Straight paths through crooked roads

How God denied Himself for us and why that's important.

No, I'm NOT saying that God denied His own character.  I am saying that God the Father denied His own great love for His Son, Jesus Christ, at the moment that Christ was dying for the payment of our sins on the cross.  Why that is important is revealed in the comparison of God's love with our human love.

Parents love their children largely because they are part of themselves.  The first time mother has likely had lots of other mothers describe to her the way she will feel differently after her first baby is born.  But, these are only words.  Once the horrible pain of labor is finally finished and her baby is first put upon her breast, almost without exception, a wellspring of love bursts open.  It may be that the new mother has had a medical condition that interferred with the immediate bonding with her child.  However, that bonding will occur sooner or later, unless some tragedy intervenes.

The father does not have that circumstance but does bond with the child because that is his own flesh and blood.  Again, unless some tragedy intervenes.  Both parents tend to be bonded together in a common wish for the benefits of their child.  They may argue vehemently with each other over how their son or daughter should be raised.  They each have a huge emotional stake in the life of their child.

In Psalm 22, the opening lines are also a quotation from Jesus Christ on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"  And, later in the Psalm in verses 16, 17, and 18, "They pierced my hands and feet.  I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me.  They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots."  These latter verses are identical to Gospel accounts of the crucifiction of Christ.  These are all a testimony to God the Father turning His back on the welfare of His Son on our behalf.

However, God was as proud of His Son as humans are of theirs.  The Father arranged for a star to stand still over the place where Christ was born.  He sent angels to shepherds to announce His birth.  He brought wise men from a far country to give homage to Christ and to give expensive gifts worthy to be given to a royal child.  God spoke from heaven at the baptism of Christ by John.  The Father would not allow His Son to preach without the accompanyment of miracle after miracle.  The Father sent Elijah and Moses to be transfigured along with Jesus Christ before his apostles Peter, James and John.  The Father testified to the importance of His Son's death with miracles and with a rich man giving his own tomb to be used for Christ's body.  The Father saw to it that His Son was raised from the dead on the third day as foretold by the prophesy of Christ Himself.  Yes, the Father passionately loved His Son.

Whereas people may deny their children's welfare for their own selfish benefit, God the Father denied the welfare of Christ for the benefit of you and me.  Our human love is powerful and vital to our relationship with others.  We are fulfilled when we love and are loved in return.  But, our human love is also subject to human failure, to misunderstandings, to jealousy, to many other sad events. 

His love for us is faithful, is forgiving, and is our motivation for loving Him in return.  His love is expressed to us in the presence of the Holy Spirit that is birthed into our spirit when we accept Christ as our Savior.  His love is the strength that enables us to love others when it is very difficult to love them.  His love becomes the center of His presence within us that gives us joy and reason to worship, reason to hope, reason to face each new day.  He proved His love for us once at Calvary.  He proves His love for us each new time we seek Him and find Him with the faith He has provided.  His love becomes the foundation of the very best part of our own character that we discover within ourselves.

As God the Father provided an example of denying Himself for our sakes, so we need to be prepared to deny our own selfish impulses to respond to His love in compliance with His code for our welfare, the Word of God.  Obedience to the Word is not grievious for us.  If we were striving to be on an athletic team, we would obey the directions of the coach in hopes of having playing time on the field, awards, and honor of approval.  If we were pursuing a degree in college, we would obey the requirements to gain a grade, to finally graduate, to find acceptance by future colleagues.  But, the coach, the professor, the colleague cannot and will not love us as our Father in heaven loves us.  They cannot come close to the fruits of the love of God we find in relationship with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Yes, God did deny Himself for our sakes.  That is extremely important for us, indeed.

Growth in the relationship to Christ: discerning conviction from condemnation

One of the great weapons of the enemy of our spirit is confusion.  Satan causes a battle in our minds in many different ways.  One of these is the use of condemnation.  We may sense something in our minds that tells us that we are no good.  There is a general feeling of worthlessness.  There is a sense of discouragement.  That is Satan's tool to discourage you in your walk with the Holy Spirit.

However, one of the tools of the Holy Spirit is conviction of sin.  Genuine conviction carries with it a sense of deep concern over a specific area of sin in our lives.  This is some specific activity or attitude on our part that, if we are honest, we will agree with the Holy Spirit that something needs to change here. 

