TRUTH

     Truth is not fluid.  It is never changing, but timeless.  When people say, "I'm following my own truth," I cringe.  No one person owns truth.  Truth is a person, Jesus Christ.  Truth is God's word.  Both of which are never changing throughout all eternity.  Truth is solid, it is something you can hang your hat on, risk your life for, bet your eternity on.  In an ever changing world, where darkness is called light, and truth is everyone's opinion, we need this Absolute Truth.  Society needs acknowledgement of this Truth to govern and to abide together in peace.  So why are many turning their backs on this Truth?  God tells us in His word that people want to be their own gods and that they are too proud to surrender their lives.  They love their sin more than their Savior.  Therefore their  hearts are hardened by those sins, and they are blind from the Truth.  I know that to be true because I used to be one of them.  Even though I claimed to be a Christian, believed that Jesus died and rose, believed in the Bible, I took a long time to actually lay down my life and take up my cross and follow Him.  I was looking to other things to be my Savior, and I was too stubborn to turn from my sins.  They were comfortable to me, they took no effort, until I started to see the slow death of my soul and God opened my eyes to see that each sin brought death and meaningless.  I slowly realized that nothing could fill that giant hole in my heart but God.  Each of you that has not accepted Christ as your Savior has that giant hole in your heart as well, and I can promise you that if you are trying to fill it with ANYTHING OR ANYONE BESIDES HIM, you will never be fulfilled, and you will die a slow death every day you wait.  

     Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life and no one comes to the Father but by me."  At the same time, highly respected "Christian" Oprah Winfrey is saying to society, "There are many paths to God."  I have loved Oprah Winfrey from the first time she set foot on stage, but she is DEAD wrong.   No other religion in the world has a leader that claimed to be God, but the Christian Jesus.  That is what sets Him apart.  So when someone says to you, "Yeah, I believe in Jesus, He was a great teacher, just like Muhammad or Buddha," you can know that they too are DEAD wrong.  If Jesus was walking around claiming to be God, either He was God or He was a nut.  There is no in between.  Therefore, He would not be just a good teacher, and anyone who says that is an anti-christ.  Jesus also warned us of this in His word, that many anti-christs would make claims that would be false.  Christians are to have nothing to do with these people.  Jesus was God in flesh that dwelt among man, was crucified and died for our sins, and on the third day He rose from the dead, and dwelt among us, until He ascended back to Heaven and now sits on the right hand of God the Father.  He is alive.  If that were not truth, then Christianity would have died out thousands of years ago.  If there had been no risen Savior then all His early disciples would not have risked imprisonment and/or being martyred for His glory and the church would have never been established.  BUT, Jesus was God, and he humbled himself to come to us as man, and live among us, and pay for our sins, so that we can dwell with Him forever and ever.  Wow, that's such good news!  We can have a relationship with the Creator of the universe!  We can have a relationship with Him now on Earth and forever in Heaven.   So when the Corona virus comes, or social injustices happen, or when our country starts falling apart, Christ followers can be assured that they are safe and have nothing to fear, for whether in life or death we are abiding safely in His loving arms.  

      In the meantime, as we try to navigate this crazy earth, we have His Word and the Holy Spirit to build us up, to protect us from evil, and to sanctify us as we get ready for His return.  Jesus was also the Word that dwelt among us.  The Bible is not just a holy book, but it is the inerrant, God breathed inspired word of God.  Therefore, it is to be handled with fear, respect, and trepidation.  Just like there are people trying to dispute Jesus as the only way to God, there are also many people, even people in the church, trying to minimize the word of God.  I believe if you don't believe all of the Bible you are not really believing any of the Bible.   People who worship science and/or the creation more than the Creator try to discredit sections of the Bible all the time.  Once again, that is man's pride standing in the way of him finding Truth.  From Creation to Revelation, the entire Bible is truth.  Richard Rohr, I think, is the priest that says that the New Testament is just letters written by man with suggestions for living a good life.  That is simply not true.  Yes, the New Testament does consist of letters written by Christ's apostles, but they were God breathed, meaning God wrote the scriptures through man.  These were men that intimately knew the Savior, that shared in His sufferings, they walked with Him and talked with Him, and God spoke through them.  The Bible is God's word, it is absolute truth, explicit truth.  It is tried and true, and instead of looking at it as a book telling you all the things you can't do, it is a book that reveals Jesus to you, from Genesis to Revelation.  It is a cohesive story of God loving and pursuing His people, laying down His life for mankind, and saving us from death and sins that enslave us.  It explains our past, our present, and our future.  You need not worry about all the darkness in the world, because you can read for yourself how it's all going to end.  Whether you believe or not, one day we will all bow in His presence, every tribe, nation, and tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.  You can accept that truth now and live a life of meaning and substance, or you can wait till the day that you bend your knee in fear and regret.  My prayer is that you will not wait one second longer, but you will choose this day whom you will serve.  I promise you that you will never regret a decision for Christ.  You can come as you are, but as you experience His love and sacrifice, you cannot stay as you are.  Surrender your life to Him now.  You won't regret it.  

