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. 18 – No. 0416 January 23, 2016
Thought for the week: "Be the change you want to see in the world." – Mahatma Gandhi
"Just pray for a tough hide and a tender heart." – Ruth Graham
"A man's greatest battles are the ones he fights within himself." – Ben Okri
"Life is not a 'brief candle'. It is a splendid torch that I want to make burn as brightly as possible before handing on to future generations." – George Bernard Shaw
"When you judge someone, you don't define them, you define yourself." – Wayne Dyer
"Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly and get on with improving your other innovations." – Steve Jobs, Apple Computer founder
"The Bible has a word to describe 'safe' sex: It's called marriage." – Unknown
Over the massive front doors of a church, these words were inscribed: The Gate of Heaven." Below that was a small cardboard sign which read: "Please use other entrance."
Rev. Warren J. Keating, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Yuma, AZ, says that the best prayer he ever heard was: "Lord, please make me the kind of person my dog thinks I am."
A woman went to the post office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards. "What denomination?" asked the clerk. "Oh, good heavens! Have we come to this?" said the woman. "Well give me 50 Baptist and 50 Catholic ones."
During a children's sermon, Rev. Larry Eisenberg asked the children what "amen" means. A little boy raised his hand and said: "It means - 'Tha-tha-tha-that's all folks!'"
A student was asked to list the 10 Commandments in any order. His answer? "3, 6, 1, 8, 4, 5, 9, 2, 10, 7."
Two women work in the same office and receive the same pay.
Anne complains that she is underpaid. She feels she's asked to handle too many things for someone on her salary level. She arrives dreading the day ahead and leaves tired and discouraged. Mary, on the other hand, is happy to have a secure job and enough money to pay her bills, with some left for extras and for savings. She looks at each task as a challenge and does her best to accomplish whatever is demanded of her. She arrives, looking forward to the day, and leaves, happy to be heading home to her family, feeling good about what she's accomplished. Not surprisingly, after an employee review, Mary receives both a promotion and a salary increase. Anne is let go.
Thought: "Your attitudes help create your circumstances." – John Marks Templeton
I'd rather see a sermon
than hear one any day;
I'd rather one should walk with me
than merely tell the way.
The eye's a better pupil
and more willing than the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing,
but example's always clear;
And the best of all preachers
are the men who live their creeds,
For to see good put in action
is what everybody needs.
I soon can learn to do it
if you'll let me see it done;
I can watch your hands in action,
but your tongue too fast may run.
And the lecture you deliver
may be very wise and true,
But I'd rather get my lessons
by observing what you do;
For I might misunderstand you
and the high advice you give,
But there's no misunderstanding
how you act and how you live.
Chuck Swindoll writes: "A bazaar was held in a village in northern India. Everyone brought his wares to trade and sell. One old farmer brought in a whole covey of quail. He had tied a string around one leg of each bird. The other ends of all the strings were tied to a ring which fit loosely over a central stick. He had taught the quail to walk dolefully in a circle, around and around, like mules at a sugarcane mill. Nobody seemed interested in buying the birds until a devout Brahman came along. He believed in the Hindu idea of respect for all life, so his heart of compassion went out to those poor little creatures walking in their monotonous circles.
"I want to buy them all," he told the merchant, who was elated. After receiving the money, he was surprised to hear the buyer say, "Now, I want you to set them all free."
"What's that, sir?"
"You heard me. Cut the strings from their legs and turn them loose. Set them all free!"
With a shrug, the old farmer bent down and snipped the strings off the quail. They were freed at last. What happened? The birds simply continued marching around and around in a circle. Finally, the man had to shoo them off. But even when they landed some distance away, they resumed their predictable march. Free, unfettered, released . . . yet they kept going around in circles as if still tied.
Swindoll says, "Until you give yourself permission to be the unique person God made you to be . . . and to do the unpredictable things grace allows you to do . . . you will be like that covey of quail, marching around in vicious circles of fear, timidity, and boredom."
After a workshop, Paul (that's not his real name) said that he still has 10-year-old scars from the time he quit a good job rather than lie. When his boss asked him to issue a press release containing patently false statements, he refused, putting his employee badge on the table.
His boss calmly handed the badge back to him, saying, "Think this over. Why throw away a good job and a promising career?"
Paul walked out so frustrated and frightened he had to find a private place to cry. What's worse, he said that his act of moral courage was a meaningless waste. Someone else issued the press release and his boss's career flourished. "It took me years to find a job as good as that one and my family suffered," he added. "So what good did my integrity do for anyone?"
Paul was looking for validation of his principled stance in the wrong places. We exercise integrity not to get what we want, but to be what we want. Integrity is not essentially about winning; it's about staying whole and being worthy of self-respect and the esteem of loved ones. It's about being honorable, not as a success strategy, but a life choice. Though Paul suffered for a time because of his moral courage, he would have suffered far worse had he betrayed his own values.
While he didn't appreciate it, Paul preserved for himself and his family something far more valuable than his job—his honor. And it's no accident that he now has a better job with no pressures to cheat or lie.
"What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me."1
If I fear that I will get sick, dwell on it, and believe it, chances are more than likely that I will get sick. If I fear that I am going to be rejected and believe it, I will act in such a way to set myself up to be rejected and, like Job, the thing I fear will happen to me.
If because of a fear of failure, criticism, of not being perfect, and so on, I never step outside my comfort zone and take risks to achieve what God envisioned for me to do, I will never discover what I could achieve with my life.
Personally speaking, if I feel strongly about a project and sense God is leading me to do this, I would rather try, put it to the test, and even fail rather than through fear of failure never step out to follow my God-given life purpose and dream. I appreciate the words of the unknown poet:
I would rather stumble a thousand times
Attempting to reach a goal,
Than to sit in a crowd
In my weather-proof shroud
A shriveled and self-satisfied soul.
I would rather be doing and daring
All of my error filled days,
Than watching, and waiting, and dying
Smug in my perfect ways.
I would rather wonder and blunder,
Stumbling blindly ahead,
Than for safety's sake
Lest I make a mistake
Be sure, be safe, be dead.
As I suggested to a friend recently, let your decisions about what to do be based on love for serving God and others, and never on your fears.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, I admit my fears and I bring them all to you. Grant that all of my decisions will be based on direction from and love for serving you, and never on my fears. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
1. Job 3:25 (NIV).
NOTE: If you would like to accept God's forgiveness
for all your sins and His invitation for a full pardon, click on: http://www.actsweb.org/invitation.php.
8. Receive Daily Encounter E-mail ... Without Charge
Daily Encounter, a without charge weekday e-mail inspirational from ACTS International is now going to 373,000+ 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 373,000+ subscribers, and every week Weekend Encounter is going to 7,000+ 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
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
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."
