Looking back.... i mean foward?

So i found myself looking through My dailybooth photos today & I ended up wondering back a year ago. Exactly one year from this day.... & you would never guess...... I was sitting in the exact same spot i am today. 365 days ago i was sitting at the starbucks on McKnight road working on my computer... 3rd table to the left facing the front door.

2/12/10

2/12/11

Isn't it weird how a year can pass and so much changes.... But at times you find your self in the exact same place you were just one year before.

Colossians 4:5-6
Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.


Ephesians 5:15-16
Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

Forgiving yourself.

I didn't write this post, but i feel it hits some valid points.
Defiantly helpful for those dealing with personal forgiveness.

Forgiving Yourself - A Belief System
Forgiving yourself is essential. There is a tendency in all of us to hold ourselves more accountable than we do others. Perhaps you have been one who can justify forgiving others, even for a heinous offense, yet you find no justification for forgiving yourself for an equal or lesser offense. Perhaps you believe that forgiving yourself is not even a consideration because you think you must hold yourself in a state of constant remembrance, lest you forget. Perhaps you believe there is a price, some form of life-long penance that you must pay.

Forgiving Yourself - The Divine Example
Forgiving yourself is not specifically addressed in the Bible, but there are principles regarding forgiveness that should be applied. For example, when God forgives us, it states that He remembers our sins no more (Jeremiah 31:34). This does not mean that our all-knowing Father God forgets, but rather, because He forgives us, He chooses not to bring up our sin in a negative way. Peter said, "In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality" (Acts 10:34). Applying "no partiality" to the issues of forgiveness, God does not choose to forgive one person and not another. He forgives everyone who believes in Jesus Christ. Applying His "no partiality" standards to ourselves, it is just as important to forgive ourselves as it is to forgive others.

Forgiving yourself is not about forgetting. It is about not bringing the offense up to yourself in negative ways. Forgiving yourself is simply letting go of what you are holding against yourself so that you can move on with God. If God has moved on, shouldn't we do the same? Philippians 4:9 states that we are to put into practice those things that we have learned from God and from His Word. To continue to rehearse in our thoughts the events of our transgression, opposes Philippians 4:8 which tells us to dwell on whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.

Forgiving Yourself - Personal Action
Proverbs 16:25 says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." The energy it takes to harbor anger, hatred, and resentment towards yourself is exhaustive. Every bit of energy we give to negative activities and dwelling on regrets, robs us of the energy we need to become the person God wants us to be.

Life is full of choices and every choice we make will either take us in a positive, life-giving direction or rob us of the opportunity to be a life-giving individual. Forgiving ourselves does not let us off the hook, it does not justify what we have done, and it is not a sign of weakness. Forgiveness is a choice that takes courage and strength, and it gives us the opportunity to become an over comer rather than remaining a victim of our own scorn.

If you do not forgive yourself of past sins, it is a form of pride. Whenever we enact a different set of rules, a higher set of standards for ourself over others, that is pride. When we can find it within ourself to forgive others, but not ourselves, we are saying that we are less capable of making a poor decision than others. We are somehow more intuitive, wiser, more insightful, more careful than others, and therefore, we are without excuse and should not forgive ourselves. When we reject the forgiveness extended to us by God and others, when we refuse to forgive ourselves, what we are doing is setting ourselves above others and that is pride! Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Unforgiveness of oneself will bring self-destruction, a haughty spirit, and a fall. Christian forgiveness will bring peace.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. - Romans 3:21-25.

Ill Take a cheese burger with a side of God.

Today i was reading a book from one of my favorite others, The Book is titled Forgotten God by Francis Chan. To sum the book up it focuses on taking advantage and properly understanding Gods promises to us humans. There was one thing Francis talked about that really stood out to me, It was the topic of a real relationship. I was hit pretty hard with this chapter. I mean i have always understood that it was important for us to have God in our lives, but really stop and ask your self why?

Francis quotes a christian author that i feel is very relevant to this question.
"When we are at our wits' end for an answer, then the lord can five us an answer. But how can he give us an answer when we are still supplied with all sorts of answer of our own" - Karl Brath-

I find that most of us desire God for selfish reasons. For example, I often find myself asking God for something that will better me as a person, but i don't take into consideration how that might better his name. Our relationship with the Lord becomes almost selfish. God desires a personable, trust worthy, & devoted relationship. Do you ever stop to think about Gods feeling or even if he has them? According to the bible God created us in his image. So if you take a good look at humanity and our characteristics you can start to understand God a little better on a more personal level. Now next time you are thinking about smoken that weed drugs remember that God has feelings and you are hurting them as you do so!

