Category Archives: Truth Bombs

Tony Funderburk Posted on by

A few years ago, Denzel Washington made a movie called The Equalizer. And then he made two more for the typical Hollywood trilogy. And apparently that was supposed to be it. But when movies make money, and the last installment in the series apparently made very good money, trilogy schmilogy. Number three won’t be the final equalizer.

And according to an article, I just read number four won’t be the final equalizer either.

Yeah, the article was written in an entertainment post, so it has to be absolutely true.

Anyway…

That article said that Denzel Washington confirmed there will be an Equalizer 4 and an Equalizer 5. I guess he already signed up for them or something. The main thing is, you get to see his character, Robert McCall, go get some justice for those who need justice and can’t get it for themselves.

I’ve seen the movies. And they do what they’re designed to do. Get you all worked up to support vigilante justice. Of course, that’s not endorsed by God. But why should anybody care about small details like that. Right?

We live in a country, and a world, where justice rarely gets served. Even when it’s crystal clear that justice is needed, and what that justice should be, it still doesn’t get served. So, it’s not surprising that movies where murderous criminals endure execution at the hands of the “good guy” are so popular. At least there you get to see justice carried out. It’s somewhat of a dopamine rush. And it’s no wonder audiences go back for more.

Because we no longer have a justice system in this country or pretty much anywhere. Now, it’s just a system.

But I’m here to encourage. Not discourage.

And that’s why I want to bring up the final equalizer. No, not the movie. The final equalizer in this life. Ironically, it’s death.

Yep, there’s a one-to-one ratio of living people to dead people. Everyone who is born ends up dead. No Hollywood stars, politicians, billionaires, or even social media influencers avoid death. But there are nuances to that. And that is where the encouragement comes in. You ain’t gotta stay dead.

Whoa! To quote my favorite Robert Duvall (who now knows even more about this than I do) line: “I call that pretty bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.” He said that to John Wayne’s character, Rooster Cogburn, in the movie, True Grit. But to get back to that point, you don’t have to stay dead. Oh sure, you can choose to do that if you want. But what a foolish mistake that would be.

Especially when eternal life in paradise has been made so easily available to you.

Of course, I’m speaking to anyone who’s never heard of me and doesn’t know who I am or what I stand for. If that’s you, you most likely would disagree with just about anything and everything I say when it comes to this subject. And that’s OK if you’re comfortable being wrong that often. I’m not comfortable being wrong that often.

So, that’s why I choose to repeat what God has said.

And God has said that He loved this world so much that He gave His only Son as a sacrifice for you and me. And anyone who believes in His Son as their savior can have that eternal life I mentioned earlier. In paradise. With your loving Creator.

If you’ve never read any account of how that sacrifice was made, I suggest you look into it. Because it is the supreme example of why I talk about the power of God’s love. What Jesus did took an unfathomable amount of power. And that’s why I wrote a song to tell him…

Your Love Restored My Soul

From my mother’s womb You have been my God…
Even if I didn’t always know it.
And I’ve loved You since my salvation day…
Even if…I didn’t always show it.

I believe Your Son is the only Way
To the life I know is never-ending…
So I cast my lot with the King of Kings
And His Truth I trust is never bending.

Jesus…Your love restored my soul.
You gave Your life to make me whole.
I’d be a lifeless lump of coal…oh
But Jesus…Your love restored my soul.

On my darkest days I am not alone.
You indwell me with Your Holy Spirit.
And Your still small voice is an open book
So, Your grace is there if I draw near it.

And in that open Book is the one True God.
All the words revolve around His story.
And the words are turned into flesh and bone,
And He shares, with each of us, His glory.

Chorus twice

Your love restored my soul. your love restored my soul
Your love restored…your love restored my soul.

© 2010

Do you like to journal?

If so, download this song and a bunch of others with a link you’ll find in the Raise The Praise songbook journal.
(https://www.amazon.com/Raise-Praise-Songbook-Journal-Funderburk/dp/B095WRJBF1) And if you search through The Rhyme And Reason Podcast episodes, you can hear this whole song.

