Keep The Faith

New block: I’d like to finish the story about my accident—the one I mentioned in my previous post. Back to the scene of the accident: The first highway patrolman, who started pursuing the person who almost hit me, never got a chance to catch them. He heard the crash, turned around at his next available pass-through, and came back to check on us to make sure we were both okay (which we were). More police officers showed up very quickly. It was the second cop who recorded all our statements, including what the first officer had to say, and ultimately gave us both tickets. I didn’t get mad or say derogatory things to him; I just told my story as best I could. When I looked at all the factors that contributed to the accident, I realized I was legally at fault: I failed to yield the right-of-way and did not obey the law. And that was that. I had two options with my ticket: I could pay the fine and let the accident stay on my driving record for a long time, or I could t...

Unity Series — When We Judge Without Seeing the Whole Story We humans judge quickly. We form opinions from headlines, fragments, and emotions. Yet Scripture reminds us that judgment belongs to God alone — because only He sees every angle, every motive, every moment that led to the one we think we understand. Why do we judge situations we were never part of? It’s hard enough to judge even when you are involved — or when you’re the one responsible for making the decision. But we all do it. We watch the news, hear a story, see a clip, and suddenly we’re experts. We decide who was right, who was wrong, and what “should have happened.” And when we voice those opinions, we often add to the unrest. We fuel anger. We deepen division. We contribute to the noise. Have you ever watched a football game and thought the referee made a terrible call? From the angle you saw on TV, there was no way he was ri...

The Grape Harvest and the Day of Judgment A reflection on violence, true faith, God’s mercy, and a surprising lesson from this year’s grape harvest. What I am about to say is not meant to put down the Muslim faith. Every religion has groups who interpret their holy books differently. But to those who believe that God desires you to kill others, I must ask: Are you truly serving the One True God? Killing people simply because they are Jews, Christians, Muslims, Palestinians, Americans, Black, white—whoever it may be—is not righteousness. You cannot force others to believe what you believe. Fear‑based conversion always leads to suspicion, tests, and eventually violence. History shows this has happened even within Christianity. I call myself a Christian, and I believe the One True Living God is a God of peace and love. He gave us laws knowing we would break them, and instead of destroying us, He sent His Son to take our punishment willingly. J...

I’ve gotten tired of reading on Facebook all the negative comments associated with President Obama; mostly from Christians. Have Christians forgotten the scriptures? Romans 13:1 New American Standard Bible (NASB) Be Subject to Government Romans 13:1 New American Standard Bible (NASB) Be Subject to Government 13  Every [ a ] person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except [ b ] from God, and those which exist are established by God.   Daniel 2:20-21 New American Standard Bible (NASB) 20  Daniel said, “Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, For wisdom and power belong to Him. 21  “It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and [ a ] establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men And knowledge to [ b ] men of understanding.   Psalm 75:1-7 New American Standard Bible (NASB) God Abases the Proud, but Exalts the Righteous. For the choir director; s...

Here it is 3:00 AM in the morning. So often I awake at this time when it has something to do with Father God and His work. I’ve been thinking a lot about Satan and the other fallen Angels lately. Satan was created with such great powers. God had to have known before-hand that Satan and the others would do what they did and yet He let them go. If God ruled like Satan does, they would have been gone long ago. I really do believe God still loves them and they have been in His master plan to save us all, His whole creation, from the beginning. Satan, you probably don’t remember me. Back in 1999, I think was the year, I had just started trading in the stock market. I was on the Yahoo stock board, mostly just watching what others said about stocks and to get pointers on how to do things. There was so much scheming and conniving going on there that it was almost useless to a lot of us and a number of us moved over to the Bull board. I bounced back and forth between the two boards ...