Quotes from Pastor Paul

My husband has always liked short, but meaningful quotes that he reads or hears. He has a notebook where he writes them down. He also has just come up with many on his own over the years of teaching/preaching.

I am getting a new computer (my current one is almost eleven years old and just cannot keep up with all the new updates in the internet world). It’s like driving a model T car on the interstate. Does not work.

Going through all the documents and pictures I have accumulated in those eleven years is crazy. What needs to go to the trash bin and what needs to be saved to a new computer???

Going through my husband’s folder, I found one of his lists of quotes. Some are serious and thoughtful; some are just silly. Most of these are his own, but if there are any that are not original to him, I apologize for the plagiarism.

Before deleting, I thought I would share.

  • Say “no” to sin and “yes” to God.
  • Eternity is too long to be wrong.
  • What part of “thou shalt not” did you not understand?
  • You have a right to be wrong if you want to.
  • There is more to serving God than 11 am on Sunday morning.
  • Emotion without devotion is just commotion.
  • Serving God is walking straight after you repent.
  • I never saw a U-Haul behind a hearse.
  • If you want something out of church, put something in.
  • It is not what Grandma told you, what you think or what you saw that is the truth, but what “thus says the Lord.”

Friday’s List of Funny Signs – for Laughter

On a recent trip to Ludington, Michigan I saw some interesting signs along the way.

  1. from a restaurant: “Our fish come from the best schools.”
  2. from an ice cream parlor: “This is a happy place…if you are crabby, go home.”
  3. from the trail to the Big Sable Lighthouse at the life saving station: “Be prepared to go out, not to come back.”
  4. on a plaque in an antiques store: “4 out of 5 Great Lakes prefer Michigan.”
  5. on the door of an used book store: “Each time you read a book, a tree smiles, knowing there is life after death.”

Friday’s List of Quotes

Hope you enjoy these. All from my daily devotion book.

  1. Some people are so indecisive, their favorite color is plaid.
  2. Before passing judgment on a sermon, be sure to try it out in practice.
  3. Kindness is a language the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
  4. Lord, make my words kind, because tomorrow I may have to eat them.
  5. Those who deserve love the least are the ones who need it the most.
  6. The brook would lose its song if the rocks were removed.
  7. Love is not just sentiment; it is service.
  8. When you pray, make sure your will is in neutral so God can shift it.
  9. Service is a gift of love to people given in gratitude for God’s gift of love for you.
  10. Man sees your actions, but God sees your motives.

Friday’s Quotes – Importance of God’s Word

  1. Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
  2. How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living accord to Your word.
  3. I have hidden Your word in my heart that I might not sin against You.
  4. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.
  5. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
  6. It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
  7. The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.
  8. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
  9. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
  10. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Laughter and Wisdom from the Queen

Since we just saw England celebrate the 70 years of the reign by Queen Elizabeth II, I thought I would share her comments for my Friday list of laughter and wisdom (even though i am a day late.)

  1. Grief is the price we pay for love.
  2. None of us can slow the passage of time; and while we often focus on all that has changed in the intervening years, much remains unchanged, including the Gospel of Christ and his teachings.
  3. When life seems hard, the courageous do not lie down and accept defeat; instead, they are all the more determined to struggle for a better future.
  4. If I wore beige, nobody would know who I am.
  5. It has been women who have breathed gentleness and care into the harsh progress of mankind.
  6. Children teach us all a lesson – just as the Christmas story does – that in the birth of a child, there is a new dawn with endless potential.
  7. We all need to get the balance right between action and reflection. With so many distractions, it is easy to forget to pause and take stock.
  8. Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us have a monopoly on wisdom.
  9. Memories are our second chance at happiness.
  10. The world is not the most pleasant place. Eventually your parents leave you and nobody is going to go out of their way to protect you unconditionally. You need to learn to stand up for yourself and what you believe and sometimes, pardon my language, kick some ass.

