The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

AllanStanglin.com

Author: Allan (Page 32 of 486)

The Will of Jesus to Practice

November 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

More and more research is being released about the effects of cell phones and digital technology, telling us what we already know, what we’ve known for 20 years. But somehow it keeps being presented and received as groundbreaking. What? Cell phone bans result in academic improvement? No way!! Who could have ever guessed that? The latest is coming out of the Dallas School District where Robert T. Hill Middle School banned all phones on campus five years ago. According to school officials there, the campus culture has shifted. There has been a 75% decrease in bullying (I’m not sure how they measure that), and a 13-point gain in the number of students meeting the standards of the STAAR tests. According to the story from Channel 5 in Fort Worth, the biggest pushback generally comes from the parents. Not the students. Parents complain they need to be in constant contact with their children. Of course, because we want to raise our kids to need to live with us into their 30s.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our first “4 Midland” pulpit swap and Thanksgiving service is this Sunday. I’m preaching at First Baptist this Sunday morning and Steve Brooks, our brother from First Methodist, is preaching here at GCR. Darin Wood, the pastor at First Baptist is preaching at First Presbyterian while their pastor, Steve Schorr, is preaching at First Methodist. And then all four of our churches are coming together Sunday evening for a combined Thanksgiving service. In advance of these glorious events, I’m posting this week about Christian unity as a gift of God to receive, our Church of Christ heritage to embrace, and, today, the will of Jesus to practice.

My prayer, Jesus says, is that all of them may be one. May they be brought to complete unity. It’s this unity, this uncompromising love and acceptance we have for all baptized disciples of Christ, that will prove to the world Jesus really is who we say he is. Our unflinching commitment to love and accept and unite with all Christian brothers and sisters will astonish the world!

Well, Allan, not ALL people who’ve been baptized. A lot of people are not baptized like we are. A lot of churches don’t do the Lord’s Supper like we do. We can’t worship with and have fellowship with ALL Christians.

That’s why the Church is not astonishing the world.

Our Lord’s prayer is for unity. Christ’s will is for complete unity among all his followers. We need to get there. So, let’s lay it out.

If God accepts someone, I have to also. I can’t be a sterner judge than the perfect judge. I don’t know anybody who would say, “Well, God certainly accepts this woman as a full child of his, but she doesn’t meet all of MY standards. I’M not going to accept her.” Nobody would say that. The truth is, I must fellowship everybody who has fellowship with God. All the saved. Everybody who’s saved.

So, who is saved?

Well, all those who hear, believe, repent, confess, and are baptized (by the way, that’s another Church of Christ creed).

All those who hear what? The Gospel! And believe what? The Gospel! Who repent and confess what? The Gospel!

Okay, what’s the Gospel? That Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, that he alone is Lord, and that we’re saved by faith in him.

The Bible sums it up in several places, but that’s pretty good. Believe in Jesus as the eternal Son of God, declare him Lord, and, by faith, submit to his lordship in baptism. We’ve never required anything else. The Church through the centuries has never demanded anything more. We’ve never asked anybody their position on atonement theory or women’s roles before they’re baptized. We don’t put a person in the water and then catalogue all their beliefs on the plurality of elders and the age of the earth before they’re saved. Now, some of us try to do that after they’re saved! We can act like a health club sometimes: “The first month is free but then, after that, you’re going to pay through the nose! For the rest of your life!” No, that stuff is not the Gospel. The apostle Paul says nothing but Christ and him crucified.

“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” ~Romans 15:7

We are called to accept others by the same standard as when Jesus Christ accepted us, to continually accept others based on the way they were accepted at their baptisms–the way you were accepted at your baptism. Your acceptance by God is a gift. The fact that Christ Jesus accepts you is nothing but pure grace. Now, show that same grace, share that same gift, to everyone who calls Jesus Lord.

