Self-righteousness

How often do you look up?
If you do look up, why do you look up?

Listening to Psalm 123, the reason for looking up is clear; it keeps us --- yes even the elect --- from the many types and dangers of self-righteousness; to wait upon God, for him to show us his mercy.

"I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in Heaven.
As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the LORD our God, till he shows us his mercy.
Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy on us, for we have endured much contempt.
We have endured much ridicule from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant.

I lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in Heaven."

Gems of Life

...her eyes... they are subtlety perceptive; subtlety piercing and subtlety knowing... reading you constantly... checking your moods in the most unaware circumstances...

...like the sun which shines down on the earth, her eyes are full of light, plummeting the depths of your soul and giving light to the deepest darkest corners of your life. Full of life, her eyes bring comfort for those who make contact with them; bringing a knowing peace and giving a sense of genuine care. The love her eyes bring give hope to countless many...
...I wonder if Adam had similar reactions when his eyes were first fixed on the Crown of Creation that was Eve...

If it is true what they say, that "the eye is the window to one's soul", then her eyes say that her soul is full of Light and Life, Justice and Compassion, Truth and Love; qualities bestowed on from our Father in Heaven, mediated through our High Priest Jesus Christ, and directed by our Counsellor, the Holy Spirit sent by the Father...

...for the Glory of God's Almighty Name.

Hebrews 5:11 - 6:3

"We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn.
In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!

Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

And God permitting, we will do so."
---
Are you ready to leave these "elementary teachings" behind to go on to maturity? IE: how is your foundation of your Faith?

Moreover, have we trained ourselves to distinguish good and evil?...

...now where is my counsel of the Fellowship in Christ...

Frankincense: of Myrrh and Hyssop

How is your Christian life? Is it a constant struggle? Or apathetically comfortable? Do you feel the constant tension between flesh and spirit? Or is thou holier than the rest of the Saints?

Romans 7:15-25 is an embedded Scripture in my mind; everyday in every waking moment of my conscious life. That said, how much more do we praise our LORD God who has delivered us from our sins, wiped away our guilt and promised us Eternal Life in a place where there will be no more death, mourning or weeping.

Is your life a sweet smelling incense? An aroma pleasing to The King of the Heavens and The Lord of the Earth? Are you past your youthful age? Do you thus praise the LORD more for what He has blessed you with, wisdom with age? As I grow older, I pray that God may look upon me with favour, and bless me with godly brothers and sisters in Christ; surround me with counsel who will praise the LORD with me forevermore; for it is by the Grace of God that I've come to know him, and it is only by his Grace that I'll come to see him face to face... in that day, in his good time.
---
"Let your desire for God's glory be a growing desire. You blessed him in your youth, do not be content with such praises as you gave him then.

Has God prospered you in business? Give him more as he has given you more.

Has God given you experience? Praise him by stronger faith than you exercised at first. Does your knowledge grow? Then sing more sweetly.

Do you enjoy happier times than you once had? Have you been restored from sickness, and has your sorrow been turned into peace and joy? Then give him more music; put more coals and more sweet frankincense into the censer of your praise.

Practically in your life give him honour, putting the "Amen" to this doxology to your great and gracious Lord, by your own individual service and increasing holiness."
-Spurgeon (1834-92)

A Spark of Inspiration

In response to a post, my special friend said:
"God will use the song we sing in our lives to make Babylon more like Zion."
And thus I was inspired:

"The Lord our God sees all,
For those who belong to him He calls,
When his voice they hear,
From the wilderness they will peer.

Aliens and strangers we are in this land,
But we still sing the Lord's songs with our motley band,
As long as eternity awaits us,
We fight forward only for Jesus.

Not alone in our endeavour,
God promises us salvation forever,
We go only where we are told,
For the Holy Spirit directs our fold.

As we live our lives are being transformed,
Through great mysteries unfathomable,
Our true dwelling we remember,
Living always for our future,
Where the land of Zion is God's own dwelling space,
The songs we sing will then be nothing but short of glorious praise."

2 Peter chapter 1, vv2-11

A while back I had the opportunity and privilege of seeing God work his Spirit in his people crafting the peacemakers that He calls us to be – much in the same way as we see God hold the Israelite’s hands as they are delivered out of Egypt, into the Promised Land, and established as a mighty kingdom, Holy for God’s purposes.

…it was a quiet night, regular as your average Joe on any given Sunday. Conversations propelled on smoothly and eventfully; relationships were being built brick by brick. Then it happened; you know, unexpectedly – a purposeful question, perhaps expecting a certain type of answer – but had predestined an answer which did/would not come. Alas, the wrong tone, the wrong body language, and certain ‘vibe’ of it all leave both parties in a state of not ‘go-in-peace-to-love-and-serve-the-LORD’, on the contrary, it leaves things in utter chaos; …That must’ve been what it felt like for Adam as he gazed speechlessly towards his companion Eve, as she ate the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – Adam would have recalled the command so vividly, the command the LORD God explicitly gave him forbidding the consumption of that particular fruit…
…so you catch yourself standing there and – just like in the movies – the world around you ‘stops’ if even for a split second – which seems like an hour; you’re left bewildered and literally thinking: “what the…”

The night passes on as usual, but in the blessed company of a certain God-given girlfriend, things start to pan out quite unexpectedly; I know this is 20/20 hindsight, but when I was in her counsel, I could literally see the events starting to take shape into different forms, forms which I would not have imagined even in my wildest dreams.
Within the hour, I had realized that my reaction was a culmination of my upbringing, the environment of my high-school; private and all boys. In the end, after some prayer, I decided to ‘put-away’ my initial reactions (which is all it was) and go with the “peacemakers” attitude that had been the suggestion from my 1-on-1 counseling… 

…within 24 hours, things had made a turn for the better. God’s Spirit is truly a Spirit of Peace, He brings peace to every place He dwells in, and if He dwells within the Saints, the Saints should bear the fruits of the Spirit. Apologies were made and accounts were settled. True peace has come. And a lesson has been learnt.

God has made those - who trust in the salvation of Jesus Christ on the Cross, believing in your own heart that God raised Jesus from death – into Living Temples for God. The Saints are cleansed and sanctified, able for God’s Spirit to live in and built as He pleases. These perishable bodies which we live in are God’s own, and instruments for building his eternal kingdom which is coming very soon. The night is gone and daybreak is here. The Saints live in Light, Light which comes from heaven and from the hand of God. He has given us eyes of Light, discerning Good and Evil deeds, discerning Wisdom and Folly, and given true choice to follow the desires of the flesh or the obedience of the Spirit. Follow the Spirit and bear his fruits.

As Temples of God we would be wise to take every precaution not to outrage the Spirit of Grace. He lives in us to bring Glory to God’s Name, ergo we have 1 John 2: 6-12. Walk as Jesus did and inherit the crown that is through Christ our own.
...This brings interesting implications for those who persecute the Saints. If those who cut down God’s chosen for preaching Jesus’ redemption in his death on the Cross and his victory in Resurrection over the grave; and the Holy Spirit lives in these people who are cut down, then they are indeed cutting down the LORD God himself.
…but perhaps that is a matter for another day.

