Created in the Image of GOD!

Created in The Image of GOD!

Genesis 1:26-27…2:7 CJB “Then GOD said, ‘Let Us make human kind in Our Image, in the likeness of Ourselves; and let them rule over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, the animals, and over all the earth, and over every crawling creature that crawls on the earth.’ So GOD created humankind in His own Image; in the Image of GOD He created him; male and female He created them…Then ADONAI, GOD, formed a person (Heb. Adam) from the dust of the ground (Heb. adamah) and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he became a living being.”

Exodus 32:1-10 CJB “When the people saw that Moshe was taking a long time to come down from the mountain, they gathered around Aharon and said to him, ‘Get busy, and make us gods to go ahead of us; because this Moshe, the man that brought us up from the land of Egypt – we don’t know what has become of him.’ Aharon said to them, ‘Have your wives, sons and daughters strip off their gold earrings; and bring them to me.’ The people stripped off their gold earrings and brought them to Aharon. He received what they gave him, melted it down, and made it into a shape of a calf. They said, ‘Isra’el! Here is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt!’ On seeing this, Aharon built an alter in front of it and proclaimed, ‘Tomorrow is to be a feast in honor of ADONAI.’ Early the next morning they got up and offered burnt offerings and presented peace offerings. Afterwards, the people sat down to eat and drink; then they got up to indulge in revelry. ADONAI said to Moshe, ‘Go down! Hurry! Your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have become corrupt! So quickly they have turned aside from the Way I ordered them to follow! They have cast a metal statue of a calf, worshipped it, sacrificed to it and said, “Isra’el! Here is your god, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” I have been watching these people, and you can see how still necked they are. Now leave Me alone, so that my anger can blaze against them, and I can put an end to them! I will make a great nation out of you instead.”

Psalm 106:19-23 CJB “In Horev they fashioned a calf, they worshipped a cast metal image. Thus they exchanged their Glory for the image of an ox that eats grass! They forgot GOD, who had saved them, who had done great things in Egypt, wonders in the land of Ham, fearsome deeds by the Sea of Suf. Therefore He said that He would destroy them, (and He would have,) had not Moshe His chosen one stood before Him in the breach to turn back His destroying fury.”

Colossians 1:14-20 CJB “It is through His Son that we have redemption – that is our sins have been forgiven. He is the visible image of the invisible GOD. He is Supreme over all creation, because in connection with Him were created all things – in Heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, lordships, rulers or authorities – they have all been created through Him and for Him. He existed before all things, and He holds everything together. Also He is the Head of the Body, the Messianic Community – He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might hold first place in everything. For it pleased GOD to have His full Being live in His Son and through His Son to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on the earth or in Heaven, making peace through Him, through having His Son shed His Blood by being executed on a stake.”

The Image of GOD! What is it? I’ve heard and taught that it is that GOD is triune (Father, Son and Spirit) and we are triune (spirit, soul and body) but that’s not it. I believe the reason that the devil hates us is that we are made in His Image or Glory. Lucifer was the most beautiful angel because he reflected the Glory or Image of GOD; then GOD created humanity in His Image or Glory! Lucifer was so jealous that he rebelled against GOD in his pride and decided he wanted to be god. Now he is ugly because he no longer reflects the Glory or Image of GOD!

Humanity was created to carry the Glory of GOD, but Lucifer deceived Eve and then after she sinned by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; she convinced Adam to also eat it and he did knowing that he was disobeying GOD; that was sin. But GOD! GOD knew this was going to happen and He had already planned our salvation (forgiveness and deliverance from sin) to restore us to the place of reflecting His Glory as new creations (born again) in CHRIST JESUS!

How do we reflect the Glory or Image of GOD? By being like CHRIST and doing the will of GOD as found in the Bible!

Will the Koran Be Your Child’s Next Textbook?

By Edwin Benson

Modern Muhammadans are using America’s schools to make Islam more acceptable to Christians everywhere. The pattern of that attempt is spelled out in two separate articles appearing within a week of each other.

One, “The Islamicization of Public Education Continues Apace” by Fr. Mario Alexis Portella, appeared on Crisis. The other one came from Life Site News, “Muslim Nations are Donating Huge Amounts to American Universities. Here’s Why” by William Kilpatrick. The two articles reveal the extent of the Muslim influence in American education today.

