“My car ran out of gas and it stranded me on the highway for a while.” “The store at the mall declined my credit card because it was maxed out.” “I didn’t get my coffee today”.

Have you ever heard phrases like these? Have you ever been the one to say them?

In our culture, I hear phrases like these every day. Sometimes, I hear them on TV, sometimes in the midst of counseling sessions, and more often online. The attitude behind these statements reflects a reason for the deterioration of the world around us.

It is a victim mentality that convinces us that everything that is bad in this world is a personal attack.

As a result of this idea, we fail to take responsibility for our own actions. If your car ran out of gas, it may be because you didn’t fill it (sometimes it is a money issue). If you are on a shopping spree for things you don’t need, and your credit card declines…then maybe one of the culprits could be your spending habits.

Also, yes, you are still responsible for your behavior if you did not get your coffee…go to bed earlier if possible! Granted, there are times when we can’t help or prevent what happens to us, but true character is displayed when we respond to these adversities in a noble manner.

Now before I start getting hate mail accusing me of being judgmental, it is important to note that I have fallen victim of a victim mentality many times in my life. I was convinced that the bad I was experiencing was happening to me and I never questioned whether I was contributing.

If we never take responsibility for what we have caused, what we have done, or who we have hurt, then our spiritual growth will be stunted. We will never see the need for redemption and will continue to believe that the world is out to make our lives miserable. This is no way to live.

Examine yourself. 
Take steps to grow.

This post was written by Rev DeCrastos.  For the original post, go to:  http://other-words.net/2012/12/05/oops-did-i-just-say-that/

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Zombies are everywhere. Ever since the classic “Night of the Living Dead,” the undead have shown up in movies. Zombies now are featured in top-rated cable TV shows, and in apocalyptic novels and survival guides. An entire genre has ignited around the concept of adding zombies to classic literature (“Pride and Prejudice with Zombies,” etc.). But why are we drawn to these gruesome figures?

In the New York Times, columnist Amy Wilentz reminds us why zombies scare us, and why we can’t help but watch through our clenched hands covering our eyes. The zombie myth is rooted in something quite real, and quite terrifying. The zombie stories emerged in a Caribbean context of brutal slavery. The zombie’s horror is that he is, she writes, a slave forever. After all, if even death cannot free you, you can never be free.

That’s exactly the point, and here’s why it should matter to Christians.

Zombies are horrifying not simply because they’re mean and aggressive. They are horrifying because they represent what ought to repulse us: the rotting decay of death. But they still walk. And, beyond that, they still crave. In their search for human brains, they are driven along by their appetites, though always under the sway of a slavemaster’s will.

That’s our story.

The biblical story of the Fall of humanity is one of a humanity that comes under the sway of death by obeying the appetite. God places a fiery sword around the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3 tells us, so that the primeval humans wouldn’t eat of the Tree of Life and live forever. Why? It’s because God didn’t want to consign humanity to a never-ending existence of this kind of walking death. He sentences us to the curse of death so that, ultimately, we can be redeemed.

The Gospel tells us that, apart from Christ, we were walking in the flesh, that is slavishly obeying our biological impulses and appetites without the direction of the Spirit. As such, we were “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). But we weren’t inert. We instead, though dead, “walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2). We were walking dead slaves.

And, in our death, our appetites weren’t silenced but instead drove us along. This walking death, the Apostle Paul writes, was driven along as we “carried out the desires of the body and the mind” (Ephesians 2:3).

Caribbean people could resonate with the horror of zombies because they knew what it was like to be enslaved by evil people, with no hope of escape. And maybe our culture pays attention to zombies because we know what it is like to be dead inside, but unable to find peace, unable to stop walking.

The Gospel doesn’t just extend our lives forever into eternity. That’s what we, left to ourselves, think we want. The rich young ruler asks Jesus how he can inherit eternal life, but Jesus points out that he wants to eternalize his present state rather than to be hidden in the life of Jesus Himself. That’s a zombie walk, and Jesus loves us too much for that.

Jesus offers instead life, and that abundantly, as we eat of His flesh, drink of His blood, share in His triumph over the accusing slavemaster.

So let’s have some sympathy for the zombies. And next time you see the trailer for a zombie film, or see the picture of a walking corpse on the cover of a novel, remember that that was your story once, too.

This post was written by Russell D. Moore who is dean of the school of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. This column first appeared on www.russellmoore.com.


THIS POST IS IN HONOR OF ONE OF OUR IRONSTRIKES TEAM MEMBERS WHO HAS A SERIOUS UNSPOKEN PRAYER REQUEST.  PLEASE PRAY FOR HIM TODAY...

