The Unseen and The End

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A couple of good videos I just watched:

What is the Rapture? -  a sermon by Greg Laurie (47 minutes)

The Unseen Realm - a documentary by Michael Heiser about the spiritual powers, about how God organized them and allows them to operate (1 Hour, 11 minutes)


Most Popular Posts of the Week:

Anyone else? (Thank you, Nate...)

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[If you don't want to read this really long post, hang in there because I'll eventually publish it as a series of smaller posts.] Oh my goodness, does anybody else feel this song, too? NF - Oh Lord "What are y'all doing down there?  I don't know, Lord." I don't know, Lord. What a mess. God help us. God help me. "Sometimes I look up to the sky and wonder, 'Do you see us down here, O Lord?'" I totally love Nate (NF) for saying the real, raw, hard things that many of us think and feel but don't often admit out loud, the things we're afraid to say because they don't sound very "good Christiany," the kinds of things Job cried out honestly but that his religiously-high-and-mighty friends scolded and shamed him for.   How about these lines from his song "Paralyzed" : "When did I become so numb?  When did I lose myself?... When did I become so cold?  When did I become ashamed?  Where's the person that I kn...
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Be Wary Of The Christian Post

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(Written 6/15/18)  Occasionally, I check in with the Christian Post to see what's going on in the world that specifically relates to Christians.  And generally, I've never really had any red flags go up about this website ... until now. A recent article by Stoyan Zaimov, with a title that starts "Christian Lesbian rock star ..." goes on to share this woman's story about being assaulted by a male priest when she was young.   However, I don't think the reason for this article is to talk about the abuse she suffered and her courage in speaking up.  I think this is a deliberate attempt to affirm Christian homosexuality.  The very fact that they put "Christian" and "lesbian" in the title makes it sound like it's indeed possible to be a Christian and a practicing homosexual who sees no need to change. And it seems to me that this article paints her in a heroic light, as though she is in the right and should be applauded and e...
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My Panic Attack (repost)

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(Reposted from my blog, https://myimpressionisticlife.blogspot.com , from 2016.   A really bad year for me.) I wrote this in the post called “Random Facts about Me.  Just for Fun!” on my other blog.  It’s #64 on the list.  But I think it deserves its own post.  So I am reposting it here, because it fits with the theme of this blog.   If you’ve ever had a panic attack, maybe you can relate.  I hope not, though.  Because panic attacks suck!             64.   I had a small panic attack three days ago (May 30, 2016).  It’s the first one I’ve ever had and I don’t plan on ever having another one.  [I also once had a minor nervous breakdown during my parents’ very messy divorce.  It was so bad that the only way I could start breathing and stop crying was to flee from everything, to jump in the car with my husband and two kids and run away to the middle of nowhere for a little while.]
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How Would You Spend Your Last Day?

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Okay, so today (reposted from 9/23/17) is the beginning of the end of the world, according to a Christian numerologist.  As I went to bed last night, I was thinking, "What if the world really did 'end' tomorrow?  How would we choose to spend our last day?" As I laid in bed by myself last night watching Gilmore Girls for the 832nd time while my husband and kids watched a show together in the other room, I thought about how we all had eaten dinner together earlier (homemade BBQ chicken pizza) and how hubby and I had our "mommy and daddy" time and how we were all just chillin' now with each other, hanging out in our normal low-key way, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream.  And I thought, "This is exactly how I would want to spend my last day.  If the world ended tomorrow or if the rapture really happened and Jesus came back and took my family out of here, I would be happy to end my time on earth like this."  Actually, I can t...
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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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"Honestly, I Need To Be Broken"

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(A post from my other blog , written March 2, 2022.  I was only adding new posts to that blog at the time, so that's why it wasn't posted here earlier.) I would like to dedicate the following song to anyone who is breaking down right now - like how I broke down this past weekend, sobbing to my husband about everything that's wrong in life and then vomiting uncontrollably for 11 hours because of tension in my neck that triggers my "throw up" button.   Is anyone else exhausted from trying to bear up under the pressures of this fallen, evil, upside-down, post-Covid world, from watching all their expectations crumble, from feeling like the future is just one big blackhole for you and your kids, from not knowing where to turn or what to do or how to do it anymore, and from knowing that you have to  testify against a close relative  in court very soon?  (Okay, maybe that last one is just me.   I've been dizzy every day since just hours before I got the ...
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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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Too Funny - Alyssa Milano's Sex-Strike

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So there's an article out about Alyssa Milano calling for a sex-strike until anti-abortion laws get changed.  She is saying that women shouldn't have sex until they get more abortions rights. Ha-ha-ha!  Yes, please do that!  Please!   It's a win-win-win for everyone else but the women striking.  First off, it's exactly what we need to have lower abortion rates.  It will also help stop the spread of diseases.  It will prevent the rabid feminists from passing their views on to any children they might have decided to keep if they had gotten pregnant.  And the men these women are withholding sex from might just go out and find a decent, respectful woman who won't use sex to control and manipulate the men into giving them what they want.   A win for the unborn, for the next generation, for the sexual health of our country, and for the men who the feminists are trying to control! So ... yes, Alyssa ... please get as many feminists ...
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Some Good Posts Against Calvinism

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  Here are a few good, random articles against Calvinism (I'm still reading through them, but they all seem basically on-track so far.  If I find things I disagree with as I read more, I'll add notes.): The Modern-Day Pharisees: Calvinists   [Notice what the Calvinist he quoted says about how the elect were never on their way to hell because they were elect for heaven from the very beginning, and that this is why they need to hear the good news of their salvation - so that they can believe it, rejoice in it, and profit from it.  The Calvinist says that the Gospel doesn't make their salvation true, but it's that their salvation was already true and the Gospel just declares it.  Basically, the Gospel just makes the elect aware of the salvation they already have.   Do you really hear what this is saying about salvation?   It's saying that the elect have no responsibility to do anything to be saved because they enter the world already saved and j...
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