Here is a great blog post by Mark Batterson:

“I recently mentioned that I’m falling in love with the Bible all over again. Honestly, I think reading through a one-year Bible in different translations will become an annual ritual. I feel like it sets the tone for the day. And it keeps me consistent.
Having said that let me say this: not all parts of the Bible are equally exciting. Is that ok to say? Or to put it another way, all Scripture is equally inspired but not all Scripture is equally applicable. By the way, I think I heard Andy Stanley say something or write something along those lines. Wanna give credit where credit is due.
So I just finished reading through Leviticus. And I’m not gonna lie, it’s not the easiest read in the Bible. Reading thru Leviticus is like driving thru Iowa. My apologies to all Iowans, but after a while, the flat land and corn rows can get a little mind numbing. But you’ve got to keep driving. Eventually you’ll get out of Iowa. Again, my apologies. And you’ll come to some scenic overlooks in Colorado. And honestly, it’s the flat lands of Iowa that help you appreciate the mountain ranges of Colorado.
For what it’s worth, my big take away from Leviticus was a renewed gratitude that we don’t have to make all of those sacrifices because Jesus made one sacrifice for all people for all time.”

HT: Batterson Blog

Sonya and I will be leaving after our morning service for vacation.  We will be going south to Houston to spend the week with my family.  It has been several months since my parents have seen the grandkids, if I wait any longer I will be erased from the will.  Please pray for our safe travel.  I will be blogging some but not as much.  Keep checking back throughout the week for more writings.

This morning is week 3 of our Stories Series.  It has been a great series!  We hear a testimony (story) from someone in our congregation and then I share a message that relates to that story.  This week we are talking about Transformed Marriages.  Bill and Susie will share their testimony which happens to be an incredible story of restoration.

When told the reason for daylight saving time the old Indian said…

‘Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket.’

It is that time a year again.  We set our clocks forward tonight.  Argh! We lose an hour of sleep on this dreadful occasion.  I do not mind gaining an hour of sleep but never losing an hour.  All in all, at least it will get darker later.

David Gregory has written a great duo of short novels in Dinner With A Perfect Stranger and A Day With A Perfect Stranger.  The first book involves the story of an unbeliever who gets an invitation for dinner with none other than Jesus Christ.  This novel is simply the dialogue between the unbeliever and Christ.  This gentleman is well rounded in world religions and poses many intriguing questions about faith and Christ.  Jesus convincingly shares the gospel and exposes the holes in these other religions.  By the end of the book the evidence reveals Jesus as the only way to Heaven.  Dinner With A Perfect Stranger is a great book to use as an evangelistic tool for those searching for the true religion.  It is a compelling, quick moving story.

A Day With A Perfect Stranger is the sequel to the other.  It’s main character is the first gentleman’s wife, who has her own questions about Christ.  She meets Christ on an Airplane and spends the day with Him.  Christ and this woman have a long series of conversations that reveals this women’s hurts and questions about suffering, pain and empty religion.  Christ answers a barrage of questions that are the same as many people’s today.  Again, Jesus has all the right answers and the story ends with a life changing experience for this woman.

These two books are incredible stories.  I am going to use these books as giveaways to those who do not know Christ.  These books will give a clear presentation of the gospel, while answering faith’s toughest questions.  David Gregory is to be commended on the beautiful storyline and its ability to engage the reader into the lives of these main characters.

Dinner With A Perfect Stranger can be found online here.

A Day With A Perfect Stranger can be found online here..

Summary – Dinner With A Perfect Stranger

You are Invited to a Dinner with Jesus of Nazareth
The mysterious envelope arrives on Nick Cominsky’s desk amid a stack of credit card applications and business-related junk mail. Although his seventy-hour workweek has already eaten into his limited family time, Nick can’t pass up the opportunity to see what kind of plot his colleagues have hatched.

The normally confident, cynical Nick soon finds himself thrown off-balance, drawn into an intriguing conversation with a baffling man who appears to be more than comfortable discussing everything from world religions to the existence of heaven and hell. And this man who calls himself Jesus also seems to know a disturbing amount about Nick’s personal life.
…………..
"You’re bored, Nick. You were made for more than this. You’re worried about God stealing your fun, but you’ve got it backwards.… There’s no adventure like being joined to the Creator of the universe." He leaned back off the table. "And your first mission would be to let him guide you out of the mess you’re in at work."
………….
As the evening progresses, their conversation touches on life, God, meaning, pain, faith, and doubt–and it seems that having Dinner with a Perfect Stranger may change Nick’s life forever.

Summary – A Day With A Perfect Stranger

What if a fascinating stranger knew you better than you know yourself?
When her husband comes home with a farfetched story about eating dinner with someone he believes to be Jesus, Mattie Cominsky thinks this may signal the end of her shaky marriage. Convinced that Nick is, at best, turning into a religious nut, the self-described agnostic hopes that a quick business trip will give her time to think things through.

On board the plane, Mattie strikes up a conversation with a fellow passenger. When she discovers their shared scorn for religion, she confides her frustration over her husband’s recent conversion. The stranger suggests that perhaps her husband isn’t seeking religion but true spiritual connection, an idea that prompts her to reflect on her own search for fulfillment.

As their conversation turns to issues of spiritual longing and deeper questions about the nature of God, Mattie finds herself increasingly drawn to this insightful stranger. But when the discussion unexpectedly turns personal, touching on things she’s never told anyone, Mattie is startled and disturbed. Who is this man who seems to peer straight into her soul?

