Muslims: Our Neighbours!

  

Many of you probably watched the US president’s state of the union address Tuesday evening. Apart from his pre-occupation with political and economic issues, one thing he said caught my attention. 

He made a direct overture to the Muslim population in the States, assuring them they were part of the American family. The whole chamber gave a standing ovation to this statement.

Personally, I was heartened by this display of inclusion, although Maclean’s May 24^th 2009 magazine found that 45% of Canadians consider mainstream Islam encourages violence, and many Christians are ambivalent about the growing Muslim presence.

The massive migration of Muslims from their homelands to the west in recent years, bears testimony to the desire for escape from religious tyranny to the freedom of expression (however challenged) of western nations.

Ann and I have had contact with a number of Muslim families over many years, and found that, whatever interpretation others place on the Quran’s promotion of violence, most Muslims want what we all want: freedom and security to raise their families. The violent Islamist fringe threatens them as it threatens us.

I find Jesus’ own approach to people enlightening. He took exception to the leaders of His own faith who discriminated against “sinners” opposed to their ideals, and spent most of His time with those “sinners.” While making clear His message, He still attended to their needs for healing and forgiveness though none except 120 would respond to His message.

It seems to me that Jesus’ would censure us for our reluctance to engage and serve the Muslim and other religious communities. They are as deserving of His care and concern as the “sinners” of His earthly time. Disagreement with  beliefs is no excuse for discrimination. For Jesus, they are like sheep without a shepherd.

What do you think is our first priority: to convert them or care for them? Certainly the two are related, but where do we start, and is the purpose of love to convert?

Our Favourite Excuse: “I’m a Victim!”

Read the story at http://www.canada.com/health/Packing+pounds+blamed+weight+Walmart/4131466/story.html.

Have an expanding waistline? It’s not your fault! Some-one else is to blame: WALMART!

Canada.com reports that “researchers found that one new Walmart supercentre per 100,000 residents meant an average weight gain of 1.5 pounds per person sometime over a 10-year period dating from the store's opening.”

Apparently, they are trampling our good health by allowing us to trample their inner aisles seeking cheap delights and fodder. Maybe we can sue Walmart for our waistlines like the woman who sued McDonalds for injury from hot coffee!

With obesity responsible for decreasing Canadian health, Walmart must be responsible for the extended health care line-ups and increasing health care costs. If Walmart is responsible for our poor health, then it’s reasonable to consider someone else is responsible for our character failings.

Of course, our parents! Their poor example and errors in our up-bringing make us the people we are. And I thought I was responsible for the way I behave. They are to blame and should be charged for my failures.

Most of us can’t sue our parents, they are probably dead. Problem is, they had parents also whom they could have sued, and their parents had . . . The Bible’s right, it’s all Adam and Eve’s fault for the way we are now.

Really? Don’t they have the same excuse? Let’s face it. They didn’t put the snake in the garden. Walmart has shown us that yielding to temptation is not the sin, it is in providing the opportunity to yield. And that God supplied! That’s better; finally have that guilt monkey off my back.

Let’s revel in our new-found innocence. Let’s continue in corpulence, disease and death, and finish in the fires of Hell. After all, we have the greatest excuse: It’s all someone else’s fault!

Adultery: The Good Life?

Want an affair? It’s just a click away. Go to the Ashley Madison website and sign up!

Already the site has 7.3 million registered users, and the controversial ad rejected for the Super Bowl claims adultery is the answer to cheating mates. Even more controversial is their tag line: “Life is Short. Have an Affair."

You can read the story at

http://www.canada.com/entertainment/Adultery+given+boot+from+Superbowl/4134589/story.html

It’s another a version of “Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Where there is no God, there we can make up our rules for life, and anything goes. In fact, this website not only calls evil good, but also provides the facility to practice evil.

The Bible is clear, prohibition against adultery is the seventh commandment. Furthermore, it warns of “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20), and to those who “approve of those who practice [evil]” (Romans 1:32).

Adultery has been termed, “the soft underbelly of the law,” primarily, because it is widely held that sexual adventurism does not create victims. Of course, this is a lie. There are always victims of adultery: the husband or wife of the perpetrator; worse, children of the union.

Contrary to popular opinion that western society is subject to domination by other religions or terrorism, it is far more likely that any failure of western society will result from the break up of the family. And those who advocate our downward anti-God spiral will lead the way.

Nature’s Rampage: The Coming End of the World?

Some tell us the end of the world will occur on 12/12/12. The dates are aligned; not sure about the planets. Perhaps the floods and mudslides currently engulfing the world are portents of what’s to come.

It does seem that tsunamis, wildfires, earthquakes, floods and rain, snow and ice storms during the first years of this millennium occur more frequently and with greater intensity than in living memory. Indeed, now in my mid seventies, I cannot recall the same frequency and scale earlier in life.

Many Christians consider these signs of the end times, and it must seem like the end of the world for those living through these disasters. Yet in relation to this, Jesus said, “Such things must happen, but the end is still to come,” and “These are the beginning of birth pains” (Matthew 24:6 and 8).

Others, of a more practical bent, tell us that our pollution is warming the planet and increasing the ferocity of natural events. We definitely need to clean up our planet, but is this the whole story?

If Adam’s fall teaches us anything, it’s that sin defiles the land, and his sin resulted in a curse on the ground. Henceforth, the newly destabilized earth would not act according to its original design (Genesis 3:17–18).

Later, Moses warned that sexual sin defiles the land (Leviticus 18:24-28) and shedding of blood pollutes it (Numbers 35:33–34). So we have to ask ourselves: Is the licentious spree of western nations, and the bloodthirsty extremism developing in Muslim nations responsible for nature’s current rampage?

No wonder Paul reminded us: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:19–21).

Hope for our planet is not in controlling greenhouse gases, as important as that may be, but in the glorious return of Jesus Christ, who will not only bring peace to the nations, but also return stability to our planet.