Bottom Line

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.

Psalm 19:14

 

The Red Button Problem

By Catherine Austin Fitts

In the summer of 2000, I asked a group of 100 people at a conference of spiritually committed people who would push a red button if it would immediately stop all narcotics trafficking in their neighborhood, city, state and country. Out of 100 people, 99 said they would not push such red button. When surveyed, they said they did not want their mutual funds to go down if the U.S. financial system suddenly stopped attracting an estimated $500 billion-$1 trillion a year in global money laundering. They did not want their government checks jeopardized or their taxes raised because of resulting problems financing the federal government deficit.

Our financial profiteering and complicity is not limited to aristocrats and the elites who do their bidding. Our financial dependency on unsustainable economics is broad, ingrained and deep.

_______________________________________________________________________

In my youth I would travel long distances to hear the great preacher, Vance Havner, wherever he was preaching. He once said, "I have always learned something from every sermon I have heard, but there have been some close calls." I have always attempted to learn something from every sermon, every communication. When I was younger-- with my own professional medical practice-- whenever I was in another person's office, I either saw something I wanted to use on my own, or saw something which I had better never see in my own. It is the same with every conversation and activity witnessed. We always learn.

Recently, while sitting on the front porch of my beach house-- and you know that I am sightless-- with the house next to me rented for the week, I heard a mother and her son returning from the beach just a short distance away. I judged the child to be a toddler (2-3 years old). She was encouraging the child at the bottom of the steps to go upstairs with her for lunch. He would not traverse the steps and was throwing a total fit. She started up the steps herself and he threw more of a fit. She retreated, apologizing and begging him to come up stairs. I thought to myself-- and this world traveler has seen such all over the world--, "This is what is basically wrong today, children manipulating their parents." In a world of lies and deceit, everything, political, sociological-- even spiritual-- is the manipulation by Satan. Satan must be very happy that he is in control.

Over the planet, the cheapest way to prosperity is slavery. The problem is that most human beings do not realize when they have been enslaved. Traveling through remote areas of the world (African bush countries, Asian desolation-- such as in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and China), natives have never known anything but slavery.... survival. The western world knows better. Yet we vote for slavery. The 1% of the population who are rich (military industrial complexes / banks / Big Pharma / Big Medicine) are profiteering from the work of the common man-- in America this is 95% of the population. This is why the politicians, bankers and industrialists keep wars going. I have never know a politician-- federal, state or local-- who did not leave office much richer than when he entered. The quickest way to get rich in America is elected office. Their salaries are not that great, whether president, congressman, state legislator or county commissioner, but they all live "high on the hog" while in office, and leave very wealthy. I defy you to find one exception. President Lyndon Johnson went to Washington as a very poor man and left with $53 Million-- which in today's money would make him nearly a billionaire. The same goes for Clinton, Carter, and the Bushes (both 41 and 43)-- although the Bushes, because of Grandfather Prescott wheeling and dealing with the Nazis in WWII, were already rich. Poor Martha Stewart went to jail for insider trading, but the halls of Congress are full of stockbrokers doing insider trading with members of congress.

Unbelievers-- even children-- recognize hypocrisy. Catholics and Baptists, the nation's two largest denominations, with their emphasis on living for Christ, family life and pro life, could elect all elected officials. But, Catholics and Baptists are just playing games with God, professing what they do not possess. It all involves the bottom line; they love prosperity, living comfortably in big homes, comfortable vehicles, and the comfort of country clubs and expensive restaurants. The 21st century church and the 21st century pastor want to fight God's battle from air conditioned fox holes. The time is approaching when government will tell the Christian church, as well as all religiosity, that we can only practice and observe our faith inside our worship building. The secular world, which took over long ago, will not permit religious faith on the street, at the schoolhouse, or the courthouse, and in many cases, particularly with foster children, even in your house.

