FEELINGS
Some things are better felt than touched.
—Scottish proverb
No one can feel that his sins are forgiven. Ask that man whose debt was paid by another. “Do you feel that your debt is paid?” “No,” is the reply. “I don’t feel that it is paid; but I know from this receipt that it has been paid.”
Someone asked Luther, “Do you feel
That you have been forgiven?”
He answered, “No, but I’m as sure
As there is a God in heaven.
For feelings come and feelings go,
And feelings are deceiving.
My warrant is the Word of God
Naught else is worth believing.”
FELLOWSHIP
An American doctor traveling in Korea knew just enough of the language to get around. At a station stop an old Korean boarded the train and sat across from the doctor. He carried a large bundle in a white cloth. Soon the old Korean began to speak to the doctor, pouring out a torrent of words. The doctor replied with the only sentence he had memorized, “I do not understand Korean.” The old man persisted. A second time the doctor gave his stock answer. This was repeated a third time.
In the stream of Korean words the doctor thought he had detected a somewhat familiar word. Had the old man said something about Jesus?
His doubt vanished when the Korean pointed to the doctor and asked, “Yesu? Yesu?” With a smile the doctor nodded in agreement, “Yesu, Yesu.”
Smiling from ear to ear, the Korean opened his large bundle and proudly displayed his Korean Bible. Then he put his finger on a verse. The doctor couldn’t read it, of course, but carefully figuring out the approximate place in his own Bible, he read from 1 John 3:14: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren.”
—Leslie B. Flynn
FISHING
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you get rid of him on the weekends.
—Gary Apple
FLATTERY
Flattery is telling others exactly what they think of themselves.
—Hal Roach
Flattery is like cologne water—to be smelled, not swallowed.
—John Billings
Flattery is like soft soap … 90 percent lye.
Only two groups of people fall for flattery—men and women.
FLESH
Donald Grey Barnhouse preached that we can’t blame Satan for all our problems. We have the sin nature, the flesh. After the service, a woman said, “Dr. Barnhouse, I was disappointed in the message. You said we can’t blame Satan. But Satan has always been such a comfort to me.”
FLEXIBILITY
Many colonists living in Virginia in the middle of the eighteenth century started the long trek across the mountains toward the lure of the West. Some, forced to stop because of illness, breakdown of a wagon axle, or some other unforeseen difficulty, settled in the sheltered valleys of the mountains of what is today eastern Tennessee or Kentucky. Their farewell greeting to their friends in Virginia in 1770 had been “God Save the King.”
Cut off from the world completely, fifteen years went by before they saw any traveler. Imagine the excitement when the noise of an arriving caravan ran through the valley. After making sure this was a friendly group, they engaged in animated conversation. After a while, one of the settlers got around to asking, “And who is the King now? Is it still George the Third?”
The answer came immediately, “There is no King now! We’ve had a revolution and a long war! The colonies won! Now we are a republic, and George Washington is our President!”
The settlers thought for a moment and replied, “Imagine that! For fifteen years we’ve thought of ourselves as loyal subjects of the King, and now we discover that we are Americans, citizens of our own republic. God bless the President!”
—Donald Grey Barnhouse
Someone asked the Duke of Wellington how he defeated Napoleon. He answered, “Napoleon’s plans were made in wire, but mine were made in string.”
FOOLS
Thinking to have a little fun, a soldier spotted a Salvation Army lassie on duty in a railroad station. He strolled over to her.
“Will you pray for me?” he asked sarcastically.
He crimsoned as she reached up, placed a hand on his head and, in a voice plainly heard by his comrades, said, “O Lord, make this young man’s heart as soft as his head.”
After the disastrous hurricane that struck Long Island in November 1950, one of the residents took a walk along the south shore. As this man was viewing the wrecked cottages and sympathizing with the owners, he came upon a scene that showed how a victim’s sense of humor had triumphed over calamity. The white front door of an almost totally wrecked house was propped up by a broken chair. On the door, this message was printed in black crayon:
I am an insurance salesman
I sell storm insurance
I did not carry storm insurance on this cottage
I am a dope.
