What About, About?

We're back, all done with our laundry and some outdoor work. 

   About yesterday, didn't we leave out a word? Don't we need to know about the Lord? Of course.

   But, you know, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, John, Paul and others went beyond; they wanted to know him.   

   Can we really love anyone we don't actually know? Knowing about may be many things. But it's not "I AM WILLING TO DIE FOR YOU LOVE!" 

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart 

and with all your soul and with all your mind." 

This is the first and greatest commandment. The

 second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself." 

Jesus was quoting the Father, through Moses, 

in Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18, written 14 centuries earlier. 

   God made us in his image (resemblance), and he wants relationship. 

   Years ago we attended a weekend program for dozens of people recently divorced, called Fresh Start. Months earlier we were blessed with one of those mountain-top experiences you hear about. But, we still needed help in the valley of everyday life. 

   A pastor surprised me with a question, something about Jesus. Without time to think, all eyes on me, we blurted out, "I really do love him." 

   Those words never would have occurred to me in 50 previous years, despite attending thousands of worship services, and several years as deacon and Sunday School teacher. 

😞

   Tomorrow, we'll write about something else, but on Monday the 5th we'll pursue this again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to unload the dishwasher.  

   The Walking Dead   

Let's talk.

   Many years ago in Toledo, we stood at an exit, watching a couple hundred people file out of the building. None of them smiled, spoke, or even noticed me. They were somber.

   Later, similar scenes occurred in other communities. 
   Of course, when a funeral is over, we might expect unhappiness.  😒

   Sadly, these were not funerals. The walking dead were leaving their worship services. Sadly, we have seen ourselves in their midst. 

   Happily, there is a higher way.  😇

   Our Lord says little or nothing about order of worship, programs, traditions, rituals, committees, architecture or sectarian divisions. Whatever their purpose, they don't produce joy. Or life. 

   What we find instead are people saying, I stay close to you; your right hand upholds me.

   My soul pants for God, for the living God.

   I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake...   I   have   lost    all   things. 

   Now, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 

   Well, we're at the end of the page. Back tomorrow. Don't be late.

   Friends! Starting Tuesday, we begin a series of interest to Christian readers. Each post will represent a short chapter, as in a book, to run for about six weeks on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
 

We encourage non-Christians 

to click on Views the rest of each week,

for a variety of topics.

   To all readers, thanks for your interest. We enjoy exploring topics and ideas more than you enjoy our summaries. 

   We spent most of our working days writing - for a newspaper, a TV station and finally for employees of a corporation. We would have had a few thousand readers at times - limited to subjects of temporary usefulness.

   With Views we have a few dozen followers. We are happiest when we're freelancing, literally for free. But, starting tomorrow - the most important blogs,  for us ... because they have eternal value. It won't be preachy; I'll be learning along with you.

   Each post will appear on Facebook. You can also find us at jxdonut.blogspot.com, or by searching Views By the Sea. 

Posts remain available for months.

   All comments/corrections welcome. And if you know of someone who might want to check in just for this series, that's okay too.       Jimmy

I pray that you ... grasp how wide and long 

and high and deep is the love of Christ ...

Ephesians 3:16-19

A woman observes that the "love of Christ is 

truly beyond the realm of human 

understanding and reasoning, 

yet Paul prays that we comprehend that love."

"To think that I could have the capacity 

to be filled with God's fullness ... 

gives me amazing motivation. 

If He is offering it, then I want it ALL."

"Lord ... I empty myself so that you can fill me."

From a pastor's wife, in a devotional 

prepared for her church's 21-days of prayer and fasting.

All God's Children   

   You may be surprised, as we are, to learn that one-third of adult, religious Jews in America are Christians.

   After two thousand years, the label "Christian" has taken on a variety of shades. It was never God's term for us anyway, though early believers adopted it. 

   Calling someone a "Jewish Christian" doesn't quite satisfy, either. 

   We think Jewish survival itself (a relatively few people scattered over the globe, before 1948, and centuries of organized persecution), is thanks to God and his promises of old. Jewish followers of Christ have survived as well.

   A Pew survey from five years ago came again to light, with surprising details.

