Archive for January, 2006

Re-post: “Consider it pure joy…” From Deep Thoughts with Jen

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”

  • God never asks anything from us that He didn’t or wouldn’t already give. That is not is God’s character. Our perfect Creator has sacrificed all and therefore it is our purpose in life to do the same. Romans 12:1 tells us to “offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.” God wants our everything! Every day He wants us to ask, “What do you want today, Father?! What do I need to give you? What would you have me offer today?” Sometimes He’ll respond with, “Nothing! You’re putting me first above all! Well done, good and faithful servant!” Sometimes He’ll respond with a big, fat, giant list. Oh boy, those are fun days! Sometimes, He’ll ask for the one thing that you never thought He’d ask for. You even question Him, as if to say, “Are you sure?” When He asks for these things you wonder, “Why, I don’t understand?! I know that you gave me this as a blessing and now you want it back!” Those mornings you cry out in confusion and in part, even defiance because you know that either He has been asking for a while and you haven’t responded or that you already know that you have to give it up, but that this marks the beginning of the battle.
  • I am sure that Abraham felt the same way when he was asked to sacrifice his very own precious son, even though God also promised him that Abraham would see his offspring through that precious son. We don’t have any idea of the dialogue that went in inside his head after God asked for such a massive sacrifice. However, the word gives many indications that not only did Abraham put his trust in God but he trusted that God would provide a way out as well. In Genesis 22:5 – 8, we can see that Abraham told his servants to stay put while Abraham and Isaac went on and that both he and Isaac would be back. It goes on to say in verse 8 that when Isaac questioned about the offering, Abraham told Isaac that “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering.” In Hebrews 11:19, Paul writes that Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead. So, not only can we see that Abraham was a man of faith and trust, but that he was a man of great hope in the Lord and His promises. Abraham didn’t just believe in God – he believed God.
  • God is graciously teaching me the value of faith and that faith can only be purified by the testing of it. I am drawing strength from the bible in scriptures like 1Pet. 1:6-7, “. . . though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” and Psalm 66:10 “For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver.” What an incredible time in my life for the Lord to know my heart and know that I am ready for such trials! What faith in me the Lord must have to consider that I am ready for such a fiery test! I am banking on the promise of 1Cor.10:13, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
  • Father, I long for the faith, trust, and hope that Abraham had in you! I long to look to you and you alone in this trial. I believe in what your Word tells me and I know that you are doing a great and mighty work in me and that you promise rich blessings on the other side. Add to my faith, increase it in measure and then add to it goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love, Father! I am taking hold of so many promises that your Word teaches me. Renew yourself to me each day as I keep my eyes fixed on you while I run this race! Be with my family and bless them with everything that they need to give you glory and honor. Clothe them each with your righteousness and encourage them with your unending love. We need you Father! All in your Holy and Sweet name we pray.
    AMEN.

‘Brokeback’ Rides Away With Oscar Nods

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

It typically doesn’t bother me when hollywood pats itself on the back, but some people do give hollywood stars a lot of admiration and actually base their lives on the stars do. I can only hope that the American public is smarter then hollywood gives them credit for and sees this as the attempt to push homosexuality that it is.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The cowboy love story “Brokeback Mountain” led the Academy Awards field Tuesday with eight nominations, among them best picture and honors for actor Heath Ledger and director Ang Lee.
Also nominated for best picture were the Truman Capote story “Capote”; the ensemble drama “Crash”; the Edward R. Murrow chronicle “Good Night, and Good Luck”; the assassination thriller “Munich.”
The Johnny Cash biography, “Walk the Line”, considered a likely best picture nominee, was shut out, though Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon earned acting nominations for the film.

Read the rest here.

Coretta Scott King, 78, Dies

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006


A very inspirational and devoted wife of a very inspirational man.

ATLANTA — Coretta Scott King, who turned a life shattered by her husband’s assassination into one devoted to enshrining his legacy of human rights and equality, has died. She was 78.
Flags at the King Center were lowered to half-staff Tuesday morning.
“We appreciate the prayers and condolences from people across the country,” the King family said in a statement. The family said she died overnight, but did not say where she died. She suffered a serious stroke and heart attack in 2005.
“It’s a bleak morning for me and for many people and yet it’s a great morning because we have a chance to look at her and see what she did and who she was,” the poet Maya Angelou said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“It’s bleak because I can’t — many of us can’t hear her sweet voice but it’s great because she did live, and she was ours. I mean African-Americans and white Americans and Asians, Spanish-speaking — she belonged to us and that’s a great thing.”
Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, the civil rights activist who is close to the King family, broke the news on NBC’s “Today” show: “I understand that she was asleep last night and her daughter (Bernice King) went in to wake her up and she was not able to and so she quietly slipped away. Her spirit will remain with us just as her husband’s has.”

