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Welcome to THE TIMOTHY REPORT for January 24, 2005
“To assist, encourage, enable and equip”
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THIS WEEK’S GRAPHIC
is based on Matthew 7:7--"Ask, Seek, Knock"
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PATIENCE
Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius.
-- George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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HUMOR: WHO ARE YOU?
At his request, each morning three-year-old Ray's mother pinned a bath towel to the back shoulders of his size two T-shirt. Immediately in his young imaginative mind the towel became a brilliant magic blue and red cape. And he became Superman.
Outfitted each day in his "cape," Ray's days were packed with adventure and daring escapades. He was Superman. This fact was clearly pointed out when his mother enrolled him in kindergarten class. During the course of the interview, the teacher asked Ray his name.
"Superman," he answered politely and without pause.
The teacher smiled, cast an appreciative glance at his mother, and asked again, "Your real name, please."
Again, Ray answered, "Superman."
Realizing the situation demanded more authority, or maybe to hide amusement, the teacher closed her eyes for a moment, then in a voice quite stern, said, "I will have to have your real name for the records."
Sensing he'd have to play straight with the teacher, Ray slid his eyes around the room, hunched closer to her, and patting a corner of frayed towel at his shoulder, answered in a voice hushed with conspiracy,
"Clark Kent."
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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NO BURDEN TO CARRY
Sadhu Sundar Singh, a Hindu convert to Christianity, became a missionary to his people in India. Late one afternoon Sadhu was traveling on foot through the Himalayas with a Buddhist monk. It was bitterly cold and the wind felt like sharp blades slicing into their skins. Night was fast approaching when the monk warned Sadhu that they were in danger of freezing to death if they did not reach the monastery before darkness fell.
Suddenly, on a narrow path above a steep precipice, they heard a cry for help. At the foot of the cliff lay a man, fallen and badly hurt. The monk looked at Sadhu and said, "Do not stop. God has brought this man to his fate. He must work it out for himself. Let us hurry on before we, too, perish."
But Sadhu replied, "God has sent me here to help my brother. I cannot abandon him."
The monk continued trudging off through the whirling snow, while the missionary clambered down the steep embankment. The injured man's leg was broken and he could not walk, so Sadhu made a sling of his blanket and tied the man on his back. With great difficulty he climbed back up the cliff, drenched by now in perspiration.
Doggedly, Sadhu made his way through the deepening snow and darkness. It was all he could do to follow the path. But he persevered, though faint with fatigue and overheated from exertion. Finally, he saw ahead the lights of the monastery.
Then, for the first time, Sadhu stumbled and nearly fell. But not from weakness. He had stumbled over an object lying in the snow-covered road. Slowly he bent down on one knee and brushed the snow off the object. It was the body of the monk, frozen to death.
Years later a disciple of Sadhu's asked him, "What is life's most difficult task?"
Without hesitation Sadhu replied: "To have no burden to carry."
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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THE BEAUTY OF LIFE
Sunset and sunrise
Rain when the sky cries
Rainbows and moonshine
Dew on a tall pine
Flowers and butterflies
Sunny days and blue skies
The oceans waves crashing
Waterfalls splashing
Mountains with snow
Gentle breezes that blow
Icy peaks with frozen sky
Lonely deserts always dry
Wild windy nights
Filled with starry lights
A raging storm
Before a misty dawn
All of these things
God to us brings
The beauty of this earth
Makes life all the more worth.
--Author Unknown
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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PRUNING
Even committed Christians need pruning, and it hurts. When God starts trimming off the stuff that should not be in our lives, it’s painful. Now God knows that, but like a good father, He weighs the long-term benefit against the short-term discomfort and does what needs to be done.
--Tony Evans
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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THE BRINK OF DESPAIR
Are you at the brink of despair, thinking that you cannot bear another day of heartache, frustration, despair, anxiety, and pain? Are you at your wits end? As difficult as it may be for you to believe this today, God knows what He is doing. Your Savior knows your breaking point. The bruising and crushing and melting process is designed to reshape you, not ruin you. Your value is increasing the longer He lingers over you. (1 Peter 1: 6-9)
--Melinda Clements
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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GOD’S GREATER PURPOSE
Joseph Stowell tells of a conversation he had with a pastor in the former Soviet Union.
"Stalin's reign was the worst time," said the pastor. "I had two KGB agents come to me and say, 'We'll take care of you. You stay the pastor of that church, but once a week give us a report on every one of these Christians. Work for us.'
"I can't do that to God, and I can't do that to this flock," he replied.
So they sent him to a prison camp in Siberia. He endured the forced labor and the cold for ten years. But he did find other Christians in the camp, and God used these believers to fulfill his purposes.
"I was a carpenter building towns for Stalin," said the pastor. "We'd go out in sixty-mile radiuses, and there we would fellowship together. Today there are hundreds of churches in Siberia as a result of these small prisoner fellowship groups."
When men refuse to compromise, they may lose much, but through them God will fulfill his higher eternal purpose.
-- Joseph Stowell, president of Moody Bible Institute. Men of Integrity, Vol. 1, no. 1. As quoted in Norman Lawrence’s “A Dose of Inspiration,” http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adoseofinspiration/
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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LAWS OF PARENTING
1. The later you stay up, the earlier your child will wake up the next morning.
2. For a child to become clean, something else must become dirty.
3. Toys multiply to fill any space available.
4. The longer it takes you to make a meal, the less your child will like it.
5. Yours is always the only child who doesn't behave.
6. If the shoe fits...it's expensive.
7. The surest way to get something done is to tell a child not to do it.
8. The gooier the food, the more likely it is to end up on the carpet.
9. Backing the car out of the driveway causes your child to have to go to the bathroom.
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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GOD THE DIVER
C.S. Lewis has this really helpful illustration. He says that in the incarnation, Jesus was like a diver. He is God in heaven looking down into this dark, slimy, murky water. That's our sinful, polluted world. God dives in, He gets himself wet. And then God came up again, dripping, but holding the precious thing he went down to recover. That precious thing was Zacchaeus, and you and me. All those sinners who have trusted in Christ. That's how we get out of the slime of tax collecting, or cheating, or lusting, or hating, or whatever other self-destructive sin we are buried in.
God in Christ descended down into the slime and rescued us. Resolutions and vows to be better won't help by themselves. We don't have the power to keep them. We are stuck on the sea bottom. We have no power of our own to get up or out. All we can do is cry out for God's grace to lift us up, to rescue us.
--from a sermon by Raymond Cannata, "A Surprising Resolution."
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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WINTER STORMS
We may sing beforehand, even in our winter storm, in the expectation of a summer sun at the turn of the year; no created powers can mar our Lord Jesus' music, nor spill our song of joy. Let us then be glad and rejoice in the salvation of our Lord; for faith has never yet cause to have wet cheeks, and hanging-down brows, or to droop or die.
--Samuel Rutherford
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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NIGHT INTO DAY
It is not hard for the Lord to turn night into day. He that sends the clouds can as easily clear the skies. Let us be of good cheer. It is better farther on. Let us sing
Hallelujah by anticipation.
--Charles Haddon Spurgeon
(The Timothy Report, www.timothyreport.com, January 24, 2005)
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