Happy New Year 2020! But why? Do you know what happened 2,020 years ago?
It’s been 2,020 years since Jesus Christ was born, that babe in the manger.
Every time you look at a coin, it’s a marker of time, a reminder that Jesus Christ came into this world to seek and to save people from their sin.
Someone said, “He has turned aside the river of ages out of its course and lifted the centuries off its hinges.”
We measure time as B.C. and A.D. Do you know what those mean?
B.C. means “Before Christ” and A.D. does not mean “After Death.” No, A.D. stands for Anno Domini, “In the year of the Lord.” It has been changed now to “The Year of Our Lord.”
I WAS OFFENDED!I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was this allowed in Johnson City, Texas? Apparently so. As far as I knew there was no law against it.
I walked up to the counter of HealthMart, our local pharmacy, and there was the most offensive, agitating, insensitive sign I ever saw. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but still, I was shocked. I called Phil the manager over to ask him about that, that…sign: “How come it says ‘Happy Holidays’? This is Johnson City. We are a Christmas town!”
He’s a very friendly guy and listened attentively as I voiced my complaint.
Waking up about 6:30AM Sunday morning, I put water on the stove for my coffee then went outside to throw some deer corn. After brushing my teeth, and making the java, I looked out the front window and saw two bucks about 150 yards in front of my home. Because another house was just a few hundred yards behind them, I asked the Lord to move the deer to the side of my yard where it would be clear shooting.
Walking back to my bedroom, I grabbed the .30.30 under my bed, put two bullets in it, and, still in my pajamas and slippers, saw that a seven-pointer had moved to the side eating his deer corn. Standing on the front porch again, I raised my rifle to sight him in…but he was looking straight at me, unperturbed! I asked the Lord to turn him around so that I would have a nice heart shot.
He did.
I tied a rope around his hind legs and hoisted him into the back of the church Suburban. After finishing my cup of coffee I whisked him over to one of our church members to have him field dressed. (No, I haven’t learned to do this yet.)
After he was cleaned, I went to our local processor and left him in the cooler where I’m hoping to get about 50 pounds of jerky and dry sausage.
Rushing to church, I took a quick shower, dressed—then preached the Word at our Sunday service.
THE
WORST THANKSGIVING SERVICE I ever saw advertised was from a church in Dripping
Springs that had a special “Thanking the Earth” ceremony. And the silliest
bumper sticker ever stuck to a Hyundai said this: “Did you thank a green plant
today?” How far away from God these people are to thank the creation and not
the Creator.
The Babylon Bee reported that local atheist Hal Woodring is
preparing his heart to humbly show gratitude to the cold, mechanical processes
that randomly led to mankind’s existence and his own fleeting life this
Thanksgiving, sources confirmed Friday. Woodring plans to bow his head silently
before partaking in his family’s extravagant Thanksgiving feast Thursday
evening to give thanks to the meaningless, cold, inconsequential universe for
preserving him and allowing him to partake in its bounty. His family members
report that he does this every Thanksgiving, pausing to thank the meaningless,
vast, and ancient universe that doesn’t care at all whether they live or die.
That was satire, but it wasn’t far from the truth.
Religion
News Service reported that atheists and the non-religious have a Thanksgiving
called “secular grace” which invokes no deity and has no spirituality, yet it still fulfills a
need. “Unitarian-Universalists
and adherents of other nontheistic faiths have said godless blessings for
years, and Robert Ingersoll, ‘the Great Agnostic,’ gave a Thanksgiving sermon in 1897 in which he thanked scientists,
artists, statesmen, mothers, fathers, poets and just about everybody except
God. Secular grace typically recognizes the animals who gave their lives for
the feast, the people who prepared the meal and even the elements of nature that
contributed to it — earth, water, fire and air.”
This type of “gratitude” reminds me of what the Apostle Paul said:
“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped
and served created things rather than the Creator.…”
MASS SHOOTINGS ARE IN THE NEWS AGAIN and I hate that I have to write this article. Anticipate more controversy of what could have been done, what should have been done. Also, expect those who offer their thoughts and prayers to be shamed once again.
CNN reported that the phrase “thoughts and prayers” had reached
“semantic satiation, the phenomenon in which a word or phrase is repeated so often it loses its meaning.” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said that thoughts and prayers after a shooting “should be outlawed…Usually, it’s a throwaway line by a staffer who knocks off some script, some product, some wordage for somebody political to make it sound like they give a damn.”
I can understand that sending good thoughts during a
time of crisis mean nothing, but Scripture says prayer is “powerful and effective.” (James 5:16) Jesus says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock
and the door will be opened to you. For everyone
who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the
door will be opened.” (Matthew 7) The implication is that we are to
continuously ask, seek and knock.
That Obnoxious Holiday Greeting
I WAS OFFENDED! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was this allowed in Johnson City, Texas?
Apparently so. As far as I knew there was no law against it.
I walked up to the counter of HealthMart, our local pharmacy, and there was the most offensive, agitating, insensitive sign I ever saw. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but still, I was shocked. I called Phil the manager over to ask him about that, that…sign: “How come it says ‘Happy Holidays’? This is Johnson City. We are a Christmas town!”
He’s a very friendly guy and listened attentively as I voiced my complaint.
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