And if you want a free way to connect, until you get to know me better, do this…

Get Tony’s Rhyme and Reason Daily Devotionaldelivered to your inbox for free.

I share it with believers who want to focus on the power of God’s love and rightly divide the word of truth. Spend your time reading, listening, and watching good stuff based on the power of God’s love instead of looking for it. And, to show my sincere appreciation for your time and attention, I’ll send you download links to music and The Very First 6 Days (a rhyming book for kids about the creation week) right away. Kids from 3 to 103 can enjoy these fun goodies. Just add your email to the form and let’s connect right away.

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Tony Funderburk Posted on by

People sure seem to get a big kick out of attacking Christians. From so-called “honest” atheists, to outright God haters, to muslims, and to everyday garden variety heathens. People consider us fair game and open targets. So I say power to the people under the steeple.

Yeah, power to the people who know THE Truth.

Because we are the salt and light of this world. And that Truth has set us free for all of eternity.

Those of us Christians, who share the grace message from God’s word, freely, are accused of thinking we’ve cornered the market on truth. And they don’t like us to speak in absolutes with total unblinking confidence. But that’s exactly what we can do. And should do. Because, if the Bible isn’t the word of God, and the message of Jesus isn’t true, then we are the biggest fools.

But since it is the word of God and the message is true, then we who believe in trust in it are the only ones who aren’t fools. And since we know, it’s true, and we know that God wants us to share the truth with anyone and everyone who will listen, we have an obligation to speak up. After all faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

And He gave power to the people who believe and trust in Him right there in his word. Wow, somebody should write a song about that. Oh wait. I did. Way back in the 90s. Here are the lyrics. And I’ll share the song in Rhyme and Reason Podcast:

The Power of the Word

So you’ve been thinking that you’ve got a whole lot to fear
And you keep asking, “What on earth am I doin’ here?”
Well I wouldn’t tell you it’s as gloomy as you’ve heard
You just need the power of the Word

I know you’ve heard that if at first you don’t succeed
Just keep on trying and you’re bound to fill the need
But you don’t believe all that stuff applies to you
And without the power what can you do

Well the power of the Word takes an ordinary bird
And it gives him songs to sing and wings to soar
With the power of the Word even when your vision’s blurred
All your dreams will be fulfilled forevermore

Numbers are crunching and seconds are ticking on
Your hopes are fading until you wonder where they’ve gone
But you wouldn’t worry that your life could be deterred
If you had the power of the Word

Chorus

And if you’re asking, “What’s in it for me?”
Well, give up your soul and I think you will see….
Eternity…eternity…eternity……….

instrumental…repeat chorus to end     © 1993-2011 TF

Get Tony’s Rhyme and Reason Daily Devotionaldelivered to your inbox for free.

I share it with believers who want to focus on the power of God’s love and rightly divide the word of truth. Spend your time reading, listening, and watching good stuff based on the power of God’s love instead of looking for it. And, to show my sincere appreciation for your time and attention, I’ll send you download links to music and The Very First 6 Days (a rhyming book for kids about the creation week) right away. Kids from 3 to 103 can enjoy these fun goodies. Just add your email to the form and let’s connect right away.

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Tony Funderburk Posted on by

Sunday. Monday. And just like that we go from “the biggest game of the year” or “the most spectacular sports event of the year” to ho-hum another blah blah first day of the week. Well, maybe that’s how you do it. But not me.

For me, it’s Sunday Monday and every day’s a fun day.

Or maybe I should say Funderday. Because it’s not like every day is all fun and games. But every day it IS fun to be alive. Maybe that’s why my last name starts with fun. Prolly not.

