RECENT BLOG POSTINGS

JUN 8, 2026:  PREDESTINATON 6    Now that I have said what predestination isn't, let me balance that with a few possibilities of what it is.  It seems as if most examples we can really point to tie into God's greater purposes.  Like Rahab, Ruth, or Esther.  Perhaps it is best if I use an example where the Bible specifically states what is predetermined and what isn't.

In the book of Esther one of those opportunities in history occurred where Satan had a shot at destroying the Jews.  There was one absolute emperor, and one ambitious man named Haman who inherited the Amalekite insensitivity to God and could be whispered to by Satan.  Haman had the king's ear!  There was also a string of favors, stubbornness, and offenses taken, where God certainly made use of human traits to set things up.

The final climax is summed up by Easter's Uncle: "Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.  For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish.  And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

You could say salvation for the Jews was predestined, and it was "set up" specifically for Esther.  BUT it was also recognized that Esther could avoid it, although at a cost!  AND consistent with any real act of faith...

...there was also a potential major cost in acting to accept.

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JUN 1, 2026:  PREDESTINATON 5    Consider this.  When man sinned God wanted to redeem us, to buy us back.  If 100% predestination is correct, based on the idea that if it happens: God must have caused it; must have wanted exactly that; and it must be right, then God must have wanted us to sin and could sovereignly step in to redeem us whenever He was ready.  Right? Wrong!!!!

God did three things most people totally ignore.  First, He had given dominion to man and He didn't, wouldn't, couldn't just step in and take it back.  Second, He cut a binding Blood Covenant with a man named Abram.  What was Abram's was now legally God's.  God had just obtained legal entry into the affairs of Abraham and ALL his descendants (including their Dominion).  Third, by asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac for God, God gained the legal RIGHT under covenant to sacrifice His son for Abraham and his descendants!

All three (and more) add to give you a Biblical picture of a God who is NOT 100% unlimited, doing whatever He wants, but a God who:

Carefully and intentionally
fulfills every law and limit He gives to us.

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MAY 25, 2026:  PREDESTINATION 4    After decades of walking with the Lord, I find "steps of faith" continue to be required.  Each new level of maturity, intimacy, or gifting that God makes available does still require entry; then after entry each new level has both extra blessings and extra responsibilities from the “but if” clauses stuck onto the covenant associated with that level.  Each level allows God to view and respond to you in new ways.  And those ways are always a mix of unconditional and very conditional.

It is this ongoing lifelong pattern of acts of faith, entry, apprenticeship, blessing, and "but if" terms of covenant, that help convince me that the 100% predestination picture some people paint just is NOT real.  Way too much seems left up to what YOU seek after — or build a defensive wall against.

Note that it is only the 100% predestination I am saying is wrong!  Is the number 20% or 80%, or are there other options, that will be discussed latter.

It is the 100% thinking that leads to aberrations about God.

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MAY 18, 2026:  PREDESTINATON 3    You may remember that I offered you the following definition of true faith (in anything from airplanes to the Lord) as: "Acting as if the object of your trust (Jesus for salvation) will do what you expect it to do, knowing it will cost you something if it doesn’t."  The implication is that true faith in anything MUST always carry a potential cost!  If it doesn’t, faith is not required.  Now, what does this have to do with predestination?

Two points, and they get deep.  One, I'm not sure, but it seems like if salvation is 100% predestined then it isn't possible to have a real potential cost involved in saying yes to Jesus.  (I'm still contemplating the ramifications of this, so your comments are welcome.)  Second, predestination totally blows out of the water God having any faith IN us or even needing faithfulness TOWARDS us.  And if God doesn't have faith in us, He can't build faith into us as part of His Image, or ever expect us to live by faith.  He needs to be what He wants from us.  Do you follow?

Therefore 100% predestination is a false premise.

