Before getting into this discussion let us first take a look at this word, Agape.  It is a Greek word that most church goers have heard countless sermons with this word as the subject.  The word Agape is translated in our English New Testament texts as simply “love”.

Agape love is an unconditional love; a God like love.  There are also two other Greek words that are translated into English simply as love in our New Testament.  The other two Greek words that are translated as “love” in the New Testament are, Eros and Philos.  Eros is an erotic or sensual love.  Philos is a love like that between dear friends.

The reason that this is important is because many Christian leaders and so-called Christian leaders seem to be confused about the differences in the types of love that are found in scripture, as well as to whom these apply.  This is incorrect or sloppy understanding of love is tainting their views and teachings concerning Illegal Aliens.

One verse that is often quoted by proponents of Illegal Aliens being granted easy access to citizenship is the last portion of Matthew 19:19 which says, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”.  Even without looking at the Greek text, one can ascertain easily that this is referring to Agape love.  It is not natural for humans to love others, even those they truly love, the same as they love themselves.  This kind of love demands help from God Himself for we humans cannot exhibit this kind of love with the Almighty’s help.  A quick look at the Greek text also reveals that yes indeed; the verse is referring to Agape love.

I have two questions for liberals now that use this particular verse, Matthew 19:19 to prove that we should throw open the borders to everyone because after all we are commanded to love our neighbors, Mexican citizens, as ourselves.

1.)  Was Jesus commanding this to the government of the day or to His followers who we call Christians today?

2.)  Do you leftists really want the government to attempt to display a God kind of love toward everyone?

If you’re a leftist and you answered “Yes” to the second question, doesn’t it go against the separation of church and state, that you hold dear, for the government to display a God kind of love toward people?  By the way Mr. or Mrs. Liberal, find for me the wording or concept in the constitution of this separation of church and state other then the 1st Amendment which tells the government to keep its grubby hands off of the church and its matters.  The constitution never tells the church to stay out of politics or the government’s business.

Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church said,

The role of the prophetic tradition is to challenge laws and structures that appear to be unjust. . . . We are meant to see every human being as our neighbor.

So the government is meant to see every human being as our neighbor, or the government is supposed to have UNCONDITIONAL LOVE for EVERY human being?  This is so ludicrous that only a mind numbed robot of leftist propaganda would buy into it.

Just as an aside, the book of 1Timothy 3:2 says, “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife”.  One wife?  I’m guessing that the Episcopal Church is abiding by scripture and that Mr. Katherine Jefferts Schori has a lady like name for a man.

Exit Question: Why all the debate about this in the first place when you leftist Democrat socialists will vote before a bill is written, lie about what will be in it and then never read it?

One of the things that was talked about on a daily basis at my parent’s house was American Exceptionalism.  The term American Exceptionalism was never used, but the concept of how great this country is and how special it is were spoken of and explained to me at an early age.

My father loves America and he instilled this in me as far back as I can remember.  He taught me about our founders and how they were mostly Bible believing Christians, not Deists as so many on the left have claimed.

(A great resource for information on the religion of our founding fathers can be found here http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=8755.)

I understand that the left leaning statist cringes at the thought that this is a Christian nation with these roots going deep into our founding.  History is what it is though and cannot be changed to fit our own ideology.  History can be misconstrued by revisionist historians, but history stands unchanged.  History cannot be taken as is by the anti-christ left.  The very founding of this country and her founding documents stands in the way of what the leftist, statist wishes to accomplish.

American Exceptionalism has everything to do with our founding.  We weren’t founded by one or more narcissists who just wanted to make a big splash, be well known, and have total power over other human beings.

Our founders risked their lives for their beliefs both concerning freedom of religion and freedom of the individual.  Everything that America is, every advantage that is ours because we are American citizens, we owe to the founding fathers.

We also owe a debt of gratitude to the generations who have preceded us and have handed over to us this great nation.

My father, who had already decided to be a minister at age 17, lied about his age to enlist to go to into the military during WWII.  He was unable to serve due to an appendectomy he had when he was 14.  Hi appendix had burst and was still sore when a doctor pushed his fingers into the incision scar.  When Dad picked himself off the floor, the doctor informed him that he would not pass the physical and could not serve.

That’s what our previous generation was made of and that is the legacy of our great land.

