Originally Posted: 9/19/2004

In the world of today, we have a tendency to lose track of what is important and what it means to be parents.

Today, I was at the grocery store and as I was about to leave I notice a woman with four children, none of which could have been over the age of five. As the woman was walking to the car, all the kids ran to the car, which was about fifteen feet away. The mother started back towards the store talking to a friend and as she did, one of the children ran back after her, which just happened to be in front of a car. The car spotted her and stopped. The mother started yelling and cursing at the children and telling a couple of them that they should be paying more attention.

This was sad to me as it reminded me how few of parents really understand what it is to be a parent. In today's world, it seems that everyone is always trying to push the responsibility on to someone else. In this instance, it was the mother trying to place the blame for the situation on a child less than five years old simply because "She" was not handling her responsibility and paying attention to what the children were doing in a parking lot. Moreover, attacking them verbally with such hostility was sad.

It seems that parents are wrapped up in their own lives and expecting the children to come along for the ride, instead of realizing that it is their duty to nurture and grow their children.

Be a parent, your children are worth it!

Originally Posted: 9/19/2004 prior to 2004 Elections

While no one can or should tell you how you should vote, you need to keep in mind what a vote means.

I have heard many people say that they are voting for a given candidate only because they do not want the another candidate in office. Or they happen to be voting for a candidate merely because they like one or two things they say or points of view they share.

This is all wrong! You should be voting because you are behind the candidate. There is not other reason, it should be because you believe in them and what they will do in office.

In the Bible it refers to a person giving help to another person in the name of God and sharing in their reward. If we share in the good that is done by a person when we support them, does it not make sense that we share in the bad they do which we know they will do? I believe we will, but I do not know to what extent.

All I do know is that we should be very careful when voting. Do you think it is right to vote for someone who you know will do bad things all to justify it in the belief that they will do more good than bad?

Do we pick someone to vote for simply because they promise to do things we like in one or two areas and ignore what they do in others?

Example, are you willing to vote for someone because they will promise more jobs, better economy or better health care and ignore their public pro stance on abortion? Is there anything a candidate can promise that justifies voting for someone that believes and will do all in their power that people should be allowed to murder babies up to birth?

What about someone that you know is corrupt? Is there anything they could promise you that would make you vote for them if you cannot trust them?

What can a candidate promise to get your vote if the will trample on your religious freedoms and not allow you to express your faith in public places such as government, schools, work places, etc?

Whatever your stance on the candidates we have to choose from, you need to think of all the bad things you are going to cast your vote for not just the good. It does not matter what the person next door nor what your family think, you know right from wrong and you need vote what is right.

My vote will be as usual, None of the Above. I personally do not believe that any candidate has shown themselves worthy to be in office. If you strip away what you think they have done for you or to you, what have you left?

Pray, I know God will never tell you to vote for a murderer nor one that supports it!

Originally Posted: 10/6/2004

Abortion: The debate that never should have been!

Yesterday, there was a post in a software developer's forum debating different facets of the so-called "pro-choice" and "pro-life" issues, actually, there were tons of posts in those threads. That is the reason for this post…

Abortion is murder plain and simple! The debate is clearly nothing more than people trying to justify murder based on either their ego, hatred, anger, fear, regret, money, ignorance, or (the worst in my opinion) inconvenience. Everyone tries to change the name of something they want people to accept which is absolutely an affront to your conscience only to make it sound more palatable. A person once told me that anyone can justify anything given enough time and desire. I think people like Hitler have already proven this statement!

There is no debate and never should have been one! The biggest mistake people against abortion ever made was to allow them to make a debate out of it. The second biggest mistake was to allow them change the issue name to "pro-choice". There is no choice, it is murder no matter what you call it!

From the time the fertilization occurs, that is a child and no one has the right to kill the child. It does not matter what you think or how you justify it, the simple fact is, it is murder! It is no different than going down the street and picking someone out and killing them, other than the baby has never done one thing wrong, not a lie, no hatred, nothing, pure innocence and people are paid to perform this task.

If you have murdered one or more of your children, I am truly sorry for you. It is a horrible act and only God can help you, there is forgiveness with God!

If you support murdering babies, not matter what the cause, you need to spend a LOT of time with God because you are clearly out of touch with Him!

MURDER, debating will never change it!!

Originally Posted: 11/10/2004

Do you believe in the power of prayer? Many of us say we do but seldom pray about matters in our life unless it is life threatening to us or to those around us.

There is a saying I hear every now and then, "All we can do now is pray". Maybe we have things a bit backwards. First, we should turn to God with our prayers and then follow through with all that we know to do about the situation. Acknowledge God in all your ways and He will direct your paths.

Maybe the real problem is that either we do not take prayer seriously or doubt that God really wants to be involved in every area of our life. Is not prayer simply a method to acknowledge our dependence on God and ask Him to take part throughout our lives trusting in Him to help us?

I do not consider chanting a phrase or passage over and over repetitiously as a prayer. To me, prayer is talking time to direct your attention to God, earnestly offering up your concerns with thanksgiving. Worship and prayer should go hand-in-hand. We need to spend more time with God and through prayer and worship, allow Him into every situation of our lives.