Monster politicians, such as Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Adolph Hitler have caused the deaths of millions. Stalin said, "One death is considered a tragedy, 1,000 a statistic." He was responsible for close to 100 million deaths of his fellow Russians. Bashar al-Assad, upon the death of his father in Syria, was a doctor in London. Now, as president of Syria, 1.5 million of his fellow citizens have fled their country-- women and children. At a time when America has spent $1.7 trillion on the past 10 years of warfare, across the world, 25,000 people starve each day (World Food Programme). As one reared in a type of poverty, I know you never get over it. This world traveler-- later so blessed by God-- saw refugees at the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is against international law to take pictures at a border crossing, but I broke the law with a very small camera. Refugees, their possessions in bags carried on their backs, their small children in rags, stood barefoot on the icy ground. How long will God withhold his judgment?

He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming quickly." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Revelation 22:21 (Last word in God's word)

Tartuffe

“Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue”

-- Moliere

This writer believes that 90% of Christian faith is just raw courage. Thank God I was blessed with courage at a very young age because I have drawn from my storage vault of courage in every area of my life-- whether it be achievement in education, the rigors of military service, the challenge of blindness, the ruthlessness of family, friends and associates, or learning the fundamentals of many types of business. Life is not easy-- a hectic interlude in an otherwise-peaceful nonexistence-- and it is, in every way, what you, yourself, make of it. Many choose to leach off the world; others, in spite of life's lottery, determine to accomplish what God wants accomplished for those He chose for life.

I still remember sitting, frozen in fear, at that French class in Caldwell Hall, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  I knew the fundamentals of the French language from that small country high school (13 in my graduating class), but I was not prepared for the Advanced French Literature class in which I was placed. I wish I could remember the professor's name. He must have realized my fright, because he never called on me to participate in the class. The better prepared students, from the state's elite high schools and expensive prep schools, could chatter in French in such a way that would have made Parisians envious. I still remember Moliere's, Tartuffe, those quatrains of prose, which, even when translated into English, did not make much sense. The line I remember best is about "blind hypocrisy."

I am still bothered that many young preachers, politicians, and even poets, thrive on the criticism of hypocrites. The one word not allowed in the U.S. House of Representatives is "hypocrisy." I suppose all politicians know that they are hypocrites.  For instance, today's news is so concerned with the chemical poisonings in other countries, when little or nothing is said about the chemical destruction of babies in the mother's womb in their own nation (53 million babies, the most innocent of life, have killed in America since the supreme court decision of 1973)-- to say nothing of the slow death visited on so many patients through the chemical toxicity involved in prescription medications. We could all spend much time criticizing each other, the world, flesh, and devil. It has taken a lifetime for me to realize-- and I challenge anyone to prove me wrong-- that most pew warmers in church houses, justice types in court houses (judges, lawyers), and academicians in school houses have their eyes bandaged blind and their ears stopped up about the realities of the world around them.

As this writer has stated in so many blogs, this totally blind veteran, sightless, no longer able see whets going on, listens intently to everything he hears-- even other people's business on their cell phones. My best friend is the radio-- particularly programs involving Christian ministry and political talk. I get so distressed when I hear a good program pertaining to the ministry, the cause of Christ, God's redeeming word. Without fail, just as my heart rejoices at what I have heard, the hook is inserted-- someone begging for money or attempting to sell a book. No matter what time of year, "Summer is bad for donations...people on vacation," and later, around Christmas, "We are so desperate for money because everyone is spending their funds on Christmas," and still later, "Donations are so slow because everyone is spending their money because of a bad winter." If a ministry or status group does not foresee and prepare for their messaging on media, why start? Believers are led, by the Holy Spirit of God, to give. Unbelievers, whether it involves religious or secular programming, are made just that much more hostile by the pressure techniques of attempting to extract/ massage pocketbooks. The world has become accustomed to the pick-pocket techniques of the government-- with their permits, licenses and taxation. You cannot out-give God. The Christian knows the importance of giving to God's work.

