Monday, February 21, 2005

The Hurrier I Go

While passing through one of my favorite blogs to read, "It Takes A Church" http://bolsinger.blogs.com/ the subject is slowing down spiritually. In a comment posted was the following:

My grandfather had a plaque on his wall that said 'the hurrier I go the behinder I get" .... as the pace continues to grow.

In life and business I have learned that the faster you go the more patience you need. Seems like an oxymoron but it is also truth.

The military calls it the 'balcony view' to step back from the battle to gather your thoughts, regain what is important and then move forward.

Like you, I like to drive fast. Being blessed with a wonderful wife for 25 years she bought me a CTS-V for our anniversary, silver of course. But sometimes, it is nice to drive slow, just knowing it will go fast.

Thanks for reminding us that our spirits need to slow down and dwell on the Word so we can make the most of what God has for us today.

LivingTheDream
www.BizWizDumb.blogspot.com
www.theWeeds.blogspot.com

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Campaign for Eternity

My church has asked my wife and I to be part of a capital campaign to raise money so the church can handle the new people coming and being saved by the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amazingly, though this is not the first time I have participated in such a project (we were very active at a church in Houston, Texas years ago) this time I have a completely different outlook on the project.

Earlier, though the purpose was the same, the need to take care of the growing number of people that were coming to receive Christ and to minister to them, their families and grow them in the Word of God, that project was work.

This project though just beginning already has the excitement of love in it. The love of God through the Holy Spirit.

Things are easy to do and commitments are easy to make and needs are easy to meet when its all about Jesus. Its when we take our individual and corporate eyes off of Jesus that things become difficult. I am thankful for the leadership both from the church and the company we have engaged to help us.

I know that people dont like to hear about God and money, but if God does not have your wallet, He does not have you!

No matter where you go to church, you need to dwell on that.

If you are not a church goer, you need to think about changing eternity. Can you imagine that. You can change eternity..... forever

How can you do that? You can see your need for forgiveness, you can reach out to Jesus to save you from your sins (as He has already done if you will only believe) and you need to start looking into the Bible and learn what Christ says to all of us.

Is it more difficult than that? No it is not. Romans 10:9 says, If you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

And being saved, you will have changed eternity... eternity for you and eternity for all of us who believe as you have joined with us in the community of faith and we will be in eternity together.

Now go find a Bible believing church.... and remember that you have to give it all to Him and that includes your wallet.

With Love in Christ,

LivingTheDream

Friday, February 11, 2005

Change Your Mind

On Wednesday this week I was passing through my regular blog reads and stopped at one of my favorite sites where I was drawn in and touched by the Spirit through the words that were spoken.

It is always a blessing to have the heart be spoken to, the intellect humbled and to have the reality of who we are put before us.

Ash Wednesday. Though not Catholic and having never had ashes on my forehead on that day I find that the call to do so is strong. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” is the opening line on that day's post at It Takes A Church ( http://bolsinger.blogs.com/) .

Lent, how many of us give it anything more than a passing thought these days? How much did Christ prepare for, pray about, and anguish through the days before his death? What would we do if we knew the day and time of our demise as humans?

Maybe we should take some time in this season of Lent to contemplate our demise. And while doing so, work through the challenge of keeping the faith in the victorious resurrection that He provided us the example of. Imagine what Jesus went through as thoroughly man knowing His death was just before Him, knowing as God that this is the will of the Father, being man and having to live the faith needed to go through that ideal, put Himself wholly into the Father's hands believing that the Glory would Rise again on the third day.

Dwell on that and see "the starting point for all spiritual progress, all spiritual attention, all spiritual discipline, is in the acknowledgement of our own genuine humanity and receiving God’s generous mercy." as noted at It Takes a Church.

Pastor Bolsinger says what is needed: humility and grace, the truth of our mortality and the gift of eternal life, ...

"The focus of Ash Wednesday and Lent is repentance. Repentance is literally to “change your mind.”

"And it all begins with this: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. You are human, you are mortal, you are deeply dependent on the God who formed your body from the humus of the earth and breathed life into you with his kiss. God has come to you, in Jesus, O Creature, and called you to have life eternal with him."

I am thankful for being led to this site on Wednesday, Ash Wednesday for as I contemplate on these things, my mind is changed.

Love the Lord, Live The Dream

LivingtheDream

Saturday, February 05, 2005

Contempt for our Military - End It!

As you may know, I regularly read the blog, www.hughhewitt.com and listen to his radio show two or three times a week. The current storm in the political blogosphere is on the comments of Eason Jordan of CNN that our military has targeted journalists for assination in Iraq. The following is an email to Hugh Hewitt in response to both those comments and the MSM (main stream media) in general.

Hugh,

A couple of points instigated by the Jordon remarks. First, where are the comments from the two elected representatives of the people who attended the gathering? Why is there no questioning of them and their positions? Why are THEY not speaking out in absolute horror at such a charge. At least calling for some kind of investigation, which we all know would be fruitless, but would put to rest any further left calling of the military into contempt. The “Silence of the Representatives” of the people is the most disappointing part of this whole debacle.

