Thanksgiving

Psalm 100

A psalm. For giving thanks.

1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.

3 Know that the LORD is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name.

5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness through all generations.

Everyone can be thankful. But if you think about it, thankfulness needs an object. To be thankful for something necessitates be thankful to someone.

Thanksgiving may not commemorate a religious event, such as Christmas or Easter, but it is not a "secular" holiday. The earliest Thanksgivings were celebrated by Americans who were are of their blessings, and that blessings, as well as rights, came from God, our Creator.

And so we pause to give him thanks.

More on the Billboard

The group that put up the "Imagine No Religion" billboard is now going to sue the city.

Artcle Here: http://www.dailybulletin.com/ci_11067249

First, the City of Rancho Cucamonga received a large number of calls from citizens upset over the billboard. Understandable - people don't tend to enjoy it when someone gets in their face to fight them and insult a sincerely held belief that is important to their lives...

So the city contacted the billboard company, and the company decided to remove the offending signage. This, according to City Hall, was not required of them - it was a company decision.

Now the Freedom From Religion Foundation is claiming they are being censored, and are going to sue the City.

I plan on attending the next meeting of the Rancho Cucamonga City Council to pray for them and let them know people of faith support them as our leaders.

Please join me, Wednesday, December 3rd at 7:00 PM at 10500 Civic Center Drive, Rancho Cucamonga.

You can also find the names of the City Council members on the StandUpForFaith.com web site, and send them an email to let them know we pray for them.

More To Stand Up For Than The Elections

Several weeks ago, a billboard appeared in Rancho Cucamonga that read, "Imagine No Religion."

It was purchased by an organization called the Freedom From Religion Foundation (clever, huh?) and referenced their web site, http://www.ffrf.org/.

They are a group of athiests and agnostics, and their purpose, so they say, is to protect the separation of church and state, which they do by filing law suits.

I have to ask, what does the phrase, "Imagine No Religion" have to do with the separation of church and state?

I wish they would just confess that they desire to fight and counter people of faith. To what end, I really don't know. So much for live and let live, huh?

As to their stated purpose, "the separation of church and state" comes from Thomas Jefferson's letters, not the Constitution. The First Amendment, establishing freedom of religion, restricts the government's ability to interfere with and establish a church - it does not restrict the right of people of faith (or no faith) to participate in our democracy individually or as a group. Those rights, in fact, are secured in our freedom of speech. It was not until the 1950's that that right was restricted by tying political involvement to nonprofit status.

Christians in America have the same rights as every other citizen to campaign and vote according to our values on candidates and issues. We must not allow anyone to tell us, or anyone else for that matter, to leave our faith at home before entering the public square, or that religion belongs in our hearts, and is not to be shared openly or acted upon in any visible way.

This is what is meant by spiritual warfare. There are people who want to crush religion and silence those who have the audacity to believe in God.

I will continue to pray for our nation, state, and local community, and our leaders. I will continue to love and serve my neighbors.

I will continue to Stand Up for Faith.

Keep Praying - It Ain't Over Yet

Wouldn't it be nice if elections actually settled issues?

We passed Prop. 22, only to see it overturned by the State Supreme Court.

Then we passed Prop. 8. And where is it now? Back before the State Supreme Court.

The opposition's contention is that something so drastic as defining marriage as being only between a man and a woman goes far beyond a Constitutional amendment, but is a revision - meaning it so fundmentally changes the document that it must originate with a 2/3 vote of the Legislature and then be voted upon.

People keep asking me, "Can they really overturn it? Isn't that why we qualified and passed a Constitutional amendment, so that it is by definition constitutional?" And honestly, I don't know how to answer. At this point, I don't put anything passed them.

One of the Justices wrote, "Whether a state ban on same-sex marriage is constitutional "is not a matter to be decided by the executive or legislative branch, or by popular vote, but is instead an issue of constitutional law for resolution by the judicial branch," Kennard wrote.

This is the opposite of what we who support Prop. 8 have been saying. This issue so fundamentally changes our society that it should be up to us as a people to make this decision through our democratic process. The other side has even said they intend to introduce their own initiative to allow for same-sex marriage. I say, let them try to qualify it. One of my criticisms is that they have never sought an affirmative vote, up or down, on their position, but have tried to force it through the courts instead.

However, I think the legal issue has changed, and in a way that should make the Court pause before overturning Prop. 8. When the Court, in the 1970's, overturned the death penalty, the people responded with an Intitiative Constitutional Amendment to reinstate it. This is a parallel issue.

To my thinking, if the Court to overturns Prop. 8, they would in fact be overturning the entire initiative constitutional amendment process. I just can't think they would want to do that.

This is why we said, Pray - Vote - Pray. We prayed, we voted, now we need to keep praying.

Pray for the Supreme Court Justices - for wisdom and understanding, for discernment even beyond their own feelings, opinions or agendas, and for God's will and righteousness in their lives.

My Prayer For This Election

Holy God and Loving Father,

I thank you on behalf of your people that we have a voice in our community. And I pray that you would magnify that voice in these elections for your righteousness and glory.

I pray first for wisdom. Help us to discern through the rhetoric of politicians who claim you are on their side, and give us leaders, Lord, who seek only to be on your side.

For our current leaders, especially in this city, but in our state and nation as well, I pray for your will to be done in their lives. I pray that, win or lose, they will be thankful and reminded of your grace.

And I pray for your people, Father, that we would be agents of your grace in either victory or defeat. Use us, Lord, to heal this land and bring revival to our nation.

I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Polling & Urgency (or lack thereof...)

This from the Daily Bulletin (http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_10884168) – “Not all feel urgency this election.

“Despite the months of campaigning, debates and news coverage, not everyone has chosen sides in Tuesday's election.

National polls say the percentage of voters who are undecided is in the single digits, but on Sunday, at least one local voter was still considering who would make the better president. Two other people had no plans to vote at all”

This is what I’ve been talking about and warning against. As the race solidifies and a winner is expected even before the fact, it becomes tempting to not vote for whatever reason.

But tomorrow we are facing bigger issues than who sits in an oval-shaped office for four years. We are deciding how our society will be defined from this point forward.

This from the Sacramento Bee (http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/capitolalertlatest/016612.html) - “Survey says: Poll numbers for Props. 1A, 3, 4, 10 and 12”:

“The lead for Proposition 4, the abortion notification measure, has shrunk since September from a 49 percent to 41 percent lead to a 45 percent to 43 percent margin.

The measure is on the ballot for the third time in four years, and Field reports both previous tries "started out with early leads in the polls only to be narrowly defeated by voters on Election Day. The current survey indicates that this year's outcome could also be close."

The diminished support coincides with the No on 4 campaign outspending proponents on TV ads. HealthVote.org reported Friday that No on 4 has spent "43 times more than proponents on TV ads" -- $7,163 to $313,415."

Props 4 and 8 will be decided by who actually turns out to vote tomorrow.

These issues must be what drives you to the polls.

Pray – Vote – Pray.