tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843547600577522712024-03-05T21:27:57.430-08:00EFT and Spiritual WarfareA blog about EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) used as a tool in spiritual warfare. I'll probably also talk about other related or even unrelated topics, as the (Holy) Spirit moves.Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.comBlogger128125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-19168676821647394722015-09-11T13:02:00.001-07:002015-09-11T13:02:11.720-07:00Stop letting DEMONS jerk you around!! THE SEQUEL<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sjQSkkNw-1A" width="480"></iframe><br /><br />
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This is a very good video about spiritual warfare, it runs about 43 and a half minutes.Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-38967819847738476072013-02-05T18:02:00.000-08:002013-02-05T18:02:01.683-08:00Cortisol, Stress and EFT<span style="font-family: inherit;">In case any of my return visitors haven't noticed, I've changed the name of my website from "EFT for Spiritual Warfare" to "Renew Your Mind" ministry. I'll skip the long story for now, but I was going to shut the whole thing down when the old domain expired at the end of 2012. When I prayed about it, I didn't think that was the right thing to do, so I ended up moving to a new hosting provider and changed the domain name. The new domain name is primarily because I don't want to focus solely on spiritual warfare and EFT. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the process I visited a site so I could find their contact information in order to ask them to update a link on one of their articles, which went to one of my articles on the old site. They had an <a href="http://www.stuffbusters.co.za/articles/2012/07/26/eft-significantly-lowers-major-stress-hormone-cortisol/">article</a> about a study that was to be published last year which showed that EFT lowers cortisol, a stress hormone. In fact it showed that it lowers it more than psychotherapy or no treatment; which were the other two methods tested on the group of 83 people. Cortisone is considered a stress hormone, which is important when it's needed in the short term. However, chronic stress along with elevated cortisol can cause a lot of <a href="http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress/SR00001">problems</a>. Some of those problems include problems with digestion and impaired memory. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In line with the digestive problems, I had personally noticed that I had a much easier time keeping my weight down when I was relaxed and well-rested. Since one of the things that cortisol does is elevate blood sugar, it may be that lowering one's stress level is at least as important as cutting down the carbohydrates or other methods some use for losing some weight. Possibly more important.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">However, the biggest impact chronic levels of elevated cortisol may have in relation to one's weight is that of lowering metabolism. When I write about metabolism, I mean one's metabolic rate as measured by their body temperature. I have never been a fan of the 'calories in, calories out' way of thinking. I'm sure most of us know someone who can eat and eat a lot of food and not gain any weight. Yet there are others of us that eat very little in comparison and don't lose, or even gain weight. Those differences have a lot to do with your metabolism. When I found the article about EFT and cortisol, it was after I had found a health-related website called <a href="http://180degreehealth.com/">180degreehealth</a>. Matt Stone of 180d writes a lot about metabolic rate. So it would be interesting to look into using EFT in relation to helping to raise metabolism. I have discovered that certain food additives, as well as gluten, cause my body temps to go down. I have not yet experimented with tapping to increase temps, except that I do know from years of trying to tap on having a 'problem with wheat' that it doesn't work for me in that respect. I have used tapping to help with the frustration of trying to figure out my diet, however.</span>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-346391096665171192012-12-05T18:33:00.000-08:002012-12-05T18:33:03.536-08:00Staying Positive In A Negative World<p>I really needed this <a href="http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/stay_positive">article</a> yesterday when I found it as well as today, and thought I'd share it here. It's by Andrew Wommack, titled the same as here. What has me feeling worried and negative right now is finances, or lack thereof. I have been doing this coaching on a part-time basis only, and haven't really worked on marketing at all. I had this idea that 'if I build it, they will come', but the traffic has been pretty light recently. I had been working locally for a company that makes postage and other mailing equipment since 2003, until last year. I worked for them first full-time, then part-time for the last 3 years. I've been looking for another job, but that's been very unfruitful up to now. With that, I'm available for coaching, or would appreciate any donations. </p>
<p>Here are a few quotes from the article (linked above):</p>
<blockquote>The word “waxed” used in that scripture is really significant. It goes back to the way candles are made. A wick is dipped into hot wax and then taken out and allowed to cool for a few seconds, leaving a thin layer of wax. The process is repeated hundreds of times until the wick is buried deep within the wax.</p>
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The same is true with the heart. If we take our eyes off Jesus and focus on the evil of this world and our circumstances, then, little by little, the layers of negativity harden around our hearts, and the love for God and others waxes cold. ...</p>
<p>The Lord doesn’t automatically do these things for you—He flows through you. If you get discouraged or dismayed, you stop the process. It says in Ephesians 3:20,</p>
<p>Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.</p>
<p>The phrase “according to” means in proportion to or to the degree of the power that is working in you. God flows through people. If you become discouraged, you stop the flow of God’s power. </p></blockquote>
<p>There's more to the article, and something I need to remember and practice. The parable of the sower and the seed also came to mind while I was reading the article. <br />
<em> Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.
But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. (Luke 8:11-15 [KJV]) </em></p>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-68823021377436558342012-11-01T08:45:00.000-07:002012-11-01T08:45:30.153-07:00You are what you eatI'm going to do a post, soon I hope, about food choices and our emotions. However, since I just got an email with a link to an article about <a href="http://www.faithandgmos.org/">Faith and GMO's</a>, I wanted to share it.<br />
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If you live in California and are going to vote (if you're eligible to vote, you should do so!) I would suggest a yes vote on Prop. 37 so that genetically modified organisms (GMO) ingredients in foods are labeled. The article linked above contains quotes from the Christian, Jewish and Hindu faiths. Here are a couple of quotes that I think are 'right on' from some in the Christian faith, since that's my faith. There is also a link on the article to some videotaped interviews.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span>...warned that the failure to label is a special kind of lying. They
write: “…the refusal to allow the labeling of GMOs is itself a hiding of
the truth, but also makes it impossible to ensure the integrity of the
trade in food.”</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<strong>Rev. Dr. Dudley D. Chatman, pastor of the Greater Community Missionary Baptist church in Pacoima, California</strong>,
doesn’t think it’s fair to give people food without disclosing what’s
in it. He says, “I would vote for putting a GMO label on the can, the
bottle, on whatever you are eating so you have a choice.” From a
religious perspective, he says, “We definitely and positively want
truth. And to be untrue to me, and not telling me what I’m eating, is
definitely a sin.” Beyond labeling, Rev. Chatman, like many other
Christian leaders, opposes the practice of genetically engineering our
food from a religious perspective. “It’s abominable,” he says. “I like
the way God made the stuff in the first place. It’s just right. …
Everything is so well organized and so well fixed, that hey, why fix
what’s already working.” To his congregation, he says, “if there’s any
way possible, you should get there to vote to make sure food is labeled
when they have GMO ingredients in it. I will vote YES on Prop 37." </blockquote>
In addition, there is a documentary movie that is available for purchase on DVD, and is available for free online viewing through election day, Nov. 6th. I watched it online in September during a free viewing they had, and definitely recommend it. It's called <a href="http://geneticroulettemovie.com/">Genetic Roulette</a>, and runs about an hour and a half.<br />
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Lastly, information about <a href="http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/">avoiding GMO's</a> when shopping is available (linked).<br />
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<br />Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-47145825147710081982012-05-30T09:48:00.000-07:002012-05-30T09:49:02.326-07:00Pious Duplicity and the Nature of EvilI'm reading an <a href="http://deceptionbytes.com/featured-articles/1340-pious-duplicity-and-the-nature-of-evil">article</a> with the same title as this post, on the Deception Bytes web site. It really highlights the need for discernment, and being able to know when you're hearing from the Holy Spirit. Here's a quote from the article, but the whole article is worth reading.
