Ken's Blog

Operator Please...

2011-12-18T08:09:00.004-05:00

When I was a young boy, I lived in Fairfax, Alabama. It was a small town that holds many sweet memories of easier times. Our phone number consisted of only three numbers - 934. My younger brother, Don, not only remembered our number but many others in town as well. The phone at our house was housed in a brown box that hung on the wall. The speaker protruded from the box and could move up or down. The earpiece hung from the side. Most of the time Mom or Dad answered the phone.

I don't know who wrote this wonderful story. It had to be someone who lived in that time period. This story brings back memories of precious friends who stopped everything to listen and to interact. I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.

Operator please

June 23, 1998

When I was young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The black receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it.

Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person - her name was “Information Please” and there was nothing she did not know. “Information Please” could supply anybody’s number and the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer.

The pain was terrible, but there didn’t seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway.

The telephone!

Quickly, I ran for the footstool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. “Information Please,” I said into the mouthpiece just above my head.

A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear.

“Information.”

“I hurt my finger.” I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience.

“Isn’t your mother home?” came the question.

“Nobody’s home but me.” I blubbered.

“Are you bleeding?”

“No,” I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.”

“Can you open your icebox?” she asked. I said I could.

“Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger,” said the voice.

After that, I called “Information Please” for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruits and nuts.

Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary died. I called “Information Please” and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was un-consoled. I asked her, “Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?”

She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, “Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.” Somehow I felt better.

Another day I was on the telephone. “Information Please.”

“Information,” said the now familiar voice.

“How do you spell fix?” I asked.

All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest.

When I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston.

I missed my friend very much. “Information Please” belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall.

As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.

A few years later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, “Information, Please”.

Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well, “Information.” I hadn’t planned this but I heard myself saying, “Could you please tell me how to spell fix?”

There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, “I guess your finger must have healed by now.”

I laughed. “So it’s really still you,’ I said. “I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time.”

“I wonder”, she said, “if you know how much your calls meant to me.” “I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls.”

I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister.

“Please do, she said. “Just ask for Sally.”

Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered “Information.” I asked for Sally.

“Are you a friend?” She said.

“Yes, a very old friend,” I answered.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, she said. Sally had been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago.”

Before I could hang up she said, “Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you.” The note said, “Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He’ll know what I mean.”

I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant.

I Don't Need to Understand - in Spanish

2011-08-22T13:10:00.002-04:00

Maggie and I were happy to get an e-mail from a family in Paraguay. They were excited about connecting with us. We sent them a copy of the sheet music for Maggie's song, I don't Need to Understand. They wanted it so their daughter could play the piano. They have a copy of the song on their home page.

You can visit their website at Cristianommv

Here's their video,

I hope you will continue to pray for Maggie and myself as well as Christians around the world!

God bless you,

Pastor Ken

ARE WE NEAR THE END OF THE WORLD?

2011-03-15T14:49:00.004-04:00

I've been an ordained minister for well over 60 years. A wonderful lady who is the vice president of the large bank where I do business invited me into her office and shut the door. It had a large glass window but she wanted our conversation to be private. She told me that both her and her husband were devout Christians and they study the bible together each night. She asked: "Do you think we are approaching the end of time as mentioned in the Bible in Daniel and Revelations?"

    I told her it may be so but I immediately thought of the statement of Jesus: (Mark 13:32 NIV) "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. I also thought about  Matthew 24.   In this passage Jesus gave us numerous things to look for. "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

     It's not unusual to look at all the problems created by corrupt politicians, greedy people who want to be filthy rich, and selfishness everywhere. Add to that countries all over the globe falling apart, murder, mayhem and craziness everywhere and it's easy to think the end must be near.

In Matthew 24 Jesus gave us  "HIS" list of bad things that will come. (Mat 24:7 NIV) Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. (Mat 24:10-12 NIV) At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, {11} and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. {12} Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.

(Mat 24:24 NIV) Jesus said: "For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. (Religious con men are in the church, on TV and everywhere you look...) Want to know how to spot one? Jesus has the answer to that one also. "They don't have an ounce of compassion for anyone ...unless... "they can use it to fatten up their "bloated" bank account. Try to get one of them to help anyone - whether it's a young man called by God to preach the gospel, a church in need or sick and needy people all around them. They will simply ignore the request.

In traveling and preaching - literally all over the world I've met many ministers who had little interest in helping anyone but themselves. I've also met some really dedicated ministers and Missionaries who would risk their very lives to help anyone in need and especially the desperately poor people who were all around them.  I've put together some very large medical - humanitarian projects for some of the poorest people in the world. Lots of Godly people helped, including medical doctors and ordinary people who volunteered and gave everything they could to help needy people.

In Iquitos Peru doing a medical project my heart was broken by the little children who looked like they were pregnant. According to my long time friend and  cardiologist - Dr. William Ezyguirre - who was born in Peru, and wrote most of their medical text books -- he said it was caused by drinking contaminated water filled with parasites and Lord only knows what else. Yes, many of them knew they should boil the water for several hours before they drinking it - but how can you wait for it to cool when you are hot and feel like you are dying of thirst?

We saw dozens of "outhouses" in a village placed on the top of the surrounding hills. Below that was a shallow well where people came to get drinking water. Dr. Ezyguirre didn't have to draw me a picture when I looked at the polluted and sickening well.

We raised thousands of dollars to drill deep wells in Iquitos Peru. It was odd that the city was surrounded by the Amazon river, the Nanay, and other rivers. The Perfecto General who was in charge of this great city told me while looking out over the Amazon river - "I could be the president of Peru if only I could get drinking water to the people who need it."

(They had hired a German company to put in a water treatment system, and pipes in the city. Unfortunately within a year the aluminum pipe they used in the sandy soil was cracked and leaking all over the city and the Germans were long gone.)

I talked to engineers and people in the US who knew how to drill very deep wells. Money and skill was the answer to the problem. I came home and raised $10,000.00 then went back and found an honest engineer who could drill wells 130 meters deep.

The perfecto General had already built small building to secure and house the wells. I remember standing in the entrance of the bank, with an absolute blizzard of bugs swarming around the entrance light. (Yes the big ones hurt when they nail you - but we had work to do). I signed all the Cashiers checks I had brought and started the project. We joked and told our contractor drilling the wells that we were going to break his legs if the wells didn't work. He laughed and said "I'll make sure they do."

This good and kind man knew exactly what needed to be done and he did it in record time. We gave have him some money to get started and paid him in full when the job was finished. There was a large storage tank in the top of the building, water was pumped to that and a line gravity fed the water to a outlet on the side of the building.
   Here Is a photo of the pump inside the locked building already working to fill the storage tank in the ceiling.

They were 130 meters deep and we placed the electrical pumps in a small locked building with a large storage tank in the ceiling. Then we ran a water line through the wall with a flat "snap" valve that could only be opened with a thumb and finger. Anyone could get clean drinking water only as long as they held the value open. When they let go of the value the water stopped.

The prefecto General of Iquitos told us they spent a large amount of money having a German company put in a water system for the city. The first day they turned it on it went dry in a few hours. The Indians from the forest turned all the facets on and left them running. When he tried to stop that the Indians from the forest said: "We don't have to turn the rivers off and on - why do we have to turn this pipe off and on."

Then a year later the aluminum pipes used in the sandy soil was cracked, broken, and the whole project was a total waste.

In Iquitos Peru - which is on the Amazon river, I took a team of doctors, nurses, medical supplies and volunteers to help the desperately poor people who needed treatment. Their greatest need was for clean drinking water. "Outhouses were everywhere and "yes" near by were shallow "drinking wells."

Our team spent days getting to know the local preachers. I discovered they only had a single bible. These preachers would tear out a page and take it into the Amazon jungle and preach to their own people in tiny villages. Then they would bring the page back and others would use it to do the same thing the next Sunday.

I was so troubled by this that I called a wealthy friend who didn't claim to be a Christian and told him about these local preachers and their one bible. He immediately sent me a large check and I spent every cent of it in a Bible book store purchasing boxes of new study bibles. I got the airlines to fly them free of charge to Iquitos.

In a few weeks I took them down to Iquitos Peru, got these preachers together and gave each one of them a new Bible for themselves. They were filled with joy and amazement like children on Christmas morning. I had a good cry myself as I thought of God's goodness.

Later this great friend who bought the Bibles sat on my back porch in Georgia and asked me a question. "Can I be a Christian without all the "mumbo jumbo" religious stuff of joining a church?" I knew he didn't want a sermon so I said: "Yes, all you need to do is to talk to God, just like you are talking to me, and tell him what's in your heart." I didn't say another word and neither did he. I knew" without a doubt" that God would open his heart and fix this problem. I was blessed to see that happen. We didn't talk about it but I knew God was changing his life.

Jesus said there would be a day or reckoning between the sheep and the goats. Matthew 25:34 (I dare you to read it.) Here's what Jesus said to the true Christians: (  (Mat 25:34-40 NIV) Take time and read it carefully.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. {35} For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, {36} I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

{37} "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? {38} When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? {39} When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' {40} "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

That test came in various ways for me as a pastor. I knocked on a door and heard little children saying they were hungry and crying for food. I knew the father was a liar, and had a long track record of cheating and swindling people. (I had heard it all from his victims.) I knew I had to do something so I took all the money in my pocket and bought $70 dollars worth of food - took it to their door and prayed that the children would be fed. The next day my daughter made a turkey dinner with all the trimmings for them and took it to the family.

A church member told me the plumbing was stopped up at her sisters house.  Two little children lived in their house. Her sister and husband was spending large sums of money on Pot and drugs. After a lot of thinking about it I called a contractor and paid him to fix the plumbing. The innocent little children could live a decent life and take a bath. I knew the parents could buy more dope but God would deal with them about that problem in his own way.

(Mat 25:41-46 NIV) "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. {42} For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, {43} I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

We need the wisdom of God to help us know who is worthy of help.

I went to see a couple that briefly attended our church. They lived in a really nice home on a lake and was obviously doing well financially. They told me they were in financial trouble and didn't know what to do. While I prayed a silent prayer about their problem his wife said: "If someone doesn't help us soon I don't know what we are going to do". She cried and said: "We will have to cash in one of our CD's" to pay the house note. I told my wife it was time for us to leave and we did. (We were not even being paid a modest salary for being the pastor of our small church)

{44} "They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' {45} "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' {46} "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Remember this is Jesus our Lord and Master who told this story.

(Luke 16:19-31 NIV) "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. {20} At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores {21} and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

{22} "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. {23} In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. {24} So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' {25} "But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. {26} And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'

{27} "He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, {28} for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.' (Even in hell the rich man had no compassion. He wanted Lazarus to go starve to death as the gates of his five selfish brothers.

{29} "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.' {30} "'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' {31} "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

There is not a single word is this story told by Jesus that indicates the rich man ever did a mean thing to Lazarus. He didn't run over his feet with his beautiful carriage - nor forbid his servants to give Lazarus the crumbs from his table. All he did was nothing!!!!!   God looked at the rich man's total lack of compassion and sent him to hell.

How bad was this wealthy man? Even in hell he was selfish and mean.  He pleaded with father Abraham to send Lazarus to hell to be his servant. "Send Lazarus down here to dip the tip of his finger into water to cool my tongue for I am tormented in these flames. This is the awful story told by Jesus of people who should have compassion on those in need but choose to "let someone else do it...."I worked hard for what is mine! "

My wife Maggie and I have just celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary. Both of us have been ordained ministers for over 60 years. We live on a small little social security check because our Government decided to change the rules. Instead of going back to the time when we first started paying social security (over 60 years ago) they decided to only go back 10 years. In that period I was working as a Missionary Pilot (hours of sheer boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror....) and Maggie was keeping our tiny little new church going. So we had very little income.

We had decisions to make just like everyone else. In 1990 I stopped being a pastor. My wife Maggie wrote a song that blesses everyone who hears it. I recorded it and It's been recorded and sung all around the world. It's called: "I don't need to Understand I just need to hold his hand."   (Songs for troubled hearts.) We started Christian Ministries in 1990. We made the decision to "give" the booklets I was writing and the CD of "Songs for troubled hearts" free of charge to anyone who needed or ask for them".

I make the CD's and booklets in my office and we give them to anyone who wants them. We have given thousands of them to troubled and needy people. Yes, they are expensive and time consuming to make - but God has provided the money through Godly Christians who send us gifts to keep this ministry going. We have never had to ask for help. God sends it and we rejoice.

It cost money and lots of time to make the CD's and Booklets but God has been faithful for all these years.  It's really been amazing when it's time for me to make the CD's and Booklets. Always someone sends just enough to pay for the material needed for new Booklets and CD's. (We live on a tiny Social Security Check - Was it stupid to give them away?) We still believe it is the right thing to do. ! My wife will soon be 83 years old and I'm not far behind. It's amazing how God has supplied our needs without us begging, selling "stuff" or asking for help!!!

We have also sent them around the world to places like Assension Paraguay. A pastor there had heard Maggie's song "I don't need to understand I just need to hold his hand". He sent me an e-mail and wanted the sheet music so his daughter could play the song on the piano while the family travels, sings and preaches across the country. It was a pleasure to give them sheet music, booklets, CD's and everything they needed as a gift to their ministry.

Many years ago I earned a Master's degree in Psychology at Georgia State University, and a later on a Ph.D in Theology. I've been blessed with the ability to talk with anyone about any subject. I could name a dozen millionaires that I've spent time with because they wanted to talk. All of them needed help with problems that money can't solve.

I can only remember one of them who gave money to help sick, poor and needy people. He bought the Bibles for the Pastors and Preachers in Iquitos Peru and graciously help us keep going with Christian Ministries. Several years ago he passed away - and we rejoice that he is blessed and in our father's house.

The Apostle Paul wrote in (Acts 20:35 NIV) "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive. "

We may be near the end of the world, but it is our duty to continue until he comes. To help the sick, to care for the needy to comfort the old. Are you doing what God wants you to do - even to the end of the world?

Table of Contents for Ken's Blog

2011-03-15T14:43:00.001-04:00

To make it easier to find posts on this blog, I've created a list of all the posts. I hope this will make it easier for you to find the topics you like. At the bottom of this list you will find a link to all the Bible Studies found on my blog....Study with Ken.

A Tough Instructor

A change of mood

Anarchy the death of America

Have A ----- Christmas

Is it God's will?

God's Presence

The God of all Comfort

Is Barack Hussein Obama a Muslim?

Obama needs to tell us who he really is

Sarah Palin - Republican Vice President

Compassion

My 60 years as an Ordained minister

Airmail from God

Missionary Pilot begins

Being a missionary pilot

How was Jesus supported?

Good and Evil

A Baloney Sandwich

Feeling Inadequate

Receiving the Gift

Christmas Music

Money - the root of all....

God and the Astronouts

Love is not a bargain

I've never been afraid

Thank you for your generous donations

Christmas love and compassion

Christianity/Religion

Is This promise mine?

Truth - Is it important?

Is the Bible True

God speaks to His People

The Bible is God's word

The Key to Heaven

The ministry of Jesus

Don't be negative

You take what life gives you and just go on

Anxiety and Worry

Unintended Consequences

Does Prayer really work?

Who killed those people in Kansas?

Christians don't talk much about Heaven. I wonder why?

Better than the Alternative

I found a blog in a ditch

FROM the Blog - Study with Ken

Job recovers his Faith

A Snake in the Garden

Good and Evil

The Amazing Christian Bible

Two examples of False Doctrine

Why is the subject of Bible Translations Important?

The Bible can be trusted

2010-11-30T20:46:00.023-05:00

THE TOUGH INSTRUCTOR
By Ken Crocker

As a boy I loved airplanes, built lots of models and longed for the day when I could take my first ride in a real plane. I was 14 when I jumped off the bus and walked down a two-mile dirt road to the only airport in town. The owner Fred Robinson smiled when I placed two dollars in his hand. He led me to an old Taylor craft airplane. I was filled with joy, amazement and fascination as we puttered over the valley. The blue green river wound around deep emerald trees and golden fields. The road looked like tiny ribbons that went in different directions. “It’s mighty pretty up here, Fred said.”

I was hopelessly hooked. Everything looked beautiful and fascinating from a low flying airplane. Houses were stretched out like a giant architect’s model. The river was smooth, shining and glorious as it wound its way through the Valley.

Fred became my friend and over the next few years I did odd jobs and painted signs on the buildings for flying lessons. Fred was a bachelor and had made the airport his home. He had a flying car that he hoped to finish someday. He said it would work and I believed him. He was a master mechanic, an aeronautical genius and had helped design and build the B-29 and taught pilots how to fly this massive aircraft during the Second World War.

In his shop Parts and tools were scattered everywhere; airplanes were disassembled and waiting for various repairs and always there was the smell of hydraulic fluid, oil, gas and grease. I loved it all.

He never talked about himself much, except to tell me about things like meeting Charles Lindberg. Lindberg was riding a motorcycle wearing a CCC uniform and showed up at an airport Fred was working for in Georgia. Fred suggested to him that he go down to South Georgia and trade his motorcycle for an old Jenny. In case you don’t know that’s a World war one biplane with an open cockpit. Lindberg did exactly that and took a few flying lessons. He nosed the plane over and broke the prop. They fixed it and he was going to have another lesson the next morning. However Lindberg decided he knew enough and headed west just after dawn.

Somewhere in Mississippi he landed and again nosed the plane over and broke the propeller. He convinced a farmer to put the plane on his truck, take it back to Georgia for a new propeller and left again heading west.

Fred told me stories about working at Candler field in Atlanta. Today it’s known as Hartsfield International Airport. Back then it was just a grass field. Amelia Earhart landed her Lockheed Vega there one day and forgot to retract the long trailing antenna for her radio. Someone was suppose to wind it back onto a spool in the plane with a crank but forgot to do so. Fred found it in some brush, repaired and reinstalled it.

In looking back I think I reminded him of his own love of flying as a young boy. He built his first airplane and learned to fly it in his Fathers cow pasture. Later he worked around various airports, sometimes for free and later for pay and the simple joy of flying.

I loved this old veteran pilot with his stories of Aviation. His career was ending and mine was just beginning. I was on the long road to becoming a good pilot. Maybe something about my enthusiasm and love of flying stirred some memories of his life when he was young and eager to pursue his dreams.

He was a master mechanic and kept his dream in one of the hanger bays. He was building a flying car that could drive on a road if the weather was bad, or soar above it all in good weather. I was sure it would fly and was eager to be there when it did.

Fred was a very demanding flight instructor. I didn’t like it when I was in the front seat trying to learn how to fly and he would reach out from the back seat, thump me on the head to get my attention and talk to me about something. “Look at both of the ailerons. Center the stick. Pick up that drooping aileron. Sloppy flying will kill you!” He wouldn’t let me make the slightest mistake without talking about it or doing something to make sure the correction was burned into my brain. One day he reached up, took my head, and physically turned it from side to side.

“Don’t sit up there staring straight ahead like a dummy. Keep your head on a swivel and look around all the time,” he said. “There are other planes up here, weather to keep in mind, instruments to monitor.”

There were times when I felt like he was too hard, demanding, and always “nitpicking” everything I did. Sometimes I felt exhausted, incompetent, and hopeless about ever mastering the art of flying. Once on the ground he would turn back into my friend and tell me I was doing well and making progress. I asked him one day why he was so hard on me.

“Columbus Aviation teaches pilots to fly,” he said, “and they have about 35 students pushing up daisies. I haven’t lost a one and you’re not going to be the first.”

I took flying lesson in the Aeronca Champ which had no flaps, no radio, and just a few basic instruments. Back then the FAA required pilots to do stalls and spins. I hated power on stalls - when the nose was pointed up the plane would run out of airspeed and fall straight down. If I held the stick back and pushed in left or right rudder the plane would spin. To get a pilots license I also had to learn to recover from a spin.

One day Fred told me we were going to go up and do spins until I loved them. He reminded me that the plane was going to stall, and head straight down. “You’re trying to stay up there without stalling and what you need to do is to just make up your mind to go down with the plane.” After a half dozen stalls and spins he was right and I begin to enjoy it.

Suddenly we both heard a loud bang, and he grabbed the controls. He shut the engine off, and pointed the nose toward the airport. The river ran around both ends of the single runway, and I relaxed as he skillfully turned, back and forth and lost altitude. He reached final approach lined up exactly right for a landing. When a sudden gust of wind picked the light aircraft up, he quickly did something he had told me never to do. He used left stick and full right rudder and we quickly lost the altitude and touched down. We stopped just before we ran out of runway and into the river.

A young mechanic had put new spark plugs in the plane and forgot to tighten one of them causing it to blow out. After he chewed out the mechanic, he fixed the plane and told me to get in the cockpit. We were going to go back up and do some more spins. Years later I realized that he didn’t want that bad experience to stick in my mind. He wanted me to fly some more and end the day with a feeling of success.

Later he taught me how to cross control the plane and crabbing sideways loose altitude quickly. He called it a slip and he taught me how to do it. I soon felt at ease doing it. Recently I looked at my old logbook and this is what he wrote to sign off that flight. “Aeronca N82561 Blew spark plug, forced landing, used up heap of field, downwind landing.”

I got his point about precision flying when he started cutting the engine and telling me to find a place to land. He expected me to line up on a proper grass field, check the wind direction, bleed the airspeed off, and come over the end with perfect airspeed and altitude. Often we were close to the ground before he would let me apply full power and climb out.

We kept in touch over the years. I flew my own Cessna Skyhawk into his private airport one day. The Chattahoochee River curved around both ends of the single runway and I felt good as I lined my plane up, made a perfect landing and taxied up to his office. He walked out to the plane to see who had landed on his private strip. After a big welcome I told him that I had become a missionary pilot and he was keenly interested in that. He took the time to give me some fatherly advice on “terrain and mountain flying”. He told me he was proud of me and knew I would do a lot of good.

Several years later I took my daughter and family to see him. My grandchildren walked around in the large hanger full of beautiful ultra light aircraft he designed, built and sold but they soon lost interest and were running outside in the grass—playing with the dog.

We heard something like an angry hornet and went outside to see a yellow ultralight plane landing at his strip. When it taxied up and stopped a man got out. Of course he was a friend who had built his own ultralight with Fred’s help. It had a lawn mower engine in it. He turned out to be a pastor of a church and this was his favorite kind of recreation.

We laughed and talked and Fred told me how his friend has built the wing with so much thickness on the front, (chord in aeronautical language) that it would climb almost straight up, but would only do about 24 miles an hour. Of course Fred told him how to rebuild the wing, let him use his shop and tools, and now it flew about 60 miles an hour. It still climbed pretty steep but that was O.K.

Ron, my son-in-law and I walked over to the old hanger with Fred and looked at the flying car. It still wasn’t finished. Times had changed and it was an old dream that the aviation world had left behind. Things kept getting in the way of working on it. I’m sure he kept it because he knew everyone needs a dream to keep them looking to the future.

The years had taken their toll on him and I had a sad feeling when we drove away that I might not see him again. A year or so later I went back and found the airport fenced off and city trucks and equipment parked in what use to be the hangers. He was gone and no one seemed to know where. The Valley chief of police didn’t know what happened to him. For us there were no good-byes because he will always be in my heart.

We had made a long video of him showing us around his shop, looking at his work, talking and just being old friends. I’m glad I did that, but I don’t look at it very often. There’s no way to put on tape the long friendship and kindness between us. In the hundreds of hours of flying that followed, I often found myself in a tight place and heard him “in my head” telling me what to do. His careful and demanding instructions saved my life many times.

I feel sorry for young people when I see their parents letting them do as they please. I feel sad when teachers allow college students to slide by without really learning anything. I often encounter people who don’t know how to do their jobs and all they seem to want is their paycheck. The craftsman who takes pride in his work is hard to find in our fast world of the bottom line.

Then I remember Fred and others like him who gave me the precious gift of competence and pride in a job well done. The frustration, tedium of doing it over and over until I got it right, the hours of study and hard work has almost been forgotten. It’s been replaced by a loving memory of a friend who gave me the precious gift of self-respect. I wish every young person in the world could have that treasure.

Years later I was working as a missionary pilot. We flew into a very high mountain rock strip called “los chochos”. Jerry, a missionary pilot I was working with thought we could fly into this remote area with two people in each plane and just enough fuel to leave for the return to Durango. We had to leave before the sun got too hot and made the air at eleven thousand feet too thin to fly in.

Instead a doctor was there and asked us to fly a dying woman to Durango hospital. It was a day and a half by road, and about 45 minutes by air. Our problem was that we would leave with 3 people in each plane and high density altitude. I would have to clear a row of tall pine trees with too much weight in the plane. As I flew down the clearing, the stall warning went off every time I tried to gain a little altitude.

Sweating it out I heard in my head my old flight instructor Fred Robinson telling me how he put a plane in the trees and walked away from it. “Don’t fly nose first into the trees he said. When you get to the trees use full flaps and pull the nose straight up”. I did what he told me and managed to clear the trees. On the other side of the trees, the mountain side dropped away. I dumped the flaps, put the nose down to gain some flying speed and headed for the airport at Durango.

