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TIP
Addendum
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Abraham Lincoln
Quotes
"America will never be destroyed from the outside.
If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed
ourselves."
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than
to speak out and remove all doubt."
"I am satisfied that when the Almighty wants me to
do or not do any particular thing, He finds a way of letting me know
it"
"I can see how it might be possible for a man to
look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how
he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God."
"I desire to so conduct the affairs of this administration
that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have
lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left,
and that friend shall be down inside of me."
"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be
its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through
all time, or die by suicide."
"If the end brings me out all right, what is said
against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong,
then ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."
"If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse
have? Four, calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg"
"In all that people can individually do as well for
themselves, government ought not to interfere."
"No man has a good enough memory to be a successful
liar."
"Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong."
"One is a majority if he is right."
"Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side;
my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right"
"What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself."
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel
a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
"You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more
than you earn."
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Don’t Let Your Misses Define You
by Jason Cruise
It happened incredibly fast. I was walking down a
tree line by a cut corn field on the way to my stand when I saw a bruiser
buck run a doe in heat over an incline in the field. I mean, he appeared
out of nowhere. He stopped at 78 yards fully broadside just long enough
for me to set off the sonic boom with my muzzleloader. He looked my
way, then looked at her, and continued following her into the timber.
If misses were symphonies, in that moment, I’d have
been a maestro. It was a beautiful tragedy.
As hunters we tend to remember the few times we missed
instead of the many times we connected. Luke 22:54-62 details the story
of Peter’s one big miss when he denied Jesus. I’ve always thought it
ironic that, though he was arguably the strongest evangelistic preacher
in the New Testament, most Christians remember Peter’s one bad day of
denying Christ instead of remembering the amazing things he did in Christ’s
name. I mean, I’ve never seen someone healed just from walking in my
shadow (Acts 5:15); I’ve never walked on water (Matthew 14:22-36); and
I’ve never watched thousands come to Christ in one single sermon (Acts
2:40-41). Peter not only saw those things, he did all those things.
Don’t let your misses define you. Jesus reinstated
Peter to his ministry with just a few words (John 21:15-19), making
Peter living proof that God’s grace can take a coward and turn him into
a world changer.
Peter spoke from personal experience when he wrote,
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude
of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8
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From: Brother Seamus - Music
for your Spirit
Sent: Wednesday, January 1, 2020 3:55 PM
To: William Gibbons Jr
Subject: Re: Happy New Year
Happy New Year, Bill!
Great email, thanks. Apart from the fascinating content, I
love your writing style.
A book of short stories, essays or a novel on the horizon?
Maybe essays, a book of essays on Christianity?
All the best!
Seamus
Seamus Byrne
SOL Productions
Quarantine Hill
Wicklow Town
Co. Wicklow
A67 X585
Ireland
Mob: 00 353 86 054 9816
Web:
www.brotherseamus.ie
------------------------
From: William Gibbons Jr
Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 11:31 AM
To: 'Brother Seamus - Music for your Spirit'
Subject: RE: on the horizon?
Hi Seamus,
Thank you for the compliment. Considering
the newsletter I intended for last Thanksgiving looks like it will not
be ready until Independence Day (July 4th), I sincerely doubt
any of those things you mentioned are likely to come to pass. Truth
be known, as “a photographer who writes,” I do not like the “writer”
process all that much. Most of the time, my writing takes place when
I feel a compulsion to make some notes during my prayer and Scripture
reading time in the morning before I even get out of bed. I keep pads
of paper, and pencils, in my nightstand just for that purpose. I started
doing that back in the 80s, when I was writing a lot of poetry. The
problem is, to share any of that means I have to type it into the computer
(one finger typist). I did have a dictation program for a time but,
after a Windows 10 update over a year ago, it just stopped working.
I tried to find help online. It was too old for tech support, of course.
I also remembered Windows 10 was supposed to have a built in dictation
program, so I tried to set that up to no avail. Hours later, I decided,
even as a one finger typist, I could type things in faster than all
the time wasted trying to get modern electronics to assist me. Plus,
when I had a functional program, I still needed to become an astute
editor to catch the errors between what I said, and what the computer
heard.
