Appeal letter for financial aid suspension examples

LINK TO TEST RESULTS ARE BELOW + DID I GET MISTYPED BY SOME PEOPLE AS AN ENFJ (they don't know me that well personally, i've met them twice in person)
I'm new to MBTI and trying to wrap my head around interpreting the cognitive functions/raw results, all because I got typed as an ENFJ, not by close friends. And I can't help but not really relate to ENFJ no matter how many sites i've read up on them, so I wanted to find out what my type really is. I'd like some help on what order does this put my functions at?
Consistent types i've gotten thru several tests were really ISTP and INTP, but I feel like I'm missing a puzzle piece in understanding where I lie (i may be neither of them too), so i'm trying to study the functions better but it's a bit overwhelming as a beginner. (Other types i've considered is ISFP or ENTP but i'm not sure)
I'm overall very reserved and picky with choosing friends since i value my social energy, i'm very quiet and can get tired of social settings if i don't vibe well but friends have said i manage to socialise and network with people way better than the other introverts in our group (hence why i think i got mistaken as an ENFJ, as I can seem quite amicable). I don't think i'm socially awkward and i can definitely make a person included since i can be inquisitive when im not just a quiet observer of the group.
LINK OF MY RESULTS
Your raw results:
Cognitive functions:
Te: 7
Ti: 12
Fe: 0
Fi: 7
Se: 5
Si: 3
Ne: 11
Ni: 9
Traditional "letter" dimensions:
E: 0
I: 2
T: 2
F: 0
N: 0
S: 2
P: 2
J: 0
Type families:
Traditionalist (SJ): 0
Experiencer (SP): 1.5
Idealist (NF): 0
Conceptualizer (NT): 1.5
Weaknesses (highest scores are potentially your fourth function):
Te: 0
Ti: 0
Fe: 0
Fi: 0
Se: 0
Si: 2
Ne: 0
Ni: 0
I'll answer the questions given by the guide at the start:
• How old are you? What's your gender? Give us a general description of yourself.
I'm 24/F with a disorganized routine that I constantly try to fix since I do want to better myself but it's a struggle. I prefer the company of select few people but I can widen my social range by befriending new people (few times in a month since I get tired from socialising easily). I also like taking on creative projects outside of work, but struggle being consistent and finishing it as I tend to jump to another project (I get bored easily or restless).
• Is there a medical diagnosis that may impact your mental stability somehow?
Suspected ADHD (in the process of getting diagnosed) and I do have a history of depression. • Describe your upbringing. Did it have any kind of religious or structured influence? How did you respond to it?
I come from a conservative family (Muslim dad, and mother that comes from a catholic family but she converted to evangelism and eventually to a buddhist sect). I had no distinct structure as I was homeschooled and was given free reign on how fast or slow I do my studies which ended up making me work in bursts rather than consistently. The extreme conservatism in the family however made me less inclined to follow religion and rather I value independent thought and freedom (I still respect people who do practice, but I'd rather study religion in a historical context and its customs of how it came to be).
• What do you do as a job or as a career (if you have one)? Do you like it? Why or why not?
I'm still a student as I'm delayed by a few years but I freelance on the side with art, graphic design, editing, transcriptions, and voice overs.
• If you had to spend an entire weekend by yourself, how would you feel? Would you feel lonely or refreshed?
I'd honestly have a lot to do! Since I have a lot of hobbies I prefer to do alone (writing fiction, art, costume creation for events). Either that or I'd be listening to music and cleaning my space/decluttering/donating old things. Overall I treasure my alone time and get more energy that way.
• What kinds of activities do you prefer? Do you like, and are you good at sports? Do you enjoy any other outdoor or indoor activities?
I'm not that sportsy of a person and my stamina has taken a low recently but I love biking when I'm able to. I prefer stretching or doing exercise indoors otherwise.
• How curious are you? Do you have more ideas then you can execute? What are your curiosities about? What are your ideas about - is it environmental or conceptual, and can you please elaborate?
I'm curious about the world/society and how things work, why things came to be, why people come to certain behaviours. When I have discussions with friends I tend to go deep into why and how does something reach a certain conclusion (like why a group ended up a certain way or why is our friend in this predicament), I tend to wanna get down to something until I get a clear idea on the "why" and if it makes sense. So I end up yapping a lot (only with close friends). As for my ideas, it's either for planning events for a group or friends, ex: thinking for photoshoot concepts, activities for an event, games that would be fun, anything to keep things interesting in a practical way.
• Would you enjoy taking on a leadership position? Do you think you would be good at it? What would your leadership style be?
I'm not the type to take up leadership immediately, but if I see no one is stepping up and if the group isn't doing well, I tend to take hold of the reins. That's mostly what has happened in the past. I tend to want everyone to contribute and pitch in equally as a group member, if that doesn't work out I try to delegate what works for each member so it all works out in the end.
• Are you coordinated? Why do you feel as if you are or are not? Do you enjoy working with your hands in some form? Describe your activity?
Is this under bodily coordination? The most I can think of is sewing as I'm careful with handling the needle or sewing machine. If you asked me to dance though? I suck at it lmao
• Are you artistic? If yes, describe your art? If you are not particular artistic but can appreciate art please likewise describe what forums of art you enjoy. Please explain your answer.
Yes! I draw specifically with digital art and sometimes trad art by sketching. I've also worked with dry clay sculpting, sewing and fabric by costume making/cosplay, a bit of prop work (I'm weak here though)
• What's your opinion about the past, present, and future? How do you deal with them?
I have a vague idea of what the future may entail (example: what goals I need to work up to), but inevitably I don't know how soon or how probable it would happen in the future so I don't dwell on it as much and try to get things done in the present. The past is there to look back to and learn from, whatever I've learned from the past is applicable to the now.
• How do you act when others request your help to do something (anything)? If you would decide to help them, why would you do so?
It depends on how close they are to me, but if they have a problem I've encountered before and I have a clear answer on how to solve it, why not? I would help them if it's practical for me and not me going out of my way to help them (I only go out of my way if they're someone I consider decent/close friends)
• Do you need logical consistency in your life?
I struggle with upholding routines, so what counts as logical consistency? Environmental wise? I'm open to change if it means for the better.
• How important is efficiency and productivity to you?
Pretty important, I'd want things to work and be productive.
• Do you control others, even if indirectly? How and why do you do that?
I'm mostly laid back and let others be with what they want to do, but I think my flaw is that if i think (like earlier with groups), they're not doing too hot with a solvable issue, I can tend to butt in to give input and get frustrated if they still mess up. (This is me with my partner, and a few close friends)
• What are your hobbies? Why do you like them?
Writing fiction, I aim to write a book, so in my free time I world build and write story structures/character lists. I also enjoy reading new books whether for new info or cultural stories. Illustrating, making music playlists and conceptualizing new costume work (what materials are needed and how to construct it)
• What is your learning style? What kind of learning environments do you struggle with most? Why do you like/struggle with these learning styles? Do you prefer classes involving memorization, logic, creativity, or your physical senses?
I'm more of a visual and hands on learner, as someone who experienced homeschooling and some public school, I did okay with the structure of public school while I had to be reminded to get with my tasks when I was homeschooled.
I learn better when I read something to the point of understanding what it means, only them can I memorize something. I can't remember or memorize things I don't understand.
• How good are you at strategizing? Do you easily break up projects into manageable tasks? Or do you have a tendency to wing projects and improvise as you go?
Not that good at breaking things up into manageable tasks, I either do it all or nothing.
• What are your aspirations in life, professionally and personally?
To have a stable life, living on my own. Nothing that extravagant, I want to be able to financially care for myself on my own and a few pets while also enjoying my free time out of work without being too tired.
• What are your fears? What makes you uncomfortable? What do you hate? Why?
Not being able to sustain myself or graduate, as someone who has struggled mentally with finishing things due to fear of failure, I've taken leaps with trying new things except my schooling. I hate unnecessary drama or people who create conflict for no logical reason, I also dislike people who are playfully mean but it borders on bullying already (there's a way with being playful mean without it hurting and those people don't know the distinction) I have no patience for people like that. That and people who remain willfully helpless or ignorant despite being given insight.
• What do the "highs" in your life look like?
I'm able to do a lot of things in a week, attend workshops, get a lot of things done. I've achieved quite a lot on my plate. Make new memories and experiences to look back to.
• What do the "lows" in your life look like?
Usually after a very busy "high" in my life where I do way too many things, I tend to crash afterwards and retreat, I lose motivation and lack the drive to do anything despite me pushing myself to. I feel too tired to go out or talk to people.
• How attached are you to reality? Do you daydream often, or do you pay attention to what's around you? If you do daydream, are you aware of your surroundings while you do so?
I only daydream when there's nothing to do (on a roadtrip, or alone), I pay attention to my surroundings when I'm out and about.
• Imagine you are alone in a blank, empty room. There is nothing for you to do and no one to talk to. What do you think about?
I guess I'd think about the week that passed and what happened in the day prior to that, why I'm there. If I have nothing else to remember I'd think of what I'd do when I'm out of the room.
• How long do you take to make an important decision? And do you change your mind once you've made it?
It takes a lot of thinking about the pros and cons, I lay it all out and I can get very indecisive because whatever decision I make is usually final and what I will stick with. I don't flake out of decisions once it's made but it takes me a long while to get to it. Sometimes I'll ask for an outside opinion on what someone else thinks before I make my own decision, I'll mostly ask if my thought process is sound and makes sense before deciding.
• How long do you take to process your emotions? How important are emotions in your life?
I let myself feel my emotions and process/analyse why I've been made to feel a certain way, I acknowledge them, but ultimately it doesn't affect my choices since I'd rather take the practical route in life. I do however stand up for myself when I feel my boundaries have been violated or if I've been hurt by someone, I will voice it out that what they did was not okay.
• Do you ever catch yourself agreeing with others just to appease them and keep the conversation going? How often? Why?
I don't necessarily agree, if I geniunely don't agree with someone I won't voice out that I agree with them, rather I'll ask them to elaborate on their point and may give them a counter argument.
• Do you break rules often? Do you think authority should be challenged, or that they know better? If you do break rules, why?
I will challenge authority if I don't think they're making sound judgements and or are being unfair in their rules, I tend to follow rules more often than not but I will bend or go around a rule if it's harmless to do so. I can and will make risks if I find it within reason.

Plain and simple, what are YOU prepping for? I am UK based and live in a 2 bed flat/apartment with one below and one above and a small private balcony, so space isn't a luxury but it's also not non existent.
I see lots of posts prepping for the total end of the world, shoot 'em up, apocalypse style. If I had the time and funds (but mainly funds) I would absolutely LOVE to build a full blown off grid nuclear shelter under a plot of 250 acres and extreme off roading vehicle with all the items you'd ever need but there's many more likely scenarios I believe will happen well before that.
​
Mine are:
First Aid - Cuts, sprains, burns, scrapes, breaks, twists, bumps, you get the idea.
Financial Struggles - Examples: Job Loss, Illness, Banking Down, Emergency repair bills.
Power outage - A short term but sustained power loss, no matter how it is caused as long as staying put is viable.
Extreme/Unexpected Weather - Experienced some temperatures starting to push into the 40 degrees, most UK properties are not prepared for this kind of heat long or short term.
Shortages of Everyday Items - During COVID, there was a shortage of toilet paper for months, there was no actual production shortage but everyone was panic buying because everyone was panic buying. I work on a one is none and two is one rule. This also includes a temporary water shortage/drinking ban for example the pipes are compromised until they get repaired. (This happened recently to a family member)
Pandemic - Everyone on here has lived through one, could there be another in my lifetime?
Leaving for (the foreseeable) future - This includes anything from a gas leak at home, a flood or a straight up invasion of the country. I'm not going to be fighting an entire enemy force with a spoon or swiss army knife (as that's about all we're allowed in the UK) My plan is to leave the country if able to and if I can't, well, then we shall go from there. This plan also works for going to family/friends houses short term for any reason and includes personal medication, a small supply of dog food, a small emergency stash of money and a small amount of gold to buy me some more time (food, shelter etc) at wherever I end up if total war breaks out (this is my worst case scenario prepping)
​
Whilst this isn't my full list, these are MY most likely to happen scenarios.
​
I would love to see what everyone is prepping for, I have spent many hours reading through this subreddit and respect everyone has a reason, view or different needs. I am a believer of, if it can happen, it will eventually happen. It's for each individual to judge if it'll happen in their life/affect them.

I would like to get a sense of how much actors who are still active in the industry have spent on their training, be it in college or at a studio, after taking into account any help that they receive (except family support). A rough estimate will do, but my objective is to find out

1. How feasible it is for a student to attend school for theatre;
2. How dependent their decision is on the amount of financial aid/scholarships awarded to them, and;
3. How much is too much to be spending on training.

I really got curious because I've been looking at NYC conservatories for after graduating from university since a few of my seniors have committed to them, but the sticker price on the cost of attendance is just prohibitive - I'm talking upwards of $60k a year. I wonder if people actually pay that amount especially if they have no grants or aid (especially international students). I'm also interested in students who have received offer letters but turned the school down because of the price.
Edit: Question open to everyone, not just those in the USA!

