A New Year's Resolution with a difference

Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that.

And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full.

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

Y así como queréis que los hombres os hagan, haced con ellos de la misma manera.

Si amáis a los que os aman, ¿qué mérito tenéis? Porque también los pecadores aman a los que los aman.

Si hacéis bien a los que os hacen bien, ¿qué mérito tenéis? Porque también los pecadores hacen lo mismo.

Si prestáis a aquellos de quienes esperáis recibir, ¿qué mérito tenéis? También los pecadores prestan a los pecadores para recibir de ellos la misma cantidad.

Watendee wengine unavyopenda nao wakutendee. Je, kuna sifa gani mnapowapenda watu wawapendao? Hata wasiomjua Mungu huwapenda wawapendao.

Tena kuna sifa gani mnapowatendea mema wale wanaowatendea mema? Hata wasiomjua Mungu hufanyiana hivyo.

Tena mnapowakopesha wale tu ambao mnategemea kuwa watawalipa, kuna sifa gani? Hata watu wasiomjua Mungu huwakopesha wenye dhambi wenzao wakiwa na hakika ya kurudishiwa mali yao yote.

Luke 6:31-35

Nobel Prize for Food ---- updated

(blog timeout)

Haven't been able to enjoy some of my favorite foods for years ... staples like cucumbers, broccoli and garlic.

The symptoms included painful bloating, severe nausea and malaise lasting for days. I tried every over the counter antacid I could find, and even a prescription or two as well ... without success. So all I could do to keep from feeling sick was to avoid cucumbers, broccoli and restaurant pizza.

I did some research and apparently lots of folks suffer the same symptoms, although corn, beans and cauliflower can also be culprits. Then, in several online forums, I found dozens of folks who claimed Beano was the cure.

Took me about a week, but finally I remembered to try it and cautiously tested Beano's effectiveness by adding a touch of garlic to a recipe. No problems. After four consecutive days of working my way up to tablespoon-strength doses of garlic, there's still no trace of the gastric distress I'd come to expect.

Now I carry Beano wherever I go.

After a few days I finally put Beano to the test and tackled the dreaded cucumbers. A month ago, one quarter of a slice of cucumber would've made me sick with an upset stomach for days. Not this time: Beano really works ... so now, pass the garlic! ;-)

You can read more at Beano's web site here.

Overheard in conversation

This afternoon I stopped at the electronics store across the street on my way to the grocery store.

At the cash register a woman was explaining to a male customer and to the sales clerk that she was from Ethiopia. I was standing about ten feet away and with the two customers' backs to me, I couldn't hear every word but I did hear the woman admit that she was Muslim.

Then the customer began explaining to the Ethiopian woman, in slightly accented English, "what Christianity was all about." From what I could hear the man covered a lot of ground, and hit the basics more quickly than any televangelist I've seen ... while the woman kept repeating "Really?" and "Oh really?"

But then I couldn't hear every word between them.

Finally the man said, "We should go over there, dig up the body, show everybody 'There he is!' and throw a big party." Then the three Muslims, all in their mid-twenties, enjoyed a raucous laugh together.

--

What struck me was how well this Muslim man knew Christianity. He could recite what Christians believe and explain their faith in a resurrected messiah to a stranger so effectively that my first impression had been that he was witnessing to the woman. But no, of course he wasn't ... because his faith was in Allah.

As well as the man knew the Christian religion, he didn't know a thing about the living Christ.

Big Blast A-comin'

The forecast says 20 inches of snow is due by tomorrow.

Nobody can say that the forecast is a lie because the snow's already been falling for two hours. The proof is here and all around us: it's a fact.

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A friend told me he went to buy groceries around 3:30 PM and already worried citizens had turned the store into a scene resembling an army of ants attacking a sugar pile. Another friend told me of gas lines at convenience stores that overflowed almost a block down the street.

Then she asked me a question I couldn't answer: "If people are worried they won't be able to buy gas tomorrow if the roads are closed, then why are they worried about having gas, since if the roads are closed then there's no place to go?"

--- ---

People are worried about stockpiling food, filling the tank and with guaranteeing their comfort before the storm arrives. Their Number One Priority is "Be prepared for the storm that's coming."

At least, that was their Number One Priority at 4:08 PM on Friday afternoon. So what about the other forecasts?

-- --

I've said before that I'm not a prophet so these are neither forecasts nor predictions; these things are facts:

(1) One day, you and I are going to die. And so is every one important or close to us

(2) Jesus is coming back, and no one alive today knows when

Some people will have refrigerators full of food, brand new cars with tanks full of gas and all the clothes they need ... but will still be caught completely unprepared because they ignored the facts.

-

If you did know the exact moment of Christ's return, would you drop everything and run to the store and break a credit card (or three) stockpiling bread, milk and microwave dinners ... before the rapture arrived? Would your Number One Priority be buying show chains and gassing up your 4-wheel drive?

Or would your Number One Priority suddenly become something much, much different from anything you'd ever expected or planned for your life?

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People's preparations reveal their priorities.

Funny how many people take a temporary thing like 20 inches of precipitation so very deadly seriously ... compared to how seriously they take the one priority that eternally matters.

Read this Post

It brought tears to my eyes.


Awesome!

How well do you know me?

Assume you've never met me, and that 95% of what you do know about me comes from reading this list:

1. Do not brush your teeth with epoxy

2. Do not swim in the North Atlantic during February

3. Do not eat raw chicken

4. Do not sleep while driving

5. Men should not ask their wives or girlfriends to borrow their clothes

Would you memorize those statements, and then walk around boasting about how well you know me? Of course not.

You wouldn't know me at all unless we talked, and talked regularly, over the course of our relationship. Who knows ... if you're sincerely interested in knowing me, you might even want to read my blog, every word of all 4370 posts, without quoting single points out of context to prove your feeling or perspective about me.

