ThoughtnHumor4u : Messages : 94-123 of 5572

#94

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:52 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - June 20, 2005 - Happy Summer

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After a trial had been going on for three days, Finley, the
man accused of committing the crimes, stood up and approached
the judge's bench. "Your Honor, I would like to change my
plea from 'innocent' to 'guilty' of the charges."

The judge angrily banged his fist on the desk. "If you're
guilty, why didn't you say so in the first place and save
this court a lot of time and inconvenience?" he demanded.

<<<Get Finley's corny reply HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

RUNAWAY BRIDE, DEEP THROAT TO WED

Just days after they both inked big-money publishing deals for their
memoirs, "Runaway Bride" Jennifer Wilbanks and "Deep Throat" W. Mark Felt
announced today that they are engaged to be married.

News of the impending marriage, which many in the bookselling business are
calling a match made in publishing heaven, was leaked yesterday to The
Washington Post by Mr. Felt. MORE HERE: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

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Updated frequently!!!

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Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4812.rm

We've got a family doctor that I just totally trust. I'm a blessed guy, but
I can't say that I look for opportunities to go see him, of course. But if

I do have to go, I have a lot of reasons to trust him - not the least of which
is, he asks me about my symptoms. So, I give him all the clues I can. I tell
him where it hurts, when it started, how I got desperate enough to finally
come to a doctor's office. Then he investigates my temperature and checks
out my vital signs. And I'm glad. Can you imagine if he walked into the room
where I was waiting for him and before I could even open my mouth, he
pointed at me and barked, "Penicillin!" What? He's already headed for me
with that needle, and I haven't even had a chance to tell him what's wrong.
Do you think I'd trust his diagnosis? Do you think I'd go there the next
time I needed attention?

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Proverbs 18:13. Here

are the Lord's words: "He who answers before listening - that is his folly and
his shame." If you answer before you've listened, you should be ashamed of
yourself! That certainly would be true if a doctor started answering before
he listened. It's just as true of parents who may be the number one
disobeyers of this verse. Before we've heard out our son or daughter,

we were already talking "Penicillin!" We haven't even heard what they're
feeling. We haven't heard where they're hurting. Is it any wonder they may
not accept our diagnosis or our cure?

And what about a husband with a wife; a wife with a husband. Do you
thoroughly listen before you start speaking? Or do you jump right in,

sure you know the rest, sure you know the answer? The "answering before
listening" breakdown cripples so many relationships - a child who doesn't
let mom or dad finish, employers and employees, friends, people you work
with or people you serve the Lord with.

In James 1:19, God gives us His instructions for how our communication

is supposed to be. Measure yours by this, "Be quick to listen (that comes
first), slow to speak, and (as a result) slow to become angry." If you're
quick to listen, you're slow to speak, and you're a lot less like to become
angry, I think. How are you doing on that one? I know I've got some work

to do, but I need to do that work to learn to listen more effectively. And I
suspect you do, too.

Why? Well, being an active and patient listener is foundational to having

a close relationship with anyone for two reasons. First, listening is the

key to understanding a person. If you don't hear them out, you cannot
understand. You've got to hear more than their words. You've got to listen
long enough to hear their heart. If you don't, you'll probably miss where
they're really at when you talk and your response probably won't even really
fit where they're coming from. Just like a doctor who would diagnose before
he heard out the patient. Secondly, listening is a primary way to make the
person you're with feel important. I wonder how people feel after they've
been around you.

People want to know that what they're saying matters - matters to you. If
you want them to feel that way, if you want them to feel they're important -
like God thinks they are - then focus on them like they are the only person
on this planet at the moment that they're with you.

My doctor listens to me before he starts answering me. So I trust what he
says. I hope the people in your world can say the same about you.

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#95

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:38 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - June 22, 2005 - Happy Summer

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A ragged individual stranded for months on a small desert
island in the middle of the Pacific one day noticed a bottle
lying in the sand with a piece of paper in it. Rushing to
the bottle, he pulled out the cork and with shaking hands
withdrew the message:

<<<Get Message HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

There's music in words, especially in the cadences of poetry,
from which the verbs in this quiz come. How many do you know?

1. vegetate - A: to be passive. B: be health conscious.
C: eat no meat. D: rest.

2. sedate - A: to calm. B: give up. C: sit. D: keep under
control.

3. stipulate - A: to undertake. B: be firm. C: specify.
D: fasten tightly.

4. acclimate - A: to moderate. B: acquire. C: reach a climax.
D: adapt to.

5. berate - A: to underestimate. B: scold. C: make the cry
of a donkey. D: classify.

6. relegate - A: to control by rules. B: act as a spokesman.
C: put off or delay. D: send away.

7. equivocate - A: to stir up. B: be evasive. C: balance out.
D: see all sides of a question.

8. renovate - A: to change. B: restore. C: replace.
D: examine.

9. precipitate - A: to cause to happen. B: leap. C: clarify.
D: make public.

10. exonerate - A: to become larger. B: free from blame.
C: compliment excessively. D: destroy utterly.

11. innovate - A: to give courage to. B: study the cosmos.
C: re-establish. D: introduce something new.

12. extrapolate - A: to firm up. B: estimate. C: remove from.
D: add to.

13. satiate - A: to desire. B: be cruel. C: use ridicule.
D: glut.

14. recapitulate - A: to surrender. B: be indecisive.
C: summarize. D: retract.

15. undulate - A: to quiver and quake. B: move in waves.
C: revolve around. D: become seasick.

16. gesticulate - A: to frown. B: develop slowly. C: make
expressive gestures. D: pronounce distinctly.

17. immolate - A: to offer in sacrifice. B: keep from moving.
C: immerse completely. D: shield from.

18. militate - A: to challenge. B: lay down the law.
C: arbitrate. D: influence against.

19. crenelate - A: to wrinkle. B: notch. C: decorate with
ribbons. D: do brain studies.

20. perpetuate - A: to cause to continue. B: sulk.
C: impose. D: bring about.

Answers are located here: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

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The Great Iconoclast
Betsy Childs

The word "iconoclast" originally meant someone who destroys religious
images. Iconoclasm reached its height in the eighth and ninth centuries
when religious icons were highly controversial; the practice also became
commonplace following the Reformation. In recent centuries, however, the
word "iconoclast" has come to connote one who destroys ideas. Any person
who displays revolutionary or countercultural thinking is liable to be
labeled an iconoclast.

In July of 1960, C. S. Lewis watched his wife die of cancer. A year
later, Lewis, under a pseudonym, published an account of his struggles
with grief. The book A Grief Observed (which quickly came to be
recognized as Lewis's own work) is a raw and heart-wrenching monologue.
In it, Lewis expresses the feeling that God is ruthlessly destroying any
of Lewis's preconceived notions of who God should be. Lewis recognizes
that his own idea of God had become a "graven image," one that he himself
fashioned and expected to remain motionless. He writes,

"Images, I must suppose, have their use or they would not have been so
popular. (It makes little difference whether they are pictures or statues
outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it.) To me, however,
their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy
images-sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be
shattered time after time. He shatters it himself. He is the great
iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the
marks of his presence? The incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves
all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins. And most are 'offended' by the
iconoclasm; and blessed are those who are not."(1)

It is inescapable that we will latch onto images of God; in fact, that is
the way our finite minds work when attempting to grasp the infinite. Our
view of God is often heavily influenced by our parents and role models.
It may also be influenced by the advantages or disadvantages we have had,
as well as every other significant life experience.

One's idea of God is always changing. God himself does not change

but remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. In contrast, the
believer's idea of God always falls short of the truth and must be
continually toppled with the aim that it be rebuilt and come closer to the
truth. As Lewis discovered, pain is frequently the instrument God uses

to remind us that our "idea of God is not a divine idea."

Has your pain shattered your view of God? It requires desperate faith,
such as the faith Lewis demonstrated, to believe that God has not departed
and left us in pain, but is instead refashioning our impressions of who He
is. God does not shatter our ideas of Him gleefully as a spoiled child
ruining another's sand castle. Instead, he lovingly wrenches from us the
false gods we cling to so that we can have the real thing. Scottish
theologian Samuel Rutherford was known to remark that when cast into the
cellars of affliction, he was reminded that this is where the great King
keeps his wine.(2) The redeeming purpose of suffering in life is that it
may send us into the arms of our maker.

Do you want to know God as He is, or as you would like Him to be? I have
a hard time honestly answering that question. I find myself clinging to
the idea that God will make me always comfortable because He doesn't

want me to feel pain. I might as well think that water was created to fill
swimming pools, and has nothing to do with quenching my thirst or washing
me clean.

(1) A Grief Observed (Faber and Faber, 1964).
(2) Quoted by John Piper in Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian
Hedonist (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 1996), 222.

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#96

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Thu Jun 23, 2005 12:43 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - June 23, 2005 - Happy Summer

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Watch videos of some of Howdy's favorite aircraft!!!

<<<Watch Videos: HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

Did you happen to hear about the UNC grad
who invented a metric cookie???

Answer is located here: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Turn your volume up - listen to the music!!!

***********************

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http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Updated frequently!!!

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The Channel Choice

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4813.rm

Here's two unlikely words to be matched up - channel surfing. Of course,
they have been matched up. Channel surfing refers, of course, to the
practice of skipping from one channel to another to see what's on each one.
Men have mastered that! Oh, we've got the most powerful thumbs in the world.
When there were only a few channels, we didn't surf much, but look what
cable has done. You've got dozens of channels to check out - hundreds
sometimes. As you surf, you may get a glimpse of a sports channel, a food
channel, a travel channel, then a movie channel, a country music channel, a
nature channel, and of course, a home shopping channel. Increasingly, a lot
of what you'll come upon is either raunchy or dumb or boring. Or, maybe you
can't stand, let's say, country music. Or you fall asleep watching someone
cook. Or you don't care about sports. Whatever, it's okay. You can't decide
what's on each channel, but it's totally up to you what channel you watch!

Let's picture your heart as a TV set with lots of channels, offering you
lots of options to watch. With that in mind, listen to our word for today
from the Word of God in 1 Corinthians 10:6. God is talking, here, about some
of His followers from earlier generations and the tragic mistakes they made.
He doesn't want us to repeat those mistakes. Here's what it says: "These
things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil
things as they did." That was their fatal mistake. Before they did anything
wrong, they set their heart on something evil. He goes on to give examples
such as idolatry - that's letting something other than God get the best of
your love. He talks about sexual sin - even grumbling - having a negative,
discontented attitude.

A lot of channels flash across the TV of your heart each day; many of them
you can't afford to stop and watch. Like any image or input or opportunity
that encourages your sexual lust - as if your lust needed any more
strengthening! You may not be able to help the fact that a sexual input came
on your screen, but you totally decide whether or not it stays on your
screen. You can't afford to dwell on anything that feeds your anger either,
or your depression, or your complaining, something that feeds your worry, or
your materialism, your greed, or your spending problem, or that feeds that
sinful habit. Maybe that's why you've continued to struggle and maybe you've
lost so much in that part of your life because you keep feeding it. You keep
stopping to watch and listen to a channel that feeds the sinful side of you.

Later in 1 Corinthians 10:13, God gets real practical about how to beat a
temptation that keeps beating you. He says, "He will not let you be tempted
beyond what you can bear." There's no such thing as an irresistible
temptation in the life of a child of God. "But when you are tempted, He will
also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." A way out - the
temptation channel comes on - you didn't choose that. But God says, "There's
a way out. Know where your exits are. Know how to choose something else.
Know how to immediately switch channels and you'll pre-choose that exit
before that temptation ever arrives."

You know how defeated you feel when that temptation wins - how dirty you
feel. It's a despairing thing to keep losing to it. When the people who feed
the wrong side of you pop up on your screen, or the music, or the feelings,
or the opportunity to fall again, switch the channel immediately. Don't "set
your heart" on it.

Find a channel where Jesus is and set your heart to focus on Him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
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#97

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Mon Jun 27, 2005 4:18 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - June 27, 2005 - For Educational Purposes Only

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The tourist wandered into a gourmet food shop in
Beverly Hills. He picked out two apples and a pear.

"That will be $8.00," the storeowner said.

The tourist gave him a ten-dollar bill and walked away.

"Wait! Don't you want your change?"

<<<His farcical answer: HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Turn your volume up - listen to the music!!!

***********************

When conductor Leonard Bernstein took the
New York Philharmonic on tour, he found this
note under his hotel room door one night:

Jocose note is located here: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Turn your volume up - listen to the music!!!

***********************

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Updated frequently!!!

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How To Survive When

Everything's Coming Down

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4816.rm

I was watching on TV the observance of the tenth anniversary of the Oklahoma
City bombing, and my mind raced back to this unforgettable personal visit

I had to the site of, well, what was a very deadly tragedy. In a pre-September
11th America, that terrorist bombing of a Federal Office Building left most
Americans in stunned disbelief; at least it did me. My guide for my visit to
the memorial made it really special and very moving, actually. Because he's
a state trooper who was one of the rescuers that day. His recollections of
the joy of rescues and the heartbreak of lost lives are something I'll never
forget. Of course, all the traces of that bombed-out building are gone now.
The site is now a beautiful lawn with a stone chair for each of the victims.
What was the street that day is now a reflection pond. Nothing remains there
from the day the world stopped at 9:02 A.M. - nothing, that is, except the
tree. On an embankment across from what was the building site stands a b!
ig old tree, still partially blackened by the bomb blast. We stood there,
my rescuer friend and I, and we prayed beneath those branches that somehow
had endured the blast. They call it The Survivor Tree.

One indestructible tree - that's all that survived the most powerful blast
that city had ever known.

For 2,000 years, men and women who are reeling from blasts that seem

to have blown apart everything in their lives, have made it - because of one
indestructible tree. The Survivor Tree - the one the Bible talks about when
it says that Jesus Christ "bore our sins in His body on the tree" (1 Peter
2:24). That tree is, of course, the cross where the greatest act of love in
human history took place - the one and only Son of God dying in our place,
paying for our sins so we would never have to. In that cross - in the
unspeakable love it makes available - so many have found the one life-anchor
that nothing can take from them.

