Merry Christmas

A wife was tired of her marriage and didn't feel loved anymore.  So, one day while her husband was at work, she decided to pack her stuff, leave a note, and leave.  When her husband got home and saw the note, he was crushed.  He called around to try to find out where his wife was.  He finally found out that she is staying at a hotel in another city many miles away.  He called her every day to try to get her to come back but she kept refusing.  That weekend, the husband packed his things and went out to the hotel she was staying.  He just had to try to convince her to return to him.  When he got to the hotel, he went to her room and knocked.  When she answered the door, he begged for her to return to him and told her how much he loved and missed her.  At that moment, she felt his love and returned to him.

A few days later, the husband was wondering why his wife returned to him when he went to the hotel to get her, but not when he called her.  He didn't say anything different.  His wife told him that it was because he came to get her.  When he showed up, she felt how much he really did love her.

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  How is everyone doing?  Things are going good out here.  It looks like I will be getting home tomorrow at around noon and will be home until Sunday.  Even though it will hurt our pay, the extra time off will be nice.  I have a lot of things to do at the house.  I will also be home when Micah goes for his therapy.  That will be nice because I miss most of his therapies cause I am on the road.

God is truly amazing.  Tomorrow, Christians around the world will be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.  But it is more than just a birthday.  It is the day that Jesus came to us and said, "I love you."  Of course God's people already knew that He loved them.  They had it in writing and they heard it through the prophets.  But, they didn't feel it.  God knew this.  In fact, God had this day planned even before Adam and Eve sinned.  God knew He would have to show His people just how much He loved us and He knew exactly how to do it.  By physically coming to us and asking us to return to Him and letting us know that He loves us so very much.

I want to wish y'all a Merry Christmas.  May your day be filled with joy and blessings.  Take care and God Bless.

Love,
The Oklahoma Tomcat
http://twitter.com/oktomcat

CREATING VICTIMS

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Dayna Morales made national headlines and received an outpouring of public support and at least $3,000 in donations after she claimed a family stiffed her and left her a note on the receipt reading, "Sorry, I cannot tip because I do not agree with your lifestyle and the way you live your life."

But after an unidentified couple came forward days later with a customer receipt and bank statement to prove that they had in fact left Morales an $18 tip on top of the $93.55 check, former friends of Morales also came forward claiming she was a compulsive liar.   http://is.gd/13343H

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I don’t know why people got mad at Dayna.  What she did is exactly what many in society does, including many of our elected leaders.

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  How is everyone doing?  I pray that everyone is staying safe and warm.  Things are going good with my family and I.  We got hit with some snow and ice but the cold temperatures was the worst part of the storm for us.  I am currently in Hebbronville, TX and did have to go through the areas of Texas that got hit with the storm.  Lots of vehicles were off the road and the travel was very slow.  I just have one thing to say.  People, if you have to be out in bad weather, go slow.  Especially if you live in a state that only has five snow plows in the whole state.  Well, I don’t know how many snow plows Texas has, but it can’t be very many.

I started out this blog by posting information about a story that has made national news.  A waitress named Dayna who worked at Gallop Asian Bistro told people via Facebook that a Christian couple didn’t leave her a tip cause she is a lesbian.  The couple came out and showed the media and restaurant that they did tip her.  It appears (we don’t really know) that she not only lied but also conned people out of lots of money via donations.   What I want to focus on though is not so much Dayna, but how society does exactly what she seems to have done. 

