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Joel Hendon

Are Part Time Christians Pleasing To God? Some Tough Questions

Posted Thursday, November 19, 2009 (1 day 7 hours ago.) Viewed 30 times.

A good place to start the answer to this question is vacation time. When you and family leave on vacation, does your obligations toward our Father get left behind or, are they packed deeply inside one piece of luggage to remain there until you return? Far too many Christians claim the name but it ends there. There is a saying which has been used to clarify this, "Don't just talk the talk, but walk the walk".

Of course, there are also many who leave their obligations hidden away while they are at home, at work or elsewhere. What one must understand is that Christianity is not a passive religion. The responsibilities of a Christian, when specified in a singular term, is "Obedience." And that term is not singular in meaning. I often am astonished over the fact that most congregations of the Christian churches, on Easter Sunday and Christmas, attendance is somewhere near doubled on those two days. That is insufficient. Not only that, neither of those days are mentioned as a day of worship in the bible. What we do have is examples of the first century Christians, having gathered together on the first day of the week to worship. Then we have the admonition in Hebrews 10:25: "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."

Many people do not understand the vital importance of worship. God intended us to worship Him, not as we wish, but as He has prescribed. And I have heard some say that they just don't believe they have to attend worship services regularly. Well, the fact is, you don't have to attend any of them, but if you plan to be pleasing to God, you must develop the attitude that you are privileged to worship Him at every opportunity. To put it as simply as I can, it is not the fact that you are at every service, but the fact that you desire to be. If you put sleep or television, etc before Him, that just won't cut it. When you are on vacation, find a local congregation of the Lord's people, and worship with them, because you love the Lord, not just because you feel you have to.

And the attending of worship services are not the only way one can be a part time Christian. One can attend every assembly of the church but hide his religion at work, social events, or even at home. Christianity is not for show, or cover for something being done wrong. Some can attend service, sing praise to God, and even pray prayers of edification, then become a cynic of the worst kind when around only family or more especially when around non-Christians or other cynics.

How people have come to regard Christianity as they do is beyond my understanding. The bible contains many exemplary lives of the first century Christians, with the persecutions they willingly accepted, their diligence in spreading His word, even unto torture and death. It also depicts some of those who were not so diligent. After Jesus was ascended to the Father in heaven, he appeared to the apostle John and revealed the information now contained in what we call the Revelation. And in His words to the disciples at Laodicea, He had John write:

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: (Revelation 3:15-17 KJV)

We are to do our best to live exemplary lives before all, and all we do should be done eagerly, not grudgingly or from a sense of duty. The attitude of our hearts means most to an omniscient God.

I know of people and in fact, for a number of years, I was among them, who wonder how some people can seemingly live a righteous life so easily when it was very difficult for them. And I finally learned what it took to make a Christian feel like a Christian. If you do not have a solid routine of studying God's word, and praying earnestly to Him, in private, at least twice or thrice daily, you will find it difficult to keep your mind centered on the Lord, Jesus Christ. With those things in your schedule, your faith will grow, your attitude will change and you will find that serving Him, in worship and other duties, a blessing instead of a chore.

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Billions Of Taxpayer Dollars Spent Improperly This Year

Posted Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (2 days 4 hours ago.) Viewed 16 times.

The director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag announced, the federal government paid out $98 billion in improper payments during 2009 so far. This is up from $72 billion in 2008.We don't yet know (if we ever will) what all is involved in those improper payouts, but it is known that outright fraud was prevalent. Some report, whether or not accurately, that improper Medicare payments accounted for approximately one-third of that amount. Medicare is their favorite whipping target. They may very well be accurate in this. If so, it needs to be corrected, however, not destroyed.

This, is another factor to cast a strong question towards the proposed $500 billion cut in Medicare. I realize that the $500 billion is to be over a period of ten years. Even so, the amount they are crediting to improper expenditures above from Medicare, even if they could eradicate all of that, would only amount to about $300 billion in that ten year period. Medicare today, has the highest number of refusals of payment for services of any form of insurance. And it would become worse if seniors are deprived of more. That on top of the fact that the Medicare fund is almost broke and in dire need of assistance rather than robbery.

The administration continues to tell us that this gigantic health reform package will not increase the annual federal deficit spending one dime! At a cost of an under-estimate of over one trillion in the first ten years and more thereafter, and it won't raise the deficit one dime? Other programs (primarily Medicare) cut to the bone plus heavy taxation is the only possible way it could be so. With our GDP presently in the sewer, these added taxes and cuts, will only sink it further and further.

Part of the improper payments were from the stimulus package, although Orszag could not say how much, nor could he say how much was strictly fraud. He listed 99 agencies which had received funds during this year totaling almost two trillion dollars, of which approximately 5%, or $98 billion was paid improperly.

