...For More Than A Name

This is my "testimony" I suppose...hope you learn something from it...


Lately, I have been contemplating the story of Jacob wrestling the Lord in Genesis 32:22-32. If you are unfamiliar with the story, it goes as follows:

Genesis 32:22-32

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
The man asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jacob," he answered.

Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."
But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon.

............................................

April 6, 2008 will be a day I won't forget for the rest of my life. There was no major life-altering event that took place, it was just a normal Sunday, until I came upon an old CD in my car.

To avoid being laughed at, I will not tell you what CD it was...most of you will probably guess it when I tell you the name of the song, which happens to be the last one on the album...

The name of the song is "24," and no it is not after the TV show...and please spare me the jokes because I still listen to the album.

Over the past couple months, I have been doing a lot of evaluating...from relationships to work to achievments. You could say I've been looking back over the past 20 years to see what good I've done, any differences I have made....you know, the usual self-evaluation everyone does every few years...

I have to say, at first I was not impressed with what I saw: a half-ass attempt at life, a bad relationship with both parents, and armfuls of disappointments, regrets, and failed opportunities. While the past year or so has been much more fruitful, I was shocked at how much time I had wasted for the majority of my life.

That, however, was about to change...

God has spoken to me once in my life when I was an angry 16 year old sitting in a jail cell for something I didn't do. After my parent's selfish divorce, I never healed. Both my parents forced me to talk about it before I was ready to.
Divorce is one of those things that can never fully be healed, only time can help. My mother and father apparently didn't realize that.

By the time I was 16, I had become so used to the pain I was numb to it. I didn't let people in, because I was scared I would get hurt again. I had locked the safe to my heart and soul, and I made sure the key was inside before I shut the door.
Then what was supposed to be a normal day at school ended with me in a jail cell downtown...

As I sat in that concrete room, something happened to me. I prayed that God would talk to me.
Now, this is usually the point that people say they asked Jesus into their hearts and everything was okay after that.
But not me...

I could feel the presence of God in the room, and I had been waiting for this opportunity. God used a false accusation made against me to blast open the vault into the deepest part of me, and I was so mad I was going to let him see inside.

I let God have it. I told Him I hated Him for giving me two parents that only thought about themselves. I told Him I hated Him because everyone in the world seemed to be hurting, and no one was getting better. I told Him I hated Him for putting me in a jail cell because I was in class doing what I was supposed do. I told Him I hated Him for allowing the principal of my school to wait to have me arrested until the end of school so I could be put in handcuffs in front of the entire school population. And at that moment, I truly did hate God.

We throw the word "hate" around way to loosely nowadays. Not many people truly understand what hate is, but I do. I was consumed with it at that point in my life. Hate is murderous, vengeful, and very rarely okay.
And in a jail cell downtown, I had a wrestling match with God, just like Jacob did.

The details of that fight I will keep to myself, but I walked away with a limp like Jacob did. After that, the hatred slowly left.

I guess I didn't realize until April 6, 2008 what had really occurred in that cell downtown at God knows what time of the morning. Then I heard the lyrics to that song:

"I want to see miracles...
To see the world change...
I wrestled the angel...
For more than a name...

For more than a feeling...
For more than a cause...
I'm singing: Spirit take me up in arms with you...
Cause You're raising the dead in me."

.............................

I guess it really hit me then what had happened that night 4+ years ago. I saw miracles and I saw the world changed. I had wrestled God, like Jacob did, but for much more than a name. In a sense, I walked away with a limp, and so did God. We wounded each other, I with my hatred and Him with His Love. His weapon proved to be the stronger that day, thankfully...

After that, the hatred slowly left me. I went back to school and never received an apology for getting screwed over. I was physically threatened more than once by other students, and I lost most of my so-called "friends." To this day I do not have a good relationship with either one of my parents because of the way they both handled their divorce. I carry a chip on my shoulder to this day about that, but it is no longer against God, it is against those people, because they screwed up, not God.
And yes, I know I should forgive them. But forgiving someone is an everyday process, not a one time deal. But I'm working on it because
I finally realized God wasn't the problem, people were.

Over the next four years after that I had more wrestling matches with other people, spiritual beings, and situations, and I carried my wound into every one of those battles with me. Who would've thought a wound could save you!

Jacob received a new name after his fight, I got so much more: a wound, a new knowledge of God, true friends, and respect; all things I didn't have before. I wrestled God and almost won until He wounded me...how many people can say they've "wrestled the angel for more than a name"? Probably not many of us....

So, if you are reading this and are angry with God over something, maybe it is time for your wrestling match with Him. Mad about the way the world is? Mad about something that happened to you? Just mad and decided to blame God for it?
There's only two solutions if you call yourself a Christian. One is to realize people are the problem, not God. The second one is a wrestling match with the Creator. Before you go blaming Him for everything like I did, remember that He didn't mess this world up, we did and we do everyday!

At least give Him the right to defend Himself before you blame everything on Him. You may be surprised at the outcome...after all, you are only human. You aren't as high and mighty as you think you are. You may think you are the only one who is trying to fix the world, but you aren't. Your career may even be focused around helping to fix people or things, but God is in the same business.

After all, He allowed His own Son to be killed so that the healing process for the world could begin. Can you honestly say you've done that much compared to His actions? Have you killed one of the most important things to you so that something lesser and undeserving could benefit from it?
I bet you haven't.

Think about it.

In Christ,
Hackett

The Little Thing Known as Life

No politics, attacks against the religious right, or words about a dying America in this one...sorry if you are disappointed.

I really just wanted to use the medium of the internet to answer a question an old friend of mine posed to me recently, that question being:

How am I supposed to live life?

While that is quite possibly the vaguest question I have ever heard, I will attempt to answer it here.

This question has potential to be answered dozens of different ways. One can look at it from a religious, moral, positive, legalistic, spiritual, personal, thoughtful, public, silent, negative, how-to-save-the-world, political, glass half full, physical, hole in the donut, or environmentally-safe standpoint...

Sarcastically speaking, basing my life choices around the concept of recycling and global warming seems slightly ridiculous to me. My sincerest apologies to Mr. Al Gore...
But back to the question my good friend asked me...

How am I supposed to live my life?

I guess I am not going to waste your time by answering the question everyone asks at some point in their lives in such a way that would represent one of the options I listed above.

The best way to answer that question is not a one-sentence answer, it is not a certain set of rules to live by, it is not found in taking a stand for something, it is not found in selfishness...it is not found in millions of things, although some of these things are consequences of living life a certain way.

You see, many people think living life a certain way means taking a stand for something, living for yourself, or for whatever...

I think are culture has the wrong concept of the question "How am I supposed to live my life?"

Culture thinks that living for something is the way you are supposed to live your life...I think that is a grey area leaning closer to the black side of the spectrum.
We do not do the things we do because we are living for something, we do what we do because of the idea or belief behind what we live for.

For example, my amazing girlfriend Taryn works with mentally retarded teens at Youth Villages. Many of these kids have bad family backgrounds and other major issues that I can not even imagine. The majority of society has kicked them aside and doesn't give a crap about them, all except for a small group, which includes Taryn.

Now, Taryn does not work with those kids just for a paycheck, although that is a plus with the job. She doesn't help them just because she looks down on them and feels sorry for them. She doesn't help them just because she went to school and trained to help them. No, there is something deeper behind that, it is the reason why she helps them....

She helps them because she is called to it and because she knows it is the right thing to do.

It's not so different from the consequences from my beliefs, which include an anti-genocide website, a small group of people that have become interested in Darfur, and thousands of dollars in aid making a difference in Sudan.
But back to Taryn...

My point is that Taryn doesn't do what she does because she is living for helping disabled kids. The fact that she works with them is a consequence of a belief she has. She lives for the belief, and that has consequences. In her case, its a dozen or so kids who have never been loved finding out that somebody cares about them. God's providence placed her in their lives, not Taryn's view on how to live life.

Now, I have not answered the question yet because I hoped to show that to answer that question, we need to understand what the question means.

How am I supposed to live my life?

That question isn't asking FOR WHAT I should live my life, the question is asking HOW...
Taryn's life is a perfect example of that. She doesn't live for the kids she works with, she lives for the BELIEF that has led her to helping those kids.

You see, beliefs have consequences...

So, hopefully you understand the question better now, unnamed friend...
But now it is time to answer your conundrum...

And for that, and please do not laugh, I would like to go to the movie Troy...
While Brad Pitt is not my favorite person in the world, he plays a brilliant role in a brilliant film. If there is anything that can answer the question of how we are to live, it is films like Troy that can tell us...

