What's the chances????

Blue Like Jazz ... The Movie

From the Director from Blue Like Jazz The Movie on Vimeo.

Service of Passionate Devotion

SERVICE OF PASSIONATE DEVOTION
From My Utmost for His Highest by: Oswald Chambers

Lovest thou Me? ... Feed My sheep.

John 21:16

Jesus did not say - Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ calls service what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on adherence to a belief or a creed. "If any man come to Me and hate not..., he cannot be My disciple." There is no argument and no compulsion, but simply - If you would be My disciple, you must be devoted to Me. A man touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says - "Now I see Who Jesus is," and that is the source of devotion.

To-day we have substituted credal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many are devoted to causes and so few devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is a source of deep offence to the educated mind of to-day that does not want Him in any other way than as a Comrade. Our Lord's first obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted to the cause of humanity only, I will soon be exhausted and come to the place where my love will falter; but if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity though men treat me as a door-mat. The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ, and the characteristic of the life is its unobtrusiveness. It is like a corn of wheat, which falls into the ground and dies, but presently it will spring up and alter the whole landscape (John 12:24).

Possibly the only John Stewart Clip you'll ever see me post ...

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Parenthood = Guantanimo? ... So says author Michael Lewis

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE NPR STORY

Pertinent Part:

Somewhere along the line, the American male sat at the negotiating table with the American female and got fleeced, according to author Michael Lewis. The modern American father has new responsibilities that his dad never had to manage.

... His wife, former MTV news reporter, Tabitha Soren, "somehow got a deal my mother would have killed for and I couldn't understand what happened," he says.

Lewis jokes that his father would see him changing diapers and he ask, "'What are you doing?' You're not supposed to do that. I didn't talk to you until you were 21.'"

... "There were a lot of poo diapers. There was a lot of getting up in the middle of the night. We were both absolutely miserable. No one prepares you for how much it sucks," Lewis says. "Someone's gotta tell the world what this is like."

Abort 73 to Withdraw Handgun Logo after Tiller Killing

Well, I actually haven't seen the headline but it would make sense. Gideon's post at 9:00 was an spooky precursor to what was to happen less than two hours later. With the cold-blooded murder of Wichita abortion provider Dr. Samuel Tiller as he was ushering at his Lutheran Church on Sunday morning. The killer was arrested about three hours after the shooting. While roundly criticized by Operation Rescue, the rhetoric and tenor of militant anti-choice groups undoubtedly contributed to the nurturing of the fanatic's beliefs. I hate the framing of the abortion debate. Women who are deciding whether to have an abortion aren't brave and noble, nor are they evil. They are simply faced with a gut-wrenching decision.

Start spreading the word: Abort73 Graphics / Abort73 Shirts

Steve Harvey .... "How I would Introduce Christ"

Generosity ... Who Gives in America?

The Charlotte Observer had an intriguing article about how the most generous Americans are the poorest and the newest immigrants. I wonder what the impact on our society would be if everyone gave away 10% (to go with the biblical tithe) or 5 times the current average.

• Would our communities be stronger if we took care of our own?


• Would our lives be richer because of where we invested our resources?


• Would we need as large of a government?


• Would the progams created by generosity (which would be held accountable by every donor) be more efficient and more effective than programs created by forced taxation?

Just some thoughts ... Check out the article by clicking HERE and see some snippets below:

SNIPPETS:

• In fact, America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show. What's more, their generosity declines less in hard times than the generosity of richer givers does.
  
  “The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity,” said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major nonprofit agencies.
  
• Indeed, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest survey of consumer expenditure found that the poorest fifth of America's households contributed an average of 4.3percent of their incomes to secular and nonsecular charitable organizations in 2007.
  
  The richest fifth, while donating a much higher portion of the total amount of giving in the country, gave at less than half that rate, 2.1 percent.
  
  The figures probably undercount remittances by immigrants to family and friends back home, a multibillion-dollar outlay to which the poor contribute disproportionally. They also don't include bequests.
  
• Faith probably matters most, said Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington policy-research organization. That's partly because above-average numbers of poor people go to church, and church attendees give more money than nonattendees to secular and religious charities, Brooks found.
  
  Moreover, disproportionate numbers of poor people belong to congregations that tithe.

What If?

Tonight, President Obama will be in Los Angeles for a star studded fund raiser that is expected tro raise more than three million dollars for the Democratic party. In and of itself that is not unusual. Unfortunately in today's media driven climate, the President must be Fundraiser in Chief.

However, it did get me thinking. We live in a world where in some countries such as Ghana, almost 50% of the population does not have access to clean, potable drinking water. In some countries the problem is much worse.

Let me say that again: In 2009, and age of unparaelled technological advances there are people that do not have access to something as essential as clean drinking water. Yet, in this country we whine anc complain if we are told not to water our lawns during a drought.

I was looking at a study last night that concluded that a system of wells could be dug and maintained that would give the entire population of Ghana access to the clean drinking water for $25 million. Yes, I know that seems like a lot, but consider the fact that politicians routinely raise that much and more during a quarter. Consider that we just spent close to a billion dollars on a Presidential campaign thsat was filled with negative advertising and other background nosie nonsense.

What if instead of lavish fundraisers that help rich people attain more power and riches, we held lavish fund raisers for Wells for Africa, or the ONE campaign, or a host of other huminatarian causes.

What if we truly took Jesus' teachings about "doing unto the least of these" to heart? Wouldn't the world be a better place?