Dr. Owens’ Next Book Signing Event October 17, 2019
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When:
Friday Oct 18 4 PM – 9 PM
Saturday Oct 19 9 AM – 5 PM
Sunday Oct 20 9 AM – 3 PM
Where:
Westfair Fairgrounds
22984 Highway 6
Council Bluffs, IA 51503
Dr. Owens has five new titles published this year.
Bring in a book to be signed or purchase one new. All fifteen of Dr. Owens’ titles will be available. His books include: Five novels in the America’s Trojan War series, America’s Odyssey: You Can’t Go Home Again, America’s Odyssey II: You must Go Home Again, America’s Steel Brigade, and America’s Armageddon. Four books on Political Science: The Constitution Failed, Constitutional Philosophy in Action, Then Came Trump, and Drain the Swamp. Four History Books: America Vol. One: Colonial History, The Azusa Street Revival, The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same (describes how the elites in America use presidential assassinations to create and sustain a secular political religion), and America Won the Vietnam War! A book on Leadership: COGIC History: The Dark Years, and a book designed to strengthen and encourage Christians called Faith. All of these books are available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
All of Dr. Owens’ books are available in paperback and kindle at Amazon
MAGA Raises For American Workers October 16, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy, Uncategorized.Tags: 1%, 99%, American wages, Dr. Robert Owens, Trump deregulation, Trump tax reform
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“If it bleeds it leads” is how the old saying concerning media attention goes. And with the anti-Trump mob smelling blood in the water all we hear is “IMPEACH!! IMPEACH!!! IMPEACH!!!!” as if repeating this mantra over and over will make their dream of reversing the results of the 20916 election come true. And because of this obsessive compulsion to control the narrative the good news concerning America’s economy is buried below the fold on page 57 of the classifieds.
However, as is always the case eventually the truth comes out. President Trump, the blue collar billionaire, who sacrificed living the dream to living in a fish bowl filled with sharks, continues to work with little fanfare and less credit to improve the lives of American citizens.
As an example let’s look at the wages of American workers. According to the Pew Research Center as of 2018, “despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago.” Of course this report in 2018 was chronicling the findings from 2017 as the nation began to stir after years of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama managed decline model.
Even as the relentless and furious attempt to reverse the 2016 election continues the positive changes initiated by President Trump are fighting through a log jam of phony charges and kangaroo hearings to benefit the citizens of our great republic. Today it’s morning again in America as the Trump Bump gathers steam bringing concrete benefits all of us.
On July 24th the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) published its annual revisions to personal income data. This download of data included a pleasant surprise. There was a notable increase in disposable income and employee compensation.
These revisions showed employee compensation rising 4.5% in 2017 and 5% in 2018—some $4.4 billion and $87.1 billion more than previously reported. The trend has continued into 2019, with compensation increasing $378 billion or 3.4% in the first six months alone. Wages and salaries were revised upward to 5.3% from 3.6% in May year over year. And in June wages and salaries grew at an annual rate of 5.5%, which is a rocking 4.1% after adjusting for inflation.
The BEA also revised overall personal income up by 1.7% for 2017 and 2018 and transfer receipts down 0.7%. What does this mean? It shows that Americans are earning more and relying less on government.
As an example of Americans becoming more self-reliant we can look at the precipitous decline in the number of people who require food stamps to maintain a healthy diet. According to Fox News, “The latest intel from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) affirms that the amount of food stamp beneficiaries reached 40,083,954 in March 2018. The foregoing number is the lowest since February 2010. Experts have moreover attributed the decline to crackdowns on fraud within the food stamp program, coupled with President Trump’s economic improvements.”
In addition the BEA report also offered a revision in the personal savings rate. The government’s estimates were increased by $217 billion for the first two years of the Trump administration and are now $1.3 trillion, which means Americans are saving more of their earnings.