That said, what more can we ask for, than to witness the one God in this universe who created and sustains everything, through our very own eyes? As we see the faults of others and of ourselves, and forgive others and be forgiven ourselves. As we preach the Good News of Jesus and see others come to Faith; to witness God’s Spirit at work like this through our own eyes is a blessing, and unequivocally Divine in Nature.

As the LORD Jesus said, “The Spirit is willing, but the body is weak”. All you Saints would do well to keep good and godly counsel in every circumstance. Pray and stay awake, for the end is nigh. It will come like a thief in the night; and you do not want to be caught off guard.

For my counsel that night, I thank you, for your patience and pertinence; our Awesome God who blesses you with great insight and wisdom.

To our LORD God, all honour and praise be to your name for making us peacemakers on Earth for Heaven.

For our weak bodies, LORD I pray for mercy and strength from your hand; bestow it to us from Heaven that your Name will be known amongst all nations.

"Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires."

Hume’s Fork

It’s been a few months in passing since I’ve wanted to post a blog such as this one. That said, these kind of things are always ‘in the making’, so to speak…  *disclaimer.

A couple of months back, a conversation regarding the Origins Book came up at the dinner table. I’m not quite sure why, I just happened to be there and was involuntarily ‘roped’ into the conversation. It happens quite frequently, and I suppose I should not be surprised - it tends to happen when you actually take a stance in matters of controversial topics – as you make a stance, you inevitably gather an audience, and that audience is a mix of friend and foe – and you never quite know what is around the corner…

GENESIS chapter 1, verse 29 states:

“Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

Verse 30 continues:

And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.”

Now, is it absolutely certain (100% without a doubt) that ‘in the beginning’, everything with ‘the breath of life in it’ ate only ‘green plant for food’? Or is it a mere 99% certainty? Is it wise for us to allow at least a 1% uncertainty that maybe ‘everything that has the breath of life in it’ also ate meat (of dead animals) like we do today?

David Hume in “Treatise of Human Nature” says: “Matters of fact, which are the second object of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing.” (The first object of reason being Inductive Logic.)

In the modern world we call this the synthetic proposition - fancy name - for defining statements about the world “…which are synthetic, contingent, and knowable a posteriori.” Examples include: "the sun rises in the morning", "the Earth has precisely one moon", and "water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit".

This is contrasted with a priori ‘knowledge’, IE: "2 + 2 = 4", "all bachelors are unmarried", and truths of mathematics and logic. The latter we can know for certain, and the former, we cannot know for certain, or so states Hume.

“I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.”

Now I don’t know about you, but the above statement appears to me to be explicitly elucidating that ‘everything that has the breath of life’ ate green plants for food; or, if you like, that “…the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground” were ‘vegetarians’.

…It was ‘argued’ over dinner that the text does not exclude these beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground as vegetarians per se; they could have been carnivorous too, the text in Genesis 1:28 simply does not shed any light on the matter – thus we cannot know for certain.

On first impressions that may appear to be a clever argument; however, having come across such treatises before, something did not sit correctly that night - and rightly so. Upon closer inspection, verse 29 - “I give every green plant for food” – is unambiguous and unequivocal; one cannot be more precise and plain in language. But apparently I was misguided; Hume’s Fork was blocking (what I had thought was) my straight and narrow path.

...Those who employ Hume’s dictum should know that Hume ‘essentially “proved” that no certainty can exist in science’ because statements such as: "the sun rises in the morning", "the Earth has precisely one moon", and "water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit" – are cause-and-effect relationship of events that people judge out of habit, and so it is impossible to state definite truths about the world or make definite predictions.”

IE: Suppose one states this as a "truth" of the world: "When a rock is dropped while on Earth, it goes down." While we can predict with probability that when you drop a rock it will go down, since in every instance thus far when a rock was dropped on Earth it went down, we technically cannot prove that it always will. The next time we drop a rock, it might miraculously go up.

If I may translate our previous example: “The sun rises in the morning” - It should rather be said (according to those who follow Hume):
“The sun rises in the morning, {except for those times when the sun does not rise in the morning}”.

Run that in parallel with:

“I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.”

Genesis 1:29, 30 according to Hume philosophy rather should state:

“I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.” {And if any animal happens to die, you are also allowed to either eat it raw or cooked over an open-stove or camp-fire. Green food is good, but meat is better. My command is not a restrictive command.}

I’m sorry, but that is not only bad exposition of text (Biblical text or otherwise), but it is philosophically flawed. An argument employing Hume’s dictum only confuses and builds unnecessary fence-sitters; fence-sitters whom consciously or unconsciously believe wholeheartedly that, “The next time we drop a rock, it might miraculously go up.”…

...Hume’s Fork?; ...or misleading metaphysics?

The Saints would do well to tread lightly in such matters.

An Unexpected Visitor

Greetings.

biliskner.blogspot hasn’t seen much action in the past month; apologies for that, but matters of utmost importance surfaced unexpectedly (albeit not totally surprising) keeping me from anything and everything metaphysical.

It doesn’t happen very often to have an event which requires your immediate attention; much less to have an event which requires an extended focusing of your immediate attention. For those who’ve seen it before, you’ll know what I mean; this phenomena is generationally known, and known on a global scale, vis à vi:- love.

...I didn’t meet her at a bar, I didn’t meet her in a club, I didn’t meet her on an exotic island in the Bahamas, I didn’t chat her up in a supermarket, nor did I find her lost reading a map around the Greater City of Melbourne anywhere near the ominous Southern Cross Station... I met her on my way to my lounge room...

As God would have it, circumstances are extraordinary; as the events in my mind play out for the past fortnight - unfolding like a well packaged chartered cruise - I believe that it is in extraordinary circumstances that we come to see God work in ways which we cannot comprehend nor would want to comprehend. Our God is an Awesome God, and He wants us, Sons and Daughters of Jesus’ Kingdom, to know that full well. How does He show this to us? By working in awesome ways, in purposeful ways and in fruitful ways. Ways that we cannot even begin to script if we could control the actions of others and of ourselves. It is nothing short of truly amazing - the turn of events in hindsight - and one cannot help but stand in awe of it all, both at the events and at the Director of these events.

...She has ocean-blue eyes, fine brown hair with a hint of blond, soft skin, an absolutely gorgeous smile, a laugh which you could listen to for days on end, and a great posture that makes walking side-by-side a perfect joy...

...Our conversations are timeless, our interactions adhere like super-glue, our thoughts work as one; “as iron sharpens iron” so we sharpen each other, for the greater glory of our LORD God.

