pnwguy

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

Few books in Scripture expose the emptiness of life apart from God as relentlessly as Ecclesiastes. It looks straight at work, pleasure, wealth, wisdom, youth, achievement, reputation, and even the passing of generations, then asks what any of it can finally hold when death eventually takes everything from our hands. “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

The phrase “under the sun” is crucial. Solomon is examining life as it appears within this fallen world, where men labour, build, acquire, enjoy, suffer, grow old, and die. Everything we try to make ultimate eventually collapses beneath the weight we place upon it. “What advantage does man have in all his work which he does under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:3). The problem is deeper than disappointment. Creation itself cannot give us what only the Creator can provide.

Yet Ecclesiastes does not teach that created things are worthless. Food, work, marriage, laughter, and ordinary pleasures are repeatedly received as gifts from God (Ecclesiastes 2:24; 3:12–13). Their misery begins when we demand that temporary gifts give permanent meaning. A good thing becomes a cruel master when we ask it to satisfy a soul made for eternity.

The book finally brings us before God: “Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). And when we read Ecclesiastes within the whole revelation of Scripture, its longing drives us toward Christ. He is the One in whom our labour is no longer empty, our suffering is no longer meaningless, and even death loses its final claim. Paul can therefore say, “Your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Ecclesiastes teaches us to stop asking passing things to carry eternal weight. Everything under the sun is vapor when we try to make it our final hope. In Christ, however, the gifts of this life can be received gratefully, suffering can be endured faithfully, and death can be faced without despair, because our life is hidden with Him and our future reaches beyond the grave.

[Ekaji @ekajiibe]

Jesus either resurrected from the dead, or He did not. And if He did, as the apostles witnessed and were murdered for refusing to renege on their testimony, the implications are enormous for a distracted world.

Not only does this prove His deity and the truthfulness of His claims of having power over life and death, because He said repeatedly that He would lay down His life to take it back again, it also affects the fundamental way reality should be understood.

The resurrection of Christ demonstrates that this plane of existence is not all there is. Because He does not merely rise from the dead to live amongst us, He does this as a sign bearing witness to the kingdom of God He proclaimed.

Explaining that there is another world far greater, which governs the one we know. That life is not without reason and purpose because the all-wise God is invested in the outcomes here.

That He who made all things has laws, expectations of His creation, a justice system, and, most importantly, a way out of the brokenness we have brought upon ourselves through sin.

That in that world all men will stand before God to give account for their deeds. Where the Lord gives rewards and welcomes His own into His rest. Where His wrath is satisfied upon the ungodly and all His adversaries.

The implications are vast for both those who believe in Christ and those who reject Him in speech and in deed.

The death of Christ on the cross stands as an eternal witness that God was never aloof in the chaos and brokenness of our world, but stepped into it to redeem those who truly realize that they are insufficient in themselves and need His everlasting grace.

[Scott Roberts @ScottRoberts]

I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back.
Who else feels this way?

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

We keep asking created things to do what only the Creator can do. Marriage, children, money, success, comfort, beauty, pleasure, travel, possessions, health, recognition, even retirement can all be good gifts from God. But the moment we ask any of them to become the reason our soul is at rest, we have placed a weight on them they were never created to carry.

This is why satisfaction keeps moving just beyond our reach. We tell ourselves that peace will come when we finally have the relationship, the house, the body, the income, the opportunity, or the life we have imagined. Then we receive some of those things and discover that the heart is still hungry. Solomon had wealth, pleasure, houses, possessions, entertainment, and everything his eyes desired, yet his verdict was still, “Vanity and striving after wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:10–11).

The problem is not that God’s gifts are worthless. The problem is that we turn gifts into gods. Jeremiah describes the tragedy perfectly: “My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Sin keeps promising that one more created thing will finally quiet the thirst, but broken cisterns never become fountains.

Jesus does not merely offer us another religious experience to add to everything else. He says, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst” (John 6:35). Christ is not the final item on a list of things that might make life complete. He is the treasure for whom the human heart was made.

