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 Have you ever seen
the sea flee? Have you ever seen the mountains skip like rams or the hills
run like lambs? That’s the vivid description the psalmist gives of
the Exodus of Israel from Egypt. “The sea saw it and fled; Jordan
turned back. The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like
lambs.... Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of
the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into
a fountain of waters” (Psalm 114:1-8)
The psalmist mentions the time God opened the Red Sea and the Israelites
walked across on dry land. He talks about when the nation entered the Promised
Land over the dry bed of the Jordan River. Then he refers to their
experience in the wilderness, when they were thirsty and God turned the
rock into a pool of water.
What are we to learn from all of these experiences? God helps us in the
obstacles of life. When you turn your obstacles over to the Lord, He acts!
What will He do? Sometimes He overcomes the obstacles. God is with us in
the hopeless places. How hopeless the Israelites were at the Red Sea! The
enemy soldiers were behind them; the wilderness was around them; the sea
was in front of them. But God opened a way to escape. Sometimes God removes
the obstacles – the “hills” and the
“mountains.” He just makes them skip and run away like animals.
Sometimes He makes the mountains a way for us to escape. In Isaiah 49:11,
the Lord says “I will make each of My mountains a road, and My
highways shall be elevated”. Sometimes He also can turn the obstacles
into blessings. He “turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint
into a fountain of waters” (Isaiah 49:8).
If God doesn’t overcome or remove your obstacle, let Him turn it
into a blessing. Trust God with your obstacles. He can help you in the
hopeless places, the high places and the hard places!
Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS,
Volume 8.15. Live for God, on purpose, trusting
Him in your seemingly impossible situations!
 The Pathway of Participation
We are all called to walk down the Pathway of Pentecost – but not
a single one of us is called to walk down it alone! Christianity...
especially the Spirit-filled walk in Christianity, is neither a
“spectator sport” nor a “solo activity!”
In our current Sunday morning preaching series, “Walking on
Pentecostal Pathways,” we are learning from the experiences of those
first believers, freshly filled with the Spirit of God on the day of
Pentecost, and observing the pathways they travel in their everyday walk in
the Lord. As we now come to the second half of chapter four, we find Peter
and John released from their imprisonment, returning to the company of the
other believers.
Here is something very important, yet easily overlooked in this passage.
In Acts 4:23-37, referring to the believers, the word “they” is
mentioned no fewer than eleven times. It talks about “all the
believers.” In verse 24, it talks of them praising God and praying
“together.”
Unity among these believers, and working together – all of them
– was key to the powerful ministry of this first church! And, this is
still true today. In fact, disunity in any church quickly leads to
division, contention and confusion.
This Sunday, we continue our series with the message “The Pathway
of Participation.” The first century church was a group of people who
were not only filled with His Spirit – they were Pentecostal –
but, they were also of one mind, with everyone participating in the
ministry of winning their world for Jesus! May we learn from their example,
and do what they did!
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 Not
All Composers Make Good Conductors
The following story brings out the fact that we were all created to
function in certain areas with gifts and talents, however, when we begin to
move outside of that realm it sometimes leads to great difficulty for us...
and others.
He wanted to conduct. His conducting style, however, was idiosyncratic.
During soft passages he’d crouch extremely low. For loud sections,
he’d often leap into the air, even shouting to the orchestra.
His memory was poor. Once he forgot that he had instructed the orchestra
not to repeat a section of music. During the performance, when he went back
to repeat that section, they went forward, so he stopped the piece,
hollering, “Stop! Wrong! That will not do! Again! Again!”
For his own piano concerto, he tried conducting from the piano. At one
point he jumped from the bench, bumping the candles off the piano. At
another concert he knocked over a choir boy.
During one long, delicate passage, he jumped high to cue a loud
entrance, but nothing happened because he had lost count and signaled the
orchestra too soon.
As his hearing worsened, musicians tried to ignore his conducting and
get their cues from the first violinist.
Finally the musicians pled with him to go home and give up conducting,
which he did.
He was Ludwig van Beethoven.
As the man whom many consider to be the greatest composer of all time
learned, no one is a genius of all trades.
as seen in Fresh Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching
(Baker), by David Sacks, from the editors of Leadership.
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 How Much Do You Own in
That Direction?
by Alan Smith
George Washington Truett was a preacher in Dallas for 47 years. He once
visited a wealthy West Texas rancher and had dinner in his huge ranch home.
After dinner, the rancher took Dr. Truett up to a veranda on top of his
house, and lit up a big cigar. The sun was setting, and if you’ve
ever been to West Texas, you know you can see a long way out there. The man
pointed to the south toward some oil rigs and said, “I own everything
in that direction as far as you can see.” He pointed east toward some
cotton fields and said, “And I own everything in that direction,
too.” He pointed north toward a huge herd of cattle and bragged,
“And, preacher, I own everything as far as you can see in that
direction.” He turned to the west, and said, “And I own
everything you can see in that direction, except the sun, of course.”
Dr. Truett turned to the man and pointed straight up the sky and said,
“And how much do you own in that direction?”
