"Understanding God's Will" With Notes On Calvinism, All In One Post

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If you want to see the whole "Understanding God's Will" series in one post (with notes on Calvinism), click here to be taken to it on my other blog.  I put it all together in one post for those who prefer everything in one place and for those who don't want to wait till December to see the last posts in the series.

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Updated: Alana L.: 5O (author vs author)

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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 :   O:  "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."       This is not technically a conflation (or maybe it is), but it's a sidenote triggered by this sentence in the last post: "[Calvinism]  truly makes God the author*/cause of all sin and evil, despite a Calvinist's insistence that it doesn't." *Bonus Note: Author vs Author When confronted by the fact that their theology makes God the author of all evil, the cause of all sin, Calvinists will inevitably refer to the Westminster Confession:  " God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass:  yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin ." [...
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I So Needed This Today - "Strength In Your Struggles"

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I desperately needed this sermon today: Tony Evans Speaks on Strength in Your Struggles .  Such a great one! Last week sometime, I made a very deliberate effort to decide to not believe that everything goes wrong all the time, to have hope that things were going to be okay and that I'd make it through the crushing trials .  Generally, I wake up with a feeling of anxiety (and I have for over 3 years now), but that morning I had decided "No more!  I can't keep living like this.  I'm just going to trust that God's got it in His hands and that it's going to be okay.  I am just too tired to be anxious anymore."  And I felt rather relaxed for the day, in a way I hadn't in a long time.  And it felt good! And then ... that very night ... the night I felt like I had finally turned a new leaf ... one of my young sons comes to me sobbing for the first time ever about the anxiety he feels about life.  I had no idea that was going on inside of him....
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Updated: Alana L. 5N (conflations: foreknow vs foreplan)

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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: N:  "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."     Foreknow vs Foreplan "Oh," the Calvinist replies, "but God needed Assyria (or anybody, for that matter) to be/do evil for His plans, and so He foreplanned they would be/do evil.  They had no ability to do anything else or to choose to be good because God planned to use their evilness.  And so it had to be that way."   My reply to them: "No, I think God foreplanned to  use  Assyria's self-chosen evilness to discipline Israel, but He did not foreplan them to be/do evil.  Assyria had a choice in who they were and what they did.   And God foreknew they would be/chose evil, and so He found a way to work their evil into His plans...
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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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"Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave The U.S. If Trump Wins, On One Condition ..."

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I love this! Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave the U.S. If Trump Wins - On One Condition: "You Can't Come Back"  (from cnsnews, but I took the link down because it doesn't lead to the article anymore) Thank you, Sheriff Rick Jones, for saying what a lot of us have wanted to say to those celebrities who threaten to leave the U.S. if Trump wins (and who threatened last election).   I applaud you, and I add my message to those celebrities (and anyone else) who think they have the right to demand that everything be their way or who threaten to move from the country if they don't get their way:  "Good ... leave!  We don't want your snotty, cry-baby whining here anyway!  We don't want your arrogant attitudes where you think you're better than all of us lowly, common folk.  We don't want you preaching to us about how we should think, how we should vote, what our values should be, etc., especially when you contribute to some of the most wr...
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In "honor" of Halloween: My Story of Demonic Harassment

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(Reposted from my another blog of mine, and retold in various other posts.) In “honor” of Halloween (a day that deserves no honor), I’m gonna share with you why we don’t celebrate Halloween.   (We take our kids to a movie instead, or buy a movie they’ve been wanting and have a “family movie night” with candy and popcorn.   So no need to feel sorry for them; they are not deprived.)   I don’t expect anyone to believe me, but I’m going to share my story.    (And for the longer version of this story on my other blog, click here .)  It’s my story about how I came to fully trust in Jesus’s name and to passionately cling to Him, to never be able to doubt the existence of a spirit world, to place such a high priority on prayer and God’s Word, and to always remember my need for spiritual armor.   And once again, you don’t have to believe me.   (But don’t say I never warned you.   And if you are a skeptic and get nothing from this whole sect...
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Ever Wonder About Jesus?

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Did you ever wonder about Jesus?  Was He real?  Who was He?  Does it really matter what you think about Him? Here is a good, hour-long video from a former journalist who sought to disprove Jesus but ended up believing in Him as Lord and Savior: The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel [Also see my post "Support for Jesus and the Bible" ]
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What About Those Who've Never Heard of Jesus?

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(Part of the "Predestination vs. Free-Will" series) In the previous "predestination" posts, I have been making the case that anyone can be saved, that God didn't predetermine who goes to hell and who goes to heaven.             “But,” you might wonder, “how can it be possible for all people to come to Jesus if some people have never even heard of Him, such as those who live in the jungles of a primitive island or those who grew up in another religion and only heard the name of other gods?   How can they be saved if the Bible says that only those who call on the name of Jesus will be saved, and yet they have never even heard of Him?   You can’t call on a name you never knew about.”             I have always been interested in sorting this question out in my mind – how (and if) salvation can come to those who never heard about Jesus.   When I was Ca...
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Is Yoga Ok For Christians? (Here's a hint: It's not!)

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There's this article out right now about people doing yoga at a church.  And this, of course, raises the question about if it's ok for Christians to do yoga. I have thought about this issue before and wrote a post on it.  And I'm going to repost it here at the end. [Hear me out.  This is important.  Even if you don't do yoga, it's worth learning about it so you can be discerning.  This is seeping into the church now, and it affects our Christian family.  Do you know what you believe about it and why? A suggestion: Before you read this, say this prayer out loud, "Lord, give me Your eyes, the wisdom to see this issue the way You do."  And if you hesitated to pray this or don't want to pray this, then ask yourself and ask God "Why am I hesitating?"  You might be surprised by the answer.] First let me say that I've never done yoga.  But I used to want to.  For the health benefits.  But after going through a season of demonic harassment...
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