Randy

SaveCalifornia.com Blog//

Archives for December 2010

VIDEO: My heart and vision for 2011

Thursday, December 30, 2010, 12:12 am |

No matter who’s running Sacramento or Washington, D.C., the heartbeat of strong families, the goodness of God’s values, and the importance of doing what’s right is always worthy and always a success.

That’s why the SaveCalifornia.com team and I are excited about the future, and why you can be excited too.

As you end 2010 and enter 2011, please watch my 2-1/2 minute video message:

If you appreciate our moral leadership and service to families in California and beyond, would you let us know? Support SaveCalifornia.com’s vision to reach the next generation. Please donate $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500 or $1,000 to our important work. Help SaveCalifornia.com enter the New Year with strength to reach millions of young hearts and minds.

Because we haven’t received enough support this month, I am asking for your personal assistance and extra help. Learn more and forward this video to your friends.

DONATE ONLINE | DONATE BY MAIL

Thank you for linking arms with SaveCalifornia.com. Together, let’s make a difference!

Boldly in Christ’s grace and truth,

Randy Thomasson
Founder and President
SaveCalifornia.com

5 things to remember at Christmas

Friday, December 24, 2010, 2:49 pm |

As I prepare for Christmas, here are five important things I’m trying to remember. I thought they would help you too:

1. It’s about celebrating Jesus: Imagine your friends threw you a birthday party but then kept you out, or ignored you if you somehow got in. That’s how most Americans do Christmas. Yet the Child born in Bethlehem, who loves us all intensely, is also the Judge of all mankind. Honor Him by reading aloud the Biblical account of his birth in Matthew or Luke. Praise Him for coming to offer salvation from hell to the humble, who submit themselves to Him. This is a sacred truth that even Linus, of the Peanuts gang, knew.

2. It’s not about how you feel:
As long as our happiness is based on ourselves, other people, and the situations that surround us, we will never truly be happy. The search for circumstantial or environmental happiness is why many people get depressed around Christmas. But when you meditate on Jesus’ love, and receive His love of salvation through confession, repentance, and asking for His forgiveness, it’s easy to love Him back. This is called joy. “You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.” 1 Peter 1:8 NLT

3. It’s not a day, but a state of mind: This week, a bank teller asked my wife if she was “ready for Christmas.” My wife replied, “Jesus is in my heart, so I’m ready.” Christmas isn’t a day, but a state of mind. Because my mind’s no good without the LORD, I want to have Thanksgiving every morning and Christmas every evening. That is, I want to sincerely thank God first thing upon waking and then worship Him throughout the day. God wants his children to celebrate Him daily. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 ESV

4. It’s not simply a “holiday,” but a remembrance of Jesus Messiah (Yeshua Mashiach):
Christmas literally means “Christ’s Mass,” or “feast of Christ.” It is a celebration dedicated to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who was miraculously born, then supernaturally taught, healed, forgave, died, resurrected, and ascended to heaven — unlike any other figure in history. This is why I don’t say “Happy Holidays.” A local shop owner was told by a customer that he should wish people “Happy Holidays,” not “Merry Christmas.” She said he might offend people. He replied, “If there wasn’t a Christmas, there wouldn’t be a holiday, so Merry Christmas.” I love that! At Christmastime, I wish people “JOYous CHRISTmas, because He’s the Reason for the Season.” People nod in agreement and say “That’s right.” Listen to this upbeat song called “Christmas with a Capital C” by the GoFishGuys. It powerfully explains why “Christmas” is not a mere “holiday.”

5. This is also a great time of year to remember SaveCalifornia.com
: As you give gifts to loved ones, please consider giving a helpful gift to SaveCalifornia.com.

In 2010, SaveCalifornia.com reached over 5 million Californians through our educational campaign exposing the harms of marijuana legalization; we alerted thousands of parents about the very real threat of government-school sexual indoctrination; we educated millions of Americans through the media on why man-woman marriage matters; and we taught application of God’s moral virtues for family, culture, and government all year long, utilizing media and technology.

In 2011, our priority focus is to reach and impact the hearts and minds of young people under 30. They are our future and our future leaders too. Together, we can teach them the benefits of God’s truth and the negative consequences of merely following their feelings. We simply must.

With your help, SaveCalifornia.com will harness technology and new media to launch targeted messages, community action, on-the-street activism, and more. It’s all very exciting and so needful. Can you see it?

Here at the end of the year, you can enjoy touching hearts and redeeming our culture through SaveCalifornia.com. Please participate. Your gift of $10, $20, $50, $100, $500, $1,000 or more will help us enter 2011 with strength. You can donate online or donate by mail. Thank you in advance for whatever you can give.  

JOYous CHRISTmas to you and yours!

Long-term unemployment is unacceptable

Tuesday, December 14, 2010, 1:27 pm |

God created man to work. That’s why the prospect of extending unemployment “benefits” in California and America is so alarming. To be able-bodied and paid not to work for months on end, and to look forward each month to receiving a government check, damages a man’s identity and character.

By the end of October, the jobless rate in California stood at 12.4 percent. The overall rate in the nation was 9.8 percent in November. California state government is borrowing $40 million per day to pay for historically high “jobless benefits,” which has bankrupted the state’s unemployment insurance system. This sky-high unemployment rate, and long-term unemployment in a person’s life or the life of a nation, along with the terrible example set for children, is simply unacceptable in a free society.

The unemployed man has an urgent and important need to analyze himself, to become humble, repentant, responsible, loving, courageous, creative, faithful, and visionary. He must change his mind and actually look forward to work. To do right for himself and his family, he must be willing to take a humble job, move to get work, or create new work for himself with himself as the boss. Getting a job, any honest job, even if you have to “downgrade” your lifestyle, is much better for your character than living off the government and developing an entitlement mentality. Churches should hold classes and teach this attitude of victors to destroy the victim mindset.

Monday’s column by Nina Easton on the unemployment mentality is worth reading for anyone who is unemployed, who thinks they may become unemployed, or who loves someone who’s unemployed:

What happens to a nation’s collective psyche when millions of once-productive people remain out of work for months or even years? What happens when unemployed husbands resign themselves to relying on a wife’s income, when unemployed wives feel trapped at home, when twenty- and thirtysomethings calculate that they’d rather live off their parents than face a cut-throat job market, when middle-aged men and women stop searching for jobs after realizing they’re hopelessly lost in a haze of rapid-fire technological change?
“What happens when the jobless give up,” Nina Easton, Fortune, Dec. 13, 2010

If you’re a Christian, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has this for you to hear: “The disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ is…active, and not passive; getting at it, not just waiting. I’ve heard horror stories out there of Christians who are saying ‘I’ve just stopped looking for work’… Sloth is something that is recognized as one of the deadly sins. It’s a soul-rotting sin. It’s a sin that repudiates the Gospel. We weren’t saved for inactivity; we were redeemed in order to get about Kingdom work.”
Listen to Mohler’s Dec. 3, 2009 radio show

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
Romans 12:2 NLT