Our thoughts are like blossoms on a tree in spring.

You see a tree in spring covered in blossom. But hundreds of the blossoms fall and come to nothing. Often when there is most blossom there is least fruit. But all fruit, good or bad, come from the blossom. So the mind is covered with thoughts like a tree with blossoms. Most of them come to nothing or end in foolishness. Sometimes when the mind is full of thoughts there is least fruit. The strength of the mind is wasted by fruitless thoughts. Nevertheless, all actions, good or bad, come from our thoughts. So our thoughts are the best and surest way of showing us what we are in ourselves.

"As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Proverbs 23:7

~ John Owen.

The essence of man's sin, the sum of his moral depravity, is to love himself supremely; to seek himself finally and exclusively; to make self, in one shape or another, the center to which all his busy thoughts, anxious cares and diligent pursuits, constantly tend. Self-love is the most active and reigning principle in fallen nature! SELF is the great idol which mankind is naturally disposed to worship... "Love is not self-seeking" (1 Cor. 13:5).
~ John Angell James

Here is a question that I have heard a few times, but want to understand it fully before I answer it.
The proclamation of the Gospel is the means God used to save the elect.
Can it also be said that the proclamation of the Gospel is the means the Holy Spirit uses to regenerate, then justify the elect?
In other words does the proclamation of the Gospel happen prior to both regeneration and justification?

Tom

So if women are thus permitted to have their heads uncovered and to show their hair, they will eventually be allowed to expose their entire breasts, and they will come to make their exhibitions as if it were a tavern show; they will become so brazen that modesty and shame will be no more; in short they will forget the duty of nature...Further, we know that the world takes everything to its own advantage. So, if one has liberty in lesser things, why not do the same with this the same way as with that? And in making such comparisons they will make such a mess that there will be utter chaos. So, when it is permissible for the women to uncover their heads, one will say, ‘Well, what harm in uncovering the stomach also?’ And then after that one will plead [for] something else; ‘Now if the women go bareheaded, why not also [bare] this and [bare] that?’ Then the men, for their part, will break loose too. In short, there will be no decency left, unless people contain themselves and respect what is proper and fitting, so as not to go headlong overboard


~ John Calvin (Sermon on 1 Cor 11:2-3 in Men, Women and Order in the Church, trans Seth Skolnitsky, Presbyterian Heritage Publications, pp. 12-13)

Here is a issue that comes up now and again with some of my friends and relatives.
I have had Christian friends over the years, that say they want to go on a vacation to Cuba. I have even been asked if I would like to go.
Personally speaking, although I like the Carribean, I definitely want to avoid Cuba. Among a few of the reasons I want to avoid Cuba, is they are a Communist Country, that has been traditionally hostile to the USA.
The problem is when I tell, reasons to people when they ask. They look at me like I have three heads and say something like "to each their own.
Am I correct in thinking this way about Cuba?

Tom