Perhaps the greatest blindness-- stopped ears-- involves warfare. World War II was the last declared war by the Congress of The United States. According to the constitution, before Americans go to war-- or congress can finance a war-- there must be a declaration of war. Yet the United States of America, reeling in a $17 to 120 trillion debt (sources differ on entitlements; we know it is a debt that can never be repaid), sent 55,000 to die in the horror story of Korea-- around the Chosin Reservoir, frozen American bodies were stacked like cordwood. On a monument in Washington D.C. are inscribed the names of 58,000 Americans killed in Vietnam. In Iraq, 4,000 Americans were killed and 1 million Iraqis. In Afghanistan, 2,000 Americans were killed and hundreds of thousands of Afghanis. And so it goes: Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, Egypt, Balkans, etc. None of these wars were declared, and all were absolute failures. You see, it is not just those of us who are physically blind, who have no vision, who cannot see what is going on. Mothers love children in war-torn nations. Pain and suffering is the same, regardless of skin color-- or whether you are injured with a missile from a plane, a drone, or an IED.

Blindness is not always physical. My friend Kathryn, blind from birth, and her guide dog, Alma, were standing at a crosswalk in the city. Alma was her best friend; Kathryn did not have a living relative. She told me that not one church, civic group, or "do-gooder" organization had ever done anything for her. Along came a car load of young people, radio blasting. They ran over Kathryn and Alma, killing Alma, and inflicting injuries on Kathryn, which she suffered through, until her death, four years ago. The hymn writer said, "Open my eyes, that I might see the glimpses of truth Thou hast for me."

The Schoolhouse of Life

Getting Along With People

At every point as we go on into the thickening experiences of life--the lesson of living with others meets us. It is not always easy to gracefully accept these contacts with others, and to enter into kindly relations with them.

There are some people who seem to be very good alone, while no one comes near them, while no other life touches theirs, when they have to think of no one but themselves--who make wretched business of living when they come into personal relations with others! Then they are selfish, tyrannical, despotic, willful, and exacting! They will not yield to any other one's desire or needs. They must have their own way; and they drive their life like a rough plow-share right through the comforts, the desires, the feelings, of others!

It seems almost a pity there could not be a few corners fenced off in this great world for such people as these, where they could live altogether alone, with no one ever to interfere with their rights or liberties, or to impinge upon their comfort in any way.

But this is not God's ordinance for human lives. We are to live together in families, in communities, in friendship's circle. Indeed, no worse fate could befall us, than to be doomed to live alone.
We might thus be absolved from the duties of love,
we could then have our own way,
we would not be required to think of anybody but ourselves,
and there would be no call for self-denial or sacrifice.
But meanwhile, we would be growing into monsters of selfishness!

We never can learn love's lessons, except in life's school, where the lessons are set for us in actual human relationships.

"Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble."  

1 Peter 3:8 

-- J.R. Miller, 1898

Others

Lord, help me live from day to day
In such a self-forgetful way
Then even when I kneel to pray
My prayer shall be for OTHERS.

Help me in all the work I do
To ever be sincere and true
And know that all I do for YOU
Must needs be done for OTHERS.

Others, Lord, yes, others --
Let this my motto be;
Help me to live for others
That I may live like Thee.--

-- Con­se­crat­ed Hymns, Gei­bel & Leh­man, 1902

In my world travels (eight round-the-world trips, passport stamped in 157 countries), I enjoyed observing with my other senses-- since my sense of sight was gone-- the sounds and actions of God's creatures, particularly in Africa. Don't pay any attention to the evolutionists. They are just a bunch of foolish people. In God's design of life, both floral and fauna, everything was put into place to bring him pleasure. The lower animals are superior to man in many ways (the eyes of the bird, the muscles of the cat, the sense of smell of the dog, the digestive system of horses, mules, and cows). It is the nervous system of man where God really excelled in his supreme ability to design-- man being able to think, plan, and enjoy relationships. Certainly God intended for mankind to get along, and yet, one of the first two children born into the world-- probably twins-- killed the other. One year, while in London, I attended a celebration of the Salvation Army church. One Christmas, General William Booth (who founded the Salvation Army), attempting to save money for the work of that great army-- sent a telegram to the citadels of the world with just one word, "Others." That said it all, whether to a family, a church, a nation, or a world.

