Galations 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law.

-------

Gentleness is described as: compassionate, delicate, sensitive, merciful.

Exhortations to be gentle-

~2 Timothy 2:24-26 And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to every one, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

~Titus 3:1-2 Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for any honest work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all men.

~James 3:17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity.

~Acts 24:4 But‑‑not to be tedious‑‑I beg you, with your accustomed fairness, to listen to a brief statement of our case.

-Why do you think wisdom is 1^st pure, then peaceable, gentle,...(James 3:17)?

-Why might listening to the gospel be “tedious”?

-We are to be gentle toward unbelievers, not to force them into an uncomfortable obligation, not to be rude, or too forward, but with sensitivity of the Spirit, discern the need delicately, tactfully, and explain to them that Christ is the Answer.

~1 Thessalonians 2:6-8 ...nor did we seek glory from men, whether from you or from others, though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.

~2 Corinthians 10:1 I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ‑‑I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold to you when I am away!–

-Why is it important not to be self-seeking or a “glory-hound” in our evangelism?

-Why might Paul have been more timid in the presence of the Corinthians, and bold when away?

~Galations 6:1 Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself so that you also aren't tempted.

~1 Timothy 6:11 But you, man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.

-We are also to be gentle toward other believers, as well; our brothers and sisters in Christ. As such we are called to greater peace. (Hebrews12:14 Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord; Romans 12: 18 If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all.) If an issue arises, talk about it, carefully, and not too hastily. We are permitted to anger, but it should be “known not shown”. ( Eph 4:26 Be angry but do not sin;..) If the issue is regarding them, how might Jesus Himself talk to the person, knowing the importance of the problem better than we would? (In short, W.W.J.D.?) If we shout “Repent or DIE!!” or “Stop screwing up all the time!”, we will get a poor response more often than not.

~Ecclesiastes 10:4 If the spirit of the ruler rises up against you, don't leave your place; for gentleness lays great offenses to rest.

~1 Corinthians 4:20-21For the Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod, or in love and a spirit of gentleness?

-These verses show us that these are spiritual battles.

-What place should we not leave? (Eccl. 10:4)

-What power is there in the spirit of gentleness?

~James 3:13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by his good conduct that his deeds are done in gentleness of wisdom.

~Philippians 4:5 Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

Gentleness of the Lord

~2 Samuel 22:36 You have also given me the shield of your salvation; Your gentleness has made me great.

~Psalm 18:35 You have also given me the shield of your salvation. Your right hand sustains me. Your gentleness has made me great.

~Isaiah 40:11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

-Is this verse literally talking about sheep? What does it mean by “carry them in his bosom”?

~Matthew 11:29-30 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

-What is an easy yolk to you?

-What can we learn from Christ about gentleness?

-How can gentleness give us rest?

-What can YOU be gentler with/ about?

“Fruit of the Spirit- Gentleness” Bible Study prepared by Justin Lessard. Email: ferventservant1@hotmail.com

Web: http://justinlessard.wordpress.com & http://www.myspace.com/justinlessard

If you wish to use this study, all I ask is that you leave the credit info lines, including the name, email, & web address, above.

by Salim Abraham .

The governments are scrambling to rectify the economic disaster first off we have to find where the money has gone and what happened to it , then rectify the problem - the fund that has been drained out should go back in to the countries it was drained from , not as a donation but as an extended loan or as direct investments causing an influx in to the drained countries .Fifty to Eighty percent must be brought back in to the exploited countries .

Cheap alternative energy sources will be discovered in 10-15 years , it will be mainly from solar energy and Hydrogen energy .

In that very near future Oil will be the third source of energy It will be Solar ,Hydrogen and then Crude Oil and Crude oil will assume the current position and demand of coal .

Regards .

Praise God .

Salim Abraham .

Praise God .

