http://bible.com/59/2co.7.1.ESV

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/tech/2015/09/17/marines-unveil-plan-modernize-their-small-arms-arsenal/72006282/

Another Sad Day for America

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/02/oregon-shooter-said-to-have-singled-out-christians-for-killing-in-horrific-act-of-cowardice/

#VeteransLivesMatter

http://www.westernjournalism.com/a-u-s-soldier-was-about-to-pull-the-trigger-and-end-his-life-then-he-heard-2-words-whispered/

14 years later

America #NeverForget911

Biblical Prophecies

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/09/09/iran-deal-khamenei-says-israel-destroyed-in-25-years/

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/08/27/exclusive-benghazi-witness-u-s-provided-arms-to-jihadists-who-killed-americans-in-911-attack/

United to our Lord

We should try to be so closely united to our Lord that we reproduce his life in our own, that our thoughts and words and actions should proclaim his teaching, so that he reigns in us, lives in us.

I Promise You

The idea that 'being in love' is the only reason for remaining married really leaves no room for marriage as a contract or promise at all. If love is the whole thing, then the promise can add nothing; and if it adds nothing, then it should not be made. The curious thing is that lovers themselves, while they remain really in love, know this better than those who talk about love. As Chesterton pointed out, those who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises. Love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal constancy. The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion's own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do.

And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love. A promise must be about things that I can do, about actions: no one can promise to go on feeling in a certain way. He might as well promise never to have a headache or always to feel hungry.

Suffering

https://youtu.be/bz-MQgzxua8

Oppose the Iran Deal

Not sure what POTUS was thinking of when he did this.

God's Perfect Plan

http://bible.com/59/jer.29.11.ESV

Grieving, and Thinking About Grieving

Are these jottings morbid? I once read the sentence 'I lay awake all night with toothache, thinking about toothache and about lying awake.' That's true to life. Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery's shadow or reflection: the fact that you don't merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about loving each day in grief.

Start Small

It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven. There are no two ways about it. What are we to do?

It is going to be hard enough, anyway, but I think there are two things we can do not begin with the calculus; you begin with simple addition. I'm the same way, if we really want (but all depends on really wanting) to learn something easier than the Gestapo. One might start with forgiving one's husband or wife, or parents or children, or the nearest N.C.O., for something they have done or said in the last week. That will probably keep us busy for the moment. And secondly, we might try to understand exactly what loving your neighbour as yourself means. I have to love him as I love myself.

RIP Joan Sebastian

https://youtu.be/HExALqbqJ8g

Society of Biblical Literature

http://www.sbl-site.org/

http://psychroaches.blogspot.com/2015/07/house-dems-display-wrong-confederate.html?m=1

https://m.soundcloud.com/aki-starr

Maj. Gen. Wendell C. Neville

Today in Marine Corps History:

USMC History Division 

 

MajGen Wendell C Neville

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MajGen Wendell C Neville

MAJOR GENERAL
WENDELL CUSHING NEVILLE, USMC

(DECEASED) 

Click here for a higher resolution photo.        Click here for additional photos.

Medal of Honor Citation

Original General Order

Major General Wendell Cushing Neville, 14th Commandant of the Marine Corps and Medal of Honor recipient, was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, on 12 May 1870. He entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1886 chiefly because no one else in his district desired an appointment to Annapolis that year. He received his diploma in 1890 and following a two-year cruise aboard a warship, as was the practice of the era, was commissioned a Marine Corps second lieutenant.

At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Lt Neville was assigned to the 1st Battalion, hurriedly organized under LtCol Robert W. Huntington for service in Cuba. The battalion staged a daring attack under heavy gunfire at Guantanamo Bay, established a beachhead and routed enemy forces in that area. For outstanding valor and leadership in that action, Lt Neville was awarded the Brevet Medal, highest Marine Corps decoration at that time, and was promoted to the brevet rank of captain.

Promoted to the permanent rank of captain a few months after the war, he was assigned to a battalion of Marines ordered to China to relieve the hard-pressed garrison at Peking during the Boxer Rebellion. He took part in four battles in that area and was again commended for his gallantry.

In the Philippine Islands not long afterwards, he was appointed military governor of Basilin Province. Following that assignment he served in Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama and Hawaii. While in command of Marines landing at Vera Cruz, Mexico, on 21 April 1914, he displayed conspicuous gallantry. In that operation, LtCol Neville was awarded the Medal of Honor for his distinguished conduct.

Prior to his embarkation for France in 1917, Col Neville returned to China where he was chosen to command the combined Allied guard at Peking.

On 1 January 1918, he was placed in command of the 5th Regiment in France and in May moved his regiment into action at Belleau Wood where Germany’s big drive was decisively halted. In July, BGen Neville’s command was enlarged to include the 4th Marine Brigade, which he directed during the remaining days of the war and during its occupation service in Germany.

