The Simple Life

  Without a clear understanding of right and wrong that lies outside of ourselves, we will disintegrate as a culture from within, and face formidable challenges from without. There has been much said in recent days on why Iran should not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. Even though I agree with the majority of thought on this issue, the reasoning behind the thought does not make sense. Why should Iran not have a nuclear weapon when the United States does? What makes us different? Are we morally superior than those in Iran? Do we get to have these kinds of weapons because we would show restraint in using them? (As if we never did use them….) Do we have these weapons in order to keep the rest of the world as vassals of the United States? I would agree that if we, as a nation, lived by the standards put forth in God's Word, we could be trusted with great power. In fact, anyone who is subject to God's Word could be trusted with great power. Those who know and obey God understa...

  A young man recently wrote "Dear Abby" because of his concern for his father becoming sexually active with other men. He was disturbed by what was going on and asked Abby how he might better deal with this. His first problem was to ask "Dear Abby," who obviously pulls her ideas from whatever is most politically correct, and not from what is right and wrong. She told this young man that it should no longer shock people that someone has chosen to act like his father is acting. She went on to say this: "Times have changed. Today a person's sexual orientation is no longer considered something to be hidden. One constructive way to deal with it would be to realize how fortunate you are to have the kind of relationship you have always had with your dad. Be supportive, don't judge and love him for the parent he has always been." Bad advice. The loving part is good; we should always be loving. But love cannot watch someone destroy themselves and say noth...

There is a crisis in our nation in that Christians are not acting like Christians. We seem so concentrated on being forgiven that we forget to be holy. We find causes to rally to and open our lives to scrutiny of a press that does not care about right and wrong but about their personal agenda. Any liberal in the country would give their life for freedom of speech, yet when Miss California exercised it she became target #1. When she said she did not believe in Gay marriage and later claimed it went against what God has said and she would not go against what God has said. That should have been enough for the media. She exercised her right as an American citizen to speak what she believed. However, we are seeing that free speech is not free. In fact, this young woman has been taking a beating and, quite frankly, was not prepared for such an onslaught. If one is going to take a public stand then ones life will be publicly scrutinized. We do not battle flesh and blood but the ...

In life there are things that are whether we want to acknowledge them or not. For example, real maple syrup comes from maple trees no matter what we say, believe, or choose to ignore. The color red has already been established. We can call it whatever we want, but red is still red. Snow falls in the winter in Wisconsin. We may wish it was different, but it is what it is. Intelligent people spend no time arguing things that "are." They acknowledge them and adjust their lives to the obvious. It reminds me of a story of a warship traveling through the night on a special mission. In the middle of the night the captain saw a light in the distance in the very path that the ship was headed. He sent out a warning to the oncoming "ship" that it would need to alter its course in order to accommodate the warship. Soon the captain received a response that told the warship that it should adjust its course by 15 degrees. The captain sent another message giving his ship's name...

  This week, President Obama said the following: "And the last point I just want to emphasize, as I said yesterday at the CIA when I visited, what makes America special in my view is not just our wealth and the dynamism of our economy and our extraordinary history and diversity. It's that we are willing to uphold our ideals even when they're hard. And sometimes we make mistakes because that's the nature of human enterprise. But when we do make mistakes, then we are willing to go back and correct those mistakes and keep our eye on those ideals and values that have been passed on generation to generation." What are our ideals? Who sets the "ideal" agenda? Do our ideals include the killing of unborn babies while we condemn the torturing of the born terrorists? If we were to dismantle the foundation of a building brick by brick, what would eventually be the end result of the building? President Obama does not believe that the United States of America is a C...

What is the foundation of Christianity? Christ. Why does the world work? Why It there consistency in sunrises and sunsets? Christ. Why is there food to eat, trees to provide wood for homes, and fuel to heat and provide electricity? Christ. How did the universe come into existence? Christ. How will it end? Christ. I have concluded that Dave is just not that important.   Are the themes we have at church helping or hurting the cause of Christ? Are our churches about Christ or about us? Are we focused on what we focus on or what God focuses on? Could our churches' intent be the same as giving an alcoholic a bumper sticker at an AA meeting that says "I am not sober, just forgiven," Is the goal to be sober if you're an alcoholic, or just forgiven? Is the goal to be "sinless" if you're a Christian, or just forgiven? Does it matter?

Moving Off the "Gold Standard" This week our President informed the rest of the world that we were not a Christian nation. Although many may think that our leader is stating the obvious, and he may be, he is also declaring a new philosophy that will ignore the obvious importance of our nation's Christian heritage and declare independence from God from this day forward. To imply that we were never a Christian nation would be foolish and prove a lack of understanding history. To state that we are not now Christian, or have any "religious" loyalties is to be honoring man apart from God. Years ago the US dollar had value because it was measured against the "gold standard". It was so valuable that all nations of the world began to measure their economy against that of the United States and so stable that that the rest of the world adopted the dollar as their standard monetary measurement. Since our nation has moved off the gold standard our dollar has a di...