Had three more last week and am very excited about one.

In order for the Lord to be our Shepherd, we must first of all be his sheep. And he said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:27-28 ESV). And he said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:23-24 ESV).

And if we are hearing his voice, that means we are earnestly listening to him in order that we might obey him. And to follow him is to obey him. And to deny self is to give up the self-life. And to take up our cross daily and follow him means to die daily to sin and to walk in obedience to his commands. For if we hold on to our lives of sin, we will lose them for eternity. But if for Jesus’ sake we die to sin that we might live for Him, and if we are walking in obedience to his commands, by his power, then we have eternal life in Him.

Now, when I think of green pastures beside still waters, what comes to my mind is a grassy hill with a large tree covered with leaves right at the water’s edge and me sitting under that tree and just listening to and watching the water. That says “peace” to me. But true lasting peace that is there even when the world is in turmoil all around me comes from my faith in Jesus Christ and my trust in his sovereignty. I rest in him and he leads me in the paths of righteousness (godliness, obedience) for his name’s sake.


We live in very troubled times. The world is going bonkers. Craziness is everywhere. Angst and divisions and fighting and disputes abound. Liars and lies are all over the place – in the news media, in our governments, among our politicians, in our “churches,” and among our pastors and elders. Deception and deceiving spirits are commonplace. Immorality is sky high! Cheap grace has superseded God’s true grace, and so many are professing faith in Jesus Christ while they still live for the sinful pleasures of this world.

Evil is getting more and more evil, and it is encroaching upon us ever so closely now. If we are paying close attention, and we know what the Scriptures teach, we can see the signs of the times in the things which are now taking place in our world. And those who are following Jesus Christ with wholehearted devotion in following him in obedience to his ways are largely being persecuted and cast aside as unwanted, even within some of the gatherings of what are called “churches.” This should not be!

But we are not to fear evil. We should not be participating in any evil, and we should be fearing God by showing him honor, respect, and obedience, and by believing what his word teaches and taking it to heart. But we are not to be afraid of the evil that others do or that they might do to us who are the Lord’s true sheep and who are listening to him and who are obeying him, in practice. For the Lord will see us through every difficulty that comes our way, and he will give us all we need to endure all opposition.


Now I believe the Lord wants me to share this with you. Last week my husband and I had our yearly physicals with our doctor. My husband usually sees him first, and he usually tells the doctor something about me. And then the doctor sees me next. Now it turns out that my husband Rick told the doctor about the ministry that God has given to me, and that I write devotions and that I put them on the internet. And so the doctor told me that Rick had said something about that, and he was asking me about that.

When he asked if I was writing devotions and putting them on the internet, I said, “Yes, I am,” and I told him a little bit about that. And then he looked at me ever so seriously and he said to me, “God speaks to you, doesn’t he?” He was very tender in how he said it. And I responded with, “Yes, he does.” And then ever so tenderly he said to me, “He covers you, doesn’t he?” I never had anyone ever say anything like that to me before, but I said, “Yes, he does.” I was just amazed at his questions, but the last one touched me.

And so as I read this last section of Psalms 23 today, that is what came back to mind. “He covers you, doesn’t he?” For I believe that is the message in this last section, which fits with this: “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart” (Psalms 91:4 NIV). And it doesn’t mean that I won’t face difficulties and persecutions. I will. The Bible says I will. But that his covering over me will keep me from failing, and he will give me strength. Amen!

He Covers You, Doesn’t He?
Video Talk

September 16, 2024

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For President most individual votes are not going to matter. If this is a swing state then this argument would not hold. Plus you have to look at the other races on the ballot to see if they are close. Many churches go overboard with too much political stuff. One can just pray that this pastor hears and preaches what is on the heart and mind of God for all matters.

God bless them

I think events will take this wishful thinking out of our hands. I believe God is going to drive us off the planet, and when he does it will be so difficult that survivors won't have the time or resources to fool around with eternal biological life.

That's my odd opinion.

Those who have died and put their bodies into deep freeze would have found out whether God exists or not. One thing we can be absolutely certain about is that they won't be coming back.

Hebrews 9:27 NIV "Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment ..."

They've already been judged.

Anyway who'd want to live forever in this world?

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This is where the pain begins
In your violence
A challenge rises
Can you feel this?

