Saturday January 3, 2009
Stephen Porter - 10:16 AM AST
123 MERCY
Mic 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
My mind went in at least three directions when I started this topic. The first was; that I had to ask God for forgiveness before I obtained mercy from Him. [I know, I know; His word says that He is merciful to the wicked and that is right. He does not send them to hell right away. He allows them to continue until their final judgment hoping that they will have a change of heart; giving them breathe, food and everyday necessities because He knows that the final judgment and hell will be irreversible.]
The thing is, I could not be right, find love, peace and happiness and have Jesus as my friend without acknowledging my sin and repenting- [Asking God for forgiveness and a change of heart.]
The second thing was the fact that mercy, like repentance, is an ongoing process. It does not stop with a one-time event. To sin after repentance and pass it off as only being human is to continue in your sin. God is looking for us to love Him enough to say “opps, sorry” when we realize what we have done. It is a growing and maturing of our faith that pleases Him not excuses and cold-hearted ignorance. God looks on our hearts and knows when we are sincere and when we are not. No one is fooling God.
The third thing was that God does not look at ‘mercy’ the same as we do; He understands all things and knows the meaning behind every thought, action and event in our life and in the world. We look at wealth and prosperity as being gifts from God to an obedient person but God’s word says that sometimes they are given to a person because they have no reward in heaven so these gifts are all that they are going to get from Him.
We also look at death as a sad thing to happen to someone but death is going to happen to us all; the death of this body and a going on to the next life is a natural process like birth. Once a baby is conceived, it HAS to come out, one way or another. Once someone is conceived, they have to die, one way or another. [I know. There were two but don’t go there.]
Sometimes death is a good thing; God’s word says - Isa 57:1 The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.
Because ones future will be so horrible, God takes them from it in death.
The last thing is that because we have received mercy from God, He expects us to extend mercy to everyone else. This does not mean that we should let everyone off with their actions; is it mercy to let someone go on in their sin without telling them of the judgment of God to come? Or to let someone continue their evil and aggressive habits against other innocent victims with out some resistance to try and stop them?
If you love someone, you will not extend mercy to them with out them showing some form of deserving it. This teaches them that there is no judgment for their actions because, as Christians, we are supposed to know right from wrong and, if we allow them to be wrong, they will think that they are alright and not seek a change for their lives. Mercy fears God and His judgment for yourself and then for those around you because love rightly judges who to extend mercy to and who not to extend mercy to and when to extend mercy and when not to.
God is bound by His word to keep it and so are His people and mercy has to be controlled by the rest of God’s word to be complete as a whole.
Tuesday December 30, 2008
Stephen Porter - 8:04 PM AST
26 MANY TRICKS
If you talk to an older driver about the little tricks and manoeuvres that he learned and practices to keep out of a crash and stay safe, you could hear some pretty interesting things. The thing is, as long as its not illegal and conforms to the rules of the road, keeping yourself and others safe should be the most important thing we do while driving. Getting to our destination is something we can think about when we get there.
Many of the tricks that I have learned can be learned by staying in school, kids, and learning physics, math and practical science.
An example of this is that when you find that the road is completely frozen over and is just a sheet of ice and you start sliding, angle your wheels to drive along the edge of the road. No one has traveled there and the snow is soft just before the drop into the ditch. If you do not hit it at a sharp angle, your tires can find enough traction there to stop sliding and keep you on the road.
Another is that when you are travelling on ice, where it is lighter is where you will find the best traction. The darker the ice means that it is packed hard; the darker it is the harder it is. The whiter the ice means that it is not packed as hard and when the weight of your tires presses the tread onto the ice, it will have enough give to allow the tread to grip some and keep you straight.
And the one that I have told you about before, as soon as you spin your tires you have lost your traction and are doing less than the guy that’s trying to push you through the snow bank. Easy pressure on the gas and let your motor lug down, it will work better than if you mash the gas and spin your tires.
Just a comment for that guy that’s behind your car pushing you while you are stuck; don’t just get down and push straight away from yourself. Get your hands under something that you can lift on, like the back bumper or a wheel well; then lift and push the car away from yourself. By lifting first, you push your boots into the snow, adding weight to your position and making yourself more stable; then all you have to do is push the car away from yourself or away from where your feet are planted firmly in the snow. Remember, you don’t have to push the car out of the snow bank to get it unstuck; you just have to help it get moving and, if the driver is working it right, it should do most of the pulling from there on.
