Obama needs to pay attention to the ‘stuff of governance’

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This letter was published in The News-Sentinel on Dec. 20, 2013.

As usual, columnist Charles Krauthammer is correct in his understanding of political situations. His Dec. 16 column in the Forum section was precise in his description of Barack Obama, titled in The Washington Post as "Obama the Oblivious."

However, his closing lines were unfortunately omitted. After aptly pointing out that Obama "has shown little aptitude and even less interest" in the "stuff of governance," Krauthammer added these sentences:

"'I don't write code,'" said Obama in reaction to the Web site crash. Nor is he expected to. He is, however, expected to run an administration that can."

Exactly.

The greatest love of all is God’s love for us

By Donna Volmerding

“Learning to love oneself is the greatest love of all.” That’s what the song tells us, that self-love is the ultimate goal. How often are we told that we can’t learn to love others until we learn to love ourselves? Our society is saturated with this kind of specious reasoning, even in the church body itself. However, this kind of thinking is diametrically opposed to the teachings of Christ and everything that the Bible tells us.

The First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” is paramount above all the others. God is telling us that we can only learn to love others by learning to love Him first. Never did He command us to love ourselves above all else; in fact, He never even commanded us to love ourselves. He commanded us to love our God, and He commanded us to love others as we love ourselves, understanding better than we do how much we already do love ourselves.

As a chosen people, bought for a very high price by a great and loving God, we have good reason to esteem ourselves, however. We are special; we are children of the King. But this esteem must come because of what God has done for us, never because of who we are in this world and what we have accomplished. So, what is the greatest love of all? The greatest love of all is God’s love for us. That we could never duplicate.