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Getting somewhere requires effort, it takes
faith to push on, it's easy to screw up,
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Thursday, July 8, 2010
Commandment 6, You shall not murder!Commandment 6, You shall not murder!
Murder! Is it really
a problem today?
 Crime statistics per capita of the nations
can be found at http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita and is displayed below for you to see:
| Rank | Countries | Amount | | # 1 | Colombia: | 0.617847 per 1,000 people | | # 2 | South Africa: | 0.496008 per 1,000 people | | #
3 | Jamaica: | 0.324196 per 1,000 people | | # 4 | Venezuela: | 0.316138 per 1,000 people | | #
5 | Russia: | 0.201534 per 1,000 people | | # 6 | Mexico: | 0.130213 per 1,000 people | | #
7 | Estonia: | 0.107277 per 1,000 people | | # 8 | Latvia: | 0.10393 per 1,000 people | | #
9 | Lithuania: | 0.102863 per 1,000 people | | # 10 | Belarus: | 0.0983495 per 1,000 people | | # 11 | Ukraine: | 0.094006 per 1,000 people | | # 12 | Papua New Guinea: | 0.0838593 per 1,000 people | | # 13 | Kyrgyzstan: | 0.0802565 per 1,000 people | | # 14 | Thailand: | 0.0800798 per 1,000 people | | # 15 | Moldova: | 0.0781145 per 1,000 people | | # 16 | Zimbabwe: | 0.0749938 per 1,000 people | | # 17 | Seychelles: | 0.0739025 per 1,000 people | | # 18 | Zambia: | 0.070769 per 1,000 people | | #
19 | Costa Rica: | 0.061006 per 1,000 people | | # 20 | Poland: | 0.0562789 per 1,000 people | | # 21 | Georgia: | 0.0511011 per 1,000 people | | # 22 | Uruguay: | 0.045082 per 1,000 people | | #
23 | Bulgaria: | 0.0445638 per 1,000 people | | # 24 | United States: | 0.042802 per 1,000 people | | #
25 | Armenia: | 0.0425746 per 1,000 people | | # 26 | India: | 0.0344083 per 1,000 people | | # 27 | Yemen: | 0.0336276 per 1,000 people | | # 28 | Dominica: | 0.0289733 per 1,000 people | | # 29 | Azerbaijan: | 0.0285642 per 1,000 people | | # 30 | Finland: | 0.0283362 per 1,000 people | | # 31 | Slovakia: | 0.0263303 per 1,000 people | | # 32 | Romania: | 0.0250784 per 1,000 people | | # 33 | Portugal: | 0.0233769 per 1,000 people | | # 34 | Malaysia: | 0.0230034 per 1,000 people | | # 35 | Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of: | 0.0229829 per 1,000 people | | # 36 | Mauritius: | 0.021121 per 1,000 people | | #
37 | Hungary: | 0.0204857 per 1,000 people | | # 38 | Korea, South: | 0.0196336 per 1,000 people | | # 39 | Slovenia: | 0.0179015 per 1,000 people | | # 40 | France: | 0.0173272 per 1,000 people | | # 41 | Czech Republic: | 0.0169905 per 1,000 people | | # 42 | Iceland: | 0.0168499 per 1,000 people | | # 43 | Australia: | 0.0150324 per 1,000 people | | # 44 | Canada: | 0.0149063 per 1,000 people | | # 45 | Chile: | 0.014705 per 1,000 people | | # 46 | United Kingdom: | 0.0140633 per 1,000 people | | # 47 | Italy: | 0.0128393 per 1,000 people | | # 48 | Spain: | 0.0122456 per 1,000 people | | # 49 | Germany: | 0.0116461 per 1,000 people | | # 50 | Tunisia: | 0.0112159 per 1,000 people | | # 51 | Netherlands: | 0.0111538 per 1,000 people | | # 52 | New Zealand: | 0.0111524 per 1,000 people | | # 53 | Denmark: | 0.0106775 per 1,000 people | | # 54 | Norway: | 0.0106684 per 1,000 people | | # 55 | Ireland: | 0.00946215 per 1,000 people | | # 56 | Switzerland: | 0.00921351 per 1,000 people | | # 57 | Indonesia: | 0.00910842 per 1,000 people | | # 58 | Greece: | 0.0075928 per 1,000 people | | # 59 | Hong Kong: | 0.00550804 per 1,000 people | | # 60 | Japan: | 0.00499933 per 1,000 people | | # 61 | Saudi Arabia: | 0.00397456 per 1,000 people | | # 62 | Qatar: | 0.00115868 per 1,000 people | | | Weighted average: | 0.1 per 1,000 people |
Our
world is a violent place! Canada is one of the safer places to be sure not to be murdered but when we look across
the world there is a huge amount of killing of others.
