If Grace be Grace, and Faith be Faith, then there is no part in works for our salvation. Ephesians Two says that "you are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God has prepared beforehand for us to walk in". So even the really neat things we get to do have nothing to do with our abilities and everything with Gods desires for us and others.
I remember going to a Jesus People meeting at UW Superior in 1972. They had a rocking concert and then presented a gospel message following the concert. A man my age approached me, asked If I had questions. I had plenty. What I heard just didn't make sense to me. We talked for a while, he sense something was wrong when he asked the question, I answered. I had been involved in the occult for several years, since I was 14 or 15. It had been a couple years since I had done anything, mostly because I got the crap scared out of me when a girlfriend wanted me to “conjure up a ghost” I think we both nearly lost our sanity. During those years I became acquainted with the demands and fear associated with the occult. I don’t often say much about it, no need to dredge up the past. That said I also know the reality of the “dark side” and the price demanded for favoritism. I cringe when anything close to that form of pay for acceptance is conjoined with the Grace of God.
I was told today by a friend that God was scourging him, I repulse at that idea. My response was not gentle. You mean the Blood of Jesus and that of your own will bring your salvation? Nonsense I continued. My friend began to show the look of someone who had been deeply wounded. I realized how wrong my expression was. I am so sorry for hurting my friend. I cannot accept his doctrines, even for a moment.
Its in scripture I was told. I don’t doubt that it can be found somewhere in the Old Testament. It is also true that God has apparently chosen to operate at this time in an age of Grace. Jesus Christ is the Propitiation of our Sin, meaning He became the substitute for our payment due for sin. Many books have been written on the subject, by man and women far more scholarly than I. With Christ’s death, the penalty of our sins was paid. To say or believe anything else needs to be added to that ultimate price is Anathema.
Galatians chapter 3~ vs. 1~14 reads:
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced[b] so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law. Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
Amen.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Oklahoma Earthquakes: God or Fracking?
Found on Alter net.com here:
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/721875/oklahoma_earthquakes%3A_god_or_fracking/
Oklahoma Earthquakes: God or Fracking?
Oklahoma had the largest earthquake in its recorded history Saturday, a 5.6 on the Richter scale. It appears that Oklahoma has always had a few quakes each year -- on average though they were few in number and small in intensity. Since 2009, however, things have changed:
Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year until 2009. Then the number spiked, and 1,047 quakes shook the state last year, prompting researchers to install seismographs in the area. Still, most of the earthquakes have been small.
That is a remarkable increase. In 2010, earthquakes increased by 2100% over a typical year. And now they are gettingbigger, too:
Fourteen homes were damaged late on Saturday in the largest earthquake to hit Oklahoma on record, emergency management officials said on Sunday.
Now some may blame God (are there a lot of Gays in Oklahoma, I wonder--Pat Robertson wants to know). However there is another possibility, one with which the folks of Arkansas are familiar: Injection wells by oil and gas companies. It just so happens that there are 181 injection wells in the county where most of this weekend's seismic activity occurred. And some of those atheistic scientists and environmental whackos are suggesting that hydrofracking just might be the cause of Oklahoma's ground shattering events like this one:
A previously unreported study out of the Oklahoma Geological Survey has found that hydraulic fracturing may have triggered a swarm of small earthquakes earlier this year in Oklahoma. The quakes, which struck on Jan. 18 in a rural area near Elmore City, peaked at magnitude 2.8 and caused no deaths or property damage.
And these ecofreaks are also claiming fracking is the cause for the, shall we say, unprecedented, earthquake activity in Oklahoma:
I’ve drawn the link between natural gas hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) and earthquakes numerous times, long before the Oklahoma or Blackpool (Lancashire), England earthquakes. I started doing so early in 2011 when the Arkansas earthquakes were all the news and I got word that it might be related to fracking.
