My biopic

I wanted to let people know , in case they haven't gone broke over Christmas spending, my next birthday is Feb. 10, 2007 and I will be 68 years old. Any cards, presents, trips to Maui will be appreciated. LOL

As usual , I goofed with new blog. Please read below.

Well, the new blog I crowed about is not where I wrote it would be. It will be under http://glennkoons@blogspot.com/. And be called , Philly's Blog. Take a look if you will. Keep clicking into both blogs. I think you will be able to comment on many issues and at least vent your frustration of how our world is going nowadays. I do.

AbundantHope to Philly's blog

Any reader of this blog, you may know that for almost 20 years, I have been a pastor at Abundant Hope (Living Hope) Church. At the end of 2007, I may retire as the Lord directs (and my wife too!), so I wanted to keep posting here with religious, spiritual notes as well as posting at my new blog, Philly's blog@blogspot.com/ I hope you who read this will click in and make comments. The church is in Downey, Ca. It is a very nice city though we do not live there. Still, I have been faithfully coming up there for these 20 years at least 4 times a week. It is a small church and we have a younger pastor , who I thought would take over for me so that a younger , faithful, loving, gracious pastor would be the face of our newly merged church. His name is Don as many of you know. We are hoping and praying for good things for this church as it reaches out to the community to display the Gospel of Jesus, the good news as well as the bad news that humanity falls short of the glory of God through its spiritual nature of sin, rebellion, and mistrust and lack of faith in an Almighty. The outreach is always to show the love, salvation, grace of the Crucifixion , death, life and then glorious Resurrection of Jesus. That Act alone in all of history assures any person, if they trust that Act for personal salvation here and now, and eternal life plus the added benefit of a changed character through God's own Spirit. Can you imagine having God's own Spirit within you if you connect, obey, cooperate with the King of the Universe? What a change it could mean to your family, friends, enemies , local , state and national events! Dec. 10, tomorrow, Sun. I am preaching on Christmas Peace. Come join us. Dec. 17, Pastor Don, Georgia and the choir plus our Downey Christian Kids will bring us A Christmas Cantata. Join us in Downey for the Advent Season.

Ephesians and Peace via Advent

A good sermon this Sun., the 3rd. It dealt with Peace, Ephesians 2. Pastor Don connected it with Lk. 2 and Advent. Next Sun., the 10th, I am preaching on Christmas Peace. We need it! The Middle East is once again exploding as cars explode, Hezbollah explodes with blackmail in Lebanon and Iran tries to sucker the USA and others in believing it can solve all the problems in Iraq. This Christmas season sees our own church, Abundant Hope Christian Center planning already for the new year. We have a new website: abundanthope.org and though our TV presentations will end at the end of this Dec., we hope to have more outreaches to the local community. Still, while we await this celebration of the First Advent, we also await the Second Advent. Jesus said to occupy the time with good works before He would come and end all history . That is a good plan for any New Year. One thing I might add to this coverage of Advent by the Church World, is peace in our own families. If anything, peace in our families should be a No. 1 priority for Believer and Non-Believer alike. No one likes strife in one's family. God provides instructions, advice, and help through His Spirit to heal and bring communication, love, forgiveness and peace to all families who want to cooperate with Him. And that is the key! Obedience, love, cooperation with God will bring restoration in many ways during this Advent Season.

Advent is here.

I think that many Americans know that this is Christmas and not just Happy Holidays! However, Christianity and Christ and Christmas is under more attacks than ever before in our nation. And frankly, I am sick to my heart and getting angrier over our political correctness which denigrates God, the Bible and our traditions of some 200 years. And frankly, I say to those who are offended by Merry Christmas, I say,' Get over it!' We are not celebrating Kwanza, Ramadan, any Hindu or Budhist holiday or birthday. It is Christ's nativity and even if the silly Chicago City Council bans the new movie, The Nativity or tries to close down its annual Christmas festivities because some Muslims may be offended, I still say, 'Get over it!' When the Methodist Church and other mainline leftist churches take Onward Christian Soldiers out of their hymnals, we know we are revising Christian history and liturgy. Enough is enough. The Prince of Peace does not advocate terror bombings. He does not ask kids to tie dynamite packs to them to blow up other kids. He doesn't ask people to shack up and have illigitimate children. He loves all humanity, forgives them of their sins if they want them forgiven and offers grace, help, salvation, friendship. He does not blow up airplanes or start wars. No other religion today can say that since they usually don't have any eternal answers for life's trials. We celebrate Advent because historically God came down in human form to live a human life so as to understand human tears, fears, sins, and acts of goodness. He needed too. Humanity is frankly still a mess and needs Him more than ever. He came once 2000 years ago. He will come again The Bible says and seeing the world and its bias, hatred, and savagery weighted against the good deeds of many people, He needs to come again. That will be the Second and Final Advent. So, while we have the time, let us accept the love, grace, salvation offered to all of us freely. This is as good a time to do business with this Christ as any. Merry Christmas.

