God’s CPR

I am a licensed CPR instructor for the American Heart Association.   I have been licensed to train those who are willing to serve as foster parents, in the manner to perform CPR.  Once my job required that I did this basically on a monthly basis.  However things change and jobs change, and that is not a bad thing.  As I was thinking about thhe classes that I would no longer be teaching CPR came to mind.  And I started to think about what CPR really is.

Of course it is  two breaths per thirty compressions.  And checking to make sure the scene is safe.  And doing other things not neccessarily in that order.  But those are the steps of CPR, what is CPR?  The answer I could come up with is trying to resart someone’s body by maintaining their heart and circulation functions.  You breath for them, you pump their chest so that the ciruclation will continue to flow throughout their body.  Your end goal is either to  resucitate the person, or keep the person respitory functions going until trained help arrives. All in all a good thing, no one would argue. 

But my thougght process couldn’t stop there.  I began to take it a step further and think about it from a different perspective.  First I looked at it from the perspective of the victim.  If I am unconcious, am I living?  Biologically I would propbably say you were still living.  Mainly because there are only two options.  Living or dead, and if your not dead, well then you are living.  But in that moment when someone else is breathing for you. When someone else is pumping your heart for you.  Are you living?  In one sense of the word I would have to say no.

You are exsisting.  You ar functioning but you are not living.  You are not awake. You are not speaking. You are not thinking.  At the moment when you require CPR you are a biological machine that has broken down and needs assistance in returning to living.  Random thought, yes.  But that is the way that I think.  And the fun doesn’t really stop there.

I began to apply this little thought of what does it mean to be living.  And after chasing a few wild rabbits down there holes I came back to a point that gave me a shiver.  Is God performing CPR on me? 

Think about that.  Is God performing CPR on me, or you?  I am not talking about GOd reeaching down from Heaven and with a huge hand performing CPR on me as I lie in the floor of my living room.  But is He required to perform CPR because I am not living?  Have gotten to a point where I allow the routine of life to become so ordinary that I miss the oppurtunities of each and every moment?  Have I lost focus on the important things of this life? Have I allowed ‘things’ to become my god,  or my focus?  Do I trust more in finacnial securities, or legal systems, or governments than I do in my God?  If I answer yes to any of those then am I living?

My answer……no.  I am functioning. I am a biological machine that operates through this life.  I am missing that I can have a realtionship with God.  Don’t read past that sentence without really thinking about it.  I can have a realitonship with God.   I can have life and life abundantly.  Not through the things of this world, but allowing my trust to be in God.  To be in the one who sustains everything.  There is so much more to life than working and thinking.

Is God standing over me, thumping down in my chest like the do in the movies, or on one of my favorite television shows, MASH.  You know the scene you have seen them on any medical drama.  The doctor stands over the patient pounding away on his chest, sweat is dripping down from his brow, his breath is labored from the exhaustion of performing CPR on a dying man.  And he screams something like, “LIVE! FIGHT!” And then there is that scene where the patient goes on the ventilatior, and the relatives have to make the decision about what to do next. 

What is living? There is so much more to this life, than just functioning day to day.  God is calling for you to live? So why not wake up and live with Him the way He wants you to. If you don’t know Him he still reaches out to you.  And the personal part that made me shiver, I do know Him, but I still ask the question is he perforrming CPR on me? Is my faith just a function of what I do? Is Church just a place I go? Is prayer something I should do? is reading the Bible, reading a book?

Life abudant is waiting, for each one of us to live.

Keeping up with the Jones’

To my friends whose last  name is Jones, don’t worry, read on, this post is not about you.  No, this post is about that old saying ‘Keeping up with the Jones’.  That old say that rings true every day when we look around us.  It hit me this morning and I had to stop and catch myself.  

I was taking my Siberian Husky outside before I left for work and I was walking around our yard. Just letting my mind wander for a little while during the time that Sapphire needed to take care of business.  After a 12 hour work day, and staying up till one thirty to finish the work that I didn’t get done at the office after everyone else went to bed, the fresh air, the sunlight and the gentle Tennessee morning breeze was very peaceful.  I let my eyes wander to the bird flying over the tree tops, the squirrel running up the tree, the sound of the creek running over the rock, for a moment I was back in my mountains of West Virginia. Next thing I know Sapphire runs up to me ready to go back into the house, back to reality.  And don’t get me wrong reality is a wonderful place for me!