One match
One scratch upon the skin
The wound is breaking
The voice is changing
Can you conceal it?

Situation critical
Now you're searching for a chemical
This is not what you wanted to become
It's pushing you to the edge (you're not where you've been)
Now you're hiding in your old regret (you're not what you did)
I need you to know your story's not done
You gotta believe me

You can't imagine why all this happened
Don't close your eyes
I vow to hold you
Until you break through
Just swear you'll stay alive
All your death will be resurrected again
With your hand on my heart
Make me a promise to live
A promise to live

This is where redemption lives
In your surrender, you gotta remember
What the truth is

Situation critical (you're not where you've been)
And now you're staring down a miracle (you're not what you did)
Step out 'cause I'm waiting on the waves
You gotta believe me
You can't imagine why all this happened
Don't close your eyes
I vow to hold you
Until you break through
Just swear you'll stay alive

All your death will be resurrected again
With your hand on my heart
Make me a promise to live
This is not your downfall
It's not your curtain call
This is only the start

And I can't wait to watch you
Let this break and build you
I'm so in love with who you are
This is not your downfall
It's not your curtain call
This is only the start
And I can't wait to watch you
Let this break and build you
I'm so in love with who you are
You gotta believe me

You can't imagine why all this happened
Don't close your eyes
I vow to hold you
Until you break through
Just swear you'll stay alive
All your death will be resurrected again
All your death will be resurrected again
With your hand on my heart
Make me a promise to live
A promise to live
Make me a promise to live

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I'm stained
All the dark days tattooed on my brain
Though I try, these crimes won't wash away
Don't understand why you're still here
You're still here
You're right here
Right in front of me
I've tried to push your blue skies away
I keep murdering your mercy from my, my memory
I try to run but I can't escape
'Cause I'm in hell, and you're here with me
You keep resurrecting reasons
To keep resurrecting Jesus in me
I'm in pain
All the good deeds covered in disgrace
I try to turn, but it's always in my face
It makes no sense that you're still here
You're right here
Why are you here
Right in front of me
And I've tried to push your blue skies away
I keep murdering your mercy from my, my memory
I try to run but I can't escape
'Cause I'm in hell, and you're here with me
You keep resurrecting reasons
To keep resurrecting Jesus in me
Come alive, come alive
Roll the stone out from my heart and
Come alive
Alive inside
Come alive (come alive)
Come alive (come alive)
Roll the stone out from my heart and
Come alive
Alive inside
I've tried to push your blue skies away
I keep murdering your mercy from my, my memory
I try to run but I can't escape
'Cause I'm in hell, and you're here with me
You keep resurrecting reasons
To keep resurrecting Jesus
You keep resurrecting reasons
To keep resurrecting Jesus in me
Come alive (come alive)
Come alive (come alive)
Break my heart wide open, make me
Come alive (come alive)
Alive inside
Resurrecting Jesus
Resurrecting Jesus in me

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All the years that you've poured out
To fight your way upstream
Lost in the worst kind of lonely
With a thousand fake friends on the screen

Mistakes they just keep piling up
While the mirror is your worst enemy
But there's not a day I haven't loved you
For the life of me

So bring me all your pain
And every night that you weep
And I will bury them all
For the life of me
And even when death comes
And makes you fall asleep
I will wake you up again
For the life of me

You keep your heart in isolation
Where no one knows your needs
Finding comfort in the chaos
And the addiction that it brings

You're scared no one will love you
When they find out what you're hiding underneath
But there's not a day I haven't loved you

So bring me all your pain
And every night that you weep
And I will bury them all
For the life of me
And even when death comes
And makes you fall asleep
I will wake you up again
For the life of me

There's not a day I haven't loved you
Not a day I haven't loved you
Your name is written on my hands
There's not a day I haven't loved you
Not a day I haven't loved you
Your name is written on my hands

So bring me all your pain
And every night that you weep
And I will bury them all
For the life of me
And even when death comes
And makes you fall asleep
I will wake you up again

I will wake you up again
For the life of me
For the life of me

tranquil said:

The King of Babylon is this 'angel' 'Lucifer'/ 'Morning Star'. 'Stars' can mean 'angels' (see Rev 1:20).

The fall of the King of Babylon here in Isaiah 14:12-14 is this same event as Rev 12

7Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

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Stars can mean angels, agreed.

