Joy Unbound

This was in Reddit’s Atheist section, but I think this is truthful (not supporting atheism though — this is kind of like how it is better to either be or not be, vs being “luke warm” or “in the middle” which God is most unhappy with): http://i.imgur.com/zWmay.jpg

What I get out of this is that the narration is correct. A person needs to realize that from their point of view, they do not understand WHY Jesus matters in their life. It has to do with perspective. If a person has never known Jesus, Jesus to them is no more or less significant than some other random stranger in the world.

To them, they do not understand the concept of sin (and by this I really mean that they do not understand why anything they do would be a sin). The lust, the greed, the selfishness — this is all normal from their perspective. It’s like when a person sees a pretty person and they are confronted with a couple options: (1) engage/indulge/lust, or (2) run away/hide/look away. The third option would actually be: (3) do neither #1 or #2, but pray that God would untwist the falseness/they way your ‘perspective’ has been corrupted to be transformed back to the original, sin-free, righteous and holy perspective from before Adam ate from the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (because after God created everything, He called it GOOD). So, just like this, they are entirely unfamiliar with this side of the coin in life — not even knowing it exists.

But you also have to understand that you can’t just dash straight to the punch. The only way people can reach out to people is by being people. Everyone has a life story, and many people have very unique lives. If you speak to an audience of students on their way to a Masters degree in Biology about things meant to be preached to Computer Science students working toward their Masters degree — it’s going to be 100% irrelevant, meaningless, and wasted time for the Biology students. The only way you can reach out to those students is by speaking something that is relevant to their lives. It is one of the simplest fundamental elements of human communication — common sense it should be. If you can’t relate to a person, there will be a lot of friction (unless you are intelligent enough to know how to bypass that obstacle, but not many people have the skills to do this) and that won’t be a big influencer for the person you’re trying to reach out to.

If you can sit down with a person and establish an eye-to-eye level of closeness and relationship, you have a bigger POTENTIAL of influencing them to the way of coming to Christ. BUT HOLD ON – don’t get ahead of yourself. Don’t make it solely about reaching out to them to make them become Christians, because *YOU* *CANNOT* *MAKE* *ANYONE* *A* *CHRISTIAN*. Only the Holy Spirit can change, transform, and work in people’s lives to bring them to UNDERSTANDING of truths that are hidden to the average sinner who has never known anything about this “God” or “Jesus” or why anything in their life is a sin (which often times comes across as hate/prejudice in first impression and several impressions to follow — a lot of times unfortunately due to luke warm Christians, counterfeit Christians, and other religions that are not Christian claiming to be Christian such as Mormonism for example).

I believe the best way to let the Holy Spirit work in a FRIEND’S life (that FRIEND being the random stranger, atheist possibly, who doesn’t know/understand why anything they do is a “sin” or anything of importance) is simply this: (1) love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and (2) love your neighbors as thyself (a.k.a. how do YOU want people to treat you? *answer this question privately to yourself* then treat people the way you want them to treat you).

• The two commandments Jesus gave (as stated above)
• Have a PRIVATE and CO-OPERATIVE prayer life
• Every day, write down three things you are thankful for — make it a challenge and try to avoid writing down the same thing again; make it unique
• Think about things before you speak; don’t be so quick to make responses or contributions to discussions
• It is perfectly OKAY to say “I don’t know” even if something comes to your mind but you don’t know how to say it verbally or write it the way you know it needs to be written

Without humility, you cannot love and be selfless. If there is any pride or ego, your “love” and “selflessness” will hang upon that, and there you will ultimately find the true motives behind your actions. Jesus didn’t have any pride or ego in his life; look at the pharisees and religious leaders whose hearts were too full of pride and ego to see past their deeply corrupted perspective of reality.

Here is something else to think about: everyone, no matter who you are as long as you fit the criteria of being a human being, is seeking for happiness. This is a fact. People look for something to make them happy. People will try to find it through drugs, sex, money, sports, career/business, politics, etcetera. All these are like an addiction though. A person will get used to things, and then they will need “that much more” of an input to receive an elevating amount of output — and there is a limit to this. There is a point you can reach where no more amount of input will increase the amount of output; it will no longer bring you any more pleasure or happiness. This is materialistic and finite.