If you knew me and believed I was critically important to you and your life, any time you had a problem you'd want to talk to me about it and then apply my answers to your life ... without second guessing, fine-tuning or subverting my words to arrive at the outcome that suits you.

Quoting from a list of things I said doesn't prove a single thing about how well you know me, except (at best) that you don't know me at all.

Quoting from my list and then proclaiming, "I know Joe and Joe says I'm right" would reveal to the folks who do know me that you and I have never met. Not a single time.

Such a statement would also pretty convincingly proclaim that I don't know you, either.

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Why did Christ die in our place ... if memorizing or following the law was enough?

I'm not called to speak in place of the Creator. In my simple mind, I'd guess that as part of God's perfect plan, he saw that the "religious" men of that time had so twisted the law and the Commandments to prove their own holiness that they left God out of their lives altogether.

They believed God the Almighty had stopped talking soon as they reached the period at the end of a Commandment's sentence. Which, to the Pharisees, meant it seemed like a good idea to start tacking on man-made rules to complete God's holy word.

Because God is the living God, mankind needed, and still needs, the living Christ. But the Pharisees demanded Christ be crucified instead. How could that happen?

The Pharisees knew and memorized the Father's words, sure ... but they didn't know the Father. Neither did they love him or worship his Son. All that mattered to the Pharisees of Christ's day was following the letter of the law and keeping up a holy appearance; after all, wasn't that ... and not Christ ... what their religion was all about?

No wonder Christ was so furious with the temple's money changers.

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What got me thinking about this post was Jesus' warning, Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!' (Matthew 7:21-23)

How could so many people who profess themselves to be followers of Christ be so confused ... and so eternally Wrong?

Could be because those people who know all about the rules, know all the regulations, know all their religion's traditions and know exactly the "right way" and the "only way to do church" spend so much time finding fault, criticizing other believers and blogging about "that church" or "that pastor" that they never make time for knowing and listening to Christ.

All they know is the list. But if the list was enough, then we wouldn't need Christ.

--

It wouldn't surprise me if, during Judgement, some of those same "church" folks, the ones who prove their love for Christ by finding fault with every other faith and with every other pastor but their own, won't try standing face to face with Jesus and arguing: "What's wrong with you? How can you say you don't know me? Haven't you been paying attention to how righteous I tell other people I am!?"

Just like they're used to doing, arguing and presenting themselves, in this life.

Why do we treat God like a nuisance?

Do people tolerate "having a little bit of God" in their lives because having a whole lot of God in their lives would interfere with getting and doing the things they want?

Why is it so easy to treat God, scripture and the commandments like they're nuisances, obstacles that seem to do nothing but take the fun out of life?

Is it because we sometimes see God as our enemy ... the grouchy old man in the clouds who likes nothing better than seeing us "acting holy" on the outside and feeling miserable on the inside?

That's it, right there: that's what happens when we love ourselves more than we love God the Father: we treat God as if his plan isn't doing much in our lives except getting in the way.

Yet God said that he loves us, and God would never lie.

-- --

An enemy would never lift a finger to protect or save us. A real enemy would steer and guide us along the path to destruction; he'd lie to encourage us ("Come on, you know you want to") and then laugh at the catastrophes his lies had created.

You couldn't pay me to be a preacher.

There's not enough money in the world, because money's got nothing to do with it.

--

Why are some people obsessed with their church's finances?

"Because half our church's budget goes straight into salaries!"

What does that say about your church? It says if your membership followed Scripture, instead of the balance sheet, and tithed as we're commanded, salaries wouldn't come close to 50%.

It also says your Youth Group wouldn't have to do Car Washes and Slave Auctions to fund their summer retreats, either.

--

Christ talked a lot about money. Check the Gospels, and see for yourself.

And not one time did he say to keep more of it for yourself, or to ever deny giving back to God what's already his.

"Great message today, Pastor. I hope there was somebody here today who needed to hear it."

That's the difference between going to church to be comforted or satisfied, and going to church to be humbled by hearing the word of God.


"When the message on the page is for everyone else, I escape the personal responsibility of obedience. When the message is for me, I have to give an account to God." - Clayton King

Overnight ...

Machine-gun shooting at Sheraton hotel in Baltimore, Maryland injures three

The Associated Press

Sunday, December 6th 2009, 7:48 AM

Machine gunfire broke out early Sunday during a birthday party at a downtown Baltimore hotel, critically injuring three people, police said.

Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said a fight broke out at a party at the Sheraton hotel and then someone began shooting.

Police were called in around 3:15 a.m. and found an Uzi submachine gun in one of the two adjoining rooms where the party was held.

Injured victims treated at hospital.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/12/06/2009-12-06_machinegun_shooting_at_sheraton_hotel_in_baltimore_maryland_injures_three.html#ixzz0YuhpiCOh

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Praying for ... Opportunities

Are you in the habit of praying for opportunities ... like the opportunity for a new job or career, the opportunity to get out of debt, the opportunity to improve your health or physical appearance, the opportunity to make a good impression, the opportunity to get married or maybe even the opportunity for "a fresh new start in life"?

I've done it. After all, I've only got this one chance at life so getting what I want ... and having the opportunity to make my dreams come true only sounds fair. Then it occurred to me that there's even more urgent opportunities that I didn't have the courage to pray for:

"Lord, please give me more opportunities for life's circumstances to stretch my faith past what I'm capable of bearing and bring me closer to you. Please give me the opportunity, in every challenge and hardship, to reflect Christ alive inside me. Please give me the opportunity to glorify you in every thought, word and deed."

--

It's more fun praying for the opportunity to win Power Ball (or for good grades), isn't it?

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God.

-2 Corinthians 3:2-4