Anyway…

All the Super Bowl parties are over. I suppose if you’re a Seahawks fan, you’re happy how things went. And if you’re a patriots fan, you at least know that your hometown team has won more and been in more Super Bowls than anybody else. As for me, I truly couldn’t care less. Because I lost interest in the NFL a long time ago. Not the game of football. I still enjoy that. But the whole so-called “woke” lunacy of pro football and the individual organizations involved with it? Definitely not a fan to say the least. And I prefer to say the least I can about them.

So, what did I do with my time yesterday? I worked on publishing a couple of books. And I continued that endeavor again the first half of today so far. They’re not novels, or rhyming books for kids, or other types of books I’ve worked with before. They’re actually word search puzzle books based on books and sections of the Bible.

Remind me to tell you more about those sometime. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this Sunday Monday rhyme:

Sunday is a sunny day
Right from the very start…
As long as sunny sunshine shines
In every sunny heart.

And…

If you love this sunny day,
Then make the best of it.
The next day will be sunny too.
A sunny Monday hit.

Get Tony’s Rhyme and Reason Daily Devotionaldelivered to your inbox for free.

I share it with believers who want to focus on the power of God’s love and rightly divide the word of truth. Spend your time reading, listening, and watching good stuff based on the power of God’s love instead of looking for it. And, to show my sincere appreciation for your time and attention, I’ll send you download links to music and The Very First 6 Days (a rhyming book for kids about the creation week) right away. Kids from 3 to 103 can enjoy these fun goodies. Just add your email to the form and let’s connect right away.

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Tony Funderburk Posted on by

Here’s a misdemeanor definition from the dictionary on my computer: a nonindictable offense, regarded in the US (and formerly in the UK) as less serious than a felony. A nonindictable offense is one where lawyers and law-enforcement don’t “formally accuse of or charge with a serious crime.” And just to clarify a little bit more, here’s a definition of the word felony from that same dictionary: a crime, typically one involving violence, regarded as more serious than a misdemeanor, and usually punishable by imprisonment for more than one year or by death.

So, I hope that helps you understand the two main different levels of crime.

And that misdemeanor definition doesn’t say that it isn’t a crime.

OK, now that I’ve cleared that up, let’s all go enjoy our day. Shall we?

Hang on a sec…

I brought that up for a reason. Now, if I could just remember what it was.

Oh yeah, misdemeanor criminals don’t tend to think they’re criminals. And I could’ve ended that last sentence after the word think. Because they don’t tend to. Not with their actual brain anyway.

And that reminds me of why I brought this up. You might’ve seen or heard or read the news story about a group of criminals who interrupted a church service to protest the pastor. Yes? In case you aren’t familiar with that story, the group included former CNN personality (and homosexual), Don Lemon.

And there’s a video circulating that shows “Mr.” Lemon as a man on the street explaining to passers by how a misdemeanor is not a crime. In fact, he shared his misdemeanor definition with a couple of those people who actually, without really even trying, cornered him with the truth.

One guy, off camera, explained how there’s different levels of crime, and that a misdemeanor is still a crime. And Don show how incredibly stupid he is by continuing to say that people who come across the border illegally don’t commit a crime. They only commit a misdemeanor.

And I thought the lady, he spoke to on camera, made a great point when she asked, “Well if a misdemeanor isn’t a crime, then why charge anybody with a misdemeanor?”

You could see the truth churning in Don’s head by the goofy look on his face. But as all leftists do, he continued to attempt to defend his indefensible position. Because he is void of wisdom, and…

He’s just one example among millions of why wisdom is the principal thing.

So kids, if you’re gonna get sent to the principal’s office, make sure it’s the wisdom principal. OK, I realize there’s no such thing as a wisdom principal. But I realize that because I done went and got me some wisdom over the last few decades. Yeah, I’m one of those wackadoos who wasn’t born wise

Thank goodness, I haven’t had to rely only on the education (or should I say information) I received from those government indoctrination camps way back when. And thank goodness I’ve lived in a country with enough freedom to allow me to read God’s word without fear of execution by my government. Who knows how much longer Americans can say that? But I have had that advantage.

