Recognizing and dealing with deception

Lies surround us. The very core of evil is lying. Every sin is a lie in some way. When you sin, you are lying to yourself that God doesn't care about you, or know what is best for you, and therefore, you must take care of yourself. Look out for number one. We are told that the world will bring us pleasure. That the world is all we need. That there is no God. That we are all that is. That the world is what it is all about.


For those of you who claim to be Christians, if someone came up to you and said, "There is no God," you would be in total opposition to them. So, the world comes at us in different wording. "Can't we all just agree? You believe what you believe, I'll believe what I'll believe. Don't ram Christianity down my throat. Get Christianity out of the schools. Get God off our money. Get God off our monuments. Don't post the ten commandments." In effect, they are making God irrelevant. Unfortunately we didn't fight it. We don't fight it. So they make God irrelevant in their lives, and ultimately in everyone else's lives. Basically they are saying "God does not exist."


One of our biggest mistakes, in my opinion is buying into the lie that America is a Christian nation. That Christianity is the majority in America. America is a country. America is run by humans. We are, or at least were started, as a republic. A republic is ruled by law, which is better than a democracy which is ruled by majority vote, but the best system is a theocracy which is ruled by God. Our country has since turned into, I believe, a democracy. Instead of being ruled by law, we are ruled by popular opinion. Instead of wishing justice we look for loopholes to get around the law. Our country is secular. The world hates Christians. Whether they admit it or not, Christianity is offensive. God is offensive to the evil. 


What is evil anyway? Evil is the absence of God. When the world buys into lies, they reject God. Everyone is born separate from God, and is therefore evil. Those that have been called out of darkness have begun a transformation. We are to be imitators of Christ, and therefore are offensive to the evil. Sure, they mask it as other things, but ultimately, the world hates Christians. Christianity is the hard way out. The world wants nothing better than to write God off as some irrelevant, not caring, being without power, or existence. Therefore, they will do everything they can to oppose Christians and draw them astray.

So, the American people truly are attempting to destroy God. There will come a time when we will be shown real persecution. On that day let us not fall away, but embrace it. Ready to suffer for Christ. To suffer for Christ is greater than anything we could ever do. Let the world despise and leave us. They have left our savior too.

The world is full of wolves, ready to devour the unwary sheep. They twist scripture and the definitions of words. They quote verses so close to the original, that it sparks just the smallest memory, and we begin to question if that was in fact what the verse said. They choose their words wisely, making their message sound friendly, when in reality, it is dripping with death. The new believer, or the one unsure in his belief, fall victim to this trap and start believing lies. Once a lie is believed, it is very difficult to change that belief to the truth. 


We must be grounded in the word. We must memorize and meditate on scripture. We must ask God to guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. When people come at us with false doctrines, we must recognize it for what it is, and not let our brothers or sisters be lead astray. This is a battle. The battle is spiritual. We must understand that it is a battle, that we are at war 24/7, know our enemy, and know how to fight it. We must know the truth. We must be sure of our faith. We must be sure we have forgiveness, that God exists, that we need him, etc. 


Our enemy is not the world, though we are theirs. Our enemy is evil. We should view the world as prisoners of war, for we were once dead in our sins, but God didn't give up on us. When He called, we ran and hid. Not only that, we actively opposed Him. We hated Him. We didn't want Him. We wanted to destroy Him. But He rescued us. He loved us enough to not give us what we wanted, death, but gave us eternal life. Therefore, when the world hates us, show them the love shown to us. Let our life song sing to Christ, so that when the world looks at us, they see Christ at work in us. If we believed the way we claim we believe, and the way we should believe, we should be on our knees begging unbelievers to come to know Christ.


We have many hard times ahead. The way of Christ is most certainly not the easy way out. The world will hate us and reject us. We will be persecuted. We may even be beaten, tortured, or killed. But this world is not our home. I consider myself a patriot, and am very proud of this country, but this nation is not ours. I love this country, I am willing to die for it, for freedom, and for my fellow Americans. But no matter how patriotic we are, understand that it is a nation of the world, and therefore we should not give our ultimate loyalty to it. Our loyalty lies with Christ and his kingdom. There will be a time when this great nation turns against us. It has already turned against God. We must figure out now, where our loyalties lie. Do we follow America when we know that it would be sin to do so? It was one of my hardest decisions to make, but in the end, God is the ultimate authority. We must follow his commands first. 


Take care my dear readers.


~Sheepdog

A government big enough to give you everything you want...

...Is big enough to take away everything you have.


The history of the world and its nations seems to repeat itself. Each great nation seemed to follow this cycle: 


From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence
From dependence back into bondage.