Hello everyone
I am sure everyone has been reading about the two unfortunate whistleblowers from Boeing.
One allegedly committed suicide a few weeks ago "John Barnett found dead in US" , and his story goes back until 2019 when he said publicly:
"In 2019, Mr Barnett told the BBC that under-pressure workers had been deliberately fitting sub-standard parts to aircraft on the production line. He also said he had uncovered serious problems with oxygen systems, which could mean one in four breathing masks would not work in an emergency. He said soon after starting work in South Carolina he had become concerned that the push to get new aircraft built meant the assembly process was rushed and safety was compromised, something the company denied."
He also felt he was in danger, and his fate will hopefully be clarified soon.
Another Boeing whistleblower testified yesterday at the Senate (FT article), and this is what he said:

*"A Boeing whistleblower testified to a US Senate committee that the aircraft manufacturer “absolutely” has a culture of retaliation against employees who raise safety concerns.* 

Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at the company, said he was berated by a manager in response to repeatedly questioning the safety of the 777 and 787 aeroplanes. Separately, he said he found a nail suspiciously embedded in his car tyre.
“I have raised these issues over three years,” he told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations at a hearing on Wednesday to examine Boeing’s safety culture. “I was ignored; I was told not to create delays; I was told, frankly, to shut up.”
Sincerely I am not surprised that the US Senate is taking this seriously, as it relates to the safety of millions of people worldwide.
TESLA'S whistleblower
On a smaller scale, I wanted to bring up the story of another whistleblower, much more known in Europe than in the USA. The story was first published in May 2023 by a German newspaper called Handelsblatt, and then summarised by the New York Times in November 2023 in an article "Man vs Musk: a whistleblower creates headaches for Tesla . The guy, L. Krupski, used to be a Tesla employee and hero as he put out a fire at a Tesla car delivery location, and Elon Musk thanked him in person.
Yet his colleagues started to mistreat him, and before leaving the company, L. discovered that from his work computer, he could have access to all the data of the company, including financials, product defections, and personal information of both employees and customers. He felt so concerned about what he saw that he decided later on to communicate the information to the German newspaper Handelsblatt (here the original article). Later on, also Reuters and CNBC covered a whistleblower dataset.
Overall, the information can be divided in 4 sections:

• Privacy data breach
• Cybertruck details and problems
• Product defections (faulty suspensions, autopilot/fsd problems, phantom braking etc.)
• Creative accounting & maybe financial fraud

Privacy Initially, Reuters and many western newspapers focused on the data breach issue. The trial mustbe ongoing but according to international observers from this breach alone Tesla might end up to pay 4% of its annual sales in fines. that is around $3.5 billion. See Reuters article . Meta was once fined for a similar data breach. Most notably, Handelsblatt cross-checked the authenticity of the dataset by contacting some of the customers of Tesla, listed in the files.
Cybertruck Wired instead decided to focus on the design and manufacturing processes issues of the Cybertruck, publishing an article ""A leaked Tesla report shows the Cybetruck Had Basic Design Flaws" . In the article, it is said the truck took so many years to be finalised because its controversial design was literally an engineering nightmare. The article implied that the final price of the Cybertruck was for sure going to be higher than what was initially promised; indeed, at the launch, the price set by Musk was almost 100% higher than what he said many many years ago, and 50% less of the promised performance. Here is an article from the New York Post that confirms what Wired found out: Tesla's Cybertrucks were rushed out, are malfunctioning at astounding rate"
Product defections this is the most interesting part of the dataset, as it seems that the customer complains on phantom braking and sudden unintended accelerations were much higher than what Tesla admitted over the years. It seems that employees were instructed to avoid leaving any written trace to customers about the defections, so that was unlikely for the company to be contested or sued. Also, Handelsblatt reports about thousands of unreported crashes with autopilot & FSD, with the customers being so scared of their cars that they preferred to sell it back to Tesla instead of selling it in the used car market. Handelsblatt published again an article in December, with the opinions of internal employees on the autopilot software: "Employees warned internally of potentially fatal autopilot errors" with employees saying:
Erik Larsen\ was responsible for expanding charging stations in Scandinavia at Tesla. He publicly shares his enthusiasm for his employer and its goals on LinkedIn. After five unwanted braking events in just one week, Larsen was also skeptical: “I often turn off the autopilot because of the phantom braking.”*
None of the employees found any valid explanations for the incidents. It remained just speculation. “I guess that deep shadows under bridges could also have something to do with it,” thought service technician Borja Clausen\ after his Tesla braked heavily while overtaking on the highway three times in three weeks. Engineer Jesper Thomassen* wrote: “I experience incorrect braking almost every time I drive and hard phantom braking less often, but usually a few times on my longer weekend trips in different places.”*
Reuters later in December published a report on the fact that Tesla was aware of its faulty suspensions, mostly about the MX & MS lineups, but customers sometimes complained about the MY & M3 suspensions. Most notably, Tesla recalled the faulty vehicles in China, but it did not do anything in the West. Here is the article: "Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective"
Again, Musk refused to comment on this. If you read the article, the reports are indeed alarming:
"Two more complex and expensive parts also frequently failed: half shafts – the left and right drive axles – and steering racks, which often needed replacing after sudden power-steering outages that some Tesla owners said nearly caused accidents. One driver said in an interview that his brand-new 2023 Model Y jerked to the right when the power-steering suddenly failed at speed, nearly putting the vehicle into a ditch.
At least 11 drivers told Tesla a crash was caused by a failure in the suspension, steering or wheel assembly, company records show. Those accident claims, which have not been previously reported by the media, were recorded by Tesla staff between 2018 and 2021 and assigned to engineers or technicians for review."
A similar issue was noticed and reported by a Swedish guy in July 2022 https://carup.se/larmade-om-farligt-fel-fredriks-film-stoppad-av-teslas-advokate The crazy part of this is that people noticed the issue already in 2016, but nothing has been done to solve it (Tesla just recalled the cars in China) https://dailykanban.com/2016/06/08/tesla-suspension-breakage-not-crime-coverup/
Financials The most interesting and controversial part of the dataset was reported by CNBC in October 2023 with the article Tesla whistleblowers filed a complaint to the SEC in 2021, but the agency never interviewed them. Here's what the complaint said

• about warranty repairs: From what is reported, it seems that Tesla increased its short-term profits by setting aside less money for future repairs. According to some estimates (Bradmuchen report on substack), Tesla has the lowest warranty expenses as a % of COGS, despite its many defections. Additionally to setting aside less money for future repairs, Tesla books the cost of repair under general and administrative costs, and the customer bill is billed as revenue. “Where you put stuff in a financial statement matters,” she said. “If I’m taking warranty costs out of the cost of automotive sales, and pushing them down into some other line further down the income statement, that will make my gross profit margin look higher. If I’m moving it from up above in cost of sales, and moving into other expenses, it’s also not as transparent about the quality of the product.”
• accountancy of new car sales: "In another example, the complaint said screenshots showed Tesla employees had manually changed the status of “used” cars to “new” in a program that tracked vehicle deliveries data. This could affect Tesla’s delivery numbers, they said, though they didn’t try to estimate the overall impact and instead encouraged the SEC to investigate further. " I am not sure Tesla can do this (if they ever did) as the state incentives make it impossible to fake the sale of a used car as new, just to make the delivery report look better"
• inventories value assessment: "In one example, the tipsters said screenshots showed other Tesla employees changed the status of material used in manufacturing from “scrap” to “work in progress.” Scrap refers to material generated from a manufacturing job that is unusable waste." Again, in order to increase profitability, scrap parts might have been upgraded to Work-in-progress parts, just to avoid decreasing short-term margins. Back in 2019, some short sellers already had the impression that Tesla inventories were not that transparent

It seems the SEC was not interested in the Whistleblower findings, and they refused to meet with them despite their many findings.
CONCLUSIONS It is unclear to me why Elon says that medias are against him, as everyone could have widely reported this story and yet, after the first articles, nobody ever mentioned it.
Handelsblatt and Reuters confirmed the authenticity of the dataset, that's why Tesla never sued them, but actually sued the whistleblowers in Norway and Texas https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/tesla-sues-2-former-employees-over-insider-data-breach-a-22901 It is unclear to me if the Norwegian whistleblower is the same source of the USA ones, and it could be very worrisome if different parties ended up with the same bunch of information.
Why do you think we hear about Boeing's whistleblowers but not the Tesla's ones?
​

Hello everyone
I am sure everyone has been reading about the two unfortunate whistleblowers from Boeing.
One allegedly committed suicide a few weeks ago "John Barnett found dead in US" , and his story goes back until 2019 when he said publicly:
"In 2019, Mr Barnett told the BBC that under-pressure workers had been deliberately fitting sub-standard parts to aircraft on the production line. He also said he had uncovered serious problems with oxygen systems, which could mean one in four breathing masks would not work in an emergency. He said soon after starting work in South Carolina he had become concerned that the push to get new aircraft built meant the assembly process was rushed and safety was compromised, something the company denied."
He also felt he was in danger, and his fate will hopefully be clarified soon.
Another Boeing whistleblower testified yesterday at the Senate (FT article), and this is what he said:

*"A Boeing whistleblower testified to a US Senate committee that the aircraft manufacturer “absolutely” has a culture of retaliation against employees who raise safety concerns.* 

Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at the company, said he was berated by a manager in response to repeatedly questioning the safety of the 777 and 787 aeroplanes. Separately, he said he found a nail suspiciously embedded in his car tyre.
“I have raised these issues over three years,” he told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations at a hearing on Wednesday to examine Boeing’s safety culture. “I was ignored; I was told not to create delays; I was told, frankly, to shut up.”
Sincerely I am not surprised that the US Senate is taking this seriously, as it relates to the safety of millions of people worldwide.
TESLA'S whistleblower
On a smaller scale, I wanted to bring up the story of another whistleblower, much more known in Europe than in the USA. The story was first published in May 2023 by a German newspaper called Handelsblatt, and then summarised by the New York Times in November 2023 in an article "Man vs Musk: a whistleblower creates headaches for Tesla . The guy, L. Krupski, used to be a Tesla employee and hero as he put out a fire at a Tesla car delivery location, and Elon Musk thanked him in person.
Yet his colleagues started to mistreat him, and before leaving the company, L. discovered that from his work computer, he could have access to all the data of the company, including financials, product defections, and personal information of both employees and customers. He felt so concerned about what he saw that he decided later on to communicate the information to the German newspaper Handelsblatt (here the original article). Later on, also Reuters and CNBC covered a whistleblower dataset.
Overall, the information can be divided in 4 sections:

• Privacy data breach
• Cybertruck details and problems
• Product defections (faulty suspensions, autopilot/fsd problems, phantom braking etc.)
• Creative accounting & maybe financial fraud

Privacy Initially, Reuters and many western newspapers focused on the data breach issue. The trial mustbe ongoing but according to international observers from this breach alone Tesla might end up to pay 4% of its annual sales in fines. that is around $3.5 billion. See Reuters article . Meta was once fined for a similar data breach. Most notably, Handelsblatt cross-checked the authenticity of the dataset by contacting some of the customers of Tesla, listed in the files.
Cybertruck Wired instead decided to focus on the design and manufacturing processes issues of the Cybertruck, publishing an article ""A leaked Tesla report shows the Cybetruck Had Basic Design Flaws" . In the article, it is said the truck took so many years to be finalised because its controversial design was literally an engineering nightmare. The article implied that the final price of the Cybertruck was for sure going to be higher than what was initially promised; indeed, at the launch, the price set by Musk was almost 100% higher than what he said many many years ago, and 50% less of the promised performance. Here is an article from the New York Post that confirms what Wired found out: Tesla's Cybertrucks were rushed out, are malfunctioning at astounding rate"
Product defections this is the most interesting part of the dataset, as it seems that the customer complains on phantom braking and sudden unintended accelerations were much higher than what Tesla admitted over the years. It seems that employees were instructed to avoid leaving any written trace to customers about the defections, so that was unlikely for the company to be contested or sued. Also, Handelsblatt reports about thousands of unreported crashes with autopilot & FSD, with the customers being so scared of their cars that they preferred to sell it back to Tesla instead of selling it in the used car market. Handelsblatt published again an article in December, with the opinions of internal employees on the autopilot software: "Employees warned internally of potentially fatal autopilot errors" with employees saying:
Erik Larsen\ was responsible for expanding charging stations in Scandinavia at Tesla. He publicly shares his enthusiasm for his employer and its goals on LinkedIn. After five unwanted braking events in just one week, Larsen was also skeptical: “I often turn off the autopilot because of the phantom braking.”*
None of the employees found any valid explanations for the incidents. It remained just speculation. “I guess that deep shadows under bridges could also have something to do with it,” thought service technician Borja Clausen\ after his Tesla braked heavily while overtaking on the highway three times in three weeks. Engineer Jesper Thomassen* wrote: “I experience incorrect braking almost every time I drive and hard phantom braking less often, but usually a few times on my longer weekend trips in different places.”*
Reuters later in December published a report on the fact that Tesla was aware of its faulty suspensions, mostly about the MX & MS lineups, but customers sometimes complained about the MY & M3 suspensions. Most notably, Tesla recalled the faulty vehicles in China, but it did not do anything in the West. Here is the article: "Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective"
Again, Musk refused to comment on this. If you read the article, the reports are indeed alarming:
"Two more complex and expensive parts also frequently failed: half shafts – the left and right drive axles – and steering racks, which often needed replacing after sudden power-steering outages that some Tesla owners said nearly caused accidents. One driver said in an interview that his brand-new 2023 Model Y jerked to the right when the power-steering suddenly failed at speed, nearly putting the vehicle into a ditch.
At least 11 drivers told Tesla a crash was caused by a failure in the suspension, steering or wheel assembly, company records show. Those accident claims, which have not been previously reported by the media, were recorded by Tesla staff between 2018 and 2021 and assigned to engineers or technicians for review."
A similar issue was noticed and reported by a Swedish guy in July 2022 https://carup.se/larmade-om-farligt-fel-fredriks-film-stoppad-av-teslas-advokate The crazy part of this is that people noticed the issue already in 2016, but nothing has been done to solve it (Tesla just recalled the cars in China) https://dailykanban.com/2016/06/08/tesla-suspension-breakage-not-crime-coverup/
Financials The most interesting and controversial part of the dataset was reported by CNBC in October 2023 with the article Tesla whistleblowers filed a complaint to the SEC in 2021, but the agency never interviewed them. Here's what the complaint said

