"Time for TEA"

"For the grace of GOD that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldy lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great GOD and our SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST; WHO gave HIMself for us, that HE might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto HIMself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Titus 2:11-14

Dear Praying Friends and Family,
What a blessing it has been to be able to spend some extra time together as a family this week of "Spring Break" after enjoying a wonderful weekend with my daughter and friends at our Excalibur Ladies Retreat...thank you my dear friends so much for all the hard work and prayer you put into making the retreat a special, special time for all of us. Earlier this week, I was blessed to plant blueberry bushes that my dear friend Catherine ordered for me and delivered to me...thank you so much, Catherine! Having blueberry bushes has been a heart's desire of mine for years, and GOD has brought it to pass! I pruned crepe myrtles bushes, and fertilized the yard (with Scott's natural fertilizer we buy at Lowe's, ) during this beautiful weather GOD has given us, and what a blessing it is to have the strength and health to do all those things. GOD sent us two "angels" from Johnny's work to cut the grass and rake and weed the flower beds...and i know that was a special blessing to the kids:). The kids and i got to go fishing together Tuesday afternoon at Elk River. HB caught two brim, while "Troy," our latest addition to our family, a Maltipoo, played around the river's edge and slept while we fished (he's not a waterdog at this point, but he'd better learn soon if he expects to go kayaking with me:). Although i had several bites, i caught zero fish, as usual. John Mac supervised us as he read in his chair behind us soaking in the sun. What a blessing it was just relaxing out in the sun with my kids, sitting and talking together while we fished. Wednesday evening we just "happened" to arrive at the same restaurant, at the same time, as my Mom and Dad, and we all got to eat and visit together. What a great blessing to have my nephew, Drew, from Texas, visit with us this week, over his Spring Break. I got to spend time with him and my dear brother, Ralph, last night. It's been a week of "special blessings" from the LORD and I thank HIM from the depths of my heart for HIS goodness and lovingkindness to me and our family.

I had not intended to write about what i'm sharing this week, but after some discussions our family has had about what's going on in our country, and an email i received earlier this week, i felt led to "reroute," and write about "tea parties." I'm sure many of you have been receiving the emails recently about the "tea parties," that they've been having to send Washington the message that we're not exactly happy with the way things have been going recently. Earlier this week we received, the one that Don Wildmon, head of American Family Association, sent out encouraging us to participate in a tea party on April 15.





Donald E. Wildmon
Founder and
Chairman



Please help us get this information into the hands of as many people as possible by forwarding it to your entire e-mail list of family and friends.

Please support TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party day, April 15


March 18, 2009

We currently have people in 600 cities organizing for the TEA Party Day Rally April 15. Help us grow that number to 1,000!

Dear John and Mitzi,

Our country faces a grave danger. Our elected officials in Washington are leading us down an unwise path. We need to act now to stop this situation.

I’m writing asking you to help us and also to motivate others to get involved. AFA and other groups have called for a day of TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party rallies across the U.S. on April 15, including one at noon in front of the city hall in your community. Get with a few friends and go to the rally.

Take Action!
I urge you to please support this movement. Please support, attend and/or help organize a TEA Party rally in your community. Please encourage others to do the same.

I ask one special favor. If a radio station in your community has a talk show, would you call the host and ask him or her to sponsor the TEA Party rally in your community. Thanks so very much.

Please forward this information to others.

Click here for information on TEA Party rallies.






Thank you for caring enough to get involved. If you feel our efforts are worthy of support, would you consider making a small tax-deductible contribution to help us continue?


Sincerely,



Donald E. Wildmon,
Founder and Chairman
American Family Association Donate with confidence to AFA
(gifts are tax-deductible)



Please take a few minutes and invite your friends to AFA ActionAlert.