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

It seems to me that some people have more faith in their relationship with God than I do.  I hear people talking about how God does special things for them.  For example, I hear people say, "God made this sunny day just for me.  I prayed that God would let the weather be nice and sunny and dry so that I would have a good day on my birthday."  I think, "Really?  God put in a high pressure system over where you are today just so you could have a good day?"  I then imagine a farmer in the same region praying, "Lord, today, could you make it rain really good?  My crops aren't doing well and they could use the moisture."  So, now we have competing prayers.  How does God know who to listen to?  

I think I figured it out.  God grades us on the number of good things we do.  For example, yesterday I was kind to Karyn, freed a butterfly from a spider's web, petted a kitten and gave a dollar to a man who was homeless. Oh, and don't forget, I was nice to that rude waitperson at the expensive steak house (but he only got an 8% tip because he needed to know that behavior wasn't acceptable).

I feel really good about myself.  Surely, God agrees.  I am one righteous dude.   I am special.  It's me and God and the rest of you can just go to hell.  God listens to me before He listens to anybody else.  After all the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  So, I've been really good, and do lots of good things.  God will listen to my prayer first.  

What I think I'm gonna do is rent myself out to the Indianapolis Colts so that I can pray for them to win.  Why not put God's favor to my financial advantage?  I'll just ask for a tithe of the amount of money that they earn for winning the Super Bowl.  But don't worry, I'll tithe the money I earn for praying for them.  After all, I don't want to get out of favor with God.  

Then I got to thinking....  If that's the way God decides who is righteous, what is the cutoff score?  What if God's rule is that I have to do 5 good things a day for 20 years in a row and I only did 4?  I would have to catch up by doing one good thing a day for the subsequent 10 years. So, that means if I do 36,500 good things, I'm in.  It's just God and me.  But, what if my math is off and I figured out that 36,500 good deeds that was needed was wrong?  What if I forgot about that one day where I was really, really sick and I only did 4 good things that day? I missed God's favor by one good deed!  What am I gonna do?

Well, if the Colts don't win the Super Bowl, I'm gonna be sued for breech of contract. 

You think I'm being sarcastic, don't you?  Well, I hear Christians talk like this all the time.  "I was stranded by the road and God sent a passerby who helped me.  God is sooooo good!"  What about the person who was stranded beside the road and was raped by a passerby?  Is God sooooo good then?    Maybe the rape survivor didn't do as many good things as the other person.  So, we look askance at people when bad things happen to them and say to ourselves, "I wonder what they did to fall out of favor with God."  

I just wonder if all this God is good.  God loves me.  God made the sun shine for me. Talk. Is appropriate for Christians.  

By talking in such a manner, I wonder if we are turning people off to God.  

The God's honest truth is that God doesn't grade, even on the curve.  None is righteous, no not one.  

So, what is the answer?  

You can have two attitudes:  

God, I thank You that I am not like other people 
or
God, be merciful to me, the sinner!

Which prayer do you think God listens to?  

Jesus said, "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." 

So, getting back to the original question, "How do you know when you are righteous?"  

I don't think you know when you are righteous.  

But, I think this is true, "If you think you are righteous, you probably ain't."

When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Yesterday, we considered the proposition that Jesus would go to a bar and drink beer.  Let me tell you about my experience with Jesus at a bar.  Would Jesus really drink beer?

I had been going to a bar for about a year.  I would go at the same time every week and in the early evening when there wasn't a lot of women there.  This bar was one of the tougher ones in the community and was known for having rough characters.  However, during the time that I went, it was retired guys and men just getting off the factory day shift.  

My activity at this bar had nothing to do with drinking alcohol.  I abstain from alcohol, always have and always will.  I felt God telling me that He wanted me to go there.  I didn't go alone and would always take another Christian friend with me.  I knew that it wasn't good to go alone so that if any rumors started, they could be easily squelched.  

My church friends and I had garnered a reputation in this bar as not drinking but rather hanging out and talking to the guys that went there.  I've noticed that men in bars aren't known for their social skills.  There is a lot of just sitting there looking at your drink and watching TV.  However, there were times in the conversations where openings to speak about more pressing matters came about.  I remember sitting there and one gentleman came over to me and said, "you're one of those preachers that comes in here every week aren't you? Why do you come in here?"  I responded, "I'm not a preacher but I am a Christian.  I come in here because I could use some friends.  I heard that this was a great place to make friends."  Our conversation wasn't outstanding but it was significant.  He came to the realization that there were at least a few Christians who were willing to be with him in a "normal" (his term) environment.  

