All To Jesus, I Surrender

It was around this time in the month of November, 47 years ago, that I knelt down on the living room floor of our little apartment in Kalamazoo to confess my sins and asked Jesus to come into my life as Savior and as Lord and to fill me with the Holy Spirit. I had been born and raised a Catholic but was then an atheist. Earlier that year I had married a Spirit-filled Catholic woman, and there I was, now speaking in an unknown tongue and experiencing the overwhelming presence and peace that Jesus had indeed come in. He revealed Himself in such a way that I could never deny what had just happened.

I recognized even then, without any theological training, that I had surrendered the lordship of my life to Jesus and that my life was no longer mine. Obviously I knew that I would often fall far short of what His will would be for me but sensed, as I would learn later, that having died in Christ I was indeed a new creation, now part of God's family. And as a bonus, by surrendering to the move of the Holy Spirit in me, I had also surrendered and opened up many areas of my soul that might put up barriers to my relationship with God.

Here is a point that I want to make clear when we talk about how we go about obeying the will of the Father. Salvation is to the spirit. Baptism of the Holy Spirit is to the soul.

When we are born again it is our spirit man that is changed from death to new life in Christ. In our spirit we are now perfect, holy and redeemed in the Father's sight and that is now a place where the Holy Spirit can reside. The Father's will from the beginning was to give us revelation of His will from the Holy Spirit, through our spirit, to minister to our soul and from there to our body.

At death the spirit/soul is separated from the body and for the believer the spirit/soul goes to be with the Father. The rebirth of the spirit affects the soul as well. The difference is that although the reborn spirit is now perfect we have a soul that, although redeemed, still needs to be conformed to the image of Christ.

The fall was the result of man desiring the knowledge of good and evil apart from the direction of the Father through the Holy Spirit. And the result of the fall was that the spirit of man in effect died and became separated from God and the soul of man took charge, subject to it's own weakness and to the weakness of the desires of the body.

The answer of the world to the fall is religion, or, we do things or act a certain way to earn something and thus justify ourselves before God. In all religion it is the soul of man that stays in charge.

And sadly, although the believing Church talks about redemption through the free gift of what Jesus did on the cross, our walking out our salvation can sometimes look an awful lot like religion. The emphasis in many places is completely backward. People are taught that they can come into a deeper relationship with God by striving toward obedience and holiness. And that striving is often a struggle because the soul, apart from the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is trying to overcome its own weaknesses as well as the desires of the flesh.

I contend instead that obedience and holiness should be a natural out working of a deep and mature relationship with God. We seek Him. We become sensitive to the Father's will and develop a deeper relationship with Him through prayer, through the faithful reading of His Word and through the influence of the Holy Spirit. Thus the desire to be obedient to the will of God comes from and through that relationship. The Holy Spirit moves through our spirit to influence our soul. This makes obedience so much easier. We will now be acting out of a desire born of love and the desire to honor that love.

Now the Holy Spirit does move to one degree or another in the soul's of all who become born again. Many old desires are changed and the soul often surrenders certain aspects of control to the Spirit of God. Old sinful ways are set aside. Godly fruit is demonstrated. Christian growth becomes evident and various ministry abilities spring forth. However the soul is very complex. It contains our personality, our memories, the effects of our past experiences, our desires and so much more. In many of those areas the soul has barriers (probably because of fear) where it does not allow the Holy Spirit to freely move or maybe even to enter.

From observation I would say that most born again believers actually desire a closer relationship with God and the ability to live a life submitted to His will. They just don't know how to go about it. They don't know how to remove the barriers still set up in the soul. When the Church, in it's desire to create better disciples, presents a list of things that a person should avoid or must strive to accomplish, it may actually result in producing guilt or frustration. Sound spiritual advice must be partnered with the spiritual means to achieve the goal.

That same sense of guilt or frustration can come about for people involved in groups with a strong spiritual authority figure where there is an emphasis on instilling "holiness" or an "overcomer" lifestyle. This usually goes to a place where people lose all the freedom and joy they should be having in the Spirit. What was begun in the Spirit cannot be completed in the flesh, no matter how spiritual it sounds.

