You're a Jewel!

The Lord their God will save them on that day as the flock of his people. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown.     Zechariah 9:16 

The Bible gives us this unusual detail about the construction of the Lord's temple. "In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built." (I Kings 6:7). An unbelievable amount of scraping, hammering, chiseling had to be done on those mighty rocks that were used in the construction. But it was all done out of view and out of earshot of the temple site.

It's a little like the way God "dresses" us, fitting us for heaven. The apostle Peter reminds us that you and I are living stones, and we are being mined in the quarry of earth, a place of noise, chiseling, and clouds of dust. God is using our sufferings and afflictions to hone and shape us so we might fit perfectly into heaven's landscape, where there is "no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool." Where there is no suffering. No tears, pain, sorrow, or death. 

Superstitions Aren’t Silly; They’re Evolutionary.

Break a mirror and you’re stuck with bad luck. Walk under a ladder and you’re tempting fate. Sound ridiculous?Scientists believe such beliefs may be genetic, part of adaptive behaviors passed on to create an evolutionary advantage to surviving impeding danger.

Boiled down, a superstition is the belief that one event caused another event, without any evidence of the link. “All animals will display behaviors that imply a causal relationship that isn’t there,” says Kevin Foster, evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. Foster uses a pigeon as an example: The pigeon will take flight if it hears a hand clap, the same way it would react if it heard a gun shot.

Why We Work

by Bill Crowder

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Our Daily Bread Radio is hosted by Les Lamborn

Read: Ephesians 6:5-9

Not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. —Ephesians 6:6

Bible in a Year:
Lamentations 1-5

In the late 1660s, Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to re-design St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. According to legend, one day he visited the construction site of this great edifice and was unrecognized by the workers. Wren walked about the site, asking several of the men what they were doing. One worker replied, “I am cutting a piece of stone.” A second worker responded, “I’m earning five shillings two pence a day.” A third, however, had a different perspective: “I am helping Christopher Wren build a magnificent cathedral to the glory of God.” What a contrast in the attitude and motivation of that worker!

Why we do what we do is extremely important, particularly when it comes to our working lives and careers. That’s why Paul challenged the Ephesians to do their work, “not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men” (Eph. 6:6-7).

If we do our work merely to earn a paycheck or satisfy a supervisor, we will fall short of the highest motivation—doing our best as evidence of our devotion to God. So, why do we work? As that laborer told Wren, we work “to the glory of God.”

Be not always wanting
Some other work to do,
But gratefully perform the task
The Lord has given you. —Anon.

No matter who signs your paycheck, you are really working for God.

http://odb.org/2012/09/03/why-we-work/