Prodigalson123

whatever happened with being at peace with everyone for as much as is possible? (Rom 12:18) If we are called to be at peace as much as is possible from our side, then the IHOPrayer should have said to themselves it would be wrong to adopt that acronym because that would be trademark infringement. They prayer movement should acquiesce imo

We could all learn a thing or about compassion and acceptance from Casting Crowns. It's sad to say, but compassions and acceptance seem to be rare commodities among Christians. These things we seem to reserve for those who don't offend us or our way of life. In other words, we reserve these things for each other. And that is why Jesus needs to come again soon. You need to read Romans Chapter one. It states that homosexuals have a reprobate mind. The reason why evangelical Christians are opposed to things like gay marriage is because God is opposed to the homosexual lifestyle. When Jesus does return, homosexuality won't be tolerated. As for the decision by the California Supreme Court, they did what they were forced to do. They declared gay marriages legal based on their claim that the state Constitution demanded it. The people amended the Constitution, and if the court had ruled against that vote, it would have been an admission that they were ruling by decree from the bench, rather than interpreting the Constitution. It could have led to a huge revolt. I'm not sure why you decided to post that, the truth is that we all had reprobate minds when we weren't saved, and only God's grace, unmerited favor, allows us to seek God and claim Christ as our savior. So we were in the exact condition as a homosexual is before our conversion. But to put Romans 1 in context, it also says that God's wrath is against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. That isn't limited to homosexuality. But Paul also highlights

Right. Hopefully, we will not be here for that..... Man, I certainly hope that there are no people who are in the gay lifestyle looking for some compassion and acceptance as they look to find the hope of Christianity, and instead see the comments about being tagged and such. Casting Crowns sings exactly about this topic in the song "If We Are The Body" It's crowded in worship today As she slips in trying to fade into the faces The girls teasing laughter is carrying farther than they know Farther than they know Chorus: But if we are the body Why aren't His arms reaching? Why aren't His hands healing? Why aren't His words teaching? And if we are the body Why aren't His feet going? Why is His love not showing them there is a way? There is a way A traveler is far away from home He sheds his coat and quietly sinks into the back row The weight of their judgmental glances Tells him that his chances are better out on the road Jesus paid much too high a price For us to pick and choose who should come And we are the body of Christ Jesus is the way Please remember that in all things we are examples. Either we will be good examples or bad, but examples none the less

I like it

well, there was alot there, but not much of value. I'm glad for Kris he won, hope that he doesn't fall prey to the trappings of this industry, and that he and his wife stay safe and faithful.

If it's true, God is in control and He will allow or hold back the authorities as He wills, if it isn't true, God is in control. He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

And there is right now if you are practically destitute. The problem is with the Middle Class. Many of them earn too much to qualify for public assistance, but not enough to afford adequate health coverage. Ok, so say you or one of your kids was in a major accident. Those bills could easily exceed 6 figures, in fact, they could in a worst case scenario total up to millions of dollars. Would you then just pay it out over time? Do you realize the number one reason for bankruptcy filings in this country are medical bills? You worded that wrong. You don't get denied emergency care if you have insurance. So lets say your uninsured and you get cancer. Chances are you are not going to know you have it until you are absolutely ate up with it and possibly terminal, because you would have gotten no preventative care at all. Of course, once that point arrived and you were so sick with cancer you had to go to the emergency room, they would be legally obligated to treat you, and the costs for that treatment would be passed on to the insured. Do you not get it? Its just like insuring your car. You have to carry insurance on your car because if you were involved in an accident, it protects other parties from having to foot the bill themselves for your negligence. Similarly, Mass requires you to have insurance, because if you don't have insurance and you make a trip to the emergency room, that hospital will simply pass the costs of treating you to everyone else. Now, I would imagine that just about everyone would have medical insurance if they could afford it. Well, thats where Obama is trying to help you out, he wants to give you a tax credit so you can afford it, so being responsible by having medical insurance will not put such a burden on you. What is wrong with that? It seems to me that he is trying address the problem you just described. Once again we are crying the sky is falling and bringing up hypotheticals as a reason for legislation? I have car insurance, if I get into an accident, my rates go up, if I speed my rates go up. If I am a good driver, my rates go down. To date, I am 43 yrs old, have a wife and 12 yr old son. My health insurance has never gone down. If your guy gets in, my rates go up so that Tom Smith who I don't know, who smokes, drinks has heart disease in his family, diabetes from uncle tommy, has hypertension from aunt sally or whatever malady applies, I get to contribute to pay for it. If you read my post, there is wasteful spending in the govt. I think we should eliminate wasteful spending to pay for these social programs. I have no wish to deny anyone coverage. But there is a really simple premise here. Someone has to pay for it. If you wish to do so, as President Bush stated, the IRS takes checks, money orders etc. Feel free to contribute until you are satisfied that you are doing your part. But, don't come into my wallet and decide you are going to clear your moral conscience by using my money to pay for something that I have provided for myself. If there are people who need help, then we work it out through taxes to help. But like any household, or corporation, you can't spend more then you have. Balance the budget, set aside the monies for these programs, but to continue to ask people to fund these programs when they are hardly able to provide for the responsibilities they have accepted already, is foolish, arrogant and will only bring the system to ruin. There will be a day that the overly taxed among us will stop paying. They will hide their income, and then where will you be? The same place NY state is, when they decided to pay for their rising health care costs by taxing cigarettes by almost $4.00 per pack. You know what happened then? The consumers went elsewhere to buy their cigarettes. So....the notion that you are going to make the people "responsible" pay for the health care woes in this country won't work. How about we adopt a rare and revolutionary idea. You don;t work, you don't eat. If you can't afford insurance, then maybe you should give up the cell phone that is a luxury. I speak from people who work for me here, 2 girls that are pregnant, have no home, but refuse to work 40 hours/week, both have multiple cell phones, and then expect the govt. to subsidize them. Then are upset when they don't get what they want. In my 25 years in the restaurant industry, I have run into exponentially more cases like these two, then the person who is hard working, doesn't have the opportunity for any insurance, gets cancer and doesn't find out until it's too late. Sorry, I aint buying the whole premise you're selling. That's why I won't vote for Obama or Clinton

