How important is passion in all of our relationships?
My latest audio teaching, "Honeymoon," gives us a look at the importance of keeping the fire in our relationships, including our relationship with Christ.
To hear the message go to www.flocksdiner.com/podcast/FlocksDinerPodcast.xml
You can also find it on iTunes by going to www.flocksdiner.com and click on "Podcast."
Be blessed,
Johnny
Hello friends and family,
The website is practically finished. There are only a few minor additions to be made.
If you'd like, you can go ahead and start commenting there at www.flocksdiner.com.
You'll also see a list of some of the resources that I use for study.
I'll be asking all of my friends to begin corresponding with me there soon and this site will be shut down.
See you at the Diner.
Grace and peace,
Johnny
Today, I took Ella to the cemetery near our house. We walked through the green grass, looking at all of the grave markers. I have always been intrigued by graveyards. I love to read the names and the years of their births and deaths, and try to imagine what their lives must have been like when they were alive.
I am especially curious when I read dates that reflect their births as being before the end of American slavery and their deaths being after slavery. How strange of a life they must have lived with all of the changes in such a time as the existance and abolition of humans owning humans. Disgusting sin!
As Ella and I walked through the graveyard, I would point out the grave markers of infants and tell her, “Here is where a little baby was buried. The baby died.” She really couldn’t understand exactly what I was saying, because she is not even three-years-old. But she did a very strange thing.
Every time I showed her a grave marker of an infant, she would sit on the grave marker, pull up a hand full of grass, pull the grass cupped in her hands toward her chest and cuddle it, while saying, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”
I swear, it took every bit of control I had to keep from crying.
I think females are the most amazing creatures that God has placed on the earth, no matter what their age.
Forever experiencing God through my children,
Johnny
Throughout the centuries, Christians have sustained persecution. In some areas and eras the persecution has been more physical and brutal than others.
Recently, I was part of a discussion where the topic of persecution being possible in this country in the not-too-distant future, due to the more militant branch of atheism that is sweeping across Europe and is peeking its head up in the U.S.
As I consider the statutes of Christianity, I can’t help but wonder if many of us have completely missed the point of what Jesus taught us to do as his followers.
Most Christians can only envision evangelism as sharing the theological, doctrinal, and scriptural facts of what we believe. Did Jesus expect that to be our task?
I don’t remember any person ever being persecuted for finding a thirsty person and bringing them a cold bottle of spring water. I also can’t remember anyone being punished for going into their house on a freezing night, finding their coat, and giving it to someone who needed one.
It appears that persecution happens more because of the fundamental verbalizing of our faith, than our washing of feet and feeding of bellies.
Check out the website. It's really coming along. www.flocksdiner.com
Desmond is working very hard on creating a website for me. You can see how far he's come when you go to www.flocksdiner.com.
I'd love it if you checked it out and gave Des some well-deserved encouragement.
Creative suggestions may also be welcome and appreciated.
Thanks.
Johnny
There is a level of naiveté with which many, if not most, Christians approach the subject of atheism and its recipients. The assumption for most of us is to believe that atheists have simply made a conscious and uneducated decision to stop believing that there is any form of deity by which the world was created and/or is continued.
The following information comes from, Christianity Before Christ, a vastly respected book written by John G. Jackson.
It would probably surprise many of us that atheism is a very well thought out philosophy, complete with documentation, historical facts, and highly thought out and researched arguments. Among such documentation is the ancient tablet from Babylon that is kept in the British Museum. This tablet dates back to about 2000 B.C. and is a reference to a passion play that was acted out in ancient Babylon in reference to the god Bel, known as Baal by the Hebrews.
The scenes go as follows:
Act 1: Bel is arrested by soldiers and imprisoned.
Act 2: Bel is tried in the Hall of Justice. (Bel is found innocent, but sentenced to death.)
Act 3: Bel is smitten. (Bel is abused and jeered at by a mob.)
Act 4: Bel is led away to the Mount. (The actor playing Bel is taken to a hilltop where there is a sacred grove.)
