The Senate HELP Committee continued its markup of the Kennedy healthcare legislation yesterday. Several amendments were offered to protect conscience rights and to prevent funding or mandating of abortion. Sen. Orrin Hatch's (R-Utah) amendment to prevent funding of abortion failed. Sen. Michael Enzi's (R-Wy.) amendment to prevent the healthcare bill from mandating abortion coverage was defeated. Since there is nothing in this legislation to prevent mandating abortion as a covered service, it would be mandated--the Obama Administration health bureaucracy will see to that.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) also offered several amendments to the Kennedy legislation. His amendment to codify the Hyde/Weldon conscience protection law was defeated. His amendment to prevent the healthcare bill from preempting state laws on abortion was defeated. With the exception of Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), the HELP Democrats voted against it. They opposed preventing this legislation from trumping various state laws, such as parental consent laws. One bright note, Sen. Coburn's amendment to protect healthcare workers' conscience rights with regard to euthanasia passed by a voice vote. The amendment ensures that doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers, including healthcare plans, are not forced to violate their conscience on the issue of euthanasia.
Sen. Ted Kennedy's (D-Mass.) amendment supposedly protecting conscience rights on abortion passed by a voice vote. This amendment says that no one should lose a contract with the healthcare Gateways because they refuse to perform abortion except in the case of emergencies. Given that the Democrats voted against the Coburn conscience amendment on abortion, which mirrors current conscience law, this amendment is a deceptive and even dangerous substitute for real conscience protections on abortion.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/new-york-legislature-votes-to-protect-roe-legalize-abortion-up-to-birth
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Tired
It's just one of those times when I am tired...mentally, emotionally and physically. It's not totally a bad tired though. It was a challenging week but I think I came through it in a strong fashion. I finished the week strong with an intense work day on Friday. It's always a good feeling to feel like you gave it your all and held nothing back. In those times you feel like you have honored your employer and yourself...and most importantly God. Running cross-country in high school taught me to finish strong because if you really kick it into high in the last 200-300 yards you can pass a lot of people who have nothing left in the tank. It also jibes well with Paul's analogy of running the race with perseverance. So, I try to take the idea of "finishing strong" and make it a part of every area of my life.
I tend to be hard on myself because God has given me a lot of abilities and I don't want them to go to underutilized in my life or in the lives of others. However, I think I have also become better at giving myself a break. I'm not chastising myself too much for just wanting to sit in the recliner and zone out a little...listen to some tunes...maybe write a blog. Piper doesn't have a TV because he wants to make the most of every moment of life that God blesses him with. I am sure he knows how to relax as well but I find that kind of internal pressure rather daunting. Yes, I want my life to matter as much as possible but I can't be as useful to others if I don't recharge the batteries now and again.
It was a week that brought with it a lot of deep conversations with friends. I met with two guys from care group one-on-one on Monday and Tuesday night. Those times are always blessed but can be challenging in that you want to ask the right questions and offer the right words to help them walk right with God. I found out that another friend's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Another friend lost his job this week - on the same day that his wife was quitting her job to go back to school. So there are lots of things swirling around my head and the prayer list grows.
I think I am weary of the news. Cap and trade...hate crime laws (I typed lies the first time...seems more appropriate to my subconscious I guess) that include sexual identity and behavior...health care reform...Pennsylvania's attempt to remove Jesus' name from legislature prayers...the list goes on and on. Some of that is necessary for my job and some is necessary to be aware of the ongoing spiritual battle for the souls of this nation. But it can become overwhelming at times and doesn't always seem terribly productive. I can't know everything and can't be involved in everything so where do I draw the line? Maybe I will get rid of my TV at some point...thought I would miss sporting events which is one of the most wholesome escapes I have.
The good news is that God has granted me solid sleep lately with the aid of generic cherry-flavored Ny-quil. Praise the Lord for that. You can't put a price on peace.
I tend to be hard on myself because God has given me a lot of abilities and I don't want them to go to underutilized in my life or in the lives of others. However, I think I have also become better at giving myself a break. I'm not chastising myself too much for just wanting to sit in the recliner and zone out a little...listen to some tunes...maybe write a blog. Piper doesn't have a TV because he wants to make the most of every moment of life that God blesses him with. I am sure he knows how to relax as well but I find that kind of internal pressure rather daunting. Yes, I want my life to matter as much as possible but I can't be as useful to others if I don't recharge the batteries now and again.
