Jesus, Friend of All

(Hello again; hopefully I’m back for a little while. I took a small vacation from the blogging world, but I hope to get back a little bit soon. Thanks for your patience.)

Jesus was undoubtedly the most influential man in the entire Bible. There were great prophets, gifted speakers, and even radical converts, but the words that weigh heaviest and are most awe-inspiring are the ones Jesus spoke.

One of the most encouraging passages in my mind of Jesus’ is Matthew 9:10-13, where Jesus is dining with Matthew at his house.

Throughout the course of the Gospels, Jesus is tried countless times regarding the validity of His being the Son of God, and I am always fascinated by His quick and applicable answers. When the Pharisees tried to trick him by asking if the tax should be paid, He had the perfect answer, which avoided stirring up anger for either the Romans or the taxpayers. The same quick wit and ability to counter these tricks is seen in Matthew 9:10-13: “10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

Nowadays, people in high authority or power do not mingle with the lower people. They tend to stick to their high-class, enjoying the admiration they receive from the lower classes and association with the associates in the high-class. But Jesus, Friend of all, was not like that in any sense. He would eat meals on the beach with fishermen, borrow a donkey to ride, borrow a small room for His last meal, and literally lived a life of servitude to people who had no idea who He was. He did not take advantage of His being God for Himself, but used it to benefit the people. He came to heal the people, both physically in some cases and spiritual in all cases. He, in his powerful position, came not to lead but to serve the lowest people he could find. Unlucky fishermen He made his second-in-command, and a tax-collector, one of the most scorned men around, he took into His company too. He made time for the lower-class citizen’s children, and approached the ones the rest of the world avoided. He was a caring, loving God. He was a friend of all. And He still is a friend of all. He sends forth men and women to other countries, to other states, to other cities, and to their own dwellings to bring the news of Christ to the world. So how can we not speak out? How can we stay silent? How can we love and serve Jesus, who devoted His entire existence on earth to serving “the least of these”, if we don’t follow His divine example? You don’t have to be low-class to reach the needy, nor do you have to be high-class to be able to do something. Reach out to those who are neglected by the world, reach out to those who have been neglected by the rest. Serve those who have never been served before – and do it all in the name of Jesus.

Christophobia

Apologetics Press released a thought provoking article yesterday that I thought was worthy of sharing. (Read original and view additional material here)

 

 Dave Miller, Ph.D.

Q:

Are Christians “homophobic”?

A:

The PC crowd regularly and incessantly levels charges of “phobia” against all those who disagree with them on any number of moral issues.¹ If you believe the Bible teaches that homosexuality is sinful, you are declared “homophobic” or “lesbophobic”; if you believe Islam is a false religion that endangers the American way of life, you are deemed “Islamophobic”; if you are concerned about the moral and spiritual impact on the nation of those who enter America illegally, you are labeled “xenophobic”; if you believe in the God of the Bible and consider atheism to be false, you are “atheophobic”; if you believe transgenderism is a mental illness, you are demeaned as “transphobic”; and the list goes on.

These charges are unfounded, inaccurate, and untrue. True Christians are not irrationally afraid of such things. Rather, they have given considered analysis to each issue, including a careful assessment of what the Bible teaches (and, generally, what once characterized American civilization), and concluded that these behaviors are immoral and harmful to society. Neither do they fear murderers, thieves, or fornicators. Rather they recognize such behaviors as sinful in God’s sight, unhealthy and detrimental to civil society, and actions that will ultimately cost the practitioner his soul for all eternity (Galatians 5:19-21; Revelation 21:8). True Christians love such people and experience genuine sorrow over their self-destructive condition (Matthew 5:44; 23:37; Ezekiel 18:32).

Yet, error is always inconsistent, hypocritical, and actually guilty of the malady it decries. The same people who fill the airways with their cries of “intolerance!” and “judgmental!” are the very ones who are extremely intolerant, judgmental, and fearful (phobic) of anything or anyone who believes in the Bible and Christianity. Indeed, they are Christophobic—irrationally afraid of and bitterly opposed to the precepts of Christ and the biblical principles on which America was founded.