Would it not be so much better instead to show people that perfect love overcomes all fear and to demonstrate how we can experience that love by surrendering to the move and power of the Holy Spirit?  We open up the door to a more excellent way but we must allow the Holy Spirit to walk the person through it. At salvation I surrendered my life to Jesus. I also surrendered as an act of faith my tongue to a language the Spirit gave me, which opened my door to a much greater infilling of the Holy Spirit.

So much happened in those beginning months. Behavior changed, friends changed and I counted it all joy. It was a process and it still is a process. The Holy Spirit fills us but we need to keep emptying Him out (by responding to the direction of the Spirit) so that He can refill us a fresh.

And that is a key. The Holy Spirit is never stale. He will always move in fresh and more amazing ways. The gifts, fruits and the power of the Spirit as demonstrated in the Bible are for all of us today. There is joy and faith, a peace that passes understanding and a closer relationship with God where we can actually say and feel, every day, Abba, Father. But even more important there comes with the Spirit an ability to live a life holy and pleasing to the Lord.

Take some of your precious time and devote it to seeking His presence. Take a risk and surrender your tongue and your whole being to the infilling of the Holy Spirit. He is a gentleman and will only bring you as far as you are willing to go. That said, surrender the fear that is holding you back and receive in turn what your Loving Father has designed especially for you from before you were even born. It is much more than you could ever imagine!

Come to Me all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. (Matthew 11: 28 - 30)

Key Words

The 2020 elections are now just a bit less than a year away. With that in mind I thought I would come up with a list of a dozen keys words for Conservatives to remember when we head to the voting booth next November. Problem was, I got up to 12 and then others kept popping into my mind. So for your enjoyment (or maybe enlightenment), here they are (read slowly for best effect).
.
Abortion
Resist
TDS
Pussy hats
Border Security
Supreme Court
Federal Court appointments
Kavanaugh hearings
Covington Kids defamation
US Embassy to Jerusalem
Impeachment
Clinton paid Steele Dossier
Adam Shift lies
Read the Mueller Report
Confused Robert Muller
Adam Shift secret hearings
Read the transcript
Antifa
Twitter mob
Algorithm censorship
YouTube demonetization
MSM 24/7 bias
Hollywood hate
"Good people" distortion
"Racism, racism, racism"
Identity politics
Men and Women are different?
The Swamp
Comey
Brennen
Clapper
McCabe
Struk
Socialism
Marxism
Anti-Semitism
The Squad
1st Amendment
2nd Amendment
The Constitution
America's Founders
American pride
Religious liberty
Arlene's Florist
Masterpiece Cake Shop
No Mexico City Accord
No money for Planned Parenthood
No Paris Climate Accord
No crazy Iran deal
Hostage's released
Less Federal regulations
Dismantled Obamacare
Destroyed Isis Caliphate
Dead Al Baghbadi
Domestic manufacturing growth
Do nothing Dems
USMCA Trade Deal
Middle class tax break
6 million new jobs
3.5 % unemployment
Real wage growth
Low inflation
Lower drug prices
Record Dow
Rebuilt military
Better care for Vets
U.S. world's largest energy producer
Project Veritas
Chuck and Nancy as American Gothic
China
Air Force 2
Hunter
Burisma
DNC deals with Ukraine
Slow slow Sleepy Joe
Crazy Bernie
Pocahontas
50 TRILLION government health care
70 TRILLION Green New Deal
Obama election interference
Harvey Weinstein
Pedophiles
Private island flights for Bill
Mega bucks for Hill
- and of course -
Jeffrey Epstein didn't kill himself

I Will Teach You The Fear Of The Lord

It says many times throughout Scripture that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is in such great contrast to the society we live in today where even in many areas of the Church there is a laissez-faire attitude toward what God's perfect will is for us. I think for most people we mistake God's grace for God's permission.

Paul makes the argument in Romans that as believers we are no longer under The Law. The Law did not come to justify anyone but it came instead to demonstrate that all men fall short of what God's will for us is. The law actually made man's transgressions against God increase,

When Jesus came His death made right for us all of the requirements of The Law. Although man's sins are many and great the grace that God provides through the death and resurrection of Jesus are even greater. Paul then says in Roman's 6:1-2.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be!

