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The Grace Perspective identifies troubling issues In the News as an opportunity to teach the message of grace – that man is broken, the world is broken, and experiencing Christ for salvation (justification and sanctification) is the beginning of the solution. It is written, sometimes densely worded and intense, as a follow-up supplement to past and present counselees.
Week 52
Item
1: Church Growth Ministry advertises
sale of program strategies to churches for increasing tithes and offerings
Consider:
- God will be faithful to fund his Work.
- Fundraising programs are not needed for the Work God is doing.
- "God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all you need, you will abound in every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Item
2: Report: Church attendance in America
Related: Study: Mega-entertainment churches failing to impact community
values
Consider:
- Performance Christianity has shallow roots and cannot support life.
- But everything God gives life to is supported in perpetual health.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: When I saw that the name of the new store at the mall was a vulgar acrostic that violated the mall code of conduct, I first spoke to the store manager, then went to see the mall general manager. In a few weeks, the store closed. Also, recently, when an open mall kiosk displayed a vulgar t-shirt, I asked the owner to remove the shirt. She said she didn't see anything wrong with it. So, I went back to the general manager who said she would instruct the owner to remove the shirt. When I returned several days later, the display was gone. Darkness prevails when good men do nothing.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace
Perspective 19L28
Week 51
Item 1: Minnesota
Consider:
- Christ turns no one away who seeks support for experiencing him.
- But the qualifications for pastors in the Church given in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 require him to be “a man (Gr. aner, ‘a male person’) faithful to his wife (Gr. gune, ‘a woman).”
Item
2: Report: ISIS targeting First
Baptist Dallas
Related: In wake of church shooting, leading SBC Pastor calls for
churches to take security measures
Consider:
- God protects churches that provide support to members for learning how to experience Christ to fuller measure each day in order to be effectual as witnesses in the community.
- Others, especially, entertainment churches, need to take security
measures, including armed guards.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: Times were different many years ago when I was a young pastor: Pastors were revered and the church house was respected. I was different too, more like an Old Testament prophet. I was influenced by J. Frank Norris, pastor of the largest church in the world at one time, who shot and killed a man that burst into his office to make good a threat he had made. I would not have been an easy target for an angry someone who wanted to cause harm. The word was out not to mess with me. And no one did. Except maybe for the time a belligerent man challenged me when I asked him to leave the building. So I had to grab him and throw him out the door. On the parking lot, he had an epileptic seizure - so I ended up assisting him with pastoral care, which a more mature pastor would have done in the first place.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace
Perspective 19L21
Week 50
Item 1: Mega church seeks to bring girl back to life through
prayer, song, and praise
Consider:
- “Prayer” when understood as "begging God" to do differently than what he is already doing to provide our needs is mockery.
- Satan uses theological ignorance to
- set Christians up for disillusionment and disappointment and
- validate the mockery of unbelievers.
Item 2: New Study: Even infrequent running supports health
Consider:
- Our heart cannot tolerate inactivity.
- The flow of nutrition-rich blood pumped by a conditioned heart to every part of our body can have no other outcome but increased health.
- Our body is awesomely and wonderfully made.
Item 3: Loving on puppies may be making people sick, CDC says
Consider:
- God did not create animals to meet the affection needs of humans.
- Intimacy with animals puts our health at risk.
- God meets our need for affection through our human family, our experience of Christ, and koinonia with believers.
Item 4: People don’t want to think Mayberry is fiction, says writer
Consider:
- Communities like “Mayberry” are hard to find as we near the end of this Age.
- But the peace and joy we will experience in Heaven can be a reality in our heart as we wait to go there.
Item 5: Report: 8 In 10 Americans Say Politics is Biggest Source Of
Stress In Life
Consider:
- Tension cannot prevail against the presence of Christ living in our heart.
- The stress of unmet needs will not exist in Eternity.
Item 6: Chic-Fil-La, Hallmark Movies reverse support for
traditional values
Consider:
- Jesus said the Church, the Body of Christ, is the salt that preserves godliness on Earth, that when the salt loses its saltiness, faith and godly values will decline (Matthew 5:13).
- Lost faith and values will mark the end of the Church Age.
- We are established in faith and values by our experience of Christ living in our heart.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I dreamed one night this week that the world had been shaken - that the only thing left standing was what could not be shaken (our experience of Christ). In my dream, a group of maybe a hundred people was gathered in a gutted out cinderblock building to hear me talk about the power of Christ to produce in us the Life of God. They listened carefully (as I have experienced hundreds of times through the years). When I was done speaking, no one left but remained (as the 120 did in Acts 1:14-15) in a spirit of fellowship (koinonia: mutual hunger to experience Christ). When I awoke, I understood the dream was of a time during the coming Kingdom Age when Satan will be bound, Christ will govern the nations in peace and righteousness, evil will not be tolerated, and we (the lowly in this life) will reign with Christ to preach and provide support ministry throughout the world.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace
Perspective 19L14
Week 49
Item 1: ‘Mohammed’ makes list of most popular names in USA
Consider:
- Decline in Bible names, also traditional American names, may reflect the decline in Judeo-Christian values.
Item 2: Observed in publications: tv is TV, Bible is bible
Consider:
- A bible is a book; but The Scripture is The Bible for us who love it.
- Heaven is a place (so is Hell) and is capitalized.
Item 3: 41% global population is under 24; and according to studies,
they are angry
Consider:
- Righteous anger is the mind of God expressing his grief because of the suffering caused by Satan, and is not the same as man’s sinful, hateful reactions to adversity and loss.
- Youth are angry (although they don’t recognize or admit it) because of the pain of their
- unmet temperament needs (for information, affection, and support with regard to decision making) and
- disappointment with the failure of their Support Resources (mainly parents) to meet them.
Item 4: Recent: Millennials’ snarky response to Boomers: ‘Is that
all you got?’
Consider:
- The worst failure of Baby Boomers was/is parenting.
- Children turn out the way their parents turn them out.
Item 5: Study: Porn use diminishes experience of real life
Consider:
- So does tv, video games, facebook, texting, etc. – the same as junk food diminishes appetite for real food.
Item 6: Lab at Harvard
Medical School
Consider:
- In 20 years, the Church may be in Heaven where we will live forever. Most Wonderful Day!
Item 7: Report: Auto debt rises to record levels
Consider:
- “Owe no man anything” (Romans 13:8) means to pay all that is due others.
- Debt that is the result of impulsive, irresponsible buying is rooted in unbelief that God
- is faithful to meet our needs and
- does not need our credit to do it.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I
was told in my early life that credit buying was the American way for us
to obtain our needs. But during the last thirty years I have learned that credit
buying is not God’s way. Today, Carole and I owe nothing – not for our
home or vehicles or anything else. And it is
not because we have large incomes or wealth – because we don’t. We have modest savings equal to the average middle class salary and live mostly on SSI. I
have never taken a salary from our ministry or accepted payment for our
counseling - except for small amounts that showed up occasionally in an envelope
(which were always used to buy gasoline or pay utilities, or re-gifted to help
others). My first life's verse was Matthew 6:33: “Seek first the
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace
Perspective 19L07
Week 48
Item 1: A healthy man licked by his dog is dead within weeks
Consider:
- A dog’s lick may provide hurting people a fleeting feel-good moment.
- But God’s Provisions of Grace will always result in enduring health and happiness.
Item 2: The oldest person in America
Consider:
- God’s Redemptive Plan for our life will always result in enduring health and happiness.
Item 3: Pastor tells church ‘bad things can happen when we trust
God’
Consider:
- “Trusting God” means to receive his Provisions of Grace.
- Adversity may increase, but nothing can prevail against God’s Provisions of Grace.
Item 4: Famous minister asks church, ‘Are you in the battle?’
Consider:
- The battle is God’s, not ours. He (his Provisions received) is faithful to accomplish his Redemptive Purpose for our life.
- We do not put ourself in the battle; rather, God calls us to open our heart to him (during quiet time worship) - the same as he calls us to drink water, which has power to support us for life.
Item 5: Psychologist says cursing and vulgarity are ‘expressions
of strength and boldness’
Consider:
- Vulgarity (perverse sexual and bathroom words) comes out of a vulgar, perverse heart.
- Cursing (condemnation of people and circumstances) comes out of a hateful, condemning heart.
- Profanity (irreverent use of God’s name) comes out of disrespect, disdain for God.
- Also, cursing and vulgarity can come out of insecurity – also illiteracy.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: The only slang word I ever heard my dad say (one time) was “pishaw!” But my mother got upset once and said she felt like saying “shoot!” So I did not grow up at home or with friends hearing curse words or vulgarity, which meant I was left with the need to learn better words to express myself. As a grade school kid, I remember venting my need to say a bad word by repeatedly calling a neighborhood kid DARNnell. Today, I don’t have the need to say DG words, (doggone, gosh darn, etc., or even dagnabit – substitutes for goddamn). That kind of language won’t be heard in Heaven. I know that because I have found the more I am filled with Christ, the less I have a thought to say anything except yea and nea as Christ instructed.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace
Perspective 19K30
Week 47
Item 1: Bumper sticker: ‘Harm an animal, go to jail!’
Consider:
- Proverbs
12:10: “A righteous man cares for (protects, does not abuse) his beast
(animals which are God’s Provisions to help support human life).
- But killing
an animal for food (for example) is not yet a criminal offense in
Item 2: New research: Running increases longevity
Consider:
- Longevity and good health are not always the same.
- Cardio exercise may increase longevity - but without including proper diet, wise lifestyle choices, and supplementation, it may not increase health.
Item 3: Observed: Mall
Christmas sign: ‘Meet the Big Guy here today’
Consider:
- Santa Claus has been promoted in the mind of children to the status of “the Big Guy Upstairs” – that, in order to receive gifts (blessings) from him, they must
- believe in his existence and also
- not be naughty, but nice.
- Santa Claus is a hoax of Satan to mock the Message of Grace.
Item 4: Report: Americans are dying young at alarming rates
Consider:
- Youth who honor (give weight to the values of) their parents have promise of long life (Ephesians 6:1-3).
Item 5: College students enrolling for classes to learn basic life
skills
Consider:
- Learning how the world works is a basic need of children – for which parents have the responsibility to provide.
Item 5: Conservative focus group says Trump exaggerates Truth
because he is a salesman
Consider:
- Commissioned salespeople are notoriously liars.
- Truth never needs to be hyped.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I
told the service person at a local business that I remembered her from my
first visit months ago, that her service was perfect and absolutely set
the standard for excellence, and that I had told her manager how impressed
I was. “Thank you so much” she said teary eyed. She asked if I was sure it
was her. I said absolutely, that I even remembered her name was Theresa.
She said her name was Christy. I apologized and said yes, of course. She
said it was okay, that the names were close. Usually, I am good to
remember names, but do recall many years ago renaming people. After
knowing Diane for a year or so, she told me one day that her name was not
Diane. I asked what it was. She said it was Ruth. I asked where I got the
name Diane. She said she had no idea. I also remember asking the name of a
young lady who I was meeting for the first time. She said Melva. I thought
she said Nova, so I nicknamed her Scotty, short for
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace
Perspective 19K23
Week 46
Item 1: Church invites community to thank God for his blessings
Consider:
- Of course, we are grateful for everything God provides.
- But by definition, the word “thanksgiving” means more than to express a polite “thank you” to God; rather, it means to receive the supports he provides.
- This means, it can only be said that we are thankful to God when we take time to receive his Provisions.
Item 2: Opinion writer: ‘Americans hate one another’
Consider:
- Man’s hatred of others is the emotional and mental dark side of his sinful human nature.
- The Life of Christ within us transforms our heart to increasingly love (value) every person unconditionally - the same as God values them.
- God’s hatred is not an emotion, but is his rejection
of evil.
Item 3: Author says we ‘grow
through what we go through’
Consider:
- No, we are broken by the adversity we go through.
- We grow by receiving God into our life (his Provisions which increase us in health and happiness).
Item 4: Dad asks ‘prayers’ for children
Consider:
- God has provided to meet the health and happiness needs of children through the resource persons in their lives - beginning with their parents, but especially through relationship with Christ.
- Parents pray for their children by receiving from God his Strength so that they are enabled to be the support resource their children need.
Item 5: Overheard: Manager tells staff to make him look good to
corporate bosses
Consider:
- Employee failure is almost always management failure.
- Grace management (support leadership) identifies each employee’s role for fulfilling the company’s mission in the community, and then to support their success in every way possible to help accomplish it.
Item 6: Observed: Enthusiastic trainee in fast food restaurant irritates
staff
Consider:
- Providing enthusiastic service to customers per Colossians 3:23-24 may generate backlash from less enthusiastic co-workers (2 Timothy 3:12; Matthew 10:16).
- That’s because our fallen human nature tends to resent others who have more, know more, or do more.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: At a fast food restaurant this week, I observed a new employee working with a lot of energy and commitment. As I was getting out of my car, he was sweeping the parking lot, but looked up to say “thank you for dining with us today.” Inside, he cleaned tables, swept the floor, washed the entrance windows, and welcomed diners – all with a broad, non-stop smile (either amusing or irritating his coworkers). He asked each customer how they were doing. If they responded to say they were doing fine, he would smile, say he was doing fine also, and then thank them for asking. Or, if a customer did not respond, he would do the same – smile, tell them he was doing fine also, and say thank you. Years ago, I remember a famous evangelist and former Hall of Fame football player coming to our church. When he drove onto the parking lot in a big motorhome on the afternoon before the evening event, I and several other staff members looked on star-dazed. When he emerged, he greeted each of us with an enthusiastic handshake and said, “You are glad for me to be here, I know you are, I am sure!” (I think a hundred or so youth trusted Christ for salvation during that week of meetings.)
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace
Perspective 19K16
Week 44
Item 1: Report: Number of aging Americans filing bankruptcy has
skyrocketed since 1991; medical bills cited as leading reason
Consider:
- Wasteful, impulsive, non-redemptive spending should be considered, but is not mentioned in the report.
- God has promised health, physically and financially, to all who “seek first his Redemptive Plan for their life” (from Matthew 6:33).
Item 2: Advertised ‘free trials’ costing consumers billions
Consider:
- Satan is a deceiver, liar. and father of all lies (John 8:44).
- Christ is the Wisdom (Mind) of God imparted to us to support us for making wise choices (1 Corinthians 1:30).
Item 3: Nationals win Series, D.C. crowd boos Trump
Consider:
- The Heart of Christ within us supports us in a free nation to respect the office of those who provide government leadership.
- Those who rage forfeit the credibility of their opposing views.
Item 4: Tv sports called ‘new true religion’
Consider:
- Christ, alone, living his Life within us, has power to make content man’s heart so that he does not need to chase after entertainment to ease the pain of his boredom.
Item 5: ‘Over 1,000’ raise hand to commit life to Christ at Kanye
West Rally
Consider:
- God gives eternal life to all you trust Christ (his Blood/death on the cross) as the only payment he will accept to satisfy his Judgment against Adam’s transgression (Romans 5:12-19).
- Raising the hand is an outward confession of an inward decision to trust Christ.
- Water baptism (immersion into water) is
- a symbolic act to make a theological statement of faith to the world that the Holy Spirit has immersed us into spiritual union with Christ (like a sponge into water) and has given us new life,
- not a sacrament essential to salvation, but an ordinance - the first step of compliance for making wise choices that lead to health and happiness.
Item 6: Leading child psychologist says stealing and lying is a
growing-up phase for children, that unmet needs have nothing to do with it
Consider:
- The pain and brokenness of unmet needs is absolutely the core cause of broken behavior.
- Worse than denying we have essential inborn needs is denying that a God exists who has provided Resource Supports (especially Christ) for us to receive in order to meet those needs.
Item 7: Leading pastor tells church he is authority over them
Consider:
- The Old Testament concept of authority is illustrated by a master owning and controlling servants.
- The Bible word “authority” in the context of the New Testament (Covenant) means “freedom” - as in opening a door to allow entrance.
- Which means, pastors, also husbands, are resources to which those we serve connect for support (per John 15:1-8).
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: Wife, Carole, likes to ask my opinion on things political and especially Scriptural. She says God has identified me as a Resource for her. I welcome that, but tell her that nothing any of us has to say is Truth unless it comes from God. So sometimes I have to say I don’t know; other times I say I need to think about it. But I try to be careful that I don’t give her an answer just so she thinks I’m smart. I have learned that the smartest people among us know what they don’t know. The least smart have not learned that yet. (I told my know-it-all friend one day that he did not know everything, that everyone is smart, but only in different areas. He said he didn’t know about that.) I also sometimes don’t understand what I know. For example, I don’t really understand how a phone can transmit the likeness of my voice to a receiver hundreds of miles away so that someone can comprehend what I am saying. (My dad use to say he did not understand how a brown cow could eat green grass and give white milk!) But I do understand the dynamic that makes possible me hearing God and understanding Truth – that it is the work of the Holy Spirit producing the Mind of God in me per John 16:13, Ephesians 1:18, and Psalms 119:30. Otherwise (as my uncle liked to say), I don’t guarantee anything I say or think I know.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19K02
Week
43
Item 1: NASA chief says man could land on Mars by 2035
Consider:
- Man could be living in the Kingdom Age before 2035.
Item 2: Trump teases he could be president beyond two terms
Consider:
- Christ will reign on Earth during the Kingdom Age for a thousand years.
Item 3: Poll: Nearly a third of Jews avoid identifying themselves
publicly
Consider:
- Evil is hostile to God - because it cannot survive in the presence of Light.
- “In your face” religious expression is unwise. Trouble will find us soon enough.
- Jesus said, “Be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove” (Matthew 10:16).
Item 4: Observed: Facebook theology (also called ‘bumper sticker’
theology) summarized: ‘Reject God’s plan for health, but tell him you love him,
how great he is, then ask and expect him to give you good health anyhow’
Consider:
- Asking and expecting God to circumvent the outcomes of our stubborn refusal to include his Provisions of Grace into our lives will have a disappointing outcome.
Item 5: Tv minister says God gives good things to those who praise
him
Consider:
- Scripture: God gives good outcomes to those who receive his Provisions of Grace (in Creation, Community, and especially Christ) which produce those outcomes (Romans 5:17).
- This, in the same way as water produces good outcomes in our body - not because we confess how great it is, but because we drink it.