This is why the Christian can enjoy God’s gifts without demanding that they save him. We can love a spouse without making marriage our identity. We can love our children without making them our reason for living. We can receive money without worshiping security, enjoy food without becoming its slave, and experience pleasure without expecting it to heal the soul. Every good gift is safest when it leads us back to the Giver.

Asaph finally reached the place every restless heart must reach: “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26). The deepest problem in us is not that we have not yet found the right earthly thing. It is that we keep expecting something created to satisfy a soul that was made for God.

[Trevor Sheatz @TrevorSheatz]

13 examples of Catholic traditions, rituals, and beliefs that are literally not in the Bible or explicitly contradict the Bible:

1. Salvation by faith and our own good works (this tragically leads to Hell) (Eph. 2:8-9)
2. Purgatory (Heb. 9:27)
3. The rosary (Matt. 6:7)
4. Worshiping Mary (even though many say it's "venerating", in practice it's identical to worship); Jesus actually explicitly discouraged this (Luke 4:8)
5. Church tradition after the canon's closing being equal in authority and truth to the Bible itself (Mark 7:8; Col. 2:8)
6. Bowing down and worshiping idols (Ex. 20:4-5)
7. The necessity of confessing sins to priests (1 Tim. 2:5)
8. Priests having a distinct relationship to God that regular Catholics don't have (1 Pet. 2:9)
9. Salvation only coming through the Catholic church (yes, this too is Catholic dogma) (Acts 4:12)
10. The perpetual virginity of Mary (Matt. 1:25)
11. The assumption of Mary (John 3:13)
12. Calling priests "Father," as Jesus explicitly forbids giving this title to religious leaders (Matt. 23:9)
13. The necessity of needing a teacher/priest to understand the Bible rather than being able to understand and interpret it correctly on our own (1 John 2:27)

And that's just off the top of my head. I can already think of more as I close this post out.

Please study the Scriptures for yourself. Study them in context, ensure you've come to a genuine saving faith by repenting and trusting in Jesus Christ alone, and flee the man-made, unbiblical Catholic Church.

[𝕊𝕠𝕝𝕒 ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕕 🎚️ @sola_chad]

Roman Catholicism is not merely “another Christian denomination with a few doctrinal differences.”

It’s an evil institution whose false doctrines put souls in danger.

You can call yourself the ancient Church.

You can call yourself the “one true Church.”

You can point to your history, your cathedrals, your councils, and your traditions.

But none of that makes a doctrine apostolic.

The question is not, “What has Rome taught for centuries?”

The question is, “What did Christ and His apostles teach?”

The gospel is not:

Christ + sacraments.

Christ + Mary.

Christ + priesthood.

Christ + human merit.

Christ + the treasury of the Church.

It is Christ alone.

Justification is by faith alone.

Scripture alone is the infallible rule for faith and practice.

Grace alone saves sinners.

And God alone gets the glory.

[Talk Church @churchtalkative]

The enemy has made sexual sin easier to fall into. Porn's free, it's hidden, it's one click away, and it never stops pulling at your mind.

Stuff that used to bother your conscience just gets called normal now. Lust gets dressed up as "self-care." Purity gets written off as outdated.

Don't buy it. Every time you give in, those chains don't loosen. They get tighter. The enemy's stopped chasing people into sin, he just makes it easy to reach and waits.

So guard your eyes. Guard your mind. Run when temptation shows up. You were never meant to be a slave to lust. You were made for the freedom Christ already paid for.

[Hater Report @HaterReport]

Now THIS is the proper way to use AI.

They turned Tyler Owens into the Hulk 😂

[Scott Roberts @ScottRoberts]

Stop dreading Mondays. Our culture has taught us to hate Mondays. Don't be like the world.

Mondays are a chance to praise the Lord and hit the ground running.

If you're lazy on Monday, you'll be lazy all week.

Be joyful! Get to work.

[Faithfulness Okom @AttorneyF_]

The rest Jesus promises in Matthew 11:28 is the rest of wisdom. It does not work like a magic wand. You do not hand over your anxiety and have God place a box of quiet peace into your hands.

What happens is you comprehend something, and that comprehension reorganizes everything.

