All posts by 5Q

Choices

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“‘King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do.’ Then Agrippa said to Paul, ‘Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?’ Paul replied, ‘Short time or long—I pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.’”1

Phil Parrino, a Daily Encounter reader, tells the story how in “World War I there was a young American ambulance driver who personally witnessed all kinds of death and suffering. After the war he wrote dark brooding novels and finally committed suicide. His name was Earnest Hemmingway.

“But there was another American Ambulance driver even younger than the first. The dead and dying he witnessed were mostly from the great influenza epidemic that swept Europe at the end of World War I. After the war he drew cartoons and made people laugh. When he died he was loved by millions. His name was Walt Disney.

“As you have said, it’s not only what happens to us, but how we react to it. Our personality predisposes us to a certain extent, but in the end we make the choice.”

Life is a series of choices. I am today where I am because of choices I made years ago. I will be where I am tomorrow based on choices I make today. And I will spend eternity based on the choice I make about accepting or rejecting God’s great gift of salvation.

As Paul challenged King Agrippa to become a Christian, he challenges you and me today to make that choice and not to be an almost-persuaded. For help be sure to read, “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian” at: www.actsweb.org/articles.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to see that my life has been shaped in so many ways because of choices I made in the past. Help me to make choices today for where I want to be tomorrow. And above all, help me to make the right choice about eternity by making sure I have accepted Jesus as my Savior and am a true follower of him. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Acts 26:27-29 (NIV).

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Oh God, Please Change My…

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“There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.”1

“It’s not my problem. It’s my wife/husband who needs help!”

How many times have you heard this defensive type of statement? Having worked in the area of divorce recovery for the past decade or more, I have heard it repeatedly. One person recently said to me, “How do I make my husband understand that he is the one who needs help. He needs to know that he is wrong so he can get counseling.”

“And why did you marry this person? What attracted you to him/her in the first place?” I ask. Rarely do I get an honest answer.

This is not true in all cultures but, at least where we make our own choice about whom we marry, there are always underlying reasons why we are attracted and drawn to a particular person of the opposite sex.

At least one single man I know was facing reality when he said that he could walk into a room full of women and would automatically be attracted to the sickest (emotionally sickest) woman in the room! He knew it was because of his own emotional sickness. There’s hope for this man.

No matter what your wife/husband has done, the reality is you can’t change them. If you try to, it just makes them angry or angrier. As I’ve said many times, the only one we can ever change is our self, and as we change, those around us are almost forced to change in one way or another. However, this is not always for the best because some people don’t want us to change and get angry when we do. Change upsets the games they are playing!

I’m not saying that we should put up with someone else’s abusive behavior. Not at all. But we need to remember that we are the only person we can ever change. And while we pray for the other person, we need to first ask God to change us—and to confront us with the truth about ourselves so we can see any character flaws we have that we need to work on and resolve.

And we can always ask God to help us to be as Jesus to our husband/wife so that they, seeing Jesus in us, will want him for themselves. That may be the only hope for encouraging others to change.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, help me to quit playing the blame-game and always accept responsibility for whatever I am contributing in any conflicting situation in which I find myself. Help me to keep on changing and growing to become the person you want me to be. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Proverbs 30:18-19 (NIV).

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Believing a Lie

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“’I will scatter you like chaff driven by the desert wind. This is your lot, the portion I have decreed for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘because you have forgotten me and trusted in false gods.’”1

Ravi Zacharias in “A Slice of Infinity” shares how he was invited to participate in a discussion with six Russian generals (all of whom but one were atheists) at the Lenin Military Academy in Moscow.

Zacharias reported, “As the conversation unfolded from early unease through robust argumentation all the way to our warm conclusion, something incredible happened. One by one, each of these generals conceded that Russia was now in a pathetic state, not just economically but morally. As the men stood to bid us good-bye, the senior-ranking general grasped my hand and said, ‘Dr. Zacharias, I believe what you have brought us is the truth. But it is so hard to change after seventy years of believing a lie.’”2

Again I recall the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian-born Nobel Prize winner for literature(1970), who said, “Over half a century ago while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God, that’s why all this has happened.’”