My husband and i discussed at lunch earlier this week that Newt Gingrich had joined up with the "TEA Party" movement, and i thought his name recognition might help the ideas of these tea parties catching on. Johnny took time to explain to me some more events going on like the issues surrounding AIG as Hannah Beth listened while we ate. He explained to us the reprecussions that happen when government gets involved in private businesses. That same evening we received the letter from AFA encouraging us to get involved in the Tea Parties. For weeks i have been wanting to "do something" about all that is going on in but a part from praying, and trying to learn as much as i can, i haven't known exactly what to do. I asked Johnny if he minded if i contacted some of our friends about this "Tea Party," effort. He was supportive, and our family had a good discussion about the ramifications of getting involved with things like this...in other words the cost involved. Johnny had some good words of wisdom for me, and cautioned me in some areas, along with John Mac. My family knows i'm passionate, and well, they know that i don't know a lot about politics and i don't articulate, well the things i do know. I'm a lot like Moses, i stumble and stutter over my words. What i do know, i'm learning right now, and if in my writings you see that i'm in error about what i've shared, about politics, history or anything else, but particularly about Scripture, please let me know so that i can correct that. I do want to encourage you to invite some friends to join up with you and participate in one of these "Tea Parties," near you. This is something we can do to put "feet" to our prayers, and let Washington hear our voices in unision. You can find out more about the Tea Parties by clicking on the sites above.
After we discussed the "Tea Parties," across our nation, i decided to read about the Boston Tea Party. It's amazing how much more history is coming alive to me these days as i see how the events that used to seem so long ago have brought us to the point we are today...how the "dots are connecting." Wish i could have comprehended that in high school:). I read in Streams of Civilization about some of the issues leading up to the Boston Tea Party and they sounded very familiar to the events going on today:

"When peace came after the Seven Years' War, the English decided that the American colonies should make a greater contribution to the expense of the government. This last phase of the English-French struggle vastly increased Britain's national debt...
The economic changes which the British wished to make would affect the colonist's political freedom. In the colonial assemblies, the people, through their elected representatives, were able to have their way because the assemblies had the power to levy taxes. If British authorities, namely the Parliament in which Americans had no representation, could raise money directly from America, the colonists and their representatives would be powerless. Furthermore, the Americans were used to self-government and were determined to keep it. As events were to prove, they were even willing to lay down their lives for it...
Abeka's United States History adds to this:
In 1773, new trouble developed between England and the colonies when Parliament made a blundering attempt to help the nearly bankrupt East India Company. Up to this time, law required the East India Company to sell its tea through middlemen to England. Duties were levied both when the tea passed through the English ports and when it arrived in a colonial port. In May 1773, Parliament adopted legislation allowing the East India Company to ship its tea directly to the colonies, avoiding middlemen and the payment of duties in England. Even with the import duty at colonial ports, the company could sell its tea at a price below that of tea smuggled in from Holland. The East India Company would have a virtual monopoly on tea in the colonies. Despite the lower price of the British tea, the American colonists refused to buy it. They were infuriated that Parliament would grant a monopoly to the East India Company and insulted that Parliament would expect them to compromise on principle for the sake of their pocketbooks. In New York and Philadelphia, the tea-laden ships were ordered to turn around or return to England. But in Boston, Governor Hutchinson refused a citizen request to ship the tea back to England. Thus, on the night of December 16, 1773, a band of citizens disquised as Indians boarded the tea-laden shps in Boston Harbor and, under cover of darkness, dumped 340 chests of tea into the harbor. Although the men were careful to harm nothing but the tea itself, the Boston Tea Party, as it was called, outraged British authorities. In response to the Boston Tea Party, Parliament decided to punish Massachusetts and, by doing so, to set an example that would keep the other colonies in subjection. Parliament passed a series of acts called the Coercive Acts, the colonists called them the "Intolerable Acts," which further led to unite the colonists into a spirit of unity against Britain's unreasonable rules.

Wikipedia stated that the Boston Tea party became a major catalyst for the American Revolution.