Imagine you are drowning in debt, collectors calling daily, eviction hanging over your head. Someone credible sits you down with undeniable proof: your grandparents set up a locked fifteen-million-dollar trust in your name that matures in three years.

Even if you are precluded from borrowing against it today, or cashing out a single penny to pay this week's bills, I guarantee you still leave that room a completely different person.

The panic was never just about the balance sheet; it was the terror of ultimate ruin. You still have to live through the friction of the present, but the weight has shifted because your horizon has shifted. That is rest as a changed vista.

Matthew 11 is not an isolated promise of emotional comfort. In verse 19, Jesus notes that wisdom is proved right by her actions. By verses 25 to 27, he makes it clear that the Son alone knows the Father and reveals him.

The invitation in verse 28 is the direct result of that revelation. Jesus is calling the exhausted under his interpretation of reality. Come to the one who knows God, because seeing reality through his eyes changes how you carry everything.

When Jesus tells people to take his yoke, he is talking to a culture exhausted by religious performance. People were grinding their lives away trying to measure up, trying to justify their own existence.

Jesus offers his yoke instead because it is rooted in sonship. You obey because you already belong. Belonging comes first, which means the rest arrives before the work even begins.

The real trade is what you end up carrying. You walk in carrying the frantic burden of self-preservation: your survival, your reputation, your desperate need to secure your future. You walk out carrying concern for others.

Concern for others was the only weight Jesus ever carried; He already created and possessed all things, and thus had no private anxiety about his own life.

Taking his yoke means you finally recognize yourself as saved. A drowning person cannot pull anyone else out of the water. You can only genuinely care for others once you stop the exhausting labor of trying to save yourself.

Plenty of spiritual paths offer peace through detachment, telling you to numb your desires, drop your attachments, and dissolve the self so that nothing can hurt you anymore.

Jesus never asks you to become a ghost. The problem with human life is not that we have a self, but that the self has turned entirely inward, obsessed with its own survival and feeding on its own anxieties. It is simply too small an object to satisfy its own hunger.

Jesus does not extinguish the self. He gives it something vast enough to hold it.

This rest does not produce cold detachment; it awakens higher imagination and deeper purpose. The soul that comes to Christ for rest does not become less. It becomes, at last, large enough for what it was made to carry.

[pnwguy @pnwguy4]

@geoffschwartz Lock

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

Those who sell prosperity often blame Satan for every hardship because their teaching has no honest place for suffering under the wise providence of God. Once health, wealth, and visible success have been promised, every painful circumstance must be called a demonic attack. The blame stays outside us, while the corruption within us is left largely untouched.

Scripture does warn us that the devil is real and must be resisted (1 Peter 5:8–9). Yet James says, “Each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust” (James 1:14). Jesus also taught that evil proceeds “from within, out of the heart of men” (Mark 7:21). Satan may present the temptation, but our flesh desires what he offers.

Paul describes this war plainly: “The flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh” (Galatians 5:17). He then names immorality, idolatry, jealousy, anger, envy, drunkenness, and other sins as “the deeds of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19–21). He does not tell us to treat these sins as though they were merely demons to be shouted away. His command is, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Those who belong to Christ “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).

Christ did not shed His blood to guarantee us an easy life. He gave Himself to redeem us from lawlessness and purify a people for Himself (Titus 2:14). Any preacher who keeps you rebuking the devil while never teaching you to put your own sin to death is leaving the enemy within you untouched.

[Tevin Macharia Mukabana @TevinMacharia]

Satan is not opposed to good morals.

He’s opposed to Jesus Christ.

Read that again because most Christians miss this completely.

Satan doesn’t care if you’re a “good person.” He doesn’t care if you volunteer at the food bank, recycle your trash, and help old ladies cross the street. He doesn’t care if you’re kind, generous, and well-liked by everyone in your community.

He cares that you don’t bow the knee to Jesus.

Here’s the deception that’s damning millions:

Satan has convinced people that morality equals spirituality. That being a “good person” is the same as being a Christian. That if you just live right, treat people well, and avoid the “big sins,” you’re acceptable to God.

This is a lie straight from the pit of hell.

