A Woman’s View ~ Lenore Buth

When living by faith becomes a crime, what are we to do?

Right this minute there are big issues issues at stake in our Nation. 

If you've read this blog for awhile you know I haven't waded in the murky waters of politics. I do so only because vital issues are getting lost in all the blather.

One involves both our faith as Christians and our rights as citizens under The Constitution of the United States.  George Washington said, " . . . its only keepers, the people."

That's you and me, my friend. We are the keepers of our Constitution.

Are we paying attention?

One major issue relates to the often-referenced First Amendment

Amendment I was ratified December 15, 1791. Here's what it says:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

From the beginning word spread all over the world about America's Constitution and the rights it guarantees. That's why America shone like a beacon of freedom to my great-grandparents who wanted to worship God according to their understanding of what the Bible teaches and without government interference. In America they could live by faith without fear.

That's always been true. Until now.

Enter the new health care law, which mandates what employers must cover   

Take Tyndale House Publishers and Hobby Lobby as examples. Since a Christian couple founded Tyndale House 50 years ago this firm has only published Bibles and Christian books. Their son, Mark D. Taylor, is the current president. Tyndale's 260 employees currently are covered by their employee health plan. Taylor, a Protestant, has no moral objection to contraceptives per se. However, as a Christian he believes it's against what the Bible teaches to provide Plan B (the morning-after pill), Ella (the week-after pill) and intrauterine devices to covered employees.

Our Government says he must. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has ruled that health insurance plans must provide such contraceptives free of charge. Tyndale House is a for-profit entity. Therefore, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says this Company does not qualify as a "religious organization" and therefore, is not eligible for an exemption.

(Tayor notes that even exemptions granted to nonprofit entities such as the Roman Catholic Church will expire after one year.)

Fines for failure to comply will cost Tyndale as much as $100 per day, per employee. That equals $26,000 per day. $780,000 per month. $9.36 million per year.

Tyndale management's only "crime" is wanting to freely exercise their faith without Government interference. They believe the federal government is telling them they must either violate their own conscience or pay fines that will put them out of business.

It doesn't stop there

Hobby Lobby was founded 40 years ago by a family working out of their garage on a $600 bank loan. The children, now adults, are involved in the business, which now has stores in more than 500 locations in 41 states. They believe it is by God's grace that Hobby Lobby has endured and aim to honor God and to treat their employees well with above-average pay and many benefits. They provide an employee health plan, but consider Plan B, Ella and intrauterine devices to be abortifacients. 

Hobby Lobby gives half its pre-tax earnings directly to a portfolio of evangelical ministries. It has  given away and distributed over 1.4 billion copies of Gospel literature mostly in Asia and Africa. It sponsors the YouVersion Bible app for mobile phones, which has been downloaded more than 50 million times. Yet this is a secular, for-profit company.

These business owners, too, believe requirements of Obamacare go against the Biblical principles on which their company was founded. Hobby Lobby's non-compliance fines could total $1.3 million per day.

So Hobby Lobby reluctantly sued the Government in Oklahoma City Federal courts. Their lawyer cited their "deeply held religious beliefs" as individuals and business owners who seek an injunction to block enforcement of the new health care law. 

In a piece dated October 24, 2012, The Washington Post, reported the U.S. government was urging the federal judge hearing the case to deny the request to block enforcement of the new health care law.

The dilemma for employers is obvious. They either go against their faith and keep employee health plans in place or follow their conscience and go out of business.

They either obey their understanding of what God says or what the Government says.

Look behind the smoke screen and the endless blather on TV

Numerous interviews and articles trumpet the same endless discussions about "women's reproductive rights," "contraceptive freedom," "bigots who want to ban birth control," etc. 

This is not the issue.

For the record, I am not against contraception. Opinions vary about the morning-after (up to three days after) pill and the week-after pill, which induce a woman's uterus to slough off an implanted fertilized egg. Those of us who believe life begins at the moment of conception view these meds as abortifacients. Intrauterine devices are devices placed in the uterus by a physician that in various ways interfere with a fertilized egg being implanted on the wall of the uterus. 

It seems to me there are three questions:

• In cases such as Tyndale House and Hobby Lobby, is our Government "prohibiting the free exercise" of the owners' religion as they understand it?
  
• As individuals of faith, what do we hold to be true?
  
  
• If provisions of this tax-supported new health care plan violate our personal religious views, will we vote for candidates who back it?
  
  
• Will we speak well of business owners who abide by faith? Will we support them with our words and give them our business?