The case has only gotten more clear since then. As reported last week, even a fracking company in England has now stated that fracking is the “probable” cause of recent earthquakes there. In September, we reported that the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission has banned fracking disposal wells for unconventional gas drilling wastes due to earthquakes. This was months after fracking in the area was put on hold, a temporary moratorium was put in place, as an investigation into the matter took place. [...]
How did they get the idea to study the link? Well, in 2010, after fracking started in [Arkansas], the number of earthquakes was over 600 — about as many as in Arkansas in the last 100 years! Connection? [...]
OK, now, how can fracking be related to earthquakes? It’s actually the disposal wells that seem to cause the problem. Fracking involves high-pressure injection or pumping of fluids into the ground,.. in order to open up cracks in the rock for natural gas to escape and be capture.
Hmm, open up cracks in the rock….
While it seems fracking doesn’t cause earthquakes immediately, it lowers the barriers to earthquakes happening, loosens up the rocks enough that it is more likely to happen.
Of course, the Oil and Gas companies deny that there is any connection between their injection wells and fracking operations, and these earthquakes. I suppose we could take them at their word. Which begs the question: Why is God attacking the good God-fearing people of the Bible Belt with so many earthquakes all of a sudden? Because if human activity by the oil and gas industry cannot possibly be responsible for this sudden and massive increase in earthquakes activity in places that normally don't incur a lot of earthquakes what other answer can there be for a Good Christian believer but the Mighty Hand of God? Guess Rick Perry better hold another Massive Prayer Event to ask God to stop shaking up God's country like Vodka and Vermouth in a Martin shaker. God knows how well Perry's official proclamation for rain prayers worked to stop the droughts in the Southwest that led to all those wildfires this last year.
So Rick, ready to call upon the Lord for help again? It's what a man running for President who doesn't know much about Science should do, don't you think?
The 5.6-magnitude earthquake's epicenter, located 44 miles east of Oklahoma City , was felt as far away as Wisconsin and South Carolina, but there were no serious injuries, officials said. The Oklahoma health department reported two minor injuries, neither requiring hospitalization.
By Steven D | Sourced from Booman Tribune
Posted at November 7, 2011, 9:38 am
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/721875/oklahoma_earthquakes%3A_god_or_fracking/
Oklahoma Earthquakes: God or Fracking?
Oklahoma had the largest earthquake in its recorded history Saturday, a 5.6 on the Richter scale. It appears that Oklahoma has always had a few quakes each year -- on average though they were few in number and small in intensity. Since 2009, however, things have changed:
Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year until 2009. Then the number spiked, and 1,047 quakes shook the state last year, prompting researchers to install seismographs in the area. Still, most of the earthquakes have been small.
That is a remarkable increase. In 2010, earthquakes increased by 2100% over a typical year. And now they are gettingbigger, too:
Fourteen homes were damaged late on Saturday in the largest earthquake to hit Oklahoma on record, emergency management officials said on Sunday.
Now some may blame God (are there a lot of Gays in Oklahoma, I wonder--Pat Robertson wants to know). However there is another possibility, one with which the folks of Arkansas are familiar: Injection wells by oil and gas companies. It just so happens that there are 181 injection wells in the county where most of this weekend's seismic activity occurred. And some of those atheistic scientists and environmental whackos are suggesting that hydrofracking just might be the cause of Oklahoma's ground shattering events like this one:
A previously unreported study out of the Oklahoma Geological Survey has found that hydraulic fracturing may have triggered a swarm of small earthquakes earlier this year in Oklahoma. The quakes, which struck on Jan. 18 in a rural area near Elmore City, peaked at magnitude 2.8 and caused no deaths or property damage.
And these ecofreaks are also claiming fracking is the cause for the, shall we say, unprecedented, earthquake activity in Oklahoma:
I’ve drawn the link between natural gas hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) and earthquakes numerous times, long before the Oklahoma or Blackpool (Lancashire), England earthquakes. I started doing so early in 2011 when the Arkansas earthquakes were all the news and I got word that it might be related to fracking.
