Soli Deo Gloria!

Good Reads: July 29, 2008

// July 29th, 2008 // Comments Off // Godly Living, Good Reads

“Imag­ine your­self as a liv­ing house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, per­haps, you under­stand what He is doing. He is get­ting the drains right, and stop­ping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and you are not sur­prised. But presently He starts knock­ing the house about in a way that hurts abom­inably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The expla­na­tion is that He is build­ing quite a dif­fer­ent house from the one you thought of — throw­ing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, run­ning up tow­ers, mak­ing court­yards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent lit­tle cot­tage: but He is build­ing a palace. He intends to come and live in it Him­self.”

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Chris­tian­ity (Lon­don: William Collins, 1970), 172.

“How dif­fer­ent is the God of the Bible from the God of mod­ern Chris­ten­dom! The con­cep­tion of Deity which pre­vails most widely today, even among those who pro­fess to give heed to the Scrip­tures, is a mis­er­able car­i­ca­ture, a blas­phe­mous trav­esty of the Truth. The God of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury is a help­less, effem­i­nate being who com­mands the respect of no really thought­ful man. The God of the pop­u­lar mind is the cre­ation of a maudlin sen­ti­men­tal­ity. The God of many a present-day pul­pit is an object of pity rather than of awe-inspiring rev­er­ence. To say that God the Father has pur­posed the sal­va­tion of all mankind, that God the Son died with the express inten­tion of sav­ing the whole human race, and that God the Holy Spirit is now seek­ing to win the world to Christ; when, as a mat­ter of com­mon obser­va­tion, it is appar­ent that the great major­ity of our fellow-men are dying in sin, and pass­ing into a hope­less eter­nity: is to say that God the Father is dis­ap­pointed, that God the Son is dis­sat­is­fied, and that God the Holy Spirit is defeated. We have stated the issue baldly, but there is no escap­ing the con­clu­sion. To argue that God is “try­ing His best” to save all mankind, but that the major­ity of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Cre­ator is impo­tent, and that the will of the crea­ture is omnipo­tent.” —A. W. Pink (1886 – 1952)

Dyson’s theory of random fate « The Black Informant

// July 28th, 2008 // Comments Off // General

Dyson’s the­ory of ran­dom fate « The Black Infor­mant.

If you watched the CNN spe­cial “Black in Amer­ica”, and lis­tened to the story about Michael Eric Dyson and his brother, then this arti­cle may inter­est you.

Scratching my head.….

// July 28th, 2008 // Comments Off // Things that make me say HUH?

Some­one said (and I’m para­phras­ing):

I’m a Chris­t­ian, but I don’t believe that only Chris­tians are going to heaven.

Now, I first want to know: Have you even READ and STUDIED the Bible? Then I want to know: If that’s what you believe, why be a Chris­t­ian at all?

I need some­one to explain this to me. smh

The Rebelution: To Say, I Have Known God

// July 25th, 2008 // Comments Off // Bible Study, Godly Living

The Rebe­lu­tion: To Say, I Have Known God.

“We must learn to mea­sure our­selves, not by our knowl­edge about God, not by our gifts and respon­si­bil­i­ties in the church, but by how we pray and what goes on in our hearts. Many of us, I sus­pect, have no idea how impov­er­ished we are on this level. Let us ask the Lord to show us.

“Sec­ond, we must seek the Sav­ior… It is [those] who have sought the Lord Jesus till they have found Him — for the promise is that when we seek Him with all our hearts, we shall surely find Him — who can stand before the world to tes­tify that they have known God.”

~ Know­ing God, J.I. Packer ~

I am cur­rently read­ing “Know­ing God”. I’ve read it before, years ago, but I really didn’t READ it.  This time will be dif­fer­ent.

He ventured forth to bring light to the world | Gerard Baker — Times Online

// July 25th, 2008 // Comments Off // Politics

He ven­tured forth to bring light to the world | Ger­ard Baker — Times Online.

This arti­cle had me laugh­ing out loud this morn­ing!

Excerpt:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Igno­rant), when the whole land from the Ara­bian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid bar­ren, that a Child appeared in the wilder­ness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intel­lect. Scion of a sim­ple fam­ily, off­spring of a mirac­u­lous union, grand­son of a typ­i­cal white per­son and an African peas­ant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of right­eous­ness, with only the occa­sional detour into the odd weed and a lit­tle blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the tem­ple in the City of Chicago, argu­ing the finer points of com­mu­nity organ­i­sa­tion with the Prophet Jere­miah and the Elders. And the Elders were aston­ished at what they heard and said among them­selves: “Ver­ily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audac­ity of hope?”