We used the radio to have an ambulance waiting and soon the woman was in a hospital and recovered. Thank you Fred for saving our lives. The local police commander of this tiny village was so grateful for our rescue that he asked us to please come back and start a church in the area.

I often think about the wonderful results by reaching people in very remote villages and their amazing stories of encountering the presence of God.

A CHANGE OF MOOD

2009-02-08T12:56:00.011-05:00

Click on the photograph to see a larger view.

If you've read my blogs you know that I've been a licensed pilot for over 60 years. For you who don't know - a pilots license is good for life. It never expires. Of course if you want to rent a plane you have to demonstrate that you know how to fly. You do that by flying around the airport with an instructor on board to make sure you can fly. Oh, and you do have to keep an updated "Medical card showing that you are in good health and not ready to "kick the bucket."

I got to indulge my love of airplanes by serving for years as a missionary Pilot. One day as the Pastor of a new church I met Jerry. He was a Senior Delta Airlines Captain and we had a common interest. I tried not to bore him with too much "hanger flying." After visiting with him at his home we finished a Bible study. He ask me if I would like to go with him to the Delta Training Center and fly the 727 jet simulator. I eagerly said yes and waited for the Invitation.

We were both busy and as time went by I forgot about his invitation. One particularly stressful and frustrating day I came home in a bad mood. We all know that feeling. Too tired to move, wishing things would just go away, unwilling to even think about the next problem. I thought back over all the study and research I had done on stress.

I knew for example that stress and unpleasant circumstances produces depression. As the 20th century wound down Doctors were prescribing hundreds of millions of doses of antidepressants. Serotonin, the secret of Prozac, and norepinephrine - another neurotransmitter are the current drugs of choice for depression. Here's a clue. The brain makes both of these chemicals. Serotonin is made by the body from tryptophan, an amino acid found in protein-rich foods such as meat, fish and milk.

Years ago in a graduate psychology class I was taught that the body makes every single chemical that doctors proscribe in the form of pills. The big question is what turns on the production of these mood altering chemicals in the brain and what turns them off? I have believed for a long time that our thoughts have a lot to do with it.

I was stressed out when the telephone rang. Jerry wanted to know if I'd like to go to the Delta training center and try my hand at flying the 727 jet simulator. I eagerly said yes. He promised to stop by and pick me up. Suddenly I didn't feel tired or stressed out. I felt eager and alive with anticipation as we drove the 25 miles to the Delta Center.

We walked into a huge room and I saw the simulator. It looked like a large room up in the air on huge pistons. When I walked up the steps and into the door I found myself in an exact replica of a 727 Aircraft. As I slid into the right seat of the cockpit I was really pumped up. Absolutely everything was working and responded just like a real airplane. Soon the engines were running and Sound, lights, motion and the view out of the window convinced me that I was flying a real airplane.

Jerry handled part of the work load giving me headings to fly that took us out and back to the runway but I did a pretty good job of flying this heavy airliner. As I started an ILS approach to the runway a voice started nagging me to "watch my altitude, correct my heading" and other messages if I was less than perfect. I sweated a little struggling to stay on the glide path and soon I flared out and made a decent landing. My bad mood had disappeared and I felt great as I applied the brakes and the aircraft came to a stop.

I ask Jerry why they had a woman's voice on the radio nagging at me when I was a little off the mark. He laughed and said: "There isn't a man in the world that can ignore a nagging woman."

Jerry explained the obvious to me. If we forgot about how crowded the Sky's are it would still be enormously expensive to use a real 727 to train a new pilot. The Captain has years of experience and the first officer never fly's the real aircraft until they leave the gate with a load of passengers. The amazing simulator can be programmed to cause any kind of equipment failure, bad weather, and any kind of emergency the pilots could ever encounter in the real plane. Even the Captains have to take regular check rides with the simulator.

After several hours we shut down and I walked out into the bright lights of Atlanta's huge airport. I couldn't remember ever having a more interesting experience. All of my stress and bad mood had been erased. I slept like a baby after I got home.

The human brain is the most amazing computer in the world. Unfortunately we forget that it can be programmed by almost anyone. In a days time we are literally assaulted with thousands of "sensory inputs." Some good, some bad, but all are registered by our mind. Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could close our eyes and go into a "life simulator" where we got positive, uplifting, and inspiring thoughts placed in our minds. It's possible! The Apostle Paul describes the process.

(Phil 4:8-9 NIV) "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. {9} Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."

Thanks Jerry, for giving me such a powerful push toward emotional balance.

Did you know? You can send me an e-mail and I'll read it and send you a reply!

ANARCHY THE DEATH OF AMERICA?

2009-01-15T21:12:00.022-05:00

Anarchy is derived from a Greek root word meaning “without a rule.” When laws are not obeyed and authorities are despised and without force - when crime goes unpunished, property is attacked, the safety of the individual is violated, the morality of the people is corrupted, the disregard for the constitution, our government, and there is a complete absence of justice - these are the features of anarchy.

Maybe someone could tell me what these words mean: “illegal aliens.” I think I know what illegal means. It means an unlawful, criminal act. Aliens could be any foreigner who tries to sneak into our country without permission or a passport. For most of my life the legal and honorable way to enter our country was to get a visa, learn English, and apply for citizenship.

It's bad enough for Europe and many other countries to be filling up with Muslims and "terrorist". If they are good Muslims who believe and follow the Quran, then they will eventually attempt to kill, murder, and destroy all Christians and Jews. Why? Because it's clearly taught in the Quran. I'm shocked to see Americans protesting the self defence of Israel. I wonder what our country would do if Cuba was shooting Missiles into South Florida, killing innocent people and children?

Muslim leaders state that their goal is to convert the whole world to Sharia Law and force every nation on earth to bow to Muslim law. Our world is clearly in a state of Anarchy when the extremely wealthy people and corporations who want cheap labor demand that the politicians ignore the laws and allow “illegal immigrants” to flood into any country.

Pretending that it's some kind of "morality, compassion or kindness" to allow people to violate the laws of our nation is nothing more than lunatic liberalism. It trashes the very foundations and concepts of the founders of our country. The death of America is not very far away when the majority of Americans have never read or studied American History. I spent my time in a University carefully studying American History.

This U-tube video is an excellent presentation of the true concepts of our founding fathers for a free, safe and prosperous America. It may shock many people who believe that the founding fathers "wanted to create a Democracy". Recognizing the inherit danger of "Majority rule" they wisely chose to create a Republic.

Here's a test of whether or not you would like to live under a true democracy. Picture yourself on a deserted island with 90 pot smoking dope addicts who believe in the most vile perverted lifestyle imaginable. You are shocked and dismayed to learn that your one vote is meaningless because 90 of these people will always outvote you every time. That's a democracy.

No matter how reasonable and just our laws may be - there will always be a screaming, angry marching mob of people who will never give up until their perverted and immoral lifestyle can rule the day.

HAVE A ----- CHRISTMAS

2008-12-16T13:15:00.011-05:00

Christmas is not always a happy time. For many people it's a time of great stress, problems, and disappointment. Some of that we can avoid and there are things we can do that makes it a pretty wonderful time. Here's my suggestions:

I've found that the joy is in giving and not so much in the receiving. If there is something you really would like to receive then go get it for yourself. Hints can be misunderstood, and what do you do with someone who won't give you a clue to what would make them happy? If you don't guess right ---------well you know what comes next.

Here's an off the wall idea. There are 10 million people who live alone in the United States and 175,000 more join them each year. Old age is a time of painful changes. Here's how one old man expressed it.

I spent many long years as a pastor. Every church has their group of old people. I've always loved them and would make it a point to try to enter their world. That means listen to them talk - usually about the better times in their life. One of them wrote this to describe what it's like for the old people all around us.

It late - not just 1:31 AM, but late in my life. Many of my opportunities have been used up - wasted on people who didn’t care - lost to people who not only didn’t help but tried to make sure I didn’t make it. Everything is changing, and I feel like a man in a foreign country; betrayed by a new world I can’t understand, and often find repulsive.

I long for the old familiar things; music, caring people, honesty; a belief that integrity still existed; a time filled with pride, hope and happiness. In my world there was time to just sit on the porch and talk; go fishing with friends, time for leisurely visits, warm letters, phone calls that said: “I need your help,” and a feeling that there was a time and place for everything.

My world had been filled with family and loving relationships. We enjoyed many wonderful meals in the homes of our friends, and of course we reciprocated. There was time to eat, laugh, talk, and enjoy a leisurely meal in a warm, snug safe haven from all the problem of life. There were no interruptions, or someone jumping up to leave because they had to go somewhere.

Now, my options are dying, only a few left----like the last gasp of air in an old man’s lungs as he struggles to complete his final exit. My hopes have long ago faded, turned from bright yellow, red and green to a sickly brown and finally the dark color of death.

I look back and see so very little that I’ve done that has been worth while. Where there use to be respect and praise, now there’s only contempt and impatience; a poorly disguised wish that I would hurry up and get out of the way; stop being a bother and make way for youthful and more important things.

I feel like a tired old traveler, walking down a dusty road. I don’t want to show that I need help as everyone speeds by me on their way to urgent and more important things that won’t wait. I’ve reached a time when I’m always last on the list of priorities of those I know. I accept the fact that I’m used up; have no real value left; and need to be discarded.

Once I was needed, and others depended on my hard work, skills, and dogged determination to make it no matter how much it took out of me. Now, I’m a relic of an age gone by; lost forever in the dim mist of what use to be; and as it is slowly buried in the dust of time--maybe never was.

I’m not afraid of the final act, only glad that there will be one; hoping that those who have been my only reason for living can go on with their lives; free from the depressing burden of an old man who wore out their patience by living too long.

Like moving from an empty old house, I know that it’s time for me to walk away; accept the fact that it’s ended, and stop dreaming of better days that will never come again. It surprises me that those I love can go longer and longer without seeing, talking, or trying to make time for me. I also feel the bonds of affection, care and concern from them growing weaker.

Perhaps that’s as it should be. It would hurt too much for the end to come with strong feelings of attachment still in place. So, life and circumstances administer a powerful anesthetic so that there is little pain when the bonds are finally broken.

We don’t always reap what we sow. All of my life I loved and took care of older people. I made it a point to include them in the things we did, I went to see them when I was busy and had many other things to do. I listened patiently as they talked about “nothing” and prayed with them about their needs. I would call them on the phone and took time to listen when they called me. I felt impatient then at the interruption, but tried to understand that they needed to talk to me. I consciously practiced the grace of “giving.”

Their world was dying, and I knew they needed me much more than the younger, energetic and strong people I knew. I don’t regret what I did. I’m glad I took the time, and it was comforting to know that my “old friends” loved me. I gained something precious from them. I learned, many years before I needed it, how to grow old and prepare for the end of life here.

No, I’m not reaping what I sowed. I’m reaping something else that I never thought about, or dreamed that I would need if I lived long enough. It’s the ability to quietly let go, surrender to the inevitable, and look forward to moving to another world. I call it “my Father’s house.” Oh, we will keep on going through the motions, walking on down the sometimes lonely road that only seems to lead to nowhere. What else can we do? We can’t go back because our world is gone.

Morbid? Probably, but sometimes we need a different perspective to understand what will one day most certainly come to us. Someday we will all be old.

That pretty much describes it.... now the question is this: "If you really care about them how would you find the time to visit and the creative ideas to respond to the world they live in?

I would love to hear your suggestions,

Pastor Ken

IS IT GOD'S WILL?

2008-12-03T11:47:00.015-05:00

Apparently many people think that whatever happens "must be God's will." Otherwise he would have prevented it. There is a growing foolishness circulating on the Internet. The General Superintendent of a major church denomination helped start it and their local State Overseers dutifully sent it to all their churches. Others on the Internet are promoting it.

It goes something like this: "(Rom 13:1-4 NIV) "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. {2} Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. {3} For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. {4} For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer."

The e-mail I received put it simply like this: Romans 13:1-4

Barack Obama's presidency is appointed by God. (v 1)
Christians should lead the way in supporting Barack Obama's presidency. (v 2)
Barack Obama's presidency can be a force for good and a deterrent against evil. (v 3)
As president, Barack Obama is God's minister to you for good. (v 4)

Let's take a look at each of these Scripture verses. (Rom 13:1 NIV) "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God". God established government for the benifit of people. The long story of Moses and the Jews who were delivered from slavery in Egypt is filled with the creation of an honest government for these people.

This is not to be understood as meaning that every individual ruler is ordained of God. That would make God responsible for many acts of despotism and oppression.

Hitler was elected to high office by the German people in 1933, but no Christian can argue that he represented God's preference for the post, that somehow God was enthused and delighted about the prospect of a German ruler who would gas six million Jews and cause the deaths of 25 million people.

Adolph Hitler's elevation to power represented the will of the German people, not the will of God. And the German people paid a bitter and self-destructive price for choosing poorly. Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin comes to mind along with the incredible millions of Men women and children who were tortured, enslaved, and murdered by them. It was God who destroyed the selfish, sinful rulers who became despicable in his eyes.

The Holocaust (from the Greek ὁλόκαυστον (holókauston): holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt"), also known as (Ha)-Shoah (Hebrew: השואה), Churben (Yiddish: חורבן) is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a programme of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) regime in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.

Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the total number of victims would be between nine and 11 million. No true Christian could ever say that God appointed this mass murderer to destroy families, children, and an entire population of Jews. Add another 20 million innocent people killed by Joseph Stalin in Russia and you have an incredible picture of what a leader elected by the people can do. In Russia it was the communist party that place a mass murderer in power - not God.

{Romans 13:2} Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. {3} For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. {4} For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer." (Paul knew well the awesome and cruel power of the Roman Government. He seems to be saying: "Unless God requires it - there is no need for senselessly courting death and disaster.)

The Bible does not teach the doctrine of passive obedience or nonresistance. However our resistance should be clearly directed by God. Wicked Rulers and leaders of any kind need to be opposed. At Babylon, Daniel resisted the reigning power. The royal mandate was issued, but Daniel did not obey it. “He kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”

The Apostles Peter and John declined to obey the Jewish council at Jerusalem when they were commanded to speak no more in the Name of Jesus. They boldly answered, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and hear". Where the law of a nation or the command of an earthly ruler conflicts with the law of God, then it is clearly the Christian’s duty to obey God rather than men”.

If by the "will of God," we mean "what God desires," then it is impossible to imagine that God wants our president - the most powerful and influential man on earth to support infanticide, unimaginable and grisly "partial birth abortions and to support and promote the normalization of homosexual behavior. We have a Christian duty to oppose the things that God has declared sinful in the Bible.

It doesn't take a biblical scholar to discern that the Judeo-Christian Scriptures teaches us that homosexual behavior is "contrary to nature," that homosexual liaisons are driven by "dishonorable passions" and consist of "shameless acts" (Romans 1:26-27), and that marriage is the union of one man and one woman (Genesis 2:26, Matthew 19:4-6, 1 Corinthians 7:2).

There was no naive assumption that an evil king represented God's desire for the leadership of his people. The exact opposite is true. He sent his anointed prophets to confront those who abused the authority God had given to them. Evil kings came under withering censure because they knew better.

The Apostles Peter and John declined to obey the Jewish council at Jerusalem when they were commanded to speak no more in the Name of Jesus. They boldly answered, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and hear". Where the law of a nation or the command of an earthly ruler conflicts with the law of God, then it is clearly the Christian’s duty to obey God rather than men”.

Because of Corporate Greed and unimaginable fraud and corruption in our Govenment, and by people in high places, we are now looking at a world wide disaster. In 1873 The United States de facto standard for the value of our money was at 20.67 dollars to 1 troy oz (31.1 g) of gold. As we watch prices rise - and the government prints trillions of "paper dollars" it's anyone's guess as to what a dollar will be worth in the future.

Looking back over a long life I know from my experiences that God is watching over us and cares about each of his dear children. That gives me perfect peace when I go to sleep at night.

GOD'S PRESENCE

2008-11-26T13:34:00.032-05:00

(Exo 3:2-6 NIV) "There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. {3} So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight--why the bush does not burn up." {4} When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!" And Moses said, "Here I am." {5} "Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." {6} Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God."

QUESTION? Does God ever do that today? The answer is yes. I almost never talk about it but I was 11 years old, in the bed by myself, totally uninterested in "Church" or "Christianity" when God's presence overwhelmed me. I secretly cried, struggled, and tried for three long weeks to resist what I knew God was asking me to do. God's presence was overpowering and finally I surrendered. God wanted me to be a "minister" and not a Military pilot. I struggled for years to keep my commitment to God.

In my lifetime I've had numbers of experiences of God's presence. It's a powerful and awesome experience when it happens. I always knew... and so did everyone else that God was asking me to do something that seemed to be impossible. This usually happens when I'm totally unprepared for the encounter. I learned to listen carefully and do exactly what God was telling me to do. The results were so spectacular that many people called them "miracles." (With God there is no such thing as a miracle. It's just business as usual for God)

Looking back it hasn't been easy. It's not easy today. Sixty years of preaching, traveling all over the world, struggling, praying, and doing things others would not do is still a part of my lifetime commitment. At 76 years old I know I'm close to the end of my life but still I'm determined to keep listening for God's voice and the power of his presence.

There is a nagging problem for me. There is no way I can tell anyone how to have that kind of "Divine encounter with God." I passionately wish I could. It's God's choice - not mine. I see the urgent need for many of God's people to have that experience as our world goes spinning out of control. Churches desperately try to somehow "lead people to worship and experience God's presence". Most of the time it's a failure and a sad exercise in futility. Only God can draw near to us and make it happen.

When God sent Moses back to Egypt to tell Pharaoh to let the Hebrew slaves go free, Moses asked: "(Exo 4:1 NIV) "Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The LORD did not appear to you'?" Good question!!!

(2} Then the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" "A staff," he replied. {3} The LORD said, "Throw it on the ground." Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. {4} Then the LORD said to him, "Reach out your hand and take it by the tail." So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. {5} "This," said the LORD, "is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers--the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob--has appeared to you."

Unfortunately when Moses showed Pharaoh the stick/snake miracle the Magicians of Pharaoh's court came out and did the same thing. Yes, Moses snake ate up their snake... but they kept matching the miracles of Moses. God raised the bar and eventually they couldn't match the miracles of Moses. Was God having fun when he sent the next plague of Gnats, flies, and lice into the Egyptians homes "but not in the houses of the Hebrew slaves"?

Pharaoh begin to compromise. "Take you people out into the desert and worship your God". But almost immediately Pharaoh harden his heart. (Don't go too far" (we want you back at work as soon as possible). Sound familiar? People often pray and the minute they get out of trouble they forget God and their promises.

The next plague was on the animals. ((Exo 9:3 KJV) "Behold, the hand of the LORD is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the oxen, and upon the sheep: there shall be a very grievous murrain." This word "murrain" means a plague. The Egyptians held in idolatrous reverence almost every animal, but some they held in particular veneration; as the ox, cow, and ram.

Among these, {Apis} and {Mnevis} are well known; the former being a sacred bull, worshipped at Memphis, as the latter was at Heliopolis. A cow or heifer had the like honours at Momemphis; and the same practice seems to have been adopted in most of the Egyptian Nomes. Each Nome, or province, of ancient Egypt had its own god or totem, its own capital, frontiers and coat-of-arms. By the infliction of this judgment, the Egyptian deities sank before the God of the Hebrews.

Next came festering boils, that broke out on men and animals. Then a hail storm, the worst that has ever happened in Egypt since the beginning of time. (Not a hail stone fell in Goshen where the Hebrew lived). Next came a plague of Locusts, everything in Egypt was destroyed... but Pharaoh hardened his heart. Then came three days of darkness - so horrible it could be felt...

Pharaoh still refused to bend, and told Moses "I will kill you if I ever see your face again." So be it... Hard hearted sinners seldom repent. Then God said to Moses: " (Exo 11:5-7 NIV) "Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. {6} There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt--worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. {7} But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.' Then you will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel."

There is no question that America was founded by Godly Christian men and in spite of a corrupt supreme court - Christian monuments are everywhere in Washington D.C.

This is Moses holding the ten commandments in the rotunda of the Library of congress. Monuments of our Christian Faith are everywhere. Here is one on the door of the U.S. Supreme Court. I wonder if the Chief Justices ever feel like hypocrites when they make ruling that defy the laws of God? This carving of the Ten Commandments is on the door that opens to the U.S. Supreme Court.

There are many of these scattered all over Washington but here's another one in the chambers of the Chief Justices of the United Supreme Court. This is where they make rulings that defy the laws of God and refuse to allow children to pray in Schools.

How and when did this get inside the United States Supreme Court???? It's Muhammad inside the U.S. Supreme Court. What message does that send? (Hint: He's holding a sword)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations in 1997 protested the Supreme Court's Muhammad sculpture and said it was concerned that Muhammad "was shown with the Quran, Islam's Holy Book, in one hand and a sword in the other, reinforcing long-held stereotypes of Muslims as intolerant conquerors." (Imagine that!!!) Chief Justice Renquest responding to the complaint told CAIR the image could not be changed and explained that swords also were used throughout the court's architecture as symbols of justice.

"Altering the depiction of Muhammad would impair the artistic integrity of the whole," Rehnquist wrote. "Additionally, it is unlawful (under the U. S. Code) to remove or in any way injure an architectural feature in the Supreme Court."

In response, protesters in Turkey marched outside the Danish consulate, terror groups in the West Bank threatened Danish and European interests, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades – an offshoot of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party – briefly kidnapped a German and thousands of Muslim demonstrators in Beirut clashed with police Sunday, storming the city's Danish consulate and setting it ablaze. A nearby Maronite Catholic church also was attacked, prompting fears the protests could turn into a sectarian clash.

In Damascus , the evacuated Danish and Norwegian embassies were burned during protests that also damaged the Swedish embassy. Rioters reportedly tried to storm the city's French mission but were held off by police. Feel safer now?????

(Psa 9:17 KJV) "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God."

What can save us? We need to abandon the lust for huge buildings and impersonal churches...the driving ambition for success and recognition. Ambition to build a multi-million dollar church building will absolutely guarantee that you will have to compromise your spiritual integrity to do it. The love of money is the root of all evil. Strange isn't it that Jesus - with all his spectacular power and miracle working abilities said: "I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." You can search all you like for a building and a piece of property that is "His church" and you won't find it. It is his power that builds "His" church in the heart of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Anyone who listens to the news knows that the whole world is in trouble. We desperately need to have a "Divine encounter" with God to give us his spirit and power.

Unfortunately Satan can create a counterfeit religion call it "Christianity" and deceive God's people. In Second Peter 1:18 (NIV) we read: "We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain." (Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9)

Peter goes on to write: (2Peter 2:1-3 NIV) "But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them -- bringing swift destruction on themselves. {2} Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. {3} In their greed these teachers will exploit....(Make merchandise of you "KJV")... with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping."

We need millions of American Christians to have the experience of the "presence of God." I can't tell you exactly how to have it - but I can tell you that your heart will have to "hunger and thirst" for the experience. If you have ever been really hungry or thirsty then you know how powerful those feelings are. They become your absolute priorities. To do that you will also have to stop reading, listening to and trying to use the lying false teachings of greedy preachers who all feel the need to be multi-millionaires.

Here are several links that will tell you what they believe...and teach. I've known many of these people personally ...and steered clear of their ministry and phony unscriptural teachings.

False Preachers Page - Forgotten Word Ministries

For you who don't feel comfortable at the church you may be attending...let me encourage you to pray and ask God to visit you. In my years as a pastor visiting church members on a regular basis was something I enjoyed. Someone once told me: "When you are talking you ain't learning nothing." I took that advise and always made it a point to get people to talk to me - while I listened carefully. It was amazing what I learned - often from the old saints who had lived a lifetime.

I was astonished how many of them opened up and finally told me of great and wonderful experiences of their encounter with God. Aunt Nanny was 98 years old when she told me how things were in the glorious and spiritual early days of the church. She said: "I was washing clothes in an old wash pot over a fire in the front yard. I had just taken the towels out of the wash pot and hung them over the bushes in front of the house.

Suddenly, God spoke to me that a dear friend in the church was sick and needed help and prayer. I dried my hands, put on my walking shoes and walked the three miles to her house. When I knocked on her door I heard her moan as I entered. She was alone, desperately sick and needed help. I prayed for her and in minutes I knew she was better. I stayed with her until she was rejoicing in the Lord and felt normal. "Pastor, I miss those days when that sort of thing was a common experience."

One night in a church we pastored I was about to preach. A minister friend that I knew well was in the audience. I heard the message loud and clear.... "Ask D.C. to pray." So I did exactly that. He stood and prayed, and prayed, and kept on praying, until people were crying, running to the altar to give their hearts to the Lord. He kept praying until his own Brother in Law was saved, and everyone in the church was touched by the presence of God. The long lasting effects of both of us being used by the Lord changed many lives that night. Nothing was out of order, nothing was contrived, we didn't take an offering, we simply had the experience described in the Old Testament.

