Jesus is Lord, A Worshipping Christian’s Blog

1 Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3 Then Jesus told them this parable:
4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’
7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Luke 15:1-7 (New International Version)

In this passage, Jesus equates the repentance of a sinner with finding a lost sheep.
The shepherds of Jesus’ day were completely committed to their sheep. They often went as far as actually giving them individual names. The sheep knew their shepherd and he knew each one of his sheep. The sheep would come to the shepherd when he called them and he could even identify his sheep from other sheep in the sheepfold.
Jesus used the “shepherd” and “sheep” analogy often during His ministry. He wanted us to understand that until we have accepted Him as our Lord and Savior, we are exactly like the lost sheep in the parable above. He is the Shepherd who constantly goes to look for us.
When we finally are found, by accepting Jesus, He says there is great rejoicing in Heaven.
How wonderful it must be for God and the Angels when someone turns from sin and becomes a child of God. The celebration must be an awesome sight to see.
Won’t you stop being one of the “sinners” and come home with the Good Shepherd, Jesus?

More from the religion of peace and tolerance.

A website in Assyria is confirming that a 14-year-old Christian boy who was working a 12-hour shift maintaining an electric generator has been murdered by Muslim insurgents.

The Assyrian International News Agency said the tragedy was reported by an Assyrian language web page at www.ankawa.com.

The youth was identified as Ayad Tariq, who lived in Baqouba, Iraq, and was at work on Oct. 21 when a group of “disguised Muslim insurgents” went into the power plant shortly after his shift began at 6 a.m.

The website reported the insurgents asked him for his identification and, according to other witnesses who hid and stayed alive to report on the attack, questioned his identification card’s reference to him as a “Christian.”

Are you truly a “Christian sinner,” they asked.

“Yes, I am Christian but I am not a sinner,” he replied.

The insurgents then called him a “dirty Christian sinner,” grabbed his limbs and held them while beheading him, the witnesses reported.

They were shouting, “Allahu akbar! Allahu Akbar!” during the murder, witnesses said.

An organization called AssyrianChristians.com said they are the indigenous people of Iraq, with a population that has been in the Middle East from the time of Christ.

However, they have faced a number of purges by the region’s rulers over time, including the present attacks by powerful Islamic factions across Iran, Iraq and neighboring nations, officials said.

Only two generations back, Assyrian Christians made up 20 percent of the population of the Middle East, but during the Assyrian Genocide of 1915, an estimated three million Christians were slaughtered there, the organization said.

Current estimates are that there are about 2.5 million Assyrian Christians in Iraq.

Kenneth Scott LaTourette wrote in “A History of Christianity” that the Assyrian Christians became the first nation to accept Christianity, and one of the largest missionary-sending peoples in Christian history.

“The Assyrian Christians are one of the last remaining Christian communities in the Middle East,” said Rev. Ken Joseph Jr., of the Assyrian Christians organization.

Tens of thousands of Assyrian Christians have fled their traditional homelands in recent months, officials confirmed.

Original Link.

An excellent article from Victor Davis Hanson. Please follow the link at the bottom of the post to read the whole thing.

The most frightening aspect of the present war is how easily our pre-modern enemies from the Middle East have brought a stunned postmodern world back into the Dark Ages.

Students of history are sickened when they read of the long-ago, gruesome practice of beheading. How brutal were those societies that chopped off the heads of Cicero, Sir Thomas More and Marie Antoinette. And how lucky we thought we were to have evolved from such elemental barbarity.

Twenty-four hundred years ago, Socrates was executed for unpopular speech. The 18th-century European Enlightenment gave people freedom to express views formerly censored by clerics and the state. Just imagine what life was like once upon a time when no one could write music, compose fiction or paint without court or church approval?

Over 400 years before the birth of Christ, ancient Greek literary characters, from Lysistrata to Antigone, reflected the struggle for sexual equality. The subsequent notion that women could vote, divorce, dress or marry as they pleased was a millennia-long struggle.

It is almost surreal now to read about the elemental hatred of Jews in the Spanish Inquisition, 19th-century Russian pogroms or the Holocaust. Yet here we are revisiting the old horrors of the savage past.

Beheading? As we saw with Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl, our Neanderthal enemies in the Middle East have resurrected that ancient barbarity — and married it with 21st-century technology to beam the resulting gore instantaneously onto our computer screens. Xerxes and Attila, who stuck their victims’ heads on poles for public display, would’ve been thrilled by such a gruesome show.

