Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness

1 Corinthians 11:11-12 Amplified Bible says, "Nevertheless, in [the plan of] the Lord and from His point of view woman is not apart from and independent of man, nor is man aloof from and independent of woman; For as woman was made from man, even so man is also born of woman; and all [whether male or female go forth] from God [as their Author]." God's ideal of working together in harmony under the leadership of God is not always implemented in reality. Where God's ideals are not implemented oppression is.

Young Molly Welsh was an employee in the late 17th century in Britain. Her employer said she stole a pail of milk. Welsh said a cow kicked over the pail and spilled the milk. The quarrel ended with Welsh's employer arresting her.

British law allowed for Molly to be hung for stealing. Instead she was sent to a tobacco farm in Maryland, which was a colony of Britain at the time.

For seven years Welsh worked as an indentured servant. Then she earned her freedom and rented a farm close to the city of Baltimore, Maryland. Within a few years she bought a small farm and two slaves one of which was a man with the last name Bannaka from the African country Senegal who said he had been a prince in his homeland.

Molly Welsh freed Bannaka and her other slave around 1696 and married Bannaka whose name changed to Banneky. They stayed on their farm because a marriage between a black man and a white woman wasn't legal.

Their eldest of four daughters, Mary, married a man named Robert who was from Guinea West Africa. Robert kept Mary's name of Banneky.

Mary and Robert Banneky had three girls and one boy named Benjamin born November 9, 1731. This Benjamin is the Benjamin Banneker famous in history as an astronomer, mathematician, inventor and writer. Molly Welsh was also very fond of her grandson who she introduced to the Bible and encouraged his love of learning.

An African Swahili proverb says, "The way you bring up a child is he way it grows up." Benjamin Banneker grew up in a family where women and men of different races loved each other. They also valued equality and freedom and were able to live and work together harmoniously under the leadership of God.

Benjamin Banneker was a free African American man who lived during the time of legal African American slavery in the United States. In 1791 Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson who was secretary of state to President George Washington and had earlier drafted and signed the US Declaration of Independence, which says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

The Chinese invented fireworks. Banneker's letter was fireworks comparing African American slavery to the bondage of the American colonies before they obtained independence from Britain. Banneker's letter to Jefferson advocating African American equality and freedom became famous and says:

"Suffer me to recall to your mind that time, in which the arms of the British crown were exerted, with every powerful effort, in order to reduce you to a state of servitude; look back, I entreat you ....You were then impressed with proper ideas of the great violation of liberty, and the free possession of those blessings, to which you were entitled by nature; but, sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind, and of his equal and impartial distribution of these rights and privileges which he hath conferred upon them, that you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence, so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression, that you should at the same time be found guilty of that most criminal act, which you professedly detested in others."

The Brazo River in Texas was named Los Brazos de Dios which means In the Arms of God. God does not use His arms for criminal acts to oppress humanity. He has His arms open to a now and forever relationship with a wide variety of people. John 17:3 Amplified Bible says, "And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent."

God is the Author of freedom, equality, peace and all that is good and wants to share His goodness with many. Many Christians and Christian ideas are in America and elsewhere. Today in America Welsh and Bannaka would not have to hide from the law their interracial, marital love on a Maryland farm; African Americans are not subject to slavery, and Welsh would not be hanged for allegedly stealing in Britain. However, some people are still oppressed. "As long as there is one ... oppressed human being in this world the struggle la lucha continua," said Dr. Georgia McMurray, educator, writer, activist who had  the progressively degenerative muscle disorder Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.

On July 4th America celebrates independence from Britain. The ultimate source of oppression is Satan. God is the Liberator. Is there a day you celebrate your liberation from Satan? Write to:

Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, Virginia 22195

Follow Michele F. Jackson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.

Whose Time Is It?

Ephesians 5:15-17 Amplified Bible says, "Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil. Therefore do not be vague and thoughtless and foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is."