Short emails, like this, or the Happy New
Year email, tend to be composed straight into the computer. But, as
I am typing, I am also seeing a large pile of tablet pages full of notes
sitting next to the monitor, waiting for me to find the motivation to
start typing them into the system . . . .
. . . . I actually had more already typed
into this email, but my computer totally locked up requiring me to unplug
it to reboot the system, and this was all Outlook had auto-saved as
a draft. It has been doing that quite often after the last big Windows
10 overhaul. I am not sure if it is related, or just the timing of a
computer starting to show its age.
Well, I suppose I should stop here and
do something about the 42,034 photos, dating back to March 2018, waiting
to be processed into their appropriate inventory folders and renumbered.
Oh wait, this email is supposed to be about the writing stuff waiting
for my attention, not all those pesky photographs.
Be well my friend. It is always a joy to hear from you.
God’s peace,
william
Acts 5:29
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I removed my email "General Notes,"
but here is a photograph of the newsletter notes next to the monitor:
%20Notes.jpg)
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What are the inventors saying
about their own kids?
Steve Jobs (founder of Apple) shockingly described
their low-tech parenting approach in a New York Times article describing
the launch of the iPad :
(https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html)
“So, your kids must love the iPad?” I asked Mr. Jobs,
trying to change the subject. The company’s first tablet was just hitting
the shelves.
“They haven’t used it,” he told me. “We limit how
much technology our kids use at home.”
I’m sure I responded with a gasp and dumbfounded
silence. I had imagined the Jobs’s household was like a nerd’s paradise:
that the walls were giant touch screens, the dining table was made from
tiles of iPads and that iPods were handed out to guests like chocolates
on a pillow.
Nope, Mr. Jobs told me, not even close.
Similarly, in an interview with The Mirror, Bill
Gates (founder of Microsoft) explained how they approach technology
with their children:
(https://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/billionaire-tech-mogul-bill-gates-10265298)
“We often set a time after which there is no screen
time and in their case that helps them get to sleep at a reasonable
hour.
“You’re always looking at how it can be used in a
great way – homework and staying in touch with friends – and also where
it has gotten to excess.
“We don’t have cellphones at the table when we are
having a meal, we didn’t give our kids cellphones until they were 14
and they complained other kids got them earlier.”
(quoted from https://yourgeardeconstructed.com/parents-internet-safety-security-screen-time-guide)
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Greetings
Friends!
Preparing believers to live their faith daily
. . . . that is the part of the total mission statement of Immanuel
Lutheran Church that the preparing team works on each month.
1 Corinthians 6:19b-20a. “You are not your
own; you were bought at a price, so Glorify God with your body.” Who
are you living for? As Christians, we live for God, not ourselves.
To live a Gospel-shaped life simply
means we think of God more than we think of ourselves. Simple,
but not so easy. We think about ourselves all the time; how we
feel, our opinions and knowledge, what we want, what we look like, what
WE think of others and what others think of US. We don’t
think about God more than ourselves. If we did, what would that
look like? I listened to a sermon online this week. Here
is a story from it: A woman at work made a mistake. A
big mistake. A costly mistake. Then, her boss went to his boss and basically
took the blame for her mistake. He said he didn’t train her right,
he didn’t follow up as he should have, etc. He put his
job on the line. He lost credibility, he lost social capital so
to speak. The woman afterwards, pressed him to tell her why he would
do that. She said, “I’ve had people blame me before, even when
it wasn’t my fault, but I’ve never had someone take the blame
for me.” After pressing him some more, he responded, “OK, I’m
only going to say this once. I’m a Christian. My whole life
is based on a man who took the blame for me.” The woman immediately
responded, “Where do you go to church?”
Does our character, our attitude toward ourselves
and others show that we live by Grace? Are we living for Jesus?