• about warranty repairs: From what is reported, it seems that Tesla increased its short-term profits by setting aside less money for future repairs. According to some estimates (Bradmuchen report on substack), Tesla has the lowest warranty expenses as a % of COGS, despite its many defections. Additionally to setting aside less money for future repairs, Tesla books the cost of repair under general and administrative costs, and the customer bill is billed as revenue. “Where you put stuff in a financial statement matters,” she said. “If I’m taking warranty costs out of the cost of automotive sales, and pushing them down into some other line further down the income statement, that will make my gross profit margin look higher. If I’m moving it from up above in cost of sales, and moving into other expenses, it’s also not as transparent about the quality of the product.”
• accountancy of new car sales: "In another example, the complaint said screenshots showed Tesla employees had manually changed the status of “used” cars to “new” in a program that tracked vehicle deliveries data. This could affect Tesla’s delivery numbers, they said, though they didn’t try to estimate the overall impact and instead encouraged the SEC to investigate further. " I am not sure Tesla can do this (if they ever did) as the state incentives make it impossible to fake the sale of a used car as new, just to make the delivery report look better"
• inventories value assessment: "In one example, the tipsters said screenshots showed other Tesla employees changed the status of material used in manufacturing from “scrap” to “work in progress.” Scrap refers to material generated from a manufacturing job that is unusable waste." Again, in order to increase profitability, scrap parts might have been upgraded to Work-in-progress parts, just to avoid decreasing short-term margins. Back in 2019, some short sellers already had the impression that Tesla inventories were not that transparent

It seems the SEC was not interested in the Whistleblower findings, and they refused to meet with them despite their many findings.
CONCLUSIONS It is unclear to me why Elon says that medias are against him, as everyone could have widely reported this story and yet, after the first articles, nobody ever mentioned it.
Handelsblatt and Reuters confirmed the authenticity of the dataset, that's why Tesla never sued them, but actually sued the whistleblowers in Norway and Texas https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/tesla-sues-2-former-employees-over-insider-data-breach-a-22901 It is unclear to me if the Norwegian whistleblower is the same source of the USA ones, and it could be very worrisome if different parties ended up with the same bunch of information.
Why do you think we hear about Boeing's whistleblowers but not the Tesla's ones?
​

Hello everyone
I am sure everyone has been reading about the two unfortunate whistleblowers from Boeing.
One allegedly committed suicide a few weeks ago "John Barnett found dead in US" , and his story goes back until 2019 when he said publicly:
"In 2019, Mr Barnett told the BBC that under-pressure workers had been deliberately fitting sub-standard parts to aircraft on the production line. He also said he had uncovered serious problems with oxygen systems, which could mean one in four breathing masks would not work in an emergency. He said soon after starting work in South Carolina he had become concerned that the push to get new aircraft built meant the assembly process was rushed and safety was compromised, something the company denied."
He also felt he was in danger, and his fate will hopefully be clarified soon.
Another Boeing whistleblower testified yesterday at the Senate (FT article), and this is what he said:

*"A Boeing whistleblower testified to a US Senate committee that the aircraft manufacturer “absolutely” has a culture of retaliation against employees who raise safety concerns.* 

Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at the company, said he was berated by a manager in response to repeatedly questioning the safety of the 777 and 787 aeroplanes. Separately, he said he found a nail suspiciously embedded in his car tyre.
“I have raised these issues over three years,” he told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations at a hearing on Wednesday to examine Boeing’s safety culture. “I was ignored; I was told not to create delays; I was told, frankly, to shut up.”
Sincerely I am not surprised that the US Senate is taking this seriously, as it relates to the safety of millions of people worldwide.
TESLA'S whistleblower
On a smaller scale, I wanted to bring up the story of another whistleblower, much more known in Europe than in the USA. The story was first published in May 2023 by a German newspaper called Handelsblatt, and then summarised by the New York Times in November 2023 in an article "Man vs Musk: a whistleblower creates headaches for Tesla . The guy, L. Krupski, used to be a Tesla employee and hero as he put out a fire at a Tesla car delivery location, and Elon Musk thanked him in person.
Yet his colleagues started to mistreat him, and before leaving the company, L. discovered that from his work computer, he could have access to all the data of the company, including financials, product defections, and personal information of both employees and customers. He felt so concerned about what he saw that he decided later on to communicate the information to the German newspaper Handelsblatt (here the original article). Later on, also Reuters and CNBC covered a whistleblower dataset.
Overall, the information can be divided in 4 sections:

• Privacy data breach
• Cybertruck details and problems
• Product defects (faulty suspensions, autopilot/fsd problems, phantom braking etc.)
• Creative accounting & maybe financial fraud

Privacy Initially, Reuters and many western newspapers focused on the data breach issue. The trial mustbe ongoing but according to international observers from this breach alone Tesla might end up to pay 4% of its annual sales in fines. that is around $3.5 billion. See Reuters article . Meta was once fined for a similar data breach. Most notably, Handelsblatt cross-checked the authenticity of the dataset by contacting some of the customers of Tesla, listed in the files.
Cybertruck Wired instead decided to focus on the design and manufacturing processes issues of the Cybertruck, publishing an article ""A leaked Tesla report shows the Cybetruck Had Basic Design Flaws" . In the article, it is said the truck took so many years to be finalised because its controversial design was literally an engineering nightmare. The article implied that the final price of the Cybertruck was for sure going to be higher than what was initially promised; indeed, at the launch, the price set by Musk was almost 100% higher than what he said many many years ago, and 50% less of the promised performance. Here is an article from the New York Post that confirms what Wired found out: Tesla's Cybertrucks were rushed out, are malfunctioning at astounding rate"
Product defections this is the most interesting part of the dataset, as it seems that the customer complains on phantom braking and sudden unintended accelerations were much higher than what Tesla admitted over the years. It seems that employees were instructed to avoid leaving any written trace to customers about the defections, so that was unlikely for the company to be contested or sued. Also, Handelsblatt reports about thousands of unreported crashes with autopilot & FSD, with the customers being so scared of their cars that they preferred to sell it back to Tesla instead of selling it in the used car market. Handelsblatt published again an article in December, with the opinions of internal employees on the autopilot software: "Employees warned internally of potentially fatal autopilot errors" with employees saying:
Erik Larsen\ was responsible for expanding charging stations in Scandinavia at Tesla. He publicly shares his enthusiasm for his employer and its goals on LinkedIn. After five unwanted braking events in just one week, Larsen was also skeptical: “I often turn off the autopilot because of the phantom braking.”*
None of the employees found any valid explanations for the incidents. It remained just speculation. “I guess that deep shadows under bridges could also have something to do with it,” thought service technician Borja Clausen\ after his Tesla braked heavily while overtaking on the highway three times in three weeks. Engineer Jesper Thomassen* wrote: “I experience incorrect braking almost every time I drive and hard phantom braking less often, but usually a few times on my longer weekend trips in different places.”*
Reuters later in December published a report on the fact that Tesla was aware of its faulty suspensions, mostly about the MX & MS lineups, but customers sometimes complained about the MY & M3 suspensions. Most notably, Tesla recalled the faulty vehicles in China, but it did not do anything in the West. Here is the article: "Tesla blamed drivers for failures of parts it long knew were defective"
Again, Musk refused to comment on this. If you read the article, the reports are indeed alarming:
"Two more complex and expensive parts also frequently failed: half shafts – the left and right drive axles – and steering racks, which often needed replacing after sudden power-steering outages that some Tesla owners said nearly caused accidents. One driver said in an interview that his brand-new 2023 Model Y jerked to the right when the power-steering suddenly failed at speed, nearly putting the vehicle into a ditch.
At least 11 drivers told Tesla a crash was caused by a failure in the suspension, steering or wheel assembly, company records show. Those accident claims, which have not been previously reported by the media, were recorded by Tesla staff between 2018 and 2021 and assigned to engineers or technicians for review."
A similar issue was noticed and reported by a Swedish guy in July 2022 https://carup.se/larmade-om-farligt-fel-fredriks-film-stoppad-av-teslas-advokate The crazy part of this is that people noticed the issue already in 2016, but nothing has been done to solve it (Tesla just recalled the cars in China) https://dailykanban.com/2016/06/08/tesla-suspension-breakage-not-crime-coverup/
Financials The most interesting and controversial part of the dataset was reported by CNBC in October 2023 with the article Tesla whistleblowers filed a complaint to the SEC in 2021, but the agency never interviewed them. Here's what the complaint said

• about warranty repairs: From what is reported, it seems that Tesla increased its short-term profits by setting aside less money for future repairs. According to some estimates (Bradmuchen report on substack), Tesla has the lowest warranty expenses as a % of COGS, despite its many defections. Additionally to setting aside less money for future repairs, Tesla books the cost of repair under general and administrative costs, and the customer bill is billed as revenue. “Where you put stuff in a financial statement matters,” she said. “If I’m taking warranty costs out of the cost of automotive sales, and pushing them down into some other line further down the income statement, that will make my gross profit margin look higher. If I’m moving it from up above in cost of sales, and moving into other expenses, it’s also not as transparent about the quality of the product.”
• accountancy of new car sales: "In another example, the complaint said screenshots showed Tesla employees had manually changed the status of “used” cars to “new” in a program that tracked vehicle deliveries data. This could affect Tesla’s delivery numbers, they said, though they didn’t try to estimate the overall impact and instead encouraged the SEC to investigate further. " I am not sure Tesla can do this (if they ever did) as the state incentives make it impossible to fake the sale of a used car as new, just to make the delivery report look better"
• inventories value assessment: "In one example, the tipsters said screenshots showed other Tesla employees changed the status of material used in manufacturing from “scrap” to “work in progress.” Scrap refers to material generated from a manufacturing job that is unusable waste." Again, in order to increase profitability, scrap parts might have been upgraded to Work-in-progress parts, just to avoid decreasing short-term margins. Back in 2019, some short sellers already had the impression that Tesla inventories were not that transparent

It seems the SEC was not interested in the Whistleblower findings, and they refused to meet with them despite their many findings.
CONCLUSIONS It is unclear to me why Elon says that medias are against him, as everyone could have widely reported this story and yet, after the first articles, nobody ever mentioned it.
Handelsblatt and Reuters confirmed the authenticity of the dataset, that's why Tesla never sued them, but actually sued the whistleblowers in Norway and Texas https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/tesla-sues-2-former-employees-over-insider-data-breach-a-22901 It is unclear to me if the Norwegian whistleblower is the same source of the USA ones, and it could be very worrisome if different parties ended up with the same bunch of information.
Why do you think we hear about Boeing's whistleblowers but not the Tesla's ones?
​

