CHRISTIANITY BLOG

Chosen Cup

2011-05-06T17:27:00.000-07:00

“The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot”(Psalm 16:5).

When we were little we had special ceramic cups.
On the outside of them was written “What’s in the bottom of the cup?” Each cup looked just like the others except in the bottom of each was a different animal—a fish, a cat, a dog. Mom chose the cup for each of us to have and we had to drink all of what was in it to find out who got which animal. Most of the time it worked. Eventually we each developed a favorite and a twinge of jealousy would creep in if a sibling got that animal instead. Human nature.

Mom not only chose what cup we got but how much was in it, and what was in it. Sometimes it was milk, other times juice. As we grew, the amount in the cup increased. Our hands were steadier so we wouldn’t slosh and our bodies were bigger, thus needing more nourishment.

Isn’t that the way it is with the Christian life?
God not only chooses the cup we should bear, but the portion in it. Perhaps they look the same on the outside at first glance, but our cup is designed specifically for us. So is the portion we receive.

Luke 12:48 says,“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (NIV).

The more we grow in faith and trust that God is indeed the One who must be in control of our cup (life), the more we are given to fill it. However, that means we are also carrying a heavier load, because much more is being demanded of us.

There will also be more trials and temptations because we are separating ourselves more and more from the fallen world and our human nature. We talk about God never giving us more than we can bear. That is in the good things as well as the uncomfortable ones. Often times, when all is going great and the road is smooth, we have a tendency to want to be the one to take the wheel and drive.

Or, to stick with the analogy of the cup, we want to choose what goes in it, or worse, take credit for what is inside. We might even feel twinges of jealousy that someone else’s cup is fuller, or be envious of what is in it. But God, like my Mom, has put something good inside, whether it is what we want at the time or not. How often do we whine because we wanted chocolate milk and only got regular or orange juice instead of grape?

Psalm 23 says, “my cup runneth over” (vs. 5b KJV).

The more we trust God to pour what we need into our cup, the more it will overflow. However, this is where the analogy of the “What’s in the bottom of the cup” veers off. Mom would scold us if we sloshed the contents of our cups as we carried them to the table. God, on the other hand, wants us to pour out ourselves for others – to slosh some of His blessings on those around us.

If you ever feel you are getting to the end of God’s blessings for you, what will be in the bottom of your cup? Truth be told, we all have the same thing at the bottom of our cups. It is His Son with nail scarred hands, reaching out for us in love. Receive that, and the cup will fill up again. So, go ahead. Drink in His goodness. There is more where that came from.

Questions: How full is your cup? Why do you think that is?

By : Julie Cosgrove

Undangan : KKR PASKAH 2011 LEMBAGA PEMBINAAN UMAT

2011-05-04T17:57:00.000-07:00

"Masukilah dan alamilah Kuasa-Nya dalam..."

KKR PASKAH 2011 LEMBAGA PEMBINAAN UMAT (LPU)

Tema : " Kebangkitan Kristus Pengharapan Kita " (Ayub 19 : 25-27)

Pengkhotbah : Rev. Yunus Leiwakabessy, S.Th, M.Div

M C : Nindy Ellese

Hari, tanggal : Senin, 16 Mei 2011

Pukul : 18.30 WIB

Tempat : Istana Kana, Jl. RP Soeroso No. 24, Menteng - JakPus

dihadiri oleh berbagai kelompok Koor dan vocal group gerejawi

hubungi : Ev. Roy Huwae (021-33096085) & Noortje Tanalepy (0813.87000.844)

No need for comparison

2011-04-22T21:57:00.000-07:00

"Nothing is good or bad but by comparison."
-- Thomas Fuller

We are each unique, so comparing ourselves to others serves no purpose. Even comparing myself to how I was a while back is not usually helpful. Typically, comparison just brings the ego a false sense of either superiority or inferiority.

If we let go of comparison and choose instead to completely accept where we are, we can enjoy both peace and growth.

"Do not judge and you will never be mistaken."
-- Jean Jacques Rousseau

Selamat Beribadah Jumat Agung

2011-04-22T04:00:00.001-07:00

Kami Mengucapkan Selamat Mengikuti Ibadah Jumat Agung

HOPE IN GOD

2009-05-29T21:31:00.001-07:00

By : Darren Hewer

We will always experience suffering during our lives here on our fallen Earth. When we experience pain, especially the death of a loved one, our natural response is to question, to ask why, and perhaps even to doubt God. Because it hurts.

Some people will respond to evil they see by denying that evil exists. But what is perhaps easy to say is quite difficult to live, or as C S Lewis put it: "Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later." There is a name for the person who denies good and evil: a sociopath. Clearly the proper response to evil is not denial.

Other people will respond to evil by removing God from the equation. But removing God does not make evil less evil, nor pain less painful. In fact, removing God also removes ultimate hope. Without God, our world seems permanently and irredeemably evil. Without God, there is no ultimate relief from pain, only pain.

With God we cry out to a loving Father who remains with us and comforts us as we hurt and Himself came to Earth as a human being to suffer and die for us. But without God we cry out into the empty void of nothingness that neither hears our cry nor cares for our pain. Removing God results in no gain and much loss.

When we have God in our lives and hearts, we have hope during difficult times and comfort in the midst of tragedy. We have hope grounded in the fact of God's mighty power, His limitless mercy, and everlasting love. No matter what happens, God loves us because God is love. And nothing can separate us from Him.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

Question: What do you need to say to God today in prayer? What questions do you have to ask God?

TAKEN ASIDE BY JESUS

2009-05-29T21:30:00.001-07:00

By : Lynn Mosher

Have you ever had a really deep, dark struggle in your life? I have. It sent me to my knees to truly seek the Lord. Out of that time of struggle came the Lord's peace and this piece, which I offer for the comfort of another. I pray the Lord will touch your heart in a positive way through my experience.

"He took him aside from the multitude" (Mark 7:33a NKJV).

Oh, from these bars of confinement that have shut me in, I cry out to God. From this darkness that surrounds me, it seems as though all is lost. Yet, I know all things are sifted through the loving fingers of my precious Lord. Wishing to commune with me, He allows this thing to touch my life right now.

As I feel the sting of heartache and loneliness, the restlessness of discontent and frustration, the anguish of defeat and helplessness, He withdraws me from the busyness of the world that I may be still before Him and wait.

Hidden from everyone's view, tears quietly stream down my cheeks, but the Lord sees my aching heart, and with His nail-scarred hand, He wipes away my tears. "Nearly all God's jewels are crystallized tears," someone once said.

Too many voices clamor for my attention. My ears, wearied from the noise of the world, impatiently wait for the comforting sound of His voice. All things fall by the wayside when the indescribable Still Small Voice whispers ever so quietly to my listening soul.

The Lord "takes me aside from the crowd [privately]" into absolute aloneness with Him, that I may listen only to Him. His words of love and comfort speak thunderously in this solitude. It is from here that I must search for His loving purpose.

The Lord's purpose in taking me aside is never immediately discerned. However, getting my attention and bringing me into a deeper relationship with Him is always His will in my blackest hours.

When the darkness and loneliness loom endlessly, they yet result in the richest and most rewarding of all spiritual experiences, for it is then that I see my darkness is but the overshadowing of the wings of the Lord. It is then I await the radiance of His glorious light to fall from heaven that I might behold my precious Savior.

As dew is quietly dispensed in the gloom of night, so the Holy Spirit comes to silently distill His peace and comfort. In waves of coolness, He breathes upon me like a refreshing wind.

Just as the countless grains of parched, desert sand crave rainfall, this dry and dusty mortal vessel yearns for those Living Waters provided only by the Lord. Then His peace pours forth as an endless river, rushing over me to cleanse away all that would obstruct my view of Him. As I go to the Well, I drink in His Life and I am revitalized.

When I sing of His wonders and tell of His glories, my walls of confinement fade into nothingness. The way opens before me. In the darkness, I see His brilliant, glistening footsteps on the path before me as if sprinkled with the glitter of heavenly dust, and only the light of praise brings them into focus.

Not all my questions are answered nor all my longings appeased, but His gracious mercy provides the path of recovery to soundness, to wholeness, to a larger place, to Himself.

Maybe out of my desert, rivers of blessings may be poured out to other parched souls. I pray that freedom for others may come out of my confinement, that light for blind eyes may come out of my darkness, and that comfort for the hurting may come out of my loneliness.

It is for this that I praise Him for "taking me aside."

"And the Lord shall guide you continually and satisfy you in drought and in dry places and make strong your bones. And you shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not" (Isaiah 58:11 AMP).

Father God, Come to my parched heart with the water of Your Spirit. Amen.

Questions: What is your painful struggle? How are you facing your pain? How can comfort come out of pain?

MERCY AND GRACE

2009-05-25T08:49:00.001-07:00

MERCY AND GRACE
By : Bill Bright

"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" Hebrews 4:16

Though prayer has been a vital, integral part of my life since I became a Christian, I am always discovering new challenges and new facets of prayer. I find one of the most powerful, exciting and fulfilling privileges God has given to man to be that of prayer based on the authority of God's Word.

