No Excuses....

The next time you feel like GOD can't use you, just remember....

Noah was a drunk
Abraham was too old
Isaac was a daydreamer
Jacob was a liar
Leah was ugly
Joseph was abused
Moses had a stuttering problem
Gideon was afraid
Samson had long hair and was a womanizer
Rahab was a prostitute
Jeremiah and Timothy were too young
David had an affair and was a murderer
Elijah was suicidal
Isaiah preached naked
Jonah ran from God
Naomi was a widow
Job went bankrupt
Peter denied Christ (3 times!)
The Disciples fell asleep while praying
Martha worried about everything
Mary Magdalene was promiscuous
the Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once...
Zaccheus was too small
Paul was too religious
Timothy had an ulcer....

AND
Lazarus was dead!

Now! No more excuses!
God can use you to your full potential.
You aren't the message, you are just the
messenger.

The Perfect Pastor

The Perfect Pastor

The perfect pastor preaches exactly 10 minutes.

He condemns sin roundly but never hurts anyone’s feelings.

He works from 8am until midnight and is also the church janitor.

The perfect pastor makes $40 a week, wears good clothes, drives a good car, buys good books, and donates $30 a week to the church.

He is 29 years old and has 40 years experience.

Above all, he is handsome.

The perfect pastor has a burning desire to work with teenagers,

and he spends most of his time with the senior citizens.

He smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor

that keeps him seriously dedicated to his church.

He makes 15 home visits a day

and is always in his office to be handy when needed.

The perfect pastor always has time for church council and all of its committees.

He never misses the meeting of any church organization 

and is always busy evangelizing the unchurched.

The perfect pastor is always in the next church over!

If your pastor does not measure up,

simply send this notice to six other churches that are tired of their pastor, too.

Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church at the top of the list.

If everyone cooperates, in one week you will receive 1,643 pastors.

One of them should be perfect!

This appeared in the Rochester Courier Journal in September 1981.  I am not sure who is the author. If you know please e-mail me so that I can acknowledge. Thanks.

25 Questions for Spiritual Growth:

26 questions to help develop spiritual growth:

1. How is your relationship with God right now?
2. What have you read in the Bible in the past week?
3. What has God said to you in this reading?
4. Where do you find yourself resisting Him these days?
5. What specific things are you praying for in regard to yourself?
7. What are the specific tasks facing you right now that you consider incomplete?
8. What habits intimidate you?
9. What have you read in the secular press this week?
10. What general reading are you doing?
11. What have you done to play?
12. How are you doing with your spouse? Kids?
13. If I were to ask your spouse about your state of mind, state of spirit, state of energy level, what would the response be?
14. Are you sensing spiritual attacks from the enemy right now?
15. If Satan were to try to invalidate you as a person or as a servant of the Lord, how might he do it?
16. What is the state of your sexual perspective? Tempted? Dealing with fantasies? Entertainment?
17. Where are you financially right now? (things under control? under anxiety? in great debt?)
18. Are there any unresolved conflicts in your circle of relationships right now?
19. When was the last time you spent time with a good friend of your own gender?
20. What kind of time have you spent with anyone who is a non-Christian this month?
21. What challenges do you think you're going to face in the coming week? Month?
22. What would you say are your fears at this present time?
23. Are you sleeping well?
24. What three things are you most thankful for?
25. Do you like yourself at this point in your pilgrimage?
26. What are your greatest confusions about your relationship with God?

Christmas Perspective

To avoid offending anybody, 
a school dropped religion altogether 
and started singing about the weather. 
They now hold the winter program in February and sing increasingly non-memorable songs such as "Winter Wonderland," "Frosty the Snowman" 
and--this is a real song--"Suzy Snowflake," 
all of which is pretty funny because the school is in Miami. 
A visitor from another planet would watch all this and assume that the children belonged to 
the Church of Meteorology.