The Way to Heaven Is Your Choice

Recently I have seen and heard a few Pastors of mega churches make the statement that who goes to heaven is up to God, and that they are not going to judge people. Taken out of context theses statements seem to say that there is more than one to Heaven and that Jesus was not the only way. This has drawn a fire storm of retorts from some other mega church Pastors, isn't amazing how fast a bunch of people who claim to love Jesus, can start fighting over misunderstood wording. I sure I have made some dumb statements through out my life, anyone who would deny making dumb statements is fooling themselves only. If someone dissected every word I have said over the years of  teaching, preaching and public speaking, I am sure that I could be drawn and quartered for something, if you speak in public enough you will sooner or later say something that can be taken the wrong way.
I think it is time for the church to put petty differences behind us and start loving people like Jesus wants us to do, I don't think Jesus really cares if you are Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Catholic or just no general denomination at all. He called us to love each other.
A friend of mine once summed the New Testament up in a few words and it stuck with me and today I am still use this. Love God and Love Others, the rest is commentary. Now before anyone breaks out the stake and sticks to burn me at the stake, let me say this: I believe Jesus is God in the flesh, Emmanuel. I believe that Jesus is the only way to Heaven, "No man come to the Father, except through me", Jesus., I believe in answered prayers and healing and speaking in tongues. I believe in salvation by faith and in grace. I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God and without error. I also believe that all this without Love is just noise and more noise. The greatest commandment Jesus gave me was to Love God and Love others, and I love God through Jesus and I love others through Jesus.
No, it is not my job to judge who goes to heaven, that is God's job and I do not want it. He made a way for those of us who were lucky enough to hear the Gospel, but Romans tells us that to the un-evangelized, creation testifies about God and His glory. I am glad to have heard the Gospel and to be sure of the hope that is within me, for those who have heard the Gospel, but walked away, my heart breaks, for those who have not heard the Gospel, I pray that missionaries and ministers will arrive for them. For those who may never hear the Gospel because of location or situation, I pray that God reveals His glory and plan to them.
It is time for the church to stop "splitting hairs" as my mother would say and get on with the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Blessing to all.

One More Week of Television Torture

Have you grown as weary of the television campaign ads as I have? We have been literally bombed with these ads and everyone says basically the same thing about the opposition. Everyone of the these people running for office have our best interest at heart and they are going to work for you and me or have been working for you and me.I can smell garbage and theirs ads stink. A more true ad from the incumbent would be to show his or her voting record and perhaps some of their speeches, you could understand where they stand. The challenger could present in an intelligent manner that is understandable to the voters what he or she would do and how they would vote or would have voted on the same issues.
The other side of the coin, is that the American public which could start voting what is best for the entire country instead of their own little state or district. For example many states elect Congress based on if that Congressman can bring Federal contract jobs to their state. "I will get that road or bridge built for you." It is time for this kind of politics to be put behind us. We should vote considering what is best for our entire nation, there are hard decisions to be made and we need men and women of strong character, who will put the good of America ahead of what is good for their district. These people used to be called statesmen/women. The American citizen needs to put the good of our country ahead of ourselves. What do you mean? So glad you ask.
Freedom always works, the Constitution was written with a Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence refers to rights endowed by man's Creator. What the government gives the government can take away, but God gives us life, liberty and the right to pursue happiness. The men who wrote these papers well knew that freedom was the answer and they put the good of the nation ahead of personal gain. Thomas Jefferson could have returned to his plantation and lived a life of easy, yet he committed his life to keeping America free. John Adams could have returned to private law practice and lived out his years, yet he chose to lead the fledging nation of America as the second President. Jefferson became the third President to lead the country he help begin, a study of history reveals that these men were statesmen, not local political minded men.
Where are the statesmen today? I don't know of anyone who would subject themselves to the news media examination to run for office. Good people make mistakes and the news media will drag any little mistake into the public and make it larger than life. Statesmen, if you are out there please step up.
Vote freedom this year.