It was a week that brought with it a lot of deep conversations with friends. I met with two guys from care group one-on-one on Monday and Tuesday night. Those times are always blessed but can be challenging in that you want to ask the right questions and offer the right words to help them walk right with God. I found out that another friend's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Another friend lost his job this week - on the same day that his wife was quitting her job to go back to school. So there are lots of things swirling around my head and the prayer list grows.
I think I am weary of the news. Cap and trade...hate crime laws (I typed lies the first time...seems more appropriate to my subconscious I guess) that include sexual identity and behavior...health care reform...Pennsylvania's attempt to remove Jesus' name from legislature prayers...the list goes on and on. Some of that is necessary for my job and some is necessary to be aware of the ongoing spiritual battle for the souls of this nation. But it can become overwhelming at times and doesn't always seem terribly productive. I can't know everything and can't be involved in everything so where do I draw the line? Maybe I will get rid of my TV at some point...thought I would miss sporting events which is one of the most wholesome escapes I have.
The good news is that God has granted me solid sleep lately with the aid of generic cherry-flavored Ny-quil. Praise the Lord for that. You can't put a price on peace.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Wow...what a sham
When you are a Democrat administration and HELEN THOMAS is calling you out...you know something is terribly, terribly wrong.
Today's Thought
As British theologian Alister McGrath warns, the Bible is not primarily a doctrinal sourcebook: “To reduce revelation to principles or concepts is to suppress the element of mystery, holiness and wonder to God’s self-disclosure. ‘First principles’ may enlighten and inform; they do not force us to our knees in reverence and awe, as with Moses at the burning bush, or the disciples in the presence of the risen Christ”
Monday, June 8, 2009
Imprecation
I had never heard this word, which apparently means curse, until today. It came from this article:
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is repudiating statements made by a former convention official regarding President Barack Obama and the recent murder of abortionist George Tiller.
On a recent webcast of his daily radio talk show, Wiley Drake, former second vice-president of the SBC, called last Sunday's murder of Tiller "an answer to prayer." Then during an interview with Alan Colmes on Fox News Radio, Drake said he was praying the same type of "imprecatory prayer" against the president of the United States.
For years, Drake has encouraged the practice of praying words of judgment found throughout the Book of Psalm, back to God, against enemies. But Dr. Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia, and president of the SBC, says Drake's comments are out of line.
"[That's a] terrible statement, [a] very unbiblical statement," Hunt responds. "I'm still encouraged that the [Book of] Proverbs teaches that God has the water in a channel -- and my prayer has always that God would turn hearts."
Hunt also referenced the Book of 1 Timothy, which encourages Christians to pray for those in authority.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I certainly don't agree in praying for anyone's death. I don't even support the death penalty because I think God can always change hearts and it should be God's decision when our lives are over since he created us. Piper wrote the following about imprecation today, probably in response to Drake's comments:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have tried to deal faithfully with curses in the Psalms, for example, in a sermon on Psalm 69.
Psalm 83, however, presents a different challenge. At the end there is a strange mixture of supplication and imprecation:
Fill their faces with shame,
that they may seek your name, O Lord.
Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever;
let them perish in disgrace,
that they may know that you alone,
whose name is the Lord,
are the Most High over all the earth.
(Psalm 83:16-18)
Imprecation: The word “forever” in verse 17 is a prayer for utter and eternal defeat: “Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever.”
Supplication: But the phrase, “that they may seek your name, O Lord,” is a prayer for conversion: “Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek your name, O Lord.”
It is true, as Kidner points out, that there is “fruitless seeking”. But it would be very strange that the psalmist would be praying for “fruitless seeking.” If that’s the prayer why not just pray that they not seek the Lord?
I think David Dickson is right:
If any of the enemies of God’s people belong to God’s election, the church’s prayer against them giveth way to their conversion, and seeketh no more than that the judgment should follow them, only till they acknowledge their sin, turn, and seek God.... For the rest of the wicked, irreconcilable adversaries, when shame of disappointment and temporal judgments are come upon them, the worst of all yet followeth, even everlasting perdition. (Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 2, 67-68)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot to take in there. Will have to spend some more time on all of this.
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is repudiating statements made by a former convention official regarding President Barack Obama and the recent murder of abortionist George Tiller.
On a recent webcast of his daily radio talk show, Wiley Drake, former second vice-president of the SBC, called last Sunday's murder of Tiller "an answer to prayer." Then during an interview with Alan Colmes on Fox News Radio, Drake said he was praying the same type of "imprecatory prayer" against the president of the United States.
