President Obama was nominated and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize shortly after he assumed the Office of the President of the United States of America...even though there was nothing that he had accomplished.
The committee said it was for the things he aspires to do.
Mitch Albom said that we all deserved our own Noble Peace Prize for the election of Barrack Obama....
This was emailed to me and I thought it was interesting to note. According to Snopes and Truth or Fiction, this is a true story....it shows you how much true heroes aren't recognized for their ultra-human efforts but the humanism of man is brought into full glory among his peers.
I would like to see our President live up to this standard when he makes decisions to kill babies in the womb, create a science around their celluar remains and tells us that the government is our health care provider while giving life ending conferences to the elder citizens as he embraces a marriage as defined by whatever you want it to be.
The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving...
Irena Sendler
There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena. During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist. She had an 'ulterior motive' ... She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews, (being German.) Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids..) She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.
Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize ... She was not selected.
Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming.
It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated with the German and Russian Peoples looking the other way!
Now, more than ever, with Iraq , Iran , and others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it's imperative to make sure the world never forgets, because there are others who would like to do it again.
Mankind is its worse enemy, because it continues to declare that it is the God of its own creation.....thank God for the saints like Irena who don't look for the worldly prize but seek to live for another more eternal one.
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Friday, October 16
Wednesday, January 21
Historical step, and an historic trust.....
“Then all the responsible men of Israel got together and went to Samuel at Ramah, And said to him, See now, you are old, and your sons do not go in your ways: give us a king now to be our judge, so that we may be like the other nations. But Samuel was not pleased when they said to him, Give us a king to be our judge. And Samuel made prayer to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, Give ear to the voice of the people and what they say to you: they have not been turned away from you, but they have been turned away from me, not desiring me to be king over them. As they have done from the first, from the day when I took them out of Egypt till this day, turning away from me and worshipping other gods, so now they are acting in the same way to you. Give ear now to their voice: but make a serious protest to them, and give them a picture of the sort of king who will be their ruler. And Samuel said all these words of the Lord to the people who were desiring a king. And he said, This is the sort of king who will be your ruler: he will take your sons and make them his servants, his horsemen, and drivers of his war-carriages, and they will go running before his war-carriages; And he will make them captains of thousands and of fifties; some he will put to work ploughing and cutting his grain and making his instruments of war and building his war-carriages. Your daughters he will take to be makers of perfumes and cooks and bread-makers. He will take your fields and your vine-gardens and your olive-gardens, all the best of them, and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your seed and of the fruit of your vines and give it to his servants. He will take your men-servants and your servant-girls, and the best of your oxen and your asses and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep: and you will be his servants. Then you will be crying out because of your king whom you have taken for yourselves; but the Lord will not give you an answer in that day. But the people gave no attention to the voice of Samuel; and they said, No, but we will have a king over us, So that we may be like the other nations, and so that our king may be our judge and go out before us to war. Then Samuel, after hearing all the people had to say, went and gave an account of it to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, Give ear to their voice and make a king for them.” (1 Samuel 8:4-22a BBE)
Today, the 20th day of January in the year 2009 will stand out for each and every American citizen as we watched via the Television, listened over the radio and internet, or (for a fortunate million or so) stood upon the lands of our nation’s capital and watched as the tradition of inaugurating our newly elected President happened for the 44th time in its history.
“I do solemnly swear to faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States of America…..”
Everyone seems to be caught up in the nationalistic fervor and euphoria of unity and change, which was the platform our newly elected President campaigned during one of the longest Presidential campaigns in our history. Relatively unknown prior to his ascension to public office as a Senator from Illinois, Barack Hussein Obama became, as he finished taking the oath as required by our Constitution, the first African-American President in our nation’s 233 year history.
Amid the cries of triumph and the tears of sorrow, one man stood where only forty-three others had stood before him and made an entry into the historical annuals of time. African-American leaders proclaimed justice served and the common citizen, both Caucasian and African-American, swelled their chests in pride at this outward appearance of ‘overcoming the racial divide’.
Indeed, it was an historical moment as the descendant of African slaves forced to labor in a country not their own claimed residence in the House built by those hands. The White House, symbolic seat of the American government. He placed his hand upon the Bible on which another fellow Illinoisan had taken his oath of office amid a national divide that would lead into the greatest war fought against countrymen on this soil. The Americans arrayed in the landscape around him rivaled the historic attendance set by another Democratic nominee some thirty-three years prior.
Today, President Barack Hussein Obama became truly one American, representative of both sides of the hyphen of his ethnicity. And upon the shoulders of this, one of the youngest and relatively inexperienced Presidents of our nation, rests the accomplishments of other African-Americans who have stood upon the soil of this land and declared through their actions and deeds that they were, indeed, citizens of the United States.
A long and distinguished history………………….
Both famously known and mere common folk who became the first for their race and led the way to the steps upon which our 44th President stood today…
Jupiter Hammon, who wrote the poem "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries", the first published author. Jen Baptiste Pointe due Sabe, the famous 'Father of Chicago", was that city's first settler. Phillis Wheatley, the first female author. The 1st Rhode Island Regiment of the U.S. military. Thomas L. Jennings, the first patent holder in 1821. Alexander Twilight of Vermont State Legislature, in 1836. Dr. James McCune Smith, the first doctor. Macon Allen, the first lawyer.
Dr. David J. Peck, first American educated doctor. Charles L. Reason, the first university professor. William Wells Brown, first author of a novel called "Clotel; (The President's Daughter)", who also was the first playwright published "The Escape; (A Leap for Freedom)". Sarah Jane Woodson Early, the first female college professor. 1st Louisiana Native Guard of the Confederate Army, first North American military unit with officers of African descent. Bishop Daniel Payne, first college president (Wilberforce College, Ohio). Martin Delany, first U.S. Army field officer. John Sweat Rock, first attorney admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. Cathay Williams, first female enlistee in U.S. Army.
Oscar Dunn, first Lieutenant Governor (Louisiana). Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett, first U.S. Diplomat (Haiti). Thomas Mundy Peterson, first to vote under the 15th Amendment in an election. Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels, first U.S. Congressman (Republican, Mississippi). Joseph Rainey, first U.S. Representative (Republican South Carolina). Edward Alexander Bouchet, first doctorate degree (Physics, Yale) and first graduate of Yale. Henry Ossian, first graduate of West Point and commissioned officer in U.S. Military. Mary Eliza Mahoney, first graduate of nursing school. Blanche K. Bruce, first signature on U.S. paper currency (Registrar of the Treasury) in 1881. Sarah E. Goode, first female to hold a patent. Father Augustine Tolton, first Roman Catholic priest. Jackie Robinson, the first African-American Major League Baseball player.
Wiley Overton, first police officer of present-day New York City department, hired first by Brooklyn. Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, first opera singer at Carnegie Hall. W.E.B. Du Bois, first doctorate degree from Harvard University. Richard R. Wright, first appointed U.S. Army paymaster. Booker T. Washington, first to dine at the White House. Harry Lew, first professional basketball player (New England Professional Basketball League).
Jack Johnson, first heavyweight boxing champion. John Taylor, first Olympic gold medal winner (Track and Field). Madam C. J. Walker, first millionaire. Samuel J. Battle, first police officer of the newly incorporated New York City Police department and first Sergeant, Lieutenant, and parole commissioner. Fritz Pollard, first Rose Bowl football player (Brown University Bruins) who would be also the first to be named to an College Football All-American Team (Walter Camp All-American Football Team), and one of the first NFL professional football players in addition to being the first NFL co-coach. Bobby Marshall (Rock Island Independents) was the other who played professionally in the NFL. Bessie Coleman, first international licensed pilot. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, first woman PhD (Economics).
William DeHart Hubbard, first individual Olympic gold medal winner (Long Jump). Clifton R. Wharton, Sr., first Foreign Service Officer. Otelia Cromwell, first female o graduate from Smith College obtains PhD from Yale University. Josephine Baker, first international movie star (La Sirene des tropiques). Oscar Stanton De Priest, first post-Reconstruction U.S. Representative (Republican, Illinois). James W. Ford, first to run on presidential ticket in the 20th century. Arthur W. Mitchell, first democrat U.S. Representative (Illinois). William Grant Still, first conductor of a major U.S. orchestra (Los Angeles Philharmonic). William Henry Hastie, first federal magistrate and first governor (U.S. Virgin Islands). Hal Jackson, first network radio host (WINX-Washington, D.C.).
Hattie McDaniel, first Academy award (Best supporting actress, Gone with the Wind). Booker T. Washington, first portrait on a U.S. postage stamp. Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., first U.S. Army General and Brigadier-General. Josh White, first White House Command Performance. Dorie Miller, first Navy Cross recipient. The “Golden Thirteen”, the first commission Naval officers. Samuel Gravely, commissioned as a U.S. Navy officer who commanded a naval warship and achieved the rank of Admiral.
Dr. Howard Thurman, first co-pastor of the nation’s first interracial church (Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples). Todd Duncan, first member of the New York City Opera. Jackie Robinson, first Major League Baseball Player (Brooklyn Dodgers). Don Barksdale, first All-American basketball player who also achieved firsts in being on an Olympic Basketball team and Olympic gold medalist in basketball in addition to playing in an NBA All-Star game.
James Baskett, first Academy Award winner (Uncle Remus in Song of the South/ Honorary). Jesse L. Brown, first Naval aviator. William Grant Still, first composer to have his opera performed by a major U.S. company (Troubled Island by the New York City Opera). Alice Coachman, the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal Wesley Brown, first graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Edward R. Dudley, first Ambassador of the United States.
Gwendolyn Brooks, first Pulitzer Prize winner (Book of poetry, Annie Allen). Ralph Bunche, first Nobel Peace Prize winner. The first NBA professional basketball players, Earl Lloyd (Washington Capitols), Chuck Cooper (Boston Celtics), Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton (New York Knicks). Ethel Waters, first star of a network television show (Beulah). Althea Gibson, first woman to compete on the World Tennis tour and Wimbledon tennis champion (Doubles) in addition to winning a Grand Slam event at the French Open.
Cora Brown, first woman elected to the U.S. State Senate (Democrat, Michigan). Frank E. Petersen, first U.S. Marine Corps aviator. Howard Thurman, first Dean of chapel at a majority white university (Boston University). Carl Brashear, first U.S. Navy Master Diver. Dorothy Dandridge, first woman nominee of the Academy Award for Best Actress (Carmen Jones) and the subject of the cover of LIFE magazine. Marian Anderson, first member of the Metropolitan Opera. Arthur Mitchell, first male dancer and principal dancer of a major ballet company (New York City Ballet). Leontyne Price, first singer in a telecast opera (NBC, Tosca). Nat King Cole, first male star of a network television show (The Nat King Cole Show). Lowell W. Perry, first assistant coach in the NFL , NFL broadcaster and plant manager of a U.S. Automobile company. Ruth Carol Taylor, first woman flight attendant (Mohawk Airlines). Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie, first Grammy Award winners in the first year of its presentation. Reverend Clennon King, first U.S. Presidential candidate (Independent Afro-American Party). Ernie Davis, first Heisman trophy winner. Abraham Bolden, first U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to the White House detail. John Jordan “Buck” O’Neill, first coach in the MLB (Chicago Cubs). Bobo Brazil, first male world heavyweight champion in wrestling (NWA). Roland Davis, first bank examiner (U.S. Department of the Treasury).
Martin Luther King, Jr., first Time’s Magazine Man of the Year. Lloyd Sealy, first NYPD precinct commander. (28th precinct in Harlem). Walter Harris, first chess master. Bill Cosby, first star of a network television drama (I Spy). Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr., first U.S. Air Force general (Three-star). Patricia Roberts Harris, first female ambassador of the United States (Luxembourg). Burl Toler, first NFL official (Field judge/Head Linesman). Bill Russell, first NBA coach (Boston Celtics). Robert C. Henry, first mayor of a major U.S. City (Springfield Ohio). Edward Brooke, first post-Reconstruction U.S. Senator elected by popular vote (Republican/Massachusetts). Emmett Ashford, first MLB umpire. Robert O. Lowery, first fire commissioner of a major U.S. city (New York City Fire Department). Carl B. Stokes, first elected major of a major U.S. city (Cleveland, Ohio). Thurgood Marshall, first Supreme Court justice of the United States. Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., first selected for astronaut training. Benjamin Harris, first to walk in space.
Charlie Sifford, first winner of a PGA tour (Greater Hartford Open Invitational). Shirley Chisholm, first woman elected to U.S. House of Representatives (Democrat/New York) and major political party Presidential nominee to campaign. Arthur Ashe, first male to win a Grand Slam event (US Open). Marlin Briscoe, first starting quarterback in the modern era (Denver Broncos/AFL). Riley L. Pitts, first commissioned officer to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Nancy Hicks Maynard, first woman reporter for the New York Times. Lillian Lincoln, first graduate of the Harvard Business school. Hal Jackson and Percy Sutton, first owners of a radio station (WLIB-New York). Isaiah Edward Robinson, Jr., first president of the New York Board of Education.
Doris A. Davis, first woman mayor of a major metropolitan city (Compton, California). Walter Washington, first elected and first mayor (Washington D.C.). Frank Robinson, first manager of a MLB team (Cleveland Indians). Daniel James, Jr., first American Four-Star General. Barbara Jordan, first woman named TIME magazine’s Person of the Year.
Countless African-Americans who achieved firsts in the history of this nation enabled our 44th President to stand upon the steps of the Washington Memorial and become another first. Countless African-Americans and other ethnicities who refused to allow human decision to corrupt Godly authority…..that "all men were created equal."
