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  • But God,

    Attention everyone!

    This is a break from the election junk. Please remember to vote Nov. 6 for whoever you support because it is your right.

    I was explaining to a group of kids this past week about my selection for president. Now before you think that I’m getting ready to give you my personal views on the candidates don’t worry. That’s not what I told the kids and it’s not what I’m going to waste your time on either.

    What I told them was about two of my favorite words in scripture and when these two words come together, look out! The two words I’m referring to are “But” and “God”. If my life were a manuscript, after every calamity it would read “but God.” After every screw up, every sin, every problem, every worry and every confession, I have been able to say “but God.”

    I’m very proud of this fact. I have personally experienced the unmerited favor of the Lord. Every time I read Ephesians 2:3-6 I get goose pimples because it is very personal to me. Paul writes: “Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. BUT GOD, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;).”

    It’s not enough to simply know that we are sinners. It’s really the idea that we could experience such great love and not have earned it. It’s really that we have been granted peace, given grace and experience mercy. The level of forgiveness is not of this world and for this, all God wants us to do is trust and obey.

    It is this fact that makes me not a candidate for judging others. I am not a candidate eligible to sit on the same level as God and condemn anyone. BUT GOD did invite me to love, forgive, help, comfort, educate and nurture all of mankind. It’s the privilege I have as a child of the King. I have to always remember who is in control — and it ain’t ever been me. I’m glad that God sits high and looks low and shows favor to his children.

    No matter what happens on Nov. 6, I will be content where I am because God is in charge and I am eternally grateful for that. So when things go wrong and situations get out of hand, I hope like me you can smile and say, “But God.”

  • Democracy and trust?

    http://www.ted.com/talks/ivan_krastev_can_democracy_exist_without_trust.html??utm_medium=social&source=email&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=ios-share

  • Wounded Souls

    We can learn a lot about our country by the things that are “trending” in social media. You know, the things that hit facebook, twitter or youtube that get the greatest number of likes or dislikes. The most recent of these was really disturbing to me in many ways.

    Now, I try not to be judgmental as I know that we all enjoy the freedoms of our country and this is part of the American way to exercise freedoms. The youtube video that I have posted in this blog was very disturbing to me. A 25-year-old female was belligerent on a city bus in Cleveland, OH. Her aggression was toward the bus driver and in an interview with a local station in Cleveland, she reported that the driver insulted her because he was treating her like she couldn’t afford the fare for the bus. The video shows the two of them going back and forth hurling insults at each other until there is a dare. Although it can’t be made out too clear on the video, the idea of spitting was introduced and the female apparently did it.

    The 59-year-old bus driver who had been driving the bus for more than 22 years stopped the bus, approached the female and gave her a nasty uppercut to the face. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0gLEsjE8Ao&feature=youtube_gdata_player

    Worse than this video in my opinion was the likes and dislikes tally and the comments. People made fun of this scenario and felt that she deserved what she got. I looked at this and instantly thought about her father. I wondered if she had a father active in her life and how he would respond or feel about watching this. As a father, to say it bothered me is a huge understatement.

    For the life of me I cannot think of a single reason why a man would ever need to physically abuse another person. It makes me wonder what level of hate do you have to reach to make it “ok” to display this type of violence. I felt sorry for this man because his environment and nurturing produced this product of a man. This man has no regard for mankind, his job or any authority. I say this because he had no mercy on this woman. This woman could have been my mom, sister, wife or daughter. Or yours. He definitely had no regard for his job because I’m not sure that any amount of years of service makes it “ok” to punch out a customer. And finally, regard for authority was missing because he does live in the civilized world and battery is still a crime. It would be hard to believe that this man felt threatened by this woman.

    I wonder if he has any regard for Jesus? I keep emphasizing the man because I’m a man and I am thankful that I don’t know this level of anger.

    The woman was wrong. I feel bad that she is clearly missing a few life lessons that could have been applied in this case which may have avoided this altercation all together. She either forgot it or never received it and had to suffer the consequences. Smh.

  • It’s all about the relationship

    There are many benefits to being a child of God, but I have to tell you about my personal favorite.