The film opens up with the narrator, Odysseus, setting the stage for the movie. In essence, he asks the very question every human beings asks themselves, whether it is knowingly or unknowingly, at some point in their existence:

"Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves: will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"

Odysseus, in so many words, is generally asking our question at hand.

"How am I supposed to live my life?"
Odysseus asks this question. Men that believe in something seem to be the ones that are remembered, at least it appears that way to Odysseus.

But what Odysseus does not understand is that he answered his own question when he asked it. Let me explain...

Please look closely at his last line from this quote:

"Will strangers hear our names long after we are gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?"

Odysseus answers his own question before he is even done asking. And the answer is surprisingly simple:

Allow whatever it is that driving you to light your heart, mind, and soul on fire.

Odysseus wants to know if strangers centuries from him will remember the men of his time, and indeed we do! We remember them because of how they lived:
Everything they did we remember because of how they lived...they loved fiercely and they fought bravely because of their driving ideas and beliefs.

So, application time...

"How am I supposed to live life?"

Live as the men of Odysseus' time did:
Love fiercely, fight bravely, stand your ground, achieve the unachievable, and go past your own abilities...

The perfect example of a man who did that is Christ Jesus...and the world is far better off because of His willingness to do what no one else could or would...

So, to wrap things up, I would like to end with another quote from Troy, this one from the hero Achilles:

" We men are wretched things. "

We are to live as Odysseus suggested, but we also live with the understanding that we will sometimes fail. Achilles was right, "we men are wretched things."

We must live honestly with ourselves; that is, with the understanding that this world is screwed up. We are bound to lose battles because our fallenness has bound us to failure.
But, that is the beauty of true Christianity. We know we will sometimes fail, but we do what we do anyways because of what is driving us: Christ's redemptive work.

That is how we are supposed to live: we are to live like Achilles, who stormed the beaches of Troy with only 50 men, we are to fight fiercely like Odysseus, who captured Troy with his whit, we are to love fiercely like Hector loved his wife and country, and we are to sacrifice unconditionally like Christ did, even if it means giving up the very breath in our lungs.

If anyone can think of a better way to live, let me know...
But I am 100% certain that living life as an emissary, soldier, and son/daughter of Christ is the most honorable and highest calling any mere mortal could ask for.

In Christ,
Hackett

Life Without God

My girlfriend and I recently watched a very interesting movie called V for Vendetta.
While there are some things I strongly disagree with in the film, overall, there are many good points in the movie that could and should be applied to society today.

Let me briefly set the backdrop for the film:
V for Vendetta is a futuristic movie. While the film never tells exactly what has happened in the world, something has gone horribly wrong. America is no more, and later on in the movie we find out that there was some kind of world war/civil war that America lost. Britain is under totalitarian rule by a leader who much resembles Hitler, and the outlook for society is very bleak.

The film starts off in the room of Evey, an average citizen in England. The TV is on in her room as she is preparing to go somewhere late at night, past the government enforced curfew.

What the man, the so-called "Voice of London" said on the television shocked me.
He said the following:

"America...here was a country who had everything, absolutely everything. And now, 20 years later, is what? The world's biggest leper colony! Why? Godlessness. Let me say that again... Godlessness!"

Before I continue, I highly suggest this movie. There is a lot of Truth in it, and unfortunately, some lies. But you can decipher through that yourself...
For now though, I would just like to focus on that one line:

"America...here was a country who had everything, absolutely everything. And now, 20 years later, is what? The world's biggest leper colony! Why? Godlessness. Let me say that again... Godlessness!"

We come later to find out that those who are saying this do not believe in God either...
But that quote in and of itself was not made by some crazy "fire-n-brimstone" preacher...it was made by secular America.

It scares me that secular America is willing to say what we Christians are not willing too...America is on its way to hell, and fast.

R.C. Sproul once said:
"The days of sentimental faith are over. A foreboding atmosphere hovers over culture. In this atmosphere, humanity looks to the future, not with breathless anticipation and enthusiasm, but with a sense of helplessness."

As pluralism and post-modernism advances more in society by the day, we are starting to see the effects of "Life Without God."
Rising crime rates, terrorist threats, failing morality, more government divisions, more substance abuse...and a pop culture coming to the realization that life isn't as perfect as we think it is, in fact, that something is horribly wrong.

And V for Vendetta points to wear that is heading...

No, I am not saying that in a few years America will be a "colony" or that we will be sucked into a war that will be end for America. With how the world hates America right now, maybe in a hundred years or so that will happen, and that's a BIG maybe...

But what I am saying is that an America with no God is an America that will not be safe, and much less, not as enjoyable to live in. When people push God out of the equation, only bad things can happen.
If you don't believe me, just open a history book sometime...

The underlying theme in V for Vendetta is that there is something awfully wrong in the world...and if we don't do something to fix it soon, "Godlessness" will destroy it.

R.C. Sproul was right; something awful "hovers over culture." We live in a society where it has become easier to hate then to love. Indeed, nowadays it takes courage to love, and any one of the millions of mindless, desensitized TV watchers every night can easily find a reason to hate.
I know because, like you, I am one of them...

But "Life Without God" will do that to you...

As post-modernism, pluralism, and nihilism continue to scream from their cores that God doesn't care or that there is no God, and as we buy more and more into that crap, we are only setting our culture up to die.

And, as usual, the Church, which holds the One Lasting Solution, is silent.
And our silence is just as bad, no, it is worse than the lies that America is buying into.
I just hope we haven't passed the point-of-no-return.

Perhaps the scariest thing is that, like Hitler, post-modernists and pluralists believe that they are right...
And we saw what happened when Hitler thought he was right...

But V for Vendetta isn't all about dark philosophical ideals and such. V is the charismatic freedom fighter that is devoted to bringing down the evil that has captured the people. I won't ruin the end of the movie for you, but let's just say that V makes his stand, and the world of his day needed it badly.

While the hero, V, doesn't bring God back into the picture, he does bring the CHOICE FOR GOD back, something our culture may not have in the coming decades.
And when the day comes that the freedom to choose God, another religion, or no God are out the window, we can only bet that the other freedoms we enjoy will soon be gone as well...
Because religion and God are the only thing standing between the alternate world of V for Vendetta and our current culture.

And the Church is refusing to resist it, and in so doing is embracing the hell that is coming down the pipe.

If you think this all sounds unrealistic and impossible, just look at what happened in Nazi Germany, or at the fall of Rome, the fall of Jerusalem, the fall of Babylon...history repeats itself, and America is next.

Then again, I'm just a 20-year-old college kid. What could I possibly know about any of this...

In Christ,
Hackett

The Dare To A Disillusioned Generation

Before I begin, I must say that if you can get past the first couple of lines you'll be good to go. But when you see the words "Dare You to Move," please do not quit reading this just because it is a title of an over-played song...

If you are a Switchfoot fan, or a music fan for that matter, you are most likely familiar with Switchfoot's hit song "Dare You to Move." Heck, if you've turned your car radio on in the past 4 years there is a 99.9% chance you have heard it. Back to the song later though...

I have had several conversations lately with different people over the past month, all on the same topic.

Thank God, the topic was not "Dare You To Move..."

The topic, I am sad to say, was on a not-so-used word anymore...that word being "disillusionment."

I have to say, I find it very odd, maybe providential, that this has been brought up by at least 6 different people in only one month's time, without any prodding from myself.

The people that spoke to me about this are all under the age of 25, are in college or recently graduated college, and are all professing believers in Christ...

What they are disillusioned over did not surprise me...they are disillusioned over hypocrisy...

American Church hypocrisy.

............................................

There's the answer to the question the American Church has been asking over the past few decades...why are our college students abandoning faith in Christ?

The answer isn't because we are young, dumb, sinful "adults" who just want to drink, do drugs, and have sex.

The answer is because of American Church hypocrisy.
Trust me, I'm one of those "punk college kids"....

I know...
Because I feel and think the same thing...

I work most Sundays, so I haven't been to Church much over the past few months. Scary as it is, I have accomplished more as far as helping to save the world stuff goes. I have actually grown closer to God being absent from the Church....and there is something seriously wrong with that.

Our churches here in America scream different gospels from different pulpits...
There's the "fire-n-brimstone" gospel...
There's the "tolerant" gospel...
Etc., etc., etc.....
And lastly there is the "prosperity" gospel...

Gulp.

Maybe it would be easier if Wal-Mart added a "purchase your own church aisle"...

Whatever the case may be...all of these churches in the Greater American Church say the same thing:

"Something is wrong with the world, and we must do something to fix it...."
But nothing or very little is ever done to fix it...

