Some suggestions in regards to daily prayers for improving my private spiritual life with Christ:

Thanksgiving: Father, I rejoice in Your love for me. You thought of me and so loved the idea of me that You created me. Each moment You are at work, loving me into existence. Thank You, Father for accepting me as I am. (Here, thank God for any special gifts received this particular day e.g. the weather, a good book, a holy desire, a good joke, the ability to hear His voice and/or see Him working ... etc).

Petition: Father, You know me better than I know myself. Please help me be aware of how You worked in and around me today. I wish to respond to Your call for me, with obedience and love. However, for me to follow Your will, I first need to know it. Please help me listen and hear the voice of Your Spirit in me that I may see how You see me.

Reflection: In this section ask yourself some questions as you go through the previous few hours since your last examen. The answers will come as you are guided by the Holy Spirit. Examples of these questions could be as follows: 1. How am I feeling right now? Why? 2. Is this leading me to God or away from God? 3. How did God manifest His love for me in the last few hours? How did I respond? Was there anything lacking? 4. What did I do to show my love for God?

Contrition: Father, thank You for Your care and guidance in the last few hours. I am sorry for the ways in which I was not sensitive to Your Spirit in me. I love You, Lord, and You know where and how I need healing and forgiveness. I surrender myself to You completely (Here, ask for the grace to see specific areas the Lord is showing you). Together looking to the future: Father with hope I look to the future. You accept me the way I am and You allow me to grow. You give me time and grace, opportunity, and space. I place the time between now and my next examen in your hands. I ask you to make me more sensitive to Your Spirit in me. May my life between now and then be united to the life of Your Son, my Lord and Savior, Jesus (Here one is to be specific as well: What is in the coming hours I want to discuss with the Lord, to lift up in prayer, ... etc.).

Say it aint so said:

Maybe I have a misunderstanding of what a follower of Christ means.

Click to expand...

There are areas of the forum open to explicit non-Christians.

And to those who have a misunderstanding of what being a follower of Christ means.

Servus said:

There must have been a glitch. When I clicked on the "this report" link I got a Yahoo article. Now I'm getting a report.

Click to expand...

It was the NYPost's article that had the report linked to it. I changed it the actual report to make it easier.

Servus said:

Is there solid evidence of that?

Click to expand...

Solid evidence that Hegseth attributed the order to Admiral Bradley?

JulieB67 said:

We are still talking in the future tense here. We have to remember this revelation is being revealed to us. Judgement Day has not arrived and the new heaven and earth are not in place as of yet. So he is just reiterating these two facts. And we see what happens to the former at Judgement Day.

Revelation 22:14 "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."

Revelation 22:15 "For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."

Click to expand...

All of the book of revelation is in the future. I’m not sure what you are saying here but I you used the book of revelation to attempt to prove your point but when I use it you object?

Also, what bible translation are you using?

Rev. 22:14 reads in Greek: μακάριοι οἱ πλύνοντες τὰς στολὰςαὐτῶν ἵνα ἔσται ἡ ἐξουσία αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὸ ξύλοντῆς ζωῆς καὶ τοῖς πυλῶσιν εἰσέλθωσιν εἰς τὴνπόλιν

In English it should read: Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life, and may enter the city by the gates.

The word commandment does not appear in the Greek.

JulieB67 said:

We have to continue to take the bible as a whole. When we do, it's always been life or death.

Click to expand...

I was trying but apparently only you can lol

JulieB67 said:

In the context it is given as destroying both body and soul, the definition is clear. As are all of the other verses that pair it with life. It's not life or ruination in hell. You are inserting that both have eternal life in all of these verses and that's not the case and that's not what's written.

Click to expand...

What context? You can’t cite context when you are not recognizing other definitions and interpretations. Is called exegesis.

JulieB67 said:

Hey, I was taught the same as you've been taught but upon study, it's not there when we take the bible as a whole. And it's also not in the nature of God, who doesn't even want anyone to die. And when we know this fact, we can reasonably know he's not going to burn someone for an eternity. He's going to destroy them in the Lake of Fire and then go on with the new heaven and earth.

Click to expand...

Then you drank the kool aid because to sin against an infinite being requires an infinite punishment. The good news is that for those that believe in Christ redemptive sacrifice they have been justified and the punishment mitigated.

Another angle:

2nd pic from here:

iluvatar5150 said:

It is? It sounds like every call for revival and evangelism that I've ever heard. I guess that could be considered aggressive, but that strikes me as an odd thing for a Christian to throw shade at

Click to expand...

That's nice. But I'm not an Evangelical, and I'm not discussing Evangelical Christianity... So.

Show me that modern day Jews are descendants of Abraham and we’ll take it from there.

iluvatar5150 said:

Perhaps, but it wasn't the CHIPS Act that cause NVDA to skyrocket; it was the AI boom.

Click to expand...

Login to view embedded media

iluvatar5150 said:

I don't know enough about it to have an opinion. Maybe there's something there.; maybe there isn't. I don't have any interest in defending her if there is, but I also don't take your sites' claims at face value.