(Ezra 3:11-13 NIV) "With praise and thanksgiving they sang to the LORD: "He is good; his love to Israel endures forever." And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid. {12} But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. {13} No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away."

I'm absolutely certain that many people are tired of carefully orchestrated programs planned weeks in advance... of lifeless shows, of sermons contrived to give the appearance of "progress being made..." Maybe we should talk to each other about it, listen carefully to the "voice of the Lord" and allow God to use us to change our country and the world.

Send me an e-mail - I would like to know what you think.

THE GOD OF ALL COMFORT

2008-11-01T13:45:00.011-04:00

Everyone has tough times. We need someone or something to "comfort us" and help us to get back on our feet. The word comfort occurs 66 times in the Bible. Use the word "Comforter" and we get another 8 Bible verses about comfort. Four of those verses were in the teachings of Jesus. This verse explains what we need in tough times. (Lam 1:16 NIV) "This is why I weep and my eyes overflow with tears. No one is near to comfort me, no one to restore my spirit. My children are destitute because the enemy has prevailed."

Jesus taught, (John 14:16-18 NIV) "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another (Comforter KJV) Counselor to be with you forever-- {17} the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. {18} I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

O.K. What does the picture have to do with any of this? My beautiful and wonderful granddaughter Amie is holding the dog she bought for a very low price. The pet store thought he was a poodle... but turns out he is a "bichon." She named him "Sammy". He's the most intelligent, loving and comforting pet I've ever known. It wasn't long until everyone in the family was the object of his love and concern. The "dog whisperer" you see on the National Geographic TV show training bad dogs would go out of business if all dogs were like Sammy. Everyone who comes in the door of the house gets his loving attention.

I believe that Jesus intended for all of us to be "loving comforters" and we can learn a lot from Sammy. When Amie brought him home my daughter Debbie and son in Law Ron had a poodle that was dying. Once Sammy was comfortable with the house he began to care for Bandit. I saw him go over to "Bandit" who was dying, and carefully and quietly lay down beside her. I was astonished at how Sammy cared for Bandit, standing back and waiting for her to eat or get a drink of water. When Bandit died, we all wept over her. Sammy seemed upset as well and wanted to be close to all of the family.

There's something you need to know about Sammy. The vet told Amie and family that Sammy had obviously been mistreated by someone. This person must have assumed he was a poodle and cut off his tail. During that process his back left leg was broken and never healed right. He also had damage to his spine. He runs like the wind on three legs by holding up his back left leg. I've watched him run like a bullet up the 15 steps to the second story of their home. I don't know how he does it with all the pain he endures. Sometimes the pain does overcome him and he sits quietly and shakes. When he is "shaking" the family has to give him powerful pain medication.

In spite of his physical problems and obvious pain, he is the most loving, cheerful, happy little fellow I've ever seen. Let me brag a little bit. I have the greatest son in law in the world. He takes care of his family and welcomes everyone into his home. Ron and Sammy have a special relationship. They have lots of games they like to play. Ron is the traffic manager for Roadway Express and comes in tired. Sammy meets him at the door excited and ready to play. So Ron will get down on the floor, and play all kinds of games with Sammy. It's their special time together. It's a delightful time for the whole family who watches.

At Thanksgiving and Christmas my wife and I spend time with Debbie and her family. Anytime we eat I feel the soft touch of Sammy's little paws on my leg. He learned quickly that I'm a pushover for giving him part of my meal. A tradition in the family is to give Sammy a "Holiday" plate of food. Ron gets on the floor and growls and fusses with Sammy before letting go of the plate. Sammy wins and Ron laughs while we all stand around and watch.

There's no problem about who is going to keep Sammy if Ron, Debbie or Amie is going to be out of town. Jamie my grandson who is a commercial photographer will gladly keep him at his big house. When my grandson Ken comes home from his job as Senior Music director of a large church he brings his dog Jolie. She is a 70 pound "Samoyed" who was trained entirely in French by Ken. There's no problem between Jolie and Sam. They get along just great.

Does Sammy have fun in spite of his physical problems? Yes! He scares us all to death by going out the back door... and occasionally running the length of the neighbor's wooden fence. They have three dogs the size of small pony's and it drives them crazy to see Sammy running the fence. One of them broke the fence completely off down near the ground trying to get to Sammy. Everyone is trying to break Sammy's bad habit but he runs so fast with his ears flying in the wind... it's hard to stop.

If only Sammy could talk I would like to know what's in his head. He tries to talk at times .... but can't so I'll just have to guess. Obviously he had some terrible mistreatment. Amie had gone through a painful divorce and needed Sammy. He needed her love and affection. They helped each other. That's what life is all about. Do that and no one will ever have to suffer alone.

I know the story of the book of Job very well. There are things I don't understand about it. Here is the real heart of that story. Why did God allow Job to loose everything? Why did God allow his only beloved son to suffer and die on Calvary? Both of these sad stories required suffering.

The suffering of Job was terrible. He had boils: something called black leprosy by the Arabs, termed Elephantiasis by the Greeks, from its rendering the skin, like that of the elephant, scabrous, dark coloured, and furrowed all over with tubercles. This loathsome and most afflictive disease is accompanied with the most intolerable itching. Poor Job scraped his skin with broken pottery.

In Job's story he is suffering also because he has lost everything. His wife tells him to curse God and die. The name Job means "the persecuted one" His three friend come to "comfort him" and end up accusing him of sin and wrong doing. Their behavior is an excellent story of "how not to do it". In their ignorance and arrogance they only made it worse for Job.

(Job 16:1-5 NIV) "Then Job replied: {2} "I have heard many things like these; miserable comforters are you all! {3} Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing? {4} I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you. {5} But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief."

Then God weighs in on the problem: "(Job 42:7-8 NIV) "After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. {8} So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has."

They ask Job to pray for them - God accepted Job's prayer... and gave to Job double what he had lost. The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. {13} And he also had seven sons and three daughters. Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers."

How can I comfort someone who is hurt, struggling to keep their balance, worried because they don't know what to do? What can I do when I don't know how to solve their problems.

Maybe we should ask Sammy how to do it? If he had a Ph.D and could talk Sammy would probably say: "Don't say anything most of the time. You can't change emotions with logic or an argument. You can only change emotions with emotion. Show some love, affection, or give a big hug. Do that often with great sincerity. Keep it going. I know it's hard but try to be warm and cheerful. Don't expect too much at first... a little progress is great. Give it time. Try to listen and give them lots of the love and affection they need and really want.

I'm pretty sure that Jolie would agree.

IS Barack Hussein Obama a Muslim?

2008-10-03T11:49:00.016-04:00

If you search the Internet you will find a ton of sites proving that Obama was schooled and raised as a Muslim. You might want to start with this one:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Ryter/jon212.htm

Of course we have to decide whether or not the sites are credible. How can we do that? In this case we can use some simple deductive logic. We can ask ourselves what he would do if he was a secret closet Muslim.

There's one thing that comes to mind almost immediately. He would most certainly be against the war in Iraq. He can talk about the sanctuary and hides out locations of the rabid "Islamic" leaders of the terrorist war in Afghanistan and Pakistan... but talk means nothing without an Army to back it up. Would Obama send troops to do that job? That would be a direct contradiction of his opposition to the war in Iraq.

The most dangerous threat to the entire world is the spread of "Wahhabi" radical teaching of Islamic terrorism against anyone who opposes their murderous crusade of Islam to "butcher" anyone who opposes their dark age religion. Saudi Arabia is the leading country that teaches that murderous form of Islam. There's no question that they have exported their "terrorist" religion to France and England with marches promising a hideous death to anyone who opposes them. Now the same terrorists who killed 3,000 people in the world trade center bombing are beginning their next step to take over America.

Would you believe that our U.S. Congress has already passed a bill to recognize (celebrate) the Muslim religious day of Ramadan? NO? Then take a look at it: (Copy and Paste this link in your browser or try clicking on the link below).

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=hr110-635

I'm wondering if the Christians in America could get a bill passed to have anything Christian recognized by Congress????? Our "do nothing" congress would fight for weeks to strip anything that sounds like Christian values from a bill because they buy votes by catering to sleese bags who oppose Christianity. Have you noticed that our Federal Government is refusing to enforce the laws of our nation? They are more interested in holding on to their jobs and perks.

http://ohioagainstterror.blogspot.com/

Unless you have a very strong stomach you probably shouldn't look at this site of photos about the wicked, brutal, and inhumane practices of Islam.

http://www.faithfreedom.org/gallery.htm

Or you may want to try to read some of the Quran by going to this site.....I've studied "Islam" for years and the more I dig into it the more concerned I become. Unfortunately this problem started in the book of Genesis, chapter 16 in our Bible. The angel of the Lord described

Hagar's Child:

(Gen 16:11-12 NIV) "The angel of the LORD also said to her: "You are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery. {12} He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers."

Strongs Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible gives this description of a "wild" man.

"The word rendered "wild" also denotes the "wild ass;" the description of which animal in Job 39:5-8, affords the very best representation of the wandering, lawless, free booting life of the Bedouin and other Arabs, the descendants of Ishmael".

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/quran_teaches.htm

This has been floating around the Internet for some time now. No one has come up with any proof that is is not factual and correct.

It would take a very large book to list all of the problems with having an Arab with mixed heritage and loyalties as the next President of the United States.

When he failed to win the election his blood-thirsty followers went on a rampage and burned to death a large number of women and children who sought refuge in an Assembly of God church. Only people possessed by pure evil could do that. This cancerous evil is spreading over the globe.

I've seen Islamic protest with violent threats of death to those who oppose Islam in Spain, France and England. I've often wondered why the government didn't stop them. Now a friend sent me this video showing one of those same kinds of marches in NYC. When? On October 12, 2008. No one I've talked to has seen any of this covered by the "Media or Press". Why has the news media kept deathly silent about this? If it was an American religious group of any kind doing this it would be all over the TV and Newspapers. Islam has sworn to take over the world especially including America and force everyone to live under Muslim Sharia Law.

I had much rather write inspiring, uplifting and helpful things but everything we do has consequences. Our country is in dire peril and every American must get involved in the solution. At the very least we must make our voices heard in a few weeks when we have the liberty of casting our votes.

Benjamin Franklin wrote that the price of freedom was eternal vigilance, and by that standard our freedoms have been mostly lost, because people don’t pay attention, or they don’t care. The federal government, intended by the Founding Fathers to play a strictly limited role in the affairs of the United States, is out of control – an ever-expanding bureaucracy that seeks to regulate, prohibit, or tax almost every aspect of peoples’ affairs, from birth to death, in furtherance of a socialist agenda for which there is no mandate.

Edmund Burke ( January 12, 1729--July 1797 - was an Anglo Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who served for many years in the British House of Commons. He is mainly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the dispute with King George the I I I and Britain that led to the American Revolution.

He wrote: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Hopefully millions of good people in America will do something in this coming election to move our country back to the vision of our founding fathers.

OBAMA NEEDS TO TELL US WHO HE REALLY IS

2008-09-29T02:05:00.026-04:00

Honesty is always the best policy. Obama would help himself if he could tell us who he really is. Most people have a pretty good track record of being able to spot the tiny clues that let us know when we are being conned. It's easy to win the confidence of people when we are being honest and very, very, difficult when we have something to hide. Unless of course, you have some other "kinky" reason for wanting to vote for him.

He seems to keep telling us that he is going to give us change. Does that mean nickles and dimes or a quarter every so often? Everyone wants to know the specifics of what he means by "change."

America has the best track record of any nation on earth of accepting people from different nationalities, ethnic origins and religious beliefs. There are 259 different Churches listed in Atlanta Georgia. Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Nazarene, Baptist, Methodist, church of God and so on. It's a very long list.

The Internet is full of articles, post, and websites stating very emphatically that Barrack Obama was raised as a Muslim. Yet he goes to great length to say that he is not a Muslim, never has been one and is a "Christian". He went to great length to say that he had been a member of the Church of Christ for over 20 years, and didn't know that Jeremiah Wright, his pastor and mentor was a radical racist who hates America and shouted on Television: "God damn America". Rev. Jeremiah Wright pastors a church that gladly accepts "Muslims" as members.

It seems to me that with America spending it's "blood and treasure" to fight Muslim extremist and terrorist in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan...to say nothing of the 3000 people who died in the World Trade Center in New York - that Obama needs to make it very clear where his allegiance is going to be as President of the United States. I've read on the Internet where he said: "If there has to be a choice I will side with my Muslim brothers".

Obama's official campaign site has a page titled "Obama has never been a Muslim, and is a committed Christian." The page states, "Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ."

Yet the accumulated research from primary sources who knew Obama from his childhood indicate that he was a devout Muslim, the son of a devout Muslim, the step-son of a devout Muslim and the grandson and namesake ("Hussein") of a devout Muslim. He was registered in school as a Muslim and demonstrated his ability to chant praise to Allah in impressive Arab-accented tones even as an adult. Just as he has not disavowed his "uncle" Jeremiah, neither has he disavowed his Muslim faith that he was born into, raised with, celebrated and never abandoned. He just covered it over with a thin veneer of his own self-styled "Christianity."

In his autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," Obama mentions studying the Koran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school."

February 28, 2008. Kristoff from the New York Times a year ago: Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it'll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as 'one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.' This is just one example of what Pamela is talking about when she says 'Obama's narrative is being altered, enhanced and manipulated to whitewash troubling facts.'

In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in the New York Times, Obama recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent." The opening lines of the Adhan (Azaan) is the Shahada: "Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme! I witness that there is no god but Allah I witness that there is no god but Allah I witness that Muhammad is his prophet...."

According to Islamic scholars, reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, makes one a Muslim. This simple yet profound statement expresses a Muslim's complete acceptance of, and total commitment to, the message of Islam. Obama chanted it with pride and finesse.

Obama wants it both ways, has always wanted it both ways. Black and white, Indonesian and American, Muslim and Christian. He loves playing one off the other, using one to hide the other even as the traces of the truth may be assembled to reveal the whole cloth of deception and self-promotion he has been weaving so skillfully since his childhood. No wonder he is a man of change. He IS a changeling, a veritable chameleon, adapting and amending his life story to fit the circumstances.

An American Expatriat in Southeast Asia blog, written by an American who has lived in Indonesia for 20 years and has met with both the Taliban and al-Qaeda, contains the following:

"Barack Hussein Obama might have convinced some Americans that he is no longer a Muslim, but so far he has not convinced many in the world's most populous Muslim country who still see him as a Muslim and a crusader for Islam and world peace."

"Barack Hussein Obama's race, his staunch opposition to the war in Iraq, his sympathy to Islam and Muslims worldwide and his Muslim heritage receive the Indonesian media coverage. There is no mention of his apostasy."

"A good example of how some of the Indonesian media is reporting on Obama's religion can be found in the following."

"What I found interesting in the article was the use of the word 'mengaku' when refering to Obama's conversion from Islam to Christianity. The word 'mengaku' in Indonesian means "claimed" and as such leaves the insinuation to the native Indonesian reader being that Obama might actually still be a Muslim.

But this is how Indonesians see Obama, they don't see him as an apostate at all, they see him as a crusader for the cause of Islam."

I still remember very well traveling across Indonesia by myself. I got the courage to do that because the Missionary I was going to work with didn't get my cable. I couldn't get a hotel room because the Politicians had booked every room in Jakarta. A man in the airport put me in a Taxi at four o'clock in the morning to take me to a bus that would drive all day to Bandung. I couldn't speak a word of the language and was overjoyed when I arrived at the Missionary's house.

The next day I was talking to Reverend Mcgraw and a military plane flew so low over his house that I thought it was coming through the roof. He explained to me that it happened every day. The government didn't want any foreign Missionaries in their country and used all kinds of harrassment to drive them out. When I finished with several weeks of nightly church services I must say I was glad to leave.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promised an audience in a Jewish synagogue an "unshakable commitment" to Israel if he is elected. Obama also asked the crowd not be put off by his "funny name" and said that it was equivalent to the Hebrew "Baruch." He denied that he was raised as a Muslim, brushing aside his many anti-Israel friends: "There is not a single trace of me ever being anything more than a friend of Israel and a friend of the Jewish people," Obama said, warning the crowd not to believe fliers and e-mails that suggested otherwise. "Judge me by what I say and what I've done. Don't judge me because I've got a funny name. Don't judge me because I'm African-American."

The questions from the B'nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton Florida touched on Obama's policy proposals and his personal life. When asked about his Muslim name, Obama said it had the same roots as "Baruch" and meant "one who's blessed." Some in the audience wore buttons that spelled out Baruch Obama in hebrew letters.

"Israel has many friendships, but none is deeper than the bond between Israel and the United States of America," Obama said, drawing applause from a packed auditorium at the B'nai Torah Congregation in Boca Raton. "A broad majority of Americans understand this special relationship, and when I am in the White House, I will bring an unshakable commitment to maintaining that bond."

One questioner, Michael Ackerman, began his query by listing people linked to Obama who had been hostile to Israel, including a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University, Rashid Khalidi. asking the senator to name close friends who were Jewish and pro-Israel. "I hesitate to start listing them out," Obama said, saying it made him recall the old stereotype in which people say, "I'm not prejudiced. Some of my best friends are Jewish." (Why couldn't he name just one???)

Then Obama got himself into hot water, again suppressing the full truth and ignoring well-documented facts: "You mentioned Rashid Khalidi, who's a professor at Columbia. I do know him, because I taught at the University of Chicago. And he is Palestinian. And I do know him, and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisers; he's not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel's policy."

But Aaron Klein, the Jerusalem bureau chief of World Net Daily, points out that Obama's association with Khalidi, go far, far beyond a "conversation." Khalidi's deep personal ties to Obama were first exposed by WND in a widely cited article. According to a professor at the University of Chicago who said he has known Obama for 12 years, the Democratic presidential hopeful befriended Khalidi when the two worked together at the university, that the two families dined together a number of times, and that the Obamas even babysat the Khalidi children.

Khalidi in 2000 held a successful fundraiser for Obama's failed bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and an anti-Israel Arab group, the Arab American Action Network -- AAAN -- run by Khalidi's wife, Mona, received subtantial funding -- $75,000 over two years -- from a Chicago nonprofit, the Woods Fund, for which Obama served as a paid board member in both years. What a coincidence.

I'm amazed at all of the "post on the internet" about Obama that show him saying whatever it takes to please the group he is with. He obviously desperately needs the "Jewish Vote" and will do whatever it takes to get it.

It must be terrible to know that the only way he can be elected is to carefully deceive the various groups he speaks to. I'm absolutely baffled that so many people who seem to be intelligent are willing to vote for a man who has so little regard for the truth.

Obama wants it both ways, has always wanted it both ways. Black and white, Indonesian and American, Muslim and Christian. He loves playing one off the other, using one to hide the other even as the traces of the truth may be assembled to reveal the whole cloth of deception and self-promotion he has been weaving so skillfully since his childhood. No wonder he is a man of change. He IS a changeling, a veritable chameleon, adapting and amending his life story to fit the circumstances.

It would take a large book just to record all of the false statements, half-truths and contradictory positions he has taken in this campaign.

Sarah Palin Republican Vice President

2008-09-28T12:50:00.015-04:00

As a Christian Minister for over 60 years I know that I must be careful, fair and honest in anything I say about a political contest. I also know that political parties have a moral and ethical agenda and as an Ordained Minister I have a duty to support Christian Values. Our country was founded by decent and Godly men who used the Bible and Christian values to create our nation. I could write a large book supporting that fact.

John Adams, our Second President, also served as Chairman of the American Bible Society. In an address to military leaders he said:

“We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

At the time of our Nation’s Bicentennial in 1976, Political Science Professors at the University of Houston began to ask some key questions:
· Why is it that the American Constitution has been able to stand the test of time?
· Why has it not gone through massive revisions?
· Why is it looked to as a model by dozens of nations?
· What wisdom possessed these men to produce such an incredible document?
· Who did they turn to for inspiration?

They found that an incredible 94% of all the quotes in these 15,000 documents were direct quotes from, or references to the Bible. The Christian Faith has made America great. The destruction of that faith will bring about the destruction of America.

The Washington Post printed this dirty, cowardly and blasphemous cartoon about Sarah Palin and Almighty God. The Editor of the Washington Post said they didn't "review" his work before publication.

The Washington Post owes the Christian Faith in America a profound apology. This cartoon pictures the God of our Christian Bible as a fat, cursing, frustrated old man. It's disgusting trash and no decent person - religious or otherwise would approve of it.

Before I took a Missionary/Preaching trip around the world I studied all of the religions of the far east. It was enormously helpful to show respect for their religion before I shared with them my Christian faith.

A world famous Buddhist Monk in Burma became a Christian while traveling with me to Mandalay to preach to the young novice monks in their monastery. I did nothing but answer his questions, consoled him as he cried and rejoiced with him when he gave his heart to Jesus Christ. He carried an oilcloth umbrella with special design and markings on it during the torrential rains. No one but the Buddhist Monks could use that design. He gave it to me as a gift before we parted and I continued my trip. One month after we parted the Government of Burma closed the country to all foreign missionaries.

I pastored four different Assembly of God Churches years ago. My best guess is that less than 5 % of the members had ever spoken in tongues. Most of the members would say they believed in this "gift because it's in the Bible." You can read about it in Acts 2:4. On the day of "Pentecost" (The word "Pentecost" means 50 days after the passover) ...(Acts 2:4 NIV) "All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them."

Bible scholars wonder if this was a Miracle of speaking --- or a miracle of hearing? You decide. Here's the Bible text: (Acts 2:6-12 NIV) "When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. {7} Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? {8} Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? {9} Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, {10} Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome {11} (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" {12} Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"

For millions of people who attend Pentecostal churches it means that "GOD CAN WORK MIRACLES IF HE WANTS TO." End of the subject! Of course nominal (in name only) Christians often have a problem. They believe God can't work a miracle because they say so.

Is Sarah Palin qualified to be president if something happens to John McCain? No one has ever been elected for their first term of office to be President of the United States with prior experience! What kind of "stupid question is that?" It seems to me that being Governor of her State requires a lot of executive experience. That's probably more than being a junior Senator with only 145 days in office. Sarah has the personality and temperament to take advantage of the advisors, and Cabinet level people that would most certainly be available to give her all the information she would need to make good decisions and to be a great leader.

I confess!!!!

I like Sarah Palin, her husband and family and would love to see her become the Vice President of the United States. I'd like to have them for neighbors. I might ride a ski-mobile with her husband. I'd probably want a lot more information about flying in his airplane. In an Interview with Charlie Gibson Sarah said it was a Piper Cub. Having a pilots license for over 50 years I'm not sure it could get off the water with floats. Maybe Sarah "mis-spoke" because she said she had only flown in it one time. Or maybe it has a very large engine and could do just fine. It's ridiculous to think that anyone can talk about any subject or event without ever being mistaken in the smallest details.

I use to tell my church members that I made a mistake once. I thought I was wrong then found out I wasn't. (Everyone would laugh at that dumb joke.) My wife only flew with me in my Cessna Skyhawk one time. She couldn't get it right if someone asked her about the engine... or the landing gear... or where the fuel tanks were. But, she is a wonderful, amazing lady who wrote a marvelous song while I was traveling all over the world. It's been recorded by dozens of singing groups for over 40 years and I've heard it played on TV and radio around the world. She is the best person on this planet for meeting people, loving and praying for them and winning their love and affection.

Want a CD of Maggie's Song's for Troubled Hearts? Contact us!

COMPASSION

2008-09-07T22:08:00.038-04:00

When I first saw this photo I felt a wave of admiration and compassion for her. She is making a photograph of the massive storm damage to her home and neighborhood in China. It broke my heart and I desperately wanted to give her a big hug and find a way to help her and her family.

Every major Religion teaches compassion for those who can't help themselves. It's the very nature of God. (2 Cor 1:3-4 NIV) "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, {4} who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

When Pharaoh's daughter saw baby Moses pulled from the river he cried and she had compassion on him knowing he was one of the Hebrew children. (Exodus 2:6) Compassion is mentioned 41 times in the Bible. (21 times in the New Testament.) O.K. How do we do it?

(1 John 3:17-18 NIV) "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? {18} Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

Islam teaches compassion and mercy. In the Muslim tradition, foremost among God's attributes are mercy and compassion or, in the canonical language of Arabic, Rahman and Rahim. Each of the 114 chapters of the Quran, with one exception, begins with the verse, "In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate".

The Muslim Quran urges compassion towards captives as well as to widows, orphans and the poor. A good Muslim is to commence each day, each prayer and each significant action by invoking God the Merciful and Compassionate, i.e. by reciting "Bi Ism-i-Allah al-Rahman al-Rahim". (الرحمن Ar-Rahman) The Arabic for compassion is rahmah.

Unfortunately Muslim extremist have ignored this part of the Quran. They have gleefully killed, and brutally murdered innocent men, women and children. They seem to delight in providing video tapes of beheading and murdering people around the world. WHY?