The BEA report continued uncovering more positive information concerning savings. It revised the personal savings rate upward to 8.1% from 6.1% in May, which is much higher than the roughly 5% before the last two recessions. This should make the current economic expansion more sustainable since consumption isn’t based on increased household debt consumer spending is increasing as wage growth grows due to a tight labor market.
Just think for a moment about how the liberal media endorsed President Obama’s “New Normal” as the reason worker incomes weren’t growing faster during the previous administration. Then came Trump: and today employee compensation has increased by $150 billion. That is more in the first six months of 2019 than in all of 2016. Let this comparison sink in. It is even more pronounced when we look at the first two years of the Trump Presidency: compensation increased 42% more since Trump’s inauguration than in 2015 and 2016 combined. This completely discredits the claim that the economy is merely continuing the same trajectory since 2017.
This all flows as naturally as water over a cliff from President Trump’s two pronged plan to revitalize America.
First there is the on-going effort to scrap the economic strangulation of regulation. According to the Washington Examiner, “Deregulation explodes under Trump, 13 regulations killed for every new one, $33B saved.” This unleashes the entrepreneurial spirits of Americans. Just think about the fact that after decades of promising energy independence while restricting where and how we could drill for oil or dig for coal after just three years of Trump’s “Drill Baby Drill” policies and the removal of oppressive regulations we’ve become the largest producer of energy in the world.
Secondly there is Trump’s tax reform. This has inspired businesses to invest in new facilities and equipment. In the long run this investment will lead to higher worker productivity and wages.
And we are endlessly bombarded with the story that the profits of the 1% are far out pacing the financial benefits of the 99. This doesn’t seem to match a statement found in the Wall Street Journal, “Corporate after-tax profits increased by about $220 billion between 2016 and 2018 while employee compensation swelled nearly $1 trillion. Corporate profits declined 2.9% in the first quarter of 2019 even as wages grew at an annual rate of 10.1%. This sure sounds like an economy that is benefiting the 99%.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, 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
Dr. Owens’ Next Book Signing Event October 11, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
When:
Friday Oct 11 5 PM – 9 PM
Saturday Oct 12 9 AM – 5 PM
Sunday Oct 13 9 AM – 3 PM
Where:
Sioux City Convention Center
801 4th St
Sioux City, IA 51101
Dr. Owens has five new titles published this year.
Bring in a book to be signed or purchase one new. All fifteen of Dr. Owens’ titles will be available. His books include: Five novels in the America’s Trojan War series, America’s Odyssey: You Can’t Go Home Again, America’s Odyssey II: You must Go Home Again, America’s Steel Brigade, and America’s Armageddon. Four books on Political Science: The Constitution Failed, Constitutional Philosophy in Action, Then Came Trump, and Drain the Swamp. Four History Books: America Vol. One: Colonial History, The Azusa Street Revival, The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same (describes how the elites in America use presidential assassinations to create and sustain a secular political religion), and America Won the Vietnam War! A book on Leadership: COGIC History: The Dark Years, and a book designed to strengthen and encourage Christians called Faith. All of these books are available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
All of Dr. Owens’ books are available in paperback and kindle at Amazon
Show Me The Money October 9, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy, Uncategorized.Tags: 2017 Tax Reform, Corporate inversion, Dr. Robert Owens, KAG, MAGA, tax incentives, Tax Laws
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The Laffer Curve is a theory developed by supply-side economist Arthur Laffer to show the relationship between tax rates and the amount of tax revenue collected by governments. The curve is used to illustrate Laffer’s argument that sometimes cutting tax rates can increase total tax revenue. The Laffer Curve is alive and well in the Renaissance America of President Donald J. Trump. As a matter of fact the policies of the Trump Administration have demonstrated that the Laffer Curve isn’t constrained by international borders.
You see Trump’s 2017 tax reform is delivering on its promise to bring money back to the US from overseas by making America more competitive.
Before this monumental tax reform the US had one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. And on top of that we had a worldwide tax system that compared unfavorably with the territorial systems in 28 of the other 36 countries who are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The OECD is an intergovernmental economic organization founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade.
