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If you understand nothing else about Christianity, you should grasp this ….

Jesus died for YOU!

No matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter the weight of your sin (and you do have sin because we all do) … Jesus died for those.

And YOU need Him!

Because no matter how good you are, no matter that you love your mother, give food and clothes to the poor, visit the sick and those in prison … all of your goodness is nothing compared to how good God created human kind to be. None of us has any reason to boast when we come to Christ because none of us is right with God … no one except Jesus.

Jesus wants to take all that isn’t right with you and trade it in for His righteousness. If you’ll give it to Him, it will be as if you never sinned. That’s forgiveness … to have everything you’ve ever done set aside, paid by someone who has an unlimitedless treasury and loves you enough to die a horrible death in your place and still love you.

And all you have to do to have that rightness is accept that He did it for you.

That is true liberty!

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Mary Magdalene was a woman of ill repute. The Bible doesn’t tell us that she was a prostitute. That was a pope in the 7th century who laid that on her. But she was possessed by seven demons before she met Jesus. I suspect she did some things that she wasn’t proud of later. And yet Mary was the one Jesus  chose to be the first witness to His resurrection — in essence the first Christian.

On the morning of the third day, the women went to the tomb to prepare Jesus’ body. They were mourning. They were probably afraid. Their men were in hiding. Only the women were brave. And when they got to the tomb, they found the guard that had surrounded the tomb gone and the stone that blocked the door thrown halfway across the garden. They ran to the men because they didn’t know what else to do.

John and Peter ran to the tomb. John ran faster. They both saw that Jesus was gone, but they didn’t understand. He’d told them He’d rise after three days, but they hadn’t understood. They went back home, scared and perplexed.

Mary, however, looked into the tomb and saw two angels sitting where Jesus’ body had been. They said “Why are you looking here? He’s not here.”

I think it’s odd that she wasn’t afraid of the angels or that she didn’t demand to know who they were. Except, this woman recognized angels. Why? Because she’d been demon possessed and the only difference between an angel and a demon is that one follows God and the other follows Satan. She knew what she was seeing, I think.

And, then she turned from the tomb and there was a man there who asked “Why are you sad?”

“Because they have taken my Lord and I do not know where,” she answered.

“Mary, don’t you know Me?”

Of course, she didn’t know Him. She expected Him to be dead. She was crying too  Her eyesight was blurred and her heart was in a very dark place. Of course she didn’t recognize Him.

Until that moment. And then recognition dawned, a light came on, and the whole of the universe was an entirely different place than it had been one second before.

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I’m not going to post a lot today because it’s a beautiful spring day here in Alaska and I’m going out hiking. Maybe I’ll wake a spring bear.

I want to thank the people who have been visiting and those who are now following my blog. And now for a brief message …

 

Today could rightfully be called Black Saturday. Think about it. Just about 2000 years ago, mankind killed God in the flesh, Jesus. They hung Him on a cross and He died. His followers ran away. They abandoned Him. They scurried around the edges of His execution and did nothing. Peter denied Him three times. John had enough contacts to get into the chamber to watch his best friend’s trial and beating, but he still didn’t try to save Him.

Where do you think the disciples were on Black Saturday?

Hiding in a hole. Scrambling to return to their homes and pretend they never knew Him. Weeping. Examining themselves and finding they weren’t all that good. They promised to follow Him wherever He went and they ran away!

Today is Black Saturday. Jesus is dead and you’re responsible. Think about it!

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Just a simple message for Good Friday.

“For what I received from the Lord I also passed onto you that the Lord Jesus on the night in which He was betrayed took bread and after He had given thanks He broke it and said “This is My body which is for you: Do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He also took the cup after supper, saying “This cup is the new covenant in My blood: Do this, everytime you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

“For this reason, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself first, and in this way let him eat the bread and drink the cup. For the one who eats and drinks without careful regard for the body eats and drinks judgment against himself.”

I Corinthians 11:23-29

It is finished!

 

 

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We have had the right to refuse Terry searches for decades, folks.This is not a new interpretation. This appears to be a rediscovery of this thing called the 4th Amendment. It’s a tiny glimmer of hope on a far distant horizon.

Flyover-Press.com

 

Well, they throw us a bone every now and then. — jtl, 419

News Release from The Rutherford Institute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its ruling in Millbrook v. United States, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that the U.S. government may be held liable for abuses intentionally carried out by law enforcement officers in the course of their employment. The Court’s ruling dovetails with arguments put forward by The Rutherford Institute in its amicus brief, which urged the Court to enforce the plain meaning of federal statutes allowing citizens to sue the government for injuries intentionally inflicted by law enforcement officers.

In striking down lower court rulings, the justices held that the courts had erred in dismissing a prisoner’s lawsuit alleging that three prison guards had brutally and sexually assaulted him. The lower courts justified their ruling under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows individuals…

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Check it out and check out Jane’s book because this is really a sensory-rich read that will take you into a world you never knew existed.

