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Getting somewhere requires effort, it takes
faith to push on, it's easy to screw up,
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Friday, April 1, 2011
Foolishness!
Foolishness is rarely a
matter of lack of intelligence or even lack of information. - John McCarthy
Today
is April Fools day! In western countries this is a day that all types of people play pranks and joke with each other.
Hoaxes and practical jokes abound and flavour each piece of information we receive with a mile touch of disbelief from those
of us who have been bitten by the April Fool craziness of previous years.
It is
good to take a little time to be silly each year and this is our chance.
Unfortunately,
many of us extend this into our lives with less direction and planning during the remainder of the year as we trip
up over our own failings.
It is interesting how we look at foolishness. Paul, an early Christian from the
1st century A.D. describes in his letter to the Corinthians his perspective of foolishness when he says. . .
What anyone else dares to brag about, I also dare to brag about. I'm speaking like a fool! 2Cor11:21 NIRV
So Paul aligns foolishness with bragging about what was not done. In simple terms, one aspect of
a fool is a person who says they have done something great, but haven’t!
I guess we never do that!
Perhaps Paul is thinking of the words of Jeremiah 6:13 when he says
“Everyone wants to get richer and richer,
from the least important of them to the most important.
Prophets and priests alike
try to fool everyone
they can.
They bandage
the wounds of my people
as if they were not very deep.
'Peace, peace,' they say.
But there isn't any peace.”
Isn’t a real fool
a person who searches for more and more riches and importance? This search takes people away from truth and wisdom
into commercial and social gain. These are fine when they are spin offs from the process of following Jesus, searching for
truth and helping others, but when approached with selfish intent, they damage and show the person for what they themselves
cannot see, for being foolish!
The interesting thing of foolishness is that fools
rarely know they are being foolish. They simply carry on regardless!
Their words
are shallow and their lives lack depth. They flounder around trying to find success and purpose without the power
of the living water in their lives and then they wonder why they fail to make headway in life.
To truly
move on we need to not be foolish! Here are other biblical examples of what being foolish or the lack of it can do.
. .
Placing trust in beauty and charm…
Proverbs 31:30 Charm can fool you. Beauty fades. But a woman who has respect for the Lord should be praised.
Looking to false prophets for advice…
Matthew 24:11 Many false prophets will appear. They will fool many people.
Trying to become wise without Gods guidance…1
Corinthians 3:18 Don't fool yourselves. Suppose some of you think you are wise by the standards of the world. Then you should
become a "fool" so that you can become wise.
Keeping company with the
wrong people…
1 Corinthians 15:33
Don't let anyone fool you. "Bad companions make a good person bad."
Speaking fast
to confuse people…
Colossians 2:4
But I don't want anyone to fool you with fast talk that only sounds good.
Listening to
people who are enemies of Christ…
2
John 1:7 Many people who try to fool others have gone out into the world. They don't agree that Jesus Christ came in a human
body. People like that try to trick others. They are enemies of Christ.
So
we can see there are many ways of being a fool and it is not that difficult. There is only one real way to be wise,
and that is to place ourselves under God’s guidance and protection.
That’s my plan today. What’s
yours?
Fri, April 1, 2011 | link
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Today, I want to let go of that dull pain!
"Good advice is a toxic gas for hardhearted's lungs."
"Just because they disagree,
doesn't mean you ain't right."
If you violate laws of God, you're a sinner.
If you violate laws of men, you're
a criminal.
If you violate your own laws, you're pathetic.
—
Toba
Beta
Disappointment is a fierce emotion!
Disappointment
with ourselves is devastating!
We all do selfish, ignorant,
nasty or stupid things every now and then, don’t we? It seems as if the misapplication of our skills and abilities is
inherent in our very DNA. The more real problem occurs when we fail to counter these base urges and allow
ourselves to do the wrong thing.
This then can haunt our souls and we may even
asks God’s forgiveness, but somehow a dull pain of the memory scuffs the bright joy of living and there is
this evil blanket that weighs down on our spirits, pulling us downwards.
The writer of
Hebrews (3:12) in the bible understood this! He said
. . .
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful,
unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is
called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
God is there and full forgiveness for anything is available to request and apply to our lives. Sometimes
the only way we remember this is when other tell us! That’s why he asks that we encourage one another.
When we encourage, we not only build up the other person, but we agree with ourselves that the truths we
are giving to them are powerful and true. This lifts our own spirits and gives us joy! The hardness that may be sitting
in our heart is subject to the truth of God’s word as spoken by ourselves with conviction! This starves the stubborn
part of our hard heart, softening it up to be removed.
Sticking to God’s truth
and not our own ideas means we speak absolute truth! This doesn’t mean others will not disagree, but when we
speak truth, even in the face of adversity, it eases our hearts and builds us up while we build others.
We need to do this often, the author of Hebrews says daily! It is something that needs to become
a habit if we are to grow and strengthen ourselves. A daily activity becomes a disposition over time and this is strength
for the future.
