I think that last night was the first time I've ever really felt truly angry at someone in church. It could be that I mis-interpreted something that she said (which is highly possible since my Spanish isn't 100%), but I do believe it was a culmination of many things.

On Sunday, I started something called the "Academia de Obreros", which is this course that I'm taking at church. The teacher said that it's the same class that someone who wants to become a pastor would have to take first, so it is pretty useful. Everything there was great and we learned a lot, but the very last thing that the teacher said was that our salvation can be lost. I used to think that it could be lost too, before I really understood various passages in the bible that may seem like this on the surface, but after talking to a bunch of Christians last year while on a missionary trip, they lead me to believe that your salvation cannot be lost, no matter what you do. So I went home and decided to look it up on the internet and see what it had to say about salvation. I came to the conclusion that it really doesn't make sense that our salvation could be lost. So when the teacher said this, to me it just seemed like something that someone uninformed would say, as if she didn't do her research. So after the class, I decided to talk to her about it and we had a good conversation for a few minutes about it and she said that she'll look into it this week and tell me next weekend why that is what our church believes. She even said that she used to believe that salvation cannot be lost, but the head pastor convinced her otherwise. Unfortunately (or was that fortunately), I am not that easy to convince. So I decided once again that I would go home and research this subject and I came upon a really good website and another very useful one that promote the idea that once you are saved, you are always saved. When we accept Christ, we are given "eternal life". How can eternal life only last a few years? or months? or days? It is called "eternal life" because it is eternal! So anyway, I'm going to make sure that I do my research before I talk to the teacher next week so that I will have a rebuttle for the points that I can expect her to give me.

Well, in church all was fine up until the point that the pastor started saying that someone received a revelation from God about one of the pastors in the church. So the guy that received the revelation went to the pastor and told him what God revealed to him and he pastor became upset. So this pastor went to her and told her about it and she told him not to pay attention to that person. Then she went to that person and told him that if he has a problem with one of the pastors to go to her first. As soon as she said this, I just thought, who does she think she is? Who appointed her mediator between what God says and what people are allowed to do? Almost just as bad was that everyone in the congregation were yelling "Amen" to what she said. I couldn't believe it. I just got the idea that she is soooo not a humble person. She is full of pride and thinks extremely high of herself. I could be completely wrong about this, but that's just how I felt. I couldn't stop thinking about something that bahb said on his blog about how we all need to humble ourselves and instead of thinking that God has something HUGE planned for your life on that day (although He might), maybe his plan is for you to get down on your hands and knees and go and scrub the church toilet. Sure, it's a nasty job, but somebody's got to do it. Why not you? Why not me? But I'm sure if someone asked her to do it, she would just think she's too important for something like that, or that she has no time because she's too busy with other more important things. You know what? We all need to humble ourselves. We all need to step off our pedestal and serve others with an open heart, and put ourselves last instead of first. What does the bible say?
Another thing that has really been bothering me lately is the "gift of tongues". I put it in quotation marks because I believe that it is being misused in my church. It has just been starting to bother me more and more lately because they are not following scripture. In 1 Corinthians it clearly says that not everyone will receive the gift of tongues, and it is God who decides who receives it. They believe that one evidence that you have been baptized by the Spirit is that you speak in tongues. This may be true, but there are problems with how they apply it. Since not everyone will be given the gift of tongues, it is not the only deciding factor of whether someone has received the Holy Spirit. Secondly, what do they care whether I can outwardly show this evidence? And likewise, what do I care if they can show this evidence to me? I know the answer to the second question is, "I don't." The third problem with it is that speaking in tongues is supposed to be a "language", and not just gibberish similar to your native language. I have never heard anyone from my church talking in tongues in a language that sounds like Chinese, or some African throaty language with clicks and pops of the tongue. When the pastor "talked in tongues" last night, she started off every sentence with at least 5 occurrences of the syllable "ba" and ended everything with "tailla" (pronounced tie-a [I use the Spanish spelling here for a reason]). Most sentences also contain at least one occurrence of "ribishi", always in that order. Have you ever heard a language that starts every sentence with 5+ repeated syllables and ends with the same thing every time? Of course not. Which leads me to believe that she does not have the gift of tongues. Too bad, so sad.

