What if instead of Santa Claus you got a visit from Jesus Christ?

December 28, 2014December 29, 2014Allen Frederick 1 Comment

Source: victorpicarra.files.wordpress.com

Here is is a thought to ponder as you end 2014 and make plans and preparations for 2015. Now that Christmas is behind us now maybe a good time to ask this very important question.

We say December 25th is the day we celebrate Jesus’ birth, okay what day do we set aside to celebrate his SOON RETURN?

What instead of spending so much time and energy making preparations for the jolly fat man, who is never going to come because newsflash he is not real, we put the same amount of energy and preparation into a imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Nary a thought is given to a returning King but we sure do spend a great deal of time preparing for the arrival of Santa Claus.

Isn’t something out of kilter here? Shouldn’t the Christian church be focusing people’s attention on the upcoming arrival of King Jesus? Isn’t that what Advent is supposed to be preparing hearts and minds for? Isn’t the coming of a Messiah the reason for Christmas?

He has already been born, he has been crucified, he was buried, he arose from the dead and ascended into heaven, his next big move will be to return to gather together all his believers. Since no one knows the date or time of his upcoming arrival it really would behoove us to be ready and waiting by the door when he comes to call don’t you think?

Many call this generation the Millennials and perhaps they are for this may be the generation that ushers in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. What are we doing to prepare the Millennial generation for the millennial reign of Christ? Was there any talk around the Christmas tree of Jesus’ second coming? Or were we too busy opening presents and talking about all the stuff we got? You do know that you will not be able to take any of it with you.

The greatest gift ever given to man was when God gave us his own son to die in our place. There is not a gift under heaven that can compare to that great gift of God. Nor is there anything under heave that is able to keep you from the wrath of God that is going to come to this earth. Therefore the gift God gave us is the only thing that we can take with us and will protect us from the coming wrath, everything else is worthless by comparison.

Since we do not know when Christ will return we only know that his return is guaranteed shouldn’t we be working hard to make preparations for his return? Just saying.

That is the way I see it, what say you?

See on Scoop.it – Eagle Views

Apocalyptic Carols: Singing About the Lord’s Return in popular Christmas Carols

Do Not Deceive Yourself

November 17, 2014Allen Frederick Leave a comment

This was worth reposting from The Berean

	(14) Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. (15) But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. Luke 8:14-15

Growth requires an honest and noble heart. We deceive ourselves through rationalizations and justifications, allowing our appetites to overwhelm what we know is true. Sin engulfs the mind with a cloud of alibis and cover-ups to hide from ourselves the wrongness of what we do. Sin promotes twisting and distorting of truth. We reason, “This isn’t so bad”; “I’ll do it just one more time”; “I’m too weak. God will just have to take me as I am”; “God will just have to do it for me.” We have all reasoned ourselves into transgressing.

Have we been deceived into thinking of sin only in the sense of breaking one of the Ten Commandments? While sin is the transgression of the law (I John 3:4), its biblical usage is much broader. When we fail to think of sin in its broader sense, we stumble into a trap. It is far better to think of sin as falling short of the glory of God. The central concept of sin is failure—failure to live up to a standard, God Himself. The glory of God includes His attitudes, intents, and His very thinking processes, all of which produce the way He lives. For us to fall short in any of these areas is missing the mark—sin.

We are deceived, lured into actually transgressing, through neglect, carelessness, laziness, irresponsibility, ignorance, bull-headedness, fear, shortsightedness, and ingratitude for forgiveness and the awesome potential that God has freely and graciously handed to us on a golden platter of grace. We are detoured from progress to holiness and are enticed into sin by failing to see God and by not considering seriously the subtle influences on the fringes of actual transgression of the law. At the foundation of both spiritual and physical health is how we think and what we think about.

James 1:13-16 confirms this:

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

The way to stop sin, as well as to improve health, is to change our thinking. Between what God does and what we should do, we can do it. This is real conversion!

— John W. Ritenbaugh

If You Love God, the World is Going to Hate You

November 10, 2014November 10, 2014Allen Frederick Leave a comment

“… Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” (James 4:4, ESV).

This week in Pakistan, a pregnant Christian mother of four and her husband, falsely accused of burning pages of the Koran, were beaten by a Muslim mob and thrown into a kiln, a fiery oven at a brick factory, where they were roasted alive.

Over 200 Christian girls in Nigeria were captured by Boko Haram. “I abducted your girls, said its leader, Abubakar Shekau in May; “By Allah I will sell them in the marketplace” as slaves.

Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American, is still being held in prison in Iran for apostasy and practicing his Christian faith. Source

The current trend in society today is for everyone to get along. The tag-line is tolerance. Except when it comes to morality and societal norms than tolerance becomes lost in the rhetoric and vitriol.

No one likes to be told what to do, and yet that is exactly what is happening in our society. A few people are telling everyone else how they are to behave and act. They are pushing their views of morality upon the masses, and refuse to show any tolerance to those who might not hold to their moral standards. These preachers of hate stand in the city square and pontificate loudly and forcibly their viewpoints and even threaten dissenters with legal action. They are all for freedom of speech and assembly as long as those who are speaking are using the approved talking points and are gathered in support of the ‘cause’. There is no room for opposing viewpoints.

If anyone does happen to offer an opposing viewpoint or even question the legitimacy of the issue they are shouted down, or worse yet browbeaten into submission.

Who are these militant purveyors of hate? If you said right-wing conservative Christians you would be 180 degrees out of step with the real world. The true haters are all those who hate God. They call themselves progressive, liberal, or free-thinkers. They portray themselves are ‘enlightened’ and educated, while portraying their adversaries as ignorant, unenlightened, and regressive. They only wish to hear one side of an argument, and that has to agree with their viewpoint.

