That is close advisor Bill Richardson, the Gov. of N. Mexico.

Back to preaching help!  I’ve been in the far country spending a lot of my time on this blog on politics.  But I read something that caught my fancy regarding sentence diagramming or mechanical diagrams.  Whatever you call it, it is getting the passage flow of thought down on paper or computer screen in order to show the relationship of ideas to one another.  I use Logos 3.0 to do this.  It has a great diagramming module that is easy to use and helps achieve this.  I first started doing this while learning under Dr. Wayne McDill at Southeastern Seminary.  It is his first step in passage study after selection and prayer of course.  Then when I worked on my Doctorate with Haddon Robinson he taught us a very similar technique as part of the third step after consulting commentaries and references.

Today I read an article on the Logos blog about using one of their resources to help you do this.  It is a good article and better tool.  Give it a look.

If you haven’t already, make sure you read this post about Favre feeding the Lions info on the Packers.  Don’t worry; I’ll wait for you.

Done?

The point that I’d like to make about this thing is that this is what happens when you hold a grudge or harbor bitterness.  If Favre did it, [UPDATE: Since Favre did it ...] he’s holding a grudge against Ted Thompson and the Green Bay for what he perceives as very unfair treatment.  He can’t get past it according to his own words.  It is coloring his life while we in Green, or at least many of us who are Packer fans, are moving on with a fine young QB named Aaron Rodgers.  But, before I throw Brett under the bus, as I stated at the end of the previous post (you did read it didn’t you? if not go ahead now) I was not surprised and quickly assumed it was true.  Maybe I’m holding a grudge.

Now when it comes down to fans and teams, its not like I’m not going to be able to go have dinner with Favre or he won’t return my phone calls.  He would have done that before.  He doesn’t have a clue who I am unless he Googled his name and found my post.  Hi Brett!

When this kind of thing comes between people who do know one another, then it threatens to do real harm.  Work place spats have led to people being fired, doing poor work, kept deserving employees from being promoted and put undeserving people ahead of those who should have been promoted.  And what does it do in families?  Marriages break up over this kind of unforgiving bitterness.  I’ve seen it tear church members apart and lead to families leaving a fellowship over something like this.  Pastors have been fired for less.

Jesus expects more of us.  He asked his disciples, "How many times should we forgive?  7 times?"  They probably thought that would be pretty magnanimous of them to forgive 7 times.  Then Jesus turned up the heat.  He answered the question saying, "70 times 7!"  And the point is not that after she hurts your feelings the 490th time you are off the hook.  The point is that we, who are full of sin and have probably been forgiven by god 7,000 times 7,000 times, should forgive every time someone needs it.  Notice I said needs it and not asks for it.

Brett Favre knows not my name.  But, even though you chose to leave my team and might be doing all you can to torpedo their season this year, I will still go to dinner with you and I won’t bring it up.  That’s pretty easy for me knowing its not likely to ever happen.  But now can we forgive those people we know?

There is a report that Brett Favre, the man I have loved to cheer for as a Packer fan since he took over for Don Majkowski against my wife’s Bengals and beat them in a miraculous 4th quarter comeback, reportedly sought out the Detroit Lions to give them info on how to beat the Packers offense. It would be one thing for a guy to tell his new team how to beat his old team.  I wouldn’t really be that upset if Brett had a good buddy with Detroit who called him and asked him some stuff about Green Bay.  I wouldn’t do it in that situation.  But to actively go out of your way to offer the information is sour grapes and proves what a little man Brett Favre has become, if it is true.  Favre claims it is “total B.S.” (that stands for bison stew I assume).  But sadly, I seem to believe it.  And that is how terrible this whole thing has become.

UPDATE: It’s true!

Sarah Palin really takes Obama to task on his support for abortion in all circumstances. Read her speech in an article on Townhall.com.

Talking about Obama.  Check this article out to find out that he was a part of a radical, far left wing group called the New Party that would run candidates as Democrats. They are no longer around but Obama was a member when he ran for the Illinois State Senate.  The article links to an Internet archive of the New Party bragging that their members were elected.  Obama is one listed under Illinois.

So who cares?  Well the New Party called itself a “socialist Democratic” party.  That is Euro-speak for socialist which is the nice word for communism.  Not really communism literally but communist Russia never really achieved full communism and was really a socialistic state.  So what we all called Communist Russia was really Socialist Russia, which was what Obama’s group called itself.

If you are confused, then don’t feel bad.  That is the term Barack Obama used to describe babies who were "accidentally" born in Illinois hospitals.  The article which describes his views made me angry.  If current polls continue to hold strong then this man will be deciding who sits on the highest bench in the land and deciding whether or not to follow the constitution or make it up as they go (the latter philosophy is what led to Roe v. Wade).

The situation was this: back in 2001 there was a debate in the Illinois state legislature over a bill that would protect babies who were born alive despite attempts to abort them.  These abortions were the kind where the doctor induces labor forcing the mother to give birth to her baby.  Since most of them were done very early, it was unlikely that the babies would be born viable.  They would quickly die.  That alone is ghoulish enough.  But some of these babies survived.  The bill would have protected the latter category – babies whose mothers wanted them dead.  Not exactly radical bill.  How extreme to actually say a baby born alive and remaining alive should have protection as a person and kept alive.  If a baby is born and survives we should care for it.  But if the mother was intending for the baby to be still born or to die immediately, the doctors would take the baby to a room and let them die with no care whatsoever.  Instead of being in the neo-natal ICU where they belonged, they were thrown out in the garbage (not literally, they were literally left in the dirty clothes room with the soiled sheets).  When trying to kill the bill and thus kill the babies, Obama argued that these were not really people because they were not viable on their own.  So he not only voted to keep killing these people, but he also argued eloquently in favor of the bill.  Of course he doesn’t want common Americans to understand this now.  The sad thing is he claims to be against abortion but in favor of choice.  So either he favors abortion in the most ghoulish and extreme forms or he is willing to violate his own personal, moral views for political expediency.  Either way he has a serious character flaw and should never be the person nominating judges for the Supreme Court.  But unless something pretty dramatic happens it looks like he will be.

God helps us!