V Ellis

I wonder if my Aunt Virginia, who left this morning to be with her precious Lord, is now satisfied with her new clarity of vision, or if after the required time for greetings with family, friends and of course Jesus she is still going to keep busy digging, digging and digging into the glorious mound of eternal truth.

She taught me by her insights and questions and deep respect for the unlimited treasure found in the Word of God that we should take no doctrine for granted, no answered as settled, no teacher as infallible until we lay upon them the full weight of sacred scripture, line upon line, passage upon passage and fully seasoned with the Holy Spirit's flavor. Satisfied that God rewards those who desire and search for the truth we then go back later and ask if there is more.

Virginia was a watchman on the wall. She understood the invisible enemy that motivated the dark forces that sought to tear down her city, and called out to be prepared. Awake at night, horn in hand, she also hoped that it would be her honor to proclaim that the King was coming! Now her watch has passed, the horn is on the ramparts, and who will rise up in her place?

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.  

Therefore comfort one another with these words.  1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18

January Call

When my dad was in Florida

he'd call every day

ask how is my weather

I'd answer OK

seven three and real sunny

a nice little breeze

it couldn't be better

and then I would sneeze.

So how is your dear wife

the kids, win or lose

did I ask bout your weather

I follow the news.

Why Bill glad you wondered

hope your AC is fine

we've got natural beauty

(cough) time after time.

Let's just hope your ocean

does not get too high

those warm humid nights

beech sand in your eye

did I mention the spiders

in the green you call grass

I'd check all your pockets

when you fall on your ass.

I think son you're playing

on an old man's desire

to brag of his golfing

and natty attire

you know what I shot

last night what I ate

Um, dad, works a calling

better not be too late.

You know that I love you

so wear your broad hat

steer clear of the gators

and don't get too fat

your pill's on the dresser

a tool you can borrow

yes I miss mom too

we'll talk more tomorrow.

The Cost Of Having A Baby

Earlier this year one of my road test clients told me that she was pregnant. When I asked when the baby was due she gave me the exact date. When I asked how she knew the exact date she told me that she was scheduled for a cesarean delivery. When I asked if she needed a cesarean because of health concerns she responded; “No, I'm scared of the pain plus that date is more convenient for me.”

This girl was single, 18 years old, unemployed and currently living with her grandmother. She lives in an area and has been brought up in a culture where a two parent family is the exception. Odds are great that she will have the baby, leave it with her grandmother while she attends a semester or two at the local community college, drop out, find a job in retail, have more babies and never get married.

Somehow she can afford a cell phone and plan to keep in contact with her friends, although some will stop calling when the baby comes because she can't club hop with them as before. She has a big screen TV to watch at grandma's, has not missed a meal, seems well dressed but is considered one of the urban poor by government standards.

I hear stories like hers everyday. The guys are always telling me how their girlfriends are pressuring them to get married. They tell me they earnestly want to step up and “be a man” because they fathered a child but can't quite see the benefits of giving up their freedom. The girls, well, they tell me about maybe going back to school, wanting to find a job, and how their life has changed. I hear nothing about marriage.

To be honest with you, I got mad after my client informed me that she was going to have birth by cesarean because vaginal birth would be painful and it fit in better with her schedule. I was thrilled that she did not plan to abort a human life. However, I know that because of the values in her community, the government system that would enable those values, the greed present from top to bottom that benefits from the situation, this woman would suffer far more long term than a few hours of labor and delivery pain.

If this woman and/or her family and/or her boyfriend knew they would have to come up with the money to pay for the delivery of a baby would she still have gotten pregnant? Obviously there are many variables to consider here but knowing that there would be a $12,000 bill for a cesarean delivery which one had to personally pay off would seem to have at least some effect on a couples sexual behavior. Please don't call me naïve. Remember the old adage, it's naïve to keep doing the same thing over and over, or to enable the same behavior over and over and expect different results.

I don't know who was going to pay the bill for this woman's cesarean but most likely it will be covered by Medicare or our state's Medicaid plans. In Michigan there are different birthing options available for women with different costs. Vaginal delivery at home using the services of a mid wife costs between two to three thousand dollars. This includes both prenatal and postnatal help. Vaginal birth at a birthing center costs about $4300. Vaginal birth at a hospital averages $8000 and cesarean deliveries at a hospital averages $12,000.

