Pastoral Resources

A shipwrecked sailor who had spent three years on a deserted island was overjoyed one day to see a ship drop anchor in the bay. A small boat came ashore, and an officer handed the sailor a bunch of newspapers.

"The captain suggests," he told the sailor, "that you read what is going on in the world and then let us know if you want to be rescued."

A habit is something you can do without thinking—which is why most of us have so many of them.

A young woman, a great lover of flowers, had set out a rare vine at the base of a stone wall. It grew vigorously, but it did not seem to bloom. Day after day she cultivated it and tried every possible way to coax it to bloom.

One morning, as she examined the vine disappointedly, her invalid neighbor called to her and said. "You cannot imagine how much I have been enjoying the blooms of that vine you planted." The owner followed her neighbor's gaze and on the other side of the wall was a mass of blooms. The vine had crept through the crevices and produced flowers on the other side.

How often we think our efforts are thrown away because we do not see fruit! We need to learn that in God's service our prayers, our toil, our crosses are never in vain. They will bear fruit and hearts will receive blessings and joy, sometimes, somewhere.

A man found a cocoon of the emperor moth and took it home to watch it emerge. One day a small opening appeared, and for several hours the moth struggled but couldn’t seem to force its body past a certain point.

Deciding something was wrong, the man took scissors and snipped the remaining bit of cocoon. The moth emerged easily, its body large and swollen, the wings small and shriveled.

He expected that in a few hours the wings would spread out in their natural beauty, but they did not. Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the moth spent its life dragging around a swollen body and shriveled wings.

The constricting cocoon and the struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening are God’s way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings. The “merciful” snip was, in reality, cruel. Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need.

Sometimes the way up is down. John Moorlach learned that lesson.

In June of 1994, he ran against incumbent Robert L. Citron for the post of treasurer of Orange County, California. During the campaign, Moorlach condemned Citron’s risky investments. At the time, Moorlach’s warnings were written off as campaign rhetoric, and Citron won his seventh four-year term by a 3-2 vote ratio.

When Citron’s investment of county funds suffered severe losses and Orange County went bankrupt, Moorlach sounded like a prophet. The man who had lost the election was unanimously appointed by the Orange County Board of Supervisors to serve as treasurer.

While attending Wheaton College, one of my roommates, Kimberly Long (Wyckoff), and I would sing “His Lovingkindness” while we walked the six blocks to campus in the morning. In the evenings when we walked home, we sang heartily, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” The idea came to us from Psalm 92:2: “To show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night. Prodigals and Those Who Love Them, Ruth Bell Graham, 1991,

Elihu, in the Book of Job, asked, "Where is God who giveth songs in the night?" David in the 42nd Psalm, answered, "In the night His songs shall be with me."

The strongest argument of the atheist has to do with the problem of human suffering. Epicurus, who lived 342-270 B.C., presented three concepts about God and human suffering: (1) If God wishes to prevent evil and cannot, He is not all powerful; (2) If God can prevent evil and will not, He is not good; (3) If God has the power and will to eliminate evil, why is there evil in the world? The fallacy is his belief that no good can be served by God's allowing evil or suffering.

Everyone will pass through dark valleys sooner or later. All will become ill. Some will become permanently ill. It is an illusion that this side of heaven all diseases will be wiped out. For all of us there will be periods of suffering, bereavement, discouragement, danger and difficulty.

There are those who give up their fidelity to God because they do not believe God is fair. They ask, "What have I done to deserve this?" "Why are children born retarded or born dead?" "Why is there cancer?" "Why me?"

How will we answer these and similar questions? How will we learn to sing songs at night? By having faith in the sovereignty of God. The world is not being ruled by a chance but by a God who is in control. Even a sparrow cannot fall without His notice. So, He cares about us. Nothing can happen that does not concern God.

Jesus sang in the darkest night of His life on earth. The Apostle John sang songs of joy and praise while in exile on the island of Patmos. At midnight, David arose to give thanks to God (Psa_119:62). Paul said, "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2Co_12:10).

Our lives will become stronger and our spirituality deeper when we learn to sing at midnight.

A piece of wood once bitterly complained because it was being cut and filled with rifts and holes. But he who held the wood and whose knife was cutting into it so remorselessly, did not listen to the sore complaining. He was making a flute out of the wood he held, and was too wise to desist for such an entreaty.

Instead, the flute carver said, "Oh, thou foolish piece of wood, without these rifts and holes thou wouldst be only a mere stick forever-a bit of hard black ebony with no power to make music or to be of any use. These rifts that I am making will change thee into a flute, and thy sweet music then shall charm the souls of men. My cutting is the making of thee, for then thou shalt be precious and valuable and a blessing to the world."

David could never have sung his sweetest songs had he not been sorely afflicted. His afflictions made his life an instrument on which God could breathe the music of His love to charm and soothe the hearts of men by such an entreaty through the ages.

The process through which a person who does not belong to a given family is formally brought into it and made a full, legal family member with the rights and responsibilities of that position. The practice of adoption was not common among the Jews, but was more widespread in the Greek and Roman world. The apostle Paul used the term to illustrate the truth that believers have been given the status of “sonship” in the heavenly family; they can call God “Father” (Rom. 3:15; Gal. 4:6). Adoption makes it clear that our sonship is conferred on us, in distinction from Christ’s, which is inherent.

Much sooner than you can anticipate, you will be the silent guest at your own funeral. No doubt there will be relatives and friends present to mourn for you whom you haven't seen in years. After the preacher delivers a message in your memory, you will be taken to the graveyard, given a final farewell and buried.

The retirement that you spent your life working for will be gone forever. Remember the new car that you worried about scratching? Its new owner just wrecked it! The newlyweds bought your house and have redecorated the room that you had at last decorated to your liking. Your personal belongings have been sorted and some discarded. The dog is making a bed out of your favorite old coat. Other clothes of yours that no one could wear or did not want have been boxed and given to Goodwill. Your personal treasures that were valuable only to you-the carefully preserved flower, the lock of hair, the torn picture, the stained postcard-have been burned as trash.

You attended a number of funerals in your lifetime, but for some reason you just never expected to be lying in the casket yourself. Sure, someday, but not that particular day. "Maybe tomorrow," you always thought, "but not today." You remember telling the Lord each time you thought your time was close, "Not this time, Lord. Not today. Maybe tomorrow."

Sooner or later, everyone runs out of time. Paul states that everyone has an appointment with death and then the judgment (Heb 9:27). The only time that you can decide whether or not your death will be a blessing is today while you are alive. Today is the day of salvation (2Co 6:2). Today is the day to do the Lord's work. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working, nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom" (Ecc 9:10).

Sooner or later, everyone runs out of time but no one runs out of eternity. Doesn't it make more sense to spend your time preparing for that which will not end, rather than squandering your time trying to hold on to that which will not last?

"Careless soul, O heed the warning,

For your life will soon be gone;

O how sad to face the judgment

Unprepared to meet thy God."

Will you be prepared on the day that you run out of time?

The two entities SOUL and SPIRIT are carefully distinguished in both Old and New Testaments. The word SOUL translated from NEPHESH in Hebrew and PSYCHE in Greek represents the living principle of the body, and is shared by man and the animals. On the fifth day of creation, as God created animal life in the oceans, and birds, He designated them as having “life” (Gen. 1:20), or NEPHESH. On the sixth day, “Man became a living SOUL” (Gen. 2:7) as well. The soul refers to desires and appetites both of the flesh and the mind, perhaps summed up by the word “consciousness.” Plants, while alive in the biological sense, are not conscious (this may also be true for certain other “lower” organisms classified as animals by modern biology), and therefore not alive in the Biblical sense, nor does their death imply Biblical “death.”

The SPIRIT is quite different. God Himself “breathed into (man’s) nostrils the breath (RUACH) of life” (Gen. 2:7), thereby imparting only to mankind some measure of His own spiritual nature. It is noteworthy, that while God identified as “Spirit” (John 4:24--Greek PNEUMA), nowhere is He identified as “soul.” He stands separate from mere beings, not driven by the same desires as animals and man. The spirit, then, is the recreated “image of God” (Gen. 1:27) in man, separating us from animals, while bonding us to God. This spiritual side makes possible an earthly life in tune with God and an eternal life as a son of God.

