Olivia
Online
J. Brian Glover
@JBrianGlover
Ordained Minister...Play a technology businessman by day job...SSI Certified SCUBA DiveMaster ...Father of two...Husband of 30 years...Christ follower overall!
Paducah, Kentucky
Joined September 2011
233 Following
151 Followers
1.7K Posts
Pinned Tweet
https://t.co/dfQLMRUzo9
a nba fan with actually more than 3 brain cells?!
"If I told you there was one free thing you could do every Sunday that would make your kids happier, healthier, smarter, and closer to you, you'd think I was selling something."
Take your kids to church regularly. I don't care if you believe. The data is so lopsided that skipping it is the parenting equivalent of refusing vegetables because you don't like the taste.
Grades. Religious teens get As at almost twice the rate of nonreligious teens. In a class of 100, that's 24 A-students instead of 14. Church gives a kid the same academic boost as being born rich instead of poor.
College. Working-class religious kids earn bachelor's degrees at double the rate of their nonreligious peers. Middle-class kids do it at 1.5x the rate. For families without a trust fund, this is one of the most powerful forms of upward mobility social scientists have measured.
Character. Religious teens are far less likely to lie, cheat, or do things they hope their parents never find out about. They're more likely to care about racial equality, the elderly, and the poor. They reject the idea that morality is whatever works for you in the moment. That kind of kid doesn't happen by accident. It's built.
Closeness. 60% of parents of religious teens say they feel "extremely close" to their kid, compared to 50% of nonreligious parents. The kids report the same thing back. They get along better with their parents, talk about hard stuff, and actually want to spend time with their family.
Despair. Religious teens are dramatically less likely to be depressed, anxious, lonely, or feel that life is meaningless. 90% of devoted religious teens never binge drink, compared to 41% of the disengaged. Economists named the modern epidemic "deaths of despair." Regular church attendance is one of the strongest known buffers against it. Parents are spending fortunes trying to solve teen mental health. The most evidence-backed intervention is free.
Purpose. Religious young adults report higher purpose, gratitude, life satisfaction, and resilience. These are the exact traits every parent says they want their kid to have.
Here's why it works. Affluent families already surround their kids with networks of stable, accomplished adults through neighborhoods, schools, and parents' colleagues. Working and middle-class families usually don't. A congregation is often the last institution in American life that puts your kid in weekly contact with dozens of stable, employed, sober adults who know their name. It used to be called "a village." Now it barely exists outside of churches.
"But I don't believe." Your kid doesn't need your theology. They need you to show up.
"But church is boring." So is sitting through a kindergarten music recital. Parenting is the deliberate choice to be bored on purpose for someone you love.
There's a church within 15 minutes of nearly every American home. You don't need money, connections, or credentials to walk in. Nothing else in this country will surround your kid with engaged adults, teach them moral seriousness, and give them a stable weekly rhythm at zero cost.
You already drive them to practices that produce far less. The free thing on Sunday produces more, on more dimensions, than almost anything else you do as a parent.
You don't have to believe anything. You just have to take them.
When you can’t get to the bluewater, what do you do? Just sit on the bottom of the pool for a while
#relaxing
#lowertheheartrate
Who to follow
In the press gaggle following today's vote, I was asked to defend the Biblical case for border security and immigration enforcement. I did so, and then promised to post a longer explanation that I drafted during the Biden Administration. Here it is, and I hope it's helpful:
Despite the insistence of the progressive Left, people of all religious faiths should support a strong national border—and Christians CERTAINLY should. Critics are fond of citing particular Bible verses out of context to claim that Christians and Jews are being “unfaithful” if we oppose their radical open borders agenda. It has become increasingly important for us to set this record straight.
Perhaps the verse most often cited by the Left is Leviticus 19:34. Whether they know it or not, that passage happens to be from the instructions Moses delivered to the Israelites when they were on their journey through the wilderness in Sinai, before they reached their own Promised Land. The verse reads as follows: “But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (KJV)
CONTEXT IS CRITICAL
It is, of course, a central premise of Judeo-Christian teaching that strangers should be treated with kindness and hospitality. We are each called to love God first and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Deut. 6:5, Lev. 19:18, Matt. 22:36-40, KJV). However, that “Greatest Commandment” was never directed to the government, but to INDIVIDUAL believers.
The Bible teaches that God ordained and created four distinct spheres of authority— (1) the individual, (2) the family, (3) the church, and (4) civil government—and each of these spheres is given different responsibilities. For example, while each INDIVIDUAL is accountable for his or her own behavior (e.g., Exodus 20), the FAMILY is commanded to “bring up children in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4) and “provide for their relatives” (1 Tim. 5:8). The CHURCH is commanded to make disciples and equip people for the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:11-13), and the CIVIL GOVERNMENT is established to faithfully uphold and enforce the law so that order can be maintained in this fallen world, crime can be kept at bay, and people can live peacefully (Rom. 13, 1 Tim. 2:1-2).
