The Land of Ozz

New Category

Up until this point I have posted the reading schedule for the months of March thru November. I have added a new category (Bible Reading) to make it easier to find the reading plans in the future.

I plan to get the months of December - February done by the end of November. I have had a few requests for the entire year in one document. I will produce this in a couple of formats. I am also in the process of writing a DailyBible.pdb file for the Bible Reader application produced by OliveTree Bible Study Software. This file will be usable on the Bible Reader application for Palm handheld devices and will be free for download once it is complete.

History and Tips for this reading plan

A good friend recommended this schedule. It was published back in 1983 by Fullgrowth Ministries of Tulsa, OK. Here is how that publication recommends you use their schedule:

If you follow this plan devised by Fullgrowth Ministries of Tulsa, Oklahoma, you’ll read the New Testament through twice and the Old Testament once during the next 12 months.

The plan recommends that you do your reading at a specific quiet time each day. If you miss a day, continue with the current day’s reading and catch up when you have extra time. After you finish your day’s reading, mark off that day.

The Old Testament portions are presented as nearly as possible in chronological order. Passages from prophets are included in the historical narrative where they were given, they are often given in a single day’s reading.

You’ll encounter Psalms throughout the year. Frequently, a Psalm that fits a particular passage has been placed with that passage.

As you enter the New Testament, you’ll read Luke and Acts first, then the letters - with periodic passages from other Gospels - and, finally, Revelation. Thus, the story of the life of Christ is constantly related to your Christian life.

I want to add how very important it is that you follow the guidelines given to read the passages for the date given and catch up when you have time. I have tried reading catch up stuff before the current day’s reading after a family crisis took me away from reading for a couple of days and it just didn’t work.

I have provided here the reading for the month of July. The photocopy that I have says that this schedule is copyrighted by Fullgrowth Ministries, but it also says, “feel free to re-print this chart for use in your church, Sunday school, or just to give to friends.” You are my friend if you got this far into this post. I hope this blesses you as much as it has my wife and me. I do plan to post each month’s schedule from the chart before each month begins in the future.

You can listen to some of my readings from the Bible on The Living Bible page of this blog. Thanks for visiting.

The signs are out. There are sharks in the water. You can not see them and you do not know how many are out there, but you know that they are there. Will you let your children swim? The swimming is just for fun. The sharks probably will not bite. They may just brush against your child and you will never even know because the sharks are covered. In the end, no one will be hurt and everyone will have a great time.

Parents, It is not too late to put the brakes on this year’s Halloween celebration for your family. You are the parents and your responsibility to protect your children is more important than how upset they will be when you say, “we are not participating in Halloween. Period!”

I will start this by stating that I realize that there are a variety of views on this subject even within my own circle of friends and family. I love everyone just as much whether they participate in these pagan rooted evil traditions are not. I hate the traditions not the people who participate in them. I really do believe that a person can completely avoid Halloween without jeopardizing any friendships or missing out on this small opportunity to bond with the their neighbors. That is one argument I have heard, and it is a very weak argument to support participating in Halloween. Actually, as a Christian your lack of participation might be the doorway to sharing Jesus with a neighbor.

For starters here is a comment left by Renee on my recent post titled Halloween - Should Christians Participate?.

The year before I got saved, I dressed up as a vampire. The next year I had to explain to my children why I did not want to participate in Halloween. My children understood totally; unfortunately, my husband did not. We are still divided over the subject 5 years later.

I have a proposal for anyone who says they don’t associate Halloween with the origins. Let’s have a Nazi day. We can all dress up like Nazis, decorate with swastikas, have the best Hitler look a like contest. Then we can lure children into it with enticements of candy and the lure of fun. Why not, we were never Nazis, we never killed Jews. So what if there are people who are still Nazis today and do horrible things because of it. What if this holiday was their ‘holy’ Nazi day. But we don’t associate it with them or with what Nazis did.

How can we participate in a day that was and is a day set apart to glorify evil, the very evil that we have been set free from. We are children of light and not darkness. It is so absurd to me. It’s a slap in the face to our Lord.

