Noah Webster's description of the Bible

The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is 'good', and the best corrector of all that is 'evil', in human society; the 'best' book for regulating the temporal concerns of men, and the 'only book' that can serve as an infallible guide to future felicity.

-- from the Preface to Noah Webster's 1833 limited revision of the King James Bible.

There's nothing to do...

How often I have heard or said, "There's nothing to do."  This bored plea for entertainment, excitement, etc., overlooks all those commands of God, things we are to DO.

All the entertaining and exciting escapes from loneliness and boredom which really work involve being with other people, interacting with them.  There are people all around us who are just as hungry as we are for some release from routine and ennui.  At first they may seem cold and distant, while they figure out what we are up to, who we are, how serious we are about being their friends.

"I know I should/could do this or that, but they are boring."  Some things must be done, boring or not.  We brush our teeth, comb our hair every day -- what could be more routine, more boring?  Yet we do them religiously.  We have many such responsibilities.  Other things we do could be more enjoyable if we think of them positively, creatively.  Still others, if we share them with someone else.  And others, we should not do at all, they steal our time and strength.

"I am tired of doing all these worthless things -- I want to do things which really count!"  Well, what would you say does really count?  Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!  Not quite -- if we accept God's value system, working with His Word, ministering with people are two very worthwhile things.  The Word is eternal, and so are people.  We have the opportunity to be involved in things of ETERNAL value!  "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.(Eph.2:10)

Encouraging, Giving, Showing mercy, Teaching, Comforting, Exhorting, Helping, Evangelizing -- and on and on and on.  Don't say you can't -- you already do these things to some degree -- and God has specially gifted each one of us in various different areas, so that we may all serve Him and others.  "Each one should use whatever spiritual gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms."   (I Peter 4:10)
(rbsc 1976)

Our Daily Bread: How Food Proves God's Providence

by James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D.

Sometimes the proof that God is our Creator comes in the form of a potato, or lingonberries, or cheese, or eggs, or a codfish. Each type of food is a witness to God’s providential care. The meals consumed over a human lifetime offer a huge quantity of proof, from a huge pantry of witnesses!

...more

My new favorite hymn

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great High Priest whose name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Saviour died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace,
One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Saviour and my God!

(The musical setting for this was written by Vikki Cook in the 1990s. It has been recorded by many groups, and you can hear it here.)

(Lyrics written by Charitie Lees (Smith) Bancroft, when she was about 21 years old, in 1863 in Ireland. Good article about it here.)

Mark Goulston, M.D.: How America Messed Up Its Kids... And How We Can Fix Them

Mark Goulston, M.D.: How America Messed Up Its Kids... And How We Can Fix Them: [It] "might be helpful is to reach a consensus between parents and their children as to what terms related to personal responsibility mean. Here are ten terms that come to mind for me:

1. Commitment: the level of dedicated action(s) you continue to take after your enthusiasm for an enterprise stops.
   
2. Accountability: taking full responsibility for your actions by owning up to the negative or failed results, taking action to make up for it to the person(s) you let down, and learning what you did wrong so that it doesn't occur again.
   
3. Maturity: how well you are able to resist an irresistible impulse and instead have and exercise judgment and do the reasonable thing. In the brain we refer to this as exercising one's executive function.
   
4. Honesty: this is simply telling the truth according to the facts as you understand them. You know honesty best, when you tell a lie. Pathological liars lie whenever they are trying to get their way and take advantage of a situation. Compulsive liars lie both when the are trying to get their way and when they are trying to get out of facing the consequences of their actions.
   
5. Forthrightness: this is coming forward and telling the truth and revealing untruths that you become aware of. It's believing and following Justice Louis Brandeis words: "Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant."
   
6. Character: what you do when you are frustrated, angry, annoyed, afraid and/or bored and nobody is watching and your chance of getting caught is close to nil.
   
7. Sacrifice: what you do unto others who will not (immediately) be able to pay you back by doing unto you.
   
8. Compassion: what you feel unto others who will not be able to do more than say, "Thank you."
   
9. Thinking ahead and planning: overcoming the aversion to anything that causes you to forego immediate gratification.
   
10. Listening: and then pausing to consider what you've heard before rejecting it, tuning out or competing with it (a skill every generation needs to learn)."

Mark Goulston, M.D.: How America Messed Up Its Kids... And How We Can Fix Them

Mark Goulston, M.D.: How America Messed Up Its Kids... And How We Can Fix Them: "...consider that at the exact moment that you as a parent bail out your child from facing the consequences of their screw-ups and taking full responsibility for them, literally millions of children in this world the same age as your child are taking full responsibility for their actions and becoming smarter, stronger and wiser. Within the next 10 to 20 years, those children (from China, India and elsewhere) will become your child's boss, and they won't bail out or accept your child's excuses."

So, What if the Bible Really Is True? - David Limbaugh

So, What if the Bible Really Is True? - David Limbaugh"


I'd like to challenge you to consider that the 'good news' we celebrate during the Christmas season really is true.

You may choose to believe the Bible is merely a book of fables with nice moral lessons, but there is more abundant and accurate manuscript evidence for the New Testament than any other book from antiquity. Moreover, the number of witnesses to Christ's life, death and resurrection, as well as the nature of their testimony, is strong evidence of the reliability of the scriptural accounts, as are the corroborating secular testimony and archeological evidence.

In fact... Full Article

Adobe Systems

"What inspires you this holiday season? Share your thoughts with us and we’ll help turn inspiration into action by donating $1 to Mercy Corps. Happy Holidays from Adobe!" http://bit.ly/AdobeGreet

Wonderful Food Court Surprise!

This is a wonderful way to handle Handel!

National Day of Prayer, April 30, 1863

On March 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the following proclamation:

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.

And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward, Secretary of State^[4]