Give It Away!

How well are you following God's commandment to love one another? Have you become self-centered, hoarding all your time and energy for yourself, or are you sharing your love with others? You realize, of course, that those who give away their love to others are the very ones who are loved the most.

A Prayer begins . . .

Heavenly Father, creator of all, we give you thanks. Grant our desire to keep you first in our hearts. Help us to love those in our lives already and those you bring across our path.

Consider taking a few moments to immerse yourself in God's word! Read every verse in the left column and on the banner! Clickle the one that touches your heart and see its beautiful color graphic. Then check that page. There may be a special thought on that page, just for you.

Two selected book quotations begin . . .

Native Sensibilities

Leonard Sweet, The Dawn Mistaken for Dusk, If God So Loved The World, Why Can't We?, Zondervan Publishing House, 2000, [Digital E-Book: Microsoft Reader], p. 85. SoAmazing.com

Category: Christian Living
Keywords: gospel, natives, Spirit, Rolf Jensen, information, computers, emotion, stories, emotion jogging, postmoderns, Zondervan Publishing House, Sweet, Leonard Sweet

"Want the gospel to make sense to natives? Help natives come to their senses, literally. For natives to savor the Spirit, they require rich emotional palettes that paint in all colors and hit all the notes.

Danish futurist Rolf Jensen has made the strongest case for the coming to our senses. Information, Jensen argues, is the domain of computers. The human language of emotion--which can't be computerized--will become culture's most prized possession. Stories that evoke emotion will capture the hearts of the people. Stories that shun emotional resonance or what he calls 'emotional jogging' will fail to move postmoderns."

SoAmazing Review: Images both utilize and evoke emotions and are one means of engaging those born after 1962, Leonard Sweet's dividing line between "immigrants" and "natives." Sweet says, "Immigrants are word-based. Natives are image-driven (p. 55)."

Buy The Dawn Mistaken for Dusk Now!   Amazon

Tragedy Strikes

Bob Buford, Half Time, Changing Your Game Plan from Success to Significance, Zondervan Publishing House, 1994, pp. 54-57. SoAmazing.com

Category: Christian Living
Keywords: only child, promise, heir, successor, heroes, Rio Grande River, South Texas, Mexico, lark, illegal aliens, body, Denver will, died, Zondervan Publishing House, Buford, Bob Buford

" My son Ross--our only child--was a person of great promise. He was my heir, my successor, and, in ways that may seem odd to you but absolutely real to me, one of my greatest heroes. . . .

On the evening of January 3, 1987, I received a call from my brother Jeff, who told me that Ross and two of his friends had attempted to swim the Rio Grande River, which separates South Texas from Mexico.

It was a lark that led the three young men to the Rio Grande: They wanted to experience what it was like for illegal aliens to cross the water border into a land of promise. Ross was twenty-four years old, and it was the last adventure of his life on earth. . . .

They found Ross' body in the spring, more than four months later, about ten miles downriver. Before his body was recovered we had found on his desk at home in Denver a handwritten copy of his will, dated February 20, 1986, less than a year before the river swallowed his body. Through that long winter of fear and uncertainty, his words were also a grace to me.

'Well, if you're reading my will, then, obviously, I'm dead,' Ross began. 'I wonder how I died? Probably suddenly, because otherwise I would have taken the time to rewrite this. Even if I am dead, I think one thing should be remembered, and that is that I had a great time along the way. More importantly, it should be noted that I am in a better place now.' "

SoAmazing Review: Tragedy struck. With it came a test of character at the deepest levels. Bob Buford shares a simple, helpful Quaker prayer he prayed the night after Ross' death and often since (p. 58), it is well worth reading.

Buy Half Time, Now!   Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Christianbook.

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