Humans [individually] also want to be loved, to feel loved, to know that someone cares about them. I want to be loved, to feel loved, to know that someone truly cares for me from the bottom of the heart. Life in all its entirety comes down to RELATIONSHIP. But even human relationships have a limit — it can go a long way, yes, but there will be a point where you crave for something even deeper than the depths of your mortal human relationship.

So that FRIEND who has an atheistic and secular background — treat him with the love and selflessness of Jesus, and be human. You are in the same boat as he, and nothing you do can ever bring someone to understanding or to Christ; only the Holy Spirit can do this, but to do this you need to make room for the Holy Spirit IN YOU to be able to work through you. We often set conditions before God as a reason to serve Him, and/or often have selfish bits of US impeding the Holy Spirit from working through US.

LOVE is the most powerful thing. You can be the strongest atheist or the most brutal, fearful grunt. LOVE will bring even the strongest person down to their knees in tears. God’s LOVE is different in that it is supernatural. This is the kind of love that a person simply can’t give to another. This is the kind of love that can RADIATE and EMANATE off the faces of a small group of people walking together in such a way that is unreal and unnatural and will OVERTAKE people’s focus to see this and suddenly be desperately curious and wanting to know about this small group of person’s lives. This is the kind of love that has the power to change a Muslim, a mercenary or slave master in Africa, or Tom Tarrants who was a member of the KKK and at the top of the FBI’s list, or Nicky Cruz from Puerto Rico and New York, …

If you are always in church and never step foot in dirty places, you will always be isolate from the very people you are trying to reach out to. If you don’t have a strong core and foundation for why you serve God, you need to fix this and establish a relationship with Christ. Only YOU have the power over YOU to seek God with all YOUR heart, mind, and soul. This is a spiritual war, and only through prayer and relationship through Lord Jesus Christ with God can people and events be changed.

That’s all I’ve got to say.

It seems that this isn’t quite possible with OneNote (yet?) to write things on a timeline the way Facebook presents timelines. I’m using OneNote to write my whole life story. As I have been doing this, I have found that one of the limitations here is the lack of a timeline. It would be really nice if I could input events at specific dates and times, or over date ranges, and be able to see a visual representation (along with event data/info) of my biography. It would be really interested to publish a biography in this form rather than traditional text-only book style, as not only would it serve and accomplish the same purposes as traditional books, but also provide a better, easier, and more comprehensive way of understanding what is going on, the timing of events, etc. Would make it easier also to organize information and remember things better. Facebook does a really good job with the timeline frontpage, but there needs to be more than this and standalone.

Just writing down some thoughts. A timeline would actually add as a third dimension the way I am using OneNote. Currently, in OneNote I am taking advantage of not being confined to document sizes — so basically using the X-axis to the max for comments (and comments for comments). A timeline would add a third dimension. I imagine that you would have this line for the core of this timeline; you would be able to click on it to add an event (down to the date and second, or a range). This event would be a note (essentially), and the field of this note would use Microsoft Word or be a WYSIWIG box. Then, you could click on a specific word or highlight a specific set of words, or click on the contour of this note/event box to create a note/event of that. This way, you could branch out and make comments of comments. You should also be able to attach files (videos, pictures, documents, music) to notes.

You should also be able to categorize notes like you can categorize tasks and calendar events (you can have a category label “Birthday” using the color green, and then create all your friends birthday events in the calendar categorized under “Birthday” and using a green colored background). On top of this, there should be a mode that I call “link mode” — you would be able to use this to link related notes together (weaving through time) — and assign a category+color for each thread… Everything would be visually illustrated with straight/perpendicular lines.. except for link threads. Link threads would be curves/hill humps (as they go from one note to the next). And finally, you should be able to click on the curved lines of link threads (in between two notes) and make a note point there as well.

