Do you watch “America’s Got Talent”? It’s a show I normally wouldn’t watch, but this go around I happen to catch the end of the first show of the season and the introduction of the carwash guy, Landau Eugene Murphy Jr., who sings with the voice of a 40’s crooner. You’ve got to be a baby-boomer to remember the radio playing in the kitchen and hearing Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and others singing in crystal clear, seemingly effortless voice tones. Anyway, this carwash dude opened his mouth to sing and I had flash-backs of my childhood for an hour. I don’t watch the complete show, ever, because most of it is a totally ridiculous disappointment, but I’ve been trying my best to watch for this guy with the million dollar voice, because I believe he will win. Murphy had never auditioned or performed for a large audience before appearing on the talent show. He awed the judges as well as the full auditorium of people who witnessed the birth of a star. Landau took himself to a place of discomfort just to see if he really was any good and Howie Mandel guaranteed Landau his life was never going to be the same. Piers Morgan said, “…you are standing there crying because you didn’t know how good you were and now you do”. Murphy said he never expected to be received and loved by the audience in this way.
The kind-hearted hostess of an amateur musical spied a lonely-looking little man huddled in a corner of the room and paused to make conversation. “Tell me”, she asked, “do you play any musical instrument?” “Not away from home”, the little man replied. “How peculiar”, remarked the hostess. “What instrument do you play at home?” she inquired. The man replied, “Second fiddle.”
The young man who was to make his first public speech came to the podium and murmured: “My-mm-my f-f-friends, on the way to the banquet only God and I knew what I was going to say to you …and since I’ve misplaced my speech papers, now only God knows what it is I was going to say.”
The older preacher told the younger preacher that if he ever forgot the words of the marriage ceremony to start quoting scripture until he remembered. Sure enough, at the next wedding ceremony, the young man forgot. Sadly, the only scripture he could remember at the time was, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
[Hebrews 12: 14-29] I know it wasn’t the first time that Landau Murphy had sung before an audience, but it was the first time he laid it all on the line to experience a life changing event. He really didn’t know what he had to offer the world until he displayed it. His life will never be the same again. Are you still hitting the snooze button on your talents? Are you still hitting the snooze button when it comes to returning your talents to God? This is a rather difficult subject to subject people to. I have to tell you, I’ve never been happier in my life than when I turned my life over to Jesus and began using my talents to the glory of God. I discovered that no one in this world can offer me what heaven can. I discovered I can’t get to heaven or receive the blessings of heaven without the church and the Holy Spirit of God. Was I nervous to present myself before God and the church? Sure! How will I be received? Are my talents worthy of God and the church? I left worldly things behind and laid my life on the line, seeking forgiveness and a better lifestyle. I’ve been given it all in abundance.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Share In Prayer
How hot and dry is it in Texas? A guy in Longview claims he killed a mosquito that was carrying a canteen. A man in Lubbock said the farmers had their chickens sitting on crushed ice to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs. In Lake Palestine, a fellow caught a 20 lb catfish covered with ticks! Just this week, in Bryan, a fire hydrant was seen bribing a dog. It's so dry in Texas, Baptists are starting to baptize by sprinkling, Methodists are using wet-wipes, Presbyterians are giving out rain-checks, and the Catholics are praying for the wine to turn back into water. It will rain again, right?
Here’s something to think about. A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many her age, she considered herself to be an enlightened liberal, very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words, redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a staunch conservative. Based on the lectures and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire, to keep what he thought should be his. One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying. Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?" She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over." Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA." The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That's a crazy idea! How would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!" The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the conservative side of the fence."
[1 Timothy 2:1-4 & Romans 13] Has the heat brought you to your knees? Has the drought brought you to your knees? Has the decadence in Washington brought you to your knees? How about the economic problems facing us all? If not, I suggest you get on your knees and pray. Do you want a better economy? Don’t wait on Washington, pray. Do you want better representatives in government? Don’t let someone else choose them. Pray for God to choose them. Are you tired of gangs and drugs and crime in your neighborhood? Pray them out of existence. It’s obvious we can’t do it right without Supreme guidance. Our forefathers knew it, now we’re learning all about it.
Here’s something to think about. A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many her age, she considered herself to be an enlightened liberal, very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words, redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a staunch conservative. Based on the lectures and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire, to keep what he thought should be his. One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying. Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?" She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over." Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA." The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That's a crazy idea! How would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!" The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the conservative side of the fence."