A car gets stuck because the snow under it is packing down and making the weight, that normally sits on the drive wheels, less; causing the drive wheels to have less traction. If the car is sitting on a lot of snow, try lifting it by the bumper that is closest to the drive wheels and letting it drop; do this a couple of times and you will be packing the snow down under the car adding the weight back to the wheels instead of the snow holding the car off the ground by its frame.
When you’re going to push a car, try finding a pole or a dirt shovel; then stick one end under the car at the end that you are going to push, and lift at the bumper, using the shovel as a lever. Try to get as much push as you have lift by adjusting how far you put it under the car and the angle that the shovel touches the ground. This gives you more pushing power because you have added the distances of the lever from the fulcrum [the bumper] to your hands.
Isn’t snow and ice fun? Enjoy!
Saturday December 27, 2008
Stephen Porter - 11:22 AM AST
122 HOW MUCH?
Gal 5:9 A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
How much is a bold question and can be placed almost anywhere in our lives. How much money is enough? How much pleasure is enough? How much control do you really have? Huh?
Why, we control our country by elected government. We control our home, our finances, our children, our neighbourhood, what we eat, what we wear, what we do, what we are and what we think. Do we?
I’ve often said that we are in control but how much do we control?
We have the ability to control everything that starts within us. Once it leaves us, we are no longer in control of it; we can only control how we will react to what we have started.
Until a thought leaves our mouth or before we start an action, we have the ability to stop it and think about what we are doing but even our thought process is controlled, by a large degree, by our heritage, parentage and environment.
Sin started with Adam and has spread down through the ages to present day man. [There I go again; picking on the men but the man was given the responsibility of leadership and can allow or resist any thoughts or actions that he comes in contact with; whether it starts with a man or a woman.]
Once Adam allowed Eve to take him to the forbidden tree, he gave up control of the situation to her; she gave up her control of the situation to the suggestions of the reptile that the devil used to talk to her. Neither of them realized that they were doing it for all of God’s creation. They were just satisfying their own curiosity and desire with no thoughts about anyone or anything else.
But, you say, they couldn’t know what would happen because it hadn’t happened yet and they couldn’t see the future. God could and did; and told them not to eat that fruit. That gave them all the knowledge that they needed to make an informed decision.
God has said that this leaven of sinful thinking will get worse and worse with the passing of time because we will live it and teach it to the next generation after us and they will live it and teach it to the next generation after them and so on and so on. This will go on until somewhere in the near future, God will see that sin has taken full control of His creation and He will become angry and stop the process with a Christian exodus and a return of His son, Jesus, as the ruler of this earth. [I know, there is more to this story but that is off the topic here.]
Sin can only be stopped by a change of heart from our selfish thoughts to His loving ones and has to be done one heart at a time because it is a personal thing that God cannot force. It has to be done from within and even then will not stop the actions that we have already started before the change; but, like the leaven, that heart change will start a new thought process that will start a chain of new actions that can grow into a healthy, happy Christian environment around that one person who has accepted God’s warnings as true.
How much control do you really have? You control your whole future but it has to be decided by your next thought and your next action otherwise there will be no change in your life.
Thursday December 25, 2008
Stephen Porter - 11:23 AM AST
121M.C.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESUS AND
Merry Christmas one and ALL!
Saturday December 20, 2008
Stephen Porter - 10:36 AM AST
120 SMILE
Neh 8:10 Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.
They say that a smile is contagious and that you can pass them around; this is true. Try smiling at people as you meet them and you will find that most cannot help but smile back. It is a pleasant feeling when you are smiled at; it makes you feel accepted and cared about.
[Unfortunately, a smile is also used by those wanting to hurt or take advantage of you. It is also used by the advertising companies to get you to trust them and buy their customers products by making you think that having their products will make you happy.]
Genuine happiness does not ask for anything but gives, willingly, just because it is a nice thing to do and for the uplift it can give to another’s life or day.
Just think YOU have the power to brighten someone else’s next few minutes.
Life, in general, wants to put you down, tread on you and take from you all that it can. It wants to wear you out so that it can take advantage of all that you have and, when you have nothing left, it will throw you away and move on to the next person.
Many people have succumbed to the pressure from their lives and become depressed, suicidal, selfish or angry, and, sometimes, all of these; they are in desperate need of a mental break. Humanity spends a lot of time and money trying to find happiness, peace or, even, just a little rest from it all.
