 A simple, illiterate Londoner was converted from alcoholic to believer through the work of the Salvation Army. He went regularly to the Salvation Army chapel. One day he came home depressed. His wife asked, “What’s the matter?”
He said, “I’ve just noticed that all the Salvationists wear red sweaters, and I don’t have a red sweater.”
She said, “I can fix that.” So she knitted him a red sweater, which he wore proudly to chapel.
The next Sunday, after he returned home, he still wasn’t happy. His wife asked, “What’s wrong this time?”
He replied, “I just noticed that all their red sweaters have some yellow writing on them.”
 She too was illiterate, but she said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll embroider some writing on it for you.” She had no idea what the yellow writing on the red sweater of the Salvationists said. It actually says, “Blood & Fire.” That’s the motto of the Salvation Army. The man’s wife had no idea what the letters said, and she couldn’t read anyway. So, copying a sign from a store window across the street, she embroidered three words onto his red sweater.
When he came home next Sunday, she asked, “Did they like your sweater?”
“They loved my sweater,” he beamed. “Some of them said they liked my sweater better than their own sweater.”
What neither husband nor wife knew was that the sign in the store window across the street said, “Under New Management.” What a great thing for a person to proclaim: “My life is under new management.”
We can declare that very thing today! It means giving up the precious control we think we have over our own lives. But do any of us really think we control very much at all about our lives? I have found that relinquishing control to a loving and trustworthy God is safer, and for that matter, a more accurate representation than thinking I’m in control anyway.
Just this morning Pastor Philip Miller of Westwood Baptist made an interesting observation. He said that most of us believe that Jesus is the expert in eternal life, but we think that He doesn't know as much about how to live our lives in the real world of 2013 as we do. So we go on thinking like the world, trying to live our lives according to the world's faulty wisdom. That's Old Management, not new. And it results in failed relationships, failed business, failed happiness.
Under New Management, that’s what I want my next sweater to say!
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
It may be humankind’s oldest question: “Is there a God?” Some people accept His existence without difficulty; others can’t believe unless they ‘see’ God. Most people are somewhere in
between.
Anthropology has never found a significant society that didn’t have some type of religion searching for the transcendent, yet some people doubt God’s existence.
Ryan was interviewed on the street. He said, with all the assurance that only a young, inexperienced person can have, “God did not create man . . . man created God!” A cute–sie little saying that Ryan probably heard from someone he looks up to. At age 17, Ryan believes he can have a great life relying only on himself, his ability and intellect. Will Ryan still believe a great life depends on him when he’s 27 and has discovered very few things in life he truly controls? Will he believe he can engineer his dreams himself, when he’s 37 and wrestling with some of the heartbreak and calamity of life? Will he still believe he can create his own wonderful life when he’s 47 and has seen tragedy and horror on a cosmic scale? When Ryan is 57, what will remain of his idealistic belief that there is no God and he is the captain of his own fate (a la William Ernest Henley)?
If God is so obviously a creation of human imagination, why do people grapple with this question, “Is there a God?” I think the answer is, most of us can see without trying that with no supreme being, life has no meaning or satisfaction or value.
The Apostle Paul was visiting Athens, Greece, and saw a temple dedicated to “an unknown god.” Paul spoke to the Greek philosophers of that day about this “unknown” god. He identified Him as the One True God, creator and sustainer of the universe, and His Son Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to renew a onetime God–man relationship gone sour.
 That day, on a big, lumpy rock in Athens called Mars Hill, in the shadow of the Parthenon, a few listeners were
interested, though most just scoffed and walked off in a huff, rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. Paul was successful because success is not defined by which side has the most people, but by indi-viduals finding peace and purpose and pleasure in the knowledge that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
 A great story about over-abundance comes from WW–II. Two soldiers were sent to an uninhabited Pacific island as forward observers. Once a month they would send an order for supplies over their shortwave radio, and the materials, food, medicine, etc.,
would be air–dropped onto their tropical island.
