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?

Remember this:  Every nation that has ever fallen, has fallen from within!

The Silence Is Revealing

We are now just days away from experiencing one of the most damaging changes in America since her creation.  On January 1, 2013 the US Government will begin to fine an American Corporation for not providing a murder pill to employees.  Hobby Lobby ownership will lose their right to practice their held religious beliefs and be forced to pay a fine for such a practice.

Where is the outrage?  Why the silence?

For years America has progressed to this point, to this day.  We have silently allowed many regulations for years to be implemented without seeing the end goal of such.  We have now arrived at the day of reckoning.  America cares more about finances than she does about murdering children.  American Christians are guilty of selling our souls for comfort and future ease of living over the rights of children.  And now, the real truth is shining like black hole of despair that will do even more than murder!

America was established so that people could be free from Government intrusion into our religious lives.  Today, a Muslim terrorist murderer has more freedom and rights than a Christian citizen.  Read that line one more time please!  Think about that statement!  And while you are thinking, ask this question:

Why are we silent?

Have we really fallen this deep into apathy?  Have we really reached a place where our apathy will allow the loss of one of our most cherished American freedoms while killing babies at the same time?

Janaury 1, 2013 is a day that proves just how much America has changed.

Is there any hope?

Yes Jesus is still Lord.  The real question is when will we who claim to live with Him as Lord actually begin to live with Him as Lord.

When will the outrage come?  Have we totally lost our passion?  Are we so apathetic that we no longer even know how to stand up for our own rights?

The silence is revealing!

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.

Death and Children - Help and comfort in todays storm

I write this with all kinds of thoughts running through my mind.  The events on this day in a Elementary school remind us of the horrors capable without Jesus.   We are reminded and experience  the pain and agony those horrors bring to the innocent, families, and a nation.

But what about the eternal destiny of the children killed?  Is there clarity of their eternal destination?

Jesus instructed his disciples that they should "...Let the children to come to Me; do not forbid them; for such is the Kingdom of heaven.”  What more clear a message is there to reveal the heart of God toward children?  His longing for mankind is seen in His Words.  Paul further states in 2 Corinthians 5: 10 "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad."(NKJ)  Children are born with a sin nature and at some point in their life will reach a point of maturity where they realize that they need Jesus.  Until that point is reached, Gods grace covers their lives and there is certainty that should death occur, God brings them into His arms through His amazing Grace!  This we know - God is faithful.  He has been and always will be!  He was faithful today!  And for this, we must give thanksgiving.

The children today whose lives were taken were immediately gathered by the arms of God.  They are now in His presence and they are safe.  We left on this earth groan as we must deal with the evil and grief displayed.  We left must live with the horror and find the comfort and peace that can only come from the one true God who is faithful and true.  We must remember that life apart from one's personal acceptance of Jesus Christ is a life controlled by Satan himself - the evil one.  And this we left on earth today must face.

God sent Jesus for each one of us!  Jesus lived a perfect and sinless life.  He was brutally killed on a cross for our sins!  He stood in our place.  Jesus is God's gift to us!  A gift that we are given a choice of accepting or rejecting.  Paul said for "all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God!"  "There is none righteous, no not one."  I can assure you who read this that religion, politics, thought and theory will not get one person into heaven and will not change or control one life from evil!  Only through the person Jesus is this possible!

You have heard these words and you have seen them displayed many times.  But today I pray we will take them heart:

John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
(NKJ)

Each must come to the place of accepting or rejecting.  What have you done?  What decision have you made?

Today we ask many questions.  But we see through a glass that is darkened by the sin and the limits sin brings.  God knows.  The children today received a great reward!  Our pain will only begin to recede when we trust God and seek His perspective.  

Today we see more clearly than ever before in the history of America the failures of our secular society!  We who know Jesus see why we are salt and light, placed here on a mission.  And we see our need to repent from our failure to share Jesus!  Today in all of its horror is not the end of this type of demonic activity.  We must ask, what are we doing to reach more people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ?

Politicians, counselors, laws and iron fences will not and cannot fix our ills.  Only Jesus can.  

So today and I give you Jesus!  He is all we have and He is more than enough!

"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give I to you; .... Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." - Jesus (John 14:27)

Should you find that you need to hear more, please contact me via email pastor@arlingtonknoxville.com   I would love to share with you the gift that brings hope, comfort, forgiveness, and peace in the midst of this ugly world!

The Christian Right and Evangelism

Opinions are everywhere as to what has happened or is occurring to the Christian Right in America.  A group once viewed by many as strong and needed is now seeing a direct opposite description being given.  Are Evangelicals out of touch?  One newspaper in Tennessee seems to think this last election seals the deal on the current state of the Christian Right.  The Tennessean presents an interesting perspective in an article hear. 

What keeps missing in the discussion is the fact that America has NOT been a Christian nation for some time.  And even in the areas of high concentration of Christians, the daily living out of values varies dramatically.  No one denomination can even pretend to present all of their affiliates as believing in a similar fashion.  Whether one is Catholic, Baptists, or other, the variance of how one believes and applies those beliefs are no longer singular in approach. 

History reveals that though in pockets maybe similarities did at one time exist, they were the exceptions.  I have known from since I can first remember that even good ol' Southern Baptist were seldom on the same page.  One person questioned this recently and challenged me to prove it.  It was a simple request - just show up at a business meeting in a Southern Baptist Church!  See my point?

Today we see more families with multiple religious backgrounds being the norm; or do we?  Maybe what we are seeing today is that for years America has been a mixed bag, a gumbo of beliefs and practices.   In my own family is a Methodist and Baptist blend from my mothers side.  And it is just one aspect of it.  But something far more important is being missed in all of this discussion!

