Abortion, from my perspective

Elections are coming up fast, many people have even taken advantage of the option to vote early, and have already cast their vote. I will be voting early as well, since I’m going to be out of the country on the 4th. Now on to the topic of this post.

As with every election, one of the hot topics is abortion.
Pro-life on one side pro-choice on the other.
Some people base 100% of their voting decision on this one issue.
Groups spend tons of time and money fighting for their side. Pro life people want it made illegal, pro choice people want to make it easily available.
But here’s the thing, everyone is missing the point, focusing precious resources on the symptom not the problem.
The problem is not the procedure. It is the demand for the procedure.
Think about it, it’s just like any business, no demand means no facilities needed.

At this point some of you may be thinking “Ok mark, you’re talking in ideals. but the reality is, there is demand”

So here’s what’s going on, take a look around, look at the society we live in, glance at the entertainment. We live in a society that says, sex outside marriage is great, everyone is having sex, enjoying it, having a good time, wear a condom and you’ll be fine.
Find a more dramatic show where a girl actually gets pregnant, and society and cultural norm pipe right up saying abortion is the best option, just take care of the problem so you can continue to live your life.

Why does no one tell the girls that when you have sex with multiple partners, her body will begin to release less and less of the natural chemical that is designed to bond her to her husband and deepen her love for him(this is the same exact chemical produced when a mother nurses her child. Which bonds her to her baby.)
The result of this is sex begins to have very little significance to her, the rush of that chemical slowly goes away, and before long sex=nothing. And when she eventually get’s married, her feelings towards sex stay exactly the same, and the marital relationship suffers.
The world leads the young to believe that the only possible consequences are STDs and pregnancy, and turns right around and says, but if you use proper protection you’ll be fine.

Why does no one tell the young that yes, sex is great, it’s a gift from God, but pregnancy is not the only risk, having pre-marital sex will rob them of the joy that it is supposed to bring in your marriage.

Sex has become so taboo in christian circles, resulting in no one talking about it, the truths are not taught. And the kids are left with few options to answer their questions, so they accept the worlds ideas, and learn about it on the internet, and they end up with a perverted truth about sex and what it is. and cheap pornographic ideas about what it should be like.
And all they hear from the church is “don’t have sex before marriage”
without any deep reasons or convictions that doesn't hold up against the pressure of the world for long.

Come on church, we are the body of Christ, and we’re not doing our job.
You never saw Jesus shying away from tough and challenging topics.
Most christians live a watered down existence, staying away from anything that in their mind might offend someone, or “push them away from God.”
But the reality is, people are starving for something real and genuine, they see right through the soft christian facade most churches front, and they see a bunch of baby immature people, who have little to no reality or genuineness about their relationship with God. And they come to the conclusion that christianity is nothing, so they move on to other religions till they find something real that fills the need they have inside.
And you know what, these starving people are not just people who grew up with no beliefs. statistics say that 80% of people leaving high school and going to college, stop going to church with zero plans of going back.
Do you hear this? These starving people that are searching for something real, are our own kids, kids that grew up in the church.
And if the church doesn’t wake up and start behaving like the body of Christ, this is going to continue.
And the next generation in their search for truth will accept the worlds perverted truths about every area of life.

You want to make this country a better place? Start focusing on the problems instead of wasting valuable time trying to fix a symptom.

chocolate slavery

two words that should never be related, but this is a sad reality.
it's no secret that i'm a fan of chocolate.
what you may not know is that the majority percentage of the worlds chocolate is produced on the ivory cost of africa, and in large part the labor is provided by child slave labor.
i'm not going to repeat allot of information here, but do a google search for "chocolate slavery" and you'll find lots of information on the topic.

so what can you do to make a difference? how can we change a multi billion dollar industry?
first thing you should know, you vote with your dollars, every time you buy something you are saying "i approve of this item, keep making it exactly the same" corporations could care less about letters/phone calls/petitions. what they care about is money.

