Daily Devotional; formerly Chaplains Corner

[Woodnut]

AMEN !
Thanks Terry.

[Popgunner]

Chaplain Terry & all,
I find myself in a situation where my family & I (wife & three daughters) are getting ready to leave for a trip to the indian reservation in July to do service. We're going as a small group of Mormons that's our "ward" which is basicly our neighborhood group of about 500 of which around 80 will go on this trip to build houses & a school & we'll be donating the building materials & labor. The problem is that a friend of one of my daughters has just come home from the place we're going & has reported to the kids that those we'll be helping were rude & acting very ungratefull towards those giving service. My kids (14, 21 & 23 years old) have asked that we reconsider & maybe not go. We had a talk as a family on Sunday & prayed & have felt that we should go for at least a couple of days(the whole length of time is a week that we could be there).
We've been able to talk as a family about the reason for our service being to show love for our neighbors & not to recieve acolades & I found Matthew 5: 43-48 about loving enemys & not doing things as the publicans did to be showy. I could use some help if anyone knows of some more applicable Bible passages to bouy us up about this trip.

[ampaterry]

Popgunner, my Mrs. has Cherokee blood, so we have a special place in our hearts for the N/A peoples. The tribes here, and in Alaska, are quite different. They have different customs, different mannerisms, different culture. We have spent several fabulous summers in our South-West, and absolutely loved it - but were NEVER treated well by the N/A people there. On the rez, even when buying gas - a CUSTOMER - the N/A folks running the station made it pretty clear they would prefer that we ran out of gas and died in the desert. We have tried to give support on more than one occasion over the years to the people in that area, and have been rebuffed repeatedly.
But we continue to try!
Why?
Because of all the people that claim to be wronged in this country, the N/A have the absolute best case. From the time we bought huge tracts of land for handfuls of beads, we have screwed these people over and over. We took their land, we took their culture, we took their means of livelihood. We took their children to be raised in OUR ways. We sterilized them. We removed them from the fertile land and stuck them in the most sterile and worthless areas of our nation. And then, when anything valuable (like gold or oil) was found on that land, we moved them AGAIN.
We introduced them to smallpox and other diseases for which they had no immunity.
We introduced them to alcohol for which they have a genetic weakness.
They were a proud people.
They still are a proud people.
Being grateful to those of us that TRULY try to help them is very difficult for them, considering the history of our interactions.

I believe the best attitude is:
We want to do something for you, because we care about you.
Our ancestors screwed your ancestors, and you are paying the price.
I know you don't trust us, and I don't blame you.
But we still want to do something for you.

There is a HUGE difference in the case of the N/A attitude and the attitude of, say, the ungrateful parasites in New Orleans. I know SEVERAL church groups that went down to help with the clean-up, and ended up quitting the effort due to the "You owe it to me" attitude of the people there.
The New Orleans folks are an example of people that have been on the public dole for generations, and need to be kicked off and forced to do for themselves.
The N/A folks have been screwed for generations and actually DESERVE our help.

You have the best passage - continue on into the next chapter for a few more verses, too - -

[ampaterry]

Let me add to the above response to clarify;
Not all N/A people are worthy of respect.
Not all New Orleans people are worthy of contempt.
I was speaking in generalities here; there certainly are exceptions in both cases.

[Popgunner]

Thanks Terry
Good thoughts & history for sure.
I may read your comments if I have a chance to the whole group that's going if I can. We used to go to Mexico for the same type of service but it got too dangerous there. If we stay humble we'll do better. Thanks for your thoughts.

[ampaterry]

The move from the Mexican mission was a good one.
We entered Mexico from Belize a couple years ago, and I still remember the beady-eyed stare given me by a Federali holding an M-16 as we went through the border.
God bless you in your mission work!