As I turned to walk back in the house I noticed that my neighbor has cut her grass last night while I was at work.  Her grass is nice and low and trimmed, and while mine it isn’t tall it is taller than hers.  The first thing that jumps into my mind is that I need to cut my grass.  Grass hat I just cut two days ago, and is not in the need of being cut.  Well not at least until I saw my neighobrs yard.  Then occurs to me that her grass is bermuda , and mine is fescue.  And for those of you that don’t have your own lawns to cut; bermuda grass needs to be cut very low and fescue grows best when it is kept taller. 

Why do we do that?  Yesterday morning I was just admiring how green, well cut, and trimmed that my lawn was looking.  But then my neighbors yard on the other side of me was the same cut, but not my other neighbor.  The moment she cuts her lawn I have to immediately cut mine.  We have to keep up with the Jones, don’t we?  Don’t believe watch your neighborhood this weekend.  One lawnmower will start, very quickly there will be another and another.  You think it is because it is Saturday or something, no no.  It is keeping up with the Jones time.  And I can prove it.  Find the yard that the neighbors on either sid e have cut their grass, see how long it takes for him to get that grass cut?

Funny how we always worrying about how someone else’s yard looks as it compares to ours.  Yet our yard isn’t the same grass, with utterly different growth needs, and plans for care.  If we do that with our yards how much more so do we do that with our lives?

Don’t think so? How long does it take for a new fashion to consume you?  Or, for me, how long does it take for the newest technology toy grab your attention? For me usually it is about two minutes after seeing someone else have it in their hands. 

God never told me to worry about what my neighbor has.  Matter of fact remember that old line, don’t covet your neighbor’s house, wife, or anything? Coming back to you, huh?  What is important is my relationship with him and how my life measures up to his standards.  How my lifestyle reflects him.  So when the Jones try to keep up with me, they are actually trying to keep up with Jesus Christ the Messiah.

Who are you keeping up with?

Deeper Understanding

It is so amazing the unending depths of God’s wisdom. I know that sounds so weird to say He is God, of course he is incredibly intelligent and knows everything, after all He is everything!  I am just in awe everytime I learn something new and my amazement is taken to a new level.  If you read my last post you saw where I was just loving the fact that I received a copy of the ‘Didache’ and beign able to dig into the writings of first century Christian writers.  But I have also been working on my next Sunday school lesson and studying the sixth chapter of Romans.

Now Romans is a deep book that has a lot of theology and God’s teachings for our life. But is so amazing the depth of wisdom, teaching and knowledge that is locked into one small word such as ‘old” or ‘newness’.  How we have one simple word but the deeper meaning holds so much knowledge.  Knowledge that many of us carry around every day in our Bibles but spend an entire life not knowing.

We know how to create a group on Facebook and send out a message to hundreds of people at once.  We can pick up an internet signal at Burger King or McDonalds.  We view websites and send emails from our phones.  We read books that are never printed, and are all on a handheld device where the book is downloaded over the airwaves and into a device.  We can do all of these things by the marvels of technology and revel in the things that it allows us to do. But we don’t understand the treasures that our placed in the Word of God.

Now don’t get me wrong I love all the technology.  I manage groups on Facebook.  I have a mini-laptop that I carry with me everywhere and I am on at this moment writing this post at a local Coffee Shop.  I have a blackberryy phone attached to my hip so when I can not have the computer on I can still get to facebook and my email.  And I am hoping that in the near future I will own a Kindle II so that I can read books digitally and order them and download them directly to the handheld.  But as much as I love these devices that serve me to allow me to do the things that I do more conviently or easier there is a greater tool to for life to function.

That is the Bible. The very word of God. The living word of God that I carry with me, like many of us, wherever I go.  But we look so quickly over words and take them at the worth and don’t study or dig into the word of God.

I know I have talked about this before but I am impressed everyday as I learn more about the Word of God.  Dig in to what GOD has to say to you through His Living Word.

Well Done

Have you ever seen the movie ” 30 days of night”?  I know that it is a movie that is probably not very high on the clean list. It is bloody, yes I agree.  And of course by no means would I consider it a good movie.  The plot was predicatable, acting not very good, and the story line incredibly predictable.  But I love vampire stories.  And in light of it’s recent popularity I know what your next question is, have I seen “Twilight”? And the answer would be, NO.  A story about vampires that do not drink human blood is not a vampire story.  Those stories have nothing to do with vampires.  Stories of vampires are about the struggle of good versus evil, and the darkness versus the light.  That is the story of a vampire.  Okay stepping off this rabbit trail, let me get back to the movie “30 days of night”. 