Man instinctively prays, even if only to false gods built of sticks and stones. Whenever he is faced with tragedy, heartache, sorrow or danger, he prays.

There is a serious danger in this "ignorant" kind of praying, however. It is a well-established fact of philosophy and history that man always assimilates the moral character of the object he worships. People who have prayed to gods of blood, fire and war have become militaristic, ruthless and sadistic.

This same principle applies to the Christian, who can pray to the one true God. "As we behold His [Christ's] face, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory." This explains the scriptural emphasis of praying worshipfully to the only true, righteous, holy and loving God.

In spite of this potential metamorphosis, however, the lives of few Christians today are impotent and fruitless compared to those of the first century. This is because the average Christian spends so little time at the throne of grace, so little time beholding the face of our Lord. And, as a result, he does not really believe that mercy and grace are available to enable him to live a supernatural life.

Today's Action Point: Knowing I can come boldly to the throne of grace and receive mercy, cleansing, forgiveness and help for my every need, challenge and opportunity - from my Lord Jesus Himself, our great high priest - I will spend more time in His presence and not be satisfied with an impotent, fruitless life.

THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS AS THEY APPEAR

2009-05-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

By : John Grant

"For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light" (2 Cor.11:13).

Last week, the "trail boss" of our church motorcycle group organized a ride to a place called "Spook Hill," where it appears that vehicles defy the law of gravity and roll uphill. In reality, it is an optical illusion that makes it look like an uphill roll, but the law of gravity has not yet been repealed and objects still roll downhill, no matter what ancient spirits may allegedly be lurking around.

We had a good time, but on the ride back, I couldn't help but draw a spiritual comparison to our visit. Satan often disguises that which is bad to appear as good. The enemy often tries to portray himself as good, a friend who cares for you or as truth.

That is not the case though, Peter said "your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about seeking whom he may devour". He lays traps and waits for you to fall. He is after the result and may work on traps that take years to develop in your life when he can rise up and pounce on you.

No need to fear though as God says "Greater is He who is in your than he that is in the world". God will take care of it if you let Him. But, we must know the source and not trust what we see or feel in a worldly sense.

We always need to be on alert and use caution. Things are not always as they appear. At times we can allow what we find desirable to overshadow and hide the truth we do not want to see that is in details. If we are not careful, we will only see what we want to see.

Other times, we may find something or someone that appears to be good only to find out later that we were deceived. We often are not aware of all the facts or know the end result.

The real question is whether we see things with worldly eyes....... eyes conditioned by the educational system, the media, the entertainment industry and others that would mould our minds to be unlike the mind of Christ or with spiritual eyes, the way God sees things.

How do I acquire spiritual eyes? I do it by constantly worshiping God throughout my daily routine, by being in the Word daily, by regularly participating in public worship and Bible fellowship with other Christians.

Lord, please mold my eyes, my mind and my perspective to be like that of You. Give me the spiritual eyes to see as You see, no matter how deceptive things may be from a non-Biblical world view. Thank you, Lord. I ask this in Your name, amen.

(a thought on life from John Grant)

Questions: How can one acquire spiritual eyes? Can you tell us about an experience when things were not what they appeared to be?

SURE ROAD TO FAITH

2009-05-11T23:25:00.000-07:00

By : Dr. Bill Bright

"So then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God" (Romans 10:17, KJV).

Martin Luther said he studied his Bible in the same way he gathered apples. First, he shook the whole tree, that the ripest might fall; then he shook each limb, and when he had shaken each limb, he shook each branch, and after each branch, every twig; and then he looked under every leaf. He admonishes us:

"Search the Bible as a whole, shaking the whole tree. Read it rapidly, as you would any book. Then shake every limb - study book after book.

"Then shake every branch, giving attention to the chapters when they do not break the sense. Then shake each twig, by careful study of the paragraphs and sentences. And you will be rewarded if you will look under each leaf, by searching the meaning of the words."

Seek to know the Lord with all your heart. While you may have no difficulty in worshiping the omnipotent God, you cannot really know God unless you study His Word. The one who spoke and caused the worlds to be framed is waiting to reveal Himself to you personally.

Faith is not given to those who are either undisciplined or disobedient. Faith is a gift of God which is given to those who trust and obey Him. As we master His Word and obey His commands, our faith continues to grow.

It is my strong conviction that it is impossible to ask God for too much if our hearts and motives are pure and if we pray according to the Word and will of God.

Every time you and I open and read God's Word carefully, we are building up our storehouse of faith. When we memorize the Word, our faith is being increased. When we study or teach a Sunday school lesson, or hear a sermon faithfully expounding the Word, we are growing in faith.

Today's Action Point:

I will read, study, memorize and meditate upon God's Word daily, knowing that in the process my faith will grow, for "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God."

Good Changes Are Coming

2009-05-11T02:11:00.000-07:00

By David Wang

A friend is doing her PhD in a university inside China, studying "Comparative Religions." In her research, she has obtained some documents prepared by highly reputable Chinese scholars and professors reporting on the Christian Church of China. Some were assigned by China's Academy of Social Sciences. Some were actually commissioned by the central government.

The scholars are mostly Western educated and non-Christians. Their research was scientific and extensive. And their findings quite consistent:
- In China, there are three major strands of Christian Church: the Three-Self state sanctioned church, the rural house church and the urban "new-rising" church.
- Around 8% of China's population is adherents of Christianity.Some provinces and regions have as high as 10%.
- Christianity (Protestant) is not only China's fastest growing faith, its followers are also most fervent in comparison.
- Of the three, the Three-Self, although most public, because of its government sanctioned status, is the least vibrant and has the slowest growth.
- Because of rapid urbanization, rural house churches are slowing down in their growth.
- Her pyramid-style, patriarchal leadership structure is giving way to an independent yet interrelated "local church" system. Thus her leadership crisis is most severe.
- The composition of the rural house church, which was predominantly women, the elderly and semi-illiterate, is changing. Youth and children are joining.
- Previously, 80% if not more of new people joining rural house churches were because of healing miracles. Now they are attracted because of the clean and joyous lifestyle.
- The tension between the Three-Self and rural house church is still acute. This is not due to theological differences but to their status. One is, in Communists' term "Red," the other, "Black."The urban "new-rise" churches are made up mostly of white-collars,professional, college students and youth. They are a positive influence in the society, even in economic development.
- They are neither legal nor illegal - therefore "Grey." Theologically they are more tuned to their rural counter parts. In social concern and services as well as evangelism, they are more aggressive than the Three-Self.
- The greatest lack of the Church in China, as expressed by all three, is high-standard, open accreditable training of their pastors, leaders, and workers.

These findings are mostly common knowledge - at least to people who have been on the ground. But the researchers' recommendations are revealing:
- For Beijing to continue its "harmony in the society" drive, and to cut-down conflicts between local government agencies and Christian believers, and to eradicate cults and cultic practices, it is recommended to allow church registration outside the jurisdiction of the Three-Self.
- To ensure higher quality of China's Church as a whole, training of its leaders and workers should not be limited only in Three-Self schools, nor pushed to the underground. China's universities can play a vital role.
- The teaching of Marxism in regard to religions needs to be reinterpreted according to China's current situation.

Another finding actually challenges the root cause of the government restricting and persecuting the house church: "The house church movement, by and large, is an indigenous phenomenon. It is not necessarily instigated or sustained by external factions." For the longest time, China's xenophobic authorities have blamed the West for infiltration through its mission activities.

Local believers are sensing the effect of these top-level findings. "These researchers work for the central higher-ups. Their reports are changing the attitude of Beijing towards us. Even President Hu Jintao in his recent speeches is urging a non-pressure, non-conflict approach towards religious activities," a group of Henan house church leaders told me last month.

But they are not expecting big changes overnight. Particularly this year 2009 being a supersensitive time: 60th anninversary of the New China, 50th anniversary of Tibet Liberation, 20 years after the Tiananmen incident, and the 1st anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake.

In unison Chinese believers are predicting, albeit slowly "Good changes are coming."

Umat Kristiani Pakistan Hidup Dalam Ancaman

2009-04-28T00:13:00.001-07:00

Baru pada minggu lalu, Pakistan meratifikasi perjanjian dengan Taliban, yakni memberikan kekuasaan kepada pihak taliban untuk menguasai Swat Valley sebagai perjanjian perdamaian. Sekarang muncul kesepakatan yang dibuat hanya oleh kelompok Islam radikal yang lebih kuat.

Ketika pemerintah Pakistan membuat perjanjian dengan pihak Taliban dan memperbolehkan mereka (Taliban, red) untuk menduduki Swat Valley, mungkin ada pikiran bahwa itu dilakukan untuk membeli beberapa kedamaian. Tetapi Taliban telah menjadi lebih agresif, bahkan untuk sementara pindah ke provinsi Buner, satu langkah lain agar lebih dekat dengan ibu kota Islamabad. Mereka mencabut perjanjian perdamaian tersebut setelah terjadi kekisruhan di internasional.

