#the return of Jesus Christ

[2olivetrees]

What Repentance Truly Means

Jesus began His ministry by preaching “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 4:17) This is verified by Mark’s gospel account in Mark 1:14-15. What should be obvious is how important the concept of repentance is to the good news Jesus Christ preached.   The word repent was translated from the Greek word metanoeo which means to think differently or afterwards; I.e. reconsider…

[bloom-with-grace-and-faith]

[beansnpeets]

Thinking about human behaviour compared to animal behaviour again.

It's funny to hear people (the older gens) complaining that "kids these days are lazy, they don't wanna work, etc." What do we get for busting our asses? There is no reward. Many will never own homes. Many are unemployed, trying to find work, and nobody will hire them because they don't have a million years experience and a masters degree OR they want people to work for minimum wage??? People are giving up because there is no reward. Why would we do all this for nothing?

Same as a dog that won't recall when you haven't reinforced it with a reward. Your dog isn't going to do what you tell it to if there is no incentive. No, your dog SHOULDN'T listen just because you're boss and it should respect you. That isn't how it works. They don't think that way. And honestly neither do people.

When we went hiking Sprocket wasn't always taking treats gently from me when I recalled her or she checked in and I rewarded and my one friend told me to stop giving her treats. I told him I won't work for free so why should she. And he said "I do things for free all the time because I want to do them," and I didn't say it then, but I wish I had, but if you like doing it, that's the incentive. It's a self-rewarding behaviour. Just like anything else a dog does, like chasing a squirrel or sniffing things or getting into the trash. Heeling instead of going off to sniff stuff or recalling off of something they want to chase is something you have to reinforce. You have to give them something better so they make the choice you want them to make. They won't make it just because they *respect* you. They won't willingly recall off of exciting prey out of RESPECT. You need to give them a tangible reward for that. You cannot possibly expect your dog to listen just because and then punish them for disobeying you.

Yeah, Sprocket bit my fingers a couple times. The one time pretty hard. But she was excited. She knows how to take gently and I reminded her and she tried very hard to be gentle most of the time. I wasn't going to stop rewarding her for checking in with me and recalling while we were off leash hiking in the woods. I want her to know that coming back to me is good and in the event of an emergency I would like her to not blow me off.

[briankang]

"Filling up my truck yeah you want that ride, hit you like a truck I'mma make you fly"

[thelaurenshippen]

911 really is such a good reminder of the particularly kind of joy that is weekly, seasons-long shows with many episodes per season. every character gets a moment to shine even in a truncated season. the satisfaction of seeing characters grapple with stuff that happened YEARS ago. having multi-episode arcs and one-off arcs that are equally enjoyable. beach episodes (metaphorical). I know we're all saying this all the time but why can't more tv be like this

[unsurebazookacore]

opened my dash and the first thing i saw was:

i feel like someone punched me in the face so hard they sent me back to the 4th grade

[holyspiritgirl]

Read this ✝️🙏

You are not reading this by accident. This is your confirmation. Everything is going to be alright. God is making a way for you right now.

God is making arrangements. Something you prayed for is about to happen!

He says... "Don't even think about giving up. You are going to make it, no matter what it looks like right now. I know you’re worried about your finances, your health, your family… Remember I always work in your favor. I will bless you today with peace, healing and victory if you don't quit. I am going to bring something beautiful out of this ugly situation. Get ready for Your blessings”

He tells us, "Be still and know that I am God." You could think of a hundred things that could go wrong, but God didn't bring you this far to leave you. He's keeping the trouble from defeating you. Stay in peace; you're in the middle of a miracle.

Imagine Jesus is sitting right next to you and saying this to you : “… I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I will heal you..." - 2 Kings 20:5

Pray for a moment with me : Dear Lord, please guide our steps today, may you fill us with gratitude and purpose. Let us be instruments of Your love and light, anchored in Your truths and grace. In Jesus' name. Amen

And remember , "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13

Have a blessed day 👼🏻

[totallyaccurateavengersquotes]

TONY: Standing next to sunflowers always makes me feel weak. Like, 'look at this fucking flower. This flower is taller than I am. This flower is winning and I am losing.'

STEPHEN: Wow, you are not ready to hear about trees.

[reggiestein]

I had a dream that the next update was him-focused and i woke up and exploded.. manifesting🙏...