In the gift of tongues being an evidence that you have received the Holy Spirit, this also leads me to believe that it is something you cannot control. Any drunk on the street speaks in a dialect similar to "tongues" of my church more than half the night. Is this evidence that he has received the Spirit of God? Of course not! It would only be evidence if you are completely sober and cannot control what you are saying because you are being completely controlled by the Spirit. And only you benefit from this evidence. Not anyone else. Fortunately, I do not need this evidence to show that I have received the Holy Spirit. Paul says in 1 Cor 14:5 that he wishes all people could speak in tongues. But understanding this in its context, this was written to people who did not have the complete bible, like we do today. The only evidences they had for Jesus and his salvation was what people told them. For that reason, they needed more evidence to help convince them that they have received the Holy Spirit inside of them. Why would we need this evidence now? If it will help convince someone that they have received the Spirit and God needs to show that to them, then it is up to Him to impart this gift to the person. This is like God saying, "Look, here you are in your right mind speaking absolute gibberish, filled with my Spirit. Does this convince you of your salvation?" Personally, I believe I have received the Holy Spirit and it happened the minute that I accepted Christ, whether I speak in tongues or not.

So there I was, sitting in church, listening to the pastor "speaking in tongues" and it just seemed like every time she said something was like her sticking a needle into me. 1 Corinthians clearly says that speaking in tongues to other people should not be done, unless they are being interpreted (which has rules in itself). Then she told all of the members of the serving team (i.e. other pastors, ushers, etc) to come to the front of the church and speak in tongues. This really made me angry. As if ALL of them can speak in tongues. And what does she care that they do it? They don't benefit anyone by doing it. Just let them pray normally. Sheesh. I was actually extremely close to just walking out of there. It would have been the first time I have ever walked out of church, but I was sooo close to doing it. I was just so upset. So instead I just got up and took a walk around at the back of the church to sort of calm down. It was the first time that I was truly happy that the service ended.

Well anyway, after church, I went out to eat with some people and I had a talk with this one guy before I dropped him off at his house and he said that everything that I feel, I should talk to my teacher from the Academia de Obreros about it because she's there to help me, not just in class, but if I have any problems in other areas as well. I think it's actually a good idea. I talked to my friend Daniela today and she said the same thing, well, that she thinks it's a good idea that is. I was thinking last night about how it would be possible to not go to any of the services at my church and just go to the Academia and keep in touch with my friends from there, but I am not sure how I would be able to manage that. I guess I'll just have to pray about it.

I was lying in my bed the other night and I was thinking about how Jesus drove the "legion" of demons out of a man and into a herd of pigs. It got me thinking that demons can hear us when we talk to them too. So, I decided to start to pray to demons. "WHAT???". Yep that's right, but not what you're probably thinking. Let me explain.

I know that Jesus came to the world to live a sinless life and die in our place for the sins of all humanity so that we may have salvation through his grace. In the old testament times there was also forgiveness of sin, but (as far as I understand) it was more based on a sin-by-sin basis. i.e. Some guy sins, then later repents for that sin, then God forgives him. This is not a complete act of salvation like the one that Jesus has provided us with, paying the price for all of our sins, even if we can't think of them.

God created Adam and Eve and the angels as perfect, sinless beings and gave us the gift of free will, meaning that we have the freedom to do what we want, whenever we want. God also gave free will to the Angels and they will be judged:Satan, as well as all of the demons were once angels, created without sin and given the free will to do whatever they want. Unfortunately, just like all humans, they choose to sin. This passage describes the fall of Satan: So if God created the demons and they have free will, wouldn't God like just as much for them to repent of their sins and turn back to Him? Wouldn't he accept them back into Heaven? God wants all his creation to love him. If one of his created beings, whether human or angel were to say, "Look, God. I'm truly sorry for my sin and I want to come back to you and have a relationship with you", wouldn't God accept that and forgive the sin?

So there, I found myself praying to the demons, pleading that they ask God for forgiveness. God will forgive them if they just realize that He has a plan for them and all he wants them to do is praise Him and turn away from their sinful ways. It may sound strange to you, but I just felt compelled to do it. There are times that we can do huge things without lifting a finger. There are times where God just wants us to pray for others.

I went to what's called a "Grupo de Alcance" (GAL) which is a small group that tries to help new believers in Christ and those who don't know him come to salvation. And so the guy that was doing the talking told us about this time that he was out on the street and he saw this guy. The guy wasn't doing anything, but he just noticed him. Then at that moment, God said to him "Pray for that guy". So he started to pray for him that God would help him and work his heart and lead him to his salvation. Two weeks later, he was at church and saw that guy sitting there. Who says that there is no power in prayer?

