Archives for May 2011
Tue FULL CUP with Dewey KKIM/KARS/SHINE DDC
Data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau shows married couples have found themselves in a new position: They’re no longer the majority.
It’s a trend that’s been creeping along for decades, but in the 2010 Census, married couples represent 48 percent of all households. That’s down from 52 percent in the last Census and, for the first time in U.S. history, puts households led by married couples as a plurality.
MORE:
The head of that most Christian of organizations, Jim Daly of Focus on the Family, is telling World magazine (a Christian online magazine) that conservative Christians are losing the fight against gay marriage and his organization will no longer work that juicy social issue.
The World magazine interviewer asked Jim Daly how conservative Christians were doing on fighting same sex marriage and Daly responded:
“We’re losing on that one, especially among the 20- and 30-somethings: 65 to 70 percent of them favor same-sex marriage. I don’t know if that’s going to change with a little more age — demographers would say probably not. We’ve probably lost that. I don’t want to be extremist here, but I think we need to start calculating where we are in the culture.”
Where we are in the culture….what an interesting concept, and one that I never thought a lobbyist for Christ would ponder. After all, cultural changes almost two thousand years after the Gospels were written usually don’t matter. What matters is Christ’s word, correct?
I wonder if by admitting Christians are losing the gay marriage debate, Daly is also admitting that Christ’s word can be interpreted and misinterpreted depending on who is performing the interpretation?
I posted some of this on Facebook yesterday and KKIM listener Linda Dodd said, “What? What?
Yes! What is going on here!
All this should tell us we have work to do!
There is an old song by 4 Him, getting back to the basic’s……Old Time religion is needed! We have gotten away from the Basic’s…..God’s Word, 10 Commandments, the basic belief’s of Christians.
We have to get back to the basic’s in our Education system…..letting God back in…….
For that matter letting God back into some of the Church’s.
Jesus plan, His Word is not complicated…it is simple……child like belief………We adults have messed this up and we will be held accountable to God.
What can you and I do?
We have our personal relationship with Jesus Christ
We feed on God’s Word everyday
We pray constantly.
We listen for God constantly.
We are to be the Salt and Light
We are to carry out the Great Commission, I never thought we would be carrying it to those who already proclaim themselves to be Christian!!!! Crazy World we live in.
When we are in God’s Will we are protected and guided, when we are out of the Will of God we will wither.
Why do you think the United States of America is withering?
Why do you think the influence of the Christian Church in America is withering?
We are sinning.
You will not here that from our so called LEADERS!
I have developed a disdain for about 99% of Politicians. The ones who run on the shirt tails of Jesus, then forget about Him when they get to Santa Fe or Washington D.C.
When is the last time you have heard an elected official of the United States of America get up and proclaim he or she is a believer in Jesus Christ and proclaim His Word to the World!
Do these folks believe in Jesus? Are they to bashful to Proclaim their belief in HIM?
The Lord has left the window open for the United States to repent and come back to HIM……..until then, we will wither as a country and as a Church.
And I don’t think that is what you will be hearing on the campaign trail…………you will be hearing a bunch of NOTHING NOISE
I just can’t believe how many Christians get excited about Political candidates……a lot get more excited about Politicians than Jesus Christ!
WOW! As I was getting ready to send this CUP….the following message was just delivered by Pastor Jim Montoya…..This is how God works in people of faith, of like mind, spirit, hear and soul……..This message tied right in with today’s CUP! PRAISE GOD!!!!
Brother Dewey:
This message is from Marcy Melendrez, from the Belen Catholic Church, Our Lady of Belen. She is part of the ministrial fellowship in Valencia County. After being away from NM for forty years in California, she has come back to NM and has a good understanding of many social, racial, political and biblical views. Maybe of value to read.
Blessings. Jim
Subject: These are SUPPOSED to be Americans (see message below)
One morning this past week I woke up with a thought in my head. I was wondering: What is happening to us, Americans?
I don’t know if it was divine revelation or what, but it suddenly occurred to me that the problem is that we have forgotten who we are. There was a time when we knew what an American was and how he behaved. An American had inner convictions and he responded automatically to situations as they occurred. He did not wait to be told what to do and when to do it. He was a “free thinker.”
