Obama writing laws... still

I watch Fox News and there's a fellow that wanders around New York streets asking questions of folks on the street. I think his name is Watters. It is heart breaking how people have no clue what is going on in our government, and what government officials are up to. I wrote an article last year about the Executive and Judicial branches making laws  and long before that an article in 2009 about Obama's first 9 months in office.

Adding to a law that congress had already passed is bad enough, but circumventing laws through government offices such as Obama using the IRS against TEA Party organizations, and now this:



You may recall the disgraceful scene when President Obama openly chastised Supreme Court Justices in his State of the Union address a few months after the Court’s decision was announced.  It was truly one of the low points in a presidency which has many other disgraceful events contributing to an increasingly sad legacy.   

Now, taking matters into his own hands, Barack Obama has directed his henchmen at the IRS to reinstate similar rules against 501(c)(4) organizations – taking those rules even further than the ones struck down by the Court in Citizens United


The proposed new rules not only outline select words that cannot be used by our organization and other similar groups, it greatly expands the list of who is included as being untouchable “candidates.”

In the proposed regulations, a “candidate” is defined as “an individual who identifies himself or is proposed by another for selection, nomination, election, or appointment to any public office or office in a political organization, or to be a Presidential or Vice-Presidential elector, whether or not the individual is ultimately selected, nominated, elected, or appointed.”

In other words, ANY “candidate” for office is excluded from comment on the part of 501 (c)(4) groups, from local sheriffs to president of the country. The rule also prohibits our ability to “call out” presidential nominees or anyone seeking federal agency or military appointments. 

The new regulations are a further slap in the face to the Supreme Court ruling! They are an assault on our First Amendment rights! And they are an overt, reprehensible abuse of power! 

I think the problems are only now beginning. I remember Revelation says somewhere that Satan realizes his time is short and he's spitting mad to do as much harm as he can before being sealed in the pit for 1,000 years. I think Obama sees his time is short and he's anxious to do as much as possible to lay a foundation for a frightening agenda before someone else takes office. We Christians had better pray very hard that sanity comes back to our government officials or we may be speaking Chinese as our state language... 

Engraved in His palm,
Gina 




Forgive yourself...



Probably one of the hardest things to do is to forgive yourself. Someone once pointed out to me that it was not a Biblical principle. I hunted and searched for hours trying to find something in the Bible about forgiving oneself. The closest I came was David’s psalm 51 when he asked God to create in him a clean heart and to renew a right spirit within him. When you compare his psalm 32 in verse 3 When I kept silence, then my bones became old, through my howling all day. We see the consequences of unconfessed sin. But that is different from forgiving one’s self for past transgressions which we have confessed and repented. Why do we groan in shame for them long after the deed?

Satan constantly bombards us with taunts of past wrongs hoping that our guilty feelings will draw us away from God, out from under His protective wings. That is something that Satan knows we as Christians are prone to do. We think our sin is too huge to be forgiven because we think from our own level of forgiveness. How could we forgive someone doing that to us? If we can’t forgive, then how can God forgive? That is another of Satan’s lies that we buy into.

That still didn’t quite fit the requirement for a Biblical basis of forgiving yourself. So I kept looking and found Isaiah 54:4  Do not fear, for you shall not be shamed, nor shall you be abashed, for you shall not be wounded, for you shall forget the shame of your youth, and you shall not remember the reproach of your widowhood any more.

Very interesting word, widowhood. The Hebrew word is the feminine form of H488 which is אלמן
'almân
al-mawn'
Prolonged from H481 in the sense of bereavement; discarded (as a divorced person): - forsaken.

Isaiah is prophesying a time when Israel will be gathered to the LORD’s breast as a much beloved wife. In verses four through five, he is talking about the shame and guilt we feel when we are confronted with our sin and are convicted of it within our heart. Here are most beautiful words to any Christian who has had those moments of knee-bending, face-in-the-carpet shame: You will no longer remember your disgrace.