The Chinese invented the mechanical clock. It is never a good, productive use of time to be outside the will of God.

Jeanne Louise Calment was 122 when she died in 1997 in France; she holds the record for the world's longest living person in modern times. Jiroemon Kimura died at age 116 in Japan in 2013 and is the world's oldest man in modern times. No matter how long we live, this earthly life will end. Ending it without a relationship with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit equals a second death. Revelation 20:14-15 English Standard Version Bible says, "Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." Creyentes (believers) have their name written in the book of life and need not waste any time now or ever.

The second death can be avoided. John 1:12 Amplified Bible says, "But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name—"

Helen Keller is a creyente who was blind and deaf. As a young person and even into her 70s and beyond, Keller traveled making speeches to help people live better lives. Keller said, "I thank God for my handicaps, for through them, I have found myself, my work, and my God."

 A North African proverb says, "Every day of your life is a page in your history." Keller used her time on earth to create an outstanding history. She was a creyente who had a several-decades-long friendship and business partnership with Anne Sullivan and was a writer, speaker and advocate. Keller spoke out for a variety of causes including disability rights, women's right to vote, just working conditions for the poor and international peace. 

God probably said to Helen Keller at the end of her earthly life "... Well done, you upright (honorable, admirable) and faithful servant! You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little; I will put you in charge of much. Enter into and share the joy (the delight, the blessedness) which your master enjoys" (Matthew 25:21 Amplified Bible.)

Do you believe God will say likewise to you? Are you making history pages in God's timing and will?

Un Corrido Nuevo (A New Ballad)

Zacchaeus was a rich government worker who had cheated people financially. Then he met Jesus Christ, entered into a relationship with Christ and restored by four times the things he had stole as a chief tax collector. Luke 19:1-10 Amplified Bible says, "And [Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through it. And there was a man called Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, and [he was] rich. And he was trying to see Jesus, which One He was, but he could not on account of the crowd, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up in a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass that way. And when Jesus reached the place, He looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried and came down, and he received and welcomed Him joyfully. And when the people saw it, they all muttered among themselves and indignantly complained, He has gone in to be the guest of and lodge with a man who is devoted to sin and preeminently a sinner. So then Zacchaeus stood up and solemnly declared to the Lord, See, Lord, the half of my goods I [now] give [by way of restoration] to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I [now] restore four times as much. And Jesus said to him, Today is [Messianic and spiritual] salvation come to [all the members of] this household, since Zacchaeus too is a [real spiritual] son of Abraham; For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost."

America has benefited greatly from the labor of voluntary and involuntary immigrants without always treating them well. Now is a good time to begin to right the wrongs. Immigrants shouldn't have to pay to become citizens nor should they be denied tax benefits available to others.

God wants all people to be treated well no matter where they live or who they are. Desmond Tutu of South Africa said in a sermon delivered in Norway, "At home in South Africa I have sometimes said in big meetings where you have black and white together: "Raise your hands!" Then I've said, "Move your hands," and I've said, "Look at your hands--different colors representing different people. You are the rainbow people of God."

And you remember the rainbow in the Bible is the sign of peace. The rainbow is the sign of prosperity. We want peace, prosperity and justice and we can have it when all the people of God, the rainbow people of God, work together."

Jesus Christ wants us to have spiritual, psychological, physical and financial prosperity.

The Chinese invented paper money. God teaches us in the Bible book of Deuteronomy chapter 28 that when we do right money comes. Let's make a new corrido (a ballad) about America doing spiritually, psychologically, physically and financially right by immigrants.

Love Immigrants

An East African proverb says, "When minds are the same, that which is far off will come." When 3,000 Mexican soldiers faced 6,000 invading French soldiers, a Mexican victory looked far off.

But Mexican soldiers asked Mexican farmers called campesinos to help fight, and united they defeated the French on May 5, 1862, in Puebla, Mexico. Mexican President Benito Juarez, who was of Native American heritage, made the victory a national celebration called Cinco de Mayo (the 5th of May).

