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 God;s 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.

Sounding the alarm on the 'dystopian' bling.

Catholics on social media have been sounding the alarm on a chilling new trend: turning embryos into jewelry.

Embryos — frozen children — who are no longer wanted by a family are literally killed to then become an adornment a woman can wear to mark a life that was snuffed out.

The Catholic Church has long condemned the IVF process and the production of these embryos, but those warnings have gone unheeded, and there are now an estimated 1 million frozen embryos in the U.S. alone — giving rise to profound and continuing moral dilemmas, including this disturbing fad of embryo jewelry that has been around since 2017.

Lila Rose of Live Action recently brought attention to the “dystopian” bling.

Continued below.

While cleaning out some old email a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon some messages I’d sent to a confidant in 2020 and was taken aback by the depth of despair in my troubled musings.

It was one of those seasons where I’m glad it’s in the rearview mirror as it was a dark time for many. The COVID-19 pandemic was unnerving enough, but when you add in the summer riots, the contested presidential election that Fall, and all the ways social upheaval ensued around all of that, the nation and the world were convulsing. It struck me how quickly so many of us seem to have decided to move on from that time, preferring instead to forget the turmoil and purge the trauma from our collective memory to the extent it’s possible.

Adults may be able to compartmentalize that to some degree, but it will indelibly mark the children who were forced to endure it, and a new film called “15 Days: The Real Story of America's Pandemic School Closures,” skillfully documents the catastrophe that it was for them. Released on X in late September and already viewed over 1 million times, the documentary reveals the profoundly disruptive lurch it was for those who were coming of age during that terrible season.

Continued below.

The Christian idea that humans are made in the image and likeness of God is the only source for universal human dignity, human rights, and human value in human history. As philosopher Luc Ferry wrote in his book, A Brief History of Thought:

“Christianity was to introduce the notion that men were equal in dignity, an unprecedented idea at the time and one to which the world owes its entire democratic inheritance.”

Of course, Christianity received its understanding of how God created people from the Hebrew Old Testament.

A commitment to the doctrine of imago Dei requires that Christians oppose any idea that reduces humans to some other identity. Just as Christians must reject LGBT ideology and critical race theory for saying what is not true about the human person, Christians must reject antisemitism, especially in the wake of Tucker Carlson’s soft-pedal platforming of Nick Fuentes. Hateful views about the Jewish people have been prevalent on the political Left and have now emerged on the political Right. These views must be repudiated, no matter which side of the political spectrum they are found.

What will happen now in the wake of Tucker Carlson’s interview may well determine whether Fuentes and his “Groyper” movement are mainstreamed or pushed back beyond the shadowy margins of the conservative movement. Either way, Christians must be first and foremost committed to the biblical description of the universe and the human person over and above any political loyalties. Thus, this growing antisemitism coming from the political Right must be soundly condemned. Whether from the Left or the Right, antisemitism is morally evil.

Continued below.

I wonder what will happen if the government stays shut down for a couple of weeks after the election as that would likely mean that the idea of the "blue wave" being the Republicans fault and thus voting for democrats in a sense "failed" as people at the state and local levels are not the ones controlling the shut down anyway How would people who voted for the democrats BECAUSE of the shutdown react?

This would particularly be the case if 1-1-26 gets here and the healthcare credits run out in which case the democrats would basically "lose" by default in as far as getting what they wanted while the government was shut down for at LEAST a quarter of the year.

The United States sits under relentless scrutiny. In Europe, in Asia, and even from within its own borders, America has become a global dartboard — criticized, written off, mocked for its “outdated Christianity.” The headlines insist she is fractured beyond repair, but here’s what the news will never tell you: Christians in hostile territories are praying for the United States, not against her, with tears of love for the American faithful.

I was in Macau to strengthen marketplace leaders from across Asia when I saw them arrive — wave after wave of believers crossing the border from mainland China. The largest contingent. No cameras. No fanfare. Just professionals with unshakable resolve in their eyes. They moved with the quiet confidence of people who have already died to themselves. They didn’t walk like tourists. They walked like envoys of a Kingdom no regime can authorize, and no party can stop.

After I finished teaching, one of them approached me. I’ll call her “Edith.” She’s been laboring in marketplace ministry for over a decade, mentoring executives, discipling women and building the church behind closed doors. She gripped my hands, tears already forming. “We look to America,” she said. “To keep being bold for Christ.” Then came the sentence that rearranged me: “Please, tell them we’re not their enemies. Tell the Americans that we love them. The government here does not speak for us.”

