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. 15 – No. 3613 September 07, 2013
Thought for the week: "The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare." – Bobby Knight, American basketball coach
"Faith is to believe what you do not see. The reward of faith is to see what you believe." – St. Augustine
"You are the way you are because that's the way you want to be. If you really wanted to be any different, you would be in the process of changing right now."
– Fred Smith
"Failure should be our teacher—not our undertaker. Failure is delay—not defeat. It is a temporary detour—not a dead end." – Denis Waitley
"Who begins too much accomplishes little." – German Proverb
"A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle." – Benjamin Franklin
"The difference in winning and losing is most often not quitting." – Walt Disney
A little boy was riding his tricycle furiously around the block, over and over again. Finally a policeman stopped and asked him why he was going around and around. The boy said that he was running away from home.
The policeman asked why he kept going around the block. The boy responded, "Because my mom said that I'm not allowed to cross the street."
– Michael Green, Illustrations
for
Biblical Preaching
This week we grieve with the many families whose lives were devastated as we remember with horror the devastating effects caused by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001.
Instead of placing blame, let us today remember the good along with the bad as so eloquently expressed in the following anonymous poem.
As the soot and dirt and ash rained down,
We became one color.
As we carried each other down the stairs of
the burning building,
We became one class.
As we lit candles of waiting and hoping,
We became one generation.
As the firefighters and police officers fought
their way into the inferno,
We became one gender.
As we fell to our knees in prayer for
strength,
We became one faith.
As we whispered or shouted words of
encouragement,
We spoke one language.
As we gave our blood in lines a mile long,
We became one body.
As we mourned together the great loss,
We became one family.
As we cried tears of grief and loss,
We became one soul.
As we retell with pride the sacrifice
of heroes,
We become one people.
Anonymous. Quoted in a sermon by Dr. Larry Ethane, "From Remembrance to Hope." Cited on www.sermons.com
A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night's dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly-missed boarding.
All but one! He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned.
He told his buddies to go on without him, waved good-bye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor.
He was glad he did. The 16-year-old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her; no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.
The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket.
When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?" She nodded through her tears. He continued on with, "I hope we didn't spoil your day too badly."
As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister...." He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, "Are you Jesus?"
He stopped in mid-stride ... and he wondered. He gently went back and said, "No, I am nothing like Jesus—He is good, kind, caring, loving, and would never have bumped into your display in the first place.
"The girl gently nodded: "I only asked because I prayed for Jesus to help me gather the apples. He sent you to help me, so you are like Him—only He knows who will do His will. Thank you for hearing His call, Mister."
Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"
Do people ever mistake you and me for Jesus?
Remember, too, that "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver" (Proverbs 25:11, NKJV).
"Money will buy a bed but not sleep; books but not brains; food but not appetite; finery but not beauty; a house but not a home; medicine but not health; luxuries but not culture; amusements but not happiness; religion but not salvation; a passport to everywhere but heaven." – Author Unknown
"And He [Jesus] said to them, 'Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.'" – The Bible, Luke 12:15 (NKJV).
Watch your thoughts; they lead to attitudes.
Watch your attitudes; they lead to words.
Watch your words; they lead to actions.
Watch your actions; they lead to habits.
Watch your habits; they form your character.
Watch your character; it determines your destiny.
These words of unknown origin tell us that our silent and often subconscious choices shape our future. Every aspect of our lives, at home and at work, can be improved if we use our power to think, reflect, and make conscious choices about our thoughts, attitudes, words, actions, and habits.
Instead, many of us think of ourselves as victims. We complain about our circumstances and what others did to us. Whatever psychological comfort there is in feeling powerless and blameless when things aren't going right, victims lead unsatisfied lives in the end.
We're most vulnerable to victimitis when we're under the influence of powerful emotions like fear, insecurity, anger, frustration, grief, and depression. These feelings can be so overwhelming that we believe our state of mind is inevitable. Our only hope is that they'll go away on their own. Yet it's during times of emotional tumult that using our power to choose our thoughts and attitudes is most important. We can't make pain go away, but we can refuse to suffer.
Even when we don't like any of our choices, we do have some—once we realize we can take control. It isn't easy, but what we do and how we choose to feel about ourselves can have a profound impact on the quality of our lives. Victims may get sympathy for a while, but that isn't nearly enough.
Taking personal responsibility for our happiness and success can be scary, but the payoff is enormous. Although we can't make our lives perfect, we can make them better—usually a lot better.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do
not forsake your mother's teaching. They will be a
garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your
neck."1
I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it one day;
And as my fingers pressed it still,
It moved and yielded at my will.
I came again when days were past,
The form I gave it still it bore,
And as my fingers pressed it still,
I could change that form no more.
I took a piece of living clay,
And gently formed it day by day,
And molded with my power and art,
A young child's soft and yielding heart.
I came again when days were gone;
It was a man I looked upon,
He still that early impress bore,
And I could change it never more.
– The Bible Friend
Basically, we raise not necessarily the children we
want, but more so the children that we the parents are. Therefore, one of the greatest gifts that we parents can give to our children, after showing them the way to Jesus, is to model the kind of person that God wants us to be so that they, seeing that in us, will want the same for themselves.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me to model
for my children the kind of person you want me to be so that my children will see you in me and want the same for themselves. 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 375,000+ 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 375,000+ subscribers, and every week Weekend Encounter is going to 7,555 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."