The reason the world seems to be run by idiots is that it is already being run by a Genius, and anyone who seeks to assume that position must be an idiot.
This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital...
SLOW DANCE
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Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.
Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask How are you?
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.
Ever told your child,
We'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say,"hi"
You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift....
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.
My family and I enjoy road trips; as a matter of fact, we enjoyed another one this past weekend. We had a wonderful time; much better than we had planned with more than one surprise to spice things up. The first surprise appeared when the fellow across the desk told us that they were out of minivans despite our having made our reservation weeks prior. So we ended up with a fullsize gashog of a van.
By the time we started loading up, we were already 2 hours late. By the time my wife was satisifed with the state of the luggage and the house locks and the aquarium and the steam iron and the stove, we were 3 hours late.
Personally, I know that I could have gotten myself on the road right on time or even a head of time. During my loner days, I was always proud of beating the clock. But now that I am a husband and a father I realize that...
"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together".
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between 2 wolves.
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
"The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
"It is impossible to have religious freedom in any nation where churches are licensed by the government." Congressman George Hansen.
The courts well-understand that “a church is not an entity recognized in law,” meaning that they have no jurisdiction over the church. However, organizing a church as a church is an especially difficult concept for attorneys to grasp. The legal support for the State’s lack of jurisdiction over the church in America is not only the Word of God, but also our very own First Amendment to the Constitution for the United States. No church in any nation at any point in history can lay claim to the freedoms and liberties that are guaranteed the church in America. The First Amendment is an act of God’s Providence to safeguard His church and maintain its independence from the State.
The federal government's recognition of the rights and opportunities of the church in America, is not something that any other nation's government recognizes or in many cases, tolerates. If we believe that this by Godly design and not by random chance, then we will be vigilant to not just sing hyms sit in pews and tithe 10%, but to also get involved in all aspects of our spiritual lives. Giving 10%, 20%, 30% or even 100% merely builds bigger church groups and funds more programs. What is needed isn't bigger Churches groups or even a certain president; what is needed are people who retain their free and unhindered voice, value it, and are willing to die for using it if necessary. To do otherwise is merely the pomp and circumstance of a religious club.
Again, let us not be content with merely being actors in the play of our lives, but let us be directors in our Godly destinies. Let us not be distracted by the varying denominational and theological opinions on the likes of Chronicles of Narnia or the Davinci Code ad infinitum, while more pertinent issues fall by the way side. Let us put ourselves back where we belong: under God who needs no defending, indivisible, with freedom and justice for all. Let us put our government back in its place: keep tabs on what your elected officials are up to and let them know what you expect of them...and last but not least: Be aware.
[the End]
"Worry is a misuse of the imagination."
In my first posting on The Truth Of Religious Liberty, I explained the relationship of religion to the founding of America, as well as the series of events which led to religious liberty in America. Now let's fast forward and discuss the greatest threat to religious liberty in the history of the human race; ironically the threat is being perpertrated by the religious because we are ignorant of the history and mechanics of religious liberty.
First please read this article titled "Churches to defy IRS on sermons" and then my followup below...
Ever since I read the American Consitution and subsequently became an American citizen, I have been flabbergasted as to why church groups and other religious organizations are violating Divine Law by incorporating themselves as 501c3 tax-exempt religious organizations, and with good reason. I am going to give you those reasons and then I am going to ask you to bring this information to the attention of those church group and religious organizations with whom you are affiliated.
Back in the early 1950's Senator Lyndon B. Johnson finally had enough of the church's significant influence on shaping public/government policy and so he set out to silence his nemesis, the church. He did so in 1954 by giving the church a financial advantage by adding them to section 501c3 of the tax code.
This gift from Johnson is -debatedly- the worst curse placed upon the church in America, because it comes with strings attached -dangerous strings. Churches who become 501c3 corporations make themselves entities/persons/children of a civil government, grant jurisdiction of themselves to that government, exist solely at the discretion and pleasure of that government, and are subject to the whims and will of that government; they become creatures of the State instead of God. Since 1954 more and more restrictions are being placed upon what these church groups can say against anything that the government declares is legal or allowed without threatening that precious tax-exempt status.
Church groups are unwittingly selling out to 501c3 because they either don't know better, or because "everyone else is doing it", or upon the advice of attorneys and CPAs, or out of greed or selfish ambition. All of these reasons would cease to exist if churches were to simply take God seriously, become knowledgeable, employ wisdom, and seek reliable Godly advice instead of unreliable secular advice. Instead, our own seminaries and Bible colleges are espousing the 'virtues' if not the 'necessity' of 501c3.
