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I’ve mentioned that Roman Catholicism is so onerous because it puts its hooks in you at various times in your life – from baptism as a child, to “first confession” and “first holy communion”, then Confirmation as an early teen, then marriage, baptism of your own children, etc. It’s a programmatic cycle. There is another point at which Rome is prominent, and that is at death. As the “Baby Boom” generation continues to age and die, people will continue to be focused on this phase of life, either as people focused on the end of their own lives, or that...

A number of decades ago at the Ligonier Valley Study Center, we sent out a Thanksgiving card with this simple statement: “The essence of theology is grace; the essence of Christian ethics is gratitude.” In all the debates about our role versus God’s role in sanctification—our growth in holiness—we’d stay on the right track if we’d remember this grace-gratitude dynamic. The more we understand how kind God has been to us and the more we are overcome by His mercy, the more we are inclined to love Him and to serve Him.Yet we can’t get the grace-gratitude dynamic right if...

Total Absorption and Breakthrough I am drawing you deeper into My Spirit then ever before for I AM your Wellspring of Life and so now as I call and you answer I will feed you from The Tree of Life great and mighty things. First you will delve into and devour My very Virtue for without this nothing exists so you must come into and completely walk in My Worthiness for "HOLY" is My Name "Yeah" even the angels cry out unrelentingly My Truth . Second I will cause you to drink in My love and this door opens to...

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;( 2 Thess 2:1-3)When I read that the President of the United States, Barak Hussein Obama ordered...

If you want to choose in the US, you'd better praise God. The Americans do not seem to care much what church leaders pray; just want to kneel .. It was built in the 1920s in the style of the Spanish missions, topped off with one of those thatched roofs of red clay so popular in southern Florida by then. Catholics put their foundation a few steps from the famed Biltmore Hotel (inspired by the Giralda, the tower of the Cathedral of Seville in Spain) and named their church in honor of St. Therese of Lisieux, also known as the...

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz chose a conservative, evangelical Christian university as the setting for his announcement that he was running for president. This underscored his apparent strategic decision to focus relentlessly on the conservative, highly religious segment of his party, both in terms of attempting to become their candidate of preference, and also in terms of maximizing their turnout in the 2016 primary elections. The Republican Party in general has a disproportionate percentage of conservative and highly religious Americans in its ranks, so Cruz's strategy would appear to make numerical sense -- as it would for other conservative politicians, like...

The Resurrection & The Eucharist by Fr. Rodney Kissinger S.J. (Former Missouri Synod Lutheran) http://www.frksj.org/homily_ressurection_and_the_eucharist.htm There is an important connection between the Resurrection and the Eucharist. The Eucharist IS the Risen Jesus. Therefore, the Eucharist makes the Resurrection present and active in our lives and enables us to experience the joy and the power of the Resurrection.

The Resurrection is the reason for the observance of Sunday instead of the Sabbath. According to the Gospel it was early in the morning on the first day of the week that the Risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene. It was also on the...

The last time I posted here I examined Bryan Cross’s claim for unity in the Roman Catholic Church.  It was my intention to apply Bryan’s guidelines to a specific case that he mentioned – i.e. abortion – to show that his claim, in at least that instance, did not meet the “visibility” standard he required for unity to exist.  I hope to have been fair in my examination and believe that said examination disproved Bryan’s thesis on his own grounds.But that exercise caused me to reflect more broadly on the Roman claim to unity as it might apply to other...

Biblical Conspiracies 3 of 4 Secrets of the Crucifixion

You are not alone look beside you and find me filling your Wellspring with hope even now as the enemy flees with his lies and " T "rue hope becomes your warmth and understanding, that My light is upon you to shed all darkness and though things now seem out of reach "Truly " (( ( I AM ) )) and this is all you Truly need to know for I have already laid out your steps before Me and nothing can alter your path in Me alone . So come closer and completely dissolve all your worries into Me...

Here it is, the first television ad of the 2016 presidential campaign, courtesy of the first official presidential candidate, Ted Cruz. No beating around the bush here—we get a mention of Jesus in the very first sentence:(VIDEO-AT-LINK) "Were it not for the transformative love of Jesus Christ, I would have been raised by a single mom without my father in the house. God's blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation. Over and over again when we faced impossible odds, the American people rose to the challenge. This is our fight, and that is why I'm...

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.(Isaiah 53:12)The last verse of this fourth Servant Song has always struck me as anti-climatic. But this is because I believe the King James version confuses the meaning somewhat, for it reads as though the Servant takes his place among other great and strong ones. But the according to evangelical scholar Alec Motyer,...

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto...

Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.(Proverbs 1:20-23)To those who have ears to hear, the situation with the Indiana Religious Freedom Act and the Demagoguery that surrounds it is an ominous omen. It...

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth....

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.(Isaiah 53:4-6)We have been looking at the 4th Servant Song from the book of the prophet Isaiah.It seems that the Song is divided into...

NEW YORK – Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas, stressed during a closed-door meeting with New York City Christian leaders earlier this week that for the first time in history an astounding 65 percent of Americans do not think that their children will have a better life than them. Cruz, who is the first in an expected crowded Republican field to officially launch a presidential campaign, said that this depressing outlook is unacceptable and that there is a need to restore hope for those who have lost their faith in America's leadership. "America wants to believe that America has...

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.(Isaiah 53:1-3)It is the climax of human history, the apocalypse, the very...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd discussed how Ted Cruz could have a shot at the nomination by riding the evangelical vote to victory in a YouTube video released Friday. Todd pointed out that in the past candidates can get “relevancy” from the evangelical vote, but no one has been able to use it to win the nomination. But that Cruz, if he can clinch the evangelical vote, might be able to change that because “this primary calendar, believe it or not, is actually in the advantage of evangelical candidates.” Todd stated that two of the first four primary...

On a sunny Saturday morning in early March, Bob Vander Plaats walked into the West Des Moines Marriott with a chip on his shoulder. Iowa's evangelical shot-caller had come to meet with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who was in town for the Iowa Ag Summit, a cattle call that drew the majority of Republican presidential hopefuls. Over the course of the weekend, Vander Plaats had sit-downs scheduled with just about all of them. But not Jeb Bush. A twice-failed gubernatorial candidate who helped boost Mike Huckabee to victory in the 2008 caucuses, Vander Plaats has grown accustomed to presidential aspirants...