Item 6: New study: Crying may be good for your health
Consider:
- Crying is therapy to vent the pain of loss.
- Christ cried (sometimes with sobbing).
- The heart of Christ within us sometimes causes us to cry tears of grief – because of our sinfulness and loss.
- But “we do not grieve as those who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).
Item 7: Study: Modern conveniences have not resulted in more free
time
Consider:
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes Carole and I drive slow. We learned years ago in our travels to make the journey a part of the experience – rather than to hurry to our destination in order to begin whatever. We did not always do that. Earlier in life, Carole was always in “get there” mode. So was I, and I have a lot of fast driving awards to prove it, losing my license at least once. Now, we rarely pass anyone, but mosey along in the right lane. I have enjoyed how stress free traveling can be. The only problem has been misjudging traffic lights when they turn yellow. In our fast driving days, we could get through the light before it turned red. But when driving slow, the light can turn red before we get passed it. So we have decided we are okay as long as we do not see the red. Which is a good plan - if we don’t cheat. This week, I came upon a traffic light that turned yellow. When I continued through the intersection, Carole asked me if the light turned red. I told her I didn’t know because I didn’t look. When she asked why not, I said, “If a tree falls in the forest when no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Or the new version, “If a wife is fussing, is her husband listening?”
Week 42
Item 1: Chinese military official says ‘no force’ will stop China
Consider:
- During the last part of the coming Tribulation Period, a 200-million man army will come from the East against Israel and will destroy one-third of the population of the world (Revelation 9:13-16).
Item 2: Report: Performance churches build stages; Millennials
don’t know what a ‘pulpit’ is
Consider:
- Stages are for entertainment events.
- Pulpits are for preaching the Gospel.
Item 3: Franklin Graham says LBGTQs must quit their sins in order to
go to Heaven
Consider:
- The only sin anyone needs to quit in order to go to Heaven is the sin of rejecting God’s Provision of Christ’s death as the only Payment he will accept to satisfy his Judgment against the human race (because of Adam’s disobedience – Romans 5:12-19).
Item 4: Beachgoers rally to save whale’s life
Consider:
- Attention to save animal life is commendable.
- Attention to care about the eternal well-being of self and others is better.
Item 5: Ravi Zacharias says everyone has ‘intrinsic worth’ to God
Consider:
- Every
person is unconditionally valued (loved: agapao) by God.
- But no
one has intrinsic worth to God.
- Even “our
best is as filthy rags to God” (from Isaiah 64:6).
- Christ
alone (his Blood and his Life) has worth to God -
- imparted
to our spirit by the Holy Spirit for regeneration (when we
trust the Blood/death of Christ on the cross for us) and
- produced in our heart by him for sanctification (during our quiet-time worship).
Item 6: Atheist Ron Reagan says he is not afraid of ‘burning
in hell’
Consider:
- No one is an atheist who has experienced God’s love.
Item 7: Poll: Millennials rejecting values of older generations
Consider:
- Children embrace the values of parents who have invested in their redemptive needs (the meaning of Proverbs 22:6).
- People we have helped will tell us we are awesome. Those we have failed may not think it so much so.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes I asked the park ranger to identify the big white bird I saw on the lake. He said it was a swan and that its name was Ron Swanson. I asked the young lady at the check out to pronounce her name. It was a pretty name but different. She said she named her little girl Amour, which means “love” - because she wanted her to know that she was loved. I asked Carole if her name meant “awesome” because I thought she was awesome. She asked if my name meant “awesome.” I said it did (it doesn't), and that we must be the Awesomes.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19J19
Week
41
Item 1: Survey: Average American hasn’t made a new friend in 5 years!
Consider:
- Relationships in the home, Church, and community are an essential part of God’s Plan to meet our health and happiness needs.
- Relationships are either redemptive or meet codependency needs.
- A codependency relationship is two broken people using each other for superficial pain relief.
- In a redemptive relationship, we are either
- connected to a leadership resource in order to receive support or
- serve as a leadership resource in order to give support.
Item 2: Bill O’Reilly launches new project to increase number of
millionaires
Consider:
- The
worldly-wise have opportunity in
- God says “Labor not to be rich but rather work with your hands to do something useful (redemptive) so that you will have your needs met and also be able to help provide for those you have opportunity to serve (Proverbs 23:4; Ephesians 4:28).
- God also promises to give health and happiness, freedom from tension, and contentment to all who include his Provisions of Grace into their lives each day (Matthew 6:33; Romans 5:12; Philippians 4:19).
Item 3: Shark Tank host says success in business is driven by
commitment to make money
Consider:
- 1 Timothy 6:9-11 says those who “chase riches constantly fall into temptation and snares, and are dragged down into ruin and destruction.”
- God promises that “good will come to those who are compassionate and righteous, who conduct their affairs with justice … they will never be shaken, they will be remembered forever, and will have no fear of bad news” (Psalm 112).
Item 4: Tv evangelists says God’s Grace is the ‘source’ of God’s
Provisions
Consider:
- No, Grace IS God’s Provisions.
- God’s Mercy (an attribute of God) is the Source from which God’s Grace flows.
Item 5: Report: Prosperity theology is most popular in third world
(developing) countries
Consider:
- God relates to people according to their mental capacity to understand him.
- He provides rudimentary (baby food) ministry to the uninformed and to the simple.
- But he provides adult food to the “mature in Christ” - to support abundant health and happiness (Ephesians 4:11-15).
- Jesus said “to whom much is given, much will be required” (Luke 12:48).
- That is the reason the Apostle Paul became all things to all men (the weak and the strong) – so that he might win them to Christ (1 Corinthians 9:22).
Item 6: Study: Dogs detect lung cancer in blood with astonishing
accuracy
Consider:
- God’s design in his creation of all things was to provide for the redemptive (renewal) needs of all life.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes I’m a
confessed germaholic. I don’t like to stay in hotels or buy used vehicles,
don’t kiss dogs or let them lick me (their saliva may not hurt me but worry
the poop and vomit I’ve seen them eat will). I also wash my hands with
soap and hot water before meals, although I have been told that exposing
myself to germs will increase my immunity. That may be, but to expose
myself deliberately seems foolish, the same as putting God to the test.
Also, Paul wrote, “Don’t you know that, when you expose yourself to evil,
it will overtake and enslave you” (from Romans 6:15-16). The nastiest
animals I know are Canada Geese. When I see them anywhere near our
neighborhood, I launch bright colored pieces of wood at them that
terrifies them so that they fly away and don’t come back. We hear them hysterically
honking occasionally when they fly over our house, but I tell Carole they
are warning each other, “Don’t go down there!” At the Sunday buffet this week, Carole said
she didn’t want me to eat any pork. But the ham looked so good that I took
a small serving. I told Carole I just wanted to taste it. When I ate the
whole piece, I explained that, as I thought about it, I decided I shouldn't waste food.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19J12
Week
40
Item 1: Political Left continues push to remove national borders,
embrace globalism
Consider:
- Individual rights and freedoms will be lost /swallowed up in a globalist world.
- A one-world government, being planned for during this Age, will be ushered in by the Antichrist during the Tribulation.
- Christ came into the world in order to set us free (John 8:36) - from God’s Judgment against us because of Adam’s disobedience, and also from the control of Satan, the world’s influence, and our fallen human nature.
- “It is for freedom that Christ sets us (our spirit and heart) free” (Galatians 5:1).
Item 2: Famous entertainer says ‘Life is short. Can we just have a
good time?’
Consider:
- Life is short on Earth, but forever in Eternity.
- Making wise diet, exercise, lifestyle, and supplementation (DELS) choices can be tough and demanding.
- Continuous partying to have a good time doesn’t support health and happiness.
- Christ, alone, living his Life in and through us, is God’s Provision for our health and happiness.
Consider:
- The war against Satan is not ours to fight, but God’s.
- God does not call the Church to war against the powers of darkness but to be increased to fuller measure with the Light/Life of Christ (Ephesians 3:19; 4:13).
- Darkness can not prevail against the Power of God’s Light (the Life of Christ).
Item 4: Famous minister says we are indestructible until God is
finished with us
Consider:
- God promises watchcare over those who are obedient to make wise choices, including to not walk in front of a speeding bus.
- God welcomes us to prove his faithfulness: “Taste (receive his Provisions) to see that the Lord is good” - Psalm 34:8).
- But living recklessly (disregarding his Provisions) while expecting him to keep us safe is tempting God (putting God to the test).
- Jesus said, “Do not tempt the Lord your God” (Luke 4:12).
Item 5: Tv pastor says our afflictions glorify God
Consider:
- God uses afflictions to cause us to recognize our brokenness and need for him.
- Afflictions may be the result of living in a broken world filled with broken people, but the afflictions we suffer because of our unwise choices do not reflect (glorify) God.
- Rather, it is our health that glorifies (manifests) God / his Provisions of Grace.
Item 6: Famous pastor tells church to listen to hear God’s instructions
for the day before talking to him
Consider:
- God does not bark commands at us.
- We listen to God during our Quiet Time in order to hear him
- communicate to us / convince (convict) us of his Love for us and our need for him, and
- call us to receive him (his Provisions, beginning with his Life).
- The Life of Christ living within us (our heart) supports (enables) us for making the choices we need to make for health and happiness.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes I remember a young seminary student many years ago who launched into a long pious-sounding speech to God when he was asked to close a meeting with prayer. He was high energy at the start but began to sputter when he exhausted all the pious words he could remember, so could not think of an impressive way to close his prayer. After a moment’s pause, he recovered to say, “And, dear God, you pray for us and we’ll pray for you!” Carole came from the other side of the house into my work office yesterday to tell me she heard me whisper to her, but didn’t see me when she turned to look. I told her it was not me, that it must have been the Lord. You think? she asked. Could be I said. I asked her what he said. She said it was “Hello Darling!”
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19J05
Week
39
Item 1: 13-year-old dies from injuries sustained in attack by two
students, school counselors search for solution to violence
Related: Gallup
Consider:
- Anger resulting in violence is rooted in the pain of unmet mental and emotional health needs – inborn needs for which God calls and supports leadership in the home and Church (parents and pastors) to provide.
Item 2: University receives $20 million to research programs for promoting
kindness
Consider:
- Research to identify the causes and solutions to violence may help, and may be worthy of funding.
- But kindness in the world is best promoted by leadership in the Body of Christ teaching hurting people how to experience Christ.
- “I give my peace to you. The peace I give to you is a gift the world cannot give” – John 14:27.
Item 3: Church under investigation for allegedly holding down man
to pray away gay sexuality
Consider:
- Religious
intimidation may help alter behavior, but Christ alone, living his Life in
and through hurting people, has power to change both behavior and
orientations of the heart.
- Scriptural praying for others means to pray for ourselves in behalf of others - that is, to invite (receive) God’s Provision of Christ (his Resurrected Life) into our heart during quiet time worship in order to be enabled for teaching / supporting others how to make wise choices that result in enduring health and happiness.
Item 4: Church advertises an exciting, on-fire singing and
preaching experience
- The louder our spiritual experience, the more superficial it will be to sustain us past the moment we have it.
- The seed that supports our health and happiness is sown quietly into the soil of our heart.
- A wildfire church experience is not the same as the quiet work of the Holy Spirit to
- regenerate our spirit (the New Birth) and
- sanctify our heart/soul (produce in us the Likeness of Christ).
Related: Tech company asks: ‘Does your church have what it needs to
grow?’
Consider:
- Technology can help a church increase attendance and funding, or to promote an elevated emotional experience, but ministry that best supports the Body of Christ for learning how to experience Christ is quiet and simple (“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
Item 5: Russian priests spray ‘holy water’ from plane to stop
‘alcohol use’ and ‘fornication’
Consider:
- “Holy water” has no power to dispel sinful behavior.
- Christ, the Light of God, living his Life in and through members of the Body of Christ (the Church), has power to dispel the powers of darkness in the world (John 1:4-5).
Item 6: Popular pastor tells church to ‘give self up for others’
Consider:
- Altruism sacrifices personal health needs in behalf of others.
- Our experience of Christ (his Life living within us) supports us to value
- first, God (his Provisions of Grace),
- second, our personal health, and
- third, the Redemptive needs of others.
Item 7: Church growth leader says egocentricity is reason for leadership
failure
Consider:
- Egocentricity (selfishness and sense of self-importance) is rooted in the unmet need for validation – a normal, inborn need which God meets through our experience of Christ.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes Carole
and I renewed our driver’s license this week at the DMV. I ask the lady
given out numbers if we could get the two for one special. She said she
was not laughing today because she did not feel well. But my assigned
agent was a friendly guy. He said the DMV had made a few changes in recent
years, so I would need to take my glasses off for my photo. I told him
they were a part of my attire. He asked if I had a different pair for each
outfit. I told him real men did not wear outfits. He glanced at me and
asked if I wanted to fix my hair for the photo. I said my barber moved, so
I was letting it grow out, and that, anyway, real men don’t fix their
hair, they comb it. I told him that, years ago when I moved to another
state to work as an associate pastor, the DMV included my occupation on my
new license. When I saw it, I asked if they would add a “t” to their
abbreviation for associate, that I did not want to be an ass pastor in my
new position. As it turned out, identifying my occupation (the corrected
one) was a benefit. When I was pulled over later that year to receive a
fast driving award, the officer looked at my license, closed his tablet
and told me I could go, that he needed all the help from the Man Upstairs
he could get.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19I28
Week
38
Item 1: 1000 MN students hold rally to warn ‘world could end in 12
years’
Consider:
- This present Church Age will end, and the coming Kingdom Age will end.
- Time (minutes, hours, days, years, etc.) will also end.
- But the world will never end (Ephesians 3:21).
- Neither will Eternity and the Eternal Life God gives us ever end (John 3:16).
Item 2: Government certified counselor mocks ‘reading Scripture’ as
support for meeting counseling needs
Consider:
- Reading Scripture as a textbook to learn information may have only minimal value for healing.
- But reading the Scripture in order to hear God 1) communicate Truth concerning himself and our need for him and 2) call us to receive him is the beginning solution for healing of every counseling need.
Item 3: Radio host says providers who sell health products are
charlatans
Consider:
- So are radio hosts who promote / advertise worthless products to increase personal wealth.
- All of God’s Provisions are powerful to support our health and happiness needs and are offered free of charge to us (for us to receive) per Matthew 6:33, John 1:12, and Romans 5:17.
Item 4: Pastor invites sick to healing service for ‘laying on of
hands, anointing with oil’
Consider:
- “Laying on hands” for healing (on the shoulders or head) may have therapeutic benefit for healing troubled emotions (the psychosomatic cause of most physical disorders).
- But God does not heal our body through the hands / touch of men.
- The Scriptural laying hands on a young minister by leaders in the Church (as in a licensing or ordination ceremony) is a conferring of authority or a confirmation of support for his or her calling to provide ministry.
- The “anointing with oil” in James 4:14 was
- medicinal, also
- the ministry of the Church leaders to provide support counseling to the sick for making wise diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices that increase health.
- Holding the hands of the sick, also the work of a physician, surgeon, and maybe especially a chiropractor are good examples of Scriptural “laying on of hands” to support healing.
Item 5: Church asks community to help pray for sick pastor
Consider:
- “Asking” God to intervene long distance to heal people who have made poor choices for their health will have a disappointing outcome.
- Scripturally, we pray for the sick by praying for ourselves in their behalf - that is, we receive from God his Provisions that support our own health so that we are supported for providing support to those who need healing per 2 Corinthians 1:3-7.
Item 6: Author recommends 10 powerful prayers God will answer
Consider:
- God provides for every need we have through our connection to his Resources in Creation (the soil and atmosphere), Community (leadership in the home and Church), and especially Christ (his Blood / death for us and his Resurrected Life living within us).
- Jesus said, “Come to me you who are broken and I will restore you” (Matthew 11:28); I will never turn away anyone who comes to me” (John 6:37).
Item 7: Study: Younger generations rejecting traditional values
Consider:
- Values are changed by
- choices to superficially relieve the emotional pain of unmet needs, resulting in addictions,
- public (government) education,
- the movie, tv, and music industry, and
- the mainstream news media.
- Values are supported by the faithfulness of
- parents to invest in the inborn temperament needs of children and of
- the Church to provide support to its members for experiencing Christ (growing in Grace).
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes A friend emailed to say he enjoys Journey Notes. Writing about self is tricky. People who are being supported in their relationship to Christ welcome to know a little more about the Resources they are connected to. (Others may not have an interest.) This, in the same way children honor parents, churches honor pastors, and wives honor husbands. A husband is blessed to have a wife who honors him, especially to give him opportunity for influence. No husband could be more blessed than I. Carole wants to know my opinion on about almost everything, especially the Scripture. I had an old uncle to whom I asked a lot of questions. He was good to give helpful answers but sometimes he added, “But I don’t guarantee ANYTHING.” So this week when Carole was asking me questions I couldn't answer, I just said, “I don’t guarantee ANYTHING!” I got on a roll saying that just to be funny. At first she laughed but finally told me to stop saying it. So later, when she asked me another question, I said, “I don’t humahum HUMAHUM!” I couldn't help myself.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19I21
Week
37
Item 1: Wearing pro-America shirt not
allowed at sports event, considered divisive, unsafe
Consider:
- Brokenness is intolerant to opposing views.
- The Heart of Christ, when given opportunity, speaks the Truth in Love to support healing.
Consider:
- Our reaction to adverse people (to flee
or fight) is influenced by our inborn temperament type.
- But our experience of Christ, living within our heart, supports us for investing in the brokenness at the root of their adversity.
Consider:
- Confession of sinful behavior to a robot may give a false sense of salvation and temporarily relieve tension.
- But whatever benefit robots may provide, they cannot forgive (remove) God’s Judgment against us (separation from him).
- Christ alone, by our faith in his Blood/death on the cross, is our hope for reconciliation to God and Eternal Life.
Consider:
- Advance technology has benefit to extend life.
- But health and happiness are supported by our experience of God’s Provisions of Grace, beginning with Christ (his Resurrected Life renewed in our heart each day during our Quiet Time).
Consider:
- God loves (values) us unconditionally, but he has no need (socially, emotionally, or otherwise) for us to hang out with him.
- But he does desire for us to connect with him per John 15:5 because of our need for the support he provides.
