Monday, May 4, 2009

a wonderful world ! ?

If you take a look at how people view the world today, their lens is really different. Let me give you some examples. How do politicians see the world?
 
Well, it depends on what their frame of reference is, depends on what country they come from.
 
For example, if a man had two cows,
a socialist would say, "Give one of those cows to the neighbor who has none." That's the way he views the world.

A Communist would say, "Give milk from the cows to a neighbor; keep the cows yourself."

A Nazi would say, "Well, kill one of the cows; use the money to buy a guard to watch over the other cow."

A Fascist would say, "Kill both cows; take the money and run."

A Capitalist would say, "Sell one cow and buy a bull."

 

.... it's the way you view the world that determines how you're going to get along in the world.

 
So, how do you see the world? Do you see it as a scary place?  how do you think of the world? Is it scary to you?
 
Well, I think there are a lot of angry and confused people out there in the world.
.....that's so true. And, today, we want to see how Jesus saw the world around Him. I'm Woodrow Kroll and you're here at Back to the Bible today.....we're looking at how Jesus sees the world. And really, as I think about that, we are so easily deceived by the world; ...Jesus is well aware of Satan's activity in the world. We're not as aware of Satan's activity, you know. He kind of hides from us but he can't hide from the Savior. So, when Jesus looks at the world, He says, "Look, you have to understand this is a lovely, lovely place; but, it's an evil place. And it's evil because this is a world in which Satan has his greatest influence."
 
My Father did such a wonderful job in creating this world and it's just such a wonderful place to live." You can almost hear Jesus singing with Louis Armstrong about how wonderful this world is.
 
Look, it is a wonderful world; but, Jesus was not naïve in the way He approached this world. So, He says to His disciples, "I'm going to send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves." His take on the world was that the world was filled with wolves and you and I are sheep. - from BACK TO THE BIBLE
 
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......sometimes the greatest witness we can have is to own up to our failures, confess and make restitution where necessary, but share that God is a forgiving and restoring God, and you know that even this failure is not too great for his love and mercy. Don't you know that everybody else struggles with failure too, and if they're not a Christian, they don't have any good way to deal with the guilt.
 
A good friend of mine told me recently that the biggest difference between her and her coworkers who were not Christians was that she apologizes a lot more than they do! She struggles with things in her life, just like you do and just like I do. But God makes her sensitive to them, she is willing to say, "I'm sorry," and God is changing her day by day.
 
There are many reasons that Christians often go underground on their jobs and hide the fact that they are Christians,.....some of us go undercover simply because we're ashamed to say we're Christians, knowing that our lives and lifestyles are not what God would have them to be. We think of the times we've failed to do the right thing, to be kind, to be loving, and our failures cause us to go underground. 
 
I honestly believe that our enemy, Satan, very effectively uses this excuse to cause many of us to stay undercover. He dumps all kinds of guilt on us about our failures and our shortcomings, and we allow him to intimidate us into being weak witnesses on our jobs. Remember, God uses broken vessels. I'm certainly not trying to make light of our sins and it is important that our lives have the highest integrity and standards. But failing at some point does not mean we can never be used by God as a witness on our jobs. 

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