The French used defeat to renew their determination to fight and fought with Mexico while the Civil War was being fought in the United States between the Union and the Confederacy. France was interested in defeating Mexico, so that they could weaken the Union. France favored the Confederacy. Mexico was an ally of the Union.

Mexican President Benito Juarez and American President Abraham Lincoln both grew up in poverty and later on became lawyers and presidents of their nations; they were also political allies.

The Mexicans kept defeating the French and celebrating each May 5th. After the Union defeated the Confederacy, President Lincoln sent soldiers to America's border with Mexico to help Mexico fight off the French. Of the 30,000 US troops sent, 20,000 were African Americans. Finally in 1867, France had enough of war and left Mexico.

A free Mexico was good for Mexicans, the Union and African Americans.

In the Bible book of Joshua God gave the Hebrews the Promised Land. God also has a nation for various groups of people. Boundaries can be beautiful.

Sometimes people need to leave the nation of their birth or choice and join another nation. Today and throughout American history Mexicans and other people have sought to join America. The Bible way is to welcome strangers and to make them friends and family, not to shackle them with debt, a long path to citizenship and splitting apart families.

Proverbs 17:17 Amplified Bible says, "A friend loves at all times, and is born, as is a brother, for adversity."

During African American slavery many friends helped runaway slaves escape to freedom through the Underground Railroad. While many advocates of slavery practiced splitting apart African American families, many abolitionists found ways to keep families together. God put children and parents together.

May 5th is also celebrated in Japan as Children's Day. Parents honor children by flying carp-shaped kites or banners.

Happy May 5th! Share stories of U.S. citizens helping immigrant families. Write to:
 
Michele F. Jackson
P. O. Box 2106
Woodbridge, VA 22195
 
Follow Michele F. Jackson on the social media Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/michelelove30.

Even more wonderful than being a free citizen family in an earthly nation is to be one in an eternal kingdom family. Today is Resurrection Sunday for Orthodox Christians when the resurrection of Jesus Christ from His death is celebrated. Are you a family member of the eternal kingdom of God? Talk to God and allow Him to give you a new kingdom life. John 1:12-13 Complete Jewish Bible says, "But to as many as did receive him, to those who put their trust in his person and power, he gave the right to become children of God, not because of bloodline, physical impulse or human intention, but because of God."

In China Qi means the foundation of courage, will and intention. Courage requires conviction in love. Immigrants and all people need love. 1 John 4:7-11 English Standard Version Bible says, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

Multiplication

"Sadly, many people don't really know true love--that is, God's love for them. I'm talking about a real revelation of His unwavering, unconditional love. This may be an underlying cause of many problems in relationships today. Quite honestly, many people just don't like themselves, and it's mainly due to the lack of a revelation that God, the Creator of the universe, is absolutely crazy about them," writes International Bible Teacher Joyce Meyer in her February 2013 Enjoying Everyday Life magazine.

Booker Taliaferro Washington liked himself even as a boy. People who like themselves seek to improve themselves and other people. Shortly after Washington was freed from African-American slavery as a boy, he was forced into the slavery of child labor. Sometimes he had to go to work starting at 4 a.m. in salt mines and working throughout the day. He also later in his childhood had to work in coal mines. Nevertheless, Washington and his mother schemed together for ways to send him to night school and to home school him. Washington taught himself the English alphabet.

While liking himself, it took some time to get over envy of others who were born into lives with more opportunities. Washington, an educator, speaker, author and Civil Rights Leader who was born into slavery and rose to the top of African-American leadership during Jim Crow segregation, writes in his book, Up From Slavery, about his boyhood, "In those days, and later as a young man, I used to try to picture in my imagination the feelings and ambitions of a white boy with absolutely no limit placed upon his aspirations and activities. I used to envy the white boy who had no obstacles placed in the way of his becoming a Congressman, Governor, Bishop, or President by reason of the accident of his birth or race. I used to picture the way that I would act under such circumstances; how I would begin at the bottom and keep rising until I reached the highest round of success.

