Category → Bible
Paperless Billing
I have noticed a trend that companies and even my work have begun to do. This trend is toward paperless billing for your utilities, and services. Most recently it has been my cell phone provider T-Mobile. These companies are so hung up in this Cumbaya utopia called saving the planet. This is where I need to throw in my disclaimer…
DISCLAIMER: I believe that common sense can be applied to just about anything including being responsible with the resources we have. I believe it is wrong to willfully waste resources just for the sake of wasting. I also believe that we are powerless as humans when it comes to changing the climate even if we wanted to. I believe there is a political movement that has disguised environmentalism as an attempt to gain power. The most militant of them are bent on destroying capitalism and are completely ‘off their rocker’. If you watch these people intently you will see an agenda emerge. There agenda is socialism if not outright communism. Socialism as defined is when government controls financial and business matters in an attempt to more fairly distribute wealth. Fairness is a subjective thing where the person defining fairness is usually the person that wants to take your rights away.
I believe the whole climate change movement is manufactured and has zero credibility to it. I do believe the climate adjusts itself constantly through natural processes and humans are completely irrelevant.
I have no problem with paperless billing except when these companies force it upon you by charging you extra for a bill. They forget that not everyone has a computer, much less the Internet. Their motivation seems pure enough though I disagree with their premise. Let us assume their environmental, climate change argument was valid. Their ‘saving the planet’ by not killing trees is offset by the extra energy being wasted by running your computer. Secondly they have to know that 90%+ of people that go online to see their statement will print them out on their own paper so they will have an archived record. The government does this as well.
For example: At my work they have taken all of the technical manuals and turned them into electronic documents where all the employees can get to them through their computers. All the while they give out awards to the person that came up with the idea because it will save the environment and will prevent the unnecessary killing of trees. Meanwhile another organization called ‘Quality’ is in action making rules that tell maintenance personnel that a manual is only current if it is in electronic form. A person can print the necessary pages so they can do their work but that print out is only good for that day. Each time you print out a technical manual, it prints the date that it was printed on each page. If the maintenance personnel are caught using this material the next day, they are subject to disciplinary action. These print outs are required to be destroyed each day. If you have ten employees in your shop, then all ten of them have to print out the same material each day. This results in an exponential growth in the destruction of trees. These regulations are mandatory and must be complied with.
This is an example of what happens when the government gets involved in anything. They have good intentions but the end result is that things are made worse. I can remember about ten years ago when the government started advertising how they were going to try to go paperless. The paperless government has turned their paperless effort into a massive growth in paper printing.
Almost every organization these days are trying to do their part in saving the environment. They advertise on television showing the Earth in an almost worshipping way. It sort of gives me the creeps because I see things happening that the Bible forecasted long ago. The Bible talks about these days in great detail in Romans chapter one.
Romans 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
I think it is always important to read the Bible in context. Although I only posted the one verse, I do encourage you to read the entire chapter so that you will get the proper context of that verse. I do not think it is a good idea to read just one verse because it can be manipulated and taken out of context.
The main point of all this is that I am hearing this environmentalism taken in a way as to almost worshipping the Earth (creature) more than worshipping God. This is ironic that most of these environmentalists that I come in contact with do not believe in God but do believe in the evolution of Charles Darwin. It almost seems as though these two theories are contradictory to each other. If you believe that the world as we know it came into being through natural selection of the fittest then who cares about the environment? I mean if we are ever evolving then there is nothing we can do about it. Only the fittest species will survive and natural selection will do the work for us. The evil humans will destroy themselves and the omnipotent Earth will return to its glory. If you sit back and think you can see how foolish this really is. It takes way more faith to believe that everything we know came from an accident than from God.
I am a firm believer that people want to believe Darwin because to think otherwise would mean they are responsible for their actions. If God is then we have a responsibility to live a certain way. If God isn’t then we can live free to do whatever we want. As difficult as it is to believe that everything we know came from natural selection, these people want to believe it because it is an excuse for riotous living.