What Dayna did was work on people’s emotions by creating a victim and create a bad guy.  In this case, the victim was her (as a homosexual) and the bad guy was a couple (Christians).  This was a perfect situation because the government and media has already worked on people emotions by making homosexuals look like poor innocent victims and Christians are evil hateful people.   So this situation is already an emotionally charged one.  She then posted it on a social network group and works on people’s emotions.  She did this in order to profit from it.  This really didn’t take much for her to figure out.  Take a look at our elected leaders, the media, and the people around you.  Society creates victims all of the time to benefit our agenda.  Lets take a look at a few incidents.  Do y’all remember the Duke lacrosse team that was accused of raping a woman?  A bunch of civil rights advocates saw a huge story that they can profit from.  The duke lacrosse team were white boys and the woman was a poor black prostitute.  The made the woman out to be a victim and the rich white boys to be the bad guys.  They then used the media to work on people’s emotions and the civil rights advocates profited from it.  How about the minimum wage fight.  People are using the fast food workers as the victims and the restaurants as the bad guys.  Use the media to get people’s emotions worked up by telling stories about how grown adults with children are starving.  Who profits?  Elected leaders do through votes.  The problem is that when we create victims, we create slaves.  We make people out to be helpless and unable to do anything on their own.  They are literally dependent on others.  Also it eliminates any responsibility that the “victim” may have had that caused them to get to where they are.  By eliminating personal responsibility, we eliminate any chance for the person to change, grow, and improve themselves.  They are now victims for life.  This is why the government loves victims.  They know that the “victims” will always vote for them if they act like they care.  Don’t believe me?  Just pay close attention to the election campaigns and see who the candidates go for and how they work on the people’s emotions.  Another problem is that people get hurt.  The “bad guys” turn out to be the true victims.  The Duke lacrosse boys turned out to be victims to those who hate rich white people.  The couple who got accused of not tipping fell victim to those who hate Christians.  The restaurant owners (and all those who work hard and become successful) fall victim to those who hate success.  In order for this to work, you always need hate.  The people who profit from this must feed on peoples hate.  The people who create victims are no better than this waitress.  Take a look at yourself.  Do you create victims?  Do you look at those who choose their lifestyle or their path in life as victims?  Do you look at those that made bad choices as victims?  We all make our own choices and we all have the ability to improve our lives when we mess up.  We have all messed up at one time or another and some of those mess ups affect us the rest of our lives.  But only one person can make things better, that is the person who messed up.  Rather than creating victims, lets encourage people to take a look at what they did wrong and to fix it so they can improve their life.  Lets stop encouraging hate and lets stop hurting people by making them slaves.

Thank you for reading my blog.  Take care and God Bless.

Love,

The Oklahoma Tomcat

The destruction of morals in America.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."  - Benjamin Franklin

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  How is everyone doing?  I pray that this blog finds everyone in good health and spirits.  Things are going good at the Jones household.  I got home early Friday mornings and left back out on Saturday.  It was a very productive day at the house though.  I worked to get things set up so that my family was able to stay warm while I am on the road.  I sure can't wait to get a local driving job though so that I can get things done with the house.  The house is in need of some major work and I just don't have the time to do it all.  It really kills me.  The good news is that I may have a job with a company that has an extremely flexible work schedule.  It is a temp company that hires truck drivers and they pay real good.  The person I am talking to at the company really wants to hire me.  I filled out the application and now waiting on her to contact me.

I hear lots of people that complain about the children and young people today and that complain about the government not being honest, making deals with corporations, and doing things that are not moral like the many sex scandals that we hear about.  I remember years ago while sitting at a truck stop, a female truck driving and I was talking about the young people today.  People start getting defensive when I start talking about this topic because guess who I blame for the lack of morals in America today?  Us.  People start out disagreeing with me until I explain why it is all of us that created this mess.

It seems that after we hit a certain age, we forget how we all were born and how we acted at young children.  I am sorry if I destroy anyone's fantasy, but none of us was born with love or morals.  That is correct, we were all born greedy.  It is shocking that anyone who had children wouldn't know this.  No one has to teach a child how to have a tantrum when they don't get their way.  People will talk about a young child giving a hug or a kiss but do they do that because it makes you feel good or because it feels good to them?  I believe it is more because it feels good to them.  Now, this isn't to say that children are terrible.  I do look at my children as angles.  But it is very important to understand human nature and that we are all born with it.  We must understand this in order to understand what it takes to have a moral society.  The good news is that we are all born ABLE to love.  But love has to be taught because we are not born with it.  In fact, we don't even know what love truly is.  We have to be taught what it is.  Don't believe me, go around and ask people what love is.  Of course, you have to know what love it yourself.  Same thing with morals.  How many children under 3 years old knows morals without being taught what morals are?  Honestly.  A funny word to me is the word "Common Courtesy."  Is courtesy common?  Are we born knowing how to be courtesy?  So, how can we show love, be moral, or show courtesy to others or society if we are not taught it?  If we don't remember that we were taught these things, than we don't realize that we must teach our children these things.  Now, most of the responsibility does fall onto parents but we as society are teaching people that children are born loving and to let "children be children."  We are telling government (who is immoral) to take over the raising of children.  We are even using psychology to tell us how to raise our children instead of using knowledge of human nature and our own childhood.  So, we are indeed all to blame.