The Source of Influence

Father Portella relates the story of Caleigh Wood, a Christian student in the 11th grade at La Plata High School in Maryland. She complained her grade was affected when she refused to repeat, “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” In an inexplicable decision, the Fourth District Court of Appeals found that this coercion did not violate Miss Wood’s Constitutional rights. The decision stands because the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Mr. Kilpatrick’s story has a far broader context; that Muslim countries are acquiring influence by making massive donations to many universities in the United States. That article cites a study by the Clarion Institute that documents those gifts. A staggering $10.6 billion was given since 2012. Clarion asserts that this is “just the tip of the iceberg.” The International Institute of Islamic Thought, for example, funnels additional more money into universities. However, it does not have to report the disbursements because it is based in the United States.

In fairness, Muslim nations are not the only ones to make donations to American universities. Other governments also make grants to American schools. They might subsidize medicine and engineering schools that carry out research of interest to them. The motivation of the Islamic countries for these donations makes them stand out.

Openly Promoting Islam

These Muslim nations openly promote their religious beliefs. Indeed, the Koran commands them to do so, for example, when it says in 8:60, “Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels.¹” Their growing influence in U.S. and European academic centers is now a preferred weapon.

The funded programs in these schools embrace the Muslim view, while any idea that smacks of Christianity is rejected. The Muslims have purchased that influence with cold hard cash. They know that ideas on college campuses trickle down to elementary and secondary education. Someday, the better students in their programs will grow to become makers and influencers of U.S. government policy.

The general attitude was succinctly stated by “Palestinian-American activist” Linda Sarsour, when she said, “Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our [Muslim] community. It is not to assimilate and please any other people and authority.” When she says “protect and defend,” she is not using the words in the context of peaceful coexistence, knowing full well that the Koran 3:28 admonishes, “Muslims must not take the infidels as friends.”

Mr. Kilpatrick cites the example of a Middle East Studies program financed to the tune of $235,000 by the small but wealthy nation of Qatar. It is run jointly by the University of North Carolina and Duke University. The pro-Muslim biases of this program were so blatant that the U.S. Department of Education sent them an official letter, charging them with failing to provide a “balance of perspectives.” According to the letter, “the positive aspects of Islam” were emphasized, but there was no similar attention to the “positive aspects of Christianity, Judaism or any other religion or belief system in the Middle East.”

While $235,000 might seem relatively little in the whole scheme of things, the administrators at Duke and UNC have reason to hope for better things. After all, Qatar also donated $351 million to Jesuit-run Georgetown University.

And, indeed, the attitude does trickle down to American public education. British journalist Melanie Phillips cites a recent controversy.

 “In Newton, Mass., parents discovered in 2011 that a textbook used by ninth-graders called the Arab World Studies Notebook was telling pupils: “Over the past four decades, women have been active in the Palestinian resistance movement. Several hundred have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed by Israeli occupation forces.” The Newton parents discovered worse. History teachers were receiving training workshops from prominent anti-Israel critics, including a leader of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement) campaign.”

A Personal Experience

About three years before retiring as a history teacher, I attended just such a workshop. I did not have the presence of mind to keep a record of the organization that presented it. I do remember that it was hosted by two Arabic men and one red-haired woman who did most of the presentation. The topic concerned the philosophical, technological, and scientific advances made by the Muslim world.

For most of this one-sided presentation, the other participants and I were silent as she enthusiastically promoted the roll of accomplishments. Not having studied the history of the Islamic world, I did not believe that I had the facts at hand to challenge her; but the tenor of the talk irritated me. She sounded like a telemarketer, but I could not hang up. Then, she went into the triumphs of Medieval Islamic medicine, concluding with the statement that “European hospitals were where people went to die.”  Finally, I was on familiar ground. I had recently taught a lesson that featured a diagram by Roger of Salerno showing surgeons cutting into the skull about 1170 A.D. “That’s just nonsense,” I blurted out, “they were doing brain surgery in medieval Europe.”

She was not expecting this, nor were her handlers in the back of the room. She lost her bubbly rhythm, and clumsily closed the presentation about five minutes later.

Perhaps I should have been more courteous. However, the incident does show that Islamic propaganda efforts can be resisted. Many American educators have been cowed or convinced to take the side of the Muslim world through ignorance or avarice.

