Vaughnshire Farm

More on this at a later date… now we just need to understand, TN politics is not about priciples, it’s about money and votes. Reference a commentary I made on this matter in another forum here.

—Original Post by Life News

Tennessee Senate Candidate Plays Down Pro-Abortion Record After Criticism
Nashville, TN (LifeNews.com) — Pro-abortion Congressman Harold Ford is playing down his stance in favor of abortion after he came under criticism from Republican Party leaders for voting in lockstep with a national abortion advocacy group. During a visit to Chattanooga last week, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman criticized the Democratic Senate hopeful for a “100 percent National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) voting record.” Ford, a congressman from Memphis, told the Kingsport Time News that Mehlman’s characterization of his abortion record is false. He claimed his record on abortion is like that of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts “in that I respect the law of the land.” “I’m a supporter of enhanced adoption laws,” Ford said. “I had one of the signature bills in Congress on expediting adoption. It was all part of a morals package that I introduced at the beginning of the last Congress. I’m a believer in parental notification.” However, Ford’s record is strongly pro-abortion. In 2005, Ford had just a 29 percent pro-life voting record, according to the National Right to Life Committee. Read the complete story.

Are you trying to find more time to spend with your family?  Are you looking for an income producing activity that will allow you to work along side of your family?  If you are, you are not alone.  This site, Family Work Forum, is not a quick fix scam of a network marketing site, but a meaningful exploration of legitimate opportunities for families to turn their hearts towards home while still earning a living to put food on the table.  If this is on your heart, then visit http://www.familyworkforum.com/ today.

I read this really awesome birth story and thought I would post it.  Thanks Carolyn for giving me permission to use your story on my blog.  Many prayers and blessings to you.  Congratulations ;-) 

Well, our babies are finally here. Actually they were born January 20th, but it’s been a little crazy around here since. It seems the more babies I have, the easier the first stage labor is and the more work/aches the pushing stage is. I saw my midwife on Monday Jan 16 and she said to go home, pack my bags, because things could happen any time. I was a 5-6. Well, we made all kinds of plans and sat there for days with nothing happening. Thursday was a little bit of contractions, but they stopped by night time. Friday they started again, very mild and sporadic, but when I did have them, there was a fair amount of pressure. Knowing where I had been when I last saw the midwife, I was a little nervous, so we decided to go visit her with my sis who always comes to our births. I was a 7-8, so I called my hubby so he could meet us at the hospital. I couldn’t believe things were progressing, because I felt fine. My sister and I went out for lunch, and then we walked around and around the hallways at the hospital for a couple of hours. The ob showed up and broke my water (I was a 9 by then) and a half hour later Joel John was born. When the doc held him up I remember thinking, “my, that looks like a REGULAR sized baby.” I was expecting a little baby to fit the 5-7 lb baby clothes we had brought. Then I realized I had to do this all over again. I didn’t think I had it in me, but my midwife got me into a better position and Peter Louis came to see us about 10 minutes later. They each weighed 8 lbs, 2 oz! We had prayed for big babies we could take home right away, and the Lord sure answered.The pediatrician cleared them for discharge before they cleared me! Four hours after they were born, we were on our way home. They knew our midwife would be following up on us. I marvel at how well I felt through the whole pregnancy, and that I made it to 39 weeks without any bed rest. God is so good!Carolyn in WA, mom to 10 (that still is sinking in)

 

 

All the modern psycho dribble says that men like to fix things, that we are rough on our wives because we always try to “fix their problems and they just want to vent, to talk, to communicate”. It occurs to me that perhaps we over focus on our wives because we have nothing else to do. We live in a soft society where men, don’t have any real adventures to set upon. Where is the wild west Teddy Roosevelt explored, or the Mississippi river mapped out by Lewis and Clark? They have been conquered and explored. What do we have left to fix other than our wives? Not that any of our wives needs fixin mind you. It’s just when you don’t have anything else to do you began to strive for perfection in the things that are close by!

Face it men, either we are playing a part in some greedy, money hungry “barbarians at the gate” ritual, or we are simply driving to work, so we can turn around and drive home from work, so we can eat dinner and get some rest so we can drive back to work so we can drive home from work…you get the picture.

If this sounds familiar to you and you are tired of the traveling. I have a solution for you, pick up a hammer and hit something… not just anything, but a project. Build, construct, create have some fun. Your wife might be a little resistant at first, but simply remind her what I stated above, if you fixing something else you want have to be looking for something to fix around the house!

OK, so now that I’ve at least attempted to justified this insane project, I’ll give you a little bit of the focus and what we hope to accomplish. First we are a family of 9 now , after our latest edition. The project house is currently 1,000 sq ft. (shown below) Our current house is 2400 sq ft which we bought brand new 4 years ago.

Welcome to My Home Remodel! I’ve had such a hard time finding useful information as we started our complete home make over, I decided to blog it all down for others to enjoy.

I don’t claim an particular expertise, other than I’m remodeling my home and I’ll walk you through what I do and show you pictures along the way. That way you can decide if I should have done it that way or not!

We’ll try to keep it fairly regular between the actual work being done and the time it takes to keep the BLOG updated.

