THEREFORE:

   One of the benefits of our inherited new life is the ability to shake off that which encumbers us.  Through the Spirit we daily die to our self and to the old man that was bound by sins of our nature and the things that are of no use in the kingdom of God.
     First Peter 2 ; "Therefore  rid yourselves of all malice, and all deceit, hypocrisy's, envy and slander of every kind.  Like newborn babies, crave pure Spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."
     Have you taken a bath today in the world's water?  Feel the weight of the things that you were set free from?  I'm talking about  gossip, backtalk, lies, and complaints that the world is full of.  Just some of the things that are so prevalent in those who have not tasted that the Lord is indeed good.   And he is good to his word.   As Christians we need not take a daily bath with them but it is necessary that we retreat to our prayer closet and thank God for the freedom we have and pray for those who don't yet experience it.  We have "escaped" from the Law of Sin and Death and are now experiencing newness of our senses in that we no longer do the things that we used too.. It is not pleasing to God.  And never can be. The miracle of that is mind blowing.  And unless you have gone through it or known others who have, then you cannot know the wonder of it.  Jesus, never sinned or in the vernacular, never gave in to the baser things we could do daily.  Did you ever read that he slandered John or Peter behind their backs?  Was he a gossip or a busybody?  I don't see it.  And our great teacher Paul, who was himself over zealous and put some to death later speaks so eloquently of love that endures all things.   How So?  It is because he too was a new creation in Christ, thankful for the full re-birth that God brings through Jesus Christ.  And so if at the end of the day you feel like you have wallowed in all kinds of mud.....find out how to get clean?  Permanently!

A most excellent word;

     What will today bring you?  Will it be the first fruits of bad news or good?   Will what ever graces your doorstep bring with it the fruit of that which is wholesome or will it be another heart wrenching bit of news that at depresses and brings with it the downcast eyes?  Today, I will focus on the good.  Why?  Because the evil is catching up with us everyday and trying to encroach on what God detests.  We are beings with so much creative and artistic and musical ability why should we let ourselves be brought down to  Hell daily?  Today I will not allow myself to be brought down.  Will you?  Think on these things...."whatsoever thing are good, whatsoever things are pure and so on goes our teaching from an Apostle many years ago.  Lord knows, he had enough of his own troubles and so we are to be always counter to the Devil's ways and model Christ.   Love one another today.   Peace

What we are witnessing; the irrational......

 

      What we are witnessing today and it seems everyday is the irrational actions of men controlled by passions unbridled. Passions that are stirred up by jealousy, hatreds, and motivated by separations not only of race  and color but of Religious beliefs that burn with a fire that is not easily quenched.  In looking at the differences we have with one another we fail to look at the things which can unite instead.  Instead of coming together over Political and racial divide, we are concentrating and giving voice to the stronger and inward emotions that separate.  Will we truly nominate for President the one who embodies such things?  And will we all be happier when we build giant walls, call out the colors of men, and group all ethnic and religious people who pose a threat in one giant meatball?  It seems that there is a great divide and a great delusion working in our midst.  Witness the Evangelicals of this Country who are lining up with the one who is divisive and calls the things above the reason for our discontent.  I am flabergasted that those who name themselves Christians I.e. Evangelicals can be so blind so as to support such a man.  Do they not see the great big E on the eye chart?  All of the vulgarisms and innuendos, and racist remarks and self-building egoism are definitely not attributes of a genuine Christian.  How then can those Evangelicals stomach such things and unite to be a force for nominating such a man?  It is no different than when Jesus was accused of casting out Beelzebub by Beelzebub...it was irrationality and blindness.
      Now what about the killings of African Americans and the retaliation of it and the acts of terror seemingly stepped up to a daily and weekly horror?  We are witnessing the breakdown of bonds between men and nations and religious groups that have no moral center and can have none when there is no rudder that is sane.
     "The happiness of men lies In an acquaintance of God; it is life eternal, it is the perfection of rational beings."  So is the quote of Matthew Henry a great commenter of the Bible.
     Everything Jesus said and did was for all of our benefit.  Nothing was left out of the picture when it concerned the human condition.  Are you hungry? Feed one another.  Are you cold and without clothes, see to it that you give your cloak to the one without.  Are you broke and have no resources?  Ask someone who you trust.  Do you lack discretion, wisdom, motivation and feel empty of the worlds's provisions, then go to the one who promises all of these things and can correct the inward longings of such things.  If and when we begin to build up rather than tear down then and only then will we see and feel the joy of the Lord which is supposed to be our strength.  Daily we must resist the one who sows division not only without but within as well.  It is and individual responsibility we carry as Christians representing as Ambassadors the one we love, and the one who gave himself for us.
     Are we going to be as a nation representative of the  one who has been called vile, slanderous, untruthful, and one who dis-owned many while reaping the benefits of their labor to his own gain.  I hope not.  Let's not be irrational anymore and give another look to what we are doing.    And those who go by the name do you really know what contract you are about to sign?
   

