Romans 8:31-39 NKJV


From the Beginning

I was raised in an institutional church setting most all my life, following what they were teaching me, which early on was mostly good, and mostly biblical, but which later on began to drift away from the teachings of Christ and of his New Testament apostles in order to attract the people of the world to their gatherings. And so they got very caught up in marketing their “churches” to the people of the world, and I joined in with them on that journey for some time before God opened my eyes to see that was of the flesh, and not of God, and it was not God’s way to win people over to faith in Jesus Christ.

Most all of my life I have been a serious student of the Scriptures, believing what God’s Word teaches, that it is truth, although I was taught some things wrongly, too. As I have shared before, I did have a short period of time in my life where I got off base, and I wandered from what I knew to be the truth, in and out, with some large gaps in between, and I followed after the lies, at times, until the Lord brought me back, and he put me back on solid ground, where I have remained ever since then. But mostly I walked with God in obedience to his commands and I followed his leading in my life.

Persecuted for My Faith

Now, when I was doing wrong, they left me alone. They were fine with me. But when I stood strong in my faith, and I walked the walk God had marked out for me, then I got rejected, persecuted, mistreated, and cast aside as unwanted and as unnecessary to the body of Christ, the church. And they didn’t care where I ended up as long as I left them so they would be rid of me. For so much of “the church” was becoming so worldly, and they were following men in their marketing schemes, and so I didn’t fit in with their schemes. I stood out as different, and “different” didn’t fit with their plans.

Then the Lord called me to the internet where he intended to use me to share with the people the Words of the Lord in the Scriptures, and to share what he was teaching me each day from my times spent with him in prayer and in the study of his Word. Early on he taught me all sorts of things about my nation and about the institutional church and its partnership with the government. I was ignorant of so many things, so in a lot of ways he was giving me a history lesson I had never had before, and he was showing me the corruption going on in my government and in the institutional church.

And he had me reading from Genesis to Revelation, and again, and then from the Psalms to Revelation, and again, and again, multiple times before he had me reading individual passages of Scripture. For in so doing he was teaching me context, and context is critical to correct biblical interpretation. So many lies are being taught today from Scriptures pulled out of context and twisted to say what they do not teach in the correct context, so it was of critical importance that I learned the correct context, for I had been taught some things wrong because they were taught out of biblical context.

What’s The Point?

So, what is the point of all of this, and how does this relate to this passage of Scripture? Well, if we are following Jesus with our lives, and if we are spreading the truth of the gospel, in the correct biblical context, we are going to stand out as different, and we will be rejected, even by others who claim to be Christians, and even by some church pastors who are following the ways of the world and so they are compromising the gospel to make it less offensive and more attractive to human flesh. So, we may indeed be invited to leave and to go someplace else where we will be a better fit.

For we are now on the narrow road leading to life eternal, and we are not on the broad road so many are traveling on today, in the name of Jesus, which leads to destruction. We are no longer partnered with the world, marketing the church to the people of the world, but we are following the Scriptures taught in their correct biblical context, to the best of our understanding. And so that sets us up to be persecuted, for we are now “accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” But if we keep following the Lord, we will be victorious in not letting how others treat us decide the direction which we take in this life.

So, don’t let how other people treat you determine your destiny. I did that for a short period of time, and that is not the right way to go. Keep the faith! Keep obeying the Lord. Walk in his ways. And keep sharing with the people the truth of the gospel that faith in Jesus Christ, which is of God, will result in us denying self, dying to sin daily, and us walking (in conduct, in practice) in obedience to our Lord and to his commands. But if we should continue to walk in sin, and not in obedience to our Lord, then we won’t have eternal life with God when Jesus returns. So keep speaking and keep living the truth no matter how others treat you. For we are conquerors through Jesus Christ.

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; 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 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

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

If God is For Us
An Original Work / June 6, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Israeli forces arrested Natalie Abu Dayyeh, 21, a Palestinian Christian student and international soccer player, in a pre-dawn raid on student housing near Birzeit University in the West Bank this week, drawing condemnation from her church, her university and Palestinian football authorities.