[cheriekos]

“my self-sufficiency will be the death of me” [timkon ficlet]

goooooood afternoon timkonners. Really wanted to get into the habit of writing a little bit everyday again, so I’m filling out some whumptober-adjacent prompts (courtesy of scealaiscoite). This may be eventually cross-posted to my ao3, who knows, this is mostly just to keep my writing skills in check after a really rough few months of work + to get me out of my writing slump on my larger fic projects. This has been very lightly edited, and is extremely unbeta’d. Anyways, enjoy! Prompt: blood swirling down a shower drain. Content warnings for light descriptions of a knife injury & medical treatment related to that.

The ceiling is that awful popcorn texture. It's yellowed over time. There's a spreading stain over corner, likely some water damage from the unit above. There's some rust at the corner of the shower curtain rod and some odd looking spots at the bottom of the flimsy plastic curtain that has him groaning because he's going to have to look into this, he lives here, other people live here, and clearly the landlord spruced up his apartment but not the others and this needs to be taken care of but it's another thing to take care of -

His breath catches in his throat, a barely held gasp just eeking out past his lips. Every time he tries to breathe low into his belly, his chest spasms. Bruised ribs, he catalogues. Another thing to take care of.

Tim's fingers shake over the left side of his chest, right above the torn parts of his uniform, right where his emergency beacon was slashed through. He lost the one on his wrist sometime between Falcone's latest hidden warehouse and the apartment building. If he reaches down to his boot, he can press the one still intact. He can press it, and someone will come and get him.

He can't move his hand.

Well - It's not that he can't. He's still got some feeling left, which is good. But he can't stop staring at the ceiling. The thought of even moving his head makes him feel so - so tired. It feels as if someone has scooped out his bones and filled him with dense liquid. He tries to will himself to move, to slam down on the emergency beacon and suffer through the indignity of having to be saved by Robin and sit through a thorough dissection of everything he did wrong tonight. He doesn't mind it so much anymore, really - but he's just - he's too tired. He's too tired.

When he closes his eyes, it feels good - the rest that calls to him feels like the kind after a particularly long day of running around as a kid. When you've probably spent too much time in the sun and your chest hurts, the phantom pain of deep laughter following you to your bed. He believes it, for a moment. That he's really just closing his eyes after playing too much and too long and his mom will be there in just a moment to brush his hair out of his eyes and tell him don't let the bed bugs -

He presses down on the knife wound along his abdomen to keep himself awake.

Only an inch deep, but three inches long - they got messy trying to pull it out, he thinks. Another wound. Another thing to take care of. Which he won't be able to take care of if he passes out in this dingy bathroom that's probably going to give him an infection.

His fingers feel cold. He can't tell if he's going into shock or if he's been sitting under the spray of the shower so long that the hot waters run out.

He can't die like this. Not like this. Lying in a mold covered bathroom, shredded to pieces. Not like this.

It's painful, it makes him flush with a deeply buried shame that he tried hard not to face - but he chokes out his name anyway.

"Superboy," he says. "Kon."

There's a moment - one painful, awful moment - where there is nothing but the sound of the shower and his own, ragged breathing. Then, somewhere further inside there's the sound of a window opening, the stumbling of leather boots against hardwood floor - and then Kon's there, right there next to him, and Tim has never felt so relieved and so ashamed at the same time.

"Shit," Kon says, holding Tim's face. He looks down at Tim's hands, shaking against the wound in his side, and follows the blood going down the shower drain. "Shit."

"Good t'see y'too." Tim mumbles.

Kon's staring - or at least, Tim thinks he is. He thinks time is slowing down, maybe. Between one blink and the next, Kon's face morphs from wide-eyed worry to a grim sort of determination. The grip on Tim's face tightens - not unkindly.

"Not funny, Tim," Kon says, lowly.

Tim just swallows, barely wincing at the acrid taste of copper on his tongue. He tilts his chin with what little energy he has, indicating his stomach.

"Knife wound," he says. "Bruised ribs. Gotta check for - for concussion -"

"Stop talking -"

"Need - stitches -"

"Stop talking."

Tim's mouth clicks shut. He feels something burn at his chest - not pain, but something more akin to anger flaring beneath his skin. The urge to crawl out of the tub, to rip away from Kon and get his own goddamn medical kit was making his stomach roll. But God, his bones were like lead and his head was so heavy - the overwhelming relief of being gathered up into Kon's arms was almost enough to distract him. Almost.

"I'm taking you back to your house -"

"Can't."

"Why?"

"Got - my own - my own place -"

Kon freezes as he leaves the old bathroom, pausing briefly to scrunch his eyes tight and mutter a small Jesus Christ before readjusting Tim in his hold, gently.