And even though my accumulated wisdom is still a drop in the bucket, several decades of living in America have provided me with experience and access to excellent Biblical teaching. Thankfully, that helped me discover and understand much more of what God has done for us all. His sacrificial love is unsurpassed.

And it always will be.

That’s why I say, as often as opportunity permits, that the whole universe runs on the power of God’s love. And knowing that helps me have the wisdom to know the correct misdemeanor definition. It would be a crime of stupidity and willful ignorance to not be able to know. Here’s the little rhyme I share to help remember:

Would you like to live forever
Under bright and blue skies?
Then go get some understanding
In God’s word and be wise.

Now that you know the correct misdemeanor definition, go share the power of God’s love wherever you can today, while it’s still not a felony in America. And before you go…

Get Tony’s Rhyme and Reason Daily Devotionaldelivered to your inbox for free.

I share it with believers who want to focus on the power of God’s love and rightly divide the word of truth. Spend your time reading, listening, and watching good stuff based on the power of God’s love instead of looking for it. And, to show my sincere appreciation for your time and attention, I’ll send you download links to music and The Very First 6 Days (a rhyming book for kids about the creation week) right away. Kids from 3 to 103 can enjoy these fun goodies. Just add your email to the form and let’s connect right away.

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Tony Funderburk Posted on by

You might not believe it. But America was actually debt free one time. It was way back in 1835. And it happened thanks to President Andrew Jackson. He was the first and only president to pay off the national debt completely. One biographer wrote that the former president “viewed debt as a ‘moral failing,’ a sort of black magic.” Tragically, America is now trillions of dollars in debt and congress acts like it’s just the cost of doing business.

But trillions of dollars of debt is actually evil.

Because the root cause is the love of money. Not money. The love of it. So when a government collects trillions of dollars from its citizens, and still manages to run up trillions of dollars of debt, something ain’t right. To say the least.

President Jackson understood how debt enslaves you to your creditors. And he knew that being debt-free helps assure American independence. Thankfully most Americans agreed with him at that time.

There were some who did not agree. And President Jackson had to endure an assassination attempt. I read this account about how that went:

While campaigning against the evils of national debt and central banking, Jackson miraculously survived an assassination attempt when an assassin’s two pistols both misfired. Shadowy interests tied to the central bank were almost certainly behind the effort.

However, Jackson survived and went on to “End the Fed” of his days. He successfully bested the central bank. And the powerful interests behind it, and shut down the Second Bank of the United States.

After that, he also repaid the federal debt in full, which was no easy task.

But he couldn’t do it with an increase in federal income tax. Because it didn’t exist at the time. Matter of fact, it would have been unconstitutional.

These days, the Federal Reserve just prints more currency. But President Jackson couldn’t do that to pay off the debt. He got the money to pay off the debt mostly from. import tariffs and excise taxes. And he did something outlandish. Would you believe he cut federal spending? Yeah, by a lot. And he even vetoed spending bills. Now that’s crazy talk.

Crazy like a fox.

Because it worked. In January 1835, America was debt-free for the first time. And only time. But since too many people have an unquenchable love for money, America was in debt again and only about a year. And it has never been debt-free since then. I bet President Jackson would be appalled at our debt load now. But not surprised.

Because I also bet he understood the Biblical teaching on the love of money.

Most people, today, hear the phrase, trillions of dollars, And don’t really have a clear idea of how much that is. I saw this interesting breakdown:

Suppose you had a job that paid you $1 per second, or $3,600 per hour.

That amounts to $86,400 per day and about $32 million per year.

With that job, it would take you 31.5 years to earn a billion dollars.

With that job, it would take you over 31,688 YEARS to earn a trillion dollars.

Now, multiply that by however many trillions our national debt adds up to, some say up to 30 trillion, and you can see what an evil thing it is. Because it enslaves every man woman and child in America for who knows how long. There are only a couple of ways out of it. But I don’t see politicians willing to go in those directions at all.