The conviction is actually the spiritual enablement to surrender that thing to Christ and to let it go for good.  Once the Christian says, OK Lord, I surrender this area to You.  I bring these thoughts and feelings and attitudes to You and leave them on Your altar.  I ask You to cleanse my mind and heart.  Please replace my unclean motivations with the pure motivations supplied by the Holy Spirit in this area. 

Then, believe the Lord for direction and protection from temptation in this area.  Look for the nature of Christ to show more clearly through you in new situations.  Take grateful satisfaction in the victory the Holy Spirit is creating in your walk with God.  Look for opportunities to express this new attitude in your relationship to other people, if this idea applies here.

There is no need for Christians to walk under a cloud of confusion, of condemnation, of discouragement.  "There is therefore no condemnation to those who walk in the Spirit.  For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death."  Romans 8:1 and 2.

We know Whom we have believed: the way worship works.

My pastor was saying that the presence of God in our midst is the essential element of the character of our congregation. He said that worship was the means to invite God's presence with us because He is seeking worshippers who do so in spirit and in truth.

This reminded me of the story of two close friends.  One man was trusting and simple while his friend loved to play pranks on him.  Once, the prankster called to fool his friend into believing that the roof of his house was on fire.  But, the friend said, "You can't fool me this time, John, I recognize your voice."

It's like that for the genuine Christian.  Once a person has the Holy Spirit living within his or her spirit, the Holy Spirit gives impressions to direct the believer.  The believer learns over time the difference between his own conscience, the thoughts put there by outside influences, and the believer's best friend, the Holy Spirit.  We know Him spirit to spirit, our eternal spirit to the Holy Spirit.

When we worship in spirit and in truth, we are reaching out our spirit to touch the presence of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit responds with a sense of love, of forgiveness, of healing, of wisdom for a certain situation, or some other spiritual gift, if only the sweet savor of His embrace.

It is in our sweet surrender to His love for us that we acknowledge that His gracious love has won our heart at last.  We set ourselves aside for Him and we set Him aside for ourselves.  But how can we who are so small set God aside for ourselves? 

Remember the marriage vows that a husband gives a wife and that a wife returns to her husband?  They each choose to accept the other as the one and only one for them.  They "forsake all others and keep themselves" only to each other.  Likewise, we see all of the other beliefs, but we choose Christ and set Him aside unto ourselves as the only recipient of our faith and faithfulness. 

We realize that our love with Christ will provide us with the love essential for our spouses, families, and others.  Because we offer worship as a genuine expression of self-sacrifice to our Savior, we also sense His loving grace towards us. 

It is now that we begin to understand Colossians 1:26 "Christ in us, the hope of glory".  That is to say, Christ in us by the presence of the Holy Spirit is the source of the expression of God's presence and character in our lives. 

Now we can say, "I know Whom I have believed..." in worship.

The power of testimony, the mystery of 12, and the principle of "too late."

The Bible refers at one point to the power of the testimony of Christians.  And, there is something spiritually significant about the number of twelve.  Because there were twelve tribes of Israel, Joshua made a command that the Israelites place twelve stones, representing each tribe at the river of Jordan.  This was a memorial to the miracle that God made the Jordan river stand still as the people crossed over to the other side on the dry river bed.  This same number of twelve was used by Jesus to appoint twelve disciples.  This became a tradition in American law, that we have twelve members of a jury.  The unanimous vote of twelve jurors has the legal power to decide the fate of an accused person.  What if we combine the power of our Christian testimony with the power of 12? 

How?  In a small group meeting with a minimum of twelve seriously born again Christians, each in turn gives a testmony on exactly how they came to give themselves to Jesus Christ in salvation.  Salvation testimonies are powerful because they carry the witness to an actual miracle of the Spirit.  Each testimony then becomes an affirmation of the testimony of each of the others.  Each testimony is evidence of the spiritual, emotional, and even physical changes of believers. 

When each has given their salvation testimony of how they came to Christ, a second step follows.  Each one is challenged to think of as many instances as possible in which Christ has made a difference in their lives that they cannot account for in any other way.  This might include a forgiveness of a wrong suffered that would not have been forgiven except for the motivation of Christ and the Holy Spirit speaking into the spirit of the believer.  Or, it might be a miracle of healing.  It could be any number of things where the Holy Spirit was involved as He revealed the nature of Jesus Christ in a believer's life.  Each of these is a genuine miracle of God.

