The Super Blogosphere of a parallel word.

  In a climate of unbelief it can be hard to stay encouraged as a Christian. Where people are doubting and even wholeheartedly rejecting the cross on which Jesus Christ died for our sins, it can leave us feeling like there is no hope for the future. To stay encouraged we need to remind ourselves of the truth, and because the Holy Spirit’s job is precisely that, we can stay hopeful even when the truth is no longer accepted in our culture. The bible talks about a departure from the faith in the last days, and when I was younger as compared to now, I have never seen such a widespread departure from Christianity in what is now a completely secular culture. As a youth, our culture was saturated with God and belief in God. Not everyone was saved, but there was very little opposition to Christian belief. The 21st century has deconstructed the faith and made it an enemy to progress and enlightenment, and revealed just how much Christianity is hated by our secular world. There was a time wh...

  Ultimately the Body of Christ will be victorious over the world, the flesh and the devil at the resurrection on the last day. So why do Christian communities fail on earth when the bible says “The gates of hell shall not prevail against the church?” (Matthew     16:18). Fist, because we are still sinful. Even though we are saved we still have a sin nature, which we will have until the resurrection of the dead. Because the church is made up of redeemed sinners or saints, there is still room for our humanity to be expressed and this is why the church still fails, even though Christ promised us we would ultimately be victorious over hell and the grave! However, this is no excuse for our sins, even in the church. At the end of our lives we will be judged for our life on the earth, and although we will be forgiven if we are saved, we won’t be rewarded for the sins that went unaccounted for. The deception that Satan deceives us with is that just because we are saved, our sins...

  Have you ever felt left behind, maybe when you were a kid and they were picking teams, and you were the last to be chosen. Feeling left behind can make you feel forgotten, we desire that we would be seen and recognized, but what happens when we feel overlooked? I would say try looking at your own life, and how God is using you now. If you have a desire to serve God, God can work with that. Stepping out from what feels comfortable provides an opportunity for growth, and why do we feel we have to be established in order to walk in God’s will?   Living out of weakness can make us feel vulnerable, but we learn things when we are weak, we learn what true strength is. We want our lives to have purpose, and if we follow our own will, we can feel like our lives lack purpose, but when you are serving the Lord, we still might want to be seen. This can leave us feeling vulnerable because even though we are serving the Lord, we want to feel appreciated.  I don’t think it’s selfishn...

  If we were 50% happy most of the time, we would be very contented people. Striving to be happy most of the time ends up being a fruitless pursuit because as we age we encounter more problems. Being happy half of the time may sound disparaging because that would imply you would be sad the other half. However, you may not experience just sadness, you may be preoccupied with work, you may be indifferent, you might be suffering in some way, thus experiencing pain, you may be confused about certain things, and doesn’t this relate more to the human experience rather than trying to be happy 100% of the time.   Don’t get me wrong, I believe we all want to be happy, and when we are happy and start to become sad, it makes us sad that we are no longer happy in the moment! The bible talks about Shalom or peace, or a feeling of wholeness. This is different from happiness because happiness can be fleeting, but experiencing God’s peace or blessedness could be a lot more rewarding that hang...

  It is fair to say that any good relationship is built on honesty and when honesty goes so does trust. In previous generations faith principles filtered through even to the secular world, but in our post modern times, people in the secular world are almost embarrassed to embrace any kind of spirituality. Kindness and compassion give people something to live for. When someone is kind to you, it lights up your darkness. The darkness isn’t something that you may have chosen for yourself, it’s something that you possibly fell into or something happened to you, leaving your world dark.   Invite God into your darkness even if you are alone. It may seem strange at first, but as I was saying, we all have a desire for people to be honest with us, and we can be honest with God. Abandonment is another issue that affects many people in the world we live in. You may feel shut out from your social circle, but you are not alone, many people these days feel that they have no real meaningful ...

  I grew up in a good home, all my needs were met and I had good health. I was popular in school, played sports and had many friends. After high school I decided to study musical theatre performance, because I had a desire to be an actor. I auditioned for Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario and was accepted. After two years I wasn’t accepted into the third year,  partly my doing, because I failed to meet the program requirements for the third year. Something was happening in my soul and I was on my way home.   I remember being depressed for a full day, but somehow snapped out of it, but there still wasn’t peace in my soul about certain things. One day as I was working for my father’s car rental and leasing business, I was cleaning a car and decided to put the car radio on while I was cleaning. One of the preset dials on the radio was set by the customer that had that particular car, and it was set to WDCXfm a Christian radio station from Buffalo. I had never listened to...

  I was touched with difficulty with my mental health in 1999, I was 25 years old. At first, I was angry and afraid, but eventually I came to peace with myself by accepting what was going on and receiving the help that was offered. I was originally told that there was no cure for what I was experiencing, but my faith told me God would see me through it. I was right. After all these years of caring for myself and receiving treatment, I have come to understand that you can still live a happy life, despite having problems with your mental health. I have met many people who suffer similarly and became their friends, and one of the things I have learned is that acceptance among peers is really important for those suffering with their mental health. Canada just conducted a committee and recommended that euthanasia should not be allowed for those whose sole cause is a mental illness. I agree. When I first dealt with my mental health in 1999, euthanasia was illegal in Canada, and I persona...