   About one-third of U.S. Jewish adults said they are conservative or Orthodox. Another third are liberals, most of whom are not certain that God exists, and the remaining third believe Jesus is their Messiah. The latter may number 1.7 million. 

   Of those, 3 of 4 feel certain that God exists. (There are large numbers of gentile Christians who are not sure God exists. One of the "shades.")

   "Jewish Christians" are spread among many denominations and theologies, not easily counted. A minority call themselves "Messianic Jews," and some practices continue, such as Saturday service.

   Marvin Olasky of WORLD magazine attended a service in Houston, where the sermon was Christ-centered, and readings were from both the Old and New "Covenant." They refer to Jesus as Yeshua, his name in Hebrew, and speak of Rauch Ha-Kodesh, Hebrew for the Holy Spirit.

   The pastor, who graduated from Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Theological Seminary, claims relations between his church and Jewish leaders has improved. In 2015, a group of Orthodox rabbis published a statement, "Christianity is neither an accident nor an error, but the willed divine outcome and gift to the nations."

      Jimmy

Lowest Paid CEO    

   Would you work a job for nothing?   

   Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc., has agreed to a 10-year pay package that rewards him only if the electric car maker achieves enormous growth. The company must grow from $60 billion to $650 billion in $50 billion leaps, or his stock-option vesting won't kick in.

   He will receive no other guaranteed salary, bonuses or equity. Shareholders will vote on the package in March.

   If they hit their marks, Tesla will trail only Apple, Alphabet (Google) and Amazon in valuation. They will exceed the current, combined valuation of the world's top eight publicly-traded auto companies. 

   Tesla will expand from electric cars and SUVs to trucks, semi tractor-trailers and buses. The company also plans growth in solar panel and energy storage businesses.

   Musk won't need food stamps. This isn't the first time he has worked by incentives. He also serves as CEO of SpaceX and OpenAI, a nonprofit in artificial intelligence. 

Associated Press

   Disclaimer: Views denies any responsibility for investment decisions based on our reports. We are business school drop outs.

China's Dreamers

   We hope the Chinese administration will grant a path to citizenship for its two new monkeys. It wasn't their choice to be cloned there.

      Jimmy

Wanted: 
More Waste, Fraud and Abuse     

     Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, 75, is up for reelection. Sir, we have this low spot in our drainage ditch. If you would appropriate some money to fix that, we'll vote for you. 

   Senator Rubio, we promise our vote in 2022 if you earmark some cash to finish the job hurricane Irma started on a tall pine behind our house. And Representative Bilirakis, would you mind........

   Isn't politics fun? And these aren't bridges to nowhere.

   Columnist Daniel Ruth, a snippy type, actually aligns with President Trump this week. Our cognizant, tested-and-approved leader told some congressional members, "Maybe you should start thinking about going back to some form of earmarks." 

   Ruth agrees (with Trump, not us) that the old earmark business had its charms. Remember pork-barrel spending, which they outlawed in 2011? The worst earmarks won Golden Fleece Awards.

   For every wasteful project back home, someone else won support for his or her legislation. It was downright unAmerican, and productive. 

   Without these carrots, congressional leaders have little leverage with their otherwise partisan members. 

   Ruth says, "the cost of greasing the wheels of government was a modest price to pay for bipartisan cooperation." We must admit that national debt has soared, despite the elimination of earmarks. 

   If and when art-of-the-deal returns to Washington, Trump should feel more at home there. Ruth suggests, for us, if we want high-minded virtue, "go to church."

      Jimmy

   Are we the people much different? Do we vote for 

those who uphold the Constitution, or those who make promises?   

 

About Your 'Scripts    

  Last year, my prescription for a triglyceride fighter, 134 mg, jumped from tier 1 to tier 3, without explanation. A few dollars for 90 capsules suddenly became $125. 

   Mrs. Donut is on the same medicine, 160 mg, paying just $9 a quarter. My bad for not spotting this sooner. Our primary care doc said, sure, Jimmy, you can switch to the $9 script, and now the Donuts are living happily ever after.

   Ours was a minor event compared to people in bankruptcy, two thirds of whom have health care costs to blame for all or part of their trouble.

   The National Academy of Sciences calls this "unsustainable." More than half of Americans take prescription drugs, spending about $500 billion a year, or one fifth of the health care bill.

