Tornado warning alert on Google's website.

A few minutes ago the tornado sirens ended. I never realized until tonight how stressful it can be listening to a tornado siren. As I type this a thunderstorm warning remains in effect where I live. A soft rain is falling outside.

What if there were sirens for sin? What if whenever we were about to do something self-destructive, we would receive a warning?

Something like that exists: the conscience.

For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.- Romans 2:14-16 ESV

 There have been times I didn't listen to my conscience and deliberately sinned. I noticed that the more I sinned, the less guilty I felt. It was clearly time to repent. FULL POST

By Sandra McLaughlin, Branch Director, Bethany Christian Services of Western Pennsylvania

The effect of the Korean War in the 1950s was devastating. Hundreds and hundreds of husbands, wives, and children were captured by North Korean military. Having once lived in a free country, those taken as prisoners in North Korea were not allowed any communication with their families. For many in South Korea, it was necessary to marry again . . . and start over.

In addition to this and while attempting to recover from the aftermath of war, thousands of babies were born in South Korea, a country known to take great pride in the pure blood of its ancestors. Women, raised to believe children born with blood of two races are dishonorable, abandoned their mixed-race babies in public places.

I was one of those babies.

Orphanages were flooded with children. International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were already in-country assisting with the needs, but it was more than they could handle. The hearts of Harry and Bertha Holt were touched and they traveled to South Korea to help orphaned children. As a result, they adopted eight Korean children into their family. Their story flooded media networks and filled their mailbox with letters of interest in adoption. And so, the Holt Agency aka Holt International Children's Services began in 1955. FULL POST

My wife, Mariko, has shared beautifully about the rainbow of love of her multi-ethnic experience. My rainbow of love experience is a bit different, and it breaks on through or rather past Jimmy Fallon’s impersonation of Jim Morrison of The Doors singing "Reading Rainbow." The only books Morrison ever inspired me to read were those by the likes of Friedrich Nietzsche, Aldous Huxley, and Arthur Rimbaud.

I grew up in a strong Christian home and received Jesus into my life as a small child, but rebelled against what I would call “Churchianity”—a lukewarm and bourgeois Christian faith—during my high school years. The life and lyrics of Jim Morrison were significant forces that shaped me during this time. Even today, I appreciate Morrison for seeking to follow his convictions wherever they would lead him—perhaps even seeking to “break on through to the other side” through death. FULL POST

Every year as we approach Good Friday and the Resurrection, I feel the need to draw closer to the real person of Jesus. The God who became man and showed His unfathomable mercy and love for His own creation by dying on a cross and becoming the sacrifice that atones for all sin.
We simply cannot understand that kind of love. Because of our human nature, our selfishness and ego centric lives we are unable to give ourselves completely or without conditions. The closest thing or person I've read about or witnessed was the life of Mother Teresa. Even she herself admits that she occasionally doubted her faith and all that she worked towards. I have doubts too, if I am honest, and they usually arrive, like the eruption of a teenage zit, when "science" makes a claim to the truth. The "truth" is that much of science is based on a theory or many theories come together and presented as a fact. Some of those facts are indisputable. Some of those facts will, in my eyes, remain as theories until God Himself sets the record straight.
I love the History Channel. Well, okay, since we're talking about the truth, I must confess I'm actually addicted to the History Channel. It has a wonderful balance of the natural, the supernatural and the paranormal. (We'll discuss my obsession with Sasquatch another time) However, I can only assume that my loving husband has grown weary of my constant commentary on the theories that are all too often presented as facts. It is these theories that linger in my mind as I try to rationalize both science and faith. Not science that bravely declares what Believers already hold dear, but the overachieving souls who feel the need to explain how certain Biblical events probably, actually, realistically might have occurred.
During the 50 years of my life - a respectable expanse of time- I've experienced quite a lot. A lot of good. A lot of bad. Some of it my own doing, some if it the victim of circumstance. In those 50 years I have discovered that whether good, bad, deserved or undeserved, I have not gone through any of it alone. That's my own testimony to the life of Heidi.
Is any one person's experiences perceived as fact or theory? Depends on who you ask. The person going through an incident would tell you that whatever they experienced was real. The person listening to an account might take into consideration the mental or emotional stability of that person, or perhaps even whether the memory of that event could be trusted, therefore believing the story to be "possible".
Was the story of the resurrection "possible" ? Consider the historical facts:
-Jesus was real. He lived. Whether you believe He is the Messiah is irrelevant. Historians witnessed and documented the fact that He lived.
-He was loved by many... and still is. His life has affected more people than any other in history.
-He died a horrible death, innocent of any crime, and that death was witnessed by men and women from all walks of life.
-Three days after His death and for 40 days He was seen by thousands.
-Many of those, and their friends and families, were put to death because they refused to deny Him. They were tortured in ways we can't even imagine. Some were forced to watch those they loved tortured and killed because they knew and believed with their whole being the testimony of a life lived -and they refused to betray - even unto death, a truth they could not deny.
-More than 2,000 years later His life and death, and His heavenly reign are still held in high esteem. He is adored, worshiped and imitated more than any other man.
These are the facts. Any believer and most non-believers can fill in the gaps between those statements. Believers would call His miracles, His love, His sacrifice, His resurrection and His perfection as God incarnate as fact. We believe that He fulfilled every Messianic prophecy. We believe that He came to save without force, coercion, or violence, but with a loving invitation to accept his grace and mercy. We believe that His sacrifice paid a price we could never afford. FULL POST

In Part 1 of my spiritual journey I chronicled my salvation experience. I spoke of when I was first saved, how I did not live for God, and then how God dealt with me later in life that resulted in me making Jesus Lord of my life by putting Him first in my life. I mentioned how He changed my life in the natural after I kept my commitment to Him. I mentioned some of the ways He changed me. Some of the ways I changed were in my ability to teach. He changed my study habits, and I became a better student. I was socially awkward and introverted. God changed that and made me an extrovert. I use to be entertained by sinful TV programs. He changed all that and I was no longer entertained by those programs and I stopped watching TV.

In general I was a failure in life and He turned it all around and made me successful.

God also did a work in me spiritually.

When I first received Jesus as my Savior when I was about 8 yrs old I knew that hell was real and I didn't want my friends to go there. I witnessed to two of my female friends and told them that hell was real. I asked them if they wanted to go to Heaven and not hell. They said they wanted to go to Heaven so I told them they needed to ask Jesus to save them and they needed to walk the aisle and tell the Pastor that they wanted Jesus.

In graduate school after I got right with God, things changed more dramatically for me spiritually than what it had been originally when I was about 8 yrs old. Again, I knew hell was real, I didn't want my friends to go there, and I knew that they needed to be saved to go to Heaven.

God gave me favor with people which I didn't have before. I had one student that came to my office, shared with me his martial problems, and wept. I told him that Jesus was the answer to his problems. I gave him the gospel. I invited him to Church. He came.

I had a Chinese friend who was a graduate student at the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) who said he believed in God. I just sensed that he really didn't know Jesus and was lost. I would witness to him at times.

FULL POST