I'm taking David's question and making it my own... who out there is reading my posts but not replying to them? I'm curious. I know I have David and Joanne, they aren't afraid to tell me anything about how they feel or think... but I don't really hear too much from anyone else. So, if you read this, let me know, I'd love to know you're there and what you think!
Hugs & Love
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
Bible Blog: Romans 13:8-10 - August 6, 2007
How to Behave: Part VI
Romans 13:8-10 (BBE)
"8. Be in debt for nothing, but to have love for one another: for he who has love for his neighbour has kept all the law. 9. And this, Do not be untrue in married life, Do not put to death, Do not take what is another's, Do not have desire for what is another's, and if there is any other order, it is covered by this word, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself. 10. Love does no wrong to his neighbour, so love makes the law complete."
Loving each other is a debt we owe? Did you know this? The only debt we're to have is to love each other. But why would love be called a debt? I know we owe God more love than we're capable of giving because of the love He has given to us through Christ and His death, perhaps this debt of loving others is a way to act out our repayment of this love we owe to God. I have to admit, I do enjoy loving other people when I know them, but I'm not so good at knowing how to love people I don't know. So what does this type of love we're suppose to show to those around us look like?
The description in the Bible is the typical "good Christian values" scenario. Helping to meet the basic needs of others, food, clothing, shelter... they're all practical things necessary for life and ways to love others in tangible and practical ways. Add to it trying to safeguard others from pain and suffering, marital issues of any nature, and of course offering comfort to someone in distress are other practical ways to show love. When we know someone, we can extend this love to endless limits, meals for a family in a state of hardship of some variety, a comforting embrace for someone who needs to feel loved, is in pain, or even holding the hand of someone who is scared for a first performance or leaving home for the first time.
God has given each of us unique ways to love those around us just as He's giving us each unique talents. I can only imagine what things would be like if everyone took the time to love the people who live on their block, who work in their offices, or even the person who just started coming to church and is feeling like an outsider, cant' you?
Hugs & Love
Romans 13:8-10 (BBE)
"8. Be in debt for nothing, but to have love for one another: for he who has love for his neighbour has kept all the law. 9. And this, Do not be untrue in married life, Do not put to death, Do not take what is another's, Do not have desire for what is another's, and if there is any other order, it is covered by this word, Have love for your neighbour as for yourself. 10. Love does no wrong to his neighbour, so love makes the law complete."
Loving each other is a debt we owe? Did you know this? The only debt we're to have is to love each other. But why would love be called a debt? I know we owe God more love than we're capable of giving because of the love He has given to us through Christ and His death, perhaps this debt of loving others is a way to act out our repayment of this love we owe to God. I have to admit, I do enjoy loving other people when I know them, but I'm not so good at knowing how to love people I don't know. So what does this type of love we're suppose to show to those around us look like?
The description in the Bible is the typical "good Christian values" scenario. Helping to meet the basic needs of others, food, clothing, shelter... they're all practical things necessary for life and ways to love others in tangible and practical ways. Add to it trying to safeguard others from pain and suffering, marital issues of any nature, and of course offering comfort to someone in distress are other practical ways to show love. When we know someone, we can extend this love to endless limits, meals for a family in a state of hardship of some variety, a comforting embrace for someone who needs to feel loved, is in pain, or even holding the hand of someone who is scared for a first performance or leaving home for the first time.
God has given each of us unique ways to love those around us just as He's giving us each unique talents. I can only imagine what things would be like if everyone took the time to love the people who live on their block, who work in their offices, or even the person who just started coming to church and is feeling like an outsider, cant' you?
Hugs & Love
Historical Significance in Iraq
I'm posting this essay (I don't know the author but am willing to give credit if someone tells me who wrote it) knowing the risk of involving myself in a political discussion... read my Bible Blog on Romans 13:1-7 for the significance of this! Hugs & Love
Some of you may not be old enough to remember that nearly every family in America was grossly affected by WW-II. Most of you may not remember the rationing of meat, shoes, butter, gasoline, and sugar. No tires for our automobiles and a speed limit of 35 miles an hour on the road, not to mention, no new automobiles. Read this and think about how we would react to being taken over by foreigners in 2008 or 2009.