Ok, wait a second, you are decrying socialized medicine, yet just a sentence later, you point out that you were a recipient of a liberal socialized medicine program. You don't happen to see the irony of that? Its amazing to me how those that bash Democrats many times are the ones that actually benefited from their ideas and policies the most. What would you have done without WIC and without MASS Health, because liberals are the reason you had them. The problem is that we have a growing number of households in America that make too much to qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP programs like MASS health, yet do not earn enough to afford health coverage. They are the ones falling through the cracks now. If you are poor, then you can probably qualify for Medicaid. If you are near poor, you can probably qualify for an SCHIP program for your kids. However, say your household earns the median household income in America, which is about 46k a year. Now, say you have 2 kids, and your household income is that (half of all households in America earn that much or less). Now, say your employer does not provide health insurance (a growing number don't). That could be quite a mess huh? Chances are you would earn too much to qualify for SCHIP, yet to little to afford adequate insurance through the private sector for your kids, much less yourself and your spouse. What Obama is proposing is for families in that situation to get a tax credit. So when you filed your taxes, you would qualify for a tax credit to help you purchase health insurance through the private sector in the event that your employer did not provide coverage, you earned too much for SCHIP, but not enough to afford to insure your kids or yourself. Moreover, he is proposing that you be able to buy into the same healthcare plans that federal employees and members of congress enjoy. Do you honestly not think thats a good idea? Ok, so could you please point out where I said that help for families without insurance is wrong? I said it isn't the crisis that you are crying it is. And as evidence of my position, I cited that when I was in need, I used the services and that there wasn't one instance where we were denied care. What part of that statement says that I think that there should be no help for people who need it. I think there could/should be. The problem isn't the availability for helath care philosophically, it's practically where is the money coming from? Please don;t be lazy when having these conversations. To answer you directly, what would I haver done if there was no Mass Health? The same thing everyone has the opportunity to do. Pay off the costs over time. The funny part of all this is, you don't get denied for basic care because you don;t have insurance. That simply is not true. I know, I've lived it. But I also have acquired medical insurance , at a good cost I might add, and that's because it is a drain on the system when those who can afford something, don't get it because it's cheaper to sponge off the system. Plain and simple. I could certainly use the $6000.00+ dollars it costs me annually for health care, and btw I would still qualify due to the fact that we are a family of 3 making $45,000.00 But I don't. So I ask that before you decide to cast someone into a category of behavior, you do some due diligence to see if they qualify. But now comes the education for you about the loving liberals in MA. If you are in the said company that you cited, making 45K annually and your company doesn't offer insurance, and you don't qualify for Mass health, then you get taxed in MA for not having insurance. The tax is an incentive to mnake sure that you get insurance. How loving is that? If I can't get insurance, can't afford it, theh I get more of my money taken from my paycheck to punish me for being in that situation. Please stop telling me to be thankful for liberals, I learned long ago that when a group of people have the ability to qualify you for a program, opr tax you so that their income stream continues, typically you won't qualify, and that applies to conservatives also.