CNN: Black in America — The Black Man

// July 24th, 2008 // Comments Off // General

I missed the first 10 minutes.….but here we go.

You know I agree with Joseph C. Phillips.  It’s not that all, even MOST of the black males in prison are inno­cent.  The best way to stay out of jail is not to com­mit a crime.  PERIOD.  All this mess about racist laws…ya know what? The law might be racist..I’ll let that slide. But even if it is, you HAVE TO COMMIT A CRIME for it to affect you. This is one more issue that WE could take con­trol of, if we made bet­ter choices.

It’s a hot mess that employ­ers view Black men like this. Wow@them tap­ing the inter­view.  THAT’S the stuff that needs to be seen. This man did what he was sup­posed to do, and it’s not his fault that he can’t find a job.  Well..except for the whole hav­ing babies before you get mar­ried thing. But I admire this man.…working two jobs to sup­port his fam­ily. He’s doing what he has to do. THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT.

Butch Warren’s story is great.  He did some­thing that a lot of men don’t: Pur­sue entre­pre­neur­ship. He said, “I tried to take the best from every­thing I saw and put it together.”   He was told he was rais­ing his kids “too white”.  HOT MESS. That is a self-destructive atti­tude. I’m not sur­prised at him being pulled over by the police. That’s not news to black peo­ple.

Jonathan War­ren: Wow@a dozen black men con­victed each week!

OK..color me sur­prised that D.L. Hugh­ley was a Blood. I do agree with him that being Black makes you a tar­get for the police.  Like him, I’ve started to have con­ver­sa­tions with my son about how to talk to police. He’s EIGHT. But I know that teach­ing him this just may save his life in the future.

Act­ing White: If I NEVER hear that phrase again, it’ll be too soon.  Another self-destructive atti­tude.  I’ve had that mess thrown at me, in fact, I still do. But it doesn’t bother me. I’ll BE THAT if it means that I can form a com­plete sen­tence and speak in an intel­li­gent man­ner.  I’m teach­ing my son to con­sider read­ing IMPORTANT. He takes piano lessons. I don’t allow him to lis­ten to com­mer­cial radio. His favorite song (as of today) is Christ Tomlin’s “How Great Is Our God”. I am teach­ing him what it means to be a good hus­band and father (to the best of my abil­ity). If he ever gets accused of “act­ing white”, I hope that what I’m teach­ing him now can help him shake it off.  Edu­ca­tion is not a WHITE thing.  And if it is, the WHAT exactly is act­ing BLACK??

Father­hood: My brother and I were raised with­out our father. That wasn’t my mother’s fault. She got mar­ried FIRST, then had us.  My father just didn’t ful­fill his respon­si­bil­i­ties.  I am now rais­ing a boy…without a father. That IS my fault. I didn’t make the right choice.  How­ever, it’s also his father’s fault. Every day that he doesn’t have a rela­tion­ship with his son, he makes the same bad choice over and over again. No one is keep­ing him from being a father to his child.

So yes, I’m one of the 70% of sin­gle par­ent homes.  Since I live in this sit­u­a­tion, I can say this:  I don’t wanna hear this mess about how slav­ery affected black rela­tion­ships.  It’s WORSE now than it was then.  We’ve fallen off from what those before us did.  I don’t buy this mess about how incar­cer­a­tion effects a male’s efforts to be a father.  If you live a life of crime, it will def­i­nitely affect your abil­ity to be a father. THINK ABOUT THAT BEFORE YOU COMMIT CRIMES.  IT’s nobody else’s fault if you mess up.  So if you have kids and become a crim­i­nal, then you haven’t put those chil­dren first.  I don’t feel sorry for men who make these choices and then want to blame some­body else for their short­com­ings. Now..if you are doing what you’re sup­posed to do, I’m in your cor­ner.  Might be harsh..but that’s the way I feel.

Copo­rate amer­ica: IS A TRIP.  When I worked there, it was ridicu­lous. I’ve been tar­geted because of my race.  But I applaud the men who keep it mov­ing and don’t allow it to dic­tate who they are.  It’s VERY dif­fi­cult. I was tempted to get the eyes and neck rolling and get “eth­nic” on some folk. It IS a shame that you may be the only black per­son in the office..and that every­one looks at you as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of all black folk.  That’s tough. And then to have your own tell you you’re act­ing white. UGH!