Most importantly, she is a Believer, a strong one at that:- humble, patient, obedient to the Word, kind, faithful and gentle. The Scriptures say it best:

Pr. 31:25 “She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.”
Pr. 31:26 “She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.”

For those of you who petition regularly to our King Jesus Christ, you can pray for him to continue to perfect our Faith in Him; for us to grow in knowledge and in wisdom of Him, all in Truth and all in Love... for his infinite Grace to hold us close to him, in every circumstance.

Needless to say, the extended focusing of my attention in the past fortnight have been everything joyous to my heart. There is nothing I would substitute and in that, I thank God.

...For you, that special person, I think you are great; you know that “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain...but [you] who fears the Lord, [you] shall be praised.”

It is most excellent to have you by my side - a Heavenly gift from God...; an earthly honor for me.

In A Mirror Darkly

Those who say that Jesus was a good man, are partly correct. Jesus certainly was not a “nice” guy, he did not walk around the towns surrounding the region of Jerusalem patting children on the head and giving them tricks and treats; on the contrary he traveled to places and healed the sick of their diseases; lepers, born-blind men, lame men, the out-outcasts. To the religious ‘elite’, he called them a Brood of Vipers.

But does this make what Christians would claim correct: that Jesus was the ‘Son of God’? Have miracles happened outside of Jesus’ immediate proximity and/or before/after his life on Earth? The answer is a resounding ‘yes’ – miracles have happened, on more occasions than one. Moses and the Prophets, Peter and the Apostles, they have all done miracles. So what makes Jesus the Son of God?

The fact that the Scriptures testify to Jesus’ coming, from Genesis 3, to Moses, through the Prophets, to the end of Malachi; the Old Testament Scriptures are just one massive arrow pointing to this one Man, the coming of God Incarnate.

Our faith however, does not rest simply upon prophecy; it also rests upon the fact that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, lived a sinless life, which led to his death on a Cross. How does living a sinless life lead to his death on a Cross? Because He did what his Father wanted; Jesus lived a life wholeheartedly obedient to God the Father, learning perfection through his suffering on Earth and walked the path lit by God towards his death on the Cross. And there he offered himself as a sacrifice for the whole world, granting the forgiveness of sins, once and for all.

But here is the punch-line, since Jesus lived a sinless life, death could not hold him down in the grave, therefore Jesus was raised from the grip of death; He is alive and well, immortal now like never before – seated at the right hand of God.

And here is where those who say that Jesus was a good man are wrong. Jesus was not just a good man, He was a Righteous Man. He lived a righteous life on Earth, a sinless life with a Faith in God that He calls his Followers to have. The Christ, the Chosen One, the Son of God; Founder and Perfecter of the Faith of the saints calls all of humanity to be like him, to stop building our own little kingdoms of perishable materials and turn to God; to live under Jesus’ Kingdom, where there will be no mourning, weeping or tears.

“And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.

There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

… The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide.
… The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.

The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it.

On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

The Man who healed the blind, the lame, the lepers and joined in fellowship with the outcasts of society, prostitutes, tax-collectors, mere fishermen, has a city of pure gold, as pure as glass. And He offers it freely to us, all of us, to live in eternally.

In the meantime however, the elect have been called to one mind and one purpose. You know who you are, God’s voice is not exactly hazy, our lives shall not be either:

“Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

Know your Allegiance; Proclaim your Faith; Rest in the Fellowship.

Z's

Today I reflected on sleep. Yep, I did that the whole day, outdoors, indoors and whilst conversing with friends and housemates. Isn't it funny how much sleep effects your day, your mood-swings, your personality, and projections thereof? My reflections quite surprised me, considering I slept like an energized guinea pig on any given night; if I were to take timestamps of my waking hours, it would be 2am, 5am, 8.30am, 9am, 10am and finally 11am. Sigh.
I guess that’s what two coffees within a time frame of 9 hours can do to you – make you have unsettled sleep; that coupled with unnecessary customer comments and looks that could earn money if they posted themselves on a reality TV show, does not really help.

And it was not even like I was partying all day; I worked all day, slept 7 hours the night before, and generally had a quiet weekend in, so one would think I would sleep well come Sunday night. I guess Sunday’s stress of up-front praying was a factor, but it should not have that effect on me – I’ve done that stuff before.

Anyways I’m digressing very non-linearly, and sounding very non-philosophical; ranting more like. I should keep a personal log - that might be more helpful, keep me from boring others needlessly. But I’ll save that for a rainy day. God willing my Tuesday will be better, after a good night’s sleep. My bed sure is looking comfortable… and on that note.

The Looking Glass

When I became a Christian back in the day of August 2000, some of my Christian Union Friends pitched in and got me a couple of CDs for my 19th birthday - namely, “Supernatural” and “Jesus Freak” by dc Talk. I must’ve listened to both albums for about 18 months straight with either CD in my CD Stacker or on MD in my car whilst cruising the streets (sadly, I don’t cruise much anymore.)

Now, dc Talk has never left my side, they just haven’t seen much air-time of late. In the short time I owned an iPOD Shuffle (8 months) and on my current PDA (equipped with a 4GB solid-state-memory expansion card [SDRAM]), dc Talk had always been one of the first artists to see format-conversions and copies.

But the hiatus is over - four and a half years later, the music of dc Talk recaptures my heart and mind. I remember the days of First-Year-Uni, undoubtedly the best days of my life (to date). It was when life was “truly” “carefree” (or rather, “felt truly carefree”) and when you had all the “pros” of being over 18 and none of the responsibilities of adulthood. I mean, life is good now, and in some ways growing older is quite imperturbable (sorry), and also it is only in hindsight that ‘the good ole’ days are exactly that, the good old days – To embrace all my metaphysics:-
"There is no better time than the present moment, to feel the air and to see the trees; breathing deeply the gift of life.”

Supernatural is an awesome album, and Jesus Freak has some very good melodies. That said the track “Supernatural” has embedded great truths of reality:

“Beyond this physical terrain
There’s an invisible domain
Where angels battle over souls in vast array,

But down on earth is where I am
No wings to fly, no place to stand
Here on my knees I am a stranger in this land,

I need an intervention
A touch of providence
It goes beyond religion
To my very circumstance,

God is there and he is watching
He tells me all is well
God is there, there’s no denying
He’s supernatural
Supernatural”

Stepping into Eternity

Wow, events in the past week have certainly been interesting, coming from wanting ‘to weep by the rivers of Babylon’ to knowing the little weeping that we do in this life is ‘tolerable’ (‘joyful weeping’?) which does not compare to eternal joy that awaits us... and wanting to go there.

...Three things helped me last week to see the bigger picture, to look past those cloudy emotions and thoughts.

