Who is Jesus?

Jesus is God. He said so. John 8: 58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am." What could be plainer? He said He was God in so many different ways. So that means The Almighty Lord of the Universe stepped down from all his majesty and power to be come a helpless little baby, so He could be like one of us. What better way for God to get to know us, and us Him, than to be one of us? To prove He was God He performed many miracles. The best one was for Him to die and then be raised from the dead. So He has a right to say that (John 14: 6) "I am ^(A)the way, and ^(B)the truth, and ^(C)the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me."
And so this is Christmas. What have you done about the Christ child, born to bring you second life? Don't let this Christmas slip by without accepting the free gift of eternal life, held out to you as a parent holds out a Christmas gift to his child. Jesus is the greatest gift of all.

Strike in Hollywood

I say, more power to the writers in Hollywood! Stay on strike for a loooong time. Maybe the garbage TV shows will go off the air. Desparate Housewives? Sex In The City? David Letterman? Mindless drivel! Your not on strike to improve the quality of TV shows, that's for sure.

Evil

This goes along with the hell topic. Read Dr. Mohler's blog. It's about evil. Evil exists. Don't poke your head in the ground and ignore it or you might find your head still there when evil visits you.

Hell

Todays subject in Sunday School class was Hell. Did you know Hell was topic that Christ talked about alot? I know a man who says he can't wait to go to Hell because he says that there will be a big party there and he wants to be there. I suppose he doesn't know it will be difficult to party there because it is very dark there. And hot, yet cold, like a fever. It will be full of all the things he hates. Everyone there will hate him. He will be tormented forever, and will be on fire. He can't stand his district representative, so I imagine she'll be right there with him. Matthew 13:42: They will through them into the fire and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That doesn't sound like a party.
Dear reader, be aware. There is a hell. It is an awful place. It is where you are going unless you know Jesus. The Bible says it, Jesus says it. That's the way it is. Now, What are you going to do about it?

Music musings

A few grim musical milestones, folks that I really like their music:
Rich Mullins died 10 years ago September 19, 1997.
Jaco Pastorius died 20 years ago September 21, 1987.
Joe Zawinul died about a month ago September 11, 2007.

Feb 16, 2007 Iraq vote-A Letter To My Representative

Mr. Larsen,
The people that have voted to oppose the troop increase have made a grave mistake. You are one of them. You do not understand the nature of true, intense, teeth gritting evil. That is what we are fighting over there. It is radical Islam, like a swarm of insane bees, each member willing to die for their god, Allah. If we pull out of Iraq, which this is the first step, they will smell blood. They will know we are weak and unwilling to fight for what is right. They already think that because of Viet Nam, where the left in America fought and protested in the streets for Communism, until we pulled out of there and abandoned the South Vietnamese. Communism quickly swept across all of southern Asia and millions were exterminated under Pol Pot and the communist Vietnamese Government.

Now radical Islam is the dragon waiting for America to cave in and abandon Iraq so it can sweep across the Middle East, because it is poised to do so. Then it will have a choking grip on the worlds oil supply. Notice radial Islam breathing down our necks in Venezuela. Evil will join evil. Gone is Teddy Roosevelt! Gone is Franklin Roosevelt! Gone is Harry Truman! Gone is Winston Churchill! Gone is Ronald Reagan!

If America won’t stand up to evil, who will? I see a dark day coming when America is no longer a superpower, and a new, evil empire takes over the world. And there you are voting on some stupid measure that tells the world we don’t have any stomach for fighting evil. God help America!

Bruce Lapham

Beauty Cannot Be Tamed

Beauty cannot be tamed, if it is a wild beauty. When you walk through a forest, you can see the trees growing in every direction, the thickets full of hidden life, secreted away from the human eye but not from the ear. The sun pours down through the trees with such intensity one could never think to cage it. The rains come whenever they see fit, bringing life to every living thing in its path. This is such a beauty that cannot be tamed.

Even if you clear away the trees, the thickets, chase away those who call the forest their home, you never quite succeed in quenching ALL life. The ground still breathes as a forest, no matter if there are houses now resting upon it. The trees still grow, quietly planning and plotting to take back what was once theirs, and still is. The thickets grow in hiding; someday they'll burst throw the metro chaos and join the trees in their revolution. The sun still comes, the rain still drenches, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the voices of the life that made the forest so sacred.

Yet humans can never understand this untamable beauty. We believe that we can rule the world if we so wish, that the universe is our playground. What are we, though, compared to the wonders of the Milky Way, or the amazing act of a doe giving birth to her fawn? We cannot compare ourselves to the sacred acts of nature, or our intelligence to that of the animals. In contrast, humans are self-destructive, uncaring, with no remorse of their hate. But it's not just the hating, the fighting, the loss of life we see on the news every waking hour that sets us apart from nature. It's the wear and tear of the human heart, the pain of losing a loved one, or failing at a goal you hoped to accomplish. Nature knows no failure - only the will and perseverance to survive in a world gone mad. Between the two, which would you rather be a part of: the chaos and noise, or the quiet peacefulness? This you shall only find in nature, and only if you care.

Do not destroy the precious beauty God gave to us. For one, you can never destroy that which creates life, and two, this wild, wild beauty can never be tamed.

Melanie Lapham Jan 17, 2007