Grace by what Jesus did for us? If we live a Gospel-shaped life,
cultures will change. Living by grace is counter-cultural. Paul
said if you understand grace, costly grace, grace coming from a crucified
Savior, then that grace teaches you to say no to ungodliness. Sin loses
it attractive power. It’s not our willpower. We would fail. Ungodliness
just has no attraction, no passion, no power over us. It’s not just
about seeing others through the eyes of God. It is thinking
about God more than ourselves. It is living for the Glory of God in
everything we do, not just on Sunday mornings. It’s not
about I shoulda, I woulda, I coulda. It’s about Jesus did. Our
lives then are a response to the amazing Grace given to us through our
Lord’s brutal crucifixion. He bore our pain, he became our sin,
he suffered death so that we can live for Him. If we live for
ourselves, we will never be satisfied. Nothing on earth can satisfy
us completely. Those of us older folks know this to be true. So,
living our faith daily means everyday in everything, living for
Jesus. By doing so, we are Worshipping God.
I don’t want to say make time for God everyday because
that implies that we need to schedule God in and around us. Instead,
we want to schedule everything else in and around God. The need
is so deep because of what Jesus has done for us. May our hearts
burn with our desire to serve God every day in our work, in our homes,
in our communities and in our church.
Peace,
Jeanie BD
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Luke 10:41-42 (Martha and Mary)
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he
came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.
She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to
what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that
had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that
my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are
worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed
only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away
from her.”
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FOLLOWING ITEMS NOT
YET PLACED
Philip Yancey
https://philipyancey.com/praying-all-the-way-to-the-bank
As the statistics on illness and death
due to COVID-19 keep rising, the economic statistics keep falling. In
March the stock market lost more than $11 trillion in value,
and has been yo-yoing ever since. While the more fortunate are mourning
their dwindling retirement plans, the truly desperate have joined the
36 million Americans applying for unemployment benefits. How will
they pay the rent or feed their families?
While watching the news one day, I flashed
back to another time of financial crisis, the Great Recession of 2008.
I had just written a book on prayer, and got an unexpected call from
a New York journalist. “Any advice on how a person should pray
during a time like this?” he asked. “Does prayer do any good in
a financial crash?” In the course of the conversation we came
up with a three-stage approach to prayer.
The first stage is simple, an instinctive
cry for “Help!” For someone who faces a job cut or health crisis,
prayer offers a way to give voice to fear and anxiety. I’ve learned
to resist the tendency to edit my prayers so that they’ll sound sophisticated
and mature. I believe God wants us to come exactly as we are,
no matter how childlike we may feel. A God aware of every sparrow
that falls surely knows the impact of scary financial times on frail
human beings.
Indeed, prayer provides the best possible
place to take our fears. “Cast all your anxiety on him because
he cares for you,” wrote the apostle Peter. As a template for
prayers in crisis times, I look at Jesus’ night of prayer in Gethsemane.
He threw himself on the ground three times, sweat falling from his body
like drops of blood, and felt “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point
of death.” During that time of anguish, however, his prayer changed
from “Take this cup from me…” to “…may your will be done.” In
the trial scenes that followed, Jesus was the calmest character present.
His season of prayer had relieved him of anxiety, reaffirmed his trust
in a loving Father, and emboldened him to face the horror that awaited
him.
If I pray with the aim of listening as
well as talking, I can enter into a second stage, that of meditation
and reflection. OK, my life savings has virtually disappeared.
What can I learn from this seeming catastrophe? In the midst of
the crisis, a Sunday School song ran through my mind:
The wise man built his house upon the
rock…
And the wise man’s house stood firm.
The foolish man built his house upon
the sand…
Oh, the rains came down
And the floods came up…
A time of crisis presents a good opportunity
to identify the foundation on which I construct my life. If I
place my ultimate trust in financial security, or in the government’s
ability to solve my problems, I will surely watch the basement flood
and the walls crumble. As the song says, “And the foolish man’s
house went splat!”
A friend from Chicago, Bill Leslie, used
to say that the Bible asks three main questions about money:
1) How did you get it? (Legally and justly, or exploitatively?);
2) What are you doing with it? (Indulging in needless luxuries,
or helping the needy?);
3) What is it doing to you? Some of Jesus’ most trenchant
parables and sayings go straight to the heart of that last question.
A financial crisis forces us to examine
how money affects us. Am I stuck with debts I accumulated by buying
goods that were more luxuries than necessities? Do I want to cling
to the money I have when I know of people around me in dire need?
