The Shema
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.
Deuteronomy 6:4-7
Quotes of the month
I have one desire now – to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.
Elisabeth Elliot
A man scarcely needs to be reminded that he must breathe. It is essential to his very life that he should breathe – and it is essential to our spiritual life that we should pray. I never thought it necessary to prepare a discourse to exhort
you to eat – neither ought it to be necessary to exhort Christians to pray. It should be to you an instinct of your new nature, as natural to your spiritual being as a good appetite is to a man in health. There should be a holy hunger and thirst to pray.
Charles Spurgeon
(Editor’s note: I quote Charles Spurgeon often. He was the Billy Graham of the 1800’s. His book “John Ploughman’s Talk and Pictures” remains one of my favorites. Research him online and you will find many valuable Christian resources.)
To think that God ordained a filthy minded, adulterous, wealthy man with evil in his heart to preside over a nation challenges my self-righteous understanding. But He did, and that sinful man by grace gave us the Psalms. # Kind David
Andrew Wommack Ministries Website
Pontius Pilate: Joseph, seriously? I really don’t understand. You’re one of the riches men in the region, and you’ve spent a small fortune on a new tomb for you and your family, and you want to give it to this man Jesus?
Joseph: No worries, Governor Pilate, it’s just for the weekend.
Introverted Christian Memes Website
(Editor’s note: There was a time when our nation prayed together for a common cause. It was nice. You could almost feel everyone praying with you. We should definitely strive to get back to that in this country. The following is an example of President Franklin D. Roosevelt leading our nation together in prayer)
Text of Radio Address - Prayer on D-Day, June 6, 1944: "My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far. And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer: Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity. Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice. Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts. Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces. And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be. And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment, let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace, a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil. Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen." President Franklin D. Roosevelt
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(Editor’s note: The following is a reprint of the follow-up article from last month that I wrote when I was running the Shao-lin Center for Martial Arts full time. It was 2016. I was well on my way in my walk with Jesus by this time, but it was evident to me that many of my students were not; nor were they remotely interested in getting to know Him. I chose to role play, pretending as if I, too, was still undecided about Jesus. It was written in an almost flippant, cavalier style to achieve my goal. Funny in a way, yet hopefully thought provoking. Hope you enjoy)
Her Beauty Was Odd
Act II
by Si-Gung Frank Versagi
Okay, so you know I had to go home and find a Bible, right. I mean, really, she knew my rototiller wouldn’t start. Just too bizarre a set of circumstances to ignore. So I get home, and I know I have a Bible somewhere. I’m just hoping it’s not buried under a stack of old Playboy issues; how embarrassing would that be. Cool. Found it buried underneath some old National Geographics, much better than babes. So here I am, sitting at a table with this old, dusty Bible my mother had given me once upon a time, which I could never understand why. But where to start? Then I remembered the pretty woman said just ask the Holy Spirit to guide your hand and go from there. Well, that’s our first problem. I’m not even sure what a Holy Spirit is. So what else does someone in the Internet age do nowadays when they want to find something; you Google it, of course. So I type in Holy Spirit. Wow. A ton of info, as in pages and pages. So I start scrolling around and reading and reading. And a common theme kept coming up throughout everything I was going through, it seems the Holy Spirit is just that, a Holy Spirit. It is simply the spirit of God: His power, His essence, His feelings; and most telling it seems is His guidance. So I can ask for guidance. It’s not unlike breaking down and finally reading the instruction manual for something. So I sit there and quietly say to myself, Holy Spirit, I’m not really sure how all this works, but if you don’t mind, could you help me out here. This Bible is huge, and I have no idea where to start. So I sat still for a few moments, and then just said heck with it, open the thing up, man, or you’re never going to know. So I did. The first thing I see is the