When God Breaks You to Remake You: Encountering God Through the Hard Times

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A great sermon by Tony Evans:  "Encountering God's Process," about how God breaks us of our self-sufficiency to remake us stronger in Him.  I've been there before.  I totally understand. 


And here are some more "Encountering God ..." sermons worth watching.  (Come on, now, I know you've got the time, stuck at home, "social distancing."  You've got plenty of time for a "God encounter"!):





 

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Hardest Spiritual Lesson #9: Humility and Brokenness

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The last of the "Hardest Spiritual Lessons" posts (finally): Humility and Brokenness (Once again, another long post which repeats some things that I’ve said in other posts.    But it’s totally worth reading.  At least I think so.  But then again, I'm the one who wrote it.😁) Matthew 18:4:   “Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’”   Whoever humbles himself like a child!    This, I believe, should be the ultimate goal of every believer.    Humility.    Brokenness.    Now, everyone might define humility a little differently, but here’s my attempt at it:   Humility is recognizing and freely admitting that we are needy, helpless, and dependent.    It’s knowing that we need our Heavenly Father desperately, that we are helpless to do anything without Him, and that we are fully dependent on Him daily.    It’s resting in and so completely trustin...
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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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Why I Could Never Be An Atheist!

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“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”   (Psalm 14:1)   “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”   (Romans 1:20) I have gone through some hard times recently.   (This is a repost from not too long ago.)  Not only has there been a bunch of discouraging trials, but these trials have been accompanied by “spiritual droughts” of sorts.   Long, dry spiritual times, the kind that could leave you wondering if you only convinced yourself all along that there is a God.   He has been so silent, so distant . . . and at a time when I needed Him to show Himself most.   My soul has ached for more than what He is giving right now.   I cry out, but hear nothing.   I pray and pray about certain things.   And . . . nothing happens.   Many prayers have not been...
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Help for Anxiety, Depression, and Suicidal Thoughts (repost)

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It's so sad to hear about all the celebrities who have recently committed suicide (or about anyone who has committed suicide, for that matter).  My heart breaks for them, for the pain they went through, and for the ones who love them, for the pain they are now going through.  It is truly a tragedy. To anyone who is hurting really badly, who is struggling with overwhelming anxiety or depression, who is considering taking their own lives ... I dedicate this post.  Please, take some time to look through some of the links here.  This is a round-up of some on-line resources or posts about dealing with anxiety or depression, particularly as a Christian. But first: Quick tips for help: If you are desperate for some immediate help and don't want to look through the links I have below, try some of these (or if it's really bad and you're afraid you might hurt yourself, call 911 or go to the emergency room): 1.   Put on a worship song right now.  Or sing a...
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Is The ESV (English Standard Version) a Calvinist Bible?

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Just in case anyone missed this post (the longer title made it easy to miss the "ESV" part) ... "A Random Verse That Destroys Calvinism (And "Is The ESV a Calvinist Bible?") In that post, I write about a bunch of verses that I believe were intentionally translated to be more Calvinistic or based on manuscripts that are too corrupt to be trusted.  (Click on it to see the verses.)   And why would I think that the translators of this Bible version would do that? (From that post...) The ESV and ESV Study Bible are majorly preferred by Calvinists.  In fact, it's often considered "The Calvinist Bible."   Why?  And why would translators of a Bible make these kinds of Calvinist tweaks to Scripture? Wayne Grudem and J.I. Packer were editors on the  ESV Study Bible   (this is for the ESV Global Study Bible).  Grudem and Packer are both popular, strong, dogmatic Calvinists.  Very Big Names in the world of Calvinism.  Grudem in the General...
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The Early Church and God's Gender

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I said in the last post that there was one article on a Christian News website that bothered me enough to remove the link to that website.  But then I re-added the link, and decided to simply write about the bothersome article here. The article is entitled "What The Early Church Thought About God's Gender."   In this article, the author is trying to make a case for God/Jesus being feminine, more feminine than the Word really portrays them.   I have no problem with saying that God/Jesus has a feminine side - a gentle, loving, nurturing side, like all people do to some degree.  Or with saying that since God created man and woman in His image then it must mean that feminine and masculine characteristics come from Him and are evident in His nature.  It's just that men got the more masculine traits and women got the more feminine, and that men and women together in marriage give us a more complete picture of the total nature of God. That's all fine.  But w...
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#20 Atheism and World Religions (not shortened)

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(This is a super long post, as it is in the original Bible study lesson , except for some questions I cut in this one.)    In this lesson, I combined parts of several posts from https://myimpressionisticlife.blogspot.com .   This lesson is not really an academic “study” of atheism and world religions, but it’s a very personal account of why I could never give up my faith in Jesus, why those other options are not for me, and how I would explain salvation and faith in Jesus to a non-believer.       Christianity isn’t a squeaky clean, “everything goes smoothly and life is always what I want it to be” kind of faith.   It can be messy and painful and difficult.       Due to many trials which have caused me to struggle deeply with my faith, I’ve become a little less polished and a lot more real over the years.   This is why I included this lesson and the depression one.   Because I really wanted to show the very real, human si...
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9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult #5 (isolation, control)

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[This series is  "The 9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult"  split up into smaller, individual posts.]   Cults use isolation, control, fear, coercion, mind-control, and thought-reform to enslave the members to the cult.  The members' "inner voices" are suppressed. 5. Information Isolation and Control Of course, Calvinists don't physically isolate members in a commune or anything like that, as more extreme cults have.  But Calvinist pastors do practice various forms of "mental" isolation by controlling the information and resources.   From the very beginning,  Calvinist pastors set out to carefully control the information we get, the resources we have access to, the verses we hear, who's in charge,  etc. Verses:  Calvinists will  ignore verses that contradict or disprove Calvinism , but highly favor those that can be twisted/interpreted to support it.   For example: Calvinist pastors fill their sermons with verses that appear to fit...
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Calvinist (Bad Logic) Comment #8: Calvin Teaches "Free-Will"?

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8.  A 10-point Calvinist (Derek) tried to say that John Calvin affirms that we freely make our own choices.  He said, " You may be surprised to learn that Calvin affirms our “innate liberty” and uses the term “voluntary” to describe the freedom of will that we exercise ... Calvin’s conceptions of human freedom cannot be flattened out into mere robotic determinism.  His views are far more nuanced and complex than he is given credit for.  Yes, Calvin believes that God determines all; yet he also clearly affirms that man’s will is genuinely free and voluntary (back to the two claims I outlined, which are attested over and over by all of the mainstream Calvinistic theologians).  Thus, Calvin and his best proponents hold to a compatibilism that is more than mere “culpability despite having been forced,” as non-Calvinists consistently misrepresent." My reply: You keep using phrases like “You may be surprised to learn …” and “assuming you have never been told, or ...
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UGW #9b: Help For The Journey

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Understanding God's Will #9b: (No Calvinism information added to this post.) So, as seen in the point 9a, faith in God isn’t “claiming” something that He hasn’t promised, believing that He’ll do it just because we believe in His ability to do it.    Godly faith is trusting that He is the God that He claims to be in the Bible and that He will do what’s best, in His time and in His way.    And our job is to follow in obedience, not to lead.                And contrary to the “name it and claim it” way, I believe that we are off-base when we are “claiming” a particular answer to prayer before He reveals it, when we tell Him the answer that we expect and that we are going to wait for.    I think we need to not be claiming specific answers or blessings as much as “instructions” or “help along the way.”              While we can and should pray what's in ou...
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