect to be washing cream separators for the rest of my life,” she told me, “but never again will my son ask me that question.”
If your plan is for a year plant rice
If your plan is for a decade plant trees
If your plan is for a lifetime, educate children.
(Confucius 551-479BC)
“When it comes to change, there are three seasons of timing: People change when they hurt enough that they have to, when they learn enough that they want to, and when they receive enough that they are able to.”
John Maxwell
When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.
Unknown Monk (1100AD)
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
A Sunday School teacher was telling the story of the Good Samaritan to her class of 4-5 year olds.
She was making it as vivid as possible to keep the children interested in her tale.
Then she asked the class, “If you saw a person lying on the roadside all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?”
A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, “I think I’d throw up.”
A rat looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package. What food might it contain? He was aghast to discover that it was a rat trap. Retreating to the farmyard the rat proclaimed the warning; “There is a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!”
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Excuse me, Mr. Rat, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.”
The rat turned to the pig and told him, “There is a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!” “I am so very sorry Mr. Rat,” sympathized the pig, “but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured that you are in my prayers.”
The rat turned to the cow. She said, “Like wow, Mr. Rat, a rat trap. I am in grave danger. Duh?” So the rat returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s rat trap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like the sound of a rat trap catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see that it was an enormous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife.
The farmer rushed her to the hospital. She returned home with a fever. Now everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.
His wife’s sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer’s wife did not get well. She died, and so many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat.
So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when there is a rat trap in the house, the whole farmyard is at risk.
Quoted from http://www.cybersaltlists.org email list
A man was meditating by the river. One morning he saw a scorpion floating on the water. When the scorpion drifted near the old man he reached to rescue it but was stung by the scorpion. A bit later he tried again and was stung again, the bite swelling his hand painfully and giving him much pain. A man passing by saw what was happening and yelled at the meditator, “Hey old man, what’s wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don’t you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?” The old man calmly replied, “My friend, just because it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save.”…
Traditional
Have you ever been confronted with a message that changed your perspective? One church chose as its Lenten theme, “Forty Days of Love.” Each week members of the congregation were encouraged to show their love and appreciation in different ways. The first week they were encouraged to send notes to people who had made positive contributions to their lives.
After the first service a man in the congregation wanted to speak to his pastor. The pastor describes the man as “kind of macho, a former football player who loved to hunt and fish, a strong self-made man.” The man told his pastor, “I love you and I love this church, but I’m not going to participate in this Forty Days of Love stuff. It’s OK for some folks,” he said, “but it’s a little too sentimental and syrupy for me.”
A week went by. The next Sunday this man waited after church to see his pastor again. “I want to apologize for what I said last Sunday,” he told him, “about the Forty Days of Love. I realized on Wednesday that I was wrong.”
“Wednesday?” his pastor repeated “What happened on Wednesday?” “I got one of those letters!” the man said. The letter came as a total surprise. It was from a person the man never expected to hear from. It touched him so deeply he now carries it around in his pocket all the time. “Every time I read it,” he said, “I get tears in my eyes.” It was a transforming moment in this man’s life. Suddenly he realized he was loved by others in the church. This changed his entire outlook. “I was so moved by that letter,” he said, “I sat down and wrote ten letters myself.”
Quoted from: www.devotions.net/devotions/files/2001/01jan/23.htm
When the song of the angels is silent,When the star in the sky is gone,When the kings and the princes are home,When the shepherds are back with their flocks,The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.
Poem by Howard Thurman
This is a video from Igniter Media www.ignitermedia.com
I used this video during a baptism service and it was very powerful.
This song was born out of trying times for Bill and Gloria Gaither. Each day was becoming a struggle. They faced huge uncertainty in the days ahead. But through it all, they were reminded that life, in both the good and bad times, is worth the living because Jesus lives.
One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to him, and the other to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of his life.
This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.
“Lord, You said that once I decided to follow You, You’d walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don’t understand why when I needed You most You would leave me.”
The Lord replied, “My son, My precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”
Footprints, Author Unknown
This was the video that Leona Lewis did for Sports Relief in the UK in 2008.
Little Johnny’s father was a pastor in a small church. One day, his father told Little Johnny that a very important bishop was coming and that he would be staying with them. Little Johnny became very excited and asked his father if he would get to meet him. His father thought about this and decided that he would let Little Johnny bring the bishop tea in the morning and wake him up. Little Johnny agreed to do this and was very excited.
His father gave him instructions: first, knock on the door of the bishops room and then say to him “It’s the boy, my Lord, it’s time to get up.”
Little Johnny was very excited and rehearsed his lines repeating them over and over. Finally the day came and Little Johnny had learned all his lines. He went to the door and knocked. He was so excited and nervous though that his lines got mixed up and the boy said, “It’s the Lord, my boy, and your time is up!”
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