Use No Hooks

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Symbol: “Use No Hooks”

Lesson: Ignorance is no excuse

Illustration: Years ago, someone submitted to Reader’s Digest a story for the section “Humor in Uniform.” Supposedly during World War II, Japanese POWs were asked to sort boxes. (Whether or not the story was accurate, I am not able to verify.) Bottom line, there seemed to be some misunderstanding and after the boxes were sorted, it was discovered that the POWs had arranged boxes by “Use No Hooks” and “This Side Up,” along with other useless identifiers. Whether this was done in ignorance or cunning was not revealed. Bottom line, even if the POWs were 100% innocently following what they thought were the instructions, they in fact were not accomplishing the intended goal.

Notes: This well illustrates Jesus’ words at Matthew 7:21 that not everyone claiming to be Christ’s follower, no matter how sincere, are approved. In these cases though, those who wrongly thought they had done the right thing, went to extensive lengths to do what they thought they should. Just like Jesus they expelled demons, prophesied, and performed other “powerful works.” But that wasn’t what Jesus wanted. There were certain “fruits” (outward works) that would demonstrate “doing the will of the Father,” that they had completely missed. Jesus’ words indicated that he wasn’t amused and wouldn’t overlook their actions.

See this article.

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Knocked Down

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Symbol: Getting knocked down and back up

Lesson: Hits to our personal character and spirituality do not necessarily indicate the type of person we are. How we deal with them and recover – that is the mark of the person we are inside.

Illustration: Getting knocked down or losing our balance affects us all. When we fall it is naturally embarrassing. We tend to look around hoping that no one saw us fall. Children usually just lay on the ground crying because they got knocked down. However, getting back up and facing our personal challenges with determination, renewed vigor, and improved strength -- that is the mark of a grown man.

Notes: All of us are imperfect. But sometimes that dent in the armor of our character and spirituality can be embarrassing. Dealing with our feelings and facing the path ahead of us is the real challenge. Do not allow personal embarrassment or discouragement to keep you knocked down.

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Nail and Holes

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Symbol: Nails and Holes

Lesson: Words, like nails may leave long-lasting, sometimes permanent damage.

Illustration: The father of a son decides he needs to teach his son a lesson about anger and its effects. He tells the son that every time he loses his temper and says something unkind, the son is to take a nail and hammer it into an outdoor post. At first the son thought it was no big deal. He’d get mad just so that he could put a nail in the post. He used all his pent up energy to make sure it was driven in so far, it would never come out. But after a while, the son got tired of it and decided he was going to attempt to control his temper. After a great deal of self-control the son finally went through a whole day without losing his temper. He was so proud of himself he went and told his father. His father congratulated him, handled him the hammer and told him to use the other end to remove one nail. For each day he succeeded in controlling his temper, he could remove one more nail.

Months went by and most of the nails were removed except the ones the son had driven in so vigorously at the beginning. But finally, with patience and other tools, all the nails were out. In the meantime, the son had grown into a young man. After a few years he was finally able to go back to his father and announce that all the nails had been removed. Once again, the father congratulated him but this time the father asked the son to walk with him out to that post.

The father put his arm over his son’s shoulder and calmly said: “Each nail you hammered was because you said something unkind to someone. Those nails were like the stabbing and piercing words you used. Now, you have removed all the nails, but what do you notice about the post?” The son thought about it and said, “It is full of holes.”

“Exactly!” remarked the father. And even though you have stopped losing your temper, think of all the holes that it has left in the relationships you’ve hurt. Although you’ve made wonderful progress, there are always consequences. Some of those holes may swell shut with rain, but the scares will be there for a long time. Likewise, it may take a long time for the scars of pain to heal. Keep working hard to control your temper so that you do not leave anymore holes in the hearts of people. Although some holes you’ve created in the past may never heal, as long as you keep moving forward, eventually you will gain a fine reputation with others.

Notes: n/a

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The Kingdom Coin

The message of the Kingdom is a single coin. All coins have two sides. There is a saying, “heads you win, tails you lose.” Well, our heads are raised in positive anticipation in that we see the winning side of the coin—all the benefits brought to mankind both individually and collectively through the Kingdom arrangement.

But “the nations” see only the losing side, the tails side. The nations are angry because Kingdom rule means an end to their rule, their sovereignty as earth’s rulers. To them, the Kingdom message is only a “bad penny.” The positive side of fair and loving rulership by Jehovah and his anointed King, Christ Jesus, is not seen that way by them. It means they have to surrender their self-rule. So even the “heads” side of the coin, the side of benefits brought by Kingdom rule, looks like the tails (losing side) to them.