Why did God say that? Because we have a conscience and we are prone to dwell on the negative. That saying one bad apple spoils the whole barrel is true. Negativism breeds and multiplies faster and further than anything imaginable. Just look at the murmuring and rumbling of the Israelites in the wilderness. When you get that old Dragon, the Accuser firing guilt tipped darts at the chinks in our armor, you have a problem of unforgiveness of the self kind. 

To forgive our self, we must reverse that process and remember that God is greater than our sin. Christ’s sacrifice was once and for all… that means every possible, conceivable sin was accounted for and covered by Jesus’ blood. That, my beloved siblings, is the greatest story of grace man ever attempted to understand.

Since our Kinsman Redeemer has already bought the sin, why do we insist on hanging on to it?

Unbelief.

It isn’t hard to do, either. Even Moses, who was the conveyor of such miracles of God as the parting of the Red Sea, the providing of water for more than two million thirsty people, plus all the livestock (which is an astronomical amount of water every day), and forty year old shoes and garments never wearing out plus many other things, had a moment of unbelief which cost him the promised land. Numbers 20:10-12. He struck the rock twice instead of speaking to it. God said it was his unbelief that caused it.

We Christians do not believe that God can, in fact already has forgiven that horrendous sin that we keep hidden in our hearts. Holding on to the sin is tantamount to making Jesus go to the cross all over again. That is what unbelief does. Since we know He only went once, and that was enough, then we should know that those guilty feelings which Satan aims at us as fiery darts, are literally harmless breaths of hot wind. They have no teeth so to speak, it is merely baying at the moon.

What happens to our past moral and spiritual failures when we repent of our sins and claim God’s forgiveness? Have you ever had an itch right in the middle of your back? Ever try to scratch it with your hand? That is where God casts our sins when we confess and repent, never to be reached, touched or thought of again. Glory!

The LORD forgives the past. His great compassion is far beyond understanding. If we were to be asked to give our first and only beloved son to pay for the lives of the most wicked of people who had nothing worthy to give back, our hearts would be granite and our faces be flint. Yet, God has mercy for us because while we were yet sinners, Christ willingly died for us. Here’s the Biblical proof of it:

Heb 8:12  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more."
Heb 10:17  also He adds, "their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more."
Jer 31:34  And they shall no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says Jehovah. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more.
Isa 38:17  Behold, for peace was bitter to me, most bitter; but You loved my soul from the pit of destruction; You have cast all my sins behind Your back.

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills tremble; My loving kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall the covenant of My peace be shaken, says Jehovah who loves you. Isaiah 54:10

New Year's Resolution Prayers...


Lord, help me to relax about insignificant details beginning tomorrow at 7:41:23 a.m. p.s.t.

Lord, help me to consider people's feelings, even if most of them are hypersensitive.

Lord, help me to take responsibility for my own actions, even though they're usually not my fault.

Lord, help me to not try to run everything.  But, if You need some help, please feel free to ask me!

Lord, help me to be more laid back and help me to do it exactly right.

Lord, help me to take things more seriously, especially laughter, parties, and dancing.

Lord, give me patience, and I mean right now

Lord, help me not be a perfectionist. (Did I spell that correctly?)

Lord, help me to finish everything I sta

Lord, help me to keep my mind on one th -- Look a bird -- ing at a time.

Lord, help me to do only what I can, and trust you for the rest. And would you mind putting that in writing?

Lord, keep me open to others' ideas, wrong though they may be.

Lord, help me be less independent, but let me do it my way.

Lord, help me follow established procedures today.  On second thought, I'll settle for a few minutes.

Lord, help me slow down andnotrushthroughwhatIdo.  Amen

Editor's Note: Found in old, old papers. I have no idea who wrote it, but it's great to remember how we can seem to be praying, but actually we are ordering God around. He actually did put everything we need in writing, and signed it in the blood of His Son, Jesus. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him that we do not have to remember everything, do everything, be everything. Praise Him that we can rest in Him, and there is such comfort in the fact He takes very good care of His own. Amen!