name James. I’m thinking okay, that’s cool. I know a couple guys named Jim and they’re pretty good guys. Let’s check this out. So I’m looking down at all these numbers, and even the paragraphs are numbered, so I’m thinking it must be some kind of referencing system. So I noticed my right hand had stopped at Chapter 1, paragraph, or maybe it’s verse, 13. So I read on. And it says that God would never tempt His children, He just doesn’t or wouldn’t do that to His kids. It is the devil that tempts us, trying to draw us away from doing the right thing. Well, that’s interesting. So are you telling me all those “not so good” ideas that come into my mind are from the devil. Well, I don’t like that. I don’t like getting messed with by anybody, especially this devil character. Why would the devil want us to do bad things? What is he trying to keep us from? So I look down a bit further and come across a paragraph or verse, whatever it is, 21 in the same chapter; and I’ll paraphrase here: Therefore, lay down all filthiness and naughtiness and receive God’s grace and love, and be good and kind. Be strong men of character and good soldiers, but be kind when you can. So God doesn’t tempt us, and God wants us to be good, strong soldiers, but be nice when we can. That’s cool. I can live with that. I’m always telling my Kungfu students that I will teach them to be excellent fighters so they can protect themselves and their families, but don’t go out looking for a fight. Only use your skills if you have to. Maybe this is kind of the same thing. So then I thought of something, and I have no idea why: Ever been watching a Browns game and you always see that one guy in the Dawg Pound holding up a sign that says John 3:16. As a matter of fact, at almost every big stadium event you see that one guy holding up that same sign. So now I’m thinking maybe this chapter and paragraph or verse numbering system is for people to go find a specific spot, since this Bible is so huge; that would make sense. So I start paging through this enormous book; can’t find John. Maybe the stadium guy wasn’t talking about the Bible. I don’t know. I find a table of contents, thank goodness; and there it is, a chapter for John. Cool. So I go to Chapter 3, verse 16 (I found out they call them verses), and I read it. Wow. Can’t paraphrase this; it’s too unbelievable: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Wow again. Seriously? Who does that? Can you imagine saying to someone, here’s my little boy that I raised and love; now go ahead and kill him so that others could live. What unthinkable love God must have for us; and what the heck did I do to deserve it. Nothing, as far as I know. What a sacrifice. Now that’s just credibility. I mean, it is. And think about what Jesus had to do. Okay, dad, I’ll let these idiots kill me because you said so, and so that the rest of mankind doesn’t have to rot in hell. Holy cow. This is some deep instruction manual. Now you have my curiosity. I mean, I had always heard of Jesus. Really, who hasn’t? But I thought he was just some pacifist running around turning the other cheek. Then I look through John a little further and come across Chapter 2, verse 15. Seems some bad characters were hanging out in a temple doing disgraceful things, so Jesus goes and finds some chords and twists them up into a whip and chases the bad guys out. Jesus making weapons. Now I can relate to that. Maybe I’ll have to read up on this Jesus person a bit more, but this is a huge book, huge. So I flip all the way back to almost the beginning and stumble across a chapter called Psalms, wind up at Chapter 10, verse 14. And this verse talks about how God, the Father of Jesus, remember He gave His son up to die, is and will always be the helper of the fatherless. Now I can really relate to that. To all those guys whose dad wasn’t exactly the greatest, we have an almighty Father that will help us. Now that will work. I just have to figure out how to talk to Him. Oh, wait a minute. Maybe that is what prayer is all about. Sitting quietly in your own little spot when no one else is around, and just saying or thinking, hey, I wouldn’t mind some help, some guidance, you know, if you’re not too busy. