by Barry Newton

Don't you just hate it when Jesus takes away a perfectly good excuse? After all, is it not much more convenient and comforting just to blame others than to face your own responsibility?

If you dare ingest straight medicine, consider Jesus' all-too-personal parable about growing plants. Through his story we discover we can not blame the sad state of the sickly and dying plants, as well as those which never even germinated, upon the leadership of a church, the preacher or a Bible school teacher. In the same conditions where some plants had withered, others had thrived! Why the difference? The hard-to-hear message is one of personal responsibility.

Jesus' parable reveals that what makes the difference between the spiritual growth that produces a harvest verses the spiritually stunted or dying is the state of a person's heart. Call it whatever you like, but a diseased spirituality occurs where people are more concerned about having fun, their bills, and other pressures in life than they are concerned about how God's word should change their thinking, habits and lifestyle. Similarly, spiritual death can occur when a person's greatest desire involves avoiding persecution or trouble on account of God's word. The reason why some plants were stunted, died or never even germinated comes back to personal responsibility.

For those who want to understand, Jesus' Parable of the Sower is a story calling us to allow God's word to change our values and mold our lifestyle so that our character will reflect his word and we will deliberately use our time and lifestyle to achieve his purposes. Good soil produces a harvest.

Jesus' parable steps all over our toes. I'm not so concerned about this. Good soil understands that being uncomfortable presents the needed opportunity to change and grow. What I'm concerned about is that person who simply doesn't care, or who understands but whose final response involves being defensive or aggressive against the message. Such is not the behavior of growth.

by J. Randal Matheny

In 1977 Merhan Karimi Nasseri was expelled from his native Iran, without a passport, for protesting against the Shah. He bounced around Europe in search of a country and finally gained refugee papers from Belgium in 1981. Only to have them stolen. So in August of 1988, he got stuck in Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris, France. No papers, no way of getting out, nowhere to go.

He took up residence in Terminal One. He's been there ever since. He's never put a foot out into the sunshine. Since 1988, he's never had his own quarters, never worked a single day, never walked through a meadow or park.

What a sad thing, right? Yes, until 1999.

That's when he finally got permission to leave the airport. Granted new papers, he can go to any part of Europe, if he wants. But now he won't leave.

"He is scared to leave this bubble world he has been living in," said Dr. Philippe Bargain, the airport's medical director. "Finally getting the papers has been a huge shock to him, as if he was just thrown from his horse. When you wait 11 years for something and suddenly in a few minutes you sign some papers and it's done — imagine what a shock that is."/1

He's free, but after 11 years of captivity in an airport terminal, he just can't bring himself to walk away.

And he has money. Dreamweaver is said to have paid him $250,000 for the rights to his story, for the movie, "The Terminal," with Tom Hanks.

What makes a man with money and papers stay in the terminal prison he inhabited for 11 years?

The same fear that keeps us imprisoned in our resentments, behaviors, vices, and sins. The same feeling of being accustomed to our little world of selfishness, pride, and egotism. The intimate knowledge of every corner of our puny existence versus the great, wide world of God's immense mercy and mission.

Nasseri is not alone in his predicament. So many of us are just like him. Hunkering in our habits, hiding in our corners.

To this day, Nasseri looks out the automatic doors of the Charles De Gaulle Airport and sees the sun, feels the breeze of the open air, but can't bring himself to step out into freedom.

For you, too, the doors are open. The sun of God's grace is shining. The cool wind of Christ's salvation is blowing.

Just walk out. Freedom is a step away.

"For freedom Christ has set us free" (Galatians 5:1).

1/ www.snopes.com

by Barbara Oliver

When I was a child, my mother made me wear big white socks that she had worn until they were too stretched out for her. They were so big I had to put rubber bands around the tops to hold them up.

One day, on my way home from school, it started to rain, and those socks got so wet that the rubber bands couldn't hold them up anymore. They sank down to my ankles in a big, messy clump. The other kids laughed at me, and I began to cry.

Out of nowhere, a big umbrella covered me over, and an arm fell across my shoulders. A soft voice comforted me, telling me that people had laughed at her before, and that I should not pay any attention to those kids. She said it didn't matter what I wore or what other people thought of me because of the way I looked. It only mattered whom I was inside.

I let the warmth of her words and touch soak into my weary young body. Too shy to look up, all I saw were dark legs at the top of her boots.

During times of heartache and trouble, I am reminded of another voice that comforts me. "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5b, NKJV). And I am reminded that part of my job here on earth is to be a comforter (1 Thessalonians 5:11; Romans 12:15, 12:10).

On rainy days, I remember the sweet black teenager who took the time to love a little white kid with droopy socks and a broken heart.

by J. Randal Matheny

In my email program, I have two kinds of folders. The first are the automatic ones, like Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Trash, and Junk Mail. These stay at the top of the list. The second set I created, for people, lists subscriptions, and ezines.

In that second set is a folder called aaineedthis, for emails important to me. Perhaps a special message dear to my heart. Or something I want to read with some frequency. Hence, the "ineedthis" part (I need this). I added the two "aa's" at the beginning to place this folder at the top of the alphabetical listing.

When I named that folder, a funny thing happened.

The last automatic folder is Junk Mail, where my spam filter throws dubious messages. The first created folder is aaaineedthis. So the two folders, Junk Mail and aaineedthis, are neighbors, one right below the other.

The content of each is drastically different.

Life is like my folders.

The junk and the treasures often lie side by side. Trash is often thrown beneath -- or on top of -- the treasure. Next door to the church building may operate the strip joint or the alcoholic's bar. On the bookshelf a commentary faithful to the text may stand next to a work marred by skepticism and faulty scholarship.

The catch is knowing the difference. Because in real life, the junk may be named treasure and the worthy may be called trash. (This is not a new problem, says Isaiah 5:20-21.)

So Scripture tells us to watch out, to discern between what's good and what's bad.

"... test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:21-22, NRSV).

"... weigh what is said" (1 Corinthians 14:29).

"A discerning man keeps wisdom in view, but a fool's eyes wander to the ends of the earth" (Proverbs 17:24, NIV).

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).

Let's make sure our junk file doesn't hold something precious. And that our "aaineedthis" file, or whatever you may name it, doesn't harbor trash.

For our freedom depends on it.

Max Patterson

If God became a man, we would expect supernatural doings. The great miracles of Jesus testify to this.

If God became a man, we would expect Him to manifest the love of God. Christ was completely unselfish. He cared for the sinful, brokenhearted, the contrite, the despised, the poor. His supreme act of love is what He did on the cross.

If God became a man, we would expect His personality to be true humanity. God has shown us what a true, real man should be like. He has shown us, as well as told us, what to do.

The character of Jesus is one of the greatest evidences of His deity that can be given.

I believe Christianity can be verified through the miracles Christ performed. Would the New Testament be worth believing without miracles? Miracles authenticate the message of Christ. Jesus appeals to His miracles for His true divinity (John 10:24, 37, 38; Luke 7:20-22). These miracles were performed in the full light of history. Many were performed before the public eye. Many were performed in the company of unbelievers. There were all types of miracles. We have the abundant testimony of the cured. There is no adequate evidence contrary to miracles.

I believe Christianity can be verified through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. The resurrection is the miracle. Despite the unbeliever's attitude toward this miracle, not one through the ages has been able to explain it away. And what about the hundreds of people who saw Jesus after His resurrection, and on many different occasions (1 Corinthians 15)? The testimony is sure and our faith in Christ is certain.

Thanks to The Voice of Truth International, Vol 4, pg. 18.