Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 10 – No. 5108 December 20, 2008
Wishing all Weekend Encounter readers a very Merry and God blessed Christmas
Thought for the season: "The message of Christmas is not about the proclamation of a holiday or the declaration of a season. It is about the proclamation of a Person and the declaration of Salvation. The birth of the Child in the manger was an event that prophets had written about, the people of Israel had spoken about, the patriarchs of old had wondered about, and the angels of God shouted about on that glorious night when Christ was born." – Roy Lessin, Co-Founder DaySpring Cards. Submitted by Dr. Cath Filmer-Davies
"Don't prepare the path for the child, prepare the child for the path." – Anonymous
"What is powerful is when what you say is just the tip of the iceberg of what you know." – Jim Rohn
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity" – Albert Einstein
"Don't worry that children never listen to you. Worry that they are always watching you." – Robert Fulghum
"Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves." – Dale Carnegie
"The organization that can't communicate can't change, and the corporation that can't change is dead." – Nido Qubein
"People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things." – Sir Edmund Hilary
An ode to English plurals: We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes / But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes. / One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, / Yet the plural of moose should never be meese. / You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice, / Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice. / If the plural of man is always called men, / Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen? / If I speak of my foot and show you my feet, / And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet? / If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth, / Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that, and three would be those, / Yet hat in the plural would never be hose, / and the plural of cat is cats, not cose. / We speak of a brother and also of brethren, / but though we say mother, we never say methren. / Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, / but imagine if the feminine were: she, shis and shim!
Let's face it ... English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? We ship by truck but send cargo by ship. We have noses that run and feet that smell. We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And in closing, if father is pop, how come mother's not mop?
"If Jesus came to your house to spend a day or two / If He came unexpectedly, I wonder what you'd do. / Oh, I know you'd give your nicest room to such an honored Guest, / And all the food you'd serve to Him would be the very best, / And you'd keep assuring Him you're glad to have Him there / That serving Him in your own home is joy beyond compare.
"But when you saw Him coming, would you meet Him at the door / With arms outstretched in welcome to your heavenly Visitor? / Or would you have to change your clothes before you let Him in? / Or hide some magazines and put the Bible where they'd been? / Would you turn off the radio and hope He hadn't heard? / And wish you hadn't uttered that last, loud, hasty word?
"Would you hide your worldly music and put some hymn books out? / Could you let Jesus walk right in, or would you rush about? / And I wonder if the Savior spent a day or two with you, / Would you go right on doing the things you always do? / Would you go right on saying the things you always say? / Would life for you continue as it does from day to day? / Would your family conversation keep up its usual pace? / And would you find it hard each meal to say a table grace? / Would you sing the songs you always sing, / and read the books you read, / And let him know the things on which your mind and spirit feed? / Would you take Jesus with you everywhere you'd planned to go? / Or would you, maybe, change your plans for just a day or so?
"Would you be glad to have Him meet your very closest friends? / Or would you hope they'd stay away until His visit ends? / Would you be glad to have Him stay forever on and on? / Or would you sigh with great relief when He at last was gone? / It might be interesting to know the things that you would do? / If Jesus Christ in person came to spend some time with you."
Year after year with "tireless regularity and eternal patience," God reminds the world every Christmas that he sent his Son, Jesus, to save lost mankind. Christmas is also God's reminder that Jesus is coming back to earth for all who have accepted him as their personal Lord and Savior.
His first coming is an indisputable fact of history. His second coming to end this world age is as certain. According to Bible scholars, there are 1,845 references in the Old Testament and 318 in the New Testament about Christ's coming again. This means for every prophecy in the Bible about Christ's first coming—every one of which was fulfilled in minute detail—there are eight about his second coming!
Jesus is coming again. God has promised this in his Word, the Bible. Jesus himself promised it as well.* And all the signs that Jesus and the Bible said would immediately precede his return are evident today, also reminding us that Christ's return could be very soon. If it were today, would you be ready?
In Alice Gray's book, Christmas Stories for the Heart, contributor Jean Gietzen wrote about a Christmas in 1943 in North Dakota.
Her mom bought a nativity set with small figurines but was disturbed to discover the set included an extra baby Jesus. She felt sure someone else's set would be incomplete so she asked the store manager to put a sign in the window saying: IF YOUR NATIVITY SET IS MISSING A BABY JESUS, CALL 7162.
When she hadn't received a call by Christmas Eve, she made Jean's father trek to the store in 20 below zero weather to check if the sign had been put up.
When he returned, Jean's mother was gone but he shortly received a phone call from her. She asked him to bring the kids along with three blankets, a plate of cookies, and a bottle of milk to a house at 205 Chestnut Street.
When they arrived, they found her talking with a woman and her two young children in a cold, dark home. The lady's husband had abandoned his family days before, taking the bedding and furniture and leaving a broken furnace.
While Jean's mom distributed the blankets, cookies, and warm milk, her dad cheerfully set about to fix the furnace. He called some buddies, and within hours extra oil for the furnace, clothes, bedding, two lamps, and toys had transformed gloom and despair into joy and gratitude.
How was it that her family was called to this mission of mercy? The woman had seen the sign posted in the store earlier that day and figured that anyone kind enough to worry about a missing figurine of baby Jesus would care enough to help her. She was right.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"The people of this generation ... are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other: 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.'"1
On a December day back in 1903 at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright, after numerous failures to fly a heavier-than-air machine, made amazing history. They achieved something that no man had ever done before. Ecstatic, they sent a telegram to their sister Katherine: "We have actually flown 852 feet. Will be home for Christmas."
Overjoyed, Katherine ran down to the local newspaper and pushed the telegram—the greatest news story of the new century—into the hand of the editor. After reading it, he smiled and said, "Well, well! How nice the boys will be home for Christmas."
The religious people of Christ's day who were actually anticipating his coming as their Messiah failed totally to recognize him—and ironically had him crucified—because he didn't come and didn't operate in the way they expected him to.
How sad it is that so many miss the full meaning of Christmas in that they have never thanked Jesus for dying for their sins, nor accepted the most profound and precious Christmas gift ever given ... the gift of the Savior and his pardon for all their sins and his gift of eternal life.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for the most wonderful Christmas gift ever given—the gift of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Please use me to share your great gift of salvation with as many people as possible for as long as I shall live. And because of my inadequacies, please do this through me. Use me every day to be as Christ to whomever you bring into my life and grant that they, seeing Jesus in me, will want you for themselves. Eternally grateful, in Jesus' name. Amen."
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