INDEPENDENCE!

by HAILE NKRUMAH GAULT A Child, once under the control and guidance of his/her parents, leaves home one day to go to college, join the military, get married, get a job in another part of the country, or one of a number of other endeavors. The parents have done the best they know how to raise the child, or perhaps they did not. Nevertheless the child, now of age, flies the coop in independence! An Inmate has spent days, weeks, months or years behind bars paying society for a crime he/she has (or unfortunately, has not) committed. The parole board has met and assessed the inmate's prison behavior record, or the inmate has "maxed out" his/her prison sentence. After a period of confinement and duress the inmate is released back into society to gain their independence! The Israelites sold themselves into slavery to Pharaoh in Egypt because of a very severe famine in their own land, and they remained enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. God chose a young man named Moses, a man born a Hebrew but raised an Egyptian by (the new) Pharaoh's daughter, to lead the Israelites to freedom. Most of the Israelites had only known life in slavery; the concept of liberation was unknown. Yet God used Moses to purge them from captivity via the Red Sea to independence! When Jesus Christ came to earth the entire world was in captivity to sin. It was the reason He came here, to free us from our sins. To do so He had to submit Himself to die, be buried (entombed), and then be raised from death to life on the third day. Now anyone in the world, after accepting His gift of eternal life by obeying the gospel can, from sin and eternal death, gain their independence! The Nazi Party was formed in Germany by Adolph Hitler in the early 1930's. Hitler's aim was to drive out and/or murder all "undesirables" from the country. For those whom did not escape or leave willingly, Hitler took hostage, tortured and starved with the eventual intention to exterminate. These victims were mostly Jews, however other victims included homosexuals, the disabled, the mentally ill, the Polish, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other POW's. For twelve years their incarceration and progressive annihilation took place. Yet the Soviet, British and American military forces in April 1945 won for the survivors their independence! The American War of Independence was a battle between the 13 British colonies of North America (New Hampshire, Massachusetts [including Maine], Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York [including Vermont], New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia [including West Virginia and Kentucky], North Carolina [including Tennessee], South Carolina and Georgia) versus the Empire of Great Britain. Since 1608 the colonies had been under British rule, but the North American colonies rebelled against Great Britain and on July 4, 1776 proclaimed independence! [Of course, this independence was not extended to blacks held in bondage. In 1787 and 1788 these thirteen colonies became the United States of America, and her first president, George Washington, was elected in 1789.] The year 1619 began 246 years of the kidnapping, bondage and physical/mental mistreatment of West Africans in the United States of America. The Europeans sought slave labor to plow, plant and harvest the land - and also to otherwise serve their masters - a land and native people they had raped years before. The Natives were not going to submit to this type of back-breaking treatment, so the colonists sought to gain the trust of an unsuspecting group of people on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Like the Israelites in Egypt, most of the black slaves over their 240+ years of captivity had never known freedom. Yet when the southern states threatened to secede from the United States, it cracked open the door for the thousands of captives. President Abraham Lincoln led the fight in the War Between the States, and though it was not initially his intention to free the slaves, his preservation of the Union freed them at war's end in April 1865 to gain their independence! "With liberty and justice for ALL!" H A P P Y   I N D E P E N D E N C E   D A Y ,   A M E R I C A !

RAINBOW DISPLAY NO REASON TO FACEBOOK "Unfriend"