When in “reading mode”, you could have the story presented in two ways (at least that I can think of): timeline mode or page-mode. I think most people would want to use page mode. The camera would be parallel with the timeline with the timeline’s vector in the center of the camera. There would be two buttons — next and previous — you use these to go forward or backward a page. All it does it move up to the next event in the timeline and show the notes flat against your screen. If there are multiple notes (or not) at the same time, if you wanted to you could stop at that time and dig deeper into a note/event to read the comments and notes nested inside, and depending on how far the author took it you could go deeper and deeper in nested comments, and once you’re done return the to root to either read deeper into other comments or to proceed forward/backward in time to the next event.

If you wanted to print it traditional book style, that could be done too! You could specify which direction you would want it to generate a document that it would print (i.e. oldest to latest time vs latest to oldest time, depends on the style you prefer). For events that have multiple/simultaneous notes, it would be the author’s duty to assign a “priority number” to each note to indicate which note came first on that event (or day for example). If you have a note with deeply nested comments, that in itself could be a chapter. Notes could also have a “Title” field, so that way when generating a document, it could use the title of a root note as the header for a whole chapter (depending on how many deeply nested notes/sub-notes/comments you have).

This would be a totally different way of presenting a biography, autobiography, puzzle/mystery stories, etcetera; I think it would be a more fun way to read something; and, I think it would improve whole comprehension of a book.

2011 was an incredible year in my walk and relationship development with God. My focus was on understanding what selflessness is, and through some very anointed teachings at James River Assembly the concept clicked in me. Once I understood what my problem was — realizing that I was selfish and that there were a lot of me’s and my’s and I’s in my conversation with one of the pastors — I knew what to do. I didn’t want anything to be about me, but about Lord Jesus Christ and God. For an incredible 12 months I had been serving selflessly. Nothing was about me, but about the people being ministered and preached to. I gave my all for the glory of Christ and His Kingdom. It was genuinely a very humble, selfless, and joyful year.

There were so many times where I encountered obstacles and challenges where I chose to sacrifice my time, energy, and life for the glory of God. I reminded myself, this isn’t about me — it is about GOD and His ministry. There were many times where I had been drained of energy, so exhausted and tired, felt lazy and unimportant, felt extremely lonely and isolate (even among the countless number of Christians at James River Assembly), but reasoned them away that “thus sacrifice is required” and “these thoughts/temptations/things are selfish thoughts focusing on ME and how >I< feel”. Up until the final couple months of my service in the James River Assembly community, the energy and power that I had in that reasoning propelled me through those selfish thoughts without further ado.

But I am not writing this to praise myself or the things I did. The reason I am writing this is to provide information regarding how it all fell apart and came to an end. In my experience, I encountered many challenges (some of which I cited in the previous paragraph). For such a long time I had zero focus on my self, but gradually voices kept entering my mind while giving up my time and operating equipment. Some of these challenges included being reminded of my loneliness, lack of companionship (i.e. by the natural physical beauty of singers and musicians on the stage in addition to their ability to sing and play instruments), inability to integrate, fit-in, and connect with the people in this environment (in Live Production, the beautiful people on the Worship team, and three or four life groups I had visited over the course of those 12 months).

Another problem I encountered, or at least I suspect it to have been a problem, is that I naturally began to take more interest and involvement in the equipment I worked with and Live Production. The reason I suspect this to be a problem is because it shifts focus from doing what I do sheerly out of a selfless, God-fearing, “give it all”, “for His glory”, and “not about me” motives and attitudes. To simply put: I got used to what I was doing and was becoming bored and wanted to make up for it by attempting to proceed forward in knowledge and experience, and be more involved in the “socioeconomics” and general things of Live Production. Some examples of shifted focus of things I should have never even bothered or cared about was about how it was being decided to use 24p instead of 60p for the cameras (the 24p actually looked like 15 frames per second instead of 24 frames per second — it looks ugly and awful, and by no means looked like 24p when comparing it to most professional works rendered in 24p), having long tracks and rollers for one of the cameras to allow for dramatic, professional, and smooth strafe + zoom shots during worship, and an internal knit-pick about how handheld camera operators are limited to shadows and dark areas only (not allowed to get into light or main focus). Like that last one — I understand where the pastor is coming from and I wholeheartedly agree. That is a good example I think of where I simply got carried away in focus because I became “too involved”. Maybe the “too involved” part has also been influenced to some degree by some of the Live Production meetings where we try to come up with ideas to make Live Production ‘better’ and ‘more interesting’ (i.e. styles of camera shooting, ideas of what kind of shots to take to be more interesting, unique, dynamic / less repetitive, redundant, static).

