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. 14 – No. 4012 October 06, 2012
Thought for the week: "Where there is no universal moral law of reason or religion, the value choices of individuals trump everything." – Michael Novak
"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary." – Unknown
"Don't put off to tomorrow what you've already put off until today." – Unknown
"No matter how good an idea sounds, test it first." – Henry Bloch
"Successful people form the habit of doing what failures don't like to do. They like the results they get by doing what they don't necessarily enjoy." – Earl Nightingale
"An 'enemy' is someone that God puts in our path that is most in need of our love; not retaliation or retribution or harm or insult." – John Carmody
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever." – Thomas Jefferson, 1810
"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure (and) which insures to the good eternal happiness, are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments." – Charles Carroll, 1800
"Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them ... he cried, 'Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?' God said, 'I did do something. I made you.'"
Chuck Colson in BreakPoint talked about how promiscuity today has become more and more acceptable and approved of by the sexual left. However, no matter what we call it, promiscuity is still sin according to biblical standards. Furthermore, "all the evidence says it's wrong, too.
"There's a sobering new book out by Doctors Joe McIlhaney and Freda Bush, along with Stan Guthrie. It's called Girls Uncovered: New Research on What America's Sexual Culture Does to Young Women. According to Girls Uncovered an estimated 19 million cases of sexually transmitted infections occurred in the year 2010. Think of it, about half occurred in fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds, even though they only represent about 25 percent of the sexually active—read that, promiscuous—population!
The infections include HPV, Chlamydia, gonorrhea, genital herpes, HIV/AIDS, syphilis, and 18 more STIs. Many can produce intense physical pain, scarring, the risk of infecting others, as well as cancer or sterility. Now folks, if that's not sin, what is? But our society seems determined on distracting us with "sin taxes" and pseudo-sins while actually subsidizing the real kind. God have mercy on us!
By Josephson Institute of Character Counts (763.5)
Terry and his dad Glen were walking along the shore and came upon a scorpion struggling in the tide, trying to get back to the sand.
Glen tried to scoop the creature up, but the scorpion stung him and fell back into the tide. Glen tried again and was stung again.
Terry said, "Dad, leave him alone! He's not worth saving."
But Glen tried one more time. This time he was successful and threw it onto the sand.
Terry said, "Why waste time on an ornery critter who's too stupid to know it's being helped?"
Glen answered, "Son, the scorpion stings by instinct. It's his nature. I chose to help him because that's my nature."
Glen was teaching his son a profound moral lesson about being human. Like other species, we're born with an instinct for survival and a disposition towards selfishness. Yet, blessed by a sense of compassion and the power to reason, we also have an instinct to think and act beyond our self-interest.
Human nature is complex. It's as much in our nature to be kind, loving, and generous as it is to be cruel, selfish, and dishonest. We can nurture or ignore our nobler instincts.
Some people act like scorpions. Trapped by negative instincts and response patterns, they think it's their nature and hide behind the belief, "That's the way I am."
No one is born with good or bad character. We're born with the capacity to have either, to choose our ultimate nature.*
When we choose to be good, we are good.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
*Editor's note: We are, however, according to God's Word, born with a sin nature which does need to be controlled for healthy living. See Psalm 51:5 (NLT).
"Where there is no revelation [prophetic vision], the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law [of God]."1
Some 350 or more years ago a shipload of travelers landed on a distant land. The first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness.
In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they were not able to see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision and certainly had no prophetic vision of what God's plan was for this nation yet to be.
With a clear vision of what we can become and achieve in Christ, no ocean of difficulty is too great. As individuals, organizations, churches, and a nation without a vision of what God wants us to be and do, we will eventually demise, "for without a vision the people perish."
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please open the eyes of my understanding and give me a vision of what you are doing in the world in which I live and see clearly how I can be a part of your plans. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
8. Receive Daily Encounter E-mail ... Without Charge
Daily Encounter, a without charge weekday e-mail inspirational from ACTS International is now going to 390,000+ 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!
NOTE: Some ISPs (especially AOL) now use e-mail filtering software that allows you to add e-mail addresses to your 'buddy', 'safe', or 'approved' list. Please be sure to add acts@actsweb.org to yours so you won't miss any issue of Daily Encounter.
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 e-mailed monthly. Thank you.
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 390,000+ subscribers, and every week Weekend Encounter is going to 7,800 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—almost 3000 in the past 12 months!
If you find value in the 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
1. Bible concordance and Bible helps
2. New Hope Crisis Counseling with trained
lay/volunteer counselors. www.newhopenow.org 3. E-Word Today for a daily Bible reading
4. To find your ZIP+4 Area Code in the U.S.A.
5. How to find and write to your U.S. Representative
6. ASK ... Smart answers fast
7. Send a greeting card without charge for all occasions
8. To check the weather in your area
9. Hoax Web Sites
10. Plus many more sources of helpful information
"Because the world is hungry,
go with bread.
Because the world is filled with strife,
go with peace.
Because the world is filled with deceptions and lies,
go with truth.
Because the world would die without,
go with the love of God."