Peace,

Allan

Our CofC Heritage to Embrace

November 19, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The Cowboys ushered in the experimental phase of the 2024 season last night by getting blown out at home. Again. Among the miscues and missed opportunities against the Texans, the mass of penalties and the highly questionable play calls, double-fumbles, a boinked field goal, and a botched fake punt, Mike McCarthy’s biggest post-game regret was that he didn’t give Trey Lance a couple of series at the end. The roof fell down on the Cowboys last night, both figuratively and literally. Forget the Lombardi Trophy, this team can’t even compete for the Governor’s Cup. I’m reminded of the immortal words of Bum Phillips after his Houston Oilers dismantled the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day in 1978, “I’d rather be Texas’ Team than America’s Team any day.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My gifted and talented brother, Keith Stanglin, the executive director of Center for Christian Studies in Austin, has written a brilliant article on the new Apple Intelligence commercials that are airing multiple times during almost all college and NFL football games. You’ve seen the spots: the mom making an AI generated video for her husband after she forgets his birthday, the guy in the boardroom who uses AI to generate a report after being called on the carpet for not doing his work, the employee sending an AI email to his boss that hides the fact he’s a disengaged slob at work. Keith points out the obvious. These commercials don’t try to hide what AI is all about; the ads emphasize it as the selling point. Laziness and deception. Cheating. Hiding. The old vices are the new virtues. AI calls evil good and good evil. And most of our world embraces it giddily. Thank you, Keith, for your words of wisdom and warning. This is a great read.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In advance of our first annual “4 Midland” Thanksgiving service this Sunday at First Baptist, I’m writing this week about Christian unity. Yesterday I posted about Christian unity among all disciples of Jesus across all denominations as a gift from God to receive. Today, I’d like to present Christian unity as our Church of Christ heritage to embrace.

215 years ago, Thomas Campbell was preaching fiery sermons about Christian unity in western Pennsylvania. His convictions about the unity of all Christians and those sermons got him censured by his presbytery and then fired by his synod. At the same time, another Presbyterian preacher in Kentucky, Barton Stone, dissolved his presbytery to unite with everyone who desired to move away from denominational labels and just be known as Christians. In September of 1809, Campbell wrote what he called the Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington County. It was a call to Christian unity based on Jesus’ prayer in John 17 and on the whole of Scripture that presents complete unity as God’s holy will for his people.

Some of the Declaration and Address is tough sledding; it was written over two centuries ago. But I love reading it. It’s our founding document in Churches of Christ. This document is where we get, “Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent,” although I’m afraid we’ve become a people who speak where the Bible speaks and, where the Bible is silent, we have even more to say. Our foundational Church of Christ creeds come from the Declaration and Address. “Christians only, but not the only Christians.” “No creed but Christ,” which, ironically, is a creed. I can’t find, “guide, guard, and direct” in this document, but I know it must be in there.

The Declaration and Address reminds us in Churches of Christ that we began as a Christian unity movement with a deep conviction that all Christians are one. All Christians are together. Our unity in Christ transcends all denominational differences and it should be demonstrated in visible and public ways for the sake of an unbelieving world.

I’ll share just a couple of passages:

Proposition 1 – That the church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one; consisting of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him in all things according to the scriptures, and that manifest the same by their tempers and conduct.

Proposition 2 – They ought to receive each other as Christ Jesus hath also received them to the glory of God. And for this purpose, they ought to all walk by the same rule, to mind and speak the same thing; and to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Proposition 9 – That all that are enabled, thro’ grace, to make the Christian confession and to manifest the reality of it in their tempers and conduct, should consider each other as the precious saints of God, should love each other as brethren, children of the same family and Father, temples of the same Spirit, members of the same Body, subjects of the same grace, objects of the same divine love, bought with the same price, and joint heirs of the same inheritance. Whom God has thus joined together no man should dare to put asunder.

Introduction, pages 9-10 – Not that we judge ourselves competent to effect such a thing; we utterly disclaim the thought. But we judge it our bounded duty to make the attempt, by using all due means in our power to promote it; and also, that we have sufficient reason to rest assured that our humble and well meant endeavors shall not be in vain in the Lord. The cause that we advocate is not our own peculiar; it is a common cause, the cause of Christ and our brethren of all denominations. All that we presume to do, then, is to do what we conceive to be our duty, in connexion with our brethren; to each of whom it equally belongs, as to us, to exert themselves for this blessed purpose.

