Speaking at Cottondale Community Church

I will be speaking at the Cottondale Community Church, Sunday February 15th at 6pm. The Revolve! Worship Band will be providing music that night as well.

I'm really looking forward to being there that night and appreciate Pastor Ron Martin inviting me to speak to their youth.

I asked Pastor Ron to think back about fifteen years ago and asked him if he ever thought he'd be asking the guy whom he kicked out of church camp to come speak to his youth group? I did beg Ron to not send me home and that I would behave the rest of the week because I knew my dad would probably kill me! Ron obliged and let me stay, oh, yeah - did I mention that it was the first day of camp? Anyway, thanks for saving a life Pastor Ron! I'm sure my kids appreciate it!

Abortion Ban Lifted by President Obama

Fox News is reporting, along with the Associated Press, that as expected President Obama is rescinding the ban on federal funding of international groups who promote or perform abortions abroad.

I've heard the argument many times when the abortion issue comes up with my church buddies who are voting for a democratic president that "the president can't stop abortion," or something to the like. They are typically voting democratic for reasons ranging from the economy to their party's helping the "working" man.

Here is case in point where the president directly affects the number of abortions that will happen this year, and what's worse is the scale is not only national, but international.

(By the way, why are my tax dollars being spent on foreign social programs that are morally bankrupt?)

Fox News reports that former President Ronald Reagan was the first to issue the ban in his first term in office. It was further supported by former President H.W. Bush, then rescinded by former President Bill Clinton in 1993. When George W. Bush took office, he re-instated the ban in 2001 and we see, typically, the democratic president of choice in 2009, Barack Obama, has again lifted the ban and allowing funding to go toward helping these countries murder the innocent.

Conservatives tried to warn the nation, but in the fervor to elect change... well, all I can say is we are getting it.

Oh, and just wait until the 4 trillion bank buy out occurs and the government then owns the banking systems of America... welcome to the U.S.S.A. (United Socialist States of America). You know 1938 Germany was one of the most industrial sophisticated, progressive, forward thinking, tolerant, civilized nations of the world, right? It's not like the Holocaust was performed by a bunch of third world Islam-0-fascist, Hebrew hating Muslim militants. No, it was performed by this very emerging Germanic culture and their love for socialism and charismatic leaders.

Happy Birthday... Sweetie!

Well, January 22nd, sweet Pamela will be 28! I told her I wasn't sure what I thought about being married to an old lady... but after she punched me in the throat, I figured I'll hang around... and watch what I say to avoid further abuse.

Here's my pretty lady with one of our sons Zeke. I guess it was white t-shirt day at the Hitt House! I love you, baby!!! Have a great B'day...

Commentary and Prayer for our New President... Barack Obama

Okay, so he wasn't my pick... okay, so the other guy wasn't my pick either. But, what do we do now? We pray. I may not be thrilled over how the election has turned out, but I am hopeful. I am hopeful that the daunting task in such tumultuous times would bring a sense of urgency and awakening to the heart of president-elect Obama that he would seek God through Christ Jesus for divine wisdom in all the matters that concern our country and our world. Even if not my pick, it only benefits the country, and my family, if he is successful in the things and by the ways that matters most. We don't want him to be successful in any immoral endeavors and by praying for our president we are not approving choices that he may make that conflict directly with our biblical world view. What we are upholding, however, is the notion of Romans 13 that affirms God's sovereignty in appointing and deposing leaders and our privilege to be able to pray for God's guidance over these individuals in leadership. So without further ado... I pray.

"Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that you be with and guide our new president. Let him enter this office with a resolve in his heart to honor You in a real and possibly different way than he ever has before. Let the weight of such an office bear upon him the urgency to "get it right" and what that truly means. Let him be wise enough to know the end of his means and to fully trust and rely upon You for that wisdom he needs. I ask that you protect him and his family and guard them watchfully. I trust that you steer the hearts of men to accomplish Your will, but I am also aware that men are allowed to make decisions that do not line up with Your will. With that in mind, I ask you to burn in his heart the desire to please You in all things. I thank You too, Father, that we live in such a place, such a country, that allows its people to freely chose who should govern us. Keep us from being ignorant... and please keep us from being stupid! Thank You for all things. My life is Your life and Your life is my life. In Christ I pray, amen...

And Peter arose… Commentary on Acts 9:32-43

In this portion of text, Peter is found in Lydda some eleven miles from the ancient city of Joppa. He heals a man who had been paralyzed for eight years. All the people of Lydda knew the man and his condition given the close nit communities of first century Israel. Seeing his healing, the people become convinced of Jesus. The news of this event spread all around so that when Tabitha dies in Joppa, her friends knew that if they could get Peter to come to Joppa then he could pray for Tabitha and heal her. They ask him to come immediately.

