Personal

Jul 24 2012

Why blame violent movies?

The incident that occurred in the Aurora theater last Friday morning was heart breaking and terrible.  It is something that never should have happened.  As I read news articles on the issue and watch people’s comments on the web several things start to bother me.

Why blame violent movies for people doing violent acts? Is it really Hollywood who gave us the ideas and taught people how to be violent?  Did they really put these ideas into our heads?

The answer is no.  Sure, a specific way to commit an act may be copied from a movie, but that in no way means that someone wanting to do something horrible would never had done it if they never watched movies.

We are a violent race, and have been since the beginning of time when Cain killed Abel.

Did Hollywood inspire the Romans to create crucifixion, to torture and execute people in the most violent method ever developed by men?  Roman Gladiators only came about because of the movie Gladiator, right?  And what about the Holocaust?  If Schindler’s List was never made then the Nazi’s would never had gotten the ideas to torture and experiment on humans in gross and devastating ways.

No, the fact that violent movies are created and popular has nothing to do with causing events to happen, and everything to do with showing how much more we are tolerating as a society.  If we did not enjoy those movies and did not support them, then Hollywood would not make them.

Hollywood has started making Christian films now, and Fox created a whole division called Fox Faith, why? Because they care about the message? No, because they know that those faith-based movies sell, families love them.  So they empower Christian movies to be made.  Because those companies are driven by money.

If you do not want to see violent and sex obsessed movies come out of Hollywood then we need to show that with our wallets.  If people quit going to violent movies then they would not be made.

But that is not going to happen without the gospel.

Tragedies happen and it hurts everyone, but lay the blame in the right place.  The killer is the one who decided to shoot 70 people in the theater in Aurora, and he did not need to get the ideas from Hollywood.

View my other articles on Eternal Truth Ministry.

— http://www.EternalTruthMinistry.com —

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May 20 2012

Having a good time in Iowa

The drive to Iowa this week was a long, boring drive. But I made it!

On Saturday I took my new gun to the range with my dad.  We had a good time being out together, which is a nice change.  Usually when I come to visit he is too stressed by all the visitors to be any fun to be around.  We went to Cabela’s to buy some ammunition and they had a World War 2 display setup with some weapons and uniforms from the era and my dad taught me some things about the weapons and stuff.  It was pretty cool.

Malikai is having fun here as well.  He spends most of the time running and playing with a ball.

Saturday night we drove out to where my sister works and she made us a pizza.  Then my mom started to get a little freaked out by the severe thunderstorm warning so she wanted to get home quickly.  I tried to get her home quickly in the Mustang, but she got freaked out when the tires started to squeal on the highway entrance ramp.

Today the plans are to go to my mom’s RN pinning and then spend some time with my sisters who moved out.  It has been odd to not get to see them much, but family politics are what they are…

Last night I saw fireflies, which is pretty cool. I have not seen a firefly in years.  So I broke out my camera and all my stuff to get a picture, only to realize I FORGOT MY TRIPOD MOUNT! :-/  So much for me trying to get a photo of the ISS flying over tomorrow morning.

Hmm, anything else?  Oh yeah, my parents have a demonic evil cat that hates me and clawed me pretty good this morning.

That’s all.

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May 2 2012

Grieving God’s Heart…

Have you ever watched someone do something that you KNOW is going to hurt them? You know that the decisions they are making will break their spirits and break their hearts, yet there is nothing you can do about it because the person is so into the moment that they check their brain in at the door and don’t think, they just go with what they want at that moment.

It hurts to watch.  Especially if it is someone you care about and love a lot, it is painful for you to watch what they are going through because you know that if they would just stop and follow God with their lives then everything would be better.  They would avoid the pain and heartache and countless other possible consequences to their actions.

Watching this just makes me fall to my knees and cry out to God to show that person the light!

If you have felt this grief over another person in their actions, how much more so do you think God feels?

God loves us and wants us to follow Him, not because He is some kind of kill-joy dictator but because He knows what will make you happiest!  And He has to watch us make these decisions that reject Him and lead us to pain.  But those sins are also extra offensive to God because every sin we commit is against Him!

Everything you do that is against God offends Him and tears you further from Him.  When we get to the end of our life we will have no excuse, we will know that we deserve Hell because we will see how much we have offended a perfectly Holy God!

But God, even though He hates us for committing sins against Him He still died to free us!  He did not die to just get us out of hell but to free us now from the sin, the pain, and the heartache that our sin leads us to.

To those of you who are right now continuously living in rebellion against God, STOP!

Stop your lying to others, stop gossiping about others, stop committing adultery and fornicating, just stop!  Stop the drugs and the getting drunk, stop it all!  It will only lead to pain.  The pleasure, if there is any, is extremely temporary but the heartache and pain real, is deep, and is eternal.