One thing they ran out of was toilet paper, so they ordered a
gross. Problem was, the unit of order for toilet paper wasn’t one roll, but one gross of rolls, or 144 rolls. So where it said “one unit,” they ordered 144. Soon a plane flew over and dropped a gross of grosses—144 times 144. They received 20,736 rolls of paper.
If one roll would last two men, eating a crude, high–fiber diet, four days, then 144 rolls would be enough for 1 year, 6 months, 3 weeks and 6 days. When you do the math, 20,736 rolls is enough toilet paper for 227 years, 2 months, 4 weeks and 1 day!!! Over–abundance indeed!
When Mother Teresa came to Fort Wayne in 1982, while I was a college student, she told a moving story about taking a bowl of rice to a malnourished family in the slums of Calcutta.
She went into the hovel where the family lived and offered a bowl of rice to a stick–thin woman. The family’s poverty was having a damaging effect on them. As soon as Mother
Teresa gave the rice to the woman, the starving woman slipped out of the house and disappeared. The nun wondered where she had gone, and asked someone else about it. The other person took Mother Teresa’s hand and led her behind the house and down the street to another shack where poverty was the only decoration.
To her great surprise, Mother Teresa discovered the first woman, carefully pouring half the
rice she had been given, into the bowl of the second family. Even in her own poverty, she was sharing the bounty she had received.
From my travels in many foreign countries, I know firsthand that virtually every American is
wealthy, compared to people in the Third World. Each of us can afford to give liberally, even conservatives. Jesus served poor people almost exclusively during his life on earth. How can we do less?
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
The website for Jim Carrey’s 1997 film, “Liar, Liar,” explains the plot like this:  A fast–talking divorce lawyer’s habit of swaying juries with fabrication, distortion and deception carries over to his
relationship with his five–year–old son, Max. When Fletcher lies once again by
making promises to Max that he can’t or won’t keep, the son makes a wish, before
blowing out the candles, that his dad will somehow have to tell the truth for a whole day. It results in some embarrassing—even professionally damaging—truths that open the lawyer’s eyes to his problem with lying.
The lie–free day is painful for Fletcher. He is pulled over by a traffic cop, and the following conversation ensues:
Cop: You know why I pulled you over?
Fletcher: Depends on how long you were following me!
Cop: Why don't we just take it from the top?
Fletcher: Here goes: I sped. I followed too closely. I ran a stop sign. I almost hit a Chevy. I sped some more. I failed to yield at a crosswalk. I changed lanes at the intersection. I changed lanes without signaling while running a red light and speeding!
Cop: Is that all?
Fletcher: No... I have unpaid parking tickets. [groans]
Then there’s his truthful encounter with a hungry, indigent man outside the courtroom:
Bum: Got any spare change?
Fletcher: Absolutely!
Bum: Could ya spare some?
Fletcher: Yes I could!
Bum: Will ya?
Fletcher: Nope!
Bum: How come?
Fletcher: Because I believe you will buy booze with it! I just want to get from my car to the office without being confronted by the decay of western society! Plus—(screaming) I'm cheap!
Lying can be a joke in American society. But it’s no joke to God. He keeps track of every little thing I say, and if it’s not true, He knows it and He takes it seriously, and He will hold me accountable for my lying. He never stops loving me, but He does have high standards.
History is replete with people who would have been much better off if they had just told the truth to begin with. The humiliation is probably much less than having our lies exposed in the end. And God isn’t amused when we refuse to tell it like it is.*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
In the 1984 movie Karate Kid, young Daniel asks Mister Miyagi to teach him karate. Miyagi agrees, with one condition: Daniel must submit totally to his instruction and never
question his methods.
Daniel shows up the next day eager to learn karate. To his chagrin, Mister Miyagi has him paint a fence. Miyagi demonstrates the precise motion for the job: up and down, up and down. It takes Daniel days to finish.
Next, Miyagi has him scrub the deck using a prescribed stroke. Again the job seems to take forever. Daniel wonders, ‘What does this have to do with karate?’ but he says nothing.
Then, Miyagi tells Daniel to wash and wax three weather–beaten old cars and again demonstrates the motion—“Wax on, wax off.” Finally, Daniel has reached his limit. “I thought you were going to teach me karate, but all you have done is make me do your unwanted
chores!”
