Black Friday

Welcome to Black Friday.  Hopefully you won't be too tired from shopping to spend a little time with reading the blog.  Everyone should be full of turkey and dressing, entertained sufficiently from the numerous football games, and now we are thoroughly in the full swing of the holiday season.

Think for a moment about your Thanksgiving meal.  I am curious to know if you followed your President's suggestion to converse about your health insurance coverage, and come to the conclusion that Obamacare is the way to go.  I keep looking at the situation with my insurance and from what I read and hear, it's going to cost more and have higher deductibles.  I never intend to make this a political blog, but I must say for everyone I have talked to in a discussion about insurance, our care is going to decrease and our cost is going to increase.  So I will be the first to confess, Thanksgiving lunch was not the time to discuss health insurance.  

Think one step further with me.  If we are celebrating a day in which we are to be aware of blessings and express Thanksgiving, knowing that we have received in abundance from God, I want to thank him as an individual and as a family. Of course, for the Christian, every day  is Thanksgiving Day, in that one of the things we are taught is the attitude of being thankful. 

It's also a time of reflection of how much God loves us as we are more and more aware of the good things he provides and the things he does for us.  So for me and my house, yesterday our priority was to  honor God through the thankfulness from our hearts. 

I have responsibilities to my government, too, and I am as patriotic as the next guy in wanting to protect our nation and its heritage.  My real responsibility is my allegiance and devotion to God.  This was the same lesson Israel needed to learn when God spoke to them through Jeremiah and revealed some serious heart problems they were having.  Just a portion of that list reads like this:  The were following idols, they were rejecting God, those involved in teaching the law were rebellious, the prophets were prophesying by false Gods.  Read Jeremiah 2 for the remainder of their evils.

Basically, their sin was that they put their trust in men and in the things of the world. Their sin is just like ours. When we fail to put full trust and confidence in God, we are on a losing trip though life.

The confusion of our Black Friday provides a parallel to the confusion of Israel, and just as we can be lured into placing our priorities in the wrong place, like they did, we will end up on the wrong track.

On a Black Friday over 2000 years ago, Jesus gave his life to pay for our sins. His death is the only avenue by which we can truly be right with God. I read today, and share with you now, in the Black Friday of long ago, three  were crucified. We cannot by-pass the middle man. 

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