Satan has always been “slick” in his ability to divert attention away from spiritual reality and generate opposition against the truth—like the Wizard of Oz who said, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”² Sinful, wicked behaviors as defined by Deity are damaging to people physically and spiritually. They cannot be justified or dismissed as trivial simply because those who champion them mischaracterize the righteous as “phobic” or “hateful.” Those who speak against moral, godly principles—and those who defend them—are truly guilty of “hate speech.”

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness” (Isaiah 5:20). “But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness” (2 Peter 2:12-13).

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness…, evil-mindedness; they are…haters of God…, inventors of evil things…, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them (Romans 1:28-32).

ENDNOTES

¹ Tommy Christopher (2016), “Here’s the Full Context of Hillary Clinton’s ‘Basket of Deplorables’ Remark About Trump Supporters,” Mediaite, September 10, https://goo.gl/KivljF.

² The Wizard of Oz (1939), “Quotes,” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/quotes.

Copyright © 2016 Apologetics Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Not Peace but Division

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three (Luke 12:49-52).” This is very contradictory to a sermon I heard about two years ago. The speaker was saying how Jesus came to bring joy and peace to this world. While He did bring joy, peace has not been here for quite some time. While the speaker had some interesting points and five verses to back up his position, I think he missed this verse.
I did not want to bash his sermon; that is not the purpose of this post. I wanted to go more into the verse above, and simply thought it was interesting that these verses contradicted each other. Or do they? Look at the context in the first verse a little closer. “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and I wish it were already kindled!” He is speaking metaphorically at the time, obviously. He is not kindling a physical fire. But if you think about a fire, kindling it is what gets it started strong. It’s what gets it started. He came to open the doors between mankind and God. He was kindling the overall plan for man. He was getting God’s operation started. Now, look at the next sentence: “But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” Well, if you recall, He was already baptized in Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, and John’s recollection of it in John 1. So why would He need to be baptized again? Take a look at these two verses:
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matt. 3:11).” “I baptize you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8).” The baptism that Jesus was referring to was his crucifixion; the release of His Holy Spirit and being bathed in His blood. Jesus was referring to His crucifixion which would occur years later.
“And what constraint I am under until it is completed!” This is His desire to miss the crucifixion; to escape from His death. We can see His distressed self showing in Matthew 26:37-45 (Gethsemane prayer). He is weeping and asking that the cup, the symbol He uses for His blood at the Last Supper, might be removed from Him. Or in other words, that He might be granted free from the yoke and pain of the crucifixion that would only days after occur. But God did not remove His yoke, for to do so would make Jesus’ entire reason for being on earth go viral.
Why do you think it is that God came to bring division on the earth?
In my mind, it is not as we envision. From this verse and other verses, we see Jesus speaking in parables, and often with hidden meanings that we cannot detect. It is so here.
He did not come to rouse the people up and fight with one another. He came to bring Christianity and salvation into the world, and in doing so, brought division and persecution and hate and all those things that are familiar to Christians, both in America and foreign countries. Couldn’t God prevent that? Yes. But then that would invalidate His words, “…Take up your cross, and follow me (Matt. 16:24)” Christianity will not be easy. There will be a constant struggle against mankind and the devil himself. But when it is over, your reward – an eternity with Jesus Christ – will be oh-so worth it!

New Blog!

Hello all. A Message for the Messenger has been going for a little over a year now, and I had made plans for expansion. Well, I’ve branched off of A Message for the Messenger into a new blog, God’s Law and Order. This new blog is about America’s decisions and how they line up with God’s commands, rules, etc. So if you’re interested in God’s Law and Order, check it out – I just officially launched today. A Message for the Messenger will still be in operation, but I branched out to my new blog as well. I can’t wait to see you there!

