Posts Tagged → Christianity
Accident
Last night my poor son went out for the first time in the car with his girlfriend and had an accident. He received his license just last week and failed to yield at a green light on a left turn. This is what the car looked like after a woman hit him in the side. As disappointed as we are we are greatful he and the other woman are not injured. This was a learning experience that I am sure will never happen again. We felt sorry for him because he is normally a good driver. This accident made him feel terrible as I would imagine it would anyone. I am sure this was a very difficult phone call to make when he had to call us to tell us about the accident. We have already taken it to a repair shop and filed a claim. The biggest concern I have at this point is the insurance premium increase that is sure to come. It already went up 100% just adding him to our account. We will be fine and we will stand behind him. If you click on the photo above you will see the rest of the pictures that I took.
I just wanted to thank all of you for your prayers. He is safe and the lady that hit him was very friendly. It is like God was there watching out for him. I am hopeful that the garage gets it back in the three weeks that was forecasted. Other than the accident it was a nice morning with temperatures rising above freezing for the first time in nearly a week. We had some wonderful fog all day and that was nice as well. Sunday had a Christmas luncheon for her work to attend at the base chapel this afternoon. At least this accident happened at a time where we could afford to take off work. We are going to relax and enjoy the evening after I get back from visiting my dad. I will go see him around 5:00 PM. He has been doing well and still working hard at 71 years old. He is a hard worker for sure. As my great grand mother said one time… “I would rather wear out than rust out”. 
We are planning on meeting with our other son to take a family picture this weekend. That is what I wanted for Christmas. He was gracious enough to come to take a picture for this occasion. I think this is a great sign for those that are aware of his situation. I usually do not enjoy the secular Christmas rituals of shopping yourself into debt. When I hear the commercials on television refer to it as “Holiday” it ruins the mood even more. I could go on for hours about how Christmas is ONLY about JESUS and NOTHING else but I will spare you the dissertation THIS TIME . I see our satellite television is cutting out so I am going to have to realign it again. Thanks for stopping by.
Churches and Tax Exemption
One thing that I have noticed with those that oppose Christianity is their using campaign rules to silence churches. Anytime a Bible believing church speaks about political issues and political candidates, the liberals begin to tout that churches should not be allowed to endorse a candidate since they are tax exempt. They like to point out that churches speaking on those issues are in violation of their tax exempt status. My point is that whenever a church takes the tax exemption offered by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), they are giving up their freedom of speech. They are limited to speaking about certain issues without pointing out that a particular political official is in violation of God’s laws. You will notice that this is only applies if you are a conservative, or fundamentalist church. Many times you will see liberal politicians go to liberal churches, many times black churches and no one complains. If a conservative dares to go to a church and speak, then complaints are aired almost immediately.
It is for this reason that I think churches in the United States should not accept tax exemptions. I know there are many that would disagree with me and say that without this exemption the church would not survive. I believe this is wrong. First of all the church is admitting a lack of faith that God will meet their needs. If a church is really serving God then they would survive. Giving up our freedom of speech for a tax exemption is crippling the church. When you add to the fact that churches are afraid to speak of sin for fear of scaring off potential members, the church is not relevant in today’s society. The churches that I see today preach on the love of God but they never tell the fact that being a Christian means repenting from one’s sins and changing their life. Is it just me or do we have a spineless church that will not preach the truth?
We are living in a day that is very hostile to Christianity. There are those that have purposely misinterpreted the establishment claus of the First Amendment as being a freedom from religion instead of a freedom of religion. When a church allows themselves to subject to the government that is being turned against God, then they are giving up their rights to speak the truth freely. I use to think that being tax exempt was a blessing but as the world has become more hostile toward Christianity, I now see this as a restraint on the church. Anyone that knows the government, they also know that anytime you depend on the government, you are going to have strings attached. This is one of the reasons that I am so opposed to a liberal agenda that advocates using tax dollars for social issues. When the people are dependent on the government, they are subject to the strings that are attached. Those strings are subject to the party in power at the time. If you are a leader of a church, please consider the price to be paid to be tax exempt.
I went ahead and re-opened my Facebook account as it gives me more control over the content unlike Friendfeed. I left all the other social networking sites closed. Of all the sites that I really do love to use, I would say Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook. The rain is moving back in today and I love it. I should have been raised in Seattle because it can never rain too much for me. I just found that many of my church members including the Pastor is on Twitter as well. I already had them on Facebook and they use it pretty heavily.
