If We Love God Jesus said the greatest commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. (Matt 22:37)That means all of us. If we truly love God, we will glorify Him and magnify His name through worship. Too often today, worship seems empty and unfulfilling because we do not see the glory of God and do not see any reason to praise Him. As God’s people support and encourage each other, we will see reasons to praise God for what He is doing in the church. However, many churches today are little more than collections of people because they never get to know each other and support each other during trials. We are often so wrapped up in our daily activities that we don’t take time to get out and explore God’s creation. Too often we are so engulfed in the material world that we see little of God around us. Unless we go to the park or the countryside, we see little of God’s creation. Unless we walk with Him and experience His presence, we have little concept of His glory and see little reason to praise Him. We need to take time to get away and experience the quiet and majesty of His creation.
Priorities-H
Democrats are making a big deal out of the fact that Republican States are turning down funds for summer school feeding programs to help poor kids during the summer when they can’t get school lunches and crowing about how Republicans don’t care about the poor kids who will go hungry. However, they are not saying why the Republican States are turning down the funds. President Biden added an executive order to the school lunch program which requires those who get the summer feeding program to recognize transgender students and allow them to use the bathroom of their choice. It is a matter of accepting the funds and being forced to endanger girls and women by allowing men disguised as women to use women’s restrooms, showers, and sleeping quarters or turning down the funds in order to protect them. Republicans care more about protecting women from embarrassment and even rape then the summer school program, while Democrats are more concerned about pushing their agenda regardless of the danger to women. They would rather have the kids go hungry then back down on promoting their pro-transgender policies. Many churches and civic organizations are stepping up to provide meals and food to low-income families in the States that refuse the funds at far less cost than the government funded programs and do not have to accept the government mandates that go with the funds.
Priorities-G
It is clear where President Biden’s priorities are. He issued a ban on new oil drilling to satisfy the environmentalists causing gas prices to double. However, with his ratings falling because of inflation fueled by rising fuel prices and his out of control spending, he apparently had second thoughts about restricting our oil production. He apparently hoped to cut his party’s losses in the off-year elections, and bowed to public pressure to cut gas restrictions to allow a drop in gas prices. He agreed to open new gas drilling and gas prices started to fall slightly. However, due to pressure from environmentalists, who contribute to his party’s campaign funds, he has now restored the ban on new drilling and prices have begun rising again. Apparently he is more concerned about the source of his campaign funds than about the voters that elected him and who might not vote for his party in the upcoming election.
Gas Prices-J
I just checked gas prices to fill up the car and the price has been going up for three weeks straight. A lot of it is due to the fighting in the Mid-East. Most stations are about $3.29 a gallon compared to $1.75 a gallon when President Biden took office. President Trump pushed America to be independent of Arab oil prices which lowered gas prices since it didn’t have to be transported from the Mid-east and profits went to American workers and investors. Under President Trump, gas prices would not have been affected by the war, but now the fighting is pushing prices up still further. President Biden forced cuts in America’s oil production forcing us to buy oil from Mid-Eastern countries which has to be transported by ship, greatly increasing the cost. A lot of that oil goes through the Suez Canal and the shipping lanes near the Arab States. Arab terrorists have made travel in the region difficult and many are oil tankers who are opting to go around the south of Africa to avoid it, which creates extensive delay and a lot of extra cost. In addition, there is nothing to prevent the Arab countries from raising prices to hurt the American economy, like they did in 1974. The profit from Arab oil goes to Arab countries who supply our oil and much of it goes into the pockets of rich Arab rulers who in turn support Arab terrorist activities.