The Silent Storm of 2020

     In the last couple of months, societal issues have jumped off the pages and slapped us smack dab in the face.  No warning, but rather a tidal wave of racial, political, economical, spiritual upheaval like never before.  People have stopped talking to each other, and replaced conversation with heated arguments.  Among peaceful God fearing protests are evil, lawless rioting, killing, and pillaging of our country.  Fear and anger have replaced faith and love.  A hate for America and God and Trump has lead people to spit in the face of liberty and democracy, and burn our sacred places of worship and our flag, the United States flag, the same flag that draped my dead father's body. With the media feeding the drama, the leader of the Black Lives Movement has inspired the illegal taking down of many of our historic monuments, including those that had nothing to do with racism.  Shaun King is now saying all monuments of Jesus need to be removed as well.  Could this really be happening in America?  When the lockdown first started, a faith stirred deep within my soul, that God was moving and calling us to stop for a while and evaluate our hearts, and after our hearts were cleansed, our lives would be restored to a better place.  A place where God was first, and everything else was here to glorify Him.  But sadly as I turned on the TV, I saw and heard things that ripped at my heart, because I could see that in the world, at least the world the media was showing us, instead of heart changes, there was this arrogance and self efficiency that was saying, "This isn't God, this is us!  We are winning this battle". Blasphemy like I had never heard before, even though I had heard whispers that I thought would eventually lead us to this.  Things like, "the Bible isn't really God's inerrant word, it is just letters that gives suggestions on how to live good lives" or "Jesus wasn't God, he was just a good teacher, like Muhammad or Buddha."  I felt as if there was an attack of a dark nature trying to steal my faith, but thankfully, I had surrounded myself with some strong, faith filled giants, and a God that would not let me go. 

     Right now, the focus is on racism, off of Covid 19 for a bit, with the horrid murder of George Floyd setting in motion a righteous anger for some, and an excuse for others to further their degradation of faith and light.  My opinion is that this righteous anger of the many was bound to come to a boiling point at some time.   It needed to, the devaluing of a life is a wretched sin in the eyes of God, and is not one He takes lightly.  But unlike the Black Lives Matter movement, I feel the answer to racism, poverty, and everything else will be found in turning to God, repenting and lamenting over our sins, including the sins of racism, and cleansing our country of darkness and replacing it with light, using God's wisdom to restore the family, the church, government, criminal justice systems, and any other system that needs repair. The hidden agendas in the BLM movement are not only about racism.  I think most people would argue that racism needs to be totally eradicated.  This is 2020.  America is a melting pot of different races and ethnicities that need to be celebrated, exactly like they will be one day when Jesus comes back, when every tribe and nation will worship Him together.  That union should start now, as I believe it has.  However, the Black Lives Matter Movement promotes some ideology that I truly believe if practiced would tear apart the lives of our black brothers and sisters in Christ.  Before you kill the messenger, let me try to explain.

