52 Words Every Christian Should Know cont.

40. Baptism - The initiation ceremony into Christianity in which one is marked publicly by water in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, symbolizing new life in Christ as well as pictorially re-presenting Christ's own death, burial, and resurrection.

41. Lord's Supper - The Lord's Supper, also called Holy Communion or the Eucharist, is the fellowship ritual in which assembled Christians eat bread and drink from the fruit of the vine in worship, showing their participation in Christ's death and life, as well as their life with one another.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know cont.

38. Adoption - Means that God grants family status and benefits, such as access to the Father and a spiritual inheritance, to all who are justified. The emphasis is on a personal relationship with God as Father brought about through the Holy Spirit.

39. Faith - Gospel faith means trust, reliance, confidence, or commitment. Jesus Christ, specifically His death in saving sinners, is the object of such belief. This must be distinguished from "assent" (belief that facts are true). Loyalty and devotion are included in genuine faith.

OKC hits 100 degrees for the First Time this Summer.

It was bound to happen eventually!

Genesis 1

Went to Rewired this weekend. It's a men's conference down at Falls Creek. Usually I love the music, but this year it was a dud. Seemed to be geared more for hipsters than good theological lyrics. Bummer. But the teaching was good, and we had several speakers to include Dr Tony Evans!

We had a devotional guide to work through once we got back home. Today was Day one, and we started with Genesis One. One thing that stood out to me was that five time when God created something, He said it was "good". But on the sixth day after creating man, He said it was, "very good". That impressed me. Saved the best for last and all.

Working on finding a new job, the teaching gig is coming to an end May 27th! OKC public school is shedding positions, and mine is one of them (last hired and all of that).

New Hard drive for Netbook = failure

In my box of spare parts I came across a 2.5 inch 500 GB hard drive. My HP Mini 110 currently has a 320 HD, and I thought it would be fun to swap in a new one.

Currently it's running Point Linux, so I used the opportunity to check out a new Linux Distro. I settled on Rosa Fresh, a quirky distro out of Russia that takes my favorite GUI (KDE) and does something different with it. I spent Friday loading it and downloading updates. However once I closed the lid and opened it, I was staring at a black screen! The CPU fan was running, and the lights on the side, but no display. This became a reproducible problem where I had to shut the computer down and  restart. After that the cycle would repeat when I closed the lid.

Thinking the distro was too much for my poor little netbook, I switched to Peppermint OS, a lightweight distro. Spent Saturday installing Peppermint, only to discover the same "no display" problems! Pondered it overnight, and decided to go back to the original 320 HD. Swapped it out this morning, and it's having no problems coming out of  sleep mode.

Haven't decided yet whether to try another distro, or just leave Point Linux on it. 

Rain and More Rain!

A low pressure system is moving through Oklahoma this weekend. It triggered a lot of snow for Denver, but here in Oklahoma we'll see LOTS of rain. We sure need it! About 1 1/2 inches so far for Oklahoma City, with more coming tonight and tomorrow.

Yep, Still around

Still here and just remembered to post something. If you're a faithful follower of this blog I commend you! Hopefully I have something more interesting to say later this week.

Happy New Year!

It's a new year! Last year I read through the entire Bible. This year I want to try something different. Going to slow down and read for quality and not blast through entire chapters.

I'm starting with Galatians, and today it's verses 1-10 of chapter one. In it Paul is talking about the people running to "another gospel", most likely one of works instead of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He condemns this alternative gospel, and states that's he's trying to please God, not people.

The same problems occur today. We've heard of the "prosperity gospel" where people will claim that Jesus wants you to be rich, you just have to claim certain verses. Or that you have to "work" for your salvation. Bullocks!

Still Around

Still around,  working some small projects,  including my read the bible in a year,  which I'm almost done!  Will get back to regular posting soon.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know cont...

36. Regeneration – Regeneration or being born again refers to God's act of making a person alive spiritually. This is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit by which sinners are given new spiritual life enabling them to relate to God in faith, love, obedience, and delight.

37. Justification – Justification is God's judicial declaration that a sinner who believes in Christ is counted righteous instead of guilty, based on Jesus' death on his or her behalf. Christ's righteousness is imputed (reckoned) to the sinner just as God imputed sin to Christ on the cross.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know cont...

34. Gospel – Gospel literally means “good news.” “Gospel” refers in Scripture mainly to the message that through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, God graciously acted to establish His kingdom and now welcomes into His family sinners who repent and receive Christ by faith.

35. Predestination – Predestination means that God has marked out ahead of time or predetermined certain things that shall come to pass. In particular, God has marked out certain persons for salvation or service. Such individuals are called in Scripture the elect or chosen.

Last Hot Day of the Year?

Today is supposed to be the hottest day of the week, and FINALLY relief arrives  in the form of cooler temps! Looking forward to turning off the A/C for the season.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know cont...

