Tower of the Lord

I have made the switch!

I have been using the blogging program that is built into my web-building program, but as great as it is for making websites it is no good at blogs. So I have made the switch to WordPress. Most everyone I have heard says it is great and from what I have seen (during setup and finding some plugins and themes) it is everything I have heard and maybe some more.

What this means to you. Less problems with feeds, different layout, new deisgn, and hopefully more blogging soon.

Stay tuned for a post that I am writing for the Peculiar News, it should be on the blog early next week.

The Modesty Survey Is Launched

Take It (GUYS) / See It (GIRLS)

Note: This Post is borrowed from TheRebelution.com

Announcement: Join The Modesty Survey

“How tight is too tight for tops? Are jeans with holes in the thighs immodest? Is a purse worn with the strap diagonally across the chest a stumbling block? Are shirts with messages across the front distracting?”

Join other Christian young men and women in TheRebelution.com’s new and exciting project: The Modesty Survey. The Modesty Survey allows any girl to submit anonymous, modesty-related questions to Christian guys and to receive (multiple) anonymous replies. It’s the discussion you’ve always wanted to have.

GIRLS: How To Submit Your Questions

If you are a girl and would like to submit your question(s) for inclusion in the survey, please email them to our Female Survey Coordinator, Katrina Rowe: jesusfreakatrina[at]yahoo[dot]com. They must be received by Friday, December 15th, to be considered for inclusion in the survey.
You really may submit any question provided that it relates to the topic of modesty. Through the the forum we have already received over one hundred questions ranging from glitter lotion and painted nails to swimsuits and skirt slits.
While not necessary, we also recommend that you register on the forum and join The Attic, our Girls Only area. This will allow you to be directly involved in any discussions which take place in the process of conducting the survey.

GUYS: How To Get Involved

If you are guy and would like to help respond to the girl’s questions please begin by signing up for the the forum and joining our Guys Only area: The Garage. The Garage will serve as “brainstorm central” for the male side of The Modesty Survey.
This is an opportunity for you to serve your sisters in Christ. Many girls are without fathers or brothers to advise them in this area. They need input from godly men regarding what is appropriate and what is not. It is not unlikely that this survey will go on to be widely read and carefully referenced.
On the other hand, as Christian young men in a highly sexualized society, this is an opportunity for us to educate Christian women regarding our inner-battle so that they won’t unwittingly contribute to our struggle. If you have ever wanted to tell a girl to go put on a sweater, this is your chance to do so — anonymously.

Help Make It Happen

(1) Please help us spread the word about The Modesty Survey. Feel free to tweak this post and republish it on your own blog or send it as an email to any friends who you think would be interested in participating. Also, you can place a snazzy sidebar ad on your website or blog.
(2) Volunteer your tech skills! If you have experience setting up online survey/polling software we would appreciate your experience as we develop an efficient and uniform system for answering the submitted questions.

Note: This article is borrowed from TheRebelution.com.

In light of this being the Christmas season I would like to discuss the first prophecy regarding the coming of the Messiah. In Genesis 3:15 God says “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” as you have probably guessed Christ’s birth is the beginning of the fulfillment of this prophecy. However I would like to discuss how this prophecy relates to us first as humans, and second and more importantly as Christians.

For the purpose of this blog we are only going to look at the second part of this verse. We are also going to look at the last part first.

”and you [satan, the serpent] will strike His heel”

You have probably all heard the term “Achilles heel” this phrase comes from the mythical hero Achilles who, as the story goes, was slain by a spear to the right (left?) heel. This was Achilles’ greatest weakness, his only weakness. In the same way satan [the serpent] seeks to strike us in our “Achilles heel” and so bring about our destruction.

Satan knows our weaknesses and his goal is to exploit them. As it says in John 10:10 “The thief [satan, the serpent] comes only to steal and kill and destroy” if this is his only goal then you can be sure that he is good at it, and knows how to make the most out of each and every weakness we exhibit. He bears great enmity against us because of the words of God in Genesis 3:15 and the things it prophecies are coming. Have no doubt in your mind satan does not want to lose, he will stop at nothing to win this battle between him and God.

”he will crush your head”

By now you are probably thinking “why is he telling me this? Is he trying to crush my hopes of victory?” Well I am not trying to discourage you but rather to encourage you by telling you that you have already won! Before He ever says “you [satan] will strike his [our, Christ’s] heel”, God says that “he [we, Christ] will crush your [satan’s] head”. See? We have already been told that we will win, God said that we would have the victory over the serpent [satan]. You see Christ said “I have come that they [we] may have life, and have it to the full.” this is the rest of the verse about the thief found in John 10:10. Christ came that we may have life and that to the full, you cannot have life unless you are victorious. The vanquished do not have the fullness of life rather they are either dead or captive, this is what satan is trying to do to us, but he has already lost. When Christ was nailed to the cross for our sins satan thought he had won, but we know that though it seemed like we had lost we were really victorious. Through Christ’s death and resurrection we are given victory over sin and death and with victory, eternal life.

