Tag: Jesus

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Easter Religion

What Does Easter Mean To You?

celebrate easter

Happy Easter! But what does Easter mean to you? There are so many that believe Easter has something to do with a Bunny Rabbit that lay eggs for us to hide and hunt  for; or jelly beans and chocolate bunnies that are crème filled and full of calories and the fulfillment of a sweet tooth craving. Easter has turned into a commercially charged money-maker. With candy companies loading stores with their sweets and clothing stores laying out their racks with new suits and dresses, Easter has become a multi-billion dollar sales bonanza for major corporations.

According to the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) Easter spending survey, conducted by BIGinsight in March of 2012, Americans shelled out an average of $145.28 on everything from apparel and candy to food and decorations that year, up 11 percent from $131.04 the previous year. Total spending was expected to reach $16.8 billion.

“Though the price of gas is on everyone’s mind, Easter is one of the few holidays some consumers are willing to stretch their budgets, especially because many children look forward to treats and new outfits on Easter morning,” said NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay. “Retailers will make sure to offer plenty of promotions on candy, apparel, food and decorations in the coming weeks for eager holiday shoppers.”

Due to consumer demand, the sales breakdown is expected to look like this:

  •  48.5% will head to retailers for spring sales on fashions and accessories for kids, men, and women while spending approximately $3.0 billion on these items.
  • 89.3% will purchase more than $2 billion on traditional favorites such as chocolate eggs and jelly beans.
  •  Easter meals with the average person expected to spend around $44.34 for a total $5.1 billion.
  •  53.6% will buy greeting cards, spending an average of $7.04.

My, how the most sacred of holidays has eclipsed the true meaning of what this week is supposed to represent. According to the Holy Bible, this week was the time in which Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, promoting the “Kingdom of God” was at hand. The Passover and the Last Supper had taken place and Jesus was betrayed into the hands of the Chief Priest by Judas Iscariot and on Friday, he would be Crucified by the Roman soldiers. As He died on the cross, Jesus, in His last breathes asked GOD to forgive them for, “They no not what they do”. That still rings True on today. We, as a nation – even this whole world –, ‘know not what we’re doing’. The Good News is God Still Forgives! All we have to do is ask, which is why Jesus came into this world.

So, what is the true meaning of Easter? Is it the things that money can buy or is it the one thing that money could never buy?

A tiny hint, money can’t buy your Salvation. And Salvation is Sweeter than candy. Smile.

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Christian Religion

My Religous Phase

I went through a religious phase when I was 5. I went to a Catholic school. Everyone I knew went to a Catholic school. My family was Catholic and so was every family in our neighborhood. We went to Mass every weekday morning and I went again on Sundays. The Mass was in Latin and I didn’t understand a word but that only made me respect it more. The words were exotic and beautiful to me. We all knelt and sat and stood at the same time during Mass. We all recited the same words in unison. It was written down in our missals. We received communion at Mass which meant we were fed a small white wafer which was supposed to represent the body of Christ. Only I didn’t quite understand the represent part and I believed that the wafer was somehow transformed into a piece of a 2000 year old body. You had Christ inside you six times a week. How cool was that?

I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be a saint or a nun. I had great romantic ideas about nuns. On the other hand, saints appealed to my imagination. The Christian martyrs were killed by the Romans because they wouldn’t renounce their faith. Some of them were eaten by lions and some of them were roasted alive and some were crucified. Except for the pain part, this also appealed to me mightily. Once you were a saint, you sat at the right hand of God and people prayed to you and you could perform miracles. I thought that it would probably hurt to be roasted alive or eaten by lions. I wasn’t sure it was a good trade off. I wanted to be able to perform miracles, but how much would it hurt to be eaten by a lion? I wasn’t sure. There was always being a nun. No horrific death required. I would be cloistered (shut away from the world) and I would pray all the time and I would be very holy.

I practiced being holy. I went to church and prayed for long stretches of time. The longer you prayed, the better. I asked God for silly things and told him all my troubles and made all kinds of promises to him. I said the rosary. Saying the rosary was basically repeating the Hail Mary sixty times and the Our Father six times. The Catholics are big on repetition.

You were supposed to contemplate the stations of the cross in those days and I spent a lot of time doing that. The stations of the cross, for the uninitiated, are depictions of Christ’s journey up the hill as he carried the cross on his way to be crucified. They are especially gory and sadomasochistic. The blood running down his face from the crown of thorns and his bloody back from the lashes. The nails pounded through his hands and feet. How does a five year old meditate on torture? Well I felt very very sorry for him. Poor Jesus, I thought. We must have done something very bad if he had to do all that to make up for it. I wanted to be the lady who gave him a drink of water. I wanted to be the lady who wiped his brow or the lady who cried at his feet.

One day I was praying all by myself in the church and I looked at that little gold container on the altar where we were told Christ was. It seemed to me Jesus must be very lonely in that little gold box, even if it was very pretty. I climbed over the railing (which you weren’t supposed to do) and I climbed up on the altar (which you weren’t supposed to do) and I sat next to the little gold box and I swung my legs and talked to Jesus. I told him everything that was on my five year old mind. I told him I loved him and I would always be his friend. I told him I wanted to be holy. I told him I was either going to be a nun or a saint and either way I’d be a virgin because nuns and saints are always virgins. I wasn’t sure what a virgin was but if that’s what Jesus wanted me to be, then I was going to be it.

My homeroom teacher Miss Staid came in and saw me and she nearly had a heart attack.

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occupy wall street Politics zuccotti park

Bryan Fischer Says Jesus Will Take A Whip To Occupy Wall Street

One thing we know from his teachings is that Jesus identified with the poor, the hungry, the sick and the meek. Throughout the Bible, Jesus catered to the poor, fed the hungry, healed the sick and He had a special words for the meek, in that “they shall inherit the earth.”

But don’t tell this to Bryan Fischer. The leader of the American Family Association – a right winged “Christian” conservative group – said the people protesting against a rigged system designed to take from the poor and give to the rich, will be whipped by Jesus. Fischer wrote, “Jesus took a whip to the thieves and the covetous in his day. If he were to come back and do the same thing today, he just might start in Zuccotti Park.”

Here’s his full statement;

A CNN anchor asked earlier this week whether or not Jesus would occupy Wall Street.

That question can be answered with a categorical “No.”

First, Jesus has no truck with rank, blatant hypocrites. The OWS crowd has now fallen to squabbling over who gets a slice of the $500,000 which has been donated to them, and which, by the way, they put in one of the evil, greedy banks they are out to destroy.

…

Secondly, Jesus has no truck with those whose entire agenda is to flagrantly disobey two of the Ten Commandments of God.

God said, “Thou shalt not steal,” a commandment Jesus affirmed on numerous occasions. Stealing is wrong, and it doesn’t make it right when government does it under color of law.

…

And the OWS crowd is animated by a thoroughly ugly disregard for the 10th Commandment as well. God says, “Thou shalt not covet…any thing that is thy neighbor’s.” And yet the Occupiers are driven by a dark, bitter, resentful, angry and acquisitive greed for stuff that belongs to other people.

I submit that no political program that is predicated on a violation of twenty percent of God’s moral law can possibly be right, can possibly work, or can possibly be good for America.

Jesus took a whip to the thieves and the covetous in his day. If he were to come back and do the same thing today, he just might start in Zuccotti Park.

In other words, he might occupy Wall Street after all.

Interesting take on things Bryan. But your views don’t match what’s presented in the Bible. According to Luke Chapter 6 verse 20 to 26, Jesus spoke to his disciples and said;

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
22 Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.

23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.

Keep on Occupiers. Your deeds are for the poor. Exactly what Jesus would have done.

Categories
Christianity God Religion

New Prediction – The End Of The World Is This Friday

Yes, Friday, and we’re not talking about the Ice Cube Movies either.

Harold Camping, the Family radio evangelist who wrongfully predicted that May 21st 2011 would be the end of the world, is at it again. This time, Mr. Camping is saying the end will come next Friday, October 21st, 2011.

So what happened on May 21st? Mr. Camping had this explination;

What really happened is that God accomplished exactly what He wanted to happen. That was to warn the whole world that on May 21 God’s salvation program would be finished on that day. For the next five months, except for the elect (the true believers), the whole world is under God’s final judgment.

So according to Camping, if you weren’t saved on or before May 21st, then you have some very serious issues as next Friday approach.

One can only wonder if the Evangelist Camping ever read the book of Mark, Chapter 13, verse 32 – when Jesus’ apostles asked about the end times. Jesus answered, “But of that day and that hour knows no man, no, not the angels who are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take you heed, watch and pray: for you know not when the time is.”

No one knows “but the Father.” Does this mean Harold Camping thinks he is “The Father?”

Oh Wow!!!

Categories
Barack Obama Birthers Donald Trump Easter

Reverend Graham Buys Into The Birther Lie On Easter Sunday

On Easter Sunday, a day when Christians from all denominations come together to celebrate the day Jesus rose from the dead, Reverend Franklin Graham was on television continuing to foster a lie that has been debunked by numerous reputable news organizations – and that is that President Obama has somehow deceived the American people by not supplying his birth certificate.

“He can solve this whole birth certificate issue pretty quickly. I was born in a hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. And I know that my records are there, you can probably go and find out what room my mother was in when I was born. I don’t know why he can’t produce that. It’s an issue it looks like he can answer pretty quickly.”

But what would we expect on our Easter Sunday? Graham is a Republican who praise the likes of “The Donald” and claims that “the more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, ‘you know maybe the guy’s right’, and Sarah Palin, his recent travel partner to Haiti is too.

What’s shocking is the silence of the host, Christiane Amanpour. Amanpour, the host of ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour has gained the reputation of a reporter who reports the facts. Why she allowed this baseless accusation to go unchallenged on her show is questionable.

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