Good Tolkien quote

"For heart that is pitiless counteth not the power that pity hath, of which stern anger may be forged and a lightning kindled before which mountains fall." -- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Fall of Gondolin"

43 Profound Quotes About Prayer

43 Profound Quotes About Prayer

1.”Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the one who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.” – Max Lucado

2. “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” – Martin Luther

3. “True prayer is neither a mere mental exercise nor a vocal performance. It is far deeper than that – it is a spiritual transaction with the Creator of Heaven and Earth.” – Charles Spurgeon

4. “If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to hear you. If you do not expect, you will not have. God will not hear you unless you believe He will hear you; but if you believe He will, He will be as good as your faith.” – Charles Spurgeon

5. “Prayer makes a godly man, and puts within him the mind of Christ, the mind of humility, of self-surrender, of service, of pity, and of prayer. If we really pray, we will become more like God, or else we will quit praying.” – E.M. Bounds

6. “Prayer should not be regarded as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.” – E.M. Bounds

7. “God can handle your doubt, anger, fear, grief, confusion, and questions. You can bring everything to him in prayer.” – Rick Warren

8. “Prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them; outlive a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world.” – E.M Bounds

9. “Prayer delights God’s ear; it melts His heart.” – Thomas Watson

10. “It is possible to move men, through God, by prayer alone.” – Hudson Taylor

11. “To get nations back on their feet, we must first get down on our knees.” – Billy Graham

12. “Prayer is not monologue, but dialogue; God’s voice is its most essential part. Listening to God’s voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine.” – Andrew Murray

13. “To desire revival… and at the same time to neglect (personal) prayer and devotion is to wish one way and walk another.” – A.W. Tozer

14. “I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.” – George Mueller

15. “Our praying, however, needs to be pressed and pursued with an energy that never tires, a persistency which will not be denied, and a courage which never fails.” – E. M. Bounds

16. “God does nothing but by prayer, and everything with it.” – John Wesley

17. “Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work.” – Oswald Chambers

18. “Search for a person who claims to have found Christ apart from someone else’s prayer, and your search may go on forever.” – E. Bauman

19. “Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down.” – John Wesley

20. “God will do great things for you if you will wait for Him. Yield to Him. Cooperate with Him.” – John Smith

21. “A day without prayer is a day without blessing, and a life without prayer is a life without power.” – Edwin Harvey

22. “Quit playing, start praying. Quit feasting, start fasting. Talk less with men, talk more with God. Listen less to men, listen to the words of God. Skip travel, start travail.” – Leonard Ravenhill

23. “None can believe how powerful prayer is, and what it is able to effect, but those who have learned it by experience. It is a great matter when in extreme need to take hold on prayer.” – Martin Luther

24. “You know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price. Never, never neglect it.” – Sir Thomas Buxton

25. “Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing necessary to a minister. Pray, then my dear brother; pray, pray, pray.” – Edward Payson

26. “It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray aright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must patiently, believingly, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer; and further we have not only to continue in prayer unto the end, but we have also to believe that God does hear us, and will answer our prayers. Most frequently we fail in not continuing in prayer until the blessing is obtained, and in not expecting the blessing.” – George Müller

27. “Think of what He can do, and how He delights to hear the prayers of His redeemed people. Think of your place and privilege in Christ, and expect great things!” – Andrew Murray

28. “The reason why we obtain no more in prayer is because we expect no more. God usually answers us according to our own hearts.” – Richard Alleine

29. “Satan cannot deny but that great wonders have been wrought by prayer. As the spirit of prayer goes up, so his kingdom goes down.” – William Gurnall

30. “The devil is aware that one hour of close fellowship, hearty converse with God in prayer, is able to pull down what he hath been contriving and building many a year.” – Flavel

31. “Beware in your prayers, above everything else, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what He can do. Expect unexpected things ‘above all that we ask or think.’” – Andrew Murray