Every one of us has seasons in our life when a massive blast suddenly rips
through everything around us. You may be in one of those seasons right now.
Maybe you've been betrayed by a love you thought would always be there, your
parent's marriage is coming apart, or you've lost someone who has been an
anchor in your life. Sometimes we are victims of the destruction that comes
from our own bad choices, which leaves you devastated by the shame of what
you've done. Or it may not be what you've done. It may be the wrongs that
have been done against you. The blast that changes everything can be a
financial one, or a medical one when a doctor's diagnosis hits like a bomb.

It is in those moments that we look for something to hold onto, something
that can withstand what has rocked our life. And it is in moments like these
that many of us have finally run to The Survivor Tree - the cross where
Jesus died for us, where we can experience the "never leave you" love of
Almighty God. That's the day you discover the miracle described in our word
for today from the Word of God in Ephesians 2:13-14, "You who once were far
away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For He Himself is
our peace."

That peace is within your reach this very day; maybe at a time when peace
seems so impossible because of what you've lost. But it may be that very
loss that will finally bring you to the one love you'll never lose. Jesus
stands with arms wide open, waiting to forgive every sin, to transform your
dark side, and to heal what's broken inside as only He can. He's waiting
only for you to tell Him that you're turning from the sin that put Him on
that cross and you're putting all your trust in Him. I've done my best to
describe how this personal relationship with Him begins in a little booklet
I call Yours For Life. If you're wanting to be sure you belong to Him, then
I want to send this to you.

Take your stand by the tree - by the cross - that nothing has ever blown
away. You are one heartfelt prayer away from having in your heart the
indestructible love of God.

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#98

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Tue Jun 28, 2005 2:18 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - June 28, 2005 - For Educational Purposes Only

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Q. What did one pickle say to the other?

<<<Answer: HERE>>>

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Turn your volume up - listen to the music!!!

***********************

Dear Howdy,
I suffer from two phobias:

And they are here: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Turn your volume up - listen to the music!!!

***********************

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************************

How to End the

War You're In

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4817.rm

"Our planes were in the air." That's what the Air Force briefing officer
told us as we had the privilege of touring a major American defense command
facility. He was talking about a day during the Cold War when, unbeknownst
to most Americans, World War III may have almost begun. America's warning
systems had indicated clearly that Russian planes were in the air and headed
for the United States. In those days when nuclear war was our greatest fear
and a real possibility, the orders were given to get our planes in the air.
Those planes were headed for the Soviet Union with the capability of
starting a nuclear war. Thankfully, the trackers discovered in time what
sent out what turned out to be an erroneous message about the Russian
planes - one defective computer chip. Now that's a close call.

We never knew how close we had come to being in a war that would have been

a tragic mistake. Thank God, that war was avoided. Of course, not all wars are
between nations. Some are between individuals - in a family, a church, a
neighborhood, a school, a team, an organization. There's a good chance it's
a war God doesn't want you involved in; a war He wants to help you either
prevent before it starts or end if it's already started.

And He's given us a plan for peace in our word for today from the Word of
God in Joshua 22, beginning with verse 10. Here's the scene. The twelve
tribes of Israel have conquered the Promised Land, and each tribe was now
settling the portion of Canaan that had been given to them. The tribes of
Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh returned to their land which
happened to be on the other side - the east side of the Jordan River. That
distance set the stage for what was almost a war between the west-siders and
the east-siders. A war that should not have been; maybe like a war that's
looming in your life.

The Bible says that the two and a half tribes on the east side of the river
"built an imposing altar there by the Jordan." When the rest of the Jews
heard about this "they gathered at Shiloh to go to war against them,"
thinking that they were establishing an alternative to the worship of
Jehovah God. The Book of Joshua goes on to explain that the Israelites sent
a high-ranking delegation across the Jordan. They said to the east-siders,
"How could you break faith with the God of Israel like this?" And the
east-siders explained that they weren't rebelling against God by building
this altar. They were just afraid that some day another generation might cut
them off from worshiping the Lord on the other side of the river. In other
words, it was to insure that they could worship Jehovah God. The result: the
west-side leaders returned home with their report and "they talked no more
about going to war against them."

Conflicts often result from misunderstanding the other person's motives or
actions. The only way to avoid that is to do what these ancient Jews did. Go
directly to the person or persons involved and let them explain what they're
thinking. Don't go on hearsay, second-hand information, rumors, or your
suppositions. Peace between God's people is too precious for that. Go to
them - don't wait for them to come to you. Use healing words like "Help me
understand," "Let's not let any walls grow between us," "I miss you,"
"Please forgive me," "I forgive you," or even those hard but healing words,
"I was wrong." So many wars - in a family, in a friendship, in a working
relationship, in a ministry are unnecessary wars where only the devil wins.

We can't afford to form our firing squad in a circle and shoot at each
other. We need to reserve all our ammunition for the enemy that wants to
bring us all down. The war-preventing, peace-keeping plan of God can be
pretty well summed up in these twelve little words from James 1:19 - "Be
quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." Remember,

blessed are the peacemakers!

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#99

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Wed Jun 29, 2005 1:48 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - June 29, 2005 - For Educational Purposes Only

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Two UNC students were sitting on a bench in Chapel Hill
looking at the moon........ and one student says to the other:
"Which do you think is farther away..........Florida or the moon?"

<<<Answer: HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Turn your volume up - listen to the music!!!

***********************

ATHLETES WHO OVERCAME HANDICAPS!

And they are here: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Turn your volume up - listen to the music!!!

***********************

Check out this Blog:

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Updated frequently!!!

************************

Light and Dark

If you have ever lived in a major city, you have encountered what has
become known as "light pollution." Street lamps emit light in all
directions instead of directing it downward where we need it, and the
countless rays from billboards, marquees, and headlights mask the stars
and even the clouds in the night sky. These days it seems hard to escape
from the glow of artificial light that seeps in through closed blinds.
Light pollution became such a problem in the Czech Republic that recently
the government passed a law intended to limit light pollution.

To get a good view of the stars, one must find a place that is truly dark.
I remember stumbling through a farm field in darkness, trying to recall
the terrain as I had seen it in the day. I expected to trip and fall at
any moment. Yet when I turned my dilated eyes heavenward, I was greeted
by a brilliant canopy of lights set off against the unfathomable darkness
of the sky. Regardless of whether or not they are observed, the multitude
of stars waits patiently in the sky like jewels unmined. The one thing
that allowed me to see those stars was the darkness, darkness that I had
been missing for so many months in the city.

Those of us who experience a constant stream of artificial light rarely
think about the natural ones we are missing unless an unintended blackout
forces us into darkness. It is strange to think that one form of light,
such as light emitted by electric and neon bulbs, could prevent us from
seeing another more powerful light, such as the stars. In much the same
way, there are many things that distract us and prevent us from seeing the
light of Christ. In 2 Corinthians, Paul describes Satan as one who
masquerades as an "angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). Paul also
writes, "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that
they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the
image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4).

Let us do everything in our power to avoid being blinded by the "lights"
of this world, that is, its earthly wisdom and deceptive thinking. We
should commend ourselves to God's mercy in order that we would not be
deceived into following after false lights that blind us from seeing the
light of the Gospel. The apostle John wrote that light has come into

the world, but men love darkness (John 3:19). In our present age,
"enlightenment" has become another form of darkness until the truth has
become more and more obscure. We are inundated with so much knowledge

and conflicting wisdom that it is easy to lose a belief that there is even such
a thing as truth. Jesus warned us of this, saying, "See to it, then, that
the light within you is not darkness."

Let us also take comfort in the dark moments of life. Although suffering
is bitter and often lonely, times of darkness remind us to lift our gaze
upward. God, in his mercy, sometimes removes our distractions so that

we have nothing to turn to but his pure and faultless light. It is a hard
thing to thank God for suffering. Yet after the darkness is gone and the
pain is less, may we seek to praise God for the darkness, if only because
it has allowed us to see his light.

************************

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#100

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:48 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - June 30, 2005 - For Educational Porpoises Only

yourfriend_howdy@...

Send Email

Did you hear about the doctor who

wrote out a prescription in the usual

doctor's fashion?

<<<Answer: HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Turn your volume up - listen to the patriotic music!!!

***********************

From a Reader:

Hello Howdy, I just wanted to thank you for your thoughts in an e-mail that

I received from a group mailing. It truly helped me in a time of pain and

feeling deserted. I hope to hear back from you so that I know that you

got this e-mail. in the thought I am talking about, you talked about the

stars and light pollution and then talked about how we must go through

trials to actually see the light..... I am going through alot right now and

needed to hear what you wrote, I was at the brink of suicide, You saved

my life...thank you ..........(Female Name Withheld)

***********************

Check out this Blog:

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Updated frequently!!!

************************

The Only Applause

That Matters

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4819.rm

It was the moment the young man had waited for and had prepared for over many months.

It was his premiere appearance as a concert pianist. The audience had heard a lot about

his amazing talent, and they packed out this prestigious concert hall to hear him. They

weren't disappointed. In fact, his masterful playing brought them to their feet for a thund-

erous standing ovation at the end of the concert. Backstage, the young man's manager said,

"They want an encore, man! Get back out there!" The pianist looked strangely dejected,

and he said, "No, I'm not going back out there." His manager said, "But they love your

playing! Look at them! They're all on their feet!" "Not all," was the young man's reply.

"Look in the balcony." The manager peeked around the curtain and he saw one white-

haired old man in the balcony who wasn't standing or applauding. "That's one old man!

So what?" The pianist looked down at the floor and he said, "That's not one old man.

That's my teacher."

It didn't matter to that concert artist what the crowd thought. Only one opinion mattered.

Only one man in that multitude was the one he wanted to please - his teacher. You know,

that's how God has wired you to live. To please your teacher - your Creator. Sadly, we tend

to lose sight of Him in our desire to get the applause of the crowd around us.

Jesus has given us six powerful words to live by in our word for today from the Word of God.

These words in John 8:29 are simple, but they'll change your life if you'll make them the core

value of your life: "I always do what pleases Him." Jesus lived only for His Father's approval.

That's why the greatest moment of His life was at His baptism when the heavens opened and

He heard His Father say, "You are My Son ... with You I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22). It didn't

matter whether the crowd was cheering or jeering - Jesus knew He was OK if His Father thought

He was OK.

That's an important reminder for us approval junkies, who tend to mold ourselves to please

other people. It's like we have this ticket we keep trying to get people to validate for us.

"Do you like me? Do you like what I'm doing? What do I have to do to get you to stamp

my ticket?" It's called "Please Disease" - spending so much of your life trying to please

others. But there's never enough applause. There's never enough approval. And somewhere

in all the pleasing, you lose yourself and you lose the pleasure of the only One who can

satisfy your heart - your Lord Jesus who died so you could live for Him! 1 Corinthians 7:23

says, "You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men." Paul knew he had to

choose once and for all who he was going to live for and who he was going to live to please.

He said, "Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? ... If I were trying to please

men, I would not be a servant of Christ" (Galatians 1:10).

So who are you living to please: the boss, the pastor, your family, your friends, the church,

a guy, a girl, the community? They didn't die for you. Their rewards don't hold a candle to His.

The early church leader, Stephen, knew that. He had stood up for the truth on the streets of

Jerusalem and the crowd was not applauding. They were screaming at him, throwing rocks

at him to shut him up once and for all. "But," the Bible says, "Stephen ... looked up to heaven

and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God." The Bible tells us that

Jesus is usually sitting at His Father's right hand, but not this day. He's standing, honoring his

faithful servant Stephen. And Stephen has the courage to keep doing the right thing, even at the

cost of his life, because his teacher is standing. His teacher is saying, "Well done."

I hope that's where you're looking for your approval. The only applause that matters is the applause

of heaven. Anything is worth doing to get it. Nothing is worth losing it for.

************************

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#101

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Thu Jun 30, 2005 10:42 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July, 2005 - How To Unsubscribe & Make Poor Howdy Cry:

yourfriend_howdy@...

Send Email

What is the Trinity???

<<<Answer: HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Unsubscribe instructions BELOW - at end (who would want to???).

***********************

From some of our 100,000+ Readers:

Howdy,

I did not wish to be unsubscribed, and tried
to send an e-mail to confirm that I wanted to
continue to receive your side-splitting humour
and healthy faithful advice.

Many thanks for your efforts,

Brian J
Research Fellow
Queen's University
Dept Epidemiology & Public Health
Mulhouse Building
Royal Victoria Hospital

*

Dear Howdy,

I was very busy in the past two weeks.
I'm very much enjoy your
T&H and I'd like to resubscribe.

I hope it's not too late.

Many Thanks,

Nuanrat. (Thailand)

+

Dear Howdy,
I enjoy reading your humorous letters. I
look forward to receiving them also in the
future. With wishes for success,
Sol K.
Department of Chemistry
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa, Israel

+

Dear Howdy,

I would like to continue receiving Thought & Humor.
I have not received it in some time.

John F., MD
Assistant professor
Michigan State University
Colleges of Medicine

*

Hello Howdy,

I have no idea how I first ended up on your mailing list but
I am sure glad you reached me!
I would like to continue receiving your messages, so please
sign me up on the new(?) list.
Keep up the humor and the good work!

Best regards
Karina L.,MD,PhD student
Dept.of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Lund University Hospital
Center for Stem Cell Biology and Cell Therapy, Lund University
Sweden

*

Howdy,

Please don't unsubscribe me. I don't know if I can go on if
I don't receive Howdy any longer. I am sure, at bare minimum,
I would suffer sever withdrawl. Thank You.
K.M. (Notre Dame U.)

*

Dearest Howdy,

Please continue to send me "Thought and Humor" - it's just what
I need on those days when laughter is the only medicine!!

