The Complete Man

So in the past few weeks I have been feeling incomplete in many areas of my life. I have felt that things were missing, something I could change and others I could not. In going through feeling this way I was also going through the Bible to see if/what it has to say on the matter. In going through the Bible and thinking back on the last few years I came to realize very quickly that, for me, there are a few things lacking in my life. The areas as I see them are Body, soul and mind.


I went very quickly from being able to provide for all of those adequately to not be able to provide for some areas, over providing in other areas and ignoring all together. But in the past few days I have tried to do what I can and I can really say that trying to fulfill some of these areas has helped me a lot, I only hope it can help someone else.

Scripture Used:
Matthew
11:28-30 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

22:37-40 And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

28:18-20 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, " All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Mark
12:29-31 Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.' "The second is this, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Acts
2:46-47 Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

16:1-3 Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. And a disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek, 2 and he was well spoken of by the brethren who were in Lystra and Iconium. 3 Paul wanted this man to go with him; and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

17:16-21 Paul at Athens
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, "What would this idle babbler wish to say?" Others, "He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,"--because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? "For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean." (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)

Romans
15:15-16 But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians
14:24-25 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.

1 Timothy
5:23 No longer drink water exclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.
NASU

Best Anti-Drug ever

Generous Orthodoxy

In the past few weeks I have been reading a book by Brian D. McLaren called "Generous Orthodoxy". When I started reading this book I ad just finished reading one of his other books called "A New Kind Of Christian" and was very interested in reading this book, I have been wanting to read this book for about a year now.

Each chapter in the book explores a different aspect of the Christian life except for the first four chapters which tells the story of Brian's life and the first years of his Christian life. At first the book was very interesting and challenged me to think about my life and what I thought about the Christian life, but as the book went on it started to drag on and on. In the first few chapters it was a good look at the denominations inside the Christian faith and telling how well they show God.

In some of his criticisms of the Christian faith he would talk about a better Post-modern way of doing things but when I was reading it just sounded like it was replacing one modern way of thinking with another modern way of thinking. Really all the book sounded like was a Modern would view trying to sound like a Post-modern would view. I would suggest that with this book if you read, to read it at the same time as you read one of the Gospels.

Net-Neutrality Update

So to keep everyone updated on the Net-Neatrality issue today we lost the battle for the house. The blog from Save The Internet say it better:

Last night’s House vote against an amendment that would make Net Neutrality enforceable is the result of swarming lobbyists and a multi-million-dollar media campaign by telephone companies that want Congress to hand them control of the Internet.

The fight now moves to the Senate, where there is stronger bi-partisan support for a bill — put forth by Senators Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) — that would protect our Internet freedom from AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

There is more that they say, which you can read here if you would like.

Net-Neutrality

Net-Neutrality seems to be the big thing in politics these days. I didn't know what it was all about until I did a little research and found out for myself. There are some big companies (AT&T, Bellsouth, Comcast, Verizon, etc) that want to take control of the internet, once they have done that they will then split it into two tiers. One tier would be for the sites that would pay these companies to get there stuff on the internet and therefor get better speed and bandwidth, one the other hand, however, the companies and organizations the don't pay (or can't aford to pay) will be placed in the second tier, and they would receive slower bandwidth if they got any at all.

Now what all of that means is that any user based site, such as Myspace, Google, Blogger, You Tube, I-Tunes, just about anything that is not backed up by a huge company would be in grave danger of being subjected to dial-up speeds if they were lucky and got any speed at all. This is such a big deal that the Christian Coalition Has joined with Move on to protest the movement.

I personaly think that this bill is messed up (I have other words to discribe the way I feel but I think those are best left to myself). This is an attempt to take away basic freedoms from the people just to make some big companies bigger.

If you want to get involved then go to Move On or Save The Internet and call 202-224-3121 and make your voice known, for those who are in Tucson you can also call Jim Kolbe at 202-225-2542. Please do something or risk everything.

Romanian Gay Rights March

Today in Romania there was a gay rights march to protest against discrimination and legalization of same-sex marriages. There were protesters on both side, for and against gay rights, most of the people against this march were Christians, which is not surprising. What is surprising is that the demonstration turned violent (really not so much surprising as sad).

This is sad to me not because it shouldn't have been expected but because it should be expected. Looking at the comments about this incident on blogger it is clear that the image that Christians are portraying isn't good (especially to the gay community), the church has done a terrible job at loving your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:34-40), which is the second greatest commandment.

At what point did it become ok for Christians to ignore those we were could to love by Jesus? When did violence become the way that we got our point across to the world? When where people taught to ignore the true issue at hand (sin) and instead turn our heads from the people forgetting about the hearts? Shunning people is not the way to show them love, we are called to be in relationship with people, that is the way that love is shown, it is the way God showed love to us and the way that we are called to show it to others.


Clashes mark Romanian gay pride


Scripture Used:
Matthew 22:34 But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. 35 One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40 " On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
NASU

Videos and Podcasts

I have been online a lot in the past two weeks sense I got back from Colorado, in that time I have been getting caught up on recent events but when I am not doing that I am usually looking for new Firefox extensions or looking for good podcasts or videos. In the past few weeks I have found two podcasts that I have really enjoyed and two videos that made me pee my pants, literally here is a picture of my pants.

The first of the two podcasts I found because one of the people who did it sent me an invitation on Myspace but the videos made me laugh (even though they went suppose to do that) and really sparked my interest in it. Four Eyed Monsters is one of the best indie film projects I have seen in a long time. The film that the episodes in this podcast talk about is going to be shown here in Tucson and I plan on going to it at the end of June.

The second of the podcasts I found because these two people use to be on one of my favorite shows on G4 but left to go on a one year honeymoon. The first two episodes make it look like this will be really funny and intriguing. The podcast is called The Traveling Morans and there are two blogs from the two which are What He Says and What She Says.

As for that other two videos the first one is a comic that I saw over at one of Chris's friends house on Last Comic Standing and he made me want to go throw up with how funny he was. Josh Blue has a lot to over come, which you can see in his video but despite that fact he is still one of the funniest people I have seen on TV in a long time (granted I have been at a school that didn't allow us to watch TV for two years).

The last of the videos I found as a link on Burnside Writers Collective as the link of the moment. The link took me to YouTube to a video called Heat Vision and Jack, which has some familiar people in it.

I hope you laugh as much as I did watching these videos.

New Blog

So last night I was sitting up in bed after winning $15 at a poker game and couldn't stop thinking about things. One of the thoughts that came into my mind was about blogs and different things that you could do with them, one of the ideas that came into my mind was to do an online Bible study through the Gospels and that life of Christ. So this morning I started a new blog called Interpretations on a Life to come. So check it out and tell me what you think, I will start posting on there soon (most likely later today).