LUKE chapter 1. Ill repost it after there is a designated section for this book.

The stories in the Bible are epiccccc. This chapter was fun to read.
Just some thought though, if John was GIVEN the holy spirit from birth, does that mean he really had no choice but to be God-like? I mean theres the argument of "does God choose us or do we choose God?". hmmmm

37For nothing is impossible with God."
Although this verse isnt metaphorical and doesnt stand out, this stood out for me in a huge way. Especially after our talk last night about how much we grew up both spiritually, musically, and how much better we want to be in both those categories.

Thats my devo. Its good to get back to devos, but the break was needed.

Ciao guys tomorrow!
E-Sek OUT!

The new bibles are sooo sick.

To what Isaac said about John being born with the Holy Spirit, i too ask the same question, but i noticed John could fall away fomr God because in the same phrase the angel says "He must never touch wine or other alchoholic drinks." I have a feeling there would be consequences if John did do these things and who knows, maybe he could fall short of the Holy Spirit because of these things.

aha Gabriel is the same angel that came before Mary aswell siick.
I don't get it, unless an angel looked like a normal human being, it doesn't make sense for Zachariah to not believe what Gabriel said. If Gabriel came to Zach with wings and bright light (Stereotype) then Zach should believe. An angel itself is hard to believe in, so why would anythign the angel say make a difference? I learned that it is very easy to doubt and hesitate when it comes to God. We say all these things befroe the time being, and when the time comes it's like "uhhh".

Verse 37. i like how it says "For nothing is impossible with God"
It encourages me to know that i can do all things as long as i have God. There is another verse i forgot but it says something like "If God is with us who is against us." and i came up with 2 things fomr this verse. That God is my protection and that i can fully rely on him.

Lets rock for God tomorrow. aha
San tokki

but like, humans are generally very impressionable. If i was told that i had the holy spirit in me from birth, i think i would turn out differently you know? and is it fair to say that Paul had no "choice" to be who he was? like i know he turned out to be a pivotal part of Jesus journey and what not, and he was obviously a good guy but still... He technically could have "walked out"... but thats like saying a mother would leave her baby. right? she could but i ll bet my money that most mothers would not.
He had a choice but was he heavily influenced into what he turned out to be???

it all ends up with that question. Do we actually have freewill if God knows where and how we're going to turn out. Predestination. but good point Isaac, but it all depends on the situation right.

deep. -snap-
haha predestination - confuses me SO MUCH and ive thought about it a lot and never really reached a conclusion.
for now im just accepting the fact that we should be making righteous, holy choices in our lives according to God's will for us - but at the same time know that God has everything planned out for us.
even though believing in both of them at the same time doesnt really make sense (unless you live in Oceania by the rules of 'doublethink'.. 1984 by George Orwell anyone? )
haha anyways.. i also think that maybe its one of those thigns we're never supposed to understand. cause if we can logically/scientifically explain EVERYTHING in christianity then are we really believing with our hearts or are we just believing with logic? so i think its okay that we dont get it or it doesnt make sense to us..God is smarter than us anyways i dunno. any other inputs?

lol and jacob when you said the part about us being 'UHH' when God actually speaks to us all i could think of was 'UNO. UHHHH.' haha


anyways here's my devo!
LUKE 1:
So like Jacob and Isaac were saying, Zecheriah didn't believe what the angel said.
The angel replies, Verse 20: "But now, since you didn't believe what I said, you will be silent and unable to speak until the child is born. For my words will certainly be fulfilled at the proper time." And so pretty much Zecheriah couldn't speak for 9 months..
And i was sorta wondering.. what was the point of that? On one hand it's sort of a punishment for not believing in what the angel told him, but I thought that there had to be more so i reached this conclusion:

Zecheriah's words: were of doubt, denial of God's power
Angel's words: proclamation of God's plan and his power

When Zecheriah was speaking his words of doubt, he couldn't believe and fully listen to what the angel was saying. I think if he sat down, reflected and prayed before he said anything his doubtful words woudl never have come out of him. So I think the angel took away his words to help him listen better.
This reminded me of Sam telling me about the silent retreat that he went to, where he couldn't talk for like a whoel day and everyone just scattered in the forest to go and pray and listen to God. This is because not talking lets us LISTEN!