A couple of nights ago our family discussed the ramifications that could result as a part of an effort like these organized "Tea Parties." Was it time for something like that...some in our circles said, "Yes," they had been hoping for something like this for years, others were more cautious...and me, i'm just passionate, wanting to "do something," and yet, held in check by my husband's and son's sensible and level headed thoughts.
In last week's writing, i shared about the cost involved in sharing the gospel of JESUS CHRIST with others that they might be freed from the chains of sin. What were we willing to endure to share CHRIST with those who aren't always easy to love? Some of the things i quoted were taken from a devotion that i read last year on March 19.

In the March 19, Springs in the Valley there was a very timely message about the cost of sharing JESUS CHRIST and freeing others from their chains of sinful bondage, and about the cost of preserving our freedoms as a country:

"From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the LORD JESUS." Galatians 6:17
Do we carry around wound marks? Have we sought the protected areas while others met clash on clash the onset of the evil one? Has compromise robbed us of our war trophies? Shall we not have done with such? Some day we shall see HIM face to face; shall see the nailprints in HIS hands. Shall we stand ashamed in HIS presence because we wear no scars of battle?
-Daily Communion
Hast thou no scar?
No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?
I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,
I hear them hail thy birhgt ascendant star,
Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?
Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent,
Leaned me against a tree to die; and rent
By ravening wolves that compassed me, I swooned;
Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?
Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,
And pierced are the feet that follow Me;
But thine are whole; can he have followed far
Who hath no wound nor scar?
-Amy Carmichael

Garibaldi, the great Italian reformer of a past generation, in a fiery speech urged some thousands of Italy's young men to fight for the freedom of their homeland. One timid young fellow approached him, asking, "If I fight, Sir, what will be my reward?" Swift as a lightning flash came the uncompromising answer: "Wounds, scars, bruises, and perhaps death. but remember that through your burises Italy will be free."


The signers of the Declaration of Independence mutually pledged to each other "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
"The men who signed the Declaration of Independence had very few illusions about what they were risking. How much of what they pledged did they actually lose?" You can read about what our freedoms cost them by clicking on:
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1962/1/1962_1_36.shtml

Again i asked myself the question that i asked last week that came from that devotion ..."Are you not willing to endure scars in order to liberate souls?" Certainly our founding fathers were willing and did. What am i willing to endure to liberate souls for CHRIST, who gave HIS all for me and do my part to maintain the freedoms that JESUS CHRIST, our founding fathers and the best of our land have given their "lives, their Fortunes, and their sacred Honor," to secure those freedoms?
Most of our founding father's were motivated to "lay down their lives," by their love for CHRIST and the truths found in HIS WORD. There were many influences upon our founding father's political ideas and among them were the French Huegenots i wrote about a few weeks ago, the French Christians who were forced to flee France leading up to the French Revolution.

"Puritanism, (reformers of the Church of England) the religion of the early settlers and the rationale for their very arrival on American shores, left a lasting legacy which carried on into the late eighteenth century birth of our nation. Puritanism emphasized principles which can be seen in the Amercian political development-voluntary association, limits on power, a necessity for civic involvement by the saints, and a careful delineation of the realms of the church and state..."Streams of Civilization, p.109.

Most importantly the Puritans emphasized individual salvation initiated by GOD's great love for us and the creation of a people for society. GOD's heart and desire has always been to save the souls of men and women and children, and that theme is woven throughout the pages of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. "For GOD so loved the world that HE gave HIS only begotten SON that whosoever believeth in HIM shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16.

Between 1730 and 1760 GOD in HIS great love and perfect plan sent a great time of revival in America and England. I am amazed at GOD's great love for us in HIS divine providence of leading all these men and women together for "such a time as this." John and Charles Wesley were part of the "Methodist Revival," along with John Newton,and others i've shared with you in recent weeks. In America, this time of revival in men's hearts became known as the Great Awakening," where Jonathon Edwards and George Whitefield who was a member of John and Charles' Wesley's "Holy Club," were two of the leading evangelists preaching CHRIST's free offer of salvation.

