Why I would vote for Hillary Clinton

I'm a republican, a real one, not a McCain, Bush, Cheney, et al neo-con republican. I'm conservative. I would vote for Hillary Clinton over John McCain, and after this recent comment, I'd vote for Hillary Clinton over many other candidates too.
Read.
I firmly believe that the willingness of our leadership to back Israel is one of the most important topics we need to discern before an election. God said he would bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse Israel. This is the kind of backbone I want in a leader. Obama is a pansifist (hat tip to Miss O'hara for that word) of the highest degree, and far to weak and ideological to be the President during this stressful time. We are being held hostage at the pumps by middle-Eastern countries with questionable ties to terrorism. We have to know where we draw the line, how far OPEC can push us. I think Sen. Clinton knows that line, after reading that she will NUKE Iran if they attack Israel. Bravo, Mrs. Clinton. We disagree on many things, but you won me over on what matters most.

Ubuntu 8.04 Coming Soon!

I'm not a fan of Microsoft. I loved my old Apple Powerbook, but got rid of it awhile back, and hope to get a new Apple MacBook Pro some day soon. In the meantime, though, I've fallen in love with Ubuntu. I've played with Linux distros for 5 or 6 years now, and Ubuntu is the first I've seen that truly gives that polished, pretty, Consumer GUI feel that Mac or Windows does.
And I'm geeking out over the new version of Ubuntu being released in just 3 short days! I've been playing with creating my own LAMP server for several months for hosting this very blog, and even wrote about it at my blog's old homepage (which is, by the way, where you can read my older stuff). Although I haven't found the time or the patience to learn how to finish my setup, I plan to one day. :)
Even if you think Windows is the best thing in the world, I strongly encourage you to give Ubuntu 8.04 a try. This is first linux brand that I heartily recommend to non-ubergeeks. Even my wife uses Ubuntu with great ease. It's secure, stable, and FREE! You can't beat free, in my experience.

No news is good news

I have a store of news and issues that I'm very excited to discuss, but I spent the majority of my weekend installing Central A/C in my house. And my girl had her very first SoftBall game. So, new material will trickle in, and I do plan to get something up for the Christian Carnival by tomorrow.
As far as Home Repair goes, I highly recommend paying someone else to do it. Attics and crawl spaces are not where I like to spend my weekends. We did, however, save a few thousand dollars, and drastically increased the resale value of our home. But, if you can afford it, I definitely recommend sitting in the house and sipping some lemonade while someone else gets hot and dirty.

Church of Oprah?!?!?!?!?!

If Barack Hussein Obama turns out to be the antichrist, Oprah would be a great false prophet.
Just a thought.

Christian Carnival 220 is up!

Well, as part of my return to the blogosphere, I have participated in this week's Christian Carnival, up at Imago Dei.
I'm always looking for some new interesting reading, and I found a bit this week. Parableman always interests me, even if I disagree with him from time to time. Bounded Irrationality was a refreshing read this week, and I've added it to Google Reader. I recommend you do the same.

Live, Laugh, Give

For this first installment of "Live, Laugh, Give" I'm going to keep it rather simple, with some ideas that I live by as often as possible. Every week, here, I'll discuss one practical way to live your life by the Bible, and Jesus' example, one way to enjoy the little things, even in the midst of hard times, and one way to give back to those around you.

Live:

Jesus teaches us the value of children several times through his gospels. But he demonstrates it in such a great way in how he reacts to them in Matthew 19. With all the "adult" stress and cares in the world, it can be so easy to look over the children in our lives and rush through evenings and weekends in a flurry of all the things that we just really need to get done. If we don't take the time while they're young to teach them the important things in life, they'll miss out on how great a lifetime of joy and serving God can be. Let's encourage our little children to come to Jesus . . . and us. In doing so, I think we can learn more about who Jesus really is, when we see him through their eyes. Plus, we get to enjoy time with them that we'll never have back.

