Where Are the Nine?

from Daily Encounter

“One of them [a leper], when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.” Luke 17:15-16

Even Jesus was disappointed when he healed ten lepers and only one returned to say thank you and give praise to God. “He asked, ‘Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?’ Then he said to him, ‘Rise and go; your faith has made you well.'” Luke 17:17-19

One of my constant prayers is that God will give me a thankful heart, not just at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but every day of the year.

No matter what trials I am going through there are always many things to be thankful for: food, clothing, shelter, friends, family, for life itself or to put it this way:

I love the gift of life, Dear God,

with all its beauty everywhere:

Blue skies, white fluffy clouds,

green trees, rocky mountains,

open meadows, the restless timeless sea,

the black bird on my window sill…

But most of all I love dear friends,

and if you will, please give to me

a greater love for you —

my dearest friend of all.

Dick Innes. Copyright. From the poem, “Life.” See more poems by Dick at: www.actscom.com/store/poems_all.php.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, for all of these and so much more—especially for dying for my sins and giving me the gift of eternal life—I give you thanks. And please help me always to appreciate all that you have done for me, and give me a generous heart so that I will give to others as you have given to me. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

The discipline of living in truth is urgent today

Os Guinness writes in Time for Truth:

The discipline of living in truth is urgent today because modern life reduces community and accountability to its thinnest, thereby tempting us to live in a shadow world of anonymity and non-responsibility where all cats are gray. In such a world, becoming people of truth is the deepest secret of integrity and the highest form of taking responsibility for ourselves and our own lives. . . . If truth is truth, then differences make a difference – not just between truth and lies but between intimacy and alienation in relationships, between harmony and conflict in neighborhoods, between efficiency and incompetence in business, between reliability and fraud in science and journalism, between trust and suspicion in leadership, between freedom and tyranny in government, and even between life and death. Certainly, the choices are ours, but so also are the consequences.

At The Foot Of The Cross

by Ann “afriend4ever54” Friend

Today, by faith, let us put every burden at the foot of the cross. Things and stuff, x, y or z, someone, lay it all, at the foot of the cross. Release it to God! God can make a way out no way. Praise The Lord!

Sometimes, we just have to keep the faith and trust Him. Somedays, it will be hard to count it all joy, especially if we don’t understand why. It’s those times, we must dig deep and praise Him anyway! 😁 Thank you Lord, for your mercy and your grace!

God bless us, by faith, as we lay our burdens at the foot of the cross and meditate on Jeremiah 32:27 – Behold, I am The Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me? Let thy will be done.

 

The problem with the world

Tim Keller

The problem with the world is it blames problems on things besides sin and identifies salvation on things besides God.

A good resource about soe aspects of creation

On Monday, guest writer Katie Galloway reported on research of ant-inspired algorithms. So, this Halloween we’re following her article with a roundup of resources focused on the things that make our skin crawl—from bats to slime mold to artificial life-forms.

Many of the resources here address “misunderstood” aspects of creation. For example, rats and bacteria have acquired bad reputations—often for legitimate reasons—yet they also provide important benefits to their environments and to humanity. The field of synthetic biology can seem rather Frankenstein-like, but it offers opportunities for incredible breakthroughs in medicine, industry, and technology, as well as a chance to develop thoughtful dialogue about ethics in science.

We hope these articles and podcasts will help you develop a deeper understanding of nature’s less agreeable characters and see the Creator’s love and care in all areas of creation.

http://www.reasons.org/articles/misunderstood-creatures-a-roundup-of-creepy-crawly-articles-and-podcasts

A “smart” student thinks he has stumped Dr. Craig

Here is a brief introduction to William Lane Craig as he responds to an atheist who thinks he has got DrCraig boxed in. Dr. Craig is the one who has refined and used the Kalam argument seen in the next video.

 

The Kalam Cosmological Argument

Lord, to whom shall we go?

This generation of Christians must hear again the doctrine of the perturbing quality of faith. People must be told that the Christian religion is not something they can trifle with. The faith of Christ will command or it will have nothing to do with a man. It will not yield to experimentation. Its power cannot reach any man who is secretly keeping an escape route open in case things get too tough for him. The only man who can be sure he has true Bible faith is the one who has put himself in a position where he cannot go back. His faith has resulted in an everlasting and irrevocable committal, and however strongly he may be tempted he always replies, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life’ (John 6:68)  – A W Tozer

Trying to add to God’s grace?

Tim Keller

Anytime you add to God’s grace, you actually subtract from it.

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

by Arthur Khachatryan

The first ever unofficial Thanksgiving is known to have taken place in 1621, as the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast and thanked God for their bountiful blessings. The years that would follow saw many such feasts of gratitude and celebration in the colonies at different times and locations by various groups. But it was not until Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation that Thanksgiving became an official holiday celebrated at the same time by everyone in the United States.

In that proclamation President Lincoln stated,

“The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God…”

“No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.” – Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving Proclamation, (October 3, 1863).

Lincoln’s references to our forgetfulness of the source of the blessings we enjoy appears to still be with us today. In a society that is gradually declining into debt and poverty, while at the same time increasing in materialistic fanaticism, we have never before been more in danger of not only forgetting the source of blessings, but also the very things that constitute blessings, both from the glamour of extravagance, and forgetfulness of the provision of our basic necessities.

We’re continually swimming in blessings. And this may be the reason why we don’t recognize them as such. But once remove the blessings that what we’ve grown too familiar to, and their void creates a panic within us that illuminates them like nothing else can. William John Cameron said it well,

“It is literally true, as the thankless say, that they have nothing to be thankful for. He who sits by the fire, thankless for the fire, is just as if he had no fire. Nothing is possessed save in appreciation, of which thankfulness is the indispensable ingredient. But a thankful heart hath a continual feast.” (William John Cameron, A Series of Talks Given on the Ford Sunday Evening Hour, 1935).

Since our basic nature fueled by pride dictates, we are apt to forget that for which we should really be thankful. In this regard the grateful heart is one that is fluid in changing perspective to continually filter the true blessings from things of mere extravagance. And to do this one must be more in control of oneself –

“The act of appreciation of any great thing is an act of self-conquest.” – William Butler Yeats, from Dramatis Personae, The Death of Synge (1936).

As for me, I would count all my blessings, but I’ve not the time nor the meticulousness, for I presume that I’d be far too preoccupied with counting to be able to do anything else. I’m content to let it all be. If not these set of blessings, then certainly another completely different would invariably take its place. No matter how dire the situation may appear, even through the most horrid pain and suffering, if there is air in the lungs to utter a thanks, even for the very breath with which to utter, then there is something still to be grateful for. The grateful heart does not contemplate or measure the things it lacks, but accepts the hand that has been dealt him, thankful that there be cards at all, and plays the game with gratitude and integrity.

What then is there of prosperity? To strive for personal and professional progress is commendable. However, true prosperity is contentment – the appreciation of what you already have. The most thankful of all are those who expect nothing. At this measure every bit that presents itself in favor of or beyond our basic well-being will be appreciated. Being thankful is a persistent attitude of the heart, not merely the brief trite utterances at dinner during a single evening out of the year. Pure gratitude is essentially the language of very few words.