- Social media misses meeting the deepest need of growing children to experience support relationships in the home and Church, and especially God.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I enjoy engaging with gracious people. I love their joy and happiness, their smiles and humility. They cut up and laugh with both friends and strangers. The service person at the tire store this week was especially friendly and helpful. Later, at WalMart, the voice that called shoppers to attention was energetic and engaging. After making her gregarious pitch to promote an item, she gushed her appreciation for customers who chose to shop at “their wonderful store.” She was fun to listen to. But she was soaring so high that I feared she was going to have a hard time finding a way to land. But she did. After a brief pause, she said, “So, again thank you SO MUCH for shopping with us today!” And then with a final burst of energy, she said, “And thank you for ... FOR HAVING A WONDERFUL DAY!” I thought it was very funny, but, then, I am easy to entertain.
Week 36
Item 1: NC baby dies in hot car, 37th this year in US
Consider:
- Addiction to pain relief hinders our thinking and ability to function normally.
- Christ transforms our life to focus first on making choices that support our own health so that we are supported to focus on the health of those we serve.
Consider:
- Freedoms provided for by our Constitution assume a godly nation.
- embrace and live out godly values per Romans 6:17, or to
- lose our freedom to bear arms.
Consider:
- Prosperity (including health) is the result of our faithful connection to God’s Resources per John 15:5 for receiving his Provisions of Grace which support us for making wise choices.
Consider:
- Confidence that we are unconditionally valued, especially by God (not the same as to be considered valuable), meets our deepest psychological (temperament) need to be/feel significant.
Consider:
- Confidence that we are unconditionally valued by God meets the deepest health need of man’s heart, surpassing all other experiences.
Consider:
- Patience can be cultivated through life experiences which force us to wait.
- But our deepest support for being patient (“longsuffering” – Galatians 5:22) is produced in us by the Holy Spirit during our quiet time to experience (worship) Christ.
Consider:
- This is a parenting issue.
- Grace Parenting provides support to meet the inborn need of children for information (re: how the world works, but especially about God), affection (especially to be unconditionally valued), and structure (schedule) so that they are able to make timely choices which result in health and happiness.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes On our trip to the mountains recently, an elderly, homeless-looking lady stood in the heat at an overlook parking lot offering her paintings. But instead of selling them, she placed a little box for donations on the trunk of her car. As I looked on, two Millennials walked up, selected a painting, and then walked away thanking her. Disappointed, she kindly called after them, “Absolutely, this is my hobby. I love to give my paintings away!” But God has provided for us so that we do not need to be so broke that we can’t give to help deserving others, or so that we need to panhandle. The financial advisor on radio says that, before retiring, baby boomers should at the least have their home and vehicles paid for, no credit card debt, enough cash flow to buy food and pay utilities, and some savings for emergencies. Carole and I don't owe anything to anyone, have a small income and some savings so that, if we live modestly, we will be okay. But living modestly means we don’t take cruises or expensive vacations, and limit our time away to day trips. Carole said it would be nice if we could live in a golf course community. I told her that maybe we could think about a putt-putt community.
Week 35
Item
1: Gunman kills 7, wounds 21 after
traffic stop; officials seek motive
Consider:
- At the root of violence is anger rooted in the pain of unmet health needs – needs which God provides for through leadership in the home and Church and especially Christ, his Life within us.
Consider:
- Truth will always prevail against evil unless it is denied participation in the marketplace of ideas.
Related: 39-year-old tv personality dies in crash trying to break
512 mph land speed record in jet car
Consider:
- Extreme attempts to outrun our boredom, chase after significance, put our health and life at risk.
- God gives peace and contentment to those who are supported for health by his Life in us.
Consider:
- Our experience of Christ living his Life within us purifies our heart and transforms our values so that sinful thoughts do not occupy our mind or define who we are.
Consider:
- Members living in failure are disqualified for providing leadership in the Church.
- But God “makes again” vessels that are in confession of their brokenness and need for him.
- Saul of Tarsus participated in the murder of Christians before he became Paul the Apostle.
Consider:
- At any age, we can lead the lost to trust Christ for salvation.
- But teaching and providing leadership support to the Church is best left to the elders.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes I was grieved this week when I heard a church lady harshly criticize her neighbor. Unkindness toward others must surely be a stench that grieves God. I thought about that later in the day when I walked into a small business shop. The person who greeted me suddenly had an unfriendly look on his face and grunted at me. I also noticed the most foul odor coming from somewhere in the shop. So I left. Outside, the odor lingered in my nose as I walked to my vehicle. I looked back at the business and shook my head with disappointment. Just then two men walked into the shop, but then after only a few moments, they came out, pointed at the sidewalk, and then across the parking lot at me. Looking at the ground where they were pointing, I saw a trail of dog poop leading to where I was standing, which I must have transported into the shop. I took my shoe off, banged it on the ground, and placed it into a plastic bag. At home, I sprayed it with a water hose, scrubbed it with soap, vinegar, and a stiff brush, then left it to bleach in the sun. Stench is hard to get rid of. A floating molecule must have grabbed onto the inside of my nose, because I think I still smell it. It may take awhile. Worse, the shop may need to shut down for a day or two.
Week 34
Item
1: Report: Shortage of electricity,
food, water, supplies, Venezuelans return to religion
Consider:
- Religious performance to please God with hopes of earning his help will intensify brokenness.
- God allows adversity in our life for the purpose of calling us to him - to confess our brokenness and need to receive him (his Provisions of Grace).
Consider:
- Evil roams the Earth like a roaring lion to destroy (1 Peter 5:8).
- Vessels God is using for his Redemptive Work in the world have God’s protection (Psalm 91:1-16; 138:6-8).
Consider:
- The notion that God says yes or no to our pleading with him is junk theology.
- God’s Provisions of Grace are available faithfully, freely, and without limit to meet the redemptive needs of every person who receives them (John 1:12; Romans 5:17; Ephesians 1:6; James 1:5).
Consider:
- Berating, barking, and shaming may improve performance but misses the deepest need of man’s heart for confidence of God’s unconditional love.
Consider:
Related: Researchers working on pill for loneliness
- Our confidence of God’s love (agape: unconditional value) for us deeply satisfies man’s inborn need for affection, validation, and significance.
Consider:
- God does not call us to chase after our dreams but to surrender to his Calling for us to know (experience) him who works in and through us to accomplish his Redemptive Purpose for our life in the world.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: One day the Disciples were arguing about who of them was number one. Jesus said to them, “The first in this life shall be last in eternity and the last shall be first.” But my early mentors taught me that I should strive to be number one in whatever I did - that, as a pastor, my goal should be to build the largest or at least fastest growing church in the world, and if not in the world, in America, and if not in America, in my state (which I did in 1983), and if not in my state, in my town, and if not in my town, on my street. So for 15 years, I set out to build large and fast growing ministries, motivated by my need and desire to be number one (which as it turned out was mostly a psychological need for validation missed during my childhood). During his ministry on earth Jesus was not first, especially among religious rulers and even family members. Instead, he suffered intense opposition, and then was crucified, dying alone except for his mother, two women, and one disciple. But he is now positioned in Heaven at the right hand of the Father “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given” (Ephesians 1:21-23). He will also reign during the Kingdom Age as King over all the earth for a thousand years, during which also we who are last in this life (according to religious and worldly standards) will preach the message of grace to millions who will welcome and rejoice to hear it. Scripturally, a home is established by two persons, a man and a woman, who covenant together for the purpose of being fruitful, producing few or many children. (Old joke: Adam lamented that the only problem with Eve and him being the only two people on Earth was that, whatever he told his wife, the whole world knew about it.) A local church is also established (according to Matthew 18:20) by at least two persons who covenant together for the purpose of pursuing and living out God’s Calling for their lives in the world. This means, a church can be the world’s largest with thousands of members or the world’s smallest with two members.
Week 33
Item
1: Philadelphia
Consider:
- Rebellion against authority can be rooted in personal experiences of police misconduct.
- But mostly, hatred for authority is rooted in unmet temperament needs, beginning in childhood (for information, validation, affection, and structure), and also for confidence of God’s unconditional love (value).
Consider:
- In a broken world, “Everyone Welcome” churches are increasingly at risk for attack.
- God calls members of the Body of Christ to influence the lost to receive Christ (by their godly lives and effectual message), beginning with family, friends, and neighbors, and then bring them to the private meetings of the Church for instructions and support for doing the same.
- Performance churches do not have God’s protection.
Consider:
- Hatred of conservative values is driven by the need to protect broken values.
Consider:
- “Whatever was to my gain, I now consider loss for the surpassing greatness of knowing (experiencing) Christ.” - from Philippians 3:7-8
- “I press on toward the goal to win the prize to which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (sanctification / holiness: usefulness to God as a vessel for his Redemptive Work in the world).” - Philippians 4:14
- “Seek first God’s Redemptive Purpose for your life; and you will have everything you need as a result.” - from Matthew 6:33
- “I consider my life worth nothing to me unless I can finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given to me – the task of testifying to the Good News of God’s Grace.” - Acts 20:24
- “It is my earnest expectation and hope that I should in no way fail to be a beacon light to manifest the Likeness of Christ into a dark world.” - from Philippians 1:20-21
- God does not give good outcomes, but provides Provisions of Grace for us to include in our life that produce good outcomes.
- This, the same as God does not dehydrate us but provides water for us to drink.
Consider:
- Wholesome speech flows out of a godly heart.
Consider:
- God is not undecided about our healing.
- In Eternity, before the beginning of Time, God
- foreknew the human race would reject him and (as a result) become broken, and
- predetermined (decided before Time) to provide resources for us to receive that would recover our health (Romans 5:17; Ephesians 1:5-13).
Consider:
- Medical doctors can have a vested interest in broken health.
- “Asking God for blessings” is junk theology.
- So is religious performance to win God’s favor.
- Church leaders have a vested interest (for position and wealth) in performance theology.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes On Saturday, Carole asked me to wash her car before our day trip. I washed the car, but since it was hot and humid, and since she was driving, I asked her if I could detail only the driver’s side. Out of state, we found gas prices 30 cents cheaper, but we were already 3/4‘s full. I said we should leave the engine running when we stopped to eat so that we could buy more gas. I like to save money, so when I found a pair of work pants on sale at Roses, I asked the checkout lady if I could get a second pair for the same price. She laughed and said I could. Carole doesn’t think everything I say or do is as funny as I do. I tell her I am just having fun. She said she may have me committed to a funny farm.
Week 32
Item
1: In wake of mass shootings, NRA
opposes stronger gun laws
Consider:
- Freedom from laws works only in a godly society.
- That’s why, during the coming Kingdom Age and also in Eternity, weapons will not be needed.
Consider:
Item 1: Tragic weekend of multi-mass shootings, many killed, others injured; political and religious leaders search for answers
UK
Week 30
- Godly values are influenced
- from without - by leadership in the home and Church, friends and associates, and education, and
- from within - by the presence of Christ living his Life within us to transform our values (to seek God’s Provisions, our personal health, and the well-being of others).
Consider:
- The heart of man is desperately wicked, even beyond what we can know (Jeremiah 17:9).
- During the coming Tribulation (after the
Rapture), the Antichrist will break his 7-year covenant with the nation
- But God is true (Romans 3:4) and faithful; throughout history, he has raised up leaders to support his Redemptive Purpose in the world.
Consider:
- Racism is the belief one race is superior to another.
- Support for traditions and values offered to everyone is not racism.
Consider:
- God did not make it hard for us to go to Heaven or to be healthy and holy.
- God saves (justifies, reconciles, forgives, regenerates, takes to Heaven) everyone who believes (trusts) that Christ
- is his only begotten Son (John 3:16),
- was virgin born and lived a sinless life,
- died to satisfy his judgment against the human race (because of Adam’s transgression in the Garden of Eden – Romans 5:12-19), and then, in three days,
- rose from the dead.
- God also saves (sanctifies / heals the sinful heart of) everyone who receives his Provisions of Grace (Romans 5:17; Revelation 3:20), especially and beginning with the Resurrected Life of Christ per John 15:1-8.
Consider:
- Faith (conviction of Truth) produced in us by the Holy Spirit (during our quiet time worship to read the Scripture in order to hear and experience Christ) is deeply rooted to support us.
- When Jesus asked if the Disciples wanted to go away, Peter answered incredulously, “To whom shall we go! (There is no where else to go!)” (John 6:67-68).
Consider:
- God does not call us to chase our dreams but to surrender to his Redemptive Purpose and Calling for our lives – beginning with experiencing him.
Consider:
- God does not call us to “please” him but to give him opportunity to live his Life in and through us each day.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes We sold our 2000 Nissan van for money to help buy new tires, brakes, and paint for our ’86 Toyota, then went to the DMV to turn in the old license plate. Carole took a number and we sat down to wait. The first number called was 78. Carole said our number was 86. I turned the number around and told her it was 98. She said I was being bad because she trusted me and sometimes did not know when I was teasing. Leaving the DMV, Carole said she needed to pee bad. I told her to be good, not bad. I asked her if she knew where bees went to pee. She said she didn’t. I said it was to the BP station. At home, I edged my neighbor’s yard in 90 degree heat. Carole said I was being good. I told her I drank a lot of water.
Week 31
Item 1: Tragic weekend of multi-mass shootings, many killed, others injured; political and religious leaders search for answers
Consider:
- The health of individuals and the society we live in deteriorates when the essential support needs God has provided to meet our multidimensional needs are missing.
- Tougher laws, additional community programs, and improved therapy support may help to reduce violence, but do not promote healing.
- Ministry investment to meet inborn needs promotes health and happiness at home and in society,
- including physically, but
- especially psychologically (of the mind, emotions, and will for information, affections and structure), and
- most essentially, spiritually (to know / experience God).
Consider:
- In a broken world filled with broken people, loss of the right to have and bear arms leaves good people exposed to violence and suffering.
- That’s because,
- evil (the powers of darkness manifesting through hurting, angry people) is hate-filled and predisposed to violence and destruction,
- peace is possible only if good people are armed to defend themselves.
- Weapons will not be present or needed during the coming Kingdom Age – that’s because Christ will administrate his government over the nations in righteousness.
Consider:
- We are not safe because we are born again, or because we are nice people, but because we are useful to God (definition of “holiness”) for his Redemptive work in the world - doing the work he has called and prepared us to do, in the place he has called us to do it.
Consider:
- Christ living his Life through us to accomplish his Redemptive work in the world gives our lives ultimate meaning – and can begin at any age.
Consider:
- Therapy treatment to change sexual interests and behavior has a very low success rate – the same as treatment for alcohol and drug addictions.
- That’s because, while therapy may help to manage behavior, it does not heal the brokenness within us.
- Christ, living his Life within us, transforms our mind, emotions, and will to be like him, so that our brokenness is incrementally healed, in the same way light dispels darkness.
- For this same reason, performance-based Christianity (churchianity) has a very low success rate to
- produce Christlikeness,
- impact homes and communities, or
- reverse moral decline in society.
Consider:
- God created us with the ability to cry as therapy to help relieve / vent the pain of our unmet needs.
- Redemptive crying is directed to God to confess our need for him.
- “Out of the depths I cry unto you, O Lord” (Psalm 130:1).
Related: Millennials increasingly see themselves as moms and dads to
their ‘fur-babies’
Consider:
- Christ, living his Life in us, impassions our heart to be used by him to help meet the Redemptive needs of hurting people.
Item
8: Florida
Consider:
- This may be the same as stepping in front of a bus to save a pet.
- God calls us to invest ourselves in those we are called to serve (Ephesians 5:25) - parents their children, husbands their wives, pastors their churches – not to put our lives at risk defending our addiction needs.
Item
9: Las Vegas
Consider:
- Sin, the behavior (by definition, the choices we make that disregard God’s Provisions of Grace to meet our health needs) ultimately always results in increased brokenness.
- The only sin that will send anyone to hell is rejecting God’s Provision of Christ (his Blood/death on the cross as the only payment he will accept to satisfy his judgment against us because of Adam’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden).
Consider:
- James 5:14-16 instructs the sick to call for the Elders of the church to teach them about the choices they can make that recover health.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: Once I lost track of time, so was running late for an appointment. (It was not because I didn’t drive fast enough.) Coming up on a red light, I “prayed” for God to turn the light green so I would not need to stop. The light stayed red. When my “check engine light” came on, I “asked” God to heal the engine. The light stayed on. When my tire went flat, I “asked” God to re-inflate it. I ended up changing the tire. So, I am re-thinking my plan to promote a “miracle” healing service, although I know a large crowd would attend. Instead, I may promote a meeting to pass out bottles of water, which is the number one health need people have (besides oxygen). In my early ministry, I hyped church attendance – once by promising to show something that had never been seen before and that, after I showed it, it would never be seen again. It was a peanut that I shelled and ate. When I stopped doing that sort of thing and began announcing instead that I would teach hurting people how to experience Christ, the Water of Life, the crowds stopped coming. As a result, I had to give up my gig as a church growth consultant. But I am still available to churches who want to downsize. Recently I helped a church downsize into their broom closet.
Week 30
Item
1: Report: Wearing MAGA hat can put
safety at risk
Consider:
- Man’s sinful nature is hostile to loss of access to his addiction needs.
- As we near the end of this Age, the Age of Grace (the Church Age), Judeo-Christian values will be increasingly subject to anger and hostility.
- Jesus told his Disciples, “Listen carefully. I am sending you out to preach the Gospel; you will be like sheep among a pack of wolves, so be wise as serpents and harmless as doves (from Matthew 10:16).”
- It is not wise or harmless to be prideful and celebratory in the face of our opponents with our political views.
Item
2: 19 year old California
Related: Nation’s leaders search for answers to violence
Consider:
- The root of violence is anger.
- At the root of anger is unmet health needs.
- Stricter law enforcement can help manage behavior but is powerless to heal brokenness.
- Man’s most essential need is for confidence that he is unconditionally valued by someone, especially God (not the same as being consider valuable).
Consider:
- God sees all, but more than watching us, he is watching over us (Psalm 1:6).
- Performance-driven “Christianity” (religion) looks at bad behavior to judge it.
- The Heart of Christ within us looks beyond the bad behavior to the brokenness at its root.
Consider:
- It is the role of government and community professionals to protect lives.
