T 13 Reasons Why Quotes

I could picture life—school and everything else—continuing on without me. But I could not picture my funeral. Not at all. Mostly because I couldn’t imagine who would attend or what they would say.

Why Paris? Paris needs no reason. Paris is its own reason.

No one know for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue.

And then we turn 18 and even though we never had an original thought we have to make the most important decission of our lives.

You've heard of the butterfly effect, right? That if a butterfly flaps its wings at just the right time in just the right place. It can cause a hurricane thousands of miles away. It's chaos theory, but see, chaos theory isn't exactly about chaos. It's about how a tiny change in a big system can affect everything.

Hey, it's Hannah. Hannah Baker.

Quand une chanson vous fait pleurer, mais que vous n'avez plus envie de pleurer, vous cessez de l'écouter. Mais échapper à soi-même, c'est impossible. On ne peut pas décider de ne plus se voir. De couper le son à l'intérieur de sa tête.

If you look at it the other way round, that's the only reason why this world is inside of me. Maybe it's a paradox, like an image reflected to infinity in a pair of facing mirrors. I am a part of this world, and this world is a part of me.

[Jesus] stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality. Since the whole world was created through him and unto him (John 1:3; 1st Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2), he is the sole Mediator in the world... The call of Jesus teaches us that our relation to the world has been built on an illusion. All the time we thought we had enjoyed a direct relation with men and things. This is what had hindered us from faith and obedience. Now we learn that in the most intimate relationships of life, in our kinship with father and mother, bothers and sisters, in married love, and in our duty to the community, direct relationships are impossible. Since the coming of Christ, his followers have no more immediate realities of their own, not in their family relationships nor in the ties with their nation nor in the relationships formed in the process of living. Between father and son, husband and wife, the individual and the nation, stands Christ the Mediator, whether they are able to recognize him or not. We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through him, through his word, and through our following of him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves. But since we are bound to abhor any deception which hides the truth from our sight, we must of necessity repudiate any direct relationship with the things of this world--and that for the sake of Christ. Wherever a group, be it large or small, prevents us from standing alone before Christ, wherever such a group raises a claim of immediacy it must be hated for the sake of Christ. For every immediacy, whether we realize it or not, means hatred of Christ, and this is especially true where such relationships claim the sanctions of Christian principles.,, There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology, however frank and open our behavior, we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through him. That is why intercession is the most promising way to reach our neighbors, and corporate prayer, offered in the name of Christ, the purest form of fellowship.

when she was 7, a boy pushed her on the playground she fell headfirst into the dirt and came up with a mouthful of gravel and lines of blood chasing each other down her legs when she told her teacher what happened, she laughed and said ‘boys will be boys honey don’t let it bother you he probably just thinks you’re cute’ but the thing is, when you tell a little girl who has rocks in her teeth and scabs on her knees that hurt and attention are the same you teach her that boys show their affection through aggression and she grows into a young woman who constantly mistakes the two because no one ever taught her the difference ‘boys will be boys’ turns into ‘that’s how he shows his love’ and bruises start to feel like the imprint of lips she goes to school with a busted mouth in high school and says she was hit with a basketball instead of his fist the one adult she tells scolds her ‘you know he loses his temper easily why the hell did you have to provoke him?’ so she shrinks folds into herself, flinches every time a man raises his voice by the time she’s 16 she’s learned her job well be quiet, be soft, be easy don’t give him a reason but for all her efforts, he still finds one ‘boys will be boys’ rings in her head ‘boys will be boys he doesn’t mean it he can’t help it’ she’s 7 years old on the playground again with a mouth full of rocks and blood that tastes like copper love because boys will be boys baby don’t you know that’s just how he shows he cares she’s 18 now and they’re drunk in the split second it takes for her words to enter his ears they’re ruined like a glass heirloom being dropped between the hands of generations she meant them to open his arms but they curl his fists and suddenly his hands are on her and her head hits the wall and all of the goddamn words in the world couldn’t save them in this moment she touches the bruise the next day boys will be boys aggression, affection, violence, love how does she separate them when she learned so early that they’re inextricably bound, tangled in a constant tug-of-war she draws tally marks on her walls ratios of kisses to bruises one entire side of her bedroom turns purple, one entire side of her body boys will be boys will be boys will be boys when she’s 20, a boy touches her hips and she jumps he asks her who the hell taught her to be scared like that and she wants to laugh doesn’t he know that boys will be boys? it took her 13 years to unlearn that lesson from the playground so I guess what I’m trying to say is i will talk until my voice is hoarse so that my little sister understands that aggression and affection are two entirely separate things baby they exist in different universes my niece can’t even speak yet but I think I’ll start with her now don’t ever accept the excuse that boys will be boys don’t ever let him put his hands on you like that if you see hate blazing in his eyes don’t you ever confuse it with love baby love won’t hurt when it comes you won’t have to hide it under long sleeves during the summer and the only reason he should ever reach out his hand is to hold yours

Why Do People become Shadowhunters, by Magnus Bane This Codex thing is very silly. Downworlders talk about the Codex like it is some great secret full of esoteric knowledge, but really itès a Boy Scout manual. One thing that it mysteriously doesnèt address is why people become Shadowhunters. And you should know that people become Shadowhunters for many stupid reasons. So here is an addition to your copy. Greetings, aspiring young Shadowhunter-to-be- or possibly already technically a Shadowhunter. I canèt remember whether you drink from the Cup first or get the book first. Regardless, you have just been recruited by the Monster Police. You may be wondering, why? Why of all the mundanes out there was I selected and invited to this exclusive club made up largely, at least from a historical perspective, of murderous psychopaths? Possible Reasons Why 1. You possess a stout heart, strong will, and able body. 2. You possess a stout body, able will, and strong heart. 3. Local Shadowhunters are ironically punishing you by making you join them. 4. You were recruited by a local institute to join the Nephilim as an ironic punishment for your mistreatment of Downworlders. 5. Your home , village, or nation is under siege by demons. 6. You home, village, or nation is under siege by rogue Downworlders. 7. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. 8.You know too much, and should be recruited because the secrecy of the Shadow World has already been compromised for you. 9. You know too little; it would be helpful to the Shadowhunters if you knew more. 10. You know exactly the right amount, making you a natural recruit. 11. You possess a natural resistance to glamour magic and must be recruited to keep you quiet and provide you with some basic protection. 12. You have a compound last name already and have convinced someone important that yours is a Shadowhunter family and the Shadowhunteriness has just been weakened by generations of bad breeding. 13. You had a torrid affair with a member of the Nephilim council and now he's trying to cover his tracks. 14. Shadowhunters are concerned they are no longer haughty and condescending enough-have sought you out to add a much needed boost of haughty condescension. 15. You have been bitten by a radioactive Shadowhunter, giving you the proportional strength and speed of a Shadowhunter. 16. Large bearded man on flying motorcycle appeared to take you away to Shadowhunting school. 17. Your mom has been in hiding from your evil dad, and you found out you're a Shadowhunter only a few weeks ago. That's right. Seventeen reasons. Because that's how many I came up with. Now run off, little Shadowhunter, and learn how to murder things. And be nice to Downworlders.

Il nous arrive d'avoir des pensées que nous ne comprenons pas nous-même. Des pensées qui n'ont rien de véridique - qui ne représentent pas vraiment ce qu'on ressent - mais qui nous traversent quand même l'esprit parce qu'elle valent le coup d'être étudiées.

wE'rE aLL DePrEsSeD aNd sUiCiDaL, wE'rE jUsT aLL iNdENiAL

Because you are neither an angel nor a god. I am quite aware that your actions have been prompted by your pure feelings, and I understand perfectly well that, for that very reason, you do not wish to receive money for what you have done. But pure unadultered feelings are dangerous in their own way. It is no easy feat for a flesh-and-blood human being to go on living with such feelings. That is why it is necessary for you to fasten your feelings to the earth – firmly, like attaching an anchor to a balloon. The money is for that. To prevent you from feeling that you can do anything you want as long as it’s the right thing and your feelings are pure.

We almost bumped into each other. But your eyes were down so you didn't know it was me. And together we said it. "I'm sorry." Then you looked up. You saw me. And there, in your eyes, what was it? Sadness? Pain? You moved around and tried pushing your hair away from your face. Your fingernails were painted dark blue. I watched you walk down the long stretch of hallway. I stood there and watched you disappear. Forever.

That might be good news for rationalists—maybe we can think carefully whenever we believe it matters? Not quite. Tetlock found two very different kinds of careful reasoning. Exploratory thought is an “evenhanded consideration of alternative points of view.” Confirmatory thought is “a one-sided attempt to rationalize a particular point of view.”13 Accountability increases exploratory thought only when three conditions apply: (1) decision makers learn before forming any opinion that they will be accountable to an audience, (2) the audience’s views are unknown, and (3) they believe the audience is well informed and interested in accuracy.

Prime numbers are divisible only by 1 and by themselves. They hold their place in the infinite series of natural numbers, squashed, like all numbers, between two others, but one step further than the rest. They are suspicious, solitary numbers, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought that they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they'd been trapped, like pearls strung on a necklace. Other times he suspected that they too would have preferred to be like all the others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they couldn't do it. This second thought struck him mostly at night, in the chaotic interweaving of images that comes before sleep, when the mind is too weak to tell itself lies. In his first year at university, Mattia had learned that, among prime numbers, there are some that are even more special. Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you're about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly. There is a common conviction among mathematicians that however far you go, there will always be another two, even if no one can say where exactly, until they are discovered.

Something funny, shocking, or hurtful might happen and I'd think, This is going to make one fascinating poem

don't just see me with your eyes take away this mask of flesh and bone and see me for my soul alone

But school hadn't been a safe haven of mine for a long time.

I don't know what's going on, and I don't know how I can help, but something's clearly gone wrong in your life, so I want you to keep your money.

I need to wake up somehow. Or maybe not. Maybe it's best to get through the day half-asleep. Maybe that's the only way to get through today.

The closer i get to sour, the closer I come to collapsing.

Do not take me for granted...again.

No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the livers of other people.

You can't go back to how things were. How you thought they were. All you really have...is now.

When you mess with one part of a person's life, you're messing with their entire life. Everything . . . affects everything.

I cost a girl her life because I was afraid to love her.