Teresa Kimrey
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC

*

Dearest Howdy,

I DO NOT want to be PHASED OUT of receiving such a delightful
publication. I enjoy both your clever antics and eloquence of language.
The jokes aren't bad either! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE--DO NOT
TAKE ME OFF THE MAILING LIST. Howdy has become a good
friend and break from the stress of college.
Keep up the good work.
MM (Loyno)

*

Dear Howdy,
We want to inform you that we are interested to obtain Though
and Humor in the case that you can send it us f r e e . We do
not want to be unsubscibed. Send us Though and Humor free
on my e-mail university address:
kss@_____.sk.

We can give it in our library for students. Thank you
very much for your kindness. Greetings. Prof. K.

***

Dear Howdy,

Your newspaper is fun and informative,
but I will unfortunately no longer have
an active e-mail address from the end
of this week- therefore I must unsubscribe,

Thanks,
E Miller (Cambridge University)

+++

Hello Howdy,

I did actually take the time to read your entire e-mail,
which I thought was terribly amusing. I admire your
wordplay and eloquence of language.

Saskia (Oxford U.)

+++

Dear Sir or Ms:
As to your questions, I live in ______, Oregon, USA.
I don't forward your Thought and Humor as I copy them
and place them in a 3-ring notebook. Then I take this
notebook to my camping, gold panning, 8-mile roadside
clean-up campaigns followed by a potluck, 3 days, 2 nights,
geology tours, fishing, boating, etc., along with other stories
and jokes placed in that notebook. Everyone seems to enjoy
reading my notebook. So thank you very much for your stories,
jokes, etc. and for future ones. Why don't you publish a book
full of your stories and Jokes? Shouldn't I get a no-prize book
if and when you do this? Ha, Ha!
Sincerely,
Ellen

+++

Dear Howdy,
One of your subscribers recommended your list on the our-kids
(a forum for families with children with disabilities) listserv. I am
in Island County, WA.
M.D.

***

dear sir,
if possible do not unsubscibe your letters from this address.
Looking forward to them.

Hedvika Suchonova
Univerzitni nam.
the Czech republic

***

Please don't unsubscribe me from your newsletter! I like
it a lot. I think the jokes and brain teasers are great, and
i really like the devotion type things. They really make
me think. yep, those pesky hired howdy hunters
must've been at it again... i'd really like to keep
getting the newsletter.
Thanks and God Bless!

Anna

+

I would like to receive Howdy's Thought and Humor
newsletter at the email below. Thanks for the
opportunity to receive this thought provoking
whimsical newsletter.

Jim M.
Management Research Analyst, Principal
Student Life Assessment Program
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ

***

dear howdy
i would like to continue receiving "thought&humor"
please sign me up on the new (if any)list.

(name withheld)
iran

+++

Howdy, your newsletter in probably the best thing
I've ever gotten by email... never quit, the world
would be a lesser place without the few who
insist on actually using the wonderful cognitive
processes with which the Creator has blessed
us. Your mini-novel was wonderful, and yes we
are responsible for ensuring that as many as
possible have a ticket as soon as possible.
GOD Bless you

IMM

Indira Maharaj-Mikiel
Program Counselor
Marist College Upward Bound
3399 North Road
Poughkeepsie, NY

+

Dear Howdy,

Where in the world (besides NC) did this come from???
Who in the world sent it to me?
Where in the world have you been hiding?
Over a million readers??? I don't know how I missed
you or you missed me for so long???

Dr. Robert G. Balnicky

P.S. A lot of mind searching without being boring.
A lot of Humor --- downright good clean fun.

+

Your 'Thought and Humor" have been a great help with the
students that I work with and I would think there are several
of them that are now getting your 'Thoughts and Humor'.
Thank you for making my days better and the students that I work with.
Richard Miller
Gov. Docs and Maps
University of Alaska Fairbanks

+

Dear Howdy,

Please forgive me but I cannot think of any way for you
to improve on your newsletters. They are so creative,
fun and thought provoking, I envy you your dedication
and expertise. I guess my biggest problem is I don't
want to lose any of them. Consequently my e-mail
filled up so I printed them. I am running out of filing
cabinets to keep them in. I am also saving them on
floppies, only about 2 will fit on each disk. I started
that in the spring. So you can imagine how many
disks I have. I have forwarded them to friends and
family. So, to make a long story short, too late,
just keep 'em coming and let me know if there
is an archive I can access so I won't have to
worry about keeping them all myself.

God Bless You,
Patti
STERLING TEAM
"Solid Service"

Your referral based
Golden Rule
Realtor Consultants
For Life

+

I think you are doing a wonderful job! I am finishing up my
4th year here at George Mason University in Fairfax VA,
and have been reading Howdy for about a year now. I have
no idea how i got on the list but i love it! I will soon be moving
to Australia (to study abroad) for 6 months so i'll be sure to
spread it around down there. Keep up the good work!
Josh

***

Suggestions for improving?! NO WAY! I love T&H and I love
forwarding it to people! On weeks when I'm not too busy,
I really enjoy reading as much of it as possible. And those
times when I'm bogged down in work, the lighter side of
T&H is a perfect pick-me-up. You're doing a great work for God's
Commission, Howdy. Thank you!

Blessings,
Ellen
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh

***

Hello Howdy, I just wanted to thank you for your thoughts in an e-mail that

I received from a group mailing. It truly helped me in a time of pain and

feeling deserted. I hope to hear back from you so that I know that you

got this e-mail. in the thought I am talking about, you talked about the

stars and light pollution and then talked about how we must go through

trials to actually see the light..... I am going through alot right now and

needed to hear what you wrote, I was at the brink of suicide, You saved

my life...thank you ..........(Female Name Withheld)

***********************

Check out this Blog:

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Updated frequently!!!

************************

Four important things to KNOW:

1) For ALL (Americans, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Hindus,
Buddhist, Asians, Presbyterians, Europeans, Baptist,
Brazilians, Mormons, Methodist, French, etc.) have sinned
& fall short of the glory of God.

2) For the wages of above (see #1) are DEATH (Hell, eternal
separation from God, & damnation) but the Gift (free & at
no charge to you) of God (Creator, Jehovah, & Trinity) is
Eternal Life (Heaven) through (in union with) Jesus Christ
(God, Lord, 2nd Person of The Trinity, Messiah, Prince of
Peace & Savior of the World).

3) For God so greatly loved & dearly prized the world
(Americans, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Hindus, Buddhist,
Asians, Presbyterians, Europeans, Baptist, Brazilians,
Mormons, Methodist, French, etc.) that He even gave up
His only begotten (unique) Son, that whosoever (anyone,
anywhere, anytime - while still living) believes (trust in,
relies on, clings to, depends completely on) Him shall
have eternal (everlasting) life (heaven).

4) Jesus said: "I am THE WAY, THE TRUTH, & THE LIFE.
No one (male/female - American, Muslim, Jew, Catholic,
Hindu, Buddhist, Asian, Presbyterian, European, Baptist,
Brazilian, Mormons, Methodist, French, etc. ) comes (arrives)
to the Father (with GOD in Heaven) EXCEPT BY (through)
ME (no other name).

This wonderful loving GOD gives you the choice - - -
(Rev. 3:20)

{Please note that church membership, baptism, doing good
things, etc. are not requirements for becoming a Christian -
however they are great afterwards!!!}
Ref: http://www.gty.org/IssuesandAnswers/archive/baptism.htm

Jesus said, "Wide is the gate and broad is the road that
leads to destruction (Hell, damnation, eternal punishment),
and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow
the road that leads to life (Heaven, eternal happiness,
forever with God), and only a few find it. --Matthew 7:13-14

************************

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#102

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Fri Jul 1, 2005 2:48 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 1, 2005 - Happy Birthday USA

yourfriend_howdy@...

Send Email

PARTY QUIZ

1) I just sit here, watching the time pass me by;
The strange thing is I don't have any eyes.
Sometimes I have a mustache with uneven sides;
Other times I have a pulse that almost never dies.
Sometimes I have a face, but no emotion shows;
But numerous expression always from me flows.
Sometimes I'm bounded to somebody's arm;
Other times I bring the day by alarm.
People refer to me almost every day;
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
What Am I?

2) What is bigger when it is put upside down?

3) Five hundred begins it
Five hundred ends it
Five in the middle is seen
The first of all letters and the first of all numbers find
their places in between.

<<<Answers: HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Unsubscribe instructions BELOW - at end (who would want to???).

***********************

Q: What do you call a fish with no eyes?

Answer: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

Check out this Blog:

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Updated frequently!!!

************************

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#103

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Tue Jul 5, 2005 1:44 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 5, 2005 - For Educational Purposes Only

yourfriend_howdy@...

Send Email

A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at
the grocery store, but couldn't find one big enough
for her family.

She asked a stock boy, "Son, do these turkeys get any bigger?"

<<<His Answer: HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

Did you hear about the UNC student that...

Answer: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

Check out this Blog:

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Updated frequently!!!

************************

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://xrl.us/gnps

It was supposed to be a one-hour fishing trip off the coast of South
Carolina. For 17-year old Josh and his 15-year-old friend Troy, it turned
out to be a six-day nightmare at sea. When they set out on their little
14-foot Sunfish, they didn't know about the small craft warnings in that
area. Within hours, the fierce winds had pulled them out to sea - to a point
111 miles north - well outside of the Coast Guard's search area. They fought
to stay alive by eating raw jellyfish and gargling sea water. They were
severely sunburned, exhausted and dehydrated. After 48 hours, the Coast
Guard announced they were suspending their search and moving from a rescue
operation to a recovery operation. But there was this uncle who refused to
concede the boys were dead. He's a police officer, and he thinks rescue.
After studying the weather and the currents, he concluded that they might be
as far as the area where they actually were found. He made sure that fishing
vessels in the area were alerted to be looking for the boys. And as they
were praying that God would either take them home or take them to heaven,
some fishermen spotted them - and saved them.

That's what that uncle had. When everyone else had given up hope of saving
those boys, he was looking for a way to do it. He was a rescuer who refused
to give up, who would not quit.

You have someone who loves you like that; someone who has refused to give

up on rescuing you. You say, "Do I need rescuing?" We all do. Because we

are paying the price for all the times we've done things our way instead of
God's way; all the times we've broken God's laws and pushed our Creator

to the margins of our life. Isaiah 53:6, our word for today from the Word of
God, describes our lostness this way: "We all, like sheep, have gone astray;
each of us has turned to his own way" (Isaiah 53:6). We're paying the price
in guilt, and stress, and loneliness, and the bitter consequences of our
selfish mistakes. Worse yet, that's only a taste of the ultimate price we'll
pay for drifting so far from our home port.

If we don't get rescued, we'll end up separated from God and His love
forever. That's the penalty for spiritual hijacking - taking over a life
that God was supposed to direct. So whether or not you realize the spiritual
danger you're in, your only hope is a rescuer. And there is one - only one.
He doesn't want to leave you lost. So He found a way to bring you home,

but it cost Him everything. Speaking of Jesus, that statement in Isaiah says,
"The Lord has laid on Him the wrongdoing of us all." For Jesus, the road to
rescue you led to a cross. That's where He paid for your sin.

Jesus said He leaves the sheep that are already in to "go after the lost
sheep." That could be you today. He's come right to where you are to reach
out His hand to you. When you grab His hand, when you grab Him as your

only hope, you are rescued. You are headed for the home your heart has

been missing your whole life. But you've got to be willing to leave the course
that has been taking you away from God and to depend totally on Jesus to
make you clean and take you to heaven someday. This could be the day of

your rescue. I've tried to briefly describe how that rescue happens in a little
booklet I wrote called Yours For Life. If you want it, I want to send it to
you. It might help you be sure that you belong to Jesus.

Jesus really, really loves you. He doesn't want to lose you. He went all the
way to a cross to bring you home. And now He's reaching for you to rescue
you. I pray you will grab His hand.

************************

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#104

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Wed Jul 6, 2005 1:41 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 6, 2005 - For Educational Purposes Only

yourfriend_howdy@...

Send Email

A UNC student was hitchhiking back to school on a very dark
and stormy night. The night was getting on and no cars went

by. Suddenly he saw a car roll slowly toward him and stop.

Without thinking about it, the guy jumped into the back seat
and closed the door when he suddenly realized there was
nobody behind the wheel! Just then the car started slowly
rolling forward again. He was beginning to get really freaked
out when he noticed a curve in the road ahead. He was just
thinking about climbing into the front seat when a hand
mysteriously appeared through the window and moved

the wheel.

<<<His Story: HERE>>>

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

Our local newspaper ran several stories about a study that
tied female obesity to a virus. One evening my sister came
home exhausted from a long day at work.

"Did you read the paper?" she asked. "I'm not going in to
work tomorrow...

Her Reason: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

***********************

Check out this Blog:

http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

Updated frequently!!!

************************

The High Price

of Running

Listen to the audio broadcast!
p://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4818.rm

Eight wedding showers in a month! Six hundred guests scheduled to be at the
wedding where fourteen bridesmaids and fourteen groomsmen would attend the
bride and groom. Four days before the wedding, the bride went missing after
she went out for a jog. The American news channels were dominated by the
all-out search and investigation into the case of the vanishing bride, and
now we know what happened. The bride turned up in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
claiming she had been kidnapped; a story which she later changed to tell

the real story of what happened. She said that the stress leading up to her
wedding had given her cold feet, and she just kept running with those cold
feet. In retrospect, I'm sure folks must be saying, "Girl, why didn't you
just tell someone what you were feeling?" Instead she ran from her family,
her community, her wedding, and even from the truth. Tens of thousands of
dollars and countless man-hours were spent looking for her. Now she faced
the additional stress of negative national notoriety and even the
possibility of legal or financial penalties. Running solved nothing.

It never does.

The flight of the runaway bride is a powerful lesson for all of us,
actually. When you run from a problem, you only run into bigger problems.
Just ask Jonah. He's someone to be thinking about if your tendency is to run
away from the pain or from the pressure. God may be wanting you to consider
the high price that God's prophet Jonah paid for running, so you can avoid
the same mistakes and avoid the same pain.

