A Heavenly Mindset​

Set your minds on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth.
—Colossians 3:2

As believers in Yeshua, we must live for the age to come. We cannot allow our temporal circumstances or how people treat us to define who we are in God or distract us from having a heavenly perspective. We must set our focus on eternity even in the midst of tests and trials.

We must keep our eyes on the eternal prize. This world is not our home. Like Abraham, we are called to set our sights on the majestic city “whose architect and builder is God.” We must continually look toward heaven. All our thoughts and actions should be filtered through an eternal mindset.

Beloved one, we are not of this world, and it can never satisfy us. Let us stop trying to gratify ourselves with the fleeting pleasures of this life and instead live each day realizing that we are on a supernatural journey. Eternal life is our calling, and heaven is our destination. As we age, we see more and more how temporary our earthly life is. Many of us have family and friends who have already passed away. So let’s live for what will endure. Soon Messiah will return, and for those who have lived for Him, our final home will be in a place where God will wipe every tear from our eyes and there will no longer be any suffering, pain, or death.


(Rabbi Kirt A. Schneider, Entering His Presence (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2023), Used by permission.)

BCP1928 said:

It's a bad habit one picks up when dealing with right-wing Christians.

The question is, why critical theory?? I have the impression that the right would like to bundle all that the left does that they don't like into that one package. What's so powerful about it?

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Oh, I suppose we don't have to cite 'Critical Theory specifically, such as it has been. But with all that any of us might deign to carry along and support regarding notions that knowledge, truth, and social structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups. I mean, if you don't think there's anything fundamental to epistemological and social interplay and structures politically, then I guess you haven't been affected by 'Critical Theory.'

At the same time, I'm wondering to what extent folks on the Democratic Left, particularly the more extreme wing of the Left, have the ability to compare and contrast the nuances of difference between, say, C.S. Lewis' political jaunt in his 'Screwtape Proposes a Toast' on the one hand, and the following video [below] of obvious sarcastic demonizing made by those from The Babylon Bee. I mean, what analytic appraisals are going to be made by those on the Left to discern the Christian criticism of a C.S. Lewis from that of a right leaning, Babylon Bee rhetoric? Any? Or are they just going to start kicking and fussing (and pressing Deconstruction) with what I'm implying here without fully listening, engaging and thinking it all through?

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concretecamper said:

I'm sorry, I can only respond to what you post, not what you think.

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I have not asked you to respond to what I think.
Responding to what I said is most welcomed.
What did I say the ring of truth refers to, in post #39, and post #56?

J Natl Med Assoc 2022 Dec 27;115(1):15–17

The impact of COVID-19 vaccinations on stillbirth rates among pregnant women in the Metro-Detroit area​

Infection by COVID-19 increases maternal morbidity and mortality prompting both the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Society of Maternal Fetal Medicine to strongly recommend vaccination during pregnancy. Limited data exist assessing the risk of intrauterine fetal death (IUFD) associated with COVID vaccination during pregnancy.

This was a retrospective chart review at a large multisite hospital system in Metro Detroit which reviewed data from 13,368 pregnancies. We compared IUFD rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated patients. The rate of stillbirths among unvaccinated women (0.75%) was not statistically different from those who were vaccinated (0.60%). Individuals with government insurance were less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to have IUFD in comparison to patients with private insurance. The rate of stillbirths among Black women was significantly higher than among White women at a rate of 1.1% compared to 0.53% (p=0.008) with no difference in stillbirth rates among vaccinated vs unvaccinated racial distribution.

Apparently, the results from your study couldn't be reproduced by other studies. Not a surprise.

Fantine said:

All those voters in the tourism industry who supported him because of no tax on tips are now becoming unemployed? Couldn't they see he was unworthy of their trust?

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Not their faces surely?

jonojim1337 said:

I’m more concerned about that you steal from Caesar.

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I do?

And, on the other side, if you had a really bad morning, you ought to console yourself.

No? Just me?

eleos1954 said:

the millennium is the thousand-year reign of Christ with His saints in heaven, during which the wicked will be judged and the earth will be desolate.
A resurrection begins the 1,000-year period.
This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection (Revelation 20:5, 6).
It is called the first resurrection. The saved blessed and holy from all ages will be raised in it.
The rest of the dead [those who were not saved] did not live again until the thousand years were finished (Revelation 20:5).
All who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation (John 5:28, 29).
The second resurrection takes place at the close of the 1,000-year period. The unsaved will be raised in this resurrection. It is called the resurrection of condemnation.

Please notice: The resurrection of the saved begins the 1,000 years. The resurrection of the unsaved ends the 1,000 years.

