It is not wise for one to offer something as a sure fire answer to everything. A know it all type person has little influence in the lives of others. Much of the discussion these days relating to the vast changes occurring before our eyes in America fits this know it all baseline. If not that, it most assuredly comes across as holier than thou to those listening and reading. Yet ignored due to the preceding is the answer to the problem that we see and know is growing. What is at the root of it?
I will offer two areas that I think will assist us in seeing the roots that are allowing all of this change to occur.
First, we lost the battle on the homosexual issues by not understanding the homosexual agenda. The agenda put forth was one of being recognized as a minority. Since the late 1970's this idea has been allowed to fully develop without any challenge from those who differ. More so, the silence from true minorities has been a booster shot to the homosexual movement. By embracing the minorities, and the minorities embracing the homosexual agenda, the agenda has actually captured an apparent victory.
To qualify as a minority, one must reproduce the same. Homosexuals do not reproduce. Homosexuals are NOT a minority. They never have been and never will be, unless we change the definition of "minority"! Had we simply begun the discussion, and continued it with this principle of fact, the influence of the agenda would have been severely held back. We chose to argue and condemn and were thus easy targets to be labeled as hateful. The influence of a behavior group would have been easily slowed had we kept the discussion here. We should have been assisting the minority groups in their struggle while protecting them from this usurping. We failed.
And yes, minority groups allowed this behavior agenda to steal the day and they have lost much as a result.
But something occurred inside many churches that equally allowed for the changing thoughts on sin and other things in America. American churches became soapbox churches. We have those who rally around the Bible and shout about people NOT living moral lives while we ignore the sin within. We loved the shouting and failed to reach people with Jesus Christ. We also have those that were/are determined to reach people and began to offer a more pragmatic form of teaching that led to little discipleship and an embracing of little moral truth. These soapbox type churches are now a majority in America. One may find it difficult to hear any clear teaching on the simple things of life, including human life, for fear of offending. And when one finds truth, often it is wrapped in self righteous indignation and not in the power and love of the Holy Spirit.
The soapbox approach has developed due to one simple practice among us preachers.
Most American Pastors have abandoned Expository Preaching and most Bible Study groups are more focused on felt needs! We we fail to teach the Bible from cover to cover, verse by verse, and so we produce little in discipleship. And what little is done, is extremely weak. I have found it amazing to teach through Genesis and discover the depth of truth about understanding creation and life that is so easy to see and equally applicable today. I don't have to go off on a soapbox. The Bible speaks for itself with grace and in love to all who will receive. And Genesis actually covers homosexuality!
And don't forget, the Bible even tells us the itching ears and the leaving behind of sound doctrine will occur as we approach the return of Jesus Christ. We should not be so surprised that we are seeing it.
We should also be quick to repent of the fact that we actually aided in the progression of such.
Blogging for the purpose of Spiritual Growth and Edification
Showing posts with label Elections and Babies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elections and Babies. Show all posts
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Sunday, December 30, 2012
The Importance of Hobby Lobby vs Obama Care
On Friday, Hobby Lobby decided to ignore the US Governments threat of fines for not following the mandate in Obama Care to provide free birth control in their medical insurance for employees:
“They’re not going to comply with the mandate,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the company. “They’re not going to offer coverage for abortion-inducing drugs in the insurance plan.”
Opinions on both sides are all over the internet and in the news shows. There are even some Christians decrying the decision.
Is this stand important? If so, why?
Yes this decision is important!
1. Free birth control is NOT a medical insurance necessity. It is a choice made by a person. Lumping this mandate into the Obama Care package is an attempt to make something necessary that any normal thinking person knows is not.
2. Hobby Lobby is defending the rights of the unborn! While everyone else is so concerned about their own rights and choices, Hobby Lobby has drawn a line in the sand and decided to stand with the unborn when few else are doing so.
3. Hobby Lobby is NOT denying medical insurance to anyone. They are simply saying that if you desire to use birth control and chose to do so, then you pay for it. Why should any person or company be required to fund a choice made by another individual that DOES NOT fit under "medical" necessity. I understand if it is prescribed for health reasons unrelated to pregnancy and this could be and is covered now. But to fund birth control because people chose to participate in sex and do not want the consequences is absurd.
4. Hobby Lobby has a right as a company to chose the medical plan they desire to offer employees. Period! The Government does not have the right to tell us what we have to provide.