- God calls leadership in the home and Church (parents, husbands, and pastors) to first invest in their own life in order to ensure that those they serve are not left without leadership support.
Consider:
- Performance-driven “Christianity” is shallow, not anchored in the Message of Grace, so does not hold but is tossed about like the waves of the sea.
- Our experience of Christ, produced and increased in our heart by the Holy Spirit during our quiet time each day to read the Scripture, supports us for staying on course.
Item
6: Study: Entertainment tv making
people dumber
Consider:
- Our mind is supported by information that
- increases understanding of how the world works,
- teaches moral values, and
- communicates God’s Love and Redemptive Plan for our life.
Item
7: New Study: Regular walks make us
healthier, happier, and brainier
Consider:
- The life of the body is nutrition-rich blood.
- Exercise to increase heart rate strengthens the heart to better deliver nutrition to the cells of the body.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: On my runs through communities, I notice new homeowners sometimes have a good start with maintenance. The house and lawn look nice when they move in but they don’t follow through to meet the demands of regular maintenance, so the place gradually gets run down. Others buy an older home but invest time and care so that it is more beautiful every year. There is a lot to say about people who fail in early life but are renewed to make wise choices so that they end well in their later years. (“God’s Provisions will keep you strong to the end.” – 1 Corinthians 1:8) Maintaining old cars has become my hobby, especially my ’86 Toyota Camry (Grandpa) with 97K miles and ’93 Buick Century (Grandma) with 130K miles. I have two other old vehicles, both about 20 years old with low mileage. My new neighbor has a ’95 Ford Ranger with over 200K miles. He said his ’94 Ranger had 400K miles when he sold it for a $1000. So we have a lot in common to talk about. I remember the young guy who thought he could increase his gas mileage by driving fast because he would get to his destination faster. I told him that a conditioned runner could run a marathon faster than a race horse. I also told him about the famous long distance runner who died young, and said that God created us so that, if we make wise choices for health consistent with his law of cause and effect, we increase our prospect of living longer. Billy Graham lived to age 99. Earlier in life he said he walked a lot where he lived and that his wife was committed to preparing healthy meals. Carole helps watch out for my food choices. At Cracker Barrel on our day trip this week, I spotted the Jordan Almonds at the check out. Carole knows I could eat a ton of them, so asked me if I would just eat only a few. I said I would, but if I failed, I’d keep trying.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19G27
Week 29
Item
1: Candidate says illegal immigrants
more American than Americans
Consider:
- Abounding lawlessness and confused values (calling right wrong and wrong right – Isaiah 5:20) will mark the time nearing the Second Coming of Christ (Matthew 24:12).
- God calls the Church to care for the poor, but the best Americans
- are law abiding citizens,
- provide support to hurting people who embrace our values,
- do not want anyone, including even a neighbor, breaking into our home demanding to be housed, fed, and cared for.
Item
2: Progressives say conservatives
are dividing America
Consider:
- Conservatives are the salt of the Earth to preserve righteousness (Matthew 5:13).
- The Antichrist will unite the governments of the world and behead those who do not accept his rule (Revelation 20:4).
Consider:
- Satan roams about seeking to destroy (1 Peter 5:8).
- The Love of Christ in us for others does no harm but always protects (1 Corinthians 13:7).
Consider:
- Everything God created in the beginning was pleasing to him (Genesis 1:4).
- Everything he is providing for us now is good and perfect (James 1:17).
- God’s Provisions support us so that we are without blemish (1 Corinthians 1:8), without spot or wrinkle (Ephesians 5:25-27).
- The place he is preparing for us in Eternity is without blemish (John 14:2-3; Revelation 21:27).
Consider:
- God is righteous (Psalm 145:17) and clothes us in his righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).
- Nakedness is a symbol of self-righteousness (self-enabled performance to obey the law) or of lawlessness (rejection of God’s Law).
- Clothes are a symbol of God’s righteousness – at home and in public, “not having a righteousness that comes by trying to obey the Law but that is by Christ living his Life in and through us” (from Philippians 3:9).
Consider:
- The role of leadership in the home and Church, and also in the workplace, is to invest, not use. Paul wrote “Do not allow yourself to be employed by users – because the wages they pay is death” (from Romans 6:13, 23).
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I dreamed this week that I was a young minister living in the same house with one of my former employer-pastors. But I never saw him, except once when he told me I would need to run 90 miles an hour. I awoke thinking about what Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are overburdened, broken down, and wornout and I will recover you.” Working as a young minister to win God’s favor broke me. I remember the day I stopped doing his Work, and began trusting him to do his Work through me. Carole and I have had our needs met ever since, although we have had modest incomes. Our modest home is paid for, worth twice what we paid for it. We have five older cars (only one newer than 20 years old), all paid for. We owe nothing for anything, except the utility bill which is amazingly low every month. Our doctors and dentist tell us we are in excellent health and to keep doing whatever we are doing. Health, however, is not automatic, but is organic: That is, it must be renewed daily or it diminishes. That means, we must make wise lifestyle choices for diet, exercise, and supplementation and also to be renewed in our experience of Christ (the Daily Bread) every day - or else our brokenness, like a weed, will resurface. This week I told Carole’s health-conscious 100-year-old friend that she looked more like a young 80. I said I liked George Burn’s song, “I wished I was 18 again.” She asked me why I wanted to be 80. I said I wished I was eighteen, not eighty. She said I didn't look 80.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19G20
Week 28
Item
1: Report: Global earthquakes 3
times above normal
Consider:
- Jesus said earthquakes resulting in famines and pestilences would abound in unusual places as we near the time of his Return (Luke 21:11).
Item
2: Swedes getting implants in their
hands to replace cash, credit cards
Consider:
- During the Tribulation Period (following the Rapture of the Church at the end of the Age of Grace), the Mark of the Beast (identified as the number 666) implanted on the right hand or forehead will be required by the Antichrist for selling or purchasing (Revelation 13:16-17).
- During the Tribulation, the Antichrist will come to power to lead a one-world government with a global currency.
- But the Body of Christ will be raptured before the Tribulation. Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled; as surely as I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again to take you to be with me” (from John 14:1-3).
Consider:
- Actually, broken people who are given free anything, including free healthcare, do not improve in health but become sicker.
- Christ, living his Life within us, transforms our values so that we are supported for making wise choices that increase our health.
Item
4: Bishop to spray holy water from
helicopter to exorcise demons from Columbian city
Consider:
- Satan, the ruler of the kingdom of the air (Ephesians 2:2; 6:12), and the demonic forces of evil occupy the upper sphere surrounding the Earth and invade into our lives through channels we open to it.
- “Holy Water” has no power against Satan.
- Our protection against Satan and demonic activity is Christ living his Life within us, which he promises to do when we take time each day to be renewed in our experience of him during our quiet-time worship.
Consider:
- God’s reason for everything he provides is to support our health and happiness, including marriage.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I bragged to Carole that I had lost weight when I tried on new workpants this week and was able to take them off without unzipping them. But when I checked further, I found the size printed on the inside label was larger than the information stapled to the outside. I was disappointed. I told Carole that I got pranked. Carole said she thought I was wealthy when she first met me but then found out I wasn't. She said she also thought I was smart.
Week 27
Item
1: Restaurant employee spits on Eric
Trump
Consider:
- In a world of hurting, angry people, conservatives are at risk to be hated if they
- dress or look normal, and especially if they
- have Judeo-Christian values.
- Jesus said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (from John 15:18-21).
- But we have this promise: “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, the Lord will preserve my life; he will stretch out his hand against the anger of my foes; with his Right Hand he saves me” (Psalm 138:7).
Item
2: Report: ‘Milkshakes’ thrown by protester
at conservative rally was quick-drying cement, pepper spray, raw eggs
Related: Shouting students at progressive university disrupt free
speech rally
Consider:
- Error hates Truth and is hostile to destroy it.
- That’s because our broken human nature fights what it fears.
- Truth does not fear opposing views coexisting in the marketplace of ideas.
- That’s because darkness has no power to prevail against the light.
- Quote: “The only way Truth does not win in the marketplace of ideas is for it not to be heard.”
Item
3: Social media giants warn users
not to post ‘hate’ comments
Consider:
- Our constitutional right of free speech is not
intended to protect hate-filled speech.
- Speech motivated by hate destroys.
- Truth spoken in Love may hurt but has power to heal.
Item
4: Health experts debunk notion we
can be ‘too clean’
Related: Study: Heredity a factor, but major cause of broken health,
early death is lifestyle choices
Consider:
- God designed our bodies so that good outcomes are the
result of wise choices.
- In his mercy, God created us with an immune system to
support us against adverse elements in the soil and atmosphere.
- But carelessness to be clean puts us at risk for
sickness.
- It also tempts God (puts him to the test) and
disrespects his Provisions to support our health.
- Jesus said, “It is written, do not tempt the Lord
your God” (Matthew 4:7).
- Paul wrote, “Shall we continue to sin so that grace may abound? Absolutely not! We died to (have been set free from the power of) sin, how shall we continue to live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2).
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I don’t ever remember being called a boy. But I do remember the first time I was called a man. I was a young minister going house to house knocking on doors to introduce our church and talk about Christ. A little girl answering the door at one home called back to her family inside to say there was a man at the door. I was 18. Thus far, I have not been called an old man, although I expect one day it will come. But I think the sales associate at J. C. Penny this week may have come close. I was standing at a distance away from the register where Carole was making a purchase when a second sales associate arrived to ask if I needed to check out. I said that I was with my wife but teased that she had instructed me to stand ten feet away from her until I got my hair cut. The lady said, “OH NO! You look so retro!” I forgot what retro meant so asked my smart phone. The best I could understand, google said it meant vintage-inspired or imitative of an old-world lifestyle. In other words, I think she was suggesting I was old fashion. I recall being told as a 19 year old preaching church revivals that I was a prude and did not act like a teenager. And I remember that I always liked to say that the rest of the story was I hoped to stay that way.
Week 26
Item
1: Poll: 84% of Americans say they
are angrier than previous generation
Consider:
- Anger is rooted in the pain of unmet psychological (temperament) needs – for information, affection, and structure, and especially for confidence we are unconditionally valued by God (not the same as being thought valuable).
Item
2: Report: Center for Disease
Control reports deaths by suicide, drugs, and alcohol reached all-time high in 2017, cites
genetic, social, and environmental factors
Consider:
- God’s Provisions of Grace in Creation, Community (leadership in the home and Church), and especially Christ to supports us against factors adverse to our health and happiness.
- “…they will reign in life who receive God’s abundant Provisions of Grace” (from Romans 5:17).
Item
3: Report: Millennials losing hair
earlier because of stress
Consider:
- The problem is not stress, but strain.
- Stress is a weight (like in a gym), so is necessary and good.
- Strain is weight greater than our strength to support it.
- God’s Life within us makes us strong and stouthearted so that we do not suffer strain.
Item
4: Over 2,000 Surveyed: 44% of respondents turn to their dog before
family members for emotional support
Consider:
- God provides leadership in the home (through husbands and parents) to support our emotional health.
Item
5: More pet owners identify as pet parents, expect to see their pets in
Heaven
Consider:
- Humans can own pets but cannot birth pets.
- Animals living on the Earth when God makes all things new (at the end of the Kingdom Age) may be transformed (according to one interpretation of Romans 8:19-21) to exist as animals did in the Garden of Eden before Adam’s Fall.
- But no animal that has died will be resurrected to live again.
Item
6: Mayo Clinic: ‘Sense of humor
supports good health’
Consider:
- Laughter increases intake of oxygen, soothes tension, and reduces stress.
- That’s why the Bible says, “A cheerful heart is good medicine” (Proverbs 17:22).
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: Carole’s friend Louise just turned 100. She only recently stopped driving and sold her car, but still lives alone with a caregiver visiting once a week to check on her, provide company, and take her shopping and to get her hair done. Once or twice a week, Carole visits with her for an hour or so. During a visit recently with seniors, Carole asked a new friend her age. She said she was 84 but that after she turned 80, she started counting backwards, so said she was 76. I told Carole I liked that, and that on my 71st birthday I would begin counting backwards so that I would be 69. She said she did not like that idea. I asked why. She said because in 70 years when I got to zero I would be gone. But I do need to do something about getting older! Carole says the older I get, the funnier I think I am. I asked her if she minded me teasing her so much. She said she didn't and would not know what to think if I stopped, but that I really needed to stop teasing strangers in public. She already had opportunity to say that to me earlier this week when I saw my hair in the mirror at Rose’s Department Store and asked a lady going into the fitting room if she had a comb I could borrow. The lady laughed but Carole didn't think it was funny.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19F29
Week 25
Item
1: 106-year-old NC woman quotes
Scripture, credits longevity to faith in God
Consider:
- God communicates Truth, increases faith through the Scripture to support us for making choices that increase health and happiness.
Item 2: Report: In America
Consider:
- Jesus said in the last days before his Second Coming that people’s heart would fail them because of fear (Luke 21:26-27).
- God will make bold and stouthearted and keep in perfect peace all whose minds are stayed upon him, because they trust in him (from Isaiah 26:3 and Psalm 138:3).
Item 3: Report: 75% of Britons
referred for rehabilitation after a cardiac arrest or heart surgery considered
to have been physically inactive
Consider:
- According
to
Item
4: Dispute on golf course leads to
shooting, house fire, 5 dead
Consider:
- Golf is best played as competition against self to improve personal performance.
- Competition to be first is deep-rooted in an unmet need for validation.
- Our experience of Christ living within us supports our confidence that we are unconditionally valued/loved by him.
Item
5: Trump spiritual advisor Paula
White leads reelection crowd in prayer to denounce Satan
Consider:
- Our prayer conversation / experience is not with Satan but with the Father.
- Every Christian in the world together barking at the demonic world is no match against Satan.
- Paula White’s performance is an example of failing Performance Christianity.
- Our only hope for victory against Satan is our experience of Christ to manifest his Light in and through us into the world to dispel the darkness.
Item 6: Wallendas set to walk high wire between skyscrapers to
honor Jesus, promote Christians stepping out of their comfort zone, overcoming
fear
Consider:
- The
feat is
- an
example of performance-based Christianity, akin to Tebow Theology,
- high-risk
behavior that tempts God, disregards his Provisions for our health,
- performance
to please God, impress, excite audiences, and is
- deep-rooted
in boredom, unmet need for acceptance, applause, and significance (to be
a heroic Christian).
- By
contrast, Christ does his work in the world through surrendered vessels humbly
dependent upon his support, so that he alone is the Explanation for good
outcomes.
- Christ
does not call us to live out of our comfort zone but to live out of the
support he provides for us.
- We do
not overcome fear; rather, Christ, himself, living his Life in us, making
us strong and stouthearted, dispels innate fear.
- Performance Christianity grieves the Heart of God.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: A mentor once warned me that giving too much time to reading the Scripture would result in me becoming so heavenly-minded that I would be of no earthy good. But I found in the years that followed that a worse danger was being so earthly-minded and performance-driven that my work was not effectual and had no eternal value (John 15:1-8). I dreamed recently that a famous pastor became deathly ill. I was told I could save him, but that I would need to have holes drilled in my hands. I said no, that Christ had nails driven through his hands and died on the cross so that we could have health, and that God does not call us to give up our health to save others.
DonLoy
Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19F22
Week 24
Item
1: USA
Consider:
- During the Tribulation Period (following the Rapture of the Church at the end of the Age of Grace), the Mark of the Beast (identified as the number 666) implanted on the right hand or forehead will be required by the Antichrist for selling or purchasing (Revelation 13:16-17).
- The shadows of the Tribulation Period are increasingly falling on the world as we near the end of this current Age (The Age of Grace).
- Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled; as surely as I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again to take you to be with me” (from John 14:1-3).
Item
2: California
Consider:
- Perhaps this is the reason the greatest nation on
Earth does not seem to be mentioned in Scripture foretelling the end-time.
- But until then, darkness cannot prevail against Christ living his Life in and through members of the Body of Christ, the Church.
Item
3: Limbaugh makes no apology for
‘obscene profits’
Consider:
- Profit is not evil; but dishonesty obtaining it is.
Item
4: Advertisers rethink targeting
Millennials: ‘They’re broke!’
- God’s Redemptive Plan provides support to everyone for making right choices so that they are never without means to obtain their essential needs (Matthew 6:33; 2 Corinthians 9:8).
Item
5: Famous pastor refuses large
donation from organization, wants instead for church members to have the ‘blessing’
of giving sacrificially
Consider:
- There are no blessings for giving sacrificially, but only brokenness.
- Giving is for the healthy (1 Corinthians 9:8); God calls the broken to receive (Matthew 11:28-30).
- God raises up churches to provide support to its members, not to take from them.
- This the same as God provides for his Bride, the Church, and the home provides for its children.
- Gifts to the church are acceptable from any source, including evil, that are not attempting to buy influence. (“The world and Satan have had the money long enough!”)
Item
6: Failed rescue of cat stuck on
bridge costs $7500
Consider:
- Christ, living his Life within us, transforms our values so that we invest wisely to meet redemptive needs.
Item
7: Observed: Middle-aged,
heavyweight person limps into restaurant wearing ‘Christ in Heaven Reigns!’
shirt
Consider:
- Christians do not need to be broken in health: Christ who reigns in Heaven also reigns in our heart to support us for making choices on Earth that increase health.
- “All who
receive God’s abundant provisions of Grace will reign in life” (from
Romans 5:17).
- “God promises
the Crown of Life (health and happiness) to the person who loves
(receives) his support for making right choices” (from James 5:12).
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: There is a hole in my house where things fall, never to be seen again. My favorite pair of work boots has disappeared into that hole. So have my baseball glove and a new baseball hat. I told Carole that at least I knew where they were. Years ago, I lost my cell phone in a warehouse. I was horrified and pleaded with angst for God to help me find the phone. I found it exactly where he told me to look. Recently, when I drove too fast over a bumpy railroad track, my van almost shut off, but corrected so that I made it home. I told my Pentecostal pastor friend who said he once prayed for his old truck when the check engine light came on and insisted the Lord healed his truck. But when I prayed for my van, the Lord told me to look under the hood. When I did, I saw that a battery cable was loose, apparently because of the bumpy ride over the railroad track. This week, I could not find a business card. It reappeared when it fell out of my undershorts before I got into the shower. So I still have hope for my boots, glove, and cap.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective
19F15
Week 23
Item
1: Man dies rescuing stranger, would
give shirt off his back say friends
Consider:
- God does not call us to give up our health in service to others (called “sacrificial giving”).