We need to start
this “today”! Procrastinating on this only damages us further!
It is important to change direction and move today, or as we resist the change it will become the disposition and will harden
us against the change into our future. Personally I want to get rid of my hardness and grow
in truth, helping others. I do hope you feel the same way. As a team lets make our world a better place today! Right?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Salty crackers! I like to see a man
proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
~Abraham Lincoln
Hmmm!
This weekend I was listening to that guy Bruxy Cavey talking about how we talk to others about God
and how we often get things wrong.
Isn’t it amazing how so many of these Christian guys and girls seem
to think that they have to force feed someone a diet of God’s morals and truth!
Here on
my blog I unfortunately only have a one way of communication so have to just honestly say what I believe, and hope that I
am careful enough not to damage anyone by saying things in a tough way. Probably I screw up as well, (sorry), but we
are all in the same boat called life and so far none of us is a master at life since to be a master we would need to have
completed the course a few times and none of us have, have we?
To get back to Bruxy Cavey’s
salty crackers!
Bruxy pointed out that we often approach telling others about God by
trying to induce guilt where there is none!
He likens this to offering a person water (which
they need sooner or later) and when they say no thanks, trying to force feed them salty crackers so their need for water increases!
What a crazy approach, but one that so many people try to take! They almost see it as a mandatory approach. (It is
rather traditional). They feel that people have to feel guilty first so that they will accept the gospel.
Not so folk! Jesus is good news without us having to force feed people guilt.
He is one of the most incredible examples of passive pressure that influenced the whole world. His words are held as incredibly
wise and succinct, whether people are Christians or not!
Jesus was a guy we can look up to in
every way, and we don’t have to go down first!
Jesus said a few things we would do well to
remember...
He said love God and others, he said we should count the cost before
we follow him, he said that our love would need to be sacrificial not selfish, he said he, Jesus, is
the only way to God, he said he was going to heaven to prepare a place to which we would go after
life.
These are important! How he did it, by dying and coming alive again to remove the
power of selfishness, nastiness, ignorance and stupidity from our lives is important, but the
crux of the matter is our acceptance of Jesus and his love, and not the guilt stuff!
Let’s
give up the salty crackers! Our only task is to tell others of Jesus, (if they want us to) and not convince others. If
they want us to shut up, we should shut up!
Well let’s talk about our love for Jesus today! Let's not increase guilt
in this world, there is enough without us adding to it!
Have a good day! Blessings to you and all you encounter!
Wed, March 30, 2011 | link
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
I want proof God exists! Do you?
Prove God
exists logically!
How
can God allow people to have pain and die?
How can we expect to accept God and not be illogical?
These are questions I often get asked.
I
wonder if you ask them, or answer them.
They are deep questions that when asked, reveal an intensity
of emotional power that has been unleashed in a persons life.
That emotional power can drive their
future for eternity so I try to understand the persons perspective before I answer, because after all, it is not
up to me to convince, only provide helpful information.
So, here is a few pieces I find useful!
Logically there is nothing illogical about believing in God!
Science says to us that everything we know originates from the big bang! This is
proved with every piece of logical evidence in the universe that we have exposed to us. However science can only take us back
to 10-15 seconds with any decree of certainty. Before that we know that everything we have around us came from
nothing!
Now is that logical?
It is about the most illogical thing
we can think of, from a common sense perspective, but science says this!
The
bible says in it’s first sentence “God created the heavens and the earth”. Logically if
we arrive from nothing that starts a point in space and time, we would believe there was something prior to this that caused
it. The bible says it is God. What is illogical about believing in such a God?
Okay, so perhaps believing
in God is not so stupid after all.
However around us we see pain, suffering and death, of
people who are important to us. Why would a God allow this? I live up on a lake in a forest in
Northern Ontario where one of the ways people earn their money is by clearing a piece of land and planting trees.
They then trim and look after the saplings until they reach maturity 15 to 25years later.
At that time the timber
man goes out onto the lot with his chainsaw and cuts the trees down. Most he puts into a pile to be loaded on a truck
and sent to a sawmill. Some that refused to grow up into the light and become twisted, gnarled and distorted, he
puts in a separate pile to be cut into pieces and burnt to ashes as firewood.
What right does he have to cut the trees down?
What right does he have to separate them?
Complete right!
They are his!
We are God’s to do with, as he wants!
How can the tree dictate anything to the timber man?
The tree can only determine
its future, by how it lives its life. Once it is cut down it’s true value is realized. It could become a favourite
rocking chair, or panel the walls of a parliament, or build a boat, or provide shelter for a family. Alternatively, it can
become ashes!
The life it has, determines its value!
Our
life determines our value!
It is logical to understand this, but it is not always pleasant to have
to face reality. This is why people often say they are looking for logic, but they are often only looking for excuses
to avoid that logic.
Proof is after all only confidence in a fact provided to us!
