Garage Sale

This weekend my wife is hosting one of her semi-annual Garage Sales. She puts in a lot of work for about 3 days in preparing for these events.

As I browsed the objects laying out a funny thought came to me. At some point we were glad to own almost all of the objects in the sale. If you ignore the odd christmas gifts, or strange family hand me downs, most of the things we saw in a store some where and thought "I have got to have that"

Now they sit on card tables priced at a quarter a piece. We are begging people to pay bottom dollar to unload this once precious treasure from us. And if we wind up not selling it, we are just going to give it away. Some of the items, I'm sure Goodwill will even toss out.

What happened between the time of purchase and now? Styles and tastes change, but so do attitudes. At one point we had to have it, and now its just taking up space.

This is another human created flaw. God doesn't discard what is His. As a matter of fact, he re-purchased us. Our value to Him never changes.

We can forfeit ourselves and try to hide in the back of the closet, but eventually if we begin to see just a bit of self-value, and put ourselves out on that card table, He will buy us and treat us as new again.

I just hope I'm not a Big Mouth Billy Bass singing fish.

Cowbell anyone?

The Greatest SNL skit ever

The Numbers Game

It's amazing to me that many churches today count their success by their numbers. The Rick Warrenites do this a lot in their Purpose Driven Churches that fail to be Bible Driven. Butts in pews seem to have replaced souls in heaven these days.

The idea that the pulpits need to "always preach a positive message" is ridiculous. The gospel is a positive message, however there are negative things that need to be said. Sin is negative. The need that we have to repent is negative. Discussion of both of these items is necessary, otherwise how do you convince someone to be saved if they don't know what they ave being saved from?

Numbers are not a sign of God's blessing. Just because a church is in a fast growing community does not mean the will of God is not being done in a non-growing community. Noah, Abraham and Jeremiah would both be failures if God wanted to play the numbers game.

You grow a church by teaching and showing the Gospel message in your life. Not by preaching growth. Too many times we think we are growing the kingdom by stealing sheep from other churches and just reshuffling the deck. God wants growth from the unchurched, the de-churched, and the un-repentant.

I don't recall Paul telling any of the churches to get their numbers up to be a blessed church. Some things are a lot more important than the numbers.

depends on what the definition of the word eis, is

Interesting article about Acts 2:38 and the actual Greek texts instead of the English versions used by many denominations to attempt to validate their apostacy.

Read it here

Acts 2:38 is a direct answer to a direct question. "What should we do?" they asked. The answer wasn't "say a prayer in your heart and you will be forgiven", or "whatever you think is right". The answer was clear and direct.

Repentance and baptism are two seperate actions. Neither one has much meaning without the other, nor does one replace the other. Why do you repent and become baptized? "for the remission of sins". And if that is not enough for you, you will recieve the gifts of the Holy Ghost as a kicker.

I don't see the seperation

If you ever have a question about what the founding fathers thought about seperation of church and state, specifically what the founding fathers had in mind read here.

Sam's The Man

I love having Sam Johnson as my U.S. Representative. My senators aren't too bad either.

Immigration Reform – You bet! Blanket amnesty – No way! By
Congressman Sam Johnson
Washington, Apr 17 -

Recently, the U.S. Senate almost passed blanket amnesty for the 11 million illegal immigrants already here in America. Thankfully the proposal stalled and the Senate adjourned for a two-week recess – abandoning this hot-button issue for now. The Senators would be wise if they took this break to listen to the outrage from their constituents and consider moving forward with the common-sense immigration reform bill passed by the House of Representatives.

The proposed Senate legislation was a complete disaster and utter failure for America. The Senate bill was unwise, unfair, and unnecessary: unwise because jobs that exist today in an expanding economy will not necessarily be there in the next economic downturn; unfair to the millions of would-be legal immigrants waiting patiently in line (in their countries) to come here; and unnecessary because some come here illegally to work, earn money, and return to their home country—not because they want to become citizens.

Have the Senators forgotten how America “solved” the illegal immigration problem in the 1980s when we allowed three million illegal immigrants to become citizens? It didn’t work back then and it won’t work now. We must learn from our mistakes! Allowing people to skirt the law because they’ve been in America for a while is NOT the answer. Preventing them from crossing our border in the first place – is.

The House-passed version of immigration reform does just that and provides much needed common-sense reforms. The House proposal deals with enforcement first. One, the bill ends the so-called “catch and release” program that discourages law enforcement officials from deporting illegal immigrants when apprehended. Two, the bill creates better ways for employers to verify legal status of future employees. Three, the bill increases penalties for aliens re-entering illegally. Four, the bill ensures coverage of the entire southern border by creating physical barriers and using wide-spread, state-of-the-art technology, including cameras, sensors, radar,
satellite, and unmanned aerial vehicles to better guard the border. Five, the bill ups penalties for alien smuggling and eliminates any chance for aliens who are terrorists or security risks from becoming U.S. citizens.

The House bill’s approach of enforcement first means we shore up our porous
borders and get tough with those who break our laws.

Presently, our lax enforcement of immigration laws is a joke. Blanket amnesty as proposed in the Senate would attract many millions of illegal immigrants from all over the world. That would be unacceptable…plain and simple.