mistic.flame

This was in an email my dad forwarded to me:
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Our real roots…A history lesson that needs to be told….

Did you know that 52 of the 55 signers of The Declaration of Independence were orthodox, deeply committed Christians? The other three all believed in the Bible as the divine truth, the God of scripture, and His personal intervention.

It was the same congress that formed the American Bible Society. Immediately after creating the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of scripture for the people of this nation.

Patrick Henry, who is called the firebrand of the American Revolution, is still remembered for his words, “Give me liberty, or give me death.” However, in current textbooks the context of these words is deleted. Here is what he said: “An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle sir, is not of the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.”

These sentences have been erased from our textbooks.

Consider these words that Thomas Jefferson wrote on the front of his well-worn Bible: “I am a Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator and, I hope, to the pure doctrine of Jesus also.”

Consider these words from George Washington, the Father of our Nation, in his farewell speech on September 19, 1796:

“It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion, and morality are the indispensable supporters. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Was George Washington a Christian? Consider these words from his personal prayer book: “Oh, eternal and everlasting God, direct my thoughts, words and work. Wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the lamb and purge my heart by the Holy Spirit. Daily, frame me more and more in the likeness of thy son, Jesus Christ, that living in thy fear, and dying in thy favor, I may in thy appointed time obtain the resurrection of the justified unto eternal life. Bless, O Lord, the whole race of mankind and let the world be filled with the knowledge of thy son, Jesus Christ.”

Consider these words by John Adams, our second president, who also served as chairman of the American Bible Society. In an address to military leaders he said, “We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

How about our first Court Justice, John Jay? He stated that when we select our national leaders, if we are to preserve our Nation, we must select Christians. “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, was the sixth U.S. President. He was also the chairman of the American Bible Society, which he considered his highest and most important role. On July 4, 1821, President Adams said, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President of the United States reaffirmed this truth when he wrote, “The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”

In 1782, the United States Congress voted this resolution: “The congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools.”

William Holmes McGuffey is the author of the McGuffey Reader, which was used for over 100 years in our public schools with over 125 million copies sold until it was stopped in 1963. President Lincoln called him the “Schoolmaster of the Nation.”

Listen to these words of Mr. McGuffey: “The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our notions on character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe. On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions. From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures. From all these extracts from the Bible I make no apology.”

Of the first 108 universities founded in America, 106 were distinctly Christian, including the first. Harvard University, chartered in 1636. In the original Harvard Student Handbook rule number 1 was that students seeking entrance must know Latin and Greek so that they could study the scriptures: “Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let everyone seriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of him (Proverbs 2:3).” For over 100 years, more than 50% of all Harvard graduates were pastors!

It is clear from history that the Bible and the Christian faith were foundational in our educational and judicial system. However, in 1947, there was a radical change of direction in the Supreme Court. Here is the prayer that was banished: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee. We beg Thy blessings upon us and our parents and our teachers and our country. Amen.”

In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading was outlawed as unconstitutional in the public school system. The court offered this justification: “If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could and have been psychologically harmful to children.”

Bible reading was now unconstitutional, though the Bible was quoted 94 percent of the time by those who wrote our constitution and shaped our Nation and its system of education and justice and government.

In 1965, the Courts denied as unconstitutional the rights of a student in the public school cafeteria to bow his head and pray audibly for his food.

In 1980, Stone vs. Graham outlawed the Ten Commandments in our public schools. The Supreme Court said this: “If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments were to have any effect at all, it would be to induce school children to read them and if they read them, meditated upon them, and perhaps venerated and observed them, this is not a permissible objective.”

Is it not a permissible objective to allow our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments?

James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution of the United States, said this: “We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments.”

Today we are asking God to bless America. But, how can He bless a Nation that has departed so far from Him?
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read more at http://www.wtv-zone.com/Mary/forsakenroots.html

You guys probably know that I tend to “wear my heart on my sleeve.” I’m willing to share my thoughts and feelings with prettymuch anyone. About the only time I hold something back is when I think it might hurt someone.