Now a relationship with God needs to be less personal and more God centered! We need to allow our self to be moved by the lord. God has called us to be his people… God… The creator of the universe! He called you to be his chosen one! So according to the bible that means we need to take our relationship with him further then a prayer every night before we go to sleep. God desires to be your personal friend.

Now if you feel you would like to learn more on how to better your relationship with Christ, I recommend reading this book. The name was Forgotten God by Francis Chan. Just pick it up and start reading, It will change your life for the better.

So I hope this blog has inspired you to go out and peruse God and take advantage of what he has offered to you as a Christian.

God bless and Thanks for reading!

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt
you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.
1 Peter 5:6-7

If God loves us.....

I had a question on my last blog post and i felt i should focus on that for today. Being that it is one of the most difficult questions for Christians to answer i will try my hardest to make sense of this.

First things first is that the world isn't as God planned for it to be. If you read through Genesis Originally when God created the world everything was good ( Read through Genesis 1:1-31). and as you continue reading you will understand that Suffering in the world is a result of human kind turning away from God = our relationship with God turned to poop. This was the fall of man or As many people know as the story of Adam and Eve (that was the start at least)

Now God is just and will not allow this rebellion to last forever, every human being and the world itself is under God’s judgment, and will continue to decay and go wrong until God ends it one day. He wants everyone to understand the state of things and so uses our circumstances (including suffering) to makes us aware that the world is not as it should be. He wants us to turn back to him and be reconciled.

So God, because of his love, has done something about the suffering in this world. He has sent Jesus to die for us. Jesus was God’s son, he was a perfect man, who did not deserve God’s punishment, and yet he took our punishment by suffering and dying a most unjust death on the cross. The book of the Bible called First Peter tells us that “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” (1 Peter 3:18)

And after having suffered and died for us, Jesus was raised back to life, and when he returns, the world as we have it now will end. Those who believe in Jesus will enter a new world where there will be no tears and no suffering.

So this is a very simply outline of just some of the things the Bible talks about suffering, and is by no means complete. The main thing to understand is that suffering comes from our selfishness and rejection of God, we as a human race has bring it upon ourselves, and we and our world are also under God’s just punishment because of this. But this is not going to last. God loves us dearly and has already suffered himself in order to bring us out of this suffering world. We have a choice to accept this gift from God, or to persist in our selfishness and remain under the punishment of God.

If you would like to look into this issue further, there is a very good book I can recommend, called If I were God, I’d end all the Pain by John Dickson. It is a very short book that goes through how different religions respond to suffering and explains why the christian message gives a satisfactory answer in light of this.

Hope this will help.

For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are called according to His purpose
Romans 8:28

One Million Dollar Happiness?

You ever find yourself thinking......about absolutely nothing. I have been finding myself in this situation very much lately.

In this past year i found myself discovering a total different plan for my future. As a child i would always find myself making future goals for myself & to be honest i had high expectations. One goal that really stands out to me was when i was 15 i decided to make a goal for myself. Taking a piece of paper i wrote down what i had planned for my future. I had given myself 4 years to have built up a Company that would make me a millionaire before the age of 19. High expectations?

Well in the next 3 years i found myself having gone through over 4 business and moving on to the next ( BC Media, AB Online Sources, Arbor Woods Lawn service & more, But only to find myself getting close to the dead line of my goal. It was the winter of 2008 and i new if i wanted to make my dream come true i needed to sit down and get serious, a month later i found myself with a Advertising agency called Aidem Design. With a lot of work and commitment the company was afloat. It was a little shaky at first but then i started to see the piece fall into place. With in 3 months the company was on the road to success, With a weekly gross of 1,500 dollars i felt i was finally almost there.

But what i didn't realize was the closer i got to success in the world the further i found myself from satisfaction. I wasn't happy. That might not make sense to some of you reading this, But I found my goal becoming my master. My life was devoted to becoming what i wrote on that piece of paper 4 years before. Around this time a freind of mine asked me if i would like to join him in a trip to visit a old friend of ours And i needed a vacation so i thought why not. But what i didn't know was at this time my old friend was planting a church in a lower income area. I went to his church that Sunday morning & the message he spoke that day changed me. It help me realize what i have been missing in my life. I felt i had it all..... but it was in that moment that i realized everything in this world can not compare to that one thing i was missing.

Luke 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

And i found this true in my life, I could not serve the lord and peruse my goal as well. But the joy that came when i decided to follow the Lord fully was worth more then 1,000,000 dollars x10.