<blockquote>Anton LeVey, the father of the Satanic church, said his goal was to create a duplicitous people, who served both God and Satan, thus negating serving God at all. LeVay taught that the highest sacrifice to Satan was to serve as a leader in both worlds, Christian by day and cult by night. In fact, he stated that the higher the position that a Satanist could attain in a Christian organization, the greater the sacrifice to Satan.</blockquote>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-58280735047503133102011-12-16T17:03:00.000-08:002011-12-16T17:03:53.972-08:00Aleister Crowley was a Coward!<p>I just saw this video on YouTube and wanted to post it here. I'm familiar with the name Aleister Crowley, (ok, the video has it typed Crowler in the title, but it is actually Crowley) since I've studied a bit about spiritual warfare; though I don't know a lot about him. I just know he is 'big name' in satanism, and wrote a book about it. This video is by Fellowship of the Martyrs, it's just over 6 minutes long. </p>
<p><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-SyV0VszLVw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-39730832172863454212011-08-28T15:59:00.000-07:002011-08-28T15:59:45.847-07:0020 Years of Linux<p>I just ran across this video on a Debian blog I visit on occasion. It runs just a little over 3 minutes. It brought back a few memories. I've only been using Linux for slightly over 2 years, but I do remember hearing about it in the early to mid 1990's. I won't re-hash what I said in my post back when I made the switch, so here's the video and the Youtube link is below it, in case you prefer to watch it directly.</p>
<p><object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5ocq6_3-nEw&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5ocq6_3-nEw&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object></p>
<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ocq6_3-nEw&feature=player_embedded</p>
Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-40181720023831360942011-06-30T14:41:00.000-07:002011-06-30T15:36:29.069-07:00Super True Stories (satire) on John CalvinI saw this video on a blog I follow, and I thought it was really funny, lol funny in fact. It's a little over 5 minutes long.<br />
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After pulling up the video link on YouTube I found the author's blog -- so here's the link to the whole <a href="http://thehighmidlife.blogspot.com/2011/06/super-true-stories-original-john-calvin.html">article</a> that goes with the video. <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lD4784EdSvI" width="560"></iframe>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-80389814748420264472011-06-13T17:04:00.000-07:002011-06-13T17:04:48.252-07:00Don't we ALL need a Savior ?I know, I haven't posted a message here in several months. I've actually made notes for myself with at least a couple of web articles to blog about, but they're the sort of article that would take a bit of time to say what I want to say. (i.e. research, looking up scripture, etc.) Some blog posts can take a couple of hours or so to put together, and if I have something else I'm working on or reading I'll just put it on my 'to blog' list.
<p>
In addition, I've started another <a href="http://taxhonesty.blogspot.com"> blog </a>, though I haven't posted a lot on there, either. I started that blog because I thought it might be a better place to put the things of a more political nature. In some respects they both deal with truth vs lies, so in that respect it relates to spiritual warfare and the lines may get a bit blurry sometimes. </p>
<p>However, I was just reading this <a href="http://blog.chron.com/believeitornot/2011/06/baptist-leader-says-weiner-needs-jesus/"> article </a> titled <em> Baptist leader says Weiner needs Jesus </em>. And as I was reading the article, I read a line that said: <q> There’s also some shock value in Mohler’s statement, since a number of Americans are uncomfortable with the idea of a Christian leader telling a Jewish person to follow Jesus. </q> And I remembered, that used to be one of my 'stumbling blocks' to becoming a believer! I had (and have) some Jewish friends, and it was sort of understood that it was somehow impossible for them to be Christians, too. </p>
<p>I have since become a Christian believer, and also realize that when one says they're Jewish it frequently refers to their <a href="http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/sapient/atheist_vs_theist/5794"> ethnic background </a> rather than a belief in Judaism, the religion. I think it would be similar to being called a Hebrew 2000 years ago, though I'm not sure of all of the distinctions. </p>
<p>In addition, I have to admit that I don't follow the news closely enough that I'd even heard of the whole brouhaha with Rep. Weiner until someone asked my opinion and I had to confess I had no idea what he was talking about. I now know enough of the story that I don't need any more details. However, on the topic of salvation and the need to be 'born again', I have a definite opinion. We all need a Savior! He (Jesus) was what I was searching for, for many years, but I didn't know it then. </p>
<p>Since I happen to have a printed copy of the Jewish New Testament (translation by David H. Stern), I'll end with this bit of scripture: <em> For I am not ashamed of the Good News, since it is God's powerful means of bringing salvation to everyone who keeps on trusting, to the Jew especially, but equally to the Gentile. For in it is revealed how God makes people righteous in his sight; and from the beginning to end it is through trust -- as the Tanakh puts it, <q> But the person who is righteous will live his life by trust. </q>Romans 1:16-17. </em> </p>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-13613170817197725852010-11-14T10:28:00.000-08:002010-11-14T10:47:13.948-08:00EFT for War Veterans<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Someone left a comment on one of the articles on this blog that contained a </span><a href="http://www.social-anxiety-solutions.com/how-does-eft-work.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">link</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> to a very good article titled </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Exactly How Does EFT work</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">? That article contained a link to a Google video that I wanted to embed here, it's really good. </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">It lasts about 20 minutes and is titled EFT for War Veterans. I have the full-length DVD </span><a href="http://www.operation-emotionalfreedom.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Operation Emotional Freedom</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> that I haven't yet reviewed on here (it's not formatted for a non-wide-screen t.v. so I have to watch it again on my pc), so this video gives a good snapshot.</span> </div><div><br /></div><div><embed id="VideoPlayback" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid="6887426238803490578&hl="en&fs="true" style="width:400px;height:326px" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed> </div>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-66724596740006524352010-10-10T17:03:00.000-07:002010-10-10T17:03:27.776-07:00A different perspective on the devilI saw a link to an e-book called <a href="http://www.xcalvinist.com/"> <em>Calvinism: A Closer Look </em> </a> by Daniel Gracely on another blog, a few weeks back. I've been working my way through it a bit at a time, and today I'm reading chapter 9. It gives some interesting information about the book of Job, and he's discussing some things about the nature of the devil that are also very interesting.