We college kids aren't as stupid as we act...we attended church with our parents growing up, we've sat through all the Sunday school classes, we've sang the "Jesus Loves Me This I Know" songs, we went to youth group, heck, a few of us even went on those summer mission trips...the few and far between ones at least.

We may not have seen it then, but we sure as hell see it now...
And its disillusioning, and very wrong...


Sure, there are other reasons why America's youth are leaving the Church in droves...but the main one is the hypocrisy we see.

And not every single Church in America falls under this category. I am sure that there are some who are doing a very good job, but those are few and far between.

A few of the people I have talked to have even gone so far as to say that secular America does more to fix the world than the Church does...a statement that seems to have some proof to back it up.
After all, college kids are known for speaking out on major social issues. But there is only so much we can do...

Almost all of the people I had this conversation with also asked a question:

"How can I help fix the world?"

Once again, we college kids are not completely naive. We know that there is something seriously wrong with the world. We also know that the American Church seems ignorant to it...the prosperity gospel apparently has brought us to that point...
But we are also not completely innocent in this either...we did walk away from the Church...

My answer to my fellow students, go back to church and speak your passion there. MAKE THE CHURCH LISTEN. As long as your passion has biblical support, the Church HAS to at least listen...

While America no longer takes us Christians seriously anymore, the Church still has a tremendous amount of wealth and influence. It took me a couple of months of prodding and pushing some buttons, but my church eventually gave a large sum of money to a Christian organization working to stop the genocide in Sudan. That money is making a difference there...

The Church WILL listen, even if they don't at first. We can be good at being annoying, so if that is what you must do, the do it...

My advice to the Church...before you go off on us college kids for being "crazy" and "out of control," remember how we got there...listening to a bunch of meaningless talk for years pushed us away.
If you want your college students back, kill the hypocrisy, not just for our sake, but for the sake of the name of the Lord...
Stop telling us every Sunday morning from the pulpit that the world is a bad place. We know that, let's work on fixing it now.

It is the right thing to do...
And it is the only option...

Maybe we should listen to that overplayed Switchfoot song one more time...Switchfoot "Dared us to move"...

Maybe its time we took the dare...

In Christ,
Hackett

Life in the Orchard

Matthew 7:18-20
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

Another wise teaching from Christ, then again everything He said was wise. But listening to Christ is one thing, applying the things He says is another.

Fruit.
In the verses preceding this passage in Matthew, Christ is telling His followers to beware of false prophets and false teachings. He also reminds them that these false prophets can come bearing what seems to be Truth and Light, but they could really be harboring Death and Destruction. The way to test them, Christ says, is if they bear good fruit or not...

You might be thinking, "Yea Hackett, that's great stuff...so what?"
So, maybe we should apply it...
And I don't mean apply it to the Church as a whole; at least, not for my topic, because this should be applied to the Church. But let's apply it to ourselves for a moment...

...

Hmm...
I don't like what I'm seeing.

How much fruit do we bear?
Me, personally, my fruit comes in the form of a 10% tithing check, a couple dozen blogs and Facebook Notes, and telling somebody every now and then about the genocide in Darfur...

I should be doing so much more.
Now, take a look at yourself...how much fruit are you bearing? Hopefully more than me.

But honestly, I would say, as a whole, we Christians are like an orchard. It rains twice a week, we are rooted in good soil, the sun shines a lot, we are well taken care of by the Farmer...yet the trees look like it is the middle of winter. No leaves, no fruit, just dead limbs...now, guess who the trees are? Unfortunately, us...

I guess my point is that we really don't take Christianity seriously. We don't have the fruit to show for it, we don't have the results we want, and the world is still dying at an alarming, quickening pace.

Meanwhile, the dead trees remain in the orchard... sitting calmly even as the wildfires of hell consume the world around its walls.
I guess what sucks the most is that dead, dry wood burns the fastest...at least we have the walls of salvation protecting us. But hey, maybe it'd be better if we didn't. Then we might start bearing fruit.

You think that Christ saving us from an eventual hell would be enough to get us to bear fruit...apparently we think we need a little more though. After contemplating these thoughts over the past few days, I honestly don't understand why God still loves us; we sure as hell don't deserve it.

Maybe we aren't as "Christian" as we think we are...

Its time we take a peak over the orchard walls that protect us, it is time to look at what is really happening in the world.
Genocide, rape, theft, murder, war, disease...it is all running rampant; so much so that the 2006 Human Security Brief, done by the Human Security Report Project, listed the state of humanity as "far from positive."

It is almost scary to think that some of those outside the sphere of salvation see the dire state of the world, and we as Christians who have been eternally saved from it do not.

I think we need to take a good long look at ourselves, and look around our little orchard. The Great Farmer stands at the gate, sowing seeds around the entrance, the least we could do is help. Christ, after all, gave His life for us, and our lives should belong to Him now.

We are long overdue to step outside of the orchard...maybe it is fear of life without the wall that scares us into staying. What we need to learn is that the wall goes with us. Christ has bought us eternally; there is nothing to fear. After all, the task before us is not nearly as great as the God behind us.

Christ's command at the end of Matthew wasn't to stay in the orchard, it was "GO and MAKE disciples of all nations..."

Let's get out of the safe zone...
Let's get out of the orchard...

Because, until we do, I will dare to say that we have no right to call ourselves Christians. Christians follow Christ, and we stopped doing that a long time ago.

In Christ,
Hackett

Unity: Oneness or Sameness

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."
Romans 15:5-7

If you've read your way through Romans before, you know that it is not a book of the Bible to be taken lightly. Each word is packed and backed with loads of theology, and even today, centuries after it was written, we still can not fully grasp the meanings of it...

But there is nothing unclear about this small portion of Romans.
Paul makes it very CLEAR how the church is supposed to be:

United...

Now, a quick snapshot of the church today.
There are thousands of Christian denominations worldwide today that are centered around many different topics, ideas, and theologies. There is so much thrashing and bashing going on between these differing denominations, which I myself am guilty of, that it seems like we are all enemies.

It's almost as if Christ, who is leading us, has stopped and is looking back, shaking His head, and asking us if we will ever learn.

And that brings us to the title of our topic:

Unity: Oneness or Sameness?

Does Church Unity mean we all have to be as one, or do we all have to agree on all the same things?

Hmmm...

I can already tell you what you are probably thinking the answer is.
Most of you probably think that to be truly united we must all believe the same things.

To bad the Bible doesn't teach that...

The Bible doesn't call for sameness, in which we agree on everything. The Bible calls for oneness, in which we are to have sameness in the essentials, but grace in the nonessentials.

For example, I believe music is fine in worship. Other believers don't. Does that mean I am wrong, or they are wrong? Yes! We are both wrong, because God nowhere in Scripture says that we are to worship only one way. Scripture is clear that ALL is to be done to the glory of God.

Paul makes the concept of unity clear throughout the Book of Romans.

Romans 14:13
"Therefore let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brothers way."

Centuries of putting stumbling blocks, striving for personal gain, and unacceptance of one another have left us with what Paul feared most: disunity. We all think our theology is right, when in reality, we are probably all wrong, because our theology is exactly what it is: our theology, not God's.

So, why should we be united?
For starters, a united Church can better accomplish the Great Commission, which is the Church's ultimate goal. Unity also contributes to the building up of other believers, more effective teachings, and a lot less stress. Unity single-handedly could fix the majority of the Church's problems on its own.

So, how do we become united?
I'm not going answer that question here, and I'm not going to answer it until next year. That is something my upcoming website, www.operationbrokensilence.org will address. On a brief side note, the website will host several projects, one of the first being Project Unity, which will deal with this topic.

So, to answer the original posed question of Unity: Oneness or Sameness?

The answer is both within their correct bounds. Sameness in essentials, such as belief that Christ is God, and grace in nonessentials, such as whether or not music is okay in worship.

Only then can we accomplish the goals that we are supposed to be accomplishing.

That's all I got, keep an eye out for the new website:

www.operationbrokensilence.org

which will launch this December.
And keep an eye out for Project Unity, which will be our second project. The first one will be Project Make A Difference, which hopefully you will visit the site and find out.

In Christ,
Hackett

The American Lie

I was in my Sociology class the other day...strangely I enjoy that class...

Anyways, lots of times in our class we get off topic with all the talking about world issues, elections, and even things here in Memphis. After all, Sociology does cover a broad spectrum of things.

But on this particular day, a fellow student made a statement that, unfortunately, so many people in America have bought into today.
That statement was this:

"I mean, the world is primarily full of good people, making it a good place. Yea, there are some problems in it, but most people around the world make a good living and are happy."

