Morality and Government

I am taking a course on Public Relation Principles...

As I was reading today this thought came to me:

Why does the GOVERNMENT have to regulate what is acceptable and moral or unoffensive in our mass media and in the business/corporate world?...

It used to be where even though a profit was desired, integrity and moral and ethic values where upheld by those doing business with another. People used to adhere to a higher standard... God's Standard! A handshake was enough. A man's word was binding...

...When we remove God from the picture, who is left to say what's right and wrong?... Apparently, the government from what I can tell! Wow, how bad is our society today that we need the government to rule over and tell us what's right and wrong. We need the government to keep companies in check. To make sure the "public" is not harmed, etc...

Well, at least there is one thing many people like about this compromise... Without God and a higher standard, people no longer have to worry about morality. They can do whatever they want with a "free and clear" conscience... At the price of our government running our lives and telling us what's right and wrong...

So, without God and an eternal purpose in life, what's left is the bottom dollar $$$!... And getting everything you can from this life... Survival of the fittest as they say...

... How sad, truly sad :(

"The Main Thing"

"The main thing in life, is to keep the main thing the main thing."
- L. Acoca

Announcement: We will be meeting tomorrow as usual...

Serene Bean
5:30pm

...Be There or be square ;-)

"The Funk" - Comment/Followup

So much of the Bible seems utopian, because we fail to TRUST GOD with our all. We want to believe in His promises, but we also want to do things our way and in our time...

The problem with our Christian walk (AKA, "The Funk") is that we don't trust God.

Fear, complacencies and the everyday affairs of this life "entangle" us so easily sometime (Hebrews 12:1-3).

"thinking to much" - "...It's too easy to get so caught up in the paralysis of analysis that we fail to act." - Brother Andrew "The Calling"

Funk

Happy Wednesday to you all!

So let’s cut to the chase….

Lately, I have really been in a funk. (Seriously, I’ve been searching all week for the best word to describe it, and I feel that “funk” expresses how I feel quite nicely, lol.) A spiritual funk.

When about I think about it though, is God fundamentally different in His relationship with me now than with how He related to me when I was on a spiritual high? No. So the blame falls squarely on my shoulder. This “funk” is my fault; there is something that I need to learn, change, correct, or whatever. (Hebrews 13:8) Now I need to find out what it is and heed to whatever it is God has in store for me.

One thing that I have been learning is that I think too much. Is this a bad thing? Alas, I do not know. However, at times, it can cloud certain situations. Brother Andrew says that “it is through the paralysis of analysis that we fail to act.” You see, when we spend time thinking over ever possible scenario and searching for every intricacy, we tend to lose sight of what we already know.

You know what I am talking about… When you think and rethink and over-think a question on an exam, what happens? You rarely get it right; you either get it wrong or run out of time to answer it altogether. Well, I think this can transfer over to our spiritual life as well (Big surprise, huh?!).

We try so hard to discern God’s will. We wonder what He has in store for us. We attempt to discover where He wants to take us. But we try so hard; we search relentlessly. And all the while, His answer is right in front of our nose. In a manner of speaking, we need to forget about what Jesus would do and begin focusing on what Jesus already did! We already know the basics of the faith: we know God wants all to come to the knowledge of Him; we know God is going to continue working in our life; we know God will never leave us nor forsake us; we know; we know; we know… We know all these magnificent promises, yet we still don’t act! We hypothesize and theorize, and ultimately go nowhere.

We must act. Go! We already know what God wants. So what’s holding us back? I think that is a question only you can answer. Don’t worry about what could/would/should happen. Realize what God has already done for you and use that to fuel you now!

MTI

Wait - II

Ok, so, good morning? I am burning the midnight oil, but still want to spam out this e-mail so that you all can wake up and have it in your inbox.

For me, staying up late isn't too bad - I get a lot of my hilarious jokes and quirky statements at this hour (you can tell, huh? =P)

Allow me to take you on a journey into my mind:

I was attempting to fall asleep one evening up in Georgia, and a rather strange image bombarded my mind. It was of a infant. This child was laboriously jamming a square peg into a slot intended for a circular disk. I am sure you are familiar with those puzzle-type games. Now, as you know, the Lord has been showing and teaching me about waiting on Him; naturally, I drew a connection between this infant and my own life. Allow me to explain.

You see, a lot of times, we are that child. We get impatient with God. We know that God has a plan for us, there are countless verse that attest to this truth. However, we get antsy. We fail to wait on Him, and begin to take matters into our own hands. We take that square peg and jam it into the round hole. If we try hard enough, the jagged edges of the peg will soon dull, and I am sure that it could fit into the round slot. Two things happen at this point: (1) The square peg is out of place; it doesn't quite fit. (2) It blocks the originally intended piece from finding its niche.

I hope I am making sense... let me now relate this to our spiritual lives. When we fail to wait on God and take things in our own hand, we are missing out on the blessing! Recall that "waiting on Him" is the constant recognition of God's commitment to fulfill His promises and our active preparations to both invite and welcome His blessing. By waiting on Him, we are conceded control and letting Him call the shots. We no longer recognize His potency and distrust Him to keep His promise. You may be serving in the church, and you may be doing things to keep us occupied - but it is not what God has intended for you. You are merely filling a position; You are doing a job, a task. It will not be as fulfilling as what God has intended for you, based on the unique intricacies with which He crafted you. What's more, you will be stopping someone else for serving in the position that was intended for them!

