Vote = Voice

It is my conviction that Americans should exercise their right to vote. And it is especially my conviction that American Christians should vote for the candidate whom will most uphold the biblical values of our nation.

Why?

• Because voting is a patriotic privilege—and as such, a responsibility. Can you imagine how Christians in the first century would have responded to the opportunity to choose their national leaders? I believe that, given the choice, they definitely would have chosen leaders who would extend religious freedom and protect life. Paul himself exercised what privileges citizenship offered when he could. (See Acts 22:25–29, 25:11.)
• Because we are to be salt and light in our spheres of influence. Although Jesus spoke primarily to our testimony and witness in reference to salt and light (Matthew 5:13–14), I believe this applies to any area in which we have influence. As Americans, we each have one vote, and we should use that vote toward preserving our nation—including the freedoms that give us liberty to extend the light of the Gospel.
• Because your vote is your voice, and when you have a voice, you should use it. Our primary message is the Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:23)! But that doesn’t negate our responsibility to lend our voice to the support of someone who will at least use his authority to help, rather than hinder, the cause of truth. One candidate in every election (presidential, congressional, etc.) is going to win, and I would like to see the candidate win who most supports biblical values and religious freedom.

Below are guidelines for Christian voters to follow as they seek to elect the candidates who most closely reflect scriptural values. These qualifications below apply not only to the presidential election, but to candidates on every level—federal, state, and county. Who should Christians vote for?

• The candidate who most supports life—Every unborn child is a person. (See Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13–16, and Luke 1:41.) Unfortunately for these youngest in our society, they are people without voices. As Christians, it is our responsibility to speak up for the poor and needy whose voice cannot be heard. (See Proverbs 31:8–9.)
• The candidate who most supports the biblical family—From creation, God built the home as the foundation of society. (See Genesis 1:27, 2:24; Ephesians 5:22–25, 6:1). Any politician who attempts to redefine the biblical foundation of a home and marriage is, in fact, chipping away at the bedrock of society.
• The candidate who most supports Israel—Besides the fact that Israel is our closest ally in a turbulent Middle East, she is also a special nation. God promised to bless those who bless her and to curse those who harm her. (See Genesis 12:3.) If our nation ever needed God’s blessing, it’s now. Slacking support for Israel is wrong on so many levels.

From www.paulchappell.com

|| Leadership ||

Right On! 

Washington Post Leadership article!

|| Nigeria [and SEA] ||

This year myself and the next four siblings in line have the amazing opportunity to head to Nigeria in March. The purpose of the trip is to lead a VBS in an orphanage for children of martyrs run by VOM. What a humbling and amazing experience I am sure it will be. Please be in prayer for the remaining details to be worked out, supplies to be purchased, lessons prepared, and support raised.

Elizabeth and Julie also have the opportunity to return to South East Asia to lead/teach in the IBLP Childrens Institute. Elizabeth will be apart of the staff team this year!

|| El Salvador ||

What a blessed time the Lord gave us in December on the El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala missions trip. The Lord's hand was at work all year long in preparation behind the scenes in ways we did not even know until closer to the trip. Here are a few ways God provided:
- Funding
- 3,000 Gospels of John at amazing prices
- Gifts provided by the Hertzburg family for the Christmas Party at La Esperanza
- Money for gifts for the kids
- 400+ flashlights
- Medical Supplies
- Luggage
- Expedited passports for other members of the team
- Many other gracious friends who provided gifts and supplies to us or other members of the team
- And countless prayers

We would like to share a few of the stories and memories from the trip. Take a look here.



