#the mystery of faith

[scobbe]

The thing that most people don’t understand about Christianity (including, I think, a great deal of Christians) is that you cannot convince anyone of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ - like spreading the Gospel is one thing, but you literally as a human being cannot ‘bring someone to Jesus.’ That is entirely the work of grace and the Holy Spirit.

This has been somehow lost in all the yelling of televangelists and billboards, in all the clamor and ugliness that paints religion, especially Christianity, with broad strokes of arrogance and obnoxiousness. The thing is, though, the actual quiet subtle work of the Spirit is so beautiful, so supple and silent, that it cuts through all that ugliness like a beam of sunlight into a darkened room. Someone can ask, “How can you believe all that religious bullshit??” And it’s like, it’s so easy, I can’t even tell you. I hardly have to do a thing, it’s just there.

But that’s the work of grace and the Spirit.

[mrs-trophy-wife]

Call forth things that are unseen as though they were seen, and the unseen becomes seen.

[fitzvackertheritzcracker]

all of this vanilla extract shitposting is cutting into my vanilla cookie making time

[culturevulturette]

[erinwantstowrite]

put so much thought into this and i'm finally of the opinion that in a LoF au with Gravity Falls, Peter is the Mabel to Tim's Dipper despite them not being twins (like Dami and Peter are joked about). I just couldn't pass this up,,, so yeah here's an early doodle for Halloween in our world where they dressed up as Mabel and Dipper

[imminent-danger-came]

WHAT WAS HE GOING TO SAY. WHAT WAS HE GOING TO SAY! WHAT WAS HE-

Sun Wukong: "Kid—new armor isn't going to cut it! We have to hit Azure with everything we've got! You can't just, ignore this whole part of your power because it scares you!"

MK: "I-"

-

LITERALLY WHAT. WHAT WAS IT. MK HONEY SWEETIE DARLING WHAT WERE YOU GOING TO TELL WUKONG HERE

[celestial-raposa]

[onehundredgar]

I think before trying to publicise and defend your headcanons about Stanley Pines you should maybe do some research about what being broke and homeless is really like. And also keep in mind that he was poor, not stupid.

[ego-osbourne]

John Sketches

Hi you might see me be really focused on Faith: the Unholy Trinity for a while. Been playing through it nonstop for the last few days, getting all the endings and collectibles and achievements. Currently I have all but one (the Good Christian Boy achievement… practicing to get it).

I defo want to draw more with it, but for now have some first-attempt John Ward doodles <33

[fruifruit]

updated designs for my eos team + new name for partner!! if you saw me accidentally post this on my main no you didnt <3

[walkswithmyfather]

Ephesians 3:20-21 (NASB). “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”

Romans 8:29 (NIV). “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”

“God Works Within Us” By In Touch Ministries:

“God has a purpose for your life—and it's more wonderful than you can imagine.”

“Let the words from today’s reading slowly sink in: “able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20). What an amazing description of the Lord’s ability to work within us. Yet so often our focus is mainly on what we want Him to do—namely, that if He’d change this or fix that, then our life would be better. But He invites us to think and ask bigger—He wants to change us!

The Holy Spirit has more than enough power to transform lives from the inside out, but change within is usually a slow process. Spiritual fruit takes time to grow and mature. That’s why we need patience and faith to believe God is working even when results aren’t evident.

God has a purpose for your life, and He is constantly working to achieve it. He also has an overarching goal—to conform every believer to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). In order to do this, He may have to bring us through some struggles and heartaches. It might make no sense to us, but God knows exactly what He’s doing.

What would you like to see the Lord do within you? As you read the Scriptures, look for qualities that God considers precious, and ask Him to work them out in your life. Then rely on His wonderful promise to do even more than you have asked or imagined.”

[Photo thanks to Simon Berger at Unsplash]

[fictionadventurer]

The worst part about reading in a genre where you have low expectations (in this case, Christian historical fiction) is that when a book impresses you, you have no idea if it's actually good or if you're just overly impressed because it was a fraction of a degree better than the usual garbage.

[beloved-of-john]

Different anon here to ask more rosary questions!! So, you said that you're supposed to pray while contemplating the holy mysteries: does that mean there are like specific prayers you're meant to say? Sorry if this is kind of a dumb question, I'm still a baby Christian and I'm definitely not very familiar with Catholic traditions and practices.

There are no dumb questions, only questions you've never been taught the answer to, and I'm happy to help if I can! I think a visual demonstration would be easier than me describing it so...

These ↓ are my rosary beads, and where my fingers are spanning is a decade.

You can identify a decade because they're separated by isolated beads. It's called a decade because it consists of 10 beads. In the traditional rosary, a Hail Mary is prayed on each of the beads in a decade. The Hail Mary prayer is as follows:

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our deaths. Amen.

So now the mysteries. A different mystery is contemplated on each decade, while praying the Hail Marys. For example, today (at time of writing) is Tuesday, so you would contemplate the sorrowful mysteries. The first sorrowful mystery is The Agony in the Garden, so I would contemplate Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane while praying the 10 Hail Marys and keeping track of them on the beads. As you can see there are 5 decades in a rosary, and there are 5 mysteries in each 'set' of mysteries. A mystery for every decade.

And that's how you contemplate the mysteries! For a list of all the mysteries and what days to pray them, check my previous ask (just search the #asks tag on my blog) and for what to do with the rest of the beads, I'll attach a helpful guide below.

[inspirehorizon]

Unknown destination

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Thinking thoughts about Abuela being back and with this backstory about her being taken in by charlatans and Eddies whole catholic guilt thing and how the two things kind of play into one another as an exploration of faith and being taken in by something.

Abuela giving all her money to the tarot card readers etc because she was searching for something - for connection (with Abuelo) - trying to recapture what she had lost, and How Eddie has spoken about trying to re-find the magic he had with Shannon - how Eddie hasn't actually fully reconciled the Shannon of it all when it comes to relationships and how his Catholic guilt connects into that.

How Marisol as a physical representation of Catholicism is part of that narrative - how Eddie is entering a place where he has to chose his path - in order to move on from Shannon he needs to fully square the hole - catholic or non catholic. And how that needs to happen first - before he can begin his queer journey!

[erinwantstowrite]

grayson being the boy wonder in his universe and peter being the webbed wonder back home :(

they're so intertwined it's insane