All posts filed under: z172

Lessons from Jail

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I remember when I worked in a penitentiary. The inmates had very little freedom and their days were organized for them. Breakfast was at a certain time as was lunch and supper. Activities were closely monitored and some inmates were kept isolated from the general prison population. Despite these rules, some inmates still attacked others and threatened guards and staff. It seemed there were some who always found a way around the rules and norms of prison life.  To get to my office I had to go through a metal detector, three electronic locked gates, and if I had to leave my area, I was given an armed escort to the more dangerous areas. Prison life had a different set of rules and the risk of violence was all too real. One day, there was an altercation between some inmates and some guards just outside of my office. It was quite violent and the inmates were seriously injured. Division was everywhere. The obvious one was between the guards and the inmates. Other divisions included between …

The Year 2020 and God: Maybe this is a good thing.

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Can you remember Christmas of 2019, and the start of this new year, 2020? Those were innocent times. Where I live, the economy was struggling, but we were hoping for better things. There were rumours about a virus infection in China, but we had heard that one before. 2020 looked good, in January. In February, those rumors from China started to become scary, and we bought some extra groceries. In March, the economy started shutting down, and people started dying from the virus. Some nursing homes got the infection in our area, and some residents died. And people got sent home from work. I remember the day, Friday March 20, when I went to work and people looked at me like I had climbed out of a tree. I missed the announcement, and they told me to go home. And then we had April and May, with bickering and panic about jobs and virus infections. In June, a video circulated with a police officer in Minneapolis kneeling on a man’s neck, until the man died, …

How to become a fountain of life in times of trouble

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In your mind picture a fountain that you have seen in a park.  This is a picture I am holding in my mind as I walk through these days of uncertainty with riots, fires, rules and legislation changing during this Covi-19 panic.  These things have been weighing on many of us heavily and each day something new gets thrown onto the pile of rubbish. And I find this garbage growing in my mind, and occupying way too much space there. But like a stream that never stops flowing, even though garbage and rocks get thrown into it, if there is enough pressure, the water will find its way over, through, and around the obstacles.  If, there is enough pressure flowing from the source, then the stream is unstoppable. This is how God wants us to function in these days and always.  In John 7:38, Jesus said if we believe in Him that rivers of living water would flow out of us. We are to be the fountain life to everyone around us. The Holy Spirit …

Does math prove that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah?

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Tom Meyer is a professor at California’s Shasta Bible school, and he believes that math proves that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. And after reading an article about his theory in The Express, Meyer may have point. Meyer refers to a prediction given to the prophet Daniel by the archangel Gabriel about the coming of the Messiah: “While in exile, the prophet Daniel was informed by the angel Gabriel that 70 times seven or 490 years are marked out by God for the Jewish people. After the 490-year period, the God of Israel would establish his Kingdom on the earth.” — Tom Meyer, The Express The passage that Meyer is referring to is found in the ninth chapter of Daniel: 24 “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place. 25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore …

A coincidence or are satanic forces at work?

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I believe satanic forces are behind much of what we are witnessing today, and I believe it is being manifested through communism in its various forms. Bitter Winter is reporting that China’s communist party has just closed down at least 48 churches in Yugan province between April 18 and April 30th. Bitter Winter is an Italian based organization that focuses on religious liberties in China. A believer living in Yugan reported that communist authorities in that province said they want to close down all churches because there are too many Christians in that province. It is estimated that 10% of Yugan’s population of one million people attend church. In an op-ed for the Christian Post, Open Doors USA CEO David Curry wrote: “The forced closure of thousands of churches and the removal of crosses from buildings are now-commonplace tactics by the Chinese government in order to limit, if not extinguish Christian practice.” After I read that story, I wondered if it was just a coincidence that the COVID pandemic, that also emerged out of communist …

Masking the Pain

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In days gone by people were divided by things like economic class, color, or culture. There were times that hatred rose up and violence and riots tore apart any semblance of peace. Even now in Minneapolis, this is happening. There is an undercurrent to it all and it is causing so much division in society as a whole right now. The division is symbolized by the masks many people wear today. Before I continue let me say that I am not picking on either the mask wearers or the mask non-wearers. I am writing about the division caused by perspective. Perspective is based on what and who you believe. It is not reality but it defines your interpretation of reality so deeply that perspective actually becomes your reality. When this happens, you change your behavior and your thoughts to match your perspective. There is no room for dissent and any evidence that challenges your perspective is dismissed as either fluke or fake. The people who wear masks have the perspective that the authorities are telling …

When We Don’t Believe in God Anymore

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You might have heard about a Christian rock singer named Jon Steingard, who has told us all that he doesn’t believe in God anymore. Mr Steingard was the frontman of Christian rock group Hawk Nelson. Now he has decided to leave the group and start another career. He will probably work as a secular entertainer. Jon Steingard is the son of a pastor, and it is probably fair to say he was raised to believe. He moved from a Christian home, where church was the center of his life, to Christian entertainment, where he had to be turned on for Jesus every time he walked onto a stage. Now he says that he is not an atheist. He doesn’t have a problem with God existing, he just doesn’t believe. The crisis is in him. This is a big story with the secular media because many people in that industry don’t want us to believe. They like to tell us about someone they describe as a devout Christian, who doesn’t believe anymore. So, what should we …

What being easily offended says about you

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The writer of Proverbs describes a person, who is not easily offended by what others say about them, as being a person of glory: A man’s discretion makes him slow to anger,And it is his glory to overlook a transgression. (Proverbs 19:11) Notice how the writer says that it is a person’s glory to overlook a transgression. In other words, the ability to overlook an offence says a lot about who you are. According to Terri Cole, my favourite on-line therapist, being offended is an ego response to what someone says to you or about you. You cannot control what others say or think about you. What matters is what you think in your heart about you! Being easily offended, means you are allowing others to define who you are. When you get offended by what they say, you are giving their words more importance than what you think about yourself or what God says about you. Cole says an ego-offended state also perpetuates a victim mentality which disempowers you and redirects your focus off …

What the conversion of a famous Jewish nanotechnologist tells us about Christianity

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I recently came across a story on God Reports of how a Jewish man from New York became a Christian. What makes James Tour interesting is that he is a rather famous nanotech computer scientist. He holds over 120 patents and in 2015 was actually inducted into the National Academy of Inventors. He has taught at every major university in the US and Thebestschools.org nominated him as one of “The 50 most Influential Scientists in the World Today.” He has also written 650 research papers and R&D Magazine chose Tour as the top research scientist in the US in 2013 and four years earlier he was nominated as one of the top ten chemical scientists in the world by Thomson Reuters. These are just a sampling of the numerous awards that Tour has received. He currently serves as both a Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, and Professor of Computer Science at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is a pre-eminent scientist who believes in Jesus and Tour explains his journey to Christ in a …