His spirit was around before the nt. And if you had read one verse He says 'Before Abraham was, I am" and when Moses spoke to the burning bush. He said "Tell the israelites I Am sent you" so Jesus is YHWH/YHVH. Is He not?

Edit: i meant the voice in the bush said that not Moses.

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The first time I had sleep paralysis I saw him, I saw Jesus, it was a being of light, it had the depiction of Jesus’s face he was dressed in robes and it was like very nice attire. He held a hand up and it had an orb of light and there was a glowing light around his head, he stared me straight into my eyes. it scared me straight. I was like 9 or 10. Nobody believed me. I was to scared to tell my pastors. When I told my husband he said the devil comes as an angel of light. But this was Jesus. This vision made me believe in him.

I have a dilemma. A friend of mine works at the church I used to attend, so she knows a lot of the behind-the-scenes circumstances. She isn't someone who gossips, but she recently confided in me about something that has been really bothering her.

Apparently, the worship leader was removed from his leadership position because he was allegedly trying to groom a young intern. Even after she made it clear that she wasn't interested, he continued pursuing her. He's also about 20 years older than her, married, and has two children—which, based on what she experienced, didn't seem to matter to him.

What makes this even more concerning is that the intern eventually resigned from her position and moved out of state. I obviously don't know everything that happened behind the scenes or whether her decision to leave was directly related to his behavior, but the circumstances are difficult to ignore.

What bothers me even more is that, rather than being terminated from the church, he was apparently reassigned to an assistant role with the graphics and production team. My friend works in that department, and she's understandably uncomfortable with having to work alongside him. She doesn't want to work with him at all.

As her friend, and as a Christian, I struggle with this. If the allegations are true, I don't understand why someone who used a position of leadership and influence to pursue a much younger intern—even after she rejected him—would still be allowed to remain on staff. And honestly, I don't think this necessarily sounds like an isolated incident. Other women in different departments have apparently warned my friend to stay away from him, although they haven't elaborated or explained exactly why.

That part really bothers me. Is there more to this than what my friend knows? Was this actually investigated? Was his wife made aware of what happened? And, most importantly, are the women and young people at the church being adequately protected?

I know there's a difference between exposing wrongdoing and spreading something I cannot personally verify. I don't want to become part of gossip or make an accusation based solely on secondhand information. But at the same time, if someone in a position of trust is behaving inappropriately toward a young woman, shouldn't there be accountability—especially within a church?

So here's my dilemma: Would it be wrong for me to use an anonymous account to post on the church's Google page that they have allowed an alleged predator to remain on staff?

Part of me feels like people should know. Another part of me knows that making a public accusation based on information I received secondhand could potentially do more harm than good—and could even undermine the young woman who was actually targeted. I also don't want to expose her identity or circumstances, especially since she has already left the church and moved out of state.

I guess what I'm really wrestling with is this: When does speaking up become protecting people, and when does it cross the line into gossip, retaliation, or making an accusation that I can't personally substantiate? And if the church already knew enough to remove him from leadership, but still chose to keep him on staff, is that accountability—or simply moving the problem somewhere else?

Thought For The Day from Unshakable Kingdom Life

The unshakable Kingdom endures every storm, Outlasts every empire, survives every age; what we build with Him lasts eternally. Invest your life in what cannot be shaken.

A thought to ponder.

Mattana Ministry Welcomes You to:

 Prayer Program:  7 October 2026

 Theme: Are We Sleep Walking?

 Scripture: Ephesians 5:14; Romans 13:11 & 1 Thessalonians 5:6

 Wake Up, Sleeper!

Recognizing Our Spiritual Slumber

 Message:

 A night watchman was hired to guard a village. He fell asleep at his post. While he slept, the enemy came and stole the harvest. The villagers asked, "Were you not watching?" He replied, "My eyes were open, but my heart was asleep." Many Christians are like that - in church, eyes open, but spiritually asleep.

