Tips To Live By  

Show Notes

• On Demand Episodes           18339          

  Original Air Date: 2/28/2009 4:00 AM UTC

  Parenting from a Christian perspective.

  Parenting from a Christian perspective touches on parenting issues faced by anyone raising a child and features an interview with award winning childrens book author Michele starkey.
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  • Tags:
  • Parenting
  • Children
  • Christian
  • Michele
  • Starkey
  No Comments

• Date / Time: 12/10/2008 1:11 AM UTC

  Regarding Gay Being The New Black

  
  
  
  While watching CNN recently and more specifically the Larry King show, Joy Behar  of The View who was sitting in for Larry King that night asked a question.  She asked, " is gay the new black".  This question was raised in response to the defeat of California's Proposition 8 which made gay marriages in the state of California illegal.
  
  The question alludes to the mistaken notion that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle choice and that the defeat of this piece of legislation occurred out of blind hatred.  This question also seeks to equate the gay rights movement with the civil rights movement of the 1960s.  Although they may look very similar on the surface, they are in fact polar opposites.
  
  While it is true that many homosexuals have been physically abused, ostracized, persecuted and even killed simply because of their sexual orientation, it is unfair and even an insult to equate the fight to openly live such a vile and unnatural lifestyle with a movement that fought for the right of a people to merely exist in a country that kidnapped them from their homeland and brutally enslaved them.
  
  To equate the gay rights movement with the civil rights movement of the1960s is simply appalling.  It is also extremely naive to think that because a black man is now President for the first time in the nation's history our struggle as a people is over.   Surely the burden is lighter, but how can four years or possibly eight years with an African-American president at the helm undo more than two hundred years of injustice and oppression.
  
  Please understand and know that I don't for a moment seek to antagonize anyone or that I condone violence against  our gay brothers and sisters.  I do not condone violence of any kind against gays or anyone else.  Nor do I believe it to be right for my Christian brothers and sisters to hatefully and venomously condemn our gay brothers and sisters under the guise of doing God's will.
  
   I do however believe as scripture says, "...neither was man  created for the woman, but woman for the man" 1 Cor.__ 11:9  I also believe that marriage one the most sacred of all institutions and the very first institution created and ordained by God himself was and is intended to be a divine union between a man and a woman regardless of their race.  To this end scripture is clear, "Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." __ Heb. 13:4  Careful study of this passage of scripture reveals that it is speaking to the sanctity of marriage and the marital bed and that all sexual immorality will be judged by God.
  
   Let's face it, everyone knows there is a God and that his word ( the Bible) is true. Man's arrogant and foolish refusal to acknowledge him can not negate the fact that he is.  It is written, " For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities -- his eternal power and divine nature -- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." ___ Rom. 1:20
  
  It is also written that "... light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." __Jn. 3:19  Because men would rather believe a lie than accept the truth of God, it is written, " God gave them over to shameful lust.  Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.  Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.  Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done." __ Rom. 1:26-28
  
  To those in the homosexual community who would hide behind the most commonly misused passage of scripture in Matthew 7 1-5,  Our Lord is not issuing a blanket statement against all critical thinkig, but a call to be discerning rather than negative.  It is a warning to us all against the kind of hypocritical, judgmental attitude that tears others down in order to lift oneself up.
  
   Homosexuality is nothing more than a counterfeit originating in the celestial and sinfully sick, diabolical mind of that old deceiver. It is a powerful weapon designed to disrupt, ensnare, mislead and ultimately destroy.   It is a cheap knock off that hardly resembles the original.  
  
  • Tags:
  • Homosexual
  • God
  • Church
  • California
  • Proposition 8
  No Comments

• Date / Time: 8/28/2008 2:57 AM UTC

  How To Truly Live Your Best Life Now From God's Perspective

  How to truly live your best life now from God's perspective
  
  
  Today we're constantly bombarded by images and messages of people who claim to have discovered 'the secret' to living.  Books that teach the humanistic message of positive thinking and right living without an introduction to Jesus Christ rapidly become New York Times' best sellers.  The extremely prolific  self-help industry is little more than a modern day Tower of Babel. It's architects foolishly believe that there's a shortcut to God or even that we are our own god.   It promises that which it is absolutely powerless to deliver.
  
   All of this is made worse by the fact that the television airwaves are littered with the catastrophically dangerous message of the so-called "prosperity gospel."  A tragically, heretical message  which erroneously teaches: you + Christ = wealth.  While it is true that the cattle upon a thousand hills belong to our Lord, no where in the Bible are we promised earthly wealth if we accept Jesus.  While it is true that Psalms 37:4 reads, " Delight thyself in the Lord and he shall give you the desires of your heart."  Delighting ones' self in God is not nor was it ever intended to be a prerequisite to fame and fortune.
  
    One of the many dangers of this theology is that it teaches the believer to use God for his own selfish material gain while the Bible teaches us to be used by God for the advancement of His Kingdom.  This heretical doctrine reduces the Holy Spirit who is the third person in the God-head or trinity and equal in importance to both the Father and the Son to little more than some mysterious, cosmic genie waiting to miraculously do our bidding.  This is in stark contrast to the teachings of scripture which teaches us that the role of the Holy Spirit is to enable or empower the believer to be used by God.  Evidently this is what our Lord was referring to when he said, " But you shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you..."  The so-called "prosperity gospel" is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord and it's minister's are among the false prophets spoken of in scripture.
  