So what happened next? It felt like my power source got unplugged and I began to operate off of battery power and my reserves. Friction would increase week after week — it became dramatically increasingly more difficult to push myself to “just do it” and make it in my volunteering. I begun to become overwhelmed and overburdened by challenges of loneliness, lack of companionship, inability to connect/fit in/integrate, and now a new one: thoughts about how all my effort was in vein, has been unnoticed, unrewarded, and that nobody “gives a damn” (apologies for language). These thoughts obviously are all selfish, questions and thoughts about what self is or isn’t getting out of this. But in combination with the other challenges, became overwhelming and burning raw energy off very fast.

I struggled and ran off of battery power for probably around 2-3 months before I finally “snapped” and suddenly disappeared. During this time, as I was nearing the last several weeks, I began to question my motives and if I should keep serving because I detected my motives were no longer what they used to be. After all, I don’t want to serve in a ministry if my heart and motives are unrighteous, unjust, and incorrect. I was fully conscious during these months of what was going on, and a similar thing had happened before I stopped going to the “Bread of Life” Russian/Ukrainian church (at some point, it was as if my power/energy source was disconnected and then I began running off of battery power — and you know what happens when you run out of that!). These 2-3 months of struggle to keep going has been the longest time I have ever gone without “quitting” or “giving up” — I tried. I TRIED. [b][u]I TRIED![/u][/b] and failed. It broke my heart that I couldn’t keep going any longer and had finally reached the end of my battery power and reserves.

And since then, everything has crumbled, fallen apart, and burned to the ground. It has been like wandering around mindlessly like a drunk, without purpose, lost, hopeless, brokenhearted, confused, and depressed (or extremely sad). Last year I felt my maturity reach an all time high, and perhaps it could even be said that I had been more than ripe and mature/qualified enough for marriage. Now, I am entirely the opposite. I am the most selfish, most self-centered, highly disorganized and spoiled-like, foolish, prideful, arrogant, ignorant, naive, and like the typical American who complains about the miseries in their life, goes to church as a tradition, and does nothing to change or improve their life. I look back to next year and am shocked and awestruck at who/what I am now — it is as though “last year” was a whole fantasy and dream and couldn’t have happened, as though I have been delusional and insane. [i]What really happened???[/i] Wisdom, maturity, selflessness, purity, everything down the toilet and out the window. I changed so dramatically last year, and this year I have changed just as much dramatically (and twice more) in the reverse direction!

Do you know what last year was like for me? I will always remember last year because it had begun as a very dark, hopeless, and lonely, thirst quenched year. So I visited a nearby church next to the Walmart in Nixa, MO for several times. I then went to a Russian/Ukrainian church, and then later volunteered at James River Assembly into Live Production operating cameras. But throughout all that time, it started out with every month when I would look back to ‘me’ and how I was a month ago, [i]I was soo different![/i] You know how when you look at writings you’ve done as a teenager or a young kid, and how you chuckle at how different you are today vs when you wrote those things as a child/teenager? Same experience, but from one month to the next. Eventually it came to happening every few or couple weeks, and then down to every other week, and sometimes every week, and at one point had even happened every few days or every other day for a very brief period of time. Every time, [i]I was just soo radically and dramatically different![/i] I don’t know how or the specifics or what necessarily CHANGED in me, but that’s what my experience was. It was most incredible; God was working in my life so much and so deeply!