32. “If we would pray aright, the first thing we should do is to see to it that we really get an audience with God, that we really get into His very presence. Before a word of petition is offered, we should have the definite consciousness that we are talking to God, and should believe that He is listening and is going to grant the thing that we ask of Him.” – Dr. R. A. Torrey

33. “What is love if it be not fiery? What are prayers if the heart be not ablaze? They are the battles of the soul.” – Samuel Chadwick

34. “Mind how you pray. Make real business of it. Let it never be a dead formality…plead the promise in a truthful, business-like way…Ask for what you want, because the Lord has promised it.” – Charles Spurgeon

35. “Where there is much prayer, there will be much of the Spirit; where there is much of the Spirit, there will be ever-increasing prayer.” – Andrew Murray

36. “A godly man is a praying man. As soon as grace is poured in, prayer is poured out. Prayer is the soul’s traffic with Heaven; God comes down to us by His Spirit, and we go up to Him by prayer.” – Thomas Watson

37. “Every great movement of God can be traced to a kneeling figure.” – D. L. Moody

38. “There is no way that Christians, in a private capacity, can do so much to promote the work of God and advance the kingdom of Christ as by prayer.” – Jonathan Edwards

39. “As it is the business of tailors to make clothes, and the business of cobblers to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray!” – Martin Luther

40. “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness.” – Martin Luther

41. “Intercessory prayer is exceedingly prevalent. What wonders it has wrought! The Word of God teems with its marvelous deeds. Believer, thou hast a mighty engine in thy hand, use it well, use it constantly, use it with faith, and thou shalt surely be a benefactor to thy brethren.” – C. H. Spurgeon

42. “The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.” – Samuel Chadwick

43. “What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men who the Holy Spirit can use—men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men—men of prayer.” – E. M. Bounds