The case has only gotten more clear since then. As reported last week, even a fracking company in England has now stated that fracking is the “probable” cause of recent earthquakes there. In September, we reported that the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission has banned fracking disposal wells for unconventional gas drilling wastes due to earthquakes. This was months after fracking in the area was put on hold, a temporary moratorium was put in place, as an investigation into the matter took place. [...]
How did they get the idea to study the link? Well, in 2010, after fracking started in [Arkansas], the number of earthquakes was over 600 — about as many as in Arkansas in the last 100 years! Connection? [...]
OK, now, how can fracking be related to earthquakes? It’s actually the disposal wells that seem to cause the problem. Fracking involves high-pressure injection or pumping of fluids into the ground,.. in order to open up cracks in the rock for natural gas to escape and be capture.
Hmm, open up cracks in the rock….
While it seems fracking doesn’t cause earthquakes immediately, it lowers the barriers to earthquakes happening, loosens up the rocks enough that it is more likely to happen.
Of course, the Oil and Gas companies deny that there is any connection between their injection wells and fracking operations, and these earthquakes. I suppose we could take them at their word. Which begs the question: Why is God attacking the good God-fearing people of the Bible Belt with so many earthquakes all of a sudden? Because if human activity by the oil and gas industry cannot possibly be responsible for this sudden and massive increase in earthquakes activity in places that normally don't incur a lot of earthquakes what other answer can there be for a Good Christian believer but the Mighty Hand of God? Guess Rick Perry better hold another Massive Prayer Event to ask God to stop shaking up God's country like Vodka and Vermouth in a Martin shaker. God knows how well Perry's official proclamation for rain prayers worked to stop the droughts in the Southwest that led to all those wildfires this last year.
So Rick, ready to call upon the Lord for help again? It's what a man running for President who doesn't know much about Science should do, don't you think?
The 5.6-magnitude earthquake's epicenter, located 44 miles east of Oklahoma City , was felt as far away as Wisconsin and South Carolina, but there were no serious injuries, officials said. The Oklahoma health department reported two minor injuries, neither requiring hospitalization.
By Steven D | Sourced from Booman Tribune
Posted at November 7, 2011, 9:38 am
Not frickin, Fracking!
Those Christians who are avid readers of scripture may well remember that one of the first things God did was give Adam dominion over the earth. I do not believe dominion is intended to be domination, but rather nurturing care. With that in mind I offer the following definition, and plan to do a followup on FRACKING. For full disclosure, I am a minimal holder of oil rights in several counties in the United States, including Illinois and Oklahoma.
From Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia:
Hydraulic fracturing is the propagation of fractures in a rock layer caused by the presence of a pressurized fluid. Hydraulic fractures may form naturally, as in the case of veins or dikes, or may be man-made in order to release petroleum, natural gas, coal seam gas, or other substances for extraction, where the technique is often called fracking[a] or hydrofracing.[1] This type of fracturing, known colloquially as a frack job (or frac job),[2][3] is done from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations. The energy from the injection of a highly-pressurized fluid, such as water, creates new channels in the rock which can increase the extraction rates and ultimate recovery of fossil fuels. The fracture width is typically maintained after the injection by introducing a proppant into the injected fluid. Proppant is a material, such as grains of sand, ceramic, or other particulates, that prevent the fractures from closing when the injection is stopped.
The practice of hydraulic fracturing has come under scrutiny internationally due to concerns about the environment, health and safety, and has been suspended or banned in some countries.[4]
From Treehugger.com, a discovery company. Boy, thatll turn some folks off!
In a surprising turn of events, Cuadrilla Resources, a British energy company, recently admitted that its hydraulic fracturing operations "likely" caused an earthquake in England. Predictably, this news quickly sent a shockwave through the U.K., the oil and natural gas industries, and the environmental activist community. And it certainly feeds plenty of speculation that the same phenomenon could be occurring elsewhere.
