Time...

It seems but yesterday when this year began, how time flies.  This year has been so full, so much to keep us busy.  It is amazing, how, when you stay busy, time really goes so fast.  When I was child, I always thought that a year was a very long time, doesn't feel so anymore.  Remember the old saying, "Time flies when you are having fun."  It is true too, but, time is ever so much more of a blur when you are working hard.  Have you noticed this?
Well, I hope all of you have a wonderful blessed time, and I will see you next year, Lord willing,

God Bless,
                 Flame of Jah

It is a human thing....

We follow men, more than the Living God.  We go to His word to prove what we believe. When we should be going to His word to see if what we believe stands up to it.  You cannot use the Bible to prove what you believe.  You must use it to see what you should believe, and to see if what you believe is truth.  When studying the Bible you must pray that God would remove all bias from you heart, that you might fully understand His word His way.  Many people today go to the Word to prove themselves right, and because of this heresy abounds.  If you find a good preacher, even if he quotes scripture a lot it does not mean he is right about his conclusions.  Got to scripture yourself, read it, ask God to take any bias out of your heart, and to show you what the truth is.
To summarize, don't make scripture support what you believe, make what you believe conform to scripture.  Don't go to the Bible to find something you already believe, go to it to confirm if what you believe is true.  If a man says the Bible says something, don't take his word for it, look at it yourself, to see if those things be so.  Don't use one or two verses to form a belief on, read the whole Bible, see what the whole counsel of God is.  Last of all, don't follow any man, ever, follow God.

In Defense of my God

The following may sound harsh to you, even angry, it might offend you as well.  I am sorry, I can't stay quiet now, I just have to say this. What I am about to write, may make me lose all of my followers, I will just say ahead of time, if I offend you I am sorry, that is not the intention of this post.
Last night it finally dawned on me what most think predestination means.  I was so angry, and I determined that I will here, defend my God.  I have read that predestination means that God from the foundation of the world chose those who would be saved, and those who would not.  Man has no choice if he can get saved it is just whether God chose him or not.  From the Bible we learn that, God is a Judge, and the he is a Righteous Judge.  I want you to tell me how you can find in justice in that plan?  Do you think a Just and Righteous, Merciful God would create a group of people, just so he could throw them in HELL?  Really?  Would you call that just?  Let people burn for all eternity, separated from God, in unspeakable torment, nay not let, but create them for that?  So you think God created a group of men to go to heaven, and another to go straight to hell?  What kind of God is that?  Merciful? Just?  A God that would do that would just be, well, evil.  I have another question, How can God judge me, for my sin, if He made it so that I have no choice but to sin until he calls me?  What if He doesn't call me?  I am going to hell for sin that I have no choice but to commit, for it is said by some that we have no free will we are stuck in sin, and we are damned and have no choice about it.  We were created to sin...  And God is going to judge us for sin that He created us to commit...

An oft misquoted verse...

“Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.”
I Corinthians 13:8


People love using this to prove tongues will go away, read the rest of it, I guess knowledge will vanish away too.  I guess as soon as knowledge vanishes away tongues will too.  I think all the modern churches using tongues is not of God, but, there is not any indication anywhere that tongues are no more.  I hope I didn't step on any toes here, I just try my best to take the Bible for what it says.

Lightning....

About a week ago we had a thunderstorm go through, during it, lightning struck a tree about forty yards away from the house, that was LOUD.  Here are pics of the tree, you can see the pieces of shattered bark hanging off of the twigs all over the place.  It was amazing examining the damage, just seeing how the would was just exploded apart.  These trees BTW, are extremely tough, their wood is so hard that it makes oak look soft just to put it in perspective.

16 random things about me. More later hopefully.

Well friends, I see others doing this on their blogs so I will.  This will be totally random, and I am not sure how many things there will be.  Hope you like it.

1. I am twenty, almost twenty-one.

2. I am left handed, though, somewhat ambidextrous at times, lol.

3. I am the youngest in my family.

4. One of my very favorite things in life is anything about airplanes.

5. I eat bugs.

                                                           Yum....

6. I like liver.

7. Singing is not my thing.  I used to love it, but then my voice changed when I was around 14? and it is a rare hymn that I can sing without cracking.

8. I love computers, and will be taking a programming course soon.

9. I love woodworking.  I like making little things out of wood like boxes and carved plaques.

10. I loving fixing things.  There is no sound more beautiful to me, than hearing an engine I spent hours working on, start up on the first try.

11. I am a night person.

12. In spite of the above, I get up at 4:15 AM every morning.

13. I love raising animals, and,

14. I live on a farm.

15. I love music, I going to learn to make it someday, I love piano music, I have played a dulcimer, and hopefully will get back to that soon.  My very favorite music is the really sombre majestic stuff.  Only problem I have is that it is so hard to find, guess I will have to learn to make it myself. 

16. In case you have not noticed from the content of this blog, I am a Christian.  I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and, that He died to pay the penalty for my sin. Without his forgiveness, I'd go straight to Hell.

Earthquake here?

Ok, yesterday, central Oklahoma was rocked by a 5.6 earthquake.  It is pretty interesting, I never thought that I would end up living in a place with earth quakes.  Hopefully we will never have a big one.  This particular one was the largest earthquake that Oklahoma has ever had recorded.