Daniel has broken Miyagi’s one condition, and the old man’s face turns red with anger. “I have been teaching you karate. Defend yourself!”
Miyagi thrusts his arm at Daniel, who instinctively defends himself with an arm motion exactly like that used in one of his chores. Miyagi unleashes a vicious kick, and again Daniel averts the blow with a motion learned and practiced countless times in his hated, mean-
ingless assignments. After Daniel successfully defends himself several more times, Miyagi simply walks away, leaving Daniel to ponder what the master had known all along: skill comes from repeating the correct but seemingly mundane actions, over–and–over, to perfection.
The same is true of goodness. If we will learn from the Master, and practice faithfully, we too can learn to live a life dominated by goodness!
Learning bad habits seems to be so much easier than learning good habits. Like weeds, bad behavior seems to sprout, hale and hearty, overnight, full grown from the womb. But good behavior—it grows as precariously as delicate orchids. Only with care—and repetitive practice—will we learn to bless others with the goodness of God.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
Jimmy Carter was President of the United States most of the time I was in the U.S. Army. Back in those days I was a dedicated runner (I can hardly believe it now, looking in the mirror) and I qualified for the “President’s Physical Fitness Award” for running cumulative distances of 50 miles, 100 miles, 200 miles, and so on. So I would receive certificates from
time to time, awards that identified my physical training milestones.
 It was such a thrill to receive a letter from the President. I knew that he would sit there in the oval office, looking through the paper work on his desk, and nodding when he came to the certificate that said Curtis Alexander of the 101st Airborne Division, and later out there in Hawaii, had run a certain distance and therefore earned the
certificate he held in his hand. President Jimmy Carter would smile a deep, satisfied smile and jot a personal note that said something like, “Curtis, I’m really proud of you. Next time you’re in Washington D.C., call me and we’ll do lunch.” Signed, Your friend Jimmy Carter.
Right? Yeah, when pigs fly!!!
Though his signature was, indeed, on the award, President Carter never saw that certificate, and he never smiled when he read my name, because he never read my name! The president of the free world had more important things to do than to form a personal relationship with
some lowly G.I. who once lived a few miles from President Gerald Ford, the man Jimmy Carter defeated in the 1976 presidential election. And I voted for Ford!!!
But the God of the universe not only knows my name, He gave His special, one–of–a–kind Son to die so that He could renew a personal, intimate relationship with me!
Not that I’m better than anyone else. God loves each of us that much. And he sends special personal hand–written notes to us, like the slobbery, open–mouth kiss of my little grandson. Or the golden glow cast on Mt. Rainier’s western flank on a clear Washington state evening. Or the confidence I feel believing that even with all the puzzling questions in life I can’t answer, God is in control and he has my best interest at heart.
“Affordable Care” Act? Yes, it’s an act!
I just got assaulted (without a rifle) by health care “reform.” My insurer sent me a letter saying that the “Affordable Care” Act requires them to cancel my current plan, for which I pay $486 per month.
They included details of what they called their “comparable” replacement policy. It will cost me $979.75 per month (this is the exact truth, I promise). Apparently the word “affordable” means “Your new insurance will cost you twice as much as your old insurance did (201.594 %, to be exact).” But hey, there is an up–side: I now have maternity and newborn care, plus pediatric dental and vision coverage, always needed by 61–year–old and 57–year–old senior citizens, huh?
The “Affordable Care” Act is so wonderful that the politicians who voted it in refuse to have anything to do with it for themselves. My wife Kathy says, “That’s just criminal.”
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent
the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views
of Curtis Alexander.
The familiar lines of this old nursery rhyme make me wonder: was Humpty Dumpty hard–boiled, over–easy or sunny–side–up? Of course, at the end, he was scrambled!
And what’s with him sitting on a wall? Is anyone left alive who knows why an egg was up there?  So, Hump D had a great fall. Don’t know why, but suddenly the egg is on the ground, fecklessly fractured, helpless, hopeless.
