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:

Thank you, reddit/reformed. I'm honored!

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[I'm sneaking this post in between the regular bi-weekly (every other week) posts on both this blog and my Anti-Calvinist Rant blog.  (Did you know that bi-weekly can mean both "every other week" and "twice a week"?  What the heck, those are like total opposites!)] Commenter Senior-Emergency-944   started a thread  on Reddit/Reformed   called  Part of me wants to affirm it. But how do you refute this?!  which linked to my post  "But Calvinists don't say God causes sin and evil!" , asking for advice on how to refute the Calvinist quotes I shared about God causing evil.  If I was able to reply to Senior (I don't have a reddit account), I would've said this... That's awesome!  Thank you.  I'm honored that you brought up this post for discussion among reformed Christians.  And I think it's great that you're willing to examine this issue and think deeper about it, to face the dark, uncomfortable truth of what Calvinists really be...
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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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Finally! Someone In Hollywood Stops Apologizing!

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So glad to see this finally happen: A celebrity has finally stood up and said that enough is enough, that they are not going to apologize to the mobs who constantly attack others to bend them to their twisted political agendas. Way to go, Kevin Hart!  Good to see that commonsense still lives and that some people still have a backbone! The more people apologize to these mobs and try to appease them, the more powerful and power-hunger they get.  There's a lot that we need to stop apologizing for, before we end up giving them total control over social customs and values and what's allowed and what's not allowed. The madness will only end when people do just what Kevin Hart did: stop apologizing, and stop letting them make you feel like you have something to apologize for!
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Hypocritical Liberals! A Fundamental Problem in America

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So ... when it comes to prayer in schools, we have to abide by the "separation of church and state" thing:  "Kentucky School Removes 'Prayer Locker' After Anti-Religion Group Complains"   (So it doesn't matter if the students wanted it or were helped by it, does it!?!  All that matters is that the anti-religion group gets their way!)   When someone chooses, out of love and compassion, to give their Bible to a hurting person who's at the end of their rope, the liberals cry "Separation of church and state!":  "Left-Wing Group Files Complaint Against Christian Judge Who Hugged, Gave Bible To Remorseful Killer"   (So it's not enough that the Left-Wingers lack compassion and love and would rather see broken people stay broken, but now they have to force others to be just like them too!  To stop others from showing compassion and love and from helping hurting people! ) Christians want to help tutor struggling students?  ...
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Did Our Church Handle It Wrong When We Left?

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We  left our church  in May because of the  dogmatic Calvinist pastor  who seems to  shame and manipulate people  into Calvinism and who doesn’t seem to tolerate any other views but his. It's been over three months since we left.  And just recently, one of the elders (a long-time friend who is a Calvinist) apologized for how the whole situation was handled.  They even had us over for dinner with their family.  (They are truly wonderful people!)  Apparently, some people have gone to the elders with concerns about how our situation was handled, saying that it was handled wrong. Now you're probably wondering,  So just how was it all handled?  What exactly happened? Answer: Nothing.   That's what happened - nothing. After we sent our  letter to the elders  detailing our concerns about the pastor's dogmatic Calvinism, nothing changed.    In fact, the pastor only got more vocal about it.    And so a...
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Merry Christmas To All!

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Merry Christmas, Everyone!  May God bless you today and this next year.  May He show Himself to you in new ways, to encourage you, to help you along the hard paths, to restore your faith in Him (or draw you to Him for the first time), to lift you up when your heart is broken. A song that I love:  Hallelujah Christmas   (Cloverton) "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the LORD." Luke 2:11 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."  John 3:16 "... if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.... Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."  Romans 10:9, 13
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A Tale of Two Gospels

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  In my post  "A Tale of Two Sermons" , I shared something the Calvinist pastor at my ex-church preached, which was...  "The key verse in Jonah - the one that the rest of the book of Jonah hinges on - is 'Salvation belongs to our God.'  Tim Keller  [Calvinist!]  says this: 'If someone is saved, it is wholly God's doing.  It is not a matter of God saving you partly and you partly saving yourself.  No!  God saves us.  We do not and cannot save ourselves.  That is the gospel.'   And that is the message of Jonah: Only God elects.  Only God sovereignly draws.  Only God sovereignly convicts us of sin.  Only God sovereignly opens blinded eyes." And here's a segment from that post sharing my comments about it, with a few edits and additions (I think this should get its own post because it's a crucial point): 1.  W e all agree that God saves us, that we cannot save ourselves.  But what Keller - and all Calv...
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One Pastor's Prophetic Dream of Things to Come

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I am not one for listening to other people's prophetic dreams or visions.  Far too many people over the years have thought God gave them some sort of special insight, which proved to be false or unimportant.  I am especially wary now since everything seems so "end timesy."  It's far too easy to get caught up in sensationalizing or over-spiritualizing everything.  But sometimes, someone's account of their dream or vision makes you go, "Hmm."  And while I still don't put much stock into other people's "God told me X,Y, or Z" stories, I do think some things are worth listening to and storing in the back of your mind.  Just in case.  These are strange days and, if we are really headed into the end times soon, then things will probably only get more "supernatural."  And if that's the case, then anything's possible.   (On a different note, having nothing to do with this pastor's dream, but speaking of "strange d...
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I know it sounds crazy but ...

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Okay, fine, I guess I'll officially start up this blog again, adding some new posts every now and then. A neighbor (a recent believer) and I were talking the other day about the rapture and the end times, prophecy and the book of Revelation, etc.  And I found myself saying "I know it sounds crazy.  It sounds crazy to talk about things like this, about prophecy and Jesus coming back and the tribulation and things like that." We Christians know how it sounds when we talk about these things - like we should be wearing tin-foil hats, claiming  that the government is reading our thoughts, that aliens have probed us, and  that we've seen Bigfoot working as a cashier at the local convenience store.  I know that the Bible and its teachings - on how the world was created, on how it will end, on prophecy, angels, demons, the spiritual battle, on Jesus being God and coming to earth in a human body to die for our sins and then being raised again from the dead, etc. - I know...
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Satan vs. Calvinism's god

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Hmm ... let me see ... 1.   Satan lies.   Calvi-god lies too - telling us that he loves all people, that he wants all people to be saved, and that he sent Jesus to die for sinners, when in reality he predestined most people for hell and gave them no chance to be saved because he only sent Calvi-Jesus to die for the "elect."  Not to mention that Calvi-god is the cause of all of Satan's lies. 2.   Satan is a master of half-truths and deception.   Calvi-god is a master of half-truths and deception too - telling people to repent but hiding the fact that they can't repent unless he makes them repent, commanding  them to be obedient but hiding the fact that he actually controls everything they do, commanding the "non-elect" to do things he made impossible for them to do (repent and believe) but then causing them to do things he commands them not to do (disobey, rebel, reject him).  Not to mention that Calvi-god is the cause of all of Satan's half-...
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