I| Prayer. It is said again and again, being used repeatedly sometimes seemingly to no end. The word that rings like an endless bell that sometimes you just want to shut it up. But the reason it is echoed by so many Christians is that Prayer does work. And we don't do enough of it, no matter how much it is said, even in repetition.
How does prayer work? Well, you sit quietly in your room, in the dark, and humble yourself before the Majestic King of the Heavens and the Earth. You meditate on how small you are, because everything around you is so big, not just in the spatial sense, but in the grand scheme of things, the centuries gone by, those who have come before you, and if God so permits, even after you have gone from this world, the next generation that will come after you, follow in your footsteps. Sometimes you speak, and sometimes you don’t; meditation is good, read Psalm One.

But here is the catch. Prayer can only be experienced truly if you do it - truly. If you don’t put time and effort into it, it will not work; for prayer is a relationship between yourself and the Lord of the Universe. As we all know, relationships fall apart if you don’t “put in”, just like a fire – relationships have to be constantly “checked” - A fire with no fuel is no fire at all, but a pile of charred black coal waiting to be blown away like “chaff in the wind”.
Work on your prayer life, ask God to work through your prayers; Jesus' disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, we should too. You will not be disappointed.

II| Music. I love music. What would I do without my ears. What would I do without simple harmonies and soft rock. Great music for anytime and for any day. If any of you listen to Tracy Chapman, you’ll know what I mean – what a great voice, accompanied by great guitar.

III| Friends. People play a big part in one’s life, especially so for those who know you well and you see regularly. The comment posted in my previous blog – thank you! And to all my long-time-since-first-year-Christian-Union-University-friends, there is no substitute for you, any of you; I thank God every time I remember you all.

Some words from Tracy Chapman that reflect in the lives of a lot of my friends (myself included):

“There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me”

So true, but fortunately not hopeless. Christ left his heavenly riches in Heaven to live amongst us, the poor and hopeless in spirit (and as it would seem) the poor/hopeless in an unfulfilling earth-bound-life. He redeems us and makes our lives worth living – “I have come to give life and give it to the full.” Not just for heaven but for now, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” And ain’t that an offer worth considering, if not whole-heartedly embracing.

The last week has made me more eager to step into Eternity, not that I’m suicidal, but in supernatural mysteries unfathomable, Eternity suddenly does not seem so far away; it is just one step away, one step away from this life - once I take that step, there is no going back, there is no looking back. And albeit one has to die to step into Eternity, the Eternal Joy that awaits us, the Eternal Joy that beckons us – those who have been sanctified by his blood on the Cross - is incomparable, just like our Lord and our King, Jesus Christ of Nazareth...

...Simply Incomparable.

Where the Holy Spirit chooses to dwell

I went to my church’s monthly prayer night tonight. Can I say, that the verse, “When two or three of you gather, there I am” resounds ever more so in gatherings such as this. To focus your mind with a few dozen people for one purpose in a common goal is awe-inspiring, just like that of ACTs chapters 1 & 2.

I might also add that it is the company that makes “community gatherings” such as this that much more heart-felt… funny I should think that – because in our individualistic society, we’ve been conditioned to think otherwise - but our God is a triune God, relating within the Godhead and towards his Spirit-breathed creatures.
I prayed that tonight’s prayer meeting would be encouraging to my soul – no specifics - but God answered that prayer - specifically - making a friend turn up unexpectedly and orchestrating groups that we could pray together.

I saw it in the first-person and experienced our Majestic King's promise first-hand, "ask and you shall recieve."

...But a few hours later, and I’m feeling so anti-climactic... I have been left wanting more. What do I do? Where do I go?

...Sing a song:

“...by the rivers there we sat, in Babylon we sat and we wept... and upon the Willow trees hung our harps. When we remembered Zion…” only because Rod Gear is a remarkable composer and the first few lines of this Psalm reminds me of the promised Eternal Joy that is not yet here.

by the rivers there I sat and wept...

...But I remember Zion

Simplicity

There is this guy at church whom I met a week ago. Since then, we’ve become better friends, and have seen and “done things” together that make that initial bind much more comfortable and a lot less awkward.

The core thing that makes our male-bond “click” is our personality - I have to say that you rarely find people of this sort of persona; without giving away too much, the both of us have what I like to call ‘intelligent dry humor’. Is it not true that absolutely anybody can be silly? And is it also not true that many people are simply not funny? I think there’s a fine line; sometimes you cannot see it, but once you or someone else crosses the line, everyone cringes – proof that the line, though at times seemingly invisible, does exist, to separate jovial-hilarity from embarrassing-cringes.

The flip side of this whole line-of-thought is that I actually do know people (friends/acquaintances whatever-you-want-to-call-them we’re all brothers and sisters in Christ) who do not find this kind of humor funny, nor do they “get it”.

In any case, back to the story – some might be thinking, “how did I get to know this guy?” – well, due to certain circumstances, and of course ‘natural’ social interactions at church, we have seen each other’s humor and personality 'in action'. And here’s the punch-line, which will come as a surprise to some: “we haven’t gone out for a coffee together to ‘catch up’ or ‘meet up’ or ‘{anything} up’”, which is energetically refreshing for me, especially so in a culture where that is the ‘cool’ thing to do.

….as disclaimer: I LOVE coffee and cafés and such like, the simple pleasures of life are hard to substitute, much like simple faith which trusts wholeheartedly in the words of the LORD Jesus and his promises; no bachelors of theology required to enter through these pearly gates…

“I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

AMEN to that, Sons and Daughters of our Almighty God.

Tasting Heaven's Power

I have had a good dose of Spurgeon in the past 4-5 weeks; not as much as I’d like, but it has been quite a mouthful; on second thoughts - in hindsight - I have been biting off just enough to chew on regularly.

One of Spurgeon’s writings had me in its grips: The walk of a Christian to realize on a daily basis that he/she needs to depend on God in prayer. The prayer to actively seek the power that God wants to give us to conquer sin in our lives - God knows that we cannot overcome sin in our own power, nor has he left us alone to do so; he has given us his Holy Spirit who empowers us.

If you do not already, I urge you to ask our LORD Jesus to reveal himself to you; that for this day, he may shine on you light from heaven, bestowing his Grace, Mercy and Peace on you -- that He would reign, in your heart and in your life for his glory.

...Sharing in the Holy Spirit and tasting the goodness of the Word of God does have a side-effect however, it will leave you wanting more.

"And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Zion's Armoury

Studying history, what an awesome pastime – it not only keeps you grounded in reality, but it allows you to take a ‘glimpse’ at the world around you, in the present time as well as to witness those who have come before you - how the world is shaped by the ‘chain of events’ spoken about in my previous blogs; how the sacrifice of one person can make so much difference for many unborn generations to follow.
History not only makes for good reading, but once you get started, you really do become humbled by the insignificance of your human life in this world – what were once battles fervently fought over become biases not even worth mentioning.