It was a radical, mind-blowing vision. Christians only. Unity in Christ. For the sake of the world. Putting aside personal preferences and tearing down denominational walls. Campbell and Stone dreamed and prayed for the one Church we read about in our Bibles, the one Church Jesus prayed for at that last supper, the physical and tangible unity of Christ’s Church that proves to the world he really is Lord.

It was risky. Dangerous. It cost them their jobs. It cost them relationships with family and friends and professional colleagues. But Campbell and Stone valued the sound doctrine of Christian unity more than they valued their own church’s distinctions that divided them.

A couple of times in the Declaration and Address, Campbell writes, “What? Shall we pray for a thing and not strive to obtain it?”

Peace,

Allan

A Gift from God to Receive

November 18, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Christian unity is a big deal to our Lord Jesus. At the end of his beautiful prayer recorded in John 17, on the last night before his sacrificial death, Jesus prays for the unity of all future disciples. He asks the Father to give all future followers, all future Christians, the same unity that he and the Father share. This unity, this oneness, Jesus says, is a critical component for world evangelism.

“…so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” ~John 17:21
“…to let the world know that you sent me.” ~John 17:23

Our badge of discipleship is not baptism. The world doesn’t know we’re disciples and that Jesus really is the Savior of the world because we’ve been baptized. And the world isn’t convinced by our doctrines or worship practices, either. The world doesn’t really care about those things at all. Jesus says the world will be changed when we show them our unity.

It’s important to know that Christian unity is not something for which we have to work. Christian unity is a gift from God to receive. It’s not something we create; we don’t cause Christian unity. It’s already been given to us; it’s already the eternal reality. It’s just a matter of whether we recognize it or not, whether we choose to live into it or not.

“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.” ~John 17:22

It’s a gift. Ephesians 4:3-6 makes it very plain. It doesn’t say make every effort to create the unity. It’s not make every effort to cause the unity or bring about the unity. It’s “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit.” Make every effort to acknowledge and guard and practice the unity of the Spirit. Because there is one body and one Spirit. Not there needs to be or there should be–it’s there is! It’s already done!

There is one body and one Spirit, there is one hope and one Lord. There are many expressions of the faith, but just one faith. Guard it. Maintain it. Keep it. There are different expressions of baptism, but only one baptism. Not just one expression of Church–there are many expressions–but there is only one Church. And one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all!

That’s the reality. It’s the same blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that courses through our spiritual veins. It’s the same one Holy Spirit who lives inside all Christians. We’re all related to all Christians. It’s already a done deal.

Through the Spirit, we have been given by God an eternal unity that encompasses the Father with the Son, all disciples of Jesus with them both, and all Christians, in turn, with one another. It’s not anything we have to create. It’s what God has already given us. Unity with all Christians is a gift from God. The only question is whether or not you’re going to accept it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Dallas Cowboys are the only professional sports team in the United States without a home win in 2024. Look it up. NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA–every single team has won a game at home except for Jerry’s Team. Look for that to continue tonight against C.J. Stroud, Joe Mixon, and the Houston Texans. The Cowboys have not scored a touchdown at AT&T Stadium in 57 days. During their current four game losing streak, Dallas has been outscored 138-60. I don’t think this will be an explosive blowout like the past five games in Arlington in which the Cowboy have given up at least 21-points before halftime and trailed by three scores. But the losing streak should continue. And whatever has been ailing the Texans in November should get fixed.

Peace,

Allan

Stadium Glare and Septum Repair

November 14, 2024 / / 0 Comments

It will forever be hilarious to me that Jerry Wayne spent over a billion dollars to create the only football gridiron on the planet with an East-West orientation. Now, he’s tripling down on the end zone windows, claiming that it provides a home field advantage for his team. Evan Grant crunched the numbers and is reporting that the Cowboys are 29-29 in all games at AT&T Stadium that start between 3-7p. The team is 107-68 in home games that start at 12noon or evening prime time. It’s not the only thing preventing the Cowboys from winning a divisional playoff game for now the 29th year in a row. But this week it is the most glaring of hundreds of things Jerry does to get in the way of his team.