13. Have you reason? ‘I have.’ Then why not use it? If reason does its part, what more would you ask?

And at some point, the struggle becomes too much - too tiring - and you consider letting go. Allowing tragedy . . . or whatever . . . to happen.

You can't stop the future, you can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret is to press play.

It seemed like you could know me. Like you could understand anything I told you. And the more we spoke, I knew why. The same things excited us. The same things concerned us.

He stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality. Since the whole world was created through him and unto him (John 1.3; I Cor. 8.6; Heb. 1.2), he is the sole Mediator in the world. Since his coming man has no immediate relationship of his own any more to anything, neither to God nor to the world; Christ wants to be the mediator. Of course, there are plenty of gods who offer men direct access, and the world naturally uses every means in its power to retain its direct hold on men, but that is the very reason why it is so bitterly opposed to Christ, the Mediator.

Tôi không biết cô ấy cảm thấy thế nào về mình. Không biết cô ấy thực sự là ai. Thay vào đó, tôi lại tin những gì người khác nói về cô ấy. Và tôi đã sợ những gì họ có thể nói về tôi nếu họ biết tôi thích cô ấy.

It was wonderful, both of us lying on the bed. One of his hands resting on my hip. His other arm cradling my head like a pillow. Both of my arms hugging him, trying to pull him closer. And speaking for myself, I wanted more. -pg 215

When you reach the end of these tapes, Justin, I hope you'll understand your role in all of this. Because it may seem like a small role now, but it matters. In the end, everything matters. Betrayal, It's one of the worst feelings. -pg 13

At the front of the room, facing the students, will be the desk of Mr. porter. He'll be the last to receive a package with no return address. And in the middle of the room, one desk to the left, will be the desk of Hannah Baker. Empty. -pg 4

The war was an insanity he had never understood, and no one in Phoenix had been able to explain it to him. At least, no one had been able to give him a reason why people who had excellent reasons to suppose they would destroy themselves if they did a certain thing chose to do that thing anyway. He thought he understood anger, hatred, humiliation, even the desire to kill a man. He had felt all those things. But to kill everyone … almost to kill the Earth … There were times when he wondered if somehow the Oankali had not caused the war for their own purposes. How could sane people like the ones he had left behind in Phoenix do such a thing—or, how could they let insane people gain control of devices that could do so much harm? If you knew a man was out of his mind, you restrained him. You didn’t give him power.

And as I write this, Romans 13:1 recently made the rounds on the American political scene to shield the administration from criticism for separating illegal immigrants from their children at the border—which is just one of many reasons why politicians should not be allowed near a Bible without adult supervision.

Things I've Learned in 18 Years of Life   1) True love is not something found, rather [sic] something encountered. You can’t go out and look for it. The person you marry and the person you love could easily be two different people. So have a beautiful life while waiting for God to bring along your once-in-a-lifetime love. Don't allow yourself to settle for anything less than them. Stop worrying about who you're going to marry because God's already on the front porch watching your grandchildren play.   2) God WILL give you more than you can handle, so you can learn to lean on him in times of need. He won't tempt you more than you can handle, though. So don't lose hope. Hope anchors the soul.   3) Remember who you are and where you came from. Remember that you are not from this earth. You are a child of heaven, you're invaluable, you are beautiful. Carry yourself that way.   4) Don't put your faith in humanity, humanity is inherently flawed. We are all imperfect people created and loved by a perfect God. Perfect. So put your faith in Him.   5) I fail daily, and that is why I succeed.   6) Time passes, and nothing and everything changes. Don't live life half asleep. Don't drag your soul through the days. Feel everything you do. Be there physically and mentally. Do things that make you feel this way as well.   7) Live for beauty. We all need beauty, get it where you can find it. Clothing, paintings, sculptures, music, tattoos, nature, literature, makeup. It's all art and it's what makes us human. Same as feeling the things we do. Stay human.   8) If someone makes you think, keep them. If someone makes you feel, keep them.   9) There is nothing the human brain cannot do. You can change anything about yourself that you want to. Fight for it. It's all a mental game.   10) God didn’t break our chains for us to be bound again. Alcohol, drugs, depression, addiction, toxic relationships, monotony and repetition, they bind us. Break those chains. Destroy your past and give yourself new life like God has given you.   11) This is your life. Your struggle, your happiness, your sorrow, and your success. You do not need to justify yourself to anyone. You owe no one an explanation for the choices that you make and the position you are in. In the same vein, respect yourself by not comparing your journey to anyone else's.   12) There is no wrong way to feel.   13) Knowledge is everywhere, keep your eyes open. Look at how diverse and wonderful this world is. Are you going to miss out on beautiful people, places, experiences, and ideas because you are close-minded? I sure hope not.   14) Selfless actions always benefit you more than the recipient.   15) There is really no room for regret in this life. Everything happens for a reason. If you can't find that reason, accept there is one and move on.   16) There is room, however, for guilt. Resolve everything when it first comes up. That's not only having integrity, but also taking care of your emotional well-being.   17) If the question is ‘Am I strong enough for this?’ The answer is always, ‘Yes, but not on your own.’   18) Mental health and sanity above all.   19) We love because He first loved us. The capacity to love is the ultimate gift, the ultimate passion, euphoria, and satisfaction. We have all of that because He first loved us. If you think about it in those terms, it is easy to love Him. Just by thinking of how much He loves us.   20) From destruction comes creation. Beauty will rise from the ashes.   21) Many things can cause depression. Such as knowing you aren't becoming the person you have the potential to become. Choose happiness and change. The sooner the better, and the easier.   22) Half of happiness is as simple as eating right and exercising. You are one big chemical reaction. So are your emotions. Give your body the right reactants to work with and you'll be satisfied with the products.

For example, the second battle of Fallujah, during the Iraq War, included 13,500 American, Iraqi, and British troops, opposed by somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 insurgents, for a total of roughly 17,500 combatants. But the battle didn’t take the form of a single large combat action: rather, it was fought over forty-seven days between November 7 and December 23, 2004, across the entire city of Fallujah and its periurban districts, and was made up of hundreds of small and medium-sized firefights distributed over a wide area, each involving a relatively small number of fighters on each side.107 This disaggregating effect of urban environments is a key reason why even state-on-state conflict in the future will exhibit many irregular characteristics

Everything happens for a reason, that’s why it’s said that every delay is a blessing. Hard times will come, don’t ever allow it to weigh you down or stop you from serving God continuously. Sometimes, God only wants to see how much you believe in him as you claim. There’s no repose, no delay or unforeseen circumstances that befall a man without the knowledge of God. Keep up the faith and rejoice!” I Corinthians 10:13 -Shenita Etwaroo

So we walked into the living room, where one side of the couch was occupied. By Jessica Davis and Justin Foley. But there was plenty of room on the other end, so we sat down. And what was the first thing we did? We set down our cups and started talking. Just... like... that. She had to know it was them. Jessica and Justin. But she didn't say their names. The first boy she kissed kissing the girl who slapped her at Monet's. It was like she couldn't escape her past. -pg 209/210

You are neither an angel nor a god. I am quite aware that your actions have been prompted by your pure feelings, and I understand perfectly well that, for that very reason, you do not wish to receive money for what you have done. But pure, unadulterated feelings are dangerous in their own way. It is no easy feat for a flesh-and-blood human being to go on living with such feelings. That is why it is necessary for you to fasten your feelings to the earth - firmly, like attaching an anchor to a balloon. The money is for that. To prevent you from feeling that you can do anything you want as long as it's the right thing and your feelings are pure.

Because you are neither an angel nor a god. I am quite aware that your actions have been prompted by your pure feelings, and I understand perfectly well that, for that very reason, you do not wish to receive money for what you have done. But pure, unadulterated feelings are dangerous in their own way. It is no easy feat for a flesh-and-blood human being to go on living with such feelings. That is why it is necessary for you to fasten your feelings to the earth—firmly, like attaching an anchor to a balloon. The money is for that. To prevent you from feeling that you can do anything you want as long as it’s the right thing and your feelings are pure. Do you see now?

13. If the goal is to build up one's sexual energy, what's the harm of sleeping with a lot of different women (or men) to increase your ching chi? Chia: The goal is not to build up one's sexual energy—it is to transform raw sexual energy into a refined subtle energy. Sex is only one means of doing that. Promiscuity can easily lower your energy if you choose partners with moral or physical weakness. If you lie with degenerates, it may hurt you, in that you can temporarily acquire your partner's vileness. By exchanging subtle energy, you actually absorb the other's substance. You become the other person and assume new karmic burdens. This is why old couples resemble each other so closely: they have exchanged so much energy that they are made of the same life-stuff. This practice accelerates this union, but elevates it to a higher level of spiritual experience. So the best advice I can give is to never compromise your integrity of body, mind and spirit. In choosing a lover you are choosing your destiny, so make sure you love the woman with whom you have sex. Then you will be in harmony with what flows from the exchange and your actions will be proper. If you think you can love two women at once, be ready to spend double the chi to transform and balance their energy. I doubt if many men can really do that and feel deep serenity. For the sake of simplicity, limit yourself to one woman at a time. It takes a lot of time and energy to cultivate the subtle energies to a deep level. It is impossible to define love precisely. You have to consult your inner voice. But cultivating your chi energy sensitizes you to your conscience. What was a distant whisper before may become a very loud voice. For your own sake, do not abandon your integrity for the sake of physical pleasure or the pretense that you are doing deep spiritual exercises. If you sleep with one whom you don't love, your subtle energies will not be in balance and psychic warfare can begin. This will take its toll no matter how far apart you are physically until you sever or heal the psychic connection. It's better to be honest in the beginning. For the same reason make love only when you feel true tenderness within yourself. Your power to love will thus grow stronger. Selfish or manipulative use of sex even with someone with whom you are in love can cause great disharmony. If you feel unable to use your sexual power lovingly, then do not use it at all! Sex is a gleaming, sharp, two-edged sword, a healing tool that can quickly become a weapon. If used for base purposes, it cuts you mercilessly. If you haven't found a partner with whom you can be truly gentle, then simply touch no one. Go back to building your internal energy and when it gets high you will either attract a quality lover or learn a deeper level within yourself.

