Maybe. Just maybe.

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Worth considering, especially these days:

"'Fasten your seat belt': Pastor Greg Laurie talks potential fulfillment of Bible prophecy in Israel-Hamas War"

"Greg Laurie says rapture is next event on prophetic calendar: 'Get right with God'"



And a couple of encouraging songs, at least for those that know Jesus as Lord and Savior (and if you don't, check out "Starting your own relationship with Jesus" and "Support for Jesus and the Bible"):

Most Popular Posts of the Week:

When Calvinists say "But predestination!" (tiny, bare-bones version)

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[Here's the tiniest version of my "But predestination!" post.  The short version with more memes and quotes and information can be  found here , and t he longest version (a series of posts full of many more Calvinist comments, my Calvinist ex-pastor's sermons, and my replies to them, written for my own amusement and for my ex-church) can be found by  starting here .  But this tiny version includes only the most basic parts you need to know, with a few memes and quotes thrown in to spice it up and prove my points.  (I know this could be much tinier, but Calvinism has so many bunny trails, so many interlocking ideas, that it's hard to address one part without addressing more.  So this is as comprehensively tiny as I dared to make it.) ] At the heart of Calvinism is predestination and God's sovereignty (among other things, like "total depravity"), which according to Calvinism essentially amounts to:  "God preplans and controls everything, even sin ...
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"But predestination!" (16B: sin, evil, suffering)

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In this series, I'm examining some things that Calvinists (especially my ex-pastor) say about predestination.   Here's the posts in the whole series:  the pastor's sermons  ("When Calvinists say 'But predestination!'"), and my comments  1-4 (election)  and  5-6 (Romans and sovereignty)  and  7-9 (depravity, Book of Life, predestine)  and  10-11 (shaming tactics, Feb. 2015)  and  12-14 (dead, regeneration, born again)  and  15 (total depravity, manipulation)   and  16A (God's Will, babies)  and  16B (sin, evil, suffering)  and  17 (double-speak and the gospel) . For the shorter "for everyone" version which has a lot less quotes and a lot less of my thoughts,  click here . Sixteen B (I broke #16 up into two halves, so picking up where we left off in the last post...) And now, moving on from the bulk of my comments to the bulk of the Calvinist quotes, showing you Calvinism in its ...
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Calvinism: Using unclear to interpret clear

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I just found and watched this video against Calvinism yesterday (I have no idea who this pastor is or what else he teaches, but this video was good and on-track, very simplified):  Trojan Horses in the Church Today, part 1: Calvinism I particularly like something he says near the beginning which neatly sums up the fundamental problem of Calvinism: "Calvinism is a man-made philosophy that is contradictory to Scripture.  It is built on the classic error - now listen carefully to this - of interpreting clear passages of Scripture by unclear passages of Scripture.  That is a violation of the ABC's of Bible interpretation.  One of the most basic rules of [Bible] interpretation is you interpret unclear passages by clear ones.  Not the other way around.  But Calvinism is  built on  the idea of interpreting clear, simple passages by unclear ones.  Therefore, if you start with the unclear and you start with a false idea, then you start looking at the ...
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A Defining Moment

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(This was written months ago and reposted from one of my other blogs.  It's the point that I came to after all the pain of 2016.  And if this is where all that pain led me to, then I don't regret it.  You'll see what I mean.) Have you ever been smacked upside the head by the heaviest questions you could ever ask yourself, knowing that the answers would define your future and determine the direction of your faith thereafter? ... During the worst summer I ever had - the summer of 2016, the year that broke me  (written about  here )  - I was in such despair that I could barely get out of bed.  I was afraid of everything - afraid of having another panic attack, afraid that moving around would make me throw up, afraid that I would lose my mind and end up in the hospital, afraid that I wouldn't get help from the hospital and that I would succumb to crippling anxiety, afraid of talking to others, afraid of not talking it out, afraid my mother would kill he...
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A Place For Us All!

