Morning
The Lord our Righteousness.
Jeremiah 23:6

It will always give a Christian the greatest calm, quiet, ease, and peace, to think of the perfect righteousness of Christ. How often are the saints of God downcast and sad! I do not think they ought to be. I do not think they would if they could always see their perfection in Christ. There are some who are always talking about corruption, and the depravity of the heart, and the innate evil of the soul. This is quite true, but why not go a little further, and remember that we are "perfect in Christ Jesus." It is no wonder that those who are dwelling upon their own corruption should wear such downcast looks; but surely if we call to mind that "Christ is made unto us righteousness," we shall be of good cheer. What though distresses afflict me, though Satan assault me, though there may be many things to be experienced before I get to heaven, those are done for me in the covenant of divine grace; there is nothing wanting in my Lord, Christ hath done it all. On the cross He said, "It is finished!" and if it be finished, then am I complete in Him, and can rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, "Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." You will not find on this side heaven a holier people than those who receive into their hearts the doctrine of Christ's righteousness. When the believer says, "I live on Christ alone; I rest on Him solely for salvation; and I believe that, however unworthy, I am still saved in Jesus;" then there rises up as a motive of gratitude this thought-- "Shall I not live to Christ? Shall I not love Him and serve Him, seeing that I am saved by His merits?" "The love of Christ constraineth us," "that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto Him which died for them." If saved by imputed righteousness, we shall greatly value imparted righteousness.

Evening
Then Ahimaaz ran by the way of the plain, and overran Cushi.
2 Samuel 18:23

Running is not everything, there is much in the way which we select: a swift foot over hill and down dale will not keep pace with a slower traveller upon level ground. How is it with my spiritual journey, am I labouring up the hill of my own works and down into the ravines of my own humiliations and resolutions, or do I run by the plain way of "Believe and live"? How blessed is it to wait upon the Lord by faith! The soul runs without weariness, and walks without fainting, in the way of believing. Christ Jesus is the way of life, and He is a plain way, a pleasant way, a way suitable for the tottering feet and feeble knees of trembling sinners: am I found in this way, or am I hunting after another track such as priestcraft or metaphysics may promise me? I read of the way of holiness, that the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein: have I been delivered from proud reason and been brought as a little child to rest in Jesus' love and blood? If so, by God's grace I shall outrun the strongest runner who chooses any other path. This truth I may remember to my profit in my daily cares and needs. It will be my wisest course to go at once to my God, and not to wander in a roundabout manner to this friend and that. He knows my wants and can relieve them, to whom should I repair but to Himself by the direct appeal of prayer, and the plain argument of the promise. "Straightforward makes the best runner." I will not parlay with the servants, but hasten to their master.

In reading this passage, it strikes me that if men vie with each other in common matters, and one outruns the other, I ought to be in solemn earnestness so to run that I may obtain. Lord, help me to gird up the loins of my mind, and may I press forward towards the mark for the prize of my high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Tags: State of the Union

A multiple-choice question concerning Wednesday January 27, 2010.

Which of the following events should have added to your understanding of the world and the interpretation of those happenings that may significantly impact your future?

1. Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union address to Congress as President of the United States of America.
2. In Europe there was a commemorative service remembering the sixty-fifth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
3. I bought a frozen pizza on my way home after getting my car repaired, ate it during the President’s address, and then thought about how impossible it would be to pay for it with real money.
4. All of the above.

Of course the correct answer is D all of the above.

Speculation before the State of the Union Address centered in the quandary of whether President Obama would stay on the liberal or progressive course of his first year as President or would he shift his emphasis towards the political center like Bill Clinton did in his first term. The most verbal conservative pundits were both right and correct, in Obama’s world, “The era of big government is not over and is alive and well!” at least from his Administration’s perspective.

Before we continue, am I the only one in the world that finds his speech giving technique extremely annoying? First of all he lifts his head like he is peering over and looking down on all the people, or perhaps it is more like an old man trying to read something through the bottom of his bifocals. Then he continually shifts from one teleprompter screen to another, never ever stopping to make eye contact with the primary camera. All the TV anchors really don’t find it all that hard, with some it seems that is the only thing they do well. Maybe we could buy another device with some Federal stimulus money and it could be mounted on the camera, or even on the back wall of the speaking venue, and then he could make his speech like a normal celebrity.

In an interview somewhat on the appearance of recent setbacks his Administration has suffered, the President responded somewhat in the following paraphrase: I would rather be viewed as a one term messianic President, rather than being a two term mediocre one.