One thing it mentions is <blockquote> The book of Job is believed by most scholars to be the oldest book of the Bible. </blockquote> Apparently I don't read many scholarly books, because I don't think I'd seen that before. I've really enjoyed what I've read so far in the previous chapters and I've no doubt I'll feel the same through the rest of the book which appears to be a total of 21 chapters. Here's an important paragraph from the 9th chapter I'm reading:
<blockquote>The position we have been advancing in this book is that God is a free will Person, and that He has made other free will persons. We also want to press forward the idea that all free will persons whom God has made, both angelic and human, have retained their free will. In fact, humans have retained it despite the Satanic activity which has affected human history, and also despite the unlawful acquiring by Adam of the knowledge of good and evil (a knowledge we inherit in seed through the male, Adamic line). In short, we believe the book of Job will show that God does not choose the choices of other persons. </blockquote> Following are a few more sentences from the article, which certainly give food for thought.
<blockquote>For his own part Job never mentions Satan in any of his conversations, and he seems unaware of the role the Devil played in bringing about his ruin. <p>The Devil does not appear to be double-minded, however. By being single-mindedly set against God, Satan is all the more effective because he never gives his opposition—God and the believer—the benefit of the doubt. He always assumes the worst about God and us, and this assumption informs his protest. </p><p>Perhaps this explains why the Enemy presumed to believe the worst about Jesus, and why the demonic world was astonished when they learned that Christ had risen from the dead. In fact, the Bible tells us that had the demonic world known about Jesus’ resurrection they would not have crucified Him. </p> <p>Thus, according to the Bible, God took all of Job’s possessions, including Job’s children, and put them into Satan’s power. God did this without directing Satan toward any specific end. God is not the causal agent for any of the disasters brought against Job, even though God speaks in an idiomatic way as though He were responsible for Job’s ruin by having removed His divine protection. </p> <p>But we must allow God to describe Himself, not some theological system that differs from the Bible. As a friend of mine has pointed out, when Christians allow the latter, they end up going to church and worshiping theology (i.e., so called) rather than the God of the Bible. The point here is that Job teaches us that God is not sovereign <em>in</em> everything, but rather sovereign <em>over</em> everything. To be sovereign <em>in</em> everything would mean God foreordains ‘whatsoever comes to pass.’ To be sovereign <em>over</em> everything means God will ultimately judge how others have been sovereign in their own sphere of decisions. </p></blockquote> There's a lot more there, absolutely worth reading.
Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-73835550053447993872010-10-01T17:24:00.000-07:002010-10-01T17:59:08.737-07:00Search engines and advertising<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">In order to increase visitors to my site, I've done some advertising with Google Adwords and Yahoo. Up to this point, my site comes up with a pretty good rank for certain search terms but I figured every little bit helps with only a few hits a day. </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">However, since Yahoo and Microsoft have some sort of sharing arrangement I've been getting notices from Yahoo that I have to move my campaign over to Bing. I'm not a huge fan of Microsoft but I thought I'd look into the logistics of moving my campaign. (Nor am I a big fan of Google, for that matter, though they are hosting this blog my issues are mostly with Adwords). But, the first thing I saw when I clicked on the link for migration information was a message that it was strongly suggested that I install some software called 'Silverlight'. I figured I'd play the game for a moment or 2 to see what happened, since I'm running Linux and/or OpenSolaris (OpenIndiana) which is obviously not going to run a Microsoft application that will most likely want a registered version of Windows installed. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">When I clicked on install, it took me to a page to download a Linux version called 'Moonlight'. Before I opted to install I decided to do some research. I found some very interesting information. Here are some links:</span></div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://techrights.org/2008/05/17/reject-moonlight-now/">Reject moonlight now</a><br /><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/novell-produces-lead-pony-for-silverlight/2445">Moonlight is a lead pony</a><br /><a href="http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20080528133529454">Shining some light on Microsoft's Moonlight covenant </a><br /><a href="http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20080528133529454"></a><br />So in the end, I've decided to pass. </span></div>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-75329222757705001852010-08-21T15:12:00.000-07:002010-08-21T16:27:01.357-07:00What Love Is This? book comments<p style="font-family: arial;">I finished reading the book <a href="http://www.thebereancall.org/node/4937"><i>What Love Is This</i></a> by Dave Hunt about 2-3 months ago. I thought it might be repetitive after reading George Bryson's <i>The Dark Side of Calvinism</i>, but that wasn't the case. I got a lot out of the book, and at 533 pages it takes a bit of time to get through it all. I haven't been in a hurry to write this blog post, because of the time it took to decide which quotes to use; since there were so many good ones to choose from. In addition I've had to wrestle with the question of whether a 'little leaven' in my beliefs about God and what I was being taught about God was acceptable or not. I'm still working on that, but this book helped me gain clarity on some of those issues.<br /></p><p style="font-family: arial;"><br /></p><span style="font-family:arial;">The book starts off </span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKPdnyWHHN9eMmmHP-Mb1W251W1JvtojxXXARfFYLhaCuCyqxqMx3kgIUIBGlVrGhq-7e7VwIqVkP1OnTXKwY4Pi3OBb35FbYrbDd1DpWPNuHP31jk2GYUobQfRozqF9aA3JrGJVRtCYLa/s1600/heart-ballons_01.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 233px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKPdnyWHHN9eMmmHP-Mb1W251W1JvtojxXXARfFYLhaCuCyqxqMx3kgIUIBGlVrGhq-7e7VwIqVkP1OnTXKwY4Pi3OBb35FbYrbDd1DpWPNuHP31jk2GYUobQfRozqF9aA3JrGJVRtCYLa/s320/heart-ballons_01.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5508003097713173970" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">with some of the history of Calvinism, as well as it's basis under the teachings of Augustine and Augustine's ties to the Roman Catholic church. Apparently Calvi</span><span style="font-family:arial;">n (and Luther) and other 'protestants' were against some of the R.C. church doctrine, but they held to other (unbliblical) doctrines, such as infant baptism. It also highlights some of the similarities and differences between Calvin and other Reformers, such as Luther. I'd already read a good deal about how Augustine's writings had greatly shaped Calvin's theology in Bryson's book; what was new and rather disturbing to learn about in this book were some of the details about Calvin's propensity to use violence and the power of the (civil / state) government to silence dissent.