Well, since I live in Costa Rica, and people here like to break things for no apparent reason, hmm... come to think of it, people do this in all countries. So where was I? Oh yes. So someone decided to go and smash the water meter that measures the amount of water you consume in your house probably some time last night and somehow this causes the water company to cut off your water. So we've had no water all day and it is starting to get a bit annoying. I had a shower yesterday and then I decided that I was going to work out for a while, which got me all full of glistening, steaming sweat. Then I went to have another shower to wash the sweat off me, but our water heater wasn't working and there's NOOO way I'm having a cold shower if there's any way I can avoid it. So today rolls around. I had a big smile on my face. I went to wash off some grapes and all I get is practically a drip coming out of the tap. It was enough to wash the grapes, but after that, we lost all pressure in the pipes. Now when you open it, you just get a bit of air coming out. Like it's mocking you; telling you that you want water, but you're not going to get it.

So I watched the Chronicles of Narnia last night with my dad's girlfriend's sister. I decided that I would read the book first because people always say it's better to do it that way. Usually people like the book better than the movie, but well I think in this case I liked the movie better. Obviously in the movie there were some parts that they had to leave out or some descriptive things that were just sort of shown because they can't be described. I liked it though except for the stupid ending. Well, not the actual ending of the movie, but HOW they did it. Let me elaborate. The "ending" of the movie comes along and the story is all finished, then the credits start, then after 2 minutes of credits, they show an extra 2 minutes of the movie!!! What the hail! So most of the people had already left the theatre and the rest were standing up and on their way out. That was evil I tells ya!

But one thing that I found really kewl about the story was the number of parallels between the it and the bible. Seeing as C.S. Lewis was a Christian, he decided to throw a lot of links in such as the death and resurrection of Jesus and how it could only be fully accomplished when someone without sin dies in the place of a sinner. There was also the creation of the world (in the first of the 7 books), Satan (who is not as powerful as God, but still tries to make the world a living hell and steal your soul), the fact that God breathes His Spirit into you giving you new life, forgiveness of sins, and a few other smaller things. I would recommend any Christians that watch it to try to look for these parallels and it will add a whole other meaning to it. Non-Christians probably won't pick up on it though unless somehow they know a lot about the bible and refuse to believe it's true... Well you know what Mister Athiest, I don't believe your dumb theory of evolution is true, so there!

In fact, if I were to write a song, I would want it to sound like this one. kthxbai

This song... it's just amazing. I love it. Even though Dredg's new album kinda sucks compared to their old ones (which is not their fault by the way), this song is just awesome. Actually this song is dedicated to their record label and how they try to control the sound of their music so much (which is why the new album isn't as good as the old ones). I can't wait until their contract expires and they make another record on their own. I expect big things from Dredg... big things in deed.

Calendars are surprisingly hard to code. If only I had known that mktime() accepted negative values earlier. That is soooo the best!

Now to throw a calendar in somewhere, I just do

show_calendar( offset );

where

offset

is the month offset from the current. So 0 is the current month, 1 is next month, -2 is 2 months ago, etc. yay!

I have been reading this book that Bahb gave me a long time ago and I haven't gotten around to it until recently. I just read something that directly applies to my life right now. It is in regards to this passage:

It seems rather cruel doesn't it? Well actually, it's not. Here's why:

And you know what, this is sooo true. I decided to let my emotions get in the way of something that God told me had to be done. He even told me exactly when it should be done and how it should be done, but even with all of this, I felt too shy, or too scared, or worried or whatever it was that was preventing me from doing it, and I never did it. In light of that, God caused something, well, I guess you could call it "bad" to happen in my life. Now it is going to take some repairing, some praying and some waiting in order to fix the problem and hopefully make it how He wanted it in the first place. The scripture says I need to humble myself, pray, seek to please Him, and repudiate (or reject) my sinful practices. With God's help I can make everything okay. So many people lose their faith in God when something bad happens to them, but to me this only strengthens it. God has revealed himself to me in a powerful way.

God does not just blindly give blessings to everyone who asks for a blessing. He gives us what we need. If it is a blessing that we need, he will bless us, but if it is a plague that we need, he will give us a plague. God is all-loving, and only He knows the way to love us best. Love is not all praise and admiration, but love can also be discipline - just like parents should discipline their children when they do something wrong. You don't punish your children because you hate them! You do it because you love them and you want the best thing for them. Children need to learn what they should and shouldn't do and that when they do something that they shouldn't, there should be consequences to this misbehavior. The same way God tells us what we should and shouldn't do and gives us consequences when we don't listen to Him.

I can do this...

