Political Gospel?
I struggle each day trying to keep my head out of the political jumble that is facing our election these days. I try very hard to keep my religious principles in perspective while I listen to the pundents debate as to whom is the best “religious candidate” for the country while doing their best to tear them all down.
I pray that whomever is elected to run the country, that person will do the best job possible and hope that God helps him or her. What we have is a country that has given lip service to the Christian majority, promising them a voice and has not done much to prove it. We have not had a very good track record over the last few decades and I hope that things will turn around.
But what is most essential is that we pray daily for our leaders and that we seek Christ in our daily lives. Both the Right and the Left have good intentions for our country but both have not been very successful in accomplishing what is Truly Right in God’s Eye. We need to ALWAYS be in prayer for God’s will to be done.
Print This Post Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)Because of God, I am.
My loving Daughter (in-law), Julia sent me an email awhile ago with a list of all the things I am because of God’s Grace. There are just to many things listed, and some are repetitive but I would recommend that you go to http://www.persevering.org/perceiv and look them up. Many come from the book of Ephesians which is called the Book of Hope in my circle of friends. Remember that many of the thing that God has blessed you with call us to action and not something that is to be sat on or buried in a field for fear that the will be lost. God is a God of Action and wants His Children to be active sons and daughters.
Here’s a sample to get you started…
I am faithful (Ephesians 1:1).
I am God’s child (John 1:12).
I have been justified (Romans 5:1).
I am Christ’s friend (John 15:15).
I belong to God (1 Corinthians 6:20).
I am a member of Christ’s Body (1 Corinthians 12:27).
I am assured all things work together for good (Romans 8:28).
I have been established, anointed and sealed by God (2 Corinthians 1:21-22).
I am confident that God will perfect the work He has begun in me (Philippians 1:6.
I am a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20).
Lazareth, the Rich Man, and the Bossom of Abraham. Part 2
In part one I dwelt on the plight of the rich man. Now I want to spend some time on Lazarus and the Jesus connection.
Scripture: Psalm 146, Luke 16:19-31, Isaiah 53:3-5
I will concentrate my story on Lazarus because I am concerned with the Lazarus’s of our lives., the lazarus of the World. We have over the last few decades seem to placed our “Religion” on the “Jesus Loves ME (first)” mode and have as did the rich man rejected or ignored the plights of the poor, sick and rejected of the World. But we don’t have to go to the far reached of the Third World countries to find the rejected and sick, they are in our home towns, or byways and under the overpasses of our highways. They are in the streets of our cities; the homeless, the runaways and the underpaid single mothers of our affluent societies. Just how many Lazarus are there? I haven’t a clue but I know that they number in the Millions. The evidence of all the people that could be a Lazarus is all around us. In fact, maybe there is a bit of Lazarus in you.
We have tried to help many of these rejected and ignored people in the World, we send workers into the refugee camps, protest civil right abuses, pass laws to protect and contribute to the needs of Missionaries. But is this enough? What we need to see is that there is a connection between Jesus and these Lazarus’s. We can go back in History and see how the Nations created the Lazarus’s, Starting with the U.S.A. with the oppression of the Native American, and the slavery of the Blacks to the practice of shunning and child labor. But America was not alone in this and we have made great strides to change. What is great about America is that we confess our sins to the World and try to make amends. Throughout the World, there is over mounting evidence that Evil is done to the people and that whole peoples are turned into Lazarus. People of all walks of life find themselves rejected and dispised through no fault of their own.
This is the Jesus connection. I believe that when Jesus told the parable about Lazarus, He was speaking of Himself. Just as the event of the death of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, was to illustrate His three days in the tomb, the Parable was to relate to how the Son of Man was rejected by the very Chosen of Israel. As Lazarus suffered the sores of the flesh, Jesus suffered the sores of the sins of man. As Lazarus was locked out of the home of the rich man (whom you notice is unnamed), Jesus was locked out of the Hearts of Man. As Lazarus was rejected so was Jesus rejected. That is why I wanted you to read the passage from Isaiah with this Parable from Luke. And as Lazarus is carried to the Bosom of Abraham, Jesus was Lifted up to the Heavens and sits with the Father.
(to be continued)
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Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King
When I was young, the Civil rights movement was also young. I grew up with “colored” kids and they were my best friends. I could not understand how people hated, feared and denied them their rights, they were the only kids that let me play games, shared their lunches with me and let me into their homes to hear Gospel music and Jazz.
I went to an all white private school, lived in an upper middle class white neighborhood and had no friends among my peers. I was beat up, rejected and hazed by these same righteous white Christians that segregated the darker skinned families, rejected them as employees and moved if one of them dared to move into “their neighborhood”. I even dated a “colored” girl for a short while and one of my best friends was french/Indian/ black descent. I could not for the life of me understand why segregation even existed in America.
Now after forty years, the problem of Black/White/Hispanic relations still exists. How, in the Land of the Free and the Brave, can we tolerate this blind and negative relationship with each other and still call ourselves Christians? Didn’t Paul say that there was no difference between the believers? Didn’t Christ Jesus come so that All who might believe in Him, be free to be assured a life in abundant Love? Then there is no difference between Black, White, Asian or Hispanic Christians. And if there is no difference between Christians, then there can be no difference between any man, woman or child. We are all born of the same flesh and we all have the as awareness of Humanity.
So on this day and every day, I remember the walks, the riots and the death of a man who sought to be as I, one with God and one with everyman. Some will say that he was not as godly as he claimed but I remember that David sinned against God and he was said to be favored. We all have our faults but God is a just God and He blesses Whom He Chooses. God blessed Martin Luther King, He Blessed Robert and John Kennedy. These men died, so that all men might be free and equal in the eyes of the law. Christ died that All may have Freedom with the Heavenly Father and equal in the Kingdom of God.
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