Why Go To Church?

If you're spiritually alive, you're going to love this! 

If you're spiritually dead, you won't want to read it. 

If you're spiritually curious, there is still hope!

A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this.. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!" When you are DOWN to nothing...... God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment! 

I think everyone should read this! 

"When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say, "Jesus, could you get that for me?"

The Last Nickel

A father walks into a restaurant with his young son...
He gives the young boy 3 nickels to play with to keep him occupied.
Suddenly, the boy starts choking, going blue in the face...
The father realizes the boy has swallowed the nickels and starts slapping him on the back..
The boy coughs up 2 of the nickels, but keeps choking. Looking at his son, the father is panicking, shouting for help.
A well-dressed, attractive, and serious looking woman in a blue business suit is sitting at the coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down, neatly folds the newspaper and places it on the counter, gets up from her seat and makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant.
Reaching the boy, the woman carefully drops his pants; takes hold of the boy's' testicles and starts to squeeze and twist, gently at first and then ever so firmly...After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs up the last nickel, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand.
Releasing the boy's testicles, the woman hands the nickel to the father and walks back to her seat at the coffee bar without saying a word..
As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no ill effects, the father rushes over to the woman and starts thanking her saying, "I've never seen anybody do anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor? "
"No" the woman replied. "I'm with the Internal Revenue Service

50 Yard LIne tickets for the Superbowl

A woman had 50 yard line tickets for the Super Bowl. As she sat down, a man came along and asked  her if anyone is sitting in the seat next to her.
"No," she said, "the seat is empty."

"This is incredible," said the man. "Who in their  right mind would have a seat like this for the Super Bowl, the biggest sporting event in the world, and not use it?"

Somberly, the woman  says, "Well... the seat actually belongs to me. I
was supposed to come here with my husband, but he passed away. This is the first Super Bowl we have not been to together since we got married in 1967."

"Oh I'm sorry to hear that, that's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else - a friend or relative or even a neighbor to take the seat?"

 

The woman shakes her head, "No, they're all at the funeral."

A Very Christian Joke

A Little Christian Humor   This is one of the best clean jokes I've seen in awhile!  Jesus and Satan were having an on-going argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering.  Finally fed up, God said, 'THAT'S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job.'  So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.  They moused.  They faxed.  They e-mailed.  They e-mailed with attachments.  They downloaded.  They did spreadsheets!  They wrote reports.  They created labels and cards. They created charts and graphs.  They did some genealogy reports .  They did every job known to man.  Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.  Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed  across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off.  Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld.  Jesus just sighed.  Finally the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming:  'It's gone! It's all GONE! 'I lost everything when the power went out!' Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work. Satan observed this and became irate. 'Wait!' he screamed. 'That's not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don't have any?  God just shrugged and said,   JESUS SAVES....

What happens in Heaven when we pray..

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, ' This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received. 

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world. 

Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.

The angel then said to me, "This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them." I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth. 

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. "This is the Acknowledgment Section, my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed."  How is it that there is no work going on here? ' I asked. 

"So sad," the angel sighed.  "After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments" 

"How does one acknowledge God's blessings? " I asked.. 

"Simple," the angel answered. Just say, "Thank you, Lord. "

"What blessings should they acknowledge?"  I asked. 

"If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world ' s wealthy. " 

"And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity." 

"If you woke up this morning with more health than illness .. You are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day. " 

"If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... You are ahead of 700 million people in the world."

"If you can attend a church without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world."

"If your parents are still alive and still married ...you are very rare." 

"If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you're unique to all those in doubt and despair......."

Ok, what now? How can I start? 

If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you as very special and you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all. 

Have a good day, count your blessings, and if you care to, pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are 

ATTN:  Acknowledge Dept. 

"Thank you Lord, for giving me the ability to share this message and for giving me so many wonderful people with whom to share it."

Sack Lunches

 I put my carry-on in the luggage compartment and sat down in my assigned seat. It was going to be a long flight. 'I'm glad I have a good book to read. Perhaps I will get a short nap,' I thought. 

Just before take-off, a line of soldiers came down the aisle and filled all the vacant seats, totally surrounding me. I decided to start a conversation.

'Where are you headed?' I asked the soldier seated nearest to me.  'Petawawa. We'll be there for two weeks for special training, and then we're being deployed to Afghanistan.

After flying for about an hour, an announcement was made that sack lunches were available for five dollars. It would be several hours before we reached the east, and I quickly decided a lunch would help pass the time... 

As I reached for my wallet, I overheard a soldier ask his buddy if he planned to buy lunch.  'No, that seems like a lot of money for just a sack lunch. Probably wouldn't be worth five bucks. I'll wait till we get to base.' 

His friend agreed. 

I looked around at the other soldiers. None were buying lunch. I walked to the back of the plane and handed the flight 
attendant a fifty dollar bill.  'Take a lunch to all those soldiers.' She grabbed my arms and squeezed tightly. Her eyes wet with tears, she thanked me. 'My son was a soldier in Iraq ; it's almost like you are doing it for him.' 
  
Picking up ten sacks, she headed up the aisle to where the soldiers were seated. She stopped at my seat and asked, 'Which do you like best - beef or chicken?' 'Chicken,' I replied, wondering why she asked. She turned and went to the front of plane, returning a minute later with a dinner plate from first class. 

'This is your thanks.' 

 After we finished eating, I went again to the back of the plane, heading for the rest room. A man stopped me. 'I saw what you did. I want to be part of it. Here, take this.' He handed me twenty-five dollars. 

Soon after I returned to my seat, I saw the Flight Captain coming down the aisle, looking at the aisle numbers as he walked, I hoped he was not looking for me, but noticed he was looking at the numbers only on my side of the plane. When he got to my row he stopped, smiled, held out his hand and said, 'I want to shake your hand.' Quickly unfastening my 
seatbelt I stood and took the Captain's hand. With a booming voice he said, 'I was a soldier and I was a military pilot. Once, someone bought me a lunch. It was an act of kindness I never forgot.' I was embarrassed when applause was heard from all of the passengers. 

Later I walked to the front of the plane so I could stretch my legs. A man who was seated about six rows in front of me reached out his hand, wanting to shake mine. He left another twenty-five dollars in my palm. 

When we landed I gathered my belongings and started to deplane. Waiting just inside the airplane door was a man who stopped me, put something in my shirt pocket, turned, and walked away without saying a word. Another twenty-five dollars! 
Upon entering the terminal, I saw the soldiers gathering for their trip to the base. I walked over to them and handed them seventy-five dollars. 'It will take you some time to reach the base.  It will be about time for a sandwich. God Bless You.' 
  
Ten young men left that flight feeling the love and respect of their fellow travelers. 

As I walked briskly to my car, I whispered a prayer for their safe return. These soldiers were giving their all for our country. I could only give them a couple of meals. It seemed so little... 

A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America  ' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'

Test of Three?

Keep this in mind the next time you hear or are about to repeat a rumor.

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom.
One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance, who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"

"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me, I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Test of Three."

"Test of Three?"

"That's correct," Socrates continued.  "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to test what you're going to say.  The first test is Truth.  Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man replied, "actually I just heard about it."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second test, the test of Goodness.  Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"

"No, on the contrary."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued, "You may still pass though because there is a third test - the filter of Usefulness.  Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"

The man was defeated and ashamed and said no more.