mistic.flame

I learned something last weekend that just blessed my socks off! (Well, I learned a lot of things last weekend that blessed me, but anyways.) We were learning about how God is true to his promises and the great power that we can operate (yes, you and I). Elijah and Elisha both operated this power. We’ll see just how much in a minute here.

Before we get started though, some people (me) sometimes confuse these two men of God. Elijah came first in the bible, then Elisha. You can remember this because “j” comes before “s” in the alphabet.

(We’ll get to the whole list of which miracles they each preformed in a second here, but one of Elijah’s miracles we had read about leading up to this was that he had God light his burnt offering. The fire burned up the offering and the wood. And the dust around it. And the water around it. And the *stones* around it. It was pretty hot. You can read the whole story in 1 Kings 18.)

So when Elijah was getting was getting tired of being the only prophet of God, so he asked God for some help. And God gave him someone: Elisha.

Elijah and Elisha worked together for a while, and near the end of the records of Elijah, he asked Elisha if there was anything he could do for him:

2 Kings 2:9
And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.

and then a few verses later it says

2 Kings 2:15
And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.

Note, that it doesn’t say anything about a double portion though. So did he get it? You bet he did! The bible records 8 different miracles that Elisha preformed:

1. Shutting heaven 1 Kings 17:1
2. Oil multiplied 1 Kings 17:14
3. Widow’s son raised 1 Kings 17:22-23
4. Fire from heaven 1 Kings 18:38
5. Rain 1 Kings 18:40
6. Fire on 50 2 Kings 1:10
7. Fire on 50 2 Kings 1:12
8. Jordan 2 Kings 2:8

And care to guess how many miracles it records for Elisha?

1. Jordan divided 2 Kings 2:14
2. Waters healed 2 Kings 2:21
3. Bears from wood 2 Kings 2:24
4. Water for kings 2 Kings 3:20
5. Oil for widow 2 Kings 4:1-6
6. Gift of son 2 Kings 4:16-17
7. Raising from dead 2 Kings 4:35
8. Healing of pottage 2 Kings 4:41
9. Bread multiplied 2 Kings 4:43
10. Naaman healed 2 Kings 5:10
11. Gehazi smitten 2 Kings 5:27
12. Iron to swim 2 Kings 6:6
13. Sight to blind 2 Kings 6:17
14. Smiting blindness 2 Kings 6:18
15. Restoring sight 2 Kings 6:20
16. One after death 2 Kings 13:21

From 8 to 16: a double portion. That very last miracle that Elisha preformed is pretty amazing too, because Elisha died about a year before it happened!

2 Kings 13:21
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.

They were burying a guy and they put him in the same sepulchre (tomb) as Elisha. And as soon as the dead man touched Elisha’s bones, he came back to life! How amazing is that!

Just look at how thorough God is to keep his promises. Even after the man died, God still kept his word! And God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34), he is willing to do that for each and every one of his believers!

I might in a future post touch on how we are not limited to any number of miracles. That spirit that was “upon” them; that spirit is “in” us! The differenced is pretty big, but the punchline is that I don’t worry about “wasting one” when I fix my shower by speaking to it in the name of Jesus Christ! (Which I did this weekend - that was cool :)

(Major kudos to my Companion Bible - I had half a mind to go and look up all of those different miracles, but E.W. Bullinger had already done it for me! It was in the margin notes, laid out plain as day! :)

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Abba, Father , by Nathan James

  Did you ever ask yourself, “Why did God create the earth?” I have, and I’ve seen the answer in God’s Word. In Genesis, we see clearly that the world was made for mankind. Indeed, even the stars, so very far away, are there for us.

Genesis 1:14 and 15:
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons. and for days. and years:
¹⁵ And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

  The sun, moon, and stars were all made for mankind, to give us light, and seasons, and days, and years, and to be signs showing God’s master plan. The stars announced the birth of Jesus Christ. That’s how the wise men knew to come looking for “…he that is born King of the Jews….” (Matthew 2:2) It wasn’t because God lacked servants that He made the earth. He had the angels to serve Him, and to acknowledge Him as God. What was it, then, that God gained in mankind? It was the father-son relationship. That is something God did not have with the angels.

Hebrews 1:5:
For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee? And again, I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?

  God’s heart’s desire was fulfilled in mankind, but not in every man and woman. Although some teach that everyone is a child of God, this is not what God says in His Word. God has said that Jesus Christ is His firstborn. Christ, whose birth was foretold in the Scriptures, and heralded from the sky, was the first to truly be God’s Son. He is called the “only begotten” Son of God (John 3:16) because He is the only one who is God’s Son by physical birth. The Scriptures testify to the closeness of the Father and the Son.

