God Bless you and your family
Danny, Connie and Danielle

Thanks you for the note.

Danny

Jesus teaches us in Matthew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your soul.

We carry the yoke (teaching) of the world and we fall into the traps of life and we are burdened, we find ourselves getting burned out. I hear from my leaders all the time how can I find balance. We don’t take rest in the Lord so we don’t evaluate our life experiences and repeat the mistakes. Living is learning and when the teacher is of the world we can never be satisfied, but when we take on the yoke of Christ (His teaching) we can evaluate from a pure heart.

Our issues don’t go away but the way we see them open the door to finding solutions-solutions that include humbling our self and forgiving while seeking to understand. Our understandings come from a source and not resources. When our source is our Heavenly Father our hearts will be right, but when our choice is the resources of this world we fall short with harden hearts.

I love your opening statement.

When I look at 1 Corinthians 2:11-16 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments.

Our thoughts and meditation on the word will bring us treasure, it will liberate us as our thoughts are now channeled to the source.

Charity And Its Discontents: Politics And Philanthropy On The Presidential Stage
Posted: 10/21/11 08:16 AM ET Huffington Post Daily Brief

WASHINGTON — Charity is at once a virtue, a wedge, a symbol and a prism. For those who believe in limited government, charity is the answer to the riddle at the heart of free-market conservatism: What about the poor? The needy? The ones left behind?

The Huffington Post examined each of the contenders for the White House through the lens of their charitable efforts. A close look reveals telling patterns.

The 2012 Republican candidates for president have a mixed record of charitable giving. Little is known about Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul or Rick Santorum, due to a dearth of public records and campaign disclosures. Texas Gov. Rick Perry released his income tax returns, which reveal that his donations to charity rose in tandem with his political influence. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich both spent years building large private foundations to advance their charitable and political goals. Herman Cain, on the other hand, refuses to blend politics with charity. Last, there is Jon Huntsman, Jr., the son of a great philanthropist, for whom friends say the approach to charity never wavers amid the ups and downs of politics.

On the Democratic side, President Obama and Vice President Biden have each publicly disclosed 10 years’ worth of income tax returns, which reveal a surprising disparity between the two men.
There’s an old stereotype about charity and politics that conservative voters are less concerned with whether or not politicians donate to charity than liberals. Yet a robust, private charity is central to the conservative world view, which means that charitable giving may end up being more important to Republicans
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A comprehensive 2008 study revealed that participants who identified as conservatives reported giving significantly more of their average household incomes to charity than participants who identified as liberals. For progressives, society is made better by the collective action of a democratic people, expressed through their government. For conservatives, social ills ought to be relieved not by government, but by individuals acting on their own or through private charities. It stands to reason, then, that Republicans would naturally display more interest in the 2012 candidates’ charitable giving records than Democrats. They are also more likely to place a premium on candidates with strong records of giving to charity.

Emotion is the complex psychophysiological experience of an individual’s state of mind as interacting with biochemical (internal) and environmental (external) influences…from Wikipedia.

Highest regards,
Steve Schaefer

Thank you for the compliment to my son. At 15, I believe he “gets it”. But I will be on guard for the next few years knowing that the enemy will be looking for opportunities. Amen.

Granted, some children will never learn how to walk due to a variety of developmental issues and they will need our help over the long haul. But those children are usually the one’s that want the least amount of help and want to do it for themselves.

I know that this is a simple analogy and I don’t mean to demean those in need by comparing them to children. But we are all children of God, right?

In our efforts to provide for those in need, I feel we should not create an environment of entitlement without the expectation that self-sufficiency is the ultimate goal. I also feel that basic needs must be met in order to achieve that goal. How can you expect a child to do well in school and break the cycle of poverty without a well nourished, balanced diet and a safe place to live?

Yes, we are called to love unconditionally. But sometimes to give unconditionally is not the proper way to love unconditionally. We are taking advantage if we don’t have expectations.

Are you serious? The media will trash such a person, look at Perry, Palin…the only have not attacked Cain yet. In a better world they win by huge margins