</span> <blockquote style="font-family: arial;"> Calvin followed his mentor Augustine in enforcing church attendance and participation in the sacraments by threats (and worse) against the citizens of Geneva. ... Sadly, Calvin put into effect in Geneva the very principles of punishment, coercion, and death that Augustine advocated and that the Roman Catholic Church followed consistently for centuries. (pg. 52-53) </blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">One of the major doctrines of Calvinism is that of 'sovereign grace', which isn't actually part of the TULIP acronym per se, but it underpins much of the structure of Calvinism and ties in with the U (unconditional election) and moreso with the I (irresistable grace). I already wrote a bit about that topic in my </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.eft-sw.com/?q=devil_and_job"> article </a><span style="font-family:arial;"> about whether the devil needs God's permission to attack a believer? and will probably write more about it, as I gain more clarity on the topic. Here are some quotes that I liked from the book that I want to share here:</span> <blockquote style="font-family: arial;">And the solution is so simple: acknowledge that God sovereignly gave to man a genuine power of choice, and God is exonerated and honored. ... Irresistable grace is a human invention imposed upon the Bible. (pg. 396) <p> So God could <i>cause</i> anyone and <i>everyone</i> to believe the gospel and irresistibly draw them to heaven -- but He only does this for a select number? This is Calvinism -- whether one calls it <q>moderate</q> or <q>extreme</q>! It has been imposed upon the Bible in violation of the entire tenor of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. It is a libel upon the character of God, a denial of the nature of love, and an offense to the conscience which God has placed in the heart of every man. (pg. 423)</p> </blockquote> <span style="font-family:arial;">Here is an interesting quote on the topic of infant baptism, and Calvin's belief that it was sufficient to effect forgiveness of sins and grant one entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven:</span> <blockquote style="font-family: arial;">Had he not maintained this Roman Catholic false doctrine, Calvin would have had to resubmit to rebaptism, which was repugnant to him. He derided the Anabaptists for opposing infant baptism. Their valid, biblical reason -- that an infant has not believed in Christ -- was scorned by Calvin, and his wrath and that of the other Reformers came upon the Anabaptists. These true evangelicals were persecuted and martyred by both Catholics and Protestants for being baptized by immersion after they were saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. (pg. 429)</blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">The section on the 'P'erseverance of the saints was rather short at only about 8 pages, I wish there had been more but perhaps there isn't as much written material about it available. However, from what I've gathered it leads to a sort of 'works' mentality. Salvation by works is of course in contradiction to the truth about grace and free gifts. </span> <blockquote style="font-family: arial;">How does the Calvinist know he is one of the elect who have been predestined? His performance plays a large part in helping him to know whether or not he is among that select group. (pg 481) </blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">On page 482 there is a quote by Piper and his staff having written </span><cite style="font-family: arial;">"[W]e must also own up to the fact that our final salvation is made contingent upon the subsequent obedience which comes from faith." </cite><span style="font-family:arial;"> The theme of 'obedience' (to God) seems to be prevalent in Evangelical circles. In some respects that's not a bad thing -- it can help steer you out of danger or into wonderful blessings -- but it can and has become a tool of tyranny and manipulation in some cases. I think the difference is whether one is being led by the Holy Spirit or the doctrines of men. </span> <p style="font-family: arial;">I know I'll want to read this book again, and will certainly use it for reference in the future. I think it's very much worth reading. </p>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-10152908737445378332010-06-25T15:25:00.000-07:002010-06-25T15:45:10.946-07:00eft-sw site offline on Sunday June 27 for a short period of time.I just wanted to advise that I plan to have the eft-sw website offline for between 30 and 60 minutes on Sunday June 27th, sometime between the hours of 3-7pm in the U.S. Pacific time zone, in order to do some software updates. I should have some more real blog articles in the next couple of weeks.<br /><br />I posted this originally using Drivel blog editor, and discovered it doesn't allow one to add a headline to the message.Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-67683091397624416442010-05-06T15:27:00.000-07:002010-05-06T15:51:34.323-07:00Changing Website theme<span style="font-family: arial;">I finally finished reading the book by Dave Hunt </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">What Love is This?</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> It was very good, and I'll write more about that soon I hope. I am also almost done reading Darin Hufford's book </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-family: arial;">The Misunderstood God</span><span style="font-family: arial;">. That is also a very good book. I got them both for Christmas.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">However, I decided that it was time to update the theme for my Drupal website. I configured Apache webserver for my PC with a couple of test site virtual hosts so I could play with some things without breaking my current set-up. Figuring out how to set up the virtual hosts was a project itself! And last week I discovered that a 'bargain' computer isn't always a bargain a few months down th</span><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDxBu4i0iIHgvIuzfu5hQf5sGU5wTdOjODUKY-0qKA0ndrDt6jNgsoJLphJqlJjP7BxTYqruJq6oaEXCN2GOJ0wFnrnO1CLVzTpT28wiyo3igRZoHviZJ4frHPkcd6PHlnfKVzm4AMdTRE/s1600/eftsw_marinelli.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 367px; height: 236px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDxBu4i0iIHgvIuzfu5hQf5sGU5wTdOjODUKY-0qKA0ndrDt6jNgsoJLphJqlJjP7BxTYqruJq6oaEXCN2GOJ0wFnrnO1CLVzTpT28wiyo3igRZoHviZJ4frHPkcd6PHlnfKVzm4AMdTRE/s320/eftsw_marinelli.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468290021796047202" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family: arial;">e road. I had to replace the hard drive, and re-install software and all of that.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Now I'm finally ready to play with some new themes, and I think I've decided on one in particular. I'll have it on the website by the end of the weekend, hopefully. Or not more than another week... again hopefully. I thought I'd share some screenshots of the top 3 contenders:</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The one just above is called Marinelli. It's nice but it would have too many things I'd have to figure out how to fix.</span><br /><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgagGxC4PSIBLClnINOsESp_n0Bzk9IaWPZBeEUeRFi8sQFBiFZhDgKCoP4bygwLl0wQUC1zLUIZ6rxmZA4GE6IWCjZH7aInPy7iZbvgq5XhOSAB9783_xXu2Lp5y9WoRg6mv0SMOeSmhjo/s1600/eftsw_sky.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgagGxC4PSIBLClnINOsESp_n0Bzk9IaWPZBeEUeRFi8sQFBiFZhDgKCoP4bygwLl0wQUC1zLUIZ6rxmZA4GE6IWCjZH7aInPy7iZbvgq5XhOSAB9783_xXu2Lp5y9WoRg6mv0SMOeSmhjo/s400/eftsw_sky.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468290856636802994" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This one is called Sky. It's a close second, though it would need me to figure out some color options. Next is the one I think I'm going to go with, it's called Waffles; though I'm not completely thrilled with the orange headers in some of the boxes. I'll also replace the header with an image that doesn't have the girl in the picture. Since I still have to fix some things, such as placement of the privacy policy, etc. there's a possibility that I'll go with Sky. It depends on whether what I want to do actually works, or not. If you have an opinion, please share!</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUhgqE_8SsGE6WMfL3JtzDmwp4S9-qOAMjFF0i8cHJkO4CRMQI1fnfMtLiPfPW_RZgkAIKPZhJKWWm9DxtTJDinfN4kcs1EqC9mbNYKgn6jj10E6YI7Ciia8XF0jTX5Ip1RcjAQ9qHm7qJ/s1600/eftsw_waffles.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUhgqE_8SsGE6WMfL3JtzDmwp4S9-qOAMjFF0i8cHJkO4CRMQI1fnfMtLiPfPW_RZgkAIKPZhJKWWm9DxtTJDinfN4kcs1EqC9mbNYKgn6jj10E6YI7Ciia8XF0jTX5Ip1RcjAQ9qHm7qJ/s400/eftsw_waffles.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468292323910421682" border="0" /></a>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-41475054693283590122010-04-24T17:39:00.000-07:002010-04-24T17:52:38.937-07:00Video about Harry Potter<span style="font-family: arial;">I recently heard about this </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.goodfight.org/">ministry</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> and while reading an article, it had a link to a </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://theater.goodfight.org/?vdId=Harry_Potter">video</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> about Harry Potter. I posted an article or 2 about that topic a couple of years ago. It's a short video, mostly information that shows some of the stuff in Harry Potter is very much authentic when it comes to the spiritually dark topic of witchcraft, and not just mostly harmless fiction, as some would maintain. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">More recently, I've been watching the 'Celebrity Apprentice' show on tv on Sunday evenings; except on Easter / Resurrection Sunday when they featured some new attraction based on Harry Potter. I was going to, but didn't, research to see if there were any blog posts about the timing of that show (promoting witchcraft on Easter...)</span>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-22973286146863052202010-03-23T10:10:00.000-07:002010-03-23T10:19:52.921-07:00Testing a new blogging client<span style="font-family:arial;">I'm testing a new blogging client that I just discovered using a package search for 'blog', it's called </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/gscribble"> gscribble. </a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">A few weeks ago someone in Texas called me asking about EFT and our Christian faith. We chatted for a few minutes, and she asked how I learned EFT. (I have to put some of that information on the website, too) Then since my new-ish computer also has a DVD writer, I told her that I'm allowed to make up to 100 copies of the EFT DVD's to give to others, though I'd never made DVD copies before making that offer. I had burned CD's on the computer with no problem. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">After an initial bad start creating a couple unusable DVD's, I did some research online, and discovered cdrtools / </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/cdrecord/">cdrecord</a><span style="font-family:arial;">; which has to be compiled on one's system. Then you have to remove the 'old' cdrecord program and link a file called cdrecord to the newly installed program. That required learning how to create links and which files needed to be removed and linked, etc. which was another research project. So after all of that, I did manage to get about 4 or 5 of the 7 DVD's for The EFT Course (the 'basic course' as it were) to burn successfully and then semi-successfully for the remaining ones. It will be a while before I make that offer again, and then only after I've tested that things are working right, first! </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">After that my website had several modules and a Drupal security update to install, and I always do that on my home computer first before I do it on the 'live' web site. While I was at it, I decided to change the theme color to one called 'deep blue', in time for spring-time and Easter. After Easter I'll possibly switch to another theme, but that won't be for a little while, In the meantime I've just finished fixing some pictures / images to update some of the layout of the site. If anyone finds something that doesn't look right, feel free to send me a message. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Lastly, in addition to the above I've also been listening to a lot of the audio mp3's from Andrew Wommack Ministries, and since January I've been reading a large book by <a href="http://www.thebereancall.org/">Dave Hunt</a> called <em>What Love is This? Calvinism's Misrepresentation of God</em> (3rd Edition) I'll blog about that when I'm done reading it. It's very good. </span>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-52607576926239996032010-02-12T12:01:00.000-08:002010-02-12T12:25:46.488-08:00Gary Craig is retiring<p face="arial">Apparently Gary sent out a message in the 'EFT Insights' e-newsletter and posted a message on his blog around the middle of December that he would be retiring. I don't always read those newsletters, I'd been receiving them since 2001 or so. Also during that time I was moving my web site to a new hosting company; so I saw the updated note about his retirement around the end of December. </p><span style="font-family:arial;">The original retirement date was to be early January 2010; but it's been changed to March 1st 2010. I was really surprised, since a few months before that he'd been talking about a lot of plans he had in response to the updated 'open hands policy'. I'm quoting the message below but not linking to it, since it's likely the link won't be active after March 1st. As a result of this news, I'm going to be adding the 'EFT-ADV' credential back after my name both here on the blog and on my website. I'll also be removing the links to the 'World Center for EFT' -- though I'll add them back or add another link if things change again or if there's a site with article archives, etc. </span><br /><p style="font-family: arial;">I am looking forward to the film about (EFT and Veterans / PTSD), what I read about what happened in the book EFT for PTSD was very exciting. See Gary's blog post text below. </p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2DTysSGhaaXLzq7m7F-kVs4Go5Xr8hEshQdpAsMiosvVrpjZ5gpzRpxulsxozFY13Cpe55Q0kvdp_p-tuV6msSIiOui7tmlpoBly3pwEQMbNyRFpmRuwOi_j9xgFBU0Siyc55eoMQVuGb/s1600-h/EFTLogo2R.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2DTysSGhaaXLzq7m7F-kVs4Go5Xr8hEshQdpAsMiosvVrpjZ5gpzRpxulsxozFY13Cpe55Q0kvdp_p-tuV6msSIiOui7tmlpoBly3pwEQMbNyRFpmRuwOi_j9xgFBU0Siyc55eoMQVuGb/s320/EFTLogo2R.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5437453187604644050" border="0" /></a><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;">I will be retiring on January 15, 2010. It has been a magnificent ride and I am thrilled to have joined with you in bringing the EFT gift to the world. I will keep the EFT website, DVD store, Certification and related items active until my retirement date. This should give you plenty of time to make any adjustments you deem necessary.</span><blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Please know that our website cannot be maintained by or turned over to someone else. This is because it has my name all over it and thus turning it over, legally speaking, may create unwanted liability for me and my family. Although I am leaving the website open for awhile, it remains subject to copyright protection and is not to be copied and reproduced elsewhere.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Further developments will be announced as they occur. In the meantime, I'm hoping you will refrain from contacting me directly on this matter. Our email list has 475,000 subscribers and, as much as I would like to correspond with each of you individually, I can't personally visit with even 0.1% of you. However, feel free to comment at the end of this blog. Even though I may not respond to you directly, I will read everything you write. Your input, as always, is highly valued.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Although I have a strong emotional tug about this decision, it was an obvious thing to do. For many reasons it was inevitable and has been a long time coming.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Why?…The Challenges: EFT’s rapid growth has become an administrative nightmare and my ability to handle it was exceeded some time ago. This is so, despite the high quality help I have received from Tina Craig, Eric Huurre, Dawson Church, CJ Puotinen, Chris Wheeler, Carol Vrtis, Rob Lasch, David Mackay and more volunteers than I can count. My gratitude to you all.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> While it is my nature to try to accommodate all the requests and demands from the EFT Community, the pile of pressures has grown from a manageable hill to an imposing mountain. Just the day to day questions, clarifications, requests and legal issues from the U.S. alone is enough to occupy a staff double our current size. This is multiplied by the many requests for “special exceptions” to our Open Hand Policy to deal with a dizzying array of laws, cultures and languages from different countries.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Also, as should be apparent to most of our seasoned readers, some EFT'ers have been hyping their products in ways that tend to erode the spiritual essence of the EFT movement. This has resulted in some behind-the-scenes disagreements, deceit and other negative experiences. At the core, I prefer peace to pugilism and wish to distance myself from these unnecessary "fame and fortune" energies. As you will see below, I'm leaving for higher ground.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Finally, my physicians tell me that I have had a heart attack. I am unaware of when this happened and have no symptoms. Nonetheless, the tests show clearly that part of my heart has died. Accordingly, it is sheer idiocy for me to continue with the pressures of running EFT. To do so, is to risk another heart attack, stroke, etc. No thanks.