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I have been through a hurtful experience with a Church. Need some encouragement to take the next step.

Hello. First of all, to go into the great detail on my hurtful experience would take me probably 2 pages to write. The reality is that I had a resurge of faith over Covid lock downs. I read the whole Bible and made a habit of daily study. I started attending Church again and I also started attending a small group (My wife came too).


Last October, something happened in our small group, and I just can’t go back. I was really let down by several members of the Church. It is very hard to find a new Church (we live very remotely and commuted 1 hour and 30 minutes to this Church).


The big problem that I need to get over now is that I can’t really do any bible study (This includes daily bible readings, listening to sermons on podcast). Anytime I think about doing bible study It all brings back this pain.


I think one of my problems may have been that I put in too much passion, too fast. I was wondering if there are any Christian authors who write in styles that are kind of simple and funny and I could use this as a way to kind of get back on track for the moment.

BTW: I have no idea what the long-term solution will be. Where I am at currently is that the idea of any Bible study is just too painful. My belief and personal faith are fine. I still pray. I have a picture of Jesus as well as some crosses handing up in my house. Just seeing Jesus really calms me.

It might also be that I feel like I failed. Studying the Bible perhaps is a reminder of my failure. But in reality there was nothing I could have done.



Thanks so much for reading, listening, and any suggestions that come through.

Republicans move to retain Jan. 6 committee documents--Democrats sent documents to be potentially locked up for 50 years

Republicans are attempting to pass a new House rule to block materials compiled by the panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection from immediately going to the National Archives.

Although the House committee investigating the insurrection has released a trove of transcripts and underlying information backing up its report, the vast majority of raw information the panel collected is slated to be sent to the National Archives, where it could be locked away for up to 50 years.

But the proposed rules package the new Congress will vote on Tuesday orders that any record created by the panel must instead be sent to the House Committee on House Administration by Jan. 17 and orders the National Archives to return any material it has already received.
  • Informative
Reactions: Semper-Fi

NEW CHRISTIAN: need a little help with the "voice of God".

I turned to Christ this past summer, so pardon my ignorance pls.

Anyhow, Ive recently been thinking about heaven. And I was getting excited about it and exploring the new earth, meeting Jesus, doing things with Jesus, etc. But ive recently started getting these "experiences" I dont really know how to put it, where im pretty sure God is basically telling me "No, you stand around my throne and sing in worship forever". No im not crazy, although I sure feel crazy rn XD. But anyways, this causes me alot of distress cause if thats all we do, I dont really look forward to heaven tbh. I mean, I love God, and most def dont mind bowing before him, but thats ALL we do? Im kinda just in dispear to be honest, cause if thats all we do, whats the point in building skills now? If they are just discarded in the next life.

Anyhow im going off topic. My question is this, HOW do I tell if God is the one saying this? I dont know what to do tbh. But its really stressing me out
F
First Age
If you don't like that choice welcome to hell where nobody cares what you think. I would choose heaven A lot cooler.
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Worship Service: What Is Yours Like?

I'm curious to know what your average worship services looks like every Sunday (or on a different day if your church-body fits this exception).

Our services start at 10:00, and roughly finishes somewhere between 12:30-1:00. We begin and finish with:
  1. Public Greeting and Opening Prayer
  2. Scripture Reading
  3. Congregational Singing
  4. Catechism Reading
  5. Public Announcement/Praise Report/Prayer Request
  6. Corporate Prayer
  7. Lord's Table with Admonition
  8. Fellowship Break
  9. Sermon
  10. Closing Hymn
  11. Closing Prayer
I'm sure this kind of format is very common for a Baptist congregation, but yours may be entirely different.

Hebrews 13:8 - How It Fits in Chapter 13

Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Is this verse…

(1) A capstone expression for the author’s admonitions in verses 1-7?
(2) A pause (that really feels more like a thunderclap) to express the greatness of God?
(3) A grand opening for what the author explains in verses 9-19?
(4) A purposeful and glorious lynchpin between what is emphasized in verses 1-7 and 9-19?

I have always read verse 8 as described in (2). But today, I sense that while (2) is a blessed and inevitable reaction (which I will always enjoy!), there is also the matter of context that makes (1), (3), or (4) reasonable approaches for understanding Hebrews 13.

Have you ever had similar thoughts about verse 8?

