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Joshua 1:1-3:1
Mark 10:17-10:22
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Matthew 6:9-6:13
Deuteronomy 6:4-6:5
$3.00 WORTH OF GOD, PLEASE
Tim Hansel in his book "When I Relax I feel Guilty," writes some insights of what most people want from God.
"I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of Him to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please."
If we would be totally honest, the idea of transformation really scares us. That is because we know that such a radical change would be quite uncomfortable. We realize that with transformation comes a major overhaul of our lives and priorities.
(From a sermon by Scott Chambers, The Mission if You Accept it: Transformation, 2/15/2011)
Michael McCartney
The Resurrection of the Dead
Avijah Powers felt moderately sure nobody would recognize him when he registered under an assumed name at the little inn. It was more than twenty years since he had left the town--a hard,
reckless boy, running away from a good father and a devoted mother because he hated goodness and loved lawlessness and his own way.
For years he had led the life of a vagabond. Then the spirit of adventure was aroused in him by the stories of the wealth of the Klondike. He joined one of the earliest parties, in that hazardous search for gold, and succeeded beyond his dreams. Now he had come back, with his old instincts, but with the wealth of a millionaire, and some strange compulsion led him to the village where he first drew breath.
He did not even know whether his parents were living or dead. It was altogether likely they were dead. With that conviction and without asking a question, he made his way in the August twilight to the graveyard, and to the spot where for three generations his ancestors had been laid.
Yes, there were new stones placed since he had been there. The sight moved him strangely. He bent to read the inscription on the first one. It was to the memory of his father, "Died, 1884. ’Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.’"
The date cut the man to the heart. His father had died a year after the only son had run away! And his mother had been left alone! But perhaps she had followed her husband mercifully soon. Again he bent to read, this time with tear-filled eyes, "Died, 1902. ’And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’"
His mother had been alone for eighteen years! She was but just dead -- in poverty, perhaps; certainly in loneliness. He drew himself up as if to shake off a hideous dream.
But the other stone - whose grave could that mark? They had no relatives except some distant cousins. Perhaps some one of them had done for his mother what he ought to have done in her long, desolate years. Again he stooped to read - his own name. "Abijah Powers. Born 1870; died--. ’The only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’"
It was his own gravestone, set up by his mother when her hope of his return was dead. Out of the depth of his memory there flashed up the story of the widow of Nain, and the gracious presence which spoke the word of life to her dead son. How many times his mother must have read and re-read the page, and how frequently she must have prayed that her boy, bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh, might be given back to her arms!
The thought was anguish to the graceless son, and it brought him to his knees beside his own empty grave. With his hand resting over his mother’s head he wept as he had not wept since he was a child. They were gracious drops. Out of the mother’s love, which had found its cold comfort in the words of scripture for the grave that was no grave, there came, indeed, the resurrection of the real, living soul.
The widow’s son went out of the graveyard that night a new man. The world wondered what had happened to him. Money did not often make a man over from a devil to a saint; but that miracle seemed to have been worked in Abijah Powers. Nobody knew that the transformation did not come from the touch of Klondike gold, but from the power of love -- reaching from beyond the vale, and speaking from the cold marble of a gravestone.
--Youth’s Companion
The Scottish preacher John McNeill liked to tell about an eagle that had been captured when it was quite young.
The farmer who snared the bird put a restraint on it so it couldn’t fly, and then he turned it loose to roam in the barnyard.
It wasn’t long till the eagle began to act like the chickens, scratching and pecking at the ground. This bird that once soared high in the heavens seemed satisfied to live the barnyard life of the lowly hen.
One day the farmer was visited by a shepherd, who lived in the mountains where the eagles lived.
Seeing the eagle, the shepherd said to the farmer, "What a shame to keep that bird hobbled here in your barnyard! Why don’t you let it go?"
The farmer agreed, so they cut off the restraint. But the eagle continued to wander around, scratching and pecking as before.
The shepherd picked it up and set it on a high stone wall. For the first time in months, the eagle saw the grand expanse of blue sky and the glowing sun. Then it spread its wings and with a leap soared off into a tremendous spiral flight, up and up and up.
At last it was acting like an eagle again.
http://www.christianglobe.com/illustrations/theDetails.asp?whichOne=s&whichFile=sanctification
SLOW AND STEADY
The power of the Holy Spirit is not just for salvation, but transformation, a process that might be slow and gradual. The difference might look like this:
You can take ten gallons of gasoline and release a tremendous amount of power and energy by just dropping a lighted match into it. It makes a dramatic onetime impact. But there is another way to release the energy in that gasoline. Place it in the fuel tank of a new Honda, designed to get 30 miles to the gallon. The high tech engine will use that ten gallons of gasoline to take a person 300 miles or more.
