Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Those were the words of Jesus recorded in John's gospel, 8th chapter. We all know the story, the scribes and pharisees brought a woman they had caught in the very act of adultery, they demanded Jesus answer to the command of the law which said she should be stoned to death. Ironically, even though they caught this woman in the very act of adultery, which means they found her and a man who was not her husband in the act of sex, they brought only the woman to be condemned to death when the scripture is plain and clear that BOTH the man and woman should be put to death. The scripture they cite to justify her death is Leviticus 20:10, and is repeated in Deuteronomy 22:22. Yet, the scribes and Pharisees, just like the people of today, were selective about the punishment and chose to only condemn the woman in this case. There are many instances in Leviticus (the Law of Moses) where death is proscribed for sin. Many actions which today we consider to be of no consequence were given the death penalty or being completely cut off from the people. Anyone who cursed his father or mother was to be put to death. If that sanction were applied today, more than ¾ of the population would have to be killed. If a couple engaged in intimacy during a woman's monthly flow, they were both to be cut off from the people, another way of saying put to death. It didn't matter if the couple were married or not, if they engaged in relations during her cycle, they were to be killed. The beauty of Christ's life, death and resurrection is that we are no longer under the law, but under grace. As the Bible states in New Testament scripture, the law did not pass away, it was merely fulfilled in the death and resurrection of the Messiah. Each and every person on this planet who is a Christian revels in that grace and the mercy that God has shown to them for their sin. Yet so many of us refuse to extend that grace and mercy to anyone else. Just as the scribes and Pharisees of John chapter 8, we want to impose the harshest penalty available against every other person for the most minor of infractions, while we want to be pardoned for the most major infractions that we commit. Each and every one of us have our own point of view, opinion and belief about everything. We all believe that our point of view/opinion/belief is the right one and every person who doesn't agree with us is wrong. Sadly, both sides of every issue can also use Scripture to justify their stand. How is this possible? I do not have all the answers. I don't even have a few of the answers. What I do have is the belief/opinion/point of view that the Bible tells me that A: my battle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities of the air and the powers of darkness. Some use that to justify their attacks against those who disagree with them politically or religiously, however. B: that my home is not this physical, earthly kingdom. My home is the eternal heaven in which God reigns. And C: that I am not the judge for anyone or anything that occurs in this life with or by other people. Jesus is the only One who can judge others. Jesus told us that we cannot see into the heart of another person therefore we cannot stand in judgment of them. Is what someone else does a sin? There are some cases where we can say that something is a sin. But, there are some things that may be a sin for me but not for you. It's a very complicated thing to be a human being born into the kingdom of Christ. We see through a veil, darkly, as Paul stated. In other words, we do not see everything, we don't have all the information needed to make judgments. Some people say the old adage, "live and let live" is heresy. Is it? Considering there are numerous instances in the Scripture that tell us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, to stop trying to remove a speck from our brother's eye while we have a plank in our own and that we are admonished to not be "busybodies" (Paul's word, not mine), I think the adage is appropriate. Many of the ones who scream about this or that or the other issue, whichever side they're on, would do well to think about the things in their own life they wouldn't want anyone to judge them on. Just saying!

Falling From Grace

There's a common saying in American language that says people "fall from grace". The most recent example was in a new article regarding media moguls, comparing the rise and fall of Rupert Murdoch to William Randolph Hearst, and the fact that many media moguls suffer this "fall from grace". Grace is defined as "favor, goodwill, mercy, clemency, pardon; a manifestation of favor, especially by a superior." Humanity has a history of building people up into larger than life symbols of their hopes and dreams, only to gleefully rip them off the pedestals they were placed on, most of the time without their desire to be placed there in the first place. Many times the ambition of the person in question turns into hubris which precedes their "fall". God tells us in His Word that His grace is "sufficient" unto us, to cover a multitude of sins and mistakes. We cannot fall from His grace because there is more than enough to cover any and all of the mistakes, sins and times that we miss the mark. But we still continue to talk about people who have fallen from His grace. We give human attributes to the Creator of the universe and apply our own failure to offer sufficient grace to one another to the Almighty. We think that He cannot possibly have enough grace to cover those things that we refuse to cover with our own grace toward one another. The irony is we refuse to offer the grace to others, or expect that God will refuse that grace to them because we won't while at the same expecting that God has enough grace to cover all of our missteps, misdeeds and sin. How human of us. The next time you begin to fault someone for "falling from grace" take a moment to ask yourself if you expect God's grace to cover you in the same situation. If you do, then you must give that same grace to the person you want to condemn.

