"At certain points in church
history, Easter was a forty-day celebration.
Forty days is too much for our busy culture, so
we've shortened it to four Maundy Thursday, Good
Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. But
even this is becoming too much for the modern
Christian, so we watch "The Robe" on Saturday
night and show up, fresh and pretty, on Sunday
morning.
"It doesn't have to be this
way. Religious observances have their place.
They can be lifeless rituals or life-altering
encounters, depending upon how we approach them.
If we're willing to step back from the world for
a few days, we might find that God can fill our
celebrations with a power we never knew
existed."
__Gary Thomas (Sacred
Pathways, p. 75) Illustration by Jim L.
Wilson
________________________________________
RELIGION
According to the British
Office for National Statistics, there are more
people in Britain who wrote in “Jedi” on the
2001 census form, than checked Jewish, Buddhist,
or Sikh—over 390,000 people wrote “Jedi” on the
form.
In the Star Wars movies, the
Jedi knights are an order of guardians who wield
swords of light protecting the realm. They are
unified by their belief in “The Force,” an
invisible power they say surrounds all living
things.
The so-called Jedis declared
their belief after a campaign on the Internet
asked people to write in Jedi, for one of
several reasons. People were asked to identify
with the mystical knights because they love
“Star Wars,” “to annoy people,” or to help make
Jedi an officially recognized religion.
An ONS official says, “Star
Wars devotees stated their faith as ‘Jedi’ in
the mistaken belief that if 10,000 people did so
it would be recognized as an official religion.”
Something, I take from the official’s comments
isn’t going to happen.
—Reuters, Thursday, February
13, 2003, Jedis Becomes a Force to be Counted.
Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim
Sandell.
The campaign really doesn’t
annoy me, and frankly, I’m glad these people
love these movies—it doesn’t bother me in the
least. But most of all, I’m grateful for a clear
thinking government official that didn’t allow
these people to make a mockery out of firmly
held religious beliefs by people who sincerely
are trying to live out their beliefs with
integrity. For the Christian, our identification
with our faith is sacred and calls us to live as
Jesus lived.
Ephesians 5:1 NIV “Be
imitators of God therefore, as dearly loved
children and live a life of love, just as Christ
loved us and gave himself up for us as a
fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
RELIGION/SPIRITUALITY
An astonishing 20,000
Canadians declared themselves to be followers of
the religion of Jedi, the guardians of peace and
justice in the Star Wars flicks, Statistics
Canada reported in the latest, and final, data
to come from the 2001 census.
Derek Evans is the director
of the Naramata Centre just north of Penticton,
B.C., which is affiliated with the United Church
of Canada. He understands why young people may
be drawn to the Force.
“It's part of a journey of a
young man discovering the powers that rest
within himself and how he can access it for his
own strength and nurture, or of the people he
cares about, through focusing his intentions on
good,” said Evans.
“I think that's what most
great religious traditions teach us.”
Actually, the Gospel is the
exact opposite: Jesus Christ came and lived,
died and rose not because we have inner power,
but because we have absolutely no power. We are
powerless to overcome sin or to change
ourselves; powerless to love; powerless to
believe; powerless to change our guilty standing
before God. The power one receives when he
becomes a Christian is not his own, but that of
the Spirit of Christ.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1052251560771&call_pageid=968332188492,
Illustration
by Jim L. Wilson and Dave Bootsma
Philip. 3:21 NASB “who will
transform the body of our humble state into
conformity with the body of His glory, by the
exertion of the power that He has even to
subject all things to Himself.”
RELIGION
The ACLU is suing a North Carolina high school
that suspended a student for having a nose ring.
“Ariana Lacono, 14, says she and her mother
belong to the Church of Body Modification.” Her
lawsuit contends, “She should be able to attend
public school without being forced to renounce
her family’s religious beliefs.”
--The Week, October 22, 2010, p. 8 Illustration
by Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell
John 14:6 (NASB77) Jesus * said to him, "I am
the way, and the truth, and the life; no one
comes to the Father, but through Me.
RELIGION
Fifty percent of Americans cannot pass a test
of simple questions regarding religion such as
“name of the first book of the Bible.” Americans
are religiously illiterate, said Stephen
Prothereo after the results of a new study by
the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. We
have raised a couple of generations of Americans
who know very little about the world’s religions
and the part faith plays in the lives, politics,
and decisions of billions of people and helped
shape nations and history.
