Cleave Unto the Lord

But cleave unto the LORD your God, as ye have done unto this day.-Joshua 23:8

Having won the Promised Land, Joshua is giving final instructions to the leaders of Israel. He’d talk about this again in Joshua 24. In both Deuteronomy and Joshua, you get these warnings to hold onto God and remember God when the good times come.

We tend to think we need to hold onto God when things go poorly, and we do, but scripture is far more concerned about what we do when the need for God from an Earthly perspective is at a minimum. It is at those times, when to our natural eyes, God appears to be like a cup of hot cocoa, a comfort and a luxury that we are in the most danger of losing faith and falling away.

I’ve known of the minister who faints in the day of adversity, and he walks away from God, and wanders off into sin. But success kills far more souls than failure and disappointment ever good. We need to ask ourselves some questions? Are we using God?

There are people out there who know that God blesses people and they want some of that blessing. They want to be blessed in their finances, they want to know success. They want to experience the power of God falling like an ocean. They want God’s benefits. Yet, what did Christ have to say to them. When a group people followed him after the feeding of the 5,000, he said this:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. –John 6:26, 27

There were people with Joshua whose whole thing was, “Lets follow God to get the Promise Land.” Joshua said, “No, cleave to God.” Why Cleave to God? Because he’s the only thing worth cleaving to. Nations rise and fall, businesses succeed and fail, people die. Yet, God’s there. Read through the Bible, every time, the people of God fell and turned to Sin, God would send his prophets to call people back.

He’s the seeking God, whose nature doesn’t change. People change and relationships change, but He is the Lord who changes not. You can rely on him.

God wants to know you in simple ways. Revelations 3:20,
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Think about this. God wants to come over and share lunch with you. He wants to share every part of your life. The greatest reason to Cleave to the Lord is because he wants so desperately to cleave to you, because he first loved you.

Let us cleave until the Lord, not because of what he will give us, but because of Who He is.

Some Recent Carnivals I’ve Been In

I’m behind on my Carnival host tips, so here’s a list of recent carnivals I’ve been in:

Carnival of the Clueless
Carnival of the Vanities
Carnival of Satire
Carnival of Liberty

The Ugly Face of Eminent Domain

From Latino Issues, we have a disturbing story out of Long Beach about Filipino Baptist Church being condemned by Eminent Domain:

During a segment on Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” March 3, church member Sally Derro said when the church building was given to the congregation, it was an answer to many years of prayer.

“Every day, the young kids pray that this church would not fall,” church member Jovine Agustine added.

Roem Agustine, pastor of the Filipino Baptist Fellowship, said the city has made proposals for an alternative site, but none of them have been acceptable.

“Either they are small in area or they are in the redevelopment area of the city, and we don’t want to move to a place where later on we’ll be told to move out again,” the pastor said.

One of the proposed relocation sites was a bar.

Eastman, on Fox, said the church building is not in any shape to be condemned.

“It’s not blighted. We’re not talking about a rundown slum that’s boarded up with bars on the windows,” he said. “The church is a vibrant church. So we’ll challenge whether they’re allowed to take it at all.”

This is exactly the concern raised at the time of the Kelo decision. Churches have $0 property tax value to a city, so they’re easy targets under that doctrine as Kelo interpreated.

My honest question for this Council is where their decency it is, in taking away a church that’s so important to this community. Its the revolting moral calculus of thieves.

Abortion Imperialism

Pro-Life Blogs had a story this week that needs a little context to understand the depth of it:

“While high-profile media attention has been focused on South Dakota’s effort to outlaw abortion, Hawaii is quietly set to become the baby killing center of the Pacific,” said Judie Brown, president of American Life League.

House Bill 1242 is predicted to pass Hawaii’s state house this week and then proceed to almost certain passage in the state senate. This bill allows abortions to be performed in any doctor’s office; current law requires it to be done in a hospital. Also, this bill would remove the 90-day residency period for a woman obtaining an abortion in Hawaii. Although an effort to expand legal abortion to include viable as well as non-viable babies was defeated in the house, senators may try to re-insert that provision in the bill.