12 Days of Cajun Christmas

Day 1:
Dear Boudreaux, Thanks for de bird in de Pear tree. I fix it las'night with dirty rice. I doan tink de pear tree will grow wid all da heat in the summa.

Day 2:
Dear Boudreaux, You letter say you sent two turtle doves, but all I got was two scrawny pigeons. Anyway, I mixed dem with andouille an made some gumbo out of dem.

Day 3:
Dear Boudreaux, Why couldn't you a sent me Crawfish? I'm tired of eating dem darn birds. I gave two of dose prissy French chickens to Marie Trahan over at Grans Bayou an fed the third one to my dog Phideaux. Marie needed some sparring partners for her fighting rooster.

Day 4
Dear Boudreaux, Mon Dieux! I tol you no more xxxxx birds. Deez four, what you call dem "calling birds" were so noisy you could hear dem all de way to Napoleonville. I used dere necks for my crab traps, an fed de rest of dem to de gators.

Day 5
Dear Boudreaux, You finally sen' somethin useful. I like dem golden rings. I hocked dem at da pawn shop in Thibodeaux and got enuf money to fix da shaft on my shrimp boat an buy a round for da boys at de Raisin' Cane Lounge. Merci Beaucoup!

Day 6:
Dear Boudreaux, Couchon! Back to da birds, you Cajun turkey! Poor egg suckin' Phideaux is scared to death at dem six geeses. He tried to eat dems eggs and dey peck de heck out ah his snout. Dey good at eating cockroaches, though. I may stuff one of dem wit oyrster dressing on Christmas day.

Day 7:
Dear Boudreaux, I'm gonna wring your fool neck next time I see you. Thibeau, da mailman, is ready to kill ya. The merde from all dem birds is stinkin' up his mailboat. He afreerd someone will slip on dat stuff and sue him good. I let those seven swans loose to swim on de bayou and some duck hunters from Mississippi blasted dem out of de water. Talk to you tomorrow.

Day 8:
Dear Boudreaux, poor ole Thibeau, he had to make tree trips on his mailboat to deliver dem 8 maids a milkin and their cows. One of dem cows got spooked by da alligators and almost tipped over da boat. I doan like dem shiftless maids, me no. I tolt dem to get to work guttin fish and sweepinq the shack but dey say it wasn't in dair contract. Dey probably think dey too good ta skin nutrias I caught las night.

Day 9:
Dear Boudreaux, What you trying to do huh? Thibeau had to borrow The Lutcher ferry to carry dem jumpin twits you call Lords-a-Leaping across the bayou. As soon as dey gots here dey wanted a tea break with crumpets. I doan know what dat means but I says, "Well La Di Da. You get Chicory coffee or nuttin." Mon Dieu, Emile. What I'm gonna feed all dese bozos? Dey too snooty for fried nutria, and de cows done eat my turnip greens.

Day 10:
Dear Boudreaux, You got to be outs you mind! If de mailman don't kill you, I will fo sure. Today he deliver 10 half nikid floozies from Bourbon Street. Dey said dey be "Ladies Dancin" but dey doan act like ladies in front of dose Limey twits. Dey almos left after one of dem got bit by a water moccasin over by da out-house. I had to butcher 2 cows to feed toute le monde an had to get toilet paper; the Sears catalog wasn't good enuf fer dose hoity toity Lords' royal behin'

Day 11:
Dear Boudreaux, where y'at? Cheerio an pip pip. Your 11pipers piping arrives today from the House of Blues, second lining as dey got off de boat. We fixed stuffed goose and beef jambalaya and we having a fais-do-do. Da new mailman he having a good time, yeah, dancing with de floozies. Thibeau he jump off de Sunshine Bridge yesterday, screaming your name. If you get a mysterious, ticking package in de mail, doan open it.

Day 12:
Dear Boudreaux, I sorry to tell ya but I not your true love anymore, no. After da fais-do-do, I played cards all de night with Jacque, de head piper. We decide to open a restaurant and gentleman's club on de bayou. The floozies, pardon me, Ladies dancing can make $20 for a table dance, and de Lords can be waiters an valet park de boats. Since de maids doan have no more cows ta milk, I trained dem ta set my crab traps, watch my trotlines, an run my shrimping business. We will probably gross a million nex year.

