Temerity Magazine Volume 1 Issue 3

Site Maintenance will begin at 1am CST July 16th

Sit back and listen to our radio archives while I get the sites updated!  I will delete this post when all is up and running Grizzly!

~Teddy Bear

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1 New Heart

fousesquawk-this post was kindly shared with us by our great Grizzly Groundswell Author Gary Fouse from FouseSquawk blog

1 New Heart

If you are starving to hear a great story coming out of the whole Israel-Palestinian conflict, this is it. Meet Hank Dannecker Jr. and his wife, Michele, two American Christians who pulled up stakes a couple of years ago and moved to Israel to answer God’s call to help people. Without even knowing they would have a home to provide a roof over their heads, these two went to Israel to help bring medical care to Palestinian and other Arab children with congenital heart problems. Their home-grown movement called 1 New Heart is linking up Israeli doctors working for free to provide heart operations to needy Palestinian/Arab children. Together with the Israeli organization, Save a Childs Heart (SACH), approximately 15 children a month are being given a new lease on life. For about $10,000, a child can be given the necessary operation and affiliated care and medications. As stated, the doctors work for free, but the costs of transportation, the hospital costs, room, anesthesia, etc must be covered. This cost is divided between SACH and 1 New Heart. (Since the Israeli agency cannot directly find Palestinian and other non-Israeli children to help, they use Hank’s group as an intermediary. It is Hank who literally transports the children and their families from Gaza for example, through Israeli check-points, and to the hospital (Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, Israel).

You might be asking the question I myself posed to Hank Tuesday over the phone; why do so many Palestinian children suffer from congenital heart defects? The reason is a high level of intermarriage in Palestinian society where a marriage to say, a half-sister is acceptable. As a result, about 20 of 1000 Palestinian children now have heart defects, according to Dannecker, a much higher than normal rate.

Aside from the obvious humanitarian benefit, there is another great benefit involved. These are children that are being raised to believe that Christians and Jews are evil beings. Their families sit in mosques and listen to the vilest descriptions of Christians and Jews preached by many of their imams. They are told that Christians and Jews are descendants of apes and pigs who eat Muslim babies. This program puts the lie to that. Not only the child, but his/her entire extended family sees the humanity and the charity of these Christians, Jews and Israeli doctors who donate their time and skill to saving young lives. If you still believe that reconciliation is possible between the religions in the Middle East and between Israelis and Palestinians, this is a program you can believe in.

It goes without saying that the crying need is funding. Hank’s organization, 1 New Heart, while not yet a 501 C3 organization, collects its contributions through the Israeli Missions Project, which is so recognized and which sends 100% of the funds received to Hank.

I am attaching some photos which Hank sent to me via email. They show a 5-year-old Palestinian girl named Majed, who received a heart operation from Israeli doctors. You can see her family and the doctors in the operating room. I am also posting one of Hank’s newsletters and the 1 New Heart brochure below. In addition, what follows below is a film clip showing the actual transportaion of a Palestinian child and her family into Israel proper for an operation. Finally, I am posting the address to which contributions can be sent. If you agree with me on the beauty and importance of this humanitarian project, I hope you will consider a contribution and pass this information on.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJa0_jEXXFE&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

From 1 New Heart’s brochure:

HISTORY

In 2006, the vision for this outreach was born when we met a three-year-old Palestinian girl named Jumanah, who was fighting leukemia. Jumanah’s name is Arabic for “silver pearl,” and her little life was truly a “pearl of great value” (Matthew 13:45-46).

Upon learning of the difficulties Palestinian families can face in finding access to even basic health care, we helped to raise money and awareness for Jumanah’s medical treatment. We witnessed firsthand what a powerful sign of God’s love this was for her entire family.

THE NEED

Congenital heart disease (CHD) causes the death of thousands of children in developing countries each year. Eight out of every 1000 live births around the world have some form of CHD. While vast resources have been expended in the West to treat these children, most third world countries lack a comparable infrastructure. In Palestine the doctors and hospitals are not trained and equipped to perform the most basic heart surgeries. Even in Israel there are only a few doctors that can perform such complicated pediatric heart surgeries.

WHAT WE DO

We assist in communication between West Bank children’s family members and Israeli doctors, facilitate the children’s travel to Israeli hospitals, and help offset the cost of the surgery. The doctors volunteer their time and expertise, but the costs of the operation room, equipment, the medication, the anesthesia, as well as the transportation costs of the child, have to be covered.

OUR GOAL

…is to sponsor one child per month and utilize the doors God has given us to open a way into the spiritual hearts of the families we are working with. We have the opportunity to watch new life begin through the physical changes a life saving heart surgery brings. As we build relationships with these children and their families, our main focus and goal is to share Christ’s love and His ability to change their spiritual hearts as well.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

The most important thing you can do to help us in this work is to pray for us. Pray that we would have the right words to share at the right times. Pray that the Lord would continue to open up doors for us to minister to these hurting children and their families. Pray that many would come to know Christ through this work.

The sponsorship for each child’s open heart surgery is $5,000. If you, your church or organization are interested in storing up treasure in heaven by sponsoring a child, please contact us for more information. All sponsored children receive 100% of all the funds raised for their heart surgeries.

We invite you to come visit us and to catch God’s vision for changing the hearts of people in Israel and the Middle East, one child, one family, one heart at a time.

1NewHeart
www.1newheart.org
7-1 Hamalach Belavan Street
Jerusalem 93545 Israel
1newheart@gmail.com

Below are pictures of 5-year-old Majed and her family as she traveled to Wolfson Medical Center with her family and received her heart operation.

En route to Wolfson Medical Center

Arrival accompanied by her grandfather

——————————————————————————
From 1 New Heart’s May newsletter:

Dear Friends,

Spring has arrived here in Jerusalem and with it much change and new life! It’s been a few months since we have communicated with you, and we would like to take this opportunity to bring you up to date on the work and ministry being done, as well as to give you a glimpse in to what is happening in our family life.

In our last newsletter we shared about 5 year old Majed, the little girl from Jenin who underwent open heart surgery. Miraculously she was able to go home within one week following her surgery. Unfortunately we cannot bring another child until we are able to pay SACH for Majed’s sponsorship of $5,000.

Our desire is to continue this work of compassion, helping other children in the West Bank territories receive medical treatment and heart surgery.

Part of what we do is to communicate with the children’s family members and Israeli doctors, facilitate the children’s travel to the hospital and help offset the cost of the surgery. The doctors volunteer their time and expertise, but the costs of the operating room, equipment, surgical supplies, medications, as well as the transportation costs of the child, have to be covered.

The total cost to bring children and perform open heart surgery is $10,000. for each child. This is a much reduced cost because of Save A Childs Heart (Israeli non-profit org.) and Israel’s socialized medical care. It is our heartfelt goal to sponsor one child per month but it cannot be done without the body of Christ responding to this need. For us to continue this work we need to raise half the cost which would be $5,000. for each child.

We feel so strongly about this work that, during these last three months, we have written (and re-written!) a strategic plan/proposal and recently submitted it to the BICWM (Brethren in Christ World Missions). The WM board of directors will be convening in early June and our prayer is that this work of compassion will continue for years to come.

It is with great joy we extend to you or your church this awesome opportunity to store up treasure in heaven where moth and rust do not destroy. All sponsored children will receive 100% of all the funds raised for their heart surgeries.

Family life is also in transition. We learned in early March that a new addition is coming soon! We are expecting our third child – the due date is sometime between November 9-15th. We all are eagerly anticipating a new baby brother or sister!

So, we thank God continually for you as we partner together to impact the land of Israel for time and eternity!

To Jesus be all the Glory!
Blessings,
Hank, Michele, AbbyRose & Levi

The DANNECKER’S serving in Israel
Prayer and Needs Update May, 2009

We serve under the auspices of Brethren In Christ World Missions. For more information, you can contact BIC, PO Box 390, Grantham, PA 17027-0390 or in Canada; 2700 Bristol Circle, Oakville, ON L6H 6E1.

Financial support can be made payable to: Clear Creek BIC, attn: Vicki Stiffler, 6150 Big Creek Rd., Clearville, PA 15535. In the memo blank, write “1 New Heart”.

Dannecker family information: Mailing address: 7-1 Hamalach Belavan St. Jerusalem 93545 Israel
Skype (PA) phone #: 814-806-1014
Email: ablesmom@gmail.com OR 1newheart@gmail.com
——————————————————————————

The website for 1 New Heart (http://1newheart.org is not yet up and running. The website for Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) may be found at:

http://www.saveachildsheart.org/

Kindly shared with us by Gary Fouse of FouseSquawk blog

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Socialism is ANTI-Faith & Charity!

If you do not believe me, listen to the Socialist Squirrel on this Video!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS-2AL4uuCM[/youtube]

If your faith institution is infested with socialist squirrels ride them out on a rail and begin the Grizzly Groundswell Revival of God’s People right in your very own backyard!

If not you, Who?

If Not Today, When?

Get Grizzly for Christ & Charity my friends!

~TeddyBear

Invoking the Name of Christ

Below is an excerpt from my recent blog post on June 9th, 2009.  To read the rest of the piece and comment, please visit one of my blog sites listed below.  Thank you, and enjoy!

Troy

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On Tuesday, June 9th, Eamon Javers of The Politico, penned an article entitled, “Obama invokes Jesus more than Bush.” Honestly the title caused me to shutter; however, I was drawn to reading the piece because I knew it must be chalked full of inaccuracies and misinterpretations. As I feared…it was. Let me debunk a few things from Mr. Javers’ article.

(1) First, the title is frightening. Since when is invoking the name of Christ been a comparable factor in politics? Is there a running tally going on that I am not aware of? Does invoking our Savior’s name really mean something other than one knows OF the Messiah?
Seriously, my dad can beat up your dad, Mr. Javers!

TO BE CONTINUED…

———————————————————————

To continue reading, please visit www.mycall2rise.com, or the Family First Ministries blog, http://familyfirstministries.blogspot.com.

I also covet your comments!

God bless you and your family!

Troy G. White

Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder

The American Psychiatric Association has its associates excited about defining and diagnosing a ‘new’ mental illness. This will undoubtedly lead to a windfall of profits for the drug companies poised to send their minions to the bought-and-paid-for doctor’s offices all over the nation.

This new illness announced at a San Fransisco meeting is called Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder or PTED.

Don’t get me wrong…it is good that the field of psychiatry is recognizing the destructiveness of embitterment. But it is hardly a new diagnosis as the Bible is full examples of embittered individuals.

Lucifer was the first being to suffer from PTED. Other examples that come to mind are Cain, Baalam, Jezebel and Simon Magus.

What follows is a few working definitions of embitterment or bitterness. Then we will look at one man’s pathway into bitterness and its effects. And finally, we will look at the Biblical prescription or anecdote for bitterness.

PTED occurs when after a person suffers from a loss, they cannot break free from the anger and depression naturally experienced in the grieving process. Paul warns us in Ephesians to, “Be angry and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.” We can be angry but we are not to entertain it to the point of sin. For example, David was angry at God after He struck dead, the ark-bearers but this did not lead to sin.

Here are four definitions of bitterness:

1. Bitterness is intense anger and desire for revenge coupled with the helpless inability to do anything about it.

2. Bitterness is an obsessive occupation with self,life, and its many problems.

3. Bitter individuals defend their grudges and believe their intense pain exempts them from the need to forgive and forget.

4. Simon Magus is described by Peter as ‘bitter’. This Greek word used for bitter in Strong’s is ‘poison’. What follows is what I believe to be the best definition. Bitterness is drinking poison while hoping the other person will die from it. This touches on the irrational thought process of the bitter mind.

Bitterness can occur when there is a sin un-repented of. Bitterness can also occur when there is a sin or circumstance that happens to the one who becomes bitter because they are unwilling to forgive and forget and reach acceptance.

Lets follow the example of King Saul in his pathway to bitterness and see where it leads.

In I Samuel 15, Saul returns from a great victory over the Amalekites. His instructions were to destroy every man, woman, child and animal.Saul returns with King Agag and his soldiers return with much spoil. Samuel is furious with Saul for his disobedience and tells him he has committed a grevious sin against the Lord.

1Sa 15:24 And Saul said unto Samuel: ‘I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words; because I feared the people, and hearkened to their voice.
1Sa 15:25 Now therefore, I pray thee, pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD.’
1Sa 15:26 And Samuel said unto Saul: ‘I will not return with thee; for thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.’
1Sa 15:27 And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his robe, and it rent.
1Sa 15:28 And Samuel said unto him: ‘The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou.
1Sa 15:29 And also the Glory of Israel will not lie nor repent; for He is not a man, that He should repent.’
1Sa 15:30 Then he said: ‘I have sinned; yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the LORD thy God.’

Because of his disobedience, Saul was to suffer a traumatic loss; the Kingdom of Israel was to be taken from him and given to someone better than him. Saul’s response was not one of repentance. He blames the people for his sin and then is only concerned with appearances by begging that Samuel return with him. Saul’s refusal to repent leads to torment from a vexing spirit. This spirit is there to influence and promote the fruits of bitterness. Saul begins to wallow in guilt, depression and self-pity.

David is that ‘better’ man chosen to replace Saul as king over Israel. David is the champion who kills Goliath and gains instant reknown in Israel.

1Sa 18:6 And it came to pass as they came, when David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with timbrels, with joy, and with three-stringed instruments.
1Sa 18:7 And the women sang one to another in their play, and said: Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.
1Sa 18:8 And Saul was very wroth, and this saying displeased him; and he said: ‘They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands; and all he lacketh is the kingdom!’
1Sa 18:9 And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.
1Sa 18:10 And it came to pass on the morrow, that an evil spirit from God came mightily upon Saul, and he raved in the midst of the house; and David played with his hand, as he did day by day; and Saul had his spear in his hand.
1Sa 18:11 And Saul cast the spear; for he said: ‘I will smite David even to the wall.’ And David stepped aside out of his presence twice.
1Sa 18:12 And Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him, and was departed from Saul.
1Sa 18:13 Therefore Saul removed him from him, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people.
1Sa 18:14 And David had great success in all his ways; and the LORD was with him.
1Sa 18:15 And when Saul saw that he had great success, he stood in awe [great fear] of him.

Now we see the embittered Saul moving into intense feelings of jealousy, fear and resentment. Saul now wants to murder David and this leads to more than a decade-long pursuit.

As we get into I Samuel 28, Samuel is now dead and there are no prophets able to give Saul access to the Word of God. In his bitter desperation, Saul seeks the aid of a medium. A demon is conjured up and is given to prophesy to Saul one last time.