New Year’s Challenge

It appears to be a Christian’s New Year’s ambition to read the Bible through-and-through every new year. That’s great, I make that ambition too, and fail most years. But I thought of one that y’all might enjoy doing as well. I’m doing NCFCA (view website here) speech club, and a part of their apologetics course is to create one or two (or seven) index cards for each ‘topic’. The topics categorize different questions that we might be asked, for example, one topic might be anything about Jesus’ incarnation, another one about His resurrection, and so forth. So I was wondering if y’all wanted to do something like that, but online. I can pose a question, and y’all can submit an answer within a good amount of time; say, a week or so. You can either do an audio recording, or you can do a written response, but I at least want a two-minute (if audio) answer, and a similar reading time (for you) if written. If you want to participate in this activity, comment below and leave your email in the comment. If there is addition text in the comment besides your email, I will leave that, but I want to make it clear that your email will not be published online by me, or given to anybody else. All comments on my blog have to go through moderation by me first, so I will copy your email and then delete it permanently from my blog.
So join me if you will, I’d love to cover these questions with y’all. This is a really great way to get you thinking, researching, and answering questions you might not give much thought to normally. I’d also love to hear some of y’all’s New Year’s’ resolutions!

Great Post

Check out this great post by Brooklyn over at Blue:

Tomorrow Might Not Exist

Bad Things Part I

So many non-believers, and some believers even, ask the question – why do bad things happen to good people? You might have heard the answer, you might not have. I don’t know. But I will tell you why bad things happen to good people.

It starts in Genesis, chapter 3, verses 1-6, and continues in verses 16-19: “Now the serpent was craftier than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’ The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it…To the woman, He said, ‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you’. To Adam, he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, You must not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.’”

Here, if we examine this segment of Scripture, we will notice 3 key points in this passage: 1. He gives us free will, 2. He warns us, and 3. He corrects us. I have titled my three key points: The Free will, The Warning, and The Rebuking.

The Free Will
From the very beginning, God gave mankind a free will – that is, a free control over their entire lives. They can do whatever they want (with human restrictions, of course). But also, with that free will, came the ability to choose evil, and the ability to choose good. As it seems to be in this world, good makes no effort to look appealing, while sin appears to be glamorous and fun. It is a natural human reaction to want to go for the bigger, the better, the more fun (funner’s not a word), and the overall best-looking item you can receive. Why take the five-dollar gift when you could have the two-hundred-dollar one?
It is our natural human flesh to want to go the evil route. Is that any excuse? Not in the least. Here is a quote I found last week: “If God understands my humanity and sin nature better than I do, why does He still hold me accountable for what I cannot help doing?” (~Anonymous)
There is a big flaw in this statement above – you should see it. It is that wording on the end – what I cannot help doing.
Part of the thing that people like about the idea of free will the most is the ability to be free of control and authoritative powers. But part of free will is making choices. It’s not that we’re predestined to go the sinful route, as Anonymous is suggesting in the above quote. We made the choice for which God is holding us accountable. We could’ve chosen His route, but we didn’t. Why? Because the sin looked better!
Sin is like a curved road. You can’t see what lies around the corner, but the part you can see is all flowers and butterflies. It looks nice, relaxing, and maybe even fun to some people.
But around that corner is the future, in my analogy. Your ‘fun’ and ‘better’ stuff has long-lasting effects that may not set in until later! You may not realize that there are quicksand pits around the corner, but there are! No matter what kind of sin it is, if you choose the path of sin, there will be consequences sometime down the road – whether here on earth, or given to you by God Himself.
So does God just let us go down the road without knowing what’s around the corner? No. God gives us a fair warning before we go on any kind of trip, no matter how short.

The Warning
In verse 17 of chapter 2 in Genesis, God warns Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (discussed in verse 3 in the above passage) or else he will die. Fair warning, right? God does give us fair warnings! He warns us about upcoming events.
I read a biography of a Moldavian Christian martyr named Ivan (nicknamed ‘Vanya’) who was killed on July 16th, 1972 in the Red Army. Before his martyrdom, though, he had been the chauffeur for a young Red Army officer once. They were taking a load of bread to another army camp, and had securely double-latched it in the bed of their truck, along with a padlock. Along the way, Vanya heard God telling him to slow down. He was traveling at 37 mph and paid no attention to God’s warning. Again, God told him to slow down. Again, Vanya ignored him. Then, Vanya saw a piece of their bread sliding along the highway ahead of the truck. He stopped the truck and got out to see half of their bread load scattered back behind them on the highway. As they were picking it up, more vehicles passed them, including a black Ikarus bus. It took them about an hour to clean up all of their bread. When they got back on the road, they came to a large wreck, in which the black Ikarus bus had crashed into a construction crane, and there was a large pileup of cars with several casualties.