     Candace Owens, a Black commentator,  said in a YouTube video that in the 1960's black America had 23% fatherlessness, which back then was a high percentage for fatherlessness in the family.  This statistic was taken right before Lyndon Johnson passed the Welfare Act.  Today, 74% of black Americans grow up without a father.  Candace believes this is because the Welfare Act made it more lucrative for a family if the father does not marry the mother or live in the home, forcing families to live without fathers. Therefore, Welfare encouraged fatherlessness.  I was a kid that grew up on a check from the government, although my dad was taken away by war, and that check was our compensation for fatherlessness.  I understand what Candace means when she says  that a government check keeps  you just right at the poverty line or at least the lower middle class line.  I think we were all made to live out our God given purpose, and that if you take that purpose away, people deteriorate.  They become apathetic, depressed, and there is nothing to encourage someone to excel.  People, especially children without fathers, fall in to depression, substance abuse, poor school performance, and eventually, the criminal justice system.  I'm not suggesting to get rid of Welfare, but rather reform Welfare to be a hand up, not a lifestyle choice.  Welfare as a lifestyle choice should be for the severely disabled and mentally ill who are incapable of sustaining any kind of work. The Black Lives Matter does not promote a nuclear family.  In fact, I felt that it did not promote black fathers at all, from what I read it didn't support black men at all.  Well, unless those black men were men transitioning to be females.  Instead of promoting fatherhood, it promoted a village type approach to caring for families.  While I do believe that has become necessary with the absence of fathers, I don't think you should abandon the idea of fatherhood altogether!  This is not only true in black families, but equally true with white, hispanic, and Asian families.

      President Obama said that children who live in homes without their fathers are 9 times more likely to end up in prison!  Fatherlessness in the family is not the only thing that determines incarceration though.  Children who can't read, can't gain lucrative employment, and have no direction from their fathers have a way higher chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.  Candace Owens also said in her Youtube video that 75% of black boys in California cannot pass a basic reading test!!  In Baltimore schools, a study looked across 5 inner city schools and NO black child passed the reading or math exam.  Now, the quick response would be to blame the teachers, but I can tell you that teachers are working harder now than they ever have.  There are more programs to address reading and math than you can imagine, and money is thrown at these situations like you can't believe.  Just like in the Criminal Justice System, it is not the majority of the police that is the problem.  It is the system in which they work that is the problem.  MONEY DOES NOT SOLVE ISSUES, NOR DOES PROGRAMS.  If they worked there would not be 75% of black boys in California that can't read and there would not be the statistic of a person being 9x more likely to be incarcerated if that solved the problem.  I think reformation starts at home first.  The sexual revolution has saturated kids with the notion. that it is ok to have sex before marriage, with anybody or anything.  Children are being sexualized like never before, further traumatizing kids that have no father to mentor or protect them.  Fatherless children are far more likely to be sexually abused, both girls and boys.  Children should not have to think about sex!!!  The media and entertainment industry needs to be cleaned up, standards need to be set for those who can't set them for themselves.  Parentless children or children in poverty are often raised by television.  Imagine what they have seen by the time they enter school.  Parents should be punished for traumatizing them by letting them pick their gender, or encouraging them to look and act older than they are.  We as a society need to protect our children from the darkness of the world.  Next, we need to find ways to encourage dads to stay at home.  Dads can stay at home if they can gain employment and if they are not incarcerated, so can moms.  We, as a society, need to figure out what is keeping this many children from learning.  I don't believe it is intelligence.  I have had EXTREMELY intelligent kids that could not read.  We need to study that from conception, the health of the mother, the neonatal care, and the list goes on and on.  I think one huge deterrent to learning is misbehavior in the classroom.  Nobody can learn in chaos.  Children that live in poverty and who do not have their basic needs met are not thinking about how to sound out words, they are thinking, "How can I get something to eat?"  or they are acting out their anxiety by misbehaving, no attention is being given to learning, which eventually leads down the path to the criminal justice system.

      The other night my family watched the story of Brian Banks.  Brian was a young black male when he was first incarcerated unjustly at the age of 16.  He was falsely accused of rape, with all the evidence pointing to his innocence, and his lawyer talked him into pleading No Contest to save him from prison time.  This however backfired on him, and he was unfairly incarcerated for 6 or 7 years.  This was a wonderful, kind, innocent young man that had his dreams snatched away from him and his mother at a young age.  Throughout the movie, you could see tons of places where criminal justice reform needs to take place.  There are so many instances of people being incarcerated who are innocent.  There are broken systems, I am not denying that fact.  Change needs to take place, but it doesn't come through hate and destruction.    It comes through the people advocating for rational change with rational plans and voting for rational people that can make those changes happen.  It takes leaders listening to the people that work in those systems.  They can tell you where change should happen.  In federal and state government decisions are guided by what gets those institutions the most money.  Money allocated shouldn't be based on numbers, it makes the systems cheat and nothing good can come from that.  I've seen it in education, so I'm sure it exists in the criminal justice system.  Everything is about money instead of truth, justice, and the people that those systems exist to serve.  The people of this great country have ideas on how to make change, somebody needs to shut up and listen.  Then that change can happen.