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You do realize that you are fighting an uphill battle.

Ignorance can be quite intractable...

I think “and it came to pass...” was JS’s way of stalling for time, an 1830’s version of “uh..., uh....”

Not enough fiber in the diet?

“Knights TEMPLERS”

The Knights Templar is an order of masons, limited to Christians, dedicated to the protection of Christiandom, charity, and care of widows, orphans, and the less fortunate.

I can see why someone like you would dissapprove.

I have all the "thoughts" of Jesus mentioned herein, yet do not consider him divine.

Hyam Maccoby, Revoultion In Judaea: Jesus And The Jewish Resistance

Though if you please, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Morning. Starting Christmas vacation today. Happy Days.

Actually its from “Pass that there licker jar over here”

Could you not have stayed home and played with your wee girl and had some good father-baby time ???

She would have been better off...and you would have retained your sanity...

Good Morning Vision...

http://ft111.com/

Faith Tabernacle
Bill and Marsha Burns
111 North Fourth Street
P. O. Box 1148
Kremmling, CO 80459 USA

SMALL STRAWS IN A SOFT WIND by Marsha Burns — Dec. 22, 2009:

Beloved, I have already brought warnings to you to guard your heart with all diligence. Be aware that the enemy is roaring around, looking for those who will get in his most dangerous territory through allowing their emotions to run wild.

Guard your thoughts and emotions, and refuse to allow the devil to bring discouragement, disappointment and depression.

Rise up and embrace My joy, says the Lord, and be strengthened in your inner man. Draw near to me, and place your hope in My love for you.

Resist the devil, for there is no temptation too great for you to overcome.

1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

Excellent. Thanks Quix.

And thanks to Jesus. His Kingdom come, His will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven.

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

THX THX.

Shameless END TIMES PING LIST PING.

Plus some other Bros & Sis who wouldn’t be caught dead on an END TIMES ping list! LOL.

'Today's Word with Joel Osteen' Ping!

"The Wonderful Counselor"

"Debate of any kind is not appropriate on a devotional thread. They are closed, i.e. to be treated as if they are occurring behind the closed doors of a church." -Religion Moderator

I must surrender myself completely to God.


And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”- Luke 2:8-11

. . . an elaboration on BY THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB . . .

It is a Scripture as you may know . . .

The Blood of The Lamb is the legal, spiritual, REAL fact of Christ's overcoming POWER IN THE BLOOD (as the hymn goes) spiritual and tangible potency to overcome the world the flesh and the devil because of Christ's shed blood and Resurrection.

We can verbally "claim" The Blood over us as we go about our day. We can pray The Blood over our mind as we lay down to sleep. We can declare and spiritually put The Blood between us and evil and evil doers as a shield.

I like to think of THE WORD OF OUR TESTIMONY as confession verbally, boldly of SCRIPTURE--CERTAINLY SCRIPTURAL TRUTHS ABOUT WHO WE ARE IN JESUS (REMEMBER THAT LIST?) AND WHO JESUS IS IN US as we go about our day. THOSE ARE THE SUPREME REALITIES--NOT satan's lies about us and about life.

The Word of our testimony is also about what God HAS DONE AND IS DOING IN OUR LIVES OF A VICTORIOUS, OVERCOMING NATURE.

May God draw you ever closer to Himself; grant you His safety; Provision and Peace,

May you each have a Blessed CHRISTmas filled with warmly emotionally intimate dialogues with God and with those you Love.

May MarySecretary be thoroughly healed with a fully functioning kidney. May Rifqa Bary triumph over her enemies. May all ill FREEPERS be healed and made whole by The Lord Jesus. May all fractured FREEPER FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS be healed, matured, whole, kind, mutually nurturing and supportive; thoughtful, compassionate and cherishing this CHRISTmas and in the New Year.

May all FREEPERS who Love God have His Provision, Safety, Peace, Wholeness, Health, Wisdom, Guidance, Spirit, Forgiveness, Understanding, Overcoming Power and Protection This CHRISTmas and in the New Year.

Daily Reflections with Oswald Chambers Ping!

"The Drawing of the Father"

Come to these threads as you are; leave with what you have discovered.

Absolutely no flaming! These daily threads are intended to be devotional in nature. If a particular day's offering says nothing to you, please just go on and wait for the next day. Consider these threads a DMZ of sorts, a place where a perpetual truce is in effect and a place where all other arguments and disagreements from other times and places are left behind.