5. Hobby Lobby and any other corporation have the right to NOT fund murder! The US Government is doing all it can to ignore this and forcing it's beliefs of abortion NOT being murder on those of us who do believe it is! I understand that we are "funding" abortions with tax money. It sickens me. But that funding DOES NOT open the door for nor justify increase funding by individuals when their beliefs/conscious says NO! If people do not like the coverage Hobby Lobby offers, they can chose to work somewhere else.
6. The mandate forces corporations, free corporations, to act as religious neutral. The US Government has NO right to do so. Free corporations are in fact free. Free corporations have a right to decide how they will fund and what they will fund. When the government is allowed to remove this freedom, it has thus opened the door to tell people, businesses, non profits, schools, churches, etc. what they can and cannot do. This is NOT an American idea and clearly violates the US Constitution First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Every American today needs to read the above carefully. The Obama Care mandate clearly violates the First Amendment. Clearly. No law can be made that prohibits the free exercise thereof...!
7. Thank God for David Green and family! I pray their tribe increase. I pray that more Christians will awaken to the travesty that is upon us. We have been lulled to sleep for years hearing preachers telling us this day is coming. Well, this day has already come. We are now in over our heads into the attacks on Christianity by the US Government while the same Government guarantees religious liberty to thugs who have sought to kill Americans. Terrorists have more religious liberty today in America than American Christians have.
8. Republicans and Democrats are equally at fault! This is NOT a slam at just one party. This is the progressive movement that has entered into the thought lines of both parties. Politics will not produce a solution. Politics is the chosen method for implementing the problem!
Even one Hollywood Liberal Film Director acknowledges this fact. I do not agree with Oliver Stone on much, but the following comment highlights where we are, even to a liberal. I disagree with his blanket assessment of the Bush years! But for a known and proud liberal to accurately nail the events of the current administration and decry them is fact alone that points to the depth that we as a nation have fallen.
The US is codifying thousands and thousands of new, political laws that compel citizens to live according to the State's desires. America was established as a Republic by the people and for the people! We are NOT a state led nation.
Read the following statement from Oliver Stone:
I think under the disguise of sheep’s clothing President Obama has been a wolf. Because of the nightmare of the Bush presidency that preceded him, people forgave him a lot. He was a great hope for change. The color of his skin, the upbringing, the internationalism, the globalism, seemed all evident. And he is an intelligent man. He has taken all the Bush changes and basically put them into the establishment, he has codified them. That is what is sad. So we are going into the second administration that is living outside the law and does not respect the law and foundations of our system and he is a constitutional lawyer, you know. Without the law, it is the law of the jungle. Nuremburg (sic) existed for a reason and there was a reason to have trials, there is a reason for due process – ‘habeas corpus’ as they call it in the United States.
Yes, this issue is more than important!
What will we do about it?
What will you do?
“They’re not going to comply with the mandate,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the company. “They’re not going to offer coverage for abortion-inducing drugs in the insurance plan.”
Opinions on both sides are all over the internet and in the news shows. There are even some Christians decrying the decision.
Is this stand important? If so, why?
Yes this decision is important!
1. Free birth control is NOT a medical insurance necessity. It is a choice made by a person. Lumping this mandate into the Obama Care package is an attempt to make something necessary that any normal thinking person knows is not.
2. Hobby Lobby is defending the rights of the unborn! While everyone else is so concerned about their own rights and choices, Hobby Lobby has drawn a line in the sand and decided to stand with the unborn when few else are doing so.
3. Hobby Lobby is NOT denying medical insurance to anyone. They are simply saying that if you desire to use birth control and chose to do so, then you pay for it. Why should any person or company be required to fund a choice made by another individual that DOES NOT fit under "medical" necessity. I understand if it is prescribed for health reasons unrelated to pregnancy and this could be and is covered now. But to fund birth control because people chose to participate in sex and do not want the consequences is absurd.
4. Hobby Lobby has a right as a company to chose the medical plan they desire to offer employees. Period! The Government does not have the right to tell us what we have to provide.
5. Hobby Lobby and any other corporation have the right to NOT fund murder! The US Government is doing all it can to ignore this and forcing it's beliefs of abortion NOT being murder on those of us who do believe it is! I understand that we are "funding" abortions with tax money. It sickens me. But that funding DOES NOT open the door for nor justify increase funding by individuals when their beliefs/conscious says NO! If people do not like the coverage Hobby Lobby offers, they can chose to work somewhere else.