"You need help, Tim, and you've lost a lot of blood -"

"Not too much -"

"Tim -"

"Kon," Tim says, strained. "The longer we stand here arguing, the more blood I lose. Take me - take me back to my apartment."

Time really slows down then. Kon's bright, bright eyes bore into his, a completely open book. Tim can see the way he swallows down his words, the way his jaw twitches as he grinds his teeth - the way his eyes shine with worry. Tim holds his gaze, focusing on the pain blooming across his ribs in order to avoid thinking about just how much Kin's gaze unsettled something within him.

"You're gonna be the death of me," Kon mutters.

"Not if I die first," Tim says, softly. Kon doesn't laugh - doesn't so much as smirk. Then, he's bounding out the door faster than Tim could blink.

Tim feels a wave of vertigo and he does everything he can to stop the bile rising in his throat. He digs his nails into the worn leather of Kon's sleeve, groaning with his lips shut tight. Kon's thumb rubs a soft circle where he holds him - a gesture so gentle that it takes Tim by surprise. He doesn't get to relish in it for long before Kon's laying him against his new dining table; Tim mourns the clean wood. He'll be scraping out blood from the grooves for the next few months.

"My medkit -" Tim's hand reaches out, weakly. "Get me - needle -"

"Are you out of your mind?" Kon damn near shouts. "You're not sewing yourself up."

"I can and - I will -"

"No," Kon says firmly, hand wrapped around Tim's wrist. "Can you - can you just let someone help you for once?"

No - it's the reply right on the tip of his tongue. Help. There was a time when people surrounded Tim, when he could reach out a hand and find another reaching out to him. But the longer he does this, the more he loses, the more people start to disappear - the more that he finds that the only hands he has are his own. The hands that will stitch him up and prop him up straight, the ones that get things done.

But another, tiny part of him sighs. A little part of him sags with relief, maybe with exhaustion- because yes, he would like some help. His fingers are cold and cannot stop shaking and Kon is steady.

"Fine," Tim finally says. "Help me."

Kon smiles. That irritating, crooked grin lights up his face and Tim chest constricts at the familiarity of it.

“Was that so hard?” Kon says, a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Yes,” Tim groans.

Kon moves swiftly - more assured, more practiced than he had been months ago when he first had to deal with some bad scrapes while out on a mission with the team. His hands don’t flit about wildly, searching for something to make it better. He takes off his own gloves and washes his hands before cutting through the tightly woven Kevlar of Tim’s suit, gently washing the cut, and letting Tim dig crescent shaped divets into his bicep while he threaded Tim’s skin back together.

“You’ve gotta breathe, Tim - “

“I’m trying, asshole - “

“Don’t call the guy with the needle and thread an asshole, asshole - “

Tim barely notices that Kon has already snipped the medical thread and has started placing bandages across his side. Tim watches as he moves, quick, tearing medical tape and snipping bandages with determination, and then carefully placing them where Tim still bleeds. Tim’s mouth goes dry - he looks up at the ceiling instead.

“How’s your hearing? Seeing double?” Kon asks, flashing the little emergency flashlight in Tim’s eyes. Tim resists the urge to bat him away.

“Just fine,” Tim blinks. “God help me if I - if I ever have to deal with - two of you.”

“Twice the fun,” Kon remarks.

“Twice the headache,” Tim says, with little heat. “Kon - painkillers - “

Kon rattles a small bottle, labeled meticulously in Alfred’s familiar handwriting. “These ones?”

“Yes,” Tim says, breathlessly. He tries to put one hand under him, arm shaking with the effort to try and pull his own body weight up.

“Hold on - “

“I can - get up by myself - “

“Tim,” Kon says, warm hands curling around Tim’s arm. “Let me help you. Please.”

There’s an earnestness to Kon that is so disarming that it peels away the remaining resistance in Tim. He uses his last bits of energy to wrap an arm around Kon’s neck, a flush traveling across his cheeks as he mutters okay and lets himself be held again. This time, he lets himself melt a little further into Kon, pointedly ignoring the unfurling, winding feelings in his gut - he neatly packs that feeling away for later in the corner of his brain. He focuses on breathing, on the steady rhythm of Kon’s heartbeat, and the soothing hands that hold him.

He blinks rapidly, realizing that he’s been placed on his couch and that Kon has managed to rummage up the eye-sore of a blanket that Dick had given him as house-warming gift a while back. Kon’s in the kitchen, then suddenly by his side, waving a small glass of water and the painkillers in front of Tim.