Compassion is a wonderful thing. However in my almost 60 years as an Ordained Christian minister I've seen very little of it being practiced by many who claim to be a follower of Jesus. I wonder if the problem is because preachers are often so focused on being a "success" (huge churches and lots of money) that they constantly search the Bible for "desert" text. "Be a Christian, have faith and God can't wait to give you everything your heart desires".

"Those empty promises sound good, they appeal to the carnal nature but they are not based on the Teaching of Jesus. If we really want to know what Jesus taught we need to carefully read "Matthew 25".

He talked about people being invited to a Wedding... and through careless lack of preparation they missed the joy and delight of their friend.

He talked about servants who were given an opportunity to make a handsome profit for their master. One, out of fear, did nothing and was rejected by his master.

Then Jesus gave a shocking teaching about a shepherd separating the sheep from the goats. Sheep were the good people, and the goats were the bad, selfish people.

Jesus said to the good compassionate people: "(Mat 25:35-40 NIV) "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, {36} I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

{37} "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? {38} When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?

{39} When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' {40} "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

Then he said to the bad, selfish, people: (Mat 25:41-46 NIV) "Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

{42} For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, {43} I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

{44} "They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' {45} "He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' {46} "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

Sorry, we may not like this... but it's in our Bible. Let me explain some of it for you.

(Mat 19:23-24 NIV) "Then Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. {24} Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

The Health, wealth and prosperity doctrine that is preached every Sunday all across America is dangerous, false, and unscriptural. It panders to the selfishness and greed of millions. How do I know that? I've personally known dozens of multimillionaires who called themselves Christians. They worked every day to turn their ten million dollars into a hundred million dollars. (They love money and can never have enough of it.) The poor waste their money buying lottery tickets trying to get into that exclusive club.

They give away tiny amounts of "their" money - well publicized of course, and usually poor elderly ladies living on a meager Social Security check will out give them. Ten percent of a Million dollars would be $100,000.00. Ten percent of a $500.00 a month social security check would be $50.00. If I can figure that out - do you suppose God will also understand it?

I pastored a church years ago and rarely talked about tithing. I knew the poor would often give God their best... and the multimillionaires in the same church would give ten percent of their "coffee money". (Pocket change for meals, and what ever else they wanted. They called it "tithing". )

Several years later I was a Missionary Pilot and needed money for maintenance, upkeep, fuel for my plane and the free Christian Literature we were giving away. I received no salary, and my wife and daughter trusted God to provide for our meager daily needs. We accepted with thanksgiving what God provided.

A former church member wanted to help us and got these wealthy church members together so I could tell them what we were doing. They owned very large and prosperous businesses. I'll never forget it. I met in a hotel banquet room with a dozen very wealthy men who called me their pastor. I told them the vision and calling I had for this missionary work. They were warm and friendly, asked questions and seemed interested. They took up an "offering" to help with the work. At the end of the night I was presented $50.83. Was I angry? Of course not.

I wasn't surprised. I've never been good at asking for money to support us. God assured me that he would take care of that and he has. What happened to them? They long ago passed away. The hurricane's have completely wiped away the businesses they owned. Sadly they owned nothing but the life God gave them. They missed a golden opportunity to be compassionate and help people who had never heard the good news of Christianity.

Compassion creates a wonderful feeling of joy within us. Take a tiny step and try it.

Luke 16:19-31. "gives us a clue". Jesus did something most Christian Ministers have never done and probably never will. He preached a sermon about Hell and the meanest man in the world whose only sin was indifference. Jesus clearly taught that there is a heaven to gain and a place called Hell to avoid at all cost

Luke 16:19-22 NIV. There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. {20} At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores {21} and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. {22} "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried."

(Luke 16:23-25 NIV) "In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. {24} So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.' {25} "But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony." (Remember Jesus is preaching this sermon).

There is absolutely nothing in this story showing that the Rich man ever did anything mean and hateful to Lazarus. He didn't run over his feet with his chariot wheels, never told his kitchen staff not to let Lazarus have the crumbs that fell from his table. He just ignored him. He had no compassion for this poor man struggling to survive from day to day.

You can see in this story that the rich man had absolutely no compassion for Lazarus. He wanted Abraham to send Lazarus to be his servant in Hell. "Lazarus bring me a drink of water". "Lazarus go back to earth, die at the gate of my seven brothers and try to warn them not to come to this place".

If someone told him he was the meanest man on earth he wouldn't believe them. "Why I've help lots of people climb the ladder to success and I've always thrown big parties for my influential friends."

In 1990 my wife and I were weary of Pastoring churches. In every church there are many good people who do their best to live a Christian life. They are always a joy. But there are always those "nominal" (in name only) church members who can cause terrible suffering and trouble in a church. They think the church is "some kind of business" and want to run it to suit their carnal mind. We had suffered many things at their hands. We wanted a simple ministry as close to the life of Jesus as we could be. So we started "Christian Ministries."

We made a decision to take what God supplied through kind and compassionate friends, and to freely give ourselves and our resources to those we meet who need help.

Over forty years ago my wife Maggie wrote a song called "I don't need to Understand". It's been recorded and sung around the world. It's on a CD I made of her singing "Songs for troubled hearts" and thousands of people have been blessed by her singing". I write, design and print full color illustrated booklets on a variety of subjects and we have given away literally thousands of CD's and booklets to needy people. The compassion and kindness of generous people who know us has made it all possible.

We would love to have you join with us in this ministry. You can be sure we want to keep our ministry as close as possible to the example of the life of Jesus. We love going anywhere there is someone to talk with - starting a conversation and sharing the love of Jesus. We make it a point to be compassionate to everyone we meet. We encourage you to read about the ministry of Jesus - join us and pray for us as we follow his example.

You can read about the ministry of Jesus on our blog at:

http://pastor-ken.blogspot.com/2007/06/ministry-of-jesus.html

MY 60 YEARS AS AN ORDAINED MINISTER

2008-03-30T15:49:00.017-04:00

MY FATHER WHEN I WAS A SMALL BOY

Paul Harvey is famous for his "the rest of the story." In my blog "Being a Missionary Pilot" I told why I became a Christian. Here's the rest of my story.

I started out with nothing but God's calling on my life. When I finished High School my Father was totally disappointed with me because I didn't go to college and become an engineer. He had struggled for years to make a living for a very large family. He wanted me to have a better life than he had. I knew he wouldn't understand my encounter with the Lord. I left home with a few clothes, my Bible and $2.37 not knowing where I was going. That was all up to the Lord.

It was amazing how God directed me. At 18 years old I was married, preaching revival meetings and traveling with a wife and baby to support. God promised me that he would save my dad if I gave my life to him. I have often been asked if I was ever afraid when I was pastoring and building churches, traveling all over the world, doing medical projects in the Amazon Jungle, and being a Missionary Pilot. My answer was always no. I can't ever remember being afraid of anything. I knew I was in the hands of God.

Several of my closest friends who were missionary pilots have died doing it. Many of my close friends have already gone on to be with the Lord. Someday, it will be my time to go but I'll have peace in my heart when it happens. I have a covenant with God that if I do what he wants me to do, he will take care of me.

My mother called me one day and told me my dad was in the hospital with a massive heart attack and if I wanted to see him I should come home. I had not seen my Dad in quiet a while yet I felt great peace come over me. I remembered the Covenant I made with God when I was 11 years old. God promised to save my Dad if I gave him my life and became a minister. Now, without knowing the details I knew that my dad could be near death. I didn't pray, worry or feel anxious. I just got ready as soon as I could to drive home and see him.

When I got to Langdale, Alabama I went straight to the hospital, walked down the hall and turned in the door of his room. He saw me and said, "Son, I've got something to tell you."

"Yes, I know you have Dad", I replied.

"I've given my heart to the Lord", he said. "I'm sorry for the way I've acted about you being a minister. I want you to go back and get that wife and baby of yours that I've never seen and as soon as I get out of here I want you to come home and spend some time with us." We both cried and rejoiced at the same time.

I did as he asked and we had a wonderful time. From that time on he was sick and struggling but he did everything he could to help us, and was my strongest supporter until the day he died. I have a photo of him and my mother that the airport as I left to fly my plane to the mission field to work for the Lord.

After a series of serious health problems I was visiting with him and my mother in Griffin Georgia where they were living. He was weak and sick, tired of the trails of life. He asked me to come out on their front porch. He wanted to talk to me. When we sat down he said, "I have something I want you to do."

"Of course, Dad. What is it?" He had tears running down his face when he said, "Out of all the bad things I've done in my life the thing that hurts me the most is that I didn't help you become a minister. Please forgive me for that."

I told him I couldn't do that because I had never held anything against him. I had always loved him and knew God would make everything right.

"Please," he said, "Just say the words...it will mean so much to me." It was a hard thing to do, but I said, "Dad, I love you and I forgive you..." We both cried and hugged each other on their front porch.

I never did tell him or anyone else that I became a minister because God promised to save him if I did. It was a sacred covenant between me and the Lord. A little while later he simply died and went to be with the Lord. At his funeral I couldn't shed a tear. Not because I didn't care, but because I knew he was with the Lord. All I could think about during his funeral was, "God you've kept your end of our covenant and now I must keep mine.

In the long years that have followed I've worked as hard as possible to do some really difficult things for the Lord. We've never had much money, and often worked and lived on a "shoestring budget." God has blessed us with wonderful friends and I would do it all over again. I've had the joy and privilege of preaching in some of the largest churches in the World. I've also slept on the floor of a raised platform in a thatched roof hut to preach the gospel in the middle of the Amazon Jungle. What a wonderful life we've had.

I LOVE YOU DAD. SOMEDAY IN A BETTER WORLD WE WILL MEET AGAIN.

AIRMAIL FROM GOD

2008-03-22T11:49:00.014-04:00

I made this photo after I had just dropped Spanish gospels of John and Christian tracts in the center of town.

I was flying the plane with one hand and taking the photo with the other. There were thousands of little villages like this one scattered all over Mexico and this was the best way to start our outreach to them. Mexico had strict laws that no one could go into a village and evangelize without being asked to come to the village by the people who lived in the village. The Gospel of John offered them a free correspondence course in the bible and opened the door to reaching them.

I could tell from the air by flying over the village several times that the people on the ground would pick up every single piece of paper we dropped. Still, I wondered about the result. One day talking with my interpreter he started telling me how we could measure the results. He suggested that we fly to a city he was familiar with and do a gospel drop. Then with the cooperation of a local pastor he knew well, we could have a revival meeting in the town and could get some information about the effectiveness of the gospel drops. Several weeks later I picked him up in San Antonio, Texas and we flew to Durango, Mexico. It was June 7, 1965. We loaded the plane with tracts and gospels of John and started the difficult flight to Mazatlan on the West coast of Mexico.

Looking at my old WAC charts I would need to fly a direct course of 245 degrees to Mazatlan. However, with some of the Mountains being 11,000 feet high I would need to pick my way across the mountain using the lower passes. This meant flying a zigzag course and without a GPS or any kind of navigation equipment I would have to try to remember my off course directions and time to get back on anything like the right track.

Danny enjoyed the 130 mile flight looking at the mountain peaks. I enjoyed finally seeing the low country and knowing we were going to make it to Mazatlan. We landed without incident, refueled the plane and took some time to walk around.

We took off for the relatively easy 240 mile flight up the western coast of Mexico to Los Mochis. It was a small city that catered to the occasional tourist, had a nice airport and a small hotel in town. Within easy flying distance there were several small villages. We went into town to get something to eat and to check in at the small hotel. Danny suggested we go back to the airport and do a gospel drop of tracts, and the Gospel of John in Spanish. We did this over the edges of town and out in the sparsely settled country.

The pastor and his church were happy to see us and had decided to have the revival meeting outside the church on their front lawn. To prepare for our meeting they had cut off four trees to the height of about four feet and nailed some lumber on the tree trunks. With some crude steps they had a shaky platform for us to use for preaching.

We had the usual annoyances from someone who didn't want us there. Each evening when it was time to start our service a man would start up a huge road grading machine and slowly run it back and forth on the dirt road. When the services ended he would shut down and leave the equipment on the side of the road.

On the last night of this week of preaching I was saying a prayer to dismiss the service when I heard a piercing scream. I opened my eyes to see an older lady jump a four foot ditch and run screaming down the dirt road. I heard her screaming, "Gloria A Dios" over and over again. The people ran after her and when they brought her back to the church the Pastor talked with her. then he told us what happened.

Everyone knew her. She had been blind for years and during that prayer she could suddenly see again. I was stunned and could only say that God had worked a miracle. I had nothing to do with it. No one wanted to go home and I wasn't surprised when a tall old man said he wanted to say something. The pastor got him up on the platform and he was so frightened he was shaking the whole platform. I didn't understand Spanish, but when Danny translated his words for me I had my answer.

He said he was a sorry husband, a drunk that couldn't find work or stay sober long enough to keep a job. His wife in disgust told him he should just go out in the woods and hang himself. He got on his horse took some rope and rode out to a grove of trees. While looking up for a limb to end his life he saw a colorful piece of paper in the branches. While he looked the wind blew it down and it landed at his feet. He got off his horse, picked it up and it was a Christian tract that told him how Jesus could change his life.

I found myself crying when he told how he got down on his knees, gave his life to "El Senior", and went home to ask his wife to forgive him. They cried together and wept for joy. There was only one way that colorful Christian tract could have been in the top of a tree. It was one that we had dropped from the plane several days before.

No, I can't prove any of this. All I can say is that I was there, heard the testimonies and was deeply moved by something I couldn't explain. I felt certain that God saw the questions in my heart and gave me a powerful answer for it.

My first flight instructor made me start keeping a log book of all my flights. Other flight instructors did the same. It's been a long time since June 7, 1965 when I flew my Cessna Skyhawk N7504x to Los Mochis. But today when I found the record of that flight in my old log book, I know it was God's way of saying, "Mission Accomplished."

I'll soon be 76 years old and I needed that memory to touch my heart, encourage me and lift my spirit. Maybe we all need to keep a log book of the good things God has helped us to do.

MISSIONARY PILOT BEGINS

2008-02-29T23:07:00.037-05:00

For the March 9, 1929, dedication of the airport and inauguration of the Mexico City-New York airmail route, famed aviator Charles Lindbergh flew the first airmail from Mexico City to Brownsville Texas, escorted by Mexican government officials and military planes. The flight was 5 hours and 38 minutes long. Amelia Earhart was there and a crowd of 20,000 people greeted Lindbergh. The day-long celebration featured wing walking and other aerial feats. In Brownsville, Pan American Airways launched the first "blind-flying school," now called instrument flying, as part of its airport operation on the border.

I had never flown in Mexico, or the desert when I left Brownsville Texas for the five hundred mile flight to Torreon Mexico. I had nothing but primary flight instruments. There were no airports along the way, no cities or towns; no Omni radio stations, and No GPS or navigation equipment. I only had the map in my head. It’s called “Dead Reckoning” because if you don’t reckon right you will wind up dead. I learned to look at everything on the instruments and the ground because a slight wind could cause me to drift off course. My instructors had taught me to watch for anything on the ground that could show wind direction.

The trip took four hours and 17 minutes. It was March 20, 1964. That was 35 years after Lindbergh’s Mexico City to Brownsville trip. We both had about the same equipment but Lindbergh could turn slightly east and follow the coastline to Brownsville. I could turn anyway I chose and see nothing but endless desert and hundred of miles of nothing. I had to find the airport at Torreon before the forty gallons of gas in the two fuel tanks would be empty. The fuel gauges were bumping on empty when I landed at Torreon and I put 39 and a half gallons in the fuel tanks.

After some lunch I knew that I would have a problem getting over the mountains that surrounded Torreon. The elevation at Torreon airport is 3,280 feet and that plus the noonday heat would make it difficult to climb over the mountains. It took about 30 minutes of circling over the airport before I could climb over the mountains and start the long stretch to Durango. After several hours I was safely on the ground in Durango Mexico. My great friend and fellow Missionary Pilot Jerry Whitt picked me up at the airport. I was really glad to be on the ground in Durango.

The next day we wasted no time and planned a trip to a small village up in the mountains. There was a dirt runway at 8700 feet elevation and we decided that we could get in there with just enough fuel to make the trip with two people in each of our planes. We also needed to leave before11 o'clock because heat plus altitude would reduce the climbing ability of our planes. It's called "density altitude". In these remote areas any time a plane flys over or lands, you have plenty of company. While Jerry went into the village with a Government Doctor another Missionary pilot named Johnny gave these fellows an inspirational lesson from the Bible. I almost cried as I made this photo of them listening and knelling in the rocky dirt.

Jerry and the Doctor came back and told us a mother in the village was dying with encephalitis. It would take 17 hours by winding mountain roads to get her to the hospital. It would only take 30 minutes to fly her to Durango. It would mean flying back with three people in each plane. It was already getting hot, and we knew the risk of density altitude. With the extra weight it would be very difficult to get airborne.

We quickly made the decision to do what we knew had to be done. Jerry took off first with the sick mother and the Doctor in his plane. I watched as he struggled to get in the air, and for a moment went below the trees. He called me on the radio and said: "Lets get out of here. I'm O.K". With Johnny and the woman's husband in my plane I prayed a quick prayer and I took off. I knew the clearing was pretty long and curving but heard the stall warming repeatedly go off if I tried to gain a little Altitude.

I nursed the plane around the clearing...with the stall warning still going off. As the trees came up in front of me I remember my old instructor telling me how he put a plane in the top of some trees. I prayed a silent prayer and pulled the plane up over the trees at the end of the clearing and saw the mountain drop away. I put the nose down, gained some flying speed and we flew back to Durango. We used the radio to have an ambulance waiting at the airport. I quickly got out of my plane and made this photograph of Jerry, the Doctor with a towel around his neck, and the woman's anxious husband behind him.

It was very difficult to evangelize in Mexico. When we first landed in Los Chocos a man came running up the hill and tried to get the people to stone us and burn our planes. The people didn't listen to him because they knew an Army Comandante and a Doctor was in the village treating a very sick woman. This flight gave us some much needed protection from the Commandante of the Army post up in the mountains. He said: "Please come back any time to preach and help us. I'll see to it personally that no one bothers you".

BEING A MISSIONARY PILOT

2008-02-15T16:05:00.014-05:00

Flying out of Durango Mexico we found a small dirt airstrip near a tiny village. We landed and was immediately surrounded with a crowd of people. They were eager to hear the gospel. On the right of the picture in a white shirt was Jerry Whitt a wonderful missionary pilot. His plane is parked behind mine.

I need to tell you how I became a Missionary Pilot.

I went to church with my mother for years and it was just old, boring stuff to me. By the time I was 11 years old I had my own dreams and it didn't include anything connected with the church. It was 1943 and all I wanted to do was to become an Army Air Corp Pilot. Unfortunately I was too young to do that. I loved airplanes and built dozens of models, some that flew and some static replica's of the real thing.

One evening in the bed by myself I had a strange, very strong presence (sorry I can't explain it any better...) come over me and I knew it was the Spirit of God. It would be impossible to describe the struggle that I had for the next three weeks. To my dismay I knew that God was speaking to me. No, not in an audible voice, but something like "thought transference". God had access to my mind I knew what he wanted from me.

He was calling me to give my life and heart to him and make a lifetime commitment to be a Minister of the gospel. Alone, without telling anyone what was happening, I wept, pleaded, struggled and kept saying NO! During the day and especially at night that "presence" would create so much anxiety in me that I wept. I grew up pretty much by myself and being very self-reliant during this time I never told anyone what was going on.

My Father was a good man who worked himself almost to death to feed, clothe and take care of 10 people in our family during the worst of the depression. I respected him but we were not "pals" or close to each other. He didn't have time to do anything but work, worry and take care of his large family. He didn't like the church my mother attended, and so he would stay home on Sunday and cook a wonderful meal for the family. He was a smart, intelligence and gifted man.

After struggling for weeks I heard a message from this powerful presence that was with me all the time. The message was: "If I didn't do something my Father would be lost". I had been to church enough to know what that meant. God knew how to break my heart.

I never told anyone why I surrendered my life to the Lord. Especially not my parents or family. It was something between God and me. I promised to give up all my desires, plans, and ambitions and spend my life as a Minister. I didn't know how I could do that, but I knew God would have to make it happen. My dream of being a pilot was part of what I had to surrender to God.

It's odd that I never told anyone, certainly not my Father what had happened to me. I had a solid covenant with God and that's all I needed. I would give him my life, and he would save my Dad. When I graduated from High School at 16 years old, my Dad asked me what I was going to do. He wanted me to go to college and become an Engineer. When I told him I was going to be a Minister he became very angry.

I wasn't angry. I just felt sad because I couldn't do what he wanted me to do and I couldn't tell him why. A few months later I left home without knowing where I was going. I had nothing but a few clothes, my Bible, and $2.37 cents in my pocket. I would somehow become a Minister.

I'll skip lots of the story and fast forward to 1962. My wife Maggie and I were leaving a wonderful church we pastored in Indiana and many loving people who have remained our friends for over 45 years. I moved to Atlanta with very little money and started another church. I had learned like the Apostle Paul, to work at a variety of jobs to put food on the table. One day after long hours of hard work I was driving down the South Expressway to Griffin when God was suddenly talking to me again.

God told me to turn in to the South Expressway Airport - which was just ahead of me, and buy an Airplane. He was going to send me to the Mission field as a Missionary Pilot. I didn't have enough money in my pocket to buy a meal much less an airplane. I had learned not to question or argue with God so I found myself talking to John Galloway, the operator of the airport. I picked out an airplane...a Cessna Skyhawk 7504x and told John I wanted to buy it. He said: Fine! How do you want to pay for it?

I told him I didn't know, I didn't have any money. John was an old retired Air Force Captain and he laughed and said: "Well, Preacher, come back when you've got the money." I said: "Don't sell that Airplane because I'll be back for it in a few day."

The next day I was working as a graphic artist to keep us fed, and I prayed silently. "O.K. God, where are you going to get the $9,250.00 to buy that airplane?" I got an immediate reply. After a rebuke for my impertinent prayer God said: "Call a man in Marion Indiana and tell him to buy the plane for you." I had never in my life ever done anything like that. That night I called a former member and wonderful friend and told him timidly...."Harold, God spoke to me and told me to buy an airplane and be a missionary pilot. Will you pray with me about it."

"Nope..." he said. I won't do that". Now I was shocked! He said: "God spoke to me a month ago to buy an airplane for a missionary and I've just been waiting for you to call so I would know which plane to buy. I'll send you a check in the morning". A few days later I bought the plane and John Gallaway who ran the airport was shocked when I told him the story. So was everyone else. Including me.

God didn't tell me I couldn't learn to fly. I had worked at the Airport in Lanett Alabama and Fred Robinson gave me flying lessons before I finished high school. Fred was the best instructor I could have ever had. He sent Charles Lindberg to South Georgia many years before to buy an old "jenny" and to learn to fly. He fixed Amelia Airheart's Lockheed Vega at Candler Field in Atlanta. Fred helped design the B-29 during the Second World War, and taught the pilots how to fly them. He was a tough and hard instructor in the air, but he turned into a warm and kind friend on the ground.

When I bought the plane I started working with the best instructor pilots I could find. I needed to know a lot about terrain flying, dead reckoning navigation and high density altitude. Night flying, instrument flying, careful preparation for each flight were just a few of the things I knew I needed to stay alive. Often when flying I could hear in my mind the voices of my first instructor Fred Robinson, and many other wonderful Instructor pilots telling me what to do.

I was filled with joy and amazement as I flew all over the States, preaching and raising money for the Mission trips. I couldn't believe it. I had my own airplane. God called on me to give up being a Military Pilot and then gave me the opportunity to fly and preach the gospel in Mexico, Guatamala and Honduras.

Albert Einstien when he was living in America and had learned to speak english said: "God is strict - but he ain't mean". That certainly fits my case. With God's help I had many amazing and wonderful experiences as a Missionary Pilot.

I'll give you more of the story in the next blog.

HOW WAS JESUS SUPPORTED?

2008-02-06T22:31:00.004-05:00

Jesus worked in Joseph's carpenter shop from the time he was twelve years old until he began his ministry at the age of thirty. You can read the story of the early life of Jesus in Luke Chapter two.

At twelve years old after being missing for three days they found him asking questions and talking about the Law of God with the experts. (Luke 2:46-47 KJV) "And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. {47} And all that heard him were astonished at his understand and answers."

After a mild scolding by Mary Luke tells us -- (Luke 2:51 NIV) "Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart."

All kinds of questions run through my mind. Did Jesus see and hear the "haggling" over price in the carpenter's shop? Did he witness the struggle for Joseph to make enough money to support them? It was the custom for a son to learn a trade and eventually support his family. Usually this was to take over the business when the Father was too old to carry on.

Was Jesus a master carpenter? When Jesus started his Ministry they still called him just a carpenter. (Mark 6:23 NIV) "When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. "Where did this man get these thing?" they asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! {3} Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him."