One year later i found myself graduated from the MCM Ministry School working as the Media Director for a small church just one year old. The church that changed my life forever. And in the next few weeks i will be putting together the material to begin the first year of Element Academy as the director of the school. It wasn't easy but with the lords help i made it to where i am today.

The goal for my life now is to show others how to find the simple joy that changed my life one year ago.

Stormtrooper = wall - Photoshop Tutorial

In this tutorial we are going to have a quick look at how easily you can use bushes in photoshop to create some really great effects. The methods used in this tutorial are not limited to stormtroopers, They can be used to create graffiti stencil style portraits of you, objects, pets and pretty much anything.

To follow along with this tutorial you will need –

A picture – Portrait style shots from shoulder up taken facing the camera are best. (or just google for a storm trooper)

Photoshop splatter and spray bushes – There are loads of places on the net you can get these (or you can make your own) I downloaded a few sets from www.brusheezy.com

So to start of import you image into photoshop. We are going to have to remove the background of the images first.

There are many differant ways to remove background so I will not go into to much detail as this will vary depending on the image you are using. Some you may be able to get away with magic wand but most you will want to use the pen tool or a layer mask.

Next we are going to apply a filter that will give us our basic look. Go to Image> Adjustments> Threshold

Move the slider up and down to achieve the result suited to you picture Further to the right more black, further to the left more white. When your happy click OK and then duplicate the layer (cmd + J on mac and ctrl + J on pc) Add a new layer below the two threshold layers and fill it with white, You should now have the two identical threshold layers and the white background layer.

Next select the higher of the two threshold layers and change its blending mode to Multiply, You can do this by going to the layer pallet and clicking the drop down menu where it says Normal (as pictured). Repeat the steps for the threshold layer below but this time change the blending mode to lighten. This will be important later if we want to add a background.

Now its time to get to work with the brushes that you have downloaded. Click the brush tool and then go to the options bar at the top and click the brush drop down. Click the small around to the right to pop out the menu. Click replace brushes, use the brower to find where you stored the bushes on you system (if you saved them outside the photoshop brushes folder) and click load.

Now its time go get painting, Create a new layer and name it black splatters, Select the brush tool and make sure your colour is black. Start to paint on areas where there are spray marks, splashes and drips. You can be as detailed or as random as you like. Remember to change your brush a lot and resize a lot. You can also have a play with the shape dynamics in the bush pallet although I will go into more detail about brushes in a future tutorial.

Once you are done painting in your black splatter you should have something that looks like this -

Create a new layer and call it White Splatter. Repeat the steps we used to create the black splatter layer again but this time with white. Use this layer to remove areas from your original black areas. It should look something like this.

If you want to add a background to the image you can by putting the image on a layer below the two threshold layers and the splatter layers. I have used a concrete wall image to keep in with the graffiti theme.

And that’s it! If have any questions about the tutorial just post it in a comment and I will try and answer.

Win a FREE IPOD TOUCH (and many other prizes) - Follow me on Twitter

So i was thinking earlier today about a few things that would spice up "I is Billy Chester" and it hit me! A Contest!

If you have a Twitter account and would like a chance to win a free 32gb ipod touch I will be giving one away to One Lucky Person! There will be a total of 3 prizes given away!

Grand Prize - 32gb Ipod touch

Second place Prize - One of my very own T-shirts!

Third Place Prize - A signed photo of the one and only BILLY CHESTER (aka ME!)

All you have to do to enter is:

1. Follow @billychester on Twitter

2. Tweet the following message:

Just entered the 32gb Ipod Touch giveaway! - to enter just follow @billychester and RT http://bit.ly/iishbillychester #IisBillyChester

-------

Guidelines

The Lucky Winner will be chosen at random for you contenders!

The first winner will receive 1 brand new 32gb Ipod touch! The second - One of my very own T-shirts! ]and Third - A signed photo of the one and only BILLY CHESTER (aka ME!)

I will be contacting the winners via DM over twitter. If i do not receive a reply with in 2 days of contacting i will choose another Lucky Winner.

As many entries as you want!

Thank you HAVE FUN!

Apple has change the world! with a pad.

The "Apple tablet" is finally official, and it has a name: iPad. Though this super-sized iPod touch is largely what we expected, Apple's announcement included a number of nice surprises, as well as a couple bombshells. I'm not talking about those things we assumed would be true, such as a large screen and support for existing iPhone apps. I mean those features we hoped for, expecting disappointment, or those that caught us off guard. With an hour or so to contemplate the day's news, here are my five biggest/best revelations from Apple's big event (plus a bonus one).

Price list

IDK man

what do you all think?