New believers may not have anything come to mind except their own conversion.  Others will have a whole string of events where God has revealed His divine character.  But, each one is a sort of testimonial stone that can be added up to a monument of personal faith. 

This validation of the faith each believer expresses is a wonderful building block of the confidence we can and need to have when the enemy of our souls, Satan, attacks us with reasons to doubt our salvation. 

One specific weapon we can use with our testimonial stones is the principle of "too late".  We all know that there is such a thing as "too late."  "Too late" is neither good nor bad, it just is a principle that we know works because we have at times been too late or we have seen others be too late. 

You see, we know that reasons to doubt the truth of our relationship with Christ will come.  However, if we have built a monument of testimonial miracles in our life, Satan will be too late. 

We will know in the deepest part of our being that the voice of the Holy Spirit is not our imagination.  We will know in the nearest and farthest part of our mind that our God is not just a spiritual teddy bear but that He is the worker of miracles that we have witnessed.  We will simply know Him, our spirit to His Holy Spirit.  Then, we will walk in confidence in the face of anything.  We will walk in the power of our own testimony of Christ in us, Who is the hope of our glory.  We will walk in the certainty that twelve witnesses bring a conclusive decision to place our trust in the Lover of our souls.  We will walk in the fact that there is such a thing as too late and that Satan is too late to have us. 

Just think.  We will have ruined Satan's plan for our eternity.  He is too late but we are right on time.

The Hippies were too late: the old faithfuls have survived and young faithfuls have arisen.

I'm older than the hippies.  I was already a young adult with a world view before they arrived in the mid to late 1960's.  Hippiedom was much more than style and music. It was a fundamental change in world view philosophy.  Since then the hippies have grown up and become our educators, politicians, business people, and mass media moguls.  They have largely replaced the previous world view with theirs and done this so completely that their perceptions seem to be reality.  But, they were too late to change my world view.  I remember quite clearly what it was like before they came.

Before the advent of American Hippiedom, the prevailing world view of American society was a judeo-christian view. The standards and the principles found in the Bible were the accepted standards by which society operated.  To be certain, there were many exceptions because society had many facets.  There were always a few and sometimes notable scoffers like the athiest Mark Twain.  There were always those who chose to ignore the standards for their own benefit, like greedy businessmen and corrupt politicians or power hungry bureaucrats.  However, society generally saw these as rebels against the established standards. 

The judeo-christian standards of the Ten Commandments, of love thy neighbor, of compassion for the needy were easily found in the court system, in the public schools, in the marriage vows.  That is not to say that these standards were kept with consistant integrity.  As a matter of fact, the scoffers grew in number in our colleges, in our legal system, in our mass media to challenge the standards because they were not consistently met. 

In the 1950's there came a number of people known as "Beatniks".  They had an agnostic philosophy contrary to the judeo-christian view that was not simply a negative scoffing but had something of an integrity to it that performed as an alternative way of thinking.  These general ideas were picked up and added to existentialist philosophy in which the person becomes the center of reality rather than God being the center of reality.

This philosophy was incorporated into the general thinking of the young generation during the 1960's.  This was done through literature, music, and theater.  This way of emphasizing the individual's rights to be free from interference went beyond the previously accepted limits of judeo-christian principles.  Now, people were to be free to do harm to themselves in use of drugs, pre-marital sex, etc. because the impacts of these were perceived to be primarily on the individual and not upon others. 

While the use of drugs is now seen to have definite impact upon others, so that drug use is not necessarily accepted, neither is it socially reprehensible.  That is because drug use is not seen as a moral failure but rather as an "illness".  This individual issue is a symptom of a much larger change in how our society views right and wrong.

The change of view from drug use from being a moral imperative to being a health issue indicates a change that reduces guilt while retaining a reason to deal with the problem.  This is one bit of evidence that Hippiedom became shaped into a new world view. 