This response seems totally out of touch with the reality, which is probably, if he does a really mediocre job in his first term, chances are still pretty good that he will be reelected. If he does even a reasonable job, he can’t be defeated. The only way he will not be elected to a second term is if he continues on the current course and his policies turn out to be a complete disaster. Viewing the Obama presidency as an “act of God” as a catalyst for traditional renewal now seems to be the bent of the rising constitutionally pragmatic historic center of the American citizenry. The pundits that view this as somehow an adrenalin boost to the Republican Party are just so – twentieth century. Read More...

Tags: State of the Union, Auschwitz, gold

At the close of my philosophy class at the end of my undergraduate college education, Mr. Gibbons stated essentially that your success in any philosophical argument that you may choose to pursue, really wasn’t due to the strengths or logic of your arguments, but rather the weakness of the position of others. This came as I spent the quarter discussing in written response to Mr. Gibbons questions, the role of language in our interpretation of reality, and a term paper on Philosophy and Science, with a conclusion that stated: Science is what my father uses to convince me to eat my peas and philosophy is what I use to state why I think (eating peas) is a bad idea, and “and” is the word that holds the whole thing together.

Of course none of these discussions dealt with the epistemology of sophisticated language itself and how it developed only in humans. To say that somehow it evolved from the grunts, howls, cries, and similar communications of less evolved animals, truly lacks any intellectual acumen. Furthermore that discussion would quickly require the reality of supernatural intelligence that never has been a prerequisite for what we call the modern university, which doesn’t deal with the real universe at all, and especially in the arts and humanities, mostly uncontested, ad hominem, personal bias about the universe.

We touched on those profound truths last week in our exegesis of the Genesis creation account. This week we continue along those lines looking at how sin entered the perfection of God’s creation and what that means to us today, a day and age when we think we have evolved to such a point that evil and sin no longer exist. That construction, again based not so much on the strength of the evolution argument, but rather a lack of anything looking like an argument from the other side in common life, or as Augustine defined the term, “City of God.”

In a worldview that holds that the beginning really isn’t that long ago, like thousands of years, rather than millions and billions of years, what we see demonstrated in creation, is not a revelation of the deity of creation itself, but rather the omnipotence of God. Furthermore when you look at human history, especially its violence and a sacrificial system of appeasement to nature’s supernatural gods, many times including human sacrifice, you see evil depravity at the opposite extreme of the continuum of good and evil, where our definition of good is some warm fuzzy feeling of my desire to withdraw from the reality of actual life.
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Tags: sin, God, Jesus, Genesis, IQ, evolution, U S Constitution, The Fall, sin cosmos

In our effort this year to provide more timely or more useful information for our readers we have replaced the old Community Tab with a new Phylogenesis Tab. In this new section of the site you will find the reason for the Phylogenesis designation as well as the Seven Principles of Business Ecology and the Five Lifestyle Curves. Further information on Business Ecology and Metis Phylogenesis and similarly extended topics by searching the archives.

Tags: Business Ecology

Today begins this new column focusing on the events of the last week, and their potential ramifications on future developments. Whether this week in review becomes weekly is probably dependent upon the weeks themselves, well as outside forces directly related to enterprise priorities. No matter how you choose to view the stupendous changes of this week we must agree there was a lot going on in the United States and her close neighbors.

Last week began recovery in Haiti, where the shift took place from looking for buried survivors in the quake’s rubble, to attempting to recover the now dead and decaying bodies. The last estimate I heard stated that total deaths may approach 200,000. This week, while the recovery of bodies continues, the true survival situation is reaching critical mass. So far the Haitian people have been very well behaved as aid has been slow getting into the country and out to the people. Perhaps that peace was, and is just the shock of trying to mentally cope with these catastrophic events. For the foreseeable future, the extremely difficult job of just surviving date to day, amongst the destruction, disease, poverty, hunger, and thirst of just plain life will begin to take a physical and emotional toll. That is true both within the country's citizens as well as those trying to minister help.