By our confession that we have sinned against God, and our desire that what Jesus did on the cross for the forgiveness of sins He did for us personally, we join ourselves into the death of Jesus.

Paul then says;

If we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, for he who has died is free from sin. v 5-7

Well, praise the Lord! Every believer needs to know that they do not need to fear death (wondering if they have done enough to please God) because when we have joined into Christ's death we also have joined into His resurrection. Death no longer has a hold on us. We can rejoice that even when we fall short of God's perfect will for us He is always there like a loving Father, willing to forgive and anxious that we do better.

Yet even so, God is awesome beyond our comprehension and righteous and holy in all things. The Father's desire is that even as we have become like Christ in His death we also become like Him in His life.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your body so you obey its lusts and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness . . . for sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. v 11-14

I do not have a fear of losing my salvation and I daily rejoice in all that God is doing and has done in my life. Worshiping Him is wonderful and prayer and reading the Bible help show me His will and connect me with Him on a personal level, always challenging me to do better.

There are things though that make me tremble. I do not want to dishonor God in any way. I do not want to take His grace for granted. I try to avoid going outside the safe boundaries He has set for me, such as what I read, watch or listen to, where I go, what I drink, where my mind wanders and what I do.

I recognize that we are in a battle with an enemy who constantly seeks to steal, dishonor, corrupt, kill and destroy all that has been given by God to declare His glory, and it would crush me to think that I have partaken in the enemy's plans.

A major deception of the enemy is to prevent us from knowing what God's will is and what His boundaries are. The Bible is attacked, ignored or distorted and the tugs in man's conscious are overcome by false doctrines teaching that there are no moral constants and that God's main desire is that we find and do the things that make us happy.

I believe there is coming a time when a great fear of the Lord will sweep through the Church and then spread through society. Even believers will put aside all that has been petty and look into their own hearts and cry out for mercy. God's presence will be more manifest and we will approach it in fear and trembling.

Until then let us continue to open up the Word and to take seriously all that the Holy Spirit is showing us.

Psalm 34: 4-11.
.
I sought the Lord and He answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.

They looked to Him and were radiant
and their faces shall never be ashamed.

This poor man cried and the Lord delivered him
and saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord (Jesus) encamps around
those who fear Him, and rescues them.

O taste and see that the Lord is good,
how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!

O fear the Lord you His saints
for to those who fear Him there is no want.

The young lions do lack and suffer hunger
but they who seek the Lord shall not be in want
of any good thing.

Come you children, listen to me.
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

Seeing Red

A lot of people I am related to are dyed in the wool liberals. Some of them are even radical progressives. They are wonderful and generous people who would give an arm or a leg to anyone in need. They loved President Obama, could not believe that any sane person would vote for President Trump and thought that Hillary Clinton would continue to implement their progressive vision to fundamentally change who and what America is. They believe the world and America was in the midst of a historic and inevitable metamorphose where enlightened leaders would ensure equality and fairness for all.

November 8, 2016 was thus a tremendous shock to their mental and emotional state. Like what was expressed by liberals and the main stream media throughout the country, there was never for a moment a wait and see attitude as to how things would play out.  It was hate Trump from the very first moment and that Trump hate was openly expressed against any who dared to express any kind of support for the new President.

For the last 3 years they have been convinced that orange man bad would be removed, that Republicans would regret ever voting for him and that the next election would return sanity to themselves as well as to the country.

In an effort then to help them avoid any further mental breakdowns when the results are announced early in the evening of November 3, 2020 and instead ease into a grudging acceptance earlier, I thought it would be a loving thing to provide some statistics and information they may not normally be exposed to.

The first thing to mention is that the trend in the Western world today is away from Internationalism and Progressiveism and toward National Populism. This is demonstrated in Great Britain by the Brerxit movement, where the ruling class in Westminster and the liberal press wanted and still want to stay in the EU but 60% of the population voted to leave. You can see it in Canada where just yesterday in their national elections Trudeau's Liberal party, although his collation still retains power, lost a fairly large number of seats and now holds less than the Conservative party. You can see the same trends happening in France, Poland, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, Germany and Brazil. Check out Dr. Steve Turley's YouTube videos for commentaries on these trends.