[1 Timothy 2:1-4 & Romans 13] Has the heat brought you to your knees? Has the drought brought you to your knees? Has the decadence in Washington brought you to your knees? How about the economic problems facing us all? If not, I suggest you get on your knees and pray. Do you want a better economy? Don’t wait on Washington, pray. Do you want better representatives in government? Don’t let someone else choose them. Pray for God to choose them. Are you tired of gangs and drugs and crime in your neighborhood? Pray them out of existence. It’s obvious we can’t do it right without Supreme guidance. Our forefathers knew it, now we’re learning all about it.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Corn Mileage
I don’t work the automotive scene any longer, but I do understand what the manufacture is going through trying to keep up with government regulations. Things just don’t make sense anymore. For instance, gas mileage is a must these days. Since 1970 when gas was $.20 a gallon, until now, we have seen gas guzzling mandates added to our vehicles such as EGR valves, catalytic converters, revamped A/C systems that need more horsepower (by the way, the auto A/C system is being completely revamped again and it will need even more horsepower to operate it) and if all this is wasn’t enough to hold gas mileage down we now have to put up with corn ethanol which lowers you mileage average even more. And why does gas keep going up? It costs a fortune to produce ethanol! It also produces more pollutants in production than it eliminates burning in your engine. They say we’re running out of petroleum. So why keep developing products that make us use more gas? The Environmental Protection Agency is as much out of control as the rest of our government. We should have been developing electric vehicles over thirty years ago. Today we would all be driving one.
One day while his class was in the lab, the chemistry professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, repeatedly rubbing his back and stretching as if his back was really hurting him. The Prof asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist regime. In the midst of his story he asked the professor a strange question, “Do you know how to catch wild pigs?” The Prof thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said it was no joke. “You catch them by finding a suitable place in the wild and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and start coming everyday to eat the free corn. Then you put a fence up along one side of the place and keep the corn coming. Then when the pigs are used to the short fence, add another side and so on until all four sides are fenced and the pigs are coming through a gate at one end of the place to eat free corn. Then, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They discover they are caught and start running around inside the fence looking for a way out. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it they have forgotten how to forage for themselves, so they accept their captivity.” The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America. I’ll let you figure out where the free corn is, and the legislative walls that are going up all around.
[Matthew 11: 28-30] I’m so glad that my God is not working on ulterior motives to frustrate me even more than life itself. I know exactly what to expect at the end of this life because through His Word, Jesus and the Bible, I can read and understand what my God expects of me in this life and how to prepare myself for the kind of life I want to experience after death. Jesus says I can learn from him and I can understand and above all I can remember what He teaches. That’s the same for everyone. The rules and qualifications for salvation are the same for everybody and they will never change over time. I don’t know how many more miles I have to travel in this life, but I do know my mileage continues to increase as I continue to clean up my life and live in His way.
One day while his class was in the lab, the chemistry professor noticed one young man, an exchange student, repeatedly rubbing his back and stretching as if his back was really hurting him. The Prof asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist regime. In the midst of his story he asked the professor a strange question, “Do you know how to catch wild pigs?” The Prof thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said it was no joke. “You catch them by finding a suitable place in the wild and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and start coming everyday to eat the free corn. Then you put a fence up along one side of the place and keep the corn coming. Then when the pigs are used to the short fence, add another side and so on until all four sides are fenced and the pigs are coming through a gate at one end of the place to eat free corn. Then, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They discover they are caught and start running around inside the fence looking for a way out. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it they have forgotten how to forage for themselves, so they accept their captivity.” The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America. I’ll let you figure out where the free corn is, and the legislative walls that are going up all around.
[Matthew 11: 28-30] I’m so glad that my God is not working on ulterior motives to frustrate me even more than life itself. I know exactly what to expect at the end of this life because through His Word, Jesus and the Bible, I can read and understand what my God expects of me in this life and how to prepare myself for the kind of life I want to experience after death. Jesus says I can learn from him and I can understand and above all I can remember what He teaches. That’s the same for everyone. The rules and qualifications for salvation are the same for everybody and they will never change over time. I don’t know how many more miles I have to travel in this life, but I do know my mileage continues to increase as I continue to clean up my life and live in His way.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
America, An Object of Ridicule?