To be properly understood, anytime a command is given in Scripture, one must first determine to WHOM that command is directed. For example, when Jesus taught us as His followers to practice mercy and forgiveness and to “turn the other cheek” (Matt. 5:38-40, KJV), He was not giving that command to the government. To the contrary, when government officials ignore crime, they are directly VIOLATING their responsibilities before God.
Indeed, the civil authorities are specifically charged to do justice, to ”bear the sword,” and to serve as “the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” (Rom. 13:1-4, KJV). As the Bible warns: “When a crime is not punished quickly, people feel it is safe to do wrong.” (Ecc. 8:11, TLB)
Read in its context, the passage in Leviticus 19 makes perfect sense. Showing love and kindness to a stranger was not a command given to civil government, but instead to individual believers. That same principle is emphasized in the New Testament. When Jesus spoke of embracing, caring, and providing for “the least of these” (E.g., Matt. 25:31-40), His instruction was given to His disciples, and not the local authorities.
The Bible is clear that Christians should practice personal charity—but also insist upon the enforcement of laws (like our federal immigration statutes) so that “every person is subject to the governing authorities” and “those who resist incur judgment” (Rom. 13:1-2).
BORDERS ARE BIBLICAL
Many on the Left today, and even some at the highest levels of our government, consider themselves “globalists” who envision a utopian world order where there are no borders between countries at all. Their fantasy will simply never be realized, and their basic premise (that man is inherently good and perfectible on his own) is the opposite of the Biblical truth that man is fallen and in need of redemption that is available only through salvation in Jesus Christ.
The Bible speaks favorably and consistently about distinct nations of people (see, e.g., Gen. 18:18, Num. 32:17, Psalm 67:2, Matt. 28:19, Rev. 5:9, 7:9, NIV), and about borders and walls that are built to guard and secure people, property, and jurisdictions (see, e.g., Deut. 19:14, 27:17, 32:8, Acts 17:26, NIV). When Nehemiah heroically led the Jewish remnant to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem after their enemies had destroyed those walls, he was doing the noble work of God (Neh. 1-6, NIV).
Maintaining a secure border is not an offensive measure, but a wise, defensive one to prevent chaos and safeguard innocent life. As Rev. Franklin Graham once summarized, “Why do you lock your doors at night? Not because you hate the people on the outside, but because you love the people on the inside so much.”
THE CURRENT CATASTROPHE
Right now, because of 64 deliberate policy choices and executive orders of the Biden Administration, America is facing an unprecedented humanitarian and national security catastrophe at our open southern border. More than 10 million illegal aliens from around the world have entered the U.S. since Joe Biden became President, the majority of whom are single, military-aged men. Among them are countless violent criminals and more than 300 suspects on the terrorist watchlist. Cartels are making billions trafficking young women and unaccompanied minors, and many are suffering unspeakable abuses along the way. The Fentanyl that China and the cartels have pushed into the U.S. has become the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18-45.
As the peril increases and communities across our country become more and more overwhelmed with the crushing financial burdens of managing the influx of illegals, American citizens (and even a few Democratic governors and mayors) are finally demanding a return to sanity. America has always been a haven for people legitimately seeking asylum from danger in their home country, but we must insist they pursue a course of legal immigration and not simply ignore our laws.
Of course, the President of the United States must be the first to uphold our laws. Every citizen should insist that President Biden immediately use the eight broad statutory authorities he has right now to secure our borders and stop incentivizing illegal immigration. Among his most important executive authorities is 8 U.S.C. 1182(f), which empowers a President to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate” if he “finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”
AN AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN RESPONSE
Due in large part to our Judeo-Christian foundations and the deep religious heritage we enjoy in this country, America is the most benevolent nation in the world—by far. However, we cannot maintain that strength and generosity if we surrender our own safety and sovereignty. Preserving law and order and securing our borders should not be partisan issues, but matters of common sense. These are certainly responsibilities fully authorized by the Bible—and expected of us by God.
Any time liberals attempt to bolster their “open borders” agenda by citing Scripture out of context, they should be kindly corrected with the facts (2 Tim. 2:24-25). Christians are called to love unconditionally, serve selflessly, and defend the defenseless. We are also called to stand for, and work to ensure, just government. Justice and mercy are not mutually exclusive pursuits. To the contrary, God specifically requires His people to practice both (Micah 6:8). Despite the unfounded claims of the Left, supporting a strong national border is a very Christian thing to do. The Bible tells us so.
If we actually taught raw, unfiltered history in schools...the blood-soaked, soul-crushing truth instead of this sanitized, revisionist horseshit...the Left would lose half its recruiting pool overnight.
Teach kids what the Bolsheviks actually did: a fanatical minority of intellectuals and agitators, drunk on Marxist poison, overthrew a crumbling regime in 1917 promising “peace, land, and bread.”
What they delivered was the Red Terror...Cheka death squads executing 100,000–250,000 without trial, shooting priests in the street, drowning officers tied to planks, starving entire villages into submission.