Jane Bwye

Another Interview, this time with Jo Valiyi, of the New Eastbourne Writers –

My 60 seconds with…

J.L. Bwye – author of BREATH OF AFRICA

Set against the backdrop of Kenya’s beautiful terrain, Breath of Africa takes the reader on an intriguing journey through thirty years of change in this spiritual land.

Q. What or who inspired you to write this book?

A. Nicholas Monsarrat. I’ve read all his books several times, but could only read the two “Tribe” books once. They upset me.

For the whole interview, go HERE.

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First, let me preface this by saying I’ve met the man several times and spent an entire day with him back when I was in college. So this is not just a distant observation. Politics in Alaska is closer than it is in almost any other state.

Don Young made an unfortunate comment that is “so Don”. He’s a free-speaking, off-the-cuff, doesn’t-care-if-he-offends Alaskan. This is what Alaskans love about Don. He’s one of us! You Lower 48ers can keep your suave, not-exactly-sure-where-they-stand Congresspeople. We’re hoping to replace Don with someone more conservative/libertarian and just as Alaskan.

His wife of several decades, Lulu, was a Gwich’in Athabaskan (Alaskan Indian). His daughters are also Indians. He and Lulu were completely devoted to one another. His early career was as mayor of Ft. Yukon, a Native village. He still has a home there and still goes back there during vacations and people there say he’s “just folks”. He’s not a racist.

What he said was inappropriate, although if you enter the country illegally, you are a criminal, so you really shouldn’t get up in arms when a citizen calls you a derogatory name. It might have been more appropriate to just say “illegal immigrant”, but the man’s getting old and maybe he’s tired of being politically correct when – like most of the state he represents – he isn’t.

Don has had a long and distinguished career. He chaired the House Transportation Committee for six years and the House Resources Committee for six years. He is currently the second-highest ranking Republican on both committees. He would be chairman of one of them if he hadn’t refused to sign the “no earmarks” pledge. His voting record is moderate, mostly because he has a very pro-labor record. That’s not surprising considering that almost 25% of the workers in Alaska are represented by labor unions.  He’s also anti-abortion, anti-gun control and anti-federal land control. He is one of far-too-few Republicans who voted against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. From a purely Alaskan standpoint, he has been very good to Alaska – steering a lot of federal dollars our way. As an Alaskan, I see that as a drop in the bucket to what Alaska’s resources pay to the federal government and what economic opportunities Alaskans have missed because of the federal stranglehold on our land, our resources and our environment. I used to say “Release the land hostage and Alaska will take no more federal pork.” These days, I see the federal government is in so much trouble financially from all the spending and I advocate for our delegation to cut pork wherever it can – but I still think the feds ought to release the land hostage. Don also is a big promoter of the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, which is still on the table – languishing in the Senate.

So, Don is a mixed bag as a representative. I don’t think he’s any more corrupt than any of his colleagues. I like him personally. He’s very Alaskan. And, he is definitely not a racist.

This is not to say that I am not working toward the goal of replacing Don in the House. Sean Parnell nearly won against him in the 2008 primary and he’s already announced he won’t be running for a second (and a half) gubernatorial term in 2014, so chances are good, Don will be retiring. I personally hope that Don chooses to step down gracefully and allow Sean Parnell (or some other equal candidate) to take his place as the nominee. I’d really like to see an Alaskan Independent Party candidate go to DC. Don’’s done well by Alaska, but the times have changed. We need legislators who are willing to cut the pork and the regulation while still fighting for Alaska’s equal treatment among the 50 states.  Don needs to let younger folks take up that challenge.

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Our ruling class’s agenda is power for itself.  Yes, they claim the high intellectual and moral ground, but they hold power by one of the oldest and nastiest of means – patronage and power. Left-wing parties always and everywhere form a “machine” based on providing tangible rewards to its members. Such parties often provide rank-and-file activists with modest livelihoods and mightily enhance the upper levels’ wealth. Whatever else such parties might accomplish, they must feed the machine by transferring money, jobs or privileges (civic or economic) to the party’s clients, directly or indirectly.

The American ruling class’s standard approach and solution to any and all matters, is to increase the power of the government — meaning of those who run it, who are the ruling class, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc. More power for the ruling class has been our ruling class’s solution for everything — economic downturns, social ills, hurricanes, tornadoes, global cooling and global warming.  Yes, the sane among us wonder whether enriching and empowering individuals of a certain kind can make Americans kinder and gentler, much less control the weather, but the ruling class expects us to sit down and shut up and let our betters do the thinking for us.

The ruling class has an agenda. You may recognize some of this. If you know of others, please feel free to add.

Generally speaking, about one-third of what Americans produce is collected in federal taxes. By parceling out the proceed of our labor  and instituting regulations that reach deep into American life, our ruling class makes itself the arbiter of wealth and poverty. While the economic value of anything depends on sellers and buyers agreeing on that value as civil equals in the absence of force, modern government is all about tampering with civil equality. By endowing some in society with power to force others to sell cheaper than they would, and forcing others to buy at higher prices (or in the case of health insurance, to buy in the first place) modern government makes valuable some things that are not intrinsically valuable and devalues others that are. If you are not among the favored guests at the table where officials make detailed lists of who is to receive what at whose expense, you are on the menu.

