Category Archives: Eternity

Play

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lean.jpgONE OF MY favorite scenes in Lean on Me takes place right after Morgan Freeman (Principle Joe Clark) orders the security guards to expurgate the drug dealers and hoodlums from Eastside…
The rest of the student body watches in disbelief and cheers as the riffraff is forced off the stage and out of school forever. Principle Clark then says ominously, “The next time it may be you. And if you do no better than them, it will be you!” After a brief, inspirational charge, he strides past the stunned audience and out of the auditorium. Then one darling young woman turns to the friend beside her and says, “Mr. Clark don’t play!”
That phrase sums up much of Zephaniah’s message: God doesn’t wink at sin; God doesn’t compromise His holiness; God doesn’t sit idly by while His people cavort with idols. . .God don’t play.
Some of you might be thinking, “Well, I know some real stinkers who’ve never paid a divine penalty for rotten behavior. God seems to be twiddling His thumbs while they have a moral meltdown. Why doesn’t He wallop them for their whopper sins instead of spanking me for minor infractions?” If you’ve pondered along those lines, you’re not alone. There have been many times when I’ve questioned God doles out punishment. When I’ve wondered why He doesn’t obliterate certain people into grease spots — or at least singe them a little.
But we need to remember that the lack of overt, tangible punishment doesn’t mean anyone ever gets away with rebellion against God. There will always be a price to pay for sin. The highest price of all is to be separated from Him. Lisa Harper, “God Doesn’t Do Recess,” Tough Love, Tender Mercies, 72-73
KneEmail: “I will stretch out My hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off every trace of Baal from this place, the names of the idolatrous priests with the pagan priests–Those who worship the host of heaven on the housetops; those who worship and swear oaths by the LORD, but who also swear by Milcom; those who have turned back from following the LORD, and have not sought the LORD, nor inquired of Him.” Zephaniah 1.4-6
Bible reading for 05.27.11: John 10.1-23; 2 Chronicles 1-3
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Camping

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exploding.jpgMUCH HAS BEEN written about the alleged time and day for the end of the world…
The media has used it to make fun of “Christianity.” Some no doubt will say that because the Judgment day did not come that it will never happen! But a sobering thought crossed my mind last Saturday night. What if Mr. Camping had been right? What if the world had ended? What if the Judgment Day had occurred?
There would be no more chances for me to tell my wife and children how much I love them or how much they mean to my life.
There would be no more chances for me to say I’m sorry to someone I might have offended.
There would be no more chances for me to preach messages that so badly need to be heard.
There would be no more chances for me to make sure my life is right with God.
There would be no more chances for me to spend time with friends and loved ones.
There would be no more chances for me to tell friends how special they are to me.
There would be no more chances for me to express gratitude to someone who has been kind to me.
There would be no more chances for me to mend broken relationships.
There would be no more chances for me to repent of sins in my life.
There would be no more chances for me to study the Word of God.
There would be no more chances for me to pray for others.
The fact is Mr. Camping was wrong, but it is still true that “the Day of the Lord will come…” (2 Peter 3:9-10). It is still true that we will all “stand before the judgment seat of God.” (Romans 14:10) It is still true that “each one of us will give an account of himself before God.” (Romans 14:12) The question is as valid as ever, “Are you ready for the Judgment Day?”
There is still time. Do something you need to do today. Don’t delay. Remember these words of our Savior, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” (John 9:4)
Dear Father, thank you so much for allowing us more opportunities to do something we need to do now. Help us to quit putting off important tasks that need to be accomplished and important words that need to be said. Help us dear God, to live every day for You. In the Name of our wonderful Savior we pray, Amen. Jeff Jenkins, http://thejenkinsinstitute.com/2011/05/what-if-mr-camping-had-been-right/
KneEmail: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.” 2 Peter 3.9-10
Bible reading for 05.23.11: John 8.1-27; 1 Chronicles 19-21
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Rescue

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A FEW WEEKS ago an interesting phenomenon occurred that had Israeli scientists baffled…
A Gray whale appeared off the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Gray whales have not been seen in the Atlantic Ocean for hundreds of years. Apparently the big fella got a little lost as scientists suspect he swam in all the way from the Pacific Ocean. This event had me wondering in numerous ways… about whales.
It reminded me of a story written in the San Francisco Chronicle about a female Humpback that had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. Weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat, with hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, tail, and torso, and a line tugging in her mouth.
Thankfully, a fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was in such bad condition the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her, a very dangerous proposition. One slap of her enormous tail could kill a rescuer. Undaunted, these brave souls worked for hours cutting her free. Finally, they were able to free her. The moment she was freed, the divers say she began to swim in circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, gently — as if to say, “Thank you.”
THOUGHT: There are deeply wounded and entangled souls in our communities who are desperate and near to sinking, never to be seen again. Where are the brave souls ready to risk the danger and gather a team of rescuers to cut them loose and bring them to joyous freedom from sin? Isn’t this exactly what our Lord has done for us? worthydevotions.com
KneEmail: “But others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” Jude 23
Bible reading for 11.23.10: James 5; Ezekiel 20, 21
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Success

