A couple of years ago a guy whom I will call Sam went into the local Family Christian Bookstore to look for a gift. Sam was about 30 years old at the time, single, and gay. As he was heading to the checkout line he noticed a painting of Jesus that was displayed on the wall. While he was looking at the picture he started to cry - didn't know why he was crying, had no apparent reason to be crying but he just couldn't stop.
Standing behind him in line was a lady who asked Sam if he was alright. Sam told her that it just happened when he started looking at the painting of Jesus. The lady said a few kind words to Sam and invited him to her church. Sam came the next Sunday, the lady introduced him to a few people including the pastor, Sam came again the next week and he surrendered his life to Jesus.
A few weeks later Sam noticed a few strange changes. The color of the bedroom in his apartment was lavender and he didn't like the color anymore. He went out to lunch with a friend and thought the waitress was attractive. He had never had that kind of feeling for any woman before.
A couple of months later he attended a Freedom In Christ workshop where one of the counselors was an elder at the church he was now attending regularly. Freedom In Christ is a deliverance ministry based on the ministry of Neil Anderson, an evangelical pastor. A lot of times when a person experiences trauma or great fear, commits certain types of sin or feels greatly rejected, perhaps even as an unwanted infant in the womb, these events create openings for evil spirits to latch onto an individual.
A normal session involves going through certain areas of a person's life, identifying what the Word of God says about those areas and letting the Holy Spirit reveal to the person if this is an area that needs attention. If it is the person will verbalize that they agree with the wisdom that was given from scripture, will confess any part they might have had opposed to the will of God in that area and will renounce the action or thought and will forgive anyone else who may have wronged them in that area. This destroys most footholds that evil spirits have and they often leave as easy as breathing out a little bad gas. The final step for the counselor is to provide the person solid scripture based advice on how to stay free.
Usually, because everyone's life is complicated there are several sessions needed to fully cover everything. With Sam it was different. The spiritual oppressions were very deep and intertwined and there were a lot of tears and emotions. Most of the other counselors had never seen any thing quite like it. The session went on for over 6 hours and by the end of it Sam was more free than he had ever been.
Personally I have not met Sam but I do know the lady who was behind Sam at the checkout counter, the pastor and the elder. The reason I share this today is because homosexual, transgender and any other side area of the LBGT world and lifestyle have at their root a spiritual deception that leads away from the will of God and toward misery, inprisionment and finally death. My heart aches for all those so bound as well as for those who go beyond love and acceptance of the person and think that by approving of that life style they are adding something positive.
I will not give here a listing of all that the Word of God says about homosexual activity. It should simply be enough to say that scripture from beginning to end is consistent in saying that ANY sexual activity outside of a marriage between a man and a woman is not the will of God. Desires, no matter how early evidenced, do not change the Word of God.
There is a lie, crafted by the enemy, that portrays God as angry and distant. The enemy tells us that God does not want us to be happy while at the same time making sure that we feel condemned and powerless. The enemy imparts fear and then uses that very fear to drive us away from the love of God. The enemy makes this rebellion outwardly look attractive while at the same time concealing how awful and depraved it truly is.
I remember talking to a cousin of my wife who is a doctor. He had been late to the reception because one of his clients had AIDS and needed some special help at that time. When I made some (to him) stupid remark about being careful he told me I had no idea what type of life these people were living. The average young gay male has hundreds of different partners at all sorts of different locations. That was many years ago and perhaps because of AIDS things have changed a little, maybe.
The average first sexual encounter for gay men is at 12 1/2 years old compared to 16 1/2 years old for heterosexuals. The average gay man is 3 times more likely to have been sexually abused as a child then a heterosexual, Because many gay men will not list their early encounters as abuse if they experienced sexual pleasure with it the actual statistic for homosexuals is 7 times that of heterosexuals.
When we are talking about gay marriage you should be aware that a study of over 500 married gay couples found that over 50% had sex outside their marriage with their partners consent. Another 30% had other sexual encounters without their partners consent. Gay men, just like heterosexuals, and especially as they grow older want to have a stable loving relationship with another person. But most gay men still struggle with lust for different and exciting sexual encounters.
Love wins when we align ourselves with the One who loves us. We find out who we are in our manhood when we find out who we are in Christ. Here are some selections from the First Letter of John:
This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you,
that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness,
we lie and do not practice the truth;
but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light,
we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
By this we know that we have come to know Him,
If we keep His commandments.
Do not love the world nor the things of the world.
If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes
and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world.
The world is passing away, and also its lusts;
but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us,
that we would be called children of God; and such we are.
The one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
We have come to know and have believed the love that God has for us.
God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgement;
Because as He is, so also are we in this world.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear . . .
We love, because He first loved us.
So there you have it. Love, true love, always wins.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Through The Looking Glass
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heros so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.
English nursery rhyme based on Through The Looking Glass
Sometimes I get asked if I ever give driving tests to any really odd characters. Well, honestly, yes, it happens all to often. I have seen every type of piercing and hair fashion and tattoo art and style of clothing. People show up for their tests barefoot, without a driver's permit, high and not smelling to good. Every week there is a collection of ex cons, foreigners from places I never knew existed and non conformists who have not had a license for decades because they did not want to pay a hundred dollar fine and the State pissed them off but after 15 years they finally realized that the State always wins.
