A Real Care Package!

A little stressed out today? Over anxious? Depressed? Exhausted? Do not go through another day as if God does not care about you. Choose right now to cast your cares on him, each and every one. Be willing to accept this breathtaking reality. The Creator of the universe, the Almighty God, your Heavenly Father loves you. Trust him. Depend on him. Rest in him. Give all your worries to God, each and every one, for he cares what happens to you.

A Prayer begins . . .

Gracious God, you deserve our regular praise. We worship you with our whole hearts. Thank you for sending your son to deliver us from our sins. Who but you has taught us to surprise our enemies by blessing them; to share our homes and resources cheerfully with those in need; to surrender all of our cares to you. Is it any wonder that we revere you?

Ever heard of pushups ladders? An acquaintance of mine has a pushups ladders exercise regimen. 50 perfect pushups, then 49, then 48, and so on, in sequence until he works his way down to 1. The total is well over 1200 pushups! And he does this regularly three times a week. Is he ever strong! Regular physical exercise is a good thing, but the Bible says spiritual exercise is essential. Part of your spiritual exercise regimen could include visiting our website everyday and reading the Bible verses, the devotionals, the prayers, and some quotations. It will strengthen your heart!

Read every verse in the left column and on the banner! Clickle one or all and see a beautiful color graphic of each!

Two selected book quotations begin . . .

We Are One In Christ!

Gilbert Bilezikian, Community 101, Zondervan Publishing House, 1997, p. 59.
SoAmazing.com

Category: Christian Living
Keywords: Christ, accept, race, rich, poor, smart, stupid, man, woman, married, single, divorced, Scripture, Jew, Gentile, slave, free, male, female, barbarian, Jesus, love, discriminate, demean, divide, destroy, Christ oneness, community, Zondervan Publishing House, Bilezikian, Gilbert Bilezikian

"How does Christ accept you? Does he ask what race you belong to, whether you are rich or poor, smart or stupid, man or woman, married, single, or divorced? In the words of Scripture, does he ask whether you are Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian or Scythian? Absolutely not! The only question Jesus asks is whether you want to receive his love. There is no other question because at the foot of the cross the ground is level, and at its center, there is no room but for oneness.

By what right, then do we turn around and ask of each other additional questions--hellish questions that discriminate, demean, divide, and destroy? By what right do we dismember the cross and replace it with our worldly hierarchies of upward mobility: clergy at the top, laity below; white Caucasians at the top, 'minorities' below; men at the top, women below; the rich at the top, the 'losers' below; the educated at the top, the simpleminded below; leaders at the top, followers below? Didn't Christ grab in his mighty hands those damnable ladders of stratification, turn them upside down, and crush them into the shape of a cross? Didn't he himself set the example of downward mobility for those who strive to be first and great (cf. Mark 10:41-45)? Didn't he command them to be last and least in order to find their proper place in the oneness of his community?"

SoAmazing Review: Gilbert Bilezekian presents a passionate appeal that Christians forego separateness and embrace community. We are one in Christ. We are one in Christ!

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Whisper Short Secrets

Brian D. McLaren, The Church on the Other Side, Zondervan Publishing House, 2001, pp. 40, 41. SoAmazing.com

Category: Christian Living
Keywords: reinvented, church, mesage, life, words plus deeds, faith, St. Francis, glut, religious, jargon, story, preachers, Jesus, parables, proverbs, sage, technician, Spirit of God, Harper San Francisco, McLaren, Brian D. McLaren

Five Hunches About A New Rhetoric

"1. In the reinvented church on the other side, our words will not stand alone. Our message will be a life: words plus deeds. Words of faith without works of love will not survive; no one will listen. A rhetoric of integrity--words integrated with deeds--will carry the day. Was it St. Francis who reputedly said to his young trainees, 'Everywhere you go, preach the gospel, and when it is absolutely necessary, use words?' Such instruction will be well appreciated on the other side. There our churches may be evaluated as much by their menus of short-term mission options as by their doctrinal statements, because the deeds will matter as much as the words . . . .

2. Words of truth will not be less important, but they will be fewer and simpler and softer if they are to have power. We now suffer from a glut of words, trumpeted loudly. To be listened to on the other side, we must learn to whisper short secrets.

3. Our words will seek to be servants of mystery, not removers of it as they were in the old world. They will convey a message that is clear yet mysterious, simple yet mysterious, substantial yet mysterious. My faith developed in the old world of many words, in a naive confidence in the power of many words, as if the mysteries of faith could be captured like fine-print conditions in a legal document and reduced to safe equations. Mysteries, however, cannot be captured so precisely. Freeze-dried coffee, butterflies on pins, and frogs in formaldehyde all lose something in our attempts at capturing, defining, preserving, and rendering them less jumpy, flighty, or fluid. In the new world, we will understand this a little better.

4. Our words will be less religious, more common, more earthy. Religious jargon and allusions that assume prior 'insider' knowledge--such as my reference to Balaam in chapter 4--will be 'out': extra baggage, too-high hurdles, stones in the shoes of the new world's spiritual travelers. We will speak less evangelicalese and more plain English (or Spanish or Chinese or whatever). . . .

5. Our rhetoric will depend more on the power of story. In this way, the church on the other side will be more like the world of Jesus and the Bible--more Eastern (Middle Eastern, to be exact), a meeting point between left and right brains, integrating objective and subjective, analytical (taking apart) and synthetic (putting together).

So, in the new world, believers telling their neighbors the good news will still use words, and with great care. But they will know that their words must be the tip of the iceberg, buoyed by a life lived well with laughter, love, compassion, and generosity. Preachers will use words with great care, also--being careful never to bore, not to overstate or overpromise, not to dishonor logic or truth or integrity or creativity. They will seek to convey mystery, but not to mystify. The mentor will use words--but only a few, and only after much listening to both the protege and the Spirit of God. The theologian will use words, but like Jesus, he will be a weaver of parables, a designer of proverbs, more a sage than a technician."

SoAmazing Review: Bruce MacLaren says change isn't just coming, it is already here. The Church must reinvent itself. Not by changing its message, but by reinventing the way its message is presented. We must live the message more and speak it less.

Buy The Church on the Other Side, Now!   Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Christianbook.

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