We are also telling people that it is OK to be greedy.  If you don't have something and you want it, use the federal government to take money from someone else and give it to you.  Yes, I am talking about socialism and communism.  This creates two problems.  It promotes laziness and it also makes it easier for us not to show love to our neighbor.  Without socialism and communism, people would help one another.  Remember, love isn't just a feeling, it is an action.  If you truly love someone, you don't look to someone else to help them, you help them yourself.  Socialism and Communism gets rid of this love.  It is human nature to be selfish and take the easiest way out.  It is much easier to say that you care and let someone else actually do the work to help those in need.  But, being forced to give money to the poor isn't love at all.

Another thing that we accept, is to end human life for our own selfish greed.  Yep, abortion, the morning after pill, and birth control pills.  We justify this by saying, "Well, if a woman doesn't want a baby, she shouldn't have to have it."  Did we forget how babies are made?  We want the gratification of unprotected sex and are willing to end life to have it.  We don't hold guys responsible at all for preventing the female pregnant.  He can have all the sex he wants and doesn't have to worry if she gets pregnant.  Society has left it up to her to either be on birth control pills, take the morning after pill, get an abortion, or raise the child by herself at the expense of the tax payer.  No morals, no responsibility.  Are you wondering why our children and government are the way they are?

It is real simple to me.  Our children learn from us and our elected leaders come from society.  We elect the people who are in office into office and they are going to be an example of what society is.  We can blame TV, Clothes, the Internet all we want but the real problem is us.  There is no way around it my friends.  If we want to change our children or our government, we must change ourselves first.  If we don't, our country will just be another memory in the history of once great countries.

Take care and God Bless.

Love,
The Oklahoma Tomcat

Being Thankful In All Circumstances

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  How are you doing?  Things are going good at the Jones household.  I am currently in Dublin, GA heading to Kansas.  I am currently showing that I will be in Kansas Thursday morning.  I am low on my 70 hour clock so I can’t drive too many hours.  After lots of delays, Micah finally got his leg braces and will be getting his wheel chair. We have also found good therapists to help him with communications and with his fine motor skills. It has taken us a long time but we are very blessed.  God has given Paula lots of knowledge to help Micah while we were without any help.  We have found out during this time that while there is lots of information and help for children with Asperger's , there is almost nothing for those who have classic Autism.  We are asking God to help us help others that are having this same problem.  I am seeing that God is doing some amazing things through Paula.  She has been writing a book on our experience and it is really turning out great.