I think we all have something in our life that irritates us to no end. For some people it’s other drivers on the road. For some it’s standing in long lines that don’t seem to move very fast. Maybe what lights the fire under your pressure cooker is whining, misbehaving children sitting at the table next to yours in a restaurant. Isn’t it funny the things you think when your frustration level peaks? Malfunctioning mechanical things that I use all the time, but can’t fix, are my near breaking point. I love to fix things as to replace them, but in this modern throw-away-world it’s getting harder and harder for an honest tinkerer to find any satisfaction in his work. At the moment I’m dealing with the horizontal hold on my man cave TV. I’ve gotten tired of hitting the side of the set with my hand and have moved on to hitting the sweet spot with a chunk of petrified wood, normally used as a paper-weight. It’s getting harder to persuade the reluctant circuit board to straighten up and perform as designed by sending a mini earthquake shock through it with the paperweight. Love-taps have turned into multiple hammering on the idiot box until the picture fills the screen again. I hope I don’t do what I dream of doing before our new Wal-Mart opens. Patience will be rewarded with an upgrade.
Another thing that tends to boil my pot is the nonchalant handling of money and the miss-management of finances. Customer: “Hey! You gave me the wrong change.” Cashier: “Sir, you stepped away from the counter. There’s nothing I can do about it now.” Customer: “I just thought you might like to know you gave me twenty dollars too much, but I guess there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
Two fellows opened a butcher shop and prospered. An evangelist came through town and one of the two butchers was converted. The now obedient Christian butcher tried desperately to convert the other, but to no avail. He asked, “Why won’t you, Charlie?” The reply was... “Listen Lester, if I get religion too, who’s going to weigh the meat?”
A Sunday school teacher was teaching her class about the differences between right and wrong. “All right children, let’s take another example”, she said. “If I were to get into a man’s pocket and take his billfold with all his money without him knowing, what would I be?” With confidence, little Johnny immediately shouted, “You’d be his wife!”
[Psalm 9; Psalm 33] The exterminator called one of his clients; “I’m very sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Lee, but your check just came back, insufficient funds.” “I guess we’re even then”, she replied. “So did those ants you promised me you had driven out of my house forever.” The morals of this country are deteriorating by the generation and it’s not due to lack of resources. Our education system is failing to instill proper moral and ethic deductive reasoning into the minds of the young people who will one day own this country. The omission of the Christian religion and the teaching of God’s Word in basic education has brought US to the brink of bankruptcy and world-wide shame. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) “But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot [America] from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this [Washington] I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples” (2 Chronicles 7:19-20) Is this truly the America you want your grandchildren to live in?
Another thing that tends to boil my pot is the nonchalant handling of money and the miss-management of finances. Customer: “Hey! You gave me the wrong change.” Cashier: “Sir, you stepped away from the counter. There’s nothing I can do about it now.” Customer: “I just thought you might like to know you gave me twenty dollars too much, but I guess there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
Two fellows opened a butcher shop and prospered. An evangelist came through town and one of the two butchers was converted. The now obedient Christian butcher tried desperately to convert the other, but to no avail. He asked, “Why won’t you, Charlie?” The reply was... “Listen Lester, if I get religion too, who’s going to weigh the meat?”
A Sunday school teacher was teaching her class about the differences between right and wrong. “All right children, let’s take another example”, she said. “If I were to get into a man’s pocket and take his billfold with all his money without him knowing, what would I be?” With confidence, little Johnny immediately shouted, “You’d be his wife!”
[Psalm 9; Psalm 33] The exterminator called one of his clients; “I’m very sorry to tell you this, Mrs. Lee, but your check just came back, insufficient funds.” “I guess we’re even then”, she replied. “So did those ants you promised me you had driven out of my house forever.” The morals of this country are deteriorating by the generation and it’s not due to lack of resources. Our education system is failing to instill proper moral and ethic deductive reasoning into the minds of the young people who will one day own this country. The omission of the Christian religion and the teaching of God’s Word in basic education has brought US to the brink of bankruptcy and world-wide shame. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) “But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot [America] from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this [Washington] I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples” (2 Chronicles 7:19-20) Is this truly the America you want your grandchildren to live in?