Umat Kristiani telah lama dianiaya di negara mayoritas Muslim, tetapi pemimpin-pemimpin gereja takut bahwa kekuasaan Taliban yang semakin berkembang akan membuat kehidupan tidak tertahankan bagi mereka yang menolak untuk masuk Islam.

"Menurut laporan yang ada pada kami dan juga rekan kerja yang ada di daerah-daerah tersebut mengatakan orang-orang yang beriman bersembunyi di dalam rumah dan pada umumnya, mereka sangat takut kedatangan bulan berikutnya karena pihak Taliban terus mengambil kontrol yang lebih besar atas kawasan ini," kata Carl Moeller dari Open Doors Amerika Serikat.

"Jadi, kami meminta masyarakat untuk terus mengingat umat Kristiani yang ada disana (Pakistan, red) dan mendoakan akan apa yang mereka sedang hadapi."

Apa yang mereka hadapi saat ini adalah hukum syariah Islam.

Alkitab adalah barang yang ilegal. Musik dan bernyanyi adalah dilarang dan bila dilanggar, mereka akan menerima hukuman cambuk dan bagian tubuhnya akan dipotong-potong. Bahkan berbagi pesan mengenai Kristus akan menerima hukuman mati.

Kongres Umat Kristiani di Pakistan meminta pihak Amerika Serikat dan Uni Eropa untuk menekan pemerintah Pakistan agar mengambil langkah-langkah yang diperlukan guna menghentikan pihak Taliban dan penyebaran hukum syariah di Pakistan.

Sumber : cbn.com/bm

GOD SMILES WHEN WE USE OUR ABILITIES

2009-04-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

By : Rick Warren

"He has shaped each person in turn; now he watches everything we do" (Psalm 33:15 MSG).

After the flood, God gave Noah these simple instructions: "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything" Genesis 9:1,3

God said, "It's time to get on with your life! Do the things I designed humans to do. Make love to your spouse. Have babies. Raise families. Plant crops and eat meals. This is what I made you to be!"

You may feel that the only time God is pleased with you is when you're doing "spiritual" activities like reading the Bible, attending church, praying, or sharing your faith, and that he is unconcerned about the other parts of your life. Actually, God enjoys watching everything you do, whether you are working, playing, resting, or eating. The Bible tells us, "The steps of the godly are directed by the LORD. He delights in every detail of their lives" (Psalm 37:23, NLT)

God especially enjoys watching you use the talents and abilities he has given you. God intentionally gifted each of us differently for his enjoyment. You may be gifted at mechanics or mathematics or music or a thousand other skills. All of these activities can bring a smile to God's face.

You don't bring glory or pleasure to God by hiding your abilities or by trying to be someone else. You only bring him enjoyment by being you. Anytime you reject any part of yourself, you are rejecting God's wisdom and sovereignty in creating you. God says, "You have no right to argue with your Creator. You are merely a clay pot shaped by a potter. The clay doesn't ask, ?Why did you make me this way?'" (Isaiah 45:9, CEV)

In the film Chariots of Fire, Olympic runner Eric Liddell says, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast, and when I run, I feel God's pleasure." Later he says, "To give up running would be to hold him in contempt." There are no unspiritual abilities, just misused ones. Start using yours for God's pleasure.

Question: Which abilities and spiritual gifts has God given you that you could be using for His Kingdom?

Christians must be at forefront of ethnic integration, says evangelical leader

2009-04-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

Christians must model ethnic integration across Europe – that’s the message from the head of the European Evangelical Alliance (EEA).

General Secretary Gordon Showell-Rogers gave the challenge in his address to the joint General Assembly of the EEA and the European Evangelical Mission Alliance (EEMA).

“In the EEA and EEMA, we model difference in intergenerational relationships, in gender relationships and more,” he said.

“At a time when the whole world is inevitably obsessed with economics, there is at least one other area in which we need to model difference and take a stronger lead – namely ethnic integration.”

He added that most European countries enjoy a rich ethnic diversity, that all over Europe the fastest Church growth is among ethnic ‘minorities’, and that many countries are also receiving growing numbers of missionaries from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

“Integration is on the lips of many politicians and educators in our countries and at EU level. Everybody knows that it is vital.

“European Christians arguably have an almost unique selling point in this ‘niche market’: the ability to do what neither religion nor secular humanism can do – truly modelling integrated communities. Christ’s people genuinely celebrate unity in diversity, within the evangelical family.”

Mr Showell-Rogers said there are examples of this already all over Europe, such as in Belgium and France, where Christian rallies are very multi-ethnic.

He added that ways of building on this might include combined worship services, making sure that boards and committees in evangelical agencies and alliances are ethnically diverse and listening to ‘minorities’.

The EEA is now planning a targeted, Europe-wide consultation to enable those from ethnic ‘majorities’ and ethnic ‘minorities’ to learn from each other.

The EEA and EEMA General Assembly, attended by delegates from 38 countries, was held on April 21 to 24 in Tarragona, Spain.

The conference discussed issues affecting Europe and Central Asia– including several facing evangelicalism, such as representation in the EU, religious liberties, and evangelism. National Evangelical Alliances and pan-European mission agencies also considered how to resource one another and work together more effectively.

The Assembly finished by celebrating the EEMA slogan: “The church at the heart of mission, and mission at the heart of the church.”

The whole assembly rejoiced at the privilege of identifying with the EEA’s vision of transforming Europe and Eurasia by reflecting the Kingdom of God and committed itself to a number of shared initiatives – realistic small steps towards realising that vision in the EEA region and well beyond.

The acceptance of the Evangelical Alliances of Azerbaijan and Kosovo into EEA membership increases the number of national Alliances in the EEA to 36.

Source : Christianity Today

TASTE

2009-04-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

Bacaan : Matius 5:13-16

Rasa membuat makanan dicari dan dikenang orang, Entah itu pedasnya rica-rica, masamnya mangga muda, manisnya coklat, pahitnya kopi, atau asinnya sayur asin. Manusia menyukai makanan yang punya taste (rasa). Kita tidak suka makanan yang hambar, kecuali terpaksa bila sedang sakit. Taste, walaupun hanya sampai di ujung lidah tetapi menjadi sesuatu yang sangat penting.

Matius 5:13 juga berbicara tentang taste. Tuhan Yesus menyampaikan bahwa para murid-Nya harus memiliki taste di dunia ini, sehingga kehadiran mereka dirasakan dan dikenang oleh orang lain. Orang kristiani yang yang tidak punya taste ibarat garam yang kehilangan rasa alias tidak ada gunanya. Perkataan itu keras dan begitu tajam, tetapi itulah panggilan yang kita terima dari Tuhan sebagai anak-anak-Nya. Harus memiliki taste supaya kehadiran kita dapat dirasakan dan dikenang oleh orang lain.

Oleh sebab itu, hal yang harus selalu kita tanyakan kepada diri kita sendiri, di mana pun kita berada, entah di rumah, sekolah, tempat kerja, gereja atau lingkungan masyarakat adalah "apakah arti kehadiran kita sebagai orang kristiani sudah dapat mereka rasakan? Atau jangan-jangan ada dan tidak adanya kita tidak ada bedanya?" Ingat, Tuhan memanggil kita supaya berguna bagi orang lain. Membuat lingkungan lebih baik. Membawa terang. Memberi sukacita. Menjadi berkat. Jadi mari berdoa sambil terus berusaha untuk menjadi seperti sebuah lagu yang sering kita nyanyikan, "Jadikan aku saluran berkat-Mu". Bila setiap kita menjadi saluran berkat, maka dunia pun akan merasakan "nikmatnya" taste kehadiran anak-anak Tuhan -RY

APAKAH LINGKUNGAN DI MANA KITA TINGGAL

MERASAKAN MAKNA KEHADIRAN KITA?

Sumber : Kristiani Pos

Pesawat Misi Baru Bantu Penyebaran Injil

2009-04-24T22:02:00.001-07:00

Persekutuan Misi Aviasi (Mission Aviation Fellowship - MAF) di Amerika baru-baru ini menerima pesanan desain khusus untuk pesawat misi, yang mana hal tersebut merupakan “buah pertama” selama 11 tahun pencarian pesawat dengan biaya yang paling efisien untuk pelayanan yang lebih baik bagi agen-agen misionaris.

Perusahaan pembuatan pesawat Quest Aircraft Co. di Sandpoint, Idaho mengirimkan KODIAK 100 yang pertama dari generasi terbaru dari pesawat pengangkut yang diproduksi untuk MAF pada Kamis lalu. Pesawat tersebut telah lama ditunggu-tunggu sebagai hasil dari pertukaran visi antara MAF dan Quest untuk mendesain sebuah pesawat terbang dengan bahan bakar jet, yang lebih murah daripada bahan bakar gas (avgas) selain persediaannya juga lebih banyak.