“Drink up, Timmy,”

“Don’t call me Timmy,” Tim grumbles, and downs the pills and water in one swift movement.

When he sits back, it’s like every bit of adrenaline keeping him awake has left him. The last dredges of it disappear and all he can do is curl against the headrest, the scratchy, awful blanket giving him an odd sense of comfort. He blinks, slow, trying to get a good word out before sleep could take him. To tell Kon he’s got it handled, that he needs to report back to Dick about the stake-out going wrong - but he can’t. He just looks up at Kon, illuminated by the bright lights of Gotham from the window behind, and he feels a deep, deep ache in his sternum. A sudden urgency fills him - a worry. That when he wakes up, Kon will be gone and something about that makes Tim feel sick.

He moves his fingers slightly, flushing with embarrassment as he croaks out “Stay?”

Kon doesn’t hesitate. There’s barely enough time for a thought before Kon’s hand tangles with Tim’s, the rough pads of his thumbs, slowly becoming calloused from farm work, begins to rub against Tim’s knuckles. Tim’s breath catches in his throat.

“Of course,” Kon whispers. “You don’t even have to ask.”

Tim breathes out. “Oh.”

There’s a smile on Kon’s face - a little knowing, a little sad. Something childish blooms in Tim; he wants to reach out and hold his face, wants to pull at the edges of his cheeks until the sadness went away. But rest tugs at him, the exhaustion in his bones pulling him down, down, down until the feeling of Kon’s hand in his was a distant sensation, his last words something like out of a dream.

“I’ve got you, Tim. I’ve got you.”

[ghostpajamas]

rewatching jcs 2000 for the ~10th time and reading the last days of judas iscariot within 2 days of each other . its kicking in

[2olivetrees]

Guidance for the End Times: A Study of the Book of Acts (Part 8)

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made the same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:36-37)  Picking up where we left off in Part 7 of this series, we come to the response of the crowd of…

[bloom-with-grace-and-faith]

[kirisclangen]

Zelda

She/her, 65 moons, cis molly

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

A Light to lighten the Gentiles

25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, 28 he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

29 “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation 31 that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.”

33 And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. 34 And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed 35 (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

36 And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, 37 and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. 38 And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

The Return to Nazareth

39 And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him. — Luke 2:25-40 | English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Cross References: Deuteronomy 18:15; 1 Samuel 2:20; Joshua 19:24; Joshua 22:33; 1 Samuel 1:2; 1 Samuel 2:21; Psalm 89:48; Psalm 119:166; Psalm 119:174; Isaiah 8:14; Isaiah 9:2; Isaiah 11:10; Jeremiah 32:11; Matthew 2:12; Matthew 2:23; Matthew 8:10; Matthew 12:46; Mark 15:43; Luke 1:26; Luke 1:68; Luke 1:80; Luke 2:22; Luke 5:33; Acts 13:3; Revelation 6:10

Read full chapter

Testifying to Jesus: Simeon

[prettyboykatsuki]

I think the terrible thing about Oliver is that he's bad in the sense of he won't commit and he's never loyal, but at the same time he's upfront about it and still makes you feel special and takes your pleasure into account (of course with his own fun and pleasure too). But its the sense of knowing that Oliver is fleeting and unsustainable no matter how fun

IM SAYING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oliver is always very upfront with his intentions when it comes to casual sex especially after a certain age. he likes to keep things to neat and likes to keep breakups clean where he can. he's much worse from like 18-22, but as soon as he's 23 and on the way to his mid twenties he is very very clear with who he is. and if u dont hear it from word of mouth, you will from him at some point.

he's very direct that he can't do committment and doesn't really care about love. as long as he thinks you're on the same page the relationship will proceed. but it's frustrating because he's honestly consistently enjoyable to be around. the pleasure is mutual, but oliver is so genuinely charismatic and fun to talk to when your relationship is low commitment. even if you are also a casual sex enjoyer, it'd be hard not to notice how good of a boyfriend he has potential being.

he does alot of romantic stuff for you. because of your own understanding of him u always sweep it off. there's not reason your bath products are always full at his place. and also no reason for you to be using the same netflix accounts. he remembers too much from your pillow talk conversations for it be unromantic or just sexual but its easy to sweet all of this along when you know from the start

he is fleeting and unattainable but i do think there is also an undeniable romantic chemistry that gets swept away all the time. like a missed connection almost despite how often you see each other. sometimes u want to ask why he doesn't do love when he's very good at knowing what women seem to want, but you never get the word out right

its all very long and difficult. the romantic pining is sooo heavy sometimes