Read the rest here.

The Greatest Commandment

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together.
One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him,
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’
This is the great and foremost commandment.
The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’
On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:34-40 (New American Standard Bible)

Views on Pornography Differ Among Sexes

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

Pornography is wrong. Period. There is nothing good that can come out of it. It is one of the reasons our society is so desensitized towards sex. I’ll even take it a bit further by saying that I believe that sex scenes in sitcoms and made for TV movies play their part in the pornography gambit as well. Call me old fashion, but sex needs to remain a private thing between and married man and woman.

(AgapePress) - According to survey findings released last fall by Harris Interactive, Inc., men and women differ in their views about the effects and possible regulation of pornography.
A Harris Poll in September 2004 revealed women to be much more critical of pornography, in general, than men. At the same time, a slightly larger number of women over men favor government regulation of online pornography, if such were possible. Specifically, 57 percent of women believe “pornography is demeaning towards women” as compared to 38 percent of men. In addition, 47 percent of women and 33 percent of men believe porn “harms relationships between men and women.”
While there was no unanimity regarding the impact of pornography on children, both men and women agreed the effects were mostly negative. Only 2 percent said “it helps kids better understand sexuality.”
Males and females share a similar view regarding the regulation of Internet pornography for the sake of children, although there is still an obvious difference among the sexes. For example, 42 percent of those polled believe the government should “regulate Internet pornography specifically so that children cannot access X-rated material online.” Broken down by sexes, 53 percent of women and 30 percent of men prefer such a policy.

Bank Takes Stand for Private Citizens With Anti-Eminent Domain Policy

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

Well, this is a pleasant surprise. I guess the municipalities may have to rethink their plans a bit. I hope that many (if not all) financial organizations will get on board. I don’t know though. There’s always someone with money who is sleazy enough to do the wrong thing in order to earn a buck. Maybe the Supreme Court will revisit this and overturn their previous decision.

(AgapePress) - One of the nation’s top ten banks announced last week that it no longer plans to loan money for commercial projects placed on land taken from private citizens through eminent domain.
The Associated Press quotes BB&T Chairman and Chief Executive John Allison as calling the idea of the government taking a citizen’s property for private use “extremely misguided. And recently on Fox News, he placed his feelings about the practice in even stronger terms, equating it with immorality.
According to Allison, BB&T realized loaning money for development under those circumstances was the worst kind of contrast to the dreams of the clientele that the company has served from its beginnings. “Not long ago we were really an eastern North Carolina farm bank,” he notes, “and we primarily dealt with small businesses and farms. We realized from feedback from that client base that this is a gut-level issue — that people’s homes are very important things.”
The bank spokesman says he has seen eminent domain hurt private property owners under the guise of the public good. However, he observes, “A lot of times … what somebody says is for the public good really means it’s good for them and maybe not so good for you.”
Allison told Fox News that BB&T’s eminent domain policy is a stand the company is taking on principle. “We believe that one of the most fundamental principles on which this country was founded was the concept of individual rights — and the most important of those rights is the right to private property,” he noted.
“Our whole free-enterprise economic system is based upon that right,” the BB&T executive contended. “We think it’s morally wrong for the government to use the power of eminent domain to take the private property of one individual for the benefit of another private individual.”
Allison says he has encouraged executives at other financial institutions to take the same stance as BB&T has taken toward eminent domain-based developments. BB&T operates in more than 1,400 branches across eleven U.S. states.

Iran blasts Big Five’s decision to transfer the Iran dossier to UN Security Council

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

Keep watching this. Iran is run by a madman and there is no telling what they might do.