Curious, that while the Bible speaks of Man as “nothing more than vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes”, the Bible also speaks about Man as ‘important’ enough ‘…for God to send his Son into the world in order to redeem them’. It seems to me that the former verse opposes the proud - elect or otherwise - and the latter message:- to those who live in despair through no fault of their own (Luke 16:19 ff). In that latter context, it makes perfect sense that Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

On the topic of battles worth fighting for, Morpheus in The Matrix Revolutions uttered these words: “What if you knew that the War would be over tomorrow? Would it be worth fighting for? Would it be worth dying for?”

Yes. To both questions. We are fighting a war, an unseen war that has eternal consequences (yes you read that right.) I dare say that most of the Western world is sleeping in this war - impotent to resist the enemy; ignorant towards enemy blitzkriegs reigning; basically too apathetic to give a damn.

...“In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.”

Jesus was made perfect through suffering. Should his saints expect any different?
The Reformers didn’t, we shall not either.

Ephesians 6:13ff - For all of you who have been called to be one of the elect.

Sing a song of Zion

HOW is it, that you can be joyful one minute, then miserable the next? I received some news at Church last night, and I was sad - almost instantaneously.

Church was great; good music (tho. we had a newbie drummer…?); ambience was perfect (rain outside on the Church roof after dusk that the stain glass windows were pitch-black); those whom I spoke to were very encouraging… – and that’s the pivotal point isn’t it – the people within the church; warm, heart-felt words that grace the Epistles as you witness the Living God because the Word is Incarnate in their lives, through their speech… (save that blog for another time…)

Funny thing is, this news I received was not even about me – it was in no way related to me and didn’t/is not going to – effect me. BUT I was sad, because it affected a friend of mine; as it hurts them, it hurts me.

That’s what it is about community, sharing the joy and the pain – as Sons and Daughters of God we work together for one purpose, waiting on Him to return and claim us as His own; the Lord of Hosts who emptied himself of all but Love, and that is true Love, that He gave himself up as a ransom for many; For He came into this world that we may not perish, but have Eternal Life.

Everything else that this world offers pales in comparison, no really it does.

…That’s the truth. And it hurts.

Persons of subnormal intelligence on our roads

You know how people always seem to say: “Look on the bright side!”? Well, for 6 years, I could not imagine what bright-side could possibly come from the rise of petrol prices... until today...

If you’re turning left into a street, and another car is in your lane (fully equipped with an 18-year-old P-Plate wanna-be-pilot), whose fault is it if you crash? The guy that’s in your lane of course! And it is times like this that you remember Michael J. Fox playing “chicken” in Back to the Future.

You have two choices: “sit in your lane (perfectly legal) and not move and wait for the other guy to move” or “reverse so that the other guy can use your lane to go the other way (perfectly illegal).” Or you can both just sit there and wait for a cop to arrive (hastened by a call on your mobile of course.)

It is also times like this that you are glad you have two 3-foot sparring sticks in your boot, and perhaps wishing you had a replica of a glock (real or otherwise) in the glove compartment.

But I digress.

Transitions

Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP gives a teaser for Microsoft’s next major release, Windows Vista. WMP11 is both sleek and smooth, has glossy menus and, most importantly, works very very well – the learning curve, I must say, is one of the smoothest I’ve seen to date, whether you be a newbie, or a power-user since the good ‘ol DOS days. You’ll actually find yourself torn between your favourite 3rd party music player (mine is “Media Classic Player”) and WMP11.

The only reason I still use both is because MCP loads about 3 times quicker than WMP (0.8 seconds rather than 3 seconds) and also responds quicker and eats up less system resources. WMP11 does give most players a run for its money in terms of aesthetics and supported formats, but it appears that Microsoft’s move to sync the desktop/laptop machine with “portable devices” such as USB Drives, iPODs and PDAs is their next ‘big thing’. However, I think that like Office 12, WMP11’s “ribbon” toolbars is the best feature Microsoft has implemented since the Disk Operating System Command Line.

Is anyone else thinking, “I actually want to upgrade my software” this time around?!!

Sex, drugs and electric bass

No matter where you surf, no matter how many filters you have and no matter how many ‘Moderate Safe Searches’ are “On” – I can guarantee that you will, at one point or another, ‘stumble’ across a picture of a half-naked (if not completely naked) girl.

I was on xda-developers.com the other night as usual and came across a thread ‘Show off your desktop’s screen’. I read few pages as innocently as a 24 year old can – beholding some of the most creative and aesthetically pleasing desktop screens to have ever graced PDA TFT-LCDs. But at page 45 or so, some dude had (not surprisingly) posted about 5-6 pictures of his PDA desktop with some 21 year old European model in a very lacey “swimsuit”. As expected the posts “diverged” for about 3 pages with Q&A on this supermodel… before getting ‘back-on-track’.
It was mildly amusing but the thought that the world has come from Christendom and is heading towards a: “what-life-is-really-about-is-not-religion-but-pleasure(through-sex)-until-we-die” - IE: The Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll philosophy - is explicitly evident.

I’ve got nothing against sex, but isn’t there something wrong with sleeping with 1,000 women before getting married? (to one woman?) Or would it be a marriage to a few hundred women? You’ve had sex with 1,000 of ‘em, why marry just one? It’s absurd… But before judging me and my worldview, can I just say that sex was God’s idea in the first place, before you or I or our parents/grandparents/great grandparents/great great grandparents were born:

“Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man…
…For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh…
…The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

The same goes for Drugs and Rock & Roll. I’ve got nothing against drugs; I take them - Panadine Fort does wonders, especially with two in one hand. And music could not be better since the Rock & Roll enlightenment, with symphonies of drums, bass, double bass and electric bass amplified.

...“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

It’s all about the context. Who is your Light?

Walking in Light

The Sons of Korah, what a band, putting God-breathed Psalms into heart-felt melodies, and what melodies they are, making you want to dance like you’re an arm waving penty (I don’t mean ‘dance’ as in a 1 lux night-club at 3am in the morning.)

Psalm 24 has got to be my favourite (barring Pslam 46, but that one isn’t on Redemption Songs…)

“The Earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,
The world and all men who live in her lands…

…Who may ascend to the hill of the Lord?
And to stand in His Holy Place?
He who has clean hands and pure heart,
Who lifts not his soul nor swears to an idol...

…Such is the generation of those,
Who seek your Face, O God... O God of Jacob,

…The Lord, King of Glory.”

Music, it is poetry at its best. Music reaches through time and space and touches the human heart in a way that words cannot.

Those things that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye

You have got to love the way big corporations respond to the smaller, more resourceful underdog businesses. Everybody knows Google, and everybody loves it. This is true especially for those into BETA software and have been testing it since computers were the size of football fields.

Google has had a very unusual history. Beginning with just 2 computers in a garage somewhere in the US of A, Google has grown into the most popular search engine. It is a no nonsense search engine, very slim, sleek and has zero clutter. And that is what makes it so sexy. No banners, no unnecessary (dis)colorations and is easy on the eyes.

Since their foothold in the search engine market, Google have released more BETA software than you can throw a lamb chop at, and even though their software is “technically” still in BETA stages, surprisingly (maybe not), it is as stable (if not more stable) compared to proprietary software (aka: Microsoft).

