Thursday May 8, 2008
Stephen Porter - 7:06 PM ADT
MORE ?
We have reached that point that I mentioned back in December [I think about there].
My blog has caught up with my weekly Christian pages and will only be published every week now; generally on Saturday morning but, occasionally, Friday night.
I made the suggestion, then, that I could fill in the week with a blog on Photography or Driving. With the new digital cameras, anyone can take a decent picture so I would like to take on the subject of Driving.
It is my hope to generate enough interest to warrant calling the city police and/or the RCMP or, even, the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement organization and get some official representatives following the driving end of the blog and giving the regulations pertaining to the topics and, if we get off the legal end of things, to correct us and keep us safe and legal.
As a professional driver, I have to be continually vigilant of my own mistakes and to correct them quickly before someone sees them and thinks that that is the way it is supposed to be done. I must learn and drive as a correct example of professional driving so that those that don’t know how to drive or those that are learning to drive better can actually see how it is done.
Then there are those ever present rude and aggressive drivers that we all love to hate; the tailgaters, speeders, non-signallers, red light runners, line cutters and lane weavers that we encounter and deal with every day. Who are they and how do you deal with them?
Yes, there is an acceptable way to handle these people. There is a way to recognize them before they get to you so you can be ready for them and not let them ruin your day or worse, crash into you. [or cause you to crash into them]
The most dangerous thing you can do in North America today is to start your vehicle and go out on the highway for a drive. Relax, have fun with this blog and we’ll see if we can’t make your drive a little safer.
It is my hope that mid-week [possibly Tuesday or Wednesday night] to pick a driving topic and discuss it. Your input and requests would be much appreciated.
Always remember, getting to your destination quickly is not nearly as important as getting to your destination safely.
Saturday May 3, 2008
Stephen Porter - 9:32 AM ADT
87 TEMPERANCE
The word ‘temperance’ in the old English and the way God wanted it understood in His word, means –moderation in actions, speech, habits, etc. That ‘etc.’ here means everything else.
Temperance is the ninth listing in the fruit of the Spirit’s. [Did you notice that, even though there are nine things listed they are considered one item by the bible?]
The fruit of the Spirit is a single thing with, at least, nine parts all working together at the same time to be one whole. Love joyfully, have peace while you are suffering long, be gentle while you are being good, be meek while you are exercising your faith and, with all the others use temperance.
God wants you to be in control of yourself. He wants you to control your thoughts, actions, lusts, wants, emotions, health, environment and anything else that He has put under your authority. That’s why, when Jesus died on the cross, it was to set you free. Free from the bonds of your lusts, your actions, your fear, your thoughts, your worry and your everything.
After setting you free, God wants you to, willingly, love Him enough to give your freedom to Him for His service and pleasure. As His creation, this is the proper, natural and right thing for us to do.
By giving Him our service, He becomes our master and, then, commands us, expecting us to obey Him. He will force no one to do anything that they don’t want to do. He has already told us what we can expect if we love and obey Him or if we decide to hate and disobey Him. His words are true and we will receive that judgement that we are living our lives out to receive.
Temperance is very important when it comes to living our lives for God. To use anything to excess is to overdo a thought, habit or action.
If you have to hit someone to teach them a lesson, then you decide how many hits it would take to complete the learning process in them and do not hit them past that number. To continue to hit them after the lesson is learned is abuse; an abuse of your authority in their life and a physical abuse of their bodies.
In today’s world, many people eat to excess; their bodies do not need all the food that they are consuming to function properly so it stores it as fat. Unless those people stop eating, their bodies keep getting heavier and heavier until it is carrying enough weight to make it work hard enough to burn the amount of food that they are putting into it.
Some people are so religious that they do not have time to exercise the lessons God has taught them and become pious and self-righteous. These do God more harm than good because they have not used the ‘temperance’ part of the Spirit that they were given.
God’s word command those that love and obey Him to only lust after their marriage partners and for those same partners to willingly take an active role in satisfying their partner’s hormonal and mental needs; wives to husbands and husbands to wives. To seek comfort and release with anyone or anything else is to go to excess and is not temperance.
