Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 12 – No. 4710 November 20, 2010
Thought for the week: "No man can break any of the Ten Commandments. He can only break himself against them." – G. K. Chesterton
"Maturity begins when we're content to feel we're right about something, without feeling the necessity to prove someone else is wrong." – Sydney J. Harris
"Everybody talks bout wanting to change things and help and fix, but ultimately all you can do is fix yourself. And that's a lot. Because if you can fix yourself, it has a ripple effect." – Rob Reiner
"The difference between a Muslim terrorist and a Christian who commits acts of terrorism, is that the Christian is disobeying his scriptures that say 'love' your enemies, while the Muslim is obeying his scriptures that command killing." – Moody Adams
"The problem with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
"Inadequate. I feel that way at times. Probably everyone does now and then. I don't think it holds you back unless you allow those feelings to stop you from taking action. It's how we handle the feelings of inadequacy that counts." – Ray Lammie
"The best time to plant a tree ... was twenty years ago. The second best time is today." – Chinese Proverb
When Dan Clark was a teenager, he and his father once stood in line to buy tickets for the circus.
As they waited, they noticed the family immediately in front of them. The parents were holding hands, and they had eight children in tow; all behaved well and all probably under the age of twelve. Based on their clean but simple clothing, he suspected they didn't have a lot of money. The kids jabbered about the exciting things they expected to see, and he could tell that the circus was going to be a new adventure for them.
As the couple approached the counter, the attendant asked how many tickets they wanted. The man proudly responded, "Please let me buy eight children's tickets and two adult's tickets so I can take my family to the circus."
When the attendant quoted the price, the man's wife let go of his hand, and her head dropped. The man leaned a little closer and asked, "How much did you say?" The attendant again quoted the price. The man obviously didn't have enough money. He looked crushed.
Clark says his father watched all of this, put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, and dropped it on the ground. His father then reached down, picked up the bill, tapped the man on the shoulder, and said, "Excuse me, sir, this fell out of your pocket."
The man knew exactly what was going on. He looked straight into Clark's father's eyes, took his hand, shook it, and with a tear streaming down his cheek, replied, "Thank you, thank you, sir. This really means a lot to me and my family."
Clark and his father went back to their car and drove home. They didn't have enough money to go to the circus that night, but it didn't matter. They had encouraged a whole family. And it was something neither family would ever forget.
Have you ever given any thought to this perplexing fact: that when the leader of small cult-like Pentecostal church in Florida threatened to burn a copy of the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11 (when Muslims attacked America and killed thousands of innocent people), the whole world rose up to object. From President Obama to the Pope to mobs of Muslims rioting in the streets, burning American flags and threatening death to America, every type of influence was applied to that man to prevent him from desecrating the holy book of the Islamic religion.
But daily all over the world Christian churches are attacked, damaged and burned, and Bibles burned and destroyed, with Christian believers beaten, tortured, raped and beheaded by Muslims in the name of their god, Allah—but seldom, if ever, is there even a mild a word of official protest and never does any element of the U.S. government register any objection. Isn't there something a bit off balance here? The Muslims are actually viciously attacking the Christian faith, but that one Florida pastor only talked about burning a copy of the Quran—he never actually did so.
There is a wonderful woman—I won't say her name because she's pretty famous—who was at a conference where I was speaking. I didn't know who she was at the time. She seemed to be trying to slip by me without hugging me or saying anything. But I noticed her in the crowd, and she looked like she needed a hug. So I said, "Excuse me just a minute," to the lady I was talking to, and called out, "Hey you! Going by right there! Come here!"
The woman said, "Me?" and I said, "Yes, you." So she came over and I said, "You know what? You really need a hug." And I hugged her and held her. At first she was reluctant, but then she just got limp. And as I hugged her, I prayed for her, even though I didn't know what I was praying for. Later I happened to go to an event where this woman was in concert. And I said, "Oh my goodness! That's that lady!" She came up to me and said, "Do you remember me?" I said, "Yes." Then she told me, "The day you called me over to hug me was the lowest day of my life. I was wondering, 'Does anybody care? Does anybody love me?' And that hug saved my life."
Eliot said, "Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They do not mean to do harm...they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."
How do we feel important? Often, it's by trying to obtain an image of success created by a culture that prizes getting ahead in terms of money and career. Think how much more integrity there would be if we understood how futile it is to pursue the empty vessel of prosperity.
In The Death of Ethics in America, Cal Thomas quotes a letter written to The Washington Post in the mid-1980s: "I've lived both lives, Yuppie and non-Yuppie," the person wrote. "In the first, I was married to a professional woman, and on our dual incomes we Club Med-ed, sports car-raced, alpine-skied, and Kennedy-Centered our 14-year marriage into oblivion. I'm now 42, remarried to a woman who gave up her professional career to provide full-time care for our one and five-year-old daughters, and living in Gaithersburg, Maryland—on one salary.
"Trips to Australia and Europe, Saturday night dining at Nathan's, and Wolf Trap concerts are distant memories. Vacations are now taken in our nine-year-old used pop-up camper, and dining out means 'Hooray! Daddy's bringing home a pizza.' We've just started into the second round of one hundred readings of Pat the Bunny for our 1-year-old. Satisfaction level in my first life measured about 2 on the 10 scale. Measured now, satisfaction is about 9.5."
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"1
Stanley Jones tells of a missionary who got lost in an African jungle, nothing around him but bush and a few cleared places. He found a native hut and asked the native if he could get him out. The native said he could.
"All right," said the missionary, "show me the way."
The native said, "Walk," so they walked and hacked their way through unmarked jungle for more than an hour.
The missionary got worried. "Are you quite sure this is the way? Where is the path?"
The native said, "Bwana, in this place there is no path. I am the path."2
When it comes to finding the way to God, there are various religions in the world today all claiming to have a corner on the truth and to be "the path" to God.
There are also vast numbers of people who believe that the way to God and the path to Heaven are through good works. Or at least, they reason (as I did in youthful days), "If I do more good things than I do bad things, my good deeds will outweigh my bad deeds, and that will get me into Heaven." According to God's Word, the Bible, this belief is also doomed for failure. As the Bible says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."3
It is true that Christianity makes the claim that it is the ONLY path or way to God and to God's Heaven. Again, the Bible says: "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name [other than Jesus Christ] under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."4
The question we need to ask is this: "Is Jesus Christ the Son of God and the Savior of the World?" If he is and his Word is truth, then he is the only way to God and to Heaven. If he is not the Son of God, then he is not a good man nor a great religious leader. He would be a liar, an imposter, and guilty of leading multiplied millions astray.
But how can we know if Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, or not?
To answer this question see the article, "Jesus Christ: Is He God or Man?" on line at: http://tinyurl.com/lu577
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, in all the many voices claiming to have the way to you and that of eternal salvation, help me to know the truth so I can be absolutely certain that I am on the 'Truth Way' and on my way to Heaven when I die. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. In Jesus' name. Amen."
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