This worldwide tax system taxed the foreign earnings of US corporations once their overseas profits were brought home. This provided a massive incentive for our corporations to park their earnings from foreign subsidiaries offshore. In the year before Trump’s tax reform US corporations had more than $2 trillion stashed overseas.
Besides this massive reduction in available capital in the US these incentive draining tax policies led many US firms to implement what came to be called “Inversion Transactions.” This means they gave up their status as American corporations and reincorporated in foreign countries often through acquisitions and mergers.
The 2017 tax reform bill President Trump proposed and shepherded through Congress has radically changed all this. This history making law lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and it also allowed US companies to bring money home from their foreign subsidiaries at the much reduced US tax rate. On top of that the bill also made changes to laws which address the ownership and profitability of intellectual property. Under the previous laws there were economic incentives to locate the ownership of intellectual property in low-tax foreign countries. That has now been reversed and American is once again the best place on earth to innovate.
The new Trump inspired program has erased the lure of corporate inversions and fostered an economic environment where the US is once again an attractive and competitive place to host international businesses. And there is even proof in a two real world multi-billion dollar examples: The AbbVie acquisition of Allergan and the new Pfizer-Mylan combination.
According to Fox Business News, “Allergan was previously a U.S. company, but in 2015, it became an Irish company through a merger with Actavis. Mylan also was previously a U.S. company, but in 2015, it became a Dutch company. The adverse U.S. tax rules, coupled with low foreign tax rates and territorial tax systems, made it advantageous for the companies to shield non-U.S. income from the reach of the U.S. tax system by becoming incorporated and headquartered overseas.
AbbVie itself tried to invert in 2014, but the Treasury Department blocked its effort. A recent Bloomberg story noted, ‘A few years ago, this deal would likely have gone differently – Allergan would be the one buying AbbVie.’
The 2017 tax reform changed that. Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX), who led the congressional battle for tax reform as Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said following the announcement of the AbbVie-Allergan transaction that, as a result of 2017 tax reform, ‘companies can domicile here and stay competitive throughout the world.’”
And as Robert Willens, an independent tax consultant told Bloomberg, “Unlike an inversion where U.S. income is transformed into foreign income, in the instant case, the polar opposite may well occur since, here, foreign income might be transformed into U.S. income.”
So how is this working today? According to Investor’s Business Daily, “They said it wouldn’t happen, but it did: The money companies stashed overseas to protect them from high U.S. corporate tax rates is flooding back in, boosting growth, jobs and confidence in the economy. Thank the Trump tax cuts.
All told, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported, some $305.6 billion returned to the U.S. from overseas accounts. That’s a $1.2 trillion annual rate, and far more than the $35 billion one year before.”
By changing incentive-killing tax laws which appeared to be more like confiscation and the punishment of success President Trump is making America more competitive which is how he planned all along to Make America Great Again.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, 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
Can Anyone Say Amen? October 2, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion, Uncategorized.Tags: baptized in the Spirit, Dr. Robert Owens, persecution of Christians, spirit filled, victory in Jesus, Walking in the flesh, Walking in the Spirit
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Staring at the carnival mirrors of this life we squint through a swirling mist at the constantly shifting mirage of a fallen world. Things are not as they seem. Good is so often trampled underfoot while evil triumphs. The innocent are sacrificed as the guilty ride roughshod over justice. Walking in the ways of the flesh is stumbling through a maze all alone. Social Darwinism runs amuck. Survival of the fittest is the order of the day as the weak, the poor, and the defenseless are shoved out of the way for the next conqueror as they elbow their way to the fleeting throne that will eventually become their funeral pyre. Allowing our flesh to rule and guide us is walking with our eyes closed in the dark and following the lie that we can be like God creating our own realities through our selfish choices.
There is a better way. Walking with God is walking in the light reaching out for His revelation in His Word which is truth.
