Lyle's Blog

I just read the story of Joseph being reunited with his brothers.  It’s a story I’ve read or heard sermons on for years.  I never thought too much about the preferential treatment Benjamin received.  It seemed to me that Joseph wanted the youngest to get special treatment.  He had from Israel his father and so maybe Joseph thought that was proper and good, the way it should be.  But it now seems to me this was a testing for his brothers.  Would they succumb to jealousy and envy as they had years before?  Had they really changed?  Joseph had to know.  Was their “conversion” real?  Or were they just saying what they though Joseph wanted to hear?

I think this is the same way God tests us.  We say we’re born again, we’ve changed, we love Jesus.  But do we really love Him?  Do we really keep His commandments?

Trials and temptations come into our lives which provides a perfect way to test our faith.  Some people have little problems, some have huge issues to deal with.  I see Christians in good health and other in tragic, painful conditions.  Wealth or poverty, good or bad families, health or sickness, it’s not given equally.  Some have so much and some so little.  Envy along with bitterness could grip us.  We could look pretty good on the outside but inside could be resentment.  The Bible says we’re not tempted above what we’re able to endure.  Enduring is hard.

The fact is, we each have a role to play in the kingdom of God.  Some of us are like Job and can truly say ” though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”.  Some of us are weaker.  Many talents or few, He entrusts us with what we’re given. The Lord wants our total trust.  Our life and death and everything in between requires us to either trust Him or find our own way.  We’ll be tested.  He doesn’t lead us into temptation; that’s just a normal part of life on earth.  But He does deliver us from evil.  That’s what He wants us to believe, that He is able and willing to keep us unto the day of our redemption, that He is the author and finisher of our faith.

I sometimes wonder why Christ wasn’t born before the flood of Noah.  I’m sure God wasn’t willing that any of them should perish; but He destroyed them all.  Apparently, there was no way to bring about the birth of Christ.  The seed of man was contaminated except for Noah.  Before the flood, there was no redemption, no name by which the old world could be saved.  We know little about that world, but we do know something about the world after the flood.  God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  The same applies to man.  Men are slaves to sin.

Reading the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy we realize that men were wicked and in need of basic instruction on what constitutes a decent human being.  The world once again had decayed and headed in the direction of a judgment akin to the flood.  It was through divine intervention that the Jews were made separate from the rest of the world.  They were the chosen of God, not because they were good, but because of His grace.  It was through Israel that the contamination of the world could be filtered out enough so that Messiah could become flesh.  It is Christ and the Holy Spirit that keeps the world from escalating into total chaos.  Jesus came that we might have life.  It is now possible to have peace with God.  In goodwill God sent Jesus Christ into the world so we can have peace with God.  Without Jesus, we are the enemies of God.

It’s Christmas time again.   And again it is time to remember not only that Christ was born, but born for a reason, that being to bring peace to men.  Merry Christmas!

The modern gold rush is here.  Everybody (including me) is jumping into digital currency.  Whether this is wise, I’m not sure.  Like everything else one invests in, it pays to use the money you can afford to lose.  The reality is none of us can afford to lose money.  The scary world we now live in gives value to something with no value.  You can’t hold it in your hand, it can disappear in a blink if you’re not careful, and there are plenty of people out there in cyberspace that are much smarter than you or me that want to steal it.

The problem we face is that many of us older people haven’t prepared well for this thing called the golden years.  The young are saddled with student loan debt with a bleak possibility of paying it back.  The stock market is doing well but if you don’t have much too invest it just won’t provide much upside to your lifestyle.  Enter Bitcoin.  We can see the tremendous growth over the past year and with Ethereum and Litecoin doing well too, the temptation is just too much to resist.  We look back and wish we’d stuck a thousand dollars in light coin last January.  Why weren’t we paying attention?  We’d be sitting pretty.  So we hop on the bandwagon hoping it’s not too late.  And so far we’ve made a couple bucks, but knowing when to leave the “table” with our winnings, that’s hard to guess.  As the old song goes, you’ve got to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em.

I reassure myself by noting the possible ETF or IRA Bitcoin investments.  It’s a “real” currency, at least as real as the digital wannabe money the government gives us for money.  What does bother me is that everything that used to be dependable is being devalued.  Marriage, money, children, the truth, everything is being replaced with something vague, of questionable value, and even possibly worth nothing.  But here we are, all of us trying to be the pinball wizard.  So we play the game, a game we don’t know if we’re playing well.  We’re not even sure of the rules.

The day that McDonald’s accepts cryptocurrency for a Big Mac, then we’ll feel safer.  A currency not worth anything if you can’t buy a sandwich with it!  For now, I play the game.  If I’m smart I won’t play it long.

We will fight and we will create the kind of future for our children and grandchildren because that is our responsibility and no one will stop us.”  Arnold Schwarzenegger made that statement in Paris in reference to the climate change scam.  The United States is the only country to pull out of the agreement.  The rest of the governments of the world support it and with good reason.  It’s a masterfully designed plan to gain total control over every facet of our lives.

Of course the left support it, it’s the dream of every despot.  With the loony left in California trying to capture the flatulence of cows, how long could it be before they tax us for the air we breathe?  The rain that falls on your roof is not yours according to these snakes.  Nothing is yours.  Your children, money, property, rain, air, your everything must be brought under control of the state.  It’s sad that there are so many supporting fools like Arnold.  But our wonderful school system has been indoctrinating our young for years.  They’ve been taught that freedom of any kind is dangerous.  Somebody might have a wrong thought.  We can’t allow that.

I’ve got wrong thoughts all the time like, there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved.  Not should be, could be, but must be.  That name is Jesus, not anyone else.

A friend of ours just told us they have cancer.  We had her and her husband over last night for dinner.  My son and I sang a few Christmas songs and then a few old gospel.  It’s the old gospel that put a smile on her face.  Writing about anything else for a couple days seems nonsensical.  Nothing matters really.  The world’s problems are silly. albeit dangerous.  Whatever the problem, Jesus is the answer.  Cancer.  It just makes you stop.  Oh, life goes on.  We’ll keep doing what we’re doing in a couple days.