]]> http://transmillennial.wordpress.com/?p=39 Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:55:45 +0000 transmillennial http://transmillennial.pt.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/parousiadissipating-hubris/ From his youth, Jesus had a clear sense of self-identity. At the age of twelve, he conversed with the teachers in the temple. Astonished, his mother asked him what he had been doing. Jesus famously replied, "Do you not know that I must be about my father's business?" The story illustrates his attentiveness to his unique time, place, and character.

As a child he might have seemed precocious, prodigious, and promising. But as an adult many of the teachers he dialogued with as a youth perceived him as insolent, threatening, and deceptive. In the same temple years later, Jesus once again expressed his self-understanding. "You both know me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know. But I know him, for I am from him, and he sent me" (John 7:28-29).

I can see how his contemporaries might have assumed that Jesus harbored an inflated ego. After all, he was only an uneducated manual laborer hailing from the backwater region of Galilee. Can anything good come from there? Yet Jesus remained steadfast in his self-awareness. "I am from above" (John 8:23). Someone making such claims might be considered more than a bit arrogant. Nevertheless Jesus shows us the difference between humbly secure self-knowledge and haughty ego inflation.

Ego can be a confusing idea because of the countless connotations it carries. One popular and significant understanding of ego describes it as the tendency of identifying with an item, person, emotion, or concept outside of oneself in order to derive individual meaning and purpose. When we equate our reason for being with money, power, relationships, vocation, or religion, we've cast an egoic image.

Trendy understandings of ego invite us to battle our ego to the death. Supposedly the only way we can experience true happiness and mental health is through extinguishing the ego. As logical as this might sound, it presents us with an intractable predicament. Any attempt to extinguish the ego (in this sense) through violence is purely egoic. It sets us up for in internal war as it reinforces the egoic utility of self-importance by feeding the egoic longing for affirmation. If we believe that the ego is so powerful and autocratic that it must be eliminated in order for us to embrace, realize, and actualize our true Self, the attempts to purge the ego only strengthen its grip.

What we loosely call ego might be more properly described as hubris. Overbearing pride and pompous assumption demands constant fueling. Hubris brings fits of violence, rage, and depression as it expresses itself in wanton destruction, insolence, and outrage. To the ancient Greeks, the concept of hubris meant presumption toward the gods, and today its impertinent disregard for anything but its own cravings brings harm to individuals, relationships, and nations.

Hubristically identifying with the constantly fluctuating variances of existence certainly brings nothing but grief, frustration, and dissatisfaction. In our hubris, we can't find deep and lasting contentment because we're seeing ourselves as something other than who and what we truly are. The apostle Paul warned against the deceptions of hubris. "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned" (Romans 12:3). We might translate this admonition into false humility, berating ourselves for being lowly creatures, wallowing in the slop of self-loathing. However, self-flagellation is nothing more hubris in camouflage.

While fighting ourselves and fostering pseudo-humility only cultivates hubris, we can dispel hubris by healing the inner-wounds that allow it to fester. Paul's advice gives us the proper prescription. Don't presume that you're something that you're not; deem yourself accurately. Paul is not directing you to view yourself as a meager, pitiable urchin. Instead he invites you to think of yourself as a bearer of the divine likeness interconnected with all humanity. "For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another" (Romans 12:4-5).

Jesus' self-awareness emerged not from hubris, but from his recognition of his connection with his heavenly source. "In truth I came from you" (John 17:8). Moreover, Jesus humbly understood the deep connection all humanity shares with one another through God. Hubris would have prompted him to selfishly cling to his relationship while pushing others away, yet Jesus "did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself." In this way we can come to a similar self-perception. "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:5-7).