As we mature by meditating on the Word of God the things of this world grow strangely dim. Suddenly a light shines through the darkness and the spiritual world which is invisible to the natural man comes into focus. Paul put it best in his first letter to the Corinthians, “The unspiritual self, just as it is by nature, can’t receive the gifts of God’s Spirit. There’s no capacity for them. They seem like so much silliness. Spirit can be known only by spirit—God’s Spirit and our spirits in open communion. Spiritually alive, we have access to everything God’s Spirit is doing, and can’t be judged by unspiritual critics. Isaiah’s question, ‘Is there anyone around who knows God’s Spirit, anyone who knows what he is doing?’ has been answered: Christ knows, and we have Christ’s Spirit.”
Look at it this way if tomorrow morning when we opened our eyes we saw Jesus standing right there beside our bed physically manifested before us do you think we might have a different kind of morning than normal? Now imagine if He were to walk next to us all day. Everywhere we went He went. Do you think an experience like that might change the way we saw things?
The Lord is with us every day wherever we are and wherever we go because He prayed that the Father would send us the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of God. And we know the Father always hears and answers the prayers of His Son Jesus. Here’s what Jesus said about this, “I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” He lives within in us. This is the fact of a born-again life. But do we really live this way? Or do we let the mundane sameness of this life gradually gloss over the sparkling joy of our first love? If we will open our spiritual eyes we’ll see through the filthy fog of this world and see Jesus in all the power of His resurrection with us every step of the way.
I’m not saying this’ll instantly convert a vale of tears into a bed of roses. Jesus told us we shouldn’t expect any better treatment than He received at the hands of man, and they crucified Him. Look at Stephen the first martyr. He preached the good news that man can be reconciled with God by confessing Jesus as the Lord and leader of our life and by believing that God raised Him from the dead. This upset the applecart for all the religious leaders who made their living and maintained their power by confining people within the straightjacket of religion filled with rituals and symbols but lacking in a personal relationship with God.
These wolves in sheep’s clothing couldn’t meet Stephen in open debate. They couldn’t contend with the power of God that was so obvious in his preaching. So they manufactured lies and spread false rumors. They stirred up a crowd and then aimed the violence of the mob directly at this man of God. But even while they stoned him he had his eyes on Jesus and while the last breaths were crushed from his tortured lungs he cried, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
We too can live our lives walking, breathing, and speaking in the presence of the Son of Man, Jesus the Christ and there’s nothing the world can do about it. No one can snatch us out of God’s hand. To paraphrase one old song Jesus gave it to us and the world can’t take it away. So abandon the snipe hunt of seeking peace or fulfillment through walking in the flesh and embrace the reality of walking in the Spirit. Heed the words of the Master, “Come to Me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Here’s a prayer I’d like to share, “Father let me see with Your eyes, hear with Your ears, speak with Your words, love with Your heart, and touch with Your hands. Reach through me to those in need. Let the fire of Your love burn so bright in me that when others look in my direction You are all they see.”
Can anyone say, “Amen?”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, 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
Finally the Right Prescription for Runaway Drug Prices September 24, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy, Uncategorized.Tags: Big Pharma, Dr. Robert Owens, Drug prices, high drug prices, international drug prices, Medicare drug prices
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For as long as most of us can remember we have paid substantially higher prices for prescription drugs than the citizens of other countries. In Congress there’ve been endless speeches about the skyrocketing cost of medicine for American patients, especially senior citizens. And every election cycle there are campaign promises from both the Republicans and the Democrats who talk and talk but they’ve never done anything about it.
Until now that is. President Donald Trump continues his revolutionary idea of actually trying to fulfill his promises.
On the morning of July 31, 2019 the Trump Administration announced a new plan to effectively address this long festering situation. This brilliant plan allows companies to import drugs that are sold in other countries. This will save Americans money. Under the newly announced Trump plan Manufacturers can now bring the lower-cost versions of the drugs they sell abroad home to the United States. Of course these drugs will still be verified by the FDA as meeting our safety standards and identical to what is currently available.