1Sa 28:3 Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him, and buried him in Ramah, even in his own city. And Saul had put away those that divined by a ghost or a familiar spirit out of the land.
1Sa 28:4 And the Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and pitched in Shunem; and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they pitched in Gilboa.
1Sa 28:5 And when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly.
1Sa 28:6 And when Saul inquired of the LORD, the LORD answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets.
1Sa 28:7 Then said Saul unto his servants: ‘Seek me a woman that divineth by a ghost, that I may go to her, and inquire of her.’ And his servants said to him: ‘Behold, there is a woman that divineth by a ghost at En-dor.’
1Sa 28:8 And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said: ‘Divine unto me, I pray thee, by a ghost, and bring me up whomsoever I shall name unto thee.’
1Sa 28:9 And the woman said unto him: ‘Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that divine by a ghost or a familiar spirit out of the land; wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die?’
1Sa 28:10 And Saul swore to her by the LORD, saying: ‘As the LORD liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing.’
1Sa 28:11 Then said the woman: ‘Whom shall I bring up unto thee?’ And he said: ‘Bring me up Samuel.’
1Sa 28:12 And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a loud voice; and the woman spoke to Saul, saying: ‘Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul.’
1Sa 28:13 And the king said unto her: ‘Be not afraid; for what seest thou?’ And the woman said unto Saul: ‘I see a godlike being coming up out of the earth.’
1Sa 28:14 And he said unto her: ‘What form is he of?’ And she said: ‘An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a robe.’ And Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground, and prostrated himself.
1Sa 28:15 And Samuel said to Saul: ‘Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?’ And Saul answered: ‘I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams; therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do.’
1Sa 28:16 And Samuel said: ‘Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the LORD is departed from thee, and is become thine adversary?
1Sa 28:17 And the LORD hath wrought for Himself; as He spoke by me; and the LORD hath rent the kingdom out of thy hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David.
1Sa 28:18 Because thou didst not hearken to the voice of the LORD, and didst not execute His fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the LORD done this thing unto thee this day.
1Sa 28:19 Moreover the LORD will deliver Israel also with thee into the hand of the Philistines; and to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me; the LORD will deliver the host of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.’
1Sa 28:20 Then Saul fell straightway his full length upon the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel; and there was no strength in him; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night.

And yet the very next day, Saul went out to be killed just as the demon had prophesied would happen to him. Saul’s embitterment led him to complete irrationality and self-destructiveness. His road to bitterness ended where sin always leads…to death.

So what is the anecdote to bitterness? Dr. Paul the Apostle outlines a prescription in Philippians 4:6-9.

Php 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing”

Don’t be anxious and stressed out. Don’t dwell on the loss and the pain. Don’t coddle your suffering and wallow in self-pity. Be angry and sin not. Repent and/or forgive and forget, which ever is necessary to move on.

Php 4:6, “…but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”

Pray. Speak to God with thanksgiving. Focus on your blessings and what God has in store for those who love and obey His word.

Php 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

Meditate on what is good. Purify your thoughts. Mind-set is a choice. Choose that which is good and gives life.

Php 4:9, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.”

Follow the good examples of those around you. If there are none, then it is time to find new friends. Paul was a servant-leader who urges us all to pattern our behaviors and actions after him. Put your time and efforts in serving others and you will more quickly and easily forgive and forget your own sufferings.

As Saul was a type of Satan in many instances, so was David a type of Christ. There are many Psalms written by David that illustrate his ability to apply the remedy of bitterness. Psalm 57 was written in exile, hiding in a cave from the threat of destruction from Saul. Again, recall that this went on for more than 10 years! How much of this would you have been able to endure before becoming bitter? Read this psalm very carefully and appreciate David’s faith, fore-sight and perseverance in choosing to be positive and uplifting even unto us. This remedy is eternally greater than any drug millions will soon be taking for post traumatic embitterment disorder.

Psa 57:1 Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.
Psa 57:2 I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me.
Psa 57:3 He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.
Psa 57:4 My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.
Psa 57:5 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.
Psa 57:6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.
Psa 57:7 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.
Psa 57:8 Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
Psa 57:9 I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.
Psa 57:10 For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds.
Psa 57:11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.

Grizzly Groundswell: Weapon of Mass Instruction and Inspiration!

Are you Grizzly?

Theodore Media LLC is getting Grizzly in some exciting ways!

What I am looking to do, and have done it for the most part is unite
the conservative thought, voice and image across this great nation.  I
am not as concerned with your content because that is your thought,
voice and image, I want to lift that up, even if we disagree.  Actually
if we disagree that is just better radio! 

My emphasis is to
totally defeat and keep future generations boot on the neck of
socialist squirrels.  I focus on getting grizzly in your backyard and
realize who the hell cares what the Federal Goverment is doing if we do
not rule our own backyards.

My goal is to monetize this effort and afford one or more 24/7 online radio stations.  Our goal is to start adding commercials not only for each others efforts but paying ads that will fill our coffers and maybe put some food on our tables.  I am running this through Theodore Media LLC.  I am hoping to finally get a cash flow so that we can reinvest in the vehicles we already provide for great conservatives and lift them up.

In doing this, we need everything from a sales force, to producers and audio genius to make the commercials fun and effective.  We may go with a low pricepoint and sell :15 second spots so the work goes up, but the numbers game helps us offer a great product at a lower price point. 

It is getting Grizzly and growing like crazy! 

Essentially I need for you and our other authors, radio show hosts to take advantage of this platform I am providing for conservative thought, voice and image.

This is what I have built so far, think of it as a three legged stool:

Theodore
Media LLC: A Three Legged Stool 1) Grizzly Groundswell Blog Networks 2)
Temerity Magazine 3) Grizzly Groundswell Radio Network

1. Grizzly Groundswell Blog Network:  30+ blog networks with over 1800 unique visitors each day.  You cross post your blog posts and show promotions to this network with links back to your site and related posts in your archives.  With over 200+ conservative authors it is truly the place to go to get conservative thought, voice and image.
2. Temerity Magazine: We are now on our third issue.  It is a great vehicle where our bloggers can gain Published resumes and get our message out in a new way each month.  It is gaining prestige and reach each day. Themes for the rest of the year and specs for submissions are available on www.temeritymagazine.com and the submission deadline is the 8th of each month.
3. Grizzly Groundswell Radio Network: Now with three shows going 7 days a week. 

• Grizzly Groundswell: www.blogtalkradio.com/grizzlygroundswell 7-8 PM CST

1. Sunday: Tommy & Howie on Chandlers Watch
2. Monday: Susanna Lohse: Miss Kitty
3. Tuesday: Shelli Dawdy & Sandra Crosnoe: CLC
4. Wednesday: Chad Everson, Bear Fan Ron & Jeannie-ology
5. Thursday: Leo Shishmanian: Barack Obama’s Teleprompter
   
6. Friday: LeftFootLeeds & Chris Walden
7. Saturday: Attila the Honey & Uncle Sam Honey
   

• Grizzly Politic: www.blogtalkradio.com/grizzlypolitic 8-9 PM CST

1. Sunday: Ken Pettigrew: What Pisses YOU off?
2. Monday: OPEN!  <could be YOU!
   
3. Tuesday: R. P. Ramsey
4. Wednesday: Keith Miller
5. Thursday: Ruthie Report: You respond
   
6. Friday: CJ Galdes
7. Saturday: OPEN! <could be YOU!

• Socialist Squirrel: www.blogtalkradio.com/SocialistSquirrel 9-10 PM CST
  

1. Sunday: Bear Fan Ron & Taylor Gombos
2. Monday: Mark W. Johnson & Bear Fan Ron
3. Tuesday: Rod Eccles & J. Sage Bobcook
4. Wednesday: Chad Everson
5. Thursday: (every other week) Sid Bridge: The Endive / Dawn Wildman & Sarah Bond
6. Friday: Toni No Bologny!
7. Saturday: Toni No Bologny!
   

• 26 great hosts getting Grizzly weekly!

My hope is that you utilize all three legs of this online presence. This efforts are automatically fed to Twitter, and other social media to over 72,000 first order followers on Twitter and growing, more on Facebook, and other social networks that are too numerous to list here. 
Ken says our voice is the weapon, he is right but you amplify that voice in the Grizzly Groundswell and it is essentiall a weapon of mass instruction and inspiration! 

Get Grizzly!
TeddyBear@TheodoreMedia.com

Chad Everson

Don’t forget www.GrizzlyTemerity.com for all your hosting and Domain needs!

Theodore Media LLC is reselling GoDaddy.com hosting so that our membership, readers and listeners can get the best prices on hosting and domain names so that we can get every Conservative thought, voice and image online and Grizzly!!!

We are working hard and fast to get you the tools to get Grizzly right in your backyard!!!
Isn’t my wife @GiddyGaddy just the most lovely Model you have ever seen?

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I’m a Christian, They’re a Christian, Wouldn’t You Like to Be a Christian, Too?

Crossposted by Stubborn_Facts from Facts Are Stubborn Things.

Christian. What does that word mean anymore?

I’m reminded of a late seventy-ish TV ad campaign with a very catchy tune:

“I’m a Pepper, He’s a Pepper…wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too?”

Click on the picture to watch the video

Every where you look Christians. At least within some circles, lots of people are calling themselves that.

What is a Christian? A Christian just isn’t a believer, because, as the Scripture says: “You believe there is one God, good, even the demons believe that and shudder.” (James 1:22)

So a man can say he is a Christian, but that doesn’t mean he reads the Bible, that doesn’t mean he’s a doer of the Word of God, that doesn’t mean he prays to follow God’s will for himself, and that doesn’t mean he studies and knows the Commandments or does his best not to violate them.

“Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourself. For if anyone is the hearer of the Word and not a doer he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not just a hearer of the Word, but a dooer of the Word, this one will be blest in what he does.” James 22 – 25

The catchy little jingle in the Dr. Pepper commercial says, “I used to be alone in a daze, but Peppers are all the craze.”

So, at least in some circles, being a Christian is all the craze, but what do these Christians do? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claims to be a Christian.  President Barack Obama claims to be a Christian. Both are avid supporters of abortion.

But you don’t need a recognizable personality as an example. Lately, I’ve observed self-described Christians who do some fairly “interesting” things.

It seems the word Christian is going through a bit of an identity crisis, like many in politics; “Republican”, “Conservative”, and “Libertarian”. What do those words mean anymore? It’s rather like trying to hold Jello in one’s hand.

So, what’s a Christian? I think I know.

The bottom line is, there seems to be no clear definition anymore. In order for a label to have any meaning, there has to be a consistency to the actions and the people who adopt it.

The reason there are a number of words going through “an identity crisis” these days is because too people who have adopted the label have been entirely inconsistent, so the words lose their meaning.

What is a Republican? What is a Conservative? What is a Libertarian?
None of these words have any meaning I can nail down. One cannot say that a Republican is someone who stands for Constitutionally limited government, fiscal conservatism, free markets, or individual liberty. The words Republican and Conservative have become interchangeable. So what is a Conservative?

Many people are calling themselves Libertarians these days. But what is a Libertarian? Ask ten people, you will get nine answers, maybe ten. Is a Libertarian someone who wants limited government so they can do whatever they want, in others, near anarchy? Or is a Libertarian someone who wants limited government in the context of an educated, moral society? I have no idea. People talk all across the spectrum.

So, I ask again, what is a Christian? What does it mean when someone adopts that label? As of right now, as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t mean much, because for too many people, it doesn’t seem to impact their conduct.

I will turn to Scripture for advice on the subject, and so, “by their fruits” I will know them.

But, in the end, it’s easier to know what a “Pepper” is. I do like Dr. Pepper, at least the Diet version anyway. I can say, I’m a Pepper, and I can turn to a neighbor and say…wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too? At least I’ll know what that means….

Learning a New Language

When I graduated high school, I had completed two full years of Spanish class. After deciding on a degree plan in college, I was then required to take two more semesters of a foreign language. Living in Texas and having already studied it for two years, I chose, obviously, Spanish. I passed every class with average to above average grades and my teachers were outstanding. Upon graduating college, I found myself working with many Hispanic-Americans and Spanish was a part of the everyday language. Today, I live about an hour from the Texas/Mexico border, and the community is over 75% Hispanic.

There’s just one problem…I can’t speak a lick of Spanish!

Well, okay, I can speak a few words, but when I head across the border to visit churches or do mission work, I feel like a monkey doing astrophysics! I am completely dependant upon someone else to communicate. “Just smile and wave, boys…smile and wave.” That’s me!

Why is this? I passed all of my classes. My teachers were great, even my Iranian professor was amazing. So, why am I completely ignorant when it comes to Spanish? Simple – those years of 1-hour a day instruction were surrounded by 23 hours a day of English. That isn’t astrophysics…it is simple arithmetic. 23 is greater than 1.

Comparatively, there are 168 hours in a week where the average child spends about 40 hours at school and another 56 sleeping. That leaves parents 72 hours a week with their children to do whatever they please. Of those 72 hours, the average “churched” child attends service 1 hour a week, where, hopefully, they are hearing the Word of God and are being taught sound Biblical truth. That takes us to 71.

Again, simple arithmetic here – 71 is greater than 1.

Just as I cannot expect to become fluent in any language by spending one hour a day studying it and the remaining 23 hours speaking another, we as parents cannot expect our children to learn the truth of God’s word by them half-way focusing on it one hour a week while fully engulfing themselves in the world the remaining 71.

I currently have some parents in my church who absolutely believe their youngest child is going to be a professional athlete. He is on every all-star team, every elite team, every off-season team, in every sport imaginable. Honestly, I haven’t seen him play, but the reality is quite simple…the odds are NOT in his favor. The worse part, in my opinion, is the fact that his two older siblings are drug with the family to every game, practice and/or event. And, you guessed it, Sundays and Wednesdays are prime game/practice days. There goes their 1 hour a week. For them, it’s more like 1 hour a month.

Don’t get me wrong, these kids are great kids, and their parents are good people. I do not desire to judge their spiritual condition. My concern is simple: how long before child one, two or three starts experimenting with drugs or sex or whatever and the parents come to me and say, “Why didn’t you do something?” or “What went wrong?” or “I don’t get it…they were baptized…we go to church!”

It isn’t enough to call Christ “Savior.” He must be “Lord.” Our God is a Jealous God and He desires, and, by virtue of the price He paid, deserves everything we have. Parents, we are not called to disciple our children, we are commanded to do so. I have been called to serve in the ministry, working daily with teens and families, but I have not been commanded to do it. Conversely, when it comes to my 8 year old and 1 year old daughters, I have been commanded to teach them who God is and what He did for them through His son, Jesus Christ.

In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, God tells us to pass down the truth of His goodness to our children and grandchildren. He saw the importance of parents sharing their faith with the next generation because He knew that would be the only way the faith would continue to exist. The world…man…is not naturally bent toward faith. We are all born with a sin nature; therefore, our natural course of action is to move away from God. In His infinite wisdom, our Creator chose to use His people, specifically parents, to pass along the message of salvation to the next generation so they would then, in turn, share with the next. It’s a simple plan when executed correctly. As more and more parents choose to neglect their duty to pass down God’s truth to their children, the more our children will become Biblically illiterate and our future generations will become less and less fluent in God’s language.

Simply put, one hour a week at church will not cut it today. It isn’t close to being an adequate defense to what the world offers. As the next generation grows up devoid of the Truth, it won’t be long before an entire generation will be unaware of the goodness of God. Consider the Israelites in Judges, chapter two.

Joshua served the Lord. He took the people of Israel into the Promised Land and made sure they knew of God’s provision and goodness. We read during Joshua’s lifetime, as well as the lifetime of those elders who outlived him, the people served the Lord. They had actually seen God’s hand at work, and, as a result, they served Him. Yet in verse 10 we read that “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel (KJV).” What does that say? Quite frankly, someone neglected their mandate.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (NIV)

Every week I am surrounded by teenagers who know “not the LORD” and I don’t blame them. I don’t blame the church. I blame mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, great and great, and so on and so on. Now, before you go and yell at me for pointing blame, saying “What gives you the right to blame me?” let me clearly indicate that I write this knowing full well I am susceptible to being a guilty culprit too. I realize this is my legacy if I neglect my Biblical mandate to pass down God’s message to my children. This is a warning to me. But, God’s Word is clear. I’m not pointing blame; I am relaying truth.

Notice the repetitive nature in the passage above. We are instructed to talk about God every moment of every day. We are to write little reminders everywhere to help us remember His goodness. The Good News should be the first thing on our mind when we enter our homes, and the last thing on our mind when we leave. God should be a permanent fixture in our normal, everyday lives, including our homes.

Think of it this way.

