Pastoral Resources

Christ died to save us, not from suffering, but from ourselves; not from injustice, far less from justice, but from being unjust. He died that we might live—but live as he lives, by dying as he died who died to himself that he might live unto God. If we do not die to ourselves, we cannot live to God, and he that does not live to God, is dead.

Greek philosopher Anaximenes accompanied Alexander the Great on his expedition against the Persians, in the course of which Alexander’s forces captured Lampsacus, the birthplace of Anaximenes. Anxious to save his native city from destruction, Anaximenes sought an audience with the king. Alexander anticipated his plea:

“I swear by the Styx I will not grant your request,” he said.

“My Lord,” calmly replied Anaximenes, “I merely wanted to ask you to destroy Lampsacus.”

And so he saved his native city.

Saturday night, of Thanksgiving weekend, and the Coconut Grove was packed. Waiters were setting up extra tables to handle the diners. The overflow from the dining room surged down a narrow stairway to the Melody Lounge. This dimly lit basement bar offered a South Seas ambiance, with artificial palm trees, driftwood, rattan and a ceiling draped in blue satin. The only illumination came from behind the bar, supplemented by low-wattage bulbs hidden in the palms. Even this was too bright for one young man. He reached up, unscrewed a bulb and settled back in his date’s arms. Like many others there, he was in uniform.

It was 1942; the U.S. had been fighting WWII for nearly a year. Dr. Vincent Senna was having dinner that night in the Grove and was paged because one of his patients had gone into labor. Grumbling, Senna rushed to the hospital in time to deliver the baby...and save his life. Because after he left, for still unknown reasons, the Coconut Grove burst into flames, and over 490 people died in the smoke and flames. The interruption that ruined his evening also saved his life!

Saving faith may thus be defined as a voluntary turning from all hope and grounds based on self merit, and assuming an attitude of expectancy toward God, trusting Him to do a perfect saving work based only on the merit of Christ.

In Warren Wiersbe’s Meet Yourself in the Psalms, he tells about a frontier town where a horse bolted and ran away with a wagon carrying a little boy. Seeing the child in danger, a young man risked his life to catch the horse and stop the wagon.

The child who was saved grew up to become a lawless man, and one day he stood before a judge to be sentenced for a serious crime. The prisoner recognized the judge as the man who, years before had saved his life; so he pled for mercy on the basis of that experience. But the words from the bench silenced his plea:

“Young man, then I was your savior; today I am your judge, and I must sentence you to be hanged.”

One day Jesus Christ will say to rebellious sinners, “During that long day of grace, I was the Savior, and I would have forgiven you. But today I am your Judge. Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire!”

- Doug Van Essen

Many years ago an accomplished organist was giving a concert. (In those days someone had to pump large bellows backstage to provide air for the pipes.) After each selection, the musician received the thunderous applause of a delighted audience. Before his final number, he stood up and said, “I shall now play,” and he announced the title. Sitting down at the console, he adjusted his music and checked the stops. With feet poised over the pedals and hands over the keys, he began with a mighty chord. But the organ remained silent. Just then a voice was heard from backstage, “Say ‘We’!”

We accompanied our son and his fiancé when they met with her priest to sign some pre-wedding ceremony papers. While filling out the form, our son read aloud a few questions. When he got to the last one, which read: “Are you entering this marriage at your own will?” He looked over at his fiancé. “Put down “Yes,” she said.

I said a prayer for you today

And know God must have heard

I felt the answer in my heart

Although He spoke not a word.

I didn’t ask for wealth or fame

(I knew you wouldn’t mind)

I asked for priceless treasures rare

Of a more lasting kind.

I prayed that He’d be near to you

At the start of each new day,

To grant you health and blessing fair

And friends to share your way.

I asked for happiness for you

In all things great and small.

But that you’d know His loving care

I prayed the most of all.

Say not, my soul, “From whence

Can God relieve my care?

Remember that Omnipotence

Hath servants everywhere.

His help is always sure,

His methods seldom guessed;

Surprise will give it zest.

Delay will make our pleasure pure;

His wisdom is sublime,

His heart profoundly kind;

God never is before His time,

And never is behind.

Hast thou assumed a load

Which none will bear with thee?

And art thou bearing it for God,

And shall He fail to see?

- J. J. Lynch

John the Baptist's message from the wilderness was not, "Smile, God loves you." It was "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come." Jeremiah was not put into a miry pit for preaching, "I'm OK, you're OK." It was for crying against the adultery, idolatry and other wickedness of his nation. Noah's message from the steps of the ark was not, "Something good is going to happen to you." He condemned the world and was a preacher of righteousness. Jesus Christ was not crucified for saying, "Consider the lilies, how they grow," but for saying, "Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites...children of hell ...fools and blind guides ... whited sepulchers...generation of vipers."

The forests would be silent indeed, if no birds sang except those who sang best.

Be nice to your kids. They’ll chose your nursing home.

3 kinds of people: those who can count & those who can’t.

Why is “abbreviation” such a long word?

Don’t use a big word where a diminutive one will suffice.

Every morning is the dawn of a new error...

For people who like peace and quiet: a phoneless cord.

I can see clearly now, the brain is gone...

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

I used up all my sick days, so I’m calling in dead.

Mental Floss prevents Moral Decay.

Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.

Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

There cannot be a crisis today; my schedule is already full.

I’d explain it to you, but your brain would explode.

Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking.

I don’t have a solution but I admire the problem.

Don’t be so open-minded your brains will fall out.

If at first you DO succeed, try not to look astonished!

Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie!’...till you can find a rock.

Diplomacy - the art of letting someone have your way.

If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest have to drown, too?

If things get any worse, I’ll have to ask you to stop helping me.

If I want your opinion, I’ll ask you to fill out the necessary forms.

Don’t look back, they might be gaining on you.

