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“Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father” (Ephesians 5:20). Sincere thanks to God will result at all times if we are truly filled with the Spirit. I’m convinced that gratitude is the single greatest act of personal worship we can render to God. And today’s verse plainly asserts that thankfulness should be a well-rounded, consistent response to whatever God allows to happen in our lives (see 1 Thess. 5:18). Such a thankful attitude is impossible in our own strength, but as the Holy Spirit indwells us, He graciously...

September 18, 2016 Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Am 8:4-7 Hear this, you who trample upon the needyand destroy the poor of the land!“When will the new moon be over,” you ask,“that we may sell our grain,and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat?We will diminish the ephah,add to the shekel,and fix our scales for cheating!We will buy the lowly for silver,and the poor for a pair of sandals;even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!”The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:Never will I forget a thing they have done! Responsorial Psalm Ps...

"Stand firm . . . having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace" (Eph. 6:14-15). Standing firm while in the conflict requires the right kind of spiritual footwear. I'll never forget a game that took place at the Rose Bowl during my college football days. Being winter time and late in the football season, the field was in bad shape from several days of rain and an entire season of wear and tear. However, the grounds crew painted the field green, so it looked much better than it actually was. I had two pairs of football...

“Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19). If we are Spirit-filled, we will have songs of praise in our hearts and on our lips. Once a Christian knows about being Spirit-filled and walking by the Spirit, it is still fair for him or her to ask, “But how can I know if the Holy Spirit is really at work in my life?” Ephesians 5:19 answers this question by declaring one of the unmistakable evidences of the Spirit’s full operation in our lives—we will have...

September 17, 2016 Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 1 Cor 15:35-37, 42-49 Brothers and sisters:Someone may say, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come back?” You fool!What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies.And what you sow is not the body that is to bebut a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind. So also is the resurrection of the dead.It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible.It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious.It is sown weak; it is raised powerful.It...

Religious Deception in the Last Days - Matthew 24 - Pastor Bill Randles

"Stand firm therefore . . . having put on the breastplate of righteousness" (Eph. 6:14). A righteous life testifies to God’s transforming power and brings Him glory. We've seen the importance of donning the breastplate of righteousness, but Scripture also discusses the consequences of failing to do so. These consequences serve as warnings to anyone who is prone to neglect righteousness. If you're not committed to righteousness, you not only make yourself spiritually vulnerable, but also forfeit some of God's wonderful blessings. David prayed, "Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation" (Ps. 51:13). His sin had robbed him of...

“Be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). God wants every aspect of the believer’s being to be under the complete control of the Holy Spirit. Pleroo, the basic Greek word for “be filled,” offers three shades of meaning that illustrate what Paul’s command to be Spirit-filled means. First, the word describes the pressure of wind filling a ship’s sails and moving the vessel across the water. That parallels the Holy Spirit’s leading us down the pathway of spiritual obedience. We aren’t primarily motivated by our own plans and desires, but we allow the Spirit’s gracious pressure to move us in...

Martin Luther gave the following analogy: When we are justified, it is as though a doctor has just administered a sure and certain remedy for a fatal disease. Though the patient may still endure a temporary struggle with the residual effects of his illness, the outcome is no longer in doubt. The physician pronounces the patient cured even though a rehabilitation process must still be carried out. So it is with our justification. In Christ, God pronounces us just by the imputation of the merits of His Son. Along with that declaration, God administers something to us; He gives us...

Information, disinformation, truths, half-truths and lies all seem to be jumbled up in the communication strategy of the Holy See. The history of the Church is being written through interviews, improvised discourses, articles on semi-official blogs and media-rumours, leaving the field wide open to all interpretations possible and giving rise to the suspicion that the confusion is deliberate. Two recent examples. The first regards the expulsion of the President of the IOR (the Vatican Bank), Ettore Gotti Tedeschi in 2012. In Benedict XVI’s latest book “Last Conversations” with Peter Seewald, the “Pope Emeritus” takes responsibility himself for Gotti Tedeschi’s dismissal,...

September 16, 2016 Memorial of Saints Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs Reading 1 1 Cor 15:12-20 Brothers and sisters:If Christ is preached as raised from the dead,how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?If there is no resurrection of the dead,then neither has Christ been raised.And if Christ has not been raised, then empty too is our preaching;empty, too, your faith.Then we are also false witnesses to God,because we testified against God that he raised Christ,whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised.For if the dead are not...