Has God given you the freedom to control yourself and, do you love Him enough to use this control on yourself? Temperance- He is watching and hoping for you to succeed.
Monday April 28, 2008
Stephen Porter - 5:22 AM ADT
86 GOD’S KINGDOM
God’s kingdom is not a land mass where one can go and stand and say that they have arrived. It is not a piece of paper that one can produce to prove citizenship. It is not a mark that one can wear or a group that you can hang around with and most of those people that tell you that they are citizens are not.
If you were to stand a large group of ordinary people together and try to pick out the citizens of God’s kingdom by physical appearance, you could not do it. You could even go to a large church and look at the whole group and still not pick out those that are in God’s kingdom.
The only record kept of the members of God’s kingdom is in a book called ‘the book of life’. This book is in God’s hands and no-one is allowed to look in it, yet. God is the only one that can write in this book and the information He writes there is privileged and not accessible to everyone.
He has made rules and laws that govern the entry, exclusion and conduct for those in this book. These rules and laws are consistent for everyone but flexible enough to be able to include everyone.
Those who, in the life span that God is allowing them on this earth and do not follow the rules and laws that God has in place for entry into this book, also have a kingdom made for them, by God, and will have this kingdom to dwell in for all of eternity after their life on this earth is done.
Everyone will, in the span of his or her life, be given an opportunity to choose which kingdom they wish to live in. Yes, even those that the spark of life only lasts for a few minutes or seconds in their mother’s womb will have shown God their choice. [Remember, I said the rules and laws were flexible. Each person is judged by what they have, not what they don’t have. Those that don’t have a long life will not be judged from the point of a long life. The more we have, the more God will expect from us; leaving us old people with the responsibility to continue to follow God’s rules and laws.]
[Sounds hard and legalistic, doesn’t it? That’s where faith comes in and we can know to what degree we are exceeding or not attaining to God’s rules and laws for us; and I’m not going to get into this subject anymore, here.]
God’s entry into the book of life is different for each person and only God and those who know how and what to look for will know when a person is a citizen of God’s kingdom.
The kingdom dwells in a person’s heart. The citizenship papers are written in blood and are beyond the ability of anyone being able to interfere with another’s citizenship in God’s kingdom. [I know, I know, testing and trials will come and many will fail but the decision to fail still comes from within the heart of the individual. God’s rules and laws still allow for success even to the lowest levels.]
When you stand beside a citizen of God’s kingdom, you are standing beside God’s kingdom. All the fullness of that kingdom and power is there but only accessible through the amount of faith available at that time. It’s like pouring the ocean through a funnel; given enough time you can get it all through but, for any given amount of time, you will only get what the funnel will allow by its size.
This subject could go on but I’m trying to limit myself to one page.
Thursday April 24, 2008
Stephen Porter - 9:54 PM ADT
If I lived in the past, I would miss this opportunity. If I lived in the future, this moment would not be important. These are my grandkids in my here and now. God is good.
85 NOW!
Right now you are reading this and taking the time to see what is being said. Right now you will make a decision about your feelings about what you are reading and you will do or not do something about these words.
Right now is the point in time that God is interested in you. He wants you to think, act and live righteously. That doesn’t mean for you to jump right up and run to your bedroom and fall on your knees and pray. He is more realistic than that. He wants you to understand the truth in everything that comes into your life. He wants you to understand how to deal with whatever is coming into your life right now; not just the old habitual way of ignoring it or an indifferent ‘oh, yeh.’
It is getting dark outside right now, where I am. The night birds are singing, cars are taking people home for the evening and, as it gets darker, it is getting quieter.
God is the author of this moment of time in my life. He made it for me to enjoy, for me to reflect on Him and for me to remember Him and give Him thanks. He is here with me, enjoying my happiness for the bird singing. He is here, in the quiet of the night, loving me as I love Him.
Two friends content to be with each other, one the master and the other His servant.