It’s not hard to meet expenses; they’re everywhere.

Help Wanted: Telepath. You know where to apply.

Budget: A method for going broke methodically.

Car service: If it ain’t broke, we’ll break it.

Shin: A device for finding furniture in the dark.

1. “Anybody who hates children and dogs can’t be all bad.”

Attributed to W. C. Fields, actually said by Leo Rosten at a dinner introducing Fields.

2. “Go west, young man!

Horace Greeley—John Doule in an article in the Terre Haute Express, 1851

3. “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it!”

Mark Twain—Charles Dudley Warner (editorial, the Hartford Courant, 1897)

4. “Survival of the fittest.”

Charles Darwin—Herbert Spencer (Principles of Biology, part 11, chapter 12)

5. “That government is best which governs least.”

Thomas Jefferson—Henry David Thoreau (who put it in quotation marks in Civil Disobedience and called it a “motto”)

6. “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

The Bible—John Wesley (Sermons, No. 93, “on Dress”)

7. “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Confucius—Lao Tzu (The Way of Lao Tzu)

The March 1984 issue of Psychology Today published the winner of an interesting contest called “Scamarama.” Readers were to send in the most creative scams. This was the winner:

Wish you were born rich? Now you can be! If you are one of the growing millions who are convinced of the reality of reincarnation, here’s a once-in-a-lifetime offer!

First, leave us ten thousand dollars or more in your will. After you pass away, our professional medium will contact your spirit in the other world. Then you tell us when you’re coming back and under what name. Upon your return, we regress you, at age twenty-one through hypnosis to this lifetime and ask you for your seven-digit account number.

Once you give us the number, we give you a check—on the spot—for your original investment plus interest! The longer you’re gone, the more you will receive! You may come back to find yourself a billionaire! Show your future self how much you care—leave a generous ‘welcome back’ present. We’ll take care of the rest.

What happens after death is a major focus in many world religions. Ancient Egyptians, for instance, believed in resurrection and immortality, following a story in which one of their gods, Osiris, was resurrected.

In accordance with this, the mummy-case was called the “chest of the living.” A scarab beetle was inserted in place of the corpse’s heart, because a scarab’s larva buries itself in the earth before emerging as a mature insect, symbolizing resurrection in Egyptian religion. A symbolic key (to open heaven) was also placed on the dead person’s breast.

Henry Ford said,

“A weakness of all human beings is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction. It makes for haste, and haste makes waste. So we do things all the wrong ways possible before we come to the right one. Then we think it is the best way because it works, and it was the only way left that we could see. Every now and then I wake up in the morning headed toward that finality, with a dozen things I want to do. I know I can’t do them all at once.”

When asked what he did about that, Ford replied,

“I go out and trot around the house. While I’m running off the excess energy that wants to do too much, my mind clears and I see what can be done and should be done first.”

Take your appointment book to the dinner table tonight. Show each of your family members the unassigned times in your schedule over the next two weeks, and write in their names at the times you agree upon. Try a breakfast out on a Saturday or Sunday, a lunch out during your lunch break, or an hour before dinner on a day you leave work early. Let your child choose how the time will be spent. Purpose: to let your family know they’re at least as important as your business associates.

Dear Sir: you never past me in grammar because you was prejudiced but I got this here athaletic scholarship any way. Well, the other day I finely got to writing the rule’s down so as I can always study it if they ever slip my mind.

1. Each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.

2. Just between you and I, case is important.

3. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

4. Watch out for irregular verbs which has crope into our language.

5. Don’t use double negatives.

6. A writer mustn’t shift your point of view.

7. When dangling, don’t us participles.

8. Join clauses good, lie a conjunction should.

9. Don’t write a run-on sentence you got to punctuate it.

10. About sentence fragments.

11. In letters themes reports articles and stuff like that we use commas to keep a string of items apart.

12. Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary.

13. Its important to apostrophe’s right.

14. Don’t abbrev.

15. Check to see if you any words out.

16. In my opinion I think that an author when he is writing shouldn’t get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need in order to put his message across.

At the end of the 19th century two French writers went to visit the well-known French scientist, Pierre Berthelot. Berthelot was a kind of scientific prophet. He forecast some of the weapons of mass destruction which would appear in the next century.

He said to the writers, “We have only begun to list the alphabet of destruction.”

Silence fell over the meeting. Then the elder of the two writers said quietly, “I think before that time comes, God will come like a great gatekeeper with his keys dangling at his waist and say, ‘Gentlemen, it’s closing time.’”

It was a dark and dreary day in 1916, a day well suited to the most brutally devastating rout in all of football history. One look at the two teams showed trouble ahead. On the Georgia Tech side were semi-human monsters, gorilla-like behemoths trained by John Heisman, the man football’s highest award was later named after. Heisman was a fanatic. He would not let his Yellow Jackets use soap or water because he considered them debilitating. Nor could they eat pastry, pork, veal, hot bread, nuts, apples, or coffee. His reason? “They don’t agree with me,” he growled, “so they’d better not agree with you.” The Yellow Jackets, with eight All-Southern players, were intent on building their reputation. They’d lured lowly Cumberland to the game with a $500 guarantee. The Cumberland team had several players who had never played football before. The official who accepted the offer had long since graduated and left the team in the hands of the team manager. Even the trip to Atlanta had been a disaster: Cumberland arrived with only 16 players. Three were lost at a rest stop in Nashville. The game began. Georgia Tech scored 63 points in the first quarter, averaging touchdowns at one-minute-and-twenty-second intervals. Even after such a lopsided start, the rest of the game was filled with tension and drama! No one questioned who would win, of course. But could Cumberland players be convinced to finish the game? The manager, George Allen, paced the sidelines, exhorting the team to “hang in there for Cumberland’s $500.” They did, and with it collected the honor of the worst loss in college football history: 222-0.

