December 8 -- Thoughts on Capital Punishment

Today's ODB was about confessing sin... a story from Joshua was mentioned in which some guy had stolen some things, and God "ratted" on him to Joshua, who in turn decided to stone him and his entire family...

I used to actually be in favor of the death penalty... I thought that whoever could kill someone else should have that done right back to them... blame it on my upbringing ;-). However now, I don't see it that way...

Firstly it's a commandment of God not to kill people. Yes, the person being executed may have killed someone, but it doesn't FIX anything or make anything truly better to kill them in return. It seems just to our human minds to repay people who do harm. But the system sucks... it's not fair at all... a lot of people who kill other people "get off", according to us, with a couple of life sentences (I've never understood the point of more than one life sentence...). I don't believe God wants us to repay evil (sin) with evil (sin)...

No sin is weighted more than another in God's eyes. That's another thing we have a hard time grasping. There is also no unforgivable sin. Even if you break one, or heck, ALL of the 10 commandments, dude, that's Old Testament, and Jesus died for ALL sins, and if you [honestly] ask Him to He'll always forgive you and take you back if you screw up... yep, even if, in a fitful rage, you kill someone. The consequences of you killing someone may mean life in prison or, even worse in this country, the death penalty... and the people that administer the lethal injection or turn on Old Sparky? It still counts as killing, man... there's no way to sugar coat it.

Although to our brains, killing in exchange for killing may SEEM like a proper way to punish someone who has committed the "ultimate" sin, but I gotta think about what Jesus would do... no one is without sin, so why should we cast stones, administer lethal injections, or flip the switch? Should we do it merely because we think their sin is unforgivable and deserving of death? .... Don't we all deserve death?

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Wow!

I really kicked my own butt today lol... I did the cardio portion of of the Turbo Jam Kickin' Core workout, which ends right after a two minute Turbo, man it was tough. I like that workout though... I usually skip the stability ball part. After that, I did a round of Booty Sculpt... I hadn't done that in at least 10 days, I think, because I had been using the sculpt segment at the end of one of my walk DVDs for some different muscle targeting... I also used the fit cuff instead of the firm band for the thigh work on Booty Sculpt... talk about a burn! The fit cuff is way more comfortable than the stretchie and it doesn't slide, pinch, or pull on my leg. The abs part on Booty Sculpt was also on fire, man... I can tell my abs have gotten significantly stronger because I can lift my legs off of the ground on some of the moves to make them more challenging and-- because I'm using my abs to hold myself stable-- I don't fall backwards like I used to! Yay! And even though there's no crazy cardio in that workout, my heartrate was up the entire time.

Yesterday I wasn't sure if I was going to work out or not, but I got out of bed and willingly did Cardio Party Remix before church. It was great :-) I also made a bunch of skinny candied almonds, but I ate too many cuz they were so good, hence the tough workout today, lol...

Today I gotta study for my two exams tomorrow... and drink lots and lots of water. Also need to get better on my greens, those are really lacking lately.