How tragic when nations forget God and exchange the truth for a lie. Over and over again history records the results of those nations who forgot the one true God and believed a lie. And it’s happening today in the world in which you and I live.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be a messenger of grace and truth in all that I am, do, and say—and help me to live it first so that others seeing your love flowing through me will want your Truth and love for themselves. And please save our nation from believing a lie about you and the devastation that believing a lie causes. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Jeremiah 13:24-25 (NIV).

2. Ravi Zacharias, “Believing A Lie, Believing The Truth” Copyright (c) 2001 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) in “A Slice of Infinity” http://www.sliceofinfinity.org.

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With a Different God

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“For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”1

In, James Michener’s novel, The Source, he describes an ancient family. The father of the family sacrifices his son to Malek, an ancient God. The mother grieves while the father then goes and visits the temple prostitutes. She is deeply grieved at what her husband is doing in the name of religion. She laments: “With a different god, he would have been a different man.”

How true these words are in real life. Time and again we’ve seen the carnage caused by those with a different god. Bali—until the Islamic terrorist attack a few short years ago which killed almost 200 people—was looked upon as Paradise by Westerners.

Even since 9-11 many Western leaders and others have stated how Islam is a peace-loving religion claiming that we worship the same God. The fact is we don’t. Allah is not the triune God. For Muslims Jesus Christ is not God the Son nor is he the Savior of the World. He is only a prophet and second to Mohammad. True, not all Muslims are terrorists by any means and while most Muslims are moderate, there are many who take the Qur’án seriously and are dedicated to the destruction of Jews, Christians, and the West.

As Chuck Colson points out in BreakPoint, “If you want evidence of Islamic extremism, just ask any Indonesian Christian. For nearly three decades, Indonesia’s Christians have endured one outrage after another at the hands of their Muslim neighbors. In 1975, Indonesia invaded and annexed East Timor, killing hundreds of thousands of East Timorese Christians. Twenty years later, as East Timor gained its independence, the government again did nothing as more Christians were slaughtered. In the mid-nineties, Indonesia’s Christian Chinese were made the scapegoat for the country’s economic woes. Again, the government stood by as Christian businesses, homes, and churches were looted and burned.

“And in the last few years, an Islamic militia, the Laksar Jihad, has declared war on Christians living on the islands of Sulawesi and the Moluccas. The militia, which includes members from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Albania, and Bosnia, has attacked Christian villages and forced Christians to either convert to Islam or be beheaded.”

So, says Colson, “Overlooking the true nature of Islam is not only wrong, it’s folly—the kind of folly that can turn any paradise into hell on earth.”2

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, forgive us Westerners for overlooking the plight of Christians in other lands where they have been and are being slaughtered in your name by the thousands. And help us to wake up and realize that if we continue to turn from you—the one and only God—we too (or our children’s children) may very well be facing the same kind of terrorism as Christians in other lands are facing. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. I Timothy 2:5 (NASB).

2. Copyright 2002 Prison Fellowship Ministries http://www.breakpoint.org.

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Angels Unaware

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“Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”1

According to an article by G.K. Chesterton, “Francis of Assisi was terrified of leprosy. One day, full in the narrow path that he was traveling, he saw, horribly white in the sunshine, a leper! Instinctively his heart shrank back, recoiling from the contamination of that loathsome disease. But then he rallied; and ashamed of himself, ran and cast his arms about the sufferer’s neck and kissed him and passed on. A moment later he looked back, only to find that there was no one there, only the empty road in the hot sunlight. All his days thereafter he was sure it was no leper, but Christ Himself disguised as a leper whom he had met.”

Perhaps this is why he wrote the beautiful prayer known as the “Prayer of St. Francis,” which reads:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Let this beautiful prayer be our suggested prayer for today. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Hebrews 13:1-2 (KJV).

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Where Is God?

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“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD … From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind … [and] considers everything they do. No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength…But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.”1

I recall having read in a college newspaper about a student who painted in big white letters right across the side of a garbage truck, “Where is God?” Perhaps he was thinking at some level, why does God allow garbage to happen?