Excited about 2023! The year of increase.

No, I am no prophet, don't claim to be. But I am super excited about 2023.

  • My home church is growing faster than ever with two sister churches, both having to build out to handle eveyone.
  • The organization I minister with is growing exponentially
    • 20,000 students world wide
    • 282 campuses
    • over 3,500 affiliate churches
  • Our personal ministry in 2022
    • Ministered a total of 208 times in 7 different nations
    • published our second book
    • helped train ministers in 19 different nations
  • What I believe is the coming mover of God. When people step into the priesthood of the Believer and begin to minister to others at home, in the workplace, in the market places - it will dwarf the revivals of the past because of the sheer number of people ministering His Grace.
  • Other ministries growing and reaching the lost at an unprecedented rate.
The time for being huddled in our little group - being a spectator - or staying away from church is drawing to a close. Harvest time is coming!

Prayer for faith

【Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 】Matthew 16:16~17

Please pray for me(sangeun) and all of my family members(junghee dohan jieun hochul jeolja nosun zzomi) to know the Jesus and Gospel and the truth by Spirit of God and accept the Gospel and Jesus christ and believe in Jesus christ. and not to give up on Jesus christ and faith at any situation and repent of all our sins and be free from all our sins and be forgiven all our sins by Jesus and go to heaven surely.

Please pray for me(sangeun) and all of my family members(junghee dohan jieun hochul jeolja nosun zzomi) to believe that the Father is in the Son Jesus and that Jesus is in the Father. And to know the true father God. And Jesus Christ directly reveal the name of God the Father to all of us. And that God fulfil the Bible verses above for all of us. May God make impossible to make possible for all of us.

Prayer request

I have an ongoing problem with my emotional imbalance mom, She cannot control her temper and would appear to be hostile, can talk to her about reasoning. I should learn to keep quiet regardless of how unpleasant and unrespectful her critics could be, Being a Christian, I regret I can't and in some way, I respond. making it worst. I have been a poor witness of God. Forgive me.

Please continue to pray for my overall well-being and for being able to stay at peace with God while managing my chronic illness
Sleep Nerve, Digestion, thyroid. I need a holistic check-up, if it is not available in my place, may the lord place His direct healing hand on me just like He heals the blind, the leper, etc during the age of new testament where there is no hospital, and no medical doctor like today. It is faith that heals
S
Staysafe
It is extremely difficult if not impossible to talk to my mom about reasoning. She expects unconditional surrender to what she says and what she requests. She treats herself as God but she is like a sheep when she deals with my dad and elder brother, My elder brother is healthy but like my mom, he is an extremely temper, spoiled and I always avoid him
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Should you EAT another Human Being? How do you know?

Is Cannibalism ok?

How do we know if it's right or wrong?

Where do we find such knowledge?

So God created man in His own image;
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.

Now if that doesn't answer the questions where else can we look?
How about in Leviticus 11?

“These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth: Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud—that you may eat”

How about in Leviticus 20? Where it tells us why.

I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.
25 Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean,
and between unclean fowls and clean:
and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl,
or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground,
which I have separated from you as unclean.
26 And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.

There of course is mankind and there is beast. But the distinction here is if this living being has two identifiers,

1. It has cloven hooves (hooves that are split. )
2. It chews the cud (has multiple stomachs)

Man has neither.

We can also look to the NT and read this:

So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink." (John 6:53-55)

No majik is needed to interpret this properly. When one is familiar with Torah they understand that in the wilderness where the LORD had gathered his chosen people and married them there at the foot of the mountain he also made provision for them, not only giving them words to live by but also water from a rock (that was the living water) and the manna or Bread from Heaven.

Yeshua here is saying that He is that living water and that bread from Heaven, he is also the Word of God which is Torah.

So still no allowance for eating another human being. Many may remember the Donnor group but that was not a precedent as to what honors God. The Creator of man in His own Image.


So what do you make of this group?

humanmeatproject.com yes, you read that right, Human Meat Project​

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I need your prayers

I ask that you give me, my people(Ha-young, Ye-young, Ui-seop, Jung-won, Hye-ok, Yul-bin, Suzy, Eun-tae, In-sook, Im-hak, Tan-ae), and all who read it and pray revelation by the will of God’s son and let us know the true father God. Please send us workers for the harvest. I desire for what you wish to gather as the following recorded Word be gathered through our lives, so Jesus, please come to us quickly with your sovereign power and take away all the armament of those who stole from us all this time and let us divide the spoil.