This is an excellent essay; well thought out and presented by Raymond S. Kraft, a writer living in Northern California who has studied the Middle Eastern culture and religion.
Historical Significance
Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat. The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America taking food and war materials. At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war.
Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, who had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.
France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia. Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe.
America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it. All of Europe, from Norway to Italy (except Russia in the East) was already under the Nazi heel.
The US was certainly not prepared for war. The US had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WW I because of the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW-II, Army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks. A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.
Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $60 0 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England (that was actually the property of Belgium) given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact).
Actually, Belgium surrendered in one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could.
Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later. Hitler, first turned his attention to Russia, in the late summer of 1940 at a time when England was on the verge of collapse.
Ironically, Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany.
Russia lost something like 24,000,000 people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone . . . 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers.
Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, then America. If that had happened, the Nazis could possibly have won the war.
All of this has been brought out to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. Now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history.
There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants, and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world.
The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs. They believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. To them, all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and purge the world of Jews. This is their mantra (goal).
There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East. For the most part it is not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not yet known which side will win, the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists.
If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies.
The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC. Not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis. Do you want gas in your car? Do you want heating oil next winter? Do you want the dollar to be worth anything? You had better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.
If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away. A moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.
We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a
Time and place of our choosing . . . . in Iraq. Not in New York, not in London, or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important things:
(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades; Saddam was a terrorist! Saddam was a weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of probably more than a 1,000,000 Iraqis and 2,000,000 Iranians.
(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to be killed here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a
Catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.
WW-II, the war with the Japanese and German Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before the US joined it. It officially ended in 1945,a 17-year war, and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again . . . a 27 year war.
WW-II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP, adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. WW-II cost America more than 400,000 soldiers killed in action and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.
The Iraq war has, so far, cost the United States about $160,000,000,000, which is roughly what the 9/11 terrorist attack cost New York. It has also cost about 3,000 American lives, which is roughly equivalent to lives that the Jihad killed (within the United States) in the 9/11 terrorist attack.
The cost of not fighting and winning WW-II would have been unimaginably greater - a world dominated by Japanese Imperialism and German Nazism.
This is not a 60-Minutes TV show, or a 2-hour movie in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. It always has been, and probably always will be.
The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it.
If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an ally, like England, in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates to conquer the world.
The Iraq War is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. Now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons, unless somebody prevents them from getting them.
We have four options:
1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.
2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).
3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East now; in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.
or
4. We can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and possibly most of the rest of Europe. It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.
If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.
The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.
Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.
Remember, perspective is every thing, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.
The Cold War lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; forty-two years!
Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany!
World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50,000,000 people, maybe more than 100,000,000 people, depending on which estimates you accept.
The US has taken more than 3,000 killed in action in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.
In WW-II the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week for four years. Most of the individual battles of WW-II lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.
The stakes are at least as high. . a world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms . . . or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).
It's difficult to understand why the average American does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis.
"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America, where it's safe. Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most? I'll tell you why! They would be killed!
The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.
Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy!
Some of you may not be old enough to remember that nearly every family in America was grossly affected by WW-II. Most of you may not remember the rationing of meat, shoes, butter, gasoline, and sugar. No tires for our automobiles and a speed limit of 35 miles an hour on the road, not to mention, no new automobiles. Read this and think about how we would react to being taken over by foreigners in 2008 or 2009.
This is an excellent essay; well thought out and presented by Raymond S. Kraft, a writer living in Northern California who has studied the Middle Eastern culture and religion.
Historical Significance
Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat. The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America taking food and war materials. At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war.
Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, who had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.
France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia. Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe.
America's only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it. All of Europe, from Norway to Italy (except Russia in the East) was already under the Nazi heel.