Cumberland also left posterity one of its most memorable football plays. A Cumberland kickoff returnee fumbled, probably from sheer weariness. He yelled to a teammate, “Pick up the ball!”

Replied his teammate, “Pick it up yourself! You dropped it!”

In 1858 Scottish missionary John G. Paton and his wife sailed for the New Hebrides (now called Vanuatu) Three months after arriving on the island of Tanna, his wife died. One week later his infant son also died. Paton was plunged into sorrow. Feeling terribly alone, and surrounded by savage people who showed him no sympathy, he wrote, “Let those who have ever passed through any similar darkness as of midnight feel for me. As for all other, it would be more than vain to try to paint my sorrows...But for Jesus, and [His} fellowship..., I [would] have gone mad and died.”

When Scottish theologian John Baillie taught at Edinburgh University, he made it a practice to open his course on the doctrine of God with these words: “We must remember, in discussing God, that we cannot talk about Him without His hearing every word we say. We may be able to talk about others behind their backs, but God is everywhere, yes, even in this classroom. Therefore, in all our discussions we must be aware of His infinite presence, and talk about Him, as it were, before His face.”

God often allows the ungodly to amass great wealth—to their destruction. But if you are one with whom God is dealing and if you put the pursuit of riches (or anything else) before service to Christ, God may take away those riches (and other things) until you turn to Him.

Some years ago Donald Grey Barnhouse was counseling a young woman on the sidewalk in front of Tenth Presbyterian Church following an evening service. She said she was a Christian and that she wanted to follow Christ. But she wanted to be famous too. She wanted to pursue a stage career in New York. “After I have made it in the theater, I’ll follow Christ completely,” she said. Barnhouse took a key out of his pocket and scratched a mark on a postal box standing on the corner. “That is what God will let you do,” he said. “God will let you scratch the surface of success. He will let you get close enough to the top to know what it is, but He will never let you have it, because He will never let one of His children have anything rather than Himself.”

Years later he met the girl again, and she confessed that this had indeed been her life story. She had dabbled in the stage. Once her picture had been in a national magazine. But she had never quite made it. She told Barnhouse, “I can’t tell you how many times in my discouragement I have closed my eyes and seen you scratching on that postal box with your key. God let me scratch the edges, but He gave me nothing in place of Himself.”

Many years ago in a Moscow theater, matinee idol Alexander Rostovzev was converted while playing the role of Jesus in a sacrilegious play entitled Christ in a Tuxedo. He was supposed to read two verses from the Sermon on the Mount, remove his gown, and cry out, “Give me my tuxedo and top hat!” But as he read the words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” he began to tremble. Instead of following the script, he kept reading from Matthew 5, ignoring the coughs, calls, and foot-stamping of his fellow actors.

Finally, recalling a verse he had learned in his childhood in a Russian Orthodox church, he cried, “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!” (Luke 23:42). Before the curtain could be lowered, Rostovzev had trusted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.

David (1 Chron. 28:1-29:25)

Asa (1 Kings 15:9-24; 2 Chron. 14-16)

Elijah (1 Kings 17-18)

Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. 17; 19:1-20:33)

Hezekiah (2 Kings 18-19; 2 Chron. 29-32)

Josiah (2 Kings 22:1-23:30)

Others: 2 Chron 7:14, Psa. 80:18-19; 85:6; Isa. 32:12-17; 35; Jeremiah 33:23; Lamen. 3:40-50; Hosea 6:1-3; 14:1-2; Habakkuk 3:2; John 7:38

1. Salvation

Rom. 6:23

2. Word of Wisdom

1 Cor. 12:8

3. Word of Knowledge

1 Cor. 12:8

4. Faith

1 Cor. 12:9

5. Healing

1 Cor. 12:9

6. Miracles

1 Cor. 12:10

7. Prophecy

Rom. 12:6; 1 Cor. 12:10

8. Distinguishing of Spirits

1 Cor. 12:10

9. Tongues

1 Cor. 12:10

10. Interpretation of Tongues

1 Cor. 12:10

11. Serving

Rom. 12:7

12. Teaching

Rom. 12:7

13. Exhortation

Rom. 12:8

14. Giving

Rom. 12:8

15. Leading

Rom. 12:8

16. Showing mercy

Rom. 12:8

“American history shall march along that skyline,” announced Gutzon Borglum in 1924, gazing at the Black Hills of South Dakota. In 1927 Borglum began sculpting the images of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt on the granite face of 6,000-foot Mount Rushmore. Most of the sculpting was done by experienced miners under Borglum’s direction. Working with jackhammers and dynamite, they removed some 400,000 tons of outer rock, cutting within three inches of the final surface. When Borglum died in March 1941, his dream of the world’s biggest sculpture was near completion. His son Lincoln finished the work that October, some 14 years after it was begun.

The Bohemian reformer John Hus was a man who believed the Scriptures to be the infallible and supreme authority in all matters. He died at the stake for that belief in Constance, Germany, on his forty-second birthday.

As he refused a final plea to renounce his faith, Hus’s last words were, “What I taught with my lips, I seal with my blood.”

The Bohemian reformer John Hus was a man who believed the Scriptures to be the infallible and supreme authority in all matters. He died at the stake for that belief in Constance, Germany, on his forty-second birthday. As he refused a final plea to renounce his faith, Hus’s last words were, “What I taught with my lips, I seal with my blood.”

A group of botanists went on an expedition into a hard-to-reach location in the Alps, searching for new varieties of flowers. One day as a scientist looked through his binoculars, he saw a beautiful, rare species growing at the bottom of a deep ravine. To reach it, someone would have to be lowered into that gorge. Noticing a local youngster standing nearby, the man asked him if he would help them get the flower. The boy was told that a rope would be tied around his waist and the men would then lower him to the floor of the canyon. Excited yet apprehensive about the adventure, the youngster peered thoughtfully into the chasm. “Wait,” he said, “I’ll be back,” and off he dashed. When he returned, he was accompanied by an older man. Approaching the head botanist, the boy said, “I’ll go over the cliff now and get the flower for you, but this man must hold onto the rope. He’s my dad!”

