Song Lyrics

Isn't life often better with music?

Whether we need more motivation to get moving at the gym or on a run, or some relaxing mood to de-stress after work, or a song we can relate to after a break up, music can really help with this. Really getting stuck into the song lyrics can often relate to what ever we are going through at the time, and help us feel better.

So what ever mood you are in, find some appropriate songs to fit, and really get stuck into the lyrics, and you could find you mood going from just ok, to awesome!

The Dragon of Christmas!

It’s Christmas, a time of family celebrations.

Do we know what we are really celebrating?

Well I want to share with you an unexpected, yet meaningful and extremely interesting church service I had this Sunday at South Valley Community Church, Gilroy, in preparation for the Christmas break.

This is not an attempt to stifle the Christmas spirit, only to give you a real perspective of the world, and why things happen, and just the awareness of what’s around us, and a reminder of how AWESOME God is……

The Dragon of Christmas – Revelation 12:1-17

Every year we enjoy the telling of the Christmas story from the perspective of one of its many participants; Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men and the Shepherds each tell a story about the nativity that is stirring and beautiful. But what if we could look at the birth of Jesus from the perspective of heaven? Would we still emphasize the same things about Christmas if we could see the birth of Christ through heaven’s eyes? Well, fortunately we don’t have to guess because the bible itself presents us with a picture of Christ’s birth from a celestial, cosmic point of view. You won’t find this portrayal on any Christmas cards or Nativity scenes. It isn’t recorded in the New Testament Gospels of Mathew or Luke. It’s not even found in the more overtly theological retelling of the story in the book of John. No, this description is found, of all places, in the book of Revelations, the last book of the Bible. Today, we’re going to look at Christmas through heaven’s eyes, and we’re going to find four important insights about Christmas that are always overlooked in our celebration of the most important event in history, Christmas.

1. The First Christmas: A Heavenly Flashback

A. The cast (V. 1-5 NIV):

The woman: (The nation of) Israel.

The dragon: Satan.

… an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his head. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.  The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born. V 3-4

The male child: Jesus.

“She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter …her child was snatched up to God and his throne.” V. 5

B. Act one War in Heaven (V. 7-9)

The birth of the Son initiates war.

“Then there was war in heaven…” V.7a TLB

A great battle is fought.

“Michael and his angels fought against this dragon. This animal and his angels fought back. But the dragon was not strong enough to win. There was no more room in heaven for them.” V. 7b-8 NLV

The dragon is defeated.

“The great dragon was hurled down-that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. V. 9 NIV

C. Act Two: Heaven Responds (V. 10-12a NIV)

The war is won through the birth of the Christ-child.

“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ.” V. 10

Heaven rejoices as Satan is thrown down, defeated.

“For the accuser of our brothers… has been hurled down.” V. 11

But… look out below.

“…woe to the earth and the sea… the devil has come down to you…” V. 12b

2. Intermission: We wait… and wonder,

“Why is there evil in the world today?”

A. The dragon’s days are few and he is furious.

“(And he is) filled with rage… he knows that he has only a little time left.” V. 12b TLB

B. Unable to defeat the Child, Israel and then the Church are attacked by the dragon. (V. 13-17)

“…he declared war against the rest of her children – all who keep God’s commandments and confess that they belong to Jesus.” V. 17b TLB

C. What if Christ had been destroyed?

3. Act Three: Heaven’s Nativity Scene

A. Christmas is God’s invasion of a hostile planet.

B. Satan wants to stop God, the invader.

C. From Heaven’s perspective:

The birth of Jesus was a declaration of war.

The birth of Jesus brought the world’s rightful ruler to this earth.

The birth of Jesus signaled God’s invitation to the human race.

Jesus Christ has already overcome the power of evil.

There’s the notes, and now to share a little, from what the Pastor had explained….

Heaven invaded Earth at the birth of Christ.

Satan wanted to kill Jesus at birth. He was threatened by his birth as he knew intuitively that Jesus would be King one day. So in a rage, after Christ’s birth, the dragon (Satan), was so angry, that he came to Earth and killed many, many children.

100 Million people were murdered in the 20^th Century by State related activities.

We actually live in Satan’s world here on Earth, and when bad things happen, people blame God first. Bad things in life happen because we literally live in a war zone, NOT because God doesn’t love us!

More people died after d-day, why, if Jesus came already?

Because the Devil has come down to us and is angry! The Devil is capable of doing destructive things to people, and often God is the one blamed. What a scam!

