Mandy's Mercurial Monologue

Two Thoughts on Psalm 11 In the Lord I take refuge; How can you say to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain; For, behold, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?” The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness; The upright will behold His face. (NASB) His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.   Eyelids tell us so much about what a person feels about a given situation and we tend to gauge what they will do next based on facial expression. God sees what is going on, but He doesn't react to things the way ...

I've been writing some variation of this or another at various sites on the internet all week. I need to say it here, but unless others pick it up and run with it, it's going nowhere against the hurricane of pro-Putin propaganda.     Clearly there are people with money, power and influence who are selling the opposite message. There are misinformed "conservatives" who have been fooled into believing that Russia Today is a non-biased news source and "libertarians" including Ron Paul who are eating up the Russian -state issued talking point and regurgitating them everywhere.   Nationalists did not overthrow Yanukovych. There were some nationalists in the mix; how could anyone keep them out of a popular uprising? The Maidan (pronounced My'-dahn) demonstrators and those murdered there by the Russian-backed snipers were mostly everyday citizens. They became engaged when the Yanukovych government used brutality, and later murder, against those who wer...

  I've been so consumed by the events in Ukraine for the past week that I haven't had time to blog. Far too much time and attention has gone into comment threads all over the internet and contending with people from various nations who are ignorant and apathetic.   There are some who would call themselves 'conservatives' or 'libertarians' who see Putin as the "good guy" because of his stance against homosexual and Muslim pressure groups in Russia . They also claim that he has limited abortion. I don't have information on that, but the good he may do in some areas does not constitute a pass on others. To give him a pass where he is wrong is not consistent with a conservative worldview and we must not do it lest we find ourselves promoting a villain.   These opinionated ignoramuses refuse to see that Putin is out of line for interfering with, undermining and threatening a separate and sovereign nation. They are content to see Ukrain...

While reading Jeremiah this morning I came across a familiar refrain: Jeremiah 43: 10-12 (NASB)* and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, “Behold, I am going to send and get Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and I am going to set his throne right over these stones that I have hidden; and he will spread his canopy over them. 11  He will also come and strike the land of Egypt ; those who are meant for death will be given over to death, and those for captivity to captivity, and those for the sword to the sword. I had read it earlier in the year, in Jeremiah 15:1-3 (NASB)* Then the Lord said to me, “Even though Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, My heart would not be with this people; send them away from My presence and let them go! And it shall be that when they say to you, ‘Where should we go?’ then you are to tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord : "Those destined for death, to death; And those destined for the s...

Revisiting a post from 5 years ago, trimmed down to the needs of the moment. Jude was written to a church which was dealing with leaders who were rejecting the authority of Jesus Christ and who were bringing in teachings of license. They were advocating continuing in sin that grace may abound, an idea which Paul condemned saying, "May God forbid that we who are dead to sin should continue in it any further." The passage makes clear that the behavior they were licensing was homosexual activity: ...just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties. Jude 1:7-8 (NASB) "In the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh" makes clear that there we...

This morning I came by to visit this long-neglected blog. I saw the title of a draft post, "Can you afford $100 a month more?" This post was from 02/23/2013:  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While looking for the blog of a well-known neighbor... I came across this headline:  "Rising prices may cost you $100 a month" I've got to pay at least $100 more a month to survive when we've only got part time employment to live on? Thus, I made cheese last week when the milk went off. Then we set ourselves a goal of holding off on groceries until the end of the month, buying only what we need for the week ahead in the meantime. Today we used the last of the coffee and eggs and are out of milk. I've been coming across things which must be tossed and others that are questionable. Apricot and prune filling a year past expiration date. Theoretically they should be fine, bu...

John 18:10 (NASB) 10  Simon Peter then,  having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear; and the slave’s name was Malchus.   I once saw a documentary on the Hutterite Brethren. A family among them lost both parents and began to explore life outside their sect. Lo and behold, they went to a tent meeting and got saved. A “people group movement” began when they returned home. Folks who saw the difference between their own law-bound lives and the vibrant joy of these new Christians wanted to hear the gospel, liberated, as such, from Martin Luther’s  old German translation of the Bible. Amazingly, the secular documentarians recorded the preaching of the eldest brother. He was urging those who were sharing their faith to learn from the Apostle Peter’s mistake in the garden of Gethsemane . When Peter went on the attack, he cut off a man’s ear. How apt; when we share as if on offense, we cut off the ability of our liste...