In other news, watching the Cowboys this season is reminding lots of people about the ’89 team that went 1-15, the Campo years with Quincy Carter, Anthony Wright, and Chad Hutchinson, and even the 1960 expansion team that didn’t have the benefit of an NFL draft. The numbers are historically bad. We are watching one of the worst Dallas Cowboys teams of all time. And, yes, one of the worst NFL teams of all time. This version of the Cowboys is the first team in NFL history to trail by over 20 points in five straight home games. That record should be extended against Houston on Monday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carrie-Anne and I spent five days in Los Angeles recently so a world-renowned surgeon could operate on a sinus/septum issue that’s been causing her problems for much of her life. It’s a one centimeter hole on the inside of her tiny nose that has led to a lifetime of migraine headaches and sinus infections. There’s a guy in Houston who fixes these by cutting across the bottom of the nose, pulling all the skin up toward the forehead, and knocking it out in about an hour. Yikes. This guy in L.A. goes in through the nostrils and takes more than five hours to, in his words, carefully build the ship inside the bottle, with tiny instruments and cameras.

After the pre-op appointment Thursday afternoon, C-A and I ate dinner at the iconic Mel’s Drive-In on Hollywood Boulevard and then that was pretty much it for the next four days. They wheeled her back for the surgery at 8a Friday morning and we didn’t leave until after 5p. And she was absolutely miserable. Super sore. Swollen. Groggy. A little discolored. And absolutely not wanting to leave our hotel room for anything.

So, yes, we spent the whole weekend watching football and movies in the Hampton Inn in L.A., less than five miles from Hollywood and the Sunset Strip and less than 10 miles from the beach.

Thankfully, her follow up appointment was Monday morning. Dr. Hamilton pulled the packing out of her nose and nasal passages–about three miles of gauze that I thought never would stop coming–and checked her out and gave us some care and maintenance instructions and sent us on our way. Carrie-Anne still didn’t feel great, but she was good enough for us to drive up and down about twelve miles of the Pacific Coast Highway and eat lunch at Duke’s on the beach in Malibu. A long, wonderful, relaxing lunch. Coconut shrimp and fried fish, while watching the pelicans dive and the dolphins jump out on the sea. I don’t think C-A actually tasted any of her food, but we had a blast.

We got home Tuesday night and today Carrie-Anne is still a little swollen, still very sore, and still unable to breathe through her nose. There’s a protective foam packing inside her little nose that’s supposed to come out tomorrow. They gave her a solution to spray up there that’s supposed to dissolve the foam and pretty much take care of itself. We’re very hopeful. The suspense is killing us.

The good news is that her follow-up in L.A. is December 5 and we’re planning to spend three full days doing the touristy stuff we couldn’t do this time. We won’t go back to Mel’s–I think a person only does that once. But we’ll hit the Hollywood Walk of Fame, cruise up and down Sunset Strip, maybe take in a show, see if Jimmy Kimmel’s taping one of those afternoons, and go back to the beach. In our sweatshirts, probably. And we’ll certainly go back to Duke’s. Carrie-Anne will be able to taste her fish then. And she’ll let me take pictures.

Peace,

Allan

Best. Lunch. Ever.

November 5, 2024 / / 3 Comments

So, I had lunch today with the Texas Rangers World Series trophy. What did you do?

The Rangers are doing their best to share the joy of the team’s first ever championship by touring the World Series trophy all over the Republic of Texas. It made it to Midland today for a glorious 90-minute showcase at the Golden Chick on the south side of town. Golden Chick is a corporate sponsor for the Rangers; that’s the connection. The event was promoted to start at 10:30am and run through 12:00noon. I arrived at 10:15am. I wanted to be early. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of long lines and wait times for my personal moment with the hardware.

There were no lines.