EVENTS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 1,000 YEARS:

• A devastating earthquake and hailstorm (Revelation 16:18–21)
• The second coming of Jesus for His saints (Matthew 24:30, 31)
• The saved dead raised to life (1 Thessalonians 4:16)
• The saved given immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51–55)
• The saved given bodies like Jesus (1 John 3:2; Philippians 3:20, 21)
• All the righteous caught up into the clouds (1 Thessalonians 4:17)
• The living wicked slain by the breath of the Lord’s mouth (Isaiah 11:4)
• The unsaved dead remain in their graves until the end of the 1,000 years (Revelation 20:5)
• Jesus takes the righteous to heaven (John 13:33, 36; 14:2, 3)
• Satan bound (Revelation 20:1–3)

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Keepin in mind that a "millennium" is personal interpretation of prophetic riddles (Nu 12:6-8) not spoken clearly,
which interpretation is not in agreement with NT apostolic teaching (1 Th 4:16-17) of Christ (Lk 10:16).

Here’s a roundup of the latest Catholic education news in the United States:

Notre Dame drops ‘acceptance and support for Catholic mission’ from staff values​

The University of Notre Dame has dropped acceptance and support for its Catholic mission from the list of staff values it has held for the past 20 years.

The university’s leadership announced new updates to its staff values at its Fall 2025 Staff Town Halls on Oct. 29 and 30, according to a press release. Human Resources President Heather Christophersen said the new values were “an expression of how we seek to advance Notre Dame’s mission as a global, Catholic research university.”

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Valletta said:

Ford backs President Trump’s new auto tariffs, calls them a win for America​

https://www.rsbnetwork.com/news/ford-backs-president-trumps-new-auto-tariffs-calls-them-a-win-for-america/

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We'll, it's a win for Ford, there's no doubt about that. But from the White House:

'Therefore, of the 16 million cars bought by Americans, only 25% of the vehicle content can be categorized as Made in America.'

And that's because the ones Made in America are more expensive. Now you're going to have less choice in what you buy and what will be available will be more expensive. Like the man said, it's a good deal for Ford. It ain't a good deal for you.

Servus said:

Simply mentioning Mariology being a crucial component of Christianity would not have required writing an exhaustive theology. If one wants to go with argument from silence regarding the complete absence of what supposed to be a crucial component of Christianity, that can be applied to just about anything the Bible and the early church never taught.

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There is no "complete absence", Marian theology pops up exactly where we would expect it to. It would have been jarring in the course of dealing with other issues for the NT authors to have developed Marian doctrines that had no bearing on the topics they were dealing with. But as @The Liturgist rightfully points out your claim is factually inaccurate since several of the authors you mentioned do develop Marian doctrines, such as Justin Martyr in the Dialogue with Trypho where he parallels Jesus/Adam and Mary/Eve. There is no silence on the topic, Marian doctrines are spoken of in exactly the kinds of places we would expect them to pop up.

Apple Sky said:

And how does one know what Martin Luther believed ?

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Well you tell me. You’re the one who brought Luther in on this. So you bear the responsibility for proving he believed the earth to be flat. Can you find one teaching of Luther where he says the earth is flat and not a globe?

Remember Copernicus said the earth is a globe. So why didn’t Luther contradict that?

AI overview:

“No, Martin Luther did not believe the Earth was flat; he, like most educated people of his time, knew the Earth was a sphere, and he was aware of the long-standing scientific and philosophical evidence for its roundness. However, Luther was strongly against Nicolaus Copernicus's heliocentric model, which placed the Sun at the center of the solar system instead of the Earth. He rejected Copernicus's ideas based on his interpretation of the Bible, particularly the Book of Joshua, and believed the geocentric model (Earth-centered) was the correct one, but this was a theological and philosophical stance, not a belief in a flat Earth.”

You’re jumping from one claim to another, as usual. And when you can’t answer, you’ll jump to yet another claim.

Try sticking with one claim and digesting the fact that your claim doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny.

How many of you believe you understand the significance of God tearing the temple curtain from top to bottom at the moment of Christ's death? If I go by what I hear being taught in our churches, social media platforms, podcasts, and books I've read, I would hazard a guess that very few do. If you did you would most likely be at odds with the rest of the Christian community. Most often it seems that conformity will always trump over truth. If someone hears the same thing a thousand times by a thousand different people, then it must be true.

At the moment of Christ's death, God tore the temple curtain, 60ft tall and 4inces thick, from top to bottom. Why?