This cycle takes, on average, 200 years to complete. You can see most of it has been completed in America. The founding fathers had great spiritual faith, and that was why they came to America, to avoid persecution. They gained great courage in the belief that they should be free from england. That courage then lead to fighting a war, and ultimately, liberty. That liberty lead to an abundance, by God's good grace. But with abundance, came a lack of remembrance of where the country had come out of. That lead to complacency with certain freedoms being taken away to please a certain group of people. The allowance of this, lead to apathy towards encroachment on more rights. Finally we get to where we are.

I believe we are between apathy and dependence stages. This health care bill will make us totally dependent on the government, and it is just a short skip and a hop back into bondage. Currently, I see it taking no longer than 10 years.

It doesnt have to be that way though. We can have a spiritual awakening in this country. We can create great courage. We can make a move for liberty. Our for fathers fought with arms. I believe this situation calls for a fight with votes. All those who voted for the bill must go, that is certain, no grey area there. The tricky part will be voting people in that will completely repeal the bill. There is no half way here, it must be totally removed. We do not have much time, every year brings us closer to a dictatorship.

Every year, government grows bigger. At the end, there will be no options to vote for, and then the only thing left to do would be to fight with arms. On that day, however, I believe we will find no arms to fight with, and no where to stand. The 2nd Amendment was put into the constitution to keep the government in check. Therefore, if the government wants to totally put us into bondage, they will have to remove the arms. This will not come all at once, that, I hope, would be impossible. No, they will take it away, little by little, bill by bill, "common sense" law by "common sense" law; until there is nothing left.

Remember, ignore your rights, and they will go away. Fight every bill that will remove yours or someone else's right in even the smallest way possible. Even if you don't agree with the 2nd Amendment, it is there to protect the others. Remove it, and the others will disappear, guaranteed.

We live in dark times, my friends. Keep your ears up, and your eyes alert.

~Sheepdog

Ignorance

Some say ignorance is bliss. There is truth to that. You are happy when everything seems right in the world, even when its about to come crashing down. Some would say it is better to die happily in ignorance than to live, struggling every day with the knowledge that you know, and fighting to make things right instead of wrong.

I prefer struggling every day to make something right, over ignoring that there is a problem. Once you understand that there is something not right, how can you not fix it? How can you go about doing what you did before? How can you not change? The sheep can ignore the wolf, but in the end, the sheep dies, and while the wolf happily devours him. Ignorance is only temporary bliss. Weather you ignore it or not, the problem still exists.

If Christ has begun a work within you, can you really stay the way you were before? Can you really continue doing what you know is wrong? Can you stay ignorant of how what you do affects others? I'd say you cannot. If your life is changed by Christ, how can you go back? Yes, we fail. We are human, but because of Christ we are forgiven, and because of Christ we can stand. Because of Christ, we can help those around us, we can be a light to a world of darkness. Is it possible to be a child of God, and not do differently?

I would say no, there is no way. A person who has been changed by Christ, who has been saved from their sin and their mistakes, who has been shown forgiveness and grace, cannot continue in ignorance. It would be impossible. Not only would they change for the better, they would also wish that others would find the amazing love they have been shown. How could they hold such a great gift back? How could they stay quiet?

My friends, we live in dark times. We are heading for the end times, perhaps, we have already arrived. We must do as our Lord commanded. We must be lights to a world of darkness. We should not do it because we have to, but because it is impossible for us not to. Our lives should reflect Christ. Our very thoughts should be thought to the glory of Him who sent us.

Let the Lord use you in ways you cannot even imagine. Keep your mind open to how He is using you for His will. You may be surprised how He has used you to bless others, I was. It's amazing what He does. Our God is an awesome God.

Here am I, send me.

-Sheepdog

Health care

Health care has passed:

 It will provide coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans, prevent the worst insurance company abuses, and begin to wrestle with relentlessly rising costs — while slightly reducing future deficits.

 Sounds peachy right? What they don't tell you is how it is paid for. By taxing the other 300 million of Americans. They make it "Equal" (except of course, the senators and congressmen are more equal so they get to have better care) by pulling the average and making them like the below average.

But even still, what's wrong with giving everyone health care? Well, lets look at what government run health care means, because that really is what this is about. When the government is paying for your health, they control everything. Everything is related to health in some way. What you eat, what you drink, how much sleep you get, where you work, what you drive, where you live, what you own, your political views, your religious views, it can all be lumped into health in one way or another. Government wants power, and unfortunately, they have it.