That’s just my opinion. To me it’s very black and white. And yes I do have fond memories of dressing up and trick or treating as a child, but my parents were not Christians and did not know any better. I don’t think any child is robbed of fun by not participating in Halloween. Last year I went with my children and my husband trick or treating. I told them they did not have to go to any scary looking houses. They avoided them all. Then my 4 year old walked up to a very benign looking house and came back screaming down the walkway. There was a fake severed hand on the porch which was wiggling. Wow, what fun.

Now, if you are thinking about arguing the point of where the day originated from you can save your hot little fingers. It really does not matter where the day originated. There are people glorifying Satan and Evil on this day and there are a ton of people who are just ignorant to the facts and having fun. The motives of those who celebrate this day are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether it is done “just for fun” or to perform a formal Satanic ritual. Why would you want to go out and mingle with them and possibly be confused as being one of them or being tolerant of their practices? You can stay home and enjoy a quiet evening with your family (porch lights off and not giving out candy). By the way, you can consider yourself warned of the evil roots of this holiday so you are no longer a participant who is ignorant of the facts.

There is no benefit in subjecting yourself and your children to what might be hidden behind some of the masks walking the streets in your neighborhood, roaming the malls, or browsing through your church fall festival. Yes, that’s right, your church could even have some intentional evil doers among your children if the church has opened their fall festival to the public and allows costumes.

The church is not always filled only with those who are seeking salvation in Jesus Christ along with the regular attending well meaning Christians. Sometimes a few seats can be filled with those who are trying to get a first hand look at their enemy, us, the believers. An article reminded me of this possibility when the author, a self proclaimed non-believer, visited a popular church to get a feel for how Christians were being sold on this whole faith thing. His view of what he saw is likely distorted, but it gives proof that not everyone who darkens the doors of the church is doing it with good intentions. There are people out there like the ones in this article who are trying to lure folks to their side of the fence on the salvation and faith subjects. The Wired Magazine article titled The Church of the Non-Believers by Gary Wolf proves this point in its analysis of some well known atheists. I do not endorse Wired in any shape form or fashion and I certainly do not believe that atheists are devil worshipers. Here is small portion of the article that proves my point on the mysterious visitors that you may never be aware of in your church.

In the evening, as it cools to 102, I decide to enter the emplacements of the adversary.

I am headed for the Angelus Temple, in Echo Park. A landmark of modern Christianity, it is one of the original churches of the surging charismatic movement.

Source: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism.html

Now what does this article have to do with Halloween? It has very little to do with Halloween directly, but the article can give you a sense of the beliefs, or lack of beliefs some of your friends, family, co-workers, and fellow church goers might be working off of if you have never asked. Consider your neighbors. How many of them have a clear picture of where they stand spiritually, good bad or otherwise? Better yet, how many of your neighbors know where you stand with your relationship with Jesus Christ? Then once again, why would you step out and participate in something that might tag you as a supporter of evil? Why muddy the water when there are people out there who are preying on non-believers and weak Christians? Halloween night is not the best night to go out witnessing to them for the first time. You can just pass on that 2-3 hour opportunity and instead hook up your neighbor during one of the other 8757 hours in an average year. Who knows, your staying in the house on Halloween might prompt your neighbor to approach you and ask why did you not bring your kids out on Halloween night? “Was one of your kids sick?” they might ask. And then the door is wide open to share your faith with them.

Don’t forget that you are the parent and you can say no to this holiday.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.Romans 12:2 (NIV)

UPDATE - The Stapps have a fight booked to CA now.