The Collect
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 37:1–18
Exodus 20:1–21
Gospel: Matthew 4:1–11
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Commentary:
Today we look at the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. These three temptations by Satan in the wilderness, were not the only temptations our Lord ever suffered on Earth. We read in Luke 4:2 that He was tempted by the devil for forty days, but He was undoubtedly tempted at other times. Throughout his ministry, Jesus will experience conflict with religious authorities. Peter will tempt Jesus to avoid the cross (Matthew 16:23). Jesus will commend the disciples for standing by him in his trials (Luke 22:28). At Gethsemane, Jesus will struggle with temptation once again (Luke 22:42-44).
And yet in all this He was without sin or compromise. Although some have suggested that the Lord’s period of fasting compares with that of both Moses (Exodus 34:28) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:8), the main point is how the Lord deals with temptation in the light of His humanity.
Jesus’ temptations follow three patterns that are common to all men. The first temptation concerns the lust of the flesh (Matthew 4:3–4). Our Lord is hungry, and the devil tempts Him to convert stones into bread, but He replies with Scripture, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. The second temptation concerns the pride of life (Matthew 4:5–7), and here the devil uses a verse of Scripture (Psalm 91:11–12), but the Lord replies again with Scripture to the contrary (Deuteronomy 6:16), stating that it is wrong for Him to abuse His own powers. The third temptation concerns the lust of the eyes (Matthew 4:8–10), and if any quick route to the Messiahship could be attained, bypassing the passion and crucifixion for which He had originally come, this was the way. The devil already had control over the kingdoms of the world (Ephesians 2:2) but was now ready to give everything to Christ in return for His allegiance. But the mere thought almost causes the Lord’s divine nature to shudder at such a concept and He replies sharply, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only” (Deuteronomy 6:13).
There are many temptations that we sadly fall into because our flesh is naturally weak, but we have a God who will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear; He will provide a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13). We can therefore be victorious and then will thank the Lord for deliverance from temptation.
“Jesus did not need to be tempted to help Him grow. Instead, He endured temptation both so that He could identify with us (Hebrews 2:18 and 4:15), and to demonstrate His own holy, sinless character. The Holy Spirit cannot tempt us (James 1:13), but the Holy Spirit may lead us to a place where we will be tempted. This is not to prove something to God (who knows all things), but to prove something to us and to the spiritual beings watching us.” (Guzik)
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” (v. 1)
“The time when it happened: Then; there is an emphasis laid upon that. Immediately after the heavens were opened to him, and the Spirit descended on him, and he was declared to be the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, the next news we hear of him is, he is tempted; for then he is best able to grapple with the temptation. ” (Henry)
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit” Immediately following the scene of the Holy spirit descending on Jesus as he came up out of the water of baptism, the spirit leads him into the wilderness. It is important to note that the spirit does not tempt Jesus but the spirit did take Jesus to temptation just as it will put us in a position of testing.
“into the wilderness to be tempted (peirasthenai—from peirazo) of the devil” “The word peirazo can mean tempt or test. To tempt is to entice a person to do what is wrong; to test is to give a person the opportunity to choose what is right. To tempt is to hope for failure; to test is to hope for success. In Jesus’ temptation, the Spirit is testing Jesus. Satan intends to tempt him–to compromise him–to break him.” (Donovan)
A passage analogous to this tempting or testing, peirasthenai, can be found in Malachi 3:1-5, specifically verse 3; “And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.”
Megan Rawlings, in an article on Christian Standard, writes of how a woman who had discovered this passage, mad an appointment with a working silversmith to see how silver was purified, Rawlings writes: “She explained that she was curious about the process of refining silver but never mentioned the Bible study. On the appointed day, she watched the silversmith hold a piece of silver over the fire to heat it. To refine silver, he said, one must place it in the middle of the fire where it is hottest and allow the heat to burn away all the impurities.”
Silver may already be pure when the silversmith obtains it, in which case the process of “testing” is done to insure or prove to the world that the precious metal is pure. Such was the case with Jesus, his heart was pure, his conscience without blemish, but by this testing, God through the Holy Spirit proved to all humanity the innocence of his Son.
Rawlings goes on to make another outstanding point on this analogy; “ She asked the silversmith if it was true he had to stay with this piece of silver, in front of the fire, the whole time it was in the flames. The silversmith answered emphatically, “Yes!” He told her there was more to his job than just sitting and waiting, though. He said he had to monitor the silver the entire time it was in the fire, never taking his eyes off of it. ‘If the silver is left in the flame even a second too long, it would be impaired,’ he said. ‘If it was not in the flame long enough, impurities would remain in it.’”
Even though God may send the Holy spirit to lead us into temptation, or testing, he is always with us through the ordeal.
This reality—that of the Lord always being with us—is explained in the poem and song Footprints In The Sand. In this poetic verse the protagonist explains that while in a dream, he could see himself and the Lord walking on a beach, leaving behind two sets of footprints, as a representation of his life. At some points of his life in this dream he could only see one set and asked the lord why, that in the worst times of his life, the Lord left him alone? The Lord replied; “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you.”
In the story about the woman who went to an actual working silversmith to esquire about the process, she asked the smith “How do you know the exact moment when the silver is completely refined?”
He smiled at her and said, “That is a good question and has an easy answer. The silver is fully refined when I see my image in it.”
“An issue for Christians today is the existence of the devil (diabolos). Does such a being exist, or is it simply a primitive myth. Today we are tempted to see evil as the product of flawed social systems—poverty, racism, ignorance, etc.—and to discount the existence of the devil. However, evil is not restricted to people who come from poverty or have been subject to racism or poor educational opportunities. Consider the offspring of suburbia, few of whom are victims of poverty or racism, and most of whom enjoy great affluence and opportunity. If bad circumstances produce evil, good circumstances should produce good. But are the children of the suburbs paragons of virtue? Hardly! Affluent youth are often troubled youth. Does that mean that flawed social systems do not produce evil? No! Does it mean that the church has no responsibility to correct such systems? No! It simply means that we must recognize that evil is a personal issue as well as a sociological one. It wells up, not only in our neighborhoods, but also in our hearts.” (Donovan)
“And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.” (v. 2) “Forty days” does not have the same precision that we attach to it. It is like our phrase, “a couple of weeks,” which might mean fourteen days—or twelve—or sixteen. Its function is to connect Jesus with Moses, who fasted for forty days (Exodus 34:28), Elijah, who fasted for forty days (1 Kings 19:8), and the Israelites, who wandered for forty years in the wilderness (Exodus 16:35).
Another way in which the human side of Jesus is exposed, is through his hunger. Even after his crucifixion, the risen Christ appears to his friends and disciples and asks them for food: “And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them. ” (Luke 24:40-43) Therefore at both the end of his live on Earth as well at the beginning, he hungered.
“And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” (v. 3) At his baptism, the voice of God was heard proclaiming to Jesus, “This is my beloved Son” Now we see the devil questioning this statement with, “If thou be the Son of God” Satan did not question Jesus’ deity; he challenged Him to prove it or demonstrate it through miraculous works; “command that these stones be made bread.”
“This wasn’t a temptation to miraculously create great riches or luxuries, only bread. The Bible has many accounts of miraculous provision, some at the hands of Jesus. Yet Jesus would not command that these stones become bread, especially at the instigation of Satan.” (Guzik) But yet keep in mind that although he would not stoop so low as to feel it necessary to demonstrate his deity to the devil, he did often demonstrate to mankind that he was from God, by his works.
“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (v. 4) By relying on scripture, the power and truth of God’s Word, Jesus was willing to fight this battle as a man; He could have easily rebuked Satan by sending him into another galaxy, however Jesus resisted Satan in a way that we can imitate and identify with, relying on scripture.
“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (vs. 5-6) Satan tempted Jesus to “force” the Father into a supernatural event. Satan appealed to the desire within every man to sense approval from God and to have that approval publicly demonstrated.
“The devil’s suggestions was of an artificially created crisis, not of trusting God in the situations which result from obedient service.” (France)
“Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (v. 7)
“This was the very method that the false Messiahs who were continually arising promised…These pretenders had offered sensations which they could not perform. Jesus could perform anything he promised. Why should he not do it?” (Barclay)
“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” (vs. 8-9) Satan was offering Jesus dominion over the world, something he already had if he so chose to do so.
“The nations of the earth had been, long before, promised to the Messiah; if he be the Son of God, they belong to him; Satan pretends now to be a good angel, probably one of those that were set over kingdoms, and to have received a commission to deliver possession to him according to promise. Note, We must take heed of receiving even that which God hath promised, out of the devil's hand; we do so when we precipitate the performance, by catching at it in a sinful way.”(Henry)
“the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain” Again, we are reminded of Moses, who met God on a high mountain. On this high mountain, Jesus confronts the devil. Jesus has come to save the world, and the devil offers him the world.
“10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (v. 10) Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13, reminding us that God is the only proper object of worship. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will tell us that no one can serve two masters (6:24), but first he demonstrates that principle in his own life.
“Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.” (v. 11)
“The devil was baffled, and quitted the field; Then the devil leaveth him, forced to do so by the power that went along with that word of command, Get thee hence, Satan. He made a shameful and inglorious retreat, and came off with disgrace; and the more daring his attempts had been, the more mortifying was the foil that was given him. Magnis tamen excidit ausis—The attempt, however, in which he failed, was daring. Then, when he had done his worst, had tempted him with all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and found that he was not influenced by that bait, that he could not prevail with that temptation with which he had overthrown so many thousands of the children of men, then he leaves him; then he gives him over as more than a man.” (Henry)
Jesus said, “for it is written,” Here Jesus does two things—in my opinion. [1] He gifts us with a wonderful mechanism for discernment, the gift of scripture. And [2] he gives us a monumental challenge, that of reading scripture and studying it carefully so as to learn the true meaning of scripture and not the out of context ramblings of false teachers.
Far too often—perhaps hundreds of times a day—unsolicited constructs, concepts, or ideas—enter into our minds. Ideas that seem to appear out of nowhere. These ideas can suggest many things, greed, lust, hate, profuse sorrow, doubt and even fear or false bravado.
Secularists trained in the study of mental processes, sometimes suggest that these ideas or emotions bubble up from deep within our own self conscious. Those more prone to sectarian thought, suggest that these are spirits, either the Holy spirit or the voice of Satan himself.
Ignatius of Loyola, developed an hypothesis along this line of heavenly versus hellish forces seeking to influence us via the ideas that pop into our conscious. He even wrote a series of “rules of discernment” to aid his students in their quest to determine, or discern, the nature of these mental constructs.
However the Apostles also spoke on this subject; “1Jn 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. ” (1 John 4:1-3) “Truth is the foundation of simulation and counterfeits; there had been real communications from the divine Spirit, and therefore others pretended thereto. God will take the way of his own wisdom and goodness, though it may be liable to abuse; he has sent inspired teachers to the world, and given us a supernatural revelation, though others may be so evil and so impudent as to pretend the same; every pretender to the divine Spirit, or to inspiration, and extraordinary illumination thereby, is not to be believed.” (Henry)
Paul wrote in his letter to the Thessalonians: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. ” (1Th 5:21-22) Which in other words means to test all things, see if they agree with the word of God—Jesus said, “for it is written,”—retain or hold fast to that which agrees with the Holy Word of God and avoid the rest. If any vision or guidance contradicts the teachings of the Bible, it may not be from God. Ensure that the message aligns with Scripture.
Sometimes, we will not find the answer directly in scripture but we can find guidance in Proverbs, a book of the bible that builds wisdom. Wisdom—sometimes referred to as common sense—often will shed light on the discernment process.
Benediction
O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.
Corrie Ten Boom

This is a little long so bare with me. So I’m trying to decide if going back to college is worth it but in the meantime here’s a timeline of events that led me to 16k in debt and no degree.
(2020-2021)
Fall

• 19 years old
• Covid-19 graduate
• Biomedical Engineering major
• College Tuition paid in full

Spring

• Failed engineering classes
• Changed major to “undecided”
• Lost all scholarship money
• Diagnosed with an anxiety and depression disorders
• Prescribed medication (non compliant)
• lost financial aid (submitted an appeal and was approved for following semester)
• didn’t make any friends

(2021 - 2022)
Fall
20 years old - Struggled to navigate college as the campus opens back up - Took out loans to cover room and board (subsidized/unsubsidized) - remained non complaint with medication - Continued to do poor in courses - lost financial aid due to GPA (again) - Gained financial aid back due to approval of appeal
Spring - declared psychology as my major - returned to school - performed okay academically (still on probation) - Took out more loans to cover room and board - still didn’t make any friends - feelings of anxiety, depression, loneliness increased
(2022-2023)
21 years old
Fall - Continue to take out loans - did poorly in classes as my anxiety and depression worsened - On academic probation - non compliant with medication
Spring - Took out more loans - Paid 3,000 out of pocket - performed very bad academically (earned F’s) - anxiety through the roof - depression increased (suicidal thoughts) - on academic probation - walked out of university with 3,952.56 due - lost financial aid for the 3rd time because of GPA
Did not return to school for 2023-2024 school year
Currently April 2024 - working a dead end job that I hate - mildly depressed - cannot afford to pay 3,952.56 to enroll in classes for 2024 semester - Also have to submit another appeal to because I lost my financial aid - wanting to avoid more student loan debt
Should I just forget about college and start something new? (not sure what that would be tho)
Or should I go back and rack up more debt and obtain the degree? Although ’m not too sure what I want to do with the psychology degree. (I have two more years left to complete it).
Please help me. What is the smart more to make here?

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: South American Latino
• Income Bracket: Enough to not seek financial aid
• Type of School: High end Private school

Intended Major(s): Business Management
Academics

• GPA (UW/W): School doesn’t use GPA
• Rank (or percentile): Top 30%
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: Full IB Diploma

Standardized Testing

• SAT: 1350 (720RW, 630M)
  
• IB: 31 overall
  

4 HL Spnaish A 6 HL English B 6 HL Business management 5 SL ITGS 5 SL Enviromental 5 SL Math Apllications and Interpretation
*TOEFL: 103
Extracurriculars/Activities (summarized bc they are long)

1. Tutor 

Voluntarily Offered lessons to classmates who needed it.

2. E-Commerce 

Brought High-Demand items and resold online

3. Community service 

Participated on cooking and distributing food to an elderly adults hospital routinely

4. Consultancy 

Did analysis of growth opportunities for a multinational company

5. Web Developer 

Developed a webpage for a craft brewery

6. Safeguard Team 

Member of a safeguard team that involved looking out for students’ overall safety.

7. Online courses 

Took online courses on web development/programming.

8. Podcast host 

Hosted a podcast in which news were discussed.
Awards/Honors

1. Exceptional Effort in Business Management (school)

Letters of Recommendation
Business Teacher (8/10)
Think it was definitely a good letter, had a good relationship and was the best at his class.
Math teacher (7/10)
I had to help translate the letter because the teacher only spoke spanish 💀 Still I think it was great, I was the best at his class, always helped classmates (which is talked about on the letter).
Counselor (6/10)
Barely had any relationship with him, but I think he did a very good letter with the limited resources he had.
*No interviews
Essays
Had someone helping out with essays, so they were definitely better quality;
Talked about my self improvement journey on the commonapp essay, how I started losing weight, hanging out with better people, getting better grades, and kinda finally having a purpose, doing more things,etc.
Supplementals were also high quality, but I feel like my experiences weren’t that unique/shocking (although still somewhat unique) Some were reused but definitely fitting for all prompts.
Decisions
RD for all
Acceptances:

• Brandeis
• Clark (+15k/yr scholarship!!!) (was still more expensive than Penn State)
• Penn state + Committed! (got rejected from main, but still got into 2+2, feel that I applied too late to main)

Waitlists:

• Trinity University

Rejections:

• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Notre Dame
• Rice *NYU *Georgia Tech *University of Michigan, Ann arbor (this one hurt the most) *Lehigh *Boston College

Additional Information:
I put on the common app that my ”Low” Sat was because my school didn’t teach any SAT math, They probably didn’t even read it.
Final Thoughts
I had higher expectations, but I’m still very happy with my results. Really excited for Penn State. Looking back, I feel like I needed a higher SAT, but at the same time my score was in the ranges (or very close to) of all the unis. What could’ve been improved?

