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opening Our lives are like icebergs. Only 15 percent is visible; that's reputation. The rest, our character, is below the surface, hidden. Character is what we think but never share. It's what we do when no one's watching. It's how we react to everyday aggravations. It's how we handle failure – and success. The thing that has made us what we are is our choices.

At the end of a successful career, Joshua challenges the people of Israel: "Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15) So the choice is yours!

French writer François de la Rochefoucauld asserted, "Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we think up to hide them." Ever notice that people with the weakest character tend to place blame on their circumstances? They talk a lot about poor upbringing, financial difficulties, the unkindness of others, or other circumstances that have made them victims.

Your circumstances may be beyond your control but your character is not. You can no more blame your character on your circumstances than you can blame the mirror for your looks. Developing character is always your choice. Every time you make a character-based decision you take another step forward in your spiritual growth.

Take a moment and jot down times when you have faced temptation and adversity. Next to each, note your choice: escape, excuses, capitulation, avoidance, perseverance, or victory. What problem areas do you see? How will you learn to do better? If many of the things you list are due to circumstances beyond your control, then choose to take greater control of your life.

Here is your copy of firstIMPRESSIONS, Volume 9.43. Live for God, on purpose, making choices each day that honor the Lord.

Eurasia Experience

Have you ever wanted to negotiate through customs? Haggle in the grand bazaar? Meet a snake charmer? Hear the call to prayer? This Sunday, you can step into Eurasia, listen to the story of the unreached, and experience 44 countries, representing more than 4,000 people groups unreached with the gospel.

The Eurasia Experience is a cross-cultural, multi-sensory journey that brings the sights, smells and sounds of Eurasian life to WFA. You will come to Eurasia without ever flying across the ocean! Step into the shoes of a missionary, blending as best you can into foreign culture from half way around the world. Walk into a bustling city scene. Hear and feel the commotion of a crowded bazaar. Interact with people who have never had a chance to hear the message of Jesus.

At the Eurasia Experience you will hear real stories straight from Eurasia’s 44 countries and territories. Many of these accounts cannot be broadcast because of restrictive situations. The unique opportunity to learn what God is doing will make the Eurasia Experience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Don’t miss the Eurasia Experience – this Sunday at WFA. Flights depart at 9:30 and 11:00 am. Boarding passes are required!

Who Packs Your Parachute?

by Jim Liebelt

Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you.” In fact, some of the parts that seem weakest and least important are really the most necessary. – 1 Corinthians 12:20-22 (NLT)

A story circulating on the Internet is about Charles Plum, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, who was a jet fighter pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in a Communist prison. He survived that ordeal and now lectures about lessons learned from that experience.

One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!” “How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.

“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!” Plumb assured him, “It sure did — if your ‘chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today.”

Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform – a Dixie cup hat, a bib in the back, and bell bottom trousers. I wondered how many times I might have passed him on the Kitty Hawk. I wondered how many times I might have seen him and not even said good morning, how are you, or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”

Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know. Now, Plumb asks his audience, “Who's packing your parachute?”

This is a great reminder of the truth that, individually, every Christ-follower is an important member of the body of Christ. Each one of us plays a vital role and without each individual’s contributions, we are all weakened. Someone, recently, has no doubt “packed your parachute” with a word of encouragement, a spiritual insight, a positive role-modeling of the Christian life, or simply by giving you a hand with a task. Today, why not send an e-mail or make a phone call, thanking that person for “packing your parachute”?

as seen in “Today’s HomeWord,” a daily devotional with Jim Burns. Visit them online at www.homeword.com

showing Showing God's Love

by Alan Smith

Doug Nichols went to India to be a missionary, but while he was just starting to study the language he became infected with tuberculosis and had to be put in a sanitarium. It was not a very good place to be. It was not very clean and conditions were difficult because there were so many sick people there. But Doug decided to do the best he could in that situation. So he took a bunch of Christian books and tracts and tried to share the gospel with the other patients in the sanitarium.

But when he tried to pass out tracts, no one wanted them. He tried to hand out books, but no one would take them. He tried to talk with them, but he was handicapped because of his inability to communicate in their language, and he felt so discouraged. There he was. Because of his illness he would be there a long time. But it seemed like the work that he had been sent to do would not be done because no one would listen to him.