It’s an age-old question, as old as Job and as fresh as today: “Where is God when tragedy strikes … when a loved one dies and the heart is torn with grief … when innocent children are kidnapped, sexually abused, and murdered? And where was he on September 11, 2001? And again, when terrorist bombs blasted a resort hotel in Bali? Or when a sniper in the Washington, D.C. area was shooting and killing innocent people at random?”

I don’t want to sound callous by any means but we are asking the wrong question because God is where he always was and always is. The Apostle Paul said it best, in that God “is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’”2

So the question needs to be, “Where is man?”

Our problem lies in the fact that we as nations have left God—or are fast leaving him. As God’s Word, the Bible, says, “Blessed is that nation whose God is the Lord.”3 And what of those nations whose God is not the Lord? Perhaps history can best answer that question.

But the great tragedy is, as Friedrich Hegel said, “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please open our eyes and help us to see that when we leave you, forsake your Word and throw out your commandments, we open the door to evil. Grant that we will see in today’s senseless acts of terror a wakeup call to turn back to you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Psalm 33:12-19 (NIV).

2. See Acts 17:24, 26-28.

3. Psalm 33:12.

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Diverted by Lesser Things

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“Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.’”1

Julian Aldridge, Jr., tells how “Some years ago, Hollywood produced an exciting film titled, The Bridge on the River Kwai. The setting was during the Second World War in a Japanese Concentration Camp for prisoners of war. One of the prisoners, the Senior British Officer, talked the Japanese into letting the prisoners build a bridge over the River Kwai. The officer realized that it would boost morale, give life some purpose, and engender hope if the men had something to which they were committed each day.

“The work proceeded to the point of conclusion with a bridge that was a substantial piece of engineering skill; in fact, it was such a logistical benefit to the Japanese that the Allies had to send in an expedition force to blow it up. In the movie, there is a dramatic scene when the Senior British Officer, himself a prisoner of the Japanese, suddenly confronts with stark realism the fact that the other prisoners and he had spent all their time and energies building a bridge for the enemy!”2

As Aldridge pointed out, “There is, in the story, a lesson for all time. We, too, often spend our time and energies in pursuit of, or to perfect, the wrong things. This was the situation with those invited to the wedding banquet in the story Jesus told. They had an invitation to the party of a lifetime, and yet, they were diverted by lesser things.”2

May God help you and me not to be diverted by lesser things and thereby dissipate our energies and resources in non-essentials. Keeping eternal values in mind, let us make the most important things the most important things—both in the church and in our personal lives. And above all, whatever you do, don’t miss Christ’s invitation to you—his invitation to attend his “banquet in heaven” to be with him forever. For help see the article, “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian” at: www.actsweb.org/articles

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me always to live with eternal values in mind—not in a legalist manner—but with a sense of freedom doing what I do because I love you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 22:1-3 (NIV).

2. Rev. Dr. Julian M. Aldridge, Jr., Sermon: “Amazing Grace.”

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Love’s Greatest Symbol

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Sir John Bowring, at one time governor of Hong Kong, was a very gifted naturalist, statesman, political economist and linguist who could write in thirteen different languages and dialects.

One day when he was in the Orient, he was looking over an area devastated by an earthquake. Standing high above the ruins, like a lone sentinel, stood the tower of a church. And piercing the sky with its silhouette, on the very tip of the tower was a cross. The sight of this so moved Sir John Bowring that he penned the words of that great old hymn:

In the Cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o’er the wrecks of time;
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime.

And out of the midst of the turmoil, violence and suffering of today’s world stands the Cross of Jesus Christ of which there is no greater symbol of both love and hate … death and life … judgment and forgiveness …. despair and hope.

Most crosses are a symbol only of death. But the Cross of Christ is much more than this. While it is a symbol of Christ’s death on the cross, more than ever it is a symbol of life—eternal life.

Every time we see a cross, whether it be by the roadside or on a tombstone, we are reminded of the certainty of death—an appointment we all will keep. As God’s Word says, “No one has power over the day of his death.”1 And, “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.”2

But everytime we see a cross that represents the Cross of Christ we are reminded of the fact that over two thousand years ago the Son of God came to earth to die in our place that we might receive the gift of eternal life. He came to identify himself with all mankind, only to be rejected, condemned and crucified on the Cross at Calvary. He came to die, not for himself, but for us in our place, to pay the just penalty for all our sins that we might be cleansed, forgiven, made whole and fit for Heaven.