  The Christian doctrine of salvation (known theologically as  soteriology ) is the belief that humanity is rescued from  sin  and its consequences—death and separation from God—through the life, death, and resurrection of  Jesus Christ . It is considered the core pillar of the Christian faith.  Why It Is Needed According to the Bible, the first humans (Adam and Eve) disobeyed God, bringing sin into the world. This concept is known as  original sin . Because God is perfect and holy, He cannot tolerate sin. Consequently, all humans are born with a broken nature and are spiritually separated from God, facing an eternal penalty.  How It Was Achieved Christians believe that humanity could not fix this problem on its own. Instead, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect, sinless life. Jesus willingly died on a cross to take the punishment for humanity's sins. Christians refer to this sacrificial act as  the Atonement . Three days later...

  As a disabled person and a Christian, I can talk about my faith and the sacredness of people living with a disability. I like to think that I am still capable of many things, and one of those things includes my faith. Jesus Christ came for the outcasts, and welcomed and healed those who were excluded from common society. Our current culture has lost the value that God puts on the vulnerable, and at the end of this age, we will be judged by how we treated the least of these.   God himself in the person of Jesus Christ became vulnerable when he was born in this world, and he especially became vulnerable when he died on the cross for our sins. Jesus Christ suffers with the vulnerable and the poor, because he identified with them when he was on earth. The bible says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there is the Kingdom of heaven.” There is a sacredness to vulnerability which should be reestablished and protected in our culture.  My vulnerability has allowed me to exper...

  When one gets redeemed their past, present and future are all forgiven. The memory of past sins are also cleansed by Christ. What makes this life unpleasant for some, is that they cannot erase the memory of past mistakes, probably because they have yet to repent of their sins. A life that is free from guilt can live in joy and freedom, whereas someone who is living with guilt looks back to the past which haunts them. God does not forget our sins unless we repent, even if our sins are not that bad, we still need to repent before God. How does one live in the world when their sins are forgiven, but lives in a very sinful environment? The bible says in Ezekiel 18:20 “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.” God takes note of our righteousness but he also takes note of the wicke...

  When Pope St. John Paul II was alive, he wrote an encyclical called Evangelium Vitae, which means “The Gospel of Life.” In it he warned of the culture of death that was beginning to take shape, and he warned of the dangers of accepting abortion and euthanasia, and other things, that if continued to be promoted and accepted would lead to a deterioration of the respect for the sanctity of life in all it’s stages. He warned that mankind would lose the awareness of God’s presence in a world that no longer respected life, and he warned that we would lose the sense of the presence of God and man, losing our sense of shared purpose and identity. We are all created in the image of God and carry that identity in our bodies and souls. When we forget God, we can do damage to the image of God within us and our fellow man. We separate ourselves from God, and no longer sense His nearness in our lives, and we end up turning a blind eye to the injustice, sin and atrocities in our world. We false...

  We have either held a grudge ourselves or have witnessed other people holding a grudge or unforgiveness towards other people. If we have ever felt that someone was holding a grudge against us, we know the unpleasant feeling of wanting to be released from their hostility towards us. When we repent of our sins and come to faith in Christ, God in a very real sense releases us from his hostility and the enmity that we once experienced towards Him, and may have not even realize it.   In 2 Corinthians 5:19 it says “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”   What this means is that before accepting God’s salvation and forgiveness, we were indebted to God every time we sinned. Our sins were being counted and accumulated right until the point of our death and would be judged by God in a place called Hell for all eternity. Because we rejected God’s offer of salvatio...

  My uncle Brendan is my dad Wayne’s middle brother. When I was just a kid, he married my aunt Nancy. They lived together in London, Ontario. They never had any kids, but we would drive up there from Markham and visit them occasionally. One thing that stands out in my memory is the breakfast that they would cook us when we visited. My grandmother who passed away in 2019 also lived in London, as well as my uncle Ron, and my aunt Shelly. Brendan and Nancy would make the best breakfast with eggs, sausage, bacon, and toast, and I remember there being so much. They also shared the Catholic faith with me in a special way. I grew up Roman Catholic but I was a nominal Christian and I didn’t get born again until I was 21.   Being born again isn’t really a Catholic thing, Catholics believe you are born again at baptism, but my conversion at 21 just made me appreciate my faith in a deeper way. I still have conversations with my aunt Nancy about my faith, and I remember her telling me one...

  What is the greatest gift you can give yourself this new year or better yet what is the greatest gift you can receive? I believe it’s the gift of repentance. What causes regret in your life? Is it broken relationships, a failed marriage, anger, unforgiveness? God provides a remedy for all of these things which are caused by sin, and that is repentance. We all want to feel the joy in life, we all want to feel happiness, but the more we sin and live a sinful lifestyle, we feel we have to cover up our sins in order to feel a sense of peace. But true peace comes from not living any way we want to live, but by living a holy life, in fellowship with the Father.   I encourage you to start this new year by being honest with yourself, if you have relationships that are broken, if you have sinned gravely, repent, if you don’t you will take all these sins with you not just into the new year with you, but you will take them with you when you die. This is what the bible refers to when it...

 Matthew 25:1-13 I have discovered a remarkable interpretation of this parable that I would like to share with you. The story in the Bible goes like this:    “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.   2  Five of them were foolish and five were wise.   3  The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them.   4  The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps.   5  The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. 6  “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ 7  “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.   8  The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ 9  “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy som...