Revival and the Heart

We do not need a change of Politicians, we do not need a change of Laws, we do not need a change of our Nation, we do not need a change of Morality. What we need is a change of hearts, for when the heart changes the Politicians change, the Laws change, the Nation changes, and the Morality changes.

Pray for change of hearts in our nation!

2 Chr 7:14
14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
(NIV)

Is it Politics or Is it the Church

John Adams, the second president of the United States, wrote, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.... Free government rests upon public and private morality." It is not our government that has failed; it's the church that has failed to be the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13).

Read what Dr. Jedediah Morse said in 1799: "In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief, or the corruption of its doctrines, or the neglect of its institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom...Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all the blessings which flow from them, must fall with them." He was saying that Christianity, not government, is the driving force behind true freedom.

When World War II brought America back to her knees, a revival broke out that is still referred to as the era of the highest church attendance in recent history. A time of repentance and seeking God brought peace and a period of great prosperity. But sadly, the result was a church that was lulled to sleep. While it was sleeping, a generation of "baby boomers" became obsessed with materialism and freedom from moral constraint.

How did the church react? In a variety of ways, some of which were very good. People began seeking the Lord, and the Lord answered through what is often called "The Jesus People Movement," "The Charismatic Movement," "The Word of Faith Movement," "The Lay Witness Renewal," and others. These revivals were not spearheaded by any individual, yet they had worldwide impact. Truly these were mighty moves of God's Spirit.

Yet, as a whole, the church responded by promoting political involvement as the answer to society's woes. Make no mistake--Christians who live in a country that provides them the freedom to govern through voting or holding political office have a responsibility to participate. However, for many, politics has not been a weapon against the moral decline; it has been the only weapon.

The `70s and `80s saw the largest influx of Christians into the political process in recent history, and it did produce some good results. It influenced who was elected president and helped change the balance of power in Congress and the Supreme Court. Although some good came of it and the potential destruction of our nation was stayed off a little longer, it hasn't turned the tide. There are still millions of innocent children killed every year. Immorality continues to advance nearly unchecked. And some of our so-called "conservative" Supreme Court appointees defied logic by turning the government loose in ways that would have caused our Founding Fathers to mount a revolution.

Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth president of the United States (1923-1929), declared, "The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them [the foundations of society] if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country" (brackets mine).

Our society isn't sick because of the government; it's sick because the church has not made faith in the teaching of the Bible "practically universal in our country." Once we cease to win the hearts of man, it is inevitable that ungodly people will make their way into leadership and take the country with them.

If we change people's hearts with the Gospel, the people will change the government with their votes. Government merely reflects what people believe in their hearts; it does nothing to form those beliefs. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, wrote in the late 1600s, "Government seems to me to be a part of religion itself.... Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad."

It's good to pursue legal action and political means to right wrongs. But the power of the Gospel has more power to change the hearts of man than all the military might and legislative bodies of any government. Billy Graham understood that when he was asked to run for president in the 1950s. He responded by saying he would not lower himself to that position. He was not attempting to diminish the office of the president; he was elevating the office of a minister of the Gospel.

Elias Boudinot, president of the Continental Congress in 1783 and later congressman from New Jersey who served as president of the American Bible Society, said "the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow."

There is a civil war going on in America today, but it is not political. Sure, the courtrooms and congressional halls are the battlegrounds, but the war itself is between light and dark--the truth of the Gospel and the lies of the devil. It's between the people of God and the children of the devil.

In this war, the Enemy tries to hide his true objectives behind the mask of individual rights and personal liberties. But make no mistake: The real goal is the elimination of God and His influence from society so people can indulge in their carnal lifestyles without conviction or guilt.

The way to win this war and save the political character of this nation is to change the moral character of its people with the Gospel. Our Founding Fathers understood that. Dr. Benjamin Rush said in 1786, "Nothing can be politically right that is morally wrong."

The church needs to refocus its energies back to the Great Commission that our Lord Jesus Christ gave us: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen" (Matt. 28:19-20).