Upon arising I went to Church where the daily Scripture readings were about how we Christians should act. We are to love one another as He, our Heaven Father, loves us and how “there is no greater love than to be willing to give up ones life for a friend.”
In talking about the readings Father Stephen shared a true incident which happened on the street next to St. Mary’s school a few years back. Turns out the children were out on recess, playing near the street, when a car came speeding by chasing and firing bullets at the car in front. The older children, without instructions from anyone, immediately took the smaller children to the ground and used their own bodies as shields willing to take the bullet should one come their way.
Father said that when he got the report of what had happened it made him cry at the very thought. I’m sure that the retelling of that story made everyone of us cry that morning, I know it did me.
So, there you have it. If we adults still knew what it means to be a Christian, we would surely know what it means to be an American. Have a GREAT Memorial Day!
Marcella
AMEN! Thanks be to God!
Please be in prayer for Pastor Jim as he has eye surgery today. Please pray for healing….so this Man of God can continue to see the Written Word clearly…..of course if Jim was blind he still would see the Word of God more clearly than many who have 20/20 vision!
Let us turn the page………….refill your CUP….pray over what we just talked about……don’t let the message slip away…….send this CUP to 10 people today please? Also check out our new web site brining you the news you need to know……..
God Smiles When We Trust
by Rick Warren |
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This devotional is part of the new Rick Warren Bible Reading Plan available in the YouVersion Bible. YouVersion is an online Bible that can be downloaded to smartphones and other mobile devices. Imagine this scene: One day God comes to Noah and says, “I’m disappointed in human beings. In the entire world, no one but you thinks about me. But Noah, when I look at you, I start smiling. I’m pleased with your life, so I’m going to flood the world and start over with you and your family. I want you to build a giant ship that will save you and the animals.” There were three problems that could have caused Noah to doubt: 1) Noah had never seen rain because, prior to the flood, God irrigated the earth from the ground up; 2) Noah lived hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean; 3) There was the problem of rounding up all the animals and then caring for them. But Noah trusted God completely, and that made God smile. Trusting God completely means having faith that God knows what is best for your life. You expect him to keep his promises, help you with problems, and do the impossible when necessary. Trusting is an act of worship. Just as parents are pleased when children trust them, your faith makes God happy. The Bible says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6 NIV). In what areas of your life do you need to trust God completely? |
reactions – our behavior is patterned after our life experiences, the
behavior that we instinctively leaned within our family growing up and
that which came to us as we developed as people. I’m not saying that
we can’t change – we can that’s where a relationship with Christ Jesus
and the power of the Holy Spirit comes into our lives. I’m speaking
about is an instinctive thing we men do.
As men for the most part, we have the instinct that we are the
provider, we have the responsibility to take care of our wives and
family. While that may be a sexist thing to say, it is in our DNA to
“man up”, “step up to the plate and to be responsible. But this
instinct also can backfire causing you to potentially lose the one
thing you should cherish right below your personal relationship with
Jesus Christ, your marriage.
You see, Satan has your Achilles heel right in his fingers and he will
use that to bring strife and emotional departure from your
relationship with your wife. That Achilles heel is the instinct I
mentioned above. As men, when the chips are down, we tend to close up
emotionally, move away from the person we love the most, in order to
focus all of our energy on achieving the goal that instinct drives us
to. Being the physical provider, the breadwinner, The Man that it is
expected of us to be. The real Danger when we do this is that we
abandon the emotional commitment we have made to our wives and our
marriage. In essence driving toward completing that “man
responsibility” we often drive away from our wives.
We believe that she will see we’re working like a dog to make ends
meet after loosing a good job and having to work two or three jobs to
try to keep the family and her with a roof over our heads and food on
the table.
We believe she will see that we have to give all of our energy toward
that task and she’ll understand that when we come home after 12 or 13
hours or more we are exhausted and we don’t have any energy to spend
on that relationship. And we believe that she will wait, in the
corner, until some kind of normal is restored, when the financial
corner is turned, when a single job comes along that pays enough so
that we can get back to being the couple we were before the job loss.