Luckily for us, sometimes when we ignore God’s warnings, He shows His mercy by forcing us to stop anyway. An example of this might be in Acts 16:7, in which it says: “When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.” Interesting wording, ‘not allow them to’.
Why does God warn us, if it is truly free will? One reason is to keep us safe, as in the example of Vanya and bread. He was forcing them to stop. But a lot of the time, and I will go so far as to say most of the time, God will just warn us once, and when we disobey, it’s our fault. Is this saying that He’s not a loving God? No, absolutely not. If He weren’t a loving God, then He wouldn’t warn us in the first place. But He does warn us about it. And we fail a lot of the time. It’s ok to fail, though. We are not failing life, or failing our purpose in life, we are just missing the goal of that one task. But that doesn’t mean that He just lets it slip by, either.

The Rebuking
Every time that we fail in something, we are entitled to a rebuke. Whether this rebuke comes from God, your boss, a parent, or someone else, is entirely dependant upon the situation. But no matter what, we will mess up, and we will be in need of being correction.
You can see that Adam and Eve were sternly rebuked in verses 16-19 [of chapter 3]. In fact, their rebuke was so severe that it would also influence the entire world ever after them. Women giving birth would be a painful process, working hard in the fields would be painful process, and the land would rise up against mankind pretty much. Now the only representatives of the human race have failed, and their one little failure to keep God’s one and only command ever issued them (up to that time) they missed by a long shot! How could they fall for a mere fruit?
Remember what the chapter said earlier, though. Verse 6: “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some an ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” The temptation presented by the serpent made her view the fruit with a new mindset, and that mindset was only: “Look at how good it looks! It would make me know everything!” She probably didn’t even know that bad things were possible. I mean, if you lived in a perfect garden and had no issues or troubles at all, wouldn’t you agree that it would be hard to imagine imperfect life with struggles and pain and hardships? According to God’s Words in verse 18, “it will produce thorns and thistles for you…”. There were no thorns, no thistles, etc. These painful nuisances came after The Fall, as God said. (Most likely there were already mosquitoes and ticks, but apparently they did something else besides their present-day purpose. I don’t know, I could be wrong.)
Punishment is sometimes severe. Adam and Eve probably thought that the curse bestowed upon mankind was only for them, until they saw their kids go through it, and their grandkids, and their great-grandkids, and their great-great-grandkids, and so on. How awful they must have felt, watching their daughter go into labor or watching their son out plowing the field, and knowing that it was because they ate the little fruit.
Adam and Eve were also outcasts. “So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.(Gen. 3:23)” Can you imagine being cast out of your home into a strange new wilderness that stretched as far as the eye could see – no matter how far you traveled? They weren’t in a nice walled garden anymore. They were in the wilderness – where vicious animals roamed, strange new insects were drawing their blood, and prickly plants were scratching their legs to ribbons. Can you imagine being sent out into a wilderness, all alone, your Creator upset with you, and not knowing where to go. Oh, and don’t forget the cherubim with the flaming sword that kicked them out of the garden – officially. How could they put up with such stress and heartache? After all, that was the first time for them to feel it!

So, to conclude, I want to answer my original question – why do bad things happen to good people? I explained the origin of bad things and sin. And Adam and Eve really were good people, even though people often look down at them. There’s a biblical example right there of bad things happening to good people. But remember – and this is the answer to the question – we have been given the choice by free will. The choice to take God’s path or our sin nature path. The path to life or the path to death. The path to good things, or the path to bad things.
There is a bit more to talk about, but for the sake of time, I will save that for part II.

When is it Right to be Angry?

Today I was asked when it was right to be angry (to submit questions, you can go here). That was a very good question and a hard one to answer at that. But I did a little bit of research throughout the Bible and came up with a conclusion that some of you might not have noticed before. Having gone through the Old Testament, I noticed three main mentions of anger: 1.) the Lord’s anger, not to be questioned; 2.) mankind’s wrathful anger; 3.) mankind’s rightful anger. I would like to cover those main anger areas in the Bible and discover how we should respond if we should encounter anger in any situation.

