Censored

 I believe this Blogspot site has been censored since May of 2020. I posted posts on both sites for a few days and I get more readers on WordPress. I believe Google does this because of my conservative and Christian outlook. I have no other explanation for the difference. It is a small example of how our free speech is being taken from us. I believe it will only get worse with those on the far left in power.  It used to be the difference between Democrats and Republicans was in larger or smaller governments and things like that. What we are seeing is if you don't think like the left, they go after you. They believe in free speech only if it agrees with them.  President Trump may be the last true President voted into office by the people. This current President was put in office through fraud.  I expect it will get worse in the future. If a president is put in office by any other means than an honest and true vote, it is no longer we the people that put him in office. It is powerful people in Washington that control the strings. This is a pessimistic view of what is happening in our country and I am sure the left rejoices at their victory but the little people on the left are not in control. They will soon find out if I am right and regret what has happened. I saw it several elections past when I heard a leftist say to me that it was OK that they used forged National Guard papers to try and defeat George W. Bush. When honesty and integrity are lost we have lost the greatness of this country. This government will only work for good and moral people. I plan on just moving to WordPress for my future posts. Look for me at lvzpage.wordpress.com. God bless, LVZ. 

22

 Genesis 47.  Joseph settles his father and his brothers and their families in the land of Goshen in Egypt. I read in an earlier chapter that there are still five years of famine left. Joseph continues to sell grain until no one in Egypt has any money left. Joseph then takes livestock to trade for food. After the livestock, the people of Egypt trade their lands and themselves into slavery to the Pharaoh of Egypt. All that Joseph collects is put into Pharaoh's treasury. Pharaoh owns the land, the cattle, and all the money in Egypt as Joseph administers over the grain collected during the years of plenty. The famine ends and Joseph gives grain to plant and the people now farm Pharaoh's land by giving 1/5 of their harvest to Pharoah and keep 4/5ths to themselves for their use and to plant in the future.  Pharaoh has become very wealthy under Joseph's oversight.  Jacob lives another 17 years in Egypt before he dies. Jacob makes Joseph promise to bury him in Canaan when he dies and Joseph promises to do so. The Israelites prosper in the land of Egypt.  In the last few chapters, I read some interesting things and I don't know what they mean. The names of women are not often mentioned and we have no names for the wives of Jacob's sons. Of the sixty-plus offspring of Jacob that entered Egypt, there are only two names of daughters mentioned. Dinah is the daughter of Jacob and Leah and the other daughter mentioned belongs to Asher and her mother is not named. Serah is that named daughter. I question are these the only two daughters born under Jacob or is there a reason Serah is named?  Who will these Grandsons and future generations marry?  I think there are other daughters that are just not named as even the wives' names are not mentioned after Leah and Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah.  Joseph's wife Asenath is named. Simeon's youngest son named Shaul was born of a Canaanite woman but once again her name is not given.  Did Simeon's wife die and this was a second wife? Or was this an affair outside of marriage? Judah also has two sons born of Tamar his daughter-in-law the wife of his son Er that died in Canaan. Most women remain unnamed so it is I wonder why Serah is named, I really do not think she is the only other daughter other than Dinah born in this clan. Dinah is mentioned because of the story told of her rape and the revenge taken against the men of the city of Shechem.  The Bible does not give a lot of background information. The lineage came down through the man so often the name of the women are not mentioned.  In looking at the lineage of Christ in the gospels, one account gives the lineage down to Joseph the stepfather of Jesus. the other account starts off the same but alters and ends up giving the lineage of Mary. That list gives all names of men until Mary's father and then lists Mary the mother of Jesus. That was the culture in those days so often unless there was an important story, we don't know the names of the women. Which brings me back to Serah, why is she named?  I may never know. So many nameless women in the Bible, they are not named unless there is an important event or story related to them.  Unimportant men are often mentioned just because they are in the lineage of someone.  God bless, LVZ.

