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Getting somewhere requires effort, it takes
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Friday, July 5, 2013
Are we aware of what goes on around us?  “Don’t
ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come
alive.” ~ Howard Thurman
What happened yesterday in the world? What event was big enough to trigger our prayers and
concerns?
Are we able to link
the events to our own lives and see that even distant events ripple outwards and impact the lives of everyone eventually?
Awareness takes many forms and taking an interest in life is important to being competent socially isn’t it? There is also an aspect of it in that God
wants us to understand others and take care of them if they need help. It is good to be involved in life, to experience it
to the full.
Let’s
consider some aspects of awareness.
Firstly it’s really important to know the way we see things isn’t always the same way as others do. I think the best example of this is that Christians of different denominations use the same bible
but have different thoughts about pieces of the writings. Perhaps you have different ideas to your best Christian friend,
that doesn’t make either of you wrong does it. We can be friends and have different opinions. In fact it makes for a
lot of fun discussions!
Then there is an awareness of the state of the Earth. We are mostly aware of the global warming, pollution and major aspects
of the world, but there is so much more. For example, are you aware they use monosodium glutamate (MSG) in labs to cause normal
mice to become obese! [ see http://www.msgtruth.org/obesity.htm
for some food for thought]. These
mice eat themselves into a fat frenzy and get so large they can almost not move.
Are we also aware that in the USA a huge amount of the
food is now using MSG and people who are trying to keep healthy find they just get bigger and gain more weight all the time.
Are
they aware that consuming MGS and high fructose corn syrup will have major impact on our life and health in a few years. What are we doing to make this known and help
others? There are many things that corporate greed is spawning that will damage our world. Are we aware of them?
Are we aware how stereotype
views of other cultures can make us develop false emotions around them? Sometimes we think wearing a veil across a women’s face is wrong, or eating
with chopsticks crazy! From the other person perspective they think eating with knives and forks is barbaric, and unveiled
faces evoke emotions so strong as to cause men to do things they should not do.
Who is right?
God loves everyone of all cultures! We need to learn to do the same. We often
forget if we had been born in the other culture we would react like they do. Let’s look to moving past the quick easy
going with the flow and misjudging others with assumptions we are superior and “right” and be willing to listen
and learn.
Are we aware our choices change the world?
Every day, what we decide to do impacts our world a little!
Let me use an example...if everyone in North
America decided to avoid all foods having MSG in them, within a week or two the foods would be changed to not have MSG in
them, wouldn’t they? Companies cannot exist if people don’t buy their food? So peoples choices matter? The collective
impact of a lot of individual decisions is important.
“Don’t be silly!” I hear some saying. “There is no way everyone will do that.”
Right! Not everyone perhaps...yet if people
start and tell others, soon others will be noticing. Then people will start to do studies and people will get more information
and as a result maybe, the medical debts, the diabetes, the other illness caused by overweight could be avoided for many.
Lives could even be saved. Is that not important? To do that I have to read labels on food and simply avoid the wrong ones!
We are not our brothers
and sisters keepers, but we are to be aware and help our brothers and sisters to be aware of the world in which we live!
Here is some advice from
the Holy writing many years before Christ walked the earth. Central to all we do is God, and in those days he was represented
by the temple. This is what it says
2 Chronicles 6:28-35
28 “When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or
mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when enemies besiege them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come,
29 and when a prayer or plea is made by anyone among your people Israel—being aware of their afflictions
and pains, and spreading out their hands toward this temple— 30 then hear from heaven, your dwelling
place. Forgive, and deal with everyone according to all they do, since you know their hearts (for you alone know the human
heart), 31 so that they will fear you and walk in obedience to you all the time they live in the land you
gave our ancestors.
32 “As for the foreigner
who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name and your mighty hand
and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray toward this temple, 33 then hear from heaven, your
dwelling place. Do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you,
as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.
