Mike Robinson's Blog

Best... scene... ever...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lR6uGyMOOU

P.S. skip it to about 4 minutes

More FireFox woes

Man, FireFox has the worst textarea handling ever! First of all a search within the page (i.e. Ctrl-F) does NOT search for text within a textarea, even if that text was there originally when the page loaded. Second, it has this very very annoying hilighting problem that if the textarea has a scroll bar and you highlight part of the text, click away and then click back on the textarea, it highlights some random part of the text. What the hail's with that? Oh, and my sweet JavaScript thing that I made to post my blog entries causes the textarea to scroll to the top for no apparent reason, which gets rather annoying considering I click on the bold button, which is clicking away, which has a tendency to highlight random text. So in my last post I had a random bold appearing right in the middle of it that I had to copy and paste into notepad to find (since I can't do a find within textarea) and it scrolled all the way to the top, so I lost the position that I was boldening.

Prophecy

I was reading Wikipedia about prophets and it contains this quote:

Nevertheless, some Christians believe the minimum requirements of a true prophet can be summarized as follows: (1) Clear (not vague) prophecies (2) 100% accuracy in prophecying (i.e. one false prophecy is all it takes to disqualify them as a prophet), and (3) Must not contradict the Bible.

This is exactly what I believe. It's funny how in charismatic churches when people claim to have the gift of prophecy, they are always so vague that you really have no way of testing them. The bible says to test the prophets. If God wants us to test them, He would make them testable. His revelation would be precise and to the point. And when modern-day "prophets" decide that they are going to be precise, they make profound errors. In my church (mainly on the Tuesday services) the pastor lets anyone that wishes to prophecy do it. The most common thing that they say is that "God loves us"... Wow! Now there's some new revelation I've never heard before. Why not just read John 3:16, Galatians 2:20, 1 John 3:1, Revelations 1:5, or the best one would probably be Romans 8:38-39. At least then we can be sure it's the word of God.

The second most common "prophecy" in my church is that God has "new things" for us. Uh-huh. Has anyone ever lived a day of their life exactly the same as the previous day? Even people living in prison have "new things" happen every day. How about being a bit more precise so that people will know what to expect. The prophecies of God are always to produce a change. Every book in the bible contains guidelines of what we should do in order to live the best life. All of the prophets who spoke to the kings and rulers in Biblical times did so in order to get them to change (mostly to stop sinning) and all of the prophecies were precise. The first prophecy that comes to mind is in Daniel 4, when Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

Daniel 4:24-27

4:24 this is the interpretation, O king! It is the decision of the Most High that this has happened to my lord the king. 4:25 You will be driven from human society, and you will live with the wild animals. You will be fed grass like oxen, and you will become damp with the dew of the sky. Seven periods of time will pass by for you, before you understand that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms and gives them to whomever he wishes. 4:26 They said to leave the taproot of the tree, for your kingdom will be restored to you when you come to understand that heaven rules. 4:27 Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you. Break away from your sins by doing what is right, and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps your prosperity will be prolonged.”

It may not be the best example of a precise prophecy, but it was the first one I thought of. Notice how Daniel says exactly what would happen. He told it directly to the king, not saying "one of the six-thousand people here will be stripped of his possessions", but going direct to the source. He said exactly what would happen and WHY it would happen; he would be stripped of his kingdom because of his pride. He said exactly how LONG it would happen for and what would happen afterwards. The "seven periods of time" probably refer to seven years and after this time was up, he would regain his kingdom and worship God alone. However the most important part is that every single part of this prophecy came true with 100% accuracy!. Modern day charismatic "prophets" can't even come close. Sure, when they say God loves us and he has new things for us, they are accurate because the Bible says God loves us and it is nearly impossible to not have new things happen, but just because their prophecy may be true, does not make them a prophet. In fact, most of the times when they prophecy that something new would happen to me on that day, it ends up being just another ordinary day with nothing that out of the ordinary.

Lady in the Water

I just finished watching Lady in the Water. This movie... I honestly can't even describe it. To me it just seemed like more of a work of art than a movie. It reminds me of being back in Senior 4 English class. We read the book Lord of the Flies (even though it is nothing like this movie), and the author (William Golding) often created more suspense by not describing what is happening, sort of how they kill Simon. This movie does the same thing. Either simply not showing you in full detail what's going on or by having some crazy camera angle (I loved the camera angles in this movie [especially the end {oh yeah!}]). It's one of the most original movies I've ever seen and I really don't even know what TYPE of movie I would say it was. It had comedy, suspense, horror, and fiction, but I wouldn't be able to put it into any of those categories. But with that said, I don't think there are many people that would appreciate it as the plot and the story weren't that great and it lacked any form of action. I think Bahb would. Bahb, watch this movie. k lataz

FireFox

I think I might be switching from Opera to FireFox for my default web browser. Why you ask? Well there still are some things about it that I find slightly annoying, but I found an extension that makes it almost as fast as Opera. I also like a few other extensions that exist. Most are to make it perform like Opera, but others are definitely just useful. I'd still have to say that out of the box, Opera wins hands down.

My installed extensions which Opera has by default:

All-In-One Sidebar
Answers - click on a word to look it up in a dictionary
Fasterfox - Makes FireFox faster at rendering pages (which helps a lot with the cache, cuz FireFox doesn't use it much)
Firefox showcase - Shows thumbnail previews of the pages you have opened. This one is a little better than the Opera one in the sense that you can see them all at once, however you have to push F12 to get it to show and it's in a separate window, both of which I don't like.
Mouse Gestures
Tab Mix Plus - An extension to make the tabs behave like Opera

Other extensions I have that I find useful

ColorZilla (a little eye dropper utility)
Console2 (I'm still not sure what this does)
DownThemAll (A tool to download all of a certain type of file from a page. I have yet to use it though)
ErrorZilla Mod (Not sure what this one is either...)
FireFTP (A basic integrated FTP client)
TimeStamp Converter
Web Developer (Best. extension. ever.)
HTML Validator (Second best extension)
MeasureIt (Just a little ruler utility to measure pixels)

What I like better about Opera:

Better popup blocker (popups keep popping up all over the place in FireFox even though I have them disabled)
Faster browsing. Yep, nothing beats Opera still. But FireFox is close with my "Fasterfox" extension.
Opera's "progress bar" is far superior to anything I have seen in any other browser ever.
Pushing the back button to a page with POST data does not require a re-submission of this data, meaning that the page is loaded purely from the cache. You therefore don't lose the information you put into forms when pushing the "back" button.
Better CSS support (however FireFox is very close)
Full RSS/feed support (FireFox just has "live bookmarks" which don't compare to Opera)
Opera's download manager is WAY better than FireFox's (which pops up in a new window on top of it all, blegh!)
Everything is always in one window. No use cluttering up your taskbar. The Tab Mix Plus extension comes close, but things still pop up in separate windows from time to time.
Integrated torrent downloading client (which I rarely used)
Integrated e-mail client (which I never used, but it's still a very good feature)

What I like better about FireFox:

It's open source
Better script rendering (i.e. JavaScript works better)
Extensions! (The Opera Widgets, however more secure, are useless pieces of crap)
Slightly more customizable

So besides the popup blocker, the progress bar, and requiring a re-sending of the POST data, I don't think I would miss Opera too much. I'm going to use FireFox for a while and see how I like it.

Funny how the Bible doesn't mention this...

"Adam was a super being when God created him...he had dominion over the fowls of the air which means he used to fly...well of course how could you have dominion over the birds and not be able to do what they do. Adam flew into space, with one thought he would be on the moon."

-- Benny Hinn

Quote of the day

Psalm 103:12 (NIV)

As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

(not that I have a quote every day)

Stupid spammers!

I just realized that spammers have been trying to hack my blog. Man, why can't people just try to do things honestly for once? Now I'm going to have to disable comments until I have the time to fix this problem. Thanks guys. Thanks a lot.

Batman

I finally saw Batman Begins today on DVD. It was actually pretty cool. It was definitely a lot better than those other crap Batman movies like Batman and Robin and Batman Forever. Anyway, as I was watching the movie one of the characters said something that I really liked:

"Why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up."

