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. 0213 January 12, 2013
Thought for the week: "Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; heaven so real that we must have men there, Christ so real that our supreme motive and aim shall be to make the Man of Sorrows the Man of Joy by the conversion to him of many." – J. Hudson Taylor
Why do doctors and lawyers call what they do practice?
Why is abbreviation such a long word?
Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address, you turn down the volume on your radio?
Why is a boxing ring square?
What was the best thing before sliced bread?
How do they get the deer to cross the highway at those yellow signs?
How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?
1. If I refuse to give anything to missions this year, I practically cast a ballot in favor of the recall of every missionary.
2. If I give less than heretofore, I favor reduction of the missionary forces proportionate to my reduced contribution.
3. If I give the same as formerly, I favor holding the ground already won; but I oppose any forward movement. My song is "Hold the Fort," forgetting that the Lord never intended His army to take refuge in a fort. All His soldiers are commanded to "Go."
4. If I increase my offering beyond former years, then I favor an advance movement in the conquest of new territory for Christ.
When Robert B. Rowling bought the Omni Hotel chain, he ordered the pornographic magazines pulled from his hotels' gift shops and the pornographic films removed from the pay-per-view channels on the TVs in the hotel rooms. To do the latter, he had to switch movie-service providers and buy a new television for every room—some eighty-seven hundred sets! The change cost Rowling $4 million, including lost revenue.
But since the porn movies were yanked, occupancy has increased at the upscale hotels.
Jonathan Falwell (in Falwell Confidential): "America is rapidly becoming a nation of intolerance toward public expressions of faith—expressions that were common and cherished in the days of our founding. It is a modern tragedy that our courts are purging public prayer and depictions of Christianity from the public square. Our Founders would be astonished that their beloved nation has arrived at such a point."
Many years ago a man came to a village in India to catch monkeys so he could sell them to zoos. The monkeys, however, were very clever and every sort of trap he set failed. A young boy watched the man's pathetic efforts and laughed.
The man said, "If you can catch me a monkey I'll give you $2." (That was a huge amount of money then.)
The boy went to his home and took a clay pot with a narrow neck. He placed a few nuts around the pot and put lots of nuts inside. He then tied the pot to a tree and he told the man, "We should have a monkey in a few hours. Let's wait in the village. The monkey will call us when he is ready."
Sure enough, a band of monkeys soon discovered the nuts and the pot. One slipped his hand in the pot and grabbed a handful of nuts, but he couldn't pull his hand out of the narrow opening of the pot because his fist was clenched. The monkey panicked and started making loud noises. Some of the other monkeys tried unsuccessfully to pull the pot off his hand.
The boy and the man heard the ruckus and the boy got a sack. As they approached the monkeys they all ran away except the one with its hand in the pot. The boy grabbed the monkey and the pot. The man was amazed and asked the boy the secret of his monkey trap. "Why was it so easy for the monkey to get his hand in but so hard to get it out?"
The boy laughed and said, "The monkey could have easily got his hand back out and escaped, but he would have had to let go of the nuts in the pot, and he just wasn't willing to let go. They never are."
What lessons can be learned from this story? Do people sometimes trap themselves by holding onto things that they should let go? Do you?
This story is often used to illustrate the power of greed. People get trapped by the trappings of success, by wealth, and by a limitless desire to acquire and hold onto material things—even when the things they hold do not give them what they want or need. But there are other dimensions to the story as well. Many people trap themselves by holding onto negative feelings—resentment, anger, and jealousy—that both lessen and limit their lives. Like the monkey who derives no pleasure or nourishment from the nuts he holds in his hand, we can derive nothing of value from these negative emotions. Many of us could improve our lives instantly by the simple act of letting go.
It's so simple, yet so hard.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."1
Sometimes, though not always, the thing that upsets us in others is the problem that we have never resolved in ourselves.
On one occasion right after I conducted a short personality test, which included only one brief question about sexual attitude, I was approached by a woman who said to me, "Wow, you sure have hang-ups about sex, don't you!"
I replied, "And how old were you when you were sexually abused?"
She looked at me in amazement and said, "How did you know?"
I said, "You just told me."
Another common example is when a preacher or a moralist continually condemns a particular sin that he is obsessed about, you can be pretty sure that that's his problem—either overtly or covertly.
These people project their own problem onto others. Because it's their problem, they suspect it's other people's problem too. Or to compensate for their guilt they condemn others for what they themselves are doing or secretly want to do.
It's no wonder Jesus told us to get rid of the plank out of our own eye before we tried taking a speck of sawdust out of anybody else's.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please face me with all of my character issues and faults so I won't project or dump them onto others, and so I can bring them to the light for your healing touch. 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 450,000+ 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 450,000+ subscribers, and every week Weekend Encounter is going to 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—almost 3,000 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."
