notes from lisa...

" If a brother or sister is poorly clad and lacks food for each day, And one of you says to him, Good-bye! Keep [yourself] warm and well fed, without giving him the necessities for the body, what good does that do? So also faith, if it does not have works (deeds and actions of obedience to back it up), by itself is destitute of power (inoperative, dead). But someone will say [to you then], You [say you] have faith, and I have [good] works. Now you show me your [alleged] faith apart from any [good] works [if you can], and I by [good] works [of obedience] will show you my faith." James 2:15-18, Amplified Version) In America, we tend to think of the faithless as the poor person or the one who is suffering--we never see the person who is financially well-off, and prosperous as lacking in faith. In fact, many in our churches equate faith directly with the substance that a person has; so if you are struggling, you can't possibly be trusting God, right ??? 

“Don’t condemn others, and God won’t condemn you.   God will be as hard on you as you are on others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them. ” [Matthew 7:1,2 CEV] We will be required to stand the test of the same judgment that we mete out to others. If we measure it out for others, we better be able to stand up to the same weighty measure of that judgment. The harsh code that we exact is coming to our door—it may not be for the same sin, but the weightiness of the judgment is going to be directed at us in the same way that we measured it out to others. This is why we have to be so careful in how we judge and criticize others—especially those who are outside of the Body of Christ. It is not for us to judge the world—not at this time. It is easy to measure your life against those who have not accepted Christ and feel some sense of righteousness—and therein lies the problem. You can only feel that sense of “righteousness” or pseudo-holiness by works of the flesh. When

If only those who have would buy health care for those who don't have--and feed them and otherwise care for them--because certainly the ability to do so exists, government wouldn't need to intervene. Greed is the reason government has to step in to keep countless poor people--many of whom work very hard by the way, from slipping through the cracks. We live in a very selfish society. It's true that ideally, care for the poor should be from “bosom to bosom” (Luke 6:38; Matthew 6:2-4), but the bottom line is, it simply doesn't work that way--because we refuse to be our brother's keeper. Clearly, if so many are up in arms over government intervention to provide for care of the needy, they are not upset because they want to do it themselves—the intent is to hold onto their assets for their own selfish purposes. It’s a lie to say that it is because Conservatives want the opportunity to give without government intervention—if that were so, they would already be meet

" Can two walk together, except they be agreed? " [Amos 3:3] For many of us this verse has taken on a life of its own--which should never happen. No portion of scripture should be taken without context. At first glance, and according to a whole lot of people, if we don't agree on issues, then we must (or, at least we have a right to) separate. In context, however, that is not what this verse speaks to--this prophecy is in regard to the disagreement between God and Israel, as a result of Israel's extreme (and constant) backsliding. There is no loophole here for us to separate because we disagree with one another. Sin is the great separator, but our disagreements and differences must not separate us. Paul taught us how to disagree--and to have differences, yet without being disagreeable; or creating schisms where none should exist. Perhaps, it was during this time that God was dealing with him regarding his own separation from Peter, because there was a warm rece