Wearing Our Feelings On Our Sleeves

I've heard people say, "(S)He wears her/his feelings on her/his sleeve" all my life. It's meant to be a disparaging comment about someone the speaker feels gets their feelings hurt too easily, more often than not after the speaker has said or done something that hurt the other person’s feelings. Truth be told, we all wear our feelings on our sleeves, some are just more easily able to let the hurt pass or internalize it and not let it be seen by anyone, especially the one who did the hurting.

As a Christian, I try to be mindful of what I say or do in order to minimize any chance of hurting someone’s feelings or offending them; some would call that being politically correct, but the truth of the matter is, Paul taught in his writings that we are to be mindful of other’s feelings at all times. Jesus told us to be mindful to not offend, as well. So why is it that some folks tend to take great joy in deliberately doing/saying things that will offend or hurt the feelings of those around them? Even those they claim to love most deeply. We’ve even come up with a term to justify our doing these types of things, “tough love”. I would challenge anyone who practices this brutality to justify their actions with scripture. There’s not a single scripture that gives us license to hurt anyone’s feelings or offend anyone and justify it by claiming “tough love”.

It’s time we all started remembering to treat others the way we want to be treated and to respect the feelings of those around us, whether they are our family and friends or someone we don’t know. Just as human beings we should be mindful of the fact that we don’t like having our feelings hurt or being offended, therefore we should be careful to not do so to others.

That’s not to say each and every person doesn’t have the right to their opinion and the right to express their opinion, but there are ways to do so without offending others, intentionally.

Targeting The Least Of These

The headline reads "GOP To Cut Food Stamps In Deficit-Reduction Drive". While the majority of Americans in general are gung ho about these cuts, and Republicans in particular are quite proud of their efforts to reduce the amount spent on Medicaid and food stamps, most don't know anyone who are on these programs. Yes, I hear many stories from people who complain about seeing someone in the checkout line buying food using food stamps that they can't afford, or seeing people using food stamps to purchase things they consider inappropriate, the fact remains the majority of people on these programs are people who have no other means to put groceries in the cupboard or visit the doctor.

Most people think the amount I get on food stamps is exorbitant, but I would challenge them to feed themselves for a month on a mere $140. Especially with the price of groceries going up the way it has, recently. I purchased a package of hamburger last week that cost me what I used to pay for a 4 - 6 pack of steak. And it wasn't ground chuck, it was the worst grade of ground beef you can buy. Most of it cooked away into water. My disability checks are not enough to pay bills and buy groceries. If my food stamps get cut further, I'll have to cut out even more meals and I'm already down to eating just once a day.

Why is it that when budget cuts are considered it is those who can least afford to lose that are targeted first? The GOP resists any effort to tax those who earn millions of dollars per year while gleefully proclaiming how they're cutting benefits to those of us who are barely making it as it is.

Something is definitely wrong with this picture!

Family - Missing What You Never Had

I didn't have a traditional upbringing; the kind where a child is raised by his or her parents from birth to majority. Today's traditional upbringing usually means a child raised by either their mother, alone, or a mother and step-father, but I didn't have that one, either. My parents divorced on my 2nd birthday. My father took me from my mother a month after my 4th birthday. My step-mother left me and my brother a month after my 13th birthday (exactly 9 years to the day after she and my dad took us from our mother.)

That's when any semblance of a traditional upbringing ended for me. Between the time of my 13th birthday and the day I turned 18 I moved some 19 times living with different relatives or family friends. I lived with my father's sister and her husband, my grandparents and my father's girlfriend. Despite begging my mother to rescue me from the physical abuse I was suffering at the hands of my father, she never allowed me to live with her.

When I read people's comments on social media about their moms or dads and how much they loved them despite the challenges they faced, I feel a sense of jealousy or envy because I don't know what that feels like. Yes, I know what it feels like to love your parents, but to know the hardships they struggled through while their parents continued to maintain a home for them, that part I do not know. I don't know the sense of being loved by my parents so much that they sacrificed in order to provide a home for me, to keep me fed and clothed. Those are the things I envy in the lives of my cousins, friends and perfect strangers when they post on Facebook or Twitter.

When I mention to people that I had 5 brothers and 5 sisters, they automatically comment on the closeness of large families, because that's the norm most people are aware of. They don't know many families like mine where the majority of my brothers and sisters aren't related to one another; where my father had 6 legitimate children with 3 different wives, where 4 of those children were raised by their mothers while two were raised by other relatives. Or my mother's 2 children from her first marriage being raised by she and their step-father while her 2 youngest children from her 2nd marriage were raised by an aunt or a succession of relatives/friends. People just don't understand that type of childhood.

Yes, I have a unique view of family because I have 3 sides to my family that I love and cherish: my mother's, my father's and my step-mother's. And I count my "foster" mom's immediate family as well though she was my Dad's girlfriend and never legally related to me.