I find it funny how this is called a crisis. Why is it a crisis? If you need medical care, you can get it. For 5 years, I couldn't afford health insurance for my family and myself, my wife signed up for WIC when my son was young, we were on MASS health afterwards. Now that I make more money, I have private insurance. But there was not 1 incident where we needed health care and were denied. People love to state that it's an emergency. That just isn't accurate. But, if you want to find money to fund health care? Cut off the lifetime pensions for the politicians after they leave the Congress/Senate. The average is $60,972.00/year for each of them. I might be wrong, but the founding fathers didn't intend this to be a career, but a service to your country. Ted Kennedy has gotten rich off of his salary, and he will continue to do so after he retires because we keep paying them. There are 535 congressmen/women their average salary is $188,100.00 so that equals $100,633,500.00. People, we pay over 100 million dollars for these idiots to sit in Washington and MISREPRESENT us. If they all retired tomorrow, we would be paying annually $32,620,020.00 in pensions! http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa031200a.htm

Great answer LadyC! I remember that when I take me out of the equation then things work much better. I asked the Lord to remove me from the issue of my wife's salvation, then she started making progress. I asked to be removed from being a stumbling block to another ministry then things started happening. Now, I didn't remove myself from these topics, I stopped asking that my way be the solution or my concerns be heard. Funny how much God can do when i get out of the way! To answer the question of the post, I'm nowhere near where I should be. But the Lord is gracious, and allows me to continue to be in the process. Quite humbling actually.

I have found that the Lord has often used my unsatisfaction in the things that I am fond of to bring me back to him. I didn't post here for a while, quite a while actually. And it wasn't anything more then I got tired of doing things about the Lord and wanted to get back to me Now as ridiculous as that was, it brings me back to the realization that God is great, and He allows me to see my folly for what it is, and then we start again. I delay my blessings, not Him. I delay my true enjoyment, not Him. Maybe He wants you to seek Him earnestly, to the point that nothing else matters. Then when you have reached that, He will provide for you. I don't have any special knowledge to impart to you, but I trust Him, and He is the one in control. So I'm excited for you and hope that you will post when it becomes clear to you what He has in store!

Hi all, My wife and I are going on a trip to Gabon with our church, and it's going to cost $2,500.00 for us to go, does anyone have any suggestions on ways to raise the money? This will be our first trip, and I don't know if there are traditional activities that are usually tried to raise money for a missionary trip, or is that in bad taste? Any input would be appreciated

ok, my argumentative side has been shown, because once I was searching and by the grace of God I found someone willing to listen to the questions, the sarcasm etc. Pray for me when I am tempted to answer a question, that I do it led by the Spirit and not leaning on my own understanding. Thanks for the reality check CJ

I agree, if there is a desire to genuinely know something about a differant philosophical discipline, then questioning is cool, but it seems that most of the people who fall into that category here are trying to create problems. Just don't understand the motivation I guess

If I were a rich man, yadda didda yadda didda didda didda dda dda, all day long.....

Lonlieness is a gift of God to bring you closer to Him (Notice that is my answer for alot of problems ) but I think that it's an opportunity for you to sort through alot of things. Do a word search for alone/lonely and see how the Biblical examples dealt with it. Jesus prayed and fasted, John the Baptist used it to get ready for his ministry, Paul used it to commune with God and learn the scriptures. I'm praying for you

well I magine I'm not, because I don't know what that means lol

Hi Kitty Fear of the unknown and the dark and of harm are common, but remember, as Christians we believe that God is sovereign and He decrees all that will happen, and allows things. But.....I don't believe that God leaves us alone and He is watching. Don't worry, the Lord is there, watching and keeping you safe. He places a hedge of protection around those who are His, and He won't allow anything to happen that you can't handle. This might simply be a way for you to draw nearer to Him, and he won't leave you. I pray for you and hope you know that I count you as a sister in Christ that I pray for you

Kitty, you go on stating the truth, that is your requirement as Paul believed also. I have been in that position and was reviled for it, but eventually the person saw what I thought was the truth and either thanked me later, or had a discussion saying they understood. You seem a wise and thoughtful person and I trust that God is leading you, not your pride or anger. Just remember to be gentle when you correct, and as I've observed from you, use Biblical truth for reproof and correction. You're doing great, keep it up

Because God allows free will, and He wouldn't be a good God if He arbitrarily decided to not create something becasue it would choose against Him. He gave Lucifer the chance, and he (statn) chose to be evil.

Thanks for the good post CJ anyone who questions whether Isaiah is prophetic or not obviously has an agenda, don't let the naysayers get you down

lol I thought you were just reallyappreciative by posting your response 3 times

praying that the spirit of disobedience is replaced with the Spirit of the Lord

I don't think that the term "meant to be celibate" has the implications you are placing on it. If I have a problem with addiction to alcohol, then I have a choice to make, drink or don't. In the end, any successful alcoholic recovery is due to abstinence. If the problem with an individual is that they are attracted to the same sex, which the Bible categorizes the act of physically loving the same sex as an abomination, then the reasonable thing to expect would be to abstain form that. Jesus stated that if your eye causes you to sin, then pluck it out, remove it from your life, because going into heaven with only 1 eye is preferred to entering hell whole. If that is something that a person has to give up to enter heaven, then that is what is necessary

My problem is the sensuality of this age. I have a problem with pornography, right now I'm doing ok, but it has been a recurring problem since I was 15. Usually when I don't stay in the Word, and allow myself to stay awake late into the night is when my problem resurfaces. But if I keep myself away from the computer when I'm alone it's ok. I agree that the Lord gives us a way out, but we need to find it and adhere to it. It's a tremptationeverynight, but with God's grace I'll overcome it.