Here’s the sad state of affairs that our leaders have for so long forced us to labor under. Foreign countries buy their drugs at substantially lower prices. This means that American patients subsidize the cost of drug research and development for the rest of the world. And that costs us vast sums of money each year both personally and nationally. Often prescriptions costing hundreds of dollars in the U.S. will cost just a few dollars overseas. As in so many of the deals our give-away-the-store negotiators have maintained for so many years, American citizens get the worst deal.
This broken and unjust system not only hurts patient’s pockets it costs taxpayers billions. Here’s one example: a medication that helps prevent blindness that annually costs Medicare more than one billion dollars would cost 187 million dollars if instead we paid the prices other countries pay.
Big Pharma has been against any change because they’re more than happy for the American citizens to be their ATM, financing their research and development while others reaped the benefit. However, as Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said, “Access to affordable prescription drugs can be a matter of life or death for American patients. The President has heard how much this matters to Americans, and we at HHS have heard the same. We all know how unfair it is that other countries are paying lower prices for the same drugs, and we’re taking action.”
The July announcement moves toward fulfilling President Trump’s promise to make medicine affordable for all Americans. After last year’s release of the President’s blueprint to lower prescription drug costs for the first time in forty six years, according to the government’s inflation index as of December 2018, drug prices dropped.
Referring to the unfair two tier drug prices American’s have labored under for so long President Trump said, “It’s time to end the global freeloading once and for all.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, 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
Dr. Owens’ Next Book Signing Event September 19, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.add a comment
When:
Friday Sept 20 5 PM – 9 PM
Saturday Sept 21 9 AM – 5 PM
Sunday Sept 22 9 AM – 3 PM
Where:
Varied Industries Building
Iowa State Fairgrounds
3000 E Grand Ave
Des Moines, IA 50317
Dr. Owens has five new titles published this year.
Bring in a book to be signed or purchase one new. All fifteen of Dr. Owens’ titles will be available. His books include: Five novels in the America’s Trojan War series, America’s Odyssey: You Can’t Go Home Again, America’s Odyssey II: You must Go Home Again, America’s Steel Brigade, and America’s Armageddon. Four books on Political Science: The Constitution Failed, Constitutional Philosophy in Action, Then Came Trump, and Drain the Swamp. Four History Books: America Vol. One: Colonial History, The Azusa Street Revival, The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same (describes how the elites in America use presidential assassinations to create and sustain a secular political religion), and America Won the Vietnam War! A book on Leadership: COGIC History: The Dark Years, and a book designed to strengthen and encourage Christians called Faith. All of these books are available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
All of Dr. Owens’ books are available in paperback and kindle at Amazon
Loose Him and Let Him Go September 17, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion, Uncategorized.Tags: born again, born of the Spirit, Dr. Robert Owens, freedom in Christ, legalism, religious systems, The law, the Spirit of Truth
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There’s a story in the Bible about Jesus raising a man from the dead. The man’s name was Lazarus and he was one of Jesus’ good friends. When the moment came for the great miracle Jesus stood before the open tomb and, “cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”
We who believe the Bible is God’s Word accept this as a true story of actual events. It can also be seen as an illustration of what happens when we step out of the smothering embrace of the religious systems humans create to reach God and thus accept what God has done to reach us. When we reject the bewildering straightjacket of rules and regulations humans inevitably devise, and accept that Jesus paid the price, finished the work and welcomes us home He stands at the tomb of our self-help religion and says, “Loose him, and let him go.”
Once we’ve confessed with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believed in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead we’re made right with God. And though Jesus has ascended to heaven He didn’t leave us alone. Just before He left He said, “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!” Embracing that and allowing the Spirit of Truth to guide us is the ideal for those who follow Christ.
Christ’s final command was to take this light to the world. Instead we built thousands of competing lamps betraying the unity of the Gospel and confusing unbelievers with our multiplicity of slightly different presentations. But then again it’s easier to make rules than it is to be sensitive to the Spirit of God. Laws and regulations can appear to bring order out of chaos relieving the pressure of walking by faith in a faithless world. But these endless rules cannot change us from the inside out. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: if we seek order and security from religion we’ll never find either one of them.