Only in America does every boy and girl have the chance to do great things.  Not everyone comes from the same social or economic situation, but even the poorest among us can achieve great things in life.  We all get a chance.

Only in America is it understood that it is more important for everyone to have a chance than for there to be equality in results.  Equality in results takes away the chance for EVERYONE.  We all have forced mediocrity when results are equally enforced.  The person with all the talent in the world will only be as good as the person with no talent.  Also, the person with no talent will have no reason to strive to be better.

Only in America are the laws written so that government cannot legitimately overreach into the individual’s life.  The constitution is brilliant in telling the government what it cannot do.  No other country has ever had a document like it.

Only in America do we enjoy the freedoms bestowed by Almighty God, spelled out for us by Revolutionists, not who sought power, but who sought refuge from tyranny for themselves and for those who would follow them.

Only in America can we look into the eyes of our children and say, “You can be ANYTHING you want to be and that God wills you to be”.

Only in America is there true religious freedom.  There is religious freedom because we are a Christian nation.  Other religions call for the sword to be used or at least for other religions to be stopped.  Christians are confident that if the truth and light are shown beside untruth and darkness that the light of the gospel will draw all men toward Christ.  John 12:32

American Exceptionalism needs to be taught to our children and grandchildren.  The clarion call is for each of us to be vigilant in teaching others, and also in defending this nation upon which God has certainly spread His grace.

Only In America

An often quoted Bible principle is,

The truth shall set you free.

Most of the time it is quoted, it is a terrible misuse of scripture.  One of the most common uses of this Bible saying is when a person feels misunderstood or is accused wrongly of lying.  This person might make say, “When you find out that I’m right and that I’m not lying, The truth shall set me free”.  Certainly 2 + 2=4 is truth, but has it set anyone free? That Obama is a left wing socialist is truth, but has that truth really  set anyone free?

For almost a year there were rumors about Michael Vick’s dog fighting operation.  When the truth came out about what was going on at the Vick residence, instead of making Mr. Vick free, the truth helped to imprison him.  The prisons are full of people that the truth locked away instead of setting them free.

So what does this mean, “The truth shall make you free”?

In John 8:32,

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free

the truth that Jesus is referring to is Himself.  In verse 36 He says,

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

Jesus also referred to Himself as the way, the way, the TRUTH and the life in John 14:6.

It is true that The truth shall set you free if the truth being referred to is Jesus the Son of God.

In verse 34 of John 8, Jesus tells us from what this Truth, being Himself, will set us free.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

So, the Truth is Jesus Himself, the Son of God and the bondage to which we are servants is sin.  We can be set free from this bondage only through Jesus, the Truth, Himself and his atoning death on the cross.

All you have to do is accept what He did at the cross and He, the Truth, shall set you free from sin.

The Army has withdrawn an invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at a special Pentagon prayer service next month because of his controversial views on Islam, said Col. Thomas Collins, spokesman for the U.S. Army.

That is a quote from the Washington Post.  This is the mentality that allowed the shooter at Fort Hood to slip through the cracks even though there was plenty of evidence that there would be trouble ahead.  In forcing the military to accept social engineering, the government has done the military and the American people a grave disservice.

The fact that Franklin Graham will not speak at the Pentagon’s prayer service will not cause the United States of America to lose the War on Terrorism.  The mentality behind the decision is forcing our military men and women to fight this war with one hand behind their backs.

Truth should always be in fashion.  Truth about our enemy is very important.  If we cannot be truthful about Islam and what women are subjected to under sharia law, then we are well under way in giving up our first amendment rights, and all in the name of liberalism, statism, and political correctness.  Husbands are allowed under sharia law to hit or beat their wives even if they fear highhandedness.    The following is a quote from the Quran.

4:34 . . . If you fear highhandedness from your wives, remind them [of the teaching of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them. If they obey you, you have no right to act against them. God is most high and great. (MAS Abdel Haleem, the Qur’an, Oxford UP, 2004)

Of course the wife could just jump in the car to get away from the husband until he cools off a bit.  Not so fast there female property of your husband, under sharia law you, a woman, cannot drive a car.  Also, under sharia law a woman’s testimony in court accounts for 1/2 of a man’s testimony.  More information on this can be found on the American Thinker web site where you can find this article.

