Valentine’s Day is Overshadowed by Pride

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 IT MAKES SENSE TO ME
By Larry Peterson
 Valentine’s Day is here.  It is supposed to be all about Love. Yet beyond the heart covered Valentine cards, the flower bouquets and candy and all of that, we must, as unpleasant as it may be, recognize what we truly have going on this Valentine’s Day of 2016.  Yes, make no mistake, Love is under attack this Valentine’s Day and hatred seems to overshadow the Lovein the air.
Love is all about “Giving”, isn’t it? Christ loved us and GAVE His life for us. Now that is some serious “Giving”.  Most followers of Christ do their feeble best to follow His message. But—enter the deadly sin of pride. There is the demon that can grab us in its powerful grip and oftentimes, never let go. The great sin of pride is characterized by all those who seize onto words such as, hurt, libel, disrespect, impolite, mocked, uncivil, rude and the list can go on and on and on.
How sad it is that pride can destroy so much, from family relationships, to friendships, to nations. Whenever our “personhood” is offended by someone else, all that Love can vanish like a puff of smoke in a windstorm.  (Have you seen the “Love” extended by the candidates toward each other in the presidential debates?)
Oh well, it is part of God’s gift of free-will allowing each and every one of us to make choices. Some of us can forgive and “turn the other cheek”. Others—no way.
Today it seems that Pride* has filled the hearts of many to a point where these people, so consumed, now HATE unconditionally.  What many of them hate most is one word and what it means. That word is made up of only two letters. That word is NO. They want no-one dare telling them what to do or how to behave. They have embraced secularism (defined as: a system of political or social philosophy that rejects all forms of religious faith and worship). 
Here is their problem:  Judeo/Catholic/Christian has boundaries.  Christianity tells us what God wants us to do and what NOT to do…why, the NERVE of Him!  So, many Secularists (not all) take it to another level in their personal, selfish requests to abolish the influence of institutions that have the temerity to say NO to certain behaviors. They even reject “natural law” for their own personal agendas.
Catholic/Christians are the most persecuted people on earth.  Why is that?  Why is there such hatred by so many toward something that is all about goodness and love?  All Christians (including 1.2 billion Catholics and 800 million Protestants  of varied denominations) follow Jesus Christ. That is 2 billion people or two thousand million people who follow His teachings and His promise of Eternal Life. What is the crux of His teachings? Well now, the bottom line is this, LOVE your NEIGHBOR & FORGIVENESS. Yeah, yeah, I know that many who proclaim to follow Jesus do not even make an attempt to Love their Neighbor or Forgive anyone for anything. How powerful is the sin of pride?
The Prideful  rant against Christmas which is all about “giving”. They rail on about using the name of God in schools and at sports events. They want Crosses at cemeteries taken down from the graves of fallen soldiers. In many cases those who hate Christians kill them. Men, women and children die every day in different parts of the world simply because they are followers of Jesus. How can Love & Forgiveness be things to hate? How powerful is the sin of pride?
Well, nothing has changed since Jesus walked the earth two thousand years ago.  He preached Love & Forgiveness so they beat Him, tortured Him and killed Him.  The loving crowds who screamed “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday turned fickle and screamed “Crucify Him” the following Friday.  The list of people murdered for following Jesus over the centuries (including his own apostles) is countless. Being a Catholic and Christian was never supposed to be easy.  Jesus Christ did nothing but Love us, each and every one of us. Look what happened to Him. How powerful is the sin of pride?
So, on this Valentine’s Day, the question to be considered might be this. What is Love? The answer can be found in the Bible in the First Letter of John; Ch 4: 16-17.  “We have come to know and believe in the love God has for us. God IS Love, and whoever remains in Love remains in God and God in Him. 
Sadly,  on February 14, 2016, the war on Love increases in intensity.
*Pride: There are two kinds of pride; negative pride and positive pride. This column             references negative pride aka ‘selfishness’ or ‘meism’. Positive pride is the    good pride we take in working hard to do our best while loving our neighbor.
                    ©Larry Peterson2016 All Rights Reserved

The Latest Craze–Calling on Satan to "Come Out & Play"

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IT MAKES SENSE TO ME


By Larry Peterson

Satan is the Great Impostor, the King of Lies, the Master of all Hate. He was God’s greatest angel and decided that he was even better than God. So, the “created” tried to overwhelm the Creator. Having made this choice he and his followers were  cast out of God’s world for all eternity. We mortal beings cannot even imagine the hate that fills these fallen spirits. Their hate is so great and pervasive because there can never be redemption for them. Consequently, they prowl around the world seeking new recruits to join them in their misery. They may have hit the “motherload” via the Internet.

