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I saw a lady with a tattoo on her shoulder which would have made a sailor proud. Me, I’ve never really wanted a tattoo. I don’t think it would make me better looking. As one fellow says, would you put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari?

There are a lot of people who feel that the Bible teaches that getting tattooed is a sin because of verses in the Old Testament like, “Don’t gash your bodies on behalf of the dead. Don’t tattoo yourselves. I am God.” (Lev. 19:28, The Message)

I suspect that verse has more to do with people who got tattooed for idolatrous reasons than for style reasons, though.

I don’t know if it’s wrong or not. I just don’t think it’s smart (I hear you squealing in front of your computer screen. Hang On.). Humans are remarkably changeable creatures. Tattoos are the rage today. Tomorrow there will be a lot of regret. Continue reading →

© Byron Moore – Fotolia.com

Check out our new e-book installment at the right: “Why Are You Eating!”
Explain something to me will you ?

Here’s this lady. She’s pregnant. For nine months the little rascal makes her life miserable. At first she can’t eat anything because her body is saying, “There’s something foreign here.” So she throws up and throws up and … well, I’ll spare you the details.

Later, the little guy refuses to let her sleep. She turns on her right side and he kicks her. His majesty is not pleased to be on that side. So, she turns to the left side and he stretches way out in her stomach and suddenly her back hurts and she’s having to run for the bathroom.

It gets worse.

She may even lose a tooth because he’s down there in her stomach, sucking up all her vitamins. She’s so hungry at the last that she can eat wallpaper if you add a little salt. By the ninth month, you better stay out of her way. She’s dangerous. Don’t say it, sir. You’ll regret it.

Then, the little guy enters the world in a moment of excruciating pain for his mother.

And now you see her with that little one in her arms. He isn’t even pretty. No hair, no teeth. All red and wrinkled. Crying all the time. “Look at that will you George? He’s the spitting image of his daddy!”

But, I tell you, if you try to hurt that baby you better be ready to fight a mama grizzly bear (You thought I was going to make a political statement with my title. Made you look!)

She’d die before she let you hurt that little one.

Why?

All he’s ever done to this point is hurt her. And it doesn’t get better. Now, he wakes her up two or three times a night to eat, burp, or whatever. She waits on him like a slave. A bit later she might get a little smile and a coo for payment, but at first there’s nothing.

Why does she love him so? There is no logical reason.

It’s something in her that loves the baby, even before she’s seen him. God placed something in mamas that echoes something in His heart.

I’ve often wondered why or how God could love me. I’m about as useful to him as an unborn baby kicking his mama’s side from the inside. But, for some reason there’s something in God that loves me”and you.

His grace isn’t logical, nor is his love. It’s there, nonetheless, beating with that big heart of his. He loves us. He favors us (grace). He’s for us.

There’s no explainable reason. His grace and his love for us is something that starts in Him, and doesn’t come because of what we are. It’s because of who he is.

Because Of Who He Is

“ Do this because you are a people set apart as holy to God, your God. God, your God, chose you out of all the people on Earth for himself as a cherished, personal treasure.

God wasn’t attracted to you and didn’t choose you because you were big and important”the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors. God stepped in and mightily bought you back out of that world of slavery, freed you from the iron grip of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know this: God, your God, is God indeed, a God you can depend upon. He keeps his covenant of loyal love with those who love him and observe his commandments for a thousand generations. But he also pays back those who hate him, pays them the wages of death; he isn’t slow to pay them off”those who hate him, he pays right on time.” (from Deuteronomy 7, The Message)

Hmmm …

But just doing your job in an average way ” in this integrated and automated global economy ” will lead to below-average wages. Sadly, average is over. We’re in the age of “extra,” and everyone has to figure out what extra they can add to their work to justify being paid more than a computer, a Chinese worker or a day laborer.”
— Thomas Friedman in the New York Times

When God Laughs

We lived in the tiny Grand Duchy of Luxembourg for many years. The Luxembourgers have a good sense of humor and many of their jokes are based on the size of their country”36 miles wide and 51 miles from bottom to top. (58k x 82k)

According to one story Luxembourg was once enraged with China and decided to declare war. The Luxembourg colonel (their highest rank) called the Chinese general who was his counterpart and informed him that if excuses weren’t forthcoming, the Grand Duchy was going to declare war.

The Chinese general laughed because he thought it was a joke. “You’ve got 500 men in your army. We’ve got millions!”

“This is very serious,” the Luxembourg leader assured him. “We’ll bomb your country back to the Stone Age. We’ll destroy your land!”

At the other end of the telephone line the Chinese general was a bit taken aback at the Luxembourger’s assurance but told him, “We’re not apologizing.”

“You’ve got until noon tomorrow. After that there will be total war.”

That night and the next morning tension hung heavily over the planet, as the world waited in suspense to see what would happen. Then at ten minutes until twelve noon the phone rung in China. It was the Luxembourg colonel. “We’ve decided not to make war on you.”

“Why not?” his counterpart asked.

“Well, we got to thinking. We don’t have room to put all the prisoners of war in our country.”

