Richard T said:

Some great answers here. it sure can be hard for anyone to distinguish between God's voice that are filtered through their emotions. Perhaps you feel that you do not deserve the truck? Regardless though I think that God is stretching your faith, that the truck is just great enough that you are having a hard time believing in it. Little steps like that do occur, in a sense that is part of God training us to expect more and more, and just when you get the vehicle as far as God wants, he may set you up for some other test of faith in a completely different area. The good news though is that through the whole process you are maturing. I do hope you enjoy the truck. It sounds like a true blessing.

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Yeah! Ive talked to two separate pastors now about it and both independently said that it doesnt sound like God to them. So im going to assume theyre right lol. The truck has been fantastic!

Aryeh Jay said:

It's not that the government doesn't trust the people, just people who vote for Democrats.

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Well, once that that type of “behavior” is (officially) frowned upon, everything will sort itself out.

He served as President of Criswell College, Academic Dean at Midwestern Baptist Seminary,
Dean of Boyce College, and Chairman of the Board at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He was the President and CEO of National Religious Broadcasters (NRB).

What we want is not the same as who we are.


“I couldn’t help seducing my best friend’s wife. It’s just my nature.”

“I’m a hothead. I admit it. I was born that way. Deal with it.”

“You say I’m a liar, but I say you’re a loser. I’m good at lying, and I play the game with whatever nature gave me.”

“I’m a woman in a man’s body. Stop denying my reality.”

Popular culture drums into us the theme that each person’s nature is different. So far, we are oddly selective. For example, the idea of a promiscuous nature is greeted much more warmly than the idea of an adulterous one. Still, if we can have different natures, then how can we be measured by the same natural law?

People are different. From the fact that their personalities are different, though, it doesn’t follow that their natures are different. The virtues are good for all human beings; the vices are bad for all of them. If, for example, I have stronger inclinations to philandering, bad temper or drunkenness than you do, that doesn’t show that I have a different nature or a different virtue than you do, but that I have a character defect. If so, then truly “affirming” me wouldn’t mean encouraging my disordered desires, but encouraging me to keep them in check.


When it comes to drunkenness, most people get this. We don’t say I have a “drunk nature” so that I should get smashed every day; instead we encourage sobriety. Unfortunately, when it comes to certain other areas of life, we don’t get it. To mention just one of them: We call it mean and “judgmental” to encourage sexual purity, because “each person has a different nature.” You may be a one-woman man, but for all you know I’m a 64-woman man. Don’t judge me, bro.

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July 1, 2026 will dawn, and with it shall come either joy or sorrow; the Church shall either rejoice in her greater unity with the new bishops, perhaps even with the participation of a consecrator delegated by the Pope, or she shall be wounded further by deeper division. Iam hora est – now is the time to make a difference.

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Self-hatred is a crushing experience. A friend once told me that when his father was teaching him to shave, he said, “the hardest part of shaving every day is looking at the man in the mirror.” For those who struggle with self-loathing, that daily encounter can be profoundly painful. What, then, are Christians to do when they find themselves hating who they are?

First, we must clarify that self-hatred does happen. Some are confused by Paul’s statement in Ephesians 5:29, “For no one ever hated his own flesh.” Paul is speaking proverbially. Like the Proverbs themselves, he uses universal language to communicate a general truth. Generally speaking, people seek their own preservation. Yet in our fallen world, self-loathing — though not universal — is tragically real.

So how should a Christian respond?

First, look up


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What if I hate myself?

What are Christians to do when they find themselves hating who they are

www.christianpost.com

At a difficult time for America, Super Bowl advertisers asked viewers to take care of themselves and others — and maybe even crack a smile.

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If you want healthy food, experts say to eat what’s local, organic and in-season. Those foods benefit the planet too, because they are less taxing on the soil and they don’t travel as far.

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Trump voters urge him to tone down the rhetoric and focus more on domestic issues, especially clearer pathways to legal status for law-abiding immigrants, healthcare reform, curbing waste and fraud, and lowering US debt.

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An interesting reference for those interested.
**************

The Moon landings were faked. Apollo 11 didn't happen. Humans never set foot on the Moon. Heard all this before?

Conspiracy theories surrounding the Moon landings have proved worryingly persistent in the 50 years since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first small steps on the lunar surface.

NASA's landmark achievement is still being challenged.