On Tuesday Massachusetts elected Scott Brown its first Republican Senator to fill the seat of the late Ted Kennedy, which had been in the Kennedy family since 1952. Brown was the first Republican Senator elected in the Commonwealth since the 1970s. Scott Brown is a center right Republican with a constitutional governance philosophy much the same as the recently elected governors in New Jersey and Virginia . While this is hailed as a great Republican victory and the end of the filibuster proof Senate, in a way it further points to the fact that the establishments of both the Republicans and the Democrats represent fringe views of the majority of the American people, which will make for more very interesting times as the Congressional elections approach this fall.
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Tags: Haiti, Scott Brown, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Supreme Court, populism, Ben Bernanke

Morning
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler
Psalm 91:3

God delivers his people from the snare of the fowler in two senses. From and out of. First, he delivers them from the snare does not let them enter it; and secondly, if they should be caught therein, he delivers them out of it. The first promise is the most precious to some; the second is the best to others.

He shall deliver thee from the snare. How? Trouble is often the means whereby God delivers us. God knows that our backsliding will soon end in our destruction, and he in mercy sends the rod. We say, Lord, why is this? not knowing that our trouble has been the means of delivering us from far greater evil. Many have been thus saved from ruin by their sorrows and their crosses; these have frightened the birds from the net. At other times, God keeps his people from the snare of the fowler by giving them great spiritual strength, so that when they are tempted to do evil they say, How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God? But what a blessed thing it is that if the believer shall, in an evil hour, come into the net, yet God will bring him out of it! O backslider, be cast down, but do not despair. Wanderer though thou hast been, hear what thy Redeemer saith:

Return, O backsliding children; I will have mercy upon you. But you say you cannot return, for you are a captive. Then listen to the promise Surely he shall deliver thee out of the snare of the fowler. Thou shalt yet be brought out of all evil into which thou hast fallen, and though thou shalt never cease to repent of thy ways, yet he that hath loved thee will not cast thee away; he will receive thee, and give thee joy and gladness, that the bones which he has broken may rejoice. No bird of paradise shall die in the fowlers net.

Evening
Martha was cumbered about much serving.
Luke 10:40

Her fault was not that she served the condition of a servant well becomes every Christian. I serve, should be the motto of all the princes of the royal family of heaven. Nor was it her fault that she had much serving. We cannot do too much. Let us do all that we possibly can; let head, and heart, and hands, be engaged in the Masters service. It was no fault of hers that she was busy preparing a feast for the Master. Happy Martha, to have an opportunity of entertaining so blessed a guest; and happy, too, to have the spirit to throw her whole soul so heartily into the engagement. Her fault was that she grew cumbered with much serving, so that she forgot him, and only remembered the service. She allowed service to override communion, and so presented one duty stained with the blood of another. We ought to be Martha and Mary in one: we should do much service, and have much communion at the same time. For this we need great grace. It is easier to serve than to commune. Joshua never grew weary in fighting with the Amalekites; but Moses, on the top of the mountain in prayer, needed two helpers to sustain his hands. The more spiritual the exercise, the sooner we tire in it. The choicest fruits are the hardest to rear: the most heavenly graces are the most difficult to cultivate. Beloved, while we do not neglect external things, which are good enough in themselves, we ought also to see to it that we enjoy living, personal fellowship with Jesus. See to it that sitting at the Saviours feet is not neglected, even though it be under the specious pretext of doing him service. The first thing for our souls health, the first thing for his glory, and the first thing for our own usefulness, is to keep ourselves in perpetual communion with the Lord Jesus, and to see that the vital spirituality of our religion is maintained over and above everything else in the world.

Deep Woods Moola link

Tags: Deep Woods Moola, Bill O Reilly

Psalm 8

O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength,
Because of Your enemies,
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,

What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?

For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,

All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,

The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

I shall assume that I am not alone when I consider the transcendence revealed in these words impossible to reconcile with the fact that so many say that this nature, this creation, all happened as the result of a freakish random event called the Big Bang some fourteen billion years ago. I don’t really see that calling it the Great Singularity really makes any change in that reality!

Of course, perhaps the result of my eccentric audacity, I also find it almost as difficult to believe that God began creating the heavens and the earth, as in the biblical creation account, on October 23, 4004 B. C., based on the Julian Calendar. This creation date was proposed by James Ussher in “The Annals of the Old Testament” published in 1650. The Protestant Ussher was Bishop of the Church of Ireland at this time and was hopeful that his chronology would help Irish Roman Catholics convert to the Protestant faith.

