ANNIE GET YOUR GUN lyrics

30GoodMinutes.org - Thomas Long, "Praying Without Losing Heart"

There's a famous story about a young boy named Frank who was walking along the bank of the Mississippi River and he noticed in the river another boy about his age wrestling with a homemade raft. He said to him, “What are you doing?” He said, “I'm going to take this raft out to that island in the middle of the river. I dare you to go with me!” Well, Frank couldn't resist the dare so he scrambled down the bank and got on the raft. The two boys headed out to the middle of the river but the current was swift and strong. As they approached the island, the raft broke up and sank and they had to swim to the island. And there they were, abandoned on an island, late in the afternoon. Nobody knew where they were. What would they do? Right at that moment, one of those paddle-wheel steamers started coming down the river and Frank ran to the edge of the island and began screaming and waving his hands, “Help! Help!” The other boy said, “Don't waste your breath. They can't hear you and even if they could they wouldn't pay any attention to boys like us.” But just at that moment the paddlewheel steamer turned toward the island. The boy said to Frank, “How did you do that?” And Frank said, “Well, there's something you don't know. The captain of that boat is my father!”

Well, the captain of the universe is our father and how much more will one who has formed us in the womb respond to our every cry. So pray always and don't lose heart.

Faith on the Border

It happened that as he made his way toward Jerusalem, he crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee.
Now most Jews don’t do that. They go down to Jerusalem along the Jordan so they don’t have to risk talking to a samaritan and defiling themselves, but not Jesus. Quite remarkable since he must have already know what he was going to Jerusalem for. But I am getting ahead of my story. For now just know Jesus was heading to Jerusalem for a purpose but that didn’t stop him from changing my life.

As he entered our village, ten us, all lepers, met him. We kept their distance but raised our voices, calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" That’s right I’m a lepper. Just listen to what it is like… (Song)
Its not easy being a leper and life in the leper colony is a lonely one, though at least we have each other. My friends are all Jews. Go figure. If it wasn’t for our common affliction we wouldn’t even talk to each other. But leprosy has made us all outcasts more than that, it made us all one.

When we saw a traveler coming we went out to meet him to beg. Have mercy on us! We cried. We understood from the crowd and the things they were talking about that this must be Jesus, but we didn’t ask for anything specific, we said, “Have mercy on us!”

We didn’t dare to come near, though we had heard rumors that this man touches lepers. We

Taking a good look at us, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests."
We had heard that he touched lepers, that he could heal with a word, but this time he healed in another way. We turned to go - to obey his command. As we did, our sores closed up, our numb fingers worn down to the nub with out our feeling it grew back, our bodies became whole again. We patted each other on the back and congratulated each-other. We quickened our pace, to show the priest, to return to our families and our lives. Then I stopped. I realized I couldn’t go into the temple and show myself to the preist, I’m no Jew, and worse than that I am a Samaritan! I realized my bond with these friends was over, they were returning to their lives.

You see we lived on a border, Jesus had come to our boundary, a fuzzy zone where Jews and Samaritans could live together because they were outcasts. All of that was about to change. Jesus came to our boundary and came to heal it. He was all I had now.


4.I turned around and came back, shouting my gratitude, glorifying God. I knelt at Jesus' feet, so grateful. I couldn't thank him enough

He placed his hand on my head—and I was a Samaritan!

Do you ever notice that it is the outsider that catches fire more quickly when they meet Jesus? I mean all these Jews knew that they were a special people to God. They kept reminding us Samaritans of it. Maybe they took it for granted when the very Son of God healed them. But when an outsider, someone who doesn’t know the hope in Christ comes and meets him, realizes that there is nothing outside of hope in him, how can he take it for granted? Jesus just met us on the outside of the boundary! How marvelous.

Jesus said, "Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this outsider?" Then he said to him, "Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you."

Are you like the other nine, or do you shout for joy with me today? I know you have seen the power of God working inside your borders just as he worked outside them for me. You have the symbols of it before you in these emblems. You are here together as one body! You have witnessed the power of God first hand. What a miracle you are made one with each other, once strangers now one body one family! Do you shout with joy? Or do you go on your way to do your duty without the shout of thanks to God.


Jesus followed the other 9 to Jerusalem. Like I said before he was on his way there for a purpose. He was there to be striped, like we were stripped, clothed only in rags. He was to be beaten and his flesh hang from his body like ours did. And by his stripes we are healed. I wonder if the nine Jews who went to show themselves at the temple ran into Jesus again. I wonder if they were in the crowd that watched him carry his cross. I wonder if they sang his praises at last in the midst of the jeering crowd. Will you?

If they did, we are one again, regardless of borders, because all we have now is Jesus. You are one with me too if you will shout his praises. Shout for joy with me!

On the love of money (a meditation from 3 years ago)

How rich are you? >>

I'm loaded.
It's official.
I'm the 822,871,928 richest person on earth!

Ah ... money. What I could do without it.

In meditating on money check out the Gospel of Suply Side Jesus.

Narrative

Imagine with me we are in the board room, and Donald Trump is deciding our fates. We've tried our best to out connive, out scheme, and out sell the other team and we've come up short. Soon Trump is going to say “You're fired!” and one of us is done for ever. He's called us in to hear our accounting of how we've done.

One of your team mates leans over and whispers, “Do you ever sit and wonder what Jesus would do if he were on one of these reality shows? Have you thought about how he would play survivor? Or Big Brother? Would he make alliances and back stab people? Would he look out for his own interests?”

That is what you've had to do playing this game. You've had to be shrewd, you've had to be calculating. When you got called into the board room you had to convince Mr. Trump to fire someone else, every week.

Now you're up on the chopping block again.

As you sit there you wonder “what am I going to do?” Whose voice are you going to listen to? The money is talking to you.

