The Hobbit

(Reposted from my other blog, from 2014, but edited quite a bit.  My sons and I have been obsessively watching the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies lately.  Okay, mostly me.  But I can't get enough of them!  I'm starting on the books now too.  A great way to spend lockdown.)

I was driving to the flower shop today to pick up some onion transplants when I heard a line from a song that really stuck with me.  It was something about ‘not knowing how the journey will end.’  And it hit me that that’s exactly what has always scared me about life ... not knowing where things are headed.  To me, everything feels doomed, like tragedy and heartache are always right around the corner.  And so I guess I live with a constant, deep sense of anxiety and discouragement.  Always waiting for the next bad thing. 

            

And I began to think, "Why do I always have to think that ‘not knowing how this journey will end’ means ‘tragedy and trouble are up ahead’?  Why can’t it mean ‘exciting, unexpected adventures and surprises await you’?  Why can’t I look forward into the hazy, foggy future with ‘Oh, cool, maybe something great will happen soon,’ instead of always with ‘Oh no!’?  How different life would feel if I looked forward to the future instead of dreaded it, or if I counted the blessings instead of the problems and fears."  

            

(I think this comes with a broken home life, among other things.  Things just don’t feel secure and carefree after watching your family break apart.  Several times.) 

            

I wish I could feel the way some people do, the lightness and optimism, the feeling that life is generally good but has moments of bad.  I, on the other hand, feel like it’s mostly negative but with moments of positive.  My husband and sons, my faith, and a friend or two are the only real bright spots, and I live to (hopefully) reflect Christ to others.  But the rest is just ... there.  And I have to look hard to find the positives in each day, to find the joys.

Big Shocker: Liberal Elites Trying To Stop Those Who Oppose The Covid Vaccine

See this link: "Liberal Elites Trying To Stop Organic Covid-19 Opposition Groups From Growing As Distrust Of The American Media Reaching All-Time High".

And also read the comments to Bill Gates' Tweet here.  (Hit "view more replies" to see them all.)  Interesting stuff!  (And I love the sentence about how the guy who wants to reduce the human population - Bill Gates - is the same one who wants to "save" us with a vaccine.  Very insightful!  And it should make everyone pause and think!)

"My Corona Blend": An Essential Oil Blend for Diffusers

(Great, now I'll be singing "My Sharona" all day!)

This is an essential oil blend I made to put in our diffusers at night while we are facing this coronavirus pandemic.  I picked oils that are known for their powerful anti-viral properties, that are good against colds/flu/fever/infectious diseases, that are good for lung/respiratory health, and that help stimulate the immune system.  (I call it "My Corona Blend" for my own reference, but I make no promises about its ability to defeat the Coronavirus.)

A Coronavirus "Plandemic"? A 26-minute video you need to see

Everyone should watch this 26-minute video: Plandemic Part 1 by Dr. Mikovits.  (FYI: I watched this video yesterday on a different YouTube link.  It had something like a million views.  And it's already been removed today.  Big surprise!  This is why I watched it right away and wrote up a short summary of my thoughts on it.  Because I figured it would be silenced!  So watch it soon, before this is removed too.  FYI: If the link I gave is removed, click here and see if one of these works.  Also, sorry for the annoying highlighting; I can't undo it.)

A friend found it yesterday and shared it with me.  While it’s scary stuff, it didn’t shock me because it coincides with what I’ve already thought about this whole virus situation, among other things:

The Coronavirus Pandemic: "Not About Your Health"?

Yikes!  Read this post about the coronavirus pandemic (from the Rapture Ready website): "It's Not About Your Health."  It asks a lot of good, interesting, disturbing questions.  Really raises your eyebrows and makes you think.

But what to do about it all, I don't know.  All I can say is that we believers need to keep our eyes open to what's going on around us and be discerning.  And ultimately we need to keep our eyes more on the Lord than on the world, to remember where our help comes from.  And non-believers need to realize that this virus may just be a last "wake-up call" from the God, before He takes His people out of here.  It's time to get right with the Lord.  Or to get to know Him for the first time.  The author of the article is right, "It's not about your health."  But it may just be about your soul!