The Pharisees had impeccable morals. They followed the law meticulously. They were respected, disciplined, and religiously devoted.

Jesus called them children of the devil.
Why? Not because their morals were bad. Because their morals replaced Christ.
Satan’s greatest trick isn’t making bad people worse. It’s making good people think they don’t need a Savior.

Think about it:

The atheist who feeds the homeless thinks he’s good enough without God.

The Buddhist who meditates and practices compassion thinks she’s enlightened without Christ.

The Muslim who prays five times daily thinks he’s righteous without Jesus.

The moral Christian who goes to church, pays his tithe, and avoids scandal thinks he’s saved without surrender.

All of them are headed to the same place: eternal separation from God.

Because morality doesn’t save. Jesus saves.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

Satan loves moral people who reject Jesus. They’re his best advertisement for the lie that you can earn your way to heaven.

They’re living proof that you can:

•Be kind without Christ
•Be generous without God
•Be disciplined without the Holy Spirit
•Be respected without redemption

And still be lost.

The most dangerous people in hell won’t be the murderers and rapists. They’ll be the moral, upstanding citizens who thought their goodness was good enough.

Their morals became their idol. Their goodness became their god.

And Satan smiled because he’d accomplished his goal: Keep them from Jesus.

Here’s what most Christians don’t understand:

Satan doesn’t need to make you do bad things. He just needs to keep you from doing the ONE thing that matters: surrendering to Christ.

If he can get you to:

•Trust your morals instead of Christ’s sacrifice

•Rely on your goodness instead of God’s grace

•Believe in your works instead of Jesus’ finished work

He’s won.

You can live a moral life and still die lost. You can be a good person and still face judgment. You can avoid all the “big sins” and still end up separated from God forever.
Because the only sin that damns you eternally is rejecting Jesus Christ.

“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” John 3:36

Not the murderer who repents and believes in Christ is damned.

Not the thief who turns to Jesus on the cross is damned.

Not the prostitute who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears is damned.

The moral, religious person who rejects Christ is damned.

That’s why Satan loves morality without Jesus. It sends people to hell with a smile on their face, convinced they were good enough.

Stop trusting your morals. Start trusting Jesus.

Your goodness won’t save you. Your works won’t redeem you. Your morality won’t justify you.

Only the blood of Jesus Christ can wash away your sin and make you acceptable to a holy God.

Everything else is just Satan’s distraction from the one thing that actually matters.

[Scott Roberts @ScottRoberts]

One of the clearest signs that God is changing you:

The sins you once defended, you now hate.
The sins you once enjoyed, you now fight.
The sins you once hid, you now confess.

Grace doesn't make peace with sin. Grace teaches us to wage war against it.

[pnwguy @pnwguy4]

@ScottRoberts The Devine Conspiracy

Dallas Willard

[Scott Roberts @ScottRoberts]

Name one Christian book, other than the Bible, that genuinely changed the way you think about God.

[Pastor Rich Bitterman @w_bitterman]

You can watch a man curse Christ and spit on a Bible.

You can watch him mock you. Laugh. Dismiss it all.

And then one day, mid-sentence, the Spirit opens his eyes.

Paul is riding to kill Christians. By lunchtime, he’s blind and calling Jesus Lord.

Zodhiates hurls rocks at missionaries. By nightfall, he’s preaching the gospel.

Augustine lies on a garden bench, drunk with shame, and hears a child say, “Take up and read.” He picks up Romans and everything breaks for him.

This is the Spirit’s work. It cannot be mimicked. It happens in pews, in jail cells and in hospital beds.

It has happened to you, hasn’t it?

You didn’t get there by logic or by accident. You got there because the Spirit found you and convicted you.

He showed you a Christ so lovely, so sufficient, that you stopped arguing and started worshiping.

That is the Spirit’s signature: He makes Christ your treasure.

[Scott Roberts @ScottRoberts]

Five things your children should regularly see you doing:

1. Reading Scripture
2. Praying
3. Loving your spouse
4. Repenting when you're wrong
5. Worshiping Christ with the church

They are learning Christianity by watching you.