Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Live Life On Purpose

Check out a blog from Robert & Liz Crews, future teammates of 3:18 Ministries!  It is a quick read about their journey.

http://crewsfamily3-18.blogspot.com/2012/01/live-life-on-purpose.html

Monday, January 16, 2012

Martin Luther King Jr; The Civil Rights Movement & Native Americans

I have great respect for Martin Luther King Jr.  I respect a man who will stand up for what he believes in even when it is the tough thing to do, especially when his life is on the line.  I found myself reading MLK's "I Have A Dream Speech" this morning.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

     Today I wonder what our country would look like if the Native Americans and African Americans had united for the Civil Rights Movement. Today the Native American still is not free. Today the life of the Native American is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. Today the Native American lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. Today the Native American is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. The majority of treaties (if not all of them) between the Native Americans and our United States government have not been honored.  They too have expereienced many checks written by the United States government returned marked with "insufficient funds."  I have a dream...

-tory