The Enemy Within

Maybe ATF agents should stick to what they do best; shake down toy dealers and confiscate their toy guns. 

Don't worry about Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, or Egypt.  Don't even worry about Muslim terrorists.

The real threat to America is domestic terrorism in our own federal government.  The very agencies that we trust for our protection are either staffed with dangerous imbeciles, incompetent fool, and bungling idiots, or they are tools of an enemy administration that has intentionally declared war on us.   Either way, the results are the same.

Their battle plan - arm the bad guys and disarm the good guys.  

How do you define treason?

The Second Amendment is not in our constitution to protect our rights to shoot at clay pigeons.

Light Penetrates The Darkness In Hemet, CA

GLORY!  This is the week that Light has come to the corner of Acacia Ave. and Santa Fe St. in the city of Hemet, CA.

##True Christian Ministries Must Address Real Spiritual Needs

I hear a lot of pious, platitudinal happy-talk these days from well-meaning Christians in ministry about how we need to minister to people’s spiritual needs. Most of that kind of talk seems to come from the "seeker friendly" crowd and when I hear it, I often wonder, “What do they mean by that? Do they know what spiritual needs are? What are the real spiritual needs of people?”

For seventeen years, I managed a non-profit Christian home for the elderly. One of the sentences in our purpose statement said, “Our mission is to minister to their (the residents’) physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.” I thought about that for a long time. After all, if that is our mission, we should know what it means. So, I often quizzed my employees to see if they had any idea what those needs were.

Physical needs are easy to identify. When I asked people to list what they thought those needs are, their lists generally all agreed with mine. Everyone knows that people need food, shelter, clothing, healthy environments, exercise, and stimulation.

When we considered emotional needs, although those are slightly less concrete, most people quickly identified the need for personal contact, sympathy, empathy, acceptance, approval, and love.

However, when I asked about spiritual needs, they usually responded with cricket noise and blank stares. Most people just simply don’t know what to say. This, they think, is too subjective or uncertain or ethereal or mysterious.

I know how most operators of other homes for the elderly approach the subject. They use the phrase for marketing purposes. They will ask a potential client questions like, “Do you have any religious preferences or traditions?” And then, based on the responses, they attempt to show the customer how they can be assimilated into a spiritual community, a special interest group, or a religious activity of their own preferences. They might plan for special services, meditations, readings, or moments of silence.

Basically, the erroneous assumption that most people make is that our spiritual needs are unique to every individual and so they are based upon whatever we want to believe or feel. Sometimes youth workers fall into this same trap of thinking that young people have different spiritual needs than older people. But really, spiritual needs have nothing to do with age, culture, preference, social status, religion, or even our personal beliefs. Our real needs are more about absolute truth and what God says we need.

Everyone has the same spiritual needs. Our supreme need is to know the existence, nature, and character of the One, true, sovereign God. We need to hear a straightforward and complete message of the truth of the Gospel. We need to know that we are sinners and enemies of God deserving of eternal judgment and that salvation is only possible through faith in Jesus Christ alone. We need to repent and trust the Lord Jesus Christ for the saving of our souls and to obey Him as Lord. We need to be discipled and taught about separating ourselves from the world and its system, and how to live a holy, sanctified life of service before God. Those are the real spiritual needs of all people young and old alike.

So all true Christian ministries, (i.e. crisis intervention, Christian education, elder care, pro-life pregnancy counseling, child care, homeless shelter, food distribution, et. al.) must address those spiritual needs. Anything else might make us feel warm and fuzzy all over, and they may even produce some positive, temporal social benefits. But they don't do a bit of eternal good for those whom they serve.

5/08

Important Lessons From The Playground

This mother has an amazing understanding of her real responsibilities in raising her children.  They will never learn this stuff at school.

Dear Other Parents At The Park:

Please do not lift my daughters to the top of the ladder, especially after you've just heard me tell them I wasn't going to do it for them and encourage them to try it themselves.

I am not sitting here, 15 whole feet away from my kids, because I am too lazy to get up. I am sitting here because I didn't bring them to the park so they could learn how to manipulate others into doing the hard work for them. I brought them here so they could learn to do it themselves.

They're not here to be at the top of the ladder; they are here to learn to climb. If they can't do it on their own, they will survive the disappointment. What's more, they will have a goal and the incentive to work to achieve it.

In the meantime, they can use the stairs. I want them to tire of their own limitations and decide to push past them and put in the effort to make that happen without any help from me.

It is not my job — and it is certainly not yours — to prevent my children from feeling frustration, fear, or discomfort. If I do, I have robbed them of the opportunity to learn that those things are not the end of the world, and can be overcome or used to their advantage.

If they get stuck, it is not my job to save them immediately. If I do, I have robbed them of the opportunity to learn to calm themselves, assess their situation, and try to problem solve their own way out of it.

It is not my job to keep them from falling. If I do, I have robbed them of the opportunity to learn that falling is possible but worth the risk, and that they can, in fact, get up again.

I don't want my daughters to learn that they can't overcome obstacles without help. I don't want them to learn that they can reach great heights without effort. I don't want them to learn that they are entitled to the reward without having to push through whatever it is that's holding them back and *earn* it.

Because — and this might come as a surprise to you — none of those things are true. And if I let them think for one moment that they are, I have failed them as a mother.

I want my girls to know the exhilaration of overcoming fear and doubt and achieving a hard-won success.

I want them to believe in their own abilities and be confident and determined in their actions.
I want them to accept their limitations until they can figure out a way past them on their own significant power.

I want them to feel capable of making their own decisions, developing their own skills, taking their own risks, and coping with their own feelings.

I want them to climb that ladder without any help, however well-intentioned, from you.

Because they can. I know it. And if I give them a little space, they will soon know it, too.

So I'll thank you to stand back and let me do my job, here, which consists mostly of resisting the very same impulses you are indulging, and biting my tongue when I want to yell, "BE CAREFUL," and choosing, deliberately, painfully, repeatedly, to stand back instead of rush forward.

Because, as they grow up, the ladders will only get taller, and scarier, and much more difficult to climb. And I don't know about you, but I'd rather help them learn the skills they'll need to navigate them now, while a misstep means a bumped head or scraped knee that can be healed with a kiss, while the most difficult of hills can be conquered by chanting, "I think I can, I think I can", and while those 15 whole feet between us still feels, to them, like I'm much too far away.

  Kate Bassford Baker

Yes, We Do Too Need Anti-Tank Guns For Skeet Shooting

Those on the left who favor strict gun control really want to take ALL our guns away. But they know they can't succeed (at least not yet) so they disingenuously deflect the conversation by trying to redefine the purpose and intent of the Second Amendment as being about our rights to collect antique firearms and about recreational target practice. Therefore, they argue, no one has a real need for assault rifles, bazookas, or rocket launchers, right? WRONG! Skeet shooting is for sissies. We really do need major fire power for target shooting. This guy shows how it's done.

(5-6-09)

Cemetery of the Innocents - An American Holocaust Memorial In Hemet

A stunning and shocking visual Sanctity of Life display presented annually by the good people of the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Hemet, California. 

Thousands of crosses memorialize this nation's war on the unborn.  Every day, approximately, 4000 babies are legally killed in the United States. Each cross in this memorial symbolizes approximately 25,000 dead babies.

Even though the majority of Americans are now leaning pro-life and, contrary to His own, phony, baseless pro-life, rhetoric during His first campaign, the Obama administration is accelerating, fast and furiously, HIS OWN WAR by mandating that Christian ministries participate in free abortions for their employees.

The Lord hates hands that shed innocent blood. (Proverbs 6:16-17)
God, have mercy on us.

(1-23-12)