George Washington, in his first inaugural address, still echoes in the halls of history…”The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
And it would seem, in his inaugural address, that our 44th President has heard the echoes of his predecessors. "If we are waiting for someone else to do something, it never gets done," said Barack Obama. "We are going to have to take responsibility [for our nation's well-being]. All of us. And so this is not just a one-day affair."
Today was a great and powerful statement to the citizens of the United States and a milestone in the historic growth of this once great nation. As one African-American, Byron Miller, said “We have gone from emancipation to inauguration.” Not just African-Americans, but the breath and dearth of the American citizenship. A lesson that has been hard to learn and harder to overcome. But we are not done.
President Barack Obama has been called a Messiah, a harbinger of hope, a messenger of change and his election does indeed show a change in the fundamentals of this nation.
But he, like all of us whether born of American birthright or immigrant, African-American or Caucasian-American, rich or poor, is but a broken, sinful human being 'for all have fallen short of the glory of God.'
We stand inside the door that we, the American people have opened; the door of the reality of one great American's dream, that the contents of a person's character stands more valued and sacred than the color of their skin.
It is that character that we, as a people, need to remember once more and restitch into the moral fabric of our country. In its laws, in its policies, and in its government.
To realize that theories that once called a ethnicity inferior and are promoted in our schools as fact have no place within our borders, that the continued killing of our generations to come disrupt and condemn this mighty experiment to failure by destroying the very hope that brought us this far, that commonality of purpose requires accountability to a higher ideal that is far beyond the definition and devising of mankind, and that morality doesn't lie upon the human definition of tolerance but upon the abiding and uncorrupted love born "one dark and hopeless Friday afternoon," as my mentor and friend said to me recently.
Human institutions are, by their very nature, human in their ability to be corrupted and become a source of tyranny and oppression. Human institutions cannot bring about moral and ethical change, neither can the symbol of one man no matter how charismatic or desirous of such change. There has been only one, who was both fully God and fully man, and His example is what we, as a nation, should follow. It is the framework upon which our Forefathers placed the character of this Republic.
It doesn't begin in the hallowed halls of that Republic, where career politicians forget the sacred trust that they have been given by the people who's voice they are supposed to speak into the laws and policies of the land. It doesn't not begin even in the fifty-two states seats of government. Nor at any other level of government in this nation.
As the lesson has been taught, it begins in the homes and the very hearts of the tiny villages and towns that dot the landscape of this country. Where people who refused to listen to the declarations of man and instead listened to the whispers of the Holy Spirit that declared the creation and expectation of God's creation of humanity. Who refused, though it might gain them temporary satisfaction or glory, to corrupt that very sacred truth and lived their lives in pursuit of ideals and moralities issued forth by that Creator. Refusing to listen to corrupt, sinful man and its institutions and listening to a God, both powerfully fearful and mercifully loving, to stand for things beyond their own reliance of understanding and for a wisdom that transcended their own profit.
The names of those African-American 'firsts' to which our 44th President joins and the names of those of other ethnicities who stood upon the moral ground of truth. Who realized that communicating with God through the reading and understanding of His word, praying and implementing such standards in their own lives was the only way, the best way, to overcome human fragility and sin.
I will be an active citizen, as I have in the past, and hold my government accountable to speak my voice. Not to standards to which I have decided but to a higher, more pure standard to which the Creator we owe our existence, our future, and our hope to.
I say my prayers for my leaders, duly elected in the political process that has govern this nation from its inception, for it is God who is ultimately in control and it is to God that we must, as guardians of this sacred Republic, turn. For the power we hold we corrupt, but the absolute power of God is incorruptible by human means.
As we ride the wave of a new future, where the racial barrier has been broken, let us not forget the lessons learned that has brought us to this day.
Even, the lessons learned this very day.
When the Chief Justice flubbed the Oath of Office, our new President elected to give grace…not condemnation.
When Pastor Rick Warren, of Saddleback Church, offered his prayer…..speaking truth to the God he serves, who saved him and yet speaking such truth with love and honor to those who would not believe such as he.
And to the dark and un-American statements made by another religious figurehead, Rev. Joseph Lowery, a United Methodist considered the dean of the civil rights movement, who gave voice to that which we've stated—as a nation—has no place within our walls when he said, " Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around --when yellow will be mellow --when the red man can get ahead, man --and when white will embrace what is right."
We, the United States of America, entrusted with the care of this nation, its citizens, and its future and with the election of our first African-American President, have declared with one voice that such a day has come.
Our 44th President faces challenges unique to his first elected term in office; the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the economy to name a few. "Our schools are in disarray. Our stock market is sick. Our environment is taking a pounding. We face threats from Russia and a big shadow from China,” writes Mitch Albom, of the Detroit Free Press.
Theodore Roosevelt said, “Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States. It is due to the President only and exactly to the degree in which he efficiently serves the United States. It is our duty to support him when he serves the United States well. It is our duty to oppose him when he serves it badly. This is true….about all our Presidents in the past. It is our duty at all times to tell the truth about the President and about every one else, save in the cases where to tell the truth at the moment would benefit the public enemy.”
The awareness of moral and ethical conduct of a people to prefer right over wrong, and to demand that all people of the nation conform their wills to the production of such right conduct is the fabric of the United States of America. As we step into a future achieved by the promotion of the first African-American President in our history, let us step forward in the traditions set forth by the laws of this land.
We can stand morally and patriotically, disagreeing with the policies and laws that the residing President may wish to impose upon the whole of the citizenry in the proper and ethical traditions of engaging our governmental officials to speak and vote the voice of the people. We may disagree with other citizens, and the forum of our official governing bodies are the ground in which to speak those disagreements.
It isn’t about the color of a man’s skin that will cause dissension, and it will show how far this country has come when the citizenship that disagrees with his policies are allowed to speak just as the ones who agree are given a voice also. The first African-American President serves not only liberals, not only African-Americans, but all people.
Let us be worthy of the history that has created this grand experiment, the lives that have paid its price of birth, and the hands upon which its life rest.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “All Tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Our government is of the people, for the people, and governs by the people. And it is not only our President, Barack Hussein Obama, for which history stands in wait for its opinion of our faithfulness to the sacred trust of this Republic which lies in the hands of the citizenship which it was designed to serve.
President Barack Obama spoke true words forged from the lessons of our nation's history in his inaugural speech today, “On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas…………We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things…………. As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake………. it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies………………….”
Will he live up to those ideals and perform the duties of the Office of the President of the United States for the people of this land? Will the Congress, designed to legislate into laws the wishes of the people, perform its duties according to the will of the people? Will the Judicial branch, given the voice not of themselves, but of the people speak the laws given by the Congress in truth and honor?
Will we, the citizenship of this nation, hold ourselves accountable as well? To preserve, defend, and protect the Constitution of the United States, the framework of a nation OF the people, FOR the people, and BY the people?
I didn’t vote for President Barack Hussein Obama, because I don’t agree with the policies and ideals that are liberal in nature of which he campaigned, because I believe will slide this once morally sound and patriotically strong country built upon the Christian tenants brought by the first citizens to its shores further away from such ideals which constitute that sacred trust.
America is far greater than the sum of its citizens and far superior than the corrupt institutions of human-making. For it is……
"One nation, Under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for All."
So help us, God.
Today, the 20th day of January in the year 2009 will stand out for each and every American citizen as we watched via the Television, listened over the radio and internet, or (for a fortunate million or so) stood upon the lands of our nation’s capital and watched as the tradition of inaugurating our newly elected President happened for the 44th time in its history.
“I do solemnly swear to faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States of America…..”
Everyone seems to be caught up in the nationalistic fervor and euphoria of unity and change, which was the platform our newly elected President campaigned during one of the longest Presidential campaigns in our history. Relatively unknown prior to his ascension to public office as a Senator from Illinois, Barack Hussein Obama became, as he finished taking the oath as required by our Constitution, the first African-American President in our nation’s 233 year history.
Amid the cries of triumph and the tears of sorrow, one man stood where only forty-three others had stood before him and made an entry into the historical annuals of time. African-American leaders proclaimed justice served and the common citizen, both Caucasian and African-American, swelled their chests in pride at this outward appearance of ‘overcoming the racial divide’.
Indeed, it was an historical moment as the descendant of African slaves forced to labor in a country not their own claimed residence in the House built by those hands. The White House, symbolic seat of the American government. He placed his hand upon the Bible on which another fellow Illinoisan had taken his oath of office amid a national divide that would lead into the greatest war fought against countrymen on this soil. The Americans arrayed in the landscape around him rivaled the historic attendance set by another Democratic nominee some thirty-three years prior.
Today, President Barack Hussein Obama became truly one American, representative of both sides of the hyphen of his ethnicity. And upon the shoulders of this, one of the youngest and relatively inexperienced Presidents of our nation, rests the accomplishments of other African-Americans who have stood upon the soil of this land and declared through their actions and deeds that they were, indeed, citizens of the United States.
A long and distinguished history………………….
Both famously known and mere common folk who became the first for their race and led the way to the steps upon which our 44th President stood today…
Jupiter Hammon, who wrote the poem "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries", the first published author. Jen Baptiste Pointe due Sabe, the famous 'Father of Chicago", was that city's first settler. Phillis Wheatley, the first female author. The 1st Rhode Island Regiment of the U.S. military. Thomas L. Jennings, the first patent holder in 1821. Alexander Twilight of Vermont State Legislature, in 1836. Dr. James McCune Smith, the first doctor. Macon Allen, the first lawyer.
Dr. David J. Peck, first American educated doctor. Charles L. Reason, the first university professor. William Wells Brown, first author of a novel called "Clotel; (The President's Daughter)", who also was the first playwright published "The Escape; (A Leap for Freedom)". Sarah Jane Woodson Early, the first female college professor. 1st Louisiana Native Guard of the Confederate Army, first North American military unit with officers of African descent. Bishop Daniel Payne, first college president (Wilberforce College, Ohio). Martin Delany, first U.S. Army field officer. John Sweat Rock, first attorney admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. Cathay Williams, first female enlistee in U.S. Army.
Oscar Dunn, first Lieutenant Governor (Louisiana). Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett, first U.S. Diplomat (Haiti). Thomas Mundy Peterson, first to vote under the 15th Amendment in an election. Senator Hiram Rhodes Revels, first U.S. Congressman (Republican, Mississippi). Joseph Rainey, first U.S. Representative (Republican South Carolina). Edward Alexander Bouchet, first doctorate degree (Physics, Yale) and first graduate of Yale. Henry Ossian, first graduate of West Point and commissioned officer in U.S. Military. Mary Eliza Mahoney, first graduate of nursing school. Blanche K. Bruce, first signature on U.S. paper currency (Registrar of the Treasury) in 1881. Sarah E. Goode, first female to hold a patent. Father Augustine Tolton, first Roman Catholic priest. Jackie Robinson, the first African-American Major League Baseball player.
Wiley Overton, first police officer of present-day New York City department, hired first by Brooklyn. Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones, first opera singer at Carnegie Hall. W.E.B. Du Bois, first doctorate degree from Harvard University. Richard R. Wright, first appointed U.S. Army paymaster. Booker T. Washington, first to dine at the White House. Harry Lew, first professional basketball player (New England Professional Basketball League).
Jack Johnson, first heavyweight boxing champion. John Taylor, first Olympic gold medal winner (Track and Field). Madam C. J. Walker, first millionaire. Samuel J. Battle, first police officer of the newly incorporated New York City Police department and first Sergeant, Lieutenant, and parole commissioner. Fritz Pollard, first Rose Bowl football player (Brown University Bruins) who would be also the first to be named to an College Football All-American Team (Walter Camp All-American Football Team), and one of the first NFL professional football players in addition to being the first NFL co-coach. Bobby Marshall (Rock Island Independents) was the other who played professionally in the NFL. Bessie Coleman, first international licensed pilot. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, first woman PhD (Economics).
William DeHart Hubbard, first individual Olympic gold medal winner (Long Jump). Clifton R. Wharton, Sr., first Foreign Service Officer. Otelia Cromwell, first female o graduate from Smith College obtains PhD from Yale University. Josephine Baker, first international movie star (La Sirene des tropiques). Oscar Stanton De Priest, first post-Reconstruction U.S. Representative (Republican, Illinois). James W. Ford, first to run on presidential ticket in the 20th century. Arthur W. Mitchell, first democrat U.S. Representative (Illinois). William Grant Still, first conductor of a major U.S. orchestra (Los Angeles Philharmonic). William Henry Hastie, first federal magistrate and first governor (U.S. Virgin Islands). Hal Jackson, first network radio host (WINX-Washington, D.C.).
Hattie McDaniel, first Academy award (Best supporting actress, Gone with the Wind). Booker T. Washington, first portrait on a U.S. postage stamp. Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., first U.S. Army General and Brigadier-General. Josh White, first White House Command Performance. Dorie Miller, first Navy Cross recipient. The “Golden Thirteen”, the first commission Naval officers. Samuel Gravely, commissioned as a U.S. Navy officer who commanded a naval warship and achieved the rank of Admiral.
Dr. Howard Thurman, first co-pastor of the nation’s first interracial church (Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples). Todd Duncan, first member of the New York City Opera. Jackie Robinson, first Major League Baseball Player (Brooklyn Dodgers). Don Barksdale, first All-American basketball player who also achieved firsts in being on an Olympic Basketball team and Olympic gold medalist in basketball in addition to playing in an NBA All-Star game.
James Baskett, first Academy Award winner (Uncle Remus in Song of the South/ Honorary). Jesse L. Brown, first Naval aviator. William Grant Still, first composer to have his opera performed by a major U.S. company (Troubled Island by the New York City Opera). Alice Coachman, the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal Wesley Brown, first graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. Edward R. Dudley, first Ambassador of the United States.
