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Here is a list of Religion & Spirituality Blogs ordered by Most Viewed, posted by members. A Blog is a journal you may enter about your life, thoughts, interesting experiences, or lessons you've learned. Post an opinion, impart words of wisdom, or talk about something interesting in your day. Update your blog on a regular basis, or just whenever you have something to say. Creating a blog is a good way to share something of yourself with others. Reading blogs is a good way to learn more about others. Click here to post a blog.

Ian158

This will be an interesting talk over coffee...

..last night someone sent me a flower, no photo but mentioned she was middle eastern and atheist.

That got my attention, turns out she is 100% Saudi and is indeed atheist, ever since 9/11. She said there are many of her friends in Saudi that are, but have to keep it quiet and life is hard. Her mother knew about it and said do not breath a word of it to your dad !

Look forward to this insiie into Saudi future, and wether the women are educating themselves, well read to think for themselves and not be brainwashed. peace
Keys707

Reserved for Him

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We are called to a deeper level of intimacy with Christ as we get to know Him better and grow up in Him. thespotlessbride....

Written by Virginia Brandt Berg Monday, 01 February 2016

Some of the loneliest people are surrounded by others, yet they feel that no one understands them.—That is, the real person that they are. They long for someone to share their interests and problems, to sympathize with them. But it’s true that even your lifelong companion, your closest friend, does not really know you, does not really understand you after all, because in every life there’s a locked door or two where no one enters but yourself.

Why do we have this deep craving to be understood? Why is there this intense longing to have someone enter into what we feel of joys and triumphs, sorrows and defeats? When reality is that when we climb the heights of exaltation, there is no one who can fully enter into our emotions, and in the depths of sorrow, some tears are always shed alone. Why is that?

God made you for Himself, and He knew that this very sense of isolation, of not being understood, would drive you to Him. God Himself is the answer, the fulfillment. And only as He Himself fills that longing will you ever be satisfied. He made you that way, He made you for Himself, and not until He fills your life will you ever be free from that loneliness. He’s put a little sign on the table of your heart, which reads, “Reserved for Me.” He knows that when we find human sympathy so lacking, we seek for the divine.

God is big enough, great enough to fill any soul, and His is complete companionship, ideal and perfect friendship. This lack we all sometimes feel, this incompleteness, is a need for God. He who made us is the only One who can fill every part of our life. There’s no need to ever be lonely. Jesus said, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you, for lo, I am with you always.”1 Let Him come into your lonely heart and take over, and then you can say, as Jesus said, “I am not alone because the Father is with me.”2

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You can turn to God’s Son when you’re feeling alone by praying this simple prayer: “Thank You, Jesus, for Your love and for saving me. Please come into my heart and accompany me on my life’s journey.”

1. Hebrews 13:5; Matthew 28:20
2. John 16:32






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Keys707

The Divine Exchange (Part 2)

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For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul. Jeremiah 31:25 KJV

THEY DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THAT FREQUENTLY GOD WORKS CONTRARY TO HUMAN LOGIC. Someone has written a wonderful book on that very saying, that God works contrary to natural expectations, that God has His own way of doing things, and they are quite contrary to our ideas. In His Word He says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways. For as the Heavens are high above the Earth, so are My ways above your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." -- Isa.55:8.

THE GREEKS INFERRED THAT PAUL WAS NOT AN ORATOR, THAT HIS SPEECH WAS CONTEMPTIBLE. It was the greatest ambition of a Greek to be an orator. That's what they taught their youth, and the lack of the gift of oratory was a weakness. They reasoned man's way, for you know that God's way has always been that it isn't the oratory, it's the spirit in the speech that counts with God.

PAUL SAID IT'S ACCORDING TO THE POWER THAT WORKETH IN YOU. Oh, that's a wonderful sentence! This that the Greeks called weakness, God calls strength. It was an asset to Paul. How many times we've all heard some humble speaker that isn't gifted at oratory at all and not learned in man's wisdom nor trained in man's colleges perhaps, but oh, filled with the Spirit of God and he literally sweeps the people off of their feet, sweeps an audience along on the tide of his earnestness in the power of God which was manifested through him.