—Leslie B. Flynn
He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment but a fool forever.
—Tilleston
The wise man has his follies no less than the fool, but herein lies the difference—the follies of the fool are known to the world, but are hidden from himself; the follies of the wise man are known to himself, but hidden from the world.
—C. C. Colton
Henry Ward Beecher, an elegant and witty preacher, entered the Congregational Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York one Sunday and found several letters waiting for him. He opened one and found it contained the single word, “Fool!” To the congregation on Sunday he said, “I have known many an instance of a man writing a letter and forgetting to sign his name, but this is the first instance I have ever known of a man signing his name and forgetting to write the letter.”
Don’t approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side.
—Yiddish proverb
The surprising thing about young fools is how many survive to become old fools.
—Doug Larson
John Wesley said that there are “twin fools” all over the world: one person believing nothing; the other believing everything.
—E. Schuyler English
Little Johnny’s grandfather was something of a philosopher and never missed an opportunity to give out bits of sage advice to his grandson.
“Yessirree, Johnny,” he said one day, “remember, fools are certain, but wise men hesitate.”
“Are you sure, Grandpa?” the boy asked.
“Yes, my boy,” said the old man, laying his gnarled hand on the youth’s head. “I’m absolutely certain.”
—Bits & Pieces
There are two kinds of fools. One says, “This is old, therefore it is good”; the other says, “This is new, therefore it is better.”
Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.
—Mark Twain
FORGETTING
A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.
—Elbert Hubbard
Everyone forgets at one time or another, according to Karen Bolla, a Johns Hopkins University researcher. These are the things people most often forget:
• names
83%
• where something is
60%
• telephone numbers
57%
• words
53%
• what was said
49%
• faces
42%
—Our Daily Bread
FORGIVENESS
He who cannot forgive others destroys the bridge over which he himself must pass.
—George Herbert
Forgiveness is relinquishing my rights to hurt back.
—Archibald Hart
In his book You Can Win! Roger Campbell told of a woman who had been treated wrongly by her church and came to him for help. He was sympathetic to her plight, but he also realized she would not be delivered from her hurt feelings until she got a glimpse of the suffering of Christ. “Has anyone spat on you yet?” Campbell asked. “No,” she replied, shocked by his question. “They did on Jesus,” he told her. Campbell went on to say, “Suddenly she saw my point. While she had certainly been mistreated by people who should have known better, she had not endured the pain and shame experienced by Christ in His suffering and death for her sins. My simple question changed her attitude about her persecutors and she was able to forgive those who had snubbed and avoided her.”
The sentiment that God might forgive sin as an act of mere generosity is an insult to holiness and divine government.
—Lewis Sperry Chafer
In a cemetery not far from New York City is a headstone engraved with a single word: “Forgiven.” The message is simple, unembellished. There is no date of birth, no epitaph. There is only a name and the solitary word “Forgiven.” But that is the greatest word that can be applied to any man or woman or written on any gravestone.
Old Joe was dying. For years he had been at odds with Bill, formerly one of his best friends. Wanting to straighten things out, he sent word for Bill to come and see him.
When Bill arrived, Joe told him that he was afraid to go into eternity with such bad feelings between them. Then very reluctantly and with great effort Joe apologized for things he had said and done. He also reassured Bill that he forgave him for his offenses. Everything seemed fine until Bill turned to leave. As he walked out of the room, Joe called out after him, “But, remember, if I get better, this doesn’t count!”
E. L. Hamilton, a brother in Christ, once rebuked a Christian worker for manifesting an unforgiving spirit toward a penitent. After a moment’s thought, the lady replied, “Well, I guess I will pardon her, as you suggest, but I never want to have anything more to do with her!” Hamilton said, “Is that how you want God to treat you? Do you want Him to say He will forgive you, but that He will never have anything more to do with you? Remember, when Christ forgave you, He cast your sins into the sea of everlasting forgetfulness!”
A group of Christian missionaries met in Delhi, India, with representatives of other religions to discuss their beliefs. In the course of their talks a member of a major non-Christian religion said to a missionary, “Tell me one thing your religion can offer the Indians that mine can’t.” The missionary thought for a moment and replied, “Forgiveness! Forgiveness!”