Our word for today from the Word of God begins with Jonah 1:3. God has told
Jonah where He wanted Him to go and minister "but Jonah ran away from the
Lord" on a ship headed the opposite direction. "Then the Lord sent a great
wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to
break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god."
Finally, Jonah "fesses up" to his running from what God wanted and he
realized that he was to blame for what was happening to the innocent crew.
He asks them to throw him overboard because as he said, "I know that it is
my fault that this great storm has come upon you."

Finally, in the belly of the great fish that God sent to swallow and save
His prophet, Jonah prays, "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered You,
Lord, and my prayer rose to You." Jonah finally faces his responsibilities.
He faces his rebellion, and the rest of the story is about how "the word of
the Lord came to Jonah a second time." We serve the God of second chances.

If you tend to be a Jonah - running from things instead of dealing with
them - consider the incredibly high cost. First, you hurt the people you
love. Second, like a runaway bride or a runaway prophet, your running stirs
up consequences you never dreamed of. Thirdly, you end up where you never
dreamed, in a situation far worse than the one you were running from. And
your running has given you no more answers, just more problems.

The God who loves you has come to you today to say, "It's time to face what
you've been fleeing. Facing it and fixing it may be painful - but nowhere
near as painful as leaving it broken." Jesus said, "You will know the truth
and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). If you continue to flee,
you'll never be free. Let out what you've been holding in, acknowledge what
you've been denying, and be man or woman enough to say what Jonah said,

"I know that it is my fault."

Your big, big God with His big, big love for you has promised to go with you
to face whatever you've been running from. You may not be able to handle it,
oh, but He can. You just can't afford to keep running. It costs too much.

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#105

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Thu Jul 7, 2005 2:42 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 7, 2005 -

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Is USA Next???

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What Brings

People Together

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4824.rm

I had just finished speaking for a Christian leaders' gathering that was
part of the countdown to a Franklin Graham Festival. The setup team there
was in their early days of working together on this massive mobilization.
The team leader thought it would be a good idea to get his team together for
a few minutes after the meeting ended, and he invited me to join them. Then
he handed me a cluster of helium balloons tied together. Suddenly, I felt
like I'd gone from speaker to like circus clown. And, you know, I've read
Winnie the Pooh stories to our kids enough that I couldn't help picturing
Pooh Bear being carried into the sky by just such a bunch of balloons.

After all, I'm not much bigger than Pooh Bear. But in spite of my trivial
imaginings, the team leader there had a holy purpose for having me stand
there with those balloons. He asked his team members to spread out around
the room. They ended up widely separated. He asked them to get as close to
me and my balloons as they could. Within moments, those workers, who had
been so scattered, were shoulder to shoulder in a clump around me.

That morning the team leader made a powerful point. He said, "You know, the
closer each of you got to Ron, the closer you got to each other. The more we
focus on Jesus and lift up His cross, the closer we will get to each other."
We didn't have a cross in the room, and I think the balloons were a strange
but available substitute for me to hold up, but the point was made.

And that point reaches to where you are right now in your family, in your
church, your ministry, in your community. The closer each person on your
team gets to Jesus and what He did on the cross for us, the closer those
people are going to get to each other. It's focusing on lesser things;
titles, personal agendas, hard feelings, relatively minor issues, comparing
with another person, the things we disagree on - that's what makes any group
of people distant, divided and easy for our enemy to defeat.

The 133rd Psalm says, "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live
together in unity ... for there the Lord bestows His blessing." There's a
helpful picture of how the right focus can bring people together in our word
for today from the Word of God in Acts chapter 2, beginning with verse 42.
It shows us the lifestyle of the original Christians; possibly the most
powerful people in history. It says, "They devoted themselves to the
apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to
prayer." Celebrating Jesus' death together in Communion, talking to Him
together, learning about Him together - that's what they were doing. So "all
the believers were together and had everything in common ... they continued
to meet together ... and the Lord added to their number daily those who were
being saved."

Imagine people coming to Christ every day! When's the last time you saw
that? But then, when's the last time you saw God's people setting aside
their differences and coming together around Jesus and His cross?

If someone's depending on the same Savior for their eternity, if they've
been to the same cross to be forgiven, isn't that enough to just at least
pray together, if nothing else? We can focus on the 90% that we agree on or
we can focus on the 10% we disagree on. We can focus 90% of our energy on
the 10% that makes "our group" our group. Or we can focus on our magnificent
Savior and the magnet of His cross.

When we realize that He's left us here to draw a world of lost people to
that cross, we realize we can rescue far more together than we ever could
apart. Remember, Jesus said, "When I am lifted up ... I will draw all men to
Myself" (John 12:32). Jesus and His cross - they're a magnet that pulls His
people together and that pulls lost people to Him. Isn't it time we made
that our focus instead of whatever has kept us in separate parts of the
room? Because the closer we get to Jesus, the closer we get to His cross,
the closer we're going to get to each other. Ron Hutchcraft

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#106

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Fri Jul 8, 2005 1:48 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 8, 2005 - Happy Weekend

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Send Email

Howdy's favorite TV show

is back on tonight!!!

<<<Find out which one: HERE>>>

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***********************

CyberRiddle

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***********************

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The Wrong Side

of the Window

With 15 minutes to spare, he ran through the confusing terminals

of JFK, from the gate his delayed flight had left him to the gate of

his connecting flight. Out of breath, he reached the counter of his
international flight and seeing the giant plane through the window,

he breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, it was a sigh prematurely
taken. Complications were explained politely, though he ceased hearing
much of anything after "too late to board" hit him like the 250-ton
airplane he was staring at. Frustrated beyond belief, he watched his
17-hour flight take off without him.

Needless to say, my husband's recent bout with international travel

did not set well with either of us. (I was on the other end of that flight
waiting for his arrival, and like him found myself maddened with
helplessness.) Being that close to making a flight, and yet missing

it, left a sickening twinge in both of our stomachs.

Those who have heard his dramatic telling of Murphy's Law in action

have responded similarly. In fact, everyone seems to cringe on cue,
particularly at the part where he watches his plane sit for several long
minutes until taking off, all from the vantage point of the airport
window. Missing the flight seemed incredibly intensified by the reality
of being so close. And yet it was missing the flight at all that was the
problem. Whether he missed the plane by 5 or 50 minutes, he still missed
the flight.

I confess it is easy for me to think of sin on a similar scale, in
dramatic levels of "badness" or "forgiveableness." But the Greek word
hamartia and its corresponding Hebrew word, each translated "sin" in the
Old and New Testaments, counter this mentality. Both mean in the original
language, "to miss the mark" or "to be without a share in." The apostle
Paul's declaration to the Romans, "all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God," gives us a dramatic picture. In the presence of God, our
vantage point is similar to staring at a plane you are supposed to be on
from inside the terminal. It doesn't matter how close we are to making
it; the problem is that we all fall short.

It isn't a popular outlook. No one wants to think of there being a mark,
let alone the possibility of missing it. And yet even as we claim there
is no standard to meet or mark set before us, we work desperately hard

to stay above it. Our inner circles, hierarchies, and scales are all aimed
at keeping ourselves on the right side of the window, looking out at those
who miss what we have not. Setting the mark ourselves, there seems less
chance of missing it; and even if we do find ourselves falling short,
there are always examples of people missing worse than us, and this we
find somehow consoling.

But is it really? Thinking about the depravity around me doesn't remove
the stains I sense inside me, at least not permanently. Even when I am
feeling "in" all of my inner circles and mostly on top of the average,
there is something about the mark I've set that convicts me. I expect
behavior from people that I don't exhibit personally. I hold excuses for
myself that I refuse to entertain when it comes to others. Their missing
the mark, however greatly, doesn't wipe away my own missing of it. Had
there been a person running into the terminal 10 minutes after my husband
had been told he missed the flight, it might have made him feel less alone
in his frustration, but it wouldn't have truly consoled him. It would not
have put him any closer to being on the right side of the window. He
needed someone to bridge the gap.

Paul writes of the one who does. "God made him who knew no sin to be sin
on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him"

(2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ became for us the righteousness we cannot offer,
filling the gap we cannot cross. For all have missed the mark, falling
short of the glory of God, and all who believe are justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. In the presence of
God, like Isaiah who trembled at the throne of glory, we gaze at the mark
we fearfully miss: his fullness, his faithfulness, his glory. Standing
with Christ, we hold all we lack. Jill Carattini

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#107

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:27 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 11, 2005 - Mid-Summer's Night Dream

yourfriend_howdy@...

Send Email

E-Mail Hoax

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***********************

This is so sad. Every once in a while a graphic picture
of a road accident makes the rounds on the internet.
The picture you are about to view is one of the most
hideous displays of road carnage you are ever likely
to see. Warning, this picture may have long lasting
traumatic effect on you, not for people with weak
stomachs!

I cried when I saw this!

It really is a shame!

Here: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

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How to Miss What

You Were Made For

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4825.rm

It wasn't that my wife and I were eavesdropping. Honest. It's just that the four well-dressed, older ladies

at the restaurant table next to ours were so close we couldn't help but hear part of their conversation.

One lady was recounting the beginning of her day. She said she was following her usual routine of

getting up, taking care of some personal maintenance, and then turning on the TV for her morning

Oprah fix - watching Oprah Winfrey's Show, that is. No Oprah. She began pushing buttons on her

remote, increasingly more frustrated by her inability to find her morning TV companion. At that point,

her daughter happened to call on the telephone. Mom began venting her frustration over how technology

was failing her and soliciting her daughter's help. Finally she just sputtered, "Where's Oprah?" When her

daughter could finally get a word in, she said, "Mom, it's Sunday! Oprah's not on - but church is!" Mom

suddenly went into fast-forward mode - not with her TV, but with her getting ready for church; which she

came very close to missing entirely.

Poor lady. She didn't know what day it was. So she didn't know what she was supposed to be doing.

It's possible for many of us to make that same mistake - not about church, but about God Himself. It's

possible for God to come your way and for you to totally miss what day it is - the day that God comes

to touch your life and become more personal and more powerful to you than you ever dreamed.

It's been happening for 2,000 years, and it's happening today. There's an incident in the life of Jesus

that reveals the awesome possibility of an unforgettable God-day in your life, and the awful danger of

missing it with consequences that will last for all eternity. The account is in Luke 19, beginning with

verse 41, our word for today from the Word of God. It says: "As Jesus approached Jerusalem and

saw the city, He wept over it and said, 'If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring

you peace.'" He had just entered Jerusalem on what we know today as Palm Sunday, with multitudes

welcoming Him with a royal celebration. Many of whom were, only five days later, in the same crowd

that was screaming, "Crucify Him!" Now Jesus predicts disaster for them because, in His words, "you

did not recognize the time of God's coming to you."

That's a mistake God really doesn't want you to make because He really, really loves you. There comes

this day in your life when Jesus goes by, offering Himself to you to be your personal Savior from your

personal sin. There comes this day when He moves your heart to care about the sin in your life, to see

that it will cost you heaven, and to understand that His dying on that cross was to pay the awful price for

your sin.

He gives you a chance to put your trust in Him to have every sin forgiven; to trade the hell you deserve

for the heaven you could never deserve. But you need to grab Him while He's close. The Bible says,

"Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near" (Isaiah 55:7). You may think you'll

come to Jesus when you're ready. That's wrong. Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father

draws Him." (John 6:44)

You come to Jesus when He's ready - when He gets your heart ready for Him. And if you feel a tug in His

direction today, He's ready now. This is your opportunity to belong to Jesus. Today is your chance. If you've

never given yourself to this Man who died for you, you need to grab Him while He's close. You can do that

right where you are - just by telling Him from your heart, "Jesus, my only hope with God is what You did for

me on that cross when You died to pay for my junk. I'm dropping the junk to grab You with both hands.

I'm Yours."

If that's what you want, I want to send you something that I think will help you be sure you belong to Jesus.

It's a little booklet I wrote about getting started with Him called Yours For Life. If you want it, would you let me

know? Just get in touch through our website at yoursforlife.net or give us a call at 1-877-741-1200.

As your life closes and your eternity begins, I pray Jesus will not have to say to you, "You did not recognize

the time of God's coming to you." If that time is now, don't miss Him.

If you're not sure you belong to Jesus, and you would like to make sure today, Ron would like to send to you

a free copy of the booklet, "Yours for Life: How to Have Life's Most Important Relationship." To read it online,

click here: http://www.yoursforlife.net/

-------------------------------------------------------------------
"A Slice of Infinity" is aimed at reaching into the culture with words of
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#108

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Tue Jul 12, 2005 2:49 am
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 12, 2005 - Mid-Summer's Night Dream

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Q. What did the limestone say to the geologist?

<<<Find answer: HERE>>>

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***********************

I can be used daily.

I come in many different scents.

Most dogs dislike me.

I can take a real shine to you.

I am a liquid.

Kojak sure had no use for me.

I am both cosmetic and hygenic.

I spend most of my time in the shower.

Warren Beatty, in 1975, starred in a movie named for me.

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************************

The Foundation

At Ohio State University there is a performing arts center that has been
labeled, "America's first deconstructionist building." The entire site
demands a double take. The viewer encounters angled surfaces that
disorient, stairways that lead nowhere, and pillars that protrude without
purpose. Ignoring the rules that organize the world of construction, the
architect makes a loud statement about the incoherence of life itself:
Life is a random, disjointed series of time and chance, note the
deconstructionists. Yet upon observing the architect's work at the
university, Ravi Zacharias noted only one revealing question: "Did

he do the same with the foundation?"

The illustration is convincing in its simplicity. We can attempt to
explain life as senseless but had the architect followed this philosophy
in creating the foundation no one would want to enter the building.

Notes Zacharias, "It is possible to dress up and romanticize our bizarre
experiments in social restructuring while disavowing truth or absolutes.
But one dares not play such deadly games with the foundations of good
thinking."

