R.H. Clark's Blog, page 14
November 10, 2019
The Resurrection and The Rapture
Both the resurrection and the rapture are future events which are part of the return of Jesus Christ. First, you must understand that the resurrection is for those people have died as believers in Jesus and the rapture is for the dead and those living believers in Jesus Christ. Is this exclusive? Yes it is, but it is open to everyone and anyone who choses to believe in Jesus Christ.
Paul writes in 1 Thess. 4:15-16, “According to the Lords’s own word…For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, …the dead in Christ will rise.” Mark 12:25 records a statement by Jesus, “When the dead rise.”
Both statements are directly from the Lord Jesus so we can be confident in it as truth. This was also seen by Old Testament prophets such as Job, Isaiah, and Daniel. Job 12:26 says, “And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.” The prophet Isaiah said, “But your dead will live; their bodies will rise,” and Daniel recorded, “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake.” You see this promise predates the earthly birth of Christ.
So what happens with those who are still alive? In 1 Thess. 4:15 it says, “…we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep…the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”
Jesus tells us how this will look in Luke 17:30-35, “I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding together; one will be taken and the other left.” It will be sudden, in the blink of an eye, and it will be totally unexpected. Jesus says more in Job 5:28-29, “…a time is coming when all who are in their graves…will come out-those who have done good (accepted Christ) will rise to live, and those who have done evil (not accepted Christ) will rise to be condemned.”
This is the final accounting, it is the beginning of the end of time. At some time after the rapture, the anti-christ will make his appearance and there will be seven and a half years left before the final return of Jesus.
How soon can we expect this to happen, just know that every prophecy that comes before the return of Jesus has been fulfilled except one. The resurrection and the rapture are still to come so this could happen at any time. That should encourage us to be prepared by accepting Jesus Christ as our savior now!
Wives/Fornication
This is a lesson first presented at the San Angelo County Jail.
We’ve talked a lot about a lot of things waiting for us outside these walls such as friends and family as well as those toxic relationships with all those temptations. Tonight we’re going to talk about our most important earthly relationship; our wives.
I know that you’re going to like this scripture, Eph. 5:23, “For the husband is the head of the wife…” and “…wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” That sounds really good, but don’t get carried away thinking this gives you all kinds of power over your wife. It does give you authority, but with authority comes a ton of responsibility. Every time you decide what is right for you and your wife, you must decide what protects your wife from any harm.
Being selfish with this authority is a sin of the worst type. First consider that they stayed with us for longer than anyone would expect. If they bailed on us it’s because there was just too much pain and danger for them to tolerate. Many, however, are still standing by us no matter even if their family and friends are calling them crazy. They just won’t give up on us. They see something in us worth saving and they are determined to save us from the trash heap.
Proverbs 31:10 says, “A wife of noble character, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.” That’s what God knows and wants us to learn. It’s time to open our eyes and see our women as God sees them “…woman is the glory of man,” 1 Cor. 11:7.
God says that they are our glory, can you imagine, they are seen by God as our glory and, “she brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life,” Proverbs 31:12. We need to treat them with respect and protect them.
God leaves no wiggle room when he says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…” Eph. 5:23. Stop loving yourself first and start loving your wife first. That’s a tall order but we should all strive for that goal. We can show this best by making sure that we do everything we can to stay out of trouble by obeying the law and not being in conflict with others. Stay away from bad places, people and things.
Our wives want to be proud of us, but we make it very hard when we act like the whole world revolves around us and everything needs to please us. We may be guys, but we don’t have to act like it.
You’ll notice I talk about wives here; that’s because God gave us absolute directions about un-married relationships in Act 15:20.
Acts 15:20 But that we write unto them , that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and [from] fornication, and [from] things strangled, and [from] blood.
Fornication is sex without being married. Paul wrote to the Corinthians;
1Corinthian s 6:13 Now the body [is] not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.
If we honor God through Jesus Christ we will be honoring our wives or perhaps future wives and the love they have for us.
Sadly and dangerously, our society has turned away from God’s plan for the union of one man and one woman. We see this trend on television and in movies everyday, so often that we no longer cringe at the idea. It is time to turn back to God’s plan, established in His mind long before creation.
