This Blessed Me Today: Joy

I have recently discovered how delightful a smart phone can be when you are at the gym. Instead of just listening to music (which I still love to do), I can listen to sermons and speeches through the audio streaming from one of my favorite websites: ligonier.org

Today's broadcast by R.C. Sproul was titled: Don't Worry: Be Joyful

It was an incredible blessing to me, and I wanted to be sure to share it with you. Listen in for free below:



As of late I have been faced with some trying decisions. Unfortunately my default is to have a spirit of fear, worry, and stress. But all these feelings are not the right course of action to my dilemma!

Drawing closer to God again, I know that He can fill my cup with His everlasting joy. I won't always feel happy, but I can have something deeper: a true, intimate enjoyment in the promises of God and in my relationship with Him.

Isn't this good to know?! It is so good to know that God is a constant source of joy, and that He considered it all joy (Hebrews 12) to save me--taking on the wrath I deserved as a sinner. Blessed be His name forever!

Please pray that the Spirit will grow the fruit of joy inside of us--instead of fear. Fear entangles and paralyzes us. How can we serve God with such a spirit? We can't.

We need joy. 

Quotes for Thought

Thought I'd share a wisdom nugget that blessed me today.

"Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God." -Martin Luther

 My prayer is that our Lord Jesus Christ is your God now and forever. Not your job, your plans, your education, or your money (ahem, His money). No, I pray you will keep clinging and confiding in Christ alone.

  Soli Deo Gloria!

Facing Our Country's Judgments

My apologies for disappearing for a while. So much has unfolded in the last few months...in my own life, as well as in the country.

In light of all that has happened with the past presidential election, God has been impressing upon my heart a certain verse. It is from  Ezekiel 7 and reads:

"According to their judgments I will judge them, and they shall know that I am the LORD."  

If you read the chapter of Ezekiel in context, you hear of a people that forgot their God. It is a very brutal text, speaking harsh truths and telling about the judgments the Israelites faced for living in sin. 

Yet, I think we as Christians are required to face the harsh truths. We need to wake up to the sobering reality, before we go forth with joy changing the country for God's glory.

To be honest, the current outlook of America is very bleak. It can be easy to forget this when nothing in our own lives changes right away, change will come. It comes slowly, progressively, but it will come.

In spite of the consequences, we must remember that God allows us to face the judgments we have chosen for His purposes. And ultimately, He is still in control, and through the circumstances we will remember that He is the Lord.


I would encourage everyone to read the article listed at the end before changing gears to celebrate the holidays. 

It tells of how we lost the election to Barrack Obama:

-Whose policies are anti-American
-Who covers up and lies about his irresponsibility in foreign affairs with the terrorists killing three Americans and an American Ambassador in Libya
-Who handles the economy terribly with unemployment still up, and more people on food stamps
-Whose actions allowed our federal debt to skyrocket to $16.1 trillion 
-Who passed a bill to enforce government-subsidized health care (starting in 2014, the government will force you to get health care through them, or pay a fine. You will still have to pay taxes for it either way. Plus, they will monitor you).
-And who is strongly pro-abortion

This is harsh stuff. Yet, we need to know where we stand as a nation with poor leadership in America.  We need to seek God's forgiveness for not caring enough to take action. 

Please read the following link, and continue to pray for our nation.
 
READ THIS: Why We Lost the Republic  

Loving God's Law

At the heart of almost every political controversy is a difference in one's view of the law. Whether it is Chick-fil-a or the Pro-Life movement, people are divided based on their understanding of what is true and just.

The Christian is directed by God's Law. At least, he is supposed to be! But the lost; they stand on shaky ground, guided by their own personal opinions and feelings which shift like sand--based on the circumstances.

Yet for Christians, this should NOT be the case. We are to stand firm on God's law, but to do so we need  an understanding of what His law is. Do you study His law? His commandments and precepts? This sort of studying of the Bible isn't very popular among Christians. We would rather just talk about Jesus and how much he loves us.

But wait a second! What did Jesus himself say? "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15)


Our love of Jesus should fuel us to study and keep His commands! 

And look at King David, a "man after God's own heart." He meditated on God's law "day and night" (Psalm 1).  And He delighted in it. Why is that? David saw it as his protection, and a light to his path in the darkness of this world. 

The people that are just guided by their own feelings--they are in the dark. They are blind. Yet God has showed us His way of righteousness! Oh, how we should rejoice as David did, saying: "Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day." (Psalm 119:97)

Dr. R.C. Sproul gives and excellent talk on this verse and loving the law. Please take a listen to the audio"Oh, How I Love Your Law" below.  Note: There is a brief, 30 sec. audio commercial before it starts.

Quotes for Thought

John Adams, 2nd president

If you are like me, then there are probably times you struggle with getting past the funny hair and garb of our Founding Fathers to understand who they really were.

What they stood for. What their life stories were like.

I find the best way to answer these questions is through hearing from the founding Fathers themselves!

So, I officially decided to share some Founding Fathers' quotes once a week.

Truth Twisters

Those familiar with the Tea Party activists will know them to be a decent sort of folk. Not rowdy, like the Occupiers at Wall Street. Rather, their sole desire is to get our government back to the way the Founders set it up: to be limited, and under the protective chains of our constitution.

