He doesn't take sides

Jos 5:13 And it happened, when Joshua was beside Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked. And, behold! A Man stood in front of him, and His drawn sword was in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, Are You for us, or for our foes?
Jos 5:14 And He said, No, for I now come as the Commander of the army of Jehovah. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped. And he said to Him, What does my Lord speak to His slave?
Jos 5:15 And the Commander of the army of Jehovah said to Joshua, Take your shoe off your foot, for the place on which you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so.

With sword in hand, Jesus was ready for battle. But, He said "No," to Joshua's question.

No, He doesn't take sides. He is the God of Republicans and of Democrats. He is the God of Northerners and of Southerners, of blacks and of whites, of rich and of poor.

Why don't people see this?

He doesn't take sides, He is ready to take over if only we would move over and let Him take over. We are not in control, no matter how much we'd like to be in control, we are not. It's that simple, but not simple to understand or accept. It rather boggles the mind.

Joshua fell to his face. He knew. Without God humans can do nothing. Joshua was facing a daunting task...take over of a country. The Canaanites had weak stomachs for they had heard about God parting the waters for the Israelites. Rahab told them this. But when God parted the Jordan for them to cross over, the people of Canaan lost all hope and their stomachs melted!

When God takes over, things just go right. Joshua and the Israelites stomped around Jericho for a few days and the walls came tumbling down. Cool. They ate well, and all was right with the world until Ai.

Look what happened there. It is much more than one tiny town defeating the huge army. That defeat put some of the heart back into the Canaanites. All for a purple robe and a gold bar. A family was lost into the depths of the earth.

When we take the sword back, we not only hurt ourselves but hurt those around us. Yes, it is best to let God take over. He's much better at it than we are and, besides, He can see the whole picture while we only see a few pixels.

Why do we argue?

I love to bounce thoughts off brothers and sisters in Christ. I have to be so very careful which discussions I enter though because some of them go into phaser blast mode where no one  learns anything.

Now, it seems that everyone has an agenda.

Why is that?

Why can't everyone have patience with their siblings in Christ? I do not understand where some people get their interpretations, either. I know we are reading the same Book, but I do not think we are reading the Whole Book and taking into consideration the Whole of Scripture. That must be the case and why we have such a difficult time agreeing. I find agendas exhausting.

Some want just the OT without the inconvenience of obeying the commands of Jesus-all 1001 of them.
Some want just the warm fuzzy God, who will let everyone into Heaven just because He is so good and loving.
Some insist that only a very few will get into Heaven because God predestined them.
Some do not know what the resurrection means.
Some do not believe in the Triune God, even though Jesus speaks of the Triune.
Some are content with half-truths.
Some are content with half-lies.
Some would judge rather than love.

I find it very exhausting.

Come Lord Jesus, come quickly and settle this unsettlement

Outlawing Bully Talk

I have written a lot about bullying, and I still find it appalling that children are still doing it. What I do not find surprising is that the LGBT proponents have tucked that verbiage into their bag of tricks to twist the arm of America into believing homosexual lifestyle is normal. How you ask?

Space Shuttle Challenger remembered

I'm sure you probably remember what you were doing when the Challenger exploded just after take off January 28, 1986. Seven lives were snuffed out that afternoon, and millions of people stared in shock at their TV screens or listened in horror to their radios.

I know that debris from the shuttle was found across Louisiana and Texas and it all came from a ruptured O-ring.

Isn't it strange how the smallest thing can cause the greatest trouble? The old saying goes For lack of a nail, the shoe was lost. For lack of a shoe the horse was lost. For lack of a horse the rider was lost. For lack of the rider, the battle was lost, all for the lack of a nail. Or something like that.

I mourn those seven adventuresome astronauts who accepted the challenge and set their faces toward space. I admire their courage and their intestinal fortitude. May God Almighty be with their families as the world remembers that long ago explosion. 

NASA: Most distant galaxy found by Hubble

I can't help but chuckle every time a scientist goes on national TV and talks about things that are more than a billion years old, or for that matter more than 20,000 years old. The reason is that scientist aren't considering God in their equations.

Of course, there are more scientists that do not believe in God than that do believe in God or so Scientific American  have told us time and again. That does not eliminate those scientists who do believe in God, including those who didn't then couldn't help but believe because of their scientific findings corresponding so closely with the Bible.

Here we have the classic example of Universe-Longevity. Why, I wonder, is it so imperative that we are comforted by the longevity of our home's existence?

God chose this space to plant earth and our sun, He chose to give us heavenly bodies to study and wonder about, then in the proper timing He has allowed us to explore further and further into space with the telescope and with our limited space ships. God created the universe as it is, uncrowded and vast, and He created it old, just as He created Adam a full grown man and Eve a full grown woman.

When Christians Hurt Christians

I've just written a book by that title, but it won't be out this fall.  I have realized there is some more information I must gather and I'm hoping you will help me.

I have a great passion for the subject because--you guessed it--I was crushed by some people who proudly called themselves Christian.

When this happens, you really wonder if they are true believers or if they're just mouthing words that have never rooted in their hearts. It is bad enough that Christian adults wield a double-edged sword at their fellow siblings, but why would people who love each other do it? This is something that I have not been able to fathom.