There was even a time where for like no reason and literally out of nowhere, I just began to pray 1-3 hours every evening for about 7 days. (Yes, I prayed in tongues.) Generally, I try to pray until I feel a peace come upon me and for some reason just feel like “it has been done” or “it is done”. After that 7 days, I wanted to pray with one of the Biblical counselors I had been requested to see early on in my 12-months at James River Assembly. All I wanted to do was pray with him for an hour, nothing more. Instead, he was curious and was asking me questions. I cannot remember what I had told him, except the part about how different/changed I was every month –> every few weeks –> every other week –> every week –> every few days, etcetera. He had told me that usually he tries to encourage people, but this time I had been the one who encouraged him and that he felt the presence of the Holy Spirit.

There was another time where I had the opportunity to spend a couple or few hours with one of the younger volunteers in Live Production (he was still a High School student) sharing my testimony. The Holy Spirit brought everything that needed to be said out, and had constructed all my sentences and speech (it was one of those “I wish this was recorded, because I will never be able to say these things again because they’re so perfect/well constructed/said” and that “this wasn’t me who spoke!”). He appreciated this and seemed to benefit from hearing it.

One of the things that I have thought is, “from my experience, what parts of it must have Jesus experienced as a challenge?” and realized that the struggles and challenges of my experience Jesus must have experienced (the loneliness, lack of companionship, not being able to fit in*, running on battery power and grinding over nobody caring about his all that he is putting forth selflessly) to the extreme. *I believe Jesus Christ is the most misunderstand person and must have been the loneliest person of all time. Incredible.

About a month ago I dropped in on a Tuesday night practice because of I-don’t-know-why reason after receiving a notification e-mail from the online software they use to coordinate and schedule events and positions, and was reminded of how enjoyable it was to freestyle operate a handheld on stage. The director pulled me aside and was trying to find out more about my disappearance. In our private discussions, at one point he had mentioned something about the members of Live Production “trying to reach out to me” but finding it difficult to do so. In my mind, I was baffled and confused, because I thought I was trying to connect/integrate/fit-in and everything. Definitely got me. Very interesting.

And this is all I have to write.

The great evangelist H. A. Ironside was preaching on a busy street corner in a Northeastern city when a well-dressed man walked up and began to ridicule and jeer. Ironside recognized the heckler as a university professor and a well-known and vocal atheist. This professor was full of bitterness and anger against all religion, but especially against Christianity.

As Ironside tried to continue his message, the man began to shout objections. He criticized the Bible and labelled Christians as ignorant fools. He loudly proclaimed, “There is no God! Jesus is a myth!”

At first, Ironside tried to ignore the man, but the professor grew more and more belligerent, taunting Ironside to respond to his intellectual arguments. Finally the man shouted, “I challenge you to a debate! Are you afraid to debate me?”

Ironside knew that an intellectual debate with this man would accomplish nothing, but he also knew that he must respond to the man’s attack. “I accept your challenge, sir,” he shouted, but on one condition! When you come to the debate, I ask that you bring with you ten men and women whose lives have been changed for the better by the message of atheism!

“Bring some alcoholics and drug addicts who have been set free by atheist power. Bring former prostitutes and criminals whose lives have been changed, who are now moral and responsible individuals. Bring outcasts who had no hope and have them tell us how becoming atheists has lifted them out of the pit!

And sir,” Ironside concluded, “if you can find ten such men and women, I will be happy to debate you. And when I come, I will gladly bring with me two hundred men and women from this very city whose lives have been transformed in just those ways by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ!”

As the professor heard Ironside’s challenge, he stopped his jeering, turned and walked away without a word. He knew that, for all its pretense, atheism had no power to change lives. JESUS changes lives.

Source: http://www.churchleaders.com/outreach-missions/outreach-missions-blogs/149533-quite_being_a_christian.html

Question: is it OK to quit being a Christian in the name of following Christ?

A while back, best selling novelist Anne Rice renounced being a Christian via her Facebook page.  She reasoned that she felt like an outsider to the Christian community for the past 10 years and finally has decided to quit Christianity altogether (except for following Christ, that is).  So…what do you say about that?

Well, here’s what I would say to Anne Rice…

1.  We should all quit being Christians.

I totally relate to her sense of feeling like an outsider to organized Christian religion.  I feel the same way (for very different reasons).  I resist applying the “Christian” label to myself because the early church did not apply it to themselves; outsiders labeled them as “Christians.”  (see Acts 11:26)  We should all quit acting like Christians and start living like loyal followers of Jesus.