I served in Jimmy Carter’s Army and know what it is like to live in the contempt of your own government. While in a tank battalion in Korea near the DMZ in 1978 and when called out for alerts from North Korean activity only 17 of the 55 tanks could roll out of the motor pool. No parts for those that sat still and those that did roll had scavenged the others to be functional.

The Tree chopping incident in 1976 when two American officers were killed and we rolled out of our camps to alert positions WITHOUT AMMUNITION as the command was not allowed to issue bullets until the North Koreans had done something more. How many of us would be killed before we could distribute the ammo?

Our fuel oil was removed from our barracks heaters on the 15th of March. Drained dry. It was declared Spring and anyone who has ever been in Korea knows that spring is not really there until the end of May and early June. Nights were cold, but our Commander in Chief would not give us the oil to heat our hooches.

Our training was limited by fuel rationing and no ammunition. When we did have ammunition to fire, we had to collect, count, save and account for all the BRASS from the shells. If it were not for SFC Roy Baumgartner who had fought in the Korean War being able to go to ROK, Korean army compounds and be known for his reputation (see the book “Soldiers” by Anthony B Herbert where Baumgartner is held up as a living, breathing walking legend) and get us fuel, rations and ammunition. The Koreans supplied us better than our Commander in Chief did. We knew contempt!

Apologies for the sidebar there,

Now the second point on the MSM and in all of the posts and commentary I have seen on your site and those linked to your site and others, why is no one questioning the money behind these regular and blatant displays of bias and downright anti-Americanism? Bias or no bias the MSM runs on money. They are businesses. Why when there are such left leanings do the sponsors keep funding these propaganda mills?

The businesses that buy the advertising cannot be enamored by the left policies toward business that a John Kerry or Ted Kennedy would and sometimes do inflict on them in the form of taxes, union support, environment, trade restrictions, minimum wage and other regulations. Yet they continue to pay for this liberal voice at top dollar. I have not seen a discussion of this issue in the blogosphere or anywhere else. Why?

Without the money to support their stands they would stop. Clearly I am not advocating that business dictate the content, but it can demand balance and a return to reporting the news instead of creating it. Where is the accountability for the money? The sponsorships? Tobacco was held accountable for its sponsorships of sporting events, why can we not expect that the automobile industry and the investment industry be questioned for not buying balance? Why would they themselves NOT step up and demand balance as it is in the best interest of their shareholders that they do?

This note and reference to your site will be posted on http://www.theweeds.blogspot.com/

Stb.

LivingTheDream
http://bizwizdumb.blogspot.com/
http://theweeds.blogspot.com/
Livingthedream@socal.rr.com

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Democracy, Freedom – Wisdom to Know

This post about democracy is inspired by the election in Iraq. The pictures of the purple fingers and the smiles and the lines should make us stop and think, and then thank God. And after we have done that, we need to thank those that have come before us and those who now have given and are giving their all in time, talent and lives to present this precious gift to others.

My words do not do justice to what is and has been done so I will offer up some words of others who also have given…

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“… democracy I salute it. I espouse it. I would work for it… I stand upon the foundation of free elections based upon universal suffrage, and that is what we consider the foundation for democracy.

But I feel quite different about swindle democracy, a democracy that calls itself a democracy because it is Left Wing. It takes all sorts to make a democracy, not only Left Wing, or even Communist. I do not allow a party or body to call themselves democrats because they are stretching farther and farther into the most extreme forms of revolution.

I do not accept a party as necessarily representing democracy because it becomes more violent as it becomes less numerous.

One must have some respect for democracy and not use the word too lightly. The last thing which resembles democracy is mob law, with bands of gangsters, armed with deadly weapons, forcing their way into great cities, seizing police stations and key points of government, endeavouring to introduce a totalitarian regime with an iron hand, and clamoring, as they can nowadays if they get the power.

Democracy is not based on violence or terrorism, but on reason, on fair play, on freedom, on respecting the rights of other people. Democracy is no harlot to be picked up in the street by a man with a tommy gun.

I trust the people, the mass of people, in almost any country, but I like to make sure that it is the people and not a gang of bandits who think that by violence they can overturn constituted authority, …”
Sir Winston Churchill

“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.” Abraham Lincoln

“We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. …the goal of America is freedom”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world.” William J. Bennett

“There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of
the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.”

“When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner “Freedom Now” – they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.”
George W. Bush

All the Best, LivingTheDream

PS:
For those who want all the answers on the war in Iraq:
“Of course, on these vast matters on which so many lives depend there is always a great deal of guesswork. So much is unknown and immeasurable. Who can tell how weak the enemy may be behind his flaming fronts and brazen mask? At what moment will his will power break? At what moment will he be beaten down?” Sir Winston Churchill