If you haven’t test-driven Google-Mail (GMail), sign up, you will not regret it.
(3GB inbox!)

Need a no frills, low memory IM chat client?
Use Google Talk (GTalk).

Want fast Desktop search?
Use Google Desktop Search.

The reason why Google is being blogged, is to show that Microsoft is responding to Google’s free software (yes, the above are all free services). If you have not heard, Microsoft has released – for the first time in history – public BETA versions of their software, namely, Microsoft Windows VISTA and Microsoft Office 12. These two software lines are Microsoft’s biggest revenue products, and they have made millions upon millions with every major release – so why change their tactic and release completely free-able-to-download-and-use versions?

If you’ve been onboard and have downloaded these two products, you’ll see the reasons why. Office 12 is very very sexy. The buttons entice you to click them even when you don’t need to, just so that you can see it highlight in beautiful glossy graphics, bringing the whole interface to ‘life’, the stuff you see only in computer games.
Everything within the document is ‘dynamic’, such that when you highlight a paragraph and change the ‘style’, it changes in real-time, so that you can simply mouse-over the style that you want and see each effect on your document, without the messy and clunky pop-up windows with the tedious “ok” button.

Right now, I’m writing this up in Word 12 and I could go on all night. The font is beautiful and the UI is very user-friendly. Office is no more idiosyncratic, although you can still customize the “ribbons” (toolbars) to your liking.

The most useful feature (which should have been implemented years ago) is the bottom left hand bar, which displays the page number “Page 1 of 2 … etc.” and also the real-time word count. No more going to “Tools - Word Count”, one ‘flick’ of the eyeball and you'll know exactly how many words are in your document.

Sexy.

Ripples in time

On the topic of thinking about the past, what to do in the present for the future, there is something to be said about making the most of every moment that you have.

For some, that might be "risk-taking", but for those entrepreneurs, it is opportunity.
There is a song that sums it up excellently:

"One shot in a revolution,
One drop from a poison pen...
One man to start the trouble,
One kiss to seal your fate,
One link in a chain reaction..."

It only takes one significant event to change the whole course of your life.
...be a blessing to others, Jesus was.

What is man that You are mindful of him?

When you think about the things that have happened in the world, are you surprised about where humanity is today? So many things that were done and so many left undone; all the multitude of possibilites that could have shaped this world but didn't.
What would the world be like if it weren't for:

Otto and his design of the internal combustion engine
Tesla and his man-made lightning
The Wright brothers and their first successful flight on their airplane
The USA developing and testing the Nuclear Bomb before other nations
µP development by Texas Instruments

I know it seems like a truism to say "well IF this didn't happen then it would be like this today" or "IF that happened, this might not be", but it certainly is interesting to look back into our past and think about what to do in the present for the future. That is, Past, Present and Future only occurs once in all of human history, and events in our world - whether we can perceive it or not - are strongly linked.

A singer/songwriter says:
"Generations will reap what I sow, I can pass on a curse or a blessing, to those I will never know."

Who would have thought that Adam's one disobedience, seemingly small and insignificant, would cost the rest of the human race, that we would all live in the face of death and decay as result?

BUT similarly, who would've thought that Jesus' one action, seemingly small and insignificant, would change the whole human race, giving life, peace and restored relationship between God and neighbour?

Our actions henceforth cannot be counted too small or too big; we do not know the links in the chain leading to the Final Days; how can we? We do not even know what is in store for us in the next hour.

"Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away."

Someone to watch over me

Wow. I think I just experienced the 'future of smart-software' (than opposed to "AI".) As any power-user would, I had 2 Opera Windows open. Both Windows were maxed in how many tabs each window could hold and as the massive 256MB of RAM was rapidly eaten up, Microsoft Window's fantastic memory management started to "transfer out" data onto my extremely slow (3200 RPM) hard disk. Whilst the magnetic platters churned away, I amused myself... with nothing much in particular, except for 'predicting' the next tick in our ticking coo-coo clock; do pendulums really have to make so much noise?

Anyways, as half expected, Opera crashed and being the good consumer that I am, I sent in an error report; is it just me or do people actually feel some sort of small hope that when you click 'send', you're thinking that it might actually arrive at an actual computer where some employee of Microsoft sifts through the thousands and thousands of error reports and files it accordingly so that in the next patch/major release of Windows (Vista), the report will be useful and help stop programs crashing...?

When the report was sent, it took another 5 minutes for my poor hard disk to catch up. It emptied the memory and dumped the error into a small file hidden away in some corner of my hard disk. In the meantime... the kettle boiled and I now have a mug of black coffee (sweetened).

I entered the room, sat down sigh-ingly and gently clicked (very controlled) the red-O in my quick-launch. A window opened, it was Opera querying me with 3 options:
1. Continue from Last Session
2. Start with Blank Page
3. Always start with Blank Page

I clicked (1) thinking, 'why would anyone possibly click on 'always start with a blank page''... a few seconds later, to my utter astonished amazement, Opera loaded BOTH windows WITH all the Tabs intact!

Wow!!!

I am loving Phil Collins' melodies even more; this has made my night...
...though my black coffee... hmm... *looks away from the clock*.

So the Sky is Falling, and no one knows...

It is certainly interesting the differences between the way people see themselves and the way you perceive them; especially so in cases where you and them disagree significantly on their personality.

Do people really know what they don't know, and do people really not realize what they are capable of?

I had an interesting conversation tonight; I thought that this particular person was quite insightful, knowing the in's and out's of 'social-engineering'; apt to percieve another's personality only after a few conversations/interactions. For it is even through my own conversations that they have frequently been the 'interceder', able to interprete both parties with precision, consequently quelling any idle chatter we might otherwise have been engaged in.

This rates quite highly for me; you don't get many people who are perceptive enough to see a person for who they really are, understand where they are really coming from; as a matter of fact, the exact opposite is true for the majority of people in our Fallen world. IF first impressions suck, they stick, and forever is it the projection of that person, even if it is completely false and unwarranted. What's worse, is that their friends pick up on this false impression, and the cycle is endless - if you stick around in that circle long enough - until they and all their friends see the grave.

Anyways, back to social-engineering... Questions have been raised: What is it to push someone's buttons? Why do some guys 'reveal' more than others? Do you have to push the right button(s) for revelation? Are there actual buttons to push for guys? Especially so in the context of one female who is "just a friend" with another male with no romantic interest?

...and on that note...

Matthew 12 : 32-37

It is said, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." I just want to say that whoever said that must not have spoken a word at all in their life. Words are powerful, they build up or tear down.

FOR it has also been said:

"Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the {age} to come. Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good?

For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of {his} good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of {his} evil treasure what is evil.
But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."

The LORD Jesus could not have been clearer that words spoken reveal what is in one's heart, truly and in fullness; not only that but they have eternal consequences.