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MAY 11, 2026:  PREDESTINATION 2    Let's look at the "I do" mentioned in the last post as an act of obedience.  If I say I believe in airplanes, but out of fear I take the bus to Cleveland, then I really don't have faith in airplanes.  A true saving faith in anything (including planes) requires some knowledge, an assent that it can do what you need it to do (get you right with God or to Cleveland), and then you acting upon that trust by actually putting your body in the plane and letting it hurl you into air so thin you couldn't breathe and so cold it would freeze you solid.  And lastly I see that there MUST always be a cost if the object of your faith doesn't do what you believe it will!

Choosing to say "I do" to the Lord MUST be an act of obedience, a putting yourself in the plane with the door closing behind you, and it WILL cost you something if God doesn't do what you believe through Jesus He will do.  If you can't say "No" then the "I do" is worthless, and Satan knows it!

Or if saying "I do" is 100% by God's provision, decision, and doing, then by definition the contract, the covenant, the marriage to the Lord is under a form of duress …

... and therefore invalid.

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MAY 4, 2026:  PREDESTINATION 1    As near as I can tell, no we are not predestined to be saved, at least not in the way some people over use the word.  It seems as if God does desire ALL to be saved, and has provided for all, so YES that IS the base line!  BUT all are not saved!  So, one must ask what is the difference between what God wants and what finally will be???

As I read the Bible I see the same pattern again and again.  God consistently looks for sensitivity and obedience.  Abraham vs. Lot, Isaac vs. Ishmael, Jacob vs. Esau, David vs. Saul, and on and on.  And for the obedience, think of: leaving Ur; putting blood on door posts; marching repeatedly around a city; sending out the choir; digging ditches in the desert; etc.  I tell you God has arrange to do the heavy lifting, but always seems to require some small (even stupid sounding) act of obedience on your part before He acts.  The salvation IS already provided, BUT it is not yours till you yield, you admit you need it, you say "I do" to Him.  There IS always a small act of agreement and obedience He requires of you.

That required act of obedience is good parenting,
not predestination.

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APR 27, 2026:  CONTENTION    I have a question for all of us.  But first, I need to set the stage.  In Jesus’ three year Rabbi School with the students we call Disciples, after they settled in, I see a lot of VERY human interaction!  Which of us is greatest – bring me a child.  Can James and John sit on your right and left – can they drink my cup?  We’re drowning – oh you of little faith.  No, not you – get behind me Satan.  And that just scratches the surface!  A certain balanced amount of “foot in mouth” disease seems to have been expected, accepted, even required by what I will call the greatest “Discipler” to ever live.

Now, we are called to make disciples.  Hmmm.  I see huge buildings (versus hardly a place to lay his head).  I see worship bands (where did Jesus keep his hidden?).  I see a few control freak pastors with well-timed messages authoritatively passing on what they learned in seminary (it has to be right).  Don’t get me wrong, some churches seem great!  But the average pattern that seems to be coming from Greek thinking seminaries looks to be missing some Jewish flavored roots in their discipleship stew!

Now, the question.  How do pastors incorporate enough contention into their discipling to find out if some of their seminary training is wrong?  And how on the flip side do they hear from the people what lies are creeping into their church, so as to address “woke,” socialism, a super tolerant love everybody Jesus, the mini idolatry of Calvinism, the latest form of new age mysticism, etc.?

I’m asking, where is the open discussion, the Jesus balance!

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APR 20, 2026:  A FIRST    I first started writing Thought-Provoking BLOG s for you on FB and my web-site back in about 2014 or 2015.  In that time I refrained from telling you, “You should buy this book I wrote!”  Through two books and ten booklets I never got that pushy.  I even broke the booklets up into BLOG s so you could have them free, and ran a few specials, for the first 20 or whatever.  SO HERE GOES A FIRST !

I hereby officially ask you to buy, through my website truth-seeker.co as many paper copies of, “BARRELL BOTTOMS, Hello? God? You there?” as you think you can hand out to friends at or near the bottom!  If there is a financial problem, email me at feedback@truth-seeker.co and I will arrange for a free one!  This is about us or people we love going through some really rough stuff and feeling all the way to the pit of our stomach that we are at the bottom of the Barrel, and that even God seems to be ignoring us.  This is about me trying to get as many readily available, paper copies of “BARRELL BOTTOMS” spread around out there as possible for the wave of pain I see in people.