Looks like Obama made a comment yesterday that said something about you being able to put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig. Everyone is saying it was aimed at Sarah Palin and I do believe it was though you could make the argument that since he paused before saying it, that it was a spontaneous thought with no calculation behind it. They fired back and said that McCain had made a similar statement in 2007 when referencing Mrs. Clinton. And the drama continues. There is a reason that I usually turn the TV volume down the moment theys begin discussing politics. Oh well, it is the same thing over and over again. I will certainly be glad when it is over as you know that it will continue after the election regardless of who wins.
I have been attending a class at work and it has two more days. It is called Item Unique Identification (IUID). This is an initiative to assign a unique identification number to every piece of equipment that is either $5,000 or more. Other items can be added if the program manager deems it necessary to keep track of them. They used our government identification cards called the common access cards (CAC) as an example of how each of us has an unique number and no other person has this number. This is reminiscent of Revelation chapter 13, versus 15-18. I know this is not what it is but sure does give you the creeps. The government has put this program into place that all items acquired by the government will have these scannable marks beginning 1 Jaunuary 2004. What gives me the creeps is that never before in history has there been the technology for Revelation 13:15-18 to make sense. The point being is that the technology is here. The next two days of this class we will be doing practical application. I must say this overview class that I went to was easily the most boring class I have ever been to. Razor blades should be issued upon entry for those that just want to end the pain 
. Other than this and school there has not been too much going on.
Young Preacher ;-)
My sister sent this to me and I really had some laughs with this little boy. Watch the video and you will laugh too.
The Left
NOTE: The “_ _” following Democrat is meant to represent the “ic” in the word Democratic. I purposely omit this when referring to this political party because it is not representative of a Democratic society in that they typically try to silence those they disagree with. An example of this is the fairness doctrine meant to eliminate conservative talk radio.
I am up this wonderful Labor day and enjoying another day off. My wife and I have been switching channels on the television trying to watch the hurricane coverage. It is sometimes entertaining to watch these guys put on a show for the purpose of drama. It is funny when the weather people tell us how the hurricane has downgraded from a category three to a category two. They are real quick to say with enthusiasm that the East side of the storm can always strengthen at any moment devastating New Orleans. It is almost in the tone of “Don’t lose hope, hopefully, I mean maybe it will cause more damage”. A while ago I saw someone say that it is not as bad as expected and my wife told me that he will be fired after this broadcast because after all, if you are not going to sensationalize, then maybe the broadcast media is not for you.
On another front, I stumbled on a story yesterday from Michael Tefft that points out that our good friend left winger Michael Moore has made the statement that there is proof of a god in heaven for the hurricane happening during the Republican National Convention (RNC). This is no surprise that he would be so thankful that people would lose their lives and homes just so the Republicans will not get the air time they would ordinarily get during this convention. Mr. Moore has made it clear many times that he does not believe in God at all and that is why I spelled “God” with a small “g” when I told of his statement. I have found that ~90% of the Democrat_ _ leadership not only does not believe in God but are very hostile to anyone that does believes in him. Those that say the do, are often critical of taking the Bible literally. If you are not going to take the Bible literally then you cannot be a Christian since it is the very text of Jesus’ works.
This is no surprise to me that the Democrats are so hostile to the traditional Judeo-Christian values this country was founded upon. The Republicans have been known to give us lip service to get elected and then turn on us also after they get into office. The Democrats are so off the charts left wing that they are not worthy of giving any credibility at all. It is difficult to trust either party but one certainty is that the Democrat_ _ party is not our friends on any level. They have portrayed themselves as the savior of the “little guy” and are famous for proposing programs that help no one and cost millions of dollars knowing the Republicans will go against it. Then they and their good buddies in the media are relentless in their coverage of the Republicans’ wanting to throw grandma out on the street and take food out of the mouths of your children. It is so predictable and yet it always works.