    When you live in a world where it is more common for things to be unfair than fair, conditional rather than unconditional, and untruthful rather than truthful, it is refreshing to know that God has flipped the script for his children. Satan schemes and plots against us desiring to see us fall. We see this great battle being fought between God and Satan and we have become collateral damage.

    You see, there is a reason for Paul’s statement in Romans chapter 8. You know, “All things work together for good ….?” Yeah, I knew you knew that one! There is a reason why God’s will is always accomplished. No matter what weapons are formed, no matter what lies are told, no matter how much power there is, God always has the final say.

    Why, you ask? Great question!

    In the Gospel according to John, Jesus says this to his desciples: “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” You want to know why all things work together for good? Here’s why: Jesus says that in him we MIGHT have peace. That’s because it depends on how much we are willing to trust him. Then he gaurantees that we are going to have trouble in this world. There are some people who still don’t get this idea because by now we all should be expecting trouble. These people become devastated at the very sign of trouble and are normally not leading productive lives because they didn’t trust in God. The last thing he says is the greatest and that was for us not to worry about the tribulations we will face as a result of living in the world because he has overcome the world! Did you get it? Let me break this down just a little bit more for you.

    A preaching friend of mine explained it this way: He told the story about a looney tunes cartoon. The Road Runner and Coyote. He talked about how the Road Runner was not the smartest of birds yet always seemed to escape whatever scheme the Coyote had for him. The Coyote considered himself a super genius and would come up with all these elaborate plots to catch the bird, but they all failed. One particular time the Coyote had the Road Runner surrounded on a mountain top with dynamite all around. There was absolutely no escape — or so it seemed. When the Coyote blew up the mountain and the smoked cleared, the Road Runner was suspended in mid-air defing the laws of gravity still standing on a little piece of that mountain.

    The point is clear: No matter what Satan plans to do to you in this world, Jesus has already overcome it which means that anyone in Christ has overcome it as well. The Road Runner had a deal with the writer of the show. The deal was whatever predicament the Road Runner found himself in, the writer would get him out of it. If God has lead you to it, then he will lead you through it.

    This does not account for the negative experiences and pains we put ourselves through. These are the trials and tribulations that James 1:2 talks about counting them all joy. These are the same trials that God allows to make you stronger. These are the very same trials that 1 Peter 2 says are “thankworthy to God” if we end up suffering for having a conscious toward God.

    My friends, this is all about the relationship you have with God. Selah.

  • Watch “Is It the Diet, the Exercise, or Both?” on YouTube

  • A month before the election and there’s nothing to get excited about

    Don’t you just hate election season?

    The worst of us comes out during this time. We actually get a glimpse at how divided our country really is. It’s sad that we are forced to choose sides.

    The majority of the US is poor and hopeful that the election may change something in their favor. The wealthy are hoping for the same thing.

    In our country we play with a lot of things, particularly terms. We will use a word that commonly means one thing, but we will give it another meaning. We even act as though all things are equal, when clearly they are not. For example, it bothers me every time a politician promises to create jobs. I often wonder what kind of jobs.

    Even when they say the Obama administration has created X amount of jobs, what does that really mean? Is this a job that will allow a man to take care of his family or will the same man need three of these newly created jobs to do that?

    Then the other party says, “His economic policies have failed us!” They want us to believe that they could have fixed every that happened during the Bush years. They say they would have created even more jobs. You know me, I then wonder what kind of jobs? No one ever talks about what kind of jobs. They just say jobs.

    If you have been watching, I told you in the summer that this election would be the most expensive election in US history. And in the midst of the homeless and jobless, we will elect someone who will make more money being president than they did before they got the position. And they will make even more money when they exit the presidency than they made as president.

    It’s October and I’m already tired of these ads. I don’t know about you, but this is depressing to me. Despite everything, please vote. Your voice will be heard. It’s one of our rights that people died for. It’s the least you could do.

    It makes me long for the return of Jesus. Only he can make things fair.

  • Greet one another

    An acute characteristic of a Christian ought to be that he or she is very friendly. I have heard many congregations say that they are the friendliest church around, but most times when you attend you can barely get a handshake.

    Christ seemed to have a natural way with people. It always fascinates me that crowds of sinner hung around just to hear what he had to say. Jesus was always gentle with them. He never made the feel like they were sinners. He never made them feel like he was better than them. And he never made them feel like they didn’t belong.

