PRESIDENTIAL

BEFORE YOU VOTE ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW NOW YOU WERE 4 YRS AGO?
DO YOU WANT OBAMA 4 MORE YEARS. AND MAYBE A PERMANENT POSITION MADE BY HIM AN BY AN EXECUTIVE ORDER. THINK ABOUT THIS MAN AND WHAT GOOD HE DID FOR OUR COUNTRY . MITT ROMNEY IS JUST THAT KIND OF A MAN TO DO THE SAME AS REAGAN. YOU WILL SLEEP BETTER AT NIGHT IF YOU VOTE FOR ROMNEY . OBAMA AND HIS COMMIE DEMOCRATS ARE DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY.

PASSOVER & A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

PASSOVER & MY SPIRITUAL JOURNEY: “Joel, how can you be Jewish and believe in Jesus?” by joelcrosenberg

It sounds funny, but I didn't know I was Jewish until I was in the fifth grade. I was 10 or 11 years old when my father told our little family that we were going to have a Passover seder. We'd never celebrated Passover before, and I'd never heard of this holiday, so I asked him what "Passover" is, and he briefly explained it to me. I asked what a "seder" is, and he explained it to me. Then I asked how he knew how to perform a Passover seder, and he said, "Because I'm Jewish." I just stared at him in disbelief. "You're Jewish?" I asked. "Does this mean I'm Jewish? How come this never came up?"

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Joel, your name is Joel Rosenberg. How could you not know you're Jewish? You must have been the dumbest kid in fifth grade!" Guess I was. Nevertheless, I simply didn't know because up to that point, my father -- who was raised Orthodox Jewish in Brooklyn -- had never told me. Neither had my mother, a Gentile from an English/German background. There very few Jewish kids in my school or in our community, and the subject just didn't come up.

Now, when my first novel, The Last Jihad, was published and became a national best-seller in the fall of 2002, radio hosts and reporters noticed that some of my characters in the book were talking about faith in Jesus. They began to ask me, "Joel, are you Jewish or a believer in Jesus?" I said, "Both." They didn't understand, so they pressed me, "But how can you be Jewish and believe in Jesus?" It was a question I'd never expected, but was happy to answer. But what I didn't realize then was that as I wrote more books and those, too, became successful and as I did more interviews and spoke more often around the country and around the world, this would become one of the questions most frequently asked of me: "Joel, how can you be Jewish and believe in Jesus?"

It actually is a very interesting story -- and often funny -- and one that is very meaningful to me. I've shared it in bits and pieces over the years, but over the past few months, a growing number of people have asked me to record my spiritual journey and put it online. So last month I spoke at a conference in Tucson and gave a 50 minute version of my spiritual journey: how and why my parents came to faith in Jesus as the Messiah, how I later did, the initial struggles I had as a young believer, how I discovered I was Jewish in the fifth grade, and one of the key turning points in my life -- the night the Lord spoke directly to me and completely transformed my life. I hope you'll take a moment to listen to it, or watch the video version.

>> To listen to my spiritual journey, please click here (it's the third message down from the top, dated March 7, 2012)

Once you've listened to or watched it, I'd be grateful if you'd go to our "Epicenter Team" page on Facebook and give me your thoughts and comments. I'd love it if you would share some of your spiritual journey, as well. And I'd also encourage you to share this with others, and get their thoughts and see where they are in their spiritual journey.

This is a good time of year to draw nearer to the Lord than ever before and consider where you are on your spiritual journey. It's a good time of year..... 

• To read the Passover story in Exodus 12.
• To read the prophecies in Isaiah 53 about how the Jewish Messiah would one day suffer as the guilt offering for our sins.
• To read how John the Baptist called Jesus "the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world" in John 1:29. 
• To read the story of Jesus celebrating Passover with his disciples in Luke 22.
• To read how Rabbi Saul -- who became the Apostle Paul -- described in I Corinthians 5 Jesus as our Passover lamb who was sacrificed for us.

Do you know Jesus Christ in a real and personal way? Have you received Him as your personal Savior and Lord? My prayer is that today you’ll take time to truly consider what Jesus said, what He did, and His call to you, “Come, follow Me.” (Mark 1:17).

Please click here for a simple, concise summary of the Gospel -- "The Four Spiritual Laws" -- and a clear explanation of how to receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord.