Abu Dayyeh was taken at gunpoint from her apartment alongside three other Palestinian women, according to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.

The Israeli military said the four women were detained on suspicion of “promoting terrorist activities,” according to Vatican News.

Abu Dayyeh is a media and journalism student at Birzeit University, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reformation in Beit Jala, and a graduate of Talitha Kumi Lutheran School. She also plays for Diyar Women and has represented the Palestinian national women’s soccer team at youth and senior levels.

Continued below.

I think I am closer to Anabaptism nowadays, but I stop short of complete rejection of force. I think self defense is permissible and that believers can work for the government.

I guess I am closer to standard Protestantism in my understanding of force and civil authority, but my view of soteriology and discipleship is closer to Anabaptism.

For instance, I still believe that we are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is obedience to Christ rather than a mere intellectual assent to doctrine. I also doubt the strictly legal/transactionable view of justification held by Redormed, Lutheran and some evangelicals. Basically, I'm not an Augustinian.

I have looked into Messianic Judaism after finding out that I am partially ethnic Jewish, but I don't really see much of a point since I wasn't brought up in Jewish religion or culture.

The Catholic bishop of Pemba has warned that jihadist insurgents in northern Mozambique are openly declaring their intention to establish a caliphate modeled on the Islamic State, as a nearly decade-long insurgency continues to kill and displace civilians across Cabo Delgado province.

Bishop António Juliasse said in a message to Aid to the Church in Need, a pontifical Catholic foundation, that militants are stating their objective directly to those they encounter.

“The signs are all there. They speak openly of a caliphate. When they find people, when they kidnap victims. That is what they say – that they are working for a caliphate,” he said.

The insurgency in Cabo Delgado began in 2017. More than 300 Catholics have been killed, many by decapitation, and at least 117 church buildings have been razed or destroyed, according to ACN. Among the structures lost is the St. Louis of Montfort mission church, a large historic structure burned to the ground at the end of April.

Continued below.

A new study has found that fathers who are actively involved in their children's lives receive a powerful boost in their cognitive abilities.

The study, "The paternal brain: longitudinal insights into structural and functional plasticity and attachment over 24 weeks postpartum," was published last month in the journal Translational Psychiatry. It tracked changes in gray matter volume and resting-state functional connectivity in the brains of 25 fathers immediately after childbirth and at three, six, nine, 12 and 24 weeks later.

Gray matter, according to the Cleveland Clinic, is a major type of tissue in the central nervous system that serves as the brain's information-processing center.

Researchers found that in the first six weeks after the birth of their child, gray matter volume in the brains of the fathers in the study decreased across almost all areas, before gradually stabilizing. From around 12 weeks onwards, it begins to grow in the areas of the brain responsible for planning and reasoning, as well as in the cerebellum, which is usually associated with motor control and emotion.

“Our findings reveal significant morphological and functional connectivity changes in the male brain following childbirth, with the first 6–9 weeks postpartum emerging as a critical period for paternal neuroplasticity,” said the researchers.

Continued below.

Pray that Middle-Eastern Gulf nations & regions in the midst of the US-Iran war do Not falsely and/or carelessly persecute people in their regions in a willy-nilly manner by accusing them of being spies:

Have you ever wondered if the Lord has been speaking to you, but you have been missing the insight He is trying to reveal because of a lack of spiritual perception?

If so, consider the following.

Job 33:14–15 declares: “For God does speak — now one way, now another — though no one perceives it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds” (NIV).

In our natural bodies, we have five primary senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. When one of those senses is weakened, other senses often become stronger to compensate. For example, when someone loses sight, their hearing frequently becomes more sensitive.

While God’s Word is the ultimate plumbline by which we must measure all things, in the same way, the Lord has given us multiple ways to see and hear Him, if we are willing to perceive Him. And it’s entirely possible that we, as finite human beings learning to perceive God’s voice by the Spirit, are weaker in some areas, spiritually speaking, and stronger in others.

Continued below.

