Connections

Connecting man to man to God!

Week of January 20, 2008

Issue 191

"In my anguish I cried to the Lord, and he answered by setting me free.  The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid.  What can man do to me?"  Psalm 118:5-6


     CONSIDER
"In all His dispensations God is at work for our good.  In prosperity, He tries our gratitude; in mediocrity, our contentment; in misfortune, our submission; in darkness, our faith; under temptation, our steadfastness; and at all times, our obedience and trust in Him."  Unknown


     NEW FREE DAILY PODCASTS OF 'INSPIRED BY... THE BIBLE EXPERIENCE'
Zondervan is now making available a Monday-Friday podcast series of 'Inspired by...The Bible Experience.'  Listeners can subscribe to the 2-minute segments directly from iTunes or Zondervan.com by going to http://feeds.feedburner.com/TBEPodcasts. Each podcast features a dramatic audio presentation from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. According to Ben Witherington, 'Inspired by...The Bible Experience' is "the best audio Bible of all time"....  Read this in full at
http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/NewsRoom/NewsReleases/The+Bible+Experience+Podcasts.htm

     YOUR CROSS
"The second command Jesus gives in Mark 8:34 is not so easy to define.  In Jesus' time, no one ever took up a cross unless less they were going to die on it.  How do we "take up our cross?"  The idea has such a mystical, super-spiritual sound to it. Some have even gone so far as to allow themselves to be crucified in a modified way to show identification with Christ.  But your "cross" is not literal; it is instead an attitude of radical obedience to God in which you willingly accept any consequence for Jesus' sake.  If denying yourself is all about saying no, then taking up the cross is all about saying yes.  "Yes, God, I will do whatever you ask of me -- whatever, whenever."  Kay Warren, Dangerous Surrender: What Happens When You Say Yes to God


     NEW BOOK SUMMARY ONLINE
A detailed book summary is now available online for the 1619 classic Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), a major figure in the Catholic Reformation.  This classic work traces the journey of the soul from its bodily home to its union with God.  In this classic work, St. John of the Cross presents a principle of dogmatic theology: On his own and with God's ordinary aid of grace, man is unable to be purified to the degree necessary for his transformation in God.  Read this summary at
http://www.christianbooksummaries.com/library/v3/cbs0348.pdf

     'BUY LESS' CAMPAIGN FOR LENT IN UK
In a move designed as a challenge to "consumerism as usual" and a reminder of the dominance of money in our lives, the Methodist Church in Britain has launched an alternative credit card-sized card containing a "buy less" message, encouraging people to consume less and live more this Lent (Feb. 6-Mar. 22)....  Read this in full at
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/6599

     SUPER BOWL
Feb. 3, Phoenix, Arizona
http://www.SuperBowl.com

     COWBOYS PLAYER RECOUNTS TOUGH CHILDHOOD
"I grew up in the projects," says Anthony Henry, a veteran cornerback with the Dallas Cowboys who was raised by a single mother, along with two siblings.  "I saw a lot of things she had to overcome as a single parent. She had a second and a third job.  She had to walk one and a half hours to downtown Fort Myers.  The most important thing for her was applying her relationship with Christ to life.  There's nothing that God can't take care of.  That's something I apply to my life as a pro athlete with all the ups and downs, the winning and losing."  Read this in full at
http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=27179

     INSIGHT FROM DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
"With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.  With this faith we will be able to transform the gangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.  With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.  This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing: Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside let freedom ring!"  Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his I Have a Dream speech, August 28, 1963

"I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world.  This is the end of life.  The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain.  The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.  I think I have discovered the highest good. It is love."

"I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their tired bodies, education and culture for their spirits.  I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up.  I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and non-violent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land 'and the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.'  I still believe that we shall overcome."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."  Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

"The church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society."  Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."  Strength to Love (1963)

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." Strength to Love (1963)


     LEADERSHIP TIPS (BUSINESS, FAMILY, LIFE)
"Courage is an outward display of the inward character quality of confidence. Courage is the strength to take risks, face danger, endure difficulty, or withstand fear. Notice, I didn't say courage is an absence of fear. Rather, it withstands fear -- you have to experience fear in order to be courageous!  Courage seems to follow when you take God at his word, believe he'll do what he says, remember his protection in the past, and place yourself in his care.  The more faith you have in God's power, the more courageous you'll be." Katie Brazelton and Shelley Leith, Character Makeover: 40 Days with a Life Coach to Create the Best You


     VERSE TO PONDER
"If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.  And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother."  1 John 4:20-21


     CONSIDER
"Adversity, if for no other reason, is of benefit, since it is sure to bring a season of sober reflection.  Men see clearer at such times.  Storms purify the atmosphere."  Henry Ward Beecher


     STATISTICS
by Martin Marty
According to volume 32 of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, of the 6,691,484,000 people in the world in 2008, in the broad-brush-painted sense, 2,231,421,000 are Christian; 1,412, 301,000 are Muslim; 887,991,000 are Hindu; Buddhists number 391,122,000; and Jews list 15,044,000.  Every 24 hours the world has a population net growth of 219,000 people.  Christians number 170,000 converts per day but find 91,000 defectors, so the net growth is 79,000 Christians each day.  Of the 2,113,199,000 "affiliated" Christians, 1,476,690,000 are "church attenders."  Christian martyrs: 480 per day....  Read this in full at
http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings/archive_2008/0114.shtml

     IT'S TIME TO PARTY
By Mike Yaconelli
It doesn't take much to make most of us realize that we have become too serious, too tense, too stressful.  The result is that we have forgotten how to live life.  It seems like the older we get, the more difficult it is for us to enjoy living.
 