The Word “Pen” is Mightier than the Sword

Proverbs 18:21
21 The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

This verse does not say that death and life and a lot of nonproductive words are in the power of our tongues. There are only two options. Every word we speak, or hear spoken, produces only death or life. Jesus said in Mt 12:36-37, "But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."

Many people who don't realize the power of their own words are talking themselves to death. They speak forth whatever negative thing they feel or have been told, and don't realize they are signing their own death warrants and because of their leadership they sign it for others also. One of the things in life has taught us is that everything roles downhill, from the leaders on down. We have been as a nation for the last four decades been taken granted for the words that we speak and how it teaches others through the years how to act. If the leaders do it, it must be okay for us to do it.

The bible teaches us that there are consequences for the words that we speak. The world says that “sticks and stones will break your bones and names will never hurt you. “ They are wrong on that account, many people have been wounded by the words someone spoke and the numbers are astronomical. We are now finding out that sticks and stones will break our bones for the words that we have spoken.

Matthew 12:37
37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."

The Lord will use our words on the Day of Judgment to administer His justice. Our words are the true revelation of what's in our hearts (Mt 12:34 For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks).

God will not accept the excuse "Oh, I didn't mean anything by that" when we stand before Him. We will be held accountable for our words. If we think about that, we will change our conversations.

As I heard our President of these United States on Wednesday January 12, 2011 speak one of the more powerful addresses that Mr. Obama has delivered as president, harnessing the emotion generated by the shock and loss from Saturday’s shootings in Arizona to urge Americans “to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully” and to “remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.”

The President mentions our words “At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do,” he said, “it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

The bible teaches us to do the same, let us be leaders by leading by example.

Forgiveness to the Banks but no Forgiveness to Their Customers

The many banks who were helped through the financial crisis are failing their own customers. It seems that our Government, and the people forgave the Banks their debts. The Banks were helped by loans and given time to repay those loans. But the banks have forgotten what reciprocity means. We have gone out of our way to help in this economic crisis and the climate that we now live in. But enough is enough, apparently there has been no lessons learned when it comes to the morality of the many issues that we now face.

With the foreclosure problems, people being locked out of their homes when it is not necessary reminds me of a parable that Jesus taught.

Matt 18:23-35
23 "Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.
24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.
25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 "The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.'
27 The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 "But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.
29 "His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'
30 "But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.
31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 "Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.
33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?'
34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

Should the banks be now thrown in jail for their neglect of the people who were their customers? The Banks have been forgiven, will they now forgive in return. But that would be Altruism and that is not the current moral endeavor in this present economic climate.

There has been an impassioned plea for morality in recent weeks, but they are not calling for a return to biblical ethics. Instead, they explicitly reject Christian and Religious morality in favor of a code that exudes selfishness and living in the light of Randian and Libertarian ways.

Though Ayn Rand has been dead for three decades, her philosophy is still embedded in the American way of life. It also has embedded it’s way into our churches by using quasi-biblical principles to obtain wealth but disposing of God’s principles. The big emphasis lately is on homosexuality and promiscuity which have replaced greed as the root of all evil. Gordon Gecko (movie “Wall Street”) is now rolling over in laughter, because greed is good, everything else is bad. So the battle cry for the libertarian worldview, as it is with Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged, is replacing the cross with the dollar sign and making that a good thing.

But Altruism is the opposite of Randism/Libertarianism. Though it might seem obvious that altruism is central to the teachings of Jesus, one important and influential strand of Christianity would qualify this. St Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, I:II Quaestio 26, Article 4 states that we should love ourselves more than our neighbor. His interpretation of the Pauline phrase is that we should seek the common good more than the private good but this is because the common good is a more desirable good for the individual. The Apostle Paul in First Corithians 13 says "love seeks not its own interests." We need to shed light on tensions by contrasting the impostors of authentic self-affirmation and altruism such as Randism and Libertarianism. By analysis of other-regard within creative individuation of the self, and by contrasting love for the few with love for the many. Love confirms others in their freedom, shuns propagandas and masks, assures others of its presence, and is ultimately confirmed not by mere declarations from others, but by each person's experience and practice from within. As in practical arts, the presence and meaning of love becomes validated and grasped not by words and reflections alone, but in the making of the connection.

