Life's not fair

An MP 'employs' his son but the son is actually away at university, but he gets paid anyway, so I read. As a punishment the MP is suspended for 10 days. How terrible! How will he cope? Just think, if a working class bloke did something like that, he'd get away with just a few months in prison. Life just isn't fair for our MPs, is it?

"Wonderfully made"

Our newest granddaughter is just under a fortnight old (the picture is her two hours old). Weighing in at under 7lb she's so tiny. Granddad had a cuddle yesterday! As I held her, I recalled words of a song of praise to God we had sung in church the previous day, "I sing for joy at the work of your hands". How can, I asked myself this beautiful child be the result of chance evolution? Just to think of the complexities of our human body - come to that - the incredible complexities of a single human cell!
The Psalmist in the Bible says, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Amen to that! Let's give the praise to the One to whom it is due and sing for joy for the amazing works of His hands!

Grace and Truth

We had a visiting speaker at our church yesterday. One of the things that struck me was his comment on the verse in John's gospel where it says Jesus came "full of grace and truth". He pointed out the order of the words. And he said that as Christians we must show God's grace to others before we tell God's truth to others. Or, as someone else has said, "people don't care what you know until they know that you care."

Chips taking over?

First of all we hear that McCain is running for president of the USA, now we hear that MacDonalds are offering an A level in burger making! However, there's no truth in the rumour that an A* grade will be known as "Supersize".

A Chinese Proverb, or so they say!

Someone sent us an email with a PowerPoint attachment. Below is the wording from some of the slides:

CHINESE PROVERB ABOUT MONEY

WITH MONEY YOU CAN BUY A HOUSE BUT NOT A HOME

WITH MONEY YOU CAN BUY A CLOCK BUT NOT TIME

WITH MONEY YOU CAN BUY A BOOK, BUT NOT KNOWLEDGE

WITH MONEY YOU CAN BUY A POSITION BUT NOT RESPECT

THIS CHINESE PROVERB BRINGS LUCK IT ORIGINATED FROM THE NETHERLANDS

THIS PROVERB HAS GONE 8 TIMES AROUND THE WORLD,
NOW IT IS YOUR TURN TO HAVE GOOD LUCK ONCE YOU HAVE RECEIVED IT.

HERE ARE A FEW EXAMPLES OF PEOPLE THAT GOT LUCK AFTER RECEIVING THE PROVERB:

CONSTANTIN, GOT HIS FIRST IN 1953, HE ASKED HIS SECRETARY TO MAKE 20 COPIES.NINE HOURS LATER HE WON 99MILLION IN THE LOTTERY IN HIS COUNTRY.

One incongruous thing about the above is that it purports to be a Chinese proverb, but originated in The Netherlands! The other incongruous thing is that it implies money can’t buy the things that matter and then tells you how someone won the lottery after passing the email on!

So, being convinced that money can’t buy the important things in life, I’m not sending it to 20 other people as per instructions.

There again, who was it who said, “Money can’t buy happiness, but at least you can be miserable in comfort”?

Different types of people ...

My first blog combines my present occupation (a pastor) with my previous (computer programmer). It concerns a poster stuck up on the wall of an IT room which caught my eye. It was in the background in a recent episode of a TV crime series and it read thus:
There are only 10 types of people in the world:
Those who understand binary
and those who don’t.

If you don’t understand it, ask a computer geek. I did understand it, which makes me think I ought to get out more! Actually, I ought to get out more, and tell people that there are only two types of people in this world; those who know Jesus and those who don’t. Those who do are part of the largest religion in the world, Christianity. Those who know Jesus have received his promise that when they die they’ll go to heaven. This isn’t a reward but a free gift! Those who don’t are in danger of ending up at that other place. When it comes to what really matters in this life, and affects the life to come, there are only two types of people, those who have decided to follow Jesus and those who haven’t – yet.