A Broken Hallelujah

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The song that's making me wipe tears from my eyes this morning...

 I don't know what all the lyrics mean, but I do understand that life is often a broken Hallelujah.   

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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 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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"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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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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Prayer, Faith, and God's Will

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(repost, summary of “Understanding God’s Will,” Question 9, Q9a -Q9i)             “‘Have faith in God,’ Jesus answered.   ‘I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.   Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.’” ( Mark 11:22-24 )                    I have to be honest.   I struggle with this verse more than any other.   I really do.   I mean, it sounds pretty straightforward to me: believe that you’ll get what you ask for and you’ll get it.   Name it and claim it!   Sounds great!               But there’s a problem.            ...
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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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What Will The Rapture Be Like? (repost)

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So what will the rapture be like? Answer: I don't know. There is no way to know exactly what the rapture will be like until it happens.  So this is only my opinion, based on Scripture, as best I understand it.   Here are some passages I believe refer to the rapture (though many others believe some of these refer to events during the tribulation) :   "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."   ( 1 Thess. 4:16-17 .  Definitely the rapture.) " Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." ...
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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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The Trans-Gender Revolution Is Beyond Insane!

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I totally agree with this article about the dangers and insanity of the trans-gender revolution.  I would write more about it, but this says it so well that there's not much more to add. I can only hope and pray that this revolution will fail, like the title proclaims. Please note that I am not speaking against individual people who are dealing with deeply-held, trans-feelings (that's a whole other issue).  I am talking about the trans-frenzy that's going on nowadays - the push to expose children to it at younger and younger ages, to punish anyone who doesn't support them, to change our textbooks and laws to further encourage and celebrate them, to commandeer women's sports and competitions, to demote scientific fact to mere fantasy and utter nonsense, and to silence any opposition.   Having the right to live the way you want doesn't mean you get to force everyone else to celebrate your lifestyle or to deny their views in favor of yours! This "...
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