2.  Jesus is “anti” on some issues.

Rice stated her reasons for quitting Christianity as follows…

I refuse to be anti-gay.  I refuse to be anti-feminist.  I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control.  I refuse to be anti-Democrat.  I refuse to be anti-secular humanism.  I refuse to be anti-science.  I refuse to be anti-life.

Her reasoning incorrectly assumes that Jesus is not “anti” anything.  Jesus is unabashedly anti-religiosity, anti-greed, anti-sexual-immorality, and anti-human-opinion-over-God’s-Word!  Jesus is “anti” human-centered opinions because He’s “pro” God’s intended design for humanity.

 

3.  Following Jesus has a divisive effect.

There’s no way to follow Jesus and avoid the divisiveness that Jesus brings.  I’m not talking about the divisiveness of personality (like harsh and judgmental Christians).  Nor am I talking about the divisiveness of personal immaturity and insecurity (like many church people with their us vs. them, isolate-from-other-people attitudes).

Jesus spoke of Himself in terms that could be considered divisive.  He referred to Himself as a Light that reveals people’s darkness (John 3:19-21).  He called Himself the Truth that connects people to God (John 14:6).  That’s pretty divisive; light divides the darkness, and truth undermines falsehood.

 

4.  You cannot embrace Jesus and reject His people.

If you want to follow Jesus, He will lead you into community with His people.  He commands you to love His followers, to remain connected to His followers, and to participate in His world mission together.

Tragically, Jesus has taken a bad rap for all our “Christian” ways.  He gets blamed for everything from the bloody Crusades, to greedy televangelists, to the GodHatesFags movement.  Yet Jesus’ guilt by association with “Christians” is so unwarranted because these “Christians” do not represent Jesus, His teaching, His heart, or His view of the world.

So, yeah!  I’m with Anne Rice; let’s totally quit being “Christians.”  However, let’s instead become full-blown followers of Jesus.

Let’s follow Jesus all the way into His family called the Church (however imperfect it will be).  Let’s follow Jesus all the way into His mission of touching, healing, and renewing our world (however inconvenient it will be).  And let’s follow Jesus all the way out of our old selves and into the new creations we were meant to be in Him.

“Those who say that they live in him must live the same way he lived” - 1 John 2:6 (GWT)

For years I have had this particular idea that I wish someone would design, manufacture, and start selling. Here is the idea I have:

[url=http://www.hlrse.net/Qwerty/DSLRcamera_scanning_table.png][img]http://www.hlrse.net/Qwerty/DSLRcamera_scanning_table.png[/img][/url]

With better design, a cube frame could even be constructed allowing the photographer to produce a matrix of photos for every axis (top, side, front). With this matrix of insanely high quality and high resolution photos, the photographer could use a program or script to do render or generate several things:

* 3D textured model or environment
* Parallax map
* Natural bump map (artificially possible via software like Adobe Photoshop)
* 2D texture
* Scanned image (as though having used a flatbed scanner)

• This is different in that the idea is to construct an image that eliminates as much 3D perspective as possible

* Panorama (different styles; to better understand the descriptions, imagine a sphere with rectangular prisms extruding from it and the center of the matrix of photos focused smack dab straight on top of one of these extrusions)

• Center appears 2D and flat, but as you move towards the edges the object reveals more of its 3D characteristics [i]leaning outward away from the center[/i]; like your typical panorama (convex fisheye)
• Center appears 2D and flat, but as you move towards the edges the object reveals more of its 3D characteristics [i]leaning inward toward the center[/i]; like concave fisheye
• Edges of object appear 2D and flat, but as you move toward the center the object reveals more of its 3D characteristics by showing all sides; inverse of concave fisheye
• Center appears 3D showing all sides, outside edges of object appears 3D leaning outward away from the center, in between the center and outside is a 2D doughnut ring
• Custom

(EDIT: For the life of me, I am unable to get list indentation to work properly in WordPress. Very frustrating and aggravating.)