After service with the Army of Occupation in Germany, BGen Neville and his brigade returned to the United States in July 1919. Promoted to major general in March 1920, he served as Assistant to the Commandant of the Marine Corps and later became Commanding General, Department of the Pacific with headquarters in San Francisco. He also commanded the Marine Barracks, Quantico, Virginia.

Major General Neville succeeded MajGen John A. Lejeune as Commandant of the Marine Corps on 5 March 1929. MajGen Neville’s sudden death on 8 July 1930 at Edgewater Beach, Maryland, while in office as Major General Commandant, closed one of the most brilliant military careers of his day. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

During the 38 years he spent as a U.S. Marine, MajGen Neville received the Medal of Honor, Brevet Medal, Army Distinguished Service Medal, Navy Distinguished Service Medal, Cross of the Legion of Honor, five Croix de Guerre with three stars and two palms, five citation and eight campaign and expeditionary awards.

4th of July

May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.

Our weakness, God's strength

On the cross, both justice and love are being satisfied - evil, sin, and death are being defeated. You are looking at an absolute beauty, but because you cannot fit it into your own limited understanding, you are in danger of walking away from God.

Don't do it. Do what Jesus did - trust God. Do what Joseph did - trust God even in the dungeon. It takes the entire Bible to help us understand all the reasons that Jesus' death on the cross was not just a failure and a tragedy but was consummate wisdom. It takes a major part of Genesis to help us understand God's purposes in Joseph's tribulations. Sometimes we may wish that God would send us our book - a full explanation! But even though we cannot know all the particular reasons for our crosses, we can look at the cross and know God is working things out. And so you can sing to others:

Ye fearful, fresh courage take;
The clouds, ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head

Again and again in the Bible, God shows that he is going to get his salvation done through weakness, not strength, because Jesus will triumph through defeat, will win by losing, he will come down in order to go up. In the same way, we get God's saving power in our life only through the weakness of repentance and trust. And, so often, the grace of God grows more through our difficulties than our triumphs.

- by Timothy Keller; Walking with God through Pain and Suffering.

Today in Marine Corps History

15 June 1944: Preceded by naval gunfire and carrier air strikes, the V Amphibious Corps assaulted the west coast of Saipan, Marianas Islands. By nightfall, the 2d and 4th Marine Divisions, moving against heavy opposition, had established a beachhead 10,000 yards wide and 1,500 yards deep

http://bible.com/59/2ti.3.16-17.esv All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

What is "Real" Spiritual Growth?

In the last message Jesus gave to His disciples, He told them that the way to fruitfulness and not - the "secret" to the Christian life - was to abide in Him. They wouldn't produce "abundant fruit" by reading books, intensifying their self-discipline, memorizing Scripture, or getting in accountability groups. Those things all have their place, but real fruit comes only from one place; abiding in Jesus.

"Abiding in Jesus" may sound like siritual mumbo jumbo to you. It always did to me. I assumed that when you were "abiding in Jesus" you'd walk around with an ethereal glow in your eye and inexplicably wake up at 4 a.m. strumming passion tunes on the golden harp you keep beside your bed. But the word abide is much more straightforward than that. The Greek word meno means literally "to make your home in." When we "make our home in" His love - feeling it, saturating ourselves with it, reflecting on it, standing in awe of it ' spiritual fruit begins to spring up naturally from us like roses on a rosebush.

Spiritual "fruit," you see, is produced in the same way physical "fruit" is. When a man and woman conceive physical "fruit" (i.e., a child), they are usually not thinking about the mechanics of making that child. Rather, they get caught up in a moment of living intimacy with one another, and the fruit of that loving intimacy is a child.

In the same way, spiritual fruit isn't made by focusing on the commands of spiritual growth. You can't just grit your teeth and say, "I will have more loving feelings for God! I will be more patient! I will have self-control!" I'll explain the role for denial of the flesh and self-disciplines, but true spiritual fruit comes from getting swept up in intimate, loving encounters with Jesus Christ. His love is the soil in which all the fruits of the Spirit grow. When our roots abide there, then joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control grow naturally in our hearts.

So if you want to see spiritual fruit in your life, don't focus primarily on the fruits. Focus on Jesus' acceptance of you, given to you as a gift. Focusing on spiritual fruit will usually produce only frustration and despair, not fruitfulness.

Have you ever looked at your life and thought, "Why am I still so impatient? How could I really be saved and still have such a problem with self-control?" I certainly have. If anything, the more I have walked with Jesus the more aware I have become of my sinfulness. Jesus, however, did not tell me to "abide" in my fruitfulness. He told me abide in Him - in His acceptance of me, given to me freely as a gift.

