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<div style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><span>A Change in Control <br>
<br>
Last
night a friend of mine was talking about his father: he spoke of how,
for many years, his father binged out, how his father was a drunkard - a
man who when sober was kind and gentle - and when drunk - well he was
something else again. He had no control over himself. And this kind and
gentle man brought pain and suffering upon others, or at least the force
within him did so - the family had to move - to change homes and
communities - almost every year - landlords were cheated, employers
disappointed, children neglected, friends abandoned - or embarrassed or
betrayed. <br>
<br>
And this continued on until one day, after taking his
children to Sunday School for a period of time, after witnessing the
faith of others and what it did for them, he accepted Jesus into his
life. He asked God to take control, to guide his actions and save him
from his sins and from the power of sin. And then things changed; debts
still had to be paid, amends still had to be made, mistakes still
occurred. But the inner man -the man that God made - was set free to
grow and mature. No more booze, a lot more prayer. And the love and
kindness of the man that could be glimpsed before - in the moments of
sobriety - became apparent to all - for days, weeks, and finally years
on end. The children who were still living at home stopped fearing what
would happen next - they began to look forward to being with their
father - they began to develop their own faith in God - a faith that
still guides them to this day. This man, this father, this husband,
experience a change in control - he went from being in the control of
the devil to being in the control of God, and the result was the renewal
of his inner nature, and in the end, when his earthly tent was
destroyed, the result was a building from God - a house not made with
hands - eternal in the heavens.. <br>
<br>
Richard J. Fairchild, Even Though.... <br>
<br>
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<br>
Questioning the Source of the Power <br>
<br>
The
scribes and Pharisees cannot deny what Jesus is doing; too many people
have experienced it, too many people have been helped. So their strategy
is to turn the people against Jesus by saying that He is ministering by
the power of an evil spirit. <br>
<br>
It's sort of like Environmental
groups in Canada receiving funding from people who want them to disrupt
energy projects which conflict with their own financial interests. Or
someone funding a Women's shelter with drug and prostitution money they
make in their biker gang. <br>
<br>
You get the picture; suddenly the
Environmentalist isn't the noble crusader anymore; the shelter benefits
from the addiction and abuse it stands against. <br>
<br>
But it's not
just a smear campaign that the Teachers of the Law are engaging in; they
actually believe it. They are convinced that Jesus is in league with
the devil because they can't see how it lines up with how God has worked
in Israel in the past and how they understood the Law. <br>
<br>
Grant Gunnink, The Unforgivable Sin <br>
<br>
____________________________________<br>
<br>
Humor: Differences of Opinions <br>
<br>
Dr.
Eugene Brice tells a delightful but disturbing story about a minister
who returned to visit a church he had once served. He ran into Bill, who
had been an elder and leader in the church, but who wasn't around
anymore. The pastor asked, "Bill, what happened? You used to be there
every time the doors opened."<br>
<br>
"Well, Pastor," said Bill, "a
difference of opinion arose in the church. Some of us couldn't accept
the final decision and we established a church of our own."<br>
<br>
"Is that where you worship now?" asked the pastor.<br>
<br>
"No,"
answered Bill, "we found that there, too, the people were not faithful
and a small group of us began meeting in a rented hall at night."<br>
<br>
"Has that proven satisfactory?" asked the minister.<br>
<br>
"No,
I can't say that it has," Bill responded. "Satan was active even in
that fellowship, so my wife and I withdrew and began to worship on
Sunday at home by ourselves."<br>
<br>
"Then at last you have found inner peace?" asked the pastor.<br>
<br>
"No,
I'm afraid we haven't," said Bill. "Even my wife began to develop ideas
I was not comfortable with, so now she worships in the northeast corner
of the living room, and I am in the southwest."<br>
<br>
King Duncan, quoting Eugene Brice, Collected Sermons, <a __removedlink__2022692802__href="http://www.Sermons.com" target="_blank">www.Sermons.com</a><br>
_______________________ <br>
<br>
Family Values<br>
<br>
Last
week I was reading a newspaper article on family values. The gist of
the article was that everyone wants strong family values but few can
agree on what they are. Then I heard Roger Rosenblatt on public radio
being cynical about family values. Rosenblatt said that there are plenty
of perfect families around like yours and mine. But, there are so many
others that fall short, families like the Walker spy family or the
