Hello C3 Family!

My Weekly Rant

How does one become truly Free?!

A question I used to ask myself when I was considering becoming a Christian, is will I be happy? This question bugged me, because becoming a Christian would mean giving up a lot of the things I liked to do, those things I thought brought Joy to my life. Yet, when I met the people who were pursuing 'The pleasures of the Flesh' like me and had achieved a higher degree of success then me, I found them to be miserable. But when I met genuine Christians, I was taken back by their joy even through strenuous circumstances. This put a weird dilemma in my head; If I know that Saints like Mother Teresa are more joyful than (insert billionaire/celebrity HERE, I liked to use Mark Cuban because of my NBA job), then why do I still want the things of the celebrity and avoid the things of Mother Teresa?

Of course, the answer, is that the yoke of Jesus Christ is easy, but we also must pick up our cross and follow Him. Christianity really is the Both/And religion, and that can be confusing at times. 

Okay, but why am I bringing this up?! St. Paul wrote in Romans 7:15 "For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want." This was and is a huge problem for Christians, especially in terms of finance and keeping up with Jones'. But I think the situation today is even harder. St. Paul knew what he should do but often time in our modern culture we do not even know what it is we should do.

St. Paul may have often done bad things, but at least he knew what was good and what would produce joy. We on the other hand seem to be completely oblivious to what actually produces joy. We want the newest car, we want the fancy house, we want the big bank account because we think these things produce joy. It is why I get so much backlash when I say things like the Stock Market is evil and we should rely on our families over corporations. We are, either consciously or subconsciously, unaware that family, love and ultimately God Himself are the only things that can produce Joy. And this is showcased very well in the short trailer above.

Top Stories of the Week

• The stock market did not do well last week after Big Tech brought the whole of the market down after earnings were released. It also did not help things that the inflation gauge the Fed uses hit a 4-month high. Despite this news, many do not think a rate hike is coming out of today's meeting.

• The five biggest western oil companies raked in over $200 billion in profits last year. IS this because of the Russia-Ukraine war or is it an indicator that a "Green" future is a very distant future? only time will tell, but it seems like Oil will be king for the foreseeable future.

• Apple Hardware sales have dipped from last year by 1% but service sales like apple TV and Apple News are on the up and up. A lot of this has to do with supply chain woes and not a lessened demand for Apple products, but that is the price you must pay for being an international monopoly.

• Marc Andreessen, an uber wealthy Venture Capitalist said in a recently released Tech manifesto that stunting the growth of AI would be akin to murder since he thinks Tech can solve all the world's problems. It is unclear if he has ever seen one of the Terminator movies or the Matrix.

• The EU and the US are trying to reach a deal that would reduce steel and aluminum production because of carbon output. I am sure China will be happy to supply the western world with steel. 

• You know all that complaining us Christians do about Hollywood...Over $1.5 Billion in taxpayer dollars go to movie studios every year. This is done in the name of jobs. Here is a novel idea, why not let the people keep their money and let them decide what industry needs more jobs by spending that money where they want?!

• Boston Children’s Hospital Was Reimbursed $1.4M In Taxpayer Dollars For ‘Gender Transition Services’: Report | The Daily Wire These surgeries involved hysterectomies for girls as young as 15. Please pray for this madness to stop, and for the young victims of these heinous acts.

• The Detroit Auto Workers Strike has ended. According to GM the strike cost them $200 million a week.

• Israel is pushing deeper into the Gaza Strip and refuses to have a ceasefire because of fear that Hamas will try and take advantage of Israel scaling back its efforts to eliminate Hamas.

• People are tightening their budgets, but McDonalds is booming. The Golden Arches reported better than expected earnings and that is because of menu price hikes and more upper middle-class people buying big macs in order to save money on the sit-down restaurant experience.