I want to start off by saying that I’m extremely grateful that I got into such wonderful universities. By no means am I trying to sound less appreciative of the opportunities that I have, but I’m so confused on what to choose at this point. I’m first generation and my parents are sweet, but not the greatest when it comes to helping pick colleges.
For context, I’m planning on majoring in engineering (CBE at Princeton, BME at Yale, or MENG with Bio concentration at UChicago) on the pre-medical track. My main focus is pre-med, so I am not really focused on prestige. I also got similar financial aid offers from each school and am in the process of appealing.
I feel really scared that I’ll mess up and won’t succeed because of any mistake that I make. I feel that I’m not up to par with so many other students that have done such amazing things and are already miles ahead in terms of academics due to coming from a rural public school.
Princeton Pros:

• stronger in STEM
• more undergraduate research opportunities
• great undergraduate focus
• one of the best engineering departments in the world
• great alumni network
• beautiful and safe campus

​
Princeton Cons:

• grade deflation (as a pre-med major I heard that GPA is a big concern when applying)
• students seem to be more stressed out about grades
• not as many premed opportunities
• eating clubs give me an off vibe
• secluded campus

​
Yale Pros:

• great for premeds (lots of opportunities to volunteer and shadow)
• access to town and transportation
• happier student body? more relaxed and collaborative
• grade inflation (good for med-schools and less stress for grades despite similar academic rigor)
• residential college system has better community
• great interdisciplinary approach

​
Yale Cons:

• weaker in STEM areas, esp engineering
• heard a lot of bad things about New Haven
• not as big alumni network
• equal graduate and undergraduate populations
• not as many opportunities for research

​
UChicago Pros

• great interdisciplinary approach to learning through CORE
• good access to opportunities within Chicago
• has medical school on campus
• friendly faculty
• pre-med advising I’ve heard to be pretty great

​
UChicago Cons

• grade deflation or lack of inflation
• Hyde park is not the best for students
• little bit more expensive than the other two
• MENG is relatively new
• uchicago is where fun goes to die T-T
• terrible weather
• relatively more humanities focus? has been focused on STEM in recent years

Everyone is saying to just go with whichever one feels better, but they all are so amazing in my opinion and have their own pros and cons that make them less or more favorable.
I don’t know where to commit right now and find myself switching schools every other day and overthinking about everything.
To current students, current premeds, and anyone available, why did you choose Yale? Why should I?
All thoughts and criticisms are welcome :)

I want to start off by saying that I’m extremely grateful that I got into such wonderful universities. By no means am I trying to sound less appreciative of the opportunities that I have, but I’m so confused on what to choose at this point. I’m first generation and my parents are sweet, but not the greatest when it comes to helping pick colleges.
For context, I’m planning on majoring in engineering (CBE at Princeton, BME at Yale, or MENG with Bio concentration at UChicago) on the pre-medical track. My main focus is pre-med, so I am not really focused on prestige. I also got similar financial aid offers from each school and am in the process of appealing.
I feel really scared that I’ll mess up and won’t succeed because of any mistake that I make. I feel that I’m not up to par with so many other students that have done such amazing things and are already miles ahead in terms of academics due to coming from a rural public school.
Princeton Pros:

• stronger in STEM
• more undergraduate research opportunities
• great undergraduate focus
• one of the best engineering departments in the world
• great alumni network
• beautiful and safe campus

​
Princeton Cons:

• grade deflation (as a pre-med major I heard that GPA is a big concern when applying)
• students seem to be more stressed out about grades
• not as many premed opportunities
• eating clubs give me an off vibe
• secluded campus

​
Yale Pros:

• great for premeds (lots of opportunities to volunteer and shadow)
• access to town and transportation
• happier student body? more relaxed and collaborative
• grade inflation (good for med-schools and less stress for grades despite similar academic rigor)
• residential college system has better community
• great interdisciplinary approach

​
Yale Cons:

• weaker in STEM areas, esp engineering
• heard a lot of bad things about New Haven
• not as big alumni network
• equal graduate and undergraduate populations
• not as many opportunities for research

​
UChicago Pros

• great interdisciplinary approach to learning through CORE
• good access to opportunities within Chicago
• has medical school on campus
• friendly faculty
• pre-med advising I’ve heard to be pretty great

​
UChicago Cons

• grade deflation or lack of inflation
• Hyde park is not the best for students
• little bit more expensive than the other two
• MENG is relatively new
• uchicago is where fun goes to die T-T
• terrible weather
• relatively more humanities focus? has been focused on STEM in recent years

Everyone is saying to just go with whichever one feels better, but they all are so amazing in my opinion and have their own pros and cons that make them less or more favorable.
I don’t know where to commit right now and find myself switching schools every other day and overthinking about everything.
To current students, current premeds, and anyone available, why did you choose Princeton? Why should I?
All thoughts and criticisms are welcome :)

Hey everyone,
I'm writing this from a throwaway account just for anonymity purposes. I was wondering if anybody had any insights / advice / thoughts about how I should handle my current situation.
Background: I am 25F, living in BC. My father has narcissistic personality disorder and has been abusing my family emotionally and financially since I was 3. I live with mom, brother (23M), and mom's BF at home. Nobody in my family works except me, and mom's BF. My job doesn't pay very well - I'm in healthcare (booking clerk) and only make approximately 3k a month.
Legal situation: Currently, our legal bills are up to 20k a month, mainly because of my dad's financial abuse. He fraudulently obtained all our sources of income back in 2018; so we don't have much funds set aside specifically for legal fees. My mom had a loan, which she has basically used up for this prolonged legal case. Mom's BF is now on a loan to pay for our legal fees - not sure how much he has on his loan.
Dad does not play by the rules - he has initiated 10 different lawsuits against my family and I, and he continuously plays the court system, prolonging our court case and adding to our legal fees.
Examples:

• he has postponed the hearing for 2 of our largest cases for the last 3 years by claiming he is "out of the country" on each time there is a hearing date.
• He consistently writes false affidavits, which are literally hundreds of pages long - just to waste our lawyer's time and up the fees.
• He lied regarding service of documents: he would leave an envelope on our doorstep with copies of old affidavits, take a photo, and claim that we were served. We've already missed out on 2 court hearings because of this.

Evidently, he is quite difficult to deal with. Our lawyer has been with us since 2018 - he knows all of the tricks that my dad pulls, and he usually resolves them well - the only factor being time and money. The issue here is that I am uncertain if I can reach out to a lawyer via. legal aid BC and still produce the same results.
We are in the midst of filing for vexatious litigant against him (he has filed 50 different cases in the last 3 years, no joke), as well as trying to have his citizenship revoked as he had lied on his citizenship application. I also have a criminal case against him - he's managed to put it off for a year now; trial still hasn't started.
Ultimately, the problem is still time and money: he has ahold of all our streams of income, so he can endlessly play this game. However, we cannot.
If anybody has any advice, resources, or even similar experiences, I would greatly appreciate that :) Thanks for reading this far if you have <3
TLDR: Father has narcissistic personality disorder and has been abusing us financially for the last 5 years. Funds are running low and I'm looking to see what I can do to help my family. Father is VERY good at playing the court system here (professional fraudster), not sure what I can do.