Furthermore I assume that both of these theories of creation stem from a basic but ignored truth. The sixteenth-century reformers, especially Martin Luther and John Calvin assumed that the minds of men were basically idol factories. This is verified first of all by empirical observation, but also in the Bible illumination of Jeremiah 17:9, The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

Calvin went so far as to compile a little pamphlet called the “Inventory of Relics” that listed all the divine antiquities of the established church. Whether that included just those of the Roman Catholic persuasion, or included also those of the Eastern Orthodox, I do not know. In any event, I would imagine the list was rather long and quite boring reading for twenty-first century tastes, but snippets are available on the Internet to get the general idea.

If God thought that the actual date of creation was a requirement for his plan of redemption of humanity, that date surely would have been codified within scripture. The same is true for the actual date of birth of Jesus, but that is a different story, and only listed here to show mankind’s idol making enthusiasms.
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Tags: Psalm 8, The Big Bang Theory, James Ussher, John Calvin, Lutheran, God, evolution, Christianity, Trinity, Genesis, kinds

Morning
And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion.
Revelation 14:1

The apostle John was privileged to look within the gates of heaven, and in describing what he saw, he begins by saying, "I looked, and, lo, a Lamb!" This teaches us that the chief object of contemplation in the heavenly state is "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." Nothing else attracted the apostle's attention so much as the person of that Divine Being, who hath redeemed us by His blood. He is the theme of the songs of all glorified spirits and holy angels. Christian, here is joy for thee; thou hast looked, and thou hast seen the Lamb. Through thy tears thine eyes have seen the Lamb of God taking away thy sins. Rejoice, then. In a little while, when thine eyes shall have been wiped from tears, thou wilt see the same Lamb exalted on His throne. It is the joy of thy heart to hold daily fellowship with Jesus; thou shalt have the same joy to a higher degree in heaven; thou shalt enjoy the constant vision of His presence; thou shalt dwell with Him for ever. "I looked, and, lo, a Lamb!" Why, that Lamb is heaven itself; for as good Rutherford says, "Heaven and Christ are the same thing;" to be with Christ is to be in heaven, and to be in heaven is to be with Christ. That prisoner of the Lord very sweetly writes in one of his glowing letters--"O my Lord Jesus Christ, if I could be in heaven without thee, it would be a hell; and if I could be in hell, and have thee still, it would be a heaven to me, for thou art all the heaven I want." It is true, is it not, Christian? Does not thy soul say so?
"Not all the harps above
Can make a heavenly place,
If God His residence remove,
Or but conceal His face."

Evening
And it came to pass in an evening-tide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house.
2 Samuel 11:2

At that hour David saw Bathsheba. We are never out of the reach of temptation. Both at home and abroad we are liable to meet with allurements to evil; the morning opens with peril, and the shades of evening find us still in jeopardy. They are well kept whom God keeps, but woe unto those who go forth into the world, or even dare to walk their own house unarmed. Those who think themselves secure are more exposed to danger than any others. The armour-bearer of Sin is Self-confidence.

David should have been engaged in fighting the Lord's battles, instead of which he tarried at Jerusalem, and gave himself up to luxurious repose, for he arose from his bed at eventide. Idleness and luxury are the devil's jackals, and find him abundant prey. In stagnant waters noxious creatures swarm, and neglected soil soon yields a dense tangle of weeds and briars. Oh for the constraining love of Jesus to keep us active and useful! When I see the King of Israel sluggishly leaving his couch at the close of the day, and falling at once into temptation, let me take warning, and set holy watchfulness to guard the door.

Is it possible that the king had mounted his housetop for retirement and devotion? If so, what a caution is given us to count no place, however secret, a sanctuary from sin! While our hearts are so like a tinder-box, and sparks so plentiful, we had need use all diligence in all places to prevent a blaze. Satan can climb housetops, and enter closets, and even if we could shut out that foul fiend, our own corruptions are enough to work our ruin unless grace prevent. Reader, beware of evening temptations. Be not secure. The sun is down but sin is up. We need a watchman for the night as well as a guardian for the day. O blessed Spirit, keep us from all evil this night. Amen.

by Jerry Bannon

We began this year in our original installment of “Why Me?” with a brief discussion of survival. For the last few days and for weeks and months forward we will see real life survival situations playing out on our televisions and featuring the people of Haiti. I used the term “playing out,” because when the video and the commentary are combined, we really cannot comprehend the reality of the situation. But it is reality.

The projected death toll continues to rise. News I heard last evening stated that the total deaths might reach two hundred thousand, with other casualties reaching three million. This within a country with a total population of eight to nine million, depending upon the source, which compares well with New York City.