This new world view attempts to maintain self-esteem above all else while trying to be socially viable.  That is to say, the cultural leaders in the universities, in the media, in politics who were of the Hippie culture, came to the conclusion that they needed institutions guided by the alternative to judeo-christian principles.  This was needed in their view because they no longer wished to be accountable to an almighty Creator God.  They wished to be tbe captian of their own soul, the master of their own fate.  The judeo-christian standards had denied them the right to be such.  Now, they were in positions of authority where they could institute changes in culture.  Now they could establish their own standards, their own "values." 

So, to have a society without guilt, they made the subjective feelings of the individual the center of the philosophy but rationalized how the individual could be responsible to oneself first and then to others.  They erased all obvious evidence of the judeo-christian culture from public schools, from the courts, from marriage vows, etc.  They promoted the view that judeo-christian "values" were obsolete, uneducated, and perhaps quaint. 

The agnostic philosophy has largely been successfully institutionalized by the old hippies.  But, they do have a few problems.  These are the youth that are connecting with the genuine power of God found in the Scriptures.  These young faithfuls are connecting with old faithfuls like myself.  They are finding that the Holy Spirit is ageless and not subject to distruction by people or ideas. 

So, you see, the Hippies were too late to influence us old faithfuls away from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  And we have every intention of passing the presence of the Holy Spirit to the young faithfuls.

Father's Day should mean a day for dad to remember to be a real dad.

Father can mean simply a biological mate but we always hope it means more than that.  My own dad once told me that he always thought that children just raised themselves.  His dad was a pastor and the feeling of that generation was that a church minister would sacrifice his own family for the benefit of his congregation.  So, my dad said that he, his brothers and his sister would cry as they would watch their dad drive right by their house on his way to visit the home of a member of his congregation. 

As my dad grew up in small town Indiana he saw the high regard others held for his father.  But his father did not have the day to day close relationship needed to bond closely enough with his children in order to earn the emotional right to discipline them.  As a result, most of his children rebelled against the religion of their father.  There were five of them:  one girl, the oldest whose name was Bernice, then the rest were all boys.  The oldest of these was Gerald.  These two became Christians in their own right.  The youngest three all rebelled against Christ.

As I raised my own family, I tried to raise them as Christians.  Only one has returned to walk the testimony of a Christian.  The others have chosen ways other than Christ.  As my children grew up, I travelled 50 to 100 nights a year as a salesman.  I do believe that had I been home every night by having another profession, I would have had a better chance to keep more of them close to Christ.

My own dad was a functioning alcoholic.  He would deny that but he could not go without drinking for any 24 hour period.  Sometimes he would be gone several nights without coming home, not because of business, but because of unfaithfulness to mom. 

How did I then become a Christian?  The prayers of my grandmother, her witnessing to me, the faith she helped instill in me when my mom and I lived in her home from time to time.  How did my one child come to walk with Christ after rebelling and going into deep sin?  Prayer and fasting for God to invade her life.  He did just that.

The bottom line is this.  To be a biological father is one thing.  To be a provider of food, shelter, clothing, education and even companionship is a much better thing.  To be a spiritual father takes prayer and care.  To be a spiritual father, a dad should take father's day as a day to remember both the obligations and rewards of being one.

The Holy Spirit and Grace and Grace and Grace

There once was this couple who were struggling with each other so much that neither one could see any way out of their misery but to get a divorce.  They argued so often and so harshly that even their children, who were teenagers, told them that they should divorce.  They had a dilemma though, they were both Christian.  Because the Bible said that the only grounds for divorce was unfaithfulness, and since neither of them were, and since they both wanted to be true to their relationship with Christ, neither one was willing to actually begin divorce proceedings.

Finally, the husband thought, this is silly.  If we just cannot get along, there is no use going down this road any further.  So, he decided to go downtown the next day to the county court building and get the divorce paper work.  That evening, as his wife lay sleeping on the couch and he was watching TV, he looked over at her and watched her sleep.  He felt a warm love in his heart.  But he also felt the fresh pain of an earlier argument when her words and harsh voice seem to feel like claws ripping his heart.  He knew he had also said things that he knew would set her anger aflame.  He knew that they both were just defending their own feelings and justifying their own priorities in each other's face.  But he did not know any way out of this unending struggle except to end the struggle.