October 5, 2019
The Consequences of Dialogue
Since the 2016 election we are constantly harrangued by liberals insisting that words have consequences and they blame President Trump for inciting violence with his statements. May I point out, concervatives have not harrassed patrons in restaurants, refused service to liberals or gone shooting sprees.
A top campaign issue for Democrats is climate change and the ideas put forth by the candidates are staggeringly ridiculous. Several candidates insist we must all become vegetarians, give up all carbon based fuels along with cars and airplanes (except for them), kill all the cows, wantonly kill babies via government financed abortion, and let the U N oversee al of the efforts. These actions are necessary because we have only 20 years, 12 years, or 10 years before we are doomed.
A scare tactic? Absolutely! You don’t believe its this bad, then I encourage you to go to the video posted below and witness a new all time panic rant at an AOC town hall meeting.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/got-start-eating-babies-ocasio-082106016.html
A new all time short doomsday prediction, seven months. Nothing President Trump has said has led to this insanity. It is all dialogue from the left. Miss Cortez’s reaction struck me as dangerous in the extreme with her heading nodding as if she is agreeing and then defending the woman but not pointing out just how dangerous these rants can be. Some where in the world there is an unstable individual listening to this rant and buying a ticket for the “atrocity train”.
The next time you see a liberal point a finger and accuse conservatives of inciting violence, think again.
September 20, 2019
Are You Sick and Tired?
Are you sick and tired?
I believe it’s true that no on ever changes unless their are tired of their current circumstances. Talk to any recovering alcoholic or drug addict and they will tell you they were “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
So, are you sick and tired? Psalm 6:6-7 is a good example, “I am worn out from groaning.” God didn’t intend for you to go through life miserable or going in and out of jails for you misdeeds. “For I know the plans I have for you. A plan to prosper you, not to harm you. A plan to give you hope and a future,” Jeremiah 29:11. I you are sick and tired of being sick and tired listen as we talk about how to claim this promise.
First, you must admit that you are powerless to change anything on your own. Paul says in romans 7:18, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”
Please don’t think of this as weakness because when you stop depending on yourself, and begin depending on God you’re strong. Paul wrote this about being weak in self and depending on God, “That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses,…For when I am weak, then I am strong,” 2 Corinthians 12:10.
The second step is to reach out to Jesus, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,” Acts 3:19. We all crave refreshing, new feelings, new strength, and new power. Accept the forgiveness offered by faith in Jesus.
When you accept Jesus as your savior the Holy Spirit moves inside of you bringing the power of almighty God. That’s God living within you and He will provide the guidance and strength you need to change.
Change is what it’s all about or we face the consequences in Proverbs 21:7, “The violence of the wicked will sweep them away because they refuse to do what isright.”
Are you sick and tired?
Illegal Aliens and Amnesty
Our southern border has been the source of great controversy between conservatives and liberals. Conservatives are accused of a lack of compassion for their efforts to enforce immigration laws and using the term “Illegals” when referring to non-citizens entering our country outside of designated entry points and not obeying our laws. I post here a copy of an article by Joseph Farah from June of 2013 that refers to biblical principals for amnesty for aliens. It is long, but it clarifies the issue for all Bible believing Christians.
Posted By Joseph Farah On 06/14/2013 @ 7:42 pm In Commentary,Opinion | No Comments
“I think the biggest change hasn’t been in the pulpit. It’s been in the pews. Our faith has always been about compassion and it compels you to do something. If you took compassion or the principle of compassion out of the Bible, it would be in tatters because it’s all over the place.”
– Sen. Marco Rubio on why amnesty for illegal aliens is morally right
Is Sen. Marco Rubio correct when he says providing a blanket amnesty for illegal aliens is the “compassionate” response for Americans?
Is he correct when he says it’s the biblical response to America’s problem with immigration laws being broken?
While Rubio is right about the word “compassionate” being found frequently in the Bible, it is not found in the context of excusing lawbreaking, non-enforcement of duly enacted laws or borderless nations.
