I used to brush off the Biblical prescription of a woman covering her head as a thing of the past or at the very least, something to be seen in a culturally relativistic manner. Almost no church I've attended pays any mind to what 1 Corinthians 11 prescribes to women especially. At first I didn't pay much mind as being a prodigal son to the faith, I was going through Romans at that time. When I encountered the specific passages in Scripture I'm referencing, I ran into a predicament. Was I to ignore the obvious guidelines about worship in favor of being acceptable to the masses? Certainly not. The Bible takes precedence over any practice of man.

My personal conviction, after letting it stew in my head for multiple days, is that women should veil themselves in the house of God, alongside men not having long hair for any reason whatsoever. I love attending the churches I do currently, but I don't want to have to confront both pastors regarding the lack of following 1 Corinthians 11. I feel like the time-honored practice has lost its place in almost all of America and the world and we at the very least should consider it and pray to God about it. We need a revival of God-honoring tradition and modesty.

Questions:

1. Should I meet up with the pastors of both churches and discuss this passage in scripture and seek out their understanding? In essence, I want friendly debate.
2. Should I continue to attend those two churches or should I consider looking for an Anabaptist/Plymouth Brethren congregation? I want to follow Scripture to the tiniest detail.

Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the first female speaker of the United States House of Representatives, has announced that she will not seek reelection next year and will retire after nearly four decades in office.

The 85-year-old announced Thursday that she would be bringing her tenure in Congress to a close, which will have spanned 39 years by the time she leaves office.

“I will not be seeking reelection to Congress. With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your representative," she stated in a video to her constituents quoted by The Washington Post.

She will continue to hold her seat in Congress, representing the San Francisco area, throughout the duration of her term.

Continued below.

"Lefty NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani gleefully campaigned this week with a notorious, gay-hating Brooklyn imam who is an unindicted co-conspirator in 1993 World Trade Center bombing and who has been linked to other terrorist activity in the United States — including urging “jihad” on the Big Apple."



No, I don't trust them. They have proven over and over that they are not a religion of peace.
Now that doesn't mean all in that religion agree with the evil side of it, so I'm not talking about them really.
It's the rest of them who do agree with the evil part of islam.
No, this doesn't make me or anyone else who agrees an "Islamophobe which is "an irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred of Islam and Muslims."
It makes me face the reality of who some of them can be, if and when an opportunity arises.
I have no fear of them at all. When I'm out and about if I am interacting with one of them, I treat them like anyone else.
I don't know if they are one of the reasonable muslims or one of the unreasonable ones.
I have no hostility toward them and I don't hate them.
They are welcome to their religion, but the evil part of it, I don't trust, which in turn makes me not trust them in general.

Mamdani Threatens to Arrest Netanyahu If Elected NYC Mayor​

Here is the problem:

1. The Mayor of a city does not have the power of arrest.


He might think he is powerful - but he is not.

Even if he forces the police to do his bidding, there is a difference between local and Federal authority. The man who thinks he is king of NY does not have the power and neither does his police department.

Municipal authorities cannot legally arrest a leader of another nation. Heads of state typically enjoy immunity under international law, and local officials lack jurisdiction to detain foreign leaders unless acting under specific international mandates.


Why Municipal Arrests of Foreign Leaders Are Not Permitted

• Sovereign immunity protects sitting heads of state from arrest or prosecution by other countries’ local or national authorities. This principle is recognized in customary international law and codified in treaties like the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
• Municipal officials (e.g., city police or mayors) operate under local and state law. They do not have authority over international matters or foreign dignitaries.
• International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants may call for the arrest of foreign leaders accused of crimes like genocide or war crimes, but enforcement must be carried out by national governments—not local municipalities—and only if the country is a party to the Rome Statute and chooses to comply.

Legal and Diplomatic Constraints

• Arresting a foreign leader without proper jurisdiction would violate international law and could trigger a diplomatic crisis or even retaliation.
• Even in cases where a foreign leader is under an ICC warrant, national governments must weigh legal obligations against political consequences, as seen in recent controversies involving leaders like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Information from a comprehensive BING search
So is he ignorant - or is this just another publicity stunt?