   Spending on drugs is the fastest growing segment of health care costs, greater than inflation and growth in incomes. Our poor suffer most.

   The Academy credits the drug industry with improving health and fighting disease, but found 32 ways to address costs. It says the federal government should apply its purchasing power to negotiate drug prices. 

   It urges Congress to authorize Medicare to negotiate with drug makers, and it calls for more use of generic drugs, and regs to support that goal. A small change in formula can enable a drug company to continue charging its high, initial price long past the regulated end date.

   The Academy also wants more transparency, so consumers can become smarter buyers. Another idea involves restrictions on advertising and contacts with doctors and hospitals. 

Tampa Bay Times

   We wonder if they studied industry lobbyists who donate to members of Congress, maintaining the status quo.

      Jimmy 

Fighting for Life    With Facts   

   A woman "wants an abortion like an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg," says a former abortion supporter who became an officer in Feminists for Life.

   What changed?

   She read an article in Esquire by a surgeon, also pro abortion, who asked an abortionist friend if he could accompany him when he did one. 

   The surgeon described a woman on the table, 19 weeks pregnant. The doctor took a syringe and injected it into her belly, leaving the hub standing upright. 

   Then the hub of the needle jerked. It wobbled, tugged, like a fishing line being nibbled by a sunfish. 
 

   The surgeon realized that nothing 

can argue "against the truth of what I saw. 

No matter what the being in the womb doesn't have, it does have a will to live. The desperate fighting gradually slowed down, and stopped." 

   "Of course," the woman says, "unborn babies are persons. They are composed 100 percent of human cells. They are not watermelons or light bulbs. As soon as the sperm dissolves in the egg ... even that first cell represents a unique human being," with new DNA. 

   She thinks the pro-life movement has improved over the years. It frustrated her when pro-lifers only talked about the baby. She wants them to talk about the baby and about "compassion for how hard life is for a woman." 

   "We were falling into this trap of, 'It's the woman against the baby, and only one can win.' We should always say, 'Love them both.'" 

Author and speaker Frederica Mathewes-Green

with Marvin Olasky, WORLD magazine

The surgeon was Dr. Richard Selzer
1976

   

Who Had/Has it Tougher?      

   My parent's generation lived through the 
Great Depression and two world wars, 
not to mention the flu epidemic of 1918. 

   Those with long life also shared my generation's Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, race riots and other chaos of the 1960s, including Vietnam, when patriotism suffered. Some lived from the Wright Brothers through Desert Storm. 

   The next generation had to deal with us, the "me generation" of parents, along with the AIDS crisis, the after-effects of Vietnam, the energy crisis, inflation, occasional recessions and life after 9/11. 

   Here come the millennials, who pick it up there. They enjoy the benefits of all prior sacrifice and all our new technology. Boy, do they have it good! Or not.

   This generation's attraction to socialist Bernie Sanders may be explainable, if not wise. Health care, housing and education costs are spiraling.

   Wages have been stagnant, while jobs with real benefits are not as common. Jobs that offer much also exist in cities where real estate and the cost of living are highest. 

   Many millennials delay marriage and home ownership, probably a trend downward in the number of stable American families. 

   Adjusted for inflation, the average worker, ages 24-36, earns $10,000 less than the previous generation at that age - 20 percent less purchasing power.

   Average student debt has doubled. About half the millennials expect to work at least part time after retirement. Will Social Security and Medicare be there?

   It's not all bad, and some are better off than others. Some are far more likely to receive an inheritance than their peers.

   So, we can question millennials, but they have their challenges - just in different ways.

From an NPR interview with millennial

Michael Hobbes, writer, editor and producer

      Jimmy

A new commandment I give you:

Love one another.

As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.


John 13:34-35

Never Too Old       
Things We Learned This Week     

   Japan's public broadcaster mistakenly sent an alert Tuesday, warning of a North Korean missile launch. Minutes later they corrected it. Will actor Jamie Lee Curtis blame President Trump, as she did when Hawaii broadcasted a similar false alarm days earlier?

   Buddhism teaches that life begins at conception, and its First Precept is that people should never willingly take the life of a living thing. Japan legalized abortion in 1948, but doesn't celebrate it. What do Christians believe?