As Christians, we are not only
to choose to do the right things, we are to pray to God to change the circumstances. Global awareness is not only doing and making the right choices,
it is also praying to God for change.
Are we doing this? Today?
Fri, July 5, 2013 | link
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Celebrations and malicious people Canada day
celebration continued as two bombers were thwarted from killing many.
It was reported by CBC news British Columbia how two
people were arrested on Canada day after setting up a bombing that would have killed or injured many.
Why do people do things like this?
Men, women and children were out
celebrating the joy of the country having fun in the sun, and some malicious people were wanting to create death and mayhem.
Why?
These people try and make out
they are angels of light. They make out that they are doing the right thing for the world. Yet we experience it as horrible and heartless!
Is
this not rather like Satan?
Satan comes into our lives making out he is an angel of light. His one name Lucifer means that. Satan means
adversary.
In 2 Cor 11:14 it says “...Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”
I find that interesting to see that these people who plant bombs
feel the same way about themselves. They think they are enlightening the world!
These people have accepted falsehoods to the point
they are willing to do horrible things to others. Isn’t it terrible how evil can distort a person mind.
Christians are asked to love,
forgive and build others up towards doing the same. Not all Christians do this, as evil catches many of us unawares and get us into doing the
wrong things. Yet this is the Christian’s objective.
Nowhere does Jesus agree to using violence to forward his message
into the world. In fact, when someone uses a sword to defend him in the Garden of Gethsemane just as he is being
arrested, and someone gets hurt, he heals that person, admonishing the perpetrator of the defence action.
“49 When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we strike with our
swords?” 50 And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.51 But Jesus answered, “No
more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.” Luke 22
God does not want to push religion onto people.
Forcing
people to follow rituals and laws is not on the agenda of Jesus.
Turning them from evil with love, compassion and offering them eternal
life is God’s plan.
Perhaps we need to look around us for those who are angry, violent, and unwilling to be part of
normal human activity.
Perhaps if we offer them unconditional love, show them that love overcomes evil, then there would be no
need for arrests like that performed on Canada day here in Canada.
Perhaps then people would learn to love each other and accept each
other, even though we have differences.
None of us is identical!
I think
God built us that way! Let’s celebrate our differences rather than us them to suppress others or engender
fear into the lives of others.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Plants breath Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen don’t they?  Plants give us oxygen for the lungs and for the soul.~ Linda Solegato
In a forest, near a blue lake nestling in the hills is my home. It’s
not in the city, although I spend four days a week in the city. Instead, at the end of our week, I journey about two
and a half hours into the naturally vegetated part of our country to live in natural surroundings until the clamour
of work again disturbs this tranquillity.
Tree’s are everywhere and so we appreciate them, at least most of us do!
Now what is quite interesting is that trees produce both oxygen and also carbon dioxide.
Did you know that?
It is only growing forests that are net oxygen producers!
Photosynthesis, the process used by trees to produce energy removes carbon dioxide from the air and releases oxygen
back into the air. This
happens when sun shines on the leaves. This is used to build up the plant or tree.
At night when there is no sun, the trees then release
some carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air. Where forests are not growing the decomposition of dead materials such as the fallen branches and leaves
also produce carbon dioxide.
In a paper by Abir and Lea, “ Land plants equilibrate O2 and CO2
concentrations in the atmosphere” they mention...
The annual flux of CO2 through the biosphere is approximately 10% of the atmospheric CO2, or slightly more than 0.1% of the total carbon in the biosphere. Thus the turnover
time of atmospheric CO2 is about 10 years, while the turn- over of all carbon could be less than 1 ka (thousand years).
This
means we turn over our carbon dioxide worldwide once every ten years!
We need our forests to grow to do this!
This means we not only need to preserve them,
we need to grow them.
This weekend 19 firefighters died fighting a forest fire. I hope they all get medals and I am sad for their families. Please
pray for the them that sorrow would not overcome them and that the families are proud of their achievements.
