Only the Best

Scripture References: Psalm 19:11; Acts 20:20-21

The guest on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show was chauffeured in a limousine from the airport to her suite in the Sheraton Premiere Hotel. Not bad accommodations when you consider the guest was none other than Mlinzi, a lowland African gorilla from the Cincinnati Zoo.

Providing exceptional nutrition for its animals, the San Diego Zoo’s food warehouse resembles a wholesale produce outlet. Many of the items used daily are familiar to any shopper: apples, seafood, and carrots. Others are Zoo exotic: crickets, mealworms, and night crawlers.

Feeding a thoroughbred is even more involved. At a stable in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the thirty-five horses enjoy a daily diet of timothy and alfalfa hay, oats, molasses, bran, barley, corn, milk substitute, vitamins, sliced carrots, five vitamins, fresh garlic, and fresh lemon juice. Feedings occur at 4 a.m., noon, and in the afternoon. Garlic and lemon juice are added to the feed to stimulate the appetite. When a horse refuses to eat, the trainer puts a goat in the stall. The goat’s omnivorous appetite irritates the horse, which then eats in defense of its territory.

God has revealed in one book all the spiritual food ever needed in any age. Leaders responsible for God’s flock must carefully and systematically nourish them with the Bible’s message. It can be done through personal counseling, applying God’s principles after problems have developed; it can be done through corporate preaching, applying God’s principles to prevent problems.

Courtesy of Speaker’s Sourcebook of New Illustrations by Virgil Hurley © 1995 by Word, Incorporated.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.