    But beyond making them feel welcomed, through his words he always gave them something valuable – the words of life.

    Every moment was like a teaching moment for Jesus. He never lost sight of his mission and he understood that how he greeted people would directly effect his ministry. He never gave people a license to sin or made them feel comfortable in sin. What Jesus did was profound: He accepted where they were in life and gave them words to move them forward.

    The woman he met at the well in John 4 is a great example. Despite the obvious differences of Jesus being Jewish and the woman being a Samaritan, Jesus did something to show her instant acceptance. He asked her for a drink of water. When she heard the question she had a hard time digesting it. She knew he didn’t have anything to drink with meaning that he would have to drink from her cup.

    That’s not something a Jewish person would have done at that time. This would have been worse than a White person drinking from the “colored” fountain in Mississippi in 1930!

    Jesus with one question did more to build a relationship with someone different than many Christians do today. To have the same Spirit of Christ we have to have the ability and desire to walk in his steps.

  • Biblical confusion

    There is so much confusion about what the bible says. Part of the problem is in how we interpret it. It seems that too much subjectivity has entered into the understanding of scripture.

    I want to attempt to make this process easier. I want to take the mystery out of bible study. God has never been the author of confusion, but yet we have had people blame God for the confusion.

    In a culture where everything is done for profit and power, we would be foolish to believe that these factors are not present in churches. The basic thing we need to understand is how universal the teachings really are and how simple it is to understand.

    So let’s look at the basics:

    1)      God’s affection for the world was so great that he sent his son to die for them (John 3:16).

    2)      God created us in his image and likeness and wanted us to operate based on the intellect he gave us (Gen. 1:26, 27). So based on intellect we would discern or understand all things.

    3)      Just as we were born into mankind through the joining of a man and a woman together, so we must be born into the spiritual family by the water and the spirit (John 3:1-7). This is no more a symbol than your natural birth into your physical family. God actually wants everyone to be born again. (See the book of Acts to see the consistency of water baptism together with the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ).

    4)      Jesus spent time on this earth to demonstrate to us how to live a lifestyle that honored our Father in Heaven. So we read about Jesus yielding himself in obedience to the Father in heaven (Philippians 2:1-11). We see Jesus changing lives by loving, helping encouraging and sacrificing for mankind.  We who belong to him must follow in his footsteps as he declared: “By this will all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one for another” (John 13:35).

    The bible is perfect and pure and not at all confusing. If this is the only thing you knew and you practiced it faithfully with everyone you came in contact with, you would have a crown of righteousness that awaits you. This issue today is not about what your parents or grandparents did, or what is done where you are, this is about what the bible teaches and how you respond.

    In love, I am inviting anyone who is interested in really understanding Christianity not as a system of religion, but as a way of life, I would love to study with you. I’ve always wanted to have a virtual bible class. If you are so inclined and are hungry for the truth then you reading this blog today was not an accident. I am here for you!

  • Dan Gilbert: The surprising science of happiness

    Dan Gilbert: The surprising science of happiness #TED : http://on.ted.com/i8rt

  • Being in love

    Darkness coming to enlightenment that’s permanent and true;

    The day my soul was lifted up by a man I never knew.

    He walked this earth many years ago and turned it upside down;

    I never could have saved myself, I was lost and now I’m found.

    How could someone dare to die for another man?

    How could someone be deemed so worthy?

    That’s when I realized it had nothing to do with me.

    Could someone be so righteous and holy? Really? How could this be?

    This level of love makes no earthly sense;

    I cannot comprehend it.

    It stimulates me very spiritually;

    The logic I can’t go against it.

    This new enlightenment I know has changed my life forever;

    This new bright light, that I cannot fight I must now begin to reflect it.

    So what you see in me is not me at all; Its the enlightenment within me.

    When I forgive, when I love it’s all done the same; unconditionally in fact.

    For all these virtues I choose to do to restore a life intact.

    I’ll be thankful forever for the life I got; no matter what happens in life.

    I’m  forever overjoyed and excited now for the love of my new boss;

    I’ll live my life from this moment on in the shadow of the cross!