21

I am continuing in the story of Jacob and his family moving to Egypt to be with Joseph found in chapter 46 of Genesis.  There were only two daughters mentioned in the listing of names, Dinah and Serah.  Dinah was the daughter of  Leah and Serah was the daughter of Asher. I am wondering if there is a reason Serah is mentioned or are these the only two daughters in Jacob's extended family? We know of Dinah earlier because of her rape and the revenge taken out on the men of Shechem. So is there a reason for the mention of Serah? The wife of Joseph is mentioned, her name is Asenath.  Er, and Onan sons of Judah were mentioned and part of the count it appeared to me but they had died in Canaan. There were no offspring of these two sons of Judah. The wives are also not named except for Joseph's wife Asenath.  There was mention of a son of  Simeon named Shaul that was by a Canaanite woman different than his other sons. Was Shaul's mother also with them as there are no names of the wives except for Asenath. The wives are not listed in the count. But Dinah and Serah are.  There is the possibility of 13 additional persons if the wives were named. Judah's wife had already died but his sons Perez and Zerah are listed but was their mother Tamar also with them? Tamar was the wife of Er who died in Canaan. In an earlier story, we read about how the birth of Perez and Zerah came about between Judah and Tamar.  Also, note that Perez has two sons named so there is another wife not named in the count.   The count is given as 66 family members plus wives. And additional descendants through Joseph already in Egypt. So there are at least 84 counting wives and if there is more than one wife as in the case of Shaul the number could be bigger.  When I read this I have to wonder why Serah is mentioned or is it possible that there are only two daughters born in all these families. I think there are more daughters because the majority of women are not named. So why is Serah named? I have no answers and just speculation. Is it possible that there were only two daughters in this whole lineup? Anyway, Jacob is now in Egypt there are still four chapters in Genesis to go. God bless, LVZ. 

20

 I really like the story of Joseph in the last chapters of Genesis. I am at chapter 45 and Joseph finally tells his brothers who he is. His brothers have changed from the day they sold him into slavery. They were jealous of Joseph being his father's favorite son and now Joseph sees how protective they are of his youngest brother Benjamin. Joseph and Benjamin were the only sons of Rachel, Jacob's favorite wife. The other story that emerges is Judah as he is the leader of the brothers. Judah is the fourth oldest son but seems to have become the leader of the brothers. It is Judah that suggests they sell Joseph into slavery. It is Judah that separates from the family for a time and raises three sons of his own. I am not sure at what point Judah returns to the families of his brothers but he is with them when they go to Egypt to buy grain. Judah is also the brother that persuades his father to allow Benjamin to go on the second trip to Egypt. Benjamin is much younger than the other brothers and even Dinah is probably a teenager at least before Benjamin is born. In the conversations with Joseph, he is called a boy and does not seem to have reached manhood at this time. We read where Dinah was raped and two of her full brothers killed the men of the city where the man that raped her lived. They are living in the land of Canaan at this time. Judah is also the one that promises to protect Benjamin and bring him back to his father. Judah also takes the lead in giving himself in place for Benjamin when Joseph is planning on keeping Benjamin with him. Benjamin is Joseph's only full brother. Benjamin is very young when Joseph is sold into slavery. But now we have come to the time where Joseph tells his brothers who he is and assures them not to be afraid because God has sent him to Egypt to save not only his father's family but many others including the Egyptians. When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, I am sure many others in the region had heard also and bought grain from Egypt. Joseph sends wagons to bring Jacob and the rest of Jacob's family, children, and grandchildren to Egypt. There are still five years of famine to go and Joseph plans to care for his family through the famine. It is with the blessings of Pharaoh that this is done. Pharaoh himself welcomes Joseph's family to Egypt. Joseph is famous and well thought of in Egypt at this time. It was Joseph's wisdom that is understood and the Egyptians realize it is Joseph that saved them in the famine. God's blessings to Joseph even extend to us today. We are blessed by Joseph even today because Judah the brother of Joseph and Judah's son Perez by his daughter-in-law is in the lineage of Christ. They are saved by Joseph's actions. So Israel / Jacob ends up in Egypt. It is God's plan. We see many instances of God using bad incidents in his plans through time. Just to name a couple would be Joseph being sold into slavery to save Israel, Judah, and his daughter-in-law Tamar produce Perez who is in the lineage of Christ.  What an interesting story in the later chapters of Genesis from 30 and on into 45.  God bless, LVZ. 

