Sunday Dispatch Megathread

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.570


"It is hard to be brave," said Piglet,
sniffling slightly, "when you're only
a Very Small animal."

Rabbit, who had begun to write very
busily, looked up and said: "It is
because you are a very small animal
that will be useful in
the adventures before us."

~A.A.Milne

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.571


Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger.
So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage.
In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.

~James 1:19-21 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.572


Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.

~Colossians 2:9-10 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.573


If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

~1 Corinthians 13:1-7 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.574

Joseph took his wife and her child and they went to Africa
To escape the rage of a deadly king
There along the banks of the Nile,
Jesus listened to the song
That the captive children used to sing
They were singin'

My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by

Through a dry and thirsty land, water from the Kenyon heights
Pours itself out of Lake Sangra's broken heart
There in the Sahara winds Jesus heard the whole world cry
For the healing that would flow from His own scars
The world was singing

My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
He will never break His promise - He has written it upon the sky
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by

I will never doubt His promise though I doubt my heart, I doubt my eyes My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
He will never break His promise
though the stars should break faith with the sky

My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by
My Deliverer is coming - my Deliverer is standing by

~Rich Mullins

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.575


Ben Stein: What if after you died you ran into God, and he says, what have you been doing, Richard? I mean what have you been doing? I've been trying to be nice to you. I gave you a multi-million dollar paycheck, over and over again with your book, and look what you did.

Richard Dawkins: Bertrand Russell had that point put to him, and he said something like: Sir, why did you take such pains to hide yourself?

Ben Stein: But, if the Intelligent Design people are right, he isn't hidden. We may even be able to encounter God through science, if we have the freedom to go there. What could be more intriguing than that?

~From the film Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed

[Jive Turkey]

Not sure why I looked in this thread, but Expelled is the most biased, misleading, steaming pile of garbage I've ever watched. Ben Stein is a complete asshat and you're doing yourself a disservice by quoting him

[yolland]

http://www.u2interference.com/forums...ed-186096.html

[Jive Turkey]

That thread was making my blood boil. Had to close the tab

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.576


Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.

~Frederick Buechner

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.577


Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

~Frederick Buechner

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.578

Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope,
and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news,
is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all. Amen, and come Lord Jesus.

~Frederick Buechner

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.579

A minister told his congregation, Next week I plan to preach about the sin of lying.

To help you understand my sermon, I want you all to read Mark 17.

The following Sunday, as he prepared to deliver his sermon, the minister asked for a show of hands.
He wanted to know how many had read Mark 17. Every hand went up.
The minister smiled and said, Mark has only sixteen chapters.

I will now proceed with my sermon on the sin of lying.

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.580


It's a dangerous business going out your front door.

~J.R.R. Tolkien

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.581


Stay alert. This is hazardous work I’m assigning you.
You’re going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack,
so don’t call attention to yourselves.

Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove.


~Matthew 10:16 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.582


Faith is seeing the invisible, but not the nonexistent.

~A.W. Tozer

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.583


Jesus revealed a face of God that bothered society profoundly.

~Mev Puleo

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.584


“Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
“Don’t be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don’t reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you’re only being cute and inviting sacrilege."

“Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?"

“Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get."


~Matthew 7:1-5 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.585


Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”
He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”

“Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

“A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’

“What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”

“The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.

Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”


~Luke 10:25-37 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.586


God means what he says. What he says goes. His powerful Word is sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, cutting through everything, whether doubt or defense, laying us open to listen and obey.

Nothing and no one is impervious to God’s Word. We can’t get away from it—no matter what.


~Hebrews 4:12 (The Message)