The US was certainly not prepared for war. The US had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WW I because of the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW-II, Army units were training with broomsticks because they didn't have guns, and cars with "tank" painted on the doors because they didn't have real tanks. A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.
Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $60 0 million in gold bullion in the Bank of England (that was actually the property of Belgium) given by Belgium to England to carry on the war when Belgium was overrun by Hitler (a little known fact).
Actually, Belgium surrendered in one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day just to prove they could.
Britain had already been holding out for two years in the face of staggering losses and the near decimation of its Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brits were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later. Hitler, first turned his attention to Russia, in the late summer of 1940 at a time when England was on the verge of collapse.
Ironically, Russia saved America's butt by putting up a desperate fight for two years, until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany.
Russia lost something like 24,000,000 people in the sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow alone . . . 90% of them from cold and starvation, mostly civilians, but also more than a 1,000,000 soldiers.
Had Russia surrendered, Hitler would have been able to focus his entire war effort against the Brits, then America. If that had happened, the Nazis could possibly have won the war.
All of this has been brought out to illustrate that turning points in history are often dicey things. Now, we find ourselves at another one of those key moments in history.
There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants, and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world.
The Jihadis, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs. They believe that Islam, a radically conservative form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle East first, then Europe, then the world. To them, all who do not bow to their will of thinking should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel, and purge the world of Jews. This is their mantra (goal).
There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East. For the most part it is not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its Inquisition and its Reformation, but it is not yet known which side will win, the Inquisitors, or the Reformationists.
If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadis, will control the Middle East, the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian economies.
The techno-industrial economies will be at the mercy of OPEC. Not an OPEC dominated by the educated, rational Saudis of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadis. Do you want gas in your car? Do you want heating oil next winter? Do you want the dollar to be worth anything? You had better hope the Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation wins.
If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, live in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually fade away. A moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.
We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, the Jihad, Al Qaeda and the Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We can't do it everywhere at once. We have created a focal point for the battle at a
Time and place of our choosing . . . . in Iraq. Not in New York, not in London, or Paris or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we are doing two important things:
(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades; Saddam was a terrorist! Saddam was a weapon of mass destruction, responsible for the deaths of probably more than a 1,000,000 Iraqis and 2,000,000 Iranians.
(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad people, and the ones we get there we won't have to be killed here. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic, peaceful Iraq, which will be a
Catalyst for democratic change in the rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.
WW-II, the war with the Japanese and German Nazis, really began with a "whimper" in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen years before the US joined it. It officially ended in 1945,a 17-year war, and was followed by another decade of US occupation in Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on their own again . . . a 27 year war.
WW-II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a full year's GDP, adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion dollars. WW-II cost America more than 400,000 soldiers killed in action and nearly 100,000 still missing in action.
The Iraq war has, so far, cost the United States about $160,000,000,000, which is roughly what the 9/11 terrorist attack cost New York. It has also cost about 3,000 American lives, which is roughly equivalent to lives that the Jihad killed (within the United States) in the 9/11 terrorist attack.
The cost of not fighting and winning WW-II would have been unimaginably greater - a world dominated by Japanese Imperialism and German Nazism.
This is not a 60-Minutes TV show, or a 2-hour movie in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly. It always has been, and probably always will be.
The bottom line is that we will have to deal with Islamic terrorism until we defeat it, whenever that is. It will not go away if we ignore it.
If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we have an ally, like England, in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates to conquer the world.
The Iraq War is merely another battle in this ancient and never ending war. Now, for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear weapons, unless somebody prevents them from getting them.
We have four options:
1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.
2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which may be as early as next year, if Iran's progress on nuclear weapons is what Iran claims it is).
3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the Middle East now; in Europe in the next few years or decades, and ultimately in America.
or
4. We can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has dominated France and Germany and possibly most of the rest of Europe. It will, of course, be more dangerous, more expensive, and much bloodier.
