When You're Discouraged By The Hard Days

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For an encouraging reminder that we don't always know why things happen or how they will work out, but we can trust that God is always working all things for good:  
The White Horse Maxim by Ann Voskamp.

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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Help for Anxiety, Depression, and Suicidal Thoughts

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It's so sad to hear about all the celebrities who have recently committed suicide (or about anyone who has committed suicide, for that matter).  My heart breaks for them, for the pain they went through, and for the ones who love them, for the pain they are now going through.  It is truly a tragedy. To anyone who is hurting really badly, who is struggling with overwhelming anxiety or depression, who is considering taking their own lives ... I dedicate this post.  Please, take some time to look through some of the links here.  This is a round-up of some on-line resources or posts about dealing with anxiety or depression, particularly as a Christian. But first: Quick tips for help: If you are desperate for some immediate help and don't want to look through the links I have below, try some of these (or if it's really bad and you think you might hurt yourself, call 911 or go to the emergency room): 1.   Put on a worship song right now.  Or sin...
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TULIP's Totally-Depraved Doctrine (a snippet)

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[This is a snippet from  another post (but slightly updated here) that will be coming up later.]  Calvinism's TULIP petals are all built on each other, one after the next.  And it all starts with "total depravity" (their bad definition of it) : R.C. Sproul  ( Total Depravity part 1 ) :   "... if a person really embraces the doctrine of total depravity, the other four points in this five-point system more or less fall in line. They become corollaries of this first point." And so if they can get you to buy into their view of total depravity (as "total inability"), they can easily get you to buy into their whole TULIP, ensuring that you will become a Calvinist. Because if we are "totally unable" to believe on our own, then God has to decide who believes (unconditional election)...  which necessarily implies a "limited atonement" because Calvi-Jesus wouldn't die for those predestined to reject him...   which then requires "irre...
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God's Greatest Priority (and why there's a hell)

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Calvinists believe that God's greatest priority - His primary reason for making people - is to get more glory for Himself, and that He gets it through ordaining sin and predestining people to hell.  They think that this is why people are in hell: for God's glory, that He gets glory when He shows off His justice by punishing sin and evil.  And so He needed sin and evil and non-elect people to punish or else He couldn't fully display all His attributes to get praise and glory for them.   [But remember that - in Calvinism - people don't actually get to choose whether or not they want to believe in Jesus.  God decides for them.  He decides who won't believe and prevents them from being able to believe, and then He punishes them for not believing, even though they never had the chance or ability to believe, by God's decree.  This is a  far different  kind of "justice" than punishing people who actually deserve it, who had a choice.  In fact, ...
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A great sermon to start 2026

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I watched  this online Willow Creek sermon  yesterday from a new series called The Jesus Way, about the Sermon on the Mount... and I just gotta share it because I haven't heard a sermon this good in awhile.  In fact, it's one of the best I've heard in a long time.  A great way to start 2026!   Maybe it just said what I needed to hear at this point in my life.  Maybe it won't speak to you the same way.  But, who knows, maybe it will.  Give it a try.  What've you got to lose?  
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"Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave The U.S. If Trump Wins, On One Condition ..."

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I love this! Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave the U.S. If Trump Wins - On One Condition: "You Can't Come Back"  (from cnsnews, but I took the link down because it doesn't lead to the article anymore) Thank you, Sheriff Rick Jones, for saying what a lot of us have wanted to say to those celebrities who threaten to leave the U.S. if Trump wins (and who threatened last election).   I applaud you, and I add my message to those celebrities (and anyone else) who think they have the right to demand that everything be their way or who threaten to move from the country if they don't get their way:  "Good ... leave!  We don't want your snotty, cry-baby whining here anyway!  We don't want your arrogant attitudes where you think you're better than all of us lowly, common folk.  We don't want you preaching to us about how we should think, how we should vote, what our values should be, etc., especially when you contribute to some of the most wr...
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Calvinism's Heart-Breaking Destruction

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Wanna see some of the real-life destruction that Calvinism does to hearts, souls, and faith?   Here are some comments (warning: bad language ahead) from a Reddit post called  "Calvinism is disgusting" , showing how people - who don't realize that Calvinism is NOT biblical - have been hurt by Calvinism and have ended up rejecting God altogether instead of just rejecting Calvinism.  Sadly, it's because they don't know that there's a  big difference  between the God of the Bible and the god of Calvinism, between the Bible's hope-filled gospel and Calvinism's sick, hopeless, twisted half-gospel. The reddit post starts out with this comment (I added punctuation to make it easier to read):  "I had a discussion with a Calvinist last night and it's more gross than I thought.  After questioning him for over an hour, it basically boiled down to the dude admitting that god predestined innocent children to a life of suffering and then hell, and that same ...
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Calvinist Bad Logic #8: Two Different Types Of ...

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Bad Logic #8 :  To make their "theology" fit the Bible, Calvinists break many biblical concepts into two types.  Something NOT supported by the Bible.  Because, once again, this comes from their own philosophical reasoning. Two Loves: Calvinism believes Calvi-god only really loves the "elect," which is why he saves them and only them.  But the Bible says God loves all people, right?  So how do they mesh this?  By saying God has two kinds of love - a "save your soul" love for the elect and a "give you food and water" love for the non-elect (before sending them to hell for eternity!). Two Wills :  The Bible says that God wills that no one perishes, that He wants all people to be saved.  But Calvinists believe that God predestines most people for hell.  So how do they mesh these two?  By claiming that God has two wills: a "revealed" one, where He says He wants one thing to happen, and a "hidden" one, where He really want...
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The Early Church and God's Gender

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I said in the last post that there was one article on a Christian News website that bothered me enough to remove the link to that website.  But then I re-added the link, and decided to simply write about the bothersome article here. The article is entitled "What The Early Church Thought About God's Gender."   In this article, the author is trying to make a case for God/Jesus being feminine, more feminine than the Word really portrays them.   I have no problem with saying that God/Jesus has a feminine side - a gentle, loving, nurturing side, like all people do to some degree.  Or with saying that since God created man and woman in His image then it must mean that feminine and masculine characteristics come from Him and are evident in His nature.  It's just that men got the more masculine traits and women got the more feminine, and that men and women together in marriage give us a more complete picture of the total nature of God. That's all fine.  But w...
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Another Serving of Anti-Calvinism Memes

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Some more of the memes I made up, just for fun! "Sovereignty" ... Special code Working for salvation? "Total Inability" But guess what? And so I said ... I told you ... WRONG! Santa Claus Hard To Swallow Pills How you feel when ... The Pie Chart - Theological Influences The Pie Chart - Calvinist Theology Calvinist theology - dead men I Tell You This Every Time ... Definitely "elected" How do we get them to believe ... Where do you get your theology from? You're right, Calvinist A Calvinist's Amazing Grace What if ...?
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