Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 15 – No. 1913 May 11, 2013
Thought for the week: "If you always have to win the argument, you will eventually lose the relationship." – Seen on Facebook
"There's been nothing but discipline, discipline, discipline all my life."
– Celine Dion, singer
"Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience ... without God there is a coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and cannot long endure ... If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under." – Ronald Reagan
"The most important thing about goals is—having one." – Geoffry F. Abert
A horse never runs so fast as when he has other horses to catch up and outpace." – Ovid, Roman poet
"People who are out to find fault seldom find anything else." – Unknown
"Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition." – Abraham Lincoln
I was testing the children in my Sunday school class to see if they understood the concept of getting to Heaven.
I asked them, "If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale, and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into Heaven?"
"NO!" the children answered.
"'If I cleaned the church every day, mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into Heaven?"
Again, the answer was, "NO!"
"Well, then, if I was kind to animals, and gave candy to all the children, and loved my husband, would that get me into Heaven?"
I asked them again. Again, they all answered, "NO!" I was just bursting with pride for them!
"Well," I continued, "then how can I get into Heaven?"
A five-year-old boy shouted out, "YOU GOTTA BE DEAD!"
Tennis champion Hana Mandlikova was once asked how she felt about defeating great players like Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert Lloyd.
She replied, "Any big win means that all the suffering, practicing, and traveling are worth it. I feel like I own the world." When asked how long that feeling lasts, she replied, "About two minutes."
Youth ministry researcher Chap Clark says, "I'm convinced that the single most important area where we've lost ground with kids is in our commitment and ability to ground them in God's Word."
As a result, Barry Shafer says, "The church today, including both the adult and teenage generations, is in an era of rampant biblical illiteracy." Duffy Robbins takes this one step further when he says: "Our young people have become incapable of theological thinking because they don't have any theology to think about. And, as Paul warns us, this leaves us as 'infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching'" (Ephesians 4:14).
Duffy Robbins considers possible causes when he says: "The church in general, and youth ministry in particular, has demonstrated more of an appetite for goose bumps than for God's truth, more interest in how our young people feel than how they think. But where are Christian teenagers learning basic tenets of the Christian faith? And if they don't understand those basic truths or doctrines, then how does that impact their long-term faith? I'm concerned that too much of our teaching is reduced to what can be communicated by a worship band illuminated by stage lighting and well-placed candles."
If church teenagers do not know what they believe, the implications are ominous. According to Glen Schultz: "A person's concept of reality and truth determines his beliefs. A person's beliefs shape his values. A person's values drive his actions. Beliefs will eventually determine our actions."
There are some things that children should be learning in school, but they aren't. Not all of these lessons have to do with academics. Here are some basic rules that may not have found their way into the standard curriculum. Some (perhaps all) of these should be credited to Charles Sykes, author of "Dumbing Down Our Kids."
Rule #1: Life is not fair. Get used to it.
Rule #2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. It will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
Rule #3: Sorry, you won't make $40,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.
Rule #4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier.
Rule #5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping. They called it opportunity.
Rule #6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes. Learn from them.
Rule #7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try cleaning out your bedroom.
Rule #8: In some schools they have abolished failing grades. They'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
Rule #9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. And very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
Rule #10. Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to jobs.
Rule #11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Rule #12: Enjoy this while you can. Sure, parents are a pain, school's a bother, and life is depressing. But someday you'll realize how wonderful it was to be a kid. Maybe you should start now.
Alan Smith,
Helen Street Church of Christ,
Fayetteville, North Carolina.
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Our choices reveal our character, but more importantly they shape our character. Thus, the more aware we become of the choices we make every single day—choices about our attitudes, words, actions and reactions—the more power we have over our own destiny.
Senator Bob Bennett of Utah said, "Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make.... If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself."
It's true. When we accept moral responsibility for our choices, we take charge of our lives. Yet one of the most common rationalizations for moral compromise is the claim that "I had no choice." Executives or school administrators who cheat to protect their jobs, athletes who take illegal performance-enhancing drugs to stay competitive, and employees who resort to lying to get what they want frequently convince themselves that they were forced to do whatever they did.
This self-delusion of powerlessness is particularly strong in teenagers who struggle to deal with hormone-intensified impulses and emotions that can create moods and urges that seem beyond control.
Despite the power of intense desire, fear and fury, we always have the power to choose what we think, say and do—even when we're under tremendous pressure, and even when we don't like our options.
Like a ship without a captain to steer it, when we hide behind a self-justifying illusion of helplessness, our lives move in aimless and random directions and sometimes run aground. If we take control, we have control.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset"1
I don't know why God required Moses to keep his hands raised when the ancient Israelites were in battle against the Amalekites—unless it was to acknowledge Israel's total dependence on God. Whatever the reason, it was a smart move to get a helping hand from Aaron and Hur, as Moses never could have made it by himself. It is also a good lesson for all of us because none of us can get through life without a helping hand from others.
I believe it was Paul Harvey who made the following comment: "We have always tended to revere the airplane pilot who did it alone and the country doctor who never left the bedside.... Such a spirit of independence served us well and caused us all to grow tall. But we'd never have made it to the moon without a spirit of interdependence. And we'd never have eradicated typhoid and smallpox and polio without cooperative effort. We've found that no person alone can fetch oil from beneath the ocean. We've found that we are becoming increasingly interdependent—not only in our country, but also all around the world.... On the steep slope ahead, holding hands is necessary."2
And in the quiet of our home and among friends holding hands is also necessary.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me never to be slow to offer a helping hand to a friend in need, and never too proud to ask for help when I need a helping hand. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
1. Exodus 17:11-12 (NIV).
2. Paul Harvey, Cited on Kneemail, www.oakhillcoc.org/
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