These firefighter are unsung hero’s
most of the time! Nobody notices that they are saving our heritage. In fact we can consider them to be saving the very air we breathe!
Yes, they save homes and families in a more
immediate way. Yet, they are at the forefront of fighting carbon buildup and protecting trees that protect us.
“Now the Lord God
had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all
kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food”
God wanted us to have trees around us. From the start of time they have accompanied
man. We should cherish and love trees for what they are and do.
Look around you today. How many trees do you see?
Living in the city will mean a few, in the
country hopefully more.
As we consider the miracle of trees, let’s realize that they will win! If the atmosphere gets too nasty for us, having
too much CO2, the trees will grow despite this. It is us that will suffer!
Let’s understand what God wanted when “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
We were to
take care of our biosphere. That was our prime task. It still is!
What are we doing today to cover this task off?
In what way are we contributing
today to the taking care of our world?
That’s
the thought for today. Have a good caring day!
Wed, July 3, 2013 | link
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Deceit, lies, do they really help? “Just because something isn't a lie does not mean that it isn't deceptive. A liar knows that he is a liar, but one who
speaks mere portions of truth in order to deceive is a craftsman of destruction.” ~ Criss Jami
In
2008 a survey found that in the past year 64% of U.S. high school students had cheated on a test. It suggested that Americans
are apathetic about ethical standards.
I guess this is not
really surprising is it?
About 36% of the students that cheated used the internet to plagiarize assignments.
Yesterday I read in the biblical archeologist of two well-known
archeologists who had a disagreement. The son of one, an attorney in his own right, decided to impersonate his father on emails
to the other. The courts did not find this amusing and he has been sentenced to time in jail.
Or how about this report...
“Does signing a virginity
pledge after you have had sex make you a virgin again?
It hardly seems likely. But how else to explain a new study in
which teenagers who said they had had sex in one survey then signed a pledge and told a different story in a survey a year
later?The study,
which appears in the June issue of The American Journal of Public Health, was based on surveys by the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development involving more than 13,000 students in grades 7 to 12.
The students were questioned two times, a year
apart.”
How else
to explain this other than the fact that people lie and don’t see its wrong?
How about people on facebook indicating friends as siblings
and girlfriends and boyfriends as “married” to them when none of these are actually true?
In Matthew 13 Jesus is reported as saying
: For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have
closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn,
and I would heal them.'
Many of our hearts are no longer soft, kind and gentle the way God wants them to be.
In another part of the holy writings a guy by the name of Jeremiah says;
9 The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
10 “I the Lord search the heart
and
examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their
deeds deserve.” Jeremiah
17
Deceitful!
What
can we do about this?
I guess very little...it takes God’s power to make a major difference. Jesus also said;
"It is
not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark 2
Jesus came to get us
out of the sticky clinging stinking sin of life. To clean us up, set us free and give us a chance to change.
Then, set free we have to turn
our thoughts around. It is “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For
it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery,
greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and
defile a person.” says Jesus.
We can argue that deceit is good, but it is a futile argument isn’t it?
We all know deceit isn’t good!
Actually we are simply proving the words of the bible that say,
“For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him,
but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
Let’s not do this!
Let’s not darken our thinking and in so doing darken our
lives!
Perhaps
we need to realize God knows everything we do and yet he still loves us. Unconditionally! It’s up to
us to turn a little of our love towards God. This will magnify itself and turn us around and into the warm forgiving arms
of a loving God. Then we can say...
Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed;
save me and I will be
saved,
for you are the one I praise.
5 They keep saying to me,
“Where is the word of the Lord?
Let it now be fulfilled!”
16 I have not run away from being your shepherd;
you know I have
not desired the day of despair.
What passes my lips is open before you.
17 Do
not be a terror to me;
you are my refuge in the day of disaster. Jeremiah 17
Monday, July 1, 2013
There will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ then what...freedom?  Science
has not yet mastered prophecy. We predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10.~ Neil Armstrong
The bible has many prophecies.