Last week I was out on a drive and I get a call from Jackie whom I am working with that day and she tells me that she just wants me to know that my next client who is there waiting has a very large knife strapped to his belt. My wife was worried for me. How nice!
I greet Jordan who is 37 years old, shaped a lot like either Tweedledum or Tweedledee. His hair starts in the middle of the top of his head and goes straight and long back, he has those things that look like large rubber washers in the middle of his ear lobes, a long red goatee, and the aforementioned giant knife on his side.
When I tell Jordan that he needs to put his knife in the back before we begin our drive he is very agreeable, pulling the weapon out of it's scabbard and laying it on the seat. It is then that I notice the length of the handle is about 10 inches and the size of the blade is about 2 1/2 inches. A glorified box cutter.
As we are driving along I notice on Jordan's left arm a lone tattoo of the old cartoon character Underdog ("neither bird not plane nor even frog, it's just little o me, Underdog!") I say to Jordan - "You have an Underdog tattoo! Why on earth do you have an Underdog tattoo?"
"It reminds me of my mother" he says. "We used to watch that together when I was a kid."
Then to my surprise Jordan shows me the companion tattoo on his right arm. "This is Super Chicken." Getting quite excited now Jordan chuckles to himself and blurts out - "They used to make Super Chicken do some really crazy stuff man!" It is not often that I am speechless but this was one of them.
Perhaps you live in a nice boring world where every thing is sane and predictable and you're not chasing some crazy rabbit carrying a time piece. Mean while, I wait for my next client.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Then And Now
I had quite a surprise this week, but first a little background.
It is recorded in the second chapter of Acts that on the day of Pentecost 120 people were gathered together in one place in Jerusalem and "all were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance". Devout Jews from every nation heard in their own languages those men and women "speaking of the mighty deeds of God".
Peter stands with the other apostles and explains to the crowd what has just happened;
"This is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel; 'And it shall be in the last days God says that I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my bond slaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy' ".
The gifts of the Holy Spirit, including speaking in other tongues and prophesying, enabled the early Church to grow and mature. There are numerous passages in Acts which show that tongues and prophesy were considered a normal part of any Christians life. Unfortunately history records that these and many of the other gifts of the Holy Spirit and how they are supposed to operate personally and corporately gradually became more and more unusual and less and less understood.
The gifts of tongues and the gifts of prophesy are much more varied than just speaking a language that other men understand or foretelling future events. Praise the Lord the operation and understanding has been restored in these days to a large part of the Church. And it began to happen in a very interesting way.
Any time there is a great revival, where hundreds and thousands and even millions of men and women come under conviction of sin and surrender their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, it has been the work of the Holy Spirit that inspires and equips the leaders, that draws the crowds, that convicts of sin, that sets free the prisoner, that heals and delivers, that creates the desire and gives the ability to live a holy life, that proclaims truth and rejects error and that inspires the joy that only the redeemed can understand.
Beginning in the 1700's there were revivals in different parts of the world that had evidence of the operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including speaking in tongues and speaking prophetically. But the idea that these gifts should be commonplace in the Church had not yet taken hold. In the later part of the 1800's there were a number of groups and ministers who did begin to believe that gifts such as tongues were for today as well as speculating that tongues would actually be a sign that a believer had also been filled with an infusion of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Then in 1901 an interesting thing happened. Let me quote here from The International Directory of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements in it's biography of Charles Parham;
"In the summer of 1900 Parham embarked on a tour of Holiness religious centers. The focus of his 12 week journey was Frank W. Sandford's Holiness commune in Shiloh, ME. Impressed with the emphasis throughout the Holiness movement on a "latter rain" outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Parham sought for himself a greater personal manifestation of this power. Through Sanford, he heard isolated reports of xenolalic tongues as missionaries. (My Note: "xenolalic" means actually speaking in a language that can be understood, as in Acts 2. Also, isn't it interesting that even today mainline denominational missionaries go abroad and get the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Just last month one of the main Baptists branches allowed their missionaries to continue to speak in tongues 'as a prayer language'.) Privately he drew great significance from the discovery.
Parham returned to Topeka in Sept. 1900 and optimistically secured quarters for a Bible school to prepare prospective missionaries for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit power. In an elaborate old mansion on the edge of town , he taught his students the essentials of Holiness doctrine and challenged them to search for the true evidence of Holy Spirit reception. He strategically directed them to the account of Acts 2 where xenolalic tongues sparked the initial phase of Christian growth, and on Jan. 1, 1901, one of Parham's students (Agnes Ozman) experienced the expected blessing and sign. During the next few days, Parham and about half of his student body of 34 were likewise baptized."
Now here is the exciting part, at least for me. My name is Robert LaBarge. In 1659 a Robert LaBerge emigrated from France to New France (Canada), the only person by that surname to have done so. One of his descendants, a Joseph LaBerge, in 1806 canoed from the Quebec area of New France to St. Louis, changing his name to LaBarge. He is my direct ancestor. In the book mentioned above it's biography of Agnes Ozman says that she was assured a place in Pentecostal history when she became the first to speak in tongues at Charles Parham's Bethel Bible College. After giving her background it goes on to say that subsequent to her tongues experience in 1901 "she returned to city mission work. In Lincoln in 1906 she heard about Pentecostalism, related her earlier experience, and identified with the emergent movement. In 1911 she married Pentecostal preacher Philemon LaBerge. The two traveled about the country holding meetings where ever possible. In 1917 LaBerge affiliated with the Assemblies of God, receiving credentials as an evangelist."