Seriously Acts 17:11; 2 Tim. 2:15

Earnestly Joshua 1:8; Psalm 119a;12

Anxiously John 20:31; Psalm 119:9

Regularly Acts 17:11, Psalm 1:2

Carefully Luke 24:27, 2 Tim. 3:16-17

Humbly Luke 24:45, James 1:22

Even back then I was searching for hard evidence of God as an alternative to faith. And one day I found it—on television, of all places. While randomly flipping a dial, I came across a mass healing service being conducted by Kathryn Kuhlman. I watched for a few minutes as she brought various people up on the stage and interviewed them. Each one told an amazing story of supernatural healing. Cancer, heart conditions, paralysis—it was like a medical encyclopedia up there.

As I watched Kuhlman’s program, my doubts gradually melted away. At last I had found something real and tangible. Kuhlman asked a musician to sing her favorite song, “He Touched Me. That’s what I needed, I thought; a touch, a personal touch from God. She held out that promise, and I lunged for it.

Three weeks later when Kathryn Kuhlman came to a neighboring state, I skipped classes and traveled half a day to attend one of her meetings. The atmosphere was unbelievably charged—soft organ music in the background; the murmuring sound of people praying aloud, some in strange tongues; and every few minutes a happy interruption when someone would stand and claim, “I’m healed!”

One person especially make an impression, a man from Milwaukee who had been carried into the meeting on a stretcher. When he walked—yes, walked—onstage, we all cheered wildly. He told us he was a physician, and I was even more impressed. He had incurable lung cancer, he said, and was told he had six months to live. But now, tonight, he believed God had healed him. He was walking for the first time in months. He felt great. Praise God! I wrote down the man’s name and practically floated out of that meeting. I had never known such certainty of faith before. My search was over; I had seen proof of a living God in those people on the stage. If he could work tangible miracles in them, then surely he had something wonderful in store for me. I wanted contact with the man of faith I had seen at the meeting, so much so that exactly one week later I phoned Directory Assistance in Milwaukee

and got the physician’s number. When I dialed it, a woman answered the phone.

“May I please speak to Dr. S_____,” I said.

Long silence.

“Who are you?” she said at last.

I figured she was just screening calls from patients or something. I gave my name and told her I admired Dr. S_____ and had wanted to talk to him ever since the Kathryn Kuhlman meeting. I had been very moved by his story, I said.

Another long silence.

Then she spoke in a flat voice, pronouncing each word slowly. “My...husband...is...dead.” Just that one sentence, nothing more, and she hung up.

I can’t tell you how that devastated me. I was wasted. I half-staggered into the next room, where my sister was sitting.

“Richard, what’s wrong?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

No, I was not all right. But I couldn’t talk about it. I was crying. My mother and sister tried to pry some explanation out of me. But what could I tell them? For me, the certainty I had staked my life on had died with that phone call. A flame had flared bright for one fine, shining week and then gone dark, like a dying star.

New Rules created quite a stir in the early ‘80s. In the book, professor Daniel Yankelovich of New York University documented a shift in social values in the ‘70s, a shift more massive and more rapid than any of the recent past.

The book was subtitled, “Searching for Self-Fulfillment in a World Turned Upside Down.” The old rules, Yankelovich said, stressed duty to others, particularly to one’s family. If someone were selfish and got caught, it was embarrassing and looked ugly. But no longer. In what Yankelovich calls “the duty to self ethic,” our primary responsibility is for our own needs and interests. All other relationships and values must fit into that order of priority.

Yankelovich feels that the movement may be liberating, but he is an honest scientist. After tracking 3,000 people in personal, in-depth interviews, and analyzing hundreds of thousands of questionnaires, he admits that so far the search for self-fulfillment has been futile. It has resulted in insecurity and confusion. “What is self-fulfillment?” he asks. And “When you find yourself, what will you do with yourself.?”

The frightening thing is that 83 percent of Americans buy into the “new rules,” either in whole or in part. But those foolish people are not evangelical Christians, right? Wrong! James Davison Hunter, in his examination of students and faculty in 16 leading evangelical colleges and seminaries, used Yankelovich’s earlier questionnaire and concluded that evangelicals are more committed to self-fulfillment than their secular counterparts.

“The percentage of evangelical students agreeing with these statements far exceeded the corresponding percentage of the general population,” Hunter wrote. “Self-fulfillment is no longer a natural by-product of a life committed to higher ideals, but rather is a goal, pursued rationally and with calculation as an end in itself. The quest for emotional psychological and social maturity, therefore, becomes normative. Self-expression and self-realization compete for self-sacrifice as a guiding life ethic.”

Young Richard Sears was a railroad agent in Redwood, Minnesota when he discovered he could order watches from the manufacturer, then reship them to agents down the line who sold them to local people. Sears launched a mail-order company, later teaming up with Alvah Roebuck. By 1894, Sears Roebuck & Co. had a 300-page catalog, but orders rolled in so fast that Sears simply burned order forms when he fell too far behind! A brilliant businessman named Julius Rosenwald brought order to the chaos, making many changes and innovations as he made the company work. By 1908, Sears himself was out of the picture, but even in Rosenwald’s massive overhaul of the business, he was wise enough to preserve the best of the past—the “book,” the famous Sears catalog, which has earned a place in American folklore.

Young Richard Sears was a railroad agent in Redwood, Minnesota when he discovered he could order watches from the manufacturer, then reship them to agents down the line who sold them to local people. Sears launched a mail-order company, later teaming up with Alvah Roebuck.

