From each according to his ability, to each according to his lack thereof.

ood morning everyone! I just wanted to stop by and say hi to all of you. I pray that you all are doing well. There are still many of you that I don't hear from very often, and I would love to know what has been going on in your lives. I would also enjoy the opportunity to pray for a need that you have, or rejoice with you in light of an amazing blessing or achievement! So, please stay in touch. Have you ever done anything that has just blown you away? Seriously, I have had a few accomplishments in my life where I have even impressed myself. Just today I logged on to my online college and tried to register for an english composition and rhetoric class, but for some reason it wouldn't let me register.?.? So I called the University and was told that I needed to either take an english 100 class (that didn't count towards my major) or take a competency exam. I shrugged my shoulders and began the test, knowing that english as always been my lowest scoring proficiency. After I got through the Exam I was shocked that I had finished with over 35minutes left in the test, and that my score was high enough to CLEP the english 100 course, and place me into the composition and rhetoric class that I wanted to be in. Now, this was just the beginning. A little later i received an e-mail from the University saying that I had scored in the 95th percentile on the english exam and that i qualified to take the english 101 composition and rhetoric CLEP test and essay to be able to earn an additional 3 credit hours for my major, as well as place me into english 110! Needles to say I was floored! I am still trying to figure out when english, which was at one point my weakest general education requirement, to becoming one of my strongest? I'm sure if the University read through most of my e-mails they'd take everything back though > ) lol! I know it feels as if my e-mails get longer and longer, but there was one more thing I wanted to share with all of you. I have been a part of a very lengthy political debate recently with a friend of mine, and I'd thought I would share a little bit of that with you. I actually have been writing a lot in this context, but I am really not very interested in opening a heavy debated concerning politics. This response that I gave is more of a debate of a scriptural issue than a political issue and I thought it would be good food for thought. Not all will agree with my reasoning, but that is good. I want to hear what others think on this topic, and most of all I want to know if anyone knows of any scriptural evidences that would provide a good argument, or different insight into the topics provided in the discussion. I am assuming Sed will immediately take this bait ; ) but I want to hear from the rest of you as well. As always you can go to www.DavidRoediger.blogspot.org to read some of my current and past rants and writings if you wish. By friend who shall not be named, If I remember correctly didn't Jesus say give up all your money to the poor in order to follow me? To friend who shall not be named, You attempted to quote a verse from the bible that was rooted in the story of when Jesus asked a man to lay down everything he had in order to follow him. I wanted to really kind of open that up a little bit for some discussion, because I don’t think that was touched on well enough, and it really shed’s some light on why I believe what I believe politically. I understand where you were trying to come from, but the point Jesus was ultimately making was – “ no one can serve money and my father at the same time”. This man that wanted to serve Jesus was a man of wealth. There is nothing wrong with being wealthy, but you have to be willing to serve God with everything you have. If you are not willing to lay down everything then you can not serve Him. You can be wealthy, but you cannot make wealth a higher value than God. Now, as far as giving goes: The purpose of giving to others is an action (and practice) of Faith towards God and love towards others. When you instill government programs to force people to give to the needy in the view that God intends us to give, you effectively diminish the purpose of giving in the first place. The reason we have a free will to give in God’s name is so that we as believers can exercise the practice of diminishing oneself before the lord. It’s the exercise of humility and placing Faith in the Lord. You are saying “ I have Faith that you will meet my needs,” the prayer wasn’t - give us this day our weekly, quarterly, or yearly bread. It was give us this day our daily bread. When you force people to give you ruin the practice of giving and sacrifice as God intended it. So as you can see, you cannot force people into doing good works or charity while using God as your excuse for doing so. The Lord is our father who desires relationship with us. He could have made us as robots programmed to love and obey Him, but what good is it to have something that loves you because it has no other choice but to make the one decision, because it knows no other option or emotion. God wants a real relationship, He wants us to obey him knowing we have the choice not to. He wants us to love him knowing we have the choice not to. He wants us to jump in His lap and give Him a great big hug and say “I love you Lord, may my song of praise and worship be a sweet sound in your ear”. I imagine yourself with your child. This child doesn’t have to love you, doesn’t have to like you, doesn’t have to obey you, doesn’t have to follow you, doesn’t have to look up to you, doesn’t even have to look at you, or talk to you, or smile at you, or buy you things, celebrate or appreciate your existence at all, because God gave them freewill. Now imagine the feeling that swells within you when your child freely jumps on your lap and says, “Mommy I love you more than anything. Smiles, kisses you on the cheek, curls into a ball and falls asleep right there as if to say there is nowhere else I’d rather be in the entire world. That is the same feeling God wishes to have from us as His children. It is all about freewill. Everytime you strip away the ability to exercise sacrificial giving by commanding that it be mandatory, you effectively diminish the ability of God’s people to exercise humility, generosity, love, and Faith in the name of God as He intended it. No parent wants plastic preprogrammed children. Neither does God. Blessings, David Roediger

