Seeing Red

When I was growing up, and my children also, we were taught that green means go, yellow means yeild or caution and red means stop.

RED MEANS Stop! Not caution, or roll carefully or yield a bit!

I have seen drivers, who are plenty old enough to know better, ROLL a corner with BOTH a stop sign and a RED flasher! Like did they miss that part of growing up?

I think that at some point we passed a road mark where we chucked too many taboos in this culture. In the 80's we were all about getting free. We were into getting "in touch" with our feelings. We all had all this repressed anger, then we got "in touch" with it. Heaven help us now fully 1/2 of us have anger management problems. Perhaps some things are best left untouched?

Freedom is great but lets acknowledge that laws were made to protect people, including you! You don't want to end up like this poor soul:

Friends

When my son was about three or four we were taking a walk when a city bus rolled by. He asked me innocently "mom, who are all those people". I was speechless for an answer. In about a minute the little voice answered for himself and for me. "I know" he said, "those are friends we haven't met yet".

Tradition!

Ah Tevya, tradition is a beautiful thing. It is the glue that helps a society or group stay together and not loose sight of its goals.

As a volunteer at a Christian nightclub, I am respected and loved by the young poeple there. And the feeling is mutual. There is a core of wonderful young men and women there who love Jesus with all their hearts and will do anything for Him.

Occasionally, however, I hear an enthusiastic, if misguided, song about how we are "freed from tradition". It seems as if Paul's admonition to not be like the scribes and Pharisees who added to God's law has been warped into an unrecognizable rebellion against the very legacy that God has sustained in the Church for 2000 years.

I am saddened by this. Not only that, i see what a deception it is. This attitude by some Christians cuts them off from others and justifies divisions, when the proponents of it are using just as much "tradition" as those they accuse.

Does your church perform weddings? Where is that found in the Bible? Does your church sing the same songs from time to time, even if they were written as recently as 1960 through today? OH NO you might be guilty of a Tradition!!

Has your church studied and made decisions about doctrine? Isn't that YOUR tradition? Do you have a cross on the wall or a dove? Do you celebrate Christmas? Easter? Traditions all, and good ones to. Let us "hold fast to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter" (2 Thess. 2:15).

Dear to my heart

As a long time member of the movement without borders The Charismatic Renewal, one thing that is dear to my heart is unity in the Body of Christ. I agree along with Mick Bickle of the International House of Prayer movement that As THE DAY of the Lord Draws near His people, will grow in their yearning desire for Him.

The Church which is called The Bride of Christ will grow in Unity and love for God as the Great Day approaches.

One evidence of that is in the news today. Though this comes about because of the continued discouraging actions of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the news today that a large and very Orthodox group of Anglican Churches have requested full communion and acceptance into the Roman Catholic Church is very welcome.

I don't believe all Unity in the body of Christ will come about because all other Christians accept Roman Catholicism but this is a very good sign that many, many Anglicans seek to heal the divisions in the Church that came about because of an adulterous King(Henry VIII).

I am sure that in the days to come, Benedict 16 will find other ways to bring more unity in the Church in the world today. He is a man of great respect and honor for not only the traditions of our Church but the traditions of all of Christendom.

And no, Virginia, tradition is not evil and Paul never said it was.

The Carrying of the Cross

Was comtemplating the sorrowful mysteries today. On the fifth mystery, was contemplating Jesus, feelings.

I realized that the whole ordeal that Jesus went through took more than half a day. He was arrested in the garden on Holy Thursday evening/night sometime, dragged into the city, taken to court. I am sure they either had to wait for Ciaphus to get up and question him.

Then he was insulted and mocked an dragged away to Pilate to be questioned there, All i would presume without benifit of food or water or sleep, at this point. He was whipped with the maximum allowable amount of strokes thought to be short of a death sentance. Taken into the courtyard had a garment thrown over his fresh cuts and had thorns forced onto his head.

At this point Jesus must have been feeling like, " I am thirsty and in pain and want to pass out in the worst way" But I beleive that God sustained him physically just enough to finish His task. For everything to be fulfilled about Jesus, He had to be marred beyond all human recognition(psalm 22) and He had to be crucified over the bones of the first Adam upon Golgotha. Anything that kept Jesus from the Via Delorosa and Golgotha Hill would not fulfill all of the necessary things arranged by the Father. Jesus blood had to be shed over Adams bones to redeem Adam and Adams sin.

Jesus had to survive and be conscious throughout the whole ordeal until between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. He could not have His bones broken or cry out in pain("He opened not His mouth").

ANd what about the Father? He and Jesus are One, The Father must have felt every stroke of the whip just as you would if it were your spouse or child, only more so. The Father must have had to restrain Himself and all the host of heaven, there must have been weeping in heaven that day. We know from Genisus how much Abraham did not want his son to suffer, how much more so was Jesus God's son and how much more could the Father agonize that His son must bear sin and pain and death.

"Do No Harm"

"I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone." From the Hippocratic Oath.

This used to be a required Oath for anyone graduating from Medical school, it included a clause that said that the practitioner would not perform abortions or provide medicine that would kill.

It is from the 4th Century BC. So a code that is over 2000 years old, that has kept physicians involved in life-giving activity's only, has now been thwarted, in the past 50 years.

What is so wise about our society that it can do away with such wisdom? Didn't the ancients recognize what we are missing somehow? That those who are sworn to "do no harm" should not be involved in killing? That they should always do what is best for their patients?

God's laws as put forth in the Bible had this thought in mind long before Hippocrates. The Ten Commandments kept people happier and healthier and more self-actualized. God did not set forth laws just to test men's obediance. He set them forth to protect humans from living unhappy lives, full of stress and anxiety and guilt. The Ten Commandments gave a direction toward life. Lying, cheating and stealing are stressful activities, being honest and living your life in the light of day are happier and more relaxed ways of life. Loving your own wife and pleasing her, brings happiness, forsaking the wife of your youth for another brings about the collapse of happiness for the entire family and for the new spouse also.

Worshiping God instead of yourself, places all the care and stress of this world and its troubles onto God's great and magnificent shoulders.

Yhwh Alone is God. Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Elohenu , Adonai Achad, Adonai!