Kebanyakan armada yang dimiliki MAF adalah Cessna 206 (C206), membutuhkan bahan bakar avgas yang persediaannya seringkali terbatas dan harganya mahal di daerah-daerah tempat kelompok misi beroperasi.

Selain itu juga, KODIAK 100 dapat membawa hampir dua kali muatan – seperti bantuan obat, makanan atau logistik untuk bencana melalui C206 dan juga akan membantu MAF dalam meningkatkan penyaluran secara dramatis selain juga dapat memangkas biaya.

"Penerbangan, dalam banyak pandangan, merupakan hati dan jiwa untuk dapat menjangkau orang-orang yang tidak terjangkau di dunia,” ujar John Boyd, presiden sekaligus direktur utama MAF-USA. Pesawat terbang bagi misionaris ini dapat membawa orang ke daerah-daerah yang tidak memiliki sarana jalan. Mereka dapat mengirimkan makanan, obat-obatan dan persediaan lainnya ketika fasilitas jalan dianggap mustahil.”

"KODIAK ini merupakan “buah pertama” dari hasil komitmen kerjasama, dan merupakan suatu mimpi menakjubkan yang menjadi kenyataan,” katanya. Sungguh tangan Tuhan turut bekerja keras di dalamnya. Pekerjaan-Nya akan terlaksana, karena kami telah dapat bekerjasama untuk membuat apa yang terjadi pada hari ini menjadi kenyataan.”

Pada beberapa tahun berikutnya, MAF akan mengganti 20 Cessna 206-nya dengan pesawat berbahan bakar jet, juga untuk KODIAK 100’s atau Cessna Caravan.

Keuntungan dari penjualan komersial pesawat udara akan mensubsidi sebagian biaya masing-masing ke-11 pesawat yang akan diproduksi. Ke-11 pesawat tersebut akan diberikan kepada organisasi nirlaba Kristiani dan organisasi penerbangan kemanusiaan.

Sebelas tahun lalu, MAF telah membantu dalam upaya pengumpulan dana dan penanaman modal guna terealisasinya pembuatan KODIAK 100.

Kelompok-kelompok misi penerbangan lainnya yang tergabung dalam MAF dalam penggalangan dana untuk dimulainya proyek Quest meliputi: Air Serv International, New Tribes Mission, Wycliffe Bible Translators JAARS, Mercy Air South Africa, Zululand Mission Air Transport, Misio’n Padamo, Proyek AmaZon, Gereja Advent Hari Ketujuh, Adventist World Aviation, Flying Mission, Moody Bible Institute, Samaritan Aviation, Arctic Barnabas Ministries, Christian Light Foundation, dan Asas de Socorro.

Disamping agen-agen misionaris, KODIAK 100 juga akan dipakai oleh kelompok-kelompok kemanusiaan dan operator penerbangan komersial bagi negara-negara tertinggal.

"Pesawat Quest dibuat untuk situasi sulit, penerbangan bagi negara tertinggal dalam mengoperasikan organisasi penerbangan misi di seluruh dunia berbasis “biaya,” ujar Paul Schaller, presiden sekaligus direktur utama Quest Aircraft Co.”Pengiriman pesawat bernomor seri SN0011 kepada MAF adalah yang pertama diantara beberapa pesawat yang didikasikan untuk membantu orang-orang dalam penyebaran Injil.”

KODIAK 100 terbaru ini akan didedikasikan dalam sebuah upacara resmi di depan publik bertempat di markas besar MAF di Nampa, Idaho, pada 2 Mei mendatang. Pesawat akan melakukan tur penerbangan ke beberapa kota pada musim panas ini sebelum kemudian diangkut ke Papua, Indonesia – untuk tujuan pelayanan.

Didirikan pada 1945, MAF telah memberikan dukungan bantuan kepada kelompok-kelompok misionaris berupa transportasi untuk menjangkau lokasi-lokasi terpencil serta menyediakan ahli-ahli komunikasi, teknologi dan pendidikan bagi orang-orang yang tersiolasi di seluruh dunia. Kelompok misi tersebut bekerjasama dengan lebih dari 1.000 organisasi Kristiani dan kemanusiaan yang memerlukan untuk dapat pergi ke daerah-daerah terisolasi di dunia. MAF, dengan 134 pesawat terbang pengangkut, melayani di 54 negara dan rata-rata telah melakukan 281 penerbangan lintas Afrika, Asia, Eurasia, dan Amerika Latin setiap hari.

Sumber : Kristiani Post

A NEW DEFAULT SETTING

2009-04-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

A NEW DEFAULT SETTING
By : Marilyn Ehle

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus ... Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have minds set on what the Spirit desires ... You are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you." (Romans 8)

Even as I depend on my computer for the activities of daily life, I am also frequently frustrated when my assumptions about what it can or will do prove to be in error. Why do margins or indentations change? How can information I thought I had inserted into a document suddenly alter? In their effort to explain this phenomenon, technology experts toss around the phrase "default setting" as though they think I understand! "The computer is just returning to its default setting," they say with feigned patience.

So what do these terms mean? A basic definition goes something like this: Default settings are controls of a computer or software as preset by its manufacturer. Some types of default settings may be altered or customized by the user.

A spiritual application comes to mind. When God created us, he declared us good?His perfect default setting. But then man and woman changed that setting by choosing to set themselves in opposition to God ... they sinned. Ever since that point in time, a new "setting" has been a part of our nature: "All have sinned" (Romans 3:23) and "sin enter the world through one man, and death through sin ... because all sinned" (Romans 5:12).

But God in His infinite wisdom and love chooses to make possible a new default setting: Christ comes to not just change a few incidentals in our lives, but to make us new creations. He installs totally new controls?the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Too often I think and act as though I must live according to those old settings, forgetting that because of the redeeming death and resurrection of Christ, and through the power of God's Spirit I can walk as a new person.

We are not machines but children of God who loves us unreservedly and gives us all we need to walk in newness of life with Him.

Christians face attacks in eastern India

2008-11-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

TIKKABALLI, India (Map, News) - They still worship in what remains of the little Baptist church not far from this forest town. The church is empty except for the rubble swept neatly into the corners. The sun comes through ragged holes where the mob smashed in the window frames.

On the roof, the crucifix is just twisted metal and broken concrete. It's barely recognizable, and you have to ask to make sure that's what it once was.

Here, prayers are said only in secret.

"We do it without making any noise," said Subhash Digal, holding his four-month-old son on his hip as he stood outside the church, where the smell of burned timber lingered on a warm autumn afternoon. "We don't want these people to know we are inside."

In this corner of the eastern state of Orissa, it's hard to find a Christian who isn't afraid.

Bloody anti-Christian riots broke out here in late August, rampages by Hindu hard-liners that since then have left at least 38 people dead, as many as 30,000 homeless and dozen of churches destroyed. The worst of the violence ended after a week or so, when authorities finally deployed soldiers to set up checkpoints and relief camps.

But nearly every day since then, the trouble has continued: a house burned, a carload of people beaten, a soldier hacked to death. Repeatedly, Christian villagers say, they have been told they must convert to Hinduism. The anti-Christian violence has also flickered across other parts of India, with churches vandalized and Christians attacked in the high-tech hub of Bangalore, the city of Mangalore and the coastal state of Kerala.

In a country desperate to be seen as a stable, democratic world power, the violence is a window into India's hidden fragility, its sometimes-dangerous political climate and the fierce historical divisions buried in its vast diversity.

India is more than 80 percent Hindu but its 1.1 billion people include all of the world's major religions, a caste system of near-impossible complexity, colossal divides of wealth and poverty, and, by some estimates, more than 2,000 ethnic groups.

"If you look at Africa, you don't see this kind of diversity, if you look at all of Europe, you don't see this kind of diversity," said Swami Agnivesh, a Hindu intellectual and liberal social activist. When it comes to India's continued existence: "Sometimes I think it's a miracle."

Trouble can seem inevitable. In just the past couple weeks violence has ranged from the northeastern state of Assam, where at least 50 people have died in ethnic clashes, to the central state of Madhya Pradesh state, where three people were killed in religious riots after a Hindu procession passed through a Muslim neighborhood.

Then there is Orissa's Kandhamal district, where widespread trouble began after the Aug. 24 killing of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a hard-line Hindu leader who rose to prominence in the area by advocating that Christian converts return to Hinduism.

Police blamed Maoist guerrillas for the killing, though it's unclear why they would have targeted him.

But Hindu militants quickly turned on local Christians, setting fire to a Christian orphanage and attacking churches and Christian-owned shops and homes. A nun accused a Hindu mob of raping her. At least 32 people have been killed, tens of thousands have fled their homes and thousands are believed still to be hiding in Orissa's thick forests.

The Kandhamal region is a place where villagers tend farms in small valleys circled by humpbacked hills, and where roadside ponds are filled with swimming children and floating lotuses. But it's also a place long cut off by poverty and illiteracy, where electricity is unknown in most villages and the pay for day laborers - the only job most people hope for - is 30 rupees, or 60 cents. That wage is only for men: Women earn 20 rupees, or 40 cents.

