Why Big Boys don’t Cry

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Why Big Boys don’t Cry (mp3)

The strength of opposition reveals the strength of character. When your leaders are angry with you, it’s because you’re not living up to the standard they have for you. Many angry leaders don’t realize: The angrier they are, the more they believe in the people they are angry with.

Often times, we don’t respect ourselves as much as our critics do. We don’t think we are as capable as they do. We throw the tomatoes back instead of being thankful for the complement.

Being “macho” is about pretending. Real “big boys” don’t cry because they don’t find a reason to. [Full post / Comment...]

‘Chrislam’ and the Real Dilemma of Israel

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‘Chrislam’ and the Real Dilemma of Israel

It’s about Israel… It’s not about Christology, which Muslims may have an easy time accepting. It’s not about rhetoric; call God “Allah” if that’s your language; call yourself a “Messianic Muslim” if that’s how you see it.

Preaching the gospel to Muslims is about whether the truth of Christ has penetrated the Muslim heart to the point where they allow Israel to live somewhere—in some form or another, one way or another, in peace and mutual freedom.

Even Sunnis want Israel to have no home, to pack their bags and go back to whatever suitcase they were living out of in 1948. Their idea is comparable to the Americans who wanted to send slaves back to Africa. “Peaceful” Muslims start-out talking about “brothers” and “all the children of Abraham”, but they end by including Ishmael and Esau, while excluding Jacob. Overcoming this heart-issue, to love one’s neighbor, to forgive any offense from the past just as Christ forgave us, and to be thy brother’s keeper—this is the litmus test of whether a Muslim has converted to Christ. [Full post / Comment...]

Patience

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Patience (mp3)

Patience. It can seem a waste of time, irresponsible, lazy, incompetent, out of touch, uncaring. We want to solve problems at their roots, nip them in the buds, and be preemptive to be preventative. Diligence is proactive. Is it different from patience?

Not everything requires us to make the first move. Dodging and blocking punches can lead to a quicker victory by exhausting the opponent.

Without patience, all bread would be flat. Frosting would melt off the cake. We’d never have butter, ice cream, or even cream for that matter.

With more patience, we might have a little less war. [Full post / Comment...]

Israel: The New Power in Southeast Asia

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Israel: The New Power in Southeast Asia (mp3)

Few disguised blessings are less disguised than Israel. One article uses a map to explain the strength that one small country has against Statist Islam. Israel is all that stands between the West and the Middle East, the East and the Middle East, the North and the Middle East, and the South and the Middle East—and Israel is right in the middle.

taiwan-israelLooking at modern geography, it’s no wonder God chose Israel and no question what God chose Israel for. I don’t think even the thick-skulled Americans could stand against such opposition with such a small plot of land. Israel was chosen to protect the world, and for good reason.

There is a similar country in the Pacific: Taiwan. It’s about double the size of Israel and has the second-most dense population in the world—including the mountains that occupy 3/4 of its land! [Full post / Comment...]

The Need We Didn’t Want

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The Need We Didn’t Want (mp3)

If Heaven were a cuisine, it would be anything but junk food. It’s spicy. The lemonade is strong. The romaine lettuce is so bitter you can barely swallow it. And that’s what it means to be healthy. Praise God that God doesn’t give us sugar and chocolate every time we ask for it.

The little pockets of sobriety and sanity have kept the darkness at bay for centuries. Islam can’t attack America while Israel stands. Island nations prevent war in Southeast Asia. And truth-telling friends sure are inconvenient—though a lot less inconvenient than the alternatives. [Full post / Comment...]

Trust Grows Beyond Religion

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About two weeks ago, I hit a point of trust with the Lord. Most of my life has centered on trying to overcome the next hurtle. “If I can just get past this problem, then everything will be okay,” I’d always think to myself. But every sea I walk through leads to another challenge, bigger each time. As I age, now at the decrepit and elderly point of wisdom of 33 years old—and as I always think of myself as being more wise now than I will be the very next year—I’m facing the hard reality:

Challenges with need for trusting God only get bigger; those challenges will only seem smaller if my trust grows faster.

That’s not easy, ya know.

At any moment, everything can be taken away. It’s easy to get money in the bank so we can forget that God provides our daily bread. But I don’t want to forget that. [Full post / Comment...]

People Need a Grandpa

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People Need a Grandpa (mp3)

Common enemies create temporary unity. The American public retains the power in America, regardless of how rich and powerful Washington and its cronies are. That powerful public, though divided by the near-identical bipolar DNA that news-infotainment and Churchianity hold in common, is being stirred to action.

People are pooling money. Tea Party rallies attract Democrats. Pundits comment on “third party” options—even if they dismiss the options, they comment nonetheless. But our infighting hasn’t stopped.

America’s third party won’t be consummated by rallies or funding, but by a grandpa who understands the family and knows the murky river’s fordable crossing. [Full post / Comment...]

Prophetic Dream: Wake up from Delusions of Entrenched Generations

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I typically don’t like the “prophecy” genre in speeches and blogs. I’ll try to be concise with details and avoid excess superlatives.

I was dreaming, on a Bible college campus, watching the Dean make his rounds. He had a complex system of inventing rules “after the fact”, but he’d always get away with enforcing them as if everyone should have known better, when, actually, he was just playing “gotcha”. Student leaders and staff helped him. And, generally, he just made everyone angry—a professional ass.

I decided to reason with him, to convince him to stop giving injustice, to inject as much common sense into this lunatic as possible, even though it would be a very small amount, if I could inject any common sense at all. But nothing worked. As I looked at him, his face, not his voice, was my grandfather’s face—with two exceptions. He had three or four warts on his face. [Full post / Comment...]

Christian ‘Survivalism’

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In business, culture, End Times teaching, sin, Bible study, and many other topics, American Christians seem to be caught up in surviving rather than thriving. Sometimes, Christians teach that we “escape” hardship. Other times, Christians teach that we are “mostly oppressed” during hardship. Rarely do we see a theme of “thriving in the midst” of turmoil. Rarely do we see a theme of “strength in the storm” and “peace within the conflict”. Perhaps our modern theology would be more accurate if we developed our beliefs from tornadoes and tropical storms: The eye is calm.

Whether Pre-Trib Rapture or Post-Trib Rapture theology, Christians seem to presume that the Church is the “surviver” in the End Times rather than the conquerers, who defeat injustice and mass genocide. Most Pre-Trib explanations believe that God’s judgment in the presence of the Church would be “punishing the Church”. But those teachers forget that Israel was in Egypt during the plagues, though Israel did not experience the plagues. [Full post / Comment...]

IHOPKC: Urgent Call to Surf

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Billy Graham’s daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, called the nation to urgent prayer. IHOPKC has responded seriously. Anne is not better than any one else. But she is in-the-know. She’s wired. Her father advises many presidents and other important leaders. The family has friends who know what happens behind the scenes. When praying woman or man who is wired makes an urgent call to prayer, it’s wise to respond.

Here are my own feelings about this weeks urgent call to prayer…

There have been a number of statements and Scriptures about a nation being offered mercy if it “returns” to the Lord. My own random Bible reading last night was, for the first time, randomly opening to Jeremiah 4, “If you return…” Another friend stumbled on Psalm 47, which declares that the Lord God is king of all and praises Him for being so. Allen Hood, from IHOPKC (see link above) explains that he believes the nation is facing judgment, not from any prophetic dream or vision, but simply from the Scriptures. [Full post / Comment...]