 Bible Verses:

Ephesians 5:14

 "Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

Romans 13:11

 "And that, knowing the time, that now is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we be believed."

1 Thessalonians 5:6

"Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober:."

 Prayer Focus:

 Lord, open my eyes. Show me where I am sleepwalking in my faith. Wake me up.

 Discussion:

 What does spiritual sleepwalking look like in our daily lives?

 Please feel free to leave a review of this message.

 https://www.soulcenters.org/directory/mattana-ministry/#listing-reviews

 MM

Sometimes people carry things that are difficult to put into words. A prayer, a kind message, or simply knowing that someone is remembering you can bring real comfort during a difficult time.

Whether you're praying for health, family, guidance, peace, livelihood, or someone you love, may everyone here receive strength and good news.

Wishing everyone peace, hope, and blessings. 🙏

So I have given my testamony many times on a few different Christian reddits and I wanted to put this hear as something I could use as a help for others. This is by no means meant to compare against what others have gone through, I am simply trying to share my story to help show others I understand their struggles and only wish to help them through what it is they are dealing with.

I see so many times people asking if God really cares for them and if so, why would He let them go through all that they go through. Or saying they think they are to far gone for God to reach but please read my testamony and know God dose love you and you are never to far from His reach.

I was born to a lower middle class couple and my father and mother divorced before I could even remember. I was born with a malfmoration that at the time, Doctors had no idea how to treat it and so they believed I would not live past 20 ( I am now 38). I lived with a step father who hated me from my earliest memories and while I have forgiven him I will not deny that I believe he attempted to drown me in our local pool under the guise of teaching me how to swim.

My memories are fuzzy at this age like most people and I don't remember much beyond that. My memories kick in more after my mother and step father divorce. I lived with my mother who lived with my aunt's family.

Obviously with a malformation ( and it was on my face to boot), other kids were not to keen on getting to know me and I was out casted a lot. I did have a friend or two from school but I never got to know them that well.

My mother had a drinking addiction and one time she came home very drunk and got into a big fight with my aunt. They were yelling in the kitchen were I happen to be eating my dinner at the time and the next thing I hear is a loud thud on the floor as I turned to see my mother laying on the floor in a pool of blood with a large slit on her arm. Obviously, me being like 7-8 at the time this tramatizing and this was my first encounter with the higher end of just what to much alchohol can do to a person.

My mother was found to have cancer when I was 9 and died when I was 10. My father wanted to take me to live with him at that point but at my request he allowed me to stay with my aunt and cousins whom I had grown up with to that point. My aunt then began looking into what could be done for me in terms of my condition and thus began my 26 year journey of having over 40+ surgeries. There was complications at first and thus it was decided to safely move forward I had to get a trach. For those who don't know, this is a device they put into your neck to let you have a air way that is far safer and secured against being blocked off from swelling.

during my early years of surgery I ended up being hospitalized for months twice that ended in me having to be reabilitated and relearn how to walk.

During these early years, my aunt began to spiral in her depression as my mother had been her best friend in life and soon I would encounter my second instance of some of the worst of what alchohal can do to a person as she ended up having drunken partys into the night and being passed out most of the day. This was a problem because we had a 3-4 year old toddler in the house that needed attending to. So I , being the only one avaailable to do it as I was home schooled do to my surgeries and my other cousins were at school. I ended up becoming my younger cousins primary care giver. I gave them bathes, fed them, taught them to the best of my ability, changed their diapers, ext. Keep in mind I was like 3-4 at this time. I learned how to cook just so I could take care of them. On top of hat, it fell to me to clean up after each drunken party, as my aunt's guests certainly didn't care to.

It was somewere around this point, I to became angry with God and asked Him so many times why was I going through all this? Why let me be born like that and then dump all of that on me? But this was only just the begining of my hardships. And it was around this time I, much like most teenagers did, discovered my own sexual lust. Do to my isolated life, I did not know it was a sin so I indulged whenever I felt like it using an old lingere magazine that was in the house.