Laugh:

In a family of 4, everyone is busy with something all the time. It's really difficult to find the time to spend with your spouse you both deserve. The not-so-laughable part of this tip is this: make a schedule for evenings and stick to it. Kids in bed at the same time every night. I myself, at this time, am usually tempted to kick back and unwind playing video games or surf the net. I'm sure you all have your own vices like this. This lifestyle makes it really easy to forget why you fell in love in the first place. Turn off the TV at least one or two nights a week and just talk. You may rediscover a romance that you thought had been replaced by soccer games and 2 am feedings.

Give:

Everyone of us has been touched by cancer. 1 in 7 people will die from it. Local communities across the U.S. will be having the Relay for Life next month, and typically do various types of fundraisers for cancer victims and research. Find your relay event here, and ask what you can do to help. This is a great cause, and one that benefits all of us directly or indirectly. With the amazing advances in science we're making recently, I can't believe that a cure for cancer is that far off. Maybe the few dollars you spend sponsoring a walker, or buying a cake will be the final straw in defeating this disease.

Extreme Measures

I was reading Jesus' sermon on the Mount recently, in Matthew 5, and noticed something I had never seen before. We use his words on adultery and lust as an example of why you can't live by the letter of the law, but by the spirit of it. It also shows us what the Law was originally intended to do: show us our sinful hearts. We can see that if we keep the commandments of God, and live a seemingly holy life, that's all the matters, but our heart must be changed.
I found it very interesting, then, that as Jesus makes this point, he segues into this:

"And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."
-- Matthew 5:29-30

I don't think it is a coincidence he says this directly after telling us that lust in your heart is the same as committing adultery through God's eyes. I actually think the allusion here is as purposeful as it is blunt. Before you get all hot and bothered, I don't think we're being instructed by Jesus to actually borrow our neighbor's hatchet and start whacking away at body parts. I think what we're being instructed to do here, is to take whatever measures are necessary, no matter how extreme, to prevent ourselves from falling into sin.

This is a bit of a foreign concept, I think, in today's age. We tend to be told by our friends and churches that many sins are okay, or are understandable, God understands, and as long as you're giving it your best shot, he'll save you a spot in heaven. Clearly, Jesus sees sin differently. Not only is it not good enough for you not to sin outwardly, but evil, carnal thoughts in your heart are also enough to condemn you.

Jesus is telling us here that sin is so foul, so destructive, that you must do whatever you can to make sure you don't sin. I know someone who found it incredibly difficult to keep themselves from looking at pornography on the internet. It was their last resort to maintain their relationship with God, to sign up for XXXChurch.com's accountability software that emails an accountability partner of your choosing if you go to sexually themed websites. That way he knew he couldn't sin in secret anymore. As far as I know, this has worked for him.

But each of us have an area in life where we are most easily tempted, and our instructions are equally as clear as Jesus' teachings on lust: get away from sin in any way possible. Perhaps friends, acquaintances, people we have lunch at work with, TV shows, movies, etc are problems drawing us back into sins we want desperately to be out of. Maybe you can't stop yourself from drinking when you're with a certain crowd of people. Maybe you have uncontrollable habits or thoughts because of what you fill your mind with on the internet or TV. No matter the cause, the solution is the same. It may take extreme measures to ensure you stay away from sin. People may think you're silly, and that it doesn't take all that to be Christian. I've even known Pastors who got on to church members for being too extreme in trying to avoid a sin. I know of a man who came out of gangs, drugs, and prostitution, who, when he found himself tempted to look at a woman lustfully, would actually make himself leave wherever he was at to get away. He was in a mall with some friends, and actually excused himself and left the mall! I know that some of you are chuckling self-righteously right now, and saying things like, "Well, obviously he has a problem he needs help with if he can't even be in public without lusting." Obviously he does, Pharisee. Obviously we all do, we just don't take our sin seriously enough to do something equally as extreme about it. Or maybe we enjoy it too much?

Either way, our calling is clear. Just not murdering someone, or hopping into bed and committing adultery, is not enough. Our hearts must be pure. And if we can't find a way to keep them pure, and still go to the same places, be with the same friends, or watch the same things, we must take extreme measures.