Daughter to mother, son to father and the other way around young people do not have the maturity yet to know how their words, the pin pricks as my neighbor used to say turn into sword stabs. Undoubtedly, God gave parents the thick skin protectant from the pin pricks and the sword stabs so that we would never break off all relations with our children. We parents know this is something that is bound to happen; and perhaps it is because we recall with shame the swords we brandished at our own parents. We knew it would come back because of the famous mother's curse, "May you have children exactly like you!"

However, when we ravage our children or we castrate our husbands or we wrap our wives in barbed wire, we are not hurting those who have angered us as much as we are doing it to God our Father. Jesus said, "When you do it to the least of these, you do it to Me." Of course it is understood that He was talking about feeding and nurturing the flock, but how much more we should recognize that whatever we do to others we are doing it to our Lord.

That should make us pause before we lash out. It should throw cold water on our rage. But as far as I can tell, Christians seem to be turning this verse around and accusing the sibling of unfaithful actions rather than recognizing the blame resides at their own front door.

How can that be? How can self-righteous people use the Bible to slice and dice their siblings without regard to how they are slicing and dicing the Holy Spirit right along with their sibling?

It is rather auspicious to think what we say and do doesn't really matter in the long run, because if it hurts the least of these, it hurts our Father. If it causes the least of these to turn their foot from God's path it is worse than blaspheming the Holy Spirit because that makes us a stumbling block and it would be better that a millstone be tied around our necks and we be thrown into the sea. That's how Jesus felt about it. How can we be any different?

I'm hoping you will help me for this will be my thesis for my Master's in Communication.

How were you hurt by a Christian? What did you do about it? Is it resolved, yet?

How did you hurt another person while believing what you did was of God? How did you realized it wasn't? What did you do about it? Is it resolved?

If you do not want to answer here, would you please, please email me? GLburgess at gmail dot com.

Counting pennies for the missing

Back in 2007 I wrote an article for my hometown newspaper about the pennies Mississippi Baptists are collecting as a stark visual memorial to the 50 million babies aborted, they have since filled it up.

By Gina Burgess
Lifestyles Editor
In Jackson, across from the Capital, stands a bullet-proof glass case that is half full of pennies. It stands at the corner of the Baptist Building and is a Memorial to the Missing--missing babies that have been aborted since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case made abortions legal.

The case was designed to hold 50 million pennies which amounts to $500,000 and will weigh in, after it’s full, at 156 tons. That is about how much 75 elephants weigh or the same weight as Mickey’s Fantasia hat at Disney World.

“It’s not the 50 million pennies that are important,” said Jimmy Porter, executive director of the convention’s Christian Action Commission. “It’s the 50 million children.” Each penny is in memory of an aborted child.

Innovations

Innovation is not actually something that is new, but the renewal or transformation of something that already exists. We look around and see innovation everywhere in our lives, even our language has innovations from earlier generations to today.

I wrote a book in the early 1980s which had no reference to cell phones, paperwork was done by hand, the internet was dial-up, and cordless phones were not widely used because any electrical storm could wipe out the phone with one lightening strike close to a phone line. Astounding how the inventions of yesteryear have been innovated to more powerful, smaller, and exponentially faster than lightening household necessities.

How did I report the news without a laptop? How did I capture sports-action photos without a digital camera? How much easier it is today not having to have a light meter, or having to use chemicals to develop film and photos. There is something nice about that, but there is something rather missing today.

I recall being in the darkroom and talking to God about the people in the photographs, I remember submitting a photo and several people ooing and ahing over the almost incredible shot... or tisking because of the missed shot. I also wonder if that photo that is worldwide famous of the soldiers and marines who raised the flag over Iwo Jima would have been as perfect if taken with a digital camera. Would the photo journalist have been as precise with a smaller camera, or would the angle have been as perfect if his camera didn't need to be positioned perfectly on the rocky hill top, especially with the wind so fierce?

We take for granted our contraptions of today and get into such a frenzy if something takes longer than 30 seconds to finish heating or to turn green or what have you. Are we in too much of a rush today to enjoy a breezy, sunny afternoon doing nothing but sitting on the porch peeling an apple and listening to children laugh and play?

Have we lost the art of thinking? Where did imagination go? One could say it never left because we have all these wonderful inventions like motorized tooth brushes and microchips that let you know when your tire is going flat--but only if they are put in correctly. My microchip told me that my right front tire had only six pounds of pressure. I checked it and put air in it and checked it but nothing was wrong with it, the problem was with my right back tire. Why do we trust the microchips instead of our eyes and our ears? I still think our children are growing up without as much imagination as we had when we were children, and we didn't have as much imagination as our parents did when they were children.

When my father was a little boy he carried around a stick in his pocket. The stick was named Little Boy and he was a soldier, or a cowboy, or whom ever my father wanted to play with at the time. None of those eight children who were his siblings were ever bored. Whenever I told my mom I was bored, she thought of a gazillion chores for me to do. By the time she quit listing, I was out the door and down the street saying, "I'm not bored, and I'll never be bored again!" I gave my own children the same courtesy, and they rarely said they didn't have anything to do or that they were bored.

It is too easy to look something up on the internet, and search engines are so precise these days that there are very few side paths that can distract us from the goal at hand. Ten years ago, searching for information on the net was an adventure and I could get sidetracked so easily because I'd see something I'd want to know more about and follow the link. Today the only place I can get sidetracked like that is in my Bible study. It's an adventure to study through word searches and use lexicons. For those things I shall be eternally grateful for the innovations from man's imagination.