In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reach the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race." 

Besides his mother, a multiplicity of people helped Washington to overcome the obstacles of being born into slavery. God never meant for us to live lives of isolation. Proverbs 18:1 Amplified Bible says, "He who willfully separates and estranges himself [from God and man] seeks his own desire and pretext to break out against all wise and sound judgment."

Self-centeredness is stupid and Satanic.

Jesus Christ talks to God the Father shortly before Christ is going to be crucified, killed and resurrected in three days from the dead. One of the things Christ asks God the Father for is that all believers may be one as Christ and the Father are one.

The Complete Jewish Bible says in Psalm 133:1, "Oh, how good, how pleasant it is for brothers to live together in harmony."

Francis Chan writes in his book, multiply disciples making disciples, "Jesus prayed that we would be united. Why? So that the world would believe that Jesus was sent by God, and so that the world would know that God loves us. Isn't it amazing that Jesus believed that the unity of His church would communicate all of this to the world? So often we assume that having right and logical arguments will be enough, but Jesus said the world will be convinced by our unity. And when you think about it, haven't we all heard the objections from unbelievers who point to divisions in the church as a cause for their disbelief?

... Jesus prayed for our unity, which means that we have to focus on loving and serving each other. But we need to be doing this in such a way that the world can see what we are doing and recognize it as a picture of unity."

Let's live in advocacy without atrocity. While there is plenty we will not agree on, disagreement does not give us permission to mistreat people.

Try to understand people. Ask God for revelation about why someone is sinning.

Everyone is a candidate from coming into relationship with Christ. Don't write-off anyone. Naomi Zacharias writes in her book, the scent of water grace for every kind of broken, about women who appear to be choosing prostitution, "Someone's willingness to subject herself to something has never made a harmful act any less exploitive (sic) or relieved the offender of responsibility. If this were so, then neither should we intervene on behalf of the abused wife who chooses to endure beatings or the laborer who willingly goes to work in the sweatshop because he needs an income in order to eat."

The answer for everything in life is God. He knows how to change us, so that we can get along with people and do other good things. Jennifer Salinas sings, "Ven A Cristo" ("Come to Christ;") He is "Incomparable" (Incomparable).

Embrace Disability. Reject Abortion.

Jennifer McKenna Morbelli, a 29-year-old woman 33 weeks pregnant entered the Germantown Reproductive Health Center in Germantown, Maryland, on February 3, 2013. LeRoy Carhart peformed a multi-day abortion procedure where the goal was to induce labor and deliver a dead baby. Instead by February 7 both Jennifer Morbelli and her daughter, Madison Leigh, were dead.

Morbelli, a full-time substitute teacher at the Church Street School in White Plains, New York, may have sought the late-term abortion due to a medical condition of her daughter. Dan Morse in his February 11, 2013, Washington Post article, "Antiabortion activists blame Germantown clinic for woman’s death," writes, "The family of the dead woman, preparing to bury her this week, could not be reached for comment.  An online gift registry linked to her and her husband indicated that her pregnancy had been wanted.

In Maryland, late-term abortions — those that occur when the fetus is developed enough to survive — are legal when the life or the health of the mother is at stake or when the baby develops a fetal abnormality."

The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:9 Amplified Bible, "Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the [very] sentence of death, but that was to keep us from trusting in and depending on ourselves instead of on God Who raises the dead."

Learning that we have a disabled child to raise may feel like a sentence of death to some.

Did Morbelli have people around her telling her regularly that anything can be overcome?

No matter who we are we need to regularly hear words of encouragement and edification. Proverbs 18:21 the Message Bible says, "Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose." What we say and do comes from what we think which is influenced by what we are hearing.