--The Week, October 15, 2010, p.18 “Getting an
‘F’ in religion” Illustration by Jim L. Wilson
and Rodger Russell
It is no wonder that many in our country, in
media, education, and politics cannot make a
distinction between Christianity and Islam, or
Judaism, or Buddhism, or Druidism, or any other
religion. We are ignorant of God! The Bible
commands us to make God known in our families.
We must not give up on family devotions,
biblical sermons, or the blessings of Sunday
School.
Deuteronomy 6:1-9 (NASB77) "Now this is
the commandment, the statutes and the judgments
which the LORD your God has commanded me to
teach you, that you might do them in the land
where you are going over to possess
it, (2) so that you and your son and
your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to
keep all His statutes and His commandments,
which I command you, all the days of your life,
and that your days may be prolonged.
(3) "O Israel, you should listen and be careful
to do it, that it may be well with you and that
you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the
God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land
flowing with milk and
honey. (4)
"Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD
is one! (5) "And you shall love the
LORD your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your might.
(6) "And these words, which I am commanding you
today, shall be on your heart; (7)
and you shall teach them diligently to your sons
and shall talk of them when you sit in your
house and when you walk by the way and when you
lie down and when you rise up. (8)
"And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand
and they shall be as frontals on your
forehead. (9) "And you shall write
them on the doorposts of your house and on your
gates.
RELIGION
The refusal of people to make distinctions is
leaving room for religions that really are not
religions at all. The British Government
recently decided that some “self-proclaimed
Druids—a ‘bunch of eccentrics’ who like to dress
up in robes and prance around Stonehenge,
chanting at the sun—belong to a full-fledged
religion, deserving of ‘the tax exemptions and
other advantages that follow.’”
--The Week, October 15, 2010, p. 19
Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell
John 14:6 (NASB77) Jesus * said to him, "I am
the way, and the truth, and the life; no one
comes to the Father, but through Me.
RELIGION
Nathan Thornburgh was a staff journalist at
Time magazine when he felt he was missing
something in his life. He quit his job to be a
full time father to his two children.
Fulfillment still avoided Nathan and he began to
check out the self-fulfillment path. Attending a
self-fulfillment seminar, The Landmark Forum,
felt more like a pyramid scheme when they spent
a lot of time trying to sell further training
for him, and trying to convince him to sign up
friends and family members for the $450.00
seminar. His next step was looking in the
spiritual direction, practicing Yoga with his
own spiritual Guru. He remains
unfulfilled.
--Time, March 7, 2011 pp. 56-61 Illustration by
Jim L. Wilson and Rodger Russell
I
I pray he will turn to Jesus.
John 14:6 (CEV) "I am the way, the truth, and
the life!" Jesus answered. "Without me, no one
can go to the Father.
religion
Since 2011, there have been
64,000 Australians report that “Jedi,” is their
religion when taking the census. It all began as
a joke to get Jedi listed as a recognized
religion, but the atheists are not laughing.
They are upset because “it makes Australia look
more religious than it is.”—Jim L. Wilson
Real religion has nothing to
do with how many people are adherents, but with
how they treat others.
James 1:27 (HCSB)“Pure
and undefiled religion before our God and Father
is this: to look after orphans and widows in
their distress and to keep oneself unstained by
the world.”
Religion
In Portland, OR, the
Sacramento Elementary School recently approved
an after-school program sponsored by the Satanic
Temple to give grade school students another
choice than the “Good News Club” sponsored by
the Child Evangelism Fellowship.—Jim L. Wilson
2 Timothy 3:1 (HCSB)“But
know this: Difficult times will come in the last
days.”
RELIGION
Officials
in India’s Hindu
north have begun marking stray cows with bar
codes in an effort to manage the
growing problem of abandoned livestock. Many
Hindus consider cows to be sacred,
and as a result slaughtering the animals is
illegal in many Hindu areas of
India. Farmers are complaining that the
large number of straying livestock is
damaging their crops. Government officials
have proposed using abandoned
buildings to shelter the animals.
World Magazine,
March 2, 2019 p. 17—Jim L. Wilson and Rodger
Russell.
Galatians 5:22–23 (CSB)“But the
fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness,
and
self-control. The law is not against such
things.”
This sermon illustration collection
is free for all users, however it is not free to
host on the internet. You can help by buying
books or donating.