Jesus taught us to pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,”
and we know that heaven will include no homeless, destitute, and starving
people.
As the stock market dove to uncharted depths,
I couldn’t help thinking of private colleges, mission agencies, and
other non-profits, which depend heavily on the largesse of donors.
The IRS has dramatically loosened the rules that limit charitable deductions
for 2020, hoping to encourage more giving—am I giving serious attention
to the urgent appeals that fill my mailbox this year?
Which leads me to the third and most difficult
stage of prayer in crisis times: I need God’s help in taking my eyes
off my own problems in order to look with compassion on the truly desperate.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus described a kind of upside-down kingdom that
elevates the poor, those who mourn, the justice-makers and peace-makers,
and those who show mercy.
The novel coronavirus has temporarily accomplished
that societal reversal. In airports, janitors who clean the banisters
and wipe the seats of airplanes are now as crucial to safety as the
pilots who fly the jets. Each night, people in major cities honk
horns, howl, or shout their appreciation for the health care workers
who keep us alive. We’ve learned we can get along without the
sports industry that pays top athletes $10 million per year to chase
a ball; meanwhile, harried parents of young children have new appreciation
for the teachers who earn less than 1 percent of that amount.
Last month Time magazine put some of the real heroes on their
cover: cafeteria workers who serve up food to needy children.
They could just as easily have profiled hospital orderlies or paramedics.
The question is, will we use this crisis
time to re-evaluate what kind of society we want, or will we return
as soon as possible to a society that idolizes the wealthiest, the most
coordinated, the smartest, the most beautiful, and the most entertaining?
A just, compassionate society builds on a more solid foundation.
The Sermon on the Mount, which begins with the Beatitudes, ends with
Jesus’ analogy of the house on the rock: “And the rain fell, and the
floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not
fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”
In the days of a collapsing Roman empire,
Christians stood out because they cared for the poor, because they stayed
behind to nurse plague victims rather than flee afflicted villages,
and because platoons of wet nurses would gather up the babies abandoned
along the roadside by Romans in their most cruel form of birth control.
What a testimony it would be if Christians resolved to increase their
giving in 2020 in order to build houses for the poor, combat other deadly
diseases, and proclaim kingdom values to a celebrity-driven culture.
Such a response defies all logic and common
sense. Unless, of course, we take seriously the moral of Jesus’
simple tale about building houses on a sure foundation.
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"Christians are not better than non-Christians; they are just better
off. They are like two men on a plane, one who is wearing a parachute,
and one who is not. Both men have to jump. The one who is wearing the
parachute is not better than the other man, but he is certainly better
off." — Ray Comfort "Faith is for Weak People"
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“Books will give you the basics.
The Holy Spirit fills in the details. Trust the Spirit." — william
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"All the flowers of all the tomorrows
are in the seeds of today." — Native Proverb
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"Christianity is being concerned
about [others], not building a million-dollar church while people are
starving right around the corner. Christ was a revolutionary person,
out there where it was happening. That's what God is all about, and
that's where I get my strength.”
–
Fannie Lou Hamer (civil rights activist)
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I was hoping this to be like
the finale of a display of fireworks. A whole lot of everything all
at once, but then it is done. I would like to shift my time to the backlog
of my work. I am just now reviewing, numbering, and filing into my inventory
photographs from over two years ago. As I write this, I have 42,743
of my images (files) in thirty-three folders waiting for processing.
I still have poems, in file drawer folders, I wrote as far back as 1989
that never got typed up, or into a computer. Plus, other than newsletters
and the previous year pictures of the week pages, I have created only
one truly new item (Red Dawn Movie at Fitzgerald Park - Scrapbook
Photos) in half a dozen years for my website.
That is just the william's works
piece of my puzzle. I also have 25,530 photos, and artwork images, in
414 temporary folders from the emails sent by you or others to me, and
from the Internet, which I saved to process into permanent folders for
use in my exercise slide shows. I have play lists in my computer (Windows
Media Player) from our CDs that I select from each day I am exercising
indoors on my treadmill, and Health Rider. I figured out it takes a
slide show of 555 images to get me through my exercise routine without
repeating any. I learned early on that if your exercise becomes too
tedious and boring, it will not be long before you let things go, and
are not exercising at all.