Some words to think about  

"The LORD gave me this message: 'I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb.'"  --Jeremiah 1: 4  (NLT)

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, and I know that full well.   --Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV)

But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.   --Joshua 24:15b  (NIV)

My reader friends, let's be sure to thoughtfully, prayerfully exercise our rights as American citizens and VOTE!

Praying along with you,

Lenore

 

Swap anxiety for Easter peace and then never let it go!

Take a nap, take a walk, take a pill, it's still there.

Blame it on anything or on nothing, it makes no difference. It's an indefinable sense that somehow we don't quite measure up. The feeling gnaws away at us and refuses to budge.

Peace is available . . . if we ask

Lasting peace and hope are as near as our breath, because everything changed that first Easter. That's when Jesus set things right between God and us.

Now all it costs us is believing the Good News of the Easter Gospel. We say something like, "Please forgive me, Lord, for my sins. I know I cannot live a perfect life, but I want to belong to you." We give him all our failures and mistakes and uncertainties.

Our loving Father answers, "What sins? My only Son paid your debt in full. My darling child, I love you."

It's as if God looks at us through one of those camera lenses that filters out the haze and sees his perfect Son.

The cross was God's way out for you and me

He sent his one and only son, Jesus, not just to live among us, but to suffer and be nailed to the cross and die. For you and me and all the world, because on our own we cannot meet God's standard for holiness.

Jesus died in our place, so we can live free from guilt and fear of punishment and hell.

As 2 Corinthians 5:21 states it: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

On that Friday we call, "good," Roman soldiers nailed God's Son to the cross and let him hang until he died.

His grieving followers and family watched with aching hearts as Jesus died an agonizing death and then his lifeless body was laid in the tomb.

We had nothing coming but punishment, yet God's gift to us is forgiveness, with no strings attached.

Jesus didn't stay dead!

Every week our pastor always asks during the children's message, "Did Jesus stay dead?"

The kids fairly shout, "No! He rose! He came back, alive!"

Over a period of days Jesus appeared to his followers and friends several times. He called them by name and spoke with them. He ate with them and they touched him. In Matthew 28:20, Jesus told them, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Later, while he was blessing them he was taken up into heaven. Even so, Jesus is with us. His Spirit lives in the heart of every believer, every minute of every day.

Impossible? It would be if Jesus were merely a great human teacher, as he's often described. But he is true God, and we cannot explain God, the unexplainable.

The youngsters at our church know that. So when our pastor asks, "And where does Jesus live now?" they answer, "In my heart!"

One more question from the pastor always follows. "So what happens to us when we die?" The children answer, "We get to live with Jesus in Heaven!"

That's why we celebrate Easter.  

We can swap anxiety for peace. For good.

Jesus living within us means we are never left alone to fear what comes next. Not even death, because we know that's not the end of our story, either.

It's only the beginning of the good stuff.

So take a deep breath and relax. Let yourself believe and feel the peace of being loved and accepted by God, without any ifs, ands or buts.

Now there's peace that lasts through whatever life may bring.

Easter Blessings, every day,

Lenore

Comments, please.

Note: You can read the eyewitness accounts of Jesus' last week on earth for yourself in the Bible. Turn to Matthew, chapter 21 to the end; Mark, chapter 11 to the end; Luke, chapter 19 to the end; John, chapter 12:12 to the end of the book.

Do kids need faith in God? Do you?

What difference could it make whether we believe in God? All that matters is that we believe in something. 

You've heard that said. Maybe you agree. After all, what difference does it make? 

A lot, I think.

Some people say, let children grow up and then they can make up their own minds. Sounds reasonable at first, except it means they pick up their values for life along the way. Think Sesame Street and Nickelodeon and MTV. Throw in Facebook friends, for good measure.

Not many parents I know would considere those the best sources.

"Out there" youngsters absorb a lot of negative stuff and fears. How it affects them depends on what's stored up in their hearts and minds.

Kids are less likely to run scared or be in the pits when they believe deep down that God created them (Psalm 139) and "God don't make no junk."

Even when (they think) nobody loves them, kids who believe in God know that Jesus loves them. At church they learn that old song, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so."

Faith in God is like the cornerstone of a building, the basic, essential part of the foundation that keeps a structure standing when storms and winds come.

And what about times when nothing seems to make sense? Or when someone says they know the exact date of a worldwide earthquake, which will usher in the end of the world. What are they to do with their fears and aren't sure how to tell truth from lies?

What can a child--or an adult--hang on to?