Gwendolyn Brooks, first Pulitzer Prize winner (Book of poetry, Annie Allen). Ralph Bunche, first Nobel Peace Prize winner. The first NBA professional basketball players, Earl Lloyd (Washington Capitols), Chuck Cooper (Boston Celtics), Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton (New York Knicks). Ethel Waters, first star of a network television show (Beulah). Althea Gibson, first woman to compete on the World Tennis tour and Wimbledon tennis champion (Doubles) in addition to winning a Grand Slam event at the French Open.
Cora Brown, first woman elected to the U.S. State Senate (Democrat, Michigan). Frank E. Petersen, first U.S. Marine Corps aviator. Howard Thurman, first Dean of chapel at a majority white university (Boston University). Carl Brashear, first U.S. Navy Master Diver. Dorothy Dandridge, first woman nominee of the Academy Award for Best Actress (Carmen Jones) and the subject of the cover of LIFE magazine. Marian Anderson, first member of the Metropolitan Opera. Arthur Mitchell, first male dancer and principal dancer of a major ballet company (New York City Ballet). Leontyne Price, first singer in a telecast opera (NBC, Tosca). Nat King Cole, first male star of a network television show (The Nat King Cole Show). Lowell W. Perry, first assistant coach in the NFL , NFL broadcaster and plant manager of a U.S. Automobile company. Ruth Carol Taylor, first woman flight attendant (Mohawk Airlines). Ella Fitzgerald and Count Basie, first Grammy Award winners in the first year of its presentation. Reverend Clennon King, first U.S. Presidential candidate (Independent Afro-American Party). Ernie Davis, first Heisman trophy winner. Abraham Bolden, first U.S. Secret Service agent assigned to the White House detail. John Jordan “Buck” O’Neill, first coach in the MLB (Chicago Cubs). Bobo Brazil, first male world heavyweight champion in wrestling (NWA). Roland Davis, first bank examiner (U.S. Department of the Treasury).
Martin Luther King, Jr., first Time’s Magazine Man of the Year. Lloyd Sealy, first NYPD precinct commander. (28th precinct in Harlem). Walter Harris, first chess master. Bill Cosby, first star of a network television drama (I Spy). Benjamin Oliver Davis, Jr., first U.S. Air Force general (Three-star). Patricia Roberts Harris, first female ambassador of the United States (Luxembourg). Burl Toler, first NFL official (Field judge/Head Linesman). Bill Russell, first NBA coach (Boston Celtics). Robert C. Henry, first mayor of a major U.S. City (Springfield Ohio). Edward Brooke, first post-Reconstruction U.S. Senator elected by popular vote (Republican/Massachusetts). Emmett Ashford, first MLB umpire. Robert O. Lowery, first fire commissioner of a major U.S. city (New York City Fire Department). Carl B. Stokes, first elected major of a major U.S. city (Cleveland, Ohio). Thurgood Marshall, first Supreme Court justice of the United States. Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., first selected for astronaut training. Benjamin Harris, first to walk in space.
Charlie Sifford, first winner of a PGA tour (Greater Hartford Open Invitational). Shirley Chisholm, first woman elected to U.S. House of Representatives (Democrat/New York) and major political party Presidential nominee to campaign. Arthur Ashe, first male to win a Grand Slam event (US Open). Marlin Briscoe, first starting quarterback in the modern era (Denver Broncos/AFL). Riley L. Pitts, first commissioned officer to be awarded the Medal of Honor. Nancy Hicks Maynard, first woman reporter for the New York Times. Lillian Lincoln, first graduate of the Harvard Business school. Hal Jackson and Percy Sutton, first owners of a radio station (WLIB-New York). Isaiah Edward Robinson, Jr., first president of the New York Board of Education.
Doris A. Davis, first woman mayor of a major metropolitan city (Compton, California). Walter Washington, first elected and first mayor (Washington D.C.). Frank Robinson, first manager of a MLB team (Cleveland Indians). Daniel James, Jr., first American Four-Star General. Barbara Jordan, first woman named TIME magazine’s Person of the Year.
Countless African-Americans who achieved firsts in the history of this nation enabled our 44th President to stand upon the steps of the Washington Memorial and become another first. Countless African-Americans and other ethnicities who refused to allow human decision to corrupt Godly authority…..that "all men were created equal."
George Washington, in his first inaugural address, still echoes in the halls of history…”The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered, perhaps, as deeply, as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
And it would seem, in his inaugural address, that our 44th President has heard the echoes of his predecessors. "If we are waiting for someone else to do something, it never gets done," said Barack Obama. "We are going to have to take responsibility [for our nation's well-being]. All of us. And so this is not just a one-day affair."
Today was a great and powerful statement to the citizens of the United States and a milestone in the historic growth of this once great nation. As one African-American, Byron Miller, said “We have gone from emancipation to inauguration.” Not just African-Americans, but the breath and dearth of the American citizenship. A lesson that has been hard to learn and harder to overcome. But we are not done.
President Barack Obama has been called a Messiah, a harbinger of hope, a messenger of change and his election does indeed show a change in the fundamentals of this nation.
But he, like all of us whether born of American birthright or immigrant, African-American or Caucasian-American, rich or poor, is but a broken, sinful human being 'for all have fallen short of the glory of God.'
We stand inside the door that we, the American people have opened; the door of the reality of one great American's dream, that the contents of a person's character stands more valued and sacred than the color of their skin.
It is that character that we, as a people, need to remember once more and restitch into the moral fabric of our country. In its laws, in its policies, and in its government.
To realize that theories that once called a ethnicity inferior and are promoted in our schools as fact have no place within our borders, that the continued killing of our generations to come disrupt and condemn this mighty experiment to failure by destroying the very hope that brought us this far, that commonality of purpose requires accountability to a higher ideal that is far beyond the definition and devising of mankind, and that morality doesn't lie upon the human definition of tolerance but upon the abiding and uncorrupted love born "one dark and hopeless Friday afternoon," as my mentor and friend said to me recently.
Human institutions are, by their very nature, human in their ability to be corrupted and become a source of tyranny and oppression. Human institutions cannot bring about moral and ethical change, neither can the symbol of one man no matter how charismatic or desirous of such change. There has been only one, who was both fully God and fully man, and His example is what we, as a nation, should follow. It is the framework upon which our Forefathers placed the character of this Republic.
It doesn't begin in the hallowed halls of that Republic, where career politicians forget the sacred trust that they have been given by the people who's voice they are supposed to speak into the laws and policies of the land. It doesn't not begin even in the fifty-two states seats of government. Nor at any other level of government in this nation.
As the lesson has been taught, it begins in the homes and the very hearts of the tiny villages and towns that dot the landscape of this country. Where people who refused to listen to the declarations of man and instead listened to the whispers of the Holy Spirit that declared the creation and expectation of God's creation of humanity. Who refused, though it might gain them temporary satisfaction or glory, to corrupt that very sacred truth and lived their lives in pursuit of ideals and moralities issued forth by that Creator. Refusing to listen to corrupt, sinful man and its institutions and listening to a God, both powerfully fearful and mercifully loving, to stand for things beyond their own reliance of understanding and for a wisdom that transcended their own profit.
The names of those African-American 'firsts' to which our 44th President joins and the names of those of other ethnicities who stood upon the moral ground of truth. Who realized that communicating with God through the reading and understanding of His word, praying and implementing such standards in their own lives was the only way, the best way, to overcome human fragility and sin.
I will be an active citizen, as I have in the past, and hold my government accountable to speak my voice. Not to standards to which I have decided but to a higher, more pure standard to which the Creator we owe our existence, our future, and our hope to.
I say my prayers for my leaders, duly elected in the political process that has govern this nation from its inception, for it is God who is ultimately in control and it is to God that we must, as guardians of this sacred Republic, turn. For the power we hold we corrupt, but the absolute power of God is incorruptible by human means.
As we ride the wave of a new future, where the racial barrier has been broken, let us not forget the lessons learned that has brought us to this day.
Even, the lessons learned this very day.
When the Chief Justice flubbed the Oath of Office, our new President elected to give grace…not condemnation.
When Pastor Rick Warren, of Saddleback Church, offered his prayer…..speaking truth to the God he serves, who saved him and yet speaking such truth with love and honor to those who would not believe such as he.
And to the dark and un-American statements made by another religious figurehead, Rev. Joseph Lowery, a United Methodist considered the dean of the civil rights movement, who gave voice to that which we've stated—as a nation—has no place within our walls when he said, " Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around --when yellow will be mellow --when the red man can get ahead, man --and when white will embrace what is right."
We, the United States of America, entrusted with the care of this nation, its citizens, and its future and with the election of our first African-American President, have declared with one voice that such a day has come.
Our 44th President faces challenges unique to his first elected term in office; the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the economy to name a few. "Our schools are in disarray. Our stock market is sick. Our environment is taking a pounding. We face threats from Russia and a big shadow from China,” writes Mitch Albom, of the Detroit Free Press.
Theodore Roosevelt said, “Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States. It is due to the President only and exactly to the degree in which he efficiently serves the United States. It is our duty to support him when he serves the United States well. It is our duty to oppose him when he serves it badly. This is true….about all our Presidents in the past. It is our duty at all times to tell the truth about the President and about every one else, save in the cases where to tell the truth at the moment would benefit the public enemy.”
The awareness of moral and ethical conduct of a people to prefer right over wrong, and to demand that all people of the nation conform their wills to the production of such right conduct is the fabric of the United States of America. As we step into a future achieved by the promotion of the first African-American President in our history, let us step forward in the traditions set forth by the laws of this land.
We can stand morally and patriotically, disagreeing with the policies and laws that the residing President may wish to impose upon the whole of the citizenry in the proper and ethical traditions of engaging our governmental officials to speak and vote the voice of the people. We may disagree with other citizens, and the forum of our official governing bodies are the ground in which to speak those disagreements.
It isn’t about the color of a man’s skin that will cause dissension, and it will show how far this country has come when the citizenship that disagrees with his policies are allowed to speak just as the ones who agree are given a voice also. The first African-American President serves not only liberals, not only African-Americans, but all people.
Let us be worthy of the history that has created this grand experiment, the lives that have paid its price of birth, and the hands upon which its life rest.
Thomas Jefferson once said, “All Tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
Our government is of the people, for the people, and governs by the people. And it is not only our President, Barack Hussein Obama, for which history stands in wait for its opinion of our faithfulness to the sacred trust of this Republic which lies in the hands of the citizenship which it was designed to serve.
President Barack Obama spoke true words forged from the lessons of our nation's history in his inaugural speech today, “On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas…………We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things…………. As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake………. it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies………………….”
Will he live up to those ideals and perform the duties of the Office of the President of the United States for the people of this land? Will the Congress, designed to legislate into laws the wishes of the people, perform its duties according to the will of the people? Will the Judicial branch, given the voice not of themselves, but of the people speak the laws given by the Congress in truth and honor?
Will we, the citizenship of this nation, hold ourselves accountable as well? To preserve, defend, and protect the Constitution of the United States, the framework of a nation OF the people, FOR the people, and BY the people?
I didn’t vote for President Barack Hussein Obama, because I don’t agree with the policies and ideals that are liberal in nature of which he campaigned, because I believe will slide this once morally sound and patriotically strong country built upon the Christian tenants brought by the first citizens to its shores further away from such ideals which constitute that sacred trust.
America is far greater than the sum of its citizens and far superior than the corrupt institutions of human-making. For it is……
"One nation, Under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for All."
So help us, God.
Monday, November 17
Renew the true hope....God is on His throne....
“The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose way is upright; their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the LORD upholds the righteous. The LORD knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will remain forever; they are not put to shame in evil times; in the days of famine they have abundance. But the wicked will perish; the enemies of the LORD are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish--like smoke they vanish away.” (Psalm 37:12-20 ESV)
The world has erupted, seeming to spin into chaos and destruction; not only with the election of our 44th President but a host of legal passages in several states that have gone against the ‘homosexual agenda’; state constitutional amendments have affirmed those states’ citizenry define marriage as between ‘one man and one woman.’
Gay rights supporters waving rainbow colors marched, chanted and danced in cities coast to coast Saturday to protest the vote that banned gay marriage in California, gathering in cities like Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Fargo. In Florida, violent protestors struck and stomped a homemade cross carried by a silent elderly supporter of Prop 8. They say it’s simply a matter of ‘get[ting] the rights we deserve as Americans.’
From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts against African-Americans and the President-elect have been verbalized, at least according to the Associated Press.
Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."
This is not the America that will, as our President-elect proclaimed in his weekly address via internet, “resolve to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other…”
As I posted in my pre-election blog, “Obama….” Thursday, October 2, 2008, John Ortberg brought to my attention that the perfect government is far from a realization, as is the perfect world, because we are flawed, sinful human beings, and the our governing institution is a human one.
As Christians, we are called to preach the Gospel; simply…..Jesus Christ came to the earth, was crucified upon the Cross, died, and rose again three days later to bear the punishment for our sins. We are called to live lives reflective of God’s grace and mercy….and to hold ourselves accountable to His commandments and teachings.
We ‘lost’ the election, and protected in several states the biblical standard of marriage.
This doesn’t mean that the Kingdom will be ushered in, that we will become better parents, or that marriages will reflect agape love. Greed and pride, as we see evidenced in the chaos in our own country, won’t become illegal or passé, humanity will not jump on the ‘servant’ bandwagon, and we will not be the created creatures we were designed to be.
We held true, at least most of us, to the standards we were supposed to in the political election; We voted, in an educated way, in a civil and respective manner. Voting our morals and our values, as biblically defined, was reflective as Pastor Ortberg said, to be redemptive; to bring this nation back into a God-fearing, God-honoring state.