6. The mandate forces corporations, free corporations, to act as religious neutral. The US Government has NO right to do so. Free corporations are in fact free. Free corporations have a right to decide how they will fund and what they will fund. When the government is allowed to remove this freedom, it has thus opened the door to tell people, businesses, non profits, schools, churches, etc. what they can and cannot do. This is NOT an American idea and clearly violates the US Constitution First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Every American today needs to read the above carefully. The Obama Care mandate clearly violates the First Amendment. Clearly. No law can be made that prohibits the free exercise thereof...!
7. Thank God for David Green and family! I pray their tribe increase. I pray that more Christians will awaken to the travesty that is upon us. We have been lulled to sleep for years hearing preachers telling us this day is coming. Well, this day has already come. We are now in over our heads into the attacks on Christianity by the US Government while the same Government guarantees religious liberty to thugs who have sought to kill Americans. Terrorists have more religious liberty today in America than American Christians have.
8. Republicans and Democrats are equally at fault! This is NOT a slam at just one party. This is the progressive movement that has entered into the thought lines of both parties. Politics will not produce a solution. Politics is the chosen method for implementing the problem!
Even one Hollywood Liberal Film Director acknowledges this fact. I do not agree with Oliver Stone on much, but the following comment highlights where we are, even to a liberal. I disagree with his blanket assessment of the Bush years! But for a known and proud liberal to accurately nail the events of the current administration and decry them is fact alone that points to the depth that we as a nation have fallen.
The US is codifying thousands and thousands of new, political laws that compel citizens to live according to the State's desires. America was established as a Republic by the people and for the people! We are NOT a state led nation.
Read the following statement from Oliver Stone:
I think under the disguise of sheep’s clothing President Obama has been a wolf. Because of the nightmare of the Bush presidency that preceded him, people forgave him a lot. He was a great hope for change. The color of his skin, the upbringing, the internationalism, the globalism, seemed all evident. And he is an intelligent man. He has taken all the Bush changes and basically put them into the establishment, he has codified them. That is what is sad. So we are going into the second administration that is living outside the law and does not respect the law and foundations of our system and he is a constitutional lawyer, you know. Without the law, it is the law of the jungle. Nuremburg (sic) existed for a reason and there was a reason to have trials, there is a reason for due process – ‘habeas corpus’ as they call it in the United States.
Yes, this issue is more than important!
What will we do about it?
What will you do?
Remember this: Every nation that has ever fallen, has fallen from within!
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Emotions and the effects thereof!
Mood swings are bad. Emotions left unchecked to reality are far worse! America is in an emotion overload and the effects should they continue, could be America altering for the bad! Emotions are a God given reality. They make us human. They allow us to feel and avoid the horrific state of being a mere robot. They have there place in our lives and they are needed. But emotions were never given to lead us!
Right now emotions are ruining more than America may be able to grasp. Emotions have become the political most favored path to accomplish irrational change. Get emotions freely running, unchecked by common sense, and you can get people to do and say without thinking and make changes so lacking in logic and rational, that you can change an entire nation before anyone realizes it.
And this is the path America is currently on!
Emotions change priorities. We feel and thus we act. We change without ever taking the time to ask questions and evaluate completely what we are changing. We just desire to do something because the feelings we experience push us for some activity. But activity does not help our emotions long term. We hope it will - but it does not.
The emotional issues facing America today are leading us as a nation to a point of total chaos. And because the emotions are leading, we do not see the dangerous ending point. I thought I would highlight just a few to bring us back to reality:
1. An American is being held in Mexico and the American Government is doing literally little to effect his release. He violated no laws and is a military hero. Where is the outrage?
2. Benghazi is still in coverup mode with added Tylenol for headaches due to concussion sustained without specifics on the cause of such. We had military and Government officials killed. Where is the outrage?
3. The same Government that now wants to change the 2ND Amendment is the same Government that intentionally ran guns into Mexico in one of the worst debacles of US Government programs. Many have died as a result. Where is the outrage?
4. Our Government has the time to create a new task force to look at changes to gun laws and ownership rights while putting little effort into the real danger to American life, the fiscal cliff. And there is NO path to avoiding this cliff in sight? Where is the outrage?