Thoughts to Ponder

Thoughts to Ponder

  REALLY BIG LIST OF THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

• How come you press harder on a remote-control when you know the battery is dead?
• Why are they called buildings, when they're already finished? Shouldn't they be called builts?
• Why are they called apartments, when they're all stuck together?
• Why do people without out a watch look at their wrist when you ask them what time it is? Why do you ask someone without a watch what time it is?
• Why does sour cream have an expiration date?
• Who is General failure and why is he reading my disk?
• The light went out, but where to?
• Why do banks charge you a "non-sufficient funds fee" on money they already know you don't have?
• Why is it you have a "pair" of pants and only one bra?
• Does the reverse side also have a reverse side?
• Why is the alphabet in that order?
• If the universe is everything, and scientists say that the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?
• If you got into a taxi and he started driving backwards, would the taxi driver end up owing you money?
• What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?
• If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it do the other trees make fun of it?
• Why is a carrot more orange than an orange?
• When two airplanes almost collide why do they call it a near miss?? It sounds like a near hit to me!!
• Do fish get cramps after eating?
• How come abbreviated is such a long word?
• Why are there 5 syllables in the word "monosylabic"?
• If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?
• Why do they call it the Department of Interior when they are in charge of everything outdoors?
• Why do scientists call it research when looking for something new?
• If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
• When I erase a word with a pencil, where does it go?
• Why is it, when a door is open it's ajar, but when a jar is open, it's not a-door?
• Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.
• How come Superman could stop bullets with his chest, but always ducked when someone threw a gun at him?
• Do infants have as much fun in their infancy as adults do in adultery?
• If "con" is the opposite of "pro," then what is the opposite of progress?
• Why is lemon juice mostly artificial ingredients but dishwashing liquid contains real lemons?
• How much deeper would the ocean be if sponges didn't grow in it?
• Why buy a product that it takes 2000 flushes to get rid of?
• Why do we wait until a pig is dead to "cure" it?
• Why do we wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them?
• Why do we put suits in a garment bag and put garments in a suitcase?
• Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
• Do Roman paramedics refer to IV's as "4's"?
• Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to have an "s" in it?
• What do little birdies see when they get knocked unconscious?
• Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
• If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?
• Should you trust a stockbroker who's married to a travel agent?
• Is boneless chicken considered to be an invertebrate?
• Do married people live longer than single people or does it just SEEM longer?
• I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
• If all those psychics know the winning lottery numbers, why are they all still working?
• Isn't Disneyland a people trap operated by a mouse?
• Sooner or later, doesn't EVERYONE stop smoking?
• Since light travels faster than sound, isn't that why some people appear bright until you hear them speak?
• Isn't the best way to save face to keep the lower part shut?
• War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.
• If you throw a cat out the window, is it considered kitty litter?
• If a man speaks in the forest and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong?
• Why do we drive on parkways, and park on driveways?
• If a mute swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
• If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?
• If a book about failures doesn't sell, is it a success?
• Instead of talking to your plants, if you yelled at them would they still grow? Only to be troubled and insecure?
• Is there another word for synonym?
• Isn't is it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"?
• When sign makers go on strike, is anything written on their signs?
• When you open a bag of cotton balls, is the top one meant to be thrown away?
• Do you need a silencer if you are going to shoot a mime?
• Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all"?
• Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
• Why do they report power outages on TV?
• What do you do when you see an endangered animal that is eating an endangered plant?
• Is it true that cannibals don't eat clowns because they taste funny?
• Is it possible to be totally partial?
• What's another word for thesaurus?
• If nothing ever sticks to TEFLON. how do they make it stick to the pan?
• If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?
• Would a fly without wings be called a walk?
• Why do people who know the least know it the loudest?
• If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day. 365 days a year. why are there locks on the doors?
• If the funeral procession is at night, do folks drive with their headlights off?
• If a stealth bomber crashes in a forest, will it make a sound?
• If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?
• When it rains, why don't sheep shrink?
• If the cops arrest a mime, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?
• Why is the word abbreviation so long?
• When companies ship Styrofoam, what do they pack it in?
• If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
• Can a fat person go skinny dipping?
• Why do you need a drivers licence to buy liquor when you can't drink and drive?
• Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?
• Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
• Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?
• Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?
• Have you ever imagined a world with out hypothetical situations?
• How does the guy who drives the snowplow get to work in the morning?
• If a cow laughed. would milk come out her nose?
• If your in a vehicle going the speed of light. what happens when you turn on the headlights?
• Why do they put braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM?
• Why is it that when you transport something by car, its called a shipment. but when you transport something by ship. its cargo?
• You know that little indestructable black box that is used on planes. Why dont they make the whole plane out of the same substance?
• Why is it that when you're driving and looking for an address. you turn down the volume on the radio?

• Whose cruel idea was it for the word "lisp" to have an "s" in it?
• Since light travels faster than sound, isn't that why some people
  appear bright until you hear them speak?
• How come abbreviated is such a long word?
• If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as
  cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?
• Why do you press harder on a remote-control when you know the battery is dead?
• Since Americans throw rice at weddings, do orientals throw hamburgers?
  Why are they called buildings, when they're already finished? Shouldn't they be called builts?
• Why are they called apartments, when they're all stuck together?
• Why do people without a watch look at their wrist when you ask them what time it is? Why do you ask someone without a watch what time it is?
• Why does sour cream have an expiration date?
• The light went out, but where to?
  Why do banks charge you a "non-sufficient funds fee" on money they already know you don't have?
• Does the reverse side also have a reverse side?
  Why is the alphabet in that order?
• If the universe is everything, and scientists say that the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?
• If you got into a taxi and the driver started driving backward, would the taxi driver end up owing you money?
• What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?
• If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, do the other trees make fun of it?
  Why is a carrot more orange than an orange?
• When two airplanes almost collide why do they call it a near miss??
  Do fish get cramps after eating?
• Why are there 5 syllables in the word "monosyllabic"?
• Why do they call it the Department of Interior when they are in charge of everything outdoors?
• Why do scientists call it research when looking for something new?
• If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?
• When I erase a word with a pencil, where does it go?
• Why is it, when a door is open it's ajar, but when a jar is open, it's not adoor?
• Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.
• How come Superman could stop bullets with his chest, but always ducked when someone threw a gun at him?
• If "con" is the opposite of "pro," then what is the opposite of progress?
• Why is lemon juice mostly artificial ingredients but dishwashing liquid contains real lemons?
  How much deeper would the ocean be if sponges didn't grow in it?
• Why buy a product that it takes 2000 flushes to get rid of?
  Why do we wait until a pig is dead to "cure" it?
• Why do we wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them?
  Why do we put suits in a garment bag and put garments in a suitcase?
• Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?
• Do Roman paramedics refer to IV's as "4's"?
• What do little birdies see when they get knocked unconscious?
  Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?
• If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?
• Should you trust a stockbroker who's married to a travel agent?
• Is boneless chicken considered to be an invertebrate?
• I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
• If all those psychics know the winning lottery numbers, why are they all still working?
• Sooner or later, doesn't EVERYONE stop smoking?
• Isn't the best way to save face to keep the lower part shut?
  War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left.

