I don't have to WIN.  I have only to be FAITHFUL.

Actually FAITHFULNESS to God IS winning!

God defines true winning and success as the attribute of being FAITHFUL.  (So stop measuring your success by the world's definitions, and just concentrate on being faithful... that's really all your Father requires!)

Proverbs 28:20 KJV - A faithful man shall abound with blessings...

Many saints did not and have not won, that is, in the natural sense of winning.  But God said they WON nevertheless!

Hebrews 11:13-16 NIV - All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.  People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.  If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Betrayal begets betrayal.

The betrayed (or those who PERCEIVE they have been betrayed) become betrayers themselves.

Offense begets offense.

The infected infect others.

SOMEONE has to decide the BUCK STOPS HERE, when it comes to betrayal.  SOMEONE has to decide "I WILL FORGIVE AND DROP THESE OFFENSES AGAINST ME!  I WILL FOREVER STOP THIS DEMONIC CYCLE OF BEING BETRAYED AND THEN DOING THE BETRAYING MYSELF!"

If I refuse to walk in agape love, I have automatically chosen to walk in darkness... by default!

A step out of the love walk, is a step into unprotected territory... dangerous territory... into the realm where Satan lives and thrives.

The LOVE WALK is a command from God about which there is no question, from which there is no retreat!  It is NOT an optional accessory package to choose like when shopping for a car.

2 John 1:6 NIV - And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.

LES MISERABLES!!!!!!!!!  Below: 

You cannot FAIL to walk in love with your spouse and think that you can walk close to God at the same time.  NO WAY, HOSEA!

You cannot FAIL to walk in love with your pastor and think God is going to still bless you.  AIN'T HAPPENING!

You cannot FAIL to walk in love and forgiveness with a brother or sister in Christ, and think that God is going to forgive you your own sins.  Jesus says numerous times in the Gospels YOU ARE NOT SQUIRMING OUT OF THIS REQUIREMENT BUT WILL BE TORMENTED INSTEAD.  You have BLOCKED your own lifeline to the Lord!  Better get this straight with Him QUICK or else!

THE HOBBIT!!!!!!!!!! Below:

The Bible teaches that "FAITH WORKETH BY LOVE."  (Galatians 5:6)  This means that I CANNOT have strong faith to receive what I need from God without choosing to walk in divine love at every turn.

My faith is only as strong as my love is.

The depth of my love determines the height of my faith.

The length of my forgiveness determines the width of my prayer results.

NEVER EVER give up your faith in believing God to save your loved one or friend.  Pray for them regularly.  Pray for them again.  Rebuke the enemy of their soul off their mind and heart AGAIN.  Stand fast.  Eternity is worth it.  Many a saint has prayed for someone for YEARS upon YEARS, only to see that person come to Christ after all.  Don't give up.  Don't concede their loss.  Continue to stand in the gap.  Think about it for just a second....  WORST CASE:  They stubbornly refuse Christ somehow despite your prayers (as a free moral agent) and die in their sins, but you still get the reward for laboring in love and prayer for their eternity.  MEDIUM CASE:  They accept Christ at the last minute before they die like the thief on the cross, Hallelujah, and you still get the same reward.  BEST CASE:  They come to Christ any moment now, live a fruitful life for God, and you still get the reward.  In any case, at least YOU WIN!  So what do you have to lose by PLEADING YOUR CASE FOR THEM before the Lord?

Exodus 32:32 KJV - Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin-; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written .

Job 22:30 NRSA - He will deliver even those who are guilty; they will escape because of the cleanness of your hands.

Job 22:30 NIV - He will deliver even one who is not innocent, who will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a NIV -  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails. 

In the above scripture it would seem there are SEVEN (7) LOVE IS's and NINE (9) LOVE IS NOT's.  God in His awesome kindness stoops down to where we live and tells us WHAT LOVE IS NOT, because we are more familiar with experiencing those negatives than His positives.  Ha!  We are plenty familiar with dishing out and being on the receiving end of the LOVE IS NOT'S!  THIS DYNAMIC THAT GOD WOULD DEFINE LOVE FOR US BY STOOPING DOWN TO WHERE WE LIVE IS, IN ITSELF, THE PROOF OF GOD's OWN LOVE FOR US.  HE ACTUALY HUMBLES HIMSELF TO COMES DOWN TO OUR LEVEL IN ORDER TO LIFT US UP TO HIS!  How cool!  Awesome God!  He's loving on us at the same time He's explaining to us what love looks like!  That's either ENTRAPMENT or MIRACULOUS!  Probably both!  Ha! 