Act 5: Two criminals are taken with Bel and one is released. (All of the people in the amphitheater have left and follow the actors to the hilltop for the death scene where the guilty are crucified, hung on a tree, or slain on an altar.)
Act 6: After Bel has gone to the mount the city breaks out into turmoil.
Act 7: Bel’s clothes are carried away. (The corpse of Bel is stripped of its clothing and the body is prepared for burial.)
Act 8: Bel goes down into the Mount and disappears from life. (There is a tomb next to the stage where the body of Bel is placed.)
Act 9: weeping women seek Bel at the Tomb. (Women are the first to see Bel after his death.)
Act 10: Bel is brought back to life. (A stone that sealed the tomb of Bel is rolled away in the final scene. As Bel comes out of the tomb, the audience stands and cheers in a great frenzy until all of their voices are hoarse. The great god Bel has reappeared to prove that death has been conquered and that all life is secure in the hereafter.)
Atheists argue that the Christian story is merely a Greek version of this play carried on among the beliefs of those who call themselves followers of Jesus.
When atheists confess their belief that there is no God, they come educated and prepared. They are not seeking to be convinced of a higher power, but of a proof that our belief is not simply an updated play.
How have we prepared to defend our faith? Or do we argue, “You just have to believe?” I have no problem with that defense. However, how many atheists will take that advice based on what they consider the ancient proofs of Christianity before Christ?
For centuries Christians have drawn and painted pictures of Jesus using wood tools and building wood furniture to portray the Messiah’s vocation as a Jewish carpenter. Jesus the carpenter may be the result of contextual misunderstandings of Western translators.
As Ray Vander Laan points out in much of his teaching, Jesus lived in the city of Capernaum during the three and a half years of his active ministry.
In Capernaum there was an extremely valuable material that was used for making important food processing equipment, which was in great demand all over Israel. That material was the black basalt stone found only in Capernaum and was a form of volcanic rock. The reason black basalt was so important was because of its ability to be ground together without leaving any resin, such as grit. With most other forms of rock found in Israel, the grit and sand left after grinding flour to make bread was very destructive to the people’s teeth. Archeologists who dig up the remains of ancient people in Israel who used food processing tools made of limestone often have very badly worn teeth, even among those in their early twenties.
Jesus was a “tekton” in Capernaum. The word “tekton” is literally translated “construction worker.” The reason that our Bibles tell us that Jesus was a carpenter has to do with the Western definition of a construction worker.
Early Western translators, like the rest of Western society, called a “construction worker” a “carpenter.” This is because, in the Western world, construction workers were most often wood workers or carpenters. But, more than likely, because of the valuable need for basalt food processing tools in Israel, any “tekton,” in Capernaum, including Jesus, would have plied the common trade of a “stone cutter” or “brick mason.”
Another fact that helps to support this theory has to do with the very low volume of wood in Capernaum. Jesus may have worked on doors or put up fences made of wood, but according to the geography and history of Capernaum, coupled with Jesus’ common use of bricks and stones in much of his teaching, it is highly probable that Jesus, the tekton, was very much “Jesus, the Stone Cutter.”
Forever learning,
Johnny
Hey everyone,
For those of you who are interested, my message from Easter is on my audio files at www.xanga.com/flocksden.
Check it out.
You will learn some really cool facts about the Garden of Gethsemane and the town of Capernaum where Jesus lived during his active ministry.
I promise, you will never see Jesus, yourself, and our relationship with him the same way again.
Grace and peace,Johnny
It is almost Easter. Tomorrow morning millions of Christians will wake their poor unsuspecting children before the sun comes up, and drag them off to church meetings.
I doubt that many of the adults themselves truly appreciate the early rising.
However, it is required because of a misinterpretation of the Scriptures and a lack of knowledge concerning the Jewish calendar.