He makes each moment in your life for you to enjoy, learn, understand, grow, mature or think on so He can spend that moment with you enjoying your joy, encourage your learning, explain so you can understand, feed you so you can grow, thrill at your maturing or watch as you think and come to conclusions.
He makes the trials for our testing, hoping for our success. He makes the rests in our life so we will not be overcome by our worry and hardships.
He is so proud of us when we understand and obey Him; rightly deciding that He is right.
He thrills at the sound of our voice when we speak to Him like a trusted friend or a loving father; asking for the impossible because someone we both love needs it.
He made this moment in your life and in my life so that He can make the next moment and take us closer to Him; closer to understanding His great love for us, closer to knowing all about Him as He knows all about us.
After this life is gone and in God’s new kingdom, there will only be ‘now’. There will be no future and the past will have no significance. God will be in every moment and we will be in His love every moment.
No matter where we are or what we are doing, God wants us to include Him in that moment so that He can share what He has made for us, with us.
It makes no difference to Him weather we are angry, sad, depressed, happy, tired or moody. He wants to share His moment with you. He wants you to share your feelings about what He has given you right now.
He wants you to live in His ‘now’ because He is living in your ‘now’.
He has never left; we have just been ignoring Him and have developed a ‘don’t know Him’ state of mind in ourselves.
He wants your ‘now’, please, make the decision to give Him your ‘now’ now before you go on to something else and forget about these words.
Sunday April 20, 2008
Stephen Porter - 5:32 AM ADT
84 GOD’S DAY
One day with god goes from sundown to sundown.
It starts with a beautiful sunset; glorious colors, a cooling from the heat and the promise of a new start. Adam and Eve was the sunset, the promise of a new start.
Then the dark came before night really starts; the struggle to find your way when you don’t know what that way is. Sin entered Adam and Eve’s world and made the way uncertain. It grew and consumed their loved ones.
The stars came out and Mars and Venus shone bright but it was still dark. Noah and his family followed what was right but the rest of mankind had to go.
The moon rises and gives a reflected light, glowing brighter as it climbs higher; the stars get brighter as the air clears. After Noah, Abraham and his descendants serve the Lord and righteousness is taught and practised.
Clouds overshadow the moons light from time to time, blocking the stars light, bringing periods of darkness but the light always returns. Egypt, Babylon and Greece struggled against God and His way and righteousness faded into light spots, here and there.
Then the moon set and the light from Mars and Venus held the only hope, giving some light to a darkened world. Rome took control and sin reigned but Jesus and John were born, lived and died; flashes of light and life snuffed out by an evil world.
Then when it is the darkest, a glorious sunrise lights the eastern sky; bathing the world in brilliant colourful light. Jesus is resurrected by His Father, Lord of lords and King of kings; Master of His love kingdom and welcoming all to enter in.
The sun climbs higher and higher, becoming brighter and brighter, until it reaches its peak. Jesus’ servants go everywhere telling of His kingdom and His love; showing all who will listen the way into His kingdom.
Occasionally, clouds shadow the sun and storms hide its light but only for short periods and the sun always returns as bright as before. Religion, ritual, the Turks and the dark ages all have their turn at suppressing God’s plan but cannot overcome the Creator or His Son.
The sun starts down on its way to the west; losing strength and power hardly noticed because of its brilliance. Righteousness renewed as teachers again find God’s truth and power; Marten Luther, Calvin, Wesley and the rest.
Late afternoon and the shadows grow longer, the air cools and the colors change. Modern religion grows weary, uncaring sets in and wealth, health and safety get their stranglehold on man’s heart.
Sunset is evident, just on the horizon; the end of the day and the start of a new way. God sees what has happened, says “It is done.” and turning to his Son, commands “Get your people out!”
Sunset happens, the end and the beginning of God’s new day. The trumpet sounds and Jesus shouts; it’s the end and the beginning of God’s new way.
Wednesday April 16, 2008
Stephen Porter - 5:21 AM ADT
83 MIRROR IMAGE
An image in a mirror will reflect exactly what is put in front of it; it does not matter weather the image is a good one or a bad one.
