This Week With Jesus

We have often said a single quote can teach us more than a sermon. Today's quotes are on the theme of faith - "It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters."  - Mother Teresa "Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light."  - Helen Keller "It is this belief in a power larger than myself and other than myself which allows me to venture into the unknown and even the unknowable."  - Maya Angelou "What is to give light must endure the burning." - Eleanor Roosevelt "In God's eyes our words have only the value of our actions."  - St. Ignatius Loyola "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."  - Martin Luther King Jr. "What does the Lord require? Only to act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."  - Micah 6:8 "Faith is the bird that feels the lig

A grateful heart is a beginning of greatness . It is an expression of humility . It is a foundation for the development of such virtues as prayer , faith , courage, contentment, happiness, love, and well-being . James E. Faust " Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you ." (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

In the 70s there was a very famous song called American Pie. It was a chart buster and remains popular till this day. A line in the song is very thought provoking and it says, "I saw Satan laughing in delight" .  Strange, isn't it? But think about it. What makes Satan delighted. Do you and I delight Satan? We spend so much time on developing our lives to delight God and trying to follow it, we seldom stop to think what about our life delights Satan. Let's think about it today. Possibly because we are a material society, we believe what we see, therefore we have a far-off belief in the spiritual wars we face and hence don't take the trouble to know our enemy - Satan. Big mistake because then we severely underestimate the tactics and character of our enemy. In the ancient Chinese military classic, The Art of War (attributed to Sun Tzu), it is commented, "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know your

 

  A while back I read a story of a visiting pastor who attended a men's breakfast in the middle of a rural farming area of the country. The group had asked an older farmer, decked out in bib overalls, to say grace for the morning breakfast. "Lord, I hate buttermilk", the farmer began. The visiting pastor opened one eye to glance at the farmer and wonder where this was going. The farmer loudly proclaimed, "Lord, I hate lard." Now the pastor was growing concerned. Without missing a beat, the farmer continued, "And Lord, you know I don't much care for raw white flour". The pastor once again opened an eye to glance around the room and saw that he wasn't the only one to feel uncomfortable. Then the farmer added, "But Lord, when you mix them all together and bake them, I do love warm fresh biscuits. So,  Lord, when things come up that we don't like, when life gets hard, when we don't understand what you're saying to us, help us to ju

* the Free Dictionary How many times in life we take a decision or done or not done something only to realize we have blown it? When failure stares us in the face we dread the result with that sinking feeling, with the knowledge of the outcome of our failure? But guess what? We know of at least 5 Biblical characters who went through failures and yet built on it for success. You see it is not the failure itself that Hurts us but our reaction to that failure . And there are enough examples in the Bible. But God does not turn His face away when we fail. He loves a good come back ! Look at King David - he broke half the commandments! David coveted Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11:2-3), committed adultery with her (2 Sam. 11:4) effectively stealing her from Uriah (2 Sam. 12:9), lying to him (2 Sam. 11:12-13) , and eventually having him murdered (2 Sam. 12:9). The prophet Elijah had such a major burnout he ran and hid himself. And what about Paul's awful history, Peter's denial,

The Book of Ruth is one of only two books of the Bible to be named after women (the other is Esther). It's a short book and often easily overlooked. Yet it has always inspired us to look beyond failure and loss. The short Book of Ruth in the Hebrew scripture has three main characters, Ruth, Naomi and Boaz, from whom you can learn many lessons. The story of Ruth covers a period of loss and despair for Naomi, persistence and devotion of Ruth, a time of bestowing grace and favor for Boaz and an ending of joy and blessing for all three. As a woman in ancient Israel, Ruth's loss of a husband and her sons was equivalent to losing her security and future. All of her dreams were shattered. It is a study on how to respond to shattered dreams as we follow Naomi's development from a bitter, depressed woman returning home with nothing but a foreign daughter-in-law, into a joyful woman with an adopted son at the end of the story, and with the all important mission of establishing the li