Thursday night at 7 PM is the official beginning of Friday. The Jews believe that the new day begins at sunset, because the Bible says, “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” (Genesis 1:5b)
To the Jews of Jesus day, Saturday night at 7 constituted the end of the Sabbath and the beginning of the first day of the week, Sunday. “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.” (John 20:1)
I think many Christians would appreciate the historically correct time of Jesus’ rising from the grave, if only to prevent the annual zombie fests with sleepy eyed, screaming, fighting children.
For the most part, children are much more willing to sing and eat at 7 PM than they are to be dragged out of bed and dressed up like prom dates at 5:30 in the morning.
Happy Easter, Kids!
Hi everyone,
I want to let you know that every week I will be posting my latest teaching from the Sunday worship meeting in Sanford, NC on my xanga site.
Go to www.xanga.com/flocksden and when you click "audio" you can then click on the file and listen to the message.
The message from last Sunday, Palm Sunday, is an eye opening tour into the world of Jesus that will change the way you view palm branches during Easter.
Grace and peace,
Johnny
At least 250 years before the Book of Hebrews was written, a group of Jews including some of the priests decided to create their own priesthood after the line of Malkizedek. They were known as the Essenes. We also know them as the writers of the Qumran Scrolls or the Dead Sea Sect.
The village of the Essenes was in the city of Jerusalem. Their location is significant when coupled with their strict adherence to the Torah. In the Torah, God tells the Israelites that they are not to have a bowel movement in the camp while traveling through the desert on the way to the Promised Land. The Essenes believed that God’s Word never loses meaning or significance, therefore, they believed that even though they were no longer in the desert, there must still be a camp. They believed that the new camp was Jerusalem.
Because they lived in city of Jerusalem and considered it the camp of God’s people, they believed that they were not allowed to have a bowel movement in Jerusalem. This meant that they would have to designate a place outside the city where they could use the bathroom. In 1991 archeologists discovered the Essene Gate. They were boggled by its location because it seemingly led to nowhere. Then they realized that the gate served as an entrance to the woods and out of the city. It was their bathroom door.
Another interesting fact about the Essene sect was that they also held strictly to their priestly duties and would not allow women to do any kind of work within their village because of its location in Jerusalem. The normal custom of women doing things such as carrying water was not allowed in the Essene village.
In the world of Jesus, it would be inconceivable to expect a man to carry a water jar, except among the Essenes.
“On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, ‘Go into the city (Jerusalem) and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’ The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.” (Mark 14:12-16)
Sermon after sermon teaches that finding a man carrying water in Jerusalem was a miracle in itself. This would be true, except for the men of the Essene village in Jerusalem.
Jesus was not telling his disciples to look for the impossible, but to travel to the Essene village and prepare the Passover.
Forever learning,
Johnny
God appointed feasts for Israel to celebrate. In Leviticus 23 the feasts are listed. Among these feasts was the Feast of Tabernacles.
This was a seven day festival that was a huge camping party. All the native people of Israel from near and far would come to Jerusalem and live in huts made of branches for the duration of the festival. One of the significant activities which would be practiced at this festival is found in Leviticus 23:40. “On the first day you are to take choice fruit from trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.”
The successful Maccabean revolt resulted in Israel’s reinstatement of power in Jerusalem, which would last for one hundred years and the rededication of the Temple, still celebrated today as Hanukah. (Read the previous post for info on the revolt.)
After the successful campaign of the Maccabees, palm branches would once again be waved and displayed, but would also take on a new symbolic meaning. The palm branch was not only used in honor of God’s instructions for the Feast of Tabernacles; it was also used to represent the Zealot clan.
As Jesus entered Jerusalem on the donkey, the Zealots placed their cloaks and palm branches on the ground for Jesus and his mode of transportation, the donkey, to travel over. Both of these, the prayer closets (talit, prayer shawls) and the palm branches both represented who they believed Jesus to be.
In 2 Kings 9:13 Jehu is recognized as king with the laying down of their prayer closets which the writer says were “spread under him on the bare steps. Then they blew the trumpet and shouted, ‘Jehu is king!’”
