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Got Hope? January 30, 2019

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politiocal Philosophy, Religion, Uncategorized.
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Marching out of Yorktown to surrender the British Army played the song “The World Turned Upside Down.”  As I drive to Mega Lo Mart to make my latest deposit of monopoly money in a Chinese savings account all I can do is mumble the final tag-line of the Wicked Witch of the West, “What a world! What a world!”  

There is a massive unspoken problem in America today floating like the iceberg in front of the Titanic waiting to sink the unsinkable ship.   Founded by revolutionaries crying “No taxation without representation!” the Republic these revolutionaries devised has devolved into a society where 44% of the people  pay no Federal Income Tax and the number of people receiving government benefits is even higher.  What incentive would these non-paying receivers have to reign in an overbearing and intrusive government?  This unseen and unspoken problem is a cancer in the body politic. 

Self-serving professional politicians buy votes by exempting non-productive people from personal financial responsibility while providing ever-expanding benefits at the expense of the productive.  This is not the right versus left, conservative versus liberal, democrat versus republican he-said-she-said endless debate that devours the chatocracy of cable’s wall-to-wall talking-heads.  This is not an academic exercise that pointy-headed political science and history majors with dueling pocket protectors debate for hours in their mother’s basement as they post their latest scoop on their samizdat blogs. If it is not any of these things what is it?  It’s a dagger pointing directly at the heart of our civilization. 

Western Civilization awoke from the slumber of the Dark Ages enlightened and empowered by a belief that humanity has an innate right to be free and a natural right to excel.  Rights and freedoms given by God not bestowed at the whim of some Legend-in-his-own-mind Leader.  This civilization gathered steam in Europe exploding upon the world stage through an energetic period of exploration.   

In America after a revolution fought by farmers and merchants against the greatest empire of the day the Founders dared to declare, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” After centuries of government thugs standing on the windpipe of everyday people these self-sacrificing giants observed that in a civilized world government was not imposed by the strong upon the weak it was instead built upon a social contract between the governed and those entrusted with the privilege to govern when they said, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” 

Today this bold and unique experiment in freedom is being devoured from within and challenged from without.  Those who believe the collective should reign over the individual, those who believe in the suffocating sameness of socialism over the rough-and-tumble of capitalism have worked for generations building a culture of dependency. This has tempered the steel will of the pioneers into the sloppy demands of the couch-potato slacker waiting for someone to find their remote as they guzzle some refreshments and wait for the game as bread and circuses take the place of innovation and accomplishment.  Schools teaching 2+2 might = 5, trophies for everyone, politically correct new-speak and affirmative action promotions have sapped the vitality from the citizens of our Republic.  Politicians and their fellow-travelers use a system of cronies and sweet-heart deals to reward each other for siphoning trillions from the public treasury promising the dumbed-down descendants of revolutionaries that they just might win the lotto before they have to declare bankruptcy so they might as well re-elect the same old grafters once again. 

There comes a time when those who are raising the sails and paddling the boat have to admit to themselves the ballast down in steerage weighs more than the cargo.  There comes a time when even the most non-confrontational and loyal among us begin to ask, “Who is John Galt” as Atlas tires of his thankless job and shrugs the burden of dead-weight into the dustbin of history.  As the perpetually-reelected and the propaganda spewing Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media trumpet the inevitability of government rationed health-care, cap-n-trade industrial suicide, comprehensive import-a-voter immigration reform and the surrender of sovereignty through treaties supposedly designed to deal with  mythical global warming  there shines a light in a bell tower, one if by land and two if by sea. 

America finally elects a president who directly runs on promises to deal with these life threatening problems and the disloyal opposition and the kangaroo courts do everything in their power to make sure no one applies the breaks as we careen towards the cliff on insolvency. Every trick in their playbook is employed to make sure the president elected to drain the swamp is neutered.  Investigations run by politicized lawyers and G-men keep revealing things that point at Hillary as the only person who tried to fix an election by stealing the primary from Bernie.  Hillary whose campaign colluded with the Russians through Fusion GPS and their KGB connected British Spy Christopher Steele.  It turns out that the Trump campaign received 0 dollars from the Russians while the Clinton Foundation money laundromat received millions over a period of years while Bill earned 500,000 for a short speech to the Russians seeking to corner America’s uranium market, a sale that his wife help guide through the process.  And the conclusion drawn by the witch hunters …wait for it … Trump is a Russian agent. 

If Chicken Little hasn’t told you lately, “The sky is falling.”  Can anyone say, impeachment?   

That is the sorry state of the American political world today.  There is one almost humorous aside as we slide towards that dustbin historians love to reference.  All the geriatric radicals and revolutionaries still dreaming of their glory years in the 60s and 70s aided by the screen-addicted beneficiaries of government public school programming lined up behind the swampy establishment to fight the first truly revolutionary leader we’ve elected since 1980.  “What a world! What a world!”  

But praise God we have somewhere else to look for hope for without hope we’re hopeless and I refuse to allow the despicable but predictable changes currently assaulting our economy and our political system to bring about my own personal Great Depression.  Those who believe in the Devil believe he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  I believe if he can’t steal your joy he can’t keep your stuff and weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.   

And I believe that Jesus Christ has come to set us free.  And if He sets us free we are free indeed.  So take courage.  Don’t lose hope.  Instead be hope-filled. All you have to do is confess Jesus as the lord, the leader of your life and believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and you will enter into a world of joy unspeakable and full of glory.  If you haven’t done that before I’m going to believe you just did, and that fills me with hope. 

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com   Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens 

 

 

 

Does God Speak to You? January 16, 2019

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion, Uncategorized.
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When people ask me this question I answer it with another, “Do mean God doesn’t speak to you?”