Isaiah 14:12-14 is not the Revelation 12:7-9 event. Satan is cant down to the earth in those verses, not hell, to the sides of the pit, in Isaiah 14:15.

In Isaiah 14:16, there is switch from Satan to some man.

16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

And from verse 16 to verse 20, it is talking about that man.

-----------------------------------

So how do with put those things together.... is the big challenge.

In 2Thessaloinians2:4, the Antichrist goes into the temple, sits, claims to have achieved God-hood. Expecting to be worshiped.

In 2Thssalonains 2:3, the Antichrist is called the son of perdition (like Judas, who Satan entered in thought to carry out the act of betraying Jesus.) That gives up a clue.

Satan will enter the Antichrist in thought, to carry out the act of claiming to have achieved God-hood. That act will anger God, and Ezekiel 28:1-10, God will have the revealed man of sin executed. And in Ezekiel 28:8 They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.

So the man in Isaiah 14:16-20 is the Antichrist person after he reveals himself to be the man of sin, the son of perdition.

Satan will also be brought down to hell for putting the thought of having achieved God-hood into the Antichrist's mind,

The pit is the great gulf separating the two side of hell (the place of the dead).
--------------------------------

In Isaiah 14:18, God does not let the man of sin have the honor of being buried in an ornate tomb, but casts his soul back out of hell. And we can assume Satan accompanying him.

Right before being cast out of hell, the spirit of the garden of Eden serpent beast ascends out of the pit, unlocked for that purpose by Satan it would appear (since in Revelation 9, Satan has the key to unlocked the bottomless pit), and takes up residence in the man of sin's soul - thus, the man of sin becoming the beast of Revelation 13.

bèlla said:

Spirits communicate telepathically. They don't have to use their mouths. Nor do all dark spirits have bodies. Some can appear in the form of men as angels did and others are disembodied and require a host (you).

Information is disseminated from spirit to human in several ways. Direct communication through clairvoyance or clairaudience or channeling. Different forms of divination or through summoning. A ritual is performed and the spirit is invited to the space.

~bella

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All that you mentioned is evil, forbidden practices by GOD and should not be discussed.

MOzarkMs said:

So, I had to deal with doing it all by hand for about 4 months while I saved up enough money to get it fixed.

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You wash your clothing with a toilet plunger? In the Philippines washing clothing can be a social event. They call their wash tub a caramba. They use it to take their bath also. They do not have to heat the water.

caramba​

Rescued One said:

Speaking of Gena, I liked the movie Paulie (a conure). Tony Shaloub and Hallie Eisenberg were also in it.

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"Paulie"

I felt like a 'feel good' movie last night, and decided to watch "Paulie".

What a sweet movie. Emotionally moving in some parts , but a very good ending.

The casting in this was very good.
Gena Rowlands was precious in her role.
And Tony is just always so endearing.
The character "Marie"? Lovable.

I usually like movies with talking animals in them, even just for the laughs.
But this movie was 'above and beyond' my expectations. Just so very good .

Thank you for telling me about "Paulie".
I really enjoyed it!

Nice to meet you. I’m Selah.

timewerx said:

I had a dream two nights ago. It was a pleasant dream I was looking at the sky and then I saw several peacocks flying.

I never knew that peacocks can fly so I found it strange. They weren't flying like birds in the air but moving in the air as fish does in the water and seemingly playing with each other.

One of them broke away from the group, looked at me and with a "smiling face" (if peacocks can smile) started flying towards me. And then it snuggled into me like a dog snuggling to its owner after a long time of absence. The peacock looked so happy seeing me like it knew me. And then I laid down to rest in that dream hugging the peacock like a pillow it was very soft and happy. The bird was strangely huge though. It's nearly the size of a small woman.

I woke up for real and looked up peacock in the internet and surprised to see they really do fly. I've always thought there were flightless birds, I'm guess I'm terribly wrong!

I would appreciate it if someone can interpret the dream for me, thanks!

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It appears you are attached to something that is not necessarily good for you....

Sunflower39 said:

I had a really strange dream a few nights ago. I was stood in a room and there were lots of cages in it with people locked in them. Jesus was in the room and he was just walking around the room touching the tops of the cages. In my dream, Jesus didn’t look at me, it was like I wasn’t there. I was thinking ‘why are these people locked in cages?’ and ‘why is he not letting them out?’ At that moment, I woke up. The dream was very short. How would you interpret this dream?

