Welcome to the Big Ten Richie Rod! LOL !

Woo - Hoo Rich lossed his first game at Michigan today, and I laughed and I laughed and then I laughed some more. Even Bill is laughing at Rich and pointing a finger.

Hey, Rich WVU won ! Bet you just hate it you left a great program?

I read an article about how the players love coming to practice at West Virginia now that Rich left. They say it's more laid back and less cussing. They said rich had a really bad "Potty" mouth. Imagine that! I'm glad the bum is gone, I hope Michigan goes winless.

I Miss Bill!

Nice speech Bill. It's time for a change! We've had 8 years of pain and decline.

God Is With Us

Life is a journey, travel with purpose. How many of us believe that? How many of us live this way? Do we just get up like the man in the Dunkin Donut commercial. The commercial would show the donut maker in bed with the alarm going off and he'd say, "Time to make the donuts." He had no excitement at all to get up and make the donuts. I don't think I would either, because donut maker hours stink!

Do we look at a new day with great joy or do we wake up and look at another day of life as a burden? I don't. I used too, but I've realized that's just not the way to look at a new day that God has blessed me with. I'm not saying I bounce out of bed with a huge smile on my face. I'm tough to get out of that warm bed and be all chipper and full of glee. It takes me a little while to wake up, but once I'm up I see the day as a gift from God.

I look at each day as a chance for something good to happen and wait in anticipation to see what the day has in store for me. This took a long time for me to see this view of life. But with lots of time spent reading the Bible and other Christian authors I've come to see life as a journey. I wonder sometimes is something bad going to happen or is something great going to occur. Whatever it is, it's been planned by my Father in Heaven. He has something in store for all of us. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but it will happen.

Even though I see my life as a journey it also must have a purpose to live with the journey. We as Christians have that purpose, a reason to wake up and take on the day. My life could exist without Christ in my life but it would be a journey without meaning. I would be just wandering with no direction, just walking around living by the pointless grind of this planet. Boring!

God is with us. He is on our journey through this life, walking with us with an eternal prize grasped in hand. He is just waiting to hand us that eternal gold medal or crown. He's cheering us on as we run in the race of life. We must be thankful to our creator for giving us another day to take our position in the race.

AS I watched the Olympics and saw the athletes receive their medals, it reminded me of what the day of judgement might be like. The athletes in Beijing did train hard and did compete against the best in the world to get their medals. We as Christians have really done nothing to earn our eternal crown. The Olympic athletes ran, lifted weights and whatever else they had to do to compete. We have not done all the work the athletes did. But we have endured through faith and love. We've taken on all kinds of temptations and have fallen short a lot and have endured all kinds of evil. If we believe all the way through life that God is real and that He sent his Son to die for us and confess our sins, we have a good chance of standing on that eternal podium and get to see God hand us that crown of life. How great that will be!

As we live life take it as a journey and have a purpose to carry with you. The purpose is probably carring us through the journey. Let God carry us through it, He will be glad to do it.

I would have to say the Olympics were pretty good this year. USA did very well with the medal count, and being able to identify the ages of it's athletes correctly. I am glad the games are over though, I was getting to the point where I was at burn out.

This time of year I am more focused on the upcoming football season and ready to get it started. The Beijing games were very entertaining, especially Phelps winning all his medals. That was very exciting. I wonder why sometimes though it takes the Olympics to bring the world together. There are no political views to deal with just athletics. I wonder if we could settle our wars on the gridiron or the baseball field. There would be no bloodshed no need for innocent people to die. Just a good 9 inning baseball game between Georgia and Russia. If Georgia wins, Russia needs to leave their country in peace. That will never be the way of the world to settle our differences.

Our arrogance as countries need bloodshed to define its power. To settle an issue we have to slaughter sons and daughters, fathers and brothers to show great strength and to get our selfish point across. In my world there would be no need for war just communication and if that doesn't work then it's a smash mouth game of football or hockey. I'm just a dreamer. Things will never be settled in this world unless there is some type of bloodshed. At least if the devil remains in this world, for he is behind every war. It's nice though, that every 4 years we can as a planet of arrogant people can get together and play a sport in unity.

Another Week over!

This is the most precious little boy. He was my buddy today, so I decided to spoil him with lots of candy and sugar. He is in the question asking stage of his life. All day he asked, "What's this? and what's that?" Or "Can I have a ring pop? Can I have a donut?" He never stopped asking. Then he sang Miss Polly, Jesus loves me and Down by the station all day long. Cayden loves music a lot. He sings all the time, and he waves his arms like a conductor. It's the cutest thing. He is just in his little world when he does. The other day we had a DVR installed by Direct TV, and the whole time the guy was here Cayden sang Jesus loves me. I was thinking that the guy was going to join in but he didn't.

I believe God is smiling when a child sings a verse of Jesus loves me. He considers it great joy, to hear the beautiful voice of a child sing his praises. Every time he sings it makes me smile and really makes feel great that he loves to sing it.

Cayden has two names he pronounces his own way. Barbie dolls are pronounced Barbie dogs and Hannah Montana is pronounced Hanna Tana. Such a funny kid! Well, the other two kids have made it through their 2nd week of school. So that's a relief, Brayden is in 2nd grade and Macy is in preschool. I hope everybody has great weekend. I'll write tomorrow night . Good night

Taming Your Tongue

We have been talking about the crudeness of our tongue in class the past couple of weeks. It's something we all have problem with. I have big problems with mine, at least in the past I did. But yet it sometimes slips up and I got to put it back in the cage.

Why do we have such problems with the things we say? One person said his son had gotten in trouble for calling another kid a "Doofus." I just sank in my chair, I just felt bad. My kids say worse names than that. Nothing foul. They have been known to call each other idiots and morons. I believe they got those words from my driving vocabulary. But I just felt bad, they get in trouble when they say those things to each other. One person had stated he had something foul to another person and was pretty upset about it. Before I had realized he was starting to get teary eyed about it, I had leaned over to another guy and said everyone is too nice in here. I was meaning they were soft. That was my tongue getting me in trouble. But I'm just so hardened to comments people might say to me, I just blow them off. I really appreciated that class Sunday though, it struck me how insensitive I am sometimes to others people feelings. I need to become a much nicer person, it's just hard sometimes to see that some things hurt some people more than others. Some comments are not appropriate for some crowds.

I've said my share of hurtful things in my life, and regret all of them. So I go by the phrase, "If you have nothing good to say don't say nothing at all." So I have done pretty well trying to do my best, but yet a lot of times I don't think before I speak. The other day in Walmart I said something to these two guys. I was just upset. As I was approaching the front to checkout, I decided to get some football cards. As I approached the stand my eyebrows were beginning to touch. These two guys were feeling every package of cards to see if they could find the one that had an autograph card in them. I walked up to them and said, "You know that's just plain cheating. I said "why don't you just buy a package without feeling them." Then I said " Would you get out of the way your hogging up the entire section." They didn't even look at me. I know they heard me they just didn't have the guts to look at me and notice someone had finally spoke up about their cheating. I don't like cheaters, they irritate me a lot. I don't cheat, so those who do, need to be called out. So I didn't feel bad about anything I said to them, I was going to report them to the manager. It's not the first time I have said something to this guy. But I think sometimes we need to say nothing at all. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything, but I just had too.

I wanted to speak up in class ,but I shied away. My story about the house across the street was perfect to tell. It was a perfect theory about taming the tongue and not spread rumors. Somebody had told me the owner had died. It was not true, I saw him the other day. So I don't know if the feller knows it or not, but he is supposed to be dead. It just shows how rumors can start a huge fire. Or how one slip of the tongue can really hurt someone. We need to keep our tongue in place until the message reaches the brain and it's had time to review it.

I don't like rumors. I try to stay out of other peoples business, and I try to really not bad mouth anybody. It's a big thing of mine to ridicule a business or a certain doctors office. I really don't like it when somebody does me wrong in the world of business. Like our floor having to replaced after five of wear. Our builder did us wrong by cutting corners so he could pocket some extra money. I see things in this house that make me not like the guy and his shady ways. It's a good thing he retired. But I don't need to be like that, God says that we should be forgiving at all times. So I should keep my tongue in its place and quit bad mouthing this guy.

Another example would be talking bad about a person because they don't ever talk to you when you say hi. It is to me rude if you say hi to a person and they don't say hi back. I just write that person off my list, but then I realize I mumble my HI a lot of times. So I was the one at fault, because I'm a mumbler.

Our tongue is tough on us in life. We say bad things all the time and then on Sunday we praise God with the same foul mouth. I really feel bad about the things I say a lot of times and really ask God for his mercy and grace to keep me from saying anything that doesn't appeal to him. Let's all watch what we say to others and try to keep that tongue in tight reigns.

Why Do People Leave The Church?