Jesus' confidence in his divine connection -- his faith in God -- allowed him to pray that we'd all awaken to and experience our shared divine source. "They are yours. They may be one, as we are one. They may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one" (John 17:9, 11, 21-23)

Acknowledging our mutual divine identity in union with one another elicits profound humility. Attempting to separate from others and live in a cocoon of self-imposed isolation only reinforces hubris and educes a false-god complex. Love -- mindful integration with others -- woos us out of the dungeon of hubris as it dissipates the fog clouding our vision of who we actually are. Once we see clearly, we humbly confess our identity: human, God's likeness, and love incarnate.
~~~~~~~~~~
Originally published on October 6, 2008. (c) Presence International. Parousia is a free Transmillennial publication of Presence. To receive Parousia in your inbox each week click here.

So what (by definition) is Open Source?
Well these are the defining points of Open Source according to Ken Coar on OSI (http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd):

Introduction

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria:

1. Free Redistribution

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

2. Source Code

The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.

3. Derived Works

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code

The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

7. Distribution of License

The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.

8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.

9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software

The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.

10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral
No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface

 

Paint Shop Pro by Jasc (now owned by Corel) and Open Office are great examples of better alternatives to products such as Photo shop and Word and can be used in either a home or professional context with excellent customer service available from the developers.
So: Open Source good, Corporations bad. The trend seems these days to be shifting towards Open Source products these days, so its all going to get even better.

Links:
http://www.osalt.com/ - Open Source Alternatives.
http://www.download.com - A fantastic range of shareware.
http://www.opensource.org/ - Open Source Initiative.
http://sourceforge.net/ - Open Source Software.
http://www.archive.org - The Internet Archive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source - Comprehensive of Open Source and its applications.

Occasionally I'll post more links if I find anything useful...

‡♥‡

Section 1- The Basics
HTML is one of the easiest languages to learn, but has many uses in comparison, making it a valuable asset in all of your projects. HTML is a globally accepted language in Web Design, and honestly I don't get how anything could be made without understanding this base language, but you didn't come here to listen to me rant, did you? On to the content then!

Tags are pretty simple, with almost all of them having an opening <> and a closing </>. All documents start with the same basic tags.
<html>
<title>Test Site!</title>
<body>
</body>
</html>

simple enough, eh? That's all you need to have a website up, but then again, its just a blank page, where's all the goodies?

<html>
<title>Test Site!</title>
<body>
<p>
WOW! A section title!
</p>
<p>
blah
</p>
</body>
</html>

ya, no... You have text, but that's ALL it is, that's not even close to a website, it might be good to make yourself feel warm and fuzzy inside that you made something in HTML, but that's all it's good for. Let's get into some text tags to make this more interesting!

<b></b> - Bold tag
<i></i> - Italic tag
<u></u> - Underline tag
<h1></h1> - Header tag, can be 1-6 to make the size bigger/smaller

Let's try this again now!

<html>
<title>Test Site!</title>
<body>
<h1>
WOW! A section title!
</h1>
<p>
blah blah blah blah <b>blah!</b>
</p>
</body>
</html>

better, but no good, all you have is still text, onto the next section then.

Section 2- Color

Color makes things more interesting to be honest, without it, all you have is black and white, which does absolutely nothing with aesthetics (how it looks...).
One more time with some color!

<html>
<title>Test Site!</title>
<body bgcolor="black">
<h1>
WOW! A section title!
</h1>
<p>
blah blah blah blah <b>blah!</b>
</p>
</body>
</html>

Ya, that was smart, you have a black BG, cool, eh? NO! You also have black text, good luck with that, now its not boring, its blank... lets try this again

<html>
<title>Test Site!</title>
<body bgcolor="black">
<h1><font color="white">
WOW! A section title!</font>
</h1>
<p><font color="white">
blah blah blah blah <b>blah!</b></font>
</p>
</body>
</html>