I find that it's really hard to take the time to listen - when we do our QT or when we're at church we read scripture, talk to God, sing praise lyrics, etc. But we never really give ourselves that much time to listen to him. Sam always says that Christianity is a relationship, but healthy relationships go two-ways!
I think that listening to God really helps us to grow: without listening we can never learn more from God, never explore more of him. So we reach this plateau after a while when we think that we knw ot all. And it also gives us guidance: as we were talking about before with predestination, God has his own will for us - big and small: so listening to God can help us make the little and big decisions that come up everyday in our lives..
As Chrsitaisn we call ourselves servants of God: but no one can be a good servant if they dont/cant listen to what their master wants them to do.
So let's really take more time to listen! We shoudl go on a silent retreat.. haha ohmygosh imagine how hardthat would be.. ohh man

Sorry for the novel, guys.

Luke, I am your Father...

Pun, pun, pun. Hahahaha.

I think I'm really going to enjoy this book because it's all telling accounts of stories, and there's no chapters of pure genealogy to be seen, etc. And PARABLES! I love parables. PLUS - I officially get to begin marking up the bible Sam gave us. I pulled out three different colours for this chapter, hahaha. Anyways.

LUKE 1

Just a couple things struck me from this chapter:

1. The faith of Zechariah in comparison to that of Mary.
v.38 "I am the Lord's servant. May everything you have said about me come true."
That's great faith, right there. The aspiration would be to be more like Mary, who trusts that all that God has promised her will be fulfilled, and less like Zachariah, who after being told the good news by an ANGEL OF GOD, still decides to challenge Him for reassurances. My prayer is that we can all be more like Mary, with great faith in the magnitude of the Holy Spirit and God's word.

2. v.37 "For nothing is impossible with God."
Apart from the story, I just really liked this verse. It got a quality highlighting, hahaha.
Those are such powerful words, and in this particular chapter, its truth is demonstrated twice; God allows Elizabeth to bare a child even in her late age, and a virgin Mary conceives a child. Now, in comparison, if God can do such radical miracles, how could He not be fit to carry out little miracles within our own lives?
For me, this verse reminds me that I need to have a lot more faith when I pray, because I'll admit, there are times when I pray not really believing anything is going to come of it. Which really isn't good. But it isn't as if I'm asking God to get me pregnant when I haven't done the deed or anything crazy like that, but if God is CAPABLE of doing that if that were what I wanted, then how much more could He be capable of fulfilling all my prayer requests that are SO small in comparison?

SEE YOU GUYS TOMORROW.
brrap brrap.

I think we should take a different look at predestination
For example...
Kid is born with 180+ IQ (Holy Spirit) and let's say the kid is a he because John was a he.
Alright so...
He can retain information as soon as it is presented. He is then not only capable of regurgitating it but he is also capable of applying it in real life scenarios, using it to solve problems.
Therefore, his human capital is viewed by the society as extravagant and WHO (God) wants to use his talent to help cure... AIDS.
The WHO gives him a sick job offer, and a path for a great + influential life.
The kid however, leads a normal life, has normal friends, does normal activities and sports, and other mundane activities.
So, socially, the kid is not different from any other, except for the fact that he's a full fledged genius.
Then comes drugs, and the kid is having a hard time with let's say... he's gay or something, but his parents (99.9% of the population, according to the poll I just took in my head) are HEAVILY opposed to homosexualism so he abuses drugs.
So, the kid then proceeds to do drugs, and instead of being a benefactor to society, he becomes a malignant tumour; using his genius skills to hack into the mainstream in order to forward money to his own bank account (untraceable transaction) so that he can buy more drugs. He also foils all leads to finding out the major drug dealing organizations, thereby, destroying the FBI Intelligence and their work thus far.
Then he gets caught and is killed by the FBI (how? Ask Russel Crowe...)