THE MAN IS SO HUMBLE, SO EMPTY OF SELF, SO WEAK IN HIMSELF, THAT GOD HAS A CHANCE TO WORK THROUGH HIM. Thus this very weakness becomes his strength. That's why Paul says that when he was weak, then he was strong. The Word says,

"MY STRENGTH IS MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS." Now you may think, "Oh, I'm too weak to do this or that" or "I'm so weak when it comes to temptation, I feel my own weakness so much that I don't feel worthy to claim promises." Well,

A MAN IS ONLY STRONG WHEN HE'S COMPLETELY EMPTIED OF HIMSELF, AND HIS STRENGTH COMES FROM THE LORD. There are those before whom I stood once in a while, that when I stood in public ministry, I felt so keenly my weakness. Oh, I can't begin to express the weaknesses I felt, and I've gone so hesitatingly before those to whom I was to speak feeling utterly helpless in myself, but that can become my strength because of this verse. That's what it means, "My strength" -- God's strength -- "is made perfect in weakness."

THE LORD COMES AND HE SUPPLEMENTS YOUR WEAKNESS WITH HIS STRENGTH. That's what He wants to do. So when you feel this awful weakness, this terrible lack, that's the very time to take hold of God, to claim His strength. When you're weakest in yourself, then you become strong if you depend on His strength. So what the Greeks in ignorance of spiritual things called weakness, that really became strength.

GOD'S WORD SAYS IN ISAIAH 40:29: "TO THEM THAT HE NOT MIGHT HE INCREASES STRENGTH." Oh, when we're so sure of our own strength, so confident of our own powers, then the Lord just lets u walk alone in our strength. I was reminded of when I visited my little new grand baby who was just learning to walk. She would take a hold of your finger and just start out like she's going to take the world by storm. She just thinks that she can surely be there and she goes so fast, and the first thing you know she's stumbled and bumped her nose and bruised herself. She'd just walk in her own strength until she learns that she's got to hold on to your finger because she can't quite walk by herself. -- And that's how we are.







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owlsway

Love Is Nourishment in Itself

"Your question is, 'Can you talk about the art of nourishing oneself with love?' There is no art because there is no need of any effort. Love is the nourishment. But humanity has been so confused by its leaders that one does not know the most inner realms of one's own being. Love is nourishment in itself. The more you love, the more you will find untrodden spaces where love goes on and on spreading around you like an aura.

"But that kind of love has not been allowed by any culture. They have forced love into a very small tunnel: you can love your wife, your wife can love you; you can love your children, you can love your parents, you can love your friends. And they have made two things so deeply rooted in every human being. One is that love is something very limited – friends, family, children, husband, wife. And the second thing they have insisted is that there are many kinds of love.

"You love in one way when you love your husband or your wife; then you have to bring another kind of love when you love your children, and another kind of love when you love your elders, your family, your teachers, and then another kind of love for your friends. But the truth is, love cannot be categorized the way it has been categorized throughout the whole history of mankind. There were reasons for them to categorize it but their reasons are ugly and inhuman, because in this categorization they killed love...

"The reason why all the cultures have insisted on categorization is because they have been very much afraid of love, is because if there is existential love, then it does not know boundaries – then you cannot put Hindus against Mohammedans, then you cannot put Protestants against Catholics. Then you cannot draw a line saying that you cannot love this person because he is Jewish, Chinese. The leaders of the world wanted to divide the world, but to divide the world they have to do the basic division which is of love."
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Keys707

Without Covetousness Pt. 1

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It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age. Margret Mead

A compilation JANUARY 20, 2015

Let your conversation be without covetousness [love of money]; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.—Hebrews 13:5 (1)

*

And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”—Luke 12:15 (2)

*

Everyone is laying up treasure in some way. It may not be expressed in our assets or bank accounts, but there is something which gives us reason to get up in the morning. Whatever controls our heart is our treasure, and it’s either earthly or heavenly. The reality is we straddle both spheres, and no matter how heavenly our interests may be, we live on earth and are subject to its demands and values.

What begins as our treasure, whether earthly or heavenly, is something which serves us and furthers our interests. In the pursuit of it, our treasure becomes our vision, and in time what began as our treasure and grew into our vision becomes our master. The free will we are given is actually limited to one thing … who is our master? From there on, everything we do is a logical explanation of what is the mastering principle of our lives. It’s either temporal or it’s eternal, self-centered or God-centered, earthly or heavenly, but it cannot be both.

Society today holds to the belief that a person’s status and success is directly related to reputation and material wealth, but society has it backwards. We cannot put the pursuit of money, prestige and power before the pursuit of God. Jesus says we cannot serve both God and money. (3)

The features that characterize heavenly treasures are the exact opposite of earthly treasures. Instead of temporary and troublesome, they are permanent and peaceful. To store up treasure in heaven is to live on earth with heaven in mind. The issues which govern our values, goals and behaviours should not be confined to this life only and played out ‘before men’. They should have eternal issues at heart, and be played out before God. The very same possessions, bank balances, occupations, living standards can either be storing up treasure in heaven or on earth. It is not the substance of our possessions that is the issue, but the audience before whom we live.