   Some 11,000 civilians lost their lives during the battle to liberate Mosul, Iraq.

   During his first presidential physical exam, Donald Trump also underwent a cognitive screening test, administered by Navy doctor Ronny Jackson. He got a perfect score on a test designed to detect early signs of memory loss and other mild, cognitive impairment. Dr. Jackson said he, "did exceedingly well. He's very sharp. He's very articulate when he speaks to me." 

   Attention parents: Child Development says your six-year-old will do more work and take fewer breaks if he or she dresses as Batman, Dora the Explorer or Bob the Builder. 

   Planned Parenthood has insiders in our high schools, encouraging casual sex, which leads to more business for PP.

   Stable families must make a village before a village can raise a child.

   What motivates most people and journalists is peer pressure. One needs to believe the same things that important people in their life believe. Sense of identity outweighs facts. 

   Judging by the age of rock stars and their fans, is Rock 'n Roll on its way out?

      Jimmy


   

Bring on the Celebrities    

Peggy Noonan

   Are we done with our politicians?

   Peggy Noonan's column (see yesterday) continues with her analysis of people wanting Oprah Winfrey to run for president. Oprah led President Trump 48-38 in the first poll since speculation arose.

   Noonan pointed out that traditional politicians are boring. In falling in love with celebrity and personality, we are acting like a frivolous, shallow country, she wrote. 

   Donald Trump changed it all, she says, "like a cartoon character that bursts through a wall, leaving a him-shaped hole." 

   Noonan thinks, when the Trump era is over, we will not go back to the old ways, maybe ever. "We are in the age of celebrity and the next one will and can be anything," she says, from Nobel laureate to professional wrestler. 

   "The political class can bemoan this," Noonan says, "but it was the failure of the political class that brought our circumstances about." 

   "When at least half the country no longer trusts its political leaders, when people see the detached, cynical and uncaring refusal to handle such problems as illegal immigration ... and neglect to notice something hinky going on in the financial sector, or with mortgages, and the IRS abuses its power, and a bunch of nuns have to file a lawsuit because the government orders them to violate their conscience..." 

   "Why wouldn't people look elsewhere for leadership? Maybe the TV star's policies won't always please you, but at least he'll distract and entertain you every day." 

   Each time a politician (criticizes) Trump, she'll think, "Buddy, you've had 20 years on the Hill, and we didn't get to this point only because of Trump. That's a deflection."

      Jimmy




   

Practicing Deflection    

Peggy Noonan

  
   The press in Britain looked bad after practically driving Princess Diana to her death. Plus, photographers surrounded her crumpled vehicle before first responders arrived. 

   So, they published faults with residents of Buckingham Palace, and soon the Brits were hating the queen instead of them.

   That's deflection.

   With Hillary Clinton's upcoming run for president a couple years ago, Monica Lewinski faced a certain repeat of her public misery. So, she wrote in Vanity Fair, yes, she was a victim, but the true culprits were the press, the internet and the "feedback loop." Hillary's people needed not smear her again.

   That's deflection.

   If you missed Peggy Noonan's recent column, you also missed her take on the Global Awards.

   "Hollywood has known forever about abuse, harassment and rape within its ranks," she wrote. "All the true powers in the industry ... have been complicit." 

   Therefore, to dodge the subject after a shower of scandals, they redirected. Wearing black for solidarity at the Global Awards, they declared themselves the heroes, the real leaders in the fight against sexual abuse, Noonan charged.

   What they were really upset about, she said, is that you found out about it. 

   "Deflection is brilliant, wicked, and tends to work," Noonan wrote. "When something works, you'll be seeing more of it in entertainment and politics."

      Jimmy


   

Plant Talks    

   Researchers in Germany say that plants communicate with each other, and also make decisions, competing for light.

   They conclude that plants "decide" which behavior provides the best opportunity to grow.

   Groups simulating short, dense neighbors grew taller, shading their opponents. When light conditions simulated neighbors tall and dense, the same plants developed shade tolerance.

   When conditions simulated tall but sparse competitors, the plants increased lateral growth. Scientists said, "We have demonstrated a decision-making ability in plants." 

Nature Communications

   Julie Borg, clinical psychologist and writer in Dayton, Ohio, said, "The scientists didn't explain how a mindless plant could 'make decisions,' but it would seem God encoded plants with the ability to adapt to their surroundings."