But it has been done, and is done, and often we have learned the hard way,
if we have learned at all. The philosophy of Frederick Nietzsche played
such games, making assertions aimed at changing the very foundations

of a society, ultimately influencing the deadly quests of Hitler and Stalin.
Nietzsche believed that Christianity had stifled the potential of human
beings with its teachings, and held that atheism would provide a better
foundation-a God-less foundation that would naturally allow power and
greatness to rise without restrictive Christian notions such as
forgiveness and humility. Sadly, history saw the logical end of

the atheist's philosophy and witnessed the deadliest century ever.

The fact remains, we can vehemently reject the depravity of man, but we
always seem to verify its truth. When God is removed from the foundation
of life, something is missing that man is unable to provide. And while we
can justify our philosophical actions behind academic doors, other arenas
will not remain silent. The poignant lyrics of many of our popular songs
point out a struggle with restlessness, isolation, and emptiness. The
music of one such song creates a haunting and urgent background for voices
that cry out repeatedly: "Wake me up inside. Wake me up inside. Call my
name and save me from the dark. Bid my blood to run. Before I come
undone. Save me from the nothing I've become. Don't let me die here.
There must be something more. Bring me to life. I've been living a lie.
There's nothing inside."

How do we explain such alienation and darkness? What is the lie we've
been living? What is the "more" we are looking for? Many of the popular
philosophers of our day sing unconsciously of the emptiness and alienation
of a philosophically incoherent, morally bankrupt society. Writes Dave
Matthews, "We followed a drunken man/ He got us all spinning round/ But
it's like he swallowed himself/ And didn't leave us a way out." The
longing is for that which we've intellectually deemed non-existent, but
can't live without. The foundation cannot be destroyed without
destructive consequence.

The words of Jesus Christ spoken two thousand years ago remain unshakable
in their wisdom. He radically declared, "I am the way, the truth, and the
life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (See John 14:5-7).

It is hard not to marvel at the sovereign mind that saw the need to vividly
remind us through his Son that truth is knowable, personal, solid, and
real. His authority remains radical yet everlasting. May the one whom
men did not crown, the one whom men cannot dethrone, be the foundation
upon which we live and breathe and understand our being.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"A Slice of Infinity" is aimed at reaching into the culture with words of
challenge, words of truth, and words of hope. If you know of others who
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tell them they can sign up on our website at
http://www.rzim.org/publications/slice.php. If they do not have access to
the World Wide Web, please call 1-877-88SLICE (1-877-887-5423).

-------------------------------------------------------------------
"A Slice of Infinity" is aimed at reaching into the culture with words of
challenge, words of truth, and words of hope. If you know of others who
would enjoy receiving "A Slice of Infinity" in their email box each day,
tell them they can sign up on our website at: http://www.rzim.org/publications/slice.php.

If they do not have access to the World Wide Web, please call

1-877-88SLICE (1-877-887-5423).

************************

This issue being sent a bit early due to a family member having surgery.

Your prayers appreciated...

Howdy

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#109

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:07 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 13, 2005 - Mid-Summer's Night Dream

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NASA NO LONGER REMEMBERS
WHY IT LAUNCHED SPACE PROBE

<<<Find answer: HERE>>>

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***********************

A UNC student named Jill calls her friend Linda,
     Linda picks up the phone.
   Jill says "Do ya wanna go to the mall with me?"
                 Linda asks "why?"

Jill's Answer Here: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

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Eating, Then

Lying Down

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4827.rm

Remember those classic Alka-Seltzer commercials - the two tablets dropping
into a glass of water to the tune of "plop, plop, fizz, fizz"? Usually they
showed someone eating something disagreeable just before bedtime. Right?

And someone who could only be rescued from terminal indigestion with a

"plop, plop, fizz, fizz." Several years ago I met someone who knew the agony

of late night stomach revolt. Terry works in the theater on Broadway in New
York. He told me many show people just can't eat before they go on, so
they're starved by the time the show is over and they get cleaned up. It's
around midnight then. And Terry said they would go out together for a big
dinner and shortly thereafter head home for their night's sleep and their
night's wrestling match with what they had just eaten. Eating's nice - if
it's followed by digestion!

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Joshua 1:8 and it ends

by saying "then you will be prosperous and successful." Interested? Here's how.
"Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day
and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then
you will be prosperous and successful." Meditate here is a Hebrew word that
actually suggests a cow chewing its cud; chewing over what the Bible is
saying until you've gotten out of it what you need. It's obviously more than
just a mental exercise where you just quickly ingest some Biblical facts and
move on.

In fact, the purpose of spiritual eating isn't just to get the Bible into
your brain. It's to get it into your life! A lot of people are suffering
from spiritual indigestion; either a discomfort about their relationship
with the Lord or just a hollow lethargy toward the things of God. And it may
be because they're doing what those midnight munchers on Broadway are
doing - eating and then lying down instead of eating and putting it to work!

The ability to read something God says in His Book and then immediately
convert that into action is probably the single most important key to having
a living relationship with Jesus Christ. If you're tired of the spiritual
blahs, spiritual mediocrity, spiritual boredom, spiritual failure, consider
God's one-word prescription for Biblical indigestion or non-digestion.

"Meditate ... so you may be careful to do everything written in it." Key
word - do. So many of us settle for meditating to know what's written

in those verses, or to analyze what's written, or even to just understand
what's written. None of those are bad, but they're not enough, any more

than just eating your dinner is enough. You have to digest it. Maybe digesting
God's Word has been the missing ingredient in you really growing up in
Jesus.

Spiritual digestion takes place something like this. First, you read a few
verses over two or three times, chewing on them until you can put them into
words of your own. You first answer the question, "What is God saying here?"
A lot of us stop there. You've got to ask the next question, "What should I
do differently today because God says this?" If you're reading a verse about
trials, you take out the word trials and you put your trial in there. If
it's about sin, you put a specific sin of yours where it says sin. If it's
about loving people, you put in the name of someone you have a hard time
loving. Then, you ask the Lord to help you carry this word from Him in your
heart and in your mouth all day, applying it to the specific life-change
that word from Him calls for.

When you do that, you're digesting God's life-changing spiritual nutrition.
Turn eating into doing right away, and you'll get stronger every day.
Remember, you weren't meant to eat and then just lie down. That's spiritual
indigestion and ultimately spiritual malnutrition!

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#110

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Thu Jul 14, 2005 2:22 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 14, 2005 - Mid-Summer's Night Dream

yourfriend_howdy@...

Send Email

Funny Roommate Video

<<<Video: HERE>>>

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***********************

Did you happen to hear about the UNC student who
wanted to sign up to be an organ donor???

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***********************

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Updated frequently!!!

************************

Eye Transplants

For Lovers

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4828.rm

Jim has been a partner with us in some of our radio outreaches to young people;

a man who refused to be stopped with the limitation of blindness. In fact, he launched

a pioneering program in his area, planned and hosted by young people. We talked

with Jim and we got some incredible news from him not too long ago. He'd just

come through surgery with his very own medical miracle. He woke up from that

operation with some of his sight restored - the sight he'd lost years before. He told

us how beautiful the mountains were; especially how beautiful his wife was. He said,

"I have finally seen my wife for the first time in sixteen years!" Man, what a breakthrough!

My friend, Jim, finally has eyes to see his wife. It's a breakthrough that many more

men need to experience.

One of the great love stories of the Bible is the story of Isaac and Rebekah. The credit

for a lot of that goes to the man of the house. Listen to some of the verbs that describe

his relationship with his wife. Our word for today from the Word of God in Genesis 24:67,

"She became his wife, and he loved her." Then chapter 26, the king looked out the window

and "saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah." But the greatest insight of all is in this word

from Genesis 25:21, "Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren.

The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife became pregnant." Isaac was a husband that

prayed for his wife, and prayed things into happening in her life that seemed impossible.

If you're a husband, maybe you can think of some needs in your wife's life that seem humanly

impossible, but praying for her might bring about a miracle in you as a husband, too. The

same kind of miracle that happened to my blind friend, Jim.

God could give you eyes to see your wife as you have never seen her before. There's a lot

of power in being a praying husband! Most of all, when you spend time with God praying

for the woman you love; you begin to see her with new eyes. You begin to see what God

sees when He sees your wife. And that's the starting point for being the kind of sensitive,

caring man that God made you to be. And that's the haven for which the heart of a woman

truly longs.

Things may be great between you and your bride right now. Maybe they're tense, maybe

you're struggling, and maybe things are breaking down or drifting apart. Whatever the

situation, your love will grow on your knees, asking for God's perspective on your wife.

Ask Him to help you see not just her deeds, but the deep needs behind her deeds; that

affection deficit, the attention deficit, the stress of having to handle too much without

you, the frustration of not really being listened to. You can also ask God to help you

hear her heart, not just her words, to show you what may be hurting her, or crushing

her, or causing resentment in her. Ask God, too, to show you your wife's language of

love; what things you could do that would make her feel really loved - that's feel really

loved. Don't be surprised if it involves some sacrifice - like Jesus' life-giving love for us.

You can tell the women who are being loved by a man who spends time with God on her

behalf - and his own behalf as a husband. That woman is radiant, she's positive, and she's

at peace. Because a man, a man like you maybe, asked God to give Him what sometimes

only God can give - eyes to see who this woman really is; how beautiful she really is or

maybe could be with more of your love.

At just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ
died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a
righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly
dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
--Romans 5:6-8

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#111

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:22 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 15, 2005 - Mid-Summer's Night Dream

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In the middle of the table is a round food tray with
five kinds of fruits in it. They are:

A. Apple
B. Banana
C. Strawberry
D. Peach
E. Orange

Which fruit will you choose? PLEASE think very carefully
and don't rush into it. This is great. I was astounded!!!!

Your choice reveals alot about you!!!

<<<Answer: HERE>>>

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Winning The

Fight Before

It Begins

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4829.rm

Boxing. Now, some people like it and some people don't. But those ever-present "Rocky"

movies seemed to give us boxing as a mythical battlefield between the nice guy underdog

and the not-so-nice favorite. A lot of boxing fans thought it was sort of a Rocky matchup

when several years ago Evander Holyfield went against Mike Tyson for the WBA heavyweight

championship. Holyfield was a 25-1 underdog when the fight was booked. Tyson was the

almost invincible "Iron Mike" then - called by some commentators "the baddest man on

the planet." Well, much to everyone's surprise including Las Vegas, where a lot of money

was lost, the underdog Holyfield soundly defeated Mike Tyson. USA Today's lead sports

story carried this headline, "Holyfield puts faith in more than his fists." It went on to tell

about the boxer's strong emphasis on prayer before and during the fight. In fact, let me

quote an amazing perspective from that article that goes way beyond boxing. "Holyfield

sang along to a gospel tune on his CD player before leaving his dressing room, leading

his camp in a joyous, revival-style celebration. One fighter said, "It was as if the fight was

a preliminary. He had already won the main event in the dressing room!"

The new champion acted as if the fight had been won before he ever got in the ring because

of his spiritual preparation. I think many a bout - with much higher stakes - is won that same

way.

James 5:16, our word for today from the Word of God: "The prayer of a righteous man

is powerful and effective." If you translate that verse more literally, with the original word

order in there, it comes out something like this: "Much the prayer of a righteous one has

power to do as it works effectively." Big word - prayer. That's what ultimately gets the job

done!

Paul obviously recognized the outcome of his ministry was largely decided by the prayer

that his friends offered to God for him. For example, he said in Colossians 4:3, "Pray for

us that God may open a door for our message." If Paul didn't find an open door when he

went somewhere to present Christ, the message wouldn't get through. He implied that the

openness of the door would be determined, not by his presentation, but by the door-opening

prayers of his friends. He went on to say, "Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should."

Will Paul's preaching be clear and powerful? That would be decided by the prayer that

preceded his ministry.

And so it goes throughout Paul's letters - appeals to pray for him as if the outcome would

be decided in those prayers. Two thousand years have passed, but the deciding factor in

spiritual battles is still the same. It's not what personality we book for the meeting, or the

promotion, or the politics of having the right connections, or excellent planning, or a great

program. There's no power in any of those by themselves. The power is in prayer - in God's

people praying down the power and blessing of God as they boldly go into the Throne Room

of the one who rules the galaxies.

In other words, the battle isn't won in the planning meeting or the public meeting. Spiritual

victories are pre-won in a prayer meeting. All we do "in the ring" is pick up the victory that

was won on our knees, in the heavenlies, before the fight ever began.

Whatever your battle, don't make the mistake of depending on your "fists" to win it. Make

prayer your number one way of getting things done. If you've won it in God's Throne Room,

it's only a matter of time before you win it in the big fight. That's how an underdog can defy

the odds and beat what seems unbeatable!

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#112

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Mon Jul 18, 2005 2:47 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 18, 2005 - Mid-Summer's Night Dream

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Nagging Pains???

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Dear Moderate Muslims

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The Life-or-Death Verb

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4830.rm

Pete came to me with a very unusual request when we were freshmen in college together.

He asked me who I thought were the five best girls to date in our class. Just call me Dr.

Love. I gave him my top five list; four of whom I had been out with in my mad "date them

all" freshman rush. There was one I hadn't dated - a beautiful, perky brunette. Well, after

I gave Pete that list, I began to ask myself an obvious question. Why hadn't I dated that

brunette? So I did, and I did again, and again, and I still am. By the time we graduated,

we were engaged to be married. Pete was a New Englander. He was a man of few words,

and he wrote only six words next to his picture in our senior yearbook, "You believe in

your product. Pete." Yes, I did. That beautiful girl and I got married one week later.