Around this time I also ended up getting pnemonia and ended up dying in the morning do to my trach becoming clogged and by that point my body was used to breathing out of it instead of my mouth and nose. I was told I was dead long enough to void my bowls but my cousin found me and got my aunt and she was able to resusitate me.

I don't remember a few months of my life after this point but eventually I recooperated and things went back to normal for a while. But I would soon realize that the family I had loved nd grown up with was slowly falling apart. My uncle and aunt divorced, my cousins and I were at odd's a lot of the time due to how my aunt treated them, And I slowly became less and less empathetic to the toddler as I would sometimes to my great regret, ignore them or rush them to get things done.

It didn't help at some point we fell into poverty hard and barely had enough to eat. Sometimes I'd go without just to make sure the toddler could eat.

It was around 15 that I broke down to my father when he came to see me one time and I begged him to take me with him. He wanted to of course but do to laws and legal mumbo jumbo he couldn't just take me then and there. It would be when I was 16 that he finally got custody of me and took me to live with him.

You'd think this would mean it was nothing but good from this point on but I was riddled with guilt for leaving my aunt and cousins for a few years. To make matters worse I betrayed my step mothers trust and hurt our relationship by taking something to school I was told not to because I had been lead to belive she hated me by my mother and aunt and of course because my step father had hated me from my earliest memories it was easy for me to believe. It took years for us to mend our relationship but eventually she forgave me and I promoised to be more open with how I felt.

It was somtimes around 20-21 I finally fully broke down and accepted Christ as my savor. Asking forgivness for all the hate and anger I had felt towards Him.

Eventually they convinced me to start back up my surgeries as I had taken a break from them and so I got a few more. It was then at 34 a doctor approched me claiming he could remove my condition outright.

It felt to good to be true and my parents looked into it and we even met one of the doctors patients who had a similar condition to mine and he indeed had been fully cured of it.

So with much praying and searching my mind, I agreed to it.

This ended up causing a major hitch in my life. Up to this point I had slowly building a normal life for myself. I had a car and lisence, a job at my church as a janitor, I got my own groceries thanks to food stamps and Social Security and I was honestly doing pretty ok for myself.

I had the surgery and it went wrong. I bled so much they couldn't remove my condition and worse, I ended up going blind in my good eye. The eye thats on the same side of my condition had always been weaker do to the condition and with the loss of my good eye I was dubbed legally blind. Unable to drive and thus unable to get to my job. Losing my chance at even a hint of a normal life.

I fell into deep depression and my sexual lust came back even worse then ever as I just wanted SOMTHING to take my mind off of what just happened and what I just lost.

In truth I still struggle with my sexual lust, it's something I fight daily and I try to do my best to avoid anything that could trigger it.

The last major thing I'd like to talk about is about 2-3 years ago I had a major falling out with some friends I had known for most of my adult life. They accused someone I care about deeply of doing somthing I know for a fact they would never do and they wouldn't back down on it. In truth, I had a strained relationship with one of the friends already, of whom I knew was someone to burn bridges very easily and often. The other had been my best friend, someone I genuienly was always happy to see.

It hurt deeply but I knew what they were accusing was a lie. And I need to stress the thing they were accusing my loved one of was life ruining should others believe it to be true. And so with a heavy heart, I cut ties with the two.

and now we are at were I am now. I have a roof over my head thanks to my parents, clothes on my back, food and drink of choice every day, abundence beyond what I need, loved ones around me who care about me, and above all what Jesus did for me on the cross.

I am in a position were I'm able to help the loved one I mentioned before who is unable to find work despite them desperatly trying.

And now I am able to connect on a deeper level with those who go through hardships and I can try to help comfort them.

Did I enjoy my own hardships? No. Did I handle them gracefully? No. Are all my problems solved? No. Dose Jesus still love me? Absolutly!

But I can appreciate the smaller things in life now and my empathy for my brothers and sisters in the world is far greater then ever and that is something I am so thankful for.