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Sometimes people are locked into cages of their own making. Jesus cannot not do anything for them until they reach out to him for help...

iluvatar5150 said:

Yeah, the venue was a small brewery with a small dirt parking lot that could accommodate maybe a couple hundred people.

Throwback Brewery · 7 Hobbs Rd, North Hampton, NH 03862

★★★★★ · Restaurant

www.google.com

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From the pics on the news site, it looks like more than a couple hundred.


My oldest daughter lives, according to Google maps, literally 0.7 miles, about 2 minutes from there. I doubt that she attended though, I'll have to ask.

Michie said:

bridging the divide between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy

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Ah, no.

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Former Democrats Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard blasted their one-time party as “warmongers” and “the party of censorship” while stumping for Donald Trump in Arizona Saturday.


“Today it’s become the party of war, it’s become the party of surveillance, it’s become the party of censorship,” Kennedy, 70, told the crowd at Arizona Christian University in Glendale.


“It’s no longer the party that I recognized.”

Gabbard, a veteran and former Hawaii rep who sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, frequently noted in her remarks that foreign policy was behind her decision to leave the party in 2022 and back Trump this election.

"How could I […] align with a party that stands for tyranny and war?” she said, before referring to Democrats as an “elite cabal” with “warmongers.”

There are some things I agree with and some I disagree with.

Now, the whole thing is a response to another article (one I cannot access due to paywalls), which mentions the electoral college letting Trump lose the popular vote but win the election. This is at least a valid point. But it then goes on to say:

After all, Trump became president in 2016 after losing the popular vote but winning the Electoral College (Article II). He appointed three justices to the Supreme Court (Article III), two of whom were confirmed by senators representing just 44% of the population (Article I). Those three justices helped overturn Roe v. Wade, a reversal with which most Americans disagreed.

While polls have indicated that while "most Americans" didn't want it overturned, I believe polls also show that "most Americans" support abortion regulation that wasn't allowed under the Supreme Court's prior abortion rulings.

But there's a larger problem, which is that this example ironically goes against its own narrative. The whole reason Roe v. Wade occurred at all was the US Constitution. Now, I think Roe v. Wade was a misapplication of the constitution and there's no right to abortion in the Constitution. But whether Roe was a correct or incorrect interpretation of the Constitution, the fact of the matter is that it was based, at least nominally, on the Constitution. In other words, you'd never have Roe v. Wade if there wasn't a constitution. This example ends up backfiring. Curiously, the article linked to in the opening post doesn't bring up this point when criticizing the original article despite it being such a strong point against it.

But let's focus on the linked article, which is mostly about defending the electoral college... and doesn't seem to do a great job.

Once again, the left takes out its big guns against the Electoral College. But they seem to lack a basic understanding of American Civics 101. By design, the founders did not give us a pure democracy — which they viewed as dangerous, potentially leading to mobocracy.

The Constitution empowers “we the people” through our elected representatives. Article II, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution deals with the electoral process. To sum it up: We don’t directly elect the president, but we vote for those who do. In all this, the Constitution provides a layer of protection — sparing us from would-be tyrants.

It then spends several more paragraphs advancing this argument: The US isn't a pure democracy, it's a republic where there are elected representatives, and that's why the electoral college exists.

This argument for the electoral college collapses practically right away when you think about it. Electing the president by popular vote is already not a pure democracy, because people are electing the leader rather than being the leader themselves. The extra layer of a republic is already there, with no need for an electoral college. But even if we suppose we need an extra layer on top of that layer, the article is rather silent on an obvious question: Why don't we do this for other offices, like governors? Zero states elect their governor with any kind of electoral college. If the electoral college is such a critical way to avoiding pure democracy--even though a popular vote for president already avoids pure democracy!--why aren't people who bring up this claim also advocating for governors to be elected via an electoral college? It's a considerable inconsistency.

The article also offers the usual misleading claims about the electoral college's reasons:

Without the Electoral College, the big cities and big states would always determine who would become the president. The Constitution thus protects the interests of those in the minority, who live in less populous states and cities. Small towns in Vermont were never meant to be ruled by majorities from California.