Despite there being a wealth of information online debunking these conspiracy theories, the cries of hoax continue. Why?


"We find ourselves awash in an ocean of information online," National Space Centre Discovery Director Profesor Anu Ojha said during a 2019 lecture in Greenwich.

"There has been more data produced in the last two years than in the whole of human history. This information ocean is getting more turbulent every single day," he continued. "The only tools we have to navigate through this maelstrom are the critical thinking skills that we are trying to develop in people as scientists."

So how can science help to debunk Moon landing conspiracy theories?

Conspiracy theory 1: shadows in the Moon landing photos prove the images were faked​

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Logically an aging population might indicate a higher homicide rate.

"Don't (anger) old people; "life in prison" isn't that much of a deterrent for them." - George Carlin

rjs330 said:

I think Americans should have a right to take some of their social security payout and put it into an investment portfolio.

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Americans already can invest as much of their SS payouts as they choose. What you want is for them to self-invest their pay in money. What happens when they need that money for emergencies or schooling or housing? We already know what happens.

rjs330 said:

It could even be capped at a certain risk level, so that they could just toss it into some real risky investments.

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Could or couldn't? Qualified retirement accounts already have this stipulation, if I'm not mistaken.

Some people would invest well and wisely; others would not. We already know this as anyone can already invest their loose change. The point of SS is to not end up with a population of impoverished seniors alongside their luckier, more investment savvy brethren.

dms1972 said:

Yeah Michael Polanyi is good. Have read a bit of him, not much though. Actually its writers like Karl Stern I find helpful at the moment. CS Lewis too.

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If Karl Stern and C.S. Lewis are lighting the way for you, then go with them. But Dru Johnson is worth a read, too, I think.

essentialsaltes said:

I mean, we knew this already, but...

FBI concluded Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t running a sex trafficking ring for powerful men, files show​

Videos and photos seized from Epstein’s homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn’t depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.

[Although some of Epstein's victims accused other influential people, the FBI found not enough evidence to charge them and referred the matters to the states.]

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Let’s all agree to never talk about this Epstein stuff ever again!

ThatRobGuy said:

If that was what it was being chalked up to, you'd think they would've made some sort of notation, or did a re-issue with the correction in the days following the actual event.

Given intense scrutiny that entire situation was under (one of the highest profile criminals of our generation being found dead in a jail amid security cameras that magically stopped working for a few minutes in the HVI wing of a special protected cell block) seems like the sort of circumstances that would lead to official information releases being reviewed with a fine tooth comb.

Not to mention, a lot of times those documents are generated via templates that automatically populate what the current date is on header for the letterhead. And if it was typed in manually and wrong (it's literally the 2nd thing on the sheet), that's a pretty big flop for reviewers to miss.

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I was just kidding.

It's an epidemic: In the US, Turkey, Greece, France, Romania and probably elsewhere, governments have been using the judiciary to try and get rid of the opposition.

Michie said:

The Left is desperate to make lawful deportation in America a giant, impossible mess to deal with.

According to a new media narrative, President Donald Trump and the Department of Homeland Security are behaving irresponsibly by conducting more immigration raids around the country, which in turn have allegedly led to violence against innocent civilians and illegal aliens.

And if you’ve been listening to Democrats, you’d think that the reason that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is particularly active in blue states is that the Trump administration is being mean to them for political reasons.

Their reasoning goes that Trump wants to occupy and bully their states with ICE “terrorists” who spend their time murdering innocent American citizens for no reason other than to cruelly “own the libs.”

“This is retribution-style politics,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a recent CNN interview. “This is drama. This is performance politics at its worst, and it’s hurting people and it’s making us less safe.”

This is projection. It’s Frey and friends who are all about “performance politics.” They desperately want to convey the idea that Trump’s immigration enforcement policies are the real problem.

But the narrative that aggressive ICE enforcement in blue states is just some kind of political retribution is bunk for many reasons. The biggest one is that Democrats have actively pursued policies that would lead to a confrontation with the federal government over immigration law.

This is happening by design.

