I Am Finley

Is Your Bible Excited?

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“The leather-bound Bible owned by local man Kurt Ryder for over ten years reported Sunday that it was “super pumped” to participate in Ryder’s resolution to read his Bible every day, until he inevitably shelves it in the latter half of the first week of January, sources confirmed.”

Babylon Bee

Don’t be Kurt Ryder. Read your Bible this year. As I said on Christmas, I have not been as consistent as I want with this. Let’s work on this together.

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I Celebrate the Day

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Another year. How often have you read your Bible? How often have you prayed? “Not enough,” is my answer.

Because here is where You’re finding me, in the exact same place as New Years Eve
And from the lack of my persistency
We’re less than have as close as I want to be

Relient K

From the lack of my persistency we’re less than half as close as I want to be. How often is this the state of our faith? Adam4d, one of my favorite web comics, published a comic called I’m a terrible Christian the other day. It hit home.

Sometimes I worry that I’m a complete failure.
And then it hits me.
I am a complete failure.
I’m a terrible Christian.
But Jesus is perfect.
And by faith I belong to Him.
So I keep trying my best.
And even though I worry that my best is terrible,
He credits me with His perfection.
And covers my failures with grace.
And that’s the whole point.

Mercy me. The Gospel is amazing because— unlike other religions that require people to aspire to godliness— Christ requires nothing but surrender. You cannot do anything to get closer to God but follow Him. He’ll handle the rest.

To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me
In the hope that what You did
That You were born so I might live
To look back and think that
This baby would one day save me

You were born so I might live. This is easily one of my favorite Christmas songs and one of my favorite Relient K songs. This baby, flesh and bone, would one day save me.

And I, I celebrate the day
That You were born to die
So I could one day pray for You to save my life

As the hustle and bustle dies down, and a new year begins, as Saint Nick’s presence is no longer at every shopping center, will we forget this Child in a manger? In another 365 days will you say, “From the lack of my persistency we’re less than half as close as I want to be?”

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Christmas Morning

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Let’s close our eyes and make believe,
In all the ways we used to see,
A magic world of fantasy,
When we were kids on Christmas morning,

Sometimes it feels like growing up,
Kills all the mystery of being young,
And who I am now loses touch,
With that kid on Christmas morning,

House of Heroes

As our daughter was about to celebrate her first Christmas a couple years ago, I wrote:

We all remember when we grew too old for fairy tales. When we started to recognize the line between truth and fiction. For some it came naturally, for others it came as a stab that wounded us for some time. As children, our imagination is one of our greatest gifts. A gift that needs to be nurtured and taught.

C.S. Lewis believed that there was an in between period. Between recognizing that line and embracing that line. But, as he wrote in his dedication for Chronicles of Narnia, “someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

I Heard the Bells

As I grow up, I grow to understand that we are meant to have children while we are young, as our imaginations mature, to reel us back in and prevent the childlike faith inside us from dying.

Sometimes it feels like growing up kills all the mystery of being young, but with a daughter, I see the twinkle in her eye as she creates complex stories for her dolls and stuffed toys. “Thank you!” says the elephant to Donald Duck. “You’re welcome,” says Donald.

But when I hold you close I know,
The truth in every story told,
And anything is possible,
I believe just like a kid on Christmas morning.

I had heard this song before, but this year it struck a chord I hadn’t heard before. Hadn’t truly heard, that is. Charlotte is busy with her imagination, and tears come when I stop her to go to bed, or to leave the house. Certain toys must come with us.

Tonight, as Christmas Eve comes to a close, I pray:

And as I lay me down to sleep,
And pray the Lord my soul to keep,
When I wake it’s you I see,
And I feel just like a kid on Christmas morning.

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Flesh & Bone

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Christmastime is a time for music, for family, for friends, and for reflection. Much to my coworkers’ dismay, I decorated my desk the first week of November, having already been listening to Christmas music for a couple months. Christmas music is some of my favorite. But, as many of my friends know, I lean towards the religious Christmas music, not the Frosty’s and Rudolph’s.

So over the next three days, I want to share three songs that have been playing the most over the last few months. Songs of reflection, praise, and love for a God that came to be with us.

Love, what have you done?
Sent out your Son into the dark.
How could you let go? Didn’t you know it would break your heart?

Flesh & Bone

As we focus on the Child at Christmas, we sometimes forget the surrounding story. Reflecting on this sacrifice of an all-knowing, sovereign God is just as important this time of year as it is at Easter.

As Chad Bird put’s it:

None of the Gospels mention this unwelcome visitor to Bethlehem, but the Apocalypse does. John paints a seven-headed, ten-horned red dragon onto the peaceful Christmas canvas. You can read all about it in Revelation 12.

It’s the nativity story we don’t talk about. A dragon trying to eat our Lord.