-

"But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.”

‭‭Matthew‬ ‭12:28-30‬ ‭

Baby spicoli is here

Last night I took my wife to the hospital around 6pm for what we thought was a second kidney stone and thus began a crazy series of events. We took my stepdaughter with us at the behest of my mother-in-law because she wanted to stay informed. But soon after they admitted my wife they said my stepdaughter couldn't stay because she's under 18. Meanwhile, I'd been fighting a migraine all day, so when I took her home it got the best of me and I started throwing up on the drive (had to pull over at a gas station at one point). Got home intending to lie down just for a bit to help the headache. Around 9 my stepdaughter let me know my wife is doing fine and that they dropped my mother-in-law off at the hospital to be with her so I could rest.

I talked to my wife again around 1:15am and she said the kidney stone is actually an ovarian cyst and our OB wants to do a c-section between 7am and noon to get the baby and remove the cyst.

Then I get a frantic text from my stepdaughter saying my mother-in-law wants us to come right away because they just wheeled my wife out of the room. Except we can't come, we were told not to come before visiting hours at noon because the patient is only allowed one support person (her mom right now) outside visiting hours. This took a while to sort out because the nurse at the front desk couldn't reach the nurses in the Labor/Delivery unit.

I finally heard from my wife around 7:15am and I was right, they were concerned about the elevated heartbeat so the doctor moved quickly to deliver the baby and get the cyst out. I don't know his height or weight yet cause I can't go to the hospital for another hour and we haven't chosen a name yet but he's healthy and mom's doing much better.

Thanks for your prayers guys!

(tagging @Michie cause I'll know she'll wanna know)

Free will: Why people believe in it even when they think they're being manipulated

We all like to believe that we are free to make our own choices. At the same time, many people think that psychological techniques are constantly being used to sway us—from social media trends to advertising. So how do we square this?

Surprisingly, it's a question most researchers have ignored until now. But in a series of recent studies, we asked people "where in your day to day life do you think psychological tactics are being used to manipulate you unconsciously?"—and investigated what that meant for their belief in free will.

In a 2018 study across four countries (Australia, Canada, U.K. and the U.S.), responses to the question above were remarkably similar. In fact, they cut across age, gender, religiosity and political affiliation.

Approximately 45% of the examples people gave of psychological manipulation referred to marketing and advertising—especially "subliminal advertising" (using images or sounds to entice or persuade people that they aren't consciously aware of). The next most common (19%) was research (such as using placebos), then political campaigning (7%), social media (4%) and hypnotherapy (4%).

People typically described methods that subtly change mood, emotions and thoughts in such a way they that they persuade us into choosing or doing things that we have not consciously consented to. For instance, shops can pipe the smell of fresh baked bread outside it to entice people in. In a speech, a politician may emphasize specific words to persuade people to support them. Despite knowing such a thing could happen, we typically can't be sure when we were being manipulating in this way.

But do methods such as subliminal messaging actually work? Psychological research has not settled on an answer to this. But it is interesting to ponder how all this affects our belief in free will.

Read More at MedicalxPress...

Damar Hamlin Collapse

Amazing seeing the whole team coming together in prayer...


Damar Hamlin's toy charity takes in millions in the following hours


Currently at 3.4 million dollars...

Ruby Freeman Body Cam Admissions Revealed In The November 2020 Georgia Election Controversy

911 call transcript, body cam videos, and police report were obtained by Open Record Requests. From that information investigators have learned that the police report was supplemented in contradiction of the facts.

This election event was disturbing to a lot of people. I am a huge advocate for transparency, and so it is great to see what one of the Georgia election ballot counting people who was actually there had to say, albeit over two years later. Her statements can be carefully compared in more detail to statements made to the January 6th select committee. Likewise the statements of the officers should be scrutinized.

What medical advancements have been made since the year 2000?

It is often claimed that advances in medical science will extend our lifespans. Sometimes these claims are even that we will live decades or centuries longer.

What has medical science discovered and implemented into common practice recently? Let's define recently as since the year 2000.

I'm not opposed to mainstream medicine and do not advocate any alternatives, but I am skeptical about many of the longevity claims commonly made.

