A sheriff walks into a saloon and shouts for everyone's attention. "Has anyone seen Brown Paper Jake?"
"What's he look like?", asks one shoddy-looking cowboy.
"Well", replies the Sheriff. "He wears a brown paper hat, a brown paper waistcoat, a brown paper shirt, brown paper boots, brown paper pants, and a brown paper jacket."
"So what's he wanted for?", asks the same cowboy.
"Rustlin'."
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One of Howdy's all time favorite jokes - used often through our 9 year history...
Listen with RealAudio!http://www.gospelcom.net/rhm/sounds/awwy/awwy4051.ram
One of the most amazing Christian warriors in my lifetime is a manwho has come to be known as Brother Andrew, or "God's Smuggler." He's riskedeverything to get God's Word into spiritually closed countries where thatwas virtually impossible. Many consider him a real spiritual hero. No onecan doubt that he is, at the very least, a bold risk-taker for Christ.
In his biography, he tells about an incident in his early life as afollower of Christ that showed him the kind of God he was serving. Aftersome pretty wild years without the Lord, he came to Christ and almostimmediately felt the call to begin training for the ministry. He went tothis small Bible school in Scotland, and before the students were allowed tograduate, they were given a very unusual assignment. They were asked to goout for a month to do evangelistic outreaches in Scottish villages, and theywere given some money to live on - one British pound, to be exact. For thoseof us who are Americans, it would be like being given a dollar to live onfor a month. The students were to go with that one bill and eat, and sleep,and rent halls, and buy refreshments, and hold outreaches, and return thatone bill at the end of the month. Brother Andrew's team went out and didjust that. Except he returned with enough money for the school to send outtwo missionaries!
Maybe everyone in God's service should have an assignment likethat - to live the adventure of what life is like when all you've got isGod. Now you may be at or near that point right now. Or it may be that Godwants you to be at that point, and you've been avoiding it. For all of us,the ultimate questions of security and obedience boil down to this: Can Godbe trusted? Is God really enough? Figuratively speaking, can I make it whenit's just "one dollar and God"?
Our word for today from the Word of God is 1 Kings 17:1-6. Theprophet Elijah has just delivered a message of God's judgment to the Jewishking that there's going to be a long drought in Israel. Then the prophet isgiven an assignment that sounds something like Brother Andrew's in Bibleschool. He is sent into a situation where it's just him and God - just himand whatever God provides, that is. He's being sent away from all the normalsources of supply.
Here's what the Bible says: "Then the word of the Lord came toElijah, 'Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine. You willdrink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there.' Sohe did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine and stayedthere. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread andmeat in the evening, and he drank from the brook."
Now, God sends Elijah into this situation where God is all he has.God may be doing the same thing with you. And notice, God will always find away to provide what His servant needs. He's, in fact, the God of unlikelysources! His people have nowhere to get water in the wilderness, so it comesfrom a rock! Five thousand people have nowhere to get lunch, so Jesus takesthe one lunch there and makes 5,000 lunches from it.
Elijah is in the wilderness where there is nowhere to get food. Ohyeah? Twice a day, here come the ravens, delivering God's supply. But youhave to be in a seemingly hopeless situation like this to experience God'samazingness like this. I want to tell you that after 35 years of faithministry, I can "amen" David's testimony in Psalm 37:25. "I was young andnow I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their childrenbegging bread."
If God has you at a point where it's "one dollar and God" -financially, emotionally, physically - don't stop trusting Him now. Yoursecurity is not the resources you have in your hand, but the Heavenly Fatheryou belong to. And if you've been holding back from God's calling becauseyou can't see where the resources will come from, remember the God of themanna, and the ravens, and the endless lunch. If you don't step out of theboat, you'll never know what it is to walk on water!
A great spiritual warrior was once a Bible school student with theequivalent of a dollar to live and a month to live on it. And he found outwhat you can discover in a time when there seems to be "no way," one dollarand God is more than enough for everything you need!
To find out how you can begin a personal relationship with Jesus Christ,please visit YOURS FOR LIFE: HOW TO HAVE LIFE'S MOST IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIP at:http://www.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bounce?b=871Or, call 1-888-NEED HIM.
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Please note: If you see a UNC student or a liberal reading 'Thought & Humor', please explain to them which is thought & which is humor. They always get it backwards.......
A posterity shall serve Him. It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation. Psalm 22:30
Just as tossing a stone into a lake creates ripples to the shoreline, so our simple acts of witness produce results that extend to the return of Christ.
Early one Sunday, a young man dragged himself home from a night of partying. As an instructor at Tampa’s Arthur Murray Studio, he was single, popular, and unhindered by morality. He collapsed into bed, setting his radio alarm for mid-afternoon. When the radio came on, he was jolted awake by the preaching of Donald Barnhouse, who was asking: "Suppose you were to die today and stand before God and He asked you, ‘What right do you have to enter into my heaven?’what would you say?"
That’s the moment the Holy Spirit touched D. James Kennedy, who is now one of America’s eminent pastors. At the time, however, no one knew the results of that broadcast. It was unknown to Dr. Barnhouse, to the producers of the show, to the supporters who had given their gifts to put it on the air, or to workers in the studio. Only heaven will tabulate the results of that Sunday afternoon broadcast.
You’re doing more good than you know. Don’t ever underestimate the handful of stones you’re throwing into the pond whenever you say a word for Christ.
Do all the good you can by all the means you can. John Wesley