Russia and China, reluctant to adopt this step until now, signed on to the US-European call to the UN nuclear watchdog at an overnight meeting of the five with Germany in London early Wednesday. They accepted the compromise of waiting for the SC to take up the Iranian case until after ElBaradei submits his report to the IAEA in March.
DEBKAfile adds: The holdouts were persuaded by the failure of the plan to transfer Iran’s enrichment program to Russia after Iran demanded full control over the facility’s production of centrifuges and the volume of output.
Furthermore, the Iranian nuclear negotiator who held talks with three European officials ahead of the meeting of the five came armed with a threat: if its case went to the Security Council, Iran would repudiate all former restrictions and go full speed ahead with uranium enrichment and other suspended parts of its nuclear program.
This declaration of intent to go ahead with building a nuclear weapon puts paid to the dispute among Western intelligence agencies on whether Iran has acquired the resources to manufacture sufficient enriched uranium for a bomb. According to one estimate, the Iranians already have 35-30,000 centrifuge units.
The IAEA board meets in Vienna Thursday.
Earlier this month, Iran broke UN seals at its uranium enrichment plant and announced the resumption of “nuclear fuel research.”

Brownback: ‘Fruits’ Comment Not Gay Joke

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

I had forgotten that gays used to be called (and may still be in some circles) “fruits”. But once again, it shows how hyper-sensitive people are when their agenda may have been slighted. If one read the Bible, the verse goes like this:

Matthew 7:15-20 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
A Tree and Its Fruit

“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
“So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
So then, you will know them by their fruits.”

Jesus was taliing about the false prophets. Sam took it out of context and the gays ran with it. Both of y’all need to just settle down. Sam, keep it in context and gays, stop being so moody. Why would Brownback trust “Rolling Stone Magazine” to not spin his words? C’mon, it’s Rolling Stone Magazine, for Heaven’s sake!! Ex-Hyppies, college liberals, that sort of thing…

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, a potential presidential candidate, said Monday he meant no offense to homosexuals when he used the word “fruits” in a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine.
In a lengthy profile titled “God’s Senator,” the magazine quotes the Kansas Republican as criticizing countries like Sweden that have legalized gay marriage.
“You’ll know them by their fruits,” Brownback said, quoting a biblical passage from Matthew 7:19.
Rolling Stone writer Jeff Sharlet said in the story, appearing in the magazine’s current issue, that Brownback appeared to be calling gay Swedes fruits.
After gay and lesbian advocacy groups denounced the comments last week, Brownback issued a statement Monday saying his quote “was in no way referring to sexual orientation.”
“While this biblical passage was pertinent to our overall conversation about faith and deeds, it apparently led the writer to believe I was making a joke,” said Brownback, a frequent critic of gay marriage who is pushing a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
“I was not and would never do so with such a personal and sensitive issue,” Brownback said.
His explanation was greeted with skepticism by the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights organization.
“It’s nice to know that Senator Brownback doesn’t resort to name-calling from the 1970s, but unfortunately his anti-gay agenda continues to speak for itself,” said spokesman Brad Luna.

Is new AOL IM slogan marketing blasphemy?

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

I’m willing to bet this is just some uninformed marketing group who thought they had a catchy phrase, never giving it a second thought that it does imply the name of God. But with that said, they do need to change it. If it was a muslim complaining, it would already be changed. Let’s see how long it takes them to do it for the Christians and Jews.

