A great sermon to start 2026

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I watched this online Willow Creek sermon yesterday from a new series called The Jesus Way, about the Sermon on the Mount... and I just gotta share it because I haven't heard a sermon this good in awhile.  In fact, it's one of the best I've heard in a long time.  A great way to start 2026!  

Maybe it just said what I needed to hear at this point in my life.  Maybe it won't speak to you the same way.  But, who knows, maybe it will.  Give it a try.  What've you got to lose?  

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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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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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Is Our Eternity Decided For Us?

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Since we've been talking about the End Times and heaven and hell, the next logical question might be ... "But do we even have a choice about our eternal 'destinies'?  Do we have the free-will to choose Jesus and heaven, or does God predestine us to heaven or hell?" Maybe this question won't cross the minds of many of you.  But it's one I have studied and thought about a lot ... mostly because we have a pastor who hammers the idea of predestination, acting like anyone who disagrees with him is disagreeing with the Bible and dishonoring God.  Like his view is the only way to read the Bible! He even goes so far as to say things like God wanted people in hell - for His glory.  That He planned Adam and Eve's Fall - for His purposes.  That if we sin, it's because God caused it.  And that everything that happens in our lives is caused by God - even childhood abuse - for His glory and our good, and so we just have to trust Him.   [Oh, my goodness, I c...
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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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"Predestination vs. Free-Will" Overview

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(Part of the "Predestination Vs. Free-Will" series) I was listening to a speaker recently (our "new" pastor that I told you about earlier) who  strongly believes in predestination, that God decides who to save and who to condemn to hell and that He causes everything we do, even our sins, for His glory and purposes. And I . . . well . . . I couldn’t disagree more! Imagine that I walk into your church and say, “I am taking a group of people on a trip with me.   We are leaving sometime soon, and you have to decide which group you’ll be part of: the one that goes or the rest that stay behind.   I have a destination picked out, a way to get there, I’ve already paid the price to take a group with me, and I’m now asking for those who want to go.   It’s up to you if you want to come or be left behind.   But if you do not deliberately choose to come with me, you will be left behind.”   This, in essence, is the way I view the whole “predestin...
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Starting the new school year with Creation vs. Evolution

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I'm not starting this blog up again, but I did want to add this post from my other blog (the one I still occasionally add posts to: Heather's Garden and Home ) because it very much has to do with faith, which is what My Crazy Faith is all about.  I don't know about you, but I could use a little boost to encourage and strengthen my faith, considering what a hopeless mess this world is right now.  So here it is ... If there's one thing I would go back and change if I could when homeschooling my older two children (grown and graduated now), it would be that I would have them watch more great educational videos online, instead of focusing mostly on textbooks.   (And I would let them have more time to pursue something they were passionate about.  I'd rather have a kid who was passionate about something, anything - studying bugs, piano, building, classical literature, writing stories, etc. - than have a kid who did all the boring bookwork but never developed a passion...
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Is hypocrisy the real reason for atheism? (A dare for atheists)

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I've been thinking recently about a quote from Brennan Manning:   "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him with their lifestyle.  That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."   (Right now, older fans of DC Talk are thinking "Where have I heard that before?"  Answer: At the start of their song "What if I stumble?" )  I used to really like this quote.  I appreciate that it's trying to point out how damaging hypocrisy is and how we Christians need to be careful how we live because people are watching.  And this is true.  I know there are people out there who've been incredibly hurt by those who call themselves Christians, people who are now afraid of God or disgusted by Christianity because of it.   But after thinking about it more, I don't really agree with this quote anymore.  I don't think it's biblical. Yes, h...
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War Rooms, Praying Scripture, and Spiritual Warfare

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I strongly believe that there are angels and demons.  That prayer matters.  That there is a spiritual battle going on around us all the time ... and that we need to get involved in it, actively and consciously.  (Something I haven't been doing lately.)   Regardless of if we want it or not, we are constantly facing spiritual battles.  But if we don't acknowledge them - if we stick our head in the sand and refuse to get involved, to put on our spiritual armor, to use the spiritual weapons that are available to us - we open ourselves up to deceptions, to defeat, to being very vulnerable to the strategies and attacks of the evil one. What I have done here is compile a list of posts on spiritual warfare, on praying Scripture, and on creating a War Room (or War Journal). Have you ever seen  War Room ? You should.  It's a great movie.  And it is so relevant to real life.  To the life that is most real - the spiritual life. I've read through all thes...
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Why is Calvinism so dangerous? #7 (Hard hearts)

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  [In this series, I'm breaking the long post   "Why is Calvinism so dangerous?"   into bite-sized pieces.] 7. The Bible (and the concordance) says ...  That when God "hardens" hearts, it is retribution for first hardening your own heart, for  resisting God for so long even after He's been patient and long-suffering with you. But Calvinism says ...  God arbitrarily chooses whose hearts to harden against Him (non-elect)  and  whose to turn to Him (elect), with no in put/responsibility on our parts. Romans 9:18:   "Therefore, God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden."   [Calvinists say "See, God hardens whomever He wants.  We have nothing to do with His choice of whom to harden and whom to elect."  But in the concordance, "hardens" is retribution for first hardening your own heart, for resisting God.  And so, yes, we do have something to do with whether we are hardened or not....
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