Some years back I started revamping
my exercise folders to hold less than 150 each (in varying amounts),
so I could mix and match a fresh slide show every time by copying the
alphabetical files into an empty folder until I reached 555. Adding
new images also keeps things from becoming too mundane. A little side
note about a good source of quality pictures if you have Windows 10
as an operating system. Microsoft regularly changes that first screen
picture when you turn your computer on. For whatever reason, those are
called lock images. They are hidden in your computer, and removed often
as they add new ones. But they can be copied and saved if done as soon
as they appear. I ran across how to find them, and rename to view them,
in an article several years ago. I thought about including it here on
the addendum page, but it is a mix of text and graphics. If interested,
just email me and I will attach it to a reply.
New images often need to be
resized, cropped, touched up, and renamed so they are alphabetized in
a way that provides a better mix when pulling from various folders.
This takes quite a bit of spare time. Except for lock images I save
whenever I first see them, usually it is later in the evening if I find
time, since I see it as lower priority work, even though it is essential
to my physical well being. A little more time devoted to this, however,
would also help in the mental arena as well. When I originally started
setting up folders in 2006 after my open heart surgery, I put 600 files
in each folder figuring I would just need to pick one. Using those became
boring because they always sequenced the same. I still have a lot of
those early folders (214) which yet hold 27,142 images waiting to be
broken down into smaller units, and re-alphabetized for a better mix.
Until I get to them, they feel like a whole bunch of clutter on a "to
do" list staring me in the face every time I go in to set up an exercise
slide show. I find constant clutter to be highly stressful.
When you add in the daily activities
and work of living . . . . Scripture reading and morning prayer, making
the bed, brushing your teeth, showering, fixing meals and cleaning up
after, my cardiac exercise routines, finding time to get to the Center
even just to water the plants, or change the sanctuary candle in the
prayer room, etc, etc . . . . it becomes a daunting task to find the
time to accomplish any backlog of non-routine work, let alone anything
new. Then, when warm weather arrives it changes everything. Most of
the time, I would enjoy being outside chopping wood to BBQ over rather
than any of the other stuff except taking pictures. But, even photography
gives me pause, because I am aware I will be adding to my backlog of
images needing attention. So, writing has a lot of competition in my
"to do list" world.
None of this is meant to be
complaining. I created my circumstances through my choices, just like
everybody else does. The difficulty, of course, is the discernment of God's
priorities in all of the constant flow of possible activities passing
through our consciousness. That is why I would like to add newsletters
to the list of things eliminated. They are hugely time consuming for
me. I have to laugh, because as I write this, I have been thinking how
much of that stuff I could be getting done if I were not spending so
much time writing about it. I think I have become too much a Martha,
and too little a Mary (see Luke 10:41-42 if you do not understand the reference).
My best recollection is that
I started writing in earnest when I was creating my poetry to help me
through stressful, and challenging, times of mental and spiritual upheaval.
It could feel obsessive and compulsive, but it did help. This had doctors
originally looking at manic depression (referred to these days as bi-polar
disease) as a possible diagnosis. They decided it was not. I saw it
as an intense search for God, with the spiritual challenges often being
expressed through the mental side roads, not vice versa. It has been
an interesting journey, and writing definitely functioned as a coping
tool. It still does in some fashion, as it allows me to release a lot
of mental activity onto the paper. But writing has almost always felt
like more of a burden than a joy. Especially so, when I transitioned
to primarily prose from the shorter, more succinct, poetry.
The End
(but you never know when you
let God run the show)
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The Left’s Message: You Cannot Be Christian
by Michael Brown - June 1, 2020 - Faith & Culture
- Decision Magazine
It would be one thing if Samaritan’s Purse refused
to treat a gay man. Or mocked a trans-identified individual. Or discriminated
against a lesbian needing medical care. But none of that has happened.
Instead, this massive Christian humanitarian organization
which serves each person alike is getting blasted by the Left for one
reason only. Samaritan’s Purse is a Christian organization that employs
Christian workers and believes in the historic teachings of the Bible.
