John Stone

Conservative. Patriot. Christian. USAF Veteran. Pilot. Fisherman. Artist. Realist. Free thinker. Ayn Rand and Orwell fan. Opinions are mine. Abide. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[Mrs. Dr. Publius @MrsDrPublius]

Good Morning,

Please join me for a daily scripture break.  This week I'd like to share some of my favorite passages from the Gospels. Please share yours.

Matthew 8:5-13:

“5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6“Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
7Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
8The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.11I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.12But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.”And his servant was healed at that moment.

The Centurion recognized authority and leadership in Jesus. He was articulate, professional and pragmatic. There was no doubt at all that Jesus had the power to honor his request.

I would like to focus on verse 10. “When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following Him, “ Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”

I want to examine what “amazed” Jesus.

1. The Centurion asked for help with respect towards Jesus. (Verses 5-6)

2. The Centurion explained the problem. (Verse 6)

3. The Centurion recognized how holy Jesus was and approached Jesus with humility and gratitude for listening to his problem.  The Centurion had unwavering belief Jesus could honor his request. (Verse 8)

4.  The Centurion used his reasoning abilities and personal experience as a leader and applied those lessons to this situation. (Verse 9) (Recalling past experiences of God answering our prayers, intervening in difficult situations on our behalf in our favor, blessing us for our obedience to His Word, etc. - strengthens our faith.  In tough times, remember what  God has already done for us. This process strangles the fear and anxiety in our lives.)

I’ve listened to sermons about the Centurion over the years - most sermons recount how Centurion displayed his great faith in Jesus in general terms because the Centurion recognized the authority of Jesus.

Here are a few more reasonable assertions in my view.

5. The Centurion didn’t care what the prevailing culture thought about his request (neither the Roman government nor the Jewish populace he had governmental authority over).

6. The Centurion recognized the limits of his own power/ability and appealed to a greater power (the ultimate power); he addressed Jesus as “Lord”.  He evidently heard about the healing powers Jesus displayed amongst the Jewish people and the Centurion believed what he’d heard.

7.  The Centurion truly cared what happened to his servant. (If he didn’t, he could have just gotten another servant). This care and concern motivated the centurion to act on someone else’s behalf.

8. What is not mentioned here but I believe happened; the Centurion thanked the Lord for answering his request. Some may ask, how do you know the Centurion thanked Jesus?  Simple, he humbled himself, there was no deception, he was motivated out of concern for another, he was respectful in his manner towards Jesus. With humility and reverence comes thanksgiving.  The Centurion did what one of his soldiers would have done to him - they would have thanked him. The Centurion understood authority.

9. The Centurion was not Jewish; he was a Gentile. Jesus answered his prayer. It was not his religious affiliation that motivated Jesus to act; it was all of these working parts mentioned above that moved our Lord to be amazed. Jesus called all of these working parts - “great faith.” (Verse 10)

At the end of this encounter, Jesus told the Centurion to “…go…” The Centurion's request was granted.

It is my hope to consistently “amaze” the Lord with “great faith”. What a wonderful God we serve. Have a blessed day.

Peace and be prepared.

[@amuse @amuse]

DEI: Only black contractors were allowed to work on Obama’s billion dollar boondoggle in the name of equity, Obama is stiffing them in the name of reality.

[C3 @C_3C_3]

Age verification is a Trojan Horse for censorship.

This is what Starmer’s social media restriction is really about.

Adults can still access social media through age checks like facial recognition, digital IDs, passports and credit cards.

It’s not kid’s safety.

It’s control.

[AwakenedOutlaw⚒️ @AwakenedOutlaw]

The Briden Admin “lost” over 350k illegal alien kids, many ending up in the child sex trafficking industry.

Some report bring raped 600-700 times. And we know that b/c Trump’s DHS has found/saved almost half of them.

So, sit TF down and shut TF up.

[MOMof DataRepublican @data_republican]

This is what the Bible says about calling out evil: "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." Ephesians 5:11

Thank you to everyone on this platform who works hard to do this, and thank you to @elonmusk for making it possible.

Blessings to all! Have a great week!

[DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican]

One thing I learned while researching this report is that proponents of regime change over negotiation need an honest reckoning with the fact that the MEK has spent years cultivating support in Congress.

If a regime-change scenario were to unfold, it would be difficult to prevent the MEK from positioning itself as the interim government.

[DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican]

@ItsYourGov Will the Iranian deal work? I don't know yet if it will, and nobody does. I pray it will.

But when Pompeo, Pence, and other Never-Trumpers start prematurely poo-poohing the deal - now you know to check and see if money is involved here.

THREAD END.

[Department of War CTO @DoWCTO]

We’d like to take this chance to apologize… to absolutely NOBODY.