You can officially mark me down as a crazy person or whatever you like I don’t care.   But I initially turned from the world to face God because I heard a voice answer my silent plea, the plea of a lost and lonely sinner about to give up on life, “I’ve got to try something.”

What I heard was a voice as real as any I’ve ever heard say right in my ear, “Why don’t you try God.”

As a militant atheist I turned to confront whoever it was that dared to say some invisible make-believe spirit might be the answer to my aching heart.  There was no one there.  At least there was no one there that I could see or find.  So after an exhaustive search that turned up no one I started searching for who might have been there that I couldn’t see.  It was a search that eventually led me through the Gospels to Jesus.  It was a search that led me from a dead-end life to a life filled with hope.

I said all that to say all this:

Have you ever felt God leading you to do something?   It probably won’t be an audible voice.  I am convinced that God only uses an audible voice for either the extremely hard-hearted/hard-headed or to comfort the extremely hard pressed.  Instead he leads us through our spirit which is linked to Him through His Spirit which lives in us as born-again believers.

If you aren’t one of those it’s easy just confess Jesus as Lord or leader of your life and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead…and that’s it.  Done and done.

So here we are children of God through adoption, made right with Him, spiritually standing in Daddy’s throne room, minding our own business and His Spirit leads us to do something: something that doesn’t seem like something we would want to do on your own…….say He leads us to spend everything we have to buy Bibles to give to homeless people.

What should we do?

I’m talking about spending way more money than our natural head says we can afford.  It just doesn’t make sense when we look at our budget through natural eyes.   And the wisdom of the world tells us, “Come on most of the homeless you give a Bible will either lose it or throw it away.”  Or, “Come on they’ll only listen to you witness about what Christ has done for you and accept the Bible so they can get a handout or something.”

But there it is again, an urging, a leading to do this thing that makes no sense.  It itches at our hearts.  It won’t leave.  We feel our spirit saying, “If I don’t do this I’ll miss an opportunity to do what I’m supposed to do,” while our head says, “Are you crazy you can’t afford to do that!”

Over and over our heads, filled with natural sense knowledge keep shouting, “If I spend all that money just to give it away I won’t have it for what I need.”  Or the ever ready, “Can’t someone else do it?  Like someone who has more money.”

God isn’t looking for ability He’s looking for availability.  If He can make donkeys speak and use murderers to being people back to life, turn water into wine, and save sinners like us He can surely provide for all our needs.

If we want to see the miracles of God we need to follow Him into uncharted water.  We need to do what He calls us to do because where God guides God provides.  Walking in faith always sensitive to what He calls us to do and then following Him in the doing … that’s the way to see the miracles of God.

Faith isn’t doing only what we can do on our own.  Faith is doing what God calls us to do even when we know we can’t.  Let’s step out of the boat and feel the waves beneath our feet.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com   Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

 

 

 

A New You for a New Year January 2, 2019

Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion, Uncategorized.
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Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?  Have you reached the end of your rope only to find out that it’s much shorter than you imagined?  Was last year as good as you hoped it would be?  Was it as bad as you feared it would be?  Does the uncertainty of the future leave you anxious?  Has your own mortality entered like a crack in the ice in your youthful belief in personal indestructibility?

But wait there’s more…

Does the randomness of good happening to bad people and bad happening to good people leave you wondering if there’s any rhyme or reason to reality?  Is looking for answers to these and many other questions like looking for needles in haystacks?  Is the quest to find meaning in life like trying to nail fog to the wall?

If you’ve rejected Christ because of Christians don’t mistake the messengers for the message.  Christ told his followers to lake His light to the world and most have spent the last 2018 years trying to build a lamp and pretending it was the light.

The message is as simple as receiving it: Confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved.

That’s it.

It’s not about joining the right club or following the right rules.  We don’t need a seminary degree or someone with one to walk us through learning the secret handshake or the Abra Kadabra password.  And there is no magic decoder ring.  We don’t have to read the Bible from cover to cover.  We don’t have to wear the right clothes, beard, or haircut.  We don’t have to vote for the right candidates.  We don’t have to take an oath to believe the same things that everyone else who confesses Christ as Lord does.

It isn’t about being good enough.  That’s one of the great miracles of God’s economy.  While we were yet sinners Jesus came and died so that we could live.

It isn’t about becoming a religious robot who says the right things at the right time to the right people in the right place.  God is the One who created us with free choice, so we’re free to choose.  It isn’t about conformity.  God is the One who created us to be an individual and He doesn’t make junk.  We are who He created us to be.  He has placed us in a certain time and place so that we can become all He designed us to be and do all that He has called us to do.  And that means what He created, placed, and called you to be will be different than what He created, placed, and called me to be.  You see it isn’t about cookie-cutter, repeat a formula, and follow the rule book club membership.

It’s about each of us individually confessing Jesus as Lord and each of us individually believing God raised Jesus from the dead and then learning to commune with God, to hear Him speak to us as individuals and then doing what He tells us to do.

If the questions at the beginning of this article float through our minds like storm clouds in a cloudless sky obscuring what should be clear.  Let’s give up the battle to do it on our own.  Let’s surrender and find victory in allowing God to count the victory of Jesus over sin and death to our account.

It’s so easy we can do it right here right now.  We don’t need to be in a meeting, at an altar, or in a special building.  We don’t need anyone to hold our hand or even know what we’ve done.  We will know.  God will know.  And once we’re in his hand no one can snatch us out.

I confess Jesus as Lord and I believe in my heart that God raised Him from the Dead.  That’s it.  All done.  The battle is over.  The war between us and God is over and we are one with Him.  Welcome to a new you for a new year.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion.  He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com  © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com   Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens