Speak Louder

HT: Tim Tebow foundation

Twitter Gleanings

Gleanings from my Twitter feed:

If you live for the approval of others, you'll die with their rejection.@RickWarren

RT @LifeVerse: If you give beyond your ability, God will bless you beyond your ability. Mark Batterson

RT @bcloritts  "Holiness hardly ever becomes a reality until we care more about Jesus than about holiness"- Steve Brown, A Scandalous Freedom

RT @jeffredding: Primary goal of spiritual leadership: Take people from where try are now to where God wants them to be.

RT @LifeVerse: Divine detours often get us where God wants us to go. Mark Batterson

RT @StephenMiller: We are all always worshiping something or someone. And we will become like what we worship.

RT @PastorTullian: God is in the business of replacing our ladders with his cross.

RT @TimTebow "Happy moments, praise God. Difficult moments, seek God. Quiet moments, worship God. Painful moments, trust God. Every moment, THANK GOD."

RT @parkerwindle: "The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity." Mike Stachura

RT @rayortlund: Gospel doctrine + gospel culture = a church marked by human beauty. Makes the truth believable, accessible.

RT @BryanPickering: The cross is the best and quickest summary of what God says to unworthy people. - Ed Welch @ccef

Exotic Creatures in New York City

From the New York Times, comes a fascinating anthropological study of a truly strange branch of humanity: religious people practicing sexual chastity in New York City. 

What a strange bunch! The article reads like a story on Animal Planet about exotic animals, including a unique football playing animal named Tim Tebow.

Trinity Laurel moved to Manhattan at 21 to pursue a modeling career. Raised in a Christian home, Laurel was a virgin when she reached the city, and says she has “remained pure” while living here since.

Not all of her friends can relate.

“They’re like, ‘How do you do that?’ ” Laurel, now 28, said. “People are almost fascinated.”

Welcome to New York, Tim Tebow. Now that the Jets have broken training camp and Tebow, a famous chaste Christian, becomes a full-time New Yorker, it has become a common, and mildly amusing, pastime to fret about the temptations he might face or the potential loneliness he might suffer.

Read it to see what the world thinks about you, if you are practicing Biblical morality.

Hat Tip: Get Religion

Harvests of Links

Some miscellaneous harvests from my internet meanderings:

Raptured Pet Insurance a Hoax

Tim Tebow in Babylon

Could Many Universities Follow Borders Into Oblivion? 

Seven Ways Leaders Regain Their Drive 

The Bristol Palin Post that Shut Down the Servers

Did Early Christians Believe Jesus Would Come in Their Lifetimes?

The Difference Between Partisans and Fans

Tebow Shows Class

Football season may be over, but off the field Tim Tebow continues to demonstrate the meanings of the terms character, grace and compassion.  Check this out:


Tim Tebow ignores Brady Quinn’s slights while serving as dream date for 9-year-old.
     
 

The John 3:16 Commercial

Loved this commercial that aired during the Broncos/Patriots playoff game on January 14th. Way to go Focus on the Family!

Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins?

Check out this well-written and theologically astute article by Owen Strachan in The Atlantic on the question of the week: Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins on Saturday?

Tim Tebow succeeds on the football field because of elves.

You can't see them on television. They're tiny. But when the game gets tight and the Denver Broncos need a fourth-quarter miracle, the elves come out and do his bidding. Forming a dense pack, they push 350-pound lineman aside, knock defensive backs off their stride, and give speed to Demayrius Thomas after he catches a pass.

That's why he wins.

What? You don't buy that? It's a lie, you're right. You know Tebow doesn't accomplish what he does because of elves. But when you hear about his faith, and the connection that some make between his devout Christianity and the success he enjoys on the football field, you might think it's about as likely that Tebow succeeds because of God's direct and benevolent intervention as it is that he wins games because of a roaming band of miniature wood elves.

Both sound ridiculous. God doesn't care about football games, right? If he exists at all, isn't he up there making sure that the planets spin in their proper orbits and, I don't know, that there's enough rainwater falling on Argentinean forests? Doesn't he have better things to do than to propel a certain football team to victories?

How often do you find an article in a secular publication that discusses everything from the Doctrine of Providence, the Theology of John Calvin and Martin Luther, Biblical teaching on suffering, and the interpretation of Ephesians 1:11 and Hebrews 11, all in the context of a sporting event?  And, I might mention, with a quote from Tim Keller thrown in for good measure.

This is a very good article! Read it all at the link above.

Tebowing: The Early Years

A Tale of Two Qarterbacks

Everybody's excited about Tim Tebow's "miraculous" season and playoff win Sunday over the highly favored Pittsburgh Steelers. But did you know that the other quarterback in that game also has something to teach us about Christianity; namely the power of redemption.

Read God’s quarterbacks: What Tebow and Roethlisberger reveal about evangelical politics in The Washington Post.

Super Bowl Commercial Update

Did the Tim Tebow pro-life advertisement during the Super Bowl accomplish anything?

Answer - Yep! See Super Bowl Commercial Update | Boundless Line

Tebow Ad Exposed the Left For Who They Really Are

Well, the Tim Tebow commercial during the Super Bowl seemed rather understated, didn't it?

When I saw it, my first thought was that Focus on the Family and the Tebows had done a real number on the gang from NARAL and NOW. I wonder if it was deliberate?

Think about it. They announce in advance that there will be a pro-life commercial during the game, without much detail on the content. The usual suspects on the left go ballistic, calling the commercial "divisive" without even seeing it. Pam Tebow gets personal attacks and is called a liar. Numerous liberal organizations demand that CBS not air the ad.

Result, the ad ends up being such that no one could be offended. NARAL and NOW look like fools, and are revealed to be, not pro-woman or pro-choice, but pro-abortion (and anti-free speech). Of course, pro-life activists already knew that, but now it is totally obvious to everyone. Even after the ad airs, they are complaining that the play tackle in the spot promotes violence against women! Oh, come on! Score a big one for our side.

Jeff Emanuel at Red State Blog agreed with me that Focus on the Family and Pam Tebow Play the Pro-Abortion Left like a Stradivarius

Our side is winning, and the left knows it (and are very afraid).

One Feminist Sees the Light

As many of you may know, a pro-life advertisement will be broadcast during the Super Bowl next Sunday, featuring University of Florida football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam. He's the Heisman Trophy winner who is famous for showing Scripture references in his under-eye face paint during nationally televised football games.

When Pam Tebow was pregnant with Tim, she was advised by her doctor to abort. She chose not to, and look what that then unborn child has become.

Much attention has been brought to the ad in advance of its airing due to the reaction of the gang from the National Organization for Women (NOW), who apparently think pro-life views should never be heard in America. They are demanding that CBS not show the ad during the game because it is too divisive!

Those kind of responses from the left have become routinely expected, unfortunately. Apparently the "ladies" at NOW just cannot see how silly and bigoted their actions look to normal people, even those who are not convinced pro-lifers. However, one pro-choice feminist, Sally Jenkins at the Washington Post (of all places), can see it. Here is what she said.

"I'll spit this out quick, before the armies of feminism try to gag me and strap electrodes to my forehead: Tim Tebow is one of the better things to happen to young women in some time. I realize this stance won't endear me to the "Dwindling Organizations of Ladies in Lockstep," otherwise known as DOLL, but I'll try to pick up the shards of my shattered feminist credentials and go on.

I'm pro-choice, and Tebow clearly is not. But based on what I've heard in the past week, I'll take his side against the group-think, elitism and condescension of the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time." For one thing, Tebow seems smarter than they do.

Tebow's 30-second ad hasn't even run yet, but it already has provoked "The National Organization for Women Who Only Think Like Us" to reveal something important about themselves: They aren't actually "pro-choice" so much as they are pro-abortion. Pam Tebow has a genuine pro-choice story to tell. She got pregnant in 1987, post-Roe v. Wade, and while on a Christian mission in the Philippines, she contracted a tropical ailment. Doctors advised her the pregnancy could be dangerous, but she exercised her freedom of choice and now, 20-some years later, the outcome of that choice is her beauteous Heisman Trophy winner son, a chaste, proselytizing evangelical.

Pam Tebow and her son feel good enough about that choice to want to tell people about it. Only, NOW says they shouldn't be allowed to. Apparently NOW feels this commercial is an inappropriate message for America to see for 30 seconds, but women in bikinis selling beer is the right one. I would like to meet the genius at NOW who made that decision. On second thought, no, I wouldn't."

I tell you, folks, we are winning! More and more Americans are seeing the light.

A Testimony by Tim Tebow

Tim Tebow on Preaching at Prison

“Because of my faith, I receive a lot of requests to speak to different organizations. I like to do as many as I can. During the summer of 2007, I had the opportunity to speak at the state prison in Union County. I got to get up and preach.

The people there don’t have a lot to look forward to, and they don’t have a positive outlook on things. I told them that everyone looks at them like they are nothing, and I told them that they are no different than I am, except they made a bad choice. That doesn’t make them any worse of a person, and God doesn’t love them any less. I let them know that because of their actions, there are consequences, but God wants them to go to heaven.

There were people in there for all sorts of things. There were murderers and drug lords. I saw these guys break down and cry. I gave them an invitation to accept Jesus Christ and change the way they were living.

In the two prisons I spoke at, 195 guys came forward. I held their hands and prayed with them. The security guys told them they weren’t allowed to get close to me, but I wasn’t worried about it. I felt like I was doing what God wanted me to do, so it was safe.”

By Tim Tebow
Quarterback, University of Florida

Hat Tip: A Testimony by Tim Tebow CHARISMATICA

The Thursday Night Miracle Worker

After the national championship game Thursday, it does seem like Tim Tebow can do anything! Nice to see a faithful believer staying true while in the world spotlight.

Hat Tip: Take Your Vitamin Z: A Good Reflection On The Game Last Night

Other Comments:

Tebow is a winner
The Tebow Bump
Tebow's John 3:!6 reference shows Nation's Biblical Illiteracy