Whoa. This whole thread is amazing looking back at it and knowing what we know now.
"Isn't it interesting that Kelli copter emailed the aftermath foundation and Mike answered her and instead of responding to him she made a YouTube video. These people are unbelievable."
"Oh, don't you know why they won't go after RM Jr.? He's Jenna's dad. Jenna is buddies with all of the ASL crowd. Same reason they don't go at Biddy for creating the INT ranch that they all despise - she's Sterling's mother. All of the interviews I've watched with her, she doesn't seem one bit remorseful for anything she did. On Peeling The Onion, they showed a photo of Biddy and exclaimed that she was 2nd in command and higher up than Shelly at one point."
"He says he’s getting divorced but I still wouldn’t want my sister hooking up with him. His history with women is godawful, plus he’s a clout chaser with a h*rd on for her uncle. "
"I find it curious as to why Mike Brown suddenly turned on Mike Rinder after RindeLeah were the first ones to get Rosemary's story out there on their YouTube channel. Why did he agree to do a video with Mike Rinder about this story? He would have known prior to that video that Rinder had thanked Ronnie in his book."
"I guess to not look like a hypocrite? I don't think that's called for, but I turned on Mike Brown with that video. That video put the Aaron mob on Leah. I'm disgusted by Kelly and Mike B and Nora and all the rest of them. There isn't enough time to do a break down of all the things they're wrong about, and I can't see a way for them to undo the damage they've done. The anti Scientology cause will continue forward because sane people see it for the insanity is is and kind people will see it for the cruelty it is, but they have set it back and they can't unsay all the stupid things they've said, They are doing David's work for him."
"I'll say this again, the most probable reason Mike Rinder is suddenly "the Bad Guy" is because of his testimony in Leah Remini's Harrassment lawsuit. The core claim is about RTC (and David "Darth Midget" Miscavige) being very directly involved in every single operation against critics and "enemies". D.M. is now at grave risk of having to personally appear in court in the Remini case. His goto response is to put OSA INT Internet Investigations Unit on fulltime Black PR operations to attempt to crush Rinder spiritually, entangle him in lawsuits from legit C of $ victims, and maybe even incite violence against him and his family. It is very easy to do. For example, spread the rumor (aimed at a CSA victim) that Rinder is sitting on documents that would help them prove in court that there was an attack and a cover-up."
"People who do not care at all (and therefore will not investigate or validate) what is the ultimate source of the information they promulgate make excellent useful idiots to OSA and have been utilized in this way since Guardian Office days. Who told Miriam that Rinder was withholding documents she needed? Who told them ? Who told THEM ? How could anyone possibly know that for a true fact and not be complicit ?" "It's sad. I don't want to see Leah's lawsuit get interfered with due to all of the in-fighting. I remember when Claire was being cheered on by all of the exes for being an expert witness during the Masterson trial. Now they are trying to discredit her and Rinder at a very crucial time."
"I do see that the timing of all this is suspect; however I have seen similar "flamewars" among YouTube creators over many years."
"Mike Rinder gave the FBI a forensic copy of the thumb drive he escaped from C of $ around 2009 or 2010. That thumb drive contained around 20,000 documents. Mirriam's attorney could have used FOIA requests to obtain copies of any documents relevant to her case from the FBI. There has been no mention of such an attempt so far during this propaganda debacle."
"It’s fucking disgusting to me, and so is every creator who jumped on that shitty bandwagon, that includes Kelly. It’s all got ASLs fingerprints all over it. Speaking of, has he launched his foundation yet?"
"Yes, all respect lost for Kelli. She would have been better off staying out of it completely. The first person to promote her channel was Marc Headley. I didn't know who she was until Marc kept saying, "You gotta check out Kelli Copter's channel." I also think a lot of them are falling for whatever bs they're being fed behind the scenes."
"~From my standpoint as a casual viewer and not someone who any personal interaction with Aaron, it was becoming more obvious even to me that for several months leading up to Aaron's ousting his behavior was changing (less stable, more confrontational) and it seemed like he was going through some offscreen challenges. At the time I thought it was because he was overworking himself growing his channel. I still think that could have been a factor, but it's obviously not the only one in light of all that has come out. I don't think Aaron was kicked off the board for his character, he was kicked off for his actions."
"~It's an EXPRESSION people! It's not" to be taken literally. I also don't think it's a reference to Mirriam in any way. It's in a letter to Alex/Rabbit letting her know they are not going to engage with her. It's clear that the 16 questions are not an honest attempt at dialogue or information gathering. They are loaded questions intended to provoke (Mirriam even giggles when she's reading them), and they contain implications of criminal activity. For that reason it makes sense to retain a lawyer rather than engage personally. (I want to acknowledge here that I think Rabbit and Mirriam have different motivations)"
"Sad harp music for Aaron's story, ominous industrial beats for Mike, those are certainly choices."
"And ominous pics of Mike R., a couple of pics from Going Clear on the day he blew. Shockingly emaciated from his time in the hole. But making him look like a ghoul."
"It's almost as if they were building a hate site for an enemy of their cult."
"I watched the entirety of it yesterday and tbh I expected much better from her. This was just an incredibly lazy hit piece. I think the user “demmka” in the comments above described this desire for a public flogging of Mike quite well. I’m also incredibly confused where Mike Brown was when it was time to help his mom and how someone could be so ungrateful when they did all the heavy lifting and supported her financially. Again I ask where was Mike B? It also opens my eyes how easily he can be convinced into radical thinking and become a part of a lynch mob."
"Ok I hesitate to say this about Mike B. but he is kind of "clueless." He is extremely well-spoken but really very uninformed about a lot of stuff. He and Sterling criticized the AF early on while also saying they didn't want to choose sides. I feel that was somewhat due to them feeling a kinship with their age-peer ASL. But Mike's continuing videos also seemed to show an extreme lack of critical thinking skills. He should have been more careful in fact checking before going after AF that benefitted his mom so much."
"100% I couldn’t agree more and in fact I’m glad you said that because I don’t think it is nefarious with him either but I do think it plays on how gullible and as you said a bit clueless he is. Almost like he has blinders on and is completely incapable of seeing the big picture. But it’s not just them. I have seen genuine arguments still “that the aftermath threw Aaron off for no reason.”
"Nevermind they had plenty of reasons before everything went public and after they were forced to remove Aaron from the board much much more came out. I simply block them now, because there is no more good faith attack about it. If you know the timeline and what happened and are still advocating these things (Kelli does also in her video btw.) I’m not sure you can even have serious discussions with these people. At that point they are more sycophants than fans."
Just WOW. This discussion was two months ago. Before we knew about Mike B and Jenna on the SPTV board, and Kelli flying in to Florida for the weekend, Before we knew ASL was having an affair, multiple affairs, but crying about his loveless marriage "for the kids." What else will we know about him and his new foundation two months from now?
https://www.reddit.com/scientology/comments/1ax9ejk/kelli_copter_calls_for_mike_rinder_to_step_down/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Bible Studies From The Daily Office Thursday April 18, 2024
The Collect
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 37:1–18 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+37%3A1%E2%80%9318&version=KJV
Exodus 20:1–21 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20%3A1%E2%80%9321&version=KJV
Gospel: Matthew 4:1–11
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Commentary:
Today we look at the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. These three temptations by Satan in the wilderness, were not the only temptations our Lord ever suffered on Earth. We read in Luke 4:2 that He was tempted by the devil for forty days, but He was undoubtedly tempted at other times. Throughout his ministry, Jesus will experience conflict with religious authorities. Peter will tempt Jesus to avoid the cross (Matthew 16:23). Jesus will commend the disciples for standing by him in his trials (Luke 22:28). At Gethsemane, Jesus will struggle with temptation once again (Luke 22:42-44).
And yet in all this He was without sin or compromise. Although some have suggested that the Lord’s period of fasting compares with that of both Moses (Exodus 34:28) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:8), the main point is how the Lord deals with temptation in the light of His humanity.
Jesus’ temptations follow three patterns that are common to all men. The first temptation concerns the lust of the flesh (Matthew 4:3–4). Our Lord is hungry, and the devil tempts Him to convert stones into bread, but He replies with Scripture, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. The second temptation concerns the pride of life (Matthew 4:5–7), and here the devil uses a verse of Scripture (Psalm 91:11–12), but the Lord replies again with Scripture to the contrary (Deuteronomy 6:16), stating that it is wrong for Him to abuse His own powers. The third temptation concerns the lust of the eyes (Matthew 4:8–10), and if any quick route to the Messiahship could be attained, bypassing the passion and crucifixion for which He had originally come, this was the way. The devil already had control over the kingdoms of the world (Ephesians 2:2) but was now ready to give everything to Christ in return for His allegiance. But the mere thought almost causes the Lord’s divine nature to shudder at such a concept and He replies sharply, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only” (Deuteronomy 6:13).
There are many temptations that we sadly fall into because our flesh is naturally weak, but we have a God who will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear; He will provide a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13). We can therefore be victorious and then will thank the Lord for deliverance from temptation.
“Jesus did not need to be tempted to help Him grow. Instead, He endured temptation both so that He could identify with us (Hebrews 2:18 and 4:15), and to demonstrate His own holy, sinless character. The Holy Spirit cannot tempt us (James 1:13), but the Holy Spirit may lead us to a place where we will be tempted. This is not to prove something to God (who knows all things), but to prove something to us and to the spiritual beings watching us.” (Guzik)
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” (v. 1)
“The time when it happened: Then; there is an emphasis laid upon that. Immediately after the heavens were opened to him, and the Spirit descended on him, and he was declared to be the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, the next news we hear of him is, he is tempted; for then he is best able to grapple with the temptation. ” (Henry)
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit” Immediately following the scene of the Holy spirit descending on Jesus as he came up out of the water of baptism, the spirit leads him into the wilderness. It is important to note that the spirit does not tempt Jesus but the spirit did take Jesus to temptation just as it will put us in a position of testing.
“into the wilderness to be tempted (peirasthenai—from peirazo) of the devil” “The word peirazo can mean tempt or test. To tempt is to entice a person to do what is wrong; to test is to give a person the opportunity to choose what is right. To tempt is to hope for failure; to test is to hope for success. In Jesus’ temptation, the Spirit is testing Jesus. Satan intends to tempt him–to compromise him–to break him.” (Donovan)
A passage analogous to this tempting or testing, peirasthenai, can be found in Malachi 3:1-5, specifically verse 3; “And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.”
Megan Rawlings, in an article on Christian Standard, writes of how a woman who had discovered this passage, mad an appointment with a working silversmith to see how silver was purified, Rawlings writes: “She explained that she was curious about the process of refining silver but never mentioned the Bible study. On the appointed day, she watched the silversmith hold a piece of silver over the fire to heat it. To refine silver, he said, one must place it in the middle of the fire where it is hottest and allow the heat to burn away all the impurities.”
Silver may already be pure when the silversmith obtains it, in which case the process of “testing” is done to insure or prove to the world that the precious metal is pure. Such was the case with Jesus, his heart was pure, his conscience without blemish, but by this testing, God through the Holy Spirit proved to all humanity the innocence of his Son.
Rawlings goes on to make another outstanding point on this analogy; “ She asked the silversmith if it was true he had to stay with this piece of silver, in front of the fire, the whole time it was in the flames. The silversmith answered emphatically, “Yes!” He told her there was more to his job than just sitting and waiting, though. He said he had to monitor the silver the entire time it was in the fire, never taking his eyes off of it. ‘If the silver is left in the flame even a second too long, it would be impaired,’ he said. ‘If it was not in the flame long enough, impurities would remain in it.’”
Even though God may send the Holy spirit to lead us into temptation, or testing, he is always with us through the ordeal.
This reality—that of the Lord always being with us—is explained in the poem and song Footprints In The Sand. In this poetic verse the protagonist explains that while in a dream, he could see himself and the Lord walking on a beach, leaving behind two sets of footprints, as a representation of his life. At some points of his life in this dream he could only see one set and asked the lord why, that in the worst times of his life, the Lord left him alone? The Lord replied; “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you.”
In the story about the woman who went to an actual working silversmith to esquire about the process, she asked the smith “How do you know the exact moment when the silver is completely refined?”
He smiled at her and said, “That is a good question and has an easy answer. The silver is fully refined when I see my image in it.”
“An issue for Christians today is the existence of the devil (diabolos). Does such a being exist, or is it simply a primitive myth. Today we are tempted to see evil as the product of flawed social systems—poverty, racism, ignorance, etc.—and to discount the existence of the devil. However, evil is not restricted to people who come from poverty or have been subject to racism or poor educational opportunities. Consider the offspring of suburbia, few of whom are victims of poverty or racism, and most of whom enjoy great affluence and opportunity. If bad circumstances produce evil, good circumstances should produce good. But are the children of the suburbs paragons of virtue? Hardly! Affluent youth are often troubled youth. Does that mean that flawed social systems do not produce evil? No! Does it mean that the church has no responsibility to correct such systems? No! It simply means that we must recognize that evil is a personal issue as well as a sociological one. It wells up, not only in our neighborhoods, but also in our hearts.” (Donovan)
“And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.” (v. 2) “Forty days” does not have the same precision that we attach to it. It is like our phrase, “a couple of weeks,” which might mean fourteen days—or twelve—or sixteen. Its function is to connect Jesus with Moses, who fasted for forty days (Exodus 34:28), Elijah, who fasted for forty days (1 Kings 19:8), and the Israelites, who wandered for forty years in the wilderness (Exodus 16:35).
Another way in which the human side of Jesus is exposed, is through his hunger. Even after his crucifixion, the risen Christ appears to his friends and disciples and asks them for food: “And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them. ” (Luke 24:40-43) Therefore at both the end of his live on Earth as well at the beginning, he hungered.
“And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” (v. 3) At his baptism, the voice of God was heard proclaiming to Jesus, “This is my beloved Son” Now we see the devil questioning this statement with, “If thou be the Son of God” Satan did not question Jesus’ deity; he challenged Him to prove it or demonstrate it through miraculous works; “command that these stones be made bread.”
“This wasn’t a temptation to miraculously create great riches or luxuries, only bread. The Bible has many accounts of miraculous provision, some at the hands of Jesus. Yet Jesus would not command that these stones become bread, especially at the instigation of Satan.” (Guzik) But yet keep in mind that although he would not stoop so low as to feel it necessary to demonstrate his deity to the devil, he did often demonstrate to mankind that he was from God, by his works.
“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (v. 4) By relying on scripture, the power and truth of God’s Word, Jesus was willing to fight this battle as a man; He could have easily rebuked Satan by sending him into another galaxy, however Jesus resisted Satan in a way that we can imitate and identify with, relying on scripture.
“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (vs. 5-6) Satan tempted Jesus to “force” the Father into a supernatural event. Satan appealed to the desire within every man to sense approval from God and to have that approval publicly demonstrated.
“The devil’s suggestions was of an artificially created crisis, not of trusting God in the situations which result from obedient service.” (France)
“Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (v. 7)
“This was the very method that the false Messiahs who were continually arising promised…These pretenders had offered sensations which they could not perform. Jesus could perform anything he promised. Why should he not do it?” (Barclay)
“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” (vs. 8-9) Satan was offering Jesus dominion over the world, something he already had if he so chose to do so.
“The nations of the earth had been, long before, promised to the Messiah; if he be the Son of God, they belong to him; Satan pretends now to be a good angel, probably one of those that were set over kingdoms, and to have received a commission to deliver possession to him according to promise. Note, We must take heed of receiving even that which God hath promised, out of the devil's hand; we do so when we precipitate the performance, by catching at it in a sinful way.”(Henry)
“the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain” Again, we are reminded of Moses, who met God on a high mountain. On this high mountain, Jesus confronts the devil. Jesus has come to save the world, and the devil offers him the world.
“10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (v. 10) Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13, reminding us that God is the only proper object of worship. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will tell us that no one can serve two masters (6:24), but first he demonstrates that principle in his own life.
“Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.” (v. 11)
“The devil was baffled, and quitted the field; Then the devil leaveth him, forced to do so by the power that went along with that word of command, Get thee hence, Satan. He made a shameful and inglorious retreat, and came off with disgrace; and the more daring his attempts had been, the more mortifying was the foil that was given him. Magnis tamen excidit ausis—The attempt, however, in which he failed, was daring. Then, when he had done his worst, had tempted him with all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and found that he was not influenced by that bait, that he could not prevail with that temptation with which he had overthrown so many thousands of the children of men, then he leaves him; then he gives him over as more than a man.” (Henry)
Jesus said, “for it is written,” Here Jesus does two things—in my opinion. [1] He gifts us with a wonderful mechanism for discernment, the gift of scripture. And [2] he gives us a monumental challenge, that of reading scripture and studying it carefully so as to learn the true meaning of scripture and not the out of context ramblings of false teachers.
Far too often—perhaps hundreds of times a day—unsolicited constructs, concepts, or ideas—enter into our minds. Ideas that seem to appear out of nowhere. These ideas can suggest many things, greed, lust, hate, profuse sorrow, doubt and even fear or false bravado.
Secularists trained in the study of mental processes, sometimes suggest that these ideas or emotions bubble up from deep within our own self conscious. Those more prone to sectarian thought, suggest that these are spirits, either the Holy spirit or the voice of Satan himself.
Ignatius of Loyola, developed an hypothesis along this line of heavenly versus hellish forces seeking to influence us via the ideas that pop into our conscious. He even wrote a series of “rules of discernment” to aid his students in their quest to determine, or discern, the nature of these mental constructs.
However the Apostles also spoke on this subject; “1Jn 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. ” (1 John 4:1-3) “Truth is the foundation of simulation and counterfeits; there had been real communications from the divine Spirit, and therefore others pretended thereto. God will take the way of his own wisdom and goodness, though it may be liable to abuse; he has sent inspired teachers to the world, and given us a supernatural revelation, though others may be so evil and so impudent as to pretend the same; every pretender to the divine Spirit, or to inspiration, and extraordinary illumination thereby, is not to be believed.” (Henry)
Paul wrote in his letter to the Thessalonians: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. ” (1Th 5:21-22) Which in other words means to test all things, see if they agree with the word of God—Jesus said, “for it is written,”—retain or hold fast to that which agrees with the Holy Word of God and avoid the rest. If any vision or guidance contradicts the teachings of the Bible, it may not be from God. Ensure that the message aligns with Scripture.
Sometimes, we will not find the answer directly in scripture but we can find guidance in Proverbs, a book of the bible that builds wisdom. Wisdom—sometimes referred to as common sense—often will shed light on the discernment process.
Benediction
O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.
Corrie Ten Boom

