The Great Separation

Today's Sermon Devotional.

Here's my father's sermon devtional from today's church bulletin.

As Christians we are always "coming" - we never reach a place where we can say, "We have arrived". As Christians we are always growing and maturing in Jesus. We never reach that fullness that is to be ours in the eternal Kingdom. Our Heavenly Father always has new and higher levels to which He desires to bring us. We can never retire from serving God.

God will always have a place where He wants us to be to used for building the Kingdom. God, according to Scripture, places us were He wants us and where we will be most effective to minister in His Kingdom here on earth. Remember God has chosen to work through people to accomplish His work.

God wants to mold us into the image of Jesus. This is a continual process that will never end until we draw our last breath here on earth. We are always in the plan of God, moving toward this goal of being like Jesus, But we never arrive in this life at that goal. As we live we are continually being perfected by our Heavenly Father.

Our Father in Heaven is always working in His Children to mold them to be more like Him.

I CORINTHIANS 14
HEBREWS 1
ROMANS 5
JEREMIAH 18
ISAIAH 64
EPHESIANS 2
PHILIPPIANS 3
ROMANS 8

Group Obsessed with Buses Meets Regularly at Bus Station.

(Source: Ananova ™ )
Sao Paulo, I think it's in Brazil - They call themselves the "Bus Worshipers." They are a group that love buses. They meet in the bus station of Sao Paulo and watch people board and exit, and buses come and go. Ananova ™ quotes the founding member,

"If I could I would own a bus. Besides being a hobby it is a therapy, you forget about your problems when you spend the whole day watching them come and go.

"My obsession started as something funny when I was still a kid and developed to buses becoming the objects of my desire."

The article doesn't mention whether anyone in the group actually drives a bus or works for the station. I would kind of think they would since it is their obsession. But the article does mention that the group gives helpful suggestions and criticisms to the bus company. Also noted is that the "Bus Worshipers" are,

"now planning to take what they say will be the longest bus journey ever, from Chile to Alaska."

I guess everybody's got to have at least one hobby.

Fat Prisoner Plugs Escape Route.

(Source: Ananova ™ )
Argentinian Jail: It's Homer-esq. You know what I mean if you know The Simpsons. Only in this case the fat man wasn't stopping up a hole in a nuclear chamber, he and 29 other prison inmates were trying to climb through a hole in the prison ceiling and escape. This particular hefty crook, weighing in at 224 pounds, was sixth in line for the escape. But he could only get half way through the hole before he was stuck with his legs dangling over the heads of 24 ticked off fellow prisoners. Someone from the 24 beneath finally broke down and called prison guards for help.

The 5 that made it out are still on the run.

Needless to say the 24 left behind are a little bit peeved.

Spitting on the People of CA, Government Passes 'Virtual Gay Marriage.'

(Source: Art Moore, WorldNetDaily ™ )
Teetering on the Brink, CA - The citizens of California voted on Proposition 22 back in 2000 to define marriage as God intended, only between a man and a woman. But the Senate of California has passed a law that slaps the faces of the citizens that voted for Prop 22 with AB 205, the Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act. Moore begins his report,

"A bill that would grant nearly all of the rights and responsibilities of marriage to same-sex couples in California is another step closer to Gov. Gray Davis's desk for signature."

Gray Davis has promised to sign the bill when it reaches his desk. But this isn't the only bill with an agenda of governmental endorsement for the homosexual sin.

Moore also reports on bill number AB 17,

Britney, Aguilera, and Modanna Swap Spit On Stage.

(Source: Nekesa Mumbi Moody, The AP, Washington Post)
New York, NY - Who do your children listen to and model themselves after? Did you allow them to watch the MTV Music Awards last night? Did you watch it with them? Moody reports the following about last night,

"Dressed in the same kind of white bustier wedding dress that Madonna wore while performing "Like a Virgin" during 1984's inaugural show, Spears and Aguilera gyrated on stage while singing a cover of the not-so-innocent tune. Then, while Madonna sang her new song "Hollywood" in an all-black outfit, she shared an open-mouthed kiss with both Aguilera and Spears - proving the former teen stars have come a long way since their Mouseketeer days."

This just breaks my heart and words fail me when I think about how so many young girls, not even teenagers yet, follow and worship the likes of Spears and Aguilera. What is our society saying to these young children and what it thinks of them?

Government Panther Statue Called Pagan.

(Source: Jack Douglas, Jr., Star-Telegram)
Tarrant County, TX - A woman has told county commissioners that the statue of a sleeping panther in front of the Tarrant County Administration building is violating the "Separation of Church and State." The reason being, that the statue is 'pagan' and her words quoted by Douglas,

"is an insult to Christians everywhere, and I respectfully request its removal from any local, state, county [or] federal property,"

I suppose she is trying to make a point over the 10 Commandments statue in Alabamma. But in my opinion she is doing more harm than good, because it is a stretch to call this panther statue pagan. Douglas points out that the history of the sleeping panther in Fort Worth goes back to a statement in the 1880's made by a lawyer who said of the town,

"things were so quiet, he had seen a panther asleep on Main Street."

I suppose we can look forward to a lot of this kind of stuff over the coming months. Some good, some bad.

Segway People Mover Moves ex-Clown to Peak of Mount Washington.

(Source: The AP, posted on CNN.com)
Mount Washington, New Hampshire - It took 3 drivers 2.5 hours and 6 sets of batteries to ride a Segway People Mover up the Mount Washington road way to get to the mountain's peak.

So now we know it can be done. Great. I was wondering.

The person to make it to the top was a employee of Heritage New Hampshire and he is a former circus clown; a worthy profession in my opinion, because I like to laugh. The stunt was put on by Heritage New Hampshire I guess. Heritage New Hampshire is some sort of tourist attraction. I suppose the Segway company had something to do with the mountain trek too.

Mountains across the globe, look out!

The Segway cometh.

Teacher Prostitute Equates Herself with Marin Luther King, Jr.

(Source: WorldNetDaily.com ™ )
Berkeley, CA - The opening paragraph of the WND article is:

"A Berkeley, Calif., High School teacher is defending her moonlighting career as a prostitute, comparing herself to Martin Luther King Jr. in her fight to decriminalize the vocation."

This sort of thing has been tried before, but I don't think I've ever heard Martin Luther King, Jr. sited as a defense. I'd laugh if current trends in the hallowed (or is that hollowed?) halls of our court system weren't so screwy. This woman was arrested for trying to get a police officer to give her $250 an hour for sex. Now she is on a campaign to get prostitution laws erased from the law books. She is quoted as saying,

"As a feminist I believe in every woman's right to self-determination, and that includes sexually and economically."

Sounds grand. But what if that woman wants to sell crack cocain? Where does the "self-determination" stop?

Orchestra Uses Cell Phones as Instruments.

(Source: Ananova ™ )
Wuerzburg, Germany - You know how cell phone rings are attention getting with all the various tone and music scores? Well, a German conductor has taken to including those attention getting ring tones into the performances of his orchestra.

"'All of these are the kinds of signals that wake you up,' Mr Kremling told the Berliner Zeitung.

Some phones are set off by the musicians but others have to be rung from backstage at the right moment to set off their sound."

Of course one of the problems they run into is poor cell reception in various towns. When that happens, some instruments just don't get played. Oh, in case you were wondering, he does ask folk in the audience to turn off their phones. But at the end of the performance he tells everyone to turn their phones on and ring them in what I can only guess would be a chaotic encore.

Man Shopped Until They Jailed Him.

(Source: Reuters, Yahoo! ® News)
Berlin, Germany - Evidence that the human race suffers from some of the weirdest criminals and their sins.

"A court in Berlin sentenced an obsessive shopper to seven-and-a-half years in prison after he admitted stealing around $270,000 to satisfy his craving for customer service, authorities say."

The 38 year-old dude got all his cash from stealing credit cards. Which proves the point that many retail folk never bother checking your signature. The police found, among hordes of other things, 200 pairs of unopened shoes. It was all about being waited upon by customer service that fueled his evils. Weird. And it was a man!