For years I had thought that perhaps I was the first LaBarge who had left the Catholic Church (although I had received my Charismatic experience while a Catholic) for the green pastures of evangelical thought. Now I find out that, like a lot of things apparently, I was a little slow on the uptake. It sort of makes you feel that you are part of something in God's plan that is much bigger and more complex than one would ever realize.
Agnes and Philemon LaBerge were at the beginning of a movement that according to Pew research in 2011 now numbers over 500 million Pentecostals and Charismatics world wide. The Spirit is moving, lives are being changed, the gifts have been restored and it is now common place for men and women to pray in the Spirit. I speak or sing in tongues several times throughout the day, every day. It's a family thing.
It is recorded in the second chapter of Acts that on the day of Pentecost 120 people were gathered together in one place in Jerusalem and "all were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance". Devout Jews from every nation heard in their own languages those men and women "speaking of the mighty deeds of God".
Peter stands with the other apostles and explains to the crowd what has just happened;
"This is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel; 'And it shall be in the last days God says that I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and your daughters shall prophecy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my bond slaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit, and they shall prophesy' ".
The gifts of the Holy Spirit, including speaking in other tongues and prophesying, enabled the early Church to grow and mature. There are numerous passages in Acts which show that tongues and prophesy were considered a normal part of any Christians life. Unfortunately history records that these and many of the other gifts of the Holy Spirit and how they are supposed to operate personally and corporately gradually became more and more unusual and less and less understood.
The gifts of tongues and the gifts of prophesy are much more varied than just speaking a language that other men understand or foretelling future events. Praise the Lord the operation and understanding has been restored in these days to a large part of the Church. And it began to happen in a very interesting way.
Any time there is a great revival, where hundreds and thousands and even millions of men and women come under conviction of sin and surrender their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, it has been the work of the Holy Spirit that inspires and equips the leaders, that draws the crowds, that convicts of sin, that sets free the prisoner, that heals and delivers, that creates the desire and gives the ability to live a holy life, that proclaims truth and rejects error and that inspires the joy that only the redeemed can understand.
Beginning in the 1700's there were revivals in different parts of the world that had evidence of the operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including speaking in tongues and speaking prophetically. But the idea that these gifts should be commonplace in the Church had not yet taken hold. In the later part of the 1800's there were a number of groups and ministers who did begin to believe that gifts such as tongues were for today as well as speculating that tongues would actually be a sign that a believer had also been filled with an infusion of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Then in 1901 an interesting thing happened. Let me quote here from The International Directory of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements in it's biography of Charles Parham;
"In the summer of 1900 Parham embarked on a tour of Holiness religious centers. The focus of his 12 week journey was Frank W. Sandford's Holiness commune in Shiloh, ME. Impressed with the emphasis throughout the Holiness movement on a "latter rain" outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Parham sought for himself a greater personal manifestation of this power. Through Sanford, he heard isolated reports of xenolalic tongues as missionaries. (My Note: "xenolalic" means actually speaking in a language that can be understood, as in Acts 2. Also, isn't it interesting that even today mainline denominational missionaries go abroad and get the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Just last month one of the main Baptists branches allowed their missionaries to continue to speak in tongues 'as a prayer language'.) Privately he drew great significance from the discovery.
Parham returned to Topeka in Sept. 1900 and optimistically secured quarters for a Bible school to prepare prospective missionaries for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit power. In an elaborate old mansion on the edge of town , he taught his students the essentials of Holiness doctrine and challenged them to search for the true evidence of Holy Spirit reception. He strategically directed them to the account of Acts 2 where xenolalic tongues sparked the initial phase of Christian growth, and on Jan. 1, 1901, one of Parham's students (Agnes Ozman) experienced the expected blessing and sign. During the next few days, Parham and about half of his student body of 34 were likewise baptized."
Now here is the exciting part, at least for me. My name is Robert LaBarge. In 1659 a Robert LaBerge emigrated from France to New France (Canada), the only person by that surname to have done so. One of his descendants, a Joseph LaBerge, in 1806 canoed from the Quebec area of New France to St. Louis, changing his name to LaBarge. He is my direct ancestor. In the book mentioned above it's biography of Agnes Ozman says that she was assured a place in Pentecostal history when she became the first to speak in tongues at Charles Parham's Bethel Bible College. After giving her background it goes on to say that subsequent to her tongues experience in 1901 "she returned to city mission work. In Lincoln in 1906 she heard about Pentecostalism, related her earlier experience, and identified with the emergent movement. In 1911 she married Pentecostal preacher Philemon LaBerge. The two traveled about the country holding meetings where ever possible. In 1917 LaBerge affiliated with the Assemblies of God, receiving credentials as an evangelist."