When we stand in front of a mirror, we can see ourselves. We can see every part of ourselves that we cannot normally see and we can see them from an angle that is more correct from others point of view. We can see our hand going to our face, watch what it does there and, if it is given a chore to do, we can watch to make sure it is done right.
What we observe about ourselves in the mirror will still have to be explained and accepted by our mind. A red spot on our face might be the start of a pimple or a birth mark. Our elbow might have dirt on it that can only be seen in the mirror. Once we see what is going on in the hidden places of our body, we can then make a decision what we are going to do about it. If we leave a smudge on our cheek, it will stay there until it is wiped off; until then everyone we meet will see it and form an opinion as to how it got there and why we left it there.
They will wonder what we are trying to project to them by everything they can see about us. The mirror lets us see this image and leave it or change it, depending on what we want others to see in us.
If we put on designer clothes but leave them dirty and wrinkled; this says something about us that we want others to see.
Without a mirror, we would have to rely on our other senses; like feel or smell to give us information about the parts that we cannot see and, then, we would be guessing. A wet spot on our seat could be something we sat on or something that we did.
Some, that don’t have immediate access to a mirror, will use a trusted friend to help them project the image that they want; getting advice and suggestions until they are satisfied that they are correct.
Before we use a mirror, though, we have to know what we want others to see about us. We have to understand what image we want to project and what results we want to accomplish in others. A sales person wants to project success in a business setting, as well as trust in him towards his customers, so, he dresses for this result and checks in a mirror to see if he is projecting that image.
God, in His word, has told us to check or judge ourselves; using His word and righteousness as our projection goal. When we understand what God wants us to project and then look in a mirror to see if that is what we are doing, we are correctly serving Him and telling those that see us that we are putting Him first and fashion last.
We use Jesus as our mirror image to change our appearance, so we can project Him to the world and not us. If we have trouble seeing Him in our mirrors, maybe we should change a few things about ourselves.
When we have doubts about what we are seeing in our mirror image, we can also go to our trusted friends, who we know are projecting Jesus correctly and get their advice for our own image.
The mirror will only show us what is real about our projection, the willingness to change what we see and do it, has to come from within us.
Saturday April 12, 2008
Stephen Porter - 5:21 AM ADT
82 WHAT DOES YOUR NAME MEAN?
To my wife, I am Stephen; to my kids, I am Dad; to my grandkids, I am Grampy.
Different people know me by different names; some to my face and some behind my back. Each name has a meaning to that person and conveys a certain personality that I exhibited before that person on our first and consecutive meetings.
At work, I’m known as Steve to some, Bud to others and to some I’m nameless. All these names mean that I’m the guy that delivers product to them and they don’t have to know me personally; they only have to call me something for a few minutes in a day to communicate with me.
In between my close family and those, almost, strangers that I meet every day are a group of people that know me to some degree, depending on how important they want me to be in their lives; some want me to be their good friend and get to know me well. These generally call me Stephen or Steve; others, that only want to know me a little, call me Steve or whatever is comfortable for them to remember me by at that time.
There are those in my life that know me as Mr. Porter or Stephen Porter; these are generally business acquaintances or professional people that I meet. There are also those that know me because they knew my Father, Charlie Porter, and to them I am Charlie Porter’s boy.
There are those that call me ‘my friend’ or ‘my brother’; showing an intimacy that they want to have a close relationship with me or are trying to relax my guard into trusting them for one reason or another.
These are all the names that I am called to my face. Behind my back, I’m sure that I am known by a lot of names that I don’t hear like fool, idiot, that guy, our man, etc. and with entirely different meaning and emphasis connected to it.
Aside from what people call us is the personality that we project in connection to our names. Some people connect the word gentle with my name because of my actions towards them, others connect the word foolish with my name because of my actions towards them, and others may connect the word angry with my name because of my actions towards them and so on.
