Filed under: Injustice, Life, Missions, Poverty, Third World | Tags: empathy, pity, poor, Poverty, sympathy
Just a thought… Westerners have trouble putting themselves in the shoes of the poor because they’ve never had the experience of not being able to afford a pair.
God I thank You for pain, because it shows us how precious and rare true pleasure is, I thank You for confusion, because it allows us the opportunity to find clarity; frustration, because it allows us room to develop patience; for weakness, because it allows us to become stronger; for ignorance, because it allows us to learn.
–from Ne-Yo’s “Year of the Gentleman” thank-you liner notes
For all the flack celebrities get for thanking God and leading a lifestyle that does not glorify God, I was amazed at the depth of wisdom in the words above. I’d be eager to know if he actually wrote them himself. What are your thoughts on celebrities and their God-thank-you’s?
Filed under: Bible, Church, Discipleship, God, Injustice, Life, Money, Nonsense, Poverty, Religion, Third World
I have had it on my mind for a long time now, this topic of prosperity: what the world sees it as, and what the Bible actually teaches. I can’t help but find a discorrelation between the two. God’s teaching tends to go against the grain of the world’s idea of what true success and prosperity is. So why would God be suggesting we need to be more and more physically prosperous–rich if you will?
In the Gospels, you don’t see such a teaching, but rather a teaching against it where we are actually warned against loving money too much and having too masters. We are told the rich will have a rough time getting to heaven (and compared to the rest of the world, North America is incredibly rich, so stop kidding yourself!). So why then would God want us to be preaching that He wants us to be rich?
Rich in Spirit and in Truth, but physically? Monetarily? Socially? If Christ is the ultimate example of how we are to live on this earth, why didn’t he have 24″ spinners on his donkey as He rode into Jerusalem at the beginning of the Passion week.
Something is not right here. Read Revelation 18. It talks about the rich city of Babylon, and how within an hour it was completely put to ruin. Within an hour. The prosperity the world teaches is the kind that can be taken from us in an hour, truly within a second.
Maybe I’ll have more thoughts later. peace.
Filed under: Answered Prayer, God, Injustice, Life, Missions, Nonsense, Politics, Poverty, Prayer Request, Third World
Thank you to all who were lifting up Max in prayer. After living in a Haitian jail for almost a year after doing nothing wrong, he was finally released to his family. Praise God for He answers prayer!
Get the story here.
There was a study done that claims men talk nearly as much as women. They counted the number of words each gender speaks over a certain period and the numbers were very close. Therefore they are saying the common misconception that women talk more than men is not true.
However, I wish to disagree. (more…)
Ok. So anyone who knows me well knows not to ask me about my computer, because I won’t shut up about it. Ever since ditching PCs forever and switching over to the real world of computing in Macintosh, it’s all I talk about. Having used PCs (and Windows obviously) for about 8 years, I made the switch (after being so impressed by the (more…)
Got this off of Relevantmagazine.com. Thought it was hilarious. This one’s for Billy.
I think you have to have a particular sense of humour to find this funny. Yes? No?
Filed under: Bible, Discipleship, Divorce, Feminism, God, Injustice, Life, Marriage, Relationships, Religion
So I was reading through 1 Peter 3 this morning for my devotions. And I stumbled upon a verse that I know I have read before, but just found very interesting. It’s clearly not something you’ll hear many pastors preach from a pulpit–perhaps for good reason. (more…)
Here are some GRRReat! ideas for dealing with those gossip queens (and kings) in your life.
Here is a very interesting article on divorce rates dropping in the U.S. It states that:
America’s divorce rate began climbing in the late 1960s and skyrocketed during the ’70s and early ’80s, as virtually every state adopted no-fault divorce laws. The rate peaked at 5.3 divorces per 1,000 people in 1981. But since then it’s dropped by (more…)
Ok… so I didn’t know where else to post this, but I was just wondering…
Has anybody else noticed that the track for Mary J. Blige’s song “Take Me As I Am” is taken from Jay-Z’s song “Dead Presidents” off his 1996 album? (more…)
Filed under: Church, God, Injustice, Life, Missions, Movies, Politics, Poverty, Prayer Request, Religion, Third World
This is an incredible video put together by World Vision fully satirizing the “sad” life that some of us live here in the West. Such a video should motivate us to stop our whining and realize just how much we are blessed to be living in the West. I hesitate to say it, but having lived in Kenya for a year, even the homeless that live on the streets of North America are amazingly blessed to be here compared to the homeless of the hundreds of poor countries of the world.
This [Red] campaign isn’t enough. What more can you do to help the situation?
Here’s a good list of things that you can do a self-check with as to whether you and others are growing spiritually.
1. Willingness to Serve in the local body.
2. Willing to be a Servant leader. (more…)
Filed under: Church, God, Injustice, Life, Missions, Music, Politics, Poverty, Religion, Third World
Has anybody else noticed that the there is a new trend being formulated by Christians, particularly Christian artists? In the late 90s, early 00s, we had the big ‘worship music’ surge where suddenly all of the Christian artists made ‘worship’ albums, somehow different from their regular genre of music. Then that morphed (more…)
