Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 13 – No. 2011 May 14, 2011
Thought for the week: "Don't sacrifice your future on the altar of the immediate." – Unknown
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.... Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." – John Adams, 1798
"I want to be thoroughly used up when I die—for the harder I work, the more I live." – George Bernard Shaw
"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand." – Thomas Carlyle
"It is wisdom to know others, it is enlightenment to know one's self." – Tao Te Ching
"The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives." – Albert Schweitzer
"I am only one, But still I am one. I cannot do everything, But still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." – Edward Everett Hale
As a bagpiper, I play many gigs. Recently I was asked by a funeral director to play at a grave side service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper's cemetery in the Kentucky back country.
As I was not familiar with the backwoods, I got lost and, being a typical man, I didn't stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch.
I felt badly and apologized to the men for being late. I went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. I didn't know what else to do, so I started to play.
The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before for this homeless man. And as I played 'Amazing Grace,' the workers began to weep.
They wept. I wept. We all wept together. When I finished, I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.
As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "I never seen nothin' like that before, and I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty years."
I like what a Buddhist monk once said, "To know and not to do is not yet to know." To translate that into our Christian terminology, it could be, "To believe and not to act is not yet to believe."
In other words, if I say that I believe that without Christ people are eternally lost, but never do anything to point or even to help point others to Christ, do I really believe that people without Christ are lost?
And if I say that I believe that Jesus is coming again and that the lost will be left behind, but I never do anything to help point them to Christ, do I really believe that Jesus is coming again and that the non-Christians will be left behind?
So I agree with the monk, "To know and not to do is not yet to know."
– Dick Innes
Note: Please check out Passport for Heaven booklets online at: Passport for Heaven. Be sure to order some to give to family, friends and contacts.
"It's not your parents' fault, it's not where you were born, how poor you were, your lack of education, the boss, you're ex-spouse, etc. You are responsible for your actions. The greatest power you have is the power to change." – Ray Lammie
Ed note: "We were not responsible for our upbringing but are totally responsible for what we do about it—if it were less desirable—and for what we become." – Dick Innes
There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena.
During WWII, Irena got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto as a plumbing/sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive'. Being German, she knew what the Nazis' plans were for the Jews.
Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried, and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack for larger kids.
She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog, and the barking covered the kids'/infants' noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.
She was caught, and the Nazis broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war she tried to locate any parents that may have survived, and reunited the family.
Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.
In 2007, Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected.
What does it take to make you happy? How much do you have to have to be grateful?
To the barefoot man, happiness is a pair of old shoes. To the man with old shoes, it's a pair of new shoes. To the man with new shoes, it's more stylish shoes. And, of course, the fellow with no feet would be happy to be barefoot. This leads to the ancient insight: If you want to be happy, count your blessings, not your burdens. Measure your life by what you have, not by what you don't.
Yet in our modern world where we're continually exposed to endless increments of more and better—others with more money, better TVs, and bigger houses—this is very difficult.
For some people, the pleasure of having something good is drained as soon as they see someone else with something better. Our sense of contentment is created or destroyed by comparisons.
A life consumed with unfulfilled wants is an affliction. The antidote is the concept of "enough." This starts by thinking more clearly about the difference between our needs and our wants, between sufficiency and abundance.
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with wanting more and striving to fill our lives with things and experiences that give us pleasure, so long as we don't believe we need whatever we want.
When we think we need what we really only want, we make our desires preconditions to happiness, thereby diminishing our ability to appreciate and enjoy what we do have.
It's easy to think happiness is achieved by getting what we want when it's really a matter of wanting what we get. In the end, enough is enough.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."1
"Laughter may not be the best medicine, but it is surprisingly effective. While the idea has been around for a while, more studies are confirming the anecdotal evidence. In a study published in Diabetes Care, researchers reported that people with Type II diabetes had a smaller rise in blood glucose when they watched a comedy program versus a boring lecture on television. A team at the University of Maryland found that people who laughed often and were able to see the humor in situations were less likely to develop heart disease.
"Researchers say people who laugh tend to be healthier people. In study after study, hostility and anger are associated with disease, and humor with health. This is especially true when you're laughing it up with friends. Research on support groups has shown that the effects of laughter are magnified when it takes place in a social setting."2
Amazing isn't it? It's taken modern science to discover, or at least, to confirm, what God's Word taught 3,000 years ago—that laughter/cheerfulness is a good medicine.
Interesting, too, until the time of Christopher Columbus so many people believed the world was flat, and yet Isaiah, one of the Old Testament prophets wrote over 2,000 years ago: "He [God] sits enthroned above the circle of the earth."3
And over 3,000 years ago God gave the ancient Israelites strict laws by which to live, many of which had to do with good health and hygiene. God promised that if they obeyed these laws, they would be protected from diseases that afflicted the Egyptians.4
If we also live according to the principles found in God's Word, the Bible, we too can have a much happier, healthier life. Naturally, we need to know what God's Word teaches if we are to live by it.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please give me a deep love for and a great appreciation of your Word and, like David, write it on my heart, so that it will help me to live in harmony with your will, knowing that my life will be all the richer for it. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen.
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