And you can check out the top 364 pictures from the trip HERE!

|| Forgiveness ||

I seem to have taken a fancy to post about books I am reading. [Begin rabbit trail.... I have had many wise leaders encourage me to read as much about leadership, life, and Godliness that I can. There are so many great resources out there whereby we can increase our effectiveness for Christ as well as hone our skills in the business world, family life, emotional development, and more. End rabbit trail] I am also reading Improving Your Serve by Charles R. Swindoll. Sunday I was reading the chapter on forgiveness. What does it mean? Why is it important in the context of leadership? He takes us back to the model of God's forgiveness through Christ Jesus work on the cross. In the context of the the old Hymn:

          My Sin - oh the bliss of this glorious tho't-

          My Sin - not in part, but the whole,

          Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more,

          Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

 

And in Scripture the words of the Psalms:

Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;
Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.
He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
-Psalms 103:1-5, 10-12

 


As I thought about what I was reading and evaluated in my own life I was humbled by the love God has for me that even with my terrible sin I am able to approach my Savior though FORGIVENESS.

|| Focus ||

I am currently reading a book titled, "Thinking for a Change" by John Maxwell. As lame and corny as it sounds this book will change your thinking. While I enjoy thinking and solving problems at lot of times I am not very focused in my thinking. As I was reading the skill on focus I came across the following excerpt. Dr. Maxwell quoted from Al Ries' Focus: The future of your company depends on it. 

"The sun is a powerful source of energy. Every hour the sun washes the earth with billions of kilowatts of energy. Yet with a hat and some sun-screen, you can bathe in the light of the sun for hours at a time with few ill effects. A laser is a weak source of energy. A laser takes a few watts of energy and focuses them in a coherent stream of light. but with a laser you can drill a hole in a diamond, cut steel several inches thick, or wipe our cancer."

So what kind of light and focus will I have? Do I really want to make a difference? I had better start thinking that way.


I have been blessed to be apart of a reading discussion group where we are breaking this book down and working through it skill by skill. If you are near 20 years young or older and know me personally shoot me an email and I can give you the details of the group I am apart of. the group meets via conference call every Thursday mornings at 7am.

|| Quote ||

"Duty is OURS, Results are God's"

-John Quincy Adams.

|| Tongue ||

Below is an excerpt from a devotional email I wrote last week for a Bible Reading and Scripture Memorization team I am apart of.

This past week I have been thinking and meditating on a verse from our memorization in James. As I was running last week I was listening to the entire book on my phone and there was a verse that really stood out to me. It hit me like a tone of bricks right between the eyes. James 3:9 "With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God;..." What o what could this be talking about? Our mouth! Elsewhere in scripture we are warned about the power of the tongue and it damaging effects. But that is not really what  struck me. What struck me was the fact that our mouth that we are praying, praising God, and sharing His gospel with others is the same mouth that is tearing others down, issuing cutting remarks, and uttering unclean language. We use that same mouth to Praise God? What grace we have been shown! In the Old Testament we are preparing to read about some of the laws with which the Israelite's were to govern their lives by. Including such simple things so that if a lowly item like a clay pot was even to touch something unclean it was to be broken and cast out. As I was thinking on this and evaluating my own mouth and heart I was driven to me knees because of God's unconditional mercy and grace for me. What a humbling reminder to "Let NO unwholesome word proceed from my mouth". Blessings in the fight!Richard

The Status Quo

This Sunday I was specifically impacted by the message at church. The Message was titled, "Is This It? One of the points Eric brought out was, "Do I love myself to much"? Do I love my own comfort? Pleasure? Easy life? Fun Friends? My time is a pretty good indicator of what I love. But how do I know what is appropriate? Do I look at what everyone else is doing? Do I measure it by the actions of the church? Absolutely not. I must lay aside EVERY encumbrance and press on to the goal. We have to step out of the "norm", away from what we are comfortable with, and go against the status quo. The only measuring stick is God's Word. Eric shared the audio of the following song with us. Take a listen and contemplate the message.

So long status quo

I think I just let go

You make me want to be brave

The way it always was 

Is no longer good enough

You make me want to be brave

Brave, brave

Eric's Message: .mp3, notes, & slides

Reverse Thinking

Reverse

Sermonspice.com

See Details Buy Now

When was the last time you reversed your thinking?


Hat tip to Kathy Allman for the link.

|| GOD ||

In his new book,Gospel Wakefulness, Jared Wilson talks about how all of life is relevant for mission. From drinking coffee to changing diapers, from cutting the grass to washing dishes — all of life can be lived to the glory of God by those who have been awakened to the gospel of our exhaustively sovereign Savior.

