Fourty Days of Love

Have you ever been confronted with a message that changed your perspective? One church chose as its Lenten theme, "Forty Days of Love." Each week members of the congregation were encouraged to show their love and appreciation in different ways. The first week they were encouraged to send notes to people who had made positive contributions to their lives.

After the first service a man in the congregation wanted to speak to his pastor. The pastor describes the man as "kind of macho, a former football player who loved to hunt and fish, a strong self-made man." The man told his pastor, "I love you and I love this church, but I'm not going to participate in this Forty Days of Love stuff. It's OK for some folks," he said, "but it's a little too sentimental and syrupy for me."

A week went by. The next Sunday this man waited after church to see his pastor again. "I want to apologize for what I said last Sunday," he told him, "about the Forty Days of Love. I realized on Wednesday that I was wrong."

"Wednesday?" his pastor repeated "What happened on Wednesday?" "I got one of those letters!" the man said. The letter came as a total surprise. It was from a person the man never expected to hear from. It touched him so deeply he now carries it around in his pocket all the time. "Every time I read it," he said, "I get tears in my eyes." It was a transforming moment in this man's life. Suddenly he realized he was loved by others in the church. This changed his entire outlook. "I was so moved by that letter," he said, "I sat down and wrote ten letters myself."

Quoted from: www.devotions.net/devotions/files/2001/01jan/23.htm

Cookies At The Airport

A woman was waiting at an airport one night
There were several long hours to wait for her flight.
She hunted for reading in the airport's gift shop
bought a big bag of cookies -- found a place she could drop.

She was engrossed in her book, but she happened to see
a man sat beside her -- as bold as can be
and grabbed up a cookie from the bag in between
which she tried to ignore -- and not make a scene.

She munched at her cookies and glanced at the clock
as the masculine cookie-thief diminished her stock!
She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by
Thinking, "If I wasn't a lady, I'd blacken his eye!"

With each cookie she took, he took one or two.
With only one left, she watched what he'd do
With a grin on his face, and a nice nervous laugh
He took the last cookie and broke it in half!

He offered her half as he munched on the other
She snatched from him and murmured "Oh Brother!
This guy has some nerve, and he's also quite rude
He never showed even polite gratitude."

She had never known when she had been quite so galled
She smiled with relief when her flight -- it was called.
She gathered her stuff and marched to the gate.
(With not even a glance at the thieving ingrate.)

She boarded the plane and sank in her seat,
Then sought out her book which was almost complete.
As she reached in her bag, she gasped with surprise,
Her bag of cookies were in front of her eyes!

"If mine are right here," she moaned in despair,
then the others were his and he was trying to share!
Too late to apologize, she realized with grief
That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief!

Author Valerie Cox - From the book: A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul

The Scorpion

“A holy man was engaged in his morning meditation under a tree whose roots stretched out over the riverbank. During his meditation he noticed that the river was rising, and a scorpion caught in the roots was about to drown. He crawled out on the roots and reached down to free the scorpion, but every time he did so, the scorpion struck back at him.

“An observer came along and said to the holy man, ‘Don’t you know that’s a scorpion, and it’s in the nature of a scorpion to want to sting?’

“To which the holy man replied, ‘That may well be, but it is my nature to save, and must I change my nature because the scorpion does not change its nature?”

Traditional

Character Fruit

"The fruit of the Spirit is not excitement or orthodoxy: it is character."

G B Duncan

The Christian life is not a constant high

The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, 'O God, forgive me,' or 'Help me.'

Billy Graham

Someone Else

We are all saddened to learn this week of the death of one of our church's most valuable members, Someone Else. Someone's passing created a vacancy that will be difficult to be. Else has been with us for many years, and for every one of those years, Someone did far more than a normal person's share of the work. Whenever leadership was mentioned, this wonderful person was looked to for inspiration as well as results: Someone Else can work with that group." Whenever there was a job to do, a class to teach, or a meeting to attend, one name was on everyone's list- Someone Else. "Let Someone Else do it" was a common refrain heard throughout the church. It was common knowledge that Someone Else was among the largest givers in the church. Whenever there was a financial need, everyone just assumed Someone Else would make up the difference. Someone Else was a wonderful person, sometimes appearing superhuman; but a person can only do so much. Were the truth known, everybody expected too much of Someone Else. Now Someone Else is gone! We wonder what we are going to do. Someone Else left a wonderful example to follow, but who is going to follow it? Who is going to do the things Someone Else did? Remember-we can't depend on Someone Else anymore!