Friday’s List for Wisdom and Laughter

  1. Pride always demands that “I’ be in the middle.
  2. Let us pray not for lighter burdens but for stronger backs.
  3. In God’s kingdom there are no undesirables.
  4. By loving the unlovable, you made me lovable….Augustine
  5. Married life: telling your husband something ten times only to have him say “You never told me that.”
  6. You are only as pretty as you treat people.
  7. Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.
  8. One day you will wake up and there will be no more time to do the things you wanted to do. Do it now….Paul Coelho
  9. Don’t save anything for a special occasion. Being alive is the special occasion.
  10. Don’t worry that your children are never listening to you. Worry that they are always watching you….Robert Fulghum

Friday – Time for More Wisdom or Laughter

Well I appear to be on a row. Love sharing quotes I see and hear and Friday seems to be the day to do that. Hope you laugh or have a moment to reflect on a statement.

  1. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.
  2. Swallowing of pride seldom leads to indigestion.
  3. A pessimist is a person who is seasick during the entire voyage of life.
  4. A person becomes wise by watching what happens to him when he is not.
  5. You are only young once, but immaturity can last a lifetime.
  6. Do not have your concert first and tune your instruments afterward. Begin the day with God.
  7. Man sees your actions, God sees your motives.
  8. Isn’t it interesting how people are not too busy to stop and tell you how busy they are?
  9. Criticism from a wise person is more to be desired than the approval of a fool.
  10. Love is the forgetting of one’s self in the service of others.

Who’s Your Authority?

Heard a great sermon today on the principle of authority and respect. Pastor mentioned three sources of authority we can choose.

  • Our own authority. We can say “No one is going to tell me what to do. I am going to do what I want. I have my rights”
  • Other’s authority. We can decide to do what everyone else is doing, what is popular, what our crowd believes.
  • God’s authority. We can choose to follow the teachings of Jesus.

Hmm. You mean things like “pray for those who persecute you” or how about “But I say to you that everyone who continues to be angry with his brother or harbors malice against him shall be guilty before the court; and whoever speaks [contemptuously and insultingly] to his brother, ‘Raca (You empty-headed idiot)!’ shall be guilty before the supreme court (Sanhedrin); and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of the fiery hell.”

Or, how about A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Jesus spoke these words to His disciples as they had their last meal together just before He went to the cross. He said it was a new commandment. Yet He had told them before that they should love others. He had said that all the Law and the Prophets could be summed up in two commandments: Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.

What was new about this commandment?

It appears to me that Jesus was giving us a standard by which we could judge how we love our neighbor. It was more than just how we love our self. It was as He has loved us.

As we listen to the social and political world right now, we see little of love and kindness. But what disturbs me is that many of our evangelical Christian leaders are as guilty as non-believers in this battle of words.

Following the authority of Jesus is not easy. I am afraid I have failed a lot on that one. My prayer today is that God will help me put a watch on my tongue.

And I pray that those who claim to speak for the church will also return to following Jesus rather than following the example of the rest of society.

Another list for Wisdom or Laughter

In my reading I love to collect those one or two sentence phrases that make me laugh or make me think. Here are a few I hope you enjoy.

  1. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society…Mark Twain
  2. Why does a woman work ten years to change a man’s habits and then complain he is not the man she married?…Barbra Streisand
  3. The trouble with “A place for everything and everything in its place” is that there is always more everything than places…Elayne Bundy
  4. The reason they are called the opposite sex is every time you think you have fooled your wife, It’s just the opposite…Walter Winchell
  5. Before we work on artifical intelligence, why don’t we do something about natural stupidity?…Steve Polyak
  6. Three wise men – are you serious?…Author unknown
  7. You can learn much from children. How much patience you have, for instance…Franklin P. Jones
  8. Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself…Tom Wilson
  9. If we’re not meant to have midnight snacks, why is there a light in the fridge?…Unknown
  10. I love being married. It’s so great to find one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life…Rita Rudner

One Sentence for Wisdom or Laughter

Some wise – and perhaps some funny – sayings I found in my devotion book. Hope you enjoy them.

  • Lighthouses don’t fire off cannons to draw attention to their light – they just shine
  • If your service for God is worth anything, it’s worth everything
  • By the time you get your shoulder to the wheel, your nose to the grindstone and your ear to the ground, it’s time for lunch
  • Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship
  • What you possess will go to someone else when you die, but what you are will be yours forever
  • The devil’s best tool is not an active sinner, but an inactive Christian
  • Failure is something we can avoid by doing nothing, saying nothing, being nothing
  • If you realize you are not as wise as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today.
  • Some people never change their opinion because after all it has been in their family for generations.
  • Some people pray like God is an aspirin tablet – they only pray when there is a problem.