Preserving the Way

Imagine if

Imagine if you could know in your heart of hearts that your existence on this earth was not by random chance or an accident and we would learn to understand that our lives are meant to have such meaning and fulfillment that every waking hour is a pure gift and is filled with the anticipation of what the day will hold in store for us.

Imagine if you could that everybody you met in this world you saw as an extension of this great revelation and you knew that they possessed the same purpose on this earth and in turn learned to respect, love and care for all those around you as one extended family.

Imagine if you could that your parents had learned these principals and ideas when they were children and in turn lived their lives as a humble testimony to these teachings that were now ingrained in your heart, soul and mind without a shadow of doubt.

Imagine if you could a home where the honor and the privilege to have a spouse who truly understands what makes your life full of contentment and stability is more common than not and both husband and wife possess and share a singular vision of this truth.

Imagine if you could a modern world in which children are raised in a household that is full of love and guidance by parents who understand the proper balance between love and respect not only for the unique individuals we are but also for the specific roles in which we were created.

Imagine if you could as far back as you can remember your family sat around home in humble devotions to learn the absolutes of right and wrong so you were fully prepared to understand the immense world outside your door and why there will be times of great joy to experience and times of great sadness and loss.

Imagine if you could watch the beauty of every new sunrise, smell the fresh air of a new day, stare in wonderment at a soaring bird above, watch the wind blow through the trees and glance into the starry sky with a complete understanding of where it all came from and for whom it was created!

Imagine if you could learn the amazing simplicity of the 26 letters of the English alphabet and yet we have created over the millennium volumes of works that have filled thousands of Libraries across our land and now digital memory on your tablet or smart phone…all on 26 letters.

Imagine if you could that there are over 6,700 languages worldwide each with their own set of letters contained in their alphabets so multiply out the volumes of written material worldwide to truly understand the amazing scope and complexity of  human language and knowledge.

Imagine if you could there exists ten principles of living that have been the foundations of all the civil laws throughout the world and only when countries follow these principles to the letter does their justice system run balanced and equitable.

Imagine if you could that with only a dozen musical notes and 10 octaves we have created thousands of different styles of music since mankind’s beginning and billions of recorded songs and new melodies are being created every day, just for our enjoyment!

Imagine if you could this source of knowledge is easy enough for a child to understand and yet can keep adults studying and learning the endless pool of knowledge and complexities about God’s nature, ourselves and the world around us for a lifetime.

Imagine if you could that the source of these great truths and teaching were not hidden in the minds of just a few privileged people or would require lots of resources to acquire or available only on a special offer on TV.

Imagine if you could that all this knowledge and understanding and truth are available to you in a place not too far away…in your home…on the web….and easily accessible from your tablet or smart phone.

Imagine if you could that even if you did not have the “perfect childhood” or the “perfect parents” or your life has been full of heartache and pain and tears that it would never be too late for you to learn and understand these principals which will forever change you from the inside out!

Imagine if you could you would understand our time on this earth is just a blink of time and death would no longer be frightening as it will one day lead us to a full enlightenment of our soulful journey yet we would still desire to savor every last minute on earth and to share this exciting truth with all we meet.

Yes I am referring to The Holy Bible! The One book that for millenniums has been the one true source of truth and knowledge and human understanding.  It has transformed billions of people and it can transform you!

Now if you are disappointed with this conclusion, you are not alone. Sadly the forces that exist today in America and around the world are accomplishing their goal to make the Bible look so outdated and in many some cases down right hateful with seemingly unlimited zeal and have so outnumbered those of us trying to light our paths back to his saving words that it is very easy to get discouraged and down trotting and weary and give in to our modern culture!

 Human history has recorded the outcomes when civilizations give up their fear of The Living God and creator of Heaven and Earth and begin to rely on just our own human philosophies and opinions. Well in America today you do not have to look very far to see we are reaping what we have sown:

1. Divorce rate is the highest of any western nation in the world (Half of all first marriages end in divorce, 65% of second marriages end in divorce and 73% of third marriages end in divorce)
2. More children are being born out of wedlock than ever before. Just over 50% as compared to just 8% in the 1960’s and 18% in 1980.
3. Our family size (1.9 children per family) is only  the birth rate a civilization needs to sustain growth and prosperity. (1.9 children per family is the minimum.)
4. Abortion and contraception has become ordinary and acceptable to many.
5. Our schools are now rated at 30^th in the world instead of number 1 as they were in the late 1950’s.
6. Forty years ago our nation was the largest creditor nation in the world, now we are the greatest debtor nation…in just a span of forty years!!