...
I kept my mouth shut, mostly because I wanted to laugh at the person for their naivety, and their stupidity.
It is sad to think that most Americans, including Christians, believe that the world is a good place where occasionally bad things happen.

Just to support my point, and my point is that the world isn't as good as many people think it is, here are a few reasons:

The 20th century has been one of the most devastating centuries for humanity, an estimated 4,000,000,000 individual human beings died from war, genocide, malnutrition, famine, disease...and other reasons besides old age. For you people that suck at math, that number is FOUR BILLION.

The number of wars, and the devastation that follows them, increased nearly threefold in the 20 century. In fact, between the years of 1950 to 1990, there were over 150 bloody conflicts around the world.

The number of genocides worldwide increased to 45 before the end of the century...meaning that the number of those killed in genocide reaches into the tens of millions.

According to the United Nations, disease, famine, and starvation affect 1 out of every 6 people on Earth, that's over 1,000,000,000 people...

Even in the wealthiest nations, it is getting harder and harder to find cures for new diseases and viruses, such as the bird flu, which seem to appear every few years now.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, and during the chaos that followed in Eastern Europe, over $30,000,000,000 in small arms was illegally sold, illegally exported, or downright stolen out of Eastern Europe alone. This is perhaps the greatest heist in human history. Many of these small arms have resurfaced in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South America, where violence, wars, and genocide are most prevalent today...

The world's five largest arms dealers to third-world countries, where violence is the worst, are the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and France. They are also the five permanent members on the United Nations Security Council...how scary is that...

And my personal favorite...Darfur....

In short, I think I can make a case for the world being a not-so-good place. And there are plenty more facts than that...

Maybe I should have said something, heck, maybe I should've laughed at the person. I don't know what held me back. Maybe I didn't want to ruin their ignorance; after all, ignorance is bliss.

The fact that this person said that the world is a predominantly good place when babies are being picked up by their legs and swung headfirst like baseball bats against trees in Darfur.... well, I fail to see the overall goodness of humanity.
And yes, there are reports out of Darfur that babies are being beaten against trees until they die. How someone could do that...man, I can't even comprehend that kind of hate.

The American Lie is easily proven as what it really is: a LIE.

So what is the reality?
In a nutshell, worldwide, people are being shot, starved, murdered, robbed, falling to illnesses, victims of genocide...and we have all fallen to a spiritual genocide, thanks to sin...

In fact, the world is so bad that the very Son of God had to die just so that we would have a way out...maybe that helps to put our plight into perspective better than anything else.

My opinion, stop believing the lies. It just isn't true! Yes, I wish that humanity was perfect, and I wish so many things, that we as Americans and Christians choose to ignore, didn't happen; but they do happen. And we aren't on this Earth just so we can ignore the consequences of others and ours sins.
We can help to fix it.
We just choose not too...

If you don't want to help, I feel sorry for you...and I hope God can forgive you for doing nothing to help stop defenseless babies from being beaten to a bloody pulp against the sides of trees.
For those of you that choose to stick with your ignorance, enjoy the ignorance while you can, because God most likely won't be happy when you stand before Him whenever the appointed time is.

You don't have to go to Darfur, the Middle East, or South America to confront the fallout of sin...because it’s everywhere. If you aren't called to help with Darfur like I am, find your calling. It could be working at an urban ministry, it could be going oversees, and it could just be telling the people around you of everyone's universal need for Christ.

The world can't afford much more ignorance; it is costing us too much...

In Christ,
Hackett

The American Suicide

Three things before we start:
1. This blog may sound very familiar to others I have written, but it is not. In this blog, I will also speak of the consequences of a society with no truth, which I have avoided in my previous writings.
2. Also, there are some issues and things discussed in this blog that are very controversial and may offend some, so I apologize in advance.
3. This is perhaps my longest blog...and I ask that you read it all at one time or not at all...with that said, here we go.


The young man paces on the deck, thinking and planning. It is early morning, and few others seem to be up and about. Those that are awake are the seasick ones. Weeks of the endless up and down of the ship on the waves, with no sight of land, had taken its toll onboard. The fog that hides the waves all around the ship is not helping either...

It is around the year 1900. Many had fled a recovering Ireland due to the potato famine that took place decades before and have come to the United States of America, in hopes of a better life. The young man we are following is an example of this. He is pacing on the deck, dreaming of the business he wants to start. The thought of never going hungry or thirsty again has been the one thing that has kept him going for years now.
And now, his dream is about to become reality...

A shout is suddenly heard from the far side of the deck. The man runs over, wondering what it is...and then, he sees it.
There, barely visible in the distance is the Statue of Liberty...standing tall over the clearing, morning fog.

For decades now, the Statue of Liberty has met millions of immigrants as they have come to America. She stands for all that America is proud of: freedom, democracy, and truth. She is a welcoming sight to many of the world's weary and heavy-laden. Some immigrants even heralded America as Heaven on Earth; a land filled with food and plenty of jobs...the pursuit of happiness was a reality in America, the land where the people rule...

Now, here we are in the year 2007, and in a much different America.

Before I really dive in though, let me clarify that I am not speaking of America's stagnant political situations. There is a fine line between government and religion, a line that is crossed by both sides too often. I will be crossing this line several times, due to the many grey areas that exist between the two.
So, keeping in mind my protective disclaimer, let's get on with it...

Over the past few decades, many have changed their view on what "Truth" is. Some believe truth exists, others aren't sure, many believe it doesn't exist...and of course there are those that just don't care.

According to recent polls, America's view on truth has changed dramatically over the past three decades.
A poll done by Barna Research came up with these results:
"Compared to two years ago, just half as many Americans believe that absolute moral truth exists, dropping from 38% in January 2000 to only 22% in November 2001."

This means that approximately 78% of Americans are unsure or believe there is no such thing as absolute truth.

America was not founded as a Christian nation, but it was founded on many Judeo-Christian principles. The basis of the American Constitution is that mankind has certain rights and freedoms, which should not be taken away. There is an absolute truth running through the very veins of the Constitution, that is, that there is a greater law mankind is bound too. Many future laws would also be based off Judeo-Christian concepts and beliefs.

That is what the Constitution was built on...and it is also the very thing that is now being taken away.
This country was founded with the belief that truth had to be at the very core of it, or it would fail. Now that the majority of Americans don't believe in absolute truth, that core has been taken away.

Compare America to a watermelon. If you take out all of the pink, edible flesh of the fruit on the inside, you just have a shell remaining. That is what America has become, a mere shell of its former beauty.

If you don't believe me when I say that truth is slipping away in America, look around you. Government officials falling into moral black pits, ethics being a required class at many schools across the nation due to zero ethics in society, and even religious leaders, the ones who have protected America's truth for years, can't do what they say is right.
The new philosophy that there is no truth goes against everything the Constitution stands for. The very people who say they are trying to save America by ridding it of religion are the very ones who are killing America. America was founded on truth, and a country cannot stand if its basis is stolen from it.

So, what are the consequences going to be?

I read an article the other day by a man who believes that if morality and truth keep slipping away at the rate they are, the freedom of religion will be gone in America within this century. The freedom of speech, right to assembly, all the basics of the Constitution could be gone within our lifetimes. The American Church has never had to endure true persecution before, but it soon may have too. Can you imagine our own government persecuting us? It sounds like such an unreasonable thought, yet it is a very real threat; in fact, it may be just around the corner.

With every little ground gained by secular America, every Ten Commandments taken out of courthouses and schools, every corporal punishment banned, with every form of discipline that disappears in America...America comes one small stop closer to going from democracy to chaos, from being a Republic to being a totalitarian state, from light to dark. Separation of Church and State exists for a reason; the Church upholds the country's standards, while the State protects them and its inhabitants. It has always been a partnership, until now. My only question to the insane lunatics who sincerely believe that the government can function well without the Church there to uphold its values, is this:

Why change something that has always worked? We've seen what happens when the church holds the state to a moral code, and the state in turn protects the freedoms of everyone. IT WORKS! It works very well! Homeless shelters are built, the country prospers, crime rates go down, as do divorce rates...life gets better.

So, my only conclusion is this. Those who believe that the universal absolute truths, that America was founded on, should not be applied anymore to society are seriously deranged and insane.

Some think these people should be considered domestic enemies of the Constitution and enemies of America, because they threaten the freedoms the Constitution ensures to all citizens. Their logic: the Federal government is bound by the Constitution to protect and defend the freedoms of America, from enemies both foreign and domestic, and these people threaten those freedoms.

