GOLDEN RULE
All seven of the great religions of the world have “golden rules.”
The Hindu: “The true rule is to guard and do by the things of others as you do by your own.”
The Buddhist: “One should see for others the happiness one desires for oneself.”
The Zoroastrian: “Do as you would be done by.”
The Confucian: “What you do not wish done to yourself, do not to others.”
The Mohammedan: “Let none of you treat your brother in a way he would dislike to be treated.”
The Jew: “Whatsoever you do not wish your neighbor to do to you, do not unto him.”
The Christian: “All things whatsoever ye would that men do unto you, do ye even so to them.”
—The Maritime Baptist
Golden Rules for Living
1. If you open it, close it.
2. If you turn it on, turn it off.
3. If you unlock it, lock it up.
4. If you break it, admit it.
5. If you can’t fix it, call in someone who can.
6. If you borrow it, return it.
7. If you value it, take care of it.
8. If you make a mess, clean it up.
9. If you move it, put it back.
10. If it belongs to someone else, get permission to use it.
11. If you don’t know how to operate it, leave it alone.
12. If it’s none of your business, don’t ask questions.
GOLF
A golfer came to an ant hill in a golf course. His ball landed on top of the ant hill. He swung at the ball but missed and hit a lot of ants. He swung again and hit more ants, missing the ball again. Then one ant on the hill said to another, “If we want to get out of this alive, we better get on the ball!”
A golfer never feels better than when he is under par.
Epitaph to America:
Here lies a decent godless people. Their only monument to society is asphalt highways and one-thousand lost golf balls.
—T. S. Eliot
GOODNESS
People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for some underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
—Gary C. Griessner
Benjamin Franklin asked himself each day, “What good thing can I do today?”
GOSPEL
“It’s too good to be true,” someone protested to George MacDonald about the plan of salvation. “No,” MacDonald replied, “it’s so good it has to be true.”
GOSPELS
A man who lived in Canada had never been to Niagara Falls but now, finally, after saving his money for a long time, he was on his way. In a building there he saw a large picture of the Falls that covered the complete side of the wall. He wondered why there would be a picture of the Falls in a building so near the Falls. But when he went up closer to take a look at the picture, lo, it was the real Falls that he was seeing through a clear glass wall and that was framed with a picture frame.
The four Gospels are merely a frame to point to and open the way to the real living Christ—not a picture of Him, but just framing Him.
GOSSIP
Whoever gossips to you will gossip about you.
—Spanish proverb
Gossip needn’t be false to be evil—there’s a lot of truth that shouldn’t be passed around.
—Frank Clark
The order of service at a church in Red Cloud, Nebraska, listed the sermon topic “Gossip.” Immediately following was the hymn, “I Love to Tell the Story.”
—The Eagle
On Sunday a restaurant manager designates two rooms as a nonsmoking area to accommodate churchgoers who come in for a bite to eat after their evening service. A busboy there said he was glad to see the large number of nonsmokers. But then he added, “They may not smoke, but you ought to hear them gossip. If we had a nongossip section, nobody would be there.”
The difference between gossip and news is whether you hear it or tell it.
The things that go in one ear and out the other do not hurt as much as the things that go in one ear, get all mixed up, and then slip out of the mouth.
A woman repeated a bit of gossip about a neighbor, and within a short period of time the whole town knew the story. The person it concerned was hurt deeply and was very unhappy. Then one day the lady responsible for spreading the rumor learned it was completely untrue. She was very sorry and went to a wise old sage to find out what she could do to repair the damage. After listening to her problem, he said, “Go to the marketplace, purchase a fowl, and have it killed. Then on your way home, pluck its feathers one by one and drop them along the path.”
Although surprised by this unusual advice, the woman did as she was told. The next day she returned and informed the man that she had done as he instructed. “Now, go and collect all those feathers and bring them back to me,” he said. The lady followed the same path, but to her dismay the wind had blown all the feathers away. After searching all day long, she returned with only two or three in her hand—all that could be found. “You see,” said the old gentleman, “it’s easy to drop them, but impossible to bring them all back. So it is with gossip. It doesn’t take much to spread a false rumor, but you can never completely undo the wrong.”
We used to have a scraper known as the model “G.” Somebody asked one of our salesman one day what the “G” stood for. The salesman was pretty quick on the trigger and so after thinking a few seconds replied, “Well, I tell you. I guess the ‘G’ stands for gossip, because like gossip this machine moves a lot of dirt, and moves it fast!”
—R. G. LeTourneau
The difference between gossip and news depends on whether you hear it or tell it.
Three pastors were sharing their problems. After the first and second pastors gave their problems, the third said, “My problem is gossip.”
Gossip not only hurts others, it can also boomerang and hurt the one who starts it. An elderly, wealthy grandfather was deaf, so he decided to buy a hearing aid. Two weeks later he stopped by the store where he had bought it and told the manager he could now pick up conversation quite easily, even in the next room. “Your relatives must be happy to know that you can hear so much better,” beamed the delighted proprietor. “Oh, I haven’t told them yet,” the man chuckled. “I’ve just been sitting around listening—and you know what? I’ve changed my will twice!”
When you hear an evil report about anyone, halve it and quarter it, and then say nothing about the rest.
—Charles H. Spurgeon
Can You Guess Who I Am?
“I have no respect for justice and no mercy for defenseless humanity. I ruin without killing; I tear down homes; I break hearts and wreck lives. You will find me in the pews of the pious as well as in the haunts of the unholy. I am wily, cunning, malicious, and I gather strength with age. I have made my way where greed, mistrust, and dishonor are unknown; yet my victims are as numerous as the sands of the sea, and often as innocent! I feed on good and bad alike. I never forgive and seldom forget. My name? My name is gossip!”