When I pulled in, there were seven or eight random guys standing around in the parking lot, wearing a variety of Rangers shirts and caps. Perfect strangers. I joined them for an awkward couple of minutes. And then the Golden Chick manager opened the doors and we walked in together. Unsure. Expectant. I was breathless. I was thrilled at this exciting opportunity, but also very much aware that sometimes my experiences don’t match up to my expectations.

Once my eyes adjusted from the crisp sunlight outdoors to the fluorescent gloss of the restaurant, we noticed that the trophy was still being unpacked. Cheryl Springer, the Rangers Trophy Tour Coordinator, was wearing white gloves and carefully removing the 30-pound Tiffany treasure from its case. I watched in stunned silence as she placed the trophy on a perfectly centered stand and slowly, almost theatrically, removed the black velvet cloth.

I might have gasped. Quietly. My eyes might have misted up a bit. Maybe. The 2023 Texas Rangers World Series trophy was six feet away from me, in all of its gleaming glory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once Cheryl gave the go-ahead, the other guys all started taking pictures. They formed a bit of a line and, one at a time, handed their phones to Cheryl to snap their personal proof that the Rangers really did win a championship. Cheryl looked at me and said, “Are you going to get a picture?” I needed a minute. My eyes were more than a little misty now; I was on the verge of a full-on blubber.

If you know me well, you understand; if you don’t, you won’t. I was overcome all over again with the emotion of the long-awaited World Series win and how much fun it was and how long we had all suffered and all the great players of the past who got close and going to all those games my whole life with my brother and my dad and my daughters and celebrating the Fourth of July at the Ballpark with Carrie-Anne that first summer we were dating and the agony of one-strike-away and how we held our breath and each other’s hands during  that last Arizona at-bat and screamed when Josh Sborz spiked his glove and hugged each other and popped open the champagne and cried with unabashed joy.  Here it all was, flooding over me all over again. I needed a minute.

Someone I didn’t know said, “Hey, let’s get a group picture!” None of us knew each other, but none of us wanted this to be just a personal individual moment. This guy’s instincts were perfect. We were united in our love for the Rangers and in our desire to celebrate the title one more time. The Rangers were the reason we were all in that same Midland Golden Chick at the same time. So we gathered around the trophy and Cheryl took the picture. New friends.

And then I asked Cheryl to take a few pictures of me. Just a few.

 

 

 

 

People trickled in and out for those first 30-minutes. And then my friend Brandon Brunson showed up. This Brandon is the good Brandon, the Rangers fan; not Brandon Hill, the bad Brandon, the Astros fan. We took a couple of photos together with the trophy and then settled in for a nice lunch of chicken strips and fried okra, watching the fans come and go–all ages, all ethnicities, all different backgrounds and diverse histories with the team. We were sitting close enough to the trophy to hear most of the people sharing their stories with Cheryl. A dozen Midland fire fighters got a group pic with the trophy. An eleven-year-old boy, who did not suffer nearly as long as most of us, smiled really big for his shot. A fancy woman in Gucci logos from head to foot complained that none of her girlfriends would accompany her, but she had to come see it. Brandon and I really enjoyed that lunch together, in the shadow of the Rangers World Series trophy, watching the fans share their memories.

We were getting up to leave at about 11:45 when Cheryl came over and said, “Would you be able to stay for about ten more minutes?”

Um. Yes. What’s going on?

“I need help packing up the trophy and loading it into the truck.”

Brandon and I immediately sat back down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, we helped pack the Rangers World Series trophy back into its case. We helped cover it with the black velvet cloth. We carefully placed it inside the custom foam-filled steel traveling case. We secured the locks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We helped Cheryl tear down the backdrop. And then Brandon and I wheeled the World Series trophy out the door and towards the truck that would carry it to Odessa this afternoon and Albany this evening. We giggled as we moved that historic cargo across the Golden Chick parking lot. My motives were not completely pure; I was trying to figure out how to get it to MY truck a few spaces over. What are the odds that we’d be moving the trophy like this? It was crazy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We lifted it. Carefully. Slowly. I think, maybe, subconsciously trying to milk the moment to last as long as possible. We are contributing to the cause! We are integral to the program! Go team! We loaded it into the back of the official vehicle of the Texas Rangers World Series Trophy Tour and, after one last picture, slammed the gate shut. Brandon and I looked at each other with satisfied grins. Can you believe this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best. Lunch. Ever.