In saying all this, America is in trouble and headed down a path that reflects the good of the corporation over the good of the people. In the Constitution of the United States it says “we the people” and it is heading towards “we the corporations”. The rest of the preamble of the US Constitution reads “in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

With Altruism out and Randism/Libertarianism in, that part of the Constitution should read “in order to form a more perfect union, establish greed as good, insure selfishness, provide domestic breakdown, provide corporations with profits by any means, promote the dollar by the dollar, for the dollar for posterity for all corporate holders.

I’m sad as I look out at this once great nation to see it has not learned from history. Everyone thinks this way of Libertarianism is new, it’s not, it’s only new to you. It’s old and it’s called greed at any cost.

Lord forgive us of this root of all evil?

Muslims, Americans, and Christianity

The early Christians prevailed over Rome because they opted for eternal rewards instead of mere physical survival. They refused to renounce their faith, and the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church. Nowadays you hear very little talk in the West about eternal rewards and much talk about techniques to keep death at bay.

Young Arabs who study here come away impressed with how much energy we invest in the physical life. Scout the magazine racks at a local drug or grocery store and count the titles devoted to body-building, diet, fashion, and naked women. These are all emblems of the prominence we give to materiality.

Martyrdom and puritanical are words incorporated into Islamic societies. While fighting in the two gulf wars, for the first time in recent history U.S. soldiers had to get by without alcohol and Playboy, in deference to the strict Islamic code in the staging nations. Few of them realized, however, that the difference in moral standards between Islam and the West is philosophical, not just cultural.

In determining morality, American society tends to apply the bottom-line principle, “Does it hurt anyone else?” This pornography is legal, but not if it involves explicit violence or child molestation. You can get legally drunk as long as you do not break a neighbor’s window or drive a car, endangering others. Violence on television is okay because everyone knows the characters are just acting.

This yardstick of morality betrays our implicit materialism. Whereas we define “hurt” in the most physical terms, Islamic societies see it in more spiritual terms. In that deeper sense, what could be more harmful than pornography, or violence as entertainment, or even the cynical depiction of banal evil on television soap operas? It is from this vantage point that the U.S. has gained its reputation as “The Great Satan”.

At the same time, Christians in Africa and Asia are confronting a newly resurgent and sometimes militant Islam. Repulsed by the decadence and rampant secularism of the West, Muslims have their own evangelism agenda.

Christians and Muslims face opposite challenges. We in the West have something to learn from cultures that do not push religion to the margins, that see faith as affecting all of life, that look to religious leaders for guidance on societal and ethical issues.

Meanwhile, Islamic nations have something to learn from the Christian West, which has found liberal democracy to the best way to protect minorities’ rights in a world that is becoming increasingly multicultural.

Not to learn those lessons leads to disaster, as is playing out in our world today. What is being played out in New York City and Gainesville Florida is a prime example on how we need to put on love and see deeper than our own agenda. We need to see our own façade and step up to be more in what we truly believe and determine who our neighbors really are, as depicted in the parable of the Good Samaritan when the expert in the law asked “And who is my neighbor?”

Sports and Congress Hall of Shame

At our attention in recent days has been the story of a great pitcher Roger Clemens. Clemens was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he lied about his use of performance-enhancing drugs when he testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in February 2008.

We are also reminded of many others in baseball and other sports who have enhanced their bodies to greater feats by cheating, or should we say enhancing, sports. The mind set is that it is okay to cheat, to take the shortcut to a better life. The Mitchell report named over one hundred players in baseball for ties with performance-enhancing drugs. This report signifies the growing demand that it is proper to cheat your way through life and get paid top dollar for doing so.