And that is so true! People always think that it sucks when bad things happen to you or when you go through some sort of a rough time, but when we go through these rough times, it forms our character and it makes us appreciate all the good things in life. We look on TV and we see someone like Paris Hilton, who has never worked a day in her life and seems to have everything, but I would be willing to bet that she feels unsatisfied inside. She's never had the opportunity to fall. She's never had the opportunity to learn from her mistakes, because she's never had the opportunity to make any mistakes. It also reminds me of this girl that my dad was dating a long time ago. She had a baby who was like 9 months old who couldn't roll over on her own, she couldn't hold her own bottle, couldn't talk at all, etc. It was practically a vegetable. Anyway, one day my dad decided to let the baby hold her own bottle, and the baby grabbed it and held it there. The only reason that the baby didn't know how to was because her mother never tried to let her hold it. I'm sure the only reason she can't do any of those other things is because the mother never tried to teach her anything. She didn't talk slowly and simply to her, she used big words and talked fast, so she probably had a really hard time learning to speak. The only way that you can learn to swim is by getting in the water. It may not be too much fun at first, but you won't be able to learn otherwise.

Another late post

Here's a little something I wrote last night when my computer was not connected to the internet:

August 29th at 2:04am
I guess it's been a while now since I last posted. I'm currently at my friend Jeff's house sitting on a couch in the basement typing this up on my laptop. He just has dialup, so I'll post this when I can hook this thing up to the internet. I just finished watching Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, which was recommended to me by Bahb a long time ago, but man I didn't like it at all. I'd have to say it compares to the Passion of the Christ for the amount of violence, but this movie was way more graphic. I now have a very sick feeling in my stomach and I'm actually glad it's over. Throughout the entire movie I was thinking about how evil some people in this world can be and it's just disturbing. Why can't we all just get along? Stupid money. I know things like that don't happen all the time and most people are decent, but there still are people in this world that will kill you with no remorse, people that will rob their own mothers, people that will rape and murder children, and even just generally hateful people.

Anyway, I spent the last few days at Jeff's house and I finally got to see his new daughter. She's sooo cute! Her name is Keeleigh and she's currently about 6 months old. I also went to Jeff's parents' house Saturday night with his wife and we had a great dinner there. His parents cooked us up some barbecued chicken, fish, some sort of delicious cold pasta dish and one of those raw veggie plates with veggie dip. It was delicious! After that, we all played a bit of cards and did a bit of gambling for very small amounts of money. After like 2 hours I was about 10 cents ahead! After this, we hopped in Jeff's car (I drove since I was the only non-drinking one) and headed to my friend John Salter's house. At that point it was Jeff, his wife Lindsay, his sister Bri, John, John's brother Jim and I. Everyone sat around in his garage for a while and then we headed to the Cas-bar and shot some pool for a couple hours. Everyone was playing terribly, but we still had a blast. When the bar closed, we headed back to John's garage for about another hour and finally headed back home to Jeff's house to sleep. I know it doesn't sound like we did a whole lot, but I had such a great time. I got to see a bunch of people that I hadn't seen for a long time and hang out and just catch up on lost time.

Before I got to my friend Jeff's house, I was in Ottawa visiting my mom and her husband Larry. More importantly, I was able to witness to my mom, my grandma, my aunt and my uncle all at the same time. It was really good and I know that it will lead to something positive in the future. Also after having many hours of conversation with my mom, I'd have to say I think she's probably saved. I'm not entirely sure because she still does stuff like pray to dead people, but she did say that she has accepted Jesus as her only Lord and sufficient Saviour. Obviously I don't know what's in her heart, but I really hope it's true. I also raised a really good point with her; I said that praying to the saints and Mary the "mother of God" (not that God has a mother) is like necromancy, which the bible forbids. I think it's in Leviticus 19 but since I don't have an internet connection I can't look it up. Anyway, I looked up the definition of "necromancy" and it said that it's a form of divination from conversing with the dead. Her argument was that people just pray to Mary for intercession and not as a form of divination, but I said to her that one day you might be not really thinking about what you're praying and you accidentally start to ask Mary to reveal something for you or for her to protect someone or for her to provide you with something and POOF, you've just become a necromancer! Also she says that they don't pray to their statues because they're just reminders just like someone would take a photograph of you just as a reminder of you, even though they don't pray to it. I told her that's great, as long as you understand that. Even if 90% of people in the Catholic church understand that there's nothing special at all about the statues, there's still 10% of people in the church, all of the new believers, etc who do believe that the statues are more than just porcelain and paint, who may be inclined to bow down and actually worship the statue. The same goes for praying to Mary. I've personally met people who thought that a little picture of Mary protected her when she was driving in a dangerous place. So my question to all Catholics is, "Why would you want to push the limit of what you should and shouldn't do when it would lead the people who are ill-informed to sin?"

Also while in Ottawa, I purchased some computer equipment. I've had my computer for like 5 1/2 years now and the only upgrade I've ever purchased is a new hard drive, so I decided that it was time for an upgrade. I got a new CPU (AMD Athlon 64 AM2 3800+ dual core), motherboard, 512 meg ATI video card, 2 gigs of 533 MHz ram, a $100 wireless, optical mouse (yeah I know, but I wanted an amazing mouse for once), a cheap keyboard (cuz my other one is shot), a new power supply, and a couple of games (Oblivion and the new Guild Wars). I was going to get a really cool keyboard, but they didn't have any in stock. I also got 3 19 inch LCD monitors for my dad's hotel.

Last night I was thinking about when I auditioned for the worship group at my church and they denied me. But before everyone auditioned, this guy gave us a speech that we shouldn't just be there because we want to be in front of everyone or for any other reason except that it is what we have been called to do from God. It struck me at that moment that I really hadn't prayed about it at all and I was just there because I love making music and it was something that I just wanted to do. Well as I was thinking about that, I was lead to three different passages in the bible. Two of them were about God telling David to appoint the musicians and the third was Psalm 59 (which is for the music director; ... a prayer of David, written when Saul sent men to surround his house and murder him). It's weird because they all mention music in some way, so I'm thinking that I am going to try to turn Psalm 59 into a song somehow. It definitely wouldn't be the typical worship song, but more for someone who feels like they are being persecuted and how he wants his enemies to be exiled from society and then to be "wiped out".

Anyway, it's almost 3:00am now so I think this will be all for now. I'll post this when I get a chance. Good night and God Bless!

Blargh!

My sever has gone down THREE times this month. What the hail is up with that? I need to get this stuff sorted out when I get back to Costa Rica

Very late post

I typed this up a long time ago, but this is the first time that I have had an internet connection in order to send it. So, here you go. Enjoy:

Monday Aug 14, 12:38pm
I'm in the Edmonton airport right now waiting for my flight and I just made it through customs. Somehow I mis-read my flight information and I thought that my flight was at 12:45pm, when in fact it was at 11:20am, so needless to say, I missed my flight. They were able to throw me on the next flight, which is at 1:30 or something, so I'm just waiting for that.

I saw all these big signs everywhere saying "Wi-Fi High Speed Wireless Internet", so I decided to whip out my laptop while I wait for my flight and when I try to go to any URL I get redirected through some proxy server telling me to pay NINE CANADIAN DOLLARS to access the internet. Crap on that! So I'll just have to post this when I can find a connection later. They should have free interwebs at the airport. It's not as if the $1100 for my plane ticket can't pay the $0.20 it costs them to give me an internet connection for 20 minutes or so.

Anyway, I spent the last week with my brother. He seems to be doing okay in life. He has problems with his ex-girlfriend, who he ended up knocking up and now she's preventing him from seeing his daughter. I saw her for a whole 3 hours in the entire week that I was here. So because of this, she's forcing my brother to go through the court system to allow them to decide what happens to the baby. He had a court appointment on the 10th, but for some unknown reason he thought it was on the 17th, so he ended up missing it. I hope this doesn't reflect too negatively on him. Apart from that, he's doing okay. His job really sucks since he has to smell glue and paint all day and I think he's going to quit. He's staying with his roommate, who is also his co-worker at that place and I think he's also quitting. The pay isn't that great either, especially for what they have to go through all day long.

Besides this, my brother still seems to be spiritually lost, living a life of sin. I talked to him a bit about this, but it was weird, almost every time I wanted to talk to him about it alone, his roommate would come out of nowhere and interrupt us. This happened like 5 times at LEAST, so I dunno. I think I was more of an example for him than anything. Before I left Costa Rica, when I was at church two people separately told me that it would be my testimony that I need to bring to Canada, so I think this probably means something. It's not necessarily what I say or how I try to go through the "Four Spiritual Laws" with my brother, but more of an example that I set for him with my actions and my testimony.

