Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
To receive the email edition of Weekend Encounter (without charge) click on the Subscribe button.
Privacy policy: We do not sell or rent subscriber's e-mail
addresses to anyone. We value your privacy.
Global Communications Outreach:
Learn how to be a missionary right from your own home and have a vital part in worldwide gospel outreach by becoming an ACTS People Power for Jesus Partner. Click HERE There is no charge.
Vol. 10 – No. 2108 May 24, 2008
Thought for the week: "In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins, not through strength but by perseverance." – H. Jackson Brown
"Great minds have purposes; others have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them." – Washington Irving
"We miss 100 percent of the sales we don't ask for." – Zig Ziglar
"It's easy to make a buck. It's tougher to make a difference." – Tom Brokaw
"The decision to grow always involves a choice between risk and comfort. This means that to be a follower of Jesus you must renounce comfort as the ultimate value of your life." – John Ortberg
"What counts can't always be counted; what can be counted doesn't always count." – Albert Einstein
"Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest" – Jesus in John 4:35, (AV).
A father gave his young girl a generous weekly allowance on the condition that she kept good records of how she spent the money. At the end of the month, the dad was going to check on how she spent the money. When he checked on how she did, he was delighted that she had kept good records. But he came across several items that were listed as TLOK. In fact, about 1/5 of her money was listed this way. He asked her what TLOK meant.
She said, "Well, it's this way. Sometimes I did not jot down the amounts I spent. When I sat down to try to jot down all that I spent, I couldn't for the life of me remember where I had spent all that money. I couldn't make my accounts balance, so I placed several dollars under TLOK."
The father said, "But what does it mean?" She said it means, "THE LORD ONLY KNOWS!"
Source: Pulpit Pieces Weekly, Published by Net 153 Publications http://net153.com
Cheating is certainly not new on campus, but the prevalence may be at an all-time high. Seventy-four percent of business school undergraduates admit to having cheated at some point in college, compared with the 68% of the general student population. Students recognize that cell cheat sheets, phone texts, and writing answers on the insides of water bottle labels are obviously wrong.
Cheating has become so common that some students do not even recognize it. In 2002, 40% of college students did not think "cut and paste" plagiarism from the internet was even moderate cheating, and 47% of high school students do not think it is wrong to try to find out answers from others who may have taken a test previously. While students become more creative, many researchers say the problem lies beyond the classroom with students simply emulating what they see work in the "real" world.
Several years ago a cartoon appeared in the Saturday Review of Literature in which little George Washington was standing with an ax in his hand. Before him, lying on the ground was the famous cherry tree. He had already made his smug admission that he had done it—after all, he "...cannot tell a lie." But his father was standing there, exasperated, saying, "All right, so you admit it! You always admit it! The question is, when are you going to stop doing it."
The growing problem facing many pastors today is not how to get people to own up to sin, although that still remains a task; but rather how to get them to stop from returning to sin. Lost in the shuffle of religious terms is the true meaning of repentance—a change of mind, a turning from one direction to another.
Most people do not like to dwell on the horrors of the crucifixion. It is too bloody, too horrible. But the crucifixion is the perfect picture of just how ugly sin is. If anything can help us turn from our sin, it should be a clear and perfect view of the horror of sin and its cost. It should be the cross and all of its ugliness.
Dennis Lee Curtis was arrested in 1992 in Rapid City, South Dakota, for armed robbery.
Curtis apparently had scruples about his thievery. In his wallet the police found a sheet of paper on which was written the following code, a sort of a robber's rules:
1. I will not kill anyone unless I have to.
2. I will take cash and food stamps-no checks.
3. I will rob only at night.
4. I will not wear a mask.
5. I will not rob mini-marts or 7-Eleven stores.
6. If I get chased by cops on foot, I will get away.
If chased by a vehicle, I will not put the lives
of innocent civilians on the line.
7. I will rob only seven months out of the year.
8. I will enjoy robbing from the rich to give to the poor.
Thought: This thief had a sense of morality, but it was flawed. When he stood before the court, he was not judged by the standards he had set for himself but by the higher law of the state. Likewise, when we stand before God, we will not be judged by the code of morality we have written for ourselves, but by God's perfect law.1
KneEmail: "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad" (2 Corinthians 5:10).
When my daughter Samara was four, I showed her a delicate glass vase and told her it was my mother's. I instructed her to "never, never touch it." Without hesitation she said, "Then you should never, never put it where I can reach it."
Her remark reminded me of an Oscar Wilde quote: "I can resist anything but temptation." Samara understood the power of temptation and shifted the responsibility to me. If I wanted the vase safe, keep it out of her path.
Unfortunately, we can't always count on others to protect us from our weaker selves. In fact, lots of people will find advantage or comfort if we give in to temptation.
One way to protect ourselves is to build our moral willpower, the strength to overcome temptation, however strong. We do this by practice. As Emerson said, "We gain the strength of the temptation we resist."
Another is to consciously avoid tempting situations. As Mark Twain said, "It's easier to stay out than to get out."
Even people of strong character can succumb to temptation at weak moments. So it's reckless and arrogant to knowingly subject ourselves to avoidable seductive forces.
