Sunday, March 11, 2007

Christian Leadership

Ezekiel 34

  • Strengthen the weak
  • Heal the Sick
  • Bind up the injured
  • Bring back the strays
  • Search for the lost
  • Make a covenant of peace
  • Judge with justice
  • Send down showers of blessings

Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. … Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. And they were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered.
Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I shall demand My sheep from them and make them cease from feeding sheep. … I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. … I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day.
Is it too slight a thing for you that you should feed in the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of the pastures? Or that you should drink of the clear waters, that you must foul the rest with your feet? … Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them, Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you push with side and with shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, until you have scattered them abroad, therefore, I will deliver My flock, and they will no longer be a prey; and I will judge between one sheep and another.

~ Ezekiel 34:1-22, NASB

Matthew 25:31-46, NASB

But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'
Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'
The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'
Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'
Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'
Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'
These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Good News from the Barrio

"A gospel that doesn't unsettle,
a word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin,
a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed,
what gospel is that?"

~ El Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero

Friday, March 09, 2007

Seven Basic Story Plots

According to the Internet Public Library, they are:
[wo]man vs. nature
[wo]man vs. man
[wo]man vs. the environment
[wo]man vs. machines/technology
[wo]man vs. the supernatural
[wo]man vs. self
[wo]man vs. god/religion

Ronald Tobias, author of "Twenty Basic Plots" believes the following make for good stories: quest, adventure, pursuit, rescue, escape, revenge, riddle, rivalry, underdog, temptation, metamorphosis, transformation, maturation, love, forbidden love, sacrifice, discovery, wretched excess, ascension, and decision.

Overlap must be common under this theory. For example, "Rocky" is a story of the "underdog," who goes through a "transformation" and falls in "love" while on a "quest."

Ask Yahoo 3/9/2007
http://ask.yahoo.com/20070305.html

Sunday, March 04, 2007

To Be What We Are

"If we want to be anything other than what God has made us to be, we are wasting our time. It will not work.

"The greatest accomplishment in life is to be what we are, which is God's idea of what he wanted us to be when he brought us into being; and no ideas of ours will ever change it. Accepting that gift is accepting God's will for us, and in its acceptance lies the path to growth and ultimate fulfillment."

~ from The Heart of the World by Fr. Thomas Keating
http://www.centeringprayer.com/
heart/heart12.htm

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

An outrageous old woman

I want to be an outrageous old woman
who never gets called an old lady.
I want to get leaner & meaner,
sharp edged & earth colored,
till I fade away from pure joy.

Good Morning!

This is God.
I will be handling all your problems today.
I do not need your help,
so have a nice day.

"I'm glad I'm not me."

One of the themes of Bob Dylan's life was the tension between outsiders' attempts to figure him out, and his resistance to being figured.

Dylan's comment on after reading one egregious profile:
"I'm glad I'm not me."

from Dont Look Back - Bob Dylan documentary

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Faith of Our Fathers

If you stop believing what your professor told you had to be true and if you start thinking for yourself you may come to some conclusions you hadn't expected. You may find the Bible makes more sense than you thought or were told to think. Allow yourself to be ruined, ruined with regard to what you always thought could be true. Can you believe what you don't understand? You and I believe everyday what we don't understand unless it comes to the issue of salvation.
~ Dr. Woodrow Kroll

There is simply no historic foundation for the position that the Framers intended to build the 'wall of separation' that was constitutionalized in Everson. The 'wall of separation between church and state' is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.
~ Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, William Rehnquist

In 1796 the US Supreme Court issued this ruling, "By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion, and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed on equal footing." Some 57 years later, after Congress was petitioned to separate Christian principles from government, in 1853 the House Judiciary Committee issued their formal report, including these words: "In this age there is no substitute for Christianity. This was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to be the religion of their dependents. The great vital, conservative elements in our system is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ."
~ Dr. Gerald Beavan

"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."
~ President Abraham Lincoln

Trust in yourself and you are doomed to disappointment; trust in money and you may have it taken from you; but trust in God, and you are never to be confounded in time or eternity.
~ D.L. Moody

Faith and love are apt to be spasmodic in the best of minds. Men and women live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they never enter and with their hand on the door latch they die outside.
~ GK Chesterton

*******

I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus Christ]: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God."
That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell.
You must make your choice. Either this Man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse .... You can shut Him up for fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to.
~ From Case for Christianity, by C.S. Lewis

"Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3)."
~ The Laws and Statutes of Harvard College in 1643

"All scholars shall live religious, godly, and blameless lives according to the rules of God's Word, diligently reading the Holy Scriptures, the fountain of light and truth; and constantly attend upon all the duties of religion, both in public and secret."
~ Two central requirements in Yale College 1745 charter

************

"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book."
~ President Abraham Lincoln

"For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world."
~ John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630

"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
~ President George Washington

"The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it."
~ Napoleon

"That Book accounts for the supremacy of England."
~ Queen Victoria

"If there is anything in my thought or style to commend , the credit is due my parents for instilling in me an early love of the Scriptures. If we abide by the principals taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity."
~ Daniel Webster (Founding Father)

"The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed."
~ Patrick Henry (original member of the Continental Congress)

"The Bible is the anchor of our liberties."
~ President U.S. Grant

"It is impossible to enslave mentally or socially a Bible-reading people. The principals of the Bible are the groundwork of human freedom."
~ Horace Greeley (Editor)

"That Book is the rock on which our Republic rests."
~ President Andrew Jackson

"In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength."
~ Gen. Robert E. Lee

"Bible reading is an education in itself."
~ Lord Tennyson (Poet)

"So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society. I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year."
~ President John Quincy Adams

"The existence of the Bible, as a Book for the people, is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. Every attempt to belittle it is a crime against humanity."
~ Immanuel Kant (Philosopher)

"The New Testament is the very best Book that ever or ever will be known in the world."
~ Charles Dickens (Author)

"All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of confirming more and more strongly the truths contained in the Sacred Scriptures."
~ Sir William Herschel (Astronomer)

"There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history."
~ Sir Isaac Newton (Scientist)

"Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires; beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go."
~ Goethe (Author)

"I have known ninety-five of the world's great men in my time, and of these eight-seven were followers of the Bible. The Bible is stamped with a Specialty of Origin, and an immeasurable distance separates it from all competitors."
~ W.E. Gladstone (Prime Minister)

"Whatever merit there is in anything that I have written is simply due to the fact that when I was a child my mother daily read me a part of the Bible and daily made me learn a part of it by heart."
~ John Ruskin (art critic and social commentator)

"The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and oppressed. The human race is not in a position to dispense with it."
~ Thomas Huxley (Author & Scientist)

"The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever growing influence of the Bible."
~ W.H. Seward (Secretary of State)

"America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness, which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scriptures. Part of the destiny of Americans lies in their daily perusal of this great book of revelations. That if they would see America free and pure they will make their own spirits free and pure by this baptism of the Holy Spirit."
~ President Woodrow Wilson

For Christians, the life and death of Jesus are the ultimate expressions of love, and the supreme demonstrations of God's mercy, faithfulness, and redemption. Since Christ's miraculous Resurrection on Easter, more than 2,000 years ago, Christians have expressed joy and gratitude for this wondrous sacrifice and for God's promise of freedom for the oppressed, healing for the brokenhearted, and salvation.
~ President George W. Bush

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
~ Patrick Henry (original member of the Continental Congress)

******

Monday, February 19, 2007

A Woman Has Delivered the Word of God

For all of those who believe that a woman should not deliver the Word of God,
I have an announcement to make.
IT IS TOO LATE. She already has. His name is JESUS.
To all women who are called and are about to deliver the Word,
I have only one and the only thing that a man should say as you deliver.
PUSH!!

~ Author Unknown

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Who Is Wise?

Who is wise? He that learns from every One.
Who is powerful? He that governs his Passions.
Who is rich? He that is content.
Who is that? Nobody.

~ Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790)

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

A Divine Valentine

A Valentine may play a love song for you, but our Creator sings you the sweetest song in the universe.
Our Creator...will rejoice over you with gladness. He will keep you quiet with his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17
A Valentine may give you flowers, but our Creator sent you the most beautiful rose of all, Yeshua.
I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
Song of Solomon 2:1
A Valentine may take you out to dinner, but our Creator has invited you to the most amazing feast ever given.
Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!
Revelation 19:9
A Valentine may bring you chocolate, but our Creator provides you with something even sweeter, His Word.

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Psalm 119:103

A Valentine may be far away, but our Yeshua is with you always.

I am with you always.
Matthew 28:20

A Valentine may give you something, but our Creator has given you everything.