There's no record that he ever asked for money, or took an offering, or became wealthy. He didn't have to beg. The record does show that Godly people looked after him and supplied his needs. What an amazing thing to have cared for and supplied the needs of the Son of God!

So how did he live for the next three and a half years? We have a clue when Jesus sent out his disciples to preach the gospel. In Matthew 12 his disciples were hungry and went into a corn field, plucked some of the corn and ate it. Of course, the Pharisee's had a cow about the desciples of Jesus doing something unlawful on the Sabboth day, but Jesus told them that according to their own law it was legal for them to do so. (They had many rules or excuses for breaking the law of Moses)

Is the answer because Jesus could work miracles? Jesus took a little boy's lunch of five barley loaves, and two small fishes and fed a multitude. (You will only find the fact that it was a little boy's lunch in John 6:9) Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the snoptic gospels. A blended view. The gospel of John stands alone and gives us many facts not found in the snoptic gospels.

We have to go back to the snoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke to find out that Jesus took five loaves and two small fishes and fed five thousand men, and all the women and children present. Then they gathered up twelve baskets full of leftovers. From Jesus our Lord we have learned the joy of working and giving.

What a day !!! (He never did that again.)

Why not? Miracles are rare occurances. I don't know of anyone who can produce a miracle. Only God can do that.

With such great power why did he borrow the "ass and colt" to ride into Jerusalem? (Matthew 21:2-3) We all know that if we promise people "easy and plentiful miracles" they will come by the thousands. We also know that often they leave disappointed.

Why didn't Jesus do that? People come to God not when they are full, but when they are empty. We get serious about finding God when we are in desperate need. Do I believe in Miracles? Yes! I've experienced many powerful and humanly impossible and inexplicable things in my life. When they happen I am totally amazed.

When Jesus sent his disciples out to preach the gospel he gave them these instructions. (Mat 10:9-16 NIV) "Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; {10} take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff; for the worker is worth his keep. {11} "Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. {12} As you enter the home, give it your greeting. {13} If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. {14} If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. {15} I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. {16} I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."

My wife and I have lived by this principal for almost 60 years. We have often had only what we needed to preach and teach the gospel. We now live on our combined Social Security of $890.00 a month. How do we do that and still print full color booklets, make CD's and give them to needy people that we meet each day? Many Godly people have helped us and met our needs, and only eternity will reveal how we have all been blessed by being laborers together.

Paul wrote to the Phillipians: (Phil 4:12-13 NIV) "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. {13} I can do everything through him who gives me strength."

As Ordained Ministers for over 60 years we still keep Christian Ministries going. God provides the opportunity and we pray for and encourage those we meet each day. What a joy it is to remember those who helped us and made it possible for us to "give CD's and booklets" to troubled people. We remember each morning as we pray together all the special friends who provide for our needs. What a joy and blessing it is to the people in need of his love.

GOOD AND EVIL

2008-01-25T15:45:00.000-05:00

(Mat 27:41-42 NIV) "In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. {42} "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him."

A man who had lost his son in Iraq said: "Where was God when my son was dying?" His pastor gently asked: "Where was God when his own son was dying?" We need to understand that God can do anything, but not without consequences.

Millions believe that if we pray with faith, God must answer our prayers. They quote 41 verses from the gosple like: (Mat 17:20 NIV) "He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

The word Faith is mentioned 245 Times in the New Testament in similar verses like this one. Wonderful! Now we can pray and God will work miracles for us as we do anything we please.

The "gospel of Faith" is used by thousands of Preachers to generate millions for their support. They promise "miracles and blessing" if the suffering saints will send them very large offerings. All of the gimics, silly cheap tricks they use to keep their banks accounts overflowing and their corporate jets flying will one day be judged by God.

Desperate people who know very little about Jesus and his ministry are willing to gamble anything in the hopes of being healed, blessed or lifted out of poverty. It's a "very sad religious lottery" as they send in money they can't afford to loose.

HERE'S A TEST! Take anything you want from God and pray this prayer. "Lord, this is what I want and I don't care what you think about it. I want what I want even if it is contrary to your will."

If you feel a little uncomfortable with that it may be because you read the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Luke 22:44 describes his agony by saying "And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

Jesus is praying about his coming crucifixion. "(Mat 26:39 NIV) "Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

Jesus used the phrase 41 times... "He that sent me..." Often Jesus talked about the "Father who sent me". Nothing was more important to Jesus than to do the will of his heavenly Father. Here's just one of them.

(John 5:30 NIV) "By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me." (John 6:38 NIV) "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me."

Our Heavenly father can see the consequences of everything we ask of him. He can see the future and know exactly what will bless us or bring pain and sorrow into our lives. Prayer is not weak. The real prayer of faith is powerful. So God decides which prayers to answer and which to delay or reject.

It's interesting that as the agony of the Cross was about to end Jesus quoted this passage from the Psalms. (Mat 27:46 NIV) "About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

No, it wasn't the 23rd Psalms. Most people quote that when they are in trouble. It was (Psa 22:1 NIV) "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" If we read this entire Psalm we see that it describes exactly what Jesus was enduring on the cross for us.

For many years I've prayed like this: "Father, this is what I want. But you can see the future and I can't. So I want your will to be done in my life". God listens to our prayers and we need to keep praying.

There much more to this subject. I'm going to continue it on my Bible Study Blog. I'm going to explain the Bible concept of good and evil. (Go up to the link on the left side of this page and click on (Ken's Bible Study)

Keep praying with a sincere heart. God does answer prayer.

A BALONEY SANDWICH

2008-01-21T22:59:00.001-05:00

After the resurrection of Jesus, Peter talked the other disciples into going fishing with him. You can read about it in John 21:3. Well, they didn’t catch anything but early the next morning they saw someone on the beach with bread and fish on the fire.

Incredibly it was Jesus, our resurrected Lord, who had fixed breakfast for them. Jesus told them how to make a record breaking catch. When they all got to the shore he told them in John 21:10 to bring some of their fish they had just caught and put it with his.

Bob Benson, was the son of John Benson who created the largest Music Publishing house in the world in Nashville. He was our friend and his son Bob was in the ministry. In a wonderful book called “See you at the house” Bob tells a story that is perfect for this Bible story. He recalled an old fashion Sunday school picnic.

He said as a young boy, he came home at the last minute and rushed into the kitchen to get his stuff ready. All he could find in the refrigerator was one dried up piece of baloney and just enough mustard in the bottom of the jar so he got it all over his knuckles trying to get to it. He pasted that brick together and tore out for the picnic.

When it came time to eat he sat at a table and spread out his sandwich. The lady next to him was a wonderful cook and she had fried chicken, baked beans, potato salad and homemade rolls, sliced tomatoes, pickles and celery. Then in the middle of that she had two big chocolate cakes with icing so thick you could have build a house with it.

She leaned over to him and said: “You know Bob, we just love baloney sandwiches. Why don't we just put it all together?” He made a feeble protest and said he couldn’t—all the time eyeing the fried chicken and chocolate cake.

After a little urging he gave in and sat there eating like a king when he came like a pauper. Bob said it finally dawned on him that God was saying that same thing to him. “Let’s take what you’ve got and what I have and put it together.” Bob said, that’s a bargain of a lifetime.

You know, there are lots of people who are running through life clutching their dumb bag with that stale baloney sandwich. They are half-starved and yet hanging on for dear life to “their” baloney sandwich. They are saying: “God’s not going to get my sandwich! No sir...this is mine.”

Well, when you can’t stand your tasteless and tough baloney sandwich any longer just remember - it doesn’t have to be that way. God doesn’t need your sandwich, but you need his feast. It’s such a great blessing and joy to share with God and all the folks around us. Remember, you’ve been invited to something better.

John Benson built the biggest religious music company in the world in Nashville Tennessee. (Benson Publishing Company) He was a multimillionaire and at the top of the music business.

He invited us to come to his house one morning when someone had stolen Maggie’s song. He fixed that problem and was very kind to us. His son, Bob Benson, felt called to the ministry. He wrote this story in a book he published called “See you at the House.” He died in his early thirties.

FEELING INADEQUATE?

2008-01-17T00:42:00.001-05:00

I love the old comic strip depicting Lucy, Charlie Brown and Linus lying in a field, looking up at the bright white clouds in an azure blue sky. Lucy asks Linus, “what do you see?”

Linus replies, “That cloud looks like a profile of Beethoven. Those clouds look like an outline of the blue Azores. And those clouds remind me of Saul of Tarsus holding the cloak of Stephen as he was being stoned.”

Then Lucy turns to Charlie Brown and asks, “And Charlie Brown, what do you see?”
And Charlie Brown says, “I was going to say I saw a ducky and a doggy . . . but I've changed my mind."

THE FEAR OF FAILURE HAUNTS US ALL.

Most Christian church members know the story of Moses pretty well. Pharaoh’s daughter rescued baby Moses from the river. She happened to be a banker and went down to the river and drew out a little prophet. (Yes, I know it’s bad…)

You can start with Exodus 2:10 and read the whole story about Moses. He was the most important person in the long history of Israel. In the New Testament Jesus took Peter, James and John up to a mountaintop where he was transfigured before them. Two people came down from heaven to talk with Jesus about his coming suffering and crucifixion. Moses and Elijah. From excuses to astonishing competence – that was the life of Moses. Moses is quoted Eighty times in the New Testament.

Yet when God called him to lead he gave more excuses than a dog has fleas. Talk about the lack of self-confidence…. Moses was pathetic. He started with not being young enough (he was 80 years old) and worked down from there.

God said: “Moses, your physical capabilities and your handicaps are my doing. Your limitations are my problem I’ll take care of them. Don’t plead inadequacy as an excuse for disobedience.”

This has been proven over and over again in history. People, in spite of handicaps and in spite of adversity, have accomplished far more than humanly speaking we thought they could.

Take Beethoven, for example. He was totally deaf during the last 8 years of his life but it was during that tragic period that he wrote his Ninth Symphony, often acclaimed as his greatest musical work. Yet, he never heard it.

A horribly deformed dwarf-like cripple named Charles Steinbeck became one of the outstanding electrical geniuses of all time. He held patents on over 100 inventions, and he did this during his tenure as a consulting engineer with the General Electric Company. This pitiful little man did most of his work half standing and half leaning on a stool. An indomitable will guided him to accomplishments seldom matched by others in perfect health.

Or consider John Milton, one of England’s greatest poets. He wrote his magnificent epic, Paradise Lost, after some 10 or 12 years of total blindness. Through a spirit of determination seldom equaled in the annals of literature, he was able to turn tragedy into triumph. His well-known sonnet on his blindness illustrates his feeling of responsibility toward God who made him, and endowed him with such magnificent genius:

We couldn’t and shouldn’t try to do things we were not called to do. However, if we know that God is calling us to do more than we ever dreamed possible then we must allow him to make it happen.

How human it is to make excuses. Excuses are evidence of unbelief. For if we truly believed God has called us to greater things then we need to step forward and salute our Command-in-Chief, and say, Yes Sir! What’s next?

WHAT'S IN YOUR HAND MOSES? (Exo 4:2-7 NIV)

“Then the LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied. {3} The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. {4} Then the LORD said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand.

{5} “This,” said the LORD, “is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.” {6} Then the LORD said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was leprous, like snow. {7} “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.”

Are you a housewife and a mother? You’ve got pots and pans and children created in the image of God. If you are a nurse you’ve got a thermometer, or a syringe, or a Bedpan. If you are a secretary, you’ve got a pencil, a steno pad, and a computer keyboard. Are you a physician? You’ve got a stethoscope, or an X-ray, or a Scalpel.
Are you a teacher? You’ve got a textbook, and some chalk, and a wall full of charts, and a head full of knowledge, and a room full of children waiting to blossom like flowers. Are you a businessman? You’ve got management skills, and financial acumen, and commercial opportunity.

However if God calls you to be more than you ever dreamed you could be then you must obey. God is not looking for experts. God is not looking for supermen and super-women. God is not looking for uncommonly strong and resourceful people. God is looking for people who will take what they have in their hands and put it at his disposal.

How about using what you have to do more than you ever dreamed you could do?

RECEIVING THE GIFT

2007-12-22T16:05:00.000-05:00

The giving of gifts whether we like it or not are an integral part of the Christmas Holidays. I think children know more about this than adults. We need to think back and try to remember Christmas when we were young enough to enjoy it.

It's curious that in almost 60 years of being a minister I can't remember anyone but children coming to me and saying "I want to give a special Christmas gift to Jesus." For all too many people Jesus is not on their gift list.

Yet his gift to us was the greatest gift the world could have possibly received. For most people the day after Christmas is a crowded mess - taking back all the unwanted things we received. The mad scramble by retailers to sell us everything imaginable has now been replaced with trying to take back the unwanted stuff.

The first bible verse most children learn describes God's greatest gift to us. It's (John 3:16 NIV) "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

John explains this magnificent gift in John 1:9: "The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will but born of God. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

We desperately needed this great gift of God's son. When Christ came to earth as God's greatest gift it was a sad unhappy world much like today. There was grinding poverty for most people and only the patricians, kings and nobility had money for luxuries. No one had the answer for the horrible problems that plagued mankind".

Men were ruled by force; there were no inherent rights of man; the bill of rights had not been created yet and men lived or died by the up or down position of an emperor's thumb. There were no court of appeals or justice.

There was little concern about justice, people were chattel, bought and sold; hospitals were for the rich, and there were no old folks homes. To make matters totally repulsive - all too often church was a haven for oppressive, self-righteous, religious rogues.

A GIFT MUST BE RECEIVED FROM THE GIVER

In Matthew 2:11 the Magi brought gifts to Jesus. Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. Consider the three stages in this story - Vision, Submission, and Expensive Consecration.

To accept the gift you must accept the giver. Clearly we must make a commitment to heed the teaching of Jesus. Millions will tell us that decision changed their lives.

Obviously during the birth, earthly ministry and death of Jesus Christ there were many people who fell into three categories.

There were those who heard the evidence, saw it with their own eyes and believed. Their belief was in the form of a definite commitment to become his follower, and knowing the opposition by the religious leaders, they were accepting the risk of persecution and death. They accepted the hard commands of his teachings.

There were others who decided to stand aside, to take no position at all. They were the onlookers and the bystanders who were interested, thought his unorthodox teaching and preaching was interesting, even perhaps true, but decided to do nothing.

The innkeeper was one of these. His life was full and busy..and so he missed the gift because he didn't know God was knocking on his door. All he saw was a pregnant mother and a man with a donkey. "Oh, Lord," he probably thought. "Another problem. Go away, I don't have any room for you."

Then there were those who because of what he taught rejected him. It was in direct conflict with what they wanted to do, or were doing, so they decided to become his enemy. They were the active unbelievers who put him to death.

They cloaked their monstrous sin with the respectability of the letter of the law while all the time tearing the spirit of the law to bits. They didn't crucify him, the others did. They only sat by and watched him die. But they were glad in their heart that he was gone. He had made them feel uncomfortable and disturbed their pleasant life.

So they missed the greatest gift on earth and didn't receive it.

Years ago as the moving truck was ready to leave Marion Indiana and bring our furniture to Atlanta, a wonderful friend walked up and returned a book to me. He had been a friend for four years and has remained a great friend for over 45 years.

He said: "I'm returning the book you loaned to me and frankly I didn't get much out of it. However, you may get something out of page 58." When he left I put the book in a box and we drove to Atlanta.

A few weeks later I was sweating over money, wondering how in the world we would buy groceries, where I could find some work and I thought about Harold.

I remembered his parting words to me. Out of curiosity I looked for the books and finally found it. I turned to page 58 and found a check for $500.00. To say that I was overjoyed is to put it mildly. It was the answer to my prayers. I was blessed because I finally received the gift.

To accept the gift of God you must accept the giver, and you must make a commitment to heed the teaching of the Savior. Wouldn't it be a great time to do that when we celebrate his birth?

THE MESSAGE OF CHRISTMAS

A minister was struggling to prepare a Christmas sermon and was interrupted by a crisis at the church home for emotionally disturbed children. Most of the children had gone home for an overnight visit and the few left reacted poorly to the empty beds and changed routines.

Tommy was upstairs under a bed and refused to come out. First the minister tried talking to the cowboys on the bedspread. No response. Then fretting at the time this was costing, he dropped to his knees and lifted the bedspread. Tommy's big 8-year-old eyes looked sadly moist.

It would have been easy to pull him out from under the bed, but what Tommy needed was a reason that made sense to his lonely 8 year old heart. So the minister got down on the floor and wiggled in beside Tommy, talked for a few minutes and then laid his head on the floor in silence.

As he waited a small cold hand reached over and took his hand. After a bit the minister said: "Tommy, let's you and me go out where we can stand up..." And so they did, but slowly and in no hurry...because the preacher had his Christmas sermon.

God called us from far above...with stars, mountains, creation and his spirit. He drew closer through the prophets and lawgivers...but finally nothing would do but direct contact with us in our desperate need.

Jesus came to live among us to share our sorrow and lead us to a direct contact with God that would give us eternal life. That means that we will live forever in the Magnificent place Jesus went to prepare for us.

Now it's your turn. You must decide whether to accept the gift and the giver or reject both of them. Choose carefully. The clock is ticking and the offer is limited to this life only.

CHRISTMAS MUSIC

2007-12-19T17:33:00.000-05:00

You might know this as "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire," which is the song's first line, not its title. And you might already know that it isn't as old as some other popular Christmas songs. It was written in 1944 by two men in show business.

Mel Torme was a famous singer, songwriter, and performer. His friend, Robert Wells, wrote songs' lyrics, or words. One summer day in California, the two men got together because they'd been hired to produce songs for two new movies.

But the day was sweltering hot, and when Torme arrived at Wells's house, he found Wells trying to cool off by thinking of winter scenes. Torme saw that his friend had written down some of these icy thoughts: "Chestnuts roasting...," "Jack Frost nipping...," "Yuletide carols...," and "Folks dressed up like Eskimos...." Torme was inspired.

Instead of working on their assignment, the two men put their heads together and made Wells's words into a song.

Forty minutes later, the music and lyrics were finished! The title of the song was simply..."The Christmas Song." They hurried to see another friend, the famous singer Nat King Cole.

When they showed him their song, Cole wanted to record it. He did, and when it was released in 1946, "The Christmas Song" climbed to the top of the music charts. The song reached the Top 10 four more times during the next eight years. And it was eventually recorded by more than 100 other singers, including Mel Torme himself.

'Jingle Bells' From the time he was little, James Pierpont had been a talented musician. He lived in Medford, Mass., and his father was pastor at the Unitarian Church there. One day in 1840, Pierpont's dad asked him to write some special music for the church's Thanksgiving Day service.

While Pierpont thought about it, he was distracted by young people outside. They were having sled races in the snow. So he stepped out to watch. And the experience made him remember when he used to sleigh with friends.

Soon he had a tune in his head. He walked to a neighbor's house and told her about his melody. She had the only piano in town, so she let Pierpont get to work. When he finished his little jingle, he strolled home to put words to his music.

You probably know how the song turned out. With outdoor winter fun on his mind, he wrote about dashing through the snow in a sleigh drawn by horses.

After the choir performed Pierpont's song on Thanksgiving, churchgoers begged for more. So the choir sang it again at Christmas. The tune was so catchy that visitors to the church took it home with them and passed it to friends and family.

Eventually Pierpont moved to Savannah, Ga. It was there in 1857, that he finally published his song officially. Soon, it caught on around the country. But Pierpont probably never guessed people would still be singing it more than 160 years later!

'Joy to the World' This carol wasn't the work of just one person. One man wrote the words, and another composed the popular tune – nearly 100 years apart! In 1674, Isaac Watts was born in Southampton, England. When he grew up, he complained to his father about how boring he thought church music was. He wished it were more lively and inspiring. So Watts's dad asked him why he didn't write something better. And that's just what Watts did. Eventually, he composed more than 600 hymns and hundreds of other poems.

One of these works was "Joy to the World," based on words from Psalm 98 in the Bible. During Watts's time, though, the poem was sung to the tune of another well-known hymn. Here's where the next character in the story comes in. Lowell Mason was born in 1792 in Medfield, Mass. (not far from Medford, Mass., where James Pierpont would later be born). Many people thought he had musical talent. But he moved to Savannah, Ga. (just as Pierpont would) and worked as a banker.

Still, he spent time on his music and sent a book of songs he composed to several publishers in the Northeast. But the publishers rejected it. Finally, several years later, a musical society in Boston agreed to print his songs.

Later, Mason moved to Boston, where he became musical director for some local churches. Like Watts, he wrote hundreds of new hymns. In 1836, Mason wrote a tune inspired by parts of a famous musical piece, "Messiah," by George Frideric Handel. Three years later, he paired his new tune with Isaac Watts's poem, "Joy to the World," and a popular new hymn was born.

It was a long journey from George Frederic Handel's massive, scripture filled Grand Opera called "the messiah" with it's "hallellujah Chorus" to Isaac Watt's simple "Joy to the world". Inspiration has a way of moving from one person to another.

I suppose it's a good thing that we all don't see alike, or think in the same way about spiritual things. We will go on liking what we like, and painfully allow others to do the same thing. I wonder how God will sort is all out in Heaven?

MONEY THE ROOT OF ALL....

2007-12-16T12:41:00.000-05:00

Well, there's several ways to finish this quote.... The Bible tells us that money is the root of all evil...? No, it really tells us that: "(1 Tim 6:10 KJV) "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

Most people will quickly say that they don't love money. They want plenty of it so they can buy what really makes them happy. (Often the happiness is short lived...)

Christmas is a time when most people would like to have a lot of money. Then we could buy a lot of happiness for those we love, and also have what we want. This time of year Charles Dickens Christmas Carol is played a lot on TV. It shows the evil of loving money and the joy of giving it away.

Charles Dickens wrote: "I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant,C. D. December, 1843.

(He was 31 years old at the time.)

If “the love of money can be the root of all evil,” it’s also true that money given by those who love God and put him first, can be the seed of every kind of good. It’s true value according to Jesus is infinite because it keeps on multiplying itself.

Looking back over our ministry we have been blessed to be the leaders of some very large projects. We’ve preached and sang to thousands at a time. On other occasions we ministered to small groups of just a few dozen. We've put together a medical team and treated the poor in the Amazon Jungle until we ran out of medicine. ($40,000.00 worth) Yet, all through our ministry we have taken the time to lead a single individual to Jesus.

We understood many years ago that this is the exact method and kind of ministry our Lord had. He was just as much at home with the 5,000 as he was with a single woman of poor character at Jacobs well. Everything is important to God.

Soon Maggie and I will have been married and working for the Lord together for 58 years. We decided in the beginning of our ministry that we would never ask for money, but just take what God provided for us. It's been a wonderful way to live. We have given away several hundred thousand dollars, and still give away what God places in our hands. The bank of heaven has never been robbed and so our future is secure.

In everything we’ve done there have been many thousands of unsung, and unknown hero’s of the faith who have provided the money for us to do what God called us to do. God is keeping a record, and he will never forget their faithful contributions. On the last and final day, when God rewards those who were obedient we will all stand together, we will hear his— “well done, you good and faithful servants enter into the joys of the Lord.”

My daughter Debbie Jansen and our Son-in-law Ron has followed in our footsteps and are kind and generous people. They have passed that wonderful quality to our grandchildren. Amie, Jamie and Kenny are kind and generous people. We are of course good to one another and that's a blessing.

The kindness shows up outside our family. For years they have had a family tradition of going to areas where the Salvation Army volunteers are ringing their bells and collecting money for the poor. The whole family buys hamburgers, hot coffee and takes it to the grateful volunteers. This is just one of the many caring projects they enjoy doing.

Wow! That's what I would call random acts of kindness. Everyone gets to feel good.

GOD AND THE ASTRONOUTS

2007-12-15T11:57:00.000-05:00

I was pastoring a church in Marion Indiana in May 25, 1961 when John F. Kennedy announced the United States should put a man on the Moon in 10 years. Many of my friends, family and church members believed God wouldn't allow such a thing to happen. I told them God was much more concerned with the morals of America than he was with man walking around on a lifeless, dead rock like the moon. I still believe that is our major concern.

Early one morning several years ago I got a phone call from a Pastor friend. He wanted us to come to his church, play the piano and help with the music. We got there just as the service was starting. After the music, Pastor Will Fisher introduced the speaker for the morning service.

He was Air Force Brigadier General Robert Stewart. While at NASA, he flew two space shuttle flights. On STS-41B along with Bruce McCandless he conducted the first orbital flight tests of the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), the first untethered extra-vehicular activity from a spacecraft in flight. He said: "It's an incredible experience being all alone, 1,000,000 feet above the earth, traveling at nearly 17,500 mph".

Traveling all over the world, being a Missionary Pilot, doing Medical projects in the Amazon Jungle, and preaching in some of the largest churches on earth I've met many famous and wealthy people. I soon learned that they were just ordinary people who did incredible things. When I talked to General Bob Stewart after the service he asked me to come to his parents home and talk with him.