19

 I have given much thought to deleting posts. I don't claim to have a corner on the market as far as theology. You might even read in later posts where I have grown and my knowledge has increased and I know without a doubt I don't believe the same as I did 35 years ago.  Don't follow me, follow Christ. If I write something that will encourage you and help you on your way to Christ and with Christ, that is great. I am not here to start anything new. In fact, if I say something you have not heard before you might want to really check it out.  I am growing in my faith, I don't have it all together. Sometime many years ago I accepted Jesus as my savior and that is all it takes. I don't have to know it all. I don't earn my way in. I can't write enough posts to earn my way in. It is not the works I do today that make me a Christian. It is the fact that one day I believed in Jesus alone for my salvation. I asked him to forgive me of my sins. It was a one-time event and it is finished. But I will not delete my posts, there are non-essentials of the gospel and how to live this Christian life that we may not agree on. The thing that matters is did I believe in Jesus to forgive me of my sins? It is that simple. I cannot earn it by being good and learning and quoting more scripture.  I learned that I am being censored because of my conservative and possible Christian beliefs. I expect it is more the conservative thought that gets me censored. I will not stop. It makes me angry because I live in a country that has been free but we are seeing our freedoms disappear if we don't follow leftist thoughts and ideas. I am here to stay I will continue to exercise my freedom to speak my mind as much as I am able. I believe that God is sovereign and it is God I need to fear and not someone who can censor my writings. I will stand before God someday to give an account for my life and I want to hear the words faithful and true. I don't earn it I simply receive God's grace as a free gift. Sometimes we hear about cheap grace if we see someone that may not live up to what we believe.  You cannot get any cheaper than free. Grace is free. All it takes is believing in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. It is free. Only God can see into our hearts. He alone knows if we have actually committed our hearts to him. I continue to commune with him and to pray and to read his word to hear from him, it is called relationship. But it is free, I cannot work my way into heaven by doing enough good. I simply believe that Jesus died on a cross for my sins and believe he has forgiven me. It is that simple. The rest of this is fluff, just trying to live the best life I can. I have already secured a spot in heaven by believing in Jesus. Nothing else matters. I have two blog sites that I use, and if you have read this it will probably be the same on the other site. This site will have more of my old stuff as I deleted all the old on the WordPress site. Google can censor me all they want. I don't need to please them. I want to please God and I hope the words I write and meditations of my heart are pleasing to him. God bless, LVZ. 

Deleting Posts

 I have been writing since 2011 I think, on this site and on LVZPAGE.wordpress.com. My profile says since 2010, I hay have deleted some of my first posts.  I have deleted all my old posts on the WordPress site. I am still working on this site. I am no longer reviewing them but just deleting them all. It feels like it takes forever. I want to be a better writer but don't know if I have improved that much. But I feel I need to be more careful with my posts. Sometimes I may be aggravated with current events or triggered by something I heard or read. A lot of people blog about different things.   I believe our freedom of free speech is slowly being taken away. We are going into a totalitarian government.  If we don't agree with those in power we are being silenced by those in control of social media. For example, they don't like Trump, so he has been silenced for two years on Twitter. They use as an excuse what happened on January 6th of this year at the capitol.   Trump is no more responsible for that than you or I. But they want to censor him. I believe I am being censored in one way. I am not really sure of it but my readership dwindled sometime back and I believe because I have a conservative viewpoint the algorithms of google which runs this blog site is against conservatives. I can't prove it, but over the last year, I don't get nearly as many readers as I did before. I admit I am not a good writer, but I hope I improved a little bit over the last ten years. So why the difference? If I would start a liberal viewpoint site would my readership be more. I don't know that I could pull that off even if I tried because I just don't think like a liberal. If I don't talk about scripture or current events, I really don't know what to talk about. I have lost interest in many that I use to listen to. And maybe that is the same for others that may have read my posts from time to time. This site is easier for me than the WordPress site and I may be back after I finish deleting all my old posts. It was easier to delete on WordPress but it seems easier for me to write on Blogspot.com. It will take me weeks to delete everything at the rate I am going. God bless, LVZ.

4

 I have moved to https://lvzpage.wordpress.com. I have wanted for some time to review all my posts and delete the bad ones. When I say a bad one if I read something I feel I shouldn't have posted in the first place. On the WordPress site, I have deleted all my old posts and have started over. I hope to be more careful with my posts.  I am still the same me, it may not change anything but I really do want to be more careful with what I publish. And I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in God's sight. God bless, LVZ.