You might even consider a prayer list that you bring before God often. Mine has a list of people I pray God will move in their lives and bring salvation and healing. They are family, friends, people I meet and even celebrities and people of fame. I read those names before God and ask for His hand to move in their lives.

The other section of the list is for specific prayer along with recording the results when answered which can help build your faith for future prayers. An old song said it well:

"Count your blessings Name them one by one
Count your blessing See what God has done"

While a prayer list may seem formal, I believe if you are serious that God is serious. It is not game, He is there to help if we diligently seek Him.

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. Heb 11:6

This may be yet another area that prayer is hindered, "Faith". At times, I find it is hard to pray for certain things even though I know the prayer should be answered and that it is God's will, but due to a lack of faith, I have no confidence in the prayer, it has a sound of tin.

It is written:

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Rom 10:17

Here we need to put more of God's word into our hearts. This will give a good root to our prayers and allow us to pray with confidence!

I do not have all the answers, but I think if we spend more time with God and earnestly offer up our concerns with faith, He will move and the prayers will be answered!

Originally Posted: 11/13/2004

I am so tired of hearing ministers sound like info commercial sales people. This deception has filtered into many churches and corrupted many ministers without them even knowing it has happened.

Many years ago, I heard a minister that I greatly respected, say that he had promised God that he would never beg for money in his ministry. Less than six months later, he had his assistants asking for money. Within a year, he was regularly asking for money. The deception was complete. While this person was a good man and minister, he was taken in by money. I personally think that that are close to him are as much responsible as him, as they apparently they did not stand up and tell him he was straying.

This is not to say that all fund raising is wrong, it is for all those that insinuate that your loved ones will get saved, you will receive your healing, your financial problems will be over or maybe you will be able to have faith you need in God if you just buy their book, video tapes, CDs or DVDs . Many of them claiming they received the message from God and wanted you to have it.

Ministers, it is time to quit taking and start giving! It is time to do the work and be servants to the body, not servants to self. What point is enough? It is time to nurture the Body of the Messiah and let the Body grow. Lookup the word "servant" and remember what God is asking ministers to be!

In churches today, we should be able to record and hand out all our praise and worship along with ministering series at "no charge". It costs a few pennies to make a CD, most churches can afford that!

Quit trying to sell Gods word and lets all start LIVING IT!

So, do you know ministers that are selling and not serving? If so, lets pray that God will open their eyes and free them from this bondage. While most of us can do nothing directly, our prayers can!

Originally Posted: 11/15/2004

I was browsing some of the blogs and RSS search engines looking for good Christian content. Trying to find something that is promoting the power of God along with a need for Holiness. Just anything with a hunger for God.

I spent a quite awhile looking through many of the search results. I looked with sadness and at times horror as I browsed through those results, finding time-and-time again, people with hate towards Christianity and God, with blasphemy on almost every page. Then even more horrifying was the number of so-called Christians that spent their time only tearing apart all those who are out trying to do the work or trashing entire denominations and announcing that they were evil and from the devil simply because they have different doctrines or there is just something about they did not like about the denomination.

After all this searching, it made me wonder where are all the people who defend Christianity, who believe in the power and gifts of God, that boldly proclaim salvation can only be found in the name of Jesus, that there is forgiveness? Oh, I know many do exist out there, but it seems as if there are only a few compared to the number of people flocking out there to cause destruction.

While I would love to have the Rapture take place tomorrow, I have to hope it is not for a time yet. There are so many people yet to reach. Many of these have been hurt in some way to bring such hard feelings on them. In addition, all those others that claim to be Christians, but do not appear to have anything resembling God in them. It is just a bit overwhelming when you see a search result of 2,000 links and only one or two have any real appearance of God.

They have to be reached some how! We must get to the throne of God and receive the power and holiness to reach these people! Time, I know is short, and there is a lot to accomplish! It is time for the Awakening…

Originally Posted: 11/20/2004

There was a special on CNN today about American Christians. It appeared the show tried to suggest that Born-Again Christians are some kind of cult, that refuse to accept anyone that does not believe exactly as they do and are not tolerant of other beliefs and are motivated to con people into joining them.

One part of this is true. The truly born-again Christian cannot accept that there is any other way to heaven than through Jesus the Christ. It is not the believer saying this, it is Jesus Himself when He said:

"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 ]

And this passage showing there is only one way:

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" [1Ti 2:5]

There is only one way to God and that is the point. No minister or church can change that fact, Jesus said it, and only God can change it.

Now the real question, can a religion be true if the people of that religion can adjust it to fit their desires or the times? Not unless they are God!

It was nice to see that family had raised their children in the faith. The children told it like it is, that there is only one way to God and that Jesus came to pay the price for your sin and that through Him and only Him, you can be saved. Out of the mouth of babes!

To me this show is more of a thermometer showing just how small the fence is that some people are sitting on. The fence is getting smaller and soon, the fence will be gone and people will have to choose just where they belong. More on that another time.