But help—and hope—was on the way, in the form of the Government! Soon, word got to the king that loyal subject Humpty Dumpty
was smashed to smithereens. So the head of state sent all his men, riding his horses on the double, to put the egg together again.
Picture this, everybody crowded around the base of the wall. First the king’s horses tried to reconstruct HD—pretty ambitious for a horse, huh?
After the horses, the government employees worked feverishly to put the eggshell back in place, finding just the right fragment and fitting it into its own unique place.
Doesn’t it make you wonder, about the horses trying to put HD back together again? It really does sound like the government. Well, everybody tried, but like so many government projects, this one failed! It was no use! Putting HD’s life back together was impossible—it couldn’t be done, not by the government, for sure!
I suppose there was a fact–finding mission afterwards by several influential Congressmen, looking into the failure of Project Humpty Dumpty. And a report of 834 pages, in triplicate, was presented to the House Interior Subcommittee on Re–construction, describing EGG–zactly what went wrong, why the project failed.
Why do we turn to the government whenever something needs fixing? Why are we surprised to discover that the government, regardless which party is in the White House or controls Congress, is not the solution to our problems? Often, government IS the problem!
Only God offers genuine hope, and he isn’t exactly welcome in government these days.
I mean, government horses putting scrambled eggs back together again? C’mon!!!
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
During the tense, angry 1960s, with desegregation boiling in the south, a mother sent her daughter to school the first day, fear pounding in her heart. When she met the bus after school, the girl said, “Mommy, a black girl sat next to me in class. We were both so scared, we held hands all day.”
 Suppose you lived here in Thurston County, Washington state, where I live, and you were prejudiced against Pierce County, for some reason—maybe it’s “the aroma of Tacoma,” I don’t know. If you needed to go from Olympia to Seattle, you couldn’t take I–5 because it runs right through Pierce County. You’d have to go either through Shelton in Mason County to Bremerton or Port Orchard, get in line to wait, and eventually take a ferry across Puget Sound to Seattle, or you’d have to go 40 miles south to Mossy Rock, east on US–12 to Yakima, then north on I-82 to I–90 and back northeast to Seattle (over 300 miles). It would be far out of your way and inconvenient and expensive and a pain in the neck. But you wouldn’t think of going through Pierce County because you’re so prejudiced against all those disgusting Pierce–ers!
That’s the local equivalent of prejudice against the Samaritans in Jesus’ day. Going from Jerusalem to Galilee was a pain in the neck: you had to go east to Jericho, through a dangerous area of thieves; cross the Jordan River; travel north in the pagan region of
Decapolis; then re–cross the Jordan River westward into Galilee. But as a good Jew of Jesus’ day, you’d want to avoid those Samaritans at all costs.
A few years ago, in Illinois, my wife had major surgery, and while recuperating at home, she expressed a hankering for the wonderful Reuben sandwich at a local Irish restaurant (and
bar). So I drove over to Pekin and asked for takeout. They sent me into the bar–side of the restaurant, where takeout was ordered.
While waiting for the sandwich, I sat at a table near the door and watched the Red Wings on TV. Sure enough, while sitting in “Samaria,” in came our church treasurer, going into the
restaurant, of course, while his new pastor sat in the bar.
I willingly risked “contamination” for a Reuben sandwich. Am I willing to risk "contamina-tion” for the sake of the Gospel?
Many otherwise good Christians who are prejudiced have a surprise coming when they stand before God. He sent Jesus to die so people of every color could be reconciled to Him and to each other. Those who let race separate them are fighting against what God is fighting for!
Like the little black and white girls, holding hands beats prejudice, eight days a week!
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent
the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views
of Curtis Alexander.
In the late 1800s the famous business tycoon John D. Rockefeller built the hugely successful Standard Oil Company. He was notorious for demanding high performance from those who worked for him.  One day, an executive in Rockefeller’s company made a two–million–dollar mistake. Word of the man’s big blunder spread like a fire in a gas station. Soon everyone in the company’s home offices knew about the costly error. The other executives made themselves scarce, not wanting to see the doomed executive, nor to be seen by John D. himself.
