Friday, March 31, 2006

Drum Roll Please!



So these are my nieces Jacie (4yrs.) and Naya (2yrs.)
I know.... I know.... adorable!!
What can I say.... it runs in the family!!

Now I'd like to introduce my third niece born Monday at OSF.
You can see her pictures (six pics) at OSF website by clicking this link.

Alia Nicole Grimm
Born: 03-27-2006
Birth Time: 12:57 pm
@ OSF Saint Francis Medical Center
Weight: 7 lbs 10 oz
Length: 20 in.

God Bless
I love you all

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

I Found It

My heart is restless in me
My wings are all worn out
I'm walking in the wilderness
And I cannot get out
I need You, Oh, I need You
Blessed Savior come
I need You, Oh, I need You
Fill the every longing in my soul

CHORUS:
Oh, how I need You, Lord
I need Your perfect Word
With tearful eyes to see
The sin that I afford
I need to weep and pray
For all the thousand ways
That I have failed You just today

My bed is soaked with sadness
My sadness has no end
A downward spiral of despair
That I keep falling in
I need You, Oh, I need You
To You my soul shall fly
I need You, Oh, I need You
Yaweh, how I love You more than life

CHORUS

Your silence is like death to me
So won't You hear my desperate plea


Today my soul is soaring
Way over mountains high
Though I can see the valleys
They're all just passing by
It's not that I am stronger
Look at my feeble wings
But I've been lifted higher
Yaweh's lifted me in His own strength

Oh, how I love You, Lord
I love Your perfect Word
With tearful eyes to see
The God who always will endure
Now I will celebrate
For all the thousand ways
That You have shown me grace
And made my heart in grace to stay
You've made my heart in grace to stay
Lord, make my heart in grace to stay

I need You, Oh, I need You

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To be let off the hook!

Have you been there?!
Do you know what I'm talking about?!

The power of God's touch!
Have you found it?

Let me explain the comic. Charlie lost a library book, and over the course of eleven comic strips he has been called a liar, a thief, and has horribly worried himself. His failure is all he thought about, he didn't sleep, didn't eat, and let others point out his failings. Then he finds it!!

Peace is evident!
Have you ever watched someone you love experience this? It truly is inspiring, uplifting, and just causes one to tremble with excitement. OR, are you that person? Have you pondered your life only to realize that you've been a liar, a thief, a coward, someone deserving of Hell, a failure?

God loves you just the way you are, but too much to leave you that way! The Great Physician is knocking. Matthew 7:7 - Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

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I've been there! Many times. But God's Grace is sufficient, I've sought, and time 'n' time again, I've found it.
Grace.
God reaches out. And knocks.

I pray that someone is home.

I love you all

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Put Some Mustard On It

1. Faith plants a seed
2. We're baptised and converted by God
A. The convertion continues throughout life.
3. We surface to fight nature. Our human nature and trials in life. But, we grow through the experiences.
4. Fruit is produced.
5. We continue to grow our roots deep, drawing nigh unto our Father and He will draw nigh to us. (James 4:8) The deeper the roots, the more we can resist being uprooted.
FYI: The diameter of a trees roots are the same as the diameter of it's branches (it's fruit). No more, no less. The tap root is as deep as the tree is tall. So..... if you want to produce a lot of fruit.... you must have good, large roots.
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So use your roots to tap into some Living Water, and don't be afraid to grow.
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I love you all

Monday, March 20, 2006

Hebrews 6:1 - Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, (NASB)
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I like the story of the little boy who fell out of bed. When his Mom asked him what happened, he answered, "I don't know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in."
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Easy to do the same with our faith. It's tempting just to stay where we got in and never move.
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Pick a time in the not-too-distant past. A year or two ago. Now ask yourself a few questions. How does your prayer life today compare with then? How about your giving? Have both the amount and the joy increased? Can you tell you've grown? And Bible study? Are you learning to learn?...
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Don't make the mistake of the little boy. Don't stay too close to where you got in. It's risky resting on the edge.
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If you can look back a year and honestly say you've grown.
That you don't have the same problem you did a year ago.
Then you are successful in life.
Success for a Christian isn't measured by money, position, or ownership, but by whether or not you've grown in grace, in love, and in joy.
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I, personally, struggle with the edge of the bed.
Sometimes with being to close to it, but mostly with trying to stay holding on to it. I usually find myself hanging onto the edge just by a finger or two, already having fallen.
Just holding on to The Rock seeking His foot hold.
When my walk becomes a crawl.
Tired
Weary
And yearning just to be held.
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But I believe pity parties to be selfishness and nothing more. I also believe selfishness to be the root of our sinful nature. Just about all sin can be traced back to selfishness.
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So what do we do when the armor becomes dull. We're still wearing it, but its dull. When we're a duck on water. When we're tired and weary. When our walk becomes a crawl.....
...... keep crawling. Trials are made to go through, not around. We must walk through them, not run from them.
We keep hanging on to that edge of the bed. Seek and ye shall find.
And God will not only carve out a foot hold, but He'll show it to you. And then we read the Instruction Manual on how to climb.
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You don't drown by falling into the water, but by staying there.
Move away from where you got in. Grow
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I love you all

Saturday, March 11, 2006

A Case For God?