"The Great Awakening preachers taught that men are depraved sinners, and can be saved only by the work of the Holy Spirit uniting them to CHRIST." Streams of Civilization p.109
GOD used these revivals to save the souls and shape the minds of the men and women whom HE raised up to be the founding fathers of our great country....men like George Washington, Patrick Henry, John Adams, and Dr. Benjamin Rush. What wondrous love HE has for you and me to redeem men and women and give them "hearts of flesh" to replace their "hearts of stone" and put HIS "law in their hearts" to shape the great country that we have been blessed to live in. HE did this because HE loves us so much, and loves the whole world. HE wanted us to be a lighthouse for the world to draw men to HIMself through HIS SON JESUS CHRIST. "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for HIS own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of HIM who called you out of darkness into HIS marvelous light" I Peter 2:9. HE has used our country greatly to be missionaries to the world to spread the good news of JESUS CHRIST throughout the world. HE has raised up men and women, like Jim and Elisabeth Elliot, William Carey, Hudson Taylor, Lottie Moon and put in their hearts the call to go and live amongst those who have never heard of the salvation that is in CHRIST JESUS. HE has endowed men and women with wisdom and knowledge to be doctors and nurses to minister and share the good news of JESUS CHRIST. HE has given put in men the desire to learn agriculture skills and take those to foreign lands and help those learn to plant crops for themselves thus providing food for their families. He has blessed our men and women to develop wonderful technology to share the gospel through TV and radio and now computers to other lands.


What a wonderful heritage we have been blessed with by GOD. How it must grieve HIS heart deeply as our loving FATHER who blessed us with so much to see what we are experiencing in our country because of the cancer among us...the cancer of sin. JESUS CHRIST is the answer to that "cancer," and the same GOD who sent a "Great Awakening," to England and America back in the 1700's, can send a "Great Awakening," and heal our land...through our repentance of our sins and turning from our wicked ways. "If MY people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land." II Chronicles 7:14 Most of our problems we are experiencing are because of our lawlessness and gross sin as we have turned our backs upon GOD resulting in greed, hate, selfishness, anger, worshipping false gods, sexual immorality, disrespect of parents, etc. Sadly, much of this is going on inside of our churches. May GOD give me first of all the grace to search my own heart, and repent and confess the sin that dwells in me and then pray for my country.
At this time we still live in a country with freedoms where we can speak out against what our government is doing. If we don't take the windows of opportunity that GOD is giving us now to speak up, we may loose those freedoms sooner than we realize. CHRIST "gave HIMself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for HIMself a people for HIS own possession who are zealous for good works." Titus 2:13. I invite you to join with me in participating in one of these "good works," through the "Tea Parties being conducted throughout our nation and let our government hear your voice.

Isaac Watts, who lived amazingly lived around the same time period (1674-1748) as our founding fathers, wrote a powerful hymn called "Am I a Soldier of the Cross." The words to this song came to my mind as i wrote and challenged my heart with the penetrating question that CHRIST continues to ask of me and you "What are we willing to endure to liberate souls for CHRIST?" "Hast thou no scar?" By GOD's "Amazing Grace," HE will give us not only the strength and courage to endure the difficult days ahead, but HE will also give us the grace to be "more than conquerors through HIM who loved us" Romans 8:37.

With all HIS love,
mitzi

"Am I a Soldier of the Cross"

Am i a soldier of the cross, a foll'wer of the LAMB?
And shall I fear to own HIS cause, or blush to speak HIS name?

Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize, and sailed thro' bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood?
Is this vile world a friend to grace, To help me on to GOD?

Sure I must fight if I would reign; Increase my courage, LORD!
I'll bear the toil, endure the pain, Supported by Thy Word.