When Jesus was born, it was a rescue from heaven to save people from the Land of the dragon, (Earth).

A Christian’s job is to rescue the perishing, by sharing what they know about God, so that others too can be saved.

There is more evil in the world such as war, poverty, murder, depression and famine, because of the dragon. This is not heaven here on earth!

Remember it’s the dragon making all these bad things happen not God.

Revelations 12 gives us the answers to all these questions.

Christianity is still the most powerful force for good in the Western world.

Remember: God is the INVADOR of planet earth, NOT the OWNER.

If you are a Christian Satan literally hates you! He comes to steal and destroy and get you to choose a lifestyle of sin. This is sometimes why life seems to get harder when we become Christians. So be aware! ! Peter 5: 8-10 TM

Some bible references:

Revelations 12: 1-17

Genesis 37

Romans 9: 5

John 4: 22

Genesis 3

Isaiah 59: 19

Psalm 2: 6

Acts 1

Colossians 1: 13

Luke 4:18

Acts 26: 17-18

2 Corinthians 4:4

John 14: 30

Luke 4: 6

Galatians 1: 3

1 John 5: 19-20

1 John 3: 8

1 John 3: 16

1 John 4: 4

This was quite heavy, but an Awesome experience for me. Hope you find this interesting too.

Chocolate

It's nearly Christmas, and what better excuse to indulge in one of everyone's favorite thing! Chocolate! What's so awesome about chocolate is that is comes in all sorts of flavors, to suit our individual taste buds or mood, whether it's a rich dark chocolate, or creamy milk chocolate, or truffles, pralines, caramels, chocolate covered fruit, almonds, coffee beans, the list goes on. It's also a great gift to receive for Christmas, just be careful to not give it to any diabetics...
I even found some Tabasco spicy chocolate on one of my days out by Pier 39, in San Fransisco... Pretty awesome!

When Graffiti is Awesome!

I was walking down Mission Road in San Fransisco on my search for a good burrito joint, and was pretty entertained by all the graffiti...
Now i'm not saying that graffiti is necessarily a good thing, but in this case, there was some pretty awesome art work going on!
Anyway, you be the judge, i'm just posting the pictures i took...

Playing dress up!

You might be wondering if i decided to target kids on this blog suddenly, but nope, i don't think you are ever to old to play dress up. That's why we still have Halloween, and you adults can't tell me you don't also enjoy dressing up for that!?
Well i was reminded how fun dress up is when i was asked to help film a couple of my friend, (Connie Madson's), videos for her website www.lipblot.com, and of course i could not resist the offer.

Thank goodness Connie is so creative, coming up with some really great makeup ideas, and outfits, for her makeup tutorial videos.
Well i have added a couple of looks we did for a Kate Middleton look, and a Gotye video look from the song, somebody i used to know. And to transform yourself to something you would not normally look like, is pretty awesome.
So don't wait for an event, or maybe just make it an excuse to make a youtube video, and have an awesome dress up! It's fun!

Finding healthy desserts!

Finding dessert that's yummy, yet kinda, sorta, maybe, possibly, supposed to be be healthy!?
Well i say yes to this Mr bean SOY ice cream.
Not only is it soy, but Mr Bean, only gets the most healthy soy products there are, with no added ingredients that we don't need!
If they use sugar, it's coconut sugar, and even their pancakes are made from soy flour.
This ice cream, along with the pancakes and the taho they serve, are some of my favorite desserts, or between meal snacks :)
So far the only store is in Eastwood, QC in the Philippines, tons of them in Singapore,  and a couple in other parts of Asia too.
Awesome find!

Clouds and the Awesome shapes they make

Your driving too or from work, maybe to the gym after a long day, or to get the groceries, or maybe getting the kids from school, maybe the traffic is bad, or your having one of those days where you manage to it every single stop light possible. Well here's a way to turn boring into awesome.
Have you ever been fascinated by clouds and the shapes they make?
I am perhaps too fascinated, i wouldn't quite call it a fetish, but more like a love of one of the most beautiful things of the world that we get to look at for free, when ever we want!
I have many cloud photo's, so for sure will be posting more about them in the future, to share more with you, but to start with here is what i called the hurricane cloud. Just driving to a meal out at a restaurant, i spotted this slightly weird, but pretty awesome cloud. So boring drives no more, it's amazing what you can see by just looking 'up' at the sky. Pretty Awesome!!