She wasn’t finished. And in a way that would unsettle the cultural elites, she told me she loves the current U.S. administration — for praying publicly, for speaking the name of Jesus without apology, for refusing to treat faith like a liability. “That kind of clarity,” she whispered, “gives us courage.”

She wasn’t talking politics. She was talking about bloodline.

Continued below.

Interesting, strong talk about the evils of porn.

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While voters in several states and localities went to the polls Tuesday to select new leaders and weigh in on ballot measures, all eyes were on two gubernatorial races, the New York City mayoral race, and a referendum in California that could have an impact on which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives next year.

Last night's results were pleasing for Democrats, who found themselves completely locked out of power in the federal government following the 2024 presidential election last year.

1. Virginia: Democrats sweep statewide races, secure a trifecta​

Virginia had three statewide offices on the ballot Tuesday, and Democrats won all three races. Democrat Abigail Spanberger defeated Republican Winsome Sears in the gubernatorial race. With over 95% of the vote reporting, Spanberger has captured 57.5% of the vote to Sears’ 42.5%. Spanberger, who will become the first female governor in Virginia history, will replace the term-limited Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

In the lieutenant governor’s race, Democrat Ghazala Hashmi defeated Republican John Reid. With over 95% of the vote counted, Hashmi has won 55.6% of the vote to Reid’s 44.4%. Hashmi will occupy the office currently held by Sears, who gave up her post to run for governor.

Continued below.

Please pray that God Blesses Canada's Federal budget in such a way that it is fiscally responsible:

Pray that despite the fact that Zohran Mamdani,Mikie Sherrill & Abigail Spanberger are socially liberal US politicians, that they may favorably treat Christians & seek guidance from Christians:

Please pray that God Blesses Canada's Federal budget in such a way that it is fiscally responsible:

The 2025 World Series was fantastic. The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 4 games to 3 and two of those games went to extra innings. I've been a Dodgers fan since the summer of 1968 and that was the most exciting team they've fielded in all those years. I'm not saying it was the best, but it was the most exciting in my humble opinion. Congratulations Dodgers, back to back World Series Champions!

Sadly, the key races that were up for grabs were all won by the democrats. I know that must must tough for some but Trump's brand is does have some blowback for the GOP and I predict it will only get worse. The good news is that revival/renewal of a nation depends on becoming humble. So lets all share a piece of that pie, knowing that God and MAGA are not always united; certainly not often in tone, and sometimes not in policy.

Consider the GOP push to redistrict Texas. This was a lose/lose scenario for America because it rejects the do unto others as you wish them to do unto you. The hope was that Texas and maybe Missouri could do this so that the GOP would not lose the midterms. But now as the GOP states have started down this road the democrats are doing the same. All at the expense of voters. Voters lose when maps get redrawn before every election instead of once a decade − a trend started in Texas, moving to California and likely spreading across the country

Too many frame politics or even political parties as Christian vs non-Christian; some even see it as a sort of civil war. It does not have to be that way. We have lots of common ground. There is a place for kindness, compassion, for compromise. Not sin, but policies like health care subsidies and the right of states to refuse Federal troops. We too will soon know if Trump's tariffs are all even legal. Do we really want executive action that a President that justifies what he does by twisting the law? Yes, Biden did that with student loans. Some democrats consider that with gun control as well. Ask yourself, if tariffs were such an emergency why did Trump raise the rate on Canada an extra 10% because he did not like the Reagan advertisement against tariffs? Is that an emergency?

I am not saying that Trump does not have some good qualities or policies but the GOP is lacking on many important things. Examples include social security, healthcare costs, inflation, and income inequality, the MAGA movement as is or even project 2025 is not going to cut it.

Of course many pundits too are right that the democrats should not be so partisian either. Just because NYC has a more extreme mayor, that is not a nationwide mandate. Win some races in the red states by running some conservative democrats that can step forward and help moderate and heal the USA. God bless!

We who have trusted in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our lives, by God-persuaded faith in him, which is not of our own doing, but of God, we have been 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 God and to his righteousness. Now our lives belong to Jesus, and he is to be our Lord (Owner-Master), and our lives are to be dedicated to his service. And we are to be those who are walking in obedience to his commands.

Gospel:[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 2:5-10; 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 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]

And we who are ministers of the gospel, in taking the message of the gospel to the people of the world, are to be those who echo with Paul that “we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God” (v.2). Yet, there are so many people today who claim to know our Lord, and who are in positions of Christian ministry, who absolutely are walking in craftiness and are adulterating the word of God. And that is a very sad reality within the gatherings of the church today.