He was born to be influential.
He was born with a great gift.
He ultimately chose the wrong path, even though WHO offered him an alternative.

I think God does things in our lives to steer us into the right direction, but it is definitely up to US to actually take that path.
The fact that He specifically chose somebody to have the "gift" therefore is not predestination but God's will.
It really doesn't matter who He chooses, so He just picks anyone.

Reading this Chapter helped me sort out the idea of Predestination in my head for myself, I'm pretty satisfied with what I have to offer, but if you guys disagree, let's debate some more =]

Harro Good people

Today was officially my last day of freedom before, school, work, projects...
Today I went to Pac mall (Pacific mall) with friends , and saw the wierdest thing. In the arcade they have a korean karaoke station in the corner, with all these korean pop music/videos...Ummm to me that is just weird...also who knew girls can kick your a$$ in street fighter? so Fail on top of that girls who are wearing maid outfits...SOOO FAIL!!! Sweet I bought the OST for "Beck" real import. probably oly Mike and Isacc will understand

anyways LUKE 1

Huh interesting point. In John 1 we get a short sweet prolouge, but in Luke in goes into detail about both Jesus's and John's parents. It is amazing that this whole thing was perfectly planned out by God. It is just ridiculous, to think that the life of Jesus was planned out for the greater purpose. To the arrival of Jesus inside mary's womb to the death of Jesus was all pre-scripted.

The First question that arose when reading Luke was when Zechariah doubted, to me it just seemed like a normal thing to do, maybe he had to much earwax in his hear lol, but I think I would have done the same thing and say What?! I can't be the only one on this, WELL I don't know an angel it says an angel, so I am guessing that the angel didn't manifest another form, but talked to him face to face, than I guess i would'nt doubt, I mean come on an Angel has came before you, ummm I think my doubts will be all gone. An right hand angel of God has came and told you God's plan for you. I don't know the more I think about the more curious I get. Did Zach (short form) say what he said because he lacked fate, or was he just dumbfounded for a moment and said the wrong thing. I mean he had to be suprised and be startled.

Another cool thing Theophilus? Who or what was that. I think Martin touched on that but I can be wrong. LOL irridusable complexity, I am really into that concept got me really thinking. I did research and Theophilus was suppose to be a and scholor, preist, while others think that Theopilus means friends of God, and I think that in this context where luke is writting he is writting this for the friends of God, future believers that would like to learn more about the life of Jesus Christ.

Did mary doubt too, "how can this happen I am a virgin?", umm i am sure that there was meaing in the silencing of Zach, lol I am going to think about his for a while, maybe i means hat even in hard siuations you can still experence he joy of the lord, When john was born Zach's mouth was opened and he prayed to God.

I really liked Luke because I was just overwhelmed with Joy reading Luke 1 and I am sure I am not the only one on this

sry guys it is supossedly 12:10 i sarted this on 11:30 oopss sry about that

C you guys all today...who started this whole concept of time 1 to 24 hours why does it have to be 24 ughhhh i am in that
thinking mode turn it off turn it off must watch useless funny videos...YOUTUBE TIME!! LOL

BI GUYS

okay mike butt i dont see how that long story explain anything. My point is, Paul was supposed to be someone, he ended up as that someone. Who decided? did he really have a choice?
Do WE have a choice? easy to say yes... but were we put into such a situation that we couldnt say no?
For example: God wanted Rohan to lead praise this year. Lets say Rohan refused soooo many times. God got angry and instead of forcing a decision onto Rohan(which would be unethical), God sets up people to urge him into it. Does he want to? no... will he end up because of external factors of the God-man relationship? Probably...