My dog Molly and I aren't getting along. The problem is not her personality. A sweeter mutt you will not find. She sees every person as a friend and every day as a holiday. I have no problem with Molly's attitude. I have a problem with her habits.
Eating scraps out of the trash. Licking dirty plates in the dishwasher. Dropping dead birds on our sidewalk and stealing bones from the neighbor's dog. Shameful! Molly rolls in the grass, chews on her paw, does her business in the wrong places, and, I'm embarrassed to admit, quenches her thirst in the toilet.
Now what kind of behavior is that?
Dog behavior, you reply.
You are right. So right. Molly's problem is not a Molly problem. Molly has a dog problem. It is a dog's nature to do such things. And it is her nature that I wish to change. Not just her behavior, mind you. A canine obedience school can change what she does; I want to go deeper. I want to change who she is.
Here is my idea: a me-to-her transfusion. The deposit of a Max seed in Molly. I want to give her a kernel of human character. As it grew, would she not change? Her human nature would develop, and her dog nature would diminish. We would witness, not just a change of habits, but a change of essence. In time Molly would be less like Molly and more like me, sharing my disgust for trash snacking, potty slurping, and dish licking. She would have a new nature. Why, Denalyn might even let her eat at the table.
You think the plan is crazy? Then take it up with God. The idea is his.
What I would like to do with Molly, God does with us. He changes our nature from the inside out! "I will put a new way of thinking inside you. I will take out the stubborn hearts of stone from your bodies, and I will give you obedient hearts of flesh. I will put my Spirit inside you and help you live by my rules and carefully obey my laws" (Ezek. 36:26--27 NCV.).
God doesn't send us to obedience school to learn new habits; he sends us to the hospital to be given a new heart. Forget training; he gives transplants.
Do you understand what God has done? He has deposited a Christ seed in you. As it grows, you will change. It's not that sin has no more presence in your life, but rather that sin has no more power over your life. Temptation will pester you, but temptation will not master you. What hope this brings!
It's not up to you! Within you abides a budding power. Trust him!
"He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil. 1:6 NIV.). God will do with you what I only dream of doing with Molly. Change you from the inside out. When he is finished, he'll even let you sit at his table.
---------------------------
From Next Door Savior
© (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006) Max Lucado
12/19/08
12/18/08
Coincidence (Just Don't Buy It, Not Selling it) BG. JETT
Of this word coincidence; such as even the common herd ought to blend both bedeviling frequency and resplendently perfect timing to rightly conclude and convince, if but one of the rarest literati, the curious word does exist by way of King's English in print only. However, any sound minded secularist might dare agree with a Creationist that it evolve no further than Mr. Webster's fragile pages to glean any useful scientific meaning for scientifically, it has none. –Brian G. Jett
THINK!
Of this word coincidence; such as even the common herd ought to blend both bedeviling frequency and resplendently perfect timing to rightly conclude and convince, if but one of the rarest literati, the curious word does exist by way of King's English in print only. However, any sound minded secularist might dare agree with a Creationist that it evolve no further than Mr. Webster's fragile pages to glean any useful scientific meaning for scientifically, it has none. –Brian G. Jett
"Each and every occasion wherein we demand that another person apologize, we will discover that our intentions were neither to pardon the person nor accept our own need for amnesty." –Brian G. Jett
"I have yet to understand how an individual could possibly lose their patience if they never had any to begin with!" –Brian G. Jett
"When we allow men's creations to hold right of way before our Creator, at that very moment we have, perhaps, unwittingly become naturalists." -Brian G. Jett
"It's easy to figure out who isn't a team player. They'll constantly remind the coach just how good they are." -Brian G. Jett
"It wasn't easier said than done if you did it faster than it took you to explain what you needed to do." -Brian G. Jett
"You can determine how confident a person truly is by listening to what they don’t say about themselves." -Brian G. Jett
"Don't focus on changing someone's mind, but love them unconditionally and you'll likely change their heart. This is your only requirement as the heart guides the way." -Brian G. Jett