There are two ways of covering our sins: man’s way and God’s way. If you seek to hide them, they will have a resurrection sometime; but if you let the Lord cover them, neither the Devil nor man will ever be able to find them again.
—D. L. Moody
George Woodall was a missionary to London’s inner city. One day a young woman he had led to the Lord came to him and said, “I keep getting worried. Has God really forgiven my past?”
Mr. Woodall replied, “If this is troubling you, I think I know what He would say to you. He would tell you to mind your own business.” “What do you mean?” she inquired with a puzzled look. He told her that Jesus had made her sins His business. When He took them away, He put them behind His back, dropped them into the depths of the sea, and posted a notice that reads, “No fishing!”
Sign on a factory bulletin board: “To err is human, to forgive is not company policy.”
A woman once stayed after a church service to talk with the minister. She was downcast and despondent. “I do not suppose you can help me,” she said. “For years I have been unable to pray. There is a woman who came between me and my husband, and I cannot forgive her.” The minister answered kindly, “You cannot forgive the woman for her own sake, but could you not forgive her for Christ’s sake?” At first the question did not register. Then a glimmer of hope lightened the depressed woman’s face. “Yes,” she said, “you are right. I cannot forgive her for her own sake, but I can for His sake, and I will!”
Eunice, a former missionary to Liberia, told a story about forgiveness that has long remained with me. An African man worked for her, and one day she caught him stealing clothes from her house.
“Please forgive me,” he pleaded. “I did wrong. I promise not to do it again.”
She forgave him and allowed him to continue working for her. But less than a month passed before she caught him stealing again. “Look at you!” she said. “You’ve stolen again!”
The bright fellow stared at her and yelled back, “What kind of a Christian are you?”
Eunice, dumbfounded, had no idea how to respond.
“If you forgave me, you do not remember it,” the man said. “If you did not remember it, such a thing did not happen.”
—Michael Youssef
If you are suffering from a bad man’s injustice, forgive him lest there be two bad men.
—Augustine
A Sunday school teacher had just concluded her lesson and wanted to make sure she had made her point. She said, “Can anyone tell me what you must do before you obtain forgiveness from sin?”
There was a short interval of silence and then, from the back of the room, a small boy spoke up. “Sin,” he said.
Billy Graham said he believes that 75 percent of patients in hospitals would be made whole if they would forgive.
Napoleon’s triumphant attitude toward his enemies had softened by the time his French forces defeated the Russians at the Battle of Borodino. Losses on both sides were heavy. As Napoleon walked the battlefield the next day, taking a count of the dead, he heard a cry of pain from a fallen soldier and ordered a stretcher. One of his aides pointed out that the wounded man was a Russian, but Napoleon retorted, “After a victory there are no enemies, only men.”
—Today in the Word
John Stott quoted the administrator of the largest psychiatric hospital in London who said, “If the people here only knew what it means to be forgiven, I could dismiss half of them at once.”
John Wesley came to America for two years as a missionary serving in the colony of Georgia. One day he was talking to General Oglethorpe about some miscreant. Oglethorpe said, “I never forgive.” Whereupon Wesley said, “Then I hope, sir, that you never sin.”
Forgiveness is better than revenge, for forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge is the sign of a savage nature.
—Epictetus
On November 14, 1940, the German Luftwaffe (air force) bombed the city of Coventry, England. It became the longest air raid over Britain during World War II. When the bombing ended, residents surveyed the results and saw that their beautiful cathedral had been razed.
But at least some of the residents did not allow the tragic, pointless destruction of their place of worship to serve as an excuse for revenge. The next day members of that congregation took two irregular, charred beams from the roof, tied them together, and set them up at the east end of the ruins where the altar had been. The beams formed a cross. The parishioners printed two words on a sign and placed it at the foot of the cross: “Father, Forgive.”
A Scottish physician, noted for his skill and piety, died, and when his books were examined, several accounts were found with this written across them in red ink: “Forgiven—too poor to pay.”