How many times do you tell your children NOT to do something? I have a soon-to-be one year old girl, and we are constantly telling her to stay away from the rock fireplace. We pick her up and move her, she returns. We sternly say, “No,” and she returns. We allow her to feel the immovable nature of the rock, and, yet, she returns. However, we continue to pass down that knowledge to her in hopes that one day she will grasp the truth. Proverbs 22:6 is a verse well known to many parents. “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it (NIV).”

It’s the same concept.

Repetitive teaching…a constant reminder of Truth…helps us retain the knowledge necessary to survive not only this world, but live abundantly in eternity. We repeat warning after warning, often times back to back, several times a day, to our children so that they will understand the dangers around them. Why is it we simply acquiesce to the notion that one hour a week at church will do the trick spiritually?

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record or someone with an axe to grind, but, for me, this is eternally important. It is important for you, your children, and your grandchildren. It’s important for the boy your daughter will end up marrying one day. It’s important for everyone, including the posterity and survival of our nation. As the family goes, so does our country.

Parents, if we want our kids to speak a certain language, then we must surround them with it. I mentioned my Iranian teacher in college earlier. Ali spoke seven different languages and he learned them all by immersing himself in the language and culture. He escaped Iran during the revolution and went to Germany. He learned German. From there, he found his way to Russia. He learned Russian. Spain, France and The United States soon followed. What a perfect example of how we should be learning about Christ and passing that knowledge on to our children!

In preparing for his new book, Home-Based Student Ministry: Leading a Student Ministry Focused on the Family, author Ken Lasater found that those parents who wholly accept their role as the sole Biblical teacher of their children believe the role of the youth minister is that of administrator and one who provides leadership possibilities to the students. They contend, “Give us back the discipleship. Let us be the primary spiritual nurturers. God told [US] to do that; we’ll do that – if you will find places for them to serve and to lead.” In fact, Ephesians 4:11-12 gives us a clear understanding of the role of pastors, and it is “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service.” Basically, as one pastor friend of mine put it, we are to work ourselves out of a job.

Psalm 137 poses the question, “How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land? (KJV)” Here are a few points I believe will help us all sing to our children.

(1) Prayerfully seek the Lord and His guidance in understanding your Biblical role as parents.
(2) Communicate with other parents your desire in reversing the trend of the church being the “professionals” in teaching your children.
(3) As a group, set up a meeting with your pastor and, if you have one, youth pastor, to discuss your new found understanding.
(4) Require of your pastors to “equip” you with resources so you can follow through with your Biblical mandate.
(5) Sing, Sing, Sing! As Deuteronomy shows us, repeat the Truth all day, every day.

Nothing has been so rewarding in my life than that of becoming a parent. Nothing has been so difficult as well. But, the good news is that God desires our role of “spiritual nurturers” to be one of complete surrender and dependence upon Him. He promises us all the necessary tools to do our job, so, let’s allow Him to do His. Honestly, I make a lousy God and the church is an inadequate parent to your child. We all have our roles to play; and, when we find our spot and join in the work, God’s creation is able to operate as a fine-tuned machine capable of “greater things.” Our children deserve only the best. I don’t know many parents who would disagree with that.

So, parents, let’s give it to them!

Troy

Is There A Minimalist Code of Belief For The Christian?

I recently was confronted about the content in a recently published book, which has caused a division to come between one of my friends and myself. This division is over some theological issues which are a concern for this brother, but are not for myself. The point of what I am addressing here is that some people perceive that some beliefs are more important than others, and as such, should be as important for their fellow believers and friends. I have found these to often be simply a different perspective, and a different view, that is quite frankly either mere opinion of the person concerned, or what I find worse, the allegiance to a teaching they received early in their walk with Christ, either from some teacher, or preacher, or from a good book, which has had a profound influence on their life thereafter.

I find the issues raised as non-essential to salvation, yet this brother in Christ has seen it as a dividing point, so much so that he has determined that he can no longer be part of the same Christian community as myself. The issue itself is not of particular importance here, but suffice it to say, it does raise a question of what is essential belief, and by belief I mean more than the mental assent to a formal statement of doctrine.

Belief by its nature involves God making possible the act of belief, for faith is the gift of God [Ephesians 2:8], to those He has predestined to life in Christ [Romans 8:28-30; Ephesians 1:4-6; 10-12], and as fully functioning members of the Kingdom of God. But the question remains what, if any are the essential beliefs of the Christian faith. My reflection today took me through a myriad of twists and turns and I could only determine the following essential beliefs.

1. The Bible is the only reliable source of God revealing Himself to man, and the only guide to truth and saving faith, and righteous living.

2. God is creator and redeemer, the source and sustainer of life.

3. There is only one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, by which all men can be saved.

These to me are the non-negotiables of Christian belief. Late last year, while working on pages for my website I formulated a belief statement. I was attempting to express the eclectic beliefs that I have come to believe, cherish and practice.

Plainly Stated

I will not complicate things but state them plainly.

• In the doctrine of Scripture and truth, I am a historic Protestant, seeing the original texts of Scripture as without error in matters of faith and practice. I refuse to engage in the ongoing debates on inerrancy and take the Bible at face value to be true in all its contents.

• In the doctrine of God (Father, Son and Spirit) I lean to the historic Protestant belief, but with an emphasis that how man understands the Godhead and apprehends the truth of it, it is all a mystery, that the Spirit and Scripture, seal in the inner heart of man. It is a mystery and as such all the old formulations are at best, attempts to render God in meaningful language that can be apprehended and understandable. Our formulations are imperfect, but tell the story of how the Church has come to believe.

• In the doctrines of grace (total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints) I am a Calvinist. I am an adherent to the “Five Solas” of the Reformed tradition.

• In the doctrines concerning the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit (second blessing “baptism in the Spirit”, spiritual gifts, including the five fold servant leadership gifts), I am a classic Pentecostal, influenced by the non-extremist views of Charismatics. The excesses of the modern Charismatic movement have made me a post-charismatic (one who believes ever strongly in the work of the Holy Spirit, but has moved beyond the weirdness that currently exists. In that sense I am “post-weirdness” and “post-charismatic”), praying and hoping and working toward a more sane approach to life and ministry in the Spirit.

• In the doctrines of discipleship, Christian service, church governance, pacifism and non-violence, and the Kingdom of God, and our role with the state, I am an historical Anabaptist.

• In the doctrines of stewardship, ministry and mission, caring for the environment, I am very much influenced by the early forms of Celtic Christianity.

• In the doctrine of the “end times” I am a fulfilled Preterist, and a believer in “fulfilled, rather than the accepted term of “replacement” theology, whereas all the promises made to Israel are fulfilled in Christ and the body of Christ.

This was a summary statement of belief as I understood it a year ago, and not much has changed. My three essential beliefs are at best just a reductionist statement but I believe essential none the less.

Basic Beliefs

If any of you have read Brian McLaren’s book, A Generous Orthodoxy, you will find at least the spirit of what Brian addresses here in this very brief overview of what I personally believe. These are my own distinctives, and at the root of them, lies the reality that as people, we are all in flux and change, and we continue to develop our beliefs and values through the crucible of faith wrapped up in life experience and inner heart/spirit knowledge, founded upon the veracity of what the Bible has to declare about God and about His will and purposes in the earth.

Over the years my theology has developed and changed and what was once very important to me, has now become more centred. Every time I overly focus on something, God has a way of bringing back to the centre of His will and purposes. It reminds me of the old adage: “For every mile of road, there are two miles of ditch.” I am trying to avoid the ditches on either side.

There will and there are those who will disagree with me, and that is OK. I stand on my understanding of the Bible, and what I have learned through thoughtful study and reflection. Like Luther, I can steadfastly declare with a clear conscience before God and man, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” Such are my convictions. To those who will disagree, who are brothers and sisters in Christ, and who differ in their understanding, I consider them dear brothers and sisters of the faith. I know I do not have a theology that is 100% correct, no one does. Besides theology itself is man’s attempt to systematize beliefs about God and the universe. This is simply my own understanding at this time in my life. I will hold these truths until I am convinced by Scripture that I need to correct and change them. It will not be by the persuasive arguments of men, but by Scripture alone, that I will change. Like Luther, I stand here and cannot do otherwise.

Saved By & Through Jesus, Not a Creedal Formula

I am not a follower of creeds as these are the mere formulations of men at various points and times in Christian history. They tell the story of believers and what they found to be of importance and value in their own day. The Bible alone has the weight and the authority to speak to and address all the issues of life. If creeds are in conflict with the Bible, then the Bible overrides the creed. If creeds support the Bible, then these lend weight to the testimony of Scripture and history. I have been blessed by the study of the Nicene Creed, The Book of Common Prayer, Book of Concord, The Westminister Confession, The Canons of Dort, as well as other faith formulations. But all these are simply human formulations, and do not carry the weight of the authority of Scripture.

It is regrettably unfortunate that some people put a premium on what they consider to be essential, in a sense “majoring on minors” instead of “focusing on the fundamentals”, having the “i’s” dotted a certain way and the “t’s” crossed in a particular way, otherwise they break fellowship with you.

• Why does a particular non-essential belief in the mystical body of Christ have to cause such division?
• Why does the embracing of a particular author presume the acceptance of all they teach in their writing?
• Why do some believers demand adhearance to some beliefs that others are not in the least concerned about?
• Why must I conform to a particular belief that is not my own, just to maintain relationship and fellowship?
• Why such demands?
• Would Jesus place that kind of demand on a person?
• Does He demand that we have all the right theology or He will cut Himself off from us?

I constantly have to remind myself and others, that we are not “saved” by our statements of belief, but upon Whom we believe. Doctrine has always divided believers and non-believers alike. I choose to believe upon the person of Jesus Christ, as He is the sole Mediator between God and man and the only hope of salvation for humankind. He is the rock upon Whom I stand, and like Luther, “here I stand, I can do no other!”

Is Weakness JUST Weakness?

Weakness=Strength

With any illness, handicap, addiction, pain, etc…are they just a weakness-we were punished with? Or is there something more??

Born Again~

Born Again?

Who remembers the moment when they first came to Jesus?? Really accepted Him? Who remembers all the times before-that were leading them to Him, actually trying to find Him? Then the great question…who can remember (not all) the time that they had no clue about Him, and had others presenting Him to you-and were at first kinda humored…but when it continued, pretty irritated. Then over time it made your skin crawl? Gosh…I can say I experienced all this within less than 7 years. All beginning at the lovely age of 19…
Yes, I grew up knowing zero about Him. My parents were loving and caring…just wasn’t in their skills of parenting-nor time with all the hard work they put into their jobs to make the amazing money they brought in…then, money was way more important than anything. I wasn’t a big money freak oddly…my awesome brother was sure weaned that way. Go figure how God molds us for our futures-even when we aren’t following Him.
I can remember the major moment I knew I would never turn away-that was October 20, 2003-almost saw death the night before-but He knew I had been searching for Him. Trying to understand the sermons, trying 2 be a good mom, going thru a hard divorce, all the while addicted to my own antiseizure drug phenobarbital to numb the pain of my ex beating me shortly after my first brain surgery. I didn’t know how to give my worries and pain to Jesus yet. I kept trying to learn-trying to listen to more amazing music for Him that would light me up-as if I did overdose…even if I hadn’t…instead of the music that would drag me down and make me look for those pills. He is the answer to every issue, pain, suffering-we ever go thru. We just have to invite Him in-He is already waiting to take those burdens and begin to help us straighten our lives to HIS PLAN!
I remember the first time I started going to church-in tears-drunk on those pills-knowing if I didn’t find a way to get out of that mess-I’d never make it. Doctors were great help-but not the full answer. I started to attend regularly February 9, 2003-kept going and going-thinking every service was directed toward ME!! With the pastors eyes ON ME!! I’d even try to change seats…always came back. It was so odd, yet amazing!
I finally, a bit tipsy from too many pills one night, decided to pick someone to talk to out of the bunch. And I recommend this to everyone…not to just go in and out. The moment you start making amazing friends clenched with Christ-is when you start to get more understanding of His love. To this day I am so thankful He somehow turned that tipsy night-into a blessing for me guiding me to such an amazing friend-wasn’t long after when I wound up in the hospital-close to death-and I had grown close enough-with His guidance-to call her and tell her. And she was up in a flash to see me-and had the pastor come up and pray-and that was amazing!
Where this all leads to…is I am getting this flashback. I am seeing many moments of the same steps like this, in my brother. He has had a hard time in life, mainly brought on by own selfish desires. Many so similar to mine. But he kept trying to shut out Jesus. I gave Him my words of advice-a bible yrs ago-and uplifting advice here and there. Biggest thing is, I have always loved him no matter how mean he has been, how far away and closed off, or how much he’d reject any advice. I know I have cried and prayed…but He does work wonders thru hard times. And right now I am watching some amazing moments being worked thru my brother. We prayed together the other day…and it felt so awesome that he asked me to pray for him. To hold hands and show him how I pray to our amazing God!! I got to see tears in his eyes, which isn’t often. He was reading the Greg Laurie Bible I gave him, and was amazed at the captions it guided you with-things you don’t know when you are beginning! He is so intelligent..so it is awesome to see him start something-a relationship-that you grow to know more about-can’t just know overnight!
So, right now, this is really his first time reaching. I know it is never perfect…and there will be some downfalls. I am just really praying he continues to know Jesus is THERE-all the time…and wants to keep molding him! He would be the 2nd one (other than I) in my family to find Jesus. A lot of praying going on!
Love you all!! Jesus blessed me with such great friends…and I am so thankful!!
Blessings!
In His Grip,
Hetty4Christ
Psalm 34:22 Let Your unfailing love surround us, LORD, for our hope is in You alone!

Life Finding Christ-

My Savior

How can I break this down….