Now, the phrase of the Pacific caught my attention. I thought about the ninty day residency requirement. Now Hawaii is an island surrounded by a lot of other islands in Oceanasia. I did a search and found the laws of the nations in Oceanasia on abortion. In all the small countries that make up Oceanasia with the exception of Fiji, abortion on Demand is not available, nor for Socio-Economic reasons.

What’s going to happen is that Hawaii, by allowing anyone to get an abortion in a physician’s office is going to circumvent the laws of small, basically defenseless nations who have no ability to fight back due to lack of power and population.

If Hawaii was selling guns to citizens whose countries banned firearms, there’d be outrage, there’d be talk of imperialism. Instead, its okay, because its the one value our liberals want exported to the rest of the world, the one thing America does that they’re proud of: Abortion.

Abortion

The Idaho Liberal Civil War

There’s been a pretty interesting drama going on at 43rd State Blues. It all started when Boise Weekly relieved Jill Kuratis of her current column. (I blogged about Kuratis’ idea that an 80% GOP Majority was bullying the Democrats by acting like an 80% majority) This led to some angst by iansensteng who wrote a letter to the Boise Weekly calling for Kuratis’ reinstatement. Regarding the post, the writer says:

This post has been the fastest spreading, most read article on our little blog site to date. Since I posted it yesterday, it has gotten hundreds of hits from people across the state.

Now, by hundreds, they mean 265 people. The author then posts comments that are absurd:

“I’m a newcomer to Idaho — here on a temporary work assignment. I planned to keep my head down while I was here in what I considered to be a “dreadful place.” Luckily I found the Weekly after a few months and Idaho started to seem a bit more livable.

I had no interest in following Idaho politics at all until I read Unda the Rotunda a few weeks ago. I started reading this blog and Red State Rebels, and I think I can actually name a couple of Idaho officeholders.

Now you tell me the Unda the Rotunda writer is fired? What’s wrong? Do I have to go back to hiding out and counting the days until I can reenter the civilized world?”

Wow, I’m a transient here temporarily and I hate your state. Bring back this column or I’ll start acting like a stuck up transient:

Just the other day, I posted about the “dangers of speaking up”… the nasty phone calls to your home, the attempts at banishment from your church, etc.

I thought I was bordering on paranoia… but it looks like I was wrong. It looks like those in power truly are afraid of those who are trying to point out the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes, and are willing to do whatever they can to shut us up.-Diana Rowe Pauls

Oh no, big brother got to Boise Weekly. Say it ain’t so. They got Jill Kuratis fired! Or did they? Bingo Barnes of Boise Weekly responded:

I wish to clear something up here. Jill Kuratis was not fired from writing for Boise Weekly. We assigned a new writer, Shea Andersen, who writes for Reuters and New West, for the remainder of the legislative session for our Unda The Rotunda news column. We still anticipate Jill Kuratis taking on specific issues regarding important and relative topics going on in state and local governments. Please correct this in your posts so that I stop getting hate mail.

In other words, Jill Kuratis was re-assigned. Note, that Bingo wants to stop the hate mail. (He doesn’t mind feedback but hate mail is another thing.) To this the writer responds:

As to details regarding Jill’s employment status, I think you’re splitting hairs to a certain extent. What you’re describing are internal organizational and employment technicalities that are somewhat irrelevant to the world of your readership.

So its irrelevant that she still works for the paper.

What’s worse than an extreme minority that goes off on far left tangents that offend the viewpoints of most Idahoans? An extreme minority that’s at each other’s throats over a trivial issue. Such is the situation when the Liberal Idaho blogs go after the Liberal Idaho press.

Now Jill Kuratis posted a response expressing her support for the paper, but I don’t expect that to calm things down.