5. It is beyond horrible to kill! I cannot fathom the depth of grief that parents and family members are experiencing right now in Connecticut. We as a nation with one unified voice have declared evil that was committed as such! And now people are saying get the guns! We cannot allow children to live in danger of such evil. And yet, our nation murders millions of babies via abortion and few cry over the evil! Where is the outrage?
America - we have a problem! Our emotions are leading us to miss reality! And the effects of this continuing will be more than I can even think.
Right now emotions are ruining more than America may be able to grasp. Emotions have become the political most favored path to accomplish irrational change. Get emotions freely running, unchecked by common sense, and you can get people to do and say without thinking and make changes so lacking in logic and rational, that you can change an entire nation before anyone realizes it.
And this is the path America is currently on!
Emotions change priorities. We feel and thus we act. We change without ever taking the time to ask questions and evaluate completely what we are changing. We just desire to do something because the feelings we experience push us for some activity. But activity does not help our emotions long term. We hope it will - but it does not.
The emotional issues facing America today are leading us as a nation to a point of total chaos. And because the emotions are leading, we do not see the dangerous ending point. I thought I would highlight just a few to bring us back to reality:
1. An American is being held in Mexico and the American Government is doing literally little to effect his release. He violated no laws and is a military hero. Where is the outrage?
2. Benghazi is still in coverup mode with added Tylenol for headaches due to concussion sustained without specifics on the cause of such. We had military and Government officials killed. Where is the outrage?
3. The same Government that now wants to change the 2ND Amendment is the same Government that intentionally ran guns into Mexico in one of the worst debacles of US Government programs. Many have died as a result. Where is the outrage?
4. Our Government has the time to create a new task force to look at changes to gun laws and ownership rights while putting little effort into the real danger to American life, the fiscal cliff. And there is NO path to avoiding this cliff in sight? Where is the outrage?
5. It is beyond horrible to kill! I cannot fathom the depth of grief that parents and family members are experiencing right now in Connecticut. We as a nation with one unified voice have declared evil that was committed as such! And now people are saying get the guns! We cannot allow children to live in danger of such evil. And yet, our nation murders millions of babies via abortion and few cry over the evil! Where is the outrage?
America - we have a problem! Our emotions are leading us to miss reality! And the effects of this continuing will be more than I can even think.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Elect Babies and the Reformed Thoughts
Reading over many thoughts pertaining to the ideas of "elect" and how one would relate those ideas and theological thoughts/doctrines pertaining to babies as led me to some interesting questions to ask of those of the Reformed movement. Beyond the questions are some clear contradictions that highlight how the Reformed/Calvinist doctrines are limited, as they should be being formed by a man and not the Word of God.
Babies are ELECT
If one holds to the idea that all babies are born elect and thus if die young do indeed inherit heaven, then one needs to ask how does one lose the status of being elect and what stage, age, or ??? would should occur? This is a logical thought process that must be addressed. Much confusion is found when reading the aged works of those Reformed thinkers. I think anyone who would, as a Calvinist, hold to this idea would also have a tough time explaining this idea.
Why?
If all are born elect, then all should be saved - according to this teaching.
Babies are born some elect and others destined for hell
If you hold to this idea, you must say that there are indeed children who die young that go to hell. In saying this, one would also be forced to admit that there is NO human way to know which it is for a specific child and family.
The above two areas are being ignored greatly in the discussion pertaining to the reformed movement. It is a sad thought when one realizes that a whole system of doctrine cannot explain the simple of the above scenario and actually is proven as incomplete and lacking.
How would you answer the above two positions? Can you back them up with scripture alone?
Babies are ELECT
If one holds to the idea that all babies are born elect and thus if die young do indeed inherit heaven, then one needs to ask how does one lose the status of being elect and what stage, age, or ??? would should occur? This is a logical thought process that must be addressed. Much confusion is found when reading the aged works of those Reformed thinkers. I think anyone who would, as a Calvinist, hold to this idea would also have a tough time explaining this idea.
Why?
If all are born elect, then all should be saved - according to this teaching.
Babies are born some elect and others destined for hell
If you hold to this idea, you must say that there are indeed children who die young that go to hell. In saying this, one would also be forced to admit that there is NO human way to know which it is for a specific child and family.
The above two areas are being ignored greatly in the discussion pertaining to the reformed movement. It is a sad thought when one realizes that a whole system of doctrine cannot explain the simple of the above scenario and actually is proven as incomplete and lacking.
How would you answer the above two positions? Can you back them up with scripture alone?
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