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We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2 For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3 how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? Hebrews 2 New International Version We are warned not to drift away. Over the years, I have seen many people drift away. Studying the word of God every day, keeps us from drifting away. I have never seen someone drift away who was studying the bible every day.

2 / 12 Guava Guava is one of the most protein-rich fruits around. You’ll get a whopping 4.2 grams of the stuff in every cup. This tropical fruit is also high in vitamin C and fiber. Slice it up or bite right into it like an apple. You can even eat the seeds and skin, so there’s nothing to clean up! ------------ Filipinos love this fruit. Every tree is picked bare. Sometimes they can't wait for it to ripen. I find the taste bland. I never eat it. I leave it for them because they enjoy it so much. Avocado We have vine ripe avocadoes here. They grow in peoples yards, and they pick them and sell them. Many different varieties. Jackfruit We have two Jackfruit trees that produce a fruit about the size of two bowling balls. As one is picked, it is cut into 5 or 6 sections and shared with neighbors. Always gone within hours. It takes 3 months for the fruit to grow and mature, and it is gone in hours. Bananas We have about 6 or 7 types of bananas here. Very popular. On the table every week. Grapefruit We have pomelo here. A little larger, sweeter. Many trees in neighbors yards.

🌺 Parting shot: Channel the sea breeze Photo: David Moehring Finish Liner David Moehring graced us with a family vacation photo from Maui earlier this month. David snapped this shot on an iPhone 12 Pro from his family's Airbnb.

I don't say automatically the amount of Catholics. There are/were many Catholics who understand the difference between the Catholic office holder, and the American office holder who happens to worship in the Roman Catholic church. What scares me is the number, both Catholic and Protestant, who does NOT know this difference. The issue is liberty of conscience, office holders who respect this in their choices I support no matter where they worship or don't worship. But we are finding too many are being put in office who do not realize this difference. The dragon in Revelation 12 is first of all the devil and direct demonic activity, and their first lie that God is not God and does not have a right to place a law over us. We are all demigods and have our own truth and that the final authority is not God and God's law that we grow towards and set as a goal to travel towards, but our own subjective dispensationa experience are our own personal truths and thus our own final authority. Spiritualism/Despensationalism, where we exalt our subjective, dispensational experience. On a second level it can represent secularism, which reaches to the religion of the French Revolution that evolved into Napoleon and then into Marxism. A counterfeit Holy Spirit. In a lot of ways the beast is the opposit of the dragon. In it's largest sence it is any orginazation that replaces Christ in our lives. A counterfeit God the Father, where we submit our subject, existencial experience to this counterfeit authority. The true trinity has a oneness between an outside ultamate truth but where the God of ultamate objective truth workes with us individually with our subjective experience. The lamblike beast in the fullest sense are us as individuals dealing with the dragon and beast and the true Lamb influencing our lives and making choices. On a second level, we have a version of Christianity focused on the individual, Protestantism, and out of this grew a country based on the individual, the United States of America, a very christlike nation but dragonlike in how we treated the natives and very beastlike in how we tolerated slavery; but had an initial goal to go towards the Lamb. However, the Bible predicts this ends up speaking as a dragon (secularism) but then forms an image to the beast (controling government sticking it's nose where it does not belong and using government to enforce religion.) those who have the mark of the beast in their foreheads are those who really believe that the government has gotten too secular and we need to restore proper religion. Sadly, too many, not only Catholics, but also Protestants want to make this change. Those who accept it in their right hands are those who don't like this control and enforced religion, but sees it as to their existential advantage to go along with it. I think that Biden understands the difference between being a Catholic office holder, and an American office holder who happens to worship in the United States. Yet, his first way of helping Ukraine was by setting into places that limits how people can buy and sell. We have been finding this economic control even growing more. With the uniting the world through economic cooperation, gaining more control over individual lives and bias, comming up with excuses for pushing and crossing the line of dicency, including, making excuses for the picture dressed as Jesus. (the picture dressed as the Pope tends to go along with what we are finding in our current politics). Putting people who want to use their office to set up their religion scares me.

As I understand it, God has always had a special people who have been open to a larger amount of the truth and have a job to help others increase their growth. We can call this "The Remanant Church." Now, this does NOT mean they are uniform. Sadly too many are looking for a type of church unity and perfection that the church had ONLY ONCE, Maybe TWICE in all of her history. The one time that we know of was Adam before he took a nap, and MAYBE Abram before he met Sari. Abraham and his followers (We think too much of him alone, but he was a tribal chief) were THE Remanant church, but did did not mean that he did not have room for Melchizedek, and we find others who had a good relationship with Abraham that could well have been salvational to them. (As well as a kindness where archaeology and word studies indicate that despite his helping those like the king of Sodom, that he did not see them as having a good relationship.) In the story of Jonah, we find that the Phoenician sailors (The Phoenicians would flirt with monotheism from time to time, even without becoming outright Yahwehists.) who had a special relationship with the Yahwehist nations were converted to Yahwehism, They joined the remanant church. But the people in Nineveh were converted to "God" and we find the entire Assyrian Empire becoming monothiests, but worshiping the god who the Assyrians believed to be the most high god. This made them better and kinder people until eventually that generation passed and an aposticy eventually occured. The Lord took this as worshiping of the one true God. (The story of Jonah and the Leviathan gives a wonderful study on the role of the Remanant Church and others.) We have Naaman the Lepper who joined the Remanant Church, and took some earth from Israel to kneel and pray, but asked for the one exception to kneel in helping his king in the king's worship. We would dissagree with Elisha, Elisha SHOULD have said that Naaman needs to tell his king that he is worshiping in the wrong religion, worshiping a demon and to bring enough dirt for his king to kneel to worship the God of Israel, otherwise he is lost... We don't like Elisha's message of allowing Naaman to support religions freedom. Another powerful lesson on the job of the Remanant Church. As we look at the old Yahwehist religion (Judaism came from Yahwehism just as Christianity came from Judaism.) there appears to be two denominations. One based more on the book of Leviticus and the priesthood of Aaron. The other based more on the book of the Law (which became Deuteronomy) and focused more on the priesthood of Moses through maybe one of Aaron's other sons. (and even among these two there appears to be a bit more northern and southern influences as well as various degrees of feelings for the royal houses.) Christianity seems to have variations between James and the ministry to Jews, and among the ministry to gentiles the more Peter views and the more Paul views, with John preventing those two views from breaking into two very different religions, but remaining aspects, maybe as far as denominations within one overall group. So we find in the Bible evidence for God having a "Remanant Church" with room for growth and differences. This church is how God is reaching out to others,

Life was much simpler back then, before snack foods, factory farming, and convenience foods. As someone who has tried to get thin for 30 years, I can tell you it's not easy today. The odds are against you. It is highly complex.

🎈 Parting shot: Aerial views Photo: Shane Savitsky Speaking of the sky — Axios editor Shane Savitsky has had some airtime of his own. He snapped this shot from a hot air balloon over Teotihuacan outside Mexico City in 2022, iPhone 12 Mini in hand. 🪂 Our inbox is open at finishline@axios.com for your parting shots!

There are many in our church who believe that we have the truth, and that only people who fit a certain mold will be in heaven. Philippines is about 80% catholic. Probably more in my area. There are MANY devoted catholics here. I have had the opportunity to visit, get to know and observe. The faith and dedication to God that some of these people have is humbling. They don't have the truth we have, but they have the faith the bible talks about. Complete trust in God. Sometimes, we are not so smart as we think we are.

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