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A Better Place

October 19, 2015 By admin

Photo: iStock

The top of Mt. Everest is littered with used oxygen tanks and other unnecessaries that climbing aficionados have unloaded before their final ascent to the top of the world.

Space ships dump human waste, garbage and excess fuel into the deep blackness of the galaxy during missions, sending thousands of pounds of trash swirling in the reaches of the universe.

Endless stretches of Belizean beach are cluttered with aluminum cans, plastic diapers, trash bags and other refuse that come from land and ocean alike, marring the perfection of God’s nature.

Highway volunteers flock to clean up stretches of interstate lined with litter from passing vehicles.

Wherever the human race goes—be it land, water or outer space—we leave a trail of trash behind.

Pack It In, Pack It Out

My husband loves to spend his free hours and days biking, hiking and climbing. He knows the number one rule for enjoying nature: leave it better than you found it. That means not only packing out every iota of waste you might personally bring or create, but also cleaning up where others haven’t been as responsible.

Before plastic bottles and bags of trash, sin made a mess of our perfect earth. Strewing death, destruction and hate in its wake, there was only one way to sweep the planet clean from evil—a one-Man clean up crew.

Jesus ventured to earth to reassemble the wreckage Satan made of the human race, bringing hope to a hopeless people. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” (John 3:17). Better than simply cleansing the earth from sin, God is creating a place better than we can ever imagine. In John 14:2 (b)-3, Jesus comforts his disciples, “ I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also..”

Through his sacrifice, we have future to look forward to. No longer covered in the filth of sin, Christ’s people can shine with the light of his perfect love.

He came to earth and left it better than he found it. And that’s good news for all of us.

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Old Dogs Do Learn

September 1, 2015 By admin

Photo: Mark Barner

I wasn’t a very strict Mom. I had my rules, but if my kids played their cards right, they could often find a way around me.

I got so tired of asking my son to make his bed that I got him a sleeping bag. Somehow that didn’t seem as disorderly when it wasn’t made up. He also got out of having to take piano lessons – I couldn’t stand his whining.

I used to threaten my children that if they left their lunch or homework at home one more day that they would have to go without, but I always ended up bailing them out by delivering their books or lunch to school. And if they ran out of allowance, I was always good for a loan.

But on the topic of college, I was a rock. If it took them 10 years, they were going to finish. One of my daughter’s boyfriends described me as an over-achiever and he was probably right. I always felt like I had something to prove and blamed a lot of my insecurity on not finishing college.

At the time I was offered a M.R.S. in place of a B.S., I was thrilled. I hated school and was pretty awful at it. I think when I finished my third year at Columbia Union College, I may have had a whopping 2.0 grade point average. High school hadn’t been much better. Throughout the years since 1968, I had thought about finishing and had even taken a few college classes along the way. I loved the process of finding out more about a subject and actually retaining some of what I learned, but I didn’t finish my degree.

Then about three years ago, I got a bulk e-mail about online degrees and decided to give it a try. I found a college that would offer me something other than business and computers, a caring adviser helped get me a student loan(s), discovered I had enough credits to begin my junior year – and I was off. And I can’t describe how fantastic it felt.

My classwork consisted of a college course begun and completed every six weeks. I was considered a full-time student, all the while holding down a full-time job and taking some freelance writing jobs along the way, plus authoring a devotional with my daughter for 2006. It hasn’t been easy, but in one month, I graduate with a B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies with an emphasis in English and Psychology and a GPA of 3.7. Its been expensive, time consuming and at times exhausting. Would I do it again? You bet. My sense of accomplishment is at an all-time high.

Still Growing

Now that I’ve proved I can learn, have my insecurities vanished? Mostly yes, but that had nothing to do with GPA or degrees or the amount of my student loans, it had to do with coming to terms with what makes me worth anything. It’s God’s love and it’s always been there waiting for me to recognize its power. The following verse, with some added personalization, sums it up for me, and it didn’t take a college degree to understand it. “Nothing can ever separate me from His love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. My fears for today, my worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether I am high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate me from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus my Lord” (Romans 8:38).

