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Samples offer short doses of insight

5/20/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn.

NOTE: This is a sidebar to UMNS story #290.

By United Methodist News Service

Here is a sample of the wisdom that the Rev. Dave Wilkinson channels from different sources through SOUND BITES, a five-days-a-week e-mail newsletter.

(#915) The Authority of Christ

"It's easy to overlook a significant claim made by Christ at the conclusion of Matthew's gospel. 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me' (Matthew 28:18). Jesus claims to be the CEO of heaven and earth. He has the ultimate say on everything, especially our thoughts. He has more authority, for example, than your parents. Your parents may (have said) you are no good, but Jesus says you are valuable, and He has authority over parents. He even has more authority over you than you do. You may tell yourself that you are too bad to be forgiven, but Jesus has a different opinion. If you give Him authority over you, then your guilty thoughts are no longer allowed.

"Jesus also has authority over your ideas. â€¦ To have a pure heart, we must submit all thoughts to the authority of Christ. If we are willing to do that, He will change us to be like Him."

- Max Lucado in Just Like Jesus

(#916) The Will of God

"'So if you are suffering according to God's will, keep on doing what is right, and trust yourself to the God who made you, for He will never fail you.' (1 Peter 4:19 NLT)

"The will of God will never take you to where the grace of God will not protect you."

- Unknown

(#917) A New Way of Being

"From a Christian perspective, human relations reach toward full realization when there is a common love, when there is shared faith in God and joint commitment to God. To love God together with others is to be drawn into the deepest sharing of life with one another. It is to find the true base of community and it is to extend community. A new dimension of relationship is established by common life as each person is drawn out of his or her subjectivity into a new way of being as 'we' is created. Love is the bearer of this new way of being, and this new way of being is the inclusive expression of Christian love."

- Thomas A. Langford in Christian Wholeness

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