One of my daughters is a traveling labor and delivery nurse. Eighty percent of the deliveries at the hospital of her current assignment are by cesarean. This seems really odd because a vaginal birth is safer if there are no complications and better for future fertility. Cesarean delivery is an operation which always carries some risk and the risk increases if the woman has had a previous cesarean. They generally have longer recoveries and a greater risk of infections, blood clots and adhesion’s.

If this is the case then why do doctors schedule cesarean deliveries for healthy women? Although there can be valid reasons a lot of the time it comes down to the convenience for the provider and the amount that they will be reimbursed. The doctors at my daughter's hospital want to work during regular hours. C-sections provide that flexibility. The time needed to deliver a baby vaginally or cesarean is about the same but reimbursement for the provider is greater for a cesarean. If the reimbursement rate is set by Medicare or Medicaid statistics show that odds of having a cesarean go up 3.9 per cent for every $100 dollars over the vaginal birth reimbursement rate.

Something is not right here. My poor lady is in a poverty cycle that is perpetuated by the very benefits she receives and will no doubt vote for in the future. She will take advantage of a system that will take advantage of her and there will be no end in sight to rising costs and expanding services except that all this requires real money and the money will eventually stop flowing.

Our country is over 17 trillion dollars in debt, a lot of it to China, but we also have 90 trillion dollars worth of unfunded liabilities. Politicians refuse to take ANY steps to stop our country from the inevitable implosion because whoever suggests any real financial cutbacks will get pounded by those that want to stay in power. Friends, a decrease in the rate of expansion does not equal a decrease in debt. The refusal to fund promises now but rather leave them to the next elected officials will never decrease the amount of those promises.

Politicians who promise to give you everything you want without actually funding everyone of those promises should be lined up in a public square and shot, trillions of times. We the people should be told we have X amount of money to spend. Some must be used to pay off our debt. Some must be set aside to fund our promises. The rest should then allocated by making the hard decisions necessary.

We the people do not have the right, under the banner of fairness, to unfairly tax those who have more than us. The executive level of the government should not have the ability to raise money by printing more, devaluing and thus draining the savings accounts of we the people.  We are all in this together and the first thing we require from our government is honesty and responsibility, not massive growth and altruistic social change. 

I fear, because human nature is selfish, greedy and pleasure seeking.  The balance to that is not a society becoming increasingly devoid of Judea/Christian values.  Faith, morals and common sense financial decisions are being driven away from the public sector by a constant onslaught of mockery, threats, intimidation and character assassination.  There is a debt to pay for all of those attributes.  A society that remains in debt is going to collapse.  There will be chaos in the streets and the gift that was passed on to us by our founding fathers will be replaced by a despot who will change all that we hold dear.

Faith, hope and love means that we have a responsibility to help those around us.  Human nature wants us to abrogate those responsibilities to a third party.  There is merit in that what we can do together can be greater than what we can do alone.  But when the third party has a life of it's own, when we lose a voice in its  management and direction, when it becomes one of the biggest employers, when it can be used to silence our voice, when it demands an ever increasing share of our daily labors, when it spends more than it takes in, when it demands that we accept what God tells us to reject, then we need to rethink this whole deal and let our voices be heard.

2014: The Year Of New Hearts

things that are impossible with people are possible with God.  (Luke 18:27)

I began the year in 2012 by declaring it to be a year of blessing for my family.  Waking up in the morning I would say, "God morning Lord.  Thank you for this year of blessing".  I would tell Jackie often; "This is our year of blessing."  And indeed we were blessed in many ways that year.  Building on a good thing I declared 2013 to be a year of double blessing for our family, and it really was.

After praying about the theme for 2014 I had a dream about a week ago.  It was at about 5 in the morning and was one of those dreams where you are half asleep but also half awake.  I was on a beach filled with hundreds of people and to the right of me was the rock singer Bret Michael.  He was probably in my dream because on my way to work I pass a billboard about him coming for a concert in Grand Rapids.  Mr. Michael is standing by something like a keyboard or a desk and he declares to everyone that things are not going to be the same as before.  We wouldn't recognize Christian bookstores or Christian radio anymore.  Things are going to change.

After hearing this all the people started to leave the beach.  Many to the right, many to the left, a few inland.  Something rose within me and I stood up and yelled for everyone to come back and listen.  I told them the Lord says that if a big wave came and every grain of sand was removed from the beach, two miles to the right or two miles to the left or out to the depths of the water, was not God able to replace every grain of sand, put in grass and shrubs and make it even better than before?