Our Creator gives us richly all things to enjoy.
1 Timothy 6:17

A Valentine may love you for a lifetime, but our Creator loved you before you were born and will love you for all eternity!

Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love... with lovingkindness I have drawn you.
Jeremiah 31:3.

Adapted from Holly Garth from Dayspring.

A Sense of Duty

A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation.

~ Bertrand Russell

Saturday, February 03, 2007

He who loves one woman well

"He, who loves many women, understands none of them;
he, who loves one woman well, understands all of them."

~ the Spanish romantic

God Values Who You Are

"The world values what you do, what you own, and how you look;
God values who you are and who you can become."

~ Sister Patrice Murphy

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Hard is not Hopeless

"The situation in Iraq is dire. The stakes are high. There are no easy choices. The way ahead will be very hard. But hard is not hopeless."

~ Lt. Gen David Petraeus

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Falling from Grace

"When we remain in the grace of God, we have no fear. Our anger, doubts, and fears arise when we fall from grace and thrash around under our own limitations."

~ Truthful Grace

Loving Someone

with regard to a family dispute:

"You can never go wrong by loving someone."

~ Truthful Grace

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Doing to yourself

If somebody else else did to you the things you do to yourself, you'd call the police.

~ quoted by a friend from a Stephen Sondheim play seen recently in New York

Monday, January 01, 2007

Intergenerational Healing Prayers

The following are short versions of the prayers suggested by Fr. Robert de Grandis for healing back into the generations. His book, Intergenerational Healing can be found in any good Christian bookshop and offers excellent insights into the area of the faults, failings and actions of our ancestors having effects on the present and even onto future generations. His healing ministry in the Lord and the Holy Spirit has been hugely successful and he gained much from the work of Dr. Kenneth McAll (Healing the Family Tree) and He covers many different areas of unlove and negativity.

"In the Name of Jesus, I take authority and I bind all powers and forces in the air, in the ground, in the water, in the underground, in nature and in fire.
You are the Lord over the entire universe and I give you the Glory for Your creation.
In Your name, Lord, I bind all demonic forces that have come against me and my family and I seal all of us in the protection of Your Precious Blood that was shed for us on the Cross."

"Mary our Mother, we seek your protection and intercession with the Sacred Heart of Jesus for me and my family, and surround us with your mantle of love to discourage the enemy."

"Saint Michael the Archangel and our Guardian Angels
come defend me and my family in battle against all the evil ones that roam the earth.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in our hour of need.
Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snare of the devil.
May God restrain him, we humbly pray.
And to thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Hosts,
cast satan down to hell and with him all the wicked spirits
who wander through the world for the ruin of souls."

"In the Name of Jesus, I bind and command all the powers and forces of evil to depart right now away from us, our homes and our lands.
And we thank You Lord Jesus for You are a faithful and compassionate God. Amen."

"Heavenly Father, I ask You now to go back though all in my bloodline,
my husband's/wife's bloodline,
and the bloodlines connected to all of my family and relatives
and forgive the wrongs, heal the illnesses, bind the evil deeds.
I ask You Lord to break the chains, associations and links any of these may have to us here in the present.
On their behalf Lord, I seek Your forgiveness, your healing and a pouring out of your Divine Love so that Your Love may now pour forth through the years and touch us in the here and now.
So that Your Divine and Healing Love will take the place of all the past hurts, angers, hates, unlove of You, destructive emotions or actions and evil ties of our ancestors.
So that Your Precious Blood and Divine Love and Healing will heal us of the residue we carry from our ancestors.
In true faith I thank You Lord because You have said
'Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be opened to you'. Today Lord I knock, I seek, I ask.
All praise and thanks to You my loving Father."

http://www.circleofprayer.com/healing-prayers.html

Healing Prayer at Bedtime

Lord Jesus,through the power of the Holy Spirit,
go back into my memory as I sleep.
Every hurt that has ever been done to me,
heal that hurt.
Every hurt that I have ever caused another person,
heal that hurt.
All the relationships that have been damaged in my whole life
that I am not aware of,
heal those relationships.
But, Lord,if there is anything that I need to do,
if I need to go to a person
because he or she is still suffering from my hand,
bring to my awareness that person.
I choose to forgive,
and I ask to be forgiven.
Remove whatever bitterness may be in my heart, Lord,
and fill the empty spaces with your love.
Amen.