[I also recommend this "end times" study about the rapture from Tracking Bible Prophecy.  I think it does a pretty good job of laying it all out there.  Though there are some things I see differently, and we won't know for sure who's right until it happens, but that's the way it is with prophecy.]

Support for Jesus and the Bible

Although almost every other major religion out there acknowledges that Jesus really did live, there are still people who insist He is a fairy tale, like a mythological legend from ancient history.  Or they believe that He was a real man but never claimed to be God, that His followers made it up after He died.  And many believe that the Bible, though a good book, was written just from men’s minds and wasn’t really God-inspired.

When trying to reason with people like this, many Christians quote Bible verses to try to win the argument, thinking it should convince everyone of God’s Truth.  But since many people, including atheists, don’t believe the Bible is true, they don’t want to hear the Bible being used to try to prove the validity of the Bible.  That’s “circular reasoning,” using the Bible to validate the Bible.  This is why it’s important to have sources outside the Bible that confirm that Jesus really did live and that Scripture is really reliable.

And if Scripture proves to be reliable, then we need to take Jesus’s claims that He is the Christ, God in the flesh and the only way to heaven, much more seriously.  Because, yes, He Himself did claim these things.  We can choose to not believe Him, but we cannot deny that He claimed it.

John 10:30,14:6-9: “I and the Father are one… I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him… Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”

In Matthew 16:15-17, Jesus asks Simon Peter “Who do you say I am?”  And Simon Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  And Jesus doesn’t deny it but confirms it.  “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”

In John 8:56-58, Jesus claims that He saw Abraham, who lived many centuries ago.  And when the Jews question Him (“You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham!”), He replies, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am!”  This is Jesus clearly calling Himself God because that’s the name God gave Himself when He sent Moses to free the Israelites from Egypt.  Exodus 3:13-14: Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”  God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”  [I AM indicates the eternalness of God.  He’s not I WAS or I WILL BE.  He is always I AM because He is God.]

The Jews knew exactly what Jesus was saying.  They knew He was claiming to be God when He called Himself “I AM” and when He said that He and the Father are one.  They knew He was claiming to be God when He exercised His right to forgive sins in Mark 2:5-7: “When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’  Now some of the teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ‘Why does this fellow talk like this? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’”

And because the Jews knew what He was claiming, they tried to kill Him. John 8:59: “At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple ground.”  John 10:31-33: “Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’  ‘We are not stoning you for any of these,’ replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.’”

In fact, at the trial before Jesus’s crucifixion, he makes the clearest claim yet.  Mark 14:61-64: “Again the high priest asked him, ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’  “I am,’ said Jesus. ‘And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.’  The high priest tore his clothes. ‘Why do we need any more witnesses?’ he asked. ‘You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?’  They all condemned him as worthy of death.”  And the Jews finally got their way.  They couldn’t kill Him the other times they tried, but they did get Him crucified.  Because they couldn’t believe He was telling the truth, that He really is God.

Like I said, you don’t have to believe Him either, but you do have to admit that He claimed to be God.  And if the Bible proves to be a reliable document, you need to answer this question for yourself: “Who do you say Jesus is: the Christ (God in the flesh, the only way to heaven) or just a man, a blasphemer?”  (And if you decide He’s just a man, a blasphemer, what happens if you’re wrong?)

So what I am going to do here is give a quick overview of some extra-biblical support for the existence of Jesus and the validity of the Bible.  This is my paraphrase of information mostly from Lee Strobel’s book, The Case for Christ (he was an investigative journalist who set out to disprove the resurrection of Jesus, but ended up believing in it instead) and Josh McDowell’s book, Evidence that Demands a Verdict (he was a pre-law student who didn’t want anything to do with Jesus or “religion,” as he called it, but he was challenged by some Christians to research the resurrection to see if it was true, and he accepted the challenge, confident he would swiftly and surely disprove it.  He even dropped out of college for a time to do research in the great libraries of Europe.  But as result, he came to believe in the resurrection instead and that Jesus is who He said He is.).

