This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.
It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.
In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts, and not by agenda-driven accusations and pronouncements.
We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.
Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure your opinion addresses the issue only, and does not confront or denigrate the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.
In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.
Please also consider the Guidelines for posting and discussion printed here:
https://www.theqtree.com/2019/01/01/dear-maga-open-topic-20190101/
On this day and every day –
God is in Control
. . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . .
Keep Looking Up
Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.
“This day is holy to the Lord your God;
do not mourn nor weep.” . . .
“Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet,
and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared;
for this day is holy to our Lord.
Do not sorrow,
for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Blessed are the Peacemakers
A peacemaker actively works toward peace. Peacemakers will find joy in the experience of seeing people reconciled to one another and to God.
What does the bible say?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus opens with a series of statements concerning blessedness known as the Beatitudes. The seventh Beatitude is “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). The Greek word translated “blessed” in this verse is one that is also translated “happy.” A blessed person will have joy and contentment. Also, we must understand what a “peacemaker” is. The Greek word simply indicates a person who makes or works toward peace. A person can only work toward peace if he is at peace himself. Believers have peace with God through Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1). God is the source of peace (Philippians 4:7) and calls His followers to exhibit peace in their own lives (Romans 12:18; Galatians 5:22).
From the old testament
Jesus Himself is called the “Prince of Peace” in Isaiah 9:6. Living as a peacemaker follows His example; He provided peace with God through His sacrificial death on the cross.
King Solomon wisely realized the blessings of having a peaceful heart: “Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, but those who plan peace have joy” (Proverbs 12:20).
Solomon also knew that inward peace would flow out of our hearts towards others: “When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him” (Proverbs 16:7).
From the new testament
Ephesians 2:14–16 reveals that Jesus is our peace since He reconciled Jew and Gentile both to God and to each other.
Jesus offers this same peace to His followers: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).
Jesus said that peacemakers are blessed because they will be called sons of God. In other words, they will have the honor of being identified as children of “the God of peace” (Romans 15:33).
To live as a child of God is to have the greatest relationship in the world. It’s a relationship made possible by the Prince of Peace: “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:26).
Implications for today
A peacemaker actively works toward peace. Whether it’s to provide peace between two people or two nations, our world is in much need of those who represent the heart of God to bring peace to broken relationships. Those who assist in such efforts will find joy in the experience of seeing people reconciled to one another and to God. Every believer should be a peacemaker in the sense of spreading the good news that peace with God is possible. “Peace” was part of the angels’ message to the shepherds when Jesus was born (Luke 2:14). “Peace” is part of our message to the world because God “through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).
Only children of God can bring the peace of knowing God to others. A person must have a real relationship with God before he or she can help someone else know God. Those who witness for Christ, share their faith with their friends, and serve others in the name of Christ are ambassadors for peace (Matthew 5:9; 10:41–42). Those who bring the wonderful message of God’s peace to the world are “peacemakers,” and Jesus calls them the “children of God.”
xhttps://www.compellingtruth.org/blessed-are-the-peacemakers.html
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)
This is an excellent article by Glen Greenwald about the surveillance state.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/amazons-ring-and-googles-nest-unwittingly
The article is also linked here: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/amazons-ring-and-googles-nest-unwittingly-reveal-severity-us-surveillance-state
(emphasis mine)
Next is the reporting that, even though Nancy Guthrie did not have a paid subscription for her security cameras that would save the data, the data was saved anyway.
I have always suspected that big tech would do a lot more than it claimed and that surveillance and invasion of privacy would always get worse. Information is power, and assurances that one can opt out of a service or that it really isn’t spying on people are, IMO, worthless. I have never trusted Google or Ring cameras or anything “smart” that enables someone else to see my information.
The descriptions I’m seeing—here by Greenwald, yesterday by Aubergine, and others—of AI gathering personal information and using it to “chat” and for various purposes make me wonder if one could ask AI for personal information on someone else. What is to stop the chatbot or agent from combing the internet for all of someone’s social media posts, blog posts, and much more?
This is one of those times when a couple of older guys walk into a clearing and sees a bear, which charges them. One guy starts hobbling away as fast as he can while the other shouts, “you fool, you’ll never outrun the bear!”
The running guy shouts over his shoulder — “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.”
While people are cluing in, take it upon yourself to minimize the points where your data can be aggregated. Have several email addresses with several names, birthdays, security questions, and the like. Use each for defined uses only and do not overlap. Don’t give out your cellphone number if you have to have one. If you are going to play with AI, use extreme caution. Consider building your own in-house AI rather than use one that is controlled by others. Take things off the cloud and put them on your internal systems….
Tonight’s fish meeting was Dr. Mazeroll of https://www.amazonresearchcenter.org/, speaking on fish near Iquitos, Peru.
Iquitos is a city of almost 500,000 people on an island nestled between three rivers in the Peruvian Amazon. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iquitos ]. It can only be reliably accessed by boat or airplane, as the local highways end in mud some distance from the city center for much of the year.
One element I found intriguing was that the Festivum cichlid found on one side of the island (in the Itaya River) was a different species than that found on the other side (in the Nanay River), despite both feeding into the Amazon on the north edge of town. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a modern pattern of this — possibly because fishermen living on one river might fish on the other….and dump their bycatch when they got home (they frequently use cast nets).
Darrel Rowland:
From healthcareuncovered.substack.com
PBMs:
I’d feel a lot better if this read, “Sens Josh Hawley and Elizabeth Warren Introduce “Break Up Big Medicine Act” to Force Separation of Congresscritters, Insurers, PBMs and Providers”….