The second thing to mention is that Moody Analytics, which has been right about every election since 1980 (except for Trump's in 2016, due to large swings in previous voting patterns) foresee a Trump victory in the Electoral College in all 3 of the categories they measure. In 2016 Trump beat Clinton 304 to 226. Now Moody's Jobs metrics predicts Trump will increase his electoral seats to 326 and the Pocketbook metrics predicts an increase to 351 seats. If the economy tanks between now and the election they may have some hope but Moody has already factored some of that possibility into their calculations.

The third thing they should know is that unlike what they may be hearing from the main stream media (MSM) and the Internet sites they frequent, there is not any significant defection away from President Trump. He currently has a 95% approval rating from his base and his base of support has been rapidly growing.

Here is a statistic that is very interesting. A few weeks ago President Trump held a rally in New Mexico. There were 45,000 people who came. Fifteen thousand were able to be inside the auditorium and thirty thousand outside. Here are statistics that were compiled from those 45,000. Forty per cent of them were Hispanic. Thirty per cent had previously voted Democrat. Twenty per cent were people who had not voted in the last 4 presidential elections.

Those numbers reinforce trends that are being recorded nationwide. In 2016 Trump drew in large numbers of people who had not voted before because they believed their vote never counted. That is one reason Congress went Republican in 2016 but lost seats in 2018 because Trump was not on the ballot. I believe it is reasonable to expect that they and many more like them will show up to vote in 2020.

Hispanic support for President Trump has already jumped 10 points since he was elected and continues to trend higher.

For many decades eighty-seven per cent of Blacks on average have voted Democrat and that is about what Trump received in 2016. Several things have happened since that time. The first is the availability and popularity of many outside sources of information which have started to erode the illusion that Blacks have to vote Democrat. I'll mention just two of them.

The first is a movement to leave the Democrat Party, started by young and charismatic Candace Owens, which is also known as Blexit (think Black Exit). The second is the #Walk Away campaign (walk away from the Democrat Party) which shows thousands of homemade testimonials which combined have many millions of views where people (I would say at least half of them either Blacks or Hispanic) tell about their "red pill" moment. Go to YouTube and check out #Walk Away.

Those type of influences, combined with a strong economy, rising wages, historically low Black unemployment and much more are indications that President Trump's support from Blacks may be much higher than the 15% currently predicted for 2020. A Rasmussen poll done in August this year showed a 32% job approval rating from Blacks for the President.

Another factor to consider is the Ecumenical vote. In 2016 we had a situation where there were 3 things about Trump that they had concerns about. Those were his past behaviors including sexual infidelities, his lack of Christian character that he portrayed publicly, and a nagging feeling that he was actually a liberal in sheep clothing. The votes President Trump got from the Ecumenical community were received because those that did vote recognized that there was no chance that Clinton would support any policy that was deeply important to them but there was at least somewhat of a chance that they would be under a Trump Presidency.

But here is the deal you should be aware of. A heck of a lot of Ecumenicals did not vote for president or they voted for a write-in candidate. Today any behavior by Trump that we know about before he got elected is no longer a concern to that group. His brash manner still is but in large part is discounted because of a number of factors. And because President Trump has followed through on all of his conservative promises and has championed religious freedom and pro life positions there will be a huge increase of Ecumenical votes cast for Trump in 2020.

There has also been a sea change of where and how people receive their information. Cable news has been on a long decline but viewership for outlets like CNN and MSNBC have been dropping like a stone. A recent poll showed that only 6% of the population has any trust that the MSM is unbiased. There are now numerous Conservative sites such as The Daily Wire that have razor sharp commentators and millions of more views than an outlet like CNN. The MSM's 95% negative coverage from day one of Trump has greatly contributed to their soon coming death.