Yes, I have veered off the subject of paperless billing but that is because to make the argument that environmentalism as it has become is to deny common sense. To argue that the world is so delicate that we could destroy it or even change the climate is to argue against natural selection. If natural selection is for real then there is nothing that environmentalists can do about it because we are so inferior that we will eventually destroy the world. We will make the world uninhabitable and natural selection will have prevailed and humanity will no longer exist. Why fight it? If natural selection wins out in the end then just eat, drink, and be merry!
The truth is that God is real and he is in charge. We are responsible for our actions whether people want to admit it or not. The paperless billing may help people believe they are helping things but in the end it is nothing more than an empty hope. The power is not in the planet but in Jesus. There is power in HIS name and I know as I typed that, many people tuned out just as it gave me chills. I am very confident in this and I hope that you will be too. I know this may sound like a rant but it is not meant to be. I just want to shine a light on all the hysteria we hear today about saving the planet and going green. If you were to listen to the news you would be stressed out all the time. Why not give God another chance and stop judging him based on the failures of his followers. He is good and will forgive. If we could ever be perfect, then there would be no reason for Jesus to have died for us. Spend some time in the Bible and ignore the stories you hear about individuals that have failed God. The people are always going to fail and always come across as hypocrites. Give him another chance independently of people and you will see there is something real to him after all. Now open your hymnals to page 256 and join me in a song 
.
Never Go To The Government
Our beloved General Motors has just been made a public example why you should never go to the government for assistance. I do not care if you are on the verge of homelessness, never EVER go to the government for help. When you do this, you are forfeiting your freedoms and subjecting yourself to humiliation. The United States government is far more corrupt than any corporate scandal you may have heard about over the years. The U.S. Congress is the most hypocritical organization known to mankind with the President running a close second. Barack Obama is no more qualified to be President than a random prisoner in just about any prison in the United States.
Let’s be honest here. Political Correctness has taken over this country and Barack Obama’s presidency is the biggest display of this. The ONLY reason he is President is because of the color of his skin. I am not saying that I oppose his presidency based on the color of his skin because that would be a complete injustice to what I am trying to say. I as well as most would have to agree that you cannot legitimately judge a person’s character based on the color of their skin. I do not want to be mistaken by all this by saying that my pointing out his flaws is an endorsement of the Republican party either. Both of the major political parties has zero credibility to point the finger at anyone. Whatever General Motors may have done to find themselves in their situation, it pales in comparison to what our corrupt leaders in Washington D.C. do on a daily basis.
General Motors biggest mistake was going to the government with their hands out because now they get to endure the embarrassment of being forced to walk naked in front of everyone while Barack Obama’s unqualified ignorance gets to play bully for a while. I would rather go bankrupt than to go to the government and accept their strings that are always attached to things. Shame on our local leaders like Governor Brad Henry for accepting one dollar of this criminally extorted payoff they call a stimulus package. Shame on anyone that accepts any of this money that is spending our country into financial ruin. George W. Bush was almost as big a disgrace as he spent himself out of control. What happened to conservatism? What happened to small government? Our leaders on both sides are playing us and people are too stuck in this Republican versus Democrat fight that they do not even see it.
While we sit around buying into the other party is the REAL EVIL our own guy is stabbing us in the back. Think about it… John McCain is not a conservative under anyone’s standard yet he gets the nomination for the Republican party. He has burned the Republican party over and over again. The Democrats are so far gone they are not worth even discussing. The Republicans are racing to meet them in their left wing agenda. The Republican party throws a bone to the conservatives by proclaiming their opposition to stem cell research, abortion or whatever topic the media thinks conservatives are against today. They never substantially act on any of these proclamations just like Democrats never do more than throw bones to their constituencies. Think about it. Democrats talk about helping the little guy and saving them from corporate corruption so they create programs that never help anyone. They spend more money on programs that never actually help anyone than if they had just given every American one million dollars each. I am not saying the government should be giving everyone a million dollars or any money for that matter. It is not the government’s job to be taking other’s property to give it to someone else. This loosely interpreted statement in the Constitution about the “common good” is misinterpreted at best.