Speculation that would be well-founded, evidently. Right on the heels of Cuadrilla's announcement, news is spreading that the United States Geological Survey has released a report (pdf) that links a series of earthquakes in Oklahoma last January to a fracking operation underway there. Evidently, a resident reported feeling some minor earthquakes, spurring the USGS to investigate. They found that some 50 small earthquakes had indeed been registered, ranging in magnitude from 1.0 to 2.8. The bulk of these occurred within 2.1 miles of Eola Field, a fracking operation in southern Garvin County.
The U.S.G.S. determined that "from the character of the seismic recordings indicate that they are both shallow and unique."
From the report:
Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased. There have been previous cases where seismologists have suggested a link between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes, but data was limited, so drawing a definitive conclusion was not possible for these cases.
The report is still under peer-review, and even then, the correlation between fracking and the quakes is inconclusive. The U.S.G.S. notes that region has historically been seismically active, though the summary states that the "strong correlation in time and space as well as a reasonable fit to a physical model suggest that there is a possibility these earthquakes were induced by hydraulic fracturing."
Needless to say, it's become much less far-fetched to presume that fracking has a serious impact on seismic activity. And so, yet another reason emerges to be wary of the secretive processes that underly the nation's most controversial gas-extraction process: Fracking earthquakes.
From Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia:
Hydraulic fracturing is the propagation of fractures in a rock layer caused by the presence of a pressurized fluid. Hydraulic fractures may form naturally, as in the case of veins or dikes, or may be man-made in order to release petroleum, natural gas, coal seam gas, or other substances for extraction, where the technique is often called fracking[a] or hydrofracing.[1] This type of fracturing, known colloquially as a frack job (or frac job),[2][3] is done from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations. The energy from the injection of a highly-pressurized fluid, such as water, creates new channels in the rock which can increase the extraction rates and ultimate recovery of fossil fuels. The fracture width is typically maintained after the injection by introducing a proppant into the injected fluid. Proppant is a material, such as grains of sand, ceramic, or other particulates, that prevent the fractures from closing when the injection is stopped.
The practice of hydraulic fracturing has come under scrutiny internationally due to concerns about the environment, health and safety, and has been suspended or banned in some countries.[4]
From Treehugger.com, a discovery company. Boy, thatll turn some folks off!
In a surprising turn of events, Cuadrilla Resources, a British energy company, recently admitted that its hydraulic fracturing operations "likely" caused an earthquake in England. Predictably, this news quickly sent a shockwave through the U.K., the oil and natural gas industries, and the environmental activist community. And it certainly feeds plenty of speculation that the same phenomenon could be occurring elsewhere.
Speculation that would be well-founded, evidently. Right on the heels of Cuadrilla's announcement, news is spreading that the United States Geological Survey has released a report (pdf) that links a series of earthquakes in Oklahoma last January to a fracking operation underway there. Evidently, a resident reported feeling some minor earthquakes, spurring the USGS to investigate. They found that some 50 small earthquakes had indeed been registered, ranging in magnitude from 1.0 to 2.8. The bulk of these occurred within 2.1 miles of Eola Field, a fracking operation in southern Garvin County.
The U.S.G.S. determined that "from the character of the seismic recordings indicate that they are both shallow and unique."
From the report:
Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased. There have been previous cases where seismologists have suggested a link between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes, but data was limited, so drawing a definitive conclusion was not possible for these cases.
The report is still under peer-review, and even then, the correlation between fracking and the quakes is inconclusive. The U.S.G.S. notes that region has historically been seismically active, though the summary states that the "strong correlation in time and space as well as a reasonable fit to a physical model suggest that there is a possibility these earthquakes were induced by hydraulic fracturing."
Needless to say, it's become much less far-fetched to presume that fracking has a serious impact on seismic activity. And so, yet another reason emerges to be wary of the secretive processes that underly the nation's most controversial gas-extraction process: Fracking earthquakes.
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