Laws and regulations nowadays are longer than ever because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally. For example, the health care bill of 2010 takes more than 2,700 pages to make sure not just that some states will be treated differently from others because their senators offered key political support, but to codify bargains between the government and various parts of the health care industry, state governments, and large employers about who would receive what benefits and who would pass what indirect taxes onto the general public. The financial regulation bill of 2010, while advertised as setting unequivocal rules for the entire financial industry, spends some 3,000 pages tilting the field exquisitely toward some and away from others. Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses of both party-majorities have empowered countless boards and commissions to arbitrarily protect some persons and companies while ruining others.

In 2008 the Republican administration first bailed out Bear Stearns, then let Lehman Brothers sink in the ensuing panic, but then rescued Goldman Sachs by infusing cash into its principal debtor, AIG. Then, the incoming Democratic administration used similarly naked discretionary power (and money appropriated for another purpose) to give major stakes in the auto industry to labor unions that support it.

Nowadays, the members of our ruling class admit that they do not read the laws they vote on. They don’t have to, because modern laws are primarily grants of discretion. All Congress needs to know about the laws is whom they empower.

By making economic rules dependent on discretion, our bipartisan ruling class teaches that prosperity is to be bought with the coin of political support. In the 1990s and 2000s, as Democrats and Republicans forced banks to make loans for houses to people and at rates they would not otherwise have considered, builders and investors had every reason to make as much money as they could from the ensuing inflation of housing prices. When the bubble burst, only those connected with the ruling class at the bottom and at the top were bailed out. Similarly, by taxing the use of carbon fuels and subsidizing “alternative energy,” our ruling class created the world’s biggest opportunity for making money out of things that most people would not buy absent government intervention. The ethanol industry and its diversions of wealth exist exclusively because of subsidies. The prospect of legislation that would put a price on carbon emissions and allot certain amounts to certain companies set off a feeding frenzy among large companies to show support for a “green agenda,” because such allotments would be worth tens of billions of dollars. In 2009 companies hired some 2,500 lobbyists to deepen their involvement in “climate change.” While grumbling about the costs, such involvement profits them by making them into privileged collectors of carbon taxes. Any “green jobs” thus created are creatures of subsidies, dependent upon privilege rather than merit. It’s debatable if such privileges will affect “global warming” , but it’s guaranteed to increase the number of people dependent on the ruling class, while teaching Americans that satisfying that class is a surer way of making a living than producing goods and services that ordinary people want to buy.

Beyond patronage, picking economic winners and losers redirects the American people’s energies to tasks that the political class deems more worthy than what Americans choose for themselves. John Kenneth Galbraith’s characterization of America as “private wealth amidst public squalor” (The Affluent Society, 1958) encapsulated the complaints of our “best and brightest”. Left to themselves, Americans use land inefficiently in suburbs and exurbs, making it necessary to use energy to transport them to jobs and shopping. Americans drive big cars, eat lots of meat and other unhealthy things, and go to the doctor whenever they feel like it. Americans think it justice to spend the money they earn to satisfy their private desires even though the ruling class knows that justice lies in improving the community and the planet. The ruling class knows that Americans must learn to live more densely and close to work, that they must drive smaller cars and change their lives to use less energy, that their dietary habits must improve, that they must accept limits in how much medical care they get, that they must divert more of their money to support people, cultural enterprises, and plans for the planet that the ruling class deems worthier. But when they try to tell us that, we object, proving our stupidity. Ever-greater taxes and intrusive regulations are the main wrenches by which the American people can be improved and the ruling class strengthened and enlarged.

The 2010 medical law is a template for the ruling class’s economic modus operandi. The government taxes citizens to pay for medical care and requires citizens to purchase health insurance. The money taken and directed to this enterprise is money that the citizens themselves might have used to pay for medical care. In exchange for the money, the government promises to provide care through its “system.” But then all the boards, commissions, guidelines, procedures, and “best practices” that constitute “the system” become the arbiters of what any citizen ends up getting. The citizen might end up dissatisfied with what “the system” offers. Unfortunately, when he gave up his money, he gave up the power to choose, and became dependent on all the boards and commissions that his money also pays for and that increase the cost of care.

In 2008 the House Ways and Means Committee began considering a plan to force citizens who own Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to transfer those funds into government-run “guaranteed retirement accounts.” If the government may force citizens to buy health insurance, it seems logical that they can force them to trade private ownership and control of retirement money for a guarantee as sound as the government itself. Clearly the government knows more about managing retirement income than individuals do.

Justice William O Douglas

Well said and I’m amazed it was actually said by a … lawyer.

YouViewed/Editorial

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

” The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.”

 

 

 

 

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This is merely a concept video for a full feature film that may never be done, but it is entirely plausible in today’s climate that we are headed that way. Wake up! Become the change you want to see in society before the change the progressives have been working on for a century runs right over you.