Ah great, my flight just got delayed by another 45 minutes. Man, I'm going to end up arriving at my mom's house at like 2:00am or something. And that's IF I can rent a car when I get to Toronto. I only have a G2 licence, which still isn't my full licence, so I need to find a place that will rent me something even without my full licence. I looked on the internet before I left Costa Rica and the cheapest car rentals for three weeks were like $900 PLUS insurance, which I think is another $25/day. If I can't find anything a lot cheaper than that (like half price or less) then I'm just going to take the bus. It would be nice to be able to drive around Ottawa and wherever I go, but there's a limit. I'd also have to pay for gas too, which is currently at around $1.15 per LITRE! The last time that I was in Canada it was around $0.90 and I thought that was high.

So a quarter of my vacation is already over. Man this week flew by so fast considering I didn't do a whole lot. I spent most of the time watching TV and watching my brother play Diablo 2. Not a whole lot of excitement, but it was okay. My brother and I went to West Edmonton Mall yesterday, which was pretty cool. Man that place seems so much smaller than when I was there last, but it's still HUGE! It has a water park with like 200 foot high water slides, a wave pool, multiple roller coasters (and not just cheesy ones, but ones with triple loops and everything), a "haunted" house, a submarine ride beside a pirate ship, a SeaWorld-like place where they have dolphins and seals and I think sharks, and of course a full-featured mall. We were only there for like an hour though and I think we got lost like thrice. Yes, that's right. Thrice! I kinda regret not bringing my camera cuz man, that place was cool.

Now the next parts of my journey are ahead of me. I have like 10 days to visit my mom, her husband and my friends in Ottawa (the capital of Canada), then like 5 days with my friend Jeff and his wife and kid, then 5 days with my grandparents. Everyone must be evangelized! Man this is going to be a crazy trip. I never thought I would be a missionary in my own towns with my own family and friends, but here I am. It's definitely a well-needed break from my regular routine that I have in Costa Rica.

Proverbs 25:11-13
25:11 Like apples of gold in settings of silver,
so is a word skillfully spoken.
25:12 Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold,
so is a wise reprover to the ear of the one who listens.
25:13 Like the cold of snow in the time of harvest,
so is a faithful messenger to those who send him,
for he refreshes the heart of his masters.

I pray that I will have a skillful tongue and a wise, listening mind as I act as the Lord's messenger. Amen.

------

Monday Aug 14, 4:18pm
I'm currently on the plane somewhere between Alberta and Ontario 40,000 feet above the ground travelling at 850 kph. They are playing RV right now on the plane, but it's the same movie that I saw when going to Alberta, so I decided to whip out my laptop and watch one of the movies that I have on here cuz it's a modern plane and the seats in front of you have a power outlet. I chose Pink Floyd's The Wall, but man that was a bad choice. Little did I know, it's full of nudity so I had to shut it off. I skipped through like the first 2 scenes like this, but then I ended up giving up and shut it off. I don't mind it if I'm at home alone or whatever, but in a public environment, I'd rather not be watching naked boobies flopping around. So now I'm just listening to some Hillsong. Man this song is great (Hillsong United - From the Inside Out):

Everlasting
Your light will shine when all else fades
Never ending
Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart
Is to bring You praise
From the inside out
Lord my soul cries out

My Dream

I had this dream last night that my dad was accepting Christ. I was sharing with him and then he decided to pray to accept Christ but he wouldn't do it in front of me, so he went for a drive to somewhere. Today is the day that I need to talk to my brother about his salvation since tomorrow I'm flying to Ontario. Today is also the first Sunday in like a year that I'm not going to church. I know that today will go well. There are too many people praying for me for it to not go well.

Blog Update

I updated my blog today. It also kinda works in Internet Explorer now too, although it screws up the background of the articles in a VERY strange way. Man I hate IE. Anyway, it works in Opera and FireFox, so I'm happy. Maybe if I get pissed off, I'll disable access from IE again.

Changes:

RSS feeds
New layout (it looks almost the same, but I had to change quite a bit of CSS to get it to look as it does
Subscribe to the blog (notifies of new posts)
Subscribe to thread (notifies of new comments)
Took out JavaScript stuff
Updated the permalink page

Let me know what you think.

An Update

Ok, so I know it's been a while since I posted last. Well I just either didn't see a need to since bahb was in Costa Rica (and he's the only one that ever posts comments here so I know he at least reads this stuff) or been too busy to post. Anyway, On Monday I flew back up to Canada and I'm going to be here for a month. I'm spending a week with my brother in Edmonton and 3 weeks in Ontario to visit my mom, her husband, my grandparents and my friends. I have a feeling I'm going to miss all my friends from church. Man I need a geef already.

My brother has to go to court tomorrow to fight for custody of his daughter since his ex-girlfriend prevents him from seeing her and pretty much uses her as a weapon in an argument, so if they argue she will just say "ok well I'm not letting you see Kaelyn" (that's his daughter's name). Personally I think that's really immature of her, but ah well. I hope it works out for the better in the end.

bye

Rest in peace, Greg. I hope you decided to know the salvation of Christ during your lifetime.

My Dream

Holey, I had the strangest dream last night... I dreamed that I was looking for my dad downtown and I thought that he would be at this one bar, so I went in. As soon as I got in, I realized that it wasn't just any bar, but a strip joint! It was about that time that I realized that it wasn't just any strip joint, but a MALE strip joint! So I looked around and found my dad and decided that I would have a couple of beers with him. Then I realized that the girl working the bar was one of my friends from church. So I polished off the two beers and then I was feeling the effects of the alcohol quite a bit since I never drink. It was weird, because I was actually dizzy in my dream. I think it was about that point that my dad said he had to leave, and I told him I was going to stay longer. So then after my dad left my friend from church was like "You're up next" and ushered me to the stage. So there I was on the stage and I look down and I see these old gay guys staring up at me and then the music starts playing, so I decided that I was just going to try my best, so I started dancing a bit and shaking my booty and I thought to myself "I guess I should take off my shirt", so that's what I started to do and I think I took off my pants too (but I'm not sure), but what I do remember is thinking to myself how easy it was! Just then I look over at the door and I see my dad coming back into the bar and at the same time the song stopped and my friend told me to get off the stage and I went over and said hi to my dad. We started talking about some random stuff, then he's like "was that you on stage?" and I told him that it was and I was so embarassed cuz my dad saw me stripping. It was sooo weird. Then I decided that I was going to leave and go back to my dad's hotel, which was like 5 blocks away and I left.

Anyone good at interpreting dreams?

HABBY BIRTHDAY! (yes, that was a typo)

I just realized after I posted that last post that today is June 10th, the birthday of my friend JEFFERY WILLIAM THORNBORROW!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOR!!!

blagh stupid shyness

1 John 4:18 (KJV)

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

wow

It's been a month... I owe everyone a post or something! haha

Evolution of Dance

This has got to be the most amusing thing I've seen all day! (well considering i woke up not too long ago heheeh)

you win!

According to Wikipedia, "you" is the most popular word in the English language.

happy birthday to me

Yep... today I'm a QUARTER OF A CENTURY OLD!!!1!!eleventyone!!!

Today was great. I had the Academia de Obreros from 2-4 and then church service from 5-8 then after I went to my friend's house with a group of people (cuz it was her birthday yesterday) and there we had two cakes and cookies and chips with beans... ohh man it was delicious. But the only thing that wasn't good about today is that Daniela forgot to call me... :(

Our friendship has just gone to the crapper these days. I miss her so much, but it's as if she has stopped thinking/caring about me. How easy it is for girls to throw away a 8 year friendship for a boyfriend...

church

Today in church was the Best Church Service of Ever! And yes, that's gramatically correct. Man, honestly, it was sooo cool. In fact, this entire day was just awesome! It started in the morning with a prayer. Actually, I didn't wake up until 11am because the night before I had like no sleep at all and then I went to bed like at 2am. So anyway, I was in the shower and I was praying and I just said, "Lord, I dedicate this day to you. Give me the strength to make every action today for you and let me learn more of you. Increase my wisdom and knowledge of you." etc. So I finished the morning reading different websites about different topics that I was interested in.