Medicis in Italy or the Macbeths of Scotland or the Oedipus Rexes of
Greece. Rosenblatt's point was that there is no perfect family and that
family values have become so generalized they are meaningless. He said
what is valuable in families is that they are normal people struggling
to do good and be good, strengthening themselves by listening to each
other, paying attention to other families, and encouraging each other to
be fair, honest, and kind. Sounds like a decent list of family values
to me, and even a single parent can do those things.<br>
<br>
Some of us,
when we think of family, think of more ordinary things, like clusters of
dog hair on clothes and hot dogs with everything smushed in the glove
compartment and peanut butter on the television screen and aging grease
on the hood over the stove. Whatever your view of the family and its
values might be, Jesus wrecks it all. Jesus' words are like answering
the doorbell and getting a bucket of ice water in the face.<br>
<br>
Kristin Borsgard Wee, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost (First Third): Do You Love Me?, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.<br>
____________________________<br>
<br>
Training to Hear the Voice of God <br>
<br>
There
is a positive message to be learned from these words of Jesus. The
lesson is that we must keep ourselves alert to the way God is working in
the world. Remember that those who were seeking to discredit Jesus were
religious people. Their problem was that they just didn't expect God to
be acting as Jesus said he was acting, so they missed the movement of
God in their midst, and in fact, they called it evil. Today God may be
speaking to us in causes that are unpopular, or in political events that
cause us to feel threatened and insecure. The cries for justice and
fairness in the world may come from quarters that we are not accustomed
to listen to. We need to exercise diligence so that we don't miss the
voice of God today just because it happens to be spoken by unfamiliar
lips. <br>
<br>
I once sat in on a class my wife was taking in music
appreciation. The instructor was asking the class members to listen for
the recurring theme as it was passed from one instrument to another and
was modified. I quickly lost it, but others in the class, who had
benefited from their training, were able to keep track of the theme and
even state which instrument was playing it. It is a law of life that we
hear what we have trained ourselves to hear. What we must do is to train
ourselves to listen for the voice of God in areas where we have not
expected to hear it. We hear that voice only by attentive listening: by
asking ourselves whether there is a valid message in those things which
make us uncomfortable.<br>
<br>
Jesus spoke of an unforgivable sin, not
because any act is unforgivable, but to warn us that our own hardness of
heart can close the channels through which God's forgiveness flows and,
as a consequence, leave us feeling alienated. Let us, therefore, affirm
the good that is in others, so that our own hearts become generous and
accepting of others, even as God is generous and accepting of us.<br>
<br>
David G. Rogne, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing Company <br>
____________________ <br>
<br>
Think What God Can Do with Our Sins <br>
<br>
M.
H. Schubert shares the story about a group of fishermen in the Scottish
highlands. They gathered for tea and discussed the day's catch. As a
waitress set down a cup of tea, a hand accidently knocked it against the
wall. It left an ugly stain. One of the guests got up, went to the
wall, and began sketching around the stain with a crayon. What emerged
was a stag with magnificent antlers. The man was Sir Edwin Landseer,
England's foremost painter of animals. If an artist can transform an
unsightly stain into a beautiful masterpiece, think what God can do with
our sins. He absolves them and, in their place, refashions us toward
full maturity.<br>
<br>
James Weekley, Tilted Haloes, CSS Publishing Company </span></div>
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<br>
When Perceptions Shift <br>
<br>
In
Mark 3, those who try to turn the work of God into the work of the
devil show by so doing that they are so far gone, so deeply enmeshed in a
spiritually inverted reality, that there is no reaching them. Some of
you will recall the dwarves as depicted by C.S. Lewis in the last book
of the Narnia series. The dwarves had been brought by Aslan the Lion
into the glories of the New Narnia, which stood for heaven or the
kingdom of God. These stubborn dwarves sat smack in the middle of a
sunlit meadow full of wildflowers and were being fed fruit and
vegetables more exquisitely flavorful and fresh than anyone had ever
before imagined was possible. <br>
<br>
Yet their minds were darkened,
their hearts were cold. And so they were convinced they were sitting in
the middle of a stinky old stable being fed moldy bread and cow manure.
When one of the other characters asks Aslan what can be done for these
hapless figures, the answer comes back that...</span></div>
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