Our little friend Callie Stapp needs to get from Atlanta to Stanford in CA as soon as possible. Callie was born with the same underlying diagnosis(22q11.2 micro deletion) as my son Caden. Below is what Callie’s mom wrote explaining the situation. The bottom line is that they need to get from Atlanta to California ASAP. Anyone with the cash or an excess of frequent flyer miles who can reserve them airline tickets would be great. The flyer miles can be used without donating the miles and costing you a ton of cash in fees.**

When I was five months pregnant they detected a heart defect in Callie during a standard ultrasound. At first thinking she had Down’s syndrome, they did an amniocentesis and found that she had a small deletion in chromosome 22, a condition some call DiGeorge syndrome. This syndrome can cause up to 180 different defects which include congenital heart defects, facial and other body deformities, kidney problems, seizures, thyroid and parathyroid issues, small or missing thymus etc….
We weren’t sure what was going to happen when Callie was born.
Although we knew she had a significant heart defect, they were limited to what they could see while in-utero.
When Callie was born, they discovered she had Pulmonary Atresia, with a VSD and she was collateral dependant (PA VSD MAPCAs). This means Callie essentially does not have a pulmonary artery. It’s there but it’s just a useless flap of tissue. What her little body did was create these tiny “collateral” vessels that bring oxygen to her lungs. Albeit, not a lot of oxygen but enough to get her by. However, in many cases, these vessels atrophy and die away with time and the child gets less and less oxygen and eventually die. Callie also has an enormous hole in her heart (VSD). This is a mixed blessing as it alleviates the pressure that this defect causes but it also causes the oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood to mix. Because of this, Callie’s saturation levels remain low. While a healthy person usually sats around 95-100, Callie’s are 77-84.
Dr. Hanley at Stanford was the only person that would touch her. He has created a procedure called a unifocalization where he consolidates all those collateral vessels, puts them in a shunt and rebuilds the pulmonary artery with cadaver tissue. Once the collaterals show they are big enough to handle the pressure, Hanley closes that VSD and that’s when the child feels a heck of a lot better and sats are normal. Callie’s defect is very very far on the difficult end of the bell curve when it comes how complicated it can be. This procedure is usually done in one surgery. Callie’s first surgery was just a consolidation of her vessels on her right lung. It was a 14 hour surgery. Her second visit was a consolidation of her left lung, that had just two vessels one mm wide each providing oxygen to it.
To make problems worse, Callie has no visible thymus, however, they did make note of some T-cells. Last count, she had about half of what she was supposed to. This is why it is such a miracle that she has successfully fought every cold, virus and infection thrown her way. Callie also had low calcium at birth, which, if not supplemented, will cause seizures. That too, has reversed itself, and she is showing signs of not needing calcium at all. We are continuing to wean her off calcium and she is mantaining normal levels. Callie is very intelligent and hitting all her intellectual milestones.
Dr. Hanley wants to see Callie ASAP for a cathaterization which will show the status of her collateral vessels. If there is some stenting or ballooning that needs to be done, it can be done via cath at Stanford. Once Hanley sees Callie’s cath, he will also assess whether she needs her surgery right then and now or if she can be sent back home to return in March. In the meantime, Callie has had to contend with some horrific battles with her GI system.
Hope this helps clarify some things. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need additional info.
Thanks for praying for us and with us through all of this.
Love,
Karen

Source: Callie’s CarePage October 27, 2006
Note: Registeration required to access CarePages. Callie’s mom granted permission to post a link to Callie’s Page.

Here is what YOU can do:

Donating miles would be good.

Reserving tickets for the Stapps would be better. **

Donating a private jet would be best.

**Send me an email and I can give you specific instructions on how to reserve a full fair airline ticket with Delta if you have more than 50,000 miles available with Delta.

You don’t read about stories like this very often in the media. Thank God for soldiers like Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor who make the ultimate sacrifice. He saved his fellow Navy Seals by throwing himself on a grenade while fighting in Iraq.

Other SEALS described the Garden Grove, Calif., native as a modest and humble man who drew strength from his family and his faith.

Source

We must not forget the sacrifices made to protect our country. Pray for our military members. Pray for their safety and protection. Thank God for their dedication to protecting the freedoms that we enjoy.

Have you ever experienced spiritual warfare first hand? I got an up close and personal view of spiritual warfare this weekend. I fought a battle with Satan on Saturday. There is no doubt in my mind that the things I experienced this weekend can clearly be defined as spiritual warfare.