The first topic was about the apostles, because our church is going through a transition to try to become an apostolic church. But one of the things I had difficulty with was that I thought that apostles were only alive in the first century and after the first died that there were no others, but in 2 Corinthians 11 it is talking about false apostles and Paul defines them as being people who consider themselves equal to the original apostles. Obviously there are no people today that go around like the original apostles and perform huge miracles like they did. I still believe that God equips us for the odd miracle here and there, but nothing like in the first century during the time of Christ on earth and the first apostles. This article helped me a lot. The function of modern-day apostles are exactly the same as the first apostles, however God equips them differently. They need to be ones who go into areas where the gospel is not preached, plant churches and then build them up, constantly guiding them and helping them develop correctly. They need to maintain constant contact with them and be in constant contact through prayer with God.

Ephesians 4:11-13

It was he who gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God – a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature.

Verse 13 even says when there will be no more apostles. This time has not come yet because the situation described is not the situation in the church today.

The next thing that I researched was a topic about something that I had a revelation about the other day while in prayer. I was meditating about what someone said the other day in our church. He said that some prophet came to him and told him that babies went to heaven when they died. I don't even remember the reason that he gave, but I have a tendency not to believe modern day prophets especially if they are talking about something doctrinal that is apparently not in the bible. I will believe a prophet when I start to see some of their prophecies come true, but I'm definitely not going to believe any odd person that claims to be a prophet without putting them first to the test to know their word comes from God. Anyway, I started to think about this prophecy and had a personal revelation from God and he basically said "look, go back to the beginning. Think about Adam and Eve. They were born without sin. When they committed sin, what was the first thing that happened? They realized that they were naked. When you see a young baby, they are in the same first situation. They don't know that they are naked or that there is anything wrong with it. It is after they start to grow up a bit that they start to realize that they are naked and they should be clothed. That is in indicator that they are aware of their sinful nature." It seemed simple enough and sorta made sense to me. So anyway I did a search today about babies going to heaven and I came to this website. Essentially what it says is that a person is in either one of two conditions; they are either spiritually alive or spiritually dead. All of the people who are spiritually alive will go to Heaven and have eternal life and all those who are spiritually dead will have eternal death. When someone accepts Christ, they are said to become spiritually alive. His argument was that for someone to become spiritually dead, they had to once be alive. For example, you can't say a rock is dead because it was never alive to begin with. So if this is the case, we were once alive, then our spirit died when we became aware of our sin. After this point, we are spiritually dead. Then the moment we are saved, we become spiritually alive again. There is also scripture that says that when you are saved/in order to be saved you must become like a child (Matthew 18:3-6, 19:14). I actually recommend reading the whole page in the link that I sent because it is quite interesting.

So... now to the rest of my day. In the afternoon I had my class (Academia de Obreros) and it was actually really cool. It was talking about what we need to do after we bring someone to Christ. Even though they have become a new creation and have received salvation, we need to consolidate them. Consolidation is affirming that they, in deed, accepted Christ, and then providing them with guidance and help in the future. Its purpose is essentially to close the doors behind them so that they never revert back to how they were before they accepted Christ and so that they continually grow and can eventually disciple people on their own. There are 5 steps to consolidating someone.

Welcoming them into the family of Christ - This includes getting to know them a bit, praying with them to receive Christ and making sure you take their contact information so that you can get back to them in the future
The consolidation reunion - This step I'm a bit confused about, but I think it's talking about the people that are consolidating the people need to get together and discuss everything.
A telephone call and a visit - Within the first 48 hours of their conversion, we need to get in contact with the person and make sure they are on the right track. This can be over the phone or we can try to meet with them. We need to give them a bit of advice on what to do (speak with other Christians, pray, read the bible, and attend a church).
Assigning to a group - The new convert should be assigned to an outreach group so that they can go and grow in their faith in a small group environment outside of church.
An encounter with God - At my church they practice something called an "encuentro" (encounter), where you basically go away for a weekend and essentially they make sure you have done a true repentence and equip you with the tools you need to change your life where necessary.

Honestly, for me this was great, because this is something that I always wondered about when I went out evangelizing; what happens afterwards. Sure, it's great that someone accepts Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, but perhaps they don't understand fully what it means, or perhaps they just don't want to change their life, etc etc. They need the guidance after they convert.

Anyway, after my class, I had an hour of lunch before the regular church service and one of my friends that has hardly talked to me in the past month decided that she was going to start talking with me again, which was really kewl. It's a really stupid reason in my opinion, but anyway, I started to like her and I think she started to like me too (at least it seemed like that to me and my friends). And so obviously we started to become closer and sit beside eachother and talk, etc. y'know, just the small stuff. But then people started to talk about us and she really didn't like that because we were just friends, soooo.... she decided that she would just distance herself from me, and it was something that I noticed right away. I wasn't really sure why she was doing that, but then one of my friends talked to her about two weeks later and she told him why she was doing it. So yeah, she talked to me today and seemed really happy to see me, which was great.

Then the church service started. We had our usual worship at the beginning and then the pastor said that there was a couple people visiting from Colombia and that the wife was going to give the message instead of him. Call me sexist, but I have a hard time accepting that women should teach in church due to 1 Timothy 2:9-15 unless I'm mis-interpreting it. But anyway, there are female pastors and I'm just going to have to accept it. So anyway she got up and she said right from the beginning that she was going to do something completely different. The bible says that we need to evangelize, so she said that she wanted 50 people to come to the front of the church and form 25 pairs and they would go out into the streets and bring people into the church. Meanwhile she would be giving the sermon. In the bible it says that whenever someone accepts Christ, there are great celebrations in Heaven, so what we were going to do was every time that a new person came into the church, she would stop what she was doing and everyone would celebrate with cheers and adoration to God for this person that has been brought into the house of God. After she said that about 100 people went to the front, so she said that it was great that there were more than she asked for. For some reason I decided not to go. I still am not sure why. She then said a prayer for everyone and they all went out into the streets to find people. She then told us that we would look at Luke 4:16-30. She just gave a brief background on the passage and people started pouring in the door. Practically the whole time for the next hour we were cheering at all the people pouring through the doors that these people were bringing in. Every time she started to read, she would get 1 or 2 verses and then someone else would come through the door. It was amazing. I think we finally finished the one passage by the end, but we didn't have time for anything else. When people came in, there were people waiting for them so that they could guide them into accepting Christ and in total there were ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN PEOPLE that accepted Christ!!! There was even an on-duty police officer that was brought in and accepted Christ. Man... It was truly amazing today in Church.

After church I went out with my usual going-out-after-church group and got something to eat, and that girl that I was talking about earlier came with us and she seemed to be close to me again. It was great. I'm glad that we are friends again and I'm going to call her tomorrow (well today cuz it's nearly 2am [holey! it's almost 2am???]). If every day were as amazing as today, I dunno. I can't think of anything witty because I just realized it's 2am and my brain shuts down around this time.

God bless!

blackberries

Expiry Date

For some reason or other, I decided to go and clean out my fridge today because we had a LOT of junk in there taking up space. If any of you know my dad, he's the type of guy who doesn't believe in expiry dates. For him to throw something out, it has to have things growing off it, and even then he'll probably just cut them off. So anyway I came across many items that have been expired not for weeks or months, but for years! Here's the record holder:

Yep, that's right. It expired on the 5th of March 1998! Not only that, but it's a bottle of vinegar and that stuff takes ages to go bad.

a quote

John 8:56-59

Your father Abraham was overjoyed to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” 57 Then the Judeans replied, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence, I am!”

A potato is forever

From bash.org:

IronChef Foicite: well, there's a lot of reasons
IronChef Foicite: i mean, roses only last like a couple weeks
IronChef Foicite: and that's if you leave them in water
IronChef Foicite: and they really only exist to be pretty
IronChef Foicite: so that's like saying
IronChef Foicite: "my love for you is transitory and based solely on your appearance"
IronChef Foicite: but a potato!
IronChef Foicite: potatos last for f***ing ever, man
IronChef Foicite: in fact, not only will they not rot, they actually grow s**t even if you just leave them in the sack
IronChef Foicite: that part alone makes it a good symbol
IronChef Foicite: but there's more!
IronChef Foicite: there are so many ways to enjoy a potato! you can even make a battery with it!
IronChef Foicite: and that's like saying "i have many ways in which I show my love for you"
IronChef Foicite: and potatos may be ugly, but they're still awesome
IronChef Foicite: so that's like saying "it doesn't matter at all what you look like, I'll still love you"

NO POOP FOR YOU!

