Excessive attachment to political parties agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one party against another, and opens the door to foreign influence and corruption. – George Washington
Where is George when we need him?
Kawasaki Ninja H2R
So I woke up in Phoenix this morning but there’s no baseball in sight, unless the Diamondbacks are home tonight. But I wouldn’t know that because I am not here for baseball, I’m here for my son, Chandler. He has found a technical school he wants to attend here that will certify him to work on motorcycles, by brand, and he is focusing on Kawasaki because in his opinion they are the fastest, and that’s what he wants: speed. He says he wants to eventually race these things, and I shudder when he talks about speeds on a motorcycle in excess of 250 mph. And that’s not in a video game; that’s on a racetrack.
I’m one hundred times more passionate about creating Christians and churches that will be faithful, biblical, countercultural, and spiritually minded in a socialist America, in a Muslim America, in a communist America, than I am in preventing a Muslim America or a communist America. … My main calling is not to help America be anything, but to help the church be the church. – John Piper
Over the next 16 months, America is going to be embroiled in one of the most bitter political campaigns ever witnessed. It’s already started. Politicians will use anything to further their own personal or ideological ends. And don’t think they won’t use Christians, too, for the same purpose, or the church, if they can. That’s why we must not be naive. Christians need to resist the temptation to think that any kind of spiritual victory or any points for the kingdom of God can be won at the polls. The minute we think that kingdom ends can be serviced by political means is the minute we bow down to the idol of power. Truth must speak to power, not the other way around. If we succumb to power, we forfeit the truth. We become pawns in a game we shouldn’t be playing in the first place. We lose our voice. In many ways we have already lost it. That’s why the Millennials can help us get our voice back. They won’t take the political bait. They know nothing of the Moral Majority or the Christian Coalition or the thinking behind these organizations.
Nothing comes from nothing; nothing ever could. So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good. – The Sound of Music
The sentiment in this song is a beautiful and tender expression of grace from a human perspective. It’s a statement of astonishment — of surprise. It’s a universal feeling of what happens when we fall in love. Suddenly someone loves us back — someone more wonderful than what we feel we deserve. We know there are truly unlovable things about us, but for some reason unknown to us, someone is willing to overlook those things, or perhaps — even better — they don’t even see them.
In his new book, God At Work: A Testimony of Prophecy, Provision and People amid Poverty, our own Catch MemberPartner, Drew Snider, tells the story of how he almost tripped over a pile of clothing on skid row in Vancouver, British Columbia, that turned out to be the clothes of a crack-smoking hooker, and she was inside them. It was in stopping to talk with her and in listening to her story that he first discovered people in her situation were actually “undifferent” from him. Yes, “undifferent” is not a word, but Drew and I decided, after our BlogTalkRadio interview last night, that we were going to make it one, only because it perfectly conveys what we want to say, and in not being an official word, it will make it unforgettable, which it needs to be so we can all remember it.
Californians are talking about earthquakes again. Faults, and tectonic plates, and shifts in the earth’s crust are all the rage. After 20 years of relative calm, everyone is wondering when and where the next one will come. And here in southern California, they’re talking again about the Big One — the one that’s going to bring devastation on Los Angeles.
I want to talk about the Big One today, but it’s not an earthquake, it’s a shift in perception that typically occurs in all Christians because of our human bent towards performance. It’s as devastating as a major earthquake — even more so — because it robs the gospel of its power.
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David wanted to build God a house. It didn’t seem right that he was in a nice cedar-built mansion and the Ark of the Covenant — the portable presence of God the children of Israel had been carrying around ever since they left Egypt — was still in a tent.
Speechless in Los Angeles
If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself. 2 Timothy 2:13
We have a Catch member who has found out his wife has been unfaithful. Though his heart has been broken and he’s lost nights of sleep, his attitude is one of a loving, forgiving husband that recalls that of Hosea, a prophet in the Old Testament who was called of God to marry a prostitute. He proceeds to love her through her escapades, taking her back again and again and even going out after her to find her and bring her back. In so doing, he is illustrating how God loves Israel who as a nation whores after other gods, and yet God remains faithful to her, taking her back time and time again. This is, indeed, the history of much of the Old Testament.
Mike Trout is #27, but not this All-Star game. He wore #45 in honor of Tyler Skaggs.
Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
The recent death of 27-year-old starting major league pitcher Tyler Skaggs in his sleep gives new meaning to this well-known nursery prayer. At 27, and in excellent health in the prime of an athletic career, you — and certainly everyone around you –expect yourself to be waking up in the morning. You don’t even think about praying that prayer, and yet, as God would have it, Tyler never woke up that Monday morning, but his soul did. From what one of his teammates said about knowing he would be seeing “Skaggsy” again someday, it appears that Tyler did know about meeting the Lord in his sleep.
Three months ago, I spent the morning in a courtroom with my 19-year-old son, Chandler. Although he was of the age that the court now treats him as an adult, I went along for moral support. About a year ago, he went through a tough emotional period due to some huge personal intrusions into his life, and had taken his frustration out in his driving, ending up with three speeding tickets along with a fourth one we were in the courtroom for which was for driving on a suspended license, which in California is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. We were prepared for anything including huge fines and maybe not getting his license back for years.
John Fischer The Catch 