Explosions may be spectacular, but the sustained, controlled burn has staying power. You don’t want to be a flash in the pan, you want to make...
This man was a farmer, his neighbors were farmers, and everyone in the area considered him to be the biggest pessimist in the world. His closest neighbor did all he could to encourage him every time they spoke, leaning over a fence that divided their properties on one side.
“Look’s like the sun’s gonna shine good today!” the optimist said one morning.
“Yeah,” came the droopy reply. “Probably be so hot the crops’ll dry out and shrivel up and be no good.”
A couple days later, “Looks like rain, don’t you think?”
“Yep, and it’ll probably flood the fields and ruin the crops; just wait and see.” Ever the pessimist, never with any hope in anything.
This was the way it went year after year, season after season. The only thing the man seemed to come out of his gloom for was duck hunting. A transformation came over him every time he went out and brought home duck for dinner.
So, the good natured farmer decided on a plan to cheer up his neighbor and so he invested months and months and months getting things ready. Finally, everything is in place, so he invites his grouchy neighbor to go duck hunting. Still grumbling about anything and everything, yet he agrees to go with just the faintest hint of a smile tugging at one corner of his frown. All the way out to the marsh he asks a bunch of questions about the new bird dog his neighbor has with him. No detail is forthcoming.
“He is an amazingly talented dog, just you wait and see,” was the only reply that came.
Well, hours later, the grumbler gets a shot off and a duck falls from the sky. The dog owner calls out, “Gittit!”, and the bird dog takes off at a run, right across the top of the water! Grabbing the bird softly in his mouth, the dog brings the duck back and drops it, right at the feet of the man who shot it then sits back, wagging his tail and waiting to be commended.
The pessimist shakes his head in disbelief. “Seems pretty doggone foolish to spend so much time and money on a dog that can’t even swim!”
"First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination."
Marty Halyburton’s husband, Porter, was shot down during the Vietnam War, and Navy personnel came to her home to tell her he had died in battle. For several days, Marty was too numb to respond. Flags flew at half-staff all over town, and a grave-marker was placed in Porter’s memory in his family’s cemetery.
Eighteen months passed quite slowly, and though Marty tried to adjust to her loss, it was very tough. Then one day, a group of military staff came yet again at her house, this time with remarkable news. Porter was alive, in relatively good condition, being detained by the North Vietnamese.
Marty’s emotions soared as if she had her own set of wings. But they implored that she keep this amazing information to herself for fear of reprisals against the POWs with him in captivity if the news got out. That was almost a little too much to ask, but she was obedient to their insistence, for Porter’s well being.
How does one hide the sparkle in the eyes, the hop in the step, and the smile on the face? How does one hide the sudden a transformation of persona? How does one talk to friends and family without blurting out the wonderful report?
In the end, the Navy officials realized Marty’s predicament and made it easier by formally changing Porter’s status, and now she could phone everyone with this life changing news: “He’s alive!”
The delight of the Resurrection is irrepressible. No true follower of the Christ can keep it buried in the recesses on the mind. We should be enthused to live out that joyfulness each and ever day; and we can do so through the giving our lives without any reluctance to our Lord.
A woman testified to the transformation in her life that had resulted through her experience in conversion. She declared, "I’m so glad I got religion. I have an uncle I used to hate so much I vowed I’d never go to his funeral. But now, wh...
When VICTOR SERIBRIAKOFF was 15 his teacher told him he would never finish school and that he should drop out and learn a trade. Victor took the advice and for the next 17 years he was an itinerant doing a variety of odd jobs. He had been told he was a ‘dunce’ and for 17 years he acted like one. When he was 32 an amazing transformation took place. An evaluation revealed that he was a genius with an IQ of 161. Guess what ? That’s right, he started acting like a genius. Since that time, he has written books, secured a number of patents and become a successful businessman. Perhaps the most significant event for the former drop out was his election as chairman of the International Mensa Society. The Mensa society has only one membership qualification - an IQ of 140.
.- A woman testified to the transformation in her life that had resulted through her experience in conversion. She declared, "I’m so glad I got religion. I have an uncle I used to hate so much I vowed I’d never go to his funeral. But now, why, I’d be happy to go to it any time."
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