Pray that Godly Biblical Order & Justice prevails in parts of Nigeria where Christians, Muslims & people of tribal religions face physical persecution:

A Michigan church that has distributed food in one of the poorest areas in Macomb County for over three decades claims that local officials have engaged in “targeted intimidation efforts” to shut them down over the beliefs of the congregation.

Harvest Time Christian Fellowship and its pastor, Curtiss Ostosh, have filed a lawsuit alleging that the City of Warren is “bombarding” the church with a series of accusations, including zoning and parking violations.

The city has also cited the church for unsanitary conditions and clutter on the property, but the church says that it maintains "State approved and required sanitation and hygienic requirements as noted by multiple State inspections."

The church believes that the code violation charges originated in Mayor Lori Stone’s office, who is listed as a defendant in the lawsuit.

As noted in the lawsuit, HTCF has distributed food “without significant complaints” prior to its recent dealings with Warren.

Continued below.

I already have an update.

When my wife and I went to pick up the kids last night, I was told by her husband and my ex-wife that they have sent in a request to a free lawyer service to handle this custody swap.

Her reasoning is that she feels she needs to do it for closure. She wants to feel like she is giving me the kids and I am not taking them from her. She also stated and her husband agrees, they want to be sure that she isn’t supposed to get child support. I tried to explain to her that she will only have them about 75 days a year and when I did the child support calculator based on this number which includes her every other weekend and holidays (she has never wanted them on the holidays as she never did anything for them and I could and always did), that she would owe me over $300.00. I reiterated that I do not want child support from her, I just don’t want to have to pay child support, as I will need the money I was giving to her for child support to care of the kids.

So, now instead of it being done and over with before school starts, it may be several more months afterwards.

Morning Prayers

Divinum Officium (EF)

The Morning Offering (OF)

Daily Quote...“Let us adore Christ with clean hands and pure hearts, that we may serve Him with joy.” - St. Norbert

Saturday Within the Octave of Corpus Christi commentary (Gueranger)(EF)

Saint Norbert propers & commentary (EF)

Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time readings & commentary (OF)
Saint Norbert, Bishop—Optional Memorial

Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time readings & commentary (OF)
Opt Mem of St. Norbert, Bishop

Daily Gospel

The Sacred Heart of Jesus – Short Meditations for June. June 6 — The Earliest Pulsations of the Sacred Heart

Saint Norbert Founder and Bishop

St. Norbert (Bishop)

Saints of the Day

Sermons for Everyday Living - St Norbert 6/6/26

Faith & Sacrifice: Remembering the Chaplains Who Strengthened Our Troops on D-Day

Fr. Ignatius Maternowski: D-Day Chaplain

Audio version of Gueranger
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Very interesting parts to know..

Heavenly Father, we come before You with grateful hearts, thanking You for the gift of women of faith, strength, and purpose. Lord, we lift up women everywhere, asking that Your Holy Spirit touch their hearts and draw them into a deeper relationship with You.

We pray that You would open the eyes of women who are searching for truth, peace, and belonging. Remove the distractions of this world and reveal Your profound love to them. Surround them with communities of encouragement so they may feel Your presence and be inspired to walk in Your ways.

Lord, we also pray for those who feel a calling to devote their lives entirely to You. Raise up bold, compassionate, and wise women to serve as religious sisters, leaders, and pillars of faith. Give them the courage to embrace their vocations, and let their lives be a shining light of Your grace. In Your Holy Name, we pray.

Amen.

Prayer to St. Michael to Love My Cross

Glorious St. Michael, Prince of the heavenly hosts, you who remained steadfast and loyal to God, I turn to you for strength. I ask you to help me carry my cross, not with resentment, but with the love and grace of a servant heart.

Obtain for me the grace to love my God and Saviour Jesus above all things, just as you do. When my soul is burdened by the cross I carry, be my light, my consolation, and my protector. Help me to see in my suffering a path to victory, rather than a cause for despair.

Defend me from the evil one who seeks to make me resent my trials. Enable me by your powerful intercession to accept my daily crosses, so that I may be victorious and follow you in total loyalty to God. Amen.