New Wine into New Wineskins;

     I like antiques. I like anything that is from another era that shows something different than I am aquainted with. I remember when  was a teen looking at an old Victrola in mint condition and begging my mother if we could have it. Along with 78's of Enrico Caruso it enthralled me.  I like old cars and old machinery.  I also now have a fondness for studying history of which I absolutely hated in my high school because I didn't know any and didn't care too.
     So why am I in this vein of thought today? It's because along with an appreciation of the old I am aware of the newness of life that Jesus brings on a daily basis. Jesus is the exact opposite of the Law of Entrophy which states that everything in a high order then decays into a state of disorder.  Thermodynamics or something like that.  But that is where Jesus is radically different. He rose from the dead.  From state of willful sacrifice and beating at the hands of angry men uncontrolled in their zeal of a belief system that was challenged.  Why? Because the incarnate God wanted to do something new for us.    In his parable of the wineskins being burst by new wine which the old could not tolerate It is a telling parable.  In effect, change. You in the state you are in that being old cannot accept the new (Holy Spirit) without becoming a new wineskin.   All of the old attitudes, and our mindset and the state of our  sinfullness cannot exist or coexist together.  Repentance is needed and we have to die to our self will inorder to be an acceptable vessel for the new birth.  It is a 360 change, a turn around from everything and anything that is opposite in our nature.  Want to be first, then be last. Want to be great in the kingdom then become a servant.  Want to see God, then become pure in heart.  Want to inherit the Kingdom of God then become meek. And so on.  Positional thinking goes nohwere in this Kingdom.  Witness the two who wanted to be granted the seats of right and left beside Christ.  What was his answer. Can you drink of the cup I am about to drink from?  So if you like old things like I do, think again about also the newness required to enter into a kingdom radically different than what we think it is.  If you are allied with the world and it's ways the gate is wide, and narrow for those who find life and want to keep it.

And so it is, and so it goes?

     The glory of a young man is his strength.

     The glory of an old man is his hoary head.

 "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a savior from there, The Lord Jesus christ, who by the power who enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.


     From the very beginning of this journey called life, we experience gain and then loss as we age.  From somewhere between the age of 10 to age 35 we seem programed to be on an upward swing to achieve and set goals for ourselves and remain in a state of non-entropy.  But then something takes over.....we begin to head on into a very slow spiral of downward movement not only in our bodies but somehow in our minds as we process the changes that take place.  Yes we can continue to mature and gain wisdom but the slippage becomes apparent over the course of the next decades.
     Do we become more complacent as we age?  Accepting of the facts before us that our bodies no longer perform in the same way, our minds stressed out by the continual pressure of lives lived some in the fast lane some in the lane I call " no passing zone" where we stick to a pace we can now endure.  I think I am in that lane of no_passing!  Yuck!  I used to love to drive long lengths of time when young, up and down the East Coast, never tiring of the hum of tires along roadways in endless stretches of roads.  Now I barely tolerate the drive through my city as the mindless rush and sometimes dangerous drivers around me make me tense up and wish to be anywhere but here on the noisey roads.  I barely tolerate the jumble of trucks madly brushing by just inches it seems from my front and back bumpers as I refrain myself from @#$&^%$%^^ words from exiting my mouth!
    Now I am a homebody......It has finally come to ZZZZZZ's (that's sleep) too early for me but I succumb anyway to the necessity of it.  NOw I am not eighty or even ninety but I feel the tug of something in mybody  parts that makes me think omg!  My mortality is on my mind more often than not!  And with that......"I don't want to leave......comes out of somewhere deep within me and stuns my consciousness into a stark reality....It's closer now to a dirt bath than I want to think about....while my wife thinks cemetaries are pretty, with the flowers, the beautiful headstones and angels etc. etc.
    So with these morose thoughts in play there is then the opposite thought of my enduring belief in my waking again after some type of  "sleep" that the Apostle Paul talks about in his letters to the various Churches he founded.  " We shall not all sleep" he contends but at the last trump, ( no not Donald) but the sound, we shall awake and behold him who comes in the clouds with myriads of angels and we shall be caught up with him>!  Wonderful, yes, amazing, and who wouldn't want to believe that?  In direct contrast to the thought of never awaking,  I'll take that any day...
     Also when Jesus was crucified between the two, I guess criminals you could call them, he said to one "today you will be with me in Paradise."  Now if God can never lie and that is his nature, then there is a place again for my body and mind to go to and do what?  Rule and reign with him.......and I don't know what that's going to be like but it's better than absolute nothingness......And I can take a certain pleasure in that and push those pesky thoughts out of my head while my body continues to go it's own way regardless of what I want.   Peace.