This is an article writen by: God said, Man said

The word of God is the foundation of life and truth. Every jot and tittle is holy altogether. But the revisionists and biblical minimalists have continually raised their hollow objections each time God speaks. Nearly every verse of the King James Version majority-text holy writ has been attacked. If that sounds like an exaggeration, consider this: minority-text revisionists have made 13,000 changes in the scriptures alone. That's enough for two changes for every verse of the Bible and that's just part of the evil.
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The very first chapter and the very first verse of the Bible is a good example of Satan's incessant attack upon the truth. It reads, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
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The first three words are, "In the beginning." One of the world's major religions disagrees. Their leader Buddha said, "No origin can be perceived." Thus the circle of life or reincarnation doctrine stakes out its position against the word of God. The next two words, "God created," have been aggressively attacked by the pseudo-wise with the teaching of evolution and its big bang theory. Satan knows all things collapse when God's word is rejected. Remember, we are literally made out of words (see "Made Out Of Words" on this site). Satan's purpose is only fulfilled when he kills, steals and destroys. Religion and academia under Satan's direction have attacked thoroughly. For 6,000 years they've attacked. They've attacked the authenticity of the authors. They've attacked the manuscripts. They've attacked the original translators' scholarship. They've attempted to debunk every supernatural account and they've attributed the Word of God to be the words of mere men. During 6,000 years of trying, Satan and his minions have failed miserably. Those truly seeking truth can still find it.
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Some hearing or reading this commentary literally cringed when they heard me say 6,000-year-old-earth.
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On one occasion when I mentioned God's position of the world being about 6,000 years old, a fellow Christian who was present laughed at such a concept. He wasn't laughing because he had proved this position through diligent search, but he simply believed the adversarial position because of constant bombardment. Years ago I picked up a young man hitchhiking a ride. I asked him what he thought of Jesus Christ. His reply was that he didn't believe in Jesus Christ, he believed in evolution. I asked him to tell me what evolution was. After a long pregnant pause he sheepishly said he didn't know what evolution was. He believed it because his teacher told him it was so.
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The Bible clearly teaches the earth to be approximately 6,000 years old. Conversely, evolutionists claim years into billions. Ancient secular history goes back about 5,500 years and the trail grows ice cold. The reason the trail grows ice cold is simply because there isn't much more history beyond it. Remember the need for witnesses in order to certify truth. Collaborated historical record is witness of the past. Two or more credible historians, for example, recording a history, certify it's validity. The Bible lays out the foundation for proof in Deuteronomy Chapter 19, Verse 15:
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One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.
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Being that credible recorded history, which is proof of the past, does not exceed 6,000 years, it is impossible to prove the earth older than 6,000 years. Credible witnesses cannot be produced because there aren't any. Pseudo-sicence consistently throws up straw-men arguments speaking of billions of years of time which are regularly discredited by sound science. There are over 107 scientific measurements that speak of a young earth, from the earth's young magnetic field and young moon evidences to population growth rates and present rates of continent erosion.
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In regard to the earth's age, God's word clearly chronicles it's age through the genealogical record. In Genesis, Chapter 5, Verse 3, the Bible's genealogical record of mankind begins with the statement, "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth;" If you read this chapter to its end it will end with Noah begetting his three sons. If you add the years between each father and his son, you will arrive at the time of Noah's flood. It was 1,656 years from the day Adam opened his eyes until the time God destroyed the earth by a worldwide flood. If you add the rest of the genealogical spans recorded in the Bible until Christ, you will basically arrive where Archbishop Ussher did in the year 1654 when he declared the years before Christ to be 4,004. Now add the years from the birth of Jesus Christ until today and you will have an earth just over 6,000 years old.
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In their ancient records the Miautso tribe of China traced their genealogy back to the beginning of time and the world's first man and they called his name "Dirt." Please note that the book of Genesis says that God created man out of the dust and called his name Adam. The Hebrew meaning of the name Adam is "red dirt."
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During the 1,656 years prior to the flood of Noah things were dramatically different. One of the major reasons for this difference is found in Genesis Chapter 1, Verses 6-7:
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6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