How do you survive a situation like that?

The reality, after you subtract the death toll, is that you are almost totally dependent upon the good will of external aid and the grace of God. In the case of Haiti crushing poverty, before the quake, exacerbates those problems.

In the still richest country in the world, the effects of hurricane Katrina are still present in the city of New Orleans, as today their National Football League team battles to continue the city’s mental recovery.

Survival is essentially a mental and spiritual happening. Right now in Haiti and in all our other catastrophic recovery efforts, we focus upon immediate material aid, and once the crisis is over, survivors are pretty much on their own to answer the stupendous challenge of “Why Me?”

Our global economy essentially says, “It is not our problem, survival of the fittest is the supreme natural law.” Then they move their consumer kitsch factory to some other place.

Religion in common and specific senses, typified by the fundamentals of Judeo-Christian values, are the only support that will remain, but those efforts will be greatly hindered by the lack of capital to rebuild and restore human lives. The people of the United States will lead in that rebuilding effort, because they still are the most religious and graceful people in the history of the world. That is simply because the American ethos, really hasn’t changed, as it also has been pillaged by the global reach of what is beginning to be feely called “crony capitalism.”

As the United States moves forward, we too will be making survival decisions. God willing, those changes will not be as stupendous as now being forced upon the people of Haiti. In the battle of morals and morale, we will hear many words of our founding fathers, one of the most quotable being Thomas Jefferson. Let those words not neglect Jefferson’s vision of a nation of self-sufficiency in the form of yeoman farmers, freeholders, not of a mortgaged suburban home, but owners and stewards of their natural subsistence.

These diverse opportunities are in direct opposition to the attempts to create urban monocultures of consuming union factory and service workers. Extreme specialization is a genetic agenda that attempts to create dependency at the expense of common sense. In that comparison, the currently struggling people of Haiti, have been given an opportunity to rebuild, a more just and sustainable society than they have had in their history.

We the people and citizens of the United States of America, face a very different challenge. Our challenge is not to return to our roots that made the American Dream, the great hope of mankind, but instead to prune the tree of the excesses of all consuming material prosperity.

Contrary to what we are now being told that cannot come from governmental regulations and the redistribution of wealth. Nor can that change come from individual initiative without respecting the divine creation of all of humanity and the initial goodness of all of God’s creation.

Survival from stupendous change takes many forms on this small blue globe, orbiting in the universe of space. But we are not alone, we have a God that sustains it all and created us in his image, and we have each other, which reflects the unity and diversity of the Trinity, through individuals, tribes, and nations. So instead of believing that we have all the answers, we must go back to the fundamental common questions:

Where did we come from?
Why are we here?
What are we to do?
Where will we go when we die?

In God’s common grace if we work to understand the life questions in the middle, he will take care of the bookends.

Tags: Haiti, survival, self reliance, God

Tags: Haiti

The novel – novel

Novel:
1. noun: a fictitious prose narrative of book length, typically representing character and action with some degree of realism
2. adjective: new or unusual in an interesting way

Well if you reverse the position of novel two with novel one, you have the context of this current “Why Me?” undertaking. So this why me excursion will develop into a new, hopefully interesting way to describe a fictitious narrative, with some degree of realism, eventually the story line will relate to where we currently are, how we got here, and where we may be headed. Over these courses of course we will begin with the beginning, the beginning of it all, and move rapidly forward. Because of the genre, which herein is developed, we will do this in a linear fashion, which we will learn early on, may be in itself fictitious, in the grand scheme of the cosmos.

The idea for this exposé came from a book I purchased many years ago in the theological section of a used bookstore in Seattle. The story was written by a Lutheran pastor someplace in the eastern United States during the middle of the twentieth century. The scenario revolved around the historic figure of Martin Luther, given the heavenly assignment to return from eternity to check out what had happened to the church that bore his name, in the almost five hundred years since the Reformation. He was then to report back to God his findings and any recommendations to change the course of history. As I remember, the essence of that report, Luther found that Lutherans were basically majoring on things of minor importance, with a very minor emphasis on the specific historical truths of both the Reformation and Christianity.

In our current world where everything is all about me, all the time, in every circumstance, no matter the outcome, it logically follows; that in the good, we take credit as independent results of are ascending abilities. Anything that does not achieve the greatness that we hope, must be the fault of someone or something else. This failure also deserves greater distinction if we can blame it on other people as individuals.