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think prayer means you have to go find a church and be around 100 people and read some scripted words that somebody made up. I think it’s just a personal thing; your own personal thoughts and feelings coming out. Who knows, it might be a big relief to chat with somebody you know is more knowledgeable than you, like a dad; and if you think about it, has been around since the beginning of time. As a matter of fact, I think He even created time. He must know something. So what now? I have read a lot of instruction manuals in my 60 plus years of life, probably not as many as I should have, but this Bible is just so full of info, and instructions, and some really cool warrior stories. So let’s think about this: Some gorgeous woman knows things about me that there’s no way she could have, she seemed like some kind of angel in human form; she tells me to go read the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (Bible) instruction manual; I do, at least some of it; I come away from it feeling as though it has some legitimate street cred. So now what in the world am I supposed to do? You know what, I’m going to approach it this way: it’s probably not that much different from lifting. You know what I mean? You didn’t start out benching 225, you had to work up to it, little by little; and I know you didn’t start deadlifting 250, or you’d still be crippled. It took some time, and some constant, consistent workouts. Maybe I’ll approach this Bible thing the same way. Just check it out little by little, read some every day, and see what happens. I can tell you one thing, though, just from my initial scrolling through it, it seems the common theme here is just be a good guy, do the right thing, don’t be so selfish, maybe treat other people the way you want to be treated. There’s certainly nothing objectionable about doing that. I think deep down all us guys probably do want to be decent, honorable men. Men with valor. Remember that word from way back when? I always used to like that word. Reading this Bible for just a few minutes a day makes me feel like that. I have to tell you, it’s kind of a good
feeling. Maybe I should go back to the pretty angel like lady in the park, see what I should do next. In the meantime, maybe I’ll just try to behave myself a bit more and keep reading this newly found instruction manual. Lord knows, I’m tired of wasting time in life putting things together backwards. Maybe I could use a little guidance.
Stay tuned…
copyright@scma2016
Radically Changed by Alistair Begg |
Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 ESV |
The proof of Christianity lies in its power. Only the power of Christ can take men and women, lost to shame, and make them sons and daughters of God. There is no depth of guilt to which someone can plummet or degree of humiliation someone can feel that puts them beyond God’s forgiving grace. As he concludes a long, ugly list, Paul states, “Such were some of you.” This statement is a shout of triumph, not of remorse. It is past tense, not present. Why? Because of Jesus’ transforming power. No man can change himself; no woman can change herself—but Jesus can change them! Do we actually believe a total personal transformation can happen? We are tempted to offer people cosmetic fixes but tell them they must now limp through the rest of their lives as a result of former sins, or to assure them that they are saved by grace but must now work hard to change themselves. Where did we get these messages? Did Jesus tell people, I’ll touch your life and change you, but I want you to know that you’ll only be changed a wee bit—now it’s up to you? No! He said, I’ll make you brand-new from the inside out. I’ll transform you, liberate you, change you. That’s Jesus’ message. And that was the testimony of these Corinthian Christians. They were one kind of person—sinful, facing judgment. But then they were transformed. Now they were different. So how does this transformation begin? With a clear view of our own sin. If I don’t know myself to be sinful, how could I ever know myself to be saved? We must each face the depths of our own depravity so that when God’s word tells us that Jesus came to rescue people from every trial and entanglement of life and give them His Spirit to change them from inside out, we will reach out for Him with both hands. That’s salvation! That’s transformation! Every Christian is living evidence of the fact that God changes lives. There are men and women everywhere who are living proofs of Christ’s re-creating, life-transforming power. Are we prepared, then, to have a church full of people who were once sexually immoral, adulterers, drunks, and swindlers? And are we prepared to acknowledge that this is what we ourselves were but no longer are, and all by grace? Or do we just want churches of people properly put together—fairly acceptable individuals who really believe they have no need of Jesus? Jesus saves, and Jesus transforms. By faith, you are not what you were, and you will be able to say that again next month and next year. Who seems to you to be too steeped in sin ever to come to Christ? Pray for divine transformation. What part of your own life feels too resistant to change ever to please Christ? Pray for divine transformation. You cannot change anyone, including yourself. But Christ is powerful to do what you cannot. |
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Easy Scripture verse to memorize. One of my favorites.
May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.
Psalm 141:2
copyright@TheSeedSower2024
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