A Warning Based Upon History

Our culture must rise and defend itself. It is not enough that Muslims have relatively little political power in the U.S. Recent events in France point out the danger inherent in ignoring the cultural inroads made by Muslims and Muslim nations. The fact that some Muslims do live peacefully in the United States does not refute this point. Historically, majority votes do not cause social change. They occur when a relatively small group marshals their resources to focus on a clear goal.

Western culture faces just such a situation today. Our children’s future may hinge on meeting it courageously.

Love and Hate!

I read the following article and was moved to speak on hatred: What JESUS said on hatred!

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever who is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.”…”You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those you curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in Heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” Matthew 5:21-22, 43-45 NKJV

John, JESUS’ disciple and servant who suffered many sorrows and tortures in his service to GOD through JESUS said in his epistle to the Church; “”If someone says, ‘I love GOD,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love GOD whom he has not seen?’ And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves GOD must love his brother also.” 1 John 4:20-21 NKJV

John understood JESUS’ teaching on love and that those who have hatred do not have love and that those that do not have love do not serve GOD and will not enter into His Eternal Kingdom.

Those who hate today, no matter what they think, they do not have any part in GOD and are not part of His Eternal Kingdom! All religions have used their god to oppress, enslave and kill others for their own end. In every conflict throughout history each side believed that GOD was on their side, that their cause was just. But, even for those whose cause was just and GOD supported them against their enemies there were those in their ranks that practiced hate and evil.

While GOD supports those who are doing the work of His Kingdom in the earth He rejects those who hate and do the works of evil, which are the works of the devil; hatred, violence, robbery and murder.

So how could a person who sponsors a policy against all forms of hate be a victim of hate? Because haters believe they have the right to hate especially in the name of their god and religion! Only Christianity has a tenet of love for everyone! If a person who claims to be a Christian but has hate for any one for any reason: JESUS said that they have no part in GOD and His Eternal Kingdom!

Holocaust survivor under guard amid death threats

© Provided by The Associated Press

An 89-year-old Holocaust survivor in Italy has been assigned police guards for protection after receiving hundreds of threats on social media. Liliana Segre, who was sent to the notorious Auschwitz death camp at 13, has been subjected to a barrage of anti-Semitic messages in recent days.

It comes after Ms. Segre, an Italian life senator, called for parliament to establish a committee to combat hate. The motion passed despite a lack of support by Italy's right-wing parties.

Members of the nationalist League party, led by Matteo Salvini, the centre-right Forza Italia and the far-right Brothers of Italy all abstained from the vote in Milan last week.

The motion called for the establishment of an extraordinary commission in Italy to combat all forms of racism, anti-Semitism, incitement to hatred and violence on ethnic and religious grounds.

Ms. Segre said after the vote that the abstentions made her feel "like a Martian in the Senate".

"I appealed to the conscience of everyone and thought that a commission against hatred as a principle would be accepted by all," she said at the time, Italy's La Repubblica reported (in Italian).

Since then, she has reported receiving as many as 200 hate messages a day.

Some of the threats have been so serious that the prefect of Milan, Renato Saccone, held at a meeting on Wednesday with the committee for security and public order, where it was agreed that Ms. Segre needed police protection.

The measures that were approved include Ms. Segre being accompanied in public by two paramilitary carabinieri officers.

Meanwhile, the Milan public prosecutor's office said it had opened an investigation into the hate messages targeting the senator and had requested the assistance of Italy's anti-terror police. 

Ms. Segre was born in Milan in 1930. She fled Nazi persecution in Italy with her father in December 1943.

After failing to secure refuge in Switzerland, the pair were sent by train to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland the following month, where her father and grandparents were killed.

Along with other Jewish prisoners evacuated from Auschwitz in January 1945, Ms. Segre was taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany.

Weeks later she was transferred to another camp operated by the Nazis’ which was eventually liberated by the Soviet Red Army.

Ms. Segre was made an Italian senator for life by President Sergio Mattarella in January 2018.

Italy has a population of about 30,000 Jews. More than 7,500 Italian Jews died during the Holocaust.

Truth About Social Security

The Truth About Social Security

A woman dies at age 65 before collecting one benefit check. She and her employer paid into the system for almost 50 years and she collected NOTHING. Keep in mind all the working people that die every year who were paying into the system and got nothing.