Bible Studies From The Daily Office Thursday April 18, 2024
The Collect
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 37:1–18 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+37%3A1%E2%80%9318&version=KJV
Exodus 20:1–21 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20%3A1%E2%80%9321&version=KJV
Gospel: Matthew 4:1–11
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Commentary:
Today we look at the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. These three temptations by Satan in the wilderness, were not the only temptations our Lord ever suffered on Earth. We read in Luke 4:2 that He was tempted by the devil for forty days, but He was undoubtedly tempted at other times. Throughout his ministry, Jesus will experience conflict with religious authorities. Peter will tempt Jesus to avoid the cross (Matthew 16:23). Jesus will commend the disciples for standing by him in his trials (Luke 22:28). At Gethsemane, Jesus will struggle with temptation once again (Luke 22:42-44).
And yet in all this He was without sin or compromise. Although some have suggested that the Lord’s period of fasting compares with that of both Moses (Exodus 34:28) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:8), the main point is how the Lord deals with temptation in the light of His humanity.
Jesus’ temptations follow three patterns that are common to all men. The first temptation concerns the lust of the flesh (Matthew 4:3–4). Our Lord is hungry, and the devil tempts Him to convert stones into bread, but He replies with Scripture, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. The second temptation concerns the pride of life (Matthew 4:5–7), and here the devil uses a verse of Scripture (Psalm 91:11–12), but the Lord replies again with Scripture to the contrary (Deuteronomy 6:16), stating that it is wrong for Him to abuse His own powers. The third temptation concerns the lust of the eyes (Matthew 4:8–10), and if any quick route to the Messiahship could be attained, bypassing the passion and crucifixion for which He had originally come, this was the way. The devil already had control over the kingdoms of the world (Ephesians 2:2) but was now ready to give everything to Christ in return for His allegiance. But the mere thought almost causes the Lord’s divine nature to shudder at such a concept and He replies sharply, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only” (Deuteronomy 6:13).
There are many temptations that we sadly fall into because our flesh is naturally weak, but we have a God who will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear; He will provide a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13). We can therefore be victorious and then will thank the Lord for deliverance from temptation.
“Jesus did not need to be tempted to help Him grow. Instead, He endured temptation both so that He could identify with us (Hebrews 2:18 and 4:15), and to demonstrate His own holy, sinless character. The Holy Spirit cannot tempt us (James 1:13), but the Holy Spirit may lead us to a place where we will be tempted. This is not to prove something to God (who knows all things), but to prove something to us and to the spiritual beings watching us.” (Guzik)
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” (v. 1)
“The time when it happened: Then; there is an emphasis laid upon that. Immediately after the heavens were opened to him, and the Spirit descended on him, and he was declared to be the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, the next news we hear of him is, he is tempted; for then he is best able to grapple with the temptation. ” (Henry)
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit” Immediately following the scene of the Holy spirit descending on Jesus as he came up out of the water of baptism, the spirit leads him into the wilderness. It is important to note that the spirit does not tempt Jesus but the spirit did take Jesus to temptation just as it will put us in a position of testing.
“into the wilderness to be tempted (peirasthenai—from peirazo) of the devil” “The word peirazo can mean tempt or test. To tempt is to entice a person to do what is wrong; to test is to give a person the opportunity to choose what is right. To tempt is to hope for failure; to test is to hope for success. In Jesus’ temptation, the Spirit is testing Jesus. Satan intends to tempt him–to compromise him–to break him.” (Donovan)
A passage analogous to this tempting or testing, peirasthenai, can be found in Malachi 3:1-5, specifically verse 3; “And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.”
Megan Rawlings, in an article on Christian Standard, writes of how a woman who had discovered this passage, mad an appointment with a working silversmith to see how silver was purified, Rawlings writes: “She explained that she was curious about the process of refining silver but never mentioned the Bible study. On the appointed day, she watched the silversmith hold a piece of silver over the fire to heat it. To refine silver, he said, one must place it in the middle of the fire where it is hottest and allow the heat to burn away all the impurities.”
Silver may already be pure when the silversmith obtains it, in which case the process of “testing” is done to insure or prove to the world that the precious metal is pure. Such was the case with Jesus, his heart was pure, his conscience without blemish, but by this testing, God through the Holy Spirit proved to all humanity the innocence of his Son.
Rawlings goes on to make another outstanding point on this analogy; “ She asked the silversmith if it was true he had to stay with this piece of silver, in front of the fire, the whole time it was in the flames. The silversmith answered emphatically, “Yes!” He told her there was more to his job than just sitting and waiting, though. He said he had to monitor the silver the entire time it was in the fire, never taking his eyes off of it. ‘If the silver is left in the flame even a second too long, it would be impaired,’ he said. ‘If it was not in the flame long enough, impurities would remain in it.’”
Even though God may send the Holy spirit to lead us into temptation, or testing, he is always with us through the ordeal.
This reality—that of the Lord always being with us—is explained in the poem and song Footprints In The Sand. In this poetic verse the protagonist explains that while in a dream, he could see himself and the Lord walking on a beach, leaving behind two sets of footprints, as a representation of his life. At some points of his life in this dream he could only see one set and asked the lord why, that in the worst times of his life, the Lord left him alone? The Lord replied; “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you.”
In the story about the woman who went to an actual working silversmith to esquire about the process, she asked the smith “How do you know the exact moment when the silver is completely refined?”
He smiled at her and said, “That is a good question and has an easy answer. The silver is fully refined when I see my image in it.”
“An issue for Christians today is the existence of the devil (diabolos). Does such a being exist, or is it simply a primitive myth. Today we are tempted to see evil as the product of flawed social systems—poverty, racism, ignorance, etc.—and to discount the existence of the devil. However, evil is not restricted to people who come from poverty or have been subject to racism or poor educational opportunities. Consider the offspring of suburbia, few of whom are victims of poverty or racism, and most of whom enjoy great affluence and opportunity. If bad circumstances produce evil, good circumstances should produce good. But are the children of the suburbs paragons of virtue? Hardly! Affluent youth are often troubled youth. Does that mean that flawed social systems do not produce evil? No! Does it mean that the church has no responsibility to correct such systems? No! It simply means that we must recognize that evil is a personal issue as well as a sociological one. It wells up, not only in our neighborhoods, but also in our hearts.” (Donovan)
“And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.” (v. 2) “Forty days” does not have the same precision that we attach to it. It is like our phrase, “a couple of weeks,” which might mean fourteen days—or twelve—or sixteen. Its function is to connect Jesus with Moses, who fasted for forty days (Exodus 34:28), Elijah, who fasted for forty days (1 Kings 19:8), and the Israelites, who wandered for forty years in the wilderness (Exodus 16:35).
Another way in which the human side of Jesus is exposed, is through his hunger. Even after his crucifixion, the risen Christ appears to his friends and disciples and asks them for food: “And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them. ” (Luke 24:40-43) Therefore at both the end of his live on Earth as well at the beginning, he hungered.
“And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” (v. 3) At his baptism, the voice of God was heard proclaiming to Jesus, “This is my beloved Son” Now we see the devil questioning this statement with, “If thou be the Son of God” Satan did not question Jesus’ deity; he challenged Him to prove it or demonstrate it through miraculous works; “command that these stones be made bread.”
“This wasn’t a temptation to miraculously create great riches or luxuries, only bread. The Bible has many accounts of miraculous provision, some at the hands of Jesus. Yet Jesus would not command that these stones become bread, especially at the instigation of Satan.” (Guzik) But yet keep in mind that although he would not stoop so low as to feel it necessary to demonstrate his deity to the devil, he did often demonstrate to mankind that he was from God, by his works.
“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (v. 4) By relying on scripture, the power and truth of God’s Word, Jesus was willing to fight this battle as a man; He could have easily rebuked Satan by sending him into another galaxy, however Jesus resisted Satan in a way that we can imitate and identify with, relying on scripture.
“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (vs. 5-6) Satan tempted Jesus to “force” the Father into a supernatural event. Satan appealed to the desire within every man to sense approval from God and to have that approval publicly demonstrated.
“The devil’s suggestions was of an artificially created crisis, not of trusting God in the situations which result from obedient service.” (France)
“Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (v. 7)
“This was the very method that the false Messiahs who were continually arising promised…These pretenders had offered sensations which they could not perform. Jesus could perform anything he promised. Why should he not do it?” (Barclay)
“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” (vs. 8-9) Satan was offering Jesus dominion over the world, something he already had if he so chose to do so.
“The nations of the earth had been, long before, promised to the Messiah; if he be the Son of God, they belong to him; Satan pretends now to be a good angel, probably one of those that were set over kingdoms, and to have received a commission to deliver possession to him according to promise. Note, We must take heed of receiving even that which God hath promised, out of the devil's hand; we do so when we precipitate the performance, by catching at it in a sinful way.”(Henry)
“the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain” Again, we are reminded of Moses, who met God on a high mountain. On this high mountain, Jesus confronts the devil. Jesus has come to save the world, and the devil offers him the world.
“10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (v. 10) Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13, reminding us that God is the only proper object of worship. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will tell us that no one can serve two masters (6:24), but first he demonstrates that principle in his own life.
“Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.” (v. 11)
“The devil was baffled, and quitted the field; Then the devil leaveth him, forced to do so by the power that went along with that word of command, Get thee hence, Satan. He made a shameful and inglorious retreat, and came off with disgrace; and the more daring his attempts had been, the more mortifying was the foil that was given him. Magnis tamen excidit ausis—The attempt, however, in which he failed, was daring. Then, when he had done his worst, had tempted him with all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and found that he was not influenced by that bait, that he could not prevail with that temptation with which he had overthrown so many thousands of the children of men, then he leaves him; then he gives him over as more than a man.” (Henry)
Jesus said, “for it is written,” Here Jesus does two things—in my opinion. [1] He gifts us with a wonderful mechanism for discernment, the gift of scripture. And [2] he gives us a monumental challenge, that of reading scripture and studying it carefully so as to learn the true meaning of scripture and not the out of context ramblings of false teachers.
Far too often—perhaps hundreds of times a day—unsolicited constructs, concepts, or ideas—enter into our minds. Ideas that seem to appear out of nowhere. These ideas can suggest many things, greed, lust, hate, profuse sorrow, doubt and even fear or false bravado.
Secularists trained in the study of mental processes, sometimes suggest that these ideas or emotions bubble up from deep within our own self conscious. Those more prone to sectarian thought, suggest that these are spirits, either the Holy spirit or the voice of Satan himself.
Ignatius of Loyola, developed an hypothesis along this line of heavenly versus hellish forces seeking to influence us via the ideas that pop into our conscious. He even wrote a series of “rules of discernment” to aid his students in their quest to determine, or discern, the nature of these mental constructs.
However the Apostles also spoke on this subject; “1Jn 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. ” (1 John 4:1-3) “Truth is the foundation of simulation and counterfeits; there had been real communications from the divine Spirit, and therefore others pretended thereto. God will take the way of his own wisdom and goodness, though it may be liable to abuse; he has sent inspired teachers to the world, and given us a supernatural revelation, though others may be so evil and so impudent as to pretend the same; every pretender to the divine Spirit, or to inspiration, and extraordinary illumination thereby, is not to be believed.” (Henry)
Paul wrote in his letter to the Thessalonians: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. ” (1Th 5:21-22) Which in other words means to test all things, see if they agree with the word of God—Jesus said, “for it is written,”—retain or hold fast to that which agrees with the Holy Word of God and avoid the rest. If any vision or guidance contradicts the teachings of the Bible, it may not be from God. Ensure that the message aligns with Scripture.
Sometimes, we will not find the answer directly in scripture but we can find guidance in Proverbs, a book of the bible that builds wisdom. Wisdom—sometimes referred to as common sense—often will shed light on the discernment process.
Benediction
O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.
Corrie Ten Boom