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  A fantastic song from a fantastic movie ( Jesus Revolution  - a favorite!):  Living Water  by Anne Wilson  As she rightly sings, "He paid  every  sinner's price!" And so "every outcast, every wrong-way, runaway rebel" - no matter who you are or where you've been - can come on down to the Living Water and find hope, healing, and eternal life in Jesus.   No one is hopeless.  No one is too far gone.  No one is destined for hell.   There's a place for us all in God's family.  All of us are able to and welcome to freely accept the gift of eternal life, paid for by Jesus's death for us all.   “For God so loved the world that he sent his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.    For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."    ( John 3:16-17 ) "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who w...
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Though they have eyes, they will not see

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[I originally posted this on one of my other blogs , Oct. 2021] So   according to this article , it appears that scientists have found evidence of the type of biblical destruction that happened to Sodom.  They say they found a town that was destroyed by a blast of heat so hot that it pretty much melted everything.  They say that there's no earthly natural heat source that could do this, so they speculate that it must have been an asteroid that exploded over the town, melting everything.  Oh, and they speculate that the reason no one lived there afterward was that the asteroid impact might have brought over so much salt from the nearby Dead Sea that nothing could grow.  This, they say, must be what inspired people to make up the story of Sodom in the Bible. But I say that here's your "asteroid," scientists: "The Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah - from the Lord out of the heavens.  Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, incl...
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A Crash Course in Calvinism (Calvinist Quotes)

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Here is the second half of  the letter  I wrote to pastors who I don't think are Calvinists but who quote from Calvinists a lot.  (I added a few extra quotes and notes that I didn't include in the letter I mailed to them.  When do I ever make anything shorter !?!): FYI, Here are some direct quotes from Calvinists, so that you can see what Calvinism really is in their own words, so that you can see that I’m not exaggerating or misunderstanding them  [my comments in brackets and italics] : John Calvin,  from  Institutes of the Christian Religion,  book 1, chapter 16 :  “Hence we maintain that, by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and  wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined…  Men  do nothing save at the secret instigation of God , and do not discuss and deliberate on anything but what he has previously  decreed  with himse...
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Winning the Battle

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(Reposted from my other blog ... because I needed to be reminded of it often.) I have been in a “funk” lately.  I get in them often, comes with being a child from a broken home.  (This is a repost of something I wrote years ago, but it still strongly applies.)   Prayer has felt futile.  I’ve been wanting to pull back from people.  I am struggling to accept certain “life problems” that I wish I didn’t have.  And I constantly deal with feelings of failure and not mattering. I know it’s not proper for a Christian to expose the fact that they are dealing with depression and frustration with God and disappointment with prayer and unhappiness with life.  I know we are supposed to plaster on that “good, happy, Christian smile” and act like we are full of joy and peace and contentment.  (Or are we?)   But this is the truth about how I feel.  And if I can’t be real with God and other Christians (even anonymously on this blog), then who can I be r...
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Greeting Card Headaches

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Finding the right greeting card can be so frustrating.   Like, where is the "I'm sorry you got arrested and will probably spend the rest of your life in prison ... but even though this terribly affected our family and friends forever, I love you anyway and hope you have as merry of a Christmas as you can, under these circumstances" kind of card? Oh, the headaches of trying to find the perfect card! (And, no, I'm not joking.  I mean, yes I am, to a degree.  But in a "if I don't laugh about it, then I'll cry" kind of way.)
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Hardest Spiritual Lesson #1: Let Go

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I wrote about some of the "hardest spiritual lessons" years ago on another blog of mine, but I am updating and reposting it here.   These are normal, typical (often painful) lessons that we will all eventually struggle with (it's okay to struggle) if we continue to walk with God and to chase after a deeper relationship with Him.    (And I know there are more than I've listed here.)   In no particular order (and broken up into individual posts), here are some of the hardest lessons I've learned over the years when it comes to faith and walking with God: 1.    Let Go or Hold on? Imagine you fell over the side of a cliff and are hanging onto a tiny root sticking out the side of the cliff with one hand, and God throws a rope down to save you.  But in your other hand, you're holding onto a water bottle you think you need.  You need both hands to grab the rope and climb, but you're afraid to let go of the water bottle.   After all, w...
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