June 6 – D Day. The momentous morning on which the Allied soldiers fooled the Germans and established a beachhead on the European continent will forever live in historical legend. It was a bold and daring surprise attack that led to the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.
Today is June 6th again – sixty-four years later. Another bold and daring attack is being launched today, and you are among the first humans to find out about it. D-Day takes on new meaning for Sword of the Spirit Publishing as this newborn company attempts to bring down strongholds of the little D – aka the Devil, Satan, Beelzebub, the Serpent, and etcetera. God has a plan for the world, and it's no secret that Satan's plan is to thwart God's blueprints for human life. He has launched battles on many fronts in an attempt to frustrate the Creator of the universe and destroy men's lives and souls. From my viewpoint, people either try to give Satan
too much credit or not enough. We're taking the middle ground. It is time to acknowledge that he is a potent adversary, and he does go about as a lion seeking whom he can devour. Our goal is to ensure that lion goes hungry.
The specialty of the house will be hard hitting books that expose sin for what it is and seek to discover truth in all aspects of life. Relevant doses of humor, romance, and adventure will be included in the recipes, but no book without a moral or spiritual message will carry our logo.
Our first new offering will launch on Friday the 13th. Reforming the Potter's Clay by Donald James Parker is a duel between magick and miracles. The power of God is manifested by a group of twelve to fourteen-year-old kids of a variety of ethnic backgrounds who allow the Holy Spirit to have reign in their life as they clash with the counterfeit powers of the world of the occult, including the power wielded by the fictional boy wunderkind with spectacles.
We are an equal opportunity publisher. We will irritate everybody at some point in time. For some we will be like the grain of sand that penetrates the oyster's shell, causing the formation of a beautiful pearl. For others, we'll the raspberry seed in their wisdom tooth. Future offerings will draw a bulls-eye on a false religion, masquerading as science, called Darwinism and sexual immorality. Other topics to be explored in the future include aging, prejudice, obesity, snobbery, homelessness, gambling, and popular Christian doctrines consisting of the antithesis of what Jesus really taught. The common thread through all of these books will be real and lovable characters who make the reader laugh and cry as they struggle through this hard experience
called life, seeking to find purpose and truth, and in doing so expose the readers to decisions about their own lives. Please visit our website at www.swordOfSpirit.net .
God bless you!
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
A video you should watch
This may very well unsettle you. Maybe you need to be challenged. This is one of the most impressive young men I've ever encountered. Check him out for yourself. Warning: May be dangerous to your comfort zone!!
Entertainment Tonight and Every Night
Posting this exhortation may be like a restaurant nailing a notice on the door informing patrons they shouldn't eat out often. Writing this article has caused me great anguish. I completed the original in about fifteen minutes. Finalizing those paragraphs has taken about fifteen hours. I'm not sure any of the original words survived the cut. Life could not have been easy for John the Baptist. I'm not eating locusts and wild honey, but I am perhaps crying out in the wilderness to people who don't want to hear a discouraging word. Let him who has ears hear. First of all, I'm a novelist. It would be in my interest for people to spend their whole lives buying and reading every book they could get their hands on. However, I can't, in all good conscience, advocate that lifestyle. The duties of life call, and it's hard to ignore the incessant ringing. There are consequences for people who fail to march to the beat of the system. The TV, movies, books, and video games cry out to us like the Sirens from the mythological travels of Odysseus to abandon the quest to fulfill our duties. (The sailors who were unable to resist the charms of the Sirens ended up shipwrecked.) Am I saying your life will be shipwrecked if you watch a movie or a TV show? Not even close, but I do suggest that some prudent navigation of shallow, rock-infested waters might be in order. Self-discipline is required. To add to Ecclesiastes, there is a season for entertainment and a season for abstaining from entertainment.
When life is hard, many of us want to escape from it all. Some people turn to drugs or alcohol to cope, but others choose the more acceptable route of entertainment. How do I know that? I've been there, done that, and my flesh would love to do it again. We run to the make-believe world provided by the entertainment industry. Amusement becomes an oasis in the desert of despair and a life-raft in an ocean of tribulation. Some of you might say, "Yeah, yeah, so what's your point?"
I'm glad you asked. I've learned many valuable lessons over the years by reading books and watching life on the screen. However, there is a danger of abusing this outlet just like with any other coping mechanism. It is possible to lose touch with reality, causing people to live in that make believe world. More likely, people will only become addicted and just need their fix.