“Simple honesty makes life less complex.” –Brian G. Jett
"I have discovered that those who constantly complain will in their very circumstances constantly remain." –Brian G. Jett
“Don't get stuck in the pipe portion of your dreams.” -Brian G. Jett
"Some people have the ability to literally drive us crazy, and some can even shorten the drive." -Brian G. Jett
"Protect trust as it is the last thing to come, yet the very first thing to go." –Brian G. Jett
"Before we begin questioning another's character, we better have some answers to explain our own." -Brian G. Jett
“If anger is your most frequently used outlet, try unplugging it for awhile." -Brian G. Jett
"The surest way to kill fear is to take action in spite of it." -Brian G. Jett
"Winners choose the highest summits and see the sun prior to cresting them. There are no limits for those with expectant attitudes." -Brian G. Jett
"We think good ideas to death, when we should be acting them to life." -Brian G. Jett
“If the ‘sky is the limit’ then how did man make it to the moon?” –Brian G. Jett
"Squeeze every bit of love you can out of life, and life will HUG you back like never before." -Brian G. Jett
“A compliment is kith and kin to confidence insofar as we can accurately appraise a man’s affable disposition; yet if he is incapable of the first, he has dreadfully little of the second.” –Brian G. Jett
"Don't just kick a bad habit, beat the thing to death." -Brian G. Jett
"The interest of being positive today will determine the incredible returns that await you tomorrow." -Brian G. Jett
"The greatest possession we have costs nothing; it's known as love." -Brian G. Jett
"Life is full of obstacles. Viewing life as an obstacle course eliminates the obstacles and centers our focus on creatively finding a way under, over, around or through them." -Brian G. Jett
"If you've learned from losing, it wasn't a loss!" -Brian G. Jett
"Courage can be best defined at which point willful self-denial demands priority in the face of foreknown and dreadful duty.” –Brian G. Jett
"The first step towards wisdom is our awareness and acceptance that God has forever been and will continue to be its unchanging origin." –Brian G. Jett
“Confidence is the author of compliments.” –Brian G. Jett
"You can determine whether or not a person has a point by merely observing how long it takes them to get to it." –Brian G. Jett
"As a culture, we would be well served in associating 'Parental Guidance' beyond the realms of television programming." -Brian G. Jett
"It is in caring and sharing that we discover that we are not only helping those dear to us, but bettering who we are and opening the gates fully to that which we can become." –Brian G. Jett
“Recognize that gossip is the lazy thinkers way of communicating.” -Brian G. Jett
"Be acutely aware of your non-verbal behaviors; body language has an unlimited vocabulary." -Brian G. Jett
"Hating is tantamount to eating briars through a barbed wire fence." -Brian G. Jett
“It's much easier to face adversity when our backs are not turned to it." -Brian Jett
"The depth of our faith determines the height of our joy." -Brian Jett
"People who define themselves primarily by what they do, will one day awaken and wonder what they actually did." -Brian G. Jett
“Every employee has a valuable position to play, and every facet of management and leadership has the responsibility of providing each of them with the way to execute it.” -Brian G. Jett
"If you believe in luck, you're flat out of it." -Brian G. Jett
~Shame and Pride, Once side by Side~
The meek, the mild, the timid masses, all so very tame
In a cold thistle’s cover, oft mute abutting empty shame
From hopes to fears to faith, and ‘rounding all over again
Nary silent by breadth of thicket, merely the doubter’s hand
Whilst dreams for freedom’s joyful calm, bellow for level play
Scarcely than feigning shadows, caught parched in yesterdays
‘Til now, the brawny of mind and nerve, the courageously fine of heart
These, too, of restless mood clutch hope, that the meekly tame dare start
This heat and toil, so weary from weight, these brave ones also beg
Asking for what the thistle’s seize, what the meek and mild dread
The meek and those most mighty, in truth seeking at end the same
Their lots in life as given, both keen for quick exchange
But freedom comes, in fact and deed, by balancing of proper rest
Both shame and pride, once side by side, blood brothers - Comparison’s Test
October 31: © 2008 – by Brian G. Jett
"You can make almost anything happen, if you happen to believe almost anything can." –Brian G. Jett
"Those who gossip a great deal have much on their minds, but absolutely nothing in them." –Brian G. Jett