But there is a bigger picture to be looking at here. Experience tells us that these ways are learned, and usually it is learned by rolling down hill, or from the top down. Which bring us to our Government or to Congress specifically and it’s Congressional authority.

Each member of Congress was voted in by a majority of the people. Each one ran on a platform promising the American public to reciprocate the vote given to them for the promises their platform was built on. How many of them perjured themselves to their constituents? How many of them said they would promise to do something while in office, and have they worked toward or completed that expectation. If any Congressman has not, maybe the federal grand jury in Washington should indict Congress for perjury to the American people.

Congress has used (sort of) performance-enhancing drugs. These drugs come in the form of selfishness, power, and greed. For if Congress does not follow through with the platform they were elected with, and then they are using that same power that was given them for other means and purposes. It is a misuse of the authority and performance. Have heard the many excuses of why Congress cannot complete the course of action that they were voted in for, but we get a different performance once they are voted into office. Congress enhances their performance to suit themselves and not their constituents.

Most of us forget that we are not a democracy, we are a republic. We vote people into office to run our government. Can we do a better job of voting and giving responsibility and power to others, yes? Maybe we need to put in safeguards to assure the American voters that the ones we vote in do the job they were voted in for.

We learn from our leaders, top down. If we are wondering why sports in recent years are cheating their way through life, maybe it is because sports has seen our leaders for decades doing the same. If things are to change it takes all of us to change, but it starts from the top down. Everything else will roll downhill from there.

The Mosque at Ground Zero, Tolerance, and Christianity

In a recent article published by a well known author and speaker about the Mosque being built at ground zero said “But the construction of the mosque at ground zero is not about tolerance. And it isn't about religious liberty. This is about prudence: the good sense to do what is right. That's one of the four classic, cardinal virtues given to the West.”

Cardinal virtues given to the west, whoever said that following good sense was ever correct? Forgiveness does not seem correct, in the eyes of the world and even enemies, forgiveness does not make sense at all. Loving those who despitefully use you and persecute you is more than just words and is also in the same basket as forgiveness. These qualities do not make sense at all. But it is at the heart of what Jesus taught. Sowing peace in a time of turbulence is something we do not want to hear, but it is something that we should do.

Not only do I believe that the New York City’s Landmark Preservation Commission and Mayor Bloomberg is doing the right thing, I believe it is the hand of God working through our Government as Romans 13:1-8, and 1 Peter 2:12-21 depict. Despite our intolerance towards loving and forgiveness God is showing us the way we should go. If we live by the sword, we will die by the sword. Let us therefore sow peace, even to the example that we should go and help them build the mosque with our time and finances and sow more than just words, sow actions that speak louder than words.

This is an opportunity, shall we just pass it by, shall we just blow it off because of some cardinal virtue given to the west, or should we be an example of Christ for the whole world to see.

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Only Some People are Created Equal

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

If your not born in this country and you also presently live in Arizona the above statement from the Declaration of Independence is not true. Xenophobia, the 14th Amendment, being Mexican, being whatever is different from you means that all men are not created equal? Our Government is now backtracking and say that we are not sure what the drafters of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence had in mind. I guess we all have been out to lunch the past two hundred and thirty four years.

The problem with men learning from history is that they have not learned from history and that is why history repeats itself. All the historical facts, writings, musings do not mean a thing about how this country was founded. From the mind set in Congress this is apparently so. Our country ideals are based on jurisprudence, so lets just change the rule of law to suit whatever whim and fancy that comes our way. Let’s see, the Declaration of Independence also says

“ Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. “

Light and transient causes, may we all stop and ponder this. Maybe a visit to Ellis Island will awaken our senses from where we come from. My great grandparents were immigrants, glad that they did not cross over from Mexico to Arizona. My parents who were born here were not shipped back to Ireland and the history that we have all come from this ideal is where we have not learned from that historical fact.

