Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 19 – No. 1117 March 11, 2017
Thought for the week: "Integrity is not a 90 percent thing, not a 95 percent thing. Either you have it or you don't." – Peter Scotese
"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self." – Aristotle
"One person with passion is better than forty who are merely interested." – Thomas K. Connellan
"Virtue does not consist so much in abstaining from vice, as in not having an affection for it." – W.T. Eldridge
"You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips." – Oliver Goldsmith
"One of our greatest strengths is to admit our weaknesses and mistakes. Only then can we ever overcome them. Denial traps us in the web of our own insecurities." – Dick Innes
"Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected." – William Safire
If you're a bear, you get to hibernate. You do nothing but sleep for six months. I could deal with that.
Before you hibernate, you're supposed to eat yourself stupid. I could deal with that too.
If you're a bear, you birth your children (who are the size of walnuts) while you are sleeping and wake to partially grown, cute, cuddly cubs. I could definitely deal with that.
If you're a mama bear, everyone knows you mean business. You swat anyone who bothers your cubs. If your cubs get out of line, you swat them too. I could deal with that.
If you're a bear, your mate EXPECTS you to wake up growling. He EXPECTS that you will have hairy legs and excess body fat.
It was the Rally Day program at the church and a little girl was to recite the Scripture she had memorized for the occasion. When she got in front of the crowd, the sight of hundreds of eyes peering at her caused her to forget her memory work.
Every line that she had so carefully rehearsed faded from her mind and she stood there unable to utter a single word. In the front row, her mother was almost as frantic as the little girl. The mother gestured, moved her lip, trying to form the words for the girl, but it did no good.
Finally, in desperation the mother whispered the opening phrase of the memorized Scripture: "I am the light of the world."
Immediately the child's face lit up and a smile appeared on it as she said with bold confidence, "My mother is the light of the world!"
Of course everybody smiled and some laughed out loud. Then they soberly reflected that the girl, in some way, was not far from wrong. For the mother is the light of the child's world.
It was not a particularly pleasant day. It was overcast. The not too distant horizon appeared smudged and indistinct and the wind was blowing pretty furiously for what should have been a mild autumn day.
On top of that everyone seemed to be walking around outside, intent only on getting to their destination, totally indifferent to their surroundings.
Yet I felt an awakening, a connection if you will—to the bigger picture that unfolded before me.
A strange but, dare I say, joyful feeling came upon me as I stood at my office window surveying the expanse of sky above and organized chaos we call civilization, below.
What drew my attention though was the beauty of God's creation that lay before me—the flowers that appeared to be making one last rush to display their best coat of color before the winter set in.
The trees that seemed to be aware of the fact that soon, they would be losing their protective coat, were fighting the wind for all their worth.
As leaf by leaf was separated from each fragile stalk, they seemed to rejoice in their new found freedom, delighting in the rush of the windy rollercoaster ride from what had for so many months been home, hurriedly waving good-byes as they went, and whispering in the wind, "Look at me—I'm flying, I'm alive!"
The birds in the same trees were of like mind—fluttering their fragile wings against the enormous gusts of wind, trying with all their might to protect their painstakingly constructed nests, from the elements.
So many colors, so much beauty, so much activity, so much to be grateful for! I could only stare in awe at the magnificence of a canvas so diverse and so intense in its beauty and with tears in my eyes extend my very humble and grateful thanks to The Master Creator for allowing me the joy of the experience!
6. Four Exceptional Insights I Wish I Understood Long Ago
By Michael Josephson of CHARACTER COUNTS (942.4)
1). The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one. Russell Lynes.
2). People won't remember everything you say or do but they always remember how you made them feel.- Maya Angelou
3). Feeling grateful and not expressing it is like buying a present, wrapping it and not giving it.
4). Kindness will do more to improve your life than cleverness.
"He [Jesus] appointed twelve ... that they might be with him."1
It may surprise some to realize that God isn't into religion. He's into relationships. He's not into morality either. He's into reality. And his goal isn't to make us good for goodness sake. God's goal is to make us whole—for only to the degree that we are made whole will our lifestyle, our actions, our behavior, and our relationships be whole-some.
Becoming whole begins with wholesome relationships both with God through Jesus Christ and with other loving Christians. As someone has said, "To be is to be in relationships." We don't grow in isolation. This is one reason we need to belong to a loving, accepting, non-judgmental, and non-legalistic church and within a smaller group in relationship with likeminded Christians. We only grow and become the person God wants us to be as we are in such relationships. We're not talking about "head to head" but rather "heart to heart" relationships that are open, authentic and real.
Selwyn Hughes pointed out that "the Christian movement began in relationships." As today's Scripture stated, "He [Jesus] appointed twelve...that they might be with him." If Jesus needed to be in relationship with others, how much more do we?
God's goal for the Christian is not for him/her to do good or even to be good. It is to be in relationship with Christ and become whole. It is out of being with him and being made whole that our desire to be good and to do good will come. This will be a natural expression of who we have become. As Hughes put it, "Trying to be good without that relationship [with Christ] is like trying to get a stream without a spring, or sunlight without the sun."2
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please help me to develop a healthy, maturing, and loving relationship with you as well as being in relationship with at least one or two other loving, open, honest and real people, so that I will become the person you want me to be, and do what you would have me to do. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
1. Mark 3:14 (NIV).
2. Adapted from Selwyn Hughes in the daily devotional, Every Day With Jesus, November 1989
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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
Books:
Books by Dick Innes, Editor of Weekend Encounter You Can't Fly With a Broken Wing How to Mend a Broken Heart I Hate Witnessing—A Handbook for Effective Christian
Communications
Healing, Wholeness & Happiness by Dick Innes
Loving & Understanding People by Dick Innes
I Hate Witnessing by Dick Innes
God's Formula for Success by Dick Innes
Damaged Emotions by David Seamands
Healing of the Memories by David Seamands
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