Christmas

Christmas Is Our Savior’s Birth
Come From Heaven Down To Earth
God In Flesh To Save Us All
Made His Bed In Manger’s Stall

Broken Wings Of Mankind’s Fall
Wrapped Up In His Healing Shawl
Sublime Gift Of Heaven’s Worth
Let Us Joy With Holy Mirth

Only Hope Of Adam’s Race
Seed Of Woman Took Our Place
With All Heaven Join And Sing
Where, O Death, Where Is Your Sting?

Worship! Own! This Savior King
With All Your Heart Your Praises Bring
In Bethlehem We See God’s Face
Now Gladly Come Receive His Grace

by Sam Hoyle
2018

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/muslims-dream-jesus/

When Muslims Dream of Jesus

May 31, 2018  | Darren Carlson

In 2007, Dudley Woodberry and others published a study that recounted interviews with 750 former Muslims who had converted to evangelical Christianity. Many of the reasons they gave for their conversion would be expected—the love of God, a changing view of the Bible, and an attraction to Christians who loved others. But one reason might come as a surprise: the experience of a dream they believed to be from God. These study results aren’t isolated. Mission Frontiers magazine has reported that out of 600 Muslim converts, 25 percent experienced a dream that led to their conversion. The great missionary Lillias Trotter also reported dreams that drove Muslims to Christ.
But what should we say about the role of dreams and visions in hearing and believing the gospel?

Religion and Dreams

Some Christians are understandably hesitant to accept their legitimacy. Islam started with a vision. So did Mormonism, along with a long list of cults. Critics wonder how we could evaluate such dreams to know if they were true. Others believe that with the presence of Scripture, signs and wonders like dreams are no longer needed. Of course, many Christians are open to dreams and visions, considering them to be revelatory. All of us recognize that the Bible details dreams and visions in both testaments.
While Christians have a variety of approaches to dreams, Muslims—particularly Shia Muslims—are open to dreams being revelatory, due to both cultural (general acceptance) and religious (precedent in the Qur’an) factors. Dreams of Jesus, then, are taken seriously. In recent field work where I interviewed Christian migrants who’d converted from Islam, many reported a dream that led to their conversion. Their experiences of dreams and visions fit into the following categories:

• Jesus speaking Scripture to them, even Scripture they had never heard before.
• Jesus telling people to do something.
• A dream or vision that led to a feeling of being clean or at peace.
• A man in white physically appearing.

Let me share some examples.