My friend summed it up pretty well. I really believed in this special girl. Not just intellectually,

but with everything I had. Believe, as in committing your whole life to her. When it comes

to God, to where we spend the next hundred billion years, believe is the deciding action

word. It's the life-or-death verb. Not in the official or intellectual sense like, "Pete, I believe

this girl is a great catch." No, like, "I'm trusting my life to her."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Acts 16:30-31. A man asks the great

missionary Paul this timeless question, "What must I do to be saved?" The answer is clear

and unmistakable, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." Obviously, saved

is a life-or-death word. Just ask the people who were saved from that bombed out Federal

Building in Oklahoma City or Ground Zero in New York, or someone who was saved by

an emergency medical team. If the rescuer saves you, you live. If he doesn't, you die.

The kind of saving the Bible talks about is being rescued from the death penalty that we're

all under with God. Why? The Bible says, "All of us have wandered away like sheep; we

have turned each one to his own way." That's my way instead of God's way - ultimate

rebellion against the ultimate authority - the one who gave me my life - to live for Him.

The death we suffer in this life is trying to live without God's love and His peace; without

His purpose for our days. And if we still die away from Him, the penalty is what Jesus

called hell.

But that's where believing in Jesus comes in, because He is the only Rescuer; the only

Savior that can keep you from dying spiritually because He died on the cross to bear all

the guilt and the penalty of the sins that you've committed. That's how much He loves you.

But you have to "believe in the Lord Jesus" if you're going to be saved.

You say, "I believe in Jesus." Well, with your head or you heart, too? The Bible says in

Romans 10:10, "It is with your heart that you believe and are justified." That's made right

with God. Believe, like committing yourself in total trust to the one who died in your place.

Here is a question on which your eternity can hang. Has there ever been a time in your life

when you told Jesus, "I'm putting all my hopes in you and what you did on that cross to

rescue me from my sin." If there's never been a time like that, you are not saved. You are

in eternal danger. But that could change. That could change in the next few minutes if you

would reach out to this Savior that you've known about but you've never really known.

If you want to know Him for sure, then I would like to send you my little booklet about

beginning with Him called Yours For Life. If you want it, just visit us at our website

yoursforlife.net. Or if you'd like to call, call 1-877-741-1200.

One day I walked into a church not married and I walked out married because I really

believe in someone that day. You need a day like that - a day to commit yourself to the

One who loves you the most - Jesus Christ. A day like today.

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#113

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:24 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 19, 2005 - Mid-Summer's Night Dream

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A newly hired nurse listened while the doctor was
yelling, "Typhoid! Tetanus! Measles!"

She asked another nurse, "Why is he going on like
that?"

<<<Answer: HERE>>>

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***********************

What does a cat get from watching too many
Mickey Mouse films?

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************************

I Am With You

On a routine trip through well-worn streets, I found myself pulled out of
mental list-making and the fragmented consciousness of the daily drive
with the jarring lyrics of a song. Up until that point, the song itself
was much like the familiar patterns of scenery-bus stop, subdivision,
grocery store, house-known but unnoticed. But then I noticed the artist's
abrupt words, "Hoping to God on high is like clinging to straws while
drowning."

The haunting image cleared all else and immediately brought to mind an
earlier encounter. Encouraging me in the midst of a difficult place, a
friend simply reminded me that I was not alone. She meant to assure me

of her friendship and support, but I also knew she was assuring me of the
presence of God. "The LORD is near to all who call on him," declares the
psalmist; and I needed to hear it.

We rightfully take comfort in the thought that God is among us, hearing
our cries of distress, standing among those who call on Him, moving in
lives and history that we might come to Him. Knowing that Christ is with
me in my struggle is one of the only reasons I don't give up. Knowing
that there is a throne is my hope at funerals and the image that makes
sense of an intricate rainforest. I can wholly relate to the resolution
of the psalmist in a world of many and distant gods, "But as for me, it is
good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge" (73:28).

But what good is it if there is a throne but it is empty, if there is a
god but he is like straw? Who is it who is near us? If god is an
impersonal force, or a random system of time and chance, the throne

is no refuge. If the hope we cling to is a job or a bank account, we cling

to straws that cannot save.

The lyrics that brought my distraction to a grinding halt forced me to
think graphically about the hope I cling to, and the promise that is so
often on the lips of God in Scripture: "I am with you." If God on high

is merely straw and fairy-tale, emptiness is inevitable, and hope is
futile-for we are alone. We are all clinging futilely to chance and
drowning. Interestingly, the same artist elsewhere confesses in song,

"I hear deep in myself/ An echo, an echo/ Of empty, empty emptiness/ Comes

up and swells inside." Why do we feel so isolated if this is all there is?

Is there one near enough to answer the cry of a lonely heart?

The promise of God's nearness is one Christians rightfully utter as
encouragement and cling to in joy and in sorrow, knowing the character of
the one who is near. Throughout Scripture the divine vow "I am with you"
is made with sovereign confidence and in stirring circumstance. As Jesus
anticipated the nearing Cross, he gave his closest followers a promise
that is still clung to: "And behold, I am with you always, to the end of
the age" (Matthew 28:20).

When God promises his presence in Scripture it is more than just a promise
of proximity and intimacy. There is a purpose for his nearness, a specific
reason for the vow of a relationship. God's presence is not empty or
superficial. As He reminded the prophet Jeremiah so He assures us, the
promise of his proximity is more profound than we can fathom: "Before I
formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated
you. Do not be afraid. for I am with you to deliver you" (1:5-7).

There is a throne. And God is not only on it; He is near us, and He is
good.

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#114

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Wed Jul 20, 2005 1:36 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 20, 2005 - A Mid Summer Night's Dream

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The Chapel Hill police arrested two UNC students
the other day.

<<<Here's What Happened: HERE>>>

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"How did the wedding go?" asked the preacher's wife.

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All the Good Stuff

You're Missing

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4833.rm

Many years ago, one of the 20th Century's great Christian leaders, Peter Deyneka,

was immigrating to America on a long Atlantic voyage with only a few coins in his

pocket. When he got hungry, he reached into this little bag he'd brought with him

to eat - the same thing every meal - a few dry crusts of bread and some water. He

was pretty hungry when his ship finally docked in New York; not to mention pretty

sick of bread crusts. That's when he realized something that he'd wished he had

understood at the beginning of the voyage - three full meals a day had been

included in his fare. They were all included in his ticket!

That young traveler had been living at a much lower level than he needed to live!

He had no idea all the good things he had gotten when he got his ticket. When God

looks at His children, sailing through life, He sees a lot of us living the same way -

under-living. Not realizing how we could be living and all the good stuff we got when

we opened our lives to Jesus Christ.

Biblical passages like Ephesians 3, beginning with verse 12, our word for today from

the Word of God, spell out what's included in your ticket. Paul writes: "In Him (that's

in Jesus) and through faith in Him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence ...

I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit

in your inner being (Okay, so there's supernatural inner strength that comes when Jesus

comes in.) ... I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power ...

to know this love that surpasses knowledge (Okay, you got this indescribable love and

security when you got Jesus.) He goes on to say, "that you may be filled to the measure

of all the fullness of God."

Imagine all the resources of God Himself downloadable by you - His wisdom for your

questions, His power for your difficulties, His love for your lonely times, His peace for

your troubled times. We don't have to live like these stressed out, strung out, weighed

down people we often are! Dry bread crusts when we've got all the resources of God at

our disposal!

Those resources are accessed through serious prayer. And we under-live because we

under-pray. We over-worry and overwork and get overwhelmed because we under-pray.

I mean really pray. One model of prayer that moves heaven to your need is found in

Acts 4, where the apostles have been threatened by the same Jewish leaders who

engineered the death of Jesus. The apostle's response? They gather the believers

together and raise "their voices together in prayer to God. 'Sovereign Lord,' they said,

'You made the heaven and the earth and the sea." They go on to celebrate the fact that

all that's happening is under God's sovereign power and will. Finally, after focusing

only on the greatness of their God, they ask Him for boldness and supernatural power.

The place where they prayed was shaken, the Holy Spirit showed up big-time, and they

told everybody about Jesus.

And there's the pattern for aiming all of God's power at your situation; at your need.

First, focus on your big, big God - not your big, big problem. Then, trust Him for the

big, big things you need. But always put your praise before your please, your worship

before your request. When you take a little time to celebrate the awesomeness of the

God you belong to, the God you're trusting in, you start to access all those great

resources that came with your ticket. You don't have to live the way you have been

living! You've got so much to draw on since the day you let Jesus in. Don't wait until

you reach your heavenly destination to realize how you could have been living all along!

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#115

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Thu Jul 21, 2005 12:26 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 21, 2005 - A Mid Summer Night's Dream

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Recently, while I was on a shopping trip in

a department store in Chapel Hill, I heard

a UNC student talking to her roommate on

the down escalator.

<<<She Said: HERE>>>

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***********************

A Quiz For People Who Think
They Know Everything

1. There's one "sport" in which neither the spectators nor
the participants know the score or the leader until the
contest ends. What is it?

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly
moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their
own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must
be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial
vegetables?

4 Name the only sport in which the ball is always in
possession of the team on defense, and the offensive
team can score without touching the ball?

5. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

6. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with
a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe,
and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way.
How did the pear get inside the bottle?

7. Only three words in standard English begin with the
letters "dw." They are all common. Name two of them.

8. There are fourteen punctuation marks in English
grammar. Can you name half of them?

9. Where are the lakes that are referred to in the "Los
Angeles Lakers?"

10. There are seven ways a base ball player can legally
reach first base without getting a hit. Taking a base on
balls-a walk-is one way. Name the other six.

11. It's the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold
frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other
form but fresh. What is it?

12. Name six or more things that you can wear on your
feet that begin with the letter "S."

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How A Father

Builds a Son

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4832.rm

I guess it's in the testosterone. Guys are just wired to build something; a business,

a church, furniture, home improvement projects. Some men build a team, some build

financial security for their family, and some just build a name for themselves. Even I've

felt motivated to build a few things and I'm the ultimate un-handyman. There was the little

tree house - well, more like a tree platform - but the kids enjoyed it. The dollhouse for our

daughter. The miniature barn for our son. There's a reason that God put this building thing

in guys. Some of us have a really big project to build!

When God trusts a man with a son, He is putting in his hands probably the most important

building project of his life. If a man builds a mighty empire or a billion dollar enterprise and

loses his son, can we call his life a true success? A boy will decide what the word "man" means

based on the first one he knows and the one he knows best - his dad. A boy will likely decide

what God is like - and whether or not he wants anything to do with Him - based on how his dad

treats him - because God has introduced Himself to us as our Heavenly Father.

How a man treats the women in his life; what he thinks really matters - what he thinks really

doesn't matter, he'll get that from copying the biggest man in his life - his father. And how

many boys have grown up into men who are never sure they were good enough, always

insecure, and always feeling like they have something to prove. Because the main man

in his shaping years failed to make him feel loved and confident and valuable. Building

a son - now that takes a real man. Tearing one down - that's not much of a man at all.

There's a revealing picture of how a father builds a son in our word for today from the

Word of God in Matthew 3:16-17. Jesus, God's Son, is about to launch into the earthly

ministry that His Father sent Him to earth for. His first public act is to be baptized by

John the Baptist. And it's there that we get an incredible glimpse behind the veil at the

awesome relationship between God the Father and God the Son. The Bible tells us:

"As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water ... And a voice from

heaven said, 'This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.'"

Here's the Father affirming His approval of His Son - a vote of confidence that must

have meant a lot to Jesus as He headed out into the battle. It's a demonstration of the

power of a father's praise at the highest possible level. It's what your son desperately

needs from you, Dad. 1 Thessalonians 2:12 describes in three action words how a father

should treat his children - "encouraging, comforting and urging." The question is, Dad,

how do you try to motivate your children; especially your boy? With shame? With silence?

By giving love when they perform and withdrawing it when they don't? By never letting

them know where they really stand? That's not building a boy. That's dismantling a boy.

He needs your praise - frequently. He needs the kind of focused time with you that says

to him, "I like you, son. I want to be with you." Your son needs your undivided attention

when he's talking so he learns that what he says is important to you, just because he's

saying it. And often your son needs to hear your compliments, your pleasure, your pride

in him. You can give him the courage that he'll need to lead, to say no to the pressure,

to attempt great things, to treat other people like they're important.

You build a son by building up your son, by often helping him see the awesome thing

God did when He created that boy. Even God the Father launched His Son into life with

His public approval. How can you do any less for the son He's given you?

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#116

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Fri Jul 22, 2005 12:37 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 22, 2005 - H.B. C.T.

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Q: Did you hear about the UNC student who stood
in front of a mirror with her eyes closed?

<<<She Said: HERE>>>

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"Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax
si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?"

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Why Your Failure

Doesn't Have to be

Final

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4834.rm

We're not horse racing fans, but I happened to stumble onto a horse race

on TV when I was looking for the evening news. It was The Preakness; the

second race in a three-race series called the Triple Crown. Those races are,

in essence, horse racing's World Series. The first race in 2005 had been won

by a horse whose odds of winning were 50 to 1, beating out the odds-on favorite,

Afleet Alex. Then came that second race, The Preakness. As the race passed the

halfway point, Afleet Alex made his move. He quickly caught up with another horse

who had been in the lead - who, for some reason, swerved unexpectedly right into

his path, and both horses started to collide and stumble. Afleet Alex's jockey ended

up hanging onto his horse's neck, fully expecting to go down in a potentially deadly

fall that could all be trampled. But amazingly, Afleet Alex somehow managed to regain

his balance, surge into the lead, and win the race in a dramatic finish. The headline the

next day said it all: "From stumble to stunning finish."

That headline could be autobiographical for someone who's listening right now. You've

stumbled spiritually, and you could go down and stay down. Or you could - because of

the kind of Savior Jesus is - get up and go on to a stunning finish.

You wouldn't be the first one. Take Jesus' disciple, Peter, for example. He stumbled big-time.

In the hours just before Jesus was arrested, tortured, and executed, Simon Peter pledged that

he would follow his Lord to prison and to death. Jesus said, in essence, "No, you won't. You

will deny me three times in the next few hours before the rooster crows." Sadly, that's exactly

what Peter did when Jesus needed him most. This man who had made such bold promises

about his commitment to Jesus wouldn't even admit to a little girl that he even knew Jesus.