If we know Jesus, we hang on to him. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

We find peace in what's known as, "the Gospel (Good News) in a nutshell," John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

Right now the media floods us with pronouncements that tomorrow, May 21, will bring the end of the world. Christians, however, remember what Jesus said. You can read his words in Matthew 24 and in Mark 13. Jesus said,

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.         --Mark 13:32

So no matter how sincerely he believes it, Harold Camping does not know the day or the hour when the world will end.

God is still God and we human beings remain, well, merely human.

The difference is that we rest in the love of God the Father. He loves us because we believe in his Son as our Savior.

We rest in the certainty that our lives today, tomorrow and forever are in the hands of God. That means we have nothing to fear.

That's what Jesus said, in John 14:1:

"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."

Peace to you, my friends,

Lenore

Three cheers for this royal couple and may their example catch on

I resisted being drawn into the hoopla around  THE wedding. I've never been much of a royal-watcher.

Until today.

Today I gave in and  watched the lovely pageantry of the day, the ceremony in magnificent Westminster Abbey, with its soaring ceiling and choirboys with angelic voices.

The Bishop with his heavy robes, the chanting, all of it seemed appropriate on this day. Wedding guests sang hymns and spoke prayers, including the Lord's Prayer.

An estimated two billion people were said to be watching this wedding around the world. 

Then it hit me. Two billion people, most of them non-Christians, were hanging on every word as the Bishop proclaimed the Word of God and delivered a Christ-centered sermon, as well.

Many who were glued to their telly live in cultures where wives are looked upon as mere property, second-class, easily disposable. In Westernized countries like ours, more and more people now consider matrimony a needless outdated custom, irrelevent in today's society. Too many consider faithfulness and monogamy rather quaint.

No matter where viewers live, each one heard Prince William and Kate Middleton pledge to be wed as husband and wife and to live together according to God's holy estate of matrimony. Each promised to love and comfort, honour and keep each other, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Each vowed to forsake all others and to keep themselves only for each other so long as both shall live. 

What will these two people make of their marriage? That's up to them. They know their family history and the challenges they face even better than we. But I choose not to be cynical and to wish them God's blessing. I am glad for their choice to be married in a Christian church and to promise before God and the world to be married--and faithful--for life.

I'm thankful that the Church of England bishop preached a faith-centered, meaningful wedding sermons. Most of all, I am thankful that Christ was proclaimed. For once, the world was listening.

Who knows how God will use this? 

Lovingly,

Lenore

 

What if you could start over with a clean slate?

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?

That's what this dark day is all about and why Christians call this, "GOOD Friday."

Maybe it's worth a recap.

*  Jesus was not captured by those soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane. He went willingly. It was all part of God's plan.

*  This God-man came to earth to set things right between us human beings and God.

*  That relationship got messed up in the Garden of Eden, when Eve turned from God and listened to the Serpent. She chose to listen to Satan, the voice of pride and evil, rather than to God. When Adam listened to Eve, he, too, turned from the Father who loved him and closed his ears to God's ways (Genesis 3:1-7.)

*  From that time on, the perfect, loving relationship between God the Father and human beings was destroyed.

*  If we tried to be "good enough for God," we would need to be holy, because he is holy (Leviticus 19:2.) That means to be utterly good, in thought, word and deed. Perfect. Every day in every way, all the time. Anything else is called "sin."

*  Human beings, male or female, could not--and cannot--achieve that, no matter how hard we try. On our own we are without hope.

*  Even though we don't have it in us to be perfect, God never stopped loving us. That's why He came to earth in the form of a human baby, born to Mary and Joseph, in Bethlehem.

*  Jesus, the God-man, allowed Himself to be nailed to the cross. For you, for me.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.               --John 3:16

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.                           2 Corinthians 5:21

In [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace.                          --Ephesians 1:7

The blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.                    1 John 1:7

At our church and many others, Good Friday services are a bit different. As we enter the church,  overhead lights on dim, we stop to jot down whatever regrets, pains, wrong  actions, sadnesses and broken relationships we want to be leave at the cross. We write as much or as little as we like, no names, because, after all, God already knows. 

Then alone or as families we walk to the bare, rough-hewn wooden cross that stands at the front of the churrch, along with a pail full of big nails and some hammers. Each of us nails our slips of paper to the cross to symbolize what we already know, that Jesus died to pay the price for all our sins, past, present and future.

It's a powerful way of reminding ourselves that Jesus died for my sins, not just the sins of everyone else. That's what makes Good Friday good.

He died for your sins, too. Will you let Him set you free?

Lovingly,

Lenore