Now here is the kicker: the IRS has always recognized that according to the American constitution, church group are by their very nature, automatically tax-exempt and tax-deductible.
Go the the IRS website via Google and research the following for your self...
1: The First Amendment to the American COnsitution states that Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the FREE exercise thereof.
2: IRS Publication 557 acknowledges and states that churches, interchurch organizations of local units of a church, conventions or associations of churches, or integrated auxiliaries of a church, such as a men's or women's organization, religious school, mission society, and youth groups are automatically tax-exempt and tax-deductible.
3: IRS Code § 508(c)(1)(A) uses the mandatory exception rule from 510c3 for: churches, their integrated auxiliaries, and conventions or associations of churches.
4: IRS Publication 526 also states that a donor can deduct contributions only to qualified organizations and that to become a qualified organization, most organizations OTHER THAN churches and governments must apply to the IRS
In the words of Steve Nestor, IRS Sr. Revenue Officer (ret.):"I am not the only IRS employee who’s wondered why churches go to the government and seek permission to be exempted from a tax they didn’t owe to begin with, and to seek a tax deductible status that they’ve always had anyway. Many of us have marveled at how church leaders want to be regulated and controlled by an agency of government that most Americans have prayed would just get out of their lives. Churches are in an amazingly unique position, but they don’t seem to know or appreciate the implications of what it would mean to be free of government control." ...
Have we learned nothing from the Bible? Have we learned nothing from history?
[to be continued]
Most people are of the mistaken belief that the pilgrims came to America in order to have religious freedom for all, free from government interference, and that this is guaranteed by the original Constitution; in fact, they actually came here to establish their own brand of Christianity free from the Church of England, from other Protestant denominations, and from the Catholic Church, and religious freedom is not mentioned in or guaranteed by the Constitution.
America was not primarily settled by people seeking religious freedom; the separation of church and state did not result from the activism of secularists or the Pilgrims, but, paradoxically, from the efforts of 18th-century evangelicals resulting in The First Amendment To The Constitution; and the American Revolution was as much a reaction against European theocracy as a struggle for economic and political freedom.
Even in 1771, our country was a much different place spiritually. Most of the first colonies subsidized their "chosen" ministers' salaries with tax revenue. Yes, pastors were paid by the government. People like Isaac Backus in Massachusetts were arrested and John Leland, John Weatherford, and David Barrow were assaulted by mobs and beaten with whips. Others taught that hymns were worldly and immoral and that only the Psalms should be sung. In Caroline County Virginia, 6 people were arrested for the "immorality" of adult baptism; at that time, most people thought adult baptism was like a "get out of jail free card" in regards to sin. They were not alone. New York state celebrated the anti-Catholic "Pope Day". Only 3 of the 13 colonies allowed Catholics to vote. You see, most settlers had come to America so that they could worship separately from other forms of religions. And Protestants, Catholics, and everything else besides the state's chosen (usually Puritan) religions were those other forms. They wanted to worship in the way they chose and to still kick out those who did not.
Obviously, we are a much different place today. What caused such change that brought not only a spiritual change called "religious liberty" but its political equivalent termed by Thomas Jefferson as "a wall of separation between church and state"? Two things among others made it possible, according to Steve Waldman, author of the book Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the birth of Religious Freedom in America.
The first was the persecution of nonPuritan Christians in the state of Virginia. The nonPuritans did not want the state governments to use tax dollars to pay the salaries of clergy and the Baptists did not want to be forced to baptize their children until they could speak for themselves. After a while, ‘Separate Baptists’ were exempted from the taxes in Virginia , but they had to verify their Christian heritage, be certified by their respective denominations, and prove they still attended church services regularly(how times have changed). But this was not enough, so Roger Williams started the first Baptist church in a free state called Rhode Island, but it took John Leland's problems with the magistrates of Virginia to awaken the concerns of James Madison.
The second was the message spread by George Whitfield in 1739; a message that ignited the flames of spiritual fervor so great in early America that more people started attending church services, and more church groups were started. There were so many different kinds of beliefs, religious liberty as expressed in the First Amendment To The Constitution provided freedom to all the new growing movements, but made sure that church groups did not try to meddle in the business of partisanship and that the government would likewise not meddle in religion; this amendment is also specifically addressed in current IRS regulations. Thanks to James Madison, The First Amendment became the way to hold the church groups accountable to each other instead of to the government. The founders of our country, many of whom were Godly people and even "Christians", eventually realized that faith coerced, compelled, or even funded was not True Faith. When the First Amendment To The Constitution was ratified, the states finally stopped subsidizing salaries, and as a result, we now have true Religious Freedom.
[to be continued]