Dent In Car

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Symbol: Dent in Car

Lesson: Apology does not remove damage

Illustration: Traffic comes to a sudden stop and you inadvertently rear-end the car ahead of you. You both pull over and you apologize. However, no matter how sorry you are, the dents and damage to the other vehicle are still there. Similarly, when we speak an unkind word, even if we apologize afterwards, the hurt is still there. The damage to the relationship is still done. How much better to be both a safe driver and a kind person.

Notes: Heard at assembly in 2015

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Addressing God In Prayer

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Symbol: Prayer like a piece of mail.

Lesson: Prayer, like a piece of mail, must be addressed properly.

Illustration:Correct addressing is required by the postal service in order to ensure delivery. Also, it matters to the person the mail piece is addressed to, how they are identified. For example, when you receive a piece addressed to “Occupant” or “To Whom It May Concern,” are you likely to give it much attention? As for me, I know that I tend to throw out those items without reading further.

Now you may feel it is unnecessary to address your prayers to a specific name, but think a bit: Besides those praying to “Our Father,” there are some that pray to saints, some to “Mother Mary,” some to Jesus, and even some to their deceased loved ones—and all those are only considering the field of Christendom. In the much larger realm of non-Christian numbers, there are literally thousands of gods that are prayed to. Although Christians remember Paul’s observation that “there are many gods [that people worship], there is actually to us only one God,” Some of the tribes of the North American continent have numerous gods, as does Hinduism and others.

The Bible cites yet another god that most people haven’t considered. It speaks of a “god of this system” who blinds people to the message of the good news. Obviously that cannot be Jesus or the Father, it can only be Satan the Devil. Yes, Satan is the god of this world order, this system we live under.

With all those that vie for our attention in prayers, merely addressing our prayer to “God” is as much an insult to the one and only Creator, the one Jesus called “Our Father,” as it is an insult to us to receive a mail piece addressed to “Occupant.” So is the title “Our Father” the closest we can get to specifying which God we are addressing? No, referring to “Our Father,” there is a unique name in the Bible that is mentioned over 7,000 times. In ancient manuscripts it is represented by the Tetragrammaton.  In common usage today, that name is “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or some other Anglicized form of the Hebrew word. So if we want the God that Jesus prayed to to listen to us, we need to pray to Jehovah.

Well, now that we have identified who we are “mailing” our prayers to, we need to use the correct address. By this I mean what Jesus mentioned at John 14:13,14. Yes, we pray to Jehovah, but addresses it through the postal code of Jesus Christ.

Last, comes the contents of the message. For those living in the United States, we all know how inundated we are with “junk mail.” For me, most of it never even makes it into the house. I walk over to the garbage bin and throw it out. From God’s viewpoint, are there such things as “junk prayers”? To answer that question, we first need to examine the model prayer that Jesus taught at Matthew 6:9-13. Note that the primary focus of that example, the things that concern God, should be our first concern—namely the sanctification of God’s name and that His kingdom take over the earth. Next is a humble plea for necessities of life, followed by a request that Jehovah forgives our sins JUST AS we forgive others. (Note that his means we MUST forgive others.) Finally, a humble request that God protect our spiritual relationship with him by protecting us from Satan’s onslaughts. Note that nothing in that model prayer talks about gaining riches, gaining fame, winning competitions, winning wars or anything else that is frivolous in God’s eyes.

So pray to Jehovah, through Jesus, and speak to him about the truly important things in life—things related to pure worship and anything that can affect our spiritual health.

Notes: Although I made major modifications to the original, still the original was not my idea.

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Brick House

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Symbol: House built with bricks

Lesson: Like a house built of bricks, building strong relationships takes time.

Illustration: Strong, enduring relationships are built over time. They do not happen instantly. It is something like building a home with bricks. Each brick is one more experience in the relationship that makes it solid and binding. One brick does not build a home, neither does one encounter build a relationship. Many bricks, carefully laid alongside and on top of each other, filled with mortar (the “glue” that binds the bricks together), can over time build protection to weather against any storm. Reinforcing those bricks with rods makes the structure stronger still. In relationships, the mortar is love and respect. The rods of stable and mature personalities add to the relationship.

Now, applying all this to our relationship with our Creator, we can see how impossible it is to expect God to accept foxhole Christians. They just haven’t made any attempt to build a relationship. God will not save a relationship that never existed. If a person never valued God enough to get to know Him before, what evidence does God have that the person will really remain loyal in the future? If you were in a friendship or some other close-tie relationship with a person that dismissively ignored you and treated you as unimportant, would you be inclined to help that person? Now, if that same person came to you crying for urgent help and promising loyalty and love, would you believe his words?

Notes: n/a

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