If you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and the Sharia, an America that resembles Iran today.
The history of the world is the history of civilization clashes, cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society and civilization should be like, and the most determined always win.
Those who are willing to be the most ruthless always win. The pacifists always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.
Remember, perspective is every thing, and America's schools teach too little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young American mind.
The Cold War lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989; forty-two years!
Europe spent the first half of the 19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany!
World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year occupation and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World War II resulted in the death of more than 50,000,000 people, maybe more than 100,000,000 people, depending on which estimates you accept.
The US has taken more than 3,000 killed in action in Iraq. The US took more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.
In WW-II the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week for four years. Most of the individual battles of WW-II lost more Americans than the entire Iraq war has done so far.
The stakes are at least as high. . a world dominated by representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and personal freedoms . . . or a world dominated by a radical Islamic Wahhabi movement, by the Jihad, under the Mullahs and the Sharia (Islamic law).
It's difficult to understand why the average American does not grasp this. They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but evidently not for Iraqis.
"Peace Activists" always seem to demonstrate here in America, where it's safe. Why don't we see Peace Activist demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, North Korea, in the places that really need peace activism the most? I'll tell you why! They would be killed!
The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc.
Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy!
Bible Blog: Romans 13:1-7 - August 2, 2007
How to Behave: Part V
Okay, here I am to try to write this out again. Since a friend has requested a passage summary with each entry and I don't really feel like writing a summary each time in addition to my thoughts, I'm going to include the passage or a link to the passage each time for reference. If I forget, remind me please.
Romans 13:1-7 (ISV)
"1. Every person must be subject to the governing authorities, for no authority exists except by God's permission. The existing authorities have been established by God, 2. so that whoever resists the authorities opposes what God has established, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3. For the authorities are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you like to live without being afraid of the authorities? Then do what is right, and you will receive their approval. 4. For they are God's servants working for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for it is not without reason that they bear the sword. Indeed, they are God's servants to execute wrath on anyone who does wrong. 5.Therefore, it is necessary for you to be subject, not only because of God's wrath but also because of your own conscience. 6. This is also why you pay taxes. For rulers are God's servants faithfully devoting themselves to their work. 7. Pay everyone whatever you owe them-taxes to whom taxes are due, tolls to whom tolls are due, fear to whom fear is due, honor to whom honor is due."
My basic thoughts on this were that it was very straight forward. Government is meant as a tool of God, pay taxes, etc... so long as it isn't in direct opposition of God's will of course.
What I got from this passage has nothing to do with giving to the government, nothing at all to do with the actual message of this passage, but it's important for me to know and try to apply to my life, so I'm sharing it.
My general attitude towards anything of a political nature is avoidance. I often form strong opinions on things, but won't speak about them because I don't want a heated debate with someone who believes differently than I do because when I'm in those situations my ADHD will pop up, thoughts fly everywhere, and I end up unable to make my point either because my mind is racing or because I can't remember supporting facts. As a single mom with a fairly conservative viewpoint, anytime I talk about politics I'm assured opposition because as a woman I should be "liberal" and want more freedoms...
The point of this is I'm not prepared. I didn't even want to admit my political avoidance here, but felt it was the right thing to do. Political discussions have a way of opening up doors for theological discussions. When you give your reasons for your beliefs about something, God should be behind it if you are a Christian. Taking the time to know how to have a political conversation and learning how to open up the doors for speaking God's word is always important. I'm not saying every discussion needs to be a cover for a Bible thumping session, just that we're supposed to be prepared with an answer for the hope we have, and ready to justify why we believe how we believe (I Peter 3:15)... if our political views are a reflection of our faith and spiritual convictions it should be evident and we should be prepared to defend what we believe... politically and spiritually.
Like I said, not what this passage would evoke in most people, but it is the message God wanted me to have right now. I'm still trying to figure out how to put this into practice, I suppose getting myself up to date on current events and figuring out how I feel about them is a good way to start, I'm also going to post here an essay that I read and appreciate for you to read... and hopefully won't falter if I need to get into a debate about it!