When the people have spoken and it is declined by one judge that sure is a problem for jurisprudence. In Lincoln’s Gettysburg address where he ends by saying “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Apparently our government does not want to honor freedom for all, especially in our own country, and dishonor all who died for those freedoms in the past. Only some are created equal is the rally cry in our economic downturn, it is only a light and transient time. We will throw our history and equality aside for a temporary fix that will disfigure us in the years ahead. Let us learn from history.

When Greatness Slips Away

By BOB HERBERT
New York Times
Op-Ed Columnist
Published: June 21, 2010

We’ve blown so many enormous opportunities over the past several years. In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, when most of the world had lined up in support of the United States, President George W. Bush had the chance to lead a vast cooperative, international effort to combat terrorism and lay the groundwork for a more peaceful, more secure world.

He blew it with the invasion of Iraq.

In the tragic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we had not just the chance but an obligation to call on our best talent to creatively rebuild the historic city of New Orleans. That could have kick-started a major renovation of the nation’s infrastructure and served as the incubator for a new and desperately needed urban policy. Despite President Bush’s vow of “bold action” during a carefully staged, nationally televised appearance in the French Quarter, we did nothing of the kind.

The collapse of the economy in the Great Recession gave us the starkest, most painful evidence imaginable of the failure of laissez-faire economics and the destructive force of the alliance of big business and government against the interests of ordinary Americans. Radical change was called for. (One thinks of Franklin Roosevelt raging against the “economic royalists” and asserting that “we need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer.”)

But there has been no radical change, only caution and timidity and more of the same. The royalists remain triumphant and working people are absorbing blow after devastating blow. More than 1.2 million of the long-term jobless are due to lose their unemployment benefits this month.

The oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, as horrible as it has been, was yet another opportunity. In his address to the nation from the Oval Office last week, President Obama could have laid out a dramatic new energy policy for the U.S., calling on every American to do his or her part to help us escape the insidious, nonstop destruction that is the result of our obsessive reliance on fossil fuels.

He chose not to.

As a nation, we are becoming more and more accustomed to a sense of helplessness. We no longer rise to the great challenges before us. It’s not just that we can’t plug the oil leak, which is the perfect metaphor for what we’ve become. We can’t seem to do much of anything.

The city of Detroit is using federal money to destroy thousands upon thousands of empty homes, giving in to a sense of desperation that says there is no way to rebuild the city so let’s do the opposite: let’s destroy even more of it. Lots more of it.

There are plans aplenty for demolishing large parts of what’s left of Detroit, which in its heyday was the symbol of an America that was still a powerfully constructive force, a place that could produce things and improve the lives of its people and inspire the rest of the world.

Referring to an aspect of one of the plans, The Times’s Susan Saulny wrote in an article in Monday’s paper: “An urban homestead — one of the more popular parts of the plan — would be tantamount to country living in the city, the plan says, with homeowners enjoying an agricultural environment and lower taxes in exchange for disconnecting from some city services like water.”

The June 28 cover story of Time magazine is headlined, “The Broken States of America.” As I’ve mentioned here several times, the states are facing a catastrophic fiscal situation that is short-circuiting essential services, pushing even more people out of work, and undermining the feeble national economic recovery.

As Time reported: “Schools, health services, libraries — and the salaries that go with them — are all on the chopping block as states and cities face their worst cash squeeze since the Great Depression.”

We are submitting to this debacle with the same pathetic lack of creativity and helpless mind-set that now seems to be the default position of Americans in the 21st century. We have become a nation that is good at destroying things — with wars overseas and mind-bogglingly self-destructive policies here at home — but that has lost sight of how to build and maintain a flourishing society. We’re dismantling our public school system and, incredibly, attacking our spectacularly successful system of higher education, which is the finest in the world.

How is it possible that we would let this happen?

We’ve got all kinds of sorry explanations for why we can’t do any of the things we need to do. The Democrats can’t get 60 votes in the Senate. Our budget deficits are too high. Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck might object.

Meanwhile, the greatness of the United States, which so many have taken for granted for so long, is steadily slipping away.

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