Empty houses

Empty houses
Echoes of lives come and gone
Just a vapor.

posted from Bloggeroid

A better billboard?

You are straight, a church member, and a leader in your community. Congratulations! You've earned your spot in hell.

Or this one:

Abortion doctors and the people who picket abortion clinics both deserve hell according to the Bible.

I probably won't ever get to have a career in marketing. But the truth is, all are guilty before God. We are all united by our lost condition. We can be united in a much better way through faith in Christ as the Savior of all who believe.

posted from Bloggeroid

Holy Spirit Radio

Yesterday, I drove by a billboard that said: ''Marriage is 1 man and 1 woman for life. Holy Spirit Radio 1360 AM. ''

 Who is this billboard designed to reach? What is the primary message that is being conveyed?

I would say the message is ''You are not holy like we are.'' Could Christians be doing a worse job? Is this really the message we want the world to hear? God help us.

posted from Bloggeroid

Bistro d' burden

Many people today think of religion as a burden, something they're carrying around on their back. Well, let me ask you, are you carrying God, or is He carrying you?
-Vernon McGee

posted from Bloggeroid

I'm digging this Pope!

''Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?''

''I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.''

- excerpt from the full interview published in English by America magazine, a Jesuit weekly based in New York

posted from Bloggeroid

Hi

How's it goin'?

Anita Jane Bryant

This lady was before my time.  Anita Jane Bryant was a singer, Miss Oklahoma, and a notorious anti-homosexual activist.  Now, I won't make this a long post, but to sum up, she had a fairly successful career, became a controversial figure because of her views, and lost her popularity.  Eventually, she and her husband divorced.  Now for what I find the most interesting part of the story:  After her divorce, many of the churches she would go and speak at would no longer allow her to do so.  Why?  Because she was a divorced woman, a sinner.  That kind of irony speaks to the problem facing humanity better than I could ever say it.  

“Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.”― Walter Kirn

We're great at standing against the sin of others.  But when it is my sin, and I can't clean it up, what do I do?

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

Christians v. Gays

"...I would suggest that a more important damage to Christian witness in American culture has already been done, not by the Supreme Court but by the Christian activists...

What has that damage been?

• Christians (understood to mean here heterosexual activist traditionalists) have become identified with actively pursuing the denial of rights and benefits to others that they themselves enjoy. In other words, the “Gospel” has been identified with the cause of self-benefiting social discrimination against a minority group, a losing hand if ever there was one.

• Christians, claiming to follow Jesus, have become identified as the chief enemies of gay and lesbian human beings (some of whom are also Christians), and of the moral and legal rights of lesbians and gays, whereas Jesus’ enemies tended to be people who performed exactly this kind of marginalization on the despised ones of their era.

• Christians have become known for a deeply distorted moral agenda by elevating the anti-gay cause to the top of their public ethics, and this in a world afflicted by war, hunger, ecological disaster and all manner of social injustice.

• Christians have alienated gays and lesbians and their families, friends, and sympathetic allies, driving many away from the love of Jesus Christ and contributing to the secularization of American culture. They have done a great deal to create hostility to the church and closed ears to the Gospel. The saddest cases are the church’s own rejected gay and lesbian adolescents and twentysomethings. They are legion.

• Christians have contributed to the fear in society that millions of Americans are unable to tell the difference between the church and the state, or between the demands of their faith on themselves vs. the demands of their faith on those who do not share it. This contributes to secularization and weakens respect for legitimate concerns about protecting a zone of religious liberty for religious dissenters."

-by David Gushee, 

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/7174/christians_v__gays__the_damage_done/

Turbo

The courage to dream
Plus the chance to change your fate,
To be so lucky.

posted from Bloggeroid

Django Unchained

A polite German
Teams up with an angry slave
To save and avenge.

Living in sin

Some people like to talk about a ''lifestyle of sin''. They contend that a non-Christian lives a lifestyle of sin, and though a Christian sometimes sins, they don't live a ''lifestyle of sin''.

What difference does it make? Is God impressed when someone only occasionally sins?
''The soul who sins shall die.''

posted from Bloggeroid

Well put

“We are all hypocrites. We cannot see ourselves or judge ourselves the way we see and judge others.” 
― José Emilio Pacheco, Battles in the Desert & Other Stories

“Some people's blameless lives are to blame for a good deal.” 
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

“Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted.” 
― Walter Kirn

“And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.” 
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

The short, short version

God in human flesh
Lived and died for you and me
Lives forevermore.

posted from Bloggeroid

Preachy

When I was a younger person, I always wanted to preach ''the gospel'' to my non-Christian friends and family members. It was tough sell and I knew it. The ''gospel'' as I understood it then was basically:
1. Repent
2. Believe in Christ
3. Get baptized
4. Live a holy enough life to be saved.
This was difficult not only because it's hard to bring up with people, but also, how could I tell them to do something I wasn't able to do? I knew that I wasn't holy enough to be saved. In fact, my only real motivation for sharing this with others was that if I could ''win'' enough people, that maybe God would overlook the things in my life that were not up to code.