Of course it is the people that are allowing themselves to be duped. I know what I am talking about because I have been guilty myself for this for years. I put all my hope in the Republican party to be the saviors of our family values while they sell us down the river. I meant what I said back over a year ago when I posted on February 9, 2008. People gave a me a lot heat for being anti conservative when I said that I was willing to concede this election to the other side to let our side know they are accountable. There are times that I feel that I have made a mistake every time I see Obama open his mouth on TV. When I think about it, I know I was right. This never ending voting for the “least of the two evils” does not work. I have voted Republican over and over again just to have each successive candidate be more liberal than the last. Of course if you listen to the left wing media you would have believed George W. Bush was the most conservative right winger that has ever been in office. You would have to either have your head completely submerged in the sand or be deliberately misleading people to believe that. I am thinking it is the latter. The truth is that George W. Bush though outwardly speaking semi conservative ideas was not committed to them. It was just throwing us a bone just like his dad.
I think our side needs to know they ARE accountable to the people that elected them. I think the time of allowing them to think they automatically have our vote just because our desire to keep the other guy out is bad policy. I am glad our side lost this time as painful as it is. I think it is time for us to communicate to our leaders that it was not an accident. They needed to be thrown out of office so they can understand that we mean business. Either they represent us or get in line at Obama’s welfare line. I can remember arguing with people in the past saying we must vote for this guy or that guy just to prevent the other guy from winning. I remember passionately defending Bush because of the danger of the other side winning. Let me ask you a rhetorical question… Has this made our land a more conservative place? Absolutely NOT! Our guy feels comfortable betraying us because he knows that we will not vote for the other guy. He plays us like a fiddle with the comfort that his own constituency will never vote for the other guy.
The checks and balances that our fore fathers put in place to save our land have lost balance because all the checks are in one pile. Our liberal elected officials have stacked our courts with liberal activist judges that do not interpret laws against the Constitution but rather make liberal laws. Our Congress does most of the corruption while blaming the President. They sit and pass laws that are thousands of pages without even reading them. They take your tax dollars and mine and spend them on their buddy’s projects padding their own nest. They make a kingdom for themselves so in the RARE event they are not reelected, they will have a free ride when they are out of office. They fail to do their duty and impeach corrupt Presidents and judges because they are so busy not paying their taxes just like half of Obama’s cabinet. The only organization that is more corrupt than the Barack Obama administration is the United States Congress.
Of course this is where I get religious on you so you may want to tune out if you are one of those that engage in this behavior. All this does have a common denominator and that is a lack of moral standard. Our country was founded on fore fathers that made mistakes. They were not perfect but they did believe in a standard and that standard was Christianity. These fore fathers were miserable failures at this standard just like we are but they understood what Christianity was all about. They understood that God’s word says in Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
They understood that since they were every bit as much sinners as we are that Jesus’ death on the cross was payment for their sins through faith. They recognized God’s words as the standard to live by and made an attempt to live by those standards. They made one mistake when they wrote the Constitution and that was their lack of clarification in the establishment clause of the first Amendment.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
This lack of clarification in their intent has been used by those who oppose this standard as an excuse to forbid Christianity in almost every avenue of life in our country. They speak of being a pluralistic society where there are differing cultures living side by side in our own society. This pluralistic society also includes those of differing religions living side by side. They use this as more evidence for not allowing religion in public life in the name of not offending one of those in the other cultures, religions. They often speak of religion but they really mean Christianity. There are several religions in our country just as they speak and the goal of all of them is to evangelize of get others to become converts. The problem is that in the discussion of this false notion of separation of church and state is almost without fail relating to Christianity. There is almost a hatred toward Christianity that is difficult to describe.
My point in all this is that our country was founded on Christian values whether those pluralistic crowd wish to acknowledge this or not. True Christian values does not advocate violence toward any other religion. I know, I know, this is where the argument about the Crusaders usually comes up. Like I said before, true Christianity does not advocate this behavior. Anyone can take on a title and claim to represent that title and do things that are opposite of what that title stands for.
If we do not have a standard by which we measure morality, then everything is subjective and that is very dangerous. If morality can be voted on then look out for slavery and violence against various groups of people. With the media’s power and lack of objectivity they can have you hating blacks again if they chose to go that route. They can have the public outraged at them for a fabricated injustice they have done. I mentioned blacks because they are a group that most people can sympathize with and understand the injustices they have endured. I could just as easily have mentioned any group. My point is that if we do not sit down as a group and establish some immovable standards, then anything can happen. The Bible already has those standards. I am not advocating creating our government to enforce biblical rules but rather to acknowledge the standards by which our country was founded.