God wants you to live a better way.  Those around you want you to live a better way. They do not want to see you living in a way that will cause you pain when you can have joy.  They do not want to see you living in a way that will bring eternal damnation on you when you could be at peace.

I know it is hard to choose to do that.  It requires living contrary to what you feel like you want now, to deny yourself, to deny your desires, but you must do it!  This is my plea to you all, and this is the plea of others who are watching and praying over you on a daily basis that they are just too scared to say to you because they know it will cause you to shut them out and ignore them because you want to just live the way you want.

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Matthew 6:33

Above EVERYTHING ELSE, seek God and His kingdom!  Those who have lived that way will tell you that it is so much better than chasing after the pleasures of this world.

We cry to you, stop living a fake Christian life that ultimately denies God.  Stop looking for boyfriends or girlfriends to fill your bed.  Stop all of the running away from God.

Quit choosing to love people over God, or choosing to love your sin more than you love God.  If you are living with someone you shouldn’t be, or sleeping with someone you shouldn’t be, you are saying that you enjoy and love those things more than you love God and more than you care about what He wants.

If you are not a Christian that is not a big deal to you, but if you are someone who says they are a Christian, then it is time to seriously examine your relationship with God!  You cannot be a Christian and live in rebellion against God, it just can’t be done.  If you think you are doing it then you are deceived.  Tomorrow is too late to turn to God, do it today!

Above all things seek God.  It is so worth it. So worth it.

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May 2 2012

Rant Time!

I normally do not have ranting posts but I am going to rant today.  Not that I am in a bad mood at all or anything, just feel like getting some stuff off my chest…

1) If you work at the drive through window at a food place, how hard is it to make sure you include the proper necessities with the customers food?  Like a straw, do you know how annoying it is to get a drink with no straw so you have to drive and drink from a full cup without a lid?  How hard is it to include a straw?!?!

2) I know the times are tough and everyone is looking for ways to save some money, but do fast food places really need to make you ask for things like napkins and ketchup to get any?  I got fries, of course I want some ketchup with that.

3) Automated call systems.  Why do I get a call from a system saying “We are connecting your call” and then make me sit on hold for a minute just to get a message saying “All representatives are busy right now, we will try back later.”  -_-  Seriously?

4) Spouses that dig through the Cookies and Cream Ice Cream and dig all the cookie chunks out of it.  Really?  You don’t think I want some of those too?  Those giant cookie chunks are like mini treasures, don’t steal them all before I get a chance to get some!

5) Buffering!!!!  All this buffering is suffering!  I am paying for a fast enough broadband connection that I should be able to watch a 420p YouTube video with no buffering!  It always happens at the good parts of videos too.

Those were annoying things but are just in fun, the next few though are more serious issues.  They move beyond annoyances and into things that downright grieve my heart.

6) People who know the truth of God, have heard it all their life, yet they live in complete and total rebellion to God and you see how it is going to hurt them but they do not care and just continue on that course no matter how you try to help them.

7) Women who continuously return to guys that they know cheat on them, who get drunk and abuse them, and that take advantage of them in many ways…  If you are not married to the looser then dump him!  I know it is hard and you will feel guilty and lonely, but sometimes doing the right thing is hard and hurts.  But it doesn’t hurt as much as finding out someone you love has yet again slept with another woman and will not hurt as much as him hitting you or pushing you into a wall.

And along those lines, ladies, do not be so anxious to find someone right away.  Follow God first in your life and He will bring you an awesome guy who will take care of you and treat you like you should be treated.

So there you have it, the things that have been on my mind annoying me lately.

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Apr 30 2012

Another update

Friday Night’s Revolution at RMC went off rather well. There were some excellent graffiti artists there that made some amazing works of art in under an hour. The cipher contest was fun to watch. No way I could come up with stuff off the top of my head like that.

I ended up using my old 8mm camera along with my Canon Rebel to capture over 52 GB of video. Going through all of that to make a promotional video is going to be fun. Now I want to buy a new digital video camera and some professional audio recording stuff so I can take better video.

If you like violin music I found an artist that you have to check out.  Lindsey Stirling rocks on her violin while dancing.  It is pretty impressive.  Check out her youtube page.  Especially the Lord of the Rings medley and the Skyrim song.

Something that God has brought to my mind lately is how when we are not living the way we know we should, completely sold out for God fully denying ourselves and just being consumed by Him, is simply because we do not love God enough.  It is not a matter of us not working hard enough for it.  Once our heart is on fire for God then we do not need to “try” to do anything, we will just want to deny ourselves and serve God. 

