April 11, 2011

Love and Compassion

 Amber Imes

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”  Read John 8:1-11

We’re pretty quick to point out and condemn others for their sins and mistakes, all the while forgetting that we’re guilty of sin too.  If anyone had a right to condemn this woman, it was Jesus, the  righteous judge. But guess what? He didn’t. Although He didn’t  condone her sin, instead of throwing stones He offered her                 compassion and love.

Put down your rock and extend to others the same grace and mercy that you would want them to show to you in your failings.

Prayer Challenge

Father, help me to show people around me your love and compassion instead of condemning them for their sins. Amen.

April 7

Eyewitness Account

Bible Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:5-9

He was seen by more than five hundred of his followers at one time. 1 Corinthians 15:6

EZRA P. WAFFLE WALKED into the local police station looking like he had seen a ghost. The eyeballs of the Nebraska farmer were half out of his head and his wispy white hair was standing on end. "One of them flyin' saucer contraptions just landed in my cornfield again, Officer," Waffle reported.

The officer had been through this with old Ezra a few times before. "So what did it look like this time, Mr. Waffle?"

" 'Bout the size of my combine, 'cept it was flat and kind of round and all shiny­like, with little Christmas lights a-blinkin' from the inside."

"And did somebody talk to you this time, Mr. Waffle?"

"Sure did," Ezra said, almost bragging. "'Bout six of them critters, looked kind of like the Muppets on TV."

"What did these Muppets from outer space want, Mr. Waffle?"

"They wanted some of my corn to take home. Elmo and Oscar and the bunch picked a couple of my stalks clean and-whoosh-they was gone."

The officer leaned forward, looking serious. "Mr. Waffle, did anybody else see this flying saucer or the Muppet creatures? Your wife? Your kids?"

Ezra shook his head slowly. "By the time I got to the house to tell Bessie Lou, they was long gone into outer space."

"Well, thanks for telling us about it, Mr. Waffle," the officer nodded. "We'll keep an eye out for them."

You have to wonder why the UFOs so many people claim to see don't ever land in downtown LA, New York, or Chicago-places where millions of people could see them. It's hard to believe in aliens when they appear just to one or two people at a time in a remote cornfield.

Jesus wasn't that elusive after his resurrection. He didn't show up in his resur­rected body only for a few folks-he appeared to hundreds! His victory over the grave wasn't intended to be a secret. He wanted his followers to see him alive. He wanted us to know that his resurrection was fact-not fiction, hearsay, or wishful thinking. He wanted to make it easy for you to believe that the resurrection life he promised you is real, so you can know beyond doubt that he rose from the dead to provide it for you.

REFLECT: Why did God make his plan to save the world so easy to see?

PRAY: Thank your Lord for making his plan to save you so out in the open— and pray for your friends who still haven't opened their eyes to the truth.

Taken from: www.Josh.org

Before Daylight!

Part I

Tonya Lardarello

“Then they said to each other, “We’re not doing right.  This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us.”  2 Kings 7:9

There was a great famine in Samaria, so bad that the cost of a  donkey’s head was about 2 pounds of silver and they were eating their own children! Elisha told the king and his officer that the LORD was going to reverse the famine by the same time the next day.  They basically laughed at Elisha and said it would never      happen.

Now there were four men with leprosy who decided they were going to the enemy’s camp because they had nothing to lose. They were    either going to die in the famine city or possibly by the enemy, they thought just maybe they would be spared. 

When they got to the camp it was completely deserted except for all of the supplies! The lepers couldn’t believe what they were           seeing! They ate, and drank all they could and began gathering up all of the goods and supplies. They started to hide all of this for  themselves and then they realized that they were not doing the right thing.

Prayer Challenge

God, help us not to hide all that you have blessed us with.  Help us to realize that we need to do the right thing and give out of our abundance.  Amen.

Before Daylight!

Part II

Tonya Lardarello

“Then they said to each other, “We’re not doing right.  This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us.”  2 Kings 7:9

There are so many great points throughout this event, but verse 9 struck me the most this time. It reminded me of how there have been many times when God has provided and done things in my life that have just blown me away, yet I tucked them in and didn’t share the ‘good news’. Even the simple message of Christ’s love that we neglect to share with our hurting friends, is us hiding the ‘good news’! It goes on to say that if we wait until daylight, which was revealed to me as the time that Christ ret and darkness will be no longer on this earth, punishment will overtake us.

The information that you have is too great to keep to yourself!  Share it with those around you before daylight!