I was impressed by all the life-sized photos of him, Presidential citations, and many other awards that covered the walls of his parents home. His distinguished accomplishments and academic education and experience as a test pilot was obvious and amazing.

Of course I wanted to know all about his incredible space travel. We talked a little about that but what he really wanted to talk about for well over two hours was his "spiritual experiences" and what God wanted him to do with the rest of his life."

Many of Astronauts have had deep, personal, spiritual experiences after walking on the moon or flying in outer space. Some of the most intelligent and best educated people in the world know they need more than "success." They recognize the amazing intelligence and creative genius of God who created the heavens and the earth.

I was asked one day by a multimillionaire if he could have an encounter with God without all of the ceremonies and rituals of a church service. I assured him that it was something between him and the Lord. "You can pray and talk to God anywhere, just like you are talking to me, I told him. Just make sure it's sincere". He didn't make any reply and I felt I shouldn't say anymore. (That's extraordinary for a preacher...) I knew I had said enough. I'm sure he found the Lord.

This is not a put down for having "church." I've also seen many people have a wonderful spiritual transformation in church during revival meetings, or just in an ordinary church service. You don't have to be an astronaut to get God's attention.

Any time or anywhere we pray sincerely, God listens!

LOVE IS NOT A BARGAIN

2007-12-09T16:51:00.001-05:00

Sometimes a situation may be unavoidably unfair for one spouse at the moment and months or even years later the situation may be reversed. Even if it never changes love signs on for the whole trip whether it’s good or bad. Often I hear people say that a marriage is a “fifty-fifty” deal. With all of the score keeping, and arguments about what’s fair and not fair, this turns a loving relationship into a constant battle.

“Quid pro quo,” is Latin for “something for something.” It’s a kind of business relationship. You give me merchandise and I’ll give you money. Everyone loves a bargain and constantly try to get the best of the deal. All of business and most of life between people is based on this principle. However, love is not a “quid pro quo” search for a bargain.

I was blessed years ago to watch my aunt and uncle live out a different kind of relationship. My Aunt Alyeene was a wonderful sophisticated lady who had a laugh like liquid sunshine. Her personality reminded me of a sparkling brook singing and splashing its way down the mountain. She was the very soul of warmth, love and kindness.

My Uncle was totally different. He came up hard, struggling and working for everything he ever had. He was a salesman, and had little success and one morning they got up and divided a single egg for breakfast. They prayed, as usual, for God to change things for them. Shortly after that harsh experience he got a wonderful opportunity that made them very well off financially. He had a kind and generous heart, but growing up in an orphanage left him painfully insensitive to the struggles of other people.

They didn’t have any children. Aunt Alyeene and the Bankers wife went down to the poorest section of town where they lived. They rented an old building, cleaned and fixed it up, and had something very much like a joyous picnic with the poor kids. They washed them, gave them decent clothes, fed them, and mixed in with all of the fun had a little unstructured conversation about Jesus and the Christian Faith. Many of those kids heard their first prayer while being lovingly held on the lap of these two beautiful ladies.

They never talked about it, but I later learned that they had sent several of those kids through college. No, their name wasn’t on a plaque anywhere, and they were never given any kind of special recognition. They just quietly practiced the Christian faith knowing that Jesus knew what they were doing.

They would take Debbie our small daughter to the park, or to the store and buy her something special. Uncle Love teased my daughter Debbie by calling her “snigger fritz.” They both gave her plenty of very special love and affection. Often they would take us out to eat, but our favorite place was where they served delicious sweet watermelon by the slice. We sat outdoors at a wooden picnic table overlooking the river. We would all laugh, tell funny stories, and whatever troubles we had would simply disappear for a while.

My uncle didn’t have a first name, just the initials AB. His last name was Love. He was a hard working, very successful investment broker, and later added real estate sales to his office. Uncle Love was a devout Christian, honest and sincere and at times showed great kindness and love. He was often full of fun and laughter. At other times he could be very passionate about what he believed or thought, and sometimes I felt like he was a little too harsh, inconsiderate and stern.

My aunt explained that he really didn’t mean to be unkind. It was just hard to get away from the toughness he developed as a child in an orphanage trying to survive and protect his little brother. Sometimes Aunt Alyeene would tell him that He was wrong. She did it with such kindness and love that almost always he would agree with her. He would often try to explain his motives for something he had said or done and wind up with tears in his eyes saying, “I’m sorry.”

I loved them both but sometimes I felt that their relationship was unfair because my aunt had to give in so often. I marveled at her ability to do it with such grace and kindness. Growing up in South Carolina she had all of the charm and grace of a true southern lady.

She loved him and seemed genuinely happy trying to please him and refused to complain about the unfairness. She simply accepted it as one of those things that couldn’t be changed. So we also forgot about it and their home was a warm and pleasant place to visit. Later when we moved to Atlanta they would often come to see us. We would sit up until late at night having a snack with the left over supper. It was usually something entirely southern like buttermilk and warm cornbread, pinto beans or whatever was available. We forgot about time while we laughed, told stories, and again our troubles did their disappearing act.

Then one day a small stroke like a thief took away some of her memory and then more and more as time went on. They came to see us again and we knew that something was very different. We took her to the best specialist in Atlanta, but after exhaustive test they gave us the gloomy news that nothing could be done. The problem would just get worse as time went on. The doctors told us that she must have been having little “mini stokes” in her brain. This was before the discovery of Alzheimer’s disease.

For month’s uncle Love took care of her at home. Incident after incident warned him that she couldn’t stay by herself while he worked. One day the highway patrol called him and said they had picked her up, walking down the middle of a four-lane highway. She had a shopping bag, a few clothes in it, and said she was going from Decatur Alabama, to her home in South Carolina.

Uncle Love knew it was no longer possible to take care of her and he tearfully placed her in a nursing home. For over five years she was unable to give or contribute anything but sorrow and disappointment to him.

No, it wasn’t fair that he slept on the floor of her room until they could get him a small folding cot. He was well into his 80’s but he refused to leave her alone even for a day. No, it wasn’t fair that he felt he had to get someone to come stay with her while he made a quick trip to the barber and took care of some business.

There was nothing fair about the days that rolled into months and years as he sat by her bedside and fed her. Every day he read the bible and other literature to a silent, sad and unresponsive woman. She didn’t look pretty anymore with her hair cut off and her total unconcern for her appearance. But, it didn’t seem to matter as he loved her by cheerfully holding her hand, laughed and kissed her.

It wasn’t fairness that kept him by her bedside every day for over five years. It was love. When she died he seemed strangely comforted by the fact that he had never forsaken her or stopped loving her. Just one month after we buried her we had the sad experience of coming back to attend his funeral.

Remembering them is like panning for gold. I don’t think much about what was fair or unfair. I wash those memories around and around and in the pan and I can see mixed in with the rough brown sand bright flashes of sunshine on the pure gold of unselfish love.

A bargain of mutual self-interest would have never survived the trials of their life together. But their love for each other was strong enough to suffer long “with kindness”. They both had it and life gave each of them a special time to use it.

(Ist Cor 13:4) “Love suffers long and is kind.”

I'VE NEVER BEEN AFRAID

2007-12-06T12:23:00.000-05:00

Looking at this old picture taken in 1961 I remember some very rough traveling. I flew out of Manila in the Phillipines about sundown. My destination was Jakarta Indonesia. This long boring flight was made bareable by being invited into the cockpit to ride with the flight crew. We dodged thunder storms, and finally about midnight arrived in Jakarta.

The missionary I was going to visit didn't get my cable, and I found that all the hotel rooms were taken in the city by politicians. So, I found a small empty room with no ceiling, put my foot against the door, with my hand on my luggage and went to sleep.

I woke up about five o'clock in the morning, finally found someone who spoke English, and decided to take a bus ride 180 kilometers to Bandung. The English speaking man in the airport told a taxi driver to take me to the bus stop and we drove for several miles in the pitch dark through the back streets of Jakarta. I couldn't speak a word of their language as he found the bus stop and told the bus driver where I wanted to go. I got on the bus and rode up and down moutains at a snails pace until about 3:30 that afternoon I got off of the bus in Bandung and made this picture.

I hired a horse drawn cart and showed the driver the address of the Missionary. After a hour of wondering about - back and forth across town I was tired, out of sorts, and frustrated. I was talking too loud to the poor driver who was obviously lost and a man came out of a house and asked me in perfect English if I need some help.

To my great relief he told the driver exactly where I need to go. I got out of the cart in front of my Missionary friends house...went inside and let his 18 year old son go out and haggle with the driver about his fee.

Thinking back over this and many other dangerous events in my life I know I was often in constant danger. Yet I was never afraid. Why not?

There’s no ice water in my veins and I have a healthy respect for dangerous situations. In traveling all over the world I’ve hung on for dear life to a log chain thrown around the middle of an elephant as its driver plunged us through a rainy jungle in Burma. Flying small airplanes across Mexico and Central America was hairy at times. But the nameless and faceless dread; the numbing anxiety and the fear of danger lurking everywhere has not been a problem for me.

I know it has something to do with my early experiences with prayer. As a young boy I was full of mischief and a lot of people were giving odds that I wouldn’t make it to my next birthday. My love of excitement and the willingness to try new things had already caused me a fair amount of trouble. My parents were constantly warning me about possible dangers.

My mother had her hands full with three boys and a girl. We had all of the usual trauma of cuts, dislocated arms, severe abrasions from bicycle wrecks and even a near drowning. But my mother had a firm, unshakable belief in prayer and several times I was a first hand participant in those prayers.

Like the time I went skating with my cousin Rex. We lived in a very small southern town and every day was a challenge for nine-year-old boys to find something to do. Some of our solutions to that problem sounded pretty dangerous to my parents. They didn’t approve of climbing the tree beside the house and jumping on to the roof or going to the river to swim.

My mother had told us not to leave the house that day but the insects were playing their mad July song, the sun was hot and we needed something to do. When she took a nap, like convicts breaking out of prison, we carefully slipped out of the yard to skate down the long streets between our house and the school. We knew she wouldn’t allow us to do that but we promised each other to look out for cars. Anyway, we planned to be back before she missed us.

There wasn’t a breeze anywhere as we grabbed our skates and ran down the street. When we were sure we were far enough away so mother couldn’t hear us we strapped on our skates. The streets were lined with huge oak trees that made a cool green canopy over the road during the long hot summer days. We felt pure pleasure as we skated along in the cool shade.

Going down those long winding streets was tremendously exciting because one hill in particular was so steep you built up quite a bit of speed on the way to the bottom. We laughed and teased one another as we skated our way to the steep hill. Then we took a deep breath and started down.

Just as we reached the bottom of the hill my cousin was on one side of the street and I was on the other. Our skates were making so much noise we didn’t hear the car coming up behind us. The woman who was driving said later she didn’t see us until she rounded the curve and then it was too late to stop.

She was standing on the brakes and trying to steer between us when suddenly I decided to turn around. She watched in horror as I turned in front of the right fender of her car - felt the bump as she hit me and saw me go down under the front of the car. Then she felt the wheel lift up as it went over me.

When the car stopped all I could hear was her screaming. She was sure she had killed me. Even today after 66 years the events are indelibly imprinted in my mind. It was like a slow motion movie. I felt the impact of the car, felt myself going down, and felt the car wheel roll over my legs. It was a strange sensation because I felt no pain. Then I remember vividly my skates getting caught in the undercarriage of the car just behind the right front wheel. I remember thinking about the possibility of the rear wheel running over me but instead I was dragged along until the car stopped.

I untangled my skates when the car stopped and crawled out. Then someone carried me to the doctor’s office just a few blocks away. It would be dramatic if I could talk about how scared I was but that wouldn’t be true. I knew I was going to be fine. In a short time the doctor dismissed me. He said I had some bruises but no serious injuries. In less than an hour I was walking around the back yard at home.

A little later the woman who had hit me had regained her composure and came to talk to my mother. I was asked to come inside so she could be sure I was all right. In expressing her concern and amazed relief that I was all right she said: “You son is one lucky little boy.”

“No honey,” my mother said, “It wasn’t luck. I woke up shortly after they left and felt a sudden urge to pray for them. At the precise time of the accident I was urgently praying for God to protect them both.” My mother laughed with happiness. “It was the angel of the Lord that saved him.”

“Yes,” the woman said, “I can certainly agree with that.”

The only physical problems I suffered were in the back of my ankles. The tendons in my heels were extremely sensitive for years after that experience. Just a bump against the legs of a chair was enough to remind me of my sin of disobedience and also of God’s tender care and mercy. I had no problems walking or running and eventually I recovered completely from those minor problems.

Because my mother has such a firm belief that God was always available to protect and help us, I’ve been spared a lifetime of needless anxiety. Truthfully, in a dangerous situation I was usually so busy trying to work it out, that it just never occurred to me that I might not make it. I also had a firm, rock solid knowledge that God had called me, and my life was in his hands.

Many of my own prayers have been answered in a spectacular way and that has also shaped my thinking. I must confess that often my prayers are not answered and I learned to accept the fact that God knew something I didn’t and there was no reason to worry about it. I’ve lived my whole life with a calm assurance that everything would come out all right in the end.

Just recently someone asked me why I’ve been so adventurous and unafraid. I had never really thought about it before but then it suddenly seemed very clear to me. It’s an unshakable knowledge given to me by my mother’s prayers that God is always available when we need him. And no matter what happens, nothing can separate me from his goodness and love.

Thank you for your generous donations

2007-12-04T16:31:00.000-05:00

I love helping people. I earned a Master's degree in Psychology and a Doctorate in Theology. I've been an ordained Christian Minister for over 60 years. I've read thousands of books and at one time was an editor for the Haggai Institute.

As the Founder and Director of Christian Ministries I've often recommended books I knew would be helpful to people in counseling. I'm looking for a way to supplement our miniscule social security check.

If you want to help support this website and help us continue our diverse and wide ranging ministry, you can use the link in the sidebar to make all your purchases from Amazon.com. The small sellers fee I receive will be greatly appreciated.

Here are a few of my favorite books:

I like this book because according to the Wall Street Journal, "this book has once and for all demolished Darwin's Theory of Evolution".

Compassion and Self Hate is one of my all time favorite books. Dr. Rubin's book is excellent because it clearly shows the way to a healthy normal life. He reveals his own personal struggles and how he overcame them.

C. S. Lewis wrote many excellent books but my favorite is God in the dock. Especially the chapter called, Have we no right to happiness? That chapter alone makes the book worthwhile.

I hope these three books will get you started. If you have a reader on your Christmas list and would like to know what type of book to get for under the tree, send me an e-mail.

For me, reading is the only hobby I truly enjoy.

CHRISTMAS LOVE AND COMPASSION

2007-12-04T15:19:00.000-05:00

The Christmas story in the Bible is all about love, compassion, selfishness and hatred. Long ago I came to realize that "compassion" is the key to heaven. The 25th Chapter of Matthew records the words of Jesus in which he made it absolutely clear that "compassion or indifference" will take us to heaven or hell. Jesus also gave us the same message in Luke 16:20-31.

Here's a story I've had for years. It touches me every time I read it. I'll let you decide if it touches your heart and moves you to acts of kindness.

As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children an untruth. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. However, that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he did not play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. In addition, Teddy could be unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X’s and then putting a big “F” at the top of his papers.

At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child’s past records and she put Teddy’s off until last. However, when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise.

Teddy’s first grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners. He is a joy to be around.”

His second grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is an excellent student, well liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home must be a struggle.”

His third grade teacher wrote, “His mother’s death has been hard on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn’t show much interest, and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren’t taken”

Teddy’s fourth grade teacher wrote, “Teddy is with drawn and doesn’t show much interest in school. He doesn’t have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class.”

By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy’s. His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper that he got from a grocery bag. Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents. Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one-quarter full of perfume.

But she stifled the children’s laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist.

Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, “Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to.”

After the children left, she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she quit teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, she began to teach children. Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy.

As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one of her “teacher’s pets.”

A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that she was the best teacher he ever had in his whole life.

Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy. He then wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in his life.

Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he’d stayed in school, had stuck with it, and would soon graduate from college with the highest of honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he had ever had in his whole life.

Then four more years passed and yet another letter came. This time he explained that after he got his bachelor’s degree, he decided to go a little further. The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had. But now his name was a little longer The letter was signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, MD.

The story does not end there. You see, there was yet another letter that spring. Teddy said he had met this girl and was going to be married. He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was wondering if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit at the wedding in the place that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom.

Of course, Mrs. Thompson did. And guess what? She wore that bracelet, the one with several rhinestones missing. Moreover, she made sure she was wearing the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last Christmas together.

They hugged each other, and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson’s ear, “Thank you Mrs. Thompson for believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference."

Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back. She said, “Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn’t know how to teach until I met you.”

This warm and tender story is a work of fiction. The original story, which first appeared in significantly different form in the magazine Home Life in 1976, was written by Elizabeth Silance Ballard (now Elizabeth Ungar) and called "Three Letters from Teddy." The main character's name was Teddy Stallard, not Teddy Stoddard.

The powerful truth is that the only Stoddard connected with Iowa Methodist Hospital in Des Moines was John D. Staddard, an engineer, and real estate developer who amassed a fortune. No member of his family had ever had cancer. He often said that the reason he worked so hard to make money was to have more to give away.

In 1990, his keen interest in medical care and compassion for others compelled him to support Iowa Methodist Medical Center’s new cancer center with a $4 million gift. In recognition of his generosity, the center was named the John Stoddard Cancer Center.

He gained a sense of satisfaction that came from supporting a facility specifically designed to offer feelings of life, health and hope. John was always a fervent ambassador for the center, spreading his enthusiasm for the new and emerging technology, expert cancer researchers and care givers, and personalized family-centered care.

John said, "Once you see the center, once you see the remarkable work that’s being done, that’s what really motivates you to give. There’s such an attitude of hope." Through his ongoing gifts to the center, as well as significant provisions made in his estate plan, John Stoddard’s spirit of hope will continue to benefit cancer patients and their families for generations to come.

John Stoddard died in 1998 after a brief struggle with cancer.

Tomorrow? Just “do it”. Random acts of kindness, I think they call it! “Believe in Angels, miracles, mercy and then return the favor.”

CHRISTIANITY / RELIGION

2007-12-02T17:02:00.000-05:00

Many years ago I preached my way around the world and visited this great image of Buddha in Kamakura Japan. It was the beginning of a trip that allowed me to see many of the worlds religions up close and personal. To talk about this subject we need a common definition of both religion and Christianity.

Religion involves having a belief in a divinely created world, faith in a creed - a formal statement of religious belief, obedience to a moral code set down in sacred scriptures and participation in community religious life.

I soon discovered that a large number of Japanese didn't have a religion that fit my definition. Shinto has no system of doctrine, no creed, and no formulated religious ideas. It is fundamentally concerned with expressing wonder, respect, and awe for everything that exists. This concern involves treating everything as if it were a person. In other words, having an independent life of its own. This must never be taken for granted. In a walk up a mountain trail I saw this Shinto shrine.

I was curious about the white paper strips tied to the branches of this tree. I discovered that they were prayers placed there by people who believe that the wind would blow them away and somehow....their prayers might be answered.

Shinto as practiced in Japan is not a religion. The Japanese word shin is spirit only in the most vague meaning. In the view of Shinto, every rock, tree, animal, and stream has its own shin or kami. (God or Goddess) The kami [divine] + kaze [wind] came from the legendary name of a typhoon that in 1281 saved Japan by destroying the invasion of the Mongol navy. Kamikaze “divine wind” was bad for Japan’s enemies. So, during the Second World War it became the name of young Japanese suicide pilots who crashed their bomb loaded planes into U.S. Navy ships.

Before I made this trip I studied every major religion in the world, and many of the thousands of variations of the Christian faith in America. I wanted to know the truth and was willing to accept it wherever I found it. On this trip I saw Buddhist priest spinning prayer wheels that were keep spinning night and day for years. I also saw many people apparently praying in the world's largest and most famous Buddhist temple in the world - the Shwee DaGong in Rangoon Burma.

The great question was: "Who were they praying to?" No, it couldn't be Siddhartha Gautama, the first Buddha who reached Nirvana after 533 reincarnations. Nirvana means "to cease to exist...to escape the endless cycle of "Birth, pain, suffering, sorrow and death." The concept is like blowing out a candle. "Poof" it's gone. Having reached Nirvana Siddhartha Gautama couldn't hear or answer their prayers.

Just outside one of the four entrance ways to the top of the worship area I noticed this small pond and a vendor selling popcorn balls. People would buy one and throw it into the pond near the small pagoda where they were eaten by "catfish." Perhaps they believed that everything may be a god or sacred?

Years ago when I would show these pictures people would talk about how weird, strange and foolish these people were. Yet here in America we've got a huge number of churches where all kinds of foolish, unscriptural and false concepts are preached and believed by people who know very little about true Christianity.

My mother took me to one of those kind of churches when I was a little boy. When I was eleven years old I was totally uninterested in the church. I loved airplanes and wanted to be a pilot. God had other plans for me and for three long weeks I struggled with an encounter with the Lord. No one knew about my struggle....I cried, prayed, and tried to avoid him, but finally I couldn't bear the overwhelming presence and made a covenant with God on a Wednesday night at home in the bed by myself. I would give up my ambitions and be a minister of the Gospel. I found peace, plenty of hard times, and rest for my soul.

I've had some spectacular and totally unexpected encounters with God all through my life. I have first hand knowledge that God is the Divine creator and can do anything that pleases him. I feel sad that I can't tell anyone how to have that experience. I see many good people who want to experience God's presence but have to walk by faith. I can only tell them that we are all part of the body of Christ.

First, the church is seen as the body of Christ; and a cluster of images exists in this context as emphasis falls on the head (Eph. 4:15-16), the members (1 Cor. 6:12-20), the body (1 Cor. 12:12-27), or the bride (Eph. 5:22-31). The church is also seen as God's new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), the new persons (Eph. 2:14-15), fighters against Satan (Eph. 6:10-20), or bearers of light (Eph. 5:7-9). Thirdly, the church is quite often described as a fellowship of faith with its members described as the saints (1 Cor. 1:2), the faithful (Col. 1:2), the witnesses (John 15:26-27), or the household of God (1 Pet. 4:17).

The preeminent characteristic of the church in the New Testament is devotion to Jesus Christ as Lord. He established the church under His authority (Matt. 16:13-20) and created the foundation for its existence in His redeeming death and demonstration of God's power in His resurrection. Christ's position as the Lord evoked, sustained, and governed the major characteristics of the life of the church in the way members were admitted, treated one another, witnessed to His power, worshiped, and lived in hope of His return.

The only way to understand this is to diligently study the Bible and especially the New Testament. I've been doing that for over 60 years, and find that I'm still growing in the Knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord. It bothers me that Pastors, Church board members, denominations and all the people who love power and authority proudly boast that "this is my church, my denomination, my ministry".

The night I surrendered my life to the Lord I got up and found an old Bible. I opened it and read: "(John 17:20-23 NIV) "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, {21} that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. {22} I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: {23} I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

I wonder how that great prayer of Jesus can ever be answered?

IS THIS PROMISE MINE?

2007-10-25T13:44:00.000-04:00

It is very doubtful that this young fellow will catch any fish no matter how much faith he has. Every Christian believes in faith---but knows that God decides which prayers to answer and those that must be ignored.

Years ago I was sitting at a table in a restaurant in Marion Indiana and noticed a place mat of advertising. Right in the center was a preacher I knew very well and he was holding a child. Under the picture of this highly successful charismatic minister was a message about prayer and fasting.

The message said: “Join us in prayer and fasting for two meals every Friday and send us the cost of those meals to feed the hungry”. Then it had his name. There was his large ministry logo and information on how to send the donation. There was also this quote from Isaiah 58:10-11:

“If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your desire with good things, and make your bones strong; and you will be like a spring of water, whose waters fail not”.

Something was troubling me about this appeal for money so I decided to read the whole chapter. This plea for money to feed the children was tied to an implied promise. There were no conditions, nothing to correct in their life - just give some money and be blessed. After all this is a quote from the Bible so it must be true.

Plucking these two verses out of the Bible makes it sound wonderful. There are dozens of different translations of the Bible and it’s easy to find the one that fits what we want it to say. In this case it’s carefully plucking these two verses out of the Revised Standard Version.

A lot of preaching today is picking and choosing the "good stuff." Anything that would make people feel bad (Old fashion Termonology would be "under conviction") is simply avoided. From Washington to top corporations greed, lying, cheating, and immorality is tolerated. Only the little people go to prison. Top level crooks are "pardoned" or told they have to go to bed in their lavish digs without any desert.

Even in the RSV the first verse of Isaiah 58 is a condemnation of their wicked behavior. “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet; declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins”. (Nope that verse won’t raise any money.) Isaiah 58:4 won’t do it either. “[4] Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high".

Unfortunately morality and Christian ethics have all but disappeared from the preaching and theology in American churches. The church has been too busy raising money, pursuing success (large crowds) and building churches that often cost millions of dollars. To be successful we must make people feel good. People give some money when they feel good. They don’t give if they feel bad.