By 1894, Sears Roebuck & Co. had a 300-page catalog, but orders rolled in so fast that Sears simply burned order forms when he fell too far behind! A brilliant businessman named Julius Rosenwald brought order to the chaos, making many changes and innovations as he made the company work.

By 1908, Sears himself was out of the picture, but even in Rosenwald’s massive overhaul of the business, he was wise enough to preserve the best of the past—the “book,” the famous Sears catalog, which has earned a place in American folklore.

I am the springtime, when everything seems so fine.

Whether rain or sunshine, you will find me playing.

Days full of pretending.

When a dime is a lot to be spending.

A time when life is beginning.

I am the springtime.

I am the summer. When the days are warm and longer.

When the call comes to wander, but I can’t go far from home.

When the girls become a mystery.

When you’re barely passing history.

And thinking old is when you’re thirty.

I am the summer.

And I am the autumn days. When changes come so many ways.

Looking back I stand amazed that time has gone so quickly.

When love is more than feelings.

It’s fixing bikes and painting ceilings.

It’s when you feel a cold wind coming.

I am the autumn days.

I am the winter. When days are cold and bitter.

And the days I can remember number more than the days to come.

When you ride, instead of walking.

When you barely hear the talking.

And goodbyes are said too often.

I am the winter…

But I’ll see springtime in heaven, and it will last forever.

The closing years of life can be peaceful, happy, and productive. A man or woman of God doesn’t need to escape them by dwelling on past glories; nor does he need to make them miserable by developing a bitter, complaining spirit. God gives the whole of life to live, and the psalmist suggests that even our later years can be fruitful and flourishing. But we must begin by being happy now!

The well-known Christian psychiatrist Paul Tournier gives insight on this subject in his book The Seasons of Life. He writes, “True happiness is always linked with deep, inner harmony. It therefore always implies an acceptance of one’s age; the acceptance of no longer being a child when one has reached the age of adulthood, and the giving up of the goals of active life when one is advance in years. This is the age of retirement, which for some men can be a meaningful experience, while for others it is a cruel trial.

Why such differences? Partly, undoubtedly, this comes from differences in temperament. Yet more so from something else. Those who complain about their retirement are usually the same ones as those who used to complain about their work and longed to be set free from it!”

Temptation is a pretty common experience-and our batting average for resisting it is not always impressive.

Our experiences are a lot like the seat belts on cars a few years ago. If we did not fasten them, that infernal buzzer kept annoying us. We knew that the seat belts were not made to hurt us or unnecessarily restrict us. They were there to keep us safe, and the buzzer was our friend. But instead of doing what we knew was probably best for us, we would stick the belts behind us, fasten them and thus shut off the buzzer that was reminding us to do the safe thing.

We Christians know deep down inside what is right. We even know that the right thing is the best thing for us. And God coaches us from the inside with His "buzzer," the Holy Spirit, to help us resist temptation. But we often choose to ignore the buzzer and look for a way to shut it off. We ignore God's signal and follow our own, even though experience shows us that things get messed up when we do not listen to Him. We need to understand a little more about how Satan uses temptation and how we can win the battle. An understanding of the kinds of strategies Satan uses to defeat us can help us overcome temptation.

A preacher was asked, "Where were you born?" "I was born in Dublin and Liverpool," he replied. The man with whom he was conversing thought there was some misunderstanding. "How can a man be born in two places at once?" he asked. But the preacher meant that he had been born in the flesh in Dublin and born again in the spirit in Liverpool. The second birth is just as definite an experience as the first. With the first birth man becomes a creature of God; with the second he becomes a child of God.

On New Year’s Day, 1929, Georgia Tech played University of California in the Rose Bowl. In that game a man named Roy Riegels recovered a fumble for California. Somehow, he became confused and started running 65 yards in the wrong direction. One of his teammates, Benny Lom, outdistanced him and downed him just before he scored for the opposing team. When California attempted to punt, Tech blocked the kick and scored a safety which was the ultimate margin of victory.

That strange play came in the first half, and everyone who was watching the game was asking the same question: “What will Coach Nibbs Price do with Roy Riegels in the second half?” The men filed off the field and went into the dressing room. They sat down on the benches and on the floor, all but Riegels. He put his blanket around his shoulders, sat down in a corner, put his face in his hands, and cried like a baby.

If you have played football, you know that a coach usually has a great deal to say to his team during half time. That day Coach Price was quiet. No doubt he was trying to decide what to do with Riegels. Then the timekeeper came in and announced that there were three minutes before playing time. Coach Price looked at the team and said simply, “Men the same team that played the first half will start the second.” The players got up and started out, all but Riegels. He did not budge. the coach looked back and called to him again; still he didn’t move. Coach Price went over to where Riegels sat and said, “Roy, didn’t you hear me? The same team that played the first half will start the second.”

Then Roy Riegels looked up and his cheeks were wet with a strong man’s tears. “Coach,” he said, “I can’t do it to save my life. I’ve ruined you, I’ve ruined the University of California, I’ve ruined myself. I couldn’t face that crowd in the stadium to save my life.”

Then Coach Price reached out and put his hand on Riegel’s shoulder and said to him: “Roy, get up and go on back; the game is only half over.” And Roy Riegels went back, and those Tech men will tell you that they have never seen a man play football as Roy Riegels played that second half.

After church, where she had been taught about the Second Coming, a little girl was quizzing her mother.

“Mommy, do you believe Jesus will come back?”

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

“In a few minutes?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Mommy, would you comb my hair?”

Don Hussong

If there’s an alcoholic parent in the family, there’s a 50 percent chance one of the children will become an alcoholic. If there are two alcoholic parents, it’s an 85 percent chance.

