In his book, "Don't Waste
Your Life", John Piper says
one of the primary differences between humans
and animals is that human
beings are given the opportunity to make choices
about their work based
on motives that can either honor God or dishonor
Him.
Piper writes, "No beaver or
bee or hummingbird or
ant consciously relies on God. No beaver ponders
the divine pattern of
order and beauty and makes a moral choice to
pursue excellence because
God is excellent. No beaver ever pondered the
preciousness and purpose
of God and decided for God's sake to make a dam
for another beaver and
not for himself. But humans have all these
potentials, because we are created
in God's image. We are created to image forth
God in these ways. When God
commissions us to subdue the earth—to shape it
and use it—he doesn't mean
do it like a beaver. He means do it like a
human, a morally self-conscious
person who is responsible to do his work
intentionally for the glory of
his Maker."
—"Don't Waste Your Life, John
Piper, pg 140. Illustration
by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.
Colossians 3:17 (HCSB) "And
whatever you do, in word
or in deed, do everything in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks
to God the Father through Him."
TO GOD BE THE GLORY
It would be easy for MVP
quarterback Curt Warner to
give a "stay with it and pull yourself up by
your own boot strap like I
did" speech, but he doesn't. According to
Warner, much of the credit for
his remarkable turn around goes to his wife
Brenda, and his relationship
to Jesus Christ.
At a Billy Graham event
during the fall of 1999, Warner
told the crowd, "It [his success] has nothing to
do with how I work out
in the off-season, or my diet. The secret of my
success is simply Jesus
Christ."
—ReligionToday, 1-28-2000
Illustration by Jim L. Wilson
GLORY
How long have you been
playing golf and how many
holes in one have you recorded?
Central Illinois amateur
golfer Curt Hocker, 22, is
on a roll. Five rolls, to be exact. Ask
anyone at the El Paso Golf
Club in Kappa, Ill., where Hocker has
recorded five holes-in-one
in the last week, including two on
Saturday. This year alone, Hocker
has seven aces—five on par 4s—and two other
double eagles. “I don’t
know what to think,” said Hocker, who works in
the club’s pro shop.
“After each one I say it’s over, and it keeps
happening.”
--USA Today Friday
November 7, 2008 page
11c Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Rodger
Russell
Five holes in one in one
week! Can you imagine?
Only one in every 8000 golfers ever makes one
hole in one. (www.worldgolf.com/holeinone/)Think
of the ball landing on the green and rolling,
rolling, toward the hole,
yes, yes, YES! It is in the hole. Oh
what a glorious day one
hole in one would be, not to speak of
five.
Can you imagine what it would
be like? I don’t
think it would be anything. At least not
what it will be like to
see the glory of the Lord, face to face.
“Oh that will be, glory
for me.”
Psalm 63:2 (NASB95) Thus I
have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
GLORY
San Diego calls its July 4 fireworks display
the “Big Bay Boom.” In
2012 they certainly got a big show. A technical
malfunction set all the
fireworks off at the same time. The result was a
spectacular—and spectacularly
short—display. For the 15 seconds it lasted, it
was quite a show.
The three years Jesus spent in ministry were
agonizingly short compared
with the 4000 years of recorded history. But for
the time it lasted, it
was an amazing display of the glory of God. –Jim
L. Wilson and Rodger Russell
“San Diego Charge.” World, July 28, 2011
John 1:14 (HCSB) The Word became flesh and took
up residence among us.
We observed His glory, the glory as the One and
Only Son from the Father,
full of grace and truth.
GLORY
Light pollution caused by
city lights is now so prevalent
that 80 percent of Americans cannot see the
Milky Way in the night sky.That
is in contrast to only 33% worldwide who
cannot see the constellation that we live in.
When our technology begins to
dim our ability to see the
glory of God, “The heavens are telling of the
glory of God,” we have to be
super diligent to look past the lights of
development and see the beauty in
God’s creation. In the same way, we cannot let
cultural trends cause us to
avert our eyes from the greatness of God and His
word. –--Jim L. Wilson and
Rodger Russell.