When following rules defines the state of our spiritual life we walk in constant fear of crossing the lines, of veering off even if it’s by mistake into the deception of sin. This fear of deception won’t keep us from deception. It’ll lead us into it. We’re called to walk in faith not in fear. So if we’re walking in fear we’ve already fallen for deception. The Bible tells us that the only way we can avoid falling for deception is to embrace the Spirit of Truth.
Think about it. When we open the blinds at night does darkness come rushing in? No. When we throw open the blinds light rushes out into the darkness. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness can’t overcome it. If we’ll immerse ourselves in what God is calling us to, the unearned grace that flows from the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus, we’ll find the order and security we long for.
Following God which is walking forward in the light can at first feel like walking backwards in the dark because we’re surrounded by and have been raised in a world that’s in revolt against its creator. We must dedicate ourselves to following the voice of the Spirit of Truth who lives within us. It’s vitally important that we learn to recognize His voice so we can recognize it out of all the voices in the world. When the whole of creation is shaking He’s the rock solid foundation giving us the security of our salvation.
Does this mean we should abandon all restraint and follow the voice in our head? First we must know whose voice we’re following, than we must acknowledge that God wrote us a book to explain it all from beginning to end. His voice will never contradict His Word and His Word shows us exactly how to live moment-by-moment.
Paul put it this way, “It’s true that moral guidance and counsel need to be given, but the way you say it and to whom you say it are as important as what you say. It’s obvious, isn’t it, that the law code isn’t primarily for people who live responsibly, but for the irresponsible, who defy all authority, riding roughshod over God, life, sex, truth, whatever! They are contemptuous of this great Message I’ve been put in charge of by this great God.”
Because we live in a fallen and evil world some laws and regulations must be imposed to maintain people’s safety to provide external order. However, rules and regulations must never be imposed to bring about spiritual purposes because only the Spirit can birth spirit.
The Bible is the operator’s manual for life on earth. In it God has shared with us the greatest wisdom and the deepest insights. In it we receive not only the instructions on how to live in this world but also how to be born-again as a glorious Spirit-birthed child of God. It’s not possible to put a price on God’s gift of His revelation. But even the Bible can be used to weave a web of soul-strangling regulations keeping us imprisoned in the law.
We must always remember the Bible was given to us to lead us to Christ not to take His place. The tyranny of the law seeks to confine us in a prison of our own making. But Christ stands at the door to our cell and says, “Loose him, and let him go.”
One last thing: Having a Bible we can understand really helps us to understand the Bible. In the New Testament where Christ quotes the Old Testament He quotes from the Septuagint, a translation in the common language of the day and not from the traditional Hebrew texts. The New Testament itself was written in the Koine dialect of Greek. This was the supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written by the people. I’m not trying to share a lecture on biblical languages. What I’m getting at is that Jesus and the Apostles used the language of the day so that everyone could understand what they were saying. They didn’t use the fifty cent words and nuanced meanings of the intellectuals or the technical jargon of theologians. They didn’t use a language that was no longer spoken or a dialect that was from another era.
Today there are many translations that render the Bible in the language we use every day at work, at the market, and at home without all the thees and thous which no longer form a part of our daily speech. I’m not saying don’t use a Bible with those words if that’s what suits you I’m just saying use a Bible you can easily understand. Personally my favorite is the Message but there are plenty of others. Find the one you’re comfortable with and let it speak the Words of God into your spirit and breathe the Spirit of God into your life.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, 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
Serving Those Who Served US September 11, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy, Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, KAG, MAGA, Mission Act, Veterans Affairs, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie
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After the rollout of President Trump’s Maintaining Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks Act (MISSION Act) Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie responded to the previously predicted problems on Military.com. “One story said to ‘expect glitches.’ Another said it was ‘confusing.’ Some lawmakers who supported the bipartisan bill suddenly warned about the possibility of ‘overreach’ by the Trump Administration, while others warned of a ‘ tech nightmare.’ But thanks to thousands of dedicated VA workers around the country and President Donald J. Trump’s support for this historic reform, elements of the MISSION Act took effect on June 6, and veterans immediately began benefitting from the largest transformation in veterans’ health care since the end of World War II.”