I had a friendship with one man in particular.  He wasn't necessarily well-liked in that bar but he was tolerated.  I found out that his life was rather troubling and that he had significant physical and emotional challenges.  It seemed, over time, that he enjoyed talking with me.  He would, even at times, initiate the conversation.  I tried talking to him about spiritual things but he typically shrugged them off.  

I prayed that God would give me opportunities to make an impact on this man's life.  One time, I was in earnest prayer about what God could do with me at the bar, praying in the parking lot before entering.  After about 30 minutes of discussion, this one man whom I spoke about in the previous paragraph said that he was gonna call a taxi so that he could go home.  I thought to myself, "I wonder if this is one of the opportunities that God is given me to help him?"  So, I offered to take him to his home.  He complied and as I was driving, I asked where he lived.  He started to direct me one way and then said, "I need to go by the carryout to get some beer to take home with me."  

I gulped.

I didn't know what to say.  I said a quick prayer in my mind:  "Help!!!"  I felt a peace come over me and was impressed that God wanted me to go ahead and let this man buy beer.  

I drove into the carry-out and had them throw the case in the bed of my truck and my friend paid for it and off we went.  As I was pulling out of the carry-out, I was hoping that nobody saw me.  After all, people may think that I buy and drink beer!

I tried to strike up a conversation with my friend and he said how much he appreciated it that I was giving him a ride home.  Yet, he continued to be fairly closed to a spiritual discussion.  

After I dropped him off, I went to my church and talked to the associate pastor, a good friend of mine, and told him what happened.  He said something that was very comforting, "you prayed for God to give you an opening.  God did but not in the way you were thinking.  God knew that you were going to that carry-out.  God wasn't surprised, just you were."  

I don't know what happened to my friend after that.  I never saw him again.  I heard, a few months later, at the bar, that he had passed away shortly after my last contact with him.  He died of liver failure.  All of his years of drinking had finally caught up with him.

I'm hopeful that my contact with him was meaningful.  I'm hopeful that he came to know Jesus as his Savior and that I was instrumental in helping him reach out to God.  However, I won't know until I get to heaven.  

I'm hoping that when we get to heaven, there will be a bar there and my friend and I will be at the bar with Jesus, and we will be drinking Dr Pepper.  The real stuff with cane sugar, not the caffeine-free diet stuff that I drink now.  The good stuff...with greasy cheesy fries.  

Beer?  Not needed, there are no sorrows to drown in heaven.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

A new mainstream country artist is stirring controversy with a radio single and music video that imagines what it would be like to spend time social drinking with the Son of God.

Thomas Rhett, son of singer-songwriter Rhett Atkins and a newcomer to the country music scene, says that he penned the song “Beer With Jesus” three years ago to put into words what he would ask Jesus if he were able to sit down at a bar with Him.

“If I could have a beer with Jesus, Heaven knows I’d sip it nice and slow,” the song begins. “I’d try to pick a place that ain’t too crowded, or gladly go wherever He wants to go. You can bet I’d order up a couple tall ones; tell the waitress put ‘em on my tab.”

“I’d be sure to let him do the talkin’, careful when I got the chance to ask. How’d you turn the other cheek to save a sorry soul like me?” the song continues. “I’d tell everyone, but no one would believe it, if I could have a beer with Jesus.”

Rhett, who grew up Valdosta, Georgia and now resides in Nashville, Tennessee, says that he was brought up in the church, but that his beliefs about the subject of alcohol have changed over time.

“I grew up Church of Christ,” he told Taste of Country. “You’re taught that beer is wrong and alcohol is wrong.”

“When I got to college, some of my beliefs kind of changed, and that’s just a song that I personally believe that’s how Jesus would have been if he were here,” Rhett explained. “That song means so much to me and to my family.”

Rhett, 22, said that he has had some of his deepest conversations with friends while drinking alcohol.

“Those moments stick out in my mind because those were some of the best conversations I had with my buddies … just getting below the surface and talking about deeper life stuff and things that matter,” he states.

“Beer with Jesus,” co-written by Rhett, Lance Miller and Rick Huckaby, was crafted to outline what the songwriters believe most listeners would want to ask the Lord, according to Rhett.

“[W]e tried to make very broad questions about what we would ask Jesus and what we thought the general population would ask Jesus if they had 20 minutes just to sit down and talk to Him,” he outlined.

Questions in the song include “Is Heaven really just beyond the stars?” “What’s on the other side?” and “Are Mom and Daddy alright?”

