Giving and Taking What is God's - Ravi Zacharias

Take ~5 minutes to read this 'COUGARS Daily' which contains snippets from A Slice of Infinity. Invite your family and friends to participate in reading with you daily. Then, consider sharing your comments or faith questions at CougarsDaily.blogspot.com

- When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the LORD of hosts. (Malachi 1:8)

A Slice of Infinity snippets: "...giving all that is your best to God is worship at its core. This cannot be done without the sacrifice of the acclaim and adulation of the world. If we were to only pause for a few moments and take stock, we would see how close we all come to sacrilege each day. Do we give God the best of our time? Do we give God the best of our energies? Do we give God the best of our thinking? Do we give God the best of our wealth? Do we give God the best of our dreams and plans? Or does the world get our best and God merely gets the leftovers?"

Chad's comments: I remember a similar experience to Ravi's when, as a child of somewhere around 11 or 12, I drank some of the grape juice that was stored in the church refrigerator; unlike Ravi, however, the preacher didn't catch me. I felt guilty when I found out what the juice was for. Looking back, I should have felt guilty simply because the juice wasn't mine to take. But I do remember it tasted really good. (Doesn't sin always taste so good at first?)

It is a daily struggle to put God first and give Him the best of everything. I am such a selfish person. I want what is most pleasing to me at all times. I want to be happy, wealthy and wise. Often, this type of pursuit leaves me angry, unsatisfied and helpless.


Quote from today's Life-Devotions: "Preach the Gospel. And if necessary, use words." - St. Francis of Assisi


* Post your stories of God's intervention on the blog.
* Look for ways to share Awe and Wonder with children - leave suggestions at CougarsDaily.blogspot.com
* Make Space for unbelievers in your life.
* Consider joining Life-Devotions (a group of about 100 catholics and protestants sharing their faith through daily devotions and discussion - strong pro Life content)
* Voice of the Martyrs

The Body of Christ - Jill Carattini

Take ~5 minutes to read this 'COUGARS Daily' which contains snippets from A Slice of Infinity. Invite your family and friends to participate in reading with you daily. Then, consider sharing your comments or faith questions at CougarsDaily.blogspot.com

- For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:21-22)

- He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, "you heard from me; (Acts 1:3-4)

- and said,^(A) "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven,^(B) will^(C) come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." (Acts 1:11)

A Slice of Infinity snippets: “It is no small promise that Christ came as a body, was wounded as a body, and now sits as a real and living body in heaven, until the day he will return and wipe every tear from our eyes. The ascended body of Christ represents something more fully human, more real than ourselves, and it is this reality he lifts us toward, transforms us into, and advocates on our behalf. Our union with Christ and communion with the Trinity add a certain and heavenly dimension to our lives; and it is indeed one that correctly and profoundly orients us here and now, in real bodies, to the world around us."

Chad's comments: The 'Theology of the Body' is a term that Pope John Paul II used in a description of one of his defining works. I attended a 'Theology of the Body' talk by Christopher West at a local Catholic church via invite from my brother in Christ, Pat. There were many Protestants in the audience and the talk was extremely interesting as Christopher examined what a 'Theology of the Body' looks like. What I remember in brief was this - A beautiful picture of two naked people in the garden of eden, unashamed and 'good' in every sense. The picture was then crumpled up in a ball and thrown in the trash as something we should not look at. Next, some brave person, namely Hue Heffner, took the crumpled paper, unfolded it and forced the dirty, crumpled paper in our faces. ( - Perhaps Dr. Castle can expound on this for us as I'm sure I'm missing many great points. ) As we search to answer the question of what REAL relationship with the God who made us looks like, let us realize that our culture attempts to define us in many facets. But, our True identity comes from our Holy Father. Live in the identity that God gives you and those around you will see and know that He is Lord!

* Post your stories of God's intervention on the blog.
* Look for ways to share Awe and Wonder with children - leave suggestions at CougarsDaily.blogspot.com

* Make Space for unbelievers in your life.
* Consider joining Life-Devotions (a group of about 100 catholics and protestants sharing their faith through daily devotions and discussion - strong pro Life content)
* Voice of the Martyrs

Unexpected Apologetic - Margaret Manning

Take ~5 minutes to read this 'COUGARS Daily' which contains snippets from A Slice of Infinity. Invite your family and friends to participate in reading with you daily. Then, consider sharing your comments or faith questions at CougarsDaily.blogspot.com

- A careful reading of the four evangelists’ remembrances of the resurrection reveals many different emphases and details. Matthew, for example, tells us that a great earthquake had occurred as “an angel of the Lord descended and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it” (Matthew 28:2). Mark, on the other hand, tells us that a “young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe” was inside the tomb to announce Jesus’s resurrection (Mark 16:5). Luke tells us that two men “suddenly stood near them [the women] in dazzling apparel” (Luke 24:4) and John, the beloved disciple, reports his own discovery of the linen wrappings abandoned in the empty tomb (John 20:5).

- There are many other differences in the re-telling of the resurrection appearances of Jesus, but there is one feature that is the same in all four accounts: the resurrection announcement is made first to the women who followed Jesus (Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:1; Luke 23:55-24:5; John 20:1)

A Slice of Infinity snippets: “Perhaps the strongest reason of taking the stories of the empty tomb absolutely seriously lies in the fact that it is women who play the leading role. It would have been very unlikely for anyone in the ancient world who was concocting a story to assign the principal part to women since, in those times, they were not considered capable of being reliable witnesses in a court of law. It is surely much more probable that they appear in the gospel accounts precisely because they actually fulfilled the role that the stories assign to them, and in so doing, they make a startling discovery.” - Anglican priest and physicist John Polkinghorne

Chad's comments: Recently, my sister was talking about this very subject. One reason she gives for not liking the Bible is her perception that it is a Male dominated writing. She was a bit less angry when she learned that women were the first to discover the resurrected Jesus. The Bible is not gender sensitive. For example, there is no genealogy of Cain's wife. This is one reason why I think people ask the question, "who did Cain marry". Cain's only obvious choice was that he married his sister. Although the Bible is not gender sensitive, it is sensitive to our sonship (if I may use that term in the generic sense - that we are all sons and daughters of God) We are not orphans in the universe - some abandoned product of time plus matter, plus chance. We are in fact created with a purpose, Male and Female, by our Holy Father.

Fear leads to control. Perfect love casts out all fear. Obey because you love Him.

* Post your stories of God's intervention on the blog.
* Look for ways to share Awe and Wonder with children - leave suggestions at CougarsDaily.blogspot.com

* Make Space for unbelievers in your life.
* Consider joining Life-Devotions (a group of about 100 catholics and protestants sharing their faith through daily devotions and discussion - strong pro Life content)
* Voice of the Martyrs