Well, I had church tonight, and like usual I left feeling upset about how my church is conducted, and like usual a group of friends and I went to get something to eat at this restaurant after, and like usual I eventually made it home. This time, I had such an urge to poop so I went straight upstairs and lo and behold, we have no water. Great. Now I get to hold it in until someone decides to fix our water problem.... this is going to be fun and a half!

an update

Today Daniela finally communicated with me for like the first time in a month. I sent her another text message and she replied. I had sent her about 3 before that and even left a message at her house to call me, but she never did. Well finally she did today. So anyway I messaged her back again and said that I miss our friendship and I miss her etc etc. So she said that she didn't want to talk about it by text messages, so she is going to call me tomorrow. Man... honestly I feel so bad. I can't believe that someone would be so willing to throw a friendship of like 8 years away for some guy, for any reason. If my friend bahb ever objected to one of my girlfriends (should I ever get one, hahaha) I would definitely wait until we got everything completely cleared up with him before doing anything else with the girl. Man, sometimes I wish that people would just trust more in God and less on their emotions. Wouldn't it make everything so much more easierly? vegetables... WHAT???

secular music

Last night I was talking with one of the people I know from church and he was debating the point that we shouldn't listen to any music that isn't Christian. The argument that he used is that when we listen to non-Chrisian music, we are being ministered by it and this is a bad thing. He used the passage from the bible (Proverbs 25:19-20), which reads a bit different in English than it does in Spanish.

Here it is in my bible:

Proverbs 15:19-20

Like a bad tooth or a foot out of joint, so is confidence in an unfaithful person at the time of trouble. 20 Like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on soda, so is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.

And in Spanish:

Proverbios 15:19-20 (Reina Valera)

Como diente roto y pie descoyuntado es confiar en un prevaricadoren momentos de angustia. 20 El que canta canciones al corazón afligido es como el que se quita la ropaen tiempo de frío o el que sobre el jabón echa vinagre.

Ok... so after I read this again I see that they are actually the same, just the order that threw me off completely.

Ok, I think that we can all agree on one thing; something is only wrong if it causes someone to sin. I read this very interesting website on listening to secular music and the guy seems to make some very good arguments in favor of listening to secular music. Firstly, God created all things, including music. He gave us the ability to create any type of music that we want, whether it be a song of praise, a song of hatred, or a song that has no lyrics at all. He says the following:

So if I wrote a song about cows and sausages, there would be nothing wrong with that. As a Christian I can write songs about algebra and the circulatory system and meeting girls. God created all those things. Why would it be wrong to sing about such things? I am singing about God's wonderful creation, and at the same time using a God created medium – music.

Not all the music we listen to needs to be music of praise and worship to God. However music can also be used as a medium to spread hatred or any sort of worldy false belief, such as the many artists now that promote fornication and exploitation of women, false religious cults such as satanism, hatred or racism (know what i'm saying nigga), etc etc. This music in itself it not evil, i.e. the musical notes they play and the sounds they make with their voice are not evil things; the message that they convey is where the problem is. But is it a bad thing to listen to a song about something, such as satanism? In the bible there are many times where it talks about kings doing evil things or satan influencing people or tempting Jesus, etc. The bible talks about many sins. When we turn on the TV, we are bombarded with how many Iraqis decided that they would blow themselves up for their religion, how many students were shot in school that day, how many Catholic priests raped altar boys the day before, etc etc. But does that mean that we shouldn't watch the news? Well in my opinion, it all comes down to how it makes you feel and what it makes you do. Does it make you feel upset after seeing these things happen? Well then don't watch the news. Does it make you want to sin when you watch these things happening? Does it make you hate people or wish they were dead? Well then don't watch it. I would apply the same reasoning to music. Does the music you listen to make you feel upset after you hear it or does it make you want to sin? Well then don't listen to it. Listening to the music is not a sin. It is only a sin when you turn around and start sinning.

The website also made another very good argument and actually coincides with the argument against it that the guy I was talking to yesterday made. When we listen to the music, we learn the lyrics and often go around singing them. Even if the song doesn't contain any curse words, you may:

not be projecting a good Christian image.
cause others who view that listening to secular music to be bad to follow your example. Even though it is not a sin to listen to secular music, if they believe it to be a sin, it will be a sin to them because they are disobeying what they believe God expects of them, even if those expectations are wrong.

This is a good argument against listening to secular music and it definitely sounds like a valid answer to me. However what would the solution be? The author of the website proposes that we try to abstain from listening to secular music around those Christians who are weaker in their faith so that we don't cause them to stumble. To me it seems like an okay answer, but at the same time almost hypocritical. God wants us to be people of integrity. I believe that we should be the same person in church as I am when I hang out with my worldly friends and when I'm in my room alone at night. I shouldn't have to change who I truly am so that I can please certain social groups.

One of the things that the guy I talked to last night was talking about was this dance that they made for the youth of the church. Personally, I didn't really see anything wrong with it, but he made a good point. Dancing is something that the people of the world do when they go to clubs or bars or whatever. When Christians go out dancing with each other, even if they are dancing to Christian music, it is like they are bluring the lines between Christianity and the world, and this shouldn't exist. There should be a strong distinction between the two and when someone sees us, they should know that we are a Christian from how we act and what we do and don't do. I'm not sure if I entirely agree with him on these points though. Personally, I no longer enjoy going to bars or trying to find the best looking girl to dance with or drinking, but as long as the dance is not vulgar, I don't see any problem with a Christian couple to go out and dance together. Actually I think it may even be something healthy for them, provided they are in the right environment. Maybe if it is in a bar, they may be tempted into getting drunk or smoking or whatever, but if a Christian couple were to find a secluded place and throw on some romantic music and slow dance the night away, holding each other in their arms, I don't see anything wrong with that.

So... yeah I dunno how I got off onto this tangent, but it's just been bothering me lately. I don't want to be a hypocrite and listen to secular music at home and Christian music when I am at church or when I go out with my friends. The bible says:

1 Thessalonians 5:17-18

constantly pray, in everything give thanks. For this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

It is just hard. Does anyone actually live up to these expectations? Do you give thanks to the Lord every time you poop for the ability to have the privelage of using toilet paper? Do you give thanks every time you look at the sky for the beauty that God created? Do you give thanks every time you bang your thumb with a hammer for the ability to learn the hard way to be more dextrous? I know I would have to answer "no" to every one of these questions. In fact, I don't know if I've ever given thanks to God for toilet paper. Man.... honestly.... thank God for toilet paper! haha... ok, but honestly, can we still listen to secular music and give thanks to God at the same time? I suppose we could extend this question to further things... could we watch a music video and still give thanks to God? What about a non-Christian movie? What about reading non-biblical books? What about viewing a non-Christian website? Using a non-Christian search engine? Using a computer monitor created by a company that sacrifices babies to an imaginary god? Where do you draw the line?

k.... comments please... especially you Alicks!

God... the one who gives me his peas because i like peas.

finally... my answer

I forgot to mention something important that happened to me. Well, most nights before I go to bed, I try to dedicate some time to praying and reading the bible. I have been very confused about the whole Daniela issue and how our friendship has pretty much gone to the pooper these last few weeks. So anywho, one of the ways that God speaks to me is through his word. Often I will pray that he will lead me to the passage that will give me the answer that I am looking for, and that's exactly what happened last night. So there I was, lying on my bed praying and giving thanks to the Lord for all the blessings that he had given me for the day and I picked up my bible and for some reason I felt that God was leading me to the book of Esther. It was weird because he made me think of this stupid forward that one of my friends sent me about how people take advantage of women by pretending to offer some perfume for them to smell, but instead of being perfume it's a bottle of ETHER! Man, honestly, I love the guy who sent it to me (in a very non-homosexual way), but he really needs to think for himself sometimes. Anyway I was thinking about the effects of ether and then I see the book Esther and God tells me to read it, so I started reading it. And holey, I would be willing to bet that there is no other passage in the bible that could be more accurate to my situation than that one. It's about King Ahasuerus and how he threw a huge party for everyone and let anyone who wanted to come to have whatever they wanted for free, and they were all treated like kings. Then while the king was sitting around he was so proud of his queen (Vashti) and how beautiful she was that he summoned her and told her to come into his presence wearing her royal turban so that he could show everyone how beautiful she was, but she refused to listen to the king. So he got really mad about the situation and summoned his counselors to come to help him decide what to do. They all decided that queen Vashti would be stripped of her crown and the king would look for another queen who is more deserving than she (Esther 1).