When Ian Millar opened up his AOL Instant Messenger program yesterday and linked to the new AIM Triton site, he wasn’t prepared for what he saw.
“I have been an AIM customer for many years, and although I do not use AOL for my mail client, I have recommended it for relatives and friends,” he said in letter to top executives of the company. “In general, I appreciate AOL and your business savvy.”
But when Millar saw the company’s new slogan, he was shocked and disgusted. He was not alone.
America Online is now acting like God – using what some consider to be His very name in a marketing pitch for e-mail, voice chat, video chat, instant messaging, text messaging and other forms of communication.
AIM’s new slogan is “I AM.”
Millar wonders is any of AOL’s marketing and planning directors ever went to Christian Sunday school or attended Jewish services.
He points out to AOL executives that “I AM” is the English translation of YaHWeH, the self-proclaimed name of God.
“He is the Creator and Savior of the world,” explains Millar. “He alone is to be worshipped. To take His name in vain, or use as a common thing is blasphemy, a vulgar sin of offense. Perhaps you have not read the Third Commandment, since they have removed it from so many public monuments in the last decade. But breaking it as a means of marketing your products offends the mind of everyone who worships Him.”
The key scripture used to support the sacred name of God is
Exodus 3:13-15: “And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.”
“I AM” are the words God used to answer Moses’ question about His name.
Jesus, too, used the phrase in
John 8:58, when he said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
Millar suggests that perhaps AOL is in need of more religious diversity in its corporate ranks. But he suggests that such oversights would seem implausible in a country “where the Judeo-Christian culture has been pervasive for 300 years.”
“You must immediately change the name of your program,” he told Jonathan Miller, the chief executive officer of America Online, and John Buckley, corporate communications officer for the company, in a pointed letter. I can assure you that you will lose business over this marketing tactic from people who worship the Almighty. But worse, you have offended Him by your actions; whether they are deliberate or ignorant. To treat as common the name of God is wicked. God is patient, but mankind is today making an error of epic proportions by the deliberate actions of mocking the Almighty; particularly in the technologically advanced society. His patience with the mockery of mankind will come to an end.”
Millar suggested AOL would never think of using – or misusing – the names “Allah,” or “Buddha” in its corporate marketing efforts.
“This new marketing idea is bad corporate policy,” he said. “I implore you to change the name of your programs and rebuke the marketing team who came up with this vile idea. I will stop using AIM and urge all of my colleagues to convert to your competitors, if this is not changed very soon.”
AOL officials were not available for comment.

Exodus 3:14 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM“; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”


John 8:58
New American Standard Bible (NASB)
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”

Pro-Homosexual School Posters Fostering ‘Intolerance,’ Says Family Advocate

Tuesday, January 31st, 2006

And once again the homosexual agenda is being forced down our throats, this time in the schools in the California. I admire the teachers who are willing to make their own lives difficult by standing up to the school system administrators.

(AgapePress) - A pro-family leader says five public school teachers in the San Francisco Bay area are putting their jobs on the line to protect their students from “propaganda” that homosexual activists have forced into the classroom.
Five teachers at San Leandro High School have refused to abide by a school district order to display a rainbow flag poster in their classrooms. The notebook paper-sized poster sports the logo for the
San Leandro Unified School District (SLUSD) as well as the inverted pink triangle, an international symbol for “gay pride.” Addressing itself to “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, [and] questioning youth,” the poster reads: “This is a safe place to be who you are. This sign affirms that support and resources are available for you in this school.”
Last week,
WorldNetDaily reported that the five teachers refused to display the poster because of their religious beliefs. But SLUSD superintendent Christine Lim said the policy calling for the poster to be displayed in classrooms is designed to make schools safe for homosexual students.
“This is not about religion, sex, or a belief system,” Lim told the
San Francisco Chronicle. “This is about educators making sure our schools are safe for our children, regardless of their sexual orientation.”
However, Bob Knight of the
Culture and Family Institute (CFI) takes issue with that statement. He believes Lim’s talk of safety is cover for the homosexual agenda. “What [such policies] produce is intolerance toward anyone who won’t accept homosexuality,” he says, adding that in this case, that means “teachers who know that it’s not a good thing to sell kids on the idea that it’s okay to be gay.”
According to Knight, the heated debate going on at San Leandro High is not about safety at all. “This is about bullying people and saying you will kneel down and bow to the Baal god of homosexuality — or we’ll make your life very miserable,” he says.
The CFI spokesman maintains the school district is demonstrating intolerance toward the five teachers who are choosing not to display the posters — and those teachers, he adds, are courageous for standing up to the mandate.
“The school district has no business telling teachers to glorify behavior that has such a long list of known health risks,” Knight says. “This ought to be treated as a public health issue — not a matter of civil rights, as [homosexual activists] like to frame it.”
And it is wrong, Knight adds, to force teachers into a situation that implies their approval of an unsafe and unhealthy lifestyle. “When you put a rainbow poster up in your classroom, you’re lending the authority of the teacher to the gay-rights movement,” he explains. In essence, says Knight, the district is saying: “Kids, go ahead and try this behavior. Even your teacher is for it.”
The controversial poster was designed by students in the school’s Gay Straight Alliance Club, under the supervision of a homosexual art teacher. The Chronicle reported on Thursday that tensions had eased at the school following faculty discussions about the “underlying message” of the posters. The principal says she expects to see the posters up in all 200 classrooms this week, and will have “a private conversation” with any teacher who is not in compliance with the policy.


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