Kandhamal has long been a battleground over Christian missionary work among low-caste Hindus and the indigenous people known in India as "tribals." While Christians account for just 2.5 percent of India, their population in Kandhamal has risen sharply in recent decades, reaching nearly 20 percent by the last census in 2001.

Hindu militants say the reason for this is obvious: Missionaries are forcing or bribing people to convert, stealing followers from India's true religion.

"This is a kind of cultural invasion," Gauri Shankar Rath, a top official in the Orissa state VHP, the umbrella organization of Hindu nationalists, said in a telephone interview. "Our culture is being attacked."

Missionaries dismiss such accusations. And conversion does offer worldly benefits: For the low-caste, there's a partial escape from the stigmas of the Hindu caste system. Some missionaries also reach out to followers by building medical clinics and schools.

But as with much of India's violence, the obvious rationale for Kandhamal's bloodshed is really just one tile in a mosaic of discontent.

Much of the bitterness here is rooted in competition between two groups struggling at the bottom of India's social spectrum: the Panas and the Kandhas. The Panas are dalits, the group once known in India as "untouchables," while the Kandhas are tribals. The two have long competed for land, and more recently for jobs and school seats reserved by the government for the disadvantaged.

Over the past 20 years, the Kandhas have largely remained Hindu while many Panas have converted to Christianity, tangling religion into their conflict. Christians - even dalit converts - are not supposed to be eligible for reserved positions, but many Kandhas insist Pana Christian still find ways to get them. The Christians deny the accusation.

Then there is politics.

Many of the attacks, victims say, were carried out by the Bajrang Dal, a militant group closely allied to the Bharatiya Janata Party, a Hindu nationalist political party that is part of Orissa's coalition government. The Hindu right-wing has long stirred up religious resentments as a way to shore up its voter base - and Orissa, as people here quickly point out, is expected to hold elections early next year.

"This isn't a war between Hindus and Christians," said Ugrasena Rana, a 32-year-old Hindu from Bujulimendi, a small village where a roaming gang burned down a half-dozen or so Christian homes after the swami was killed. "This is a war between the Bajrang Dal and the people who will not follow their commands."

In some ways, though, the Christians of Bujulimendi are lucky. Their Hindu neighbors have tried to protect them, and many Christian families now sleep in Hindu homes in case the mobs return.

The situation is grimmer outside the ransacked Baptist church, where villagers say their attackers included many people they knew.

That mob, about 50 people armed with knives, swords and clubs, stormed through the village, chanting the name of the Hindu god Ram as they destroyed the church and Christian homes.

Since then, smaller groups have returned repeatedly. There is seldom violence, but they state their message bluntly: convert or die. Eventually, villagers worry, the threat will be carried out.

"What can we do?" asked Digal, the man dangling his baby. "They are trying to force us to become Hindu."

So will he convert?

"I don't know," he said, staring down at the ground. "I haven't decided yet."

Source: examinerDotcom

This Day in Christian History : Martin Luther

2008-11-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his famous 95-Thesis to the University's bulletin board—the Castle Church door, formally challenging church leaders on the practice of selling indulgences and outlining the biblical doctrine of justification by grace alone.

This act of nailing his Thesis to the church door has become a defining moment in Christian history, symbolic of the birth of the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther was a German monk and religious scholar who challenged the unbiblical practices of the sixteenth century Roman Catholic Church and translated the Bible into the German language for common people to read and understand for the first time. More than any other church reformer in Christian history, the impact and influence of Luther's contributions are hard to adequately describe. It's no exaggeration to say that almost every branch of modern Protestant Christianity owes some portion of its spiritual heritage to Martin Luther, a man of radical faith.

Source : CristianityAboutDotCom

Apa itu Martir?

2008-10-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

Kata martir berasal dari kata dalam Bahasa Yunani, yaitu μαρτυρ, yang berarti "saksi" atau "orang yang memberikan kesaksian".

Pada awal Kekaisaran Romawi, kota-kota independen di Asia Kecil berusaha mengganjar para pendukungnya atas bantuan yang mereka berikan.

Untuk lebih meningkatkan dukungan dengan memberikan penghormatan secara terbuka, kepada para penguasa Roma itu diberikan gelar kehormatan yang dibacakan di tempat-tempat umum di hadapan orang yang berkumpul.

Pujian seperti itu biasanya dirujuk dalam piagam-piagam sebagai marturiai. Orang Kristen mengambil ungkapan "martir" atau "syahid" ini dalam "kesaksian" untuk tindakan, penderitaan dan pengorbanan diri dari mereka yang teraniaya.

Sumber : WikiPedia

[Renungan Sehari] Hal Penebusan Dosa

2008-02-05T11:13:00.001-08:00

Bacaan :Rut 4:13
Lalu Boas mengambil Rut dan perempuan itu menjadi isterinya dan dihampirinyalah dia. Maka atas karunia TUHAN perempuan itu mengandung, lalu melahirkan seorang anak laki-laki.

Kehadiran Tuhan Yesus di atas muka bumi ini memiliki sejarah yang panjang.Tuhan Yesus lahir sebagai keturunan Raja Daud, sehingga Ia disebut juga Anak Daud. Sedangkan Daud sendiri mempunyai silsilah keluarga yang panjang, yang berasal dari Boas dan Rut.

Yang menarik adalah adanya tanda-tanda yang menunjukkan belas kasihan, sekaligus juga pemenuhan Perjanjian yang memastikan berlangsungnya kehidupan. Itulah yang terjadi atas Rut dan Boas;sebuah penebusan, pengorbanan yang dilakukan oleh Boas untuk meneruskan kehidupan.

Rut sebelumnya adalah istri Mahlon, anak Elimelekh. Mereka adalah orang Israel yang mengembara ke Moab -- bukankah mereka ini seperti manusia yang keluar dari taman Firdaus, keluar dari hadirat TUHAN? Manusia pergi keluar dari tanah perjanjian, menjadi bagian dari orang-orang yang tidak mengenal Allah, lalu mereka mati di sana. Habislah sudah kehidupan mereka, tidak ada pewaris pusaka keluarga kecuali janda-janda yang dipenuhi dukacita.

Demikianlah mereka kembali ke Israel, ke Bethlehem-Yehuda, sebagai sisa yang menyedihkan dari keluarga yang meninggalkan tanah perjanjian. Tak ada sesuatu pun yang dapat mereka harapkan, apalagi Rut adalah seorang perempuan Moab. Bagian dari dunia asing yang masuk ke lingkungan umat TUHAN.

Apa yang dilakukan Boas melambangkan penebusan oleh TUHAN bagi manusia yang sudah hilang.Tak ada sesuatu pun pada Boas yang mengharuskannya menebus pusaka milik Elimelekh, seperti juga TUHAN tidak sebenarnya tidak perlu menebus dosa manusia. Boas melakukannya atas kerelaan kehendaknya sendiri, ia kemudian melakukan penebusan menurut ketentuan yang telah berlaku. Begitu juga Tuhan Yesus memberikan diri-Nya sesuai dengan hukum Musa, menggantikan manusia sebagai Anak Domba yang disembelih, sehingga darah-Nya menyucikan kita semua. Dari Boas lahirlah Daud dan lahirlah Yesus; tapi dari Tuhan Yesus kita semua kembali mendapatkan tanah perjanjian kita di Sorga!

Penebusan oleh Tuhan Yesus meneruskan apa yang hilang dari manusia karena dosa. Terpujilah TUHAN!

Salam kasih,
Donny
renungan-sehari@yahoogroups.com

Success in God by Vonette Bright

2008-01-19T13:54:00.000-08:00

"and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:19)

Anne was a single parent. With only a high school diploma, she got a job as a secretary. Her natural business skills helped her enjoy a successful career. But even with the success, she always felt she something was missing.

She attended a local women's conference, where she met one of the key speakers. The woman encouraged Anne to visit a church in Dallas.

When Anne returned home, she followed the woman's advice. During the church service, she realized what she was missing. Jesus! As she broke into tears, she prayed to invite Christ into her life. Immediately, she truly felt satisfied and fulfilled with her job.

Dear one, commit your life and work to Jesus. Only He can fill the void for you.

Pemerintah Diminta Tegas, Tindakan Anarkis Atas Namakan Agama Meluas

2008-01-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

Pelanggaran kebebasan beragama dan berkeyakinan yang marak terjadi belakangan ini dikhawatirkan akan mengarah pada konflik horizontal yang lebih besar menjelang pemilihan umum 2009. Pemerintah diminta tegas bersikap sebelum tindakan anarkis yang mengatasnamakan agama meluas.

Managing Director Imparsial Rusdi Marpaung mengatakan, pemerintah harus memiliki solusi penyelesaian yang sensitif dan tepat. Aparat penegak hukum juga harus menindak kelompok-kelompok yang melakukan tindakan anarkis terhadap kelompok lain dengan mengatasnamakan agama. "Kalau tidak tegas, nanti terjadi konflik horisontal yang semakin meluas," kata Rusjdi Jumat lalu, menurut Tempo Interaktif.