Materialism does not relate to how much we actually possess, but our attitude towards what we possess. Everything that we lose when we die should be given appropriate status now, and that which holds its currency beyond death is what we should invest in now. Once we have settled the issues of storing up our real treasure in heaven, our vision is good, and our master is God.—Charles Price

*

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.—Matthew 6:19–21 (4)

1 KJV.
2 ESV.
3 Matthew 6:24.
4 NASB.

**
SPEND YOUR LIFE LOSING YOUR LIFE FOR OTHERS.--THAT'S THE SECRET OF SAVING IT!

Jesus said, "He that saveth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for My sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it!" (Mk.8:35). "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God!" (Mat.6:33). And what is His Kingdom? His Kingdom is souls! His Kingdom is missionary work! His Kingdom is reaching the lost with the Gospel! Jesus didn't commission us to save ourselves, He commissioned us and called us into His army to save others!





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Swami

“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”

“The past has no power over the present moment.”

“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”

“Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the NOW the primary focus of your life.”

“You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”

? Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life's Purpose

“Love is not selective, just as the light of the sun is not selective. It does not make one person special. It is not exclusive. Exclusivity is not the love of God but the "love" of ego. However, the intensity with which true love is felt can vary. There may be one person who reflects your love back to you more clearly and more intensely than others, and if that person feels the same toward you, it can be said that you are in a love relationship with him or her. The bond that connects you with that person is the same bond that connects you with the person sitting next to you on a bus, or with a bird, a tree, a flower. Only the degree of intensity with which it is felt differs.”

? Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
guadal

Dschihad

What does it mean?
The true meaning is: zeal, effort.
And is the fight against "Dunja", which means the world in arabic.
The world created by God is not bad anyway, but the relations between people and their deeds on earth are often in evil contradiction to the will of God.
The world "Dunja" seduces the people and distracts them from the righteous way of life, makes them greedy, brutish and proud. "Dschihad" is the fight against these weaknesses.

In the name of egality
in the name of ghastly ideas
in the name of freedom and liberty
of brotherhood and love
people are forging their weapons
and drown everything in blood.

translated from Schirina Dossowa, "Moja vecnaja vesna".
SistaCallie

Should Catholic Church Change Its Church Doctrine

It must be understood that there is no where in the Bible, which contains the written word of God, wherein God forbids a spiritual leader or servant, man or woman from getting married. This is only the doctrine and teachings of the Catholic church who forbids its spiritual leaders popes, nuns and priests from marrying. This is NOT a teaching of the Scriptures in the Bible.

The Bible teaches that a man and a woman should marry if they are unable to contain themselves s*xually. All of the disciples/apostles of Jesus were married therefore, I have no idea where the Catholic church gets the idea that it is forbidden. But then, the Catholic church has many teachings and doctrines that are not based on what God teaches and/or are not written in the Bible, but are church doctrines.

QUESTIONS:
1. Should the Catholic church change its doctrinal teachings to fit what God has spoken in His written word about marriage being between a man and a woman, or should the Catholic church go along with the teachings and beliefs of the world to allow gay marriages between the priests and nuns, in order to be political correct?

2. Since gay marriages and relationships are forbidden by GOD, and is not what God approves of in the church... Should straight priests and nuns be allowed to get married to each other or have outside relationships (male and female) to prevent so much molestation and gay relationships going on in the Catholic church?

After reading article below WHAT SAY YOU?

Pope Francis 'Saddened' 2 Lesbian Nuns Marry Believing Their Love Is 'Gift of God'
BY STOYAN ZAIMOV , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
October 11, 2016|7:59 am


Vatican leader Pope Francis was reportedly saddened by news of two former Roman Catholic nuns who married each other, calling their love a "gift of God."

"What sadness on the face of the pope when I read him the news of the two 'nun' brides," reads an English translation of a Tweet sent out by Vatican Undersecretary of State, Archbishop Angelo Becciu, according to Breitbart News.

The brides in question were only identified by the names Federica and Isabel in a report by the Italian daily La Repubblica, in which they also characterize their love as a "gift of God" that "no one can prevent."

The former nuns, who are both in their 40s, tied the knot in a civil union in Turin at the end of September. Reports added that the nuns met during a missionary trip to Guinea Bissau, and were seemingly encouraged to move forward in their relationship by the words of Francis himself, who once said "Who am I to judge?" about a gay person who wants to be a Catholic.