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Don't Alter The Bible To Fit
A few years back the buzzword was change and we’ve certainly seen a lot of that over the past two years. I got to thinking about what my mother’s father would think about the world today. Unlike my father and his father, I think Grandpa Taylor would have embraced all the new gadgets and would be having fun with life. In his lifetime, he saw several wars, lived through the great depression, saw the automobile go from a luxury to a necessity along with electricity, indoor plumbing and the telephone. It’s amazing, the things we have allowed into our lives as novelties only to let them get so involved our daily activities that they have become necessities of life. Computers, cell phones, i-pads, i-pods, smart phones, apps, GPS systems and a host of other devises are all involved so deeply in our lives we can’t imagine trying to function without them. Some people seem to have the notion that the good old days were simple and romantic when in reality they were hard work. Today, the average worker probably gets ten times more work done, daily, and more efficiently, than the worker of 1900 did. Altogether, in 2011, with all our super helpers, we’re more disconnected to one another and more fatigued than our grandparents ever were. It seems we’ve become world oriented at age three.
Coming through the door one day after school, little Johnny hollers out, “Okay everyone in this house, please stand advised that I, little Johnny Elvis Smith, has made a complete fool of myself in class by repeating stories concerning storks, as told to me by certain parties residing in this house!” You can’t hide things from kids anymore.
“My wife and I were walking down the street the other day”, a man was telling his friend, “and when we came to a mud puddle I didn’t carry her across.” “What did she say to that?” asked the friend. “She said I wasn’t as gallant as I was when she was a girl. I told her she wasn’t as buoyant as she was when I was a boy.”
There was a time when we rallied around the thought of “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”. However, America grew to be the greatest nation on the planet with an unbeatable military force and we boasted, “Give Me Liberty”. Today Americans are so spoiled the consensus has become, “Give Me!” To quote Maynard G. Krebs: “WORK!?”
[Judges 2:10] “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.” The current occupant of the oval office patronizes Bible believers: “Give up your worn arguments and old attitudes”. Maybe we should start with updating the Bible. “After the World War 2 generation had been gathered to their fathers, the baby boomer generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for America.” Scripture is being distorted to promote a radical, anti-family agenda, while treating those who refuse to compromise God’s word with rank condescension. Times have changed, and in the names of “progress” and “tolerance”, some want to cast the Bible aside as dated and passé. However, we will do so at our own peril. We must hold fast to God’s word. We must extoll biblical morality and respect the Bible’s moral code as essential to the well-being of our republic. Is the Bible old? Yes. Out dated? Never! Nations rise and fall, and politicians come and go, “…but the word of the Lord stands forever”. (1 Peter 1: 25)
Coming through the door one day after school, little Johnny hollers out, “Okay everyone in this house, please stand advised that I, little Johnny Elvis Smith, has made a complete fool of myself in class by repeating stories concerning storks, as told to me by certain parties residing in this house!” You can’t hide things from kids anymore.
“My wife and I were walking down the street the other day”, a man was telling his friend, “and when we came to a mud puddle I didn’t carry her across.” “What did she say to that?” asked the friend. “She said I wasn’t as gallant as I was when she was a girl. I told her she wasn’t as buoyant as she was when I was a boy.”
There was a time when we rallied around the thought of “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”. However, America grew to be the greatest nation on the planet with an unbeatable military force and we boasted, “Give Me Liberty”. Today Americans are so spoiled the consensus has become, “Give Me!” To quote Maynard G. Krebs: “WORK!?”
[Judges 2:10] “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.” The current occupant of the oval office patronizes Bible believers: “Give up your worn arguments and old attitudes”. Maybe we should start with updating the Bible. “After the World War 2 generation had been gathered to their fathers, the baby boomer generation grew up, who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for America.” Scripture is being distorted to promote a radical, anti-family agenda, while treating those who refuse to compromise God’s word with rank condescension. Times have changed, and in the names of “progress” and “tolerance”, some want to cast the Bible aside as dated and passé. However, we will do so at our own peril. We must hold fast to God’s word. We must extoll biblical morality and respect the Bible’s moral code as essential to the well-being of our republic. Is the Bible old? Yes. Out dated? Never! Nations rise and fall, and politicians come and go, “…but the word of the Lord stands forever”. (1 Peter 1: 25)
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