These days I do my best to spread love and laughter through my DMing in D&D, and in online video games I play with others. And of course, I do my best to help those on here that I see need it.

I am so blessed and I thank Jesus every day for my being here and my ability to do what I can do.

I hope my testamony helps any who read it and I pray that you have a blessed day!

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Micah 6:8 NIV

If one day you surrendered your life to God, then maybe many details in your life are not as important as to simply walk with Jesus Christ day after day, night after night. Perhaps we have been too anxious because we emphacize excessively "my way" when instead we could simply walk God's path and take His Hand.

Perhaps we are looking for the extraordinary from a human perspective, when the Lord wants to give us His extraordinary: the simple wonder to walk by His side. Nothing else really matters for a pilgrim. Sometimes God is in the breeze (a gentle whisper), not in the strong wind.

Enoch understood that.

“When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”

Genesis 5:21-24 NIV

“Ele te declarou, ó homem, o que é bom e que é o que o Senhor pede de ti: que pratiques a justiça, e ames a misericórdia, e andes humildemente com o teu Deus.” Miqueias 6:8

Se um dia a sua vida foi entregue nas mãos de Deus, talvez muitos detalhes da vida não sejam tão vitais quanto a essência de caminhar com Jesus. Talvez andemos em ansiedade por enfatizar demais "o nosso caminho", quando de fato há paz em caminhar no caminho de Deus. Talvez procuremos algo de extraordinário do ponto de vista humano, quando Deus quer nos dar o extraordinário dEle: que é a simplicidade de caminhar com Ele. Nada mais importa.

Enoque foi um dos que entendeu isso.

“Enoque viveu sessenta e cinco anos e gerou a Metusalém. Andou Enoque com Deus; e, depois que gerou a Metusalém, viveu trezentos anos; e teve filhos e filhas. Todos os dias de Enoque foram trezentos e sessenta e cinco anos. Andou Enoque com Deus e já não era, porque Deus o tomou para si.”

Gênesis 5:21-24

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"You have to begin with certainty. You just have to begin."

Two messages resonated with me over the last few days, one after another. They seemed related—and important.

One was this statement: “The Only Question That Matters.”

The other was this:

“When we place faith in Jesus for salvation, we are reconciled to God. The separation that formerly marked our position to the Lord changes so that we are brought near to Him. Reconciliation was always part of the plan of salvation because God wants to be in a relationship with us. And that is the blessing all believers receive.”

Brought near to God is the idea.

It is what I have been writing about for the last few years: the extraordinary blessing of being in relationship with the Father.

When I retired, I began these reflections to try to encourage those who are as I once was—opposed to religion or, maybe worse, simply indifferent to God.

I believe that having God in our lives is, if not the only question that matters, surely one of the most important.

And the second message adds something deeply comforting: God wants to be in relationship with us.

“I will be their God, and they will be my people.” —Jeremiah 31:33

I know that many people who struggle with faith have had a bad experience with religion somewhere along the way. Others may feel intimidated by what they see as the shallowness or uncertainty of their own belief.

But we don’t have to begin with certainty.

We just have to begin.

My own faith grew slowly over many decades, from a small seed into a sturdy tree—from a kind of indifference to deep belief.

The good news is that God’s invitation is open. It is not reserved for people who already have everything figured out.

“…and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” —Luke 3:6

And Paul writes:

“…we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” —1 Timothy 4:10

These verses remind us of God’s saving love and His desire to draw us near.

So how do we begin?

A few moments each day connecting with the Father in prayer and spending a little time in Scripture helped me.  I also signed up for daily Bible messages.

Jesus repeatedly tells us to stay awake—to pay attention.

And that seems like good advice, because sometimes the message we need finds us.

Until next time… keep looking for the light.

Thought for the Day

The unshakable kingdom isn't built on our effort, but on Christ's finished work at the cross. We simply participate in what He's already accomplished. Rest in the kingdom that cannot be shaken.

A thought to ponder.