God’s Word explains it this way: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”3 And again, “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.”4

No matter how hard we try, we simply cannot save ourselves—neither through good works, intellectual achievement nor man-made religions. Had we been able to save ourselves, Jesus Christ never would have had to die for us. And as “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”5 Now through Jesus Christ we can receive the gift of eternal life by placing our faith and trust in him.

Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Only through him can we find true hope for this life and the life to come. This hope of eternal life can be yours today simply by accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour.

You can do this right now by praying a simple and honest prayer such as the following:

“Dear God, I confess that I am a sinner. I believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sin and I invite you to come into my heart and life to be my Lord and Savior. Please forgive me for all my sins and help me to become the person you want me to be. I commit and trust my life to you and ask you to direct me in all my ways by your Holy Spirit. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. In Jesus’ name amen.”

If you genuinely prayed this prayer, please let us know by filling in the form at www.actsweb.org/decision.php and we will send you the web address of specialy articles to help you in your Christian life—all without charge.

1. Ecclesiastes 8:8 (NIV).

2. Hebrews 9:27 (NASB).

3. Romans 5:12 (NASB).

4. 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 (NIV).

5. John 14:6 (NIV).

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Two Days That Changed the World

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“But he [Jesus] was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement [punishment] for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.”1

G. Franklin Allee wrote how, “Years ago, a young mother was making her way across the hills of South Wales, carrying her tiny babe in her arms when she was overtaken by a blinding blizzard. She never reached her destination alive, and when the blizzard subsided her body was found beneath the snow. But the searchers discovered that before her death she had taken off all her outer clothing and wrapped it about her baby. And when they unwrapped the child, to their great surprise and joy, they found he was alive and well. She had given her life for her child, providing the depth of her mother love.

“Years later that child, David Lloyd George, when grown to manhood, became prime minister of the United Kingdom, and without doubt was one of Britain’s greatest statesmen. The UK was a better place for a time because a mother gave her life for her son.”

On a much greater scale the world today is a better place because on Good Friday 2,000 years God the Father gave his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cruel Roman cross to pay the penalty for the sins of all mankind. Thank God that includes you and me. And now, because of Jesus’ death, all who put their trust in him will live forever in Heaven with God where there will be no more sickness, sadness, sorrow or death.

Thus Good Friday and Easter Sunday—when Jesus rose from the dead—are two days that changed the world forever.

Note: If you have never accepted Jesus as your Savior, be sure to read the article, “How to Be Sure You’re a Real Christian” at: www.actsweb.org/articles.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, how can I ever thank you enough for giving your Son, Jesus, to die in my place on the cross. Because you died for me, Lord Jesus, I give my heart and life to live for you all the days of my life. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Isaiah 53:5 (NKJV).

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The Power of Attitude

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“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.”1

I have read how William Wilberforce (who became an evangelical Christian) was a diminutive man and never enjoyed good health. For twenty years he was under doctor’s orders and had to take drugs to keep body and soul together. Yet he stopped the British slave trade. Boswell once went to hear him speak and said afterward: “I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mounted upon the platform, but as I listened, he grew and grew till the shrimp became a whale.”

The interesting thing is that so many successes in history have been achieved by people who have either been limited by some kind of handicap or have suffered a major setback or failure of one kind or another.

It’s one’s attitude in life that makes the difference. No matter what happens to us, with a positive attitude we can rise above our difficulties and achieve notable things with our life.

By having a positive attitude I don’t mean the denial of reality, but rather to be a positive realist. For instance, if I have been hit by a truck, all the positive thinking in the world won’t take away the pain. To be a positive realist means that I admit that I have been hit and hurt real bad—but with God’s help, and that of the medical profession and the support of loving friends, I will recover to the fullest possible extent and turn this experience into another blessing.

As another has said, “Our lives are not determined by what happens to us, but how we react to what happens; not by what life brings to us, but by the attitude we bring to life. A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst … a spark that creates extraordinary results.”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, whatever it is that I can do, regardless of my circumstances’ please help me to see what it is and do it with all my might. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Ecclesiastes 9:10 (NKJV).

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