We need to continue to pray this will stop.
One of the way to control this is to control our Anger Bomb (see my blog How do I get rid of my ANGER BOMB? covering this).
Harbouring
resentment and anger leads to escalation when a pressure point is reached. That’s why God wants us to forgive. The tough
stuff is incredibly difficult to forgive, and probably impossible for us without the intervention of God’s Holy Spirit.
Thu, July 8, 2010 | link
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Commandment 5, Do we HAVE to respect our parents?Commandment 5,
Do we HAVE to respect our parents? Do our parents deserve to be honoured? Always?
The Christian bible says in Exodus 20 . . .
"Honour your father and your mother,
so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.”
and in Ephesians 6:1–3 (NIV) it supports this by saying. . .
Children, obey your parents in
the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—“that
it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth”
But
what happens when parents are not honorable? Most of us have loving parents who want the best for us, but some of us
don’t!
Take this situation into account. . .its from a website http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Hate-My-Dad/1096205 and this person says
“Mom died, dad was banging his secretary. He's a true
alcoholic. Daddy AL brought in his NEW family before I had even moved out from taking care of my dying mother. He then proceeded
to have sex with his girlfriends daughter. Both my brother and I have bipoler. Sucks yeah, but manageble if treated correctly.
My father on the other hand claims our family is screwed up because of the bipolar. That we are dissapointments and his new
family are saints lol. Recently we have found that the oldest brother in daddys new family has facscinations
with peekholes that look into his bathroom that just happen to allow him to view his 17 year old stepdaughter. Police were
called on that one. Then, the youngest two kids a 16 yr old girl and a 20 year old boy, brother and sister were in a sexual
relationship. School counselor was called on that one. The 21 yr old daughter with children who was in a relationship with
my father is also a pathological liar. Now last but not least of course is the middle brother who cross dresses. Add on to
all of that my father was caught cheating with another woman besides his gf! lol my question is, is bipolar worse than that?
Nope i think daddy has some major issues and because hes in a respected position in society, he gets away with it, while i
am labeled a jealous freak. :( thanks for your time and im sorry this was so long, i just had to vent. :)”
Surely
God would never want this man to honor his parent?
Maybe
we have to look at the whole picture however!
Children define themselves by their relationships and
they are never going to be able to get away from the fact that they have a significant relationship with their parents. By
deriding the parent, they don’t make themselves feel any better. Venting like the above is of little value since it
provides temporary relief, but then the person realizes the world thinks worse of the father and by relationship start to
think differently of the son.
This son should respect his father but getting him help from
authorities, getting his actions restrained, and getting medical assistance to him. He should respect him by trying
to get him isolated from those he could hurt and getting him professional help. That's respect in this situation!
Honoring
a parent means respecting them by speaking truth in an honourable and correct way.
It
also doesn’t mean always obeying them, since our actions need to be in line with God’s guidelines and parents
can tell us to do incorrect things. That's why we obey them "in the LORD".
In all these cases by
respecting and speaking correctly of our parents, we bless not only them but ourselves. Sometimes they have done terrible
things! They need to be restrained in this case!
Forgiving them however releases us to heal
and grow, rather than hold us back!
Most of us have good parents who love us. Honoring
them is really important if we are to grow correctly in life. God promises us that by honoring them it will go well with us.
I sure want it to go well with me and so I want to go a step further and love my parents and make
sure they know. I think that is what God really wants but we cannot love as easily as we can respect and
some parents are just not lovable!
So let’s hang tough and make sure to respect our parents!
Even better, let’s love them!
How about doing something to tell them how you feel today?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Commandment 4, take some time off work!... God actually commands
us to take time off work! WHY?
Okay, so let’s see
what it actually says. . .
Exodus 20:9-11 (New International
Reader's Version)
9 Do all of your work
in six days. 10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath in honor of the Lord your God. Do not do any work on that day.