Times Are Good

Part of rebuilding New Orleans caused residents often to be
challenged with the task of tracing home titles back
potentially hundreds of years.
With a community rich with history stretching back over two
centuries, houses have been passed along through
generations of family, sometimes making it quite difficult
to establish ownership. Here's a great letter an attorney
wrote to the FHA on behalf of a client:



You have to love this lawyer........


A New Orleans lawyer sought an FHA loan for a client.

He was told the loan would be granted if he could prove
satisfactory title to a parcel of property being offered as
collateral. The title to the property dated back to 1803,
which took the lawyer three months to track down. After
sending the information to the FHA, he received the
following reply.



(Actual reply from FHA):
"Upon review of your letter adjoining your client's loan
application, we note that the request is supported by an
Abstract of Title. While we compliment the able manner in
which you have prepared and presented the application, we
must point out that you have only cleared title to the
proposed collateral property back to 1803. Before final
approval can be accorded, it will be necessary to clear the
title back to its origin."





Annoyed, the lawyer responded as follows:
(Actual response):

"Your letter regarding title in Case No.189156 has been received.
I note that you wish to have title extended further than the
206 years covered by the present application. I was unaware
that any educated person in this country, particularly those
working in the property area, would not know that Louisiana
was purchased by the United States from France in 1803, the
year of origin identified in our application. For the
edification of uninformed FHA bureaucrats, the title to the
land prior to U.S. ownership was obtained from France , which
had acquired it by Right of Conquest from Spain . The land
came into the possession of Spain by Right of Discovery made
in the year 1492 by a sea captain named Christopher
Columbus, who had been granted the privilege of seeking a
new route to India by the Spanish monarch, Queen Isabella. The good Queen Isabella, being a pious woman and almost as careful about
titles as the FHA, took the precaution of securing the
blessing of the Pope before she sold her jewels to finance
Columbus 's expedition.
Now the Pope, as I'm sure you may know, is the emissary of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, and God, it is commonly accepted,
created this world. Therefore, I believe it is safe to
presume that God also made that part of the world called
Louisiana . God, therefore, would be the owner of origin and
His origins date back to before the beginning of time, the
world as we know it, and the FHA. I hope you find God's
original claim to be satisfactory.

Now, may we have our damn loan?"


The loan was immediately approved



Hi everyone!
Sorry that it has been so long since I last wrote, but frankly, I just haven't had that much to write about. Nothing has really greased my goose other than the typical stupid driver on the road with the out of state license plates. So, that would be the main reason that you haven't received a long letter from me. Now I hear that time makes the heart grow fonder, if not then tough, I'm back anyways - and with news! So, hear it goes. The first question on most peoples minds is how is the baby doing and the answer (dramatic pause) is great! He's probably around 3.5 to 4lbs and is very active, as far as we know he should be arriving somewhere around August 31st! Melissa and I have been busy getting things together for the baby as well as putting out any usual (or unusually weird) family and friend fires. For those of you who have had kids, I'm sure you understand. lucky for us there hasn't been to many, but according to the world he doesn't even have an age yet, so we've got a long ways to go. I've always wondered about that. If he isn't an age then is he like, less then zero years old? Should we sing him the mad hatters happy unbirthday song because he hasn't had one yet? Or should we just refer to him as T - Minus 2.5 months?

