July 19, 2004

  • URGENT PRAYER REQUEST

    Please be praying for a pastor friend of mine, his family, and congregation. He and his family are on their way home after 5 or more years in the States due to his desire to be better trained theological so he can help his students be better trained.  The following is an email from him regarding the situation he is going back to...



    Dear Friends,
    There is a flood in Myitkyina, Kachin state. They say that this is the worst in 100 years. Pray for our church members, the victims of flood. Due to the flood, our flight was canceled this morning and we do not know when we could fly to Myikyina. Some of our members' houses have been destroyed and many have lost their properties, domestic animals and etc. They say that there can be a famine since many paddy fields have been destroyed. Our school Hanson has been badly effected by the flood. The buildings are OK by ther grace of God, but classes have been canceled and some teachers are busy saving thier own families and running to the safer places. If the flood continue for the next (10) days, many including our students will be starved. I tried my best to call Rev. Dr. Naw Mai, the president of Hason but failed. Pray for them. This should not stop us from saving souls.


    Yours,
    In His Royal Ministry.
    Zau Ba

July 18, 2004

  • Now I know why Americans are fat. To much overeating, to little exercise, and HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup). At least according to this book, but then again the first two are always true. Remember the old adage: input equals output. When we put garbage in us (stomachs, minds, or soul) we get garbage out.

    This was an excellent look at the history that has led to the current issue in the obesity problem in America and possible other prosperous nations. I love capitalism, but I think that this is one side effect of it. When we prosper we have more and want more. When we have more business looks for ways to tap into it more. (Side Note: this is similar to socialism or communism, except that it is the government who taps into your wallet and you have no choice or chance to say no. They may even exile or shot you if you do not cooperate. Give me capitalism any day, where I have the choice as to where my money goes. Unfortunately it seems that the United States is moving closer towards socialism every day as the liberals push and push their agenda upon us.) But we do not need to change from a capitalistic society all we need to do is change who we are. If we change our lives then capitalism will change with it. Here is how I see it working. If we change our taste, buy less, or stop buying the foods that fatten us up then the business community will have to respond and give us what we want. Call it a boycott of unhealthy fatty foods. In the business world this is call the law of supply and demand. If we demand better foods then they will be given to us. But we have to be ready to pay more for better food and that is one of the problems Crister points out. We want more for less. We want the buck to go farther. We want meat, milk, and eggs to be cheaper. To do this we hurt the farmer in the process, but that is ok if it does not hurt my pocket.

     

    These are some of the issues Crister points out in his book. You'll find as you read it that he points out many factors to the current fat issue in America most of which have to be with our mind set of wanting moer for less (percieved or real).

    I would recommend this book to anyone interested in reading more on this topic. But read critically. Do not take his conclusions for fact until you examine the facts for yourself.

July 13, 2004

  • "All's well that ends!" ~ Dave R.

     

    I survived 66 hours of work from Thurs-Sun. In four days I put in a lot of hours but our network is still running and users can get to what they need to! Boy was I tired. Sunday evening I came home and crashed for 30 minutes on the coach. By 8:30pm I was in bed and fast asleep until Monday at 630am when I got up for work again. Praise God that this upgrade went well and that we now can take advantage of the many new features.

     

    Our new network is purring like a kitten.

July 9, 2004

  • I added a neat feature today to my Xanga blog for my BodyLife blog. It is a blog update gif from my other blog. It will scroll though my last 5 blogs at my other site. Check it out. It is located in the left side panel under the group Motley Piazza.

    Also be praying for me. We are pulling a 72 hour work weekend from Thursday to Sunday afternoon. Currently I am into day two and already feel exhausted. My head is heavy and feels like it is full of stone. While we are not working 24/7 we are putting in 18-20 hour days over these 4 days. Also pray that our upgrades go well.

     

    Thanks for being around.

     

    Godspeed,

    Wesley

July 7, 2004

  • The following poem was written to my wife, by me, before we were married and most likely one year after we started dating. Today, as I look upon it's words I find them ever so true. They seem to have a timeless quality about them that makes me think about our love and dedication for God. Are we closer than before? Have we steadily become more Christ like over the last 7 years? Examining our lives is something that we must continually be doing in order to know where we were, are, and can go.