With drones dropping bombs, armed insects, armed microbes, and armed robots, men are using knowledge of Physics and Chemistry to mutilate and kill one another. Warfare is as old as mankind. Think of the future King David, 16 years of age, running toward the giant, Goliath, while Israel was at war with the Philistines, but also remember King David's son, Solomon--king at age 20-- asking God for wisdom. God made him the wisest man the world has ever known. However, with all of man's wisdom, we have never learned to get along with one another-- even our fellow citizens. Joseph Stalin trained in a seminary, but is responsible for the death of approximately 100 million of his fellow citizens. He said, "One death is a tragedy, 1000 deaths is a statistic." The Christian church is often concerned about a single death in the community, but shows little concern for the murder/death of 53 million in the holocaust of abortion.

Almost as tragic are families who cannot get along. Men and women who sat as children, with their feet beneath their parents' table, fight over their parents' estate, till communication with each other ceases. The smaller the estate, usually, the larger the anger.

God will showcase for eternity those who trusted in Him and loved one another. Jesus said, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

Mark 12:30-31

-- Dr. T.R. Morris

The Nebuchadnezzar II Brick

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
--Reinhold Niebuhr

In this anxiety-ridden world, if we had not been blessed by its creator with the love and grace of God-- the providence of the creator for the creature-- something would have had to be invented to fill the hole in every soul, if God were not there to fill it. The world/ flesh/ devil has tried to fill that hole, but it does not satisfy; only the righteousness of Jesus Christ can satisfy.

"What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself."

--Pascal

The redeemed, those filled with the righteousness of Jesus-- He breathing inside of us--have His assurance as we face the trials of this life, as well as knowing joy everlasting as we enjoy eternal life. They have been saved from eternal hell and the crush of corruption/temptation surrounding us in this world. Man can deal with any how as long as he has a strong why.

All of the years I was studying the homeostasis of the human body, I was conflicted by those who professed, yet showed so little possession of the righteousness which should have changed their human psyche/ actions. Why would one person have such a supernatural desire to showcase his Christian faith, while others-- supposedly having the same salvation-- be little different from the world and nihilists who believe in nothing? Why would an ordinary man like George Greenfield-- one boat, one mission-- challenge the 2,000 mile long Congo river to carry the gospel to total strangers and total pagans? He buried his wife and three children on the banks of the Congo, yet, at Goma (at the head of the great Congo river), this writer stood at the place where a choir of 10,000 Africans sang All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name at his funeral. Or David Livingston, when-- after his death in Africa-- committed Christians carried his embalmed body on their shoulders over 1,000 miles, to a port where he could be shipped to England and buried at Westminster.

You must put flesh and blood on the characters in God's word-- as well as those of more recent history-- if you are to comprehend the sovereignty of God. Too many skeptics-- even those sitting in the church-house pews-- do not understand the magnificence of the story. It took four years to write the Book of Mormon, 63 years to write the Islamic Koran, but 40 holy men, inspired by God, covering a period of 1,500 years, substantiated in time/ places/ prophecies/ promises, proved the inerrancy of God's holy word. His word changes lives. History, Geography, Archaeology are marked by the authenticity of His word. The Bible tells us that 630,000 Jews went in captivity to Babylon after Jerusalem was destroyed. Bricks bearing the name of Nebuchadnezzar, authenticating The Bible's story, were found. Too many young people leave the Christian church because they have never been taught the foundations of Christian history. Christianity is fact, not feeling. Christianity changes lives and if it has not changed yours, then something is wrong with you, not the Christian church.