The Collect
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Readings:
Psalm 37:1–18 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+37%3A1%E2%80%9318&version=KJV
Exodus 20:1–21 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20%3A1%E2%80%9321&version=KJV
Gospel: Matthew 4:1–11
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Commentary:
Today we look at the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. These three temptations by Satan in the wilderness, were not the only temptations our Lord ever suffered on Earth. We read in Luke 4:2 that He was tempted by the devil for forty days, but He was undoubtedly tempted at other times. Throughout his ministry, Jesus will experience conflict with religious authorities. Peter will tempt Jesus to avoid the cross (Matthew 16:23). Jesus will commend the disciples for standing by him in his trials (Luke 22:28). At Gethsemane, Jesus will struggle with temptation once again (Luke 22:42-44).
And yet in all this He was without sin or compromise. Although some have suggested that the Lord’s period of fasting compares with that of both Moses (Exodus 34:28) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:8), the main point is how the Lord deals with temptation in the light of His humanity.
Jesus’ temptations follow three patterns that are common to all men. The first temptation concerns the lust of the flesh (Matthew 4:3–4). Our Lord is hungry, and the devil tempts Him to convert stones into bread, but He replies with Scripture, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. The second temptation concerns the pride of life (Matthew 4:5–7), and here the devil uses a verse of Scripture (Psalm 91:11–12), but the Lord replies again with Scripture to the contrary (Deuteronomy 6:16), stating that it is wrong for Him to abuse His own powers. The third temptation concerns the lust of the eyes (Matthew 4:8–10), and if any quick route to the Messiahship could be attained, bypassing the passion and crucifixion for which He had originally come, this was the way. The devil already had control over the kingdoms of the world (Ephesians 2:2) but was now ready to give everything to Christ in return for His allegiance. But the mere thought almost causes the Lord’s divine nature to shudder at such a concept and He replies sharply, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only” (Deuteronomy 6:13).
There are many temptations that we sadly fall into because our flesh is naturally weak, but we have a God who will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear; He will provide a way out (1 Corinthians 10:13). We can therefore be victorious and then will thank the Lord for deliverance from temptation.
“Jesus did not need to be tempted to help Him grow. Instead, He endured temptation both so that He could identify with us (Hebrews 2:18 and 4:15), and to demonstrate His own holy, sinless character. The Holy Spirit cannot tempt us (James 1:13), but the Holy Spirit may lead us to a place where we will be tempted. This is not to prove something to God (who knows all things), but to prove something to us and to the spiritual beings watching us.” (Guzik)
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” (v. 1)
“The time when it happened: Then; there is an emphasis laid upon that. Immediately after the heavens were opened to him, and the Spirit descended on him, and he was declared to be the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, the next news we hear of him is, he is tempted; for then he is best able to grapple with the temptation. ” (Henry)
“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit” Immediately following the scene of the Holy spirit descending on Jesus as he came up out of the water of baptism, the spirit leads him into the wilderness. It is important to note that the spirit does not tempt Jesus but the spirit did take Jesus to temptation just as it will put us in a position of testing.
“into the wilderness to be tempted (peirasthenai—from peirazo) of the devil” “The word peirazo can mean tempt or test. To tempt is to entice a person to do what is wrong; to test is to give a person the opportunity to choose what is right. To tempt is to hope for failure; to test is to hope for success. In Jesus’ temptation, the Spirit is testing Jesus. Satan intends to tempt him–to compromise him–to break him.” (Donovan)
A passage analogous to this tempting or testing, peirasthenai, can be found in Malachi 3:1-5, specifically verse 3; “And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.”
Megan Rawlings, in an article on Christian Standard, writes of how a woman who had discovered this passage, mad an appointment with a working silversmith to see how silver was purified, Rawlings writes: “She explained that she was curious about the process of refining silver but never mentioned the Bible study. On the appointed day, she watched the silversmith hold a piece of silver over the fire to heat it. To refine silver, he said, one must place it in the middle of the fire where it is hottest and allow the heat to burn away all the impurities.”
Silver may already be pure when the silversmith obtains it, in which case the process of “testing” is done to insure or prove to the world that the precious metal is pure. Such was the case with Jesus, his heart was pure, his conscience without blemish, but by this testing, God through the Holy Spirit proved to all humanity the innocence of his Son.
Rawlings goes on to make another outstanding point on this analogy; “ She asked the silversmith if it was true he had to stay with this piece of silver, in front of the fire, the whole time it was in the flames. The silversmith answered emphatically, “Yes!” He told her there was more to his job than just sitting and waiting, though. He said he had to monitor the silver the entire time it was in the fire, never taking his eyes off of it. ‘If the silver is left in the flame even a second too long, it would be impaired,’ he said. ‘If it was not in the flame long enough, impurities would remain in it.’”
Even though God may send the Holy spirit to lead us into temptation, or testing, he is always with us through the ordeal.
This reality—that of the Lord always being with us—is explained in the poem and song Footprints In The Sand. In this poetic verse the protagonist explains that while in a dream, he could see himself and the Lord walking on a beach, leaving behind two sets of footprints, as a representation of his life. At some points of his life in this dream he could only see one set and asked the lord why, that in the worst times of his life, the Lord left him alone? The Lord replied; “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you Never, ever, during your trials and testings. When you saw only one set of footprints, It was then that I carried you.”
In the story about the woman who went to an actual working silversmith to esquire about the process, she asked the smith “How do you know the exact moment when the silver is completely refined?”
He smiled at her and said, “That is a good question and has an easy answer. The silver is fully refined when I see my image in it.”
“An issue for Christians today is the existence of the devil (diabolos). Does such a being exist, or is it simply a primitive myth. Today we are tempted to see evil as the product of flawed social systems—poverty, racism, ignorance, etc.—and to discount the existence of the devil. However, evil is not restricted to people who come from poverty or have been subject to racism or poor educational opportunities. Consider the offspring of suburbia, few of whom are victims of poverty or racism, and most of whom enjoy great affluence and opportunity. If bad circumstances produce evil, good circumstances should produce good. But are the children of the suburbs paragons of virtue? Hardly! Affluent youth are often troubled youth. Does that mean that flawed social systems do not produce evil? No! Does it mean that the church has no responsibility to correct such systems? No! It simply means that we must recognize that evil is a personal issue as well as a sociological one. It wells up, not only in our neighborhoods, but also in our hearts.” (Donovan)
“And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.” (v. 2) “Forty days” does not have the same precision that we attach to it. It is like our phrase, “a couple of weeks,” which might mean fourteen days—or twelve—or sixteen. Its function is to connect Jesus with Moses, who fasted for forty days (Exodus 34:28), Elijah, who fasted for forty days (1 Kings 19:8), and the Israelites, who wandered for forty years in the wilderness (Exodus 16:35).
Another way in which the human side of Jesus is exposed, is through his hunger. Even after his crucifixion, the risen Christ appears to his friends and disciples and asks them for food: “And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them. ” (Luke 24:40-43) Therefore at both the end of his live on Earth as well at the beginning, he hungered.
“And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” (v. 3) At his baptism, the voice of God was heard proclaiming to Jesus, “This is my beloved Son” Now we see the devil questioning this statement with, “If thou be the Son of God” Satan did not question Jesus’ deity; he challenged Him to prove it or demonstrate it through miraculous works; “command that these stones be made bread.”
“This wasn’t a temptation to miraculously create great riches or luxuries, only bread. The Bible has many accounts of miraculous provision, some at the hands of Jesus. Yet Jesus would not command that these stones become bread, especially at the instigation of Satan.” (Guzik) But yet keep in mind that although he would not stoop so low as to feel it necessary to demonstrate his deity to the devil, he did often demonstrate to mankind that he was from God, by his works.
“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (v. 4) By relying on scripture, the power and truth of God’s Word, Jesus was willing to fight this battle as a man; He could have easily rebuked Satan by sending him into another galaxy, however Jesus resisted Satan in a way that we can imitate and identify with, relying on scripture.
“Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (vs. 5-6) Satan tempted Jesus to “force” the Father into a supernatural event. Satan appealed to the desire within every man to sense approval from God and to have that approval publicly demonstrated.
“The devil’s suggestions was of an artificially created crisis, not of trusting God in the situations which result from obedient service.” (France)
“Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (v. 7)
“This was the very method that the false Messiahs who were continually arising promised…These pretenders had offered sensations which they could not perform. Jesus could perform anything he promised. Why should he not do it?” (Barclay)
“Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” (vs. 8-9) Satan was offering Jesus dominion over the world, something he already had if he so chose to do so.
“The nations of the earth had been, long before, promised to the Messiah; if he be the Son of God, they belong to him; Satan pretends now to be a good angel, probably one of those that were set over kingdoms, and to have received a commission to deliver possession to him according to promise. Note, We must take heed of receiving even that which God hath promised, out of the devil's hand; we do so when we precipitate the performance, by catching at it in a sinful way.”(Henry)
“the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain” Again, we are reminded of Moses, who met God on a high mountain. On this high mountain, Jesus confronts the devil. Jesus has come to save the world, and the devil offers him the world.
“10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (v. 10) Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:13, reminding us that God is the only proper object of worship. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will tell us that no one can serve two masters (6:24), but first he demonstrates that principle in his own life.
“Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.” (v. 11)
“The devil was baffled, and quitted the field; Then the devil leaveth him, forced to do so by the power that went along with that word of command, Get thee hence, Satan. He made a shameful and inglorious retreat, and came off with disgrace; and the more daring his attempts had been, the more mortifying was the foil that was given him. Magnis tamen excidit ausis—The attempt, however, in which he failed, was daring. Then, when he had done his worst, had tempted him with all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and found that he was not influenced by that bait, that he could not prevail with that temptation with which he had overthrown so many thousands of the children of men, then he leaves him; then he gives him over as more than a man.” (Henry)
Jesus said, “for it is written,” Here Jesus does two things—in my opinion. [1] He gifts us with a wonderful mechanism for discernment, the gift of scripture. And [2] he gives us a monumental challenge, that of reading scripture and studying it carefully so as to learn the true meaning of scripture and not the out of context ramblings of false teachers.
Far too often—perhaps hundreds of times a day—unsolicited constructs, concepts, or ideas—enter into our minds. Ideas that seem to appear out of nowhere. These ideas can suggest many things, greed, lust, hate, profuse sorrow, doubt and even fear or false bravado.
Secularists trained in the study of mental processes, sometimes suggest that these ideas or emotions bubble up from deep within our own self conscious. Those more prone to sectarian thought, suggest that these are spirits, either the Holy spirit or the voice of Satan himself.
Ignatius of Loyola, developed an hypothesis along this line of heavenly versus hellish forces seeking to influence us via the ideas that pop into our conscious. He even wrote a series of “rules of discernment” to aid his students in their quest to determine, or discern, the nature of these mental constructs.
However the Apostles also spoke on this subject; “1Jn 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. ” (1 John 4:1-3) “Truth is the foundation of simulation and counterfeits; there had been real communications from the divine Spirit, and therefore others pretended thereto. God will take the way of his own wisdom and goodness, though it may be liable to abuse; he has sent inspired teachers to the world, and given us a supernatural revelation, though others may be so evil and so impudent as to pretend the same; every pretender to the divine Spirit, or to inspiration, and extraordinary illumination thereby, is not to be believed.” (Henry)
Paul wrote in his letter to the Thessalonians: “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. ” (1Th 5:21-22) Which in other words means to test all things, see if they agree with the word of God—Jesus said, “for it is written,”—retain or hold fast to that which agrees with the Holy Word of God and avoid the rest. If any vision or guidance contradicts the teachings of the Bible, it may not be from God. Ensure that the message aligns with Scripture.
Sometimes, we will not find the answer directly in scripture but we can find guidance in Proverbs, a book of the bible that builds wisdom. Wisdom—sometimes referred to as common sense—often will shed light on the discernment process.
Benediction
O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Thought for the Day:
Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.
Corrie Ten Boom

For many months now, I've tirelessly researched the countless (combat/tactical) shotgun options out there. I wanted a one-and-done weapon for home-defence, SHTF, and general range fun. The M4 was the very first shotgun I decided on, but financial restraints and some semblance of pragmatism forced me to consider other alternatives. I wasn't married to semi's, and was a-ok with pumps, in many ways preferring them- greater capacity (I live in Canada, where semi's are limited to 5 in the mag), ability to run greater array of ammo without fuss, and simpler, more reliable, design. I was set on a 590A1 or 870 Police, and even for a moment was considering a Fabarm STF/12, said to be akin to a pump M4.
As I got busy with work and my obsession with researching shotguns got pushed aside, it was all out of mind for a moment. Well, more work = more fun dollars, and I'm now back to super wanting an M4. The way I look at it, the M4 is about double the 590A1 I wanted, maybe a little more... If that constant incessant longing for the M4 "only" costs $1500-or-so to shut up and get some closure, that's not the end of the world, imo. It's a whole other gun, no doubt, but I'll always be wishing I went for the M4, even if I know there might be better options, such as the 1301 (especially with the new Mod 2, which we won't see for at least another year in Canada). The thing is, sometimes we make choices that aren't entirely rooted in logic; that aren't so pragmatic- to turn down the lighter, faster, better handling, weapon, in favour of the dinorsaural M4 makes no sense on paper... and I don't particularly hyper-focus on the stringent military pedigree/testing- that's not a driving force in my decision... but it seems right, viscerally, to me. Having spent a good chunk of time on a friends M4, as well as a 1301 in various shops, it's no question, to me, that the M4 is the better feeling weapon. Maybe I'm convoluting weight with quality... I've been known to do it in watches, for example... I don't know... But beyond that, you're buying into a bonafide piece of gun culture/history- yes, the military thing is apart of that (and maybe I downplayed how much I dig that- I do dig it, for sure)... And it's just plain cool as fuark... it's a now timeless silhouette, battle-tested/proven, apart of popular culture, and just plain badass. Doesn't hurt that it's supremely well-made and reliable.
So my mind is made up, I'm going for an M4.
My question(s) now pertain to the various iterations of it.
The latest and greatest, the T-Pro, appeals to me for a few reasons, primarily the enlarged bolt release + charging handle, and M-Lock setup- pretty sure those would run me about what the difference from the "standard" tactical, c-stock, one costs? But... and this is where I expose how shallow I am... I cannot stand the stock on the T-Pro... I think it's hideous... and I'm certainly not going to pay the high for a T-Pro only to swap the stock back to the old 3-position one.
Actually, I'm strongly considering the field stock version... A shop near me has one and I'll go check it out in the days to come. I know I made a whole fuss about how iconic the M4 is, and the pistol-grip, c-stock, variant is the one that garnered the weapon iconic status, so to go with a field stock sort of negates that... but I do think it looks cleaner, and is maybe what I'd be more comfortable on.
Speaking of comfort... a dealer I was chatting with today said he strongly feels M4's aren't for biggetaller shooters... In the time I spent w/ my friends, I never perceived any issues, but I'm not so sensitive to such (what is to me) minutiae. What do you make of this claim (that it's not ideal for taller folk)?
Apart of me also just really likes how clean the fixed stock pistol grip one is... the OG...
Having an impossible time deciding... but currently between field stock and T-Pro...
Help?
​

I just received my denial letter for disability the claim being the doctors determined I was not disabled under their rules. I have been officially dxed lupus, hashimotos's, hEDS, and POTS ( fibromyalgia too but I have reservations about that dx ) I am not able to work more than 15 hours a week, I make $17/hr, I live at home and if it weren't for my parents giving me Huge grace to pay at my own pace I would be homeless, without food, and without a car, and literally everything else. I have steadily declined in my work history, there is a clear marked drop in productivity and gaps in my employment because I was physically unable to work and every time I've come back I work less and less. I'm in near tears, I am struggling with working the 15hrs, I have to constantly choose between taking a shower or working, that's just one example. I don't have any real quality of life - I'm always having to make accommodations to just exist. I'm 26, 27 at the end of the year, my parents are older and I don't know what will happen when they are no longer around to support me. My job isn't even that labor intensive, I pretest folks for an eye doctor and run insurance/manage the appointment book. I'm so scared that what if the Drs that decided this denial are right and I'm just too weak. I am trying as hard as I can, I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do, I go to the physical therapy, I take my meds, I drink water only, I eat as clean as I and my parents can afford, I try to get at least 10min of walking in a day when im able, i deny every extracurricular activity that i love doing so i can work and go to my Dr appointments - is my pain and fatigue not enough? Is the fainting spells behind the wheel not dangerous enough, is my shoulder, ribs, knees, neck, hand, feet, spine, hip, constant subluxations and dislocation not enough? The intense migraines, the GI issues. God I could go on and on. I'm so tired. I know it's common to deny first time around, but the first social worker I talked to thought I should be approved right away, the one managing my case thought the same thing, and the psychologist they had evaluate also said he thought I should be approved right away. I don't think I have it in me to keep working til the end of this year, I can feel myself falling into that flare again. I can't stop making money though, I have so much medical debt as it is, I am trying to dig myself out but I literally end up with -$1 in my account by the time I pay my bills. Is it even worth appealing if the doctor denied? I don't know what to do and I am so tired, fighting this is stressful to even think about.