We smile but I wonder if God doesn’t feel the same way as the Chinese in this story when he hears some of the world’s tiny atheists ranting against Him. Christopher Hitchens babbles in his book title: “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”

Richard Dawkins probably made millions with his “God Delusion” book. But even many atheists are embarrassed by some of these ravings which are more emotional than the intellectual arguments they purport to be.

Aren’t you worried Lord? Don’t you think these people are going to ruin your reputation? Cause people to turn away from you?

Well, the Lord doesn’t exactly yawn, but it’s not the first time He’s heard stuff like this. After all, the same spirit has been inspiring attacks on God for eons. So what does He do?

Psalms 2:2

The kings of the earth take their stand
and the rulers gather together
against the LORD
and against his Anointed One.

3 “Let us break their chains,” they say,
“and throw off their fetters.”

4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.

5 Then he rebukes them in his anger
and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,

6 “I have installed my King
on Zion, my holy hill.”

Doesn’t seem that the Lord is too worried does it? If God’s not worried about it why should I be? It seems to me that He’s even loves these people who loudly denounce Him. He could easily crush them so there must be some reason he doesn’t respond in kind.

“Don’t overlook the obvious here, friends. With God, one day is as good as a thousand years, a thousand years as a day. God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change.

“But when the Day of God’s Judgment does come, it will be unannounced, like a thief. The sky will collapse with a thunderous bang, everything disintegrating in a huge conflagration, earth and all its works exposed to the scrutiny of Judgment.”(2 Pet. 3:8-10, The Message)

God even loves those who speak against Him. That’s why He’s installed His King, His Messiah Jesus on his holy hill (Ps. 2:6). He wants men to come to Him to be saved.

Sometimes we have to answer foolish people but often we just need to ignore their ignorance and try to win people to the Lord. He’s real, even if millions deny it.

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Hummm …

“It is a safe thing to trust Him to fulfill the desires which He creates”
” Amy Carmichael

My daughter Christi called recently at 5:30 in the morning (there’s a seven hour time difference between us). She said that her five-year old, Micah, had broken his arm– badly. They were transferring him by ambulance to a hospital in Fort Worth and she wanted us to pray.

And 5,000 miles away, I hurt.

A few days later, after a successful operation to install some pins in the broken arm we received a couple of photos. One was titled “sad” and there was the little guy, his arm deformed and discolored, obviously in pain.

The next one was call “happy” and there you see him grinning from ear to ear out from under his little Beatles’ haircut”operation successful, feeling good, the center of attention the way things are supposed to be.

Obviously the second picture was 100 times better. The first one? Well, that’s what happens when you try to stand on your rocking horse and jump off. Maybe you ought to listen to mom once in a while!

Of course grandpa’s heart swells with joy and thankfulness at pictures like the “happy” one”and tears in two at the “sad” one.

One of the scary things about loving is that you’re so vulnerable. If you love without limits and suddenly the object of that love is hurt or taken away, there’s a direct line to your heart that’s also touched.

It’s a tsunami that crashes towards you, and it’s impossible to duck. When the object of our love suffers, we suffer, but we may as well get used to it, because that’s part of the price for loving.

Love comes out of its hiding place and announces, “For the wonderful rewards of loving, I’ll take the hurts that invariably come with it.”

And even if the object of your love is taken away, the advantages rest. Memories, but more than memories, populate our heart. More than memories, because it seems to me that the link that we have with the person we love, leaves something of that person in us. I am what God made me but I’m also the sum of those He put in my life or those I let into my life.

If I had a different mother or father I would be different genetically, but also different in the essence of who I am. Good or bad, mama and daddy left something of themselves in us. If it was bad, it doesn’t have to destroy because we can be healed of those hurts and God can use them to heal others.

When we let God redeem those areas where those we’ve loved have hurt us, these places become strengths and we grow stronger, more able to help others who’ve hurt in the same way.

God risked a lot to love us in His Son Jesus. Think how many times He hurt because He’s exposed Himself to pain by loving someone. So many have rejected that love”thrown it back into His face.

But He takes the chance because the rewards are so great when we return His love. Dare I say that He lives for that? We’re the apple of His eye; His greatest joy; the inspiration of His songs.

“What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it”we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are. But that’s also why the world doesn’t recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he’s up to.
“But friends, that’s exactly who we are: children of God. And that’s only the beginning. Who knows how we’ll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we’ll see him”and in seeing him, become like him. All of us who look forward to his Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus’ life as a model for our own.” (1 John 3:1-3, The Message)

Maybe you’ve been hurt, then withdrawn into a shell, afraid to fully love because loving is such an exposed place. The rewards are worth it. “But I might get hurt …!” No, let me correct you. You will get hurt sooner or later, it’s just that the rewards of love are so powerful”more than that”they’re so necessary, that’s it’s worth it.

Christi called again the other day. Micah went back for his two-week check-up and the arm is healing so well that on the x-ray it doesn’t even look like it’s been broken. She’s having a problem getting him to settle down because running, jumping, (and scaring mama and daddy) is in his system.

What’s a parent to do? Hang on and pray. After all Christi, you remember that time when you were three and you jumped off a rock into water over your head …?

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Hmmm…
“This is a destiny that makes us brothers; none goes his way alone: all that we send into the lives of others, comes back into our own.” Edwin Markham