Because of his tuberculosis, every night at about 2 o'clock he would wake up with chronic coughing that wouldn't quit. Then one night when he awoke he noticed across the aisle an old man trying to get out of bed. He said the man would roll himself up into a little ball and teeter back and forth trying to get up the momentum to get up and stand on his feet. But he just couldn't do it. He was too weak. Finally, after several attempts the old man laid back and wept.

The next morning Doug understood why the man was weeping. He was trying to get up to go to the bathroom and didn't have enough strength to do that. So his bed was a mess and there was a smell in the air. The other patients made fun of the old man. The nurses came to clean up his bed and they weren't kind to him, either. In fact, one of them even slapped him in the face. Doug said that the old man just laid there and cried.

Doug said, "That next night about 2 o'clock I started coughing again. I looked across the way and there was the old man trying to get out of bed once more. I really didn't want to do it, but somehow I managed to get up and I walked across the aisle and I helped the old man stand up." But he was too weak to walk.

Doug said, "I took him in my arms and carried him like a baby. He was so light that it wasn't a difficult task. I took him into the bathroom, which was nothing more than a dirty hole in the floor, and I stood behind him and cradled him in my arms as he took care of himself. Then I carried him back to his bed and laid him down. As I turned to leave he reached up and grabbed my face and pulled me close and kissed me on the cheek and said what I think was `Thank you.'"

Doug said, "The next morning there were patients waiting when I awoke and they asked if they could read some of the books and tracts that I had brought. Others had questions about the God I worshiped and His only begotten Son who came into the world to die for their sins." In the next few weeks Doug Nichols gave out all the literature that he had brought, and many of the doctors and nurses and patients in that sanitarium came to know Jesus Christ, too.

He said, "Now what did I do? I didn't preach a sermon. I couldn't even communicate in their language. I didn't have a great lesson to teach them. I didn't have wonderful things to offer. All I did was take an old man to the bathroom and anyone can do that."

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1 John 4:7-8)

What can you do to express the love of God to people around you today?

This article by Alan Smith, Senior Pastor of the Helen Street Church of Christ in Fayetteville, North Carolina. You can visit his site at http://www.TFTD-online.com

names A Prayer Using the Names of God

Elohim,
I KNOW you can create something out of nothing, will you create something out of any nothing areas – impossible situations in my life.

El Elyon,
I KNOW you are in control, sovereign, and I give you my circumstances today.

Adonai,
I KNOW you are my Lord and Master, I choose to follow you instead of the ways of the world.

El Shaddai,
I KNOW you are God Almighty, and I trust that you are sufficient for my deepest needs today.

Yahweh Jireh,
I KNOW you are my provider, and will supply everything I need today.

El Roi,
I KNOW you are the God who sees, and that I am never alone, and nothing in my life goes unnoticed, for you know it all and see it all.

Yahweh,
I KNOW you are the one and only, self-existent, eternal, covenant-keeping God and that you will always love me.

Yahweh Rophe,
I KNOW you are my healer and I come to you now with every area of me that needs healing today.

Yahweh Nissi,
I KNOW you are my banner, and the victory in every situation that threatens me today.

Yahweh Mekaddesh,
I KNOW you are my sanctifier, making me holy, doing for me what I can never do for myself.

Yahweh Shalom,
I KNOW you are my peace, and bring calm in every storm I face in life.

Yahweh Sabaoth,
I KNOW you are the LORD of hosts, and bring deliverance as you defeat my enemies.

Yahweh Ro’i,
I KNOW you are my shepherd, and intimately care for me even if no one else does.

Abba, Father,
I KNOW you are my Father and that I can run to you and rest in the security of your everlasting arms.

In Jesus‘ name, Amen.

The Wall of Resentment

A story tells of a merchant in a small town who had identical twin sons. The boys worked for their father in the department store he owned and, when he died, they took over the store.

Everything went well until the day a twenty-dollar bill disappeared. One of the brothers had left the bill on the cash register and walked outside with a customer. When he returned, the money was gone.