Our name means something to everyone that knows us; it gives them an expectation when we come into their presence again. Some are glad to see us again, while others just tolerate us until we leave.
How we treat God also builds an expectation in Him of how we will treat Him the next time we go to Him and our name, mentioned to Him, brings Him feelings of how we feel and act towards Him.
If we continually whine and complain in His presence, He will come to expect that of us every time we call on Him. Our name will become associated with whining and complaining to Him.
He has done all this so that our name can be called ‘His friend’ in the presence of His creation, the heavens and the heavenly beings. He will, one day, call our name either to wicked judgement or heavenly rewards. Everyone will hear what name He calls us and how He calls us on that day.
We are building that relationship with Him now. What does your name mean to Him?
Tuesday April 8, 2008
Stephen Porter - 5:21 AM ADT
81 PASS THE BUCK
Evolutionists would have us believe that we ‘just appeared’ with no help from anyone or anything and that we are getting better and better as we evolve. By thinking this way, we have to believe that we are the Supreme Beings on this earth and that what we do is alright.
In reality, we have been getting worse and worse but we have become experts at fooling ourselves.
Adam was told not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because it would give him the knowledge to know the difference between good and evil. Up to this point, he only knew good, so, all his decisions and thoughts were good. He was obeying God and the devil could not tempt him because it was a personal knowledge from God’s mouth to his ears, heart, mind or whatever.
Adam told Eve but the devil used a physical reptile to talk to Eve and tricked her; she ignored Adam’s word that, he said, God had told him and ate the fruit. Then she gave it to Adam and he ate it also. [Did you notice that, even though he was there with Eve, he didn’t stop the reptile, Eve or himself?]
When God went looking for them, which was His evening habit, they had the knowledge that they had done evil, by disobeying, and hide themselves. God knew that they had disobeyed and knew where they were hidden; He wanted them to come to Him and, in all honesty, confess their evil and be forgiven. [Sound familiar?]
When He found them He pretended ignorance, giving them every opportunity to confess their guilt, by asking them if they disobeyed.
Adam started the “pass the buck” game by trying to pass the blame for their disobedience to Eve and, even, God Himself. [“The woman that you gave me,”]
Eve continued the “pass the buck” game by trying to blame the reptile. The poor reptile was speechless, so, God started His judgement; read Genesis Chapter three, verses 14 to 19.
Ever since, the human race has been ‘passing the buck’. We now do things and blame God, Mother Nature, chance, circumstances, each other, the weather, the wind, etc. the list goes on and even to blaming no-one as if they were real.
We call car crashes ‘accidents’ even though we are the ones driving too fast, too recklessly or without the proper training for what we are doing. We call trips accidents even though we were doing something to distract us from where we were walking and didn’t see the crack in the pavement. Poor and shoddy workmanship is just bad material failure. Lack of skill or training is just poor tools or some other inanimate objects fault.
We have become very good at fooling ourselves into thinking it was someone else’s or something else’s fault why we are hurt, fail or suffer loss; even though we were not paying attention, did not take the time to get the proper training or information or did not ask a more knowledgeable person for help. [Ouch, got me again.]
Like a man, waiting to get lost before he consults his map or a woman thinking that a man is always listening to her. We have failed so many times that, you would think, we would have learned this lesson by now but anything or anyone can get our misdirected blame.
It happens so often that we have become experts at the ‘passing the buck’ game.
Friday April 4, 2008
Stephen Porter - 5:21 AM ADT
80 BIRDS OF A FEATHER
The saying is “Birds of a feather flock together.” Of course we all know this but have we taken the time to think of the reason why? The same species of any bird, animal, fish or insect all have everything in common with each other, only a few things in common with others of their species and very little in common with those of another species.
A study of the animal world will yield a number of common facts about each being. We use the phrase “grumpy as a bear” when we talk about someone who always has a short fuse and becomes angry at small things. This is a noticeable trait in bears.