Have you ever wondered why people leave the church? There are many reasons for doing so. Some people leave because they are just not interested or saw no results for their attending. Others have left because they were offended by somebody in the church or they just didn't like the preacher always putting a guilt trip on them.

I've been thinking about the ones who just left because they just lost God. They just didn't see what those of us who are faithful to worship do see. They are quitters, they saw no positive reason for wasting a perfectly good morning of sleeping in to sit on a pew. They just left empty and never saw or felt God in their lives. Singing to our Lord and sharing our lives in fellowship just wasn't their cup of tea. I've seen many come and go, they were raised in the church most of their lives and just didn't receive the desperate need to feel the love of the Savior. I guess they had better things to on Sunday morning.

Those of us who remain attending church for the remainder of our lives have a spiritual vision of our future. We see the things of God. We feel the reason for being there, we need spiritual healing. We feel worship is a way to give God our praise, we want to see those who fill our lives with love and share our heavenly desire. To those who don't believe and leave the church think believing in an unseen God is like believing in Superman as a real person. They can't live by faith just by sight.

Many just can't see our purpose of belief in life. I saw something this morning going to work that just increased my faith. I was out about 6:30 a.m. and the sun caught my attention. As it was rising, it was this awesome huge orange disc. You could look at it and marvel at it. God put it there for me and all those driving this morning. It made me think beyond this world. It allowed me to think that there is something beyond this globe we live on. A perfectly round disc of splendor created by our Father in heaven. If anybody couldn't look at that and not believe in a creator is truly blinded by Satan. They have a heart of steel, a pounding rock in their chest.

I thank God every day that he chose me and many others to set our hearts on heavenly things, he softened our hearts and allowed us to strive for a heavenly dream to continuously chase. I work with many who are lost and have no direction in life, except work,eat,sleep and do it all over again the next day. They don't understand how much a faith in God is worth. They can't imagine running a race for eternal causes. Their imagination can't fathom a heavenly home that is unimaginable. They can't comprehend how saying a prayer can lift all the stress in a person's life. People who left the church and those who have never entered a church building just don't get why people would pack a building on Sunday morning. Their vision will always be the same if we don't reach out to them and truly tell them the reasons were there and why we never left. Our vision needs to see those who have left and bring them back soon.

My foundation has been shaken in the past just like everybody else's has. But Christ won't allow those who stay strong to lose that vision and reason for being in worship and in the fellowship of Christians who love and pray for all of us. If you can think of anybody who has left the church and hasn't come back for years call them or send a card and tell them they are loved and how much the church wants them to come back into the fold. I can think of a ton of people right now who left and have never been seen for a long time. It's time for me and you to get on the horn and round up the lost sheep.

A Random Act Of Uneccessary Violence

The other day in Little Rock a shooting took place at the Democratic Headquarters. The man went into the building and asked to see the chairman. He was taken back to his office, then he shot three times at Mr. Gwatney and ran out. Gwatney the chairman of the Democratic party later died. The gunman was chased 30 miles to Sheridan Arkansas and was shot and killed by police.

Johnson was a resident here in Searcy. They found 14 guns on his property. He was released from his job at Target in Conway,AR. So they thought that was the reason for his rampage. It ticks me off when people are stupid! I have no sympathy for this man and he deserved what he got, death. Why would he target the man and the place he went to? I'm aggravated by people like this. I will be blunt when it comes to acts of violence like this. Hate fills my mind, it's hard to forgive people like this.

It's hard for us all to understand why people take an innocent person's life like this and then try to see forgiveness happening. I guess that is why God is God and we aren't. He can forgive all things and we can't. May God bless our ability to not forgive and give us the strength to be able to forgive no matter what.

OU Sooners

I found this on an Oklahoma website. Oh I think they thought to SOONER than expected when they printed this T-shirt. I think we burnt their bench at the Fiesta Bowl.

I hope we play them again this year. Go Mountaineers!

Code Adam

I have been through three of these since I started at Lowe's, and everyone has almost given me a panic attack. I don't like them, but I am glad they are very important to stores like Lowe's and Walmart.

If you don't know what it is, then I will be glad to share it with you. A code adam is a call that comes across the P.A. system at stores nationwide. If a kid is lost they call this out and all the exits are guarded and open gates are shut and locked. Stores take these very seriously, and don't hesitate at all when it is called.