In a recent issue of Glass Window, a contributor recalls that several years ago, The British Weekly published this provocative letter: It seems ministers feel their sermons are very important and spend a great deal of time preparing them. I have been attending church quite regularly for 30 years and I have probably heard 3,000 of them. To my consternation, I discovered I cannot remember a single sermon. I wonder if a minister’s time might be more profitable spent on something else?

For weeks a storm of editorial responses ensued… finally ended by this letter: I have been married for 30 years. During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals—mostly my wife’s cooking. Suddenly I have discovered I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet …I have the distinct impression that without them, I would have starved to death long ago.

Spurgeon used to illustrate hypocrisy with the following story: An American gentleman said to a friend, "I wish you would come down to my garden and taste my apples." He asked him about a dozen times, but the friend did not come. At last the fruit grower said, "I suppose you think my apples are good for nothing, so you won't come and try them." "Well, to tell the truth," said his friend, "I have tasted them. As I went along the road I picked one up that fell over the wall, and I never tasted anything so sour in all my life. I do not particularly wish to have any more of your fruit." "Oh," said the owner of the garden, "I thought that would happen. Those apples around the outside are for the special benefit of the boys. I selected the sourest kinds to plant all around the orchard so the boys might give them up as not worth stealing. If you will come inside, you will find that we grow a different quality there, sweet as honey."

There is a fable concerning a fox who kept leaping up at some inviting looking grapes. Unable to reach them despite his best efforts, he came to the conclusion that they did look rather sour. He walked away without pangs of covetousness.

Be as smart as a fox if you want to be happy. Consider the things that you cannot obtain as "sour grapes."

These words by James Bryant Conant have special meaning for writer James Michener. In 1944, when Michener was nearly 40, he was serving in the U.S. Navy on a remote island in the South Pacific. To kill time, he decided to write a book. He knew that the chances of anyone’s publishing it were practically nil. But he decided to stick his neck out and give it a try. Michener had decided that the book would be a collection of short stories. A friend told him that nobody publishes short stories anymore. Even so, he stuck his neck out and went ahead. The book was published and it got few reviews, but Orville Prescott, the book reviewer for The New York Times, reported that he liked the stories. Others decided they liked the book too, and it wound up winning a Pulitzer prize. Kenneth McKenna, whose job it was to evaluate books for a Hollywood film company, tried to persuade his company to make a movie out of it, but the company decided the book “had no dramatic possibilities.” So McKenna stuck his neck out and brought the book to the attention of composers Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. When Broadway cynics heard that Rodgers and Hammerstein were planning a musical called South Pacific, they guffawed and said, “Have you heard about this screwy idea? The romantic lead is gonna be a guy past 50. An opera singer named Ezio Pinza!” Everyone knows what happened after that. “You can understand,” said Michener, “why I like people who stick their necks out.”

The South Pole could be called the healthiest place on earth because there’s no pollution, no dust, and very few people. The air is as fresh and clean as it must have been everywhere before man began pouring industrial wastes into the atmosphere. Furthermore, it’s one of few locations where man is not bombarded by germs. Not only is it too cold for them to be active, but there’s nothing for them to live on. And since winds start at the South Pole and move northward, they tend to keep away any contaminants from that region.

Now you’d think people would be eager to live in such a germ-free environment but they’re not. With temperatures that drop to 100 degrees below zero, it’s just too cold.

The word “maranatha” is a Syriac expression that means: “our Lord comes.” It was used as a greeting in the early church. When believers gathered or parted, they didn’t say “hello” or “good-bye,” but “Maranatha!” If we had the same upward look today, it would revolutionize the church. Oh that God’s people had a deepening awareness of the imminent return of the Savior!

While on a South Pole expedition, British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton left a few men on Elephant Island, promising that he would return. Later, when he tried to go back, huge icebergs blocked the way. But suddenly, as if by a miracle, an avenue opened in the ice and Shackleton was able to get through. His men, ready and waiting, quickly scrambled aboard. No sooner had the ship cleared the island than the ice crashed together behind them.

Contemplating their narrow escape, the explorer said to his men, “It was fortunate you were all packed and ready to go!”

They replied, “We never gave up hope. Whenever the sea was clear of ice, we rolled up our sleeping bags and reminded each other, ‘The boss may come today.’”

The hymn writer Horatius Bonar exhorted us “to be ready for the last moment by being ready at every moment...so attending to every duty that, let Him come when He may, He finds the house in perfect order, awaiting His return.” The trump may sound anytime. How important for us as Christians to be “packed and ready to go!”

As you leave home today, don’t say good-bye—say “Maranatha!”

A father sees his child drowning. If he remains indifferent and does not come to the rescue of his child while he can, I am sure the law will condemn him. He will be punished because he did not save his child while he could. That is a case where power carries with it the responsibility of saving action. The father has to save his child whether he wants to or not. It was not so, however, with God. God could save you and me, but He did not have to, since He knew the tremendous cost of saving man. Remember, He did not do what He did under the compulsion of some law, but out of His pure free will and sovereign grace. When we think of that, how much more we appreciate what He has done for us.

Hail Sovereign Love that first began

The scheme to rescue fallen man

Hail matchless, free eternal grace

That gave my soul a hiding place.

Against the God that built the sky

I fought with hands uplifted high

Despised the mention of His grace

Too proud to seek a hiding place.

Enwrapped in thick Egyptian night

And fond of darkness more than light

Madly I ran a sinful race

Secure without a hiding place.

But thus the eternal council ran

Almighty Love, arrest that man

I felt the arrows of distress

And found I had no hiding place.

Eternal justice stood aview

So to Sinai’s fiery mount I flew

But justice said with frowning face

“The law is not hiding place.”

Thus I wandered ‘lone and feared

Till mercy’s angel soon appeared

And led me at a placid pace

To Jesus for a hiding place.

On Him Almighty vengeance fell

That would have sent a world to hell

He bore it for a sinful race

And thus became our hiding place.

Should sevenfold storms of thunder roll

And shake this globe from pole to pole

No thunderstorm can daunt my face

For Jesus is my hiding place.

A few more days at most

Will land me on fair Canaan’s coast

Where I shall sing the songs of grace

And see my glorious hiding place.

The following article is based on a sermon by missionary Del Tarr who served fourteen years in West Africa with another mission agency. His story points out the price some people pay to sow the seed of the gospel in hard soil.

I was always perplexed by Psalm 126 until I went to the Sahel, that vast stretch of savanna more than four thousand miles wide just under the Sahara Desert. In the Sahel, all the moisture comes in a four month period: May, June, July, and August. After that, not a drop of rain falls for eight months. The ground cracks from dryness, and so do your hands and feet. The winds of the Sahara pick up the dust and throw it thousands of feet into the air. It then comes slowly drifting across West Africa as a fine grit. It gets inside your mouth. It gets inside your watch and stops it. The year’s food, of course, must all be grown in those four months. People grow sorghum or milo in small fields.

October and November...these are beautiful months. The granaries are full—the harvest has come. People sing and dance. They eat two meals a day. The sorghum is ground between two stones to make flour and then a mush with the consistency of yesterday’s Cream of Wheat. The sticky mush is eaten hot; they roll it into little balls between their fingers, drop it into a bit of sauce and then pop it into their mouths. The meal lies heavy on their stomachs so they can sleep.

December comes, and the granaries start to recede. Many families omit the morning meal. Certainly by January not one family in fifty is still eating two meals a day.

By February, the evening meal diminishes. The meal shrinks even more during March and children succumb to sickness. You don’t stay well on half a meal a day.

April is the month that haunts my memory. In it you hear the babies crying in the twilight. Most of the days are passed with only an evening cup of gruel.

