Month: July 2005

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Diligence in all things

“Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge, etc.” –2 Peter 1:5, 6

   If thou wouldest enjoy the eminent grace of the full assurance of faith, under the blessed Spirit’s influence, and assistance, do what the Scripture tells thee, ‘Give diligence’. Take care that thy ‘faith’ is of the right kind–that it is not a mere belief of doctrine, but a simple faith, depending on Christ, and on Christ alone. Give diligent heed to thy ‘courage’. Plead with God that He would give thee the face of a lion, that thou mayest, with a consciousness of right, go on boldly. Study well the Scriptures, and get ‘knowledge’; for a knowledge of doctrine will tend very much to confirm faith. Try to understand God’s Word; let it dwell in thy heart richly.

   When thou hast done this, “Add to thy knowledge ‘temperance’. Take heed to thy body: be temperate without. Take heed to thy soul: be temperate within. Get temperance of lip, life, heart, and thought. Add to this, by God’s Holy Spirit, ‘patience’; ask Him to give thee that patience which endureth affliction, which, when it is tried, shall come forth as gold. Array yourself with patience, that you may not murmur nor be depressed in your afflictions. When that grace is won look to ‘godliness’. Godliness is something more than religion. Make God’s glory your object in life; live in His sight; dwell close to Him; seek for fellowship with Him; and thou hast “godliness”; and to that add _brotherly love_. Have a love to all the saints: and add to that a ‘charity’, which openeth its arms to all men, and loves their souls. When you are adorned with these jewels, and just in proportion as you practise these heavenly virtues, will you come to know by clearest evidence “your calling and election.” “Give diligence,” if you would get assurance, for lukewarmness and doubting very naturally go hand in hand.

Taken from yesterday’s Morning and Evening morning devotion

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On another note . . .

Three older gals were chatting about the problems of aging gracefully. One said, “Sometimes I catch myself with a jar of mayonnaise in my hand, in front of the refrigerator, and can’t remember whether I need to put it away, or start making a sandwich.”

The second lady chimed in, “Oh yes, Ethel, sometimes I find myself standing on the stairs and can’t remember whether I was on my way up or on my way down.”

The third one responded, “Well, I’m glad I don’t have that problem; knock on wood,” as she rapped her knuckles on the table. . . Suddenly she said, “Oh, darn! That must be the door, I’ll get it!”

A Highway Patrolman waited outside a popular bar, hoping for a bust.

At closing time everyone come out and he spotted his potential quarry. The man was so obviously inebriated that he could barely walk. He stumbled around the parking lot for a few minutes, looking for his car.

After trying his keys on five other cars, he finally found his own vehicle. He sat in the car a good ten minutes, as the other patrons left. He turned his lights on, then off, wipers on, then off. He started to pull forward into the grass, then stopped.

Finally, when he was the last car, he pulled out onto the road and started to drive away.

The patrolman, waiting for this, turned on his lights and pulled the man over. He administered the breathalyzer test, and to his great surprise, the man blew a 0.00.

The patrolman was dumbfounded. “This equipment must be broken!” he exclaimed.

“I doubt it,” said the man, “Tonight I am the designated decoy!”

One day a man spotted a lamp by the roadside. He picked it up, rubbed it vigorously, and a genie appeared.

“I’ll grant you your fondest wish,” the genie said.

The man thought for a moment, then said, “I want a spectacular job — a job that no man has ever succeeded at or has ever attempted to do.”

“Poof!” said the genie. “You’re a housewife.”

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The Parable of the Fishless Fishermen Fellowship

Here is another one of those unknown author tidbits that is really good. I first heard it in a sermon but just received it in an e-mail. Enjoy!

The Parable of the Fishless Fishermen Fellowship

They were surrounded by streams and lakes full of hungry fish. They met regularly to discuss the call to fish, the abundance of fish, and the thrill of catching fish. They got excited about fishing!

Someone suggested that they needed a philosophy of fishing, so they carefully defined and redefined fishing, and the purpose of fishing. They developed fishing strategies and tactics. Then they realized that they had been going at it backwards. They had approached fishing from the point of view of the fisherman, and not from the point of view of the fish. How do fish view the world? How does the fisherman appear to the fish? What do fish eat, and when? These are all good things to know. So they began research studies, and attended conferences on fishing. Some traveled to faraway places to study different kinds of fish with different habits. Some got doctorates in fishology. But no one had yet gone fishing.

