Illustration results for hebrews 6
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"Be active, and expect Christ to be with thee: be idle and the thorns and briers will grow so thickly, that He will be shut out of thy doors." -C.H. Spurgeon
Writer Regina Barreca wrote an article for the Chicago Tribune in 1996 on this very issue: "Sloth is insidious. It whispers that you might as well do it tomorrow, that nobody will know if you cut comers here and there to save yourself some trouble, that the world will be the same in a hundred years no matter what you do, so why do anything? Sloth says, "Don’t strain yourself," "What’s the big hurry?" and "Just give me five more minutes."
Sloth hits the snooze alarm, hits the remote control and hits the road when the going gets tough ... Sloth cheats on exams, drinks straight from the milk carton and leaves exactly two sheets on the toilet roll so that it will have to be replaced by the next poor soul who finds out too late that the remaining paper is nothing more than a mirage.
Sloth does slightly less than the right thing. It doesn’t bother returning something to the lost-and found, but pockets it instead; it doesn’t tell the clerk he has undercharged. Sloth has never written a thank-you note, sent a birthday card on time or entertained angels. All this simply asks too much effort."
To say the least, I was at first shocked to read the headline, Baby Ate Cocaine Dad Left Nearby. According to the Associated Press a father from Ravenna, Ohio was sentenced to one year in prison for endangering his daughter, who was six-months-old at the time of the incident. He evidently stashed his illegal drug in her baby swing and she ate some of it. The mother noticed the white powder around the daughter’s mouth and took her to the hospital for treatment.
I take this as a wake-up call to fathers from God. He is calling us to protect our children. Obviously, this man carelessly endangered his child, but what about us father’s possibly putting our children at risk in very subtle ways. I believe it is not enough for us dads to house, feed, cloth, and educate our children. We dads need to empower our kids to turn from evil and do what is good and right, and to have the best possible harmonious relationship with them as we can.
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reported recently in a survey which suggests “....most teenagers find it easier to talk about drugs with their mothers than with their fathers, and those who don’t get along with their fathers are at far greater risk of smoking, drinking and using drugs....” The survey reported that “teens in two-parent families who have fair or poor relationships with their fathers are 68 percent more likely to use drugs than those in average families.”
Dads, we can to have a relationship with our children that fosters openness and care. We can be responsibile to do what is in their best interest, safety and welfare.
We dads can be emotionally and spiritually connected with our children. “ ’Too many fathers are just AWOL in their kids lives,’ said Joseph Califano, the research center’s chairman. ‘They’re not there to help with homework, and kids don’t go to them with important problems.’ " We can best share with them helpful lessons from life and God’s Word by maintaining a positive relationship.
Jesus Christ said, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:11-12).
Fathers, even though none of us always hit the mark, we can still give our children good things. Let us search our hearts and ask God to reveal the attitudes and habits that can hurt or hinder our children. Then let us jettison them for the sake of our kids, ourselves, our community and our Creator. For “....children are a reward from [the Lord]” (Psalm 127:3).
Published Wednesday September 01, 02:25PM CDT
Baby Ate Cocaine Dad Left Nearby
RAVENNA, Ohio (AP) - A man whose infant daughter ate some of his cocaine after he stashed the drug in her baby swing was sentenced to a year in prison for child endangering.
The 6-month-old girl was treated in time.
Christopher Stockman, 21, was sentenced Monday. He pleaded guilty in March. The baby was hospitalized Sept. 29 after her mother noticed a white powder around the child’s mouth.
Source: http://Omaha.com/Omaha/OWH/APStoryViewer/1,3293,89112,00.html
Illus.: “I Can’t Change Jesus”
Bill Irwin, a man who is blind, has a talking computer he uses to study the Bible. He’s had a few chuckles over some of the pronunciations. "For a long time," Bill says, "the computer pronounced Holy Bible as ’holly bibble’ until I figured out how to modify it." But there was one thing Bill couldn’t change. The computer uses the Spanish pronunciation for Jesus Christ--HEYsus Krist. "The programmer is Hispanic," Bill told me with a smile, "and he made sure that HEYsus Krist cannot be altered."
I like that. It reminds me that among the things in life that can be changed to suit my taste, one remains tamper-resistant--I can’t change Jesus.
When life is unsettled, I gain great comfort from the Bible’s affirmation that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). But the statement is also a stern rebuke to my tendency to try to modify t...
THE KEY CALLED PROMISE
In John Bunyan's great allegory, Pilgrim's Progress, the incident is related of how Christian decides to leave the Main Highway and follow another Path which seemed easier. But this Path leads him into the territory of Giant Despair who owns Doubting Castle.
Eventually he is captured by Giant Despair and kept in a dungeon. He is advised to kill himself. The Giant said there was no use trying to keep on with his journey. For the time, it seemed as if Despair had really conquered Christian. But then, Hope, Christian's companion, reminds him of previous victories. So it came about that on Saturday about midnight they began to pray, and continued in prayer until almost morning.
Now a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half-amazed, broke out in passionate speech, "What a fool am I thus to lie in a stinking Dungeon, when I may as well be at liberty. I have a Key in my bosom called Promise that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle." Then said Hopeful, "That's good news. Good Brother, pluck it out of thy bosom and try." And the prison gates flew open.
(Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times. Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc. From a sermon by Matthew Kratz, The Attack on Hope, 8/27/2011)
How many of us have watched Trading Spaces on TLC or seen Bob Villa and became inspired to finally do something about our own tired and outdated homes? It’s easy to get inspired to do something. Once inspired by seeing a weeks work condensed into a one hour TV show we can easily envision the lasting improvements we can make in our own homes. Yet here we sit; one month, six months, one year after starting and our weekend transformation sits half finished as we struggle to find the time to finish what we started.
This can happen in our spiritual lives too. We begin our walk with Christ full of excitement. Fully intending to do whatever it takes to make it all the way. But after a while, Christianity becomes too daily. It’s the same thing over and over again. The same prayers, the same worshi...
There is a nautical term used in the sailing world today that I want to tell you about. It is called “kedging.” A kedge anchor is used when a ship is grounded or found in turbulent seas. Sailors will row the kedge anchor as far as they can from the ship in the general direction they wish to move to. They drop the kedge anchor into the sea. Once the anchor finds purchase on the bottom, the sailors on board begin to operate the winch and pull their way towards the anchor. This is know as kedging.
We don’t normally think of moving towards an anchor. The anchor represents the past. It holds us back. Sometimes, however, the anchor is our future. We move towards it. In especially turbulent times, we need to pull ourselves into the future with the anchor of p...