The other symbol placed under Jesus was that of the palm branches, which signified the Zealot Jews’ acceptance of Jesus as not only their Jewish king, but their Zealot military leader who would help them to violently destroy the Romans and their Western oppressors once and for all.
Jesus’ disappointment and sadness which is written in Luke 19 reflects Jesus’ words to those who followed him into Jerusalem to say, “Zealots, put away your palm branches!” Jesus was not a fan of violence, but of peace that included loving one’s enemies.
Forever learning,
Johnny
Good Friday is quickly approaching. Its familiar display of palm branches will soon decorate many Christian chapels.
What a shame!
Around 150 B.C. the Roman emperor, Antiochus IV, decided that the Jews will no longer be allowed to worship Yahweh, nor were they to practice any of their Jewish religious ceremonies to include the great feasts. This was unacceptable to the Jews and led to the Maccabean Revolt.
This revolt resulted in developing two new Jewish sects, the Pharisees and the Zealots. The Zealots were those who believed that they were ordained and commissioned by God to kill non-Jews, to include those they considered heretics or hypocrites, anyone who would prevent them from worshiping their God, or anyone who threatened their role as the leaders of the Promised Land. It is not impossible to understand their crude manner of defense when we know that Antiochus was taking Jewish mothers who circumcised their sons and would kill them with their babies wrapped around the mother’s neck. This was a very volatile time for the Jews.
The Pharisees were those who chose passivism and believed that God would take care of their enemies. This was also Jesus’ approach to the Roman problem.
The Zealots, like many tribes, groups, and countries, had a flag or representative symbol. Their flag was a palm branch. When the Jews waved palm branches it was a symbol of the Zealot’s non-peaceful stance. And wherever the palm branch was waved or used as part of a parade or ritual, the message was that the Jews are to take Rome by force.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem on the donkey, the Zealots were giving the sign of the palm branches to send the message that their Zealot Messiah would help them kill the Romans.
In Luke 19:41-44 Jesus expresses his sadness over their misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the Messiah, who more like the Pharisees than the Zealots believed and taught that killing his enemies was not the answer to bringing peace to Israel. “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.’”
Jesus was not a fan of violence, but of loving one’s enemies. The palm branches symbolized peace by violence. When we decorate our chapels with the flags of violence, we misinterpret the message of the Prince of Peace.
Forever learning,
Johnny
The city of Megiddo was located along the most important trade route of the ancient world. Because of its location, Megiddo became a powerful city financially and culturally. The city’s ability to influence the world caused Megiddo to be a place of great desire for world powers, and battle after battle was fought for its possession.
In Hebrew the city of Megiddo was referred to as the hill of Megiddo, translated Har Megiddo. In the book of Revelation in the New Testament, the writer, John, mentions the “hill of Megiddo” in its Greek translation, which we read in English as Armageddon (Rev. 16:16).
Up until the time that king Solomon had possession of the city, it was used as a place of Canaanite worship. Just as the worshipers of Pan at the Gates of Hell in Caesarea Philippi believed that their gods lived in the underworld during the winter and entered the world in the spring, so did the Canaanites believe that their gods lived in the underworld in the winter and surfaced in the spring. To entice the gods, Baal and Ashera, to mate, the priests and priestesses of Baal would have sex with each other and other people, and they would burn infants alive as forms of worship.
Megiddo represented the constant spiritual battle over the souls of the world. It was here that people fought to have influence over what people believed, how they lived, and who they worshiped. This is why taking the hill of Megiddo was so important and why the city was conquered and destroyed, and then rebuilt over seventy times.
Influencing the world for Christ requires that we take the hill of Megiddo in our world today. In a pluralistic society where even Christians are beginning to reflect a more tolerant mentality toward the gods of the world, we will find it tempting to share the hill.
Influencing the world for Christ requires a strategy of compassion and passion. Though we are not to enslave the world with rules and rituals or attack them with finger-pointing and brow-beating, we will only be effective when we share the gospel convinced that Jesus is the Way.
