Saturday, September 5, 2009

Short Sweet Love Poems

Success in love all boils down to experience. This is true for many walks of life. It is certainly essential when looking for your potential soul mate. Many people mistakenly jump into what they think is a "true love" relationship from a lack of experience and maturity. This is why the majority of marriages end in divorce, when people see potential love in sight, they do everything in their power to grasp it as quickly as they can. This turns into a quick marriage, and eventually, the formerly "dearly beloved" will rethink the situation, and the couple will split. The amount of experience held by each person in a relationship will often regulate how long said relationship will last. I have found an Ebook with shome short sweet love poems and stories that will give you an experience all your own.

Being an avid sports fan, I see a distinct parallel between love and sports, two things that may seem completely unrelated to the untrained eye, but in reality, share much of the same protocol, and many of the same peaks and valleys. Allow me to explain.

Take a talented teenager with aspiring dreams to play professional basketball. In order to utilize his talents most effectively, he starts at an early age, playing grade and middle school basketball, then moving onto high school athletics. If he uses his time and experience wisely, he will be granted a scholarship to play in college. If he decides to forgo his college experience and be drafted into the NBA, his chance of failure is at the highest. Why is this? Lack of experience. The intelligent thing to do is to hold off the NBA, and gain more experience by going to college.

Now take a normal guy looking for true love. He will "play the game" in grade and middle school. These may be novice experiences, but they are experiences nonetheless. The intensity steps up in high school, and things start to get more serious. If this guy decides to immediately commit to his first girlfriend in high school, and get married on the spot, his chance of failure is at the highest. Why is this? Lack of experience. The intelligent thing to do is to hold off marriage, and gain more experience by biding his time with dating.

Do these scenarios seem similar? They work the same way, and the redeeming quality needed for smooth progression is experience. Short sweet love poems are easy to take in, and will provide you with some valuable second hand experience.

Fran Harris is a former WNBA star turned Ph.D and love expert. Fran Harris has seen the best of both the world of sports and love, and has the experience needed to succeed in both. She played her college basketball at the University of Texas, and won the WNBA Championship with the Houston Comets in the league's inaugural 1997 season. She has since turned her talents from sports to giving professional advice to those in need.

Fran Harris and her co-writers have compiled their own experiences and others they have dealt with to write The Power of Love Ebook. This book is filled with real love stories, and short sweet love poems, all of which are told with an amazing energy and passion. These real love stories are written in an attention grabbing prose and a style all their own. The Power of Love Ebook will warm your heart and simultaneously give you valuable piece of mind moving forward into your own successful relationships. Hopefully this piece will help you find your potential soul mate, and live a joyful life. Happy reading!

http://www.squidoo.com/reallovestories

Defeating the Giants

Defeating the Giants

1 Samuel 17: 50 - 51

"So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him. David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine's sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword."

Like David, most of us have faced giants before, whether it be the giant of unforgiveness, insurmountable debt, physical illness, addictions, oppression or depression, we have all faced circumstances in our life that seem beyond our ability to overcome. And the more we focus on the giant, the more terrifying it becomes. Goliath had held the entire Israelite army at bay for 40 days. Day and night he would harass them and they had become paralysed by fear . Paralysis be it mental or physical occurs when we are overcome by fear and intimidation . In our heads we start to say , I can't do it, nothing is ever going to change, its hopeless, I don't care any more, is God even real? The conversation in our minds has turned from hope to hopelessness and the voice of the enemy has become louder and more frequent than the voice of God. What we focus on draws our energy and our emotions and we will always move in the direction of our most dominant thoughts. The more we focus on the GIANTS in our life the more they control us.

David, was too young to go to war and had stayed back home with this father Jethro. On one particular visit to his brothers, Goliath made an appearance and bellowed out his usual intimidation's. Instead of running for cover, David was indignant, "who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?". David believed that Israel had the power of God on its side and no matter how big or how nasty this Giant was, no one was greater than the God of Israel. The victory that day had been won in David's mind long before it was won in the natural. The armies of Israel had been paralysed by fear, but David had refused to be intimidated.