One thing I've observed is that the threshold to obtain amusement keeps rising. People are growing bored with the common fare and want the exciting, thrilling dosage. This has escalated to the point we are at today with the proliferation of violence and blatant sex. What happens when those become blasé? I'm scared to think about it.
As a Christian, in addition to the other vocational and family duties, we have a responsibility to the Lord to minister to our fellow human beings. We are called to be good stewards of our finances, and the same is true of our time. We all need recreation of some type, just like we need nutritional sustenance and sleep. But, to rephrase an old adage, do we live to recreate or recreate to live? Unless I'm sadly mistaken, we need to do the latter. The Bible says that we will be rewarded for our good works here on earth. Reading a Christian novel or watching a Christian movie doesn't qualify as such. However, those vehicles might provide the inspiration and the resolve we need to help motivate us to spend some of those precious moments that God has given us in reaching out to others in spirit, truth, and love. And for that reason, we need to choose our entertainment carefully, so we might feed our spirits at the same time our souls are nourished. If we eat too much junk food, our physical health suffers. Too much junk entertainment will negatively impact our spiritual health. Fighting the good fight requires us to keep up our morale. Watching an inspirational movie can strengthen our resolve to follow Christ wherever He leads. Reading a book where a couple dodges the divorce bullet through prayer might actually help save our own marriage. To reiterate: we, as believers, need to seek diversion that will promote the fruits of the spirit.
To optimize time, try some of these techniques: Get creative in your recreation! Multitask by killing two figurative birds with one time-slot stone. Exercise while you watch television or read a book. Invite unsaved unbelievers to your house to watch a Christian movie with you. Watch uplifting material with the family and discuss them afterward to strengthen the family ties while getting an entertainment fix. Go down to the retirement home and read a book aloud to some people who can't read. And lastly, learn to be entertained by your ministry. It will be like learning to extract water from dry air, preventing any desert experiences.
When life is hard, many of us want to escape from it all. Some people turn to drugs or alcohol to cope, but others choose the more acceptable route of entertainment. How do I know that? I've been there, done that, and my flesh would love to do it again. We run to the make-believe world provided by the entertainment industry. Amusement becomes an oasis in the desert of despair and a life-raft in an ocean of tribulation. Some of you might say, "Yeah, yeah, so what's your point?"
I'm glad you asked. I've learned many valuable lessons over the years by reading books and watching life on the screen. However, there is a danger of abusing this outlet just like with any other coping mechanism. It is possible to lose touch with reality, causing people to live in that make believe world. More likely, people will only become addicted and just need their fix.
One thing I've observed is that the threshold to obtain amusement keeps rising. People are growing bored with the common fare and want the exciting, thrilling dosage. This has escalated to the point we are at today with the proliferation of violence and blatant sex. What happens when those become blasé? I'm scared to think about it.
As a Christian, in addition to the other vocational and family duties, we have a responsibility to the Lord to minister to our fellow human beings. We are called to be good stewards of our finances, and the same is true of our time. We all need recreation of some type, just like we need nutritional sustenance and sleep. But, to rephrase an old adage, do we live to recreate or recreate to live? Unless I'm sadly mistaken, we need to do the latter. The Bible says that we will be rewarded for our good works here on earth. Reading a Christian novel or watching a Christian movie doesn't qualify as such. However, those vehicles might provide the inspiration and the resolve we need to help motivate us to spend some of those precious moments that God has given us in reaching out to others in spirit, truth, and love. And for that reason, we need to choose our entertainment carefully, so we might feed our spirits at the same time our souls are nourished. If we eat too much junk food, our physical health suffers. Too much junk entertainment will negatively impact our spiritual health. Fighting the good fight requires us to keep up our morale. Watching an inspirational movie can strengthen our resolve to follow Christ wherever He leads. Reading a book where a couple dodges the divorce bullet through prayer might actually help save our own marriage. To reiterate: we, as believers, need to seek diversion that will promote the fruits of the spirit.
To optimize time, try some of these techniques: Get creative in your recreation! Multitask by killing two figurative birds with one time-slot stone. Exercise while you watch television or read a book. Invite unsaved unbelievers to your house to watch a Christian movie with you. Watch uplifting material with the family and discuss them afterward to strengthen the family ties while getting an entertainment fix. Go down to the retirement home and read a book aloud to some people who can't read. And lastly, learn to be entertained by your ministry. It will be like learning to extract water from dry air, preventing any desert experiences.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