The idea of innovations as a post subject came from John Saddington who lives at Tentblogger 

Amazing what fog exposes

I took this photograph a long time ago just before Thanksgiving after praying for God to please give me a delight to print in my newspaper as a holiday special. This would have been a beautiful photo on a crystal clear morning or noon, but not nearly as interesting as on this foggy morning.

I've looked at the photo everyday, through three computer changes and I still find things I haven't noticed before. Such as today, I noticed a second house on the hill. Why had I never noticed that before?

The trouble we humans have is we see the fog of daily living without bothering to look through the fog. We see the abrupt sales clerk and take offense without thinking she may have had some really bad news. We take the honking horn behind us as an affront without thinking that person may be in an emergency.

Of course, the clerk may just be in a bad mood or be that way all the time. The honking horn may be an indication that that person in traffic behind is just blowing impatience all over those around him. But, what if...

Prayerworks...

When I have a chance to brag about God and how He works, that just makes my heart sing. You just can’t outdo God. He has taught me so much through my prayers and his answers to my prayers.

But it didn’t come through some mysterious blast of supernatural knowledge. He has taught me over many years through our conversations and through how He has worked in my life, constantly striving to make me perfect.

He started very early on when I was old enough to understand what He was doing, and mature enough to want to understand more. He had answered many prayers of mine when I was a child, you know those selfish prayers like “Oh, please God let me get this and such for Christmas!” Or “Please God, I studied for this test, help me get an A.”

God taught me about obedience to His commands…

One day my youth pastor’s wife asked me to teach her young boys how to swim. I was a lifeguard at our club pool and had been giving lessons at the Y because I was a certified water safety instructor. So, I told her of course I’d teach them. I picked them up one afternoon and took them to the bayou where everyone cooled off from the summer heat. Those little fish didn’t need lessons. They were naturals. So, we played for a couple of hours and I took them home, refusing the pay she offered me because you lose your WSI certification if you take payment.

Babysitting for the little girl and baby next door kept me in extra funds. My sister didn’t like babysitting so I got all that kind of work. Plus we cleaned house for Mom and received money every two weeks for that. So I tithed regularly. It was never a question for me. I knew it was something God had said we must do, and Jesus had promised that God would care for me more than the flowers of the field, and to never worry where my basic needs would come because He loved me. I knew it, but it was more head knowledge for me because I was so young.

The next Sunday morning it was time for my tithe and all I had was a five-dollar bill. I checked with everyone to see if they had change so I could tuck my two-dollar tithe in the envelope. No one had change, there was nothing in my hidey-hole where I kept my emergency money. So, I held up that envelope and prayed, “LORD, please take this five dollars, take what you need and give me back the rest.” I fully expected Him to keep the whole five dollars, hadn’t a clue how He could give me back anything because the likelihood of three dollars coming my way was slim followed by nil. My reasoning was that whatever money came my way would be tithed anyway. I don’t know what I was thinking. I certainly wasn’t testing God, although I really meant what I prayed.

Between Sunday school and church service, Mrs. Ford called out to me on the breezeway.

“Gina, I just don’t feel right that you taught my boys and I didn’t pay you.” All the while she was digging in her purse. I tried to be kind, but insistent that I couldn’t take any money, wouldn’t take any. The crucial thing for me was to keep my certification so I could work as a lifeguard again. Then she pulled out some money and thrust it in my hand. I pushed it back to her. She said, “All I have right now is three dollars, but I’ll give you more later. Please, just call it babysitting money.”

Three dollars? My mind spun around. Three dollars! LORD God, You are a fast worker! I graciously smiled and turned toward the sanctuary, a prayer of thanksgiving on my lips that God had heard and quickly responded to me, that He had considered me worthy of an answer, but more importantly He had given me a testimony of tithing that has impacted my entire life!

He has taught me humbleness…

God has a great sense of humor and doesn’t mind using it to teach me lessons. I love it when He does. About six months after I was terminated from my economic development job  with the local parish government in Louisiana, I was walking in the backyard just full of myself and the things I had done. I had a moment of temporary insanity, forgetting how I had been praying so intently that He help me get those twelve goals accomplished that I had ambitiously set. I was telling God how important I was to the local parish government in Louisiana, what a great thing He did by giving me that job, how without me all that grant money I brought in to do all this good work would never have been awarded, and I lifted my hands to Heaven and actually said—“God, just how much do You think all my work in this parish is worth?” I paused for a moment, then put my hand in my pockets and glanced down. At my feet was a shiny new quarter. All my work was only worth about two bits!

He has taught me to wait on Him because He knows best…

I was on my way across town to help my daughter pack up some things to move. It was a blistering July day and my car had no air conditioning. God and I had been having this ongoing conversation about getting the air conditioning fixed because it had been broken since April. Once again I was talking to God about it. I asked God if it were possible to please just let me sell come cemetery property so I’d get the eight hundred dollars it would take to fix the air conditioning. I reminded Him that I should get to my appointments cool as a cucumber. He reminded me that my appointments were at night when it was cool. I reminded him that I had places to go and things to do during the day time, too, and this summer was particularly hot. He pointed out that this July had been markedly cooler than last July.

I ended my prayer with, “But, I’d like to get from point A to point B cool and refreshed and not smelling like a horse!” He was quiet for a moment. The light turned green and I turned the corner heading to my daughter’s apartment when suddenly, my large thirty-two ounce glass of ice water tipped over into my lap. Oh, yes, I arrived very cool and very refreshed. I laughed all the way to the apartment. I can’t think of anything sweeter than sitting in His lap and laughing together!