The culture of giving

Recently I had the joy to work on a mission trip for the weekend in Anderson SC at the LOT Project. LOT stands for Least Of These, and is dedicated to helping those that are the least of these. While we were there we were able to help out by making some minor physical changes to the building. The mission was not open, but we had people stopping by and asking if the ministry was open, watching the young man who runs this center relate to these people and stop what he was doing to offer help was a blessing to me. We were blessed with too many pizza pies for lunch, for seven people we had 14 pizza pies, way more than we could eat. With that we were able to meet the need of some people who stopped and needed a meal. I saw Andy give clothes, shoes, and food away even with the center closed.
What do we do with our blessings? Many people ask for more and horde what they have. The young man that runs the LOT project, told me that he will make the salary of $17,000 this year,but he is doing what God has called him to do. Of that 17K he uses some of it to help the LOT project and the people who come there, yet his needs are met, how is that for living by faith?
I know pastors who regularly live on what many would call substandard wages, if that was what they were paid, yet they do not mind keeping their pastor "humble". The church is America is the wealthiest in the world yet we fail to return our blessing from God to God, and then wonder why we struggle.American churches would not have any money issues and the ministries like the LOT project would flourish if the Christians in America would do one simple thing......give their tithe to God through their church. The culture of giving has been replaced with the culture of credit....give credit, God does not need credit, He owns it all any way, so why would He want credit. He wants you and I to give to the work of the kingdom.
God has the perfect giving plan, the tithe...10% of what you have. If you did not receive anything then you owe nothing. If you receive $100 for your work you should pay $10 to Him as a tithe, after all He is the one who made you able to work and provided the job to you.
Give it some thought and try it out for a year and prove God on this point.

What Have We Done?

The President of the United States of America, Mr. Obama, has for three times now refused to quote the Declaration of Independence correctly. He insist on leaving out the term Creator, the writers of this important piece of our foundation acknowledged that "men were endowed with certain inalienable  rights by their Creator". Now I respect people rights to read and editorialize things, but this is one of those documents that should be quoted correctly every time, he was not paraphrasing, he was OMITTING. It would equate to quoting John 1 and leaving out " The Word" or "God", the verse reads "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."
The Founding Fathers acknowledged that this new country would survive only if God desired it to. They understood the importance of acknowledging God in the life of the country. They had no intention of leaving God out of America, on the converse, they wished this place to be a country where people could worship and honor God any way the people wished. The Declaration of Independence acknowledges God, and was written by men of the "Enlightened Era", so if the these men were so enlightened, and still smart enough to honor God, would not the current President be smart to do the same?
For years the Socialist and Communist have know that to remove God from the basis of the American government would result in the fall of the American government and the enslavement of the American people. The people of the USA gained our freedom from God, not the government, because what the government gives they can also take away. That is why the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution of the USA, so that the average American could if needed defend his or her rights, up to and including armed revolt if needed. The current President is quietly leading our America down a Socialist/Communist path, he wants to destroy everything this country stands for and he will do it from the inside out and use the form of "making it better for everyone".
Thousands of Americans from Minute Men, citizen soldiers, pioneers, settlers, to regular military have fought and died for the America they believed in; All men are created equal, and The Creator endowed men with the right to pursue Life, Liberty and the Happiness. As we approach Veterans Day here in a few weeks, it is time we started to remember these brave men and women who paid for our freedom with their life, and the men and women who also paid with a life long injury and handicap so that I could write what I want to.
Veterans; THANK YOU FOR MY FREEDOM.
Mr. Obama, do the right thing and honor the American heritage and quote the documents correctly.
Americans, I encourage you to vote this election day and vote for freedom and independence. Prepare your self to defend freedom if needed. I will gladly stand with you and defend our America from enemies, domestic or foreign.
Last but not least thank a veteran in the next few weeks, buy him or her and their family dinner if you can, or maybe a card that simply says thank you.

The World is Over Sensitive

All over the world young teens and older teens enter-act at games, arcades, amusement parks, school and many other places. Why are the news people making a big deal out of something that happens all the time? Yes, one of the teens is famous and the others are general public, but this news coverage of a incident between a 16 year old and a 12 year old is getting out of hand. Teens everywhere say things to each other the many sensitive and noble minded people would find offensive.Teens regularly use racial slurs and call each other things like "fag" "gay","dork", black teens regularly call each other "nigger" and white teens do the same. The problem seems to be the adults that are SO sensitive that anything that is not perfectly polite and proper,  must be hate speech. Sometimes words that are taken out of context can sound like something they are not meant to mean. Hate speech may not be hate, it may be the way to close friends communicate. I hear high school students talk to each other with words that some people would classify as hate speech and the banter is back and forth.
It would seem to me that adults need to allow young people to work out some things for themselves, without crying hate speech and making a mountain out of a mole hill. The second observation would be that the rich and famous should realize that they are really ordinary people too, and therefore really deserve NO special treatment.
The right to freedom of speech is another issue that comes under the hate speech issue. I have the right to disagree with the homosexual community's life style, and say so in a public forum, however under some people ideas of "hate speech", I could be in trouble.We have to guard the right to speak freely, given the way the rest of the world is moving and America is following we may be head down the road of restrictive speech laws. In some countries it is now against the law to speak out against things that you disagree with, even preachers fall under these laws and are forced to follow restrictive speech laws.
Thomas Jefferson, is quoted as saying that he would rather have  the right to freedom of the press and freedom of speech than the right to vote.  If  freedom of the press and freedom of speech and the freedom to worship is really very important to Americans, perhaps it is time to return to common sense and understand that not everything we disagree with is hate speech.

