Merry Christmas, and God bless you all!

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Merry Christmas, Everyone!  God bless you today and in 2024.

Enjoy these two great Christmas songs: Hallelujah Christmas (by Cloverton) and Little Drummer Boy (My favorite!  By For King and Country)


"Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the LORD." Luke 2:11

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."  John 3:16

"... if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.... Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."  Romans 10:9, 13


Most Popular Posts of the Week:

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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She hit the nail on the head! Amen, come, Lord Jesus!

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A neighbor just sent this link to me , a video clip (just a minute long) from a woman sharing how she is just done with everything, how she's on autopilot and just wants Jesus to come back again. I absolutely get everything she said and have felt the same way for several years now. Can anyone else relate? Here's a transcript of what she said (I think she voiced what a lot of us have been feeling, like we've been treading water, just trying to get by until the end):  "Does anybody else just ... I'm just, like, checked out of this planet.  I told God today, like, I'm ready.  I've been ready, but I'm like  ready ready.  I don't feel like there's anything that I care about anymore.  I just want to go home.  You know, I just want to be done.   I don't want to battle all of the little battles anymore.  I don't want to pay my taxes anymore - because I know where the money's going.  I don't want to go to the grocery store and spend $40...
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Is Believing in Jesus Considered "Working For Salvation"?

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Calvinists define "believing" as a "working for salvation" thing.  And since we can't earn or work for our salvation, they say we can't choose to believe in Jesus on our own because that would be "working for salvation."   (This is why they say the elect have to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit first,  before  they believe, so that they  can  believe.  Essentially, in Calvinism, the elect are chosen for salvation first, before the beginning of time, then they get the Holy Spirit and He regenerates them so they can believe, and then they believe in Jesus.  So they are saved before they get the Holy Spirit, and they get the Holy Spirit before they believe in Jesus.   They are saved before they believe!  So very backwards from what the Bible says!   "Oh," they say, "but the Bible says faith is a gift God gives us, meaning He only gives it to those who get saved, the elect."  But is that really  what the Bible...
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On this Good Friday

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Take some time on this Good Friday to remember what Jesus went through to bring us forgiveness, to offer us all eternal life - and then thank Him for it.   Some great songs and videos about it: Jeremy Riddle's  "Sweetly Broken"   Cloverton's  "Christmas Hallelujah" Michael W. Smith's  "Secret Ambition" Crowder's  "I AM" "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood." ( Romans 3:23-25 ) “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life   in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  ( Romans 6:23 ) “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”   ( Romans 5:8 ) "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us...."  ( 1 John 3:16 ) "Christ suffered for you... When ...
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Tony Evans Sermon: Freedom From Fear

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Such a good sermon from Tony Evans about learning to walk on the problem instead of just trying to get out of it.  About sinking but being pulled up again. Freedom from fear   I need these kinds of sermons regularly, the kind that remind me that we might be surrounded by problems, but that God is still faithful.  That we might sink from time to time, but we won't drown.  Not when God's there to reach His hand down and pull us out. I especially need this today, after spending the past couple days (just as we were on our way home from vacation) trying to help my alcoholic mother  - calling paramedics to check on her when she wasn't acting right and couldn't remember what year it was or what her address was, listening to her sob about how she wanted her (deceased) mother, being pulled back into bed with her every time I got up as she begged me not leave her alone, then eventually forcing her to get out of bed and to get dressed and to get in my car so that I...
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Calvinism: Abusing God's Sovereignty to Defend Its Heresy

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I believe that many - if not most - Calvinists are Calvinists simply because they think it means believing that God is sovereign.  They say "Well, I believe God is sovereign, so I guess I'm a Calvinist then."  (I think this is how many people get trapped in Calvinism.) And so they think that if you aren't a Calvinist or if you are an anti-Calvinist (as I am!), then you do not believe that God is sovereign, that you are rejecting God's authority and control, that you are elevating yourself above God. But this is not necessarily true.  Many of us anti-Calvinists are not anti-God's-sovereignty; we are simply against the Calvinist's misunderstanding of sovereignty. You see, Calvinism defines sovereignty as God must cause and control everything that happens, that nothing can happen that He doesn't actively cause.  And so therefore, there can be no free-will.  People cannot have the ability to make decisions because if there is one decision that God does...
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Sleeping On My Sword

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“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.   After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.   The tempter came to him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’’ Then the devil took him to the holy city . . . ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down.   For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up . . .’’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’’ Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.   ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, ‘if you will bow down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away from me, Satan!   For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him onl...
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"Bring me pain, Lord, if it brings You glory!"

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(Reposted from a couple years ago, but updated for me for today.  Because I need it.  Note to self: Remember 10/2/19, the day the "tsunami" hit.)  I’ve always found the statements of “I want the Lord to do whatever He wants in my life to bring Him the most glory possible, even if it means bringing me pain” to be inspirational … and a bit “off.” Wh en I was 21 (half my lifetime ago), I went to Papua New Guinea for a summer on a mission trip.   And I told my mom that I picked PNG over any other place because it was so remote and primitive.   I said that I wanted to have everything taken away to really challenge me, to grow my faith in new ways.   And I meant it.   I really did.   My heart was in the right place. But my mom said something wise, something that stuck.   She said, “Don’t ask for that!   Never ask for that!   Because He could take away everything – your legs, your eyesight, your health, your home, etc.” Wow! ...
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A Great Blog To Visit: Our Healing Moments (Testimony #1)

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I've recommended this blog before, but I'll do it again: Our Healing Moments (UPDATE: This blog has been deleted, so I took down the link.) I haven't really been reading other people's blogs lately (or even my own).  I've been trying to stay away from the online world as much as possible.  But I decided to check out her blog again because I like her writing and her heart so much.  You can see her sweet, gentle, godly spirit shining through everything she writes, even though she suffers from chronic, debilitating illness.   And the new posts I read touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes.  It's so nice to read something uplifting in this difficult, chaotic world.  From someone who knows pain and suffering.  Someone who has had to struggle to cling to the Lord.  I appreciate people and testimonies like that.  I understand them.  I learn from them and am encouraged by them.   [In fact, I have been aching to hear some g...
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Alana L: 2f (foundation of the world)

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This series is based on this 14-minute video from Alana L.:   5 Signs Your Loved One is Becoming a Calvinist   (FYI, in general, I will be posting every other week from now on.) Point #2 Still: F.  Alana noted how Calvinists say that they were chosen before the foundation of the world (that their names - the names of "the elect" - were written in the Book of Life before the foundation of the world).   This error is based on two things: 1. It's based on a mistranslation of  Revelation 13:8 , usually from the Calvinist's favorite translation, the ESV:   "and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain." "Written before the foundation of the world."  Sounds very Calvinist-predestinationy, right? But let’s read it in the King James:  ”And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life ...
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