I grew up knowing nothing. In a town-that if anyone knew anything about Jesus-they sure were quiet. Only time I ever heard a thing about this “Guy” (aside from His name in vane in my family) was that show Jesus of Nazareth. I was about seven…and clueless…but it sure drew tears.
Kept living life…I was an epileptic my whole life. As a child I was a gymnast-a competitor…and in my heart…I would talk to “someone” just didn’t know who. Had dreams-talking to “someone” about them…not sure who…
My parents marriage got so rocky as they lived for money and their names to be high up in the town we lived in..President of this and that…that of coarse led to women wanting my dad for material reasons…and he folded. And with my dad cheating on my mom started a whole new relationship between her and I…I was basically her counselor. She and I were always close. But she needed someone to confide in…and she did it with me, the daughter of both the parents. Which I didn”t think hurt then…but sure affected me later.
When I was 18-we had made our 4th move in last two yrs of my high school yrs. I was in New Bern, NC. I was insane there…was not the place for me. Some southern drawl I didn’t understand…then people lectured me on this weird church stuff…not where I come from!! We don’t have to do this church stuff-I’d tell em…..while I was there, I met my 1st husband-lengthier marriage by God-not by choice. We just jumped into marriage knowing each other 3mos. He was a marine. We wound up moving to California (probably half the reason I married him) But we had fuzzy feelings. Then when we got there in Cali-this is all 1996-he decided to press this Jesus stuff He had never spoken to me about-ever. At first I rejected it hard!!! Almost left him even…but then something tugged me. Half the reason was-everyone at my work, when I’d go to them asking them to back me up for me to leave him, couldn’t-they were total Jesus Freaks! So on the side, I was learning from a friend a little…and started to go to my husbands church…but it wasn’t but about a month into my attempt in my walking to learn more-that he cheated on me. After what I lived thru with my parents as a child…I had no forgiveness…nor did I have Jesus in my life yet-so didn’t have it thru Him either…I was out of there…began 1 of my several move outs and to another state from him. We filed 3 times, 4th was our final in 2006. But God still has reasons for everything-during our breakups he showed me that I wasn’t to be with other people-literally BIG signs of rolling my car three times, only breaking my marriage finger. Flat tires the night one was going to propose. He always is there…even when we aren’t looking for Him.
My husband then, and I tried one last time-after another big break up-to patch it up. He had feelings that I owed him-even though we both were so equal in hurting the other…finally got to a point his temper was just too much-and we discussed it-he said he couldn’t handle being with me anymore and was seeing someone else…I was all okay…at least he told me…almost before. So we decided to go out-eat dinner-drink a bottle of wine (which was the first time I ever did with him) and talk about who gets what. We were laughing about it all in the end-back at our apartment…which lead to the married couple’s last time….except even that night something felt and showed me-it was going to be more than that last night…
Within 5 days I found out that was the night that got me pregnant. He was so angry-wanted to abort it. I-not into Jesus-still felt it was a gift from God. We somehow stuck it out. But my seizures got worse…and it thru his schooling off. He didn’t have time to take care of me…and when I had our baby Tory-he couldn’t take care of us both…so Tory and I went back to AZ where my family was-to find a good neurologist. There I was set to go thru my first brain surgery, and my husband had joined the Army so we could have the insurance for it. I made it thru that-no seizures!!! We had to move to TX, where he was stationed. 4 days after…he beat me with our baby asleep. Thank God for the Army…they kicked him out…took pics and records..I thought I was loosing my mind though…I was so lonely. I had nobody there. My family would not believe me-they can’t deal with stress…so I had to pretend he lived there and we were happy and I wasn’t abused. When with my neurologist I had to tell him what was going on to watch my seizures…and also this new problem that came in…overdosing with Phenobarbital-antiseizure med-to numb pain. I was so alone-listened to sad sad music, bawling with whatever amount of the pills and soda. Tears were uncountable. Finally…visiting a friend in Austin..we hit the ER 2 times…then they suggested I stay with them that night…but I said I felt soo much better-when I could in reality, barely say those words. I got into my car…blared my sad Matchbox twenty song “Hand me Down” stopped at a Jack in the Box for a BIG Dr. Pepper…then aggressively took off…on repeat..on the 35…bawling-saw the rest of the bottle of my pills…while crying about how hopeless life is..picked it up and slid every last one that wasn’t in me already, in me…downing with that Dr. Pepper…dropping 7…that upset me…took little time to realize…that if I didn’t see an ER or H sign asap I wouldn’t be around…somehow God provided that…somehow…and ripped my car over all these curbs into it. Going thru my first stomach pump. My parents were called by the family friend that I had seen and jumped on the first flight to come get Tory and I…there was God’s hands at work there….
They were upset..but so loving. It was from that point on it was battle time. I didn’t have them as the mom and dad I could talk about the beating with…upset them too much. Couldn’t talk about my new addiction when I’d get upset and stressed over this divorce-he left Tory and I with nothing. I couldn’t hold a job with my addiction issues…I found my church one day-when I was blasted…God called to me with that purple sign that said Cornerstone. I knew that was the only way I’d find hope. I started going…every Sunday…but I swear he always spoke directly at me…convicted me of so much! God answered so many little and big prayers in that tiny walk…beginning of learning…but I was still in a battle…wound up overdosing in June of 2003-more battle on line with my ex who was in Iraq-(gift from God to separate us that far-even though that was tough) The docs tried to change my medication-I really wanted Phenobarb out of my life-took about 12 days..at home reading to my 2 yr old on my lap on the floor…HUGE grand mal seizure…threw up everywhere…was out for 3 hrs-bonked my head on the tile. When I woke my baby was still standing there-2 1/2 hrs past her bed time-bawling her eyes out-pointing at me-saying mama mama …ugh!! talk about tears…I barely could talk…
It took several more times after being put back on it…and one final time-in October of 2003-that I almost lost my life to…that Jesus saved me from death…heard tiny prayers…saw the little walk I was trying to walk…He needed to have me have more than a wake up call…
Just following is when the love of my life-Christian-was shocked and amazed…over that yr…I as this new Christian on fire for Jesus…got him who grew up with Christ…ON FIRE!! And we dated the way God wanted us to! As my divorce was still going thru…God had that take time…and I look and see why now…it took about 4 yrs for me to really forgive my ex for beating me. It hurt me so bad emotionally…caused so much anguish-with seizures and overdosing…but with that overdosing…I have to look back and thank Jesus for it all…for I found Him…and it led me to going thru a second brain surgery-that was amazing!!! Following Him…in prayer-the second one was almost painless…which was a SHOCK-cause it was so much more complicated than the first!! The day after I got out…I was at Bible study!! AMEN!!!! I didn’t get out of the house the first one for about a month!
With this walk came forgiveness…and when I felt God tug on me to do that….and I did forgive my ex for all he did to me-while also apologizing for what I also put him thru…God made me feel so awesome inside…like He gives you a new heart. And mine on fire for Him! Did it have aching times, yes. seizing a month after my second brain surgery hurt…but He has reasons for everything. I have been on a health struggle since 2000…and worsened since 2005. If I went down my list-you’d wonder how I still type! hahaha!! But the cool thing is…is that-no matter how many times I go to the hospital, and for what…He is there, holding me the whole time…
I have numerous health issues if anyone ever wants to talk-I am open-
We are now looking into 3rd brain surgery…God has amazing reasons for everything…even when it is a battle with health. It somehow is a light-not only in my life, but in others too. I am able to share His awesome love and Word thru these struggles and how awesome He works thru them! Never would regret a moment of it…

Blessings to you…

Hetty Siebens

2 Corinthians 12: 8-9Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me.

1 Peter 5: 6-7So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and in His good time He will honor you. Give ALL your worries and cares to God, for He cares about what happens to you

Intercessory Prayer and Fasting

1Pe 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

Christians make up a holy priesthood that are given to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God. Two ways that we do this is by intercessory prayer and fasting.

Intercessory means to petition God for His favor or action on behalf of another.

Rom 12:10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;
Rom 12:11 Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord;
Rom 12:12 Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;
Rom 12:13 Distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality.
Rom 12:14 Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.
Rom 12:15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.

It is easy to rejoice with one another but not so when it comes to mourning. But it is vital that we do both and not shy away from our complete Christian duty to one another. This is important if we truly are one body.

1Co 12:12 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
1Co 12:13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
1Co 12:14 For the body is not one member, but many.
1Co 12:15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
1Co 12:16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
1Co 12:17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?
1Co 12:18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.
1Co 12:19 And if they were all one member, where were the body?
1Co 12:20 But now are they many members, yet but one body.
1Co 12:21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.
1Co 12:22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary:
1Co 12:23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.
1Co 12:24 For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked:
1Co 12:25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.
1Co 12:26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

Paul, again, admonishes us that we are to suffer with and for one another. Setting aside time to beseech God with prayers and supplications, and certainly fasting, are not things we naturally want to do.

When a brother or sister is sick, that person is to be anointed by an elder in the church and it says that the prayer of faith will make them well. Certainly, we understand that, if not in this life, then at the resurrection of the dead when death and the grave are swallowed up forever.

How can we clear our own conscious and know for certain what is God’s will in such matters of restoring one from sickness?

Joh 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Joh 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

Joh 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
Joh 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus laid down His life for all mankind even while we were still sinners. His was the ultimate in that there is no greater expression of love.

Do we REALLY lay down our own lives for one another? Are we sacrificing our time and efforts and physical needs for one another through prayer, supplications and fasting when one in the body is sick?

1Jn 3:16 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
1Jn 3:17 But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?
1Jn 3:18 My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
1Jn 3:19 And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.
1Jn 3:20 For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
1Jn 3:21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.
1Jn 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
1Jn 3:23 And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.

John says when we go ‘all out’ for one another, we can then have confidence toward God, knowing that we did our part on behalf of another.

Do we love in word only when we express our sympathies for a brother or sister but do not take action beyond?

How do we know it is really God’s will that He not heal someone right now instead of waiting until the resurrection unless we have not taken the action necessary to express that love of one another…the laying down of our own lives, even for a day, for one another, in heartfelt prayer and fasting? Do we avail our hearts before Him, DOING what is pleasing in His sight?

Joe 2:12 Yet even now, saith the LORD, turn ye unto Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with lamentation;
Joe 2:13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God; for He is gracious and compassionate, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy, and repenteth Him of the evil.
Joe 2:14 Who knoweth whether He will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him…

Who knows? Do we utilize the spiritual tools made available to us to do hard work? Do we lay down our lives for one another according to scripture so that we atleast can know that after we have done our part, it truly is God’s will as to when He will act on a brother or sister’s behalf?

I met Chris and Margie Carothers when I first started attending church 16 years ago. They took me under their wings and have become a couple of my dearest friends. We have been through a lot together, sometimes yelling at one another, sometimes mourning together, and certainly much laughing together. But one thing our friendship gives testament to is the fact that no matter what comes our way to destroy our friendship and love for one another, Satan has failed every time. Over the years, even when we vehemently disagree on something, we give it no place to disrupt the love we have as brothers and sisters in Christ.

So the news has crushed my spirit to learn that Margie has been diagnosed with MS (multiple sclerosis). This is a debilitating disease in which the immune system attacks the central nervous system. There is no known cure. Only Divine intervention can eradicate this condition from the human body.I refuse to accept this quietly in prayer only, hoping for the best but going on with my own busy schedule. I have discussed this with Chris and he has agreed to let friends and family know that we are setting aside Saturday, May 16, to beseech God in prayer, supplication and fasting on behalf of Margie. We know that God is our healer and His will be done. And we can be sure of that will once we have done our part in going all the way, utilizing the tools given us, to really know His will in this matter.

Some illness is given and is not lifted,for the spiritual benefit even unto salvation of those involved. But we know this…

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Those who know and love the Carothers, join us in this day of prayer and fasting, of laying down our lives for a day for another. Those of you who do not know them, keep them in your prayers and do so according to what God impresses upon your heart. Don’t just think about it…do it.

I believe it is opportunities like this that give answer to Jesus Christ when He asked the question with uncertainty of the answer…

Luk 18:1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
Luk 18:2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
Luk 18:3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
Luk 18:4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
Luk 18:5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
Luk 18:6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
Luk 18:7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?
Luk 18:8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to my Proverbs 31 wife and mother to 4 precious olive plants. I know she will be enjoying her day working hard outside with her business that just launched thursday…The Proverbial Garden. Thank you, Cameron, for appreciating the importance of being home with our children.

Pro 31:10 Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
Pro 31:11 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
Pro 31:12 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
Pro 31:13 She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.
Pro 31:14 She is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
Pro 31:15 She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her maidens.
Pro 31:16 She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.
Pro 31:17 She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
Pro 31:18 She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night.
Pro 31:19 She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
Pro 31:20 She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy.
Pro 31:21 She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet.
Pro 31:22 She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
Pro 31:23 Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land.
Pro 31:24 She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant.
Pro 31:25 Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
Pro 31:26 She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.
Pro 31:27 She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Pro 31:28 Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.
Pro 31:29 Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.

Judge Not?

Neale Walsch, a favorite author of Oprah, wrote a series called, “Conversations with God”. Here is a clip from one of his books, used to set the stage for an article written by Alan Keyes quoted from below.

God’s reply: “I do not forgive anyone because there is nothing to forgive. There is no such thing as right or wrong and that is what I have been trying to tell everyone, do not judge people. People have chosen to judge one another and this is wrong, because the rule is ‘judge not lest ye be judged.’”

I wanted to know more about this ‘genius’ so I googled him.

Wikipedia says, “Walsch’s vision is an expansion and unification of all present theologies to render them more relevant to our present day and time. He created Humanity’s Team as a spiritual movement whose purpose is to communicate and implement his New Spirituality beliefs, particularly that we are all one with God and one with life, in a shared global state of being”.

‘New Spirituality beliefs’? I thought all the hippies were dead or in nursing homes suffering from various STD’s and drug enduced dimensia. Apperantly, there are still a few around making a buck on Old Eastern Mysticism.

Walsch quoted Matthew 7:1 and were going to determine what it means but lets first look at I Corinthians 6:1-5.

1Co 6:1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
1Co 6:2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
1Co 6:3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
1Co 6:4 If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
1Co 6:5 I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?

The Bible is very clear that we are to make judgments and making judgments is tied to being wise.

Here is an extensive quote from an article by Alan Keyes, a long time supporter and promoter of conservatism in American society and government. The title is, “Importance of Being Judgmental”.

“I was struck by the self-evident contradiction that has Walsch’s god saying, “There is no such thing as right or wrong” in one breath, and “this is wrong” in the next. Obviously Walsh’s god has no problem applying a concept while declaring that it doesn’t exist.

I’d be tempted to think Walsch meant this as a joke, but this kind of silliness is typical of the shallow nonsense that passes for spirituality with the Oprah/Obama set. Mere mortals such as I have a hard time understanding how it’s possible to recognize something as wrong when there’s no such thing as right or wrong. Like eating a cake that’s no longer there, it’s a trick that can apparently be mastered only by the glamorous few.

Anyone who asserts that people should not be “judgmental” and then decries racism or “homophobia” is guilty of the same illogic. The word “judgment” traces its roots to Latin, jus dicare, meaning to say or pronounce what is right. Judgment assumes that right exists and can be recognized as such. If someone decries racism as an injustice (a word that also includes the reference to right or jus), they are invoking a concept or standard of right that makes it so. If “there is no such thing as right or wrong,” this standard cannot exist. Their opposition to racism (or any other injustice) is groundless emotionalism. It has no more claim to respect than the opposite view – that racial superiority legitimizes oppression of those who are inferior.

This careless illogic barely disguises the reassertion of the law of the jungle (might makes right; superior force creates legitimacy), a form of fatalism that encourages submission to whomever happens to enjoy success at the moment, with no standard to inspire opposition to their will except the promise of superior power. Though the Oprah/Obama crowd poses as compassionate people who care about the weak, it represents the reassertion of a purely power-based order in human society, a concept of law and government most fully codified under ancient Roman rule.”

I thought Alan Keyes really nailed it.

When you reject Empirical Truth from a Supreme Being mightier than man, the alternative is the ‘Law of the Jungle’—superior human force creates legitimacy—the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The existence of God and His Law dictates that judgment and the ability to judge must follow.

So what does Christ mean in Matthew 7:1?

Mat 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Mat 7:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
Mat 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Mat 7:4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Mat 7:5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

‘Judge’ and ‘Judgment’ used here is the same Greek used in I Corinthians 6 BUT the context eliminates any seeming contradiction.

The context is hypocrisy. Christ is not condemning the act of making judgments. He is condemning the act of making judgments as a hypocrite.

Clark’s Commentary reveals what is wrong with the hypocrite’s judgment:

“…By a secret and criminal disposition of nature, man endeavors to elevate himself above others, and, to do it more effectually, depresses them. His jealous and envious heart wishes that there may be no good quality found but in himself, that he alone may be esteemed. Such is the state of every unconverted man; and it is from this criminal disposition, that evil surmises, rash judgments, precipitate decisions, and all other unjust procedures against our neighbor, flow.”

Look at one final incident that encapsulates this:

Joh 8:1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
Joh 8:2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
Joh 8:3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
Joh 8:4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
Joh 8:5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
Joh 8:6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
Joh 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
Joh 8:8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
Joh 8:9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
Joh 8:10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
Joh 8:11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

It has been speculated that Christ was writing the names of her accusers on the ground who were also guilty of adultery. As hypocrites, they had no right to condemn her.

Another problem with this scene is that there are two guilty parties in the sin of adultery. Where was the man? This was a kangaroo court of hypocrites prepared to pass harsh and rash judgment without proper recourse or evidence.