Is Albany too far to drive for dinner?

Peace,

Allan

Reality Check

November 4, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Most Christians I know will be voting in this country’s general elections tomorrow. For a variety of reasons and motivations, with a mixture of hopes and concerns, most Christians are heading to the polls. To those who are deciding to vote, I generally say something like this: I believe it’s okay for followers of Jesus to vote; just don’t pretend it’s an act of righteousness.

Here in the United States, where we live, we’ve got, for all practical purposes, two political parties. Generally speaking, there are some Kingdom of God values in both party platforms and also things in both party platforms that fall woefully short, if not straight up oppose Christ. I don’t think all Christians who vote against abortion hate immigrants and I don’t believe all Christians who vote for civil rights and refugees want to normalize gay marriage and gender fluidity. It’s complicated. There’s room for a carefully discerning Christian to vote for either party with a clear conscience before God and his Christian brothers and sisters.

But both parties get their way through power and threat, wealth and numbers, insults and lies, division and force. The goals and the methods of both parties are not at all in line with what I call Christian politics.

As Christians, we have our own unique politics. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God. We have a King. His name is Jesus. And he’s not on the ballot tomorrow. The Bible says our King was declared with power when the Holy Spirit raised him from the dead to be the Son of God: Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 1:4)

And he has told us how to live, how to function with others for the greater good, what to prioritize for the sake of society. In other words, politics. What laws are going to govern how we take care of others, how are we going to get along together, how will we help people flourish? That’s politics. And God through Christ has told us what it looks like. We follow very clear and very specific politics. The Ruler of God’s Kingdom has shown us how to change the world, how to make things right, how to fix things for all people.

It looks like Jesus on the cross. It’s sacrifice. Suffering. Forgiveness. Love. Mercy. Grace. Compassion. Empathy. Serving others. Unconditional love, for all. The crucified and risen Jesus is our King. These are our Kingdom of God politics. And you can’t find them in the politics of the world’s kingdoms.

I don’t see one good party and one bad party in the United States. I don’t believe it’s one righteous platform and one evil platform. It seems to me it is one broken, fallen, sinful, political system of a temporary and fading worldly kingdom that’s opposed to the politics of the Kingdom of God.

As Brian Zahnd pointed out in his recent voter’s guide, “The bottom line for political parties is power and the bottom line for Christians is love; therein lies the rub.”

The U.S. political system has very little to do with how God is saving the world. The fate of the Kingdom of God is not hanging in the balance tomorrow. It’s much more important that your soul be filled with love than for your party to win the election. We all need these reminders. It’s okay to vote, but voting is not how we witness to the Way of Jesus.

Hunter S. Thompson is given credit for saying, “There’s a terrible danger in voting for the lesser of two evils because the parties can set it up that way.” The current circumstances make it difficult to argue against his point.

More to my point, the great preacher Charles Spurgeon said, “Of two evils, choose neither. Christians must turn from the endless cycle of voting for the lesser of two evils and expecting an unrighteous act to produce a righteous result. Choosing the lesser of two evils is still evil, and never should we do evil that good may come.”

Each of us has to make our own decisions about what we’re going to do tomorrow–whether or not to vote; if we do vote, for which candidate to cast a ballot; and to what extent we place our hopes and dreams in this country’s politics and candidates. The guiding principle for Christians is that we know our God is chasing different goals and using different methods than those represented on the ballots. The way of our God is always different from the way of the world.

It’s not a cynical position like that of 20th century activist Emma Goldman, who said, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” It’s more about a proper perspective when weighing just how much, if any, of himself or herself a Christian wants to pour into the process. Pay attention to how much energy and emotion you’re putting into this thing. Be aware of how the ups and downs of this week, and maybe the rest of this month, impact your behaviors. Keep your allegiances in the proper order.

C.S. Lewis once observed, “He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation or a party or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God himself.”

Peace,

Allan

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