Everything happens for a reason.  That reason causes change.  Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it is hard.  In the end though, it is all for the best.  Never stop trusting God and believing in His plan.

 

When we feel alone in our relationship with Jesus Christ, when we feel abandon by friends, acquintances, the people we work with – take solace in this:  we are not alone.  Jesus Christ walks with us now, today!  He walks with us onward into eternity.

 

Your past does not determine your future.  It is God’s presence that determines your success.

 

I do not put my faith in the one who sits in the white house – I put my faith in the one who sits on the throne.

The Justice League is a great movie of action and use of talent.  There is to much there, to many things going on for the plot to be revealed.   I would like to share with you the last scene of the movie and what took place and I know that I will not be giving away the plot.

There is a contrast in this movie between the dark of night and the light of day.  The movie opens with a scene that takes place at night.  None the less, it is a the cops responding to a crime.  One of the crime stoppers all dressed in black and looking like a  bat shows up to save the night.   There is another scene of a crime taking place in the day.  What these two scenes demonstrate is that evil is all around us and can strike when the sun is up or when the sun is down.  Most of the action scenes between the good guys and the bad guys take place in the dark – that is, in a cave.  The villians are made to look mean and evil as monsters dressed in black and with faces that strike fear into the heart.  There is the contrast between light and dark, good and evil, love and sin.  It reminds you of the force in Star Wars, how it is used for good or evil and then the dark side.  

One of the characters makes a comment about how they had been dead and then being raised from the dead.  There is only one person in history that changed the course of humanity by being raised from the dead and we all know who that was – Jesus Christ.  One has to be careful watching this movie as it takes a poke at Christianity.

At the end of the movie, Lois Lane sits down to write an article for the newspaper and she says this for an opener.  “True darkness is not just the absence of light but it is the conviction that it will never be again.”  Think about that for a moment – the conviction that what once was shall never be again.  This is the darkness that is found in the world today.  It squeezes out every bit of life and suffocates everything around it that is good.  This allows evil to exist making everything under the sun permissible. 

Christians know this to be different.  True darkness was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and hanging there on that cross.  It was the anguish of God the Father having to sacrifice His one and only Son.  It was His Son for the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of man.  True light is Jesus Christ and that light came into focus with the resurrection of God’s one and only Son.  It is the reflection of God’s glory thru His Son.

I would have loved to see the joy in heaven when Jesus was raised from the dead. As a matter of fact, you could hear the joy when that momentous event took place. Christians have this hope that they will one day see this light.  Satan was defeated once and will be defeated again.

A teacher met four men the other day at a local deli, a father and his three sons and had a very ‘eye opening’ conversation.  The father introduced himself as Over and his three sons as Hind, In, and Fore.  His sons were married and all had children.  He said that when he was raising his sons there were things he did not plan on or plan for and did not figure them into the whole role of being a father.  Over said that he did not even consider he would be an integral part of the lives of his boys and that now he had become intrinsically interwoven into the very fabric of their lives.  Hind said that as he looked back there were things that he regretted doing and wished he had the opportunity to go back and make things right.  Fore said that he was looking forward to what lay ahead because he made some changes in the outlook of his role as a father.  In said that looking back at where he had been, at where and who he was now and was thinking about the type of legacy he wanted to leave his sons. He said he was prepared to be a father and that he knew there may be things that come up which would catch him off guard.  Then the teacher asked the father, “I did not hear your last name, what is it?”  Then the father said “I am sorry!  Sight.  I am Over Sight, this is Hind Sight, this is Fore Sight and this is In Sight.”

Joseph DeBoo

The first Thursday in May.  NATIONAL PRAYER DAY!  It is good to see diverse groups of people get together and focus on the needs of this world – of which there are many – with everything that is going on and writing a new chapter in the book called “Life in The World Today”.  For me personally I think the two greatest moments that happened are – North Korea and South Korea meet and shake hands as they come together for the first time in I am not sure when but for many people it has been long since coming.  The leaders got together and shook hands as their ideologies are different but they came to agreement on many things.  That unified front has been in the making for many, many years and it finally happened.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have the pope.  He pretends to be the head of the Roman Catholic Church but does a horrible job at keeping Catholicism unified.  Since the beginning of the Church which is after the Ascension of Christ, Christians have long believed in the existence of Heaven and Hell.  In March of 2018, Pope Francis said that hell does not exist.  He said “people who do not repent of their sins and do not ask for forgiveness or believe that God does not exist do not go to Hell but rather just disappear.”  This statement falls directly in line with the Jehovah witnesses who say that there is no hell.  If there is no hell then there are no consequences for any immoral act done.  It would mean that sin does not exist and that there is no Satan.  It is a place that Jesus Christ talked about more then any on in the Bible.   Jesus also refers to hell as ‘Hades’.  That means it is imperative that we understand the importance of why hell exists.  In otherwords, hell is a reality.

The name”National Day of Prayer” is a misnomer because it might lead one to believe that prayer is not essential when it comes to belief in a relationship, specifically with God when in reality prayer is a two way conversation with God.  Prayer is to the Church as a bat is to a ball.  Prayer is a lifestyle, not just a one time act.  Prayer is the strongest weapon there is when engaged in spiritual warfare.  It is stronger than any manmade weapon.  It is a tool that should be said everyday and is most effective in conversation with God.  The point is that the National of Prayer does not mean one can store up all their prayers and say them on this day.  Rather it is a day that stresses the importance of a relationship with God.