One way we can gauge this is by noticing that although impeachment has been a political strategy for the Left since the day of Trump's election, that after 2 1/2 years of their made up Russian accusations and now a month of their Ukraine gambit, impeachment is near the bottom of the average American's concerns. Almost everybody in the fly over states know what the deal is not and many actually suspect that in the end the Left and the DNC are going to end up holding the bag.

Which leads to my last point. Progressives are the loud and vocal part of the Democrat party. My guess is they comprise less than a third of this countries voting electric but that means they have a majority of the influence in their party. It has been noted that the concerns of a large section of traditional Democrat voters, such as those in the traditional manufacturing blue states, has been ignored by the radical Left. A good number switched and voted Republican in 2016 and I would bet that they were just the tip of the iceberg of the switch we will see in 2020.

The lack of any moderate voices in the MSM, or from the leaders of the Democratic Party, or from any of the current crop of Presidential candidates has exposed their true Progressive agenda which I believe in the end will result in either a split or an implosion of the Democrat Party from which it may take them decades to recover.

So get yourselves ready for a visit to a nice relaxing spa. We are not just talking Trump 2020. Get ready for a President Pence 2024.   

Does Solar Power Make Sense For Me?

Today I read an article talking about California's wildfires and their effect on California's energy grid. When the terrible fires happened last year many people believed that a number of those fires were caused by sparks that came from power lines. This led to law suits which led to the main electric provide in Northern California turning off the power grid this year during certain high fire risk periods. Today there are wide areas in Northern California without electric power.

One of the surprises that came from this is that many people who were equipped with solar panels found out that their solar systems would not provide any electricity to their homes during a power outage. That is because the typical solar system does not store the electricity it produces into a battery system from which the house then draws upon but rather transfers produced electricity into the electrical grid of the power company. Thus without an electrical storage system and without the house being wired to directly utilize solar power there will not be electricity for the home to use.

When a home system is producing electricity under the typical system the home's electric meter slows down accordingly and the home owner is only charged for any excess current they use. If the power company accepts what is known as Net Metering and the home system produces more current that what the home uses for a month then the power company will credit that amount to the home owner's electric bill. The one catch to that is that while the electric company charges it's customer a retail rate they often only credit them for excess production at a wholesale rate which is substantially lower.

But finding that out did get me thinking about what would be my cost here in West Michigan to install a roof solar panel system and how long would the actual payback be. I have not talked to any solar provider companies or any actual people who currently have roof top solar panels but I have done a little research and here is what I have discovered.

Checking my electric bill from the local Board of Public Works I found that during the last 12 months I used in my 1300 sq. ft. house 7115 kW hours of electricity. The overall BPW charge for our electric figures out to be .127 per kW hr. My annual electric usage equaled $904. Michigan prices for electric are usually a bit higher than the national average. A little over a year ago our BPW finished building a new power plant and converted from coal to natural gas which is supposed to be much cleaner and less expensive.

According to what I was able to find out on line the average solar customer installs a 6200 kW system which would seem about right if my annual usage is 7115 kW's. In Michigan the average cost for roof top solar panels is $4.11 per kW. That means a 6200 kW installation would cost me if I paid in cash $25,482. I don't know if that is before or after taxes.

For some reason the government has offered pretty big incentives for people to install solar power. This seems pretty much a crock to me for a whole lot of reasons, about which I could write from here to the end of next week. However, let's get back to what my cost would be to install solar.

Until the end of 2019 the Federal Government will, if you install a solar system this year, reduce what you would owe in taxes this year up to 30% of what it costs you to install a solar system. In 2020 that amount reduces to 26%, in 2021 I'm not sure but I think it's something like 20% and the incentive program expires at the end of 2021. Maybe something else will come up but if I am thinking about solar I either need to do something soon or hope that a breakthrough in technology would make an investment practical.

There also may be local incentives offered by my city or even by the BPW to become more energy efficient.  I'm not sure if or what those are but perhaps they can add up to another $4 - 6 thousand dollars. I'm not going to include those numbers below but you are welcome to do the math yourselves later on.

So let's say I decide on installing a $25,482 6200 kW system next year. I would need to pay the full amount, and then to qualify for the 26%, $6000 plus government money, make sure to withhold that much from my 2020 tax estimates which will then reduce my tax owed by April 15 of 2021 by that amount. Thus after a year if I install in the Spring the actual cost for the system would be $19,366.