This writer has visited the "Holy Land" several times and was there when Jerusalem was divided between Jordan and Israel. My cup was filled to overflowing as I walked in Jerusalem/ Bethlehem/ Copernican. At the Jordan River, I reached down and picked up a handful of pebbles and put them in my camera bag. When I returned home, I gave a pebble to several of my aunts, and several choice patients. They could not have been happier, had I given them a nugget of gold. It is wonderful to find the human body responding as written in books. It is wonderful to experiment with laws of physics/ chemistry/ life biology as written in books. The thought occurred to me many times, as I stood in Petra or Damascus or Jericho, "Why does the world not believe in the certainty of God?"

On Christmas Eve, we know that the next day will be Christmas. On New Year's Eve, we know that the next day will be New Years. We know the certainties and absolutes of life-- the periodic table, atomic weights, laws of motion. We want our pilot, surgeon, musician, to be absolutely correct. I may not be right, but I want my doctor to be right, my president to be right, my pilot to be right, and, most of all, I want my pastor and my professed faith to be right.

Melt Down

The spread of radiation from Fukushima

Jack Sprat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
And so betwixt the two of them
They licked the platter clean

Jack ate all the lean,
Joan at all the fat.
The bone they picked it clean,
Then gave it to the cat.

Jack Sprat was wheeling,
His wife by the ditch.
The barrow turned over,
And in she did pitch.

Says Jack, “She’ll be drowned!”
But Joan did not reply,
“I don’t think I shall,
for the ditch is quite dry.”

Source: Mother Goose’s Nursery Rhymes (1817)

As a field-grade medical officer, on staff at one army hospital, while on active duty with the US Army, I was attending a staff party. One of my friends, an internist, born and raised in Toledo, Spain, and educated in America, was at the party with his wife and two sons-- I would say they were 10-12 years of age. He knew that I was a well-known teetotaler, and both of his sons were swilling down beer. I said to him, "Aren't they a little young to be drinking alcohol?"

He replied, "I want them to drink, smoke-- do any and everything possible in order to have some pleasure in their lives and stay numb enough to escape the horrors of this world."

And so it is with many parents, who should not be surprised when their children become dope addicts. No mother or father should be surprised when their child-- who grew up seeing beer in the refrigerator along with parents and parents' friends imbibing cocktails--becomes an alcoholic.

In my lifetime-- and probably at no other time in history-- has any thinking person risen in the morning to face another day of total, world chaos.  When you listen to the news broadcast, or for the decided, watched "smellivision" (the average American watches 3.5 hours a day-- the first thing to be switched on in the morning, the last to be switched off at night), you see or hear a world of dreary-eyed zombies.

Even for the authentic Christian-- those who know the reality of "the fruit of the spirit" (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) -- there is difficulty not having a psychological meltdown. (Galations 5:22-23) This world is comprised of one meltdown after another. By 2020, the US Air Force will have nothing but drones. And further into the future, ground forces will be robots. (http://www.businessinsider.com/robert-johnson-bi-30000-drones-by-2020-2012-2) We were once a people so proud of our freedom and rights; we are now enslaved.  Perhaps nothing exemplifies the enslavement more than the Home Owners Associations demanding that home owners not have a gun in their house (there are over 1,000 HOAs in this county of 212,000 where I live). With the political correctness of not smoking, these associations have already restricted each residence to be smoke-free. With smart meters, the time a home can use its own washing machine can be regulated ( http://stopsmartmeters.org/ ).  Analyze your house; some electrical sources are emitting radiation all the time. Think of your nightstand, your clock radio emitting radiation, right next to your head. I understand some people sleep with their cell phone under their pillow, and are surprised when they develop cancer in their brain.