Those of us that know God and have a relationship with Him and His son, Jesus, realize that we control very little of what goes on in our life and what goes on around us; He is in control and even the bad things that happen to us have a meaning and purpose. [Sometimes what happens to us has a purpose for someone else and not us directly. What God allowed us to do to Jesus was for our benefit, not Jesus’.]
There are many things that want to take your smile away, once you have it; I won’t go into detail about any one of them but, if you think about it, you will notice that every one of them occur when we take our minds off Jesus and His watchful care in our lives and start thinking about ourselves and our life.
Try something this season; when you’re in church singing the hymns about ‘Joy to the world’ and such, feel your inner self and see how happy and uplifted you are. While you are worshipping the King of kings and Lord of lords, you are not thinking about yourself and all your troubles and problems seem to disappear; that is why so many people only go to church at Christmas time. No-one is trying to get them to give a bunch of money, join a study group or commit to regular attendance; they can be anonymous and enjoy singing and get a rest.
If you really want to help these people and the others that you meet in your life, just smile and wave at them once in a while. Even Jesus looked after the people’s personal and physical needs first and then told those that stayed to listen about His father, God, and His coming kingdom.
Smile often and sooner or later someone will want to know why you’re happy.
Tuesday December 16, 2008
Stephen Porter - 5:26 PM AST
25 THE WRONG DEAL
They say that they are making cars safer and able to withstand more and harder impacts and that they are adding more and more safety features to keep the people inside from harm. Unfortunately, they are dealing with the vehicles and not the root cause of car crashes; the drivers.
Because we are being told that the cars are safer now, we are relying more and more on them than on our own skills to drive and we are losing those skills faster than they are putting safer things on the cars.
Your skill at being able to handle your car when it is not doing what you want it to do is the best crash prevention there is. The second is to have a vehicle that is equipped to keep you safe instead of comfortable.
To drive safely means that you HAVE to pay attention to what you are doing and what is going on around you. Then you can watch and learn the proper techniques of a skilled driver.
After learning that safety is your first concern, you can move on to the proper vehicle. A front wheel drive vehicle is fine for getting going but, when you want to stop, it is a different story. In a panic stop, and especially on slippery roads, the back of the vehicle, being lighter and having no traction [drive or drag] on the tires, will try to pass the front, putting the car into a skid that requires the driver to power out of it; in a panic, this is the most unnatural thing that a person wants to do.
What the manufactures tell you about their vehicles also leaves some questions. They are putting white lights on the cars now for fog lights. In other words, you now have four white lights reflecting back at you off the fog instead of two yellow lights that do not reflect on the fog. [Yellow lights do not reflect back at you in the fog and will let you see almost as good as white lights on a fogless night.] [Also, the last time I looked, four white lights were not legal while meeting or following another vehicle.]
Most people buy their own vehicle that they drive and buy them for looks and/or to impress other people so manufactures are trying to add safety to fashionable cars. Some of those ugly older cars were built like tanks and were made out of steel instead of plastic.
I remember one such crash that my father had when I was a boy on the Trans-Canada Highway. It ruined Dad’s right front fender on his ’49 Chevy and broke out the tail light of the other car. They both drove away later. The speed limit then was 65 MPH, although neither one was going that fast.
Drivers are being told that the cars will keep them safe, that highways are built better than before and the law enforcement officers are not clamping down as hard as they should; giving them a false sense of security.
I think they’re giving us the wrong deal; how about you?
Saturday December 13, 2008
Stephen Porter - 10:42 AM AST
119 A LITTLE FEAR
Pro 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
A little fear is a good thing; children, afraid of discipline, will behave better, criminals, afraid of the law enforcement system, will reframe from crime, workers, afraid of losing their jobs, will work harder and better, sinners, afraid of an angry God, will change their way of doing things, etc.
As children grow, it is customary for parents to teach them to be a little afraid of them so the children will pay attention to the life lessons that the parents must teach them so that they can be honorable and healthy adults. These children then grow up and make their children a little afraid so that they can pass these good lessons on to the next generation and so on and so on.
By doing this, we, the adults, pass on good healthy habits to the next generation that they need to fit into society in a productive and positive way. By producing a society that is unified and caring is what God wants us to do and He is willing to teach us everything we need to know about how to do this; that is why He wants us to be a little afraid of Him. As our heavenly father, He wants only the best for us and creates this little fear so we will pay attention to Him and what He has for us.