Then, inevitably, it happens. A six- or seven-year-old boy comes running to his father one day with sudden excitement. “Daddy! Daddy! We’ve got grain!” he shouts.

“Son, you know we haven’t had grain for weeks.”

“Yes, we have!” the boy insists. “Out in the hut where we keep the goats—there’s a leather sack hanging up on the wall—I reached up and put my hand down in there—Daddy, there’s grain in there! Give it to Mommy so she can make flour, and tonight our tummies can sleep!”

The father stands motionless.

“Son, we can’t do that,” he softly explains. “That’s next year’s seed grain. It’s the only thing between us and starvation. We’re waiting for the rains, and then we must use it.”

The rains finally arrive in May, and when they do the young boy watches as his father takes the sack from the wall and does the most unreasonable thing imaginable. Instead of feeding his desperately weakened family, he goes to the field and with tears streaming down his face, he takes the precious seed and throws it away. He scatters it in the dirt! Why? Because he believes in the harvest.

The seed is his; he owns it. He can do anything with it he wants. The act of sowing it hurts so much that he cries. But as the African pastors say when they preach on Psalm 126, “Brother and sisters, this is God’s law of the harvest. Don’t expect to rejoice later on unless you have been willing to sow in tears.”

And I want to ask you: How much would it cost you to sow in tears? I don’t mean just giving God something from your abundance, but finding a way to say, “I believe in the harvest, and therefore I will give what makes no sense. The world would call me unreasonable to do this—but I must sow regardless, in order that I may someday celebrate with songs of joy.”

Sow a thought, reap an act;

sow an act, reap a habit;

sow a habit, reap a character;

sow a character, reap a destiny.

An angel paused in his onward flight

With a seed of love and truth and right,

And said, “Oh, where can this seed be sown

That it yield more fruit when fully grown?”

“To whom can this precious seed be given

That it bear more fruit for earth and heaven?”

The Saviour heard and said as He smiled

“Place it at once in the heart of a child.”

The angel whispered the blessed truth

To a weary teacher of precious youth;

Her face grew bright with heavenly light

As she led their thought in the way of right.

I was at the Paris Exhibition in 1867, and I noticed there a little oil painting, only about a foot square, and the face was the most hideous I have ever seen. On the paper attached to the painting were the words "Sowing the tares," and the face looked more like a demon's than a man's. As he sowed these tares, up came serpents and reptiles, and they were crawling up his body, and all around were woods with wolves and animals prowling in them. I have seen that picture many times since. Ah! the reaping time is coming. If you sow to the flesh you must reap the flesh.

In his book, Be an Extraordinary Person in an Ordinary World, Rev. Robert H. Schuller tells the story behind a seed he received one day from Ansley Mueller, a farmer in Pleasant Plains, Ohio. “For years,” said Rev. Schuller, “I’ve been teaching the principle, ‘Any fool can count the seeds in an apple. Only God can count the apples in one seed.’” Well, Ansley Mueller had been listening to this principle, and he sent this letter with a soybean seed:

“It was 1977, Dr. Schuller, and I lost half my crop. It was a bad, bad year. It was so wet I couldn’t get half of it harvested and it didn’t develop. So, at the end of the year, in October, I would walk through the fields and try to pick up a bushel here and a piece there. Then, I saw standing by itself a most extraordinary, unusual looking soybean plant. I walked over and I was shocked by its size and its good looks. I went and carefully picked off the pods. There were 202 pods and I opened them and counted out 503 soybeans. I took them home.

I kept them in a pan all winter and they dried out. The next spring they just seemed special to me. In 1978 I took those 503 soybeans and I planted them in a little plot behind my house and when October came I harvested 32 pounds! Thirty-two pounds! I dried them out in the winter and in 1979 I took those thirty-two pounds and I planted them on one acre and when October came, I harvested. I had 2,409 pounds and I planted them on sixty-eight acres, which was all the land I had available. In October, just a year ago, I harvested twenty-one hundred bushels and cashed it out for fifteen thousand dollars! Now, Dr. Schuller, one plant, four years later, fifteen thousand dollars. Not too bad, is it? So Dr. Schuller, here’s your bean.

One of the most elaborate hoaxes in broadcast history was an April Fool’s joke played on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s current affairs program Panorama, with its rather dignified host Richard Dimbleby earnestly relating a story about the annual spaghetti harvest filmed in a Swiss-Italian spaghetti orchard. Cameraman Charles de Jaeger thought up the spoof and related to Denis Norden how it was accomplished.

“Panorama’s first famous spaghetti harvest came from my school days in Austria,” de Jaeger said, “when a master was always saying to us, ‘You’re so stupid you’d think spaghetti grew on trees.’ So it had always been in my mind to do the story and I tried for several years. It was not until I was working on Panorama that I got the go-ahead.

“I went to the Swiss Tourist Office, who said they would help, and I flew to Lugano. It was in March when I thought the weather would be sunny with flowers out. There was a mist over the whole area.

The tourist office guy took me around all over the place; not one blossom out, no leaves out. It was now Tuesday and I could not find anything and said in desperation, ‘What can be done?’

“Then we found this hotel in Castiglione, which had laurel trees with leaves on, tall trees. So I said, ‘We’ll do it here. Let’s go down into Lugano and get some handmade spaghetti.’

“We did that, put the strands of spaghetti in a big wooden platter, took that in the car and we drove back. By the time we got there, the damn things wouldn’t hang up. They’d dried out. Se we cooked them, tried to put them on the trees, and this time they fell off because they were so slippery.

“Then this tourist guy had a brilliant idea—put the spaghetti between damp cloths. That worked and we got local girls to hang them up—about ten pounds’ worth. Then we got the girls into national costume and filmed them climbing on ladders with these baskets, filling them up, and laying them out in the sun. And we said in the script, with a guitar playing in the background, ‘We have this marvelous festival. The first harvest of the spaghetti.’

“At the end of the three-minute film Richard Dimbleby said, ‘Now we say goodnight to this first day of April.’ In spite of that hint, next morning it was surprising the number of people who didn’t recognize that the spaghetti harvest was a hoax.”

My sister, Becky, prepared a pasta dish for a dinner party she was giving. In her haste, however, she forgot to refrigerate the spaghetti sauce, and it sat on the counter all day. She was worried about spoilage, but it was too late to cook up another batch. She called the local Poison Control Center and voiced her concern. They advised Becky to boil the sauce again.

That night, the phone rang during dinner, and a guest volunteered to answer it. Her face dropped as she called out, “It’s the Poison Control Center. They want to know how the spaghetti sauce turned out.”

When Narvaez, the Spanish patriot, lay dying, his father-confessor asked him whether he had forgiven all his enemies. Narvaez looked astonished and said, “Father, I have no enemies, I have shot them all.”

Luke wrote of a gift of tongues on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:4-6), when everybody understood what was being said. Elsewhere we read of the Spirit’s enabling people to speak in words that neither they nor anyone else understood unless they had another gift, that of interpretation (1 Cor. 12:10, 28). The possessor of the gift of tongues used it to speak about God, but edified nobody but himself, Paul said (1 Cor. 14:2-4). His mind was not active (1 Cor. 14:14). Paul did not forbid the use of the gift, however; he spoke in tongues himself (1 Cor. 14:18). But he regulated its use (1 Cor. 14:27-28) and saw edification as a more important consideration (1 Cor. 14:4-5).

Astronaut Michael Collins, speaking at a banquet, quoted the estimate that the average man speaks 25,000 words a day and the average woman 30,000. Then he added: “Unfortunately, when I come home each day I’ve spoken my 25,000—and my wife hasn’t started her 30,000.”

This angel named Carruthers was called in to the heavenly front office and informed by St. Peter that he had been picked for a special assignment—to go down to earth and make a list of all the people who had misbehaved.

Two months went by. Then one afternoon the angel came flapping wearily through the Pearly Gates and collapsed on a golden stool by St. Peter’s desk. “Sir,” he said, “you don’t know the magnitude of this job. I’m going to need some help.”