Breaks down the common Aussie misconception that words uttered "only jokingly" are 'excusable'... does it not?

The ominous Blue Screen Of Death

BSODs, are what they are commonly known as. It is Microsoft's way of preventing critical errors from destroying either their software and/or hardware as well as providing useful debugging code to their analysts and other programmers. But to the consumer, it is laughable - for some. However, for others BSODs are annoyingly painful, especially if it starts to happen on your daily workstation that stores all your E-Mails since 1995.

Like the Poweruser that I am, I got sick of seeing the BSOD. It started happening 5 days ago, out of the blue (sorry for the pun), whilst switching between Opera and WMP/Explorer. Last night I tried to transfer some of my albums between my PDA and laptop. In the middle of the transfer, Windows gave a bad_pool_caller at address cX000000D1... which obviously makes no sense to me. Upon reboot, it ran fine for 5 minutes, then "froze" again.

I pulled out my external Hard Disk and transferred all my laptop data onto it. Then i inserted my Windows XP Install Disc and deleted the partition on my laptop. It felt satisfying, to delete your 80% fragmented hard disk and create a brand new partition (I skipped the Low Level Format.) Four hours later, everything was up and running, all my essentials and peripherals - the feeling was great; since Windows now loaded within a fraction of what it used to.

The BOSD is still phantasmous to my system however, sticking its ugly head during one shut down (!) and without fail upon remote connections.

...next up, memory module diagnostics...

From needles to haystacks and everything inbetween

Apparently there has been a "silent rebellion" against BLOGs (short for Weblog.) This came as a surprise to me, since a BLOG allows one to keep up-to-date with loved ones, "just friends", and acquaintances (and also those would-be-listed-above.) Now I know some are thinking, "but BLOGs are so impersonal"... if we traverse down that path, "ain't all cyber-'stuff' impersonal?" I'll consider that POV rebutted.

A few reasons come to mind as to why BLOGs are a great way to communicate - first, it is like a journal, diary, or rambling-post, depending on the personality behind the screen. However, it is also unlike a journal, diary or rambling-post, since it is impersonal, and whoever is writing it is sure to know that the audience is a little bit larger than one's own voice in one's head (sorry, stuck in 3rd person.)

I have seen BLOGs where it is just drama after drama in someone's daily life, but I've also seen some awesome BLOGs that categorize one's life - into a creative and interesting read... it's just like picking up a good book (and that's saying a lot.)

People have been writing a lot of rubbish since the dawn of time, and don't I know it, working in a Remainder Bookshop - what makes it all worthwhile however, is that one gem that you find in this massive stockpile of rubbish. If I may adapt an analogy, it is like finding a 24 carat solid gold needle in a 4 metre radii haystack.

It is well worth it.

Colossians 3:16

Music. It invokes emotions deep within; affecting our hearts and our minds like nothing else can; at times it even brings out the things in us that we did not realize were there, to feel what we had never felt before. What the most articulate person cannot communicate, the musician accomplishes in a few minutes.

What is it about music that makes us emotional; reveals what is in our hearts, in our innermost self? And what is it about listening to your favourite track that can make the gloomiest day into a joyful day? - as the music brings you back in time to the days worth remembering, and remember them you will, so vivdly and so gloriously.
It is music that can take us into the realms of another person's life, put us in their shoes so to speak - as they sing the song so emotionally and so powerfully.

... You may have heard it said, "it's just 'music"... that might be true void of all external forces; in the grand scheme of things however, music is not just 'music'. It seems to me that while society and the 'quality of life' has improved since the adoption of Cartesian mechanics and philosophy, this extreme view/application is simply not true.
To be made in the Image of God (a non-negotiable "condition" of our existence), we as humans are effected by the things arounds us, and this includes music. So the music we listen to is important, just like the friends we hang around and the stuff on TV/Movies that we fill our minds with.

And whilst I do hold that the material 'stuff' in our world does not hold any sort of special property (contesting Aristotelian metaphysics), the world is a little bit more complicated than that,... and isn't that the truth.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."

The following takes place between 7:03 AM and 7:10 AM

If you've ever followed Jack Bauer, the ex-Marine Black ops agent, and 'allowed yourself' to be absorbed into his world, you'll know that this is one of the best scripted TV Series around. Agent Bauer almost always uses the element of surprise against the enemies of the United States, which means that most of the time he is unarmored, carries only a sidearm and very rarely has other agents as backup - on the rare occasion that Bauer does have backup, you can most certainly say "KIA" before the hour is up.

So what makes this show so interesting? Well, the above is a precis based on 5 years of 24 broadcasting. If you're not addicted yet, and want a chill-out 'thing-to-do' after a hard day's (week's) work, 24 is right up your alley. I haven't given anything away so if you're blessed enough to have friends whom own the DVD (or if you are going to collect them yourself), then that is the way to watch this series, on DVD, with episodes back to back.

Anything can and will happen - the writers of 24 have proven this - which I suppose in a sense reflects what is in the 'real-world' that we see and live in everyday. Without trying to "justify" a TV show to say that it is humanity personified - Jack Bauer in 24 gives us a glimpse into the world that most of us do not (will not) see; our world that is not perfect; our world that has enemies; our world of freedom in that which we live has a blood-stained-history, which continues to be stained by blood, because as long as humanity has differing agendas, the world will be at war, if not at a global level, then at a local level.

AND it takes people within their certain "day jobs" and their daily sacrifice to keep the rest of us safe; protecting the interests of our freedom. And we are indeed a blessed generation, a generation of westerners who can do almost whatever-they-want, so freely and unrestricted; dare I say most of us will probably never see anything close to what our grandparents or great grandparents witnessed, the World Wars of I & II... hard to imagine those wars were only less than one hundred years ago.

...that was probably a little bit too heavy for a one-hundred-word review of 24.

What do the red dots on the radar map mean?

The Command and Conquer (C&C) series was groundbreaking in technology in RTS (Real Time Strategy) gaming. Since its debut in 1996, it has grown from seedling into a full-grown apple tree, complete with franchised products. Alas in its growing pains, Westwood, the creator of C&C (which saw 1 sequel and 1 prequel) was bought out by the arcane Electronic Arts.

Electronic Arts have been around since I can remember IRC (Internet Relay Chat) when it was free(!) - and that was back when 33.6K Modem on dial-up bandwidth was "top of the range". They made quality games, solid in engine and beautiful in aesthetics. Firefight brings back awesome memories, much like 1942 does to those who remember the explosion of arcade-gaming-machines.

But the expansion of EA proved that growing too fast with money as your end goal is nothing but disasterous. Those who own C&C: Generals with the Xpac: Zero Hour know about the bugs that litter the game's code. While aesthetically pleasing, the engine was that of an old Ford Laser. It leaked memory like nobody's business giving way to hackers that would exploit flawed code to their advantage. For those who MPed (Multi-Player) online know the frustration, as they witnessed 1% completed SCUD Superweapons being launched endlessly without cooldown time, laying waste and luminously-neo-green biotoxins throughout the map in a matter of seconds.

