JESUS ONLY LOVES THE LITTLE CHILDREN

No Grownups Allowed

And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

 Matthew 18:3

Stop and think about it for a moment...When we are made born again, a brand new spirit, born of God's own Spirit, we are a new born creation shoved into an old world worn sinner's body and soul.   Can you say ISSUES??   We don't "feel" any different, but by faith we are expected to believe we are made different; vastly different.   Why else does Jesus tell us, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children..."???  Jesus knows when the Holy Spirit births a new spirit that spirit is going into an old sinner.  "Change and become like a little child..." is not only some of the best advice anyone ever gave, but, as Jesus clearly says, "Truly I tell you..." it is absolutely what must happen.   As usual, when Jesus tells us, "This is very important for your eternal destiny," we ignore what He tells us, and we fit Jesus into our lives as it suits us.   "There is a way which looks and feels right, but it is the street leading to the graveyard."  (My paraphrase of Proverbs 14:12)   Jesus is absolutely serious.

   

Why does Jesus insist; require; demand that we must change and become like little children?   Well, tell you what, next time you're in your church do a little experiment.   First approach an adult man, and say, "Would you take my hand, walk with me, and allow me to lead you around the church building?"   Don't offer an explanation, simply offer your hand.  Do I need to tell you the response you'll receive?   If you are an adult guy asking to lead another adult guy around by holding his hand you might even get threatened, with physical violence, for trying to hold the other guy's hand.   Okay, so it's not a very good idea to ask a grown man to be part of this little experiment.   So instead approach a teenaged guy, saying, "Would you take my hand, walk with me, and allow me to lead you around the church building?"   Make sure you aks the young man in front of a large group of his friends.   If you are an adult male offering a teenaged male your hand to hold, so you can lead him around, you might even earn yourself a beautiful pair of silvery looking bracelets linked together by a little chain, and locked against your will round your wrists, behind your back.   Okay, okay, it's a bad idea to approach a teenager, offer to hold his hand, and to lead him wherever you want to go.

   

So, alright, let's try something completely different...  Approach the mom of a little fellow, and ask if you can take him for a little stroll around the building.  You can even take the stroll around the building in full view of mom and dad, if that helps.   Offer the little tyke your hand, and see if he'll take it.  See if the little guy will walk along with you, allowing you to lead him by the hand.  Having performed this little experiment myself, I know it works.  The little guy will go wherever you want him to go, even if it takes making it into a fun little game the little one isn't hard to convince.  Even Jesus proved this one to the group of people listening to him teach..."Jesus called a little child to him, and placed the child among them."  Matthew 18:2.  How's that for visual aids?   "Hey kid, come here..." 

 

It doesn't take a theological brain trust to figure this one out.  Where Jesus tells us to go, and what Jesus tells us to become isn't something any adult or even teenager would ever do willfully.

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to be My disciple, let him deny himself [disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his own interests] and take up his cross and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying, also]." 

Matthew 16:24

Only a little child will do and go wherever he/she is made to go.   "Come and do as I say.  Come and do whatever I tell you to do, but know that obedience will kill you."   Yeah, grownups will line up to do what they're told with the understanding they'll die for their obedience...  NOT!!!  Only a little child will do what they are told to do.  Oh, the little child may even go kicking and screaming, but go they will, make no mistake about it.   Children have no choice, but to do what their parent(s) desires for them to do.   The call of Christ is absolutely a call to to a new life, but there can be no doubt, the call of Jesus Christ is to death as well.   Death to our way of being; death to our way of thinking; death to our way of behaving; death to the ways of all the world around us!

 

If you are born again, just as it for a parent and his little child, God will calls us, places us, and you have NO choice.  Is your mind filling with arguments and excuses?   Has a "Screw You!" type of statement jumped into your mind?  Formulating an intelligent, well written, gentle, but definite, "NO!," kind of comment??  

Christ calls you, and Christ will place you, exactly where He desires.   Nothing of Christ's call or placement will be agreeable to us.  Are you a "Jesus R Us" kid?? 

WHY I WILL ALWAYS BE A BAD PENNY...

Just Being Me

SQUARE PEG SURROUNDED BY ROUND HOLES?

Story of my life...

 Opener of worm cans?

     

Wall to wall worms  24/7/365

Always walking with one foot up on the curb, and one foot off?

 Exactly!

 On The Outside Looking In?

It will always be this way...

