The Anti-Calvinist Rant

This is  Joshua's testimony about meeting Jesus  (25 minutes long).  And it's a really good one.  It's not extremely dramatic or out of the ordinary or anything like that; it's just very real and touching.  From the heart. In his testimony, he takes us on his journey from being an aimless young teen with no sense of purpose or fulfillment or joy, trying to fill the void inside with drugs ... to how he found purpose, fulfillment, and joy in Jesus when God reached out to him in his pain, calling him to draw near. And he urges people to remember that one day we are all going to die (unless Jesus comes back first).  Do you know what matters most?  Do you know why you're alive ... who made you ... who your Father is? Finding God is not about religion; it's about relationship.  And no matter how lost you are, God knows where you're at.  He's calling you.  He's pursuing you.  He's been trying to get your attention.  Because He loves you (enough to di

(This "Things My Calvinist Pastor Said" series is a breakdown of this much longer post:  "We Left Our Church Because of Calvinism,"  which was written last year but updated July 2020.  They are almost exact quotes.  All memes were created with  imgflip .) 5.   "God ordains  (note: Calvinism means "causes," but they won't see it or admit it)  the wickedness that wicked people do, for His purposes and His glory."               To Calvinists, it's absolutely  not possible  that God could have simply  allowed  mankind to choose to be wicked and to do evil things, and then in His wisdom and sovereignty, He figured out how to work their self-chosen evilness into His plans.               No!  Calvi-god doesn't just allow people to sin; he has to  pre-plan  and  cause  all the evil that happens ... or else He's not God.  Because a "sovereign" God (according to their definition) has to actively control all things, even eve

So what will the rapture be like? Answer: I don't know. There is no way to know exactly what the rapture will be like until it happens.  So this is only my opinion, based on Scripture, as best I understand it.   Here are some passages I believe refer to the rapture (though many others believe some of these refer to events during the tribulation) :   "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.  After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air."    ( 1 Thess. 4:16-17 .  Definitely the rapture.) " Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed."    ( 1 Cor. 15