Critical Situation in the South

The danger on the US/Mexico border is growing everyday, just turn on the news and you will find that it could cost you your life to jet ski on Falcon lake. It is possible to die at the hands of Mexican drug criminals while on your own land. Our government would try to tell you that the border is more secure now than ever before. The truth is that Mexican criminals are invading our country at alarming rates and the US Border Patrol is powerless to stop it. The government will not give the Border Patrol the tools they need to even be slightly successful. One example is the fact the Border patrol is not allowed to take vehicles into some US wilderness areas along the Rio Grande, because it will leave tire tracks. There are lots of footprints heading north in that part of the area. The Mexican criminals move freely across the border at will, they don't care about the law, that is why they are criminals. Law enforcement on both sides of the border are at risk, these Mexican criminals have no reservations about killing law enforcement people. This fact was shown with graphic detail when Mexican criminals beheaded the Mexican police office investigating the murder of an American jet skiing on Falcon Lake. American style law enforcement practices will not work with these people, these criminals will kill with impunity and do not care who their target is. The real answer would be to cure the drug addition problems in America, the Mexican drug trade exist to supply the American drug demand.
The short term answer is to actually declare war on these Mexican drug criminals and treat them like the enemies of the USA that they are. We spend millions of dollars fighting all kinds of battles around the world, while we lose the war at home. It is time to realign our priorities and start securing our borders and cities, and to share a little fact that gets buried by the mainstream media, private gun ownership helps do exactly that. Statistically any time legal gun sales increase in an area, crime rates go DOWN, I know the media doesn't want you to know that, but it is true. The Mexican President would like for Americans believe that the drug cartels get their guns for America at gun stores. He fails to mention most of the guns used by these criminals mainly come from the Mexican Army when the soldiers desert and take their automatic weapons with them. Yes the USA sells weapons to the Mexican Army, and there fore in an indirect way supply the drug cartels with weapons.
Time for the American Congress to get serious and secure the border, even if that requires combat troops on the border locked and loaded. Failure to bring this to speedy and successful conclusion will be as dangerous as allow terrorist to roam freely, that what these people really are.
Vote in November and vote for freedom.

When we realize that the enemy is with in.

The enemy of the American way of life is within us. We have become so used to having all the nice stuff and we have become soft, I wonder if America has the heart to do the tough and difficult anymore. It is probably best that World War II was fought by a different generation. The American people have become soft, we spend hours and many dollars trying to prevent bullying and abuse, why not go back to teaching children how to stand up for themselves. Many of our young men and women grow up without ever being involved in any type of altercation or conflict, and don't know how to handle conflict beyond words.
Please understand I believe in talking about problems and working toward a solution that is fair to all. However there are times when talking does not accomplish anything, if you are attacked, you must be prepared and able to defend yourself. It is time that American youth start being taught how to be tougher and capable of defending his or her self, or their country. We have grown a generation of soft people and we need to start working toward hardening them a little. Steel can be hardened by applying work pressure, it is time that our youth start to feel a little work pressure and hardening them.
The Time Square bomber, said in court that the defeat of America is coming soon, unless our young men and women are taught that it is good to stand and fight sometimes, he maybe correct. The Muslim world wants to install Muslim fundamentalist law around the world, they do not care to talk or reach any type of peace, and will only stop when they reach their  objective.
They are working from the inside of America, we need to wake the sleeping giant before the bands are so tight that the giant can't move. We need to develop a harder and tougher attitude from American young people. They need to learn to stand up for themselves and each other. There was  the day that friends would not let bullies get to far, because they would band together around a friend and stand up to the bully.
My father taught me that when all else fails a large, sturdy stick was a good bully control tool, and I proved that it worked. It is time that we applied the large sturdy stick to bullies inside and outside of our country. Maybe we need to really reconsider who we are allowing to become citizens of our country, they maybe bullies in wimp's clothing.
Sometimes it is wise to reconsider who your friends are, it is time for America to reconsider who our allies are worldwide. The truth be told we are to trusting and tend to believe what people tell us, wake up America.
It is time to put America back on the course that was started in Founding Fathers, God first, family and country second.