After vacation, Thanksgiving, the world is stil the same.

The fact is, we had a pretty good vacation but both of us had some sickness, pain and annoyances. Then we came home for Thanksgiving and though ill, had a good dinner, praised God for all our blessings and then just yesterday, Sunday, heard a very encouraging sermon; 'But God...Ephesians 2.' Then we watched TV, read the papers and guess what? We found that the world was as evil , sick and in chaos as usual. Sure, people were featured with some very good agendas, issues and even statements. But, the defeatism of even Christians over the war against Islamofascism got thicker and sicker. No calls for victory and the Turkish Islamofascists are calling for the Pope's death!! Muslim birth rate soars as Western European birth rates go under 2 kids per couple. In a few decades, Europe will be Muslim! The Baker Commission asks for Syria and Iran to take over the Iraq situation. Yeah, that will work: putting the wolf in charge of the hens. Commons sense, spiritual sense and just common morality goes to the Devil, literally! If it were not for the blessings of God on this nation and some people around the world actually starting to follow the Biblical God, all would be lost. To be frank, the fact is Europe is entering a long dark night of the soul. And I fear it will not recover. Russia is aiding Iran. The Middle East is as usual a mess with Palestine and the rest of the Islamic areas filled with their own chaos of their own making because they hate Israel and America. We need more , 'But God...' moments my friends. We need more believers joining together to pray for strength and victory over evil not compromise. People can cry peace all they want, but the Bible rightfully states, there is no peace without God-Jesus. In fact, that is the fact of the Advent Season, the coming of the Babe who will bring His Peace. Chaos is rife but we believers in the Judeo-Christian Western Civ. worldview must cooperate and unify to spread the Gospel of Salvation as well as stopping evil. Be Thankful and welcome Advent friends but keep your powder dry to be aware of the Evil-doers who threaten to overwhelm even our blessed nation!

After vacation, Thanksgiving, the world is stil the same.

The fact is, we had a pretty good vacation but both of us had some sickness, pain and annoyances. Then we came home for Thanksgiving and though ill, had a good dinner, praised God for all our blessings and then just yesterday, Sunday, heard a very encouraging sermon; 'But God...Epesians 2.' Then we watched TV, read the papers and guess what? We found that the world was as evil , sick and in chaos as usual. Sure, people were featured with some very good agendas, issues and even statements. But, the defeatism of even Christians over the war against Islamofascism got thicker and sicker. No calls for victory and the Turkish Islamofascists are calling for the Pope's death!! Muslim birth rate soars as Western European birth rates go under 2 kids per couple. In a few decades, Europe will be Muslim! The Baker Commission asks for Syria and Iran to take over the Iraq situation. Yeah, that will work: putting the wolf in charge of the hens. Commons sense, spiritual sense and just common morality goes to the Devil, literally! If it were not for the blessings of God on this nation and some people around the world actually starting to follow the Biblical God, all would be lost. To be frank, the fact is Europe is entering a long dark night of the soul. And I fear it will not recover. Russia is aiding Iran. The Middle East is as usual a mess with Palestine and the rest of the Islamic areas filled with their own chaos of their own making because they hate Israel and America. We need more , 'But God...' moments my friends. We need more believers joining together to pray for strength and victory over evil not compromise. People can cry peace all they want, but the Bible rightfully states, there is no peace without God-Jesus. In fact, that is the fact of the Advent Season, the coming of the Babe who will bring His Peace. Chaos is rife but we believers in the Judeo-Christian Western Civ. worldview must cooperate and unify to spread the Gospel of Salvation as well as stopping evil. Be Thankful and welcome Advent friends but keep your powder dry to be aware of the Evil-doers who threaten to overwhelm even our blessed nation!

