I Have Moved

Can't remember if I told you all, but:

I have moved out from 1 Beggars Alley, located at 2 Poverty Lane at the corner of Bleak and Buster Circle. As of today, I have a brand new home.

My new address is: Living Well on 3 Abundance Drive, located at the corner of Blessings Street and Prosperity Peak. No longer! will I allow my self to travel on Begging Peter to pay off Paul route, located at a dead end intersection called I Don't Have, it connects with Borrowers Junction.

I no longer hang out at Failure's Place, near Excuses Avenue, next to Procrastination Point. I've moved on to an Upscale community called Higher Heights with unlimited potential and opportunities for me to succeed.

Look at me. Each day that I'm awake, I am thankful to be a product of my new environment. All my clothes are tailor made. I'm dressed in life's finest. Let me introduce you to all of them: Divine Favour,
Conceive, Believe, Act on Faith, Be Persistent, and Always be Prepared to Achieve.

Life is good because God is good! Care to change your address? There are many vacancies!

GREAT IS THY FAITHFULNESS
I AM WELL BLESSED AND SO ARE YOU!!
'DON'T TELL GOD HOW BIG YOUR STORM IS, TELL YOUR STORM HOW BIG OUR GOD IS'

Exchanged Values

Observation: An old proverb says that "The world is a net; the more we stir in it, the more we are entangled."

Max Lucado, a prominent author and minister, tells this story about a prank that occurred years ago: It seems a couple of prowlers broke into a department store in a large city. They successfully entered the store, stayed long enough to do what they came to do, and escaped unnoticed. What is unusual about the story is what these fellows did. They took nothing. Absolutely nothing. No merchandise was stolen. No items were removed. But what they did do was ridiculous. Instead of stealing anything, they changed the cost of everything. Price tags were swapped. Values were exchanged. These clever pranksters took the tag off a $395.00 camera and stuck it on a $5.00 box of stationery.

The $5.95 sticker on a paperback book was removed and placed on an outboard motor. They repriced everything in the store! Crazy? You bet. But the craziest part of this story took place the next morning. The store opened as usual. Employees went to work. Customers began to shop. The place functioned as normal for four hours before anyone noticed what had happened. Four hours! Some people got some great bargains. Others got fleeced. For four solid hours no one noticed that the values had been swapped.

How Does This Apply to Our Lives?
As price tags were exchanged, valuable goods became cheap, and the cheap became valuable. This can happen to us. We exchange things that are important for those that, in comparison, are unimportant- -the world honors success and hard work, so we devote ourselves to jobs we can't wait to retire from, while ignoring marriages that we entered in to for a lifetime; we seek clean, healthy homes, but let them become dumping grounds for the pollution contained in some television programs, movies and popular music; and, we want our children to have strong character traits like honesty and integrity, but spend far more time taking them to athletic events and other activities than tending to their spiritual and moral needs. Yes, the world is a net; the more we stir in it, the more we are entangled. Seeking "happiness" and acceptance, we buy into the world's values and do what is popular. But if the world's values can produce true happiness, why is there a constant effort to create and promote new forms of amusement and entertainment? Focus your time and attention on what is valuable to you. While doing so, put your spiritual needs at the top of the list. Nothing should come before your relationship with a man named Jesus. Even though he was dead, he is now alive, seated at the right hand of the throne of God. He understands, he knows, he cares. And he nourishes those who seek to be fed.

As Erwin Lutzer observed ...
If you are not nourished by the Bread from heaven, you will stuff yourself with crumbs from the world. Real nourishment comes only from Jesus Christ. You'll be eternally sorry if you exchange real nourishment for crumbs.

"What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?" ( Mark 8:36 )

Author Unknown

The Race

Defeat! He lay there silently, a tear dropped from his eye, "There's no sense running anymore- three strikes and I'm out- why try?"

The will to rise has disappeared, all hope had fled away, so far behind, so error prone, closer all the way. "I've lost, so what's the use", he thought "I'll live with my disgrace." But then he thought about his dad who soon he'd have to face. Get up, and echo sounded low, get up and take your place.

You were not meant for failure here, so get up and win the race. With Borrowed will, "Get up!", It said, "You haven't lost at all, for winning is not more than this, to rise each time you fall."

So he rose to win once more, and with new commitment he resolved to win or lose, at least he wouldn't quit. So far behind the others now, the most he'd ever been, still he gave it all he had, and ran as though to win. Three times he'd fallen stumbling, three times he rose again. To far behind to hope to win, he still ran to the end.

They cheered the winning runner as he crossed. First place, head high and proud and happy, no falling, no disgrace. But when the fallen youngster crossed the line, last place, the crowd gave him the greater cheer for finishing the race. And even though he came in last, with head bow low, unproud. You would have thought he won the race, to listen to the crowd. And to his dad he sadly said, "I didn't do so well".

To me, you won, his father said, you rose each time you fell. And now when things seem dark and hard and difficult to face, the memory of that little boy helps me in my own race. For all of life is like that race, with ups and downs and all. And all you have to do to win is rise each time you fall. "Quit! Give up you're beaten," they will shout in my face. But another voice within me says, "Get up and win that race!"