To figure the length of pay back I multiply 6200 kW hrs per year X my BPW rate of .129 kW hr. which equals an annual savings on my electric bill of $787. And at $787 per year it would take me 25 years to break even. Solar systems are supposed to be good for 25 years so in theory every year after that my electric bill would be only $117 per year. 

There are however a few things to consider with solar. On the plus side, what I pay for electric may very well go up during those 25 years which would increase the amount I would be saving and thus reduce the actual payback period.

On the other hand there are a few negatives to consider. Apart from possible maintenance costs, like equipment breakdowns, cleaning, snow and tree branch removal, and the need to spend $10 -12 thousand dollars on new roof shingles before solar installation, there are solar energy efficiency questions when living in West Michigan and where I live in particular. A 6200 kW system might possibly produce 6200 kW's per year in a place like Arizona. But where I live we get a lot of clouds, a fair amount of snow, there are woods west of us across the street  which block direct sunlight for the last hour of the day, and the trees near us produce a fair amount of pollen. I don't know how to actually calculate all of this but if my panels produce only 60% of capacity then my annual payback then becomes $472 which would equal a 41 year pay back.

Since I will turn 70 next year solar does not seem to be something that I will get too excited about.

Most of the information I could find on line whether solar is a good investment comes one way or another from companies that want to sell and install their solar panels. Each one assures me how wonderful a system would be. After watching U Tube videos of people who have installed systems I have come to the conclusion that the actual reason, apart from those that live off grid and need solar, or perhaps those who live in very sunny areas where the costs might be much different, is that installing solar makes them fell good about themselves.

They ignore the fact that Chinese miners earning slave wages dig out the dirty materials currently needed for solar panel production. They buy into the claim that man made CO2 is somehow any different than naturally produced CO2 (CO2 being the food that all plants eat) and buy into a claim, despite historic evidence showing the opposite, that any warming of the planet will be a disaster and must have been caused by the actions of man and can likewise be reduced by the actions of man.

But like I said, I'm almost 70. If I could invest now for something that would have a decent return much earlier and reduce what I would need to pay for utilities when I finally stop working it would be worth it. Hmm, maybe I'll check out wind. 
 

Impeach! Impeach!

Impeach! Impeach! Well, well, how did we get here, what does this all mean and how will this all play out? Hopefully I will be able to shed a little insight that will make things a bit clearer on what has been going on and what will be happening.

Let me start by taking a quick look at the Obama presidency. Although he ran as a centrist, Barack Obama's voting record when he was in the Senate was to the extreme far left of the spectrum. When he became our President his actions thus proved to be far left. This should not have been a surprise to anyone who would have looked past the nice suits, attractive family and smooth talking blah blah and done a little research.

His father's politics in Kenya were Anti-Colonial. His father believed that Western powers had robbed third world countries like his of their resources and should be punished for such. His politics were also Anti-Capitalist or Socialist/Communist which is reflected by his belief that the rich should pay 100% in taxes and only receive an amount back from the government sufficient to live on. It is interesting that Barack Obama wrote a book that was titled - Dreams Of My Father. Obama's mother also had hard leftest leanings as can be determined by the politics of the church she belonged to in Hawaii.

Sometime after Barack's father left his mother to go back to Kenya she married a man from Indonesia where she and her son moved. In Indonesia Barack was educated during his elementary years in a religious Muslim school. She sent him back to Hawaii during his high school years to live with her parents. It was during or shortly after that time that he was introduced to and was mentored by Frank L Davis, a leading African American member and thinker in the Communist Party in America. Later on during his college years in California most of his room mates and organizations he belonged to were politically on the radical spectrum. Not much is known about his politics or associations while at law school at Harvard but then, apart from his being the editor of the Harvard Law Review, almost no one can be found who remembers or is willing to share that they remember going to class with him.

After Obama came to Chicago he is well known for having been a community organizer. On it's face value that sounds like a noble occupation and indeed it can be, helping the poor and disenfranchised to do better with food, housing, clothing, medical care and helping them have a greater voice over their affairs. But there can be a radical political aspect involved in community organizing as evidenced by the methods of famous Chicago community organizer Saul Alansky.