As far as my diet is concerned, last time I wrote about it think I was down 20 or more pounds and everything was going very well. Then the middle of March came. I just didn't take in to account a very formidable diet adversary named "Pregnant wife who has entered the second trimester". This monster (loving, loving wife who is going to be reading this e-mail who I love lovingly) loves food and loves it when her company (me) eats this food with her. So needles to say, I stopped loosing weight. Then, I met another very formidable diet adversary named " Pregnant wife who no longer wants to be pregnant or touched because her everything is sore or swollen who has entered the third trimester". This adversary also loves to eat food but can no longer finish the food she wants to eat because something(one) is sitting on her stomach. So, I am fed the remainder of the food - which shall not be named - but lets just say that ever since I started my most awesome diet and exercise plan 4 months ago I lost a grand total of +5lbs. Celebrate! Celebrate! Looks like this challenge will have to be revisited after Josiah is born.

Another hot topic that we are excited about is that I am going back to school. I have been spending the last month or more getting all my ducks in a row and I will begin registering for classes at Liberty University and Berklee College of Music in two days. The way the semesters are broken up at Liberty will allow me to work on both Berklee courses and Liberty courses simultaneously without getting overwhelmed. So far,I have written out every class I need/want to take and If I am able to stick with my plan as scheduled, then by the time I am 32 and a half years old I should have attained:

- a B.S. in Religion w/ an emphasis in Counseling, and a Minor in Business Marketing from Liberty University online
- a Masters Certificate in Guitar Performance from Berklee College of Music online (36 credit hrs)
- a Masters Certificate in Audio Production from Berklee College of music online (36 credit hrs)
- a Specialist Certificate in Music Business Marketing from Berklee College of music online (12 credit hrs)

Also, since I will be taking classes year round, according to my schedule, I will be nearly halfway finished with a Masters of Arts Degree in Apologetics from Biola University online. It's going to be a lot of work, but I am looking forward to it. Melissa is excited about the masters degree because while I spend my mandatory 2 weeks in residence at Biola University, Josiah will be old enough to take to Disney Land. And, the next year that have to do my mandatory 2 weeks in residence at Biola maybe Josiah's little brother or sister can come too. This education will hopefully equip me to be more powerful for God, whether it be in Christian Ministry as a Pastor, Counselor, Audio Engineer, Church Production Director/Tech/Operator/ or Designer, Guitar Instructor, Worship Leader, Writer, Educator, Evangelist, or Entrepreneur, Who knows.?.?

So this is basically all the news. I don't have any real uplifting spiritual or theological thoughts to offer today, other then Calvinism is Weird and the 5 points of Calvinism would be a great sermon topic to hear Steve Holsinger talk about. For those of you that aren't familiar, in short, the 5 points of Calvinism represent the mandatory doctrinal beliefs one must believe in to be a Calvinist. This is often a topic/class in many - if not most - seminary schools. Now there are many Calvinists who don't fully believe in the full 5 five points, but in general it is my understanding that they believe that Jesus did not die for everyones sins, but rather a predestined few. Is it possible that when Jesus died on the cross he did so just to save a few souls? Is it possible that if you are not one of the predestined then you would have no way of entering Heaven? I don't believe so, but it sure would be interesting to hear about. Could it be possible that one of the leaders of the Christian Education system actually began educating and raising up pastors with a false doctrine? There's an interesting utensil to stir the pot with.

All in all, I pray that everyone is doing well. this may sound silly but I feel that I am overdue a good pruning. I feel as if I have been blessed, and my life has been going so well, and so smooth that I actually have become a bit nervous. I can't remember a time of my life that wasn't filled with some sort of adversity or strife. Then when things were good it never lasted to long before more adversity or strife came along. When I began following God, it felt as if I was constantly being pruned. Then when I felt blessed and life was smooth, the pruning soon came. It has been over a year and things are still going smooth, great in fact! But I feel as if I am Alaska, and that I am 15 years overdue for a giant earthquake. There will always be another pruning. I long for it only because it is necessary to continue growing in Christ and to bear good fruit, but I fear that since I am well overdue I will have too endure a royal trim with clippers twice the mass as ever used before. I pray not that I don't arrive at the receiving end of God's discipline, but rather when I do, there is mercy and gentleness.

Have great day

Love,

David