President-elect Barrack Obama is the 44th President of the United States. There is no call among Christians for attacks on those who bear the same or more melanoma colorization as he does. There is no reason for the name-calling, protest walking and racial taunts that haunt the airwaves, and I don’t believe true Christians are doing so.
Because those who so believe know that God is still on His throne and these things too must come to pass.
Now is the time, in the winter of our discontent, to stand upon what we preach, what we say, and what we hope. We stand, as Christian-Americans, and read about the issues, debating them in a respectful manner, and learn about the policies our President will implement. We pray, and speak our beliefs in the public square with respect and dignity. We preach about God’s loving concern for all; His standard of peace, justice, and righteousness."
Too many Christians are engrossed in ‘comfortable theology, good music, activities for their children, and the promise of no mediocre potluck fare at the annual picnic’ than biblical truth, teaching, and reflective public display of our faith.
Our President-elect calls for a change, and tells us that ‘doing all this will require not just new policies, but a new spirit of service and sacrifice.’
I would say to our President-elect that new policies aren’t needed because policies are just one opinion that like-it-or-not we, the governed people of America, have to follow unless and until we either elect another President or impeach him.
I would say it is not a ‘new’ spirit of servant sacrifice that is needed, nor a renewed sense of our fellow man"….but the reawakening of that biblical hope realized in the midst of a chaotic world that transcends the hopelessness of human invention.
To see what our eyes cannot see, and to hope beyond the realization of human possibilities.
“Are those then sane who cannot obtain any certainty of the divine favour, because the carnal eye is now unable to discern it from the present appearance of the world? But, they say, it is rash and presumptuous to pretend an undoubted knowledge of the divine will. I would grant this, did we hold that we were able to subject the incomprehensible God to our feeble intellect.” John Calvin wrote, “[We] simply say with Paul, “We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” (Book III, Chap II, pp502-503 Institutes of Christian Religion.)
I spoke out against Obama and Senator McCain. I pondered why, if an historical nomination and election of an African-American was so important to African-Americans, Allan Keyes was not nominated and elected. I have warned against policies and influences of socialistic and liberation theologies. Before the election. And in the election, I voted my values and my candidate was not elected.
After the election, I expressed the attentiveness that I feel all Christians should have, regardless of who is President……
Am I afraid? No, as I mentioned to a brother today……the Devil can ‘bring it on.’
Am I racist? No, for I believe that a ‘man’ should be judged not by the color of his skin but by the contents of his character as the great American Martin Luther King spoke in his memorable speech, “I have a DREAM.”
I will serve the President-elect as a citizen of this nation; offering my opinion via my vote, my correspondence, and my voice concerning the policies which he presents, and accept the governance of the human institution as I walk this world, for God is still upon His throne. My body belongs in this world and will die with it, but my heart belongs to my Savior and will live beyond any human invention. We have nothing to fear from those who can kill the body, for God has our eternal life in His hands.
If I stand upon what my fragile and human eyes can see in this world, I allow myself to become prey to temptations to push it a bit farther, until the scriptural message becomes my own wounds speaking for protection, for acceptance, and for love (according to me).
What ‘little’ I have; be it possessions, finances, or freedom…they all come from a God that is righteous, mighty, and all-encompassing; far beyond any elected official or the policies of the human institutions. My wealth is far better than the wealth of this world, for a peace that this world cannot give falls upon my shoulders each day.
I know that God has His eyes upon my days, and the actions I take in His name for His glory and for the Kingdom.
I will use my rights as a citizen to uphold those values and morals that God has given; and I believe. If this world continues to slide into the human condition of self-government, it doesn’t change my days upon this world….they were numbered before Obama or I were born….it will not change my happiness that comes from the heavenly hope and promise. That shall last far beyond such days as these.
So, I am satisfied that I voted according to my beliefs, and I was in the minority. That work is over, and the governance of another not chosen is in the future. I shall render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. But God still calls me to a good work, the Great Commission is still in place, and it shall not end until the moment Jesus Christ rides across the skies in triumphant return.
So, as the world falls in upon its own devices stand alone and pray. When confronted with an anger that comes from the wounds of another’s broken humanity, have grace with your words and speak truth in love. Don’t confront, but refuse to move from the values and morals that God ordained and spoke into the hearts of all.
You have felt the thirst and know it shall not be satisfied upon this landscape. So, if one strikes you upon the left cheek, offer the right also.
And love them anyway.
Christ told us that we would know persecution and tribulations. A faith untested is a faith that is weak and unsure. So welcome the torment of those who don’t accept Christ as your due, and answer them with the assurance that comes from an eternal hope. For if we can suffer but a little bit for the sake of the Savior, we should consider ourselves honored and blessed to do so.
My faith is strong, and I welcome the opportunity to grow it even stronger in the light of persecution.
For though they may come after us with 'swords and spears', and victory seems to fall upon their shoulders as easily as the morning dew…..they are no more sinners than we and in no need of salvation greater than ourselves are.
We are all fallen far short of the glory of God, we are all incapable of our own salvation, and we are all beholding to the One who stood in our place to die a perfect sacrifice for our sinful need.
May God bless our 44th President, burdened with an historical mandate not of his own….but God’s.
May his term or terms in office be honoring to God, and a blessing to the people to which he was elected to govern.
May God speak words of mission to him, and give him the power to perform the tasks to which he is called.
And may God bless my country, my homeland, and my fellow citizens.
God bless the U.S.A.
"Let us be satisfied that God will make all to work for good to us. Let us not discompose ourselves at what we see in this world. A fretful, discontented spirit is open to many temptations. For, in all respects, the little which is allotted to the righteous is more comfortable and more profitable than the ill-gotten and abused riches of ungodly men. It comes from a hand of special love. God provides plentifully and well, not only for his working servants, but for his waiting servants. They have that which is better than wealth, peace of mind, peace with God, and then peace in God; that peace which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot have. God knows the believer's days. Not one day's work shall go unrewarded. Their time on earth is reckoned by days, which will soon be numbered; but heavenly happiness shall be for ever. This will be a real support to believers in evil times. Those that rest on the Rock of ages, have no reason to envy the wicked the support of their broken reeds." Matthew Henry….
The world has erupted, seeming to spin into chaos and destruction; not only with the election of our 44th President but a host of legal passages in several states that have gone against the ‘homosexual agenda’; state constitutional amendments have affirmed those states’ citizenry define marriage as between ‘one man and one woman.’
Gay rights supporters waving rainbow colors marched, chanted and danced in cities coast to coast Saturday to protest the vote that banned gay marriage in California, gathering in cities like Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Fargo. In Florida, violent protestors struck and stomped a homemade cross carried by a silent elderly supporter of Prop 8. They say it’s simply a matter of ‘get[ting] the rights we deserve as Americans.’
From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts against African-Americans and the President-elect have been verbalized, at least according to the Associated Press.
Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."
This is not the America that will, as our President-elect proclaimed in his weekly address via internet, “resolve to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other…”
As I posted in my pre-election blog, “Obama….” Thursday, October 2, 2008, John Ortberg brought to my attention that the perfect government is far from a realization, as is the perfect world, because we are flawed, sinful human beings, and the our governing institution is a human one.
As Christians, we are called to preach the Gospel; simply…..Jesus Christ came to the earth, was crucified upon the Cross, died, and rose again three days later to bear the punishment for our sins. We are called to live lives reflective of God’s grace and mercy….and to hold ourselves accountable to His commandments and teachings.
We ‘lost’ the election, and protected in several states the biblical standard of marriage.
This doesn’t mean that the Kingdom will be ushered in, that we will become better parents, or that marriages will reflect agape love. Greed and pride, as we see evidenced in the chaos in our own country, won’t become illegal or passé, humanity will not jump on the ‘servant’ bandwagon, and we will not be the created creatures we were designed to be.
We held true, at least most of us, to the standards we were supposed to in the political election; We voted, in an educated way, in a civil and respective manner. Voting our morals and our values, as biblically defined, was reflective as Pastor Ortberg said, to be redemptive; to bring this nation back into a God-fearing, God-honoring state.
President-elect Barrack Obama is the 44th President of the United States. There is no call among Christians for attacks on those who bear the same or more melanoma colorization as he does. There is no reason for the name-calling, protest walking and racial taunts that haunt the airwaves, and I don’t believe true Christians are doing so.
Because those who so believe know that God is still on His throne and these things too must come to pass.
Now is the time, in the winter of our discontent, to stand upon what we preach, what we say, and what we hope. We stand, as Christian-Americans, and read about the issues, debating them in a respectful manner, and learn about the policies our President will implement. We pray, and speak our beliefs in the public square with respect and dignity. We preach about God’s loving concern for all; His standard of peace, justice, and righteousness."
Too many Christians are engrossed in ‘comfortable theology, good music, activities for their children, and the promise of no mediocre potluck fare at the annual picnic’ than biblical truth, teaching, and reflective public display of our faith.
Our President-elect calls for a change, and tells us that ‘doing all this will require not just new policies, but a new spirit of service and sacrifice.’
I would say to our President-elect that new policies aren’t needed because policies are just one opinion that like-it-or-not we, the governed people of America, have to follow unless and until we either elect another President or impeach him.
I would say it is not a ‘new’ spirit of servant sacrifice that is needed, nor a renewed sense of our fellow man"….but the reawakening of that biblical hope realized in the midst of a chaotic world that transcends the hopelessness of human invention.
To see what our eyes cannot see, and to hope beyond the realization of human possibilities.
“Are those then sane who cannot obtain any certainty of the divine favour, because the carnal eye is now unable to discern it from the present appearance of the world? But, they say, it is rash and presumptuous to pretend an undoubted knowledge of the divine will. I would grant this, did we hold that we were able to subject the incomprehensible God to our feeble intellect.” John Calvin wrote, “[We] simply say with Paul, “We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” (Book III, Chap II, pp502-503 Institutes of Christian Religion.)
I spoke out against Obama and Senator McCain. I pondered why, if an historical nomination and election of an African-American was so important to African-Americans, Allan Keyes was not nominated and elected. I have warned against policies and influences of socialistic and liberation theologies. Before the election. And in the election, I voted my values and my candidate was not elected.
After the election, I expressed the attentiveness that I feel all Christians should have, regardless of who is President……
Am I afraid? No, as I mentioned to a brother today……the Devil can ‘bring it on.’
Am I racist? No, for I believe that a ‘man’ should be judged not by the color of his skin but by the contents of his character as the great American Martin Luther King spoke in his memorable speech, “I have a DREAM.”
I will serve the President-elect as a citizen of this nation; offering my opinion via my vote, my correspondence, and my voice concerning the policies which he presents, and accept the governance of the human institution as I walk this world, for God is still upon His throne. My body belongs in this world and will die with it, but my heart belongs to my Savior and will live beyond any human invention. We have nothing to fear from those who can kill the body, for God has our eternal life in His hands.
If I stand upon what my fragile and human eyes can see in this world, I allow myself to become prey to temptations to push it a bit farther, until the scriptural message becomes my own wounds speaking for protection, for acceptance, and for love (according to me).
What ‘little’ I have; be it possessions, finances, or freedom…they all come from a God that is righteous, mighty, and all-encompassing; far beyond any elected official or the policies of the human institutions. My wealth is far better than the wealth of this world, for a peace that this world cannot give falls upon my shoulders each day.
I know that God has His eyes upon my days, and the actions I take in His name for His glory and for the Kingdom.
I will use my rights as a citizen to uphold those values and morals that God has given; and I believe. If this world continues to slide into the human condition of self-government, it doesn’t change my days upon this world….they were numbered before Obama or I were born….it will not change my happiness that comes from the heavenly hope and promise. That shall last far beyond such days as these.
So, I am satisfied that I voted according to my beliefs, and I was in the minority. That work is over, and the governance of another not chosen is in the future. I shall render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. But God still calls me to a good work, the Great Commission is still in place, and it shall not end until the moment Jesus Christ rides across the skies in triumphant return.
So, as the world falls in upon its own devices stand alone and pray. When confronted with an anger that comes from the wounds of another’s broken humanity, have grace with your words and speak truth in love. Don’t confront, but refuse to move from the values and morals that God ordained and spoke into the hearts of all.
You have felt the thirst and know it shall not be satisfied upon this landscape. So, if one strikes you upon the left cheek, offer the right also.
And love them anyway.
Christ told us that we would know persecution and tribulations. A faith untested is a faith that is weak and unsure. So welcome the torment of those who don’t accept Christ as your due, and answer them with the assurance that comes from an eternal hope. For if we can suffer but a little bit for the sake of the Savior, we should consider ourselves honored and blessed to do so.
My faith is strong, and I welcome the opportunity to grow it even stronger in the light of persecution.
For though they may come after us with 'swords and spears', and victory seems to fall upon their shoulders as easily as the morning dew…..they are no more sinners than we and in no need of salvation greater than ourselves are.
We are all fallen far short of the glory of God, we are all incapable of our own salvation, and we are all beholding to the One who stood in our place to die a perfect sacrifice for our sinful need.
May God bless our 44th President, burdened with an historical mandate not of his own….but God’s.
May his term or terms in office be honoring to God, and a blessing to the people to which he was elected to govern.
May God speak words of mission to him, and give him the power to perform the tasks to which he is called.
And may God bless my country, my homeland, and my fellow citizens.
God bless the U.S.A.
