Thursday, December 31, 2009

A New Year Promised 2010

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
(Barack Obama)
Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
(John F. Kennedy)

CHANGE...Promised from the very beginning; the very definition the word has taken on a hold new meaning.

On Janurary 20th, 2009 millions worldwide watched as Barack Obama take the Oath of Office, thus swearing him in as the 44th President of the United States of America...his claim to fame in history as the first African American to hold the office of Commander-in-Chief. Since that extraordinary moment, Obama's promise of CHANGE.

As we fast approach yet another new year, we, as Americans, have been called to renewal, to become better at what we do, and to be accountable to those in the government who claim to be the final authority. We have been called upon to redefine our way of life, our values, principles, and our beliefs based on a set of different standards. We have been asked to "not consider not the past with all its mistakes and lack of leadership", but to grow towards an unknown future that is defined by a government. The question at hand is what are we changing into? As Americans we should never loose the past; we should preserve the best of what we have accomplished and build onto it for the betterment of mankind; just the way God originally intended.

November 1929, on the occasion of the twelfth anniversary of the October Revolution, Pravda published an article, by Stalin entitled "A Year of Great Change." The article, replete with quotations from Lenin, summed up what Stalin considered achievements in three areas: productivity of labor, industrial construction, and management through better government. It was in effect, a retrospective justification from a radical break with the New Economic Policy introduced by Lenin in 1921, and a manifesto for the First Five-Year Plan, that already was in the second year. This was the most ambitious undertaking to centralize state planning ever attempted reflected both the unbridled optimism of the Stalinist leadership in the capacity of the Soviet Union to catch up to and surpass that advanced capitalist countries "in a relatively minimal historical period," and the considerable pressure they had exerted on the economic specialists who devised successive versions of the plan. Those economists, working in the State Planning Commission, were faced with the unprecedented and incredibly complicated task of drafting a plan to transform the entire economic structure of the country. Governmental control was the key to it success.

It doesn't take a New Year to renewal the hearts and minds of mankind. It takes renewal to the only One who can make a difference. Times are certainly bleak, both economically and spiritually, but even in these darkest times, we must never leave our first love!

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct yoru paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6

Thursday, December 17, 2009



MERRY CHRISTMAS

and have a

HAPPY NEW YEAR

For all those who faithfully stand by us, as we serve Him through Mercy Ships, we want to thank you from the bottom of our heart. Christ is the reason for the season. You love and support gives us Christmas year round...just like God's love.

Christ makes the difference...dwelling in us and enabling us to be more than we once were. Paul - "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." Christ's birth was the beginning of the great gift ever offered; a process that shall end for His creation. We are privileged to have a part in proclaiming the Good News. We hope you will take time to share Christ with someone this season.

This will be my last entry for 2009. God bless you all...

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Not a HOSPITAL...A MANGER

Christmas should be a time of peace and tranquility, joy, and love. It should be a time of year looked forward to by young and old alike; a time that should last forever.

Each year, we, as civilized people, rush, push, and hawk the Christmas Season until we begin to wish we could just skip the whole thing and go right to the New Year. We have commercialized and exploited Christmas to the point that, instead of anticipating the coming of Christmas with joy and gladness, we dread the time. That is not the way it was planned IN THE BEGINNING.

The First Christmas had gifts too, but far more important then anyone could possibility give today. GOLD, FRANKINCENSE and MYRRH; gifts to a child; gifts to a Savior! Jesus, born in a manger would grow up to be the man who -- told stormy waters to be still; who told us that He was the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE; that if we believed in Him, we would gain ETERNAL LIFE. He didn't come into our world to RULE, but to SERVE. He came in as a CHILD, not a MAN. He was not born at a local HOSPITAL, but in a MANGER. This SEED of LIGHT, was planted in our world as a gift of LOVE. Many, down through history, have attempted to snuff the light out, only to meet face-to-face with God's love. His birth in a MANAGER and His DEATH on the CROSS began as it started; in a small country...where most would consider it to be THIRD WORLD. Without Christ at the CENTER of CHRISTMAS there would be no reason for EASTER. His birth is our ETERNAL REMINDER of LOVE; that He will never walked away from His CREATION even thou they walked away from Him.

So, when you rush around to try to find that last minute gift...remember; it wasn't planned that way IN THE BEGINNING. The GIFT of LOVE, for whatever we do during this season must have Christ at the CENTER.