Our cell phones are watching us and God is too!

Your cellphone is watching you, recording your every step, in minute detail! With the right app, it can draw a step by step map of everywhere you have been for the last year.

That's the revelation that has shocked the world this week as many learned that IPhones, Ipads and Android phones store GPS location data about user movements, even when the phone is off;for as far back as a year.

That revelation instantly sparked concerns from cheating spouses, criminals studying targets, and anyone else involved in mischievous activities. Others have found it rather amusing to retrace their steps on a map over the last year. Nearly everyone is upset that they were not told that they were being watched.

Good or bad, it all means Orson Wells' projection of a "Big Brother" state where the government knows your every movement is getting closer..or has arrived.

Of course, God has been tracking our movements since creation. His goes beyond just our movements: He tracks the words we say and the thoughts that we think and He takes note of them.

It's not a secret, the fact that He watches and knows is written clearly in his life manual that he developed for all of us to read.

There is a bible passage in Psalm 139:1-5 that says, "O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me."

God knows our every step and thought, whether we own a cell phone or not.

The good thing is that He sees us when we stumble and helps us up again. He sees us cry and wipes our eyes.

He sees us sin, too and is disturbed by our actions.

He sees us as we are every second and minute of the day.. and loves us anyway!

Is today, it's OK to sin day?

Is there a day of the year that a person can live wild, loose and crazy and God will look the other way? Some believe today is that day, it's called Fat Tuesday or in French Mardi Gras.

As the Catholic church spread around the world it encountered many wild customs that were traditional. Some included drunkenness, sexual orgies, nakedness, provocative dancing, costumes, masks, and revelrie, all performed in the open.

No matter how much the church spoke against it, the people did it anyway, so the church decided to try to put limits on all the wickedness it encountered. To remain blessed, believers were allowed to party wildly as long as they waited until after the Christmas Holidays and stopped before Ash Wednesday which begins the 40 days of lent leading up to Easter.

So, people who live in areas with a heavy Catholic influence celebrate Mardi Gras-They party hard from January up to Ash Wednesday (which changes each year). They cry out Laissez les bons temps rouler" which is French for Let the good times roll. Very few church leaders speak against it because "he who speaks against a party OK'd by God must be of the devil."

Today, is the last day before the party stops. It's called Fat Tuesday -There will be more parties, drinking, public lewdness and sexual activity, homosexual and lesbian displays, and public nakedness than the eye can see. Police officers will look the other way, unless someone is physically threatened.

Church leaders won't speak against it, in fact if you look in the crowd many church leaders, pastors, deacons and otherwise holy folks will be laughing, dancing and indirectly endorsing the activities with their presence.

Tomorrow it all stops. Catholic churches will be filled with believers who will attend special worships to get ashes placed on their foreheads. For the next 40 days they will give up something they like, such as coffee, colas, or sweets to do penance for all of the sins they knowingly committed during Mardi Gras.

After that, they will return to their regular lives, frowning on public drunkenness, homosexuality, wild parties, lewdness and ungodly activities. Until next year, anyone who does most of things that are allowed today will be arrested for disgraceful displays of unlawful activity.

Those who are not Catholic or not Christians at all, watch at a distance and probably think God is a conflicting deity. He condemns wild living most of the time, but then gives everyone a free one-day pass, if they give up something for 40 days.

Somehow, I find it difficult to picture Jesus, the apostles, or the millions of martyrs who died for the kingdom of God participating in, endorsing or supporting what appears to be a mockery of the faith.

Over the shouts of the Mardi Gras crowds I hear Galatians 6:7-8 which says, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

She's having his baby, but he won't be her husband

She's having a baby for him but he won't marry her.

There is a very nice young lady who is living with a man without benefit of marriage. After a few years of shacking, she's now having a baby for him. She wants to marry but he thinks marriage is not necessary for him to be a good father, provider and significant other in her life. She's frustrated that he won't make their arrangement official. She feels that he does not want to make a commitment and is leaving the door open for his exit if times get bad.

Neither of them claim any great faith in God, especially one that would require obedience to His word or public worship. Her faith is greater than his but is not openly practiced because he is so critical of spiritual things, the church and Christians.

She's hopeless unevenly yoked, and now a child is about to be reared in this spiritually challenging situation. She wants a husband but all he wants to be is a Significant Other.

What's the difference between being a Significant Other (SO) and a husband?

• Husbands promise they will protect the woman in their lives, the SO makes no promise at all.
  
• Husbands promise to stand with their wives through sickness and hard times, the SO makes no such claim. If she gets sick or even gains weight he may split.
  
• Husbands promise to love their wives and have no other women on the side, the SO won't even fix his mouth to say that.
  
• Husbands promise to provide for their wives safety, livelihood, and nurture, the SO may do some of that but thinks she can take care of herself.
  
• Husbands promise to love their wives like Christ loved the church, the SO is not willing to go that far; he wants to make whoopee and call it love, but that's about it.

Knowing that the man she loves only sees her as a convenient sperm receptacle, this very intelligent young lady, overwhelmed by passion, chose to have a child for her SO.

The bible makes no provision for the SO. It makes no provision for believers to live as though they are married (shacking) without committing to each other before God.

In fact, the Word teaches that if a couple feels they must "get it on" then they should marry or risk hell's fire. 1 Corinthians 7:9 says, "But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn."

The overriding reason that a man should marry the woman he claims to love is that he honors their relationship before God, cleanses the relationship and does himself a favor at the same time.

Look at what the word says:

Ephesians 5:25-28 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ's love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They're really doing themselves a favor—since they're already "one" in marriage.

Wouldn't it be great if a woman had a husband rather than just a Significant Other Brother?

He raped them with his eyes, was that wrong?

He didn't touch them, but he raped them with his eyes!

A young man told me that he often rapes women with his eyes. He said when he sees females whose breasts protrude or pants tightly fit all of their curves he gets excited and he imagines himself undressing them, tearing off the rest of their clothes and ravishing them. He said the women invited him to imagine what it would be like to ravish them because they dressed in ways that invited him. So, with his eyes, he raped them; sometimes as many as seven or eight women a day.

He said he didn't do anything wrong because he only undressed them with his eyes; and only those who dressed in ways that invited fantasy voyeurism. He read in the bible where sexual impurity is a sin before God, but he said he never crosses the line; he keeps himself pure. He never touches these women or takes any inappropriate actions. In fact, they don't even know they have been undressed in his mind.

He wanted to know if thinking about doing it with these women was a sin.

There is only one answer.

Matthew 5:27-28 "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."

Put in that context, there are many people who are guilty, not just this young man. There are some women who are guilty as well.

It appears that our fantasies can get us in trouble with the big guy above.

God doesn't just judge us by what we do, but also by what we think. So, we must work diligently to think on those things that will be acceptable to Him.

We shouldn't dress in ways that tempt others and neither should we let reckless eyeballing plunge us into disfavor with the Lord.