"Let us be satisfied that God will make all to work for good to us. Let us not discompose ourselves at what we see in this world. A fretful, discontented spirit is open to many temptations. For, in all respects, the little which is allotted to the righteous is more comfortable and more profitable than the ill-gotten and abused riches of ungodly men. It comes from a hand of special love. God provides plentifully and well, not only for his working servants, but for his waiting servants. They have that which is better than wealth, peace of mind, peace with God, and then peace in God; that peace which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot have. God knows the believer's days. Not one day's work shall go unrewarded. Their time on earth is reckoned by days, which will soon be numbered; but heavenly happiness shall be for ever. This will be a real support to believers in evil times. Those that rest on the Rock of ages, have no reason to envy the wicked the support of their broken reeds." Matthew Henry….
Thursday, November 13
A Christian nation....
"Like a roaring lion or a charging bear is a wicked man ruling over a helpless people. A tyrannical ruler lacks judgment..." Proverbs 28:15-16a (NIV)
I am sure, as one of my close friends remarked the other night, that most of us are tired of hearing of the 'danger of our President-elect' and his liberal policies. Especially from a 'move-on' attitude.
As a Christian, I offer prayers up for the transition of Presidents and the crisis that the majority of Americans are now experiencing, along with the rest of the world. I know that God is God and that hasn't change, even with the approval of the liberal, socialist agenda by the American people, at least the majority.
With cries of 'stop being racist' and 'get over it', I've penned an article that grew and grew...large enough to post on www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=89715, It is entitled "The new division" and speaks of what I think was hiding underneath the 'racial equality' line.
The election was a symbolic step towards the biblical mandate of 'brotherhood', but in taking that step, we've exposed the true culprit to any sinful expression within our humanistic culture.
One of the columnists for WORLD Magazine, Inc., said that conservative Christians should go to our African-American brethren and find out how it feels to be a pernenial minority, for our time has come in the movement of society to be labeled such. I would contend that we have been a minority for some time, with an estimated 7% evangelical Christians living in the United States of America.
The Barna report I wrote about in my faithwriters article, "A New Division", brings that into sharp focus and brings anew the ability of the liberal left to use previously 'racial' terms to blight the difference between born-agains and evangelicals.
Many born-agains voted for Obama, separating the meager and culturally sensitive expression of their faith from the biblical mandates for leadership; often saying that abortion was the one thing they disagreed with him on, but that it was time for change......... the evangelical in me says, "But???"
Dr. Alveda King, pastoral associate of Priests for Life and niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said Obama’s policies will increase the number of abortions. “Pro-lifers must promise to redouble our efforts to resist anti-life proposals, speak up for the babies and, above all, pray,” King said. "The elections are over. The pro-life battle begins anew.”
My article quotes some of our founding fathers, those men who were responsible for the birth of this once great and successful Republic. I was looking into other quotes to maybe include in my blog today and found this one by Ben Franklin:
"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice themselves both there (England) and in New England."
Of course, there are those who are attempting to intellectually rewrite history, so that the liberal and socialist historical argument that our founding fathers were nothing more than secular religious....often mislabeled as Dietist (believe in God, who has left us to our own devices) a early form of emergent and universalist faiths.
They often quote Madison, who's angry quotes dot the documents of the time such as "A memorial and Remonstrance" penned in 1785;
"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
And there is also Thomas Paine, who is often referred to as a atheist, who penned The Age of Reason;
“All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
The fact is that 52 of the 55 signers of "The Declaration of Independence" claimed provable orthodox Christianity as their faith and were deeply committed to its promotion and growthh. The remaining three expressed the belief of the Bible being the Divine truth of the God of Scripture and that He personally intervened in the affairs of men.
Congress formed the ABS (American Bible Society) after the Declaration was penned and voted to purchase 20,000 copies of Scripture for the American people. Even the very same Thomas Paine, who I've quoted above, said:
"It is by the exercise of our reason that we are enabled to contemplate God in His works, and imitate Him in His ways. When we see His care and goodness extended over all His creatures, it teaches us our duty toward each other, while it calls forth our gratitude to Him. It is by forgetting God in His works, and running after the books of pretended revelation, that man has wandered from the straight path of duty and happiness, and become by turns the victim of doubt and the dupe of delusion."
As I said before, we have been a minority for much of this Republic's history....it's just been 'by turns' that the American people have turned a nation comptemplative of God's hand and proper imitation of His ways into a victim of doubt and duped by delusion.
We have allowed the society to emerge that would cause someone like President-elect Obama an easy path to the White House. I was wrong to think that Barrack Obama wasn't represenative of the emergent American culture, population, and faith. He is, as proven by the ease in which he gained several 'christian' leaders to follow his agenda to promote the liberal, big-government entitlement policies of the Democrat party.
Patrick Henry in 1776 wrote that "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here."
Of course, those who would rewrite the religiousity of our founding fathers call upon modern historians's interpretation of their religion. Robert T. Handy, one such historian, points to the fact that no more than 10 percent of the population of early America were members of a congregation and fails to consider that the movement of the early colonists were to meet in communities; homes and businesses with their neighbors and friends.
The commonality of the expression of Christian thought peppers the papers; both personal and public, of our first citizentry of those days. As Henry stated, it was because of the persecution of Christianity that allowed the freedom of even false doctrines. It was the human invention of denominations that caused rifts to occur in the religious experiment of the Republic and was often the frustration written by the founding fathers.
As James Madison expressed, "All men having power ought to be mistrusted. Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."
It wasn't the separation of the true church from the state that Madison is talking about but the human endeavour of the creation of religion through the forced application of the government that "soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."
In the Supreme Court's 1892 Holy Trinity Church vs. United States, Justice David Brewer wrote that "this is a Christian nation" 'in dicta', meant as a personal opinion that has been taken out of context according to the secular historians by Christians. Justice Brewer explained this opinion later, "But in what sense can [the United States] be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or the people are compelled in any manner to support it. On the contrary, the Constitution specifically provides that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are either in fact or in name Christians. On the contrary, all religions have free scope within its borders. Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all."
In the sense that Christianity was the 'established' religion of the United States, as Brewer says, there is no such nation. The very lifeblood of the Constitution, the governing document of the young nation says as much....not against the promotion of Christianity but against its human establishment according to human means as a law of the land. Which is reflective of the design of the Designer.
We were given free will, and in the acknowledgement of Christianity and the mandate of the Great Commission, we aren't called to force conversion, as is often the case when religion is a human invention or coopted by human forces, but to allow a choice to be made upon the informed and debating conversation of free men.
One of the scholars discussed in one of the articles I read below concludes "neither strict separationists of today nor those who argue that the U.S. was founded as a "Christian nation" get it right. The truth is in the middle, the founding fathers affirmed religion's importance and most practiced their faith publicly, but they created a nation where faith would not be polluted by politics, and politics would have no say in an individual's faith."
I would take it one step further....the Founding Fathers affirmed the vitaliness and importance of any nation's or individual's pursuit of the True God, written and discoverable in the Scriptures as I AM, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, visible through the public and private practice of its expression in their lives and warned of the danger of humanization of such religious beliefs due to the danger evidenced in history of the destructive power of mankind in the handling of divine power.
It's a truth that is evident clearly within our borders even today. So what is our mandate, our calling, our destiny for these days?
Will we walk as the heroes of old, steadfast after God? Because in our day prophecy spoken by Jesus himself concerning the last days seems to be coming true: "because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." [Matthew 24:12]
We can follow the paths of Moses, Josiah, and Paul all who walked amidst incredible idolatry and sin in the world, but instead of catering or yielding to it, we can use all the authority given to us in the Constitution and our governing laws to stop its spread and redeem a nation.
We have to be fearless in our hatred of sin due to an intense love of God and not let that love grow cold, for it will allow us to bring those lost in sin's embrace to the light of God's love as we accurately reflect it into the dark world.
Sin abounds in the world, around us and to some extent IN us, but Christ tells us we can triumph with the intensity of the love God gives to us.
Keep the passion of God true, pure, and unblemished by human inventions. Each Christian is alive for such times as these.
Shining for the world tossed in darkness reflecting the love of our Heavenly Father to all who would look for solace and comfort in such troubling tiems.
Resources:
http://discuss.infidels.org/showthread.php?t=244904
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html
http://www.mccoolportraits.com/TrueHistory.htm
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000008659.cfm
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=315364
http://www.barefootsworld.net/founding.html
I am sure, as one of my close friends remarked the other night, that most of us are tired of hearing of the 'danger of our President-elect' and his liberal policies. Especially from a 'move-on' attitude.
As a Christian, I offer prayers up for the transition of Presidents and the crisis that the majority of Americans are now experiencing, along with the rest of the world. I know that God is God and that hasn't change, even with the approval of the liberal, socialist agenda by the American people, at least the majority.
With cries of 'stop being racist' and 'get over it', I've penned an article that grew and grew...large enough to post on www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=89715, It is entitled "The new division" and speaks of what I think was hiding underneath the 'racial equality' line.
The election was a symbolic step towards the biblical mandate of 'brotherhood', but in taking that step, we've exposed the true culprit to any sinful expression within our humanistic culture.
One of the columnists for WORLD Magazine, Inc., said that conservative Christians should go to our African-American brethren and find out how it feels to be a pernenial minority, for our time has come in the movement of society to be labeled such. I would contend that we have been a minority for some time, with an estimated 7% evangelical Christians living in the United States of America.
The Barna report I wrote about in my faithwriters article, "A New Division", brings that into sharp focus and brings anew the ability of the liberal left to use previously 'racial' terms to blight the difference between born-agains and evangelicals.
Many born-agains voted for Obama, separating the meager and culturally sensitive expression of their faith from the biblical mandates for leadership; often saying that abortion was the one thing they disagreed with him on, but that it was time for change......... the evangelical in me says, "But???"
Dr. Alveda King, pastoral associate of Priests for Life and niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said Obama’s policies will increase the number of abortions. “Pro-lifers must promise to redouble our efforts to resist anti-life proposals, speak up for the babies and, above all, pray,” King said. "The elections are over. The pro-life battle begins anew.”
My article quotes some of our founding fathers, those men who were responsible for the birth of this once great and successful Republic. I was looking into other quotes to maybe include in my blog today and found this one by Ben Franklin:
"If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice themselves both there (England) and in New England."
Of course, there are those who are attempting to intellectually rewrite history, so that the liberal and socialist historical argument that our founding fathers were nothing more than secular religious....often mislabeled as Dietist (believe in God, who has left us to our own devices) a early form of emergent and universalist faiths.
They often quote Madison, who's angry quotes dot the documents of the time such as "A memorial and Remonstrance" penned in 1785;
"Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
And there is also Thomas Paine, who is often referred to as a atheist, who penned The Age of Reason;
“All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”
The fact is that 52 of the 55 signers of "The Declaration of Independence" claimed provable orthodox Christianity as their faith and were deeply committed to its promotion and growthh. The remaining three expressed the belief of the Bible being the Divine truth of the God of Scripture and that He personally intervened in the affairs of men.
Congress formed the ABS (American Bible Society) after the Declaration was penned and voted to purchase 20,000 copies of Scripture for the American people. Even the very same Thomas Paine, who I've quoted above, said:
"It is by the exercise of our reason that we are enabled to contemplate God in His works, and imitate Him in His ways. When we see His care and goodness extended over all His creatures, it teaches us our duty toward each other, while it calls forth our gratitude to Him. It is by forgetting God in His works, and running after the books of pretended revelation, that man has wandered from the straight path of duty and happiness, and become by turns the victim of doubt and the dupe of delusion."
As I said before, we have been a minority for much of this Republic's history....it's just been 'by turns' that the American people have turned a nation comptemplative of God's hand and proper imitation of His ways into a victim of doubt and duped by delusion.
We have allowed the society to emerge that would cause someone like President-elect Obama an easy path to the White House. I was wrong to think that Barrack Obama wasn't represenative of the emergent American culture, population, and faith. He is, as proven by the ease in which he gained several 'christian' leaders to follow his agenda to promote the liberal, big-government entitlement policies of the Democrat party.
Patrick Henry in 1776 wrote that "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here."
Of course, those who would rewrite the religiousity of our founding fathers call upon modern historians's interpretation of their religion. Robert T. Handy, one such historian, points to the fact that no more than 10 percent of the population of early America were members of a congregation and fails to consider that the movement of the early colonists were to meet in communities; homes and businesses with their neighbors and friends.
The commonality of the expression of Christian thought peppers the papers; both personal and public, of our first citizentry of those days. As Henry stated, it was because of the persecution of Christianity that allowed the freedom of even false doctrines. It was the human invention of denominations that caused rifts to occur in the religious experiment of the Republic and was often the frustration written by the founding fathers.
As James Madison expressed, "All men having power ought to be mistrusted. Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."
It wasn't the separation of the true church from the state that Madison is talking about but the human endeavour of the creation of religion through the forced application of the government that "soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."
In the Supreme Court's 1892 Holy Trinity Church vs. United States, Justice David Brewer wrote that "this is a Christian nation" 'in dicta', meant as a personal opinion that has been taken out of context according to the secular historians by Christians. Justice Brewer explained this opinion later, "But in what sense can [the United States] be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or the people are compelled in any manner to support it. On the contrary, the Constitution specifically provides that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.' Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are either in fact or in name Christians. On the contrary, all religions have free scope within its borders. Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all."
In the sense that Christianity was the 'established' religion of the United States, as Brewer says, there is no such nation. The very lifeblood of the Constitution, the governing document of the young nation says as much....not against the promotion of Christianity but against its human establishment according to human means as a law of the land. Which is reflective of the design of the Designer.
We were given free will, and in the acknowledgement of Christianity and the mandate of the Great Commission, we aren't called to force conversion, as is often the case when religion is a human invention or coopted by human forces, but to allow a choice to be made upon the informed and debating conversation of free men.