(I have no idea who wrote this, or where it came from. First published here in December 2011.)

Why do we doubt?

There was a story told long ago about a certain wealthy man. He had so much
wealth he struggled to remain alive because he did not want to leave behind his wealth when he died. When that fatal day finally came, the angels came for him, and he begged and pleaded to bring at least some of his gold with him to Heaven. The angel tried to explain to him that naked he came into the world and naked he would leave. But, his gold had never let him down. He had always been able to open locked doors with it and to build bridges to foreign lands with it. So after vigorous pleading, the angels allowed him to pack a satchel with one brick of gold to take with him. At the pearly gates, St. Peter took the man’s satchel and said, “What have we here?” The man replied that he needed to bring something from earth that had never failed to help him in just about any situation. So Peter opened the bag and peered into its depths, then chuckled and said, “Yes, but little man, why did you bring pavement?”

As humans, we put our faith and trust in things that we never realize we are trusting. I sit in a chair and know it will keep me from falling on the floor. I know the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening. I turn the key in the ignition of my car and expect it to start the engine and for it to take me where I need to go. I don’t have quite as much faith in computers as some of them have failed me more often than my car.

There is the key. My car, actually, has never failed me, the one I have now. Other cars failed me and one in particular I never had faith it would start. I would always pray and hope it would start every time I slid into the driver’s seat.

We often smile and shake our heads and say, ‘How could the disciples not have had faith?’ Jesus spoke and the storm calmed, He reached out and plucked Peter from sinking in the water, He cast out the demon from the boy and the boy was well ever after that, He fed the five thousand and the four thousand with baskets of food left over. When God shows Himself in that glory, how could anyone not have faith? Jesus told them what was going to happen, and yet they still scattered to the winds with the Sanhedrin guards came for Him in the garden. How could that happen?

How indeed?

God has never failed me, and I know He has never failed you.

Why is it, then, we sometimes have doubts? Is it our point of reference like that wealthy man? We live so heartily in this physical world that we have forgotten how great God is?

People have failed me; even the ones that I never expected much from, failed me. It is not their fault because they are human with human natures that are imperfect. We do not have the capability to be perfect within our flesh. That is impossible. God, on the other hand, is perfect and infallible.
But, we gauge God through our human-ness. We think with our finite minds and see God with our imperfect vision forgetting that we are made in God’s image (not the other way around) and not in His perfect nature and character. We have the potential and we will be perfect one day, just not today. Therefore, we cannot see all that God sees or know all that God knows and that makes for an imperfect understanding of our own situations and future. It also makes for a very imperfect and perhaps quite wobbly faith.

Just as a three-legged stool wobbles if all three legs are not of even length, faith and trust wobble when not of even strength. Wobbly faith makes repentance and forgiveness difficult to accomplish because trust is the stabilizing leg in faith. We must trust God that obeying Him will be in our own best interest. Obedience means forgiving the unforgivable, and repenting all our sins, even the secret sins we harbor in the wrinkles of our heart.

Here is the tricky part. God is okay with the wobbly faith up to a point. There comes a time when God expects trust no matter the cost, and trusting Him can be quite costly from a secular worldly point of view. Yet, it is our weakness that glorifies His strength. Our trust magnifies His name. Our frailties in concert with God’s power make the angels marvel.

God has never failed me.

I have to go with what I know, regardless of the feelings of doubt, because those feelings are so fleeting. So in the famous words of a song popular in the 1970s, I put my hand in the hand of the Man that stilled the water because He kept His promises no matter the cost. How, indeed, can my faith falter?

Faith is the pivotal point in forgiveness. Like trust, our faith is not based on feelings, but on our past experience with God our Father. We know because He keeps all His promises, He will take care of us. Understanding that, we can hope for vindication from false testimony, but it may not happen until all the dust clears from our earthly clothes falling from our glorified bodies. By then, it will all be small stuff. Trying to understand that it is all small stuff now is harder to grasp.