We need to hear that God still does miracles, and He wants us to ask Him for them. Miracles come in different manners.

Sometimes God can work through fetal surgery to fix a problem. Most ectopic pregnancies occur when new human life grows in mom's too-small fallopian tubes instead of her uterus/womb creating a life-threatening situation for mom and child. Two percent of ectopic pregnancies occur outside the fallopian tubes. Jayne Jones could have had a life-of-the-mother abortion since, her son, Billy, was growing outside her uterus threatening both his and her lives, but she choose to continue her pregnancy. At this time science is not usually sophisticated enough to preserve both the life of the mother and child when an ectopic pregnancy occurs. But Jayne and Billy's story has a happy outcome. Billy was born through a special surgery called a laparotomy on April 19, 2008, weighing 2lb 2oz and breathing on his own at 28 weeks gestation.

We also need to hear that sometimes people make mistakes, and we need to ask God for knowledge, understanding and wisdom. A child diagnosed inside the womb with a medical problem can be born without a medical problem due to a wrong diagnosis.

We also need to hear that a child diagnosed in the womb with a medical problem can be prayed for, and God will supernaturally heal the child.

We also need to hear that sometimes it is God's will for a child to live with a disability.

God meant for us to have an enjoyable life with or without having a disability. In John 10:10 Amplified Bible Jesus Christ says, "The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)."

A Chinese proverb says, "To plug the ears while stealing the bell;" it means "to deceive oneself." We are deceived if we think we can have an enjoyable life without the energy of the Holy Spirit. God's idea of joy does not mean that we will not experience pain. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." Romans 5:3-5 Amplified Bible says, "Moreover [let us also be full of joy now!] let us exult and triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character [of this sort] produces [the habit of] [joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation. Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us."

With a disability and without a disability there are some days and even some years where we just rather not deal with them and/or are not sure where it all is going to end up. But the good thing about being one of God's people is that nothing that happens is without purpose. The Apostle Paul writes about God the Son Jesus Christ in Colossians 1:16-17 Amplified Bible, "For it was in Him that all things were created, in heaven and on earth, things seen and things unseen, whether thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities; all things were created and exist through Him [by His service, intervention] and in and for Him. And He Himself existed before all things, and in Him all things consist (cohere, are held together)."

God created people with disabilities and abilities to live and not to be killed by abortion, infanticide, suicide or any other deadly scheme to handle problems. 

God wants to spend now and eternity with us. John 17:3 Amplified Bible says, "And this is eternal life: [it means] to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and [likewise] to know Him, Jesus [as the] Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent."

God want us to ask to receive a now and eternal relationship with Him. John 1:12 Amplified Bible says, "But to as many as did receive and welcome Him, He gave the authority (power, privilege, right) to become the children of God, that is, to those who believe in (adhere to, trust in, and rely on) His name."

"I like you very much just as you are," says Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) to Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger) when she lists her faults to him in the romantic comedy Bridget Jones's Diary. God would like for us to do like Bridget, and He'll respond like Mark. We don't have to get ourselves together before seeking a relationship with God. God considers all our faults (sins) forgiven and forgotten because of the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

God accepts us as we are, and He wants us to keep on getting better empowered by His Spirit. God is God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit (1 X 1 X 1 = 1). The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Amplified Bible, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom). And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit."

Dreamboats Can Come from Places We Consider Down-And-Dirty

". . . Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip replied, Come and see!" -- John 1:46 Amplified Bible

When Nathanael asked Philip this question, Nazareth had such a bad reputation that it seemed no good person could come from there. Likewise some said don't go to Moab, because good people and good things did not come out of Moab. These places had a reputation for being down-and-dirty, yet some dreamboats -- Jesus Christ and Ruth -- came out of Nazareth and Moab.

Neither Jesus Christ nor Ruth were defined by their environments. Jesus and Ruth had their priorities in proper order. God was number one in both Jesus' life and Ruth's life.