This curtain stood as a physical representation of the barrier that stood separating man from God. Within the temple it separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place where the presence of God dwelt. No one was allowed into the presence of God. Only the High Priest, and only once a year after he had been cleansed of his sins, could he then enter into God's presence. In other words, no one guilty of sin is allowed into the presence of a Holy God. And it is this truth alone that makes the tearing of the temple curtain so significant yet overlooked.

Two major truths were revealed when the temple curtain was torn that most people miss.

First, the barrier that stood between man and God was removed. If there is no more barrier separating man from God, then anyone can now enter into the presence of God. If anyone can now enter into the presence of God, then everyone must already be cleansed of their sins. Something the Israelites of the day would have understood this to mean (the good news of the Gospel). No one still guilty of sin can come into the presence of God. This has never changed. It remains as true today as it was before Christ's death. What has changed is we've all been cleansed (forgiven) of our sins. We've all come into the world forgiven of our sins with an invitation to enter into a relationship with God, free of any guilt or shame. Which brings me to the second truth that was revealed....

Forgiveness of sins does not save us. These are not the same thing, but two uniquely different, and separate, events. From our perspective, forgiveness is a historical fact. It is a completed act that holds true for all of mankind. The shedding of blood can only forgives sin, it cannot save us. It does not bring about new spiritual life (a relationship with God). It simply makes the possibility of salvation a reality. Salvation only happens when we choose, of our own freewill, to enter into a relationship with God through faith. You can be forgiven and not be saved, but you can't be saved without having first been forgiven.

Also, Salvation is not salvation if it is only temporary. That would merely be a reprieve from your current condition, not a permanent reality. For example; say we both jumped out of an airplane and your parachute didn't open, but I caught you and held on to you with my parachute open, but before we landed I decide to let you go. Were you saved when I first caught you? No. It was just a reprieve from your current condition. In the end, you were just a messy spot on the ground. Salvation must be a permanent reality (eternal) or it is not salvation.

So of course, for salvation to be eternal, there can be no possibility of losing it. For this to be a reality, all sin would need to be forgiven before salvation could be offered. Likewise, forgiveness cannot take place after or even at the moment of salvation. It must happen before salvation. Remember, forgiveness is what makes entering into God's presence possible in the first place in order to receive salvation.

Dikaioumenoi said:

It seems you didn't actually read the argument. What kind of action is "creating the possibility of success"? Does the Father merely attempt to create that possibility, with the real risk of failure? Or is the Father necessarily successful in that act?

The Father's drawing is an enabling action. The conditional statement tells us nothing about who ultimately comes. So if the drawing can fail, then you are saying God can fail in His attempt to create the very possibility of coming. The creation of that possibility is what the drawing is. "No one is able to come unless drawn." The success of the drawing is the precondition for the possibility.

So is the Father's act of enablement necessarily effective, or not? If it is, your definition of ἑλκύω collapses your own position. If it is not, then the possibility of salvation itself becomes uncertain.

You keep trying to leap to a criticism of the Calvinist conclusion that drawing equals being saved, without recognizing that that argument rests on the grammar of the text, not on the semantics of ἑλκύω. The semantic core of ἑλκύω is a decisive movement from one position to another. That is consistent with a non-Calvinist reading of John 6:44, because the decisive movement ἑλκύω describes there is a change of position from inability to ability.

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Creating a possibility does not entail guaranteed success, nor is there any reason to condition the statement in such an all-or-nothing manner. It is only by introducing pre-conceived notions that any such requirement is even within the realm of consideration. The sole criteria for the possibility of success is God's intention, with no force being required. There is no precondition, your position is an artificial construct of your own creation and not a genuine problem in the text.

Christians in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, are protesting a new local government election law that denies religious minorities the right to directly elect their own representatives and undermines democratic participation through non-party elections.

The Punjab Local Government Act 2025, which will govern long-delayed local polls expected in late December, requires residents in more than 4,000 union councils covering rural and urban areas to directly elect nine general members but fills four reserved seats — for minorities, women, laborers or farmers, and youth — through a party-driven “selection” process. Christians, who constitute the bulk of minority population in Punjab, argue that the change entrenches political marginalization for already vulnerable groups and violates constitutional guarantees of equality and local empowerment.

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hedrick said:

Normally, including our church, what changes are the kind of thing printed in the bulletin, not Scripture.

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I am sorry if my post read as if I was accusing your church of trying to change what the Bible says. I was thinking the change in liturgy which you posted about made the Bible harder to understand, rather than that such a change actually amounted to changing the Gospel itself. I admit I posted my point by editing it into John 3:16, so it could look like I meant to say your Pastor was changing the Bible.

I’ve noticed it at two separate parishes I have attended. *shrug*

stevevw said:

For me its music. Music can be spiritual and it can take you to places beyond your surrounding world.

