Priorities

Priorities

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is by Dennis Rainey, and the Scripture is Psalm 143:8,10 . . . Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

 

The Encyclopedia Britannica gives a half page to the accomplishments of Charles Francis Adams, the son of President John Quincy Adams.  The younger Adams followed the political trail of his father and became a U.S. diplomat to Great Britain.  The encyclopedia makes no mention of Charles's family, but Charles's diary does.  One day's entry read:  "Went fishing with my son today-a day wasted."

 

Another diary, however, offers a different perspective:  "Went fishing with my father-the most wonderful day of my life."  The person who wrote those words was Charles's son, Brook.

 

Interesting, isn't it . . . how a little boy's perspective can be so different from his dad's?

 

Psalm 90:12  Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Saved By The Blood

Saved By The Blood

Dear Champions,

The short excerpt is by Tim Keller, and the Scripture is 1 Peter 3:18  For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

 
Earnest Gordon was a prisoner of war in Thailand in a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp.  He wrote a book titled, Through the Valley of the Kiwi.  One day the POWs were out working, and at the end of the day a guard shouted that a shovel was missing.  He insisted that someone had stolen it.  Striding up and down before the men the guard ranted and raved while screaming in broken English that the guilty one needed to step forward to take his punishment.  No one moved.  The guard's rage reached new heights of violence.  "Then all die," he shrieked.  To show that he meant what he said he cocked his rifle, put it on his shoulder, and he aimed at the first man in the rank prepared to shoot and work his way down the line.  At that moment a soldier from the Argyle regiment stepped forward and said calmly, "I did it."
 
The guard unleashed all his whipped up hate.  He kicked the helpless prisoner and beat him with his fist.  Still the Argyle stood rigidly to attention though blood was streaming all down his face.  His calm silence seemed to goad the guard into greater rage.  He seized his raffle by the barrow and brought it down onto the skull of the prisoner who sank limply to the ground and never moved again.  Though it was perfectly clear he was dead the guard continued to beat him and stopped only when he was exhausted.  The men on the work detail picked up their comrades body and marched back to camp.  When the tools were counted again at the guardhouse, it turned out that no shovel was missing. 
 
The soldier was innocent.  He knew that if he didn't step forward all of these other people would have died, so he saved them by his blood. 

The meaning of history is that we have a God who offers His own blood to save us!  Jesus died on the cross for our sins!

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Relational Compatibility Is Key

Relational Compatibility Is Key

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is from Andy Stanley, and the scripture is Song of Songs 2:7 - . . . Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.

 

The average divorce rate is about 50 percent.  The divorce rate among couples who live together before they get married is 50 to 80 percent higher than the national average.  The odds of you moving in together and then being happily married are small.  For couples that live together before they get married, the odds of someone in that relationship being unfaithful are twice to eight times as high as the national average.  

 

The longer that you can postpone the physical, the more that you can work on the relational part of the relationship.  When the physical goes up, the relational part goes down.  

 

Sexual compatibility is not the litmus test for relational compatibility.  It's the other way around.  You are sexually compatible with millions of people.  You are not relationally compatible with as many people as you are sexually compatible.  Sexual activity covers a multiple of relational deficiencies.  If you want a relationship that results in great sex, then you need to become a person that knows how to build a great relationship.  Great sex is connected to intimacy, and the most satisfying sexual relationships are within the context of relationships.  The people that are most satisfied with sex are married. 

 

If sex was just physical and not reproductional, then just go and have a good time.  Because sex is not just physical and is reproductional, then you have got to handle it with care.  It is fragile.  One hundred percent of the portrayals of sex is that it is just physical, and it is not.  You hurt yourself when you treat it as if it was only physical.    

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining