The Great Separation

Merry Christmas!

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

(Isa 9:6 AV)

On the way home from the annual family party, which was a blast, a series of things took place in the small journey from our friends house to my own. Let's just say I'm a bit of a klutz and if it's within twenty feet, day or night, I'll step in it. And of course I got it on the floorboard of my brother's clean car. Once home, having used the hose to clean off my shoe, I did something simple and innocuous that resulted the minor scratching of skin off a knuckle and the drawing of blood. After cleaning out the back of my brother's car I went to turn on the AC in the house because it's Florida where, in spite of most of the country being in a deep freeze, we hit the 80's today. Only the AC worked for about five minutes and then said no more.

So why am I telling you all this? Is it because I have an Eeyore complex? Most of my friends probably have their hands up on that one. They're right. And I know it.

But that's not why I'm telling you.

It's because I was reminded by the Lord that blessings abound for me because of His Son sent so many years ago. Further more, there are people in the world, fellow Christians, celebrating the birth of our Savior with little more then a grass hut over their heads. They are faced with malnutrition while I happily munched upon cookies, chocolates, and wonderful pulled pork this evening. I have to much nutrition. Many have sores and wounds from trying to carry water for miles or because of persecution. Just look at the previous post and you'll see what I mean. In my own country there are people faced with horrible weather conditions which have them locked into their own homes while I can go out in my shorts and T-shirt to enjoy throwing a couple of discs into a basket out back. And I even wear a daily reminder, a bracelet, to pray for a beautiful young woman who is faced with a life threatening illness.

It's so easy for us to slip into self. So easy to think the world owes us something. So easy to think that when we don't get things our way or when bad things happen that it's somehow an universal conspiracy to make us unhappy. The trouble is that the condition of self as the center of our universe ultimately leads to unhappiness, discontent, and disillusionment. Because self can never control the universe. This self couldn't even keep himself from stepping in dog doo in the dark.

But there is One who controls the universe. Who set it into motion. Who knows the heart of man. And who desires to be the center of man's universe so much that He would come as the weakest of things, a baby. To live and to die upon a cross at the hands of people He breathed into being. To die for me and my self-centered heart.

It's to Jesus I go seeking forgiveness, unmerited though it is. He, with grace and mercy, desires to give me forgiveness and love, without condition.

I am so thankful for His love and grace, for Jesus shed blood and obedience to God the Father.

Take time with me and thank God for Jesus. And remember those He has brought into your life who He has asked you to put above your own wants in service like Christ.

Merry Christmas. May you know the joy and peace that is Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Video: Rape has become the Norm in Eastern Congo.

Anger...Sadness...Pain - I came across this in a search on Christian persecution. Hat tip goes to the Huffington Post; Congo: Rape as a Weapon of War.

War has raged through the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than a decade -- it has been called the deadliest conflict since World War II.

The United Nations estimates that 200,000 women and girls have been raped in that time, some victims as young as three years old.

It bruises my heart.

Registered Church in Jiangsu Province Demolished, Christians Beaten.

They hate you because of me - I just received this press release from ChinaAid. During our relatively comfortable Christmas season here in the West I think it's worth reading and pondering. The emphasis in the article is added by me.

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ChinaAid
Media Contact: Katherine Cason (267) 210-8278 or Katherine@ChinaAid.org
Washington, D.C. Contact: Jenny McCloy (202) 213-0506 or Jenny@ChinaAid.org
Website: www.ChinaAid.org and www.MonitorChina.org
Fax: (432) 686-8355

 

December 22, 2008

 

JIANGSU – The morning of December 17, 2008, police officers, together with nearly a thousand unidentified people, led by government officials from Yancheng city, Jiangsu province and real estate developers, forcibly demolished the Chengnan Christian Church of Tinghu District. The destruction of this registered church came less than 24 hours after the church won a court case protecting their building against the same individuals who attacked it. The mob took away property belonging to the church and beat more than10 Christians. Contacts report that the destruction was the result of government officials and powerful businessmen working in collusion to obtain the coveted church property by force. 

 

On December 24, 1999, Chengnan Christian Church of Tinghu District was formally established upon review, approval and registration by Yancheng Municipal People’s Government. In order to construct a church building which would accommodate a congregation of 800, the church obtained a loan and the Christians enthusiastically donated personal funds for four years. 

 

On June 12, 2003, the congregation bought four mu (about 0.66 acres) of land for the church building. The construction of the church building started in April 2004, and was completed in February 2005. On March 11, 2005, the church members began Sunday worship and various church activities in the church building. Pastor Ding Jianling said: “The grace of the Lord is overflowing, and the investment of five million yuan on the church all comes from the loving donations from brothers and sisters over the past 10 years or so and is the fruit of hard work. Now, the temple of God is built.” 

 

However, beginning in 2006, sources say that real estate developers began to covet the land on which the church was built. The developers established connections in key agencies and departments and planned to build commercial housing units to sell for a large profit.

 

Because of the pressure to sell the building and property, the church said it was willing to hold negotiations on equal footing to solve the problems. However, real estate developers and the relevant agencies in the government offered to pay only 2,860,000 yuan to settle the matter. They also refused to provide the land to replace the demolished church. 

 

Chengnan Christian Church refused to accept the unfair conditions. Contacts say that the real estate developers collaborated with relevant agencies in the government to harass the church by cutting off the water supply and electricity.

 

At 9 a.m. on January 16, 2008 government officials and real estate developers called in more than 500 people to lay siege to the church and tried to demolish the building. Since the church had already petitioned, filed a case and reported the incident to the relevant agencies for urgent resolution, and because members of the church came out to protect the building, the church temporarily avoided demolition.

Running with the Lord.

gasp, gasp, gasp. - Do you know how inexhaustible the King of kings is? He is unstoppable, untiring, and without equal.

And this all powerful God says to us, "Come, follow me."

Can you keep up? Can I keep up? Maybe for the start of this grand race, but....

This past Sunday my best friend, Jimmy, and I hit the disc golf course at a park about twenty minutes from church (after church we almost always hit the chains). I think it was on hole twelve or thirteen when I noticed this couple jogging down the path. I nodded and said, "Hi."

It was far to beautiful a day to not greet our fellow park partakers. The girl, thin and trim, nodded and with a smile looked me in the eye and replied with a, "Hi," of her own. The guy on the other hand, a bit behind her, stocky and muscular, didn't return the greeting. I could tell he wasn't being rude. He was just singularly focused on keeping up.

It was on hole fifteen when the couple passed by us on the way back. The dude was struggling more to keep pace with the unflagging young woman who was built for running.

Jimmy and I stopped to watch. Admittedly we found it humorous. Of course the dude was doing far better then either Jimmy or I could do, but the scene wasn't without an innocent joyful mirth on our part. By the time they passed us the second time the muscular man was leaning forward and you could see him willing himself to keep up. The path they were on must have been around a two mile trek and it goes over a small bridge. When the two runners hit that bridge and it's slight incline the guy fell significantly behind. But on the decline he gained some ground again but lost it in a turn that ran along the beautiful lake.

The sun was low in the west and brightly lit the two runners on the opposite shore and just when it looked like the unfaltering woman would leave the man far behind to fend for himself she slowed down to allow him to catch up. She didn't stop, but she decreased her pace enough to give the struggling dude the impetus to join with her again.

And that's when I realized just how often God must do that for us in our growth in Jesus. He is unstoppable, unwearied, and ever steady in moving forward and He asks us to join Him.

But the truth is we can not keep pace with the Creator of everything. And so He came to us in Jesus Christ. He makes Himself available to us on a personal level slowing down so that we can join Him in a journey of spiritual fellowship and growth the likes that no other creation can know. Some days I struggle just getting one foot out of the way of the other foot. And others I feel like I'm right beside my Savior. Yet, God, says to me to follow. He is so beyond you and me.

How incredible, how humbling, how marvelous is this God?!!

The Great Separation continues.

Is That a Railroad Tie on Mars?

Is this the depot? - Here's an oddity for you. This is a shot from the Mars Rover that seems to feature a rock that looks strangely like a railroad tie.

Here's the link to the full picture on Nasa's site.

Should a kiss be a deal killer?

Grow up! - I figured it must be a slow news week if the media folk were going to make such a big deal of the story about the couple who saved their first kiss for the altar, but in reality it isn't. After all, Hillary has been named to Obama's cabinet, India suffered a horrible terrorist attack, and we just went through Black Friday where a man and an unborn child lost their lives to a stampede of consumers.

Nope, not a slow week, but the Fox Sunday Morning news crew were certainly bent out of shape over a kiss, or rather the lack there of in the relationship of two people they don't even know.

The question is, why?

You can read here about the two abstinence teachers who just committed their lives together in Holy Matrimony and how they saved not only sex, but kissing till they were married.

You can see the video of the Fox morning crews' reaction here .

What stunned me most when I first heard it was the sheer immaturity of the anchors. I was willing to concede that maybe it was just my lack of kissing experience that lead me to that notion but later in the day I chatted with my married friend Stacy and she had the same reaction to the news anchors.

One news anchor said he'd give the couple six months before they got a divorce.

What? Just because they spent three years talking and getting to know each other's desires, loves, and characteristics, and not the way they kiss? You must be kidding me. Whatever happened to "growing" together?

The argument they tried to make their stand upon was that the way a person kisses you that first time can determine "chemistry" and "fit". Oh and of course, the age old argument from Satan that uses this basic structure, "You can't buy it till you test drive it."

My immediate thought to those arguments was a question.

If their arguments are true, how in the world has prostitution survived for so long?

After all, if a mere first kiss can turn you sexually off then prostitutes should have trouble finding people willing to chance being turned off by someone who makes her or his income by giving passionate kisses and sexual favors.

On one hand the world says we must grow and learn and experiment sexually and on the other it says it's a lock and key thing (either it fits or it doesn't). Now which is it? Can not a person fall in love with another for their mind, likes, loves, and passions? Should a kiss be a deal killer? What if that first kiss was bad because of nerves and the over reaching desire to impress because one valued the other so highly for other reasons? What if they've never kissed another in passion before? Or do you want someone who has experimented and perfected their kiss with many others?

The real problem that the world seems to have against those people who wait, people who frankly are typically devote folk who value saving themselves as gifts for that one special person, is selfishness. They are so wrapped up in self-centeredness that making sexual sacrifices for others is absurd and even offensive because it raises a mirror before their altar to self. And that is an altar that stands in opposition to the temple of Christ.

You might try to make the argument that, "It's just a kiss." Well, if it's just a kiss would you kiss your pet the same way? A baby? Your child? Face it, we're talking kisses that arouse and that is sexual.

These news anchors and their like are focused upon their own physical lusts. They stated pretty emphatically that it was silly to not try the car out first so as to see if it met their needs. That is the mantra of the world. The focus is on "me", on what that other person is able to do for "me."

It's the same mantra Satan used to get Adam and Eve to sin and lose their place in the Garden of Eden. It's the self-centeredness that caused the murder of the unborn child and the Walmart employee who was trampled to death by shoppers racing to get "theirs."

It's a mantra that no longer has power over we Christians because of the work of Christ Jesus on the Cross.

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no-one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.” (1Th 4:3-8 NIV)

The Great Separation continues.