The phrase "on the money" means "right on target". A lot of things are messed up in our world, but one thing is "on the money".

I am holding a United States "Federal Reserve Note" -- what people around the world call "a dollar bill". I am looking at these words on the back of my dollar bill as I type them just the way they are written (in all caps); "IN GOD WE TRUST". It's on the money!

Trusting God really is on the money -- it is right on target. Of course trusting God means more than mere belief in His existence. Trusting God means relying on Him and doing what He says -- obeying Him.

"IN GOD WE TRUST" -- it's on the money. If you and I will get trusting God into our daily lifestyle, we will be on the money -- right on target.

We who carry a wallet in our hip pocket frequently sit on "IN GOD WE TRUST" and all day long we pass the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" on to other people (even in public schools). But isn't it time that we got beyond the words and followed the advice to trust in God in our daily life?

It's on the money! You carry it around, sit on it, pass it on to others. Why not try it? Why not trust God today?

Give Him your problem. Give Him your broken heart. Give him your hurt,anger, and resentment. Give Him your self-destructive behaviors. And trust Him. Try it just for today and see what God can do! It's on the money and as you trust and obey you will be on the money too!

written by Steve Simms -- stsimms@hotmail.com -- more at christianchallenge.blogstream.com (leave off www)

Feel free to copy this and pass it around, e-mail it, or publish it -- just include the tag line above. Since this article is about our government printed money you can even copy this and pass it around your public school. After all, how can you get in trouble for quoting what the goverment says on the money?

My wife has a co-worker I'll call "Bill" who is a black male in his late 30's with a great personality. Bill does youth work and runs sports programs for children.

My wife has been using two or three $1.00-off-coupons from a Subway close to where they work each week for the past few weeks. A couple of days ago Bill told her he was going to Subway so she gave him one of the coupons. When Bill got back he told her that they wouldn't take the coupon. In fact, they told him that the coupon had expired in May. (I've had one of those coupons too and I couldn't find an expiration date on it.)

So what's up? Was that racism? Why did they regularly take the coupon from a white woman but claimed it was expired months ago when a black male tried to use it?

A couple of weeks ago Bill needed to get some signs made for his sports program. He asked my wife to go with him to the sign shop. She asked him why he wanted her to go. Bill said that if he went by himself that the sign shop would not start working on the signs unless he brought them a check, but if my wife went with him that they would go ahead and start working on the signs. (Where they work it takes several days to get a check written.)

My wife went with Bill and he asked her to do the talking. She placed the order and asked the clerk if they would go ahead and start working on the signs and if they could pay when they pick them up. They said that would be no problem. "See what I mean," Bill said, "If I had been by myself, they wouldn't have done that."

So what's up? Was that racism? Why would they not start the order without payment when a black male made it, but readily started the order when a white female did? Is there still racism?

My wife and I caught a taxi at O'Hara International Airport. As we got into the cab we heard preaching coming from the radio.

All the way to hotel in downtown Chicago the driver played a Christian station. I finally tapped him on the shoulder and asked: "Do you play that station all the time in your cab?"

"Yes, I do," he said in a friendly manner.

"Do you ever think that some of your passengers might not like it?" I asked.

"I've thought about that," he said. But its my taxi. And if they don't like it they don't have to ride with me."

"Thank you. You've made my day," I said. "I appreciate your willingness to openly stand for Jesus Christ."

That unknown Chicago taxi driver is one of my heroes. He found a simple way to witness. He had the courage and boldness to openly express his Christian views through his choice of radio stations. His witness was more important to him that his riders' opinions and he was willing to risk losing business (and losing money) for his faith.

What if all American Christians were as bold and as courageous as that Chicago taxi driver? Think of the impact if all Christian doctors, teachers, plumbers, taxi drivers, bank tellers, social workers, etc. would likewise express their faith to all the people they meet (even if they just did something simple like handing them a business card that says, "Obey Jesus"). Wow! We would be living in the book of Acts -- revival and persecution both would break loose.

On this blog I have been counting down my top 10 greatest Americans of all time based on their personal commitment to (and servce for) the principles of "all men are created equal" and "liberty and justice for all". My second greatest American is Martin Luther King, Jr.

King was born into a family of black minister in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. He received a bachelor's degree in sociology from Morehouse College when only 19 years old. He went on to get a master's degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, PA where he was the first black student body president and graduated first in his class. Next he earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston University in 1955, where he met and married Coretta Scott.

After his education he became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. In December of that year, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her seat on a bus to a white man.

The black citizens of Montgomery then formed the Montgomery Improvement Association with King as head, and began a bus boycott that lasted more than a year during which King's life was repeatedly threatened and his home was bombed. The boycott forced Montgomery and the bus company to desegregate the buses and late in 1957 the Supreme Court declared the bus segregation law to be unconstitutional.

Afterward, King worked tirelessly leading civil rights marches and protests across the South. He elevated the idea of equal rights into a moral movement by appealing to the conscience of the nation. His use of nonviolent resistance captured the country's sympathy due to the violence and brutality directed at non-violent protesters. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speeches rang with passion, commitment, and justice as they stirred the souls of millions of people across America.

In 1964 King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and was the first black American to be named Time magazine's "Man of the Year". His efforts and the efforts of tens of thousands of other brave Americans led to the end of legal racial discrimination in employment, desegregation of public places, and the enforcement of voting rights for blacks and other minorities. King paid the ultimate price for freedom when he was murdered in Memphis, TN in 1968 because of his work for "liberty and justice for all".

Yesterday, on the mall in Washington, DC, ground was broken for a national memorial to my second greatest American of all time -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our society seems to have confused human behavior with skin color, ethnicity, and gender. Most people believe that human beings have a choice in their behaviors. They may be strongly influenced by peer pressure, heritage, inner cravings, heredity, personal compulsions, or other factors; yet they have the freedom to choose whether to act on those influences or to resist those influences.

A person, however, did not choose his/her skin color, ethnic origin, or gender. Those were forced on him at birth. Our country has a cruel history of mistreating people because of their physical characteristics. The Civil Rights movement did much to help remedy that cruel discrimination (although we still have a long way to go) and this very day in Washington DC, ground is being broken for a well-deserved memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nowadays many people, however, are trying to apply the civil rights philosophy to behavior choices. They claim that people who choose certain behaviors deserve the same rights as the people with physical characteristics like darker skin. They even want public approval of their chosen behavior. This seems to me to be very inconsistent.

We all discriminate every day against people because of their behavior choices. The government puts those who choose to sell drugs in prison and yet no one acts out for "dealers rights" (not even drug dealers themselves). Employers hire and fire people based on their behavior choices -- is that not discrimination? We all discriminate in our choice of friends based on their behaviors and/or beliefs. We even discriminate against nudists wearing their favorite attire in public places.

Now discriminating against a person's behavioral choices doesn't mean being mean or cruel to him/her (except for the government's approach to the drug dealers and others who engage in behavior defined as "criminal" -- and most people believe they earned their punishment). But behavioral discrimination does deny approval.

So why should I be forced to approve (or at lease act like I approve) of a person's behavior choices? If a person constantly uses profanity and repeatedly refers to sexual intercourse and feces in his/her conversation, don't I have a right to voice my disapproval of that behavior and to choose to avoid contact with that person? I don't have a right to hurt him but I do have the right to disapprove of his chosen vocabulary.

Today the rights of those of us who believe in Biblical morality are being attacked. We are being called "unkind", "mean-spirited", "unloving", "homophobic", "narrow minded", and other negative words because we cannot approve of certain behavior choices. Is this fair?