I don't know about you, but I want to graduate from having to live in the LOVE IS NOT's into the higher realm of the LOVE IS's.  I don't want to live the rest of my life by having to discipline myself NOT to act like God says LOVE IS NOT.  I want to mature in the Lord to the place where God's love is so controlling me that I most naturally act in accordance with the LOVE IS's without even thinking about it.  Do so, Lord, and even more inside me, Sir! 

Socialism vs. Charity

By Robert Knight

Government involvement will improve volunteerism? That's where we're headed, compliments of the Obama administration.

With the fiscal cliff issues and debt ceiling, Washington is looking under every rock for new forms of "revenue."

Nothing is sacred, not even the mortgage and charitable deductions, which some are recasting as "loopholes." Ending the mortgage deduction when the housing market is finally showing signs of recovery would be like giving a cancer patient strychnine to make him feel better.

Even worse would be ending the charitable deduction, for the simple reason that this deduction encourages private sector benevolence, which the federal government under Barack Obama treats as pesky competition.

As government grows, the private sector wanes, a situation created by the decline of strong families and abetted by progressive programs designed to make families irrelevant.

When it comes to serving the needy, there are two basic approaches. The first, inspired by Jesus Christ and required in the Old Testament, is sacrificial giving of oneself. This has been the cornerstone of American charity since the nation's founding, and it remains the most effective way to assist the poor.

The diametrically opposite approach is socialism, in which income is forcibly seized and then redistributed to groups and individuals favored by government officials. Socialism is rooted in the formula from Karl Marx -- "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs."

That's a fine arrangement when voluntary, such as in families, churches and private charities. However, when imposed by force -- and socialism is always accompanied by force since it violates human nature -- it is soft tyranny masquerading as charity.

Since the 1930s, with the advent of the New Deal, the federal government, along with local and state governments, has taken on more and more functions that were handled by families and faith-based charities. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society sent this into overdrive, and Barack Obama is intent on nailing America to a third-stage rocket into socialism.

Social Security, the largest government income transfer program, was originally aimed at assisting intact families and widows. Now, it's an ever-growing tax on employees and employers that has driven a wedge between the generations. How? Because in the past, parents had more children partly to insure that someone would provide for them in their old age.

Social Security removed the advantage of having children, since it guarantees income based solely on age (and previous employment). Someone who has no children gets the same amount as someone who had six children who grew up to pay into the system, thus supporting the childless retiree. Children are very expensive, as any parent can tell you. Social Security makes having them less advantageous. Of course, Social Security has allowed millions of older Americans to live in at least minimally comfortable circumstances. Political talk of privatizing any aspect of Social Security is hazardous, and any hint of ending Social Security as we know it is political suicide. Americans have come to count on Social Security, so the challenge is how to sustain it without bankrupting the next generation.

The same can be said of Medicare, Medicaid and many other enormous federal programs. The advantages are obvious, but the downsides are not so obvious -- except for America's $16 trillion-and-growing debt. To pay for all this, the average American family's tax burden has risen from a mere 2 percent of income in 1948 to something approaching 40 percent when all taxes are accounted for.

This has forced many mothers into the workplace who would, all things being equal, rather spend the time raising their children. It's also created a huge market for paid childcare, with the government subsidizing it. Families pay taxes to create a system that offers incentives for them to spend less time with their own children.

On April 21, 2009, President Obama signed a bill, the "Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act," tripling the size of the federal government's paid "volunteer" programs, including AmeriCorps. The plan will spend $5.7 billion over the next five years and $10 billion over the next 10 years, and put 250,000 paid "volunteers" on the government payroll.

Why would anyone think that government involvement would improve volunteerism? On the Senate floor, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) warned:

"... Our history shows us when Government gets involved, it tends to take something that is working and make it not work nearly as well. Civil society works because it is everything Government is not. It is small, it is personal, it is responsive, it is accountable."

In 2009, Harvard economics Prof. Martin Feldstein warned that Obama's plan to target charities could severely hurt nonprofits:

"President Obama's proposal to limit the tax deductibility of charitable contributions would effectively transfer more than $7 billion a year from the nation's charitable institutions to the federal government."

Taken together, a massive increase in government aid to paid "volunteers" and reducing incentives for charitable giving are a double-barreled shotgun aimed at the private sector.