Sounds great, but there's not evidence as far as I can tell that this was in any way their reason for choosing the electoral college over a popular vote, despite the popularity of claiming it was in popular culture. The primary reasons were that states with lots of slaves would object to a popular vote as they would be disadvantaged by the non-voting slaves (this is why the electoral college implements the 3/5 compromise where, for the purpose of choosing representative numbers, slaves counted as 3/5 of a person) and the idea that the general populace wouldn't be able to choose presidential candidates well, and thus they should choose more informed people to make the decision. After all, with lower communication back then, it was expected most people would have trouble knowing much about people outside of their state. And so the idea was that the people would elect people they believed were knowledgeable, and the knowledgeable people would go out, discuss it amongst themselves, then cast their votes for who they thought were best.

Of course, with slavery gone, that first reason doesn't matter. And the second didn't work out either; the idea of people choosing electors to exercise independent discretion fell apart right away, and electors swiftly turned into mere functionaries whose job was to do nothing more than vote for candidates that were decided before the electors were even chosen. The only election where the electors exercised any kind of real independent discretion was 1796 (the first contested presidential election), and the result was that due to vote scattering, we ended up with a president and vice president of opposing factions! (basically, imagine if the result of the 2016 election was Trump being president and Hillary Clinton being vice president, or the result of 2020 being Biden becoming president and Trump being vice president) After that, people realized that having the electors actually decide for themselves who was best was a bad idea, and ever since the electors might as well be robots. Sure, you'll get the occasional faithless elector now and then, but they're the exception rather than the rule. Who electors vote for is decided before they ever go and cast their vote.

There were a few mentions of state size being a factor in the electoral college in the debates over it, but it was as I noted a fairly minor reason for it. In fact, it's actually not even that necessary; the Senate already provides a safeguard to small states. Furthermore, the electoral college does very little in the end to aid small states. The large states get way more votes in the electoral college than the small ones. Indeed, the most populous state early in US history was Virginia, and guess what? 8 of the first 9 presidential races were won by people from Virginia! Now, someone might say it's unfair to count Washington's victories as he was unanimously elected, but even so, we end up with 6 of 7. It's quite clear that the electoral college wasn't exactly doing much to benefit smaller states.

So it doesn't look good for the article when it's claiming the reasons for the electoral college are things that weren't the primary reasons and one of which (the "big cities" bit) does not appear to have been even a minor reason.

Honestly, if one looks at the discussions over the electoral college, it's pretty obvious they completely misunderstood how it would play out in practice, like when George Mason worried that under the electoral college, "nineteen times in twenty" no single person would manage to win a majority of the electors and thus it would always be falling to the House of Representatives to choose the winner. What he worried would happen "nineteen times in twenty" ended up happening only once in history.

There are some arguments for retaining the electoral college I think might have some merit, but pretty much all the original reasons for it are either irrelevant or turned out to not work. If the article wanted to argue that there are new reasons to retain it, that would be one thing, but instead if acts like the reasons it brings up were the original reasons, when they... weren't.

Maybe this post is a bit rambling, but seeing the kind of errors this article makes about the electoral college, which far too many people make, is rather annoying and I've been wanting to do a writeup on this sort of thing anyway.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man with an AK-style rifle pointed the firearm’s muzzle into Donald Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, as the former president was playing a round, prompting the U.S. Secret Service to open fire, according to three law enforcement officials. The former president is safe and unharmed, and the FBI says it is investigating “what appears to be an attempted assassination” of the Republican presidential candidate.

Continued below.

Sir Joseph said:

Thanks for the response AlexB23 but you overestimated my tec abilities. I needed more specificity and got it from Maria. I'm on board now.

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You are welcome. Congrats on figuring this out from Maria.

The big puma fungus – credit Rewild, released.

The first and only fungus on a global conservation outfit’s ’25 Most Wanted List’ has been found in the rain-soaked mountains of Chile, almost 40 years after it was first documented.

The big puma fungus is actually quite small, and despite being on the ’25 Most Wanted List’ it’s also rather unremarkable, being slightly greyish brown, and no bigger than a [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]ake.

GNN is always abreast of updates to the brilliant conservation initiative Search for Lost Species which has rediscovered several wondrous species of plants and animals through collaborative scientific expeditions to look for forms of life not seen in over ten years.

Continued below.