Click to expand...

Cool so i wont take your sites' claims at face value and we'll walk into the sun

durangodawood said:

How did I miss this part.

Cal actually has some of the very best STEM programs in the whole country. Across the board. It is widely known for those - unless your only source of knowledge in this world is recent culture wars axe grinders. Between faculty and alums, the list of Nobel prize winners is ridiculous.

For sure Berkeley (town and U) has a certain radical subculture. But the other 90+% is just doing normal college stuff at a high level.

Click to expand...

It has always been that way. Marxist professors and all. I was there in the '60s, not at Cal, but another college nearby, took some courses there, and the whole time most of the students in Berkely were buckled down to the business of just getting degrees. I think that's true of all the universities that Trump accuses of woke activism. How many students of, say, Harvard Business School are really under the thumb of CRT? Or even Harvard Law where it originated?

JosephZ said:

The 1971 bombing was carried out by the Weather Underground, she wasn't associated with that group. She was associated with the group that splintered off from the Weather Underground, which carried out a bombing at the Capitol in 1983, but even then, she wasn't found to be directly involved.

Click to expand...

Oopsies. Man what a psycho girl though. Crazy that there were multiple leftist bombings of the capitol. I was never taught about that in school but I am willing to bet school will indoctrinate kids about January 6th in the future as if it were some national tragedy.

comana said:

What benefit have the tariffs produced?

Click to expand...

lismore said:

Hello Always! Good to hear from you. I hope you're doing well today.

Click to expand...

Thank you - I hope you are doing well also. I do appreciate speaking with you and you have my respect.

lismore said:

For example all those on whom Peter's shadow fell were healed:

Acts 5:14-16 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.

Click to expand...

That's true- but it is also the ONLY instance of this type of mass healing reported. None of the others are mentioned ministering healing on such a mass footing - I don't generally take a one time instance and make it a blanket statement. That is just how I was taught.

lismore said:

I don't think there's anything like this today?

Click to expand...

Not that I am aware of. Nor did it ever happen again that I know of.

lismore said:

Yes the Word Of God the Bible is still inspired. The writing is ended as you say, but that's because there are no more apostles to write scripture? The Canon closed when the Apostle John died, because he was the last.

Click to expand...

He was the last of the 12 Apostles of the Lamb - and we agree that the canon was closed.

lismore said:

What an apostle wrote was considered to be part of the Bible, the inspired word of God, just as if God himself was speaking.

Click to expand...

We believe that the Word of God is Holy Spirit Breathed - but you do realize that Luke and Mark were not Apostles, yet God used them to write the Gospels and the Book of Acts.

lismore said:

As Peter said about Paul's writings:

There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures (2 Peter 3:16).

Click to expand...

lismore said:

In the bible the words of a real Prophet or Apostle were considered to be infallible, the very words of God. It's a high standard.

Click to expand...

Where does Scripture state that?

lismore said:

Could that be talking of the closed Canon, which we now have?

Click to expand...

No -

13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God - have we done this?

, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; - are we a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ?

14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine - Have we stopped being tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine? Look to CF as a micrcasm and how many doctrines there are just here.


by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting - has this ended.


God Bless You also my friend.

partinobodycular said:

Is that 'yikes' in response to the video, or my affinity with it?

Click to expand...

Within the first minute of the video, he says he believes in God, and in the next breath says he doesn't know whether God is real or a social construct, which indicates he doesn't know the difference between reality and social constructs. Do you believe that Americans driving on the right-hand side of the road is in any way "real"? Do you believe that the dollar bill in your pocket is "really" worth anything more than any another rectangular piece of paper?

Movies, radio, tv, magazines. It’s a good fit. Maybe not mainstream, but a lot of it online. Welcome to the forum
@Coolerranch . Where are you way out in Montana or sumthing?

“For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1Co 15:3, 4). This seems to have been the first truth preached by the Apostle Paul. It is plain that such a truth does not in itself clear us from the world, nor give us the realization of our union with Christ on high. It is something done for us (if we accept it—NC), and does not in itself reveal relationship, although it is marvelously suited to show the love of God, the measure being the gift of His Son.

There are multitudes of persons, to whom we should not deny the Christian name, who reach only to this state (going no further than just believing in Christ—NC). They would mourn over any teaching which did not embody the death of Christ as the only meritorious cause of their acceptance before God—a death to save the lost. Hence they would alike reject as valid the ritualism of the day—the pomp of symbolism, and the intellectual setting up of man, and, if they went so far, would insist of the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

With this class of persons, you will find it difficult to maintain a spiritual conversation. They can talk with real earnestness of the results of Christianity, but they cannot really talk of Christ Himself, since they only know of what He has done, rather than what He is in Himself. Such persons, alive to the necessity of a religious life, are more or less safe as to the properties of conduct.