Hugs & Love
Okay, here I am to try to write this out again. Since a friend has requested a passage summary with each entry and I don't really feel like writing a summary each time in addition to my thoughts, I'm going to include the passage or a link to the passage each time for reference. If I forget, remind me please.
Romans 13:1-7 (ISV)
"1. Every person must be subject to the governing authorities, for no authority exists except by God's permission. The existing authorities have been established by God, 2. so that whoever resists the authorities opposes what God has established, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. 3. For the authorities are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you like to live without being afraid of the authorities? Then do what is right, and you will receive their approval. 4. For they are God's servants working for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for it is not without reason that they bear the sword. Indeed, they are God's servants to execute wrath on anyone who does wrong. 5.Therefore, it is necessary for you to be subject, not only because of God's wrath but also because of your own conscience. 6. This is also why you pay taxes. For rulers are God's servants faithfully devoting themselves to their work. 7. Pay everyone whatever you owe them-taxes to whom taxes are due, tolls to whom tolls are due, fear to whom fear is due, honor to whom honor is due."
My basic thoughts on this were that it was very straight forward. Government is meant as a tool of God, pay taxes, etc... so long as it isn't in direct opposition of God's will of course.
What I got from this passage has nothing to do with giving to the government, nothing at all to do with the actual message of this passage, but it's important for me to know and try to apply to my life, so I'm sharing it.
My general attitude towards anything of a political nature is avoidance. I often form strong opinions on things, but won't speak about them because I don't want a heated debate with someone who believes differently than I do because when I'm in those situations my ADHD will pop up, thoughts fly everywhere, and I end up unable to make my point either because my mind is racing or because I can't remember supporting facts. As a single mom with a fairly conservative viewpoint, anytime I talk about politics I'm assured opposition because as a woman I should be "liberal" and want more freedoms...
The point of this is I'm not prepared. I didn't even want to admit my political avoidance here, but felt it was the right thing to do. Political discussions have a way of opening up doors for theological discussions. When you give your reasons for your beliefs about something, God should be behind it if you are a Christian. Taking the time to know how to have a political conversation and learning how to open up the doors for speaking God's word is always important. I'm not saying every discussion needs to be a cover for a Bible thumping session, just that we're supposed to be prepared with an answer for the hope we have, and ready to justify why we believe how we believe (I Peter 3:15)... if our political views are a reflection of our faith and spiritual convictions it should be evident and we should be prepared to defend what we believe... politically and spiritually.
Like I said, not what this passage would evoke in most people, but it is the message God wanted me to have right now. I'm still trying to figure out how to put this into practice, I suppose getting myself up to date on current events and figuring out how I feel about them is a good way to start, I'm also going to post here an essay that I read and appreciate for you to read... and hopefully won't falter if I need to get into a debate about it!
Hugs & Love
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Frustration
The one night (tonight) I didn't write out my notes before typing in an attempt to save time and things go haywire and I lose what I wrote. I'm exhausted now, and not up to writing it out again, but I will attempt to remember what I wanted to say and write it out and post it tomorrow if I get a chance.
Hugs & Love
Hugs & Love
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Bible Blog: Romans 12:14-21 - July 31, 2007
How to Behave: Part IV
Verses 14 & 15 are so difficult for my human nature to accept. If someone hurts me, I want to hurt them, if someone is mourning and I'm happy, I don't want to be sucked down into a pit of despair with them. Yet we are told to live in peace, return evil for good, rejoice when others are happy and mourn with them in their sorrow. We are to "live in harmony" with each other... how do we do that when someone always wants to pick a fight?
Verses 17 through 21 sum up this answer along with the most basic concept of our Christian faith... Don't take revenge into your own hands... leave it for God. How do we do this practically? Verse 20 says to feed our enemies when they are hungry, give them drink when they are thirsty, in short, treat them as you would your family and friends. Offer shelter when it is needed, clothing or a coat if they are without. Kindness towards a person who doesn't deserve it will make that person think, and hopefully, repent.