The latest Internet game filling the cyber environment is called the “Charlie Charlie Challenge”. A game that is being promoted as innocent has, as its objective, the goal of summoning the devil. Here is what I cannot fathom. In a world gone secular and trying to eliminate God from our existence why are thousands upon thousands of people, especially young people, trying to conjure up a confrontation with Satan himself? Many want to reject God and His Goodness and Love…yet are willing to call on Satan to have a “good time”.

How bizarre is this? Satan (aka the Devil) is the opposite of GOOD. He is HATE . All that is UNgood comes from Satan.  There could never be a Satan without a God who created him in the first place. Yet people want to summon him up and talk to him, while at the same time claiming there is no God or that God is irrelevant in their lives. It DOES Not Make sense To Me.

The “Charlie Charlie Challenge” apparently came from the game being played in the Dominican Republic and then uploaded to YouTube.  April 29 is when it began and it spread to Twitter. Today it has gone viral. The two pencil game involves drawing a grid on a piece of paper with two sections labeled “yes” and two sections labeled “no”. One pencil is balanced on top of the other pencil and then questions are asked; such as, “Charlie, are you here?” If he is “there” the pencil will move to the “yes” section. The main question then asked is “Can we play?” The fact that the slightest environmental change can cause the pencil on top to move is completely ignored.
The Charlie Charlie Challenge is a phenomena that is readily explainable.


There are two kinds of pride: negative and positive. Positive pride has to do with such things as being proud of your family or being proud of an accomplishment worked for and earned through personal hard work and sacrifice. Negative pride is all about self. If a person places their wants and perceived needs above all else and will attempt anything to satisfy those needs, that is when Pride becomes the greatest sin.

This “Charlie Charlie Challenge” is simply a reflection of how ridiculously self-serving so many have become in this meistic secularized society. It is Pride gone rogue. First,reject God and bash religion. The follow that and embrace God’s first creations, who are Satan, and his fallen angels. Play games with them, have fun with them, and see where it gets you. There is an old adage that says, “The devil you get might be worse than the one that you have”.

So PLEASE–be careful what you ask for. Where the “Charlie Charlie Challenge” takes you can prove damning. But it is never too late. Unlike the demons you have been hanging with, you are still eligible for God’s mercy and forgiveness. It is only too late after you die. It is time to kick the “Charlie Charlie Challenge” back into the Hell it came from lest you get dragged in with it.

                                   ©Larry Peterson 2015 All Rights Reserved

I Love Christmas and I Will be Praying for all the "Grinches" trying to Ruin It

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IT MAKES SENSE TO ME

by Larry Peterson

I love Christmas and the entire season that surrounds it. Christmas is about faith and love and goodness and sharing and giving and all of those things that fill the hearts of the vast majority of people around the world with a renewed spirit that can shine through even the darkest moments we may have experienced during the preceding year. Yes, I love Christmas.

Christmas is so much more than a ‘certain day’ each year. It is an actual state of mind. It becomes part of whom many of us still are….Children at heart. And we become children again through our own children and even our grandchildren. We can love the anxiety and pressure and the cookies and candy and putting up the tree and neighborhood decorations the same as the little ones.  I  anxiously looked forward to Santa’s arrival when I was a child and still looked forward to his arrival as the one who dressed up in a Santa suit and crept into my own house at midnight. Now my sons do that and I can hear about his arrival the next morning from the wide eyed grandkids who actually witnessed Santa disappear from their house after leaving presents under the tree. Yes, I love Christmas.