The next day, the husband found himself in line at the divorce papers desk in the county building.  When he got to the front of the line he found himself asking the clerk, "If I divorce my wife, can I somehow make sure that she still get's the medical coverage from my company's plan?"  The clerk looked up in surprise as if to say, "Why ask such a question?  Aren't you divorcing her?" What the clerk actually said was, "I suppose so."  When he left with the papers, he found himself asking himself the same question that the clerk seemed to ask with his facial expression.  "Why did I ask such a question if I intend to divorce her?  I must still love her enough to take care of her."  The husband eventually threw the divorce papers away.

Some time later, the husband and wife were saying goodbye.  He was going on a sales trip from their home in Fresno, California, to San Bernardino.  The wife looked up from the dining table with a sad face.  She expressed a love and yet a concern about their future together.  He said his goodbye and got into his station wagon loaded with the textbooks he sold.

All along the way down route 99 to Bakersfield the husband was again fighting himself with mixed emotions of love and anger toward his wife.  He was sometimes hoping that she would divorce him.  He was sometimes thinking that he had to divorce her.  He made the turn off of route 99 to go east on route 58.  He was driving past a small town called Weedpatch.  Then a sudden impression struck him.  This was not his conscience.  He knew how that felt in his senses.  This was the Holy Spirit speaking to his spirit.

The Holy Spirit simply said, "If you divorce her, you divorce me."  Wow!  The husband took the next exit off of the freeway.  He found a public phone at a convenience store and called his wife. 

She answered and in a firm voice simply said, "What is it?"  The husband replied, "I'm not leaving no matter what."  She said, "How are we ever going to make it?"  He said, "Grace and grace and grace." That ended the phone call.

They finally found a moment in time where the husband stood up for his wife in such a manner that she never again questioned his love for her.  That matter is so private that it remains a secret today.  However, it is no secret that today they are both in love with each other more than ever in their married life of just about 40 years.

I enjoy being a rebel against the god (small g) of this world.

It's fun to be rebellious, especially when you get away with it.  The problem is that if you are rebelling against the God of the Bible, you will be doing genuine evil and evil is self destructive.  But, if you are rebelling against the god of this world (Satan), then you will find reward that is lasting with minimum if any sorrow added to it. 

I have about 160 students, ages 16 and 17, in my history classes.  They enjoy sneaking a look at their portable play stations, listening to their ipods, texting on their cell phones, when they think that I'm not looking.  But, to a large extent, that is self-destructive.  Not only are they cutting back on their achievement in class, they are creating a habit of escape. 

I asked them if they agreed to the following idea. Lots of students are playing with their electronic gadgets rather than doing the assignment well.  They are therefore escaping rather than first achieving and then using their gadgets as a reward for a job well done.  So, what is happening is that kids are not doing for themselves what they need to do.  Often, they ask for help from a friend for the answers.  They become dependent upon their friends rather than indpendent thinkers and achievers.  They then lose confidence in themselves not because they can not do a task, but because they have no proof that they actually do achieve the task.  This is a cause of some anxiety about facing new tasks.  So, they escape once more into their electronic devices, deepening the problem for them.  This creates personal weakness.  My students agreed by a large majority that this is true. 

Did the understanding of the students help them overcome this habit of escape?  Not at all.  They are as involved with this escape as much as ever.  This is not surprising, however.  The nature of evil is that it creates a taste for self-destruction.  The carnal nature within us humans needs redemption and overcoming only available through Jesus Christ.  We are incapable of overcoming it by ourselves.  We can reform some habits but we cannot overcome our own natures that lead us in a variety of rebellious behaviors.

No, I'm not saying that I am perfect.  I suffer from my own weaknesses just like anyone else.  But, I do have the Holy Spirit to help me.  He leads me to repentence.  He enables me to overcome temptations.  He provides motivation from His nature to replace and overcome the motivations that my own carnal nature would have used to drive my actions.  He is the Friend of my soul.

The Holy Spirit also helps me to enjoy a moment when I have overcome a temptation.  In that moment I have just rebelled against the god of this world, Satan.  The Holy Spirit motivates me to not hold grudges, not try to get even, not throw people away.  Then, I watch over the months of the school year as a  few of my students show changes in attitude from being rebellious against me to becoming cooperative and even supportive of me in the class environment.  Once again, I have evidence of a successful raid on the evil god of this world.  What fun!