Jesus, on the other hand, was her righteous judge and in balancing mercy with judgment, he chose not to condemn her but commanded her not to commit such sin anymore.

Judging is something all human beings do and it is an impossibility to not exercise judgment.

Matthew 7:1 does not forbid the exercise of making judgments. It does forbid evil and hypocritical judgment.

We are called to judge righteously, tempered with mercy, without malice and hypocrisy.

Planting Trees Today

I got this email today.  I think it is reflective of what is going on with our fellow conservatives.  For some reason I am finding that faith is shaken and fears are real and being realized. 

Well, my friends, we are conservatives.  Faith still moves mountains and Fears although real can be overcome especially with preparedness. 

Here is the email I got.  It was so glad to hear from this old friend.  I am hoping many others will be coming back, waking up and lending their shoulder to our effort!

Chad,

Just wanted to let you know how much I like the knew Grizzly website design.

Also, nice to see all the work that you’ve put into building network.

I haven’t written much lately because of the disappointment in the election results…it seems as if anything one would say would just go in one ear and out the other.

Our nation is in trouble with the man currently holding the White House. I think we are drawing closer and closer to a reckoning day.

(signed Grizzly Member)

My response to our great Grizzly Member who I hope is coming back home and ready to get Grizzly Again!

When asked what Martin Luther would do if he knew the time and day of the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  What would you do if you knew that today was the day Christ would return?  He said this and I think it is fitting.  He said that he would plant a tree. 

Now it is often said that those that plant a tree really plant it for the next generation.  Why then would Martin Luther say that if Christ was coming back today? 

The same reason why we must work hard on our foundations, grow our networks and have some Grizzly fun along the way.

We do not have to rule the world today, but If We plant trees today, maybe our children, and their children will be graced with the discernment and Blessings of the foundations layed strong and true by our hands.  Not unlike our founders did for us.

 (Dear Grizzly Memeber) & my friend, come plant some trees with me, we are growing a Grizzly Groundswell and us Grizzly’s love the forest!

~Teddy Bear

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Planned Parenthood erects a Mayan Temple to Abort Black Babies

RagingElephantsOrg
May 01, 2009

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyB5TniZTX0[/youtube]

Psalm 23 Written on a Little Girls Heart=Priceless!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3buLQoCN6KY[/youtube]

Book of Job Tablets

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amwuyI4×3FI&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

‘Christians’ Who Throw Down Some Mad Gay Love

Opinions, I have been told, are like armpits. Everybody’s got a couple of ‘em, and most of them stink! I know, it’s an old joke, but the truth of it never wears out for me. The gay marriage issue is a topic that brings out more armpits than a cenipede and lightning quick!

We just witnessed a Miss USA contestant getting ambushed with the gay marriage issue this week. An openly-gay judge of the pageant is allowed to submit an explosive question to the openly-Christian Miss CA during the finale of the show. No, I don’t think beauty pageants are the Lord’s work, and no, I don’t watch them, but this story has fascinated me.

Carrie Prejean, Miss CA, has been vilified in the media for answering honestly a loaded question on gay marriage. When asked if other states should follow the example of Vermont and Massachusetts, she didn’t even hesitate but stated: “Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage, and you know what, in my country and in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised and that’s how I think it should be between a man and a woman.”

“No offense.” She was respectful in her response, and made it clear that it was her own opinion, because she was asked what she thought. Now, the mainstream media has attacked and maligned her some, for even thinking or believing that way, others for being honest about it. Imagine that, someone who tells the truth and gives an honest answer. It is too much for our entertainment culture to take.

On Twitter, the social-networking site, young stars Miley Cyrus and Heidi Montag  have comforted Perez Hilton, the distraught judge who asked the question. In his response after the pageant, Hilton was less than complimentary of Prejean, and used rather foul language about her.

It is no surprise that the media and entertainment culture of the world would side in favor of gay marriage and against the Christian Miss CA, but my disappointment stems from those who would claim to be Christ-followers backing gay marriage. Cyrus and Montag have openly professed a belief in Jesus Christ as their personal savior, as has Prejean. But unlike Carrie Prejean, they both have stated that God wants you to be ‘happy’ and to be with the one that you love, gay or not.

In their Twitter conversations, Cyrus and Montag have spoken about getting together and having Bible Study, and how awesome it is to be a Christian, and that ‘Jesus Rocks!’ But anyone who doesn’t believe in gay marriage, no, they surely do NOT rock.

How many ‘Christians’ in America have the shallow kind of faith these two stars exhibit? Too many, I’d guess. I have been in churches where the leadership will not address the pressing issues of the day, or broach subjects dubbed as ‘too controversial’ as abortion or homosexuality. Most churches won’t even admonish their congregations to abstain from immorality, or ’sex before marriage’ for those of you unfamiliar with the term. 

We see too many churches and Christians pushing a ‘God-is-love-so-it’s-all-good’ kind of faith, a candy-coated pop-culture feel-good gospel, that doesn’t address the horror of sin or the consequences of offending a Holy God. Jesus is like a lovable puppy that everybody wants to play with, not the King of Kings and Lord of Lords that the Bible says He is.

Christians who think it is okay to compromise with the world and ignore God’s explicit written Word are playing with fire. This same God proclaimed, “Woe to those who call good evil, and evil good; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20 God proclaims judgement against His own people, when they pervert His Truth.

When Christians defend immorality and excuse sin by calling it righteousness, the ire of a Holy God is inflamed. Jesus came and took the punishment for sin, and died in the place of the sinner, so that we might find true life. To say that the sin Jesus died for is NOT sin is incredibly offensive to the Father. It removes the need for the salvation that Jesus Christ paid so dearly for on the cross of suffering.

I have been debating proponents of gay marriage on Twitter and Facebook as well as at work, and there are some common themes that occur:

1. God is love and gay marriage is about love so God’s cool with gays and them marrying each other.

God IS love, and in His love he sent Christ to die for us to free us from the sin that leads to death, meaning spiritual death. God’s love requires Him to confront us about our sin, because it will kill us and seperate us from Him. He has made His view of homosexuality abundantly clear: “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting;” Romans 1:26-28

I know, there are some who can read that and do verbal gymnastics until the meaning of the word “is” isn’t is anymore. But God is plainly speaking through the Apostle Paul about the debased nature of homosexuality. He calls it “shameful,” “not fitting,” and describes it as “vile passions.” God is not cool with the gay vibe, regardless of what neo-Christian pop-goddesses looking for some love from the world have to say about it.

2. There is no marriage mentioned between Adam & Eve, so God didn’t create marrige, man did.

Just because the word isn’t used, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I could describe something fully to you without using its proper name, but that doesn’t change the truth of what it is. And when the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus on a MARRIAGE debate about divorce, (Matthew 19; Mark 10) He responded to the question about marriage and divorce by going right back to Genesis chapter 2: “But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ’For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:6-9

Jesus even points to the language of gender as the basis of marriage. After quoting that God had made them ‘male and female,’ Jesus says, “for this reason,” or BECAUSE He created them male and female, the the man would be joined to his wife and the two would become one flesh. It even says, “wife.” So, yah, marriage is all over that chapter even though the word is not used.

3. Jesus said, “Judge not, lest ye be judged!”

Yes, He did. He also went on to explain that whatever you measure others with, you will be measured by. If you are critical and condemning, you can expect the same form others. But what Jesus DIDN’T say is, “Don’t tell the truth.” As a matter of fact, we are required to tell the truth, lovingly, but plainly. He also said that the world hated Him, and they would hate us also. He even said if we were of this world, they would love us, but because we belong to Jesus, they will hate us. (John 15) Carrie Prejean is feeling that hatred today. Mylie Cyrus and Heidi Montag fear that hatred, and pacify it.

There are many secular reasons being given to approve gay marriage, but for this article, I want to focus on a Christian’s responsibility in this matter. We answer to God, not the media or the world, or even popular culture. God has stated very clearly that He is not for homosexuality, both in the Old and the New Testaments.

Where does that leave Christians who crave acceptance? In a very dangerous place. In 1 John chapter 2, the Apostle John admonishes CHRISTIANS to avoid loving this world or the things of this world because that makes us the enemy of God. He then goes on to name the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life as things from this world. All three are wrapped up in the gay lifestyle. The demand to have things your own way regardless of what God has to say, the pride that proclaims “there’s nothing wrong with this!” when God has said it is wicked are the hallmarks of a love of the world.

From the beginning God has given humanity ‘either, or’ choices. In the garden, it was obedience leading to relationship, or disobedience leading to separation. When He gave Moses the law, He proclaimed it was a choice between life and death, blessing and cursing, and admonished them to choose life. When Jesus came to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven, He gave us a choice between hell and separation from God, and salvation and eternal life WITH God.

For a Christian to say there is no consequence for sin, or to deny that sin separates us from God and offends His holiness is a lie. It is rooted in unbelief, that God didn’t really mean what He said, and that it’s okay for us to do whatever we want, ’cause, like, you know, God loves us and stuff!’ It is not an act of love to excuse someone’s sin and allow them to suffer eternal consequences. To sell away someone’s soul for a little bit of love and acceptance here on earth is short-sighted and irresponsible.

Jesus died for me, and He died for the gays. He loves them, but He doesn’t excuse their sin without their repentance. Just like He didn’t excuse my sin until I repented. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, ‘repentance’ means to turn away from. In other words, when I admit it’s wrong and turn away from it toward God, He forgives and cleanses me. When I make excuses or demand my own way, I am lost in my sins without hope.

Don’t trade away the eternal for some temporary love here on earth. I’m just sayin…….

A View From The Bottom

Hey everyone!

I am so sorry it has been a while since I have posted here on Grizzly Religion.  Spring is an amazingly busy time for me at the church, so I have had to neglect my extras.  Anyway, I have a new post on my blog site that I would love to hear your comments on.

Please visit www.mycall2rise.com and let me know what you think.
Below is a snippet of the post.  Enjoy, then go read the rest at www.mycall2rise.com and leave a comment letting me know your thoughts!

God bless you all!

Troy G. White

——————————————-

The Old Testament of God’s Word is chalked full of historical references and facts depicting Israel’s triumphs and struggles. All throughout the Old Testament we find God making promises to His people, and, as is always the case, He kept them.

Today, we, the United States of America, find ourselves following in the footsteps of Israel. No, we were not chosen by God as “His people;” Israel, alone, has that honor. However, history reveals, to anyone willing to be intellectually honest, that the majority of the forefathers of our republic sought that our nation be a people of God. And because of the Biblical foundations of our country found all throughout our original documents, God looked down upon us with favor and blessed our land.

Things have changed.

As was noted in the recent Newsweek cover story, “The Decline and Fall of Christian America” by Jon Meacham, Christianity in the United States is down. Although many Christians were outraged by that article, the truth is simple: we, as a nation, are not seeking after God, and the results are in.

Our governing bodies have fallen away from Biblical morals and precepts. What was once considered by the Framers of our Constitution as basic, mandatory guidelines are now looked upon with contempt. Our schools are no longer used to teach sound education and religious morality, but rather are there to babysit and indoctrinate young minds into believing government is the answer and relative morality. In other words, instead of following God, we have chosen to BE god.

TO CONTINUE READING, PLEASE GO HERE!

He is first

I am proud to be an American,
I love to see the flag standing tall.
But GOD is our Wholly Father,
and His Son, stands above us all.
Jesus is the one that will always
be first in my life, wherever I am.
Jesus is the one that can save,
because our Jesus is the lamb.
Not a thing will come before Him,
because He is the world to me.
I hope you feel the same way,
Jesus is coming back you see.

Written by Don Louderback

Powered by ScribeFire.

My Thoughts on Todd Bentley Divorce, Remarriage & Restoration

Galatians 6

Nothing but the Cross

^1-3 Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day’s out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ’s law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived. [The Message]

I have waited until now to wade into this charismaniac nightmare called the Bentley Debacle in a growing circle of conservative charismatic Christians. “Debacle” is a noun, that is defined as “a sudden and ignominious failure; a fiasco”. This whole debacle has revealed the ongoing erosion of biblical evangelical conservative theology, morality and ethics in the Western church, and the false heretical teachings which have become more and more normative within charismatic circles over the last decade. There are no more variant deviant theologies than those of Rick Joyner and Bill Johnson. To even consider these men as being able to bring Todd Bentley into accountability, discipline, correction and restoration, is the most deceptive ludicrous collusion that could take place within charismatic Christianity. It is in fact the pot calling the kettle black. Both Joyner and Johnson have aberrant theologies that mirror the same heretical teachings of Bentley. It is a frightening development that will further divide and marginalize the body of Christ. Were it not for such men as J. Lee Grady and such publications as Charisma magazine, the wider charismatic stream would not be aware of ongoing developments.

So here I am today, a former ordained minister, who left the institutional church a decade ago, but still very much in the stream of evangelicalism as a charismatic Reformed Anabaptist believer in the growing house church movement, still affected by the excesses and extremes of a charismatic renewal movement that has gone off the rails. Much of this derailment can be traced to the Toronto Blessing and its subsequent off shoots, who more and more emphasized experience over godly character development, and weird manifestations attributed to the Spirit, but very much filled with flesh and the demonic such as an obsession with the angelic, unbiblical signs and wonders.

I know, for I was on the inside, and was very much engaged with the Toronto Blessing, even after the Vineyard split from it. I was hoodwinked by the likes of John Arnott and TACF, Rick Joyner, Bill Johnson, as well as Todd Bentley, Joshua Mills, and Patricia King. I was an active financial supporter of Bentley, Mills and King. I was so hungry for God, that I parked by theological training aside, and just swallowed hook line and sinker so much “crap” from these people, that it took God to bring me to a place of repentance for having embraced false teachers, and a false revival movement. The most frightening aspect of their teaching was its mixture of partial truth with grievous error, and its seducing power over your heart and mind.

My withdrawal from the wacky charismatic side began three years ago. I came across many who were deeply disturbed by the extremes dominating the charismatic branch of the church, and many who chose to withdraw and join other more conservative and less controversial expressions of the body of Christ. The writings online of such bloggers as RobbyMac and his subsequent book “Post-Charismatic?” expressed much of the angst and much of the heart of those who withdrew, hoping for a return to biblical orthodoxy by these false teachers and their followers.

There was no need for “I told you sos” when the supposed revival in Florida in 2008 was exposed as being as fraudulent as its leader. Bentley and his cohorts were being exposed for some time, and the Florida “revival” proved to be stage for his undoing and full exposure as a heretic, false teacher, and false healer. When the gang of “apostles” took centre stage with Peter C. Wagner, the deception was complete, and yet, God in His sovereignty and mercy brought the whole enterprise crashing down.

Bentley was proven to be a fraud, and yet now, more than ever we have the likes of Johnson and Joyner bullying and pimping their product (the power ministry of Bentley) upon the still conservative charismatic branch of the body of Christ. They misuse and misinterpret passages of Scripture at will, trying to convince and re-establish Bentley in ministry.

I find it disturbing that these men get away with such misrepresentations of scripture. Restoration in the New Testament has nothing to do with ministry. All the passages conscerning restoration have to do with restoration to God and to other believers. The passage that Joyner has brow beaten many with, including J. Lee Grady, is Galatians 6:1 “Brothers, if a person is trapped in some sin, you who are spiritual help make him right again. You should do this in a gentle way. But be careful! You might be tempted to sin too.” This only has to do with restoration to God, through repentance, and forgiveness, and restoring such a one to God and to the local body of Christ. How Joyner and others use this for restoration to ministry defies the laws of hermeneutics and twists the principles of interpretation and application.