But it's their job to take care of you, isn't it? No, it should be governments job to make sure its citizens do not trample on the rights of other citizens. Government nowadays is focused more on making citizens live lives that they (government) deems they should. They believe that they are the only ones that can think straight, and must therefore regulate the citizens for their own good. This, my dear reader, is socialism.

But in the end, wont this do more good than harm? Well, let's look at that. There is no way in the world that the government can research and develop at the same rate as the free market. The reason the free market works is because people are free to try an idea out, and risk failing on that idea. The good ideas remain, the bad ideas are weeded out. Everyone is trying something new, and the idea keeps improving as time goes on. There is no way that the government can do that.

Another problem is government will have the monopoly on health care. Health insurance is a business. The company has a product, and the consumer can choose weather or not he wants it or not. This creates a competitive field to always be changing to fit the needs of the consumer. That means competition for better benefits, better prices, etc. When you have a monopoly, there is no incentive to improve, everyone has to come through you anyway, you will be payed the same weather you do well or not.

Yet another problem is, government cannot pay for everyone to have the top care. This means that they will have to discern who they can help and who they cannot afford. It's called triage, and we do it all the time with search and rescue. You can not save everyone, those that will use up to many supplies that can be used to save the lives of others, will be left to die. Same thing with government. However, if you have options, like we currently do, you can go to a clinic, and if you have the money, you can pay for that risky expensive procedure. Maybe you don't have the money, but at least you had the option do choose weather to have it or not.

Another one is personnel. Doctors and nurses are not magically formed. They have to go through school, get a degree, find a job, and then get paid for that job, enough to live on. Perhaps more importantly, they need to want that job. If government cant pay them what they can make elsewhere, why should they stick around as a doctor? And if government pays them hire, guess who's really paying for that? The citizenry.

It all comes down to this, government control is a poor substitute for a competitive, free market. It hasn't worked, it doesn't work, and it will never work. It sounds like a great idea, but it is still only an idea. Ideas are not reality. No idea is too great to not work. There comes a time when you must face the facts, and accept reality. Trying the same thing, just harder is insanity.

So, now how do we fix this? Well, that's a hard one. Once a bill becomes law, it is very difficult to reverse. The first step is vote every last person who voted for this unconstitutional bill out of office. The second would be vote people into office that are against big government. Currently, both republicans and democrats operate under the idea that government is the answer to problems. We must discern who is trustworthy enough to do what is good for the people and not for the government.

Now, there are two things we can do about the law. A, there could be a bill put forth to revoke the health care bill, but that has a very small chance of working. B, the next congress can just withhold funds from the program. The program cannot work without funds, but the problem is, it is still on the books for whoever at a later date wishes to start it up. We must figure out a way to remove the law completely, and take back the country. We must be a people whose standard for the law of the land is the constitution, and whose will is to do what is right.

As Christians, remember, this world is not our home. As much as it pains me to say, I believe we have lost our country. I will not give up hope that we can take it back, but for now, it doesn't look promising. Remember, God is in control. America might need to fall for His perfect will to be accomplished. I just pray that He will use me to accomplish it, and that I may live to see it completed. Perhaps this is His way of setting up the world for the end times, I don't know, but it would make sense from where I stand. Remember, however, we only see a small part of a stroke of a brush, God sees the whole painting. He knows what he is doing.

May the Lord bless you all,
~Sheepdog.

Don't mess with the hippos

Nom nom nom

On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs.

 LTC (Retired) Dave Grossman talks about sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into "warriorhood", you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference. There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. 

Read it, its very good.

Human rights.

A friend posted this on facebook:

Couple of things. 

I am not Republican, I am not Democrat. I am a Juris Naturalist. I believe in higher law, set forth by Almighty God. There are two parts of Higher Law, Do what you say you will do and Do not encroach on other persons or their property. That is, do not rape, murder, steal, etc. If these laws are widely followed, there is prosperity. If not, there is misery. 

I believe that government should not be involved unless it is to stop one persons rights from being trampled on. That is, to protect the rights of its citizens in a way that does not destroy the rights of another. This is done by taking those who have committed an offense, and trying them in a court of justice. Notice that I did not say a court of law. Any jury, any court should be trying to find what justice is, and how to apply it to the situation. Justice, you see, is not created; justice is found.

Throughout history, man has shown their lust for control. The people with the biggest stick won, and trampled the rights of those weaker. That is why we have the 2nd Amendment. If the people have the biggest stick, the government must respect their rights. The people have a right to live peaceably. When someone decides to disrupt a persons peaceful life, that person has a right to defend themselves and property, to bring about justice. It is human instinct to stay alive and survive.