Joseph Choate, one-time U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, when asked who he would like to be if he could come back to earth again after he died, replied without an instant’s hesitation: “Mrs. Choate’s second husband.”

A severe rash prompted a man from a rural area to come to town to be examined by one of my colleagues. After the usual history-taking followed by a series of test, the physician advised the patient that he would have to get rid of the dog that was evidently causing the allergic reaction. As the man was preparing to leave the office, my colleague asked him out of curiosity if he planned to sell the animal or give it away.

“Neither one,” the patient replied. “I’m going to get me one of them second opinions I been reading about. It’s a lot easier to find a doctor than a good bird dog.”

Helen Keller wrote, "If we trust, if we relinquish our will and yield to the Divine will, then we find that we are afloat on a buoyant sea of peace and under us are the everlasting arms."

In A Forgiving God in an Unforgiving World, Ron Lee Davis retells the true story of a priest in the Philippines, a much-loved man of God who carried the burden of a secret sin he had committed many years before. He had repented but still had no peace, no sense of God’s forgiveness.

In his parish was a woman who deeply loved God and who claimed to have visions in which she spoke with Christ and he with her. The priest, however, was skeptical. To test her said, “The next time you speak with Christ, I want you to ask him what sin your priest committed while he was in seminary.” The woman agreed.

A few days later the priest asked., “Well, did Christ visit you in your dreams?”

“Yes, he did,” she replied.

“And did you ask him what sin I committed in seminary?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what did he say?”

“He said, ‘I don’t remember’“

What God forgives, He forget.

- David H. Bolton

“Paul begins here to extend as it were his hand to restrain the audacity of humans, in case they should clamor against God’s judgments. We cannot by our own faculties examine the secrets of God, but we are admitted into a certain and clear knowledge of them by the grace of the Holy Spirit. And just as we ought to follow the guidance of the Spirit, so where He leaves us, we ought to stop there and fix our standing.

“If anyone will seek to know more than what God has revealed, he shall be overwhelmed with the immeasurable brightness of inaccessible light. But we must bear in mind the distinction between the secret counsel of God and His will made known in Scripture.

“For though the whole doctrine of Scripture surpasses in its height the mind of man, yet an access to it is not closed against the faithful, who reverently follow the Spirit; but with regard to God’s hidden counsel, the depth and height of it cannot be reached.”

- John Calvin

Americans experience sexual difference as a reality, not an appearance, that exists amid the diversity of social customs. They acknowledge this reality in the way they raise children, organize social life, and structure public spaces. Americans from widely varying religious traditions, both Western and non-Western, affirm this in their communities of worship. Coming together as citizens, they have chosen to embody this reality in the special legal status they give to a man and woman who are willing to become a total sexual community—lifelong, exclusive, and faithful.

The 1993 Christmas issue of Newsweek magazine carried an article on angels, a rather surprising topic to find in a secular publication. As might be expected, though, many points were in conflict with Scripture.

For instance, Professor Robert Ellswood, a specialist in unorthodox religions, made this assertion: “With angels around, people feel they don’t have to bother an Almighty God in order to get help.”

And Andre D’Angelo, a minister in Carmel, California, suggested that God is like the CEO of a large corporation, and “an angel is like a good executive secretary.”

Sheer laziness has probably been responsible for more shortcuts, not to mention valuable inventions, than we are ready to admit. Most of us are continually on the lookout, at least subconsciously, for easier ways to perform onerous or routine tasks.

An example of imagination spurred on by outright lethargy is contained in the story of an old mountaineer and his wife who were sitting in front of the fireplace one evening just whiling away the time. After a long silence, the wife said: “Jed, I think it’s raining. Get up and go outside and see.”

The old mountaineer continued to gaze into the fire for a second, sighed, then said, “Aw, Ma, why don’t we just call in the dog and see if he’s wet.”

A brochure put out several years ago by the Durham, N.C., County Public Library explained the use of the card catalogue, acknowledging that this can be mystifying at times. The brochure told of one patron who, upon reading “See Main Entry” on a catalogue card, went out to the front steps of the library.

You are familiar, no doubt, with one of the most famous paintings ever done by any artist: The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, that classic portrayal of Christ and the twelve apostles at the table.

Many students of art history believe that the painting, when first created, was somewhat different from the version which we now see. There was initially, it is believed, an exquisite lace border on the tablecloth. When, immediately upon completion, da Vinci invited a group of art students to view his masterpiece, they were immensely impressed by the delicate design of that lacework. They studied it intensely and praised it highly.

Upon seeing the reaction of these young men, the artist took up a brush, dipped it, and made a few long strokes across the canvas, obliterating the lace. Then, with uncontrollable feeling, he shouted, "Now, you fools, look at the face of Christ!"

A preacher wrote: "Last summer I stood looking over a Highland river valley lit with a beautiful sunset, and I marveled at the work of God in nature. I turned to a farmer friend and said, 'What a privilege it is for you to live amid such beauty!' He thought for a moment and said, 'Aye, man, it's grand sheep country.' I have many farmer friends who would have bared their heads at the very thought of the wonders of God in nature, but this man's sense of the beautiful was clouded by the pursuit of the material. Oh, how often we lift our eyes from the face of the vision God gives us and turn them on our mirrors and see only self; self counting the sheep and the cattle; self getting rich, climbing the ladder of earthly success; self winning favor in the eyes of men. Not that these things are not worthwhile in their place on earth-they are! But when we make them our only end in life, we miss all that is best and most beautiful."

A blind girl, whose eyes had been opened by a surgical operation, delighted in the sight of her father who had a noble appearance and presence. His every look and motion were watched by his daughter with the keenest delight. For the first time his constant tenderness and care seemed real to her. If he caressed her or even looked upon her kindly, it brought tears of gladness to her eyes. "To think," she said, holding his hand closely in her own, "that I have had you for a father all these years, and never really knew you.