So a committee was formed to send out fishermen. As prospective fishing places outnumbered fishermen, the committee needed to determine priorities. A priority list of fishing places was posted on bulletin boards in all of the fellowship halls. But still, no one was fishing. A survey was launched to find out why. Most did not answer the survey, but from those who did, it was discovered that some felt called to study fish, a few to furnish fishing equipment, and several to go around encouraging the fishermen. What with meetings, conferences, and seminars, they just simply didn?t have time to fish.

Now, Jake was a newcomer to the Fisherman?s Fellowship. After one stirring meeting of the Fellowship, he went fishing and caught a large fish. At the next meeting, he told his story and was honored for his catch. He was told that he had a special “gift of fishing.” He was then scheduled to speak at all the Fellowship chapters and tell how he did it.

With all the speaking invitations and his election to the board of directors of the Fisherman’s Fellowship, Jake no longer had time to go fishing. But soon he began to feel restless and empty. He longed to feel the tug on the line once again. So he cut the speaking, he resigned from the board, and he said to a friend, “Let’s go fishing.” They did, just the two of them, and they caught fish. The members of the Fisherman?s Fellowship were many, the fish were plentiful, but the fishers were few!

~ Anonymous

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What’s That? An earthquake?

Ran across a report this morning discussing one of the ways they are researching the earthquake that spawned the Indian Ocean Tsunami on Dec. 26th, 2004. Using equipment installed to enforce the nuclear test-ban treaty, researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory obtained the underwater sounds of the earthquake. It is incredible that the sound lasted about 8 minutes. The hardest part to fathom is that it is actually the earth ripping apart and not a shuttle launch or an airplane takeoff. Pretty eery sound when you think of what happened just minutes later.

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Choice –

“If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a terrible warning.” – Catherine Aird

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Cows, Constitution and the Ten Commandments

I wish I could take credit for the following e-mail, enjoy.

COWS…
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington, and they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country. Maybe we should give them all a cow.

CONSTITUTION…
They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it’s worked for over 200 years, and we’re not using it anymore.

TEN COMMANDMENTS…
Know the real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a Courthouse? You cannot post “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery”, and “Thou Shall Not Lie” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians! It creates a hostile work environment!

Author is unknown

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What’s That? – I’m a C.C.?

Well, I sorta thought this would turn out differently. Thanks to Jon for pointing this out in an entry on his blog

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative
56%

Modernist
44%

Romanticist
44%

Idealist
44%

Materialist
38%

Postmodernist
31%

Fundamentalist
19%

Existentialist
13%

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

Take for instance these three questions:

  • The majority of religious scripture should be taken literally.
  • Evolution is taking us closer to the spiritual realm, whatever that may be.
  • Mankind is condemned to be free. (there is no outside control)

I couldn’t completely agree with the statement, “The majority of religious scripture should be taken literally.” because all of scripture should be taken literally.

The statement “Evolution is taking us closer to the spiritual realm, whatever that may be.” is a true statement, however the answer probably categorizes me incorrectly. Many would say a fundamentalist believes evolution leads away from the spiritual realm. Evolution, however, is a religion and therefore cannot necessarily lead away from the spiritual realm. Common knowledge would have it that evolution is not a system of beliefs and therefore would classify me in the wrong category with my answer.

The last question listed above “Mankind is condemned to be free. (there is no outside control)” has a semantics issue, in that, it is not a condemnation to be free. As a certain famous document states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Overall, I would give this quiz as something fun and thought provoking I would give it a high rating. However, it receives overall poor rating, not because of me classification, but more for the secular humanistic bent in the lines of questioning and interpretations. For instance, I am sorta glad I am not perceived as a fundementalist according to the quiz from the description of fundamentalism.

Fundamentalism represents a movement in opposition to Modernism, stressing the highest importance on foundational religious tradition. Science has brought on corruption of society. God is real and is watching. Scripture leaves little room for interpretation; man is God’s creation. About a quarter of the population in the U.S. is classified as Fundamentalist.

Here is clue about the bent of the test, it states that fundamentalists believe that science (in the questioner’s view evolution) corrupts society. However, true science and not a system of hypotheses, fairy tails and beliefs does not corrupt society. It gives us a little better understanding of our wonderful and marvelous Creator and our dependent and feeble position. If anything it brings the creation closer to the Creator.

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A historic event . . .

July 4th, a memorable day for more then one reason. Today there was another added for me.

Picture while driving!

Maybe taking the picture while driving wasn’t the best idea, so I stopped to better capture the historic day. One of the nine times that the first 5 digits of the odometer will be the same.

Better when stopped