Now for the striking part of the story… the text records, “And, Peter arose…”! He arose and went with them to do the unthinkable, pray for a dead woman. In the text she had already been prepared ceremonially for burial and was laid in a room. No mistaking her death. However, the daunting task of praying for the dead to be raised isn’t even the striking statement.

You may be thinking, “Wow! What faith to go pray for a dead person to live!” But, it was something else. Peter went! Peter was available to the people who needed Christ!

Okay, so now you’re scratching your heads asking well, that’s what he was supposed to do, right?

In today’s ministry climate ministers are so inaccessible. Given the fact that there is a vast population on the Earth and the availability of the internet, no man could keep up with the requests he would receive to come and speak. I understand that. I’m good on that point. But, what irks me is the super-star culture of ministry that has developed and run amuck today.

Have you ever tried to book a super-star to come speak at your church? I dare you to do it just for fun. It’s impossible unless you meet mega church status. I looked at booking one individual who has a powerful presence on the stage and in certain circles is heavily sought after to speak. If I mentioned his name no one would probably recognize it. His “application” to reserve him to speak gave specific directions that he is to have a private hotel room and that the room be stocked with… get this… bottled water at room temperature. I was looking to make sure there wasn’t some clause in the fine print that would guarantee that I would have to massage his back and rub his feet after he was finished speaking.

Today there is a shortage on servants and a surplus of celebrities, or celebrity “wannabes”. I bet if it sickens me then it sickens God. What do you think? Oh, believe me to ask or confront these people on these issues they would totally legitimize their “need” for star treatment. And, it’s not that we should want to take advantage of God’s ministers. But, it’s the society of preachers that has spawned this type of legitimization for such demands. Room temperature bottled water, a list of certain foods that must be in a “green” room before they go on stage to perform… I mean preach. On and on we could go and what’s worse, I think, is that they don’t display the type of true spiritual power that Christ had given Peter. Yet, we treat them like messiahs.

Peter’s availability to the people, even after the healings and popularity that he had gained, did not inhibit him from stopping what he was doing and going to Joppa. Oh, how God’s heart longs for men and women who serve for His Name’s sake and not our own. When will the ministry arise like Peter?

Sabbath… The Forgotten Commandment and Still in the Top 10

What if they remade the Charlton Hesston classic Ten Commandments and re-named it to Nine Commandments leaving out one of the commandments (you pick whichever one you want). Would Christians support it like we did The Passion of the Christ? Would we turn out in droves of people and see it time and time again? Would churches book entire viewings and give away tickets for free to the viewing?

Of course not, we would cry “foul!” We would decry the liberal media bias that we see so often today, at work again trying to reshape history by removing a commandment from the ancient list. After all, weren’t these commandments written by the hand of God? Remember? You saw the movie… there was a terrible storm cloud on Mt. Sinai and God’s finger of fire began to spark out the list of commands that he wanted his people to live by. And, remember Charlton Hesston… ur, I mean, Moses turned his head away because he couldn’t bear what he was seeing?

We hold the list so holy and dear (a judge in Alabama was removed from his office because of this sacred list) defending the list at whatever chance we have, yet we – by our life application – take one of these commandments and with the white-out brush of life wipe it forever off the stone tablets. I’m speaking of the commandment, “Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it” (Exodus 20:8). Then, in Deuteronomy it says, “Keep the Sabbath day to guard it” (Deut. 5:12).

To the Jewish reader of the Bible this slight semantic difference between “remember” and “guard” is significant. “Guard” to them means to adhere to the myriad restrictions imposed by Jewish laws that ensures one doesn’t work or create on the Sabbath. Remembering the Sabbath, by contrast, means to take positive action to increase the joy and peacefulness in your life. But, Christians disregard both “remembering” and “guarding” altogether being sure to do neither. Why is that? And, should we remember or guard the Sabbath or both?

When Christ came he said he came not to do away with the Law, but to fulfill the Law. Some Christian sects guard the Sabbath and commit to Hell all those who do not. They rent time on billboards near interstates to preach their message that Saturday is the true Sabbath and all who disregard it are sinners and wicked. Are they correct? Well, let’s look…

Christ said to keep ever day holy and regard each day as sacred. Christians are to remember the Sabbath, but not for the sake of making oneself righteous. Let me explain. This past Saturday my family – wife and four children – observed Sabbath. Now granted the orthodox, or observant, Jewish community would not recognize our Sabbath because we “created”. What this means is we did things that Jews did when constructing the holy sanctuary in the wilderness – this is where observant Jews derive their restrictions for Sabbath. Whatever they didn’t do during construction on the Sabbath is what they don’t do today. For instance we cooked, turned on lights (which is building a fire) using electronics (we only did this limitedly as we restricted ourselves from watching TV… we did however play the Wii together). So we didn’t guard the Sabbath as we didn’t adhere to the many restrictions.