I do not fit in, never have, and never will.   I wanna conform, and I'd kill myself to do it.  I can't be a nonconformist.  I remember standing in a long line at a "stop and rob" quickie mart, outside Champaign, IL.  It was the same place I always stopped for gas and snacks for the 3.5 hour drive home.   The clerk was something extraordinary to behold.  She was a very physically unattractive girl.   But what she lacked in natural beauty she made up for with a truly horrific display of multicolored hair, goth clothing, a face so covered with piercings she looked like a connect the dots page from a coloring book.  What the metal didn't cover she attempted to bury beneath layers of vampire makeup.   She was a freak of nature, not mother nature, but a construct of her chosen alternative anti-establishment group. 

 

The scary chick behind the register was a kindred spirit.  The difference between us was she'd found a group who would finally accept her, and she rose or lowered herself, to the level of those who'd accepted her.   I  have never found a group into which I fit, because I do not like willfully lowering myself merely to have a place to fit.  I try, but then God starts confronting me from the pages of the Bible.  I'm not a non-conformist.  I've always wanted to fit in so badly I'd have happily killed myself, nearly did more than once, to conform.   The weird looking clerk found a place to conform, and she exactly looked the part.   "If you can't beat them, and they won't let you join them, then f*** them! And make your own group to fit into", is how that kind of thing works.  

I suppose it could be argued I'd found a place when I self-identified as gay.  But calling myself gay based completely on the premise:  "I feel this way, therefore I am..." has always seemed to be utterly absurd.   In the end I did learn "feelings" should not be trusted in life and death situations.   If a matter is of life and death importance then treat it with the care and respect such situations deserve.   Today I am G.O.D. positive and HIV negative (and negative for every other STD as well).   I refused to settle for less and got more than I'd ever hoped or dreamed I could have. 

 

Someone might say I have found a group to fit into:  The Church.   That isn't true either.  I have never fit into "the church" as we know it.   When I came to Christ I found the one person who had overcome the world, sin, "me, myself, and I," every temporary worldly concern and thing, and a whole lot more!   God has never allowed me to settle for less than what He wants.   God showed me early on the perfect prayer:

"God I want Your perfect will, not your permissive will.  Please God do not ever let me settle for less than Your perfect will.  In Jesus' name, Amen!"

I will always be on the outside of "the American church", looking in.  Does this mean I think I understand all things?  Do you honestly think I am following God, and if you don't look like me, I think you aren't following God???   If I thought you, my readership, didn't have important insights from God, He hasn't bestowed upon me, and believed you weren't truly interested in serving God, I wouldn't waste my time on you.'

God has never given up on me, and he has never given into my demanding tantrums to,  "Just leave me alone!"   In fact the last time I told God, "Leave me alone,"  He told me, "DON'T YOU EVER TELL ME TO LEAVE YOU ALONE AGAIN!"  I have never experienced something that intense in all my life.   The fear of God is more than simple reverence. 

There is a line from the movie The International, starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, which fits what I'm talking about perfectly.  There is a conversation between Naomi Watts' character and her boss. 

 

Naomi Watts:  "We have to find the truth!  And finding the truth means taking responsibility."

Boss            :  "Yes, exactly!  Which is why people avoid the truth at all cost!"

[Those aren't the exact lines, but it's close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades]

The truth is Jesus Christ has overcome the world, and everyone born again, of the Holy Spirit, overcomes the world.  It is the responsibility of the Church of Jesus Christ to allow Him to overcome the world (utterly defeat and destroy the ways of the world) in and through them. 

  

The truth is Jesus Christ cancelled our earthly citizenship the moment the Holy Spirit made us born again.  

"...for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world."

John 17:14 

"They are not of the world, even as I am not of it."

John 17:16

The truth is just as Father sent Jesus into the world, Jesus sent us into the world.  The same call Father God gives Jesus, Jesus gives to His Church.

"As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world."

John 17:18

Before anyone wastes my time telling me, "That's your opinion, Lonnie," let me just say this:  My opinion, until quite recently, has been:  "God, I think You should leave me alone, and let me live out my life quietly.   Wasn't being gay punishment enough for one lifetime?"  The church in America hated or ignored me as a gay man, and they still hate me now.  Telling the American church the truth will only succeed in getting me killed.

I'm not going to die for my opinion.  I'm going to die because the truth means having to take responsibility, just EXACTLY as Jesus commands, and American christians will do almost anything to avoid the truth.  I don't have any choice in the matter.   I've prayed for years:  "God I want Your perfect will, please do not let me settle for less."
  