So, don’t give up on your dreams. Fulfilling them can give you a lot of pleasure and don’t worry about being too old to start. At 58, I figure I’ll die before I pay off my student loans. So keep achieving, but do it because it pleases you. And if it pleases you, you know that the One who will never let you be separated from His love will also be pleased.

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Read more at the source: Old Dogs Do Learn

Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Family First.

Use Your Personality

September 1, 2015 By admin

Photo: iStock

When you look around at other people you readily notice that everyone has a different personality. One person may love to be the center of attention; that person talks a lot, enjoys other people, and has a bubbly personality. Another person seems to be bossy, makes quick correct judgments, and desires to be in control of everything. Another person likes to keep things organized, wants things done correctly, analyzes things, and is always setting goals. Still another person may go to great lengths to avoid a conflict, keep peace. They lack decisiveness and enthusiasm, but have a pleasing personality, and a dry sense of humor. You may fall into one or more of these categories, as I do.

Researchers and scientists devote their whole lives plus millions of dollars trying to figure out how personalities work, where they come from, and predicting what a person will do in a certain situation. They often ask, why are people different and why do people do the things they do? Many theories have been made from these questions. But does it really mean anything?

Why do we all need to be different anyway? Let’s take a look at what the Bible has to say. Paul gives a list of spiritual gifts including wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy and more (1 Corinthians 12:8-11). Paul then goes on to explain that there are different parts of the church body that require members to do different things (1 Corinthians 12:12-31). God made us different in order to perform the whole workings of the church. One person can’t do everything. But when the people are brought together in the body of the church, all things can be done.

You Are Special

Don’t be discouraged when you see one person doing great things for the Lord that you can never see yourself doing. God made you specifically to do something special. Use what you know you are good at instead of dwelling on what you are not good at. Paul thought of himself as a timid man (2 Corinthians 10:1) and not a good public speaker (2 Corinthians 11:6). Yet the Lord still made him great and used his personality strengths to the fullest.

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Read more at the source: Use Your Personality

Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Family First.

Believing in Advance

June 4, 2010 By admin

“If I spend enough time with God, I will inevitably begin to look at the world with a point of view that more resembles God’s own. What is faith, after all, but believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”

–Philip Yancey, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

I need to come into God’s presence daily. Doing so will ensure that I gain a perspective of myself and the world from his vantage point. When I fail to do this, I quickly assume that I am at liberty to live as I please. Apart from God I buy into the ideology of the west that promotes self fulfillment over sacrifice and service.

Apart from God I self implode and ignore the needs of those around me. The same was true in Paul’s day, which prompted him to say, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”¹
Paul follows this with an appeal for Christ’s followers to exercise their spiritual gifts for the sake of the Christian community, as well as the individual serving.

“Lord, give me courage to practice what I intuitively believe, even if it doesn’t make sense at the moment.”

Read more at the source: Believing in Advance

Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Inspirational quotes and thoughts.

The Right Thing

April 2, 2010 By admin

“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.”

–Benjamin Franklin

Photo: Edwin PP

If you haven’t bitten your tongue lately, then perhaps you’re being too lose with it. If you spend a lot of time around people and like to talk, your “word alert” should be set to high sensitivity.

“It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell.” –James 3:5-6 (The Message)

Of course, we all make mistakes and say things we wish we hadn’t said, but we don’t have to keep making the same dumb mistakes over and over. By God’s grace our tongues can be “tamed.”

A few years ago I shared something with a friend that I later deeply regretted. I saw the effect it had on several people as it took on its own life and grew beyond its original form. “Like feathers in the wind, our words all fly away, and when they are gone, sometimes we have to pay, I should have known better.”
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Comments by Rich DuBose. BetterSermons © 2010. All rights reserved. Use of this material is subject to usage guidelines | View main index

Read more at the source: The Right Thing

Article excerpt posted on en.intercer.net from Inspirational quotes and thoughts.

A Better Place

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Old Dogs Do Learn

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Use Your Personality

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Believing in Advance

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The Right Thing

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