Even if you earned one dollar every second, it would take you over 1 million years to pay off America’s debt. And that’s if it never got any bigger. And hopefully you can see that wouldn’t be very likely.

Yeah, I read this little factoid that backs that up:

The US federal government has the largest debt in the history of the world. And it’s continuing to grow at a rapid, unstoppable pace.

There is a such thing as debt forgiveness. But that’s almost definitely never gonna happen in this evil world. And we probably can’t count on Congress or the president to do the right thing. So I sure hope there’s another solution somewhere. Don’t you?

Oh wait. I just remembered….

Our God Is LPRGL

The world is…obsessed with death and dying.
They’re drowning…in bitterness and crying.
It’s such an awful shame.
They could call upon the name of Jesus.
As followers we say
We know He’s the only Way that frees us
From the sins we hide deep inside. They… can’t please us.

Our bodies…become the dust that scatters.
If that’s it…then nothing really matters.
We may as well give in
When we feel the world begin to seize us.
Who needs all that guilt and blame
You get calling on the name of Jesus?
But it’s not like that. It’s a fact…Jesus sees us.

He’s living and He’s life…He’s personal to talk to…
Relational with every son and daughter.
He’s good and so much more…. He’s loving to the core…
Jesus is the Living Water.
And each time a soul is saved all the angels above sing….
Our God is living, personal, relational, good… and loving.

Our souls know. infinity is calling.
But temptation…can keep our spirits falling.
So we need to fix our eyes
On the true eternal prize of Jesus.
When we stand before the throne,
He knows our lives, alone, won’t appease us.
No, we need the blood of the lamb…we need Jesus.    © 2008 TF

Get Tony’s Rhyme and Reason Daily Devotional delivered to your inbox for free. I share it with believers who want to focus on the power of God’s love and rightly divide the word of truth. Spend your time reading, listening, and watching good stuff based on the power of God’s love instead of looking for it. And, to show my sincere appreciation for your time and attention, I’ll send you download links to music and The Very First 6 Days (a rhyming book for kids about the creation week) right away. Kids from 3 to 103 can enjoy these fun goodies. Just add your email to the form and let’s connect right away.

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Tony Funderburk Posted on by

So, let’s talk about your vortex energy generator. Sounds fun, right? I recently discovered that a man named Rudolph Steiner said the heart is a seven-sided regular form that sits in an imaginary box in the chest. And in case you don’t know what a “seven-sided regular form” means, it’s a three-dimensional form, and the “regular” part means the surface areas are all identical.

That means your vortex energy generator is your heart.

Who knew? Well, apparently that guy named Rudolph Steiner knew.

And another guy named Tom Cowan, who’s a doctor with some very different ideas, mentions Rudolph Steiner in an article about how your heart is a vortex energy generator. The article talks about a lot more than just that. And I found it extremely interesting. But I’m kinda nerdy that way. You might find it extremely boring.

Anyway…

Yet another guy named Frank Chester spent fifteen years trying to figure how to sculpt a seven-sided regular form. And he eventually did it and called it a chestahedron. Catchy.

Then, Chester made a cast of the heart. And he “put it into a vat of water and spun it to see what would happen. What happens first is that it creates a vortex, a spiral within the chestahedron itself, like the Milky Way. If you do it long enough, you’ll see an appendix form that creates its own horizontally shaped vortex off the edge of it. The horizontal vortex closely resembles the shape and attachment of the right ventricle to the left ventricle of a human heart.”

It also closely resembles a strand of DNA. Very cool.

Yeah, before I completely bore you into clicking away, I’ll tie this whole vortex energy generator stuff into something much more romantic. And I’ll do that by sharing a poem. I wrote to Elgielene when I was working on winning her heart. It goes a little something like this.

