Sing a Song When You’re Sad
😨😟😊 Nothing chases away fear faster than a positive song. Maybe it's that love song you remember from years ago. Or maybe just a song about being a Champion…my friend. It is so beautiful how a song can change our mood so quickly. Psalm 95 starts out with a command: [...]
The Supreme Court examines NY State Case
"The first to speak in court sounds right— until the cross-examination begins." — Proverbs 18:17 After hearing a media sound bite about a Supreme Court Decision about a church’s right to have more than 25 people gathered in one place, I didn’t feel like they were giving me all the [...]
Depression can Come From Fear
😱🙀😨 Depression can come from fear: fear of the unknown, fear of debt collectors, fear of looking like a fool at work. Fear is bad for your emotional and spiritual well-being, and in this psalm, King David was feeling the pressure. "O LORD my God, in You I put my [...]
Psalm 5 – Depressed by my Enemies
👂😭🔊 There is nothing more depressing than having a relationship with someone who is looking to do you harm. It could be physical harm or emotional harm, but their main goal is to cause you grief and that grief will lead to depression. Psalm 5 is a song written by [...]
3 Psalms for Dealing with Depression
In our society, it’s hard not finding a person who isn’t dealing with depression. Our jobs, stress, and school all contribute to depression and anxiety in our lives. Overcoming depression isn’t easy and solutions can be difficult or hard to find. Thankfully, the Bible gives us examples of how we should be [...]
Happy COVID-oh-ween, Outreach Results
Our nation and the world continues to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mostly every year, for the past 5 years, we did an outreach to our neighborhood or to a neighboring neighborhood. This year, because of the corona virus, we wondered if anyone would knock on our door or [...]
Bible Apps and Advertising Pitfalls
What do you do when you’re reading the Bible and a sexually inappropriate thought comes to mind? I have to admit, when that happens, the first thing I try to do is figure out why this “thought” has come to my mind. Sometimes, it's a flash from the past. Other [...]
5 Reasons Christian’s Should Use Halloween to Preach Jesus
Here are 5 reasons Christian's should use Halloween to preach Jesus. 1. Halloween is also Reformation Day. It was 500 years ago to the day when Reformation Thug Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the church and started the Reformation! This means if you are not Catholic, this event [...]
How to Get Dressed for War
Ephesians 6:18 says, "...praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication." (ESV) This verse alone can produce some interesting questions, like, how do you pray at all times? Or, what is praying in the Spirit? When we place Ephesians 6:18 back into the context of the [...]
Prayer at the steps of Homestead’s City Hall 2020
On Saturday, September 26, 2020, Franklin Graham and other preachers of the Gospel met at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to pray for our nation. This was part of an event called, Prayer March 2020 and another called The Return, and local churches were also challenged to meet and [...]
I Am a Killer: Released – a Christian
Netflix has a new web television series that premiered on August 28, 2020. The streaming giant placed this series as suggested viewing when I launched Netflix, because I like to watch documentaries and crime dramas. What caught my attention in, I Am a Killer Released, was the snippet: In this [...]
Careful Love
Love in our culture carries lots of different meanings. We love our spouses, our children, our mothers, our fathers, our kids, our cousins and our friends. We love our tv shows, our cars, our games, our houses and especially our cell phones. We love our plants, our dogs, our cats, [...]
Careful Obedience
In Joshua 22, Joshua stood before thousands of soldiers. He was reflecting over the past six and a half years and the army that was now standing before him. Twelve tribes of one family, sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. After fifty nine years of life walking this earth, Joshua [...]
Careful
In October of 2000, I went to the top of the Twin Towers in New York City and it was an incredible experience. The buildings were massive. Looking up from the ground floor, the building seem to extend all the way into the heavens. It was only my second time [...]
There is no Neutral
A few days ago I was listening to NPR Radio and they had a woman talking about her experience standing between protesters and police. She talked about the idea of gathering mothers to stand between the protesters and the police. The thought was that the mothers weren’t there to protest, [...]
Murderous Grandma
My fondest memories of my grandmother was when my father would take me to visit at her apartment in the Howard Projects on East New York Avenue, Brownsville, NYC. The neighborhood during the late seventies and early eighties had a reputation for being violent and I always had an ominous [...]
Breathe on Us
A few years ago, my family as a whole started to watch a reality TV show called Dual Survival. Dual Survival is a show that puts two well trained survivalist in a situation that would require them to use whatever they have and the environment around them to survive in [...]
Never Letting Go – A Shunammite’s Tale
A Story from 2 Kings 4:8-37 — The sun cradled the earth in its noon day heat. A woman sat with her son, his head on her lap. If you asked her, she would say through tearful words, “I felt his life leave his body.” There were no ambulances to [...]
Steal Big or Steal Little
Growing up in New York City, I had the opportunity to work in different ethnic cultures other than my own Hispanic culture. At the start of my adult life I went to work for a trucking company, not knowing that it was a front for the Italian Mafia. My job [...]
Jesus is the Lord of the Lord of the Flies
In the movie, The Green Mile, a man who is sentence to death has been given a unique ability. The prison guard, Paul Edgecomb (played by Tom Hanks), responsible for watching those men on that last “mile” of their life was sick with a urinary tract infection which brought a [...]
Shimei and God’s Sovereignty
Would you ever think that God would send someone to yell and scream at you in your darkest hour? David is experiencing the darkest hour of his life. His son Absalom has willfully taken the throne from him. In order to avoid bloodshed, David leaves Jerusalem in a hurry. Escaping [...]
With friends like these…
2 Samuel 15:32 "While David was coming to the summit, where God was worshiped, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat torn and dirt on his head." We all need friends. I know there have been times in my life where I did not make new [...]
Jephthah: How to be Holy Spirit Filled and Make Bad Decisions
In Judges, the judge that God selected to have temporary rulership over the people was Jephthah. Jephthah came from a pretty difficult upbringing, but God positioned him as a man to be a leader. Jephthah confronted the Ammonites. The Ammonites were looking to expand their kingdom and put their sights [...]
Jephthah, Bible Scholar and Judge
Judges chapter 11 tells the story of a judge, named Jephthah. After Joshua's generation had died, there weren't any leaders that could take over for Joshua and Caleb. God selected certain individuals, judges, to lead the People of Israel into the fulfillment of His promises and purpose. Jephthah was one [...]
Jephthah, Son of a Whore
Judges 11 opens up the story of the next Judge by proclaiming: "Jephthah the Gileadite was one tough warrior. He was the son of a whore, but Gilead was his father." The Message (MSG) Ouch, that isn't something I would want recorded of me, especially in a book that has [...]
Sacrifice the Promise – Genesis 22:6
Abraham is on a journey to do what God has told him to do: to sacrifice the Promise. Genesis 22:2 [God] said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one [...]