If you haven’t seen the movie it set in town in Northern Alaska, and where this town is located there is a particular time of year where there is no sun for 30 days.  Perfect feeding ground for vampires, right? And you would be right.  That is the plot of this story, these vampires come into this town and successfully break all communications and isolate those people in the town.  And for 30 days without sun light they have a feeding ground.  So for 30 days of night these survivors struggle to hide, fight and stay alive from the vampires.  Towards the end of the time the vampires realize that the sun will be returning and there is a particular scene which is the round about point of talking about this whole movie.  The lead vampire is sitting down talking to his subordinates and he says to them knowing that there are survivors still hiding in the town, and they have to leave.  Realizing that they will be left behind he makes the statement, ” We have worked to hard to make them believe that we don’t exist.” 

Making someone think that you do not exist is an excellent way to hide, and fight a war.  Think about it.  If you are a vampire and you want to hide your existence, the best way to do is to make people believe that you don’t exist.  Make a stupid movie about a bunch of people going to an eastern european town, or maybe a bunch of boys in Santa Cruz.  then when someone walks along and says there are vampires, everyone will think you are nuts.  The best way to hide is to make your very existence laughable!  Brilliant!

Well I know that vampires do not exist, I know the history behind the legend.  But this morning while driving to my first appointment I was listening to WAY FM morning show and they were talking about the belief in Satan.  Apparently tomorrow night on Nightline there is going to be a discussion of several intellectuals debating the existence of Satan.  There is apparently one man who does not believe in Satan.   That doesn’t surprise me, but then they said that he believed in God and believe in angels.  He just didn’t believe that angels were created with free will, which in essence means that Satan (once an angel) could not rebel if he did not have free will. This would defy the very definition of who Satan is.  And of course if there is no Satan then there is no source of evil.  So the debate continues that there is no source of evil, that all the evil in the world is a result of man’s choices. And I don’t even question that there is evil in man, but I firmly believe that Satan exists.  And is the source of all evil.

So, well done Satan. Well done on convincing the world that you don’t exist.  If you don’t exist we don’t have to worry about you, becuase you are a figment of our imagination.  Then you can have free reign to do whatever you want.  Because no matter what you do you can never get blamed because you don’t exsist.

Everyone in America has the right to believe what they wish, they are given that right in America.  But Christians we must not let Satan establish the belief that he does not exist. We will give him free reign to do as he pleases and lie, steal, destroy as he is desires to do.  I don’t want to preach Satan’s existence but we have to be careful oursleves that we do not trivalize his existence and help his charade that he does not exist.  Because if we fail in our task of sharing salvation, which includes the story and existence of Satan, with the world then there will be many souls that are truly well done in hell when they meet Satan face to face.

Who do you know?

I attended a small group leaders meeting this morning at my church. While we were there one of the things that we were talking about was growth. And of course we began to talk about reaching out to the lost in the community around us.  As a part of that conversation the question was posed to the thirty or so small group leaders who were present, if they knew lost people in their life.  And predominatly everyone raised their hand as we all know someone who does not know Jesus as their Savior.  But as I thought more and more about the question I began to think that I really don’t know anyone who is lost.  I am aware of lost people, or I might associate with them, but I don’t know any lost people in my life.

In case you missed it I am making a jump off the work to know someone.  There are people in my life that I know, or aware of, but I have not invested much time in their lives.  I have not invested the time to get to know them.  I do not avoid them becuase they are lost, but for much more ridiuculous reasons. Because we don’t have the same interstes, or we are of different age groups, or a host of other reasons.  But as I thought more and more about this question I began to think more about this.

If I am truly about the kingdom then those in my life who do not know Christ are the people that I need to invest in. These are the people that I need to get to know.  They may never come to know the Lord as their Savior, but the likelihood that they will never feel, witness, or know the Love of Jesus if I don’t show them is a distinict possibility. 

So if someone asks you if you know someone who doesn’t know the Lord, stop and give that some thought.  Think about how much time you spend with the lost, and then look at how much time Jesus spent with the lost.