Who would have thought centuries after the Enlightenment that sophisticated Europeans — in fear of radical Islamists — would be afraid to write a novel, put on an opera, draw a cartoon, film a documentary or have their pope discuss comparative theology?

Original Link.

One repeatedly hears that some conservatives and Republicans will either vote Democrat or not vote at all — out of anger at the Republican Party.

According to these Republican holdouts, the Republicans have governed as Democrats-lite by greatly increasing government spending and doing little about illegal immigration. Accordingly, it is better to have liberal government under liberals than liberal government under Republicans, and the Republicans need to be taught a lesson so that in the future they will govern as authentic Republicans.

Conservatives should file this thinking under the heading “Cathartic,” but not under “Smart.”

One of the great realizations one comes to as the years pass is how small a role reason plays in most people’s decisions. From choosing products based on their packaging to deciding how to vote, passion and emotion usually eclipse reason.

Any Republican, let alone conservative, who votes Democrat or stays home out of pique with the Republican Congress or the president has chosen emotion over reason.

Have the Bush administration and Republican Congress spent too much money? Of course. And it really is quite annoying. Nothing unites conservative and moderate Republicans as does opposition to big government.

So it is not surprising that so many Republicans are furious at the increases in government spending, such as the staggeringly expensive Medicare prescription drug plan.

Add to this the fury of the conservative base of the Republican Party at the administration’s apparent apathy toward illegal “immigration,” and you have an Election Day problem.

Now, regarding spending, I share Republicans’ anger. Republicans who don’t control government spending do far more harm than Democrats who don’t. Why? Because when the smaller-government party expands government, those who believe in smaller government have nowhere to turn.

Nevertheless, if it were not for the Bush administration, we never would have gotten the substantial tax cuts that have led to such a robust economy (especially impressive in light of the costs of the war in Iraq and of Katrina).

As for illegal immigration, here, too, I identify with those who are frustrated that Republicans have not done more while in control of both the executive and legislative branches of government. But at least President Bush has signed a bill authorizing the building of a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. No Democratic president would do that. If you care about reducing illegal immigration, isn’t that reason enough to prevent the Democrats from gaining power?

Original Link.

In the United States, atheists are becoming an ostracized minority. But now evolutionary biologists are trying to turn the tables: According to their argument, religion is the source of evil. Morals and selflessness are not God-given - they are the result of evolution.

When Richard Dawkins, a zoologist at Oxford University, steps up to the altar he seems visibly pleased to see the pews in the church fully occupied. In the best Queen’s English, he reads from his book: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

At first his words are greeted with laughter, and then with resounding applause from his audience of 600. Despite the venue, the spectacle that took place last Thursday in the First Parish Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts was in fact the opposite of a religious service. Indeed, if the man delivering the sermon had his way, he would in fact be jettisoning religious faith altogether.

Richard Dawkins is a passionate believer in the theory of evolution, and he has written countless books in which he explains it to his millions of readers. Now, at the age of 65, Professor Dawkins is presenting his legacy to society in his latest book, titled “The God Delusion.”

It’s no surprise to God that these people continue to attack His people. He told us in His word it would happen.
II Peter 3:3 First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.

Original Link

After much research a Colorado newspaper ecouraged its readers to vote against the ‘gay marriage’ amendment. New Jersey’s recent decision should be a wake-up call to all Chrisitans in America (and the rest of the world as well). God’s people need to vote for His values. Gay Marriage, same-sex union, or whatever politically correct term they are using is not what God intends for marriage to be.

Eight states have on their election ballots next week proposals to set requirements in their constitutions that a marriage involves one man and one woman. Many mainstream media outlets, if they don’t advocate outright for same-sex wedding bells, are saying such actions are unnecessary, but one newspaper has given its readers a wake-up call.
That newspaper, the Grand Junction, Colo., Sentinel, earlier had recommended against approval for a state ballot initiative that would add to the Centennial State’s Constitution the Biblical and historically traditional definition of marriage.
Then came New Jersey.
That state’s Supreme Court recently said the state Legislature there must find a way to grant the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples.
“A few weeks ago, this corner reasoned that because state law already clearly defines marriage as a union only between one man and one woman, there was no need to formalize such language in the state Constitution. The decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court this week has changed our view.”
The newspaper continued with a description of the decision, that in effect had one branch of government ordering another what to do. In this case the courts ordered lawmakers that within 180 days they must either come up with a law endorsing homosexual marriage or “some creature that is not called marriage, but provides all of the rights, benefits and requirements of marriage for gay couples.”
In Colorado next week there will be conflicting issues on the ballot. Amendment 43 would establish the one-man-one-woman definition of marriage in the constitution; a plan called Referendum I would create “gay marriage” by another name.