In the United States of America, Franklin Graham has the right to speak.  He spoke the truth and is being castigated for it by the left.  He is even lightly ridiculed by the female interviewer on CNN who obviously would not like to live under sharia law, but is so obviously blinded by her PC stupidity that she can’t see the truth.

Islam is NOT a religion of peace.  The Quran is not a book that explains a peaceful religion.  It is a book that explains a religion where the infidel looses his or her head.  It is a religion where the apostate is killed by his or her own family.  The peaceful Islamist is a radical Islamist in that he or she is not following the book of the faith of Islam.

It is time the truth were told and it is time our government and our military accepted the truth about this horrid religion and its sharia law.  Franklin Graham is to be commended for telling the truth and not backing down from that truth to appease those who don’t want to have the truth told.

It is time the government figured out who the enemy is.  First clue: It is not Franklin Graham and Christians.

I really do want to write a positive blog entry about the President of the United States.  I have such respect for this position and realize that it is a position of honor.  My guess though, is that I will agree with nothing from this office until the current occupant has been thrown out on his rear by the voters.  One thing I refuse to do is to be agreeable just to show that I can agree with him.  Some conservatives seem to think that the high ground is to find things that we agree with this president on and trumpet those to show that we aren’t like the democrats in their hatred of Bush.

As a Christian who is a conservative, I don’t hate Mr. Obama.  I do hate his ideology, policies, and the way he wants to remake America into a community that he can organize ala Saul Alinsky.  My hope is that Mr. Obama will repent of his attack on the American citizen as an individual and will respect our constitution which acknowledges that God has given individuals rights that only tyrants take away.  I do not hate Mr. Obama for this takeover of individual rights, but I hate his tyrannical ways.  As president, Mr. Obama needs to respect the vow he made at his inauguration and defend the constitution of the United States that he is dismantling piece by piece through his power grab policies.

Anyone with morals finds the president’s propensity to lie disturbing at best and evil at worst.  This man chooses to lie when there is seemingly no benefit to do so.  He continuously lies about his record over the past year as president and blames it all on Bush anyway.  Obama has said that stimulus brought us out of the recession, but that Bush did nothing to end or lessen the effects of the recession.  It was, however, Bush who was president when the stimulus was signed and it was Bush’s pen that signed it.  Mr. Obama cannot have it both ways.  The stimulus didn’t stimulate the economy anyway, but only stimulated government.  Not much to fight over when it means taking credit for a boondoggle.

Obviously, if the president didn’t attend the prayer breakfast this would have been an issue with Christians, including me.  In attending though, and in speaking, did he have to make a prayer breakfast into at best an ecumenical event and at worse a pagan, secular event.  Why not say a few nice sentiments and sit down?  Why talk for 15 plus minutes about a subject he knows so little about?  The speech is line upon line of fabrications, misquotes, and lies.  Yes, the president even lies at prayer breakfasts. 

The first lie is in the history that the president gave concerning the prayer breakfast.  The president felt that this history was important, and evidently important enough to lie about it.  The president’s remarks cast the early days of this prayer breakfast as an ecumenical assembly of people that believed there are many roads to god.  The truth is that this prayer breakfast was started by a Norwegian immigrant who traveled, preaching to the poor and battling the influence of socialists.  This was an evangelical Christian preacher, not some anything you choose to believe is fine, kind of fellow.  Again, the president felt this perverted history lesson important as he said, "I raise this history because far too often, we have seen faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another”.  The president obviously doesn’t realize that his own faith, even in this speech he claims to be a Christian, divides people by its very nature.  Jesus Himself said, “Think not that I came to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law” Matthew 10:34-35.  If the president is a Christian, he does not understand the faith once and for all delivered, he is lying to make Christianity more palatable to unbelievers, or he is lying about being a Christian altogether.  I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide.

A few sentences later the president says something else that is absurd that makes one wonder of his naivety or truthfulness.  Surely someone of any intellect could not really believe what he said.  “let us remember that there is in religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.”  No religion has as a central tenet of hate?  Where has this moron been since 9/11?  Does he really believe this or his he lying in order to make nice with Islamo Nazis?  In this case I really hope he’s lying and isn’t stupid enough to believe the load of Barbara Streisand he’s shoveling.  And you libs thought George W. Bush was dumb?  A fire hydrant could hold a better discussion on religion than this idiot.  Also, if “there is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being”, then why does the president?  Is he better than God Almighty?

