A lady’s husband had heart surgery, and she received a letter saying her
husband inherited one million dollars. She was worried about her
husband’s health, so she called their pastor and asked him to tell the good news to her husband. The pastor said to the
husband, “Joe, if you were to have one million dollars, what would you
do?”
Joe responded, “Why Pastor, I’d give it to you!” The pastor died of a heart
attack.
A little boy and his father were playing store. The father offered to pay a nickel for a set of binoculars, and the boy said, “Dad we’re playing store, we’re not playing church!”
There is a bumper sticker that says, “Tithe if you love Jesus. Any idiot can honk.” A lot of peole talk about how much they love the Lord, but they do not put their money where their mouth is.
A missionary had been teaching tithing to his church. One
morning a young Christian came to the missionary’s door with a fishing pole in
one hand and a fish in the other hand. He said, “Here’s my tithe.”
The missionary asked him where the rest of his fish were and
the man replied, “Oh, they’re in the river, I just wanted to bring God His
first.”
Money
will buy a bed but not sleep; books but not brains; food but not appetite;
finery but not beauty; a house but not a home; medicine but not health;
luxuries but not culture; amusements but not happiness; religion but not
salvation; a passport to everywhere but Heaven.
Source: Unknown
Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College
Let’s pretend that your banker phoned you late last
Friday and said he had some very good news. He told you that an anonymous donor who loves
you very much has decided to deposit 86,400 pennies into
your account each morning, starting the following Monday morning. That’s $864 a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.
He adds, “But there’s one stipulation; you must
spend all that money that same day. No
balance will be carried over to the next day.
Each evening the bank must cancel whatever sum you failed to use.”
A
Netherlands-based electronics firm is creating a bracelet that will change
color and flicker from yellow to red when a person’s emotions rise to unhealthy
levels. It’s being developed chiefly for stock traders on European exchanges.
When trading becomes too intense and the trader’s blood pressure rises, the
device will issue a warning to, “Take a time-out, wind down or reconsider their
actions,” said the manufacturer. The results, hopefully, will be beneficial to
investors—to say nothing of the stock brokers themselves.
Fortune magazine
reported that the nation’s top twenty-five philanthropists gave away more than
$1.5 billion in 1996. The most generous was George Soros, president of Soros
Fund Management, who donated $350 million.
Of the top twenty-five philanthropists, only four inherited
fortunes. Most attributed their generosity in part to religious backgrounds.
And most were donors even before they became wealthy.
General Booth told of a man leaving Australia
who had been working in the gold fields, and had acquired a fortune. He was on
a ship, when a leak was sprung. The life-boats were lost, and the people were
without hope. This strong man thought he could fight through the waves to the
island, and he was about to spring into the water when a little girl, whose
mother had been lost in the storm, asked him, “Sir, can you save me?” He
looked at his belt of gold, and then at the child, and then at the belt, and
then at the child again.
A lady
was standing in front of a casino when she was approached by a desperate looking man, “Please!” the man begged frantically, “Could you possibly spare $500. My wife
is very sick, and I really need the money to take her to the doctor and to buy
her the medicine she needs.”
The lady looked at him suspiciously and said, “If I give you $500, how do I
know you won’t just go into a casino and gamble it all away?”
The man quickly responded, “Oh no, I wouldn’t do that! I’ve got gambling money!”
The evidence is convincing that
the better our relationships are at home, the more effective we are in our
careers. If we’re having difficulty with a loved one, that difficulty will be
translated into reduced performance on the job. In studying the millionaires in
America (U.S. News and World Report), a picture of the “typical” millionaire is
an individual who has worked eight to ten hours a day for thirty years and is
still married to his or her high school or college sweetheart.
In 1990 newspapers reported that city workers in
Newport Beach, California, were sifting through two and
one-half tons of trash, looking for $42,500 mistakenly discarded at the Great
American Bank and hauled away by garbage trucks. That’s a significant loss of
money, but it is only money. The loss of human lives and souls is infinitely
more significant. Soulwinning deserves our best effort.
Source: 1000 Windows, Robert C. Shannon
Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College
The story is told of an old Navajo Indian who became rich when
oil was found on his property. He took all the money and put it in a bank. His
banker became familiar with the habits of this old gentleman. Every so often,
the Indian would show up at the bank and say to the banker, “Grass all gone,
sheep all sick, water holes all dry.”
A
rich man was in the habit of giving his wife an expensive piece of jewelry
every year on her birthday. One year he might phone the jeweler and say, “Send
me your finest pearl necklace, along with your bill.” Or, “Send me your finest
diamond pendant, along with your bill.” Or the finest emerald bracelet or ruby
ring. Each time, the jeweler did as the rich man asked, dispatching a messenger
to the rich man’s mansion to deliver the jewelry piece in a box along with his
bill.
A mother gave her little girl a quarter and a dollar before
church, “Put whichever one you want in the collection plate and keep the other
for yourself,” she told the girl. When they were coming out of church, the
mother asked her daughter which amount she had given. “Well,” said the little
girl, “I was going to give the dollar, but just before the collection the man
in the pulpit said that we should all be cheerful givers. I knew I’d be a lot
more cheerful if I gave the quarter, so I did.”
How
rich is rich? According to a survey of people who ought to know, the answer is
$1 million to $5 million in assets. Investment managers Neuberger & Bergman
sponsored the survey of people who stand to give or receive inheritances
(median household assets: $500,000). Paradoxically, 55% of those whose assets
ranged from $1 million to $5 million don’t consider themselves wealthy.
Source: U.S.A. Today, November 11, 1991
Submitted by the homiletics class of West Coast Baptist College
In June of 2008 Phuljharia Kunwa, a
rich 80-year old Indian widow, spent thousands of dollars on a feast for
100,000 people hoping it would please the gods and open the doors of
heaven for her. She fed lunch to people from surrounding villages and towns for
two consecutive days. She has no family or relatives to bequeath her property to. Mrs. Kunwar spent
$37,500 on the feast.
Isaiah 64:6 says that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags in God's sight. No amount of benevolence can earn someone the right to dwell in Heaven or forgive their sin.
The story of is told of a girl who regretted breaking her engagement and wrote this letter:
“Dearest Tommy, No words could ever express
the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say
you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please
forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you! I love you!”
Yours forever, Marie
PS: And congratulations on winning the state lottery.
