AS YOU SOW

AS YOU SOW

A building contractor built large luxury homes. He had no scruples whatever about cutting corners, and taking the easiest and cheapest way out of every situation.

As a result of years of experience he had become expert at this form of deception. Many of his buildings were fire hazards and danger zones, because of his shabby approach to his work.

His last house was probably his worst and most shameful attempt. But being his last house he just couldn’t care and he tool all sort of risky liberties with it.

Imagine his horror when he discovered that his retirement bonus from the firm was a present of the last house he had built!

v As you sow, so shall you reap. (Gal 6:7)

v We are often punished by our sins, rather than for them.

v God is eternal. Therefore God can afford to wait! The problem with us is that we get but one stab at life; we never get a second a change to go around.

READING ABOUT IT

READING ABOUT IT

Imagine the following situation. John is six years of age. For his birthday, his father buys him a beautiful bicycle. The father however, is a bureaucratic literalist, and with the bicycle comes a thick book, complete with diagrams, entitled, “You too, can master the techniques of cycling.” The father insists that the boy read the book, study it in great detail, memorize passages from it and pass a written exam on its contents before he is allowed or indeed, “qualified,” to ride the bicycle.

Seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? Yet we might well see people reading and studying books on prayer, for example, or about repentance, conversion, honesty etc.

-     I learn to pray by praying, not by reading a book about it!

-     One of the ways in which I’ll never get around to doing anything is to read and discuss it long enough.

TRUSTING THE FATHER



TRUSTING THE FATHER

A group of botanist was exploring almost inaccessible regions in search of new species of flowers. One day they spied through binoculars, a flower of great rarity and beauty. It lay in a deep ravine, with perpendicular cliffs a t both sides. To reach it, someone would have to be lowered over the sheer precipice by means of a rope, and it was certainly a very dangerous undertaking.

Approaching a young lad nearby, who was watching them with great curiosity, they said, “We’ll give you twenty dollars if you’ll let us lower you down below to obtain that beautiful rare flower for us.” The young lad took a look away down into the ravine and replied, “Just a minute. I’ll be back.” When he returned he was accompanied by an older man. Approaching one of the botanists, he said, “I’ll go over the cliff and get that flower for you if this man holds the rope. He’s my father.”

v God sent Jesus to tell us to call him “Abba, Daddy.”

v “I will not leave you orphans,” said Jesus. Then he gave His Father and His Mother. However, he went on to tell us that it wouldn’t work unless we became like children.

LOVE

LOVE

You are all familiar with the “Love is…” cartoons or drawings. We have many, many posters of nice “sugary” definitions of love. St Augustine answered the question: “What does love look like?” His answer is simple”

“Love has hands to help others.

It has feet to hasten to the poor and needy.

It has eyes to see misery and want.

It has ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of others.

That’s what love looks like.”

v The nearest I’ll ever come to seeing God in this life is if I ever come across a few people who really love one another!

v Love is always creative, always building up, always confirming.

LIVING THE GOSPELS

LIVING THE GOSPELS

Three people were discussing some recent translations of the Bible. One said, ‘I like the New American version. It is so much clearer than the older versions, and is so much easier to read.’

The second said, ‘I like the Jerusalem Bible. It’s not only clearer, but it’s more poetic, which makes it more suitable for us in prayer.’

The third said, ‘I like my mother’s translation best of all. She translated the Bible into actions, which makes it to much easier to apply to daily life.’

v You write a new page of the gospel each day, by the things you do, and the words that you say. People read what you are write, whether faithful or true. What is the gospel according to you?

v You may be the only gospel some people will ever read; they may never buy the books.

THE GRAIN OF WHEAT

THE GRAIN OF WHEAT

A little boy was crying bitterly in class. The teacher asked what was wrong and he said that his sister was really dead, because they had put her in the ground and covered her up!

The teacher took the boy by the hand and brought him over to the window, on which was a box of clay. Some weeks earlier the class had planted seeds in the clay. The teacher explained that they were not intended to remain as seeds. They were planted in the clay, and after a while they began to sprout and grow into plants and flowers – which is what they wee meant to become.

She poked in the clay with her finger and removed one of the seeds, which has already begun to put forth shoots and to put down roots. “The seed is not dead,” she said; “it is changing and it is now becoming what it was always meant to become.”

-    “For us Christian people, life is changed, not ended.”

-     When I die, I then become all that God created me to be.

-     If you ever wake up some morning, and you find that your life is all it should be, then, don’t move – just call the undertaker.