A Landmark Day in My Life

What an awesome day at church. Today in services we took part in the Lord’s Table, and as a Deacon I have the oppurtunity to serve communion.  That in itself is always an awesome privelege. But today held a special privelege for me, one that I will not soon forget.

During the second service there was a small presentation where the church presented me with my License to Gospel Ministry.  While officially this happened on December 10, 2008 that was the filling out and processing of the paperwork.  But today was the presentation in front of the church body.  It was short, it was too the point, but it was one of the moments I will never forget in my life.

For those that aren’t in the church world, or more specifically the Southern Baptist world, what this means is the church is putting a stamp of agreement on my calling to full time Ministry.  From my point of it is the next step in surrendering my life to full time ministry.  God placed a calling on my life when I was a youth at Brookside Baptist Church in Reynoldsburg, Ohio.  It was after that I went on to Taylor University and received degrees in Youth Ministry and Urban Ministry.  Then naturally I went on to serve in a couple of churches as the full time youth minister over the next several years. 

Six years ago I came to Columbia, TN and time flew by.  And this is the longest I have ever lived in one place my entire life.  To some people, like my wife, who have lived in the same area their entire lives this isnot such a special thing. But more importantly I have never been a part of one church, as a child, youth or adult, whether as a member or staff for this long.  There have been many things that I have done n ministry since I first accepted that calling that were absolutetly wrong. And to those I hurt I humbly ask your forgiveness.

Over the past five years God has used this time, this place, and this church to help me heal. To teach me so many things as a disciple of Christ.  But most of all this was the place that he had prepared for me when he called me to ministry twenty years ago.  This was the place that was designed to help me understand, to have perspective of ministry. And has God has prepared me and walked with me through this time of discipleship he has put people in my life that helped me to recover, to learn and to grow. 

And then today the church that for the first time in my life I call my church home, put its stamp of agreement on my calling into ministry and licensed me as a Minister of the Gospel! How wonderful a thing! How awesome a thing that God would not only choose me to die for me and pay for my sins, but to choose me as one who would carry his word to those that are lost!

I have no idea what the future holds. All I know is the prayer I shared to today with our Head Deacon at the altar.  After the presentation there was a message, and then a time of inivation and altar call before the communion time.  I went forward and had to pray.  I had to step forward and acknowledge the gift, the responsibility, and confess to God publicly at the altar that his servant was listening and waiting for a direction. That his servant no longer would attempt to control his life but surrenedered it wholly to the call that He has given me.

To those of my family and friends who were in attendance at this admittedly short presentation, THANK YOU.  It was a day that I will never forget and I will not forgot those who shared this next step in my journey with me.

Slap in the face

Facebook is a funny beast.  We talk about all of these social networking websites that disconnect us from people and remove us from human interactions.  While I don’t argue that these sights, like facebook and myspace, can draw us away from interaction from others.  And I will admit that I am right now sitting in the living room writing this post, and I have facebook pulled up on another tab.  And I have a couple of instant message conversations going with a couple of the kids in the youth group and the head deacon at the church at this very moment. But these sights have a definte upside for people like me. 

Growing up I moved alot.  Until high school I never really lived anywhere long enough to develop a long time friend.  But it took all of about five minutes before I headed off to another town for college. And of course I couldn’t possibly go to school with anyone I knew.  Then after college decided I had to move again.  I have lived in Columbia, TN for six years now, and it is the longest timeframe I have ever lived one place for my entire life.  So facebook and myspace (which I gave up on) have allowed me to reconnect with friends from college and high school and even farther back that I have lost touch with.  To the friends I have reconnected with, I admit that I purposefully allowed those disconnections to happen and for that I apologize.

So yesterday I received a friend request from a high school friend that I have not spoken to since graduation many years ago.  And of course I was glad to receive the request, so I accepted.  Then today I received a message in my facebook inbox from her.  And in the message she complimented me on the life that I had been able to create. But the thing that slapped me in the face the most was the fact that she complimented me on knowing what I wanted back in high school, which was working with youth and also in the church, and then as she wrote, chasing after my dream and achieving them.  That blew me away!

While the compliment was extremely nice it made me stop and think for a moment. In high school there was one thing that I wanted to do with my life. And that was to work with youth and the church in some way.  I knew that with all my heart, and if you asked me what would make me happy it would to be doing just that, no matter what.  And low and behold many years later, that is exactly what I am doing.  Yet I forgot that was my dream!