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Here's Why There Are More ICE Raids in Blue States

Democrat politicians and their activist supporters certainly know that sanctuary policies encourage more aggressive ICE enforcement.

www.dailysignal.com

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The chaos is created by "leaders" who would rather promote rioting in their streets than follow the law.
The trump haters are not in favor of anything he does.
Comments such as claiming
Ice going into communities and jails
And finding these ppl have no criminal
Background other then entering through
The Border???
Like that is not a Crime to enter in
Illegally, when crime escalated during
The years illegals were being allowed in
Is a real problem, worse in Sanctuary Cities
And hopefully Trump will take down any
Sanctuary City to no longer abuse the
Initial reason they were created in the first
Place, thats already a proven fact.

Go Trump

A new case before Europe’s human rights court could reopen a long-running fight over Christianity’s place in public life—this time inside Greece’s courtrooms.

For several years now, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has made the presence of Christian images and symbols in public spaces one of its recurring battles. After Italy was pressured through litigation to remove crucifixes from its schools, Greece is now being targeted over the presence of holy icons in its courts. Italy ultimately won its case. Will Greece succeed in safeguarding this essential part of its historical and spiritual heritage?

Some cases have a long life. In 2009, the ECtHR issued a ruling requiring Italy to remove crucifixes from public schools. The unprecedented mobilisation of twenty-one European states alongside Italy forced it to back down, and two years later, in 2011, in the case known as Lautsi v. Italy, it finally handed down a ruling in favour of Italy’s position, allowing it to keep its crucifixes.

The Lautsi case was followed by a period of relative calm in the fight against the presence of religious symbols (Christian, needless to say) in public spaces.

In 2020, a request was filed inviting the ECtHR to take up another contentious case: the presence of Orthodox icons in Greek courts.

The offensive came from an atheist association, the Union of Atheists of Greece. The first appeals were lodged in 2018 and 2019. The applicants requested the removal of Christian symbols displayed in the courtroom during hearings on religious matters. They argued that the presence of these icons was discriminatory, compromised the objectivity of the court, and violated their right to a fair trial, as well as their right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

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FredVB said:

I did not find conflicting passages, or seemingly conflicting passages, for this. It is your interpretation that has some conflict. So the issue to resolve is yours. My understanding is completely consistent with it shown that God is love. God's care is not limited. Nothing of God is limited. That includes justice. So it is that Christ came, and Christ is the way, with repentant faith. It is what it is. God not being limited does have knowledge without limit, but our choices are not negated by God's unlimited knowledge.

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Sorry, the overwhelming amount of scripture devoted to the fact that salvation is not for all, vs. the few that speaks more to the nature of God’s heart rather than them being the deciding factor in salvation and outliers to the rest of God’s plan for salvation means that they are just as I claim. God wishes, because we are all God’s creation, that we could all come to salvation, but we are not all God’s children. And salvation is only for God’s children (the elect).

Next episode is still expected this week, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. No lava has been seen yet, but the magma is building up in the vent tubes with persistent surface glow. (The inflation measures are also now favorable.)

Here is a somewhat grainy image of a rainy, pre-sunrise look across the crater to the glowing vent openings.



You can see how high the vent openings are on the crater wall relative to the "floor". (The mound behind them to the left was built in this eruption.) They started not just on the current floor but about 60-80 m lower.

NewLifeInChristJesus said:

If J. B. Stoney were alive today he could defend his point of view. But for me, it is hard to get past this obviously misinformed first paragraph.

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Hi NLIC, and thanks for your reply! It's my understanding that he is referring to reborn-newbies, which require much time to learn at the appreciation level of those who are mature in the Lord Jesus. There are many things to learn for the Christian, none at the outset have the maturity (but should desire maturity) they will have in the time it takes to learn maturity in Christ; which for the present even many in Christ are yet immature concerning the Word.

It takes all "babes-in-Christ" much time to mature, even though they presently have "all things that pertain unto life and godliness" and "all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." As all who are mature, they just need to appropriate everything in time, if they want to mature. But many lack the desire for what it takes to become a mature Christian. Fortunately immaturity does effect one's salvation, just their growth in their faith! Salvation doesn't admit in degrees but faith does.

Always in His Presence said:

Did you not read your link?

From the link:

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Across this series of polls conducted through web‑based interviews, Trump’s approval among low-income voters ranged from a low of 34 percent to a high of 38 percent. Disapproval consistently sat in the mid‑50s to low‑60s.

Support from low-income groups is not collapsing; it is eroding. In one year, it eroded nearly 20 percent. Do you think Trump can turn things around?