It is Thanksgiving week.  Lots of people are busy either traveling to family’s house or getting things ready for a huge meal.  Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.  I love the traditional Thanksgiving meal and relaxing with family.  It is also an annual reminder that we should be thankful.  It is a time for us to reflect on all that we have been blessed with and to give thanks for those blessings.  I see a number of my friends on Facebook list things that they are thankful for during the month of November and I love reading them.   But I notice something.  They only list the things that are good to them.  It is easy to be thankful for the things that we like but how about the trials?  How about those days when nothing goes as we like, are you thankful for those days?  Should we be thankful when we lose our jobs?  How about when we miss the bus or when someone does us wrong?  Should we be thankful for these things?  I know, “That is easier said than done.”  I can’t agree with you more.  But I also know that when God tells us that we should do something, it means it isn't impossible for us to do.  It means that we need to lean on Him to be able to do it.  There are lots of verses that tell us that we must be thankful IN ALL THINGS.   This means both good and bad.  The reason is because God is in control of all things.  He is Sovereign and He loves us.  He tells us that ALL things are for good and we must have faith that He is telling us the truth.  Do you believe that God is Sovereign?  Do you believe that God loves you?  Do you really believe it?  One of the problems we have as humans is that we THINK we know what is good for us.  We also forget that God uses us to help others and sometimes that requires us to sacrifice our self for the good of others.  A very popular example is patience.  Did you know that God requires us to have patience?  This is a very hard thing for many of us and we need God to help us get patience.  Guess what that means?  We must go through trials to help us get patience and those trials will not feel good to us.  How about if a neighbor needs his or her self-esteem to be boosted?  God may allow you to go through some real tough times and lead someone to you who can help you.  This can actually accomplish two things because God may also see that you need to be humbled.  Many times people will be blessed with lots of good things and then end up running into lots of hard times.  This is because when things are going good, we tend to forget God and we start boasting about OUR achievements.  We need to be humbled every once in a while. Most trials we run into though is caused by us.  Should we be thankful for these trials?  I say yes.  God could have stopped the trials but He chose not to and for good reason.  The best way to learn a lesson is to suffer the consequences for our actions.  The worst thing you can do to a child is to eliminate the consequences when they do something wrong.  God loves us, so He lets us suffer the consequences when we do wrong.  Of course, He is with us and helps us through the trial, but He doesn't take the trial away.  If our mind is in the right place and we are not blaming others for what we are going through, we will come out of the trial saying, “Wow! That didn't work out.  I won’t do that again.”  Sadly, this is the hardest trial for us because human nature gets in the way and we refuse to admit or see that the trial was our own doing.  This causes us to repeat the thing we did wrong.

Every trial we go through is for good and we should be thankful for them.  This Thanksgiving, think of the trials you have gone through and thank God for them.  Then, make a promise that from now on, you will thank God every time you go through a trial and that you will take a good, honest look at the trial and see the blessing that came out of it.  Take care and God Bless.

Love,

The Oklahoma Tomcat

References:  1 Thessalonians 5:18, Psalm 107:1, Ephesians 5:20, Colossians 3:15-17, James 1:17, Philippians 4:6, 2 Corinthians 9:15, Psalm 106:1, Psalm 105:1, Colossians 4:2, Psalm 118:1-18, Psalm 20:4, Psalm 30:12, Romans 1:21, Psalm 100:1-5, Psalm 23:1-6, Isaiah 12:4-5, Philemon 1:4, Psalm 9:1-2, Psalm 95:2, John 14:1, 1 Chronicles 29:13

Keys To Financial Success: A Giving Heart

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  This is the Oklahoma Tomcat coming to you from Salina, KS.  I have been doing blogs on, “The keys to financial success” where I have given the keys to being financially successful.  I have given the definition of being financially successful, I have said that in order to be financially successful we must work, be good stewards of money, and be wise.  

Today I am going to talk about the final key to financial success and close this series of blogs.  The final key to financial success is to have a giving heart.   That is correct, we must have a giving heart in order to be financially successful.   Now this goes beyond just giving money and time to those who need it or to the church.  You must actually have a giving heart.  If you just give to feel good or just so you will get money or things in return, you might as well not give at all.  Never ever give to buy God’s love or gift.  Acts 8:18-23 says, “When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, ‘Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’  Peter answered: ‘May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!  You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God.  Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps He will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart.  For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”  You must be giving from the heart.    

There are many verses in the Bible that talks about giving and why we must give in order to receive.

We must remember that the money we have was given to us by God for our use.  God gives us the freedom to use the money as we wish but He wants us to use it wisely and to do His will.  One of His will is that we help others as He helps us.  We are the hands and feet of God.  He uses us to help people and in doing so, we show His love to others.  God could solve every ones problems with just a word but He chooses not to because it is the person to person contact that people love and it is threw that contact that people see and feel loved.  Many times, just giving people money or fixing people’s problems isn’t enough.  It is that personal feeling of compassion that really touches people and really changes their life. Think of the times when you needed help and someone actually stopped to not just solve your problem but showed you their love with a hug, a listening ear, a word of encouragement.  It really felt good, right.  Someone really cares about you and loves you.  That was God’s love they showed.  This is one of many reasons why individuals and non-profit organizations can help people while government usually fails to really help people.

