Hidden Source of Visible Damage, pt 1

I have been around to see some pretty terrible and tragic events in life.  Earthquakes come to my mind immediately; they can cause damage that I don't ever want to witness first-hand.  Hurricanes push water with so much ease that you can find the evidence of it miles away from the coasts.  Another thing that causes heart breaking damage, but not associated with nature, is when man made objects go bad. The airplane that goes down, the train that jumps the track, an electric box that shorts out and causes a home or business fire. These things cause horrible damage and people suffer tremendously from them.

But, I want to talk about a worse thing, human in its construction, that inflicts great damage. It leaves in its wake horrible visible damage and victims stunned and paralyzed by its occurarance. I am talking about people who have sins so known to themselves, but yet secret to others around them.  Every once in a while we turn over a fair stone in the 'church's' lawn. It's surrounded by beautiful landscaping and lovely mulch, but underneath it, to our dismay, we find all kinds of filthy insects and loathsome critters. Then in disgust of their hypocrisy, we tend to think that 'all men are liars, that 'there isn't anybody that we can trust." It is not fair to say this of everyone; but really, the discoveries which are made of the insincerity of some of our fellow man is enough to make us despise the whole darn race.

It is to any of you who sin secretly and yet make a profession of faith that I am writing. You know, those who break God's covenants in the dark and wear a mask of godliness in the light......to you folks, who shut the doors and commit wickedness in secret, I write the next couple of blogs. Before we go on I pray that God would speak to you and help you pray this prayer, "Cleanse thou me from secret faults." 

I would now ask of all pretenders to renounce, to detest, to hate, to abhor all your secret faults.
Next week in my blog I will talk to all of you about "The Folly of Secret Sins."

Tebow Time

Now Tebow talk has swept the nation.

•His against-all-odds heroics brought CBS a mind-blowing 25.9 overnight rating, the best for a wild card football game in almost 25 years.

By Barry Gutierrez, AP

U.S. Marines 'Tebow' before the start of the New York Jets and Denver Broncos' game on Nov. 17.

•Sports websites staggered under an onslaught of hits. NFL.com reported views of videos in the hour after the game up 385% over Wild Card Sunday last year.

•Tebow hit more than 1 million mentions on Twitter. Sunday night, the rate of tweets announcing the victory hit 9,420 per second. The all-time record was set last month when a TV screening of Japanese movie drew 25,088 tweets-per-second. But Tebow still beats the 8,868 tweets-per-second rate reached when Beyoncé announced her pregnancy during the 2011 MTV Music Awards.

•Both Tebow and his favorite Bible verse, John 3:16 (proclaiming Jesus' promise of salvation), were in the top three Google Trends throughout most of Monday. Many people noted he threw for exactly 316 yards, an unintentional allusion to the Bible verse he etched into his eye black while winning national championships at the University of Florida.

•NFL sales of Tebow's No. 15 Broncos jersey are second only to those for Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers, who won the Super Bowl last year.

But the Tebow wave was rolling well before Sunday says Cathy Grossman of USA Today.  (I also want to thank contributing writters, Robert Klemko and Michael McCarthy for the above information.)

I'd like to also add to the above Tebow excitement. Since John 3:16 is Tebow's favorite Bible passage, note that his two bosses are both named John. John Fox is his coach and John Elway the Bronco's GM.
To add a little more fun sizzle to the Tebow mix, Tim's pass to Darious Thomas was interesting by Tebow's explanation.  When Tim saw Thomas cut in front of the NFL's best shut down cornerback in the league, Ike Taylor, who literally shuts down the NFL's best pass receivers every game; Tebow saw there was no one else to stop him once he caught the ball, and at the second he threw the ball, his thought was 'thank you Lord,' and he began the race to the end zone to celebrate. 
Oh yeah, that play was also the longest overtime playoff touchdown pass ever and it was also the shortest playoff overtime game for the NFL.  One more thought, every team is to get at least one possession in a playoff game.  There are only two ways the game can end without both teams getting a chance with the ball. 1) If the team who wins the coin toss is the first team to get the ball and scores a touchdown.  But first you have to win the coin toss (the Steelers lost the toss). (Does anyone remember the Jerome Bettis call on the coin toss disaster a few years back). So the Bronco's and Tebow get the ball first and on that very first play, now known as 'the play' Tim Tebow gets the yardage necessary to finish the game with 316 yards, and I think that is so kool.
 Kinda makes you realize that 'God is everywhere. Are your eyes open to it'?  Is it a conincidence? Maybe. But maybe our Lord is using America's "new religion" (as they call it) to preach His same life changing message of salvation, only with His new pigskin passing pastor, in the new cathedrals, with a whole new congregation all dressed up in their brand spanking new Sunday-best-numbered going to the meeting clothes. Preaching to the masses in a totally new way.  92.5 million people now know John 3:16. Fascinating....All kind of fun stuff when you think about it.