The only thing I could preach to people now is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I've put all my eggs in that basket. That's the kind of good news that is actually good news to a sinful world.

posted from Bloggeroid

Star Trek Into Darkness

Pick an old movie
Remake it with new people
Instant new Star Trek

posted from Bloggeroid

Saved by the Gospel

We are not saved by teachings/doctrines, by facts, by truth, by a message called "the gospel," or tenets of faith. We are saved by Jesus Christ. He is the Good News, the Gospel. What we call the gospel is a message about the Good News. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,"
Jesus said, but he also assures us that "I am the Truth!" The word is the message of salvation,
but Jesus is the Word. Truth makes us free, but Jesus told us, "If the Son shall make you free,
then you shall be free indeed." We are saved by a Person, not a message. I believe the message,
but not in the message.
We have become a doctrine oriented people more than a Christ related people. We find people who are already converted to Christ and then convert them to a different set of teachings as though the teachings saved.
While it is true that we cannot find Christ without teachings, these teachings, truths, and facts are of importance only as they lead us to establish our relationship in Christ and to sustain that relationship. Complete knowledge and understanding of all teachings are not necessary for that saving relationship, else none would be saved.
Our righteousness is not in our being right in all things, but in being in Him who is right and
gives us the gift of righteousness. Yes, Brother Legalist, both grace and righteousness are gifts
(Rom. 5:15-17)!
-Cecil Hook, '' Free to Speak''

posted from Bloggeroid

Karate Kid

When the strong prevail,
Then the weak must become strong,
Through work and courage.

posted from Bloggeroid

Argumentative

We used to be part of a particular weekly Bible study group. One day we got into an argument because one guy said that he thought it would be a good idea for Jews that convert to Christianity to continue following the law. He said something to the effect that ''that's something they do to please God.'' This led to a '' spirited debate'' and while I wish I could bridle my tongue sometimes, I really couldn't help it in this case. I think it is very telling that many in the church do not understand the basis of salvation. And believe me, the man who was in favor of the law was a very good person, relatively speaking. But like so many (and me for so long) he thought that by being ''good'' and closely following the rules he could earn a spot in heaven. No one who grows up in a church seems to realize that they are a sinner. They don't see that the law is a trap leading to death. And if they don't know that, can they really trust Christ alone as their Savior?

posted from Bloggeroid

Ponyo

A little girl fish
A small boy who loves the sea
Very magical

Bloodmobile

Gave blood today for the first time. Didn't want to, one of my friends guilt-tripped me into it.
Was joking with coworkers later saying, I hope they don't give it to some lowlife criminal or drug addict.

Thought about that later. I'm sure glad Christ didn't think that way.

posted from Bloggeroid

Pokemon the first movie

Ash and Pikachu
To fight the greatest master
But love conquers all.

posted from Bloggeroid

Star Wars - A New Hope

Luke works on the farm.
Leia is very sassy
Solo is redeemed.

posted from Bloggeroid

The Great Mouse Detective

Miniature Holmes,
Vincent Price is outstanding
Lots of mice in film.

posted from Bloggeroid

Something fishy

Where did the fish go?
His father wants to find him
The blue fish forgets.

posted from Bloggeroid

Life of Pi

Yikes! There's a tiger
On the boat with the young man
Who's searching for God

posted from Bloggeroid

Haiku movie reviews #1

Ratatouille

A rat and a chef
The gift is more important
Than is the vessel

Comfortably numb (haiku edition)

When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse from
Corner of my mind

posted from Bloggeroid

Forrest

I'm not a smart man
Stupid is as stupid does
A shrimp boat captain.

posted from Bloggeroid

Pokemon

Gotta catch them all
But there is so little time
Pikachu helps me.

posted from Bloggeroid

Waiting

Waiting

Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

--John Burroughs

posted from Bloggeroid

Gears of war

The gears turn nonstop
War begets war begets war
Peace is beyond us.

posted from Bloggeroid

Oh! to be like Thee

1. Oh! to be like Thee, blessed Redeemer,
   This is my constant longing and prayer;
   Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
   Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.
2. Oh! to be like Thee, full of compassion,
   Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
   Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
   Seeking the wand’ring sinner to find.
3. Oh! to be like Thee, lowly in spirit,
   Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
   Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
   Willing to suffer, others to save.

--Thomas O. Chisholm

TV haiku

DirecTV why
The dvr on the fritz
TV show no go.

posted from Bloggeroid

The gospel's not for sinners anymore

It makes me sad to see
that the message of forgiveness,
is no longer free.

The poor and wretched are
not welcomed unless they would
first become holy by their own strength.


The gift of salvation is being given
only to those that earn it by their works.
The gospel is not for sinner's anymore.

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