In 1971, the year before he died, Alansky wrote a book called Rules For Radicals. Its ten chapters laid out Alansky's insights about how confrontation can produce desired results. Later on in the community organization community there was debate as to how effective Alansky's rules actually were in practice but the book and its principles did become famous in the world of the radical left. At the University of Chicago Barack Obama taught a course called Alansky 101, so we know he was quite familiar with Alansky's radical teachings. Oh by the way, in the book Alansky dedicates it to someone called Lucifer (no kidding!)

Here is a partial list of Alansky's main principles. Notice two things here. First, the other side is referred to as "the enemy". Second, see if any of these tactics ring a bell when you think of the how the Democrats have resisted form day one and continue to resist the presidency of Donald Trump, the Kavanaugh hearings, the Russia hearings and their constant calls for impeachment.

"Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have".

"Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules".

"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon".

"Keep the pressure on".

"The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself".

"The major premise for tactics is the development of opportunities that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition".

"If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counter side".

"Pick the target, freeze it, polarize it".   


Barack Obama eventually moved to the same neighborhood and was on one of the same boards as Bill Ayers, former leader of the Weatherman Underground, a radical 1970's group that among other things bombed the Pentagon and Capitol building. The church Obama belonged to for 20 years had definite leftest leanings. I could on and on along the same vein but I think I've made the point that it seemed to me pretty clear, even before he was elected, that Barack Obama if chosen would try to radically change not only US foreign policy and US domestic policy but would also appoint and place in positions of power men and women with the same mind set as his.

The part of interest for us here is not President Obama's foreign or domestic policies. I think from what we know about his past and from what he showed while being President is that he is at heart a Marxist and was smart enough to have both a short term and a long term plan for how to radically transform our country. I also strongly suspect that despite our hearing almost nothing about President Obama for the last 3 years that he is in fact the key person leading a behind the scenes opposition to President Trump and his administration. You should be aware that there is a select group of power people that meet every day in private, either in person or via devices, that determine both tactics and each day's talking points, that are then relayed to the press and to key Democrat leaders in Congress. 

There are some interesting things that happened while President Obama was in office that demonstrate his efforts to ensure that his opponents would not be successful in gaining power.

The main one that comes to mind is how he used the IRS to delay and refuse applications for almost every conservative political group that tried to obtain non taxable status.

Another well known one is the activity of Susan Rice and others toward the last days of his administration to unmask identities of quite a large number of his political opponents so that people in his administration would have access to their private conversations (I think that might be called "spying" on your political opponents).

And a third one that is coming to light is the effort to use the FBI and CIA along with their foreign contacts, to both spy on candidate Trump and everyone connected with him but also to set up sophisticated operations designed to eventually remove him from power in case he would actually win. People have blamed Hillary Clinton's campaign for spending 9 million to finance the fake dossier that the intelligence agencies then used to obtain FISA warrants of Trump's people, but I believe it actually goes much deeper than that.

Let me make this very clear. There were and still are people appointed or hired by President Obama in the intelligence community who are actively opposed to President Trump, not just because he is a Republican but because he is an outsider who is threatening both their power and globalist worldview. Many of these people, previously so comfortable in their arrogance, are now becoming increasingly frightened that their secret activities will be exposed.

There will soon be reports released that will lay a lot of this out. The guilty parties have the full support of the main stream media so everything will be twisted in the news and there will be a full blown attempt to impeach and discredit Attorney General Barr. I would like to believe that all those that have taken part in this coup attempt against the President will get the punishment they deserve. I would like to believe that the main stream media itself will be exposed and eventually be replaced by honest men and women without political bias. Can all of this happen without a revolution or civil unrest? I sure pray so.

Cries for impeachment today are a desperate ploy to circumvent the ballot box. After all we do have another election in about a year. These last three years have pulled the veil off the political faces of the far left, the never Trump right and others in Washington and have totally destroyed any confidence we ever had in the main stream media. By God's grace we now know much clearer their desire for an atheistic utopia that sees Conservatives, Christians and the Constitution as  "enemies" that need to be discarded.