This is one of the hardest things to learn, to show God's love to our enemies, to love them despite the wrong they have shown us. I need to think about this some more, find ways to put this into practice in my life.
Hugs & Love
PS I didn't mention verse 16 because it didn't feel as though I was supposed to at this time. I do have thoughts about it and am willing to write up something about it if someone requests it.
Verses 14 & 15 are so difficult for my human nature to accept. If someone hurts me, I want to hurt them, if someone is mourning and I'm happy, I don't want to be sucked down into a pit of despair with them. Yet we are told to live in peace, return evil for good, rejoice when others are happy and mourn with them in their sorrow. We are to "live in harmony" with each other... how do we do that when someone always wants to pick a fight?
Verses 17 through 21 sum up this answer along with the most basic concept of our Christian faith... Don't take revenge into your own hands... leave it for God. How do we do this practically? Verse 20 says to feed our enemies when they are hungry, give them drink when they are thirsty, in short, treat them as you would your family and friends. Offer shelter when it is needed, clothing or a coat if they are without. Kindness towards a person who doesn't deserve it will make that person think, and hopefully, repent.
This is one of the hardest things to learn, to show God's love to our enemies, to love them despite the wrong they have shown us. I need to think about this some more, find ways to put this into practice in my life.
Hugs & Love
PS I didn't mention verse 16 because it didn't feel as though I was supposed to at this time. I do have thoughts about it and am willing to write up something about it if someone requests it.
Bible Blog: Romans 12:9-13 - July 30, 2007
How to Behave: Part III
Five short verses, part of a larger passage that tells us how to love, yet there is so much in just the first few words that to think on it all at once would be overwhelming. Verse 9a "Love must be sincere." We're not talking about the smile we give, the all too easily spoken words, "I'm praying for you," or even the superficial "call me if you need anything," that we so often hear. We are talking about REAL love, God's love, for our fellow man. The kind of love that pushes men and women into full time missions work, the kind of love that burns inside us longing to give others what Christ has given us... a love filled with compassion and understanding, a legitimate and heartfelt interest in those around us.
Verse 13 tells us that one of the ways to do this is by practicing hospitality. For most people, this is focused on the host or hostess, the preparations, the house, the decor. True hospitality is from the heart, can be offering a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at a messy table with too many children in the midst of a chaotic and toy strewn living room just to keep a person feeling involved, included and loved. The other is about the home and appearances, it is superficial, meaningless, but to give of yourself, to listen, be a friend, a shoulder to cry on, to practice hospitality even on a park bench, giving crackers to the homeless and keeping them company as they eat it, this is true hospitality... and it's what God wants from us!
Hugs & Love
Five short verses, part of a larger passage that tells us how to love, yet there is so much in just the first few words that to think on it all at once would be overwhelming. Verse 9a "Love must be sincere." We're not talking about the smile we give, the all too easily spoken words, "I'm praying for you," or even the superficial "call me if you need anything," that we so often hear. We are talking about REAL love, God's love, for our fellow man. The kind of love that pushes men and women into full time missions work, the kind of love that burns inside us longing to give others what Christ has given us... a love filled with compassion and understanding, a legitimate and heartfelt interest in those around us.
Verse 13 tells us that one of the ways to do this is by practicing hospitality. For most people, this is focused on the host or hostess, the preparations, the house, the decor. True hospitality is from the heart, can be offering a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at a messy table with too many children in the midst of a chaotic and toy strewn living room just to keep a person feeling involved, included and loved. The other is about the home and appearances, it is superficial, meaningless, but to give of yourself, to listen, be a friend, a shoulder to cry on, to practice hospitality even on a park bench, giving crackers to the homeless and keeping them company as they eat it, this is true hospitality... and it's what God wants from us!
Hugs & Love
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)