I had forgotten to note that the tubes would also be hollow (more common sense), not solid, and that they should come in 2-3′ segments or something. My Canon t3i take 18 megapixel images (roughly 5200×2500 photos); that would be outrageously insane and high-end for application as a scanning device provided a tool like this idea. Some objects you could scan (let your imagination take it from there):

• Motherboard
• Apple
• Teapot
• Laptop
• Firearms
• Model or toy vehicles (cars, airplanes)
• Dead insects, bugs, or animals
• Rocks
• Magnetic ferrofluid (I wonder if one could somehow record a 3D animation)
• Moving liquids or objects (even better if somehow you could record it with multiple cameras simultaneously, whether taking continuous/burst photos or video)

Any questions and I will try to explain what I mean by particular elements of the concept draft.

Do you know what is most important in life? Purpose. Where do you get your purpose from? (It can either come from God or the lost world.) God has a purpose and plan for your life, just as He does mine. All He asks from you is your irreligious, genuine love. But the only way to attain such ability to love is through conviction by the Holy Spirit, because otherwise you will see religious act after religious doing. No amount of religion will save you or bring you peace and love that truly lives and stands its worth.

I love God very much, and deeply desire to love Him more, to get closer to Him, and ultimately fulfill the plan He has laid out and purpose He has designed for my life. There is no way of truly knowing whether today is the last day; all the matters is the HARVEST. For God so loved the world that He sent and gave His only begotten Son (LORD Jesus Christ) to perish so that we may have everlasting life should we come to realize what He has done and who we truly are before Him, and accepted His Gift — through our open minds, our desire to seek truth and fill the empty void within us, and conviction by the Holy Spirit.

I see that the typical Christian Americans look forward to getting married, starting a family, raising a family, and simply enjoying life in the same fashion. At least in my life, perhaps this being different for others, all that matters is the Gospel. As I have written, He has a plan for you and I, and the ultimate purpose in life is the HARVEST. Nothing is more important than reaching out to those who are lost, hopeless, heart broken, and living in the dark as you too had once lived before salvation.  And if God’s plan for my life coincidentally includes interception with my spouse, then all the greater glory to Him, His kingdom, and His reign. In Genesis, she is referred to as a HELPMEET (as am I to her). We are in this together for the greater long-run for the greater of evangelism. Our eyes level, our minds set, and our focus steady to the end till kingdom come by the power and Holy blood of LORD Jesus Christ.

The harvest is RIPE.

I have a friend in the Philippines whose name is Jennifer. She is part of a youth ministry that is needing prayer very much. Their ‘movement’ is growing, and the kind of help they need from the Holy Spirit is spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially.

God granted the wisdom to know how to share the Gospel with the lost and unsaved youth in this movement they call “Campus Love Unlimited Because I Love You”. Many of the youth in this movement come from backgrounds where they did not receive enough or any love, comfort, and guidance from their parents.

Lastly, their Pastor is having difficulty in having shelter as they have no income and do not own a place to stay. Prayer is the most critical need, as any movement without prayer is spiritually dead.

Thanks!

Source: scienceblog.com/49579/lying-is-more-common-when-we-email/

A new study by University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers finds that communication using computers for instant messaging and e-mail increases lying compared to face-to-face conversations, and that e-mail messages are most likely to contain lies. The findings, by Robert S. Feldman, professor of psychology and dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Mattityahu Zimbler, a graduate student, are published in the October issue of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

The research paper, titled “Liar, Liar, Hard Drive on Fire: How Media Context Affects Lying Behavior,” looked at 110 same-sex pairs of college students who engaged in 15 minute conversations either face-to-face, using e-mail, or using instant messaging. The results were then analyzed for inaccuracies.

What Feldman and Zimbler found was that while there is some degree of deception present in all three forms of communication, it was increased in both instant messaging and e-mail, with e-mail messages the most likely to contain lies. Underlying this was the concept of deindividualization, where as people grow psychologically and physically further from the person they are in communication with, there is a higher likelihood of lying, they say.

