Arise 'N Shine

This is the first part of the series on the Human Will I want to write about. Read the introduction (my previous post) to know why I'm writing about this topic and where my inspiration comes from. Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash 1. The Nature of the Human Will When the will is acting it means that it has a choice between a positive and a negative or if not there is an inclination towards one rather than the other. Which means that something causes or influences it to choose. This leads to the fact that the will isn't sovereign. A few might say that they can turn their eyes' attention to the right or left and their minds would be indifferent of which they do. That's a contradiction, because it supposes that they can choose one thing in preference to another while being in a state of indifference. Maybe the mind and even the will was indifferent up until it came to have a preference. When indifference disappeared, choice was made.  Indifference --...

Photo by Panos Sakalakis on Unsplash This post of mine is inspired from a book I've been reading for months. I didn't finish it, not because I don't like it, but because it challenged me... there were things that I believed about God and they weren't quite right. There were things in between, which if we have to illustrate, it would look like living with a blurred eyesight and being in need of glasses. The book is one of the books that spoke to the core things in my life and challenged my beliefs. Firstly, it is because it speaks about the Father in a perspective which maybe doesn't necessarily feel right, but which is true looking at the Bible as a whole. Secondly, it is because you get a glimpse of the God Almighty and you feel like a nobody (not in a bad way, but truly realizing who you are compared to His greatness) and as you see Him, you end up worshiping, standing in awe and loving Him more than ever before. Thirdly, it is because of the writing ...

This devotional is designed in such a great way. It has a beautiful cover page with a bird on it and with magnetic closure. I really like the design of the pages, too. The book is about women sharing their experiences, thoughts, insights, hard times, joys, sorrows, stories from their life, etc. It's a daily devotional to start the day with. It can encourage you to go on and to trust God through every situation. The contributors to this devotional are well-known Woman of Faith, as Lisa Harper, Jenna Lucado Bishop, Patsy Clairmont, Natalie Grant, Joni Eareckson Tada, Sheila Walsh, etc.

Michael Leehan tells the story of his life, with a really short glimpse into his childhood and then recounts how he became a devoted satanist surrounded by darkness. He becomes a devoted follower of Satan through rituals and sacrifices. His life is normal in the sight of others, because he lives as everybody else before the eyes of the others: studying, having a job, spending time with his children, etc. This story is really something which makes you think about many things, like the easiness to seduce "christian" women easier than those from a bar, the loss of power of God's people and His church, and so on. 

The story is a historical fiction set in Babylon during the life of king Nebuchadnezzar and the captivity of the Jewish people. Tiamat, Nebuchadnezzar's daughter, loves her father so much and it hurts her when she sees the king living like a beast in the Hanging Gardens of the palace, separated from the world. Tiamat's life is hard, beginning with her forced marriage to the captive Jewish prince and the unseen forces that try to push her down. With her husband's death and the death of a nobleman she has to discover the truth, find answers to her unanswered questions. The king's family is threatened by a mage's plot, if the queen doesn't intervene with a plan: Tia should marry the Persian prince. The powerful mage Shadir knows the family's secrets and wants to reveal them, if Tia doesn't marry his own man on the throne. Pedaiah, the Jewish brother of Tia's dead husband, helps her to find the truth about the things that happen in the palace and cha...

Larry Taunton starts his book with being at the table with an atheist and speaking about Christianity and the reality of grace. Then he recounts how he and his wife want to adopt an orphan girl from Ukraine named Sasha. As they started the process of adoption, they couldn’t believe what they encountered: corruption, an atheistic shaped country, and false promises of the socialism; a clash of two cultures.  The author connects the story of Sasha with grace. He also describes how a world with atheistic believes would look like: a cold and graceless world. But through Sasha’s story we can see that the world is not beyond the healing power of grace…beyond ”the grace effect”. The book was very interesting, because I wasn’t sure if Larry Taunton and his family would bring the adoption to the end seeing the corruption of the country, the bribes they had to pay and the horrible conditions of the children in the orphanages. As I read the book I was very astonished by the things the...

Nadish was kidnapped at 9 years old and was made a child slave. "The landlord forced me to clean up animal manure all day, and when I was done, he would lock me in a small room with the animals." His story continues: "Days turned into weeks, and my stomach would growl. He never gave me enough to eat. Weeks turned into months, and my body would ache. The work was hard, and there was never enough time to rest. Months turned into years, and I began to think that this would never end. I was trapped, alone, locked in this dark place with the other animals." But through a miraculous event, Nadish found his way back into the loving embrace of his mother and the people who prayed for him during his captivity. ~excerpt from  No Longer a Slumdog ( you can order a free copy of this book or download an e-book by clicking on the title ^_^ )