It’s a sobering question for all of us. We are surrounded
constantly by the “things” of this world, and it is so easy to
think that these “things” are the things that matter most
— a nice car, a nice home, nice clothes (and don’t forget all
the necessary electronic gadgets!). And so, if we’re not careful, we
may seek to accumulate more and more, without regard to our relationship
with God. As the rich fool discovered in Luke 12, we will all one day be
forced to recognize that the material things we have accumulated have no
eternal value.
Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth,
where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay
up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys
and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
How much do you own in that direction?
This article by Alan Smith, Senior Pastor of the Helen
Street Church of Christ in Fayetteville, North Carolina. You can visit his
site at http://www.TFTD-online.com
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 The
Sculptor’s Attitude
I woke up early today, excited over all I get to do before the clock
strikes midnight. I have responsibilities to fulfill today. I am important.
My job is to choose what kind of day I am going to have.
Today I can complain because the weather is rainy or...
I can be thankful that the grass is getting
watered for free.
Today I can feel sad that I don’t have more money or...
I can be glad that my finances encourage me
to plan my purchases wisely and guide me away from waste.
Today I can grumble about my health or...
I can rejoice that I am alive.
Today I can lament over all that my parents didn’t give me when I
was growing up or...
I can feel grateful that they allowed me to be born.
Today I can cry because roses have thorns or...
I can celebrate that thorns have roses.
Today I can mourn my lack of friends or...
I can excitedly embark upon a quest to discover new relationships.
Today I can whine because I have to go to work or...
I can shout for joy because I have a job to do.
Today I can complain because I have to go to school or...
eagerly open my mind and fill it with rich new tidbits of knowledge.
Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have to do housework or...
I can feel honored because the Lord has provided shelter for my mind,
body and soul.
Today stretches ahead of me, waiting to be shaped. And here I am, the
sculptor who gets to do the shaping. What today will be like is up to me. I
get to choose what kind of day I will have!
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 Lessons
on Life
There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to
judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and
look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.
The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in
summer, and the youngest son in the fall.
When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to
describe what they had seen.
The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second
son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third
son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and
looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The
last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with
fruit, full of life and fulfillment.
The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because
they had each seen but only one season in the tree’s life.
He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one
season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and
love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the
seasons are up.
If you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of your
spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall.
Don’t let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.
Don’t judge life by one difficult season. Persevere through the
difficult patches and better times are sure to come sometime or later.
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 Always Look On The Inside
I remember reading a story once about a man who was exploring some caves
by the seashore. In one of the caves he found a canvas bag with a bunch of
hardened clay balls. It was like someone had rolled up some clay and left
them out in the sun to bake. They didn’t look like much, but they
intrigued the man so he took the bag out of the cave with him.
As he strolled along the beach, to pass the time, he would throw the
clay balls one at a time out into the ocean as far as he could throw.
He thought little about it until he dropped one of the balls and it
cracked open on a rock. Inside was a beautiful, precious stone. Excited,
the man started breaking open the remaining clay balls. Each contained a
similar treasure. He found thousands of dollars worth of jewels in the 20
or so clay balls he had left, then it struck him.
He had been on the beach a long time. He had thrown maybe 50 or 60 of
the clay balls with their hidden treasure into the ocean waves. Instead of
thousands of dollars in treasure, he could have had tens of thousands, but
he just threw it all away.
You know sometimes, it’s like that with people. We look at
someone, maybe even ourselves, and we see the external clay vessel. It doesn’t
look like much from the outside. It isn’t always beautiful or
sparkling, so we discount it; we see that person as less important than
someone more beautiful or stylish or well known or wealthy.
But we have not taken the time to find the treasure hidden inside that
person. There is a treasure hidden in every one of us. We are wonderfully
made. Not just our physical bodies, our spiritual selves, which are
sometimes hidden from others by the “earthen vessel.”
But if you take the time to get to know that person, and if you ask the
Spirit to show you that person the way He sees them, then the clay begins
to peel away and the brilliant gem begins to shine forth.
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly
smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that
comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is
willing to trust him with his friendship.
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 The
Last Impression
Two old friends met one day after many years. One attended college and
now was very successful. The other had not attended college and never had
much ambition, yet he still seemed to be doing well.
Curious as to why, the college graduate asked his friend, “How has
everything been going with you?”
The less-educated, less ambitious man replied, “Well, one day, I
opened my Bible at random, and dropped my finger on a page. The word under
my finger was oil. So, I invested in oil, and boy, did the oil wells gush.
Then I tried the same method again, and my finger stopped on the word gold.
So, I invested in gold, and those mines really produced. Now, I’m as
rich as Rockefeller.”
The successful friend was so impressed that he rushed to his hotel,
grabbed a Gideon Bible, flipped it open, and dropped his finger on a page.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that his finger rested on the words,
“Chapter Eleven.”
God continues to do a great work in our midst here at
Wilmington First Assembly! Each week, numbers of guests tell me following
our service that they have found our worship exciting, our people friendly,
and our message relevant! Bring your friends with you this week, and allow
them to discover what everyone else is talking about! Looking forward to
seeing you and worshiping together here at WFA this Lord’s Day! See
you then!
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