Just two short months later, my daughter had just dropped me off at work then my A/C-less Ford Thunderbird had a crushing encounter with a Ford Explorer. My Thunderbird was about the size of a Mustang after that. God knew that encounter was coming, so He kept me from pouring eight hundred hard-earned dollars into that car which would have been a waste.

Those are just a few of the many times God has taught me great life lessons through prayer. He taught me lessons about being on time when He gave me grace for being late to an extremely important meeting by turning every light green just before I got to it. He’s held time still for me, I kid you not, I got to a meeting inside of two minutes on a trip that should have taken at least 15 minutes. He has covered me with His gentle hand when I was devastated by rejection. He has given me employment and He has taken employment away, all for my protection, to keep me from the clutches of Satan or to send me on to my next ministry. That is a story that will have to wait to another day.

Prayer works, or Power of prayer, or prayer power, are misnomers. They imply that the one responsible is the one praying. God is the power and majesty in what goes on here on earth. God taught me that when He taught me humility.

David Jeremiah once said that prayer is what draws us into God’s will and His plan both for us and for others. That was an astounding lesson for me. The power is God and prayer plugs us into that power. So it should be prayerworks, not prayer works! The workings between God and His children is the relationship that God established reconciling us to Him through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. Prayer is our recognition of that relationship and His omnipotence, as well as our submission to His divine will. Prayer is that testimony we exhibit everyday when we verbally trust Him. We know we are settled in His will when we are Prayed up by being Adored up, Confessed up, Thanked up, then we can Ask up a storm to the only One who can make it happen.

That term has got me to thinking. Actually, it was God who was getting me to thinking. He was telling me that It is He that works, He that has the power, He that answers prayer. All we do is align ourselves with His will through His word.

Prayer power has that connotation that the person praying is doing the work, like the mere lifting up of a prayer is the work which plugs the power into the request. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I was amazed when I asked God to recall to me those times He has answered my prayer. I was engulfed with the pretty as well as the ugly of my life. His constant tending to my business has made me more aware of how much He does.

Let me lift up my voice and heart in praise. Let me understand Your ways, teach me them, Lord. Help me to bring you glory and honor. Help me to know the power of the wicked is but straw, easily burned and the ashes spread by the wind of Your breath. Thank you, God for so many blessings they cannot be counted in a single day. I rejoice in You. I give thanks for Your Son. I praise your Holy Name for yours is the power, yours is the kingdom, yours is the glory forever and ever amen.

Shout out with praise!

Shout out with praise
To the LORD on His Throne!
Sing with me all the earth,
For He set me Free.

He unlocked the shackles
He unwound the chains
I am Free.

He filled the darkness with Light
Fear fled, demons tremble.
I am Free!

He bent down to lift me up.
He put the chains and shackles on my foes.
But, I…I am Free!

It was I that caused His great pain, you see.
It was for me that He stuck to that tree.
It was I that raced down that path of ruin,
That pursued the pitiful gain.
Yet, His love swelled greater than oceans
His love reached past the universe
He counted the cost
and found it worthy
to set me Free yes, even me, to set me Free


The babies’ breath is on His cheek…
My tears have rolled down His fingers…
Yet the universe is too small for His shoulders.
He cared enough to set me Free.

Shout ye people of the earth.
Sing hosannas to reach the stars.
Sing with me and praise His name for
He paid the price to set us Free!

Can you follow directions?

Ever notice the directions on products? Some of them are quite humorous, such as “do not operate this hair dryer when sleeping.” Really? Visions of women lying in bed with their blow dryer grasped in a white-knuckled grip trip through my mind. Another favorite is the peanut package on airplanes which says, “Open packet. Eat nuts.” I guess that is for those who would rather slip the packet into their purse and smuggle it off the plane. Found on a Korean kitchen knife, “Keep out of children;” on a batman costume, “This cape does not enable user to fly;” on a shampoo bottle, “Use repeatedly for severe damage.”

When the directions make sense to us, we use them as guidelines to use the product or put together the object we’ve purchased. I know several men who’ve said, “Don’t read me the directions, I can mess this up all by myself.” They were alluding to the fact that most directions found in something that must be put together by the purchaser are often difficult to decipher. One usually needs some sort of class in instructions-ese to understand how this part A really does fit in part B and is enclosed by part Z. So what good are directions that make no sense? Maybe a chuckle or two.

We have societal “understandings” like no burping or nose cleaning in public, we have basic work ethics, and we have laws of the land that require certain behaviors toward others such as paying our bills and obeying traffic signals and signs. These are established as directional guides of society so that people will go in generally the same direction. Of course, common criminals travel against the flow. Sometimes godly people travel against the flow because they’ve lost their GPS or compass.

I wrote a column Shake Well Before Using which points out we have a choice in our direction. Our choices, which stem from our God-given free will, determine the path we trod. When we deliberately decide to follow the footprints of Jesus, and allow Him to carry us when the load becomes too heavy, then our path is well-lighted so we can clearly see the stumbling blocks Satan tosses in our way. We have support, relief, and supernatural wisdom which are our birthright through Jesus. 

Even so, some godly people are drawn toward the world’s siren song. Some tread down side paths because they have lost sight of the ultimate purpose. Never fear, God won’t leave them on the wrong path. He has determined a plan for their life and side trips are the way for believers to learn lessons the hard way, rather than the easy way. These unwise choices result in  pitfalls and potholes that could so easily be avoided if the Lamp of God had been used.

