Stories with Christ's Light Vol. 1

STORIES WITH CHRIST’S LIGHT – Vol. 1

Copyright 2015 Virg Hurley

Published by Virg Hurley at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

Prelude

Chapter 1: A’s

Chapter 2: B’s

Chapter 3: C’s

Chapter 4: D’s

Chapter 5: E’s

Chapter 6: F’s

Chapter 7: G’s

Chapter 8: H’s

Chapter 9: I’s

Chapter 10: J’s

Chapter 11: L’s

Chapter 12: M’s

Chapter 13: P’s

Chapter 14: R’s

Chapter 15: S’s

Chapter 16: T’s

Chapter 17: W’s

About the Author

Other books by Author

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Preface

Jesus taught many stories from multiple topics. He noticed men sowing seed for planting and told the parable of seeds on different soils. He noticed birds of the air and considered them examples of God’s care for all creation, especially humanity. He watched sheep grazing under the careful eye of shepherds and knew it referred to pastoral care of his people. He saw a widow drop a few coins in the Treasury and said she gave more than all the rich. He watched people for their reactions to different events and issues. He used common, everyday events and circumstances to bring applications to everyday life.

The newspapers, current events, and historical events of today still provide needed spiritual meanings for our time. I have provided such events and applications in this Volume 1 of Stories with Christ’s Light. They are true to the Bible and easy-to-read and use.

This volume is arranged by topics, such as Ability, Ambition, Behavior, Brutality, Character, Creation, and much more. I have ten topics each in A’s, B’s, C’s to W’s, for a total of 170 stories. They can be useful in sermons, lessons, small-group meetings or for Christian-growth. I plan multiple volumes of such stories.

Read. Learn. Enjoy.

Chapter 1- A’s

Ability: Having instinctive, John 2:23-25, Mark 2:6-8

With uncanny skill, Frank Bender, a commercial Reconstructionist, rebuilt human skulls into faces. After fitting pliable white clay over the bones, the results were flashed internationally. Eighty-five percent of his reconstructions resulted in identifying the faces. From the first in 1976, his blending of art and science amazed law enforcement officials, brought criminals to justice, and closure to families of lost loved ones. Readers Digest, 3/98, pp 63-67

With far greater skill, Jesus knows each one personally, can identify every flaw and potential, and perfectly apply his wholeness to our brokenness or incompleteness.

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Zane Grey’s novel, To the Last Man, was being filmed in 1933. Two main characters made film lore that day, one a horse and the other a little girl. The rehearsal went flawlessly: the little girl’s pet pony entered the party, was slapped on the rump by her, and left. When the camera rolled, however, the horse took umbrage at being slapped, reared its hind legs and kicked the tables and dishes to pieces. The camera continued to roll as the little girl ad-libbed a stinging rebuke to the pony, concluding with a peremptory order to leave the set. Everyone applauded her aplomb and extemporaneous skill. The director, Henry Hathaway, wanted the executives at Paramount to hire the girl to a long-term contract. They refused. Another studio executive saw her and did sign her to a long-term contract. Three months later Paramount needed a little girl to play in their movie Little Miss Marker. Fox studios had just the girl–the one Paramount had refused to sign. The movie established Shirley Temple as a major star in Hollywood for years to come.

Many people are as spiritually dense to God’s Person as those Paramount executives to celluloid talent. Paramount only lost prestige and money by their mistake. As Jesus said to all humanity, we’ll die in our sins if we don’t recognize him as the great I AM! John 8:24

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San Diego Padres’ Tony Gwynn held the National League batting eight times over his 20 year career. He had no ready answer why he could hit Major League pitching at a .350 average year after year. Ted Williams wrote the renowned book The Art of Hitting, but Gwynn never followed with his own book. He read Williams’ book, but found the formulas too arcane for his taste. Without studying the mechanics, he intended to hit the ball and he hit it, he explained. San Diego Union, July 4, 1984

Being a Christian isn’t an instinctive behavior. That’s why Jesus demanded self-denial as the qualifying condition of discipleship Matthew 16:24. Had discipleship been natural for us, he would have simply said practice self-fulfillment. Since we are naturally at war with God, only self-denial brings our surrender to discipleship demands.

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Accomplishments: As an example for Christians, Acts 1:8

A man who died in San Diego in 2005 left an outstanding genealogical pedigree. His great-great grandfather served as a soldier in the Portola-Serra expedition that established the San Diego Presidio in 1769. His great-grandfather settled in Old Town, San Diego and built some of its first adobe houses. His grandfather hoisted the Stars and Stripes over Old Town when Stephen Watts Kearny captured it in 1846; and his father proved a fixture in Old Town reunions till his death in 1951. In five generations the 93 year old capped 236 years of San Diego history, uniting the 21st with the late 18th century.

God expects that spiritual continuum of every disciple. He sees each believer as a tree planted, and those influenced for or won to Christ as limbs extending from us. What he doesn’t want, and won’t tolerate, is for us to be mere dead wood posts sticking in the ground, influencing no one.