My experience makes me love and cherish the idea of family to the nth degree though I've never truly experienced that type of family myself. People say you can't miss what you never had; those people are wrong.

Intelligence, Smarts, Confidence and Arrogance

Not to sound arrogant, but I have been told by many people that I am intelligent and/or smart, and I've had several people who told me I was intelligent and/or smart that I am arrogant about it; a few of those people have said I'm a "show off". Though I occasionally agree with being intelligent and sometimes agree I'm smart, I never intend to be arrogant or a show off regarding what intelligence or smarts I may have. I am a reader, and as such I have come across information on a variety of subjects giving me what others view as intelligence/smarts.

I know a little about a lot. I know a lot about a little. I do not know a lot about a lot nor do I by any means possess all there is to know about anything; there are many subjects I know absolutely nothing about. That being said, there are times in conversation with people when subjects will come up that I have some basic information on and I will join in the conversation. When I am wrong or when I do not know something, I am not hesitant to admit to that fact.

Having some knowledge on a variety of topics, or possessing information on a myriad of issues should be considered a good thing, not viewed as arrogance or an attempt to portray oneself as better than anyone. I think the more one can know about a variety of subjects makes that person more well-rounded and interesting. I would rather converse with someone who has a little knowledge in a great many different areas than to converse with someone who only knows a lot of information on a limited number of topics. And I enjoy learning new information from others, not only on the topics I know something about but also on topics where I have little to no knowledge.

Learning is one of my greatest desires.

The Faith Required To Believe Science

First science said that in the beginning there was nothing, then nothing suddenly exploded and the entire universe was created in a fraction of a second; every single atom, molecule, etc. was created in that flash of an explosion. Now science says there was something, the "remnant" left over from a previous universe that collapsed on itself into something that was so tiny it would have been undetectable, and that miniscule piece somehow spontaneously combusted creating everything there is in the vast universe. But, they cannot explain where the original universe which imploded and then exploded again (they claim this has happened innumerable times over incalculable times) came from. Just as they can't explain how nothing, from the original "theory" exploded, or what prompted the explosion or what that something was that caused it, since there was nothing which means there would be nothing that would ignite nothing into an explosion.

Of course, they discount the notion that God created everything by asking the question where did God come from? DUH! How can they easily accept that nothing exploded to create everything but they can't get past the question of where God came from? Talk about double-standards and ignoring their own stupidity.

Then, after using that convoluted, contradictory and illogical premise of how the universe came into being, they claim that on the primordial Earth, certain chemicals and elements somehow came together and spontaneously sparked into life. Or they hypothesize that a bolt of lightning just happened to strike a spot in the ooze, or soup as they call it, causing those chemicals and elements to erupt into life. and from that single instance of life spontaneously erupting, every single living thing we know about came in time due to evolution. Last I checked a dog gives birth to another dog, not a cat or a human being, but I'm just a normal person with no scientific training, so what do I know?

I mean, seriously, think about it. There was nothing and that nothing exploded, sparked by nothing, and from that Big Bang came the universe. In that brand new creation, happenstance allowed certain things to combine together creating stars and planets. And on the planet we know as Earth, a mixture of chemicals and elements just happened to come together in the exact right combination and without any intelligence behind it, it erupted into a single cell, which somehow knew it had to split to propagate itself because it would eventually die, and from the lineage of those single cells, multi-cell organisms came into being which then mutated and created other multi-cell organisms and from that more than several billion different living organisms that are vastly different from one another came into being. Of course, there's no explanation on how that first single cell organism "knew" that it would die so therefore it needed to propagate itself.

And they claim my faith in a Creator requires me to suspend belief, logic and sanity?

Nothing and nothing still equals nothing. And what could cause nothing to explode into something? I have yet to be shown an example of an explosion creating anything. To believe that an explosion (whether it was nothing exploding or something exploding) created the universe would be akin to believing that an explosion happened in Detroit and a Cadillac rolled out. If that's the case, I'm going out to the yard and setting off an explosion so a new Ford Mustang GT Convertible will be sitting in my driveway.

Yes, I know I'm over-simplifying it, but apparently that's what is needed in order to get these super intelligent people to understand how ludicrous is the idea that nothing was set into explosion by another nothing creating everything.

It requires so much more "faith" to believe the scientific "theory" of creation than it does to believe that Almighty God created the universe and formed man in His own image, breathing life into that mix of clay. Which is why science is correct in saying that each and every human body is made of the atoms that make up the earth and the stars. We were created out of the materials on the planet, therefore we share the elements, chemicals and components that make up our home world.

As for the "Big Bang", I do believe in it. When my God speaks, I am certain that there is a huge sound that reverberates throughout the universe!