I am torn on that viewpoint, it seems very extreme, but there is so much truth in it. And I have to say, very sadly, I find myself agreeing with it more so then disagreeing.
I will probably hear a lot of crap for agreeing with that...
But standing for the Truth comes with blessings as well as prices to be paid; besides, my right to freedom of speech still exists, for now...

I'm almost done. I know this is long, but hang in there...

America has already passed its Golden Age, but the midnight is still approaching, slowly gaining momentum. Every time the Church gives in and exits the arena without a fight for morality, those that seek to save America by destroying it come one step closer to achieving their goals.

Today, America is at a precarious point. Let's go back to the opening story, and to a new theoretical one...
Picture another boat this time, in the year 2007. It is early morning, foggy, and as the fog clears, another young Irishman sees the Statue of Liberty for the first time. Cheers rise up from the boat, it is a new day for a ship of Irish immigrants coming to America…

But the cheers stop as the boat enters the harbor. Something is horrendously wrong…
Instead of holding a torch aloft, the Statue of Liberty holds a gun instead, pointed at her own head…ready to commit the ultimate American suicide.
And that is precisely where America is today. It will be interesting to see when the trigger is pulled, why it will be pulled, and the devastation it will cause. But one thing I do know…
In that hour, when America hits midnight, the real, few Christians in the American Church will make their stand for Truth. Whether they will be ruthlessly destroyed or not, they will make their stand. And I pray to God that America will come to its senses before then…

In Christ,
Hackett

Price Tags

June 4, 1940. Our story begins approximately 5 miles outside the small seaside city of Dunkirk, which rests on the Franco-Belgian border in Europe, with a small German army squad.
The past few weeks had proved to be very beneficial for the German military. Belgium had fallen in only four days. The French Army was in the middle of a full retreat. And now the British Expeditionary Force, the core of the Allied Army, was pinned against the English Channel. To our German squad, it looked as if this was the end for nearly 400,000 of Europe’s finest soldiers…
There was a rumor floating around between the German squads that the British had begun evacuating their troops, along with some French and Belgians, a few days before.

At last, the orders came in. The German squad we are following were ordered to lead a final assault on the city. It looked as if the British were about to lose their entire army.

The hours went by quickly as the Germans stormed the city. With every small field and street won, the Germans were expecting to discover a huge mass of tens of thousands of soldiers crammed against the ocean, ready to be annihilated…
Our German squad finally reached the other side of the city, and stepped out on to the beach, in shock.
Looking around, they saw not a single Allied soldier on the sands. Instead, they saw weapons and equipment strewn about the beach.

The Germans then looked out over the ocean. In the distance, a few British battleships were sailing away, the rearguard of the largest evacuation fleet ever assembled in the history of mankind. The fleet was a hastily thrown together group of military, fishing, and civilian watercraft. On those thousands of ships sat nearly 340,000 Allied soldiers.

The prized jewel of the Allied Army had escaped destruction by only one hour.

That night, Prime Minister Winston Churchill stood up before a scared British nation and a shocked world and gave the most important, rallying speech of his life. In it, he sent a very threatening message to Nazi Germany. If Hitler wanted Britain under his “Third Reich,” he would have to kill every British soul on the island to claim it. Britain, he said, “will never surrender.”

Good story right?
So, some of you that actually read my blogs, are probably asking, “Come on Hackett, what’s your point?”
My point…

Price tags.

Price tags?
Yes, I said price tags. You know, those little things hanging off the sides of clothing at Target…
So what do price tags have to do with a WWII story?
EVERYTHING.

In today’s capitalistic world, we understand that everything comes with a price. From the shirt you are wearing now to the food you ate for lunch last week, it cost something.
So, back to our story…
The British evacuation at Dunkirk came with a heavy price. While the majority of the British narrowly escaped, 30,000 soldiers didn’t. They died, defending their brothers so that they could still have the one thing that we in America take for granted today…

That thing is freedom.

Freedom is perhaps the one thing that comes with a price tag so hefty…the price of blood.
Winston Churchill understood that better than anyone else of his time. Churchill swore to the world that he would rather have England die than be without freedom. Churchill knew what freedom was, he had tasted it. And once you have gotten a taste of freedom after not having it, it is all you can think about.
Yes, 340,000 lives had made it to freedom from Dunkirk…but the cost was paid for. The price tag was 30,000 people. Expensive, right?

History is full of accounts of freedom being paid for with blood. From the 30,000 who died at Dunkirk to the 300 who died at Thermopylae, freedom is dipped in blood. The two are inseparable…
God knows that; after all, he is the inventor of freedom. Humanity was enslaved to sin, and freedom was needed so that God and mankind could be reunited. The price was high, as it always is with freedom. The price was Christ. The perfect, only Son of God had to pay humanity’s debt to sin with His own blood… a price that was paid at Calvary.

It amazes me that freedom-loving people do not love Christ. Christ purchased freedom for humanity, and many people just don’t care. It is sad, but the freedom that Christ purchased was the freedom to choose, because if there is no choice there is no freedom. Had Christ died for humanity in a way that would have forced us to love Him, it wouldn’t have been freedom. He died so we could choose and have the chance to be forgiven by a loving God…

Hang in there, I’m almost done…

I would like to end with another WWII story, this one being a much less known one:
April 25, 1945 Leckwitz Germany. The European Theater of WWII was coming to a close. American and British forces were sweeping into Germany from the west, Soviet forces from the east. The Americans and the Soviets knew their forces would meet at some point. So, both sides had agreed upon a signal to the other, so that Soviet and American forces wouldn’t attack one another by accident. American soldiers were to shoot a green flare when they came upon Soviet troops, and Soviet soldiers were to fire a red flare when they saw American troops.
Maybe it was just by chance, or maybe it was God’s plan, but the flares were not fired that day as an American patrol leader met a Soviet patrol leader halfway across a bridge spanning the Elba River in Leckwitz.

Weeping, they embraced one another. They could not understand each other’s native tongue, nor did they know each other’s name. One thing they did know, however…
The once great cities of Europe lay in smoldering ruins, millions had perished, they had both watched their brothers and friends die for months on end…
But freedom had been won for Europe. The price was high; perhaps it was too high, only God knows…

But that meeting on that bridge decades ago points to something much larger…
Christ is standing on a bridge as well. He is ready to embrace you and weep for joy. All you have to do is walk out onto that bridge and embrace Him back. Laugh joyfully, sing with happiness, or cry like the Soviet and American soldiers who met on that bridge in Leckwitz, Germany…because freedom is yours. All you have to do is accept it, and choose to serve the one King who is and never will be a tyrant over your soul.

Look around you, the world we live in today is a “smoldering ruins” as Europe was by the end of WWII, millions have perished eternally, and you have watched your friends and brothers in humanity die all around you…
But freedom has been won for humanity. The price was high, perhaps too high, only God knows…

If there is no blood paid, there is no freedom. History points to that. Many people say Christianity confuses them. My answer to them is this:
Humanity was enslaved to sin, and a price had to be paid to set us free. The price was blood, Christ’s blood. The price was paid…all you have to do is accept it and follow the One who saved you.
Because Christ is the one thing that comes with no price tag…because He already paid the amount on the price tag.

In Christ,
Hackett

The Need for an American Church Revival

Is it time to awaken the sleeping church today?

The American Church as a whole is a great example of this. With few exceptions, most churches in America aren't focused on what they should be focused on. We here from our pulpits that we need to tithe only 10%, that we need to come every Sunday and "get our church on," and an occasional mission trip is good for us. In short, we hear that the church is about the individual.
After all, giving 10% of your paycheck is a huge "sacrifice"...I hope you can detect the sarcasm in that.

I read something very interesting the other day. Statistical analyst's, after much research have come up with some very intriguing numbers about the Great Commission. These analysts say that if every church in America did at least two international mission trips a month to areas where the Gospel has not yet reached, the Great Commission could be accomplished within ten short years. That's TEN YEARS.

If you don't know what the Great Commission is, I'll briefly explain it. After Christ rose from the dead, He visited His disciples and told them what they were to do.

Matthew 28:16-20
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Those are th exact words of Christ. Other portions of the New Testament also hint that Christ will return soon after the Great Commission is accomplished.

To think that I could see Christ return in my lifetime...that is almost unbelievable. It's shocking. Only ten years...that is, if the church got its act together.

So, "is it time to awaken the sleeping church today?"
The answer is yes. The Church should always be awake...

BUT...
I do not for-see a major American Church Revival. In my opinion, the Holy Spirit has left America. We have seen throughout history that the Holy Spirit moves around the globe, to the front battle lines where Christianity has to fight for its' life. In America, we don't have to fight. The Holy Spirit is present wherever there is great opposition to the Faith...and without the Holy Spirit, revival cannot occur.