It reminds me of a description of life given by Rabbi Edward Cohn: "Life is tough.  It takes up a lot of your time, all your weekends, and what do you get in the end of it?"
 
I think that the life cycle is all backward.  You should die first, get it out of the way.  Then you live 20 years in an old-age home.  You get kicked out when you're too young.  You get a gold watch, you go to work.  You work 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement.  You go to college; you party until you're ready for high school; you go to grade school; you become a little kid; you play.  You have no responsibilities. You become a little baby; you go back into the womb; you spend your last months floating; and you finish up as a gleam in somebody's eye.
 
It's hard to imagine we were a gleam in someone's eye once.  What happened to the gleam in our eye?  What happened to that joyful, crazy, spontaneous, fun-loving spirit we once had?  The childlikeness in all of us gets snuffed out over the years...
 
The sign that Jesus is in our hearts, the evidence of the truth of the gospel is ... we still have a light on in our souls.  We still have a gleam in our eye.  We are alive, never boring, always playful, exhibiting in our everydayness the "spunk" of the spirit.  The light in our souls is not some pietistic somberness, it is the spontaneous, unpredictable love of life...I believe it's time for the party to begin.
Copyright 1989 Mike Yaconelli.  Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.


     HYMNAL GOES DIGITAL
A leading publisher is launching its first online digital hymn book to allow clergy to download song lyrics, sheet music, and backing tracks to 1,800 worship songs. HarperCollins has placed online the entire contents of Mission Praise, the top selling evangelical hymn book first published to coincide with the 1984 campaign of evangelist Billy Graham and which has subseqently sold more than 2 million copies. It's thought to be the first major hymn book to be made digitally available in the UK....  Read this in full at
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3200010.ece

     HEAVY-METAL BRUCE :)
by W. Bruce Cameron
http://www.wbrucecameron.com

My doctor has informed me that I have Mercury (a planet more than 3000 miles in diameter) in my bloodstream. No wonder I feel bloated!

Mercury is also a metal that remains liquid at room temperature, same as my mother's lasagna.  I'll speculate, however, that mercury is far different from my mother's lasagna, in that the dog would probably EAT mercury.  All the dog ever did with the lasagna was chew it a little before spitting it out.  My dad would notice all the soggy piles of lasagna under the table and then we'd get in plenty of trouble for mistreating the dog.

The downside to having so much mercury in my bloodstream is that it can cause memory loss and...well, other things. The upside is that I always can tell you exactly what temperature it is.

In astrology, Mercury is said to inform communication and mental capacity, two things my editor says I don't exhibit in my column.

I also have a high concentration of another "heavy metal" my bloodstream -- lead.  No wonder I'm reluctant to throw away all my Black Sabbath albums! Lead can come from many sources, including tap water and eating paint chips or Oldsmobiles.

People who have to pay a lot of speeding tickets are said to have a "lead foot" or a "teenage son."  My own teenage son theorized that all this heavy lead coursing through my blood must mean that I weigh more than if I were full of something completely inert, such as his ambition.  To determine how much extra weight I was carrying around as a result of my lead-laden blood, he decided to conduct an experiment that would distract me from noticing he hadn't done the dishes.  He took a sheet of aluminum foil and wrapped it around my forearm, telling me that the foil would represent the lead in my body, because it was approximately the thickness of my skin and somehow this made sense because he's a teenager and knows everything.  He then calculated how much foil it would take to cover me completely, since I wouldn't let him use up all the aluminum wrap we had in the kitchen on the grounds that it was expensive and I didn't care if this was An Experiment Important To All Humanity.  Then he determined how much volume the crumpled foil would fill, somehow arriving at around one cubic foot.

Given the weight of a cubic foot of lead, of the 165 lbs. making up my body weight, 147 of them come from the metals in my bloodstream.  No wonder I have so much trouble losing weight!

Knowing that I've got all this lead in my body has changed some of my attitudes.  For example, I'm no longer afraid of being exposed to things like radiation, or bullets. On the other hand, I don't dare go outside in a rainstorm for fear of rusting to a halt.  I'm having a medical alert bracelet made that's imprinted with the words "oil can."

My doctor informs me that having such a toxic level of metal in my blood could mean a shortened lifespan, though the good news is that when I die, my family can avoid the expense of a funeral and just dump my body in the recycling bin. He has put me on a medication designed to fix the problem, hoping that one of the benefits will be enhanced mental capacity so I'll remember to pay his bill.

The ingredients in the pills attach themselves to the molecules of metal and move them out in a matter that would be indelicate to describe -- let's just say that as a result, I've now got more lead in my pencil.