Jesus Speaking Scripture

A friend of mine tells of a Persian migrant who arrived at a refugee center at 6 a.m., visibly upset. He told his story to a Persian pastor: During the night he saw someone dressed in white raise his hand and say, “Stand up and follow me.” The Persian man said, “Who are you?” The man in white replied, “I am the Alpha and the Omega. I’m the way to heaven. No one can go to the Father, except through me.”
He began to ask the Persian pastor: “Who is he? What am I going to do? Why did he ask me to follow him? How shall I go? Tell me.”
In response, the pastor held out his Bible and asked, “Have you seen this before?”
“No,” he replied.
“Do you know what it is?”
“No.”
The pastor then opened to the Book of Revelation: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.” The man started crying and said, “How can I accept him? How can I follow him?” So the pastor led him in prayer and peace came over him. The pastor then gave the man a Bible and told him to hide it, since the Muslims in the camps could cause him trouble.
But the man replied, “The Jesus that I met today, he’s more powerful than the Muslims in the camp.” He left and an hour later returned with 10 more Persians and told the pastor, “These people want a Bible.” No one had to teach him an evangelistic strategy.

Man in White

Another friend of mine had heard the gospel in Athens, but she struggled to believe. One day she went home despondent, and hid behind the couch in her family’s apartment. She began to pray:
You know what, God? Since I have absolutely no excuse, absolutely none, I have run out of excuses. I don’t know what to do, but following you means I have to deny everything I have believed and everything all of my family, generation after generation, believed. I can’t be in the middle. I have to either follow you or not. I can’t do it myself. It’s just hard to make that step. I need you to help me.
After she prayed, she did not know whether she was awake or asleep, but a man in white walked into the room. Her reaction was to blurt out, “Don’t come close to me. You are holy, and I am a sinner. Do not get close to me.” The man replied, “[Name], I told you, and I tell you again, I am the way and the truth. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That day she believed the gospel and was saved.

Jesus Is the Door

Similarly, there was an elderly Afghan woman that ended up in Athens alone. Her children were still in her home country. Each week she would walk into a ministry center, clearly overwhelmed with the troubles in her world. One Persian pastor had prayed with her many times and explained that the answer to all of her troubles is King Jesus. Like many other Afghans, she was not interested in the gospel. One day the Persian pastor asked, “If God reveals himself to you and shows you the truth, will you follow him?” She just laughed.
A few weeks later she met Jesus.
During the day she walked by the ministry, but no one was there. So she sat down to rest just outside of the door. Suddenly, she saw a bright light coming from behind her, so bright that she covered her eyes. The light was shining brighter than the sun. In front of her she saw a big shadow. Then she heard a voice, speaking in her language, “My daughter, my daughter, the door is open for you. Come!” She replied, “The door is closed!” Again the voice called to her, “I am the Son of God, Jesus. The door is open for you, my daughter. I am the door!”
As she told the story she began trembling, and her heart was pounding as she proclaimed the peace and joy that she experienced since hearing Jesus speak to her. She said, “Many times you [pastor] have encouraged me to pray that God would speak to me. I thought it was blasphemy! But now I know Jesus is alive.”
After talking to the pastor, she took some Bibles and began giving them to other people, insisting they must read the book.

Jesus Giving Instructions

There was a family in Kurdistan where each member of the household had a separate dream that they should cross the river the next day to find living water. The next day, without hesitation, they all went, and someone gave them a Bible.
They still had that Bible when they came to Europe.

Feeling of Peace or Cleansing

The husband of a woman I know became a Christian. He had gone to Greece, but she was still in Iran. He would call her from the refugee camp nearly every day to share the gospel with her. She decided she would need to get a divorce, since she couldn’t be married to a Christian and remain a good Muslim. So she decided to look up all the verses in the Qur’an about Jesus.
She was shocked to find him there, which then led her to find a Bible. One day, reading the Bible she recounted, “I was in my room alone, and the whole room became white and I felt completely clean. At that moment, through trusting in Jesus, I became a Christian.”

