Upside Down Living

Another interesting message from Greg Laurie at Harvest Crusades in Riverside. If you haven't heard his radio program, I would sincerely advise you to check it out at A New Beginning Radio. You can google it. My challenge is to listen to his program for 30 days and see if your life doesn't change for the positive.

I love to be inspired by someone. Sometimes, it's a heart breaking movie, or a really great novel, sometimes it can be an email that comes to you when you need it the most, or it could be a friend that gives you advice when you need it. Inspiration is required I feel to give us something to get through the day or to keep us going in spite of some tragic event. Sometimes it will get us out of the whole we have a tendency to dig ourselves in. Inspiration is that life ladder! It builds up courage, faith and hope that it will get better, life does go on, and we can make it through.

I am concerned with our next generation of teens. Don't get me wrong, I have seen some shining examples of hope and most of them have a strong spiritual background. The ones I am talking about are the ones that will be taking care of us, when we are too old to take care of ourselves. They will be the ones running the world.

It's time for us to start as parents to begin to raise children that we are sincerely proud of and that will make this world a better place, not a more tolerant place where everyone is happy. I think we need to go back to the basics this country was founded on. The principles that held this country together. If you look at the turmoil our country is in lately, it is nothing more than the result of greed, envy, jealousy, and lack of moral ethics and character. We tolerate people's differences a little too much. We have interpreted the Bill of Rights to candy coat things to make everyone happy. I personally believe that the church needs to go back to the Biblical principles our founding forefathers believed in and start taking our country back. The church should be turning the world upside down and not the world turning churches upside down.

Why all this hostility over religion? What do people have to fear? Simply put, judgement against the way people are living their lives. If we are not living by the standards the Bible has set forth, then the punishment our world receives is just! We have an owners manual for everything that life gives us, we just want to change it to make it easier to go down. I have often heard some of my daughters friends almost mock what is written in the Bible because it condemns their actions currently. When my daughter Caitlyn was challenging some of her friends on the basis of whether Proposition 8 was valid or not, our belief is in support of Proposition 8, they refused to hear any of her points. Their comeback? "Well the Bible says a lot of things?" then they both laughed. How sad, that this is becoming the way our youth sees the church and the Bible.

There is a new movement as well call Emergent Churches. They are more contemporary churches appealing to our teens who want the watered-down version of the Bible and that there is God in everyone they see and in everything they see. Does this not strike anyone as odd? They are changing what was considered wrong in our world is now OK! They are trying to relate to our teens and making their churches and services really cool!

We, as parents should be concerned and begin to pray in earnest for our teens. Our goals should be to take as many of those teens to heaven via the way of belief in Jesus Christ only! There is no other way! No watered-down version here. Our goal is for each of us to have the power to change the world for the better. Let's get back to basics! More tomorrow!