His wife, who was of a different disposition, said, “These accounts must be paid.” She therefore sued for the money.
The judge asked her, “Is this your husband’s handwriting in red ink?” She replied in the affirmative.
“Then,” said he, “there is not a tribunal in the land that can obtain the money where he has written ‘Forgiven.’ ”
An emperor of China heard of a rebellion in a remote part of his kingdom. He gathered his soldiers and went to the area to destroy his enemies.
The people in that area put up a red flag of surrender. Then the emperor gave them all gifts and turned his horse around to go home. His soldiers said, “Wait, we thought you said we would destroy our enemies.” The emperor replied, “We have. By our kindness we have made our enemies our friends.”
“Yes, you did too!”
“I did not!”
Thus the little quarrel started,
Thus by unkind little words
Two fond friends were parted.
“I am sorry.”
“So am I.”
Thus the little quarrel ended,
Thus by loving little words
Two fond hearts were mended.
—Leslie B. Flynn
Decide to Forgive
Decide to forgive
For resentment is negative
Resentment is poisonous
Resentment diminishes and devours the self.
Be the first to forgive,
To smile and take the first step.
And you will see happiness bloom
On the face of your human brother or sister.
Be always the first
Do not wait for others to forgive
For by forgiving
You become the master of fate
The fashioner of life
The doer of miracles.
To forgive is the highest,
Most beautiful form of love.
In return you will receive
Untold peace and happiness.
Here is a program for achieving a truly forgiving heart:
Sunday: Forgive yourself.
Monday: Forgive your family.
Tuesday: Forgive your friends and associates.
Wednesday: Forgive across economic lines within your own nation.
Thursday: Forgive across cultural lines within your own nation.
Friday: Forgive across political lines within your own nation.
Saturday: Forgive other nations.
Only the brave know how to forgive. A coward never forgives. It is not in his nature.
—Robert Muller
Two brothers went to their rabbi to settle a long-standing feud. The rabbi got the two to reconcile their differences and shake hands. As they were about to leave, he asked each one to make a wish for the other in honor of the Jewish New Year. The first brother turned to the other and said, “I wish you what you wish me.” At that, the second brother threw up his hands and said, “See, Rabbi, he’s starting up again!”
In The Family Album, Arthur and Nancy DeMoss include a story that aptly describes the spiritual consequences of failure to forgive. While Leonardo da Vinci labored on his masterpiece The Last Supper he became angry with another man. They quarreled, da Vinci hurling bitter accusations and threats at the other fellow. Returning to his canvas, the artist attempted to paint the face of Jesus but found that he was unable to do so. So upset was he that he could not compose himself for the painstaking work. Finally, he set down his brushes, sealed his paint pots, and went to search for the man with whom he had argued. He apologized, asking for forgiveness, which his antagonist graciously gave. Only then was Leonardo able to return to his workshop and complete the face of the Savior.
—Don Anderson
Heinrich Heine was a talented German lyric poet who was capable of producing exquisitely beautiful songs, but his vengeful spirit ruined his life. He wrote bitter, unfair attacks on any who disagreed with him, wasting his genius on satirical defamations.
Once he wrote, “My nature is the most peaceful in the world. All I ask is a simple cottage, a decent bed, good food, some flowers in front of my window, and a few trees beside my door. Then if God wanted to make me wholly happy, he would let me enjoy the spectacle of six or seven of my enemies dangling from these trees. I would forgive them for all the wrong they have done me—forgive them from the bottom of my heart, for we must forgive our enemies. But not until they were hanged!”
That kind of “forgiveness” is mockery. It doesn’t belong in the category of forgiveness at all.
It is not easy …
To apologize,
To profit by mistakes,
To begin over,
To forgive and forget,
To be unselfish,
To think and then act,
To take advice,
To keep out of a rut,
To admit error,
To make the best of little,
To face a sneer,
To subdue an unruly temper,
To be charitable,
To shoulder a deserved blame,
To keep trying,
To recognize the silver lining,
To be considerate,
To avoid mistakes,
To endure success,
But it always pays.