A somewhat famous actor on TV back in the 1970s and early 1980s did not use that Lamp I'm talking about. You might know him better as the husband of Mary Ann Mobley (1937-2014), a former Miss America from Mississippi. His name was Gary Collins (1938-2012), quite a handsome fellow, distinguished-looking, and successful in his own right. He was in the series The Sixth Sense, and had guest appearances on shows like Jag, Hollywood Squares, and even on a Perry Mason Mystery.  

However, in 2007 he walked out of a Biloxi, MS restaurant without paying his $59 bill according to a news article from several years ago, which is a felony in the state of Mississippi. The article reads like a litany of all his brushes with the law. An updated report states Collins told the police he had ordered dinner, and the kitchen was taking too long to bring his steak. He was drinking alcoholic beverages and he was afraid he'd be too drunk to drive home so he left. He had two previous drunk driving convictions, so I can understand his dilemma. Yet, he should have paid for the drinks and canceled his order.

It would be just another actor/police story if I didn’t remember an interview from decades ago.

I remember watching a talk show hosted by Dinah Shore one summer morning with guests Mary Ann Mobley and Gary Collins who had just gotten married in November, 1967. During the interview, they both expressed how blessed by God they were  to have found each other and discussed how being Christian in Hollywood affected their careers. I know, I can hear someone asking, “How in the world can you remember that from so long ago?”

I was thirteen years old, and I had aspirations of being Miss America. I thought Miss America was the most fabulous woman on earth at that time. Furthermore, I carefully watched  those actors who professed Jesus (and there weren’t that many, in fact there still aren't that many). 

What is extraordinarily sad is I can’t find any reference to that interview anywhere. After extensive research, I found a quote by Mary Ann about growing up in the church and feeling strongly about it. I also found out that she bought chimes for her church, Brandon Methodist Church, with her first check as an entertainer as well as that is where the couple got married. She made the mustard seed necklace famous, and often quoted Luke 17:6 when talking to the press. She and Gary were married until he died in 2012 (45 years). That is certainly an achievement. 

This just illustrates that bad choices and bad decisions are not the property of fools, idiots, and unbelievers. Only Jesus never made a bad choice or decision. Peter said, “Don’t wash my feet, Lord.” The disciples deserted Jesus in His hour of need. David watched a woman bathe. Solomon married foreign wives and had 1,000 women in his household. Rehoboam listened to the young kids on the block rather than the wise old sages.  These weren’t the smartest decisions made by believers and they certainly weren’t the last. The world is full of people who have made, and will make unwise choices.

Of one thing I’m absolutely sure: No matter how bad the choice or the consequences, God gives us the opportunity to humble ourselves in His presence and to turn away from the dark path back to the lighted one. Sometimes, God will even pick us up when we’ve reached the dead end and put us back on track. The key is recognizing when we’ve made a wrong turn, accepting the consequences of that decision, and following the directions for the best product available under Heaven which is the Christian lifestyle.

Celebrating the Quad Centenial of 1611 King James Bible

            The new year will mark the 4^th Centennial of the KJV. While this was not the first English translation, it has become one of the most widely used, in its modernized form, of all the early English translations. John Wycliffe was the first to translate the Bible into English that was widely circulated in manuscript form (before the printing press). It became illegal because of his stance against the Catholic Church’s teachings on several things in England in 1409. The manuscripts usually had a date before 1409 to circumvent the religious ban. Interestingly, because Wycliffe translated word for word from the Latin Vulgate, there wasn’t any way to distinguish it from other English translations so later Bible commentators from about 1600 through 1799 mistook the banned manuscripts as orthodox translations.

William Tyndale translated the New Testament in 1525 and later began a translation of the Old Testament but did not finish it before his death. Myles Coverdale took Tyndale’s translation and with only minor adaptations made it into the Great Bible version which was adopted as the Authorized Version by the Church of England during the reign of King Henry VIII. After his death, Edward I became king at age eight, and he named Lady Jane Grey as his successor in his will. She was queen for nine days. The movie about her depicts some of her arguments with the religious leaders of the day. She believed in individual salvation by grace, not works based salvation, and she believed the Eucharist did not turn into Christ’s body and blood. She was beheaded in the Tower of London in 1553 and was succeeded by her cousin, Mary I, Queen of Scots who reinstated the Roman Catholicism as the state religion resulting in many English Reformers fleeing the country.

John Calvin led these Reformed Protestants in Geneva where these scholars produced the Geneva Bible. This translation was actually a revision of the Great Bible and Tyndale’s Bible based on the original languages. Then came the Church of England’s Bishop’s Bible which failed to displace the Geneva Bible in the hearts and parlors of the common folk. The Roman Catholics subversively imported the Douay-Rheims translation in 1582.

King James VI of Scotland convened the Hampton Court Conference in 1604 with instructions that the Bishop’s Bible, then the Authorized Version of the Church of England, as the primary guide so as to keep the words recognizable to readers, and the translation to be true to the ecclesiology of the Church of England.

Forty-seven scholars divided into six groups and translated sections of the book, each completed by 1608. The King’s Printer, Robert Barker published the Authorized Version in 1611 which was sold loose leaf for ten shillings, and bound for twelve shillings.

