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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Wouldn’t It Be Great? </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Wouldn't
it be great if I won a million dollars? Well, maybe it wouldn't be so
great. Not everyone has the same idea of a great time. One person's wish
may be another's nightmare. Take, for example, the story of three men
who were sailing together in the Pacific Ocean. Their vessel was wrecked
and they found themselves on an island. They had plenty of food, but
their existence was in every way different from what their lives had
been in the past. The men were walking by the seashore one day after
they had been there for some months and found an ancient lantern. One
man picked it up. As he began to rub it and clean it, a genie popped out
and said, "Well, since you have been good enough to release me, I will
give each of you one wish." </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The
first man said, "Oh, that's perfectly marvelous. I'm a cattleman from
Wyoming and I wish I were back on my ranch." Poof! He was back on his
ranch. </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The
second man said, "Well, I'm a stockbroker from New York, and I wish
that I were back in Manhattan." Poof! He was back in Manhattan with his
papers, his telephones, his clients and his computers. </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The
third fellow was somewhat more relaxed about life and actually had
rather enjoyed life there on the island. He said, "Well, I am quite
happy here. I just wish my two friends were back." Poof! Poof!
Everybody's idea of a "great time" isn't the same! </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">So
is it true? Are many Americans sitting around wishing, "Now wouldn't it
be great ...if I won the lottery...if I had my dream house...if I was
famous...." As Christians...as the people of God...what if instead of
wishing for money or fame or success or more "things," we could just as
earnestly wish with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength that
we could love the Lord our God and love our neighbor as ourselves?</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">David Beckett, Wouldn’t It Be Great?</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Loving out of Obligation</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">A rabbi was asked, "Which act of charity is higher--giving out of obligation or giving from the heart?"</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">All
in the class were inclined to respond that giving from the heart had
something more in it, but they knew the rabbi was going to say just the
opposite, because in spiritual teaching nothing is logical. They were
not disappointed.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">"Giving
from the heart is a wonderful thing," the rabbi said, "It is a very
high act and should never be demeaned. But there is something much more
important that happens when somebody gives charity out of obligation.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">"Consider
who is doing the giving. When somebody gives from the heart, there is a
clear sense of oneself doing something; in other words, heartfelt
charity always involves ego gratification.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">"However,
when we give out of obligation, when we give at a moment that every
part of us is yelling NO! because of one reason or another--perhaps the
beneficiary is disgusting, or it is too much money, or any of thousands
of reasons we use to avoid giving charity--then we are confronting our
own egos, and giving nonetheless. Why? Because we are supposed to. And
what this means is that it is not us doing the giving, rather we are
vehicles through which God gives...</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">David A. Cooper, Entering the Sacred Mountain: A Mystical Odyssey, Bell Tower.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">__________________</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The Strong, Saving Love</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">I
think it was Charlie Brown who said, "I love humanity! It is people I
can't stand!" Yet the costly love that Jesus embodies involves an
intimate encounter with God's fierce and holy love. It involves pouring
out self for real people, sinners all, with all their real-life quirks,
faults, smells, and flesh-and-blood sins. <br>
<br>
That harried young mother in the doctor's waiting room (or maybe the
next pew): perhaps loving her as yourself means offering to watch the
toddler while she feeds the baby. That person in line at the bank who's
stumbling over the English language and struggling to understand
deposits and withdrawals: could loving him mean stepping out of line and
helping him get it straight? That next-door neighbor struggling to keep
his marriage together, that daughter who pushes your buttons every ten
minutes, that husband scared of being laid off -- these are the ones who
desperately need the strong saving love, the compassion and mercy, the
challenge and holiness and presence of Jesus. In those moments, dare to
risk being rebuffed or inconvenienced. Dare to look foolish and make
mistakes. Dare to love God and that person, even if it wrings your heart
with pain to do so. It's what we've been created, redeemed, and
commanded to do. Hang your whole life on love, for the truth is, it's
God's
love,
active in you. And his love will never fail.<br>
<br>
Cathy A. Ammlung, Sermons for Sundays after Pentecost, CSS Publishing Company<br>
________________________<br>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Beauty and the Beast</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">G.
K. Chesterton once said that the really great lesson of the story of
“Beauty and the Beast” is that a thing must be loved before it is
loveable. A person must be loved before that person can be loveable.