“Impossible,” St. Peter replied tersely. “We’re shorthanded up here as it is. You’ll have to go it alone.”

The angel struggled to the door. Then, suddenly, he was struck with an idea. “Saint Peter, suppose I made a list of all the people who didn’t misbehave. It would be much shorter and I could finish it in a week.”

“Good thinking,” said St. Peter.

The angel returned to earth and, as promised, he was back in a week with his list. St. Peter studied it and passed it on up the chain of command. Shortly, an order came down to write a letter to everyone on the list, commending them for their good behavior.

At this point, the fellow telling the story turned to his friend. “You know what else the letter said?” he asked.

“What?” replied the friend.

“AHA! So you didn’t get one either.”

Dr. George Sweeting wrote in Special Sermons For Special Days:

“Several years ago our family visited Niagara Falls. It was spring, and ice was rushing down the river. As I viewed the large blocks of ice flowing toward the falls, I could see that there were carcasses of dead fish embedded in the ice. Gulls by the score were riding down the river feeding on the fish. As they came to the brink of the falls, their wings would go out, and they would escape from the falls.

“I watched one gull which seemed to delay and wondered when it would leave. It was engrossed in the carcass of a fish, and when it finally came to the brink of the falls, out went its powerful wings. The bird flapped and flapped and even lifted the ice out of the water, and I thought it would escape. But it had delayed too long so that its claws had frozen into the ice. The weight of the ice was too great, and the gull plunged into the abyss.”

The finest attractions of this world become deadly when we become overly attached to them. They may take us to our destruction if we cannot give them up. And as Sweeting observed, “Oh, the danger of delay!”

Special gifts of the Spirit (charismata; e.g., Rom. 12:6-8; 1 Cor. 12:4-11, 28-31). There is some dispute as to whether these gifts were all meant as permanent endowments of the Christian church or as gifts only for its early days. In modern times, charismatics claim to exercise particular gifts, especially “tongues,” “healing,” and “prophecy.” Other believers emphasize the fruit of the Spirit more than spiritual gifts (Gal. 5:22-23).

What special memories do you have about your childhood?

1. How did you get along with each of your parents? What were they like?

2. What did you like and dislike about your parents?

3. What were your hurts and disappointments as a child?

4. What were your hobbies and favorite games?

5. How did you usually get into trouble?

6. How did you usually try to get out of trouble?

7. What did you enjoy about school and its activities?

8. What pets did you have? Which were your favorites and why?

9. What did you dream about doing when you were older?

10. Did you like yourself as a child? Why or why not?

11. What were your talents and special abilities?

12. What awards and special achievements did you win?

13. Did you have a nickname?

14. Who were your close friends? Where are they today?

15. What would you do on a hot summer afternoon?

16. Describe the area where you grew up—people, neighborhood, etc.

17. What were you afraid of? Do you have any of those fears today?

18. How did you get along with your brothers and/or sisters?

19. If you had none, which relative were you closest to?

20. Who did you date and for how long? Where did you go on dates?

21. How did you feel when you liked someone and that person didn’t care for you?

22. What was your spiritual life like as a child? As an adolescent?

23. How has being an adult changed your life?

24. How are you different today than you were 20 years ago? Ten years ago?

25. What have been your greatest disappointments? How have you handled them?

26. What have you learned from them that you would want me to learn?

27. If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?

28. What do you want to be remembered for?

29. How did you meet my mother?

30. What was your first impression of her?

31. What was happening in your lives at the time you met?

32. How did your parents respond to your dating and engagement? How did her parents respond?

33. How did you make the decision to marry? Who proposed and how?

34. What have been the strengths and weaknesses of your marriage?

35. How did you get along with your in-laws at first?

36. How did you feel when my mother was expecting me?

37. What was it like to have children? How did it change your life?

38. What did you like and dislike about being parents?

39. What are your general impressions of me as a person?

40. What are your hopes and dreams for me?

41. What about me has brought you the greatest satisfaction? The greatest disappointment?

42. How have I changed as an adult?

43. How would you like me to grow and develop at this stage of my life?

44. In what way am I most like you? In what way am I least like you?

Source unknown

G. C. Morgan wrote concerning the special three: “There can be no doubt that these men, Peter, James, and John, were the most remarkable in the apostolate. Peter loved Him; John He loved; James was the first to seal his testimony with his blood. Even their blunders proved their strength. They were the men of enterprise; men who wanted thrones and places of power...Mistaken ideas, all of them, and yet proving capacity for holding the keys and occupying the throne. What men from among that first group reign today as these men?

On four special occasions, Jesus admitted them to experiences from which they learned precious lessons. On the occasion of the raising of Jairus’s daughter (Luke 8:51), they were granted a preview of their Lord’s mastery over death ... On the mount of transfiguration (Matt. 17:1), they gained clearer insight into the importance of His impending death ... On the Mount of Olives (Mark 13:3), they marveled at His prophetic discernment ... In the Garden of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:37), they glimpsed in the sufferings of the Savior something of the cost of their salvation...”

Deception has been a part of warfare since the Trojan horse. During WWII, it became high art. Members of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops used special “weapons” like dummy planes, tanks, antiaircraft guns, and amplified recordings that created war sounds to fool the German high command. To enable a combat unit to change positions or even attack when the Germans thought it hadn’t moved at all, the 1800 men of the 23rd impersonated entire divisions. They would move in at night, change insignias, and inflate their rubber decoys. Meanwhile, the troops they were replacing sneaked away. Such deception was a major factor in the success of the Allies’ D-Day invasion, as the German 15th Army waited elsewhere for an assault that never came.

It used to be if you didn’t feel well, you went to a doctor. These days you have to know why you don’t feel well—in order to know what kind of a doctor to go to.

Dr. Ari Kiev of Cornell University observed that from the moment people decided to concentrate all their energies on a specific objective, they began to surmount the most difficult odds. He concluded, “The establishment of a goal is the key to successful living.”

“I would rather have speeches that are true than those which contain merely nice distinctions. Just as I would rather have friends who are wise than merely those who are handsome.”

Married couples have nothing more to say to each other after 8 years, according to a study. Professor Hans Jurgens asked 5000 German husbands and wives how often they talked to each other. After 2 years of marriage, most of them managed two or three minutes of chat over breakfast, more than 20 minutes over the evening meal and a few more minutes in bed. By the sixth year, that was down to 10 minutes a day. A state of “almost total speechlessness” was reached by the eighth year of marriage.

In 1886, Karl Benz drove his first automobile through the streets of Munich, Germany. He named his car the Mercedes Benz, after his daughter, Mercedes. The machine angered the citizens, because it was noisy and scared the children and horses. Pressured by the citizens, the local officials immediately established a speed limit for “horseless carriages” of 3.5 miles an hour in the city limits and 7 miles an hour outside. Benz knew he could never develop a market for his car and compete against horses if he had to creep along at those speeds, so he invited the mayor of the town for a ride. The mayor accepted.

Benz then arranged for a milkman to park his horse and wagon on a certain street and, as Benz and the mayor drove by, to whip up his old horse and pass them—and as he did so to give the German equivalent of the Bronx cheer. The plan worked. The mayor was furious and demanded that Benz overtake the milk wagon. Benz apologized but said that because of the ridiculous speed law he was not permitted to go any faster. Very soon after that the law was changed.

A group of ministers and a salesman’s organization were holding conventions in the same hotel, and the catering department had to work at top speed serving dinners to both. The salesmen were having spiked watermelon for dessert. But the chef discovered that it was being served to the ministers by mistake. “Quick!” he commanded a waiter. “Bring it back!” The waiter returned, reporting that it was too late. The ministers were already eating the liquor-spiced treat. “Do they like it?” asked the chef. “Don’t know,” replied the waiter, “but they’re putting the seeds in their pockets.”

Consider this story told by Bernard L. Brown, Jr., president of the Kennestone Regional Health Care System in the state of Georgia:

Brown once worked in a hospital where a patient knocked over a cup of water, which spilled on the floor beside the patient’s bed. The patient was afraid he might slip on the water if he got out of the bed, so he asked a nurse’s aide to mop it up. The patient didn’t know it, but the hospital policy said that small spills were the responsibility of the nurse’s aides while large spills were to be mopped up by the hospital’s housekeeping group.