• I am not a citizen of the world any longer.   "They are not of the world, even as I am not of it."  ~Jesus of Nazareth.  You are either a citizen of Christ's kingdom, or you are a citizen of a worldly one.  Jesus does not allow for duel citizenship.   Jesus said it 2,000 years ago, and since, "God is the same yesterday, today, and forever...," the decree of Christ holds true to this day.  
• The Father sent Jesus into the world to save it, and Jesus sends us into the world, filled with the Holy Spirit, and through us Jesus Christ continues His ministry.  

"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." 

Ephesians 2:10

"Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."

John 14:12

To the Christians in America I will always be a "bad penny,"  but if I could have my way I'd like to just quietly sit in the background fitting in.  

One last thing...

I will never again vote or take part in any political party, or political activity, for any reason whatsoever.  I do not have a problem with America in the least.  America is lost, SEE, NO PROBLEM...understanding lost America.   Until the American church, from every sector and denomination, comes together on the steps of city hall;  the rotunda of the state house; and the on the steps of the capital in Washington D. C.   to repent of our sins,  NOT  America's sins, but the sins of Christ followers; saints; Christians.   America is a godless nation, not because of the sins of the lost, but because of the wickedness of those who name the name of Christ as savior.   Once Christ followers start publicly repenting to God and the lost, then, AND ONLY THEN, can we seek God about how He would have us handle politics.   

I am blessed to have been born in America.  I have enormous problems with American Christians who will not give themselves over to following Christ's ways and Christ's agenda.   Too many American Christians have deceived themselves and others into believing God must bless and prosper their self-centered and self-serving agenda.   God blesses and prospers only the work done in and through us by the Holy Spirit.   For God to bless and prosper human agendas and human ways would be to deny Himself; would make God a liar; and make God subservient to human whim.  

For it is written: 

  

"Let the wicked forsake their ways
   and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways,”
            declares the LORD.

 “As the heavens are higher than the earth,

   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts."

Isaiah 55:7-9

 

    

THERE ARE NO LAW ABIDING CITIZENS IN THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN...

 ...The citizens of the kingdom of God are all GRACE abiding citizens.

A COMMENT I LEFT ON ANOTHER WEBLOG...

 This is the sign which occasioned a Christian to say, "I don't see anything wrong with that sign."  What follows below is my response to that comment...

My father was an avid gun collector, and he taught all of us how to fire and maintain a firearm.  He also started teaching us gun safety when we were very little kids.  I have no problem with guns, the Second Amendment, hunting, or even with the use of deadly force to protect the women folk (or men folk for that matter), and all the tiny tots.   I was raised by parents who valued deeply their citizenship, and were always conspicuously patriotic.  I have an American pedigree which is nothing short of stellar; a signer of The Declaration of Independence, and ancestors who served in nearly every armed conflict beginning with the Revolutionary war right up to today.  My oldest brother has served, with distinction, at the Pentagon, for many years.  First in the Army, and now as a civilian, doing the same job he did while in the service.


Until most recently I had several firearms of my own, which I inherited from my dad.  But recently I've given my firearms to my two older brothers.  I have been confronted more and more with my new citizenship in Christ's kingdom, and the conflicts between his kingdom and my earthly citizenship.   God is conforming us to the image and likeness of His Son, and these are a few things Jesus teaches:

"Blessed are the peacemakers,For they shall be called sons of God."  Matthew 5:9

 If the peacemakers are called the sons of God what do we call the gun makers?  To be conformed to the image and likeness of Jesus is to be a peacemaker.

 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."  John 3:17

If Jesus doesn't come to condemn the world, but, rather, He came to save it, then to be conformed to the image and likeness of Christ is to offer eternal life and salvation through the gospel.  Firearms condemn.
"You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'  But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also."

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."   Matthew 5:38-39 & 43-45

To be conformed to the image and likeness of Christ means not standing on my legal rights, but rather doing good to the world which is God's enemy.   And being conformed to the image and likeness of Christ means "love your enemies..."  And Jesus doesn't simply stop at teaching love of enemies, but that love for enemies is synonymous with being the children of Father God.  YIKES!!   Guns are most definitely all about my legal right to demand the life of an evil person who has earned that wage, but God is conforming me to the image and likeness of Jesus, so how does being like Jesus work at all with shooting the evil person a Christian is told not to resist??

"Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”"  Luke 23:34

That is the coup de grace!  There Jesus hangs on a cross, looking at the very people who have wrongly condemned convicted and executed Him, but He PLEADS FOR THEIR LIVES!   This is the one I can't get around at all, no matter how I've tried to justify my potential use of lethal force, I can't in light of what Jesus does.  God is conforming me to the image and likeness of Christ, and Christ pleads for the forgiveness of those who murder Him!!!   This is what God is conforming me to be like
.  
With all of God's conforming going on, within us, who in the Church would have such a sign?  I'm not saying there is never any call for the use of deadly force, but where does it fit in the life conformed to the image and likeness of Christ??  Could Jesus, hanging on the cross, have possibly used a gun to shoot His way out, then looked up to heaven and pleaded with Father for forgiveness for the men He shot or shot at?!
      
Don't get me wrong I miss my guns, but I can't find a place in the image and likeness of Jesus for my holsters, or gun rack!!     

ON STARTING MY 48TH YEAR

There Are Worse Things Than Getting Older...

 

A 48 year old fixing a faucet.

    “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

Happy New Year!  My birthday isn't the first of 2012, but the thirty-oneth of December.   I spent the morning and early afternoon finishing up my visit to my cousin and her husband, and drove home.  I got home at about 7:00 PM on Saturday, so I spent a lot of my day in transit.  I've had 47 birthdays before, and there is little new, so traveling was actually a nice change for once.   I have two short years left before the big FIVE-ZERO, but I've learned quite a bit in my short 48 years of life.  I'll share eight of the greatest things God has taught me in 21 years of being a believer...

• Jesus really does overcome our sin and our sin natures.  He does this by taking us to death on the cross with him.  When Paul writes, "It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me," he isn't kidding, he is dead serious.  God gives us a new nature, one born of his own Holy Spirit.   Die daily to self, build up the new inner person, allow Christ to indwell you through the Holy Spirit, and Christ living in you will overcome your nature.  Jesus says, "...I have overcome the world."  Invite Jesus to enable you to die, and then invite him to live his life in you.   Try it, and see what you get.   "...We know it when we love God and obey his commands. ³ Here is what it means to love God. It means that we obey his commands. And his commands are not hard to obey. ⁴ That's because everyone who is a child of God has won the battle over the world. Our faith has won the battle for us.  ⁵ Who is it that has won the battle over the world? Only the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."  1 John 5:2-5 (NIV Reader's Version)

• If you screw up, God can and will fix it.   I do not know what it will cost for God to fix it when you screw up, but when you screw up ask God to fix it, and see what you get.   I'm not you so I can't tell you how God will deal with you when you screw up.  It may be the worst sin in the world, from your perspective, but God can fix anything we screw up.  It may cost you something, it may cost you a lot, and it is assured you will be humbled.   God will fix your screw up, if you will only ask, and willingly do whatever he tells you to do.

 

• God still speaks.  Yes, he speaks most often through his written word, but sometimes there isn't a verse of Scripture from which to speak.  God isn't going to give you some new revelation; you're not going to be adding to the Bible.   How do I know God still speaks to us, even outside the Bible?  Simple, because the Bible tells us so...  "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."   John 10:27.   You may say, "Today God only speaks through the Bible," but you are only depriving yourself of God's voice.   Only a fool would dare tamper with the word of the living God in such a way.  Do not attempt to limit God, for you only succeed in limiting his power in your life.  God still speaks, but are you listening?

"...early Christianity was not a 'religion of the Book,' but rather 'the religion of the Spirit and the living Christ'"

~ The Biblical Canon, page 33.

"I think that, for the most part, evangelicals have taken the easy way and chosen to chase the Holy Spirit into the Bible."

~ Roger E. Olson, Professor of Historical Theology

{Thank you, Cousin James, for these quotes!  And Happy belated Birthday on the oneth!!!}

• Hatred wins nothing.  Christians may say, "Hate the sin, but love the sinner," but these "christians" are almost always dishonest (I can say, without fear of correction, that everyone I've met who used that quote was lying!!).   Those I've met who said, "Hate the sin, but love the sinner," showed they only loved hating the sin, if not blatantly hating the sinner as well.  Jesus tells us to love our enemies, because when we love our enemies God is able to show us they are really just a reflection of ourselves.   The only way to overcome hate is with love.  Jesus says of our enemies:  ⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven.  He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."   Do you see that?  Jesus says,  ⁴⁴ "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven."   Loving our enemies proves we are the children of God!   And what is the last statement Jesus makes,  "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."   Jesus absolutely connects love for enemies with the perfection of God!   Jesus isn't making an empty statement, he's commanding us!!   Of course it is impossible for us to be perfect, so Christ makes us born again, and then indwells us, so that he may perfectly love as our heavenly Father does in and through us.  Still angry about 9/11?  Still angry with Muslims?   Still itching for revenge against the people's the United States has made war against?   What does Jesus tell you to do?   What is Jesus' command?  What is the proof Jesus requires of those who are God's true children?

"Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation."

"The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But... the good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"

“That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.”

~ Martin Luther King Jr.

• God heals your relationship first with himself, then with those in his and your born again family; the Church.  Finally he pours out his Spirit upon us that we may offer healing and wholeness to a hurt and dying world.  Don't shove your own relationships under the rug, in the name of "helping others".  Allow God to reach in and begin fixing you, your relationship to him, and then the relationships in the Church.  The family of God is where we learn to love; our Christian brothers and sisters are the guinea pigs, before we approach a hurting sin filled world!    Today nearly everyone in the Church is as broken and dysfunctional as the world.  How can the broken and dysfunctional fix a broken and dysfunctional world?!   Reaching out to the world is a part of your growth and healing, but get some house cleaning done in your own house, before tackling the world's mess.

• Jesus Christ's own definition of a Christian is "one who is obedient".  Don't believe me?  Then you've not been reading the Bible, because Jesus is very clear.  Jesus own words:  ³¹ "To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. ³² Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  John 8:31-32.  Honestly, how much more does Jesus have to say?   Jesus says, *IF*, **IF**, NOTICE JESUS SAYS,  "IF"...."If you hold to my teachings, you are really my disciples."   What do you think it means "IF" you don't hold to his teachings?!   "IF" means, "IF you don't hold to my teachings, you are not really my disciples!!"  1) Die daily to yourself, your ways, your selfish desires and pursuits, "put off the old self along with its deceitful desires..."  2) "Put on the new self, created to be like Christ".  3) Ask God to enable you to obey him, and 4)  Obey the teachings of Jesus.   Which teachings of Jesus do you obey??   Start with:  "Love God and your neighbor as you (already) love yourself."   "Do to others what you would like them to do to/for you."   "Love your enemies." (see above.).   "Love one another; just as I have loved you, you must love one another."   "Go into all the earth and make disciples of all nations."   Obey these lessons, and God will give you understanding as to how to keep all the others.  

• Give of your income and of your time in service.  Don't give me any of this nonsense about tithing isn't for the Church.  I'm not talking about keeping a law!  I'm talking about a very central part of God's own character.   The greatest verse on giving in the Bible is not in the Old Testament.   The Christian gives because of John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,..."  God gave ALL of his wealth; God gave ALL of his treasure!  For what could God give or create which would equal the value of his only Son??!!   Giving isn't law, it is the heart of God!   Start out with 10%, but don't ever stop there!  Give offerings to any in need, and it doesn't have to be an established ministry of some kind.  You can give offering to a homeless person in need.  You can give offering to a family whose house has burned down.  You can give offering to the person who has a flat tire and no spare!   It is God's heart to give and this is the only reason you ever need to give.  Do you want to know and have God's own heart beating within you?    THEN GIVE TO STRANGERS WITHOUT EXPECTING ANYTHING BACK, AND WITHOUT ANY STRINGS ATTACHED!!!   10% is only the beginning...