Apokatastasis, as is clear from some passages cited and many others, depends on illumination and instruction, which goes hand in hand with correction. This is fully consistent with Origen's ethical intellectualism, a Platonic-Socratic and Stoic heritage that is found in other Fathers as well, such as Gregory of Nyssa. How one behaves depends on what one knows and how one thinks and regards reality; will depends on the intellect and is not an autonomous force. As a consequence, evil is never chosen qua evil, but because it is mistaken for a good, out of an error of judgment, due to insufficient knowledge and/or obnubilation (e.g., Hom. 1 in Ps. 37.4; Hom. in Ez. 9.1). Hence the importance of instruction. If one's intellect is illuminated, and achieves the knowledge of the Good, one will certainly adhere to the Good. Apokatastasis itself, as the end of Book 2 of Περὶ ἀρχῶν, is described as an illumination and a direct vision of the truth, as opposed to the mere 'shadows' that the logika knew beforehand (Origen is reminiscent not only of Plato's Cave myth, but also of 1 Tim 2:4-6, that God wants all humans to reach the knowledge of the truth, and of 1 Cor 13:12 on eventually knowing God 'face to face'). Only with full knowledge is choice really free, and a choice done with full knowledge is a choice for the Good. A choice for evil is not really free: it results from obnubilation, ignorance, and passion. This is why Origen was convinced that divine providence will bring all logika to salvation by means of education and rational persuasion, instruction and illumination – or fear of punishments, but only initially, when reason is not yet developed, and not by means of compulsion, since the adhesion to the Good must be free, and to be free it must rest on a purified intellectual sight. This is why for Origen divine providence will lead all to salvation, but respecting each one's free will; each logikon will freely adhere to God, and to do so each will need its own times, according to its choices and development, so that both divine justice first and then divine grace are saved. (pp. 178-179)

With time, the ‘wheat bargain’ became more and more burdensome. Children died in droves, and adults ate bread by the sweat of their brows. The average person in Jericho of 8500 BC lived a harder life than the average person in Jericho of 9500 BC or 13,000 BC. But nobody realised what was happening. Every generation continued to live like the previous generation, making only small improvements here and there in the way things were done. Paradoxically, a series of ‘improvements’, each of which was meant to make life easier, added up to a millstone around the necks of these farmers. Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? For the same reason that people throughout history have miscalculated. People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions. Whenever they decided to do a bit of extra work – say, to hoe the fields instead of scattering seeds on the surface – people thought, ‘Yes, we will have to work harder. But the harvest will be so bountiful! We won’t have to worry any more about lean years. Our children will never go to sleep hungry.’ It made sense. If you worked harder, you would have a better life. That was the plan. The first part of the plan went smoothly. People indeed worked harder. But people did not foresee that the number of children would increase, meaning that the extra wheat would have to be shared between more children. Neither did the early farmers understand that feeding children with more porridge and less breast milk would weaken their immune system, and that permanent settlements would be hotbeds for infectious diseases. They did not foresee that by increasing their dependence on a single source of food, they were actually exposing themselves even more to the depredations of drought. Nor did the farmers foresee that in good years their bulging granaries would tempt thieves and enemies, compelling them to start building walls and doing guard duty.

JANUARY 13 SUGGESTED READING: GALATIANS 1:15–24 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood (Gal. 1:16). When God told Paul to do something for Him, the apostle did not consult with “flesh and blood.” In other words, he did not ask for a human opinion about God’s will for him. Do you? Some people have told us, “Well, I was ready to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit; but not now.” Why? Because they went to their minister and asked his opinion, even though he is not filled with the Spirit. There is no way he can give guidance in an area he doesn’t know anything about. Speak with God. Wait for Him. Take His way. Confer not with “flesh and blood.” There are some dear people on a foreign field who have no business being there. They should be at home. The reason they went to the mission field is because they listened to the passionate appeal of human pleas. God did not send them. They consulted with “flesh and blood.” Listen to God, not to the selfish voice of “flesh and blood.” PRAYER THOUGHT: Forgive me, Lord, for my tendency to let human voices crowd out the still, small voice of the Spirit of God.

We are all already dying, and we will be dead for a long time. 5. Nothing lasts. 6. There is no way of getting all you want. 7. You can’t have anything unless you let go of it. 8. You only get to keep what you give away. 9. There is no particular reason why you lost out on some things. 10. The world is not necessarily just. Being good often does not pay off and there is no compensation for misfortune. 11. You have a responsibility to do your best nonetheless. 12. It is a random universe to which we bring meaning. 13. You don’t really control anything. 14. You can’t make anyone love you. 15. No one is any stronger or any weaker than anyone else. 16. Everyone is, in his own way, vulnerable. 17. There are no great men. 18. If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way. 19. Everyone lies, cheats, pretends (yes, you too, and most certainly I myself). 20. All evil is potential vitality in need of transformation. 21. All of you is worth something, if you will only own it. 22. Progress is an illusion. 23. Evil can be displaced but never eradicated, as all solutions breed new problems. 24. Yet it is necessary to keep on struggling toward solution. 25. Childhood is a nightmare.

For Jesus’ first followers, then, his death and resurrection were now the single, ultimate ‘sign’. Prophets like Amos had been forerunners. God has now spoken through the Son, once and for all. For us to try to read God’s secret code off the pages of the newspapers may look clever. We may even get a reputation for spiritual insight – but actually, we are doing it because we have forgotten where the true key to understanding is now to be found. Similarly, any claim to tell from world events when the ‘second coming’ will occur is a claim to know more than Jesus himself (Mark 13.32). Jesus himself is the reason why people should turn from idolatry, injustice and all wickedness. The cross is where all the world’s sufferings and horrors have been heaped up and dealt with. The resurrection is the launch of God’s new creation, of his sovereign saving rule on earth – starting with the physical body of Jesus himself. Those events are now the summons to repent and the clue to what God is doing in the world. Trying to jump from an earthquake, a tsunami, a pandemic or anything else to a conclusion about ‘what God is saying here’ without going through the Gospel story is to make the basic theological mistake of trying to deduce something about God while going behind Jesus’ back.

How to live (forty pieces of advice I feel to be helpful but which I don’t always follow) 1. Appreciate happiness when it is there 2. Sip, don’t gulp. 3. Be gentle with yourself. Work less. Sleep more. 4. There is absolutely nothing in the past that you can change. That’s basic physics. 5. Beware of Tuesdays. And Octobers. 6. Kurt Vonnegut was right. “Reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found.” 7. Listen more than you talk. 8. Don’t feel guilty about being idle. More harm is probably done to the world through work than idleness. But perfect your idleness. Make it mindful. 9. Be aware that you are breathing. 10. Wherever you are, at any moment, try to find something beautiful. A face, a line out of a poem, the clouds out of a window, some graffiti, a wind farm. Beauty cleans the mind. 11. Hate is a pointless emotion to have inside you. It is like eating a scorpion to punish it for stinging you. 12. Go for a run. Then do some yoga. 13. Shower before noon. 14. Look at the sky. Remind yourself of the cosmos. Seek vastness at every opportunity, in order to see the smallness of yourself. 15. Be kind. 16. Understand that thoughts are thoughts. If they are unreasonable, reason with them, even if you have no reason left. You are the observer of your mind, not its victim. 17. Do not watch TV aimlessly. Do not go on social media aimlessly. Always be aware of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Don’t value TV less. Value it more. Then you will watch it less. Unchecked distractions will lead you to distraction. 18. Sit down. Lie down. Be still. Do nothing. Observe. Listen to your mind. Let it do what it does without judging it. Let it go, like Snow Queen in Frozen. 19. Don’t’ worry about things that probably won’t happen. 20. Look at trees. Be near trees. Plant trees. (Trees are great.) 21. Listen to that yoga instructor on YouTube, and “walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet”. 22. Live. Love. Let go. The three Ls. 23. Alcohol maths. Wine multiplies itself by itself. The more you have, the more you are likely to have. And if it is hard to stop at one glass, it will be impossible at three. Addition is multiplication. 24. Beware of the gap. The gap between where you are and where you want to be. Simply thinking of the gap widens it. And you end up falling through. 25. Read a book without thinking about finishing it. Just read it. Enjoy every word, sentence, and paragraph. Don’t wish for it to end, or for it to never end. 26. No drug in the universe will make you feel better, at the deepest level, than being kind to other people. 27. Listen to what Hamlet – literature’s most famous depressive – told Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 28. If someone loves you, let them. Believe in that love. Live for them, even when you feel there is no point. 29. You don’t need the world to understand you. It’s fine. Some people will never really understand things they haven’t experienced. Some will. Be grateful. 30. Jules Verne wrote of the “Living Infinite”. This is the world of love and emotion that is like a “sea”. If we can submerge ourselves in it, we find infinity in ourselves, and the space we need to survive. 31. Three in the morning is never the time to try and sort out your life. 32. Remember that there is nothing weird about you. You are just a human, and everything you do and feel is a natural thing, because we are natural animals. You are nature. You are a hominid ape. You are in the world and the world is in you. Everything connects. 33. Don’t believe in good or bad, or winning and losing, or victory and defeat, or ups and down. At your lowest and your highest, whether you are happy or despairing or calm or angry, there is a kernel of you that stays the same. That is the you that matters.

