Tag KNN

We started to live together, as a ‘normal’ worldly couple would do if they had a chance and no one to stop them from doing it. We began our relationship like this but because of my spiritual background and the tremendous love and respect I felt for her, I decided that if my love was real, I couldn’t let her finish as the bad weed of the scripture, burning  in the eternal fire . . . (Matthew 13:36-43).” This is part of an email that we recently received as a response to the official International Churches of Christ website at www.icoc.org. It was written by a brother who fell away from the Lord and his church, but who is asking how he could come back and be restored. It makes my day when good news such as this comes across my desk, and it frequently does. Of the people who leave the church, about 10% eventually come back. But why do so many brothers and sisters who embraced God and accepted his grace, get drawn back into the world by Satan? I believe that a large part of the reason is that they stop being thankful for all that God has given them.  Our theme scripture cited above says, “. . . let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably. . . .” I believe that we need to discover the power of thankfulness as God’s people. As I prepared to lead a devotional for a group of men, I looked at many verses in the Bible that talk about giving thanks and being thankful. I learned that being thankful is much, much more than just a nice thing to do. It is a channel through which God works to overcome the power of Satan in our lives.

The Internet is the fastest-growing and most powerful communication medium in history. If you exit the information superhighway for a few months, you may not recognize it when you return. The growth rate of the Internet is astounding. It took 38 years for radio to reach 50 million homes in this country. Television did the same in 13 years. The Internet has done it in only five years! The World Wide Web (referred to as the WWW or just “the Web”) is doubling its number of websites every six months. To get on the information superhighway, all one needs is a computer, a modem and an Internet service provider. Millions of people visit Cyberspace every day to bank online, pay bills, find a job, buy or sell almost anything (even pizza or groceries), book travel, track a FedEx package, read a magazine, research any topic, find a map to anywhere on Earth, trade stock, locate anyone who has a telephone number or e-mail address, make  free international phone calls, play games, find computer programs to do nearly anything, listen to and even watch live events, buy or lease real estate, take college courses, trace their family tree, correspond with people around the world and do thousands of other things. Every day new, innovative uses are being implemented.

The last month has been a third-world whirlwind. I am sitting in the crowded airport in Johannesburg, South Africa waiting to board a plane for home. A few hours ago I was walking down the main street of Harare, Zimbabwe listening to Christmas music coming from the many stores. There was even a Santa Claus with a tattered red outfit and a lopsided white cotton beard. Just  three weeks before, Gloria and I were among the sick, the poor and the wounded in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Dreams come in many forms in the third world. Right now I am dreaming of getting home to Gloria, since these last nine days are our longest time apart in 37 years of marriage. I am dreaming of having our kids and grandkids home for Christmas. While very important to me, this is insignificant compared to the desperate dreams of so many in Cambodia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Unemployment is rampant – over 40% in Harare. Real starvation faces 25% of Zimbabwe’s population. The AIDS epidemic is exploding in all three nations. Cambodia is the hardest hit in all of Asia. Thirty-two percent of Zimbabwe is HIV-positive. South Africa may lose a million people to the epidemic. I dream of a family reunited. Millions dream of a job, a full stomach and living to see another Christmas