Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 14 – No. 3912 September 29, 2012
Thought for the week: "You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you can never know how soon it will be too late." – Anonymous
"Remember that when you leave this earth you can take nothing of what you have received, but only what you have given." – Saint Francis of Assisi
"When I thought I couldn't go on, I forced myself to keep going. My success is based on persistence, not luck." – Estee Lauder
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." – Michael Angelo
"In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it." – Michael Angelo
Tracy, a first grader, was having trouble adjusting at school. I called her into my office for a chat, confident that my many years of training as a guidance counselor had more than prepared me to handle this situation. "Tracy, I said, "I want to be your friend. I will never tell your mummy or daddy or your teacher anything we talk about if you don't want me to. I want you to know that you can always trust me." With tearful eyes, she looked up and replied, "Gee, Mrs. Edwards, you're just like my dog."
Chuck Colson stated: "Welcoming different viewpoints and beliefs is said to be one of the crowning glories of the modern university. Unless, of course, your viewpoints and beliefs happen to be Christian. Sadly, back in 2010, the [U.S.] Supreme Court ... ruled that a public college may refuse to recognize a student organization if it restricts membership or leadership to students who share the group's core beliefs.
In other words, campus student organizations like InterVarsity or Campus Crusade now run the risk of being kicked off campus if they say that only Christian students may hold leadership positions. The Court ruling says, in effect, that Christian groups must allow people who hold non-Christian beliefs into leadership ranks."
People with rigid personalities, such as highly dominant, controlling people or perfectionists, have difficultly handling loss because they do not have much flexibility.
Instead of being resilient, they are brittle. The more unexpected the loss, the more trouble they have. Setbacks cause them to make adjustments and changes, and this causes them difficulty. In addition to their rigidity, they lack a wide range of coping skills, and this exacerbates the problem. Consider the fallacy and futility on being in rigid control:
"I wonder how controllers like these get along with God. I wonder how they learn to trust Jesus Christ as Savior. I wonder how they try to determine God's will for their lives (or maybe that question never enters their minds). I wonder how controllers handle the unexpected and uncontrollable losses of life and learn to view these upsets with a spiritual perspective. A controller cannot trust God because he fears the control of his life resting in anyone's hands but his own."
By Lloyd John Ogilvie as quoted by H. Norman Wright, "Losses We Never Considered," Recovering from the Losses of Life, p. 34.
Source: KneEmail, http://forthright.net/kneemail/.
5. How Would You Introduce Christ to a Room Full of People?
It is hard to believe this is the closing segment of a comedy club act. Click on the link below to see and hear the short video showing, Steve Harvey, a comedian, addressing a secular audience.
The subject is "How Would You Introduce Christ to a Room Full of People?"
It's hard to imagine that this is a comedian and not a preacher, and this is an audience—and not a church congregation.
This introduction from comedian Steve Harvey to a secular audience was absolutely awe-inspiring.
By Josephson Institute, Michael Josephson
of Character Counts (765.2)
As the nasty rhetoric of the upcoming presidential campaign sends the message that leadership must be aggressive and confrontational, consider this parable about leadership.
A student assigned to write an essay about an effective leader wrote this story:
"I've been taking a bus to school for years. Most passengers keep to themselves and no one ever talks to anyone else.
"About a year ago, an elderly man got on the bus and said loudly to the driver, 'Good morning!' Most people looked up, annoyed, and the bus driver just grunted. The next day the man got on at the same stop and again he said loudly, 'Good morning!' to the driver. Another grunt. By the fifth day, the driver relented and greeted the man with a semi-cheerful 'Good morning!' The man announced, 'My name is Benny,' and asked the driver, 'What's yours?' The driver said his name was Ralph.
"That was the first time any of us heard the driver's name and soon people began to talk to each other and say hello to Ralph and Benny. Soon Benny extended his cheerful 'Good morning!' to the whole bus. Within a few days his 'Good morning!' was returned by a whole bunch of 'Good mornings' and the entire bus seemed to be friendlier. People got to know each other.
"If a leader is someone who makes something happen, Benny was our leader in friendliness.
"A month ago, Benny didn't get on the bus and we haven't seen him since. Everyone began to ask about Benny, and lots of people said he may have died. No one knew what to do and the bus got awful quiet again.
"So last week, I started to act like Benny and say, 'Good morning!' to everyone and they cheered up again. I guess I'm the leader now. I hope Benny comes back to see what he started."
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."1
In his commencement address to Stanford's 2005 graduating class Steven Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, shared how he and his friend, Woz, started Apple in his garage, and within ten years it grew to a $2 billion company. He also shared how he was fired from his own organization and in his words, "I didn't see it then, but getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
"During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, and another company named Pixar. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance."2
Not to the same degree by any means, but in a similar way this is how ACTS was started. At the time I was the South Australian director of a well-known youth organization. I changed our approach to ministry by commencing direct mail evangelism and included reaching adults as well as teenagers. I was told by the powers that be that my ministry didn't fit the required role and was asked to either give up my ministry, stay with the current methods (which weren't working that great anyhow), or get out of the organization. I chose the latter. It, too, was the best thing that happened to me at the time—as frightening as it was for me back then. Like you, I've been through other seeming crises, too, which have all turned out far better than I could have ever dreamed or hoped for.
So, if it seems like your world is crumbling around you and your life is truly committed to God and his will for your life, choose to trust your life to him, and, in time, you too will discover that all things do work together for good for "those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you for every crisis in my life that you have made to work for good, and turned into a blessing beyond my wildest dreams. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
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