Martin Luther described this perfectly:

"If the devil were wise enough and would stand by and let the Gospel be preached, he would suffer less harm. For when there is no battle for the Gospel it rusts and it finds no cause and no occasion to show its vigor and power. Therefore, nothing better can befall the Gospel than that the world should fight it with force and cunning."

In America, Christians aren't murdered because of their beliefs daily...in China, Africa, and the Middle East however...they are. Realize that the greatest gains for Christianity today are being made where the Gospel is being most persecuted.

The Church needs to be woken up, but I do not foresee, at least anytime soon, the "Great Revival" the American Church is in desperate need of. If it does occur, it will be decades from now. Until then, we must carry on in our own "little platoons" as Chuck Colson so lovingly calls them. We must do what we can, and hope that our actions inspire those sleeping Christians around us.

This world is at war. And perhaps one of the greatest potential weapons for the Kingdom of God is the American Church. We must try to awaken it, but we must not go in with high hopes. Even if we fail, one voice crying for revival in the dark is better than no voice at all.

In Christ,
Hackett

Who is God?

Who is God?

I recently read somebody’s attempt at answering that question.
In response to the question "Who is God?” somebody wrote the following...

"God is whoever you want him to be."

From nearly every religious, philosophical and moral standpoint, that is the wrong answer.

I am a Christian, but I will put aside my beliefs on who God is for a minute so as to give unbiased answer to the person who wrote that sentence.

The concept of God or gods is found in nearly every society today. Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, even Satanism (yikes, scary!)
All of these religions agree on one thing, God or gods aren't whoever you want them to be...

The very concept of God is that it is a being or force more powerful than us humans.
So to say that God is whoever you want him to be is a complete and total lie. Here are four reasons why:

1. If there is a God, and if He is all-powerful, then He is what he is regardless of what you believe. He cannot be "whoever you want him to be" as someone so naively wrote.

2. If there is a God, and if He is not all-powerful, then He is still more powerful than us humans, otherwise He wouldn't be considered God. This would mean the same thing as Reason #1...that is; God is who He is regardless of what you believe.

3. If you believe "God is whoever you want him to be," then He is not really God, because you can control what He is. The universal concept of what God or gods are is that they are above us, more powerful then us, and cannot be controlled by us.
Saying that "God is whoever you want him to be" makes God a figment of your imagination that holds no true power, because that makes you controller of God, making Him not God. Put shortly, this statement defeats itself.

4. If there is NO God, then where did we come from?
Many scientists would say evolution. With all due respect to the scientist, evolution has so many holes and gaps in it that it is amazing it hasn’t fallen apart yet. It is still called the “Theory of Evolution” for a reason after all…because it is just a theory, a theory that will never be proven as absolute truth because it is based on a lie.
Some people would say the Big Bang Theory, but that doesn’t explain where we came from, just where the universe came from. However, the evidence for the Big Bang Theory points to the Christian Creation Theory. The Big bang theory says the universe came to be in a huge cosmic explosion in a flash of light. There are still the radio waves moving through space from the point of explosion scientists have discovered, and I believe in those radio waves because it has been proven! The account in Genesis says the universe came into being in just six days. That would require a huge amount of power and energy unimaginable! Is it so hard to believe that those moving radio waves are from the first moments of Creation, when God, in a burst of unimaginable glory, beauty, and power sent the galaxies and planets hurtling into the empty universe?

God is who He is regardless of what you say He is. An elephant is still an elephant, even if somebody said it was a fish. 2+2=4, even if someone says it equals 347.
These things are absolute truths, and you can say whatever you want too, but the elephant will still be an elephant, 2+2 will always equal 4, and God will always be God, even if you don't believe in Him.

So, now that we've covered why God can't be whatever you want Him to be, who is He really?

God is a being who loves His Creation so much, even after sin viciously marred it, that He allowed His own, perfect Son to be murdered so that He can be reunited with us again.
That sounds a lot better to me than "God is whoever you want Him to be."
It makes more sense too; God did something for you even if you choose not to accept it. His own Son died so you can be united with God again. God did something you may not believe or agree to because He is God and not "whatever you believe." You had no control over it, because God isn't "whoever you want Him to be."

The whole "God is whoever you want Him to be" spill is a lie straight from the pits of hell that resides comfortably with 21st century post-modernism. Frankly, it's a load of lies that is easily proven as "untruth" when placed under the light. It doesn't hold up, and unfortunately, lots of people are going to pay the consequences for it when we all stand before God on the Day of Judgment and they say, "But you are not God because I don't believe in you!"
It saddens my heart to think that so many will be saying that...

In Christ,
Hackett

Sin on Horseback

Last week, the United Nations passed the UN Security Council Resolution 1769, aauthorizing the deployment of thousands of peacekeepers to the war-torn region of Darfur, Sudan.

But will it really be over soon?
In May of 2006, the Darfur peace agreement was signed by the majority of those involved in the Darfur genocide which was supposed to bring peace to Sudan.
Now over a year later, the genocide continues.

Over the next six months, according to the United Nations, nearly 26,000 troops are to be deployed to Sudan.

This has brought little comfort to those that are being raped and murdered in Darfur, however. This isn't the first they have been promised peace and safety.

Just to give you an idea of how bad the situation in Darfur is, here's an event that took place in December 2006 in the Darfuri capital of El Fasher. This account is from African Union forces that were in the area when the incident occured:

"We were helping a woman put together a small shelter for her and her two sons. Suddenly, we heard vehicle's approaching and saw many of the Janjaweed militiamen riding towards us.
We quickly called for help. More of our soldiers showed up. They brought word that paramilitary forces that appeared to be Sudanese government soldiers and Janjaweed militiamen had surronded the large camp just outside of the city we were guarding, filled mostly with women and children.

We were outnumbered and to underequiped to confront them, but we stayed anyways, thinking that we being peacekeepers would save us from being killed.

A small group from the paramilitary force drove up in a Sudanese army vehicle and told us to go to our barracks, or we would be killed along with everyone in the village. One of our soldiers told the man we weren't leaving. He was promptly shot in the chest.

Needless to say, we went to our barracks, taking our wounded man with us.
By God's grace, the Janjaweed and Sudanese military left instead of raiding the village that was home to thousands of women and children. We guess they just want us to know that they are in charge. Now the Darfuri civilians don't trust us to protect them."


It's doesn't even take common sense to see that the UN peacekeepers need to be deployed now to replace the African Union peacekeepers.
400,000 are already dead, more have been raped and beaten and the world goes on as if nothing is happening.

It makes me sick.

I've been told more than once that I have bashed the American Christian church over its' inaction to the Darfur genocide without any right to...
Yet the American church is right there with the rest of the world, ignoring genocide and sin.

It's not hard to understand why. It's two completely different worlds, Darfur and America that is...

Here in America, we Christians try not to "sin" by avoiding cursing, stealing, and lust.
Yes, those things are sin...


But in Darfur, Sin sits on horseback wielding rifles and machine guns.


The problem with the Chruch in America, is that its' been "Americanizied."
There are so many Christian self-help books, and we are told by our own churches that we need to work on becoming better people.
To sum it up, the Church in America is telling its followers to focus on themselves, not on God or what we should be doing for Him.

The American church is dying, and so are innocent people in Darfur.

And sin is the reason for both, just different kinds of sin. I guess it just shows how much power sin really has in this world, that in one place it has an entire nation focused on itself, only so another sin can ride about freely on horseback killing whenever it wants to, unchallenged.

It is sad to think that the Church is doing nothing to help. I even emailed the pastor at my church, asking him if he would pray for Darfur in the congregational prayer we have after worship every Sunday...I never got a reply and it was not mentioned in service.

If you want to know more about what is happening to end the the violence in Darfur, you can go to the following websites:

www.savedarfur.org/
www.eyesondarfur.org/


This last one has actual video footage from Darfur that is in an upcoming film.

www.thedevilcameonhorseback.com

Find a way to help, if you can't find ways, I know of several.

In Christ,
Hackett

"Time is Up!"

"Time is up!"

Those words are beginning to ring out worldwide since the Sudanese government officially rejected the United Nation's latest efforts to bring peace to Darfur.

Why has the Sudanese government rejected this newest proposal?
The answer is because of one line found in Chapter Seven in the resolution for the Darfur peacekeeping force, writeen by the UN.

The line says this: "use all necessary means."
This line is referring to the African Union/United Nation's hybrid force and how they are to protect the persecuted in Sudan.