Basically, it's for parents who don't watch their kids, yes that is rude but it is true. I see kids roaming all over that store and just shake my head. What are the parents thinking? So we had one tonight and I saw the mother in panic mode and I just said a quick prayer and guard the door. The scary thing about this one was that there was a strange SUV parked outside our gate which is kind of the dead area there. He sat there for awhile and the guy I was working asked him if he needed help. He said he was waiting on somebody. So he pulled out and it wasn't a few minutes later they called a code adam. Things just ran through my head, that that guy took a kid. But it didn't happen, they found the kid and things went back to normal.

I had an email not too long ago, that told a story about one of these code adams. It was at a Sam's somewhere in the U.S. The mother turned around for a second and her little girl was taken out of the cart. She told an employee there and they radioed a code adam. They shut down everything and found her in the restroom crying. Whoever the pervert was had shaved her hair and had a wig for her to wear out and a change of clothes to get out of the store undetected. Sick people!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is my biggest fear is losing one of my children in a store. It won't ever happen, because they are by my side at all times. We don't let them run away from us at all. I watch these parents on TV in interviews and they are so calm about it. Not me! If someone took one of my children and they did something to them to harm them, that person would want the electric chair. I would go ape on them quick, they couldn't settle me down. If they got sentenced I would ask to be in the same cell with them. They would be asking for death row. We live in a world full of perverted and sick people, and it scares me. Young parents who read this keep your children close to you and never let them be anywhere by themselves at all. May God bless the safety of our children and keep the perverse people of this world away from them.

The Painter And The Child

Centuries ago a great artist was engaged to paint a mural for the cathedral in a Sicilian town. The subject was the life of Christ. For many years the artist labored diligently, and finally the painting was finished except for the two most important figures: Christ and Judas Iscariot. He searched far and wide for suitable models.

One day while walking in the city he came upon some children playing in the street. Among them was a 12-year old boy whose face stirred the painter's heart. The artist took the child home with him, and day after day the boy sat patiently until the face of the Christ Child was finished. But the painter still had found no model for the portrait of Judas.

The story of the unfinished masterpiece spread afar, and many men, fancying themselves of wicked countenance, offered to pose for Judas. But in vain the old painter looked for Judas, as he envisioned him a man warped by life, enfeebled by surrender to greed and lust.

Then one afternoon as he sat in a tavern, a gaunt and tattered figure staggered across the threshold. "Wine, wine,' he begged. The startled painter looked into a face that seemed to bear the marks of every sin of mankind. "Greatly excited, the old painter said, "come with me, and I will give you wine.'

For many years the painter worked feverishly to complete his masterpiece. As the work went on, a change came over the model. A strange tension replaced the stuporous languor, and his bloodshot eyes were fixed on the painted likeness of himself.

One day, perceiving his subject's agitation, the painter paused in his work. "My son, " he said, "what troubles you so?"

The man buried face in his hands, sobbing. After a long moment he lifted pleading eyes to the old painter's face. "Do you not then remember me? Years ago I was your model for the Christ Child." by- Hugh B. Brown

Are We Sick Of Favre Yet?

I'm not quite sick of Brett Favre yet, but I am sick of all the hoopla about him. Every time I turn on ESPN to see some baseball highlights, it's about Favre, again.

I wish they would make a decision on what to do or where to send him? Even Brett is getting tired of it all. Send him to the Bucs or Jets and let the man do his QB magic somewhere else.

Wouldn't it be funny if he did go to another team and win a Superbowl, and the Packers finished with a losing record.

I like Favre though, he was a great QB and probably still has some gas in the tank yet. He didn't play like most QB's do. He cherished a good solid hit, and asked "Is that all you got?" Who would've thought that a kid from a small college in Mississippi would end up being the all time record holder as an NFL QB. He was fun to watch and I hope he plays as a starter this year for some good team.

All week they have been trying to find out what's going to happen with him. I kept saying "Just send him to the Steelers, we have a spot for him, I'm sure." He just can't take over Ben's position, unless Ben starts out throwing a lot of interceptions and really looks bad. But the Steeler Nation doesn't need a QB, we got a good one already. We love Big Ben!

So I am almost at my favorite time of year again. When hockey ends and the Penguins pack up and leave the igloo, I start thinking about September and football. What a great time of year, there is nothing like College and NFL football. I'm ready to get my fantasy football league together and start watching all the highlights over and over again. Football is the best sport around, ever! Mountaineer fans have 3 weeks till the Villanova game, I can't wait.

The Bridge Between Us And God

Those who don't believe in the Living God, they have know idea about the bridge between us and God. They have know clue how wonderful and loving this bridge is for those of us who believe in the Holy Father.