Well, I’ve had this thought in my head for some time that I needed to break up with Nikki. She’s a sweet girl, I really like her. But I don’t want to marry her. We don’t have quite the same goals in life.

I was mostly worried that it’d be rough on her. I couldn’t see any gentle way to do it. But I didn’t talk to anyone else, because I wanted Nikki to be the first to know. I only talked to God. I asked him to help me out, and to take care of her. I was really dreading it. But I was hiding my feelings.

I am a little bit sorry about telling a number of you that we were doing alright when that wasn’t my true opinion, but I think you can understand. I might do it different in the future, but I decided that this was how I wanted to handle it this time. And maybe, just maybe, I won’t be in this situation again.

It was a bit amusing how the breakup happened. Earlier this week I made up my mind that I needed to do it. But I wanted to do it in person. She has been busy all week and I’m going to be out of town all weekend. So I wasn’t really sure when I’d get to see her next.

Then yesterday I got a text message that she wanted to break up with me. She thought I was going to hate her. My first thought:

That was easy.

I called her up and we talked a little bit and I’ve still got a great friend.

I’m pretty sure that this was the first time I’ve ever gotten dumped as an answer to prayer.. Hopefully it won’t happen again.

• I would gain control of the most powerful nation in the world.
• I would delude their minds into thinking that they had come from man’s effort, instead of God’s blessings.
• I would promote an attitude of loving things and using people, instead of the other way around.
• I would dupe entire states into relying on gambling for their state revenue.
• I would convince people that character is not an issue when it comes to leadership.
• I would make it legal to take the life of unborn babies.
• I would make it socially acceptable to take one’s own life, and invent machines to make it convenient.
• I would cheapen human life as much as possible so that the life of animals are valued more that human beings.
• I would take God out of the schools, where even the mention of His name was grounds for a law suit.
• I would come up with drugs that sedate the mind and target the young, and I would get sports heroes to advertise them.
• I would get control of the media, so that every night I could pollute the mind of every family member for my agenda.
• I would attack the family, the backbone of any nation.
• I would make divorce acceptable and easy, even fashionable. If the family crumbles, so does the nation.
• I would compel people to express their most depraved fantasies on canvas and movie screens, and I would call it art.
• I would convince the world that people are born homosexuals, and that their lifestyles should be accepted and marveled.
• I  would convince the people that right and wrong are determined by a few  who call themselves authorities and refer to their agenda as  politically correct.
• I would persuade people that the church is irrelevant and out of date, and the Bible is for the naive.
• I  would dull the minds of Christians, and make them believe that prayer  is not important, and that faithfulness and obedience are optional.
• “I guess I would leave things pretty much the way they are.”

By Paul Harvey

Francis sent me an email and I lol’d

Jesus and the devil were having an on-going argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering.
Finally fed up, God said, “THAT’S IT! I have had enough.
I am going to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I will judge who does the better job.”
So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away.
They moused.
They faxed.
They e-mailed.
They e-mailed with attachments.
They downloaded.
They did spreadsheets!
They wrote reports.
They created labels and cards.
They created charts and graphs.
They did some genealogy reports
They did every job known to man.
Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell.
Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the power went off.
Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known in the underworld.
Jesus just sighed.
Finally the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming:
“It’s gone! It’s all GONE! “I lost everything when the power went out!”
Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from the past two hours of work.
Satan observed this and became irate.
“Wait!” he screamed. “That’s not fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don’t have any?”
God just shrugged and said,

JESUS SAVES

It’s weird how hard it is for a lot of people to say nice things about themselves. Is it modesty? Our culture?
I asked Wayne to write a letter of recommendation for me to send to MIT. He agreed, then told me to write the letter myself and he’d rewrite it in his own words and sign it.

I don’t think I’ve been given a task that hard in quite a while.

It took me two hours to write 14 lines. Sure I can give myself a compliment at the drop of a hat. but it’s usually something that’s either shallow or tongue in cheek. It doesn’t take me that much effort to give someone I know well a genuine compliment. I bet that in 2 hours of writing I could come up with more than 14 lines even for people i don’t think that highly of.

