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Ephesians 1:5 - ‘ having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,” I’ve already written about the first two clauses/phrases (in English), so today we will think about “according to the good pleasure of His will.” I was just listening to a podcast ( Old School with Shiloh Brooks , highly recommended) where he interviewed Alex Jones (not that Alex Jones), the originator of the Hallow App. This gentleman is a tech entrepreneur and a devout Catholic; I knew it had Catholic connections because Mark Wahlberg and Jonathan Roumie are the spokespersons. He spoke of how meditative prayer changed his life and brought him back to the faith of his childhood. The point of Old School is to discuss a usually famous book. This episode discussed the wondrous Brothers Karamazov , and I was reminded it’s time for me to read it again. I bring this up because Alex Jones said that his meditative prayer process was to focus on a ...

In this case, we, under Trump, are doing what should have been done 47 years ago.   They took our citizens hostage. That is enough, and we've endured the Islamic Republic's nonsense for decades.  I hate war, having lived through many, but Iran is a core enemy.  I've had the news on all day. By 4:00, we are learning that 40 of the top leaders are dead. This should mean that the theocracy (so-called; God had nothing to do with it) is over.  Of course, there are many true believers in whatever they were preaching, but hopefully the Iranian people will desire rule of law, justice, representative government, and a non-Muslim republic.  I hope it is better for the non-Muslims than Turkey is. I pray the gospel is freely dispersed.  I hope and pray these people have better lives without mass murders. 

 I did warn you that these posts for Lent would be a slow walk through Ephesians  1:4:  just as  He chose us in Him  before the foundation of the world, that we should  be holy and without blame before Him in love, We have the cause and effect, or the choice and the result, maybe really the choice and the reason for the choice:   that we should be holy and without blame . . . "  Whoa. Wait a minute. That means nothing is held against us spiritually. "God is not going to get you for that one." Our overacted consciences do not need to wallow in despair or self-doubt that God will change His mind about us, nor do we need to spend time foolishly expecting judgment for forgiven sins. [Human consequences are another matter. I don't think the Prodigal got the money back he wasted.] Romans 5:1 should finish this discussion: Therefore there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

 5 he predestined us [ b ]  for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,   6  to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved My last post was a dig at evolution. Now we'll go in the opposite direction and talk about theological predestination! So, did the Godhead choose us, a fortunate portion of the human race, to be redeemed and left out the majority of others, or do we get to choose to follow Jesus and the path for us is marked out: that we will be adopted and live to praise God's glorious grace? Does it matter? Apparently it does to a lot of people. I used to be in the first camp, and now I am not so sure.  But from my own experience I have to say I had very, very little to do with "the choice." I was in the place to hear the gospel in a way that it made me realize I was a sinner and not such a good person as I thought. That moment in time is still very real to me...

 Now that I am retired and in my eighth decade (!) I think a lot about cognitive decline, especially since I plan to write ten or more novels in the coming years.  Two days a week I watch my granddaughter, who is the light of my life. Apparently, it's good for my brain.  https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2026/01/grandparenting-good-for-brain The world needs to make babies! It seems the conservatives and religious are the ones populating the world nowadays, but so be it. Babies are the reason we survive as a species. Of course, some leftists don't want us to survive as a species, an interesting take on the whole evolutionary idea of the push to survive and spread our genes. I'm not an evolutionist, and I am so tired of supposedly conservative writers framing all human behavior as stemming from something monkeys or rats did billions of years ago. Come on, people. You say you are conservative and are buying into the world view of progressivism when you do that. Like Ti...

 Reading an interview with Steward Brand, who started The Whole Earth Catalog and apparently a lot of other future-oriented waves of thinking.  He quotes Dylan (Bob Zimmerman, I assume). and add his thought. "he not busy being born is busy dying,” is how I think about learning. In retirement, I think that will be my motto (not mantra; I'm not Hindu or Buddhist).