One thing that has still not learned is that every choice you make has consequences whether good or bad. Just because a person fails to acknowledge a moral standard does not eliminate the consequences of their actions. When people make a choice, there will be a consequence. If not Christianity, then what? If not Islam, then what? If we continue to live in this relative world of no values then our greed will be the end of our country. If you look at history you will find that no empire lasted forever and ours will be no different. Instead of ignoring what went wrong in the past just to make the same mistakes again and again, how about setting some standards? These standards already exist and have existed since our country’s founding. Our problems are not the result of religion, they are the ignoring of it. If we continue to subsidize failure, we will have a very prosperous crop.
How Different People Can Be
It is no secret that people have differences of opinions on virtually any topic. It should be no surprise that you are going to have people that want to legalize marijuana usage. I have heard many arguments on both sides of the argument. Those people wanting to legalize it usually post about how it can be used for medical purposes with a prescription. Others that I run across are just opposed to the restriction because they do not like the government imposing laws on individuals. After all any restriction is bad unless it is something that you oppose yourself. This evening I ran across a post on Friendfeed from a guy that is known for starting controversy. I purposely do not mention his name because it gives him unnecessary traffic when search engines pick up my post with his name.
This Friendfeed post was about legalizing marijuana and at the time of this post everyone of the comments attached to it were pro legalizing marijuana. Although I disagree with this opinion he has a right to say what he wants. What really surprised me was how one guy posts “I think the people who dismiss this as unimportant have no grasp of the scale and scope at which drug prohibition destroys lives.” This opinion just defies logic to me. How can a prohibition of drugs destroy people’s lives? There opinions are that the prohibition drives up the costs and drug lords use the money to buy weopons and make it dangerous. This is the typical liberal approach to things like this. Others think that you should legalize it and tax it. The problem with that is that people will go around the systems. Have they not been paying attention to the mp3 downloading of the last six or seven years? People opt for the cheap as in free if they can get it. If Marijuana is legal and taxed people would still rather grow their own and not pay any taxes. This notion that making Marijuana illegal is responsible for the violence in the drug trade are dismissing the fact that these countries are lawless already. When they make Marijuana legal the dealers will go to the next drug that is illegal. There is an attitude that people have that says that since someone is going to do something anyway then there should be no restrictions on them. Sort of like giving condoms to children because “they are going to do it anyway”. Why make drinking and driving illegal because “they are going to do it anyway”. Why have copyright laws because they are going to share it anyway? Why wash dishes because they are going to get dirty anyway?
It should be no surprise to me that people can be so opposite on some topics but I must admit that I am surprised. The assumption that all parents have common interests and will be in agreement on such important things as a runaway child is another thing that was a wake up call for me. Three years ago I had a 13 year old son run away on several occasions. On each occasion we found that other parents were hiding him in their homes. When confronted they would tell me they were told that I was abusing him. I would return with the statement that if they suspected that I was abusing my son, then they have an obligation to report me. It is illegal to hid a runaway from their parents but I was shocked to find that on every single occasion the parent would hid him from us.
We live in a lawless society now. People will disregard every law as though it does not exist. This is what makes me laugh when I hear people advocate new gun laws. If the criminal is willing to ignore the law that says you should not kill someone, what makes you think they will obey the law that says you cannot have a gun? This is a new day that we are living and if you have been alive for more than 40 years I am sure you have seen the change. The people that acuse religious people of being the ones that bring hate and intollerance need to wake up. We now live in a day where religion is virtual profanity . We are seeing all sorts of sexual crimes on the news every day. We are watching political crimes, corporate corruption, and a world that is spending more than they make. We now have school shootings and all sorts of crimes daily on the news. I guess the non religion crowd needs to see their way is not working. It is not going to work either. I am old enough to remember that we did not have cameras in school because we did not need them.