Pitting One Bad Guy Against Another  
   This week's missile alert boo-boo in Hawaii reminds us how easily nuclear-armed nations could mistake a drill for the real deal. Meanwhile, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster warns the potential for war with North Korea is "increasing every day." 

   The man we're counting on to make the North Koreans stand down, China's Xi Jinping, has solidified his own power. He takes a hard line on civil society and dissidents. 

   Among his moves: more control, increased crackdown on human rights, the closure of leading underground churches (one very large church was dynamited), fines for Christian activity, and the death in August of jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. 

WORLD magazine

   He's not Mao, but he's the closest thing to it since those days.

     Jimmy

Gold Alert   
Hockey Team Threatens U.S. Army   

   As if the Army doesn't have enough trouble with the Taliban, ISIS and leakers of classified documents, the Las Vegas pro hockey team inflicts damage without firing a shot.

   Army's legal challenge doesn't come from West Point, but the hockey owner is a West Point grad and donor. He registered his team as the Golden Knights, which the Army chose for its parachute team in the 1960s, and uses for public relations and recruiting. 

   The Army also claims "common law rights" for the color scheme of black, gold, yellow and white. West Point athletes are the Black Knights, and their hockey arena is painted the colors of both teams. 

   Las Vegas said, "We are not aware of a single complaint from anyone attending our games...that they were expecting to see the parachute team."

   Clever, but they might want to reconsider. The Army has guns. 

⭐

   None of this involves the University of Central Florida, the just plain Knights. However, it might help if they officially distinguished themselves as the Plain Knights. 

   Next, Princeton, Missouri, Auburn, LSU and Clemson will go to court over who has the rights to Tigers. 

   Did you know - the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Pitt Panthers are the same animal? Once common in Pennsylvania. The Detroit Lions won't add Nittany to their name, for fear of being thrown to real lions...imported of course. 

   Down South, the Seminoles are okay with Florida State, but we wonder if the Aztecs are offended by San Diego State.   

   We know of one school that has no worry about trademark rights - ever: 
the Virginia Tech Hokies. 

   Good knight,

       Jimmy 

     

Quotes by Martin Luther King Jr.
 
 "Every man must decide whether he will walk in the creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."

   "Nothing is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

   "If a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

   "A nation or civilization that produces soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan."

   "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

   "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, "What are you doing for others?"

   "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

   "The question which the priest and the Levite asked was: 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But the good Samaritan reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'" 

   "An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity."

   "We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."

Most of us don't relate to impacting all humanity,

but these and other King Jr. quotations help us think.

      Jimmy

   

  

   Warnings From History   

The fact: 
"...that our forefathers all passed through the sea.

They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink;

for they drank from the spiritual rock, that accompanied them,

and that rock was Christ. 

Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them;

their bodies were scattered over the desert.

Now these things occurred as examples 

to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 

Do not be idolaters, as some of them were... 

We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did...
and in one day 23,000 of them died.

We should not test the Lord, as some of them did...
and were killed by snakes.

And do not grumble, as some of them did...
and were killed by the destroying angel.

These things ... were written down as warnings for us, 
on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall.

1 Corinthians 10:1-12
NIV

Continued 
From Hatred to Love   

    
   After the communists were driven out of Hue, people discovered mass graves. TV channels in South Vietnam showed horrifying scenes of grieving families and unidentified corpses, remembers Nguyen Qui Duc, now 59.

   Some of the 3,000 dead were probably intellectuals and teachers, civil servants and administrators who had gone missing. Many had been tied, blindfolded and shot point-blank, or buried alive.
       The massacre is hardly discussed in Vietnam, which continues to tout the Tet Offensive in heroic terms. Tourists visit ancient royal tombs, the Citadel and temples from the Nguyen dynasty, but they aren't shown the massacre sites.
     
   Nguyen's father was released in 1980 and the family reunited in America. 

   Today, the median age is 30 years. Most Vietnamese were born after the war and are not interested in hate. 

~ ~ ~

   On the 8th and 9th of last month, in the city where John McCain and other American prisoners were cruelly treated for years, the government permitted Rev. Franklin Graham to hold rallies.