He writes,

One of the attendant aims of missional evangelicalism is to challenge the compartmentalizing of the Christian faith that we see within the Western church. We are fantastic at itemizing our schedules, and even if we don't assign God a very large bracket, we are constantly remorseful that we "haven't made much time for him." While such compartmentalizing — as if "time with God" can or should be hermetically sealed off from everything else — is a natural symptom of our culture and environment, it also reflects a bad theology.

The truth is, the day does not belong to us. It is not our day to do with as we please. We serve a sovereign God. He created the end from the beginning, knows our future exhaustively, and is firmly in control. He made our days and they belong to him. As such, isn't it a bit arrogant to begin with the idea that each day is ours and then worry about fitting God in? Instead, we should work at the humble awe of knowing all of our moments, every millisecond, waking or sleeping, are perfectly accounted for within the economy of heaven.

Let us stake the flag of Christ's kingdom into the soil of our first waking moment. Drink your coffee when you get up, of course, but drink it to the glory of God. Then carry on in this way all day, no matter the task, be it menial or notable, so that each day may be a living prayer that God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is what it means to live a gospel-saturated life: it means being so conscious of the greatness of the gospel that changing diapers or cutting the grass is as much an act of worship as singing a praise chorus in a church service….

Jesus Christ is Lord over my heart, and he is Lord over my hands, and he is Lord over what I do with these hands, and he is Lord over what I say in my heart while I'm doing it. In submitting to the lordship of Christ, then, I do not treat washing dishes as wasting time I could be spending doing something "meaningful," but rather as a service to those who eat in my home, as a service to those who would have to wash the dishes if I did not, and as an offering of thanksgiving to God that I have food to eat, dishes to eat it on, and running water inside my home to clean with.

To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, there is not a square inch of our lives that is not claimed by God and counterclaimed by ourselves. If we believe God is sovereign, however, we will see all of life as mission and be led to submit the square inches we otherwise hold so tightly to the Maker of inches and hands.

Gospel Wakefulness, (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 90–92, paragraphing added.

Originally posted on http://www.desiringgod.org

Road ID

Here at home I run alongside some very busy streets. Since I do not like to carry my wallet with me while running or biking I found this.

To share some Christmas blessing they have put out some coupons out for everyone to use. Enjoy here.

Thought of the Day!

The most amazing thing about this picture is not just the lives touched that this picture represents but the unity of the team. God melded this team together on this trip like non other. I have never been apart of a missions trip team that was so focused on one goal and one mission. The story behind this picture is one of that teamwork. Several of us were talking about how cool it would be to get a picture like this. So armed with that thought we did it. But it was a team effort. My camera, Mrs Query taking the picture, I made a few initial edits to the picture, Aaress posted the quote, Melanie saw the quote and picture and combined the two. And now was have a memorial just like the people of Israel when God would command them to set up memorials. Why? So that when their children saw it they would ask, "What did GOD do here?" We are the BODY!

First of 10 post about the trip: http://richardshoemakeriii.blogspot.com/2011/01/el-salvador-2010.html

Moment of reflection!

Focus? What is it? Where is yours?

"Life is far too short not to realize that it's long enough to make a difference in someone else's life."

So get out and tell them about GOD'S LOVE!

|| Personal || Tornado ||

Living in Oklahoma you come to accept tornadoes as a way of life. The term "Tornado Alley" and constant warnings and watches come to be a way of life April through June. I remember the times of practicing where we would go if there was a tornado and preparing. Praise God that we never had to actually take cover.

In the past two years though tornado's have begun to strike closer to home. 2 years ago a small f-1 passed 2 blocks from our house in the middle of the night. This year hundreds of twisters tore through a small valley in Alabama wiping out an entire valley including the family of an ALERT graduate. Less than two months later Joplin was leveled by another deadly tornado.