For years I had thought that perhaps I was the first LaBarge who had left the Catholic Church (although I had received my Charismatic experience while a Catholic) for the green pastures of evangelical thought. Now I find out that, like a lot of things apparently, I was a little slow on the uptake. It sort of makes you feel that you are part of something in God's plan that is much bigger and more complex than one would ever realize.
Agnes and Philemon LaBerge were at the beginning of a movement that according to Pew research in 2011 now numbers over 500 million Pentecostals and Charismatics world wide. The Spirit is moving, lives are being changed, the gifts have been restored and it is now common place for men and women to pray in the Spirit. I speak or sing in tongues several times throughout the day, every day. It's a family thing.
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Fiction Meets Fact
This Sunday Jackie was away watching some of our grand kids so I was able to sit back and do some channel surfing. I stopped for a few moments to watch a scene from an old James Bond movie. In it Sean Connery as Bond rings an apartment bell and a female voice invites him in. Bond is pretending to be a man named Franks who was supposed to pick up a load of diamonds from the woman to smuggle them out of the country.
The woman greats Bond/Franks while dressed stylishly in her underwear, tells him to pour himself a drink, takes his empty glass and goes back to her bedroom/lair to get dressed, dusts the glass for fingerprints then takes a photo of the prints and opens up an armoire revealing a large screen TV/computer, inserts the photo into a print reader and gets the confirmation on the screen that the prints match that of the diamond smuggler Franks. Putting on a black lacy see through covering over her underwear she heads back to Bond/Franks and returns the glass but Bond's keen sense of smell notices that his prints have been I D'd. Later on we see Bond talking on the phone with spy gadget genius Q thanking him for the fake latex print we see him pealing off his thumb.
Monday morning before Jackie and I leave for work we get an urgent call from our boss telling us that we need to get finger printed TODAY!!! He instructs us to head to the main office where we will get the proper forms and when we get there he will tell us where to go to get the job done. Every 5 years people like us who conduct road tests for the State of Michigan need to get re-fingerprinted and evidently the person from the company in charge of maintaining our files was a little lax in letting us know that the 5 years were up.
Since Jackie is still in her underwear I tell her to put on something nice and we soon head out and pick up our forms at the office. We get there just as the boss does and when we head inside there is another guy on the phone with the place that does the fingerprinting trying to make sure that we can get in ASAP. As we are rushing to the location Jackie fills out our forms and asks me how to spell Caucasian. "Is it t-i-a-n- or s-i-a-n?" We agree on s-i-a-n and find the office which fortunately is only a slight detour from our regular route into work.
The fingerprint place is in a suite at an office building. There is a front parking lot and a back parking lot. Jackie tells me to park up front but since I have been there before I head to the lower back lot which I think might be faster because I know that the entry ways in front go to different businesses. The back lot has construction going on and is empty and I must do as my sweet wife kindly first suggested and go back and park up front.
We take about 4 turns through several hall ways up and down stairs and eventually find the fingerprint office. The door is open but the guy is not there. He does get back in a few moments and we each get a turn to place our fingers on a print reader. These are displayed on a computer screen not that much different that the one in the Bond movie (well, theirs did need an large armoire to hold and ours were on a thin screen desk top plastic swivel base). I was the first to go and mine took about 10 minutes because the print reader was having a little problem getting a good shot. Perhaps it was the fact that the guy was standing next to me, hip to hip while holding my hand and my extended fingers were a little tight. When he got to Jackie the machine went "blip, blip, blip" and hers took about 2 minutes. I did tell the guy to watch it because this was the first time in over 43 years that any man but me had held those dainty little hands.
Fingerprinting done I drive about 80 mph to make it to our test side on time and then inform my first client after he is doing 30 in a 25 zone that he needs to stay at the speed limit or below or he may fail his driving test. My next client is a black woman, um, African American woman, who happens to tell me while on the test that she has a Caucasian uncle. "Caucasian" I mumble to myself, "C - a - u - c - a - S - I -A - N."
The woman greats Bond/Franks while dressed stylishly in her underwear, tells him to pour himself a drink, takes his empty glass and goes back to her bedroom/lair to get dressed, dusts the glass for fingerprints then takes a photo of the prints and opens up an armoire revealing a large screen TV/computer, inserts the photo into a print reader and gets the confirmation on the screen that the prints match that of the diamond smuggler Franks. Putting on a black lacy see through covering over her underwear she heads back to Bond/Franks and returns the glass but Bond's keen sense of smell notices that his prints have been I D'd. Later on we see Bond talking on the phone with spy gadget genius Q thanking him for the fake latex print we see him pealing off his thumb.
Monday morning before Jackie and I leave for work we get an urgent call from our boss telling us that we need to get finger printed TODAY!!! He instructs us to head to the main office where we will get the proper forms and when we get there he will tell us where to go to get the job done. Every 5 years people like us who conduct road tests for the State of Michigan need to get re-fingerprinted and evidently the person from the company in charge of maintaining our files was a little lax in letting us know that the 5 years were up.
Since Jackie is still in her underwear I tell her to put on something nice and we soon head out and pick up our forms at the office. We get there just as the boss does and when we head inside there is another guy on the phone with the place that does the fingerprinting trying to make sure that we can get in ASAP. As we are rushing to the location Jackie fills out our forms and asks me how to spell Caucasian. "Is it t-i-a-n- or s-i-a-n?" We agree on s-i-a-n and find the office which fortunately is only a slight detour from our regular route into work.