President Al-Bashir of Sudan is not "comfortable" with a well-equiped 25,000 strong peace-keeping force working within his country's borders, especially if they have free reign to "use all neccesary means'" to keep the peace.
Why is President Al-Bashir "uncomfortable" with a PEACEKEEPING force?
Because Al-Bashir and his government are supporters of the genocide in Darfur. Proof of this has been found when Janjaweed soldiers have murdered the innocent using Sudanese army weapons.


Since Sudan rejected the latest proposal, worldwide outcry is beginning to increase at a rate yet to be seen in the face of this bleak event on humanity's history record.

"Time is Up!"
Those words are beginning to spread worldwide as groups like the Save Darfur Coalition are joining together to put more pressure onto the United Nations, America, and China in a desperate effort to stop the genocide.

The Save Darfur Coalition is still hoping that this problem can be solved politically, but the coalition is beginning to gear up for what appears to be the inevitable. The inevitable being a military takeover of Sudan.

As more and more activists worldwide continue to raise awareness and support for Darfur, more and more people are calling on the Western world to put politics aside and do what needs to be done.
One Darfur activist had this to say,

"Al-Bashir is 'uncomfortable' with the United Nations sending a peacekeeping force? Fine then. Let's see how 'uncomfortable' he gets when UN forces shoot their way into his presidential palace..."

As liberal as that may sound, I couldn't agree more. The Sudanese government doesn't want to yield, I'm fine with that. Let's force them to yield.

I'm a conservative person for the most part, and I would like to see the situation in Darfur be solved peacefully, but not at the cost of more lives.

I came across a verse in Proverbs a few months ago that has made me want to be solution to this situation that is growing bleaker by the day for those that are being raped and slaughtered in Darfur.

Proverbs 24:11-12
Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who guards your life know it? Will He not repay each person according to what He has done?

God makes it clear in His Word that we are to rescue those that are part of genocide. He doesn't say how we are to do that, He just says to do it. In my interpretation of it, that leaves more than enough room for a military takeover of Darfur, if not the whole of Sudan.

Activists worldwide in the next few months will be putting more pressure than ever on those who can stop these tragic events. Now is the time to act, now it is possible for us to make a difference. When the genocide began, only a few voices spoke out against it, now millions do. With every person that joins in the efforts to end the genocide, more of an effect is being made. The UN is now commited to stopping the genocide in Darfur, no matter what the cost. But we can make the end come sooner, and all our voices are needed to make that happen.

"Time is Up!"

Join those that are screaming those words. Go to www.savedarfur.org.

There is a petiton you can sign there, ways you can get involved and ways your church can get involved.

"Time is Up!"

It's now or more killing for years to come...and you can help decide which it is.

In Christ,
Hackett

Loyalty and Values

"The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values."
Norman Thomas (1884 - 1968)


While I disagree with Mr. Thomas' political, socialist beliefs, I think he makes a good point here if it is taken in a certain context. That context is, of course, relating to loyalty with God.

The right loyalty in the right scale of value...apply that to belief in God, sounds like a winner.

But what should the extent of those two things be too?

Jude 1:3
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.

So, we must "contend for the faith"...
If we must contend for our faith, our loyalty to God and knowing His value in our lives must be beyond our understanding.
So how can we find out what our value and loyalty to Christ should be?
The answer is found in friendship. Good friends are loyal to each other no matter what, they value their friendship...how much more so with Christ!
Christ paid the ultimate sacrifice for us, His loyalty to us has been unending, even after the world has turned its back to Him due to the Fall.

Our loyalty to Him and His value to us should be the same in return, and as Mr. Thomas mentions, it is the secret to a good life.
After all, life is not life if you aren't willing to die for something. Without that, there is nothing to live for.

In Christ,
Hackett

Life: The Security Issue

If you've ever talked to Johnathan Todd, you've probably had this conversation with him before.

I saw Zach Braff's movie "The Last Kiss" for the first time last night, by the way, Zach Braff is amazing. And I strongly suggest everyone see "The Last Kiss."

If you haven't seen this film I'll give a brief outline of the plot.
Zach Braff's character is about to turn thirty, about to have a baby, and is supposed to be getting married in the near future.
Yet, something isn't right. He feels like his life is planned out.
He has security.
And that bothers him.

Most of us would do anything to know that are job is secure, our family is secure, and life is secure. But this movie points something out...

What happens when we have all those things? What happens when we have security?

The answer..................Boredom.

No more surprises...
No more uncontrolled events...
Zach Braff's character is scared of that. And in my opinion, we all should be scared of it. Here's why:
Zach Braff's character solves the problem by sleeping with a college girl, who is not the person he is supposed to marry eventually.
Well, following that, he got many surprises.


Zach Braff's character handled the situation wrong, but its' a situation we all have and will deal with.
Life...it gets mundane when there is security. Sure, enjoyment can be found in that somewhere.
But, Braff's character calls it "a death sentence."
And he is 100% correct, that is, if you can't find the enjoyment in security. Because security can lead back to insecurity.

How do we deal with this?

Job 33:28
He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light.

We find our enjoyment in God, who redeemed us.
It's easier to enjoy God and find Him when your life is a disaster.
It's harder to enjoy God and find Him when your life is secure.

Job's solution?
Remeber that God can or has saved you. There is an endless amount of enjoyment in that, even in the security.

Zach Braff's character had the wrong solution. And even though "The Last Kiss" points out that security and the American dream are shallow things, it also points out that sin is not the way to solve the security issue.

There is only one solution to it, Christ.

In Christ,
Hackett

"The Way I See It"-Round 2

Once again, Evan and I at Starbuck's...
Once again, my wallet wept as I paid a riduculous amount for mediocre coffee...in an eco-friendly cup of course (gotta save those trees!)

And what do you know, I got lucky and had another decent "The Way I See It" quote on the side of my partially recycled cup, among many horrible quotes.

The Way I See It #196
"The greatest leader is a servant. Don’t be a boss. Be a real leader, a servant leader. A servant leader is a winner. Even when he loses everything, even when he loses his life, a servant leader wins it all."
-- Pat Williams
Senior vice president of the Orlando Magic.

Mr. Williams is one smart dude...
This quote reminds me of a Bible verse.

Isaiah 52
The Suffering and Glory of the Servant

13 See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him—
his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man
and his form marred beyond human likeness—

15 so will he sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.

Back to what Mr. Williams of Orlando Magic says,
"Even when he loses everything, EVEN WHEN HE LOSES HIS LIFE, a servant leader wins it all."

Christ, the ultimate servant, even to death, won everything.
And Mr. Williams, whatever his beliefs are, hits the secret of a true leader dead center.

And Christ is the ultimate example of that...

In Christ,
Hackett

Christ- The Messiah?

The world has questioned Christ's authority many times. Is He God, is he not?
The Jews, for the most part, have denied his authority.
Islam calls Him a great prophet, but not the Savior.
Did this world reject its' Savior?

First, I will question the Jewish belief that the Messiah has yet to come...

The Old Testament has hundreds of prophecies concerning the Messiah. Many of them are found in the books of Isiah, Psalms, and Jeremiah. There are others scattered throughout the other books of the Old Testament though, such as in Micah.

Here are a few of those prophecies:
Isaiah 7:14
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Isaiah 53:6
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Micah 5:2
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."

There are hundreds more.

George Heron, a French mathematician, calculated that the odds of one man fulfilling only 40 of those hundreds of prophecies are 1 in 10 to the power of 157. That is a 1 followed by 157 zeros. Compare it to this; your odds on winning the state lottery are 14 followed by 6 zeros.

The Messiah, therefore, is one of a kind.

Jesus Christ, however, fulfills more than just 40 prophecies, he fulfills all of the hundreds of them.

Christ was born a virgin. (Isaiah 7:14)
Christ would be killed. (Isaiah 53:8)
Christ was born in Bethlehem. (Micah 5:2)
Christ was counted among criminals. (Isaiah 53:12)
Christ was resurrected. (Psalm 16:8-10)
The list goes on and on...

From the Jewish standpoint, Christ fulfilled every single Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah. Of course, many people argue Christ was not born of a Virgin and there is no physical proof of His resurection.
There is one prophecy, however, that cannot be denied.

Daniel 9
25 "Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.' It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him."

Here, we see that the Messiah will come to Jerusalem.
Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem occured 173,880 days (483 times the Hebrew 360 day year) after Artaxerxes' decree was given in 445 B.C. (as recorded in Nehemiah 2:1-20) to rebuild Jerusalem. This was the first time that Jesus allowed anyone to proclaim him as "King." Note, the Hebrew word for "week" is "shavua" and literally means "seven." Therefore, in Hebrew, the idea of 70 weeks is "seventy sevens." The meaning of the word "weeks" was used in reference to both days and YEARS. Many scholars, both Christian and non-Christian, agree that the "weeks" here refers to years, which adds up to 483.