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YUSUF WAS A Yussif 350-pound wrestling champion in Europe a couple of generations ago…
After he won the European championship, he sailed to America to wrestle our champ, whose name was Strangler Lewis — a little guy by comparison who weighed just a shade over 200 pounds. Although he wasn’t very big, Strangler had a simple plan for defeating his opponents and it had never failed to work. He put his massive arm around the neck of his opponent and cut off the oxygen. Many an opponent had passed out in the ring with Strangler Lewis. The problem when he fought Yussif the Turk was that Yusuf didn’t have a neck. His body went from his head to his massive shoulders. Lewis could never get his hold and it wasn’t long that the Turk flipped Lewis to the mat and pinned him.
After winning the championship, the Turk demanded all five thousand dollars in gold. After he wrapped the championship belt around his vast waist, he stuffed the gold into the belt and boarded the next ship back to Europe. He was a success! He had captured America’s glory and her gold!
He set sail on the SS Bourgogne. Halfway across the Atlantic, a storm struck and the ship began to sink. Yusuf went over the side with his gold still strapped around his body. The added weight was too much for the Turk and he sank like an anvil before they could get him into a lifeboat. He was never seen again.
Maybe you think, “What a fool! He should have had a lot more sense than that!” But, the truth of the matter is, we all tend to grasp the things of this world and hold onto them even while we’re sinking. Solomon made this observation: “Then I returned and saw vanity under the sun: There is one alone, without companion: He has neither son nor brother. Yet there is no end to all his labors, nor is his eye satisfied with riches. But he never asks, ‘For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good?’ This also is vanity and a grave misfortune.” (Ecclesiastes 4:8)
Solomon describes a man, like so many today, who doesn’t know how to quit. He can’t slow down. He’s driven to succeed, to achieve, to accumulate. He works harder and harder to become that successful person he so wants to be. And never once does he pause long enough to ask the question, “Who am I doing this for? Why do I feel compelled to run faster and faster in the rat race?”
Success promises a view from the top. But, without God in the picture, success will drag you down just as it did for Yusuf, the Terrible Turk. Alan Smith
KneEmail: “Better is a handful of quietness than both hands full, together with toil and grasping for the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 4:6)
Bible reading for 11.09.10: Hebrews 6; Jeremiah 46-47
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Sowing

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seed3.jpg THIS SOWER HAD really bad aim…
If this guy had been working for me, I would have fired him. He couldn’t get the seeds where they belonged. He was throwing the seeds everywhere, and seemed to be wasting them. Didn’t he know that there was a limited supply of seed? Didn’t he watch where he was throwing? Maybe he had no aim. It just seemed like the guy would put seed anywhere. Seeds equal money, and this seemed to be a huge waste of money. I probably would have fired the sower.
This guy wasn’t concerned with where the seed was spread. He just threw seed left and right. He seemed to care less about the destination of the seed. Didn’t he know that we like middle-class, white people in the church? If we are lucky, he didn’t throw any seed into the projects or the trailer parks. If he did, we might have a church filled with Gentiles and Samaritans.
THOUGHTS: Sometimes we spend so much time making sure the seed is placed so perfectly in the soil, that we barely sow anything. We are so concerned about the destination of the seed, that we stop throwing seed left and right. The sower in the parable just casted seed everywhere. At times it seems that in the church we have courses on how to throw seed (church growth), but the sower just threw seed everywhere. We talk about how to throw seed, techniques for casting seed, but the sower just threw seed and let the soil do its thing. Matthew Morine
KneEmail: “…A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.” Matthew 13:3b-8
Bible reading for 08.03.10: Romans 6; Psalm 63 – 65
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Inheritance

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bottle4.jpgCOLUMNIST L. M. Boyd described the amazing good fortune of a man named Jack Wurm…
In 1949, broke and out of a job, he was walking along a San Francisco beach when he came across a bottle with a piece of paper in it. The note inside was the last will and testament of Daisy Singer Alexander, heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune. The note read, “To avoid confusion, I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle and to my attorney, Barry Cohen, share and share alike.” According to Boyd, the courts accepted the theory that the heiress had written the note twelve years earlier and had thrown the bottle in the Thames River in London. From there it had drifted across the oceans to the feet of the penniless and jobless Jack Wurm. His chance discovery netted him over six million dollars in cash and Singer stock. M.R.D.II
THOUGHT: Jack Wurm’s inheritance cannot compare with the one belonging to those of us “in Christ” (Galatians 3:27). Wurm has since then passed away and his money obviously has no value to him now. Faithful Christians who die in the Lord will one day enjoy eternal life, eternal happiness, eternal gratitude, eternal peace, and eternal profit.
KneEmail: “To an inheritance incorruptible and undefiiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.” 1 Peter 1:4
Bible reading for 10.21.09: 1 Timothy 1; Isaiah 62-64
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Reap

