Refreshment in Refuge: March 2013

at 12:09 PM

It seems that our military is bending over backwards to protect Nidal Hasan from the label terrorist. I believe it was a terrorist attack at Fort Hood. Hasan said he did it for religious reasons. (In fact, he taught soldiers under his command some of those Qu'ran tenets.) We have hundreds of witnesses that saw him spray bullets all over the place at Fort Hood. But...

"Passage of this legislation could directly and indirectly influence potential court-martial panel members, witnesses, or the chain of command, all of whom exercise a critical role under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Defense counsel will argue that Major Hasan cannot receive a fair trial because a branch of government has indirectly declared that Major Hasan is a terrorist -- that he is criminally culpable."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/30/defense-department-says-giving-purple-heart-to-fort-hood-survivors-would-hurt/#ixzz2P2dVEn23

So the survivors of that terrorist attack on soldiers of all ranks at a military facility during a state of war in Afghanistan may not get their medal. I find this heinous. What is worse is that we think we are safe on U.S. soil especially on a military base, but obviously that assumption is not true. Just as the assumption that Hasan would not get a fair trial if those soldiers received the Purple Heart medal.

This Axis of Evil reaches into the hearts and minds of those we believe should be immune. How many other people in positions of power and education are poised to strike as Hasan did both in the minds and to the bodies of his military brethren.

I can appreciate the desire for a fair trial. I can even appreciate the right of Hasan to have a fair trial, but it's been 4 years since he attacked his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. This trial should have occured 2 years ago, not dragging on this long. I believe the term is fair and speedy trial.

What I find even more outrageous is Hasan's attack was labeled "work place violence" rather than what is actually was: Terrorism. Why should the government label this act "work place violence" and not instantly label the attack on the embassy in Benghazi as terrorism? I suppose that was work place violence, too. It wasn't until many days after that act of war against a U.S. embassy that the president spoke out against "acts of terror", never saying the attack in Benghazi was an act of terrorism.

Why does it matter?

If we sit idly by allowing "the government" to shift and drift into a dictatorship taking over our lives, then we deserve to live as those early colonials did with someone else deciding and dictating how our lives should be lived, ordering us to think as IT requires, giving lip service to protective laws, and making laws in the executive and judicial branches without due process. I see this as the one of the last rungs on a slide into despotism as our lawmakers are edged off the platform in front of the express train of two-legged government.

Wake up America.

at 5:55 PM

is back.

I do not know where this image came from but it tells my story today exactly!

at 12:12 PM

If you have heard of e-Sword and have it on your electronic device, I guess I'm preaching to the choir. If you do no know about it, I suggest you look into it.

It's free.

While that isn't what commends it most, I always like to know the price of something before I invest any sort of time into research or study of a thing to see if I want it or not. It is free. Something that has this much value in our daily lives is free.

It is an electronic Bible study source. I have 22 translations of the Bible on my computer, along with 17 commentaries, and 12 Extras that include Josephus' War of the Jews and Antiquities of the Jews; Tortured for Christ, the Anti-Nicene Fathers' writings (Polycarp, Ignacious, etc.). Not all the Extras, Bibles, and Commentaries are free, but most of them are. I bought my NJKV and The Message, and I bought Nelson's Bible Manners and Customs, too.

Why am I telling you this?

Because I just read a post by someone who made a profound statement that the reason so many Christians gravitate to cults is because they are not rooted in Scripture. They get fuzzy-feel-goods from church but no meat and no roots. I did not know that these Seeker-type churches had terrible track records for longevity in church attendance. Those kinds of churches are bleeding as many members as they are gaining every year.

It isn't a numbers game!

There is a huge difference between quality and quantity. It matters that there are people sitting on pews around the world that truly are not possessors of Jesus Christ. That is so horrendous it makes me shiver. I ache for the body of Christ, but I weep for the lost who don't even know they are lost.

I do not get any meat from the sermons on Sunday morning. Those are directed to the lost and hungry. The meat comes on Sunday night and on Wednesday nights. Lately, I have not been able to attend those other two times because school duties are pressing me down. So, if I did not study my Bible regularly, I would be starving right now.