Orszag also reported that President Obama will sign an executive order to try and resolve these problems, adding transparency, strengthen accountability, and provide incentives to improve the payment process. The White House has requested $1.9 billion dollars to fund this undertaking!!

One thing which the administration proposes to do with the health care reform program, which has received little attention, but is one of the worst for senior citizens. Two major steps are to be taken concerning Medicare. One is to clean up and monitor the improper paying of "fee per service" both in forms or error and/or fraud. Good idea. The other is not a good idea in the least. They plan to eliminate the Medicare advantage subsidies. This is subsidizing private insurance companies for their supplemental insurance plans. For those who are knowledgeable of the amounts of Social Security many receive, they know that it is, in many cases, absolutely not adequate for an elderly person to survive on. This is especially true after the deduction of $96.40 for the part B monthly premium for Medicare and then the newer programs for PPO's or HMO's to supplement the inadequate coverage of original Medicare.

The private insurance plans are referred to as Medicare advantage plans. My wife and I have chosen a PPO plan with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama known as the "Blue Advantage". It is extremely helpful, a very good program whose additional premium this year is $71.00 per month each. We have already been notified that the premium for 2010 will be exactly double that amount, $142.00 each.

I realize that insurance costs are very high, but for those who depend upon their Social Security for their livelihood, find this kind of deduction from their checks, in some cases, to be completely unattainable. I know, and have known, some elderly people whose total Social Security income was under $500. per month. If you reduce that by $96.40 plus $142.00, they wouldn't have money for utilities, and certainly no food. But to reduce, or remove, access to that insurance for those of us who can barely afford to carry them is unthinkable.

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The Sneaky Amendments To Healthcare Bill For Fungible Funds

Posted Wednesday, November 18, 2009 (2 days 9 hours ago.) Viewed 16 times.

I hope our moderate legislators are not taken in, or pretend to be, by some of the amendments that are being offered which appear to resolve disputes. One of the sticky points in the bill, is that federal funds can be used for abortions which is very highly distasteful to those who recognize the act as willful murder. And those who are pro-choice, are just as adamant that it remain in the bill that it is one of the most controversial items of all.

But in order to get the present bill through the House (and only 3 switched votes would have stopped it), California Democratic Representative, Lois Capps presented an amendment specifying that all insurance plans in the exchanges must segregate private funds from public funds and that no public funds could be used for abortion coverage. Now that sounds good to a lot of people and I doubt seriously, considering what I have read, that the bill would have cleared the House if it had not been there.

But this is nothing more than a scam which has been used through out the years to salve some people's feelings about the use of their money. Many of you young whipper-snappers won't remember this, but once upon a time, there were no multiple charities organizations such as you now see. First there was what was known as the Community Chest organization, which turned into the "United Way". And there is also the United Givers Fund. Most charities were on their own, such as the March of Dimes, The Red Cross, etc. But with the advent of the consolidated charities, the organization soliciting the funds would produce a program that the March of Dimes would get 10% and some other 05%, and a local charity 03%, etc., of whatever amount they could collect. Then, they would give people the right to contribute and specify to which of these charities they would like their funds to be given.

Now, without studying about that it sounded very good. But I soon discovered that, when my money was earmarked for a specific charity, it simply went into the 10% or whatever the amount was, which only allowed some other equal amount to be placed in some other charity. And, I could almost assure you, there was no segregating of those funds to begin with. And there were charities within their program which I would not help.

And a good example of this is Medicaid. Medicaid funds are prohibited by law from being used for abortion. But the states are given the right to use their own funds for whatever they like. There are a number of states who do exactly that, use their funds for abortion and use the Medicaid public funds for other purposes. But, the Medicaid funds simply are used where the State's funds would have been used. In other words, they simply release the funds to be used for abortion. Nothing more than an adjustment of paperwork.

The Catholic Church, and I suppose other religious organizations, receive government funds for homeless shelters, soup kitchens, etc., which do a lot of good, and I suspect much more goes to those projects than would be if they did not receive those funds. Yet, those funds do release some of their own funds, to some degree, to be used in religious activities.

Also, food stamps, or now a pre-loaded card, for those in poverty. They cannot be used for alcohol or tobacco products, yet they do relieve the burden to the extent that many do use their personal funds for those forbidden products.

So these paperwork specifications often do not alter the fact that federal funds, our tax dollars, are fungible in that they replace funds which are used for those excluded purposes.

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Joel's Blogging Along

Are Part Time Christians Pleasing To God? Some Tough Questions

Billions Of Taxpayer Dollars Spent Improperly This Year

The Sneaky Amendments To Healthcare Bill For Fungible Funds

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