Contributed by Paul Dietz on Jun 19, 2008
I recently came across a Chinese parable that eludes to our thoughts for today’s text. It’s a tale about a water-bearer and his two pots of clay.
An elderly peasant had two large clay pots. One of the pots had a crack down its side to a point about half way. The other pot, perfect! Each had been
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Contributed by Owen Bourgaize on Jul 6, 2008
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Children can be embarrassingly frank. I read of a minister who was visiting one of his members. The lady of the house was trying to impress him about how devout she was by pointing out the large Bible on the bookshelf and talking in a very reverential way of it as "the Word of God". Her young
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Baptist
Contributed by Bobby Scobey on Jul 9, 2008
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I want you to be challenged by this story about Jackie, a fairly new Christian who walked into a major discount store in Portland. In the prescription area she noticed a woman leaning on the counter obviously very sick. Jackie felt an impulse to pray with the woman but, as 90% of us would do, she
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Pentecostal
Contributed by Ajai Prakash on Jul 12, 2008
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I was reading an article this week about some of the dangers that face our young people simply because they imitate what they see. The article told about the Reebok company pulling an ad which showed an athlete jumping over an oncoming car - because some teenagers in Kentucky were trying to do the
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Evangelical/Non-Denominational
Contributed by Bruce Ball on Jul 14, 2008
I recently had to replace one of the strings on my mandolin. I laid the new string on the table as I took off the broken string. When I had thrown it into the trash, I looked at the new string lying on the table and realized how much it resembles many Christians.
That string has the ability to
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Last week’s I talked about the need for the church to give up some of their rights for the sake of the weaker ones in Christ. Today no one wants to be held responsible for their actions.
I looked up the word “Responsible” and discovered this: The state of being responsible, accountable, or
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Evangelical/Non-Denominational
This chair I’m sitting in is being stressed by my weight. As a former engineer, there was a time in my life when I could calculate those stresses – but not any more! So, this chair is under stress - but it is not stressed out! The stresses on it are well within its capacity. Those stresses TEND to
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Baptist
Contributed by Curtis Rowe on Aug 17, 2008
"IF I ONLY HAD FIVE MORE YEARS..."
The work of Japanese painter Hokusai spanned many years before his death in 1849 at age 89. But toward the end of his life, the artist dismissed as nothing all the work he had done before age 50. It was only after he reached 70 that he felt he was turning out
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Baptist
Contributed by Richard Francis on Aug 19, 2008
I recently heard Robert Fergusson a minister at the Hillsong Church in Sydney define four types of people with a heart for people, people who are inspiring, not comfortable to be around, go out into communities to help the sick, wounded, bleeding, dying ones into a deep pool of blessing, these
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Evangelical/Non-Denominational
Contributed by David Moore on Aug 27, 2008
I grew up in the Protestant community in Northern Ireland, but my first ministry was among the Roman Catholic community in the Republic of Ireland. One evening after preaching in Belfast, I was traveling south when my car broke down on the motorway. It was late at night, the road was dark and it
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Baptist
I asked God for the election of godly candidates to public office–exactly in those words–and after Mass one of our good parishioners criticized me for praying for the election of Republicans. Let’s
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Catholic
Contributed by Jim Kane on Sep 27, 2008
Purity is laughed at these days. I recently read an article on the internet about the recent reports and views expressed before a key Congressional Committee on abstinence only programs and their perceived failures.
Some who testified thought they should be done away with while others thought that
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Church Of God
Contributed by Peter Loughman on Oct 16, 2008
GIVE IT TO THE CAT ----Years ago I received a call from a member to stop on by her house. I could tell by the call that she was fairly shaken up. She was a lady who was quite advanced in years, and was quite wealthy, well, she was phenomenally wealthy. It turns out that granddaughter had stopped by
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Evangelical/Non-Denominational
"Why Should I Worship a Dead Jew?"
This challenging question was posed by a sincere young Jewish student who had been attending evangelistic meetings conducted by the author and composer of this hymn, Alfred H. Ackley. Mr. Ackley's answer to this searching question, ultimately prompted the writing
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Pentecostal
Contributed by Owen Bourgaize on Oct 25, 2008
I remember seeing a carton showing a scholarly man sitting on top of a great pile of books, looking at himself in a mirror, and above his head a question mark. He has mastered every subject of learning, but couldn’t answer the problem of himself! The infection of sin has warped human nature so
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Baptist
I recently heard from a reliable source that research tells us teenage girls would rather be a gopher for a celebrity than be CEO of a major corporation. Fame is deceptive and beauty fleeting, as Proverbs says, but they are both mighty attractive to the superficial mind. We
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Catholic
Contributed by Charles Wallis on Nov 13, 2008
I went on a fast and avoiding unhealthy foods. I did not eat bacon for weeks. The next time I had bacon, I could not eat it - it did not taste good. When we starve ourselves from sin, eventually, it will not taste good.
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Pentecostal
Speaking of gender issues, I heard that a while back Bill Gates decided it was time to figure out what gender a computer is. I mean, we assign gender to a lot of inanimate objects. In fact, in Spanish every noun is either male or female.
Bill Gates called together his top male experts and his
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Christian/Church Of Christ