Now, I’m not going to do a point by point critique of this monstrosity of a speech.  I’ll spare you and me that bit of torture. 

Also in the speech were some shoddy Biblical references.  Obama said that Jesus told us to “Love thy neighbor as thyself”.  This is actually found in Leviticus 19:18 and is part of the Old Law.  Jesus made reference to this law in Mark 12:31 when He was asked by a scribe to name the first or most important commandment.  In answering Jesus went back to Levitical law, He wrote it after all, and said, “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these”.  You would think at a prayer breakfast the president would come better prepared with statements concerning the Bible, since he is after all a Christian.

The last piece I will mention from the speech is this, “"Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith – or, for that matter, my citizenship”.  Mr. President with all due respect your policies are what drive the questions concerning your faith.  Your policies do not stack up with the tenets of faith that Christians hold.  Your policies cause us to wonder why you would consider yourself to be a Christian.  Personally I think you do it for political gain.  You sat under the preaching of an anti-Semite, America hating, and America cursing pastor for 20 years.  This makes us wonder as to your faith.  Your statement on June 28, 2006 also makes people wonder about your faith.  The following excerpt is from that speech.  "And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson’s, or Al Sharpton’s? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount – a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles."  With this childish attack on the Bible, we are to believe that you are Christian sir?  I argue that it is your own actions, policies, and statements that raise concern about your faith, so don’t blame us.  You are good at the blame game though. 

Exit question for Obama:  Maybe your lack of knowledge on Biblical themes is George W. Bush’s fault too?

Much has been made of comparisons involving the Obummer administration’s attempted take over of seemingly every part of our lives, to Nazi socialism.  Of course with this comparison come the knee jerk reaction of the statist claiming that conservatives want to paint poor feckless Barry as a genocidal maniac.  No conservative that I have heard or read has made any connection between the holocaust and the worst president in our history.  For libs, Dems, statists, and progressives I’ll tell you to whom I refer and it is none other than Barrack Hussein Obummer. 

I have seen pictures that depict Obummer with a little mustache and wearing a hat with a swastika on the front.  I even pondered using such a picture in my blog, “What Does Tyranny Look Like?”, but reconsidered after making the assessment that this was too over the top, even for me.  But is it really that far fetched to tie Obummer and the rest of the Dems for that matter to genocide?  Obummer vowed not to sign a healthcare bill that did not include tax-payer money to pay for abortions.  While a state senator in Illinois Obummer voted against bills that would make partial birth abortions illegal in that state.  Let me make myself perfectly clear.  This IS a modern day holocaust.  From time to time people will wonder out loud about whether a holocaust like Nazi Germany could happen here in the United States.  Could the American people sit idly by while millions of people are murdered just because they are undesirable?  In one word that is ABORTION and abortion IS an American holocaust.

I have mentioned partial birth abortion.  In this type of abortion the entire body of the baby, except the head, is delivered by the abortionist.  Abortions, by the way are not performed by doctors.  Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath during which they vow “to do no harm”.  Therefore I will call these monsters abortionists and not doctors because if they were doctors they would do no harm.  Once the body is delivered, except for the head, the abortionist jams scissors into the baby’s skull and opens the scissors to enlarge the hole in the skull.  After the scissors are removed, a suction catheter is inserted to suck the child’s brains out.  The dead baby is then removed.

No, we don’t have concentration camps, we have wombs.  We don’t have gas chambers we have murder mills we call abortion clinics.  We don’t have trenches where we put the bodies of the murdered, we discard of the bodies of babies in the garbage.  We don’t have a Hitler like figure in charge of the operation, we have the Supreme Court, Democrat Party, Planned Parenthood, and President Obummer.

We are squeamish over some pictures of Obummer that depict him to look like Hitler.  Shouldn’t we be more squeamish about the 49,000,000 babies who have been murdered in America’s holocaust?  Hitler murdered about 6,000,000 Jews and as horrific as this is, the abortionist’s murder mills have killed 43,000,000 more people then did Hitler.  Joseph Stalin it is calculated, killed about 60,000,000 people.

Exit Question:  Maybe it would be more fitting to depict Obummer and the rest of the dems as Stalin instead of Hitler?