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Solution: So, the solution is for me to get out of the way and turn the EFT name over to you. I have spent 30,000 hours and over $2,000,000 developing our educational stream and thus the message has been clearly displayed for the world to see. In addition, our EFT Manual has been freely downloaded well over 1 million times (not counting the 20+ translations).<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">With this in mind, I am contributing ONLY the trademarked names (EFT and Emotional Freedom Techniques) to the public domain so that you can decide for yourselves how best to use them. Different countries and cultures can establish their own organizations and rules without having to go through me. However, this does NOT include our DVDs, website, the EFT Manual, books and other materials. They remain my copyrighted property and are NOT being released to the public domain.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I am fully aware that some will carry the EFT name forward with integrity ... and some will not. That is part of human nature. It is up to you to choose your own ethics. I can no longer be a policeman in this regard.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If you are a serious student and want to learn EFT properly from the source, our DVDs are still available until our existing inventory is exhausted. I don't know if they will be available after my retirement. I'm working on it, but no guarantees.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Please know that my position here has always been voluntary. While there has been some modest profit over time, no one would have taken on this task for the money. My goal from the start has been to launch EFT into TherapyLand and thus bring its healing benefits to the world in a low cost, easy to understand manner. With your help, that mission has been accomplished. Millions of clients have been exposed to EFT and thousands of careers have been launched. Please accept my gratitude for your superb assistance. You can carry it forward from here.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Other issues: If you have an EFT affiliate account, any outstanding balance as of my retirement date will be paid shortly thereafter.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Those who have official EFT Certification through our Certification process will have the only official EFT Certifications ever offered. These may be quite valuable as you list yourselves on the various listing services out there. However, if you feel inconvenienced by my retirement and want your Certification fee refunded, please send your original Certificate (not a copy), postmarked on or before December 23, 2009, with a note stating you are abandoning your EFT Certification, to:<br /><p style="font-family: arial;">EFT<br />PO Box 269<br />Coulterville, CA 95311<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If you wish to obtain official EFT Certification or continue on to EFTCert II, you must satisfactorily pass your exam prior to my retirement date.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">A Parting Gift: Our full length movie featuring EFT as the answer to our war veterans’ PTSD is in its final stages. The total budget for this movie approximates $500,000 and it will be a stunning door opener for the whole EFT field. It will create a major awareness for the public regarding EFT and all EFT’ers will benefit by it. I have given it to my dedicated film director, Eric Huurre. He will introduce it to the public early next year.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Future – Where to From Here? EFT has two important features: (1) What it does and (2) Where it points. The vast majority of EFT’ers are fascinated by what it does and are forever delivering ooohhs and aaahhs as EFT does its magic. This is fine. However, this is nowhere near as important as where it points.<br /><span style="font-family:arial;">EFT is but the doorstep to a far grander Palace of Possibilities. It is way outside our normal experience and its results cannot be properly explained by medicine or conventional science. As remarkable as it now seems, EFT is actually a toy that will someday be tossed away as a mere introduction to the exquisite beauty that is our birthright. It points to a future mental state where disease, war and resentments do not exist. This level cannot be reached, however, by...<br /><p style="font-family: arial;"> * more tapping points or,<br />* the "latest and greatest" options for delivering EFT or,<br />* any of the other varied offerings that have found their way onto the EFT scene. </p><br /><p style="font-family: arial;">Instead, it will require a new approach, a new way of thinking that may or may not be directly related to EFT. I will be exploring the upper reaches of this Healing High Rise and have my sights on the Penthouse. Perhaps we will meet there someday. </p><br /><p style="font-family: arial;">Big Hugs, Gary</p><br /><p style="font-family: arial;">PS: I am contemplating a new website and newsletter along the lines of my last paragraph. Just stay on this list and I will keep you informed.</p><br /></span></span></span></span></p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></blockquote></blockquote>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-40478278470610572572009-12-23T18:47:00.000-08:002009-12-23T19:31:44.619-08:00Merry Christmas and website has a new home<span style="font-family: arial;">I'll start out wishing you all a wonderful Christmas.</span><br /><br /><blockquote style="font-family: arial;">ESV: Luke Chapter 722. <span style="font-style: italic;">And he answered them, Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.</span><br /> <span style="font-style: italic;">23. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.</span><br /><br />ESV: John 20:29. <span style="font-style: italic;">Jesus said to him, Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. </span><br /></blockquote><span style="font-family: arial;">And it appears that the </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.eft-sw.com/">EFT for SW</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> website domain transfer to it's new </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.uninetsolutions.com/">home</a><span style="font-family: arial;"> was accomplished this afternoon, and thankfully I think I got everything updated and configured just in time. When I was configuring things I discovered that pictures weren't showing up and I literally spent hours last night trying to figure it out. It turns out it was a simple setting in the cpanel web admin page.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">I also updated the Drupal software to the latest version (6.15) that was just released last week, and changed the color of the theme from forest green to teal. I thought the forest green was just a bit too dark. If you discover anything that doesn't look right or doesn't work, feel free to leave a comment here or send an email, or leave a comment on the website forum.</span>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-30839029982448738542009-12-12T13:31:00.000-08:002009-12-19T17:23:19.823-08:00Apartment for rent?I had my website set up to email me when there was a new comment to an article. I received an email a couple of days ago and put off looking at it until today; and when I got to my website I see it has a page for 'Apartment for rent at eft-sw.com'. Obviously that's not my website. I tried to pull up the page for my hosting provider (witnesstoday.org) and it just said 'connecting to...' but it never pulled up the page.<br /><br />The last communication I had from the person that ran (or runs?) witnesstoday was back in May, he was moving the servers to a new location. I haven't heard anything that he was shutting down the service or anything, but possibly that's what happened. I also believe the Lord told me a few weeks ago to get a new hosting provider, but I haven't done that.<br /><br />So the EFT for Spiritual Warfare website is currently unavailable, and I'll be finding a new host and I'll post updates here. I think I need to start tapping and praying!<br /><br />Update Dec. 15, 2009<br /><br /><p>It appears that my <a href="http://eft-sw.com/">website</a> is back up, there was a hard drive failure after a software update, apparently. I'm still a little baffled why my site came up apartment for rent, but it's back up now. I'm still in the process of changing to a new hosting company; which I found out about on a mail list for Christians using linux. There's a good possibility the site will have a new domain -- I'll keep you posted here.