Christmas in July #1

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This is one of the most beautiful Christmas songs out there.  And it deserves to be played all year.  It's so beautiful, it brings me to tears.  And I imagine that this is how heaven will sound ...

Christmas Canon by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. 

 (And for the equally-great, more rockin' version - Christmas Canon Rock. Oh my goodness, it makes my heart want to burst! Too much beauty!) 

Most Popular Posts of the Week:

List of Calvinist Preachers, Authors, Theologians, Websites, etc.

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I  found a lot more names to add to my list of known Calvinists (found in my various  "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist"  posts).  But instead of adding this huge list to all those posts, I am going to put it here, and I'll just provide a link on those posts to this one.  [FYI: I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.] So here it is, a "master list" of known Calvinists to help you be careful and discerning about who you listen to and where you get your theology from.  There are plenty more Calvinists out there, but these are just the names that I ran across the most.   These are either definite, self-professed Calvinists or "most likely Calvinist," in my estimation.  (I haven't heard of most of them, but it's good to know their theology before I do.)   After finding these names in various places online, I looked up each person to see if they are Calvinist.  If they did not self-identify ...
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Happy Valentine's Day! Love, God

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"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."   ( Ephesians 3:17-19 ) On this Valentine's Day, remember how much God cares for you and about you, how many blessings He's given you, how many hard times He's carried you through, and how many good things He's brought out of the bad. But above all, remember how much He loves you.   God loves you - us, all of us, each and every person, all sinners,  you personally  - so much that He sacrificed Himself for you so that He could spend eternity with you and give you the fullest, most meaningful life you could ever have, on earth and in heaven.  He'd rather nail Himself to the cross for the chance that you'd believe in Him and be saved than risk losing you forever. It wasn...
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My Most Trusted Pastor

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If you don't know which pastor you can trust because  so many of them are Calvinists , I recommend the one I listen to most and trust as the most biblically accurate: Tony Evans.  [And for one more: the late Charles Stanley ]  Back before we left our Calvinist church, when we were getting super fed-up listening to all the Calvinist sermons, I began listening to Dr. Evans every week, and I haven't yet heard anything that alarms me or that I disagree with (except for a few very minor points when it comes to prophecy).     I actually credit Dr. Evans with "restoring my faith" after I felt it crumbling under the Calvinist preaching we were getting at the time.   For quite awhile after we got our new pastor, I didn't know he was teaching Calvinism.  I just knew something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on it yet.  But whatever it was, it was starting to affect my faith and my husband's faith as we heard these twisted, contradictory, u...
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A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?")

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In my normal Bible reading today, I came across a verse about "singleness vs. marriage" that destroys Calvinism in a few short words: "But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but who has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin - this man also does the right thing."   ( 1 Corinthians 7:37, NIV ) When you get past all the layers Calvinism wraps itself in to disguise the bad parts, it ultimately teaches - at the heart of it all - that God causes/controls  everything , even controlling our wills and causing our sins.  (But He then punishes  us  for the things He caused us to do, which would make Him unjust, no matter how much Calvinists try to deny it and cover it up.  See  this post  for some links about that.)  Calvinism ultimately teaches that everything we do is because God preplanned it, ordained it, and compels us to do it.  That we have no abil...
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A Great Blog To Visit: Our Healing Moments (Testimony #1)

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I've recommended this blog before, but I'll do it again: Our Healing Moments (UPDATE: This blog has been deleted, so I took down the link.) I haven't really been reading other people's blogs lately (or even my own).  I've been trying to stay away from the online world as much as possible.  But I decided to check out her blog again because I like her writing and her heart so much.  You can see her sweet, gentle, godly spirit shining through everything she writes, even though she suffers from chronic, debilitating illness.   And the new posts I read touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes.  It's so nice to read something uplifting in this difficult, chaotic world.  From someone who knows pain and suffering.  Someone who has had to struggle to cling to the Lord.  I appreciate people and testimonies like that.  I understand them.  I learn from them and am encouraged by them.   [In fact, I have been aching to hear some g...
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Leaving Calvinism: Free To Decide

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Free to Decide: Confessions of a Former Calvinist   by Brandon Cox This pastor tells us honestly how he was influenced into Calvinism, how it affected his ministry and pride, and how he came out of Calvinism.   He also shows us how all the points of Calvinism hinge on each other, making it stable in itself but fragile if any one of those points should be disproven.  (Calvinism, I believe, hinges on Total Depravity and a wrong view of God's sovereignty.  And therefore, they will guard these doctrines with all they've got, which is what gives rise to all their word games, mind games, twisted verses, double meanings, etc..) I appreciate that he took the time to share his story of how Calvinism gets entrenched, as well as how people can come out of it.  (I still have hope for those at my ex-church.) I think this line says a lot:  "Formerly I had sought proof of Calvinism, now I simply wanted God's answers to my deepest questions." If more Calvinists a...
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"Bring me pain, Lord, if it brings You glory!"

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(Reposted from a couple years ago, but updated for me for today.  Because I need it.  Note to self: Remember 10/2/19, the day the "tsunami" hit.)  I’ve always found the statements of “I want the Lord to do whatever He wants in my life to bring Him the most glory possible, even if it means bringing me pain” to be inspirational … and a bit “off.” Wh en I was 21 (half my lifetime ago), I went to Papua New Guinea for a summer on a mission trip.   And I told my mom that I picked PNG over any other place because it was so remote and primitive.   I said that I wanted to have everything taken away to really challenge me, to grow my faith in new ways.   And I meant it.   I really did.   My heart was in the right place. But my mom said something wise, something that stuck.   She said, “Don’t ask for that!   Never ask for that!   Because He could take away everything – your legs, your eyesight, your health, your home, etc.” Wow! ...
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Broken

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(Another post from my other blog.  It fits nicely after the previous post, "Are Tragedies 'Gifts From God'?" )    It hurts to be broken. It’s being vulnerable, taking a risk with our hearts . . . sometimes winning, sometimes losing. It’s leaning on others and opening ourselves up to them, to trust, to hope - sometimes finding support and acceptance and help, being caught before we hit the ground, but sometimes being let down and battered, falling flat on our faces when others pull back and fail to catch us. Sometimes, it’s just a minor annoyance, a pain that we absorb with relative ease, realizing that we are better for it.  And sometimes, it’s more pain than we can bear, feeling like we’ll never be whole again, wanting to curl up in a ball in a dark, lonely corner and fall asleep forever. Being broken hurts! And it leaves us different, changed.  It leaves tear-stains on our cheeks.  Scars on our hearts.  Bruises on our souls.  A limp in our ...
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Giggle Translate #3: Dating Woman, Guns, Screaming Cats, and Sheep

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Here are the newest  "random facts about me"  that I ran through a bunch of different languages in a row with Google Translate and then back to English, just for the giggles.  It comes out like a really bad Mad Libs.  (Sometimes I do several translations and pick the best parts to make each paragraph, particularly if a sentence was boring or basically the same as the original.) Original paragraph:             I used to get the dirtiest looks from people when I would push my twin brothers around in a stroller.    I was 15 years old when they were born, so people would assume they were mine.    And I tell you, the judgmental looks some women gave me were enough to make me feel ashamed.    And the babies weren’t even mine!    I should have made a t-shirt saying, “I’m just the sister, so keep the judgments to yourself!”              (With five younger brothers, people...
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