- Rather, our service to others
- begins with family, and
- is out of the strength of our abundance (the overflow per 2 Corinthians 9:8) – the result of us taking time each day to be renewed and increased by his Provisions of Grace.
Item 2:
Florida
Consider:
- God is not compelled to do anything we instruct him to do or beg him to do or even want or need him to do.
- God has ordained outcomes in our lives to be the result of us including (receiving) his Provisions of Grace which produce those outcomes according to his Law of Sowing and Reaping.
- However, God is sovereign and can/may/will alter outcomes and circumstances according to his Redemptive Plan.
- Confessing to God during our quiet time our trust in him and need for safety supports our experience of his Presence and Protection during any adversity per Psalm 91.
Item
3: Millennials suffer sensitivity
more than previous generations; call correction ‘hate speech’
Consider:
- Truth to identify right and wrong, also instruction to help get right what’s wrong, feels like hate speech to hurting people. Also, loss feels like unfairness.
- Christ, living his Life in and through us, supports us for investing in the health needs, both body and soul (mind, emotions, and will), of broken people.
Item
4: Experts say monkey moms are
models for child care
Consider:
- Moms could do worse.
- But grace parenting (investment in the redemptive needs of children) is supported by Christ parenting our children through us.
Item
5: Limbaugh mocks nutritional supplements,
says advocates are money driven
Consider:
- Nutritional choices build the immune system so that we are supported against broken health - the same as Limbaugh’s sponsors Lifelock or Simply Safe protect against loss.
Item
6: Scientist seek out limits to
human endurance
Consider:
- God created our bodies with the potential to be increased in strength for meeting the demands of hard work, but heroic performance for showmanship will put our health at risk.
- Trusting in Christ (his Blood/death on the cross for us and Resurrected Life living within us per John 3:16 and Colossians 1:27) is our only hope for
- enduring health and happiness in this life and
- everlasting life in Heaven.
Item
7: Report: Irregular sleep linked to
higher health risks
Consider:
- Sleep is a Provision of God to support our health
(Psalm 127:2).
- “Sin” by definition means
to disregard God’s Provisions.
- “How shall be escape if we neglect such a
great Provision” (Hebrews 2:3).
- The Bible word “obedience” means to “come and
receive” (before “going and giving”).
- “Going and giving” before taking time to “come and receive” God’s Provisions to support
us is “dead works” (ineffectual) and will have a disappointing outcome
(John 15:1-7; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
Item
8: Report: Entertainer preferred
life before smart phone
Consider:
- Devices to support convenience are a failed choice for enduring health and happiness.
- That’s because good health has always been the result of waiting on (trusting in) God’s Provisions for our lives.
Item
9: Report: Electronic devices
replacing hard copies of the Bible
Consider:
- Electronic devices and online supports are beneficial tools for researching to learn Bible facts.
- But tools that hurry our Quiet Time to read the
Scripture hinder the work of the Holy Spirit to
- teach Truth, and also to
- call us to open the door of our heart in order to
experience Christ per Revelation 3:20.
Item
10: Tv evangelists offers Scripture
verse cards to donors
Consider:
- God provided the Scripture to the world without charge.
- Reading Scripture on a card is not a good substitute for extended quiet time to read the Scripture in order to hear the Holy Spirit call us to experience Christ.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes I told Carole I thought pollen was making my ears feel stopped up. She asked if my head was okay. I said maybe not but that my heart was. She asked if my heart had anything to do with my hearing. I said it did. God seems to allow just enough adversity in my life to remind me of my temperament afflictions and need to be renewed by him each day. I wished I had more of Carole’s temperament. Nothing much bothers her. I can’t remember her being irritated with me except to roll her eyes and shake her head in disbelief. A husband that gets the breaks from his wife that I do for stupid behavior is blessed. I didn’t fare as well with the guy I was talking to yesterday. When a spider landed on me, he nearly slapped me down trying to save me.
DonLoy
Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19F08
Week 22
Item
1: Pastors plan Day of Prayer for
President
Consider:
- Prayer for others is more than “asking” God to grant
favors.
- “Asking” God (in the sense of pleading to a daddy) is
a provision for small children.
- But, per Ephesians 4:11-15, grace parenting increases
support to children as they mature for making wise choices that produce
good outcomes.
- James 5:14-16 instructs those who need help to call
for the elders of the church to provide support that increases their
health.
- This means, pastors can pray for others, including
the President, by experiencing God for themselves, and then, out of the
strength of that experience, to provide ministry to those calling for
help.
Item
2: Sanctuary cities welcome vagrants
Consider:
- Dysfunctional resources (providing assistance to ease pain) deal with the life needs of hurting people differently than grace resources (providing support for making wise choices).
Item
3: Billionaires have ‘young blood’
transfusions in bid to live forever
Consider:
- All of us can make choices for diet, exercise, lifestyle, and supplementation that will increase our health and extend our lives.
- But trusting in the Blood/death of Christ on the cross is our only hope for eternal life.
Item
4: Report: 40% of U.S.
Consider:
- God has
- made his Provisions available to us in Creation,
Community (connection to his leadership in the home and Church), and
especially through Christ, and
- identified them to us (and called us to receive
them) by the Holy Spirit through the Scripture –
- so that, when we include them into our lives each day,
our needs are met.
Item
5: Chick-Fil-A ‘My pleasure!’
service adopted by other restaurants
Related: Church displays ‘Church With a Heart’ sign to promote its
image
Consider:
- Bumper sticker or yard sign (slogan) Christianity can
be empty and disappoint.
- But Christ, living his Life in and through us, is
powerful to make real our care for those we serve.
- “If I say I
love you but do not provide support to meet your redemptive needs, I am
like a noisy gong. If I say I love God but do not open my heart to receive
his Provisions of Grace, I remain broken” (from 1 Corinthians 13:1-7).
Item
6: Popular televangelist defends wealth
Consider:
- Abundant health and happiness always accompany God’s Calling for our lives.
- But personal wealth is not a perk of grace (support) ministry.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes Looking at fences on a day trip in the country this week, I told Carole that my mom put up a fence at the side of her house to block the view of her neighbor’s yard, but had it installed backwards with the finished side facing her - so that it looked like it was her neighbor’s fence and because she did not want to offend her neighbor. I said to Carole, “There’s a right way to put up a fence, you know!” I showed her a rail fence and said it was installed correctly. She asked how I knew that. I told her the rails were facing the road. She asked if I was a fence expert.
DonLoy
Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19F01
Week 21
Item
1: Franklin Graham calls Christians
to ‘Day of Prayer’ for the President
Consider:
- Millions of the best Christians on Earth pleading
with God to help the President will not move God to provide one thing more
for the President than he is already making available and calling him to
by the Holy Spirit.
- But we can open our heart to experience Christ so that we manifest his Light into a dark world (including at the ballot box).
Item
2: Study: Americans among most
stressed in the world
Consider:
- Entertainment, recreation, and possession of wealth are deceitful. They thrill for a moment, but then disappoint (Hebrews 11:24-26; Mark 4:19; 1 Timothy 6:8-9).
- Christ living his Life in and through us has power to produce in us enduring health and happiness (2 Peter 1:3).
Item
3: Report: Generation Z Millennials
in worse financial shape than previous generation
Related: Nearly 25% Americans use credit just to pay for necessities
Consider:
- God has a Plan for everyone to have their needs met.
- It is to “Seek first the
Item
4: World Health Organization
recognizes ‘burn-out’ as health condition
Consider:
- God is faithful to renew us for the work he uses us to do (2 Corinthians 4:16).
Item
5: NYT Editor promotes ‘doing
nothing’ on days off
Consider:
- Our body needs recovery time from the performance of our duties.
- But there is no time when we don’t include God’s Provisions in our life.
- “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) means to be continually connected to the flow of God’s Provisions of Grace per John 15:5.
- Jesus said the support we need from him in order to be increased in health is Daily Bread (“that which is absolutely indispensable for our well-being”).
Item
6: Health organization promotes
balanced diet, scoffs at nutritional supplements
Consider:
- Few people eat a balanced diet – that’s because
- it may not be their interest, or
- the foods they eat do not have nutritional value because of modern processing, depleted soil, and meal preparation.
- Health providers who scoff at nutritional supplements often tend to promote drugs.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes After my run today I told Carole I ran like I was 60. She said I meant like I was 50. I said I ran like I was 50 when I was 60. She said I meant like I was 40. I said I ran like I was 40 when I was 50. She said I meant like I was 30. I said I ran like I was 30 when I was 40. She said I meant like I was 20. I said I ran like I was 20 when I was 30. She said I meant like I was 10. I said when I was 10, I ran like a 70 year old. When I returned from my run yesterday, Carole said she was tired. I told her to take a nap. She said she was laying down when I came home. I asked if she meant she was lying down. I said builders lay bricks and hens lay eggs. She said no wonder she was tired.
Week 20
Item
1: Tennessee
church gunman hoped to kill 10 white church members as revenge for Charleston
Consider:
- Judgment is not the purview of individuals but of God
and governments only.
- God calls individuals (members of the Church / the
Body of Christ) to forgive.
- God exacted his judgment for sin against Christ at
- No judgment remains for the Body of Christ to execute
against others.
- Judgment of members by the Church is not punishment but discipline (training with a view of growth).
Item
2: Baby dies in hot car while mother
at work
Consider:
- Grace parenting
- begins in the home,
- identifies the physical and also temperament (mental, emotional, and structure) needs of children, and then
- commits with God’s help to meet them.
Item
3: Saudi family tie maid to tree as
punishment
Consider:
- Religion punishes; but with God there is forgiveness (ministry support to remove/heal brokenness).
Item
4: Political candidates dig for dirt
on opponents
Consider:
- The world, also religion, either condemns our past, or condones it.
- Christ, living his Life in us at this moment is healing us from our past so that we are free to invest in our future.
Item
5: Stranded teens pray, saved by
boat named ‘Amen’
Consider:
- God has ordained that outcomes are normatively the result of our choices according to his Law of Sowing and Reaping.
- But a sovereign, merciful God is free to intervene to rescue the lowly (the young, weak, uninformed) who look to him.
Item
6: Presidential candidate tells Hollywood
Consider:
- The tv/movie industry began decades ago providing entertainment with redemptive values, but then, after drawing in the trusting and unsuspecting, it began to slowly pollute the airways with fare hostile to God.
- Old-time preachers once warned about
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: On date nights, Carole and I watch old black-and-white reruns on a 9-inch iPad. Our favorites are Restless Gun, The Range Riders, Gene Autry movies, and especially, Tales of Wells Fargo. There is always a lot of shooting and fighting, but the good guys always win. In the early years of tv, our grandparents had a hard time separating tv entertainment from reality. I remember many year ago an elderly man fussing because his favorite cowboy was not fighting very well and was getting beat up. I told him it was just tv. He said I was right, that he I forgot.
DonLoy
Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19E18
Week 19
Item
1: Survey: Americans bored 131 days
a year
Consider:
- The Life Christ gives never disappoints.
Item
2: Costly face tattoo removal on
rise as regrets set in
Consider:
- Impulsive, feel-good choices often disappoint.
- But God’s support and callings for our lives never fail (Romans 11:29).
Item
3: Tourist, 24, dies from rabies
after helping stray dog
Consider:
- We have promise of God’s care and protection as we
are in the place he calls us to be, doing the work he calls us to do
(Psalm 91).
Item
4: Report: Sleeping with your dog
can lead to a better night’s sleep
Consider:
- Sleeping with a dog provides no support for healing a broken marriage.
Item
5: Report: Lack of sleep can lead to
mental health problems
Consider:
- Sleep is a Provision of God’s Grace.
- “God gives
sleep to his beloved” (Psalm 127:1-2).
- Lack of sleep is a high risk lifestyle behavior.
- 7-8 hours of restful sleep, at the same time every day, supports the renewal of our body (immune systems) and mind.
Item
6: Study: Antidepressants increase
the risk of early death by 33%
Consider:
- Our experience of the Life of Christ Living within us (our heart/soul) supports us
- so that our heart is kept in perfect peace (Isaiah 26:3) and
- not only for good health,
but also longevity.
Item
7: Report: Thanks to technology,
human lifespan could soon pass 100 years
Consider:
- Before Adam made the wrong choice, he would never have died.
- Before the results of sin set in after Adam’s fall, life spans were hundreds of years (Methuselah lived 969 years).
- God removes his Judgment and gives Eternal Life to everyone who trusts the Blood/death of Christ as our only hope for going to Heaven.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I told a teenage runner at the track that I was 70 and could beat him in a 20 yard sprint. That is, if he didn’t cheat, I said. He didn’t believe me, so we marked off 20 yards and lined up. I told him we would start on the count of three. When I said “one,” I took off. So did he and easily beat me. I told him I would have beaten him if he had not cheated.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19E11
Week 18
Item
1: ABC tv report documents the
impact of screen time, technology, and social media on families
- The greatest need of children is support in the home, Church, and community for learning about God’s Love (unconditional value) for them.
Item
2: Selfie elbow and texting thumb
injuries: When technology hurts
Consider:
- God created our bodies to respond to the demands we
make on it.
- But performance without providing time for recovery
is overuse and puts us at risk for injury and lost productivity.
Item
3: Religious parents deny medical
help for dying child
Consider:
- God has provided support to ensure good health.
- Long-term neglect to include God’s Provisions into our lives each day may require emergency, life-saving medical attention.
Item
4: Therapist innovates with video
call app to provide client support
Consider:
- Therapy provides immediate / emergency care to help manage the symptoms of brokenness.
- Counseling ministry from a grace perspective provides support for health and happiness – including
- a Prevention Plan,
- a Maintenance Plan, and also
- a Recovery Plan.
Item
5: Despite good economic news,
wide-spread hatred of President persists
Consider:
- Hostility towards the President is aimed at policies
that support traditional Judeo-Christian values.
Item
6: Church growth conference promotes
aggressive evangelism, challenges ministers to ‘go into all the world and
preach the Gospel.’
Consider:
- God sent his Son, the Holy Spirit, the Scripture, and
the Church into our world to support our experience of him for salvation,
then calls us to come and receive.
Item
7: Atheist celebrity insists he
would not enjoy the pious monotony of Heaven
Consider:
- In this life, we become bored with fun (entertainment, recreation) - because of the tolerance factor.
- But we will never tire of health and happiness – in this life or in Heaven.
Item
8: Report: Christianity in decline
Consider:
- Performance Christianity (the religion) needs to decline.
It has been the enemy of God’s Redemptive Plan since the beginning.
- Darkness cannot prevail against the Light/Life of
Christ manifesting into the world through the Church, the Body of Christ.
- From donloyw’s
Journey Notes: Behavior can break out in brokenness in every
relationship - at home with the family, in the community with neighbors,
in the workplace with employees, and sometimes even on Sunday with members
of the Church. The brokenness can manifest as ugly behavior but also as coldness
to care about the needs of others. At the cafeteria on Sunday, the line
servers were wonderfully friendly. I told everyone I could how much I
appreciated them (although the dining area attendant needed some extra
training: He asked a couple of times about us and our meal, but it was
always as he zoomed by, not pausing long enough for us to appreciate that
he was there.) The checkout lady greeted every guest with a big smile and lots
of friendliness. I sure liked her. She said have a blessed day to the
couple paying ahead of us. I hoped she would say that to us. And when she
did, I was ready. “Christ will do that for us, you know!” I said. “AMEN!” she said.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19E04
Week 17
Item 1: Saudi
government beheads gays
Consider:
- World religions punish broken behavior.
- The Body of Christ ministers to the brokenness at the root of the behavior.
Item 2: Couples
living together in a sexual relationship outside of marriage
violate long-standing North
Carolina
Consider:
- God gave his Law for our protection, to support our health and happiness.
- "Living in sin” means to disregard God’s law and always has a disappointing outcome.
Item 3: Talk show
host says saying what we think is strength
Consider:
- The Heart of Christ enables us to speak the Truth in Love.
- Truth, when communicated timely and in Love, is Effectual Seed that has power to produce Life.
Item 4: Disclaimer:
Robots’ response is simulated, not real emotions
Consider:
- The greatest need every human has is to experience God’s Love for them.
Item 5: Department
stores surviving by selling what people want, not what they need.
Consider:
- If impulsive spending stopped today, most retailers would soon be out of business.
Item 6: Talk show
expert says we are either born with ability or we don’t have it
Consider:
- The talents we are born with support us for vocational success in life.
- The Life of Christ within us (Spiritual Gifts) supports us for fulfilling God’s Calling for our lives in Redemptive Service to others.
Item 7: Popular
Gospel singer says we give in order to receive, cites Peter getting out of boat
Consider:
- We are called to give out of our abundance (2 Corinthians 9:8).
- We are called first to come and receive before we go and give; otherwise we have nothing to give.
- Giving before receiving (sacrificial giving) is performance and always results in brokenness.
- The boat Peter was in represents God’s Provisions for our lives. When we impulsively jump out of the boat, we sink.
Item 8: Report:
Booming electronic music stresses fish more than a predator
Consider:
- Booming music does not relieve stress in humans but intensifies it.
Item 9: Attention span
narrowing globally
Consider:
- Electronic devices for communication reduce the ability of our mind to focus (wait, muse, ponder, consider) – and is adverse to our patient response to God to “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) - to “wait upon the Lord” so that we are renewed (Isaiah 40:31).
- The Written Scripture makes no sound. It was originally written on leather or skins, then on papyrus, and later on vellum and other materials to be quietly read in order to hear the Holy Spirit communicate Truth.
Item 10: Americans
among most stressed in the world
Consider:
- Stress, defined as a weight, is good (That’s why gyms have weights!), but stress greater than our strength to support it is strain.
- It is strain that kills, not stress.
- Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weighted down (over-burdened), and I will recover you” (from Matthew 11:28).