My sweet friend doesn’t mind me using her dream as an illustration for my point. She dreamed she walked into a house that was filled with all manner of buzzing saws and jagged-edged, sharp instruments designed to slice easily through wood and steel, only this house was filled with children of all ages. They were running and playing. Every so often a child would come too close to the saw or knife and would lose an arm or leg, and some even lost their heads. She was horrified and instantly knelt at the foot of the throne.

“God why are you allowing such harm come to your children? How can you be so cruel?”

“My dear beloved,” God replied to her, “these children are suffering no permanent harm. I can heal them instantly. When they come to me, their bodies are renewed into perfect form, and they draw upon My strength for their health. This earthly walk is temporary, and the earthly life is temporal. Live it, enjoy it, but there is so much more, and so much better waiting for you with Me. Today you walk in shifting shadows of all that is to come.”

All the sword stabs, all the knife slices, and the bone crushing saws are truly nothing when compared to eternity. God will restore His children to newness of life in glorified bodies that have no blemish, scars, or wrinkles. It hurts now, but will merely seem like shadows when we bask in God’s glory in the throne room of Heaven.

When facing doubt, we should always consider the eternity factor.


[The above is an excerpt from my book When Christians Hurt Christians that I am currenly working on, hopefully to publish soon.]

Another knee-jerk reaction to truth about homosexualism

Yes, everyone is talking about it. A&E kicked Phil Robertson, the patriarch of Duck Commander, off the TV show Duck Dynasty. This is the same type of reaction that PBS did with Juan Williams when he voice concern over Arab-dressed men in an airport terminal. Why is it that everyone who is pro-homosexual lifestyle, and anti-Christian can voice any opinion they care to spout, but if someone who is actually speaking Truth, nostrils flare and necks go stiff in indignation.

If you think about it, before 1970 the homosexual was regarded as a pervert and was stigmatized if the closet door was opened. AIDS opened the door to sympathy for homosexuals, and suddenly the homosexual activists realized how powerful pop culture could be for their cause. That's when Hollywood was seduced into thinking that homosexuality is "normal" and made to believe there are far more gay/lesbians in America than actually are. The 2010 census tells us that barely .3% of the population actually admit to living the lifestyle.

However, in the past 3 decades, the number of people in the US that have changed their opinion of the gay lifestyle has increased exponentially as the number of gay/lesbian characters featured in TV shows has increased. They have been portrayed as high-class urbanites with great senses of humor, and with characterizations oozing with likability.

This is the way Satan works. It is truly a Spiritual War we are fighting. Just as Jesus said, "The world will hate you just as it hates Me." The attacks are not against Phil for speaking the Truth of the Bible, it is against Jesus. 


Billy Stevens offers 7 ways you can help Phil Robertson. But they are strictly for Christians.

Is Evangelism going out of style? New Barna study


.Read the article here.

Why do you think evangelicals have a problem with follow-through from conviction to actually sharing Jesus with someone? I'm not talking about in-your-face kind of street shouting/preaching. I'm talking about between friends sharing a trial or troubling event.

I think more Christians share their faith in the way they live, and act, and pray, and talk. It is not about a 5-point, Roman Road, or even outright asking the question, "Do you know Jesus?" It is about being in the right place at the right time saying the exact words that God puts in your mouth to the person God has put in your path. Those times, we rarely remember because it is so controlled by God, and not contrived by human invention.

So is this survey literally correct, or are there certain aspects that have not been captured by an abrupt phone call and participating in an off-the-cuff interview? Something to ponder, for sure. Maybe I'm totally wrong.