Secretary Robert Wilkie went on to clarify what this fundamental change in the services we offer to those who answered the call and fought for our freedom and our interests around the world is. “At its core, the MISSION Act reflects the President’s vision that veterans need to be at the center of their health care decisions. If it’s too long a drive to the VA, if wait times are too long, if we can’t offer the services a veteran needs, or if it’s simply in the best medical interest of a veteran to use non-VA services, they can now seek care in their community.
That change was a long time coming for our rural veterans, many of whom live nowhere close to a VA hospital or clinic. And it’s much more than just an extension of the Choice program enacted under President Obama. That program was temporary, narrow and incomplete, while the MISSION Act is permanent and will put a much broader group of veterans in the driver’s seat when it comes to their health.
The response from those who wore the uniform to defend this great Nation was immediate and sustained. A tool we developed to decide whether veterans are eligible for community care is being used tens of thousands of times each day.
The MISSION Act also created an urgent care benefit that finally gives veterans what others have in their neighborhood; access to nearby care to treat ailments that need immediate attention, like the flu or a sprained ankle. One veteran in Texas said this change is a ‘godsend’ because under the old system, getting a sore throat treated meant a 45-minute ride each way to the VA.
And he’s not alone. Thousands of urgent care visits have been scheduled for veterans under the MISSION Act. By mid-July, we were starting to exceed 500 visits each day, and that number has been growing each week as veterans learn more about this important new benefit.
In the end, the MISSION Act simply gives the VA what all other major healthcare systems have — a way of referring patients to outside care when needed. Community care is one piece of that, as is the new urgent care benefit. We have nearly 5,000 urgent care providers in our network so far, and that number is expanding as we continue to provide veterans with more options to get care when and where they need it.”
After years of neglect a broken system is getting fixed. During his historic campaign in 2016, then candidate Trump called out the VA for its failure to meet the needs of America’s heroes. It was a broken system that no president had been able to cure. Now after two years in office we’re finally on the road to serving those who served US thanks to the vision and leadership of America’s blue-collar billionaire, President Donald J. Trump.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, 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
There’s Power in the Blood September 4, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion, Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Owens, Jesus’ sacrifice, power in the blood, price of sin, propitiation, Salvation, the blood of Jesus, the sacrifice of Jesus
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Long before I was born-again into the reality of my life in Christ someone once told me they could never become a Christian because it was a butcher’s block religion based on a human sacrifice and drenched in blood. At the time I was in the seeker phase on my way to becoming an atheist and this sounded about right. I knew from my parental enforced childhood study of Christianity at a Sunday school and catechism class they used for weekend childcare that Christians referred to Christ’s death on the cross as a sacrifice: they believed they were drinking His blood during communion, and they sang songs like, “There’s Power in the Blood.”
Now that I live each day seeking to be used of God in and through Jesus Christ, I’ve come to realize there’s some basic truth to this butcher’s block talk minus the negative spin. Blood is an important part of Christianity. And there is power in the blood of Jesus.
When He was instructing Moses in the revelation of the Jewish shadow of things to come God put it this way, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.” In the New Testament the writer of Hebrews explains it this way, “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.”
When Adam chose to follow his wife into disobedience instead of rebuking the Devil and throwing him out of the Garden God’s warning to them concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die” came to pass. True, Adam lived another 930 years physically but he died spiritually the moment he disobeyed God. Then everyone descended from Adam was born after his likeness with a spirit alienated from God and in bondage to the Devil.
God could have waved His hand and made everything as it was but that would not be just and God is a just God. He created Adam as the overseer of His creation and only subject to Himself. Man chose to listen to the Devil and follow him instead. In other words, God gave the title-deed to creation to man and man gave it to the Devil.