Former first lady Michelle Obama claimed during an interview this week on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" that she feels "lost" in President Donald Trump's America and mourned the loss of the East Wing.

Speaking during the 20-minute interviewon Tuesday that focused primarily on The Look — her new book about the various outfits she wore as first lady — Obama also lamented what she described as the loss of "standards and norms" under Trump's administration.

Contrasting it with the "sadness" and "problems" of the West Wing, where the president and his staff are headquartered, Michelle Obama said the East Wing was comparatively a place "where you felt light" and could find "children" and "puppies."

Continued below.

This is the sequence of events:

1. the resurrection/rapture event.
2. then the great tribulation - time of the beast
3. then Jesus returns to earth - with His bride
4. then the martyred great tribulation saints will be resurrected.
5. then the 1000 years of Revelation 20 take place.

Hi all,

I'm on a restrictive diet and it is stressful on the body and mind but not so much that it can't be adhered to etc.

I've had tests back and I'm extremely healthy and losing weight to continue to be healthy as I'm aware of generational illnesses and mobility issues I would like to avoid etc.

The issue is that I started this journey with health and wholesome goals but now I'm derailed by binge eating from emotions I reactively medicate with food instead of bringing these to God.

I am terrified of how the world is going. The news terrifies me. Social media terrifies me. The questions I have that aren't answered terrifies me and I seek comfort in eating because it's the only way I can sleep, sometimes!

I don't want to use gluttony and, thus, lack of communication with God as a way to cope. I want to react with prayer. I seem to be in a cycle that is not glorifying God.

In order to self manage, I have deleted all social media and I do not watch the news.

I am also praying but it seems to be repenting, more often than praying before the act, so I could use your Christian prayers, please. Or advice. Or both.

Thank you all and God bless, as always - CC

TAYBEH, West Bank — “Come visit Taybeh,” begins the brochure touting the touristic attractions here, the last entirely Palestinian Christian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Though it counts Jesus among its many visitors over the years, said Khaldoon Hanna, Taybeh’s avuncular deputy mayor, these days “no one is coming.”

He sighed as he looked around the restaurant he owns on the village’s Main Street.

“In the last two years, I haven’t had more than 20 tourists come in here,” Hanna said.

How could they, Hanna said, when you have to negotiate a growing gantlet of Israeli roadblocks just to get here? Or face off emboldened settlers who make increasing forays into the village to burn cars or destroy property? In July, they even tried to set fire to the ruins of the Church of St. George, a 5th century Byzantine structure on Taybeh’s hilltop, Hanna and religious leaders said; the Israeli government says it’s unclear what started the blaze.

And the scope of the intimidation campaign is increasing: The olive harvest in October saw 126 attacks on Palestinians and their property in 70 West Bank towns and villages; it was almost three times the number of attacks and double the communities targeted during 2023’s harvest. More than 4,000 olive trees and saplings were vandalized, the highest number in six years, OCHA says.

Madees Khoury, the general manager of Taybeh Brewing Co., is one of those who choose to stay in town, though she knows at least one family gearing up to emigrate in the coming weeks.

“Khalas, you can’t blame them,” she said, using the Arabic word for “enough.” “It’s sad. These are the good people, the ones you want to stay, to build, to educate their kids, to resist.”

That was the ethos driving her family, which opened the microbrewery in the optimistic days after the 1993 Oslo Accords, when peace and a Palestinian state seemed within reach. Instead of starting a brewery in Boston, Khoury’s father, Nadeem Khoury, and his brother gave up their business in Brookline, Mass., and moved back with their kids to Taybeh.

In years past, [the town] was the site of an Oktoberfest celebration that would draw 16,000 people.

Although Israel portrays itself as a model of religious freedom, there has been a rise in anti-Christian behavior in recent years. A 2024 report by the Jerusalem-based Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue counted 111 reported cases of attacks against Christians in Israel and the West Bank, including 46 physical assaults, 35 attacks against church properties and 13 cases of harassment.

“We think that as Christians, nothing will happen to us. But this is empty talk. As long as you’re Palestinian, they’ll attack you,” Khoury said.