Romans 8:12-17 NKJV


Feel Good Messages

There are a massive amount of people out there saying what so many people want to hear, to make them feel good about themselves, and to make them happy. Feel good messages are just about everywhere you look these days. And so many people are being taught to avoid all messages which sound negative. Most everything, it seems, is being plugged in such a way so as to be positive, upbeat, cheerful, and acceptable to human ears, when it comes to the subject of Christianity and the gospel of our salvation.

Therefore, many pastor/preachers are diluting and altering the gospel of Christ to make it more pleasing to human ears, and less offensive to the ungodly (which includes many who profess faith in Jesus Christ). They are deliberately feeding people lies to make them feel good knowing that they are lying to them because they want to grow their numbers. They want to do what will draw in large crowds of people from the world into their gatherings, so they compromise with the world to win the world to their gatherings.

So, although many of them present what they are doing as something good for the people, out of the goodness of their hearts, because they want them to feel good, much of this is motivated by marketing schemes and tricks which teach them what they need to do if they want to grow the size of their audience (what it really is). So much of what is called “the church” is not the biblical body of Christ following the teachings of Jesus Christ, but they are businesses being marketed to the world, in order to get more people.

Through the Spirit

But the Good News taught by Jesus and by his New Testament apostles is not all about making everyone feel good emotionally and therefore avoiding the hard truths which so many do not want to hear. For the hard truths must come first for any of the good stuff to exist. First we must learn that Jesus gave his life up for us on that cross to put our sins to death with him so that, by God-persuaded faith in him, we might deny self, die to sin, and obey God in practice, which we must then do, and then the good stuff comes.

And that is what Paul is talking about here, which he also talked about in chapters 1,2,5&6, at least. For if we do not listen to, and if we refuse to hear the hard truths of the Scriptures, then we cannot be genuinely saved from our sins and thus have the hope of eternal life with God. For we are not to live according to the flesh (the carnal nature), to please the flesh. For if we live according to the flesh, we will die. We will not have salvation from sin, and we will not have eternal life with God. Hard truth! But necessary!!

So, this is what we need to get here. If we avoid the hard truths of the Scriptures in favor of the feel good stuff, we may indeed feel good in our emotions, but we won’t feel good when we have to stand before our Lord in judgement and he says, “I never knew you. Depart from me you workers of lawlessness.” So it is loving and kind to speak the hard truths to let you know that if you live according to the flesh, you don’t have eternal life. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, then you will live.

Suffering with Christ

And then please note what it says next. We are children of God, not only via dying with him to sin and walking in obedience to his commands, by the Spirit, but we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him. And this isn’t the only place this is being taught. Being a Christian is not just about “getting saved” so when you die you get to go to heaven. It means self-denial, death to sin, and obeying our Lord and his commands in practice. And it means living for him, and doing his will, day by day.

And it means following Jesus Christ wherever he leads us in doing all he commands that we must do, as his followers. It means answering his call upon our lives in doing what he has called us to do in our spiritual “body part” assignments, assigned to us by God. It means us ministering to one another within the body of Christ (the church) in encouraging and in instructing one another in the things of God, and in us warning one another against falling back into sin. For the body grows as each part does its work.

And if we are truly following the Lord Jesus in obedience to his commands, in doing his will, and in ministering to one another within the body of Christ, and in us going out to the people of the world and sharing with them the truth of the gospel of our salvation, we will suffer for the sake of righteousness. We will be hated, discarded, mocked, falsely accused, persecuted, rejected, and abandoned even by others who call themselves Christians, and even by pastors and elders in worldly “church” gatherings.

The Truth

So, be students of the Scriptures. Know what they teach. Don’t go seeking after all the “feel good” stuff, but seek after Christ and his righteousness and holiness. Submit to him and obey him, and follow him wherever he leads you, and then you will know true joy. It may not be all the emotional stuff, but it will be an inward peace of heart and mind in knowing that you are in the will of God, doing what he says, and living the life he has for you to live with purpose, and all for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls.