I had gotten so caught up in what I don’t have, or what I want that I taughtly missed the wonderful things that I have in my life. And the dreams that I have acheived.  A simple comment from a long lost friend and it made my heart soar.  I drove back to work from having lunch at the house and just had to sing praises to God the whole way back.  The car is the only place I am allowed to sing as no one has to be tortured by my singing.  How quickly we get lost in the things we don’t have or want and miss the wonderful dreams that are coming to life everyday in your daughter’s laughter, your wife’s beautiful smile, the sight of your home after a long day.

Thank you God for the dreams come true that you have given me! The dreams are to many to list! You truly are a wonderful and might God!

The Universe Points to His Glory

For all the scientists out there, and for all the students who have a hard time convincing these people regarding the 
truth of the Bible, here’s something that shows God’s awesome creation, and that He is still in control. 
 
Did you know that the space program is busy proving that  what has been called ‘myth’ in the Bible is true? 
 
Mr. Harold Hill, President of the Curtis Engine Company in  Baltimore, Maryland, and a consultant in the space program, relates the following development. 
 
I think one of the most amazing things that God has done for us today happened recently to our astronauts and space scientists at Green Belt, Maryland. 
 
They were checking out where the positions of the sun,  moon, and planets would be 100 years and 1,000 years from  now.. We have to know this so we won’t send up a  satellite and have it bump into something later on in its 
orbits. 
 
We have to lay out the orbits in terms of the life of the  satellite and where the planets will be so the whole thing 
will not bog down.They ran the computer measurement back and  forth over the centuries, and it came to a halt. The computer stopped and put up a red signal, which meant that  there was something wrong with either the information fed into it or with the results as compared to the standards. 
 
They called in the service department to check it out, and  they said, ‘What’s wrong?’ Well, they found 
there is a day missing in space in elapsed time. 
 
They scratched their heads and tore their hair out.. There was no answer. 
 
Finally a Christian man on the team said, ‘You know,  one time I was in Sunday School, and they talked about the 
sun standing still.’ While they didn’t believe him,  they didn’t have an answer either, so they said,  ‘Show us, ‘ 
 
He got a Bible and went to the book of Joshua where they found a pretty ridiculous statement for any one with 
‘common sense.’ 
 
There they found the Lord saying to Joshua, 
 
‘Fear them not, I have delivered them into thy hand; 
there shall not a man of them stand before Thee.’ 
 
Joshua was concerned because he was surrounded by the enemy!  And if darkness fell, they would overpower them. So Joshua  asked the Lord to make the sun stand still! That’s  right… ‘The sun stood still and the moon stayed and  lasted not to go down about a whole day!’  (Joshua 10:12-13) 
 
The astronauts and scientists said, There is the missing  day! They checked the computers going back into the time it  was written and found it was close but not close enough. The elapsed time that was missing back in Joshua’s day was 23 hours and 20 minutes, not a  whole day. 
 
They read the Bible, and there it was about [approximately] a day. These little words in the Bible are important, but they were still in trouble because if you cannot account for 40 minutes, you’ll still be in trouble 1000 years from now. 
 
Forty minutes had to be found because it can be multiplied many times over in orbits. As the Christian employee thought about it, he remembered somewhere in the Bible where it said the sun went BACKWARDS. 
 
The scientists told him he was out of his mind, but they got out the Book and read these words in 2 Kings that told of the following story: Hezekiah, on his death bed, was visited by the prophet Isaiah who told him that he was not going to die. Hezekiah asked for a sign as proof. Isaiah  said ‘Do you want the sun to go ahead 10 degrees ?’ 
Hezekiah said, ‘It is nothing for the sun to go ahead 10 degrees, but let the shadow return backward 10 
degrees.’ Isaiah spoke to the Lord, and the Lord brought the shadow ten degrees BACKWARD! Ten degrees is exactly 40 minutes! 
 
Twenty-three hours and 20 minutes in Joshua, plus 40 minutes in Second Kings make the missing day in the 
universe! Isn’t it amazing? 

 
References: Joshua 10:8 and 12,13 and 2 Kings 20:9-11.

The changing leaves

Well this morning I was outside taking my dog Sapphire out to take care of her business.  As I stood there I was looking around the neighborhood at the brisk morning, that fall was slowly starting to gain control of, when I caught sight of the Red Maple tree in our backyard. 