But kudos to EAP (EA Pacific) for going back on their "offical last patch" - to patch the biggest flaw seen in RTS gaming. It took months, and it cost EA. Online gamers disappeared in a matter of days, and the EA Servers saw no activity. The patch fixed up major problems (which to EA's credit, every game released is bound to have problems) but the General Servers would never be the same again.

For the fans of Tiberan Dawn spanning the Red Alert series to Tiberian Sun, the Command & Conquer series have proved the best in imagination and creativity in SCI-FI storyline. The graphics have been beautiful to watch, whether that be seeing the multitude of lights light up your LCD as 100 tanks get obliterated by 10 rocketmen in bunkers with MIGs as air support, or just watching the door open as your first Minigunner runs out of the barracks, pretty technology has never come so far so quickly.

Generals and the expansion pack Zero Hour is highly recommended by a love-at-first-sight Real Time Strategy Gamer, the first C&C to have full 3D graphics and most diverse army and arsenal at your disposal; where micromanagement is key and often turns the tide of the battle. And if the game does not improve your strategy thinking, it sure will improve your mouse-precision, even if it is just improving the speed and accuracy of clicking cell Z-239 in your cubicle at your office while you're working overtime because you've played Zero Hour for the past 70 hours straight.

...now when does EA release the next C&C...

Why Adam and Eve weren't created as babies

---
The early chapters of Genesis, which can be found in another best-seller, would have been a little different if Adam had been a five-year-old.

God: You may freely eat of every tree of the garden...

Adam: I don’t like those trees. The fruit is ewwie.

God: Ewwie?

Adam: The bananas have brown spots. Can you make a fruit cocktail tree?

God: Please, let me finish…You must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil...

Adam: That tree is ewwie, too. The fruit is green. Green tastes funny. Can I climb the trees? I want a tree house...

God: Okay, enough about the trees. Let’s move on to naming the animals...

Adam: I already did. I named them all Rocky. When I call them for dinner, I only have to use one name...Rocky, here Rocky, come on boy...oh, look a stampede...

God: I’d really prefer that you give each type of animal a different name.

Adam: How about Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV...it would be just like that movie! Maybe we could name all the girl animals Adrian...Yo, Adrian! Here girl...come on girl...

God grew exhausted talking to young Adam and caused a deep sleep to fall over him, although it took a while because Adam insisted he was too big to take a nap and said he needed a story...and a drink of water...and his binky...

Netscape, IE, FF and Opera

Webrowsers have come a long way. Back in the day of IRC, I used to use Netscape Communicator (version 3.8 - 4.5.) That was great. It looked pretty, and functioned quite well. Then I remember Evil Microsoft - the software giant that wasn't then, but is now - attempting to 'integrate' the 'offline' with the 'online'. How? Its solution was Microsoft Explorer; coupled with the release of (a neat function) ActiveX Desktop. I looked and played with ME for a while, but still stuck with what I knew, the pretty Netscape Communicator.

ActiveX however, was fun - it allowed you to "paste" 'stuff' on the desktop; so that your desktop was not static (as today's desktops are) but could have animated pictures such as "GIF" files. It undoubtedly slowed down your machine, but at that point ActiveX was still new, and there was great potential for dynamic desktops.

That is until the United States Department of Justice took on Microsoft and 'forced' them to make Microsoft Explorer a "non-integral" part of the Operating System. Microsoft complied (not that they had a choice) and essentially 'renamed' their new browser into what we all know today: Microsoft Internet Explorer. They also removed ActiveX (from their Operating System) which to date I still miss (although the protocol is still within their Internet Explorer browser.)

I used MIE for a good number of months, just because it was so easy and resourceful. It came with the OS and I did not need to download newer versions of NC. MIE also supported the 'newer' standards of HTML, which in effect made a lot of the webpages prettier. There was no ugly 2CM borders and scroll bars for the sites which still used Tables and there was the promise of a new type of code that allowed webpages to have Tables without the ugly boxes that seperated the different sections.

While MIE was good, it was flawed, and has seen more viruses than any programmer would in any two lifetimes. Trojans, Worms, Brute-Force, Standard, Mass Mail, MBR, you name it, MIE has seen it.

And that is when we all switched, to Open-Source Code, Mozilla's Firefox. I will say that Firefox is fun, you can customize it (skin it), you can download a multitude of applets and "plug-in" your FF and most of all, FF supported almost all standards of HTML. FF was taking the world by storm, and it even had a reliable download manager for your massive 10GB downloads. Most of all, it did not have security issues like MIE did. Alas, FF would crash in the most important of 'surfing' and when it did, you lost all 600 tabs which would be open simultaneously.

The browsing experience was almost perfect... if it weren't for the crashing...

...I read a review a good 2 months ago and stumbled across yet another webrowser. Opera. I took a quick look at their website and was throughly impressed.
The "wow" factor was adrenaline pumping, so I downloaded Opera. I used it for 5 minutes and was hooked.

Not only does Opera have a Tab feature like Firefox, but it also saves your "last session" and "reopens" it the next time you execute Opera. I think this feature alone is enough for one to switch browsers. You can have your Weather report, your Inbox and your other favourite sites open all the time. And even when you shut down the application to run your favourite game, and reopen it after, it simply restarts when it left off - it is what the Windows' "hibernate" feature should be. Now I can have my 600 tabs open and if it does crash, I won't lose all my precious (un-bookmarked) websites.

Moreover, the download manager appears better than Firefox's. It can actually resume files, rather than give an error about not being able to find the file, consequently restarting the download from the beginning (from the site where it mysteriously could not find the file.)

But all is not well, and a sad reminder that we do live in a Fallen world. Opera is not as widespread as MIE or FF (for those who don't know, NC is dead.) That means that certain pages will have problems in displaying correctly (GMail is one) and can cause some annoyances (sometimes even using MIE so that you can view the webpage.) Another is the "tag" feature of this blogger site - in Opera, the content within the tags do not display properly, which is sad, since this site has been so well generated.

Alas, one cannot have everything - if they did - what would be left for Heaven for all of eternity? Certainly only the best of the best should be reserved for all eternity; I sure would not want it any other way... but I digress...

On the topic of Bill Murray movies

Stifled meaning without the fireworks - reminds me of Memoirs of a Geisha - what is life, without purpose? And what becomes of your purpose when the world around you so radically changes?
Similarly to MOG, Lost in Translation is sad, depressing but fun all at the same time ("down to earth" i suppose); however, what can be said about Life Aquatic? Except that it is absolutely hilarious - fun for the whole family ('tho. it is rated MA15+)...

Now here's some trivia for ya - did you know:
"The kiss between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson at the end of the movie was not in the script, but was an "in the moment" ad-lib between the performers."?

And remember, "for relaxing times, make it Suntory time."