Editing is not nitpicking

Received this from friends at Pro-Edit... People wonder why I'm so nitpicky about how things are worded. A few examples are below :D


[WALL OF SHAME] Headline Hilarity

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Cumming, GA – December 16, 2013 – Just one more editorial review might have saved these headline blunders. But then again, their gaffes are our laughs!
Enjoy these funny headlines.
  • Iraqi Head Seeks Arms
  • Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says
  • Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
  • Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Ax
  • Farmer Bill Dies in House
  • British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands
  • Teacher Strikes Idle Kids
  • Miners Refuse to Work after Death
  • Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
  • War Dims Hope for Peace
  • If Strike Isn’t Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile
  • Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures
  • Enfield (London) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
  • Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges
  • Man Struck By Lightning Faces Battery Charge
  • New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
  • Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
  • Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
  • Chef Throws His Heart into Helping Feed Needy
  • Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
  • Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
  • Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead


Source: http://www.plainlanguage.gov/examples/humor/headlines.cfm

Obama's moratorium & Obamacare bad economic decisions

Back in June of 2011 I wrote the post below. Sadly, nothing has changed since then.

Here's the kicker--In 1941-1944 the Federal Government moved thousands of troops across wide expanses of water from three coasts to defeat an evil that threatened economic and social collapse.  It fed the troops, fueled the ships and planes, made tactical moves to thwart war time threats against America, dealt with spies, codes, and innumerable colossal, global threats. Then brought home its heroes, buried the heroic dead, and moved the nation into an economic boom. Why can't the feds build one little website that is safe and secure from all alarm?

According to a report done by an independent firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, the moratorium Pres. Obama instigated against the oil and gas industry's drilling cost the taxpayers of this country $1.3 trillion. In 2010 that was our national debt deficit. Perhaps that figure was tossed around back when the Gulf oil spill happened, but I don't remember it because we were all so worried about oil-encrusted pelicans and wetlands of Louisiana since that seemed to be the only pictures we saw coming from the news media--and, of course the decimated fishing/shrimping industry.

It was a knee-jerk reaction designed to calm the Green voices screaming to save our environment. Those voices didn't shout very loud in the faces of the starving families of south Louisiana and in Texas which has more than 1.7 million people employed in the industry which actually has 7.5% total employment and economic impact.

(Can anyone actually fathom how much $1 trillion actually is? In perspective, We have 86,000 seconds in one 24 hour period. One billion seconds is 33.5 years. It takes 1,000 billions to equal one trillion, then one trillion seconds would be 33,500 years.)

Now the Obamacare catastrophe is the creeping cancer which is eating up jobs and any economic growth. Tenn. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) said recently that he met with CEOs of restaurant chains (which btw are the largest employers besides the government -- both are paid servants!). The tidings are extremely grim.

Obamacare regulations have eaten away profits -- which is why business people are in business, and have made many stores reduce employees drastically. Not to mention the 3500 pages written after the thing was voted into law. We're going to need to hire governing group to make sure companies are complying with all the 3500 pages of regs plus the 2500 pages of law; hire more judges to interpret the law and those will need to be physicians/nurse practitioners so they will understand the medical terminology and not be hoodwinked by savvy attorneys. We'll need to hire savvy attorneys with expertise in medical law so everyone from medicaid, medicare, and general populations will have their rights guarded and not snatched away by the government.

Oh, wait! We've already got our rights snatched away. In fact, the Christian Science religion has a fight on their hands now because medical care is against their beliefs so what happens now that they are compelled to buy insurance for care they don't believe in?

What's more, hospitals are full of doctors who don't know the difference between a sore throat and a  peptic lesion. They have to run tests to see. I have this on good authority from my daughter who works in a hospital.

So now the government tells us whether or not we can take Avastin for metastasized breast cancer; how to run the emergency room; which doctor you'll see about your sore throat; when you get your flu shot; and how often you can go to the doctor. The government hasn't yet decided on how to treat your bone cancer; and I'm still standing in line for my allergies. As soon as a government office opens to decide on whether eye surgery is a wellness procedure or a preventive procedure I'll get back to you.

God Gave Us Laughter 2



The clerk of the Session at 1st Presbyterian went to visit the Pastor in the hospital, who had just suffered a mild heart-attack.

Arriving at the Pastor's room, the clerk sends forth the following comforting words: "Pastor, the Session just voted 9 to 3 to wish you a speedy recovery!"