The Heart

They use the heart as a logo.
They use the heart as a prop.
And they show it all deflated.
They show it about to pop.
They have it wearing faces.
And they have it in the stars.
They draw it into corners
And even behind bars.
But a heart is still a heart
Feeling pleasure; feeling pain.
A heart is not an object
Of some far, unearthly plane.
It should never be taken lightly,
When, in faith, it’s passed along.
For this day I pass mine to you
Hoping you won’t think it’s wrong.
Let me also take this chance to say
I’ll be thinking of you on Valentine’s Day. © 1987 TF

Get Tony’s Rhyme and Reason Daily Devotional delivered to your inbox for free. I share it with believers who want to focus on the power of God’s love and rightly divide the word of truth. Spend your time enjoying the entertaining flashes of light instead of looking for them. And, to show my sincere appreciation for your time and attention, I’ll send you download links to books and music, right away. Kids from 3 to 103 can enjoy these fun goodies. Just add your email to the form and let’s connect right away.

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Tony Funderburk Posted on by

I’m just gonna share a few musical factoids with you today. So if you’re not in the mood for that sort of thing, it probably won’t interest you that Paul McCartney released an album on December 5, 1973.

Yeah, December 5, 1973, saw a release of “Band On The Run” in the United States.

One source I saw said that album was the “critical pinnacle of his post-Beatles work.” Because it topped the charts in 7 countries. When you consider how difficult it is to top the charts in just one country, that is pretty impressive.

I don’t think I actually bought a copy of that album. But I probably had a cassette version. And several of the songs were big hits for him. And I heard them on popular radio stations, back then, all the time. I eventually added the first and last songs, on the album, to my live music repertoire. The title song, Band On The Run, and Nineteen Hundred And Eighty-Five. I really like the musical change-ups in the first song and the way the last song rocked out and built up to a crescendo, complete with a minor key to major key resolution chord, at the end. Fun stuff.

Here’s an interesting sidenote I hadn’t heard before.

“According to the 2015 book Conversations With McCartney, Paul said that when recording this album, the band went to Africa, they were told not to walk around the country; Linda and Paul did anyway. Paul said they were robbed at knife point. The original recordings of a few of the songs on the album were stolen, but they escaped with their lives and that’s all that really matters.”

They recorded it in Nigeria.

Remind me (yeah, right) to never go there. As if I needed any other reasons to avoid that place like the plague.

Anyway…

Paul enjoyed, and still enjoys I suppose, a lot of musical successes. Like

  • five consecutive number one albums
  • 27 U.S. Top 40 hits
  • best-selling pop act of the 1970s (with his band, Wings)
  • 60 gold records
  • composed the most-recorded song ever (Yesterday)
  • and many more

By many accounts, Mr. McCartney is the wealthiest musician in the world who is the net worth of $1.2 billion. He also continues to earn “tens of millions per year in royalties and licensing fees earned from both his own music and an incredibly valuable portfolio of publishing copyrights from other artists.”

But he’s still drastically poor compared to me.

And certainly not because of my musical successes. They’re not even a fraction of a fraction of his. But I invested, wisely, somewhere Paul has passed over. At least so far. And my investment will still be paying dividends long, long, LONG after either his money or his time has run out.

No, I’m not a shrewd investor or marketing, genius or even a lucky guy who started out with a multimillion dollar inheritance. I’m just a regular guy who’s humble enough to learn where the real gold is and then place my faith where it can produce a heavenly return based on perfection instead of my broken brain.

So here’s the thing. If you prefer to listen to peacenick talk in top 40 hits, then Paul McCartney might fit the bill. But if you’re looking for truth, real love, and everlasting life, you should maybe consider my recommendations.

And there are just two main ones I always share. Email me anytime and ask. Or, on this delightful December 5….

Get Tony’s Rhyme and Reason Daily Devotional, my ongoing Devotional for believers who want to focus on the power of God’s love and rightly divide the word of truth. Enjoy the convenience of having these flashes of light delivered, for free, right to your inbox. Then, you can spend your valuable time reading and listening instead of searching. And, to show my sincere appreciation for your time and attention, I’ll send you download links to books and music, right away. Kids from 3 to 103 can enjoy these fun goodies. Just add your email to the form and let’s connect right away.

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