As they say real change will not occur until we recognize there is a problem. Does anybody deny from the data above that we are in a tailspin of Biblical proportions? Is there any one left in America who can look at this data (and there are tons more examples) and not get on their hands and knees and weep over the sadness and devastation we have caused in our own lives and in our own families. Yes I did say we since for too long everybody wants to blame each other and the Government and their parents when the real truth is we have let this happen. We have let the fox into our hen houses and in most many cases we are the foxes! We have to stop the blame game now and own up to our responsibilities and abilities to protect our marriages and families at any cost! Only then will we swing this big ship back on course! The makers of the Titanic boasted that even God could not sink her. Well we in America had been riding that mind set for centuries! Yes I did say centuries!

I can attest that we (you and I) have truly become the “Me, myself and I-Generations”.  It is amazing to see what living in a country that at one time had the highest standard of living and our families were very safe where kids could wait at school bus stops without the parents and not be susceptible to abductions and we did not have to go through metal detectors to get on a plane, or go into our Courthouses or our schoolhouses. We could walk up to a bank teller and shake their hands as they were not behind bullet proof glass.

Where sadly now places of employment and our own schools have now become the new killing fields.  Mind you, not by foreign Jihadist with masks, but by just seemingly ordinary Americans. How many grade school kids are getting caught in school with weapons in their nap sacks?

On 911, close to 3,000 citizens lost their lives and we will honor their deaths each year as we should as we still honor those lost at Pearl Harbor way back in 1941……..but …..what about the over 3,300 unborn citizens we lose everyday by our own hands. And all we can do is bicker among ourselves and we call it promoting woman’s health. Who is shedding a tear for them. Not only for the unborn who we will not ever get to know but the woman who sadly felt she was so alone in this world and at a point this is the best and only alternative. What about the compassion for them! Where are the men whose role it is too protect, teach, nurture and love our families through all this!!

We all have a hand in that situation so I am not putting blame on any particular genre, but when what is evil is called good, then our moral compass is broken or is it more like lost at sea! Maybe we have even forgotten what a moral compass looks like and what do we use it for.

How have we acquired so much anger that we can work ourselves up into a frenzy and easily divorce the woman we loved so much and to think we wanted to spent the rest of our lives together and we betrothed to love, honor and protect for the rest of her life and then throw all that away in divorce. And in that selfish act separate our children from one of their parents or even share the kids by the Courts decisions while we play house with another unmarried partner in front of our kids. And further be so cold hearted that we do not in most cases of divorce even admit we did anything wrong. And how many of us who had a friend contemplating a divorce and the only advice we could give is ‘Well you really need to be happy!” and condone it. It somehow seems to make us feel better when we can recommend the same bad decision to others to relieve us from our guilt.

How did all this happen!!!!

We are not the first and most likely will not be the last. A civilization blessed by God with great resources, plenty of land and food, great economic and military power and a willing people to fight for what is right all seem to end up over time turning our focus away from our Holy God to our own selfish ungodly desires.

 We share these characteristics with many past great empires like Judah, Israel, The Greeks, The Romans, The United Kingdom, The Spaniards, The Germans and many more, but after they enjoyed their time in History of great wealth, influence and power they eventually become either a much smaller worldly influence or extinct. And like America has today these civilizations went down a path of destruction where life no longer had any true value!!

We have been warned that wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life and only a few find it. Watch out for false prophets as they come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ferocious wolves.

It can be easy to be distracted when our sinful nature constantly wants to be fed by all of its needs. Between TV, radio, internet, sometimes our own friends and family it can be almost impossible to separate the friends from the foes. Good influence from the bad influences. We are programmed to believe through advertising and our culture that contentment comes to us only by the need we have for extravagant food, extravagant booze, extravagant cars, extravagant clothes, extravagant homes, extravagant technology, and extravagant needs for social status.

How do we get the ship back on course, how do we get on the right track, how do we find our moral compass, how do we learn our true purpose, how do we learn true contentment, how do we learn about true and awesome Love?!