Remember…

”Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

Don’t be that someone!

This evening I went outside and saw this.
.
Just goes to show that God is the creator of True Beauty. Not only was the sky colored, the light was colored too! It made our van look pink (we have a white van)

Have a Blessed week and remember the beauty of God’s creation.
Joshua

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Have a wonderful day as you give thanks to God for His many blessings and spend time with family and friends.

“Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise Give thanks to Him, bless His name.” Psalms 100:4 (NASB)

If you have read my Blog please leave a comment and tell me what you think. I know that the HaloScan comments are not very pretty but they are all i can do for the moment. I would greatly appreciate your support and thoughts on my blog.
Thanks!
Joshua

By Joshua Russell

Take My Life and Let It Be A song by Frances R. Havergal.

Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee; Take my hands and let them move At the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be Swift and beautiful for Thee; Take my voice and let me sing, Always, only for my King.
Take my lips and let them be Filled with messages from Thee; Take my silver and my gold, Not a mite would I withhold.
Take my moments and my days, Let them flow in endless praise; Take my intellect and use Every pow’r as Thou shalt choose.
Take my will and make it Thine,
It shall be no longer mine; Take my heart, it is Thine own, It shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour At Thy feet its treasure store; Take myself and I will be Ever, only, all for Thee.

Consecrate the Church
This is a song of surrender and submission to say “Take my life and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to Thee” means take my life Lord, purify and use me. To offer your self up as a sacrifice is the meaning of Consecration (Consecrate - to dedicate something or somebody to a specific purpose [Encarta World English Dictionary].)

Joshua 7:13 says “Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the LORD, the God of Israel, has said, “There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst.”

Today’s Church must rise up and Consecrate it’s self unto the Lord. We must remove all sins from our midst not because it is required for salvation, but for three other reasons, which I would like to discuss in more detail, these are 1.) As an act of Gratitude, 2.) To enable us to stand before our enemies, and 3.) To prepare for tomorrow.

Reason 1.) As an act of Gratitude
If you have truly accepted Christ into your heart how can you help but be Grateful for all that He has done for you? He gave his life so that you might live what more can you do than to offer up your life as a living sacrifice and consecrate yourself unto the Lord? If you are Grateful for your salvation and the grace given to you then should you continue sinning? If you are already forgiven of all your sins (past, present, and future) should you worry about continuing to sin? These are question that every Christian must ask himself / herself at some point in their life. I believe that the Apostle Paul stated it very clearly when he said

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? [2] May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? (Romans 6:1-2)

So what shall we say then? Will we say that since Christ has given us grace will we “live life to the fullest” or will we say, “Father not my will but Yours”. What will you say?

Ephesians 5:26-27 “So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, [27] that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

Christ has cleansed us of all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9) by the washing of the water with the word, so that He might present to Himself the Church in all her glory. Who doesn’t want a perfect and spotless bride? A bride that is holy and blameless. For this reason we must sanctify ourselves though the Word of God, that we might become the holy and blameless bride of Christ. Ask any bride-to-be on the night before her wedding and she will say that she wants everything to perfect for her wedding. She will want her dress to be perfect and beautiful, and she will want herself to be perfect and beautiful. So I ask again, What more can we do than to offer ourselves a living sacrifice and consecrate ourselves unto the Lord?

Reason 2.) To enable us to stand before our enemies
Imagine: it is 1314 A.D. and you are in the army of Robert the Bruce, you are fighting for the rightful King of you country, however you do not have on any armor and you are carrying several burdens. You might wonder how you are able to stand and fight while carrying these burdens, and you are right to wonder because you can’t. A knight can’t go into battle loaded with stuff and without his armor. Neither can a Christian go into battle and fight the evil one while loaded down with sins and without his spiritual armor.

This is the second reason why the Church must be re-consecrated unto the Lord. If we as a body are going into battle carrying our sins and leaving our armor how can we expect to stand strong against the wiles of the devil? We are instructed in Romans 6 to put on the full armor of God.

Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. (Romans 6:11)

We are not called to put on only the parts of the armor that we chose, rather we are called to “Put on the full armor of God”. When arming for battle a knight would not put on his armor on-top of his court attire (worldly baggage), rather he would remove all of the things that would get in the way and hamper the efficiency of his armor. Likewise we as Christians must put aside the things of this world that way us down and keep us from going in to the entire world to spread the gospel (Mark 15:16). So today’s Church must set aside the things of this world, take up the armor of God, and consecrate itself unto the Lord

1 Peter 3:14- 15 “But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness you are blessed AND DO NOT FEAR THEIR INTIMIDATION, AND DO NOT BE TROUBLED, [15] but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence”

When you stand before an enemy you must do so with courage and with power. Imagine: the smallest weakest guy in school standing up for what is right against the biggest strongest guy in school. Would the big guy think that the little guy was very dangerous? Of course not he would laugh in his face and ridicule him in front of the entire school. Now imagine that the little guy is ready to make a defense against everyone who asks him to give an account. Imagine he knew karate and so could beat the big guy. Now consider your average Christian, they don’t know what they believe, they are apathetic about what their faith. They are sort of like the wimpy guy that doesn’t know karate, they don’t have a chance whenever someone challenges what they believe. They are not “ready to make a defense to everyone who asks them give an account for the hope that is in them [paraphrased]”, today’s Church must learn what they believe and be able to give an account of it to whoever asks.