Original Link

A report in the New York Times outlined (with some odd sense of triumph) the fact that for the first time in history, traditional marriage is a minority group among American households, under the headline, “It’s Official: To Be Married Means to Be Outnumbered”

“Married couples, whose numbers have been declining for decades as a proportion of American households, have finally slipped into a minority, according to an analysis of new census figures by The New York Times.”

The Times went on to highlight the numbers, saying, of 111.1 million American households, 49.9% — less than half — were made up of traditional households.

It went on to extoll the social virtues of unmarried couples living together, highlighted gay ‘marriages’ as a significant change in the social fabric, and ‘devoting a single line to noting that the numbers of single young adults and widows were both growing’.

As I read through the Times’ article, I got a whiff of a little ‘perspective shifting’ going on right in front of me.

The Times had some fun with numbers, using percentages of percentages to make them sound larger.

———-

“The census survey estimated that 5.2 million couples, a little more than 5 percent of households, were unmarried opposite-sex partners.”

Wait, a second. My head is starting to hurt. The Times first said married couples were now a ‘minority’ among American households but it appears only 5 percent of all households consist of unmarried heterosexuals. Are all the rest gay?

Well, not exactly.

“An additional 413,000 households were male couples, and 363,000 were female couples,” the Times reported. Curiously, the Times didn’t express that in percentages. Six figure numbers SOUND bigger.

Expressed as a percentage, 1.4% of all households being gay doesn’t sound like very many. Especially given the disproportionate clout enjoyed by the gay rights lobby based on their claim that 10% of the population is gay.

(It is worth noting that an estimated 2% of all Americans believe they’ve been abducted by aliens. But nobody is advocating UFOlogy courses for pre-schoolers.)

———-

What is surprising is the tone of the piece. And the clear agenda behind it. It took two full readings before it sunk into my thick head that there were no facts here.

Just breathless innuendo; “But marriage has been facing more competition. A growing number of adults are spending more of their lives single or living unmarried with partners, and the potential social and economic implications are profound.”

Yeah. 24% of 5% of the total. Profound.

The same story could have borne the headline; “More Widows and Young Unmarrieds Than Before.” But the Left’s agenda is to promote ‘alternative lifestyles’ as having somehow ‘triumphed’ over traditional marriage. Even if they have to lie to do so.

———-

The ‘growing’ number of ‘unmarried with partners’ represents 5% of all households. It is out of this five percent that all the larger-seeming percentages are being conjured. But the Times headline said married couples were outnumbered.

The NY Times’ slant was deliberate, because the destruction of the family unit is a basic principle of Marxist-Leninism. Leftists have long taken a decidedly jaundiced view of the traditional family.

To them, a household consisting of an adult male and female—united in matrimony—and their offspring is an antiquated, repressive institution standing in the way of constructing a “better,” more egalitarian world.

Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto declared that the “hallowed correlation of parent and child” is nothing more than “bourgeois claptrap.”

“Destroy the family,” Lenin said, “and you destroy society.”

History teaches that every totalitarian movement has tried to destroy the traditional family unit. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wanted the family destroyed, as did Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

They believed this to be necessary because the family was seen as a dangerous threat to the power of the State, which was to assume the rights, responsibilities and authority of the family.

It is the family that teaches the hard truths of moral values.

Therefore, it is the family which is the enemy of the State because it provides the formation of character which gives the young the ability to grow up to become independent, stable, functioning, and compassionate individuals.

Traditional families teach independence. Independence is poison to the Leftist ideal of cradle-to-grave dependence on the state.

That is why the Left is working so hard to redefine marriage until it has no meaning at all. Because the family unit was designed by God. The Left’s god is the state.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.” (Romans 1:28)

Original Link.

Michelle Malkin is reporting on the latest insulting remark made the Democrats mouthpiece, John Kerry. While campaigning for Phil Angelides, Kerry made the following remark:

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

So according to John Kerry, all of you good folks in the military, especially those of you in Iraq, are stupid, uneducated bumkins.

Read the rest of Michelle’s post here.