Most importantly, Christmas is about Salvation. The story is so beautiful and profound. A simple carpenter, obeying the law, must take his full-term, pregnant teenage wife, on an 80-mile journey to the town of his ancestry for the census. Riding on the back of a mule she somehow manages to make the trip and God only knows (and HE does) how this could be possible. Not knowing anyone, they cannot find a place to stay and the baby is about to be born. Effectively homeless and in a strange town they wind up in a stable and mom gives birth to her child surrounded by smelly animals and old straw. Can you imagine?

This helpless infant is the Son of God, sent by His Father, and His birth among the lowest of the low shows us all the greatest act of humility ever enacted by anyone, before, then, or ever after. This baby will grow up and they will torture and kill Him when He is 33 years old. Why? Because He preaches forgiveness and kindness and that we should “love our neighbor” and “turn the other cheek”. This made Him a threat to those in power. They just had to get rid of Him. Today, 2000 years later, over 2.6 billion people are following  Him. I guess killing Jesus did not bring the desired results. Yes, I love Christmas.

Today we still have those who want desperately to kill Jesus. From the maniacal Islamists around the world who are doing their best to physically murder Christians wherever they can find them to  the atheists, agnostics, pagans, heathens, satanists and their ilk who HATE everything about Christianity and Christmas. (Okay, okay, maybe not ALL of them hate Christmas but we never hear from them.)

To all of you who want to ruin this day, I ask, “Why?” You are also removing the love and goodness that is associated with it. So, shame on you. You know what, you are all just “plain old mean”. You are the true “grinches” in the world. You are an embarrassment to all the tender hearts filled with kindness and generosity during this time of the year.

I wish to say to all you “grinches” that I will say a prayer for all of you this Christmas. I will pray that you might catch a glimpse of that star that shines so bright. Maybe a droplet of its light will find a way into into your heart. If you happen to catch a glimpse of this light please, do not turn away. You will have chosen to ignore a beautiful Christmas moment. This moment could be the greatest gift you ever receive. What do you have to lose? So keep your eyes and hearts open and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all and may God bless us, ALL of us. And yes, I do love Christmas.

Time to UNTEACH Racism–Our Children deserve It

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by Larry Peterson

When the verdict was read at the Zimmerman trial the words, “not guilty”, reverberated across the entire country. Following  those words a dark and ominous cloud of racial pollution drifted out of that courtroom in Sanford, FL and managed to blanket the entire nation.

Why? The American system of justice had worked, had it not? An impartial jury had weighed all of the evidence and, following the law as instructed by the court, rendered a fair and impartial verdict. Whatever is going on? Isn’t that what we wanted? Why all the vitriol? Why all the hatred? Here’s why–politics.  Politics has become anathema to the very fabric of our  nation because, for those in  power, their politics trumps God, family and country.

I truly believe that the vast majority of the American people, white, black, brown, red, yellow or whomever, are NOT racists.  The true racists are the ones who foment anarchy using race as the bait. You all know who I mean so no sense going into a litany of names. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, remember? These people are making a mockery of his legacy and turning his “dream” into a nightmare.

See this picture above? The caption is TRUE. Want proof, read on.

The day after the “not guilty” verdict in Sanford, the 49 year-old manager of a Family Dollar store in Tampa was shot to death during a robbery. Horsley Shorter Jr., a 26-year Army veteran, was coming to the aid of the clerk who was being held up.  The clerk he was defending was white. The perpetrator of the crime was a black man. So was Horsley Shorter.

Mr. Horsley cared about helping his fellow man, not the man’s skin color. He gave his life so this man might live. I have not heard anything about Horsley Shorter Jr. on any TV or radio programs. Why not? Horsley Shorter is an unsung American hero.  But I guess his story provides no political advantage to anyone? Isn’t that a sad thing?

The picture above demonstrates the innocence of children. They do not care about skin color. They just care about each other. Racism enters their lives when mature, narrow-minded people, uneducated and educated alike, teach them to “HATE“. It is disgusting and the people who are promulgating and playing this “race card” have perverted the enormous gains that have been made between whites and blacks over the last century.

From the bully-pulpit commanded by the President, to the Attorney General, to the former Secretary of State and U.S.Senator, to the Sharptons, and Jacksons and Hollywood know-nothing elitists; it is time for all of you to start preaching brotherhood. Our children deserve that. All of us do.

                      ©Larry Peterson  2013 All Rights Reserved