AMERICA FIRST 🇺🇸

[C3 @C_3C_3]

You can tell just how awful the global Legacy Media is by seeing the shock of visiting World Cup fans when they discover how awesome America actually is in real life.

Lying to the World.

The Legacy Media is the enemy of the People.

[Brian Cates - Political Columnist & Pundit @drawandstrike]

You're watching Trump and his team artfully taking several decades worth of our sold out elite classes'

DEmoralization
DEculturalization

and replacing it with MAGA AMERICA FIRST

REmoralization
REculturalization.

And it's working.

[Department of State @StateDept]

Happy birthday, President Trump 🇺🇸

[U.S. Air Force @usairforce]

A rare Super Delta formation featuring the Thunderbirds and the @USNavy Blue Angels soared above @UFC fans to kick off #UFCWhiteHouse. #Freedom250

🎥 by @whitehouse

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

@brutal_regime I greatly enjoy when literal fascists accuse freedom and liberty of being "fascist."

It's hilarious.

Beat it Adolf. Scram.

[DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican]

How the denial works: a three-entity structure.

NCRI-US (the DC office Jafarzadeh runs) -- FARA registered. The filing reports $0 in speaker fees and $0 in payments to individuals.

NCRI Paris/Albania (the foreign principal) -- this is what's listed on Pence's financial disclosure as the source of the $190,000. This entity pays the speakers directly.

OIAC (domestic 501(c)(4)) -- organizes U.S. events. No FARA registration was identified for OIAC in the DOJ FARA database. As a 501(c)(4), OIAC is not required to publicly disclose donors. Paid Pence separately.

Each entity can deny what the others do. That's how "absolutely not" works.

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

A few months ago in DC I was asked by a liberal why I hate Democrats.

My answer?

I only truly hate one: Mayor Pete.

Unfortunately, I now hate two. Mayors Peter B and Zohran pinKo Mamdani. Both red diaper babies.

Communism is antithetical to liberty.

[DataRepublican (small r) @DataRepublican]

🚨 THREAD: What do Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Elaine Chao have in common? They were all paid by a Marxist-Islamist Iran group that was designated as terrorist until 2012.

No, this is not a joke.

Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) was founded by leftist Islamists to oppose the western-backed Pahlavi, and participated in his 1979 overthrow. Khomeini barred MEK afterwards. MEK was implicated in multiple bombings, including that of Americans, and remained an openly armed group until 2003.

Since they got de-listed as a terrorist organization in 2012 on procedural grounds, MEK and their fronts have been actively recruiting US politicians selling themselves as a moderate alternative to Khomeini. But RAND Corporation says MEK meets the qualifications for a cult, citing criteria such as forcing their members to work 16+ hour days and forced divorces.

Polls of the Iranian-American community shows that they do NOT accept Rajavi, MeK's leader, as legitimate, with a 46-point net disapproval - numbers nearly as bad as the existing regime.

As Pence's former Chief of Staff, Marc Short, has already weighed against Trump deal, it's helpful to recall this.

Receipts below. As always, patience as I pull the thread together.👇

[InfantryDort @infantrydort]

I’ve been looking into Teddy Roosevelt lately. He loses his wife and mother on the same day. That’s a trauma that could cause a man to end it all.

What does he do?

He leaves NYC and heads to the Badlands.

THE BADLANDS.

Reinvents himself. Finds his soul.

An absolute heroes journey if ever there was one.

Went from having nothing to live for to having everything to live for.

There is something nourishing about these uniquely American lands that cannot be put into words.

I remember feeling quite despondent myself once upon a time. Then I moved to the Mojave desert and it changed everything.

I found there’s nothing deserted about the desert at all. What it lacks in physical life, it makes up for in the spiritual. The esoteric.

I cannot explain what I’m trying to say about America. Don’t have the right words today. But I know this place can remake a man like no other on planet earth.

[Billboard Chris 🌎 @BillboardChris]

Blurring the police faces is proving to be very difficult.

Can anyone recommend a good editing app that tracks them as they move and blurs their faces?

[Jay Town @JayTownAlabama]

@amandacarpenter Dumbest take on the internet about the fights tonight.

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

The plan of Marxist leaders:

1. Ensure that schools do not properly teach economics.

2. Create envy in the minds of economically illiterate citizens by asserting that there is a limited pie of national wealth and some people have too much of that pie.

3. Appoint themselves as the arbiters of wealth distribution and rely on the envy of the economically illiterate masses to achieve power.

4. Use that power to ensure that everyone is equally poor, except them of course because they deserve disproportionate wealth because of all the "responsibility" they shoulder.

5. Build that party dacha on the Volga River and eat caviar.

6. Profit.

_________________________

With respect to @elonmusk they are somewhere between steps #2 and #3.