Excellent job jtstromsburg! You even mentioned your woodstove and your enthusiasm for it during your message!
Thanks for sharing your testimony. We all have one, because none of us are perfect. God has a plan for you
February 10, 2020 Verse of the Day And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 2 Corinthians 9:8 NIV
The chimney swift is the only bird that beats its wings alternately in flight. Whether a fellow winds up with a nest egg or a goose egg depends on the kind of chick he marries. Live so that you wouldn’t be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip. Will Rogers Back of the loaf is the snowy flour, And the back of the flour, the mill, And back of the mill is the wheat and the shower, And the sun and the Father’s will. Babcock Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies. Groucho Marx You can’t steal second base while keeping one foot on first. Some people are so full of antibiotics that every time they sneeze, they cure someone.
Give to God what is right, not what is left. Creative minds always have been known to survive any kinds of bad training. Ability is a spark, talent a flame but genius is a fire. You miss 100% of the shots you never take. Wayne Gretzky If at first you don’t succeed, maybe you did something wrong. Sometimes you have to be silent to be heard. The bonds of matrimony aren’t worth much unless the interest is kept up.
Lasting Love Extends Grace By Rick Warren — February 9, 2020 “Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love” (Ephesians 4:2 NLT). No relationship will survive without grace. You’ve got to cut people some slack! You’ve got to let things go. The Bible says, “Love patiently accepts all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7 NCV). In the original Greek, this literally means “covered with a roof.” Would you buy a house without a roof? Of course not. You’d have no protection from wind and rain. A roof covers and protects your home. In the same way, biblical love covers a relationship and lets some things slide. It doesn’t haul people into account for every mistake they make. You need a roof on your relationship because people damage pretty easily, and we need the kind of love that extends grace. Why is grace essential to relationships? The Bible says in Romans 3:10 that no one always does what is right. Nobody gets it right 100 percent of the time. It’s never just one person’s fault. There’s always a responsibility on both sides. It takes two people to disagree! We have to learn to extend grace to each other, because forgiveness is a two-way street. We cannot receive what we’re unwilling to give to other people. You build strong relationships by treating other people the way God treats you. Romans 15:7 says, “Accept each other just as Christ has accepted you” (NLT). When you accept others as they are, looking past their faults for the sake of love, that’s extending grace
February 12, 2020 Verse of the Day Give praise to the LORD, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Psalms 105:1-2 NIV
Wrestling with God By Jason Nelson “So Jacob was left alone. Then a man wrestled with him until dawn. When the man saw that he could not win against Jacob, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that it was dislocated as they wrestled. Then the man said, ‘Let me go; it’s almost dawn.’ But Jacob answered, ‘I won’t let you go until you bless me’” (Genesis 32:24-26 GW). Jacob was having a restless night before a high stakes meeting with his brother, Esau. Years earlier, Jacob defrauded Esau out of the family birthright, and they hadn’t seen each other since. They were finally going to meet up. Two estranged brothers would engage in a stare down at dawn. Jacob didn’t know if the meeting would result in a warm embrace or violent conflict. Should he even go through with it? God came between them and wrestled with Jacob. God kept trying to escape Jacob’s hold on him. Why would God push anyone away at the turning point of a crisis? To show us we have the courage to see it through. In every crisis, we struggle with ourselves, other people, and God himself. Holding on to the Almighty for all we are worth is the only way to get through it. God pushes back so that we grab on to him more tightly. God pushes back so that we strengthen our grip. God inflicts a little short-term pain on us so that we rejoice in the blessed relief of an answer to our prayers. Sometimes you have to wrestle with God to get a blessing.
If you can’t stand to be laughed at, you will always be a conformist. A man learns little from victory; much from defeat. Chinese proverb Taxes at all government levels are heavy, but we are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride and four times as much by our folly. Ben Franklin The best thing about Eisenhower’s Presidency was his Jeffersonian conviction that there should be as little government and as much golf as possible. Alistair Cooke Experience is the best teacher, but too many are not doing well in her class. There are 40 kinds of lunacy, but only one kind of common sense. African proverb For those who don’t want to work, they should know that you have to work to earn enough money so that they won’t have to work.
February 13, 2020 Verse of the Day In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Philippians 2:5 NIV
Dishonest scales By Jason Nelson When I step on the bathroom scale, I generally don’t like the readout. I’ve tried pulling myself up a little with the towel bar to get a better number. But that’s cheating. “The LORD detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with him” (Proverbs 11:1). God hates any kind of fraud. Fraudulent practices have been around since he rebooted human history after he booted Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. Merchants cheated people by putting their fingers on the payload side of a balance scale so they could charge more money for less product. Now cheaters try to institutionalize their advantage. Politicians gerrymander congressional districts so their voters will outnumber voters from the opposition party. They must think we won’t notice. Justice is supposed to be blind, and any kind of scale is supposed to be fairly balanced. But our commerce and politics are out of whack. We take dishonest scales for granted. We might even think treating others fairly puts us at a disadvantage. God saw that people cheat and asked himself, “Shall I acquit someone with dishonest scales?” (Micah 6:11). He answered yes and unbalanced his own standards of justice for our benefit. He placed our sin and shame on Jesus like he deserved it and we didn’t. That’s how “he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what GOD is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor” (Micah 6:8 MSG)
In one of their periodic efforts to eradicate religious belief in the Soviet Union, the Communist Party sent KGB agents to the nation’s churches on a Sunday morning. One agent was struck by the deep devotion of an elderly woman who was kissing the feet of a life-size carving of Christ on the cross. “Babushka (Grandmother),” he said. “Are you also prepared to kiss the feet of the beloved General Secretary of our great Communist Party?” She replied, “Of course. But only if you crucify him first.” Success is turning thoughts into realities. Diversity: The more you have of it, diverse it gets. Rest is the sweet sauce of labor. The learning and knowledge we have is, at most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant. Plato Absence of occupation is not rest; a mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. There is not much to do except bury a man when the last of his dreams is dead.
February 14, 2020 Verse of the Day Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 1 Corinthians 13:4 NIV
There’s a man in the world who is never turned down wherever he chances to stray. He gets the glad hand in the populous town or out where the farmers make hay. He’s greeted with pleasure on deserts of sand and deep in the aisles of the woods. Wherever he goes there’s a welcoming hand. He’s the man who delivers the goods. Walt Whitman Death is the opening of a more subtle life. In the flower, it sets free the perfume; in the chrysalis, the butterfly; in man, the soul. If you mind goes blank, be sure to turn off the sound. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the American Legion asked, “Do you realize that there are now more Reds in Cincinnati than in Moscow?” There is a wonderful, mystical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life; happiness, freedom, and peace of mind, are always obtained by giving them to someone else. If a man tells you that you are an azz, do not mind; if two men tell you that you are an azz, purchase a saddle for yourself. Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Drillers whom Edwin Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859 said, “Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try to find oil? You’re crazy!” Albert Einstein, 1932 said, “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean the atom would have to be shattered at will.” Rex Lambert, editor for Radio Times, in 1936 wrote, “TV won’t matter in your lifetime or mine.” Lee DeForest, the inventor of television said, “While theoretically and technically feasible television may be, commercially and financially it is an impossibility.” I’m not dumber than I used to be; there are just more new things about which I am ignorant. The Pledge of Allegiance says, “Liberty and Justice for all.” I wonder which part of “all” that some people don’t understand. Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light.