[ampaterry]

Today is the Islamic holiday of Lailat-ul-Miraj. This day may also be called Lailatul-Miraj, Isra Miraj, Miraj al-Nabi, Isra, Me'raj and Laylat al-Mi'raj. Due to the Islamic calendar being completely out of tune with the real world, this holiday – like all Islamic holidays – can come at any time of year. This day commemorates the ascent of Muhammad into heaven, where he was instructed that all who follow Islam would pray five times a day. This ascent was not physical, but a vision.
During the Ascent, Mohammad claimed he met Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and some other Prophets. The purpose of the Ascent was to confirm the high status of the Prophet of Islam. It is related that the Angel Gabriel, accompanying the Holy Prophet, remarked at one stage, "I cannot go any further, but you, O Messenger of peace and friend of the Master of the worlds, continue your glorious ascent.” At the end of it, the prophet came very near to the throne of God, which is called Moksha in Arabic.
Unlike the ascensions in the Bible, this one is unwitnessed, uncorroborated, and resulted in no information of value to anyone.

Compare the fact that when Elijah ascended, Elisha witnessed it:
2 Kings 2:11-12 (KJV);
And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it . . . . .

When Christ ascended, his disciples witnessed it:
Acts 1:9 (KJV);
And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

For this holiday, we have the word of Muhammad that it actually happened. Perhaps Miraj would be better spelled Mirage.

God bless each one of you -

[Woodnut]

Amen ! and Amen.

[jack404]

Terry he not only claimed to meet historical characters but also fictional ones such as Nimrod , pic and lek of mythology , just more proof to me that all of islam is mythical at best if not outright lies ( the polite way to say its all bunkum )

his trip may not have been witnessed or had a purpose other than making a bedtime story , but it does show how desperate to imitate Christianity and Judaism he really was

[ampaterry]

I did not come across that, Jack - good grief, he really WAS desperate!

[jack404]

modern islam does not like to mention it puc was the demon Loki from my studies here are some contradictions that islam despite the lies just cannot justify so pretend they aint written but its all there

from , "A rebuttal of islamic history"

section 19 , Refuting the Claim About Jurhum

Ibn Ishak claimed that the tribe of Jurhum lived in Mecca as far back as the time of Abraham. He also claimed that Jurhum was the grandson of Joktan, the son of Eber. He further claimed that Jurhum’s original name was “Hathrem.”[7][vii] The significance of the name “Hathrem” is that it is characteristic of Arabic-style names used at the time of Ibn Ishak, which was in the 8th century A.D. The names given in the inscriptions of Yemen and northern Arabia are totally different from the style of the names given in Ibn Ishak’s genealogies, which reflect the names of his generation. It is a fact that no inscription, no Greek or Roman historian, and no geographer who visited Arabia, ever mentioned a tribe called Jurhum. The first mention of Jurhum we find it in a poesy of Ummyya bin Abi al-Salet, the maternal cousin of Mohammed, who also claimed to be a prophet. The poem attributed to Ummyya says “the Lord of Ad and Jurhum” [8][viii]. First of all, the poem most probably was composed after the event of Islam, because we do not have in Jahiliyah pre-Islam any mention about Jurhum. The idea that many of the Jahiliyah poetry were added after Islam is embraced by great scholars such as Tah Hussein, the famous Egyptian scholar. Secondly, for the case of argument, if we want to admit the originality of such verse, we could not build upon it a history that a nation called Jurhum existed in Arabia since the time of Abraham, because Ummyya was contemporary of Mohammed, and he can't be a source of documentation about a nation which would have existed prior to his time by 2700 years. Because there were no archiving methods and no printing like we have today, it’s commonly accepted that tradition can be considered accurate only if it was written within four centuries of the writers. If Jurhum existed as tribe in Arabia, it could have been a small tribe that appeared some time after the Christian era. Since no classical writer mentioned this tribe, if existed, it should have been insignificant. Ummyyia's poems are full of myths: such as his claim that the Queen of Saba, who visited king Solomon was his aunt; he claimed this to justify his claim to the role of prophecy. In addition, Ummyyia had relationship with a Jinn-devil, who used to instruct him, which proves that he was a part of the occult religion of Arabia. If we want to accept this poem as composed by him, how can we rely on poems of such personality to establish history dating back to 2700 years before his time?
Enormous historical mistakes exist in the Quran, and the genealogies created after the rise of Islam, to support the Quran. Some examples are the genealogies regarding Thamud and Nimrod.