It isn't the Pastor's job to feed you!

We are sheep and your pastor is the shepherd. Shepherds do not stuff sheep mouths with grass or chew their cud for them. They lead sheep to green pastures. It is up to the sheep to eat. So read your Bible daily. Go to church regularly. Get close to God and live worship. Worship is not an event. It isn't something that you do a few times a month. Worship is a lifestyle and designed by God to keep you out of trouble of your own making.

Yes, we Christians experience trials and troubles that are common to man. We live in a fallen world ruled by a fallen angel and live with fallen men. But, we have God to carry us through it all, and our only obligation is to give Him glory, honor, and praise. We do that by living worship. The closer to Him we cuddle, the easier it is to live worship.

That is my rant for the day!

at 3:43 PM

by Eve

The Garden of Eden, Cole Thomas, 1828

10. God worried that Adam would always be lost in the garden because men hate to ask for directions.

9. God knew that Adam would one day need someone to hand him the TV remote. (Men don't want to see what's ON television, they want to see WHAT ELSE is on!)

8. God knew that Adam would never buy a new fig leaf when his seat wore out and would therefore need Eve to get one for him.

7. God knew that Adam would never make a doctor's appointment for himself.

6. God knew that Adam would never remember which day was garbage day.

5. God knew that if the world was to be populated, men would never be able to handle childbearing.

4. As "Keeper of the Garden," Adam would never remember where he put his tools.

3. The scripture account of creation indicates Adam needed someone to blame his troubles on when God caught him hiding in the garden.

2. As the Bible says, "It is not good for man to be alone!"

1. When God finished the creation of Adam, He stepped back, scratched His head and said, "I can do better than that."

It's interesting that the only time that God said, "It is not good" during His creation was when man was alone. I thank God for his wisdom in creating such a perfect complement to man (despite everything they do to irritate us! :-)

"Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.' Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

(Genesis 2:22-24).

If you're married, I encourage you to take a moment today to remind your wife (or husband) how much she/he means to you. They never get tired of hearing it!

From

Alan Smith's TFTD

at 6:40 PM

Mick Stephenson mixpix 20:28, public domain

There are many who sit in the pews of churches that think they are saved, but in truth are not possessors of Jesus. These are the ones who are tasting what a true relationship with Jesus might be like, yet are not buying into or fully drinking the living water of the one true God. It will be a rude awakening for them when the Great Snatch happens. This isn’t about hidden sin. It is about uncertainty of salvation, and about no complete commitment with heart on a platter to God through Jesus His son.

There are those Christians who fully believe in Jesus and are not condemned, but who do not bend the knee to Jesus as LORD. They walk on the edge of darkness and not in the Spirit. They have little of the Fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-21), but are in truth still saved. How do we know? How can we separate the tares from the wheat? We cannot. God even holds back the angels from that task so that the wheat would not be destroyed (Matthew 13).

at 4:49 PM

(Have you ever thought how God might talk to stiff-necked Christians? Have you ever thought about how we weary Him with our cries for help? We act like that servant who owed his master millions then when his debt was forgiven, he badgered all the other servants to pay him back the $10s and $20s.)

What? Oh you want something from Me? Let me guess. You want me to heal you, or is it you want Me to take away your pain. Ah... you always pray to Me but your prayers are like the bleating of plugged trumpets, letting Me know you are in trouble of some kind as if I don't know it already. Heigh-ho, it's always something.

Your troubles are not special and are most common to mankind. I look down at you and I don't see you doing anything that I've taught you to do. You fast, but you fight with your brothers and sisters. You run your workforce into the ground, and they lay there panting for water that is always too far away to reach... and you won't lift your little finger to push the water to them.

You pretend to worship with smug expressions, all the while pinching your neighbor or punching the hurting when they are down. You put the lock on the chains of oppression, take advantage of everyone you can, and you pile more debt on top of heavy debt. You wink and nod and snicker behind your hands. You whisper gossip to all who will listen. You tell the cold and hungry to “be warm and be filled”. What is that of Me?