I play the guitar and write songs as a past time and therapy really. I can be learning a song or trying to write a song and be taken away for an hour or two and I feel like I just arrived back on planet earth lol.

I think the beauty of an art like music or painting or any art where you can detach yourself from the world and be taken to some transcendal place is a doorway to spirituality if it is for God or in the spirit of God.

I often get visions or rather concepts of something beyond the world. Or insights about self or the world that cannot be articulated in everyday interactions. In fact they are hard to put into words. Thats why art and for me music is a form of communication. But both ways. It sort of opens the mind to what is beyond.

One sentence I think that captures how music can take me into Gods presense would be a song I have not finished from years ago called 'Shadow of my soul'. The first verse is

I hear a voice thats far away calling out my name and though I can't see anyone I can hear it just the same.
Its singing songs that talk to me calling me back home and penetrates my very being to the shadow of my soul.

Sorry two sentenses but it only makes sense with the whole verse.

But just the song title takes me to a place where it is that the shadow of my soul exists and its where I can expand my world from the world I live in and it brings me peace beyond the world.

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Steve, that line “penetrates my very being to the shadow of my soul” lands deep—I totally get it.
David’s harp did the same for Saul: one strum and the tormenting spirit lost its grip, because the music carried something (or Someone) bigger than the room.
I’m wired deeply creative too, and whenever I hand the work back to God that same “doorway” stops being escape and becomes embrace—like the Spirit slips inside the art and hands us a glimpse of the real country we’re made for.
Would love to hear the rest of Shadow of My Soul when you finish it; until then, keep letting that far-away Voice call you (and all who believe and trust Christ) home.

Servus said:

I agree that taking Communion is a sacred and solemn occasion, and we should examine ourselves before partaking.

However Paul made it very clear what the unworthy manner was. And it's virtually impossible to repeat it when taking Communion in church these days.

The Communion is known as the Eucharist. And Eucharist means "Thanksgiving". And in Paul's time the Eucharist was like the feast Americans have on Thanksgiving Day.

It was a big banquet. And some were being selfish and depriving others. Selfish and committing gluttony. Treating the Eucharist like a pagan pig-out. Which is clearly spelled out in 1 Corinthians 11.

Considering how Communion is taken in church these days, it's virtually impossible to partake in an unworthily manner as Paul described, by hogging the Eucharist and pigging out on it, and getting drunk on the sacramental wine.

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Thank you, Servus, for your comment and your evident love for God’s Word.
I get the Corinthian pig-out scene—but I think the principle travels:

Any greed, bitterness, or unforgiveness toward another believer is the same heart-condition Paul flags.

“Examine yourself” still means: clear the heart before you lift the cup—even if the portions are now bite-size.

DaisyDay said:

Generally, $0.00 for simply appearing as that is considered a part of their public service.

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So then how do we have congressmen who make the same salary I do, increasing their net worth $4 million in a period of 5 years.

camille70 said:

I don't think any of the victims have accused Clinton though.

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Apparently, a phrase in the emails has led to a truly filthy story about Trump and Bill Clinton together. But Clinton has denied it. And he surely wouldn't lie about something like that.

He didn’t die in Palestine and the 12th century dating is the correct date.

Darwin's great discovery was how it happens. Nothing in evolutionary theory is about "it just happened." It's a sad commentary on science education in the U.S. that so many people actually believe that story. Darwinian theory turns out to have useful applications in engineering, as engineers are now using evolutionary processes to solve problems that were not possible to solve using design. Turns out, God knew best.


It's directly observed today. It happened the way we see it happening now. God is a lot smarter and more powerful than most creationist think He is.

eleos1954 said:

It's "interpretation" of things seen ...

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Nope. Directly observed facts. We see evolution proceeding exactly as it always has. Perhaps you don't know what biological evolution is. What do you think it is?

eleos1954 said:

God does state His creative power is seen and we are without excuse.

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But YE creationists still attempt excuses.

eleos1954 said:

While it (the theory) can describe what happens, the ultimate "why"—the origin of the chain of events or what drives the universe—is a question science cannot answer and may lie outside the realm of natural science.

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Of course it does. You have that much right. Even Darwin just supposed that God created the first living things. Science is too weak a method to consider the supernatural. It can neither support nor deny God.

DaisyDay said:

Are you a truck driver?

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My job does require a class A CDL, as one requirement among many, but I'm not a semi-truck driver, no.

Kjelete said:

Even with space-exploration now it`ll end one day anyways. They probably never find aliens ether, but that`s another story.

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Of course not, since we live under a dome. I’m a firm believer that society should be governed by a genetically superior race of people, among whom God was born. As it was in the days of Ptolemaic cosmology.