Real enlightened individuals espouse multiple viewpoints, and ponder all differences of opinions, and weigh all options before forming a defining position on any issue. The ones who militantly vocalize only one viewpoint are not open-minded at all but are rather close-minded and dogmatic. They show no tolerance or mercy. They are hateful, vindictive, and vile ideologues.

They do however have one thing in common, they have a uniform dislike for anything that resembles God or godliness. They hate the sound of Jesus’ name, and run with their ears stopped when scripture is read out loud. They bash Christianity and decency at every opportunity. They are lawless, abusive, selfish, slanderous, ungrateful, unthankful, disrespectful, loud, obnoxious, unforgiving, proud, abusive, greedy, brutal, lack any self-control, are conceited, and boastful. They rejoice in wrongdoing, and actually encourage others to take part in their destructive behavior as if to be promoting a worthwhile cause.

Those who espouse Christian principles and a Godly worldview, attempt to live at peace with all men. They are loving and kind, generous, forgiving, merciful, law-abiding, honest, truthful, and humble. And because they love Jesus Christ and have faith in the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, they are hated by the world, just like Jesus was.

2 Timothy 3:2-4 (NIV)
² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, ⁴ treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God–

We have been warned that this day would come. There will be those who will pretend to be godly and even use scripture to support their perversions, and the bible tells us to have nothing to do with them. Do not imitate their ways, do not even engage them in their folly, simply have nothing to do with them. Let them go and do what they are going to do, because in the end they will receive the rewards their folly deserve, for they have rejected the wisdom of their elders, and have forsaken the sure paths to walk in crooked paths. They have built their lives on the shifting sand of moral relativism and as a result what they are building will crumble and fall. It is inevitable and their destruction is sure.

As for your my brothers and sisters in Christ:

Matthew 5:11-12 (BBE)
¹¹ Happy are you when men give you a bad name, and are cruel to you, and say all evil things against you falsely, because of me. ¹² Be glad and full of joy; for great is your reward in heaven: for so were the prophets attacked who were before you.

And that is the way I see it. What say you?

ObamaCare Is Mostly about Expanding the Most Dysfunctional Part of the Health Care System

October 25, 2014October 25, 2014Allen Frederick

Edmund Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski:

While most of the attention has focused on the new health insurance
exchanges, the data indicate that a significant share of exchange
enrollments were likely the result of a substitution effect—meaning that
most of those who enrolled in new coverage through the exchanges during
the open enrollment period already had coverage through an
individual-market or employer-group plan. Given that increased
enrollment in Medicaid accounted for 71 percent of the net growth in
health insurance coverage during the first half of 2014, the inescapable
conclusion is that, at least when it comes to covering the uninsured,
Obamacare so far is mainly a simple expansion of Medicaid. [“Obamacare’s Enrollment Increase: Mainly Due to Medicaid Expansion,” by Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski, The Heritage Foundation, October 22]

And this would be a good time to remember that coverage does not
equal care, especially if you are in Medicaid. Kevin Dayaratna did an
extensive literature review a couple years ago, finding:

Academic literature has consistently illustrated that Medicaid
patients—adults and children—have inferior access to health care, and
notably poorer health outcomes, than privately insured patients. Due to
the program’s low reimbursement rates, more and more doctors are
refusing to even accept Medicaid. As a result, it is becoming
increasingly difficult for Medicaid patients to find access to primary
and specialty care physicians. [“Studies Show: Medicaid Patients Have Worse Access and Outcomes than the Privately Insured,” by Kevin Dayaratna, The Heritage Foundation, November 7, 2012]

The Supreme Court Has the Final Say

October 7, 2014October 7, 2014Allen Frederick Leave a comment

“At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous… In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, 1823

I think old Tom was on to something way back in the OLD DAYS!

English: The Supreme Court of the United States. Washington, D.C. Français : La Cour suprême des États-Unis. Washington D.C., États-Unis. ‪Norsk (bokmål)â¬: Høyesterett i USA. Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With all the power the Supremes’ have amassed for themselves it seems that they have set themselves up as the authority on all things about life and happiness. I think I read somewhere that man was created with certain inalienable rights among them was the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Unless the Supremes’ have a differing opinion about what is considered your personal LIBERTY and happiness. I would think that part of being happy is having a STABLE society with agreeable societal norms established by society. Besides the government is supposed to represent the wishes of the people who empowered them in the first place not legislate away all their ideas and freedoms.

Lately the Supreme court has decided to not bother to hear any cases of SAME-SEX marriage, which means SAME-SEX marriage is now the DEFAULT law of the land even though WE THE PEOPLE have said no many times. So now that same-sex marriage is the law of the land that means families are no longer made up of a mother and a father who have biological children, the family will now be open to court discretion and legal construct since we took out the NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS and relegated Nature’s GOD and subjected HIM to the rules of man.

And this is going to help build up society how? Seems to me that the courts have finally put the last nail in the coffin of civil society by disrupting the NATURAL order of things and replaced it with COURT ORDERS. THUS SAYS THE SUPREME COURT!

Well the holy handbook of Juris Prudence states things differently. Jesus said He was the last authority when he spoke these words:

Revelation 1:8 (AMP)
8 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, says the Lord God, He Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty (the Ruler of all).

So the real SUPREME ruler of all things gets the last word, the one clothed in a WHITE ROBE will be the final judge on things of life; not mortals dressed in black robes.

And that is the way I see it! What say you?