The former nuns added that they wanted to "leave the religious life and begin a path of freedom and faith lived with serenity, without scandal, beneath the merciful gaze of God."

"You can advise [gay people] to pray, show goodwill, show them the way, and accompany them along it," the pontiff explained at the time.

"The Church does not exist to condemn people, but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of God's mercy."

In another interview on the subject matter earlier in October, Francis argued that Jesus Christ would not turn away a person just because he or she is gay.

"But each case must be welcomed, accompanied, studied, discerned and integrated. When a person (who is gay) arrives before Jesus, Jesus certainly will not say, 'Go away because you are homosexual,'" the Roman Catholic Church leader said.

Francis also said that he recognizes there are people who struggle with gender identity, but that is different from "indoctrinating people in gender theory" by teaching it in schools, he warned.

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owlsway

They Do Not Know Any Other Type Of Man

"Psychologists say that love is nothing but a foreplay to sex. They are right – because they have no other specimen to study. They study you and then they come to conclude that love is nothing but a foreplay – just creating a situation in which sex can happen, nothing else. So when sex has happened, love disappears. It is just like when you feel hungry you gravitate toward food and look at food with enchanted eyes. But when your hunger is satiated, you look away from the food. All the enchantment is lost.
"So when you love your wife or your husband, the love is just an etiquette to enter into sex – because it will be too rude to start… So it just plays like a lubricating agent. And when sex is satisfied, the husband moves to his own side of the bed and goes to sleep. He is finished; all the enchantment is gone. It will come again only when he feels a type of hunger. Psychologists say that love is nothing but a foreplay – just a mannerism. And they are right, because they do not know any other type of man."
Keys707

Becoming a Christian Case Maker (Part 2)

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"... whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; by which book is meant God's predestination of men to eternal life, or his decree of election; why this is called the "book of life" (Revelations 17:8b KJV)
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One very outstanding and undeniably unique aspect of Jesus’ life is that literally hundreds of detailed predictions and prophecies were made by ancient prophets and seers, many centuries before He was born, including specific details regarding His birth, life, and death.

In the Old Testament, over 300 such predictions about the “Messiah” or “Savior” can be found. The discovery of hundreds of ancient Old Testament manuscripts by archaeologists during this century has proven without a doubt that these prophecies were indeed written before this man called Jesus was born.

In 750 B.C., for example, the prophet Isaiah made the astounding prediction that:

“The Lord Himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Emmanuel.”3

Seven and a half centuries later, a young virgin girl in Israel named Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel, who announced to her that she would bear a son who would be called Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” The books of the Bible which were written after Jesus came to Earth, the New Testament, tell us that, “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, seeing I have not lain with any man?’ And the angel answered, ‘The Spirit of God shall come upon you, and the power of the Almighty shall overshadow you! Therefore that Holy One which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God.’”4

So even the very beginning of His life on Earth—His conception and birth—were not only unique, but miraculous! In fact, the Bible tells us that the news of her pregnancy was so shocking to the young man to whom she was engaged to be married, Joseph, that when he learned about it he promptly decided to break off the engagement and call off the wedding.—Until the angel of the Lord appeared to him also, and instructed him to stay with her and rear and protect the very special child that she was carrying.

A full 800 years before Jesus was born, the prophet Micah foretold the exact village where the Messiah would be born:

“You, Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah, yet out of you shall He come forth unto Me who is to be ruler over Israel; whose goings forth have been of old, from days of eternity.”5

Although His earthly parents lived in the town of Nazareth, 100 miles to the north of Bethlehem, a decree from Rome demanded that all families return to their ancestral homes to register for a worldwide census. The decree came just as Mary’s child was due to be born. Thus God used a Roman emperor, Caesar Augustus, to help bring about the fulfillment of Micah’s prophecy. Joseph and Mary journeyed to Bethlehem, and upon their arrival, Mary went into labor, and as the Gospels inform us, “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,”6 just as the prophet Micah predicted.

Another outstanding prophecy regarding the circumstances surrounding the Messiah’s death was made by Israel’s King David around the year 1000 B.C., or over 10 centuries before Jesus was born. In his prophecy, David gave details of a cruel and agonizing death which he himself never suffered:

“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it has melted within me ... Like a pack of dogs, they have surrounded me; a company of evildoers has encircled me. They have pierced my hands and my feet. They divide my clothing among them and cast lots for my garment.”7

1 NIV.
2 NIV.
3 Isaiah 7:14.
4 Luke 1:26–35.
5 Micah 5:2.
6 Matthew 2:1.
7 Psalm 22:14–18.




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