Michael Redd Bucks

While, therefore, we are upon the earth, let us repent.

For we are as clay in the hands of the workman. In like manner as the potter, if while he be making a vessel, it turn amiss in his hands, or be crushed, can mould it again, but if he have once cast it into the fiery furnace can no longer amend it; so let us, so long as we are in this world repent with all our hearts of the wickedness that we have committed in the flesh, that we may be saved of the Lord while as yet
we have time for repentance.

For after that we are departed out of this world, we are no longer able there to confess or repent.

And of what kind? repentance from a sincere heart.

No number of new laws or the 24×7 presence of law enforcement personnel will affect the corruption and pornification that sickens our society. The cure for the ills that clog the courts and keeps taxes high is old-fashioned but effective: repentance. In the Synoptic gospels, Jesus preached the good news of repentance and the Kingdom of God Mk. 1:14. In the Gospel of John, the word repentance never appears. Kingdom of God appears once, Jn. 3:5 , but the message is the same, love your neighbor, Jn.13:34, which means overcome human nature. The ladder of virtue can be found at II Pet 1:3-11.

Michael Redd of the Milwaukee Bucks, former Ohio State (1997-2000) basketball star, witnesses for the benefit of others. His story is a paradigm for the individual who responds to the message of repentance. He changed attitudes in his life from feeding the flesh to serving the Kingdom of God, God’s rule in your life.

Former Buckeye and current NBA star Michael Redd: ‘I should be dead’

By Nick Hiltbrand
hiltbrand.4@osu.edu
Published:Sunday, November 7, 2010
Updated:Sunday, November 7, 2010 22:11

Michael Redd is an NBA superstar, Olympic gold medalist and one of the highest-paid athletes in sports. And before one night about seven years ago, he said he was drinking too much, craving sex and felt unworthy of living.

“I used to read the story about Jesus getting whipped and think that it was me holding the whip,” Redd shouted Oct. 31 during his “Night of Hope” event at the Ohio Union. “Every time I watched pornography, every time I drank, every time I lusted, it was me giving him another lashing. I put him on that cross.”

Redd, who won a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, told students that he knew what he was doing was wrong, and it made him think he shouldn’t be alive because his heart wasn’t in the right place.

Redd, a former Ohio State basketball player and NBA All-Star with the Milwaukee Bucks, held the OSU event in collaboration with Athletes in Action, a national Christian group that promotes its ministry through athletes and has a chapter at OSU.

In 2003, in his hotel room before a game against the Atlanta Hawks, Redd said God spoke to him.

“I heard a voice say, ‘Get up and pray,’” Redd said. “I’ve never felt anything like what I felt that night. My life has never been the same since. My heart was changed.”

Redd stopped going to clubs with the likes of Jay-Z and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, saying his heart [mind] didn’t want to do those things anymore.

“I was no good at sin. I was also a horrible dancer. People would make fun of me because I didn’t even know how to drink the right way,” Redd said. “Girls would ask at the club, ‘Are you having fun?’ and I’d say no, and want to go home.”

An Athletes in Action official said Redd wanted to come to OSU to help students going through what he felt.

“Michael knows what it’s like to be an Ohio State student because he was one,” said former president of Athletes in Action Taylor Candella. “He knows what goes on and he knows the temptations of college life, especially here in Columbus, so he just wanted to come and talk to students about the things that he went through and to relate to them.”

Jon Diebler, starting shooting guard for the OSU basketball team and a member of OSU’s chapter of Athletes in Action, said the group is comprised of Christian OSU student-athletes who get together three times a week to talk about the Bible and their ministry.

In his speech, Redd talked about how he grew up in a religious household, but when he came to OSU, he felt that he was finally free to drink and have sex.

“I had a false sense of what freedom really was,” Redd said.

Redd, whom Sports Illustrated ranked the 45th highest-earning athlete in 2010, said he had problems with lust and pornography.

After his talk, Redd and other members of Athletes in Action split the students into groups of about a dozen people to ask them about their faith.

“I was really just trying to get people to open up about their faith,” Diebler said. “I know sometimes it can be frightening if you are a believer to share about your faith or your relationship with Christ, but I think breaking it down into small groups like we did was very encouraging.”

Redd said if even one student at the event got the point, it was all worth it.

“I pray that it had a huge impact. Hopefully lives were changed and transformed,” Redd said. “I saw a lot of people that seemed broken that really took in what I had to say.”

Visit the Lantern web-site to read comments.

www.thelantern.com/sports/former-buckeye-and-current-nba-star-michael-redd-i-should-be-dead-1.1750298?

Homeless Arizona man reaps rewards after turning in $3,300

By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY

Dave Tally, homeless and living on the fringe in Tempe, Ariz., for 11 years, is suddenly the center of attention.

Tally, 49, found a backpack containing $3,300 cash and a laptop and returned it to the owner.

Now reporters are calling the homeless outreach group that provides the former landscaper with nightly shelter and a part-time job. Rewards are pouring in. A woman from as far as Seattle called to express her admiration.

“I’m just kind of overwhelmed,” Tally says. “It’s a good thing people out there care, I guess. I’m just not really a public person.”

Tally has been a recovering alcoholic since 2003. He lost his driver’s license after his third arrest for driving under the influence in 1999.

When he found the abandoned backpack at a light-rail station Nov. 1, he had just spent the last of his money on parts for his mountain bike. He opened the backpack and found the money.

He says his mind was racing. “I don’t think anybody would not be tempted by that,” Tally says.

Tally took the backpack to his boss, Stephen Sparks, operations manager at Tempe Community Action Agency, which provides the city’s homeless with meals and shelter in area churches.

Sparks identified the backpack’s owner from a résumé he found on a flash drive inside. Four days later, Arizona State University student Bryan Belanger had back the cash he needed to buy a car.

Belanger, whose mother called The Arizona Republic to report the good deed, told the newspaper Tally’s action “is humbling.”

Since the story came out Wednesday, close to 50 people have come forward with offers of cash, Sparks says.

“The important thing to do is commend someone for doing the right thing,” says Toby Sneed, a seventh-generation former Marine from Mesa, Ariz.

Sneed plans to give $50 to the Tempe Community Action Agency and $100 to Tally’s account at The Bicycle Cellar, where he orders parts for his bike.

Dianne Hamre of Seattle, out of work since August, says she sent a $100 check. “God bless him for his honesty,” she says.

Tally still owes restitution for the accident that led to his last DUI arrest. His bank account is $67 in the red.

But he wasn’t thinking of that when he turned in the cash.

“It wasn’t my money. I didn’t earn it,” Tally says. “I’m the one that has to lay down every day and deal with myself. If I’d done anything different than what I did, I don’t know if I could handle that.”

www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-11-19-homeless19_ST_N.htm

Michael Redd Bucks