Item 11: Progressives
say Presidential candidate is too old
Consider:
- Age can be a leader’s greatest asset.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I asked the checkout lady if I could pay for my two-dollar-something purchase with cash. I told her I had ID. She laughed. I said the older I got the funnier I thought I was. I said my wife was trying to get me to stop trying to be funny. The checkout lady said no, no, don’t do that, that I made her day. Later, going into the gym after eating a big lunch, I asked the desk person if he had a cot in the back where I could lie down. He said no, that I needed to go ahead and workout. Forty-five minutes later on the way out, I told him “My fine now!” explaining that was what my grandson had said after he burped. He said I was funny.
DonLoy
Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19D27
Week 16
Item
1: Nearly 300 die and 500 wounded in
South Asian Easter service bombings
Consider:
- Public events (including open-door religious meetings) in an evil world are exposed to haters.
- Attendees at religious meetings hoping to win God’s favor have no Scriptural promise of protection.
- God holds in his hand and watches over
- the blessed (sanctified [pure and useful to him as vessels for his Redemptive service in the world]),
- the righteous (who walk in his Way and are responsive to his Will – especially to come and receive before going and giving) (Psalm 1; Psalm 91).
- God sometimes accomplishes his Redemptive Work through us while we live, but also sometimes in our death - when his Work through us on Earth is accomplished (Philippians 1:20; 2 Timothy 4:6 KJV).
- Vessels whom God is using
- do not fear dying (2 Timothy 4:6 KJV),
- long to be with Christ in
Heaven (Philippians 1:23a), and
- desire to live only as they are useful to God as vessels to support 1) the lost for trusting Christ for salvation and 2) the Body of Christ for experiencing him each day for holiness (Acts 20:28; Philippians 1:23b).
Item
2: Islamic cleric films guide how
men should beat their wives
Consider:
- Religious leadership
- rules over servants and
- pounds on (punishes) behavior it dislikes.
- But grace leadership in the home and Church provides support to those it has opportunity to serve.
Related: Report: Some women secretly like ‘bad boys,’ also being
used
Consider:
- God calls women to
- good health, to
- make wise choices that support good health, and to
- connect only to resources (beginning with Christ) who support (are advocates of) their good health.
Item
3: Church apologizes for youth
pastor asking teens to cut him during Easter lesson
Consider:
- Grace Leadership does not sensationalize the Gospel Message or elevate itself to impersonate Christ.
- The Easter message teaches about life, not death.
- Christ suffered God’s Judgment against sin so that we do not need to.
Item
4: Former presidential candidate
Michele Bachmann says about Trump: ‘We may never see a more godly, biblical
president again in our lifetime’
Related: Group ponders why majority voters and media oppose Trump
Consider:
- Fallen man tends to resist, resent, and reject values that oppose his addictions, also financial gain.
- Christ, living his Life within us, transforms our values.
Item
6: Marketing plan offers to promote
The Grace Perspective, increase readership
Consider:
- The Grace Perspective is sent to past and current counselees (also to a few friends and family members) to provide support for learning how to experience Christ for increased health and happiness.
- God is faithful to raise up counseling resources to support those who seek him.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: At Walmart this week, I waited at the intersection of two main aisles watching for Carole to reappear. I see a lot of people that way - some very friendly. From my right, an older man with a hitch in his stride threw his hand up and nodded his head as he approached where I was standing. I nodded, smiled, and threw my hand up at him. As he neared, he threw his hand up and nodded again, so I threw my hand up and nodded at him again. After he passed by, I noticed he had an impairment that caused him to throw his arm out and bob his head like Grandpa McCoy when he walked. Carole said I should tone it down and just smile.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19D20
Week 15
Item
1: Pro-choice group says newborn
surviving an abortion is ‘not a baby’
Consider:
- The life produced by a man and woman is a baby at its conception.
- Abortion is an act of circumventing the outcome of personal failure by terrorizing the weak.
- Abortionists use the Latin
word “fetus” instead of the English equivalent “baby.”
Item
2: LBGQT group insists gays born
that way
Consider:
- God did not create man (Adam) with broken desires and values.
- The human race became broken when Adam and Eve chose in the Garden of Eden to disregard God’s Provisions to support their health and happiness – with the result
- they were separated from him and fell into spiritual darkness and
- every person since (because of heredity) has been born with broken desires and values.
- But because of God’s great Love for us, he
- provided a standard for us to live by, a path for us to follow (including to confine marriage to a man and woman and sexual intimacy to marriage) that supports enduring health and happiness,
- calls us to it through the Scripture, and
- enables us by the Holy Spirit to follow it.
- Sin (the behavior) is the choices we make that disregards / rejects God’s Calling, Guidance, and Provisions.
Item
3: Study identifies world’s happiest
countries
Consider:
- Happiness and Joy are not the same.
- Joy is enduring, a “Fruit
of the Spirit” produced in us by our experience of Christ in our heart.
- Happiness is based on a happening – either our
experience of
- Christ in our heart or
- a feel-good event (including drunkenness - physical
or psychological).
Item
4: Pet owner leaves work early to
celebrate dog’s birthday party
Related: Suffering Venezuelans seek help from God
Related: Pastors meet to ask God to ‘send revival’ to America
Consider:
- Pleading with God to send anything is not needed.
- God has already provided everything we need,
including support for experiencing a spiritual revival (renewal of Godly
values and desires), especially
- Christ (his Blood/death and Resurrected Life),
- The Scripture, and
- The Holy Spirit to call us to receive
God’s Provisions which transform us.
Item
5: Town council to consider minority
group’s opposition to symbol of American Flag on police cars
Consider:
- Opposition to symbols of freedom is rooted in the hostility of man’s fallen nature to righteousness (Romans 8:7).
- The presence of Christ to heal man’s heart is a
town’s greatest need.
Item
6: Small group of students at
evangelical college opposes Pence invitation to speak, says contradicts
school’s message of love
Consider:
- God’s Love in us for others does not condemn broken behavior (to one extreme) or condone it (to the other extreme), but invests Redemptive support for healing.
- Sometimes, the investment Love makes is
- Tough Love and also
- resisted by man’s fallen human nature.
Item
7: Dallas
Consider:
- Satan, also religion, attacks behavior.
- Our experience of the Heart of Christ transforms us to minister to the brokenness of hurting people.
Item
8: The Grace Perspective dismissed
as religious ‘moralizing’
Consider:
- Performance-based religion moralizes, but support for
learning how to experience Christ (the Living Water and Bread of Life) is
ministry, not moralizing.
Item
9: Poll: Half of Pastors fear
offending, don’t mention hot issues
Consider:
- Identifying hot issues in order to motivate religious behavior
- is moralizing and,
- does not help long-term.
- “Speaking the Truth in Love” (Ephesians 4:15)
- begins with supporting hurting people for learning how to experience Christ for healing,
- identifies choices (for diet, exercise, lifestyle, and supplementation) that support health and happiness, and
- warns against sin (behavior that disregards God’s Provisions to meet our health and happiness needs).
Item
10: Student group says hurtful
speech is not free speech
Consider:
- Hate-filled speech never helps.
- But Truth spoken in love sometimes hurts.
- From donloyw’s
Journey Notes: On Monday, I called to make an early morning
appointment for Friday with a service company to give us a quote on some
needed work. So on Wednesday, I got dressed early in advance of the
appointment. When no one showed by 8:30, I called the company to ask if
they had us scheduled for 8:00. The office lady assured me that, yes, we
were scheduled for 8:00. I asked if I could expect the service guy to be on
time. Yes, she said. But it’s already 8:30, I said semi-snarky. But it
won’t be Friday until the day after tomorrow, she said kindly.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19D13
Week 14
Item
1: New York Times: ‘Mysterious
Infection Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy’
Consider:
- Jesus said increased diseases would forecast the time before his Return (Matthew 24:7).
- That’s because tolerance to miracle drugs will increase, leaving man exposed to diseases.
- God’s Provisions in
Creation (the soil and atmosphere) promote health.
Item
2: Report: Barbara Bush blamed Trump
for heart attack
Consider:
- Good health is supported by the presence of
God’s Provisions in our lives, more than by the absence of
adversity.
Item
3: Gay candidate says God made him
who he is
Consider:
- God created mankind “male and female” (Genesis 5:2).
- God’s Judgment on mankind (spiritual separation from him because of Adam’s disobedience) resulted in man’s brokenness (fallen, sinful nature).
- Our experience of Christ recovers us to be like Christ.
Item
4: Supporters give Trump break on
imperfections
Consider:
- We honor (give opportunity of influence to) the
Resources God brings into our lives (per Exodus 20:12 and 1 Timothy 5:17).
- God has always used imperfect leaders to support our
growth in grace (spiritual growth).
Item
5: Cyber enemies hack accounts,
spoof email addresses to send fake messages
Consider:
- GracePoint Counseling sometimes receives emails “spoofing” the sender as dlw@gracepointcounseling.org with threats to report lies unless we send money.
- GracePoint Counseling does not send emails to ask for donations, promote products, or make false confessions.
Related: Church name uses word ‘Grace’ to hide performance message
Consider:
- The word “Grace” means “God’s Provisions” (especially of Christ to make possible our Justification for going to Heaven and Sanctification for health, holiness, and happiness).
- God’s Grace flows unconditionally to everyone for us to receive, not just to those who perform to make him happy.
- Satan masquerades as an “angel of light” to communicate a false message.
- “Such people
are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.
Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:1-15).
Item
6: Couple, 100 and 103, celebrates
82nd wedding anniversary
Consider:
- An enduring marriage is supported by a couple’s
- good health (the best gift they can give each other),
- passion for God (his Provisions of Grace), and
- mutual experience of Christ living his Life in and through them.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: When I practice playing our Yamaha piano, I use earphones. Carole and I knew a minister who had perfect pitch when he whistled. He never needed to warm up or practice. The server at lunch this week whistled while she worked. I had never heard a server do that before. She also smiled beautifully at guests. I can’t whistle but told Carole I had been practicing and asked her if I could whistle a tune for her. She said no. She said I could hum if I wanted to. I asked her if I could whistle for her if I practiced more. She said I could if I used earphones.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19D06
Week 13
Item
1: Religious group considers if God
is ‘okay’ with transgendered people
Consider:
- Sin is not the choices we make that make God mad, but
choices that do not support our health.
- God grieves because of attitudes and behaviors we
have that disregard his Provisions to meet our needs.
- But he loves (agapao: values) every person
unconditionally.
- Our experience of Christ increasingly transforms us to be like him.
Item
2: Church sign: ‘A place to belong’
Consider:
- God calls the Body of Christ, the Church (ecclesia: “called-out ones”) to assemble
together (Hebrews 10:25), most essentially for the purpose of
- being supported (teaching and preaching) for
learning how to experience Christ in order to manifest his Likeness in
the world, beginning at home, and for
- fellowship (koinonia: “mutual burden bearing” with
regard to brokenness).
- The local church is more a hospital or school than a social club.
Item
3: Church member sues pastor for misconduct
Consider:
- Pastors who have a need to be great are broken and at risk for failure.
- Ministering churches invest for the healing of broken members, including its leaders, rather than condemn them.
- The local church is not a museum of saints but a hospital (ministry) for people seeking support for growing in grace.
- The Heart of Christ supports members of the Body of Christ (the Church) to increasingly relate to each other in this life the same as we will in Eternity.
Item
4: Politician: ‘I don't want to
serve a political party, I want to serve King Jesus’
Consider:
- During this Age of Grace (the Church Age), we do not relate to Christ as a king (as we will during the coming Millennial Reign), but as a shepherd.
- We do not serve God (except in the sense we are vessels he uses through whom he accomplishes his Redemptive Purpose in the world); rather, he serves (supports) us and others through us.
Item
5: Report: Religious institutions
using robots to interact with public
Consider:
- God communicates to us
- through Christ
- by the Holy Spirit
- through the Scripture and leadership in the home and Church.
- During the Tribulation (after the Rapture of the Church), Satan will impose compliance to the Antichrist through the Image of the Beast (likely an android).
Item
6: Artificial Intelligence can
predict when we die with amazing accuracy, say scientists
Consider:
- Poor diet, high risk behavior, and inactivity are also
accurate predictors when we will die.
- Experiencing Christ to an increased measure each day supports us for making choices that increase not only our longevity but also our health and happiness while we live.
Item
7: Poll: Threat of violence a
growing concern
Consider:
- The Bible says perilous time will increase as we near the end of this Church Age (2 Timothy 3:3).
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: On a long walk recently while passing by an elementary school, I noticed teachers were dismissing students with strict security measures in order to ensure their safety - precautions not even thought of or needed not too many years ago. In recent years, I have also begun taking extra precautions for safety, although I have great confidence that we are safe doing God’s work in the place he uses us. Still, I had an experience this week that was pretty scary. While driving a 20-year-old vehicle I just bought, I heard a ticking. I turned off the radio, then the heater fan, and then pounded on the dashboard, but the ticking continued. It sure sounded like a ticking bomb to me. I was within a serious moment of stopping and getting out of the car to run for my life when I noticed my turn signal was on. I turned it off and lived to see another day.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19C30
Week 12
Item
1: Husband opposes wife’s work in
the White House, commitment to the President
Consider:
- God calls husbands to support their wives for living
out his Calling for their lives.
- It is not the purview of a husband’s responsibility
to determine God’s Calling for his wife.
Item
2: School bus driver tries to avoid
hitting squirrels, runs into house
Consider:
- The Heart of Christ living within us transforms our values so that we are most passionate about human life.
Item
3: Report: Scientist say microchip
under skin will extend life
Consider:
- Science may have ability to artificially increase longevity, but only God’s Provisions have power to increase health.
- During the Tribulation
Period following the Rapture of the Church, anyone refusing to receive the
Mark of the Beast on their forehead or hand (perhaps a microchip) will not
be able to buy or sell and will also be targeted for execution.
Item
4: Church asked to pray for pastor’s
health and safety
Consider:
- There is nothing a church could ask God for that he is not already providing for pastors to include in their lives, beginning with Christ.
- Paul’s declaration to the Corinthian church that they helped him by their “prayers” (2 Corinthian 1:11) was his encouragement to them that the work God was using him to do was supported by their mutual experience of holiness (usefulness to God as vessels for service to others) gained in their quiet-time to experience Christ (the essential meaning of the word “prayer”).
Item
5: Megachurch leader confesses to
infidelity
Consider:
- The romantic pursuit of church members by a minister
is rooted in the same narcissism as his need to be great.
- Christ came into the world, not to be served, but to
give his life in redemptive service to others (Matthew 20:28).
Item
6: Unhappy customer throws food at
restaurant staff
Consider:
- Our experience of God’s Provisions for our lives
- meets the core need of our hearts for validation
and affection and
- establishes us in health
so that “nothing
offends” us (Psalm 119:165).
- From donloyw’s
Journey Notes: I looked over in a place of business this week and
saw the politician who represents my district. When I called out his name
he looked up and smiled. He remembered me, not by name, but because of the
issue he helped our community with. I don’t have a relationship with any
other politician, but I have had the privilege of knowing and working on
staff with some well-known names in ministry, including two national radio
ministries and also pastors of several of the largest churches in America.
But I have also had encounters with other influential people who I doubt
today know I exist, including a missionary couple who I spent some time
with as a kid preacher. When I saw them several decades later, I had such
appreciation for them that I wanted to give them a hug. They had to think
a minute or two to remember who I might be. I was disappointed. But I have
always taken delight in knowing that God knows me intimately. He is
absolutely my best friend, and assures me of it every morning during my
quiet time. My relationship with Christ is intimate and meets to the
depths of my soul the intense health need I have for validation,
affection, and significance – and supports me to stop short of throwing
things at providers who disappoint me.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19C23
Week 11
Item
1: Terrorist enters mosque, kills 50
Consider:
- Violence to destroy members of a difference race or religion is rooted in the pain of unmet mental health needs.
- Christ alone, living his Life within us,
- heals our brokenness,
- supports our understanding of Truth, and
- burdens our hearts for the redemptive needs of others, regardless of our differences.
Item
2: Conservative talk show host says
watching videos of terrorism promotes patriotism
Consider:
- Whatever little benefit viewing acts of terrorism may have, the Heart/Mind of Christ within us has Power to support us for responding appropriately to adversity.
Item
3: Trump enemies return to attacks
on past
Consider:
- Man’s sinful human nature tends to attack past broken
behavior. But the Heart of Christ within us rejoices in the power of God’s
Provisions of Grace to heal (1 Corinthians 13:6).
- “Grieving for
sin but rejoicing in Truth, O Christ live your Love through me.”
Item
4: Opponent says Trump has
narcissistic personality disorder
Consider:
- Typically we recognize in others the brokenness we
have in ourselves.
- Christ transforms our hearts so that we care mostly,
not about our narcissistic needs, but about the redemptive needs of
others.
Item
5: Government delivers us from evil,
seizes 1 million pounds of pork smuggled from China
Consider:
- Included in the meaning of Matthew 6:9-13 is: We receive the Daily Bread (Provisions of Grace)
- in order to be strengthened for making wise choices,
- so that we are delivered from evil.
Item
6: Millennials say high need for
Facebook Likes a leading cause of stress
Consider:
- Values are superficial, secondary, and sacred (redemptive and eternal).
- Christ living his life within us supports us so that we do not suffer unmet affection needs.
Item
7: New Trend: Churches providing
space for businesses in desperate move to find alternate ways to raise funds
for salaries, programs, building maintenance, utilities
Consider:
- The mission of home churches is to
- support its members for learning how to experience Christ and
- meet the redemptive needs of hurting people in the Body of Christ per Grace giving (Acts 4:32-35 and 2 Corinthians 9:1-15).
Item
8: Observed: Popular aging pastor
rambles in sermon
Consider:
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: Things get old and wear out, including roofs, sump pumps, appliances, vehicles, lawn equipment, and office equipment, even though we take care to maintain them. I am trying to get the very last bit of use out of my 11 year-old laptop even though a half dozen keys are falling off. Parts of us wear out before others do. A 90-year-old family member suffers advanced dementia. He hardly remembers anything about anything. But when time comes to pray, everything makes sense to him. He talks to God clearly and passionately. When I reach his age, I fully expect to be experiencing Christ the same as ever – although other areas of my well-being may be challenged. This week, after getting a few items at Walmart, Carole asked me to find her a cart. I asked if she meant an empty one. She said yes. The first empty cart I saw was being pushed by a woman with her young son. Walking up from behind her I told her my wife asked me to find her a cart and asked if I could have hers. She didn’t get my friendly humor and looked at me like I was a derelict. When I told Carole, she shook her head and said I really needed to stop doing that.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19C16
Week 10
Item
1: Media intolerance to conservative
viewpoints intensifies
Consider:
- Darkness hates the Light and seeks to destroy it - because
- darkness cannot prevail against the Light (“Truth always wins except when it is not heard.”);
- Light dispels darkness, reveals its evil deeds (John 1:5; 3:19-21).