David was a 'make it happen kind of guy', rather than a person who hoped it would happen, or reacts to what happens. The difference lies within. The bible teaches us that the power to overcome lives within you. Ephesians 3: 20 " Now unto him that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to that power that works in us" In other words, He is saying it is up to you. You must stop procrastinating, waiting for others, or blaming the past. So many times it's much easier to embrace the role of a victim, a loser, or of the one who's not smart enough, not good enough, not educated enough or not financially sound enough. When you accept such limitations for yourself, the giant will always roar and they become true for you.

Do you really want to change? Are you willing and ready to give up perceptions and behaviors that have kept you paralysed instead of soaring with the eagles? Start by replacing wrong thought patterns with rights ones. Isaiah 54: 17 " No weapon formed against you shall prosper." When thoughts of fear, worry and intimidation begin to speak, shout, stop! And declare the power of God to that giant. Its time to become as indignant as David was about Goliath, and get some fight back into your spirit.

Pray.

God I thank you that there is nothing going on in my life right now that you have not already given me the power to overcome. Help me to renew my mind and break the power of fear and intimidation. I choose to put my trust in your word, not what the circumstances say. Thank you that today there is victory over every giant in my life in Jesus name. Amen!

Yours faithfully
Carolyn Evans-Hale
Subscribe to my Facebook Group for weekly devotionals.
http://www.faithforeverydayliving.com

Antiochus Epiphanes - The Anti-Christ?

So the book of Daniel is historical, you say? Already done in history, you say? Yes, that can be proved. And it was done again to some extent in A.D. 70. And history will repeat itself one more time...Jesus said that when we see the event Daniel spoke of, it's quitting time. And that same event is here before us in chapter 11 of Daniel. The army. The defiling. The removal of sacrifices. The abomination put in place. The chaos. The desolation. The martyrs. The heroes. Daniel spoke of end time events here and in chapter 8 and 9 and 12. To be consistent, I suggest that the events of verses 29-35 will be back on the world's stage.

Consider the history: Antiochus, like his father of the same name, is out to conquer the world. He is stopped by Rome and Jewish desire for independence. He dies an utter failure, diseased and heavily in debt. It seems to me that his return is very significant to him and it makes sense that one of his first moves will be "South", to pick up where he left off. This time he must conquer Rome, control it, and claim the planet as his own.

Perhaps the reason we have had such difficulty in the past identifying the man of sin is because he has been hiding in plain sight in the book of Daniel. Nowhere is this more true than in these few verses. Notice that nowhere, even yet, are we told exactly what the abomination is! Checking history you will find a pig and an idol. But Daniel does not say that. He deliberately keeps the end-time option open.

Verses 32-35, referring to the way antichrist uses the Jewish people, and the suffering of other Jews who will not compromise, can easily be seen historically or prophetically. A savvy leader knows how to win people to his cause, in any generation. But God's people will forever be strong and creative, whether they are called Maccabee or modern saint. And as throughout church history, the Lord's army is willing to die at the hands of those who hate them.

Verse 35 is yet another key to the dual role of this passage. It is linked by word usage to chapter 12, verse 10. Look at both:

11:35, "...those of understanding shall fall to refine them, purge them, and make them white..." 12:10, "Many shall be purified, made white, and refined..."

Yes, chapter 12 is in the column of "end-time" events. The linkage between chapters 11 and 12 is important. Another such link is 11:31 and 12:11. Between these two passages we learn of the abomination of desolation, its happening, its duration, its placement at the end.

From verse 36 on through the rest of chapter 11 and 12, there is general agreement among Bible believers that the subject is the end of history. Our job now is to find clues that the man being described from 36-45 is the same man as was pointed out from verse 21. And once that is established, our crisis is no longer one of understanding, but believing.

The traditional line of thought here is that Daniel is referring in the earlier verses to Antiochus Epiphanes, a great "type" of the antichrist, but that the last verses are the antichrist himself, totally disassociated from the prior verses. It is that thinking I am asking readers to challenge, based on the text itself, and some mysteries that the book of Revelation and the letter to Thessalonica point out.

Yes, I am saying that Antiochus Epiphanes is the antichrist, not just a type of him. The literal rendition of these verses seems to be able to carry no other meaning.

http://chosunhouse.com is a website I put together a few months back to get the word out to believers that they need to pray for North Korea. Just about every day I'm writing a blog featuring some news, a book, or a story of North Korea. There's a live news feed on the site, lists of resources, picture essays, and ways to respond to the overwhelming need in North Korea. Let's love Chosun together!

