RESPECT
Your job gives you authority. Your behavior earns you respect.
—Irwin Federman
RESPONSIBILITY
Whose Job Is It?
This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
People need responsibility. They resist assuming it, but they can’t get along without it.
—John Steinbeck
The thing that keeps your feet on the ground is the responsibility placed on your shoulders.
—Jack Moffitt
A youth was questioning a lonely old man. “What is life’s heaviest burden?” he asked. The old fellow answered sadly, “To have nothing to carry.”
—Bits & Pieces
Let me do the thing that ought to be done,
When it ought to be done,
As it ought to be done,
Whether I like to do it or not.
REST
According to a Greek legend, in ancient Athens a man noticed the great storyteller Aesop playing childish games with some little boys. He laughed and jeered at Aesop, asking him why he wasted his time in such frivolous activity.
Aesop responded by picking up a bow, loosening its string, and placing it on the ground. Then he said to the critical Athenian, “Now answer the riddle, if you can. Tell us what the unstrung bow implies.”
The man looked at it for several moments but had no idea what point Aesop was trying to make. Aesop explained, “If you keep a bow always bent, it will break eventually; but if you let it go slack, it will be more fit for use when you want it.”
People are also like that. That’s why we all need to take time to rest.
RESTITUTION
After F. E. Marsh preached on restitution, a young man came to him and said, “Pastor, you have put me in a bad fix. I’ve stolen from my employer, and I’m ashamed to tell him about it. You see, I’m a boat builder, and the man I work for is an unbeliever. I have often talked to him about Christ, but he only laughs at me. In my work, expensive copper nails are used because they won’t rust in water. I’ve been taking some of them home for a boat I am building in my backyard. I’m afraid if I tell my boss what I’ve done and offer to pay for them, he’ll think I’m a hypocrite, and I’ll never be able to reach him for Christ.”
Later when the man saw the preacher again, he exclaimed, “Pastor, I’ve settled that matter and I’m so relieved.” “What happened when you told your boss?” asked the minister. “Oh, he looked at me intently and said, ‘George, I’ve always thought you were a hypocrite, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe there’s something to your Christianity after all. Any religion that makes a man admit he’s been stealing a few copper nails and offer to settle for them must be worth having.’ ”
—Our Daily Bread
RESTRAINT
Liberty exists in proportion to restraint.
—Daniel Webster
RESURRECTION
When that great Christian and scientist Sir Michael Faraday was dying, some journalists questioned him as to his speculations for a life after death. “Speculations!” said he, “I know nothing about speculations. I’m resting on certainties. ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth,’ and because He lives, I shall live also.”
—Gospel Trumpet
Road repairs were being made on one of the main highways in the mountains of Pennsylvania. At the point where the construction began there were two signs. One read: “Travel at Your Own Risk”; the other: “Road Closed Beyond the Cemetery.” But spiritually the road is not closed beyond the cemetery. Rather, there are two roads beyond the grave—one to life everlasting through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; the other to spiritual death.
A little lad was gazing intently at the picture in the art store window: the store was displaying a notable picture of the crucifixion. A gentleman approached, stopped, and looked. The boy, seeing his interest, said, “That’s Jesus.” The man made no reply, and the lad continued, “Them’s Roman soldiers.” And, after a moment, “They killed Him.”
“Where did you learn that?” asked the man.
“In the Mission Sunday school,” was the reply.
The man turned and walked thoughtfully away. He had not gone far when he heard a youthful voice calling, “Say, Mister,” and quickly the little street lad caught up with him. “Say, Mister,” he repeated, “I wanted to tell you that He rose again.”
A German princess on her deathbed ordered that her grave be covered with a great granite slab, that around it should be placed solid blocks of stone, the whole be fastened together with clamps of iron, and that on the stone should be cut these words: “This burial place, purchased to all eternity, must never be opened.”
It happened that a little acorn was buried in the process of covering the grave. During the months that followed, the seed sprouted, and the tender shoot found its way up through the crevice between two of the stones. Years passed and the small shoot grew into a sapling, then a huge oak tree. It burst asunder the clamps of iron binding the stones and pushed aside the rocks that were never to be moved.