1.) God’s Anger

Throughout the Old Testament (primarily) we see God’s anger displayed a lot. A great example of this are the Israelites. Exodus 32:10-11 says this: “Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.’ But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God. “O LORD,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?” God sought to destroy the Israelites. Or did He? He did not seek to destroy the Israelites; He sought to destroy the wicked Israelites. This is what I’m getting at. God doesn’t want to destroy His people. Look at Numbers 14:18: “‘The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.'” The Israelites the Lord was talking about were wicked; they had turned from God. This is God’s righteous anger – not that He has any other kind of anger. Notice that Numbers 14:18 says that He is “slow to anger”, yet we see the Bible mention God’s anger so many times in the Bible. Well, the Bible’s not lying; He is slow to anger. Yet we as humans fail so often that He is constantly provoked to anger. Deuteronomy 9:7: “Remember this and never forget how you provoked the LORD your God to anger in the desert. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the LORD”  the Israelites provoked God to anger through their continuous rebellion against Him and His commands. And their actions had consequences. Numbers 20:11-12: “Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’” Because Moses disobeyed God and Aaron did not stop him from disobeying God, they were not allowed to enter into the promised land. Those are severe punishments, but they are inflicted by our sinful actions. So basically, God’s anger is provoked by our rebellion and sins against Him and His commandments.

2. Mankind’s Wrathful Anger

Many people view “wrath” and “anger” as synonyms, but I do not believe they are. Anger is defined as “having a strong feeling of being upset or annoyed”, while “wrath” is “extreme anger”. Wrath is a lot more severe than regular anger, and thus takes on more severe consequences for the wrong usage. The original question was “When is it right to be angry?”.  Anger is a very overused emotion. People indulge in anger way too often, and many people struggle with anger issues. King Henry (father of King Richard [the Lion Heart]) of England would often fly into a “black rage”, destroying things, cursing people, and implementing overly harsh punishments. It is in these outbreaks that he would do awful things he would later regret. It was during one such time that he unknowingly sentenced his best friend to death that very night. So, was he angry? No. He was wrathful. Anger is simply being very annoyed or upset, while wrath is the desire to make your anger “even” if you will. You want vengeance, you want to get even with someone (most of the time.) This is a very dangerous feeling to have, and often leads to dangerous consequences. The Roman Emperor Theodosius had an issue with wrathful anger. He once sent his Roman army to put down a riot, and “without regard to guilt or innocence, seven thousand men, women, and children were massacred” (Richard Hannula, Trial and Triumph, pg. 37). The book also said that he confessed his sin and promised to check his anger by sentencing himself to a 30 day cooling period before sentencing anybody to death. This was a wise action, as he was prone to respond wrathfully.

So basically, man’s wrathful anger leads to destruction, and sometimes death. A man with wrathful anger is to be shunned; he is nothing but trouble.

3.) Mankind’s Rightful Anger

I guess this is what I was trying to get to the whole time. When is it right for man to be angry? After a short study of the Scriptures, I’ve come to two reasons to be angry at something/someone.

1. Injustice

Genesis 39:19: “When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, ‘This is how your slave treated me,’ he burned with anger.” This is an example of (supposed) injustice. Potiphar’s wife claimed that Joseph sinned against Potiphar’s wife, and Potiphar “burned with anger”. Why? He trusted Joseph; he appointed him the highest position in his household. If Joseph truly had committed that deed, it would’ve been a just anger against injustice. This is one reason to be angry. Or is it? What about the little injustices, like somebody cutting in front of you? Isn’t that an injustice? Yes. But is it a good reason to be angry? Not at all. So, injustices are not a good reason to get angry. But what about the verse above? The supposed action in the verse above is sin. Cutting in front of somebody is sin. Kidnapping somebody is a sin. As I heard the other night, it’s good to be angry at what God is angry at. So then, I can come to the conclusion that there is one good reason to get angry:

2. 1. Sin

Sin is a very good reason to be angry. Jesus was often angered by mankind’s sins. Mark 3:5 says “He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.” Jesus was angered at the Pharisees who were trying to trap Him in his words. He was angered at their un-acceptance towards His words, trying to trap Him in everything He said. He was also angered by their unwillingness to change, or rather, their legalism. But that’s a topic that I will talk about another time, for sure.