Recently, two young girls met each other on the street. Jan said, “Millie told me that you told her that secret I told you not to tell her.” Replied Mary, “She’s a mean thing! I told her not to tell you.” “Well,” said Jan, “I told her I wouldn’t tell you she told me, so don’t tell her I did.”
GOVERNMENT
We ought to be glad we don’t receive as much government as we pay for.
—Will Rogers
It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly implore His protection and favor.
—George Washington
Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States under Thy protection; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection for one another and for their fellow-citizens of the United States at large.
—George Washington
I don’t make jokes. I just watch government and report the facts.
—Will Rogers
GRACE
Ralph Keiper asked Dalton Myers, “What is your favorite doctrine?”
Dalton answered and then said, “What’s yours?”
He answered, “Nothing compares with the doctrine of God’s grace.”
Love that reaches up is adoration.
Love that reaches across is affection.
Love that reaches down is grace.
—Donald Grey Barnhouse
At a busy airport a man drove up in a fancy red sports car and let his wife out to go meet someone. The policeman came by and insisted he move on and not park there. The driver didn’t move so the policeman got out his ticket pad and said, “It will cost you eighty dollars to park here.”
Then the man in the car rolled down his window and said, “I’m just waiting for my wife to come out. Can’t I have a little grace?”
The policeman responded, “I don’t know anything about grace. I just know about the law.”
But actually the man in the car didn’t know anything about grace either. To wink at wrongdoing is not grace.
A benevolent person gave Mr. Rowland Hill a hundred pounds to dispense to a poor minister a bit at a time, thinking it was too much to send him all at once. Mr. Hill forwarded five pounds in a letter, with only these words within the envelope, “More to follow.” In a few days’ time, the good man received another letter; this second messenger contained another five pounds, with the same motto, “And more to follow.” A day or two after came a third and a fourth, and still the same promise, “And more to follow.” Till the whole sum had been received, the astonished minister was made familiar with the cheering words, “And more to follow.”
—Charles H. Spurgeon
Grace is more than unmerited favor. If you feed a tramp who calls on you, that is unmerited favor, but it is scarcely grace. But suppose that after robbing you, you then feed him. That would be grace. Grace, then, is favor shown where there is positive demerit in the one receiving it.
Grace turns lions into lambs, wolves into sheep, monsters into men, and men into angels.
—Thomas Carlyle
A friend called on John Newton, author of the beloved hymn “Amazing Grace,” in the later years of his life. A portion of Scripture was read, including the verse, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10). Newton then commented, “I am not what I ought to be. How imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good. I am not what I hope to be. Soon I shall put off immortality, all sin, and imperfection. Yet though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, or what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was—a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’ ”
Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits on the undeserving.
—A. W. Tozer
Grace is everything for nothing. It’s helping the helpless, going to those who cannot come in their own strength.
—Lehman Strauss
A minister once sat next to an unbeliever on a train and began talking about spiritual things. He had difficulty convincing him that character and good works could not save a man, but only faith in Jesus Christ. Soon the conductor came along requesting, “Tickets, please!” As the man presented his, the conductor looked at it, checked the date, punched it, and passed it on to the next seat. This was the minister’s opportunity. He said, “All the conductor looked at was your ticket. He did not inquire about your character. He didn’t care who you were—whether you were a good or moral man or a criminal. So it is with salvation. You need only God’s ‘ticket to heaven’ stamped by the blood of Jesus Christ.”
A friend went to Alexander the Great asking for money. The man asked for ten talents of money, but Alexander had fifty delivered to him. When the man returned and said that ten talents would be sufficient, Alexander replied, “Ten are sufficient for you to take, but not for me to give.”
Many Christians are shocked by sin, but they should be staggered by grace.
Grace is God’s special favor freely given to undeserving people.
Grace—getting something from God that doesn’t belong to us.
In his book In the Heavenlies, H. A. Ironside tells the story of an attempted assassination of Queen Elizabeth I. The woman who sought to do so dressed as a male page and secreted herself in the queen’s boudoir awaiting the convenient moment to stab the queen to death. She did not realize that the queen’s attendants would be very careful to search the rooms before Her Majesty was permitted to retire.
They found the woman hidden among the gowns and brought her into the presence of the queen, taking from her the dagger she had hoped to plant in the heart of the sovereign.
She realized that, humanly speaking, her case was hopeless. She threw herself down on her knees and begged the queen as a woman to have compassion on her, a woman, and to show her grace.
Queen Elizabeth looked at her coldly and quietly said, “If I show you grace, what promise will you make for the future?”
The woman looked up and said, “Grace that hath conditions, grace that is fettered by precautions, is not grace at all.”
Queen Elizabeth caught it in a moment and said, “You are right. I pardon you by my grace.” And they let her go, a free woman.
A man in Ireland was very much under conviction, but somehow he couldn’t give in to the Lord. Over and over the Devil would make him believe he just couldn’t hold on. Nearby was a watermill. Pointing to it a Christian friend said, “What turns the wheel today?”
“The stream,” replied the Irishman.
“And what will turn it tomorrow?”
Again he answered, “The stream.”
“And the day after?”
The only answer there was to give was, “The stream.” That is like God’s grace. The same grace that saves us today is flowing to keep us saved tomorrow—and the next day—and the next day—on till Jesus comes.
A little boy had an accident and was taken to a hospital. After he was made comfortable, a nurse brought him a large glass of milk.
He looked longingly at it, but he did not pick it up. He had come from a poor home where his hunger was seldom satisfied. If he ever received a glass of milk, it was only partly filled, and even that had to be shared with another child.
Finally he looked up at the nurse and asked, “How deep may I drink?” The nurse replied, “Drink it all! There’s more.”
—Our Daily Bread