This volume opened the eyes of many ordinary people like you and me. Suddenly, God’s word was there for all to read, albeit not all people could read. However, it has been one of the most published Bibles since the first day ink was set to paper. However, there have been many modernizations made to the original 1611 text. For example…

1611 version of 1 Corinthians 13:

1. Though I speake with the tongues of men & of Angels, and haue not charity, I am become as sounding brasse or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I haue the gift of prophesie, and vnderstand all mysteries and all knowledge: and though I haue all faith, so that I could remooue mountaines, and haue no charitie, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestowe all my goods to feede the poore, and though I giue my body to bee burned, and haue not charitie, it profiteth me nothing.

1769 version:

1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Comparing the two, besides the punctuation and spelling changes, the word no is substituted erroneously for the word not. In the original Greek the word  μή mē (may) is a primary particle of qualified negation and is adverbially translated not. It is apparent that the 150 something years between the first publication of the King James Version and the 1769 published version the English language had undergone tremendous changes indicated by the nearly 24,000 changes between the first edition and the 1769 Oxford text edition. The substance is the same, no matter what language a person reads. While the words may be spelled differently, and some of the meanings of the words have shifted with modern usage, we can still be astounded that the Bible has remained steadfast since Moses wrote the Law and the Apostles wrote their epistles. 

(A lot of this history came from Wikipedia. While I generally take this source with a huge grain of salt, the sources for this piece on Wikipedia are quite authoritative. You might also want to check out The King James Bible Trust)

Psalm 32

Have you ever taken a cat to the vet?


(This is not our cat Scooter, but a stand in actor.)

Like all good owners ,we had to take our cat to the vet and the caterwauling he set up all the way there and all the way back! (that’s where that word comes from, you know= CAT—er—wailing)

I was grateful it was only a 30 minute drive. “Out, out, I want out,” he wailed all the way there.

I can imagine it was much like David’s misery which he describes in Psalm 32. Our cat didn't have unconfessed sin, but he was sick. Unconfessed sin makes people bodies sick.

Look at verse 3…When I kept silent, my bones grew old Through my groaning all the day long.


It is like borrowing money from a friend knowing you can’t pay it back. After awhile you start avoiding your friend. Soon, you’re ducking down hallways and going the long way around just so you won’t bump into your friend. Then you want to avoid your friend at all costs because you have built a wall. (Can you tell this happened to me?) The person you borrowed from doesn’t care about the money, never did care about it, and most likely never truly wanted you to pay it back. Your friend loves the fellowship with you, and would much rather have you than the money. That’s how God is. He wants that relationship with you, but sin breaks the fellowship on your part, not His part because He promised to never leave or forsake you. David finally understood this.

Psalm 32 – the ungodly can be reinstated into godliness. David is prostrate in repentance and worship. This was after Nathan had confronted him about his sin with Bathsheba. We get a peek into his heart in this Psalm.

His bones became old. Now, I’m growing older and I have more aches and pains than I ever had when I was younger. Just to get out of bed sometimes sounds like a tool box being turned over with all the clanks and grindings.

He was howling all day. Imagine that. King James translates it roaring. The word means literally “a rumbling or moan”, so I translate that as CAT-er-wailing.
He says in verse 5: I confessed my sin to You, and I have not hidden my iniquity; I said, I will confess over my transgression to Jehovah; and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

Glory! There is something so incredibly important here. First we see David angry at the injustice, then he is deeply repentant when he recognizes his own sin. (2 Samuel 12:13), Then he is prostrate (2 Samuel 12:16) for his son, fasting, seeking God in the hope God may have mercy and let his son live. David understands the deep necessity of confession in order to be right with the Lord and how God forgives. It is essential that we know beyond doubt that God forgives our transgressions.

Without that knowledge, we cannot worship from our heart. Without that knowledge, Satan builds a web of guilt and shame around us to keep us from Worshipping God.

Psalm 32:11 Be glad in Jehovah and rejoice, you righteous ones; and all the upright in heart, shout for joy.

David addresses it again in Psalm 51. He tells us Who to go to to get right with God. We can't do it on our own. God can.

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me out from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

We have established that there is much more to worship than singing and praising, although that is part of worship. The word Worship means to bow low and to serve. In actions, it means,

Obedience regardless of the apparent cost, as Abraham obeyed.  
Sacrifice as ordained by God.  
Confession and repentance is crucial to experience worship as God would have us experience it.

Then God gives us a renewed, sparkling clean and a right spirit (some translations state steadfast spirit). It can be done from a distance as the Children of Israel did when God came to the Tabernacle, but is that how we should worship? It involves the heart (will), and the ears (understanding).

Worship is a constant and continual state when we are right with God. We can barely understand how the Holy Spirit indwells, how much we miss of true worship in these frail bodies, temporary tents we inhabit for such a speck of time. What a blessing it is to have the Holy Spirit joined to body and soul to help with our worship. It is a fascinating, imagination stretcher to contemplate worship in the proper setting (God's Heavenly Temple) and in the proper dress (our bright, white linen robes of righteousness), surrounded by millions of angels all of us singing a new song of the Lamb. I can't wait.

Sin is contagious, righteousness is not

I read those words this morning and my brain came to a screeching halt. They come from Haggai 2:12-13. Something cannot be made holy by merely touching the thing with the holy thing. However, an unclean person  touching something will make it unclean. This is the Old Testament, and it has far reaching meaning into the New Testament such as the old adage "One bad apple will spoil the whole barrel." Any sales executive knows that one person with a bad attitude can infect the whole floor of sales representatives, or clerks, or secretaries which will infect everyone else. It is contagious.