CDC Pushes Schools Admins and Teachers to Promote LGBT Ideology


Epoch Times: Naveen Athrappully said:
The tool classifies the LGBTQ inclusivity continuum of schools into three groups: “Mostly A’s” who are seen as highly inclusive; “Mostly B’s” who are moderately inclusive; and minimally inclusive “Mostly C’s.”

Epoch Times: Naveen Athrappully said:
A person who believes that gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity is unique and can be “experienced on a continuum” is given an A rating according to the tool, with those who do not agree with such a statement given a C.

Individuals who use inclusive terminology are seen as an A, with those who rarely use such terminology classified as a C.

Epoch Times: Naveen Athrappully said:
School administrators who ensure that, (a) events like pep rallies and proms include same-gender and gender non-conforming couples, (b) bathrooms and lockers can be used by any student per their chosen gender, (c) athletics programs have mixed gender participation, and (d) students have access to age-appropriate LGBTQ specific online materials, resources, and information, are given an A rating.

RIP American public schools. These policies are hurting and victimizing children and making their lives much worse.

Prayers, Wonderings and Wanderings of a Christian Nomad

My destination is you O Lord, I have no other.

Prayer: Grant me the discipline to Love You, the wisdom to know Thy will, and the strength to follow You. I will ask You no more.

Wonderings: Reality is what You want O Lord. Reality is what You desire. Break through and get to that and You will get to what is needed. Strike the rock, precious Lord, shatter it to pieces and you will get to what is real. The world needs to see such as that and so much less of us. All of creation waits for the true sons of God to be revealed. May your true light spring forth in a dark and thirsty land. Get to what is needed precious Lord. Get to what is real. Strike the Rock, break us open until the Son of God is revealed.

There is only one path that leads to truth. If Christ is not in front of you, you are not on it.

He sees the tangled twisted knot in all of us that cuts off the vine. What are you holding onto dear child? Give Him the entire tangled mess. He will know what to do.

The door of the cross ends all arguments, divisions and strife among us. Only the Pure, unpolluted water of Jesus Christ is allowed to flow free on the other side. This free flow is what He is after. Not the tangled mass of angry disharmony you see this side of the door.

The world is not Christ and Christ is not the world, let us not confuse the two. In our quest to love the world, let us not become it. Somehow this line gets more and more blurred by the day.



Wanderings: Nebo - Deuteronomy 34: 1-10

The first time Moses saw the promised land was the day He died. Moses went up on Mount Nebo a healthy man (Deuteronomy 34:7), yet he never came back down. Did Moses come up short? Did he fail God? Well it says of Moses, But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face (Deuteronomy 34:10). Hmmm , as for me, I should think he did pretty well.

Sometimes things don't always turn out the way we expected, the way we hoped or had planned. The Lord Himself took Moses down into a valley the day he died, and the Lord Himself buried him there. Imagine that for a moment. One of the most touching passages in the Bible. Sometimes days are like that. Sometimes we come to Nebos. But it is not what we get out of it after all that truly matters. Sometimes we are only allowed to see things from afar. But if we went up there with the Lord it will be well. His path is never wrong, even if Nebo is its end. Let Him bury us there. We will go up healthy and if we are allowed to descend we will come back down never quite the same. Something will be lost there that God Himself will bury, but blessed be the name of the Lord, something will be gained that only Nebos can bring.

Only you dear reader will know what your Nebo truly is, and what this writing really means. May He open your eyes to see.




............More to follow soon :)





Rainbow Discovery – Finding Jesus

Rainbow Discovery is a short series of Bible studies especially written for people interested in discovering Jesus – who he is and why he came. Free, printable PDF files will be linked here. Just print them out on standard size paper (A4 or Letter) then come back to discuss.

There is also a complementary book of 'Rainbow Bible Readings'. It may be downloaded, printed, and folded into an easy reference booklet. Use A4 paper back-to-back, then fold into an easy reference booklet for completing the questions.

Finding a Bible study teacher

Hello,

I am looking for a bible study teacher to do one on one lessons with (in person). I hope for the teacher to know everything in the Bible from the history to the understanding of the parables as I want to learn everything. I hope for the teacher to be located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. If you are available to teach me during the week (2-3 lessons) please provide your contact details and I’ll be in touch.

Thank you.

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