What wonderful book! Yet another in Ravi's "Great Conversations" series. In this imagined conversation between Jesus, Oscar Wilde, and Blaise Pascal, Ravi addresses so many things that are relevant to us today. I have listed an excerpt below for your perusal and edification! Thanks again for reading!

"I walk these streets every night because this is where life's biggest mistakes are made. And this is where the most wounded and hurting spirits walk in shells of bodies-the living dead. This is where they begin to forcibly separate what I have joined together. They're like men walking to their graves in the dark, blinded by these colored lights...to the sepulchers they are being dragged by the seducers of their imagination. They call these the streets of pleasure. How untrue! How deceitful! How destructive! I hear more screams from here at daybreak than I do from beds of sickness." - Jesus

Sense and Sensuality: Jesus talks with Oscar Wilde on the Pursuit of Pleasure, by Ravi Zacharias, Copyright 2002, ISBN: 1-59052-014-9

Personal Note:

The Picture is unrelated to the rest of this note...just a picture of the kids this past Sunday...I'm not a bit proud! ;-)

Just a quick note to all my friends out there!

It's been a great week and I am thankful to God for it. I started my fourth job this week! It's going to be interesting. I now am a full-time student, a Dad, a husband, a part-time worker for the Veterans Administration (MGIB), A Virginia Air National Guardsman, a full-time real estate agent, and a technician for the Department of Defense. It is a busy life! I love it though, and don't have any plans to change it any time soon.

This week was also finals week for the Summer Term. I just completed my last final a little while ago. What a relief! Also sold one house this week and obtained contracts on two others. Time for a break.

Saving the best for last, I am particularly happy because I linked up with two very much missed old friends this week. A shout out to Big John and Jeremy: Great hearing from you guys! Would love to spend some time! Don't hesitate to yell if you are ever in this neck of the woods!

Y'all have a great weekend!

Tuesday - Faith Works by Love

Well you should be into the swing of things now in this new week. I trust all is going well for everyone. This week I have begun another job and I have finals for yet another term - ever in pursuit of the Bachelor's Degree. We'll get there eventually.

Then I'll be out of school for about three weeks and I have lots of home projects to accomplish in that time. Hopefully, we will be able to see some of our family too. We will have to wait and see. Here's the post for today.

"Next to love in importance comes faith. Love is the driving force. Desire (love pure or perverted) controls, contrives, creates all that ever comes to pass. Emotion, not reason, is at humanity's helm. Love motivates, but faith acts. Faith is action. By faith alone can a man act. Faith carries out the urges of love. Faith works by love."

- Norman Grubb

Raptor Power

Just a quick plug for my favorite airplane! I have permanently embedded the Raptor Demo video at the bottom of the page. 21 July I return to the daily game. Those of you who know me, know what that means. I also will still be doing real estate, so...don't worry. Thanks to all my readers for visiting! Keep coming back - we're trying to reach 2000 hits by the end of August. Have a great week!

Higher Power

"I found no comfort in any of the philosophical ideas which some men parade in their hours of ease and strength and safety. They seemed only fair-weather friends. I realized with awful force that no exercise of my own feeble wit and strength could save me from my enemies, and that without the assistance of that Higher Power which interferes in the eternal sequence of causes and effects more often than we are always prone to admit, I could never succeed. I prayed long and earnestly for help and guidance. My prayer, as it seems to me, was swiftly and wonderfully answered."

- Sir Winston Churchill

From p. 182 of Never Give In, by Stephen Mansfield ISBN: 1-888952-19-9

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people."

John Adams:

“ The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
• “[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
–John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was approved by Congress

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798

"I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means, and my busy life, would allow; and the result is that the Bible is the best Book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the libraries I have seen." December 25, 1813 letter to Thomas Jefferson

"Without Religion this World would be Something not fit to be mentioned in polite Company, I mean Hell." [John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, April 19, 1817] |

The First Charter of Virginia

(granted by King James I, on April 10, 1606)

We, greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God…

Instructions for the Virginia Colony (1606)

Lastly and chiefly the way to prosper and achieve good success is to make yourselves all of one mind for the good of your country and your own, and to serve and fear God the Giver of all Goodness, for every plantation which our Heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted out.

Patrick Henry - "Orator of the Revolution"

"This is all the inheritance I can give my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed.”
—The Last Will and Testament of Patrick Henry

“The Bible is worth all other books which have ever been printed.”

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”

[May 1765 Speech to the House of Burgesses]

The Lamb & the Fuhrer

Just a brief review this Sunday of another wonderful book I completed this week by Ravi Zacharias titled, "The Lamb & the Fuhrer: Jesus Talks with Hitler." It is a well-done imaginary conversation as Hitler meets Christ for the first time after committing suicide. Juxtaposing the tenets of Hitler with those of Christ through quotes from Christ, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Hitler himself, one may plainly see the emptiness of the philosophy that altered the world inexorably from what it was before that time. I recommend the book and give it four stars of five. Enjoy!

New Series - Part 1

Regularly in the educational sphere and in the media, America is presented as a secular nation not founded on principles of right and wrong (particularly Biblical morals). While researching for a July 6th worship service, I found a treasure trove of documented quotes from our founding fathers that prove this notion and its consciously propagated untruths utterly ridiculous. I wish to share some of these with you all for your perusal, education, and enjoyment.

James Madison:
“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

[1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia]

New Series - America!

I have decided to run another series. It is kind of tied to the Barak Obama series and Independence day celebrations this month. Today I want to start out by plugging a particular website I learned about this week: http://www.factcheck.org/

This website is a very good resource particularly during election year. Please visit and spend some time there. Truth is a great thing!

The Challenge of Change

Enjoy the challenge of change – Every situation is either a challenge or a threat. To the confident it is a challenge; to the fearful it is a threat. The situation is the same, but the reaction is different. Would you like to change from threat to challenge? View every new potentially threatening experience as an experiment. Be objective like a reporter and become interested in watching yourself go through the experience. Gain understanding as you step outside yourself.

- Unknown

July Fourth 2008

We spent a few hours at the beach. Then we got some KFC and went to the park to picnic. After that we went to Fort Monroe to watch fireworks. They had a pretty long show and a nice Grand Finale. We had a fun Fourth. I enjoyed the time with my family.

The End of Reason

I just finished an excellent book, The End of Reason, by Ravi Zacharias. I sat down to read a brief excerpt and didn't put the book down until I had read it cover to cover. In an eloquent response to atheists everywhere, Ravi systematically reveals the bankruptcy of atheistic arguments and demonstrates yet again why Christ is worthy of consideration. I encourage anyone who sees this blurb to read the book. It will challenge and deepen you on whichever side of the fence you are.

Who is Obama?

Hmm.... Check it out: http://www.exposeobama.com/

A Muslim Past...Future?

An article worth Reading: here.