Tell Me why I should do anything for you? I can’t hear you because your prayers aren’t getting off the ground.

Listen, oh pointed headed one, listen to what the LORD says. Unlock the stocks restraining your workforce; take away that pointing finger. Quit speaking wickedness. Open your pockets for the hungry, and your heart to the afflicted, hurting souls that are living right in your own neighborhood. Stay the hand of wickedness, and lift up those heavily burdened. Lift off the millstone from the oppressed, and remove the yokes.

Do these things and I will give you strong muscles and bones. I will speed up your healing. I will make you a blinding light that dispels the darkness; and I, the LORD, will be your rear guard.

Go ahead and pour yourself out for the hungry, and see what I will do. Make happy the afflicted and watch your light drive out the darkness. I, the LORD, will direct your feet. You will be like a gurgling spring, always with water never drying up, always refreshing to the thirsty. Your bones will be strong, you will be contented even in charred places.

Turn back to true worship. Quit seeking your own pleasure on My Holy Day. Worship Me. If you honor Me and My day, then you will find your delights, and I will make you to ride on the heights of the earth, for the LORD has spoken.

at 2:32 PM

Technology! There is nothing like it. It used to be so simple and waiting rooms used to be quite things where the only sound was the occasional flip of a magazine page, a muffled cough and perhaps a murmured conversation. Then came the beepers. I still recall having to pull to the side of the road in the pouring rain to answer a page from my boss and that allowed him to add another appointment to my Friday calls. Then comes the car phone age... Thankfully, I avoided those big black phone bags!

at 2:18 PM

Understanding Bullying in the Workplace

Bullies cause havoc within the workplace much more than is reported or recognized by workers. Some bullies don’t even realize what they are doing when they succumb to the intense desire to control and make life miserable causing their targets to lose their jobs (Nami and Nami, 2009) because they have the power to do so; and because they themselves are miserable. The bully in this case was a co-worker who thought she was my boss. The true bosses (the Police Jury) had not designed a full job description; therefore she usurped authority without definition of that authority. Until recently, I had no conception I had been the target of a bully; but during some research for a newspaper article, I realized what bullying in the workplace was doing to thousands, if not millions of people.

at 3:44 PM

Every time I think about how frugally my mom and dad raised my sister and me I have to smile. We were not poor, just at the lower edges of middle class. We still had plenty to eat, good, hand made clothes, and a house with 1 bathroom, and we are better for it as adults. We learned a lot about sharing, and time management, and excellent work ethic.

It would seem that those in government were not so well brought up. Evidently, wasteful and out of control spending will continue.

From the Wastebook by Sen. Tom Coburn: $17,000 for each drip pan on the Blackhawk helicopters, or $1.5 million to develop a new kind of beef jerky by the Naval researchers.

at 4:30 PM

We are saturated with the adages, “You can’t help who you love,” and “Love blossoms in strange places,” but I rarely hear the truth about love. Satan has built a huge cult about infatuation and lust calling it true love, yet he has no notion what true love is so how can he define it? Why do we listen to his lies about it?

Simply because he tells us what we want to hear, and we rarely look past that searching for truth because the truth is, love is a lot of work. Paul does an excellent job of analyzing love in 1 Corinthians 13.

Love translates different languages and jumbled emotions into understanding. Speaking in tongues of men or angels is simply clanging cymbals if one is not speaking through love. Therefore, love is a filter which strains out the uglies.

Any kind of power given by God Almighty to do His works such as prophecy and perception, wisdom of mysteries, knowledge of the bible as well as sciences diminishes into wisps of fog if one doesn’t have love as a focus or magnifier. A magnifying glass can start a forest fire because it can focus the sun’s rays upon tinder, but it is harmless when moved away from the fuel. Love focuses our energy fueled by God into His work that He prepared for us before the world’s foundations were formed. John tells us that God is love so we can understand that God has designed our work, He also fuels us with the necessary motivations to do the work; and He does this through love: His love for us and our love for Him. That is the strongest bond in the universe because He has physically and spiritually morphed us with the Holy Spirit into new creations.