The reason people do not want to even consider the existence of God is because that would be the recognition of the ultimate law. If God is real then we are not at liberty to live totally free with no restrictions. If God is real then we have to recognize there is a concrete right and wrong. Again, I realize that people have differences of opinions but I still get surprised to the degree of differences. Somethings are so obvious to one person while to another person the opposite is true. This is what you get when you have nothing that is immovable, non negotiable to base right and wrong. When there is no religion there is confusion and wandering around. You have people that operate on consensus or the majority rules. This sounds like an innocent way to live until you put a few scenarios together. What happens when you have three people in a room where there is two men and one women and the two men vote to rape the woman? She must comply because the majority rules. What happens when the media hypotheticallyconvinces the majority that slavery is acceptable? The majority agrees that slavery is acceptable so it must be right. Who dares to go against the group? If there is no absolutes then who is to say.
Others think that anything is acceptable as long as it does not hurt anyone. Who determines what hurting is? What happens if the father decides that he wants to get into pornography? It seems that no one gets hurt in this innocent activity. Ask the wife if it hurts anyone. Pornography does hurt families and can result in families breaking up and the children actually do get hurt. This post is not an attempt to preach my rules on anyone but rather to explain my position. My position is that virtually every moral belief in our country has its roots in Christianity. If you take away the concrete, absolute values that are in the Bible, then who determines what is acceptable or not? There are those that would argue that religion has caused more wars and problems in the world than anything else. In these cases you will find that it was usually someone that was operating against the doctrines but claimed to be operating under the doctrine. An example of this would be the Ku Klux Klan. They boast Christianity though the Bible opposes their actions. It is easy to claim something even when you are not one of them.
You can agree with me or disagree but this is my feeling on matters. I may be not be right on everything but this is my opinion. Whether you agree or disagree with my opinions you must agree that it is amazing the degree to which people can disagree. I do not expect everyone to agree with my opinions but I have a hard time understanding how some fundamental things can be seen with complete opposite points of view. One group thinks slavery is acceptable while claiming Christianity while the very doctrine opposes it. I just thought I would share my thoughts on this.
Believe God
A friend sent me an email and pointed out a Bible scripture to me and it made me think. He told me that believing God is more important than believing IN God. When I began to think of the reality of this I remembered several places in the Bible where it said just that. This is a profound statement because we hear all the time that 80% of the people in this country believe in God. These polls are always pretty generic and basically all it says is that people believe in a higher being and not in THE God. We have heard many times starting all the way back to Adam and Eve that to sin means death. This death is not only a physical death but a separation from God. Since it is virtually impossible to live completely sinless, God gave us a way to be saved from this death by sending his son , a sinless man, to die and pay for our sins. This payment though free for us has a requirement that we believe. In Romans 10:9-10 it says…
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
According to this scripture it is important to not only believe but to speak it. The Bible puts so much weight into faith. The Bible repeats over and over again that faith is the moving factor that moves God. Although it is true that we are not saved by our works, the Bible is clear that if you have this faith you will have works. In James 2:18 it says…
Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
This faith is not just a philosophy but a requirement. The Bible clearly says in Hebrew 11:6 that if you want something from God, that you must believe…
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Simply believing in God is not enough because even the devil himself believes in God. James 2:19 says…
Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
When I say believe God as opposed to believing in God I mean that if a person believes God they will take what he says and follow his commandments. Yes there will be failures and thankfully when we do, we have a savior to advocate on our behalf 1 John 2:1…
My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
There must be a change that is visible from the outside. If a person truly believes something there will be a visible sign. The person’s life will be noticeably changed. Just as was quoted in James 2:18 above, a true faith will have works…not as a requirement but simply as a result of that faith. Another thing that is interesting to note is how the Bible puts a lot of weight behind a confession of this faith. It is not easy to confess this faith to non believers. This confession is an outward expression of the faith that is within. This is not a small thing. Even in the prophetic words of Revelation during this 1000 years the people overcame the devil by the blood of the lamb and by their words. Revelation 12:11…
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
This testimony is not just someone saying what someone else wants to hear. This is confessing their faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior against all odds. In this story there was not physical reason for them to have faith. The appearance of things looked pretty gloomy. This is why I think it is important to tell people about your faith. I do not think it is necessary to push it down their throats. If they do not want to hear it then they have made their decision. If you truly believe that Jesus’ death saved you from eternal death then you want to tell people.