A Christian was invited to admire a great skyscraper. After looking at its majestic height, he called his host's attention to a little flower that he had on his lapel, saying, "True, this building speaks of man's achievement, but this flower with its life speaks of God's creation. I can see God more clearly in the flower than in the skyscraper."

One Sunday, a minister preached a sermon about heaven. Next morning, as he was going to town, he met one of his wealthy members. This man stopped the preacher and said, "Pastor, you preached a good sermon on heaven, but you didn't tell me where heaven is." "Ah," said the preacher, "I am glad of the opportunity this morning. I have just returned from the hilltop up there. In that cottage there is a member of our church. She is a widow with two little children. She is sick in one bed and her two children are sick in the other bed. She doesn't have anything in the house-no coal, no bread, no meat, and no milk. If you buy a few groceries and go there yourself and say, 'My sister, I have brought these provisions in the name of the Lord Jesus,' ask for a Bible, read the Twenty-third Psalm, and then go down on your knees and pray-if you don't see heaven before you get through, I'll pay the bill." The next morning the man said, "Pastor, I saw heaven and spent fifteen minutes there. There's no bill for you to pay."

A lady, paying an early morning visit to a neighbor, was ushered into a rather untidy room for which her hostess profusely apologized, but her visitor smilingly replied, "I had eyes for nothing but these lovely roses," pointing to a vase of beauties which occupied a prominent place on the table. Just as the eye sees what it looks for, so the soul that is itself beautiful finds all that is best and noblest and most worthy of praise in the men and women.

A missionary approached a native whom he had not seen before and asked, "Have you ever heard the gospel?" "No," he replied, "but I have seen it. I know a man who used to be the terror of the neighborhood. He was a bad opium smoker and as dangerous as a wild beast. But he became completely changed. He is now gentle and good and has left off opium."

On one occasion a prime minister of France summoned an eminent surgeon to perform a very serious operation upon him. "You must not expect to treat me in the same rough manner that you treat the poor miserable wretches at your hospital," said the prime minister. "Sir," replied the surgeon with great dignity, "every one of those miserable wretches, as you are pleased to call them, is a prime minister in my eyes." How important it is for us to realize that the soul of a rich, famous, or highly educated person is not more precious in the sight of God than that of an ignorant beggar. We are all God's field. There isn't a soul on earth to whom we ought to give nothing but our best in cultivating it and making it what God originally meant it to be. Let us look upon the whole of humanity as God's own field deserving our best service.

Carey, the great missionary to India, found his Savior in a cobbler's workshop at Kackleton. Mary Slessor discovered the riches of Christ in a factory in Dundee; Livingstone found them at his loom in Blantire; and John Bunyan in the streets of Bedford, while he carried on his work as an itinerant mender of household utensils, a tinker. Yes, and God's richest treasure, His only begotten Son, was found by simple shepherds, not in a gilded cradle in a palace of splendor and wealth, but in the manger of a Bethlehem stable. You and I might find that same Savior while carrying on our daily duties in the workshop, office or home. "Seek," said Jesus, "and ye shall find."

Here is a caution about seeking experienced counsel: It's dangerous to go on just one person's experience. Mark Twain told about a cat who sat on a hot stove lid. That experience taught the cat never to sit on a hot stove lid again. But further, that cat never sat on a cold stove lid either. He took more from the experience than it had to offer. If we're going to talk about experiences, we would be wise to talk to a number of people who have faced similar decisions and extract direction from their combined counsel.

Ben Jochai was teaching a group of students about the miracle of the manna when Israel was on the way from Egypt to the Promised Land.

One of the students asked, "Why didn't the Lord God furnish enough manna for Israel at one time to last the entire year?"

The teacher said, "I will answer you with a parable. Once there was a rich man who had a son to whom he promised an annual allowance. Every year on the same day, he would give his son the entire amount. After a while, it happened that the only time the father saw his son was on the day of the year when he was to receive his allowance. So the father changed his plan and only gave the son enough for the day. Then the next day the son would return for the allowance for the day. From then on, the father saw his son every day."

This is the way God dealt with Israel. It is the way God deals with us.

When Sir James Thornhill painted the cupola of that world-famous structure, St. Paul's Cathedral, in London, he was obliged to work while standing on a swinging scaffold far above the pavement. One day, when he had finished a detail on which he had spent days of painstaking effort, he paused to evaluate his work. So well had he succeeded in his task that he was lost in wonder and admiration. As he stood there gazing at the structure, he began to move backward to get a better view, forgetting where he was. Another artist, becoming suddenly aware that one more backward step would mean a fatal fall, made a sweeping stroke across the picture with his brush. The shocked artist rushed forward, crying out in anger and dismay; but when his companion explained his strange action, Thornhill burst into expressions of gratitude.

This is an excellent illustration of how God blesses the material things in our lives and why we should ask Him to bless them. There are two possible outcomes: Either our plans will turn out as we hoped or they will fail. Having asked God to bless, we ask Him to be a partner. Only if that is our attitude shall we have the grace to praise God whatever the outcome may be. If we succeed, we shall give Him all the credit. If we fail, we shall take it that He has something different in mind for us.

A prominent American who was visiting Argentina was asked by the president of the republic, "Why has South America gotten on so poorly and North America so well? What do you think is the reason?" The visitor replied, "I think the reason is the fact that the Spaniards came to South America seeking gold, while the Pilgrim Fathers came to North America seeking God."

To those who love the Lord I speak;

Is my Beloved near?

The Bridegroom of my soul I seek,

Oh! when will He appear?

Though once a man of grief and shame

Yet now He fills a throne,

And bears the greatest, sweetest name

That earth or heaven have known.

Grace flies before, and love attends

His steps where'er He goes

Though none can see Him but His friends,

And they were once His foes.