Twenty-five miles away from the Jewish worship communities of God is Caesarea Philippi. There is a large cliff there with a cave at its base that, at the time of Jesus, flowed with water from a spring. This cliff became the center of worship for a Greek god named Pan. And the followers of Pan built shrines and temples into this cliff to honor and worship him.
Those who worshiped Pan believed that the gods dwelled in the water under the earth during the winter and returned to the surface by way of the water in this cave during the spring. They believed that this opening (spring) was the (Pu li Ha doo) gate of the unseen, translated as "gates of Hades" (hah-dace) or "gates of hell" in English. The worship of Pan included sexual acts with prostitutes and between humans and goats, which they believed would entice the gods to enter through the mouth of the spring and fulfill the desires of the worshipers.
It is here at this gate of pagan gods, where worshipers are committing unthinkable sins, that Jesus tells Peter in the presence of the other disciples, "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it" (Matthew 16:18). In essence Jesus is saying “My church will be built on the foundation of the lost, bringing them into the Kingdom. Even these Pan worshipers can be saved; even those who most people would not even dare look at can enter the kingdom of heaven.”
We all have gates of hell; places where we go and entice our selfish desires to surface. Jesus not only commissioned his followers to storm the gates of the Pan worshipers, but he bids us all to go to our own places of ungodly worship and break down our own gates of hell.
Forever learning,
Johnny
I was listening to one of my favorite teachers a couple days ago, Ray Vander Laan, and he was teaching on the subject of stoning.
In the first century, the act of stoning involved more than simply throwing rocks at someone, though that would not be considered a small thing in itself. When someone was found guilty of a sin punishable by stoning, the person would be brought to the edge of a cliff at least eighteen feet high where they would be asked to confess their sin. If the person confessed, he or she would still be stoned, but they would “go to heaven.”
Once the person was stoned, they were then thrown off of the cliff. Upon hitting the bottom, if they were still alive, those who believed them to be guilty would drop large stones on top of them while standing on the edge of the cliff.
If the person was still alive, then the stoned person would be deemed innocent by God.
When Jesus was on the cross with the two thieves, one said “Get us down” and the other said, “Don’t you fear God since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve” (Luke 23:30-42).
Here in the common Jewish repentance practice during punishment this second thief confesses his sin. And Jesus reminds him in the usual Jewish custom, “Today (when you die) you will be in paradise.”
This portion of Scripture is often taught with the emphasis being that one thief did not believe Jesus to be the Messiah, while the other did and it was his belief in Jesus’ Messianic position that caused Jesus to grant him entrance into heaven. The knowledge of this first-century Jewish custom of repentance, gives us a clearer understanding of the context of this event.
The true message of this passage would appear to be that “confession is good for the soul.”
Forever learning,
Johnny
In John 4:10, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that he can give her “living” water. “Living water” was not a new concept to anyone living in Israel.
It's important to note that Jesus speaks about "living" water at the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7. The Feast of Tabernacles is a seven day celebration of God’s provisions at the end of the harvest season. At the climax of the festival, which is held on the seventh day of the seven-day festival, there is an intense ceremony and prayer for rain. And it is at this heightened, climactic point of the festival that Jesus says to all those in the Temple,
“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37-38). Earlier in the same chapter of John, Jesus said, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.”(16-18).
In Jesus’ day, the teaching of a rabbi was known as “water” to his disciples. It was taught that if a rabbi’s waters or teachings were good, then his disciples would be drinking from the waters of God. If a rabbi’s water was bad, the rabbi is to be exiled to a place of evil waters and his disciples will drink and die.
"Living" water is constantly flowing water that is clean and life sustaining, such as rain or spring water. "Living" water is unlike the “dead” waters found in cisterns (manmade pits that were plastered and filled by water that ran off of roofs and streets), which were widely available in Israel. "Dead" waters were often stagnant and contaminated, but to a person who was desperate for a drink, "dead" water appears promising.