On vacation but thinking about politics and God

As my wife and I go on vacation, I pray for a boy who is undergoing a heart procedure. I also pray for the Republicans to reorganize their party with good, new , honest leadership in both Houses of Congress. After all, they claim they are the party of values. The Democrats are already feuding over Jack Murtha and Reid's integrity. One wonders if God is happy with any of these politicians? How these pols deal with the war against Islamofascism, God's and our enemies will be one way to see if courage, bravery and integrity has been lost or recaptured by Congress and the President. How to deal with taxes, poverty, the environment will also see if stewardship over our nation is taken seriously. We need a vacation but I will be praying and thinking about these serious questions. I will also be asking God to bring back our nation into a serious debate over and love for the Judeo-Christian Western worldview. Will our nation give up its historical foundations just to get along with our enemies? We shall see. But, prophetical utterances over the Second Coming do not seem so weird after all, do they??

On vacation but thinking about politics and God

As my wife and I go on vacation, I pray for a boy who is undergoing a heart procedure. I also pray for the Republicans to reorganize their party with good, new , honest leadership in both Houses of Congress. After all, they claim they are the party of values. The Democrats are already feuding over Jack Murtha and Reid's integrity. One wonders if God is happy with any of these politicians. How these pols deal with the war against Islamofascism, God's and our enemies will be one way to see if courage, bravery and integrity has been lost or recaptured by Congress and the President. How to deal with taxes, poverty, the environment will also see if stewardship over our nation is taken seriously. We need a vacation but I will be praying and thinking about these serious questions. I will also be asking God to bring back our nation into a serious debate over and love for the Judeo-Christian Western worldview. Will our nation give us its historical foundations just to get along with our enemies? We shall see. But, prophetical utterances over the Second Coming do not seem so weird after all, do they??

Thankfulness for a vacation and this nation

I did have a chance to preach on Thankfulness yesterday, Sunday, the 12th. This whole month, believers should be thankful for just breathing air in this great nation. All the other 11 months, we all should be thankful. That we get caught up in the mundane affairs of everyday living is natural but if one is a believer in the Biblical God and Savior Jesus Christ, thankfulness for just being able to live in the USA is a must. Sure, the election for me and for many Christians was a huge disappointment. And if the Party that won is truly the liberal socialist pacifist Party as I know them to be, our whole nation is facing many problems via the ongoing war against Islamofascism. Still, 300,000,000 Americans live in a free land and many of these value freedom and our democratic capitalisistic system.Yet, we all know that our Judeo-Christian foundations are slowly being reduced here in America. How then shall we live? How will Americans recapture their faith, their liberties, their courage in this time of appeasement, socialization, and fun, fads, and fundamental changes toward a more humanist secular society? Frankly, I can only fall back to the answer of sharing the Gospel with our fellow citizens. Sure it is tougher nowadays since so many either compromise the Call of Jesus on one's life, or our citizens simply resist and reject any call for throwing off our narcissism and selfishness and loner mentality. And nowadays, sin is not to be uttered. But, if Christians do not spell out the Bad News as well as the Good News, how can one be saved? With God, even in 2006, all things are possible. Will the Christian Church , will Abundant Hope really accept that and go to work? I pray so or our future will really be dark and lonely. Even in this blessed nation .

Questions, Preaching, Questions

I have no idea whether anyone actually reads this blog but readers might like to know that the name is actually the name of the church I attend. For nearly 20 years, I have been pastor here when it was Living Hope Church. Now we have for a few years been merged with Abundant Life under Don Waggoner's leadership. Hence the name, AHCC. Don is much younger and is now in charge but I do get to preach a few times a year. I stay to help him put in his vision of how Jesus wants us to share the Gospel with our community. Today, is Veterans' Day and Don is one. This Sunday, I preach on Thankfulness for our Thanksgiving time. And yet, I look back to Tuesday's election and wonder how 33% of Evangelicals could vote for a Party which does not have its cultural, spritual, and social concerns at heart. Don likes politics but is not a junkie like I am. He doesn't even know about the election and its aftermath because he is with his Dad for his 80th nativity and his mother , who has cancer. Our prayers go out for not only them but for our Vets, our military fighting Islamofascism, and our nation since the election results. Could it be that when a party forgets its ethical, social, cultural, and economic agendas anyone would throw up their hands and punish them for their ethical problems as well as their arrogance in not pushing through the issues that its BASE,mostly filled with Evangelical Christians wanted?? I think so. So while I am very thankful for our Vets, our military, our struggle to win against our enemies, politically, I pray our politicians learn their lessons and be the ethical, positive, and politically honest people we elected them to be!