He speaks;—obedient to His call

Our warm affections move;

Did He but shine alike on all,

Then all alike would love.

Then love in every heart would reign,

And war would cease to roar;

And cruel and bloodthirsty men

Would thirst for blood no more.

Such Jesus is, and such His grace;

Oh, may He shine on you!

And tell Him, when you see His face,

I long to see Him too.

Long ago, in one of the old Greek cities, stood a remarkable statue. Every trace of it has vanished now. However, we still have an epigram which gives us an excellent description of it and the lesson which those wise old Greeks meant it to convey. The epigram is in the form of a conversation between a traveler and the statue:

"What is they name, O statue?"

"I am called Opportunity."

"Who made thee?"

"Lysippus."

"Why are thou on thy toes?"

"To show how quickly I pass by."

"But why is thy hair so long on thy forehead?"

"That men may seize me when they meet me."

"Why, then, is thy head so bald behind?"

"To show that, when I have once passed, I cannot be caught."

Remember, Christ says, that the present opportunity may never be yours again, seize it while it is near you.

When the board of directors of a large food company was considering the selection of a new president, one of the directors worked out this questionnaire:

1. Who of the possible candidates is the best known as a personality to the most company people?

2. Who is the most liked and trusted by them?

3. Who is held in the highest regard outside the organization...in public life and “in the trade”?

4. Who is the most warmly human in his dealings with people?

5. Who has demonstrated the best capacity for selecting able people, and the greatest willingness to delegate authority and responsibility?

6. Who will be apt to do the best job of keeping his desk and mind clear of day-to-day operating problems, so he will have time to think in broader terms of tomorrow and next year?

7. Who does the boldest—yet soundest—thinking?

8. Who is most open-minded and willing to revise decisions when important new facts come to light?

9. Who inspires the best cooperation and exercises the best control and coordination, without “trespassing” on responsibility once delegated?

10. Who is most self-possessed in all situations, best able to adjust to personalities and circumstances and tact and understanding?

11. Who can be depended upon to make the most of a promising new plan or idea?

12. Who can “take it” the best under a heavy load of responsibility?

13. Who is the best builder of the people under him?

14. Who is most likely, in good times and bad, to remember that the basic job of the president is to operate the business at a profit?

A recent poll of couples in New England revealed that, if they were able to know these things in advance, 1 percent of them would abort a child on the basis of sex, 6 percent would abort a child likely to get Alzheimer’s disease, and an incredible 11 percent would abort a child predisposed to obesity.

British actor Michael Wilding was once asked if actors had any traits which set them apart from other human beings. “Without a doubt,” he replied. “You can pick out actors by the glazed look that comes into their eyes when the conversation wanders away from themselves.”

If the source of America’s social disintegration is to be pinpointed so that it might be remedied, honesty compels us not to neglect this issue (selfishness)...Self-centeredness and its related vices—crime, illegitimacy, child neglect—are exploding in America because, after centuries of Western philosophy devoted to the purpose, Americans are glorifying extreme individualism beyond healthy limits, and beyond anything ever experienced by another national culture.

Everybody thinks of changing Humanity and Nobody thinks of changing Himself. - L. Tolstoy

Jesus Christ demands self-denial, that is, self-negation (Matt. 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23), as a necessary condition of discipleship,. Self-denial is a summons to submit to the authority of God as Father and of Jesus as Lord and to declare lifelong war on one’s instinctive egoism. What is to be negated is not personal self or one’s existence as a rational and responsible human being. Jesus does not plan to turn us into zombies, nor does he ask us to volunteer for a robot role. The required denial is of carnal self, the egocentric, self-deifying urge with which we were born and which dominates us so ruinously in our natural state.

Jesus links self-denial with cross-bearing. Cross-bearing is far more than enduring this or that hardship. Carrying one’s cross in Jesus’ day, as we learn from the story of Jesus’ own crucifixion, was required of those whom society had condemned, whose rights were forfeit, and who were now being led out to their execution. The cross they carried was the instrument of death. Jesus represents discipleship as a matter of following him, and following him as based on taking up one’s cross in self-negation. Carnal self would never consent to cast us in such a role. “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was right: Accepting death to everything that carnal self wants to possess is what Christ’s summons to self-denial was all about.

Excerpted from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 75, No. 1, pages 219-229:

“It has been widely asserted that low self-esteem causes violence, but laboratory evidence is lacking, and some contrary observations have characterized aggressors as having favorable self-opinions. In 2 studies, both simple self-esteem and narcissism were measured, and then individual participants were given an opportunity to aggress against someone who had insulted them or praised them or against an innocent third person. Self-esteem proved irrelevant to aggression. The combination of narcissism and insult led to exceptionally high levels of aggression toward the source of the insult. Neither form of self-regard affected displaced aggression, which was low in general. These findings contradict the popular view that low self-esteem causes aggression and point instead toward threatened egotism as an important cause.”

According to a recent study, young men with high self-esteem shared some common childhood influences. There were three major characteristics of their families. (1) The high-esteem group was clearly more loved and appreciated at home than the low-esteem group. (2) The high-esteem group came from homes where parents had been significantly more strict in their approach to discipline. By contrast, the parents of the low-esteem group had created insecurity and dependence through their permissiveness. Their children were more likely to feel that the rules were not enforced because no one cared enough to get involved. (3) The homes of the high-esteem group were also characterized by democracy and openness. Once the boundaries were established, there was freedom for individual personalities to grow and develop. Thus, the overall atmosphere was marked by acceptance and emotional safety.

The work of Japanese painter Hokusai spanned many years before his death in 1849 at age 89. But toward the end of his life, the artist dismissed as nothing all the work he had done before age 50. It was only after he reached 70 that he felt he was turning out anything worthy of note.

On his deathbed Hokusai lamented, “If heaven had granted me five more years, I could have become a real painter.”