The Best Weapon A Parent Has!

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Ever been in this situation?













Or how about this one!







 






 



 



 






(A repost from my other blog.  But it's worth repeating.  You've got this weapon available any time.  
And it's powerful.  So use it!  But use it wisely!  
With great power comes the great ability to annoy the snot out of your kids!  Score one for the parents!)



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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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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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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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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Spiritual Warfare: Satan's Schemes #6 (half-truths)

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(We're getting closer to the end of the "Satan's Schemes" section, I promise.  A few more to go, then we'll move on.)   Okay, so last post  in this series we saw that Satan "planted" thoughts in Eve's mind, enticing her with new ideas.   But it wasn't against her will, for she was a willing listener - willingly engaging in conversation with him, willingly contemplating what he said, willingly entertaining things that she knew contradicted what God said. “When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’    For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.    Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”    ( James 1:13-15 ) [May I suggest praying right now that God shows you if there's something you're dabbling with that may lead you astray or if you're ente...
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On this Good Friday

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Take some time on this Good Friday to remember what Jesus went through to bring us forgiveness, to offer us all eternal life - and then thank Him for it.   Some great songs and videos about it: Jeremy Riddle's  "Sweetly Broken"   Cloverton's  "Christmas Hallelujah" Michael W. Smith's  "Secret Ambition" Crowder's  "I AM" "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood." ( Romans 3:23-25 ) “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life   in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  ( Romans 6:23 ) “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”   ( Romans 5:8 ) "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us...."  ( 1 John 3:16 ) "Christ suffered for you... When ...
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Praise The Lord

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How I'm feeling today:  Praise The Lord by City Harmonic and Blessed Be Your Name by Newsboys. A hard lesson to learn  - learning to praise in the pain.  I still stink at it sometimes.
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No Masks Allowed!

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           I’ve talked before about the need to get real with God.   But I think that we Christians also need to do better at being real with each other.   Why can’t we Christians just admit that we are broken, hurting people too, that we are sinful and need help?               Why do we act like we can do it all on our own and like we can handle everything with grace and style and a smile on our faces?   Why do we spend so much time and energy polishing up our outsides?   Is it t o earn approval?   To make God happy and proud of us?   To impress others?   To feel better about ourselves?   To look better than others?             Honestly, all we are doing is hurting everyone.   When we are not real, we miss out on a genuine relationship with God and others. ...
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Little Drummer Boy #1

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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 don’t expect them to get it yet.   And in some ways, I almost hope...
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