32. Atonement – Atonement refers to reconciling alienated parties by making amends, that is, by fully satisfying the penalty so that the offense is removed and the relationship is restored. In Scripture, Christ's death provided atonement in that He died as a substitute for sinners.

33. Resurrection – The resurrection of Jesus means His rising from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion, in bodily form, transformed so that His body can never die again. Evidence for His resurrection focuses on the empty tomb and the appearances of the living Christ.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know cont...

29. Messiah - “Messiah” is the English spelling of a Hebrew (Old Testament) term meaning “anointed one.” This title refers to the One promised by the prophets. In Greek (New testament), the same term is “Christ.” Early Christians turned “Christ” into a name for Jesus.

30. Kingdom of God – The kingdom of God is His rule through His messianic King. According to Jesus' teaching, the kingdom was both present and future. All who believe in and follow Him are already in the kingdom, yet the kingdom will be gloriously revealed at the return of Christ.

31. Son of Man – A phrase occurring in both Testaments, “Son of Man” was Jesus' favorite title for Himself. In the Old Testament it usually meant “human being,” but in Daniel 7 He was a mysterious messianic figure. Jesus used this title as an alternative to calling Himself the Messiah.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know cont...

26. Hell – Hell is the final place and condition of unregenerate humans (and evil spirits) in which they consciously suffer everlasting punishment, separated from God forever. It is a place of spiritual, psychological, and bodily torment from which there will never be hope of release.

27. Son of God - “Son of God” means more than that Jesus was diving or a special messenger sent from God to the world. “Son of God” means that Jesus is fully God Himself, equal in power and glory to God the Father and God the Spirit.

28. Virgin Birth – Mary, the mother of Jesus, was sexually chaste both when she conceived Him and when He was born. The Holy Spirit “overshadowed” Mary, bringing about her pregnancy.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know cont...

23. The Devil – A supernatural spirit creature hostile to God. He leads a host of other spirit beings in opposing God by tempting, accusing, leading astray, and other means. He is not equal to God and does not threaten God's sovereignty or power.

24. Demons – A demon is any of the wicked spirit creatures, without physical bodies, opposed to God. They are also called unclean spirits, evil spirits, and angels who sinned (therefore, fallen angels). There is only one devil, but there are multitudes of demons.

25. Antichrist – The Greek antichristos means “against Christ” or “instead of Christ,” and therefore refers to an enemy of Christ or one who attempts to usurp His position. Although the term is found only in John's epistles, the concept is found in a number of passages.

Linux - Back to Kubuntu

For the last five to six months, my main desktop was running OpenSUSE 13.2, and overall I liked it. Over the past couple of months I notice that each time the kernel was updated, I had to manually go in and recompile the video drivers for my NVIDIA video card. At most it took about 5 minutes, so I wasn't all that bothered by it. However one day two weeks ago I got the usual command line prompt after a kernel upgrade. But this time the usual manual recompile trick didn't work. After working on it for a day, I decided to jump ship and try another distro. I'm a big fan of KDE, so I went with Kubuntu 15.04 first, which features the new Plasma 5 desktop. I really like the layout, but at this time there is no icon in the system tray for Dropbox, so you don't know if Dropbox is working or not. I played around with several other distros, until I finally settled on Kubuntu 14.04, with is a LTS (Long Term Support) release. It still features KDE4, and the Dropbox icon works perfectly. I came to the conclusion that stability and familiarity is more important for me on my main desktop then the latest bells and whistles. In comparison, OpenSUSE 13.2 is running on my Dell Vostro 1500 notebook, and I've yet to have a problem with it.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know cont.

20. Sabbath – (Hebrew Shabbat) means rest. It refers in particular to resting on the seventh day of the week in obedience to the fourth of the Ten Commandments.

21. Original Sin – When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden of Eden in the fall, their nature was damaged or distorted, and their descendants (all humans after them) have been born in a sinful condition.

22. Depravity – Depravity means tendency toward evil. Everyone is naturally inclined away from loving God, and toward self-centeredness. Humans are not as sinful as they can possibly be, but the are tainted by evil through and though.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know Cont.

18. Covenants – A covenant (berith in Hebrew) is a binding agreement between two parties. The scriptural focus is on covenants initiated by God, for which He provided visible signs and for which He sometimes attached stipulations or conditions.

19. Circumcision – Physical circumcision refers to the act of cutting off the foreskin of a male's reproductive organ. Spiritual circumcision refers to the inner change by which a person is enabled to trust, love, and obey God wholeheartedly.

52 Words Every Christian Should Know Cont.

16. Miracles – A miracle is a powerful intervention worked by God or some other supernatural agent in which ordinary operations (the laws of nature) are displaced, often serving as public signs authenticating the human agent through whom the miracle is performed.

17. Marriage – A God-given institution, is a legally recognized relationship, made formal by a civil or religious ceremony, between one man and one woman, who commit to live together in maintaining a home, to share sexual intimacy, and (usually) to bear and rear children.