After earning a college degree in Boston, she came back in 2007 and has been working at the brewery since. She acknowledges that the last two years have been the most difficult yet, with business down 70% and Israeli security procedures turning a 90-minute drive to the port of Haifa into a three-day odyssey.

“Most Holy Theotokos, Save Us!” This is the common refrain of the Byzantine liturgy. Ὑπεραγία Θεοτόκε, σῶσον ἡμᾶς. This is the cry of any soul who knows that he is punished justly for his sins and he has no merits by which to plead with the Just Judge. He also knows that the demons are so much more powerful than him. Therefore he cries out to his mother to save him.

Click to expand...

I thought I’d start a repository for some of the more disgusting attacks on Mamdani. Not stuff about his being a socialist, but rather stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with his policies. Here’s one from Rudy Giuliani:

I know he can masquerade as an angel of light but can he masquerade as our Lord himself?

To awaken from sleep physically is to be consciously aware of our surroundings, to be mobile, to have our minds and bodies moving, at least to some degree, and to be taking in what is going on all around us, such as hearing noises, wondering what they are, and perhaps investigating them to see what they are and from what source they come and for what purpose. We can see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and smell with our noses, and feel with our fingers, and we can evaluate all of that with our minds.

And to awaken spiritually is all those kinds of things, only on a spiritual level, not a physical level, although the physical is involved, as well. Our spiritual eyes and ears and senses are now taking in the Word of God, and we are spiritually digesting what we are hearing and reading, and we are searching out in the Scriptures the things we do not understand, and we are praying to the Lord for the wisdom and discernment to know what the Scriptures are teaching and to know how to apply what we are learning to our daily lives.

But it is also to evaluate and to discern all that we are hearing and seeing that is going on all around us, including what we are hearing from our government heads, and from the news media, and from famous people, and on social media, and from those who call themselves prophets, apostles, preachers, pastors, elders, and evangelists. We should test whatever we are hearing or reading or viewing against the truth of the Scriptures to see whether or not what we are hearing, seeing, or viewing is surely of God.

And now let me give you an example of this from my own life’s circumstances. Nearly two months ago, at midnight, all of a sudden I started having sharp chest pains, chest pressure, and difficulty breathing. And I was having sharp pains under my arm, too, all of which were on the left side of my body. And I am not one who just runs to a doctor every time I am in pain, or any time that I feel sick, but these symptoms could have been signs of a heart attack, and so I went to the emergency room at the hospital.

They ran some tests, and they found that a lung mass I had had since 2014 had nearly doubled in size. But we don’t know when this mass began growing, for it had not grown at all between 2014 and 2016, and it had not been looked at again until my visit to the ER at the hospital on September 17, 2025. But the doctor there declared that my heart was in good shape, and she minimized the lung mass growth as nothing significant. But my family doctor took me seriously and he ordered a bunch of tests for me.

And the tests revealed that this lung mass might be cancerous, that there is a spot in my brain that is suspect for cancer, and there is a spot in my breast where it might be cancerous. They also discovered that my heart is not in good shape, but it has some issues on the borderline of heart failure, and my lung is not working well at all with that mass inside it, and I am breathing at only 44% of 100% breathing capacity, and there is a chance that the lung mass is the culprit for what is causing all my other symptoms.

But even though my family doctor is more open to considering multiple possibilities for what is going on within my body, and was willing to schedule the tests for me which then produced results, the specialty doctors I have seen so far are more narrow minded, for they focus on their specialty and seem to not be ones who think “outside the box.” And this is happening in the Christian world, too, where many professing Christians are so locked into their church denominations and theologies they can’t see beyond that.

And so they won’t venture into searching out the Scriptures for themselves, studied in context, to see what they are actually teaching about Jesus Christ and his gospel message and what God requires of us in thought, word, and deed, who profess the name of Jesus. They know what they were always taught, right or wrong, and so they will not go beyond that, kind of like these specialty doctors. Now none of us should consider anything against the teachings of the Scriptures, but we should search them out for the truth.