So what is my conclusion? It is right to be angry against sin and injustice (just like Planned Parenthood, Kim Davis, and gay marriage –  read my thoughts on it here). But it is not right to be angry about anything else. Look at the following verses:

“For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. ” – 2 Cor. 12:20

“‘In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, ” – Eph. 4:26

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. ” – Eph. 4:31

“But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ” – Col. 3:8

“I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing. ” – 1 Tim. 2:8

“My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” – James 1:19-20

The Bible says that we should drop all anger, all wrath, and instead lift up holy hands in prayer and focus on God instead of all of the things on the side that draws Christians away from studying the Scriptures and instead brings around arguing and division. Focus on Christ. Be slow to anger, just as God is, but know that it is right to be angry under the correct circumstances.

The Man Behind the Door

All of us have had friends before. And with every one that has passed, there has been a little piece of hurt thrust into your life. As you get older these hurts increase. I moved to Houston when I was six or seven, but I didn’t feel much true hurt about leaving everybody I knew – I was young! I didn’t understand the meaning of true friendship. But then when my first ever best friend left our church and I never ever saw him again, that was probably my first friend-loss hurt that I’ve ever had. It happened again when we moved, except much more dramatic.
My point is that there is hurt in every one of us – hurt that is almost impossible to comfort by our own efforts. And who really wants to go around broadcasting that hurt to every person on the planet? No one wants all these sympathizers coming to them, and in reality, who would really care about a random person’s hurts?
We need to care. I am going to try to address the need to care, the desire to care, and the reason to care. These are crucial to being a good trustworthy friend.

          The Need to Care
A few months ago I learned that the person who I considered to be my best friend did not feel the same way about me. That discovery brought a whirlwind of hurt, pain, and dislike for that person into my life. The person that I called a best friend really was not my best friend. Or was it really that way?
If we are going to be good best friends, we need to understand this concept: Sometimes people are there for you, and sometimes you are there for them. You shouldn’t be able to look at your friendship as looking in a mirror. You shouldn’t be linked identical-to-identical; friendships don’t typically work that way. Most of the time, God brings people into your life to encourage you, heal you from previous wounds, mentor you, or just be a guide for you. But in order for this rule to be true, it has to go both ways. In mathematical terms, it has to be commutative. If this applies for all people, it applies to you and to your best friend. That means that if your best friend (in your eyes) does not consider you his/her best friend, maybe he is only there for you, and you are getting what you can from him. But what if there’s this guy (or girl in a girl’s case; let’s not make this awkward) that considers you his(/her) best friend, but you really don’t care for them? At all. Maybe you are there for them. But here’s something important about this rule that you have to understand: you have to care for that person! You have to desire to care. Here’s a quote I was shown today:
“I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most, to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return.”

       The Desire to Care
Why should we be given the desire to care? Well, love stems from care, and the two greatest commandments are all about loving God and man; that should be reason enough.
But in case it’s not, you should remember a time when your life was falling apart at the seams, where everything was crumbling around you, and where your life was pretty much chaos and confusion. And do you remember how good prayer from another person felt? It is so nice when you are in need and receive prayer.
I heard a story a month or so ago at a church, where this speaker was talking about an uncle of his, who refused to get saved until a few months before his death (he had cancer). The speaker proceeded to say that after he (his uncle) was saved, he witnessed to more people in his few remaining months than most Christians do in their entire lifetime.
This is the kind of care we should be having. Remembering how close we came to complete destruction should motivate us to help those who are on their way there.

The Reason to Care
The reason to care is a great one. What is it? God cared about us first, and we are to mirror the image of Christ in all that we do. Therefore we should be kind and considerate and caring to those around us who love us. Also, we often care out of love for that person. If you love someone, you will mind if they get injured or are going through a hard time. It’s just something that you should do. That is the reason to care – out of love.
In conclusion, I want to draw out my original point. All of us have friends or people we know. All people are hurting. That means your friend is hurting. That means his friend is hurting. That means you are hurting. You may not realize it, but there is hurt there. There is pain there. There is sorrow there. You may be ignoring it and thus unaware of its presence, but believe me the pain is still present. So, do you want to have a friendship on the surface, or do you want to know the man behind the door?

