One of the things I too often neglect is prayer. Therefore, I appreciate a reminder.
(Proverbs 3:31) Do not envy a violent man or choose any of his ways, for the Lord detests a perverse man but takes the upright into his confidence.
May God grant comfort and peace to everyone in Nashville who lost loved ones. God understands loss. He knows how to deal with suffering. May His grace cover everyone who is hurting.
May God grant mercy and wisdom to all of us and keep us from foolishness. Let’s pray that we don’t respond to this tragedy with idolatry. Our lawmakers cannot protect us from evil. Weapons are powerless without a finger on the trigger. Wickedness is not found in firearms but only in the human heart. God alone changes hearts. Not government. Not churches. Not schools. Not protests or activism.
Continued => https://johnbranyan.com/may-god-keep-us-from-foolishness/
What happens when we neglect to pray? We forget to turn to God for wisdom. Then we look for guidance in all the wrong places.
Let me add one item to John Branyan’s prayer. Thank God for those brave and able policemen for their prompt action and saving so many.
Citizen Tom 
Reblogged this on Faithful Steward Ministries and FSM Women's Outreach.
Thank you for the reboot!
“Why have secularists made such wreck of the public school system? Fear. You people are so afraid that instead of teaching children how to think you try to teach them what to think.”
Is that not exactly how religious education is taught to children Tom?
Depends upon the religion. A classical Christian education (such as that had most of the founders of the United States), included the teachings of the Greeks and Romans and a large dose of actual history.
Instead of just reading what academics write about history (some of them are just plain liars and all of them have some kind of bias), the best way to learn history is to read what people wrote at the time, i.e., the classics. Secularists hate that.
Read this:
Here is the link: https://citizentom.com/2007/04/10/christianity-and-western-civilization/
Classical Christian education must be based on Biblical teaching without question. The scriptures penned from individual perceptions decades after so called events without eye witness or written support. These writers of history were as biased as they are today, after all they were human and just as devious as we are.
Christians are born into Christianity, Muslims are born into Islam. Indoctrination is expected to ensure the religions futures.
I often wonder what is going on in the US. The country has the most Christians in the developed world, however it is falling apart politically, morally and socially, far worse than countries that are about half Christian or predominantly secular. It is predicted by many that more political violence is due and the gun issue may play a huge part. I hope they are wrong.
Sklyjd
You debating or are you just trying to convince yourself?
Here is response to the notion that people are just raised to believe a certain thing: https://johnbranyan.com/the-fallacies-are-strong/
You want to know what is wrong in the USA. The vast majority does not receive a classical education of any kind, Christian or otherwise. They receive an education that is designed to make them docile and unable to think.
Look at yourself. You don’t debate. Pressed you repeat talking points.
Christians are not born. They are born again.
We are born as savages. To learn, we must first be civilized. Then we can be taught. The Greeks succeeded in creating an education system that taught people how to think and be good citizens. Christian took it further. They taught people to see each other as children of God. Because the image of God is in each of us, we are supposed to care about each other. Because we are the children of God, we have inalienable rights.
In a well instructed society, the vast majority do what is right because they want to do so for the sake of their family, friends, and neighbors. In a well instructed society, the force of government and law is only needed for a few exceptions or to work out difficult and contentious compromises.
I am sipulating a fact that raised from birth as a Christian makes a Christian. John Branyan will never debate because he is so far off track with his fairy stories such as the one on the link. What makes the man so boring is he calls all atheists fools who are dishonest and hypocritical and not up to the Christian standard of himself. Well it takes nothing but a fool to judge everyone he disagrees with as fools, and I have read enough of his bloggs to confirm this.
Atheists he believes are brainwashed by somebody. I and many atheists I know were often sent to Sunday school, churches and religious meetings, this is hardly being brainwashed as a Christian or an atheist. The fact is we are born as atheists and it takes enough information in a regular repetitive fashion to change a persons brain. This is how kids learn to behave and if they have adult Christian ideology constantly in their ear such as daily prayers, church meetings and Bible studies what would you expect that child to become, atheist or Muslim? 🙂
I do not believe for one minute families get together to read and study Richard Dawkins books, but I do know families get together to worship their chosen god and study their religious scriptures, I know this as fact, I knew many Christian families and my girlfriend is a very strong Christian, however we agree we are both too old to beat each other up about our beliefs and would rather make love than war:)
Teaching that we are children of God does not install the basic care we show to each other. Muslims and Jews and every other hundreds of religions and atheists care about each other, it is a basic part of humanity. People can also be bad to each other and that often is due to many underlying reasons.
“In a well instructed society” you claim, this is something that is impossible, political, religious, ethnic, social and domestic ideals will separate societies unless they are under communism or a dictatorship to keep them as robotic zombies, look at your own country and the mess it is suffering with the use of lies and divisive politics.
Education in the US is poor compared to most western nations I agree due to the divisive political influences and I watch the young and brightest Americans on Youtube try to figure out how many stars are on the American flag or what countries fought in the Second world war.
