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13 Year Old Nazi "Pop Stars"

I saw this story on Drudge just over a week ago when ABCNews gave them PrimeTime coverage. But now PrussianBlue.net, their official webpage has hit Alexa's Mover's and Shaker's list revealing its status as one of the sites on the internet with the greatest increase in recent traffic. Their blog got taken down by hackers. This is sad and is an example of just how powerful parents' examples can be over children. These kids are parroting racist messages that they've been given by the parents. Now their message has grown to define them. This is definitely a challenge for Christian parents. To what degree do kids' "Christianity" and apparent "love for Jesus" reflect our directing their behavior and views and to what degree do they reflect an actual change in their hearts. Children's hearts are moldable, but let's make sure that we shepherd their hearts to love Christ and not simply "do the Christian thing" because their parents do.

Christians Beheaded in Indonesia

I just read this news report about the attack on four Christian women and the beheading of three of them in Indonesia. I trust that they are comforted at Jesus' side right now, but I weep with their family. How horrible it is to lose children! But to lose children to murder, and horribly grisly murders at that! Romans 12:15: "...weep with those who weep." I just did a quick A9 search and found how common this is and just wanted to honor each of these people by praying for their family and friends and praising God that he has conquered death, "Thanks be to God, who gives us victory (over death) through Jesus Christ our Lord":

Check out Voice of the Martyrs. Praise God for those who are standing firm in the midst of persecution and suffering.

Praise the Lord!

One evidence of God working "bad" for good.

Our Sinners' Song

This is one of Abraham's best songs yet because it illustrates the paradox of my praise:

Our sinners’ song we loudly raise,
But who can care for sinners’ praise?
Or hear on high what we have said?
Perhaps the same who’ll raise the dead.
Though sin still makes our song sound wrong,
Your grace will tune us soon to sing.
And sing we will, this sinners’ song:
Oh, praise to Christ—the sinners’ king!

Our sinners’ song we bring—But why?
That you would make our awful cry
As sweet as angels’ sweetest chord.
Oh, turn your ear in mercy, Lord!
Though sin still makes our song sound wrong
Your grace will tune us soon to sing.
And sing we will, this sinners’ song:
Oh, praise to Christ—the sinners’ king!

Our sinners’ song we sacrifice—
Oh, surely there’s a higher price!
No, all that you would have us do
Is sacrifice our praise to you.
Though sin still makes our song sound wrong
Your grace will tune us soon to sing.
And sing we will, this sinners’ song:
Oh, praise to Christ—the sinners’ king!

On one hand I sing praises so loudly because I am a great sinner with a great savior who saved me. Yet at the same time my sinful heart is constantly tweaking my praise to make it imperfect worship--or even worse and shamefully, self worship, for my ability to worship. Yet I can praise all that much more knowing that God's grace even adjusts my heart to give him praise, to praise not the king of perfect praisers but the King of sinners: the King of kings.

If you have not gone by CIsongs yet, please do, and put it on your blogroll so that you can be regularly lead to see the glorious God we serve through his songs.

SelfEvidentTruth.org

A Great site on abortion! This is definitely a keeper. Thanks to Justin Taylor again for an excellent link. It's wonderful to see a site that's actually attempting to reach out to pregnant women in a way that won't scare them aware from the right-winged religious nuts. I'm sure that the site will get some flak from some who are "turned off" by politically correct jargon and for offering support to those who have had an abortion recently. If you are tempted to respond in a critical way of this site, shame on you. Praise the Lord that people are reaching out in effective ways to those who are faced with this difficult, life-in-the-balance decision. This is not a political issue. This is not even primarily a religious issue. Let's stop playing those games and just love and care for scared moms who are tempted by the easy fix. Support them as they choose life. Support them after they choose it...And support those who have not so that they can deal with the grief and make a better decision next time.

The answer to stop abortion is truth and love: This site offers it. The ultimate answer is truth and love, and when we show people God-glorifying truth and love in the midst of their most trying times, I trust that the truth of God's love expressed in Christ will be irresistable. I pray for more sites like this.

Hidden Treasures at Bible Church of Little Rock

Please surf on over to The Bible Church of Little Rock's website and get the messages by CJ & Carolyn Mahaney from their recent conference. These are true gems that you will want to listen to. Pay special attention to CJ's "Humility" message. I will soon be posting a review of his book, which has been one of the best and most challenging books I've ever read.

Thanks to Justin Taylor for the heads-up.

MVT: One of the Most Valuable Tools as I Read and Work

I know it's weird to be reviewing some highlighters, but here I go. These highlighters are among my most used items I own. The quality of the highlighter is excellent, neither too dark or too light. It is generally not visible through pages unless you let the pen sit for a long time on the page. It goes on smoothly. But I would not write a review of a highlighter if all it was was a good highlighter. What these things have going for them is that they have the Post-It tabs built in (and refills come with). So as you highlight and take notes, you can easily flag that page for followup later on.

When I read, I highlight on and write all over my pages and oftentimes I think, "When I finish reading, I want to write about what I just read," or, "I want to copy down that quote." Now I can easily flag that page and come back to it when I'm done. No more dog-eared pages.

I work as a Realtor as well and I often go out into the field with a client with a binder filled with 200+ listings. As we sit down, we highlight important information and note what properties we want to go see. So rather than flipping through the binder to find the properties we marked or rather than taking the pages out of the binder, we can simply flag them. That way, the binder stays intact and organized.

It's odd but true, One of my most useful and efficiency-promoting pieces of property is so simple and so inexpensive.