There is a cumulative effect from radiation. The entire Pacific Ocean has been poisoned by the Fukushima meltdown. Desperate in their attempts to control that meltdown, an attempt is being made to freeze all the land around the reactors ( http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/govt-suggests-tepco-freeze-soil-around-fukushima-plant ). The average person does not understand-- and certainly the government will not inform them-- the amount of radiation you get from electricity in your technology, or even the wiring in walls of your house. Few realize that a fluorescent tube will illuminate when you stand in the EMF field near a high-voltage power line ( http://www.doobybrain.com/2008/02/03/electromagnetic-fields-cause-fluorescent-bulbs-to-glow/ ). Just the radiation from your cell phone-- particularly, when combined with the many instruments in your car-- is critical in human health.

There was a time when human beings lived/thrived without being in the crucible of constant radiation, and, at that time, there was very little cancer. At a time when 50% of the population is in the crush of eating disorders leading to diabetes, how often does any doctor question you about your diet? I promise you this: remove corn, soy products, canola (cotton seed products), and all sugar (unless from a sugar beet) from your diet, and you might have a chance. Keep you immune system strong. It is your only defense against cancer.

There is a new elitism in America. Power Brokers, in politics and the banking fields, are living high, while the grunts/peasants are striving just to get by. It is the stress of the day-by-day survival which fills prisons, hospitals, and welfare offices. At a time when scientific discovery, progress in academia, and convenience in every area of life has reached such heights, how can we drop so low--one veteran takes their own life each day. There are more deaths from suicide than from combat in the active-duty military. Addiction to illegal drugs costs the taxpayers $534 billion each year.

During the great flu epidemic of 1918, when my parents were children, my grandmother told me how everyone in the community was sick. Dr. Hayes, the only doctor who would enter the community, had also died from the disease. They were on their own. She said that when one started coughing, that person knew they would be the next. And the dying person could hear the men of the community sawing wood, building their own coffin. My grandfather's sister, Aunt Catty, teacher at the two-room school house, gave birth to a baby boy, and had the short time to name her newly born baby before the flu killed her. My grandfather's brother, an uncle who I still remember, took her baby to his sister’s yard, nearby, where flu had not struck to avoid infecting that house. There his sister could breastfeed the child, as she was already nursing her own baby. Real Christians, who are possessed by the Holy Spirit of God, should be able to handle any meltdown-- political, moral, financial, or nuclear. In the present-day meltdown, both from the pulpit and the pew, those who know Christ, crucified and resurrected, by grace, through faith, will survive. To the others, good luck.

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

Thomas Jefferson

Spaghetti World

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
- Albert Einstein

I was bred on a farm in Eastern NC on simple foods with simple taste. I well remember my consternation, the first time I attempted to eat spaghetti. Now, having traveled the world-- even accomplished eating with chopsticks and eating the messy couscous with fingers-- I better understand-- not only the complexities of food-- but the complexities of the human mind. The minds of men lead to complexities in this "spaghetti" world.

To the uninformed, everything is obscure. Technology has changed the world, but human nature is unchanged. Cyber space has introduced the simplest uninformed minds to the pluses and minuses of such things as cell phones and even drones. It is expected that any way you go, any direction in which you look, you will hear someone talking on a cell phone. We hear intimate details of business and life discussed at nearby tables in a restaurant. One television program features lonely people seeking emotional fulfillment via the internet.

A middle-aged female came to me, seeking employment. I asked about her experience with the computer and she told me she could build one. She had technical skills, but was totally unaware of her emotional instability. A local man, a Vietnam-wounded-warrior with many disabilities, initiated a modern, lovelorn relationship with her in far-away England. After months of inter-relationship communication, against her families wishes, she sold her house and moved here to marry him. We have heard that love is blind and loneliness is crippling; she evidently suffered from both. The man had already lost his former wife by suicide, and his boys had left home. He then finagled the money from the sale of her house and told her to find a job. Without a Green Card or American work experience, she worked for a short time with me. She gave new significance to "marry in haste repent at leisure." So it is with not evaluating every action of life.