Current Christian Heretical Teachings

Some Current Heretical Teachings in Many Christian Churches (repost):
I want to take a brief moment to introduce some of the current heretical teachings that are coming from “Christian” churches nowadays, and possible responses to them.  This is just a taste of the heresies that are out there.

An Overview of World Religions

            I want to briefly present what some of the major religions of the world believe.  (I am not covering all of them, of course.  And I am skipping things like Wicca, New Age, and Humanism.)  I studied all the major religions once when I was considering if Christianity was really the only way.  And I came out of the study believing in Jesus all the more. 

            It is important to know what other religions teach so that we can know what they are really about, have real reasons for why we don’t believe them, and understand what makes Jesus and Christianity different. 

            (This is mainly written for believers, taken from my Bible study over at https://ironsharpensironbiblestudy.blogspot.com.) 

            This is my paraphrase of things I have learned over the years and information from a world religion comparison guide called “Christianity: Cults & Religions” and from a book by Fritz Ridenour called, So What’s the Difference?

Prayer Request for My Neighbor's Salvation

On my blogs, I'm asking if you'll all say a quick prayer for my neighbor, G.  Because of all this coronavirus stuff, she's starting to see certain "end times signs" materialize, and it's making her wonder if the Bible might actually be true.  She has been open to hearing about Jesus, and we were able to have some of the first conversations ever about faith and Jesus and the Bible, standing in our yards six feet apart, of course.  And I gave her some books to read to help her understand better.

Pray that God continues to put the Gospel in her and her husband's (D.) path throughout the day and night, in various ways, that they can see and understand the truth of the Gospel and God's offer of forgiveness and eternal life through faith in Jesus and that it's the only way to be saved.  Pray that God sends heavenly angels to keep evil from interfering so that they are not blinded by the enemy's lies and distractions.  Pray that they sense God's presence and His overwhelming love for them, that they realize that He is really real and that He wants a relationship with them because He loves them.  And pray that they understand that salvation doesn't "just happen" to us, that God doesn't make the decision for us, and that we don't get to heaven by accident or default or just for being a "good person."  Pray that they realize - and soon - that they have to make the decision for themselves, that they have a responsibility to respond to God's calls, to believe and to have faith in Jesus, to reach out and accept the forgiveness and salvation He offers if they want eternal life.  Thank you.

UPDATE (I forgot to update this earlier, so I'm doing it now in July of 2024): My neighbor gave her heart to the Lord sometime in the summer/fall of 2020.  And since then, we (my neighbor, her Christian aunt, and I) have been meeting weekly for Bible study.  My neighbor has shown an incredible desire to learn all she can and to try her best to accurately understand what the Bible says and to live it out, and she's been bold about sharing her new faith with others.  It's been an honor to watch her grow in these early years of faith.  

Her husband was much more resistant to faith and the gospel and has been rather angry about her new faith, but he is coming around slowly.  She has recently been able to get him to go to church with the family, and he's been going willingly and even claims to believe what the Bible says and to believe that Jesus is real.  Pray that the information makes it from his head into his heart, that he understands that he needs to make a conscious, deliberate decision to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior, that he understands he cannot just coast into faith, and that he is protected from the Enemy's lies and distractions.  Thank you.

Nancy Antoinette and Airhead AOC

Wow!  If Nancy (Antionette) Pelosi is "Let them eat ice cream," then Airhead AOC is "Let them eat ... nothing!"  

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/21/nancy-pelosi-skewered-let-them-eat-cream-trump-ad/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/aocs-idiotic-suggestion-to-boycott-economy-after-coronavirus-shows-her-ignorance-again

https://www.foxnews.com/media/aoc-boycott-work-coronavirus-shutdown