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Accomplishments: Under difficult circumstances

To raise money for the hungry, legless 39 year old Bob Wieland walked across the United States on his hands. He began September 1982 at Knotts Berry Farm, Buena Park, California, and finished in Washington, D.C., in 1987. Walking approximately 5-6 miles a day, he took approximately 4.8 million hand-steps in his effort to raise a hoped-for $25 million. Joplin, MO Globe, ND

***

In August, 2005, Hilary Lister, a 33 year British quadriplegic, solo-sailed across the English Channel. Able to move only her head, eyes and mouth, she adjusted her sails and tiller throughout the six hour trip by blowing and sucking two straws. San Diego Union, 8/24/05

***

Abandoned in California when eleven years old, Otto Mears lived in the gold fields, fought in the Civil War with the First California Volunteers, homesteaded in western Colorado and, hardened to adversity, began his greatest physical achievement: building roads by hand with pick and shovel across 9000 foot passes in the Rockies. Before he quit, he built 500 miles of road, financed by himself, much of it hand-cut, some of it over 15 steep mountain grades. Men to Match My Mountains, 354

***

After preparing 30 years in anonymity, Jesus served but 3 ½ years in booming popularity. Yet, that brief ministry established his: reputation as teacher and miracle-worker; death on Calvary as the perfect sacrifice for sin; bodily resurrection as proof he conquered Satan, sin, death and hell; ascension to Heaven, returning full of honors to be the Glorified Eternal High Priest interceding with God on behalf of God’s people; eventual return to earth as God’s Only Begotten Son and humanity’s Judge or Savior. No one ever did so much in 42 months.

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Adversity: Growth from, Hebrews 12:11

Forestry Service archaeologists often accompany firefighters on the line when State and Federal forests burn. Their united goal is to stop the fire and, if possible, to preserve historical sites. In California alone, the Cedar, Horse and Day fires burned hundreds of thousands of acres, destroyed thousands of homes, killed scores of people and incinerated untold amounts of personal property. They also uncovered thousands of previously unknown sites, including Indian villages, abandoned gold camps, adobe homes, cave art and fortress-like stone walls. Since fire removes the ground cover hiding previous settlements, far more sites are revealed in post-fire surveys than in all planned digging through intact forests. San Diego Union, 10/9/06

Adversity is like forest fires: very chaotic, damaging and harmful, but if surrendered to God, always positive and fruitful. For discipline of any kind can uncover potential previously buried beneath the detritus of too much stuff in our lives.

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Advice: Victimized by one’s, Psalm 119:89

When Diane Sklar sued her husband Howard for divorce in 1983, she admitted to having removed money and documents from her husband’s vault. When her lawyer asked why, she explained: she had read an article by a prominent divorce attorney in Los Angeles Magazine that you should take every important paper, and all the money you can, to your attorney when you filed for the divorce. When asked who wrote the article she said, Marvin Mitchelson. Mitchelson sat in the courtroom at the time, representing Howard Sklar, the plaintiff’s husband.

Hung on his own gallows. The past coming back to haunt. An advantage turned to calamity. Writing something he wished he could retract.

Anyone who writes runs the risk There is one author who, having written his ADVICE, never had reason to recall even a word. That word, written first in Heaven, and communicated to forty godly men over 1600 years, clearly enunciated God’s position on all moral and spiritual matters relating to life. Having recorded it in the Bible, God has never been embarrassed by anything he’s said. He has never changed a word; nor will he ever. San Diego Union 7/9/83

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Ambition: Sacrificing morality to, I Corinthians 5:1-5

While married to Ellen, Woodrow Wilson, then-President of Princeton University, began an affair with Mary Peck, whom he met while on a 1907 Bermuda vacation. He continued their correspondence until Ellen died and he remarried in 1915.

Fiercely determined to let no gossip hurt his political future, Ellen pretended that the relationship was platonic. She treated Mary as a family friend, accompanied Woodrow when he visited Mary and her husband in Massachusetts, and paid her a visit in New York.

Interestingly, to people like Teddy Roosevelt, her cover-up wasn’t necessary. Teddy thought that no one would consider Wilson a Lothario. He looked too much like a drug store clerk. First Ladies, 171

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Ancestors: Not our hope, Luke 3:7-8, John 8:33-40

Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves

Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers’ graves

James Russell Lowell wrote in The Present Crisis. Not only as easy, but absolutely necessary.

Old Testament prophets continually reminded the Jews that Abraham’s righteousness made theirs possible, but not inevitable. Each Jew had to commit to God, the prophets thundered, before Abraham’s prior faith would be effective for them. They never learned the lesson, but the prophets, right down to John the Baptist and Jesus never stopped teaching it.

The Pharisees in particular had a problem. They argued that their physical descent could be traced to Abraham, guaranteeing their spiritual descent from God. Whatever Abraham possessed transferred to them. What they failed to comprehend was that they had to bear Abraham’s fruit to remain attached to Abraham’s tree. Which they didn’t do.

No struggle in Christian leadership supersedes the challenge of keeping second and tertiary generations of Christians personally focused on commitment. And when children and grandchildren refer more often to what grandma