The same command applies to your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and your animals. It also applies to any
outsiders who live in your cities. 11 In six days I made the heavens and the earth. I made the oceans and everything
in them. But I rested on the seventh day. So I blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
So it seems as if God is insistent that we need to take about 15% of our time as rest. Not only
that He wants us to be sure not to give others instructions that would stop them resting!
God wants us to have a
balanced life!
So often I get asked to pray for someone who is stressed out and under a huge load and inevitably
when I ask whether the person keeps this commandment the answer is “no”. How should I pray when God himself tells
them they shouldn’t do this?
We are just not built to work continually and so we will fold sooner or later
due to the pressure. What is our attitude to be? Should we keep to this commandment without any exceptions? I would suggest
the answer is yes. Some people work on days others consider Holy, but then they should take another day to spend time in rest
and reflect of the greatness and kindness of God.
Now, let’s also remember Jesus and his disciples
were told they had contravened this commandment.
Mark 2:23 (NIRV) on says 23One Sabbath Jesus was going through
the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. 24The Pharisees said
to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
25He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his
companions were hungry and in need? 26In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and
ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions." 27Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for
man, not man for the Sabbath. 28So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
So Jesus points out we need to understand that he will judge the reasonableness of what we do.
Sometimes to get food we will need to do some work, but we should not be working except for supplying this basic necessity.
It’s real hard to rest hungry isn’t it?
Now this gets me onto the real non-resting problem.
. .
Work-aholicism!
This is where the need to work overrides our ability
to relax and love God. Where work takes a life of its own as we get our excitement from the work struggle and it takes over
our life purpose. This is a hard taskmaster! It drives us by preying on our psychological makup to push
us to argue we cannot stop and we justify it to our loved ones and others in so many ways that we almost believe ourself.
This is an evil ploy of Satan to consume our time and keep us away from the key aspect of spending time with God.
This work can even be church work!
Let’s resolve to plan to take 15% of our time and dedicate it to
resting and spending time with God. It’s amazing how refreshed we can then be!
Monday, July 5, 2010
Drinking up Gods word!Drinking up Gods word!
Deep sea divers learn a lot
about pressure!
I
am a diver and I remember going on my first dive taking an underwater camera with me. I was keen to get those beautiful
photographs deep down. I had bought one of those cheap Kodak underwater cameras that are a normal camera enclosed in a plastic
housing to keep the water out.
I took a photograph as I entered the sea and then we descended. When I got down to 100ft, I pulled
it out to use it to find it was crushed. The pressure had caused it to cave in on itself. It had been unable to resist the
pressure. This had stressed it past where it was designed to be used. Those cameras are only supposed to be used down to 15
ft.
Do we come under pressure?
How do we hold up!
To enable that camera to not crush, it would have had to have had something inside that built
up an air pressure equal to the tons of pressure the ocean exerted on it. That’s why I was amazed! I was NOT crushed
and had withstood the depth with little experience of that pressure.
WHY?
I was breathing pressured air that had
entered my bloodstream and was pushing out with the same force the ocean was pushing in. I was not stressed, the camera was!
What
can we learn from this?
When life’s pressure pushes in on us, we need to be able to push back!
So how do we as Christian
push back in such a way that we are like deep sea divers and don’t have any ill effects of that pressure.
Well
we need to have inside us, the forces that enable us to produce a “back force”. This comes from having in our
minds and hearts a deep knowledge of God’s word and knowing how to ask Holy Spirit to give us spiritual air that expands
our experiences allowing us to withstand the pressure of life.
To get to do this we need to learn to read God’s
word and then meditate on it. We need to “time out” and pick up the bible, organize a quiet place to sit and read.
To pick just a few verses to read. Read a whole lot around those verses to get their context and then start to meditate on
the words of those verses.
For example, say you read psalm 39
1 I said, "I will watch my ways
and keep my tongue from
sin;
I
will put a muzzle on my mouth
as long as the wicked are in my presence."
2 But when I was silent and still,
not even saying anything good,
my anguish increased.
3 My heart
grew hot within me,
and as I meditated, the fire burned;
then I spoke with my tongue:
4
"Show me, O LORD, my life's end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life.
5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years
is as nothing before you.
Each man's life is but a breath.
Selah
6 Man is a mere phantom
as he goes to and fro:
He bustles about, but only in vain;
he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.
7 "But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in
you.
8 Save me from all my transgressions;
do not
make me the scorn of fools.
9 I was silent;
I would not open my mouth,
for you are the one who has done this.
10
Remove your scourge from me;
I am overcome by the blow of your hand.