I decided that I would bring my dad's girlfriend, Karla, to church yesterday with me. She is definitely completely new in the Christian faith and she was confused about a few things. Actually, one of them really got me thinking and I ended up spending a few hours last night searching the internet and reading passages in the bible to find out about it. And, as you probably should have guessed by the title, it is the gift of tongues. The main chapters in the New Testament that talk about tongues are 1 Corinthians chapters 12-14. The bible states the following facts about talking in tongues:

• All of the gifts of the spirit (including speaking in tongues) should NOT be done without being fully informed about them first. (12:1)
• To each person, the manifestation of the spirit is given for the benefit of all. There are many gifts that the spirit can give you, one of them being the gift of tongues. (12:7-10).
• It is GOD who decides which gift we will receive. HE is the one that distributes them to us how he sees fit, and all of the gifts of the spirit that we receive are necessary for us (12:11,18,21).
• The gift of tongues and interpretation of tongues are the LEAST important gifts (12:28)
• Not everyone has all of the gifts of the spirit, including speaking in tongues. (12:29-30).
• If any of the gifts of the spirit are performed without love (i.e. being impatient, unkind, envious, bragging,puffed up, rude, self-serving, easily angered, or resentful, etc.), then they will benefit nobody. (13:1-3, 13:4-7)
• 13:8-13 says that tongues, prophecy and divine knowledge will cease or be set aside and all that will remain will be fiath, hope and love. I do believe that this refers to either after we die or the second coming of Christ. But it does say that love is more important than anything else, and the gifts of the spirit will not benefit us in the future. They are only here right now because we are like children now. Eventually we will become like an adult and set aside our childish ways. To me, this says that the gifts of the spirit are only here because we need them to help us grow.
• The gift of prophecy is greater than the gift of tongues (14:1-5) unless there is interpretation (14:5).
• When you speak in tongues you "build yourself up" (14:4). In the translator's notes in my bible, it says that this term may not have a positive connotation in this context. Why would this be? Because you need to look at the definition of love given in 13:4-7. Love does not brag. Love is not Puffed up. Love is not self-serving. If you are only building yourself up, you are not doing it with love. However, with that said, I do believe it is necessary to build ourselves up. We need to learn. We need to study the word so that we can understand it. We need to go into our room, close the door, turn off our music, close the blinds, and pray to God with nobody to hear us or see us. We need to develop our prayer, because praying is a skill that needs to be developed. Do you think that the first time you ever prayed (if you ever have) that you prayed non-stop for two hours without repeating yourself once? No, nobody has! The first time you pray, it's probably less than 1 minute. But as you go developing your skill, you learn how to pray. In the same way, I do believe that it is necessary to build ourself up.
• Paul wishes that everyone spoke in tongues (14:5). However, not everyone is given the gift of tongues, as stated earlier. Likewise, not everyone is given the gift of prophecy. This passage probably means that he wants us to recognize our gifts, but not that we should try to self-induce them.
• Nobody can understand you when you speak in tongues. It will be the same for the other people in the church as "speaking into the air" (14:6-9).
• People that speak in tongues should also pray for the gift of interpretation of their tongues so that they might benefit others (14:13)
• Those who have the gift of tongues should also pray and sing praises with their mind as well as in tongues so that their mind can also be productive. This is also a way for you to grow in your prayer as well. If you only pray in tongues, you yourself won't know what you are saying and you won't be able to develop your own faith.
• Paul says that he would rather say five words with his mind than ten-thousand words in tongues when in church (14:19). Obviously he is really not putting any importance on tongues when preaching or administering to others.
• Tongues are of no benefit for those that believe, but those that do not believe (14:22-25). This site has a really good explanation of what this probably means in this context:
  (4) It is a mistake to assume that speaking in tongues is an evidence of one’s faith. To the contrary, the persons who seek signs and sign-gifts show their lack of faith. It is a sin for any Christian to seek for signs before he will believe God’s Word. As was pointed out earlier in this study, “tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not” (I Corinthians 14: 22). So you see, the Christians at Corinth were showing that they were weak in faith, and possibly some who identified themselves with the believer had never been saved. The person who seeks any sign, whether it be speaking in tongues or any other sign-gift, is either a babe in Christ or an unbeliever.
  
  Thomas is an illustration of a disciple weak in faith who would not believe without seeing. After our Lord arose from death, He appeared to the disciples. “But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20:24, 25). Thomas was like the Corinthians, weak in faith, demanding to see the sign (miracle) before he would believe.
  
  Eight days later the Lord appeared again. “Then saith He to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless but believing.” (John 20:27). The doubting Thomas needed a sign, so the Lord appeared to him so that he would not continue without faith. And then He said to Thomas, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20: 29). The Christian who will study the Bible and believe what it says will walk by faith, not by sight or sound.
• The church should be organized, and those who have a gift of the spirit should use it. But tongues should not be used without interpretation, they should be done one at a time, and there should be at the most three people that do this (14:26-28).