So how can I prove Jesus is God?
This is personal and
you have to know me to gain this confidence. You need to know I have integrity and speak truth and that cannot come
from a blog. However if you accept this and please contact me if you need to get to know me better, then here is some proof!
I have in my possession a medic alert bracelet provided to me after many medical tests and only
once there was medical proof I had an incurable disease. It is an disease of which you can easily avoid the symptoms by eating
correctly. No wheat, oats, barley or rye and you are fine! A specialist diagnosed this disease as I was dying due to it and
once the diet was corrected, I regained strength.
The disease is Gluten-sensitive enteropathy (GSE) that manifested itself
as fully fledged Coeliac disease.
The story is long and better suited for another time, but it suffices to say this
is a disease that cannot be cured, even today!
The summary is, after much prayer, and having
to accept that God is who he says and having to change my attitude that God no longer heals (the strong belief I had at that
time), God healed me of this incurable decease showing specific texts in the bible that led to this healing.
I know Jesus was the healer, and is God. Now, this is proof if you know me, but if
you are not ready for this, you will discount it!
The real truth is that we ALL have
to accept Jesus by FAITH. God does not give us absolute convincing knowledge of his existence BECAUSE HE WANTS US
TO HAVE FREE WILL!
True free will means freedom to choose! We have this freedom! No-one can influence it, it
is ours.
So the question is not whether belief is logical, illogical, proved
or not, but rather right now, will we accept Jesus is God and loves us!
That is the fundamental question.
What is your answer?
Monday, March 28, 2011
Prayer: Just a placebo?
A placebo: refers to a treatment known to be without effect; usually used to compare against a potential effective
medicine, or vaccine, or medical device which is being subjected to a clinical trial. - www.sanctr.gov.za/Resources/Sometermscommonlyused/tabid/179/Default.aspx
There have been
double blind studies done to show that prayer is ineffective when the patient had no knowledge of the prayer. So
it seems that prayer has limited impact on the situations, doesn't it?
Then there are reports such
as this one I saw out on the internet written by a person angry with another person who says prayer doesn’t work…
“Here is a good example(http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100309073421AAojRvt)
A man is in the
hospital. His spine cut in 2 by a piece of sheet-metal. There is nothing the doctors can do to help him to walk again. After
constant bedside prayer for 2 weeks by members of his church, he WALKED out without even a scar.
Source(s):
Sid Roth.”
On a different note, a good friend came to me recently and confided that since a relative
had died of cancer despite many prayers, he was loosing his belief that God exists!
What is prayer?
In
simple terms it is the act of communicating with God!
When we look at a sunset and say “God,
that is beautiful”, that’s a prayer, when we shout out in pain “Oh, my God” we are praying. Prayer
is a fancy word for talking to God.
How
come we would be totally comfortable to agree that one of the main reasons we talk to other people to get to know
them better and allow them to get to know us better, but we fail to see this when we come
to discussing talking to God.
The first principle of an effective communication with a person, is acknowledging they exist!
We don't communicate well with people we refuse to acknowledge even exist, do we? How come atheists and non-believers
fail to see prayer work? Are they failing to acknowledge God exists?
No wonder they fail to communicate, right?
The second thing when we talk to others is that we are doing it, because we appreciate
others!
The level of that appreciation is proportional to the likelihood the person will hear
and perhaps do something related to what we are suggesting we would like them to do. Right?
So
how come do people who reject God, and fail to appreciate God, expect that same God to help them out?
Amazingly
God is so loving he often does, but not always!
C.S.Lewis explains prayer is for us, not God. It changes us and
brings us closer to an intimate experience with God. that is it's prime function!
Regarding statistics, let’s
understand something fundamental. If God really gives us free choice to choose or reject him, then we cannot expect
him to also prove beyond doubt he exists. The two concepts are mutually exclusive! This means to be the loving God
he says he is, he HAS to make sure statistics cannot prove his existence beyond doubt.
So
how can prayer work?
Well if you speak to an believer, it does, but when you
speak to an atheist or agnostic, it doesn’t. Interesting!
I have a computer science degree
and can program computers to provide random distributions of results over many experiments. Within that random distribution,
I can program, non-random results for specific individual tests, but get the computer to generate overall random results
viewed as a whole.
If I, with my simply dumb
brain can do this, I can accept a God who created every persons brain is able to ensure equal probability in results
but selected results for those who are righteous!
You see the bible doesn’t say all prayer is useful and
has results.
It does say…
James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you
may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
So the summary
is this…
Do we really acknowledge and try to know God better, have we confessed
our sins, do we pray for others, are we willing to accept whatever healing is provided
(and not only take what we consider the right healing) and do we respect that some healing is not physical,
and finally are we living righteous lives?
Is prayer for us or only for God. If it is so we can connect better with God we will not have difficulty understanding that prayer works, if not, prayer may as worthless
as eating sand!
I know my prayers are effective, are yours?
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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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