As much as I distrust the Democrats, I must admit the Republicans are as inept as they come. I voted for the Republican revolution in 1994 and have been disappointed by their cowardice of media criticism ever since. The Democrats and media are going to call you names and accuse you of things anyway so you may as well do something. The Republicans have had no teeth since the 1994 election. I have zero respect for John McCain because he is the poster child for selling us out to the Democrats. His choosing Sarah Palin is an attempt to wipe those sellouts from our memories. As bad as John McCain is, Obama is far worse. He is an unapologetic liberal and is openly hostile to our values. He claims Christianity yet quotes scripture out of context to put Christianity down on the national stage.
One thing that has amazed me about rank and file Democrats is their solidarity to their party even though the constituency disagrees with their policies. I have relatives that are Democrats and will vote Democrat regardless of the candidate. I firmly believe they would vote for Hitler if he was the Democrat_ _ candidate. My relatives are conservative in their beliefs yet they vote for the most left wing candidates you can find. This continuous support for any party without accountability is destroying this country. Again, I have many family members that are Democrat and are conservative. My only hope is that these people wake up and see that their beloved Democrat_ _ party has been hijacked by the most liberal wing of the party. The Republicans have been portrayed the same way as being controlled by the extreme (Christian) right of the party and they quote some person that is not following the Bible. These people say that to be Christian is to be extreme yet they ignore the founding fathers were also Christians. They ignore the references to the Bible on many of the historical buildings in Washington. So in their interpretation, it is being radically hate filled extremist to believe in the traditional values this country was founded upon. If I am being unfair by painting with such a broad brush here then I apologize. This is just my observation.
Again Mr. Moore’s statements are typical for the Democrat_ _ leadership in their hatred. They are the party of political correctness. They portray Christians as hate mongers for simply disagreeing with them. Just because I disagree with homosexuality does not mean that I hate homosexuals. They spew more hate and sermons than any Christian I have ever seen. They speak of Christians as trying to tell everyone how to live their lives. They forget that about on every music or movie awards show where they wear their color ribbons and preach from the stage. They forget about the no smoking ads. They forget about all the “The more you know” ads that NBC spews upon us preaching political correctness. I do not agree with voting for a party simply for supporting the party but rather for the best candidate. If that person happens to be Democrat then I will support them. At present, the Democrat_ _ base is controlled by those that are liberal and hostile to the Christian way of life.
We are not blameless ourselves though. The failures of our own such as the Catholic sex scandals, and a few preacher scandals have given these people ammunition to show that we are bad people. The history of the Crusaders and their violence are often used as evidence of our hatred. This is no reflection of Christianity because these people are not following the Bible and they cannot quote a scripture to back up their actions. As with any group you are going to find a few that are going to be too zealous and do more damage to their cause than help. I have been guilty of this myself. Those people that go around shooting abortion doctors are not backed by the Bible. If you follow “people” rather than the Bible you are going to find failure because humans are incapable of the perfect living the Old Testament requires. If this were not true there would be no need for Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. The left often portrays Christians as shoving the Bible down their throats. If people are doing this, it is not scriptural. The Bible tells us to preach the gospel to every creature but it does not tell you to force it on them. If they do not want to hear it, then that is their choice. The Bible says in Luke 9:5
And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.
If they choose not to hear it, then they have made their choice. There is no obligation from Christians to continue to badger them and this is not scriptural. If this has happened to you, then I apologize for our people. This is not Christianity. The Christianity of the Bible is to love everyone. Love your enemies.
I truly do not hate Democrats but I must point out things as I see them. There have been countless surveys that show that the vast majority of the national media are supporters of the Democrat_ _ party so in their world view things look normal. You will never get the other side of the story. They do not understand real Christianity so they will never admit that our country was founded by Christians. Not hate mongers that they like to portray us. In this day of political correctness the word tolerance has been redefined. The true meaning is to peacefully coexist with those of differing opinions. Today the politically correct meaning is that you must accept everyone and their ways with open arms no matter how offensive it may be. Anything short of an open arms acceptance of this is considered hatred, bigot, or a homophobe. This is completely wrong and cannot go unchallenged. It may seem that I beat a dead horse on this subject here but that is because there are few places you can hear the truth. I hope my passion on this subject is not seen as hate but rather frustration with the lack of voice that our side has in the national media. I do not hate anyone and do not want my passion to be interpreted that way because it simply is not true.