For Jesus Christ taught that to come to him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in his power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

For by God-gifted faith in Jesus Christ, which is not of our own doing, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin but as slaves to righteousness in walks of obedience to God’s commands. We are no longer to permit sin to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it results in death. But if obedience to God is what we obey, it results in sanctification, and its end is eternal life with God (see Romans 6:1-23).

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

As the Deer

By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1

As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You

Login to view embedded media
Caution: This link may contain ads

Outside the Box
An Original Work / November 5, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

The Church Under Fire

Chapter Three

We’re Not All the Same

May 27, 2023

Acts 21,22,23 and Acts 24:1-23 Summary

The apostle Paul was now in Jerusalem, and he was being accused by some Jews of things he did not do. And so the tribune arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. And he was placed in some barracks. But before that, he was given permission to speak and to give his defense. And so he took this opportunity to share his testimony. But when he mentioned how the Lord had sent him to the Gentiles, the people were in an uproar, and they wanted Paul dead.

Then there was a plot to murder Paul, but his nephew caught wind of it and informed Paul who then sent him to tell the tribune, who then sent Paul to the governor Felix. Then, after five days the high priest Ananias came down with some elders and a spokesman, Tertullus, who set their case before the governor against Paul. And then Paul was given permission to speak in his own defense. Then Felix decided to wait until later to decide Paul’s case, and so he ordered him to be kept in custody, but he gave him some liberties.

Now, what is standing out to me about this story relates to a situation I faced in my early 30’s, which I will share, but before that I want to share a couple of verses from Acts 24 that particularly jumped out at me. Paul said:

v. 13: “Neither can they prove to you what they now bring up against me.”

v. 16: “So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man.”

Since I have been reading through the book of Acts, I have been reminded of all of Paul’s suffering for the sake of the gospel, and the Lord is reminding me of the many ways in which I suffered, too, for the sake of the gospel, which all serve as examples of the kinds of sufferings we will face when we commit our lives to Jesus Christ and to his service. And a lot of this suffering will come from those within the gatherings of what is called “church,” and some from pastors and elders of these “churches,” too.

So, without further ado, I am going to share with you a situation in my life which serves as an example, not only of the condition of today’s church here in America, but of the kinds of sufferings we should be facing and/or will yet be facing the closer we get to the Lord’s return, and when we choose to follow Jesus in obedience to his commands, and when we desire to do what he has called us to do because we love him, and because we love our fellow humans, including the body of Christ, i.e. those who believe in Jesus Christ.

Suffering for the Gospel

So, the year was 1980. I was pregnant with our fourth child, and I had a prolapse of my uterus and bladder three months into pregnancy, which was extremely rare. By the time I was about five months pregnant I began having many contractions, so the doctor ordered me off of my feet for the remainder of the pregnancy, and our two youngest children had to be placed in daycare. So, I had a lot of time by myself to study the Scriptures and to draw close to my Lord in fellowship with him, and so that is what I did.

But at the end of that year (1980), after our youngest son was born, my husband lost his job, and so we moved back to our hometown which was about 700 miles away. And we returned to the church fellowship we had been attending before we moved 700 miles away from home.

Now it was 1981, and the pastor was preaching on Spiritual gifts, and he sent around papers for everyone to fill out listing what they believed their spiritual gifts were and what ministries they were interested in. The expectation was then that they would place us in an area of ministry. But after being back for a year, there was still no word. So, I contacted the pastor, and he came to our home, and I asked him why I had not heard anything, and then he told me the reasons were that I was (a list of false accusations against me that I don’t recall).

And then he said, “Would you say you have been crucified with Christ?” I answered, “Yes!,” and then he said, “I would say you haven’t!” Wow! And this man and I had never had a conversation before that I recall, so I don’t know where he was getting this idea. But I was crushed! And so I withdrew into my dream world and I escaped because I really believed this man had power over me that God could do nothing about, for I had been abused as a child by my father, and the Lord never rescued me from that abuse.

And then one day I was reading the story of Jonah to my children and the Lord convicted me that I was running away from his calling on my life, and that I needed to get back in there and fight this thing through. And so I contacted one of the elders who was a friend and he and some other elders came to our house and they accused me falsely of things I did not do and of attitudes that were not mine to possess, but which turned out to be their attitudes, and so they were judging me by themselves.