How about you?  Do you have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit?  The only way to have one is by genuinely accepting responsibility for your sins, to ask Jesus Christ to forgive you, to ask Him to be the king of your life, to trust Him with your soul, and to believe that He will do what He has said, that is, send the Holy Spirit to be your companion.  If you do, everything will change. 

What you love will change.  What you want will change.  What seems important will change.  And, everthing bad you have done your whole life long will have been forgiven.  You will find that you somehow actually love God.  You will find a peace when it comes to your eternal future. You will find a source of hope for your future in this life.  You will find a new confidence in facing your tasks.  You wil find an ability to love others with a love that God gives you to share with others. 

When you pursue this new life, you will be ruining the future Satan had for you.  Isn't that a kick in the pants? 

Conversations with a teenage girl

As a high school teacher, I have had a number of conversations with teens.  I especially enjoy talking with girls even though I am now considered elderly.  I am fascinated with how they mature as compared to how boys mature.  Girls sure are more  complicated.  Boys are relatively simple.  (Aren't they, girls?)

I did not understand female humans very well in spite of being related to my mother and having a younger sister.  After all, they weren't really girls, you know? 

Having been married gets you up close and personal with the opposite sex.  As I studied my wife, I fell in love with not just her as an individual, but with her femininity.  When we had a daughter, I felt a special father-daughter bond that I have never lost.  (Amy is 31 years old right now.)

Well, just the other day my history class was about over and three of my female students started asking me about my years as a teenager.  They wanted to know about what decade it was:  the 1970's ?, the 1960's?, the 1950's?, the 1850's?

They wanted to know if I had enjoyed such artists as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, etc....I assured them that I knew of all of these but that I was not that familiar with their music.  These girls did not understand how I could be so naive, so culturally unaware, so disconnected with reality. 

In public school I am legally bound to not share my Christian testimony.  I could not tell them that these artists did not share my principles and values.  I could not tell them about the miracles of prayer in Christ's name for the healing of my wife and children, about the saving of our marriage, about the overwhelming fulfillment of a daily life in connection with the Holy Spirit, about the peace of mind about having peace with God.

No, I could not legally express that.  And, I can only hope that I give to my students enough evidence to convict me of being a genuine Christian.

Would our society today choose Barabbas over Christ?

Unfortunately, the world prefers self-destruction due to the consequences of evil choices over the humbling of self before the God Who loves them.

There He is, standing beside Pilate at the top of the steps in the Praetorium.  Christ is bloody from the beating he has recieved at the hands of the Romans.  This scourging is the first step in the sacrifice Jesus makes for you, me, and the rest of the human race.  Pilate wishes to release Christ but offers the crowd before him a choice to either receive Jesus who loves them sacrificially, or to receive Barabbas, one who is a convicted murderer and is most certainly going to harm others if released to them.  The crowd chooses Barabbas.

If we have studied the Biblical account found in Mark chapter 15, we know that the leadership of the Jewish priesthood wanted Christ crucified so as to end His threat to their position in that society.  But, why would the crowd agree with them?  Why would they accept a convicted murderer to be released from captivity into their midst where he is certain to kill again? 

What did the priesthood have to offer the crowd for accepting a killer?  My conclusion is that the crowd chose Barabbas because essentially they agreed with the Jewish priesthood on this principle:  they preferred the consequences of their own self willed decisions to humbling themselves before the God Who loves them. 

The world today still prefers self-destruction from the consequences of their own evil decisions rather than choosing to place their faith in the principles of truth in God's Word that would redeem their lives.  People today say that if they have nothing but a garden of weeds, at least it is still their own weeds.  They choose to be the captian of their own souls, the masters of their own fate, even if it is a garden of weeds and thorns.  If only they would trust the eternal Husbandman who cares for His garden, they would find fulfillment and peace, health and prosperity without such sorrow. 

It is the blessing of our God that He gives benefit to us and He adds no sorrow to it.  His blood that was shed in the scourging and on the cross of Calvary is His supreme blessing to us.  That gift has purchased our salvation from eternal destruction:  redemption of our souls from what should have been the fate of our evil choices.  Instead, He gives us the fellowship of the Holy Spirit to guide us through life to an eternal home of love and peace.

The world may choose Barabbas today.  I choose Christ today.  What is your response?