There are so many examples in the Bible about believing God as in trusting him. Remember the story of Abraham willing to sacrifice his son for God? In that case his faith was rewarded and a sacrifice was supplied. Romans 4:3 says…
For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Abraham did not just believe in God, he believed God. He saw God for who he was and treated him that way. He understood that God was even more important than his own son. Abel’s faith resulted in works and that faith was recognized… Hebrews 11:4…
By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
There are so many other examples that I could quote but the point is clear. Jesus died and paid for the sins that we were incabable of doing. The only way we can gain access to that payment is by faith. This payment is free for us if we will just take it but without faith it is impossible to please God. The only place that I have found in the Bible on how to gain faith is by hearing the word of God as spoken so clearly in Romans 10:17
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
The bottom line is that you must spend time in God’s word, the Bible if you are to gain faith. There is no other way around it. The world is against you so you need to spend time in God’s word or you will get beat up regularly. The Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance the scriptures when the time comes. The Bible speaks of a time when you will be killed for his name. Matthew 24:9 says…
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
I must admit this scared me when I was younger. At the same time I was thankful for living in a Christian nation where people were friendly to Christianity. I knew this would come some day but thought that it would not come until after my life time. Over the last twenty years I have been shocked to see how those that oppose God have been very militant and gone to court to remove any reference to God in public life. I have spent many hours on Friendfeed being attacked for my faith. My point is that it is not something that is coming, but rather something that is here. Our country that use to be so friendly to Christianity has changed to a point that sees Christianity as a threat. The hostility is there and growing. I cannot tell you how important it is for you to spend time reading God’s word. Do not worry that you cannot understand it because the Holy Spirit will reveal it to you if you faithfully read it in faith.
I can remember a time when I would read the Bible with the intentions of proving it wrong. I remember I use to take scriptures out of context for the sole purpose to show contradictions. It was not until 1986 when I truly accepted Jesus as my Savior and desired nothing but him that his words were revealed to me. I get chills just remembering that time because it was real and it is still real. If you are a believer you need to spend time in God’s word and not worry about what people are going to say about you. They will attack you for sure and you know that. Jesus said in John 15:20…
Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
If you are doing God’s will, the world WILL persecute you. There is no question about it. The only way you will be able to stand in that day is if you spend time in the Bible to keep your faith strong. The Holy Spirit will speak through you in that time. It is not about being good or being bad. It is about Jesus! If you do not believe me just try an experiment. Go into a room of unbelievers and begin a casual conversation about God in a generic sense. Most people will not have a problem with it but the moment you mention Jesus’ name you will see them squirm. They will either attack you, or change the subject, or just leave. There is power in Jesus’ name and if you do not spend time in God’s word, you will not have the faith to stand. Christian music will not do it for you. It has to be hearing the word of God. Remember, simply believing in God is not enough as even the devil himself believes. You must believe God. FAITH. You cannot get faith any other way than to spend time in God’s word. The world finds us as an annoyance now and in some cases as a threat. Soon and very soon we will not be tolerated. Now is the time to take this serious and believe God. I just want to thank my friend Jack for bringing this to my attention. This is something that I needed to hear myself. Sometimes we get so busy with life that we do not allow ourselves to have time for God. I am thankful to have friends that are there to remind me what is important.
More AP Activism
I know I have posted many times about why I do not like the Associated Press (AP). They have clearly taken sides in the Israeli, Arab battle long ago. This willful misrepresentation of Israel’s self defense is common place. If you read this story located here you will have to go more than half way down the story before you find that Hamas has been sending rockets into Israel for eight days straight before Israel defends itself. Israel waited until more than 300 rockets were sent into their country before defending themselves. If one stumbles on this story posted on Yahoo, they would think that Israel is the agressor and being unfair. The AP does this all the time and they count on people being lazy, not reading the whole story. They count on people just skimming the headline.
The truth is that Israel has been the victim countless times and the AP and the rest of their left wing media misreport the events as though Israel is the agressor. I cannot remember how many times I have heard how some Arab terrorist blows up a bomb in Israel and by the end of the story the media is blaming the victim. They try to paint the picture that Israel is oppressing these Arabs and that the Arabs are only crying out for help. The truth is that these Arabs would have no restrictions whatsoever if they would stop blowing things up. There is not a country of Palestine and there never has been. The Jews have a historical claim on the land of Israel.