This book deals head on with David, Ruth, Job, and you.  It is about walking across barrel bottoms as if they were holy ground.

You, or a friend, DO NEED THIS!

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APR 13, 2026:  DECEPTION!    Big Pharma pushes expensive drugs that DO NOT cure, but only cover symptoms.  AI can now create photos and movies proving anything you want.  The Media purposely contributes to Deception by accenting every possible negative and quietly ignoring every positive about whoever they wish to destroy.  Egyptology is off by about 300 years so they dig in the wrong time and are sure the Bible must be wrong.  Some politicians want to indoctrinate our children with EXACTLY what Sodom and Gomorrah were judged for; what is wrong is right and what is Biblically right must be wrong.  The Greek thinking church fathers of about 200 AD developed a hatred of all things Jewish, the result?  They cut us off from the very Blood Covenant roots of Christianity, and have substituted half-true religiosity.  The Progressive world has redefined Jesus so butter wouldn't melt in His mouth!  Media and Government is now setting the stage for UFOs, aliens, and various non-human beings.  How do you avoid Deception?  Part of the answer is a Scroll (personal notebook) of the specifics God has clearly and without doubt done for you, to act as a reminding Elder to you!

Joshua 24:19  "And Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, and had known all the deeds of the LORD which He had done for Israel.”

My scroll contains, and reminds me of, a number of flat out, mind blowing, miracles, the Lord has done specifically for me!  So, in the middle of a funk I can pull it out and have it act like an elder to slap me up-side the head and say, “Get over it you stupid sheep, you’ve got a great God — and don’t you dare be deceived by the lies of the world!"

A second part?  Stay in the Bible!  The very minimum seems to be about five minutes every other day.  Sorry, that is just the way it is.  Less leaves holes in the border around you, anything can just walk right in.

Third?  Pray!  Pray without ceasing!  The Holy Spirit really does want to be in you, upon you, and around you when you ask.  I picture the Spirit “putting on” Samson like a coat and kicking the snot out of that roaring lion.

YOU WILL HAVE TO STAY SOLID,
SO YOU KNOW YOU KNOW YOU KNOW!

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APR 6, 2026:  IMAGE REMINDER    Genesis 1:27  ”So God (Elohim, plural, the Gods of us who is one) created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  Just an ongoing reminder in today’s progressive world that a man plus a woman, as one plural-unity, was required to produce one IMAGE of the one plural-unity God.  One allowed IMAGE that They wanted to use to show us about Themselves and Their desire of Us right from the beginning!  That IMAGE explains Their motivation!

And what is that final bottom line?  Per I Corinthians 15:28, “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.”  In the ages to come, the Father gets Christ and His Bride (us).   THAT . . .

IS WHAT THE FATHER HAS WANTED
FROM THE VERY BEGINNING

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MAR 16, 2026:  HOLY SOUNDING    Have you ever heard the following statement pronounced with the utmost of conviction?  “The Creator of the universe does not consult humans to carry out His Divine Will.”

Well guess what, that is NOT 100% true!  It is about as true as saying: "The father of a godly home does not consult his children to carry out his will for the family."  There is of course a godly balance!  But as stated it totally ignores: prayer as a form of participation with God; the requirements of the very Covenant relationship that saves us;  the Father-Christ relationship;  that the Christ who wants to be one with us was the creator with the Father;  God specifically parenting us to be the Bride of Christ;  adoption as heirs;  and a WHOLE bunch more!!!

Exactly as is, that original statement is a mild form of idolatry; the worship of a man made god!  Unfortunately it is a powerful way to guarantee that you can NOT correctly understand what God wanted to show us about Himself right from the beginning.  You then break Romans 1:22,23 not with images, but with over zealous holy sounding words.

HE does Parent-Husband LOVE Us!

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