Why you can’t save yourself: what the Bible says about Grace and Salvation

BibleGateway: For years I thought I could save myself. Nominal Christianity had trained me to trust in myself, to lean on my own goodness, my own discipline, my own hard work.

Sometimes it looked like trying to be a “good person.” But according to Scripture, none of us are good (Romans 3:12). Other times it looked like trying to control my life through planning, preparing, and protecting. That didn’t work either (of course). And in the end, both are the same lie: self-salvation.

The Gospel tells a better story. Grace is not God mopping up the messes I can’t handle. Grace is God saving me when I can’t handle anything (Romans 3:23). Salvation is not the reward of my effort; it’s the gift of Christ’s finished work (Ephesians 2:8). He saved me; apart from Him I could do nothing (John 15:5).

What about you? Maybe you’ve been living like I was, trusting in your goodness, your planning, your hustle, your ability to hold it all together. Maybe you’ve dressed it up in religious language, so it sounds like faith, but underneath it’s still just you trying to save yourself. Friend, that doesn’t work. READ MORE & REFLECT...

www.biblegateway.com

Jonathan Pageau asks the question: AI - who does it serve?...

 

Jonathan Pageau closed out Day 2 of ARC 2026 with a keynote that left the whole room speechless. Amidst the many voices surrounding the global AI debate, Pageau offered a simple question that stopped us in our tracks: "Who does it serve?"

Jonathan Pageau is an artist, writer and public speaker. He is a pioneer in the revival of Liturgical Art for the 21st century. Through his podcast, The Symbolic World, and publishing company, Symbolic World Press, he fosters the rediscovery of symbolic thinking and a vision for re-enchantment in the world.

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How's Theo doing - I hear you ask...

 

Our dear little Theo is loving life, thanks for asking! This is a picture of him just before everyone turned up for a family BBQ yesterday. He's been with us now for just under a year, and is believed to have been born mid April 2025 - so will be 1 1/2 years old next month. His health is good, weighs about 10.5Kg. He's got a good spread from the gene pool, but we believe there is a sizable dollop of Kokoni in there. Theo loves his grub & is happy to eat just about anything - Greek rescues are famously non-fussy eaters. Loves his home & walks in Denmead. Really loves going to the (any) pub! Loves other dogs & cats (though the felines generally aren't too sure about it LOL). Also really good with kids including the grandsons.

 If you are considering bringing a furry friend into your home & family, PLEASE consider rehoming / adopting.

www.healingpawsanimalrescue.com

What if the AI Bubble Bursts (Day by Day)

The AI boom has created trillions of dollars in market value, but underneath it sits a web of debt, expensive GPUs, concentrated stock indexes, and companies betting that future AI revenue will eventually justify everything being spent today.

This video follows what could happen day by day if that bet suddenly fails. It starts with a missed payment at a heavily leveraged AI infrastructure company like CoreWeave. Lenders seize NVIDIA GPUs used as collateral, secondhand chip prices collapse, and investors begin questioning whether billions of dollars in AI debt can ever be repaid. Within days, NVIDIA and other major tech stocks begin falling, dragging the heavily concentrated S&P 500 down with them. Retirement accounts shrink, AI startups lose funding, layoffs spread through the tech industry, and the shock eventually reaches ordinary businesses that never invested in AI at all.

Artificial intelligence itself wouldn’t disappear. The internet survived the dot-com crash, and AI could survive its own bubble bursting too. But before the next generation gets built, millions of ordinary investors and workers could end up paying for the excesses of this one.

www.youtube.com (The Infographics Show)

Reading for today: C.S. Lewis: on Charity - on International Day of Charity 5th September

Charity means love. It is called Agape in the New Testament to distinguish it from Eros (sexual love), Storgë (family affection) and Philia (friendship) [eg: 1 John 4:9]. So there are 4 kinds of ‘love’, all good in their proper place, but Agape is the best because it is the kind God has for us and is good in all circumstances. (There are people I mustn’t feel Eros towards, and people I can’t feel Storge or Philia for; but I can practise Agape to God, Angels, Man and Beast, to the good and the bad, the old and the young, the far and the near.

You see Agape is all giving, not getting. Read what St. Paul says about it in First Corinthians Chap. 13. Then look at a picture of Charity (or Agape) in action in St. Luke, chap 10 v. 30–35. And then, better still, look at Matthew chap 25 v. 31–46: from which you see that Christ counts all that you do for this baby exactly as if you had done it for Him when He was a baby in the manger at Bethlehem: you are in a sense sharing in the things His mother did for Him. Giving money is only one way of showing charity: to give time and toil is far better and (for most of us) harder. And notice, though it is all giving—you needn’t expect any reward— how you do gets rewarded almost at once.

By: C. S. Lewis

From: The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III

Charity at its core is an expression of global solidarity. It brings people together to build more just and resilient societies, whether through direct giving, volunteering, or collective action. Beyond immediate aid, charity strengthens healthcare, education, cultural preservation, and the protection of vulnerable groups (OECD). Today, charity and philanthropy alike are evolving to address the deeper causes of poverty and inequality.

www.un.org

Good Causes: The directors of Donline are pleased to support and commend these causes, organisations and Ministries. CLICK HERE to find out more - and please consider supporting these great organisations.

Code in corporate networks sends commands to passing AI bots

Documentation files on more than 100 websites are referencing potentially dangerous executable content that gets installed automatically when visited by many AI agents. A few dozen companies, some of them Fortune 500s, are among those that executed proof-of-concept code. At least one misconfigured site is directing visitors, human or AI, to live malware.

The potentially dangerous content is in llms.txt and llms-full.txt files, an emerging convention websites employ to provide machine-readable summaries of the site’s content and its high-level structure. These files are the AI equivalent of the robots.txt standard that instructs search engines how to index the site’s content. 

The files are misconfigured because they list non-existent packages from PyPI, npm, and other registries along with instructions on how to install them. Because the package names are unregistered, an attacker could register one and use it to host ransomware or any other type of harmful package. The vulnerability occurs when a coding agent with permission to run shell commands treats the file as authoritative setup documentation. Some AI agents will then download the package and run it. In other cases, the LLM files point to non-existent domain names. In one case, it was: “As an example of writing integration tests for [redacted] applications you can use the [redacted] test framework.” An attacker can then register the site and plant malicious instructions on it. READ MORE...

www.arstechnica.com

What's the problem with buying Chinese goods (including motorcycles)?

An excellent video by Stuart Fillingham: Its no secret that very affordable Chinese motorcycles and EVs are currently flooding the market in Europe and the UK. Why is it happening, why are they so cheap and why don't I review them on this channel?

Stuart Fillingham outlines the ethical and economic reasons behind the decision to decline requests for evaluating Chinese motorbikes. Concerns regarding trade practices, intellectual property, and labor conditions in the manufacturing process are highlighted as the primary factors.

Cars aren't really my thing (bikes are) - but I've always bought British cars:. Astra & Mini. I read an article the other day about the "Chinese Range Rover". The article sums it all up nicely. Rip-off design - cheapo price (supported by the CCP). Can't sell them over there? Dump them over here! One other thing which especially applies to EVs - can they be weaponised? Probably!

Read more about why the purchase of cheap Chinese goods is probably a bad idea  - HERE.

www.youtube.com