And these governmental morons mismanaged the money and stole from the system, so that it's now going broke.
BEAUTIFUL! And they have the audacity to call today's seniors "vultures" in an attempt to cover their ineptitude. DISGRACEFUL!

The real reason for renaming our Social Security payments is so the government can claim that all those social security recipients are receiving entitlements thus putting them in the same category as welfare, and food stamp recipients.
THIS IS WORTH THE FEW MINUTES IT TAKES TO READ AND DIGEST!
F.Y.I. By changing the name of SS contributions, it gives them a means to refute this program in the future. It's free money for the government to spend under this guise.
The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a Federal Benefit Payment ?
I'll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you.

Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it.
The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a "Federal Benefit Payment."
This is NOT a benefit. It is OUR money , paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too ! It totaled 15% of our income before taxes.(This should be enough for you to forward this message, If not read on.)

If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.
If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved.

This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.

That's almost three times more than today's average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration. (Google it – it's a fact). And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.
Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did (or Lyndon Johnson).

They took our money and used it elsewhere. They "forgot"(oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them ... and they didn't pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer. (Isn't it funny that they NEVER say this about welfare payments?)

But is it our fault they misused our investments? And now, to add insult to injury, they're calling it a benefit, as if we never worked to earn every penny of it. This is stealing!

Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't mean that our investments were for charity!
Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government.

Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going for the sake of the 92% of our population who need it.

Then call it what it is:
Our Earned Retirement Income .

GOD & the BBQ Sandwich

GOD and the Double BBQ Sandwich

By John Horvat II

It is no secret that America has become polarized. This is a fact that is manifested in so many different ways. Traveling down the highway to Chicago, for example, I came upon two successive billboards that I thought were striking examples of our divided culture.

The first billboard caught me by surprise: it consisted of an electrocardiogram of a heart that suddenly stops beating. The caption read: When you die, you will meet God.

As we were passing through the snowy night, I was unable to catch more details of this billboard. I do not know who put it out or what I was expected to do. It really did not matter because for a brief moment I thought about what the Catholic Church calls the “Four Last Things” – Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell. Think of these things, Scriptures says, and you will not be lost eternally. The simple phrase served to trigger in me a gentle yet fleeting reflection upon the meaning of life. I am sure I was not the only one to make this quick reflection.

The billboard is clearly polarizing since it is directed toward that strong vein inside the American public that is turned toward things religious, spiritual and eternal. It is a sector of the American public that lives amid the fast, superficial and materialistic aspects of our pop culture yet is not entirely comfortable with them. These Americans are drawn by God, family, honor and country. On the other hand, this billboard would not appeal to other Americans who would tend to disparage the message as backward and unenlightened.

The second billboard came immediately afterwards and struck me by how contrary it was to the former. It consisted of a massive BBQ sandwich with the caption: Happiness is a double BBQ sandwich.

There is nothing wrong with a double BBQ sandwich or even deriving pleasure from eating one. However, the message behind this billboard is clearly materialistic yet more subtly polarizing. There is no invitation to profound reflection. Rather there is the quick insinuation that happiness can be easily bought by obtaining the immediate object of our desires. In this case, gratification equals happiness. According to the same logic, life should be a long succession of gratifications.

This billboard represents a second, more commercial, vein found in America that I call in the book, Return to Order, the perception of the nation as a co-op. This perspective holds that individuals unite themselves together in society as a means to facilitate each one’s inebriating pursuit of happiness.

Under this view, an appreciation of America is tied to its ability to make everything fun and everyone happy. Like a co-op, those who hold this position expect returns on their social union in the form of constant and instant gratification. Happiness consists of participating in the excitement of a party economy that they hope will keep on going.

Of course, we cannot generalize and say that all Americans fit neatly into one category or the other. Sometimes the two can be found in differing proportions inside the same person. Other times, the same person might gravitate toward one or later the other. We might also observe collective swings of the national mood towards one or the other category.

As our crisis deepens, this fascinating interplay of perspectives, this dramatic clash of mentalities becomes the material for a great debate now taking place in America over our future. This discussion is found everywhere—even on highway billboards.

There are many categories that people have used to characterize the nation’s polarization. There is red and blue, conservative and liberal, or retro and metro. Perhaps it is the case to add yet another: God and the double BBQ sandwich.