So, if you were to hear about a Tea Party activist who was a deranged killer, that would certainly catch your attention, now wouldn't it?

This was the intent of Brian Ross, news reporter of ABC news: to catch your attention. Unfortunately his story was just a twisted truth to make the Right-wing Tea Party activists look bad.

The story of the shootings in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater last Thursday was devastating to all. As "Batman: Dark Knight Rises" screened on the opening night, the seats were packed. Suddenly, one man identified as James Holmes got up, set off a gas bomb, then fired at random with multiple guns killing 14 people and injuring many more. (To hear more of this account visit this Fox News video)

The tragedy caused people across the states to ask a lot of questions, the first and foremost being: who is this horrid terrorist, James Holmes? The media jumped for answers, and that's when the trouble began for ABC news reporter, Brian Ross.

Watch the video below to see what he said:



Aha! Did you catch that? Listen to how he words that report:


“There is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the tea party last year. Now, we don’t know if this is the same Jim Holmes – but this is Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.”

That is a big no-no in reporting! Implying someone could possibly be affiliated with a group like the Tea Party (who most the reporter is probably biased against) before it has been factually proven! This cost Brian Ross big time--because it turned out he was WRONG.

In Politico's article, Brian Ross of ABC Take Heat for Another Blunder, ABC apologized in a statement saying:

“An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect. ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted.”

This blunder only reiterates two points:
 

1) Be careful about what you listen to on the media.

Many reporters have a history of similar blunders! Everybody has bias which they will play up in their reporting. They won't tell the whole story all the time, or look into the necessary details. It is usually a game of making the party they are against look bad, while making their party look good.

I once heard it said "beware of the sound of one hand clapping," meaning you should try to get a balanced idea of both sides of an issue. The right and left, in this case.* 

 

*But even then, I would caution against listening to too much liberal news. They have a record for truth-twisting, and being in favor of many ideologies that go against Christian belief. Read up on our Constitution, and American history for the best information.

2) We live in fallen world where truth suppressed.

Ever since the serpent questioned God's Word in the garden of Eden, we have been at war with the Father of Lies. We see his workings in all the little half-truths, and story spinning going on today. “Did God actually say..." were the opening words of the serpent's speech to defy God's truth (Genesis 3:1), and now in big and small ways the ultimate Truth we cling to is being rallied against.

From crazy killers who act upon the lies they believe--like taking innocent human lives is right, to news reporters that paint Tea Party-ers in favor of restoring our country as crazy killers; it's ALL a result of Satan's deception.

Yet it is good to know that amidst this world of lying we have something to remind us what we really believe! Yes, Satan, we know what God actually says because we have His Word!

Don't abandon the Word, don't abandon truth! "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths." (2 Tim. 4:3)

It is so easy to "turn away" when you choose to no longer stay informed. Don't let this happen to you.

Stay plugged into truth before your own ideologies are twisted.

Our Generation, the LEAST American?

If you are between the age of 18-29, then you are a part of Generation Millennial. Sounds cool, doesn't it? Do you realize that our generation is supposedly the "most educated generation in American history"?

At least, the studies done by Pew Research seem to be making this case. Yet I find that hard to believe when examining the statistics closer. If we are "smart," then we have lost something greater: wisdom. Generation Millenial, while you may be the "most educated," you are undoubtedly the LEAST American.






Here's the facts:

In the study by Pew Research, compared to older adults, Generation Millennial is:

-less religious
-less likely to have served in the military
-less skeptical of government
and...
-believes government should do more to solve problems* 


*in other words, they want the government to have more programs that would cause us to have greater debt and be controlled by it even more

Here's a quote from Pew Research's article The Millennials: Confident, Connected, Open to Change:

"To be sure, Millennials remain the most likely of any generation to self-identify as liberals; they are less supportive than their elders of an assertive national security policy and more supportive of a progressive domestic social agenda. They are still more likely than any other age group to identify as Democrats."

More supportive of a progressive social agenda? Like socialism? Yikes! How did this play out in election of 2008?

"Politically, Millennials were among Barack Obama's strongest supporters in 2008, backing him for president by more than a two-to-one ratio (66% to 32%) while older adults were giving just 50% of their votes to the Democratic nominee. This was the largest disparity between younger and older voters recorded in four decades of modern election day exit polling."

Uh-oh....we've been DUPED. Taken in by the agenda of those in support of a very anti-American, and anti-Christian vision: the progressive, socialist liberals!

My big question is: where were the young Christian adults last election? Were we too wrapped up in Facebook? Celebrities? The latest movies, music, and so on to take notice?

We should have dug deeper to see what our political leaders were actually about instead of listening to the twisted tales the liberal press spits out.

Now we have in office a man who:

-supports abortion
-supports homosexuals
-passed a law regulate government subsidized healthcare (aka Obamacare)
-let our debt increase to $4 trillion
-supports the idea of big government, or a one-world government (this is socialism!)

And much more! (But we will get into more of that in a later post).

Are these things that we as Christians should be supporting? No! Are they Constitutional, and promote a limited government like our founders intended? No! But unfortunately our generation has supported them by voting liberal, and backing the same things as our president, Barrack Obama.

So, are we better educated? Perhaps. But educated by whom? Mostly the anti-Christian, socialist left.

This my friends is called INDOCTRINATION. Watch the video below to better understand what I'm talking about.