There are other serious historical mistakes in the Islamic genealogies regarding the tribe of Thamud. Thamud is an Arabic tribe which appeared in the 8th century B.C., as was attested at the time of the Assyrian King Sargon II through his Inscriptions. Thamud later lost its political power about the 5th century A.D. The Islamic genealogies attempted to back statements made in the Qur’an which placed Thamud and Ad – another Arabian tribe which appeared after Thamud-as tribes which came right after Noah. So they created a father for the tribe of Thamud and named him “Thamud.” Then they claimed he was the grandson of Shem, the son of Noah.[9][ix] All this was created just to fit the narration of the Qur’an.
The Qur’an claims that the tribe of Thamud was the third generation after Noah, ( The Qur'an made the Arabian tribe of Ad to be second generation after Noah's generation; then Thamud as the third generation, See Surah 7:69; 23:31,32;14:8,9) and it was condemned by Allah to be punished by a wind. (The wind was the god who brought judgment in Zoroastrianism. We know this is also an enormous historical mistake. Not only did Thamud not appear until the 8th century B.C., but the official history, as shown by Assyrian inscriptions, demonstrates that Thamud continued to exist during the 7th century B.C. Also, writings by various Greek and Roman geographers who wrote about Arabia, said Thamud continued until the 5th century A.D. as a politically-organized tribe which occupied a large part of northern Arabia. No wind destroyed the tribe, as the Qur’an claims.

This should be enough to convince us, but there’s yet another enormous historical mistake in the Islamic genealogies. This one concerns Nimrod. According to Genesis 10:8-11, Nimrod was the first builder of the old cities of Mesopotamia. He was the son of Cush, the son of Ham, the son of Noah.We can date him to between 5000 and 4500 B.C. Islamic genealogies correctly state that Nimrod was the son of Cush, but incorrectly state that he lived around the time of Abraham.[10][x] This false claim about Nimrod was made to conform to a mistake in the Qur’an, which made Nimrod reign at the time of Abraham. The Qur’an says Nimrod persecuted Abraham and cast him into a fire which did not harm him. We read this in Surah al-Anbiya' 21:51-70 and Surah al-Safat 37:95. The narration of the Qur’an is taken from the Jewish book called Midrash Rabbah, chapter 17.
We urge Muslims to study history, and to compare the facts to what they have been told in the Qur’an and in Islamic tradition. The claims of Mohammed, the Qur’an and Islam are clearly unfounded. Even if such historical errors were accepted by the followers in Mohammed’s time, we now have so much more evidence which proves them in error. How can anyone embrace these enormous mistakes, when a simple study of history demonstrates how wrong they are.
No one has the right to claim he descended from a specific man who lived 2,000 years before him, unless he has written documents which testify to his claim. In Mohammed’s case, those documents simply do not exist. We have no proof that the ancestors of Mohammed were the descendants of Ishmael

[ampaterry]