Nowadays, enormous importance is given to individual deaths, people make such a drama out of each person who dies, especially if they die a violent death or are murdered; although the subsequent grief or curse doesn't last very long: no one wears mourning any more and there's a reason for that, we're quick to weep but quicker still to forget. I'm talking about our countries, of course, it's not like that in other parts of the world, but what else can they do in a place where death is an everyday occurrence. Here, though, it's a big deal, at least at the moment it happens. So-and-so has died, how dreadful; such-and-such a number of people have been killed in a crash or blown to pieces, how terrible, how vile. The politicians have to rush around attending funerals and burials, taking care not to miss any-intense grief, or is it pride, requires them as ornaments, because they give no consolation nor can they, it's all to do with show, fuss, vanity and rank. The rank of the self-important, super-sensitive living. And yet, when you think about it, what right do we have, what is the point of complaining and making a tragedy out of something that happens to every living creature in order for it to become a dead creature? What is so terrible about something so supremely natural and ordinary? It happens in the best families, as you know, and has for centuries, and in the worst too, of course, at far more frequent intervals. What's more, it happens all the time and we know that perfectly well, even though we pretend to be surprised and frightened: count the dead who are mentioned on any TV news report, read the birth and death announcements in any newspaper, in a single city, Madrid, London, each list is a long one every day of the year; look at the obituaries, and although you'll find far fewer of them, because an infinitesimal minority are deemed to merit one, they're nevertheless there every morning. How many people die every weekend on the roads and how many have died in the innumerable battles that have been waged? The losses haven't always been published throughout history, in fact, almost never. People were more familiar with and more accepting of death, they accepted chance and luck, be it good or bad, they knew they were vulnerable to it at every moment; people came into the world and sometimes disappeared at once, that was normal, the infant mortality rate was extraordinarily high until eighty or even seventy years ago, as was death in childbirth, a woman might bid farewell to her child as soon as she saw its face, always assuming she had the will or the time to do so. Plagues were common and almost any illness could kill, illnesses we know nothing about now and whose names are unfamiliar; there were famines, endless wars, real wars that involved daily fighting, not sporadic engagements like now, and the generals didn't care about the losses, soldiers fell and that was that, they were only individuals to themselves, not even to their families, no family was spared the premature death of at least some of its members, that was the norm; those in power would look grim-faced, then carry out another levy, recruit more troops and send them to the front to continue dying in battle, and almost no one complained. People expected death, Jack, there wasn't so much panic about it, it was neither an insuperable calamity nor a terrible injustice; it was something that could happen and often did. We've become very soft, very thin-skinned, we think we should last forever. We ought to be accustomed to the temporary nature of things, but we're not. We insist on not being temporary, which is why it's so easy to frighten us, as you've seen, all one has to do is unsheathe a sword. And we're bound to be cowed when confronted by those who still see death, their own or other people's, as part and parcel of their job, as all in a day's work. When confronted by terrorists, for example, or by drug barons or multinational mafia men.

There’s an additional depressing reason why stress fosters aggression—because it reduces stress. Shock a rat and its glucocorticoid levels and blood pressure rise; with enough shocks, it’s at risk for a “stress” ulcer. Various things can buffer the rat during shocks—running on a running wheel, eating, gnawing on wood in frustration. But a particularly effective buffer is for the rat to bite another rat. Stress-induced (aka frustration-induced) displacement aggression is ubiquitous in various species. Among baboons, for example, nearly half of aggression is this type—a high-ranking male loses a fight and chases a subadult male, who promptly bites a female, who then lunges at an infant. My research shows that within the same dominance rank, the more a baboon tends to displace aggression after losing a fight, the lower his glucocorticoid levels.78 Humans excel at stress-induced displacement aggression—consider how economic downturns increase rates of spousal and child abuse. Or consider a study of family violence and pro football. If the local team unexpectedly loses, spousal/partner violence by men increases 10 percent soon afterward (with no increase when the team won or was expected to lose). And as the stakes get higher, the pattern is exacerbated: a 13 percent increase after upsets when the team was in playoff contention, a 20 percent increase when the upset is by a rival.79

This is nothing less than a whole new approach to economics. The randomistas don’t think in terms of models. They don’t believe humans are rational actors. Instead, they assume we are quixotic creatures, sometimes foolish and sometimes astute, and by turns afraid, altruistic, and self-centered. And this approach appears to yield considerably better results. So why did it take so long to figure this out? Well, several reasons. Doing randomized controlled trials in poverty-stricken countries is difficult, time consuming, and expensive. Often, local organizations are less than eager to cooperate, not least because they’re worried the findings will prove them ineffective. Take the case of microcredit. Development aid trends come and go, from “good governance” to “education” to the ill-fated “microcredit” at the start of this century. Microcredit’s reckoning came in the form of our old friend Esther Duflo, who set up a fatal RCT in Hyderabad, India, and demonstrated that, all the heartwarming anecdotes notwithstanding, there is no hard evidence that microcredit is effective at combating poverty and illness.13 Handing out cash works way better. As it happens, cash handouts may be the most extensively studied anti-poverty method around. RCTs across the globe have shown that over both the long and short term and on both a large and small scale, cash transfers are an extremely successful and efficient tool.14

In 1984, Science published a study of almost 15,000 Danish adoptees age fifteen or older, their adoptive parents, and their birth parents. Thanks to Denmark’s careful record keeping, the researchers knew whether any of the people in their study had criminal convictions. Since few female adoptees had legal problems, the study focused on males—with striking results. As long as the adoptee’s biological parents were law abiding, their adoptive parents made little difference: 13.5 percent of adoptees with law-abiding biological and adoptive parents got convicted of something, versus 14.7 percent with law-abiding biological parents and criminal adoptive parents. If the adoptee’s biological parents were criminal, however, upbringing mattered: 20 percent of adoptees with law-breaking biological and law-abiding adoptive parents got convicted, versus 24.5 percent with law-breaking biological and adoptive parents. Criminal environments do bring out criminal tendencies. Still, as long as the biological parents were law abiding, family environment made little difference. In 2002, a study of antisocial behavior in almost 7,000 Virginian twins born since 1918 found a small nurture effect for adult males and no nurture effect for adult females. The same year, a major review of fifty-one twin and adoption studies reported small nurture effects for antisocial attitudes and behavior. For outright criminality, however, heredity was the sole cause of family resemblance.

Researchers interviewed nearly 150 thousand people in 26 countries to determine the prevalence of generalized anxiety disorder to find, had excessive and uncontrollable worry adversely affected their life. They found that richer countries had higher rates of anxiety than poor ones. The authors wrote, "The disorder is significantly more prevalent and impairing in high income countries than in low or middle income countries." The number of new cases of depression world-wide increased 50% between 1990 and 2017. The highest increases in new cases were seen in countries with the highest sociodemographic index income, especially North America. Physical pain too is increasing. Over the course of my career, I have seen more patients, including otherwise healthy young people presenting with full-bodied pain despite the absence of any identifiable disease or tissue injury. The numbers and types of unexplained physical pain syndromes have grown. Complex regional pain syndrome, fibromyalgia... [], and so on. When researchers ask the following question to people in 30 countries around the world. "During the past four weeks, how often have you had bodily aches or pains"...[]. They found that Americans reported more pain than any other country. 34% of Americans said they experienced pain often or very often, compared to 19% of people living in China, 18% of people living in Japan, 13% of people living in Switzerland, and 11% of people living in South Africa. The question is, "Why in an unprecedented time of wealth, freedom, technological progress, and medical advancement, do we appear to be unhappier and in more pain than ever?'. The reason we're all so miserable may be because we're working so hard to avoid being miserable.

There is another and stronger reason why the soul travels securely when in darkness. This reason is derived from the consideration of the light itself, or dark wisdom. The dark night of contemplation so absorbs the soul, and brings it so near unto God, that He defends it, and delivers it from all that is not God. For the soul is now, as it were, under medical treatment for the recovery of its health, which is God Himself: God compels it to observe a particular diet, and to abstain from all hurtful things, the very desire for them being subdued. The soul is treated like a sick man respected by his household, who is so carefully tended that the air shall not touch him, nor the light shine upon him, whom the noise of footsteps and the tumult of servants shall not disturb, and to whom the most delicate food is given most cautiously by measure, and that nutritious rather than savory. 12. All these advantages—they all minister to the safekeeping of the soul—are the effects of this dim contemplation, for it brings the soul nearer to God. The truth is, that the nearer the soul comes to Him it perceives that darkness is greater and deeper because of its own weakness; thus the nearer the sun the greater the darkness and distress wrought by its great brightness, because our eyes are weak, imperfect, and defective. Hence it is that the spiritual light of God is so immeasurable, so far above the understanding, that when it comes near to it, it dims and blinds it. 13. This is the reason why David says that God made darkness His hiding-place and covert, His tabernacle around Him, dark water in the clouds of the air.10 The dark water in the clouds of the air is the dim contemplation and divine wisdom in souls, as I am going to explain, of which they have experience as a thing near to the pavilion where He dwells, when God brings them

Reflection A child needs the affirmation of their father. But many times that affirmation is not there. The father may be absent or it may be that their father never told them how proud he was of them. He was quick to criticize, but slow to affirm. When that child grows older, they will continue to search for the blessing of their father. They may become a work-a-holic, believing that through accomplishment they can finally find the fulfillment they are looking for. But they continue to live with a void. In another scenario, it might happen that feelings of unworthiness and self-doubt would be so pervasive that they never pursue God’s calling on their life and settle for less. Maybe you can relate. You desire love, respect, acceptance, or approval. But you don’t feel worthy. You believe you are not accomplished enough. You believe you are not beautiful enough. You believe you are not able enough. You believe you are not __________ (You fill in the blank). But these are lies that come straight out of the pit of hell. You are worthy enough because Jesus died for you. He accomplished everything that needed to be accomplished. He makes you beautiful. His Holy Spirit gives you the ability to accomplish all things (see Philippians 4:13). Before Jesus began his ministry, he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. And when Jesus was baptized, the voice of the Heavenly Father spoke from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 5:17 ESV The ministry of Jesus had yet to begin. He had not yet healed anyone. He had not yet preached any sermons of note. He had not accomplished anything worthy to be recorded in the Scriptures. But still the Father expresses his approval. Why? It was because of the relationship of the Father to the Son. The Father’s love and approval of the Son was not based on accomplishment. He loved the Son for no other reason than the fact that he was his son. You are so important to your Heavenly Father that he sent Jesus for you. The Heavenly Father made you and created you. He gave you your life and your being. He loved you so much that he sent Jesus to die on the cross for you. It is not about anything you have accomplished. You need to know that you are the most beautiful, the most precious, and the most prized part of his creation. Your Heavenly Father is proud of you. More than you realize! You are worthy because you are his precious child, redeemed by the blood of Jesus.