But one man couldn’t avoid the well– known tyrant, since he had a previous appointment with the boss and simply
couldn’t hide. So he straightened his shoulders, tightened his belt and strode
into Rockefeller’s office. As he approached the imposing desk, the owner looked up from a piece of paper on which he had been writing something obviously
important.
“I suppose you’ve heard of the two–million–dollar mistake your friend made,” Rockefeller asked.
“Yes, sir, I have,” the employee admitted, expecting the oil king to explode.
“Well,” Rockefeller explained, “I’ve just been sitting here making a list of all his good qualities on this sheet of paper. I’ve discovered that in the past few years he has made us many times more money than the amount he cost us today by this one mistake.
“His good qualities far outweigh this one error. So I think we ought to forgive him, don’t you?”
We might think that this story illustrates God’s forgiveness. But the truth is, heartwarming as it seems, it misses the mark. You see, Rockefeller forgave the mistake because the man had done so much good previously. God never forgives us because we’ve done so much
good. He doesn’t weigh the negative karma against the positive. God forgives even people who haven’t done any good at all.
God’s forgiveness isn’t based on our comparative goodness. His forgiveness is based on his own perfect goodness. God forgives us because He is so good. We could never do enough good to earn God’s forgiveness. We can only accept it as a gift of His grace—all those blessings we do not deserve and cannot earn.
That’s forgiveness at a whole new level.
*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
WARNING: if what you need right about now is a light, airy, fluffy story with a silly smile attached,
DO NOT READ WHAT FOLLOWS
Fox News recently ran a story with the same headline as this blog. I suspect “A Spoon in Their Underwear” caught your attention. But it probably perplexed you too. What could it possibly mean? Is it just some sort of sick joke? Has the Un–Sermon Blog gone too far this
time?  According to the Fox News online story (the website URL is listed at the end of this blog), officials at Heathrow Airport west of London and airports in Liverpool and Glasgow, Scotland, have been put on alert to watch for young kids, mostly girls, who are going through the airport scanners which can pick up the presence of a spoon that the kids have hidden in their underwear. It’s no joke. In fact, it’s so sad it could make you cry.
These British youths are being taken out of the country by their
parents, ostensibly for a summer trip abroad, where their parents are then
forcing them to marry someone they have never met, often a much older man
(frequently a relative of the girl) who already has one or more wives. Too often
the girls are destined for virtual slavery, including sexual slavery. Apparently the practice accelerates after Ramadan, which ended this year on August 7.
Youths being forced to marry are urged to secretly hide a spoon in their underclothing, so that when they go through a scanner and the spoon is seen, the airport personnel can then take them to a secure site, off–limits to their parents, where the teens can ask for help to be delivered from forced marriage.
The British Foreign Office has a section known as the Forced Marriage Unit. It reports that last year 82 percent of the individuals facing forced marriage were female. Fully half of the young people taken out of Britain and forced to marry abroad are headed for Pakistan. One in ten goes to Bangladesh, almost one in ten to India; plus Afghanistan, Somalia, Turkey, Iraq and more than 50 other countries.
As a father who raised three daughters (successfully, might I add—yes, their mother did a great job), I can hardly fathom the cultural and religious pressures brought to bear on a young girl, that would pressure her to acquiesce to this practice of domination and disappear into the black hole of . . .
. . . an unwanted marriage to a person they have never met
in a country they have never seen to be treated in
unspeakable ways for obscure reasons.
I always thought I had lived and raised my daughters in the real world, but the “real” real world out there is filled with evil and danger and misery. Some people like to blame all that pain and suffering on God. But the wickedness perpetrated on humankind is easily found, if we’ll just look in the mirror.
How thankful I am that God is in the forgiveness business! Without His grace–gift of pardon, we would all be lost and hopeless.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/08/15/spoon-in-underwear-saving-youths-from-forced-marriage/?intcmp=obinsite#ixzz2cAuwku3H*The views expressed in this blog are in no way intended to represent the views of Child Evangelism Fellowship©. They are exclusively the expressed views of Curtis Alexander.
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