Walked on Water

There was family on a boat with other migrants traveling from Turkey to Athens. On the way they lost their 7-year-old daughter into the water. Everyone in the crowded boat was looking for her but couldn’t find her. Suddenly, she appeared on the other side of the boat, saying over and over, “A man who walked on the water took me and brought me to the other side of the boat.” The parents dismissed her words as silly.
Upon arriving on the island of Lesbos, they met a Christian who made a fire and offered to talk to them. That day, without knowing what happened, he asked if they would like to know about a God who walked on water. They started crying.
The man had never used that illustration in evangelism, but that morning he felt like he had to. They asked him, “Who are you?” to which he replied, “I’m a Christian.” They said, “What do you mean ‘walk on the water’?” He opened the Bible and read the story of Jesus walking on the water. They continued crying. “Our daughter fell off the boat,” they explained. “We thought she was crazy because she was dry on the other side. We didn’t understand it. But she kept saying, ‘It was a man who walked on the water that took me to the other side.’”

What Shall We Say?

Those who recounted their dreams truly believed they were from God, enough that it was part of their story of converting from Islam to evangelical Christianity. The social cost for many was quite high. Some leaders who told dream stories were genuinely encouraged by the dreams, and often prayed for unbelieving Muslims to experience a dream or vision of Jesus.
It’s not always that simple, though. In some cases the trustworthiness of the person telling the story was called into question. One Afghan friend told me, “Sometimes people say they have a dream, and it’s just some crazy story. Sometimes I believe they read something, and they have a dream. We need to be careful of that. Many are lazy in waiting for dreams.”
A U.S. short-term team came to Athens and held up Greek signs in a park: “We will interpret your dreams.” Later that day they came to a pastor and said they’d led 14 people to Christ that afternoon and wanted to pass them off to the pastor. The team left with a great story. No one ever saw those people in a church.
Instead of dreams, one Persian pastor encouraged people to read the Bible. “I get tired of people who will not read the Bible and are just waiting for a dream. They have it backward. They just need the Bible.” He exhibited a healthy skepticism. Some were converting because of dreams, but others were making up stories to fit in. Others were telling a dream story they had heard somewhere else to prove they were Christians in order to get asylum. Sadly, some ranked testimonies based on whether or not the person had a dream.
Where the Spirit moves, Satan distorts and distracts. But we can rejoice in the powerful work of God in the world and trust the sufficiency of the preached gospel to save sinners.
As I have pondered the legitimacy of these dreams, I have been drawn to passages like Matthew 12:22–36, where the validity of Jesus’s own ministry was questioned. Would Satan cast out Satan? Would he give dreams filled with Scripture, pointing to Jesus, that ultimately lead to conversion and purity? I doubt it. The Spirit is still on the move, saving his people from among the nations. Of course Satan tries to attack and muddle what is real, but this should cause us to be discerning, not dismissive.

a few thoughts...

Every cell in your body, every neuron in your brain, is either male in its genetic makeup (XY) or female (XX).  Neither words, hormones, nor scalpels can change these and many other objective and sex-linked facts about you that you did not choose, that were handed to you at the first instant that you became you—at the instant of conception. No existential desire, personal preference, cosmetic camouflage, hormonal infusion, or tissue-destroying surgery alters – or can alter — that reality – these techniques can only distort it. On the surface, sex can be superficially obfuscated; it cannot be obliterated.
AND
The gender confused person seeks to impose upon and overbear the conscience of all others. The confused person is insisting that others pretend he or she is a different sex and that they thereby participate in or become complicit in this person’s confusion.  The people refusing to employ the wrong pronoun in constrast however are not similarly insisting that the confused person use the proper reality-based pronoun. Rather, those people are simply standing on reality and conscience and aligning their vocabulary with those choices, a position perfectly consistent with human flourishing and liberty—and a Christian ethic. --Jeffery J. Ventrella


Transformation occurs as the contents of the heart are changed. Transformation across a series of decisions occurs when we do things that the Holy Spirit uses to alter the contents of our hearts. He alters it radically in conversion, and then steadily over the course of our sanctification through the various means of grace that He has appointed. --Doug Wilson

Worth repeating...

Easter DID NOT Come from pagan holidays

http://desiderantangeli.blogspot.com/2016/03/easter-did-not-come-from-pagan-holiday.html