First, to map out the boundaries within which all discussion must go on, I take it for certain that the physical satisfaction of homo-sexual desires is sin. This leaves the homo, no worse off than any normal person who is, for whatever reason, prevented from marrying. Second, our speculations on the cause of the abnormality are not what matters and we must be content with ignorance. The disciples were not told why (in terms of efficient cause) the man was born blind (Jn. IX 1-3): only the final cause, that the works of God shd. be made manifest in him. This suggests that in homosexuality, as in every other tribulation, those works can be made manifest: i.e. that every disability conceals a vocation, if only we can find it, wh. will ‘turn the necessity to glorious gain.’ Of course, the first step must be to accept any privations wh., if so disabled, we can’t lawfully get. The homo, has to accept sexual abstinence just as the poor man has to forego otherwise lawful pleasures because he wd. be unjust to his wife and children if he took them. That is merely a negative condition. What shd. the positive life of the homo, be? I wish I had a letter wh. a pious male homo., now dead, once wrote to me—but of course it was the sort of letter one takes care to destroy. He believed that his necessity could be turned to spiritual gain: that there were certain kinds of sympathy and understanding, a certain social role which mere men and mere women could not give. But it is all horribly vague— too long ago. Perhaps any homo, who humbly accepts his cross and puts himself under Divine guidance will, however, be shown the way. I am sure that any attempt to evade it (e.g. by mock-or quasi-marriage with a member of one’s own sex even if this does not lead to any carnal act) is the wrong way. Jealousy (this another homo, admitted to me) is far more rampant and deadly among them than among us. And I don’t think little concessions like wearing the clothes of the other sex in private is the right line either. It is the duties, the burdens, the characteristic virtues of the other sex, I expect, which the patient must try to cultivate. I have mentioned humility because male homos. (I don’t know about women) are rather apt, the moment they find you don’t treat them with horror and contempt, to rush to the opposite pole and start implying that they are somehow superior to the normal type. I wish I could be more definite. All I have really said is that, like all other tribulations, it must be offered to God and His guidance how to use it must be sought.

1. Divine Writing: The Bible, down to the details of its words, consists of and is identical with God’s very own words written inerrantly in human language. 2. Total Representation: The Bible represents the totality of God’s communication to and will for humanity, both in containing all that God has to say to humans and in being the exclusive mode of God’s true communication.[11] 3. Complete Coverage: The divine will about all of the issues relevant to Christian belief and life are contained in the Bible.[12] 4. Democratic Perspicuity: Any reasonably intelligent person can read the Bible in his or her own language and correctly understand the plain meaning of the text.[13] 5. Commonsense Hermeneutics: The best way to understand biblical texts is by reading them in their explicit, plain, most obvious, literal sense, as the author intended them at face value, which may or may not involve taking into account their literary, cultural, and historical contexts. 6. Solo Scriptura:[14] The significance of any given biblical text can be understood without reliance on creeds, confessions, historical church traditions, or other forms of larger theological hermeneutical frameworks, such that theological formulations can be built up directly out of the Bible from scratch. 7. Internal Harmony: All related passages of the Bible on any given subject fit together almost like puzzle pieces into single, unified, internally consistent bodies of instruction about right and wrong beliefs and behaviors. 8. Universal Applicability: What the biblical authors taught God’s people at any point in history remains universally valid for all Christians at every other time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent scriptural teaching. 9. Inductive Method: All matters of Christian belief and practice can be learned by sitting down with the Bible and piecing together through careful study the clear “biblical” truths that it teaches. The prior nine assumptions and beliefs generate a tenth viewpoint that—although often not stated in explications of biblicist principles and beliefs by its advocates—also commonly characterizes the general biblicist outlook, particularly as it is received and practiced in popular circles: 10. Handbook Model: The Bible teaches doctrine and morals with every affirmation that it makes, so that together those affirmations comprise something like a handbook or textbook for Christian belief and living, a compendium of divine and therefore inerrant teachings on a full array of subjects—including science, economics, health, politics, and romance.[15]

6. In the first place, because the light and wisdom of contemplation is most pure and bright, and because the soul, on which it beats, is in darkness and impure, that soul which is the recipient must greatly suffer. As eyes weakened and clouded by humors suffer pain when the clear light beats upon them, so the soul, by reason of its impurity, suffers exceedingly when the divine light really shines upon it. And when the rays of this pure light strike upon the soul, in order to expel its impurities, the soul perceives itself to be so unclean and miserable that it seems as if God had set Himself against it, and itself were set against God. So grievous and painful is this feeling—for it thinks now that God has abandoned it—that it was one of the heaviest afflictions of Job during his trial. “Why hast Thou set me contrary to Thee, and I become burdensome to myself?”8 The soul seeing distinctly in this bright and pure light, though dimly, its own impurity, acknowledges its own unworthiness before God and all creatures. 7. That which pains it still more is the fear it has that it never will be worthy, and that all its goodness is gone. This is the fruit of that deep impression, made on the mind, in the knowledge and sense of its own wickedness and misery. For now the divine and dim light reveals to it all its wretchedness, and it sees clearly that of itself it can never be other than it is. In this sense we can understand the words of the Psalmist: “For iniquities Thou hast chastised man, and Thou hast made his soul pine away and wither9 as a spider.”10 8. In the second place, the pain of the soul comes from its natural,11 moral, and spiritual weakness; for when this divine contemplation strikes it with a certain vehemence, in order to strengthen it and subdue it, it is then so pained in its weakness as almost to faint away, particularly at times when the divine contemplation strikes it with greater vehemence; for sense and spirit, as if under a heavy and gloomy burden, suffer and groan in agony so great that death itself would be a desired relief. 9. This was the experience of Job, and he says, “I will not that He contend with me with much strength, nor that He oppress me with the weight of His greatness.”12 The soul under the burden of this oppression feels itself so removed out of God’s favor that it thinks—and so it is—that all things which consoled it formerly have utterly failed it, and that no one is left to pity it. Job also speaks to the same purport, “Have mercy upon me, have mercy upon me, at the least you my friends, because the hand of our Lord hath touched me.”13 Wonderful and piteous sight! So great are the weakness and impurity of the soul that the hand of God, so soft and so gentle, is felt to be so heavy and oppressive,14 though neither pressing nor resting on it, but merely touching it, and that, too, most mercifully; for He touches the soul not to chastise it, but to load it with His graces.

But won’t political involvement distract us from the main task of preaching the Gospel? At this point someone may object that while political involvement may have some benefits and may do some good, it can so easily distract us, turn unbelievers away from the church, and cause us to neglect the main task of pointing people toward personal trust in Christ. John MacArthur writes, “When the church takes a stance that emphasizes political activism and social moralizing, it always diverts energy and resources away from evangelization.”83 Yet the proper question is not, “Does political influence take resources away from evangelism?” but, “Is political influence something God has called us to do?” If God has called some of us to some political influence, then those resources would not be blessed if we diverted them to evangelism—or to the choir, or to teaching Sunday School to children, or to any other use. In this matter, as in everything else the church does, it would be healthy for Christians to realize that God may call individual Christians to different emphases in their lives. This is because God has placed in the church “varieties of gifts” (1 Cor. 12:4) and the church is an entity that has “many members” but is still “one body” (v. 12). Therefore God might call someone to devote almost all of his or her time to the choir, someone else to youth work, someone else to evangelism, someone else to preparing refreshments to welcome visitors, and someone else to work with lighting and sound systems. “But if Jim places all his attention on the sound system, won’t that distract the church from the main task of preaching the Gospel?” No, not at all. That is not what God has called Jim to emphasize (though he will certainly share the Gospel with others as he has opportunity). Jim’s exclusive focus on the church’s sound system means he is just being a faithful steward in the responsibility God has given him. In the same way, I think it is entirely possible that God called Billy Graham to emphasize evangelism and say nothing about politics and also called James Dobson to emphasize a radio ministry to families and to influencing the political world for good. Aren’t there enough Christians in the world for us to focus on more than one task? And does God not call us to thousands of different emphases, all in obedience to him? But the whole ministry of the church will include both emphases. And the teaching ministry from the pulpit should do nothing less than proclaim “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). It should teach, over the course of time, on all areas of life and all areas of Bible knowledge. That certainly must include, to some extent, what the Bible says about the purposes of civil government and how that teaching should apply to our situations today. This means that in a healthy church we will find that some people emphasize influencing the government and politics, others emphasize influencing the business world, others emphasize influencing the educational system, others entertainment and the media, others marriage and the family, and so forth. When that happens, it seems to me that we should encourage, not discourage, one another. We should adopt the attitude toward each other that Paul encouraged in the church at Rome: Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God…. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother (Rom. 14:10–13). For several different reasons, then, I think the view that says the church should just “do evangelism, not politics” is incorrect.

Yes, imagine looking like another person. Perhaps that was what we should do more often. Put yourself in their shoes was a familiar piece of advice, but it might be particularised into Imagine looking like her. That brought it home, because that was often the issue with how the world treated people. If you stood out, you were vulnerable. If you were excessively overweight, or very small, or if you walked in an odd way, then people treated you differently from the way they treated those who were none of those things. They might not do that so readily if they could imagine what it was to be you. And although there was no reason why the way you looked should be you, that was the way in which the world tended to see things. The way you looked could be taken as you, whatever was going on inside.

Good. How are you?” I thought it would be rude to skip all the pleasantries. “Great. Your mother and I just got back from the Van Gogh museum.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Haven’t you been to that already?” “Yeah…but your mother loves it.” Dad pulled the phone away then whispered in the background. He was probably talking to my mom. “I’ll be there in a second.” He was back to me. “Any particular reason why you called?” “My computer is

Reality is defined by the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Anyone who denies this is ipso facto an irrationalist. Whatever they say is necessarily irrational, hence can be immediately discounted. The very act of trying to provide reasons why the Principle of Sufficient Reason is wrong is irrational because, in trying to find reasons, you have already acknowledged the supremacy of the PSR. You cannot use reasons to attack reason while denying the worth of reason. Yet it’s astounding how many people try.

Flight authorities across the world had understood the potential of commercial passenger air traffic, but they also realized flying had to become safer before most people would dare to try it. In 1944 they all met in Chicago to agree on common rules and signed a contract with a very important Annex 13: a common form for incident reports, which they agreed to share, so they could all learn from each other’s mistakes. Since then, every crash or incident involving a commercial passenger airplane has been investigated and reported; risk factors have been systematically identified; and improved safety procedures have been adopted, worldwide. Wow! I’d say the Chicago Convention is one of humanity’s most impressive collaborations ever. It’s amazing how well people can work together when they share the same fears.

Then I Shall Understand Fully” St. Paul once compared our knowledge of God in this life to our knowledge of ourselves when we see our reflection in a dirty bronze mirror. At this time in history glass mirrors were just beginning to be invented and were not as popular as polished metal. He said, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Cor. 13:12). Because of sin and our fallen human natures, we only perceive God indirectly; our relationship with him lacks the intimacy and wonder that it will have in heaven.

God is one, and dearly loves oneness and unity among his people.  The reason he gives why he would have the curtains of the tabernacle coupled together, that it might be ‘one’ tabernacle, Ex. 36:13-18.  The fas tening of these curtains so lovingly together for this end, that the tent might be one, signified the knitting and clasping together of the saints in love.