Just imagine if I bought a new car and gave it to you. It is now your car. I bought it for you. I wanted you to have it and enjoy it. But then you decide to give it to someone else. You sign the title over to them. Now who owns the car? I bought the car for you. I wanted you to have it. But now that you’ve given it to someone else it’s legally their car. If I was to take it back and once again give it to you, would that be fair? Would that be just?
That’s the situation God faced after our betrayal. For the sake of justice a price had to be paid for man’s sin of disobedience. That price is what God foreshadowed through the sacrifice of a lamb without blemish. A spotless sacrifice whose blood when applied to the door posts of the Israelite homes caused the angel of death to Passover.
When John the Baptist looked at Jesus and said, “Behold the lamb that takes away the sins of the world” he announced to the world that the final sacrifice had begun. The old plan for covering sins was passing away and a new plan was beginning. The writer of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament was speaking to the Jews trying to explain to them how the sacrifice of Jesus did away with their millennia old tradition of animal sacrifices. This explanation as presented in The Message covers the ground very well:
But when the Messiah arrived, high priest of the superior things of this new covenant, he bypassed the old tent and its trappings in this created world and went straight into heaven’s “tent”—the true Holy Place—once and for all. He also bypassed the sacrifices consisting of goat and calf blood, instead using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all. If that animal blood and the other rituals of purification were effective in cleaning up certain matters of our religion and behavior, think how much more the blood of Christ cleans up our whole lives, inside and out. Through the Spirit, Christ offered himself as an unblemished sacrifice, freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God.
Like a will that takes effect when someone dies, the new covenant was put into action at Jesus’ death. His death marked the transition from the old plan to the new one, canceling the old obligations and accompanying sins, and summoning the heirs to receive the eternal inheritance that was promised them. He brought together God and his people in this new way.
Even the first plan required a death to set it in motion. After Moses had read out all the terms of the plan of the law—God’s “will”—he took the blood of sacrificed animals and, in a solemn ritual, sprinkled the document and the people who were its beneficiaries. And then he attested its validity with the words, “This is the blood of the covenant commanded by God.” He did the same thing with the place of worship and its furniture. Moses said to the people, “This is the blood of the covenant God has established with you.” Practically everything in a will hinges on a death. That’s why blood, the evidence of death, is used so much in our tradition, especially regarding forgiveness of sins.
That accounts for the prominence of blood and death in all these secondary practices that point to the realities of heaven. It also accounts for why, when the real thing takes place, these animal sacrifices aren’t needed anymore, having served their purpose. For Christ didn’t enter the earthly version of the Holy Place; he entered the Place Itself, and offered himself to God as the sacrifice for our sins. He doesn’t do this every year as the high priests did under the old plan with blood that was not their own; if that had been the case, he would have to sacrifice himself repeatedly throughout the course of history. But instead he sacrificed himself once and for all, summing up all the other sacrifices in this sacrifice of himself, the final solution of sin.
Everyone has to die once, then face the consequences. Christ’s death was also a one-time event, but it was a sacrifice that took care of sins forever. And so, when he next appears, the outcome for those eager to greet him is, precisely, salvation.
Because of that sacrifice we can now pick up the keys, the car is ours again. Jesus paid the price and purchased it back for us. Paul said it clearly in the New Testament book of Romans, “This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God ‘Jesus is my Master’ embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not ‘doing’ anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: God has set everything right between him and me!’”
The best advice I can give is: devour God’s Word and let it lead you into all truth. So if anyone ever says to you, “I could never become a Christian because it’s a butcher’s block religion based on a human sacrifice and drenched in blood” you can answer them confidently, “That’s exactly why I had to become a Christian because you see, there’s power in the blood.”
An old song has it nailed:
There is power, power, wonder-working power
In the blood of the Lamb;
There is power, power, wonder-working power
In the precious blood of the Lamb.
Sing it. Say it. Believe it. Live it. And watch that power give you the life God designed for you.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, 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
