Today's message is simple:

There are many different ways that governments can operate, and there are many different religions that teach you how to have good manners, but you and I only have one life to live. SO, there are two things I recommend doing:
1)Do study the one that will reward you the most.
2)Don't study the ones that don't.

There is only one religion whose example of perfection or enlightenment or superhumanness defeated death -- except for Superman, and we know for a fact that he was fictitious.

Knowing that anything you hear over and over again becomes a fact to your subconscious, you have the free will to program your mind with more of what you want to program it with than what you don't. And you do want to program it with things that will make life for you more peaceful -- things like free enterprise is our current economic system, and it has allowed us to become the wealthiest nation on Earth. The opposite is socialism, where the government takes money from its producers, gives money to non-producers, and everyone is equally poor. The citizens lose economic freedom, and then they lose political freedom, and it gets worse from there.

YOU have to be in control of your mind when other people tell you that a government should take take care of everyone in our community, because the only way to do that is through higher taxes, and the more of our money that is taken from us, the closer we are to being slaves, where 100% is taken from us -- but we are given food and housing by our master.

God says that if the number one thing on your mind is Him and you are seeking His approval, then He'll give you anything that you ask. Given the fact that you'll live less than 150 years, why would anyone waste their time studying anything else, especially things that don't promise such? To avoid the potential for "false hope"? Well, we all have the free will to decide:
1)accept the hopeless reality that life sucks and then you're dead.
2)accept the Bible as reality, in which case life can be as good as your relationship with Jesus, and then you die and go to an even better place.

Choose WISELY.

I can remember being at Sunday school age, and saying my prayers at night (God is good, God is great, ..., ...) and then I go to the sanctuary for the worship service, and I was like "Holy cow! My prayers don't hold a candle to the preacher's prayers!"

Was I right?

Does God really want us to use poetry when we talk to Him? Or what about Thee's and Thou's? I thought we were all His children; I won't take a poll on how many of you guys talk to your parents like you're quoting Shakespeare, or the inside of a Hallmark card: "May the blessings of your bosom float down from your heavenly abundance, and may the seeds of your love grow to become the flowers that play the strings of my heart."

My definition of a prayer is simply talking with my Father -- by the way, I refer to my real dad as "my dad" or "Daddy" (pronounced Deddy). Imagine the "world's greatest dad." If your dad was the world's best dad, you could probably tell him anything or ask him for anything you wanted if it was in your best interest, and you could probably take his advice on everything.

Like with any relationship, the more you talk, the closer you get. Just a thought.

I think that at any age, no matter how old or how young, you should educate yourself about the world around you, figure out what it is that you believe in, and stand up for it, boldly, without wavering, without compromise.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that "if a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live." Why should we live in country that abounds in freedoms and yet not take advantage of the opportunities we are given? Why live in a country that was founded on free enterprise, and choose to go to work to support someone else's family's dreams? Why live in a country that lets you speak your own mind, but let everyone around you -- from your family to your friends to your television -- tell you how to live your life?

I have goals and dreams and a bright picture of how I want my future to be, and I choose to believe that my future will manifest exactly how I picture it, and that's because I choose to do the work necessary to see those dreams realized in my own lifetime. I'm not counting on a 401K, or SS -- social security, not the German secret police. The saying goes that "I'm gonna work like it depends on me, and pray like it depends on God."

I hope you have a plan for your future that is not dictated to you by your peers. I hope that you are motivated enough to achieve your goals. I hope that you believe and that you are bold about it and that you never give up.

You wanna know why I love Jesus? Because He's never let me down, and I know He'll never let me down, and He's always been there for me in any and every area of my life -- without criticism but not without discipline (ever heard the word disciple before?) -- and I believe He'll always be there for me. Throughout my life I've had people let me down; family, friends, teachers, presidents -- they've all let me down at some point in my life, but I made the decision to choose to believe -- that He 1)does exist, 2)is all-powerful, 3)wills what He wills and it wills itself into existence because what He wants to happen will happen (Thy will be done) -- and to submit.

The hardest thing for a man to do is to submit. But is it more logical to have powerful friends or powerful enemies? I choose to believe, and I live in a bubble of peace that some will call self-created, but either way, it's nice to love life again, like I did as a kid. It also makes me proud to control the bad guy within, because it's not always easy -- trust me, most of the time it's not easy, but it does nourish my love for control, because it makes the good me have to overpower the bad.

Women should submit to their husbands -- what does this mean? It means that the good wife in them should overpower the bad wife when she has the opportunity to choose one or the other. And that's not always easy either, because even your spouse may let you down at some point in time. But the good news is that you can always count on Jesus to help you survive any and every challenge that you face in your game of life.

Society tries to categorize human beings into a large variety of categories. But when it comes to grown-ups, there are basicly 2 types of people: producers & non-producers. There are not the haves and the have-nots; there are the givers and the takers. One says "I am proud to be in the category that I'm in," while the other says "Why do there have to be categories?"

We as Americans need to take responsibility for our actions and put an end to casting the blame onto other people. Personal responsibility 101 needs to be taught in schools, too -- the earlier, the better. We are a nation of excuse-makers, and it makes ... everyone ... weak.

This being a free country, we are given the right to choose whether to smile at everyone we see or to look the other way; we can compliment our friends, or we can insult them in public; we can be partners in business, or we can be arch rivals.

Every day is a gift, with free will to choose how to pass the time. Just remember that if you are in control, then you are responsible for your actions.