Now, we are all human. All of us who are following Jesus Christ with our lives are but clay in the hands of the Potter (God), being molded and shaped into his image. None of us can do what we do in the name of God in our own flesh, and then have it be of God. We are totally reliant upon the Lord to teach us, to shape us, and to make us into the people of God he wants us to be to be used for his purposes and for his glory in ministering to the body of Christ and in taking the message of the gospel to the people of the world.

And especially since so much of “the church” is of the will of man, and not of the will of God, and because so many have gone the way of the world in order to win the world to their worldly gatherings, if you are someone whose life is sold out to Jesus, to follow his teachings, to obey his commands, and to teach what he taught and what his New Testament apostles taught as the truth of the gospel, in the correct biblical context, then you may well be faced with persecution and rejection, even from those within “the church.”

For who were Jesus’ greatest opponents and persecutors? They were the rulers and leaders and people of influence within the temple of God. And they were his own people, even his own family. And they were those who professed faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – although they mostly did not believe that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah of Israel. And so many of them made it their aim to persecute Jesus, and eventually they had him put to death.

And Jesus himself promised us that if we become his disciples, which is what it means to believe in him, that we will be hated and persecuted as he was hated and persecuted, and by many of the same kinds of people who profess faith in the same God as we worship. But no matter how much we must suffer for the sake of the name of Jesus, and for the sake of the gospel, we must not let it defeat us. Yes, it hurts! I feel that every day. But this is part of God’s plan for us to humble us, and to make us into his holy people.

[Matthew 5:10-12; Matthew 10:16-25,34-39; Matthew 24:9-14; Luke 6:22-23; Luke 12:49-53; Luke 21:12-17; John 15:18-21; Ephesians 6:10-20; Revelation 6:9-11; Revelation 7:9-17; Revelation 11:1-3; Revelation 12:17; Revelation 13:1-18; Revelation 14:1-13]

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

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This Treasure in Earthen Vessels
An Original Work / November 4, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

YouTube Channel Video Devo
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“He Wants Unlimited Access”
Acts 1:8 NIV
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

In this day and age, we have so many different subscription plans offering us unlimited access. When we sign up for a membership, I think most often we are looking for the most perks we can get for our money. Most phone plans nowadays all include unlimited talk, text and data. I remember back when you had to pay extra for going over certain amount of calling minutes, texts and data caps. That’s becoming a thing of the past.

So much of what we pay for these days usually provides unlimited access. We like paying a price and getting unlimited access to the plan we’ve paid for. We don’t want any hindrances to what we can do. We don’t want to be restricted. And, if there’s ever an issue, we are sure to contact customer service to get things straightened because we are a paying customer.

At church Sunday, this passage was used and talked about how Jesus charged His men to take His message to everywhere in the world. He wasn’t just sending them through their town, but to other countries and all over the world. He didn’t want them limiting themselves. He wants full and complete access to their lives and to send them wherever he needed them to go.

God wants unlimited access to our lives. His desire is to send us wherever He leads. However, so often, we limit Him and give excuses because we don’t feel like doing what He wants us to do or going where He wants us to go. We always seem to have an excuse to not go certain places where He leads. We get selfish and don’t want to leave our comfort zones. But it doesn’t work that way if we are committed to the Great Commission. Jesus told His men and tells us to go and make disciples of ALL nations. There’s very inclusive!

Jesus asks us to give Him all access to our lives so that He can send us wherever He chooses. Are we giving Him all access and saying to Him first, “Yes! Lord the answer is Yes! Now, where do You want me to go”?

He wants all access of our lives. He wants to send us wherever He desires for us to go. Are we willing, ready and available?

On May 26, 2023, the Lord led me to write a short (29 page) book on the subject of church abuse. Yesterday I shared the introduction into the book’s content, and in the video portion of that I shared some of my background. And I will tell you here that I am almost 76 years of age, a teacher of the Scriptures for over 50 years, and called of God 21 years ago to write down what he is teaching me each day from his word and to post these writings on the internet, and that is what I have been doing the past 21 years.

In summary, what is being called “church” today is largely not the universal body of believers in Jesus Christ, but it is a conglomerate of institutions of human making which are incorporated (merged, joined, partnered) with the state (the government) and with the world. They are businesses of human origin which are being led by marketing goals and plans for how to “grow your churches,” i.e. businesses. And so they have altered the gospel and compromised with the world in order to attract the world to their gatherings.