And who am I? A man found of God over 50 years ago, called to the ministry, serving the Lord as needed in my world. Married, member of a local church in the Chicago area, with full time work in public education. Who are you? Would love to fellowship with believers who respond on my site.

Christ Is At Hand

Jesus would never deceive His people. Never mislead them. What He says is always perfectly true. But surface skimmers will never discover this. They will take a look, decide it is unbelievable and either concoct an even more unbelievable explanation or walk away from faith altogether.

Have you never cringed a bit when preachers say Jesus is definitely coming and coming soon? I have. Because I don't want God's truth to be ridiculed or ignored. So why the title of this article? Why do I carry on with a line of thinking that will cause some to lose faith?

Read again. My title dos not promise a soon coming, though it may be relatively soon. Jesus never promised this. He promised that when He came He would come quickly. Swiftly. In the twinkling of an eye. No evolution. No warm up. Signs beforehand, yes. But the actual appearance immediate.

I say what He said, that His coming is near. That's not only a chronological word, it's a geographical one. The Greek, pronounced engus, means "at hand." See Luke 21:8 , where the time is said to be eggus. But then in the next chapter, Judas draws eggus to Christ to kiss Him.

We earth-bounds think that near means soon. But another think or so reminds us of the times we almost won the maiden's heart, or almost got the prize, or almost fell down the steps. A miss can sometimes be as good as a mile, but near is almost, not altogether.

I enjoy taking a radical approach to Scripture. That is, believing it as it is. John in Revelation 1:3 says that His coming is eggus. John and all the early believers believed it would be soon. They were wrong. But the word they used was correct. It was at hand. It was very close. And it still is.

Some say, Well if it was so close back then, it must be very much closer now. No, we cannot run away with the text. The time is still at hand, eggus. We are still very near, just as we always were. He hovers, waits, while the Gospel seeks out every nook and cranny on earth, hopeful of one more who will be saved.

When Antichrist comes and is given His permission to do His worst, the church's ranks will thin out. The salt will be removed, not by rapture, but by destruction. When salt is removed, the Creator's taste for the planet will be lessened until finally that which is hovering will be landed.

The best example I could think of is the helicopter. It can stay in one place for long periods of time. It can be very near, at hand, without being at its final destination. So the Lord is not far from each of us. We need not yell our prayers. His Spirit is within us and His body hovers over the planet, seeking and saving and soon wrapping up His program for mankind.

Let's not grow weary waiting. This word is especially meaningful to our North Korean friends suffering in prison camps for their faith. Hang on.

Above all, let us not corrupt and change His Word because we thought that maybe a mistake was made. It's still true. I can hear the wings whooshing above us right now. And you?

http://chosunhouse.com is a website I put together a few months back to get the word out to believers that they need to pray for North Korea. I have created over 200 blogs and the site features a live news feed, lists of resources, picture essays, and ways to respond to the overwhelming need in North Korea. Let's love Chosen together! Contact me any time at diakonos5@yahoo.com

And who am I? A man found of God over 50 years ago, called to the ministry, serving the Lord as needed in my world. Married, member of a local church in the Chicago area, with full time work in public education. I love to write Scriptural works. Who are you? Would love to fellowship with believers who respond.

The Deity of Jesus Christ - Ecclesiastes and Isaiah

From Solomon to Isaiah, from Moses to John, the message is clear: Jesus is God. Here is a word from Solomon in Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes 11:14, Revealer of secrets. "For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." (11:14) The revealer and judge of every secret. Reminds me of something Paul said about Jesus: (Romans 2:16) "God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel." Everything that "God" is seen doing or being "alone" in the Old Testament, He is seen doing or being in association with one called Jesus in the New. What a unity!

And from Isaiah the prophet, many such words match with a New Testament counterpart.