It belongs to them to cultivate the arts and sciences, and to show a respectable, nay, even a religious hue over everything around them; for ignorant of “the sentence of death” in themselves (2Co 1:9), they must fill up life by embellishing “the old man”; in short, they would get the unrenewed—man out of his sinful ways by presenting a man’s own self to him under a more attractive guise. They are not deeply experienced in the ruin of man, but think that something good may yet be made out of it; and all this without at all meaning to deny Christ.

Now the next step, which ought to be known after the fact of Christ dying for our sins and rising again, is that we died with Him. This is unfolded in Romans 6:6: “our old man is crucified with Him.” To have died with the Lord Jesus is a different thing from Christ dying for us (He died for the world but He was not received by most—NC). A temptation arises, it may be some cast of the eye to which the flesh would give way; but I say I cannot entertain it because I am dead (temptation to a believer is not able to get him to desire to lust because of Phl 2:13—NC). People remain in this state for a long time. Their demeanor is, to a certain extent, doleful. They begin to understand the deeper aspects of Christianity, but they are not yet in the experience of the life that comes out of death.

The next stage is that I am not only dead with Christ but alive with Him from the dead—“If ye then be risen with Christ” (Col 3:1). When I only knew that I was dead, there was divine certainty that the old man was crucified by the death of Christ, but no joy. But to be alive with Christ from the dead not only gives me to see a Person—a glorious Object before me, with all His surroundings—but I learn to enjoy divine fellowship with Him there on high, “for your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col 3:3).


—William Wigram (1872 – 1953)



MJS devotional excerpt for December 2

“The believer, having received ‘the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,’ comes under the influence of the ‘law’ of that Spirit (Rom. 8:2). The operating principle of ‘the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ ever works in the direction of profound self-judgment, and of the consciousness that we have in the Lord Jesus not only righteousness, but a divine Source of satisfaction and strength.

“This ‘law’ operates not to give a sense of claim (law), but of divine gift (grace) and resource and support. And thus it makes the one in whom it operates free from ‘the law of sin and death.’ It gives the consciousness that divine goodness is an unfailing resource for our hearts, and that all the treasures of that goodness are stored up in Christ Jesus, that we may learn them there, and find the life of our spirits in the growing knowledge of Him.

—Charles Andrew Coates (1862-1945)



“‘The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus’ made me ‘free from the law of sin and death’ (Rom. 8:2)—not ‘the life,’ but ‘the Spirit of life,’—not our effort, but divine strength; not self-occupation, but occupation with Him in whom we are before the Father, and in whom the divine favor rests upon us full and constant, because on Him it rests.

“There is the substitution of the power of the Spirit for the power of a right will and human effort, the substitution therefore of occupation with the glorified Lord Jesus Christ for occupation with spiritual growth; for then and thus alone is growth obtained.”

—Frederick William Grant (1834-1902

Another record?

NewLifeInChristJesus said:

This is the beginning of wisdom. With these great truths as the foundation, we go on to learn that there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ (Rom 8:1), that we are joined to the Lord and are one spirit with Him (1 Cor 6:17), that living in the Spirit compels us to walk in the Spirit (Ga 5:25), and that walking in the Spirit is the only way to not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Ga 5:16-17). We can rejoice in the fact that the law's requirements for righteousness are satisfied in us because new life in Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8:2-4). In short, we are able to stop pursuing righteousness because we already have it in Christ, and we are able to turn our attention to living out what He has already given us. New life in Christ Jesus is truly everything we need for life and godliness.

Click to expand...

Hi, and very nicely put! God knows we will always want to "please" Him, even when we ignorantly sin; because He "works" this "in you" (Phl 2:13).

GoldenBoy89 said:

It’s like people have completely forgotten what’s it’s like to not have someone constantly try to politicize every single thing that happens.

Click to expand...

And speaking of politicizing, when is the President going to order the flag lowered for the death of one of our troops?

essentialsaltes said:

Laura Loomer is now an accredited journalist at the Pentagon.

Click to expand...

I would like to wake up from this.

The nonsense perpetrated by @stevevw there is no evidence of the ancient Egyptians using conventional tools particularly during the Old Kingdom is refuted by the following table.

Yes, we should have known the boat strikes themselves are questionable as well as the use of U.S. Military to fight crime inside of America. So the idea that all the occupants of the boats are hardcore cartel members seems untrue. Criminals yes, but capital punishment seems quite harsh to me. To gun them down after an initial strike is the far worse crime.

There is a good article in the Wall Street Journal of how the drug boats,(called "go fasts." operate out of Columbia. (Here is the teaser, but it is behind a paywall).

The most basic way to ship includes a Pilot (Captain) some helpers and one representative from the drug shipper. The pilots often are former fishermen and know the waters really well. The interview with one of the workers suggested that they got 10k in cash for delivery. He acknowledged that some boats were being blown up but said he would probably do it again for 13k. "Crew members like the 29-year-old are more like freelancers—young men recruited for a job." The pilot makes the most money. No one seemed to think that the boats blowing up would slow the drug business down. That they would accept loads and do it as a sort of job.

Oompa Loompa said:

Test question. Is this a cat or a human?

View attachment 373894

Click to expand...

It’s the missing link. So it was cats not monkeys.