Some we understand in
hindsight but there is few that we understand in waiting.
Time
ticks onwards and yet we as mankind are not able to untwine its threads. We use science to untie the secrets of the
moment and past, but the future is still a mist that almost impenetrable to us except for us going one step at a time.
Yet
now and then we have men on this earth that somehow get a view through that fog. It is not clear but gives the outline of
things to come.
“Daniel the prophet in the Old Testament seems to have been just
such a man. Today I wanted to look at part of one of his prophecies.
Gabriel, the man I had seen in the earlier vision,
came to me in swift flight about the time of the evening sacrifice. He instructed me and said to me, “Daniel, I have now come to give you insight
and understanding. As soon as you began to pray, a word went out, which I have come to tell you, for you are highly esteemed.
Therefore, consider the word and understand the vision:
“Seventy ‘sevens’
are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to
bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes
out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and
sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two
‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will
destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have
been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he
will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the
end that is decreed is poured out on him.[Daniel 9:20-27]
While nobody
knows exactly what this all means, we do have some great ideas. One on the most interesting is the calculation
of the sevens. To really get to terms with that we need to know when this was written.
This
takes us to that other Old Testament book, Nehemiah 2:1-8 to find out when the rebuilding of the ancient Jewish temple
would occur.
This says . . . Wine was brought in for King Artaxerxes. It was the month of Nisan in the 20th year of his
rule[Nehemiah 2:1]
Now Artaxerxes ruled in Persia from about 464 to about 424 BC.
We know this was Nisan, around
the end of the month of February and the beginning of the month of March 444B.C. and it was then, that Nehemiah was given
authority to start rebuilding the temple that Nebuchanezzah had destroyed around 587BC.
Okay, so Daniel says “From the time the word goes out to restore and
rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’
Sixty two sevens suggest sixty two weeks which might have been the direct interpretation
at the time, but we know now it was more likely 62 x 7 or 434 years.
The seven sevens would be another 49 years so the total is 483 years.
62 x7 = 434 + 49 = 483years
Now for
the Math 483- 444 B.C = 39 A.D
So 444BC plus 483years gives us about
39 years A.D. if we take the modern year of 365 days,
or if we take the jewish
year of the time of 360 days a year,
it is 483 x 360 = 173880 days which calculated out gives us about
33 years A.D.
Now the last supper of Jesus is estimate to have occurred somewhere between 30 and
36A.D.
This suggests what is stated in the message occurs somewhere between 33 and 39A.D.
The exact time Daniel wrote is not known
and can only be estimated from what he said, and the happenings at the time.
Daniel goes onto say. . . After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the
Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing.
We understand Jesus was the Anointed
One, and that this prophecy predicted his death accurately.
More
than that, Daniel goes onto say. . .
The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end
will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with
many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering.
And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out
on him.
The
Jewish temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Roman Emperor Titus. It has never been rebuilt!
The Dome of the rock
was later build in the place of the temple. This Muslim shrine is in the center of the Temple Mount platform. Is this pleasing to God?
There were many uprisings and
wars that followed, and if we consider the problems in that area right now, it seems like they are still happening.
Daniel was accurate!
Have you ever considered why those old times prophets searched so carefully for truth?
Ask anyone who has been deprived of freedom and you will get an overwhelming agreement
that freedom is to be desired above all else. These prophets pointed the way to freedom and relief.
Are we free?
Sometimes
we think we are, but often don’t we let life cover us in complexities, cares and troubles, changing
our attitude and motivation, and locking our minds into misery and self pity?
How did Daniel deal with his lack of freedom? He was enslaved! Yet
he was freer in thoughts and spiritual strength than many of us today.
Often, the mere act of switching our mind
and motivation, is the difference between freedom and that captivity of those dark emotions.
