Contributed by Ed Vasicek on May 4, 2009
I learned something about myself from a Boy Scout ceremony. They had a candle that represented knowledge. The Scouts were admonished to not allow the breeze of laziness to blow it out.
I have long wondered what it was that makes me want to take short cuts and easy paths, so I now
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on May 4, 2009
"It is easier to isolate ourselves than live as pilgrims in society. It is easier to assimilate and be like everyone else than to live as pilgrims in society. But God calls us to take the more difficult path: to participate in society
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Apr 27, 2009
THREE PHASES TO AN ENJOYABLE LIFE
When I was a boy, I would watch the space launches on TV. The rockets were in three phases. As it got so high, the lowest section of the rocket would drop off. Then the second section would drop off until only the capsule would remain. It took all three sections
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Apr 20, 2009
POP-CORK GUN
Although we are the clay when compared to God’s power, we are not passive. We cannot successfully wage a war against God, but God leaves us with a choice.
Remember the story of Peter and the Wolf, how he tries to hunt a wolf with a pop-cork gun? The wolf corners him, but he is
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Apr 6, 2009
Jeremy was a Christian. He had been saved at the age of 16, baptized, and was a faithful church member. When Jeremy chose a career, he did not pray about it or ask God for direction. He did what seemed obvious to him. When he dated, he was not careful to date only godly Christian women. When he
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 30, 2009
UNMARKED POLICE CAR
As my husband, the county highway commissioner, was driving to the hospital for treatment of his painful leg, he decided to use the valet parking service so he wouldn’t have to walk far. Staring at his official-looking vehicle, one of the valets asked my husband if he was
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 30, 2009
Yet it is so difficult to convince others to take that course, even when they see it. The problem is that only God can give the appetite for the Scriptures that brings such great spiritual nutrition. The natural man is like a dying cancer patient to whom food has become detestable. The
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 30, 2009
The most famous egg parasites are birds. Cuckoos and cowbirds, for example, sneak their eggs into the nests of other species. The victims often accept an interloper egg and raise the chick.
The people in Jeremiah’s day had become rich dishonestly, and had forsaken the Lord.
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 23, 2009
HABITUAL OFFENDERS
In the world of criminal prosecution, sometimes an individual has a track record of crime; if so, they may try to prosecute him/her as a "habitual offender." As a result, the individual will spend more time in jail because the courts have decided that crime is a way of life for
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 23, 2009
GEHENNA
Ben-Hinnon is also known as Gehenna, a word Jesus used for hell. At the time of Jesus, it was a garbage dump, where a fire constantly burned, consuming the relentless supply of garbage from a large city like Jerusalem. Gehenna is a place on earth which communicates the nature of hell.
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 23, 2009
A March 2009 AP article demonstrates how sinful attitudes are passed on from one generation to another: "PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A Rhode Island woman is accused of punching and biting her 11-year-old son’s school principal after she was told the boy was being suspended.
Police say 30-year-old Aleyda
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 17, 2009
CHARACTER AND ENVIRONMENT--SECULAR VIEW
Best-selling secular author and expert in consumer behavior, Malcolm Gladwell, in his book, "The Tipping Point" comes to this conclusion:
"Character, then, isn't what we think it is--or rather, what we want it to be. It isn't a stable, easily identifiable
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 17, 2009
"What we value speaks volumes about us. When the oil industry got going, gasoline was a curious side-product. It wasn’t good for much. When auto pioneers worked on developing engines, they would buy gasoline by the quart from the pharmacy. Now, we fight wars over oil fields; we value what once was
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 14, 2009
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SIGNS ONLY EXPOSE REALITY
Signs do not create a reality; they merely expose it. For example, a sign on a highway may read "Chicago: 160 miles". If we changed the sign to read "60 miles" instead, it wouldn't change the fact that Chicago is really 160 miles away.
Truth doesn't change, no matter
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 2, 2009
Thu Feb 26, AP
DENVER – A good Samaritan who helped push three people out of the path of a pickup truck before being struck and injured has gotten a strange reward for his good deed: A jaywalking ticket.
Family members said 58-year-old bus driver Jim Moffett and another man were helping two elderly
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Mar 2, 2009
God reigns over all. He does as He pleases. Wayne Grudem writes, "God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Feb 26, 2009
David Guzik comments on why there are 12 tribes, although defined with variation:
"12 is a number often associated with government or administration in God’s eyes. There are 12 tribes, 12 apostles, 12 princes of Ishmael, 12 pillars on Moses’ altar, 12 stones on the high priest’s breastplate, 12
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Feb 16, 2009
Jim Lopardo tells this story: I was a percussion major when I was in college, and during a rehearsal of the student orchestra, my section kept making mistakes.
"When you’re too dumb to play anything," the professor conducting us sneered, "they give you a couple of sticks, put you in the back and
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Contributed by Ed Vasicek on Feb 16, 2009
"Wasn’t it dangerous for Jacob to set out to Bethel? Of course it was! Jacob was in such a precarious place, the only thing which could save him was a radical obedience to the Lord. No matter what the circumstances look
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