Quite the contrary.
The Bible clearly and consistently speaks to the opposite agenda.
For the benefit of those deluded into the belief that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a God who doesn’t respect borders and the rule of law, I have offered three previous Bible studies on the topic of illegal immigration:
The biblical position on illegal immigration
A Bible study on illegal immigration
Another Bible study on illegal immigration
As Rubio leads another national effort for amnesty, this time wrapped in citations of the Bible, it appears it is necessary to explore this topic for a fourth time.
For starters, I challenge anyone to check an exhaustive online or offline concordance for the word “border” or “borders” to get an appreciation of how many times God’s Word references these terms. While not all of them are relevant to our discussion, I count 169 references, most of them making the point that God cares about them. He cares about boundaries between nations. In fact, as I have previously pointed out, it is God Himself who invented nation-states back in Genesis 11.
Why did He do it?
It seems He scattered the world’s population and created the diverse languages in an effort to subvert man’s efforts to unite in a global kingdom under a false universal religion.
Interestingly, one of the prime motivations of those behind the promotion of borderless societies is this very same notion of regional government and global government and the breakdown of nationalism.
What was wrong at the time of the Tower of Babel remains wrong today. That should be clear to anyone and everyone whose standard of morality is the Bible.
So, where’s the confusion?
Some misguided Christian clerics cite a handful of random, out-of-context verses that might, possibly, in some way, maybe, be interpreted, if you use your imagination, to suggest we should just forgive and forget all transgressions and trespasses against our national sovereignty and our laws regarding our nation status.
Countless Bible studies have been conducted in America in recent years using some familiar citations about “strangers” and “aliens” and applying them to our current controversy:
Leviticus 19:33-34: And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
Exodus 22:21: Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23:9: Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:19: Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Some churches have stopped right there after reading that last verse and decided they know all they need to know about their duty as Christians to illegal aliens.
“We’re supposed to treat them just like one born among us, according to the Bible,” they proclaim. “That means amnesty. It means all the benefits of citizenship.”
Not so fast. You can develop some really bad theology – not to mention politics – by reading the Bible out of context, by not fully understanding what is being said to whom and about whom.
Strangers that sojourn with you or live with you does not equate with illegal aliens. In fact, the corollary here, in each and every case, is that the children of Israel were “strangers” in Egypt. That’s why they were to treat their own “strangers” well, because they knew what it is like to be “strangers” in a foreign land.
Clearly, then, what it means to be a “stranger” is to be a foreigner. In the case of the children of Israel in Egypt, they were invited and, at first anyway, were honored guests. Later, they would be oppressed by a generation who “knew not Joseph.” But they were certainly not trespassers. They were certainly not in Egypt illegally. They were certainly not breaking the laws of the land by being in Egypt. In fact, they were commanded not to offend their hosts in any way (Genesis 46:28-34).
So, we must conclude that “stranger” does not equal “illegal alien.” Even when the term “alien” is used in the Bible, it seems to have the exact same meaning as “stranger.”
God loves the stranger, we’re told. You should, too. They should be treated with respect and dignity. They should not be mistreated. These foreigners should be given food and clothing when they are in need. That’s the clear message of the Bible – treat law-abiding foreigners and aliens with love and compassion.
The aliens and strangers of the Bible were expected to obey the Hebrew laws, though they were exempt from some. They were also treated differently than the children of Israel in that they could not own property; they could be bought as slaves and charged interest on loans.
Only if these aliens and strangers were fully converted as Jews – and that included circumcision – could they be landowners, partake of the Passover and be fully integrated into the nation of Israel.
In other words, even though the aliens and strangers of the Bible were not illegal aliens, they were still expected to fully assimilate into the Hebrew religion and culture before they could receive all the blessings and all the responsibility of full citizenship.
Further, keep in mind these godly instructions were meant not just for the governing authorities in Israel – the judges and kings – but, more importantly, for the people. These were personal instructions. And they are clearly good instructions for us all today.
If we want to be compassionate to the strangers and aliens of our world today, those law-abiding foreigners who desperately want to come to America and are patiently awaiting their turn, we need to be certain they don’t get squeezed out unfairly by those who broke the law and pushed ahead of them in line.