by Steve C. Singleton    DeeperStudy Some Christian friends of mine have begun "unfriending" anyone they know who superimposes a rainbow flag over their Facebook photo. Please let me urge you not to do that. Three Categories Those displaying the rainbow flag fall into three categories. The motives and rationale are different in each group. 1) Many people in the U.S. believe that the triumph of Same-Sex Marriage advocates is a civil rights issue analogous to the historic movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for voting, housing, and service in businesses to be colorblind. They are celebrating Same-Sex Marriage, not as an affront to biblical morality but as a victory for justice. We all want justice to prevail in our country—Christians as much as everyone else, if not more. 2) Others have friends and/or relatives who are gay, and they sympathize with them and join them in celebrating this victory for their cause. 3) For a third group this victory is really personal because it is not just a struggle of someone with whom they empathize; it is their own struggle. What they have longed to do for many years is now legal, and they feel vindicated by the Supreme Court decision. Why we should not "unfriend"? I would urge my fellow believers not to unfriend anyone in these three groups, thus cutting yourself off from the possibility of having communication with them. We should stay connected, even if we can't agree that Gay Marriage is a good idea. We should continue to interact, continue to dialogue, and maintain our relationships as an expression of the Second Great Command of Jesus, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31, in which Jesus is quoting Leviticus 19:18). Want to go deeper? 1. Consider these words by Jesus and Paul: Jesus – “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.” (Matthew 5:13). “Losing its saltiness” seems to mean becoming conformed to the standards of the world, becoming so worldly that there is no difference between Christians and non-Christians. Obviously we should avoid doing that. But isn’t there also an opposite danger? Some would describe it as “staying in the salt-shaker,” or becoming "cloistered," or turning ourselves into a "Christian enclave" — aloof from any contact with people with whom we disagree and therefore isolated from any possibility that we could have a positive effect on them. Paul – “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:5-6). Paul assumes that we do not break off contact. He challenges us to engage in conversation, and with such a good attitude that our dialogue partner finds the incident “tasty.” Part of what it takes to do this is to lower your expectations for such an interchange. Don’t think the occasion is a failure if you don’t persuade the other person to become committed to following God and His Word. Seek to understand where the other person is coming from, what their interests are, and their reasoning on this or any other issue. Then try to communicate in a clear and loving way your understanding. Find things you can agree on; build common ground. Try to encourage them as a person. 2. Take a look at this blog entitled, “Cloistered Christianity” by Carl Ruby www.carlruby.com/cloistered-christianity/. Dr. Ruby is saying the same thing as I am. Now it’s your turn. Am I wrong-headed about this? What do you think? Please "share" and "like" if you find this helpful or even if you think it is just a good stimulus for discussion.

MOMMY'S OBITUARY †

IT'S ALL PERSPECTIVE

I The are some cultures of people whom speak loudly to one another. From the outside looking in it appears that they are upset with one another - arguing their respective points. But they're not upset at all. It's just their way of communicating as to how they've grown accustomed. It's all perspective. II On earth a year is a long time - 365 days, and 24 hours is only one of those 365 days because it takes the earth 24 hours to complete one revolution on its own axis while taking 365 days to complete one revolution around the sun. But on the planet Mercury it's quite different. It orbits the sun once every 88 earth days, yet it takes 176 earth days for it to complete one revolution on its own axis. So Mercury's year is shorter than its day. It's all perspective. III In Canada and the northern United States we associate cooler weather and the changing of the leaves with September and October. Just the mention of these months conjures thoughts of harvest, hay in the barn, football and cross country, and the new school year. But in the southern hemisphere - like in Australia, autumn for them is our spring. March, April and May is when the air turns crisp and the leaves turn gold. It's all perspective. IV Sometimes it seems like there's no way out of misery. Every day that arrives is another day to suffer in silence and despise the sun for making yet another appearance. Sometimes it seems no matter how hard I try I just can't do anything right. Now at age 52, what do I have to show for my life? Still a schmuck after all these years? V Well, with God available at just a call from my throat, nothing is hopeless! There are always possibilities! If everybody on this earth were to write me off, they'd be in the minority because where God is concerned He is always the majority. If God is all I have, God is all I need. If He be for you, who can be against you? He makes a way out of no way. When all around me gives way, He, then, is my hope and stay! As long as I am breathing there is hope! Really ... it's all perspective! COPYRIGHT © HAILE NKRUMAH GAULT ~ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.