THIS WEEK’S GRAPHICS
Include a couple of graphics suitable for use during the next two weeks as we lead up to Resurrection Day. You’ll find several graphics you can download and use for FREE!
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Welcome to THE TIMOTHY REPORT for March 29, 2004
“To assist, encourage, enable and equip”
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WHAT IS YOUR COLT?
Bill Wilson pastors an inner city church in New York City. His mission field is a very violent place. He himself has been stabbed twice as he ministered to the people of the community surrounding the church.
Once a Puerto Rican woman became involved in the church and was led to Christ. After her conversion she came to Pastor Wilson and said, "I want to do something to help with the church’s ministry." He asked her what her talents were and she could think of nothing---she couldn’t even speak English---but she did love children.
So he put her on one of the church’s buses that went into neighborhoods and transported kids to church. Every week she performed her duties. She would find the worst-looking kid on the bus, put him on her lap and whisper over and over the only words she had learned in English: "I love you. Jesus loves you."
After several months, she became attached to one little boy in particular. The boy didn’t speak. He came to Sunday School every week with his sister and sat on the woman’s lap, but he never made a sound. Each week she would tell him all the way to Sunday School and all the way home, "I love you and Jesus loves you."
One day, to her amazement, the little boy turned around and stammered, "I---I---I love you too!" Then he put his arms around her and gave her a big hug. That was 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon. At 6:30 that night he was found dead. His own mother had beaten him to death and thrown his body in the trash......."I love you and Jesus loves you." ...Those were some of the last words this little boy heard in his short life---from the lips of a Puerto Rican woman who could barely speak English. This woman gave her one talent to God and because of that a little boy who never heard the word "love" in his own home, experienced and responded to the love of Christ.....
What can you give? What is your "colt"? You and I each have something in our lives, which, if given back to God, could, like the colt, move Jesus and His message further down the road.
--Mark Adams, "The Roads He Walked - Palm Avenue"
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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ONLY A DONKEY
The donkey awakened, his mind still savoring the afterglow of the most exciting day of his life. Never before had he felt such a rush of pleasure and pride.
He walked into town and found a group of people by the well. "I’ll show myself to them," he thought.
But they didn’t notice him. They went on drawing their water and paid him no mind.
"Throw your garments down," he said crossly. "Don’t you know who I am?"
They just looked at him in amazement. Someone slapped him across the tail and ordered him to move.
"Miserable heathens!" he muttered to himself. "I’ll just go to the market where the good people are. They will remember me."
But the same thing happened. No one paid any attention to the donkey as he strutted down the main street in front of the market place.
"The palm branches! Where are the palm branches!" he shouted.
"Yesterday, you threw palm branches!"
Hurt and confused, the donkey returned home to his mother.
"Foolish child," she said gently. "Don’t you realize that without Him, you are just an ordinary donkey?"
Just like the donkey that carried Jesus in Jerusalem, we are most fulfilled when we are in the service of Jesus Christ. Without him, all our best efforts are like "filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6) and amount to nothing. When we lift up Christ, however, we are no longer ordinary people, but key players in God’s plan to redeem the word.
--SOURCE: Edited from “Hot Illustrations for Youth Talks,” by Wayne Rice. Copyright 1994 by Youth Specialties, Inc.
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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CROSS
How many of you know perfect rest? How many know real peace and quiet? Is there not a warfare going on in you? Is there not a strife and a tension, is there not a conflict? We have to say there is—we are all born like that….There is only one thing in the whole world at this moment that can deal with this warfare and tension and strife. It is the cross of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
--Martyn Lloyd-Jones
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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THE CROSS
Why would God stand by and watch His Son be abused, spit upon, tortured and killed by calloused pagans and religious hypocrites? John says it is the supreme example of the Father's love for sinners like us. How could Jesus take the humiliation, excruciating pain and shameful spiritual stigmatization as our sin bearer? He loves us everyone, as if we are the only one (Eph 5:2). The saying is: love, not nails, held Jesus to the cross. At the cross, God's hatred of sin and His amazing grace to the sinner is forever demonstrated. In the gospel plan of salvation, God's sacrificial part allowed him to punish sin and satisfy justice, while allowing His love to give fallen man a second chance to live by submissive faith (Rom 3:23-27).
No one has ever or will ever love me like that. The sacrificial love of every man by Christ, shown at the cross, is the positive drawing power of the gospel (Jn 12:32). Paul could never quite get over such unfathomable love: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal 2:20).
When we suffer or are sad or discouraged, look back to the cross and receive renewed motivation to live in obedience to the Savior. He gave His all for the likes of me. It is a joy and privilege to give my all for Him.