The weekend started with my wife and I attending the Cleansing Stream retreat at the Seacoast Church West Ashley. There was well over 500 people in attendance from at least seven different churches in the local Charleston area.

Sherry and I had been through the Cleansing Stream seminar series a couple of years ago, but I was not able to attend the retreat at that time due to my travel schedule. Maybe the travel was Satan’s way of keeping me out of the retreat back then. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that Satan was all over me this weekend trying to keep me out of this retreat.

Let me give you a brief history of my work year to set the stage for this weekend. For most of this calendar year I have been the after hours on-call engineer for the government project that I support on my job. The duties of the on-call engineer require being able to respond to very complex technical circumstances in a short amount of time (minutes). The duties that the on-call engineer performs require troubleshooting, diagnosis, and repair of network security related problems for our government customer. Most of the problems are related to virtual private network (VPN) outages. We manage and monitor the third largest VPN network in the US government. The on-call engineer is sole person that serves as the last stop before a piece of equipment is replaced or the telecommunications company is contacted for possible circuit outages during non-business hours. I generally serve as this on-call engineer by choice because none of the other 10-12 guys who are qualified want it. Most of them travel extensively and do not want to take a chance of getting called in the middle of the night while they are home off the road. I believe that this duty, which does come with some compensation whether calls are received or not, has been a direct financial blessing to my family from God this year. The extra income from being the on-call engineer has boosted our house-hold budget to a point that has allowed us to be set free from a near super-natural debt situation in the past year.

For the details of my weekend, let me just say that I can not remember the last time I got a call on a Saturday morning as the on-call engineer. Weekends are almost always very quiet. I had no reason to think this weekend would be any different so I did not ask anyone to cover for me during this retreat. That was a BIG mistake. Satan knew I was on call and reached out and grabbed hold of my cell phone and dragged me out of that retreat no less than seven (7) times this weekend in 24 hours. Four of those times happened between 8am and noon on Saturday. It was so bad that the guy working the 24/7 help desk at work asked me, “What in the heck is going on this morning?” Not knowing where he is spiritually, I did not try to explain it over the phone. Besides, I wanted to solve the on-call issue at hand and get back into the retreat. The first call came very early Saturday morning just after we arrived at the retreat. The second and third calls came while I was waiting in line to receive prayer for anger and fear. I did not really think I needed to go up for prayer for fear or anger because I have been dealing pretty well with those issues myself… I thought. I will get back to that in a minute.

By the afternoon when I got call number six, I just started laughing as I stepped outside. I really got to the point where I found this to be funny that the enemy would try so hard to keep me out of this retreat. By the time the day was over I had received a total of seven calls on totally different issues within a twenty-four hour period. That is absolutely unheard of in my experience of being the on-call engineer for over 30 weeks this year. This was a really weird measurable attack by Satan and I stood strong in the name of Jesus Christ.

I am so glad that I stood strong against this attack from Satan and returned to the prayer line after answering my call. What I did not know was how much I needed prayer for fear and anger. I have had anger building up inside of me over the past couple of years in particular. I had just recited a prayer of repentance and forgiveness, but the Holy Spirit moved me to go forward to receive prayer for anger. I finally got to the front of the line and was waiting for the next ministry team member when I just became a pile. Tears started to stream down my cheeks. I realized at that moment how angry I had become over the lies, partial truths, and deception that had been fed to me about my son Caden’s doctors. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not coming down on all doctors or even a particular doctor. Praise God for doctors. The fact is, that you hardly ever get all the facts that are known from the doctors regarding decisions that need to be made on treatment choices. Your average person would have to go to medical school to understand even a small percentage of the facts anyway. I believe that Satan uses these facts to stir up fear and deception that can overshadow what God wants us to do concerning the health of our family members or ourselves. This can lead to our trust in God being overshadowed by a stronger trust in the doctors. That can be very dangerous.

Getting ahead in this war first requires us to realize that there is a war. God’s Word clearly tells us:

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (NIV)

If you have a hard time understanding or believing this scripture, then you are likely the victim of some pretty creative deception by Satan already. Satan does not want us to believe the Word of God.