It is not rocket science. Take the time to read Paul’s writings concerning bishops, elders and deacons and you will find very strong language about conduct and behavior and the character of those who are called to servant leadership. Marriage is a huge issue in the texts found in the epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus) and here we have one area where “restoration” should have been attempted secondly, only after Todd had been restored to God. As for the latter, we have not really discovered if Todd has trully repented. For such a public personality, you would think that he would express repentance to God and the body of Christ publicly, and not go through self-justification exercises on YouTube with Joyner. Todd should have demonstrated humility and done all that he could, and more, as well as call on the body of Christ to pray for him and Shonnah, for their healing and restoration to their marriage. But no, Todd has no such faith. So what kind of “great faith gift” does Todd actually have? Does he not believe that God can and does heal and restore broken marriages? All this is a cop-out and the shaming of the institution of marriage and a dishonoring of the scriptures and the truths they reveal about God and His holiness.

There is no doubt that there are people who divorce, but I find that there is no argument for remarriage within the texts of the New Testament. Divorce was granted for the hardness of our hearts. Remarriage is not an option, for marriage is a picture of the relationship the Bride of Christ has with Christ. If anything the Old Testament and the New Testament call upon believers to forgive and restore those who have injured their marriages through unfaithfulness, and adultry. Why would Bentley not desire what God says plainly that He desires?

I have gone from one position to a more liberal position in regards to remarriage, and back again to a conservative reading and application of these same texts. Ironically all the marriages I officiated as an ordained minister were for divorced people, other than one marriage, which was for a widow and widower. I regret that I ever performed these divorced peoples’ marriages, but I cannot undo them. So, now I no longer support such a view as I do not believe it to be biblical.

Likewise, I believe that unfaithfulness in marriage, compounded by erroneous theology, and aberrant false teachings, leads to the disqualifications of such persons from opportunities at servant leadership. Persons such as Todd Bentley should not be restored to any kind of public ministry, ever. Disqualification in ministry is taught and clearly revealed in 1 Corinthians 9 (especially when contrasted to the standards in the pastoral epistles, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus). In 1 Corinthians 9 we read:

²³I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

²⁴Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

²⁵Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. ²⁶Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. ²⁷No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Paul postulates about apostleship and character and commitment to holiness and integrity, and shows that “disqualification” is a possibility. Todd Bentley disqualified himself. Plain and simple.

I pray and hope for a full restoration of Todd Bentley to God and to the Body of Christ, but that by no means includes a restoration to public ministry. There certainly are a host of others in the charismatic stream who have divorced and remarried and carried on with “successful ministries” since their second marriages. That says more about the followers than it does of the divorced and remarried. Charismatics crave public personalities and heroes, and unfortunately, through the ongoing machinations of the likes of Joyner and Johnson and their respective propaganda campaign through seducing videos on YouTube, they will wear down many, and draw many others to support the public ministry of Todd Bentley, regardless of the sins committed and the disqualification from public ministry standard found in scripture.

Joyner and Johnson have argued without a thorough study and exegesis of the biblical passages, and have dodged all attempts at true scriptural standards. They have stood on an easy theology of greasy grace, where they have neutered the biblical call to discernment and judgment. They have accused those in the Body of Christ of judgmentalism, when in fact, those who have been committed to truth and holiness, are only calling people like Bentley to a right relationship, through repentance, forgiveness and restoration to God honoring relationships. This is biblical accountability, nothing more and nothing less. Joyner avoids these things, and counter attacks with smoke and mirrors. Joyner made it abundantly clear that he only wants Todd’s ministry restored, as he has this great “gift” that must be used. If Joyner truly knew the scriptures, he would know that God cares more about character than gifts. This is the whole point of the qualifications of eldership found in 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus.

The unfortunate thing is that eventually Bentley will be “restored” by a perversion of the biblical texts, by false teachers such as Joyner and Johnson, and Bentley will again have a following. The degree of that following will depend on the people doing the following. Those who continue to seek after weird experiences and aberrant non-biblical teachings will continue to follow the tune of Bentley the pied piper, to their own demise and destruction. The only thing we in the wider Body of Christ can do, is to continue to pray and intercede with God for the preservation of those who belong to Him, that they will not be seduced by false teachers and their aberrant teachings. May God have mercy on us and may He rescue those who are sincerely seeking after Christ and His Kingdom.

Soli Deo Gloria
Sam in Waterloo, ON, Canada

Jesus…… the Union-Buster?

I have always marveled at the story-telling ability that Jesus has. The Bible tells us that He did most of His teaching in parables, which were just stories He told with a moral encapsulated. He had the best stories, and people would walk from miles away to come and hear Him tell them.

One in particular has always struck me as particularly relevant to the society and the political debates we’ve had in our nation since as far back as I can remember. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a story about the Kingdom of Heaven and compares it to the owner of an estate who needed workers to come labor in his vineyard.

Matthew chapter 20, verses 1-16 tells the story Jesus told. Early in the morning, the owner hired a group of workers and they agreed on the normal daily wage. No, it wasn’t a federally-mandated minimum wage, nor was it a union-negotiated contract. It was what the MARKET of the day had set as an acceptable amount to pay for a whole day’s labor.

A few hours later, the owner passes through the market and sees another group of guys waiting around without work, so he sends them to work in his vineyard with the first group. He did this three more times on the same day, and the last group he hired couldn’t have worked more than an hour before quitting time.

This estate owner was aggressively investing in the local economy by providing work to those who didn’t have a job. He went out looking for workers, he didn’t wait for them to come asking him. He had the means and the business to employ groups of people that needed the work. sounds like a local community hero, right? Someone who the people could look up to and be glad they had around? Just wait, it gets better.

At the end of the shift, when all the workers went to get their pay, they realized that no matter what time they had been hired they all received the SAME amount! The workers who had worked the whole day were lived! “Not fair!” they argued, “We worked all day, slaving in the sun, and you paid us the same as these last guys who barely worked at all? I’m calling my Union Steward!”

So the day-long workers started a strike and picket line in front of the vineyard…. No, wait, that’s the wrong story. So when the all-day workers protested to the owner, he gave them a simple response:

“Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? 14 Take it and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. 15 Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be angry because I am kind?’ Matthew 20:13-15 NLT

So the pay stayed the same, regardless of the feelings of the workers. Why? Because the owner did what he agreed to do, he paid a days regular wage to each of them. Those who came first felt robbed, but those who came last felt blessed. If the all-day workers had been the ones who came in last, they would have jumped for joy! They would not have given the money back because it wasn’t fair.

This estate owner who had provided work for each of these men who otherwise HAD NO WORK, is now a bad guy because he was generous. All the workers benefitted from his business, but some were bitter about it and some were ecstatic. He even asked an interesting question: “Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money?”

In America today the answer is yes. Between the union bargaining power and the liberal’s push for ‘fairness’ in our labor laws, this owner could be sued for discrimination. Maybe the all-day workers were blonde, and he didn’t like blondes and took advantage of them. Maybe he was related to the late-comers and was practising nepotism!

Jesus told this story to show that it didn’t matter how long you believed, or how long you had served Him, we all are valuable in His eyes, and should be grateful to be a part of His Kingdom. Regardless of how far we’ve come, we will all end up with the same reward if we follow Him: Grace and Forgiveness. We call that salvation. And the man who has been following Christ since he was young, will end up in the same place as the death-row inmate that has a death-bed conversion to follow Christ. Heaven. Just like Jesus told the thief who died on the cross next to his, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:43

But the practical political point is this: people who own businesses and property, who are wealthy and have means don’t owe anyone any more than they have agreed to. The owner could have pro-rated everyone’s wages and kept it ‘fair’ but he chose instead to be generous. Which do you think stimulated the economy more? And why is the liberal’s version of fair when we take from others? Don’t be too generous, it isn’t ‘fair’!

Now look at the AIG bonus furor. All the execs who received bonuses worked a whole year for $1 salary, because they had agreed to wait for their bonus as compensation. But most politicians and alot of reactionary Americans thought it was no fair! That’s tax money! Well, so is the $500 MILLION increase in spending that Congress just approved on itself for its raises and operating costs! Why is it okay with us that Congress picks our pockets, but nobody else better try it?

Now look at the UAW and the automakers. The single greatest drain on all three American Auto makers is the union contracts they have been pressed into. Pressed by picket lines, walk-out threats, and government pressure. Then there are the ever-increasing CAFE standards that the government forces on our automakers so they feel like they are saving the planet, standards which at some point become physically impossible, but criminally prosecutable, and the strain was finally too much.

So we blame the managers who had all these extra costs and legislation forced upon them. The worst mistake the Big 3 Automakers made was when they made a deal with the devil (read: the US Government) and asked for a handout. It will cost them their future, as we are beginning to see.

And now government on all levels is becoming the nation’s largest employer, and every federal, state and local worker has union representation. Who will represent the Owner (read: US taxpayer)? We don’t get to choose who gets paid or how much, but we sure get the bill.

What do you think Jesus would have to say about our union wage-bargains?

Right Rev. Rowland

More Than A Tradition

What have you done today?

Did you eat breakfast? Did you drive to work? Did you get on a plane and fly across the country? Maybe you went to the doctor. Did you tell your children goodbye as they left for school?

Did you pray?

The research can be quite confusing, some saying America is quickly moving to a mostly atheistic society while others say the majority of Americans claim to be Christian. But regardless of those statistics, prayer still plays a role in our lives. (Unfortunately, notice I didn’t say it played a “major” or “important” role, or even in our “normal, everyday” lives.) Yet, prayer does exist, even if it’s mainly just tradition.

For instance:

You just lost your job and now you are lost in an endless sea saturated by hundreds and thousands of highly qualified individuals in the same boat. Or, your doctor just came in and said your child has cancer and she will need chemo right away. It could be the middle of the night and the winds are howling and the rain, hail and lightening are battering against your home. What do you do? You pray.

We’ve all heard the line, “You can’t take prayer out of schools. As long as there are tests, there will be prayer.”

Why is that?

Is it because you feel better afterward or because you actually believe in a Supreme Being who controls all things? Maybe you just see others doing it and you fell like it is what you’re “suppose” to do.

Whatever your reason, prayer happens. And, whether or not you are praying for safety, healing or a simple “C+” on that final exam, you’re hoping for a positive result, according to you, of course. When that result comes, perhaps you will feel compelled to pray even more. But what if a different result other than what you were hoping for occurs? Or, what if nothing happens? What do you do?

The truth is that prayer without faith in the One you’re praying to is nothing more than empty words uttered in desperation. You hope for something, yet you believe in nothing. It’s like running a race without believing you can win. As soon as that gun fires and your opponents gain a lead, you mentally, and possibly physically, give up. The good news…you have at least successfully lived up to your low expectations. You walk away apathetic, but not surprised.

Conversely, when one offers a prayer, in faith, to the One and only Living God, that person becomes empowered to win regardless of the result. It is because of the faith and trust of the individual voicing that prayer that allows them to “run in such a way as to get the prize.” They know, regardless of the outcome, God is on His throne and that “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.”

Here’s a real life example:

As our forefathers gathered to discuss, and sometimes argue, the details of forming “a more perfect union,” it became quite obvious to the assembly that something was of foremost importance. Benjamin Franklin spoke up and said,

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that “except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the builders of Babel: we shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.

What strikes me as extremely intriguing in this oration by Franklin is that he didn’t just say, “Hey…maybe we should pray,” but rather he gave detailed reasons for the utmost necessity of prayer that day, and EVERY day. It was because of Benjamin Franklin’s faith that he became aware of those “convincing proofs,” therefore he believed prayer was not only proper and civil, but necessary and mandatory. And he knew without the people of God choosing to “humble themselves and pray and seek [God's] face,” that the “assistance of Heaven” would surely not come.

Prayer was not an after-thought or a trite ritual done out of tradition for Benjamin Franklin and other founding fathers. Nor was it for the Son of God. Jesus, time and time again, sought opportunities to talk to the Father. And when He did, it was mostly about you and me, not Him.

Jesus prayed for protection and unity among His people. He knew it was necessary to sustain us. He knew because He became one of us! Because of His human nature, Jesus realized the importance of time with God the Father in prayer.

If we are to find ourselves with protection and unity, we must follow our Lord’s example.

Now more than ever our homes, our communities, our states, our nation and our world needs Christians to rise up and band together, for protection and unity. We must pray for each other, for our civic leaders, both local, state and federal (even if you don’t agree with their policies). This is not an arbitrary, haphazard plan given by God, but rather He wants every child of His to pray, regularly.

Prayer will be the first key to effecting significant and lasting change. It should be more than just a tradition or fad. Our individual prayers can be highly effective, but only if we offer them. James 5:16 says, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” Make it a habit in your life to pray, in faith, for your needs and the needs of others.

Then, increase our sphere of influence and organize small groups to pray for our communities, our state, our nation and our world. Sure, you can do this at your church, but what an amazing testimony it would be to have families of one neighborhood gathering together each week to pray for their community. “Powerful” AND “effective!”

Then and only then will we hear from Heaven.

In Pursuit of HIM,

Troy G. White

http://mycall2rise.blogspot.com

Burned & Branded by Jesus Brand Spirituality: A Book Review

Impacted and Imprinted through the reading of Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back, a recent book by Ken Wilson, published by Thomas Nelson, 2008, 230 pages. I was drawn to this book by a banner advertisement that links to the book’s web site. I was drawn by the author, a Vineyard church pastor, as I had spent some time within the Vineyard in Canada (as a pastor), as well as the emerging church context to the book and its presentation of Jesus for a Postmodern culture.

I had a double take over the sub title, “He wants His religion back”, which only intensified when reading the book. In reading this book, I was challenged, and stretched, which is always a good thing, along with quite a bit of irritation. First and foremost, I don’t believe Jesus Christ was incarnated and dwelt among us, to “give us a new religion.” I find it ironic that the only time religion is mentioned in positive terms within the New Testament, it is in the words of book of James, where he says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (1:27). So, to use the concept that Jesus wants something that He never even gave was both strange, attractive and somewhat bizarre, all the more, coming from someone from the Vineyard movement, which to me was one of the least religious Protestant church associations on the planet. So I was intrigued.

Wilson, a pastor from Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a good writer, who has put together a treatise that at one moment defines Jesus within the framework of spiritual pilgrimage and within that context, he of course includes his own faith journey. He articulates the need for the body of Christ in our day, a day in which we are in the midst of the decline of Modernism and the rise and growing influence of Postmodernism, and how many Christians are conflicted in their faith as a result.

Wilson in his thesis, is calling believers back to the way and the life of pilgrimage, with the ultimate goal of having Jesus at the center. He articulates how as believers we are at the fringes and the edges, no matter what our tradition in faith, and that Jesus is always at the center. He addresses the various influences in our faith journey, but ultimately the goal in this pilgrimage is always moving toward Jesus, who is the center, the locus and the focus of what it is to “belong to Christ and His church.”

The framework in this book is a call to return to a life of pilgrimage that embraces the life and practices that Wilson finds in the life of Jesus. The spirituality, the fibre of the life of Jesus, the core essence included the four aspects of divine activity, where the context of God interacting with mankind, is through action within events that are unfolding. In this book, Wilson argues for, and convincingly that Jesus is more than willing to be active within the fabric of our lives.

The second aspect is that Jesus’ spirituality was not only active, but also contemplative. Jesus embodied the life of a mystic who was aware of all the activities that transpired around Him. When He engaged in this world, He was also engaging with the Kingdom of Heaven, and when He prayed, He prayed with His eyes open, seeing the mysterious and the mystical around Him, and at the same time contemplating and seeking the will of the Father for whatever the situation required. We too, can pray with our eyes open, being on the alert for what is going on in our midst, fully aware that God is still engaging with a broken and needy world, and seeks to use us to repair this world and those who are broken-hearted and in need.

