Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 15 – No. 5213 December 28, 2013
Thought for the week: "The happiest people don't have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything they have." – Unknown
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." – Thomas Edison, Inventor
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." – Unknown
"A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind." – Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." – Mark Twain, Author
"What happens is not as important as how well you react to it." – Unknown
Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure." -- Edward Eggleston
Why do supermarkets make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front?
Why do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke?
Why do banks leave vault doors open and then chain the pens to the counters?
Why do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in our driveways and put our useless junk in the garage?
Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
Why can't women put on mascara with their mouth closed?
Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word?
Why is it that doctors and attorneys call what they do 'practice'?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavoring, and dish washing liquid made with real lemons?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks....
Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.
God's accuracy may be observed in the hatching of eggs. For example:
The eggs of the potato bug hatch in 7 days.
Those of the canary in 14 days.
Those of the barnyard hen in 21 days.
The eggs of ducks and geese hatch in 28 days.
Those of the mallard in 35 days.
The eggs of the parrot and the ostrich hatch in 42 days. (Notice, they are all divisible by seven, the number of days in a week!)
God's wisdom is seen in the making of an elephant: The four legs of this great beast all bend forward in the same direction. No other quadruped is so
made. God planned that this animal would have a huge body—too large to live on two legs. For this reason, he gave it four fulcrums so that it can rise
from the ground easily.
The horse rises from the ground on its two front legs first. A cow rises from the ground with its two hind legs first.
How wise the Lord is in all his works of creation! God's wisdom and perfect order is revealed in his arrangement of sections and segments, as well as in the number of grains.
Each watermelon has an even number of stripes on the rind.
Each orange has an even number of segments.
Each ear of corn has an even number of rows.
Each stalk of wheat has an even number of grains.
Every bunch of bananas has on its lowest row an even number of bananas, and each row decreases by one, so that one row has an even number and the next row an odd number.
The waves of the sea roll in on shore twenty-six to the minute in all kinds of weather.
All grains are found in even numbers on the stalks, and the Lord specified thirty fold, sixty fold, and a hundred fold all even numbers.
God has caused the flowers to blossom at certain specified times during the day. Linnaeus, the great botanist, once said that if he had a conservatory containing the right kind of soil, moisture and temperature, he could tell the time of day or night by the flowers that were open and those that were closed!
The life of each one of us may be ordered by the Lord in a beautiful way for his glory, if we will entrust it to him. Only the One Who made the brain and the heart can successfully guide them to a meaningful end.
When George Washington was 16, he discovered a booklet of 110 maxims describing how a well-mannered person should behave. He was so convinced that these maxims would help him become a better person that he set out to incorporate them into his daily living. Among Washington's many virtues, his commitment to civility marked him as a gentleman and helped him become a universally respected and enormously effective leader.
By today's standards, Washington's notions of civility seem quaint and old-fashioned, but the purpose of manners and etiquette is to soften relationships with respect and to treat others graciously.
Instead of updating our concept of manners to accord with modern lifestyles, we seem to be abandoning the notion of civility entirely. We're exposed to heavy doses of tactless, nasty, and cruel remarks on daytime talk shows, dating games, and courtroom and reality programs.
As a result, we've produced a generation that's comfortable being brutish and malicious and a society that's increasingly coarse and unpleasant.
In a tense world full of conflicts, frustrations, and competition, civility is an important social lubricant that helps us live together constructively. If we care about the world we're making for our children, we need to be less tolerant of mean-spirited, discourteous, and impolite remarks and do a better job of teaching and modeling civility.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
I recall reading the following story about how on one Sunday morning a usually long-winded pastor preached his shortest, but one of his most effective, sermons ever.
He said, "My sermon this morning has three points:
"First, over three million people in the world today are homeless.
"Second, most of you don't give a _ _ _ _.
"And third, it is a shame that more of you are upset by the fact that I said the word, '_ _ _ _', than by the fact that over three-million people are homeless."
I've heard that a well-known preacher did a similar thing when speaking about the tragedy of abortion in this country, only the four-letter word he used was even stronger!
Seriously, I'm not condoning preachers using these words, but how sad it is that so many of us will get considerably more upset over someone using a bad word than we do about people being homeless, about the problem of abortion, or human trafficking, not to mention the lost going to hell without Christ and without hope!
Jesus said, "Woe upon you, Pharisees, and you other religious leaders—hypocrites! For you tithe down to the last mint leaf in your garden, but ignore the important things—justice and mercy and faith. Yes, you should tithe, but you shouldn't leave the more important things undone. Blind guides! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel."1
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me not to be guilty of straining out gnats and swallowing camels, and help me to be concerned about the things in life that truly matter. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name. Amen."
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