For Jesus Christ taught that to come to him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in his power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

[Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; 2 Corinthians 5:10,15,21; 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 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:1-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22]

Only in Him

Based off Isaiah 30
An Original Work / February 19, 2014
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

Woe to those who look to man’s help;
Who turn away from Jesus Christ;
Forming an alliance not in step with God;
Making their own plans, and praying not.

Willing not to listen to truth,
They close their ears to what is right.
Pleasing words are all that they’ll hear;
Feel good messages that bring cheer.

Trust in your Lord; turn from your sin.
Put your faith now ONLY IN HIM.
Do not turn to idols. They’ll not satisfy.
Jesus will save you. That’s why He died.

Your Lord will be gracious to you.
He cares all about you, ‘tis true.
He forgives you all of your sin
When you give your life up to Him.

Oh, how truly gracious He’ll be
When you bow to Him on your knees;
Turning now from your sin; walking in his ways.
He’ll lead and guide you all of your days.

Now you will sing praises to Him.
He delivered you from your sin.
You’ll tell others now of His grace,
So they may see Christ face-to-face.

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The Children of God
An Original Work / June 5, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

I was reading the lesson and came to this part,
"Real Repentance
The secular world bombards us with messages of independence, indulgence, and self-promotion--the opposite of the principles of God’s kingdom. Interestingly, the first words recorded in the Bible by John the Baptist and Jesus were similar. John said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matt. 3:1-2, NKJV). Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14-15, NKJV; see also Luke 24:46-47). Both Jesus and John called those listening to repentance because the kingdom of heaven was near. Could it be that this same message is equally as relevant to us today?"

So what does repentance do for us, does it lead to change, real repentance does. Does it bring us closer to God, as we clear out the anger and hate and addiction to sin, I would say it does. Most importantly, how does it bring us to the Kingdom of Heaven and eternal life with Christ? True repentance is not merely feeling guilty or avoiding punishment or being shames, it is a sincere turning away from sin and toward God, involving humility, honesty, and a change of heart. We must allow the Holy Spirit to do its work and guide us down the path of transformation, and stop holding on to hating our brother or breaking what allows for sin and iniquity, and what takes us away from loving God and our fellow man. True repentance involves as what is simple as we see, 'two steps: (1) sincere pain and sorrow for our sins; and (2) the honest decision to abandon sin. In the Bible, repentance is almost always connected to forgiveness. We genuinely repent; God forgives. It’s that simple.'

So why dont we repent and turn from what is evil?

​

Whistleblower: Trump administration weaponized Social Security records, tried to falsely declare 2.7 million people dead​

That shockingly high number far exceeds the 6,000 administrative “killings” previously reported last year in The Washington Post. It comes in a legal disclosure by Jeremiah Schofield, a former SSA senior executive, who was in the room when a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) official laid out a plan to “kill off” millions of people in SSA’s master database.

The DOGE official, private equity investor Jon Koval, said in Schofield’s presence that the purpose of “killing off” the 2.7 million living people was to ruin their lives and push them out of the country. Explaining the scheme, Koval said that either the 2.7 million people would self-deport or they would go to their local Social Security office to prove they are alive where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) could detain and forcibly deport them.

We don't know. Have you seen family relationships? Bloodkin doesn't mean anything. In fact bloodkin can often divide more.

To quote another forum user:

Cearbhall said:

Why would anyone bring this thread back...

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essentialsaltes said:

Pentagon likely to cancel missile deal with Germany over fears of Russia​

The Pentagon is expected to cancel a plan to send Tomahawk missiles to Germany partly because officials are concerned Russia will view it as an escalation, a startling reversal of a long-planned agreement with one of America’s biggest allies.

U.S. officials fear Moscow will retaliate if the Trump administration follows through on the effort to deploy precision missiles in the middle of the continent, according to two European officials and one American official. But any decision not to deliver them would yank back a deal made during the Biden administration and leave Berlin without defenses German leaders say they desperately need.

American officials, even if primarily fearful of Russia’s reaction, likely are also worried about the shrinking U.S. weapons stockpile.

Sad. Low energy.

Joe didn't put up with defeatist malarkey like that.

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Can't trust the word of the current USA regime, and our leaders are fools for thinking otherwise.