I can attest from personal experience that reading from Chambers daily will almost certainly change - not one's faith - but one's perspective of his/her own faith, and open up new vistas in your spiritual life. If - when - this happens to a reader of these threads, and they choose to share what has happened within them - we are treading on hallowed ground. Be respectful.

- Religion Moderator

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was born July 24, 1874, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Converted in his teen years under the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he studied art and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh before answering a call from God to the Christian ministry. He then studied theology at Dunoon College. From 1906-1910 he conducted an itinerant Bible-teaching ministry in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

In 1910, Chambers married Gertrude Hobbs. They had one daughter, Kathleen.

In 1911 he founded and became principal of the Bible Training College in Clapham, London, where he lectured until the school was closed in 1915 because of World War I. In October 1915 he sailed for Zeitoun, Egypt (near Cairo), where he ministered to troops from Australia and New Zealand as a YMCA chaplain. He died there November 15, 1917, following surgery for a ruptured appendix.

Although Oswald Chambers wrote only one book, Baffled to Fight Better, more than thirty titles bear his name. With this one exception, published works were compiled by Mrs. Chambers, a court stenographer, from her verbatim shorthand notes of his messages taken during their seven years of marriage. For half a century following her husband's death she labored to give his words to the world.

My Utmost For His Highest, his best-known book, has been continuously in print in the United States since 1935 and remains in the top ten titles of the religious book bestseller list with millions of copies in print. It has become a Christian classic.

Grow up Geek,

I love my child, but if he is disobedient, he’d better have a modicum of ‘fear’ about him. Does that mean that I am not ‘loving’? It does not.

You, unfortunately do not seem to have read the Bible, and further more, you seem to wish to construct your own ‘fuzzy-bunny’ version of God that you can be comfortable with. You are not in a position to construct ANY god, much less change the God that is. As I said before, He is as He is.

Dittos.....

"Now that I understand the methodology used to arrive at the 30,000 number, I won't use it any more..." - markomalley, in post #1

That's absolutely right.

But that is not to say that I wouldn't say that there are any number of protestant denominations. They split and rejoin so much that it is entirely impossible to keep track of who believes what.

Look at recent events: you have yet another split developing within the ELCA over homosexuality and ordination; likewise, it appears that worldwide Anglicanism is getting ready to have a complete realignment over the same issue. And that is just within the last six months.

And we, of course, all know the joke about the baptists that ends 'die heretic scum.'

And, of course, that is not even to begin to discuss all the individual "independents" that are not part of any denomination and may, or may not, have any common beliefs.

The point was, do you classify each "independent" non-denominational church as its own denomination? Do you classify all branches of Luthernism together as one (I know a few LCMS people who would vigorously object to being grouped with the ELCA)? How about Presbyterianism (would you like to be grouped with the PCUSA)?

Fact of the matter is that one could as easily assert that there are 500,000,000 denominations as easily as 30,000. Why? Because in Protestantism, each man is his own magesterium (i.e., teaching authority) and the only thing that unifies them all is that they are proudly non-Catholic. Jesus Christ doesn't even join them all, since they don't all agree on who He is to begin with (some deny the Trinity by calling Jesus a created being, while others deny the Trinity through "oneness." )

Frankly, that's why I disavow using the 30,000 number. Because one could just as easily say 7,000...30,000...500,000,000. It really doesn't matter.

We should start a betting pool to see what number we'll be treated to next!

I think you should spend as much time as possible on it.

The priest asked him directly if he had been attending church on Sunday while he was away at school. Our son squirmed a little and answered no, he had not. The priest's response stunned me - "In the eyes of the Church, you are no longer a Catholic and cannot get married in the Church".

That priest was dead wrong in saying, In the eyes of the Church, you are no longer a Catholic. For the sake of his soul, I hope that he repents of what he said to you and your son.

Once you are baptized a Catholic, you are a Catholic for life. Even if you were excommunicated ferendae sententiae (by a formal sentence) by a competent authority, you would still be a Catholic. Why? Because all you would have to do is to go to confession and then pick up right where you left off. (Obviously, in a case of excommunication, that condition would have to be lifted by the competent authority, but still...)

Keep in mind, though, that the priest is within his prudential judgment on whether he will, or will not witness a marriage. It might be perfectly proper for him to say that a person who has been away from the sacraments for years needs to start receiving the sacraments regularly again before consenting to use the parish church and to be willing to witness the marriage. But that is a whole lot different than saying, "In the eyes of the Church, you are no longer a Catholic" because somebody has been away from the sacraments for a couple of years.

Sorry to interject here, but it pisses me off to no end when I hear about some priest who goes off half cocked and becomes his own "magesterium."