Item
2: Report: More than 250 people
worldwide have died in past 6 years taking selfies
Consider:
- Hurting people die to be seen.
- Low risk behavior supports longevity.
- God has provided for leadership in the home and Church, and especially our experience of Christ, to help meet our need for validation and affection (for significance).
Item
3: Tv news analyst confesses to
wearing ear buds, says comments guided by show's producers
Consider:
- God communicates Truth by the Holy Spirit to pastors and teachers, also Church members, into all the world.
Item
4: Family of injured man asks church
to pray
Consider:
- Pleading, itself, even together with every person on
earth, will not move God to do or provide anything for our lives
differently than he has already done or provided consistent with his Law
of Sowing and Reaping.
- God has power and freedom to alter outcomes
(including those which are the result of our wrong choices) in order to
accomplish his redemptive purposes.
- Prayer is our opportunity to receive God’s Provisions
(especially to be filled with the Mind of Christ) in order to be supported
for making wise choices which result in redemptive outcomes in our lives.
Item
5: Pastor asked to reveal past
opinions that proved to be ‘dead wrong’
Consider:
- Truths (first to mind among many) sometimes missed by
evangelical churches:
- God relates to us during this Age of Grace, not as an authoritarian (king) to rule over us, but as a Resource (shepherd) to support us.
- We do not serve (support) God, rather he serves (supports) us and others through us.
- God provides in prayer only needs for which the Holy Spirit guides us to pray.
- The Holy Spirit does not guide us to pray for anything God does not provide.
- God has no unmet need for us to tell him how great he is or to make him happy.
- To praise God means to commend him to others. To worship him means to receive his Provisions.
- God’s blessings flow fully, faithfully, freely, and unconditionally to the door of every person’s heart/life for them to receive.
Item
6: Celebrity entertainer suffers
depression, asks for prayers
Consider:
- Schedule shuts the door to depression.
- That’s because making timely choices increases strength
for making wise follow-up choices that support health and happiness - so
that we are not left subject to the whims of our fallen nature which never
have a good outcome (Romans 8:13).
- From donloyw’s
Journey Notes: Carole and I schedule our sleep, meals, and work
(the same as we budget our spending). We also schedule our entertainment.
On date nights, we like to watch old black and white movies on tv. Tales of Wells Fargo has been a
favorite. Agent Jim Hardie rides hard, draws fast, and shoots straight, so
usually catches the bad guys in a hurry, leaving us time enough to watch
another episode before bedtime. But this week Hardie faced a whole gang of
outlaws in a gun fight. The sheriff’s posse with him was not much help, so
the fight seemed to go on and on. In mock exasperation, Carole looked at
me and said, if the good guys don’t do any better than that, we’ll be up
all night.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19C09
Week 9
Item
1: Research group says media 90
percent anti-Trump
Consider:
- News and entertainment sources are motivated by their own biases, but mostly by a business decision to provide what their customer base wants to hear.
- The solution is not to “curse the darkness,” but for the Church to be renewed in her experience of Christ in order to manifest his Light/Life into the world so that the darkness is diminished, customers begin to seek Truth, and liberal outlets lose their base.
Item
2: Panera Bread’s socialist,
“pay-what-you-want” experiment fails
Consider:
- Socialism in a broken world filled with broken people is a failed model for business success.
- Christ living his Life within us supports us for making wise choices that increase us in health, including financially, so that we are prepared to pay for services and supplies.
Item
3: 63 percent of Millennials regret
buying a home
Consider:
- Home ownership is not for the faint of heart.
- Christ supports us so that we are not overwhelmed by life’s responsibilities.
Consider:
- Having fun is a failing foundation for a relationship – the same as taste (versus nutrition) is a superficial basis for food choices.
- God’s calls us into relationship with others for the purpose of 1) being supported or 2) providing support for making wise choices.
Item
5: 7 year-old cancer patient asks
for letters from dogs, receives 52,000 responses
Consider:
- Jesus said faith (conviction of Truth) would increasingly diminish on Earth as we near the end of this Age before the Rapture (Luke 18:8).
- He likely foresaw the neglect of Scripture in the home and Church, and also the influence of talking cartoon animals on children.
Item
6: Scientists mull if animals have
conscience, feelings
Consider:
- Animals have a brain, instinct, and disposition.
- But they do not have a spirit or need to be
born again (as humans do).
- Also, while animals may have a soul of sorts (mind,
emotions, and will), they do not have a “LIVING soul” – that is, a
dimension of their being into which God imparts his Life (the Life of
Christ) as he
- did into Adam (Genesis 2:7) and also as he
- does into born again people during their quiet-time
worship for sanctification so that we can manifest the Likeness of Christ
into the world, including to care about the Eternal needs of others.
- Animals don’t
- understand the Scripture,
- have faith (conviction of Truth concerning God and
eternity),
- repent (have a change of mind),
- confess sinfulness,
- convert (turn from reliance on self for going to
Heaven to reliance on Christ),
- call upon God, or
- worship him.
Item
7: Franklin Graham misdefines repentance,
says willingness to turn from sinful behavior necessary for going to Heaven
Consider:
- Repentance (Greek noun, “metanoia”)
- does not mean to “turn from” sin, but
- means “a change of mind,”
- is a gift of the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 2:25),
- produced in us by our experience of faith
(conviction of Truth).
- Turning from (giving up) sin, when defined as a
wayward lifestyle, is necessary for health and happiness, but not
for going to Heaven.
- Eternal Life is promised to everyone who trusts
(receives) God’s Provision of Christ (his Blood/death on the cross) as the
only Payment he will accept to satisfy his Judgment against us (mankind)
because of Adam’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden.
Item
8: Trump says speaking is easy in a
room “filled with love”
Consider:
- The gift of evangelism enables us to communicate
Truth to unsaved people who don’t want to hear it.
- The gift of pastoral ministry enables us to support born again people who seek to experience Christ to a fuller measure each day (for sanctification).
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: In my early ministry some thought I was quite the success. So did I – that is, if the measure of success for ministry is rapid growth in church attendance. But my ministry was motivated in those days in large part by my need to be a “Champion for Christ” and by the notion I needed to win God’s favor. But about 30 years ago I began learning how to experience Christ to enable me for Christian living and ministry. Still, I have plenty of opportunities to feel sadness for elements of my past. For example, at a restaurant with Carole recently, our server called her husband her “old man” and confessed a lot of disappointment with him. Carole saw the sadness that came on my face. After we finished our meal, she took my hand, looked straight in my face, and said, “Honey, you are my teacher, my pastor, my best friend, my husband, and my resource, and I thank God every day for you. Whatever your past was or however different it could have been, nothing can compare to the wonderful life and ministry God has given us for these past 30 years.”
Week 8
Item
1: Trump supporter, legendary NFL
owner arrested for solicitation
Consider:
- Conservative political values help support morality.
- But Christ, alone, living his Life within us, has power to heal man’s brokenness.
Item
2: VP Pence and Franklin Graham
invite Greensboro ministers to join conference
phone call to pray for Venezuela
Consider:
- God does not need to be “asked” to provide redemptive needs.
- He has already provided the essential needs of every person for them to receive.
- “Asking” God for needs he has already provided is rooted in disbelief, not faith.
- Support from God to meet our needs begins with Christ through whom all other supports flow into our lives, beginning with his Wisdom and Enablement for decision making.
- Scriptural prayer for others means to “pray” for ourselves in behalf of others – that is, to receive support from God to enable our ministry to others.
Item
3: Robot God to preach in Buddhist
temple
Consider:
- God communicates Truth by the Holy Spirit through vessels
he calls and prepares.
Item
4: Church growth seminar says
pastors should limit sermons to 20 minutes
Consider:
- Hurting people in confession of their brokenness hear differently (“have ears to hear”) so that they do not tire, but welcome, to receive pulpit support for learning how God relates to us and calls us to relate to him.
Item
5: Megachurch pastor hires staff to
research sermon material
Consider:
- God is faithful to communicate Truth to and through vessels surrendered to him so that pastors do not need to rely on secondary (para-ministry) support for sermon preparation.
Item
6: Leading megachurch pastor says
joining church means commitment to serve
Consider:
- The decision to join a church is first and foremost a commitment to give pastoral leadership opportunity to provide support for learning how to experience Christ to a fuller measure each day per Ephesians 3:19; 4:13.
Item
7: Study: Hormones produced by
exercise reduce risk of Alzheimer’s
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: I don’t want to lose my ability to remember or process thoughts, so I take supplements to support brain health, exercise to increase blood flow to my brain, and do memory work every day. I also organize – that is, I put everything where I know it will be when I need it, especially my keys and wallet, even tools and equipment, and including also my shoes and socks, underwear, and other clothing. Singer Glen Campbell explained his dementia as forgetting things he did not need to know. But I already don’t know much of anything I don’t need to know. Still I can be forgetful, and when I am, it concerns me. That’s why I was more than concerned this week when getting dressed. Since my t-shirts don’t have a label, I always feel for the vertical seam on the right side of the collar to know which is the right arm of the shirt. That has worked successfully for me for many years. But, on this day when I felt for the seam, found it on the right side of the collar where it always is, then put my shirt on, I had it on backwards. So I pulled it off (hate that), checked again for the seam, found it, and then put it on again. Once again the shirt was on backwards. Looking at myself in the mirror and shaking my head with sadness and dismay, I humbly accepted that, after all these years, I had forgotten which side of the shirt the seam was on, and that my mental well-being had taking a sudden plunge. I was about to lament my fallen state of health to Carole when I noticed (O could it be!) that I had my t-shirt on inside out.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19B23
Week 7
Item
1: Well-known pastor says ‘knowing
the Ways and Promises of God’ supports successful Christian living and ministry
Consider:
- Knowledge is important, but simply knowing
information about God’s relationship to us only superficially supports us
for successful Christian living and ministry.
- That’s because knowing about God is not the same as
experiencing him – just as knowing what to do is not the same as having God’s
enablement for doing it.
- Christ, living his Life in and through us,
- transforms our values,
- heals our broken hearts (mind, emotions, and will), and
- imparts God’s Wisdom for making wise choices.
- “Christ in us is our hope (confident expectation and support) to manifest the Light of God’s Likeness to others” (from Colossians 1:27).
Item
2: Church conference leader tells
pastors to ‘preach more, teach less’
Consider:
- Teaching is explanation, especially for learning how to experience Christ in order to be increased in health, holiness (purity and usefulness to God as vessels for his Redemptive Work in the world), and happiness.
- Preaching is exhortation.
- Without teaching, preaching is hype.
Item
3: Church growth seminar says
contemporary music promotes ‘worship’ and increases attendance
Consider:
- Contemporary (entertainment) music became an alternative for church music when the cold, religious singing of the old hymns became boring.
- In time, contemporary music will also become boring – because of the tolerance factor, the same as with any feel good behavior.
- The Bible word “worship” does not mean to tell God how great he is, but means to receive the flow of his Life into our hearts in response to his Call to us (Revelation 3:20) when we take extended time to read the Scripture during our quiet time.
Item
4: Author quotes James 4:2-3, says ‘our needs are
met through asking’
Related: Prosperity teacher says God provides for those who ‘ask’
Consider:
- “We have not because we ask not” (James 4:2) means we miss having our needs met when we do not receive the flow of God’s Provisions into our lives to support us.
- Pleading with God for what we need may make us feel better, even give us a false hope, but it is not prayer.
- The Bible word “prayer” means “place of exchange” where we give up what we think we want (that superficially eases our pain) in order to receive from God what we need (that supports our health).
Item
5: Study: Men who can do more than
40 pushups are 96% less likely to develop heart disease
Consider:
- Good health is not the result of
- astrological signs or other mystical forces,
- inherited DNA - which is
- only a 30% factor at best (according to trusted sources) and
- not the same as inherited lifestyle, or
- performance to impress God with religious behavior in order to win his favor with hopes he will “bless” us.
- Rather, good health is the result of receiving God’s Provisions of Grace into our lives each day, especially Christ (per Matthew 6:9; John 15:4-5; Revelation 3:20).
Item
6: Trend: Parents raising gender
neutral ‘theybies’
Consider:
- Grace parenting supports the gender-specific needs of children.
- God’s Order cannot be improved upon.
Item
7: Study: Millennials resent rules
in community life and workplace
Consider:
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: Immature youth sometimes lack appreciation for rules. But as we grow, law and order become more important to us. Then as we age, some of us begin to mellow. But not so quickly for others of us who have the Melancholy temperament. I may still be too much like the elderly man in a favorite tv commercials who slowly hobbled past a red sports car parked on his street. Stressed, he shouted at the parked car to “SLOW DOWN!” I still have a strict protocol for drivers merging onto the highway, the same as for walkers and runners who enter walkways and trails. (And it’s not whoever gets there first!) Melancholies also have a strong sense of fairness. At a favorite cafeteria a few years ago, their food was not its usual best. At the checkout, I told the manager I did not want to pay for the entree. When he argued, I shared my tension with him and then left. I also didn’t go back for a year. Never mind it was my favorite cafeteria, I showed them.
Week 6
Item 1: Poor in Venezuela
Related: Performance preachers fleece followers, boast personal wealth
Consider:
- Wealthy church leaders forfeit Scriptural evidence they understand servant leadership.
- Grace leadership in the home and Church does not accumulate personal wealth (which is not the same as corporate wealth for the purpose of providing jobs), but provides support to those they are called to serve, beginning with
- information about their brokenness and
- instruction for learning how to receive God’s Provisions for their recovery (beginning with Christ).
- Jesus instructed his disciples (Matthew 6:19, 33): “Do not store up riches on earth” but “Seek first God’s Provisions for your life and you will have everything you need.”
- 2 Corinthians 9:8: “God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things, at all times, having all you need, you will abound in every good work.”
Item 2: Record number women and youth enter government leadership
Consider:
- Youth don’t know what they don’t know.
- Women promote feel good policies.
- That’s why God calls mature men to provide leadership, especially in the home and Church.
Item 3: Talk show analyst recalls past, says best days are gone forever
Consider:
- Christ will reign in righteousness over all the Earth,
- theological and relationship tensions will be resolved,
- our bodies and hearts will be transformed to manifest the Likeness of Christ, and
- Satan will be bound during the Kingdom Age and then thrown into the
Item 4: Study: Pop music becoming sadder, angrier
Consider:
- Sadness and anger are the result of unmet physical and psychological (relationship) needs.
- Enduring health and happiness are supported by our experience of Christ and confidence of his Love for us.
Item 5: Celebrity atheist says a God of Love would not allow good people to suffer
Consider:
- As a false basis (straw man) for their atheism, atheists identify a religious view of God that does not exist (taught by the performance Church) that God gives good outcomes to those who earn it by their good behavior to please him, including “believing” (having positive thoughts) and “praying” (pleading).
- But the Message of Grace is:
- God has provided every need we have to support our health and happiness needs, and that
- we experience good outcomes when we take time each day to receive his Provisions into our lives.
Item 6: Pew Center
Consider:
- Performance / Entertainment Christianity, like any drug, has a tolerance factor.
- This means, religious performance that is not enabled by Christ living his Life in and through us will, in time, result in brokenness and disillusionment.
- It was to burned out religious people that Jesus called in Matthew 11:28-30.
Item 7: Nations obesity rate at all-time high
Consider:
- The leading causes of obesity are unhappiness and eating the wrong foods at the wrong time, compounded by too little exercise.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: During the coldest days of winter, Carole and I usually go to the gym or to a closed mall to exercise or walk. But a lifestyle commitment to daily exercise is demanding. That’s why we fail to do it unless we are supported – by
- a sustaining motivation (desire for health),
- a safe, sensible regimen,
- a schedule, and
- someone who cares - for example, a family member, friend, or coach, and especially Christ. (Our experience of Christ, renewed in us daily, transforms our hearts to value our health.)
Participation sports like softball, basketball, or golf can be good choices for exercise. The benefit is not really in the participation itself, but in the preparation (conditioning) so that we can participate without injury. George Foreman is one of my favorite athletes because he boxed into his late forties. Tom Brady is another excellent example of conditioning at an age when others have retired. I didn't watch this year’s Super Bowl, although I like the Patriots. Carole is not a football fan but was curious to see what the big deal was about Brady, so she turned the tv on to watch the start of the game. I came into the room later to check the score and to ask what was happening. She said she didn't understand much what was going on - except that everyone was beating up on each other.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19B09
Week 5
Item 1: Virginia
Related: Democrats turn on Virginia
Consider:
- Politicians (also ministers) who confess youthful failures, even pro abortion views, and have demonstrated for several decades that they are not the person they once were and no longer have the same views (maybe because they have experienced Christ per Ephesians 2:1-10) are sometimes best qualified for service.
- Democrats may turn on disposable liberals (
Item 2: Liberal media source confesses to producing ‘news’ Trump haters want to hear
Consider:
- Worse, the
- The Message of Grace is: Take time each day to receive God’s Provisions of Grace (per Matthew 6:11: “Give us this day our Daily Bread”), and then trust his Provisions will produce outcomes in and for us that accomplish his Redemptive Plan for our lives.
- ”For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine. Instead, after their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears (carnal desires, performance theology) want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the Truth and chase after myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
Item 3: Limbaugh defends Trump’s autocratic style leadership
Consider:
- “No-huddle” leadership (I call it), leaves staff
- without support to review mission,
- guessing mandates and direction, and
- subject to confusion, discouragement, failure, and termination -
- which may work for an individual’s heroic solo ventures, but not for the work of corporations, organizations, or even sports programs that involve multi-layer leadership and staff.
- Neither does autocratic leadership work in the home or Church.
- Grace leadership supports success by providing information, explanation, example, encouragement, and evaluation.
Item 4: Woman takes life, leaves note ‘hope is only delayed disappointment’
Consider:
- Our greatest need is for confidence we are unconditionally valued (not the same as to be thought valuable) by someone, especially by God.