I went on to tell the people that the Lord says there is nothing impossible for Him, either with material things or with the things of the human heart.  Over and over God was saying through me to those people on the beach, 'cannot I do this?' or 'cannot I do that?'.   Finally the anointing left and I was laying awake, feeling that this was probably a word from God for the coming year.

This morning I had another dream.  Waking up at 8 am and realizing that this was New Year's Day and that I really didn't have to get up I fell asleep for another two hours.  During that time I dreamed that I was sitting in a chair in the living room of a certain house and there was going to be a prayer meeting there.  There were people that had just arrived, milling about, a few of them not wanting to come inside but they were going to watch through the windows, and the hostess was bringing in more chairs.  Sitting next to me was someone I had been praying for quite awhile to get really turned on to the Lord.  I was pleased because he looked anxious to get the meeting started. 

Standing across the room was a woman minister who pastors a very large church with her husband.  Wanting to strike up a conversation I say to her that there must be so many things to do to run a big church like theirs.  Does she just cover a few areas herself and then delegate the rest?   She replies that before their church started growing her husband would go from putting out one fire to another.  Finally they decided to change their focus.  "What is the big picture?  What does God really want to accomplish through us?"  They refocused the purpose of their ministry and the church started to rapidly grow.

So what is the big picture?  How can I get a breakthrough in the burden I have for those family and friends of mine who are living in spiritual darkness?  What does God really want to accomplish through me?

I am declaring, in prayer and in praise, that this will be the year of new hearts.  I don't know how God is going to do it.  I can't make a person want to love Jesus.  I can't make them want to be free from physical and emotional and spiritual burdens.  I can't make the decision to believe for them.  And God will never force Himself on anyone.

Yet I believe this.  Things that are impossible with people are possible with God.

  

Christmas Story 2013

Before He was born the government, wanting to increase taxes

in order to squeeze even more money out of the people, required

that every person register at their home town. At nine months

pregnant His mother, knowing that bureaucrats would not make

exceptions, made the difficult journey with her husband.

Concern for the life of a person who believed in only one God

was not a concern for a government that would later order

the death of hundreds of innocents in order to find the One

who threatened the authority of the ruling elite. When He

began His ministry the devil offered Him everything for free,

but He refused. Instead He set free those who were in bondage to

sickness, evil spirits and sexual sin. “Go and sin no more” He

advised a lady who was about to be stoned to death by a group who

harbored their own sexual perversions. Ironically He made friends

with a tax collector, sending him out with others to begin the

establishment of a kingdom where the poor could have One that

would make sure they were clothed and fed. Freedom of the

individual was not popular with any of the ruling classes He

would encounter. Eventually they would try to silence Him by

lies, defamation and eventually execution. But they could not.

He defeated not only death but the bondage’s caused by sin. He

takes from no one but gives to all. He loves all and calls all to

be free from the judgment that their sin will require. He gave

all freely and because of that in Him is our redemption, our freedom.

Merry Christmas to all and may you experience His blessings this

coming year in new and exciting ways.  

The Three Thirty Three Workout

The concept for a revolutionary new workout came to me early one morning after my usual breakfast of a large glass of orange juice, honey nut cheerios and chocolate doughnuts.  I saw an ad on TV demonstrated by a 30'ish guy and gal wearing tight stretchy shorts and showing off sculptured six-packs and abs in which they were going crazy doing one difficult and complicated exercise after another.  I looked at the screen, looked down at my belly and thought, oh well, not going to happen.

But then it occurred to me that change was possible.  In a moment of brilliant clarity I realized that the trick to making a workout or diet successful is to find something that one can realistically do, over time, without giving up and returning to the old lifestyle.

This can be done with my easy to remember and simple to execute Three Thirty Three Workout.

Three times a day, three times a week you engage in a thirty second workout.

I have designed 33 maximum effort 30 second workouts that will push you to your aerobic limits and will melt off comfortable but ugly fat by the pounds.  Combined with slight dietary changes you should expect to eventually lose 33% of that excess fat (unless you get hit by a car or something).

There are no DVD's required.  No fancy equipment.  No books or pamphlets or charts or trips to a so called health club with their questionable hygienics, high pressure salespeople and the guy in the corner who eyeballs all the ladies.  The Three Thirty Three Workout can easily fit into anybody's busy schedule.

