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PRAYERGEAR.COM / SPIRITUAL RESOURCE SERVICES
NEWSLETTER
January 21, 2000 Issue 28: C2C Compliant?
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You are receiving this newsletter because you have subscribed
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otherwise wish to unsubscribe, please send a blank email with
"unsubscribe
prayergear.com" in the subject line to
subscribers@prayergear.com.
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<>< CONTENTS <><
1. Mini-Reflection
2. Prayergear.com product and services updates
3. Cruising Christian Cyberspace!
4. Let us know!
5. Weekly Reflection: "C2C Compliant?", Part 4 of 4
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Greetings to all of you once again! Any of you need your spirit
renewed? This worldly life can indeed be wearisome. But,
"The Lord gives strength to those who are weary. Even young
people get tired, then stumble and fall. But those who wait upon
the Lord will find new strength. They will be strong like eagles
soaring upward on wings; they will walk and run without getting
tired." (Is. 40:29-31.) This week we will consider waiting
upon the Lord.
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1. ~~ ** Mini-Reflection
** ~~
"Where there is a corpse [carcass], the vultures [buzzards]
will gather." (Mat. 24:28.) Jesus was alluding to a weird
trait of vultures or buzzards. Let a starving deer near death
stumble around the forest and vultures will hover overhead,
waiting for it to die.
Worse, vultures will often wait for it to get very dead,
something other animals would pass up as a meal. But we can
safely assume Jesus was not teaching a zoology lesson. He was
talking about that same weird trait of people, those who take
morbid delight in and are attracted to watching the life leak
from the hurt and wounded.
It brings to mind an image of the wilderness wanderer, lost,
exhausted, near death and feeling hopeless. He notices vultures
circling overhead, obviously waiting for him to die. He perceives
that as a bad omen and takes it to heart. The persistent vultures
break his last resolve to stay alive and press on. Are there
vultures in your life, waiting, watching, hoping to break your
resolve to press on in faith?
Eagles, although related to the family of vultures, have a
different way. They can see healthy prey that's full of life,
three miles away. These creatures pursue with strength, power and
focus. Isaiah the prophet chose the eagle as a metaphor for the
gift of God's strength and power. But to receive a gift from
someone, you need to be available. So, Isaiah says we must wait
upon the Lord. The word translated into "wait" also
meant trust in, be expectant of. Waiting upon the Lord also means
to stand at His table, ready and alert to respond to His
instructions.
How loving and perfectly good for us are His instructions!
Embracing them in obedience will renew our spirits and have us
soar like eagles! And death-loving vultures don't gather around
soaring eagles.
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2. ~~ ** Product and Services Updates ** ~~
As we promised last week, great new T-shirts and videos are
featured on our online store. And talking about waiting upon the
Lord, there's a particular shirt I really like: It has "Wait
Training" on the front, with the quote from Isaiah below.
Please tell others about the online store and use it for your
Christian product needs.
We remind "old" and new subscribers to avail yourselves
of the excellent
Bible search engine (Gateway), our syndicated news service that's
updated
hourly, the multitude of links to other Christian resources on
the web, our
classified ads (free service), the AllAdvantage.com
get-paid-to-surf-the-net
service, our articles on spiritual warfare and the practice of
Christian
faith and prayer, and much more, all on our web site.
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3. ~~ ** Cruising Christian Cyberspace! ** ~~
Our feature this week is The
Confessor (http://www.theconfessor.co.uk). This site is
sponsored by the British based Premier Christian Radio and offers
biblically sound principles regarding keeping our relationship
with God unhindered by sin, including scripture references,
prayers and short commentaries. Last week we outlined the ten
major issues of Christian life Jesus embedded into the
"Lord's Prayer", one of them being spiritual health:
"And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against
us." The site just opened on the web two days ago and its
sponsors claim to have had more visitors in one day than they
expected in the first month. We'll let you draw your own
conclusions about what that implies. (Please note: This is not to
be confused with several other sites we came across that actually
invite people to share their shortcomings on the site for the
response of others. This is tantamount to gossip (and vulture
gathering!), which is a sin, so we will NOT feature these sites.)
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4. ~~ ** Let us know! ** ~~
From last week: A reminder that we welcome interaction among the
members of
the Body of Christ and are sincerely interested in how you think
we are doing
and how we can better meet your needs as a spiritual resource.
We mentioned before our desire to include another category to
this
newsletter, "Subscriber Sharings". While we truly
appreciate the kind and
encouraging feedback on our web site service and these
newsletters, we are
inviting your own "mini-reflections," so to speak. A
reminder of a couple of questions in which we are interested: Why
the great secret as to the
timing of Christ's return and what would happen if we knew when?
What is it about the practice of prayer that results in such a
poor performance among many Christians? What can you help us
learn about prayer? What do you
think? We'll publish your ideas without identifying you (unless
you want
that) in the next newsletter so the rest of us can ponder.
Please, let us know!
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5. This week's Weekly Reflection follows. Please encourage others
to
subscribe! Share this newsletter with many of your friends and
help spread
the word. That's our only means of growing and reaching more
people...your
recommendations to others.
So in gratitude to God for all things, let me bid you grace in
the Name of
our Lord and please keep in touch with us! We are blessed to hear
from you!
John
John S. Hilkevich, Ph.D.
Spiritual Resource Services: Prayergear.com
~ Education, Services and Products
in the Christian Faith ~
www.prayergear.com
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For a more attractively formatted Weekly Reflection or links to
previous
Reflections, point your browser to
http://www.prayergear.com/weeklyintro.html
(posted by Sunday of each week.)
This month's back issues of The Weekly Newsletter can be accessed
in the "What's New?/Article Index" page of our web
site. All other back issues can be found in the Archives, also
accessible on the "What's New?" page.
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WEEKLY REFLECTIONS
C2C Compliant?
Part 4 of 4
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What's New/Article Index / Home/Welcome Page
Subscribe to the Weekly Newsletters and have them sent directly
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