This fits almost perfectly with my situation. There's this girl that I like that I ask her to do something for me and instead of doing this little favor for me, she decides to just do what she wants to do instead. And just like the king, I wasn't thinking of anything wrong or asking her to do anything sexual or whatever, I just wanted her to pray. Similarly, the king wasn't asking her to come and strip for him or anything, he just wanted to show everyone how beautiful his queen was. But the verse that speaks to me the most is Esther 1:19, which says "... Vashti may not come into the presence of King Ahasuerus, and let the king convey her royalty to another who is more deserving than she." Holey, after I had read this I understood the whole passage and how it applied to me. To me, this essentially says that since Daniela didn't pray and ask for God's advice for who to choose as a boyfriend that she is not worthy to be my queen.

It's funny because before I would pray, even after she had a boyfriend because when God wants something to happen and he says that that's the way it's going to be, he's not going to later change his mind and say the opposite. So God would always tell me that his word is un-changing and when he told me to come here for Daniela, he still means it. She is still the person for me, or more accurately, I am the person for her. But since I was disobedient back in December and now she is being disobedient to both God and I, the title that God had given to her has been taken away and given to someone else. There is someone else out there who is more deserving than she. So I'm not going to spend my entire life waiting for her to get her act together. God will provide me with someone just as good as her, if not better, and I will be the perfect man for her too.

escapa!

How long can you survive the impending doom of your imminent death!?

immovable objects

haha this is a pretty cool answer to a common question that people ask (source):

} This is a question often brought up by people arguing against the
} existence of an omnipotent God. I tried it out once.
}
} Oracle: Hey, God, you can do anything, right?
} God: This is true.
} Oracle: Well, I bet you can't create an immovable stone.
} God: Oh yeah? How much?
} Oracle: Ten pints and a packet of peanuts.
} God: You're on.
} Oracle: That's pretty impressive.
} God: You bet it is.
} Oracle: How about a double-or-nothing bet?
} God: Sure, why not?
} Oracle: I bet you can't move it over there.
} God: That's not fair! You're playing with semantics and petty logic.
} Oracle: So? If you can move it, you owe me the ten pints and a packet
} of peanuts. If you can't, then I still don't owe you anything.
} God: Let me think about this one... Got it. } universe, and reconstructs it with the stone in a different
} place> You see, I can play games with logic and semantics too.
}
} You owe the Oracle twenty pints and two packets of peanuts.

Bible Contradictions

I found this great website on supposed Bible contradictions. Some of them seem to be pretty valid, so I wanted to take it upon myself to try to dispute every one of their "contradictions" because I know the word of God is infalliable. It looks like there's about 40 there, so it might take some time. When it's done I'll have a new article in the menu.

Following instructions

Something the pastor said in church today:

The Bible is the instruction manual for life.

Actually church was pretty good today. The 'predica' was entitled "Follow the Instructions or Pay the Price" and it was about how the Bible is our instruction manual. First, humans (especially men) have a tendency to NOT follow directions very well. When we get our E-Z Assemble Barbecue I think most men try to put it together on without the instruction booklet first and 90% of us end up getting it wrong. Women do a better job at pulling out the instruction manual and reading it cover to cover before even unpacking any of the pieces, they tend to be the ones that ask for directions when they're driving, but even still, women are not perfect at always following directions either. Wow, the pastor definitely did not talk about any of this stuff, but it just came to my mind. So... yeah anywho he was saying that humans just don't follow directions. Usually we're fine if we do things on our own using our own judgement, but if an emergency ever happens, we'll be lost. He used the example of being on an airplane. How many of you have been on an airplane sometime in your life? I'm assuming most people have been on at least one. Before the flight they give you those instructions of what to do in case of emergency. How many people do you see not paying attention to the people, but instead they are reading the "duty free" magazine from the seat in front of them? How many of them would actually know what to do when an accident comes? How many of them know where their personal flotation device is located? How many of them can easily locate the nearest exit without thinking twice? I'm assuming not many of us would get it completely right. And obviously there's consequences for our inability to follow instructions. In the case of the airplane, it could lead to our death. Well you know what? Not following the Bible can lead to death as well. The four points he made about someone who follows the instruction of the Bible are:

They know who to respond to - Both the devil and God try to influence us, but we need to close our ears to the devil and only pay attention to God's voice of truth
They know who they can trust - We need to trust in the protection that God provides us since he is our shield. But just because he is protecting us, doesn't mean that the devil won't keep trying to attack us. A shield doesn't stop the attack, but it blocks it and prevents it from causing damage. Therefore we need to get out there in the font lines of the battle and fight. And I don't mean we need to go around killing or even hurting people, because our fight is not against people (Ephesians 6:12), but we need to fight the evil influences of this world by always showing love to everyone. Sometimes we put our trust in our friends or relatives and they end up betraying us, but we shouldn't let that get us down because God will lift us up again (2 Samuel 15:30-31 - talks about how King David's son, Ahithophel, betrayed him)
They know where they are safe - Obviously we are safe when we are being held in the hands of God. Sometimes something may happen during the day that upsets us and keeps us awake at night. God will never keep us from sleeping. If ever we are lying awake at night it is not because of God because we are safe while we are sleeping in his presence (Psalms 4:8). We need not be afraid because God is the one that will fight our battles with us (Psalms 3:6-8).

Jeremiah 20:11-12

20:11 But the Lord is with me to help me like an awe-inspiring warrior.
Therefore those who persecute me will fail and will not prevail over me.
They will be thoroughly disgraced because they did not succeed.
Their disgrace will never be forgotten.
20:12 O Lord who rules over all, you test and prove the righteous.
You see into people’s hearts and minds.
Pay them back for what they have done
because I trust you to vindicate my cause.

Isaiah 54:14-17

54:14 You will be reestablished when I vindicate you.
You will not experience oppression;
indeed, you will not be afraid.
You will not be terrified,
for nothing frightening will come near you.
54:15 If anyone dares to challenge you, it will not be my doing!
Whoever tries to challenge you will be defeated.
54:16 Look, I create the craftsman,
who fans the coals into a fire
and forges a weapon.
I create the destroyer so he might devastate.
54:17 No weapon forged to be used against you will succeed;
you will refute everyone who tries to accuse you.
This is what the Lord will do for his servants –
I will vindicate them,”
says the Lord.

convulsions

I have been thinking lately about my church and how it tends to be unbiblical at times. Actually I like everything about it except how they view the "dones del Espiritu" (gifts of the Spirit). Since my church is very charismatic, there are people there that burst into uncontrollable convulsions and fall to the floor. So, I just did a quick search in my bible search utility on the word "convulsions" and here's what came up:

Luke 9:42-43

As the boy was approaching, the demon threw him to the ground and shook him with convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. Then they were all astonished at the mighty power of God.

Translator's notes: See L&N 23.167-68, where the second verb συσπαράσσω (susparassw) is taken to mean the violent shaking associated with the convulsions, thus the translation here “and shook him with convulsions.”

Mark 1:23-26

Just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, 1:24 “Leave us alone, Jesus the Nazarene! Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are – the Holy One of God!” 1:25 But Jesus rebuked him: “Silence! Come out of him!” 1:26 After throwing him into convulsions, the unclean spirit cried out with a loud voice and came out of him.

Mark 9:25-27

Now when Jesus saw that a crowd was quickly gathering, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” 9:26 It shrieked, threw him into terrible convulsions, and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He is dead!” 9:27 But Jesus gently took his hand and raised him to his feet, and he stood up.

It's funny how at my church they see falling to the floor in convulsions as "anointing of the Holy Spirit". I'm kinda glad it's never happened to me.

mark? a php master? please.... i eat spoons like you for breakfast!

Sometimes the answer to a question is really a question to a question.

ok i thought of one

Opera ftw!

blah

i feel like posting something... but i dunno what. give me ideas people.............