Can one lose his salvation?

Interesting question, and one which I think is pretty easily explained with scripture.  Once saved always saved seems to go something like this:  If I am saved, I can never lose my salvation, and, if I am living in gross sin, it is obvious that I was never saved.  Well, that doctrine does not stand up to scrutiny.  In I Corinthians Paul talks of a man that was living in gross sin, this man was a believer, and Paul tells the Church to deliver him over to Satan that his body should be destroyed, but his spirit saved.  This seems to imply that this man was truly a Christian, though living in sin, and that, in time if left to himself would lose his salvation.  To further discuss this issue, this man, living in sin, was delivered by Paul over to Satan, now listen closely, "for the destruction of the body," that is, the fleshly one, "that his soul might be saved."  Which states that, you can actually sin so much, that there is no return, and your soul perishes, that is, goes to hell.  So, that means that, a Christian can fall away, and eventually lose their salvation and go to hell.  Even Paul said that he trembled and was careful that he lose not his salvation.

Yours Truly,
                   Flame of Jah

I don't want to hear it anymore

America is a Christian nation.  Is it?  Show me some evidence.  Any?  I don't see any.  A nation that murders it's own future by the droves, condones sodomy, loves violence, and hates God.  What evidence is there that America is a Christian Nation?  Our very symbols are pagan.  We decorate our ports with statues of the goddess liberty, honour our leaders with obelisks, and use pyramids on our money.  America has multiplied it's sins as Sodom; and has not repented.  Nay, she is proud of her sin.  People say, "God Bless America", God already has, and we spit in his face.  He multiplied his blessings and his mercy, and yet we still reject Him.  He has warned us, justice will not hold back forever.  This nation is going to be judged for all of the blood, the innocent blood shed in it, and by it.   Prepare to meet thy Judge America.  The End is Near.

Rain at last

Over the weekend we finally got some rain.  Praise Jesus.  It was two inches, and it was a nice gentle rain, so it soaked in better.  Everything is greening up so quickly, and the garden loved it.

A week before this rain, we had a wildfire start about 5 miles east of us, it burned approximately 60 acres, and possibly one house, or some other building.  It nearly burned two other homes.  Here are some pictures I took of it from our front yard.

 The house to the left is our neighbour's.  Notice the antenna tower in the centre, right to the left of the power pole.  The fire was just behind that tower.

Hopefully the rain will at least lessen the chances of fires.

An Oklahoma Summer

With an average sustained daily high of 110 degrees and many days in mid August between 118 and 120, I can honestly say that this is the hottest summer I have ever experienced.  I never thought that I would live in a place that would get that hot.  Now, my summer was really good.  In spite of the heat I still made good progress on projects, we still have a garden too.  Yes, it is small, but it is still alive and producing.  The animals did well too.  Yes it was a good summer.  A lot of progress and learning.  I learned that I can indeed survive 120 without an A/C.  During the day we kept the house at around 95 to 100, and that felt soo good after coming in from 120.  I got used to the heat to a point where 100 actually felt cool.

I think that the worst part of the summer all in all was the drought.  Here are pics of the ground in one of our pastures and near our poultry pen.  Notice the little bit of green in some of the pics, it is some kind of really tough weed still hanging on in spite of the dry ground.  For a while, I started wondering if we were going to be living in a desert.  Some of the tough native trees lost all of their leaves, all of the others lost a good percentage of their leaves.  Amazingly most of our fruit trees made it.  I think only one small one died from heat.

 Bucket is for size comparison, it is a standard 5 gallon one.  Later this crack opened up so much that I could stick my foot down it with boots on, and I wear a 13 wide.

Are You Ready?

Are you ready to die for Jesus?  What about to live for him?  What does it mean to live for Him?  To die to self, to leave behind the old life, to give up all that stands in between you and Him, to do His will no matter what, to serve Him, even unto death.  To repent and turn from all of your sins you must, if you will truly live for Him.  For if you do not forsake your sin, you will never succeed.  To live for Him means obeying even in the minor things, and the major ones.  To live for Him means that He is first in your life, and nothing else.  I was for so long sure, that, I was ready to die for Christ.  I was ready to give my life for Him, but, I did not see the whole picture, giving your life for Him is one thing, and as painful as it might be, it is the easy thing.  What is hard is giving your life to Him, to mold it and shape in the way He wants, to give up all of your dreams to Him, all of your hopes, everything, and just say, You can have it all, lead me Lord in your path, I'd much rather follow you than my dreams.  That friends is the hard thing, but when you have done it and put your trust in Him fully, and are walking in His spirit, what freedom that is, oh what freedom.   You don't know what freedom is, until you walk free in Christ.

Thunder

Yesterday we had a severe thunderstorm pass just west of us and I was thinking just how awesome thunder sounds.  Three thunderclaps in particular just shook everything and made the roof rattle, they were just awesome. Reminds me of Revelation when the seven thunders uttered their voices, or Psalm eighteen.

Welcome

Hello friends and welcome to my blog, this is my second blog  (I really mean to use it this time,) I will try to write something at least weekly, most subjects will be on current events and my thoughts on various subjects from scripture.  I might occasionally throw something else in. Please check back periodically for updates.

In Christ,

              Flame of Jah