Serving Rascals, Clumsy Disciples, and Physically and Mentally Ill Believers with the Unconditional Love of Jesus Christ
This is designated as the one day out of the year when special focus is on those with mental illness. It’s a step in the right direction. I hope it might encourage and motivate people to engage this on a deeper level. Statistically, at least one of your friends struggle with a mental illness (and you don’t even realize it).
Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat.
It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.
Di! Ecce hora! Uxor mea me necabit!
God, look at the time! My wife will kill me!
Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est.
The designated hitter rule has got to go.
Sona si Latine loqueris.
Honk if you speak Latin.
Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes
If you can read this you’re over-educated.
Gramen artificiosum odi.
I hate Astroturf.
Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.
I’m not interested in your dopey religious cult.
Noli me vocare, ego te vocabo.
Don’t call me, I’ll call you.
Nullo metro compositum est.
It doesn’t rhyme.
Non curo. Si metrum non habet, non est poema.
I don’t care. If it doesn’t rhyme, it isn’t a poem.
Vescere bracis meis.
Eat my shorts.
Sic faciunt omnes.
Everyone is doing it.
Fac ut vivas.
Get a life.
Anulos qui animum ostendunt omnes gestemus!
Let’s all wear mood rings!
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
I have a catapult. Give me all the money, or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.
Te precor dulcissime supplex!
Pretty please with a cherry on top!
Magister Mundi sum!
I am the Master of the Universe!
Fac me cocleario vomere!
Gag me with a spoon!
Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
I can’t hear you. I have a banana in my ear.
This and more can be found at: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2fy14Z/web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/d/r/dryfoo/www/Funny-pages/handy-latin.html
Romans 8:18
If you’re depressed and defeated, the roof just collapsed, your laptop is crawling with “bugs” and it can’t be fixed, you win.
If your Christian life is either good or bad depending on how you look at it, and the pastor has asked you to head up a new children’s ministry in church, you win.
Perhaps you’ve been ill for a long, long time. You’ve forgotten what it is to be normal, you win.
If your boss goes back on his word and you feel used and you feel like a vacation is long overdue, you win.
If your spouse is distant and your children ignore you and the dog just pooped on the carpet, that’s all right, you win.
If everything is finally coming together and your dreams are beginning to be realized, you win.
Romans 9:37
We engage every situation, every trial with the innate knowledge that we win. This defies conventional wisdom. Especially if you feel a bit besieged by life’s strange twists. But if the truth be told, we’ve already won through Christ.
In the bitter face of circumstances (often beyond our control) we can, by faith begin to discover that we’ve already won. (We become “teflon” –nothing sticks to us).
All you may have is wounds and a shredded faith. But if the Lord Christ is at the center of your life, you win. We carry a real hope that He can lead us through everything in His triumph. We can manage every circumstance when Jesus is fully in control.
No matter what happens, no matter what bizarre turn of events you face, “we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
1″Lord, listen to me and answer me.
I am poor and helpless.”
There is a poverty that far exceeds anything physical. It is not tied to our checking account or our investment portfolio. We are poor people; quite destitute as a clear matter of fact. We are penniless, and truly destitute of all things spiritual. We don’t have, rather we owe.
Some of us gather at the King’s gate, truly assured we are nothing more than “sinners saved by a wondrous grace”. We have to admit, we can never earn or achieve a spot in heaven. This is quite embarrassing for us, that there is such a social pressure to be good and proper. (Funny, but yesterday I went out for a bit and when I got home I discover my pants were unzipped. I was mortified. But this brought home to me the embarrassment of being “undone”).
In some infinitesimal way, I was tapping into this deep feeling of being undone and shamed. But without knowing this sensation (spiritually speaking) we will go to our graves trying to excuse ourselves, and trying to avoid admitting our sin. We point to our environment, trying to divert attention to something or someone else.
Jesus told us in Matthew 5, “Blessed are the poor in spirit… and blessed are those who mourn.” It seems we are not suppose to attain, but obtain. To take a certain forgiveness and a sincere mercy from Him. He will give it freely to any who sense their need. If you don’t ask, you simply will not receive.
King David spiritually understood his own poverty before the Almighty. In spite of his deep weakness and evil, he knew that God was still approachable, and that He was listening to anything and everything David shared with Him. This is a whole another level of faith. It strikes us as arrogant and slightly outrageous. “David, the cold and unfeeling murderer– the ugly adulterer? How can this be?”
But it takes poverty to become “poor in spirit.” What I mean is this. To be a sinner, we must’ve sin. We become beggars, by begging. We need to stand at the corner, with our cardboard sign and our cup and confront others with our desperate need. We must do this spiritually.
In our discipleship, we simply can’t unhitch the wagon from our spiritual poverty. We are exactly who we are. Luther once said, “Sin boldly, but believe in God more boldly still.” If we think that he was permitting sin, we are being astonishingly stupid. Through this quote we come to a truth, allowing us to just accept who we are– “world-class” sinners! But also to believe, deep down, in a God who loves us profoundly and completely.
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Broken Believers 