Or as Charles Johnson’s post over at Little Green Footballs says: “Manchester Imam Says ‘Kill Gays,’ Media Yawns”. He links to a blog by Bruce Bawer, who goes on to point out:

October 29, 2006: I have before me two news items dated October 24. One of them is from the Gay Community News, which reports that “The leading imam in Manchester…thinks the execution of sexually active gay men is justified.” The imam made his comments in a discussion with a Manchester psychotherapist, John Casson, who wanted the imam to clarify the Islamic position on the execution of gays in Iran. Both Jihad Watch and Little Green Footballs linked to this story at GCN. I’ve looked in vain for it in the major British newspapers.

The other item is a story from LifeSiteNews.com reporting that the BBC “has admitted to a marked bias against Christianity and a strong inclination to pro-Muslim reporting among the network’s executives and key anchors.” It has also admitted that “the corporation is dominated by homosexuals.” These admissions came at a secret “impartiality summit” that the Daily Mail reported on last Sunday. The Telegraph ran an opinion column about this summit, but otherwise I can’t find any reference to it on the websites of other major UK papers.

So the question is this: did the gay-dominated but Muslim-friendly BBC report on the Manchester imam’s comments? I searched the BBC site and found a brief story dated Thursday, October 26 — meaning that apparently the BBC took two days to get around to reporting this. And look how they spun it. The story is framed not as a report of a Muslim leader’s affirmation of the legitimacy under Islam of executions of gay people, but as a report of an effort to smear Muslims.

The headline: “Imam accused of ‘gay death’ slur.” The lead: “A gay rights campaigner has accused an Imam of saying the execution of gay Muslims to stop the spread of disease is ‘for the common good of man.’” The brief story that follows seems designed to raise doubts about the accuracy of Casson’s account of his conversation with the imam. And the piece concludes with comments from Massoud Shadjareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, who essentially dismisses the issue of Muslim executions of gay people — “He said homosexuality was ‘not compatible’ with Islam, just as it was not compatible with other orthodox religions, such as Catholicism” — and who complains that giving attention to this issue “is part of demonising Muslims.”

That’s right — to draw attention to the fact that orthodox Muslim belief approves of the execution of homosexuals is to demonize Muslims.

The BBC story ends there. There’s no indication of any effort to pin Shadjareh down on Muslim attitudes toward gays, no mention of the many previous occasions on which Muslim religious leaders have said essentially the same thing the Manchester imam did, no quote from a gay-rights activist, and (of course) no quote from a straight-talking Islam expert like Robert Spencer who might have explained that sharia law does indeed prescribe capital punishment for homosexuals.

If the BBC is in fact dominated by gays, I as a gay man am ashamed of and disgusted by every last one of them. What can they possibly think they’re accomplishing by whitewashing Islam in this fashion? It’s as if a Jewish media organization in the 1930s kept itself busy propagandizing for the Nazis and covering up plans for the Holocaust.

What I cannot understand is that the very people who have no problem with Islamic law being a part of free societies (the liberals) will be the most affected by those laws. The bottom line…if Islamic law become reality, the homosexuals, bi-sexuals, cross-dressers and such, will be the first against the wall. Kind of makes me wonder why the liberal groups support the Islamic culture so much.
The Brits are in trouble. Pray hard for them!!

Previous Post:
Leading UK Imam: It’s OK To Kill Gays
BBC Reviewing Programs for Bias

I had been teaching my three-year old daughter, Caitlin, the Lord’s Prayer for several evenings at bedtime.
She would repeat after me the lines from the prayer.
Finally, she decided to go solo.
I listened with pride as she carefully enunciated each word, right up to the end of the prayer:
“Lead us not into temptation,” she prayed, “but deliver us from E-mail.

———-

One particular four-year-old prayed, “And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”

———-

A Sunday school teacher asked her children as they were on the way to church service, “And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?”
One bright little girl replied, “Because people are sleeping.”

———-

Six-year-old Angie and her four-year-old brother, Joel, were sitting together in church.
Joel giggled, sang, and talked out loud.
Finally, his big sister had had enough.
“You’re not supposed to talk out loud in church.”
“Why? Who’s going to stop me?” Joel asked.
Angie pointed to the back of the church and said, “See those two men standing by the door?
They’re hushers.”

———-

A mother invited some people to dinner.
At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?”
“I wouldn’t know what to say,” the girl replied.
“Just say what you hear Mommy say,” the mother answered.
The daughter bowed her head and said,
“Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?”