Wilson addresses the third aspect of the spirituality of Jesus, by addressing just how much His spirituality was biblical, and how Postmodern believers must re-engage with the truths of the Bible, and be anchored within that same framework that Jesus Himself modeled.

The fourth and last aspect of Jesus’ spirituality, is that it was lived communally and relationally, and that the body of Christ needs to recover and embrace this kind of vibrant communal expression of life, that is not just limited to the “church life” but all of life, and in a holistic way. Wilson calls believers to embrace the world in which we live, and to a renewed awareness of issues like the environment, and the other issues facing societies and cultures around the world. It is not enough to simply focus on the personal salvation of people. Jesus cares about the earth as a community, of people who share a planet and its resources, just as much as He cares about their relationship to God and to each other. Wilson calls on us Christ followers, to emulate that same care, and stewardship of the earth, and the same respect Jesus showed people who were not His own.

I found Wilson’s tie in of his own faith journey intriguing as I believe we need to see our own faith stories within the context of the stories, the meta narratives within the New Testament in particular. Within Postmodernism, there is a need to embrace our own stories, and the stories of the very people we want to share the living Christ with. All this comes from examining and reviewing our own faith journeys. Wilson does a good job of blending his own stories, into the story of Jesus Brand Spirituality.

Wilson delves into many of the emerging theological issues of our day as well as the various movements within the “emerging church”. He addresses how one needs to approach Scripture, by still honoring the canon itself as the revealed will of God, but without many of the trappings of the Modernist approaches to epistemology (theory of knowledge), and the arrogance of the Enlightenment, which I found to be refreshing. He is well read and that is revealed in his analysis and observations, which only enhances what he is addressing in his presentation.

One of the interesting segways, within the emerging church, which he includes by giving his own story within the story, is his embracing of contemplative prayer (the divine hours). I found this particularly insightful, as I myself, Northern Irish born, and a historic evangelical who was raised Pentecostal, with Reformed theological roots and beliefs, have always been a “fan” (dare I use the term) or better yet, an admirer of, Patrick, Brendan, Columba, and the Celtic evangelical faith community that transformed Europe in the Dark Ages. So anything that involves Celtic principles that can be re-applied in our own day, disciplines of the heart and mind and life, that can in turn transform our lives as individuals and as communities of faith, I am keenly drawn to and interested in exploring. Wilson’s journey caused me to pursue even more some of these Celtic practices and to explore how God can impact my life and the live of those I am in community with (I am a house church planter). So, I must thank Ken Wilson for sharing this part of his faith story and journey with me in this book. But, as Wilson himself points out, principles and practices in and of themselves are not the point, but pursuing Jesus in pilgrimage, in dynamic relationship is the point. Otherwise, any practice or discipline just becomes an empty religious tradition, devoid of life or power.

The parts of this book that really impacted me in the most positive manner, was the recognition of Wilson of the context for the life of Jesus and His spirituality, which was communal, and lived in relationship with God and with people. I know that in one sense I am biased, but never the less, a simple reading of the stories of Jesus in the New Testament, and the writings of the epistles will reveal that the life we have in Christ, is lived in relational community. Wilson himself says, “Jesus Brand Spirituality is a path that leads beyond individualism toward community” (p.186). I could not agree more.

If your faith is bogged down by your denominational lens, or your theological paradigm, and the Jesus you see is blurred and out of focus, pick up a copy of Wilson’s book. Wilson is engaging, honest, reflective, and not afraid to challenge. He brings you from the edges and the fringes of wherever you are, and draws you into a journey, a pilgrimage, back to the center, on the quest to find Jesus in the midst of life.

I highly recommend the book.

Dr. Michelle Everson wins Teaching Award!

Michelle,

My lovely wife and bride, Won the University of Minnesota college of Education and Human Development 2009 Distinguished Teaching Award!!

I am so very humbled and proud of this woman and my wife! This is the blessing but, I could not tell anyone about until it was public knowledge! Woo HOO! So very proud!

So Blessed in Abundance of Freedom & Joy.

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When a Scared Boy Becomes a Man Right in His Very Own Backyard

E. W. Everson, My Great Grandfather, I consider a Better Man Then I.  A Better Man Than I is the title of the book I am writing about his great American story that the socialist squirrels never wanted you to know about.  I felt that my life story could never, ever, no matter my accomplishments compare to his.

I was wrong.  I was wrong about a lot of things when it came to my story.  You see I have been married just over ten years now.  This tenth year has been one of bitter loneliness and despair.  Sure, I have helped a lot of people and I hope inspired them to get grizzly right in their backyard, but my own backyard was a mess.

Michelle and I found ourselves looking for each other everywhere but in each other.  We both work extremely hard.  We both are so committed to our vocations and our ideals.  Yet, no one taught us what marriage was all about. 

This love story, that I feel is even more significant then even my great grandfathers story of how he and his friends defeated socialism, is alive and writing itself anew.

I watched as a child this world and socialism tear apart my parents marriage.  Being the oldest of three boys, I was the protector.  I carried this understanding of marriage into my own.  I found the same dark lonely places my parents found.  I do not think my story is different then others of my generation.  This is not where this story takes on any significance, other then the pain Michelle and I endured.

First, let me start with where I was at when God graced me with Michelle and how God united us.  You see, I always say that I searched the world for Michelle and I did, online.  I was a frightened, despairing Seminary student who went to his denomination to right the wrong the human organization was taking my beloved church.  I had ran into the socialist demon that got the better of me.  It defeated me totally.  Armed with only my faith that still could move mountains, but no faith institution, as I had seen the belly of the beast.  I had no clue as to how to defeat it.  I had not heard of E. W. Everson’s story and was not yet gifted with the IVA blueprint to destroy it, and expose its corruption and tyranny.  I was battled, beleaguered and alone.  My family and hometown church just told me to stick it out.  But I had no fight left in me.  I did not have the knowledge or the strategy to defeat it and make Christ known in my denomination or my ministry.

Then, I reached out, looking for someone.  Someone who could heal me, and build me back up to the person I once was.  I had lost my confidence in my family and only carried from it the brokenness I witnessed as my parents struggled through life alone in their marriage.  The did what they knew to do, and that is all I knew from witnessing it as a child.  Yet that was more then what I had and something that I longed to attain.

Being in Seminary, I did not want to find another Seminary student because I knew I was not going to be able to serve a broken church and corrupt denomination.  I was unable to look within the church for a mate and I have never understood the bar scene.  So I turned to this new tool I had just learned in Seminary and that was the computer.  I searched the world for over a year and finally found Michelle.  She had placed an ad at webpersonals as she also struggled through her degree program and her isolation from her family in California.  We were two lost souls that from the moment we met for our first date to go to the U garden for Chinese food, that we were inseparable.   Michelle is about an inch or so taller then me and gorgeous.  She was working on her Doctorate at the U of MN.  We both were alone and yearning for a friend. 

From that day, Michelle and I have only not been together when travel for work, family or the Grizzly Groundswell have taken us apart.  We just got each other.  Michelle was willing to try to put this stubborn North Dakotan back together and make me the man God intended me to be.  I forgot my job was to do the same for her.  She was always the one who had it all figured out. 

In less then a year we were married, in a way that left my family on the outside looking in.  I was so protective of Michelle.  I did not want what I knew was inside me to be revealed to her through the turmoil and pain that was still brewing in my family as my father suffered from a long illness.

Shortly after our wedding Michelle sat by the bedside of her precious grandmother who was here in the twin cities and was very instrumental in our courting days.  We would gather at her home, play cards and enjoy the connection of this wonderful loving woman.  She passed away as Michelle sat with her and gave Michelle her first taste of divine presence in the death of a loved one.  We mourned the loss, but we lost a key touch stone to each of our families in her passing.

Michelle’s parents are in California and mine are in North Dakota.  We suddenly became too busy to stay invested and began building our own family here in Minnesota.  Michelle and I were going to take on the world alone.  After all, it was what we knew. 

My father grew more gravely ill and I hurried to make something of myself climbing the retail management ladder.  Thinking that would bring back all I had lost.  I lost sight of my bride and all those card games and moments we shared as friends and lovers became more infrequent.  Yet we did what we knew, we were building what we thought we needed to build.

I had found myself finally a store manager, and spent more time there at this new responsibility more then with my wife, my friend, my soul mate.  I thought I was doing what a man had to do to gain the love, earn the respect and admiration of my bride.

Michelle, then a lecturer at the university was also working hard putting in her dues and perfecting her craft.  Our vocations suddenly became reasons or excuses to avoid what we both longed for in each other.

We thought all our hard work was blessed when Michelle found herself pregnant.  We had just moved out of apartment renting and bought our first home.  We still call this home our dream fulfilled.  I always say it is our 2.5 acres of North Dakota right here in Princeton, MN. 

We surrounded ourself with life. Chickens, ducks, geese, cats and our faithful dog I suprised Michelle with the very next day she finally said we should maybe start thinking of looking for a dog.  I found Daisy in a classified ad for only $25 near Dalbo, MN.  She was Chow, St. Bernard, and lab mix.  I was buying Michelle protection and companionship that I could not provide because I worked almost every night and weekend.  Daisy has been a blessing.  But not what God intended for me to provide Michelle with.  This was not the “solution” I thought it was.

Now when you surround yourself with life, there is always death, loss and tragedy.  We learned to take the life cycle and loss of those feathers, and paws the best we could. 

Michelle’s pregnancy was not to be, she suffered a miscarriage during her travel back and forth to her job in the cities.  We lost our first child and I did not ever learn how to deal with that.  I did the best I could to comfort the pain and terror it cause Michelle and myself.  All of a sudden, I began to grow into the man I am today, but I was still so much that scared boy trying to deal with adult problems, and not doing a very good job.

So work deadened the pain and gave us now even a better way to avoid the intimacy we yearned for from one another.  We did our best, and had good days with the bad, but we still did not get it.  I did not get it.

I did learn that I needed to do something, I may have chose the wrong thing, but I thought that if I did not start that business I had always wanted, to employ families, hopefully generations, that I had better get started.  So I quit my retail management job to learn the interior painting business.  I signed on to a crook and drug addicts business.  I knew that I could learn enough and turn his business around in short order.  But that person did not pay me.  He had used me to finish a few jobs so he could get his fix and I never saw that money.  Now jobless right before Christmas, I proved to myself that I was the fool I always feared I was.  I was so afraid, my bride, who now was panic stricken could now see right through me. 

In the new year, Michelle was again pregnant, and we were both so damn
scared I can not explain it yet to this day.  Michelle knew something
was not right.  But we carried on, waiting for the shoe to drop. It did, she called me once again, scared and bleading.  She knew something was terribly wrong, that pain she had now had blood revealing every fear she had felt.

I met Michelle at the hospital.  My time frame here is off, but Michelle sleeps soundly for the first time since Saturday night and I am not going to wake her to help me clarify it.  We have been through so much, she needs her rest.

At the hospital, we heard the babies heart beating.  We relaxed, until the nurse excused herself out of the room.  It was a tubal pregnancy. The tube had ruptured, that is where the blood was coming from.  Yet, that son or daughter of mine was fighting to live.  Even though it could not. 

Michelle, my love and our child I knew I was loosing were rushed into the emergency operating room.  I in a daze, enslaved with fear just was.  I do not remember anything but sitting in a room with a tv for background noise.  too scared to think.  Too numb to move.  I could only pray and worry.  I had not realized yet to give it to God, I still bore the weight solely on my shoulders.  I thought, like Job, I had finally lost everything.  I kept thinking, waiting for the doctor to have to uncomfortably tell me that my lovely bride, was no more. 

I did not even have cash to buy a meal while I waited my fate.  I had not eaten since the night before and I was starting to get dizzy.  A nurse almost had to pull me out of the seat and took me to the cafeteria.  She bought me a sandwich and a pop with her own money.  Thinking back, I am not even sure if I ever made sure I payed her back.  It was all a blur. 

My fears, although were not to be.  After what seemed like months, the doctor finally came to tell me the good news, I had lost another child, but God gifted back to my arms my bride.  Michelle and I were so relieved and scared and in shock that I never left her bedside.  I kept her up all night talking with her in her hospital room.  morning came and I finally was convinced to go home, take a shower and feed our dog, and make sure our chickens were still around.  I went home.  actually laid down and I got a telephone call.  They were ready to release Michelle into my care.

I lost it!

I was so tired, so frightened.  I did not know if I was humanly capable of caring for my wife.  I was all alone and I now, in utter exhaustion had to drive back to the hospital, and take my bride home, and care for her.  I was out of my mind in fear.  Yet, God gifted me with the strength to do it.  Yet, I never asked for that strength.

I was in a new business, my first.  Totally over my head and clueless, I just lost my second child and my bride was looking to this scared and frightened boy for something I had no clue how to give. 

My father declined rapidly as did my family as death drew near.  I had no time to mourn the loss of my children.  The war was raging and I lost and trying to handle this all alone with a bride still looking to this stupid boy to be her everything.  My father and my mother and siblings trying to pull me into a fight and a selfishness I wanted no part in.  I could not be the oldest brother and son to my father.  I had this woman, my bride, now devastated and rejected by what I thought was supposed to be my support, my siblings, my parents.  I could not be what any of them needed me to be.  I was still numb, still frightened out of my mind and struggling to be someone and something with my business, The Clay Empire.

My business was great the first year, I brought in 38K even though all this was raging.  I thought, this was what I could do.  What I needed to do.  I could not be a good husband.  I could not be a son or brother.  But I could inspire and ignite imaginations with wonders of clay.  So that is what I did.

Michelle and I shortly after the tubal pregnancy were tricked into rushing to my fathers home.  My siblings and mother felt a cry of wolf would snap me out my neglected weekly pilgrimages to watch the man who taught me to work hard, and make it play, who held me in his stong arms and I could always look to him for council and someone to strive to be, waste into someone I did not recognize.  his once strong hands that I never believed my small delicate hands would grow into always were kind. 

He once told me his father, my beloved grandfather, never thought twice of reprimanding him, and he would never do that to me.  He never did.  He stopped that and I never new anything physical from him.  Mental and verbal was another story.  I guess that is my siblings and my role to snuff out.  My mother on the other hand gifted me with all three.  It is the verbal and mental abuse I carried into my marriage, and I pray I have snuffed out.  But at this juncture in the story, I was not doing a very good job.  I was so over my head.  So lost.  So needed with nothing to give, and too defensive to gift if I ever had it.

I was embarassed, and protective of my bride.  My mother and siblings wives attacked Michelle brutally.  I had seen enough.  I did not know what else to do but cut them off.  I did not know how to heal myself, let alone my bride.  I just did not have the strength.  I would take my inheritance of knowing how to make really hard work fun and the mental and verbal abuse I used now as my own defense mechanism and protect Michelle and myself from this part of me I never wanted Michelle, to see.  I prayed she could not see it still buried in me, but she felt the mental and verbal abuse I used as a defense mechanism to keep her from getting close enough to me to find out who I thought I was. 

I was running scared.  Alone and determined that I could fight through this and fix it.  If I could only show everyone that I too deserve to be loved, admired and maybe even respected, maybe I could let my guard down just enough to have something of what I thought marriage was suppose to be. 

However, my decision to cut off my family destroyed Michelle.  When ever we did have time together this hurt was all we now had in common.  She did not understand my decision.  She struggled to understand, and I trying to protect her, tried to paint my family in the worse light possible.  Michelle began to know my family through the lens of my pain.  I was not lying, I just was not being fair.  I did not tell her my role in the family dysfunction.  I could not share with her that I was so afraid that she would leave me, like the others if she thought that was me. 

