A Place of Refuge

It was very disturbing to hear about the church shootings earlier this week in Colorado. At one time a church was considered a safe place of refuge, a sanctuary from the rest of the world. Even criminals could find a safe haven there. A person could go in and find peace, a place to pray and to refresh themselves. The doors were not even locked. Almost everyone understood that a church was sacred ground. Now churches even have armed guards. I tend to think that the fault may lie, at least in part, with some of the "new Evangelical Churches" that have removed the Holiness from their churches in an attempt to be "seeker friendly". Churches who have circuses in their "sanctuaries" come to mind.

Joel Osteen's New Book on Sale

More from Joel Osteen. Yeah, right.

The 1st Act

December is always such a busy month. There's cleaning and decorating, cooking and baking, shopping and wrapping and mailing, Christmas parties and pageants and on and on and on. Is everyone out there ready for Christmas yet? I'm certainly not.

And yet amidst all of this flurry of preparation what we really need to do is sit down, take a deep breath, relax and remember what and who all of this is really about.

It is all about our Savior, Jesus. It is all about the miraculous love of our Father. It is the 1st act in the story of our redemption. Christmas comes first so that Good Friday and Easter can follow, so that Thanksgiving can be celebrated and so that Eternity can be ours. Wow! All of the pieces fit together into a beautiful plan that only God could have conceived. Thank you, God, thank you.

Gold, Common Sense and Fur

A friend e-mailed this story. It is so sweet that I just had to share it.

My husband and I had been happily married (most of the time) for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby. I decided to do some serious praying and promised God that if he would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with His word as my guide. God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son. The next year God blessed us with another son. The following year, He blessed us with yet another son. The year after that we were blessed with a daughter. My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty.
We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old. I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. A minister once told me, "If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella." I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I didn't want to disappoint Him.
I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks. I tried to be understanding...
when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs.
When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to see how it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess. In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.
While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother - I didn't even come close...I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God. I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to worship God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to "wash up" Jesus, too. Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his "last wife."
My proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant. My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine. My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, "We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." But he was nervous and said, "The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes. "My four-year-old "Mary" said, "That's not 'wrinkled clothes,' silly. That's dirty, rotten clothes." A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing. I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, "Mama-mama." Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived. My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, "We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur." The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation.
"I've never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one," laughed the pastor, wiping tears from his eyes. "For the rest of my life, I'll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense and fur."
"My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing," I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.

Dumb Things Christians Say

Sometimes I have to just shake my head. Militant Atheists will sometimes make disparaging remarks about the intelligence - or perceived lack thereof - of Christians. They don't think that anyone intelligent or educated could possibly believe that collection of myths. Unfortunately far too many Christians play into their hands with uninformed - and sometimes downright stupid - remarks. One case in point is Sherri Shepherd, the newest co-host of the talk show, "The View". Sherri is apparently a born-again Christian. Recently the conversation on the show between the three co-hosts, Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd, turned to the Greek philosopher, Epicurus. Whoopi said that Epicurus predated Christianity. Sherri insisted that Christians came before ancient Greece and even said that nothing predated Christians! Joy said that it was first the Greeks, then the Romans, then Christians. Sherri answered, "Jesus came first. Before then."

Last September when Sherri said she didn't believe in evolution, Whoopi asked her if she also believed the earth was flat. Sherri said she didn't know! The next day she said that the question had flustered her and she did know that the earth isn't flat. How can a television personality on a talk show get so flustered by a dumb question that she gives such a dumb answer? What's wrong with the television network that they would hire someone that easily rattled and who is that ignorant of basic facts for a position as a spokesperson in the public eye?

This is as bad as the Christian fellow who was interviewed some time ago who was talking about the the fact that some Christians don't believe that the earth is as old as scientists say. When he was asked how he would explain dinosaur bones he said, "God put them there to test our faith."

huh? If we can't come up with a better answer than that we should probably keep quiet. This is the kind of stuff that reflects badly on all Christians. It's the stuff that will get remembered. We need to remember the old adage: It's better to be silent and be thought dumb than to open our mouth and remove all doubt.

Canadian "Beer Fridges" are the Culprits

When I first heard this, I thought it was a joke. Apparently not. Canadian "beer fridges" - apparently 1 in 3 Canadians have one - are a "significant" factor in Global Warming. People who keep their old fridge when they purchase their new one are being cited as huge contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. I have heard a lot contradictory information on both sides of the debate about whether or not humans are the real cause of climate change or if it is a naturally occurring phenomena that has happened before without our input. To be perfectly honest, I'm not convinced that it's us. (eep.....did I really admit that publicly? Are the politically correct police going to get me?) And now, even our beer isn't safe. What next?

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12975-beer-fridges-present-a-gassy-problem.html

Joseph Farah's Opinion of Rick Warren's Opinion

Rick Warren, the author of the best selling "Purpose Driven Life" and Pastor of a mega-church, is part of a group of 100 church leaders who want "inter-faith dialogue and building of common ground with Muslims". On the other hand he thinks that churches are justified in getting rid of Christians who disagree with them - or "troublemakers".

Joseph Farah, in an article written for WorldNetDaily said :

Rick Warren makes a spiritually fatal error when he proclaims, without any biblical authority, that Satan's greatest weapon is disunity. That is simply not true. The Bible reveals over and over again that even one spirit-filled believer can stand up against Satan. God is not impressed with numbers. He doesn't need numbers for victory. He doesn't care about big churches. He doesn't care about the cathedrals of men. He wants numbers only because He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

No, Satan's greatest weapon is hardly disunity. His greatest weapon since his fall and since the Garden of Eden has been deception. In fact, Satan loves unity – as long as those unified are knowingly or unknowingly serving him. He'd love for all of us to "go to hell in a handbasket."

You can read the entire article at : http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58942