The fingerprint place is in a suite at an office building. There is a front parking lot and a back parking lot. Jackie tells me to park up front but since I have been there before I head to the lower back lot which I think might be faster because I know that the entry ways in front go to different businesses. The back lot has construction going on and is empty and I must do as my sweet wife kindly first suggested and go back and park up front.
We take about 4 turns through several hall ways up and down stairs and eventually find the fingerprint office. The door is open but the guy is not there. He does get back in a few moments and we each get a turn to place our fingers on a print reader. These are displayed on a computer screen not that much different that the one in the Bond movie (well, theirs did need an large armoire to hold and ours were on a thin screen desk top plastic swivel base). I was the first to go and mine took about 10 minutes because the print reader was having a little problem getting a good shot. Perhaps it was the fact that the guy was standing next to me, hip to hip while holding my hand and my extended fingers were a little tight. When he got to Jackie the machine went "blip, blip, blip" and hers took about 2 minutes. I did tell the guy to watch it because this was the first time in over 43 years that any man but me had held those dainty little hands.
Fingerprinting done I drive about 80 mph to make it to our test side on time and then inform my first client after he is doing 30 in a 25 zone that he needs to stay at the speed limit or below or he may fail his driving test. My next client is a black woman, um, African American woman, who happens to tell me while on the test that she has a Caucasian uncle. "Caucasian" I mumble to myself, "C - a - u - c - a - S - I -A - N."
Sunday, May 31, 2015
He Is Faithful
There is a "Next Blog" link on top of my Blogspot page and because much of what I write includes spiritual themes and quotes from scripture the algorithms that work cyber space usually connect me when I click that spot with another blog that they determine I might have some "spiritual" connection to. Some of the time they actually get it right and I am (to use the term I've actually seen blasted on another blog) "blessed".
On the other hand those links have brought me to a mixture of the bizzar to the truly mundane with a hefty portion of Mormon sites in between. It seems that every lonely Mormon on mission must when they get back to their apartment dismount their bike, loosen their tie, take off their white shirt and black pants, grab some cold KFC and sit at the computer blogging about the kingdom so that Elder so and so who overseas their district will not suspect that it is actually party time tonight. This can all be an elaborate game because the Elders understand that Mormon mission usually serves the same purpose as the Amish "rumspringa"; Few outsiders get converted, wild oats are sown and the young men and woman eventually return to their close knit communities and settle down.
A side note to this is that there are also a ton of blogs written by married Mormon woman who give daily updates on their wonderful family activities. There is a huge audience for these blogs, mainly consisting of unchurched childless professional women living on the East Coast who adopt one or more of these sites and follow the families birthday parties, vacations and trips to the supermarket as if these were people they were related to.
From time to time I also run across sites where the author blogs about their atheistic beliefs. These sites usually have names like "Free Thinking Society" or "It IS all about me". An author of one such blog I came across this week proclaimed that since he had in the last 4 years covered about everything he could think of that this would be his last post. The post was very long and in it he highlighted all the various reasons that he had left the Catholic Church, examined with an open mind all the possibilities of the existence of God, and determined the folly of it all.
One such statement about a third of the way in seemed to me to jump off the page with flashing lights and peals of thunder and I knew that this was actually the crux of his problem with having faith in an unseen deity. He expressed anger that anyone would believe that god would make demands on us.
It's funny how different his path and thought process and mine would lead. I too was born and raised Catholic. Starting in high school and then college I became agnostic and then an atheist because I could not comprehend how God could be and could not say that I believed in something that was so far beyond my understanding. But I did have this thought that bothered me. To me it was only logical that IF there was God, and IF He knew who I was, then He Must have a will, a desire for the way I was to live my life. And If He had a desire for the way I was to live my life then logic said that things in my life would work out so much better if I knew what His will was.
The free thinker saw the will of God as a straight jacket. After I believed I understood the will of God as the source of all freedom.
Legendary musician Bob Dylan, in a song he wrote after his conversion experience, actually expressed the truth about how it is in this world for believer and non believer alike. We may think we are calling our own shots, but Dylan writes:
"You may be a state trooper, you might be a young turk
You may be the head of some big TV network
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame
You may be living in another country under another name
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, Yes
You're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord,
But you're gonna have to serve somebody."
Here is a post I wrote for my II Timothy 2:2 blog seven years ago. It is about faith and hopefully witnesses to the difference between faith and religion.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11: 1)
Thus begins the great chapter on faith found in the Book of Hebrews. The word "now" brings us back to the theme found in the previous chapter. The people the author of Hebrews wrote to were enduring very difficult times. Jewish by birth or as converts they had come by faith to know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Now, instead of being led to the knowledge of the truth by Jewish customs, laws and sacrifices they had something much better; "And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us . . . saying, 'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days says the Lord; I will put My laws upon their hearts, and upon their mind I will write them' " (Hebrews 10: 15-16)
The Jewish people had a temple which was patterned after the wilderness tabernacle, which itself was patterned after a tabernacle in Heaven. In the wilderness tabernacle there was a most holy place where the presence of God resided, the entrance blocked by a veil. Every year the Jewish high priest would enter through the veil into the most holy place to sprinkle the blood of a sacrifice as an offering for the sins of the nation. At the moment Jesus died on the cross the actual veil in the temple in Jerusalem, said to be two inches thick, tore from top to bottom. From then on all men, not just Jews, could come before the presence of God through the blood of Jesus; "by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh". (v. 20) Jesus offered His own blood in the original tabernacle in Heaven as an offering for our sins, and He becomes, for all who come to Him by faith, "a great high priest".