Read 2 Kings 6:24- 7:20

Prayer Challenge

God, You are so mighty that You can, and have turned circumstances around in my life. There have been times that You have blown my mind with Your love and kindness. Help me not to keep these things to  myself but to share them with others, encouraging them to trust in You.  Amen.

Mar. 23

Hey, You with the Fluorescent Orange Hair!

 Hey, You with the Fluorescent Orange Hair!

God has said, "I will never fail you. I will never forsake you." Hebrews 13:5

CHECK (✓) any of these embarrassing situations that have happened to you:

□     Tried to bleach your hair and it turned fluorescent orange.
□     Discovered your jeans had a revealing rip up the backside.
□     Got a red zit on your forehead that looked like a third eye.
□     Figured out that your socks didn't match.
□     Was told your wardrobe was really lame.
□     Smelled an awful odor nearby, then discovered it was you.

You wouldn't like walking down a crowded hallway in school in any of those conditions. You would hear whispers and worse. You definitely wouldn't feel confi­dence oozing out of your pores.

When you wonder whether you are going to feel accepted or not, you feel inse­cure. When you look at yourself and all you see is shortcomings, you start wonder­ing why anyone would ever want to spend time with you.

But you don't have to feel that way. Why? You are accepted by the one who matters most-Jesus Christ. He takes you just as you are-fluorescent orange hair, red zit, ripped pants, mismatched socks and all. He's promised never to ditch you be­cause he wants to be with you no matter how you feel about yourself.

If Jesus Christ—Creator of the universe—accepts you, what does it matter if no­body else accepts you? You don't stop needing people. But you do stop needing their acceptance to make you feel okay. If valuing yourself depended on being accepted, Jesus himself and most of the disciples wouldn't have done very well. They weren't exactly popular among their peers.

When you realize that Christ accepts you unconditionally, you don't have to fo­cus on yourself. You can shift your attention to others. Most all of your friends feel insecure, whether they act that way or not. They need someone to help meet their needs by reaching out to them and pointing them to Jesus. Knowing that Christ ac­cepts you cuts you loose from insecurity and lets you be a confident, accepting friend. 

REFLECT: How does knowing that Christ accepts you make you more accepting of others?

PRAY: Tell Jesus now how grateful you are that he accepts you completely.

Taken from:  www.josh.org

I believe the way you go about this….is praying this simple prayer.  “God please breath a fresh and anew on me today.” It is that simple!  Then when you pray take time to listen to God speaking to you, He will reveal Himself to you a new and a fresh.

You might say..."You don’t’ understand my situation that has been pulling me away from God." Realize, God can and will move in you if you allow Him 2.  There is nothing that you can’t do when He is directing your path. All things are possible through the name of Jesus. Let this be your motto this month: “I am not moved by what I see. I am moved only by what I believe”.

Let each day be a fresh touch from God! Realize as we read His Word and believe the promises that He has so graciously given to us, we are made partakers of His very essence and life.

·                                 Watch

·                                 Listen

I can't remember for sure what my first R-rated movie was. If my fuzzy middle-aged mental hard drive (which could use a serious defrag) is working correctly at the moment, I think it was either Flashdance or Purple Rain when I was about 14 years old. I have clearer memories, actually, of what my best friend and I had to do to rent such films. Specifically, my R-rated experiences depended upon a bit of luck, an older, ethically lax friend who punched the clock at our small-town video store … and my parents going to bed early.

Both films have content concerns that are way out of bounds for a young teen (and most other folks, too, for that matter). But at the time, if you had asked me if I thought the films impacted me in a negative way, I'm sure I would have said something like, "It's just a stupid movie! It doesn't really matter. It's no big deal." My conscience knew better, though, and I still recall the illicit rush of watching something we knew we weren't supposed to be setting eyes on.

These days, kids watching R-rated films isn't as taboo as it was back in my day (when we couldn't even text our friends while walking uphill both ways to school against the wind). Technology has made getting R-rated material—or any kind of material, for that matter—orders of magnitude easier than it was for my friend Joe and I in 1984.

That said, I think today's teens would respond exactly like I would have if you asked them whether R-rated content influenced them. "No big deal," most would say. "I watch this stuff all the time. It's not hurting anyone."

But I was wrong. And they're wrong, too. Increasingly, researchers are solidifying the link between what teens see in R-rated films and what choices they make in real life.