2:2-4, Lord of the New Jerusalem. What a precious preview of events is given by Isaiah in his 2nd chapter, verses 2-4: "...the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains...and all nations shall flow unto it...and ...people shall say, Come ye, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob...for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."But where is Jesus in all of this? When John sees this final City in Revelation 21, he first is told , "The tabernacle of God is with men...and God Himself shall be with them..."(v. 3) So far, the same scenario as Isaiah. A location in a City, with God as its head. But look closer, in verses 22-23. There is no temple. Why? Because "The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." There is no sun. Why? "For the glory of God...and the Lamb" lighten it

You've heard perhaps of the " parallelism." It's a way of saying two things but meaning only one. Thomas didn't mean to say there were two persons in front of Him when he exclaimed to Jesus, "My Lord and My God!""God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" is another one. God and Father here are the same person, not two. I suggest that the only way "The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb" can make any sense is to consider them the same person. I have already shown that "Almighty God" is a title worn by Jesus! And we know Jesus is the Lamb. Something wonderful here!

7:14, Immanuel. The Name says it all. Isaiah 7:14, golden verse of the Old Testament, "Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name, Immanuel." Brother Matthew, in relating the fulfilment of the prophecy in the birth of Jesus (1:23) goes on to add the meaning of the Name: "God with us." Now, how better can God tell us who this Jesus is?

9:6, Father and Son. I guess this is my favorite of the declarations of Scripture regarding the Deity of Jesus Christ. Read carefully: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace."(9:6) I can hardly stand it! Time to dance in the aisles. Time to rejoice in our spirits, though the brain has been dealt another curve. This precious Baby, Jesus, is the Son. But in a way that I hope is becoming clearer through the reading of the Scriptures I have assembled, He is also the Father! Enough said.

41:4, First and Last. "...I, the Lord, the first, and with the last; I am He." says God.And,these are the very words of our Jesus: "Fear not; I am the first and the last." (Revelation 1:17)

41:14, Redeemer. "...I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer..." But we have always looked to Jesus as our Redeemer, Galatians 3:13, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law..." Indeed! The chorus in Heaven praises the Lamb Who "redeemed us to God by Thy blood."So here is God, redeeming us to Himself. We still want to see two People here, but our confusion comes because God became a Man. That Man is the one we see and know, because He is one of us. But we must constantly keep the eyes of the spirit open to seeing all that He is. He's one of that other race, too. The race known as the "Godhead."

43:10-11, The One and Only. This one is addressed to witnesses only! "Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen...understand that I am He: before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me. I even I, am the Lord; and besides Me there is no Saviour." I love it! For all time we are told that anyone claiming to be God, Lord, or Saviour is either blatantly false, or to be identified with this God. There simply is no other God. And Jesus, of course, claimed to be all three!

45:23, The One to Whom every knee shall bow. Yet another solemn vow from Yahweh: "I have sworn by Myself , the word is gone out of My mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." Then Who is this accepting such obeisance in the New Covenant, if He is not God Almighty? Fill us in, Paul:(Philippians 2:9-11) "...at the name of Jesus every knee should bow...and...every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Jesus is worshipped as God so that God can be glorified. Baffling unless we see them as one.

65:2-3, Spurned by Israel. "I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people...a people that provoketh me to anger continually to My face..." Such horrid treatment was given to Yahweh by the Jews throughout their history. Was Jesus involved in this? In a revealing statement recorded by Matthew (23:37), we see that the Word was indeed there: After a full list of denunciations of Israel's religious professionals, it is as though Jesus is overcome by an emotional flood of memories. He could have learned some of this from reading His Bible, but the use of the pronoun "I" rivets our attention...He was there! He knew these people forever! "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" This is the same God who complains through Isaiah of being treated so pitifully poor. The same.

http://chosunhouse.com is a website I put together a few months back to get the word out to believers that they need to pray for North Korea. I have created over 200 blogs and the site features a live news feed, lists of resources, picture essays, and ways to respond to the overwhelming need in North Korea. Let's love Chosen together! Contact me any time at diakonos5@yahoo.com

And who am I? A man found of God over 50 years ago, called to the ministry, serving the Lord as needed in my world. Married, member of a local church in the Chicago area, with full time work in public education. I love to write Scriptural works. Who are you? Would love to fellowship with believers who respond.

What is their Role in the Second Coming of Christ

Question

Couldnt the UN be the beast of Revelation thirteen instead of the European Union

Answer

Either the UN and the League of Nations which gave birth to it have never produced any lasting peace, or any reason to fear it very much. Other than a few nominally effective relief programs and monitoring efforts the UN has all but ceased to be the hope of the world. It is not the ineffectiveness of the UN that forces it out of the picture. There is one distinct difference between the UN and the EU. The UN is a relatively modern organization whereas the European Union is an ancient world power, namely the Roman Empire.