This high priest does not have to continually offer His blood as a sacrifice for our sins. It was offered, once for all; "But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God". (v. 12) When we come to Him by faith the Holy Spirit, because of the shed blood of Jesus, can bring the Spirit of Christ into our hearts so that we can become a new creation. The blood of Christ is not applied each time we sin. Instead, at conversion, it has changed who we are. We now have relationship with Jesus brought about through our faith in His shed blood for us. Out of that relationship develops fellowship with Him. Sin and rebellion affect the closeness of our fellowship. Yet the Holy Spirit is able to cleanse our body and our soul to restore any lost fellowship. The Spirit calls, revealing to us who Jesus is. We answer by faith, receiving new life by having a changed spirit. Our spirit or heart has now become a temple for the Holy Spirit who will guide us and enable us to have fellowship with the Father.
God is now truly our Father and Jesus, the first born of creation, is not only our High Priest, our Lord and Savior, but in a real sense is also our brother. Although Jesus became man and lived among us in this physical world, experience the good things that the physical world has, He was also tempted as we are and endured suffering and sorrow. Jesus, with a resurrected physical body, resides in Heaven and although we still have a not yet resurrected physical body our true citizenship is no longer in this physical world. Jesus leads us by the gentle prodding of the Spirit to a life that can overcome the world.
There are different kinds of faith. One leads to our eternal salvation, a salvation which we will know and experience in our lives now. It begins with faith, changes who we are, and positions us to be a holy people before the Lord for eternity. We are a holy people, not by what we do but by what He has already done. Through the blood of Jesus we have already overcome the world. But being in the world still affects both our walk with Christ and the fellowship that He greatly desires with us now.
A second kind of faith gives us the ability to resist the compromises of this world. We are confronted by attacks that are physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, and each one is a type of persecution designed by the enemy to take something away from us and to thus rob us of our fellowship with the Father. The enemy wants us to focus on the pain and struggles at hand, or on the false promises of happiness and security that the world seems to provide. But God has provided for us another Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who will help us through the struggles of today and lead us toward the direction that God has planned for us. The Hebrew Christians, being in a time of great stress, wanted the comfort of familiar customs and ritual. They were looking at their lives from the lens of where they were and not from the perspective of where God was leading them.
Thus we see the context of the faith examples in Hebrews 11. Even though these are Old Testament examples they are testimonies that God will reward those who have to make difficult choices because they saw by faith a greater reality. Many did not see or experience the full evidence of the promises during their physical lives but their obedience to the word that God gave them made possible the plan that God desired for them and their offspring. Many had to wait until only a miracle of God could make happen His promise and although discouraged they still trusted, finally seeing in a physical sense what they had already through faith saw in their hearts.
We live in a culture that does not trust that God knows what is best for us. Instead of searching the scriptures with an open and humble heart to hear the Spirit and discover the heart of God for us, instead of confessing our sins before God and man and taking steps to change as the Spirit leads, and instead of carving out of our lives the time needed to fellowship with our Father, we would rather have the comforts of religious laws and customs with the option of disagreeing with the particular tenants that make us uncomfortable.
By faith we come to know God. By faith we begin to understand that His promises are just and true and that He can accomplish in and for us all that He promised.
"Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful". (v. 22-23)
On the other hand those links have brought me to a mixture of the bizzar to the truly mundane with a hefty portion of Mormon sites in between. It seems that every lonely Mormon on mission must when they get back to their apartment dismount their bike, loosen their tie, take off their white shirt and black pants, grab some cold KFC and sit at the computer blogging about the kingdom so that Elder so and so who overseas their district will not suspect that it is actually party time tonight. This can all be an elaborate game because the Elders understand that Mormon mission usually serves the same purpose as the Amish "rumspringa"; Few outsiders get converted, wild oats are sown and the young men and woman eventually return to their close knit communities and settle down.
A side note to this is that there are also a ton of blogs written by married Mormon woman who give daily updates on their wonderful family activities. There is a huge audience for these blogs, mainly consisting of unchurched childless professional women living on the East Coast who adopt one or more of these sites and follow the families birthday parties, vacations and trips to the supermarket as if these were people they were related to.
From time to time I also run across sites where the author blogs about their atheistic beliefs. These sites usually have names like "Free Thinking Society" or "It IS all about me". An author of one such blog I came across this week proclaimed that since he had in the last 4 years covered about everything he could think of that this would be his last post. The post was very long and in it he highlighted all the various reasons that he had left the Catholic Church, examined with an open mind all the possibilities of the existence of God, and determined the folly of it all.
One such statement about a third of the way in seemed to me to jump off the page with flashing lights and peals of thunder and I knew that this was actually the crux of his problem with having faith in an unseen deity. He expressed anger that anyone would believe that god would make demands on us.