American business is built around the concept of impulse buying and catchy advertising-- saying or doing something which you later wish to reconsider. So it is with eternal life. Too many get caught up with the anxiety of the moment. Any person with nominal intelligence realizes the uncertainties of life. News broadcasts detail the death of some famous young person and obituary columns show the deaths of older people. Even though you have your doubts and fears about everything, and in your own wisdom and the wisdom of other unbelievers, think that "God thing" is preposterous, in the darkness of the night, in the recesses of your soul, you are bothered by the thought, "Perhaps there's something to it." Because of family expectations, pressures of one sort or another, you make the decision (walk the isle, sign a card) or someone else makes the decision for you (infant baptism) and you are considered a believer.

80% of all young people, brought up in the church and entering college from Christian homes, leave the church-- disdain their faith. How can they leave that which never existed? Is faith in God a matter of justice or mercy?

Being totally blind for many years, the radio is my best friend. I listen to and participate in many local and national talk shows. On a local radio talk show, one morning, an elderly black woman, who lives in this city on Castle St., called seeking help with expenses. In the course of the conversation, having experienced the blight of bigotry, she said, "The only God I have ever know is a white man's God." I well remember as a child in a time of drought-- crops drying up in the fields-- my believing, sincere father would go around and announce that everyone would gather at the church house to pray for rain. One man in the community, a very affluent land owner, never attended church as far as I know, and never did anything good for anyone (his wife told my aunt she had never had a store-bought dress). He, in spite of no obvious relationship with God, would always go to the church when there was prayer for rain. Will that much faith be sufficient for him at the final round-up? Will a childhood faith of some sort be sufficient for that denying college student? Even the most sanctified of us (set apart, declared holy), like them, must depend on the mercy not the justice of God.

Great artworks, paintings of the masters, sell at auction for as much as $1 Million a square inch. These artists were not consumed with money when they demonstrated their magnificent talent, but were consumed with the love of what they were doing. Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime. The last Van Gogh painting, at auction, sold for $39.7 million. The umbilical chord of gold, in this mixed up spaghetti world, keeps the power brokers, politicians, and untalented pundits, pounding the world for money. The IRS, "do-gooder" groups, bankers, and securities promoters want you to fear the worst--  the scares of this world. You cannot explain to the unbeliever anything about the security involved in the grasp of Christ.

Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Hebrews 13:5

There are 1,500 verses proclaiming the holiness of God in His word. No sin will enter heaven. Don't mess around with God.

Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

1 Peter 1:16

In today's church house, there is much white hair. The younger "tares" have found other things to do, since Christianity and church-going has become so unpopular with the world.  You can expect the number of people in churches, civic clubs, college campuses-- even family reunions-- to get smaller and smaller.

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

1 John 2:19

Real faithfulness (action based on belief, sustained by confidence) is not just a Christian experience. Think of the faith of astronauts-- the willingness to be shot into uncertain space. Perhaps the best example of faith-- a real belief system-- is Joseph of the Old Testament. He was sold into slavery by his brothers. The iron bands, which held him in the slave wagon, moving to Egypt, must have given him an immunity which, like Paul of the New Testament, would see him through many prisons. Joseph was purchased by the Egyptian official named Potiphar and entrusted with all of Potiphar's wealth. He was thrown into prison for not yielding to the seduction of Potiphar's wife. His retort to the deceptive wife:

How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?

Genesis 39:9

Joseph was more concerned with what God thought of him, than what anyone else thought of him. He was used by God to save a chosen nation. The salvation of this writer, from his rotten sins, was paid for at a great price. There is nothing cheap or complicated about Christianity.

Have the faith of Joshua and Caleb, returning spies, reporting to Moses. They were not afraid of the promised land. They were the only two men, of those leaving Egyptian slavery, to reach the promised land. The world, flesh, devil desired death in a wilderness of spaghetti-like entanglement. There is no middle ground, only eternal happiness or eternal damnation

Generosity

Prayer for Generosity

St. Ignatius Loyola

Lord Jesus, teach me to be generous; teach me to serve you as you deserve, to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to seek reward, except that of knowing that I do your will.