And they accused me of having earthly and unspiritual wisdom and of wanting to be seen of men. For they falsely assumed that because I wanted to serve my Lord in ministry that it must be because I wanted to be seen of men, for that was their reasons. And so, like Paul, I had to come to my own defense, and I had to declare to them that my motives were pure and that their accusations against me were not founded.

So next I went to see my friend whose husband was one of the elders, and we talked, and she came up with all kinds of things she thought might be the issue, but I knew wasn’t. And then, as if a lightbulb turned on inside her head she said, “Hon, I know what it is. It is a spirit of fear.” That spirit was oppressing me, so I asked if we could pray for deliverance, and we did, and I felt that spirit leave my presence.

After that, all these memories of my childhood began to surface, and I began to remember things I had forgotten because I was taught to forgive and to forget. But what I did was suppress the memory, but the pain of the abuse of my childhood was still impacting me. I asked my friend what to do, and she didn’t know, and she suggested I ask the pastor, and I said “No, he hates me!” So she called him, and he called me, and he apologized to me for how he treated me. And he said, “As your pastor, I am to be your spiritual father, but I have not been a very good one, but I want to be.” Wow!

Now he encouraged me, that as the memories surfaced, that I was to release them to God and to let him heal me, and so that is what I did. And later he apologized to me for himself and for the elders, admitting that they were threatened by me and my wisdom, which was from God, and that they were wrong about me. I accepted his apology, and we became friends.

Now, not all of my experiences ended that well, but what this experience is an example of is not only the kind of abuse that goes on inside church fellowships, coming from church leadership who falsely accuse people of what they did not do, but it is a warning to us against falsely judging others by our own selves, by our own thinking, and by our own personal prejudices, etc. For that is what they did to me.

So, if we are going to judge, we need to do it by God’s standards, and we need to have proof that someone is truly doing what is wrong. And we need to accept that God didn’t make us all the same.

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

Link to the whole book:

The Church Under Fire Book (edited).pdf

Video Recording of the Above:

Login to view embedded media
Caution: This link may contain ads

We’re Not All The Same
An Original Work / November 6, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

The context here is of our need, as Christians, to obey our governing authorities. And earlier this morning I covered verses 1-2 (in the blog section of CF) and I talked about exceptions to this rule. We do have to obey the government which is over us in authority, and we do have to follow the rules of the land. But we do not have to obey anything or anyone who contradicts our Lord’s commands and his will and purpose for our lives. We can say “No” to anything which is sinful, for we never have to submit to sinning against God in any way.

Biblical examples: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, Paul, John, Peter, Stephen, and Jesus Christ, et al, all resisted governing authorities when those authorities commanded them to do something contrary to the commands of God. They refused to bow to idols and to stop praying to God. And they refused to stop sharing the truth of the gospel of our salvation, for they knew that they must obey God rather than humans, if those humans were requiring that they do something against our Lord’s rules for us.

And that leads me in a slightly different direction this morning to talk about those who are in positions of authority within these institutional “churches” of today which are not the biblical church, the body of Christ, under the sole authority of Jesus Christ. But they are conglomerates under the authority of the government which are partnered (joined, merged) with the government and with the people of the world. And they are largely being directed by marketing schemes and business models for how to grow their “churches.”

Therefore, they have changed God’s design, and will, and purpose for his church, his universal body of believers in Jesus Christ. And they have largely turned those “church” gatherings into showcases of human talent and wit and wisdom in order to entertain the world, and in order to draw in large crowds of people from the world into their gatherings. And most appear to have also altered the gospel of our salvation to make it less offensive and more acceptable to human flesh and to the ungodly people of the world.

But many Christians have been taught that this is “the church,” and that they must attend these gatherings, and that they must submit to the authorities over these “churches” almost in a worshipful kind of way, and even if those authorities are leading them to do what is sinful and what is against God, and that which compromises the message of the gospel. For many of these “churches” are designed more like cults, and their pastors act more like cult leaders, and they are leading many people astray.