My, oh my, I hope this is as clear to you as it is to me! Please, do not hesitate to contact me if you would like me to elaborate on an individual basis. Right now, I am the point where God cannot not teach me (knowledge) on waiting. I need to take the next-step and begin applying it: which is what I am trying. I'll tell you, it is difficult, especially with my nature. I want to control everything. But by waiting on God, and allowing Him to work, I am given Him authority over my life, and showing Him that His will is more important than my own (Read Proverbs 3:5,6)

Good night

MTI

Can You See the Sun Behind the Clouds?

This morning after working out with Armando, I went and got breakfast, and then I sat to read my bible. I've only read a little bit and will finish later but, this epiphany came to me and I could not pass writing on it.

So...today is very windy and cloudy here in Kennesaw, and it looks like a bleak, pointless day. I was staring out into the sky when it occurred to me that the sun was still shining behind the clouds. Just because I can't see the sun right now doesn't mean it is not there. So do I lose hope and stop believing in the sun?(I hope none of you think that way) No, of course not, the sun is still providing warmth and light to the whole planet but it is blurred by clouds at the moment.

I think this is very important to reflect on during Easter. When we were without a relationship with God this whole life appears shrouded in gray. Society tells us that because everything is gray that the most important thing is the moment. Embrace the moment for all the pleasure it's worth. And they say that there is no sun to warm our hearts to begin with.
And for those of us who have felt the warmth of the sun this is ridiculous, there is no use debating whether or not the sun is there. We have felt it and know it is there. And we can attest to that warmth in our lives. For it may appear that the sun is not shining for you at the time but it is still there and always will be. And that sun is a promise of something more.

So...can you see the sun behind the clouds?

"My Mind is Made Up"

Unfortunately, this is the mentality of many today when it comes to their position. This old age adage describes it very well...

"Don't confuse me with the facts; my mind is made up."

Announcement: we will be meeting tonight like usual at the Serene Bean at 5:30pm - We will have Mikey from Miami join us, so you don't want to miss tonight :) Come ready to have a good time of encouragement where we discuss our lives and our Christian Faith...

God Bless -

Test Post

Mr. Anderson is in the House!... Dennis has joined the CCA BLOGing crew - JJ

Wait

The Lord has been showing this week about waiting on Him. One question that constantly permeates throughout my mind is this: If we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, like it mentions in Ephesians, why don't we have all of them now? (I don't know if this is the right answer, but it is probably an interesting way of looking at it...) I think it is because God withholds some of them from us in order to teach us invaluable lessons. He mainly does this through having us wait. Waiting is perhaps the method most used by God to chisel away at and refine our character. Unfortunately, we are terrible at waiting.

Haven't you notice that our lives run much smoother when we go through green lights, rather than sitting at the red ones? We live in a "Microwave Generation." We want everything now. Think of the difference between a TV Dinner and a real home-cooked meal. You must sacrifice quality in order to get it quicker. Doesn't that summarize things of this world all too well? Those "technological advances" intended to expedite our lives have caused us to compromise and lower our standards of quality. This is applicable to our spiritual lives, also. We wake up and look for our "quick-fix" of Scripture and claim that we spent time with the Lord. As corny as this metaphor may sound about our spiritual life - God is calling us to a Thanksgiving day feast that takes the entire day to prepare, yet we are settling for the frozen TV dinner that is still a little cold in the center. It is all summed up in the fact that we are not willing to wait on God.

Normally, when I think of waiting, I think of people mindlessly sitting in dull room, like a doctors office, awaiting to be called. I used to think that "being still before God" was equivalent to "waiting on Him." Nope. "Being still" is more of a reflective admiration of God's sovereignty over our individual lives and desires, whereas "waiting on Him" is the constant recognition of God's commitment to fulfill His promises and our active preparations to both invite and welcome His blessing. Waiting is not passive; it is proactive! If we are not constantly learning and allowing to mold our character, we are not truly waiting.

We must wait more, because we are lousy at waiting. I am praying for you all. See you soon

MTI

Faith

... and just like that we are in March. I cannot believe that this year is going by so quickly. But then I stopped and think, "Don't I say this every year?" lol. That's not all, though.The worst part is that I devised a theory justifying why this happens; don't worry, that explanation is for another day (or not =P).

Anyway, on to something a bit more serious. God really convicted me, through another person, about how I spend my time in the car. It's not that I spend my time driving idly, however, I could spend it a more wisely. Normally, I would either be on the phone or listening to Casting Crowns, which, again, is not bad. Nevertheless, I realized that I need to spend that time feed myself a little bit more, so I downloaded some free sermons by James MacDonald (oneplace.com) and am now beginning to listen to those. The messages I downloaded were about Faith, so that is what I have been learning about recently.

What I gathered from his preaching was phenomenal. We must remember that God is not here for us, but rather, we are here for Him! That is where faith comes in: since we are here for Him, we must understand that He calls the shots, that He will lead us according to His will, and He will provide for our needs, as well as fulfill all the promises He set forth in Scripture. Ultimately, though, God does not merely reward our faith. He rewards the manifestation of our faith in drawing us closer to Him (Heb 11:6, Jas 4:8). I could have all the faith in the world, but if that is not drawing me nearer to God, then it means nothing!

This is a good test for faith: Does your belief of God outweigh your belief in God?* Namely, are your directing your life according to God's precepts? (*Wrap your mind around that one for a while)

Faith is the funnel through which all grace flows (Eph 2:8, 9). By it, we worship according to His Word, walk according to His way and work according to His will.

Ok, I may have jammed to much information into those paragraphs, sorry. But I've been learning so much, and I wanted to share in this area. Give me a call if you want to discuss it further! Maybe we can make some more sense of it that way

MTI

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CCA @ The Serene Bean