Oh, the ways this could go wrong!

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So apparently, China is starting a new program - a social scorecard , a rating system for all its citizens where your score determines what kind of things you have access to.  

 Yeah ... I don't see how this could go wrong at all, do you!?! 

Most Popular Posts of the Week:

I am Little Drummer Boy

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year early.  (I've shared this before, but I'll share it again.) My all-time favorite classic Christmas song has got to be the Little Drummer Boy.   If I’m listening to this song and start to think too much about it, I start to well up with tears.  Every time. My sons occasionally ask me why this is my favorite Christmas song.   “It’s stupid and it doesn’t make sense,” they say. I answer like this: “This song is about a little boy who’s poor.  And he wants to bring Jesus a gift.  But he doesn’t have anything to give him.  And so he gives the baby Jesus the only gift he has to give – a song.  And this poor boy is drumming his little heart out for the Lord, because that’s all he has to give.  But it’s enough.  And the baby Jesus smiles.” Usually, I am trying to hold back tears as I share this with my sons.  But they simply reply that it's still stupid, before running off to play. But that’s okay. I d...
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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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Spiritual Warfare: Sword of the Spirit 4 (the sword)

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Okay now, onto the list of verses I shared with my family member for her to use in spiritual battles, when Satan's got us down and cowering in fear.  These were specifically chosen for comfort, encouragement, and strength (and I added a few extra here for different kinds of temptations or trials).  I suggest p rinting them out, reading them over and over again, writing them out, mem orizing some, taking a list with you wherever you go, etc.  Whatever it takes to get through the hard times. And when the attacks, temptations, or hard times come, turn them into prayers  (I'll share my own personal Scripture-based prayers in the next post)  or simply s peak out loud the ones that fit your particular struggle, trial, temptation, or fear.   Declare to yourself, to the struggle/temptation, and to the spirit world/the Enemy that "It is written ..." and then quote a verse that fits.  A nd let God's Word comfort and still your soul as the sword of the Spiri...
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Anti-Calvinism Links

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This is the last half of the post "What's The Best Way To Make People Agree With Your Calvinist Views."   But I put it here in its own post so that it's easier to find. These are some links to posts which are against Calvinism, the belief that the Bible teaches God has predetermined from the beginning of time who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.  It's no secret from my writing that I strongly disagree with this view.  I believe the Bible clearly teaches that God offers us all salvation, that Jesus's death paid for everyone's sins, and that we have to decide if we will accept Him or reject Him.  And here is some of what others have to say about Calvinism: (FYI, I haven't read everything in all of these yet and I don't necessarily agree with every point they make, but I needed to link to them before I lost them online.  And for the record, I came to my belief about what the Bible says by reading the Bible, not extra-biblical books or articles...
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Support for Jesus and the Bible

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Although almost every other major religion out there acknowledges that Jesus really did live, there are still people who insist He is a fairy tale, like a mythological legend from ancient history.  Or they believe that He was a real man but never claimed to be God, that His followers made it up after He died.  And many believe that the Bible, though a good book, was written just from men’s minds and wasn’t really God-inspired. When trying to reason with people like this, many Christians quote Bible verses to try to win the argument, thinking it should convince everyone of God’s Truth.  But since many people, including atheists, don’t believe the Bible is true, they don’t want to hear the Bible being used to try to prove the validity of the Bible.  That’s “circular reasoning,” using the Bible to validate the Bible.  This is why it’s important to have sources outside the Bible that confirm that Jesus really did live and that Scripture is really reli...
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Spiritual Warfare: Sword of the Spirit 5 (Scripture-based prayers)

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And finally, to end the "Sword of the Spirit" posts: When I was going through my worst, hardest times and was full  of anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and helplessness, there were a few things that helped give me some relief (herbal teas, herbal tinctures, homeopathic remedies, positive thinking, walks, mindless but relaxing TV shows, worship music, reading the Bible, saying verses out loud or writing them by hand, etc.).   But I could tell that my soul needed something more, something deeper, more powerful, more effective.   And so I decided to try something that I had always  been curious about: Praying Scripture back to God, turning verses into prayers, grabbing onto the truths and promises in Scripture that fit our need at the moment and praying them back to Him,  trusting Him to answer.   And when I did that, it calmed my anxious soul in a way that nothing else did or could.   Even just looking through God's Word for th...
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Where I've Been For a Long Time ...

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A post from another blog of mine, written 3/6/18: "Silence as Worship" For a long time now I have had a hard time praying.  (I'm talking a couple years.)  Or more accurately, I've had a hard time knowing what to pray, how to pray. It feels like so much has gone wrong, like so many hopes have crashed and burned, like prayer isn't having any effect, like I am praying to the ceiling, like the things I pray about are what gets attacked anyway, like the burdens of life are too heavy and have shattered me into too many pieces, like there is just too much to complain about. And so ... I have been silent. In life.  In friendships. And even in prayer (for the most part, compared to how I used to pray). And this has bothered me for awhile.  Made me feel guilty, like I am failing at friendships, at my faith, as a Christian. I was thinking about all this the other day.  Thinking about the alternative to silence. What if I started tal...
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Thing My Calvinist Pastor Said #3: Even Babies are Wicked

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(This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown on this much longer post:  "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism,"  which was written last year but updated July 2020.  They are almost exact quotes.  All memes were created with  imgflip .) 3.   " W e all, even babies and small children, are depraved and wicked to the core, deserving of death, and we can never come to God on our own."                Calvinists love to remind us of how wicked even babies are.  For some twisted reason, it makes them feel intellectually-superior and ultra-humble to embrace this "evil baby" idea!  "Look how smart and humble we are to embrace such distasteful teachings!  So much better than those of you who question it because you can't handle it or understand it!"  (Of course they don't say this out loud; it's just my characterization of them.)           ...
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