The Church Under Fire

Chapter Two

Be Aware

May 26, 2023


Now I am going to relate this story to our lives and world and church today. For what was going on here was deceptive. It was trickery. It was a trap. For they wanted to kill Paul in order to shut him up, and possibly also in hopes that the movement he was leading would then disperse. It is kind of like what they did with Jesus, hoping that by killing him it would silence not only his voice, but that his followers would disperse and that they would not have to deal with them anymore.

But I want you to be aware that this kind of trickery is going on within the gatherings of the institutional market-driven churches of today, and it is being done by some pastors and other church leaders as a method of controlling people and situations to go the way they want them to go. And even many pastors are being trained in deception and trickery as a way to make things happen the way that suits their marketing goals and purposes.

And my husband and I were church planters twice, so we went through some of this training. And at one of our training sessions we were taught that we are to use (take advantage of) “needy people” in order to get our church plants up and running. But once our church plants were well on their way, we were instructed to get rid of the needy people, for they would weigh us down. Wow! The people in our tiny congregation were needy people. For we were ministering to the hurting, and the rejected, and the neglected.

Also my husband and I had a ministry to college students and to college-age adults out of our home for 7.5 years, from early 1999 to mid-2006. And there were times when we tried to connect this ministry to a local institutional church, because we thought that was the right thing to do. And so from 2002-2003 we partnered with a local IC (institutional church). We provided the college ministry for their congregation, and they provided us with a facility where we could meet. And at first it went well.

But Then…

I was doing some volunteer work at the church office one day when the pastor called me into his office to talk. He asked me, “Would you say that your praise band would draw in large crowds of people from the world?” I knew exactly where he was going with this, and I also knew that this was contrary to our partnership agreement. For we told him our goal in ministry, at that time, was to provide a place for young people where they could feel included, and where they could feel valued and needed and wanted.

What he said he wanted to do was to replace our band with another band, and he wanted me to talk about that with our ministry team. So, I did. And we decided to all meet with him, and we did. And when we met with him, I asked him to tell the group what he told me. But all he would say was, “I would never do that.” So I asked him, if he would never do that, then why did he ask me to ask our ministry team about doing that. But his answer remained, “I would never do that.”

So, what he was doing was a non-denial denial. He neither admitted to saying it nor did he deny saying it. He just said he would never do that. So, afterwards he and I talked more, but he still would not answer my question as to why he said what he did if he never intended to do that. And then their “Session” (of the Presbyterian Church) called me to a meeting. But they made it a prerequisite that I must admit I lied about the pastor before I could come to their meeting. But I didn’t lie. I am not the one who was being deceptive. And I had been totally submissive.

So I asked the Session if they would remove that requirement and they refused. So, I could not attend their meeting, because I would not lie. And so they put me on church discipline, which is totally against the Scriptures and the whole purpose for church discipline. But what they did, and a lawyer was one of the ones involved in this, would be like if someone accused you of a crime, but before they would give you a fair trial to determine guilt or innocence, you would be required to admit guilt. If you could (or would) not admit guilt, then to jail you went, no trial at all.

Do you see how absolutely evil what they did was? That lawyer knew better than that, and so did that pastor. I think the Session did not really know what was going on, in my opinion, but they were just acting on the word of the pastor and of the lawyer. But they had to know that what they were doing was wrong. For you don’t make someone admit guilt before you even give them a chance to be heard. That is criminal! But so many of these ICs are being taught to use deception and trickery in order to get people to do what they want them to do, and/or in order to get rid of the undesirables.

Bottom line, we pulled our ministry out of that IC, and we took it back to our home, which is where I believe the Lord wanted it to be anyway. And the reason the Lord is having me share this with you is so you will be aware of the kinds of trickery and deception and manipulations which are going on in many of these ICs which are market-driven and which are trying to draw in large crowds of people from the world. Since I was not on board with what they were up to, they found a way to silence me. But they lost access to our ministry to college students as a result. So, keep your eyes and ears open.

P.S. January 29, 2025: This (above) took place 22 years ago. Recently I had the occasion to ask this same pastor if I came to his church if he would welcome me. At first he "beat around the bush," so I asked him again, and there was no response. So, the answer to me was "No!" I would not be welcome if I came to his church.

Link to the whole book:

The Church Under Fire Book (edited).pdf

Video Recording of the Above:

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The Church Under Fire Pt 2
An Original Work / November 4, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

November 2, 2025
Job 19:25 KJV

25For I knowthatmy redeemer liveth, andthathe shall stand at the latterdayupon the earth

My Interpetation:

Praise God to Believe in what God says about you and the New Testament makes me into Jesus Character amd traits to have what God says I will have and with victory