I'm totally pissed this past few days. I just don't understand whyt everytime i surf the net it owuld always disconnect yet i can still manage to download stuff.
I open Firefox and visit a site but then i am greeted with the message "Connection Interrupted". I run some diagnostic test but it says my connection is just ok.
Oh boy!
Anyway just enjoy this for now:
On A Night Like This by DAVE BARNES
I saw this post over at Holiday At Sea and thought I might share it with you.
"We like the idea of the warm fuzzy, slightly effeminate Jesus carrying lambs and hugging children. Sure we do. Why wouldn’t we? This Jesus is everyone’s best friend, He’s always smiling, always laughing and wants you to have your best life now.
The problem is that this isn’t the whole picture of Jesus. When you only see someone in one social setting, you can’t really say you know that person because you don’t, you know a certain side of that person. To really know someone, you must experience a wide swatch of life with them. You must witness their personality, not only in the good times but the bad.
Things become quite muddy, though, when we see a very isolated glimpse of someone, we think we know the whole person and then we attach our affections to our projected image of that person. We don’t necessarily feel affectionate towards the person as they are but as we think they are. What if many of us didn’t really know Jesus as He is but only as we think we’d like Him to be? The fact that Jesus doesn’t make more people uncomfortable should probably worry us. A lot.
Foreshadowing and foretelling Jesus, Psalm 110 describes Him as shattering kings and executing justice on the nations. When proclaiming Jesus’ ministry, John the Baptizer said that the axe was at the root of the trees (Matthew 3:10). Jude says that He is owned by Jesus who has designated certain people for condemnation and destroys those who refuse to believe. In Revelation 19, John sees the vision of Jesus on a white horse, his robe red from the blood of his enemies, a sword coming from His mouth finally and fully vindicating Himself and His reign.
Jesus is not who many think He is. We might think of Mr. Tumnus telling Lucy that Aslan was indeed a good lion but he was not a tame lion. We have tried to tame Jesus. But in doing so, we have lost a sense of what He came to do and indeed, what salvation even is. It is truly warfare, it is being transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Jesus (Colossians 1:13). We forget the idea that for every knee to bow (Philippians 2:9-11), some will need to be broken and Jesus, this same Jesus who laid down His life for His people, will be the One do break knees.
What does it mean for Christianity that we have tried to tame Jesus? What does it mean for the Gospel if we have not truly understood who Jesus is and what He came to do? Is your image of Jesus fully biblical?"
Hope you get something from that article. Ponder. Think. Are we serving and praying the same Jesus mentioned in the Bible or is this Jesus we prayed to the Jesus of our imagination?
Anyways while pondering go download this song and reflect even more.
Once upon a time there was this pretty girl who thought she was really that pretty that she managed to pretend to love somebody and used that somebody to forget that other somebody who hurt her badly before.
Their relationship lasted only for 8 months because by then, her true color came floating on the surface. She no longer could contain the love he gave to her. Eventually she told him she never did really love her and she never really let him into her heart.
The guy, desperate and really inlove, tried everything to reconcile with her. But instead she ditched him, humiliated him, insulted him infront of her friends, and called him a liar (which is ironic since she was the liar after all).
Then she go on telling everyone how she had no fault in the relationship and that it was all the guy's fault for falling into her deception. Fair enough the guy made a mistake by falling into her trap but that is only because he loved her. Love means trusting her and so that's his biggest mistake.
Now, the guy still wanted to make friends with her but she's just too stubborn and won't even smile when they meet on the highway.
Friends of the guy told him that the reason for her behavior is because deep inside she knows she's guilty of her sins yet she keep on living as if she's clean and as if it's the guy's fault.
And the nice(sarcasm) thing about this is that her friends all thought it's really the guy who is the villain in the story and some of the guy's girl-friends who are also her friends believed that he is really the villain (After all when stories like this come to surface, it's usually the guy's fault and seldom it is that it's the girl's).
But the guy is so understanding and loving that he understand all those things and just poured out his emotions to his songs and poems and stories...
Check out this chamber folk/punk band from the U.K...
They started out as an anarchic punk band then moved to danceable pop rock in 1997 with Tubthumping but the band in is essence remains a political very opinionated left winged and their latest album could be included as the longest album title in history initially called, And The Boy Bands Won.
The full title of the album is:
The Boy Bands Have Won, and All The Copyists and The Tribute Bands and The TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture To Be Shaped By Mimicry, Whether From Lack Of Ideas Or From Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try To Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother’s Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don’t Just Regurgitate Creative History, Or Hold Art And Music And Literature As Fixed, Untouchable And Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try To ‘Guard’ Any Particular Form Of Music Are, Like The Copyists And Manufactured Bands, Doing It The Worst Disservice, Because The Only Thing That You Can Do To Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It’s Over, Then It’s Done, and The Boy Bands Have Won.
I noticed among my peers that they don't mind dropping names like Coldplay, Radiohead, My Morning Jacket, Can,Miles Davis, Deer Tick, and all those weird, unmainstream, and obscure bands but if one of the group starts saying how much he appreciate the new Staind record (The Illusion of Progress) or how Nickelback's certain song made him smile or how The Jonas Brothers' Lovebug is a cool song, then they seem to either criticize him for his embarrassing taste or would just tell him to stop listening to them because Staind lost their edge and the Jonas Brothers aren't real musicians and Nickelback can't write a real song...
Yet when Chris Martin (Coldplay) was asked about his thoughts on Nickelback, nobody expected that he actually praised the band for their ability to write catchy song and blue-collar lyrics. they all thought he would bashed the band like every music elitist out there... or like Pitchfork perhaps.
Truth is most of these people are/were non musicians and most of them based their musical preference to what they read on Pitchfork.
It shouldn't been like that.
while it's true that most mainstream bands are aimed at commercialism and not exactly for the love of music they're playing but we can't deny that sometimes, we love to hear a catchy good produced song once in a while...
So yes, i listen to Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Pinback, Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah, and Bill Monroe yet I also listen to The Moffatts, Jonas Brothers, Staind, Nickelback, Bon Jovi, and even 98 Degrees (good harmonies and for the record, they're the only boyband who formed themselves because they love motown music and not by some guy names Louis Pearlman. Unfortunately they were lumped with the whole boyband thing and Motown started investing on their looks rather than their sound. Still they did have some good tunes though).
Same thing with those who listen exclusively to Christian Music. they stay all night trying to find an article to confirm if Sufjan Stevens, Crossfade,and Copeland are really christian bands. And now that Copeland is on Tooth and Nail people just assume so but back then, they're hesitant. I mean why can't they judge it for themselves. Try to study the lyrics and the bands lifestyle then you decide.
CCM is just another label thrown by the media. I have a friend who never listened to The Fray until she learned recently that their second album will be released through INO RECORDS/ EPIC. INO of course is known as a CCM indie label who has a distribution partnership with SONY.
It just crazy...