In addition to the distance one person is from the other, e-mail communication has the added component of being asynchronous, not as connected in real time as instant messaging or face-to-face conversation. Feldman and Zimbler conclude, “It seems likely that the asynchronicity of e-mail makes the users feel even more disconnected from the respondent in that a reply to their queries is not expected immediately, but rather is delayed until some future point in time.”

“Ultimately, the findings show how easy it is to lie when online, and that we are more likely to be the recipient of deceptive statements in online communication than when interacting with others face-to-face,” says Feldman.

“In exploring the practical implications of this research, the results indicate that the Internet allows people to feel more free, psychologically speaking, to use deception, at least when meeting new people,” Feldman and Zimbler say. “Given the public attention to incidents of Internet predation, this research suggests that the deindividualization created by communicating from behind a computer screen may facilitate the process of portraying a disingenuous self.”

Feldman, who has been the dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass Amherst since 2009, is an expert on lying and author of the book “The Liar in Your Life,” published in 2009.

He is a frequent commentator in the media on issues related to lying. Feldman joined the faculty of the UMass Amherst psychology department in 1977 after teaching for three years at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has been a visiting professor at Mount Holyoke College and Wesleyan University and was a Fulbright lecturer and research scholar at Ewha University in Seoul, South Korea in 1977.

I had a very long day.

I had gotten to James River Assembly by around 7:15 AM and was operating Camera 2 for the two main services. After that I went to the Connect center just to hang out and around with some of the people (particularly an old person named Sharren because she’s awesome and I like being around her). After spending about an hour there we closed up the Connect center and I was heading out to drop some stuff in my car (I had two large healthy drinks on me, one of which I had already drunk). I had noticed that two diesel semi-trucks with trailers were backing up at the entrance to the atrium from which I had exited, so on my way back I offerred to help and was gladly accepted. The group of volunteers there were young adults of and around my age, I think most of them who were volunteers for James River Assembly but were not officially meant to help out (but did so entirely on their own desire to be there and help) — and that’s awesome too, and a few that were from around the country. One of the volunteers had just come from Chicago, and I think maybe another had come from California or something, or Brooklyn.

We helped unload crates both heavy and light from the trailers and moved them into the public hallway behind the sanctuary (which was later curtained off after everything had been unloaded from the trailers). After unloading everything, we sought for things to do and help out on stage in setting up lighting equipment, power equipment, and various other. I personally helped out a guy named Al, who I figure was probably in charge of everything else on-stage but the power equipment. With another buddy, I helped him setup and stand up some of those tower metal things that had lighting equipment attached to it. We also ran a bunch of very thick heavy gauge cables along the back of the stage and hooked up equipment. There were a lot of various things we did. Al had also traded me off to a guy named Andy here and there; Andy was in charge of power and I think maybe some of the lighting, but mostly responsible for power stations and powering equipment with electricity. I helped him and a couple other James River Assembly staff setup some of the massive but portable power supplies. The plugs on these are huge and consist of many moderately thick (compared to what they were powering) pins.

At 4:00 PM I let Al know that I had signed up for a Hillsong College informational that I needed to be at, so I attended that. It would be my dream to attend Hillsong College for the TV/Media/Production/Camera stream and possibly something else. I further realized that I am the kind of person that fits better in international/mixed/pluralistic environments; I am not afraid around people I have never met who come from all over the United States (let alone the world), and find it very enjoyable and pleasant to be among them. Anyway, due to financial reasons I would be unable to go to the Hillsong College; God would have to open doors to even make this possible. All I can do is hope, pray, move on, and let God be in control and lead the way. I then went up to the production room and met the director from Hillsong by the name of Chong/Chung/Chuong/Choung who was going to be, well, directing everything! He was performing two jobs as one — operating the switchboard AND keeping his eyes on the cameras and live program feed and calling out camera operators. I have to say he’s very passionate about what he does, and very hyperactive, conscious, and alive.

I think Hillsong actually started playing at around 7:45 PM or 8:00 PM, but they went on for like 2 hours minimum with a couple or few preachings scattered in-between throughout.

This is all I am going to write for now. My brain is still trying to process everything that has happened.