“Father declared he was going to buy a new plot in the cemetery, a plot all for himself. ‘And I will buy one on a corner,’ he added triumphantly, ‘where I can get out.’ ”
—Clarence Day
A very learned man once said to a little child who believed in the Lord Jesus, “My poor little girl, you don’t know whom you believe in. There have been many christs. In which of them do you believe?” “I know which one I believe in,” replied the child. “I believe in the Christ who rose from the dead.”
Asoka, once emperor of India, distributed Buddha’s ashes, in minute portions, to eighty-four thousand shrines all over India! Buddhism is centered around the worship of the ashes of the dead founder. Christianity centers around its living Lord!
A wounded soldier, knowing he was going to die, took his Bible out of his pocket and placed his finger on John 11:25. As the blood ran down his finger it caused his finger to stick to the page of his Bible at that verse when he died. How true for the Christian. “I am the resurrection and the life!”
One day during the French revolution, a man said to a bishop, “The Christian religion—what is it? It would be easy to start a religion like that.”
“Oh, yes. One would only have to get crucified and rise again the third day.”
Easter is a time of new life. That which was dead now lives. Darkness is gone. A warm sun shines. Life has a new meaning.
Easter dates back originally to the spring festival in honor of Eastra, the Teutonic goddess of light and spring. As early as the eighth century the name was transferred by the Anglo-Saxons to the Christian festival designed to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.
Today we are privileged to celebrate Easter because of Jesus’ victory over sin and death and hell.
Christianity begins where religion ends—with the resurrection of Christ.
An old Greek legend tells how the Sphinx at Thebes, which had the body of a lion and the upper part of a woman, lay crouched on the top of a rock on the highway and propounded to all travelers a riddle. Those who failed to solve the riddle were slain by the Sphinx. None yet had been able to answer it. But when Oedipus came to the Sphinx and was asked the question, “What creature walks in the morning on four feet, at noon upon two, and the evening on three?” Oedipus replied, “Man, who in childhood creeps on hands and knees, in manhood walks erect, and in old age goes with the aid of a staff.” The Sphinx, mortified at the solution of her riddle, cast herself down from the rock and perished. So for ages on the highway of human life crouched the cruel sphinx of death, propounding to all travelers its unsolvable and unanswerable enigma. No one was able to answer; death reigned. But Christ solved the riddle and overturned the sphinx from her rock.
RETIREMENT
Early to bed and early to rise,
Till I make enough to do otherwise.
“Now that I’m retired I can finish my book.” “I didn’t know you were writing a book.” “I’m not. I’m reading it.”
I have no problem with retirement. I’d much rather be put out to pasture than under it.
—Bob Orben
Retirement is twice as much husband on half as much income.
Retirement really doesn’t change our lives that much. The biggest difference is that all those things you never had the time to do now become all those things you don’t have the money to do.
—Bob Orben
REVELATION
An old Christian gentleman who was known for his optimistic outlook was asked the secret of his triumphant attitude. He replied, “I’ve read the last book of the Bible, so I know how the story ends. I’m on the winning side.”
REVENGE
Forgiveness is better than revenge, for forgiveness is the sign of a gentle nature, but revenge is the sign of a savage nature.
—Epictetus
REVIVAL
Due to reports of successful revivals by the late Gypsy Smith, he was asked to explain the best method to start a revival. He answered, “Lock yourself in a private room. Take a piece of chalk and mark a circle on the floor, get down on your knees inside the circle and pray God to start a revival inside this circle. When this prayer is answered, the revival will be on.”
If all the sleeping folk will wake up—and all the lukewarm folk will fire up—and all the dishonest folk will confess up—and all the disgruntled folk will sweeten up—and the discouraged folk will look up—and all the estranged folk will make up—and all the gossipers will shut up—and all the dry bones will shake up—and all the true soldiers will stand up—and all the church members will pray up—then you will have a revival.