I have a personal saying; everyone, and I mean everyone, has a boss. [Yes, even God has a boss; it’s His word. He gave us His word to tell us what He is like and, so, He has to live up to it because He cannot lie. When we are talking to Him, we can remind Him of His word and He does not mind this because it lets Him know that we value His word and what we are asking Him for is valuable enough for us to try hard for it.]
As we live our life, we should be afraid of a number of things; as a matter of fact, we should have a chain of little fears as we go up the authority line. We should be afraid to do bad things because of our teaching but, if we are not, then we should be afraid to do those bad things because they will hurt others. To go further up the chain of authority; we should be afraid to do those bad things because it will hurt those we love; family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, Jesus and God and, finally, ourselves. [Yes, I put us last on the list because people have a great sense of protecting themselves and their interests above everything else.]
We teach each other about unnecessary fears and don’t teach each other about the very real and necessary fears. We are afraid of a cut or the pain associated with losing a part of our body and not afraid of the pain of rejection and exclusion from something or someplace that we really should and want to be. When we get a cut or lose a part of our body, there is no immediate pain; our nerves go into shock and we feel nothing until that shock wears off. Pain from rejection or exclusion lasts for a long time; until we have dealt with it mentally or, in the case of rejection by God into His sinless heaven, it will last forever. [A good reason to have a little fear in your heart.]
Our fear or lack thereof, is evident to God and everyone else by the things that we do. God understands the reasons why we act the way we do and is sad because He can see the selfishness of our decisions; even though He has warned us of the upcoming discipline, punishment and pain.
Not to leave this on a negative note, God also says; 1Jo 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Wednesday December 10, 2008
Stephen Porter - 7:48 PM AST
24 DON’T WAVE
It is a habit to occasionally stop and let someone out of a bad place or let some one cross in front of you so they can get where they want to go. This is polite and helpful once in a while but you should know the legal and harmful side of doing this.
If you stop and wave a driver, who is making a left turn in front of you, through; you have just taken on the responsibility of making sure that he does not get hurt doing it. If he starts across in front of you and another vehicle comes by you on the right and hits him, he has just failed to yield the right of way and you have caused the crash. He can be charged and fined even though you waved him through.
The same rule applies when you stop and wave a driver out from a stop sign, allowing him to pull out in front of you. If he is struck by a vehicle that is going in either direction and that have the right-of-way, then he can be charged and you have caused the crash.
When you yield your right-of-way to any other driver to allow them to go ahead of you, it does not mean that they have the right-of-way over all the other vehicles. Those that can go by you and have the right-of-way where they are still have their right-of-way.
Sometimes, it is better to keep going through with your right-of-way and let the other driver that is at the stop sign wait for a better and safer opening to proceed in.
As a transport driver, it is very rare for me to wave someone through ahead of me because I can see around me and they cannot. I find that it is more helpful for them if I continue on and get out of their way so they can see to find their own place to cross or get out in traffic. If the opportunity arises that I can stop and let someone go in front of me, I stop the truck and do not make eye contact but look away; this lets the driver know that, even though he has a hole to go through, he is on his own and must do so at his own risk. I find that this method makes the other driver nervous enough to us extra caution and is safer because of it.
Sometimes, when I can help another driver cross in front of me, I will watch my mirrors and direct the driver when he can or should not go by holding my hand, palm out, to stop him and wave through when it is safe to go.
The best method for helping people stopped at stop signs, or those trying to get out into traffic, is to leave a safe distance between your vehicle and the vehicle in front of you. This gives the driver that is trying to get out or across a safe opportunity to move and you, being the next vehicle, can help them by holding traffic back while still moving and can slow yourself if you see that the driver needs some extra time. In other words, by giving them a hole to merge into, you can control the safety of the situation because you are the next vehicle.
Bad driving conditions are here so drive safely.
Saturday December 6, 2008
Stephen Porter - 10:21 PM AST
118 AN EXAMPLE
We were born and learned most of what we are [careful; I didn’t say ‘what we know’.] from our father. [Again, be careful; I didn’t say ‘from our parents’.]
The father, or dominating male of the family, is the number one influence in a child’s life. That child will learn how to deal with their problems in life from that person, they will get most of their personality from that person and they will get most of their good and bad habits from that person. [Again, be careful; I didn’t say whether the problems solving and personality would be good or bad.]
They get this from that person whether that person wants to teach it to them or not. They will get it by watching that person and will either mimic them or be disgusted with what they see and will determine not to be like that person.