How Is Hope in God Made Visible? Peter talks about the visibility of this hope: “Hallow the Lord Christ in your hearts, ready always to give a reason to everyone who asks you for a word concerning the hope that is in you” (1 Pet. 3:15, AT). Why would people ask about hope? What kind of life are we to live that would make people wonder about our hope? If our security and happiness in the future were manifestly secured the way the world secures its future, no one would ask us about it. There would be no unusual hope to see. What Peter is saying is that the world should see a different hope in the lives of Christians—not a hope in the security of money or the security of power or the security of houses or lands or portfolios, but the security of “the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:13, AT). Therefore, God ordains suffering to help us release our hold on worldly hopes and put our “hope in God” (1 Pet. 1:21). The fiery trials are appointed to consume the earthly dependencies and leave only the refined gold of “genuine faith” (1 Pet. 1:7). “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good” (1 Pet. 4:19). It’s the supremacy of God’s great faithfulness above all other securities that frees us to “rejoice as [we] share in Christ’s sufferings” (1 Pet. 4:13, AT). Therefore, joy in suffering for Christ’s sake makes the supremacy of God shine more clearly than all our gratitude for wealth.

As the 2019 elections were approaching, the Modi government felt the need to appear less pro-rich and more pro-poor again. But the union budget passed in February was somewhat a missed opportunity so far as the peasants were concerned. No loan waivers were announced in their favor, simply an enhanced interest subvention on loans and an annual income support of Rs 6,000 (80 USD)—6 percent of a small farmer’s yearly income—to all farmers’ households owning two hectares or fewer.131 In fact, the union budget was once again more geared to pleasing the middle class. The income tax exemption limit jumped from Rs 200,000 (2,667 USD) to 250,000 (3,333 USD), and the income tax rate up to Rs 5 lakh (6,667 USD) was reduced from 10 to 5 percent. The income tax on an income of Rs 10 lakh (13,333 USD) dropped from Rs 110,210 (1,470 USD) to Rs 75,000 (1,000 USD).132 The poor were doubly affected by the fiscal policy of the Modi government in 2014–2019: not only did the tax cuts in favor of the middle class, the abolition of the wealth tax, and, more importantly, the reduction of the corporate tax rates have to be offset by increased indirect taxes, but the stagnation of fiscal resources did not allow the government of India to spend more on public education and public health—all the more so as Narendra Modi wanted to reduce the fiscal deficit. First of all, tax collection diminished. The exchequer “lost” Rs 1.45 lakh crore (1.933 billion USD) in the reduction of the corporate tax, for instance. That was the main reason why gross direct tax collection dipped 4.92 percent133 in 2019–2020, a fiscal year during which gross tax collections were less than those in 2018–2019. Tax collections had never declined on a year-on-year basis since 1961–1962.134 Second, government expenditures diminished. The central government reduced its spending on education from 0.63 percent of GDP in 2013–2014 to 0.47 percent in 2017–2018. The trend was marginally better on the public health front, where the Center’s spending declined from 0.37 percent of GDP in 2013–2014 to 0.34 percent in 2015–2016, before rising again to reach 0.38 percent in 2016–2017.

Do you ever think I can’t do it anymore? Like, I wanna die? …Like everything's black.

It turns out that if you’re taking a new road, the best experts are often the worst guides. There are at least two reasons why experts struggle to give good directions to beginners. One is the distance they’ve traveled—they’ve come too far to remember what it’s like being in your shoes. It’s called the curse of knowledge:13 the more you know, the harder it is for you to fathom what it’s like to not know. As cognitive scientist Sian Beilock summarizes it, “As you get better and better at what you do, your ability to communicate your understanding or to help others learn that skill often gets worse and worse.

Facebook Marketing Course By taking a Facebook marketing course, you can quickly create a means of income on a huge platform like Facebook. This Facebook marketing course covers a large part of digital marketing. When we talk about social media, we mean Facebook as the biggest online social media platform. Because every month on average 2.96 billion people around the world actively use Facebook and 1.3 billion people use Facebook Messenger. So think about how much of a platform you are getting for free to promote your business. Most of us don't know about Facebook's numerous features and tools, or even if we do, we don't know how to use them. Although it is unbelievable, it is true that if we learn the use of those tools, we can easily increase the sales of our website, Facebook page, or e-commerce site many times. Why learn Facebook Marketing? The interface we usually see on Facebook is only 20% of Facebook. The remaining 80 percent are in various subdomains of Facebook. In our country, no one can use 99 percent of Facebook. It cannot be said that more than 5% of the mangoes are used by the common people. And spammers can use 10 percent. So today I will discuss how to earn from Facebook by using the maximum of Facebook. In 2019, Facebook earned $40 million from Facebook ads alone, after paying content creators, bloggers, publishers, and developers. Which has doubled till now. If the calculation includes the amount Facebook pays to those who create content and make videos on Facebook, the amount would be $1 billion. Have you ever wondered why Facebook gives them so much money? The reason is propaganda. As a result of this campaign, the business expanded. That is not in the words - "propaganda is expansion"! The objective of this Facebook campaign and marketing is to increase sales. The higher the sales, the higher the profit. That's why every company now hires its own social media marketing manager to promote its business and increase sales. A social media marketing manager's salary ranges from around $500 to $3,000. In other words, Facebook has facilitated the way to do business in social media as well as to get a job. How many Types of Facebook Marketing? To know how to use Facebook's features and tools, you need to take a Facebook Marketing Course. Facebook marketing is generally of two types, namely – free Facebook marketing and paid Facebook marketing. In this case, you can do both types of courses. Facebook free and paid marketing is used according to the type of business. Free Facebook Marketing Marketing or advertising on Facebook without spending any money is called Free Facebook Marketing. Let's give an example – “You open a Facebook page for your business, then give it a nice name according to the type of work you do. Then continue to post about your products every day, as well as request your relatives and friends to like your page. Also, ask them to share your page. Give them a little flattery so that they stay by your side and help grow your page by liking-commenting-sharing, etc etc”. But you don't have to spend any money to do them. This is called Free Facebook Marketing. Paid Facebook Marketing On Facebook, those posts that we see under a post (Sponsored) are called paid Facebook marketing. Every company wants everyone to know about their products. So they use paid Facebook marketing in addition to using free Facebook promotion. It is possible to reach very selective customers by using this paid Facebook marketing. For example, "You want your product's customers to be located within the Dhaka Banani area and for both men and women, and you can also give an age limit that people between so and so age will see my ad or post". It is natural that you will not get the benefits that you can enjoy in the case of paid Facebook marketing in the case of free. This is why you need to spend money on paid Facebook marketing.

They had multiple identities, roles, and responsibilities that they needed to navigate with care, because even though they were heirs of the kingdom in the church, in the worldly society there were expectations, demands, and obligations that had to be met and entailed behavior often inconsistent with their true status in Christ. For Paul, there were at least three reasons why these expectations, demands, and obligations needed to be fulfilled. First, it was a primary goal for the church community to live at peace among the people and structures of the Roman Empire in order to thrive (1 Tim. 2:1–3). Second, survival was a goal, and it was important that the community did not flout the laws and core commitments of the Roman officials and local authorities in order to avoid being the victim of their sword (Rom. 13:1–7). Third, the expansion of the gentile mission was a primary goal, and there was no personal sacrifice that Paul was unwilling to make to win more people to Christ: “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22 NRSV). Paul sacrificed social rights, power, and status that belonged to him in the eyes of the Roman Empire, to serve the gospel and follow Christ’s example (Phil. 3:4–8), and he wanted his communities

So, Nietzsche said, “Life is meaningless, but have courage anyway.” Jesus also called His people to be courageous in the face of difficulty, adversity, and hostility, but He did not call them to a groundless courage. As we know, Jesus told His disciples, “Take heart” (John 16:33), or, as some translations put it, “Be of good cheer.” However, He did not simply tell them to take heart for the sake of taking heart. He gave them a reason why they ought to have a sense of confidence and assurance for the Christian life. He said, “Take heart; I have overcome the world.

Here I am, the brand new me living the same old life.

John Woodmorappe’s studies indicate that there are about 700 million cubic kilometers, which translates to about 168 million cubic miles of Flood sediment.13 Dr. John Morris states that there is about 350 million cubic miles of Flood sediment.14 However, this number may be high since the total volume of water on the earth is estimated at about 332.5 million cubic miles according to the U.S. Geological Survey.15 So, a small human population and massive amounts of sediment are two prominent factors why we haven’t found human fossils in pre-Flood sediments.

More than fifty years have passed since the flask experiments by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey rekindled the primordial soup hypothesis for the origin of life. Scientists now realize, however, that generating miniscule amounts of a few amino acids is irrelevant to the origin of life because the chemicals in Miller and Urey’s experiment were exposed to neither oxygen nor ultraviolet light. The fact that Earth never possessed measurable quantities of prebiotics (see p. 73) and that the universe appears devoid of reservoirs for life’s fundamental chemical building blocks (see p. 74) also argues for the famed experiment’s irrelevance. As far back as 1973, a deep sense of frustration over any possible naturalistic explanation for life’s origin on Earth or anywhere else within the vast reaches of interstellar space led Francis Crick (who shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the double helix nature of DNA) and Leslie Orgel (one of the world’s preeminent origin-of-life researchers) to suggest that intelligent aliens must have salted Earth with bacteria about 3.8 billion years ago.[24] This suggestion, however intriguing or bizarre, fails to answer the question of where the aliens might have come from. It also contradicts evidence that shows intelligent life could not have arrived on the cosmic scene any sooner than about 13.7 billion years after the cosmic origin event. The implausibility of interstellar space travel also remains an intractable problem. Ruling out a visit by aliens from a planetary system far, far away narrows the reasonable options down to one: Something or Someone from beyond the physics and dimensions of the universe, who is not subject to them, placed life and humanity in the only location in the universe at the only time in cosmic history where and when such creatures could survive and thrive.

It is worth asking ourselves: Where am I saying “I can’t” but God is saying “You won’t”? Israel’s failure to obey was based on what they saw as good reasons—God said they were flimsy excuses. Why? Because “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear” (1 Corinthians 10:13). God will never put us in a position where we cannot obey him.

