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. 13 – No. 3411 August 20, 2011
Thought for the week: "Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." – William Carey
"Let us make all of our choices, not by default, but by very careful and prayerful planning, for the choices we make will make us—for time and eternity." – Dick Innes
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone." – Bill Cosby
"The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own." – Benjamin Disraeli
"My son was frustrated the other day with all the rules he had to follow at school. So he asked me, 'Dad, when will I be old enough to do what I want when I want?' I said, 'I don't know, son. I don't think anybody's ever lived that long!'" – Pcom Pete
"No one has a good enough memory to be a successful liar." – Unknown
"Let perseverance serve as your flashlight to lead you through the darkest days." – Unknown
"Your ship won't come in until you row out to meet it." – Unknown
"When two egotists meet, it is a case of an I for an I." – Unknown
"It is of no profit to have learned well if you neglect to do well." – Cyrus
"It's hard to understand how a cemetery raised its burial charges and blamed it on the cost of living." – Unknown
A friend of mine was visiting a college which had those security call boxes every few hundred feet. If you were wandering around the campus at night and felt uneasy about somebody following you, for instance, you could hit the button and have a security officer come investigate immediately.
On one of these phones hung a sign that said, "Out of Order."
Underneath it someone had scrawled, "Keep Running!"
The president of a major corporation, in reference to his company's hiring policies said: "If I could have only two qualifications on which to judge a person's promise, I would choose curiosity and determination. Only the curious will hear, and only the determined will overcome the obstacles to learning. Curiosity and determination are more important than a person's I.Q."
In the published diaries of Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi propagandist, there are two or three references to Mahatma Gandhi. Goebbels believed that Gandhi was a fool and a fanatic. If Gandhi had the sense to organize militarily, Goebbels thought, he might hope to win the freedom of India. He was certain that Gandhi couldn't succeed following a path of non-resistance and peaceful revolution. Yet as history played itself out, India peacefully won her independence while the Nazi military machine was destroyed. What Goebbels regarded as weakness actually turned out to be strength. What he thought of as strength turned out to be weakness.
– Rev. Kevin M. Pleas, Sermon: "Sufficient
Grace." Cited on www.eSermons.com
Charging down Commonwealth Avenue a few years ago, Rosie Ruiz crossed the line, an apparent winner of the Boston Marathon in an impressive time...
But something was wrong, and it didn't take long for the evidence to mount that she'd joined the race only in its last mile or so. Cheating became the dominant story of that year's marathon. And it was a character issue.
Personal questions:
What is more important: the truth about myself or my surface appearance?
Are there things I would do if I was guaranteed perfect anonymity that I wouldn't do if there was a chance that Mother might just come around the corner?
What would I be willing to risk the loss of my job for?
Would I ever lie to my spouse?
If bending the rules during income tax preparation might save some bucks, what would I do?
If I knew that I would never be found out, if no one I knew would be hurt by my action, would I take something that didn't belong to me?
Recently I came across a long essay called "As a Man Thinketh" by James Allen. Written in the early 1900's, it's a powerful and profound exploration of the relationship between thought and character. "A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts," he says. In fact, he declares, "Man is the master of thought, the molder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment and destiny."
As the plant springs from the seed, our actions, character and even our circumstances spring from our thoughts. Every thought seed that is allowed to take root in the mind blossoms, sooner or later, into actions that bear fruit.
"Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bad fruit." Our thoughts and actions can be jailors of fate, imprisoning us in base circumstances, or they can be angels of freedom, liberating us to achieve our noble potential.
But, he warns, we don't attract what we want, but what we are. What's more, we don't get what we pray for, but what we justly earn. While we cannot directly choose our circumstances, we can choose our thoughts and so, indirectly yet surely, shape our circumstances. As long as we believe we are the creatures of outside conditions, we will fail to become the rightful masters of our own lives. But if we will do the hard work of reflecting continually to identify and modify negative beliefs and attitudes, we will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will produce in the material conditions of our lives.
Sounds right to me.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"Don't always believe everything you hear just because someone says it is a message from God: test it first to see if it really is" (1 John 4:1, TLB).
"I don't need to get into a recovery group and deal with my past," my good friend Graham said, "I had special prayer and God has healed me from all that."
However, his constant gut-level coughing bothered me, but what could I say? God had healed him—those who prayed for him told him so! However, not too long afterwards, Graham came down with cancer. Again he was prayed for and a year later told me how grateful to God he was because he had been totally healed.
Exactly one week later he was back in the hospital. His body was riddled with cancer. The hospital did what they could but after a few weeks sent him home to die.
The reality was that Graham had a very confusing upbringing. His "sister" was his mother. As a teen she had a child out of wedlock and her mother adopted this child, and brought the two of them up as brother and sister. As an adult Graham covered the pain caused by his dysfunctional family background by becoming a super workaholic. As long as he kept super busy, he didn't feel or face the pain. However, in "deadening" the pain he very likely or possibly killed himself.
Very often it's the buried pain from the past—the supercharged repressed negative emotions—that make us ill—emotions such as envy, resentment, guilt (real or false), anger, hurt, grief, fear, anxiety and/or hatred and so on.
When we bury these emotions, we never bury them dead but very much alive and, as John Powell says, "When we bury our emotions our stomach keeps score." To put this another way, and pardon the language, the stuff we stuff stuffs up our lives—physically, emotionally, spiritually, and/or relationally. These negative emotions are like an emotional cancer and we either get the "cancer" or the "cancer" gets us.
This is why confession is absolutely essential for healing. Without which, prayer is like putting a Band-Aid over a deep wound without cleaning out the pus. It just drives the wound deeper and increases the infection.
Certainly, not all sickness is caused by unresolved personal issues, but if it is, God isn't going to heal me any more than he will heal me if my sickness is caused by my living in sin or in an unhealthy manner and refusing to give it up. God's way is to deal with issues that make us sick so healing can follow. If I smoke, eat unhealthy foods, or fail to exercise, I will suffer the natural consequences. Healthy living requires a healthy lifestyle—physically, emotionally, as well as spiritually.
So beware of faith healers who ignore the principle of genuine confession (see James 5:16) and of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. They may be fake rather than faith healers.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, about these constant 'headaches' (or whatever ... name the specific sickness) I'm experiencing—please help me to face, deal with, and resolve any unresolved personal issue that may be causing or affecting my sickness in any way. Please lead me to the help I need to see and resolve these issues. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."
8. Receive Daily Encounter E-mail ... Without Charge
Daily Encounter, a free weekday e-mail inspirational from ACTS International is now going to 400,000+ 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 100 million e-mail Daily, Weekend and Prayer Encounters are delivered to subscribers every year!
12. Prayer Partners Needed and to Submit a Prayer Request
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 one prayer report is 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.
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 400,000+ subscribers, and every week Weekend Encounter is going to almost 8,000 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 2100 in the past 15 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://actscom.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2
1. To donate FREE (to you) food for the hungry
2. For FREE Bible concordance and Bible helps
3. FREE: New Hope Crisis Counseling with trained
lay/volunteer counselors. www.newhopenow.org 4. E-Word Today for a daily Bible reading
5. To find your ZIP+4 Area Code in the U.S.A.
6. How to find and write to your U.S. Representative
7. ASK Jeeves ... your questions answered fast
8. Send a FREE greeting card for all occasions
9. To check the weather in your area
10. Hoax Web Sites
11. Plus many more sources of helpful information