Oh the irony

Know what's funny? The only actual reason that Daniela gave that she didn't want to be with me is because we're good friends and she didn't want to ruin our friendship... oh the irony!

yo

ok honestly, why do people end their sentences with yo? That's the dumbest thing ever. Yo is a word that's supposed to get people's attention, like "hey", so therefore it should start a sentence, not finish it! It's like saying "listen to this". Wouldn't it be dumb if someone said a whole sentence and then finished it with, "listen to what I just said". pff.

a question

Why does nobody ever start their prayers with "Dude"? Wouldn't it be better if we were like "Dude, God, hey, guess what... etc." I think that a lot of people think of God as this great King that you have to have the utmost respect for, and I'd have to say I agree, but is it disrespectful to be open with God and talk to him like a friend? God wants to be your Lord and King, but I've also learned that he wants to be your friend. Whenever I hear someone praying a prayer, like, like one of those ones that have already been written, I just think, "Do they really mean that prayer?" I have a feeling that most of the time they don't, like for example take my grandpa. I have a lot of respect for him, but every meal he says the exact same prayer:

Heavenly Father be pleased to bless this food to our use and thus to thy service, for Christ's sake. Amen.

When was the last time you spoke like that to your friend? I just think that God would prefer if you spoke to Him openly. If you're one of those very weird people that end every sentance with "yo", then pray like that!

New Look

I've been playing around with the look of the website. I got this idea from this site. It looks pretty slick, eh?

happy birthday to my pops

yep... it's today.

bye bye

I feel like I lost one of my best friends today... Man what a crap. How did this happen? I'd say I'm confused, but... I dunno, I'm more just upset. Ok, let me tell you. I had two reasons for coming to Costa Rica last January. The first is my dad. I wanted to come to I guess evangelize him. He needs to know Jesus. I wanted to help him become saved. So far, after being here for a year and 2 months, I have hardly said anything at all to him. I dunno, it's hard. It's not even that I don't have a lot of experience with evangelism (which I don't really), but it's stupid. I just can't talk to him about it. I told him that he should go to this evangelistic festival the other day (oh man, i should post about that too) and he said that he didn't want to go, but maybe he would go to church some day. At least that's positive, but I think I need to find an English-speaking church around here because I'm sure he wouldn't understand anything at my church.

Anyway, that's the first reason I came here. The second is because of my friend Daniela. I haven't had a girlfriend for a long time and it's something that I've been praying about for almost just as long. And well, God told me that Daniela would be the one for me a long time ago. Actually it started almost 2 years ago. And, so I decided to come to Costa Rica after I finished university for these two reasons. Since I came here, I've been nothing but shy around Daniela. I just haven't been able to open up to her at all. Then around last April or May, I decided that I would just go straight out and tell her how I felt, except it just didn't come out that well due to my shyness. And I dunno, I think since then she just sorta tried to ignore it until around December when people around church started talking about us because we were close friends and we were always together. And that made her start to feel awkward because we were just friends. I guess she's the type of person that really cares what people think about her, or at least she doesn't like when people gossip. Anyway, the whole time I still had the same feelings for her because I just felt like I didn't have closure. I always felt like maybe if I would just open up to her that she would begin to change, or maybe see the possibility of something happening. I wasn't sure, but I just felt like when I didn't do a good job earlier that year that I just needed to be honest with her. Then in December, God revealed to me exactly what I needed to do and when I needed to do it, but me, being shy, decided not to do it. Lo and behold, two weeks later she has a boyfriend.

Well, her relationship didn't last long with him. I think it was like just over a month or something. Then after they broke up, I decided that I couldn't be shy anymore around her. So I decided to tell her exactly how I felt about her, and I did. I told her everything that happened right from the beginning, and I know that she doesn't have any feelings for me, but I just told her to pray about it, because maybe God might tell her that I was the one for her, even though she didn't think so. So yesterday after church, I saw Daniela and some friends of mine and I were going to go get something to eat for lunch, so I thought it would be cool if Daniela came with us too. So I went with her while she talked with her friends to try to see where they wanted to go. Since it was like 4 women, they were pretty indecisive and they ended up wanting to go to a different place than they had originally planned, at which point, my friends had already taken off to go to get something to eat somewhere else. So since I didn't have anywhere else to go, I decided to go along with them to KFC. Well, her ex-boyfriend went with us too and it was about that time that I noticed that they didn't seem to be ex's anymore. They were like holding hands and stuff. I felt a bit awkward, as I think she did too. So anyway I was in my room today and I lied down on my bed to call her and just then the phone rang and it was her. So she told me that they were back together as of like a week ago and that she didn't think that God would change how she feels for me, even if she prayed about it. I'm assuming that means that she didn't pray about it. Anyway, she told me that her boyfriend also asked about me because we were good friends, and so she told him and now he knows that I have feelings for her. So for that reason, now she doesn't think it would be right if we were to hang out at all or go to the movies or anything because her boyfriend would get jealous. I understand how she feels, but still, it just sucks. Now I feel really bad about it. I just wish there was something I could do to make everything better. I know I could pray about it, but still. I'm just not optimistic right now. I feel like I've lost one of my best friends and I won't be able to get her back.

...the nose knows...

message

So yesterday I was in church (actually it's now the day before yesterday since it's after 12), and there's been this thing that I have really been praying about lately, and God revealed the plan to me in a very strange way. It was in a drawing on the cover of this notebook that someone on the bench in front of me had, but holey, it was a clear plan of action. Yesterday was a very awesome day. I had to do this presentation for the Academia de Obreros, which was like a final exam. And the thing was that you had to use whatever talent that God has given you, no matter what area it is in, and show it to the class. So, well, I chose to play guitar in front of everyone. I thought it would be cool that I would do it with this other guy, but, well... we practiced it for like 2 1/2 hours and he still managed to screw the rhythm up while we were doing it... sorta reminds me of BAHB during the birth of BOB! hahahah! But yeah, it was kewl and I did another song besides this one. It was a non-Christian song, but it had a really kewl message that was sorta like a metaphor to a Christian concept (even if the person who wrote it didn't intend for it to be that way [which I don't think he did]).

Ok, I must commence my plan of action for today. bye bye

ohhh jack handey... does he ever get old?

If I lived back in the wild west days, instead of carrying a six-gun in my holster, I'd carry a soldering iron. That way, if some smart-aleck cowboy said something like "Hey, look. He's carrying a soldering iron!" and started laughing, and everybody else started laughing, I could just say, "That's right, it's a soldering iron. The soldering iron of justice." Then everybody would get real quiet and ashamed, because they had made fun of the soldering iron of justice, and I could probably hit them up for a free drink.

I don't think I'm alone when I say I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system.

Ambition is like a frog sitting on a Venus Flytrap. The flytrap can bite and bite, but it won't bother the frog because it only has little tiny plant teeth. But some other stuff could happen and it could be like ambition.

i will SPLODE you!

oops

I just read this:

Matthew 6:16-20

“When you fast, do not look sullen like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive so that people will see them fasting. I tell you the truth, they have their reward. When you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others when you are fasting, but only to your Father who is in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.

So I guess I prolly shouldn't have posted that last post. Oopsies.

Today is fast

Yeah that's right... today is fast. But not in the quick sense, in the lack of food sense.

I decided that I would take it upon myself to complete a 72 hour fast starting on Saturday night. It's now Monday night and man, I want food. Actually I thought that it would get progressively more difficult as the days went by, but it's just like a constant hunger. I think that your hunger peaks like a few hours after and then gradually decreases and levels off. So yeah, I'm hungry, but it's not like I can't stand it. But every time I think of, smell, hear, etc food it is harder.

Since last night was church and almost every night after church I do something afterwards that involves eating with a group of friends of mine, it was kinda difficult. We all went out to this pizza place, so there I was, watching everyone eating nice, juicy, greasy pizzas with their melted cheese, onions, ground beef, pepperoni. And I had to settle for a bottle of juice™. Holey, tomorrow after church, I shall eat until I exPLODE! Man... I can't wait.

Oh yeah, so I never esplained (yeah that's right, "esplained") why I am fasting. I'm doing it for my brother, mom and dad so that they all accept Christ. I pray that they do one day. Bahb said that fasting is a powerful weapon to use. I trust his judgement... or at least the judgement of the Bible! My dad just asked me if I wanted some shrimps, but well since I don't really want to have to tell him why I'm fasting I told him I didn't want any. I guess it's not REALLY lying. I want to eat them, but I don't want to break my fast. So uhm. Yeah, anyway I now have less than 24 hours. I can do it!