Men; your life and the way you live it is what this world is and is becoming. God gave the responsibility of the leadership in the home, in the land and over all creation to Adam.
The fact that women are better than men at some things is a gift to the man responsible to enhance that woman’s life.
God does not forgive the men that choose to abandon this responsibility but, upon repentance, will expect them to take up their normal place in God’s world and be the leader and example of correct living that He intended them to be.
Adam allowed his wife to take him to the tree that they had no business being near and watched her, with out any warning, eat the fruit that God commanded them not to eat; then, from her example, ate the fruit also. This was not good leadership but the beginning of the bad example of the way to do things that he passed down through the generations to Jesus lifetime and, as it was passed down, it grew worse and worse as men gave up their role as Godly leaders and sought their own pleasure instead.
Jesus, being God’s son, became the first true example of the way men are supposed to live and act. This set up the duel male lifestyle that exists today. Those that follow Jesus’ example and live a Godly life are few and far between and those that have abandoned God’s role for men are becoming more and more evident.
There is no such thing as resigning from your responsibility and living another way without any ill consequences. When God gave you life, He also entrusted you with this precious gift of being an example of righteousness to all those around you; this gift of showing the rest of humanity how to please Him in love, peace and joy. The fact that you learned the wrong way from those over and around you does not excuse you because somewhere, in your life, God has placed an example of the correct way to live for Him and He has given you enough thinking ability to reason through what you see and learn to get to His truth.
Until you get it right, you are an example of the wrong way to live to all those that are watching you, even if it is just a glance that lasts for a few seconds. This means that you are and have been an example of some kind to hundreds of thousands of people and, more likely, millions upon millions of people. [And, by second hand example, possibly thousands of millions of people depending on what bad habit you started and how fast it spread.]
You are an example of good or evil and God has given you the ability to find out which and the help so that you can stop, if you want to. Everything is up to you.
[I have not picked on the women in this one because they have to put up with us:)]
Saturday November 29, 2008
Stephen Porter - 8:21 AM AST
117 GOD’S WORD
Joh 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
The bible says that God’s word became flesh and dwelt among us. Everyone knows that this was Jesus and that Jesus was God’s son so, how could He be God’s word too.
The words that we speak define us; the phrases that we use to describe things, the emotions that we put into words and even what we don’t say will tell people about our inner most thoughts and personality.
For every situation, action or circumstance there is over a hundred things that we could say and there are a number of ways that we could say it.
We could give praise with sarcasm or with genuine good feelings, we could give a kind word to someone in need and then walk away without physically helping them or we could ignore a sad situation in someone else’s life; passing it off with “Well, they deserved that.”
You see the bible also says that what is in our hearts will come out our mouths; we will speak in such a way as to reveal the true intent of our heart. People can see whether we are genuine or not just by watching us when we think that they are not but it is easier and faster to tell what we are like by talking to us for a while.
Most people are so eager to share themselves with us that they talk about themselves and fail to listen to you so they don’t really get to know you. Because this is widespread, we think that we can hide our true nature so no one can see it. [Then we open our mouths and show it to everyone.]
God sent His son to us to show Himself to us. God only speaks the truth so every word that comes out of His mouth is completely true in every form and fashion that there is.
Jesus, His son, also only speaks the truth, just like God. [I believe we call someone who looks exactly like someone else, the ‘spitting’ image of that person.]
However, Jesus not only spoke the truth, just like His Father, but He acted just like His Father. They are the ‘spitting’ image of each other; when you see one, you can tell what the other will look and be like because of the similarity.
Just like you and me, God’s word reveals His inner most thoughts and personality to all those that are looking and know what and how to understand what they are looking at. Because we can compare God’s word to Jesus’ life we can ‘see’ God.
You cannot be separated from your words because they are your words. Even though someone else spoke the same words at one time or another, you spoke them when you did and in the situation that you did for the people present to hear. That’s pretty specific and unique to you.
God is the only one of His kind, so His word is pretty unique. Jesus is also the only one of His kind; God’s son, but He has no personality of His own. He chose to have a personality that looks exactly like His father’s.
God has called us to be His children but He doesn’t want us all to be different; He wants us all to be the same, just exactly like Him and we can do this by being like His word, being just like Jesus and doing just like He tells us to be, so that we can look, act and be just like Him. Then, when someone looks at you, they will be able to see God.
