America is on the verge of changing forever. We must stop this attempt to hijack America.

If you are in favor of reforming health care, that’s fine. We can debate it, reach an agreement, and vote on it. BUT that is not what Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are trying to do. No, they are trying to force their plan down our throats without actually voting on the bill as required by our Constitution.

If they succeed, what is to stop them again from using these same tactics to handle immigration reform, gun legislation, religious freedoms, budgets, tax increases, you name it.

Join the fight.

There was a a huge earthquake in Haiti and another in Chile, but I don’t remember one in Hawaii. Do you?

Full text of clip at Breitbart.tv

If you haven’t been following along at home lately, Chris Rosebrough has taken off the gloves on the entire Purpose-Driven Church movement. He’s got a special edition put together called “The Cult-Like Hostile Takeover Tactics of the Purpose-Driven Church Transitioning Seminar.”

Quoting from his site:

Below is a Special Edition of the Fighting for the Faith radio program that exposes the Cult-Like Hostile Takeover Tactics of Dan Southerland’s Purpose-Driven Church Transtioning Seminar. The list of cult-like tactics employed by Southerland is LONG. They include:

1. Flat out lies and manipulative double speak
2. Blatant Scripture Twisting
3. New & Direct Extra Biblical Revelation and Visions from God
4. Flat out intolerance for anyone who questions or challenges these “new” Extra Biblical Revelations and Visions that are supposedly from God.

Download the mp3 version here.

After a listen, tell me what you think. How does this movement compare to the Word of God? Have you seen these hostile takeover tactics in your church?

Unfortunately, the youth minister Matt Chandler speaks about preaches law in a way that most of us can relate to. Meanwhile, Chandler portrays the glory of the cross in saving sinners like you and me. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. Let us rejoice and proclaim the good news.

Join us tonight as we look more closely at Law and Gospel.

I would highly encourage you to read/watch/listen to Matt Chandler’s message “A Pastor and His Unregenerate Sheep” at Desiring God.

My devotional for Psalm 28 is up today on the Vertical site.

Remember that scene in Star Wars (Episode IV) where Luke discovers the holographic message hidden in R2D2? In the hologram Leia says, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope!” In times of trouble where do you turn for help? Who is your only hope?

In Psalm 28 we see David cry out to God in time of need. David specifically names the trouble he’s in, what he’s afraid of, what he wants. We too should be direct with God during our anxious moments and take our concerns to him in prayer. Whether it be our children, our careers, or evildoers, the Lord will hear our prayers.

David’s anxiety lessens and his prayer turns to the praise and glory of the sovereign God. He proclaims that “The Lord is my strength and my shield.” (v 7) We have so much to be thankful for…our spouses, our children, our careers, our health, even our very lives. But things are far from perfect.

We are in a world of hurt and we have a great need. We are rebels. Our sins and the guilt they bring cause lots of anxiety, physical death, and the eternal torment of hell. Only a perfect savior could propitiate the wrath of God. Our good shepherd died for his people like a lamb that is led to the slaughter (Is 53:7). The anointed one poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. (Is 53:12 ESV). He is the only hope in this world of hurt. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the answer to our greatest need.

Who is your only hope? Can you proclaim “The Lord is my strength and my shield”

Caedmon’s Call sings of this beautifully in Only Hope. Buy Only Hope on iTunes. Listen at Lala.com.

Books, magazine, television shows, classes, programs, seminars and more are dedicated with helping you become a better you. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent trying to improve lives. Our churches and ministries too have gotten on board, offering a message of self help and life application tips.

Does it work? I’ll let you answer that one. Just look around. I think you will agree that society isn’t getting any better.

Our focus on ourselves only feeds our problem. Our hearts are evil. Jesus says in Matthew 15 “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

Who are we to think we can solve this problem on our own? We can’t. We need an external solution. That solution is Jesus Christ. The very one who gave us the law which now condemns us, died on a cross to pay our debts. He died to propitiate the wrath of a holy God. Only he can turn our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.

Join us Saturday night as dive more deeply into the subject of the proper use of Law and Gospel.

Yesterday Steve Camp at The Cross Church (@thecrosschurch) put out this tweet:

Christian, your justification lies in His work, not your performance. Until you grasp that, the roller coaster never ends.

You can’t say it much better than that. That’s Romans 3:21-31. Justification is the heart of the Gospel. That is the issue that drove Luther and the Protestant Reformation.

So why are we stuck on this roller coaster of self-improvement that tells us we aren’t good enough? Satan’s lie that says we have to try harder to please God.

We can thank Charles Finney and his legacy for much of what we see in the Church today. Michael Horton wrote about The Legacy of Charles Finney in Modern Reformation magazine. He wrote:

Finney believed that God demanded absolute perfection, but instead of that leading him to seek his perfect righteousness in Christ, he concluded that

…full present obedience is a condition of justification. But again, to the question, can man be justified while sin remains in him? Surely he cannot, either upon legal or gospel principles, unless the law be repealed…But can he be pardoned and accepted, and justified, in the gospel sense, while sin, any degree of sin, remains in him? Certainly not (p. 57).

Let’s get off the roller coaster. Join us Saturday night as we look deeper into the issue of Law and Gospel.

A few years ago Derek Webb wrote “A New Law” about our love affair with the law.

The first verse ends with:

“don’t teach me how to live like a free man
     just give me a new law”

Join us Saturday as we dive deeper into Law and Gospel.

You can get A New Law on iTunes.

This Saturday we are going to look at the roll of law and Gospel in the Christian life.

Thanks to the Mockingbird blog.

Ok folks, I need to some help here. My boss’s iPhone 3GS will not sync with his Outlook 2003 calendar any longer. It was working fine until Wednesday. We don’t exactly know what happened to cause it to fail. We are at a point now where I am writing asking you for help.

So far we have tried the following (some multiple times)

• The the Advanced iTunes setting to force the calendar to the iPhone.
• Reset the sync history in iTunes.
• Full restore on the iPhone
• Reinstall iTunes
• Export the Outlook calendar to a new .pst file. Delete the original calendar and re-import the data.
• Repair install for MS Office 2003
• All latest upgrades and updates have been downloaded for Outlook, iTunes, and the iPhone.

I called Apple and am waiting for an email with additional helps, but I wanted to ask for help on the interwebs as well. So, let me hear from you!

And, please don’t tell me to get a Mac.