Amen.

This writer gave the 100th anniversary address at the family church, built in 1874 by both of my parents' great grandparents. Two of my cousins went to visit one of the "saints" of the church, in a nursing home. She had taught a Sunday school class in the church for 27 years. Most of the young men in the church were, at one time in her class. One cousin said to the other, as they left the nursing home, "Did you see what I saw?" He said they both saw a chicana glory all around this dear old lady. This visit happened a short time before her death.

The natural man will never understand the spiritual man. I feel sure that chicana glory is not always seen by the human eye. It was seen by Peter, James and John, when they were with our blessed Lord, just before his crucifixion. They saw Elijah and Moses with Jesus. Chicana glory rested above the tabernacle in the wilderness, and followed The Ark of the Covenant. We feel sure chicana glory shone on the shepherd's field at Bethlehem, when angels announced the birth of our savior-- and certainly in the stable/ manger. I feel sure chicana glory surrounded Noah as he labored for 120 years, building the Ark which would save him, his family, and the animals which God wanted to preserve. The ark, designed specifically by God, having all the equations of today's ships-- estimated to be the size of the Queen Mary-- must have kept Noah going as he hired and worked the people who helped him build this ship. Chicana glory must have surrounded another ark, one in the Nile River, where Moses-- as a baby-- was kept for three months. Almost 80 years later, Moses-- a shepherd in another desert-- realized the chicana glory of a burning bush. He grew anxious to bring three million Jewish slaves to that site.

When you go up on Mt. Carmel, those with good eyes can see that great body of water, the Mediterranean Sea, almost 10 miles away. Certainly chicana glory hovered over Elijah as he showed the greatness of God, before 450 priests of Baal. Elijah went down on his knees seven times, praying to God to show his might before these pagan priests. God's glory became manifested with fire, which devoured the offerings, the altar, even the water poured on the altar. (1 Kings 18) While speaking on this subject at one church, one attentive old lady said, "Such a long drought, where did they get the barrels of water?" You only cheat yourself when not believing God's word, and trusting in it.

Faith is 90% raw courage. We must have the courage to believe and it is not necessary to explain everything.  The believer, like this blind man, "walks by faith not sight." (2 Corinthians 5:7) We don't understand how Elijah could outrun Ahab's chariot. Why, after such a victory on Mt. Carmel, Elijah wanted to die, but we know that he was caught up by God in a fiery chariot and did not experience clinical death.

Jesus said that from the heart come the real issues of life. (Proverbs 4:20-25)

From the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Romans 10:10

The greatest problem I have found with most church members is that tremendous distance of 14 inches between the brain and the heart. They so cheat themselves with just a brain belief.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

When righteousness fills the heart, the natural man becomes the spiritual man and he is able to comprehend God's magnificence. God expressed his magnificence in variety-- colors, smells, landscapes, different races with different skin colors. You see God's magnificence in gender-- the splendor of men and women.  When you know the love of God, the power of God (omnipotence), the knowledge of God (omniscience), the omnipresence of God (His chicana glory fills everything), you will not put the silliness of a political party ahead of God's magnificence-- such as we find now in some (democrats who promote abortion and the destruction of God's first gift to humanity, the family, through same-sex marriage).

God chose his generosity every day of our lives and the life of this world through his generosity. He is long suffering towards people and nations.

...not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

2 Peter 3:9

I know of Christian college presidents, pastors and patriots who voted for and supported the most evil president to ever inhabit the white house-- a man who supports abortion and same-sex marriage. This writer is not generous enough to be kind to family members and associates--even friends-- who are not spiritually minded, but rather detests the natural man, who prefers powers of darkness. (Ephesians 6) Your writer really detests pretenders, whose hearts have not been changed by the supernatural.