We shouldn’t be mean to those lawbreakers, either. We shouldn’t mistreat them. We should even forgive them. But they have to leave.
They haven’t been invited. They are not our guests. They are not just strangers; they are trespassers. They need to go back home and get in line like everyone else waiting to enter our country lawfully. They are victimizing others – both citizens and those legally awaiting citizenship opportunities. There’s nothing compassionate about enabling that kind of behavior.
Lastly, I want to introduce one more verse I think is very relevant. It is Deuteronomy 27:17: “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.”
WND – http://www.wnd.com –
The biblical position on illegal immigration
Posted By Joseph Farah On 01/03/2008 @ 1:00 am In Commentary | Comments Disabled
Many Christians continue to be fooled about what the Bible says about illegal immigration.
The Rev. Luis Cortes, the founder of Esperanza USA, a group of Christian Hispanic leaders involved in promoting President Bush’s failed efforts to promote amnesty attacked all the Republican presidential candidates. He is working with a new group called “Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform.”
“They’re moving away from a Republican position that they previously held as a party of family values,” he said. He singled out Mike Huckabee for special criticism, saying he “started with a biblical position and the minute he moved up in the polls, took a step to the right.”
Not surprisingly, none of these Christian leaders cited any Scripture suggesting the Bible approves of lawbreaking, non-enforcement of duly enacted laws or borderless nations.
There’s a reason for that. AD HEADING #0000001
removed JavaScript start tag
removed JavaScript end tag removed JavaScript on-one-line
The Bible clearly and consistently speaks to the opposite agenda.
For the benefit those deluded into the belief that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a God who doesn’t respect borders and the rule of law, I have offered two previous Bible studies on the topic of illegal immigration:
A Bible study on illegal immigration
Another Bible study on illegal immigration
It appears it is necessary to explore this topic for a third time.
For starters, I challenge anyone to check an exhaustive online or offline concordance for the word “border” or “borders” to get an appreciation of how many times God’s Word references these terms. While not all of them are relevant to our discussion, I count 169 references, most of them making the point that God cares about them. He cares about boundaries between nations. In fact, as I have previously pointed out, it is God Himself who invented nation-states back in Genesis 11.
Why did He do it?
It seems He scattered the world’s population and created the diverse languages in an effort to subvert man’s efforts to unite in a global kingdom under a false universal religion.
Interestingly, one of the prime motivations of those behind the promotion of borderless societies is this very same notion of regional government and global government and the breakdown of nationalism.
What was wrong at the time of the Tower of Babel remains wrong today. That should be clear to anyone and everyone whose standard of morality is the Bible.
So, where’s the confusion?
Some of these misguided Christian clerics cite a handful of random, out-of-context verses that might, possibly, in some way, maybe, be interpreted, if you use your imagination, to suggest we should just forgive and forget all transgressions and trespasses against our national sovereignty and our laws regarding our nation status.
I won’t deal with those Scriptures again, except to call your attention to the earlier work.
I will, however, introduce just one more verse I think is very relevant. It is Deuteronomy 27:17: “Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.”
Amen, indeed. removed JavaScript on-one-line
WND – http://www.wnd.com –
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September 19, 2019
Climate Change Truth
I see that September 20 is a day set aside to insist on adopting green technology to save our climate. To date I have seen no documented proof of global warming. What’s more, I have seen lots of data contradicting any and all claims by climate alarmists. There is more Arctic ice than ever before and the freezing holocaust predicted by Al Gore is long overdue. I post below and article of the efforts of the city of Georgetown, Texas to implement green technology as a source of its power supply. All the promises of a utopia are false.
OPINIONPublished August 28
Chuck DeVore: ‘Green New Deal’ preview? Texas town’s lofty environmentalism leaves residents with a nightmare
‘Green New Deal’ test run falls short in Texas
Capitalist Pig Hedge Fund’s Jonathan Hoenig, Economist Steve Moore, FOX Business’ Kristina Partsinevelos and Jackie DeAngelis on Georgetown’s plan to generate all of its electricity from wind and solar power.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Georgetown, Texas – population 75,000 – was to be the new poster child of the green movement.