“He can probably only stay for just a couple rounds, but I hope and pray He’s stayin’ till we shut the whole place down,” Rhett sings.

Reactions to the song, which is now playing on country stations nationwide, and is also featured in a music video on CMT, have been mixed.

“Every time I play that song live, a lot of people will cry,” Rhett told GAC-TV. “I’ve had a preacher come up to me saying, ‘Man, I would love to get you up to Wisconsin and sing that song at our church service.’”

“A woman called into a radio station in Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago and voiced that her son had just been killed in a car accident,” he continued. “And she came to my show in Pennsylvania and told me that her son’s five best friends were at the funeral, and they played my song ‘Beer with Jesus’ and they all got baptized because of the song and what it did to them.”

However, Julia Conner with country radio station US105 admits that not everyone is thrilled about the song.

“Of course there is controversy,” she states. “[S]ome folks don’t feel Jesus would be drinking beer, and we ought not sing about it.”

Some listeners across the country agree.

“Why not just have some water with Jesus? This is a prime example of how far down the toilet country music has gotten,” writes commenter Marshall Chandler. “If you want to sing about Jesus, do it. … Just don’t mix the two!”

For the original post, go to:  http://christiannews.net/2012/12/13/mainstream-country-artists-beer-with-jesus-radio-single-and-music-video-stirring-controversy/

Tomorrow, we will discuss another view of Jesus and bars...

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

The Lord Jesus on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me."

People in the recovery process are people with painful memories. We remember our losses. We remember our sins. We remember the sins which have been committed against us. It is part of the hard work of recovery to face these memories, to grieve them and to come to terms with them. But sometimes the painful memories become so powerful that it seems like nothing will be able to compete with them for our attention. The memory of pain consumes us. In times like this we need a powerful new memory that can challenge the dominance of our painful memories.

Jesus invites us to receive a new and startling memory. "Remember me," Jesus says, "Eat the bread and drink the wine and remember that I gave my life for you. I gave my life because I love you. Take this new memory. Allow it to shape the way you think about yourself and about life and about me. Allow yourself to remember me."

It is not that the memory of Jesus' sacrificial love erases all of our painful memories. Painful memories still have to be faced and grieved if healing is to come. But God offers us in Jesus a memory powerful enough to compete with the most powerful of painful memories. The death-grip which painful memories have on our attention can be broken by the powerful memory of God's love.

Help me to remember you, Lord.
Help me to find a place 
in my mind and heart
for the memory of your love for me.
I want the memory of your love, Lord,
to be the most powerful of my memories.
I want it to be 
The Memory
that shapes me.
Help me to remember you.

Amen.

Copyright Dale and Juanita Ryan
National Association for Christian Recovery

Yesterday, I revealed a deep dark secret about my childhood. It was one of those times in which my brother and I did not have the wisest of judgment and God was gracious to protect us from harm. Stories that end in barely escaping harm seem to take up a large part of my memory. Being a boy, daredevil stunts came naturally.

One particular activity that I regret as I reflect on my childhood (in which I participated in a few times) was the ridiculously stupid firework wars with my friends. These wars didn’t include harmless poppers or makeshift sparkler swords….no….we would shoot bottle rockets at each other and throw small explosives in the opponents direction. It was dumb.

My friend’s dad happened to have some old cars on his property which he would use to harvest cosmetic car parts. One time, when we were engaging in our ruthless war, one of us accidently shot (with pinpoint accuracy) a bottle rocket into the gas tank (no, I am not kidding) of one of these cars. The world stopped spinning, and we all looked at each other with panic. We did the bravest, and most manly thing we could think of….we ran. Somehow, by the grace of God, the rocket was a dud and no explosions occurred.

If we were to list the things that God has saved us from, how long would the list be? Perhaps these things are situations that we have prayed about for a long time, or maybe they are things that we were complete ignorant about. In either circumstance, God, for some reason, helped us escape the most severe of all the possible consequences. One has to wonder, then, if we have some greater purpose, or in those times, if there was a reason for this rescue.

In life and even in death, God has a plan for all of us. It is up to us to recognize this truth, and obey God to see it fulfilled. This doesn’t mean we are always clear on the details, but it does mean we trust that God desires the best for us.