    ARE WE CLOSER THAN BEFORE

    A Year has gone


    Our Love has grown
    But are we closer than before.

    We've set a goal to attain
    Have we sought it day by day.
    Does He come in first

    Or only second place.

    Jesus Christ Is He King.


    A Year has gone

    Our Love has grown
    But are we closer than before.

    Have we sought Him more and more
    Or only in our deepest need.

    Has His Word been our guiding light
    In this stormy world we call life.
    Jesus Christ Is He Sought.

    A Year has gone
    Our Love has grown
    But are we closer than before.
    Can we say we have grown
    Closer to the Goal.
    Does He see Himself in us

    Do we see Our Lord in us.
    Jesus Christ Is He Exemplified.

    A Year has gone

    Our Love has grown
    But are we closer than before.
    I hear us say we love Him more
    But are we speaking only empty words.
    Do our lives really show
    The Love we say we have for Him.
    Jesus Christ Is He Loved.


    A Year has gone

    Our Love has grown
    But are we closer than before.
    Do we live every day by the grace of God
    Or by the letters of one another.
    Is our comfort delivered by the mail
    Or do we say, "Lord help me this day."
    Jesus Christ Is He Comforter.

    A Year has gone
    Our Love has grown
    But are we closer than before.
    Have we honored Him with our lives
    Or given ourselves to one another.
    Can we say to one another
    I love you, but He is number one.
    Jesus Christ Is He Beloved.

June 29, 2004

  • 12 Month Reading List

    This is my tentative 12 month reading list. I will keep you informed of how it is going. If you would all do me a favor and check up on me to see how my reading is going I would apprecaite it. Also if you would like to read any of these books as I do please feel free to leave comments about them even if you are reading them faster than I.

    May - The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel (running behind in this book)
    June - A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bryson (done)
    July - Fat Land by Greg Critser
    Aug - Fathering like the father by Ken and Jeff Gangel
    Sep - Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp

    Oct - Creative Bible Teaching by Lawerence Richards
    Nov - Life and Letters of Gen. Robert Edward Lee by Dr. J.W. Jones
    Dec - The Pursuit of God by Tozer (short book) AND a Christmas book (undecided)
    Jan - Worship by the Book by DA Carson
    Feb - The Vanishing Word by Hunt
    Mar - A Call to Spiritual Reformation by DA Carson
    Apr - The Bold and Magnificent Dream by Bruce and William B. Catton

June 27, 2004

  • YAHOOOOH!!!! I have finished my June book (I have a goal of reading 12 books this year, 1 every month). It was a fun read as well as enlightening, faith confirming, and head-shaking good time. The author never had this purpose in mind when writing it, but I am even more confirmed in my belief that this universe could have never been created by CHANCE (I am sorry some call it evilution). Today I am 478 pages wiser in my understanding of God's great creation that took Him only seven days to create. It is awesome to have a God who can create breath-taking sunsets, bluer than blue oceans, and extremely complex atoms all for the sake of His glory. All the evidence presented in this book makes an even stronger case for design by God. Otherwise your god is chance and according to a mathematicians world the possibility for evolution to have occurred is impossible.



    The following is a quote from the last reading page of the book (emphasis mine):



    "If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully LUCKY to be here - and by "we" I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp."


    LUCKY? Let's assume he is correct in that we are lucky. Then our ability to appreciate life is also changed since we are now no longer made in God's image but that of an ape. Our ability to appreciate things then ought to be based now on evolutionary standards. Thus the survival of the fittest is how we ought to value all things since it is the greatest thing since spliced atoms. So what we as humans ought to appreciate the most in life is ourselves or the human race since we are ultimately the top of the food chain and the one thing that can survive and master all other life. But alas that is a politically incorrect we need to be tree huggers and animals rights activist - to bad that goes against the theory of evolution and the survival of the fittest. The way I see it is that a true evolutionist will not care for the things of this world that does not make them stronger if he follows through on the logic of evolution. But no one does. It's like the old saying that there are no atheist in foxholes. Luck? Hardly! Fate would be the better word since it indicates that there is something above all of this mere mortal material.   