The nurse’s aide decided the spill was a large one and she called the housekeeping department. A housekeeper arrived and declared the spill a small one. An argument followed.

“It’s not my responsibility,” said the nurse’s aide, “because it’s a large puddle.” The housekeeper did not agree. “Well, it’s not mine,” she said, “the puddle is too small.”

The exasperated patient listened for a time, then took a pitcher of water from his night table and poured the whole thing on the floor. “Is that a big enough puddle now for you two to decide?” he asked. It was, and that was the end of the argument.

I will seek the will of the Spirit of God through, or in connection with, the Word of God. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions also. If the Holy Ghost guides us at all, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.

An eminent preacher says, "I was walking in a beautiful grove where the trees were wide apart and the trunks were straight and rugged. But, as they ascended higher, the branches came closer together, and still higher the twigs and branches interlaced. I said to myself: Our churches resemble these trees. The trunks near the earth stand stiffly and rudely apart; the more nearly they ascend toward heaven, the closer they come together until they form one beautiful canopy, under which men enjoy both shelter and happiness. Those who have the Spirit of Christ will be like-minded."

"I once lived in the country," said a preacher, "next to a very excellent man who, nevertheless, had his weaknesses. I recollect an occasion on which he became angry and manifested his displeasure in a striking manner. Wanting a place to hang up a trowel in my yard, I drove a nail into the fence between his yard and mine. It went through on the other side. One day I heard a racket in my yard and looking to see what was the reason, I found my trowel ringing over the pavement. My neighbor with his hammer had hit the nail and sent the trowel and everything else flying. My first feeling was to fire the trowel over at him and give him a piece of my mind, but my second thought was, 'Well, that's the way he is, but he is a very good fellow, a quiet neighbor so I won't say anything about it.' I was going to be satisfied; but then I decided I had better say something to him. I stepped in and said, 'I ask your pardon, sir. It was thoughtless my driving that nail through the fence, and I am glad you reminded me of it.' He shook hands with me and said, 'Well, well, let us not say anything more about that.' The result showed the wisdom of treating the matter in a spirit of simple kindness. It was evidently the course of conduct that was best for him."

During World War II, Hitler commanded all religious groups to unite so that he could control them. Among the Brethren assemblies, half complied and half refused. Those who went along with the order had a much easier time. Those who did not, faced harsh persecution. In almost every family of those who resisted, someone died in a concentration camp.

When the war was over, feelings of bitterness ran deep between the groups and there was much tension. Finally they decided that the situation had to be healed. Leaders from each group met at a quiet retreat. For several days, each person spent time in prayer, examining his own heart in the light of Christ’s commands. Then they came together.

Francis Schaeffer, who told of the incident, asked a friend who was there, “What did you do then?” “We were just one,” he replied. As they confessed their hostility and bitterness to God and yielded to His control, the Holy Spirit created a spirit of unity among them. Love filled their hearts and dissolved their hatred.

When love prevails among believers, especially in times of strong disagreement, it presents to the world an indisputable mark of a true follower of Jesus Christ.

Dallas Willard, in The Spirit of the Disciplines, and Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, have compiled a list of spiritual disciplines and practices they believe were modeled in the life of Christ. These disciplines are typically organized into two categories: the disciplines of abstinence (or “letting go”) and the disciplines of activity.

Disciplines of Letting Go

These practices allow us to relinquish something in order to gain something new. We abstain from “busy-ness” in ministry, family life, and work. We stop talking for a while to hear from God. We give up buying another material possession to experience God more fully. First Peter 2:11 warns us to “abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” Identify what is keeping you from experiencing greater strength and perspective. Do you talk too much? Are possessions controlling you? Are you too worried about what others think? Choose disciplines that will help you become more dependent on God.

Solitude—Spending time alone to be with God. Find a quiet place to be alone with God for a period of time. Use the Bible as a source of companionship with God. Listen to Him. Remain alone and still.

Silence—Removing noisy distractions to hear from God. Find a quiet place away from noise to hear from God. Write your thoughts and impressions as God directs your heart. Silence can occur even in the midst of noise and distraction. But you must focus your attention on your soul. This could mean talking less or talking only when necessary. And it could mean turning off the radio and the TV.

Fasting—Skipping a meal(s) to find greater nourishment from God. Choose a period of time to go without food. Drink water and, if necessary, take vitamin supplements. Feel the pain of having an empty stomach and depend on God to fill you with His grace.

Frugality—Learning to live with less money and still meet your basic needs. Before buying something new, choose to go without or pick a less expensive alternative that will serve your basic needs. Live a simple, focused life.

Chastity—Voluntarily choosing to abstain from sexual pleasures for a time (those pleasures that are deemed morally right in the bond of marriage) to find higher fulfillment in God. Decide together as a couple to set aside time to go without sexual pleasures in order to experience a deeper relationship with God in prayer.

Secrecy—Avoiding self-promotion, practice serving God without others knowing. Give in secret. Serve “behind the scenes” in a ministry that you are assured few will know about.

Sacrifice—Giving of our resources beyond what seems reasonable to remind us of our dependence on Christ. Choose to give your time or finances to the Lord beyond what you normally would.

Disciplines of Activity

Dallas Willard writes, “The disciplines of abstinence must be counter-balanced and supplemented by disciplines of engagement (activity).” It’s choosing to participate in activities that nurture our souls and strengthen us for the race ahead.

Study—Spending time reading the Scriptures and meditating on its meaning and importance to our lives. We are nourished by the Word because it is our source of spiritual strength. Choose a time and a place to feed from the Word of God regularly.

Worship—Offering praise and adoration to God. His praise should continually be on our lips and in our thoughts. Read psalms, hymns, or spiritual songs, or sing to the Lord daily using a praise tape. Keep praise ever before you as you think of God’s mighty deeds in your life.

Prayer—Talking to and listening to God about your relationship with Him and about the concerns of others. Find time to pray to God without the distraction of people or things. Combine your prayer time with meditation on the Scriptures in order to focus on Christ.

Fellowship—Mutual caring and ministry in the body of Christ. Meet regularly with other Christians to find ways to minister to others. Encourage one another.

Confession—Regularly confess your sins to the Lord and other trusted individuals. As often as you are aware of sin in your life, confess it to the Lord and to those you may have offended.

Submission—Humbling yourself before God and others while seeking accountability in relationships. Find faithful brothers or sisters in Christ who can lovingly hold you accountable for your actions and growth in Christ.

A preacher once visited a coal-mining district and noticed how very dingy the town appeared. The coal dust seemed to blacken the buildings, trees, shrubs, everything. But, as he was walking with the foreman, he noticed a beautiful white flower. Its petals were as pure as if it were blooming in a daisy field. "What care the owner of this plant must give it," said the preacher, "to keep it so free from dust and dirt!" "See here," said the foreman, and taking up a handful of coal dust, he threw it over the flower. It immediately fell off and left the flower as stainless as before. "It has an enamel coating." This reminds me of being clothed in the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ (Rom 3:22).

How to test spiritual experience?

1. Is it scriptural? We dare not allow experience to become the touchstone of truth, giving it greater authority than the Bible.

2. Who is enriched? Both personal enrichment and church enrichment are important, but when they conflict, we must prefer church enrichment. 1 Cor 13 is sandwiched between 12 and 14. Love must control the expression of spirituality in church. “When you come together, everyone has a hymn;, or a word or instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church (1 Cor 14:26).

3. Is it orderly? “God is not a God of disorder but of peace (1 Cor 14:33). God doesn’t want chaos in our meetings because that brings confusion and unrest. To the church at Colosse Paul wrote: “I delight to see how orderly you are” (Col 2:5).

4. Is it intelligible? Being spiritual doesn’t mean being mindless. “I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue (1 Cor 14:19).