Because of the historical context of this novel it makes no sense to blame this failure on our parents. In similar light for conservatives to say it is or will be caused by Barack Obama and the Progressives, definitely stretches credulity. In the same aspect for liberal Progressives to blame the current mess on George W. Bush and greedy capitalists really is a leap of blind faith into a world not of reality, but the cosmos of wishful thinking.
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Tags: John Calvin, Calvinism, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Christianity, Pentecostal, TULIP, Geneva, Calvary Chapel

Morning
There is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.
2 Timothy 4:8

Doubting one! thou hast often said, "I fear I shall never enter heaven." Fear not! all the people of God shall enter there. I love the quaint saying of a dying man, who exclaimed, "I have no fear of going home; I have sent all before me; God's finger is on the latch of my door, and I am ready for Him to enter." "But," said one, "are you not afraid lest you should miss your inheritance?" "Nay," said he, "nay; there is one crown in heaven which the angel Gabriel could not wear, it will fit no head but mine. There is one throne in heaven which Paul the apostle could not fill; it was made for me, and I shall have it." O Christian, what a joyous thought! thy portion is secure; "there remaineth a rest." "But cannot I forfeit it?" No, it is entailed. If I be a child of God I shall not lose it. It is mine as securely as if I were there. Come with me, believer, and let us sit upon the top of Nebo, and view the goodly land, even Canaan. Seest thou that little river of death glistening in the sunlight, and across it dost thou see the pinnacles of the eternal city? Dost thou mark the pleasant country, and all its joyous inhabitants? Know, then, that if thou couldst fly across thou wouldst see written upon one of its many mansions, "This remaineth for such a one; preserved for him only. He shall be caught up to dwell for ever with God." Poor doubting one, see the fair inheritance; it is thine. If thou believest in the Lord Jesus, if thou hast repented of sin, if thou hast been renewed in heart, thou art one of the Lord's people, and there is a place reserved for thee, a crown laid up for thee, a harp specially provided for thee. No one else shall have thy portion, it is reserved in heaven for thee, and thou shalt have it ere long, for there shall be no vacant thrones in glory when all the chosen are gathered in.

Evening
In my flesh shall I see God.
Job 19:26

Mark the subject of Job's devout anticipation "I shall see God." He does not say, "I shall see the saints"--though doubtless that will be untold felicity--but, "I shall see God." It is not--"I shall see the pearly gates, I shall behold the walls of jasper, I shall gaze upon the crowns of gold," but "I shall see God." This is the sum and substance of heaven, this is the joyful hope of all believers. It is their delight to see Him now in the ordinances by faith. They love to behold Him in communion and in prayer; but there in heaven they shall have an open and unclouded vision, and thus seeing "Him as He is," shall be made completely like Him. Likeness to God--what can we wish for more? And a sight of God--what can we desire better? Some read the passage, "Yet, I shall see God in my flesh," and find here an allusion to Christ, as the "Word made flesh," and that glorious beholding of Him which shall be the splendour of the latter days. Whether so or not it is certain that Christ shall be the object of our eternal vision; nor shall we ever want any joy beyond that of seeing Him. Think not that this will be a narrow sphere for the mind to dwell in. It is but one source of delight, but that source is infinite. All His attributes shall be subjects for contemplation, and as He is infinite under each aspect, there is no fear of exhaustion. His works, His gifts, His love to us, and His glory in all His purposes, and in all His actions, these shall make a theme which will be ever new. The patriarch looked forward to this sight of God as a personal enjoyment. "Whom mine eye shall behold, and not another." Take realizing views of heaven's bliss; think what it will be to you. "Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty." All earthly brightness fades and darkens as we gaze upon it, but here is a brightness which can never dim, a glory which can never fade--"I shall see God."

Why Me?

At the Wonder Springs Chronicle we often begin the year with a topical series that seems to be relevant to current or pending affairs. For example in 2007 we began the year with a thirteen part series on Stupendous Change, which was followed with a six part series on Business Ecology. Later we closed out that year beginning a fourteen part series on Symbiotic Economics, which continued into 2008 with twelve more episodes. In 2006 we began with seven Theses and 2005 began with an eighteen part series on Métis Economics.

This year, in the midst of world stupendous economic change, we begin a “Why Me?” series that seems to be most relevant to many people not only in the United States but also around the world.

In common or secular terms, men and women, young and old, are beginning to understand that your life is much more complex than the animals. Just plain existence is not all there is to life, in fact just existence, and we are now learning, material consumption, really don’t offer all that much, especially when unsustainable consumption of things has been hyped as the reason for living and the only key to happiness.