This is exactly why the world can have such power over Christians. The ways of the world insidiously creep into our thought processes and we think, "What's the harm in that?" First thinking about it, then the thoughts consume our mind, then action follows thought and without actually realizing it, we've become entangled in Satan's World Wide Web.

Righteousness is not contagious, nor can it be transferred to another by sheer will power or thought process or even prayer. Our own righteousness is our own by birth right, being born again into the Spirit through the blood of Christ. It is individual, personal, and directed to each soul. We need do only one thing which is believe God exists (which must happen before anyone can be saved) and believe in Jesus. God does everything else.

In order to live the abundant life provided by Jesus, one must unlock every secret compartment of the heart and allow God to fill that God-sized hole in the soul. Keeping one part unsurrendered will hinder Christian living and God's power in your life. It is very similar to two people rowing a single boat in opposite directions. Unless there is a current stronger than one of the rowers, the boat goes no where and if the strongest rower, rows against the current the boat's forward motion slows to a crawl. It's like the two steps forward and one step back; progress is half what it could be. Surrender and live abundantly, full of joy.

Red Cross bans Christmas across the Pond

It seems the Red Cross of Great Britain is valiantly trying to become a completely neutral charity. Isn't that an oxymoron? 

Scanning this article (click the title), I was chagrined at first, and then it became funny, especially in the last paragraph. It seems the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) tried to find a less prickly symbol than the cross five years ago and amidst boos, hisses and criticisms finally gave up the task.

This was just going to be a simple story, written before I went to bed. Now, after all this research into the background of the Red Cross, where it came from (American Red Cross came through the efforts of one Clara Barton). The ICRC  began in Switzerland due to one man's observation of a battle fought in 1859 in Suferino where 40,000 men on both sides fell wounded and dead with no medical help. Henry Dunant persuaded locals to minister to the wounded without prejudice. An amazing feat.

The hooha concerning the religious nature of the symbol, a cross, is what spurred the international committee to try to design another symbol. Purely for neutrality since the Muslim countries were beginning their own Red Cross organizations. Somewhere in the first part of the 20th century, they adopted the Red Crescent which was immediately adopted by Russia and several Muslim countries. I'm confused now.

If the thing is not religious in nature, then why must they conjure up a Red Crescent, a Red Crystal and what's up with this Red Lion and Sun thing? The Red Star of David is nationally recognized in Israel, but the Jews adopt the Red Crystal for protection in international conflicts.

Can't the leadership of the Red Cross discern that we are divided along religious lines no matter what their symbol is?

So the Brits can't have Christmas decorations in their 430 Red Cross stores, yet they can sell Christmas cards with angels and nativity scenes "to help the charity".

"Rod Thomas, a Plymouth vicar and spokesman for the Reform evangelical grouping in the Church of England, said: 'People who hold seriously to their faith are respected by people of other faiths. They should start calling themselves the Red Splodge. All their efforts will only succeed in alienating most people.'"

So what would that look like? A coffee stain? A wine stain? I agree with Vicar Thomas. Holding true to one's faith does instill respect, at least on the surface. Sometimes it instills loathing because of Who is being worshiped. 

According to a report in The Guardian, the respect is only a veneer. The news paper reports a diplomatic cable accuses Iran of using the cover of the Red Crescent to smuggle arms and agents into other countries during their war with Israel in 2006. I will give you the link to that story rather than plow through thousands of cables to check the accuracy of the report. I'm going to bed now. If you have the energy and do check this report about the smugglers of Iran, would you let me know in the morning if it's true? Thanks... g'night.

Arise and shine for the light has come

I love that verse found in Isaiah 60:1. I use it all year round, but at this time of year it reminds us that God is faithful and always fulfills His promises.

Isn't it interesting that God wrote this in the past tense? To Isaiah, it was as if the Light had already come when it would be centuries before Christ would be born. I love it when God talks in the past tense because it makes it so done-dealish. It's a fact, Jack. No questions, Sessions. Isaiah already had his Messiah, the time/space continuum just hadn't caught up with God, yet.

So, I hold on to this verse all year, because it is an assurance to me that God is who He says He is, and God has done what He said He would do. Since God is so very consistent and constant, this is the assurance that all the rest of prophecy will come about just as it was foretold and is written.

Best cake ever

In honor of the Holidays, I dug up this recipe again and am re-posting it. I hope you enjoy :)

Hey everybody,

I wanted to share this favorite recipe of mine. I've had it for years and years and it never fails

BEST RUM CAKE EVER
Ingredients
1 or 2 quarts rum
3 cups flour
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs
1 cup dried fruit
1 teaspoon soda
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup nuts

Before you start - sample the rum to check for quality. Good - isn't it?
Now go ahead.
Select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc.
Check the rum again. It must be just right.
To be sure rum is of the highest quality, pour one level cup of rum into a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat.
With an electric mixer, beat one cup of butter in a fluffy bowl. Add 1 seaspoon of thugar and beat again. Meanwhile, make sure that the rum is of the quinest fality. Cry another tup.
Open second quart if necessary. Add 2 arge leggs, 2 cups fried druit and beat till high. If druit get stuck in beater, just pry loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the rum again, checking for tonscisticity.
Next, sift 3 cups of peper or salt (it really doesn't matter). Sample the rum again.
Sift 1/2 pint of lemon juice. Fold in chopped butter and strained nuts. Add a babblespoon of brown thugar, or whatever color you can find. Wix mell.
Grease oven and turn cake pan to 350 gredees. Now pour the whole mess into the cover and toss toward open hole and akeb.
Check the rum again, and bo to ged.

to make my cheeks hurt from laughing so hard. I am NOT advocating drinking. But this is just so halarious!