5. Is it sensitive to the unbeliever? Since unbelievers come to church, love requires us to worship in a way that shows God is real and present, and doesn’t make unbelievers regard the gospel as unworthy of serious consideration.

6. Does it bear fruit? Jesus said, “by their fruit you will know them (Matt 7:20). We test spiritual gifts and their manifestation by their results. Are Kingdom purposes achieved? Do they encourage evangelism, discipleship, repentance, praise to God? When Barnabas was sent to Antioch to investigate reports of God’s activity in Antioch, he “saw the evidence of the grace of God” (Acts 11:23).

7. What is my motivation for testing? Some err in becoming critical, corrective, or cynical when assessing phenomena associated with revival. They become “puffed-up experts” in passing judgment, but are themselves without fruitfulness or spiritual vitality.

On a visit to Sri Lanka I saw divers go down to the ocean floor and scoop up mud to find the precious stones hidden there. These gems can not be found on the beach but down in the ocean bed. All the secrets of God in nature have been wrested from Him by patient, painstaking investigation on the part of men.

Paul compares the possessors of spiritual gifts to members of the human body because as the members of our body are none of our doing or deserving, neither are the spiritual gifts we possess. They are God's gifts entrusted to us for a purpose. If that purpose isn't fulfilled, His gifts are wasted. What's the use of having an eye or a hand that doesn't serve the entire body? A test of the genuineness of any gift is whether it benefits the body of Christ as a whole, or only the possessor. Does it tend to unite the body or to divide it? Does it make members who are different from us feel estranged or fellow members with us of one and the same body?

We are right to say that spiritual gifts come from the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4-11). However we go on to think of them in terms either of giftedness (human ability to do things skillfully and well) or of supernatural novelty (power to speak in tongues, to heal, to receive messages straight from God to give to others, or whatever). We have not formed the habit of defining gifts in terms of Christ, the head of the body, and his present work from heaven in our midst. In this we are unscriptural.

Paul makes it clear that spiritual gifts are given in Christ; they are enrichments from Christ. 1 Corinthians 12 assumes the Christ-oriented perspective that 1 Corinthians 1:4-7 established. It is vital that we should see this, or we shall be confusing natural with spiritual gifts to the end of our days.

Nowhere does Paul or any other New Testament writer define a spiritual gift to us. But Paul’s assertion that the use of gifts edifies (1 Cor. 14:3-5, 12, 17,26; Eph. 4:12), shows what his idea of gift was.

For Paul it is only through Christ, in Christ, and by learning of and responding to Christ, that anyone is ever edified. So spiritual gifts must be defined in terms of Christ as actualized powers of expressing, celebrating, displaying, and thus communicating Christ in one way or another, either by word or deed.

In central Georgia and other parts of the South, a common sight is trees completely covered with kudzu vines. Often these lush-green leafy vines completely hide the tree and even small houses.

Although imported to be a ground cover to combat erosion, these vines are now a curse. Covering acres and acres of excellent timber and farmland, they slowly destroy other vegetation. And the kudzu begins as a little seed but is almost impossible to eliminate, once it sets its woody roots.

Spiritual and moral kudzu vines choke our world and hide our true identity. They begin as insignificant seeds of thought and grow into massive systems of destructive thinking, completely distorting and hiding our real nature, even from ourselves. In a parable Jesus warned about weeds that choke the true plant and keep it from bearing fruit. The kudzu vine is not really the tree whose exterior it covers. It is a foreign element so attached to the tree that one could easily mistake it for the tree itself.

Spiritual leadership is not won by promotion, but by prayers and tears. It is attained by much heart-searching and humbling before God; by self-surrender, a courageous sacrifice of every idol, a bold, uncompromising, and uncomplaining embracing of the cross, and by an eternal, unfaltering looking unto Jesus crucified.

This is a great price, but it must be unflinchingly paid by him who would be a real spiritual leader of men, a leader whose power is recognized and felt in heaven, on earth and in hell.”

One day, Johann Tauler of Strosbourg met a peasant.

"God give you a good day, my friend," he greeted him. The peasant answered briskly, "I thank God I never have a bad day."

Tauler, astonished, kept silent for a moment. Tauler then added, "God give you a happy life, my friend." The peasant replied composedly, "I thank God I am never unhappy."

"Never unhappy!" cried Tauler bewildered, "What do you mean?"

"Well," came the reply, "when it is sunshine-I thank God, when it rains-I thank God, when I have plenty-I thank God, when I am hungry-I thank God; and since God's will is my will, and whatever pleases God pleases me, why should I say that I am unhappy when I am not?"

Tauler looked upon him with awe. "Who are you," he asked. "I am a king," said the peasant.

"A king?" Tauler asked, "Where is your kingdom?" The peasant smiled and whispered softly, "In my heart."

Too many of us are like the gourd that wound itself around a lofty palm tree, and in a few weeks climbed to the very top. "How old are you?" asked the gourd. "About one hundred years," said the palm. "About one hundred years, and no taller! Look, I have grown as tall as you in fewer days than you count years." "I know that well," replied the palm. "Every summer of my life a gourd has climbed up around me as proud as you are, and as short-lived as you will be."

"Oh, how many things I would have to give up!" said a sinner who was wondering whether to receive Christ or not. "So many things I do now I would no longer be able to do." "Don't be afraid," an experienced Christian told him. "Even now aren't there things you can't do? For instance, can you eat dirt?" "No, of course not," was the reply. "I don't even want to eat dirt."

"This is exactly what will happen when Christ begins His life in you," said his friend. "The sin that you now desire you will not want at all."

Lorne Sanny of The Navigators once wrote of his mother: “My mother gave birth to me in a frontier house on a midwestern prairie. On the kitchen counter she placed a list of the ingredients necessary for my formula. At the top of the list was ‘prayer,’ and that remained at the top of her list for me throughout her life...I have her to thank for firmly establishing my spiritual roots.”

The hymnwriter Fanny Crosby gave us more than 6,000 gospel songs. Although blinded by an illness at the age of six weeks, she never became bitter. One time a preacher sympathetically remarked, "I think it is great pity that the Master did not give you sight when He showered so many other gifts upon you." She replied quickly, "Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I should be born blind?" "Why?" asked the surprised clergyman. "Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior!"

One of Miss Crosby's hymns was so personal that for years she kept it to herself. Kenneth Osbeck, author of several books on hymnology, says its revelation to the public came about this way: "One day at a Bible conference in Northfield, Massachusetts, Miss Crosby was asked by D. L. Moody to give a personal testimony. At first she hesitated, then quietly rose and said, 'There is one hymn I have written which has never been published. I call it my soul's poem. Sometimes when I am troubled, I repeat it to myself, for it brings comfort to my heart.' She then recited while many wept, 'Someday the silver cord will break, and I no more as now shall sing; but oh, the joy when I shall wake within the palace of the King! And I shall see Him face to face, and tell the story-saved by grace!'" At the age of 95, Fanny Crosby passed into glory and saw the face of Jesus.

That's the sure hope of every child of God!

Because the New Testament writers assumed that most readers were already familiar with spiritual warfare, only occasional exhortations are given to encourage the churches in it. Today we can make no such assumption, so a brief summary of some of the main principles of spiritual victory and freedom may be helpful.

1. Know your enemy. Speaking of Satan, Paul said, “We are not ignorant of his designs.” We should be well acquainted with the character and strategy of the Evil One, neither dwelling on it too much nor ignoring his active and destructive work: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation,” said Jesus to his sleepy disciples; and in the Lord’s Prayer we say, “Deliver us from evil” or from the Evil One.

2. Keep yourself in the love of God. Jude, writing about worldly people devoid of the Spirit who in the last days would scoff and divide the church, went on to assure his readers that God “is able to keep you from falling”; on their part they were to build themselves up in their faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, and keep themselves in the love of God. It is sometimes said that the Christian who sins is a fool because, if he abides in Christ, he need not sin. In the same way, although we must recognize Satan’s power, we are not to be frightened of it. If we walk in the light with Christ, we have nothing to fear from the powers of darkness. Paul knew that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers...”absolutely nothing, could separate a Christian from the love of God in Jesus Christ. Therefore if we keep ourselves in that love, we are perfectly and eternally safe. The Evil One will not touch us.

