Burn the Ships!

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This is such a good song from For King and Country:  "Burn the Ships."  Read what it's about and watch the video.  So good!

 What "pills" do you need to flush?  What do you need to walk away from so that you can start the rest of your life?  

 There is hope in the Lord.  Reach out and take His hand. 

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Updated: Alana L. 5M (conflations: cause vs. allow)

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[I redid Point #5 and #6 in the Alana L. series on my other blog (and re-lettered the posts).  But instead of going back and changing the already-posted points on this blog, I'll just add the posts in their own little "series."]    Point #5 still :   M:  "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."     In  5K  and  5L  (links to my other blog), I looked at Calvinism's incorrect belief that "sovereign" necessarily means that God preplans/causes all things.  In these next few posts, I want to further examine their misunderstanding of "sovereign" related to their erroneous conflations of "cause" and "allow"... and "foreknow" and "foreplan"... and "natural evils" and "moral evils"... and their deceptive use of the word "authors."   [There will be some redundancy in here and some review of things I said in the previous parts.  I tried making it shorter and more concise, but...
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What's the best way to take over a church with Calvinism?

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By manipulating people to agree with you, and by shaming, mocking, and silencing those who disagree, of course! (This post was called "What's the best way to make people agree with your Calvinist views?", but I update it because the new title fits better.) Allow me to daydream here, to tell you a little story, a "hypothetical" situation... Pretend you are part of a great church, where the pastor doesn't make a huge issue (or any issue) out of Calvinism.  He keeps it middle of the road, on the parts of doctrine we can all agree on.  And it's a great place to be, a place you love inviting people to.  You've been there for many years, and have no intention of ever leaving. And then, after that pastor retires, you get a new one.  At first, he seems just fine.  Lots of enthusiasm, powerful speaker, very intelligent.  But you notice something just a little ... off ... and you can't quite put your finger on it. O ne of the first things that caught your ...
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Another one bites the dust

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[Happy Easter, y'all!] I just found this (sad!) on Reddit Reformed:  What happened to my conviction and love for God? Reformedhabeshagirl  said: Hello brothers and sisters I have always been a Christian and grew up fearing the Lord. I remember being convicted about my sins as young as 7 or 8 years old. I became Reformed around age 17 and I am 23 now. I have always been a repentant believer. My heart used to break when I sinned, and I love the Lord. I studied my Bible a lot, prayed often, and was very interested in theology, sermons, and everything related to faith. The problem is that my heart has lost all desire for the things I used to love. I stopped listening to sermons and I don’t want to study my Bible anymore. Any interest I had in Bible study or discussions about the Lord only came when my ex-boyfriend shared things with me every day or when it came from my pastor every Sunday. Now my heart feels hard. I am not convicted about the things I used to mourn over. I distanc...
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Why Is It So Hard For Calvinists To Get Free From Calvinism?

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This was originally on the end of my post "If Calvinism is true, then God is a liar."   But I think it deserves its own post (I recently updated it a little bit, March 2021): I read something once about how very few people end up freeing themselves from the clutches of Calvinism because of the strong hold it has on people.  I think this is partly because ... 1.   We (I am talking as if I were a Calvinist here) would have to admit that we were misunderstanding Scripture this whole time, and no one wants to admit they could be wrong. 2.   Calvinism appeals to us prideful intellectuals.  (And prideful intellectuals have the greatest aversion to admitting we could be wrong.)  It makes us feel special, like we alone understand the "deeper, hidden meanings of Scripture," while the simple-minded Christians can't understand it.  Calvinism (with all of its contradictions, word play, round-about reasoning, and multiple layers of meaning for verses) gives u...
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What Kind Of Christian Are You? 12-ish Different Kinds of "Christian"

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I find it very disheartening to read people’s opinions of Christians nowadays.   Society is coming down on them really hard, with such hateful force.   It almost makes me wonder what kind of Christian they are talking about.   While they might not differentiate one Christian from another, I think there are various different kinds of Christians (and “Christians”).   And just for fun, I want to make a list of as many different kinds I can think of.   And I am putting it on this blog because it’s important for the world to understand what a genuine Christian is and isn’t.   So here goes, in no particular order   (And these are not exclusive of each other.   There can be some overlap.   Nor is this an exhaustive or “official” list.) …
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Updated: Alana L. 5L (misunderstood sovereignty)

