I’m in the middle of my final re-election campaign for City Council; yes, this is my third term – time flies. I never would have imagined that I would have served three terms (12yrs). There are three incumbent candidates, all running unopposed. We have a very happy and content community of just under 85,000 people, with no significant community wide needs. All Council seats are “at-large”, which means we represent the whole city not specific districts or precincts. Without controversy, we remain a vibrant growing and upscale community. This campaign is quite different since there are no challengers. I have learned to ask for help and every campaign takes a team to be successful.

Our daughter is still my graphic designer and the key to my success. Signs went up a couple of weeks ago thanks to a number of volunteers and now they will be maintained by Lisa and I. We’ll fix those knocked over and reinforce the signs against the wind. We will sacrifice to do what was right for the campaign. These campaigns have always been a teamwork effort and this campaign is no exception. I’m not really into bragging but my family, friends and volunteers have reminded me why I am a truly blessed man. My lesson-learned in all this; don’t wait until it’s all over to thank those that help you along the way. Thanks to my great network!

“…the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does…” Ephesians 6:8

In this verse, St. Paul is in the middle of telling the church at Ephesus how masters and slaves should treat each other. What he is saying is that we as human beings, do not get to judge or reward what we think is right or righteous. St. Paul is telling us that since God is faithful and just, caring and compassionate and, the one true judge that we should be more like him. Somewhere in today’s world, we’ve lost sight of this. The devil has worked hard to divide us and we’ve fallen for it!

Practice forgiveness, compassion and work hard are the principles of St. Paul’s message, just as our Father in Heaven does. The Lord, our God will reward the hard work. There is no mention of building up “credits” to win God’s favor, no amount of works that need to be preformed, no amount of money to be tithed; simply living as God intended. God became man to show us the way, the truth and then gave us eternal life with him in heaven through His Son our Savior Jesus Christ. We have salvation in Him and need to encourage others to turn toward God’s intentions; we don’t need to judge the lives of others. We do however, need to thankful, to God, for the people in our lives who make things better.