It was nice to see the Christians on the show standing up for the faith!

Originally posted:  12/17/2004

What is important to God?

Many people spend time thinking about and living in the past. They think of all the good times and wish they could be back. Others live in regrets and concern themselves with things that they have done or had happened to them in the past. Some Christians allow these things to hold them back.

Others put everything off into the future. They live their lives in the future, planning what they are going to do. There are many sinners that say they will get saved later or in the near future. There are many Christians that say they will live a more holy life and put anyway those sins that so easily beset them in the near future or when something happens in the future.

I have news for you (and myself), life is not lived in the future, things you plan for the future mean nothing to God, as you have not yet done them. The things in the past are gone and over, there is nothing you can do to change them! If you are a Christian and it is a sin in your past you are holding on to, you are not trusting God, He forgave your sins and has chose not to remember them anymore, so there is no reason why you should!

Now to the heart of the matter, we live life in the present! You can only change your past as it is happening. Everyone minute of every day, you are creating your past. It is up to you what your past will be. To God, the only thing that matters is what you are doing right now, not in the future, not those things that you have confessed and been forgiven for in your past, but what you are currently doing, what the state of your heart and decisions you make right now.

You want to have a fuller relationship with God, what will you do today to further this? Not tomorrow, but today!

Tell those that you love, today the you love them.  Appreciate the blessings in your life you have today, not worrying about what will be tomorrow.

Live in today so that you have a future and that your past will be full!

Recently, in our local newspaper's "letter to the editor" section, the battle of Evolution vs. Creation has been a popular topic which has caused name-calling and going as far as comparing some people with Hitler.  It is a heated issue for many reasons to be sure, but I think the battle is more about the existence of God rather than creation.  However, there are issues directly related to Evolution and being a Christian.

Can a Christian actually believe in evolution?  That is, does not evolution break the foundation of Christian beliefs?

First, if we are to believe in evolution, this would mean that humans developed from animals and contradicts the Genesis account of God directly creating mankind.  Some may say that God may have just taken His time and created man slowly developing (evolving) him over a long period of time.  If you actually believe this, then there is yet another problem to continue believing the biblical account as you would have to solve how woman was not found until God made Adam sleep and used one of his ribs to create her while Adam slept.

Even if you throw out the creation account, you have another problem.  Animal do not have souls as far as we know (would seem hard to believe among other things that God would have them slaughtered for sacrifice if they had an eternal soul).  At what point did man "receive" a soul (or spirit)?  If you believe evolution, mankind came from primates (at least at the last step of the ladder) thus primates would either have an eternal soul or somehow we developed one.

People can justify about anything if they really want something bad enough.  This appears to be a large problem nowadays as many are desperately trying to combine the man made sciences with the biblical beliefs.  The two will NEVER completely fit.  If you take out the creation account, you still have many things in the biblical history that science says is emphatically impossible:

• How can a man live in the belly of a large fish (story of Jonah)?
• How can there have been a worldwide flood that covered past the highest mountaintop if there currently is not enough water on the planet to reach that far?
• How could the sun remain in the sky for 24 hours (Joshua's battle)
• How could the Jordan River (full at the time) dry up as the priest's feet touched it allowing them to cross over on "dry" ground?
• How about the simple story of the Axe Head made of iron that "floated" on the water (one of the stories of Elisha)?
• How about the mighty works God performed delivering Israel out of Egypt?

The Bible is scattered with these events that are impossible as far as science is concerned.  If we try to make the Bible and our beliefs fit man made science for the sake of science, then we will be removing a good amount of scriptures from the Bible.  If those are removed, then just where do we stop?  If the simple account of creation can be stretched to the point of even "allowing" the possibility of evolution, then there is no "belief".  You might as well just throw your Bible away if you can believe such "theories" based on the knowledge of man along with all their proven frauds (yes there a many frauds in the supposed evidence of evolution).

We do not need to bend our Christian beliefs to try fitting them to manmade sciences.  Why should you even bother?  Evolution, which is key to those that do not want to accept the idea of a creator, still forces those who believe in it to take everything on faith with large gapping holes. 

Just ask an evolutionist where did it all come from and many will push the "Big Bang" theory, which believes that a small piece of hot matter expanded into everything in the universe.  That sounds hard to believe when you consider the size of the universe, but the bigger question is, where did that matter come from?  Where is it all going to end?  What is on the outside of all space?

We all know that no one knows these answers and space is so large, it is hard for us to comprehend all on its own.  The point though is that evolutionists still will end up with an "I do not know" regardless of the path they take.  What is harder to believe, something that you do not and cannot know in your entire lifetime or that there is a God and He is willing to prove Himself to anyone providing they give Him a chance?  Simple existence testifies that God is here (I will post much more on that topic in the near future). 

The entire issue about evolution and creation being taught in the schools together should not be based on the position that theory of evolution is based on science and that creation is based on religion, they are both based on something you "must" believe in and know that we will never have all the answers in our lifetime.  As such, creationism should be taught in schools just as much as evolution, if you do not allow creationism, then neither should the religion of evolution be allowed.