Lord, I Don't Know ... But Hallelujah Anyway!

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We don't often know why things happen the way they do or why God allows what He does, but that's okay.  We don't have to know, because God does.  ("Lord, I Don't Know" by the Newsboys)

And if we're going to be singing "Hallelujah" all eternity anyway, why not start now?  ("Hallelujah" by the Newsboys)


I've found that sometimes the only way to deal with feeling hopeless, downtrodden, and brokenhearted is to sing, even when you don't want to.  In fact, especially when you don't want to. 

Just sing anyway!

Most Popular Posts of the Week:

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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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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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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If They Mated ...

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I think I stumbled upon the perfect "If They Mated ..." scenario for who I look like and how I act.  (You know, when they take two people and morph their faces into one to show what their offspring would look like if they mated.)  I wasn't trying to figure this out or anything; it just came to me as I was watching The Hobbit recently.  And once I saw it in my mind, I couldn't unsee it.  Then after I thought about possibly sharing it with all of you, my mind won't let it go until I do.  And so here it is, much to my chagrin... I kid you not, if you mixed these three characters - their looks and their personalities - you would totally have me.   Frankie Heck from The Middle (Someone once told me I looked like her, when I was a lot younger.  Actually, it was when she was in Everybody Loves Raymond , but we're both a lot older now.  And I was told once I looked like Winona Ryder, for a split second.  Ah, to be young again!) Bard...
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#15 Supernatural Stuff and the Armor of God (shortened)

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            (For full version of this Bible study "lesson," click here .)             I don’t expect anyone to believe me, but I’m going to share my story.   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 section, just remember this: “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to leave.”   In case you ever need it.)             My first real experience with the unseen world was when I was a pre-teen.   My younger half-brother, his step-sister, and I decided to play “Light as a feather, stiff as a board.”...
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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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Watch Out For This Heretical Teaching About Sin!

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I have been seeing a certain heretical teaching a lot lately.  And it's always from left-leaning, progressive-type "churches" or "ministers" ... you know, the kind that have drifted away from solid biblical-teaching, who have created a version of it they like better so that they can keep doing whatever they want. And this is the heretical teaching I hear a lot:  "Sin is not believing in Jesus, in God." According to many of these "progressive" churches, sin is nothing more than not believing in Jesus.  So as long as you believe in Jesus, there are no other restrictions and everything is good between you and God, no matter how you are living.  The only requirement is "believe in Jesus."  That's all you have to worry about. WRONG!!! Sin is not "not believing in Jesus."   "Not believing in Jesus" is called "unbelief."  And while unbelief will cause you to die in your sinful state, apart from G...
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My "When Anxiety Strikes" Playlist

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In the post "Getting through the 'broken' times," I said that I had made a CD to listen to when anxiety hits.  It has some of my favorite Christian songs on it.   Here are as many of the songs as I could find online, plus some extra.  Listen to some of them when anxiety threatens you.  It really does help to hear godly truths spoken out loud (and to speak them out loud yourself).  And personally, I think godly music helps repel evil, giving you some extra spiritual protection when you are most vulnerable.  They don't like to hear God being praised and Truth being sung! (FYI: Videos are constantly being removed from online.  So if the video is no longer available, type in the name and artist and see if you can find it.  I simply can't keep up with replacing links.) From The City Harmonic: Love, Heal Me  - The song that inspired the title of one of my blogs, Love, Heal Me - my heart's cry for the past year. Fell Apart  - One...
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A Christmas Story For You

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Nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ was born to bring us salvation, so that anyone can believe in Him and be saved.  He was born in a barn and placed in a manger because there was no room for them in the Inn.  Jesus - God the Son - came to earth as a poor, helpless baby ... But that's the ONLY time He's going to do that. The next time He comes back, it won't be as a poor, helpless baby. It will be as a powerful King and righteous Judge - gathering His faithful people to Him and dishing out swift justice on those who have taken their stands against Him. Amen!  Come, Lord Jesus! And have a merry Christmas!
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Is The End Almost Here?

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While no one can say for sure because only God truly knows, I wonder if Trump's sudden withdrawal of troops from Syria is setting up "the beginning of the end."  Is this a step on the path to the End Times?  Will it lead to the fulfillment of Jeremiah 49's prophecy - the destruction of Damascus ?  Is Jesus on His way back soon?   A couple posts to consider: https://beastwatchnews.com/trump-paves-the-way-for-gog-magog-war https://hightimetoawake.com/2018/12/19/trump-orders-full-withdrawal-of-us-forces-out-of-syria/ (I don't necessarily agree with or even understand everything on these websites, but it does give you something to think about.)   
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