They say temptation usually comes in through a door that's been deliberately left open, so beware of the tendency to unconsciously invite temptations.
If you're on a diet, don't let them bring out the dessert tray. If you're on a tight budget, don't window-shop, and leave your credit card at home. And if you're committed to celibacy or fidelity, don't get near situations where your resolve could be tested.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."1
I read how, "A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.
"All but one.... He paused, took a deep breath, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.
"He told his buddies to go on without him, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor.
"He was glad he did.
"The 16-year-old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, and helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.
"The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.
"When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?" She nodded through her tears. He continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day too badly."
"As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, 'Mister....' He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, 'Are you Jesus?'
"He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning in his soul: 'Are you Jesus?'"2
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, I am available, please use me to be 'as Jesus' in some way today to every life I touch, and grant that they, seeing Jesus in me, will want you for themselves. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."
1. The Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 3:18, NIV).
2. Author unknown.
Daily Encounter, a free weekday e-mail inspirational from ACTS International is now going to 162,000 subscribers. Scores of letters from around the world have come from readers saying how much they are being helped by this brief, practical devotional.
Over 41 million e-mail Daily, Weekend and Prayer Encounters are delivered to subscribers every year!
NOTE: Some ISPs (especially AOL) now use e-mail filtering software that allows you to add e-mail addresses to your 'buddy', 'safe', or 'approved' list. Please be sure to add acts@actsweb.org to yours so you won't miss any issue of Daily Encounter.
9. Receive E-mail Edition of Weekend Encounter ... Free
NOTE: Some ISPs (especially AOL) now use e-mail filtering software that allows you to add e-mail addresses to your 'buddy', 'safe', or 'approved' list. Please be sure to add acts@actsweb.org to yours so you won't miss any issue of Weekend Encounter.
One of ACTS greatest needs is Prayer Partners to stand with us as we seek to share the gospel with millions of people around the world through E-mail and the Internet and to win the lost to Jesus. If you would like to be an ACTS Prayer Partner, please subscribe to the Prayer Encounter list. Approximately two prayer reports are emailed monthly. Thank you.
If you have a special prayer request please submit it to David Clark at: www.responda.co.uk/prayer.php. David is not on the ACTS staff but is offering this as a service to Daily and Weekend Encounter readers.
Helpers Needed: If you can help David pray for prayer requests, please could you go to: www.responda.co.uk/member.php
Weekend Encounter and Daily Encounter are just two of the ways the nonprofit organization, ACTS International, is working to improve the spiritual and emotional life of many thousands of people around the world.
Every weekday Daily Encounter is going to 162,000 subscribers, and every week Weekend Encounter is going to 10,000+ subscribers worldwide—many of whom are in places where it is forbidden to spread the Christian gospel and message. Plus we reach several hundred thousand more every week through our advertising. As a result every day we are seeing an average of 5-6 salvation responses from around the world—over 3000 in the past 12 months!
If you find value in the free Weekend Encounter and/or Daily Encounter, we hope you will be comfortable donating at least $26. That's only 50 cents a week for an entire year (tax-deductible in the U.S.). You can donate in one of the following ways:
Oprah Winfrey: "Books were my pass to personal freedom. I learned to read at age three, and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi." – Oprah Winfrey
Books:
Books by Dick Innes, Editor of Weekend Encounter You Can't Fly With a Broken Wing How to Mend a Broken Heart I Hate Witnessing—A Handbook for Effective Christian
Communications
Books by Bestseller and Popular Authors: The Miracle of Kindness His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley, Jr.
has topped the charts as the best marriage
book available. More than one million couples
have read it ... made their marriage sizzle. Fall in Love Stay in Love Just Hand Over the Chocolate ... Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships Sex Starts in the Kitchen Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours Harried With Children Adolescence Is Not an Illness Show Time It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian
On Sale at: http://www.actscom.com/store
Cassettes:
Healing, Wholeness & Happiness by Dick Innes
Loving & Understanding People by Dick Innes
I Hate Witnessing by Dick Innes
God's Formula for Success by Dick Innes
Damaged Emotions by David Seamands Healing of the Memories by David Seamands...
On SALE at:http://tinyurl.com/2unmmy
1. Bible concordance and Bible helps
2. New Hope Crisis Counseling with trained
lay/volunteer counselors. www.newhopenow.org 3. E-Word Today for a daily Bible reading
4. To find your ZIP+4 Area Code in the U.S.A.
5. How to find and write to your U.S. Representative
6. ASK ... Smart answers fast
7. Send a FREE greeting card for all occasions
8. To check the weather in your area
9. Hoax Web Sites
10. Plus many more sources of helpful information
"Because the world is hungry,
go with bread.
Because the world is filled with strife,
go with peace.
Because the world is filled with deceptions and lies,
go with truth.
Because the world would die without,
go with the love of God."
ACTS International
PO Box 73545
San Clemente, CA 92673-0119
U.S.A.
To receive the email edition of Weekend Encounter
without charge click on the Subscribe button.
Privacy policy: We do not sell or rent subscriber's e-mail
addresses to anyone. We value your privacy.