james 1:16, 17 16 do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 every good thing given and every...

James 1:16, 17

16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

G. Gordon Liddy

"I have found within myself all I need and all I ever shall need. I am a man of great faith, but my faith is in George Gordon Liddy. I have never failed me."

President Obama

If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own... If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help…Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business—you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

How is God responsible?

◦He designed your body!

How is God responsible?

The influence of His word has brought us a good civilization (Prov. 14:34)

Prov. 14:34

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

Abraham Lincoln

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.

Abraham Lincoln

But we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. 

Abraham Lincoln

Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

Our culture without GodSystem of Ethics, law, abolition of slavery

A culture with a decline in faithThe number in

our country of those “unaffiliated” with any religion has risen to 56,000,000. (Pew Research Center)

This group contains 31% atheists, up from 25% in 2007.

Culture without GodThe link between Darwinism and totalitarianism

Prov. 14:34

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

The best “good things” are spiritual – Vs. 18

In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures.

Knowing Love – 1 John 4:7,8

Beloved, let us love oe another, for love is from God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

Knowing Love – 1 John 4:9,10

9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Knowing real hope3 Blessed be the God and Father

of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,

James 1:17

Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above…