Reason 3.) To prepare for Tomorrow
The meaning of sanctification is.

SANCTIFICATION - The act of consecrating or of setting apart for a sacred purpose; consecration.” [Noah Webster 1828]

So in order to become consecrated we must go through the process of sanctification and set ourselves apart for a sacred purpose. In part 1 I discussed that how consecration (sanctification) should be done as an act of gratitude, in part 2 I talked about how we must be consecrated (sanctified) in order to stand before the enemy, remember how I talked about the knight without armor and loaded with stuff and how he can’t do battle? Now in part 3 I would like to talk about the reason for sanctification, which is the process of consecration.

As an example of sanctification consider the refining of gold. The gold starts off as a lump of ugly useless rock, and the refiner takes it and puts it into the fire (trials and hard times). While in the fire the sludge and grime (our baggage and stuff) are separated from the gold, it is then put in to the fire again and more sludge is removed this process is repeated several times (we go through hard times throughout our lives) to ensure that all the sludge is removed. Next the partially refined gold is refined in water (Eph. 5:26) and it is then 99.99% pure (our lives will never be completely pure until we are with Christ in eternity)
A Gold Refining Process Chart can be found at:
http://www.nma.org/technology/refprocess.asp

So you see how the process of sanctification takes a lifetime and even then is not complete no matter if you live to be 200 years old you will still not be completely sanctified. For as long as we are still in our physical, carnal bodies we will not be completely sanctified, however we must continue to “read the Bible, Pray every day so we can grow, grow, grow” we must continue to strive for purity and holiness because that is what it takes to be a living sacrifice. We, the body of Christ, his Church must prepare ourselves for tomorrow. For we are the bride and tomorrow is our wedding day, we must cleanse and prepare ourselves for our Savior and Lord.

If we want to be ready we must consecrate ourselves unto the Lord and dedicate ourselves as living sacrifices. So the question I ask you is this, Are you ready for the Lord to do wonders?

Joshua 3:5 “Then Joshua said to the people, ” Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.””

Hot and Cool, Good and Bad
By Joshua Russell

When you look at this car one of two things most likely run through your head. 1.) That is one HOT ride, or 2.) That is a really COOL set of wheels. In both cases you are referring to the fact that this is a really nice car however you doing so by using two opposite terms to describe the same thing. In this Blog I would like to look at the logic behind this concept that hot and cool can mean the same thing and that opposites are alike.

Now since Cool means “Moderately cold; between warm and cold; lacking in warmth; producing or promoting coolness.” according to the 1913 Webster Dictionary we will use cold in its place seeing as they mean almost exactaly the same thing. And since Hot means “Having much sensible heat; exciting the feeling of warmth in a great degree; very warm; — opposed to cold, and exceeding warm in degree; as, a hot stove; hot water or air.” we will use the terms Hot and Cold

The idea that hot and cold can mean the same thing comes from the idea that Tolerance means “Accepting all religions [ideas] as equally true, and allowing others to worship [think] as they please because you have no right to criticize another’s truth.” now I would like to stop and consider where this line of reasoning takes us. For example: (I only have my permit so far so imagine…) I am driving in a parking lot and I hit another car whose owner is walking out of the store, for obvious reasons the owner is angry and begins to fume. Now there are two ways of looking at this situation, 1.) I hit the car and committed a wrong, that is the Real Truth, or 2.) I didn’t hit the other car because that is not my truth so there for the other person is wrong and intolerant, this is the Imaginary truth. Do you see where this line of reasoning can lead? If the Truth is relative to what every individual believes then how can there be such things as: Sin, Consequences, and Judgment? Because if Truth is relative then judgment, and punishment are intolerant. If these things are true then Hot means Cold, and Good means Bad. If we start believing this idea of relative truth to be true then how is society to survive? If the world accepts this idea then who is to say that something is wrong? If we want to keep this from happening then we must take a stand.

Take a stand with me for Right and Wrong, Good and Bad, Hot and Cold.
Joshua 24:15 “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” verse 16 “Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods!” ”

Hello Everyone;
This is just to let you know that I will be posting update information in my blog, so that you will know what is happening and what is changing. Keep coming back for the latest information, or better yet sign up for the RSS Feed or the FeedBurner e-mails and be in the know!

The latest update included the Comments function, the RSS Feed, the FeedBurner e-mail Feed, pictures in the Peculiar Party area, About Blog4Him information and some grammatical errors-corrections.