He asked his brother, "Did you see that twenty-dollar bill on the cash register?" His brother replied that he had not. But the young man kept probing and questioning. He would not let it alone. "Twenty-dollar bills just don't get up and walk away! Surely you must have seen it!" There was subtle accusation in his voice. Tempers began to rise. Resentment set in. Before long, a deep and bitter chasm divided the young men. They refused to speak. They finally decided they could no longer work together and a dividing wall was built down the center of the store. For twenty years hostility and bitterness grew, spreading to their families and to the community.

Then one day a man in an automobile licensed in another state stopped in front of the store. He walked in and asked the clerk, "How long have you been here?"

The clerk replied that he'd been there all his life. The customer said, "I must share something with you. Twenty years ago I was ‘riding the rails‘ and came into this town in a boxcar. I hadn't eaten for three days. I came into this store from the back door and saw a twenty-dollar bill on the cash register. I put it in my pocket and walked out. All these years I haven't been able to forget that. I know it wasn't much money, but I had to come back and ask your forgiveness."

The stranger was amazed to see tears well up in the eyes of this middle-aged man. "Would you please go next door and tell that same story to the man in the store?" he said. Then the man was even more amazed to see two middle-aged men, who looked very much alike, embracing each other and weeping together in the front of the store.

After twenty years, the brokenness was mended. The wall of resentment that divided them came down.

It is so often the little things – like resentments – that finally divide people. And the solution, of course, is to let them go. There is really nothing particularly profound about it. But for fulfilling and lasting relationships, letting them go is a must. Refuse to carry around bitterness and you may be surprised at how much energy you have left for building bonds with those you love

anger The Anger Virus

by David Jeremiah

“A wrathful man stirs up strife, but he who is slow to anger allays contention.” – Proverbs 15:18

Fears of a global flu pandemic have rekindled memories of the terrible 1918 epidemic in which a virulent strain of influenza infected a third of the world's population and killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people. Some researchers believe the flu spread so quickly that year because of soldiers who, already weakened from fatigue, were traveling across national and geographical boundaries during the waning months of World War I.

Studying the communicable effects of disease teaches us something about spiritual illness, too. Spiritual viruses and emotional maladies spread person to person just like germs and viruses. According to Proverbs 15:18, angry people spread their anger wherever they go. The words influenza and influence, after all, come from the same root word.

But the cure spreads person-to-person, too! We can reverse the anger of those around us by staying cool and calm, gentle and patient. Whatever our emotions—joy, anger, depression, anxiety—they infect those near us. This is one of the Christian's great secrets. When we're filled with the calming strength of the Spirit, we can improve whatever environment we find ourselves in.

from Dr. David Jeremiah’s “Today’s Turning Point” daily devotional. www.TurningPointOnline.org

last The Last Impression

A psychiatrist visited a California mental institution and asked a patient, "How did you get here? What was the nature of your illness?" He got the following reply.

"Well, it all started when I got married and I guess I should never have done it. I married a widow with a grown daughter who then became my stepdaughter.

"My dad came to visit us, fell in love with my lovely stepdaughter, then married her. And so my stepdaughter was now my stepmother. Soon, my wife had a son who was, of course, my daddy's brother-in-law since he is the half-brother of my stepdaughter, who is now, of course, my daddy's wife.

"So, as I told you, when my stepdaughter married my daddy, she was at once my stepmother! Now, since my new son is brother to my stepmother, he also became my uncle. As you know, my wife is my step-grandmother since she is my stepmother's mother. Don't forget that my stepmother is my stepdaughter. Remember, too, that I am my wife's grandson.

"But hold on just a few minutes more. You see, since I'm married to my step-grandmother, I am not only the wife's grandson and her hubby, but I am also my own grandfather.

Now can you understand how I got put in this place?"

After staring blankly with a dizzy look on his face, the psychiatrist replied: "Move over!”

Amazing things are happening at WFA! As soon as we complete last Sunday’s worship time, work went full-steam ahead in the total renovation of the Sanctuary! This weekend, we are changing up our traditional worship experience, as we have the Eurasia Experience with us, with “flights” to Eurasia ready to leave at 9:30 and 11:00. You don’t want to miss this! And work will be continuing in the Sanctuary, so that we will be able to re-occupy the room for our worship services in November. I’m looking forward to flying with you this Sunday and experiencing a taste of what our missionaries encounter every day in Eurasia!