It was me, although.  I had chosen to dwell there.  I did not give my family any opportunity for redemption and when the phone call came in telling me my father really was on his death bed.  I sat and mourned alone, with my wife on the outside looking in.  I did not attend my fathers funeral.  I was his oldest child.  I could not attend.  I feared my anger would drive me to hurt or God forbid kill one of my siblings or my mother.  My father was what I perceived my only connection to that family.  I no longer knew that family and did not want anything to do with the new reality my fathers death would bring.  I felt so betrayed.  I felt so alone.  I had a loving wife struggling like hell to reach me and love me and I just shut down.

I became numb.  I had lost two children, a stable secure job, my father, and my way all in one terrible year.  I drove away my wife with verbal and emotional abuse to protect her from seeing who I had become.  I was not in a good place.  I was putting on a brave face, but I was destroyed.  I had not yet dealt with my failure to save my denomination and my walking away from Seminary.  How did I ever hope to deal with all this?

I did not deal with this very well.  yet, Michelle stood by me.  She loved me, she tried to put me back together, and we tried to keep building what we started building that first day we met and were one.

Now I have always been a man of deep, deep faith.  Where ever two or three are gathered I have known that Christ is always there.  I have witnessed countless miracles and I was always the mediator.  The vessel Christ poured out of into others.  I guess my body, was very much like the denomination I tried to save unsuccessfully.  I was beaten, broken and stirred.  It is very Biblical that God seems to love those of us so broken and human that his ministry is present and flows from.  I am a man of God, yet, it seemed I was only the vessel and witness to the awesome power of God.  I think I was stupid enough to think that God’s grace was only for others, I never truly asked for myself.  I don’t know why.

This all changed the night my lovely bride who finally was so worn down, tired and lost herself, without me to be her team mate told me she had feelings for another.

It finally happened.  She finally seen the real me.  She finally knew that no matter who I tried to be, and who I yearned to be was all in the wrong direction without my own backyard being taken care of.

You see, my verbal abuse, the emotional roller coaster I had taken her on was too much for even this woman of God to bare.  She yearned for me, but I was no longer there. 

I was finally layed out for the world to see how broken and lost I really was.  I was not the man E. W. Everson was.  I was not the man Edwin, my grandfather was.  I was not even the man my father was even though, I had carried all his demons and hard work ethic with me into this marriage.  I only showed God’s Grace to others.  I forgot to share that with my own wife and myself.

I had lost everything for 10 hours.

I then began calling out for God.  I was pissed and I wanted a meeting with my creator.  Job got one, and I wanted mine.  Our house, is small.  Michelle heard my cries.  It was very early and she had finally collapsed in our bed, that I knew I would never sleep in again.  I was on the couch.  And out of this broken flesh, I bellowed for my God!

I demanded to know why this was happening to me!  I demanded to know how God could do this too me?

Shortly before this I had announced to the world that I was no longer married and Michelle and I were getting a divorce.  Facebook, suddenly was a vessel where I called out for prayer, for Michelle and myself. 

curled into a puddle of tears and this gut wrenching prayer came from someplace deep that I had always protected and never let anyone see let alone hear.  That frightened little boy was calling out for his God.  He was demanding a miracle.  He was not going to loose everything he held dear. 

Michelle now awake and in tears herself tried to comfort me only to get lashed out at.  The one I wanted to reach, to hold and comfort, suddenly wanted me.  This broken frightened little boy crying out for his God to save him.

I still could not let her in.

She was not leaving me alone and I was so embarrassed I could not hide this little boy from her any longer.  I tried with my silly pride to once again push her away with my angry words.  I gathered up my laptop, the stinky blanket I wrapped this shattered flesh in and now with day breaking, and Michelle up I had to find a hole to hide myself in.  I literally tied shut the upstairs door so I could dwell in my own pain alone. 

All this time, my bride so lost, so much in pain seen that child and still wanted to make it work. 

I found myself upstairs. 

I turned to the one thing I had buried myself in, my laptop.  I went to facebook, removed all Michelles friends and family from my account.  I layed bare for the world to see my pain and called out for prayers.  I called those people I knew to call.  I got ahold of Apostle David King.  I had just helped him get up on Blog Talk Radio and I needed prayer.  I had no idea what to do.  And he convicted me and hit me right between the eyes.  “Are you ready to fight for this marriage?” David King asked me.  I literally fell backwards from my seated position.

He repeated his words and prayed for Michelle and me.  My heart was not broken anymore.  He requested I listen to his last sermon and radio show.  Then he demanded to call him at noon after his service. 

I no longer had a hardened broken heart.  I was raised like Lazarus.  But still shaken, and a little stirred.  So I began to listen to the show. 

Michelle had responded to an email I sent her trying to reach her, she was so lost. Her heart was still fighting for us.  She did not know how I would ever forgive her, but she did not care, she was fighting. I did not realize how lost I was.  I did right then. 

You see I thought I was ok, just doing what a married man had to do.  Sure I was flirting with girls online and fantasizing about grass being greener in their backyards, but that was just fun and games right?  What is the harm in reducing my stress after all I worked so hard!  I was such a fool.

Listening to that sermon, the scales fell from my eyes.  My heart longed for my bride.  Yet, this little scared boy who just grew into a man right in his own backyard was praying that Michelle, my lovely wife would forgive him. 

I suddenly realized what I had done to my lover.  This was not her falling, it was mine.  Actually it was both of ours.  We had looked so hard for each other in everyone but each other, we had both landed in the same sewer.  That sewer was our very own backyard.

Our house, was built in the early 1900’s.  It is old and I let it go so bad in the last year.  This house still has scars from the divorced couple that owned it before us.  I am sure the anger and loneliness is still here.  But instead of sanctifying it, and resurrecting it, and my marriage, I let it fall into disrepair, too busy building what I thought would impress my wife, rather then just love my wife.

We both have skype and while the radio program sermon was rebuilding me, and laying out God’s path, Michelle messaged me.  She reached me with love.  I had ended our marriage because she could not let go of this person she had feelings for because she did not want to loose everything, and she was so afraid I was already gone.  I demanded that step or I was gone that night.  But now, my heart did not care.  I did not need her to do anything but forgive…me!

I asked her to listen to the sermon as well, I sent her the link and we started talking over skype chat.  I thought about including it here, but that is for Michelle and my eyes only.  It is bad enough she is married to a blogger who is taking on Socialism and uniting this conservative movement across this nation.  I demand that my friends, members and anyone who reads this understand, that the two people who found themselves in the sewer, their own backyard are no longer those people.

Because this is where this story takes on significance that I feel outshines even my great grandfathers story of defeating socialism in 1921.  You see, I went down stairs after Michelle and I both finished listening to the sermon.  Michelle met me half way.  I asked for her forgiveness, and she gifted me with it.  She asked me for her forgiveness and I gifted her with that.  God gifted Michelle and myself with a miracle all our own!  We both witnessed the miracle that unfolded before our eyes.

This was Sunday morning.  We sat and all this bullshit, and mess we both created started to be purged, and we together as one worked through it.  We talked so deeply and completely in one hour and covered more pain and hurt then we had all 10 years of our marriage.

It was noon and Michelle and I called Apostle David King.  We witnessed this miracle to him.  I think he was dancing on the other end of the call.  He witnessed to us another miracle that happened that day in his service. 

The call ended. 

Michelle and I have once again became one and inseparable.  We have worked hard and heavy through all the lies, the deceptions.  I was able to reveal to her my darkest secrets and she laid out all her darkest secrets.  Together, we helped each other rid ourselves of that baggage.  We are both so free now. 

We have prayed and asked forgiveness from God who is now Lord and Master of our Marriage.  I understand my role and she is so relieved I am back filling that role. 

We have worked on trust issues, my past pain and fear.  We have a lifetime to go, but I can not tell you the energy I now have.  Both of us have witnessed to each other, through the pain that we have never been more joyful.

We are tired and shaken, but no longer stirred, we are rejoicing for we have finally been found and we have finally reconnected on a level only marriage and God can gift you with.

We both hurt so many by bringing them into our pain.  We have had to severe those unhealthy relationships and we turned them back to God.  We have the faith that God will heal those people and maybe gift them with the miracle we have found.  That is all we pray for those people who are just as lost as we once were.

God is preparing Michelle and I for what He has always intended us to become and be in His grace.  God is calling his people and this man of God needed his own miracle.  When I called out for it, I was not just the witness but the recipient of it.

I am sharing this with you, the reader, our Grizzly Groundswell member so that you too will free yourself from your own pain and the lost will be found.  God will deliver that miracle. 

I thought that God would only give me just enough strength to survive this catastrophe we both created.  Instead, he gave it all back to me, without a stain, and 100 fold better then I have ever known it.

Call out God’s name!  God has always been there, through it all, but why do we forget to call out his name and ask for that miracle for ourselves?

My friends, this is the latest update about the greatest love story Satan never wanted you to learn about. 

This once scared boy has become a man right in my very own backyard.  I now have that little girl, now a woman of God right beside me, we are one and inseparable. 

Life is too short, call on our God right now!  Reach out and ask us here for our prayers, together with God, mountains move.

I also now have the gift of forgiveness for my mother and my siblings.  I have not contacted them yet, as I am busy getting my own backyard cleaned up, but when we get that built up and secure I will be taking on that pain and forgiveness next.  I now think I understand my family myself, and the role I played in that mess in my parents backyard.  But just like in the Grizzly Groundswell, we start first in our own backyard, then we inspire and take on the next one.

Keep Michelle and myself, and my entire family and friends in your prayers.  You may not know me, or you fear I do not know you, but just know God knows us all.  Michelle and I are lifting up anyone who God sends to read about our love story and the miracle God gifted us with.  So call out God’s name!  Let God unharden your heart as well.  The grass is greener on this side of pain, loneliness, guilt and despair.  I promise you that.

I dedicate this witness to God and that little girl who loves me like no other can.

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Belkis Gonzalez, Secretary of Health and Human Services

As luck would have it President Barack Obama may have found a potential Cabinet appointee today right on the front page of the Sun Sentinel and realized that he might have prematurely chosen Governor Kathleen Sebelius as head of Department of Health and Human Services. Sebelius is controversial and pro-choice projecting herself to be someone who is moderate and wants to lower the abortion rate in her state. She is a typical example of the “My Catholic faith teaches me that all life is sacred, and personally I believe abortion is wrong” group. Followed up by the schizophrenic liberal clarification, “However, I disagree with the suggestion that criminalizing women and their doctors is an effective means of achieving the goal of reducing the number of abortions in our nation” Abortion, not resume, could dominate Sebelius confirmation.

Like most liberals what they say and what they do are two different things. Regardless of what she “says” Sebelius always comes down on the side of extreme abortion rights, such as her veto of a bill that attempted to place restrictions on late term abortions (Comprehensive Abortion Reform Act (CARA). Sebelius has fought against parental consent or any effort to curtail late-term abortions.

She is also an ardent supporter of Dr. George Tiller a Kansas late term abortionist who admits to having performed over 60,000 abortions. Congratulations Dr. Tiller you wiped out three coliseums full of human beings, quite an accomplishment. Tiller dismisses the concern for infants born alive calling them “just sloppy medicine.” Her relationship with the renowned Dr. Tiller is personal and financial, quite radical for someone who claims that “…all life is sacred, and personally believes abortion is wrong.” I can’t imagine who Sebelius would hang out with if she had no conscience at all. Maybe she would scrub up and hand Dr. Tiller the scalpel, suction and saline and then gleefully drag the biohazard bag’s contents to the dumpster?

Shocking as it might be, Kathleen Sebelius is moderate compared to likes of our esteemed Commander in Chief when it comes to abortion. Personally, I think Barack Obama deserves someone who doesn’t play both sides of the fence when it comes to this issue because he certainly doesn’t. Not that Obama has a conscience– but he rescinded the Bush’s “conscience exemption” originally instituted to protect health care professionals who found participating in an abortion morally reprehensible to be exempt from and having the “right to refuse” participation. Can anyone say Dr. Mengle?

Nazi doctors gave the following arguments in their defense: “involuntary research on prisoners had a long history, prisoners were already sentenced to death, they were only following orders, there were no clear international ethics standards respecting research, the toleration of a lesser evil to tolerate a greater good, those who did not participate might have been killed” (Tarantola, 1993).

If Kathleen Sebelius has any scruples on the issue she very well might be the wrong person for the job. Barack Obama has consistently voted against the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA), which is a bill on the Illinois, as well as the Federal level, which would make illegal death by neglect of born alive but unwanted infants. In other words botched abortions where the unthinkable happens and the infant is born alive, you know “sloppy medicine.”

Regardless of Obama’s misrepresentation of how he voted on the Illinois bill the truth is, “…he was part of the legislative committee that added that very ‘neutrality clause’ to the bill he voted against in 2003” (News Busters, Warner Todd Huston, Obama Lied About Vote Against Live Birth Abortion Ban, Media Mum, 8-13-08). Long story short, Barack Obama is so committed to making sure babies born alive during botched abortions not make it off the cold, stainless steel table still breathing that he voted against a bill that included the amendment with the Roe-protection wording, which he claimed he was so concerned about.

Obama is proving why, before becoming President, he had the reputation of being the most radical, left-wing US Senator. One reason obviously was his unabashed support of the most heartless pro-choice practice, which is late term abortion and the abandoning, without medical care, of any aborted baby “born alive.” That small detail didn’t seem to bother 52% of the American electorate who felt he was the harbinger of “Hope” and “Change.” I’m sure this voter base would heartily support any Cabinet choice he made and should applaud his appointment of like minded appointees, especially if Kathleen Stebelius shows some cracks in her armor and goes wobbly when it comes to refusing to aid a baby who has the extreme misfortune of being born alive in Barack’s hope laden America.

Obama has made clear that he doesn’t want to “burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion” by having an additional physician to attend to a live born infant. You know a sort of undermining of the original intent, which was a lifeless, dead baby. This could be a problem for Ms. Sebelius if her conscience and her Catholic faith should unexpectedly kick in.

That is why I think Obama should have someone in the position of Health and Human Services who would have the stomach to assist Dr. George Tiller after he is appointed Surgeon General. A person who will make sure that the original decision of the woman will never force her to be, as the President says, “punished with a baby.” My recommendation for the position is Belkis Gonzalez the women’s clinic worker in Hialeah Florida who “delivered a live baby during a botched procedure and then threw the infant away” she is tailored made for the Obama Administration.

Barak needn’t worry, even if Gonzalez is prosecuted, convicted and sentenced she will probably only face a year in prison, if anything at all. The woman who delivered the baby in the Miramar Woman’s Center in Hialeah waited until she was 23 weeks pregnant to decide she didn’t have, “the resources or maturity to raise a child.” Lucky for her Belkis was there. Upon giving birth to her baby girl, who she named Shanice, “She came face to face with a human being and that changed everything.” It may be above my pay scale to say so but, “Oops, we can’t have that!” So Ms. Gonzalez “…scooped the baby, placenta and afterbirth” into a red plastic bag and threw Shanice away.

The little girl had taken a breath because her small underdeveloped lungs were filled with air, meaning she had been born alive. “The baby was just treated as a piece of garbage. People all over the country are just aghast,” said the lawyer representing the mother. I beg to differ with you Mr. Brejcha the whole country is not “aghast” 52% are applauding the bravery of Ms. Gonzalez. Maybe President Obama can speak on her behalf and appeal to the judge on the basis that she will be gainfully employed by his Administration and will be operating fully under his jurisdiction and direction. Kathleen Sebelius can go back to Kansas and as far as Belkis is concerned, “You’re hired!”

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