I have always found what people say interesting. People will say the most amazing things. And what is funny is that sometimes they don’t even know they said it. I started listening to people to see what they were saying. People talk about most anything. Sometimes they just like to hear their own voice. But if you listen to what is being said you will make the most interesting discoveries. For the longest time my wife had to pry words out of me. I wouldn’t generally talk about anything. One reason was that I didn’t want to share what was happening to me. I am a very private person. You may ask why then am I writing this blog. To tell you the truth, God told me to express myself and what I have learned in my life time in this blog. It took me a while to really begin to say things openly. I will tell you another truth, if you listen to a person talk within 5 minutes, they will tell you their life’s history. You know there is a difference between hearing and listening. Everyone hears, but not everyone listens. You have heard the expression that you are condemned out of your own mouth. You need to try listening to people. You will be amazed at what you hear. When you speak, it isn’t the amount of words that you say. It is what you say that counts. As it says in the bible in Matthew 12:34 “….for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” (KJV).

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I like to believe that I am an even-keeled man. I started my life as a happy go lucky kind of guy. I would rarely ever get angry at most anything. I remember an incident in high school. This classmate started an argument with me but I wasn’t going to get upset. He did it to show off to the rest of the class. He wouldn’t stop and kept on going. He started pushing me. I turned to him and without a word and pinned him by his neck against the wall. Then to my surprise I lifted him on the ground by his neck. He shut his mouth and stopped as I let him down. I still wasn’t angry with him but I scared him and the class. No one tried to get me angry after that. As in life circumstances change on a regular basis and you either go with the flow or fight against it. If you fight against it, be prepared to fight. Because things will happen to you like hurt feelings or anger. As I fought against circumstances, my anger grew. Until I was just the most disagreeable and cantankerous person you would ever meet.  This is where I met God. He came into my life and changed me forever. The first thing He did is to remove the anger from my heart. It felt so good not to be angry all the time. Everything changed. I saw the world and people differently. I could actually see people for they really are which is lost and hurt. As the bible says in Matthew 11:6 “And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.” (KJV).

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I was speaking to the person I bought the product to kill the mold and bacteria in my house. As you know south Louisiana had a non-hurricane hurricane. It formed right over south Louisiana and dropped about 40 to 50 inches of rain. My house flooded out when the rivers started backing up because there was so much water. It took a week to get back into the house. We cleaned it and stripped the walls to 4 ft. We pulled all the insulation out too. This friend was telling me that we had to fog our house. And we need to spray up into the walls that are left because of mold. We also have to spray the attic and inside the A/C ducts and return. Mold is insidious. It hides in places you wouldn’t even think. Mold is much like the evil in this present world. You think you have it under control and it pops its ugly head up. We have a certain amount of power in our lives. We can do things or create things with much skill. But to change things that have gone wrong, we don’t have the power. When it is our fault, we will ask for forgiveness from the person. Hoping they will accept it and go on. But it doesn’t always work that way. Wars are started this way. The only way I could forgive people was to be forgiven by God first. Then everything else was easy. When you know that God has accepted you into the kingdom, everything else is simple but not always easy. There are hidden dangers lurking about seeking someone to destroy.

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So many people are blind, deaf and dumb. And their ranks are growing on an expediential rate. It is all because of one thing in their lives. A subject that most people don’t even want to talk about in church. That subject is sin. We were born in sin and condemned to a life in hell. God made a way for man to be able to survive that sin through forgiveness. Then He opened heaven to those who choose Him. If God did all this for mankind, then why do so many people refuse the gift of God? There is a darkness creeping up on this world. Slowly but surely, it is engulfing people not to believe God’s promises. The bible says, that men loved darkness rather than the light of God. Hell is real and not a place to go to. The bible says that in hell there is a worm that turns or a torment that never stops. Can you guess what it is? It is the love of God for every person and the people in hell can never enjoy that love. You don’t know the cost of someone not loving you until it is gone. Then the pain begins. And it is this pain that brings us to God in the first place. It is so simple for anyone to be able to get to God. God made it so that even mankind could approach God. You know what the key is? And it works whether or not we understand or believe in the first place. All we have to be is willing and God will do the rest. So, what is our part in all this? Here is the answer. Just asked God for forgiveness. And He will give it to you. But we have to go to Him and ask. This how it works. So, Ask!

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If you live long enough you will see a changing of moral certainty. Young people are always pushing the boundaries to see what is there. As they grow up they see that their parents aren’t as dumb as the once thought. When men and women came back from WWII, they wanted some normalcy in their lives. After the horrors of war, they wanted things to be simple and standardized. When the baby boomers came along, they wanted different things. Their music changed and the older generation couldn’t stand it. Then Vietnam came along. The young people pushed the boundaries right over the cliff. Then came drugs and free sex. Then young men and women came back from one of the most vicious wars America has ever fought. It was no holds bar. The young people pushed even more with no regard for life. In 1973, the Roe VS Wade decision of the US Supreme Court allow the killing of unborn babies. With no respect for life, the murder rate rose in this country until it is a national epidemic. There is a whole generation of American people who aren’t there. The world started coming to America because there was spaced for them to live in this country. The next generation of young people raised on computers, video games and cell phones, don’t see any moral certainty in this country. So who is supposed to provide this moral certainty? Is it the politicians in Washington or the cult in Hollywood or the media who couldn’t tell the truth if they had too? Where do people turn to hear the truth about this world? If Christians don’t stand up and speak out, we will lose what little we have in this world. Not preaching in the churches, but going out into the world. Where the people are living and dying.

