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Friday, March 31, 2023

I am Back!

 


Hello Everyone! I am back! I have decided to resurrect this blog due to the amount of information contained in it. More information will be coming soon! 

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

The Latest...

Dear All,

Well, I have decided to leave this site after many wonderful years. I will leave it live for the time being. I am currently collaborating with a friend and colleague on a new endeavor. I will post that new information as soon as it becomes reality.

For the few who still wander here at times, thank you. Thank you for allowing me to share with you my pains, joys, disappointments and triumphs. As I read back over the years, I can see how I have grown, and how the Lord has taken each event and used it to shape me.

I tried to be forthcoming without being too overly dramatic. This blog covers some hard years for me. Years which the Lord used to shape and mold me for this next season of life.

I will make one final post with information on where I can be found. There will be another blog and a whole lot more. Stay tuned...



  

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Suspending this Blog

Dear All,

To the few that read this, I am regretfully suspending this blog for a time. Life has gotten rather hectic with additional responsibilities at work, dissertation work and the responsibilities of fatherhood and husbandry.

I will provide an update on this blog in March as to the status of this blog and other blogs. I will most likely be starting another blog that is aligned more with me dissertation work, but as as far as this one, I am not sure of its fate at this point.

A BIG thank you to those who have read it. I have tried to share with each of you the ups and downs of my life as I traversed the course of living as a Christian. Each day I awake to the realization that the life we all live is a daily moral dilemma between a belief in God and a belief in self. I use the term traverse because I feel strongly that even as Christians we are always traversing that line between a belief in God and a belief in self.

May God continue to draw you closer to Him. May we continue to live in relationship to each other as Christ sees us. Blessings to all!

Until March...

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Annual Christmas Poem

Each year during the Christmas season, I post a Christmas poem. One of my all time favorites is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day."

So, without further delay... I bring you one of my all time favorite poems!


I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day!

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!


And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"


Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Thursday, December 3, 2015

A Testimony of Current Culture

Dr. Everett Piper presents a commentary on current culture. He is the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. If you would like the read the entire blog post click HERE. After reading the posts below I predict you will want to read the entire blog post. Enjoy!

"This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a university chapel service and complain because he felt “victimized” by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13. It appears this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love. In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him, and his peers, feel uncomfortable."

"I have a message for this young man and all others who care to listen. That feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon is called a conscience. An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad. It is supposed to make you feel guilty. The goal of many a good sermon is to get you to confess your sins—not coddle you in your selfishness. The primary objective of the Church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self-actualization."

"So here’s my advice: If you want the chaplain to tell you you’re a victim rather than tell you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you’re looking for. If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less than loving for not showing love, this might be the wrong place.
If you’re more interested in playing the “hater” card than you are in confessing your own hate; if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn; if you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin; if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land (in Missouri and elsewhere) that will give you exactly what you want, but Oklahoma Wesleyan isn’t one of them."

I have read no greater commentary on current culture to date. This is where we are, like it or not! Blessings!






Saturday, November 7, 2015

The New American Religion

This story regarding football and prayer should make Christians and non-Christians alike furious.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation sent a letter asking Chancellor Roger Brown of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) about what group Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor described as "unlawful university sponsorship of Christian prayer." UTC ended up moving away from prayer and to a moment of silence, bowing to the pressure of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, but was this necessary?

A visit to the Freedom from Religion Foundation website will introduce you to the religion of atheism, with its own monuments and marquees. The website openly promotes the religion of atheism in all its glory.

A religion, by definition, is a system of organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems and worldviews that relate humanity to an order of existence. Atheism is, by all accounts, a religion, and the proof is right there on the Freedom of Religion Foundation's own website. Atheism is a systematic organized collection of beliefs that related to an ordered existence. There are churches forming and monuments being built celebrating Atheists, and organizations like the Freedom form Religion Foundation are actively requiting converts to their cause.

If there is to be a true separation of church and state then is not that separation from all forms of organized religion? Or, are the Freedom from Religion Foundation and other groups like them merely discriminating against Christians? Either they have special considerations or atheism has become the new American religion.