Ya, there we go, that's actually readable, but honestly, who wants to go through all of that!? Lucky for you there's css, which brings us to the next section.

Section 3- Hex Color
Hex is, put simply, your best friend, or your worst enemy. Hex color codes are in, as the name suggests, 6 digits, sometimes different, but I wont cover that here. The hex system has 16 numbers, as opposed to the decimal system. 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F. 00 is the lowest value, meaning 0, and FF being equal to 256, notice something? It's similar to the RGB method, infact, it is, just in hex. 000000 is black, of course, with no value, and FFFFFF is white, with all value, and RGB is the order, so
FF0000 Red
00FF00 Green
0000FF Blue

I'm not going to go through all the math involved in hex, but the dead basic, as not to bore you
Decimal - Hex
1 - 16^1
10 - 16^2 (256)
100 - 16^3 (4096)

And if this rings a bell, you used windows 95, and hopefully trashed it by now, and its 256 colors of joy. Hoo-rah for 32-bit!

a color picker is very useful for these things, maybe color cop or something else, sourceforge is your friend

Section 4- CSS

This will save your life, quite literally. Your boss decides he wants another page, and a bunch more text with all red font, that leaves you to change EVERY LAST FREAKING FONT TAG. No fun, eh? Just hope you never learn the hard way. CSS can be a seperate text document that controls the style for MULTIPLE pages, making it easy to change it up, and lucky for you, its not hard to learn either! For not, lets start with just css in the document instead of external. If I catch you with font tags after this, you will die a most painful death(not really, just dont use them...)

<html>
<title>Test Site!</title>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
h1 {color: #ff0000}
h2 {color: white}
p {color: rgb(0,255,0)}
</style>
</head>
<body bgcolor="black">
<h1>
WOW! A section title!
</h1>
<p>
blah blah blah blah <b>blah!</b>
</p>
</body>
</html>

That's better, no more evil font tags! In case you didnt notice, the three tags up there demonstrate the different ways to define color, hex, names, and rgb values.

Section 5- Background images/colors with css

here's a basic rundown of how to get backgrounds to work using css

body
{
background: #FF0000;
}

A colored background

body
{
background: url(pic.gif) no-repeat top;
}

A pic with no repeat

body
{
background: #00FF00 url(pic.gif) no-repeat fixed top;
}

A pic with no repeat, and is fixed at the top of the screen

Section 6- Links and Images

Again, all you have is text, what fun is that? You need some images and some links to get the site running! Lets use an image as a link for this example

<html>
<title>Test Site!</title>
<head>
<style type="text/css">
h1 {color: #ff0000}
h2 {color: white}
p {color: rgb(0,255,0)}
a {color: green}
</style>
</head>
<body bgcolor="black">
<a href="testsite.com"><img src="testsite.com/banner.jpg" alt="Our banner! yey!" border="0">
<h1>
WOW! A section title!
</h1>
<p>
blah blah blah blah <b>blah!</b>
</p>
</body>
</html>

just make sure you have the image, eh? You can use text instead, and notice that I changed the css too, now all links are green. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE BORDER="0" , lest you want a tacky blue border around your image(in this case, its now green )

Section 7- Tables and Div(ision) tags

Two tags that are probably life savers in organizing things, the table and the div tag, but lets start with tables. Think Microsoft Excel, with columns and tables, same basic idea. Table utilizes <th> (table head), <tr> (table row), <td> (table block). (thanks mukou)

<table>
<tr>
<td>Apple</td>
<td>Orange</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Strawberry</td>
<td>Bannana</td>
</tr>

That'll make a 2x2 table with the information given, simple enough eh? <table bgcolor=""> can also be used

The div tag can be used to define sections, and as you'll learn in further learning in css, classes are a lifesaver. CSS can define multiple classes in the div tag, meaning different color, font, size, and other things in each different class. I would explain it, but it's one of those things that's best for you to learn from the pros, they can explain it ALOT better than I can(/will, lol)

<div bgcolor="red">red section</div>
<div bgcolor="green">green section</div>

But do me a big favor and never use that combination, please, for the sake of soon to be color-blinded web-surfers, dont do it (read color tutorial below)

Conclusion
hope that helped

Programs-
Notepad ++
HTML Kit (also good for php[later tutorial])
Dreamweaver(good luck wih the cash )

Color tutorial(also by me)
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/56255162/

This will help explain the woes of color usage, make yourself look alittle more like a pro early with the right color combinations!

for more advanced learning in scripts, go to www.w3schools.com !

Till next time!