Environmental interest in Georgetown’s big push to generate all of its electricity from wind and solar power was amplified by three factors: the town and its mayor were nominally Republican; Georgetown is in an oil- and natural gas-rich state; and that state is deep-red Texas.
Former Vice President Al Gore and other climate change luminaries feted Georgetown Mayor Dale Ross, and Ross was featured prominently at renewable energy conventions.
TEXAS TOWN’S ENVIRONMENTAL NARCISSISM MAKES AL GORE HAPPY WHILE STICKING ITS CITIZENS WITH THE BILL
Last October, while the green dream was still in full flower, the city applied for a $1 million grant from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s nonprofit, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and won it.
Ostensibly to be used for energy storage innovation in batteries, the grant’s only real requirement was that the city serve as a public relations platform in Bloomberg’s push to convince Americas to abandon affordable fossil fuels and switch to more costly renewable energy.
Trouble started when politicians’ promise of cheaper renewable energy was mugged by reality.
Georgetown’s electric bills went up as more wind and solar power displaced cheaper natural gas in the power portfolio of the Georgetown’s municipal utility. Politicians scrambled for cover. And the bloom came off Georgetown’s renewable rose.
Now, largely embarrassed members of the City Council are trying to figure out how to unwind the renewable mess they and their predecessors voted themselves into.
With their municipal utility facing a $7 million shortfall – money that has to be made up by the city residents through higher electricity costs – the City Council voted 5-1 in July to instruct the staff to figure out how to wriggle out of the Bloomberg PR deal.
On Aug. 13 the Council voted 5-0 to officially kill the deal. The city is also raising property taxes.
The Council member who asked for the vote said he wasn’t opposed to renewable energy, but that in light of the city utility’s deficit, the city should focus on the basics, rather than “doing experiments.”
Indeed, there’s not a single city in the contiguous 48 states that runs solely on wind and solar power. The reason is simple: electricity gets to cities via a grid, and that grid draws its energy from a variety of sources – mostly natural gas.
Excluding large-scale dams, which fell out of favor with the environmental movement 50 years ago, renewables powered about 10 percent of the U.S. grid last year.
This means that cities like Georgetown, which have contracted to take power from wind and solar farms hundreds of miles away, don’t risk blackouts on windless nights, because reliable power is delivered from a grid getting power from fossil fuels.
As part of the Bloomberg agreement, Georgetown was going to hire a new bureaucrat to oversee the installation of solar panels on homes, while creating a battery storage farm to keep the grid energized when the sun wasn’t shining and the wind wasn’t blowing.
But such arrangements are hardly cutting edge. In fact, the physics and economics of battery storage are well known. And here’s where Georgetown’s 100 percent renewable push merely looks like expensive virtue signaling.
Moore’s Law governs the world of computing – the speed and capability of computers doubles every two years. But computers only manipulate 1s and 0s.
In contrast, we use energy to manipulate the physical world – to cool and heat homes, to move ourselves and commerce faster and farther than we could using our feet (or horses or bicycles), and to bring light to the darkness. Efficiency improvements in the natural world move more slowly and yield to diminishing returns as they reach physical limits.
In Georgetown’s case, for it to truly go 100 percent renewable energy using today’s state-of-the-art mass-produced batteries from Tesla’s Gigafactory, the city would need a $400 million battery farm weighing some 20,000 tons to avoid a blackout on a quiet winter night. And, after spending $15,600 for each household to build such a battery farm, its backup power would be drained in 12 hours, with a second windless winter night leaving residents shivering in the dark.
Funding, building and relying on such a lithium-ion battery farm would likely lead to a change in city leadership in the first election following an inevitable blackout. Which, perhaps, is why so many of today’s environmentalists aren’t big fans of democracy – the freely expressed opinions of people stand in the way of their agenda.
This is where Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s D-N.Y., Green New Deal crashes into reality. Building an energy infrastructure reliant on unreliable renewables will cost trillions of dollars and necessitate a massive increase in mining to produce the materials needed for a nationwide battery storage system.
