So, let’s see.

Hamas kicks the butt of Fatah, takes control of Gaza, kills 80 people including women and children, executes 4 members of Fatah in front of their families and does a victory dance for the press in Fattah’s former headquarters in Gaza. Anybody who read Hamas’ articles of confederation would not be surprised at these actions; they are all spelled out in said document. Hamas has announced their intentions in writing, and now they are executing them.

Fatah, being equally benign as Hamas took control of the West Bank, dissolved the elected government, in which Hamas won the majority of power, and made a deal with Israel and the U.S. to stop saying they want to destroy Israel and to begin receiving billions of dollars and euros from the European Union and old Uncle Sam.

I wonder what Bill Clinton thinks since he and his people opened the door for these groups to emerge from hiding and take up the pretense of nationhood and governance?

Whatever the motive, the Palestinian leaders seem to have a taste for blood and power. If they can’t get Israeli blood they will feed off of each other. It’s incredibly sad because the Palestinian women and children and men who want nothing more then to care for their loved ones, live in peace, work and enjoy family life suffer.

I don’t think life for the people of Gaza under Hamas will go well. I see an international train wreck well on its way to fruition.

I predict that Fatah, once they’ve consumed the billions about to be sent to them will feel the effect of international aid wealth and suddenly find the terms of their recognition of Israel suddenly unpalatable. If the Hamas train wreck in Gaza hasn’t occurred by the time they have recovered from this latest problem, they may just join in the train wreck and help it along.

It’s sad, but true. The Palestinian people are nothing but pawns to the power thirsty in the Middle East, and they disregard their lives with great ease.

Equally sad is the seeming fact that the Palestinian people will do nothing to stop the train wreck themselves.

I pray for the peace of Israel and the Middle East.

John

The reports of civilian and children and innocent women being killed in Gaza at the hands of their own elected government forces-Hamas-hardly seems to be raising a peep in the European and American press. I haven’t seen pictures of dead, wounded and dying people being displayed for their gore effect. Yet if these casualties were caused by Israeli or US forces, the world would be screaming foul and the U.N. demanding the immediate condemnation of the United States and Israel.

I pray for the innocent, and there are many innocent n the cross fire, that they find shelter and safety from this storm. I pray that somehow sanity and civility return to the crazed terrorists on both sides of this conflict. Unfortunately, the parties warring in Gaza don’t want peace, they want control. And, they are willing to kill whomever they have to in order to get their way; including their own people and children.

Hamas is waging total war on their own people.

Is that the way of God?

John

 My wife and I have taken to driving around the south, east and west sides of Chicago, along with the occasional declining public housing project, to pray for what my African American Christian brothers call the “Hood.” We believe that the power of prayer is the only long lasting answer to the simmering rage within the poor neighborhoods. My family might consider me crazy, but I truly do believe that our prayers have the ear of God who has the power to release the oppression and depression that hovers around many poor neighborhoods in Chicago.

I challenge Senator Obama to join me in our riding and praying, along with any Chicago Alderman or anybody who wants to make a real difference in the Spiritual environment of the poor areas of Chicago.

I’ve seen amazing things and beautiful children of God all throughout the “Hood.” There are churches and representatives of Christ all throughout Chicago’s poor areas and I invite everybody to join in and pray, pray and pray.

John

I watched Geraldo Rivera interview the drug dealing male prostitute who exposed the sexual immorality and drug use of a leading evangelical leader recently. The tension between evangelical people and the secular liberal world was etched all over the sex workers face. The hate and rage in the prostitutes face saddened me because I ‘m evangelical and don’t hate or despise homosexuals or prostitutes or drug dealers. Jesus came to save homosexuals, prostitutes, drug dealers and all sinners; including me.

The temptation to sin, to disobey God, is seductive and often pleasurable. The cost, however, is steep. I’ve never met an alcohol or drug abuser who was fully functioning in life and happy. I’ve never met a prostitute who felt truly good about their profession. All sin has a cost and like the promise of easy credit and payment terms, the cost of easy sin never works out for the best.

One of the roots of sin is our desire for more: More sex, different sex; more money; more luxury; more property; more power; more of what I want when I want it.

Truly, in God’s eyes, I am no better or worse then the drug dealing homosexual prostitute or evangelical leader who used the prostitute’s services. Without God’s Grave and Power to redeem my sin I could easily be one or the other involved in this debacle.

Oddly, God picks redeemed sinners like this homosexual prostitute and user of homosexual prostitutes to bring His message of Love to a dead and dieing world. Those who’ve been drug through the valley of the shadow of death know that it’s only God who keeps me from falling.

God holds up a finish sign in this world for everybody. It’s a marathon and I get the pleasure of shuffling along the road to Glory until God calls me home. Sin lurks in the shadows and calls out its song of easy credit and payment plans all along the way. When I take my eyes off the road, I can and will occasionally fall. Because I fall doesn’t mean the road is wrong or incorrect. It means I fell.

I thank God that I can go back to God and ask forgiveness of my failure. God even uses my failure to call out to other sinners and tell them it is possible to get back on the road of perfect Love again. That’s why Jesus came.

John

Senator Obama stepped into the race minefield and stepped on to one of the biggest booby traps possible for white people. The snare grabbed him by the foot and he may not know it, but he has tainted himself for a very large group of voters. Hidden in his speech about “ Quiet Riots and Simmering Rage” was what some white people perceived as a threat of violence. That threat being that if you don’t give us what we want, we’ll burn down the house. I don’t think that is what the Senator meant.

He probably meant to say that there are serious problems in the black community that need help and soon. At least, I hope so.

I attend a bible study of mostly African American saints and we pray about the problems in the black community every day. The African American saints I fellowship with are as conservative as I am on issues such as the family, marriage, sexual fidelity, work, self sufficiency and Christian Morality. My black brothers and sisters in Christ look around and see that their community has been torn asunder by the devil, sin and hate, both internal and external.

My brothers and sisters in Christ cry out to Jesus because they see the Devil feeding on the babies, the families, the women, the men and the Christian Fabric in the black community. I cry out to our Lord with them.

Please, Senator Obama, choose your word wisely and choose words that heal and don’t divide.

John

In the virtual world of terrorism there is a theme with some variation that some how communicates this: “ ‘How to win friends and influence people through violent Islamic Jihad.’. Islamists seek average Muslims to tinker with global domination in their garages and mosques. Seed money available.” It may sound funny, but we see the fruit of such entrepreneurial terrorism in the men who wanted to blow up the JFK airport.

Thank God our government caught these geniuses. However, their peers in the virtual IslamoFacists world are watching to see what mistakes these men made and will adjust. The Jihadists have adopted the American ideal of adapt and improvise. Let’s hope we can adapt and improvise to stay ahead of the garage tinkers.

John

If the United States, Europe and the Western civilizations that spawned them were such terrible places, why do people stay? Why do people immigrate to places that offer the freedom that we enjoy? People do after all vote with their feet.

I don’t see millions of people clamoring to move to Cuba, Iran, Gaza, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan, or other beacons of democracy. However, millions of their citizens would love to leave them. If Castro’s medical system is so robust why did he import a Spanish doctor to operate on himself?

About half of all young people in the Islamic World want to leave, but can’t. A huge portion of the Cuban island desires to leave but has to risk the open ocean on wooden rafts to escape.

If you want to be inspired about the “American Dream,” look at the kids in the national spelling bee. A large number of them are very recent immigrants. They and their families have seized the American Dream and are living it.

In the next fifty years most of the ethnic groups from around the world will taste things like space travel and technological wonders that we can now only imagine. Most of them will have left their home countries to come here to taste those wonders.

John