Imparsial menggarisbawahi, pada 2007 tindakan anarkis yang mengatasnamakan agama meningkat. Kasus kekerasan terjadi pada Jemaat Ahmadiyah Indonesia (JAI), pengikut Al Qiyadah Al Islamiyah, penutupan paksa sejumlah tempat ibadah, dan pelarangan cara-cara ibadah tertentu adalah contoh kasus yang terjadi.

Ia menyarankan kepada pemerintah agar dalamwaktu dekat ini mengeluarkan pernyataan resmi bahwa kebebasan beragama dan berkeyakinan di Indonesia dijamin oleh undang-undang. Selain tercantum dalam Pasal 18 Konvenan Internasional tentang Hak-Hak Sipil dan Politik, hak beragama juga tercantum dalam pasal 281 (1) Amandemen Kedua UUD 1945.

Ghufron Mabruri, Koordinator Riset HAM Imparsial menegaskan, aparat memiliki kewenangan represi dan penggunaan kekuatan untuk mencegah dan menghentikan terjadinya kekerasan kepada warga. "Negara sama saja menjadi pelaku kejahatan kalau membiarkan kekerasan terus terjadi," katanya.

Sementara itu, puluhan pengunjuk rasa dari Front Pembela Islam (FPI) mendatangi Kejaksaan Agung untuk memprotes keputusan Badan Koordinasi Pengawas Agama dan Kepercayaan (Bakor Pakem) soal Ahmadiyah.

Sekretaris Jenderal FPI DKI Jakarta, Awit Mashudi mengatakan keputusan yang diambil oleh Kejaksaan melalui Bakor Pakem menyesatkan umat. Menurut dia, orang yang paling bertanggungjawab adalah Jaksa Agung Muda bidang Intelijen Wisnu Subroto sebagai Wakil Ketua Bakor Pakem. "Keputusan Bakor Pakem merupakan penipuan aqidah dan penyesatan umat," katanya.

Setelah puas berorasi di pintu gerbang Kejaksaan sekitar satu jam, mereka membubarkan diri. Para pengunjuk rasa sempat memacetkan Jalan Sultan Hassanudin, Jakarta Selatan.

Sumber : KristianiPos

VOM-USA News & Prayer Update (December 11, 2007)

2007-12-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

"All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give all of you into our hands." (I Samuel 17:47)

LAOS
Three Laotian Pastors Released From Prison – VOM Sources
On December 6, Pastors Van Thong, Bua and Amkha were released after more than 12 months in prison. According to The Voice of the Martyrs' contacts, "Their families will be rejoicing to see them come back home and be with them again." Pastors Van Thong, Bua and Amkha were arrested on November 21, 2006, along with nine other pastors, after attending a Christian meeting. The nine pastors were released from prison in May 2007.

The Voice of the Martyrs supported the pastors and their families during their time in prison. Praise God they will be reunited with their families shortly. Pray for their protection and for other believers in Laos. Ask God to give them courage to continually live for Christ despite the immense challenges they face. Pray their testimonies will draw nonbelievers into fellowship with Jesus Christ. Hebrews 13:5-6, Romans 8:31

AZERBAIJAN
Imprisoned Baptist Pastor in Poor Health – Christian World News
Recently, imprisoned Baptist pastor, Zaur Balaev, was transferred to a prison colony in Azerbaijan where his family is forced to bribe prison guards to bring him food. According to a Christian World News (CWN) report, Mission Network News and the Slavic Gospel Association reported the frail pastor was experiencing harsh conditions at the prison. CWN reported, Joel Griffith of Slavic Gospel Association said, "Officials at this prison where he's being held are demanding a high level of payment in what seems to be basically bribes. They're demanding these bribes before Pastor Balaev is getting food or being able to meet with his family." The report added that since Pastor Balaev's transfer to Darnagyul, the pastor has been in poor health, and his church and family are concerned. However, they have been able to supply him with warm clothes, blankets and food.

Pray God heals Pastor Balaev and works in his favor during the appeal process. Pray the Holy Spirit will encourage his family and church during this difficult time. Psalm 91, Isaiah 40:31

INDIA
Two Pastors Beaten and Arrested – Compass Direct News
On November 25, Pastor Joemon, Pastor Jojo and another believer were stripped of their clothes, tied to a pole and beaten after a worship service at Christ Vision church was raided in the Hassan district of Karnataka. According to a Compass Direct news report, when police arrived several hours later, they took the Christians to the police station and charged the pastors with forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity. The Christians have reportedly refused to press charges, saying they have forgiven their attackers.

Pray for the full recovery of those injured and for endurance for them to remain faithful despite this attack. Pray for Christian converts in India who are facing pressure to renounce their faith. Psalm 107:2

TURKMENISTAN
Pastor Ordered to Leave Turkmenistan – Forum 18 News
Baptist pastor Vyacheslav Kalataevsky has been denied permission to remain in his native town of Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan. According to Forum 18 News, "Kakataevsky's visa application to remain with his wife and family was rejected by the Migration Service and he will have to leave the country. He is due to leave on a flight to Moscow on December 11." Officials have refused to explain the reason for denying the visa, Pastor Kalataevsky explained to Forum, "But of course it is linked to my activity as a believer. Everything that has happened to me since 2001 is related to that." Pastor Kalataevsky was released in November after eight months in prison.

Pray for his family during this difficult time. Pray for his church as they have no pastor, Ask God to protect them. Psalm 23, Isaiah 54:14

Acceptance is the Spiritual Key to Non-Judgment

2007-12-07T10:05:00.000-08:00

By Richard Blackstone

The paradigm of love, unity and oneness teaches us to neither judge nor condemn because there is no "right or wrong." There only is "what is." It is in our judgments that the concepts of "right or wrong" become so real to us. Now think of this. What if we viewed the people and events in our lives the way that the God of unconditional love does?

This God views our lives with total acceptance. This God understands that you are at free will to choose any experience that you desire. That is your mission. To choose experiences here in the relative world so that God may know herself through us and experience all that she knows conceptually from the absolute world.

We are God, Goding so that in, as, and through us we are collaborators in God's experiences. As such, everything we do and every person we meet fulfills our mission and we accomplish this by being the creators of our experience through our free will.

We have created or co-created every person and event that shows up in our lives. When you are awake you are aware of this. When you are sleepwalking you are unaware of this.

From the macro-perspective, from God's perspective, it is easier to see how it makes no sense to judge the people and events that show up in our lives. They are merely people and events that we have drawn to us through our creation of our life.

The tool that is necessary to view these people and events to see if they serve us is the tool of acceptance.

Acceptance allows us to view our creations in their full light. We are not filtering the light of our creations with labels and limitations. We don't limit our perspectives by judging what shows up. We allow maximum exposure so that we can observe our creation and see if it serves us or not.

If we observe that it does not serve us we do not condemn it. We accept it and bless it and then choose another experience and create that. In this way we do not slow down our evolution. We allow ourselves to evolve at a faster pace because we are responsible for our creations. We don't disown them or condemn them through judgment. That would be irresponsible.

Can you begin to see how, by using the tool of acceptance, you can start to eliminate the value judgments of "right and wrong" from the people and events that show up in your life? By accepting what shows up in your life you are merely acknowledging what is. This person or that event showed up in your life. That's what is. It's not "right or wrong" or "good or bad" in and of itself. It's just what is at that point in your life.

If you are awake and aware you understand this and are able to look at what is and see how it can serve you. That is, you get to put the meaning to whatever it is that showed up in you life. Sleepwalkers always add labels like right, wrong, good, or bad.

The person walking in awareness understands these labels inhibit the ability of whatever shows up to serve us. Instead they use the tool of acceptance to allow them to view what is without labels or judgments and put whatever meaning to it that would best serve their purpose for creating it in the first place.

You need to understand that we get to put the meaning to any person or event that shows up in our lives. When we judge, we restrict our ability to make what is meaningful (full of meaning).

When we accept "what is" without judgment we are able to assign a meaning to "what is" that is beneficial to our overall goals. It is totally up to you to assign whatever "what is" means to you. If you are consciously aware you will more that likely use whatever shows up to help you in your evolution.

If you are sleepwalking you will more than likely judge and condemn whatever shows up and, in effect, slow down your evolution. Once again, the choice is yours. If we observe the two concepts it appears that judging what shows up in our lives does not serve us, while accepting what shows up in our lives does serve us.

Judging is a concept that is based in the fear-based paradigm of separation. Acceptance is a concept that is based in the love-based paradigm of oneness. I don't need to tell you because you already know this, don't you?

In this love-based paradigm of oneness we accept and bless all the people and events that show up in our lives as different aspects of our individual and joint creations. This sounds great and on an esoteric level it is doable. It is also doable on the physical level that we live in.

All you need do is consciously change your perspective of life from fear to love.