I have seen amazing things in my life. I have seen communication go from black and white movies to color, cinemascope, and surround-sound mega productions. I have seen the old scratchy radio broadcasts become high fidelity stereo television shows. I have seen commercial airline travel go from slow propeller driven craft to monster jets that span the globe in just a few hours. I have seen the Telephone go from a wooden box on the wall with a crank on the side of it to a sleek little cell phone people carry in their pocket or purse. I have seen preservation of food at home go from a wooden box we purchased ice to put in for cooling to wonderful refrigerator/freezers that operate perfectly, quietly, and efficiently, and produce ice for us to use. I have seen the lumbering automobiles that weighed a ton and a half with less than 100 HP engines turn into smaller, more nimble vehicles that have up to five hundred HP engines.
It is with regret that I see those wonderful movie technologies used to portray so much filth and decadence. It is a shame that the Television set is used so often to bring language into our living room that I would have been whipped for speaking when I was a kid. It is a sorry world when those hyper-fast jets take less time to get us from place to place than it takes airport security to clear us to board them. I am ashamed of many of the conversations I hear on those wonderful new cell phones. I am appalled by the junk food that most people keep in those wonderful new refrigerators. And, I find it glaringly obvious that the five fold increase in Horsepower under the hood is paired with a decrease in horse sense behind the wheel.
The Word of God speaks of wisdom:
Proverbs 12:8 (KJV);
"A man shall be commended according to his wisdom: but he that is of a perverse heart shall be despised."
Proverbs 13:15 (NCV);
"People with good understanding will be well liked, but the lives of those who are not trustworthy are hard."
Proverbs 23:15-16 (NCV);
"My child, if you are wise, then I will be happy. I will be so pleased if you speak what is right."
Let us seek advances in wisdom to match the advances in technology which we enjoy, so that we might utilize those advances better than many are now doing.

May God richly bless each one of us -

[Woodnut]

AMEN !

Terry, you have said the things that I have said many times in the past, only explained it much better than I. It is my belief that the modern things, such as TV, cell phones, and a lot of other things are what is wrong with our world today. Back in the day, my family would walk for a mile or two at night just to visit, then return home late that night after a very interesting visit. I miss those times, and I blame modern convenience's for that.
I just can't express myself as you can, hopefully you get my drift.

[jack404]

Same here folks , we'd get together and help each other dig vege plots or to dig up taters or move a chook house .. or just have some tea and scones in the shade

miss them days a heap eh

[reflex1]

What more can be said - all three have covered it completely - thanks guys! Yes Terry - I remember all that stuff also! Don't know if it's good or bad or a combination!!!

[ampaterry]

Thanks, guys!
Carl, I understand exactly what you mean.
A day of SLOWER living is what I miss.
We lived on a state highway, and traffic was so slow there that one day when my mom was baking bread in her old wood-fired range, a guy driving past SMELLED it, and pulled in the driveway to see if he could buy a loaf from her.
He left with a fresh loaf - no charge.
Every kid I knew owned a gun. NONE were ever used in a crime.
We ate two meals a day together as a family when school was in, and three meals a day together when school was not in session. There were NO exceptions to this; attendance was not optional!
Meals consisted of what mom chose to cook. There were no alternatives, no choices - you ate what we had. No, doing without was NOT an option; you ATE it, period.
I see kids so spoiled rotten that their mother will cook three or four main dishes so each kid gets what they want. It is sickening, and they are doing these kids NO favor.
We knew all the neighbors within five miles of our house. Today, people don't know the people that live across the street!
Community is gone, and we can blame the electronic age for that. It is easier for me to talk to you in Australia, Jack, than it is for me to talk to the folks on the next farm that do not have the internet.

The advantage is, though, that we form pseudo communities; people that do not live near each other, but share a common interest! The folks on the next farm are liberals, so in this case the pseudo-community is MUCH stronger than the neighborhood community could ever be!

Reflex, I think it is a combination; some good, some bad.