If we read the whole chapter of Isaiah 58 we find some strong conditions and requirements both before this quote and after it. I’m not against feeding the hungry and helping the poor. I’ve done that for years. The Bible commands us to do both. What I question is the “motive for doing it.” We should obey God because it’s the right thing to do and not because we receive some benefit from it. Why did the Minister lift these two verses out of (Isaiah 58: verse 10 & 11) ?

I’m all for feeding hungry children, and Maggie and myself have raised thousands of dollars and given every cent of it to do just that. Years ago we took Doctors and Nurses and $40,000.00 worth of medicine to Iquitos Peru and used it all to treat poor people. We raised $1500.00 to drill the first deep well that gave pure clean drinking water to thousands of poverty stricken people including children.

The well was housed in a small building with an electrical pump, a storage tank in the top and provided clean, pure drinking water 24 hours a day. Eventually we had ten of these wells scattered all over town. We never used a dime of this money for our own needs. We believed it was a sacred trust to use it all for the poor especially the beautiful little children who were suffering.

I’m still troubled about a naked promise to bless anyone who gives to the poor. Abstract promises need to be applied to specific cases. Suppose a carnal-minded selfish church member who lies, is cheating everybody, and has just caused his church to disintegrate with bickering and fighting. He has disgraced the very name of God he utters so piously. He reads the ad and sends a little money to feed the hungry. Will he be blessed in this fantastic way? NOPE!

Would Jonah have been gloriously blessed on his way to Tarsus if he had stopped and given some money to feed the hungry? NO! Would Ananius and Shaphira have been spared their untimely death in Acts 5 if they had just given some money to feed the hungry before they lied to the Holy Spirit and Peter pronounced their doom? NOPE !

We know that sometimes obedience to God leads to suffering and death. Acts 5 is a great example of this painful truth. The apostles were jailed, flogged, threatened and persecuted for preaching the truth about Jesus. Doing the right things would eventually lead them to a painful death. Thank God their motive was simply to be obedient to Jesus Christ with or without rewards.

Those who only live right for the earthly and temporal benefits and blessings will have a terrible time when trouble comes. The true reward of virtue and integrity is…virtue and integrity. When we stand before God that’s all that will matter. It’s great to do the right thing just because you know it’s the right thing to do.

TRUTH - IS IT IMPORTANT?

2007-09-29T12:05:00.000-04:00

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Every sensible person would have to say yes! We can all be seriously hurt by dishonesty and false information. Pilate had a problem with the “truth” before he allowed the Jews to Crucify Jesus.

(John 18:37 NIV) “You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” {38} “What is truth?” Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.”

The evening news would only last about five minutes if they left out all the stories about honest people being swindled, cheated, and robbed by crooks and corrupt corporations. Leave out the scandals, the daily report on murder, sex, perversion and corruption in our government and we could just skip the whole thing.

Would you believe Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad if he said there was no poverty or hunger in Africa? If he said he took this photo to prove it would you believe him?

(Photoshop can create any kind of picture.)

Normal people have someone talking to them every waking moment of their lives. This talk can be very upsetting, painful, creates depression, worry, anxiety and sleepless nights. Most of this talk is wickedly and painfully false. It can even cause bad dreams. Some of it is inspiring, and makes us feel great.

Where is this witches brew of pain and joy coming from? It comes from our marvelous and amazing brain. Just try to sit for five minutes and have no thoughts at all. Unless you are seriously ill and in a coma it can't be done.

With practice we can learn to reject and correct the false and disturbing thoughts that can make us miserable. These can be generated by the prefrontal lobes of the brain. The left side creates happy and cheerful emotions and the right side does the opposite.

The Bible makes it clear that "as a man thinketh - so is he." There's an interesting passage in (Phil 4:6-7 NIV) "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. {7} And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. {9} Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."

Sometimes we need to silence that voice in our head that is giving us all kinds of false ideas and bad advise. If we recorded everything we say in a day and then heard someone repeat it back to us - we would discover that we have been saying a lot of false things. The false things we say can make us miserable.

As a Christian Counselor for many years I've heard things like: "I can't control my temper." That's false. Everyone can do that in certain circumstances. Example: A man who slaps his wife and children around is pulled over by a Police Officer. He's really steamed about being stopped.

The officer walks to the door of his car and the man is meek, submissive and controls his temper remarkably well. The police officer is 6'4 inches tall, 275 pounds, not an ounce of fat, has a gun, billy club on his belt, handcuffs and could easily ruin our angry friend's life. So much for being unable to control his temper.

It interesting how well that voice in our heads can come up with all kinds of deception. Someone has a decent car but starts saying: "I NEED A NEW CAR." The truth is they "want" a new car but it's a clever false argument to say "I need a new (you fill in the blanks).

How many of these false statements in your head can you think of? Get rid of them. Here's a true or false test: "Is it ever God's will for you to set aside the needs of other to take care of yourself?" The correct answer is yes!

(Mark 6:30-32 NIV "The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. {31} Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." {32} So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place."

Godly motives say, "You are important and so am I. Jesus loves us -- and he loves us equally."

IS THE BIBLE TRUE?

2007-09-15T12:43:00.000-04:00

If we believe in Jesus we have to believe in the Bible. He taught from it and constantly quoted it in his teachings. (Luke 4:16-22 NIV) “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom and he stood up to read.

17} The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: {18} “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, {19} to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

{20} Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, {21} and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” {22} All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.”

Doubt and questions can lead to a strong faith. As a young minister I saw and heard a lot of things that troubled me. I decided to search for the truth by studying any and everything I could find. I didn't care where it led me, I just wanted to know the truth.

I studied all the major religions, and many different "religious teachings." I found myself rejecting them because they were unreliable and taught things that I knew couldn't be true. I finally found what I needed by diligently studying the Bible. I was astonished by what I found.

The Bible was written by 40 different authors who lived over a 2,000 year time span. Doctors, shepherds, farmers, kings, and fishermen who didn't have a chance to communicate with each other --wrote about health, ethics, science, philosophy, and God. They made over 300 predictions about a coming Messiah who is going to be born hundreds of years later and all their predictions came true. The odds of that happening would be one with 181 zero’s after it.

The bible is an amazingly whole book, unified in theme, logical in development and doctrine. It inspires work, fairness, and justice for individuals, family and community. It has created more benevolent societies than any book every written.

History books will tell you that the humane society was started in 1866 but they are wrong. Moses wrote about it over 3500 years ago in Exodus 23:4-5 and Luke 14:5 also talked about it. Life insurance? Well look at its first form in Genesis 34:12, Exodus 22:16, and Ist Samuel 18:25.

In spite of all the space exploration there is still a flat earth society. These are people who still believe the earth is flat. Yet Isaiah 40:22 describes God, it’s creator, as sitting enthroned above the circle of the earth. By the way Isaiah was written about 740 B.C. And while we are talking about the universe, Job 26:7 tells us the earth is suspended and free-floating in space.

I could go on and on with this but let’s talk about medicine. Years ago I was in a graduate school psychology class at Georgia State University. I heard the professor talk about the amazing progress of Psychological knowledge. He recalled that during the First World War millions of men came home with something the doctors called “shell shock.” Intense combat ruined them and many spent their entire life on disability payments from the government.

During the Second World War, the psychologist discovered an amazing new treatment. When a soldier had reached his limit of endurance instead of being shipped back to the states to a mental hospital he was simply brought back a hundred miles or so from the front lines. His treatment consisted of giving him all the good food he could eat, and letting him sleep 16 hours a day if he wanted to. Battle fatigue was all but eliminated and very few men were hospitalized or placed on disability because of it.

There was a final key to the success of their treatment. The soldier was told that his battle fatigue was not a free ticket back home. As soon as he recovered he would be sent back to his unit and continue to fight the war.

When I heard that I almost said, “Praise the Lord” out loud in class. I immediately thought of Ist Kings 19. Elijah has called fire down from heaven, and then ran into the wilderness from Jezebels threat. He had severe stress and battle fatigue. He even wanted God to just take his life, although Jezebel had promised to do it for him.

He lay down under a tree and fell asleep exhausted. Then an angel woke him up, fed him and let him go back to sleep. Then the angel woke him up and fed him again. You can read it for yourself. God gave him a new commission that sent him back into the battle. Exactly the same treatment the psychologist discovered over two thousand years later.

Let’s talk about the writing of Moses. He was schooled in all the arts and science of the Egyptians as the son of Pharaoh. The Egyptians had a famous medical book called the Papyrus Ebers. It said: “to prevent gray hair - use the blood of a black calf boiled in oil - or the fat of a rattlesnake”. To remove splinters apply worms blood and Asses dung. (Since manure is loaded with tetanus bacteria a lot of their patients died with lockjaw.)

In the case of tetanus or “lockjaw” in as short a time as two days the toxin produced by the bacteria attack the spinal cord that control muscle activity. Muscles become rigid and extremely painful spasms kill the patient unless he is treated aggressive with antibiotics along with injections of an antitoxin. Even then breathing will have to be taken over by an artificial respirator, and it’s a tough fight to keep the patient alive.

The Papyrus Ebers called for hundreds of remedies like lizard’s blood, swine teeth, putrid meat, milk goose grease, animal’s fats, and the manure from animals and even flies.

Now wait just a minute! Moses was schooled in all of this yet in the first five books of the bible he never included a single one of these hideous remedies. WHY NOT? GOD INSPIRED HIS WRITING!

I could tell you that when the doctors gave up on the 14th century black plague that took 60 million lives in Europe - the church stopped it by carefully observing what Moses taught in Leviticus 13:46. Again Moses was 2,000 years ahead of his time.

Moses in Numbers and Leviticus gave a secret that Doctors are using today in Emory University Hospital here in Atlanta, and everywhere else in the world. Let me tell you about it. Vienna Austria in 1840 had the finest medical school in the world. Yet doctors examined patients after performing autopsies without washing their hands. Their patients died like flies. Even in the early 19th century Surgeons and medical students would poke their dirty hands in sterile abdomens. They often sharpened their surgical knives on the soles of their shoes.

Moses in Numbers 19 gave some amazing rules for dealing with contagious diseases. It included washing in water, and even burning your clothes if you had to carry out someone who died. If you watch any surgeon today getting ready to operate he washes under a running stream of water controlled by a foot pedal. Then he is careful not to touch anything else until the scrub nurse places sterile gloves on his hands and he enters the operating room.

How did Moses, schooled in all the arts and sciences of the Egyptians write a book that was 3500 years before it’s time? The only answer is found in Second Peter 1:21:
“For prophesy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Our bible wasn’t given as a scientific book to explain everything in our world. It’s a spiritual book about God; his will and plan for every person on earth. But it doesn’t contradict true science. It sometimes contradicts the unproven theories of faulty scientist but you can trust it completely as an accurate book.

Having said that I’m going to have to admit that it is full of errors and mistakes. It gives us without any cover-up the mistakes and errors of Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Peter, Paul and I could go on and on. It shows us what happens when men refuse to listen to God or to obey his laws. It teaches clearly that God can forgive our sins, but sometimes the consequences of our sins follow us all through our life.

Only a very foolish person will deliberately sin, with the thought that God loves everyone and will forgive sins. Get drunk and kill your wife and child, or others and God will forgive your sins. But your wife and child or others you have killed will be forever gone from this earth. Shoot drugs with a dirty needle, or have sex with an aid’s carrier and God will forgive you. But if you contract the aids virus it can destroy your life. God’s word can be trusted to guide us safely from the cradle to the grave. When we look back over a long life, we will be glad that we heeded its teachings.

Hundreds of millions of people have studied and loved the Bible. In the worst of times it was their rock, place of comfort and source of spiritual power. The Bible was not given to us for argument, debate, and to create sectarian division. It is a devinely given light to lead us to a personal encounter with our creator. Once he places his Spirit in our hearts we take on the character of his dear Son Jesus Christ.

I'm the kind of person that will read the back of a cerial box. I love books. Twice I spent over a year teaching every single chapter and verse in the Bible to dedicated church members. My faith in God rest on the solid rock "that the Bible is true and a reliable map that can transform and lead us to my Father's house."

GOD SPEAKS TO HIS PEOPLE

2007-07-22T19:44:00.000-04:00

Ken getting ready to fly 7504x from Atlanta Ga. to Durango Mexico for difficult and dangerous Missionary Work. Example: Flying into a high mountain dirt airstrip 8700 feet high to LaNoria with just enough gas to get back to Durango with two people in the aircraft. Instead I flew out of there with three people, struggling to get airborne. High density altitude almost did us in. We got a woman who was dying with enceplelitis to the hospital in Durango and saved her life.

Years ago I made the mistake of telling the President of a Christian Missionary Training School that God talks to me. He astonished me by saying: “I’ve never had that experience. In fact I don’t even know when I got saved. I just grew up in a Christian home, and attended a Christian college. He went on to say that God didn’t call him to be a missionary. He just decided to try it and was successful. [whatever that means] He went on to say that God didn’t call him to be the president of this Missionary organization but he had the talent and ability to do it so he was elected as it’s president.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. The question in my mind was: "why did this young man feel comfortable without ever hearing the voice or the call of God and yet be the head of what was called a Christian Missionary Organization?"

I’m going to try to answer that question. The first thing that comes to mind is the great emphasis that is placed on academic education. No, I’m not against being educated. A woman once wrote to Charles Spurgeon and told him that God didn’t need his “book larning.” Charles Spurgeon wrote her back and told her that God didn’t need her ignorance either.

Any college graduate will tell you that before they get their diploma they have at least read parts of a stack of books about six feet high. Every airline pilot has studied books until their brains felt like mush. They have to learn thousands of rules, regulations, emergency procedures; the mechanical working of the aircraft, complex and complicated flight information, meteorology and the list could go on and on.

No one should ever put down knowledge. It’s always a valuable tool. For example, in over 50 years that I’ve had a pilot’s license I paid my dues, read everything I could get my hands on about flying and took lots of advise from veteran pilots. I was a Missionary pilot for years. It’s a dangerous business and several of my closest friends died doing it.

I gave up my dream of being a pilot in the Airforce to be a Minister of the Gospel. Years later God allowed me to do exactly what I had given up. I had learned to fly, but fogotten about flying and didn't have the money to drive a car much less fly an airplane. But God spoke to me "To buy an airplane and get ready to go to the mission field as a Missionary pilot". In less than a week I had the Cessna Skyhawk and was getting ready to be a missionary pilot. Yes, I was euphoric and filled with awe.

I’ve taken lots of people on flights across the country. One thing always happened. In my aircraft there was a radio speaker mounted on the ceiling of the cockpit just above the pilot’s head. A pilot talking to the control center sounds like Greek to a non-pilot passenger sitting in the right seat.

The message that comes back over the speaker above the pilot’s head is absolutely incomprehensible to the non-pilot. I’ve been asked many times: “What did they say? How can you possibly understand that message.” Well, the answer is simple. I’ve heard it before, I know what the message is probably going to be, and I understand the aviation language they are using.

In II Timothy 3 Paul told Timothy that terrible times would come in the last days. What he wrote describes our country perfectly. In verse 5 he said men would have a form of Godliness but deny its power. Have nothing to do with them. In verse 7 he said: “They are ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

How in the world can that be? Let’s take a look at the second chapter of Ist Corinthians verse 12: “We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. Verse 14: The man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

This passage is telling us that being saved is much, much more than reading about or even believing that Jesus was the Son of God. Knowledge has it place but not here. Churches often try to teach people to evangelize by visiting people, use psychology, and clever arguments to lead a person to saying those magic words: “I believe Jesus is the Son of God, and accept him as my savior. Then they say: "I guess according to what you have told me, I’m saved.”

If someone had to tell you that you have been born again, you didn’t get it. The bible tells us that the devils believed and trembled but that didn’t mean they were saved. Knowing God is such a powerful experience that no one has to tell you that you have had it. My Uncle used to tell me that if the “stewards” in his church would get saved it would be the biggest revival in the history of their church.

I was taken to church when I was two week old and later on as a young boy attended every Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday night church service with my mother. I hated church. By the time I was six years old I could cuss for five minutes without repeating myself, and loved to tell my mother lies. At eleven years old I had heard all the hell fire and brimstone sermons you could ever imagine and by that time they had absolutely no effect on me.

One day at eleven years old in front of a store I heard a little Salvation Army brass band play “Down at the Cross-where my savior died.” They never knew it but I started to cry and walked into some bushes so no one could see me. I didn’t know what in the world caused that reaction. Over the next two week this strange thing would come over me and I would cry. Something was happening to me and I didn’t know what.

Then I heard the still small voice of God speaking to me. He said: “Your father is unsaved, and unless you do something he is going to be lost.” The country was just coming out of the great depression and my father was working hard to feed and clothe 9 children. He was so busy he never was very close to me. But it broke my heart to think of him being lost. God knew I was too stubborn and full of sin to be worried about myself and he reached me exactly where I was the most vulnerable.

Finally, on a Wednesday night at eleven o’clock in the bed by myself I made a decision. I knew I would have to give up my passionate ambition to be an Army Air Force Pilot. I loved airplanes. I told the Lord that if he would save my Dad I would give him my life for the longest day I lived. As God’s peace came over me I knew I had a covenant with God and the Holy Spirit had changed me. Soon everyone in amazement knew it too. Even the dear black lady that helped my mother keep house and raise us knew it. She knew what I had been and had trouble believing what I had become. She finally said "he shore has changed."

I never told a soul why I became a Christian. When I finished high school my father offered to send me to college but when I insisted that I had to be a minister he said: “I won’t give you one thin dime to be a preacher.” Finally I left home with $2.38 cents in my pocket, a few clothes in a handbag, my bible and hitchhiked away from home to preach the gospel. I didn't know where I was going or what I would do. I knew absolutely nothing except that God had called me.

Later, I was married and had a daughter that my father had never seen. I got word in a revival that my dad had suffered a massive heart attack and if I wanted to see him I had better come home. I couldn’t pray a single prayer. I drove straight to the hospital and when I walked into his room the tears rolled down his cheeks. He said: “Son, I’ve got something to tell you. "I know Dad," I said. Then he said to me: "I’ve prayed and given my heart to the Lord. I want you to forgive me and bring your wife and that baby I’ve never seen to our house when I get out of this hospital.” We cried and rejoiced together. We all spent two weeks at home with family.

I never told him or anyone else why I became a Christian. It was private between God and myself. From then on he was my strongest ally and did what he could to help us. We had some really tough times but God always was faithful to us.

Years later I went to see my Dad. After 20 years of heart attacks, strokes and many physical problems he was so weak and sick he could barely walk and wanted me to help him out to the front porch. We sat down in a swing and he knew his time was short. He said, with tears running down his thin, wrinkled face, “Son, out of all the wrong things I’ve ever done in my life there’s one thing that troubles me to most. I regret that I was so blind and didn’t help you become a minister. Will you please forgive me for that?” I cried and hugged him and said “Dad, I can’t do that. I’ve never held anything against you and there’s nothing to forgive. He cried and said: “Please, just say the words to me.” Tearfully, I said: “Dad I forgive you.” We hugged each other and cried.

I never told him why I gave my heart to the Lord. A few weeks later he fell over and was gone. At the funeral I couldn’t shed a tear. I knew my Dad was safe. Running over and over in my mind was one thought. God has been faithful to his promise and now I must be faithful to mine.

When God speaks to us, we know it. It has some eternal purpose, and always involved his will for us. 20 years is a long time to wait for the proof but I never had a doubt that God would save my Dad.

I have a wonderful daughter and a son-in-law who are dedicated Christians. My three grandchildren are wonderful Christians and a constant joy to us. I’ve traveled and preached all over the world and have a wonderful life. The blessings of obedience are still going on for all of us.

My wife and I have been in full time Ministry together for over 57 years. We started Christian Ministries over 17 years ago. We meet people everywhere, in the strangest places, and pray with them often in public places. I create the booklets and CD’s in my office and we give them to needy people that we meet and pray with in the strangest places. Often we pray with them in the parking lots, shopping centers, and even on commercial aircraft. Their reaction is to say that they have been praying for help and know that God sent us to them.

It takes time for us to pray with troubled people and give them full color helpful booklets and a CD called “Songs for troubled hearts”. We have never asked for money but simply trust God to supply what we needed. Somehow we always have just enough to keep going. It’s really been amazing how God provides for us as we do his will.

(1 Cor 3:5-9 NIV) “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. {6} I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. {7} So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

THE BIBLE IS GOD'S WORD

2007-07-14T13:00:00.000-04:00

Absolutely everyone is a believer. The most devout Christian and the most passionate atheist believe things they cannot prove. It’s not a matter of whether or not you have faith. It’s just a matter of what you decide to believe. The Christian has an argument and so does the Atheist. The Christian can’t “prove” that God exists and the Atheist can’t prove that he doesn’t exist.

The main difference between dedicated, committed Christians and “nominal” religious church members is what they believe about the Bible. Many “nominal” (meaning in name only) church members never read the Bible. They depend on the Preacher to tell them what to believe. The old "cracker barrel philosopher" Josh Billings said: "Truth is what has got itself believed by me."

One of the reasons I know the Bible is God’s word is because for many centuries it has survived so much ignorant and bad preaching by ignorant, false teachers and religious con men. My Grandson asked me years ago: “How do we know the Bible is not just a bunch of stories made up by men?” I gave him as many reasons as he could handle and he seemed to be satisfied.

Here’s how to be scientific in your study of the Bible. First there are many things that cannot be proven by electron microscopes, test tubes, electronic gadgets, or experiments done on rats or monkeys. You can't use any of these things to prove that George Washington ever lived, or that you attended the third grade, or that you ate lunch on the first Tuesday of last October.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that those things did happen. Those things are proven by universally accepted methods of legal and historical proof. This method depends on three types of testimony. They are written manuscripts based on eyewitness accounts, exhibits, other manuscripts and oral testimony that give credibility to the written manuscripts in question. Then there is something called the “continuity of history.” The facts were repeated over and over again all down through the ages and no one can disprove them.

College history classes all across America and around the world teach as a fact the history of Thucydides who lived about 471 BC to 400 BC. He was a Greek scholar, statesman and one of the world’s greatest historians. He wrote the history of the Peloponnesian war. There are only 8 existing “copies” of the earliest manuscripts of his work and they are dated 900 AD, or about 1300 years after they were written.

In one of them Thucydides gives his account of the funeral oration given by Pericles for the burial of soldiers who died defending the Greek city states from Persion Invasions. With only 8 existing “copies” written 1300 years after the fact, college history professors have no trouble teaching this history as absolute truth.

Aristotle who lived in 384 - 322 BC was the student of Plato and the third member of the great intellectual triumvirate of ancient Greece. His “Poetics” was written in 343 BC. Today only five of the earliest “copies” are in existence and they are dated 1400 years later, or about 1,057 AD.

The original manuscripts of Caesars “Hstory of the Gallic wars” written in 58 BC are gone, but we have 10 “copies” dated 942 AD, or about 1,000 years later. Historians all over the world have absolutely no problem with teaching college students that these manuscripts are absolutely authentic and unquestionable true.

THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE There are over 20,000 accurate copies of the New Testament dated only a few years after the death of Jesus and many were written by eye-witness observers. Others took down the testimony of those who repeated the story of the resurrection of Jesus until they were put to death for doing it. Sir Frederic Kenyon, the director of the British Museum and the world’s foremost authority on manuscripts stated flatly that the New Testament is authentic beyond question.

World famous Philosopher Will Durant, trained in historical investigation, and who was not a Christian said: “Mere inventors of the Bible would have left out the squabbles of the Apostles for first place - their cowardly flight at the arrest of Jesus, Peters denial, the despairing cry of Jesus on the cross. That a few simple men could have invented so powerful and appealing personality of Jesus, such lofty ethical teaching, and such an inspiring vision of brotherhood - that would have been a far greater miracle than any recorded in the book.”

This is just a tiny fraction of evidence I have from years of studying the Bible, History and modern science. I could fill a very large book with amazing facts about the Bible. The most convincing evidence for me is the large number of Godly Christian believers who believed it, lived it out one day at a time, and told me it was all true as they breathed their last breath.

If you would like to have more of the “evidence” then contact me at www.pastorken.com An old Christian lady had died and her family was going through her things. They picked up her Bible and noticed that in hundreds of places she had written in the margins by verses “TP”. Finally an old friend told them what it meant. She said: “She would only write TP by a verse when she had relied on a promise and it worked for her”. It was tried and proven in her daily life. Pretty good evidence!

What have you decided to believe?

THE KEY TO HEAVEN

2007-06-28T13:58:00.000-04:00

Universalism is the false doctrine that everyone, someway, or somehow will be saved. A large number of “Christians” believe this totally false concept. Universalism is not in any way compatible with Biblical Christianity. 23 times in the New Testament there are passages about Hell. Sixteen times it was Jesus talking about it. Seven other times the New Testament writers were talking about it. Stay with me. This is interesting and tells us how to make our salvation certain and sure.