So probably the first question in the quest for “Why Me?” begins with another question, “What is now happening in the world?” or in the terms of the old beer commercial, “What’s up?”

The simple answer is that we are seeing the demise of a culture that not only cannot answer the deepest questions of the human soul; it does not even believe that these questions exist. In specific terms, western atheistic human enlightenment based upon entropic (politically correct term: evolving) global materialistic consumerism no longer can produce the intellectual and energetic cohesive diversity to sustain itself. In Biblical terms, just as in Daniel’s Babylon, “We have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.”

Those God created metaphysical questions of the human soul, which we all need to answer, are:

Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
What am I supposed to do?
Where do I go when I die?
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Tags: survival, fear, Dachau, Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Nazi, imagination , flexibility

By Jerry Bannon

Updated January 5, 2010, 9:30 AM

The year 2010 begins the twelfth year of publishing The Wonder Springs Chronicle or the predecessor The Chronicles of Diversity. Over that time and on this website you have free access to over two million words which are amazingly consistent in their context. Since that 1999 beginning we have seen some remarkable changes in this country and around the world.

There are those who say that the recent Great Recession is over and now heaven on earth is just a few legislative maneuvers, bureaucratic assumptions, and hopeful hype spin away. The unique position of Wonder Springs stems from a paradigm that the Natural Laws of God’s creation are Absolute Truths which governs all of man’s aspirations. If our endeavors or enterprises are going to provide long term growth in all diverse aspects, then the wisdom that we use gathered from what we can learn from God’s living reality, forces us to model our limited and simplistic struggles utilizing those Truths to find meaning and purpose in life.

This concept began in the early 1980s when I began a business management model called Business Ecology. The essentials of those simple principles and graphic illustrations are found in various places in the archives. Some of the ways we have described these concepts in addition to Business Ecology are Enterprise Symbiosis, Stupendous Change, Fractured Rapture Tales, and probably the most scientific description: Métis Phylogenesis.

During the years following the development of the Business Ecology concept, through some more technical consulting work I was given the rights to redevelop a Great Depression successful, air concentrating technology for precious metals. To that was added an environmentally sound refining process. These technologies formed a basis for a company I tried and failed to get funded during that time when all the worldly buzz related to the Internet and something called dot-com. In October of last year I was contacted by some potential mine developers I had briefly known after I had actively closed the company. They wanted to know if I was still interested in going ahead with that work now that the price of gold had exceeded $1000 per ounce.

I scraped together enough funds to reestablish the company as PREFER Ltd in the State of Washington and began to assemble infrastructure pieces that had not been utilized for probably twenty years. PREFER stands for the acrostic: Providing Resourceful Energetics For Economic Renaissance. One of the problems with the original air tables was that it did not scale beyond a piece of equipment that could process more than five tons per hour of properly crushed ore. Furthermore changes of the particle size of the desired precious metals fraction required a complete reworking of the air fluidizing screens.

Early one morning just before Christmas I awoke with an idea for a new design without the above limitations. With some sketches of this new equipment design, understood in the science of small particle physics we will begin to enrich the whole process stream as we design, build and test this new equipment. We also have obtained another client with a property that would fit well with the PREFER emphasis on small scale environmentally sound mining and refining.

There still is the distinct need to find investors that believe in the truth that a significant portion of America’s new wealth producing enterprises need to be directly tied to the land. For it is that natural wealth together with the American people’s constitutional inalienable rights that provided for the development of the greatest nation in all of human history. Furthermore that symbiosis is the mechanism by which we will again prosper.

Combining the precious metals with Business Ecology and placing it within a human environment in which our money has no basis in reality, it logically follows that we should again look to God’s creation for the knowledge and wisdom to again provide a mechanism to produce new wealth not only from the ground, but also to help others manage their current wealth in a means that will minimize the effects of higher taxes, currency devaluations, and inflation.

So on New Year’s Eve we began a new website called Deep Woods Moola which will function as a subsidiary adventure of PREFER Ltd. The slogan for the Deep Woods Moola website is, Innovatively Creating Sustaining Wealth. As yet there is nothing there beyond a domain name, but over time the goal is to separate The Wonder Springs Chronicle to enhance its Christian emphasis and develop Deep Woods Moola into a mechanism to address in a secular manner the challenges that now face all of humanity.