[ampaterry]

I read about a foolish man who declared he could conquer the whole British army. When he was asked how he could possible perform such a feat, he said, "This is what I would do. I know I am the best swordsman in the world, so I would go and challenge one British soldier and kill him, then take another, and kill him. In this way I would eventually conquer the entire British army.
Modern seminar goers will recognize the similarity of this to that common business advice for conquering monstrous tasks; it is compared to eating an elephant.
How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time.
There is an application of this to the Christian witness. If we want to conquer the world for the Lord Jesus Christ, rest assured we must do it in this same fashion. We must take people one by one, and these must be brought to Christ. Otherwise the great mass will remain untouched. Do not imagine for a moment that you are going to convert a nation at once. You are to convert the people of that nation, one by one, through the power of God's Holy Spirit. It is not for you to claim you will lead an entire city to Jesus Christ. You must look to the salvation of only one person. And then of another. And another.
The Word of God tells us how to deal with individuals:

1 Peter 3:12-16 (NCV);
"The Lord sees the good people and listens to their prayers. But the Lord is against those who do evil. If you are trying hard to do good, no one can really hurt you. But even if you suffer for doing right, you are blessed.
Don't be afraid of what they fear; do not dread those things. But respect Christ as the holy Lord in your hearts. Always be ready to answer everyone who asks you to explain about the hope you have, but answer in a gentle way and with respect. Keep a clear conscience so that those who speak evil of your good life in Christ will be made ashamed."

One bite at a time, my friends – one bite at a time.

[Woodnut]

AMEN !
Thanks for starting my days in the right direction Terry.

[jbmid1]

I need to request prayer.

My wife's brother's wife experienced a seizure. Now she's being taken from Idaho to North Carolina for an operation. I didn't get the specifics, but I'm assuming it's pretty
serious. Brother-in-law is taking it pretty hard, as is my wife.

Thanks in advance;

[Airdale]

Prayer sent from the Ozarks.

[ampaterry]

Originally Posted by jbmid1

I need to request prayer.

My wife's brother's wife experienced a seizure. Now she's being taken from Idaho to North Carolina for an operation. I didn't get the specifics, but I'm assuming it's pretty
serious. Brother-in-law is taking it pretty hard, as is my wife.

Thanks in advance;

Heavenly Father, we come before you today with a special request. This lady has a malady, the specifics of which we do not know. But you, father, know exactly what it is. You designed these bodies of ours, and you know everything about every one of us, exactly what is wrong and exactly what it takes to make it right again. We ask, Lord, that you would be with this lady. We ask that you would have mercy on her. We ask that you would bring a healing to her. She is going in for surgery, Lord, and we ask that you would be with the entire medical staff that will be working on her. We ask that everything would be done exactly correctly, with no mistakes. We ask that you would bring healing to her. We do not pray about the tools you may use, we only ask for the healing itself, because you are the source of all healing.
We also ask that you would be with the family and friends of this lady as well, that you would strengthen them during this time, and that you would give them assurance that you are in control of this situation.

And we ask these things in the name of Jesus the Christ - the Great Physician.

[jack404]

and from here

Amen

[ampaterry]

Keep us posted, jbmid1 -
Prayers continue from TN -

[ampaterry]

In our front pasture, there is a pond that fills from a wet-weather spring which often fills the pond to overflowing. The overflow runs through a waterway in the pasture that passes through a culvert in our drive, and then into Dry Branch. In the summer, this waterway is lush and green when the pasture is dry, due to the longer period of time that it receives water. In the winter, when everything is frozen, this waterway is lush and green, kept above freezing by the fresh spring-water that flows through it. When it is very dry, or very cold, we see the horses up in this waterway, eating the lush fresh grass when the rest of the pasture is too dry, or dead from winter’s frost.
You should notice the same thing in the world. Although the world is dry, the LIVING water of the Word of God keeps bringing forth new life! When the world is frozen and lifeless, the passage of the living water warms the parts of it that it comes into contact with and those parts are kept alive, fresh and growing. The Word of God addresses this in the present in
Isaiah 32:1-4 (KJV);
"Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly."
And the word of God addresses this in the future in
Matthew 24:9-13 (KJV);
"Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved."
Continue to nurture yourself from the Word of God, and you will be that fresh, green waterway both today and tomorrow when the world is dry, barren, and frozen.

God bless you, guys!

[Woodnut]

AMEN !
Thanks for your daily dedication to the forum and to us as readers of your words.