First Sunday of Lent-Feb 18
Must Grow-Many people feel that a new believer is suddenly transformed into a good and holy person when they are saved. Some even feel that baptizing them as an infant makes them a good and holy person. Yet, though the Bible talks about us being Born Again, it does not grant us instant spiritual maturity. A Christian who is Born Again needs to grow up and mature just as a new baby does. Preaching alone will not do it, just as a child doesn’t learn how to live through weekly lectures from his parents, he only learns facts. A boy learns how to be a man and how to treat a woman through watching his father and a girl learns how to be a woman and how to treat a man through watching her mother. A girl learns what a man should be by watching her father and a boy learns what a woman should be by watching his mother. We have so many problems today because kids have very little opportunity to observe their parents. Christians need to observe more mature Christians to learn how to walk with Christ but very few churches provide that opportunity anymore. Many high school graduates act very immature today because our society expects students to learn how to live by listening to lectures in school and it doesn’t happen. Many Christians still act like unbelievers because they have never had the opportunity to learn to walk with Christ.
Health Care-D
The United Nation’s World Health Organization is meeting to next week to work out a Pandemic Treaty to prepare for the next pandemic which will put all decision making power in the WHO. This will be a disaster as the WHO made a huge blunder with the Covid pandemic. To trust them with running things during another pandemic would be foolish. We saw the problem first hand in the United States when the U.S. Dept of Health tried to manage our own response to the pandemic. Areas vary widely in their conditions. While big cities were hard hit, small towns and rural areas saw very few cases. The Dept of Health tried to develop a single plan for everyone based on what they saw in the big cities and tried to impose it on everyone. The result was an economic disaster for both the big cities and rural areas, but especially for rural areas that did not have the resources that big cities had. In addition, rural areas did not have the large number of cases that the cities had and could have coped without the burden placed on them by the federal regulations. For the WHO to impose a single plan on the whole world would be even more disastrous. President Biden has openly stated his support for the treaty and his willingness to sign it. If he does, the United States will be bound by any decision that the WHO makes in the next pandemic, whether we agree with it or not. Every area should be left to decide for itself based on the conditions they face. Globalists in the United Nations have been pushing every way they can to extend their control over member nations and countries ruled by dictators have increasingly been pushing for climate control regulations to cripple America’s economy, even though we provide most of the income for the United Nations. We need to tell them to back off or we will
Ash Wednesday-Feb 14
Ash Wednesday-A received its name from the fact that Christians used to place ashes on their forehead as a symbol of mourning. The color for today is black symbolizing mourning because it is a time when we mourn our sin that caused Christ to die on the cross. The penalty for sin is death but Jesus paid the price to redeem us from the power of sin and death that we might have life. Some people give up something for Lent as a sacrifice to remind them of the price Christ paid, but Christ wants us to put sin out of our life all year, not just during Lent. Lent is a time to ask Jesus to cleanse us of all that is displeasing to Him. If fasting or sacrificing something helps to remind you of the cost Jesus paid, then do it but if it is just a ritual that doesn’t mean anything, find something that will. It should never be done as an open display of our piety before men, but should be done privately between us and God.
Politics-AB-AN
The justice department has again demonstrated its double standard when it comes to its treatment of those accused. They continue to press their prosecution of Donald Trump for possessing documents from his administration. The documents were in a secure safe in the basement of his home. It has come to light that President Obama has a large store of such documents and so does President Biden, yet neither has been prosecuted since they claim that the President has the authority to declassify them and retain them. If it is not illegal for a former President to possess them, why did the justice department raid his home and seize them and why are they continuing to prosecute him. President Biden also had documents from his days as Vice-President in his garage in boxes where they could be available to anyone. It is also known that he hosted Chinese officials at his home which means they could have had access to them. In addition, President Biden had classified documents from when he was a senator. While the President has the authority to declassify and retain documents, a Senator does not. Those documents were in fact illegally held. In addition, President Biden also had notes from classified meetings at the Whitehouse. Participants of classified meetings who take notes in classified hearings must secure them, since they are held to be classified documents as well, yet President Biden had his notebooks from when he was a Senator and Vice-President also stored in the unsecured garage. When an investigative Congressional committee investigated that, they concluded that he is an old man and forgetful and should not be prosecuted. It is interesting that they feel he is too old and absent-minded to be prosecuted for “misplacing” classified government documents, but he is not too old and absent-minded to run the country and control the nuclear button that could launch world war three. It sounds like it is time to remove him from office and bar him from running again. A man who can’t keep track of classified documents should not be running the country.