According to the Bible the beast once was something, it passed from history for a while then it returns to its former glory at the time of the end. Only the EU has an ancient past not the UN. The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder; whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they beheld the beast that was, and is not, and yet is. Revelation 17:8

Question

How could anyone possibly accurately identify the antichrist, either before or after he starts to rule?

Answer

Many have endeavored to identify the antichrist in this generation. This is not new, but there are a few signs to show us when weve come upon the real McCoy, and unless they exist all attempts to spot this very wicked ruler are mere guesswork, if not outright nonsense. Because any government, ruler or individual that openly opposes Christ is a type of the final antichrist, many have thought that such figures as Antiochus Epiphanes, Nero, Hitler, Saddam Hussein and a host of others were the antichrist. They were in fact types of the antichrist but they are certainly not the final antichrist of Revelation.

By means of biblical numerology, misapplied scripture passages and some pretty extravagant guessing people have come up with some wild ideas on just who this man is. I have heard names such as Henry Kissinger, Sat Guru, David Duke, Ronald Reagan, the Pope, and a dozen of others. One web page I found recently outlines all the reasons why Arnold Schwarzenegger has to be the antichrist! I could laugh at this choice, but knowing why someone made such a ridiculous choice is no laughing matter.

There is less material available in the Bible to identify the antichrist before his rule than after it begins. There is some reason to believe that he will not even he revealed until after the rapture or removing of the church, a belief based on 2 Thessalonians 2:7. Some of the common mistakes in trying to identify this man happen because we are looking for the wrong kind of personality to start with.

He will not be the leader of any new or old religious order or tradition. He will be a political, military genius. He will come up through ordinary political channels and will rise to power so suddenly that the world wont have much time to consider his past. They will be far to busy trying to keep up with his devious antics in the present.

What can he known about him before he starts to rule is somewhat obscure but it is not hard to think that someone or a few people wont begin to notice him and his unusual way of approaching politics, rather early on. We might he able to identify him when we see some of those traits and attributes that the Bible says he begins to show after he has taken power.

Rev Bresciani has written many articles over the past thirty years in such periodicals as Guideposts and Catholic Digest. He is the author of two books available on Amazon.com, Alibris, Barnes and Noble and many other places. Rev Bresciani wrote Hook Line and Sinker or what has Your Church Been Teaching You, publisher, PublishAmerica of Baltimore MD. He also wrote a book published by Xulon Press entitled An American Prophet and His Message, Questions and Answers on the Second Coming of Christ. His book is now being heralded as the clearest book on the subject of the second coming of Christ since Hal Lindsey's "Late Great Planet Earth" Rev Brescianis website is,

http://americanprophet.org

A Biography of Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett was born on Good Friday, April 13, 1906 in Dublin. He studied French, Italian and English at Trinity College, Dublin from 1923 to 1927. In 1928 he moved to Paris to take up the post of English lecturer in the Ecole Normale Superieure.

A mutual friend introduced him to James Joyce and he worked as his secretary, in 1929 Beckett published his first work which was a defence of Joyce's work and method. In 1930 he returned to Trinity as a lecturer, however citing habit and routine as a 'cancer of time', he quit his post and set out on a nomadic trawl across Europe, finally settling in Europe.

He joined the French Resistance after the 1940 occupation by Germany, in August 1942 his unit was betrayed to the Gestapo, Beckett and Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil. In 1945, Beckett returned to Dublin for a brief visit, during his visit he had a revelation in which his entire future literary direction appeared to him, he documented this in his 1958 play Krapp's Last Tape.

He returned to Paris and began his most prolific period as a writer. In the five years that followed he wrote Eleutheria, Waiting for Godot, Endgame, the novels Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable and Mercier et Camier, two books of short stories and a book of criticism. He married Suzanne in 1961 in a secret civil ceremony in England and he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. He died in Paris in 1989.

Russell Shortt is a travel consultant with Exploring Ireland, the leading specialists in customised, private escorted tours, escorted coach tours and independent self drive tours of Ireland. Article source: http://www.exploringireland.net