The good news is that a light does shine in the darkness and that God is using the events of the day to bring out a deep and widespread spiritual change in this country. There are dark spiritual forces behind all the lies and shouting and their desperation is a sign that they know a change is coming.

Pray for our President for wisdom and grace. Pray for all those in authority over us that they will be sensitive to the direction of the Holy Spirit. Pray for your enemies that His light will shine so bright that their hearts will be open to coming to know Jesus as Savior and Lord. And pray for a spirit of repentance to flood our land as an invitation for the presence of God to fall upon us.

A Christian's Letter To Our President

Dear Mr. President

Thank you for being the most pro-life president that we have had in my voting lifetime. Your actions to support the rights of the unborn have spoken much louder than all the empty rhetoric of politicians in the past or any political tweets that you have made in the present.

Your first major decision while running for President was to select pro-life Michael Pence as your VP running mate. Your second was to announce a top flight list of possible Supreme Court appointees that court scholars said would be inclined to support both a strict constitutional interpretation as well as the right of the unborn to be protected and valued.

I believe that abortion is THE most important political issue of my lifetime. Because I believe abortion is the taking of a human life given by God and because I believe that one's stance on abortion reflects an inner moral compass that ultimately affects other governmental decisions, including the economy and foreign policy. I voted for you in hopes that your actual deeds in regards to abortion would match your political promises. To me this issue far outweighed any of my concerns about your previous moral lapses or any embarrassment I might have had about how you conduct yourself publicly in the present.

I was thrilled to see that on your very first day in office you canceled the Mexico City Accord which required other nations to provide abortions in order to receive our country's foreign aid

I am also thrilled and encouraged to see that so far during your first term you have appointed two constitutional conservative Supreme Court Justices who will, hopefully along with your next appointment, insure that like slavery Roe V Wade goes to the ash heap of our country's history and will bring the decision of whether to terminate an infant's life back to each individual state

So far during your first term you and the Senate have confirmed more Federal judges than both of your predecessors combined, all of them constitutional conservatives, their average age 10 years younger than those confirmed by your last two predecessors. This will affect the direction of our courts for decades to come and will be instrumental when lawsuits arise challenging state laws restricting abortion.

Along with the above you have done much to restrict the use of tax payer dollars to fund Planned Parenthood, our country's largest provider of abortions who by themselves terminate over a third of a million of lives every year

Your actions to defend the most vulnerable among us has been an answer to the voices of over fifty million innocent lives that have cried out for justice to the heavens since 1972. For this stance alone your name will be remembered and honored for generations to come.

I thank you as well for officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capitol. Unlike most of your predecessors who only gave lip service to the idea, you have actually followed through on your promise and have made sure that America remains a great friend of the nation of Israel.

Our country does not need to approve or support everything that Israel does. However God promises in His Word that He will bless those that bless Israel and curse those that curse it. You have blessed Israel by giving international recognition to the fact that Jerusalem is its capital and you have blessed Israel by recognizing their right of sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Thus I believe that the following spiritual principle will play out. Your support for Israel will help insure God's blessing for our country and you as well are being blessed by it.

Thank you for recognizing the severity of the persecution of the Christian Church that is happening today in many countries internationally as well as for truly understanding all the cultural and political pressures that the Church in America is experiencing greater and greater everyday. More than any President in the past you have show a willingness to both seek and to listen to advice giving by respected Church leaders.

I thank you for the courage you have displayed in the midst of the greatest opposition and the greatest attacks any president has ever seen during their first days in office and during their first term. I believe that opposition to your election goes far beyond normal politics and instead reflects a spiritual battle that is going on today. And part of that spiritual battle is that the evil spirits that thirst for the shedding of innocent blood do not want to lose one of their means to their power and influence.

My constant prayer for you is that as you seek God's will for our country you will also humble yourself personally. I pray that you will receive not only the fullness of His salvation but will also experience the gifts of His Holy Spirit as well as the demonstration of the fruits of His Holy Spirit in your life.

May God bless you and may God bless the United States of America.