From email Illustration List

An Eagle's Egg

An American Indian tells about a brave who found an eagle’s egg and put it into the nest of a prairie chicken. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life, the changeling eagle, thinking he was a prairie chicken, did what the prairie chickens did. He scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects to eat. He clucked and cackled. And he flew in a brief thrashing of wings and flurry of feathers no more than a few feet off the ground. After all, that’s how prairie chickens were supposed to fly.

Years passed. And the changeling eagle grew very old. One day, he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky. Hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents, it soared with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

“What a beautiful bird!” said the changeling eagle to his neighbor. “What is it?”

“That’s an eagle—the chief of the birds,” the neighbor clucked. “But don’t give it a second thought. You could never be like him.”

So the changeling eagle never gave it another thought. And it died thinking it was a prairie chicken.

The Pursuit of Excellence, Ted W. Engstrom, (Zondervan Corporation,1982), pp. 15-16

Chosen Vessel

The Master was searching for a vessel to use; On the shelf there were many - which one would He choose? "Take me", cried the gold one, "I'm shiny and bright, I'm of great value and I do things just right. My beauty and lustre will outshine the rest And for someone like You, Master, gold would be the best!"

The Master passed on with no word at all; He looked at a silver urn, narrow and tall; "I'll serve You, dear Master, I'll pour out Your wine And I'll be at Your table whenever You dine, My lines are so graceful, my carvings so true, And my silver will always compliment You."

Unheeding the Master passed on to the brass, It was widemouthed and shallow, and polished like glass. "Here! Here!" cried the vessel, "I know I will do, Place me on Your table for all men to view."

"Look at me", called the goblet of crystal so clear, "My transparency shows my contents so dear, Though fragile am I, I will serve You with pride, And I'm sure I'll be happy in Your house to abide."

The Master came next to a vessel of wood, Polished and carved, it solidly stood. "You may use me, dear Master", the wooden bowl said, "But I'd rather You used me for fruit, not for bread!"

Then the Master looked down and saw a vessel of clay. Empty and broken it helplessly lay. No hope had the vessel that the Master might choose, To cleanse and make whole, to fill and to use.

"Ah! This is the vessel I've been hoping to find, I will mend and use it and make it all Mine." "I need not the vessel with pride of its self; Nor the one who is narrow to sit on the shelf; Nor the one who is big mouthed and shallow and loud; Nor one who displays his contents so proud; Not the one who thinks he can do all things just right; But this plain earthy vessel filled with My power and might."

Then gently He lifted the vessel of clay. Mended and cleansed it and filled it that day. Spoke to it kindly. "There's work you must do, Just pour out to others as I pour into you."

From Sermons.org Email list

In His Steps

"It is the personal element that Christian discipleship needs to emphasize. ‘The gift without the giver is bare.' The Christianity that attempts to suffer by proxy is not the Christianity of Christ. Each individual Christian business man, citizen, needs to follow in His steps along the path of personal sacrifice to Him. There is not a different path to-day from that of Jesus' own times. It is the same path. The call of this dying century and of the new one soon to be, is a call for a new discipleship, a new following of Jesus, more like the early, simple, apostolic Christianity, when the disciples left all and literally followed the Master. Nothing but a discipleship of this kind can face the destructive selfishness of the age with any hope of overcoming it. There is a great quantity of nominal Christianity today. There is need of more of the real kind. We need revival of the Christianity of Christ. We have, unconsciously, lazily, selfishly, formally grown into a discipleship that Jesus himself would not acknowledge. He would say to many of us when we cry, ‘Lord, Lord,' ‘I never knew you!' Are we ready to take up the cross? Is it possible for this church to sing with exact truth,

‘Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow Thee?'

If we can sing that truly, then we may claim discipleship.

Charles M Sheldon in "In His Steps - What Would Jesus Do" p237