How black men are por­trayed:  It’s a black thing:  when you hear about a crime com­mit­ted on the news, you think to your­self:  I hope he isn’t black.  That’s the way it is.  That’s what the news talks about. They don’t talk about other races so much.…nor do they focus on blacks who are NOT com­mit­ting crimes. So it give the impres­sion that most black men are crim­i­nals, when that couldn’t be fur­ther from the truth. Spike Lee said it: Let’s show some BALANCE.  EXACTLY.  Face it: The media STINKS.  And we should not allow our chil­dren to get their ideas of man­hood from the media!

Rap music: Don’t even get me started. While I like Rap, I don’t like the sub­ject mat­ter of the songs.  To me, these artists are the def­i­n­i­tion of the word SELLOUT. Up there rap­ping about being a thug or a gang­ster, about how much money they have, when most of’em couldn’t be a gangsta if you wrote it on them, and all those mate­r­ial things they flash around are either rented or bor­rowed.  But they tell our kids that they have to be like them to be cool.  The state of our young peo­ple isn’t ALL the fault of these sell­outs; Par­ents are being lax in their duties. I can barely stand to watch these small ckips of rap videos. It’s sick­en­ing.

The Hip Hop School…that’s a cool idea.

UGH@Dyson blam­ing cor­po­ra­tions. If they didn’t have will­ing rap­pers mak­ing this ridicu­lous music, they couldn’t do a thing.  I will not even dig­nify Rus­sell Sim­mons bull with a response. Now..Lupe Fiasco…has earned my respect.  He’s aware of the effect he has on oth­ers and decided he didn’t want to be a NEGATIVE.  What if they all did that?

I’m gonna just go on record and say that I have never liked Michael Eric Dyson. I’ve never agreed with much of what he says. To me, he is giv­ing black folk who don’t behave a pass because they’re poor or dis­ad­van­taged. Get outta my face with that mess!

Symphony of Scripture » Blog Archive » A.W. Tozer: We Need Men of God Again

// July 24th, 2008 // Comments Off // Godly Living

Sym­phony of Scrip­ture » Blog Archive » A.W. Tozer: We Need Men of God Again.

CNN: Black in America — The Black Woman and Family

// July 23rd, 2008 // Comments Off // General

Blog­ging as I watch.

The genealog­i­cal story of the Rands really intrigues me.  I started my own genealog­i­cal search, but haven’t got­ten as far as these peo­ple did. It’s so inter­est­ing to me.

Edu­ca­tion

Now, what those vol­un­teers are doing, going to GET the kids..that’s what I’m talk­ing about!

The Smiths took an ACTIVE inter­est in their children’s edu­ca­tion.  Instead of accept­ing the sta­tus quo, they made SURE their chil­dren got a good edu­ca­tion, and stressed the impor­tance of it to them.  They didn’t just send their chil­dren to school and expect the school to be respon­si­ble for their edu­ca­tion.

I don’t think I have a prob­lem with giv­ing kids money for test scores. Every­body needs an incen­tive.  They’re not get­ting paid to do home­work. But how you gonna ask kids if the incen­tives are ruin­ing their love for learn­ing? Like they’re gonna say, “yes, I would love learn­ing more if you didn’t pay me!”

Eric Kennedy:  “You have to stay on top of your child.”  AMEN!

Health Care:

Based on per­sonal expe­ri­ence, I know that it’s cheaper to eat unhealthy food than it is to eat healthy food. It’s EASIER to get unhealthy food than healthy food. But how much is our health worth to us??  Do we do what is in OUR power to do so that we can stay healthy?

Another thing:  I’m see­ing they pick the worst-case sce­nar­ios and then put them up as an exam­ple of being “Black In Amer­ica”.  I don’t think that’s real­is­tic. Three-quarters of us are NOT liv­ing in poverty. So what excuse can we use?

Sin­gle Par­ent Fam­i­lies:

I am a sin­gle par­ent. 70% of Black chil­dren are born to unwed moth­ers. I am one of them.  Hav­ing said that, that is a prob­lem that WE can take care of.  Nobody forces us to have babies out of wed­lock.  NOBODY.  That is a PERSONAL choice.  It doesn’t “just hap­pen”.  And it CERTAINLY doesn’t hap­pen mul­ti­ple times.

Nev­er­the­less, the kids are here.  This is when Black folk need to stop talk­ing about sin­gle par­ents and actu­ally BEING that vil­lage that raises a child.  I’m blessed in that I have a great sup­port sys­tem, I know that.  And other sin­gle moth­ers need that SAME sup­port.

Mar­riage should be encour­aged. Out of wed­lock births shouldn’t be so ACCEPTED.

Mar­riage and Dat­ing:

There is a prob­lem when a woman works hard to get an edu­ca­tion and do well in her career and then have to hear that her lifestyle is intim­i­dat­ing.  That’s bull.  So should black women not achieve so that we can appeal to a black man who hasn’t done as well?