The answer today is the same as it was for the Roman citizens and the rest of the world over 2,000 years ago who after Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection saw the love of their God showered upon them by the sacrifice and the shed blood of The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords!! And they had over 500 witnesses to this truth and they realized what was fore told from the fall of mankind through the Old Testament had been fulfilled and they were willing to die to proclaim the truth.  Imagine a living God who took his living Son to the Cross so all of the sins we have committed against him and continue to commit against God would be forgiven by an act of Love incomprehensible in human terms. Yes this is The Father who made us, this is the Son who saves us and this is the Spirit who guides us.

We must trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not on our understanding and all our ways acknowledge him and he will guide our paths. Through prayer, supplication and repentance, we can learn this trust and with meditating on his Holy Word day and night, we will be able to correct our paths and come back into the light!

We need to all review the Ten Commandments daily with a humble heart as the Bible teaches if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. God says he has stamped a conscience of right and wrong  right into our souls. The proof of this is no matter where a person is born on the planet and no matter how or by whom they were raised, all humans have a moral code built right in and you all know what I am talking about. And without the knowledge that we are all living our lives in rebellion to the Holy Lord who gave you life and breath and blessings each day on this Earth…you will not understand or feel you need to change your life and The Bible with constant meditation and prayer will lead you out of the darkness where we dwell and into a life of righteousness which means “Right with God!”

Please see the article “Teach your Children Well”  which delves much deeper into the reality we are what we choose to view, read and learn through our lives right from infancy to death.

Now in the early Church, the Christians were called “The Way” (hence the title of this website) as it described the only path to life…in this world and the next!! Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Through this website I want to be able to teach others how to bring a Biblical Worldview into their lives in order to be able to discern the dangers around us, strengthen our knowledge of the Bible and to be able to implement “The Way” into our behaviors of our lives and to the next generations. Our souls and the souls of our children’s children depend upon it!

But there is one large hurdle for us to cross! I have learned in my life that only when your heart is humble and you are in awe (Fear) of our living God will the words contained within The Bible begin to change you into the person God created you to be. I cannot stress this point enough as all the wonderful scenes mentioned in the beginning of this article will and can be accomplished only when we ask for humble forgiveness from our Loving Savior Jesus Christ and our true repentance of change takes us back on track and the Holy Spirit of God opens our eyes to the devastating changes our blessed country has witnessed over many generations.

We are to first love the Lord our God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. And second is this: love your neighbors as ourselves. But you must create a discipline by which every day of your life you open God’s Holy words to help strengthen you and revive you to battle all the resistance this world will put before you. Sadly many of us have left our Holy Book unopened on the table, in our libraries or under the bed or thrown into storage. Barna Group reveals only 10% of even the professing Christians in our country have a true Biblical worldview. Only 1 of out ten!! This is why our country is in decline and suffering under moral decay. Do you believe that 86% of Americans worry about the moral decay of our nation as do I!!!

And again the blame falls squarely on each one of us individually. It does start with me!! Men have especially been terribly neglectful in their role as head of the family by not learning the wisdom the Bible offers and to teach their family and to be on constant guard every day to protect them. God created men for this very role. It is vital our families are taught this from inside our home and at young ages as this is when they are the most impressionable!

Now just because you read the Bible, it does not necessarily mean you will instantly change your life and you would become a humble servant and want to follow God’s guidelines. I started to study The Bible in my local Church at age 40 and after 5 years of Bible study divorced by wife of 23 years even though the Bible clearly teaches divorce is a sin and hated by God! I repeated this sin more then once!

One of the greatest lessons I have learned in my life of over 60 years is that our culture is so much embedded in my heart and soul and mind that it takes years of soulful humble reflection and Bible teaching to even be aware of how much the culture pervades my every thought.

The typical adult today absorbs media 55 hours per week and the only thing we do longer is sleep. If you think this constant bombardment of ungodly information does not seep into every fabric of our being over time, then you were just like me. Living day to day with my head in the sand just trying to survive while our great culture is transformed into something quite unrecognizable.

Just a 180 years ago in America, the majority of our Universities and Colleges in America were Bible Colleges and most of our population understood that only when we understand God’s word, will we understand our world. Most of Science, Biology, Astronomy and Math were developed by Christian men wanting to learn more of the complete awesome majesty of our Earth and the surrounding universe knowing that God created all things. The differences in just over 180 years are striking and I can prove it in one easy example. Here is where the internet can truly be used as a tool to help and strengthen your life for the better.

