ravindran

Once I experience sleep paralysis. Lot of people get terrified. But Lord strengthened me. I just felt like someone disturbed a good sleep! Demons feel like they have more authority when our fear increases .The reality is, demons don't have authority and we don't have to fear them. No wonder Jesus kept on saying Do not fear so many times!!

When a person is washed in blood of the Lamb, all curses are broken. >> If a person is sick from a curse and doesn't believe curses are real, it won't get treated It is God who brings healing to a person. A person's belief on source of the sickness has no bearings on God's ability to heal a person I am not denying that the enemy is working hard in bringing all sort of difficulties to a believers life. The enemy will try to oppress every believer. But we should not be worried that there are some "unknown" generational curses bringing bad things to us. Bible asks us to be aware of the spiritual battle. But our task is simply to fix our eyes on Jesus Christ and let Him take care of the battle

Yes, completely agree. Lord called us to be light of the world and salt of the earth.

Probably. As long as you have delivered the message, what else you think is needed? And there are going to be some cases where you would have the opportunity to deliver the message personally. Such instances would be more effective. If someone would challenge our faith, we should gently defend our faith. It does not mean we should go out and challenge everyone and try to convert them by proving them wrong.

It is actually not our job to convert others. Our job is to proclaim Gospel (good news). It is Holy Spirit which will minister to the soul and draw the person to Lord. We cannot win over people with our intellect or wisdom.

I don't think we need to believe it was definitely Samuel to explain Ephesians 4:8-11. I see no relationship between the 2. There are good arguments are on both sides to say whether it was Samuel or not.

May be something on NT. Pauline Epistles or one of the Gospel books. Through that Bible Study, you can go back to OT and bring the link between OT and NT.

Thank you!

Ya.. I am currently in US. My parents are back in India still.

Christianity is minority in India. The current government is known to bring controversial laws such as "anti-religion conversion". It is also known for Christian persecution. Now they are trying to close the doors for all the Christian based NGO's.

I am from India. This is a sad thing. Please keep this whole situation in prayers. From what I know, there is not much hope left since government has decided what they want to do.

My wife is stay at home mom. We have joint account. She never uses her credit or debit card. We really don't have an issue with any of the points. Guess it is all simple because there is only one source.

I agree with you. I am just saying the answer is simply not on one side of the scale. When we say God is sovereign, He is sovereign over everything. So there is nothing that could happen without Him allowing it to happen. Like you said, permissible will of God. It is combination of man's free will and God's sovereignty which shapes events of our life. If a person commits suicide, then it is the person who did it. At the same time, God had to allow it to happen

A devil can lead a person into sinful life drinking, smoking, drugs, etc. And devil can drive the person to the limit and lead to suicide. In a way, devil is literally killing the person. But it is the person who is really committing suicide. Is God taking the person's life in this case? Free will and God's sovereignty are closely tied with each other. Separating them out and saying one over the other would pose difficulties. And denying one over the other would also be wrong. We need to embrace both.

Abortion in general is wrong. I think there is no question on that. However, there are going to be some special cases. What is the life of mother is in danger? Do we apply blanket rule and say abortion is wrong no matter what? I don't think so. It is not an easy choice for the mother, but it would probably be the best choice. And it should be allowed in such exceptional cases. I don't think rape should be a reason for abortion. These exceptional cases are not large in number. Today we see abortion being so common. Women want to abort their babies because they feel it would disturb their career or studies. Or simply they are not ready to parent! It is a sad sad thing I think there is another tricky situation which I don't think anyone has brought up. What is the mother knows the child is going to be born with some disease? Most common would be down syndrome. I think medical field is advanced enough to find if the child would be born with down syndrome or not. Even there are other conditions which doctors would be able to find very early. Should the baby be born and face pain on earth every day it faces? Or should abortion allowed in those cases? Personally I believe abortion should not be done in those cases also. Pain and suffering are consequences of fallen world. We cannot take remediation into our own hands by terminating life. A person becoming totally sick cannot take his or her own life. Same applies to babies also.

Hypocrisy! These are the same group who would sue a bakery for not baking cakes for a gay wedding. That would be hate. And what they do is not hate. Cannot understand their rational. Well, it proves the points that one needs to be irrational to be liberal

Holy Spirit works through our consciences mostly. The only way to know whether it is Holy Spirit guiding or simply our flesh is to be rooted in the Word of God. You can very well have urge to sin or resist the sin. How do you know what is sin and what is not? Through Word of God

I don't think one can simply walk away from faith. We do not see anything like that in Bible. We see Bible talk about being born again. There is no such concept of becoming dead after being born again. We see Bible talk about in dwelling of Holy Spirit as "seal". I don't think we can break the seal as we wish. Backsliding is absolutely there. The truth is, so many people someone has become apostate without understanding whether the person was saved at the first place. The problem is because people think someone speaking in tongues must be saved. Because they incorrectly believe a person must speak in tongues to be saved!

Even I wish to visit there some day. It is not an option for few more years with little kids. I heard there would be lot of walking and not easy on the kids.

I am not if selfie should be the issue here. It should be treated as just police taking pictures at a fire scene. Selfie just added his face to the picture! Would everyone react the same way if they were just taking pictures? Use rear facing camera instead of front facing. If they were not doing their duty and instead taking picture, they should be punished. If not, I see no reason to get so upset about this!

I am not sure what situation you are going through. It does not sound like a philosophical question though. These are the times when Lord says "My grace is sufficient for you" These are the times, you can be assured that Lord is right there with you. Because He is there with you, you can trust in His other promise that all things work out for good in life of a believer. Human knowledge is limited, so we may not understand "why" all the time As a father of 2 little girls, I am starting to learn the love of our eternal Father much better. When the kids get sick and have to get some difficult treatment, I have to control my tears and wish it was me in their place and they were spared of this suffering. Human fathers can only wish. Our Lord Jesus came down from heaven to earth and did it for us. He went to the Cross and gave His life for us. He is suffering with you. He partakes in your suffering. Always remember that. The outcome may not be always what we want. But God has a plan and purpose. Trust in Him and never lose hope. If you have time, you can read through this for a more intellectual response http://rzim.org/just-thinking/if-god-why-suffering/

I don't see anything wrong in this (morally). They were not saying that is actual evidence or anything. It is just a background to go with the news being shown. It is something that a common person would definitely relate with hacking. On the other side, I am not sure if they would run into any copyright violations for using this.

I think a Christian shouldn't watch any hollywood movies. Not because it is a commandment of God or something. Just considering what it represents, merits from watching them, what it would mean for unbelievers and what it does to the kids.

Precisely where I am getting to as well. There is absolutely nothing wrong in crying out to Lord in our suffering. Job did not like his suffering. David did not like his suffering. They all cried out to the Lord. We don't see Lord in anyway condemning them crying out due to suffering. They were not suffering by choice. Paul was suffering by choice.