But Jesus didn’t stop at claiming to be eternal and omniscient. In Matthew 28:18, we find this additional claim: 18b“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” In the theological and cultural milieu of first-century Israel, Jesus is claiming to be omnipotent. Furthermore, he tells his followers in the very next two verses that his claim to be omnipotent is the reason why his followers are to spend the rest of the church age telling the world about him: 19“Therefore, as you go, disciple people in all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you. And remember, I am with you each and every day until the end of the age.” Of course, the last sentence of that statement is a reiteration of Jesus’ claims in Matthew 18:20 to be omnipresent. For Jesus to be able to be present with everyone whoever believes in him throughout the centuries to come until the end of human history requires him to be omnipresent, omniscient, and eternal. There can be no escape from the claim: Jesus claimed to be God, and this truth was the foundation stone upon which he would build his Church. In Luke 10:22, Jesus claims that his divine attributes had been granted by God his Father in eternity past. By this claim, Jesus is saying that God his Father has given him all authority in the Universe: 22“All things have been entrusted to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and the person to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” It is apparent from what Jesus has to say about how things are going to go with respect to his followers throughout the centuries to come that Jesus’ claim to possess divine attributes isn’t going to be some mere theoretical exercise. In Luke 21:12b-15, Jesus warns his followers about persecution that will happen to them in years to come: 12“They will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake, 13in order to give you an opportunity to testify. 14So purpose in your hearts not to prepare your defense ahead of time, 15because I will give you the ability to speak, along with wisdom, that none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute.” Besides reiterating Christ’s claims that he possesses the divine attributes of omnipresence, eternal existence, and omniscience, this remarkable statement also demonstrates that Jesus claimed to be able to bring a practical, real-life application of those divine attributes to his persecuted followers: he claims that he will communicate—what today we might call “in real time”—his wisdom right at the very moment that wisdom will be needed most. As a result, Jesus claims, those who oppose his followers will not be able to refute the arguments raised by those followers, whom Jesus claims will have received their wisdom directly from him. But only God himself can provide wisdom such as described by this claim. And so this passage also requires us to conclude that Jesus is claiming to himself attributes that only God can possess. CLAIM 4 |   JESUS DEMANDED LOYALTIES OF LOVE AND DEVOTION THAT IN THE JEWISH THEOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING RIGHTLY MAY BE GIVEN ONLY TO GOD, SINCE TO GIVE THEM TO CREATED BEINGS WOULD VIOLATE THE FIRST AND SECOND COMMANDMENTS.

This book explained why people are divided by politics and religion. The answer is not, as Manichaeans would have it, because some people are good and others are evil. Instead, the explanation is that our minds were designed for groupish righteousness. We are deeply intuitive creatures whose gut feelings drive our strategic reasoning. This makes it difficult—but not impossible—to connect with those who live in other matrices, which are often built on different configurations of the available moral foundations. FIGURE 13.1.

If then a man is not found in truth He is not found in the Holy Spirit nor being guided by Him. If he is not guided by the Holy Spirit, then he is not following God. The words of the Spirit are truth and for our salvation, if anyone does not follow the Holy Spirit nor listen to His word they are not living out the word of God but living a lie. Thus they are not saved, but condemned, seeing that the truth and good doctrine does save us. As it is written, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1Ti 2:3-4 And also, “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’” Joh 8:31-32 And again, “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” 1Ti 4:16  But regarding condemnation and righteousness, “…For this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” 2Th 2:11-13 God does not save an unbeliever who does not walk in truth. Why would He change His mind about a brother who stopped believing the truth to walk in a lie? Such a brother is no longer a “believer” of the truth, so to speak, but a believer in a lie just like the world. This strong delusion which God will send is meant for those who waver on a fence in the church, not the world. The world has already believed the lie before the delusion has ever been made. And they already reject the truth, hence they are condemned. Therefore those who memorize the word of God and come to a full understanding of how to appropriately apply it are like guardians to their brethren. They can turn a sinner from the error of their ways and so save a soul from death, as we read in James. Thus there is a reward for those who turn the brethren to truth, even as an evangelist leads an unbeliever to Christ.

Our mate is a beautiful, intelligent woman with the ability to erase memories. She did it for a reason. Find out why and deal with it, human. Fine. And apologize to Brock for upsetting his mate. He isn’t just some shifter, and whatever the hell hides under his skin scares the shit out of me. Yeah, me, too. Tony

Do you know how valuable the bodies of the creatures we kill are? That’s some of the real wealth of these Realms – the same as it is with dragons. Sure, there’s a hoard of treasures around here somewhere, but there’s gold in selling the skins, the scales, things that yield high prices. That’s the reason why guilds like Amarath’s Raiders, Endeavor and Burnt Offerings are wealthy. They have access to materials no one else does and trade agreements with shops and companies that make them more money.” “I don’t care if his left buttcheek is worth a million gold; let’s toss this thing back in and be done with it.” Elisabeth

Tetlock found two very different kinds of careful reasoning. Exploratory thought is an “evenhanded consideration of alternative points of view.” Confirmatory thought is “a one-sided attempt to rationalize a particular point of view.”13 Accountability increases exploratory thought only when three conditions apply: (1) decision makers learn before forming any opinion that they will be accountable to an audience, (2) the audience’s views are unknown, and (3) they believe the audience is well informed and interested in accuracy. When all three conditions apply, people do their darnedest to figure out the truth, because that’s what the audience wants to hear. But the rest of the time—which is almost all of the time—accountability pressures simply increase confirmatory thought. People are trying harder to look right than to be right. Tetlock

Carlton Church review – Why Tokyo is populated? How Tokyo became the largest city? Apparently Tokyo Japan has been one of the largest global cities for hundreds of years. One of the primary reasons for its growth is the fact that it has been a political hotspot since they Edo period. Many of the feudal lords of Japan needed to be in Edo for a significant part of the year and this has led to a situation where increasing numbers of the population was attracted to the city. There were many people with some power base throughout Japan but it became increasingly clear that those who have the real power were the ones who were residing in Edo. Eventually Tokyo Japan emerged as both the cultural and the political center for the entire Japan and this only contributed to its rapid growth which made it increasingly popular for all people living in Japan. After World War II substantial rebuilding of the city was necessary and it was especially after the war that extraordinary growth was seen and because major industries came especially to Tokyo and Osaka, these were the cities where the most growth took place. The fact remains that there are fewer opportunities for people who are living far from the cities of Japan and this is why any increasing number of people come to the city. There are many reasons why Japan is acknowledged as the greatest city The Japanese railways is widely acknowledged to be the most sophisticated railway system in the world. There is more than 100 surface routes which is operated by Japan’s railways as well as 13 subway lines and over the years Japanese railway engineers has accomplished some amazing feats which is unequalled in any other part of the world. Most places in the city of Tokyo Japan can be reached by train and a relatively short walk. Very few global cities can make this same boast. Crossing the street especially outside Shibuya station which is one of the busiest crossings on the planet with literally thousands of people crossing at the same time. However, this street crossing symbolizes one of the trademarks of Tokyo Japan and its major tourism attractions. It lies not so much in old buildings but rather in the masses of people who come together for some type of cultural celebration. There is also the religious centers in Japan such as Carlton Church and others. Tokyo Japan has also been chosen as the city that will host the Olympics in 2020 and for many reasons this is considered to be the best possible venue. A technological Metropolitan No other country exports more critical technologies then Japan and therefore it should come as no surprise that the neighborhood electronics store look more like theme parks than electronic stores. At quickly becomes clear when one looks at such a spectacle that the Japanese people are completely infatuated with technology and they make no effort to hide that infatuation. People planning to visit Japan should heed the warnings from travel organizations and also the many complaints which is lodged by travelers who have become victims of fraud. It is important to do extensive research regarding the available options and to read every possible review which is available regarding travel agencies. A safe option will always be to visit the website of Carlton Church and to make use of their services when travelling to and from Japan.

When on October 5, 1917, the Passchendaele offensive was sinking into the mire, and the Cabinet sought to bring it to a conclusion, Robertson was compelled to rest himself upon ‘the unsatisfactory state of the French armies and of the general political situation in France, which was still far from reassuring’;10 and again: ‘The original object of the campaign—the clearance of the Belgian coast—was seen to be doubtful of attainment long before the operations terminated, owing to the bad weather experienced and to the delay in starting caused by the change of plan earlier in the year. But, as already explained, there were strong reasons why activity had to be maintained. We must give the French armies time to recover their strength and morale, make every effort to keep Russia in the field in some form or other, and try to draw enemy troops to Flanders which might otherwise be sent against Italy, especially after her defeat at Caporetto. All these purposes of distraction were achieved, and in addition heavy losses were inflicted upon the German armies.’11 For these ‘purposes of distraction’ the killing, maiming or capture of over 400,000 British soldiers was apparently considered a reasonable price to pay. It appears however that although Robertson drove the Cabinet remorselessly forward, he had convinced himself that none of the British attacks for which he bore responsibility in 1915 and in 1916 had had any chance of decisive success. ‘With respect to the alleged error of always attacking where the enemy was strongest,’ he writes,12 ‘I could not refrain from saying that the greatest of all errors was that of not providing before the war an army adequate to enforce the policy adopted…. Until this year we have not had the means to attack with the hope of getting a decision,13 and therefore we have had no choice in the point of attack.’ He used these words on his own avowal on June 21, 1917; so that the highest expert authority responsible for procuring the support of the Cabinet to two years of offensive operations had already convinced himself that up till 1917 the British Army ‘had not the means to attack with the hope of getting a decision.’ Undeterred however by this slowly-gained revelation, he proceeded to drive the unfortunate Ministers to authorize the prolongation into the depths of winter of the Passchendaele offensive.

Why do that?” Mandi asked. “It seems like if you spent a bazillion dollars on a big house with a gorgeous view, you’d want to show it off.” “The same reason that the Klingons have a cloaking device,” Murphy answered. “I’m sorry, Murphy, I have a life.” Mandi’s tone was disdainful.

Finding witches not only explained evil, it also was tangible evidence of God’s existence. As the sixteenth-century Cambridge theologian Roger Hutchinson argued, in a polished bit of circular reasoning, “If there be a God, as we most steadfastly must believe, verily there is a Devil also; and if there be a Devil, there is no surer argument, no stronger proof, no plainer evidence, that there is a God.”13 And, conversely, as noted in a seventeenth-century witch trial, “Atheists abound in these days and witchcraft is called into question. If neither possession nor witchcraft [exists], why should we think that there are devils? If no devils, no God.