As I think of the power that each storm brings I think back to Elijah in I Kings 19. He heard the wind, the rain, felt the earthquake, smelt the fire, and was surrounded by so many displays of God's power. While he could see the effects of God's power God was not "in" those events. His voice was in the still small quiet. What a reminder to look at my own life. Am I listening to His voice in the quiet? What about in the busy activity?

My friend Andrew is a phenomenal videographer who can tell stories in an amazing way. You can check out his work HERE. Also please take a moment to visit the following link and vote for his video of the Alabama tornado's. Contest Link He deployed down there while working with ALERT. During that time he shot the following film. Contest Link and Video of Alabama destruction His video was selected as a finalist for a competition for a company that designs some of the equipment he uses.

 After the Joplin tornado our ALERT Cadet unit along with a contingent from a Texas unit deployed to Joplin to clear houses and yards of debris. We also had the opportunity to serve the church we were working for. You can view pictures of that deployment HERE.

No greater L.O.V.E......

"Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:13

4 years ago today, yet the memories of a brother who gave his all are still fresh on my mind. Because of you, Jaron, we enjoy freedom!

http://richardshoemakeriii.blogspot.com/2007/08/day-in-remembrance-and-celebration.html
http://www.iraqwarheroes.org/holliday.htm

In Honor of Flag Day

In honor of Flag Day. The Stars and Strips still proudly flying over a destroyed home in Joplin, Mo

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.  -Thomas Paine, 1776-

 

Courtesy of Wiki.

To read the entire letter click on the image above.

Taking Chance

In This evening our family watched the movie, "Taking Chance". Taking Chance chronicles the trip home of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps, from the Dover crematory to his rural Wyoming burial in his families hometown as seen through the eyes of his escort, Lt. Col. Michael Strobl. Strobl chronicles the event and emotions surrounding it in his journal. Along the way as escort he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of gratefulness for the selfless sacrifice of a young man they had never even met.


As I watched I was taken back to 2006 and 2007. It was in 2006 that Marine Corporal Jared Shoemaker was killed in Iraq. Boldly protecting the freedoms that we hold so dear. Jared is the son of my dad's cousin. While I did not know Jared well I do know that no matter where he was protecting our freedoms he was also sharing with others about the freedom they could have in Christ. During his funeral our family witnessed first hand the gratefulness and honor of so many people who never knew Jared. Jared was also a Tulsa Police officer who protected our freedoms here at home as well as across the ocean.



Tulsa World account of Jared's Funeral. HERE


In 2007 I was down at the International ALERT Academy working in the Cadet office on a 9 month internship. On August 5th I received a phone call from my family telling me that Corporal Jaron Holiday had been killed in action in Iraq. Jaron had been an active part of our local ALERT Cadet unit up until the day he left for basic training. Jaron was a blast to be around and one the older guys that we all looked up to with admiration. Jaron had a love and passion for the Lord that was only seconded by his love for his family and music. Every where Jaron went his smile was always there to proclaim God's love.

Tomorrow my brother John will be graduating from high school with CHEF. The same group the rest of my family and Jaron have graduated with. At the service tomorrow Mrs. Holiday will present a music scholarship to one of the graduates. A continuing testimony to the life and service of an incredible young man who served God with all his passion.

Taking Chance - If you have not seen this movie before I would encourage you to have your parents preview it before hand. There is some inappropriate language and a few moments of inappropriate dress. The story is eye opening to the process of internment and the dignity and honor bestowed on them. It however, leaves out nearly all mention of the Lord and his true comfort and salvation.

Praise God for someone with a little Godly guts!

To view the original file follow this link or click on the picture.

Lew Sterrett and Sermon on the Mount in TULSA! (kinda :-) )

Lew Sterrett and Sermon on the mount will be here in Claremore at the expo center Saturday April 9th! Come and see the Jr. Rodeo at 10am or just browse the hundreds of vendors who will be there. Lew will be doing his presentation from 2-4pm. The event is free and open to the public.

Check out Lew's great resources and event schedule here: http://www.sermononthemount.org/