Little Eyes R Watching
In her 2010 commonsensemedia.com article "Sneaking Into R-Rated Movies (Without Leaving Home)," writer and mother Liz Perle wrote, "I clearly recall telling my then 13-year-old son that the movie Superbad was a total non-starter for him. Full of underage drinking, I didn't want him to think getting plastered was hilarious. So he didn't go sneak into the theater with his friends. But a week later, he was quoting movie dialogue. He didn't need to see the movie. He simply went online and watched the trailers. Then he went on to YouTube for more. Finally, he illegally downloaded a pirated user-posted copy by using an open source file-sharing application called BitTorrent. A total wipeout. Not only had he seen the movie, but he'd also broken the law."

But most young teens and tweens are watching R-rated films in more "mundane" ways: buying movies at Walmart with their allowance money, casually snagging tickets at the theater, streaming them on Hulu or simply watching on TV. In 2007, the Federal Trade Commission released a report showing that about 40% of 13- to 16-year-olds were able to purchase theater tickets for R-rated movies. Nearly 80% successfully purchased DVDs of similar films. No sneaking around necessary. A 2007 article published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine reported that more than 75% of all U.S. children between the ages of 10 and 14 watched R-rated movies at home with no parental supervision.

In August 2008, Dartmouth Medical School researchers published the results of a survey of 6,522 children they conducted in 2003. The study's authors asked them whether they'd seen 40 recent films that had been rated R for graphic violence, including Blade, Training Day, Hollow Man and Bride of Chucky.

It turns out Scary Movie was the film 10- to 14-year-olds were most likely to have seen, with 48% having watched it. Boys, minorities, those from lower-income families and those with lower academic performance were more likely to have seen the ultraviolent fare. Perhaps most significantly, about one in three reported that their parents let them watch R-rated movies. But even among those whose parents prohibited them, nearly a quarter had seen at least one of the movies on the list.

R You Seeing Smoke?
Permissive parents might have a different perspective if they understood how imagery in R-rated films influences teens' choices. One area that's been subject to repeated scholarly inquiry has been the correlation between teens witnessing smoking in R-rated films and how those images influence whether or not they imitate that behavior themselves.

Research published in a 2007 issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine found that white U.S. teenagers who frequently watched R-rated movies were a whopping seven times more likely to start smoking than peers with less exposure to such films. Even allowing for other influences—such as friends who smoked, poor performance in school and lack of parental guidance—young whites viewing more R-rated fare were still three times more likely to begin smoking. (Researchers also found a link between unsupervised television consumption and picking up the habit.)

Backing up that data are two more recent studies. In 2009, research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reinforced the notion that children who watch R-rated films are more likely to smoke than those who don't. "Parents need to be mindful about the movies their children watch for a variety of reasons," said co-author Dr. Joseph DiFranza of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. "This study points out one more reason for not allowing children to watch movies that are not appropriate for their age."

Rebecca de Leeuw, a doctoral student at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, echoed those statements when talking about the results of her research, published in the January 2011 issue of Pediatrics. De Leeuw again found that teens who watch R-rated movies are more likely to begin smoking than those who don't, estimating that completely restricting R-rated movie viewing among 10- to 14-year-olds could cut their risk of smoking two- to threefold. "When watching popular movies, youth are exposed to many risk behaviors, including smoking, which is rarely displayed with negative health consequences and most often portrayed in a positive manner or glamorized to some extent," she said.

But smoking isn't the only subject academics have focused on. Dartmouth Medical School researchers investigated the relationship between R-rated viewing habits and alcohol. They found that almost 25% of children whose parents let them watch R-rated movies "all the time" had tried an alcoholic drink without their parents' knowledge. In contrast, just 3% of kids who were "never allowed" to watch R-rated movies had tried drinking. (According to the study, alcohol consumption is portrayed in about 90% of R-rated movies.)

Dartmouth pediatrician and professor James Sargent, who co-authored the study that was published in the March 2010 issue of Prevention Science, commented on those findings: "The research to date suggests that keeping kids from R-rated movies can help keep them from drinking, smoking and doing a lot of other things that parents don't want them to do."

Then he added, "The message to parents is clear. Take the movie ratings literally. Under 17 should not be permitted to see R-rated movies."

The research doesn't end there. And neither does common sense. But this article must. So with such a wealth of research backing up Sargent's statement, there's more than enough proof to say emphatically: Where there's smoke, there's fire. Whether it's cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, violence or sex, R-rated movies do influence teens. And it matters not a whit what I might have thought when I was 14.