So, even though we have to obey our government, we never have to obey what we know is against God and that is sinful. For there are exceptions to this rule of having to obey the government. But we are not required to remain in these institutional market-driven “churches” which are creations of human making, and then to obey these cult leaders in whatever they require of us to do. In fact, we are instructed in the Scriptures to come out from among them so that we do not share in their sins and in their punishment.

For much of what is being called “church” is not the biblical body of Christ, but they are these businesses which are incorporated (joined, merged) with the state (the government), which God forbids. And many of them have turned “the church” into a place of business, which God also forbids, and they are marketing their product to the world to win the world to their gatherings. And so they have also altered the gospel to make it more acceptable to the world, which God also forbids. For that is not church!

[Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:13-17; Acts 5:27-32; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Philippians 3:18-19; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22; Revelation 13:5-8; Revelation 18:1-5]

The church is the biblical body of Christ with Jesus as its head and with its people as its ministers. There is not supposed to be one man doing all the preaching, and there is not to be one person selecting all the songs, and leading all the songs. But we, as the body of Christ, are to be ministering to one another, using the Spiritual gifts given us by the Spirit to help one another to grow to spiritual maturity in Christ and to warn one another of false teachers, and of false teachings, and of deceiving spirits.

And the purpose of our gatherings is so that we, the church, will speak the truth in love to one another, addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, and exhorting one another every day so that none of us will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. And we are to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together anywhere appropriate, but encouraging one another in our walks of faith in obedience to our Lord.

[Acts 2:14-18,42-47; Romans 12:1-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians 14:1-5; Galatians 6:1; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:1-16; Ephesians 5:15-21; Ephesians 6:10-20; Philippians 2:1-8; Colossians 3:12-16; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 10:23-25; James 5:19-20]

Oh, to Be Like Thee, Blessed Redeemer

Lyrics by Thomas O. Chisholm, 1897
Music by W. J. Kirkpatrick, 1897

Oh, to be like Thee! blessèd Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer;
Gladly I’ll forfeit all of earth’s treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.

Oh, to be like Thee! full of compassion,
Loving, forgiving, tender and kind,
Helping the helpless, cheering the fainting,
Seeking the wandering sinner to find.

O to be like Thee! lowly in spirit,
Holy and harmless, patient and brave;
Meekly enduring cruel reproaches,
Willing to suffer others to save.

O to be like Thee! while I am pleading,
Pour out Thy Spirit, fill with Thy love;
Make me a temple meet for Thy dwelling,
Fit me for life and Heaven above.

Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee,
Blessèd Redeemer, pure as Thou art;
Come in Thy sweetness, come in Thy fullness;
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.

Login to view embedded media
Caution: This link may contain ads

Do What is Good
An Original Work / November 5, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

My young niece tried to commit suicide yesterday, and has had depression her family found out. Pray for her sister too who has anxiety and sometimes turns to alcohol. Praying for a new home for her, my suicidal niece, and that she gets Christian counseling

I've been reading Josef Pieper a highly regarded Thomist Philosopher, though perhaps not very well known by Protestants.. Among his works is a trilogy on Faith, Hope and Love.

So in his book On Hope, he starts by talking about something I hadn't heard of before - the status viatoris.

Pieper explains it as follows:



Now I don't think any of that is controversial as such as far as Catholic Theology is concerned.

Slightly further on though Pieper talks about despair and presumption as being opposed to the theological virtue of Hope. Presumption he writes, reveals itself in two forms:


I'm finding this a bit difficult, because it differs a lot from Protestant teachings.

To give an example, I once heard salvation described like a plane journey, as people who fly can be either nervous passengers, or relaxed, so christians may be either nervous or relaxed. But is that a good analogy?

Pieper refers to presumption as "an attitude of mind that fails to accept the reality of the futurity and "arduousness" that characterise eternal life. In conjunction with attainability, these two characteristics - futurity and "arduousness" - constitute the formal nature of the object of hope. If one characteristic is missing or ceases to be genuine, hope is longer possible."




What is the Reformed teaching on Hope? Do they recognise the status viatoris, that Pieper talks about here?

