A Time to LAUGH!

We could certainly slow the aging process down if it had to work its way through Congress.

- Will Rogers

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Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself, 'Lillian, you should have remained a virgin..'

- Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)

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I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: - 'No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.'

- Eleanor Roosevelt

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Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement..

- Mark Twain

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The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible

- George Burns

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Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year.

- Victor Borge

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Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

- Mark Twain

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By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

- Socrates

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I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.

- Groucho Marx

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My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.

- Jimmy Durante

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I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.

- Zsa Zsa Gabor

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Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.

- Alex Levine

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My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.

- Rodney Dangerfield

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Money can't buy you happiness .... But it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.

- Spike Milligan

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Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was SHUT UP .

- Joe Namath

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I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon. Then it's time for my nap.

- Bob Hope

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I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it..

- W. C. Fields

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Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.

- Winston Churchill

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Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty .. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out..

- Phyllis Diller

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By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step, he's too old to go anywhere.

- Billy Crystal

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And the cardiologist's diet: - If it tastes good spit it out.

May your troubles be less, may your blessings be more, and
may nothing but happiness come through your door.

Fear of Fire by ICR

Fear of Fire

May 22, 2011

"And others save with fear; pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." (Jude 23)

This exhortation refers both to attempting to "save" unbelievers by warning them of hell and to warning believers against the influence of apostates.

The ultimate hell (Greek gehenna) is not the same as the present hell (Greek hades), although eventually all those lost souls now in the latter will eventually be "cast into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:15). Both are fearsome places of real fire. The inhabitants of Sodom, for example, have been "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire" (Jude 7) for thousands of years, though not yet in that ultimate hell. Also the rich man mentioned by Jesus was in Hades and yet was being "tormented in this flame" (Luke 16:23-24).

Both "hells" have literal fires, but it is hard to understand how material fires could torment non-material souls. There is a clue in James 3:6, which calls an unbridled human tongue "a fire, a world of iniquity: . . . set on fire of hell." Since the tongue is not literally on fire, but can be extremely destructive in human relationships, the implication is that hell itself is a "world of iniquity."

This aspect of hell makes it even more fearsome than literal fires could ever be. The existence there of billions of unredeemed souls, eternally separated from the holiness and love of God, where all who are "unjust" and "filthy" will continue forever to increase in their unrighteous and filthiness (Revelation 22:11), and in the constant presence also of the devil and his angels, is unspeakably appalling. Yet that was their choice when they rejected or ignored the infinite love of Christ.

No wonder that Jude urges us to warn them of such awful fire and seek to save them with fear if they won't respond to the compassionate love of Christ. HMM

Does God think your life STINKS?

“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Eph 5:1

Several of us sat around one night discussing the greatest achievements and inventions of the 20th century. Some suggested the airplane, others the automobile, still others penicillin. One elderly gentleman piped up and shouted "DEODORANT!" We all laughed but agreed he had a point. No one likes to be close to someone who stinks.

I thought of Ephesians 5:1 - Does God consider my life today a fragrant offering or does my spiritual life stink? During my daily hygiene routine I bathe and then put on deodorant to prevent an unwanted odor from creeping out of my armpits. Spiritually I must also 'wash' my sins away through confession and repentance and then apply the Holy Spirit to my desires, activities and relationships to prevent my abrasive, selfish nature to creep out through my attitudes, words and actions. By dieing to self the Holy Spirit produces unconditional love and a life God recognizes as a fragrant offering.

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship." Rom 12:1

Pray that God will reveal to you places where your life may 'stink' and the insight and strength to make changes so that your life may become a fragrant offering.

The Pearly Gates

The gates of the New Jerusalem
from Reveling Through Revelation pp. 101-102 by J. Vernon McGee

The names of the 12 tribes may be inscribed on the 12 gates, but the important feature is the material of construction. Each is a perfect pearl. This is the one jewel that sets forth the Church.

See Matt 13:45-46 The earl of great price.

The Church is the pearl of great price. The comparison of the formation of the Church to the formation of a pearl is striking and suggestive. The pearl is different from all other precious gems, for instead of coming from the earth, the pearl comes from the sea. Other stones are mined from the earth, found in rock and ore. They are taken out, cut, polished to reveal their beauty. But the pearl comes out of the sea, and it comes out of a living organism. A little grain of sand or some other particle begins to cut into the side of a living organism. To protect itself, the organism sends out a fluid to coat the object. Layer upon layer coats it until a beautiful pearl is formed.

The New Jerusalem is the home of the Church, and the gates of pearl are there to remind us throughout eternity that we were a little grain of sharp, dirty sand that was a hurt in the side of Christ. We were not attractive: we were in rebellion against God, walking according to the course of this world. But Christ took that ugly thing -- that was you -- and covered it with His righteousness. You and I are covered with Him. The beauty is not in the grain of sand, but in what the organism puts around it. God sees us in Christ, and He is lovely. The pearl was lightly esteemed by Israel, but was precious to the Gentiles. We have no value in ourselves, yet we are the pearl of great price. The price that is put upon a thing gives it its value. The price that He paid gives us value. Christ gave His life to get us, and to Him we are precious.

Let us never forget!

Look at this lady - Let us never forget!

The world hasn't just become wicked...it's always been wicked. The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving.