The Bible says that Jesus was led through the place where Peter was going down spiritually

and "the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter." That rooster crowed and Peter "went outside

and wept bitterly" (Luke 22:62). It was over - or so it looked. He had stumbled majorly.

Now fast forward only a few weeks later to the streets of Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost.

In our word for today from the Word of God in Acts 2, beginning with verse 14, the Bible says,

"Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd ... 'Let all Israel be

assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ'" (verse 36).

Man, what boldness! That day God used Peter's sermon to move 3,000 people to come to Jesus.

Peter went on to run an amazing race for Jesus, all the way to his martyr's death for his Lord.

That same Jesus wants to pick you up from your fall and enable you to run an amazing race for

Him. The devil's lie is that it's over; you failed and it's no use trying to go on with Jesus. But Peter's

comeback is living proof that your failure doesn't have to be final if you'll do what he did. Realize

how much your sin is hurting your Savior and repent of what you've done with all your heart. Let

your sin break your heart.

Then, accept the forgiveness that He died to give you for that sin. And surrender to Jesus for whatever

He wants you to do for Him, opening yourself up to a total Holy Spirit takeover. Let your stumble lead

to surrender - not surrender to your failure but to your Savior. And let that surrender give birth to a

holy determination to take some serious spiritual revenge on the devil by making him sorry he ever

tried to bring you down.

A stumble can lead to a tragic and even permanent fall. Or it can set the stage for a stunning victory.

Get up, get back into the race, and go on to an even more glorious victory!

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#117

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Sat Jul 23, 2005 1:44 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 23, 2005 - Happy Weekend

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Soon after my wife and I met, she mentioned how she really
wished that she could afford a riding lawnmower. She was a
single gal that worked all day and was often tired in the evening
when she got home from work.

So, being the handy sort of guy that I was, I made her a riding
lawnmower (see below for photo of lawnmower.) I guess I thought
she would squeal with delight and give me a big hug.

To this day I have never been able to understand why women are
so hard to please.

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Hurting But

Passed By

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4835.rm

Our friend Steve has been involved with horses most of his life. He's even owned

a couple of champions. But one day at the barn - in one moment of carelessness -

Steve allowed himself to get in what horse lovers know as the "kill zone" - that area

behind a horse where they can kick you with those potentially deadly hooves. In one

life-changing moment, Steve was kicked in the leg, and it shattered his bones. Even

though he was in excruciating pain, he managed to drag himself to the highway near

his house where he pulled himself up and began waving for help. Car after car just

drove right on past this seriously injured man - even his friends and neighbors.

They didn't know he was hurting. They thought he was just waving "Hi!"

A broken man - and no one knew his need. No one stopped for him. That could be

part of the story of your life. A waving world, speeding past the hurt that you carry

inside. Everybody's in a hurry - everybody's in a hurry to get where they're going.

Meanwhile, you suffer with that brokenness inside you in a world that doesn't know,

or just doesn't care.

There's someone who does know. There's someone who does care. Someone who's

been broken, too - more broken than any of us could possibly be. It's the One the

Bible calls the "man of sorrows" - Jesus Christ. Why can you trust Him? Because,

as the Bible says, He was "familiar with suffering ... He was despised ... He took up

our infirmities and carried our sorrows" (Isaiah 53:3-4). This is the man who told His

followers to remember the sacrifice He was about to make for them on the cross with

bread that was broken - a symbol of what would happen to the body of the Son of God.

Jesus understands broken. When He was here, He always stopped for the hurting people

that everyone else just drove on by. In Isaiah 61:1, our word for today from the Word of

God, He announces what He wants to do for each of us - for you. He said: "The Lord has

sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release

from darkness for the prisoners."

But He came to do much more than just relieve your pain. He came here to deal with the

human cancer that causes our pain. Our brokenness is ultimately the result of a broken

relationship - with the very Creator, who gave us our life; who planned our life to have a

cosmic purpose. But we all thought we could run it better. Instead of having God at the

center of our life, we've pushed Him to the margins, trying to placate Him by being religious.

But sin is very serious business. It walls us off from God, from His love, and it brings us

under the eternal judgment of the God we were made to live for. But God really loves you -

enough to sacrifice the most precious thing He had to heal your broken relationship with

Him. He allowed the body of His only Son to be broken on the cross for you as He died

your death penalty for your sin.

Jesus wants to fix what's broken between you and God so He can forgive you and enter

your life, and fix what sin has broken inside you. The problem hasn't been that He wouldn't

stop for you. You haven't stopped for Him. He's been waiting for you to open up to His love

for a long time. And one more time, He's giving you the chance to experience His healing,

forgiving touch. But you've got to open the door. You've got to tell Him, "Jesus, I want to

be Yours, starting right now. I'm ready to turn from living my way. I'm putting all my hope

in what You did on that cross for me."

That opening of your life to this Savior who was broken for you is the beginning of your

spiritual healing. It's the beginning that I wrote about in a little booklet. It's called Yours

For Life. I really would like to send this to you. I think it would help you be sure that you

really do belong to Him. If you want it, why don't you go to our website and just let us

know that. That's yoursforlife.net or you can call us toll-free at 1-877-741-1200.

Jesus, the only Son God had, was broken so you don't have to be. Let Him into the life

that He died for. And let the healing begin.

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#118

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Mon Jul 25, 2005 12:47 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 25, 2005 - For Educational Purposes Only

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A UNC grad goes to the doctor and tells him

that he hasn't been feeling well. The doctor
examines him, leaves the room and comes
back with three different bottles of pills.

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{How News Should Be Written -
If Reporter Was Honest}
Spoof of U.S. President At Faux
Faulkner Contest Aids Terrorist

U.S. President concerned about terrorist related deaths in Britain and Egypt.

JACKSON, Miss. - A scathing parody that likens the
President of the United States to the "idiot" in William
Faulkner's novel "The Sound and the Fury" has won
this year's Faulkner write-alike contest � and touched
off a literary spat. The event is sponsored by United
Air Lines.

Sam Apple, a 29-year-old writer for a licentious New York
sex magazine named Nerve, planned to be in Oxford this
weekend to read his parody aloud of the President of the
United States at the 32nd annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha
Conference at the University of Mississippi.

.....Apple, Porn Magazine Author

Terrorist around the world took heart because the President
of the United States had brought them to the brink of defeat.
Now they have promised additional attacks on defenseless
men, women & children in European Nations, the United States,
and around the world.

An unidentified Egyptian man lies on a bed in the Sharm
el-Sheikh International Hospital following terrorist car bombs
that rocked the tourist-packed Red Sea resort.

Foreign tourists from Turkmenistan react to the
scene of a terrorist car bomb explosion in Egypt's
Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik Saturday July 23,
2005. Explosions ripped through a luxury hotel and
a coffee shop, killing at least 88.

First two paragraphs taken from Friday's news wire with minor modifications...

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When The Passion

Becomes Personal

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4836.rm

Twenty-three marks on the wall of his four-by-four prison cell told the story.

It has been just over three weeks when the soldiers had captured him - the

number one name on the Most Wanted List - at a local bar and hauled him

into this cell. The charges: robbery, treason, and murder. Day twenty-three

was going to be just another day there - or so he thought until he heard the

growing sounds of that angry mob outside the window above him. He managed

to grab the bars on the window and pull himself up high enough to hear what

the crowd was screaming. It was a combination of shock and fear that swept

through him when he heard they were shouting his name! "Give us Ba-rabbas!

Give us Ba-rabbas!"

Then the chant gradually began to change. Now they were shouting with this

bloodthirsty anger, "Cru-ci-fy him! Cru-ci-fy him!" Barabbas slumped to the floor.

He couldn't believe it. He'd been their hero, but now they were calling for his

execution by the most brutal means of execution ever devised - death on a cross.

Within minutes, five soldiers were dragging him, kicking and screaming down

the corridor, up the stone steps, and to another door. They flung the door open,

pushed him through it, and slammed the door behind him.

It took a little while for him to realize where he was. He was out on the cobblestone

street of Jerusalem. He was free! Before the reality could fully dawn on Barabbas,

the door behind him opened again. He literally had to roll out of the way to keep

from being trampled by the angry crowd pushing their way through with a bare-

backed, bleeding man in the middle of them. As Barabbas plastered himself

against the wall of that narrow street, he could see that the man's back had

been so brutally beaten that it was just one gaping wound, exposing tissue

and bone. Barabbas' first instinct was to run while he could, but he didn't.

He followed that crowd all the way up the skull-shaped hill just outside the

city, where, from a distance, he heard the hammer and the spikes that the

heartless executioners of Rome were driving into the man's hands and feet.

It turned dark as night in the middle of the day and the skies opened up with

a deluge of rain. Curious spectators just began to drift away. Finally, Barabbas

felt safe enough to walk slowly to the top of Skull Hill, with his head covered.

It was as if there was a magnet pulling him toward the man hanging on the

middle cross between two other dying criminals. Barabbas had heard the

man say from that cross, "Father, forgive them." Barabbas had heard many

things at crucifixions - cursing, screaming, threatening - but never "forgive."

He now could recognize the face there that was beaten almost beyond recognition.

It was Jesus - the Man who had done no wrong, whose only crime was to love those

that no one else cared about. And in that moment Barabbas found himself looking

up into the eyes of that man on the middle cross and saying aloud, "You don't

deserve to be there, Jesus. I do. But because You're dying there, I don't have to die."

I could walk up to the cross where Jesus died and say that, and so could you.

I don't know if Barabbas ever really made it to the cross, but I do know that getting

to that cross to have your sins forgiven is your only hope of heaven. Galatians 2:20,

our word for today from the Word of God simply says, "The Son of God ... loved me

and gave Himself for me." If you've never been to Jesus' cross and said those words,

"For me. You're dying for me," this could be your personal Jesus-day - when you tell

Him you're His, when every wrong thing you've ever done is erased from God's book -

when you trade hell for heaven.

Let me encourage you to get my little booklet. It's called Yours For Life, and it walks

you through how to be sure you belong to this incredible Savior. If you want it, just

let us know by going to our website at yoursforlife.net or call us toll-free at 1-877-741-1200.

He died for your sin so you don't have to. Isn't it time that you take what He died to give you?

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#119

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Tue Jul 26, 2005 12:31 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 26, 2005 - For Educational Purposes Only

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In a small business office in Chapel Hill, N.C., they have an
answering machine that instructs callers to leave their name
and address, and to spell any difficult words.

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One UNC student noticed another UNC student walking
up and down Main Street, wearing a sandwich board that
read "Free Big Mac!"

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Strangers Among Us

In the American Heritage Dictionary, the word "stranger" is defined as "one
who is neither friend nor acquaintance-a foreigner, newcomer, or outsider"
or "one who is unaccustomed to or unacquainted with something specified."

Since early times, the issue humanity has continued to faced is how

to handle or address differences. The Greeks divided people into two
categories: those who were civilized and those who were barbarians.

In modern times the challenge of strangers is compounded by a rapidly
pluralizing world in which the old and the familiar keep disappearing
while new perspectives keep getting mixed in the public square, and while
refugees, economic migrants, and politically displaced people fill our
streets. It is a volatile mixture and a source of tension. For many, the
stranger is a threat or a presence of something discomforting, so the
attitude is defensive or hostile and the approach either outright
rejection or coldly ignoring them.

When the dignity of all people is clearly taught in Scripture, how should
followers of God respond and what can we offer to the wider society?
Sadly, we haven't always responded much different from the norm.

When Jesus asked the crowd to define the word neighbor, first telling a
story of three men and their different responses to a man in need, he
could not have used a more potent example. To the people of Israel at
that time, the Samaritans were despised, the lowest of the low. And yet
the answer to Jesus' question was unavoidable. "Which of these three do
you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
(Luke 10:36). The expert in the law replied as anyone listening would
have: "The one who had mercy on him" (10:37). And Jesus told him,

"Go and do likewise."

The story exposes the hypocrisies of all those who considered themselves
the insiders, the guardians of culture and honor, yet those who failed in
the most fundamental way. Clearly, it is the stranger who stands out as
the hero in the story.

The basis of civility, of respect, of communication, is the willingness to
treat others as you wish to be treated. Multiculturalism is not a problem
to be solved or a Trojan horse for cultural collapse. It is an ever
deepening reality that is a part of our changing world, which demands
courage, will and skill to be faced and addressed in terms that can make

a difference.

As Robert Burns muses, "Oh, to see ourselves as others see us." Or as
Stephen Covey notes, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."
To the degree we see our own vulnerability, needs and problems, to that
degree can we reach out to others. This is the first step, to try to look
at yourself in the eyes of the other. As Jesus instructs in Matthew 7:12,
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This means
listening, hearing, deferring judgment in order to gain perspective,
insight and understanding. Neighborliness is characterized by deeds,

not words only.

In Genesis 1, we read that we are made in the image of God. Irregardless
of our status among the masses as outsider or insider, stranger or friend,
the Bible clearly insists that all have value, worth, unique attributes and
characteristics and that all are to be esteemed, cared for, and looked
after. Your value is intrinsic, not extrinsic. Your neighbors were made
in the image of the Almighty. Therefore, go and treat them likewise.

Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through
Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.
--Hebrews 7:25

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#120

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Wed Jul 27, 2005 12:24 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 27, 2005 - Please Forward To Your Prof/Boss/Mom/Uncle/Friend/King

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While attending a convention in Chapel Hill, three psychiatrists
take a walk.

"People are always coming to us with their guilt and fears,"
one says, "but we have no one to go to with our own problems."

"Since we're all professionals," another suggests, "why don't
we hear each other out right now?"