Another reason we must help people is because there are people in need.  I often criticize socialism in human government because it doesn’t work.  It doesn’t work because human government works with human ability and human greed.  But with God’s people and God’s ability, socialism does work. Of course, God’s socialism is different.  Remember, no one is being forced to give.  People give out of love and are not being taxed.  Everyone works and everyone helps each other out.  The Church should be an example of God’s Government. In God’s government, there is no needy.  In fact, there is so much money and recourses, God’s people can go outside of the Church to help out non-believers. In Acts 4:34 it says, “There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.”  This doesn’t mean that we must sell our land and homes, but it shows how socialism works within the Church.  We must help each other.  But we must not only give to the Church, we must help non-believers also and it doesn’t have to always be helping out by giving money.  Everyone should know the story of the Good Samaritan.  The Good Samaritan saw a man in need who was not a Samaritan.  In fact, the person was actually from an enemy country.  Yet, he took the time to help the person anyway.

Another reason we must have a giving heart is because it keeps us from loving money.  Some think that God is only talking about the rich when He talks about the love of money but the poor can also have love for money.  Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, “Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with income. This too is meaningless.”  Of course, if you feel you never have enough money, you will never be financially successful.  You can have all the money in the world and never be financially successful.  You can have a huge income and never be financially successful.  As I said in my first blog on this topic, it isn’t the amount of money you have or make that makes you financially successful. By us helping others and being willing to give our money to those in need of help, we keep from the money we have.

When we give we must not just give what we feel comfortable giving.  One thing to keep in mind is that God takes care of us.  If we are holding back because we are afraid we will not have enough money then we must ask God to help us have more faith in God.  Mark 12:41-44 says, “Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury.  Many rich people threw in large amounts.  But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.  They all gave out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty, put in everything all she had to live on.”  This verse also shows us that it isn’t the amount we give that matters.  One person can give a thousand dollars while another person may only give a dollar.  God may see the person giving a dollar as giving more than the person giving a thousand.  Now, be careful not to challenge God buy giving all your money and expecting God to help you out.  You must listen to the Holy Spirit and give what the Holy Spirit tells you to give.  We all should know that we are to give 10% of our pretax income to the Church.  This is the minimum we should give.  Proverbs 3:9 says, “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops.” It isn’t written how much we must give or how much we must help those in need because that is for the Holy Spirit to tell us individually and it isn’t a set amount or time.  This is where we must submit to the Holy Spirit.

So, what happens when we do give from the heart?  In Malachi 3:10 it says, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”  In Luke 6:38 it says, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”  In Proverbs 11:24 it says, “One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.” 

So you see, you must have a giving heart to have financial success.  It must be a giving heart that you have.  Do not start giving just so you can be financially successful.  This is probably one of the hardest things to being financially successful because it isn’t just your actions that you have to change.  It is your heart.  This can only be done with the help of the Holy Spirit. If you don’t have a giving heart, you must pray that God changes you on the inside.  It will be a rough journey and the change will not be over night.  But remember that God is with you and will provide for you. 

Well, this concludes the blogs on “Keys To Financial Success.”  I pray that these blogs have been helpful.  I know that this isn’t a Get Rich Quick Scheme and some are probably disappointed.  But if you follow these keys, you will be truly successful and you will remain successful.

This is the Oklahoma Tomcat.  Take care and God Bless.

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Keys To Financial Success: Wisdom

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I have been working on a series of blogs explaining the keys needed for financial success. In this blog, I explain how wisdom plays an important part in being financially successful. This isn't important only to adults, but for teenagers too. Decisions that a 13 year old makes can hurt or help them financially as an adult. This is the third part in my "Keys To Financial Success" blogs.