What Real Encouragement Looks Like Sometimes!

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Who would've thought that "encouraging each other in the Lord" would take the form of two hours of telling each other, "Yep, that crap's hard!"?

- A text I got from a friend after a long conversation about the trials we've been through, the heartaches we've known, and how difficult life can be sometimes.  It made me smile!

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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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Another great sermon: What if love meant more than you thought?

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Before I get to part 2 of   "White Horses and a cup of tea,"   here's another great sermon from Willow Creek (they're on a roll):  What If Love Meant More Than You Thought? A sermon like this is especially needed in this "outrage culture" where people spend their days looking for things to be angry about, for people to lash out at.  Ugh. But there's a better way.  It doesn't have to be like this.  We don't have to let the news and social media lure us into an ever-increasing spiral of hopelessness and discouragement, antagonizing us into hating life and everyone around us. If you've already spent enough time letting the online world break your heart and blood your boil, why not take a break and try something else, something relaxing and encouraging for a change?   L ike reading the book of John in the Bible, followed by the rest of the New Testament.  Or talking a walk and enjoying nature (start a collection of interesting things you find on ...
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A Coronavirus "Plandemic"? A 26-minute video you need to see

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Everyone should watch this 26-minute video: Plandemic Part 1 by Dr. Mikovits .  (FYI: I watched this video yesterday on a different YouTube link.  It had something like a million views.  And it's already been removed today.  Big surprise!  This is why I watched it right away and wrote up a short summary of my thoughts on it.  Because I figured it would be silenced!  So watch it soon, before this is removed too.) A friend found it yesterday and shared it with me.   While it’s scary stuff, it didn’t shock me because it coincides with what I’ve already thought about this whole virus situation, among other things: ... That there’s something fishy about it and it’s not natural … ... That there are unhealthy and dangerous connections between Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci and government health agencies (CDC, FDA, WHO, etc.), among others … ... That there are shady coronavirus reporting practices in the hospitals, such as financial incentives for doctors ...
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This One's For You! (A Christmas Sermon)

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Did you ever listen to a sermon where you felt as if God was saying "This one's for you"?  I've never looked up Willow Creek sermons before, but for some reason I decided to watch one yesterday.  And you know what?  This one was meant for me.  It really hit me in the heart.  Watch it; it's good.  In fact, I couldn't stop thinking about it all day and into the night.  (Skip to the 35-minute mark to start the sermon.) "Christmas at the movies: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (December 18, 2022)" (Willow Creek Huntley YouTube channel) Merry Christmas, Everyone! [FYI: I've written before about how I disagree with woman being head pastors.  And it seems that, at Willow, the head pastor is a man but there are several teaching pastors under him, including women.  To me, that's a gray area.  And I'm not sure yet what I think of it.  But  since it doesn't break my hardline, definitive "no woman head pastor" rule , I've decided to ...
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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 (among other things).  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 ch...
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My Testimony

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I've scattered bits of my story all over my blogs, but I’m gonna pull it all together here, about how I became a believer and some things I’ve gone through and how my faith has been affected.  (I’ll include links to posts where I explain things more fully.) Starting the journey:    I became a believer when I was eleven years old.    (I am now getting close to 50.   I don't know how that happened. )    At a Christian camp, on one of the last nights, they gave an altar call.    I wanted to go up but was nervous about standing up in front of everyone.    But being more nervous about the window of opportunity closing, I felt myself stand up and walk to the front.    I knew exactly what I was doing, that I was making a commitment for life.    And I meant it.    I really meant it.    I knelt down, asked Jesus into my heart, and have never turned back.    It hasn’t been an easy, carefr...
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God is love, but love is NOT a god!

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Our society doesn’t get this.   We have it backwards.   We have turned love into its own god, even redefining who God is, according to how we think love should look, act, and believe.   Just today, I found a "Christian" blog that emphasized how the most important factor of being a Christian is that we love everyone and do harm to no one.   However, this wasn't a "treat people kindly, take care of widows and orphans" kind of thing.   It was a "support the LGBTQ-movement, defend the LGBTQ-people who are oppressed (I'm sorry, but how can you call that massive mob of loud, demanding people who are steamrolling everyone into doing what they want and tearing down anyone who doesn't support them "oppressed"?), and defend the living children, not the unborn babies" kind of thing. She twisted Scripture to make it sound like a loving God wants us to show our love for others by approving of everything they do and everything they ...
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Link to "Why Calvin's Total Depravity Is Wrong"

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Here's a link to a good post about "Why Calvin's Total Depravity Is Wrong" , from Gary Ritter, an author who writes a lot about the end times and the rapture.  (I, too, am interested in that topic and write about it.)  I really enjoyed this post because it presented another reasonable, rational, biblical argument against Calvinism, one that I hadn't thought of before.  I mean, think about it:  If we are "totally depraved" and everything we do is "totally depraved," why would God single out certain behaviors as "depraved" in the Bible?  You can't get more "depraved" than "totally"!  So why would God emphasize the depravity of certain behaviors over others?  Just one more way that Calvinism doesn't make sense!   [FYI, I added two comments at the end of his post, but they haven't shown up yet.  So here they are for reference, in case they didn't go through (I made a couple minor changes for better ...
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A Quick Study Of Calvinism's Favorite Words

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  I am going to do a quick study of several of Calvinism’s favorite words – sovereign, predestined, elect, chosen, whosoever, and hardens - looking them up in the Bible (in context) and in the concordance to see what we can learn about them.   1.   Sovereign Despite the fact that Calvinists heavily build their theology on their idea that being “sovereign” means that God has to control every detail, every sin, every choice we make, every speck of dust or else He can’t possibly be God … this word NEVER shows up in the King James Bible or in the concordance.   (Strong’s concordance uses the King James.) And when it is used in, say, the NIV, it's used as a title (Sovereign Lord), not a description of how God has to act.  Sovereign is about the position God holds, being the Top Dog, the High King, the One over and above all, the One who has the final say in all matters. “Sovereign” is about the position of power and authority that God holds.   But...
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Avoiding Calvinist Websites

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(Excerpt from "How to tell if a church, pastor, or website is Calvinist" .  FYI, I added a note at the bottom of this post on May 5, 2021.) Did you ever wonder about the websites that pop up when you type a religious question into a browser?  Who are they?  Are they reliable?  Is the advice you're getting biblical and accurate?  What is their theological view? It's too easy to type in a question, find some "biblical" answer on a site, and think it’s the truth.  We, Christians, tend to be a trusting bunch of people, especially when someone uses a lot of Bible verses or when it's a popular website with big name theologians or authors.  And so we will probably not notice the Calvinist-bent that are found on many websites and blogs.      I wonder how many people have been led astray in this way.  Probably a lot, because many of the popular sites - the first ones to pop up when I type in a question - are Calvinist. Be ca...
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