     


    The only way we can truly appreciate this life is to see it as designed by an all powerful being, lets call Him God or Jehovah, and then use the morals, ethics, and the appreciation for life and beauty that can only be instilled by Him to evaluate it. While the authors lesson is flawed his ultimate conclusion is not, only his method of getting there. He said, "We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp." God at creation (see Genesis 1-9) gave man the responsibility to care for the earth and all that was in it. Adam and Eve failed and so has every human since. We are God's stewards of everything here and as His stewards we will someday give an account for how we handled the management of this planet as well that of our lives and those around us.

    If you read this book the lessons you need to learn is that our God is an awesome creator and that we have an awesome responsibility to care for what he has bestowed upon us as His stewards of this great planet we call home. Also be advised that the author is heavily biased toward evolutionary thought.

June 26, 2004

  • Excellent older film. Watched it last night with my wife. About a group of Korean War soldiers who are brain washed to be assassins and then released to eventually return back to the United States.

     

    I took a personality test based on the movie Finding Nemo and this is who I am most like from the movie. It is funny how accurate this does describe me.

    You are CRUSH!
    What Finding Nemo Character are You?
    brought to you by Quizilla

June 23, 2004

  • Yesterday, I commented on God's awesomeness in how He has preordained the time and place that any person will appear on this earth. Today I would like to look the fact that every man is given a chance to believe in God. That does not mean every man has heard the Gospel. What Scripture says is that every man whom has been placed into time and space by God's hand has the opportunity to seek out God and find Him read verse 27 if you have not already spent some time meditating on its truth. 


    Act 17:26-28 ESV And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, (27) that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, (28) for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'

    The Bible says here that God has place people to in the lives they live (time and space) that they should seek Him. I was born in the USA to seek God. You where born in China to seek God. They where born in Europe to seek God. Not only to seek God, but to feel their way to Him and FIND Him. Every man is born to seek God and has the possibility to find Him. Then God tops this with the truth that God is near each one of us. God is not only in Jerusalem in 30 AD or in the Sinai around BC 1450. He was also in the Tahiti during the Twelve's training with Christ and with Joshua's 40 years of training in the wilderness. God has a plan for each of us. A plan that he wants us to follow. A plan that includes seeking and finding Him if we look to Him and call out for His help. Often though man and Christian choose to follow their own plan instead of what Scripture tells us to do.

     

    So if God says that all men have been given what they need to find Him how does that work with verses that talk about needing to have the message preached in order to hear the Gospel of Christ. To begin with ALL men are condemned all ready to hell at birth due to Adams sin in Genesis 3. Then we sin in rebellion to God as well when choose to disobey Him and His word. Even creation condemns us for in it there is enough evidence to point any person to the fact that there must be a god who created all of this.

    I am reading another book called A Short History of Nearly Everything. The author is a blatant evolutionist, but he writes a novel like history of the sciences in the western hemisphere. In chapter 16 he goes through all of the things that where needed to create this world and to sustain it. He even goes so far as stating that if some thing had changed just a little then forget it all (my paraphrase). What is amazing about his statements is that he is saying that all of this occured by chance. Chance created a world so dependent on each other that with one small change it would have never occred. If we are 5% closer to the sun we burn up, 15% further and we freeze. Even the moon is crucial to life on this planet. All of this points him to the fact that we are just plain lucky. All of the evidence of creation points me to see that God is merciful and holds all things together. All of creation is to great a design not to have been created. This is Pauls point in Romans 1:18-21 that all men are held without excuse for not seeking after God since all of creation manifest Him to us.

     

    How does God reveal Himself? Obviously through His Son via the Incarnation (Christ being spirit becoming flesh and living on earth for 30+ years), His Word, and The Holy Spirit which are all TRUTH. But also to a lesser degree through creation.

    How do people get saved? Through the TRUTH alone. Creation cannot save only the truth that Christ died for our sins can. Man needs to accept this truth by admiting our sinfulness, believeing that Christ will and can save us, and confessing with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and Savior of our lives.


