Salt and Light...
3:24 A.M. here in Denver, Colorado. I don't sleep well these past several days. I have much on my mind. I want you to know something, I don't write articles on LinkedIn without doing one thing first. I get down on my knees, right there beside my bed and I invite the Holy Spirit into my life and ask our God to give me His words. I can't tell you how much of what I write is His or how much is mine, I can only tell you I asked for help.
I have listened to retired Phoenix Police detectives speak in meetings in the basement of the VA Hospital who have interviewed Charles Manson, police officers who once had substance abuse problems. It must be difficult for law enforcement officers to come clean and stay clean simply by virtue of the fact that you have to be separate from so many others, other than people in law enforcement. I fully realize how many law enforcement connections I have on this platform, it was my choice too. I have known some extremely dishonest law enforcement officers and I have friends in law enforcement I love like brothers. I choose to back the blue. I spent much of my own life on the wrong team blaming others. Today, I know I'm not a victim, I'm a volunteer in my own life. I still don't always consistently make good decisions and I don't believe most people do. I have prayed with my law enforcement friends that have had their own children with substance abuse problems. I have prayed with corrections officers.
It took me more than $ 300,000.00 in attorney's fees in my own life to learn something about our judicial system. Sure, the United States judicial system is rumored to be the best in the world. I even once believed it was a place where civilized nations took their grievances. I even believed it was fair and impartial. Today, that is humorous to me. Our judicial system is nothing short of a business for lawyers. It doesn't matter if you're a law enforcement officer testifying in an effort to convict criminals, a father desiring to be a part of your child's life, if you have a civil suit and you want to be compensated in a fair manner, or anything else, the best thing I can do is stay as far away from the judicial system as possible. I have been thinking, our veterans come back from the wars our dishonest politicians send them to, and then play politics with the lives and limbs of our brothers and sisters, and suffer with post traumatic stress syndrome. I may well have some of that going on in my own life every time I enter a courtroom or get near a member of the bar. I have so much disdain for our judiciary and the people involved in it that I literally get sick to my stomach around it.
It's pretty apparent to me, there isn't any real justice here on Earth. And I know we don't see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. What each of us know about the truth is so subject to revision. I have a bible that was given to me in a maximum-security prison in Miami, Florida more than forty years ago by an ordained baptist minister and recovering heroin addict. I still take that Dake's reference bible to church with me more than forty years later. When I am pulled over by a police officer anywhere, of course, my forty year old past is immediately used against me. I was thinking about our God, He wiped my record clean. It wasn't anything I earned, I can't. The gift was free. I only needed to accept and believe that our God sent His only Son to be born on Christmas Day with a plan. Imagine a God so all knowing He knew a child before He was born, His own Son, sent here, to this fallen, dishonest, filthy world where pedophiles molest children, where parents molest their own offspring, where people continue to commit unthinkable crimes, a perfect God in a perfect place sent His own Son here to be part of sin like that, knowing He would one day be nailed to a tree to die an excruciatingly painful death on that cross, to take on the very sin of this world, when He was perfect and never knew sin? Wow, that's a lot of love. Jesus Christ made a way for each of us to get home to place without pain, dishonesty and sin. And all I had to do was believe. I only needed to accept the gift. I can't personally imagine what law enforcement officers have to see and witness in this world. I won't even pretend I do. Particularly in this world today with the disrespect so prevalent everywhere. We have law enforcement officers being executed. I wouldn't want to shoot somebody even in self defense. I don't own any guns and never have. I do know what it's like to be shot. I have had a bullet pass right through my chest, miss my heart, lungs, any major arteries, pass through my seat belt, and that bullet is still right there in my right forearm. I spent one day in the hospital. That's how I learned our God is bulletproof. Yes, it's true, if the drugs don't kill us, the lifestyle will. I'm 5'6" short. I discovered a long time ago, I was built for speed. You know when I met the King of this world, Jesus, I didn't get perfect. I got honest. I have a very short attention span for anything dishonest in my life today. I have a real aversion to anything not true, in courtrooms, in my business affairs, in my personal life, anything. The trouble is there isn't much truth going around anymore. It's fake news, fake this, fake that. And it all comes at us so fast anymore. I think we are rumored to be the most connected people ever, but we sure seem to be disconnected from anything that matters. I have to tell you if you invite this King Jesus into your life, and I recommend it, we have an enemy. See if you really want to be the hands and feet of Jesus, the enemy is not going to like it. One of the things our enemy does is he likes to use our past against us. The shame, the guilt, the shortcomings and error, oh, he'll try to put it up front and make it visible too. So on that note, "Satan, you can go straight to Hell. That's all on that cross too. You don't get to have any power to distort God's truth from working in my life, none." I want to thank our many first responders, law enforcement officers, veterans, social workers and others, just everyone, for the service they provide to others. It really is about the others. There is a war going on in the world. I'm sure of it. Pick a side. Get the manual, the Holy Bible, read it, study it, use it. Our weapon is love. You know I'm a member of the Gideon Ministry and that certainly doesn't make me special. I'm just glad they let a man with my background in. I'm going to share with you what I read when I open one of our testaments. The Gideon Ministry is a more than one hundred year old ministry. We have now distributed God's HolyBible to more than two hundred countries for more than a hundred years, many times the first time that nation has ever had God's truth translated into their native tongue. More than two billion bibles now have been distributed.
From the front of a Gideon Bible....
"The bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers, it's doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.
It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter. Here Paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and the gates of Hell disclosed.
Christ is its grand subject, our good the design, and the glory of God its end.
It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgement, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents."
God doesn't have nearly as much trouble getting us to Heaven as He does getting a little Heaven here on Earth.
"We cannot change God's truth, God's truth can change people."