at this point you're possibly saying something along the lines of, "i'm just one consumer, the small amount i spend isn't impacting anything"
and this is possibly true on it's own, but through being conscious of what you spend your money on, and also telling others why, educating others, then we can start to make a difference. knowledge is power, the more people that are knowledgeable about their purchase decisions, the more power we have, the more influence we have.

so a buying guide for chocolate:
forget the major brands like Mars, Hershey's and Nestle. they could care less about the fact that they're the reason for the slavery.
instead, look for organic chocolate, it's better for you, often tastes better, and is slave free.
the other option, look for fair trade certified. fair trade guarantees that the producer was paid a fair price for their goods.
and fair trade isn't just chocolate, make a effort to buy fair trade as much as possible, check out their site for more info. www.fairtradecertified.org

if you can find fair trade certified organic chocolate, that's some good stuff.

so in the future, think twice before grabbing that candy bar, you can make a difference in the world, simply make knowledgeable decisions, and share information with the people you know.

and if you want to buy me chocolate, you know what to look for.

UPDATE: read the comments for some additional info from a guest poster and myself.

Revival?

Revival, what is it? why do christians seem to long for it as some kind of ultimate outpouring of God?
Lets take a look at what the dictionary has to say about the term:

Main Entry: re·viv·al
1: an act or instance of reviving : the state of being revived: as a: renewed attention to or interest in something b: a new presentation or publication of something old c (1): a period of renewed religious interest (2): an often highly emotional evangelistic meeting or series of meetings
2: restoration of force, validity, or effect (as to a contract)

Ok so that’s revival, the act of reviving, and to clarify “revive” is “to return to consciousness or life.”
Here’s my point, to need revival, you need to be dead.
People always seem to be longing for revival, which is basically saying, we’re dead.

Why as a church are we declaring so loudly that we’re dead, and saying someday we’ll come back to life through some big outpouring. And yet live our lives the same, remaining dead, changing nothing.
In case you don’t understand here’s something to think about, being alive, living, that is base level, that is standard. If something is going wrong, don’t just sit there longing for life, find out what is happening, find the cause, why are you dying? And once you find out the cause, CHANGE.
I’m going to make a statement here that might ruffle some religious feathers:

Revival should not exist.

I am not saying there isn’t a need for revival, I’m saying it shouldn’t exist, there shouldn’t be a need.
As christians we are called to be alive in christ, and to teach others how to live, how to be alive.

Now let me pause for a moment and talk about revival and what makes it happen.
Check out isaiah 57:15

For this is what the high and lofty One says—
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
"I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.

I want to highlight that last line, to revive the heart of the contrite, I looked up contrite and here’s what it says: “feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for a sin or shortcoming”
Here’s what I’m getting at, revival is not a special location, or a special meeting on a special date. Revival is people coming together and saying, we are messed up, we are so sorry at the root of our being, we need you God.
And God sees that, and He comes and moves in those people, forgiving their screw ups, bringing them back to a place of living in Him. Bringing them back up to that base level of being made new.
Revival should be happening everyday, on a personal one to one level.
And if you’re feeling the need for revival in your life, throw away the idea that this has to happen at a special meeting. Simply come to God with your junk, with your screw ups, your mistakes. God will forgive you, the bible says He casts it into a sea of forgetfulness,(cast: throw something forcefully in a specified direction) as far as the east is from the west, aka infinity away.
This is revival, your slate is wiped clean, you are restored, you are back to base level.

Now you may notice I keep referring to ‘base level.’ Here’s where that is coming from, when you got saved you were made new, everything forgiven, alive in christ. Like a baby coming out screaming with life, that was you. This is base level, the starting place, step 1. To move forward and to grow you have to be nourished at first by others and then yourself as soon as you’re able. If you don’t continue to be nourished in a balanced way you will begin to deteriorate, and if you don’t eat at all, you will die. The only way to continue living is to be revived.

