one long debate on a thursday night

so tonight, i had a series of long and short discussions with different people about this questions: "Does God choose who will go to heaven and who will go to hell?" this lead into a number of very interesting ideas about not only our role in creation, but also the very nature of God. Does he risk? does he hope? does he have faith? these are questions we don't normally think about and we pull away from asking such questions as predestination vs. free will because we've been told that there is no answer so we should just wait until we get to heaven.

true, we might not know for sure until we get to heaven, but i think it is necessary for us to think about these things while we're still alive. here's why: because we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are. we all have opinions, even for things that have no sure answer. no matter what, these opinions will affect the way we see the world and through that, it will impact our actions.

so use your minds and try to tackle even the most complicated of questions that seem to have no answer at all. use the Bible as your reference to base your claims on. (you'd be amazed how fruitless discussions about God are without the use of the Bible) because these things are good for you and will grow you in wisdom and faith. i do not believe that there are questions too complicated for God.

HAPPYONEMONTHANNIVERSARY,YALL(:

hooray! job is over and out. finally. no offense.
but over all, i get that if we dont ever lose track of God then he will reward us greatly

so in the beginning of exodus, why does the new king want to get rid of the guys and keep the girls? either i totally missed reading a part, but it didnt make any sense to me.
and now, we move onto moses.
im pretty sure the majority of us know the story of super star moses, aiight? a levite woman gives birth to a son but hides him for three months but then ends up having to ship him in a basket into the river (his sister is watching). pharaoh's daughter finds him and wants someone to take care of the baby, so the sister gets their mother who is paid to take care of him. and tra la laa, moses grows up, kills a man, runs away, saves seven daughters, and gets married to zipporah. and years after, God remembers (oh yeah! dem israeites) and has a plan...
in exodus 2:18, it says "when the girls etuned to reuel, their father...."
but in exodus 3:1, it says "one day moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, jethro..."
so im pretty sure both verses refer to the same people, but why do they have different names?
...and Gods amazing plan with moses begins with that miraculousburning of a bush. and he sends moses to gather people out of egypt, and three suh-weeeet signs to prove to dem egyptians that God came to moses.
#1 staff turned snake turned staff, again
#2 healthy skin -> diseased skin -> healthy flesh, again
#3 water from the nile turned blood when it was poured on the dry ground
amazing.
and the last thing i want to comment on is how moses was afraid, and didnt think he could pull this stunt off
it reminds me of us during our times now and how sometimes we dont have much faith
but when we put our trust in God, he can make it possible.

finally done with Job -o- =3

from Job to Exodus...

i remember i quit Exodus cuz i got really bored with all the measurements... -_-III

and a final question that didnt seem to hit me for Job:

the Bible talked about Job's 3 friends that went to comfort him

and It named them

so where did Elihu come from??

Goals Update

So here's what I had for goals:

• finish the Journey of Desire: I'm on chapter 4. Not as good as I want, but I'm working at it
• read on my own bible time/pray for direction in life: reading has not happened. praying...well now we have a prayer list
• no more pop. cuz pop kills ppl. start running, working out, practicing soccer, less computer, not spending so much money, sleeping right, eating right: ehh i never drink pop anyway, i run with the soccer team, obviously i play soccer with the team, not so much less computer actually quite a bit more, hmm i haven't spent too much money, but we haven't gone out much so that's probably why, sleeping is about 8 hours a night, annnnd i'm not eating right. i've actually lost 5 pounds. i hate my metabolism.
  
• soccer tryouts are in two weeks. wish me luck =]

sooo...not very good.

hehe

since i had no clue where i was in the bible reading, i tried to blindly catch up by finishing Job.
turns out that i'm two days ahead now =P

another note: after watching the batman movie, i can't help to notice how it relates to Job's story. how the Joker took everything away from that Dent guy and turned him evil, to show how even the good people are corruptable. it's like how satan targeted Job cuz he followed God with all his heart. but unlike the dent guy, Job holds onto his faith and still trusted God, and was rewarded at the end. shows us how truly amazing God really is!

Two things

first, i'd like to say that i am very proud of how you have all been enduring through the Bible reading plan. i too have felt the slump in the past week. for the missions folks, it was probably a little bit difficult to get back into the swing of things. but keep pressing on and keep posting your thoughts on the blog. i notice that as our posts decrease, so does the quality of our discussions as a group. so keep reading and keep writing.

second, i have this week's Bible verse.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. ~ Ephesians 2:8-9

Mere Christianity

i must say i rather like this book. the book is divide into four "books" which makes it easier to follow. i just finished first "book" and it was really basic. like i felt like Lewis started out as basic as you could get in these first five chapters.

the first chapter really just talks about a "Moral Law" or as he calls it "The Law of Nature". like we talked about it was basically saying how there's some unwritten underlying standard that every human appeals to. i thought it was interesting how he pointed out that even though there is this "Law" or "Standard", people break it. and this is the only such "Law of Nature" that we can choose to break. (like gravity is a "Law of Nature" and we can't break that)...

...which brings us to the second chapter, which differentiates between ("herd") instincts and this "Law of Nature". basically it's saying how instinct are just impulses that we get to do something, but this "Law" tells us which instincts to follow. i liked his analogy of how instincts are just like individual music notes but the Moral Law is like the sheet music, directing the way the music is played. this was pretty straightforward (:

the third chapter basically just reinforces the fact that this Law of Nature or Moral Law actually exists. dunno what else to say about it really...this is so much more rewarding just to read haha.

the fourth chapter is titled "what lies behind the law" and it talks about since we humans all seem to have this standard instilled in us, then there must've been someone/something behind it. like how an architect builds a house or something. each piece is meant to do something and it's clear if it's not doing what it's supposed to or if it's "wrong" like how we know if we're doing something "wrong". however he also mentions how the only way we can know this is if we take a behind the scenes sort of look. like if something who wasn't human and didn't understand any human language was observing us, it wouldn't be able to identify that there is a "Moral Law" guiding us because it can't read our minds. i never thought of it like that. that just because there is a "Moral Law" or some unsaid standard that we go by that that means that there's something behind it. although once he points this out it seems rather obvious -_- same story for the rest of the chapters...

the fifth chapter basically says that since there is something behind our "Moral Law," then that thing must believe in that Law, and since we break it....then we should PANIC (ok not really) but more like be uneasy and acknowledge the fact that we do break it.

aaannnd that's the end of book one. it moves pretty slow but it covers everything VERY thoroughly, which is why my summaries don't do it justice. i just wrote the basic gist. the was Lewis starts this off makes it seem like it has nothing to do with Christianity at all, but slowly you realize that there is a direction and it isn't just all mindless philosophy haha

1. contribute more on this blog - considering that i the last post was my first summer goals post...yea, not so good
2. finish (or try to finish) Mere Christianity - finished chapter 2!
3. read my bible when i'm supposed to - been pretty good at that, i'm still a few days behind though
4. pray everyday, even when i don't feel like it - not everyday, but more often than before
5. save money for Reason (or just illegally download it) - spent all my money
6. record an album, get famous - still working on it