</p><p>Update Dec. 19, 2009</p><p>I could start a new post, and just title it 'arggh!' because that's my mood sometimes when trying to update stuff for the website. I get one thing figured out on my local machine (like Apache and modsecurity that complained about running update.php on Drupal when I used it to update to the newest versions of various things, including Drupal itself). So it feels like two steps forward and 1 step back sometimes. The newest thing is that somehow, in getting footnotes in the right place using the footnote module, the rest of the article seems to have lost it's formatting. My blockquotes and paragraphs look like they should be there but the articles all just run together in one big block of text when I look at them. </p><p>All of that to lead up to -- my website is going to a new hosting company but it's going to have the same domain. The site should look mostly o.k.; but there may be a few things I still need to get figured out -- like not having sentences all run together in one big block with no formatting applied. And I thought I was going to work on sending out some Christmas cards today. </p><p><br /></p>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-31138483963509445892009-11-21T19:58:00.001-08:002009-11-21T19:58:12.148-08:00The Misunderstood God<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p>I've been spending a good amount of time the last few months learning linux (see previous blog posts), and most recently installed <a href='http://fedoraproject.org/'>Fedora 12</a> from the beta, and except for a few things that don't work quite right, I like it a lot. I even managed to get it installed on my old laptop that I thought was going to run Fedora 7 until it dies a natural death. In addition to that, I've been trying out different software to see what works and I'm using '<a href='http://bilbo.gnufolks.org/'>Bilbo Blogger</a>' to write this. For the linux fans out there, apparently Bilbo is a KDE application but I'm using it on the Gnome desktop just fine so far. And in going to the link, I discover it's now called Blogilo. I'd tried it on Fedora 7 and it didn't work very well. But this is a newer version that has a much better look & feel already -- I really don't like using the blogspot editor much. Hopefully this means I'll be back to blogging more regularly. I do have at least 2 other articles I want to write and get posted soon. </p><p>I stopped by Facebook earlier today and saw info. about a page for a new book by <a href='http://freebelievers.com/'>Darin Hufford</a> (I've blogged a couple of his articles on here before) called <em>The Misunderstood God</em>. I haven't read it yet, but I read a couple of reviews and wanted to link them here, and add a couple of comments. </p><p>This is one <a href='http://whychurchessuck.blogspot.com/2009/11/book-review-misunderstood-god-by-darrin.html'>review</a> by a former pastor, it's worth reading the whole thing. Here's one portion that matches some of what many of us, including me, were brought up to believe about God:</p><blockquote><p>...A God with a hair-trigger temper; someone who may be nice, but only so that He can get what He wants; someone who craves attention for Himself, who loves to impress you with his power; someone who loves to remind people how wonderful He is; someone who is disrespectful toward His inferiors; someone who gets upset if He's not given enough attention; someone you need to walk on eggshells around; someone who always reminds you of your mistakes, and uses fear and threats to keep you in line; someone that focuses on your faults and weaknesses; someone who doesn't really care if you heart gets stepped on; someone who doesn't trust you to anything right; someone who is constantly disappointed in you; and someone who, if things get bad enough, will leave you...</p></blockquote><p>When I read that part, my thought was (now that I know a little better) that sounds like a pretty good description of the devil, and not of the God I've come to know. Then on the other much shorter <a href='http://lifestream.org/blog/2009/11/09/the-misunderstood-god-is-out/'>review</a>, the author said just that. </p><blockquote><p>Darin shows how religion has disfigured the God of the Bible, giving him a personality that has more in common with the devil, than it does the Father of all love. He holds God to his own definition of love in I Corinthians 13 to show us that he is the very definition of love itself and as we come to appreciate that, we’ll find greater grace and freedom to live in [t]his life. </p></blockquote><p>Another view of God that some like to present is one who is in control of all things at all times; so if something bad happens it's because he 'allowed' it. I think that can lead one to feeling apathetic or somewhat condemned. I addressed that somewhat in my article (on my website) about whether the devil needs to get God's permission to harm a believer, as in the story of Job. While I'm not an expert (and none of us can be, I don't think?), I think that view is a bit too simplistic. And that's probably worth exploring in another article. In the meantime, I look forward to reading Darin Hufford's book, along with 2 or 3 others I have on my list to get soon.</p><p> </p><p>=-=-=-=-=<br/><i>Powered by <b><a href='http://bilbo.gnufolks.org/'>Bilbo Blogger</a></b></i></p></div>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-46577338938528477852009-10-02T11:25:00.000-07:002009-10-02T11:36:19.460-07:00That's my KingI haven't blogged in a while, though I do have a couple of links to articles I'm going to share shortly. My laptop computer was acting flaky over the summer, so I decided to break down and get a new computer. I got a new desktop (AMD phenom triple-core with 2 gb of ram, it's fast!!); installed linux <a href="http://www.centos.org/"> CentOS 5.3 </a> as well as Fedora 11; about a month ago. I got it with no operating system installed, so that made it easier and a bit less expensive. Last weekend I spent updating the eft-sw website to the newest version of Drupal (6.14) as well as updating a few modules. <br /><br />I just signed onto the International Association of Theophostic Prayer Ministry website, and they had the video below as a featured inspirational video -- I really liked it so I thought I'd share it here. More later. Enjoy!<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.tangle.com/flash/swf/flvplayer.swf" flashvars="viewkey=c92aec75174b95261b71" wmode="transparent" quality="high" width="330" height="270" name="tangle" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-21727032490992995772009-08-22T20:15:00.001-07:002009-08-22T20:15:27.706-07:00A License to Sin · is that what the grace of God is about?A very good <a href="http://freebelievers.com/blog-entry/a-license-to-sin"> message </a> on the Free Believers Network blog, it's a bit long but very good. Here are a couple paragraphs that I particularly liked, but you may resonate with other parts of it. <br /><blockquote> For any relationship to be authentic, it must start with a forever covenant of eternal security. Unfortunately, today, most relationships don’t have this one foundational element and they are plagued with secrecy, uncertainty, and shallowness. I think that more than anything, today’s relationships are saturated with control. I have found that control is humanity's antidote to insecurity. This is where the heart of today’s Christian thinking exists. <p> Teachings about accountability partners, spiritual leaders, submitting to authority and church covering are widely accepted with little or no resistance. When a loving God is made to look unpredictable and not so loving, people submit to someone who they think might know better than them. They lose confidence in themselves and their ability to please an unpleaseable God, so they put themselves under the care and control of others in an effort to find security again. </p><br /><p> It doesn’t surprise me that when the grace message is preached today, the first thing that comes to mind with the average Christian is sin. The grace message is spoken of as a “license to sin” and the mere thought of that scares people to death. It goes againstlicenseeverything they think the Christian life is about. Finding out that God loves you whether you sin or not, is a bit scary because people aren’t sure what they’ll do. </p><br />Part of giving someone freedom, is giving them their choice back. Christianity today has stripped us of our choice to sin. When we are told that sin separates us from God and we will be punished, our choice in the matter is taken away. We have an entire generation of people who quit sinning because of the outer voice of their religion rather than the inner personal voice of their heart. In other words, their quitting didn’t come from their heart; it came from their head. The grace message gives people back their right to sin, and it provides an atmosphere in which they can grow spiritually right and find truth in the center of themselves rather than in a system. A license to sin is not an encouragement to sin, but it’s the right to sin. Take away that right, and you take away relationship altogether. </p><br /><br /><p>"Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything." --Paul-- </p><br /><br /><p>Without a license to sin, I don’t believe people will ever know their own heart, much less the Heart of God. The problem is that in the process of molding themselves to fit religion'sknow self requirements, a person learns to deny any and all inner emotions of the heart that might cause them to sin. Things like anger, passion, lust and greed are shut down and the result is that they lose contact with self and eventually forget who they are altogether. Sadly, Christians today stand adamantly against sin, but they have no idea why. They don’t feel a thing in their hearts about sin, other than the memorized knowledge that “it’s wrong.” They believe it’s wrong, not because their heart sings that truth, but because that’s what they’ve been taught. When you shut down some aspects of the heart, you end up shutting down ALL aspects of the heart.