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Hungry for

"Something

More"

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4837.rm

If you look on the backside of an American nickel, you'll see a picture of it. It's the

domed mansion of President Thomas Jefferson, known as Monticello. And it's a

living monument to the genius of one of America's great minds - the author of

America's Declaration of Independence, the architect of the Louisiana Purchase

that more than doubled the size of this nation in a day. Monticello reflects so much

of his creative genius and his insatiable, inquiring mind. Everywhere you turn, there

are inventive touches that were there years ahead of their time. Perhaps the single

feature of that house that best reveals the mind of Thomas Jefferson is the direction

that its main rooms face. His study, bedroom and library, for example, all face west.

Jefferson loved to look west; he wanted his guests and friends to be looking west

because that's where the frontier was. That's where the unexplored territory was.

And Tom Jefferson was always facing the frontier!

Facing that frontier - that's an exciting way to live. With a restless heart that says,

"You know, there's more out there, and I want it." It's the heart of the spiritually

healthy Jesus-follower. However far you've come in your relationship with Christ,

however much you've experienced of Him, you know there's much more. And you

want to go beyond anywhere you've gone before.

That was the passion of the great Apostle Paul - thirty years into what may have

been the most powerful relationship with Jesus anyone ever had. But in Philippians

3, beginning with verse 10, our word for today from the Word of God, he says:

"I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of

sharing in His sufferings ... Not that I have already obtained all this, or have

already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ

Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold

of it." If the Apostle Paul felt that way - that he had much more of Jesus to experience -

you should be concerned if you find your heart isn't restless for more! Oswald

Chambers put it this way: "Beware the danger of spiritual relaxation." The spiritual

level you're at may very well be enough to satisfy your pastor or other Christians,

but I hope it isn't enough to satisfy you.

I pray for you and me the driving passion of Paul as he says: "Forgetting what is

behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the

prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." There's so much

more - a greater experience of the closeness of Jesus, the power of Jesus, the

moment-by-moment leading of Jesus.

There are two major spiritual frontiers to hunger for. First, greater intimacy with

Jesus. I'm by nature a doer. I'm more Martha than I am Mary, busy running around

serving Jesus. But I want to experience more of the realness of His presence and

His love, the sound of His voice in my soul. I want to be a lot more like Him a lot

more minutes of the day.

The second frontier is a greater impact for Jesus; making a greater difference for

Him than I've ever made before. The road to His glorious "more" is increased time

with Him each day, more "cuddle time" where I just love on Him and let Him love

on me; a passionate pursuit of personal orders from Jesus every time I open His

book. Every time we're in His book, every time we're in a Christian meeting, we

should go with this prayer in our heart, "Jesus, help me come away with more

of You!" And then, we need to be mining each day for every possible opportunity

to have an impact on somebody's life for Him.

"More, Lord, I want more. I want all You have for me. I want to go beyond anywhere

I've ever gone with You before!" Let that be the cry of your hungry heart, and don't

ever be content with how far you've come. There's so much more!

Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through
Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.
--Hebrews 7:25

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#121

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:39 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 28, 2005 - H.B. Katie

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I couldn't find my luggage at the airport baggage area.
So I went to the lost luggage office and told the woman
there that my bags never showed up. Find our the rest of the story...

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Why God is Turning

Up The Volume

Listen to the audio broadcast!
http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/ramhurl?p=pnm&f=/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4838.rm

Some people seem to have a special gift for sleeping. So much so that waking them

up is more like a resurrection. We had one of those gifted people staying at our house

for a few weeks. Greg was a young intern helping out and training in our ministry. And

he did a good job - once you got him out of bed. He stayed at our house - so I got the

joy of figuring out how to get him up each morning in time to start his work day. I started

with just an alarm clock. Forget about it - no alarm so much as fazes this boy. I tried

shaking him, and then shaking him violently. I tried bells. I tried water. If he did ever

wake up, he just went back to sleep until I landed on the Extreme Wakeup Option - the

pan. I got the biggest metal pan we had and the biggest metal spoon and marched into

his room playing percussion. If standing at the door clanging that pan didn't do it, I just

moved progressively closer until he was up and out of bed. I'm sorry it had to go that far,

but he had to wake up.

Could it be that you are one of God's hard-to-wake children? I think we all take our turn

be spiritually asleep, oblivious to something He's trying to say or do in our life. And that

may explain some of the pain, some of the struggle, some of the frustration that's been

building lately. It's God trying to get your attention. And like me with our deep-sleeping

friend, if one kind of wakeup call doesn't work, He will escalate His methods. He will not

just let you sleep.

God's been having to turn up the pressure to wake His children for a long time. That's why

He told His people about His Extreme Wakeup Options way back at the dedication of the

magnificent temple Solomon built. It's recorded in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14, our word for today

from the Word of God. You may recognize 2 Chronicles 7:14. "If My people, who are called

by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked

ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land." So

much they need done in their lives that only God can do - just like us. But first they've got

to wake up and deal with their pride, their self-reliance, their casual relationship with God,

and the things that they're not doing God's way.

What God does to wake them up - His "banging pan" in their ear - is spelled out in the previous

verse: "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour

the land or send a plague among My people, if My people who are called by My name," and

so on. It's going to take serious pain to wake them up to what God wants them to do.

Unfortunately, it's often that way with us.

As you're searching for answers and reasons for some of the painful or difficult things going

on lately, consider the possibility that this is God's tool to wake you up for what He wants to do.

Not because He doesn't love you, but because He does love you. Hebrews 12 tells us, "Do not

make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you ... Our fathers

disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that

we may share in His holiness." If you're going to get the pain, you might as well get the point

sooner rather than later.

If God's been turning up the volume, don't just turn over and go back to sleep. The noise will

only get louder. Because God loves you too much to stop trying to get your attention; to stop

working on you to live the way He created you to live. The sooner you wake up, the sooner it

will let up.

Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through
Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.
--Hebrews 7:25

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#122

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Fri Jul 29, 2005 12:48 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 29, 2005 - Happy Weekend

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A sheriff walks into a saloon and shouts for everyone's attention.
"Has anyone seen Jake?"

"What's he look like?", asks one shoddy-looking cowboy.

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TOP 10 THINGS MEN KNOW ABOUT WOMEN:

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Why There are

Desperate Housewives

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I've never seen the TV show, and based on what I've read about its moral content,

I don't plan to see the show. But there's no denying it has skyrocketed to being a

hit from its very first season. Maybe, in part, because so many women can relate

to its provocative title, "Desperate Housewives." There are more than a few of those.

Proverbs 31 in the Bible presents God's idea of an awesome woman. She's not a

desperate housewife. In fact, she's a wife who's strong, secure and satisfied. She's

really making a difference for her family and her community. And one of the big

reasons she's this kind of woman is revealed in our word for today from the Word

of God in Proverbs 31:23-24. The Bible says: "Her children arise and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her." Here's what he tells her: "'Many women do

noble things, but you surpass them all.'"

No wonder this is God's "Wonder Woman." She's married to a man who makes her

feel wonderful! I'm guessing the reason her children praise her is because they've

heard their dad treat mom that way. If we look at this from the flip side, we could

surmise that one reason some wives are desperate or discouraged or negative is

a husband who is failing them in his most basic responsibility - to be a provider.

Yes, he's supposed to supply for his wife materially, but that's the easy part. What

a woman needs most from her man is Triple-A treatment: meeting her need for

affection, for attention, for affirmation.

So each of us married men should be giving ourselves a little three-question test

about how we're treating our wife. First, am I loving her in the ways that make her

feel loved? Secondly, am I offering her my exclusive attention on a regular basis?

Thirdly, am I building her confidence by frequently praising her for specific strengths

I see in her? The man who can answer "yes" to those questions is really a man -

a provider for his woman's greatest needs.

Ephesians 5 lays out a beautiful picture of how a husband and wife are to love and

support each other. In the verses that precede that marriage blueprint, God says,

"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful

for building others up" (Ephesians 4:29). For Husbanding 101, this means lose the

comments that tear your bride down - critical comments, insults, putdowns.

Then, Ephesians 5:1 tells us to "live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave

Himself up for us." That's love demonstrated, not just with words, flowers and cards -

although those aren't bad ideas - but with sacrifice. Pitching in to help her when

you're really tired, listening to her heart when you're all listened out, and putting

her needs ahead of yours. God reaffirms that a few verses later when He says,

"Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself

up for her.

One day at an altar, you pledged to cherish and protect and love and care for

the woman you were marrying, and she believed you. God was there as a witness,

and He believed you. He entrusted her life into your hands. She entrusted her life

and her happiness into your hands. The most manly thing you'll ever do is to keep

those promises - provide for her deepest needs. She won't be a desperate housewife.

She will be a woman who knows that she's safe, knows she's treasured, and knows

she's loved. And she'll live like it because of a husband who was, in God's eyes and

her eyes, a real man.

Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through
Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.
--Hebrews 7:25

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#123

From: Howdy Your-Friend <yourfriend_howdy@...>
Date: Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:45 pm
Subject: ***Thought & Humor*** - Please Forward - July 30, 2005 - Happy Weekend

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A fellow took a UNC student to the movies. During the pre-
views, she asked him if he would go and buy her some M & M's.

Find our the rest of the story...

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Doctors at a hospital in Brooklyn, New York have gone on
strike. Hospital officials say they will find out...

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One Hand Short

of Heaven

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It may have been the scariest moment of my life. I was only ten years old,

but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was with my friends in Lake Michigan.

We started out just wading, but they kept getting deeper - until the lake bottom

dropped off sharply. My buddies started swimming. I didn't know how, and

I was too embarrassed to tell them. And I started taking on water fast. I went

under once, I went under twice, and I was desperately thrashing around. As

for my buddies, they thought I was just clowning around. Can you imagine

me clowning around? Well, I was drinking the lake. I can see that water burying

me there like it was yesterday, and honestly, I was almost a goner. And then

he came - the man from the shore who saw my predicament and he jumped

in to do something about it. He had come to rescue me. I grabbed him with

both hands. I hung onto him as if he were my only hope. He was.

As I've studied the Bible, I've learned that what happened to me that day at the

lake is a picture of another life-or-death situation and the rescue on which a life

depends. In this case, the life-or-death situation involves the entire human race.

It's about you.

The Bible reveals our true spiritual condition in hopes that we'll recognize it and

take the only action that will save our souls. God's book says, "your sins have

separated you from your God" (Isaiah 59:2) - that we are "without God and without

hope in this world" (Ephesians 2:12) - that we are "dead ... in our sins." Sin is so

much more than just breaking somebody's religious rules. It's defying Almighty

God by ignoring His rule over our lives and doing what we want instead. It's ultimate

arrogance. It's defiant rebellion against the One to whom we owe our existence.

And it's all of us; even the most religious person listening today. We differ only

in the degree of our rebellion against our Creator, not in the reality of our rebellion

or of its awful, eternal consequences.

We are that little guy, drowning, with no hope of saving ourselves. Our only hope

of avoiding certain death is a rescuer. And it's at that point that Jesus Christ comes

off the pages of the history books and becomes a deeply personal issue for you and

me. He saw we were dying, He left heaven's shore, He jumped into save us at the cost

of His own life when He gave His life in exchange for ours on a cross.

Our word for today from the Word of God, John 3:18, spells out the difference between

those who will be lost and those who will be rescued: "Whoever believes in Him (that's

Jesus) is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in Him stands condemned

already because He does not believe in the name of God's one and only Son."

It isn't what you do with some religion or some set of beliefs. It all comes down to what

you do with Jesus - whether or not you believe in Him. In the original Greek word that's

translated as "believe," it means to put your total trust in Jesus, to hold onto Him like

a drowning person would hang onto his rescuer. And take it from me, that means

holding onto Him with both hands.

Some people miss Him because they try to grab Jesus with just one hand - because

there's something else in the other hand they don't want to let go of. A sin they don't

want to forsake, a person, a pleasure, an escape from their problems. But that's what

the Bible calls "another god." And you can't hold Jesus with one hand and some junk

He died for in the other. Believing in Jesus is grabbing Him with both hands, turning

from, abandoning whatever else has been your hope. Could it be you've tried to turn

to Jesus without turning from your sin, your other hope? It's got to be a two-hand faith,

grabbing Jesus with all your heart and both your hands.

If you've never taken that life-saving step - and you know it's time - then tell Him that

right now. He's come to where you are, reaching for you with both hands - both nail-

scarred hands. It's time you grabbed Him with both of yours. This step is so important

that I wrote a little booklet about it called Yours For Life, which I want to send to you

if you want it. You can ask for it without any obligation by going to our website at

yoursforlife.net or by calling us toll-free at 1-877-741-1200.

Grabbing Jesus with one hand or with both hands - it's the difference between being

saved and being lost.

Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through
Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.
--Hebrews 7:25

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CyberRiddle

I can be used daily.

I come in many different scents.

Most dogs dislike me.

I can take a real shine to you.

I am a liquid.

Kojak sure had no use for me.

I am both cosmetic and hygenic.

I spend most of my time in the shower.

Warren Beatty, in 1975, starred in a movie named for me.

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"Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax
si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?"

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CyberRiddle

I can be used daily.I come in many different scents.Most dogs dislike me.I can take a real shine to you.I am a liquid.Kojak sure had no use for me.I am both cosmetic and hygenic.I spend most of my time in the shower.Warren Beatty, in 1975, starred in a movie named for me.

Here: http://ilovehowdy.blogspot.com/

A Quiz For People Who Think They Know Everything

"Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?"

{How News Should Be Written -If Reporter Was Honest}Spoof of U.S. President At Faux Faulkner Contest Aids Terrorist

I can be used daily.

I come in many different scents.

Most dogs dislike me.

I can take a real shine to you.

I am a liquid.

Kojak sure had no use for me.

I am both cosmetic and hygenic.

I spend most of my time in the shower.

Warren Beatty, in 1975, starred in a movie named for me.

A Quiz For People Who Think
They Know Everything

"Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax
si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?"

{How News Should Be Written -
If Reporter Was Honest}
Spoof of U.S. President At Faux
Faulkner Contest Aids Terrorist