Teach the psychology: how Lenin’s “vanguard” justified any atrocity as “historically necessary,” how useful idiots in the West swooned over the “workers’ paradise” while millions were worked to death in the first Gulag camps.
Then show how that same Bolshevik machine birthed Stalin’s Holodomor...engineered famine in Ukraine that starved 4–6 million while grain was exported.
Mao’s Great Leap Forward that killed 30–45 million in the name of “equality.”
Pol Pot’s killing fields where wearing glasses got you executed.
Every single time.
Teach the visceral pattern: utopian promises always slide into mass graves because power concentrates, resentment is weaponized, and humanity breaks under ideology.
Teach that the road to hell is paved with moral grandstanding and envy dressed as justice.
But no.
Instead we get 1619 Project fanfiction, endless white guilt seminars, and lessons that paint America as uniquely evil while glossing over the fact that every civilization had slavery, conquest, and brutality...ours just happened to end it while others still practice it today.
We don’t teach the why of human nature: tribalism, the will to power, how demagogues exploit the eternal human weakness for free shit and revenge fantasies.
So when some blue-haired activist screams “eat the rich” or “defund the police” or “from the river to the sea,” millions of historically illiterate kids nod along because they’ve never seen what those slogans actually produce when tried in the real world.
They’ve never smelled the mass graves.
If we taught real history...ferocious, ugly, precise../they’d recognize the Bolshevik playbook being dusted off and run again right in front of them.
Instead, we raise generations of useful idiots who think they’re on the right side of history while marching straight into the same fucking slaughterhouse their grandparents escaped.
The Left needs historical amnesia to survive.
That’s why they fight so hard to control the curriculum.
Wake the fuck up.
Teach the truth, blood, horrors and all, or watch the cycle repeat with fresh corpses.
Fuck this revisionist, sanitized, soft bullshit. We are raising a nation of fucking pussies and useful idiots.
💀🔪
I pissed off a lot of people when I advocated that men in a congregation beat the living hell out of aggressive socialists who storm into their services and frightened women and children.
So I’ll say it again to piss off the rest of the holier than thou types who didn’t hear me the first time.
Always remember, the crowd chose Barabbas - not because they loved him but because they HATED the TRUTH.
Now, let that sink in.
Preach and Teach Coach Sampson. We are guardians of the game and we should fight for one time transfers and graduate transfers to be eligible otherwise, sit out a year. We teaching kids to flee not fight! @TNTSportsUS @CBSSportsCBB
Whatever you currently believe about Jesus of Nazareth, you owe it to yourself to investigate him thoroughly. It makes little sense to ignore the one solitary life that continues to impact you in eternity if His claims are true.
John Fetterman issues a defiant message to Democrats threatening to primary him:
“I’m not afraid of telling the truth. I’ll be the Democrat that refuses to lie to the base and pretend that this [shutting the government down] is right. I’m proud to stand with Israel. I’m proud to say that we need to secure our border. I think it’s entirely appropriate to bomb the Iranian nuclear facilities.
“And now I refuse to call on my fellow citizens as they’re fascists or Nazis or those things. And if somebody wants to primary me or the party wants to vote me out, it’s like I’m going to go down being honest and telling you that this is wrong to do these kinds of things. And I refuse to do that. I think we need to be a big, big tent party. That doesn’t sound like it.”
The biggest lesson from “No Kings” is to make sure you have kids because they’ll give you grandkids who have football and soccer games that will keep you from wasting your 70’s protesting a non-existent monarchy.
Cole Swindell on being inspired by Charlie Kirk:
"A man was assassinated for believing how I believe, except that he was a little more bold about it.
It made me look in the mirror: someone that's living like I should be living and spreading the Word as a Christian, what I should be doing with the platform that I have.
There's a whole lot of us that are just fed up with feeling like we can't say how we believe.
I'm a loving person, I'm not judgmental, I kinda say out of the way & do my own thing and try to be good to people.
That's just not good enough anymore."
@coleswindell
WOW: It’s official. It’s happening.
@TPUSA is launching the first-ever American Patriot Super Bowl Halftime Show
This is how we win
This is how we take our country back
It's not a question of IF a morality is going to be imposed, it's a question of WHICH morality is going to be imposed.
Reading a book about Revolutionary War Era on vacation.
Without exaggeration, *every* pastor in the colonies would've been removed from every 2025 evangelical conference for being "too political", "promoting Christian nationalism", and being a "culture warrior."
You wouldn't need to trade in your 'freedoms' either. That's a lie to make people cope with dangerous cities.
@BabaYag74946505 @BLACK_TVSK @kamikazevondoom @djtickle @rogue_gold @NothinButSkillz @Maverick__CW @TheDivisionGame @WhiteTusk01 Feel your pain - 15 heroic runs - still no luck
@djtickle All heroic! I have the curse!
@djtickle What is the going record for Summit runs with no Tempest drop? LOL - I am now 15 Heroic runs (1/2 group and 1/2 solo) with nadda!
Something went wrong.