Last year by making none I kept all mine. This year I'm aiming a little higher.
1) I'm going to lose some weight. I was watching an old John Candy film Uncle Buck and realized I am a little older (I'm 44 going on 45 later this month, Candy was 43 when he passed away) and not much lighter and I looked at my kids laughing at the movie and decided I should try to stick around a little longer.
2) More posts here. I have gotten pretty lazy when it comes to blogging since the 2010 election ended. I was just all blogged out. I've been reading A LOT since then and have other things to say now - and it's a lot less political and more theological in nature.
3) Less G-O-P and more C-H-R-I-S-T. I'm not eschewing politics or the Republican Party but, the world needs Jesus much more, right now - than it needs any political party. The Republican Party, when it gets it right has really 3 things going for it:
a) smaller government, that is, when it follows it's convictions, more laws means more law-breakers. We have gotten to the point in this country where we have so many laws that innocent people are now being called guilty and what we used to call evil is now called a 'right' at every turn.
b) Christian values (aka: Judeo-Christian values, Family Values, Traditional Values, pick your euphemism). Without Christianity, any culture will slip into barbarism. Nazi Germany was barely Christian when the 3rd Reich took over. Most of the Bible-believing Christians had fled for the USA in the 1800s because of the state-forced Prussian merger between the Lutheran and Reformed. Catholics were in the minority in Germany proper (Prussia), most lived in neighboring Poland and Austria. The GOP has more respect for custom, religion and tradition than the Democratic Party. So long as that remains the case the Republican Party and the conservative cause will be OK.
c) Military might. Like it or not - civilizations need to exercise both offensive and defensive power to keep the barbarians on the other side of the gate. Totalitarians of all stripes need to be kept at bay whether they be zealous theocrats (Al Qaida, Taliban, etc) or atheistic, Utopian revolutionaries (Communists, Marxists, Socialists).
That said, Government can only do so much, what we as a civilization need more than ever right now is Christ. The fights we currently have fought and are fighting be it National Healthcare, Don't Ask Don't Tell or taxpayer funded abortion are all red flags of unbelief.
When people no longer have faith in God, they look to the State as a source of Providence and Moral Law. God's providence is replaced by the Welfare State and God's Law is replaced by the Democratic process of Majority Rule.
To reverse these trends Christ needs to be made known. A common, Christian culture needs to be restored for both the salvation of souls (the highest priority) but also to restore our society to normalcy. I'm not talking about a grandiose revival or Heaven on earth. You can't eradicate sin any more than you can change Human Nature. But we must reverse course soon or God will have to apologize to Sodom & Gomorrah for not destroying us.
TTFN & God Bless,
Jim
My Facebook Profile
My Church's Facebook Profile
1) I'm going to lose some weight. I was watching an old John Candy film Uncle Buck and realized I am a little older (I'm 44 going on 45 later this month, Candy was 43 when he passed away) and not much lighter and I looked at my kids laughing at the movie and decided I should try to stick around a little longer.
2) More posts here. I have gotten pretty lazy when it comes to blogging since the 2010 election ended. I was just all blogged out. I've been reading A LOT since then and have other things to say now - and it's a lot less political and more theological in nature.
3) Less G-O-P and more C-H-R-I-S-T. I'm not eschewing politics or the Republican Party but, the world needs Jesus much more, right now - than it needs any political party. The Republican Party, when it gets it right has really 3 things going for it:
a) smaller government, that is, when it follows it's convictions, more laws means more law-breakers. We have gotten to the point in this country where we have so many laws that innocent people are now being called guilty and what we used to call evil is now called a 'right' at every turn.
b) Christian values (aka: Judeo-Christian values, Family Values, Traditional Values, pick your euphemism). Without Christianity, any culture will slip into barbarism. Nazi Germany was barely Christian when the 3rd Reich took over. Most of the Bible-believing Christians had fled for the USA in the 1800s because of the state-forced Prussian merger between the Lutheran and Reformed. Catholics were in the minority in Germany proper (Prussia), most lived in neighboring Poland and Austria. The GOP has more respect for custom, religion and tradition than the Democratic Party. So long as that remains the case the Republican Party and the conservative cause will be OK.
c) Military might. Like it or not - civilizations need to exercise both offensive and defensive power to keep the barbarians on the other side of the gate. Totalitarians of all stripes need to be kept at bay whether they be zealous theocrats (Al Qaida, Taliban, etc) or atheistic, Utopian revolutionaries (Communists, Marxists, Socialists).
That said, Government can only do so much, what we as a civilization need more than ever right now is Christ. The fights we currently have fought and are fighting be it National Healthcare, Don't Ask Don't Tell or taxpayer funded abortion are all red flags of unbelief.
When people no longer have faith in God, they look to the State as a source of Providence and Moral Law. God's providence is replaced by the Welfare State and God's Law is replaced by the Democratic process of Majority Rule.
To reverse these trends Christ needs to be made known. A common, Christian culture needs to be restored for both the salvation of souls (the highest priority) but also to restore our society to normalcy. I'm not talking about a grandiose revival or Heaven on earth. You can't eradicate sin any more than you can change Human Nature. But we must reverse course soon or God will have to apologize to Sodom & Gomorrah for not destroying us.
TTFN & God Bless,
Jim
My Facebook Profile
My Church's Facebook Profile