We believe she’ll understand when we are bitchy and nasty because of
all the financial pressure and stress the situation causes and the
resentment we begin to feel at ourselves because we don’t have the
money we once did and we can’t provide as we once did.
But guys… we are wrong!
A woman is like a delicate flower who needs to be nurtured and
tenderly cared for and yes, in a lot of cases, financially taken care
of. So we have a balance we need to keep and that is where Faith in
Our Lord really comes in. Because God can strengthen you to keep that
balance, He can be sure you don’t become narrow focused, stepping away
from that lovely delicate flower, your wife, as you run head long into
trying to meet financial needs.
One thing I’m living through right now is the results of shutting
everything out to make financial ends meet. I put my delicate flower
on the shelf and I drove forward to meet the needs of that one part of
my balancing act. And the longer it took the further away we became.
And I began resenting the additional financial burden I had been
facing as I sunk deeper and deeper into a money pit. And I let it
fester until I became bitter as I was fighting the financial monster
all alone, so I was a nasty human being to live with.
My delicate flower needed to survive emotionally so she pulled back
and when an opportunity happened that brought an old flame into the
picture she reached out for comfortable emotional support from him,
not to me, because I was to busy and focused on being the provider not
the friend, not her love and not providing her with emotional support.
And by the time the financial corner had been turned, and I had an
epiphany and immediately became the positive upbeat person she had
fallen in love with literally overnight – I reached back and I had no
flower to reach for because the walls were all up, emotionally she had
abandoned the relationship- as had I while I fought the financial
monster- and now she is leaving to begin a life with her old flame.
The sad thing is that my epiphany and the positive change in me came
one week to the day before she had the “we’re over” discussion with me
and because I made her wait to long she doesn’t want to even consider
hanging around to see that my return to the positive is permanent. She
doesn’t care because I caused her to emotionally abandon our
relationship by pushing her away while I was driving toward meeting
the financial needs.
Please pray, for I believe that even at this 11th hour, if it is God’s
will The Spirit will touch her heart and let her turn back long enough
to see if we can rekindle our flame.
But most importantly for you = PLEASE, Don’t let this happen. Don’t be
blinded as I was, turn to God, right now and pray for The Spirit to
enter your relationship once again. I didn’t do it soon enough. I made
some big time errors. #1 above all else I didn’t put God first in our
relationship or my live. I became money driven. #2 I stopped
communication because I was to busy trying to be a good provider and
didn’t realize I was emotionally shutting down because I was to
focused on trying to be the good provider and my actions caused her to
do so too.
The Lord’s Blessings to each of you, Ernie
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Ernie Belanger/Cal Thomas CUP KKIM/KARS/SHINE
For many this is a day that kicks off the summer. Picnics are planned,
long weekend vacations, special sales. Pretty much the same way most
long weekends are celebrated. Lost somewhere in all that, is the true
meaning of this day.
It is a day set aside as a solemn remembrance for those brave men and
women who paid the ultimate sacrifice defending our country and our
freedoms. It is the second most important holiday our country
celebrates second only to Independence Day.
The irony is that the military members we honor today, died so people
could have a picnic, a long weekend vacation and enjoy those special
sales, watch the Indy 500 or just puts around the yard. And yes even
if they chose not to remember those who gave up life so we could live-
free.
I wonder, as folks go out this weekend how many have taken a pause to
sincerely thank God that there are those who laid down their lives so
that we can have the freedom to come and go as we please. I wonder
how many parents took even a minute to sit their children down and
explain why this day is so important to them in a way they could grasp
and not just an excuse for a day off from school.
There will be celebrations in many towns in honor of those from their
town who fought and died. But there is one group of men who as a group
need to be remembered too. Their sacrifice came not as part of a war,
but rather during an attempt to rescue US citizens who were held
captive at our Embassy in Tehran, Iran – a place I know all to well.
Eight died during operation Eagle Claw on April 25th 1980 in the
middle of the Iranian desert. 3 were US Marines, 5 were members of
the US Air Force’s 1st Special Operations Wing, from Hurburt Field in
Florida.
Our motto at the 1st SOW, “Any Time, Any Place.”