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
Allow Me To Clarify
When I refer to left wing, right wing, I am referring to a person’s social take with reference to the Bible. When I refer to something as being right, or wrong, I am measuring it with reference to the Bible. Though I am a poor example of what Jesus would have me to be, I do think that his words are the reference point and he is my standard. Many people refer to conservatism or liberalism in a purely fiscal point of view. Often a person may consider themselves to be conservative or liberal based on their fiscal, or government expenditures views, while others on their moral or social views. The media likes to clump these groups together and I must admit that I am guilty of it as well. There are differences in the motivations of these groups though on the surface it may appear they are all the same.
I would like to clarify my position in this rhetorical world of politics. People from a secular, or non religious view see it as all politics while I see it as adhering to the “word of God”. If I am wrong on something and you can prove it to me in the Bible then I will gladly adjust my views. It is my opinion that we have a conflict of world views. On one side, there is a world view that government is the source of rights and therefore should take care of society’s social needs. On the other hand there are those that believe that God gives rights and therefore it is “he” and his people that should take care of society’s social issues. There are many that believe the government has a responsibility to take care of the underprivileged and spend tax payer dollars on social programs to meet these needs. To them it is moral obligation the government has to do this. The problem with this thinking is that political figures are no different than ordinary people in that they have a sinful nature desiring self fulfillment. The redefine what an underprivileged person is, allowing more people to fall into this category so they can justify another program to help them.
Again, we are all sinful by nature and we like free handouts and although they are not really free, we fool ourselves into thinking they are free. These political figures use this “feel sorry for ourselves” attitude to get elected. They create a fictitious need and put themselves as the savior to supply that need. They never really fix it but rather just “toss the voters a bone” to make them feel like they are cared for all the while being exploited for the gain of this political figure. This is fiscal liberalism sometimes called progressivism because of the stigma associated with the term liberal.
In other cases there are social issues such as the definition of marriage, abortion, gay rights, and radical environmentalism are examples of social liberalism, or social progressivism. In these cases the followers are driven by a desire to undo a perceived wrong in their eyes that their nemesis, conservatives have done. Many times a large portion of these groups are militant against Christianity and this hatred is the single driver that motivates them. Not all of them but in many cases this seems to be the case.
On the other side of the spectrum you have fiscal conservatives and social conservatives driven by completely different motives. The fiscal conservatives are the Rush Limbaugh types that believe that individual freedoms will inspire growth that will eventually lead to a greater economy. These types are the ones that are driven by the economy and see the government as an obstacle to success and often stifles the economy. They usually believe that charity organizations should be the ones helping the underprivileged by donations. It is their view that taxation is extortion and should not be used to pay for social issues against the tax payer’s will. They believe that government should only play a limited role on social issues. Contrary to the media reports, our president falls into this group.
The social conservatives are the group that I mostly identify with. This group is usually comprised of Christians or of other religious believers. In this group, people see the world as going morally out of control and therefore should return to a perceived better time when Biblical standards were the norm. This group feels that they and their beliefs are under attack and would like to return to a more Biblical standard. This standard never has been reached and never will because if it were possible, there would have been no need for Jesus to die on the cross to pay for the sins of the world. Nevertheless, from the founding of the United States until the mid twentieth century America, the Bible was considered the standard for right and wrong.
This is still the standard and will always be the standard regardless of society’s acceptance of that premise or not (Luke 21:33). My acceptance that this is not likely to return as the norm within my lifetime, or until Jesus returns (2 Thessalonians 2:3) does not mean that we should refrain from doing our work as Christians. Jesus said “…go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). This is not a request but a commandment and so it needs to be done. I have come across those that are morally conservative while being fiscally liberal or vice versa so it is not an accurate picture to label people as simply liberal, or conservative. I hope that I was able to effectively explain my views and where I am coming from. It is this single desire to fulfill God’s word that motivates me to be conservative.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: conservative, liberal, progressive, christianity, politics
Is the Church Relevant Today?
There is an issue that has concerned me for some time and that is the church’s relevance in the world today. We now live in a politically correct world where the self appointed elite determine what is acceptable to say and do. Church and civic leaders have become afraid of these people to a point where they are afraid to show sin for what it is. These politically correct individuals are usually comprised of national media and their appointed celebrities. These people have learned long ago the power of the media and educational system in controlling the thought process of a generation that is too lazy to research things for themselves. The people of this generation have become too self absorbed with their problems and issues to learn about issues for themselves and have become too comfortable in taking the word of others in the media that are not necessarily neutral on the issues. Often times those in the media tell stories with a world view that is politically to the left, or liberal so their questions and answers are usually leaning in that direction. Too often in the world, the political left equals secular, or non religious and even hostile toward Christianity. The education system has become a place for intolerance toward religion, specifically Christianity.