The treatment to extrude the metals from my body can take more than a year, which, to put it into perspective, is approximately the half life of my mother's lasagna.  During this time, my doctor has warned, I may experience some odd sensations, such as the weird feeling, as I sleep, that my son is stealthily wrapping me in aluminum foil.  But at the end of it all, I'll be healthier, stronger, more mentally alert, and 18 lbs!
From The Cameron Column, a free Internet newsletter:
http://www.wbrucecameron.com/

Copyright 2008 W. Bruce Cameron.  Permission is granted to send this to others, with attribution, but not for commercial purposes.


     HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR TIRES
Looking for ways to "go green" without spending a lot of money?  Here's a tip -- check your tire pressure each month.  Maintaining proper inflation can increase your gas mileage and save you money at the pump, while also reducing carbon emissions.  Get started with the step-by-step checklist at
http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/cars/maintaintires/tires.htm

     CONSIDER
"Happiness is not in our circumstances, but in ourselves.  It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are."  John Sheerin


     VERSE TO PONDER
"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life."  Philippians 2:14-16


     THIS WEEK'S HYMN: NOW TIME, BY MOMENTS, STEALS AWAY
Words: John Newton, 1779
Music: Arthur S. Sullivan, 1872

Time, by moments, steals away,
First the hour, and then the day;
Small the daily loss appears,
Yet it soon amounts to years:
Thus another year is flown,
Now it is no more our own
(If it brought or promised good)
Than the years before the flood.

But (may none of us forget)
It has left us much in debt;
Favors from the Lord received,
Sins that have His Spirit grieved;
Marked by an unerring hand
In His book recorded stand;
Who can tell the vast amount,
Placed to each of our account?

Happy, the believing soul!
Christ for you has paid the whole;
While you own the debt is large,
You may plead a full discharge:
But poor careless sinner, say,
What can you to justice pay?
Tremble, lest when life is past,
Into prison you be cast!

Will you still increase the score?
Still be careless, as before?
O, forbid it, gracious Lord,
Touch their spirits by Thy Word!
Now, in mercy, to them show
What a mighty debt they owe!
All their unbelief subdue,
Let them find forgiveness too.

Spared to see another year,
Let Thy blessing meet us here;
Come, Thy dying work revive,
Bid Thy drooping garden thrive:
Sun of righteousness arise!
Warm our hearts, and bless our eyes;
Let our prayer Thy bowels move,
Make this year a time of love!
>from CyberHymnal at
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/t/b/tbmsaway.htm

ON PRAYER

"Nor are we alone in our struggles.  The Holy Spirit supports our helplessness. Left to ourselves we do not know what prayers to offer or how to offer them.  But in those inarticulate groans which rise from the depth of our being, we recognize the voice of none other than the Holy Spirit.  He makes intercession; and His intercession is sure to be answered.  For God Who searches the inmost recesses of the heart can interpret His own Spirit's meaning.  He knows that His own Will regulates Its petitions, and that they are offered for men dedicated to His service."  William Sanday (1843-1920) & Arthur C. Headlam (1862-1947), A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, p. 212 [1896]
 

     PRAY FOR PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS TODAY

http://christiansincrisis.net/

     DAILY BLESSING PACT

Use the following list as your daily prayer guide. Think of a brother or situation that applies and lift them up in prayer.

I am agreeing in prayer with you for God’s blessings to overtake you!

PERSONAL

Marital harmony

Family unity

Children saved

Faithful pastor

Spirit-filled church

Real friendships

Relatives redeemed

Educational benefits

Recreational time

Fulfilling career

Favor with God and man

Be in God’s will

FINANCIAL

Better Jobs

Raises or bonuses

Benefits

Sales & commissions

Business Growth

Settlements

Estates & inheritances

Investment increase

Rebates & returns

Checks in the mail

Gifts & surprises

Money to be found

Bills decrease while blessings increase

"And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God" (Deut. 28:2).

[As you travel on business or vacation, let me know if you'd like the church guys to pray for your safety and spiritual effectiveness. I'll add your name to the list for the time you'll be away.]

     CLASSIFIEDS

Are you looking for something or do you have something to sell?  Let me know and I'll put it in this newsletter.

MAKE MONEY MEET PEOPLE!

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http://www.directmatches.com/goglobal

     SHARE YOUR FAVORITE WEBSITES

Tell us what sites you find enjoyable and why.

Digital TV Transformation in 2009
https://www.dtv2009.gov/

Retuers News Map
http://www.reuters.com/news/newsMaps

Traveler IQ Challenge
http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq

All links to websites are provided as a service, and do not imply endorsement by our church.

(BTW: whenever the URLs in this newsletter are too long to turn into links on your e-mail program, just copy the entire URL (two lines or more) and paste it into a temporary email message.  Then delete the return in the middle of it and copy it again.  Then paste it into your web browser and hit enter.)
 

A bus station is where a bus stops.  A train station is where a train stops.
My office is called a work station.  Hmmmmmmm.

Min. Frank Coleman, Editor

[email protected]

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