Religious acts are no substitute for true spirituality

Posted on August 12, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

Mark Twain once had a heart to heart discussion on religion with a prominent Boston business man, well known for his ruthless business practices. With great sincerity, the businessman told the writer, ‘Before I die I mean to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud at the top.’ ‘I have a better idea,’ replied Twain. ‘Why don’t you just stay in Boston and keep them.’

Religious acts, no matter how impressive they may seem, are no substitute for true spirituality. Jesus once said to a group of people, ‘Why do you call me Lord, when you don’t do what I say?’ The Old Testament prophet summed it all up when he said, ‘What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Posted in Spiritual discernment, Spirituality, True and False Religion, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Making the best, even when you don’t have it.

Posted on August 12, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

A nurse wrote about having removed some stitches from an elderly man who was anxious to keep another appointment. She assumed it was with one of the doctors in the clinic, but it turned out that he wanted to have breakfast with his wife in the adjacent nursing home. She asked if his wife would get upset if he was late, but he told her she wouldn’t because she had Alzheimer’s disease, and hadn’t recognized him for five years. She said, ‘And you still go to see her every morning even though she doesn’t know you.’ He smiled and said, ‘She doesn’t know me, but I still know her.’

She learned from that old man that true love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be. The happiest people may not have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything they have.

Posted in Acceptance, Choices, Christlikeness, love, Positive Thoughts, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Turning up the heat

Posted on August 12, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

The Bible talks about God ‘Sitting as a refiner and purifier of silver.’ A group of women, trying to understand the implications of this visited a silversmith to watch him work. They watched him hold a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities. He also explained that he had to keep his eyes on it because if the silver was left in the flame too long, it would be destroyed. One of them asked, ‘How do you know when the silver is fully refined?’ He said, ‘Oh that’s easy. It’s when I see my image in it.’

So, if you are feeling the heat, remember that God’s eye on you and will keep watching until He sees His likeness in you too.

Posted in Reflecting, Tested, Transformation, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Happiness is not the same as fun

Posted on August 12, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

Dr Vera Ranki, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, said that the first lesson towards achieving happiness is to realize that happiness is not the same as fun. In our desperate pursuit of happiness we often forget that when we pursue pleasure itself we tend to be miserable, and that the greatest lessons in life actually come to us through grief, sadness and strife.

Wise people have always recognized that happiness is a by-product of a life that is filled with meaning. Jesus summed it up in His Sermon on the Mount which starts with a series of statements describing those who truly are happy. The strange thing about them is that they seem to be the very opposite of the things that usually drive people, like pleasure, power and possessions.

‘Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God wants,’ He said. ‘They are the ones who shall be fully satisfied.’

Posted in Abundant life, Blessedness, Blessings, Happiness, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Calming our confused internal chatter

Posted on August 12, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled ‘Scientists Find Biological Reality Behind Religious Experience’, scientific research shows that when people pray and meditate things happen in their brains which give a sense of connectedness to a reality beyond themselves. Researchers have observed increases in what they call the theta brain wave, which calms the confused internal chatter of the higher conscious brain. Professor Andrew Newberg says that if people go far enough in their prayer and meditation they have ‘a complete dissolving of the self, a sense of union, a sense of infinite spacelessness.

But that’s no surprise to those of us for whom prayer and meditation is part of daily life. We know by experience the truth of what the Bible means when it says that it is in the stillness that we truly know God.

Posted in Peace, Peace of mind, Prayer, Revealing God, Silence, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The darker the night the brighter the stars shine.

Posted on August 12, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

There’s a sheet of paper I keep that someone once gave to me when I was going through a very tough time. I can’t remember who it was but I do remember them scribbling these words for me; “God’s promises are like the stars; the darker the night the brighter they shine.”

At the time I really didn’t want to hear another pious cliché; but I kept it anyway. Why? Because as I thought about it I realized it was true, and those verses from the Bible that I had read so often suddenly became my constant companions; no longer just words in a book, but actual words of life. I discovered that God really is at work for the good of those who love Him, just like the Bible says. And that promise became one of the brightest stars in my dark night.

The darker the night the brighter the stars shine. I hope those promises are shining for you.

Posted in Grief, Promise, Trials and testings, tribulation and trouble, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Self-centre vision

Posted on August 12, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

An American newspaper reported the sad story of a young man who expected his dad to give him a car as a graduation gift. But on the night of the graduation, instead of finding a car in the driveway, his Dad gave him a gift-wrapped Bible. He was so enraged he gave the Bible back, stormed out of the house and went to live with some friends.

Some months later his father died of a heart attack and the son returned home. He found the Bible he had refused to accept, and as he leafed through it and a piece of paper fell out. It was a bank cheque, dated the day of his graduation, made out to the car dealer for the exact amount of the car he’d wanted.

It had been his father’s way of giving him what he wanted while also giving him the one gift that would bless him forever; the gift of faith. But a self-centred vision caused him, like many of us, to miss it.

Posted in Anger, Blindness, Selfishness, Spiritual blindness, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Sitting on a Gold Mine

Posted on August 12, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

A few years ago, builders, renovating a landmark hotel in Georgia, discovered the entrance to a shaft under the concrete floor. To their amazement they discovered the shaft led to the entrance of a gold mine. Captain Frank Hall built the house in eighteen eighty four because the city would not permit him to dig for gold on his property. They said it was because it was too close to the town square, but he believed it was because he was a Northerner. It now appears that he built the house to cover-up his mining operation until poor health forced him to sell the land.

The current owners used to joke that they were “sitting on a gold mine” but they had no idea just how true that really was. It makes you wonder what treasures might be there in our own lives that we don’t realise because we’ve never really looked deep enough to see.

Posted in Riches, wealth | Leave a comment

The laws of probability

Posted on February 23, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

Professor Peter Stoner applied the laws of probability to just eight of the Old Testament prophecies regarding Jesus Christ. He says: ‘The chance that any man might have …fulfilled all eight prophecies is one in ten to the seventeenth place. That means one chance in one hundred quadrillion.’ To illustrate this, Stoner said that one hundred quadrillion silver dollars would cover the state of Texas two feet deep. Now, imagine marking one of them with a cross, then sending a man wearing a blindfold in to walk in and pick up one of those silver dollars. The chances of him picking up the one with the cross would be one in one hundred quadrillion. Stoner concludes: ‘Just the same chance that those eight prophecies would all come true in any one man.’

Makes you think, doesn’t it!

Posted in Christ, Fulfilment, Jesus, Prophecy, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Rampant consumerism – our year-round affliction

Posted on February 22, 2018 by vincentsmithauthor

Many of us would agree with psychologist Patricia Dalton, who says that rampant consumerism, once confined to the holidays, has become a year-round affliction. She observes unhappy people trying to fill the emptiness of their lives by irresponsible spending and then consulting psychologists like her to figure out what has gone wrong. She says: ‘We seem to have forgotten the warning that everything you buy owns you.’ To pay for all their junk, people now work so hard that they’re ruining their marriages, their families, and their health. No wonder many of us feel so spiritually empty. It’s time to remember those timeless words of Jesus: ‘Your life does not consist in the abundance of things you possess.’

The root of our discontent is our spiritual emptiness. But peace with God brings peace with ourselves.

Posted in Abundant life, consumerism, Contentment, emptiness, Materialism, Uncategorized | Leave a comment