We are seeing today the effects of not reaching people with the Gospel over the past many years. 

And what will it take to change this?  The world will continue to spin.  People will continue to die without Christ and thus go to Hell.  Churches will keep appeasing the loudest.  Many words will be spoken about the evil of society.  Fingers will be pointed at everything. Politics will not solve the moral decline.  America will continue the change implemented after World War II (yes America has been changing for years). 

And even more...

A new type of Christian social agenda will continue to increase.  Those who love to poke fun at the Christian right and drive from the rear view mirror will increase their nonsense of how wrong many were over the past 30 years and how right they are today.  Social issues will be elevated as this main focus.  Instead of condemning them, we will be told to accept.  Efforts and priorities will continue to guide us towards social missions.

And yet...

The one thing needed today, that has been the one thing needed for years, will seldom be taught or practiced.

Christians must start sharing Jesus and His story while ceasing from sharing their story and their ideas of Jesus.

Only one approach is commanded and backed with a promise and guarantee.  Only one plan for salvation is offered for all who will accept it.

For God so loved the world that He sent Jesus to die for the sins man, you and me!  He was buried.  he was placed in a grave.  He did NOT stay in the grave!  He ascended alive and well and is now seated next to the Father! 

Jesus did this for each of us!  It is the only message that will help us all! 

Will you share it?

Speaking the TRUTH in todays America (Series)

Part 1

Over the past week I have made clear my perception of today's America - it is not pretty.  In noting this, the simple fact that the change we are seeing did not occur overnight was also front and center.  So now we must ask the question as Christians trying to reach people in this new era of "neo-anything can be truth" culture, HOW?

American Christians have perfected the speech approach to teaching.  Even in our social media use can be found the clear and often blunt ugly use of this method in telling people what is wrong with their ideology and where they will go because of it.  We make our points well yet we are failing to impress or influence even a few.  It is time we seek to understand the needed approach required if we are to really make a difference today.

And for many Christians, this is going to be a tough road to travel!

Our learning begins with some simple facts.  People without Jesus, do not have a foundation that we can build upon.  People without Jesus, need Jesus first!  Never should we compromise the truth with anyone.  But understanding that only in a relationship with Jesus is the foundation upon which truth is built can we expect any glimmer of accomplishing lasting life change.  This is Biblical truth.  Hard to realize that we Christians must first accept a truth before we expect others to do the same.  But this is a must.  The journey begins with this hurdle at the starting line.

Many American churches are facilitating this hurdle by abandoning Evangelistic outreach endeavors.  We talk much about reaching the nations.  Preaching to the nations is the new modern day battle cry!  A simple analysis of our current trends in methods and thoughts on evangelism reveal that we are doing little to reach individual people regardless of the intent of the battle cry.  The popular growth of Reformed Theology and the New Calvinism of our day are not helping either.  The more this spreads the fewer people that will be reached.  Sharing Jesus is the beginning.  It is more than preaching/teaching.  Sharing Jesus is more than telling someone to turn or burn.  Sharing Jesus is sharing Jesus story and what He did for all of us.  It is making it clear that Jesus offers a free gift called salvation to all who will receive.  The gift is offered, but we each must chose to accept or reject. 

Rom 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(NKJ)

Rom 5:8
8    But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
(NKJ)

Sharing truth requires each of us who know Christ to begin sharing His truth.  It is not turn or burn.  It is begging and pleading with people to see what God did for them in His Son Jesus.  It is sharing the love of God for all people regardless of where they have been or what they have done!  It is leaving the judging to God while living as one changed so as not to cause anyone to stumble so that the message of Gods love in Christ, can be seen and thus received.

This is the starting point!  No moral or political change is possible of lasting value without Jesus first!

Nothing has changed - only more clear!

Tuesday night did not show any kind of a change.  I am sorry for those who have wasted energy and emotions thinking that something changed.  I truly am.  The problem is now more clear than ever - America has been changing for years and we tried to deny it.  In fact, we neglected it!  Tuesdays results are the by product of the already changed America.  And it is NOT a political change that has occurred. 

Now what will we do about it?

Christians must realize quickly that elections ARE NOT our hope.  Never have been and never will be!  My sixteen year old has now seen more anti-God Government in his life time than somewhat pro God Government.  Think about that for a moment.  This is not a new situation - it has been brewing for some time - since the 1940's.  The change has been occurring.  It is now just clearly being seen!

The problem?

American Christianity has been the keeper and builder of the club rather than be on mission doing what God called us here to do.  I looked at the political maps last night and today and I realized something - they mirror the American churches.  We do not reach and have not reached the other people groups that God has sent to us.  And our society is showing this in a clear way!  Angry conservatives who tell people how to live will NOT change lives.  Angry Christians will not open doors for sharing Jesus with self righteous talk and name calling.  Our speech by the way is suppose to draw people to Jesus, NOT "push" them away.  Our cries from fear and frustration are only more signs that we are NOT sold out to the mission that God placed us here for.  We should be salt and light living lives showing agape love to all!  This we have NOT done!

The people of this generation ARE NOT being discipled nor reached!  We as Christians have not sought to love them and to make a difference in their lives.  Even the Bible belt of America is seeing the gap narrow. 

This coming Sunday I will be dealing with this subject in a straight forward way!  The message will be available here for anyone who cares to see what we as American Christians MUST change.

I just pray we do!

Why?

Our current generation is living, and thus will die, without Jesus!  Hell will be their eternal place!

And that is breaking my heart!