Benton, West Frankfort, Illinois News | Franklin County News
Newspaper covering Franklin County, Illinois
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Barack Obama’s recent denunciation of President Donald Trump’s treatment of the press overlooks the aggressive steps the Justice Department took to keep information from the public during his administration. Obama also made a problematic claim that Republican “sabotage” has cost 3 million people their health insurance
Here’s a link to the story at the Southern Illinoisan.
A Prayer for a Full Life
By Greg Laurie
“I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.” – Psalm 146:2
Jesus Christ was, according to the Bible, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He knows and understands the pain and hurt deep inside your soul when you have lost someone you love.
John 11:35 tells us, “Jesus wept.” Tears rolled down His cheeks, tears of sympathy for Mary and Martha for all the sorrow that is caused by sin and death. And in that sense, Jesus has wept with us as well.
Death never was God’s plan in the beginning. But now, because of the entrance of sin into the human race, all of us will die one day. Some will live longer than others, but we all will die. And we think the greatest tragedy is when someone dies young. While this is an extreme tragedy, I don’t think it is the ultimate tragedy. I think the ultimate tragedy is when a life has been lived to its entire length and has been entirely wasted and squandered on sin.
I think of the words of Jim Elliot, who was a modern-day martyr of the faith, put to death as he tried to bring the gospel to a tribe in Ecuador known at the time as the Aucas. Jim was lanced through with a spear, and wrapped around that spear was one of the gospel tracts he and missionary pilot Nate Saint had dropped over their village from the air. In his journal Jim Elliot had written, “I seek not a long life but a full one like Yours, Lord Jesus.”
We think that length of life is the ultimate goal. And yes, it’s good to live long. But what is more important is to live right, to do what is right before God. What is more important is to live a life that is pleasing to Him.
Dear Lord, thank you for your many blessings. Thank you for the lives we have been graciously given, and help us to use our limited time for good. Help us to pursue our lives to their fullest. Remind us that living for you is the only path to true fulfillment.
By Rick Warren
”A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash” (Proverbs 15:14 NLT).
You don’t get it from television. You don’t get it from the internet. You don’t get it from magazines. Wisdom comes from God.
The Bible says in Proverbs 15:14, “A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash” (NLT). You can either feed on truth or feed on trash. Whatever you fill your mind with is what’s going to come out—garbage in, garbage out. If you want to be wise, you’ve got to feed every day on truth, not trash.
There are three kinds of things you can fill your mind with: You can fill your mind with poison, you can fill your mind with junk food, or you can fill your mind with health food.
Poison is stuff that destroys your system. It’s bad for you. It takes you down. Pornography is poison. For instance, they may say, “I can watch that stuff. It doesn’t bother me anymore.” That’s the problem! When you can watch and read stuff that is profane, blasphemous, evil, vile, and abusive and it doesn’t bother you, you have a problem. You have become a fool.
Wise people protect their mind. They put on the helmet of salvation. They don’t just allow anything into their mind. They keep the poison out.
Junk food is neither good nor bad. It just has no nutritional value to it. Most of the stuff you see on tv is not evil. It’s just junk food. It’s what I call stuffing. But the problem with stuffing is that when you stuff yourself with stuffing, you have no hunger for truth. If you watch TV for four hours, your mind is full of empty calories that don’t help your body or your mind.
Health food is nutritional food. It helps you grow and maintain your health. It is truth, and the wise person feeds on truth. It makes you wiser—in your relationships, your time, your money, your business, your parenting, your marriage, and every other area of your life.
The first place you need to go to fill your mind with truth is God’s Word. The more you develop the habit of spending time each day reading and studying the Bible, the wiser you will become.
President Obama is mighty confused.
Here’s a link to the editorial at Fox News.
|
By Rick Warren
”As a result of your ministry, they will give glory to God. For your generosity to them and to all believers will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ” (2 Corinthians 9:13 NLT).
It makes you happy. Acts 20:35 says, “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (NLT). Notice Jesus didn’t say it is not a blessed thing to receive. It does make you happy to receive. But the world will tell you that you will be happiest when you receive. Jesus turned that idea around and said that you will be happier when you give than when you receive.
