Editor: Richard (Dick) Innes
Published by: ACTS International
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Vol. 15â€" â€" No. 0313 January 19, 2013
Thought for the week: "A man that knoweth not himself is not known." â€" St. Francis
Smith goes to see his supervisor in the front office.
"Boss," he says, "we're doing some heavy house-cleaning at home tomorrow, and my wife needs me to help with the attic and the garage, moving and hauling stuff."
"We're short-handed, Smith" the boss replies. "I can't give you the day off."
"Thanks, boss," says Smith "I knew I could count on you!"
"Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them, he cried, "Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?"
And God said, "I did do something. I made you." â€"
Sufi Teaching
Reinhold Niebuhr often quoted a remark made to him by an agnostic friend who objected to the church, "not because of its dogmas but because of its trivialities," by which he meant preoccupation with trivial concerns with the world hanging on the rim of disaster." Fred Craddock was invited to attend a prayer meeting at a home in a wealthy suburb of Atlanta. He said the group shared "weighty" prayer concerns like a date coming up on Friday night and the purchase of a new car, and one man announced they had had 75 answered prayers since the group started meeting.
Then one of them turned to him and asked, "What do you think, Dr. Craddock?" Craddock, usually more reticent to criticize anybody's praying, was offended by the superficial and mechanistic reduction of Israel's God to what Paul Tillich called, "the Cosmic Bellhop." He couldn't help himself. He said, "Do you mean to tell me when people are starving in Africa and the poor are suffering in India and parents in Latin America can't sleep through the night wondering if the death squads will visit them, you folks are praying about dates and new
cars?"1
Ed. note. True, God is interested in the details of our life, but let us not forget the greatest and most urgent needs for prayer.
A woman once wrote me to say she thought Christianity was fine but, personally, she was "into Zen."
She liked to listen to Christian radio while she was driving because the music "smoothed out her karma." Occasionally, however, she would tune in one of the Bible-teaching ministries. In her opinion, all the preachers she heard were too narrow-minded toward other religions, so she was writing several radio ministers to encourage them to be more broad-minded.
"God doesn't care what you believe, as long as you're sincere," she wrote, echoing an opinion I have heard many times. "All religions lead ultimately to the same reality. It doesn't matter which road you take to get there, as long as you follow your chosen road faithfully. Don't be critical of the alternative roads other people choose."
To those who accept the Bible as God's Word, the folly of that thinking should be immediately evident. What does the Bible say about following your chosen road faithfully?1
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death" (Proverbs 143:12, NIV).
"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'" (John 14:6, NIV).
Most people I know strive for success. For some it's achieving high position, for others it's wealth, and for still others it's achieving some long-held goal. As the final definition of success is personal, success may be no more than "getting what you want."
Success can be sweet or disappointing; durable or short-lived. But either way, it's not an adequate destination. Management guru Peter Drucker writes about the need of many highly successful people to move beyond their success to "significance."
Success is about achievements; significance is about impact. Significance is having a meaningful positive and durable impact on the lives of others.
According to legend, Alfred Nobel discovered the difference when he read his own obituary mistakenly printed by a newspaper that thought he had died. It was a flattering profile of the brilliant chemist who made a fortune as the inventor of dynamite, but it depressed Mr. Nobel, who felt certain that these achievements would not be long remembered. Determined to leave a more significant legacy, he established the Nobel Prizes for human achievements.
Mr. Nobel realized that there's a kind of immortality in significance. Sure, a life devoted to accomplishing personal goals can be worthy and satisfying, but it can be enormously enriched when we consciously use our talents and time to improve the lives of others.
In Living a Life That Matters, Harold Kushner writes, "Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it."
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.
"From one man he made every nation of men ... God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being'"1
A Daily Encounter reader writes, "I am feeling lost before God and fear that I will never get to heaven and am on my way to hell. Please can you help me?"
Dear Janet (name changed), feeling lost in relationship to God and feeling far from him is something many people experience, so you are not alone in your struggle. This can be caused by various things such as the following:
First, it can be because we are depending on our feelings rather than trusting in what God's Word says. So be sure to read the article, "How to Be Sure You're a Real Christian" at http://tinyurl.com/8glq9. If you prayed the prayer to receive Jesus as your Savior and truly meant it, God has forgiven all your sins and has guaranteed that you have the gift of eternal life in Heaven with God forever. You need to believe God's Word and what he says regardless of your feelings. We are saved by faith in God and not by our feelings.
Second, feeling lost or far from God can be caused by guilt ... that is, if we are acting in ways that we know are sinful and wrong. This causes a barrier to come between us and God. If this is the case, you need to confess your sins to God and change your ways.
Third, another major reason for feeling lost and/or feeling far from God is because of impaired relationships which can go back all the way from yesterday to early childhood. If you have any unresolved issues with any significant person in your life, ask God to help you to resolve this if at all possible. If this isn't possible, you need to resolve any repressed negative feelings in you (such as hurt and/or anger) regarding this relationship so you can freely forgive the person (or persons) whom you feel have hurt you. These supercharged negative feelings not only build a barrier between ourselves and loved ones, but also between ourselves and God. For further help be sure to read the article, "Forgiveness: The Power to Heal" at http://tinyurl.com/dvwh5.
Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you that you are close to me regardless of how I feel. Please reveal to me the cause (or causes) of my feelings when I am feeling lost or when it seems that you are far away. With your help I choose to trust in you no matter what, and please help my feelings to catch up with this choice. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."
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