Those who flee temptation often leave a forwarding address.

I don't think there's any significance to this photo. I just thought it was cool.

You know that feeling you get climbing out of a swimming pool after being in it for 30 minutes or more? Your body weighs twice what it did and all your muscles have atrophied. That's this preacher's Sunday nights. Only it affects his brain too.
Consider that a disclaimer for all that follows.

I think we had a good morning. My sermon missed its target but I felt good about our discussion on the nature of sin during Foundations.

Watch this through the end (it's brief and clever) and you'll understand why I like it.
Attentiveness Test
Thanks, Sherry.

China's leaders are in a real spot, and I've got absolutely no sympathy for them.
Over the last several decades they've taken control of Tibet. Not just the local government. They replaced the Dalai Lama with a hand-picked Panchen Lama. The settled thousands of ethnic Han Chinese citizens in Tibet, setting them up in business. In short, they put into effect a plan that would, de jur and de facto, annex Tibet without regard for its historical and cultural identity.
Not surprisingly, the Tibetans are responding with violence. The occasion for this uprising is the anniversary of the failed revolution by Tibetans against the Chinese in 1959. Now, as then, the Chinese have responded with force.
But this conflict is getting a lot more international attention than the 1959 revolution and it's only going to get worse. The Olympics open in four months, and one of the issues the Olympic selection committee grappled with before choosing Beijing was its human rights record. The Chinese officials promised a new and open China that would pose no problems for the Olympic movement.
Now comes this Tibet problem. Ooops.
If this conflict continues in the weeks leading up to the Games, will nations begin to back out?
For the Chinese, hosting the Olympics is all about being accepted by the international community as an equal, a player. It's about image. And they must be very, very afraid that it's all going to slip through their hands.
Let's see how this plays out.

On Monday Christ and the disciples again left Bethany and walked across the Kidron Valley into Jerusalem. Along the way they came across a fig tree that had no fruit. Christ cursed the tree for its barrenness. After entering the city they went to the Temple where he overturned the tables of the profiteers who made money by gouging Jews from across the Empire in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. Temple fees could only be paid with Temple coin, and these moneychangers charged exorbitant fees to make the change.
Following that he had a brief conversation with some Gentiles and then returned to Bethany for the rest of the day.

I'm painting tomorrow, beginning a job that includes two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a kitchen. It's going to take a whole lot of coffee tomorrow morning to recover from tonight's exhaustion.