John 11:42a; and 16:32:
And I knew that thou hearest me always: …
^16:32 Behold; the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.

  Jesus Christ had great confidence in his relationship with his Father, and he and God looked forward to a whole family of sons,

Romans 8:29:
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he [His Son] might be the firstborn among many brethren.

  Who now makes up this family? Who are these “many brethren?” They are the men and women whom God knew would believe in Jesus Christ. These are the sons for whom God lovingly prepared the earth. When you and I believed and confessed Jesus as the Lord, we became born again. Now, we are brothers of Jesus Christ and, truly, sons of God.

There is only one place where abba is recorded in the Scriptures as being spoken by a man to God. That is in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus Christ prayed privately to His Father before His crucifixion.

Mark 14:36:
And he said; Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will. but what thou wilt.

  This is not flowery, poetic speech. This is not a lengthy and ornate prayer. This is God’s Son coming to his Father with a heavy heart, saying, “Father (Dad), if there is any other way….” If it were possible, Jesus didn’t want to be scourged and mocked; he didn’t want to be beaten and crucified; he didn’t W ANT to die. He went to God with the simplicity of a child to his father, his daddy. “Nevertheless” he said, “not what I will, but what Thou wilt.” He made his decision to follow God’s plan.

Although this is the only place in the Bible where Jesus is recorded as saying, “Abba, Father,” amazingly, this phrase occurs two more times in the Word. Upon whose lips has God put these words?

Galatians 4:6:
And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. crying, Abba, Father.

  We, who have been saved according to Romans 10:9, and are born again of incorruptible seed (I Peter 1:23), are now sons of God (I John 3:2). The essential part of this is the holy spirit that God gave us at the moment we believed. It is a “sonship” spirit, and it is by this spirit that we can call God our abba, “daddy.”

The final occurrence of abba is in Romans 8. Here, again, we are told about the spirit we have received. In the King James Version, it is called a “…Spirit of adoption (huiothesia).” Adoption, however, is a poor translation of the Greek word huiothesia. The problem is that we don’t have an exact English word that matches it. It actually means, “the quality or state of being a son,” or “sonship.” The term was applied to adoptions during ancient Roman times, and that sense of the word has carried over into our English Bibles. According to Roman law, a man would give the huiothesia to another, thereby making him a son by adoption.

Romans 8:15:
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the [“a”] Spirit of adoption [or “sonship”], whereby we cry, Abba. Father.

  Interestingly, under the law of the times, a Roman citizen could legally disown a son by birth. If the son was a disappointment or a disgrace, the father could disown and disinherit him. If the man, however, picked out someone and made him his son by giving him the huiothesia, he could never disown him. The thinking may have been that he knew in advance what he was getting into.

Brothers and sisters, God knew what He was getting into when He made us His sons. He knew who we were, and who we would become. He foreknew us, as we have seen from Romans 8:29. He chose us, knowing what blessings we will be to Him in the ages to come. We can never disappoint God, and He will never disown us. He has written it in His Word, which He magnified above all His name (Psalms 138:2b). We are children of God, and no matter what, we can come to Him with open hearts and child-like simplicity. Just like our Lord and elder brother, Jesus Christ, by the spirit, we, too, can say, “Abba, Father.”

(Nathan James was brought up in a Christian home, and in 2001 he became active in ministry service. During 2005-2006, Nathan participated in “The Fellowlaborers” program offered by Christian Family Fellowship Ministry of Tipp City, Ohio. Presently, he serves as CFFM’s audio engineer.) [This article originally appeared in The Ryburn Christian Chronicle, Vol. IV No.2, Winter 2007]

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Sierra just made the multiplayer part of F.E.A.R. a free download!
Seeing this, cnet compiled a list of other games that are available for free. Take a look, there’s probably something you’ll like.
digg story

from the cnet article:

August 17, 2006, 10:02 AM PDT

F.E.A.R. Combat is here–but it’s not the only free game you can download

Posted by: John P. Falcone

As of today, Vivendi’s F.E.A.R. Combat is now available as a free download. (The price of “free,” of course, is filling out a short questionnaire with your standard contact information and a marketing survey about the game.) The game is an updated multiplayer-only version of last year’s impressive PC shooter. Servers will no doubt be jammed by a deluge of eager downloaders in these first few hours, so it’s a perfect time to check out our updated Gratis Gaming feature, which highlights more than a dozen of our favorite PC gaming downloads that you can get for free.

In addition to F.E.A.R. Combat, we’ve added Abuse, a classic 2D side scroller. With the exception of America’s Army (which has always been a freebie), all of the other games on the list were once available commercially, in one form or another. But there was a long list of second-stringers that didn’t quite make the cut, for one reason or another: convoluted setup, noncommercial beta, or often just too old. Rather than keep the “B team” locked away on our hard drive, however, we figured we’d list them here. After all, what’s a moldy oldie to one person can be a retro classic to another. (Links below are to files on CNET Download.com where possible; otherwise, the links are to the respective publisher’s Web sites.)

