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. 8 – No. 2406 June 17, 2006
Thought for the week: "I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars." – Og Mandino
"I count [the one] braver who overcomes his desires than [the one] who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self." – Aristotle
"Good habits are hard to form and easy to live with. Bad habits are easy to form and hard to live with. Nothing is neutral. Everything counts." – Brian Tracy
"Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can." – John Wesley
"One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Economic disaster begins with a philosophy of doing less and wanting more." – Jim Rohn
"Humor is a rubber sword; it allows you to make a point without drawing blood." – Mary Hirsch
"Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again." – Sarah Ban Breathnach
Dr. Ben Carson, chief of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, a position he assumed in 1984 when he was only 33 years old, shared the following testimony about the value of putting spiritual things first: "I've found that having a morning ritual—meditation or some quiet reading time—can set the tone for the whole day. Every morning I spend a half-hour reading the Bible, especially the book of Proverbs. There's so much wisdom there. During the day, if I encounter a frustration situation, I think back to one of the verses that I read that morning.
Thought: Do you take time to read God's Word and pray? Try it in the morning. It will transform your day.
"In the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He [Jesus] went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed" (Mark 1:35).
Be aware of wonder. Live a balanced life—learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.
I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge;that myth is more potent than history;that dreams are more powerful than facts;that hope always triumphs over experience;that laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.
I've always thought anyone can make money. Making a life worth living, that's the real test.
If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you have a problem. Everything else is inconvenience.
Peace is not something you wish for; it's something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away.
Play fair. Don't hit people. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will break our hearts.
The examined life is no picnic.
The world does not need tourists who ride by in a bus clucking their tongues. The world as it is needs those who will love it enough to change it, with what they have, where they are.
It's a fascinating story that comes out of the 1989 earthquake which almost flattened Armenia. This deadly tremor killed over 30,000 people in less than four minutes. In the midst of all the confusion of the earthquake, a father rushed to his son's school. When he arrived there he discovered the building was flat as a pancake.
Standing there looking at what was left of the school, the father remembered a promise he made to his son, "No matter what, I'll always be there for you!" Tears began to fill his eyes. It looked like a hopeless situation, but he could not take his mind off his promise.
Remembering that his son's classroom was in the back right corner of the building, the father rushed there and started digging through the rubble. As he was digging other grieving parents arrived, clutching their hearts, saying: "My son! "My daughter!" They tried to pull him off of what was left of the school saying: "It's too late!" "They're dead!" "You can't help!" "Go home!" Even a police officer and a fire fighter told him he should go home. To everyone who tried to stop him he said, "Are you going to help me now?" They did not answer him and he continued digging for his son stone by stone.
He needed to know for himself: "Is my boy alive or is he dead?" This man dug for eight hours and then twelve and then twenty-four and then thirty-six. Finally in the thirty-eighth hour, as he pulled back a boulder, he heard his son's voice. He screamed his son's name, "ARMAND!" and a voice answered him, "Dad?" It's me Dad!" Then the boy added these priceless words, "I told the other kids not to worry. I told 'em that if you were alive, you'd save me and when you saved me, they'd be saved. You promised that, Dad. 'No matter what,' you said, 'I'll always be there for you!' And here you are Dad. You kept your promise!"
Source: Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, "Chicken Soup for the Soul." Cited on Holistic Living http://tinyurl.com/er7f2
"The Lord disciplines those he loves ... for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:6, 10-11, NIV).
Earl Nightingale told how on one National Secretaries Day he gave his secretary flowers and she remarked how beautiful they were. She also said that she couldn't understand why they didn't have any scent.
He informed her that the flowers came from a hothouse and explained that because flowers raised in this type of environment have everything done for them, they don't have to attract insects to pollinate them. As a result they lose their scent. In the same way fruit raised in a hothouse, because it doesn't need to attract insects to scatter its seeds, doesn't taste as good as fruit grown in its natural environment.
It's similar to the child who wanted to help a butterfly out of its cocoon by putting a slit in it and, in so doing, caused it to die. He didn't realize that the struggle to get out of the cocoon is needed to strengthen the butterfly's wings so that it is able to fly.
When people do too much for us or overprotect us, especially in our early developmental years, they can do serious harm to us. And even in adulthood it's the problems and difficulties we have that strengthen us, build character, give wisdom, understanding, and compassion—if we let them.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, help me not to run from my fears, trials, and problems but accept them as opportunities for personal and spiritual growth. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer, Gratefully in Jesus name, amen."
Daily Encounter, a free weekday e-mail inspirational from ACTS International is now going to 35,000+ 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 9 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.
9. Receive E-mail Edition of Weekend Encounter ... Free
Subscribe to Weekend Encounter
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 Weekend 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 two prayer reports are emailed monthly. Thank you.
If you have a special prayer request please submit it to David Clark at: www.responda.co.uk/prayer.php. David is not on the ACTS staff but is offering this as a service to Daily and Weekend Encounter readers.
Helpers Needed: If you can help David pray for prayer requests, please could you go to: www.responda.co.uk/member.php
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 34,000+ subscribers, and every week Weekend Encounter is going to 9,000+ 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—over 2100 in the past 15 months!
If you find value in the free 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
Books by Bestseller and Popular Authors: The Miracle of Kindness His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley, Jr.
has topped the charts as the best marriage
book available. More than one million couples
have read it ... made their marriage sizzle. Fall in Love Stay in Love Just Hand Over the Chocolate ... Love, Sex, and Lasting Relationships Sex Starts in the Kitchen Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours Harried With Children Adolescence Is Not an Illness Show Time It Takes a Church to Raise a Christian
On Sale at: http://www.actscom.com/store
Cassettes:
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...
On SALE at:http://actscom.com/store/cassettes.htm
1. To donate FREE (to you) food for the hungry
2. For FREE Bible concordance and Bible helps
3. FREE: New Hope Crisis Counseling with trained
lay/volunteer counselors. www.newhopenow.org 4. E-Word Today for a daily Bible reading
5. To find your ZIP+4 Area Code in the U.S.A.
6. How to find and write to your U.S. Representative
7. ASK Jeeves ... your questions answered fast
8. Send a FREE greeting card for all occasions
9. To check the weather in your area
10. Hoax Web Sites
11. Plus many more sources of helpful information