America Has Fallen

Today, I want you to take a moment to pray for America. America has fallen, ladies and gentlemen. We have lost a war against evil in America. That’s why gay marriage is allowed for the entire U.S., an act which goes against our Constitution, by the way. Us Christians stood by the sidelines and let this entire takeover occur. What do I mean? Just look at what has happened to our country! We used to proudly salute our flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance without question. Now, we have political candidates pressing to take the “under God” part out. And what has happened to our Constitution anyway? Deciding something for the entire country is not allowed on that small of a scale; it is left up to the individual states. It says so in the tenth amendment.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” ~ Amendment 10.
“Any power not listed, says the Tenth Amendment, is left to the states or the people. Although the Tenth Amendment does not specify what these “powers” may be, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that laws affecting family relations (such as marriage, divorce, and adoption), commerce that occurs within a state’s own borders, and local law enforcement activities, are among those specifically reserved to the states or the people.” (Quote taken from Constitution Center.
The US government has no authority to decide relations between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, just as they cannot say in the future that a man may not marry a woman, and vice-versa. They have no authority over those kinds of decisions; it is left up to the States.
Some states have decreed that you cannot say “he” or “she” or anything relating to the separation of genders within a government-run facility because it might offend the “others”. What others? God didn’t design anyone to be an “other”. It is male or female, just like He said in Genesis 2. He did not design any other gender. And now, sadly, it is acceptable and even applaudable that young children influenced by liberal propoganda are allowed to make a permanent, life altering decision as to what gender they prefer to be. Is this world dead or is this sickening to read in the news? Only Christians seem to care about the Oregon college shooting. Check out these quotes:
“As to Obama’s comments calling for stricter gun-control measures?
‘This is about good and evil and has nothing to do with gun control,’ McFarland adds in a press release. ‘This killer would have chosen any means to carry out his motive. The point is, without the God of the Bible, there is no hope.'”*
“Persecution and targeting of Christians isn’t just in Iran or the Middle East, it’s right here in America. The bold souls at Umpqua Community College who stood up to say they were followers of Jesus Christ were heinously gunned down with no mercy. Jesus said, ‘If they hate you, remember they hated me before they hated you.’ (John 15:18)”**
This brings me to my next topic. Persecution is being exercised in America now. The attacks started 9/11/01, but they grew so that our own country and congressmen are back-stabbing traitors. Take Kim Davis for example. She was asked to do something that Christians should be proud to resist, and thankfully, she did. But she was ostracized for it. She was sent to serve a jail sentence that was an undefined length, except that the judge promised she would be released upon her agreement to abide by his ruling. She refused. The media, public, and surprisingly, fellow Christians viciously spoke out against her, but she boldly stood strong in the faith and deflected their rebukes. By picking on Kim Davis, she showed the strength of God to the world in America.
“What law did Kim Davis break? When asked to cite the law that would justify her being handcuffed and locked up in a jail cell, opponents mumble and stumble and look at the floor. They have no answer because there is no answer. What Mrs. Davis did was uphold the law. The Constitution itself is silent about marriage, which means the issue, according to the 10th Amendment, is left to the states.”***
“The one violating the Constitution and the law here is the federal judge, David Bunning, who sent her to the slammer for keeping her oath of office. “***
What Mrs. Davis did was uphold the law. The Constitution itself is silent about marriage, which means the issue, according to the 10th Amendment, is left to the states.
That should not be happening! We should not be threatened with imprisonment for refusing to sign something that violates our faith in America! What happened to America being the “home of the free”? And what happened to the Eighth Amendment that states: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel or unusual punishments inflicted.” This is communist behavior in action! Only in the Communist East have I seen this kind of behavior. I must say that I am ashamed to have this kind of face for America. These stories are/were on mainstream news, being broadcasted world-wide to all different countries. What will they think about America’s behavior? But most importantly, what is God thinking right now? He detests this kind of behavior! Sure, people who endure persecution are blessed in His Kingdom, but that doesn’t mean He wants it for His people at all. This is sickening behavior for a country founded by Christian authors. Now think about this next step – it’s not too late to change some of the damage done to our country. That’s why this election will be so important. Who we elect determines the course of our country. I cannot imagine the detestable actions that would come upon America if Hillary Clinton were to be elected. She could make Obama’s work look like child’s play. Our government has failed before our eyes.