Ruth's relationship with God and herself was secure enough that she was not defined by her biological family. When they were false worshipers, she had been given the grace of God to become and remain a true worshiper. Ruth left her family in Moab and journeyed to Israel to form a new family.

Ruth knew how to have good relationships with God, self and others. Ruth had an awesome relationship with herself. When Ruth made up her mind, others couldn't change it. Naomi tried to get Ruth to stay in the wrong place, but Ruth knew to move on from Moab to Israel.

Ruth loved herself without narcissism. She cultivated an awesome relationship with Naomi. Her good choices in relationships created opportunities for even more awesome relationships like her relationship with Boaz. The women of Ruth's community had such a high opinion of Ruth that they said Ruth was better to Naomi than seven sons.

Receiving a good name from ones community is a good thing. Proverbs 22:1 English Standard Version Bible counsels, "A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold." 

A good name is not just for Jesus Christ and Ruth. Multiple people can have one. "If you don’t see the value of community it’s difficult for you to win," said Sonia Sotomayor during a colloquium with journalist Maria Hinojosa at the El Barrio Museum in Harlem, where she spoke about her autobiography My Beloved World. Sotomayor, 58, made history in 2009 when she was nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama to be the first Latino justice on the high court. She is of a Puerto Rican descent and grew up in modest means in Bronx, New York.

When someone like Jesus Christ or Ruth appears in our life, live out the attitude, "Come and see!" A gift will be waiting for us to open up and enjoy. The apostles enjoyed the Messiah. Naomi enjoyed being a grandmother to Ruth's son, Obed. Boaz enjoyed being a husband to Ruth. The women of Ruth's community enjoyed having her as a member.

Jesus Christ and Ruth stood out. They were different and divine. Jesus Christ is the Messiah. His people are joint-heirs with Jesus.

Perhaps you have met someone from a place like Nazareth or Moab? May you be wise enough not to dismiss or discriminate against him or her because he or she may be from a place with a reputation for being down-and-dirty.

Actually, all believers come from a down-and-dirty place of spiritual death; then one day God resurrected His people into an eternal relationship with Him. God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost (1 X 1 X 1 = 1) keeps on working with us to bring out more of the God inside.

Father God in the Precious Name of My Lord and Savior Jesus Christ empowered by the Holy Ghost, help us to recognize discrimination in ourselves. Empower us to love those who are different from us. Dreamboats can come out of down-and-dirty places.

Some Haters Make the Best Lovers

Sometimes those haters of God who are forgiven much, love much. A woman who committed many sins, hating God and people, later washed Jesus Christ's feet with her tears and hair. Jesus says about her in Luke 7:47 New Living Translation Bible, "I tell you, her sins--and they are many--have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love."

Killing people, or any other sin, does not disqualify one from receiving the forgiveness of God, an eternal relationship with Him and being changed to love much. Before he was the Apostle Paul in love with God traveling the world to share God, Paul was Saul the serial murderer threatening to track down as many Christians as he could to take them to jail and to have them sentenced to death. Likewise before he was a mediator and interpreter named Paulo de Santa Fe for missionary Francis Xavier sharing God with the Japanese, Japanese Anjiro murdered a person and fled Japan. After God changed him and began the love affair between Himself and Anjiro turned Paulo de Santa Fe, Paulo de Santa Fe and Francis Xavier in the middle 1500s entered Japan and were among the first Christian missionaries to the Japanese.

A bad beginning does not have to lead to a bad ending. No matter what we have done, the love of God can reach us and change us. Instead of eternal hate and death; we may live in eternal, overflowing, lavish love and life.