(Mat 25:31-32 KJV) “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: {32} And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats:” (Rev. 20:11 Great White Throne Judgment)
{34} “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. (First time Jesus called himself a King)

The Final Judge of all history will not ask what we have felt or thought, but what we have done or left undone in our dealings with others.
Jesus said: “You fed me, gave me something to drink, invited me in, gave me clothes, took care of me when I was sick, and visited me in prison.
The righteous people had one question. “When did we do this to you?”

{40} “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.”
{41} “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Why? Because they did nothing for Jesus when he came to them in the form of his brethren. Hungry, thirsty, needing clothes, sick and in prison.

{46} “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

I know! There are lots of questions. How can we know who is the brother of Jesus? Jesus said, “whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matt. 12:50).
(1 John 3:17-18 NIV) “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? {18} Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

COMPASSION! That’s the key to heaven. It’s understanding and feeling the suffering of others and doing something about it.

In Matthew 10:4-15 Jesus sent out 12 disciples to preach the gospel. He told them to take nothing – to stay with some good family that offered hospitality. Then (This doesn’t sound like our sanitized and whimpy Jesus) he said: “If they don’t take care of you or listen to you it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town”.

Jesus had a lot to say about this subject. In Luke 16:19-31 Jesus said:
“There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: {20} And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, {21} And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.”
(This is a true story – not a parable because Jesus named all of the people in it)

There is no record that the rich man did anything mean to Lazarus. He didn’t run over his feet with his chariot wheels, or drive him away from his gate. Thank God Lazarus had a faithful dog named “moreover” who came and licked his sores. (A little humor)

The only thing the rich man did was to “ignore Lazarus and his needs.” He just had a terminal mindset of “let someone else do it.” What's mine is mine and I'll save it for my family. It made him the most selfish, mean, sorry man in the world. According to Jesus this rich man asked Father Abraham to send Lazarus to hell to be his servant and give him a drink of water.

Our world is filled with kind, generous, godly people whose heart is filled with compassion. Only when we get to our father’s house will be know the full extent of their mercy, kindness, and generosity. In 57 years of marriage and in the ministry these wonderful people have blessed us. We’ve never asked for money or help but these people have loved us and graciously met our needs. It has created a bond of love, joy and happiness that nothing can take away.

Maggie and I also have always been compassionate and generous. For 17 years we have made and given away thousands of full color booklets and CD's of Maggie singing her songs. I make all of these item by hand and then we give them away. We've done this because many compassion and loving people have made it possible by their "spontaneous and loving gifts" to Christian Ministries. Ocassionally people offer to pay us for them, but we tell them they are free to everyone.

Recently I talked to a black man sweeping the floor at Home Depot. I ask him a question about plants, and he took the time to show me a variety of them, and tried to help me. I found out that he had a degree in English Literature, was an artist, and had sold a few paintings. He was working three jobs. I left the store and thought about the art materials in my workshop. In trying to move I wanted to give them away. I called the store, gave a description of him, and ask the people to please have him call me. When he came to my house I gave him all I had, and promised to find some more for him. He turned out to be a Christian.

Later, as he was leaving our home Isaiah Findley said to me: “Recently I had made a little money and had several hundred dollars in my pocket. I stopped at a store and asked a man in front to buy me a cold drink. “He said: “I can’t do that.” I told him: “Well all right, I’ll buy you one.” Then he told the man: “You need to be careful. Jesus may be standing in front of you in the form of someone else and asking for help. You never know.”

A few hours earlier I had just written this article but I had never mentioned it to him. I was astonished by his story and how cleverly he had presented the teaching of Jesus to this stranger. Compassionate Christians are all around us. The brothers and Sisters of Jesus are everywhere. We all have work to do.

THE MINISTRY OF JESUS

2007-06-22T10:44:00.004-04:00

Jesus went where the people were. We don’t picture him giving some scholarly lecture in a large massive cathedral. We love the fact that he was available to ordinary people. In 1990 when my wife and I decided to stop pastoring we started something we called “Christian Ministries.” Our goal was to create full color booklets on a variety of helpful topics, and record Maggie singing comforting songs on a CD. We decided to give them away and trust God to supply our needs.’

It’s been an amazing and wonderful 18 years of talking to people everywhere, praying with them and giving them helpful booklets and a CD. It’s been absolutely astonishing how we meet and help needy people.

A few days ago we drove home from Ohio to Conyers Georgia. We stopped at a rest area in West Virginia and Maggie saw a lady weeping. Maggie simply asked her what was wrong. The lady, still crying, said her husband had lost his job in South Carolina and they thought about moving to Ohio to be near her mother. She knew her father had never wanted her but while she was in Ohio her mother told her that she had never wanted her either. She was heart broken and felt so unloved.

Maggie prayed for her, and brought the lady and her husband outside to talk to me. After hearing her story I went to the car, got a CD of Maggie’s called “Songs for troubled hearts” and several full color booklets to give to her. One was called “Disappointment” and the other was called “When Life is not fair.” They thanked us over and over again outside the welcome center, and soon we were on our way again.

Many hours later we found a truck stop in South Carolina and after a break Maggie was in the car. A police Lieutenant was walking in as I was walking out. He spoke to me, and I knew instantly he needed help. We shook hands and I told him that years ago I was a Chaplin for the officers in a large 350-man police force. He started talking to me about his job.

When I ask him: “What is the hardest part of your job” a lot of hurt poured out. He said: “I watched a young teenaged boy breathe his last breath recently. A few days later I saw a black man’s car split in two and watched him die. What really hurts is that an old man called me over, and said “officer, can you help me.” His wife had aggressive Alzheimer’s disease, and slapped him around, and was very mean and nasty. He was tired of being abused.

The Lieutenant was on the verge of tears as he said: “All I could do was give him a phone number for social services. They would come take her to a nursing home”.

A few days later he got a code 28 on his police radio which meant a suicide. When they gave him the address he was sick at heart as he pulled into the driveway of the old man’s house. The man who asked for help had put a shotgun in his mouth and blew the back of his head away.

I immediately assured him that he did his best and I probably couldn’t have done it any better. When I first moved to Atlanta I had the same kind of experience. A family asked me to talk to their brother who was a policeman. They didn’t give me any details. I made an appointment to see him on Sunday and he killed himself on Saturday night.

After spending a lot of time with him I took this Lieutenant who had a wife and two small children around to the back of my car. I gave him a CD and several booklets and told him to call me or contact me if I could do anything more for him. He told us his mother had breast cancer. Then with people coming and going all around us we prayed together in front of the open trunk with arms around each other. On the verge of tears he thanks us both for praying with him.

Just happened? Coincidence? Absolutely not. God placed us all together at the exact right time and place. Could it be that we all need to live our Christian life outside the church where the needy people are?

DON'T BE NEGATIVE

2007-06-07T01:24:00.000-04:00

In today’s pop culture the message is don’t be negative. Say only positive things. Never discuss your troubles with anyone. Unfortunately, the Bible is the most negative book in the world. In the world that God created everything has to be properly balanced. For a battery to work there has to be a positive and negative terminal. Take away either one and you can’t start your car.

I know! It’s much more popular to be positive than to be negative. We just have to know when and where each is required. Martin Luther said: “The church is like a drunkard on a horse. First he falls off to the right, then gets back on and promptly falls off to the left.” Obviously he was saying that we need balance. Try to use “one without the other” and we will be like the drunkard who can never stay on the horse.

240 times in the Bible the words “thou shalt not” is quoted. All of these scriptures are negatives. “Do not.” is listed 90 times in the Bible. The Ten Commandments are prohibitions: “Thou shalt not” – or in other words “Don’t do that.” (except for Commandments 4 and 5 in Ex. 20:8-11,12). These ten laws define “negatively” the heart of the covenant relationship between God and Israel.

Millions of laws, rules and regulations are a part of everything that is done in this country. Laws, rules of business, accounting, space flight, medicine, all have negative rules and laws. No doctor may neglect his patient and bring about his death by careless behavior. An airline pilot will loose his license if he breaks any one of the hundreds of rules and laws.

For example several years ago three airline pilots flew a plane loaded with passengers to their destination. Hours later they tested more than twice the legal limit for being drunk. They all were heavily fined and lost their Pilots license forever. One lived in Conyers. So what’s all this talk about not being negative?

The senseless rebuke of anyone who talks negative about anything is as old as civilization. It’s the heart and soul of an old Greek philosophy that matter is not real. It’s based on Plato’s theory of forms. It’s the basis of the “Christian Science Church,” and the teaching of its founder Mary Baker Eddie. She stole most of her ideas from a preacher named Quimbley.

“The word of Faith doctrine” is being preached all over America. This false claim is based on the teaching that we are little gods, and our spoken words have creative power just like the word God spoke during the creation of the world. Utter nonsense. Then the followers of this non-biblical doctrine are told that what they say can bring about “positive or negative consequences”.

Recently I heard the King of the Religious con men say while looking sternly in the camera: “When you pray don’t ever use that faith destroying old saying “If it be thy will”. Then he spouted off a laundry list of everything wonderful and good that his deluded followers could have if they only “spoke the right words.” (Be sure and send me a faith offering of at least a thousand dollars.) Please don’t spit on your computer. I am fully aware that I’m being negative!

In his agonizing prayer in the garden before his crucifixion Jesus prayed: (Luke 22:42 KJV) “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”

Is the police force negative when it kills a bank robber who has just shot three people? Is a fireman being negative when he closed down a building that has faulty wiring? Are our troops in Iraq being negative when they kill the murdering butchers who behead innocent people and blow up women and children?

Is the government negative to prosecute crooked businessmen, or drug dealers? If everyone were positive all the time then there would be no law and order, no prisons, mental hospitals for insane criminals, or stop signs. Our world would be terrifying. A red light is definitely negative.

We would have no United States Of America without the declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson to King George of England. In it Jefferson listed long pages of grievances of the colonies. He pleaded for understanding. He begged King George to stop the corruption of the English Governors who care nothing about the subjects in the colonies. It’s the world’s saddest and most negative letter ever written.

Finally Jefferson wrote that all hope of redress, correction of the wrongs, had brought the colonies to a place where they were forced to declare themselves Independent and free from the rule of King George. With the help of Almighty God, we will give our sacred honor, our possessions and our lives to right this terrible wrong.

Critical Thinking at the University. I spent lots of my time at Georgia State University earning a Master’s degree in Psychology. I also earned a Doctorate in Theology. Many have paid their dues at a University studying all kinds of subjects. What is “Critical Thinking?”

While critical thinking is something we all engage in to manage our day-to-day lives, the word 'critical' is commonly thought to have a negative meaning, for example finding fault with someone or something. We need to find fault with the “con man” that is trying to swindle our aged parents. We need to find fault with the corrupt politicians who are stealing, taking bribes and destroying our great country.

My neighbor recently bought a new Miracle Grow feeder that uses a bottle of liquid. No mixing or mess. On the box and in their advertising on TV they show two flowering plants. On is small, and the other is very large. “Use our product and you will get flowers over twice as large.”
My curiosity got the better of me. I went to Home Depot and looked at the package. In very tiny letters on the bottom of the advertisement was this statement. “Use of this product produces much larger flowers than using no fertilizer at all.”

At a University, however, 'critical' has a broader meaning: being critical involves making judgments and evaluations. Making judgments can involve distinguishing between fact and opinion or evaluating the validity of information and it’s sources.

These judgments need to be well grounded in research, wide reading, and consideration of all possible viewpoints. Critical thinking in this sense is based on a number of factors, and is not just uninformed personal opinion. We all need to learn how to do it in order for our skills and knowledge to grow and develop.

My grandson Ken Jansen earned a Masters degree in music from Akron University. He’s a great music director and is also an ordained Minister. He gave me a wonderful gift recently. It was a CD computer program with all 24 very large volumes of Pulpit Commentaries on it. I’ve own the books for over 57 years. Now it’s so easy to research scriptures and with a PDF program just cut and paste the information into my writing.

It’s a marvelous tool for critical research of every verse in the Bible by the best scholars of Greek and Hebrew, then five different highly educated scholars gave their Homiletical views of the chapters. It has over 22,000 pages and 95,000 entries.

Godly Christian men produced it over a hundred years ago. They used their knowledge working together to carefully explain the clear meaning of the Bible. It has none of the foolishness, liberal thinking, and false teaching so prevalent today. Thanks Ken, for a great gift to help me with my “Critical Thinking”.

You take what life gives you and just go on

2007-05-30T02:21:00.000-04:00

Dorothea S. Kopplin wrote a small book in 1945 called “Something to live by”. When I bought this hard cover little book it cost thirty-five cents. It’s so old and fragile I open it carefully because I’m afraid it’s yellow pages will crumble and be lost.

In the Preface Dorothea writes: “When I was told I could not live to bring up my children I decided to write a book to serve as a substitute in their lives”. This little book is filled with wonderful quotations from great literature, popular wisdom, and the Bible.

In the “Purpose of sorrow” she wrote something that took me back to my youth. I understood it completely because my Father was a very intelligent man, and the Superintendent of a Textile mill. His office was only two blocks from our house and I often visited him.

It was in the late 1930’s and he showed me the massive looms and how they worked. He often designed the beautiful patterns for the jacquard looms. This was before computers and everything was done by hand and careful drawings on punch cards that controlled picks that lifted up the treads faster than the eye could see.

He gave each of his children a set of towels, and other things that he designed and then produced on the looms. Mine is a gold color with black Egyptian figures inset around the sides.

Dorothea writes: “A Christians life is lain in the loom of time to a pattern which he does not see, but God does; and his heart is in the shuttle. On one side of the loom is sorrow, and on the other side is joy. The shuttle, struck alternately by each, flies back and forth, carrying the thread, which is white or black as the pattern needs.

In the end, when God lifts up the finished garment, and all its changing hues shall be seen, it will then appear that the dark and deep colors were as needful to beauty as the bright and lighter ones”.

It’s amazing that 62 years later Dorothea’s little book filled with messages of courage, love, hope, and comfort for her children is still being a blessing.

She didn’t whine or cry, or moan about her problems, but wrote everything she could find that was uplifting, thought provoking, filled with love and the goodness of God.

Question: Who can we encourage, laugh with and speak a word of encouragement to them today? Everyone we meet needs it.

ANXIETY AND WORRY

2007-05-27T01:38:00.000-04:00

Mary and Joseph missed Jesus on the way home from the temple and there is probably not a parent alive who couldn’t empathize with their anxiety mixed with relief as they told twelve-year-old Jesus... Son, “Why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” (Luke 2:48)

What is Anxiety and Worry? Most often it’s a vague dread or fear of loosing something. Has a tight, choking collar ever caused you anguish? Or have you ever been so anxious about something that you were “all choked up”? Our words anguish, anxious and anxiety come from the Latin “angere” which means to choke.

Worry is constantly thinking about horrible possibilities. Often there is a very slim chance of any of them ever happening. In traveling all over the world I’ve spent the night in an open hut in the middle of the Amazon Jungle.

I could have thought about snakes, spiders and bugs that feed on human blood but I didn’t. I’ve learned to prepare. I bought and carried with me a U.S. Army issued Mosquito net and I had a reasonable night’s sleep. Unfortunately some of our group did worry all night long. However, nothing happened to anyone.

The fear of bugs, snakes, and spiders when you are in a heavily secure penthouse apartment on the 12th floor of a five star Hotel is irrational and dangerous anxiety. We can let our sick imagination run wild and suffer from it. Whatever we habitually think about will determine how we feel.

(Phil 4:6-7 NIV) “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. {7} And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

The Bible is filled with promises that God will take care of us. (Isa 41:10 NIV) “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Dr. Hans Selye M.D. spent a lifetime studying stress. His book “The stress of Life” is a world famous classic.” He writes: “There is good stress and bad stress. Good stress is the concern that causes you to anticipate problems and create a solution for them”.

Bad stress is the constant agitated, unpleasant worry that causes us to go over and over the same ground until we are actually sick with the never-ending effort. We never find a solution, never resolve the problem, never can say...there...that’s fixed.

Hans Selye M.D. gives us a solution for worry and anxiety. “Nothing is accomplished by telling people not to worry. They cannot help it”. This world famous Doctor recommends something he calls “Deviation.” You could call it “diversion” or turning something aside from its course”.

A rich, stressed out executive wouldn’t think of moving his heavy furniture, yet he will go regularly for a “workout” at his expensive club. Doing something else helps relieve stress. Watch someone carrying a heavy suitcase. They keep changing it from one arm to the other. That’s deviation. A hard days work can make you sleep like a log, or keep you awake all night. Work that leads to a solution prepares you for rest and sleep.

Diversion can be almost anything that absorbs our interest and thoughts. It's well worth the effort when it stops depression, worry and constant fear and anxiety.

Pray this prayer. “Father, thank you for this day. I’ve done my best and I’m going to leave it in your hands until tomorrow. When I awake in the morning show me what to do with tomorrow”.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

2007-05-23T21:26:00.000-04:00

I have three bird feeders hanging off of my back porch. One is for the beautiful red cardinals, and the other two are for the smaller birds like golden finches, and common sparrows. Then there are the bluebirds, and dozens of other species like the beautiful Red Breasted black and white Gross Beak whose ordinary habitat is northern Ohio and Michigan. For some reason he has migrated to Georgia in the spring for the last three years.

I’ve been doing this for years and enjoy watching them up close. When I feed them I remember that Jesus said in Matthew 10 that not a sparrow falls to the ground with out God seeing it, and “we are worth more than many sparrows.” I often remember the words of an old song: “just remember in his word, how he feeds the little birds, take your burdens to the Lord and leave them there.”

We have a deal. I feed them and they put on their wonderful show for all to see. The cardinals courtship is almost human. The female will sit on the railing of the porch and tremble and shake her wings. The blazing red Male will fly down from the feeder and reach over and put a seed in her mouth. After a few time of this playful behavior they fly off together.

They occasionally fly into the sliding glass doors of our covered back porch. Most of the time they are stunned and helpless. When I hear the sickening “thump” I go out and look for them. I pick them up gently, sooth their feathers, and wait for them to recover.

One day I heard the loud “thump” and went out to pick up an especially beautiful young red cardinal. It had the most beautiful soft colors, was flat on the deck, with its head up, wings spread out, and crying loudly. It offered no resistance when I picked it up, and gently cradled it in my hands. I sat down in a chair, gently smoothed it’s soft feathers, and after a few minutes I got it to sit on my finger. It tightly gripped my finger for several minutes as I watched it blink it’s eyes, and made no effort to move.

For over five minutes it sat on my finger and finally I moved my hand up and down. It moved its head up and down and made no effort to leave. I felt like it was time for this little fellow to go about his business, and for me to do something else. I nudged it to fly away, and it flew a few feet to the railing around our porch. Then it made a diving flight toward a large bush at the corner of our property.

In sadness and horror I saw a large hawk dive and grab it a few feet before it reached the safety of the bush. I felt absolutely terrible as the hawk flew away with it. That wasn’t what I wanted at all. The hawk had chased it into the glass window, and then flew up in a tree to wait. I couldn’t see the hawk, but the little cardinal knew it was there.

What a terrible, unintended consequence, from my effort to help a small, scared little bird. I thought about all the times when I want to do something, or more important I want God to do something. I can’t see the future, but God can. I have a feeling that God often turns us in another direction, or refuses to answer our prayers because He knows our enemy is waiting with some painful, consequence that we can’t possibly imagine.

There are two great truths that we need to know about. When we do things they always have consequences. Sometimes it turns out to be good, and at other times it turns out to be terrible. Everything God does also has consequences. The only difference is that God can see the future. He also can see the consequences and the long lasting effects of answering our prayers.

We are on this earth to become something. God has a plan for us. Some plans may bring us joy, and just as often there is a hidden thorn of pain in the process. God knows good and evil, and we have to experience both in order to become like Him.

Many deliverance preachers and “word of faith teachers” will tell you to “never, ever, use that faith-destroying phrase when you pray”: “If it be thy will.” Then they twist the scriptures, make up false doctrines to prove that we are little gods, and can have whatever we want. (Praise the Lord and pass the offering buckets.) Yet, it was Jesus who prayed that very same prayer – “if it be thy will”. How could they deceive us and tell us not to follow the life and example of Jesus? (Matthew 26:39)

EVERYTHING HAS CONSEQUENCES!

Does Prayer really work?

2007-05-11T20:28:00.000-04:00

Prayer is a part of daily life for most of the people on this earth. Moslems, Hindu, Buddhist, Jews, Christian, - the list is endless. And even those who don’t believe in a higher power will often act very much like they do during a time of crisis. As the old saying goes, there are no atheists in foxholes.

Endless prayers by the millions are prayed each day. Years ago I walked through the mountains of Japan and saw prayers written on paper, tied to sacred trees and carried away by the winds. In the Far East I’ve watched Buddhist endlessly spin their prayer wheels, pray in front of Giant images of Buddha, some painted and others covered with gold leaf.

In Singapore I went into a temple called the house of ten thousand Gods and saw people praying before an endless array of images representing every kind of God imaginable. I’ve watched them light candles, incense sticks, repeatedly throw moon-shaped blocks on the floor until they fell the right way. I've seen them present offering of fruit and vegetables to their silent God.

I've personally been blessed all through my life to have many prayers answered... sometimes in spectacular ways.

C. S. Lewis said: “We don’t get our prayers answered because prayer is weak but because it’s powerful and strong. Prayer is so strong that if God’s didn’t reserve for himself the right to say no it would be an activity too dangerous for man".

He went on to say that there is no difference between prayer and works. By works we are trying to change and affect circumstances around us, and by praying we are doing exactly the same thing. “It’s no more strange,” observed Lewis, “that God would allow us to change things by works than that he would allow us to do the same thing by prayer.”

Jesus prayed at the grave of Lazarus and said: “I thank you Father that you always hear me.” His request was granted and Lazarus came out of his grave. But later in the Garden Jesus prayed three times for the cup to pass and finally said: “Not my will but thine be done.” He accepted the Father’s better plan.

The simple question is this: Has Jesus made certain promises that takes God off of his throne, abdicated his rule over this world and by the words of Jesus given to man the right to do whatever he thinks best? Has God really given to man the right to speak into existence anything he wants?

It’s really scary when we try to picture the perfect candidate to wield such enormous power. Think of any TV preacher, Pastor, teacher, church deacon, or religious person, and then imagine them being in complete control of this whole earth.

If the “seed faith gimmic” really worked all these false teachers would have to do is to “plant their own seed offerings regularly” and they would soon have so much money they wouldn’t know what to do with it.

So---what is the rule that makes prayer successful? Jesus was submissive to the Father’s will. In John 14 Jesus told his disciples that if they loved him they would obey him. If they didn’t obey him they didn’t love him.

Faithfully obeying the inner voice of God Spirit inside us is the real meaning of "Asking in the name of Jesus..." In verse 31 Jesus said: “...the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.”

The true believing Christian always has his prayers answered in God’s own perfect way. God often replaces our misguided and shortsighted request with his own eternal wisdom and all things work together for good for those who love him.

Who killed those people in Kansas?

2007-05-06T14:11:00.000-04:00

F-5 Tornado wipes out Kansas Town
5/6/2007

GREENSBURG, Kan. (May 6) - Searchers resumed their work after daylight Sunday, looking for anyone who might have been trapped by a tornado that wiped out this South Central Kansas town. Saturday night’s rash of storms added to the anxiety as state officials confirmed eight tornadoes touching down in central and southern Kansas and the National Weather Service reported dozens more.

Nine people died in a tornado Friday, then 8 more on Saturday. Over a hundred were seriously injured, and every business along the town’s main street has been demolished. All that remains are steel girders, tattered insulation, and splintered wood. The town’s fire engines were crushed. Debris from Friday night’s tornado was blown back into the streets.

As Sunday morning broke here, all the churches have been destroyed. Scores of people had been injured, Among the few structures that survived was the Bar H Tavern, the town’s lone bar.

Questions: “Why was good people killed, injuried, and all the churches destroyed but a local bar left intact?” Did God have anything to do with it? Who is in charge of our world anyway? In a few days I will post my answer to this.

In the meantime, what do you think about it? Please post your thoughts or questions about it.

Christians don't talk much about heaven. I wonder why?

2007-05-02T19:45:00.000-04:00

As an ordained minister for almost 60 years, I can count on one hand the people who have any concept of what heaven will be like. If I ask for their opinion they say: "I don't have any idea except it will great over there." I wish someone would send me their opinion about what they think it might be like in the next world. How about you?

Better than the Alternative

2007-05-02T19:41:00.000-04:00

A friend stopped to talk with me in a store when I wasn't feeling well. I told him about my health problems and he said it was better than the alternative. "Oh, I replied, you mean to die and go straight to heaven and never have any more problems?"
He looked stunned and said "I'm going to have to stop saying that. Your right."

I found a blog in a ditch...

2007-05-02T16:15:00.000-04:00

I finally learned what a blog is....It's short for weblog. Or a diary posted on the internet. Here is a blog by my daughter Debbie who does her stuff in N. Canton Ohio.

www.debbiejansen.com

My Grandson

Novice Monks in Burma