We Christians often do not spend enough time in the Bible to know and understand God’s word for what it really says and find themselves unprepared to defend the faith when it is attacked. The media, and education systems clearly do not understand Christianity for what it is supposed to be but deals with it in a way they perceive it to be. They see Christianity as a group of people that are disgruntled and want to enforce their beliefs on the rest of the world. They see Christianity as uneducated and often responsible for the ills in the world. Any time someone of faith stands for a moral issue, the media fires both barrels labeling them as people of hate. They advocate legislation geared toward silencing the words of Christians often falsely labeling Christian doctrine as hate speech. They do it with a vengeance and the ill equipped Christian is often left looking ignorant and backwards. The media strategically pick issues they know are sensitive topics and use those ill equipped Christians as examples of how Christianity is dangerous and bad for society. A few of these issues are homosexuality, abortion, and the death penalty.
The education system is just as guilty in this. Most of them receive money from the government so they use this as a reason to silence religion because of their false interpretation of the religion clause of the first amendment. All these things are important but they should not be a surprise to anyone because the Bible even predicted these things. We should not expect the world to be friendly to Christianity because Jesus said so.
John 15:18-20 18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 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.
The real problem is we Christians not being prepared to go into all the world and preach the gospel (Mark 16:15). Even our Christian leaders are not prepared as I have seen. I have found that many Christians including myself have been content to let the preacher do the preaching because in my mind it was their job. I do not need to trouble myself because it is the preacher’s job. The preachers have become worried about attendance and growing their churches. They have changed their sermons from the full truth to the half truth. They like to tell what a wonderful God we have and how He will forgive our sins. They preach how Jesus died for their sins for the world but they neglect to say there is a responsibility of the believer to repent. There is a responsibility to attempt to live a righteous life. It is true we will never reach perfection while in this world but that is not an excuse for not trying.
1 John 2:1-3
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: 2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for our’s only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
We need to stop being afraid to point out sin fearing that our churches will not grow. I remember a conversation on the ham radio repeater a year or so ago when I was reading an article about a large church in Houston Texas having 30,000 people attending every weekend. A fellow ham radio operator chimed into the conversation and said “Maybe it is because they are saying what people want to hear instead of the truth”. At first I dismissed those comments as statements disparaging another church because it was a different denomination. I have since changed my mind and have realized that he was on to something. I have noticed this church spending a lot of time preaching on how God wants the best for people’s lives but virtually never preaches that Christians have a responsibility to live a Godly life. I am not putting this church down because I often enjoy watching it myself because of its positive message.
My point in all this is not that I think we need to bash homosexuals or people that do other sins but not be so afraid to speak the truth fearing what the world will say about us. We Christians need stop worrying if the world is going to persecute us because we know this is going to happen. We need to educate ourselves and pursue careers in the media and educational institutions to turn the tide. Instead of bashing these institutions and writing them off as lost, we need to become better equipped and join these institutions on God’s terms. What brought this important topic to mind was the fact that my own children and their friends who claim Christianity seem to have missed that being Christian means there needs to be a change. We have spent so much time telling them what a great and forgiving God that we have that we have forgotten to tell them that we also have a responsibility to repent and live Godly lives. Yes we will slip from time to time but we cannot use that as an excuse for not trying. It is sort of like washing dishes. Why would we wash dishes since we know they are just going to get dirty again. It is too easy to take that lazy approach and listen to the world and accept their argument that says it is just human to make a mistake so why try. We try because God says so. We try because it is right. We do not try because we want to follow the crowd because we know the crowd will be going the other way. We need to be relevant in the world today and speak the truth knowing that persecution will come our way because it is guaranteed. If you are not being persecuted, then you may want to check and see if you are following God’s word. Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tags: christianity, God, Jesus, liberal, politically correct, Bible
Song of Praise
David Huff’s video Song Of Praise on GodTube
Technorati Tags: David Huff,Song of Praise,Video