When Jesus approached the Samaritan woman who had trouble developing healthy relationships, he was offering to get rid of the “dead” water that she has been drinking (poor teaching that she has been practicing). Jesus was giving this woman the opportunity to stop sipping from the cisterns, and live her life drinking the rain of good teaching. He was inviting her to be his disciple.
We are all teachers. It has been estimated that every person will influence 10,000 people in his or her lifetime. Therefore, it’s important to know whether we are serving "living" or "dead" water. When those who learn from me do as I have taught them, will they experience a better life or will they experience failure and a continued thirst for how to live?
Living in accordance with the teachings of Jesus does not lead to thirst, but to a quenched thirst that brings vibrant, abundant life to the one who lives it. As imitators of Christ, we should all be serving "living" water.
Forever learning,
Johnny
If you were to find a letter written to your great-great-grandfather by your great-great-grandmother, wouldn’t you cherish every single word? What an amazing discovery that would be. I know that I would look at every word with a sense of awe and mystery, trying to see those two people and develop some kind of connection as I read the pages.
And what if you learned that the last few original lines were missing (maybe torn, stained, or lost), so, your grandmother wrote in words that she made up, in order for the letter to have an ending that would make sense?
I have a letter a lot like that, but much older. It’s a letter that was written a long time ago by a man named Mark. In Mark’s letter, the last 9 verses were added much later. Why? Because, as all textual scholars will tell you, including “believing, Christian” scholars, the last 9 verses are missing in the oldest and best manuscripts. Without adding them, the letter would end with no one being told that Jesus had risen. More than likely, according to those same scholars, the ending that was added is not a completely fictional account. However, what is very interesting in this addition, are the words of Jesus in verses 17-18 of the last chapter in Mark.
“And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
Without the later addition, the Scriptures which are used as a foundation for the Pentecostal Church would not exist.
Today there are more than 5700 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament Scriptures including very small fragments, single books, and complete New Testament writings that are catalogued and used by scholars to translate the Bible. Some are cheap copies, and others are very expensive manuscripts written in gold. The oldest copies were written from the 4th to the 9th centuries, which are copies of copies of copies.............
All of these have what are called “textual variances” or differences among the texts. There are 200,000 to 400,000 variations among these texts. As Bart Ehrman says, “There are more variances in the manuscripts used by scholars to translate the Bible into the common language than there are words in the New Testament." These variances make it very difficult to translate the Bible in full, without a translator making educated decisions as to which parts of which manuscript he or she will write into the Bible from which Christians will read and teach.
The translators of the NIV have pointed out some of these variances, such as the last 9 verses in Mark. These and other more recent scholars have decided to make us aware that the oldest copies do not have some of the verses that have been added to our Bibles.
This information comes from the work of Bart Ehrman in his book, Misquoting Jesus.
Forever learning,
Johnny
Seeing God through the eyes of a child is powerful.
Somehow most of Christendom has caused the word of God to become something to yawn about. For a great number of people, especially Christians, hearing God’s Word is like having to sit and listen to someone’s dream. You know that in the end it will take you nowhere and benefit you nothing, but you have to listen because it’s the respectful thing to do.
Yesterday, one of my teens was doing his teen Bible study lesson (nothing like reading the Bible to fire up a teen) and he said under his breath, “I hate this!”
To try and take away some of the boredom, I picked up the Bible and began paraphrasing the passage that he was reading from Luke 9:10-17. As I began to read my teenage son showed no greater interest, but something miraculous happened with my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
She was standing on the floor at the end of the dining room table playing with some of her toys and as soon as I began to read she stood still, folded her hands, bowed her head, and closed her eyes. Her mother and I watched in amazement. And as soon as I read the last word of the passage, she said, “Amen,” and went back to playing with her toys.
No matter what we may believe about the Bible, one thing is for sure, there is power in the teachings of Jesus.
“I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Luke 18:17 NIV).
Forever learning,
Johnny