Without a bridge of love between us and God, we would be just as lost as those who don't believe. The bridge covered a span of sin that we could never accomplish.

Jesus is our bridge between us and our Father in heaven. Without him, we would be nothing, we wouldn't know what love is. He is love and this bridge was built by pain staking love. The bridge pictured is not a covered bridge. It is susceptible to rain, lightning, wind and earthquakes, it could fall at anytime. But Jesus as our bridge is covered in strength, humbleness, beauty, love, forgiveness and eternity. It will never fall, even when we get off the bridge it will still be there ready for us to get back on.

I'm thankful every day for the love of Christ and his willingness to come here for our benefit and feel our pain and die upon the cross so that we can live free of the guilt of sin. That we may have some reason for living on this planet, and have a certain goal to reach for. I would be lost without Christ and our Father, there would be no reason to be here.

He is our mediator between us and God. HE speaks on our behalf to his father above. Ask for forgiveness all the time and use this bridge of love daily.

Hebrews 9:15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance- now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

I Need A Vacation! I Didn't Get One This Year!

I need a vacation bad! I didn't get one this year because I started a new job and there was no vacation time. I did get to go home this x-mas and that was nice. But I need one soon! It doesn't look like it's going to happen.

Next year I get two weeks paid, so that is something to look forward too. I've already got those two weeks planned. I know at least a week in good ole' West Virginia and maybe a week in Destin,Fl. But my ideal vacation spot is WV. I just love to come home and see my family and hit the Steeler store in Da' Burgh.

I like Florida, but it is just ridiculous how expensive everything is there. In WV we get free room and board and lots of home cooking from my mom. Can't beat that! We usually hit all the good spots there in Wheeling. The one's you Wheeling-ites take for granted. Like Di Carlo's, TJ's I think that is it. Shannon asked me a long time ago if I had a choice between Florida or WV, which one would I pick? WV of course, that's a no brainer.

I hope everybody had a good vacation or the new term Staycation. The kids start back to school next Monday. We are so excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) They need the structure quick!!!!!!!!!!!!

In our lives we should never go on a religious vacation. We must always have God on our mind and in our hearts. Never let one day go by without reading your Bible and never let other things come before God. He Doesn't. May we bring God the glory through our daily living and add to his number. May the blessings of our Lord be upon us this week. and may we always give him thanks for all things. I want to say thanks to all who read this blog, you keep me inspired to write. Thanks, CLint

We Serve "A Big God"

I learned today that we serve a Big God. That He is the only one with the answers. Not me and not you. That He is huge, able to take on a vast amount of everything. There is no prayer he can't answer and there is no person in this world that is without him.

I learned this Big God theory through a movie called Facing the Giants. Shannon went to the movie store today and came home with this movie. It's very good and teaches alot of good things. I have watched it before and it just brought me to tears, good tears though. But the coach states that we serve A Big God, and that his team can do anything through the Almighty. In this movie one man was down on his luck as a football coach, he was at his final nerve and went out to a quiet place and read his Bible and got down on his knees and begged God to help him.

As his faith increased he became a stronger coach and led his team to believe winning wasn't important, but faith in God was. He as one man changed the perspective of the entire Christian based school. Students were changing their lives toward Christ and things were going in the right spiritual direction for him, his team and the school. I won't ruin the ending but it showed how one man through the power of a mighty God changed the lives of many.

One man? What can one man do to shape the faith of a country or the world? We are so small in this world, our voices are so tiny. How can a single man reach the entire world? Through a big God. Through prayers and a strong faith and our modern technology one man could say something that could put the world on track, maybe. But a huge God and a huge community could send out the right message. With so many Christians on this planet if we all banded together and said enough is enough we could change the entire world with one message. But we don't. Ecclesiastes 4:12 Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not easily broken.

We haven't found the ability or the strength in God yet to bind the world together in holy harmony yet. Our God is an awesome God who gives us a new day and gives us everything we need to sustain life. He can handle all things and prepare each of us for our homecoming party in heaven. How great it will be when we all get to heaven and he says well done good and faithful servants.