"One quality endemic to every victorious person is their learned ability to take desperation and, nonetheless, turn it into celebration.” –Brian G. Jett
"I stalwartly accept as true, that one of our greatest strengths is our ingenuous awareness of our own greatest weakness." –Brian G. Jett
“We can’t right a wrong if we don’t know the difference between the two.” –Brian G. Jett
"Think about what you're thinking, as whatever is on your mind will eventually get in it." –Brian G. Jett
"When all is said and done, the unselfish acts of what we have done without asking for anything in return, will have said it all." -Brian G. Jett
"Be careful around those individuals who have bought into negativity, because they have the uncanny ability of selling it as well." -Brian G. Jett
“The most absurd imaginings have historically been brought to fruition by men and women who refused to be conquered by frequent encounters with failure.” –Brian G. Jett
"A man defines his character with verbs, not nouns." -Brian G. Jett
"One’s true character is most transparent when placed in a position of power." -Brian G. Jett
"The decisions that I’ve made while in an emotional frenzy, would be the thickheaded equivalent to a man’s purposefully capturing a wild gorilla for use at a children’s petting zoo.” -B.G. Jett
”Children can go no farther from home than the memories they left there.” –Brian G. Jett
“Hard work is more of a secret than success has ever been.” –Brian G. Jett
"Sitting on our dreams as hand-me-downs from a once silly and youthful zeal is unadulterated stupidity! –Brian G. Jett
"The tears of today may be just enough eye water to cleanse and clear my vision for seeing a tremendously joyous tomorrow." –Brian G. Jett
"There is a vast difference between feeling like a failure, and actually being one." -Brian G. Jett
“We lose the vast majority of our creature battles not because we’re always wrong, but due to our ravenously disturbing approaches in exacting, at any cost, our rightness.” –Brian G. Jett
"Harbors were built for ships, not resentments." -Brian G. Jett
"If you think that someone else thinks that they are better than you, perhaps it is you who thinks they are better than you." -Brian G. Jett
"Atheists have continued to predictably wax philosophical concerning their intellectually self-sufficient certainties of God's nonexistence. However, the ease of their perilously lazy cynicism will become increasingly thorny as they age and are forced to acknowledge that their previously chosen stance as atheists must, as a matter of course, empirically and ultimately bear out that they were neither overly intellectual nor self-sufficient; neither unpredictable in opinion nor genuinely philosophic to originality; neither competent in certainties nor cerebrally capable of explaining creation without stumbling over the necessity of a Creator; neither convicted atheists excluded from eternal questions nor naturalists undaunted by morose preoccupations for ethereal answers; and lastly, neither authentically acceptant of a life without end nor having ever been secure in trusting their facts based on science in lieu of who or what made their science possible." -Brian G. Jett
What Matters Most
I'd watched this old man for many months, with tattered clothes most worn
I'd seen the look on many a face, as each looked at him with scorn
He did not hold a sign up, on the corner where he stood
Begging for food or money, like others like him would
And each day that I'd see him, I'd glimpse into his eyes
He'd catch my gaze and look away, and I'd often wonder why
I began to think to myself, what life he'd lived before
A beggar not was this man I saw, was he rich or feigned be poor?
One day I noticed he wasn't there, that corner, his familiar place
And I vowed that if I saw him again, I'd speak to him face to face
As days went by I forgot this man, this man who'd seen much hate
He must have been just another bum; another corner would be his fate
One day I walked past his spot, on my way to meet a friend
And saw him right in front of me, my vow this day I'd spend
"Sir, I vowed I'd talk to you, if ever I saw you here.
And ask you what your life had been, throughout your many years."
"Son", he said, "I know you, I've seen your face before
I'm not a bum as you probably think; I'm rich and not poor."
"If rich why do you dress this way, can you explain this to me?
The rich own cars and have big homes, they stand not on the street."
He reached into his pocket, and showed me a picture of
His wife who'd died one year ago, the one he dearly loved
"It matters not how big the home, I have everything I need
What matters most in life my son, is that which we can't see."
