A Theological Nose-dive or a Belly-flop?

Forty years ago a famous theologian wrote: "It is often said today that theology is stronger than it has ever been, and in terms of academic expertise and the quantity and quality of books published this is probably true; but it is a long time since theology has been so weak and clumsy at its basic task of holding the church to the realities of the gospel. Ninety years ago C.H.Spurgeon described the wobblings he then saw among the Baptists on Scripture, atonement and human destiny as 'the downgrade'; could he survey Protestant thinking about God at the present time, I guess he would speak of the 'nose-dive'!"

Now, in 2010, it wouldn't be a nose-dive but a belly flop.

"Stand ye in the way and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." Jeremiah 6:16

Befuddled Leaders feel Underappreciated

"Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are befuddled that the public does not appreciate the enlightened policies they have bestowed on America.

Cognizant that their policies are splendid, they blame the public’s inability to appreciate good policy.

Charles Krauthammer in Real Clear Politics playfully calls this the “Obama Under Appreciation Syndrome.”" from news source

In other words, "If you bunch of leadheads were as smart as us you would really appreciate what we are trying to do for you instead of voting us out. Wah, Wah."

The Coward's Revenge

Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.

George Bernard Shaw

Get Your Face in the Son

Keep facing the Son and the shadows will always be behind you!

Whoooooa, WHAT did God just whisper to David Wilkerson?

GOD TOLD ME SOMETHING I Was NOT EXPECTING to HEAR!
-David Wilkerson - Oct 20, 2010.

One night during a prayer meeting, God told me something about
our church I was not expecting to hear.

The Lord whispered to me, “This church needs shock treatment!
Too many have grown satisfied and complacent. You feel safe and
secure from all the winds and waves of false doctrines sweeping
over the land—but you are not prepared for what is coming!”

I AM NOT THE ONLY VOICE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS!!!!!!!

The Flip Side of the Coin

When life gives you a 100 reasons to cry, show
life that you have 1000 reasons to smile.

Letting Go

Holding on to hurts and refusing to forgive is like grasping a piece of hot iron. The longer you hold it the more damage you inflict upon yourself. For pity sake, drop it.

Shakespear - a diseased spirit.

Macbeth’s ambitions are now stronger than his conscience. The witches have tempted and controlled him with the idea of becoming king. Lady Macbeth manipulates him to overcome his natural hesitation to commit murder. Due to his manipulation, Macbeth chooses the crown over his honor and material gain in this world over salvation in the next world. Once he has killed to get the crown, the other crimes seem inevitable. In order to keep what he has taken, Macbeth learns to lie and kill as a matter of course. His values become totally confused. "Fair is foul, and foul is fair" to him now; he has lost track of the difference. By the end of the play, manipulation by others has completely consumed Macbeth. Once Macbeth kills Duncan, he is committed to a course of lying and killing. His sense of right and wrong is eaten away. Even before Macbeth is killed, he is dying of a diseased spirit. Scotland is also infected, and Macbeth is its disease. Macbeth is a prime example of the corruption of power, and how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Shakespeare’s play Macbeth is a study of manipulation, control, and power.

The right to be wrong.

"We have the right to believe whatever we want, but not everything we believe is right."

Ravi Zacharias

Formula for Happiness

“If you want happiness for an hour—take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day—go fishing.
If you want happiness for a month—get married.
If you want happiness for a year—inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime—help others.”

Chinese Proverb (quoted by Todd Harris in the shadow of Mt. Everest)

Ravi on the cross.

"Unless I understand the Cross, I cannot understand why my commitment to what is right must be precedence over what I prefer."

Ravi Zacharias

Einstein

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
Albert Einstein

Learning Humility

Question: How can I learn to be humble?

Answer: Get humiliated!

Question: And if that doesn't work?

Answer: Get humiliated again.

Self-debasement

No one can better make one look like a fool than one's self.

"Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents" (in American politics)

From William Burke's speech given in Parliament on April 23,1770.

"Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other’s principles, nor experienced in each other’s talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

One hundred years later the last sentence had been altered to become the oft quoted "misquote": The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

It is time (in America) for good men to "man up", stand up and speak up!

Six Honest Serving Men

I KEEP six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Rudyard Kipling

Let them serve you and they'll help you get to the bottom of almost anything.

A Kick in the Pants by Teddy

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.

Theodore Roosevelt

Abe Lincoln on canine anatomy

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.


Abraham Lincoln

Do you love me? Feed my sheep.

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.

George Washington

Falshoods and Errors

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.


Thomas Jefferson

Lessons

"If Jesus is our model, then servanthood is our method.

If servanthood is our method, then people are our ministry.

If people are our ministry, then involvement is the means."

We are "not servants to activities or to administrative details or to things.  We serve people."

Charles R. Swindoll

The Three Wonders of Heaven

You remember the story of the three wonders in heaven. The first wonder was, that we should see so many there we did not expect to see there; the second was, that we should miss so many we did expect to see there; but the third wonder would be the greatest wonder of all,—to see ourselves there.


Charles H. Spurgeon

Tyranny

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.


C. S. Lewis

"The Old That is Strong Does Not Wither" Tolkien

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."

— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

Will Rogers Quote

A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.


Will Rogers

SHOW ME !!

"Can we follow the Savior far, who have no wound or scar? "


— Amy Carmichael (God's Missionary)

It is still murder!!

If he is not alive,
why is he growing?

If he is not a human being,
what kind of being is he?

If he is not a child
why is he sucking his thumb?

If he is a living, human child,
why is it legal to kill him?

On The Rock

"I may tremble on the Rock, but the Rock never trembles under me." 

Charles R. Swindoll