It's funny how different his path and thought process and mine would lead. I too was born and raised Catholic. Starting in high school and then college I became agnostic and then an atheist because I could not comprehend how God could be and could not say that I believed in something that was so far beyond my understanding. But I did have this thought that bothered me. To me it was only logical that IF there was God, and IF He knew who I was, then He Must have a will, a desire for the way I was to live my life. And If He had a desire for the way I was to live my life then logic said that things in my life would work out so much better if I knew what His will was.
The free thinker saw the will of God as a straight jacket. After I believed I understood the will of God as the source of all freedom.
Legendary musician Bob Dylan, in a song he wrote after his conversion experience, actually expressed the truth about how it is in this world for believer and non believer alike. We may think we are calling our own shots, but Dylan writes:
"You may be a state trooper, you might be a young turk
You may be the head of some big TV network
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame
You may be living in another country under another name
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, Yes
You're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord,
But you're gonna have to serve somebody."
Here is a post I wrote for my II Timothy 2:2 blog seven years ago. It is about faith and hopefully witnesses to the difference between faith and religion.
"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11: 1)
Thus begins the great chapter on faith found in the Book of Hebrews. The word "now" brings us back to the theme found in the previous chapter. The people the author of Hebrews wrote to were enduring very difficult times. Jewish by birth or as converts they had come by faith to know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Now, instead of being led to the knowledge of the truth by Jewish customs, laws and sacrifices they had something much better; "And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us . . . saying, 'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days says the Lord; I will put My laws upon their hearts, and upon their mind I will write them' " (Hebrews 10: 15-16)
The Jewish people had a temple which was patterned after the wilderness tabernacle, which itself was patterned after a tabernacle in Heaven. In the wilderness tabernacle there was a most holy place where the presence of God resided, the entrance blocked by a veil. Every year the Jewish high priest would enter through the veil into the most holy place to sprinkle the blood of a sacrifice as an offering for the sins of the nation. At the moment Jesus died on the cross the actual veil in the temple in Jerusalem, said to be two inches thick, tore from top to bottom. From then on all men, not just Jews, could come before the presence of God through the blood of Jesus; "by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh". (v. 20) Jesus offered His own blood in the original tabernacle in Heaven as an offering for our sins, and He becomes, for all who come to Him by faith, "a great high priest".
This high priest does not have to continually offer His blood as a sacrifice for our sins. It was offered, once for all; "But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God". (v. 12) When we come to Him by faith the Holy Spirit, because of the shed blood of Jesus, can bring the Spirit of Christ into our hearts so that we can become a new creation. The blood of Christ is not applied each time we sin. Instead, at conversion, it has changed who we are. We now have relationship with Jesus brought about through our faith in His shed blood for us. Out of that relationship develops fellowship with Him. Sin and rebellion affect the closeness of our fellowship. Yet the Holy Spirit is able to cleanse our body and our soul to restore any lost fellowship. The Spirit calls, revealing to us who Jesus is. We answer by faith, receiving new life by having a changed spirit. Our spirit or heart has now become a temple for the Holy Spirit who will guide us and enable us to have fellowship with the Father.
God is now truly our Father and Jesus, the first born of creation, is not only our High Priest, our Lord and Savior, but in a real sense is also our brother. Although Jesus became man and lived among us in this physical world, experience the good things that the physical world has, He was also tempted as we are and endured suffering and sorrow. Jesus, with a resurrected physical body, resides in Heaven and although we still have a not yet resurrected physical body our true citizenship is no longer in this physical world. Jesus leads us by the gentle prodding of the Spirit to a life that can overcome the world.
There are different kinds of faith. One leads to our eternal salvation, a salvation which we will know and experience in our lives now. It begins with faith, changes who we are, and positions us to be a holy people before the Lord for eternity. We are a holy people, not by what we do but by what He has already done. Through the blood of Jesus we have already overcome the world. But being in the world still affects both our walk with Christ and the fellowship that He greatly desires with us now.
A second kind of faith gives us the ability to resist the compromises of this world. We are confronted by attacks that are physical, mental, emotional and spiritual, and each one is a type of persecution designed by the enemy to take something away from us and to thus rob us of our fellowship with the Father. The enemy wants us to focus on the pain and struggles at hand, or on the false promises of happiness and security that the world seems to provide. But God has provided for us another Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who will help us through the struggles of today and lead us toward the direction that God has planned for us. The Hebrew Christians, being in a time of great stress, wanted the comfort of familiar customs and ritual. They were looking at their lives from the lens of where they were and not from the perspective of where God was leading them.
Thus we see the context of the faith examples in Hebrews 11. Even though these are Old Testament examples they are testimonies that God will reward those who have to make difficult choices because they saw by faith a greater reality. Many did not see or experience the full evidence of the promises during their physical lives but their obedience to the word that God gave them made possible the plan that God desired for them and their offspring. Many had to wait until only a miracle of God could make happen His promise and although discouraged they still trusted, finally seeing in a physical sense what they had already through faith saw in their hearts.