   For this reason, Apostle Paul warned his young protege Timothy that the, " Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.  But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.  And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.  But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.  For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after , they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.  But thou, O man of God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness."   __ 1. Timothy 6: 5-11  
  
  Now having said that, I am not saying that being wealthy is sinful.  Nor am I saying that the rich or wealthy are automatically going to hell.  Scripture plainly states, " And I saw the dead  small and great stand before God..."  So it doesn't matter how rich you are or how rich you are not.  Unless you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as both Lord and Saviour, a blazing, burning hell shall most definitely be your eternal home.  
  
  Now you may ask, what has all of this got to do with me living my best life?  Well, the absolute first step to begin living your best life involves the ability to recognize and accept the truth no matter how painful it may be.   I've actually heard one pastor tell his congregation that God is not angry with anyone and that God has only good things in store for us.   Many pastors today have distorted God's character thereby presenting society and the Church with a mere caricature of who God really is.
  
   Current conceptions within our society, which dominate the thinking of many, portray a failure to properly assess the reality of God's wrath. A general attitude of permissiveness, laxness, and indiscriminate tolerance has blanketed American society. This mentality manifests itself both in and out of the church.  Out  of the church, we see all across our land people unconcerned about seeking God. They structure their own lives, they make their moral choices based upon their own desires with no consideration for God.  In  the church, members comfortably relax in the presence of impenitent sin and in open defiance of the laws of God. Some Churches demonstrate a willingness to toy with unscriptural innovation while other Churches  entertain fellowship with false religion.  The Church is in danger of loosing her sense of alarm and urgency in providing wayward church members and an unevangelized world with the divine antidote to sin and their lost condition.
  
  Out of this context, voices have arisen which focus almost exclusively upon the love of God. Emphasis is repeatedly placed upon God's compassion, God's mercy, grace, kindness and his longsuffering character. We, in fact, are seeing a preoccupation with the goodness and the beneficence of God. Don't misunderstand me. One can never emphasize God's love enough but one can be guilty of misrepresenting the true nature of that love. One can so present the love of God, that the equally Biblical doctrine of God's wrath makes no sense and thus fades into irrelevance. Read the following passages which detail the amazing love of God: Matthew 6:30; 7:11; John 3:16; Romans 5:6-8; 8:32; I John 3:16; 4:9,10; Titus 3:4; Exodus 34:6,7; Psalm 103:12; Isaiah 1:18; 38:17; Micah 7:19. Of course, the Bible contains many, many more allusions to God's love and God's grace and mercy. These few serve to summarize the basic essence of the incredible love that is God.
  
  But we also need to integrate, to blend, to harmonize this Bible doctrine with what the scriptures teach about God's wrath.  I invite you to carefully consider passages in both Old and New Testaments which depict God as a God who executes his wrath against people. This aspect of the God of heaven has been mostly overlooked and ignored in our society.   Exodus 20:5 introduces us to the nature of God, who God is. It says, "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them [speaking of idols] for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." "For the Lord thy God is a jealous God among you lest the anger of the Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth" (Deuteronomy 6:15). "For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward' (Deuteronomy 10: 17). You can not bribe God, he will deal swiftly with people and execute judgment . Deuteronomy 29:27, 28 says, "And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in the book: and the Lord drove them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day." "Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, 'Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?'" (Deuteronomy 32:27)
  
  While it is true that God is the very definition of love; God does indeed have a wrath and there are those with whom he is not at all pleased.  There are those for whom His supernaturally long patience is beginning to wear thin.  Again, what has all of this got to do with me living my best life.  Scripture advises us to, "take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine..."  ALthough this was Apostle Paul's advice to Timothy it is still very much relevant today to both minister and lay people.  
  
  We must be ever so mindful of the fact that it is not enough to go to church on Sundays and continue living unchanged, defeated lives.  It is no longer enough to neglect the Word and precepts of our Lord only to blow off the dust and pick it up on Wednesday night Bible studies.   The Psalmist wrote, " thy word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against God."   The world must be able to see an indelible contrast between the character and actions of the redeemed and the character and actions of it's own.   Scripture reads that we are a city that sitteth on a hill, a light which cannot be hidden and that friendship with the world is enmity with God.  
  
  
  • Tags:
  • God
  • Live
  • Life
  • Best
  • Church
  Comments (1)

• Original Air Date: 8/2/2008 3:00 AM UTC

  How To Truly Live Your Best Life Now

  How to live your best and to the fullest from God's perspective.
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  • Tags:
  • God
  • Life
  • live
  • perspective
  No Comments

• Original Air Date: 7/26/2008 3:00 AM UTC

  Why so many religions?

  An indepth look at why there are so many religions in the world.
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  • Tags:
  • religions
  • world
  • Christ
  • God
  • Jesus
  No Comments

• Original Air Date: 7/19/2008 3:00 AM UTC

  What is Christianity?

  A journey through Christianity throughout the ages from man's perspective versus God's perspective.
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  • Tags:
  • Christ
  • God
  • Jesus
  • Christianity
  • man
  No Comments

• Original Air Date: 6/14/2008 3:00 AM UTC

  What To Do When Yesterday Won't Die

  This is a show for anyone who feels stuck in a rut or who has had difficulties letting go of a painful past. Tune into to hear the how to's of how to get up and out of the yesterday trap.
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  • Tags:
  • Yesterday
  • stuck
  • rut
  • God
  • Christ
  Comments (3)

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