TODAY IS TUESDAY - MARCH 10, 2009

THE MORNING SHOW
WITH
JIM & KAREN
ON
SPIRIT FM

LIFE CHANGING WORD

LOVE DARE # 22

Love is faithful.

I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord. Hosea 2:20
As Christians, love is the basis of our whole identity. Our spiritual rebirth came about because “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life”. (John 3:16)

So if love is what we were created to share, what do you do when your love is rejected? How do you handle it when the one to whom you’ve pledged your life stops accepting the love you’re called to give?

All we need to do is look to the story of Hosea and Gomer in the Bible. Hosea’s marriage to Gomer shows us what Heaven’s unconditional love looks like towards us. You can give undeserved love to your spouse because God gave undeserved love to you –repeatedly, enduringly. That’s the power of faithfulness.

TODAY’S LOVE DARE: Love is a choice, not a feeling. It is an initiated action, not a knee-jerk reaction. Choose today to be committed to love even if your spouse has lost most of their interest in receiving it. Say to them today in words similar to these, “I Love You. Period. I choose to love you even if you don’t love me in return.”.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF: Why is this kind of love impossible without the love of Christ beating in your heart? How does His presence within you enable you to love, even when it’s primarily one-sided?


TODAY IS…..

Today is Temple Completion Day. After the Jewish captivity, the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem was completed on March 10, 515 B.C.

The American Salvation Army was founded on this date in 1880.

Today is Telephone Day. On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell transmitted the first successful phone message when he said to his assistant, "Mr. Watson, Come here!" Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Scotland.

Today is Organize Your Home Office Day.

The first driver's license with a photo was issued in Paris on this day in 1899.
Actor Chuck Norris, TV's "Walker, Texas Ranger," is 69 today. At his birthday party, he'll slice the cake with judo chops and play "Kick the Tail Off the Donkey."


In The News…..

Drug Merger
Pharmaceutical giant Merck is buying rival Schering-Plough for $41 billion. The combined company is hoping to break new ground in making life-saving new drugs that no one can afford.

The producers of American Idol say to keep the show fresh they will make changes next season. Maybe they’ll drop that thing where people sing and the judges make comments and viewers vote

Barbie’s Birthday Bash Yesterday
Along the way, Barbie has changed jobs more than 100 times, lost four presidential races, and dumped her boyfriend, Ken, on Valentine's Day 2004 after 43 years together (however, they reunited in 2006). Barbie has four sisters: Skipper, Stacie, Kelly and Krissy, and Mattel says about 90 percent of US girls ages 3-10 own at least one Barbie doll. The company also estimates that there are more than 100,000 adult Barbie collectors.

SUSAN ASBURY, a curator at the National Toy Hall of Fame says an original Barbie could fetch more than $25,000 in mint condition, but the the most expensive Barbie sold on eBay to date fetched $7,999.99.


More Americans Say They Have No Religion (Side note: Brandon Heath and Give Me Your Eyes was featured on the CBS Nightly News last night as part of this story).
15% of those surveyed say they have no religion. An increase of 14.2% from 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990. The study also found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.. About 12% of Americans believed in a high power but not the personal God at the core of many faiths.

Since 1990 almost all denominations have lost members, however the study found that the percentage of American who identified themselves as Muslim grew and there was a slight increase in those who said they were part of new religious movemebts, such as Schientology, Wicca and Santeria.

Why do you think Americans seem to be losing their “faith” in organized religion?


Canadian Study Shows Believing in God Can Reduce Anxiety
Canadian researchers found distinct brain differences between believers in God and non-believers. Even after controlling for personality and cognitive ability, when asked to perform tasks while wearing electrodes, those having faith in God showed significantly less activity than those without belief, in the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain -- a portion of the brain that helps modify behavior by signaling when attention and control are needed, usually as a result of some anxiety-producing event.

"You could think of this part of the brain like a cortical alarm bell that rings when an individual has just made a mistake or experiences uncertainty," lead author Michael Inzlicht of the University of Toronto said in a statement.

"We found that religious people or even people who simply believe in the existence of God show significantly less brain activity in relation to their own errors," Inzlicht said. "They're much less anxious and feel less stressed when they have made an error."

However, anxiety, Inzlicht cautions, may be a "double-edged sword."Anxiety can be negative if it paralyzes with fear but it can also be useful, he said.

"Anxiety alerts us when we're making mistakes," Inzlicht said. "If you don't experience anxiety when you make an error, what impetus do you have to change or improve your behavior so you don't make the same mistakes again and again?"


Billy Graham Answers Letter and says to Put Job Decisions in God’s Hands

DEAR BILLY GRAHAM: I lost my job a few weeks ago, and I can’t decide what to do next. My choices are to take a job that has been offered to me (at less pay) or else dip into my savings and take some job training at our local community college. What would you do if you were in my shoes? — W.L.

DEAR W.L.: The first thing I’d do is thank God that I had a choice. Almost every day I receive at least one letter from people who have lost their jobs and have little hope of finding another one. We should be praying for all who face these hardships and also for our leaders during this difficult time.
The most important step you can take is to pray and seek God’s will about this decision. God knows all about you; he knows what is best for you and wants to guide you, because he loves you. Do you believe that? It’s true, and I know it’s true because Jesus Christ was willing to lay down his life for you. If you have never opened your heart and life to him, I urge you to take that step of commitment today.
How does God guide us as we make decisions like this? Sometimes he gives us an inner conviction that a certain path is the right one. Sometimes he opens a door of opportunity for us, while closing others. He also may use wise friends to help us understand our abilities (and limitations) or help us see where each choice might lead. The Bible also is vital; it tells us how to live and what our goals should be.
The Bible says, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him. ... Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” (Psalm 37:5, 7). Put your life — and your future — into his hands.


Let’s Talk Baseball!

Major League Baseball clubs, concerned by a 12% drop in spring-training attendance, already are trying to find ways to avert a similar downturn in the regular season.
"Baseball is comfort food," says Bob Crotty, founder of the private Green Diamond Gallery of baseball memorabilia near Cincinnati, who has traveled to Florida and Arizona this spring to watch games. "And people can't afford that comfort right now. Every industry is down 20%, and baseball is no different. Baseball has got to get creative to compete."

Teams have begun offering lower-priced — even free — tickets to help attract cash-strapped fans. Faced with the worst economic climate in decades, some clubs are dropping prices for cheap tickets below the $7.18 average cost of a movie ticket.
"We're the first sport to really go on sale in the teeth of this (recession)," MLB President Bob DuPuy says. "We'd like to hope that people recognize that we are affordable and that there are ways of coming to games."

The Los Angeles Angels are requiring everyone in the organization to attend a customer-service seminar. The Baltimore Orioles are offering free tickets to fans celebrating their birthdays that month. The Toronto Blue Jays are offering a $95 pass for 81 home games in their upper deck. And the Minnesota Twins, playing their final games in the Metrodome, are pricing select tickets on the close of the Dow Jones industrial average. If the Dow closes in the 7000s, the $21 tickets will cost $7.

"At least if the market goes down," says Patrick Klinger, Twins vice president of marketing, "so does the price of a Twins ticket."

The average spring attendance downturn is due in part to some less-attractive exhibitions featuring World Baseball Classic teams. There have been fewer such games at sites in Arizona, where the recession has hit hard; attendance is down more than 1,200 a game there. The Arizona Diamondbacks took note: In the regular season, the club will invite fans to bring their own food to the ballpark.