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[I redid Point #5 and #6 in the Alana L. series on my other blog (and re-lettered the posts).  But instead of going back and changing the already-posted points on this blog, I'll just add the posts in their own little "series."]  Point #5 still :   L : "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."   Misunderstood "sovereignty" You see, the thing is (and what most people fail to realize is) that Calvinists  incorrectly  make sovereignty about how God must  use  His authority and power, believing that He  must   always  be  using  His all-powerful authority  all the time  to  preplan ,  cause ,  contro l   everything , even sin and evil and unbelief,  "or else He's not a sovereign, omnipotent, in-control God." As  John MacArthur  says :  "... [God]  makes every decision that’s ever been made,   essentially, about everything....  He is the decider and ...
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#10: I Just Want To Finish Well, August 2017 (repost)

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(Actually written in 2014, but reposted in August 2017 because it still totally applied.  And since it fit how I was feeling in 2017, I am including it in this numbered "after my panic attack" series.  This is one of the last posts in that series.  Maybe one or two more to go.) Once again, I found myself in an emotional funk (this is a repost from 2014, yet it still seems to be where I’m at in 2017), feeling like I can’t accomplish anything.   Can’t give any one thing the effort and time it needs.   I am so stretched-thin in places.   The housework never gets done.   This house will never be "finished."   My cooking has seen better days.   There’s not enough time to do everything I want to do when it comes to taking care of my family.  I'm just one person, trying to do too much.  There's not enough "me" to go around.    I was feeling a little panicked that things were slipping away from me too fast, that I c...
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"Why is the Old Testament God so angry?" is the wrong question

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Lately, there seems to be a lot of people asking the question, "Why is the God of the Old Testament so angry?"  And some preachers handle this by telling people to basically ignore the God of the Old Testament and just stick with Jesus. But I say ... we are asking the wrong questions.  And the God of the Old Testament is the same God of today.  And Jesus is God in the flesh, the bodily manifestation of God, one of the three - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - which are all the same in spirit. You can't ignore the God of the Old Testament without seriously harming theology - the truth of who God is and how He acts and how He relates to us and who Jesus is and what He came here to do. Instead of ignoring Him or packing Him away in a little box somewhere, we need to seek to understand Him.  And we need to ask the right questions. Instead of asking "Why is the Old Testament God so angry," we should be asking ...               ...
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Pause, breathe, smile

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(Happy New Year!)  Please, allow me to vent and to listen to myself rant.  And come along, if you want, on a trip through m y mind  (I apologize in advance for how the messy it is😉) : Are you exhausted?  I am.  I am sick and tired of all the craziness out there, all the chaos, fighting, hate, lies, fear-mongering, violence, increasing prices (for less product or services), natural disasters, wars, rumors of wars, AI this-and-that, Big Pharma, social deviance/immorality, efforts to force people to tolerate social deviance/immorality, political posturing and mudslinging and nonsense, etc.   I'm done with it.  I'm just so done with it all.  "You can stop the world now, God.  We wanna get off."   I am sick of both social media and the news - because everyone just wants to fight, scream their opinions, demand their way, calls names, make accusations, and force everyone else to agree with them and do things their way.  E veryt...
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"Bring me pain, Lord, if it brings You glory!"

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(Reposted from a couple years ago, but updated for me for today.  Because I need it.  Note to self: Remember 10/2/19, the day the "tsunami" hit.)  I’ve always found the statements of “I want the Lord to do whatever He wants in my life to bring Him the most glory possible, even if it means bringing me pain” to be inspirational … and a bit “off.” Wh en I was 21 (half my lifetime ago), I went to Papua New Guinea for a summer on a mission trip.   And I told my mom that I picked PNG over any other place because it was so remote and primitive.   I said that I wanted to have everything taken away to really challenge me, to grow my faith in new ways.   And I meant it.   I really did.   My heart was in the right place. But my mom said something wise, something that stuck.   She said, “Don’t ask for that!   Never ask for that!   Because He could take away everything – your legs, your eyesight, your health, your home, etc.” Wow! ...
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