We had this Red Maple planted at the slope of the hill, and as the weather has started to change so have it’s leaves.  They turn a wonderful shade of red, that reminds me of fall in Michigan with all the vibrant, bright colors.  While leaves turning in the fall is no real big surprise, the way they wore turning was what caught my eyes.

All along the backside of the tree all the leaves have turned red.  And there was a small overlap on the top where the red had crawled over the apex of the tree and started to work it’s way down the front of the tree.  I pondered for a moment why one side of the tree’s leaves were still green and the other was red as it could be.  Then Sapphire finished her business and started to sprint back towards the house, and I turned to go with her. It was when I turned that I go my answer.

As I turned around the morning sun beamed directly into my eyes, and temporarily blinded me.  I paused for a moment and looked back at the tree. It was the sun that was keeping the leaves green.  The front of the tree faced towards the east, and the rising sun.  But the backside of the tree faced toward the west, where the sun set.  But more importantly to the west of this four year old maple trees are five oak trees that are at least twenty years old and tower above the little Maple tree.  So in the evening they block the sun from reaching the maple tree.  So only the side facing the sun gets the most warmth and energy from the sun.

While this is a sheer fact of nature that could be proven any in third grade science experiement, or found in any science book in print, I know. But as I was beginning my day and had just finsihed reading my daily chapter of proverbs I began to think how much we are like that little Maple tree.

When we keep ourselves facing God, and draw our energy from Him, he will give us everything that we need to stay strong, even when the seasons change in our lives.  It is only when we turn ourselves away from him, or along things to get between him and us that we beginning to grow weary and tired, and the color of our lives begins to fade away. 

I wish that I could say that I spent the rest of the day keeping my face towards God at every moment.  But I didn’t.  The things of the day, the paperwork, the calls, the meetings quickly clogged the day and while occasionaly I would glance over at my Bible sitting on my desk I can not honestly say that I kept my face towards God all throughout the day and kept things from getting in the way.

Privelege versus Right

The other day I was involved with my small group and we were in the middle of a discussion.  We were discussing some of the pressures that Christians face around the world and also here in the United States. Now while there is no comparision between the two types of persecution, and I hestitanly use the word persecution when referring to Christians here in America.

The discussion covered varying topics, and quickly revovled around the struggles here in the United States as that was the experience of almost everyone in the room.  Many of us never facing persecution as others do in other countries around the world for our faith.  We talked about how it was the standard today that all faiths were protected today in the United States but Christianity.  How it was okay that Christians could be made fun of and that was acceptable. 

As the discussion began to evolve it quickly turned to things like we have the right to freedom, we have the right to this.  And in America we do have all of these religious freedoms, and thank God for those blessings! But that got me to thinking about the difference between priveleges and rights.

Now I firmly believe that one day in America Christians will be openly persecuted like they are in a majority of countries around the world.  But when that time comes and America turns away from the one true God and accepts the God of political correctness, Christians might have a wake up call. 

In America we have freedoms, we have rights, and we have priveleges.  But we have to remember where those freedoms, rights and privleges are coming from.  Those things all come from the Contsitution, the Bill of Rights and the laws of this great country.  And while this country is a blessing from God, and was created by those seeking freedoms to worship God by their choices, it is not a country that is guarnteed by God.

America is by far the best country in the entire world, and I love her.  But I have to remind myself that the things that I have here, while given  by God, are not guarnteed by God.  Which means that at anytime they can be removed.  I am not talking about God’s hand of protection here over the country. I am talking about his hand of protection over his disciplies, his children here in America.  No where in the word of God does it state that we will have the right to free speech, the right of religous freedom, the right to gather and assemble, the right to worship God without the fear of punishment or persecution.

Here is a little seceret the Bible actually says the opposite. It tells us that the world will hate us, because it hated him first.  If you think of America as a shield of protection against persecution, that shield is only as thick as a piece of paper.  The paper that the laws are written on which give us that protection.  It does not take much to destroy or change paper.  And one day when that shield is gone, Christians need to watch that they don’t turn to God and say but yo gave us this freedom.

And he did give it to us, but he doesn’t guarntee it!  It is a privelege and not a right!  The only right that we have is to follow Him. And His life and death was not the American Dream! But all praises be to the Lamb that His life, and His Death were enough for my salvation!

Thank God now for the blessings that we have in America.  But remember that they are only blessings, and such blessings are not guarntees for the disciplies of Christ.