The Crime of Being Christian
That alone is their crime. That alone is their fault.
And for that unthinkable transgression, for that monstrous evil, for
the crime of being Christian, they are protested by the Left.
It was bad enough that Franklin Graham’s evangelistic
ministry in the U.K. was opposed because of his pro-Bible comments regarding
sexuality and marriage. These days, that is the price for taking a stand
for Biblical truth and opposing radical LGBTQ revisionism.
But it’s far worse when Graham’s humanitarian arm,
Samaritan’s Purse, which selflessly serves the sick and hurting worldwide,
is opposed because their statement of faith is Christian. What on earth
has happened to our society?
As noted in National Review, “the volunteers
for Samaritan’s Purse put themselves in harm’s way, acting as backstops
for a municipal hospital system at risk of being overrun with coronavirus
patients. The group’s evangelical Christian volunteers expose themselves
to infection and disease at no charge to patients, treating the sick
without regard to race, religion, sexual orientation or any of the other
identity groups under putative ‘siege’ in the United States.”
Protesting a statement of faith
Yet on April 15, NBC News reported that “a group
of LGBTQ activists stood several yards away from the Samaritan’s Purse
field hospital on the East Meadow lawn and blasted city and state officials
and Mount Sinai Hospital for partnering with the evangelical humanitarian
relief organization treating overflow patients suffering from the coronavirus.”
“After all, if a Christian humanitarian organization
can be protested during a pandemic for affirming Biblical values, what
will happen to churches and ministries during times of health and prosperity?”
As expressed by Jay W. Walker, an activist with the
Reclaim Pride Coalition, “How was this group ever considered to bring
their hatred and their vitriol into our city at a time of crisis when
our people are fighting a pandemic?”
It is true, NBC News noted, that “The hospital is
staffed with Christian doctors and nurses experienced in treating infectious
diseases.”
And these Christians donate their services to help
strangers, putting their own lives at risk in a living demonstration
of “love your neighbor as yourself.”
“But,” the report continues, “Samaritan’s Purse’s
policies require most contractors and some full-time volunteers to sign
a statement of faith that includes a declaration that ‘we believe that
marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic
female.’”
In the Name of the Lord Jesus
Oh, the horror! Oh, the hatred! How dare this Christian
organization, led by the son of the Reverend Billy Graham, uphold Biblical
values. How dare they affirm marriage as it has been affirmed by the
church and synagogue for two millennia. How dare they refuse to bow
the knee at the altar of political correctness.
Writing in the New York Post on April 3,
Bob McManus pointed out that Samaritan’s Purse makes its mission and
message loud and clear: “Why did you come?” asks its website. “The answer
is always the same: ‘We have come to help you in the Name of the Lord
Jesus Christ.’”
And yet that is where the problem lies: They are
Christians coming to serve in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Values of New York City
Somehow, Mayor Bill de Blasio was surprised to hear
that Franklin Graham’s organization was actually Christian. And so he
commented, “I said immediately to my team that we had to find out exactly
what was happening. Was there going to be an approach that was truly
consistent with the values [of] New York City?”
Ah yes, the values of New York City, the city that
aborts more African-American babies than it sees born every year. By
far. And the city that says: If you hold to Christian beliefs and values,
you cannot serve our citizens. Not at your own expense. Not at the risk
of your own lives. Not if you do it as Christians.
Better to let the COVID-19 victims pass away in their
misery. We will not have true Christianity in our midst.
Time to Wake Up
That is how far we have fallen, and we dare not ignore
the handwriting on the wall. After all, if a Christian humanitarian
organization can be protested during a pandemic for affirming Biblical
values, what will happen to churches and ministries during times of
health and prosperity?
Fifteen years ago, I was mocked for saying that those
who came out of the closet wanted to put us—Bible-believing Christians—in
the closet.
That now seems like a lifetime ago. For those who
are still slumbering, it is well past time to wake up. ©2020 Michael
Brown
Adapted by permission from an article originally
published at Stream.org.
Michael L. Brown is the founder and president of
Fire School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina, and host of the
daily syndicated radio show “The Line of Fire.”
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