Thankfully if you’re reading this, you eat regularly, and you’re not dead. And if anything starts to go wrong(you get sick) you find out what the problem is and take the steps to fix it.
The same should be happening with your life in christ, you have to get nourishment, learn and grow. If things start to go downhill figure out what’s causing it and make the change to fix it.

So let me restate the statement I made earlier and add a bit to it.
Revival as we see it today, in big sweeping movements every few years, shouldn’t exist.
There shouldn’t be the need because it’s a continual thing on a individual level.

When the church gets to a place where we need a widespread revival, this is a major warning that something is wrong on a fundamental level. This means the church is dead and dying everywhere.
Something is wrong, the leaders, pastors, and teachers should be on their face before God. Asking what are we doing wrong? What needs to change? Why are the people that we’re supposed to be helping dying so regularly that we need a revival every few years?
And the change needs to happen now.
Revival is happening, millions are going to be brought back to base level in the coming months.
The leaders around the world need to find out the problem and fix it, or all these people are going to die. When they should be growing and flourishing.

You need to find this out straight from God. The following are my thoughts.

Something is wrong in the message. Look at Jesus’ ministry, and that of the disciples, they didn’t hold revival meetings, or go on evangelistic crusades. They simply taught the message of forgiveness and love. And the church exploded. Because once you teach one person how to live a life of love they can begin to teach others, and others begin to teach others, and the growth is exponential(:becoming more and more rapid.)
Are we living the message of love? are we teaching others? only the message can change the world. Not ministries of any kind, no matter how big, they will not make the needed change.
Church needs to be completely rethought from the ground up. Whatever version the church is at now(2.0/3.0/4.0?) it’s time to make a fundamental change, question everything. Grab the baby, throw out the bath water, it’s time to start again.

08 Primaries are coming up.

i posted about the election coming up a few months ago link

if you've been paying attention to what has been going on lately the value of our dollar is going down, they keep having to raise the federal debt ceiling, as a country we're in a whole lot of debt. take as look at the debt clock(tip: refresh the page a few times and watch how fast it increases)
i don't know about you, but i can't afford to pay that, but somebody has to, and it's the next generations shoulders that it's going to fall onto.

if something doesn't change in the way our country is run things aren't going to keep going, just like how your car wont run without fuel, how can a nation run on a negative bank balance.

i've been watching videos and reading things around the web about the candidates that are running. allot of them talk about things needing to change. but do any of them actually have a plan on how to make a real positive change? i've only heard one so far.

i'm voting for Ron Paul.

here's some info on him:
christiansforronpaul.com take a look at his statement of faith.
ronpaul2008.com his official site, learn about him, read his stance on issues.
and search google for him, there are videos everywhere on youtube and the like.

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also i want to say, we seriously need to be praying hard about this election and our country, something has to change.
things are going downhill really fast. i'm not trying to discourage you or inspire fear, we need to not fear, we need to put our trust in God. and i mean this for real, we need to come to God at the beginning of each day and ask what we're supposed to do today. the only way things are going to really change is if each individual gets serious about following God. it has to happen in your heart. there is no place for laid back christianity, it's time to go full out for God, we are His body on this planet, we need to be connected to the Head(God) and we need to carry out the instructions immediately.
can you imagine how long it would take something done if every time your brain told part of your body to do something you had to wait for that part to get around to it, to decide if the instruction is really what they should do, if that instruction was really from the brain. nothing would ever get done.
and yet this is how most of us operate in our walk with God.
and then we turn around and ask why things aren't changing, why we aren't reaching the world, and wonder when Jesus will come back.
we as a body have a job to do, and until we wake up and do what we're supposed to do how can we expect to move to the next step.

don't be discouraged, be encouraged, our Dad loves every one of us so much, start spending time with Him, develop a deep relationship with Him. you'll find that when you're absolutely in love with Him that the things He asks you to do will be a joy to do.
as a body we need to have a heart that is so close and so in tune with His that we have the same heartbeat, the same passions and desires flowing through us.

this is how we will change the world.