Copyright © 1998
Of this word coincidence; such as even the common herd ought to blend both bedeviling frequency and resplendently perfect timing to rightly conclude and convince, if but one of the rarest literati, the curious word does exist by way of King's English in print only. However, any sound minded secularist might dare agree with a Creationist that it evolve no further than Mr. Webster's fragile pages to glean any useful scientific meaning for scientifically, it has none. –Brian G. Jett
"Each and every occasion wherein we demand that another person apologize, we will discover that our intentions were neither to pardon the person nor accept our own need for amnesty." –Brian G. Jett
"I have yet to understand how an individual could possibly lose their patience if they never had any to begin with!" –Brian G. Jett
"When we allow men's creations to hold right of way before our Creator, at that very moment we have, perhaps, unwittingly become naturalists." -Brian G. Jett
"It's easy to figure out who isn't a team player. They'll constantly remind the coach just how good they are." -Brian G. Jett
"It wasn't easier said than done if you did it faster than it took you to explain what you needed to do." -Brian G. Jett
"You can determine how confident a person truly is by listening to what they don’t say about themselves." -Brian G. Jett
"Don't focus on changing someone's mind, but love them unconditionally and you'll likely change their heart. This is your only requirement as the heart guides the way." -Brian G. Jett
“Simple honesty makes life less complex.” –Brian G. Jett
"I have discovered that those who constantly complain will in their very circumstances constantly remain." –Brian G. Jett
“Don't get stuck in the pipe portion of your dreams.” -Brian G. Jett
"Some people have the ability to literally drive us crazy, and some can even shorten the drive." -Brian G. Jett
"Protect trust as it is the last thing to come, yet the very first thing to go." –Brian G. Jett
"Before we begin questioning another's character, we better have some answers to explain our own." -Brian G. Jett
“If anger is your most frequently used outlet, try unplugging it for awhile." -Brian G. Jett
"The surest way to kill fear is to take action in spite of it." -Brian G. Jett
"Winners choose the highest summits and see the sun prior to cresting them. There are no limits for those with expectant attitudes." -Brian G. Jett
"We think good ideas to death, when we should be acting them to life." -Brian G. Jett
“If the ‘sky is the limit’ then how did man make it to the moon?” –Brian G. Jett
"Squeeze every bit of love you can out of life, and life will HUG you back like never before." -Brian G. Jett
“A compliment is kith and kin to confidence insofar as we can accurately appraise a man’s affable disposition; yet if he is incapable of the first, he has dreadfully little of the second.” –Brian G. Jett
"Don't just kick a bad habit, beat the thing to death." -Brian G. Jett
"The interest of being positive today will determine the incredible returns that await you tomorrow." -Brian G. Jett
"The greatest possession we have costs nothing; it's known as love." -Brian G. Jett
"Life is full of obstacles. Viewing life as an obstacle course eliminates the obstacles and centers our focus on creatively finding a way under, over, around or through them." -Brian G. Jett
"If you've learned from losing, it wasn't a loss!" -Brian G. Jett
"Courage can be best defined at which point willful self-denial demands priority in the face of foreknown and dreadful duty.” –Brian G. Jett
"The first step towards wisdom is our awareness and acceptance that God has forever been and will continue to be its unchanging origin." –Brian G. Jett
“Confidence is the author of compliments.” –Brian G. Jett
"You can determine whether or not a person has a point by merely observing how long it takes them to get to it." –Brian G. Jett
"As a culture, we would be well served in associating 'Parental Guidance' beyond the realms of television programming." -Brian G. Jett
"It is in caring and sharing that we discover that we are not only helping those dear to us, but bettering who we are and opening the gates fully to that which we can become." –Brian G. Jett
“Recognize that gossip is the lazy thinkers way of communicating.” -Brian G. Jett
"Be acutely aware of your non-verbal behaviors; body language has an unlimited vocabulary." -Brian G. Jett
"Hating is tantamount to eating briars through a barbed wire fence." -Brian G. Jett
“It's much easier to face adversity when our backs are not turned to it." -Brian Jett
"The depth of our faith determines the height of our joy." -Brian Jett
"People who define themselves primarily by what they do, will one day awaken and wonder what they actually did." -Brian G. Jett
“Every employee has a valuable position to play, and every facet of management and leadership has the responsibility of providing each of them with the way to execute it.” -Brian G. Jett
"If you believe in luck, you're flat out of it." -Brian G. Jett
~Shame and Pride, Once side by Side~
The meek, the mild, the timid masses, all so very tame
In a cold thistle’s cover, oft mute abutting empty shame
From hopes to fears to faith, and ‘rounding all over again
Nary silent by breadth of thicket, merely the doubter’s hand
Whilst dreams for freedom’s joyful calm, bellow for level play
Scarcely than feigning shadows, caught parched in yesterdays
‘Til now, the brawny of mind and nerve, the courageously fine of heart