3. Be strong in Christ. Paul instructed the Ephesian church: “Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might.” Christ is “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named...all things [are] under his feet” and “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” In particular, our victory over Satan is to be seen in the cross of Christ, for it was there that God “disarmed the principalities and powers,” and it is “by the blood of the Lamb” that we are able to conquer the accuser of the brethren.

The power of the cross can dramatically release people from satanic bondage. Reading verses and passages about the cross are powerful weapons in spiritual warfare, especially in the most severe expressions of it. Generally speaking, a prayerful and confident trust in God’s power over Satan through the cross of Christ is all that is required. We should exercise caution about “deliverance ministries” and indiscriminate exorcisms. Not every malaise can be ascribed to satanic oppression or possession and to do so may create serious disorder. The less sensational principles described in this section will be effective in the vast majority of cases. Christ has won the victory for us. We are to stand firm in it, proclaim it and rejoice in it. That is the way to resist Satan.

4. Be filled with the Spirit. Paul, having warned the Ephesians about “the unfruitful works of darkness” and the days “that are evil,” urged them to continue to be filled with the Spirit. All the gifts of the Spirit were needed to equip them for effective warfare. He told Timothy to be inspired by the “prophetic utterances which pointed to you,” so that “you may wage the good warfare.” Repeatedly, and perhaps painfully, God will remind us of our own utter weakness without him. Pride, seen in self-confidence and self-reliance, so easily dominates our thinking. Like Simon Peter, we think we can do it ourselves: others may fail, but we shall stand firm. We are shocked by the sin of another Christian, but blind to our own weakness. We need to come to that point, in every area of our lives, where we have to depend on the Holy Spirit. Unless we are daily cleansed from our sin by the blood of Jesus, and daily filled with the Spirit as we yield to him, we shall never overcome the Evil One.

5. Be active in Christian witness and service. In the same context of being filled with the Spirit, Paul urged his readers to “make the most of the time” and to wake out of sleep. Jude, too, exhorts Christians to convince those who doubt and to snatch others out of the fire. In other words, in view of the cosmic struggle in which we are engaged, there is not a moment to lose. Every day we need to know what the will of the Lord is, and do it. Isaac Watts was right when he said that “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do,” which must be balanced with Carl Jung’s comment, noted earlier, that “Hurry...is the Devil.” In the Gospels we see Jesus maintaining this balance—working to the point of exhaustion, yet calm and at peace in his spirit, busy but not rushed, alert but not tense. He perfectly accomplished the work that God had given him to do, and Satan had no foothold in his life.

6. Be quick to put right your wrong relationships. Every church is a fellowship of sinners. Inevitably we shall hurt others and feel hurt ourselves. Jesus knew the need for an emphasis on forgiveness, seventy times seven, if need be. Paul knew that we would at times be angry, justly or unjustly. But unless we deal immediately—before the sun goes down—with our anger, and with the problem that prompted it, we will give “opportunity to the devil.” If we go to bed angry, we may be sleepless; and find ourselves both depressed and irritable in the morning. If there is any break in fellowship between two Christians, the Devil will be quick to exploit it.

We also need to keep our lives constantly open to one another in love and thus help each other in the spiritual battle. If I don’t know what is happening in your life,. and you don’t know what is happening in my life, how can we help when either of us is in trouble? However, if we are genuinely sharing our lives, when you are down I may be able to lift you up, and when I am down you may do the same for me. “Two are better than one...For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up...And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not easily broken.” Paul’s instructions about the battle were written to a church, not just to individual Christians, and they could stand together, pray together, lift each other up only as they were genuinely united in love.

7. Put on the whole armour of God. God gives us all the protection that we need. But we must make sure that we are walking with the Lord, that our lives are right (“righteous”) with God and with one another, that we make peace wherever we go, that we lift up that shield of faith together to quench all the flaming darts of the Evil One, that we protect our minds from fears that easily assail, and that we use God’s Word to good effect in the power of the Spirit. Remember, it was by the repeated sword thrusts of God’s Word that Jesus overcame his adversary in the wilderness.

8. Be constant in prayer. “Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.” If, through prayerlessness, we lose our close contact with God, we can never stand firm in the battle. We need daily his “marching orders.” We must come to him, wait upon him, renew our strength in him, listen to him, trust in him, and then go out into the world to face the enemy. If Jesus knew the constant need of this for his own ministry, how much more should we acknowledge our weakness by humble, persistent prayer?

9. Use the festal shout. “Blessed are the people who know the festal shout,” sang the psalmist. Through the centuries, God’s people were often encouraged to shout praises to God, particularly in battle. Joshua told the people: “Shout; for the Lord has given you the city...So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people raised a great shout, and the wall fell down flat...and they took the city.” When Jehoshaphat faced a powerful enemy, he called God’s people to prayer and fasting. The Lord spoke to them through prophecy, promising them victory in the battle. They fell down to worship, and the singers stood up to praise the Lord “in a very loud voice.” As they went into battle, the singers went ahead of the soldiers, singing praises to God. And the Lord gave the victory. “Shout to God with loud songs of joy!” sang the psalmist. “God has gone up with a shout.” In Acts 4 when the believers were faced with a powerful conflict against the rulers who had murdered their Master, they raised their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord...” and they praised him with a loud voice that he was in control of everything, and asked merely for boldness to speak his Word. No wonder they were filled afresh with the Holy Spirit; and no wonder the powers of darkness were driven back!

In Festivals of Praise around the world, I have encouraged many thousands of Christians to give the festal shout, “The Lord reigns!” As large congregations have joined together in “loud shouts of joy,” many have told me afterwards what an encouragement this simple act had been. We need to strengthen each other’s hands in the Lord. When people all over the world are stirring up each other with shouts of hated, shouts of violence, shouts supporting this political candidate or that football team, surely we ought to follow this biblical principle and shout praise to God. After all, “if God is for us, who is against us?” Let us proclaim together that Jesus Christ is the Lord who reigns.

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints” (Ephesians 6:18).

We are in a state of spiritual warfare. This is made clear in a remarkable passage (vv. 10-18) on the spiritual armor of the believer, equipping him for the great battles he must fight.

A glimpse of this warfare also can be seen in Daniel 10. When Daniel prayer, God sent the answer immediately, but it was twenty-one days before the angel conveying the answer got to Daniel. The answer was hindered by the “prince of the kingdom of Persia” (Daniel 10:13), even though Daniel, himself, was situated in Persia. The implication is that key emissaries of Satan (not flesh and blood) (Ephesians 6:12) rule over each geographic area of the world. Not one inch of progress will be uncontested by Satan and his cohorts.

Paul warns of the “wiles” (v. 11) of Satan, which mean stratagems or specific plans directed toward each of us. In other words, Satan tailors his attacks to fit each person.

The hierarchy within the Satanic organization is mentioned as well (v. 12). Remember that we are also fighting a countless host of demons and fallen angels who are now in league with Satan.

Since we are in a very real war, we need to be dressed in full armor. In this passage, the only unprotected part is the back. This surely implies that we must not turn and run.

We must also note where the battle is being fought. This information is given in verse 18. The first activity mentioned once we have donned the armor is PRAYER. The place and time of prayer will be focal point of the battle.

However, we can go into battle knowing that we are not alone (v. 18 tells us the Spirit is there). Satan is already defeated. Remember, “greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world” (I John 4:4). JGH

Aesop speaks in one of his down-to-earth fables of a goatherd who, having been caught in the mountains in a snowstorm, drove his flock into a large cave for shelter. There he discovered some wild goats who had taken refuge before him. The goatherd was so impressed by the size and looks of these goats, so much more beautiful than his own, that he gave the wild goats all the food he could collect. The storm lasted many days, during which the tame goats died of starvation. When the sun shone again, the wild goats ran out and disappeared in the mountains, leaving the disappointed goatherd to make his way home, a poorer, and a wiser man. So it is with all those who exchange the tried and true teaching of God's Word for the ear-tickling speculations of men.