One of the scholars discussed in one of the articles I read below concludes "neither strict separationists of today nor those who argue that the U.S. was founded as a "Christian nation" get it right. The truth is in the middle, the founding fathers affirmed religion's importance and most practiced their faith publicly, but they created a nation where faith would not be polluted by politics, and politics would have no say in an individual's faith."
I would take it one step further....the Founding Fathers affirmed the vitaliness and importance of any nation's or individual's pursuit of the True God, written and discoverable in the Scriptures as I AM, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, visible through the public and private practice of its expression in their lives and warned of the danger of humanization of such religious beliefs due to the danger evidenced in history of the destructive power of mankind in the handling of divine power.
It's a truth that is evident clearly within our borders even today. So what is our mandate, our calling, our destiny for these days?
Will we walk as the heroes of old, steadfast after God? Because in our day prophecy spoken by Jesus himself concerning the last days seems to be coming true: "because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." [Matthew 24:12]
We can follow the paths of Moses, Josiah, and Paul all who walked amidst incredible idolatry and sin in the world, but instead of catering or yielding to it, we can use all the authority given to us in the Constitution and our governing laws to stop its spread and redeem a nation.
We have to be fearless in our hatred of sin due to an intense love of God and not let that love grow cold, for it will allow us to bring those lost in sin's embrace to the light of God's love as we accurately reflect it into the dark world.
Sin abounds in the world, around us and to some extent IN us, but Christ tells us we can triumph with the intensity of the love God gives to us.
Keep the passion of God true, pure, and unblemished by human inventions. Each Christian is alive for such times as these.
Shining for the world tossed in darkness reflecting the love of our Heavenly Father to all who would look for solace and comfort in such troubling tiems.
Resources:
http://discuss.infidels.org/showthread.php?t=244904
http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer97/secular.html
http://www.mccoolportraits.com/TrueHistory.htm
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000008659.cfm
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=315364
http://www.barefootsworld.net/founding.html
Monday, November 10
It doesn't matter who is President......
"After Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and the officials, the craftsmen and the artisans of Judah were carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Lord showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the temple of the Lord. One basket had very good figs, like those that ripen early; the other basket had very poor figs, so bad they could not be eaten. Then the Lord asked me, 'What do you see, Jeremiah?' 'Figs,' I answered. 'The good ones are very good, but the poor ones are so bad they cannot be eaten.' Then the word of the Lord came to me: 'This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah, whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians. My eyes will watch over them for their own good, and I will bring them back to this land. I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart. But like the poor figs, which are so bad they cannot be eaten,' says the Lord, 'so will I deal with Zedekiah king of Judah, his officials and the survivors from Jerusalem, whether they remain in this land or live in Egypt. I will make them abhorrent and an offense to all the kingdoms of the earth, a reproach and a byword, an object of ridicule and cursing, wherever I banish them. I will send the sword, famine, and plague against them until they are destroyed from the land I gave to them and their fathers." Jeremiah 24:1-10 (NIV)
The United States of America made 'history' through the decision of its governed people in the nomination and election of the first African-American President, the 44th one elected, Illinois Senator Barack Hussein Obama; son of a Kenyan father and Caucasian mother. The streets of Chicago, Detroit, and other major cities were overcome with joy and celebration. Black fists raised in the air, comments of 'Finally!' and so on as the African-Americans find vindication in the election of a 'black' leader.
Some leaders within the Christian community decry those who say that people voted because of race instead of change. They ignore the comments of several voters throughout the political landscape, who spelled such motivation bravely and proudly, after the endorsement partially because of the same reason by ex-Secretary of State Coleman Powell. The claim that the winning of the Latino vote proves race was not a factor is onerous, because the Latino community typically identifies with the African-Americans in this country. Of course, such is not the only reason; this country has become a shadow of itself and the liberal, socialistic ideologies of the American people are the dominate majority in the country.
Regardless of the reason, the American people elected by the majority our 44th President in the history of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, ex-Senator from Illinois.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in his first state of the nation speech that Russia will station short-range missiles near its border with Poland if Obama proceeds with Bush’s plan to station missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The global economic crisis could limit Obama’s flexibility in defense and foreign affairs, and while foreign leaders may chose not to fulfill Vice-President elect Joseph Biden's prophecy of an Obama trial by fire, Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, says,
"One thing I'm sure of is, events will test him. There will be coups....genocide.....terrorism."
This President, untested in foreign affairs, faces such an unsettled and anti-American global scene unseen since the 1930s and 1940s. Beyond the economy and the wars, there's the need to address what most believe are climate changes of a disastrous nature, improve America's energy independence from foreign oil, taxes, reformation of health care, immigration and solve a budget deficit made bigger by the government's socialistic move to prop up businesses
We can complain about the election; offering claims of 'buying the White House', that Obama used 'race' to win, or a host of other possibly legitimate reasoning behind it all. Or we can look at our culture, our society, and our faith to discover a possibility beyond such petty human reasons. We have been living in the days before Noah for some time now.
"Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Genesis 6:1-13 (GWT)
It is glorious that an African-American has been elected President of the United States. Slavery was a sin of the Republic and racism remains the bitter experience of too many Americans; of all races and, while such an historic election doesn't end racism, it does bring the country in a positive, symbolic step in that direction. But, unfortunately, racism is not the only culturally destructive tendencies that we, as a people, have engaged in for the 'modern-day pre-Noah' depravity.
"For the last two millennia, the Christian community, educated with ideas drawn from Scripture and applied to every area of life and reality, has been the most powerful culture-forming agent. In other words, the church is the instrument by which God brings forth His kingdom and as the kingdom spreads, the culture is Christianized." S. Michael Craven, of the Center for Christ & Culture, says "In a world of false ideas competing to explain the world, it was Christians, armed with the energy of an all-embracing life-system (i.e., Christian worldview) that shaped Western culture. This energy–now severed from its historic understanding–has been depleted in recent generations through spiritual sloth, theological ignorance, anti-intellectualism, and cultural apathy."
For a country established upon the Gospel message, and led by the foundational inclusion of such biblical strengths as the Ten Commandments, it is such supposition and assumption that because of our exposure to and the material blessings resulting from the Gospel; far beyond possibly any other nation in the history of this world, that has caused us to be in a far more perilous place before God than we ever may have realized with the continued decline of our society.
Barack Obama, the liberal Senator of Illinois, may have caused deception and lies to sway enough Americans to vote him into office; may have taken foreign donations, gaining world opinion, and profited from a poor performance from the Republican choice of President. But, if society was not a reflection of what Obama represents, we would be giving the oath to another nominee who gain the majority of the vote.
God wants to have mercy upon us, if only for the sake of the faithful that reside within this nation's borders. God wants to bless and bring honor to a nation that brings Him glory. But He can also withhold that blessing, mercy, and grace from a nation that turns its back to Him. We cannot claim ignorance, acting as if God hasn't given us His direction and His desires for us individually and nationally. We do not have the excuse of modern-day Ninevahs; who 'could not tell their right hand from their left.' (Jonah 4:11)
Our fate doesn't lie in the hands of President-elect Obama, nor the government he forms. It lies within our conduct, our expression of faith, and the testimony of that hope established upon a cross of wood and iron.
Jesus established our conduct and relationships as necessary components to our witness on behalf of God to the world, dark and fallen in a deadly state of sin. It is because we have continued to fail to bring our conduct within the biblical context; allowing 'the devil we know' to be nominated, failing to uphold a moral ethics, and refusing to elect those who don't represent our values, that will spell our doom; as a people and a nation, leading us into the ruin of history as so many societies and nations that have fallen before us.
"We are going to see, I think, unprecedented attacks against our faith through measures like the hate crimes [legislation] to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, says. "We're going to see attacks on innocent human life through the Freedom of Choice Act, trying to erase all the gains that have been made in the pro-life movement. And I think even our freedoms are going to come under attack."
God holds all nations in His plans as evidenced by the Scriptures: He gives nations to those whom he wills, Isaiah 41:2, reigning over all of them, Psalm 99:2, and at the end of all time, all nations of this world will worship Him and their people declare His praise, Revelation 15:4. The United States of America holds no distinction from the rest of the world and the nations that inhabit it; beyond being once more knowledgeable of God's will and direction.
As our mothers used to say, "You know better."
Once a small core group of British subjects living upon a colonial shore rose up against their mother country and said, "No more." They had to bear arms against an army with more soldiers, battle-hardened and trained, to stand upon their declaration. Many gave their blood upon that famous 'tree of liberty' and came together 'under God' to form a grand experiment all the world was certain would fail; a Republic of the people and for the people. The leadership of this country has fallen from the path of that once-grandeur path, and it is time for the true patriots to rise again from the villages and towns of this country. A call to arms, not unlike the one given so long ago, resounds throughout the countryside; galloping steeds bearing loud, boisterous riders shouting the cry.
"The enemy is coming! The enemy is coming! To your knees!"
It is not for these new patriots, possibly soon to be labeled criminals (as were our founding fathers), to grasp weapons of humanity; those tools of warfare. To gain a coup on the human effort of military overthrow or personal threat against our leadership. That is not the way of the Lord God and it cannot be our way as His followers.
No, the modern-day patriot, following the principles established by those patriots found in the Old and New Testaments, seize upon the weapons of God; prayer, established law, and their principles of faith to drop to their knees.
Not to call for the destruction of the presidency of Barack Obama, nor an unfortunate demise to fall upon the government that he forms.
No, as in Jeremiah 29:7, where God told the Israelites to pray for Babylon, their captors (Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper) and as Paul commanded us, in his letter to Timothy, to pray for "kings and all who are in authority." The principle of God's people praying for the welfare of the governments over them, regardless of their sinful nature or biblical following, is a foundational weapon in the arsenal of the faithful and is called to be used.
God can touch an unbeliever, a deceived and wayward follower, and even the humanistic confusion of a false doctrine. He can use the prayers of the faithful to destroy, redeem, and lead to repentance even the most foul of nations. He allows us to nominate our leaders and expects us to bring those leaders under prayerful supplication regardless of our vote for or against.
President-elect Barack Obama doesn't know me from the multitudes that gathered around him that night of his historic victory in Chicago Illinois and has no idea of my political views, morals, and hopes; though he opposes them, at least according to the words of his mouth, the push of his finger upon the voting buttons in the Senate, and the written doctrine of his campaign. He will never call my cell and ask for me to offer him counsel and prayer for the enormous task of leading this nation.
But God calls me to do so; to pray for Barack Hussein Obama to feel and listen to the voice of God, to be guided by His hand and to bring this nation into repentance. God tells me to pray for Obama's health, far beyond the human physical health, in the spirit, that he will know of the need for salvation and grasp upon Christ's offer freely given. God allows for me to use legal means of expressing myself and my views to my Commander-in-Chief through my elected officials, whether I voted for them or not, and the Constitution that allows me to address my government concerning things I oppose. God tells me one thing that I must do, regardless of what our 44th President will do.
Pray for him, that his leadership would bring glory and honor to God, that this nation be led to repentance and redemption through his leadership, and that God would bring His hand to bear in the answering of such prayers; withholding judgment from those who are repenting, to judge those who aren't and who are falsely leading many astray, and to show His will for a nation fallen from His path.
Whatever the next four years bring, I will pray for God to reveal Himself and His will to President Obama and that He have mercy for those he governs as well as those who govern us. Through this action, I know, that God will use whatever happens to bring His faithful closer to Him and will not abandon them to the wages of sin that befall those who oppose God. I will pray for the political process and a restoration of its lofty goals; the election of leaders to lead this country in a Godly manner.
I will pray for those who guide us at all levels of government; that they will faithful execute the duties of their offices in a manner bringing God glory and honor through their servant leadership. And that God will hold them accountable as He holds me accountable.
Whatever trials I may face are nothing as those who face the wrath of the Almighty God, who have turned away willingly and with malice, from His path.
May God have mercy upon their souls.
The United States of America made 'history' through the decision of its governed people in the nomination and election of the first African-American President, the 44th one elected, Illinois Senator Barack Hussein Obama; son of a Kenyan father and Caucasian mother. The streets of Chicago, Detroit, and other major cities were overcome with joy and celebration. Black fists raised in the air, comments of 'Finally!' and so on as the African-Americans find vindication in the election of a 'black' leader.
Some leaders within the Christian community decry those who say that people voted because of race instead of change. They ignore the comments of several voters throughout the political landscape, who spelled such motivation bravely and proudly, after the endorsement partially because of the same reason by ex-Secretary of State Coleman Powell. The claim that the winning of the Latino vote proves race was not a factor is onerous, because the Latino community typically identifies with the African-Americans in this country. Of course, such is not the only reason; this country has become a shadow of itself and the liberal, socialistic ideologies of the American people are the dominate majority in the country.
Regardless of the reason, the American people elected by the majority our 44th President in the history of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, ex-Senator from Illinois.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in his first state of the nation speech that Russia will station short-range missiles near its border with Poland if Obama proceeds with Bush’s plan to station missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The global economic crisis could limit Obama’s flexibility in defense and foreign affairs, and while foreign leaders may chose not to fulfill Vice-President elect Joseph Biden's prophecy of an Obama trial by fire, Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, says,
"One thing I'm sure of is, events will test him. There will be coups....genocide.....terrorism."
This President, untested in foreign affairs, faces such an unsettled and anti-American global scene unseen since the 1930s and 1940s. Beyond the economy and the wars, there's the need to address what most believe are climate changes of a disastrous nature, improve America's energy independence from foreign oil, taxes, reformation of health care, immigration and solve a budget deficit made bigger by the government's socialistic move to prop up businesses
We can complain about the election; offering claims of 'buying the White House', that Obama used 'race' to win, or a host of other possibly legitimate reasoning behind it all. Or we can look at our culture, our society, and our faith to discover a possibility beyond such petty human reasons. We have been living in the days before Noah for some time now.
"Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. These are the records of the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth. Genesis 6:1-13 (GWT)
It is glorious that an African-American has been elected President of the United States. Slavery was a sin of the Republic and racism remains the bitter experience of too many Americans; of all races and, while such an historic election doesn't end racism, it does bring the country in a positive, symbolic step in that direction. But, unfortunately, racism is not the only culturally destructive tendencies that we, as a people, have engaged in for the 'modern-day pre-Noah' depravity.
"For the last two millennia, the Christian community, educated with ideas drawn from Scripture and applied to every area of life and reality, has been the most powerful culture-forming agent. In other words, the church is the instrument by which God brings forth His kingdom and as the kingdom spreads, the culture is Christianized." S. Michael Craven, of the Center for Christ & Culture, says "In a world of false ideas competing to explain the world, it was Christians, armed with the energy of an all-embracing life-system (i.e., Christian worldview) that shaped Western culture. This energy–now severed from its historic understanding–has been depleted in recent generations through spiritual sloth, theological ignorance, anti-intellectualism, and cultural apathy."
For a country established upon the Gospel message, and led by the foundational inclusion of such biblical strengths as the Ten Commandments, it is such supposition and assumption that because of our exposure to and the material blessings resulting from the Gospel; far beyond possibly any other nation in the history of this world, that has caused us to be in a far more perilous place before God than we ever may have realized with the continued decline of our society.
Barack Obama, the liberal Senator of Illinois, may have caused deception and lies to sway enough Americans to vote him into office; may have taken foreign donations, gaining world opinion, and profited from a poor performance from the Republican choice of President. But, if society was not a reflection of what Obama represents, we would be giving the oath to another nominee who gain the majority of the vote.
God wants to have mercy upon us, if only for the sake of the faithful that reside within this nation's borders. God wants to bless and bring honor to a nation that brings Him glory. But He can also withhold that blessing, mercy, and grace from a nation that turns its back to Him. We cannot claim ignorance, acting as if God hasn't given us His direction and His desires for us individually and nationally. We do not have the excuse of modern-day Ninevahs; who 'could not tell their right hand from their left.' (Jonah 4:11)
Our fate doesn't lie in the hands of President-elect Obama, nor the government he forms. It lies within our conduct, our expression of faith, and the testimony of that hope established upon a cross of wood and iron.
Jesus established our conduct and relationships as necessary components to our witness on behalf of God to the world, dark and fallen in a deadly state of sin. It is because we have continued to fail to bring our conduct within the biblical context; allowing 'the devil we know' to be nominated, failing to uphold a moral ethics, and refusing to elect those who don't represent our values, that will spell our doom; as a people and a nation, leading us into the ruin of history as so many societies and nations that have fallen before us.
"We are going to see, I think, unprecedented attacks against our faith through measures like the hate crimes [legislation] to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, says. "We're going to see attacks on innocent human life through the Freedom of Choice Act, trying to erase all the gains that have been made in the pro-life movement. And I think even our freedoms are going to come under attack."
God holds all nations in His plans as evidenced by the Scriptures: He gives nations to those whom he wills, Isaiah 41:2, reigning over all of them, Psalm 99:2, and at the end of all time, all nations of this world will worship Him and their people declare His praise, Revelation 15:4. The United States of America holds no distinction from the rest of the world and the nations that inhabit it; beyond being once more knowledgeable of God's will and direction.
As our mothers used to say, "You know better."
Once a small core group of British subjects living upon a colonial shore rose up against their mother country and said, "No more." They had to bear arms against an army with more soldiers, battle-hardened and trained, to stand upon their declaration. Many gave their blood upon that famous 'tree of liberty' and came together 'under God' to form a grand experiment all the world was certain would fail; a Republic of the people and for the people. The leadership of this country has fallen from the path of that once-grandeur path, and it is time for the true patriots to rise again from the villages and towns of this country. A call to arms, not unlike the one given so long ago, resounds throughout the countryside; galloping steeds bearing loud, boisterous riders shouting the cry.
"The enemy is coming! The enemy is coming! To your knees!"
It is not for these new patriots, possibly soon to be labeled criminals (as were our founding fathers), to grasp weapons of humanity; those tools of warfare. To gain a coup on the human effort of military overthrow or personal threat against our leadership. That is not the way of the Lord God and it cannot be our way as His followers.
No, the modern-day patriot, following the principles established by those patriots found in the Old and New Testaments, seize upon the weapons of God; prayer, established law, and their principles of faith to drop to their knees.
Not to call for the destruction of the presidency of Barack Obama, nor an unfortunate demise to fall upon the government that he forms.
No, as in Jeremiah 29:7, where God told the Israelites to pray for Babylon, their captors (Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper) and as Paul commanded us, in his letter to Timothy, to pray for "kings and all who are in authority." The principle of God's people praying for the welfare of the governments over them, regardless of their sinful nature or biblical following, is a foundational weapon in the arsenal of the faithful and is called to be used.
God can touch an unbeliever, a deceived and wayward follower, and even the humanistic confusion of a false doctrine. He can use the prayers of the faithful to destroy, redeem, and lead to repentance even the most foul of nations. He allows us to nominate our leaders and expects us to bring those leaders under prayerful supplication regardless of our vote for or against.
President-elect Barack Obama doesn't know me from the multitudes that gathered around him that night of his historic victory in Chicago Illinois and has no idea of my political views, morals, and hopes; though he opposes them, at least according to the words of his mouth, the push of his finger upon the voting buttons in the Senate, and the written doctrine of his campaign. He will never call my cell and ask for me to offer him counsel and prayer for the enormous task of leading this nation.
But God calls me to do so; to pray for Barack Hussein Obama to feel and listen to the voice of God, to be guided by His hand and to bring this nation into repentance. God tells me to pray for Obama's health, far beyond the human physical health, in the spirit, that he will know of the need for salvation and grasp upon Christ's offer freely given. God allows for me to use legal means of expressing myself and my views to my Commander-in-Chief through my elected officials, whether I voted for them or not, and the Constitution that allows me to address my government concerning things I oppose. God tells me one thing that I must do, regardless of what our 44th President will do.
Pray for him, that his leadership would bring glory and honor to God, that this nation be led to repentance and redemption through his leadership, and that God would bring His hand to bear in the answering of such prayers; withholding judgment from those who are repenting, to judge those who aren't and who are falsely leading many astray, and to show His will for a nation fallen from His path.
Whatever the next four years bring, I will pray for God to reveal Himself and His will to President Obama and that He have mercy for those he governs as well as those who govern us. Through this action, I know, that God will use whatever happens to bring His faithful closer to Him and will not abandon them to the wages of sin that befall those who oppose God. I will pray for the political process and a restoration of its lofty goals; the election of leaders to lead this country in a Godly manner.
I will pray for those who guide us at all levels of government; that they will faithful execute the duties of their offices in a manner bringing God glory and honor through their servant leadership. And that God will hold them accountable as He holds me accountable.
Whatever trials I may face are nothing as those who face the wrath of the Almighty God, who have turned away willingly and with malice, from His path.
May God have mercy upon their souls.
Wednesday, November 5
A history repeated, not 'made'.
"And it came about when Samuel was old that he appointed his sons judges over Israel. Now the name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judging in Beersheba. His sons, however, did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah; and they said to him, “Behold, you have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint a king for us to judge us like all the nations.” But the thing was displeasing in the sight of Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD. The LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being king over them. “Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day—in that they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also. “Now then, listen to their voice; however, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them.” So Samuel spoke all the words of the LORD to the people who had asked of him a king. He said, “This will be the procedure of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen and they will run before his chariots. “He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. “He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. “He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. “He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants. “He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work. “He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants. “Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day.” Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, “No, but there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” Now after Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the LORD’S hearing. The LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice and appoint them a king.” So Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.” 1 Samuel 8:1-22 (GWT)
The newspapers and blogs are similiarly titled this morning; 'History has been made! The United States of America has elected for the first time in its history an African-American for President.'
Young and charismatic but with little experience on the national level, Obama is to become the first African-American destined to sit in the Oval Office, America's 44th president; the first Democrat to garner more than 50 percent of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976. The popular vote was 51.9 percent for Obama and 46.8 percent for McCain. But the count in the Electoral College was lopsided in Obama's favor over McCain — 349 to 147 as of early Wednesday, Obama won California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
In other 'historical' milestones, with Democratic gains in both parts of the 'Legislative' branch, Obama takes office with more political favor than than any president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Johnson's first elected term enjoyed a House with a 295 majority of Democrats and a Senate of a Democratic majority of 68.
Despite the headlines speaking of an 'historical nomination of an African-American President', exit polls suggest that race was indeed a factor in voting decisions; working in Barack Obama's favor. Nearly one in five voters said it was an important factor in their decision, as opposed to the eight percent who said it was a minor factor. Typical responses to the President-elect as he begins his first day in the journey to taking the Presidential Oath of Office in January seem to support such numbers.
An emotional Georgia Congressman and Civil Rights leader John Lewis called the election "a nonviolent revolution" and an "unbelievable, and unreal transformation of American politics" as he spoke with Charles Gibson of ABC News when asked about a possible Obama victory, saying "Well, I tell you, I cried a little today when I cast my vote, and I've been crying for the past few days. I don't know if I have any tears left.... I think I'm going to shed some more tears before the night is over."
"I have always believed America offers opportunities for those who have the industry and will to achieve it," McCain said. "There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States."
"I feel like 100 pounds are off my shoulders right now," said Preston Johnson, a 22-year-old African-American among the thousands of multi-ethnic Obama supporters gathered tonight in Harlem. "I feel the change right this minute."
Quoted in the local paper, The Detroit Free Press, are many indications of those exit polls; Samuel Green, 85, an Army veteran who fought for his country but couldn't vote in the 40's, said, "This is something we've dreamed about, and to see it come to reality is just amazing. "This is payback for all the hardships."
Detroit Mayor, Ken Crockrel Jr., said, "I think it's huge for African-Americans. It's especially significant for African-American children. It shows the sky is the limit, no matter what your skin color."
Gary Bennett, a 68 year old New Center resident and minister with the Shrine of the Black Madonna, is quoted, “I think this is a new beginning for America -- the Lord has blessed us with another chance. Everybody has that rumbling feeling inside them that something is happening. This election has helped bring us out of this oppression that has eaten up America. We can begin to accept that we are a multicultural national. Tonight we’ve been brought out of a long tunnel, and we are finally beginning to see the light.”
Rochelle Riley, Free Press Columist states, "He entered an arena full of America in all its colors and ages, and left as two symbols: He remained, as the poet Maya Angelou wrote, "the hope and the dream of the slave" -- but he continued to be a universal voice of change."
One reporter in the Free Press reported of the celebration in the dowtown area of Detroit, "Black power fists were thrown in the air, large American flags were waved, poeple danced in the streets, drivers honked their car horns, men stood on cars playing bongo drums and the gleeful shouts of "OBAMA" could literally be heard from miles away."
Record voter turnout, new voters, and new levels of campaign funds raised has led to the American voice being heard, President-elect Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States of America. Whether our first democratically elected African-American President can bring change that will bring what he has promised the citizenship would restore America to its former glory remains a subject of the future.
Will we, the American people, demand such accountability?
To what standards, what morals?
In his victory speech, Obama said "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."
Obama has convinced people that he represents a coming together for the common good, setting aside old prejudices and standing on the cusp for true change. Time will tell if the voters elected a true change or a renewal of the old lies in a new language, called 'tolerance' or, to quote our 44th President, "...just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right..." style of government.
We will be held accountable for our decisions, whether we were simply fooled or intentionally in a state of denial. In 1938, Milton Washington Mayor Kenneth Simmons wanted to prove a point. He hauled a mule into the courthouse and placed its hoof prints on all the documents necessary to run for public office. Although Boston Curtis, the mule, never ran a political campaign, the citizens elected him to office. They didn't realize they were electing a mule! Mayor Simmons said he wanted to demonstrate that voters often "know not whom they support."
President Grover Cleveland, who was a relative unknown much like our newly elected President, came into his first term of office with a promise of 'not replacing any Republican who was doing his job well or appointing anyone based solely on party service' and began to replace Republicans with Democrats, once his party complained of being 'denied the spoils' of Cleveland's party victory, though the majority seem to have held to at least a merit system alone and not just party service. Cleveland reformed government, creating the ICC, modernizing the navy, returning approximately 81,000,000 acres to the public which angered railroad investors. Cleveland, facing a Republican-controlled Senate, used his veto powers often; vetoing hundreds of pension bills for Civil war veterans, and the infamous veto of the Texas seed bill because he believed in limited government, "Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people." Cleveland advocated tariff reform, reducing the tariff placed upon American businesses. In the World stage, Cleveland would be a committed non-interventionist, conciliatory tones were the hallmark of his administration in foreign affairs.
For the first time since President Johnson, a Democratic President will have the support of a Democrat-controlled 'legislative' branch. Johnson espoused many of a "great society" and Congress, at times augmenting or amending, enacted many of Johnson's recommendations. Johnson inherited a war started under the Kennedy administration, and actually increased the scope of America's involvement. Under Johnson, 550,00 US troops were in Vietnam, at a rate of 1000 a month being killed, from Kennedy's 16,000 'advisors'. One of Johnson's well known quotes is "the Democratic party at its worst, is still better than the Republican party at its best".