If the Green New Deal ever moves from fantasy to implementation, the voters will swiftly end the green dream at the ballot box.Chuck DeVore is a vice president with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and served in the California State Assembly from 2004 to 2010.
I believe I’ll vote no and keep using fossil fuels which produce very little pollution in the United States. Let’s get the rest of the world, i.e. Russia, China and the Middle East to cut back on their carbon footprint.
Laughter is Good Medicine
Taking a Break and Laughing
Break Principle 1: Realizing that a “happy heart does good like a medicine,” made a conscious choice to enjoy the moment, partaking of the wonderful things provided by a Loving God and in the joy of Jesus Christ.
There is no doubt in my mind that recovery is serious, but I also know that God has a plan for each of us to enjoy recovery through our relationship with Him and our relationships here on earth. We have covered some very serous topics in past weeks, but tonight we are going to take a break and discover some of the joy that God has planned for each of us. I am convinced that God enjoys a good joke, after all He made a donkey talk in order to advise a prophet and He chose me to lead a recovery group. God must have a sense of humor.
Join me, if you will, to laugh and lighten the burdens of life a little bit.
The Last Laugh
One day a group of scientist got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
“God,” the scientist said, “We’ve decided that we no longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost.”
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done, God said, “Very well, how about this, let’s say we have a man-making contest.” To which the scientist readily agreed.
“There’s one stipulation,” God said, “We’re going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam.”
The scientist agreed and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God just looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt.”
God often allows us to exercise our own will and arrogance until we prove that we are not God and we are truly powerless, that our lives are out of control. At that point God grants us awareness of our condition, we just need to accept that fact and admit our powerlessness.
Some times God works in the most unusual and unexpected ways. I hope this is a true story, if it isn’t true it should be true because God works in His own way.
An atheist college professor told his class that he was going to prove that there was not a God. He said, “God if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform. I’ll give you 15 minutes!”
Ten minutes went by. He kept taunting God, saying, “Here I am God, I’m still waiting.” He got down to the last couple of minutes when a BIG 240-pound football player happened to walk by the door and heard what the professor said. The football player walked in the classroom and in the last minute, he walked up, hit the professor full force, and set him flying off the platform. The professor got up, obviously shaken and said, “Where did you come from, and why did you do that?” The football player replied, “God was busy; He sent me!”
I have heard a true story very similar to this. A college professor challenged any one in his class to pray that the glass beaker he was about to drop would not break. One student took the challenge and when the professor dropped the glass beaker, it landed on his foot and rolled to the floor unbroken. God shows that He exists in some very unusual ways, we need to be aware that it’s God demonstrating His existence.
He also shows us that we matter to Him; after all He created the 3 major food groups; white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate.
Will Rogers once said, “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.” He also stated, “There are three kinds of people: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to touch the electric fence.”
I can not argue with these sentiments, so instead of learning by suffering the consequences of our poor decisions, why not choose to turn all of our life and will over to Christ’s care and control? We can go through life touching the electric fence or we can allow Jesus to steer us away to the green pastures.
You can believe that those pastures are green indeed. When a four year-old boy was asked what he looked forward to most when he entered Heaven, he replied, “You never throw-up and you get to jump on the couch.” Can I have a big amen for that one?
Just remember, “There is no fear in submitting to a love that would die for you.” “The Lord won’t take you where His grace can’t keep you.” There is nothing to fear in letting Jesus take control.
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” However, Carl Woody said, “The unlived life is not worth examining.” All due respect to Mr. Woody, we are living life at this very moment so we find ourselves in need of examining our faults. “Did it ever occur to you that nothing ever occurs to God?” He already knows everything about you so your only worry is to be totally honest with yourself, with some one you trust, and with God. Honesty includes accuracy so remember Sara’s experience at the dentist’s office.
Sara noticed the dentist’s certificate with his full name hanging on the waiting room wall. She suddenly remembered that a tall, handsome boy with the same name had been in her high school class about 40 years ago.