11
You rebuke and discipline men for their sin;
you consume their wealth like a moth—
each man is but a breath.
From this we see the context is a man who is being pressured by others.
Let’s look
at the verse’s in bold. To meditate on them we would probably want to close our eyes to exclude
distractions, pray and ask God to give us deep understanding, and then read and focus on the words of those verses. Focus
on the key words “phantom”, “bustles”, “vain”, “Heaps up wealth”, “who
will get it”, “my hope is in you”.
Take each in turn and using our imagination to provide a real feeling for each
of these and experience them. Let each one’s meaning flow into our life. “Phantom” may suggest inability to touch, disappears without trace, is present but not really, scary,
limited visibility of it.
Next what about “bustles”? What produces the most bustling stress in our life, how
do we feel when this happens, do we get sweaty, short tempered, bumped and banged around by others, the noise, nobody notices
us in the crowd? This maybe things we think of.
“Vain” may suggest worthlessness, inability to find a way out, hopelessness.
“Heaps
up wealth” may make us think of very rich people. Then we may think of all their money as a heap
of gold and coins with them sitting on it, maybe we will think how inedible the coins and gold is, (your thoughts may be different),
“who will get it” may get us thinking about the worthlessness of accumulating wealth.
“My hope is
in you” may be relief, knowledge that we don’t have to do this alone that God is with us. That he is great powerful,
loving, that he will take care of us.
Now we think of God alongside us and how he would introduce and explain to us
what we are reading. Maybe how he would comfort us and build us up. Now we may let the love of God flow into us! We may find
a loving and warm experience flows into our lifes building us up and removing the hurt and strain.
Now we may talk to
God and tell him what we have learn’t and experienced, thanking him for the words and asking him to show us how to apply
them to helping us deal with our day.
Reading
deeply like this gives us a strength and calm to take on the day that we don’t have naturally. Try it, you will be amazed!
Remember however, growing spiritually takes time, focus and work. You cannot switch it on and off. You have to let the growth
occur naturally. Practice improves our connection with God. Have a go!
Mon, July 5, 2010 | link
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If you want to see a short blog describing a perspective on what I believe click here
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Rift in Evil
By Ken
X Briggs - Published: September, 2010
- Format: Perfect Bound Softcover(B/W)
- Pages: 208
Size:
6x9 - ISBN: 9781450250894
Available from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iUniverse. |
Credit cards are acceptable on sites having Ken's books: 
:)
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Click
on XML Click here =>  to be told of new blogs
| Ken's book covers are displayed below. . . | |  This
suspense thriller centers on Kiara, a beautiful young woman pursued by a murderous group of people, who relentlessly and ruthlessly
hunt her and her sisters. Kiara has no idea why she is being targeted! When Kiara and her family turn to the law for help,
this fails. Her pursuers’ powers reach deeply into the political and law enforcement world. Family support for her dwindles
when they too have to flee her pursuers. Can Kiara escape the clutches of both the law and dishonest big business? With the
media broadcasting that Kiara and friends are dangerous and subversive, can Kiara clear her name and bring her pursuers to
justice?
| | | | | To purchase Kiara's Pursuer ebook
@ $1.99 kindle version click here, To contact the author contact Author@KenXBriggs.com | | | | | | | | The town of Zinaville is dropped into a spiral of evil causing a young man and a beautiful but abused woman
to launch into an investigation that unveils an evil conspiracy. A horrific mining accident results in Joshua
Robyn's father being killed. Joshua struggles both with himself and his townsfolk as he tries to make sense of an incomprehensible
situation. Is it an accident or a murder? Why is there a seeming link to evil? Why is his work environment suddenly threatening?
What is the conspiracy about and what are they trying to do? As action moves dramatically from exotic African grasslands to
the heart of North America's cities, the plot unfolds and the pace quickens. Will there be time? Why is a beautiful abused
young woman in the center of this plot? Evil tendrils tighten on their lives and the interplay between the visible
and invisible world shows opposing forces at work. Will there be a rift in evil? Will they be able to stop the
evil in time? | | - Published: September, 2010
- Format: Perfect
Bound Softcover(B/W)
- Pages: 208
Size: 6x9 - ISBN: 9781450250894
Available
from Barnes and Noble, Amazon, iUniverse. Chapters | | | | |
| Frugal Eating Advice |
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| Good advice for students living on limited $'s. Click on the image! |
May you be blessed today!
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