The events of this weekend were an attack on me from Satan. The attack was intended to keep me from demolishing strongholds that he has been planting in my life for a while now. The fear and anger were just two examples of things that I was dealing with on Saturday morning. A battle was won this weekend in the, all powerful, name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Today my oldest son Riley turned 4 years old. The BIG news of the day for our family and friends is that Riley is no longer allergic to eggs. Praise God!!! Yeah!!! We have been praying and claiming Riley healed of this diagnosis for months now.

Riley was diagnosed as allergic to eggs when he was six months old. He has been getting better over the years but still was showing allergic to egg as of just a few months ago according to skin tests. Today Riley went in for an egg challenge. This is where you eat a couple of eggs in front of the allergy doctor to see if you are going to react to the egg. Riley ate two eggs, and LOVED them. One was scrammble in bacon drippings. YUM! YUM! That was a great tip from Aunt Addie. You know that girl is southern. Riley had no reaction to the eggs. He was given the all clear and then topped off his morning with a strawberry filled doughnut from Dunkin Donuts. He had never had a Doughnut before today because of the egg in the batter. It’s okay, not to worry, I have been eating his share so they did not go to waste.

After arriving home from the doctor there was a knock at the door. Riley got a delivery of a cute stuffed animal with a ton of birthday balloons attached to it. These were from Grandma and Grandpa. As you can see, Riley really liked this surprise.

Click on any image for a closer look

The delivery of the balloons.

WOW!!! Check these out Mommy.

These are cool balloons!

We celebrated Riley’s birthday by having breakfast for dinner. It is another one of those weird southern things we do. It was Riley’s choice, I promise. We had pancakes and sausage. Riley finally got to have my really fluffy pancakes (with blueberries added to his). Up until today I have made a special batch for him where I used baking soda, vinegar, and water as an egg substitute.

We topped off dinner with a few Birthday gifts. Here are the highlights.

Riley opening an addition to his GeoTrax train set.

Riley’s first two-wheeler.

Gearing up for the first ride.

Check him out.

First ride on the new bike.

“Daddy, this is a cool bike!”

Check him out. He is a big boy now.

Happy Birthday Riley,
We Love You, Daddy, Mommy, and Caden

PS: Caden walked across the living room for the first time yesterday. There’s a video on Caden’s Page. This a giant step for Caden.

The movie industry should take the past two weeks as a wake up call. The call is coming from a solid number of people like myself who would love to see more clean content on the big screen. I am not talking about revved up cartoons chocked full of adult humor either. I am talking about pure entertainment that you can walk out of without feeling violated or wondering if you have just committed a sin by paying for the filth that just filled your eyes and ears for the past 99 minutes.

Let’s take a closer look at this weekend’s wake up call. It was the opening weekend for One Night with the King. I actually got to see this movie and loved it. This movie is a dramatization of a true story. The movie is made after a very popular book titled Esther. A copy of Esther can be found in a very large number of American homes, on the Internet in written and audio form, in most hotel rooms, and in all churches who worship the one and only Almighty God. The book of Esther can be found as a small part of the best selling books in history. The book is titled The Holy Bible, also know as God’s Word. The movie is predictable if you have read the book, but like any good movie this one has been jazzed up a little to make the story more interesting.

The most notable thing that stands out about One Night with the King is that the movie busted into the top ten (9th) this week even though it was shown in only 909 theatres according to Yahoo! Movies. The average exposure for the other nine movies in the top ten this week was 2861 theatres. That means that every other movie in the top ten was viewed in at least three times the number of theatres on average. Not a single one of the other movies in the top ten was shown in less than 2300 theatres as reported by Yahoo!.

Should Christians celebrate Halloween? As the spiritual leader of a Christian home, I am finding that many dads are faced with this particular question at some point and to some degree.