We live in a culture that does not trust that God knows what is best for us. Instead of searching the scriptures with an open and humble heart to hear the Spirit and discover the heart of God for us, instead of confessing our sins before God and man and taking steps to change as the Spirit leads, and instead of carving out of our lives the time needed to fellowship with our Father, we would rather have the comforts of religious laws and customs with the option of disagreeing with the particular tenants that make us uncomfortable.
By faith we come to know God. By faith we begin to understand that His promises are just and true and that He can accomplish in and for us all that He promised.
"Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful". (v. 22-23)
Monday, May 25, 2015
This Memorial Day
Perhaps it was his face
the WWII vet
riding shotgun in a new Ford Mustang
from the curb I and those around me
applauding each man and woman
from different wars and conflicts
but he did more than wave back
he smiled, shyly, genuine
thank you he softly said
to us he said thank you
Close to where I now live
is a cemetery where
once a year someone reads names
all those from our pleasant town
who served with honor
here the march always ends
and as the bands approach
quiet save the cadence of drums
the mayor checks his notes
and a soldier unpacks his bugle
When he was alive and healthy
my father would rise early
join fellows from the local Legion
place flags by granite stones
each man and woman would be remembered
but he did not want to join the parade
one day I asked why
and he said it just wasn't him
dad was proud to have served
but he saw no glory in war
I saw my father today
in the faces of many who passed by
eyes that knew
posture and chins that said
duty and honor
even the old dude ignoring the crowd
telling a story to his driver
these are just dads and moms I thought
dressed in faded uniforms
who made this day possible
the WWII vet
riding shotgun in a new Ford Mustang
from the curb I and those around me
applauding each man and woman
from different wars and conflicts
but he did more than wave back
he smiled, shyly, genuine
thank you he softly said
to us he said thank you
Close to where I now live
is a cemetery where
once a year someone reads names
all those from our pleasant town
who served with honor
here the march always ends
and as the bands approach
quiet save the cadence of drums
the mayor checks his notes
and a soldier unpacks his bugle
When he was alive and healthy
my father would rise early
join fellows from the local Legion
place flags by granite stones
each man and woman would be remembered
but he did not want to join the parade
one day I asked why
and he said it just wasn't him
dad was proud to have served
but he saw no glory in war
I saw my father today
in the faces of many who passed by
eyes that knew
posture and chins that said
duty and honor
even the old dude ignoring the crowd
telling a story to his driver
these are just dads and moms I thought
dressed in faded uniforms
who made this day possible
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Review - Zane's Birthday Party
It is evident that every birthday party by necessity needs both a protagonist and a hero/heroine. In the case of a four year old's birthday the hero definitely is going to be the young boy who exclaimed when opening his super sized Nurf repeat shot blaster; I love this! I love this! I love this! Lucky we opened presents after eating because Zane's hands never let go of that gun for the rest of the day. No doubt he is sleeping with it as I write.
The party began earlier in the day when Jackie and I arrived to find Zane and some of his sisters and cousins playing on their new but used swing set. The set has a wood platform the kids can play in and they quickly invited me to climb the stairs and go into their fort. Once I surprised them by actually getting there they promptly kicked me out via the slide and told me that I was to be the enemy.
Those were just the words I was waiting for. You see this was to be a squirt gun party (guns are very big for Zane right now. Last week he sternly told his mom that she must take him to the gun store so he could get squirt guns for the party). Knowing this I came prepared. Their little guns would hold a small amount of water but the guns that Jackie picked up for me at the local Goodwill store were pretty big.
"Wait here kids" I told them. When I came back with guns blazing the war began. It was 1 against 8 to begin with but I held my own. More family arrived which meant reinforcements for those brave lads and lassies but without any additional help for me from my "Oh don't shoot me" sissy girls and their laughing husbands. After awhile a sure fact of life occurred to me. I would get not only very wet but also quite tired and would need a time out. They had no off button and did not really believe me when I told them that the garage was a safe place where no one was allowed to squirt anyone.
Eventually we all dried off or changed, ate our fill, opened presents, enjoyed cake and cup cakes and then the adults were left alone to tell our stories. I will sleep well and happy tonight.
The party began earlier in the day when Jackie and I arrived to find Zane and some of his sisters and cousins playing on their new but used swing set. The set has a wood platform the kids can play in and they quickly invited me to climb the stairs and go into their fort. Once I surprised them by actually getting there they promptly kicked me out via the slide and told me that I was to be the enemy.
Those were just the words I was waiting for. You see this was to be a squirt gun party (guns are very big for Zane right now. Last week he sternly told his mom that she must take him to the gun store so he could get squirt guns for the party). Knowing this I came prepared. Their little guns would hold a small amount of water but the guns that Jackie picked up for me at the local Goodwill store were pretty big.
"Wait here kids" I told them. When I came back with guns blazing the war began. It was 1 against 8 to begin with but I held my own. More family arrived which meant reinforcements for those brave lads and lassies but without any additional help for me from my "Oh don't shoot me" sissy girls and their laughing husbands. After awhile a sure fact of life occurred to me. I would get not only very wet but also quite tired and would need a time out. They had no off button and did not really believe me when I told them that the garage was a safe place where no one was allowed to squirt anyone.
Eventually we all dried off or changed, ate our fill, opened presents, enjoyed cake and cup cakes and then the adults were left alone to tell our stories. I will sleep well and happy tonight.
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