I mean, the first line in my myspace ’about me’ is “Hey, I’m nathan. I think you’re awesome.” Again, tongue in cheek, but in general it’s true.

I don’t think it’s a self esteem issue, at least not for me. Could it be humility or restraint? family values? an attempt at sophistication?

How about you guys, how much genuine praise can you give yourself? If it’s a lot or a little, why do you think so?

I was at the Rock of Ages in Venezuela last week and it was like a whole different world. It was like we were just surrounded with love and caring instead of the hustle and bustle we’re used to. I got to see Gods word being truly lived down there.

We arrived at the airport late at night and more than a full day behind schedule. Were they at all upset with us for keeping them waiting? No - we were greeted with smiles and hugs and kind words. I had never met these people before in my life, I looked different, didn’t even speak their language, and yet they took me in like family!

This attitude was steady thought the entire week. I joked that it was a big game of charades, but the care and concern of the believers we met in Venezuela made doing my work not only possible, it made it enjoyable! (And I did have work to do - everybody worked!)

The Word of God that was taught was passionate and accurate! The theme verse was

I Corinthians 4:1
Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.

A verse from Corinthians was appropriate considering that one of the first things addressed in Corinthians was the division between the believers and the Rock was hosting believers from a good number of different churches.

I learned so much last week! I completely filled my notebook on the front and I took a good chunk out of the back too. One of my favorite points was the word for “ministers” is also translated “servants” but it literally means “under-rowers” as in the guys in the bottom of a boat doing the work of rowing! This is how we’re supposed to be seen: under-rowers for Christ!

The scenery was stunningly gorgeous. In the morning, before we could see the sun, the whole area was already lit up. The sun was hidden behind a mountain, but the light bounced around through the valleys and got to us early. It was a beautiful sight.

The women down there were beautiful too, and Man can Latinos dance! I have this sneaking suspicion that youtube will have a video of some of them dancing, and more hilariously, me attempting to dance….

Oh, and I drank the water and it was great (of course, we were in the mountains, not in the cities.) I didn’t wear bug spray at all and I got maybe a couple of bites, and I didn’t wear sunscreen but twice.

The latin food, btw, was absolutely awesome! Especially all the juices - hand squeezed on site!

Anyways, I definately intend to go back next year, and probably every year after that. I made some friendships that I expect to last the rest of my life. And Francis and I have both started learning some Spanish :P

Love you all,
Dios te bendiga (God bless you!)
-n

P.S. Pictures!

Sarah and Saul

Two of previous Ambassadors:

The main point of The Rock of Ages is to welcome back the last years ambassadors and commission the next years bunch.

The ambassadors are folks who are sent out to a city somewhere with the sole purpose of moving Gods word. They’d start a home church just like the one I do (fellowship) and talk to everybody they come across about the word.

Some fire side music

We were divided up into “mini-churches” ( a lot like my home fellowship) and on the last day each church did a skit showcasing something that had been taught during the week. This was part of my church preforming in our skit.

This was my part in our skit (El diablo, comming to take away the mystery and generally tear the believers appart)

A couple of gangstas from a differnt skit

Our morning workout

Juan Cabrera, the man who organized and hosted the event.

Hey folks, I’m at the airport right now. I’m going to be taking 4 different flights today and ending up in Venezuela for the Rock of Ages!

If you’ve never heard of the Rock or Ages, it’s kind of a church get-to-gether. I used to go to ones in Ohio when I was a lot younger, but they quit doing those. We camp out and hear a lot of Gods word and generally have a good time :)

I’ll be popping on line at airports today, but I don’t know if I’ll have internet down in Venezuela. I’ll be flying back in the evening on Easter Sunday.

I’m expecting this to be an amazing trip, you’ll hear more about it when I get back!

Love you all (Especially Nikki)
-Nate

[UPDATE]
Ok, so because myspace completely blows, this blog was never copied over to my real blog or to facebook, instead they got a pair of “unable to read blog” lines.. Anyways, I’m back now. Expect to see a post with how awesome it was coming up soon.