The list goes on and on comparing animal traits to human behaviour; quite as a mouse, slippery as an eel, he’s a raging bull, sly as a snake, high as a kite, [the hawk, not the paper triangle] horsing around, something fishy, bird brain, dog tired, book worm, owlish, fat as a pig, monkey business, he’s a rat or a weasel, hawk eyed and on and on.
By relating what we are trying to communicate to an animal’s behaviour, we use a constant known image to portray our meaning.
Every type of animal, fish, insect or bird has certain characteristics that, when we study them, can be identified and remains true to that creature.
There are some animals that have similar enough traits that they can get along living very close to each other; cows and deer will often feed together in the same field because they are both herbivores and food for the same predators. However, when they are panicked, the cow will run for the barn and the deer will run for the woods.
Cows will almost always act like cows no matter where they live; dogs will act like dogs irregardless of their country of birth and an ant will act like an ant no matter what the climate or temperature is.
These like creatures find comfort and companionship by being with and around one another because they do the same things, think the same thought, re-act the same, to similar situations and are basically the same.
Humans also flock, herd or group together in like minded groups; thieves will hang out with thieves because they think the same, bikers will hang out with bikers because they talk the same language and can understand each other.
It depends on what you want or want to be like, who you will hang around. People who want to be wealthy will try and find wealthy people to be like or be around. Race car fans will hang around other race car fans because they have car racing in common. Animal people will gather with other animal people because they have animal interests in common.
In other words, who you hang around with will tell your main interests in life. Wanting to be with your family shows strong family interests while hanging around bars and nightclubs shows an interest in drinking and easy pick-ups.
To mention the word “Christian” in this setting should show someone who goes to church, reads their bible and talks to God regularly; someone who is honest, hardworking, sincere and dependable; someone who hangs around people with the same afore mentioned interests and participates in church, Christian and wholesome activities.
A person that calls themselves a Christian and doesn’t group with other Christians or doesn’t try to change their unhealthy lifestyle makes us think that they are acting like a chameleon.
Monday March 31, 2008
Stephen Porter - 5:21 AM ADT
79 OFFENCE
An offence is anything that upsets or angers us. We take offence at injustices, wars, sufferings, torments, slights and rude behaviour.
Sometimes we get offended at things that should happen or that those others involved have no knowledge that they offended us and, with today’s news world, we take offence at things that are none of our business.
On the other hand, as we go about our normal day’s business, we give offence by our habits, mistakes or emergencies, that happen to us, without knowing that the other person or people were offended.
We see an offence and want to see justice done; then we proceed to act out bringing that justice to that person before we tell them what they have done, before we try to correct them or before we find out why they did what they did. Thus, we have become judge, jury and prosecutor without ever having found out the reasons for their actions. Even if we do not act on our thoughts, if we do this in our hearts, we have done it before God.
These are the offences that Jesus wants us to forgive and forget. The ones that we are not involved in, have decided not to correct in others, cannot, personally and gently, do anything about or, after constant attempts, cannot change the persons habits. Once an act is done, it is over; your feelings can keep the memory of it burning in your mind or you can forget about the act and go on with your life. The choice is yours; the offence will take away your peace of mind, if you keep it and broad over it.
I am not saying that we should forget what that person did to us and keep letting them do it. Rather, if their actions, continually, offend us, we should be finding a way to not be near or around those people. Feel sorry for them because they have a judgement ahead of them and, if they do not change, they will fail God’s judgement requirement.
On the other hand, we give offences that we are not aware of and should be living our lives thinking of how we are seen by others. If we know we have offended someone, apologize; then be careful not to do it again, if at all possible.
We have become a super sensitive society because, we as individuals, have been told that we are the most important thing in our life; so, we have centered our thoughts on us. Our pride of self causes us to react to the harmless daily habits of others and cause us to condemn their actions so we can feel superior; just like the world tells us we are.
We will stand, alone, at God’s judgement of our lives, one day and the offence we took from or gave to others will mean nothing to us but will have developed habits in us that God does not want in His kingdom. You and your habits cannot be separated because our habits are controlled by our soul and come from the thought process that is you. If our habits are rejected by God, where does that leave you?