I haven’t always felt this way, but now I am a firm believer that black women should be open to dat­ing ANY race. I know it’s hard. I’ve never met a man of another race that I was attracted to…but I’m OPEN to it.  Let one come along!

Now, some women have unre­al­is­tic stan­dards.  If you are well-educated and mak­ing a boat­load of money, I don’t think it’s real­is­tic to demand that a man make the same as you.  However..he does need to be ade­quately edu­cated, be able to SPELL, read a BOOK, have a con­ver­sa­tion, do more than play video games and watch foot­ball.

I’ma just shut up about the Obama ref­er­ence.  Yep. Zip my lip.

I do agree that the Black com­mu­nity is more likely to accept bi-racial chil­dren than the White com­mu­nity.

Aids:

OK, class.  How does one get AIDS?  Say it with me, UNPROTECTED SEX.  How many times does it have to be stated?  I’m sorry, I’m not buy­ing this mise­d­u­ca­tion crock.  It’s not mise­d­u­ca­tion. It’s peo­ple think­ing that it won’t hap­pen to them or it can’t hap­pen to them, and going on their merry way hav­ing unpro­tected sex and and mulit­ple part­ners, and not WORRYING about HIV until AFTER the fact.  That’s a SUICIDAL men­tal­ity.  Ain’t enough edu­ca­tion in the WORLD to com­bat that.  Until peo­ple take it SERIOUSLY and real­ize that it CAN hap­pen to them, the sta­tis­tics will not change.

Vio­lence:

Mur­der: every 30 min­utes in Amer­ica. 49% are Black. Black peo­ple are just 13% of the U.S. Pop­u­la­tion.

I can­not believe these moth­ers.  “My son made a few bad choices?”  Man.…if my son starts hang­ing out with the crim­i­nal ele­ment, I might just shoot him myself. At least it wouldn’t be a fatal wound. smh

It’s like peo­ple think these things JUST HAPPEN!  NO. LIfe is tough. You have to make tough choices nearly EVERY DAY.  You have to RAISE YOUR CHILDREN, not just pro­vide the neces­si­ties.  My son is EIGHT, and I’m already talk­ing to him about what it means to be a good hus­band and father.  I don’t walk around with the atti­tude that my son is such a good kid, he could never do any­thing wrong. I love him AND I dis­ci­pline him. He knows there is a way to act and a way NOT to act.  I’m not say­ing that he will turn out per­fect, but if he turns out wrong, it WILL NOT be because I didn’t teach him right.

I’m glad this night is over.  I’ve done too much yelling at the TV and seen too many sce­nar­ios that could have been avoided if peo­ple would THINK before they act.  Sure, bad things DO hap­pen, but MOST of what hap­pens in our lives is about the CHOICES we make.

Bless The Lord (Son of Man) — Tye Tribbett. Album: STAND OUT.

// July 23rd, 2008 // Comments Off // General

YouTube — *New Tye Trib­bett. Bless The Lord (Son of Man).

I LOVE THIS SONG. The whole CD is great!

Oh we thank you lord oh
Son of Man son of right­eous­ness
King of the earth for sin­ners slain

I was Lost in dark­ness found
Ran­somed my heart and I will sing yeah c’mon
We wor­ship you king oh mighty god oh c’ mon sing

Son (son of man) of man
Son of right­eous­ness
King of the earth for sin­ners slain
I was lost in dark­ness found
Ran­somed my heart and I will sing

You are (my strength)
You are (my deliv­er­ance)
You are (the one who res­cued me)
You are (my hope)
You are (my redeemer)
Your love has set me free

Bless the lord oh my soul
Bless the lord oh my soul
Bless the lord oh my soul
Bless the lord oh my soul

In the splen­dor of your majesty
From deep within my spir­its sing
Holy, Holy
[x7]
Holy, Holy
Holy, Holy
Ho– oh- ly

Bless the lord oh my soul
Bless the lord oh my soul
Bless the lord oh my soul
Bless the lord oh my soul
[x3]

Good Reads: July 23, 2008

// July 23rd, 2008 // Comments Off // General

What God Do You Wor­ship: Part 9-Controlling our minds — Desert Pas­tor

The gospel is unpalat­able to the nat­ural man, for it declares him lost and undone. It declares him help­less. It strips him of his boasted good life and exposes his piti­ful boast of keep­ing the golden rule. It leaves him with no hope except to cry out, “God, be mer­ci­ful to me a sin­ner.”

- John E. Ash­brook