Some of the most unlovely people I have known got that way because they
thought that nobody loved them. The fact of the matter is that unless
and until we feel ourselves loved, we cannot love. That’s not only a
principle of theology but of psychology and sociology as well. Just as
abused children grow up to abuse their children, loved children grow up
to love their children. Loved persons are able to love. Unloved persons
are not. Christianity says something startling. It says that God loves
and accepts us “just as we are.” Therefore we can love and accept
ourselves and in so doing, love and accept others. </span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Donald B. Strobe, Collected Words, <a target="_blank" href="http://mail.churchmail.com/lists/lt.php?id=Kk8BAgQKCQVUDUkNAQVKDAtXUVw%3D"><font color="#0000ff">www.Sermons.com</font></a> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">____________________</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Love is not blind. Love is the only thing that sees.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Frank Crane</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Chip It Away</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">There
is a story about a man who had a huge boulder in his front yard. He
grew weary of this big, unattractive stone in the center of his lawn, so
he decided to take advantage of it and turn it into an object of art.
He went to work on it with hammer and chisel, and chipped away at the
huge boulder until it became a beautiful stone elephant. When he
finished, it was gorgeous, breath-taking.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">A neighbor asked, "How did you ever carve such a marvelous likeness of an elephant?"</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">The man answered, "I just chipped away everything that didn't look like an elephant!"</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">If
you have anything in your life right now that doesn't look like love,
then, with the help of God, chip it away! If you have anything in your
life that doesn't look like compassion or mercy or empathy, then, with
the help of God, chip it away! If you have hatred or prejudice or
vengeance or envy in your heart, for God's sake, and the for the other
person's sake, and for your sake, get rid of it! Let God chip everything
out of your life that doesn't look like tenderheartedness.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not To Be True, p. 32.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Representing Christ</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">When
I was at Drew University in New Jersey, I became friends with a
Catholic priest named Sean O'Kelly. Sean was redheaded and always seemed
to have a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes. He spoke with a
heavy Irish brogue because he had only been in America for a few years.<br>
<br>
While he was in school, he was also pastoring a Catholic church in the
heart of Newark, New Jersey. If you want to talk about urban blight and
poverty and hunger, all you have to do is to take a trip up and down the
streets of Newark.<br>
<br>
On one occasion, Sean heard that a family in his parish was hungry.
Because of a bureaucratic foul-up, a mother with five small children had
no food and no hope of getting any until the end of the month.<br>
<br>
Although the family was not Catholic, Sean O'Kelly went to the grocery
store and bought a supply of groceries. There were three full sacks, and
he went to the apartment building where the family lived. After
carrying the groceries up four flights of stairs and walking down a long
hall, he came to the apartment. He rang the doorbell, and a little boy
about seven years old answered the door. He looked at Father O'Kelly's
clerical collar and the sacks of groceries, and then screamed at his
mother: "Mama, Mama, come quick. Jesus brought us some food!"<br>
<br>
In telling about that incident, Sean said, "I will never forget that
child's comment. At that moment, I realized that I was the Christ for a
hungry child."<br>
<br>
If we are to be the neighbors that God calls us to be, then we need to
understand that you and I are expected to help those we have the
capacity to help. The opportunities for service are almost endless in
every neighborhood - even yours. There are a dozen ways or more for you
to help people if you are willing to be the neighbor God calls you to
be! Religion in a nutshell means that you really are expected to be
"Jesus" to your neighbors when they are in need.<br>
<br>
Robert L. Allen, The Greatest Passages of the Bible, CSS Publishing Company, Inc.<br>
_________________</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">By loving the unlovable, You made me lovable.</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">Augustine to God</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">It All Started with 10 Commandments</span></div>
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<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">In
a cartoon, Frank and Ernest are standing in front of row after row of
shelves of books. On top of one of the shelves is a sign, which reads,
"Law Library." Franks turns and says to Ernest: "It's frightening when
you think that we started out with just Ten Commandments." </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">It
is sort of frightening isn't it? We started out with 10 and now we have
an estimated 35 million laws on the books in the United States alone.
Some of them are very good and deeply needed. But there are some that
probably need to be repealed. </span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">For
example: Did you know there is a law in Florida that makes it illegal
for a woman who's single, divorced or widowed to parachute out of a
plane on Sunday afternoon?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </div>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: 12pt">In Amarillo, Texas, it is against the law to take a bath on the main street during banking hours…</span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">The rest of this illustration, as well as many additional illustrations and sermons for the whole year, can be accessed at </span></span><span style="color: black"><a target="_blank" href="http://mail.churchmail.com/lists/lt.php?id=Kk8BAgQKCQVUDUkNAQVKDAtXUVw%3D"><span style="font-size: small"><font color="#0000ff">www.Sermons.com</font></span></a></span><span style="font-size: small"><span style="color: black">.<br>
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