   Thousands of Vietnamese filled an arena, and twice that many stood outside, curious to hear the Gospel.

   The good news hasn't changed. As his father once did around the world, Graham called the audience to repent of sin and accept the forgiveness offered by Jesus Christ. Thousands went forward, some in tears, overflowing the space. 

Later, we plan to blog about our massacre,

My Lai, and Lt. Calley today.

End of Innocence  

   He was 9 when his family set out to celebrate Tet, 
the Lunar New Year, 50 years ago this month.
                                                                            ---->    They drove north from Da Nang to visit his grandparents in Hue. Nguyen Qui Duc's father was a regional governor. Whenever they went to Hue, they stayed in a government guesthouse, a beautiful mansion.

   On January 30, 1968, they heard fireworks. No, it was the Tet Offensive, when communist soldiers and guerrillas by the tens of thousands invaded cities and military bases all over South Vietnam.

   About 2 in the morning soldiers entered the mansion, arresting his father and herding women and children into a neighboring basement. Until that night, the civil war had been nowhere near young Nguyen, whose memories we relay from Smithsonian magazine. 

   The offensive was short-lived, a failure, with some 40,000 casualties among the attackers, but news of it began to turn Americans against the war. 

   However, in Hue, the former imperial capital, the battle continued for 26 days. Nguyen was trapped in a violence that claimed at least 5,000 attackers and more than 600 Americans and South Vietnamese fighters. 

   Several days into it, he and his family, without father, were freed and sent to a refugee center in the city. On February 24, defenders recaptured the Citadel. 

   Months later, after they returned to Da Nang, news came about mass graves in Hue. Citizens became terrorized by the thought of a communist victory in the south - more massacres, more people buried alive. 

   It would be even worse than Tet '68. 

Tomorrow: Franklin Graham preaches in Hanoi

What Is Humility?       

And Does it Matter?   

   We still can learn life lessons from sports. Or, we learn life lessons from the word of God, and see applications anywhere, including sports. 

   Monday night, Alabama won its fifth football title in nine years, by following its renown "process." One might expect the players to be arrogant, entitled and smug. Not so.

   They might be onto something.

   Georgia led 13-0 at halftime. Coach Saban turned to his inexperienced backup quarterback.  

   While he made rookie mistakes, the freshman threw three touchdown passes, including the game-winner in overtime. The starting QB was quick to encourage his replacement throughout the second half. That's humility.

   Another player lost his cool on the sideline. Coach Saban allowed him back in the game, and he make an important tackle. Post game, the player cried for several minutes, apologetic and thankful for forgiveness. Yeh...wow!

   Alabama, and no doubt some other teams, is about humility, attention to detail, work ethic, bonding to one another, and forgiveness. Sounds like a "process" for any group. 

   Tom Jones, Tampa Bay Times sports writer, wrote: "You see, humility isn't thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. It's putting everyone else ahead of yourself. That's how they win." (Not to mention top-rated recruiting.)

   "It's never about individuals," Jones continued. "It's never about  accolades. It's not about who gets credit." 

   Has Jones been reading Solomon, Paul, James and Peter?

   Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another (I Peter 5:5), because God opposes the proud (Proverbs 3:34.) 

   After the game, the young quarterback credited faith in Jesus Christ for his demeanor. As for his coolness under pressure, "I would say my poise comes from my faith. I just pray for peace." 

      Jimmy

Does Santa Stand In for God? 

He sees you when you're sleeping,

he knows when you're awake,

he knows if you've been bad or good.

     Andree Seu Peterson takes on the question in WORLD magazine. She wonders if our children, who eventually discover we were "kidding" about Santa Claus, take us seriously when we tell them about God.

~ ~ ~

   "Let children and adults alike be warned about pretenders to the role of God," she writes. In culture, they "masquerade as angels of light." 

   Then there is the "benevolent largess of government - whose end is to control our lives and make us say in adoration as men will in the last days, 'Who is like the beast?'" (Rev. 13:4) 

   "To God alone belongs such acclamation: 

'The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. 

Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, 

who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?'" (Psalm 113:4-6)

   "The One who gives good gifts, whose coach is not a flying sleigh 

but a swift cloud (Isaiah 19:1), will never give his glory to another."