All of these points have lead me to believe that what my church has been doing is wrong. I go to a very charismatic church, where they like to encourage people to speak in tongues, to prophesy, to heal others, etc. However, they are not big on making sure that someone is interpreting the tongues AND they believe that everyone can have the gift of tongues. I think this is one of the reasons that I have always felt as somewhat of an outsider when I am there because I see crazy things happening to others and it doesn't happen to me. It could be, like the article that I pasted from said, that I don't need signs to help me believe, like Thomas did. These days, we have the completed works of God all wrapped together nicely in one big book, which we call the Holy Bible. Back then, they didn't have the bible; in fact, a lot of the New Testament hadn't even occurred yet and wouldn't have been written down for up to 30 years later. Why, in these days, with the bible right there in front of us, translated into our modern language, would we need signs from God so that we can keep our faith? HE WILL give us signs, but not when we expect them. Every day I have another prayer answered, or more evidence that God has heard my prayer or more evidence that I should have listened to God instead of doing it my way (which blew up in my face two days ago in my case).

I believe that the gift of tongues, like all of the gifts of the spirit, do exist today. Actually, I do believe that from time to time, God gives me the gift of interpretation of tongues when I am in church. Not interpreting the gibberish that the pastors and all the rest of the congregation call tongues, but the Spanish dialect. Quite often, there are words I know I have never heard before, but I understand what the pastor's message is. Take, for example, the word "cosecha", which means "harvest". The other day, I understood what this word meant when it was said in church. Obviously it's not a common word in any language, and even if it is spoken in context, it would be difficult to understand what it meant. To me, THAT is the true gift of interpretation of tongues that is around today. It is not something that can be forced. Any drunk wandering the streets will be speaking in gibberish, similar to what they do in my church. Do you think he is speaking in tongues? It's very VERY unlikely.

It also got me thinking about when I was in various churches in Canada, before I moved down to Costa Rica. I knew people that I would definitely say were on fire for Christ. They had a passion for Jesus like I had never seen before. But, in all of the church services I went to, there was nobody talking in tongues, there was nobody that fell down, there was nobody that prophesied, nobody that couldn't control the movements of their hands or uncontrollably shaked part of their body. Why is this? Why is it that in my church people are SOO much like this, but in the other churches I have been to, they aren't... at all? The fact is that any of the things that the people do in my church can be self-induced. Anyone can finish the sentence "The Lord says ..." with whatever they want. In fact, the bible speaks about false prophets. Anyone can fall down in church. In fact, I have had people try to push me down because I didn't fall. What's with that? Honestly, that is NOT what God intends. God doesn't intend for almost anyone who goes on stage with a microphone to try to speak in tongues, whether they have the gift or not. In fact, God does not intend for them to do it at all without someone interpreting it, which I actually saw for the first time yesterday. Out of the hundreds of times I've seen people speak in tongues, I saw ONE time where it was interpreted.

These things don't ruin my faith. Seeing people not listening to God's word does not ruin my faith. I would like to say that if they are truly doing it for their own interests that God will show them the way, or He will take the whole church down to proclaim His true message. But the fact is that there are many false religions and cults out there. Everyone says that their way is "the only way". How can we discern between their "only way" and God's Only Way? Well, like the first point that I made from reading 1 Corinthians is that we need to fully inform ourself first. We need to understand the bible. The only way to do this is to read the bible. Do searches on the internet. Join a discipleship group. Go to church and think critically about what they do or say. If you don't agree with them, look it up in the bible. In fact, even if you do agree with them, make sure that it is completely backed by scripture. If it is something that violates an integral part of your salvation through the complete works of Jesus Christ alone, I would highly suggest you seek a different church. If it's something that is wrong that constantly bothers you, you should do likewise.

Never stop thinking critically about anything that another imperfect person tells you. The only perfect source of information is the Bible. Everything you need is in there and nothing that you will ever need has been left out. I do believe in the gift of tongues, but I don't think that it is a very important gift. It is not necessary for your salvation, nor is it a sign that someone's faith. I have actually been thinking all morning about changing churches. It is a pity because there are other things in the church that I really like. The music is spectacular, they are big on developing your faith through various processes (such as classes, excursions, discipleship "families", bible studies, regular prayer meetings, evangelism, etc.). But every day it is becoming more and more "crazy". I think they are starting to cross the line on going overboard on their developing the gifts of the spirit. I'm just going to have to pray about it, and maybe talk to my discipleship family about it and see what they think. Maybe I could even make an appointment with one of the pastors, even though I know they are busy because there are so many people that are members of the church. We'll see what happens.

yeah I know I'm a bit late...