Of Dolphins and Man: The Vast Difference between Animals and Humans Msgr. Charles Pope • September 14, 2016 • Those of you who read my posts regularly know that I have often expressed great fascination with and affection for the pets I have had over the years. I am in awe of the whole of the created order, which proclaims God’s glory.However, there are important distinctions between the human person and the created order that sometimes get lost in modern movements such as environmentalism, animal rights, and even in the realms of philosophy and science.Consider a recent article on...

The pro-abortion group Catholics for Choice placed "Abortion in Good Faith" full-page ads in several newspapers around the country on Monday urging the repeal of the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment prohibits taxpayer funding of abortion. Today, we launched a campaign to show that Catholics support abortion funding #InGoodFaith. Join us. https://t.co/rsmlSxOBDO— Catholics for Choice (@Catholic4Choice) September 12, 2016 On Wednesday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the chairman of the USCCB's Committee on Pro-Life Activities, issued a statement condemning the group. Cardinal Dolan said that the use of the name "Catholic" to promote abortion is offensive and that they are in no way...

The obvious fact that we all sin can create an atmosphere of false security among us, leading us to accept with ease the idea that sin is so commonplace that we ought not to be too bothered by it lest we surrender our mental health to a self-deprecating neurosis. Yet in our desire to console ourselves and maintain a good self-image, we may push to the back burner the mandate of God, “Be you holy, even as I am holy.” Evangelical Christians are most vulnerable to succumbing to this distortion. We stress the fact that our justification is by faith...

Our friend, and longtime freeper, PennsylvaniaMom is in dire need of prayers. She has become a dear friend here on Free Republic - especially on the morning Quinn in the Morning talk show thread, to those of us who have been meeting since the thread was started many years ago. Please, please, please add her to your daily prayers. Here is what she sent to me: "I haven’t been on your thread (or Gregs) all summer. Thought that heat, no AC at the house burning the candle on both ends, and just plain old age caught up to me. Throw...

September 15, 2016 Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows Reading 1 1 Cor 15:1-11 I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,of the Gospel I preached to you,which you indeed received and in which you also stand.Through it you are also being saved,if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,unless you believed in vain.For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures;that he was buried;that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures;that he appeared to Cephas, then...

Of 1,027 Catholics polled, only 14% said they had favorable views of Islam and one in three said they had either very or somewhat unfavorable viewsOnly 14% of American Catholics have a favorable view of Muslims and Catholic media outlets tend to have a bias against Muslims, a study has found. The findings, carried out by the Bridge initiative, a multi-year research project that focuses on Islamophobia at Georgetown University, conducted research on how mainstream and Catholic media consumption correlates to respondents’ perceptions of Islam. Of the 1,027 self-identified Catholics polled, only 14% said they had favorable views of Islam...

"Stand firm therefore . . . having put on the breastplate of righteousness" (Eph. 6:14). True righteousness begins with a right relationship with God. A Roman soldier would often engage his enemy in hand- to-hand combat. At such times, the weapon of choice was the short sword, with which he sought to penetrate his opponent's vital organs. For his own protection he wore a molded metal breastplate that extended from the base of his neck to the top of his thighs. It helped deflect any attacks aimed at his heart and abdomen. The Roman breastplate has great symbolism in Paul's...

“Brethren, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness” (Galatians 6:1). Those walking by the Spirit are to restore sinning fellow believers. God never intended that the spiritual walk be an end in itself. Instead, He wants believers to have a positive influence on fellow believers so that the church will be purified and built up. Galatians 6:1 reveals how those who walk by the Spirit ought to minister to others within the Body of Christ. Paul says they are to restore other brothers and sisters...

Pastor Saeed Abedini, a former American hostage who was held for three and a half years in an Iranian prison for his Christian faith, said on the 15th anniversary of 9/11 that Muslims started a war on Christianity with the terror attacks. Abedini said that although most Christian pastors do not want to say it, Islam is a satanic religion that leads people astray. "Fifteen years ago the shape of the whole world got changed forever and war between Islam and Christianity started by Muslims again," [sic] Abedini wrote in a Facebook message on Sunday.