One of the primary reasons observant Jews do this is out of fear of violating the Law of God. And, if you violate the Law you are violating the holy God who wrote the Law. This is where Christ comes in. Look at this text…

Colossians 2:15-17 (New American Standard Bible)
15When He [Christ Jesus] had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.
16Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day--
17things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.

Paul here defines why we don’t guard or observe the Sabbath any longer as they did prior to the coming of Christ. These observances were but mere shadows of that which is to come… Jesus, the son of God.

Observing the Sabbath does wonders for refreshing oneself both physically and spiritually. In our honoring of the Sabbath we stayed in our pajamas all day, we ate together, we talked together, we prayed together, we rested together taking naps with the kids and read books both together and separately. The entire day was transcendent for us. We transcended the rat race and busyness of the culture to reflect on family and the things God has given us. This is why Christians should observe the Sabbath. We run ourselves to death. We need a day to reflect and refresh.

However, to resign someone to Hell over not observing the Sabbath is in violation to Paul’s statement in the preceding text where he says, “therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food, drink, etc…”. The Sabbath rest is a benefit for humanity - which actually preceded Judaism and Christianity in that God rested from His work of creation. It’s a Godly principal pre-dating the Law and is not just a religious observance where one religion or another corners the market on it and how to honor it.

We should be so wise to follow in our Father’s steps, not as a work of righteousness, but as a work of wisdom allowing us time to refresh, refocus and refrain from being like the world. I challenge each that may happen to read this to find your Sabbath, don’t just find it… make it. Your inner and outer man will thank you.

Renaming the Old and New Testaments...

Most Christians dismiss the "Old" Testament with a waive of their hand and an annoyed false-piety opining, "oh, that's just Old Testament." I've heard it wisely stated that, "we should be careful in dismissing 2/3 of Divine revelation." Which has brought me to a new personal practice that I should hope would catch on in all of Christendom.

Because we now have Christ, some Christians have this notion that the Old Testament is a lesser collection of writings than the New. This, coupled with our modern western notion that newer must be better (which in this case is so), it causes a misconception to become grounded in Christian thinking that old equals no good. Well, this just isn't so as the "Old" Testament collection of writings have preserved for us the very essence and nature of God and His redemptive plan to bring our Savior and Lord near to mankind. The meaning of the cross would have less of a resonance in our hearts if we couldn't view it in the light of Moses and the bronze serpent raised in the wilderness.

Naming the the Torah, prophetic books, wisdom books and history books prior to the birth of Christ as "Old" is a misnomer in my opinion and a grave injustice to both Jews and Christians alike. I understand, as a Christian, the emphasis that is placed on the coming of the Messiah but the name "Old" does such an injustice to these earlier writings. It is an afront to the Jews to refer to the books of the Bible they love so dearly as Old.

I also think that for a Christian to refer to the "Old" Testament as the Hebrew Bible also does the Christian believer an injustice as in thought it excludes the "Hebrew" scriptures as being "Christian" scriptures. (Though, I think our Jewish brothers would however agree with this - yet, I still love you my brothers. )

I propose to now refer to the division of texts between Malachi and Matthew to forever be classified as "Pre-Resurrection Writings" and "Post-Resurrection Writings". For short, one can refer to them as "Pre-Res" and "Post-Res" writings. The distinction in the two collections is not content but time of writing. Nothing changes in the division or order of the books. No one could then argue that because the gospels include details of the life and times of Christ prior to resurrection that they somehow should need to be further divided. The gospels being physically written and originated after the resurrection of Christ from the dead would fall into the category of "Post-Res" writings.

I know this classification does little for the Christian-Jewish alliance, but to heal that relationship is not sought in this reclassification. That is another issue that neither changes nor negates the need for Christians to rethink the involvement of the OT in the Apostle's establishment of the church after Christ's ascension.

The choice of using the resurrection as the key or apex for the re-naming needs little discussion. If there is no resurrection then we as Christians have no basis for existence. The Resurrection changes everything.

I implore readers of this blog :)- like there are any- to begin immediately to change their thinking on the nomenclature so familiar to us and begin using this new terminology for referring to the Christian texts written both prior to and after the resurrection of Christ Jesus.

Go ahead and do it... it won't send you to Hell... :)