Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 12 â€" No. 1110 March 13, 2010
Thought for the week: "If I have seen farther than other men, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." â€" Isaac Newton
"We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are." â€" Max De Pree
"The miracle is thisâ€"the more we share, the more we have." â€" Leonard Nimoy
"As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do." â€" Andrew Carnegie
"We are what we repeatedly do." â€" Aristotle
"Procrastination is attitude's natural assassin. There's nothing so fatiguing as an uncompleted task." â€" William James
"Do not care overly much for wealth or power or fame, or one day you will meet someone who cares for none of these things, and you might realize how poor you have become." â€" Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936
"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." â€" Victor Hugo
"Without conscience there's no credibility, without credibility there's no trust, and without trust there's no future." â€" Michael Josephson
There was a little old lady who would come out every morning on the steps of her front porch, raise her arms to the sky and shout, "Praise the Lord!"
Well, one day an atheist moved into the house next door. Over time, he became irritated at the little old lady. So every morning he would step out onto his front porch and yell after her, "There is no Lord!"
Time passes with the two of them carrying on this way every day. Then one morning in the middle of winter, the little old lady stepped onto her front porch and shouted, "Praise the Lord! Lord, I have no food and I am starving. Please provide for me, oh Lord!"
The next morning, she stepped onto her porch and there were two huge bags of groceries sitting there. "Praise the Lord!" she cried out. "He has provided groceries for me!"
The atheist jumped out of the hedges and shouted, "There is no Lord. I bought those groceries!"
The little old lady threw her arms into the air and shouted, "Praise the Lord! He has provided me with groceries and He made the devil pay for them!"
Be master of your petty annoyances, and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you outâ€"it's the grain of sand in your shoe.
A friend of mine told me a story about an experience he had in Israel that demonstrates how sheep know their shepherd's voice. My friend got up early in the morning to watch the shepherds gather their sheep from a pen from three different flocks.
The first shepherd went over to the pen and called out to his sheep. One by one, his sheep (and only his sheep) filed out to follow him. The same thing happened with the other two shepherds. My friend said it was amazing to watch how only the shepherd's sheep followed him while the others remained in the penâ€"and all because they recognized his voice.
Ask God to help you hear his voiceâ€"the voice of the Lord as he speaks to you this morning.
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant. He grew up in another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30. Then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a home. He didn't go to college. He never lived in a big city. He never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend.
Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reignedâ€"put togetherâ€"have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one, solitary life.
I've talked about it lots of times before: The high cost of lying and deception by politicians, police, corporate executives, clergy, journalists, accountants, and educators has weakened every major social institution.
As each of these domains wages its separate battle to remove the cloud of suspicion and cynicism that hovers over it, there are six truths about trust that must be understood and dealt with.
First, there's no shortcut to building trust. Rebuilding it on the rubble of lost credibility is much harder. The antidote is nothing less than scrupulous and consistent honestyâ€"especially when the truth is costly.
Second, where trust is important, there are no small lies. Falsehoods, however small they seem, are like germs. Without the antibody of trust, they cause infections that can kill credibility.
Third, the lethal quality of lies lasts long after they're told. Lies told years ago have an immediate poisonous effect on trust when they're discovered. Think of all the prominent people who've been undone by the discovery of old trumped-up resumes.
Fourth, while honesty and forthrightness don't always pay, dishonesty and concealment always cost. It's true that in some settings nothing good may come of admitting wrongdoing, but it gets a lot worse when you don't.
Fifth, lies breed other lies. It's harder to tell just one lie than to have just one potato chip. Once you start deceiving, it takes more and more bodyguards of new lies to protect the old ones.
Finally, don't be seduced by the "I'm just fighting fire with fire" excuse or all you'll end up with are the ashes of your integrity. Self-justifications aside, you can't lie to a liar or cheat a cheater without becoming a liar or a cheater.
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? The LORD is with me; he is my helper. I will look in triumph on my enemies."1
The story is told about a baby bear "that wandered away from his mother in search of food. This was his first foray; so he was a little timid. A large, ferocious mountain lion spotted the baby bear and approached to attack. The baby bear, not knowing what else to do, reared up on his hind legs as he had seen his mother do this as a defense. Immediately, the mountain cat retreated; ran like he was scared to death. The baby bear, very proud of himself, continued foraying for food. What the mountain lion saw, and the baby bear didn't know, was that the mother bear was behind the baby bear, rearing up on her hind legs, ready to attack the mountain lion."2
No fear! Yeah. Right! Breathed the man with soul so dead who never to himself hath said, "I'm scared half to death." Fear is a common plight of us allâ€"unless we bury and hide it, which is a dangerous path to follow, for what we deny we inevitably act out in some self- or other-destructive way. Someone has said that there are 365 "fear nots" in the Bibleâ€"one for every day of the year!
David, who penned the words of today's Psalm, had every reason on many occasions to be terrified because King Saul, ravished by a jealous hatred of David, was hunting him down to kill him. So whenever I am afraid, I take a page out of David's book, and keep repeating to remind myself, "The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"
The good news is that God is with us ... always ... he will never leave us or forsake us ... hence to counteract our fears we can learn to place our confidence in him and not in ourselves. It's important, too, not to allow fears to control us for if we don't control (or resolve) them, they will control us.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you that no matter what circumstances I find myself in, you are always there for me. Thank you too for your promise to never leave me or forsake me. Help me to learn how to fully put my trust in you so I will not be afraid. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
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