I should add that I’ve taken a three month leave of absence to be at home while my wife gave birth to our seventh child and to complete this project. For photos of the baby visit here. For photos of the house, stay tuned.

The Doctrine of Free Will

Wommack states “God’s will for people concerning salvation is not being accomplished. This is because the Lord gave us the freedom to choose. He doesn’t will anyone into hell. He paid for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn. 2:2; 1 Tim. 4:10), but we must choose to put our faith in Christ and receive His salvation. People are the ones choosing hell by not choosing Jesus as their Savior. It is the free will of man that damns them, not God. Men virtually have to climb over roadblocks that God put in their way to continue on their course to hell”.

This is a very simple and bold statement that is very contrary to the thousands of volumes that have been written on this subject throughout history. The historical view, according to men like Edwards, Pink, Athenasias, Augustine, Spurgeon, Knox, the puritans, the pilgrims, and many other studied and proven people is that the issue is in what the fall did to our ability to choose.

Wommack’s premise, does not deal with the consequences of Adam’s fall as it relates to our will. It fails to recognize the fact that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” and there is “none that doeth good, no not one”. (Ps. 14:3-4. Rom. 3:10-12, II Tim 3:1-5, Mark 7:6) In our fallen state it is impossible for us to choose God.

Therefore, unless the grace of God is first extended to us, then we do not have the capacity to choose God. “We have loved Him because He first loved us.” Or as Paul put it in Ephesians 2: 8& 9 - “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

If we are saved by our choice, then why do some men chose “good” and some men chose “bad”? Are we who make the “right” choice better than the others? Are we good and they are bad? If so then are we saved because we are good? The scripture clearly teaches otherwise. We are saved by grace. What do we do to earn this grace? Is there anything in man that could merit such favor from God? Continue Reading »

The Doctrine of Faith

The second theme discussed in this article was the concept of faith healing in relation to free willl. I will address a few of the main points Wommack makes with my personal editorial, but I must confess that I believe A. W. Pink’s discussion on this topic is far superior to any trivial parallels I will attempt to make. His chapter dedicated to this subject can be found here.

The difficulty in responding to an article of this type and many of the free will claims in general is that it is couched in many parts of truth. As I listened to the first part of Wommack’s teaching tape, I was amazed at all the scriptures that he quoted and how I found myself shaking my head in agreement. But then he would pass over a scripture and before I could question the tie that he attempted to make he was off to the next topic.

I finally came to grips with the idea that the accurate scriptures were used much like a used car sales technique. In sales, the salesman will ask a lot of meaningless questions to get you answering in a positive manner. Many have experienced this. Are you having a good day today? “Yes”. Are you looking for a really affordable and comfortable car? Um… “Yes”. If I can find you an affordable car that you like, are you ready to take it home today? Uh…”Yes”, I think… Before one knows it they are already picturing the car they want and are driving down the road in it and the car salesman hasn’t got them out of his office and into the showroom yet.

This is the same technique found in these preaching tapes. Continue Reading »

The Sovereignty of Man

I recently was introduced to Andrew Wommack’s article titled “The Sovereignty Of God” published July 2000, available at http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/sovereignty_god. I often come across published articles that I disagree with, but something in this article arrested my spirit. Perhaps it is the deep respect many of my family members have for him and the work he does, or maybe it was the subject matter as we have been studying this subject in depth in our family devotions lately, but regardless of the reason I felt an overpowering duty to respond to several of the key points he makes in this piece.

The main theme in this article boils down to the doctrine of “The Sovereignty of Man”. While there are some statements that I agree with in spirit and can understand the point that he is trying to make, there are many parts to this article that are outright heresy. These doctrines have been profoundly condemned throughout church history, but yet today it is common place to see them espoused in many main stream ministries. We are at a place in church history, where these humanistic ideas must be addressed and clearly identified for what they are.

Wommack starts off by lamenting a friend who had recently survived some trials of his faith and through it had come to understand that God is sovereign in the affairs of men. He claims this belief; “The sovereignty of God”, is “the worst doctrine in the church today”. He admits that this may be “near blasphemy” but then goes on to attempt to justify his position because this is a real “faith killer”. After all “If this belief is true, then our actions are irrelevant and our efforts are meaningless. What will be will be.” But most of all he claims that it “slanders God” and leads to passiveness.

Wommack argues that God being sovereign does not mean that he knows everything that goes on, that he is sovereign much like a king is sovereign. There are multiple problems with this line of thought. First God is King of kings and Lord of lords. That places his “sovereignship” above the average ruler. Secondly, He is also the creator of the universe, no other ruler can make that claim or has the day to day responsibility of “managing” the world. To think otherwise is to say that God wound up the world and is watching from the sidelines. It would seem that this view would lead to much more “passiveness”. After all, this view fits very close to that of the evolutionist and really leaves us with very little reason to pray or do anything.

The immediate question that comes to mind is if God is not in control of everything in His universe that He created, than who is; man or Satan? There appears to only be three choices here. One is a Christian position, one is a humanist, and one is a pagan.

It can not be both ways. Either God is active in the world, answering prayers, extending grace to sinners, and aware of everything that happens or He is not. If he is not then the only alternative is that either man or Satan is active. There must be a sovereign, to say otherwise is to validate the big bang. Continue Reading »