A minister who faithfully proclaimed the Gospel in an open-air meeting was challenged at the close by an unbeliever who stepped from the crowd and said, "I don't believe in heaven or hell. I don't believe in God or Christ. I haven't seen them." Then a man wearing dark glasses came forward and said, "You say there is a river near this place? There is no such thing. You say there are people standing here, but it cannot be true. I haven't seen them. I was born blind. Only a blind man could say what I have said. And only a spiritually blind man could say what you have said. The Bible says of you, 'The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned' (1Co 2:14). Doesn't the Word of God say, 'The fool hath said in his heart, There is not God'?" (Psa 14:1).

Just as some color-blind people are not aware of their color blindness, so it is spiritually. Those who are sinful are not always aware of their sinfulness, of their spiritual color blindness. In recent years, the great railroad companies test the vision of their employees by the aid of skilled eye specialists, with the result that from 10-25 percent of those who apply for positions as engineers and signal men are found to be deficient in color judgment. This is certainly a very pertinent illustration of Christ's teaching in Luke chapter eleven. As the managers of railroads heed the cry of the newspapers and the public to beware of color blindness, and are determined that the men who drive their trains shall know the difference between red and green, so the warning of Christ comes to every one of us, "Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness" (Luk 11:35).

A young Christian who worked for a rich man was always telling his employer that Satan was constantly battling with him, but he always won over Satan. The master made fun of him, telling him that Satan never bothered him. How was that? The young Christian could not answer him. One day, however, they went hunting together. The employer shot at some wild ducks. Some he killed, and some he just wounded. "Run," the employer said, "and catch the wounded ones first before they run away." The young Christian came back laughing. He had the answer to the big question. "You know, sir," he said, "why Satan does not tempt you? Because you are spiritually dead, just like those ducks. He goes after the live ones, ones like me."

On June 13, 1889, the Spokane newspaper printed an editorial pleading for the establishment of a fire department. Seattle had recently been ravaged by fire, and the paper desired to prevent the same calamity from happening in Spokane. Nothing, however, was done.

Two months later Spokane burned to the ground.

A local sportscaster, doing radio coverage of an Indiana high-school football game from the stands, used a chart listing the names, numbers, and positions of the players to help him describe the action. Then it began to rain; the ink on the chart ran, and the numbers on the backs of the players were covered with mud. Identifying the home-team players was easy, but the only familiar name on the lineup of the visiting Chicago team was that of Blansky, a linebacker who was up for all-state. As local listeners didn’t know the Chicago players, and his station wasn’t powerful enough to reach Chicago, the sportscaster made up the names of every Chicago player but Blansky. And since Blansky was the only legitimate name, he did his play-by-play with Blansky making most of the tackles.

The next day, the Chicago coach called him to say he had done a really nice job of covering the game—except for one thing. Blansky had broken his leg in the first half and spent the second half in the hospital, listening to himself playing one heck of a game.

Imagine what the game of bowling would be like if you couldn’t see the pins you were trying to hit. In 1933, Bill Knox did just that—and bowled a perfect game. In Philadelphia’s Olney Alleys, Bill had a screen placed just above the fowl line to obscure his view of the lane. His purpose was to demonstrate the technique of spot bowling, which involves throwing the ball at a selected floor mark on the near end of the lane. Like many bowlers, Bill knew that you can do better if you aim at a mark close to you that’s in line with the pins. He proved his point with a perfect 300 game of 12 strikes in a row.

Spot bowling illustrates part of a wise approach to life. When Paul wrote to the Thessalonians about the return of Christ, he reminded them that the ultimate goal of their salvation was to “be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (5:23). Paul taught them to focus their eyes on near actions that were in line with that goal. He urged them to comfort one another, help the weak, warn the wayward, pray without ceasing, and rejoice always. Then he added that we must do this in the power of Christ who is working in us (vv. 23-24).

Lord, help us to see what we can do today that will keep us focused on Your eternal goal for us. - M.R.D. II

While assembling their new water bed, my sister Betty and her husband, Everett, realized they would need a hose. Everett dashed to the hardware store and bought one. They attached it to the bed, ran it through the apartment to the kitchen tap and left to wait for the bed to fill. About an hour later they checked on its progress. That’s when they discovered Everett had bought a sprinkler hose.

few years ago, when archaeologists began excavating in the courtyard of a medieval monastery, they found seeds that had been dormant for more than 400 years that had begun to grow. King Henry VIII had closed the monastery in 1539, and herbs tended by the monks died. But they sprouted to life again after the archaeologists disturbed the earth.

Those who are elect do follow Christ:

John 10:27 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”

Those who perish do so because they did not receive the truth:

II Thessalonians 2:10 “and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”

God’s choice does not eliminate the need for man’s exercise of faith:

II Thessalonians 2:10 “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

I Timothy 6:12: “Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

God’s choice does not eliminate man’s need to teach the truth:

II Timothy 2:24-5 “And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

While we were in London, Mr. Spurgeon one day took Mr. Sankey and myself to his orphan asylum, and he was telling about them--that some of them had aunts and some cousins, and that every boy had some friend that took an interest in him, and came to see him and gave him a little pocket money, and one day he said while he stood there, a little boy came up to him and said, "Mr. Spurgeon, let me speak to you," and the boy sat down between Mr. Spurgeon and the elder, who was with the clergyman, and said, "Mr. Spurgeon, suppose your father and mother were dead, and you didn't have any cousins, or aunts, or uncles, or friends to come and give you pocket money, and give you presents, don't you think you would feel bad--because that's me?" Said Mr. Spurgeon, "the minute he asked that, I put my right hand down into my pocket and took out the money." Because that's me! And so with the Gospel; we must say to those who have sinned, the Gospel is offered to them.

Charles Spurgeon and Joseph Parker both had churches in London in the 19th century. On one occasion, Parker commented on the poor condition of children admitted to Spurgeon’s orphanage. It was reported to Spurgeon however, that Parker had criticized the orphanage itself.

Spurgeon blasted Parker the next week from the pulpit. The attack was printed in the newspapers and became the talk of the town. People flocked to Parker’s church the next Sunday to hear his rebuttal.

“I understand Dr. Spurgeon is not in his pulpit today, and this is the Sunday they use to take an offering for the orphanage. I suggest we take a love offering here instead.” The crowd was delighted. The ushers had to empty the collection plates three times.

Later that week there was a knock at Parker’s study. It was Spurgeon. “You know Parker, you have practiced grace on me. You have given me not what I deserved, you have given me what I needed.

Mr. Spurgeon, a number of years ago, made a parable. He thought he had a right to make one, and he did it. He said: "There was once a tyrant who ordered one of his subjects into his presence, and ordered him to make a chain. The poor blacksmith--that was his occupation--had to go to work and forge the chain. When it was done he brought it into the presence of the tyrant, and he was ordered to take it away and make it twice the length. He brought it again to the tyrant, and again he was ordered to double it. Back he came when he had obeyed the order, and the tyrant looked at it, and then commanded the servants to bind the man hand and foot with the chain he had made and cast him into prison. "And," Mr. Spurgeon said, "that is what the devil does with man." He makes them forge their own chain, and then binds them hand and foot with it, and casts them into outer darkness." My friends, that is just what these drunkards, these gamblers, these blasphemers--that is just what every sinner is doing. But, thank God, we can tell you of a deliverer. The Son of God has power to break everyone of these fetters if you will only come to Him.

The man who developed the U-2 spy plane for the Central Intelligence Agency tells of what happened after the famous 1960 incident in which U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down by the Soviets. Not knowing Powers was alive, the American government issued its pre-planned cover story: The downed U-2 was on a weather flight and had merely strayed over Soviet territory. But a week later Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gleefully produced Powers, and the Eisenhower administration was caught in an obvious lie.