</p></blockquote>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-87764362820245342262009-08-14T12:42:00.000-07:002009-08-14T14:47:10.310-07:00The EFT and SW website has a new look!<span style="font-family: arial;">I guess it's been a while since I've posted anything here, hasn't it? Time flies when you're trying to figure out new software! During my switch from Win to Linux, and searching various message boards for answers, I discovered there is software that is also 'open source' like Linux for the purpose of website content management, called CMS. (CMS = content management software).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Since my previous web pages were mostly plain html pages, I didn't think they looked terribly professional. But I don't have the budget to pay a web-designer so I've tried to dress things up as well as I can as I learn how to do various things in html. Then when I discovered CMS, and did a little research and decided to try </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://drupal.org/">Drupal</a><span style="font-family: arial;">. I realized I should probably figure out how to use it and configure layouts and that sort of thing on my home computer before I sent it to the web hosting server. I spent 2-3 weeks just learning a bit of Mysql and installing server software and then installing and configuring Drupal.</span><br /><br /><a style="font-family: arial;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMiZJYDDiVOMfhHGlEXemXU7nYPP03JHNKRb4pEFiva2k4CGAGApkYCOa8itY-0LdYh67iqhNpGyVmo_E9rvTu56OovsBArwGhTCETv4x1GkGNKXZhmoO5haohVGxZoKdugdoM_QFYXFjh/s1600-h/eftsw_screenshotaug09.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMiZJYDDiVOMfhHGlEXemXU7nYPP03JHNKRb4pEFiva2k4CGAGApkYCOa8itY-0LdYh67iqhNpGyVmo_E9rvTu56OovsBArwGhTCETv4x1GkGNKXZhmoO5haohVGxZoKdugdoM_QFYXFjh/s320/eftsw_screenshotaug09.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369938590061409026" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Then when I did upload it all to the web hosting server a week ago, things didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd hoped; mostly because Drupal is written primarily to run on Linux (Apache) server software and my web hosting is using Windows server software. I couldn't get the theme and colors I wanted to show up; and my pictures weren't showing either. Thanks to information I found on the drupal forums, I think it's finally presentable -- though there are probably a few more tweaks and changes I'll make in the future.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">In addition to the cleaner and more professional look and layout, it has a built-in ability to have people leave comments on articles, so I don't have to use the Google 'friend connect' gadget. One thing I didn't like about that gadget is that unlike the comments on the blog; it doesn't give me an option to have an email notice sent about new comments so I had to remember to log onto the friend connect page to see if any comments have been left and I keep forgetting to go over there. Another feature about drupal that I liked was the built-in option for people to sign in using OpenID. Yet another feature is a built-in user discussion forum, which is nice to have even if it doesn't get used by most visitors.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So please stop by and say hi, and feel free to leave a comment or suggestion over there or on here</span>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-484354760057752271.post-12773624530131527212009-07-11T20:26:00.000-07:002009-11-11T19:19:15.927-08:00Elijah and the Charismatics - FBN blog post<br /><p>I just added some RSS blog feeds to <a href="http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/">Thunderbird</a>, (e-mail program) so I'm reading some of the messages that came in on the feed. This <a href="http://freebelievers.com/blog-entry/elijah-and-the-charismatics-1-2">one</a> from the <a href="http://freebelievers.com/">Free Believers Network</a> blog touched on some of what this blog and my ministry is all about. It's a year old, but very good, by Darin Hufford. A few paragraphs are below: </p><p><br /><blockquote> Baal worship was about emotionalism.</p><p><br />The evidence is in the emotionalism. They are certain that God showed up because they got emotional and others did, as well. People were crying and sobbing with their hands in the air. After all, this is the normal human response to the Spirit of God. When God's Spirit begins to move, everyone in the room begins to break down and cry. I must have heard my Pastor over a thousand times speak the words, "The Spirit of God is in this room tonight - people are literally crying and sobbing." This has become a common understanding among Christians in America. When the Spirit moves, people get emotional. As a preacher, you can see the moment the Spirit enters the service because tears begin to stream down people's faces.</p><p><br />The irony is that I haven't found one account in all of Scripture where this was the human reaction to the presence of God. I don't recall anyone sobbing and crying the moment the Holy Spirit touched them in the New Testament, yet today we act as if the sobbing and crying is evidence of His presence. No one laughed uncontrollably either for that matter and believe it or not, in the almost 8000 year span of scripture from Adam and Eve to the Apostle Paul there wasn't one single person who "twitched" under the power of the Holy Spirit. No one was "Slain in the Spirit," no one's hands shook violently and thank God no one barked like a dog. I have come to the conclusion that modern day Charismatic emotionalism is nothing more than the resurrection of the Baal religion of the Old Testament times. I know for a fact that not every Charismatic behaves this way or believes like this. I know I don't. There are thousands of others however, who are in serious bondage to outright Baal worship and they don't even know it.</p><p><br />Many Christians today are caught in a ‘Prophets-of-Baal' mindset. I'm not saying that it's wrong to become emotional while in the presence of God. I am stating, however, that it's wrong to think that just because you get emotional, it is evidence of the presence of God, or that getting yourself worked up into an emotional frenzy is the same as creating an atmosphere where God will "show up." I have five children and trust me in this. When they get emotional, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING WITH THEM. In fact, that's about the only time when communication with them is impossible.</p><p><br />It's the straight-faced times that I long to share with them. That's exactly how your Father in heaven is with you. If you feel that God's dealings with you will always result in emotionalism you are basically missing out on an entire life with him. Unless you are suffering with chronic depression and feeling emotional ALL the time you won't have a daily walk with your Father. God cannot be conjured up. The act of trying to conjure Him up is Baal worship. New Testament Christians need to understand that He doesn't "show up" to our services. He lives inside of us always whether we feel Him or not. That's what faith is. </blockquote><em> 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law. (Gal 5:22-23 ESV) </em></p><p><br /> </p><p><br /></p>Cia Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16909915416819607517noreply@blogger.com0