A few days ago I was involved in a conversation where someone said that “everyone needs a spooky computer background for Halloween.” I simply said, “I don’t do Halloween”. The response of another person was, “to each his own” in a gruff and grumpy sort of way. The amount of truth from that comment is staggering even though it was delivered to me with a very disapproving tone. For the purposes of this article I will define this phrase “to each his own” as a person’s right to choose.

I have already made the choice for my family based on prayer, research, and discussions with my best friend (my wife). We no longer buy or make costumes, attend festivals, go trick or treating, and we do not give out candy. We just plain avoid the whole thing all together. It has actually been a pretty simple deal once we committed to the decision.

What will our family miss out on as a result of my decision? Nothing but a few dirty tricks and some suspect candy from people that we have never even met. I also don’t have to explain to my 4 year-old why the nice neighbor man has turned his front lawn into a graveyard scene littered with fake corpses, and this grown man is lying in one of the fake graves waiting on passers who he can jump up and scare to the point of wetting their pants. I do not have a current neighbor doing this that I am aware of, but I did have a neighbor perform this stunt one year for Halloween.

Now, I have told you where I landed when ponder this question. I lean to the side of caution in these types of things. That decision certainly does not fall in line with everyone. I am not trying to force my opinion on you. I am merely giving you something to think about if you are pondering the question. My personal feelings are that it all comes down to whether you choose to be obedient to God’s Word.

Should Christians Celebrate Halloween?

The Answer:

“To each his own!” Right?

I welcome you to share your answer in the comments, but before you do I want you to read an article titled

Halloween and Halloween Alternatives

The article is by Steve Maxwell and can be found in this month’s Dad’s and Mom’s Corners.

You can do a Google Search on “Should Christians Celebrate Halloween” to find plenty of other opinions on this subject. Be careful with the results of a search on this subject, there are some great resources, but there’s also some lies and fiction on the subject. The lists of resources (good and bad) are way too long to include. While the article by Steve Maxwell did not factor into my personal decision on Halloween, I believe it would have helped me come to the same decision sooner if I had read it first. Steve’s wife Teri also offers a note to mom’s in the Dad’s and Mom’s Corners simply titled Halloween.

UPDATE: I have posted a followup to this titled Halloween II - Why Christians should not celebrate

Attention SC Lowcountry Cyclists

A co-worker has asked me if I would help put the word out on a great fundraising event happening in a few weeks. Here is what Kelly had to say in an email to me:

My father’s church (my dad is the pastor) is holding their 3rd annual Tour De Round O Bicycle Ride. The Tour began three years ago as a benefit for my boyfriend Stephen after his accident and has continued over the last few years as a benefit to a local in need. This year, the beneficiary is an infant girl who underwent heart transplant surgery in July. As you well know, the ongoing medical costs can be rather daunting and we would like to help her family.

What: 40 mile benefit bicycle ride

Where:

Bethlehem Baptist Church
12898 Round O Rd
Round O (Colleton County) , SC

When: Saturday, October 14, 2006 8:00 AM

Details as found at Active.com

“The Tour de Round O is a 40 mile benefit bicycle ride sponsored by Bethlehem Baptist Church in Round O. This is Bethlehem’s 3rd year sponsoring the event, with all proceeds of this year’s ride benefiting Teyonnia Lambert. Teyonnia, who was born on January 28th, underwent heart transplant surgery in July. To keep her in good health, Teyonnia must take 11 different medications and visit a specialist monthly. This year’s ride will help to supplement the mounting costs of Teyonnia’s care.”

I can not impress upon you how import it is for us all to help those in need. Our family has certainly seen medical expenses and tons of non-medical expenses caused by long hospital stays. Caden set a single day record for pediatric heart surgery according to one lady in the MUSC billing department. I lost count on the total for Caden’s medical cost about a year ago and it was at more $300,000 then. Thank God for insurance and the support we have received from so many sources. Please help this family if you are able.

Please pass along a link to the details of this event to anyone who might be remotely interested. This event will take place in a neighboring county about 30 miles west of here. There is actual a town called Round O, SC. Even though it only shows up as a crossroads on Google Maps, it does actually have a zip code. (29474)

Lowcountry Bloggers: Please help get the word out!