Rebuttal To Death in Black and White by Michael Eric Dyson

       It is obvious in reading this article by Michael E. Dyson he is greatly hurt by the "death leading to more death, which no one would ever hope for."
       While I and the world take a wait and see posture for the revelations of the incidents to be truly revealed, so as not to jump on a bandwagon of hatred and join one cause over and against another. ( regarding the car shooting and pinning shooting) not the sniper,  I must also say I am a white American so I guess according to Michael Dyson I was born with "binoculars" that see black life from a distance."  Yes I must admit I do not travel in the culture of the african american community.  The only contact is with friends with whom I work with in an established atmosphere where we perform jobs for pay and so work with one another and along the way become friends regardless of skin color.   Isn't that the way anyone gets to know anyone? By rubbing shoulders?  Being close and finding the similarities of one another more binding than the differences?
    I am afraid that Michael Dyson has stoked within his writings some lothing for the whiteness of our culture (those who are white) but narrows the field considerably of those who feel genuine sorrow at the hands of those in authority who have committed grave errors in judgement while given great authority to police the populations of all colors.  "Whiteness is blindness. It is the wish not to see what it will not know."  (NY Times Jul. l0 2016)  I for one do not believe in his statement "If police must kill us for no good reason, then so be it because most of us are guilty anyway."
      Hogwash I say and with a certainty. I do not believe anyone is guilty except that their actions betray them and that is where justice should lie.  Not in anything else.  Yes this country has been founded on a white race, from England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Poland, etc, etc, but also on the African American .  Yes slavery is a terrible stain on our history but advances have been made, it is always within select groups of the non-enlightened that withhold the forward motion of any society.

    " Your whiteness has become a burden too heavy for you to carry, so you outsource it to a vile political figure ( I guess Trump) who amplifies your most detestable private thoughts."  We do not all subscribe that vile political figure. I and many, many others disdain the very thought of such a person coming into an office of dignity who says and does vile things.
     Now in the matter of moving on what about forgiveness?  What about the moral centeredness we as a nation have lost?  Those who are indeed a self centered, ego centrist and concerned with only their immediate needs, the insulated nature of this country has eroded and produced within us a less giving desire unless as in 9-11 we come together over a united horror.
     Forgiveness is a central theme in Christianity.  Without it we all would be condemned.  "Mercy triumphs over judgement" and so I hope mercy will prevail and those who need forgiveness will indeed receive it.  If in the actions of those who weild authority they have been proven too young and too un-tested in such situations I pray that new and abiding training go a long way in stopping these deaths. I also pray that Mr. Michael E. Dyson take and attitude of humbleness and not serve to inflame that which is already inflamed.  But in the likes of Martin Luther King, reserve judgement, resist evil, and don't play into hands that will undermine a genuine cause of  Black Lives Matter.
        I am one who believes in a higher "citizenship" one of a heavenly nature overseen by a just God.  We live in an imperfect world filled with all kinds of people of different ideas, cultures, and backgrounds woven together in a unique society called American.  It is different but not unlike the Roman times when if in a "conquered" culture you could still be a citizen of Rome... Witness the Apostle Paul unjustly cuffed and jailed for simply believing something else rather than the Roman Gods.or...the Jews who constantly tried to entrap him.  They be-headed him unjustly....