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wheat.jpgEVER PLANT A garden…?
Or maybe just a few flowers in a bed or a plant in a pot? Something makes it possible for the gardener to function, or a farmer to produce a crop is a “law” of nature. “Law” really isn’t a very good word, but because it really is just an observation of the consistency of nature. Whatever kind of seed is planted is the kind of plant that will be produced. A farmer can know that when he plants wheat, that wheat is the plant that will grow. It is not random or arbitrary. Wheat seed produces wheat plants and corn seed produces corn plants. Farmers and gardeners can count on it.
What is just as true, though not as readily recognized, is that this same “law” applies in all of life. Whatever a person sows, that is what they will reap. To think otherwise is not only ludicrous, it also mocks God.
We have two choices. We either sow to the flesh or the spirit. This same letter outlines the differences between living according to the flesh and according to the spirit (Galatians 516-18). Sowing to the flesh is involvement in the “deeds of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19-21). The consequence os involvement in these is corruption and exclusion from God’s kingdom (Galatians 5:21; 6:8). This is the harvest resulting from sowing those seeds. Just as surely as planting wheat seeds results in a harvest of wheat. We can count on it. (David Deffenbaugh, Bill McFarland)
KneEmail: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” Galatians 6:7
Bible reading for 07.21.09: Acts 23:1-15; Job 29, 30
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Mattress

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mattress.jpgJERUSALEM — An Israeli woman mistakenly threw out a mattress with $1 million inside, setting off a frantic search through tons of garbage at a number of landfill sites, Israeli media reported Wednesday.
The woman told Army Radio that she bought her elderly mother a new mattress as a surprise on Monday and threw out the old one, only to discover that her mother had hidden her life savings inside. She was identified only as Anat, a resident of Tel Aviv.
When she went to look for the mattress it had already been taken by garbage men, she said. Subsequent searches at three different landfill sites turned up nothing.
The Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot published a picture of the woman searching through garbage at a dump in southern Israel.
Yitzhak Borba, the dump manager, told the radio station that his staff was helping the woman, saying she appeared “totally desperate.” He said the mattress was hard to find among the 2,500 tons of garbage arriving at the site every day.
He said he increased security at the site to keep would-be treasure hunters at bay.
For her part, Anat said it could be worse. “People have to take everything in proportion and thank God for the good and the bad,” she said.
THOUGHT: Loosing a $1M would be bad; loosing your soul would be a lot worse.
KneEmail: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” Mark 8:36
Bible reading for 07.11.09: Matthew 19:1-22; Ezra 1, 2
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Locked

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locked up.jpgA WOMAN IN Brooklyn is suing a dental clinic for medical malpractice after she was given anethesia and then inadvertently left in the clinic alone overnight…
Ramona Mercado was expecting to have her wisdom teeth pulled and she was prepped with a dose of anesthesia. But when she came to, she still had her wisdom teeth and discovered that the entire staff at the clinic had locked up and left for the night. She was hysterical, but managed to call the center’s night office service. They called 911 and Mercado was rescued. “The officers had to snip the locks off to get me out,” she says.
THOUGHT: It would be frightening, indeed, to find yourself in Mrs. Mercado’s circumstances, but imagine what it would be like to wake up in torment and not be able to escape… Dear reader, are you READY for the Judgment Day (Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 2:38; Romans 10:9-10; Galatians 3:27)?
KneEmail: So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ Luke 16:22-26

Lost

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lost2.jpgSEVERAL YEARS AGO, my family was camping in the mountains of Colorado…
We have arrived there late in the afternoon, and we picked out a nice spot close to a beautiful river. While I was attending to the chores of setting up and organizing our camp, the children went off to play.
As the sun began to set, we started rounding up the children and hustling them back into our campground before it got completely dark. Our four-year-old son, Scott, was missing. The river was making so much noise that my calls were drowned out, and its roar was a constant reminder of danger.
Panic began to build. Where was he? Had he wandered out of the campground? Had he wandered up or down the river? The last time I saw him, he was playing at the edge of the water with a little boat he had made.
By now you could barely distinguish the camp as the rays of the setting sun were further blocked by the forest. A chilling reality gripped me. I only had a few minutes before darkness made my search nearly impossible.
What should I do?
First, I want to tell you some of the things I did not do.
I did not organize any classes on how to find lost children.
I did not hold any rallies to enlist volunteers to help me.
I did not wait until someone came along with was better qualified than I to search.
I did not fail to do anything for fear of doing the wrong thing.
Now, I want to tell you what I did do.
I acted immediately.
I ran around the campground.
I dashed up and down the river.
I called Scott’s name, in spite of the roaring river.
I searched the churning waters.
I stopped total strangers to describe him, and they joined in the search.
Nothing else mattered for that period of time. Finding him was my top priority.
After running all over the campground and up and down the river, I still could not find him. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to go back to camp to figure out what to do next. Scott and I arrived at the same time. He was walking nonchalantly into our campground, oblivious to everything; I was still on a dead run.
THOUGHT: An old preacher once said, “If a man has a soul, and he has, and if that soul can be won or lost for eternity, and it can, then the most important thing in the world is to bring a man to Jesus Christ.” (Don Humphrey)
KneEmail: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).