Quotes

Very Interesting...

"It's my dad," he replied.

The guard looked puzzled but allowed the ashes inside. Family members said anyone who knew Grant Flory wouldn't be surprised by his request. He was a real football fan.

It is the dream of every pastor to have a congregation filled with people who are that determined to be in worship every Sunday. I need not even say to you that there are church members who are much more dedicated to their favorite sports team than they are to God. They give more money to their team. They know more about the players on the roster than they ever will about the heroes of the Bible. And I will not live to see the days when people in the average congregation will sit in a cold, miserable rain to worship God like many will do to cheer on their favorite team. Perhaps that's because we don't understand the essential nature of the church. I believe if we could see the church as Christ sees the church, we would not take attendance as casually as we do.

I think this is very interesting and very convicting... What do you guys think?

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
(Colossians 3.1 NRSV)

After six years, Mary Jo was offered a job with CBS News in New York. Network news was her dream come true. Now she was more driven than ever. She routinely worked 12-hour days. The program was a success, but she felt empty. Other than work, she says, she didn't have a life.

Early one morning she went to church to pray. She had grown up with a strong faith, she says, but it had been a long time since she'd talked or listened to God. That morning she prayed, "God, what am I doing so far from home? I want to walk Your path, but I don't know how."

Within a year Mary Jo was back in Phoenix working at a rival television station. Things did not work out. The ratings went from bad to worse. Before too long Mary Jo was out of work. She found it difficult to find another job. She sat alone in her big house--lost. All her feelings of self-worth had come from her job; now she felt worthless.

In her lifelong quest to finish first, she had ended up dead last. Mary Jo began working as a volunteer at a local mission. She spent the next year as a volunteer, handing out diapers and bus tokens, dishing out hot meals and helping people find work or a bed for the night. It was during that year when she reached out to other people that she felt God's love as never before. She discovered God's love in the eyes of a man who cried as he thanked her for finding him a pair of size 13 boots so that he could finally get a job.

That year transformed Mary Jo West's life. She learned to rely on God and to keep her life in balance. "I don't have the glamour or the salary of my earlier jobs," she says, "but I do have something better: love, happiness, and peace of mind. That's God's idea of being first."