When she finally saw the dentist she quickly dismissed the thought because he was a balding, gray-haired man with a deeply lined face. She thought, “He’s too old to have been in my class.”
After the examination she couldn’t resist asking what high school he attended and what year he graduated. He answered, “In 1958.” “Why, you were in my class!” she exclaimed. He looked at her closely and asked, “What did you teach?”
Yes, honesty means accuracy so don’t let your self-image be out-of-touch with reality. All too often we want to hang-on to our pain, hurts and hang-ups because we fear change, we fear the future with out the life we have always known. Please note that trying to hang on to what we have will leave you with nothing.
There was a man that loved his money so much that while on his death bed he made his wife promise to bury all of his money with him. At the funeral the obedient widow placed a large shoe box in the casket. The shoe box had a large $ sign on the outside.
Her best friend, knowing about the promise, whispered to the widow, “You didn’t keep that ridiculous promise to that old penny-pincher, did you?”
“Absolutely,” the widow replied. “I cashed in all of his assets; I wrote him a check and put it in the shoe box.”
What we desire is an attitude of gratitude.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” (Melody Beattie)
Peace and serenity is God’s plan for each of us. Please commit the Serenity Prayer to memory:
God,
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change;
The courage to change the things can and
The wisdom to know the difference.
If you can’t remember this prayer then perhaps this is the prayer for you.
God, please grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones that I do like and the eyesight to tell the difference.
Amen
Laughter is truly good medicine. I’ll close with this quote from Og Mandino. “Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression and help you to put in perspective that seemingly-terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly toward the solution that is certain to come.”
August 20, 2019
The Prophet’s Secret
In case you are wondering, the title page of the blog refers to the title of my first book “The Prophet’s Secret.” My publisher, Tate Publishing, closed its doors over a year ago and transferred every author’s royalties to the owner’s private bank accounts. They then wanted to charge the authors $50. to regain the file set-up for their stories. They are now being tried for fraud by the state of Oklahoma.
Since that time I have re-written and re-edited the book and republished it on Kindle Publishing and it is now available on Amazon. If you are so inclined to purchase it and read it, I would be most grateful.
Hateful Rhetoric
Not a day goes by that a liberal accuses someone on the right of using hateful or racial rhetoric. And yes, I also see some on the right being guilty of the same transgression. However, the liberal left is far guiltier of this action on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, the left does not cite the actual instances nor do they explain their interpretation of the statements they use as proof.
As a matter of fact, all the left uses are accusations which they then claim to be true no matter the obvious contradictions in their diatribe. Adolf HItler is quoted as saying, “Tell the same lie loud enough and long enough and it will be accepted as the truth.” President Trump is continually accused of racism when he is simply trying to enforce our border laws by deporting ‘illegal’ aliens, many of whom were targeted because of other violations of the law. He is accused of separating children from their parents when in fact, the laws were passed and the facilities were built during the Obama administration. The evidence is there but the accusations continue. Recently, I observed a FaceBook post by a liberal accusing the right of racism all the while calling Candace Owens, a black female political pundit, a “c__n”. WOW! Talk about hypocrisy!
Personally, I have reached the point that I consider the source of each insult from the left and consider myself blessed to endure the slings and arrows of this type of hate.
August 17, 2019
Socialism and America
I’m just wondering how the idea of socialism ever became popular
Once upon a time the American public looked upon socialism as communist and was, therefore, an enemy of the United States. Joe McCarthy was the foremost prosecutor and persecutor of avowed socialists with multiple hearings in Congress trying to root-out this ‘corruption’.
Sadly, ‘Tail-gunner Joe’ was abusive, sadistic and bullying in these hearings and probably destroyed his own campaign due to the bad publicity. However, he was right. Socialism leads to despotism due its own nature because it requires a strong central figure in command to ensure that all goods and services or confiscated and the redistributed in ‘proper proportion’, “Unto each according to his need”. George Orwell painted this picture socialism in hisAnimal Farm as a distopian society and again in 1984 as a utopian society. Both books recognized the need for totalaterianism.
If you truly believe in a socialistic economy, ask yourself this one question. “Do I…
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