Author Profile – David Gregory

David Gregory is the author of the best-selling books Dinner with a Perfect Stranger and A Day with a Perfect Stranger, and coauthor of two nonfiction books. After a ten-year business career, he returned to school to study religion and communications, earning graduate degrees from The University of North Texas and Dallas Theological Seminary. A native Texan, David now devotes himself to writing full time.

Last weekend, we went to Sonya’s parents.  They have a small one room house, next to their home, that we stay in when we go and in that little house is a collection of my mother-in-laws “things”.  She is a collector of antiques and things that look like antiques.  There is one item that is quite interesting.  It is pictured to the left here.  It is a little red head girl that holds her head down like she is crying.  She looks amazingly real.

Hannah and I were hanging out in the little house and she goes over to this little girl. She puts her arm around her and says, “What’s the matter dear? Why are you crying?”  She repeated it several times (I guess expecting an answer).  Hannah was having compassion on her.

Hannah is pretty honery at times but she does have an amazing amount of compassion.  Sonya and Hannah were in the store one day and a little boy was crying in the buggy behind them, Hannah looks over and says, “What’s the matter dear?”  Then a lady in the church was crying as she spoke with us and Hannah looks up at her and says, “Why are you crying?”  Hannah has compassion!

In the world we live today there are alot of hurting people.  People are crying out for help.  Are we compassionate?  Do we care about the needs of others?  Are we too busy to stand with those who are hurting and listen to those who need to talk?

In the busyness of our society, I fear we have lost compassion.  Not because our hearts are hard, but that we have become too busy to care for one another’s needs.  Galatians 6:2, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ”  We should lift each other up.  We should stop and say every once and a while, “What’s the matter?  Why are you crying?” 

How is your compassion?

Many people bear grudges or hold hurts and do not release forgiveness to others.  This is a baggage that becomes to heavy to carry.  It is a weight that is shackled to our soul that will eventually drive us to bitterness.  I read an article by Ritchie Miller that speaks about the baggage of bitterness and the sometimes ridiculous lengths we go through to hold a grudge.  Read on:

“There were two families where I grew up who were very close. The husbands and wives were best friends. One time someone said something that was hurtful. A hurt was harbored until it turned to bitterness. They stopped speaking to each other. They stopped being friends. One day one of the families set out a row of hedges to create a barrier between the yards. Not to be outdone, the other family set out a row of trees on their side. This angered the other family so much that they built a wooden fence beside their hedges. The other family then built a bigger fence on their side. Today, if you drive past these two houses you will see the oddest looking row of giant hedges, tall trees, and fences separating two small houses. To my knowledge, they never spoke to each other again. Neither family admitted that they needed to forgive or to receive forgiveness. As a result, a relationship was lost and they became a laughingstock in the community.

There was another family that lived about two miles from where I grew up. This husband and wife just always hurt each other and they could not release it. Rather than getting divorced they decided to continue to make each other miserable. The husband bought a mobile home and put it in the front yard of the little house where they lived. He lived there until he died.

Jesus said that if we refuse to forgive neither would we receive forgiveness. In one of his parables he insinuates that a person with an unforgiving spirit will be turned over to the “tormentors.” Torment is a good word for someone living in hurt and bitterness.

Life is too short to be bitter. Release forgiveness today. It will set you free.”
HT: Ritchie Miller

Here is a great article I read on the Buzzard Blog.  I am chewing on these things and evaluating my life in light of these nine characteristics.

Justin Buzzard writes, “Earlier this week my father in-law sent me this great summary, compiled by Samuel Guzman–via Horatius Bonar, of the type of men God uses. Men, especially pastors, it’s worth your time to think and pray through these nine:

There are many over-grown boys leading the professing Church today, acting like fools and profaning God’s name, in His name. God will never use them because they are serving a god made in their own image (Psalm 50:21), and not the true and living God. But what kind of men does God use?

Horatius Bonar, writing the preface to John Gillies’ Accounts of Revival, describes true men of God as possessing the following nine characteristics:

1. They were in earnest about the great work on which they had entered: “They lived and labored and preached like men on whose lips the immortality of thousands hung.”

2. They were bent on success: “As warriors, they set their hearts on victory and fought with the believing anticipation of triumph, under the guidance of such a Captain as their head.”

3. They were men of faith: “They knew that in due season they should reap, if they fainted not.”

4. They were men of labor: “Their lives are the annals of incessant, unwearied toil of body and soul; time, strength, substance, health, all they were and possessed they freely offered to the Lord, keeping back nothing, grudging nothing.”

5. They were men of patience: “Day after day they pursued what, to the eye of the world, appeared a thankless and fruitless round of toil.”

6. They were men of boldness and determination: “Timidity shuts many a door of usefulness and loses many a precious opportunity; it wins no friends, while it strengthens every enemy. Nothing is lost by boldness, nor gained by fear.”

7. They were men of prayer: “They were much alone with God, replenishing their own souls out of the living fountain, that out of them might flow to their people rivers of living water.”

8. They were men whose doctrines were of the most decided kind: “Their preaching seems to have been of the most masculine and fearless kind, falling on the audience with tremendous power. It was not vehement, it was not fierce, it was not noisy; it was far too solemn to be such; it was massive, weighty, cutting, piercing, sharper than a two-edged sword.”

9. They were men of solemn deportment and deep spirituality of soul: “No frivolity, no flippancy . . . . The world could not point to them as being but slightly dissimilar from itself.”

HT: Justin Buzzard