Frustration over Vietnam; increased federal spending, taxation, a lack of public support in the 'Great Society', disenchantment with the civil rights programs 4.5 percent jump in consumer pricing, increased interest rates, and a 6 percent rise in income taxes to cover increased deficit spending were the hallmarks of a Johnson administration and a democrat-controlled legislature. ; too much federal spending and... taxation; no great public support for your Great Society programs; and . . . public disenchantment with the civil rights programs" was the opinion of much of Johnson's administration, caused by a 4.5 percent jump in consumer prices, a rise in interest rates, a 6 percent increase in income taxes to cover increased deficit spending.
America, and a majority of its citizens haven't made history. They've repeated it, in a new way. Only time will tell if the mistakes made in the past lead to a brighter future for all Americans or a socialist shift into the darkest hours of a nation morally corrupt.
"President-Elect Obama has been elected. I will always hold true to my beliefs that include character, personal responsibility and honesty make the person........... There are Americans who will, and have, judged him simply on the color of his skin," said the person going by the screen name 'nievyman', "but there are other Americans who may be expecting something because of the color of his skin.................I want our new President to bring us all closer together, not by his color, but by his character and integrity."
Upon the shoulders of this newly elected President fall the hopes and aspirations of a nation; those who voted for him and those who did not. History, both immediate and in review, will judge us as a people to whether we voted for a historical nightmare or an individual who answered the deepest heartfelt call of God and turned the nation back to its once former glory as a nation 'under God, indivisible.'
It is up to the people, citizens natural-born or legal-immigrants, to hold our President to the highest standards in all things, and to use our democratic rights to do so when he strays from our chosen path. Not to divide, not to riot, and not to perform other radical, individual actions.
Andrew Nicholls, a brother in the Lord, offered this prayer yesterday.
"Lord, today is an important day in many of our lives here in the states. It is that time again when we will be choosing the next man to lead this nation. Father, please help us not to be hasty in our decision, but to be prayerful and careful in our vote. We are a people that have fallen away from the godly values and principles this nation was founded upon. We have fallen far, but you are rich in grace and mercy and I believe there is still hope. Lord, You told Your chosen people, Israel, that if they would humble themselves before You, pray, seek Your face and turn from their wicked ways, You would hear their prayers from heaven, forgive their sins and heal their land. We who have come to You in faith through Your precious Son Jesus are also Your people and that promise applies to us as well. So Lord, we seek You, Lord we confess our sins and realize that we are nothing without You. Father, may we always seek You, not just in times of crisis, want or need, but daily with hearts of praise and worship. Lord we have heard the word "change" used so often throughout the past year, but there is really only one change that really matters; a heart that has been transformed by the healing grace of Calvary. Please bring about that "Real Change" in our land and help me to be an active soldier in your mighty, heavenly army to help bring about this much needed "change." I pray this prayer in Jesus Name, the name above all names and the name in which one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. Amen"
"The people responded, "It would be unthinkable for us to abandon the LORD to serve other gods." Joshua 24:18 (GWT)
I fear that America has done the same. Time will tell if I'm prophetic or just a dislusioned American. But my American Christian response to the decision does not.
We are called by God to accept and follow the leadership appointed over us. Whether God has given us to our most heartfelt desires of human leadership or has entered into a time of trial to see if we will follow His decree remains to be seen.
Our actions, however, do not.
This morning, as my heart broke over the results of this 'historic' election, my mouth confessed to the Lord my fears, my failures, and my praises to Him and Him alone. As every morning, both in the past and into the future, I included a prayer for my President, elected to the highest office of the land, that he would find and know God (as only God knows the heart), that he would hear His voice and reflect His love, grace, and peace. And that the Lord would guide his steps as he leads the country into the unknown future. For the sake of myself, my fellow Americans, and my children.
President-elect Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America, you have been entrusted with the future of a nation, you have promised true change that places the common good of all over the individual selfishness of the one. I, a citizen of this nation, will hold you to that promise and will continue as I have for years, to pray for you, your family, and your presidential duties that they will reflect, conform, and emulate the standards of the Most High God and His son, Jesus Christ.
And I will continue to do so; as is my right as an American citizen, and my humble duty as a Christian.
Until history is at its end and Christ returns for His people.
2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
The newspapers and blogs are similiarly titled this morning; 'History has been made! The United States of America has elected for the first time in its history an African-American for President.'
Young and charismatic but with little experience on the national level, Obama is to become the first African-American destined to sit in the Oval Office, America's 44th president; the first Democrat to garner more than 50 percent of the popular vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976. The popular vote was 51.9 percent for Obama and 46.8 percent for McCain. But the count in the Electoral College was lopsided in Obama's favor over McCain — 349 to 147 as of early Wednesday, Obama won California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
In other 'historical' milestones, with Democratic gains in both parts of the 'Legislative' branch, Obama takes office with more political favor than than any president since Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Johnson's first elected term enjoyed a House with a 295 majority of Democrats and a Senate of a Democratic majority of 68.
Despite the headlines speaking of an 'historical nomination of an African-American President', exit polls suggest that race was indeed a factor in voting decisions; working in Barack Obama's favor. Nearly one in five voters said it was an important factor in their decision, as opposed to the eight percent who said it was a minor factor. Typical responses to the President-elect as he begins his first day in the journey to taking the Presidential Oath of Office in January seem to support such numbers.
An emotional Georgia Congressman and Civil Rights leader John Lewis called the election "a nonviolent revolution" and an "unbelievable, and unreal transformation of American politics" as he spoke with Charles Gibson of ABC News when asked about a possible Obama victory, saying "Well, I tell you, I cried a little today when I cast my vote, and I've been crying for the past few days. I don't know if I have any tears left.... I think I'm going to shed some more tears before the night is over."
"I have always believed America offers opportunities for those who have the industry and will to achieve it," McCain said. "There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States."
"I feel like 100 pounds are off my shoulders right now," said Preston Johnson, a 22-year-old African-American among the thousands of multi-ethnic Obama supporters gathered tonight in Harlem. "I feel the change right this minute."
Quoted in the local paper, The Detroit Free Press, are many indications of those exit polls; Samuel Green, 85, an Army veteran who fought for his country but couldn't vote in the 40's, said, "This is something we've dreamed about, and to see it come to reality is just amazing. "This is payback for all the hardships."
Detroit Mayor, Ken Crockrel Jr., said, "I think it's huge for African-Americans. It's especially significant for African-American children. It shows the sky is the limit, no matter what your skin color."
Gary Bennett, a 68 year old New Center resident and minister with the Shrine of the Black Madonna, is quoted, “I think this is a new beginning for America -- the Lord has blessed us with another chance. Everybody has that rumbling feeling inside them that something is happening. This election has helped bring us out of this oppression that has eaten up America. We can begin to accept that we are a multicultural national. Tonight we’ve been brought out of a long tunnel, and we are finally beginning to see the light.”
Rochelle Riley, Free Press Columist states, "He entered an arena full of America in all its colors and ages, and left as two symbols: He remained, as the poet Maya Angelou wrote, "the hope and the dream of the slave" -- but he continued to be a universal voice of change."
One reporter in the Free Press reported of the celebration in the dowtown area of Detroit, "Black power fists were thrown in the air, large American flags were waved, poeple danced in the streets, drivers honked their car horns, men stood on cars playing bongo drums and the gleeful shouts of "OBAMA" could literally be heard from miles away."
Record voter turnout, new voters, and new levels of campaign funds raised has led to the American voice being heard, President-elect Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States of America. Whether our first democratically elected African-American President can bring change that will bring what he has promised the citizenship would restore America to its former glory remains a subject of the future.
Will we, the American people, demand such accountability?
To what standards, what morals?
In his victory speech, Obama said "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."
Obama has convinced people that he represents a coming together for the common good, setting aside old prejudices and standing on the cusp for true change. Time will tell if the voters elected a true change or a renewal of the old lies in a new language, called 'tolerance' or, to quote our 44th President, "...just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can't constrain the exercise of that right..." style of government.
We will be held accountable for our decisions, whether we were simply fooled or intentionally in a state of denial. In 1938, Milton Washington Mayor Kenneth Simmons wanted to prove a point. He hauled a mule into the courthouse and placed its hoof prints on all the documents necessary to run for public office. Although Boston Curtis, the mule, never ran a political campaign, the citizens elected him to office. They didn't realize they were electing a mule! Mayor Simmons said he wanted to demonstrate that voters often "know not whom they support."
President Grover Cleveland, who was a relative unknown much like our newly elected President, came into his first term of office with a promise of 'not replacing any Republican who was doing his job well or appointing anyone based solely on party service' and began to replace Republicans with Democrats, once his party complained of being 'denied the spoils' of Cleveland's party victory, though the majority seem to have held to at least a merit system alone and not just party service. Cleveland reformed government, creating the ICC, modernizing the navy, returning approximately 81,000,000 acres to the public which angered railroad investors. Cleveland, facing a Republican-controlled Senate, used his veto powers often; vetoing hundreds of pension bills for Civil war veterans, and the infamous veto of the Texas seed bill because he believed in limited government, "Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people." Cleveland advocated tariff reform, reducing the tariff placed upon American businesses. In the World stage, Cleveland would be a committed non-interventionist, conciliatory tones were the hallmark of his administration in foreign affairs.
For the first time since President Johnson, a Democratic President will have the support of a Democrat-controlled 'legislative' branch. Johnson espoused many of a "great society" and Congress, at times augmenting or amending, enacted many of Johnson's recommendations. Johnson inherited a war started under the Kennedy administration, and actually increased the scope of America's involvement. Under Johnson, 550,00 US troops were in Vietnam, at a rate of 1000 a month being killed, from Kennedy's 16,000 'advisors'. One of Johnson's well known quotes is "the Democratic party at its worst, is still better than the Republican party at its best".
Frustration over Vietnam; increased federal spending, taxation, a lack of public support in the 'Great Society', disenchantment with the civil rights programs 4.5 percent jump in consumer pricing, increased interest rates, and a 6 percent rise in income taxes to cover increased deficit spending were the hallmarks of a Johnson administration and a democrat-controlled legislature. ; too much federal spending and... taxation; no great public support for your Great Society programs; and . . . public disenchantment with the civil rights programs" was the opinion of much of Johnson's administration, caused by a 4.5 percent jump in consumer prices, a rise in interest rates, a 6 percent increase in income taxes to cover increased deficit spending.
America, and a majority of its citizens haven't made history. They've repeated it, in a new way. Only time will tell if the mistakes made in the past lead to a brighter future for all Americans or a socialist shift into the darkest hours of a nation morally corrupt.
"President-Elect Obama has been elected. I will always hold true to my beliefs that include character, personal responsibility and honesty make the person........... There are Americans who will, and have, judged him simply on the color of his skin," said the person going by the screen name 'nievyman', "but there are other Americans who may be expecting something because of the color of his skin.................I want our new President to bring us all closer together, not by his color, but by his character and integrity."
Upon the shoulders of this newly elected President fall the hopes and aspirations of a nation; those who voted for him and those who did not. History, both immediate and in review, will judge us as a people to whether we voted for a historical nightmare or an individual who answered the deepest heartfelt call of God and turned the nation back to its once former glory as a nation 'under God, indivisible.'
It is up to the people, citizens natural-born or legal-immigrants, to hold our President to the highest standards in all things, and to use our democratic rights to do so when he strays from our chosen path. Not to divide, not to riot, and not to perform other radical, individual actions.
Andrew Nicholls, a brother in the Lord, offered this prayer yesterday.
"Lord, today is an important day in many of our lives here in the states. It is that time again when we will be choosing the next man to lead this nation. Father, please help us not to be hasty in our decision, but to be prayerful and careful in our vote. We are a people that have fallen away from the godly values and principles this nation was founded upon. We have fallen far, but you are rich in grace and mercy and I believe there is still hope. Lord, You told Your chosen people, Israel, that if they would humble themselves before You, pray, seek Your face and turn from their wicked ways, You would hear their prayers from heaven, forgive their sins and heal their land. We who have come to You in faith through Your precious Son Jesus are also Your people and that promise applies to us as well. So Lord, we seek You, Lord we confess our sins and realize that we are nothing without You. Father, may we always seek You, not just in times of crisis, want or need, but daily with hearts of praise and worship. Lord we have heard the word "change" used so often throughout the past year, but there is really only one change that really matters; a heart that has been transformed by the healing grace of Calvary. Please bring about that "Real Change" in our land and help me to be an active soldier in your mighty, heavenly army to help bring about this much needed "change." I pray this prayer in Jesus Name, the name above all names and the name in which one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. Amen"
"The people responded, "It would be unthinkable for us to abandon the LORD to serve other gods." Joshua 24:18 (GWT)
I fear that America has done the same. Time will tell if I'm prophetic or just a dislusioned American. But my American Christian response to the decision does not.
We are called by God to accept and follow the leadership appointed over us. Whether God has given us to our most heartfelt desires of human leadership or has entered into a time of trial to see if we will follow His decree remains to be seen.
Our actions, however, do not.
This morning, as my heart broke over the results of this 'historic' election, my mouth confessed to the Lord my fears, my failures, and my praises to Him and Him alone. As every morning, both in the past and into the future, I included a prayer for my President, elected to the highest office of the land, that he would find and know God (as only God knows the heart), that he would hear His voice and reflect His love, grace, and peace. And that the Lord would guide his steps as he leads the country into the unknown future. For the sake of myself, my fellow Americans, and my children.
President-elect Barack Hussein Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America, you have been entrusted with the future of a nation, you have promised true change that places the common good of all over the individual selfishness of the one. I, a citizen of this nation, will hold you to that promise and will continue as I have for years, to pray for you, your family, and your presidential duties that they will reflect, conform, and emulate the standards of the Most High God and His son, Jesus Christ.
And I will continue to do so; as is my right as an American citizen, and my humble duty as a Christian.
Until history is at its end and Christ returns for His people.
2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
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