Our discussion is serious; if you do not deign to give me your attention, I am not going to bow and scrape before you. I have the underground. But so long as I live and desire - let my hand wither20 if I bring even one little brick for such a tenement house! Never mind that I myself have just rejected the crystal edifice, for the sole reason that one cannot taunt it with one's tongue. I said that not because I have such a love of putting out my tongue. Perhaps I was angry simply because such an edifice, at which it is possible not to put out one's tongue, has never yet been found among all your edifices. On the contrary, I would let my tongue be cut off altogether, from sheer gratitude, if only it could be so arranged that I myself never felt like sticking it out again. What do I care that it's impossible to arrange it so, and one must content oneself with apartments? Why, then, have I been arranged with such desires? Can it be that I've been arranged simply so as to come to the conclusion that my entire arrangement is a hoax? Can that be the whole purpose? I don't believe it. You know what, though: I'm convinced that our sort, the underground ones, ought to be kept on a tether. Though we're capable of sitting silently in the underground for forty years, once we do come out and let loose, we talk, talk, talk... ========== Notes From Underground (Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Richard Pevear) - Your Highlight on Location 924-929 | Added on Monday, April 13, 2015 12:12:38 AM

want to be someone who really celebrates the gift of the people God has given me to love. Here are a few simple ways to celebrate friends. Hold a special tea for your friends and their mothers. Celebrate with a tea for graduates, Mother's Day, or the first day of spring. Put on a birthday tea with special attention on the "big 0" ones. The anniversary of a special event or even a cup of tea to celebrate the end of a bad week or month are also good reasons to commune together. oday why not do a spontaneous act of kindness? Write a note to someone who would never expect it. Put a rose in your hubby's briefcase. Return a shopping cart for someone. Let someone merge into traffic and give him or her a big wave and smile. A thank you note out of the blue to someone who's said something nice about you will bless his or her day. Give another driver your parking spot. Leave a gift of money for someone anonymously. Call your mom or dad for no special reason. Send a letter to a teacher and thank him or her for all they do. Ask an older person to tell you his or her life story. Hebrews 13:2 reminds us to "entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

Thursday 10/22 (A Desperate Situation: Jer 14:1-16; Joe 1:13, 14; 2:15-17; 1Th 5:17) “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” The conditions of obtaining mercy of God are simple and just and reasonable. The Lord does not require us to do some grievous thing, in order that we may have the forgiveness of sin. We need not take long and wearisome pilgrimages, or perform painful penances to commend our souls to the God of Heaven, or to expiate our transgression; but he that confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have mercy. This is a precious promise given to fallen man to encourage him to trust in the God of love, and to seek for eternal life in his kingdom.… Daniel did not seek to excuse himself or his people before God; but in humility and contrition of soul he confessed the full extent and demerit of their transgressions, and vindicated God’s dealings as just toward a nation that had set at naught his requirements and would not profit by his entreaties. There is great need today of just such sincere heart-felt repentance and confession. Those who have not humbled their souls before God in acknowledging their guilt, have not yet fulfilled the first condition of acceptance. If we have not experienced that repentance not to be repented of, and have not confessed our sin with true humiliation of soul and brokenness of spirit, abhorring our iniquity, we have never sought truly for the forgiveness of sin; and if we have never sought, we have never found the peace of God. The only reason why we may not have remission of sins that are past, is that we are not willing to humble our proud hearts, and comply with the conditions of the word of truth. There is explicit instruction given concerning this matter. Confession of sin, whether public or private, should be heart-felt and freely expressed. It is not to be urged from the sinner. It is not to be made in a flippant and careless way, or forced from those who have no realizing sense of the abhorrent character of sin. The confession that is mingled with tears and sorrow, that is the outpouring of the inmost soul, finds its way to the God of infinite pity. Says the psalmist, “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” There are too many confessions like Pharaoh when he was suffering the judgments of God. He acknowledged his sin, to escape further punishment, but returned to his defiance of Heaven as soon as the plagues were stayed. Balaam’s confession was of a similar character. Terrified by the angel standing in his pathway with drawn sword, he acknowledged his guilt, lest he should lose his life. There was no genuine repentance for sin, no contrition, no conversion of purpose, no abhorrence of evil, and no worth or virtue in his confession.… The humble and broken heart, subdued by genuine repentance, will appreciate something of the love of God, and the cost of Calvary; and as a son confesses to a loving father, so will the truly penitent bring all his sins before God. [1Jn 1:9 quoted]. -ST 3-16-88 • CC 63-A Bitter Price; BLJ 361-Repentant Souls Hate Sin and Love Righteousness

There is really one reason that, forty millennia ago, our human ancestors would spend time creating art in the form of therianthropes. It symbolized something. When we see therianthropes represented in art from the past few thousand years, it’s typically associated with religious symbolism: like Horace (the falcon-headed Egyptian god), Lucifer (often depicted as half-human, half-goat in Christian art), or Ganesh (the elephant-headed Hindu god). The Sulawesian therianthropes are “the world’s earliest known evidence for our ability to conceive of the existence of supernatural beings,” Dr. Adam Brumm told the New York Times after he and his research team discovered the Sulawesian therianthropes in 2017.13 What is a supernatural being? It is a creature that has abilities and knowledge beyond what humans have. Some experts suggest that these therianthropes might be spirit guides, creatures giving us aid, answers, or advice.14 This assumes, then, that our ancestors had been asking questions that required supernatural answers. And what could these questions possibly be other than those that underpin all religions: Why does the world exist? Why am I here? And why do I have to die? These ancient therianthropes are the best evidence we have of why specialist questions swimming about in our ancestors’ heads.

Have you ever thought about the incredible imagination and inventiveness behind the created world and asked why? Why did our Redeemer go to such lengths to provide us with such a varied and diverse world? Partly the reason was that He had an eye to using these things, animals, materials, and so on to teach sinners the way of salvation. He was preparing visual aids for future use. He created sheep so He could teach sinners about how He is the Good Shepherd. 10 He created birds to help His redeemed people live less anxious lives. 11 He created camels to teach how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter heaven. 12 He created lilies and roses so He could compare Himself with them. 13 He created water to explain how He refreshes and revives the thirsty. 14 When Jesus picked these up some four thousand years after their creation, they were not just coincidentally helpful to Him; He deliberately created them for the great end of helping to redeem a people.

You’re the god of war,” Percy spoke up. “Don’t you want endless carnage?” Mars’s infrared goggles glowed brighter. “Insolent, aren’t you? Perhaps I have fought you before. I can understand why I’d want to kill you. I’m the god of Rome, child. I am the god of military might used for a righteous cause. I protect the legions. I am happy to crush my enemies underfoot, but I don’t fight without reason. I don’t want war without end.

Imagine if, at your birthday party, you sang to everyone in the room. And then listed two reasons to each person as to why you were grateful to have them in your life. Poem - The Birthday Test. December 13, 2022.

One reason that conversations about race are so hard is because too many American evangelicals lack thinking with biblical nuance. Sadly, when it comes to using our God-given brains, evangelicals often have only two speeds. For the evangelical, if something is not essential for salvation, it’s often regarded as unimportant. Issues, then, are either of speed 1: ultimate importance, or speed 2: no importance. Os Guinness reflects on the sin and scandal of evangelicals refusing to love the Lord with their minds: “American evangelicals therefore characteristically display an impatience with the difficult, an intolerance of complexity, and a poor appreciation of the long-term and disciplined. Correspondingly, we often demonstrate a tendency toward the simplistic, especially in the form of slogans or overly simple either/or solutions.”13 This either/or mental proclivity is why evangelicals often pit two good things against each other (e.g., evangelism versus justice, the spiritual versus the social, man’s responsibility versus God’s sovereignty, etc.). It’s why we often see those who disagree with us as a part of the faithful or as a full-blown heretic—we only have two speeds.

FEBRUARY 11 Day 42 The Sacrifice of Praise “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” Hebrews 13:15 What do you give to someone who has everything? What do you offer to God who has no need? The Psalmist addresses this question: God says that He owns all. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine and the fullness thereof.”1 Although He has no needs, He does say that there exits one thing He desires. “Offer unto God thanksgiving.” He delights in the “sacrifice of praise.” Thanksgiving becomes a sacrifice when, in the midst of your hurts and disappointments, you affirm His goodness. You delight the heart of God when you don’t feel grateful and yet thank Him. People and circumstances cause pain when they impact you in ways contrary to your expectations. Life is full of such hurts. It is easy, even natural, to thank God for that which you perceive to benefit you. To believe that pain comes from a benevolent God showing love, and to give Him thanks for that pain, this reflects the kind of faith that pleases Him. Thus He calls it “the sacrifice of praise.” A sacrifice costs, else it is not sacrificial. When you give the Lord thanks in the midst of your pain you affirm His goodness. During such times you do not want to thank Him; you want to question His goodness, for why does a loving, caring God inflict pain? Content that you can never answer the question “why?”, you rest in the character of God. He is good. All of His designs toward you are good. For this reason, you “offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of your lips giving thanks to His name.

It is not God’s decision if we go to hell. He gave that choice to us (Deut. 30:19). People choose to push God away and deny that Jesus is the only Way to eternal life. The Bible tells us how to stay out of hell (John 3:36; 14:6; Acts 4:12). We are also warned where we will go if we reject Jesus as our Lord and Savior and do not repent of our sins (Luke 13:3; Acts 17:30; Rev. 21:8). That is why Jesus said in Matthew 12:37, “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (KJV). If you have said you don’t believe the Bible, your own words will condemn you. Don’t forget too that the God whom people accuse of being unloving is the same One who suffered a horrific death on the cross to keep us out of hell! All of us who are above the age of accountability are on the road to hell automatically. John 3:17–18 states that we are condemned already. This is because we are all born in sin (Ps. 51:1–5; 143:2; Rom. 3:10–12, 20, 23; 5:12). This is the reason Jesus came—to get us off that road we are on (John 12:47; Matt. 7:13–14; John 6:40). Perry Stone says in Secrets From Beyond the Grave, on page 183, “All men are born under a death penalty, and if a person does not remove this sin penalty passed on through Adam, that person is separated from God.”5 The choice is ours.