For years, Drake has encouraged the practice of praying words of judgment found throughout the Book of Psalm, back to God, against enemies. But Dr. Johnny Hunt, pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia, and president of the SBC, says Drake's comments are out of line.
"[That's a] terrible statement, [a] very unbiblical statement," Hunt responds. "I'm still encouraged that the [Book of] Proverbs teaches that God has the water in a channel -- and my prayer has always that God would turn hearts."
Hunt also referenced the Book of 1 Timothy, which encourages Christians to pray for those in authority.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I certainly don't agree in praying for anyone's death. I don't even support the death penalty because I think God can always change hearts and it should be God's decision when our lives are over since he created us. Piper wrote the following about imprecation today, probably in response to Drake's comments:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have tried to deal faithfully with curses in the Psalms, for example, in a sermon on Psalm 69.
Psalm 83, however, presents a different challenge. At the end there is a strange mixture of supplication and imprecation:
Fill their faces with shame,
that they may seek your name, O Lord.
Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever;
let them perish in disgrace,
that they may know that you alone,
whose name is the Lord,
are the Most High over all the earth.
(Psalm 83:16-18)
Imprecation: The word “forever” in verse 17 is a prayer for utter and eternal defeat: “Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever.”
Supplication: But the phrase, “that they may seek your name, O Lord,” is a prayer for conversion: “Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek your name, O Lord.”
It is true, as Kidner points out, that there is “fruitless seeking”. But it would be very strange that the psalmist would be praying for “fruitless seeking.” If that’s the prayer why not just pray that they not seek the Lord?
I think David Dickson is right:
If any of the enemies of God’s people belong to God’s election, the church’s prayer against them giveth way to their conversion, and seeketh no more than that the judgment should follow them, only till they acknowledge their sin, turn, and seek God.... For the rest of the wicked, irreconcilable adversaries, when shame of disappointment and temporal judgments are come upon them, the worst of all yet followeth, even everlasting perdition. (Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. 2, 67-68)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot to take in there. Will have to spend some more time on all of this.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
As Good as it Gets
From John Eldredge's "The Sacred Romance":
If for all practical purposes we believe that this life is our best shot at happiness, if this is as good as it gets, we will live as desperate, demanding, and eventually despairing men and women. We will place on this world a burden it was never intended to bear. We will try to find a way to sneak back into the Garden and when that fails, as it always does, our heart fails as well. If truth be told, most of us live as though this life is our only hope.
In his wonderful book The Eclipse of Heaven, A. J. Conyers put it quite simply: “We live in a world no longer under heaven.” All the crises of the human soul flow from there. All our addictions and depressions, the rage that simmers just beneath the surface of our Christian facade, and the deadness that characterizes so much of our lives has a common root: We think this is as good as it gets. Take away the hope of arrival and our journey becomes the Battan death march. The best human life is unspeakably sad. Even if we manage to escape some of the bigger tragedies (and few of us do), life rarely matches our expectations. When we do get a taste of what we really long for, it never lasts. Every vacation eventually comes to an end. Friends move away. Our careers don’t quite pan out. Sadly, we feel guilty about our disappointment, as though we ought to be more grateful.
Of course we’re disappointed—we’re made for so much more. “He has also set eternity in the hearts” (Eccl. 3:11). Our longing for heaven whispers to us in our disappointments and screams through our agony. “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
If for all practical purposes we believe that this life is our best shot at happiness, if this is as good as it gets, we will live as desperate, demanding, and eventually despairing men and women. We will place on this world a burden it was never intended to bear. We will try to find a way to sneak back into the Garden and when that fails, as it always does, our heart fails as well. If truth be told, most of us live as though this life is our only hope.
In his wonderful book The Eclipse of Heaven, A. J. Conyers put it quite simply: “We live in a world no longer under heaven.” All the crises of the human soul flow from there. All our addictions and depressions, the rage that simmers just beneath the surface of our Christian facade, and the deadness that characterizes so much of our lives has a common root: We think this is as good as it gets. Take away the hope of arrival and our journey becomes the Battan death march. The best human life is unspeakably sad. Even if we manage to escape some of the bigger tragedies (and few of us do), life rarely matches our expectations. When we do get a taste of what we really long for, it never lasts. Every vacation eventually comes to an end. Friends move away. Our careers don’t quite pan out. Sadly, we feel guilty about our disappointment, as though we ought to be more grateful.
Of course we’re disappointed—we’re made for so much more. “He has also set eternity in the hearts” (Eccl. 3:11). Our longing for heaven whispers to us in our disappointments and screams through our agony. “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)