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Firmament is heaven or space. There are three heavens. The space around us and the sky are the first heaven. Outer space, where the planets, etc., are, is the second heaven and the third Heaven is where God dwells (II Corinthians, Chapter 12, Verses 2-5). So God separated the water into two bodies by firmament. One body was under the firmament and covered the earth. The other body of water was above the firmament (sky). Thus, you had two bodies of water separated by space or firmament. It is important to note that prior to the flood of Noah, there is no record of rain.
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Genesis Chapter 2, Verses 5-6:
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5. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
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God watered the earth with a mist. The first record of rain is in the days of Noah when God opened the windows of Heaven. Note that the token of the covenant God gave Noah assuring him that he would not destroy the whole earth again by a flood was a rainbow. A rainbow appears to be something Noah had never seen before. The ancient civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, India, Hawaii, Indonesia, Europe, Asia & Australia testify of a water canopy above the firmament. In the 1850's British archaeologists found about 20,000 clay tablets in the ruins of a library excavated in Ninevah. Among these were 12 tablets with astonishing text. (It's important to remember that these people were not adherents to the Bible.) The 12 ancient tablets known, as the Epic of Gilgamesh, described the destruction of the earth by a flood extremely similar to the Bible's record in Genesis. Other ancient civilizations tell a very similar story. The water canopy was rained down upon the earth.
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According to scientists a water canopy of that magnitude would have very powerful benefits. One of these benefits would be a greenhouse effect making the whole world tropical. For example, if you had a greenhouse you would have tropical temperatures inside with frigid temperatures outside. So then the water canopy God describes in Genesis would have as one of its major benefits a balmy tropical temperature encompassing the globe. Every day would have featured a beautiful, rainless, cloudless, postcard sky. However, immediately after God opened the windows of heaven and rained down that water canopy, the greenhouse effect ended and the north and south poles went into an immediate frigid deep freeze. According to an AP science writer, and I quote, "The frigid Arctic regions were as balmy as present-day Florida some 90 million years ago according to researchers who found fossils in northern Canada of a crocodile-like animal."
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The AP science writer was only half right...balmy temperatures, yes...90 million years ago, no.
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In a book titled, The Waters Above, by author J. C. Dillow, the following excerpts were found:
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Baron Toll, the Arctic explorer, found remains of a saber-toothed tiger and a 90-foot plum tree with green leaves and ripe fruit on its branches over 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle in the New Siberian Islands. Today, the only vegetation that grows there is a one-inch high willow.
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And again Dillow reports:
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Dr. Jack A. Wolfe in a U. S. Geological Survey Report (1978) told that Alaska once teemed with tropical plants. He found evidence of mangroves, palm trees, Burmese lacquer trees and groups of trees that now produce nutmeg and Macassar oil.
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In northern Siberia and Alaska there are an estimated 5,000,000 elephant-like mammoths destroyed by a flood and frozen in ice and permafrost.
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Kellog, an expert on ancient civilizations recounts their record which tells of a visible water heaven that was titillating with light. These ancient civilizations claimed this water heaven was home of the gods and that it obstructed the power of the sun god. One day this water heaven was banished and cast down to the earth and the sun came riding through as the conqueror of heaven, the master of the wind and rain. Until the worldwide flood that took place in the days of Noah, approximately 4,350 years ago, there was a water canopy above the firmament and the climate was balmy...every day was a beautiful, cloudless, post card sky.
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Another major benefit of this global water canopy was the filtering out of ultraviolet killer rays from the sun as well as other sun related detriments. Ultraviolet radiation is responsible for at lest 60 major diseases such as: cancer, high blood pressure, strokes, Altzheimer's, down's syndrome, mental loss, arteriosclerosis, just to name a few.
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Many of God's critics, being ignorant of the benefits of the water canopy, have ridiculed the tremendously long lives of those who lived before Noah's flood, before the end of the water canopy. Methuselah, the oldest man who ever lived, lived until the ancient age of 969 years. The average pre-Noah lifespan was 911 years or 13 times longer than we live today. Imagine living in a perfect tropical atmosphere, perfect air, perfect water, perfect diet and without harmful effects from the sun. The obvious result would be long, long healthy life...13 times longer. The pre-Noah water canopy is central to the explanation of what has perplexed many about the idea of a young 6,000-year-old earth.
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Any thoughts?