Ruined

I fight to open my eyes, but something inside me warns me not to wake up. My stomach hurts. My head feels heavy. And who’s vacuuming? Don’t they know I’m trying to sleep? Where am I, anyway?

“Happy birthday dear Chloe, happy birthday to you.” I blow out the six pink candles, straighten the princess birthday crown on my head, and eagerly anticipate a giant piece of angel food cake with strawberry frosting and my most favorite ice cream—chocolate, chocolate chip.

“Oops, Mommy, I dropped ice cream on my princess dress. Now my life is ruined.”

“No worries, sweetie, Mommy will take care of it. Mommies can fix anything.” Mommy kisses me on the cheek, and I know everything will be okay.

The incessant vacuuming is joined by talking. Loud talking. Hey, am I invisible here? It sounds like someone is moving silverware around—dropping it onto a metal tray. Would everyone please stop making so much noise? I just need to get some sleep. There is way too much commotion going on here. What’s the crisis, anyway?

Mom brings our blue mini-van to a screeching halt in front of Madison Middle School. I am late for school…again.

“Do you have your science project, sweetie?”

“Yes, Mom.” I roll my eyes. “Why do you always question me? I’m a teenager now—I can take care of myself.”

I wrestle the white display board out the back sliding door.

“Oops, the spring fell off the board. Oh, great. Now what am I supposed to do? I’m already late for first period. My life is ruined.”

“No worries, sweetie. I’ll take care of it. I’ll just run home, grab the glue gun, come back and have this board fixed before your science class. Remember, Mommies can fix anything.” She blows me a kiss and mouths “everything will be okay” before speeding away.

The vacuuming stops. My stomach cramps. The loud talking is replaced by hushed voices. I strain to hear, but can only make out a few words. Missed. Pieces. Bleeding. The vacuum starts up again. Good grief, how big is the room, anyway?

“Oh, Eric, I wish you didn’t have to leave tomorrow. How am I going to live without you?”

“Sshh, baby, I know.” Eric pulls me tighter into his embrace. “It’s only for a few months, and then I’ll be home for winter break.”

“But what if you meet some college girl who steals your heart away from me?”

“Hey, I already told you, nobody’s going to steal my heart. And, besides, the love we’re going to share with each other tonight will bond us together as one. Forever.

Eric lies back on his bed and tugs at my arm. His parents are gone for the evening; my parents think we’re at a movie. Eric and I have been dating for two years. Everyone calls us the perfect couple. He was captain of the Debate team—I was co-captain. He plays bass in the youth group worship band, I sing lead. We both volunteer at the city soup kitchen.

We’d been talking for weeks about how we would spend our last night together, and I really did want to give myself to Eric completely, but…

“I don’t know, Eric. The Bible says this is wrong.”

“Come on, Chloe. We love each other. And it will only be this one time. Then we’ll wait until we’re married.”

Eric gently caresses my cheek with the back of his hand. His tender kisses on my neck make me melt in his arms. As he slowly begins unbuttoning my blouse, I hesitate, pushing his hand away from my now exposed bare skin.

“What if, you know—something goes wrong?”

“Relax, Chloe, I got protection from the school nurse.”

Eric returns to my buttons and I stop listening to the still small voice and start reacting to my passionate desires.

It all happens very quickly. Not quite like I’d pictured…or seen in the movies.

“Oops.” Eric abruptly rolls away from me.

“What’s wrong?” I reach for the blanket…suddenly ashamed of my nakedness.

“Uh, nothing. Just a little slippage. No worries.”

“Chloe, Chloe. Can you hear me?”

I hear her voice. I don’t want to open my eyes. I have intense pain in my lower abdomen. I know what that vacuuming was. My life is ruined.

“The nurse said everything went fine, sweetie. It’s all taken care of. See? Mommies can fix anything.”

She kisses me and I know…everything is not okay.

This story has been brought to you by me, but written by Sheri Gordon who can be contacted at writingsbysheri@gmail.com. She graciously gave me permission to reprint it. You can click on the title above and find more stories by Sheri. I read it this morning and cried for women in America who take this awful step. It hits home in a way that a 30-minute sermon never could.

Bradley Manning's "awkard moment"

Ann Coulter has a diatribe about Bradley Manning and the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" uproar. In my opinion, it is a lot harsh against homosexuals who, I believe are misguided and deceived by Satan. They will defend their lifestyle and will shove it in everyone's faces because they want us to accept homosexuality as a normal lifestyle.

While reading the comments to this, there were some good arguments, but also some things were brought up that I do not feel edified for reading. I do not understand why people cannot seem to understand that homosexuality is a perversion. But, no matter what, if there were none but homosexuals on the earth, God would have still sent His Son to die for them.

As I grow older, I understand better the premise of loving the sinner, but hating the sin. I'm still trying to learn the differences between those who are wicked and  God has given up to themselves, and those who act wickedly but whom God sees hope for. That is a toughy.