The Old Testament for believers in God is a schoolmaster, as is the Old Law. The Old Testament shows us, among many other things, the relationship of God and the Israelites. In this relationship we see God’s grace, long suffering, love, justice, vengeance, and His omnipotence. We see His grace and His long suffering in that He didn’t annihilate His people as He certainly could have. He does deal differently with His own children than he does with those that do not belong to Him. He disciplines His own children. Hebrews 12:6 says, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth”. How did God chasten the children of Israel? He would allow them to be ruled over by their enemies such as Egypt and Babylonia. This chastening served a purpose of love and grace which was for God to bring the children of Israel back to Himself. During these periods of discipline God still had those who were steadfast in their stance for God. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were unwavering in their allegiance to the one true God. They were willing to die when given the choice of worshipful allegiance to man or keeping their vows to God. God has always dealt with people one on one. He desires a personal relationship with each of us. At the same time, God also deals with Nations. Proverbs 14:34 tells us, “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people”.

An old adage says, “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers – and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce – and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution – and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great”. Whether Alexis de Tocqueville said this or not, doesn’t really matter. What matters is the truth that is found in the statement.

Are American pulpits still aflame with righteousness? The fire of righteousness seems to have been doused and has been replaced with strange fire. Our pulpits are ablaze with the greed preaching of the word faith gospel. Psalm 10:3 says, “For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire, And the greedy man curses and spurns the LORD.” These preachers of the greed gospel do spurn God by making Him just a man like us. Kenneth Copeland has said that God is 6 feet, 2 inches tall. Copeland also tells of a vision he had in which Jesus told Copeland that he, Jesus, never claimed to be God. “The greedy man curses and spurns the Lord”. Also our pulpits are ablaze with sin appeasers who tell the homosexual that there is no need for repentance, Jesus loves you just the way you are. While Jesus does love homosexuals just as He loves everyone, the homosexual, like everyone, must repent of their sin and turn to God. If there is no repentance, no changed life, there is no salvation. Our pulpits are ablaze with ecumenism, where EVERYTHING is just an opinion even where there is a clear word from the Lord in scripture. Would Tocqueville or whoever said the old adage above still be looking for the greatness of America if he were looking at today’s churches? Don’t get me wrong, there are still great churches in America and there are still pulpits that flame with Righteousness. I am afraid however that these great churches are few and far between.

This straying from the gospel by the church in America has not gone unnoticed by God of course. When will God chasten America? He is doing it NOW!!! I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I can look at history and compare it with events today and I can tell you with 100% assuredness that America is being chastened, judged by God.

First of all our nation was established with Christian values and beliefs. Our forefathers sought freedom within society to follow their Christian beliefs and to conduct their Christian worship as they felt was best. The judgment or chastening by God shows that God still considers America to be His, for he chastens his own. God does not whip the Devil’s kids.

Second is who is ruling over us. All legislative and judicial branches of government are anti-American. The president and his cronies can’t wait to shape America into what she has always stood against. President Obummer announced in a speech that America is not a Christian nation. Why does he get to decide? We have been a Christian nation for two centuries and thirty three years. Who died and made him emperor? This isn’t Obummer’s country, this is God’s country. This is your country and my country. Obummer is president not the emperor or the king. He can’t make mandates and we all jump through hoops and ask to him to lower them a bit. Obummer has been running around apologizing for America ever since he was elected a little over a year ago. Many have put their efforts into investigating Obummer’s czars and some of the other people he has around him. This is eye opening. All are socialists at best and communists at worst, but to me it all comes back to him. What is this guy that he wants to be around socialists, communists, thugs and terrorists? You can tell a lot about a man by who his friends are, and you can also tell a lot about a man by who his enemies are. Obummer’s enemies are you, me and the American way of life. His friends are people like Van Jones, noted communist, Saul Alinsky a community organizer communist, Carol Browner who is a socialist activist, Cass Sunstein a nitwit socialist, redistribute the wealth moron, John Holdren a one world communist government nutcase, and that just scratches the surface.

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

Exit question: Church have we had enough of infidels leading us down wrong paths both from behind pulpits and now in the White House? We need a bonafide revival that can only start with true repentance by God’s people, the church. Have we had enough of our gospel of greed and the gospel of everything goes or does God have to give us another Obummer term to bring us to a our knees and to our faces before him?