Year: 2009

Categories
God

Bible Stories

TONIGHT was Life Group night, and no matter how late I end up arriving it always seems like I’m still the first one there. That was the case tonight as well. I arrived at the house of Patricia N., and she informed me that she and the rest of her neighbourhood had no electricity (due to the heavy rains of the afternoon). She had her entire living room and dining room lit up with beautiful candles. She joked that she wasted all of her ‘romantic evening’ candles on us. There were so many candles in that room that I wanted to take my usual place behind the main table and offer the symbolic body and blood of Christ in Communion.

Once our Life Group got all settled and in-place we enjoyed ‘Praise & Worship’ as Leo D. led us by guitar (unplugged) and we all sang in unison to our Lord and Saviour up above and all around. We sang several hymns including “Above All” and “All Who Are Thirsty (Come Lord Jesus, Come)”. The Angels in Heaven were cheering us on as we sang proudly to Him.

I led tonight’s teaching on the real man that was Jesus Christ. He was a real man who lived on this Earth and faced the same general day-to-day challenges as we all do on this journey. He was encouraged and cheered on by his friends and followers. He was ridiculed, persecuted, hurt, and abused by his enemies and antagonists. He was just like us – with one glaring exception. He was without sin.

Tonight’s lesson was all about being more like Jesus. We’ll never be as perfect in every way as Jesus, but our goal should always be to get closer to His every way. We are to be His eyes, ears, arms, hands, legs, and feet here on Earth. We are to be His Disciples here on Earth.

Jesus is far more powerful and superiour to Satan, but Satan is always working hard to tempt us when we are at our most vulnerable stages of Life. Satan always takes the easy way out, and he’s always hoping that we’ll do the same as well and join the party of evil and darkness. It’s easy to do what the world is doing. That’s what Satan wants us to do. Following Satan will lead us straight to hell. Following Jesus and totally believing and trusting in Him is the only way to get to Heaven. There is no other way.

Categories
Weather

Homestead Wet Weather Alert

The drought is certainly not done and over with; however, over the past 24 hours we’ve definitely put a nice small dent in it.

Up to 8 inches of rain has fallen since St. Patrick’s Day night. Much of America’s Riviera has seen at least one inch of rain with more common rainfall totals of two to four inches across the region. This is more rain than what had fallen in the previous 162 days combined (since the first week of October) !  Some isolated portions of northern Broward and southern Palm Beach Counties received between 6 and 8 inches of rain !

More rain (several inches) is expected at least for the next 24 hours.

Categories
Animals Driving Health Holidays Money Music Politics Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Nearly 16 months of historical statistics reveals that Tuesday is by far the busiest day here on the big green blog. I think that we all know why that is so:

1.  We may actually receive some significant rainfall here in America’s Rivera between tonight and Sunday as a couple of old cold fronts from the north ease closer to us. Don’t expect a flood or anything close to that, but don’t be surprised if we manage to receive up to an inch of the much needed rain that we so desperately need. There’s also a very remote possibility that I may actually issue a late-season ‘Homestead Cold Weather Alert’ for both Saturday and Sunday mornings as wind chill temperatures may approach the upper-40s for a brief period of time.

2.  I’m not exaggerating here when I state that most motorists here in America’s Riviera totally ignore the green traffic light arrow that points to the left that states that you have a protected path to make a left-hand turn. I guess they don’t teach that in traffic school down here. GREEN = GO !

3.  Weight Check – I’m slowly easing down into the lower-170s. I just weighed in at 172.5. My goal is to get back into the more comfortable upper-160s. Yes I can !

4.  We probably won’t find out that the recession has ended until at least six to nine months after it has actually ended. It may have ended already, but we won’t really know for sure until perhaps Thanksgiving or Christmas. Politics and policies aside I’m rooting for a strong and robust economy in 2009 and beyond. How can you not root for that ?

5.  It’s St. Patrick’s Day in 2009, and I wore virtually all green today. I’m proud of my Irish heritage. My ancestors on the paternal side had a last name of ‘O’Day’. The ‘O’ was dropped when they emigrated from Ireland to The U.S. back in the late-19TH Century. For over 17 years our beloved cat Fluffy – a Manx – was an integral part of our family. The Manx breed originated from The Isle Of Man in the Irish Sea. I lived in the U.K. for exactly two years from 1985 to 1987, and I did quite a bit of traveling during that time. But one regret is that I never got to visit either Northern Ireland (part of the U.K.) or The Republic Of Ireland. Some day I hope to visit both countries. While living in the U.K. two Irish bands – The Pogues and The Dubliners – joined forces to become one, as they performed a traditional Irish song about a MASSIVE ship in the sea. Check out this 1987 performance of “The Irish Rover”. It was a U.K. TOP 10 pop smash back then, and I present it to you as a very special St. Patrick’s Day edition of the ‘Saturday Night Retro’.

Categories
God

Bible Stories

Patricia alerted me that I’m teaching our Life Group this Wednesday night. It’s time to kick it into high gear, and go in to preparation mode.

We’ll be discussing the following passage out of the Book of John. In it Jesus sees a lot of things that he doesn’t like. He gets angry and throws a temper tantrum. He cleans House. Check it out: 

Jesus Clears The Temple (John 2:13-22)
13  It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem.
14  In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money.
15  Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables.
16  Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace !”
17  Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: “Passion for God’s house will consume me.”
18  But the Jewish leaders demanded, “What are you doing ?  If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.”
19  “All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
20  “What !” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days ?”
21  But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body.
22  After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said.