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<DIV><FONT size=4>This passage from Luke tells us not to be afraid, but that
doesn’t mean we are to be inactive. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>We are all wrong about fear. We think it is our protective
shield. But fear is the thief. When we dwell on our fears, they become our
treasures. Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”
12:35. Faith is the genuine treasure we are to be accumulating, but we get it
backwards when our fears fill our hearts and faith cannot gain
entrance.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.patheos.com/community/mainlineportal/2010/08/01/thethief-is-at-your-door-lectionary-reflection-for-august-8-2010/">http://www.patheos.com/community/mainlineportal/2010/08/01/thethief-is-at-your-door-lectionary-reflection-for-august-8-2010/</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>August 1, 2010, by <FONT color=#000000>Alyce McKenzie</FONT>
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>...told by an English theologian, Herbert Farmer, on himself.
He had been having a long busy day and came home exhausted. He put on the kettle
and being English, he made a pot of tea, and had just sat down to enjoy
his tea when the doorbell rang. He went to the door, where he found a poor,
nearly blind woman with very thick glasses being led about by her son, a thin,
pasty-faced boy of about twelve. They were going house to house selling
something. Dr. Farmer cut short a tale of domestic woe by saying he wasn't
interested. The boy said to his mother, "Come away, mum," and he led her out the
sidewalk. As he paused at the end of the walk to close the gate, his eyes met
Farmer's, and Farmer said he had never before seen a look of purer hatred than
he saw in that boy's eyes. Turning back into his house, he no longer wanted his
tea. Instead, he fell on his knees by the sofa and cried, "Lord, be merciful to
me, a sinner!"
<P>The second of these two stories. A tall, late-middle-aged gay man, a friend
of mine named John was on his way to work in the PR office where he was
employed. It was Monday morning. Having been challenged in the Sunday sermon to
remember the poor, John began his day that Monday by going into a McDonald's
restaurant and buying five breakfasts, each in a colorful sack, and going back
out onto the sidewalk. A homeless man came along. John greeted him with a sack
of breakfast and said "God bless you." The man looked in the sack, smelled the
aroma of hot sausage and eggs and coffee, and instantly threw his arms around
John and hugged him. They stood there for a minute, on Fifth Avenue near 34th
Street, locked in an embrace. Then the man let go and John wheeled around,
feeling better than he had felt in months, and began looking for another
homeless person to give a breakfast to.</P>
<P>My question for you is this: Which of those two persons would you rather
be?</P></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/killinger_5302.htm">http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/killinger_5302.htm</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><SPAN class=style15>John Killinger 2009 </SPAN><BR>- - -
- -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Some years ago I visited the great Lutheran church on
Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a weekday morning, there was no one
in the sanctuary, and I wandered around in the building. I walked up into the
chancel and was surprised to see the words of the Greeks who one day approached
Phillip, carved in stone on the all: "Sir, we would see Jesus." Of course, the
Greeks just wanted to have a chance to meat the man. But here, it meant so much
more. It said to the pastor as he mounted the pulpit, "these people want to see
Jesus, in your words, in your life, in your faith." </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/predigt.php?id=402&kennung=20070812en">http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/predigt.php?id=402&kennung=20070812en</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>David Zersen</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>The servant that is ready, on the other hand, is the one who
constantly does what his master entrusted him to do.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.sigurdgrindheim.com/sermons/coming.html">http://www.sigurdgrindheim.com/sermons/coming.html</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Sigurd Grindheim</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>
<P>Listen to what George Carlin says about stuff:</P>
<P>"That's all your house is-a place to keep your stuff. If you didn't have so
much stuff, you wouldn't need a house. You could just walk around all the time.
A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it, and when you leave your
house, you've got to lock it up. You wouldn't want to somebody to come by and
take some of your stuff. That's what your house is-a place to keep your stuff
while you go out and get more stuff. Sometimes you've got to move-got to get a
bigger house. Why? No room for your stuff anymore."</P></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://day1.org/452-on_stuff">http://day1.org/452-on_stuff</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>Mark Sargent, 2004</FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>- - - - -</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>One morning a middle-aged woman sat in the office of a
psychiatrist because for too long she had been dealing with daily depression. It
was the third session for her and she had been struggling to find the source of
her problem. <>What seemed to make the most sense to her was his concern
that she was consumed with issues on the periphery of her life, but unaware of
what was going on at the center. Together they began a quest to find out what
was going on at the center of her life, the place from which everything else was
ordered. What could it be, she wondered, as she left the psychiatrist’s office
that day? The center of my life: what could it be?</DIV></FONT>
<DIV><FONT size=4><A
href="http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-6/040808-4-e.html">http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/archiv-6/040808-4-e.html</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=4>
<DIV><FONT size=4>David Zersen</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>- - - - -</DIV>
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