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Having a small or minor part in anything doesn’t mean that you aren’t important. In the bible there was a man who was a servant of the king of Israel. Actually his job was plowing the fields. If God hadn’t chosen him to do a work, no one would have ever heard of his name. His name is Obadiah. He was a friend of Job and an Edomite. He moved to Israel when he converted to Judaism. He wasn’t a very educated man but he loved the Lord. Obadiah was in the fields plowing when God call him to do this work. God gave him a vision of his old home, Edom. If you don’t know where Edom was, the capital city was Petra. It was a kingdom built by Esau, Jacob’s brother. They built their kingdom in the middle of a mountain range. For 900 years they were quite successful. But somewhere in there they turned against Israel. Where the Assyrians captured Jerusalem, the Edomite’s helped. God brought retribution upon them. People who they thought were friends turn on them from within. They were slaughtered to a man. No Edomite was left. Obadiah was given this vision which came to pass. He served God as a prophet the rest of his life. This unimportant man became important in God’s economy. No one has a small part in the kingdom of God. In God’s eyes each person is important to Him and His kingdom.

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Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? It is a moral question that man has tried to deal with throughout his existence. You can say it is a moral dilemma. Ruling a nation like ours is a choice that people make on an ongoing basis. People in power have to choose what to do sometimes one after another. George Washington had to make a decision. The US Congress had passed a tax on corn whiskey. People on the other side of the Allegheny Mountains started a rebellion. President Washington sent in the US Army to put down the rebellion. Winston Churchill had captured a German Enigma machine and broke the German military code. He found out that the Germans were going to bomb the city of Coventry. He didn’t tell anyone because he couldn’t let the Germans know he had the machine. Moral dilemmas, we face them every day. It isn’t as life altering all the time. But it is as important as any decision made by any nation. What do you do? We have to make decisions for our family as well as ourselves. What do you think about after you have made a decision that effects everyone around you? Are you a good guy or a bad one? I have always been willing to follow God in His plans. I have made decisions that I know have changed people’s lives. I am fallible. I am not perfect. I am not all knowing like God, but what I have done is to pray to ask to correct any mistakes that I have made. It is the only way I could go on knowing that I am not perfect. You see you must first believe that He is and He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

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A teacher in high school use to tease us and say that we had myopia. That is nearsightedness. He said he would look at some of the girls we dated and tell us to have our eyes checked. Our eyes are so important to us. I have always been a people watcher. If you want to laugh hard just watch a crowd of people doing normal things. I don’t laugh in their faces. That would be rude. Watch parents with children and see how they react. I saw a mom come into a store with three 10 year old girls. That was when the wooden flip flops were popular. They would clop their shoes together. It made such a racket, that the mom kept fussing and trying to get them to stop. But you will find out what people are like under duress. We process so much information through our eyes. That is why it is so important to guard what you see. Because that information goes into your heart. And from that information comes our understanding and judgement. We judge things according to what we know. And we know by what we see. But that doesn’t mean that it is correct. To accurately judge anything you have to hold it up against a standard. The standard doesn’t come from our own mind or heart. There is only one standard that can keep us from destroying each other. It has been in place since the beginning of time. It is the Word of God. All the laws of man are based upon it. Use your eyes and look for yourself to see what the Word of God says. Then you will see clearly.

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I have written over 850 blogs on every subject about God from A to Z. I still haven’t even scratched the surface. The knowledge of God is given to those who seek Him. When I began to seek God, I learned who He is. I wanted to know not from what people said, but for myself. Everybody has a story and tells it their way. So I began to study and read not only the bible, but literature from all kinds of sources. The trick is to let God tell you what is real and what isn’t. Jesus said that He would send the Holy Spirit to be our teacher. So when I would listen to preachers, I would listen to what God said about what they were preaching. God said that you would learn a little bit at time. He said here a little there a little. I don’t think I could have been able to understand the mysteries of God all at once. So this is what I have tried to do. My blogs aren’t heavy theological discussions. But on the other hand, those that know the truth can see God’s hand. And for those who don’t know the truth, it is to get you to ask questions. When you ask questions, answers will come for you to learn the truth. What is truth? There is only one truth and that is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. You see the whole bible is nothing but a picture of Jesus Himself. So I still study to learn about God. And I do this for myself and my Father, God.

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My house was one of the houses that was flooded out in south Louisiana. We got into the house for the first time after being a week under water. There was a big pile of furniture in the front yard. All destroyed. It was hard not to get angry and discouraged. I worked all my life to provide for my family and myself. And now I have to start over again. I just wanted to sit and cry for a while. But my life wasn’t over. My family wasn’t hurt. And there are things to do. I didn’t want to go to the house. I was afraid of what I was going to find. And when I went and found it. My family and friends gathered around me. All the young men pulled all the things out of the house. My earthly treasures were saved. Just about everything is out of the house. The insurance adjuster was coming. What he says will determine what will happen next. I didn’t know what to expect. But I know that I will live on. I still have my van to unload. Then we are at it again. We should finished emptying the house. Then we set up the fans and dehumidifiers. If I weren’t a Christian, I know that I would be discouraged about everything. And would be asking why me. My life is about living for Jesus, no matter what. And even if it kills me. You see I gave my life years ago. And for all practical purposes, God directs my life. It is the only way to live. I have had purpose and direction all my life. And life has gone up and down like everyone else. But I know that: Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (KJV).

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