Special clothing is not required (although I will offer a spiffy Three Thirty Three Workout shirt and bandana to be worn in public so the world can find out about it and get healthy).  You can fit in the exercises at home or at work and not have to worry about nasty sweat ruining your appearance.  Heck, after a few months you will begin to sport that healthy glow that says - LOOK AT ME.  I CAN DO ANYTHING!.

Here are several of the thirty second exercises I have designed.  Some may take a few weeks for you to be able to last the entire thirty seconds, but that's OK!  Eventually you will get there and get good doing them.  You are free to mix and match the exercises any way you want.  One day or one week you might want to do the same one all three times.  Perhaps like me you get easily bored and so will not have any two days be the same.  No matter what way you choose in time you will become master of your body and master of the Three Thirty Three Workout.

Running In Place  -  Find a place with a sturdy floor, clear of any close obstacles and run in place as fast as you can.  This may take a few weeks to work up to the full 30 seconds.

Praying Hands  -  Place your fingertips and palms together, elbows up, and push together as hard as you can.  Prayers done while doing this get sent up extra fast.

Double Fist Pump - Make two fists, elbows up, imagine someone or something that really irks you, and shake your fists as rapidly as possible.  You may be tempted to instantly repeat this one so discipline is required.

Belly Pound -  This is one of my favorites.  Make two fists and then pound your fat belly like a drum with the finger side of your fists.  Move the abuse around for maximum benefit and less bruising.

As you can see, if done properly a full range of muscle groups can be engaged.  You will begin looking good, feeling good and maybe even start acting good.  Not bad for only thirty seconds a day, three times a day, three days a week. 

Heaven Or Hell

The other night I had just finished shoveling the driveway.  It was about 12 degrees and as I looked up, sharp cold against my face, I could see that the sky was mostly clear except for puffs of white clouds streaming rapidly above me from West to East.  The whole experience was incredibly beautiful.

"Are there cold shimmering nights in Heaven where one stands in awe of what God has created?" I wondered.  "Does the Eskimo think of Heaven being like this?  Can man even comprehend the tenth of what awaits us?"

I have been reading the gospel of Matthew this month and in it Jesus tells a bunch of parables about the kingdom of Heaven.  The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in the field . . . The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field . . . The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until is was all leavened . . . The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field . . . The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls . . . The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea . . . The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard . . . The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son.

It says in Matthew 13: 34-35  All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable.  This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:  "I WILL OPEN MY MOUTH IN PARABLES: I WILL UTTER THINGS HIDDEN SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD."  After this Jesus disciples come to Him and ask Him to explain the parable of the tares of the field (a man who sowed good seed in the field).

And He said, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one;

and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels.

So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age.

The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of the kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness; and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then The Righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the kingdom of their Father,

He who has ears, let him hear . . .

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind,

and when it was filled, they threw it up on the beach;  and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away.

So it will be at the end of the age;  the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire,

in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

We are confronted in Matthew with a little shocking news; not all will be sons and daughters of the kingdom and those that are not will end up in a place which is described in two ways; a furnace of fire and a place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

This little bit of information does not come from my imagination or made up by theologians to be placed in  the canons of organized religion.  It was proclaimed to us by Jesus as heard first hand by one of His disciples, Matthew, the tax collector.


Just as I cannot begin to comprehend God who made the heavens and the earth and created in them incredible beauty which ultimately speaks of Him, so too I cannot comprehend the anguish and pain of being separated from the love of God for eternity.  Heaven I can dream of but what it really looks and feels like is mostly speculation.  And Hell?  It is not for me to downplay and suggest that Jesus didn't really know what He was talking about.

The world wants to ignore ultimate truth.  It calls darkness light and says that God cannot judge because God is love.

God is love, but I don't get to define what that means.  He is holy and righteous and worthy of all praise, and I only slightly understand what that all means.  He is just, and I certainly only partly comprehend what His justice requires. Sometimes when I realize my ignorance I tremble.  He is so much more than I can take in. Now I see through a glass darkly but one day I will see Him face to face.

We all know the verse from the 3rd chapter of John where Jesus says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life and it goes on to say that God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.

Jesus then goes on to say;  

He who believes in Him is not judged;

he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

This is the judgment,

that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.

It is time to step out of the darkness and into the light.  It is time to humble oneself and learn that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  I would rather witness to the joy and peace that He gives each and every day and tell you how I see my Lord in things both great and small.  But we must also hear this clear warning.  There is a place called a furnace of fire and in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.   He who has ears, let him hear . . .