It just makes sense. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 9:6, “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously” (NIV). Every one of us wants others to be generous with us. Do you think that by sowing miserly selfishness you’re going to reap generosity from God and others? God says that’s not the way life works. There is a law of sowing and reaping. So if you want to reap generosity, you have to sow generosity.
It shows the world what God is like. The Bible says, “As a result of your ministry, they will give glory to God. For your generosity to them and to all believers will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ” (2 Corinthians 9:13 NLT).
When it comes to generosity, what encourages me is to remember the incredible generosity of God. Look at the world we get to live in. Look at the life he gave us. Look at the way he meets our needs. God is the perfect model of generosity. And when we are generous with others because of God’s generosity toward us, it points others to God.
Are you ready to invite Jesus into your heart?
Are you ready to receive God’s gift of grace to you? It’s a simple prayer that will tell God you accept the gift of Jesus.
Prayer:
“Dear God, I’m scared, but I want to get to know you. I don’t understand it all, but I thank you that you love me. I thank you that you were with me, even when I didn’t recognize it. I thank you that you are for me — that you didn’t send Jesus to condemn me but to save me.
“I admit that I never even realized I needed a Savior, but today I want to receive the gift of your Son. I ask you to save me from my past, my regrets, my mistakes, my sins, my habits, my hurts, and my hang-ups. I need you to take away the stress and fill me with your love. I need to be at peace with you, and I need you to put your peace in my heart.
“I ask you to save me for your purpose. I want to know why you put me on this planet. And I want to fulfill what you made me to do. I want to learn to love you and trust you and have a relationship with you. I prayer this in the name of Jesus, amen.”
If you prayed that prayer, please write and tell me at Rick@PastorRick.com. I’d love to send you some materials as you begin your journey with Jesus.
Fifteen weeks ago, we offered the first of our 11 invitations to the campaign of J.B. Pritzker. Would he join Gov. Bruce Rauner and other candidates for governor in a spirited discussion with the Tribune Editorial Board?
Here’s a link to the editorial in the Chicago Tribune.
Former President Obama gave the nation some insights into the Democratic Party’s midterm election strategy Friday with a political speech demonizing Americans who elected Donald Trump as president and doubling down on the failed liberal ideology that devastated our economy.
Here’s a link to the editorial at Fox News.
By Rick Warren
“Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (Colossians 3:13 NLT).
You see the one in your family who’s struggling right now as a drain on you rather than seeing her hopelessness over a desperate situation. You see the person who cut you off on the freeway as the physical embodiment of Satan instead of just a jerk who is in need of God’s love.
We are all jerks in need of God’s love. That’s why Jesus Christ came into this world. And to show people grace is to remember what God has done for us. The ultimate way God shows us grace is by forgiveness. And the ultimate way he asks us to show grace to other people is by forgiving them.
Colossians 3:13 says, “Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (NLT).
People often ask me, “How can I find the strength to forgive? I don’t have it in me.” I don’t have it in me, either! The only place I’ve ever found the strength to forgive is to remember how much Jesus has forgiven me. When I remember that, then he gives me the strength and grace to forgive others.
Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross, was reminded by a friend of an especially cruel thing that somebody had done to her years before. Barton acted like she didn’t remember it, and the friend asked, “Don’t you remember?” Her famous reply was, “No, I distinctly remember forgetting it.”
What do you need to forget? If you don’t forgive, you’re not going to enjoy God’s vision for the rest of your life, because forgiveness will keep you stuck in the past. You need to forgive for your sake, and then you need to get on with your life. Forgiveness is not saying that what somebody did was right or that there shouldn’t be consequences for what happened. It just means that you let go of your anger and hurt and give it to God so that you can move on with God’s purpose for your life.
When that seems impossible, when you feel like you can’t be gracious toward someone, just remember one thing: Jesus forgave you. Remembering the grace God has shown you will give you the strength to be gracious to and forgive others.