• Temptation is not sin.  I'm tired of hearing "christians" whining about their struggles and temptations.  Being tempted or having a terrible thought, pop unannounced, into your head is not sin.   If you pursue the temptation, and/or allow the thought to take root and become your thought, then you are in sin.   "Everyone born of God overcomes the world..."  "If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation; the old has passed away.  Behold everything is made new."   "For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."  "But we have the mind of Christ."  "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."   Get it?  GOT IT?  GOOD!!  Temptation is going to be there for the rest of our lives, but that doesn't mean we have to accept it, or allow it to define us and control us.   Satan doesn't have a weapon to use against you if you are in Christ; a Christian.   The Holy Spirit once told me to listen to the language of temptation.  I'd always thought pictures would pop into my mind and that was the extent of most temptation, but as I obeyed the Spirit, and actually listened I learned something very important about temptation.  Temptation is a backhanded accusation.  Indeed a picture would suddenly pop into my head, but then I carefully listened, and sure enough there was a snide whisper along with the picture.  I could hear, "You know this is what you really want,"  or  "Take this, you know it belongs to you."   NO!  Sinful thoughts do not belong to me!  Why don't sinful thoughts belong to me?   "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has passed away..." 2 Corinthians 5:17.   I am a new creation in Christ, and I DO NOT think sinful thoughts any longer.  Sinful thoughts do not come from the new nature born of God's own Spirit.  The Holy Spirit indwells my new born spirit, and it is impossible for such thoughts to begin in my mind.   Ephesians 4:22-24:  ²² "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.    NOW SEE HERE!  If you can't "put off your old self,"  why does the word of God say you can!?!?  If you are stuck with a messed up sinful mind then why does God's word tell us, "...be made new in the attitude of your minds..."???!!!  If all you are is a "sinner saved by grace," and you have no choice but to sin, then why are we told "put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."???!!!  IT IS IN THE BIBLE BECAUSE GOD HAS MADE YOU A NEW CREATION, AND THE OLD HAS TRULY PASSED AWAY.    1) Put off the old self.   2) Renew your mind with God's holy truth.   3) Put on the new self, created BY God, TO BE LIKE God, and walk in the Spirit, so you don't sin against God!   IF IT ISN'T POSSIBLE THEN GOD IS A LIAR!!!   And we know God is not a liar...."Let God be true, and every man a liar."   If you aren't going to believe the truth: A) that God has made you a new creation, B) seated you with Christ (right now), and that C)  because God has given you a new, born again spirit, made to be like Jesus Christ; and that God is right now conforming you to the image and likeness of Christ; and God has created you anew, so that you overcome the world...then perhaps, just maybe?, could it be possible?, you might want to consider... you do not have faith in the overcoming power of Jesus Christ and that would leave you:

   D)   Dishonoring God!  Doubting the power of God's grace!!  Denying the sovereign power of Christ to overcome sin!!!  

JUST SOME THOUGHTS 

 

 

GOOD WILL TOWARD MANKIND

I'll Be Working

       I had a lady in the checkout line at about 4:30 AM Friday morning get her panties all in a bunch.   She wasn't upset over merchandise shortages, sale prices not scanning, or because we didn't have her brand of cigarette.  No she was upset because I would be working on Christmas.   Mind you, I'm not the least bit upset, and more about that in a moment.   First let me also tell you about an email all of our stores received from Corporate.   We made the "naughty" list at the American Family Association or AFA.  The AFA sent out a poisoned Christmas message to boycott my company this holiday season.  It seems my company is politically correct and only allow our associates to use holiday greetings like, well, like, "Holiday Greetings", or "Happy Holidays".   This was news to us, because we are absolutely allowed and actually encouraged to say "Merry Christmas".  Every year I wear my "Merry Christmas" tie, and my decorated moose antlers.  And I go a little further, with the holiday greetings, and say, "Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays" in the same holiday wish.  I throw in the Happy Holidays to flush out the "Christmas Nazis".   When I say the Happy Holidays part they pounce on me verbally.   Everyone in line gets a great education about what true evil looks like when these "christians" start spewing anger, and hatred toward anyone who dares say anything other than "Merry Christmas".   I give people one little phrase and they bite; pumping out more venom than a rattle snake.  

       

      As I said, I am working this Christmas.  I'm looking forward to it.  Why would I, a professing Christian, be glad I am working instead of being where I OUGHT to be?   First off I have a job!  I am very happy and thankful to have a job this year.   But of greatest importance: I'm a Christian.  Who else, besides a Christian, do you want folks to meet?   Do you want a pissy atheist to face the harried, tired, hurting, lonely and stressed Christmas shopper?   Who else is going to give folks "Good will toward mankind?"  I'm keeping Christmas by allowing the Holy Spirit to show God's good will toward the corner of the world he's put me in.

      

        Do you think I'm somehow unaware of the part I play in the evil plan of the "money grubbers"?   I'm aware of how materialistic Christmas has become, and that my working on Christmas is in service to corporate America.   It doesn't matter, because wherever I am Christ is, and Christ overcomes the world.   I'm not looking to make money, I'm looking to serve people, and offer a warm, loving, funny, Christ filled guy who helped bring a smile to what may be a bleak and lonely time.   Honestly who else should be in front of these folks?   The problem isn't that my company took "Christ" out of Christmas.   Only Christians can truly take Christ out of Christmas.   Keep Christ in Christmas, by simply allowing him to shine through.  Serve wherever you are, and so honor and promote the power of Christ to overcome the world.  I can't express to you how much I am looking forward to working this Christmas!  I'll be praying, loving, and serving, just as Christ would have me behave.   What, honestly, should a fellow Christian expect of me at Christmas??   

How will you be serving, loving, and shining so the world can see Christ in Christmas?