Irena Sendler

There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an 'ulterior motive'.

She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German).

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family.

Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.

She was not selected.
President Obama won one year before becoming President for his work as a community organizer for ACORN
and
Al Gore won also--- for a slide show on Global Warming.

63 years later




In MEMORIAM - 63 YEARS LATER

Please read the little cartoon carefully, it's powerful.

Then read the comments at the end.

I'm doing my small part by forwarding this message.

I hope you'll consider doing the same..

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended.

This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated!

Now, more than ever, with Iraq , Iran , and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be 'a myth',

It's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again !!

This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide!

Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world..

Please send this e-mail to people you know and ask them to continue the memorial chain.

Please don't just delete it.

It will only take you a minute to pass this along..

Thanks!

How we konw He lives.

The Living Savior

April 18, 2011

"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." (Romans 10:9)

There is a popular Christian song whose chorus ends with these words: "You ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart." This may sound spiritual, but this is not how we know He lives! We are saved because of the objective fact that He died for our sins and then rose bodily from the tomb, triumphant over sin, death, the curse, and Satan, alive in His glorified body, for evermore. It is this which we must believe in our hearts and confess with our lips. For Him to rise bodily from the grave means that He is nothing less than God, the very Creator Himself. It is only because of who He is that He could do what He did, and this is what we must believe in our hearts.

There are people who believe that Buddha lives in their hearts, or the spirit of "the gods" indwells their hearts, or even that "the Christ" is in their hearts, but "the heart is deceitful above all things" (Jeremiah 17:9). We can believe many things, and feel many things that are not so. We know Jesus Christ is a living Savior, not because we feel His presence in our hearts, but because He rose from the grave on the third day and "shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days" (Acts 1:3). The gospel of our salvation does not rest on our feelings, nor on someone's teachings, but on the objective, proven, certain facts of history. Jesus Christ is alive, whether anyone feels Him living in their hearts or not, and He is at this moment bodily in heaven, at the right hand of the Father (e.g., Romans 8:34).

"Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). HMM

Dismissing Grace by Jill Carattini

Dismissing Grace

The Gospel of Mark recollects a scene that makes me cringe every time I hear it. I wish I could say it was the account of Judas's betrayal of Christ, or the description of Jesus sweating blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. But it is not.

In the first chapter of his testimony to the life of Jesus, Mark describes a man with leprosy who comes to the feet of the unusual rabbi in great need. On his knees, he begs with a statement of certainty, "If you are willing, you can make me clean." To this Jesus responds with an act of healing that would indeed change everything in the life of man pushed to the outskirts of a society, declared leprous in more ways than one. Jesus heals him and then immediately tells the thankful man not to tell anyone. The command is troubling to me, but more so is the story that follows.

As an aside, Mark's Gospel, the shortest of the four, is largely concerned with getting the message of Christ out without delay. He opens his account with a single-sentence introduction, and his favorite word throughout the book is a Greek word meaning "immediately" or "at once." The story of the leprous man is no different.

In response to this man kneeling at Jesus's feet, Mark describes Jesus immediately willing and sympathetic. "Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. 'I am willing,' he said. 'Be clean!' Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured" (1:41-42). Mark conveys a compassionate savior who is near to us, reaching out with a power that is relevant to our lives. In the Gospel of Mark, the divine equation is not only apparent but spoken with urgency. God is near; Christ has come; if you will seek him, you will find him.

But the passage continues. Jesus sends the healed man away "at once" and "with a strong warning." "See that you don't tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them" (1:44). It is at this point in the account that I find myself getting quite self-righteously concerned. How difficult is it for a man who was just healed to respond in gratitude by heeding Jesus's simple instructions? It is a strange command, yes, but isn't this the least he can do?

Yet Mark reports a man eager to speak of the power he has seen. "Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news." Adding uncomfortably, "As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere."

The chapter concludes with hope, the story on a positive note (people still find their way to Jesus), but it is often no match for the discomfort I feel. The story Mark tells hinges on the concepts of action and reaction; the words "at once," "immediately," and "as a result" remind us unpopularly that behavior has consequences. Of course, I know we are not islands. I rejoice when the act of falling at Jesus's feet causes a move of compassion in Christ and healing in the hearts of those who need. But I cringe at the thought of my own wrong behavior causing consequences to God. I don't want to think about my ability to grieve the Holy Spirit with my anger, or my foolishness, or my disobedience. I don't want to think about the times I have gotten in God's way, "fixing" the catastrophes through which the Spirit may have been reaching someone, turning away from Christ's simple instructions and forcing him to lonelier places.

And yet, isn't this the reality of the Cross itself? At the actions of humanity, he was dismissed to the loneliest place of all. I, too, am free to act and react, to make choices and affect others. But behavior has consequences; there is always a cost. My behavior brought something into the world that wasn't meant to be there, something God chose to remove by bearing it—by bearing me—upon the Cross. There is indeed a cost, but so there is also a redeemer.

Again and again, whether we reject it or truly hear it, the Christian story requires us to wrestle with the one who responds on our behalf. How often has he reached out to us with compassion only to find that touch rebuffed? How often have we rejected his grace, wisdom, or way, believing we know better? Yet even here, even unto death, his hope and work remains: O Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often I have longed to gather you together as a hen gathers her chicks...

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.