In the above picture from the Iris web site you can see the tiny Israel in blue. You can see all the Arab countries surrounding Israel and how wide spread they are. The media and the AP would like you to think that all these countries are victims of tiny Israel. The truth is that this land was given to the Jews by England and solidified by the United Nations. The nation of Israel declared their independence in 1948 and found themselves in a war the very next day. Israel has been attacked on many occasions since. Every country around them wants them dead and somehow the media would have you believe it is Israel’s fault. The land in the middle of the country namely Judea and Samaria often erroneously referred to by the media as the “West Bank” is land that was won fair and square in the Six Day War in 1967. The great city of Jerusalem is in this area. The AP would be quick to point out that Israel attacked first in this war but they will fail to mention that it was only a preemption within hours. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon had their armies on the borders of Israel ready to attack. For any of those that think that Israel had no claim to this land, the United States won Texas in a similar way.
I really hate posting on this topic because I feel like I have to go through this history lesson over and over again. The truth is that Israel is innocent and they are at the mercy of the United States. Our country is their only protection against being destroyed. Many times our own leaders are too concerned with political correctness to address this issue with honesty. Our own leaders are putting our own nation at risk by not giving Israel our unwavering support. Let us not forget the words in Zechariah 12:3…
And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
It’s Morality Stupid!
With all of the horror stories going on daily on the news about the stock market and companies going through hard times it brings back a discussion during the 1992 presidential campaign. During this time the famous words uttered by another morally bankrupt person Bill Clinton were flashed across newspapers across the country. Those words were “It’s the economy stupid”. This began the love affair the media had with this guy. We endured eight years of the most nauseating love affair America has ever seen. Bill Clinton’s face was on every newspaper, every news broadcast, every day. He could do no wrong in their eyes. This has been followed up with another eight years of the most vicious hate campaign by the media for George W. Bush the world has ever known. The media has hated this guy from the first day they heard of him.
The words of Bill Clinton are the words of ignorance. This was an attempt at humor to tell then president George H.W. Bush that the economy is where the focus should be. The media picked up on this and ran with it as they always do. The problem with focusing on the economy when you have unrepentant sinners doing the focusing is that right and wrong are often skewed. The economy was not the problem just as today. Today the stock market and the financial issues are not the problem but rather symptoms. The Bible says… 1 Timothy 6:10…
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
We are experiencing the symptoms of a greater problem and that problem is a lack of morals in America. I am defining morals as those specified in the Bible. After all this country was founded by Christians and has been blessed for more than two hundred years. Our attempt at removing God from the hearts and minds of America will continue to curse this country. The shameless unrepentant promotion of sin as a way of life in the media and government has caused an entire generation of Americans to spiral into a sinful way of life.
I have a lack of trust for either of the two presidential candidates because neither of them can be trusted. The Democrat”ic”candidate is about as left wing and immoral as they come. He claims Christianity while publicly putting down Jesus on national television. If he were the only candidate, I could not support him. On the other end of the spectrum we have John McCain. I cannot support this guy either as he has openly opposed conservative agendas in the past voting with the Democrats on numerous occasions. He is almost as liberal as Obama. Now that it is time to play the part, he is pretending to be conservative in an attempt to get conservatives to support him. It is amazing to me how many Republicans I hear supporting him in this voting for the lesser of the two evils strategy. We have become so polarized as a nation from Republican to Democrat that we have no room for anything else. What has resulted is having two parties that have the same moral standing while arguing over differing strategies.
If you want to know what is wrong with the economy you may want to do a root cause analysis and you will find that the economy is just a symptom of a greater problem and that is a lack of morals in America. I have decided that this will be the first presidential election in my adult life that I will not vote for either candidate. I may vote for the other offices but I will not vote for the lesser of the two evils.
I have always heard the phrase that you have no right to complain if you do not vote. I have always agreed with this philosophy until now. Once I began to think about the logic in that I began to disagree. There is no logic in this at all. If I passionately dislike both candidates and yet I vote for one of them then I do not have a right to complain. After all I was instrumental in putting them there so I am just as much to blame as anyone. So I am casting my vote by not voting for either of these candidates because I do not like either of them. Until they allow a person to vote none of the above then all that will be seen is that I supported one of them despite my very strong opposition to both of them.
