Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 11 – No. 1109 March 14, 2009
Thought for the week: "Habits are like comfortable beds; they are easy to get into, but difficult to get out of." – Denis Waitley
"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes." – Peter F. Drucker
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." – Aristotle
"The harder you work at something, the harder it is to quit. Those who don't work very hard at something, find it easy to quit. There is not much invested. People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success, because they don't know when to quit." – George Allen
"The more you have, the less likely it is to be enough." – Unknown
"Then he [Jesus] said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." – Jesus, (Luke 12:15, NIV)
"Someone has observed that no one ever built a statue to a person to acknowledge what he or she got out of life. Statues are built only to people to acknowledge what they gave. Always look for ways to put in rather than to take out. The successful man or woman is a "go-giver" as well as a go-getter." – Brian Tracy
"The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones." – William Faulkner
"Every time I've done something that doesn't feel right, it's ended up not being right." – Mario Cuomo, Former Governor of New York
In a small Texas town, a new tavern business started constructing a building in which to open up a bar. The local Baptist church began a campaign to block the bar from opening, with petitions and prayers.
Work progressed, however right up until the week before opening, when lightning struck the bar and it burned to the ground.
The church folks were rather smug in their outlook until the bar owner sued the church on the grounds that the church was ultimately responsible for the destruction of his building, either through direct or indirect actions or means.
The church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection to the building's demise in its reply to the court.
As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork.
At the hearing he commented: "I don't know how I'm going to decide this, but it appears from the paperwork that we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer, and an entire church congregation that doesn't."
"Watch your thoughts; they lead to attitudes.
Watch your attitudes; they lead to words.
Watch your words; they lead to actions.
Watch your actions; they lead to habits.
Watch your habits; they form your character.
Watch your character; it determines your destiny" (Unknown).
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things" (The Bible, Philippians 4:8, NIV).
"I am here trying to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any of that patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. Nor did he intend to."
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, MacMillan, 1943, p. 55-56,
"I think this is a great idea and one that's very easy to implement," said Judith Richards, who sent in the following suggestion:
All too often in today's society we are being controlled by a vocal minority. Currently, a vocal minority is wanting to eliminate the words, "In God We Trust," from the public arena. Will they succeed in getting it taken off the U.S. money and out of the Pledge of Allegiance?
Because a vast majority of Americans believe in God, a radio station suggested that we stamp the words, "In God We Trust," on all of our snail-mail envelopes and use it as a signature on e-mail messages.
It's a simple suggestion and is one small way all believers in God can "stand up and be counted."
If you like this idea, please pass it on and DO it.
The serious damage done to our economy, social institutions, and personal relationships by widespread cheating and dishonesty is bad enough. But widespread acceptance of such behavior as inevitable threatens to make our future a lot worse. In effect, our culture is being infected by a disease: the disease of low expectations.
This disorder is manifested by the corrosive assumption that human nature can't be expected to withstand pressure or temptation. In other words, when there's a conflict between self-interest and moral principles, self-interest—in fact, short-term self-interest—will generally prevail.
Whenever a politician lies to get elected, a student cheats to get into college, or an executive commits fraud to save a job or earn a bonus, we blame the system rather than the individual. Thus, under the influence of the disease of low expectations, an increasing army of apologists argue that both the carrot and the stick—previously thought of as valid motivating techniques—should be condemned and eliminated as corrupting influences that create irresistible pressures to cheat.
A school superintendent in Iowa once told me, "Cheating isn't the problem; it's the way we test." We really can't expect students not to cheat, he implied, especially when the stakes are so high.
I wonder whether he would be as comfortable with a similar explanation of corporate scandals: "Fraudulent accounting isn't the problem; it's the way we compensate executives."
Don't buy into this dreadfully pessimistic and perverted perspective about human nature. Cheating is wrong and harmful. Integrity is real and possible. It just takes character.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"So Jesus said to them again, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.'"1
George Adam Smith, the 19th century biblical scholar, tells of traveling one day in the holy land and coming across a shepherd and his sheep. He fell into conversation with him and the man showed him the fold into which the sheep were led at night. It consisted of four walls, with a way in.
Smith asked him, "This is where they go at night?"
"Yes," said the shepherd, "and when they are in there, they are perfectly safe."
"But there is no door," said Smith.
"I am the door," said the shepherd.
He was not a Christian man and wasn't speaking in the language of the New Testament. He was speaking from an Arab shepherd's viewpoint.
Smith looked and him and asked, "What do you mean, 'you are the door'?"
"When the light has gone," said the shepherd, "and all the sheep are inside, I lie in that open space, and no sheep ever goes out but across my body, and no wolf comes in unless he crosses my body; I am the door."
And that's what Jesus is for all of his children, the sheep of his pasture.
Suggested prayer, "Dear God, thank you that we have the promise that Jesus is always with us no matter in what circumstances we find ourselves, and that he is the door to watch and guard over each one of his children—including me. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."
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