Her phone rang, she reached into her bosom and pulled it out

She reached In her bosom and pulled out the phone

In a recent meeting of the Monroe City Council a woman rose to address the council. She complained that she was being patronized by city officials who seemed to doubt her intelligence. Suddenly her cell phone rang loudly and a little blue light flashed in her chest. She interrupted her speech and said, "Oh my God, mama gon' kill me." She then reached into her bosom, pulled out her phone and started talking to her mother, finished a brief conversation and returned the phone to her bosom.

Obviously, the council members were amused but tried to drop their heads to hide their expressions. The council chamber was filled with chuckles, the cameras were rolling and reporters jotted it all down.

When mama calls, everyone jumps.

Do we do the same when God speaks to us? Would we interrupt our busy schedules to answer His call, no matter how embarrassing it may be? It's something to think about.

A bible passage asks the same question in Job 9:14, "How much less shall I answer him,[ and] choose out my words[ to reason] with him?"

I think it's best to answer when God calls. Like the lady at the council meeting, we all have telephones in our bosoms. He may call at any time.

Paris Hilton received the mercy others deserve

Paris received mercy that most just dream about.

Paris Hilton was back in court again, recently. This time she was sentenced to two consecutive six month sentences in jail on misdemeanor drug possession charges and one obstruction of justice charge in Las Vegas. Then, because of a plea deal, she was placed on probation for one year and allowed to pay a $2, 000 fine. For good measure she was also sentenced to 200 hours of community service.

Hilton, heiress to the Hilton Hotel fortune, has been in court before for alcohol related driving offenses and drugs. She was sentenced to 45 days in jail once but did only 23 of those days. In Las Vegas she pleaded guilty to the misdemeanors to avoid felony possession charges.

Standing before the Las Vegas Justice of the peace, she admitted her guilt and received her sentence. Because of the probation she walked out of the court to a flurry of photo flashes, and photographers.

Whether deserved or not, Hilton received Justice tempered with mercy. Everyone else in the courtroom that day didn't get the same treatment.

One day we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. The righteous will stand to be rewarded. Fortunately, those who believe in Christ will receive what Miss Hilton received; justice tempered with mercy. We will be found guilty but forgiven because of the blood of Jesus. We will walk into heaven by His grace and mercy although we deserve harsh punishment.

There is a bible passage that refers to our day in God's court; it's in 2 Corinthians 5:10: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things[ done] in[ his] body, according to that he hath done, whether[ it be] good or bad.

For some, their day in court won't be a happy day and they won't be sentenced to the Hilton.

The ungodly will be given eternal punishment and condemned to hell. No probation. No flashing cameras. No community service. No mercy, and no plea bargain. Their punishment is forever.

Hoes Everywhere, even in the bible!

I told them to bring their hoes and you wouldn't believe their answer. 

A while back the local anti-poverty program allowed me to use an acre of land to show young men how to till the earth, plant a garden and grow produce. That was something new for a group of city boys accustomed to getting their food in micro-wave packets or from order boards at McDonald's and Burger King. 

On the morning we were to break the ground, my secretary made an early Saturday morning wake up call. The message she gave was, "We are going to till our garden today. Be ready to go at 8 a.m. and bring your hoes with you." To her surprise, after calling about 40 different households, each time she talked to a young man she received responses such as: "She can't come." "She sleep." "She say she can't come with me, but she'll bring me." "I'll tell her, but she ain't coming with me." 

 Not a single boy associated a hoe with a garden tool. Each one associated the word "hoe" with a female. Then it dawned on all of the adults involved that this generation of boys is not agricultural and therefore not familiar with agricultural tools. 

The word "hoe" in their subculture is only associated with women. It doesn't always mean a bad or ungodly woman, but it most definitely refers to a woman in their mind. That's what they hear in their music and see in the music videos. They hear men call women hoes. They even hear some women call themselves hoes. 

 The urban dictionary even has a formal definition for hoe: "1. A skank 2. A woman that is too loose in the booty." Obviously words mean different things in different situations and to different generations. Even the bible uses the word "ho!" 

It's usually a warning about messing with the people of God. Zechariah 2:7-8 says, "Ho, Zion! Escape, you who are living with the daughter of Babylon. For thus says the LORD of hosts, "After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye." 

 There is another ho in the 6th verse. The gardener has a hoe. The hip hop generation has a hoe, and even God has at least of couple of hoes in the book of Zechariah! 

 My, my, my!

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?

Spontaneous creation? Did the world just create itself?

A British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking says the world created itself and needed no one or anything to start the process.

Professor Hawking challenges Isaac Newton's theory that God must have been involved in creation because our solar system couldn't have come out of chaos simply through nature. But Hawking, who is renowned for his work on black holes, said physics can explain things without the need for a "benevolent creator who made the Universe for our benefit."

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing," the professor says. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going."

Those who don't have as much education as Professor Hawking, in our ignorance a question that defies the professor to answer. If Gravity helped the universe to create itself...who created gravity?

Sometimes we can have so much education we can be just down right stupid.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Genesis 1:1

I read that verse and learned it in elementary school. Dr. Hawking still has a lot to learn.