MOBILE PEDDLER

The Mobile peddler

12:20 AM, Mar. 23, 2012  |  

Written by

Jack Knight

Through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy, the life of the Mobile, Ala., peddler is pure magic. They've served me well for almost a lifetime.
In 1943, Mobile's shipyards were teeming with thousands of people from the South. My family, the peddlers, was part of this migration.
Doug and I worked the peddling business with dad, Reese, and grandfather, Stock. We sold anything that was worth selling, including an occasional dog. Wood was our hottest item since it was the fuel of choice.
Each day we passed a park-like meadow of large oaks with mossy beards almost touching the ground. For the past week the topic of conversation was the strange people who set up camp in the meadow.
You see, my dad was anxious to sell the folks our stuff, but Grandpa Stock always said, "No Reese, they ain't right and they ain't our kind."
This particular morning we were driving past the little squatter community when a man wearing red britches, a yellow overcoat and a brown derby waved us down.
It was instantaneous lightning; the flying man in the red britches was riding the running board, telling my dad his name was Romeo Besnik, ruler of the roost and the keeper of the money bags. Reese jammed the brakes, slamming Besnik's head against the truck door, but it didn't addle or phase the old coot.
Stock told Reese to gun Old Hitler, our '37 Chevy truck, but Mr. Besnik already had convinced Reese he was the main man and it was a great opportunity for selling the entire load at a nice profit.
Stock asked Reese to back down into the meadow assuring us good leverage if needed, but dad paid no heed. He drove the truck straight into the waiting crowd who was now waving dollar bills. Immediately three young attractive Gypsy girls appeared and started bartering Reese and Stock for the vegetables and fruit.
With Reese and Stock busy bartering the young girls, the Gypsies stormed Old Hitler and began to take our load. Doug and I, attempting to save ourselves, climbed on top the cab. Dad finally realized what was happening but it was too late. He screamed for Stock to get in the truck, which he did minus his shirt.
Dad u-turned our truck right through the camp grounds of the meadow with Gypsies, pots, pans and canvas tents flying. I can still see them skittering out of the path of Old Hitler. Three miles later we thanked God and took inventory of our well-being, and we were fine, but the load, it was all gone with the exception of a few small melons and several bundles of turnip greens.
The Gypsies left soon afterwards, yet the meadow was never the same. For Doug and me, the mossy oaks became little thieves all wearing red britches and derby hats.
My daddy never mentioned the fiasco, but Grandpa Stock, he always gave Reese a knowing look that said it all, "Reese they ain't right and they ain't our kind."

Jack Knight is a retired Los Angeles City Schools mathematics and computer science teacher. Reach him at knight3230@att.com.

A Bucket of Shrimp

 Subject: A Bucket of Shrimp

 It happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembled a giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean.

Old Ed came strolling along the beach to his favorite pier.  Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of shrimp.  Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the world to himself.  The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now.

Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach.  Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts...and his bucket of shrimp.

Before long, however, he is no longer alone.  Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier..

Before long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and flapping wildly.  Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds.  As he does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, 'Thank you.  Thank you.'

In a few short minutes the bucket is empty.  But Ed doesn't leave.

He stands there lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place.  Invariably, one of the gulls lands on his sea-bleached, weather-beaten hat - an old military hat he's been wearing for years.

When he finally turns around and begins to walk back toward the beach, a few of the birds hop along the pier with him until he gets to the stairs, and then they, too, fly away.  And old Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.

If you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad used to say.  Or, 'a guy that's a sandwich shy of a picnic,' as my kids might say.   To onlookers, he's just another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a bucket full of shrimp.

To the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty.  They can seem altogether unimportant .....maybe even a lot of nonsense.

Old folks often do strange things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters.

Most of them would probably write Old Ed off, down there in  Florida . That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.

His full name:  Eddie Rickenbacker.  He was a famous hero back in World War II.  On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his seven-member crew went down.  Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.

Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated for days on the rough waters of the Pacific.  They fought the sun.  They fought sharks.  Most of all, they fought hunger.  By the eighth day their rations ran out. No food.  No water.  They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew where they were.

They needed a miracle.  That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle.  They tried to nap.  Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose.  Time dragged.  All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft.

Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap.  It was a seagull!

Old Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move.  With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and wring its neck.  He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it.  Then they used the intestines for bait.  With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more bait......and the cycle continued.  With that simple survival technique, they were able to endure the rigor of the sea until they were found and rescued (after 24 days at sea...).

Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first lifesaving seagull.  And he never stopped saying, 'Thank you.'  That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.

Reference: (Max Lucado, In The Eye of the Storm, pp.221, 225-226)

PS:  Eddie was also an Ace in WW I and started Eastern Airlines.