DOS-era classics:

BioMenace: This sidescroller is an early title from 3D Realms, the creators of Duke Nukem and Prey.
Elder Scrolls Arena: Morrowind fans can see where the saga started; just be sure to download the DOSbox utility that’s needed to run it in Windows.

The Cinemaware Vault: These vintage-1980s graphical adventures and sports games were state-of-the-art back in the day:

Antheads

Wings
Defender of the Crown
It Came From the Desert
The King of Chicago

Lords of the Rising Sun
Rocket Ranger

S.D.I.
Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon

The Three Stooges

TV Sports: Basketball
TV Sports: Boxing

TV Sports: Football

TV Sports: Baseball

“Free” MMOs–with strings attached

Anarchy Online: You can play this MMORPG for free until January 15, 2007, but you won’t have access to the expansion-pack areas.

Planetside: Like AO, this online shooter is open to the masses until March 24, 2007, albeit with restrictions.
Knight Online: This fantasy-based MMO offers free areas, with pay-to-play upgrade options.

Free online virtual communities

Second Life: It may be a stretch to call this online virtual community a “game,” but it is free.
There: The Second Life caveat applies here as well.

Noncommercial freebies:

Nexuiz: Despite originating from self-proclaimed “amateur developers,” the latest iteration of this deathmatch-centric shooter offers impressive graphics and bot-based single-player action.
Penumbra: This first-person horror adventure serves as a demo of Frictional Games’ physics engine.
Tremulous: This open-source game mixes elements of first-person shooters and role-playing.

Interested in more free games? We drew this list from a variety of online sources, including: Liberated Games, Remain in Play, Mega Games, and Wikipedia’s entry on “abandonware.” If you find any gems that aren’t listed here or in the main feature, be sure to share them.

Assistant Editor David Rudden contributed to this article.

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I’m about to wipe my hard drive, so this post is half so that i can have a list of these for myself, but you might find em handy too!

• aptana - The javascript editor. cool stuff like tooltips and whatnot.
• CPU-Z - gives you a crap ton of info about your cpu, ram, and chipset in about 2 seconds.
• WinDirStat - basicaly takes everything on your hard drive and turns it into a picture. its wonderful for figuring outwhats taking up so much space.
• WinSCP - secure ftp program I use to access my server.
• OpenOffice - I use this instead of microsoft office because its free and open source.

Thats about it for now..

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Wow, this is awesome! I just ordered my lunch online from Uno! Uno is only about two blocks from my office, but a pizza takes a few minutes to cook, so now I have them cooking while I work/walk over/blog about it!

I’d heard of ordering food online before, but I never actualy pulled it off.

The resturaunt looks like a cool place, I’m gonna have to have a meal there one of these days… (I’ve had their carryout before - it’s great!)

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I’m 20 today!

/somebody throw me a party….
//hell, it doesnt even have to be for me, just somebody throw a party
///slasheys rock
////alright, I’m done

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As you may of noticed, the right side of this site has a new guest: my chatbox. It was a project i made a while back and hardly ever used. It needs a little bit more work, but i got it shoehorned in here pretty well.

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so for some reason i actualy started reading my bullitens in myspace. mostly dumb repost-this-in-the-next-8-seconds-or-else-a-dog-is-going-to-start-
humping-your-left-leg type of stuff.
but there was this one that was completely spam. just donwright advertising crap. and it was from one of those friends that you click approve because the face looks vaguely familar.

you know what im talking about, the people that you think you might know but your not sure and you dont wana look like an ass when you ask em and it turns out to be your best friend from school last year or something?

well anyways, its one of those shady sorta-friends that sent me this particular piece of spam and i was like thats it, I am soooo gonna delete her from my friends.

so then i just happen to look at the bottom of the page (insert ‘nice ass’ pun here) and I see the reply to sender button. but theres one more button:

that’s gotta be about the smartest thing myspace ever did. I mean, the music bit is cool, but its not exactly perfect.
but that, its it. its exactly what I wanted right where I wanted it.

if myspace keeps it up I might even quit hating the site!

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Get ready for the Worldwide Snakes on a MotherFarkin Fark Party!
basicaly one huge party that spans twenty-something locations wth more comming!

the party is on Aug 18 to coincide with the release of Snakes on a Plane. The cincinatti party is being hosted by BrunelloBabe; a theater/show time have not yet been selected.

RSVP if you intend to come (I want to but no guaretees)

heres the fark thread with lots of comments about it.

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the other good news, I’m singe =D

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