“You need me! Take as much of me as you can before you go!”

Money is deceitful, it'll lie to you.

“Treasure me!”

“Treasure me! I will take care of you, I will make you happy!”

“Trust me! Treasure me!”

“We can go it alone?”

But then you wouldn't have made it this far in the game if you hadn't known how to look to your interests. Is it in your interest to go it alone? Is it in your interest to have a little money today and tomorrow its gone? You have the rest of your life to think about.

You think about the day you went to the financial planner and asked how much you would need to retire on, and he said, “How long do you plan to live?”

“Forever! I want to live forever!” Isn't that what your heart screamed? What is in your interest if you want to live forever?

Soon it will all be gone, your job, your money your stuff... What do you hate to part with most? What will you do when its all gone?

“I must look to my own interests,” you tell yourself

I know what I'll do... I need to make it so someone else will hire me. It is in my interest to make friends.

That annoying team mate of yours leans over and whispers to you again. “You know Jesus, I think he would have made lots of alliances. Just look at the way he went around forgiving people. They thought that his Father would only love the people who did everything just right and here comes Jesus giving away his father's love and mercy like it was going out of style. Generosity, now that is a strategy someone should try in these reality shows!”

OK, so maybe you won't win the game, but maybe you can come out ahead anyway. You take sneak Mr. Trump's cell phone off the table and go into the lobby. You start calling all of his business associates.

“Hello, Mr. Richman? Yes, thats right we spoke earlier... that's right I'm one of Mr Trump's apprentices. Mr. Trump wanted to tell you that we are going to modify the contract on that building you're purchasing... No, Mr. Richman, I convinced him to lower the price to below market value. Yes, I know that means no commission, but you can use the savings to do the good work you have there! You're welcome, talk to you soon, Mr Richman.”

“Hello, Mrs. Goldwater? Yes, you know that money you owe Mr. Trump we spoke about earlier? Yes, go ahead and take the interest of your bill... You're welcome....”

And so on you go down Trump's list of contacts.

You look again at that voice screaming from your pocket... “Keep me!” And you say Hush! It is in my interest to use you... I need to get rid of you for now and that's that. Don't look so down.

And here is the big surprise. Mr. Trump hears about it and calls you in. Instead of reprimanding you he says, “Good Job! You made me look good and you took care of yourself, way to go kid! You'll go far.”

Now if you can imagine a person on the Apprentice or Big Brother, or Survivor looking to their own interests and doing something right, something smart, how much more could you as the child of light do something even better? Jesus wants you to look to your own interests, to your eternal life and give like there is no tomorrow!

Jesus said, “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light, I tell you, use worldly [deceitful] wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.”

Puppet song for this Sunday

SWITCHFOOT lyrics

Which law to obey

This is from Tolstoy in his work "My Religion"

One day I was walking (in Moscow) in the Borovitskiya Gates. At the gates an old lame beggar was sitting, with a dirty cloth wrapped about his ears. I was just taking out my purse to give him something. At the same moment down from the Kremlin ran a gallant ruddy-faced young soldier, a grenadier in the crown tulup. The beggar, on perceiving the soldier, arose in fear, and ran with all his might toward the Alexanderovsky Park. The grenadier chased him for a time, but not overtaking him, stopped and began to curse the poor wretch because he had established himself under the gateway contrary to regulations. I waited for the soldier. When he approached me, I asked him if he knew how to read. “Yes; why do you ask?”

“Have you read the New Testament?”

"I have."

“And do you remember the words, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him’….?”

I repeated the passage. He remembered it, and heard me to the end, and I saw that he was uneasy. Two passers-by stopped and listened. The grenadier seemed to be troubled that he should be condemned for doing his duty in driving persons away as he was ordered to drive them away. He was confused, and evidently sought for an excuse. Suddenly a light flashed in his intelligent dark eyes; he looked at me over his shoulder, as if he were about to move away.

“And have you read the military regulation?” he asked.

I said that I had not read it.

“Then don’t speak to me,” said the grenadier, with a triumphant wag of the head, and buttoning up his tulup he marched gallantly to his post.

I am thinking of using a picture like this to illustrate the three characters. Jesus, the image of the invisible God, Martha's hospitality, and Mary the apprentice of prayer.

Counting the Cost

Little Pedro

A missionary was preaching to some Mexicans. After the service, a little boy came walking down the aisle on little fat brown legs. With serious eyes, he looked up at the missionary and said, “You ask what I would have done if I had been in the crowd when Jesus fell, carrying His Cross? Please sir, if I had been there, I would have helped him carry it!”

The missionary said, “But, Pedro, if you had helped Jesus carry his cross, the cruel Roman soldiers would have beaten your back with a whip until the blood ran down to your heels.”

With a look of courage, the little boy said, “I don't care. I would have helped him carry it just the same.”

Two weeks later, little Pedro was at the mission again. The missionary patted him on his back. Pedro winced. “Don't do that, my back is sore, my back hurts.” The missionary took the little boy into another room and looked at his back. It was covered with big bloody welts. “Who did that?” the missionary asked.

“Mother did it. She whipped me because I love Jesus. But I don't care I will always love and serve Jesus!”

Our Lamb Has Conqured Let Us Follow Him

The Moravians had learned that the secret of loving the souls of men was found in loving the Savior of men. On October 8,1732, a Dutch ship left the Copenhagen harbor bound for the Danish West Indies. On board were the two first Moravian missionaries; John Leonard Dober, a potter, and David Nitschman, a carpenter. Both were skilled speakers and ready to sell themselves into slavery to reach the slaves of the West Indies. As the ship slipped away, they lifted up a cry that would one day become the rallying call for all Moravian missionaries, "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering." The Moravian's passion for souls was surpassed only by their passion for the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.