When a Dragon Tried to Eat Jesus: The Nativity Story We Don’t Talk About

The birth of Jesus was about a war for the human heart, for the human soul. And the world reeled from this invasion. A king tried to kill him as other kings tried to find and worship him.

Love, what have I done?
Why do I run into the dark?
Didn’t I know all that I’ve done would break your heart?
And you’d have to go so far.

It was our wickèdness that separated us from God. But God, pursuing Man since our Creation, had a plan.

You abandoned heaven’s throne when you took our flesh and bone.
You have claimed our wandering souls when you made this world your home.
And You made my heart your own.

Christmas is upon us. Our Lord, the Maker of the Universe and Craftsman of our souls, came down for you. Reflect on that, brothers and sisters.

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The World Will Hate You

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Haven’t heard it put this way. I will need to internalize it and to use this.

Why are we hated? Why is it that we should be not surprised when the world turns against us?

Because Cain hated Abel. Just one verse earlier John has spoken of these two brothers and asked why one murdered the other. Cain murdered Abel “because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.” Abel’s goodness exposed Cain’s badness. Abel’s righteousness convicted Cain of his unrighteousness. Abel’s love for God silently declared Cain’s disregard. Cain responded with the ultimate manifestation of hatred—he murdered his own brother.

Tim Challies

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A simple two-letter typo might have cost Hillary Clinton the entire election

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Those darn Russian hackers. We need to increase our security. Or increase our employee’s awareness of security issues such as phishing. One link click opened up the email account of a Hillary election employee.

The email was a fake warning from hackers that appeared to be from Google, telling Podesta to change his password through a link they provided. The “phishing” scam is a popular one that depends on the gullibility of the victim.

Or a typo:

“This is a legitimate email,” Charles Delavan, a Clinton campaign aide, replied to another of Mr. Podesta’s aides, who had noticed the alert. “John needs to change his password immediately.”

Having read the message, Podesta must have thought it was OK to click the link and reset his password — exactly the opposite of what Delavan intended.

Mr. Delavan, in an interview, said that his bad advice was a result of a typo: He knew this was a phishing attack, as the campaign was getting dozens of them. He said he had meant to type that it was an “illegitimate” email, an error that he said has plagued him ever since. And that’s how more than 60,000 emails of Hillary’s top aides fell into the hands of allegedly Russian state-sponsored hackers.

The Blaze

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Baby, It’s Cold Outside

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Making something about nothing, the social justice warriors are again blowing their rape whistles on a classic, Christmastime song. Not understand the context and meaning of the song, and always fearing a good-hearted gentleman wanting to rape them, they have created a new version of Baby, It’s Cold Outside that has more consent and less wooing and flirting.

It was written in an era when seduction was not synonymous with sexual assault, you didn’t need to sign a consent form to hold a girl’s hand, and men weren’t assumed to be vicious predators.

Daily Caller

Maybe you should understand the meaning of the song before you attack. This great article from Daily Caller may help you respond to your friends that are all sharing this video right now. Don’t let them kill romance at Christmas.

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Hate Speech Doesn’t Exist

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Who get to decide what is hate speech?
How much of “hate speech” is protected under the 1st amendment?
What limitations should there be?
Who are the arbiters?
Where does the idea of “hate speech” and political correctness come from?

Some things are super important. The Founding Fathers saw freedom of speech was so important that it was in the 1st amendment. And more over, they sought to protect the speech of those they didn’t agree with.

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Mansplaining

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to explain something to someone, typically a man to woman, in a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing

Likely the first, and very likely the last, time that the word “mansplaining” will be used here, but it’s the first thing that came to mind when I saw this video. Here you go: Van Jones telling a woman that she, as a woman, should have voted for Hillary Clinton because Hillary Clinton is a woman.

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Stop Bigotry

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Yesterday, Kate Aurthur at BuzzFeed maliciously targeted Chip and Joanna Gaines because they are Bible believing Christians. Aurthur’s article at BuzzFeed attempted to harm them and their television success because the church they attend supports real marriage, which BuzzFeed’s editorial policy decries as bigotry.

The Resurgent

The bigotry against Christians has been discussed many times on this site, from Memories Pizza to Indiana’s Religious Freedom law. When business owners have to choose between their religious foundation or their financial well-being, the government needs to fix this.

Over the past several years, the gay mafia has specifically targeted Christian small businesses for harassment. Christian florists, bakers, photographers, t-shirt printers, pizza restauranteurs etc. have seen gay activists come into their businesses, made demands they gay activists knew would put these Christians in conflict with their religious beliefs, then turned to various state governments to punish those Christians who refused to violate their faith.

So what can we do? We have a representative government, so we can contact our congressment and demand that they represent us as much as they represent the 2-4% of the population that identifies as LGBT community. You can use this form to make it ridiculously easy to do so, and please do.

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