So if you are not living the way you should, pray and get to know God more.  Examine your spiritual life and make sure you have a relationship with God in the first place, and then pray that God will ignite your heart for Him and make Him the love of your life, your treasure.

Anyway, I’m off to go listen to some more Lindsey Stirling and get started on the Revolution video.  (You should check out those links by the way.)

Later!

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Apr 28 2012

I need to come up with a new domain name instead of jonzenor.com. Any ideas? Going to use it for …

I need to come up with a new domain name instead of jonzenor.com. Any ideas? Going to use it for all my sites except ETM.

#mylife


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Apr 23 2012

No missions trip, I procrastinated :(

I was looking forward to going on the Mexico missions trip with my church, but I waited too long to decide for sure and get the money in. Now the deadline is past.

Oh well… There is always next year.  I do need to hurry go ahead and get my passport though.

But, I found out today that there is an Israel study tour coming up next year… That one will be pretty costly, but it would be an awesome trip to go on. Should I try for it?

In other news, one of my sisters is going through a really bad breakup right now, so if you could please keep her in your prayers, for the heart ache.  Also pray that both of my twin sisters start to follow God first in their lives.  I’m tired of watching them get involved in relationships or things of this world I know will just lead to heart ache again and again.  There really is so much joy found in Christ and such a freedom from the bondage of sin.

Beyond that there really is not anything much going on right now.  School started 2 weeks ago so I am spending much of my time on that, as well as trying to spend more time writing.

Next Friday is the Revolution event from RMC, where kids are getting together for a rap contest, graffiti contest, a Hip Hop concert, and of course the gospel.  This is aimed at being an outreach ministry trying to draw in unsaved kids and share the gospel with them.  I will be playing the part of the photographer at this event.

I really enjoy still photography more than video, but video is a lot more exciting for others to watch, so I will likely be doing mostly video.  I may even break out my old 8mm video camera and get someone to help me out with running different cameras.  If I can find anywhere that sells 8mm video tapes anymore.

That is about it for anything worth mentioning.

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Apr 10 2012

I cannot wait for school to be over with!Tonight was the first night of class for this semester…..

I cannot wait for school to be over with!

Tonight was the first night of class for this semester… This class shouldn’t be too hard (Computer assisted statistics, aka Excel Spreadsheets) but not sure about my other classes this semester. This is my first semester taking a full course load.

Only 6 more semesters to go.. or 66 weeks.

#mylife #school


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Apr 9 2012

A wonderful weekend celebrating 8 years of marriage

This weekend was mine and Danae’s 8th anniversary.  We had a pretty good anniversary.  Malikai and I went out for burgers Sunday afternoon where I taught him how to eat peanuts and then we grilled up steak for dinner.

I found a recipe for some type of orange sauce to go with the steak and lamb chops, so I tried it.  And it actually came out kind of good, which is surprising since I was the one who cooked it.

It has been a great 8 years of marriage, and I pray the next 8 + will go even better.

Saturday was a pretty lazy day. I did some cleaning but for the most part I just dug into the book “Erasing Hell” by Francis Chan.  Good book. Expect a review on ETM soon.

Along with reading that book I have been listening to a few sermons that pretty much all boil down to really putting God first in your life.  I feel like we have heard these words so many times before that we have become a bit numb to them and I am trying to break free from that.

Why haven’t I been putting God first in my life? Isn’t He worth it?  Of course He is!

Anyway, so that’s my struggle right now, which means you will be hearing my thoughts about it from ETM articles coming up.

In geek news I think I found a viable Google Wave alternative since Google shut down the service.  This one is called Rizzoma.  I have been messing with it today and now I can’t wait to get home so I can use their Chrome extension to import all of my Google Wave waves to Rizzoma.  So if you are a wave fan check it out.  I am trying to put together a kind of exploration guide here: http://rizzoma.com/topic/d0ae9905e76469d62cf3aa6b6054c389/

Oh yeah, on Easter morning I woke Malikai up and then realized I completely forgot to do anything “eastery” this year.  No baskets of candy, no colored eggs to find.  It was weird, but then I thought “Is that what Easter is really about?” Does it matter at all that we did not do any of that stuff?

Easter is not about bunnies and eggs and chocolate.  It is about the gospel, what Jesus did.  Those traditions are fun to do, but they are not what Easter is about.  So I think in the future we will do some of the traditions, just not on Easter Sunday.  Let’s keep Easter to a focus on Christ and leave the egg hunts to another day.

So yeah… that was a lot of topics to cover in one post.  Any comments?

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Apr 6 2012

You know you have an awesome wife when you can come home after something bad happens that makes y…

You know you have an awesome wife when you can come home after something bad happens that makes you feel down and seeing her makes you know that this day is awesome regardless of what else happens.

#mylife


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