When I began this regular writing in 1999 it was under the web banner of Createleaders.org. As with Deep Woods Moola, we again established The Creation Leadership Center utilizing our old URL on New Year’s Eve. Over the years, as with many other organizations, we fully understand the potential of nature to teach the basics of leadership, integrity, humility, teamwork and many other priceless life principles. Actual training programs in the Deep Woods, gives us a perspective of all life and our place within our natural world, as well as within human culture.

The unique nature of the Biblical Creation Worldview demonstrates the diversity of all life, and the function of mankind as stewards and gardeners, as we seek to develop prosperous human communities. For only by understanding that we humans are not just part of creation, as creatures, but set apart in the image of God, to inherit his special goodness, can we truly understand the potential for Wonder Springs in not just a physical Death Valley, but more importantly our eternally spiritual Death Valley, without the grace of God offered to us through Jesus Christ.

Tags: Business Ecology, PREFER Ltd, Deep Woods Moola, The Creation Leadership Center

This year for our Sunday Devotions we again will use Morning and Evening by the “Prince of Preachers” Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon was a self taught Reformed Baptist non-conformist minister, meaning he was theologically a Calvinist and held no allegiance to or within the Anglican Church of England. It has been stated that in his lifetime he preached to more than ten million people and has more material in print than any author, Christian or secular. The complete Morning and Evening is available in many different printed formats as well as on the Web.

Morning
I will give thee for a covenant of the people.
Isaiah 49:8

Jesus Christ is Himself the sum and substance of the covenant, and as one of its gifts, He is the property of every believer. Believer, canst thou estimate what thou hast gotten in Christ? "In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Consider that word "God" and its infinity, and then meditate upon "perfect man" and all his beauty; for all that Christ, as God and man, ever had, or can have, is thine--out of pure free favour, passed over to thee to be thine entailed property forever. Our blessed Jesus, as God, is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. Will it not console you to know that all these great and glorious attributes are altogether yours? Has he power? That power is yours to support and strengthen you, to overcome your enemies, and to preserve you even to the end. Has He love? Well, there is not a drop of love in His heart which is not yours; you may dive into the immense ocean of His love, and you may say of it all, "It is mine." Hath He justice? It may seem a stern attribute, but even that is yours, for He will by His justice see to it that all which is promised to you in the covenant of grace shall be most certainly secured to you. And all that He has as perfect man is yours. As a perfect man the Father's delight was upon Him. He stood accepted by the Most High. O believer, God's acceptance of Christ is thine acceptance; for knowest thou not that the love which the Father set on a perfect Christ, He sets on thee now? For all that Christ did is thine. That perfect righteousness which Jesus wrought out, when through His stainless life He kept the law and made it honourable, is thine, and is imputed to thee. Christ is in the covenant.
"My God, I am thine--what a comfort divine!
What a blessing to know that the Saviour is mine!
In the heavenly Lamb thrice happy I am,
And my heart it doth dance at the sound of His name."

Evening
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
Luke 3:4

The voice crying in the wilderness demanded a way for the Lord, a way prepared, and a way prepared in the wilderness. I would be attentive to the Master's proclamation, and give Him a road into my heart, cast up by gracious operations, through the desert of my nature. The four directions in the text must have my serious attention.

Every valley must be exalted. Low and grovelling thoughts of God must be given up; doubting and despairing must be removed; and self-seeking and carnal delights must be forsaken. Across these deep valleys a glorious causeway of grace must be raised.

Every mountain and hill shall be laid low. Proud creature- sufficiency, and boastful self-righteousness, must be levelled, to make a highway for the King of kings. Divine fellowship is never vouchsafed to haughty, highminded sinners. The Lord hath respect unto the lowly, and visits the contrite in heart, but the lofty are an abomination unto Him. My soul, beseech the Holy Spirit to set thee right in this respect.

The crooked shall be made straight. The wavering heart must have a straight path of decision for God and holiness marked out for it. Double-minded men are strangers to the God of truth. My soul, take heed that thou be in all things honest and true, as in the sight of the heart-searching God.

The rough places shall be made smooth. Stumbling-blocks of sin must be removed, and thorns and briers of rebellion must be uprooted. So great a visitor must not find miry ways and stony places when He comes to honour His favoured ones with His company. Oh that this evening the Lord may find in my heart a highway made ready by His grace, that He may make a triumphal progress through the utmost bounds of my soul, from the beginning of this year even to the end of it.