Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 16 – No. 4914 December 06, 2014
Thought for the week: "Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly." – John Kennedy, 35th President of the United States
"Truth exists; only falsehood has to be invented." – Georges Braque
"An autopsy of history is that all great nations commit suicide." – Arnold Toynbee
"The most important thing is your self-respect. It doesn't matter what people think about you, but what you think about yourself." – Robert H. Abplanalp
"Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for others." – Danny Thomas
"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'" – Erich Fromm
"A man can get discouraged many times, but he is not a failure until he begins to blame somebody else and stops trying." – John Burroughs
"Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough." – Lynnette, age 8
"On the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date." – Martin, age 10
When is it okay to kiss someone?
"When they're rich." – Pam, age 7
"The law says you have to be 18, so I wouldn't want to mess with that." – Curt, age 7
"The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do." – Howard, age 8
Is it better to be single or married?
"It's better for girls to be single ... but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them." – Anita, age 9
While many friendships,
like footprints on the sea shore,
come and all too soon are gone,
God's love is like the timeless sea,
though ever changing—
it still remains the same.
Like the pulse beat of eternal time,
with infinite patience and untiring regularity,
it gives itself unendingly.
One day the employees of a large company in St. Louis, Missouri, returned from their lunch break and were greeted with a sign on the front door. The sign said: "Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym."
At first everyone was sad to hear that one of their colleagues had died, but after a while they started getting curious about who this person might be.
The excitement grew as the employees arrived at the gym to pay their last respects. Everyone wondered: "Who is this person who was hindering my progress? Well, at least he's no longer here!"
One by one the employees got closer to the coffin, and when they looked inside it, they suddenly became speechless. They stood over the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part of their soul.
There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who looked inside it could see himself. There was also a sign next to the mirror that said: "There is only one person who is capable to set limits to your growth: it is YOU.
You are the only person who can revolutionize your life. You are the only person who can influence your happiness, your realization and your success. You are the only person who can help yourself.
Your life does not change when your boss changes, when your friends change, when your parents change, when your partner changes, when your company changes. Your life changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only one responsible for your life.
"The most important relationship you can have, is the one you have with yourself."
I read about a river town where sand was continually being dredged from the river bed and left in high piles by the river bank. This was a place where boys loved to play. Often times the sand piles, though dry on the top, were still waterlogged beneath the sunbaked crusted surface.
Some years ago two boys were late home for dinner, so their parents went looking for them. When they found their bicycles outside the fence where the sand piles were banked high, they called for the boys, but no answer came. The family and other rescuers searched frantically in and around the sand piles and eventually found one of the boys buried up to his neck. He was barely alive when they found him, and they dug furiously to rescue him. When he was freed from the waist up, and able to breathe properly, his panic-stricken parents and rescuers asked, "Where's your brother? Where's your brother?"
"I'm standing on his shoulders," the boy said.
"One loving brother gave his life so his brother could live."1
And that's exactly what Jesus Christ did for you and me. We were spiritually lost and destined for a lost eternity without God and without hope. But because of his great love for us, Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, came to earth and gave his life to die in our place to pay the penalty for all our sins so we could be freely forgiven and receive God's gift of eternal life.
In 1964, a young woman named Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Queens, New York. She was attacked repeatedly over the course of an hour and, despite her screams, none of the 38 neighbors intervened or called for help. Some were afraid. Some didn't want to get involved. Some thought someone else would do it.
This incident has become a symbol of the increased callousness, self-centeredness and fearfulness of a society where brutes, bullies and other bad guys act without worry of interference from onlookers.
The long array of billion dollar scandals rocking corporate America, for example, is not so much the result of growing hordes of clever scoundrels as it is the product of passive complicity of innocent people who are willing to look the other way to protect their job, their relationship with the boss, or incentive compensation.
The moral root of the issue is responsibility. As Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."
I don't think we have the obligation to put ourselves at risk to right every single wrong we witness, but we should be willing to do so when the consequences are serious and we are accountable for creating an environment that is hostile, not accommodating, to illegal and unethical conduct.
The duty of responsibility requires both good sense and courage to help us avoid the extremes of the doing nothing and trying to do everything. One thing's certain, though, the world will be better if we'd all do a little more.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
It is amazing how many email messages I receive from people who can't understand why God allows certain things to happen—many of which are things that the individuals themselves caused to happen. One lady was convinced that God chose her "terrible husband" as she put it. An unmarried couple couldn't understand why God allowed them to fall pregnant! Amazing.
The reality is that God isn't co-dependent. He won't short-circuit the consequences of our choices and actions, nor will he deliver us from the effects of our destructive behaviors. Neither will God do anything for us that we can and need to do for ourselves.
Ron Clarke from Tasmania wrote, "I know that the expression 'God helps those who help themselves' is not biblical but it is not that far removed from God's Word that says, "Faith without deeds is dead." I have always admired the statement by Sophocles (496-406 B.C.), considered one of the greatest of all Greek dramatists that said, "Heaven ne'er helps the man who will not help himself."
As John Powell put it, "Some people treat God as if he were a giant Bayer's aspirin. 'Take God three times a day and you won't feel any pain!'"
Faith doesn't work that way. We are all responsible for the choices we make and the actions we take. True, we are saved by faith and not by works/deeds. However, our deeds/actions prove whether or not our faith is valid. Whatever we are capable of doing for ourselves we need to do—and be willing to help those who cannot help themselves.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me always to be responsible and act in a mature manner. And please show me if there are any areas in my life where I am not acting in this way. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
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