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