But we have strayed further than that, sadly. While praying for America, we cannot forget the apathetic attitude regarding the unborn. Abortion is a horrific thing; a way to legally excuse murdering a baby before he/she is born. But it is culturally accepted as a kind option for mothers. If a mother can’t support a child, we should murder it, right? If the baby will be born “different”, eliminate it, yes? And what if we really wanted a boy instead of a girl? China says that’s a great reason to abort! There are thousands of people who cannot be blessed with a baby and would love to adopt one. But people who do not care about God’s perfect plan for their child just take the child’s life before it can even say “mama”.
If you have not heard what’s up with Planned Parenthood, it’s kind of a big deal for us Christians to know about.  Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, is an established and obvious liar. Planned Parenthood has been suspected for years of many unethical and illegal wrongdoings, and when finally confronted with the truth, she denies (under oath) irrefutable evidence exposing their treachery. If you have not heard, there was a string of videos collected by people posing as potential clients who have captured illegal actions on video in the Planned Parenthood facilities. Huge crimes include the willingness to give an abortion to someone who was not of the age to receive one, selling organs at a non-profit organization, and other awful and unspeakable actions or willingness to undertake those actions. The thing that has caused debate is the fact that Planned Parenthood is a non-profit organization, meaning, it is funded by the government. The illegal actions should not be supported by the government, and the funding should stop immediately. Also, Cecile Richards has stated that abortions are only 3% of the services they offer, when in actuality, that number is 86%. She also purports that they are in the business of providing general women’s health care, for example, offering mammograms, despite the actuality that not one of their 600+ facilities world-wide are equipped to provide this service.
“Big news happened today,” said Matt Walsh last week. “Planned Parenthood testified on Capitol Hill. Fittingly for an organization that murders 300 thousand children a year, it was a bloodbath. Planned Parenthood lies about literally everything, nothing they say about anything can ever be believed or taken seriously, and every point and every statement they make is either an obvious untruth or a really obvious untruth.” 300 thousand children every year never get to see their parents. Never get the chance to honor God. Never get the chance to fulfill their mission in life. How they got that number I do not know, but it is a stunning amount of beautiful children that never get to see the light of day. But do they? The undercover people sent in to get the videos discovered that there were some cases where babies did, in fact, survive the abortion. When asked how Planned Parenthood handles such situations, Cecile Richards said she’d never heard of that circumstance happening. “It was a fascinating statement considering abortion survivors just testified in front of this very same committee.” (Matt Walsh also.) She asserts that should that ever happen at one of their facilities, then, of course, the baby should receive proper medical care.
But do we really believe that a company who views each live child as lost revenue would have the decency to do that? And what exactly are they doing with their government funding and 127 million dollars in “excess revenue”? For a non-profit organization, they are literally raking it in. We, the taxpayers, are funding their penchant for elaborate parties and extravagant fluff. Here is an excellent article that gives details regarding the flagrant misuse of funds, if you want to read more.
This isn’t like accidentally killing an animal on the side of the road one night. This is killing an average of 300 thousand innocent children each and every year for who knows how long. And if each and every 300,000 of those children survived, do you think they would ask to have been murdered prematurely? No one in their right mind would say that! Why is this not disturbing everybody like 9/11 did? About 3,000 lives were lost in the World Trade Centers, and 184 in the Pentagon. Besides it being a frontal assault on America, how is this really different from the staggering amounts of children who are killed through abortion every year? It is not. It is still murder, it is still a crime, and it should be illegal. How can you not love a young life? The blissful innocence that they have? It is lovely. I have a 2 year-old brother here, and I know the blessings of seeing a young, beautiful, and amazing life.
*Quote taken from this news source.
**Franklin Graham
***Quotes taken from this news source.