Video: Habba said they “pledged themselves to ISIS and were plotting acts of terrorism in our country.”

Our country continues to be fortunate to have stopped such terrorist plots.

Hi everyone, this post is intended for those who God is calling back.

The Son of God, the Son of Man (Psalm 80), Jesus Christ is God's Son and he is with us, seek him to find him. He is also known as the Son of Elias that resides in Heaven with God the Father, the Holy Spirit and his hosts of angels and Saints.

His word is found in the New Testament and he is the only bridge to God the Father that leads to eternal life to be saved from spiritual death at the end of time.

Through his precious Son's blood we are made to be fit alone through him for the forgiveness and remission of our sins. His Eucharist again joins us to his Body as members of Christ which he is the Head of that Body (Ephesians 1:22-23).

God the Father awaits to meet you to. God’s arms always extends to you. He wants us all to be grafted back onto his Olive tree which he loves with a passion (Romans 11) "Israel,

God the Father awaits to meet you to. God’s arms always extends to you. He wants us all to be grafted back onto his Olive tree which he loves with a passion (Romans 11) "Israel, and so all Israel shall be saved as it is written" those who are not joined yet who are not Christian he wants you and you need to be grafted in back onto the Olive tree to be saved." those who are not joined yet who are not Christian he wants you and you need to be grafted in back onto the Olive tree to be saved.

God has many faces as (Psalm 18) tell us, he has the capacity to show divine love and mercy to those who give him their love and who are obedient towards him as Jeremiah showed us (Jeremiah 31:31). God can be compassionate, but shrewd when he wants to be to the enemy He is GOD, the same GOD as always.

We are all the same before God as (Galatians 3:28) tells us and he wants us all to be grafted back onto his Olive tree from all nations including where he was most passionate and stood as their God of the Israelites-why not come back to the Olive tree...you are being gently called in the wind, his spirit will reach you. I know God will do what he said he will do he will come through and he will establish his people in the New Jerusalem which people of Christ will be invited to join him and where peace and love will abound with sweet Solomon songs.

The unbeliving Jews will be grafted back in when they meet and accept the Son of Man Yeshua, Jesus Christ who is our Saviour as God's Son and they will. The Holy Spirit and more signs of Christ will instigate leading them back and people will be being baptised in the street and which were empty will soon be filled and God’s spirit will be poured out on the earth as the Prophet Joel said (Joel 2:28) till the Perfect One comes again which is only Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12) who has the keys to Heaven and who is God's only Beloved Son (Matthew 3:17).

The Jews were God's chosen people.
The Christian Gentiles are now grafted into their Olive tree.
The Jews will be grafted back in, when they come back to God, which they will.

It is God who sends us water from his chambers which gives us water to drink and water that provides food for the grass (Psalm 104). This is the same God which gave us Manna from Heaven.

Peace to you till that day.

Keep working in the field till he comes-"Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left."
" (Matthew 24:20).

One of the central disagreements in politics today seems to boil down to what we think the proper function of government is. Is it to preserve individual liberties? Or is it to ensure that every citizen has their basic needs met? Some other central function? My question is, what light does the Bible shed on this question? If we look at the structure of Israel in the OT, what can we learn about how God intends for governments to function and what their mandate is?

I have my thoughts, but I want to hear some other opinions before divulging them.

I will present my understanding of the Ancient Hebrew.

YSRAL

Y(Yod) S(Shin) R(Resh) A(Aleph) L(Lamed)

First off, there were no spaces between the otiot (letters) in Ancient Hebrew. The otiot were all written in a single string or word. The spaces to make separate words within the string were added later; thereby those divisions reflect a specific interpretation. Numerous interpretations can be derived from the unbroken string.

Second, Ancient Hebrew is a concrete (as opposed to abstract) language, built on concrete thought. Concrete thought is built on what can be experienced though the senses, and opposed to abstract philosophy.

Third, each ote (letter), in Ancient Hebrew, is a pictograph; and each has it's own meanings, which can be interpreted in different ways.

Fourth, Ancient Hebrew words are built on two ote (letter) roots.