--W. Frank Walton
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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IN THE NEWS
Reuters News Service reported this past week that a man in Texas went to police and confessed to committing a murder after seeing Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.” Police had thought that Ashley Nicole Wilson, who died on January 18, 2004, had hanged herself. On March 9, Dan Leach, 21, went to police and admitted that he had killed her.
Wilson, aged 19 years, was pregnant with his child. He said he killed her because she was pregnant and he did not want to be involved with her anymore.
Leach was moved to confess after he had seen the movie about the last hours of the life of Christ.
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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THE ANGELS WERE SILENT
When we comprehend the great price God was willing to pay for the redemption of man, we only then begin to see that something is horribly wrong with the human race. It must have a Savior, or it is doomed! Sin cost God His very best. Is it any wonder that the angels veiled their faces, that they were silent in the consternation as they witnessed the outworking of God’s plan? How inconceivable it must have seemed to them, when they considered the fearful depravity of sin, that Jesus should shoulder it all. But they were soon to unveil their faces and offer their praises again. A light was kindled that day at Calvary. The cross blazed with the glory of God as the most terrible darkness was shattered by the light of salvation. Satan’s depraved legions were defeated and they could no longer keep all men in darkness and defeat.
--Billy Graham
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THIS?
The last thing the Lord Jesus did before His hands were bound was to heal.
Have you ever asked yourself, If I knew this was the last thing I should do, what would I do? I have never found the answer to that question. There are so very, very many things that we would want to do for those whom we love, that I do not think we are likely to be able to find the chief one of all these. So the best thing is just to go on simply, doing each thing as it comes as well as we can.
Our Lord Jesus spent much time in healing sick people, and in the natural course of events it happened that the last thing He did with His kind hands was to heal a bad cut (I wonder how they could have the heart to bind His hands after that.) In this, as in everything, He left us an example that we should follow in His steps. Do the thing that this next minute, this next hour, brings you, faithfully and lovingly and patiently; and then the last thing you do, before power to do is taken from you (if that should be), will be only the continuation of all that went before.
--Amy Carmichael
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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TEMPTATION
Satan never sells his poisons naked -- he always gilds them before he vends them.
--Charles H. Spurgeon
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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A PSALM FOR PALM SUNDAY
King Jesus
why did you choose
a lowly ass
to carry you
to ride in your parade?
Had you no friend
who owned a horse
—a royal mount with spirit
fit for a king to ride?
Why choose an ass
small assuming
beast of burden
trained to plow
not carry kings.
King Jesus
why did you choose
me
a lowly unimportant person
to bear you
in my world today?
I’m poor and unimportant
trained to work
not carry kings
—let alone the King of kings
and yet you’ve chosen me
to carry you in triumph
in this world’s parade.
King Jesus
keep me small
so all may see
how great you are
keep me humble
so all may say
Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord
not what a great ass he rides.
--Joseph Bayley
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Nearly everytime Jesus is mentioned in the Scriptures as being at the right hand of God, He is sitting. Nearly everytime. But there is one instance, and only one that I can find, where Jesus is seen standing on the right hand of God. What significance is that, and how can it encourage and comfort us when a loved one has died?
Always on the search for another story or illustration? Ever hesitate to use any particular story because you've used it too many times already?
Here's a solution! "Funeral Ideas and Illustrations" contains more than 100 stories, poems, and quotations for use in funerals or in Bible studies or sermons on death.
The items found in this collection come from a wide variety of sources. There may be some stories and/or poems you've used for years, and there are some you've never seen before. Some of the sermon outlines and messages are original material. And it's only $5.
In this collection, you will find:
--A sermon specifically designed for the Thanksgiving Season
--A poem written by a wife and son of a relatively young man who passed away.
--What a man wrote after losing three children to death
--Which hymn encouraged Daniel Webster in his final hours
--What Golda Meir said when asked if Israel would allow Nikita Kruschev's body to be buried in Israel
--An encouraging poem which is great to use in a funeral when a grieving spouse is left behind.
--A portion of a letter a Godly woman left behind for her family to read after she had gone on to be with the Lord.
--Mary Pickford's wonderful analogy of death
--Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's viewpoint of his own approaching death
--The word early Christians used to describe the place where they placed the bodies of loved ones when they died--a comforting, encouraging thought!
Visit http://www.timothyreport.com/funeral.html to view sample illustrations and to learn how to get your copy.
(The Timothy Report, Swan Lake Communications, www.timothyreport.com
March 29, 2004)
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