Abiding in Jesus means understanding that His acceptance of us is the same regardless of the amount of spiritual fruit we have produced. Ironically, it is only when we understand that His love is not conditioned on our spiritual fruitfulness that we gain the power to become truly fruitful. Only those who abide in Him produce much fruit. In other words, those people who get better are those who understand that God's approval of them is not dependent on their getting better.

So what U really want to help you do is abide in Jesus. The by-product of abiding in Jesus is that you will become more patient in your marriage; you will develop self-discipline; you will become generous. Abiding in Jesus will produce all of the fruits of the Spirit in you - but not by having you concentrate particularly on any of those things. You concentrate on Jesus. You rest in His love and acceptance, given to you not because of what you have earned, but because I'm what He has earned for you.

http://shop.defensemobile.com/plans

2 June 1918

At dawn on this date, the crack German 28th Division attacked along the axis of the Paris-Metz road hitting the American 2d Division, including the 4th Marine Brigade. The Marines opened with deadly rifle fire and helped hand the German troops a setback which set the stage for Marine victory at Belleau Wood which would soon follow, although at great cost.

The Danger of Not Contextualing

All gospel and communications are already heavily adapted to a particular culture. So It is important to do contextualization consciously. If we never deliberately think no through ways to rightly contextualize gospel ministry to a new culture, we will unconsciously be deeply contextualized to some other culture. Our gospel ministry will be both overadapted to our own culture and underadapted to new cultures at once, which ultimately leads to a distortion of the Christian message.

Full Surrender

If God was prepared to let us off, why on earth did He not do so? And what possible point could there be in punishing an innocent person instead? None at all that I can see, if you are thinking of punishment in the police-court sense. On the other hand, if you think of a debt, there is plenty of point in a person who has some assets paying it on behalf of someone who has not. Or if you take 'paying the penalty', not in the sense of being punished, but in the more General sense of 'standing the racket' or 'footing the bill', then, of course, it is a matter of common experience that, when one person has got himself into a hole, the trouble of getting him out usually falls on a kind friend.

Now what was the sort of 'hole' man had got himself into? He has tried to set up on his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who just lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor - that is the only way out of your 'hole'. This process of surrender - this movement full speed astern - is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means I'm learning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you hard the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person - and he wound not need it.

Today in Marine Corps History

 8 May 1995: In the wake of the most devastating storm to hit the New Orleans area in more than 200 years, a group of Marines and sailors from Marine Forces Reserve demonstrated the quick response synonymous with the Navy/Marine Corps team. Within 24 hours of being called, Marines assisted in the evacuation of 2,500 civilians, and Navy corpsmen treated scores of flood victims.

Generic Theism to Christian Theism

https://youtu.be/eX1ntoP1E90

https://youtu.be/OvhxrKF2wEo

Conscious Command Decision

A conscious command decision is made in a calculated or methodical manner, generally based on education, training, and experience combined with a mental process to achieve an objective. An example of a conscious command decision would be deciding on a concept of operations.

Forms of Command and Control

Command and control systems are used in many different applications throughout the military. The three most common forms are

1. Conscious command decision
2. Preconditioned reactions
3. Rules-based procedures

Part of the Mystical Body

It was not for societies or states that Christ died, but for men. In that sense Christianity must seem to secular collectivists to involve an almost frantic assertion of individuality. But then it is not the individual as such who will share Christ's victory over death. We shall share the victory in being the Victor. A rejection, or in Scripture's strong language, a crucifixion of the natural self is the passport to everlasting life. Nothing that has not died will be resurrected... There lies the maddening ambiguity of our faith as it must appear to outsiders. It sets its face relentlessly against our natural individualism; on the other hand, it gives back to those who abandon individualism an eternal possession of their own personal being, even if their bodies. As mere biological entities, each with its separate will to live and to expand, we are apparently of no account; we are cross-fodder. But as organs in the Body of Christ, as stones and pillars in the temple, we are assured of our eternal self-identity and shall live to remember the galaxies as an old tale #CSLewis

The Primary Sin

Traditional doctrine points to a sin against God, an act of disobedience, not a sin against the neighbour. And certainly, if we are to hold the doctrine of the Fall in any real sense, we must look for the great sin on a deeper and more timeless level than that of social morality #CSLewis

Marine Air Ground Task Force

Retention of operational control of its air is important to the Corp' air ground team, as air constitutes a significant part of its offensive power

when a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right #CSLewis

Not a Matter of Opinion

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great modal teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

#CSLewis - from Mere

Today in Marine Corps History

22 January 1969: Operation Dewey Canyon, perhaps the most successful high-mobility regimental-size action of the Vietnam War, began in the A Shau/Da Krong Valleys when the 9th Marines, commanded by Colonel Robert H. Barrow, and supporting artillery were lifted from Quang Tri. By 18 March the enemy's base area had been cleared out, 1617 enemy dead had been counted, and more than 500 tons of weapons and ammunition unearthed.