This post was written by Rev DeCrastos.  You can find the original post here:  http://other-words.net/2012/10/01/avoiding-trouble/

Is it appropriate to reveal a long held hidden secret in this type of blog? I am not sure, but today I am going to do just that. This secret is one that my brother and I have been holding on to since the late 80’s. In fact, he may object to the fact that I am revealing this secret. Okay, here it goes…

When we were younger, my brother and I were playing in the field behind our house.  Like normal boys who didn’t listen to the voice of reason (and ironically had a firefighter for a father), after jumping ramps with our bikes we became bored and decided to light small things on fire (leaves, trash, etc). Well as you could imagine this got out of hand quickly and soon a large fire erupted and engulfed a significant portion of the field. The next few minutes felt like an eternity. All we had were cardboard boxes that we had brought some things in so we thought it would be a great idea to somehow try to put the fire out with these boxes. This was a bad idea. Eventually, after kicking sand on the fire everything was fine. From then on we vowed to not reveal our secret until we were adults and were guaranteed not to get in trouble.

We are brothers, so you already know that we used this event to blackmail each other, and force each other to do the other’s chores. All we had to do was look at each other and say “I will tell Mom and Dad about the matches”…and all arguments would cease. The truth was always kept hidden to control the other sibling.

As humans, our tendency in life is to attempt to make our situation look better than it is. We try to hide or even ignore the truth when it is inconvenient because we feel like people will look down on us or we will even get “in trouble” if we are transparent.

If all truth belongs to God then it stands to reason that living a life that embraces truth will lead to blessing. Doing the right thing will never return void…it may hurt at first, but it will always benefit.

Trust in God today. Do what is right.  

More tomorrow...

This post was written by Rev DeCrastos.  You can find the original post here:
http://otherwordsdotnet.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/getting-in-trouble/

THE German government is about to reintroduce a ban on bestiality, after pressure from animal welfare groups.

Newspaper die Tageszeitung reports that the governing coalition are soon to amend the country's Animal Welfare Act to make sex with animals punishable with a fine of up to 25,000 euros ($31,000).

Bestiality was legalized in Germany in 1969, the same year that gay sex was also removed from the criminal code. After that, sex with animals was only punishable if the animal was severely injured.

However animal welfare groups have pushed for the ban to be reinstated, in an advertising campaign that used dramatic examples of "animal rape".

Agriculture minister Ilse Aigner has agreed to change the law to make it illegal for people to "use (animals) for their own sexual activities or sexual acts of third parties" - which also bans the 'pimping' of animals to others.

However the move has aroused the ire of zoophile group ZETA.

Lobbyist Michael Kiok, who lives with his dog Cassie, told the newspaper there were more than 100,000 zoophiles in Germany.

"Mere morals have no place in law," he said.

Mr Kiok said he was worried that if the law took effect the authorities would try to take away his dog.

The amendment to the law will be debated in the German parliament in mid-December 2012.

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.

Despite recent strides in "sex addiction" research, the condition does not make the cut as an official psychiatric disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

On Dec. 1, 2012 the APA approved the latest version of its mental health handbook known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The manual includes several new disorders such as hoarding and binge eating.

But guidance for diagnosing and treating sex addiction, formally known as hypersexual disorder, won't be included.

Although the manual has an appendix that includes "provisional" conditions requiring further research, hypersexual disorder will not appear in this section either.

The decision comes after a study published in October in which researchers tested the proposed criteria for hypersexual disorder, and found that physicians generally disagreed on who should be diagnosed with it — a demonstration of the criteria's reliability and validity.

Rory Reid, a research psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who lead that study, said he was not surprised the APA did not approve hypersexual disorder for the DSM-5, because sexual disorders are generally controversial.

There are also still questions the APA may want addressed. Studies of the criteria included only people who were already seeking help for a mental condition, or were referred to a mental health clinic, Reid said. So it's not clear whether the criteria would apply in diagnosing people in the general population, he said.

In Reid's study, hypersexual disorder was defined as "recurrent and intense sexual fantasies, sexual urges, and sexual behavior," that lasted at least six months.

Diagnosis requires that these urges cause the patient distress, and aren't brought on by drugs or another mental disorder. The behavior must also interfere with their life, for instance, some patients in the study lost jobs because they could not refrain from watching pornography and masturbating at work. Developing the criteria was a significant step in the field because it will allow researchers to study the disorder in a uniform way, Reid said.

And although hypersexual disorder is not officially acknowledged in the APA's new manual, Reid said he would see little change in his day to day work.

"People are still coming into the therapist office and saying this is a problem. As a psychologist...I'm going to try to understand what's going on, I'm going to try to help them," Reid said. "That’s true whether it's in the DSM or not."

The original post for this blog can be found at:  http://news.yahoo.com/sex-addiction-still-not-official-disorder-192645302.html

BE HOLY.
BE A MAN.