    How can people hear the truth if they live in remote places?     Missionaries and how about God using miraclous means to reveal himself. If an Native American saw creation...knew that his tribes gods could not explain all of this.... cried out to God to reveal the truth could God do so? I think he could and might just do so. God could use a vision of His Son and speak directly to this man regarding the TRUTH or he could send a missionary to speak to him of the TRUTH. God is awesome and soverign over all. I'll be honest this scares me because my western mindset mind and possible my theology cannot handle God showing Himself to people in visions, but he could. I am becoming more comfortable with God in this manner as I read and study His word. He has done it in the past. I also have no New Testament evidence of this so this is specultion. But I do know that God has sent missionaries to remote people groups and they get saved. Maybe becasue one old grandmother in the village cried out for years to hear the truth.

     

    Whether God gives vision of His TRUTH or not should never stop us from going forth with the good news. It was Jesus own example and that of the early church that we are intended to be God's mouth pieces during this age. Man is to preach salvation unto the lost. God could use visions, but if I know the heart of man, many would still ignore Him. Jesus used signs and wonders before the relgious leaders of His day and only a few came away belieinvg. Signs and wonders will never save. Even the devil can perform these, just read about Moses before the Pharaoh and his magicians. Only a heart that knows they need God will respond to His call upon their life.

    According to Scripture I believe all men while living have oppurtunity to seek and find the ever present God we love and adore. Yet so many refuse to acknoledgw this evidence found in creation and in our own hearts. My call to you if you are reading this is that if you are unsaved then remember God has given you oppurtunity to seek and find Him. All you need to do is ADMIT your sins, BELIEVE in His Son, and CONFESS with your mouth Jesus as Lord and Savior. If you want to read more about the TRUTH open a Bible to the Gospel of John or click here to read an online version.

    Godspeed upon you all,

    Wesley

June 22, 2004

  • Monday, while still reading The Case For Fath I came across a discussion of salvation regarding the supposed view that God is unfair. Unfair because if there is only one way to heaven then the majority of the world is doomed to hell. Ravi Zacharias countered with the following passage:


    Act 17:26-28 ESV And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, (27) that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, (28) for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'



    SIDE NOTE ABOUT CONTEXT - "CONTEXT IS KING"
    Please take the time to read the context of this passage to see whom Paul is addressing and the flow of his thoughts for a full understanding of how this small portion fits into the large portion. Remember words, sentences, and paragraphs have limited and some may argue no meaning outside of the entire context of an argument or thought. If this topic interest you blog me and I will blog more on it in the future.



    I was just dumbfounded by what I read in this passage. Not only becasue of the content, but also beacuse I had missed the signifcane of this in my many past readings of Acts. Here we have God stating through Paul that all men came from one man or from one blood line (Adam - See Genesis chapters 1-3). Then he states the habitation of man to be the earth. This next part is awesome. God also has determinded the time in history in which you are born and the place. WOW and that is only verse 26!!!

    Many a times I have said to myself if only I had been born during this time period or in this place then I would have...... But God knew that where he placed me in time and in the country of my birth and minstry was where I ought to be. That does not mean I should never leave this place for we are called to go out and spread the Gospel of Christ. Instead it shows that there is meaning, purpose, and significane to the place and time I was born. While I may have thought I would have been a more committed Chrsitian if I lived in China, God saw fit to place me in the USA. I can dream of being born during the Great Reveivals of the West or in the "good old days" of surface morality in our nation, but God designed it differently. Why? Becasue my life has purpose in His plan and He wants to use me in the 21st century and not in the past. To me that is an awesome thougth and like I said earlier only 1 of 3 verese here.


    Lord I pray that you would allow me to see what you would have me to do today to serve you. Lord please allow me to be content and joyful about your plan for my life. AMEN

    If you have not examined verse 27 do so now and look at it a phrase at a time and ask yourself what does this mean. Then place these thoughts back together as you examine the whole context of these verses and the chapter of Acts 17. Tomorrow I will take the time to blog about how God is not only awesome in placing us into time and space as He has, but also about how His one way to Heaven is extremely fair to all mankind born yesterday, today, and tomorrow from the Coasts of Britain to the small islands in the South Pacific.