The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

Click!

http://ytmndgameboy.ytmnd.com/

Chuck Norris hates anime

http://chuckhatesanime.ytmnd.com/

Alex, you dirty hoe!

I toll you to leave comments. What the hail?

mmmm

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia."
-- Charles Schultz

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

It doesn't make sense that God created the animals on the earth as babies. They had to be full-grown or they wouldn't have been able to survive. Newborn animals usually depend completely on their mothers. If God created unhatched chickens, they wouldn't be able to survive without their mothers, which sit on the egg to keep it warm and help the young chick find food in the first few weeks of its life. So therefore, the chicken came first.

...scripture? or not scripture?

Since I am now taking a class called the Academia de Obreros from my church, I decided to read ahead to one of the last lessons in our little booklet that they give us. It was talking about baptism and trying to say that one of the evidences of being baptised by the Holy Spirit is that you will speak in tongues and it gave reference to the Gospel of Mark, which states:

Mark 16:17-18

These signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages; they will pick up snakes with their hands, and whatever poison they drink will not harm them; they will place their hands on the sick and they will be well.”

However, I noticed that the text for this chunk in my bible is a smaller font. So I read the notes and it has a lot of evidence why Mark 16:9-20 was not actually written by Mark and therefore was not divinely inspired!

Upon a little research, I also found a similar case is found with John 7:53-8:11, which contains the famous line "Whoever among you is guiltless may be the first to throw a stone at her." or "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".

The source that listed both of these also said that these are the only two known cases in the entire bible that the scripture MAY not be divinely inspired. My bible has the following footnote after these two passages: "[the passage] most likely was not part of the original text of the Gospel of John. In spite of this, the passage has an important role in the history of the transmission of the text, so it has been included in the translation". Obviously it says "Gospel of Mark" respectively.

I have concluded that to be on the safe side, I will not base any weight on these passages. Since the "gifts of the spirit" and how they are abused has been really bothering me lately, I am going to completely disregard Mark 16:9-20, however John 7:53-8:11 has a really kewl story, so I will consider it as a reference of something Jesus probably did during his life. However it also raises a question. IF John 7:53-8:11 is not scriptural, then the statement "I do not condemn you either" was not inspired by God and therefore has the possibility of not being true. Which leads me to think ...does God condemn sinners? what about those who do not repent? This woman in the story clearly did not repent for her sin. Also, the statement "Go, and from now on do not sin anymore" also seems to me like it may not be something Jesus would say. We are all sinners. We know it, and God knows it even more than we do. No matter how saintly a person may think of themself, this does not get them into Heaven. You are saved by the Grace of God alone, not by your actions. So anyway, God, knowing full well that we all fall short of His glory, to make a statement like "and from now on do not sin anymore" seems a bit bold to me. Of course, God commands us all not to sin. Ever. But, I dunno, I could see why this statement doesn't really match the things that Jesus says. Maybe if he had told her to turn away from her adulterous ways, that would make more sense because then the people would have no reason to stone her to death.

With this passage included, the following passage (John 8:12) seems a bit out of place. After "Jesus was alone with the woman" (John 8:9) all of a sudden, he is preaching to the Pharisees. It doesn't say that he left and went somewhere else. It just starts saying how he just started preaching to the people. However, this would fit very well if it was a continuation after John 7:52. In John 7:52 they are saying how no prophet is from Galilee (referring to Jesus), and in the next one Jesus speaks out saying that he is the "light of the world", sort of negating the fact that no prophet comes from Galilee. What is the light of the world? It is something that will lead the people. This is what Jesus has done. He leads his people to salvation through his death and resurrection.

I told you I'd post on a non-Wednesday.

Why is it that Catholics are so obsessed with Jesus as a baby?

Anyone notice a pattern here?

OK, I don't mean to make a habit of posting only on Wednesdays, but well that's how it's been lately. I'm sorry. Stay tuned for a Thursday or Sunday post coming soon to a theatre near you. And yes, I'm Canadian, eh.

So anywhose, where to start.... I had a very productive night. In fact, I feel really good about something right now. Better about this situation than I've felt in a long time. Well, last week, as you can probably tell from my last post, I wasn't feeling too great. I was upset about the church and the leader, and well I still don't agree with everything they do, but I suppose I am less upset by it... well at least right now. So last Thursday my "mom" from my discipleship family could tell there was something wrong with me. She asked me about three times what was wrong and for some reason, for lack of judgement or because I didn't want to tell her the whole story, I lied to her multiple times and said that I was fine. Man... after that I felt like Peter after he lied about knowing Jesus three times and I can completely understand how that happened.

Well it was more than just what was happening in church, but also things going on in my life. There was something that God told me to do and I let my emotions get in the way of it and it ended up blowing up right in front of my face. Because of it I've felt upset towards myself for not having listened to Him and not having acted upon what he told me to do. So today after our weekly discipleship meeting I had a really long talk with my mommy and the first thing I did was ask for her forgiveness for lying to her, and then I told her everything, well... everything about how I didn't listen to God. I didn't tell her that I was upset about some things in church. Maybe I'll save that for another time. But it was great and we had a conversation for about half an hour and she had a lot of great advice for me. One of the things she said was God will tell us things like a parent will say to his/her child "Don't touch the oven when it's on". What is the first thing the kid goes and does? It goes and touches the oven and gets burnt, but even though the child didn't listen to its parent, not only will the parent continue to love the child unconditionally, the child learned two lessons. First it learned not to touch the oven, and second, and definitely more applicable in my case, it learned to trust in its parent. The same thing happened to me. Even though I didn't listen to something He said, I have learned to trust in what He tells me to do and that he will continue loving me no matter what. What does the bible say?

Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I just hope that I have learned my lesson and will listen to God in the future. I hope that I will have the strength to not depend on my own emotions, but will be able to overcome them and do what needs to be done at the time that God wants them to happen.

i dunno

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?

Matthew 19:30

But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

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.

Something new for me

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:

Jude 6

You also know that the angels who did not keep within their proper domain but abandoned their own place of residence, he has kept in eternal chains in utter darkness, locked up for the judgment of the great Day.

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:

Ezekiel 28:12b-19

“‘You were the sealer of perfection,
full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God.
Every precious stone was your covering,
the ruby, topaz, and emerald,
the chrysolite, onyx, and jasper,
the sapphire, turquoise, and beryl;
your settings and mounts were made of gold.
On the day you were created they were prepared.
I placed you there with an anointed guardian cherub;
you were on the holy mountain of God;
you walked about amidst fiery stones.
You were blameless in your behavior from the day you were created,
until sin was discovered in you.
In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned;
so I defiled you and banished you from the mountain of God –
the guardian cherub expelled you from the midst of the stones of fire.
Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
you corrupted your wisdom on account of your splendor.
I threw you down to the ground;
I placed you before kings, that they might see you.
By the multitude of your iniquities, through the sinfulness of your trade,
you desecrated your sanctuaries.
So I drew fire out from within you;
it consumed you,
and I turned you to ashes on the earth
before the eyes of all who saw you.
All who know you among the peoples are shocked at you;
you have become terrified and will be no more.’”

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?

Show me the water!

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.

Chronicles of Narnia

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!

Matroshka (part 2)

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

Matroshka

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.

New Calendar

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!

God's Wrath

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:

2 Chronicles 7:13-14

When I close up the sky so that it doesn’t rain, or command locusts to devour the land’s vegetation, or send a plague among my people, if my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

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

He speaks of these because He knows that human beings do not do well in prosperity, whether spiritual or material.

What God seems to be saying to Israel is that it will be necessary once again to get their attention about their spiritual condition. Verse 13 tells us three ways (out of many ones) He will do it: through drought, disease and locust infestation. These manifestations are renderings, amazingly enough, of His grace. He is trying to help His people meet the first prerequisite for revival [note: earlier he defines this as "God's people must recognize that there is a desperate need for spiritual awakening"], recognizing the desperate need for spiritual awakening. And often the only things that can get our attention are those things which cause us pain. "Pain," C.S. Lewis said, "is God's megaphone."

Though God may first send prophets, preachers, and his word to warn us, quite frequently it takes disaster and dragedy to strike hard enough to make us turn to Him for answers. This need recognition must come first in our list of priorities, or we, as God's people, will go on our own oblivious ways down paths to ever-greater harm.

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...