Richard Blackstone is an award winning author and international speaker on Love, Oneness & Creation.

He Will Show You His Will

2007-11-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

By: Dr. Charles Stanley

"Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is" (Ephesians 5:15-17).

How often have you prayed and prayed for direction but heard nothing in reply? When we find ourselves unable to hear God's voice, we must take a close look at our lives to find the source of problem.

First, your own self-will may be getting in the way of God's will for your life. If you decide up front what you think should happen, you may be telling God with your actions that you do not need His input.

Second, the negative influence of other people may be drawing you away from God's plan. Just like Job, we must be wary of seemingly well intentioned yet horribly misguided friends offering half-hearted advice.

Third, unconfessed sin in your life may be hardening your heart to the point of spiritual deafness. Is there anything standing between you and God today that needs to be removed?

Fourth, simple doubt can seep into a believer's life and starve his faith to the point of ineffectiveness. Believe that God can and will reveal His plans for your life.

Fifth, busyness is one of the most deadly enemies of spiritual growth. Are you too busy to spend a quiet moment with the Lord? You cannot expect to hear Him if you don't take time to listen.

God does not keep His will a secret. It is not His intention for His children to "jump through hoops" to find Him. Nor does He want His followers to go through life aimlessly. If your walk with the Lord is hindered by unnecessary or dangerous obstacles, remove them today and get back in step with Him.

About the Author:
Dr. Charles Stanley is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta and President of In Touch Ministries

Broad Is The Road To Destruction

2007-10-20T04:49:00.000-07:00

By: Former Florida Senator John Grant

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it, but small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:13-14)

She has had just shy of a million customers, since she opened for business in 1914, averaging about forty a day. They come from all parts of the world, about two out of every three from the United States. She was an engineering marvel when she was built and still is today. Just watching her serve one of her many customers is an entertaining experience. She is the Panama Canal.

As I stood beside the locks on the Pacific side this week and watched the gates swing on the same hinges they have been swinging on for the past ninety three years, I was amazed at how simple the process really is. Building it was the challenge. It all works on gravity and the water that raises one ship is the runoff from lowering another. Most of the ships are container ships, carrying sixty six foot containers. I counted the load on one ship.... seventeen rows, stacked seven high and thirteen wide. I quickly computed in my head and realized that's about fifteen hundred containers. Now, that's a lot of cargo.

When the canal was first built, it was plenty wide, but now shipping is limited by the width of the canal and they started last month a seven year, five billion dollar project to build wider locks to accommodate wider ships. Today's ships have been built to be as wide as possible and still get by. When one of those large container ships transits the canal, there is less than a foot of clearance on
each side.

How interesting, I thought. The want to carry as much as they can without failing to make it through. Sometimes, we are like that in our spiritual attitude. We want to know how much sin we can get away with and still scrape by the portals of heaven. But, Jesus said enter through the narrow gate, because the board gate leads to destruction.

Jesus calls on us to live a life that is pure and holy and not one where we try to see how much we can get away with and still make the grade. We should base on conduct not on how much we can get by with, but what lifestyle will please God.
(a thought on life from John Grant )

Time to Dig Deeper

2007-08-26T11:44:00.000-07:00

by Tom Neven

"Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect." (1 Peter 3:15)

Ever been confronted with a question about your faith that you can't answer? Is there something in the Bible that you just don't understand? Do you want to better understand how to develop'and live by, a Christian worldview?

Then you need to dig deeper into your faith. You need to learn how to defend the fact of the Resurrection, how to explain the truth of Christianity and the reliability of Scripture. In short, you need to learn the practice of apologetics.

But wait, you say, my faith is nothing to apologize for. You're right, of course, but that's not what apologetics means. It means to give an explanation for, and it,s the same word the apostle Peter used in the verse that opened this article.

But God's Word needs no defending, you might be thinking. After all, it says, The word of God is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). Faith is faith, and it can't be proved.

But God is not afraid for us to check things out. He has given us many convincing proofs (Acts 1:3) and evidence that is (clearly seen) (Romans 1:20) so that we do not have to exercise blind faith. He wants us to use our heads. In fact, He commands it, in Isaiah 1:18 and Matthew 22:37, among other places. And the Bereans were considered were considered of more noble character, because they took Paul's message and examined it to see if what he said was true (Acts 17:11). They did not turn off their minds and simply accept things on faith.

More important, anyone who doesn't already accept the truth of Scripture is not going to be convinced by any arguments from the Bible. We have to be able to understand the thinking of those who don't believe so that we may also persuade them to examine the claims of Christianity. After all, the apostle Paul used reason and evidence when talking to the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens. He was able to quote their philosophers right back at them (Acts 17:16-31).

We cannot leave the battlefield to those who would mock and deny our faith. In his book The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis wrote, (To be ignorant and simple now) not to be able to meet the enemies on their ground,would be to throw down our weapons, and to betray our uneducated brethren who have, under God, no defense but us against the intellectual attacks of the heathen. Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.

Now, get digging!

Tom Neven is editorial director for Focus on the Family's Youth Outreach. He is the author of Do Fish Know They're Wet?, a Christian worldview book.

Animist Village Hears the Gospel

2007-08-18T14:24:00.000-07:00

Gospel for Asia missionary Monual was amazed as he watched God answer his prayer. It took eight months—eight months and many nights of anguished prayers to God for a people he desperately yearned to tell of Jesus' love.

The people of this village were devoted to the rituals and traditions of their animist (spirit worship) religion. They had refused to listen to Monual, and threatened him with severe consequences if he continued ministry there.

Although their opposition saddened Monual, God gave him strength to continue reaching out. Monual would often fall to his knees, earnestly seeking the Lord for these people's salvation. Then, God began to answer these prayers in a powerful way: People started listening to what Monual had to say. The village leader actually welcomed Monual, and asked if he would pray for his seriously ill son.

Glad for the opportunity, Monual immediately went and prayed for the child—and the Lord healed him! The healing gave Monual an opportunity to share the Gospel in the village. Now people are willing to listen. They are no longer threatening to hurt Monual.

Monual asks for prayer that the Lord will draw the hearts of the men, women and children in this animist village to Himself. And pray that the Lord will watch over Monual and bless his ministry.

Source : Gospel for Asia

Kekuatan Yang Dijanjikan

2007-08-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

Bacaan: Yesaya 40: 10,11,28-31

Pada usia 6 tahun, Jonah Sorrentino sangat terluka saat orangtuanya bercerai. Akibatnya, ia menyimpan kepahitan dan kemarahan hebat. Puji Tuhan, pada usia 15 tahun Jonah mengenal kasih Allah baginya dan menjadi orang percaya.

Jonah, yang juga penyanyi KJ-52, mengaku terbiasa menjadi korban lingkungan. Saat diwawancara Christianity Today, ia menjelaskan pemulihannya, "Anda harus mengakui kondisi buruk Anda."

Ia menambahkan, "Anda juga harus sampai ke titik di mana Anda akan berkata, 'Aku tak mau tinggal di masa lalu ... dalam kemarahan, kepahitan, atau luka batin. Aku mau berjalan maju karena Allah akan memberiku kekuatan.'" Allah menolongnya untuk mengampuni orangtuanya. Ia pun menulis lirik lagu ini untuk menguatkan orang lain:

Kau akan selalu menemukan kekuatan dalam Kristus;
Allah memiliki rencana dalam setiap sisi hidupmu
Mungkin ini sulit dipahami saat engkau susah
Namun ke mana pun kau melangkah,
Dia hadir dengan lengan terbuka lebar.

Kita mungkin bertanya-tanya bagaimana kita dapat hidup ber-sama masa lalu yang menyakitkan. Allah dapat mengenyahkan ke-pedihan kita seketika dan selamanya, jika Dia menghendaki. Namun, Dia kerap memulihkan kita secara perlahan hingga bekas luka itu tetap ada. Dia menggendong kita dan dengan hati-hati menuntun kita seperti gembala yang mengurus kawanannya (Yesaya 40:11).

Mungkin kita tak dipulihkan seutuhnya dalam hidup sekarang ini, tetapi kita dapat mengandalkan janji Allah. Dia memberi "kekuatan kepada yang lemah" dan menambah semangat mereka (ayat 29) -AMC

Sumber : Sabda.org

Koalisi Gereja Bantu Korban Banjir di Asia

2007-08-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

Anggota koalisi Action by Churches Together International di seluruh dunia terus berusaha menyelamatkan nyawa-nyawa dengan mengirimkan bantuan obat-obatan dalam jumlah besar ke wilayah Asia utara dan tengah yang dilanda banjir.

"Sementara banjir perlahan-lahan mulai surut, kerusakan dan perlunya bantuan darurat segera menunjukkan warna aslinya," kata Arne Greg Riisnæs, anggota ACT Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), berbicara dari Bangladesh.

Anggota koalisi ACT memprioritaskan bantuan kepada korban yang paling rapuh, terutama mereka yang berada di daerah tak terjangkau. Ribuan rumah dan hasil panen telah hancur tersapu banjir.