Let's start with the root SH-R (Shin Resh).

The Shin depicts teeth. The Resh depicts a man's head.

The teeth can be interpreted as pressure. The man's head can be interpreted as a beginning.

SH-R is the Hebrew word for cord. To make ancient cords, one would start at the beginning with the fibers, and tightly (pressure) weave them into a cord.

Now lets build a word on SH-R by adding the Y.

Y (Yod) is a pictograph of a hand and arm.

If one holds a cord tight; it becomes straight; just as the righteous one makes a straight path.

YaSHaR means straight in concrete Ancient Hebrew. It is often translated as righteous in abstract Greek thought.

Now let's look at the AL in YSRAL

The A (Aleph) depicts an ox's head. It can be interpreted as headship or strength,

The Greeks took the Ancient Hebrew Aleph-Beyt, and turned the letters upside down and backwards. Then they wrote it from left to right, instead of right to left. Seems like witchcraft to me. The modern English Alphabet evolved from the Ancient Hebrew Aleph-Beyt, through the Ancient Greek alphabet.

If you turn the letter A upside down; you can still see the ox's head, with his horns.

Anyway, I digress.

The L (Lamed) depicts a shepherd's staff. It can be interpreted as guidance or being yoked.

Many people call God El; but if you look at the Ancient Hebrew, you will see that the word is AL (Aleph Lamed)

One interpretation is that your AL (God) is the headship that you are yoked to.

So YSR (YaShaR) AL (AL) can be interpreted as the straight (righteous) headship that you are yoked to (God).

"Researchers have found that the primitive humans who lived 2.75 million years ago at an archaeological site called Namorotukunan used stone tools contonuously for 300,000 years"

The depth of those time spans makes me wonder what it was like to be caught up in that moment in time.
These are our ancestors and a rough estimate gives me 100,000 generations have passed from then until we find ourselves at this present stage of cultural and biological development.

Some 10,000 of those generations were characterised by "settlements" of humanoids who busily used their stone tools and their ability to manufacture them to enable them to withstand the vagaries of climate change throughout those 300 000 years.

Recorded history (as far as I know) goes back less than 10,000 years or some 30 times less than that.

Can we draw any conclusions or perspectives from these astonishing timescales (and our ancestors' ability to "surf" them, as it were?

The numbers are hard to imagine and yet these were our own ancestors.Does that bring about a sense of familiarity despite those caverns of history?

Hi, contrary to the popular narrative that Catholics don't have a relationship with Jesus or don't have knowledge of their faith, I'm not seeing this in real life. Of course, you will find Catholics like I've described, they are in abundance, but I'm encountering Catholics who are very well-versed in Scripture, have read books, written articles, and given lectures at places. I feel like garbage compared to some of them; I'll never feel like I measure up. I start many books and have never even gotten through a third of them. The first book I finished in the past 10 years was "The Four Last Things" by Martin von Cochem and that was not even an enjoyable book; it was, however, a very compelling book. Someone at my table at the formation course seemed to treat me as "less than" for being a convert, and I don't think it's in my head.

After 13 years, Mississippi Democrats have broken the Republican Party’s supermajority in the Mississippi Senate. Voters elected Democrats to two seats previously held by Republicans, reducing the number of Republican senators in the upper chamber from 36 to 34—one fewer than necessary to constitute a supermajority.

In the Mississippi Pine Belt region, Democrat Johnny DuPree won Senate District 45, previously held by Republican Sen. Chris Johnson of Hattiesburg. In North Mississippi, Democrat Theresa Gillespie Isom won the Senate District 2 seat held by Republican Sen. David Parker of Olive Branch, who decided not to run for reelection.

In the House, Democrat Justin Crosby also flipped House District 22, defeating incumbent Republican House Rep. Jon Lancaster.

“Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, these voters finally had a voice in choosing who represented them in the State Senate and House,” the ACLU said.

Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits racial discrimination in voting and mandates that racial minorities must have an equal opportunity to participate in the election process. [And a federal court ordered MS to redraw its lines.] That could soon change, however, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed majority appeared inclined to strike down Section 2 during oral arguments in a case last month.