Frankly. I don’t think Atheists are brainwashed. That was not Branyan’s point.
Brainwashing and indoctrination are not exactly the same thing. Brainwashing is actually a rather brutal process. Indoctrination is just a fancy word for instruction.
Instead of debating the subject, you debate the character of your opponents. Why? You think every debate is about whether you are better than your opponent, I guess.
You think education is poor in the USA? Homeschooling seems to be working. So do Christian schools. It is our public school system that is failing. Socialism does not work.
What is the problem with Socialism? The theory does not work in practice. Parents lose the capacity to give up their money in return for getting what they want for their children. Politicians, people no one should trust any more than they must, control the money.
Public/government-fund education in the USA is dominated by teachers unions. Teachers unions are in the catbird seat because they are organized, and they can buy the politicians.
Every other country with a government-funded education system that fails to give parents control over who teaches their children and what they are taught is bound to experience similar corruption.
Thanks for this reminder.
Your entire country could pray for a hundred years but I would bet all my money that it would make absolutely no difference. Sensible and positive legislation for gun ownership is required to save lives from the mentally unstable and you all should know that is an obvious fact and the reality of life.
If prayers are ineffective, then why are you worrying about them?
You spoke without reading Pastor Randy’s post.
I worry because as you know Tom many people are believing that is all they need to do about anything. The law of averages and chance says some prayers will appear to be answered, however my intentions were to identify that for this issue intelligent laws and decisive action are desperately required by humans on terra firma.
Why have secularists made such wreck of the public school system? Fear. You people are so afraid that instead of teaching children how to think you try to teach them what to think.
Are there people who call themselves Christian who coast through life? Are there sex-obsessed Atheists? Yes and yes. There are people of every description, but read the Book of James. It is very practical. C. S. Lewis put it this way.
The Bible tells Christians to be productive. Charitable too? Yes. But if you can work and you don’t, no one is obligated to feed you, and the Apostle Paul said as much. Yet godless or Pagan politicians will feed people in return for their votes, and that goes back thousands of years.
Instead of talking about stuff about which you know nothing, why don’t you look up the purpose of prayer? Here are some examples.
https://www.gotquestions.org/purpose-of-prayer.html
https://www.compellingtruth.org/purpose-of-prayer.html
Am I a great prayer warrior? No, I know this much. Even if you don’t believe in God, it is good to sit down and take stock of your situation.
Our great fear is what we don’t know, the fear of the unknown. Prayer is a tool for giving our worries to God and receiving His grace. That includes receiving the courage to do what He has commanded.
I am not quite as uneducated as you think. I take time out to concentrate my thinking and meditate on certain issues. I do also understand the assistance prayer does for some people and I do not wish to take that away from them. My point however is the thoughts and prayers always offered for the victims of mass shootings without following up with logical and realistic reforms to prevent the same things happening again and again.
There have been semi-automatic guns in this country for a long time. The mass shootings are fairly new. Unfortunately, every time we have one Liberal Democrat Marxists call for the seizure of the guns of law-abiding citizens. Instead, they should observe what their insistence upon government-run secularist education has done to the morals of some people, and they should take note of the fact that these murders take place in “gun-free” zones. Meanwhile, more and more people are being shot in the cities and counties run by Democrats because Democrats won’t enforce the law.
What is the point of creating a “gun-free” zone if there is no way to enforce it? Is the point to disarm people so they can be shot by the criminals Democrats refuse to lock up?
Nothing that Democrats want to do actually makes things better. Their “fixes” just give them more power and more of our money to share with their cronies.
How can you expect to have gun free zones or some states with gun laws? That is not sustainable unless you have strict border controls around the gun free zones or states, and to blame education for nutjobs with guns or that Democrats are to blame one way or another is stretching the excuses far beyond reality and I doubt there has been any Republican shooters, right?
I think your right wing political devotion has clouded sensible thoughts when it comes to the guns issue, the protection of children must be mandatory and above everything else in a civilised society and people going about their lawful business should always be safe in a free country, don’t you think?
Sklyjd
The same people who insist upon gun control also insist upon open borders, defunding the police, and social justice (which is unjust because it REQUIRES the judiciary to show partiality to privileged “victim groups”). In addition, those same people celebrate abortion and transgendering children. So, I think it best to preserve the right to self-defense.
Armed to the teeth for self defence when the cost is innocent lives, many being children. How can any American live with that and what has that to do with abortion and transgender issues? Absolutely nothing. Without guns in the hands of nutjobs, criminals, bad parents and deluded teenagers self defence would eventually be less of an issue.
No extreme political idealism is acceptable to the masses and exaggerating issues we do not like does not help the truth anymore than lying does.
No extreme political idealism? Have you tried looking in a mirror?
You want to ban guns because guns kill people. Okay!!! Let’s ban cars, farms and factories, elevators and stairs, bicycles, water (not safe to swim), doctors, drugs and surgery,……..
Nice Tom.
Amen