- Scriptural Hope is “confident expectation of redemptive outcomes”
- produced in us by faith (gr. pistis: “conviction of Truth”) (Hebrews 11:1)
- which is produced in us by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23),
- especially that God is faithful to accomplish his Redemptive Plan for everyone who responds to his Call to receive his Provisions of Grace per Romans 8:28.
- Natural, inborn hope is the wishes of man’s human nature rooted in worldly desires and needs.
- “If the Hope we have is from God, we are supported for waiting (making wise choices / trusting God’s Provisions) for what we do not have (from Romans 8:25).
Item 5: Man sues parents, wants to know why they birthed him into their poverty and unhappiness
Consider:
- Worse than bringing children into poverty and unhappiness is leaving them there.
- Successful parenting identifies and provides the health and happiness needs of children - which means,
- God does not place children in homes to meet the health and happiness needs of parents, but for the health and happiness needs of children to be met by their parents.
- God’s redemptive purpose for every child born is to provide ongoing resource support to the next generation (Ephesians 1:11-13).
- This was true from the beginning: God’s purpose for childbearing after the Fall of Man (Adam and Eve) was to produce a Savior for fallen mankind (Genesis 3).
Item 6: Poll: Millennials don’t like obligations, say life is unfair
Consider:
- “We have an obligation, but it is not to live according to the sinful nature. For if you live according to your sinful nature, you will die (suffer loss); but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:12-13).
- That’s because, outcomes are subject to God’s Law of Cause and Effect (sowing and reaping).
- That’s why success is supported by education, having children after marriage, and employment.
- Also, (for example) why reckless driving, not cars, is the cause of injury and death and why poor eating habits, not food, is the cause of weight gain and broken health.
Item 7: Scientist working on pill for loneliness
Related: ‘Expert’ insists depression is the result of chemical imbalance, not unmet relationship needs
Consider:
- God has provided support in Creation, Community (leadership relationships in the home and Church), and especially Christ to sustain us in health, happiness, holiness, and redemptive service to help others.
- “For me to live (be healthy and happy and supported for life and ministry) is Christ” (The Apostle Paul / Philippians 1:21).
Item 8: Town council mandates appearance code for retail business community
Consider:
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: Our actions and appearance sometimes reveal who we are. For example, a modest person will behave modestly and a honest person will have an open countenance. Shyness, humility, and happiness also have a way of revealing who we are. But not always. That’s because we sometimes learn how to mask our true selves. For example, we wear clothes and makeup to make us look more attractive than we might otherwise be, or drive a fancy car to appear rich and famous. Years ago, a small town in
Week 4
Item 1: City Council considers changing ‘he’ and ‘she’ to ‘they’
Consider:
- The goal of this action is more to eliminate the “he” than the “she.”
- The “she” is an incidental casualty. (Better no “she” than “he and she.”)
- Men have reaped disdain upon themselves by their failure to serve appropriately in the leadership role God gave them, especially in the home, but also in the Church and community.
Item 2: Students wearing MAGA hats targeted
Consider:
- The First Amendment protects freedom of speech so that information won’t be restricted when offered for the purpose of being considered in the market place of ideas.
- Our Constitution also protects our freedom to identify with causes we believe in.
- But we take care not to be prideful and in-your-face when communicating our values – because, in a broken world filled with hurting / angry people, it may increase tension and invite conflict, and maybe even injury or martyrdom by those who “think they are doing God (or their god) a favor” (John 16:2).
- That why Jesus told his disciples, “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves, so be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
- The students had the option to
- calmly stand their ground, or
- take their MAGA hats off, or
- walk away (as Jesus and the Apostle Paul sometimes did), but not to
- run away or cower.
- Cowering may invite even more aggression from haters (broken people).
- The Grace Option is to manifest the Light of Christ into a dark world (Philippians 1:21), which is possible only as we have taken time each day to experience him during our quiet-time worship (John 15:5).
Related: Patriot’s Brady slammed by Hollywood actor for owning MAGA hat
- Sometimes we can know the values of a person by identifying their enemies; also know whom to appreciate or support.
- Conservatives can wear (suffer) opposition from socialists and globalists as a badge of honor.
Related: “America
Consider:
- Self-governing nations with a distinct language is God’s order for society (Genesis 11:1-9).
- A one-world government, economy, and religion will be imposed on the nations of the world by the Antichrist during the coming Tribulation Period (after the Rapture of the Church).
- God separated life on Earth
- by species (Genesis 1:24) and gender (Genesis 5:2); also,
- into independent family units and local churches.
Consider:
- Morality begins at home – that is, with first attending to our own personal health needs so that we are supported for attending to the health and safety needs of our families.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: Squirrels and raccoons, even coyotes and bears, fine creatures I am sure in their own habitat, would like to get into my house, and so I build barriers to keep them out. Canada Geese, created by God and also fine creatures perhaps (surely in some way in their own habitat), try to invade my community and destroy our lawns, but I found a way to keep them out. When elements in the world are not willing to peacefully coexist with me on a win-win basis but target the wellbeing of my home and community, I build barriers to keep them out. When cyber enemies try to download their images and messages onto my computer, I buy anti-malware programs to protect against them. When members of a religion knock on my door wanting to share information from a different bible about a different god, I don’t let them in, per 2 John 1:10. When family and friends, and even counselees, come to my home with no interest to receive support or to provide support for learning how to experience Christ, I spend limited time with them. When immigrants want to come into my country, but are not willing to embrace our Constitution and the values our government was founded upon, I support policies to keep them out.
Item 4: Rescuer finds lost 3-year-old tangled for 2 days in briars, says ‘God was at work’
- Child says he hung out with bear for two days
- Mother says God sent bear to protect her child
Consider:
- God absolutely watches over the children, controls the behavior of wild animals, and will guide rescuers who trust in him for his help according to his Will.
Item 5: NBA champs Warriors snub Trump, meet with Obama
- Fallen people fiercely fight for their addictions and also for the addictions of those who buy their products.
- Superstars Curry and Durant represent a “Christianity” not supported by a Grace interpretation of the Scripture – that God provides support for us to make wise choices which increase us in health, also which support the life of the unborn - as President Trump does.
Related: Christian athletes bashed for prolife values
Consider:
- Abortion rights accommodate an immoral lifestyle.
- Christian athletes who are celibate until married or are faithful to their wives tend to be prolife.
Item 6: Medical professionals warn about smartphone addiction, say youth are losing communication skills, need recovery programs
Consider:
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: My pastor dad was a cut-up. I guess I get that trait from him. Sometimes teasing people may be my way of releasing tension, or maybe of getting attention, or maybe it’s because I am getting older, and the older I get, the funnier I think I am, so want to spread the joy – which is sometimes appreciated (“You made my day!”), but sometimes maybe not. On Friday this week at Zaxby’s, I ordered the Tuesday special from the young, fearful-looking order taker. She didn’t know how to take my humor and seemed intimidated. I told her I was just teasing, that I would just go ahead and take the Thursday special instead. On Sunday mid-afternoon, Carole and I walked into a steakhouse when the lobby was empty, so I said to the young greeter, “One more customer comes flooding in!” But she didn’t get my stupid humor. She said, “So will that be three dining with us today?” Earlier in the week, we entered a restaurant when the young greeter was on her knees behind her desk doing something or other. Seeing her on her knees, I asked her if she was taking prayer requests. She didn’t know what to say. After a meal last week at a favorite restaurant, the young checkout person asked if everything was okay. I said it was good, except that, every time I came in, it always ended the same way. When she asked “How’s that?”, I handed her my bill and credit card. She didn’t seem to get it and may still be wondering what the bricka brackum I was “complaining” about! This week, I was telling the managing owner of one of our favorite restaurants how impressed I was with her young staff. She said today’s kids are so connected to their devices that they don’t know how to engage with the public and that she had to go through a lot of hires before finding young people who were socially healthy enough to communicate with customers. Later, on the way home, Carole said I interacted with almost everyone I met. I said especially when I am in ministry mode. I offered further thoughts on the subject, but got too deep in the woods for her to keep up while she concentrated on navigating the trip home in heavy traffic. So I stopped by saying, “That’s what I think. So what do you think?” She said she agreed. About what I asked. That what you said is what you think, she said.
Item 7: New Year enrollments up at gyms, overeating blamed for holiday weight gain
Consider:
- Excessive exercise to offset overeating puts our health at risk.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: During the holiday months, I gain about a half-pound a week. That’s 6-8 pounds. Carole may gain one or two. I hate the cold, so don’t run on the trail as much. Instead, I use my exercycle at home and also walk 2-3 miles several days a week with Carole at a converted mall. Yesterday, I told Carole that excessive exercising to offset our overeating was not good. She agreed and said we were walking fools. I said no, we are walking Whisnants. She said that’s what she said.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19A26
Week 3
Item 1: NASA Chief says US within 10 years of permanent manned presence on the moon
Consider:
- According to the Scripture, current events in the world seem to indicate that members of the Body of Christ will soon begin a seven-year presence beyond the moon (for a Celebration of Christ and Marriage Feast).
Item 2: Motivational speaker says ‘thinking too far ahead is wishing your life away’
Consider:
- Our lives will never go away. Born again people will live forever.
Item 3: Opposition to Trump marked by anger and hostility
Consider:
- Anger and hostility is the reaction of fallen man to Truth and Righteousness (Romans 8:7).
- Grief is the response of God’s Heart to fallen persons who will not come to him that they may have Life (Luke 19:41; John 5:40).
Item 4: Party leaders evaluate top voter concerns for 2020
Consider:
- The leading motivation for political voting is protection of values – moral or amoral.
- Liberal government promotes policies that meet addiction needs and increase voter dependence.
- Conservative government provides support for making wise choices that result in health and happiness.
Item 5: Disappointed customer says he’s learned to ‘Trust no one!’
Consider:
- Finding honest sales and service providers is sometimes hard to do.
- Tip: The most trustworthy providers
- are confident they are
- qualified, but agree someone else might do better, also that they are
- right, but are not intolerant to being wrong, and who
- are more committed to meeting customer needs and providing good service than to making money.
Item 6: Popular preacher says thinking positive about God improves health
Consider:
- Thinking positive thoughts about God may help us feel better, but good health is the result of including God’s Provisions into our lives each day.
Item 7: Church leader hopes for a ‘blessed’ new year
Consider:
- God’s blessings are not “good outcomes” he gives to people who please him.
- Rather, his blessings are
- his Provisions of Grace
- which fully, faithfully, and freely flow
- through Creation, the home and Church, and especially, Christ (John 3:16),
- into the whole world,
- in order to support health and happiness in the lives of everyone who receive them.
Consider:
- Knowledge (information) is powerful, especially of the Scripture.
- But knowledge of information also puffs up (1 Corinthians 8:1).
- Preaching and teaching what the Bible says, but that misses providing support for learning how to experience Christ, leaves us trusting in our own strength (rooted in weakness) for support to manifest Christ into our communities, and especially to our families.
Item 9: Author says ‘People don’t care what you know until they know you care’
Consider:
- That’s mostly true when “caring” means to meet codependency or addiction needs.
- But those of us who need support for health, especially for learning how to experience Christ, don’t really care if a resource cares about us or not, or even knows we exist.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: The leadership God used most in my early years to influence my life didn’t know I was alive, especially at the time God called me to connect to them, and in some cases for a long time after. But, even so, God used them wonderfully to support my growth in Grace. (Conversely, relationships that fawned over me and were aggressive to recruit me were interested, as it turned out, mostly in using me to develop programs that would increase church attendances and offerings.) In 1992, when God called me to
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19A19
Week 2
Item 1: Report: More men wearing silhouettes
Consider:
- Apart from Christ, men are swayed to extremes by their sinful nature and also by the influence of the world’s culture: either to abusive masculinity or “emasculinity” (emasculation).
- Christ, living his Life within a man’s heart, enables him to be a servant-leader.
Item 2: Report: Increased numbers are leaving the Church
Consider:
- We may tire of our experience of religious churchgoing, but we will never tire of our experience of Christ during quiet-time worship.
Item 3: Report: Most Americans live from paycheck to paycheck
Consider:
- Not having reserve funds
- because of
- unemployment or unemployability,
- failure to save, and
- impulsive overspending,
- so that we must live from paycheck to paycheck,
- is not the same as
- working hard,
- becoming a good employee,
- investing income in Heaven’s Redemptive Work on Earth, and then
- trusting God to meet our needs per Matthew 6:19-20; 33 and 2 Corinthians 9:8).
Item 4: Armed robber locked in store, begs Jesus for help
Consider:
- Pleading with Jesus to undo the consequences of our wrong choices won’t help.
- But he does offer support (his Provisions of Grace) to heal the brokenness at the root of our sinful behavior.
- Prayer means to receive God’s Provisions of Grace in order for our redemptive needs to be met, especially for support for making wise choices.
Item 5: Scientists: Future computer technology will control humans
Consider:
- The First Beast of Revelation 13 is the AntiChrist who will be given political power and authority by Satan (the Dragon) to rule the world.
- The Second Beast (The False Prophet) is the head of a world religion (that probably already exists).
- The Image of the First Beast is likely a computer (chip) created by the Second Beast that will require everyone to receive its Mark (likely a passcode) implanted in their forehead or right hand in order to buy and sell. (Those who refuse to accept the Mark of the Beast will be beheaded – Revelation 20:4.)
Item 6: Reformed criminal now serves as church leader
Consider:
- The Church is not a Hall of Fame to showcase perfect people, but God’s Resource on Earth to support the recovery of lost, broken people.
- The Bible word for “ministry” is a medical term meaning to “reset broken bones in order to support healing.”
- God does not place broken people into positions of leadership in the home or Church, but he does call them to him, restores those who respond, and then uses them to support the recovery of others.
- From donloyw’s Journey Notes: Carole and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary this week. God knew what I needed when Carole came into my life over 30 years ago. I was broken and she was patient to give God opportunity to recover my life so that I could be in her life the way she needed me to be. During the 1990’s, God began calling and preparing Carole and me to provide support counseling to broken people who were suffering the same failing circumstances I had come out of. Through the years since founding GracePoint Counseling in 2002, God has brought hundreds of hurting people to our ministry whose hearts have been fertile for the Message of Grace he has given us to sow. And it is my confidence he will continue to do so to the end of this Age, also during the 1000-year Kingdom Age, and throughout eternity. I told Carole that eternity is a long time. She said eternity will not seem long in Heaven, not long.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective 19A12
Week 1
Item 1: Observed: Personal tension returns on day after Christmas
Related: Study: Joy of giving lasts much longer than getting
Consider:
Neither the joy of giving or getting lasts very long – not
- giving, especially
- unaffordable gifts bought on credit,
- to buy forgiveness or win favor or to otherwise feel good, or even
- for religious reasons (to impress God), nor
- getting, especially in order to meet codependency and addiction needs.
But our experience of giving in order to invest in the Redemptive (health) needs of those we serve, and also of receiving support from the Resources we are connected to, especially Christ, makes our experience of Christmas joyful and meaningful long into the New Year.
Item 2: New House Speaker says government has responsibility to ensure everyone is treated with respect
Related: Liberal freshmen in congress commit to socialist policies
Consider:
- To respect others does not mean to circumvent the outcome of their poor choices but to support them for making choices that increase health.
Item 3: Conservative Professor says liberals embrace Marxism because ‘they lack structure’
Consider:
- Every person is born with temperament-specific needs for relationship support with regard to:
- Information (for learning how the world works),
- Affection (fathers to daughters and mothers to sons, especially in childhood), and
- Structure (for schedule and decision making).
- When the temperament needs of children for relationship support are not met in appropriate measure, especially by parents, they
- suffer broken values,
- disrespect traditional order, and
- gravitate to extreme views.
Item 4: Ministry group offers ‘Safe and Secure’ Guidance Kit for Churches
Consider:
- Especially during perilous times (the state of the world as we near the end of the Church Age, according to 2 Timothy 3:1-3), “Everyone Welcome” churches (sometimes a subtle growth strategy to increase attendances and funds) put their members at risk – the same as an open door puts family members at risk in a dangerous neighborhood.
- Trusting God to deliver us from the risks of an open door policy is like trusting him to protect us from the outcome of driving on the wrong side of the road.
- God’s Plan (A) for the New Testament Church is for its members to be supported for learning how to experience Christ during their quiet-time worship so that they can be effectual for influencing family, friends, and neighbors to trust Christ for salvation and then bringing them to the private meetings of the Church in order to be supported for doing the same.
- The megachurch open-door growth strategy does not result in the spiritual renewal communities need.
- In time, it will be shown that God’s Ways cannot be improved upon.
Item 5: Pastor’s New Year’s message to church: Live your life with the goal to hear God say ‘Well Done!’
Consider:
- “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23) is not God’s recognition of our work to successfully perform religious duties or to be a “Hero for Christ,” but of his Work in and through faithful servants to accomplish his Redemptive Purpose in the world.
Item
6: Dog walker tackles, punches,
bites jogger who uses pepper spray to fend off dog attack, says it was
self-defense
Consider:
- From donloyw’s
Journey Notes: When running in a neighborhood years ago, a large,
loud barking dog charged across a yard at me as I passed by. When I turned
to charge back at the dog, its owner came running out to berate me. I told
him I was disappointed he had more concern for a dog than a human. He said
anyone who would charge at his dog was less than a human. So I realize I
risk hurting feelings when I make comments about the obsession our present
culture has with pets. God has a place for animals or he would not have
created them. But they are not humans and should not be treated or talked
to the same as humans or invested in the same as humans. And there is no
such thing as a dog having a human sister or a human mama or daddy. That’s
why I winced this week when I saw frozen desserts for dogs in the ice
cream freezer at Harris Teeter. Also, animals don’t understand English or
speak it (although they can react to sounds). So, yesterday when a dog
charged at me on the running trail, I was amused when its owner hollered
“et” at the dog. “Et”? When had I heard that word before? O, yes, I
remember! When a childhood caregiver many years ago needed to stop me from
darting off in the wrong direction or doing something stupid, she would
holler “et” at me. Somehow, without any explanation from her, I understood
that the word meant no, and that it did not mean to go for it! Now that I have
rediscovered the word, I have a use for it when I see humans obsessing
over their pets.
DonLoy Whisnant/The Grace Perspective
19A05
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