Voting for the lesser of the two evils has resulted Republicans becoming more and more liberal with each successive election. They believe they have our votes already because we dislike the other candidate more. With them having this faith that we are going to vote for them regardless, they have no incentive to take a stand on our conservative issues. We have to start holding them accountable and not vote for them and let the other guy win just to show our guy that we mean business. We cannot allow our guy to believe that he or she has our vote just because they have an “R” next to their name. Think about it… If you knew without a shadow of a doubt that you will get 100% of the Republican vote even if you voted with the Democrats over and over again then you would not feel that you owed the Republicans anything.
After Ronald Reagan we have had a candidate to the political left of him George H.W. Bush, followed by another one slightly to the left of him George W. Bush. Now we have John McCain that is not conservative at all. He lives on the “war hero” mantra that everyone likes to promote. I am tired of not taking a stand for what is right and voting for someone just because they are not the other party. I am tired of voting for people that give us lip service when they are running for office and then do not follow through. It is not the economy that is the problem but the lack of morals that is the root cause. Our country has “greed” on our minds. Our country has anything but God on our minds. No country lasts forever and we will be no exception. We have turned our back on God and now we do not have his protective hand over us. I am not saying God is punishing us but rather that there are consequences for living a sinful life. Our hope should be in God instead of money.
Let’s not for get the words in Matthew 6:33…
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
The solution is not the economy but God.
A Question for Christians
After reading a story online about grace I found a theme that concerned me and I decided to pose a question. As a Christian should we expect ANY standards at all? I am not referring to a requirement for salvation, I am referring to our behavior in life. Is there anything besides not judging people that we should put in the right column or the wrong column? I say this because I am hearing a lot of the same messages in church that I am hearing on the secular television shows. I am hearing more and more lessons that preach to church members not judge people and talk about the grace of God and how our salvation is through grace. I do not have a problem with that because the Bible says…
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8)”.
Where I have a problem is not making the distinction between judging people versus judging sin. I rarely hear a message about righteous living coupled with grace when we fail. Maybe I am reading this all wrong and if I am, please tell me so. Yes salvation is through grace but there should be a change in ones life. What happened to the repent part? If we are repenting, then what are we repenting from? It bothers me that the only lesson we are ever preached to about is not to judge. There is nothing wrong with judging sin as long as you do not judge the person. I am a sinner just as much as anyone else but I think I have an obligation to at least make an attempt at righteous living and help each other reach those standards with support when we fail and not through condemnation.
Please do not misunderstand. I am not saying I think we should be screaming fire and brimstone but I do think that it is not right to think “everyone else is sinning so we will have no expectations”. Sort of like the analogy of why wash dishes if they are just going to get dirty again? I am not saying we should expect perfection but I do think that we need to tell the whole story and not just about the loving Jesus. There is a price to be paid if we do not accept Jesus. The standards given to us by God did not simply just go away because Jesus came and died for our sins.
The Bible says…
“What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.” (Romans 6:15).
My issue is that we are finding churches that refuse to even mention that we have an expected standard to live by. It is not being judgemental. I never hear churches say that you have responsibilities. You could make the arguement that it is the parents job but you could make that argument about anything. If that were the case, then why do we need church other than the fellowship. I think we do need church and we do need messages about grace and we do need messages about what God expects from us. That last one is the one that I keep missing. Maybe I have it all wrong and am just misunderstanding. Am I the only one that feels that with salvation comes responsibility? What are those responsibilities? I never seem to hear churches tell us what they are. If making the church grow is what is important then one may be tempted to say what they think a person wants to hear. Unfortunately as a parent I cannot always tell my children what they want to hear because I have responsibilities that outweigh being their best friend. Again, if you think I have it all wrong, please let me know.
John 14:6
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
John 14:6, KJV
On a Lighter Note
Romans 5:8
But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
It is amazing how reading God’s word can put you in a good mood. Telling other people about what God has done for you can make a bad day much better. It is funny how it works but it is true. One thing that really works good is to listen to praise music. There is just something about praising God that puts you in a good mood as well. I have found this is great when you are having a bad day.
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Romans 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
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