Keep on praying to God to reveal His love and person to people who are slaves to sin. Talking to God is not in vain. God may take a long time to answer believers' requests from our perspective, but He is not deaf, dumb or disabled to affirmatively answer at the right time. 1 John 5:14-15 Amplified Bible says, "And this is the confidence (the assurance, the privilege of boldness) which we have in Him: [we are sure] that if we ask anything (make any request) according to His will (in agreement with His own plan), He listens to and hears us. And if (since) we [positively] know that He listens to us in whatever we ask, we also know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted us as our present possessions] the requests made of Him."

God does not always call the "good" people to be His messengers. That hater on the wrong path today, one tomorrow may be God's appointed messenger of love to many like the Apostle Paul, Paulo de Santa Fe, the woman who anointed Jesus' feet  with her tears and hair or one of Jesus' other lovers who started out as haters.  It's even possible for the gang rapists of 23-year-old, physiotherapy student, Nirbhaya, in south Delhi, India, on December 16, 2012, who caused her death on December 30, 2012, to repent of their sins and to receive an eternal relationship with God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ and God the Holy Ghost. May India, which has 1.2 billion people, undergo a godly transformation of is view and treatment of women. Cada veinte minutos se comete una violación en la India. Every twenty minutes a violation/rape has occurred in India, according to the census of crimes of the ministry of the interior of New Delhi, India.

Yes, former rapists and murderers will be married to God in heaven for all eternity. "And every human being is precious," says Desmond Mpilo Tutu, South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop who came to public prominence in the 1980s as an anti-apartheid advocate. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:4 Amplified Bible that God, ". . . wishes all men to be saved and [increasingly] to perceive and recognize and discern and know precisely and correctly the [divine] Truth."

Please share testimonies of haters turned into lovers. SEND ME A MESSAGE.

God Chose Us

God chose each believer to be in relationship with Him before He created the universe. He did this because He loves us and has a good plan for us.

The individual plan He has for us is part of a larger plan He has whereby all things except God the Father are to be brought into the leadership of Jesus Christ.

Believers have been redeemed from the ultimate effect of sin. When Jesus Christ died and rose again from the dead 2,000 years ago in Calvary, Israel, He took care of the penalty for all sins we ever did, are doing or will do in the future.

God is for us. He has set us apart to grow increasingly like Him.

When we first come into relationship with God He has a lot to change in us to make us like Him. Before God revealed Himself to us, we could not recognize Him or be transformed into His likeness. We had a veil over our mind and spirit. But when we receive the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord removes the covering (veil).

We become free in Christ to do many things, but not to sin.

Being Human and God

The same person who formed the stars, the planets, the oceans, our known universe is the same person who chose to become like us. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, took on a body of flesh and blood, so that He might die and rise again to reconcile us with God and to destroy the devil who was given the power of death.

God didn't save believers from their sins and give them eternal life from a distance. He desires close fellowship. John 17:3 New International Version Bible says, "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Believers are part of the family of God. God calls us things like friends, brothers, children and His bride.

God wants to talk with us about our lives. Hebrews 2 tells us that He is also a priest, so we can go to Him when we are tempted to do evil, and He is able to strengthen us. Scriptures like Psalm 100 say that God also likes for us to thank Him for His character and His deeds. We can also make requests of Him. When we talk with Jesus we are not talking with someone who does not know what it is to be human. Jesus Christ went through a variety of life experiences in His earthly ministry more than 2,000 years ago. Although He is fully God, Jesus Christ suffered the constraints of being human. God used this suffering/experience to bring to perfection His plan of being our high priest. There isn't any problem or issue in our life that He isn't able to help.

Jesus Christ became human for the sake of the spiritual descendants of Abraham -- some biologically related to Abraham, others not, but both God's chosen people who have received an eternal relationship with Him.

God likes us. Not only does He want to be in relationship with believers, He wants us to be rulers. All believers are joint heirs with Jesus Christ. We are kings and queens. He desires for us to take authority over our area of influence in ways that please Him.

One of the best things to please God is simply to talk to our brother, friend, husband Jesus often. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 New Living Translation Bible says, "Never stop praying."