These, too, of restless mood clutch hope, that the meekly tame dare start
This heat and toil, so weary from weight, these brave ones also beg
Asking for what the thistle’s seize, what the meek and mild dread
The meek and those most mighty, in truth seeking at end the same
Their lots in life as given, both keen for quick exchange
But freedom comes, in fact and deed, by balancing of proper rest
Both shame and pride, once side by side, blood brothers - Comparison’s Test
October 31: © 2008 – by Brian G. Jett
"You can make almost anything happen, if you happen to believe almost anything can." –Brian G. Jett
"Those who gossip a great deal have much on their minds, but absolutely nothing in them." –Brian G. Jett
"One quality endemic to every victorious person is their learned ability to take desperation and, nonetheless, turn it into celebration.” –Brian G. Jett
"I stalwartly accept as true, that one of our greatest strengths is our ingenuous awareness of our own greatest weakness." –Brian G. Jett
“We can’t right a wrong if we don’t know the difference between the two.” –Brian G. Jett
"Think about what you're thinking, as whatever is on your mind will eventually get in it." –Brian G. Jett
"When all is said and done, the unselfish acts of what we have done without asking for anything in return, will have said it all." -Brian G. Jett
"Be careful around those individuals who have bought into negativity, because they have the uncanny ability of selling it as well." -Brian G. Jett
“The most absurd imaginings have historically been brought to fruition by men and women who refused to be conquered by frequent encounters with failure.” –Brian G. Jett
"A man defines his character with verbs, not nouns." -Brian G. Jett
"One’s true character is most transparent when placed in a position of power." -Brian G. Jett
"The decisions that I’ve made while in an emotional frenzy, would be the thickheaded equivalent to a man’s purposefully capturing a wild gorilla for use at a children’s petting zoo.” -B.G. Jett
”Children can go no farther from home than the memories they left there.” –Brian G. Jett
“Hard work is more of a secret than success has ever been.” –Brian G. Jett
"Sitting on our dreams as hand-me-downs from a once silly and youthful zeal is unadulterated stupidity! –Brian G. Jett
"The tears of today may be just enough eye water to cleanse and clear my vision for seeing a tremendously joyous tomorrow." –Brian G. Jett
"There is a vast difference between feeling like a failure, and actually being one." -Brian G. Jett
“We lose the vast majority of our creature battles not because we’re always wrong, but due to our ravenously disturbing approaches in exacting, at any cost, our rightness.” –Brian G. Jett
"Harbors were built for ships, not resentments." -Brian G. Jett
"If you think that someone else thinks that they are better than you, perhaps it is you who thinks they are better than you." -Brian G. Jett
"Atheists have continued to predictably wax philosophical concerning their intellectually self-sufficient certainties of God's nonexistence. However, the ease of their perilously lazy cynicism will become increasingly thorny as they age and are forced to acknowledge that their previously chosen stance as atheists must, as a matter of course, empirically and ultimately bear out that they were neither overly intellectual nor self-sufficient; neither unpredictable in opinion nor genuinely philosophic to originality; neither competent in certainties nor cerebrally capable of explaining creation without stumbling over the necessity of a Creator; neither convicted atheists excluded from eternal questions nor naturalists undaunted by morose preoccupations for ethereal answers; and lastly, neither authentically acceptant of a life without end nor having ever been secure in trusting their facts based on science in lieu of who or what made their science possible." -Brian G. Jett
What Matters Most
I'd watched this old man for many months, with tattered clothes most worn
I'd seen the look on many a face, as each looked at him with scorn
He did not hold a sign up, on the corner where he stood
Begging for food or money, like others like him would
And each day that I'd see him, I'd glimpse into his eyes
He'd catch my gaze and look away, and I'd often wonder why
I began to think to myself, what life he'd lived before
A beggar not was this man I saw, was he rich or feigned be poor?
One day I noticed he wasn't there, that corner, his familiar place
And I vowed that if I saw him again, I'd speak to him face to face
As days went by I forgot this man, this man who'd seen much hate
He must have been just another bum; another corner would be his fate
One day I walked past his spot, on my way to meet a friend
And saw him right in front of me, my vow this day I'd spend
"Sir, I vowed I'd talk to you, if ever I saw you here.
And ask you what your life had been, throughout your many years."
"Son", he said, "I know you, I've seen your face before
I'm not a bum as you probably think; I'm rich and not poor."
"If rich why do you dress this way, can you explain this to me?
The rich own cars and have big homes, they stand not on the street."
He reached into his pocket, and showed me a picture of
His wife who'd died one year ago, the one he dearly loved
"It matters not how big the home, I have everything I need
What matters most in life my son, is that which we can't see."
Copyright © 1998
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