If you searched dictionary terms from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, most of the definitions are based then upon Biblical wisdom and examples. I used the definition of marriage as the ultimate example of how far we have wandered away and I believe is the best example in our modern culture of how we have changed the essential foundation of the most awesome example of God’s love through this wonderful relationship men and woman were created for.

Believe it or not over 90% of Americans get married at some point in their lives, but only 56% are currently married. This is because we no longer study the best Book for relationships. Take a look!

marriage (As defined by Webster’s Dictionary 1828)

MAR’RIAGE, n. [L.mas, maris.] The act of uniting a man and woman for life; wedlock; the legal union of a man and woman for life. Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engage to live together in mutual affection and fidelity, till death shall separate them. Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, for promoting domestic felicity and for securing the maintenance and education of children.

Examples of MARRIAGE

Marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. Heb.13.

1. A feast made on the occasion of a marriage.
   The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king, who made a marriage for his son. Matt.22.
2. In a scriptural sense, the union between Christ and his church by the covenant of grace. Rev.19.

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Now let us look at Webster dictionary 2012 to see what has been removed and what has been added. (Notice the examples in a sentence used above and below)

marriage (As defined by Webster’s Dictionary 2012)

1
a (1): the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law (2): the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage <same-sex marriage> b: the mutual relation of married persons : wedlock c: the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage

2
: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected; especially: the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities

3
: an intimate or close union <the marriage of painting and poetry — J. T. Shawcross>

Examples of MARRIAGE

1. It was his second marriage.
2. They have a very happy marriage.
3. Her first two marriages ended in divorce.
4. She has old-fashioned ideas about marriage.
5. couples living together before marriage
6. Many friends and relatives were present at their marriage.
7. a priest who has performed many marriages
8. a marriage of sweet and spicy flavors
9. a marriage of science and art
10. a marriage between form and function

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Did you notice how the older definition not only emphasizes the mutual love and respect marriage gives to the husband and wife, but also explains that God created marriage for the purpose of raising children in a secure and learned environment for the betterment of the entire family unit! This example above also proves that America’s language was intertwined with its faith!

Did you notice that nothing is mentioned in today’s definition about children…can you imagine!! The sole purpose of men and woman is to procreate and multiply. It is what our bodies are designed and built for…..has anybody in America ever taken biology-lol! No wonder all the statistics that show a healthy society in America are in the dumpster.

Now how important to us is the Webster Dictionary. Well it is listed by Russell Ash as the third largest selling book of all time! (100 Million Copies) The second most is “Quotations of Chairman Mao” (required reading by all citizens in China currently at 900 Million copies printed-kind of interesting since there have been over a Billion Chinese for many decades)

Now the best-selling book of all time is…………..drum roll please……….The Bible at 6 Billion copies since 1451 and this does not include all The Bibles that are given away which some sources say is another 6 Billion copies.

How can this be, that is not true I hear you all saying since we never see it on NY Times top ten best seller list. Well imagine that….another simple truth being ignored or more like suppressed. Matter of fact when Harry Potter came out it broke all sorts of sales records, yet The Bible still sold more than twice as many copies in America that year!!

Matter of fact one of the most interesting statistics is the average American home has 4 Bibles inside its walls. Imagine that!?  The answers and guide lines set out by God for your soulful protection for not just the short lifetime on this earth, but for an eternity are right within your reach…….why not start today to pray the Holy Spirit will open our eyes to the saving grace by the greatest book ever written!! My suggestion is start at page One, Chapter one, verse one!!

Now I hope the wheels are turning as there is no other explanation to The Bible’s immense popularity then this one truth. It speaks the language of our souls! The entity who made you and knew you before you were born knows how to speak to you….if you are humble and willing to listen. It gives a unified message of Jesus Christ the true and only living savior of our world even though it was written over a period of 1,500 years. It was written by God through the hearts and minds of over 40 mainly ordinary men and together the 66 books contained within the Bible do one thing no other book in history does. It thoroughly explains the Who, What, Where, When and Why each of us were born and will show you how valuable, how important and how loved you are. This can be summarized in one of the most beloved verses: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life!!