Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 16 – No. 0114 January 04, 2014
Thought for the week: "You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at water." – R. Tagore
Wishing all Weekend Encounter readers a very Happy and God Blessed New Year.
"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every New Year find you a better [person]." – Benjamin Franklin
"No one can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." – Unknown
"Vanity is the quicksand of reason." – George Sand
"Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change." – Jim Rohn
"The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life." – Brian Tracy
"Character: The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life is the source from which self-respect springs." – Joan Didion
"A friend of mine was setting goals for the new year. One of his goals was to clean up his desk. Another of his goals was to find last year's goals." – King Duncan
* * * * * * *
Dr. John W. Keith of Oak Ridge, TN tells about a high school principal who, at the beginning of a new year, decided to post his teachers' new year's resolutions on the bulletin board. As the teachers gathered around the bulletin board, a great commotion started. One of the teachers was complaining. "Why weren't my resolutions posted?"
She was throwing such a temper tantrum that the principal hurried to his office to see if he had overlooked her resolutions. Sure enough, he had mislaid them on his desk. As he read her resolutions, he was astounded. This teacher's first resolution was not to let little things upset her in the New Year.
I am the New Year. I am an unspoiled page in your book of time.
I am your next chance at the art of living.
I am your opportunity to practice what you have learned about life during the last twelve months.
All that you sought and didn't find is hidden in me, waiting for you to search it out with more determination.
All the good that you tried for and didn't achieve is mine to grant when you have fewer conflicting desires.
All that you dreamed but didn't dare to do, all that you hoped but did not will, all the faith that you claimed but did not have—these slumber lightly, waiting to be awakened by the touch of a strong purpose.
I am your opportunity to renew your allegiance to Him who said, "Behold, I make all things new."
I love the gift
of life, dear God,
with all its
beauty everywhere:
Blue skies,
white fluffy clouds,
green trees,
open meadows,
beautiful flowers,
all creatures
great and small,
majestic mountains,
the restless timeless sea—
But most of all
I love dear friends,
and if you will,
please give to me
a greater love for You—
my dearest Friend of all.
"A student at Jacksonville University in Florida was given a tract. The student crumpled the pamphlet up and tossed it into a trash bin in his dorm, Later, his dorm mate picked it out of the trash, read it, and was soundly saved. He is now a pastor of a church in Florida.
"A Christian I met in a home group said his was raking litter off the Avon River. It was dull, boring work and he often wondered what life was all about. One day he raked a soggy piece of paper off the water and decided it was interesting enough to keep so he carefully placed it in his bag and took it home. That evening he dried the paper in front of a heater and carefully unfolded it, then he read it ... it was a gospel tract. He became a Christian that evening." – Richard Gunther
Billy Graham said, "Nothing surpasses a tract for sowing the seed of the Good News."1
The written Word of God, TheBible, is proof positive that God Himself is a great believer in the written word. The written word can be either in print form or on the electronic media.
For attractive and effective witness tools purchase some of ACTS Business Witness cards (a selection of 12 is available), or ACTS Passport for Heaven booklets.
In 1968, when Kent M. Keith was a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard, he wrote the Paradoxical Commandments as part of a booklet for student leaders. He describes the Commandments as guidelines for finding personal meaning in the face of adversity:
1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.*
The essence of these Commandments is that each of us must choose to do what we think we should do, even when we think we have good reasons not to. They remind us that we are capable of rising above common practices that demean our nature and our culture.
We can rationalize distorting the Golden Rule as "Do unto others as they have done unto you" or "Do unto others before they do unto you," but, in the terminology of the 60s, we then become part of the problem rather than the solution.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty."1
A man bought a parrot at an auction after some heavy bidding. "I hope this bird talks," he told the auctioneer.
"Talk?" the auctioneer replied, "Who do you think has been bidding against you for the past ten minutes?"
Sad to say we seem to be living in a day when a person's word has less and less value. Once upon a time a man's word was his bond. Not any more I'm afraid. For far too many their word doesn't mean a thing. We've become pretty adept at parroting what we think people want to hear.
I remember one of my college professors teaching us that a person's character (among other things) could be measured by what value he or she puts on his/her word. People who don't keep their word have a character issue and cannot be trusted.
Fortunately, however, of one thing we can be certain, God always keeps his word and always keeps his promises. To be Christ-like we need to do the same! For after all, it's what we do, not what we say, that says the most of all.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please make me a man/woman of my word so I can always be trusted to say what I mean, mean what I say, and do what I say I will do. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus' name, amen."
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"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."