Keeping Moving on the Road to Philadelphia

REFLECTION QUOTES

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

~William Bruce Cameron, American professor of Sociology

“Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.”

~Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), English journalist

“…there is always a danger that we will make it appear externally that we believe in God when internally we don’t. We say with our mouths that we believe in him, but we live with our lives like he never existed. That is the ever-present danger confronting religion. That’s a dangerous type of atheism.”

~Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

“In situations of high stress, fear or distrust, the hormone…cortisol floods the brain. Executive functions that help us with advanced thought processes like strategy, trust building, and compassion shut down. And the amygdala, our instinctive brain, takes over. The body makes a chemical choice about how best to protect itself — in this case from the shame and loss of power associated with being wrong — and as a result is unable to regulate its emotions or handle the gaps between expectations and reality. So we default to one of four responses: fight (keep arguing the point), flight (revert to, and hide behind, group consensus), freeze (disengage from the argument by shutting up) or appease (make nice with your adversary by simply agreeing with him).”

~Judith Glaser in “Hooked on Being Right” in Harvard Business Review

“People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to.”

~Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), English journalist

“Love cures people – both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.”

~Karl A. Menninger (1893-1990), famed American Psychiatrist

“I suffer fools gladly, for I have always been on good terms with myself.”

~Christopher Morley (1890-1957),
American journalist, novelist, poet, and editor

SERMON PASSAGE

1 Peter 1:22-2:5 (NASB)

22 Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, 23 for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,

“All flesh is like grass,
And all its glory like the flower of

grass.
The grass withers,
And the flower falls off,
25 But the word of the Lord endures forever.”

And this is the word which was preached to you.

Chapter 2

1 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, 2 like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, 3 if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

4 And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Romans 12:1-5 (NASB)

1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. 4 For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

Ephesians 4:1-3 (NASB)

1Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

1 John 4:10-11 (NASB)

10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.