In one part of the movie he asks one player to do the death crawl to the 50 yard line. The death crawl is a player on all fours with another player on his back. He blindfolds the player crawling and tells him to go to the 50 yard line. Being blindfolded the player could not tell where the 50 yard line is. As he was crawling the coach is in his face pushing him on while the player was screaming he was tired. The coach continued to yell "You can do it, just to the 50, you can do it." Finally the player gives in and collapses to the ground, and says sorry he was to tired. As he takes off the blindfold he realizes he crawled all the way to the end zone. 100 yards he went and didn't even know it. I believe God is just like that coach. He is constantly pushing us and facing us toward the goal. He continues to move us and move in us to bring us to do more than we think we can. God is a "Big God" doing more for us than we think. He's sending the answers to us and opening new doors and closing the other doors. When we think things are not going our way, he's preparing something better for us, we just need to do some of the work to get there. Sometimes we think we can only make it to the 50, but God knows we can make it to the goaline. We don't need to give up and hold our heads down. We need to believe that something good is around the corner. Our God is vast and has complete control over everything. Through God all things are possible. Go on ahead give him all your troubles tonight and prepare for the great things ahead.

Sad News!

The little child Sullivan that I asked for prayers for last night, has gone to be with the Lord. At 6:50 this morning he passed in his fathers arms to be in his eternal Fathers arms. He will now rest in the sweet by and by. Please pray for the Farar family that they may find the strength do deal with such a great loss. My heart goes out to them.

Prayer For Sullivan Farrar

Another little innocent child fighting for his life at St. Judes. He was a friend of the Powell's and is not doing well at all. At this very moment at 12:20 am he might not be with this world anymore. At the last update he had a painful day and things were failing in his little body. His mother finally said he was resting in his fathers arm with his pacifier hanging out of his mouth. His breathing was faint and he was pale. May God bless this family and answer all the prayers they have been asking for over the last 166 days. Why little innocent children have to go through such miserable pain, but only GOD has the answer to these questions. I just ask you to say a prayer for Sully. Thanks Clint

Who Do You Want To Add To the Congregation?

Are we picky when it comes to choosing who we want to invite to our church? I think we are, I know I have been guilty of this kind of thinking.

In our church services we never really see anybody who looks unkempt or looks deprived. We all fit the middle class or higher, everybody looks like they have everything they need.

You don't see a lot of people in our services that shouldn't be there. There are no poor looking or shall I say shabby looking people in our services. Why is that? What are we afraid of?

Are we afraid we will bring the wrong person in? Afraid to bring somebody who might embarrass us in front of the congregation or be looked down on by others. I think we sometimes don't want to stir up the bees nest by bringing in a hornet. I can understand that, but it's not the right or proper thinking.

Some people had brought in a guy from the school supply drive that was interested in the church. The class had donated some money to buy his kids some school clothes and he was crying over such love. He came for awhile and then he got a job that would keep him from being at church. I hadn't seen him for a long time. He had a tattoo that ran up the side of his neck and didn't seem like he fit in. But I think he was somewhat comfortable. I didn't look at the tattoo as something gross, I like tattoo's. I won't have one ever, but I don't judge the man for having one though. But this is what I am getting at. Do we judge others because they don't look like us or live like us? Does it hinder us to talk to somebody about Christ because they are poor or don't fit into the church look? I think we all are guilty of this.

This is one thing that blew the minds of the people of Jesus' day. He didn't hang out with the high prosperous crowd like others might have thought he would. He was the King of the Jews but he was not what they expected. He came to save the lost. He ate with the tax collectors and other people that people of that generation considered hideous. If Jesus hung out with people considered to be the wrong crowd in his day, then why we do hinder what we consider to be the wrong crowd from learning about his will. It's a tough subject, because I've considered some people that I felt had the potential to be something good in the church and then I found out how they lived their lives and I fell back and said no. They would never want to be a Christian and even consider changing their life style.

The best example of this is Paul, he was a Christian basher and killer. He was considered to be highly esteemed for what he did to Christians and enjoyed what he did. But that all changed on the road to Damascus. He found the light that would glow in his soul and would go on to write many books that would change the lives of many. He became the voice of the New Testament and would live his life in prisons and would heal many and lived a humble life. He definitely didn't fit into the church crowd on Sunday morning, but God saw great things in Paul.

I often think of the many horrible criminals of today and the past. What great things do they possess or what kind of things could they have possessed for the Lord before they committed their crime to be put in prison. Many prisoners have turned their lives over to God and have tried to live a pure life. But many have done this change just to make themselves look better for the parol board. I believe their are some though who are sincere about this change and want to get the guilt taken away for the crimes.

We need to try our best to seek out all who want to live a peaceful life with Christ, and not be judgemental toward anybody. Matthew 28:19-20 "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Notice Jesus said ALL, not just the good looking and the best dressed.