Physical freedom is one aspect of freedom, but this freedom, God sometimes
removes so that we can move from spiritual captivity to spiritual freedom.
We can be physically free and yet horribly locked into a spiritual, mental and emotional hell.
Thoughts and our behaviours can torture us to the point we drive ourselves past the beauty in life, and fail to even notice it is there.
We can damage relationships with others, despite
the fact they love us and we should be loving them.
We race past opportunities to be captured by the hell goals of wealth, security, future pleasure
and other forms of false fortune.
Then...when our everyday excesses and pleasures are removed, we focus on what is important
in life, don’t we?
Illness can often be one simple way our freedom is limited for a while, to focus us on spiritual
truths and freedoms.
Loosing job or even just our phone be can be another, right?
Loosing access to someone we love, another?
There
are many things life throws at us…
God does not easily have us taken into slavery, but uses more immediate and personal
tools to limit our freedom.
Does this limitation change us?
How much do we assume is ours
to enjoy each day that is actually a gift?
Consider how much time we spend focusing on our comforts and wants each week!
Now consider
how much time we spend improving the world in one way or another.
When we weigh
these against each other which wins?
Honesty says for me it is more of the former than the latter, and I really do try to focus
on the latter. A lot of time is spent trying to help others gain salvation, freedom and truth, and make their lives successful.
Yet even
so, I have to continually remind myself that everything we do needs to be focussed on serving God (and often
I screw up and forget that in the strain to earn the money that makes life go on).
Then I think of those prophets of old! Great men!
What drove them to do what they did, dedicating their lives and existence to God?
They
risked their lives daily for God and lived. Really lived!
Peter that guy who Jesus chose to
lead that first church says this about the search of the prophets for salvation, he says:
“The prophets searched very hard and with great care to find out about that salvation.
They spoke about the grace that was going to come to you. They wanted to find out when that salvation
would come.
The Spirit of Christ in them
was telling them about the sufferings of Christ that were going to come. He was also telling them about the glory that would
follow.
It was made known to the prophets
that they were not serving themselves. Instead, they were serving you when
they spoke about the things that you have now heard.
Those who have preached the good news to
you have told you those things. They have done it with the help of the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even
angels long to look into those things. “
Serving us!
Those ancient men were dedicating their lives to serving people, including ourselves, so that we would know truth and be set free!
They
were freedom fighters! Spiritual freedom fighters!
That’s what we need to be, spiritual freedom fighters! We need to pick up that sword of the
Spirit and do great things in the spiritual world.
If you have seen the movie “Braveheart” with
Mel Gibbson you will understand the use of a sword in days of old.
It is not
by chance that God chose a sword to describe his Word. It inflicts spiritual
damage on those spirits who would remove our freedom and take away truth from us.
Yet, it requires
us to take up that sword like those prophets of old. We need to have it alongside us every moment of every day. We sleep with
it, work with it, and even play with it alongside us.
Then as Peter says;
Because you know this, you have great joy. You have joy even though you may have had to suffer for a little while.
You may have had to suffer sadness in all kinds of trouble.
Your troubles have come in
order to prove that your faith is real. It is worth more than gold. Gold can pass away even though fire has made
it pure. Your faith is meant to bring praise, honor and glory to God. That will happen when Jesus Christ returns.
Even
though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, you believe in him. You are filled with a glorious
joy that can't be put into words. You are receiving the salvation of your souls. It is the result of your faith.
Troubles can come, but they cannot remove our freedom!
We win against apparently insurmountable foes. We know that as freedom fighters we are on the side of the God almighty who wields the greatest
power in the universe, and yet chooses us to be his warriors.
Today as we face the world, let’s
do it with integrity, strength and knowledge of salvation, built in strength by our faith. Let’s take out the
evil we encounter, and destroy it with the love of God!
Let’s live victoriously we can
do it!
Mon, July 1, 2013 | 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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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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