A lot of us who were in the wing used to jokingly call it the “1st
Pig. Because when it was time to get down and dirty, we always got
the call ” To go places you may not have heard about and do things
that, believe me, you never want to know about. All to protect our
freedom.
So this Memorial Day when you pray for those about those who gave the
ultimate sacrifice for our freedom please remember my comrades in
arms.
From the 1st Special Operation’s Wing, United States Air Force
Maj. Richard F. Bakke, 33
Maj. Harold L. Lewis, 35
TSgt. Joel C. Mayo, 34
Capt. Lyn D. McIntosh, 33
Capt. Charles T. McMillan, 28,
From the United States Marines
Sgt. John D. Harvey, 21
Cpl. George N. Holmes, 22
SSgt. Dewey L. Johnson, 31
There but for the Grace of God, go I.
Louis Zamperini and Memorial Day
By Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services
Perhaps you’ve heard of him, perhaps not. Louis Zamperini has had fame, lost it and seen it restored more than once. That happens when you are 94 years old and must be re-introduced to succeeding generations.
Zamperini was a juvenile delinquent, then an Olympic distance runner who competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany (he met Adolf Hitler and his chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels), then a Navy enlistee.
Louis crashed in the Pacific after a rescue plane developed engine trouble. He floated for 47 days on a raft before being picked up by a Japanese warship. He and his surviving buddies were taken to a prison camp where they lived in subhuman conditions, suffering unimaginable physical and mental torture.
Louis’ incredible story of “survival, resilience, and redemption,” has been brilliantly told in Laura Hillenbrand’s latest book, “Unbroken.” I read all 398 pages in two sittings. For myself, the son of a World War II veteran, whose four uncles also served, it is another of those “greatest generation” books popularized by Tom Brokaw. Reading it reinforces one’s pride in being an American and deepens the appreciation one feels for those who gave their lives so that we could live ours.
On a recent visit to Washington, I asked Louis if he was able to call up vivid memories of his friends who died in the plane crash and the ones who subsequently died in the prison camp. He told me, “The memories never fade. It’s like indelible ink. When you go through an intense period like we did, it’s branded on your heart and mind.”
When he thinks about those who died and those with whom he served, does Memorial Day make his memories even more vivid? “You have buddies in college, buddies on the Olympic team, but there’s something about combat buddies that it’s hard to explain.” He can never forget and he doesn’t want to.
Louis says he recently read about “a kid who came back from Afghanistan about three months ago. They fixed his leg up and told him ‘Well, you can get out of the service now’ and he told them, ‘no, I want to go back to Afghanistan to be with my buddies.’ That’s the way it is in war. It’s altogether different from athletics and close friends. My buddies were a pilot, co-pilot and navigator.”
I asked Laura Hillenbrand about this much-chronicled generation. What does she think shaped it? “What struck me about these people,” she begins, “is they had all gone through the Depression … and while that was very difficult, it was like they were being forged in fire. I think the men and women who came out of the Depression were made of sterner stuff than people are today. And it made them capable of getting through what they had to get through in the war. It gave them a sense of purpose; it gave them fortitude; it gave them an ability to endure. I think that may be the biggest difference between that generation and now. We have had it easier. We have expectations we will be given certain things and things will come without sacrifice. That generation didn’t have that.”
What would Hillenbrand say this Memorial Day to those who have lost loved ones in war? “I think the sacrifices that are made by fighting men and women are among the greatest you can make in your life. This is an extraordinarily meaningful way to spend your life, whether you survive or not. Some of the most beautifully liberating things in our history have been done by fighting men and women. I hope there is some condolence for those who have lost someone that their loved one was lost in the service of something so grand as what the military stands for.”
“Unbroken” has been number one and is currently number two on The New York Times Best Seller List. It deserves to be in every American home and Louis’ story should be in every American heart.
(Direct all MAIL for Cal Thomas to: Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, N.Y. 14207. Readers may also e-mail Cal Thomas at tmseditors@tribune.com.
WOW! WOW! PRAISE GOD WHAT A CUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let us hear from you this day!
For God’s Glory Alone!
In the Love of Christ, Dewey Sharon and Family
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