It's almost eerie that Christ comes to Jerusalem 483 years later, to the exact day, in accoradnce with the prophecy made by Daniel and the records found in Nehemiah concerning the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
Considering the prophecies, I think the Jews missed their Messiah.


Now, for those of you who are neither Jewish nor Christian, here's more reasons on why Christ is the Messiah and God.

1. The prophecies made in the OT, which were written hundreds of years before Christ, point to Christ as the Messiah. From a historical standpoint, considering the accuracy of the Bible with world events that occured at different times, the fact that Christ fulfills all of the prophecies from the Old Testament is nearly impossible. But He does! It's eerie, borderline weird that human beings from the Old Testament prophesied things about the Messiah that Christ fulfilled.

2. Historically speaking, the Bible has recorded events about wars, etc that are backed up by other secular sources. If this is true, is it so hard to believe that maybe the Bible is right on Christ being the Messiah as well.

3. "Luke 23:44
It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining."
This occured in the last three hours of Christ's life, at least according to the Bible, but did it really happen?
According to Phlegon, a Greek author from Caria, it did. Writing a chronology soon after 137 A.D., Phlegon reported that in the fourth year of the 202nd Olympiad (i.e. 33 A.D.) there was "the greatest eclipse of the sun" and that "it became night in the sixth hour of the day [i.e., noon] so that stars even appeared in the heavens. There was a great earthquake in Bithynia, and many things were overturned in Nicaea."
That is non-biblical attestation by a Greek author to the darkness that occured in the final hours of Jesus life. Even though Phlegon writes the dakness off as an eclipse...we know it was not an eclipse.
Because in AD 221, however, Julius Africanus proved that it couldn't have been an eclipse that covered the sun, due to the time.


Of course, there are hundreds upon hundreds of reasons why we know Christ is the Messiah, and these are just a few.

After studying information like this, I don't see how anyone could deny the authority of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

In Christ,
Hackett

Evolution: The Impossible Theory

The first thing I ever remember reading out of a high school science textbook are the following words: Science is based on observation. Unfortunately, that statement, which is the basis of science, is disregarded by many scientists who claim that the Theory of Evolution is science. The study of history is not considered to be a science because the person studying cannot observe the events as they take place; this of course being because the events have already happened. The skeptic evolutionist would reply to this by saying something along the lines of “I was not around when you were born, so you must have never been born.” No, but there is conclusive evidence proving that I was born, and evolution, in simple terms, does not have such evidence. My purpose of this speech is to show you the problem with this Theory of Evolution that so many people believe is the truth today.

My first example of evidence that proves the Theory of Evolution wrong is the “Geologic Column.” Simply put, the geologic column is layers of rock and sediment, which date back in time over history. The deeper you go through these layers, the older the fossils are supposed to be that you find in those layers. Supposedly, according to evolutionists, all fossils fit into a specific order. This order goes from simple organisms to complex ones over time. However, there are many flaws in this area of the Theory of Evolution. In the past decade, archeologists and scientists have begun to discover fish scales in the Cambrian layer of the geologic column. But, according to the column, fish did not appear in the world until much later, perhaps millions of years later. This is just one of the many places Evolution contradicts itself.

My next point that challenges Evolution is the layer-transversing fossils. If you don’t know what a layer-transversing fossil is, it is a fossil that runs through thousands of years of layers in the geologic column. These fossils have been found all over the world. Perhaps the most frequently found layer-transversing fossils are trees. A possible explanation for this is that these “layers” weren’t laid down over billions of years, which evolutionist say they were laid down over billions of years. If the evolutionist were correct, and the layers were layed down over billions of years, then the evolutionist is implying that these ancient trees had the ability to grow through solid rock, not to mention with no sunlight. If the evolutionist were even to consider this insane notion, or even one like it, another argument can be made against it. Some of these trees have been found upside down, indicating a sudden catastrophe, such as a great flood, which a possible explanation for is found in the Bible.

More evidence against Evolution is that there is a lack of transitional fossils, which evolutionists claim show the changes in organisms over time. Only a handful of these so called “transitional fossils” have been found over time. If evolutionists are right, then there should be millions of transitional fossils everywhere in our museums and science labs, because of the millions of years of transition that should have made us who we are today would have left billions of fossils behind. Yet, there are only a few, and many of them have been proven to be fake. A good example of this is the so-called “Nebraska man” that was found. This was a huge deal in the scientific world, at last, a real piece of hard evidence had been found that supported evolution. Unfortunately, when the evidence was tested and analyzed, the bones were discovered to be that of a pig. Not only was this evidence found lacking in integrity, but also more of the skeleton was found later, and indeed, it was a pig.

The evidence against evolution continues on in that the theory evolution contradicts many laws of science. One example of this is the Law of Thermodynamics. This law states that as time progress, things wear down and become less effective. A good example of this is the human body, as it grows older; it reaches a peak, and then slowly begins to become weaker. Evolution, however, implies that things became more complex and more improved over time. But considering the Law of Thermodynamics is a proven Law, and Evolution is just a theory, I am more inclined to believe what has already been proven to be true, not a theory that contradicts the Truth. This is just one more thing that disproves the theory of Evolution.

I have one last example that proves evolution to be false and to be a lie. Some evolutionists argue that given time, anything can happen, including the extreme changing of organisms. Sounds like a good argument, right? I mean, we don’t know what humans may look like millions of years from now. Of course, there is a problem with this concept of Evolution as well, and that is, evolution doesn’t have enough time to prove itself. Billions of trillions of years is not even close to what would be needed. Rick Ramashing and Sir Fred Hoyle, two respected mathematicians, calculated what the probability of one cell would be to evolve by chance. Now, these two men are coming from an unbiased standpoint. They have many times told others they are atheists, and they looked the Theory of Evolution only from an educational standpoint. After calculating the correct number, they found to their disbelief that is a 1 in 10 to the 40,000 power years just for one cell to evolve. After their findings, Sir Hoyle had this to say about evolution:
"The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable with the chance that 'a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.' "

Although I already believed that a sovereign God created this world before I researched for this speech, this is called the creationist theory, the information I found only convinced me further that what I believe is the truth. Evolutionists say that it is unreasonable to believe in a sovereign God that created the universe. But, when looking at the evidence, everything points to creationism, not the Theory of Evolution. I mean, the Creation theory has answers to everything evolution doesn’t. I mentioned earlier about trees being found in several layers of rock that is supposed to represent thousands and millions of years of change. Some of these trees were found upside down, indicating some great, forceful catastrophe. Evolution has no answer for this, but the creationist does:

"Genesis 7: 17-24
For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet. 21 Every living thing that moved on the earth perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark."

A flood would account for overturned trees, shifting of the land, and layers of mud that would eventually turn into rock over time. Yet, evolution says this is unreasonable, even though evolution has no reason for these happenings itself.

I also mentioned the Law of Thermodynamics earlier. As you recall the Law states that things wear down over time. Evolution states things get more complex and better over time. They do not agree with each other. Yet, the fact that there are Laws in the universe states that there is order and control. Could this order and control come from the theory of evolution, which insists that the survival of the fittest is what really happens? No. If this were true, then the universe would be in chaos, because the fittest would be destroying the weak. The fact that there are things such as the Law of Thermodynamics in the universe points to order and control, that something is sustaining the universe. By default, Evolution attempts to disprove Laws of science, which have been proven as true. Can a mere theory disprove what is known to be absolutely true? Of course not.

In conclusion, I hope I have been able to show you the weaknesses and sometimes lies of evolution. I cannot make you believe one thing or another, but I can show you the evidence that goes against the Theory of Evolution. The choice is yours to make. Do you believe in a theory known as Evolution, which has so many weaknesses and contradicts many things we know to be true, or do you believe in something else?

Evolution is simply not the truth, there is too much overwhelming evidence against it, and what I spoke of before is only a small portion of it. Does this mean you should stop searching for the truth? No. The truth is out there, but the truth is not evolution. Look somewhere else for it, because, after all, it is important to know where we come from. Because, in finding where we come from, we find out if we have hope or not of something else after our deaths. I myself believe I have found the truth, in the deep pages of the Bible, but I cannot force you to go there. That is a journey you must take on your own in your own search for what is truth. If you don’t get anything else from what I am saying today, please understand this, that the Theory of Evolution is based on misread evidence and lies. Go and keep searching for the truth, but remember, the Truth does not lie in the realm of Evolution.