"Ketika kamu kehilangan segalanya sulit untuk memulihkan diri," kata Sushant Agrawal, direktur Churches Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA). "Orang-orang kehilangan rumah serta harta benda mereka. Hasil panen hilang. Banjir menghancurkan semua sumber penghidupan mereka."

Banyak keluarga juga berjuang untuk mengatasi meski kekurangan bahan pangan.

"Kami terus-menerus kelaparan. Saya tidak mempunyai cukup makanan untuk anak-anak saya," kata Shifa Begam dari Jithkar, sebuah desa dekat daerah Harirampur di Bangladesh.

Anggota ACT hanya satu-satunya bantuan kemanusiaan di desa itu, dimana mereka menjalankan operasi distribusi makanan.

Begam merupakan salah satu penduduk desa yang menerima bantuan makanan. Dengan bercucuran air mata, dia menerima paket besar yang berisi beras, kacang-kacangan, minyak goreng, dan obat-obatan.

Operasi ACT di sepanjang Asia akan menyediakan makanan dan air bersih untuk 270.000 jiwa secepatnya, dan di tahap berikutnya akan membangun kembali rumah-rumah dan mengurangi resiko di masa depan.

Direktur Lutheran World Service India, Neville Pradhan, menekankan pentingnya mengurangi resiko di tahap proses pemulihan berikutnya.

Selain di Bangladesh dan India, mitra ACT juga bekerja di Cina, Nepal dan Pakistan mendistribusikan makanan pokok dan berbagai kebutuhan lainnya.

Agrawal yang juga sebagai moderator di Komite Pelaksana ACT Internasional, memohon kepada badan gereja dunia untuk bersatu membantu korban banjir.

"Situasinya cukup gawat. Ini saatnya gereja-gereja di seluruh dunia harus datang dan berdiri bersama mereka yang miskin, paling rapuh dan ditolak secara sosial."

Sumber : Kristiani Pos

Are We True Christians ?

2007-08-04T07:49:00.000-07:00

It's so tired to wear a mask all the time,isn't it? ...better to build our characters ...as true Christians..

How we live at home is the acid test for any Christian man or woman.
It is far easier to live an excellent life among our friends, when we are putting our best foot forward and are conscious of public opinion, than it is to live for Christ in our own home.

Our own family circle sees us in our unguarded moments.
They see us when exhaustion and stress fray our nerves. Our own family circle knows whether Christ live in and through us. In the home, our character and integrity are formed, values are made clear, and goals are set. These last a lifetime. And if they aren't formed correctly, that,too will result in patterns ---bad patterns---that last a life time, if God doesn't intervene.

If I am a true Christian, I will not give way at home to bad temper, impatience,faultfinding, sarcasm, unkindness, suspicion,selfishness, tell so many lies,or laziness.Instead, each day my life will display the fruit of the Spirit, which is : "Love,Joy,Peace,Patience,Kindness,Goodness,Faithfulness,Gentleness, and Self-control" (Gal 5 : 22-23).

How different would your home be if you consistently practiced these Christ-like virtues?

Cling to the Rock

2007-05-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

By: Vonette Bright

"For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock" (Psalm 27:5).

When trouble comes your way, how do you respond? The Bible says, "For in the day of trouble, (God) will keep me safe in His dwelling. He will hide me in the shelter of His tabernacle and set me high upon a rock." That Rock is Jesus.

And Jamie Turner clings to that Rock! She's suffered heartaches, family sorrow, and a broken spirit. She's grieved over the death of her loved ones. She waited twelve long years before God granted her a child. Yet because Jamie clings to God, she has hope.

Psalm 9 describes her hope... your hope: "Those who know your name will trust in you. For you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you."

Friend, in your days of trouble, who do you turn to?
Cling to the Rock!

About the Author:
Vonette Bright is the co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International and host of Women Today with Vonette Bright, a series of national radio spots

Are We Still Praying? Understanding the Maturing Prayer Movement Today!

2007-05-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

By Chuck D. Pierce

Many of you know Global Harvest as the ministry which mobilized world-wide prayer in the 1990s. Peter and Doris Wagner, when asked by the AD2000 Movement to find leaders in nations who could mobilize prayer for the 10/40 Window, immediately surrendered to the mission. To pray for this least evangelized area in the world, they began to rely upon the many leaders they had trained in the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary. This was a marked shift in the role of prayer. This shift laid the groundwork for how prayer would be viewed in the world. Global Harvest created what became known as the Prayer Movement. Individuals and teams went on prayer journeys to all the nations inside this “window”, learned about spiritual warfare, prayer walking, confronting the enemy, and watching and interceding for harvest in a new way. This changed the way we viewed the enemy of God who was controlling the harvest fields of the world. Doris even took a team to the highest of high places, Mt. Everest , to command the enemies of the Gospel to “let go” of the harvest.

Assignments Keep Coming and Will Continue Until His Kingdom Comes!
This assigned task of praying for the 10/40 Window had a target date. The decided time frame to complete the assignment was the year 2000. In the overall process, Peter and Doris scheduled an event known as Celebration Ephesus to gather a prayer army at the ruins of the amphitheater in Ephesus for a four-hour praise and worship celebration. More than 5,000 participants from 62 nations gathered to worship and praise the King of Kings for all He had done during the decade. During this prayer mission unreached people groups went from 1700 to around 500! Amazing!

At the end of 1999 it seemed the Prayer Movement was not ending but had just begun! Peter and Doris then called us to shift our prayer focus from the 10/40 Window to the 40/70 Window, an area beginning in Iceland , encompassing all of Europe, crossing northern Asia and reaching to the northern tip of Japan . This is a region where the Gospel had impacted the world but now was “cold and gripped by religion.” Teams entered all 64 nations of this “window”. However, the prayer movement had matured from the 1990s. These teams were not just prayer walking and praying, but they were now searching and connecting with the churches of the “New Apostolic Reformation” in the area. The question was being asked: “Where are the intercessors, apostles and prophets, and are they connected and praying?” The Prayer Movement had shifted! Now, intercessors were awakened to the need to connect with prophets and apostles in territories. If they did not exist, their assignment was to bring them to birth. Harvesters are necessary for the harvest fields. By the end of this assignment in 2005, Global Harvest had now matured. GHM had hosted global gatherings each year, culminating with an incredible meeting in Rome at Circus Maximus, where many of the early Christians were martyred.

Peter Wagner was now leading the Body of Christ into the understanding of the need for apostles and prophets today. This was causing the prayer movement to change drastically. The next assignment or prayer target would become what Peter named the 9/11 Window - the area of the world where most Muslims lived and the regions where Islam was advancing rapidly. With new levels come new devils and the need for new authority.

During this same time frame, Dutch Sheets and I heard the call to visit each state in the America and evaluate the army of God in this nation. You can read about that incredible journey in Releasing the Prophetic Destiny of A Nation, the only known prophetic history book in the United States . The Prayer Army has made a great shift. No longer are we a group of intercessors that are trying to find our way, but prayer warriors who are aligning in a new way.

New Wine Coming Into the Wineskin
In searching for a means to reflect this shift, we must recognize that a name describes both identity and function. The name associated with this sphere of the prayer movement in this nation is the U.S. Global Apostolic Prayer Network: Mobilizing and Strengthening the Harvest Net. From state to state in our nation, mobilization has begun again. However, this time the connections are different - apostles are praying, prophets are prophesying with clarity, and intercessors are birthing the future.

In a meeting on January 8, 2006 , Peter gave a charge to the Prayer Movement and a teaching on wine and wineskins. He began to discuss how spiritual warfare through the last decade moved the Spiritual Warfare Network into a new dimension of growth and maturity reflected in the Strategic Prayer Network. He shared how the wineskin of the prayer movement had shifted based upon the shifting wineskin of ministries involved. We then discussed how Dutch Sheets’ and my call to apostolically mobilize a prophetic army of warriors in each state synergized this movement to its next level thanks to the army of God gathering throughout our nation.

At the beginning of this past year, the Lord spoke very clearly to me the following: "The Prayer Movement needs to be the wine for the wineskin that is forming.” He revealed to me that as the apostolic government of the Church matured, the Prayer Movement had to stay fluid and remain new as a drink offering to their region. He showed me new people in every state that were to be involved. He showed me how many of you had been very faithful in the past season, but now you would need to expand your connections. An apostolic governmental anointing in the prayer movement has now emerged. As we draw closer to the end times and see spiritual warfare intensify, we need to pray in such a way that we may receive revelation for the battle—and live in such a way that we withstand the schemes of the enemy.

Cindy Jacobs, one of the leaders of the apostolic intercessory movement in the earth prophesied the following: “It is time to shift the prayer movement. We must become apostolic in our expression. We must find the intercessors and the prophets and align them with the apostles in each state. If each leader of the present movement will shift, their state will shift. If this shift does not occur, My Kingdom will not be established from state to state and a nation will suffer greatly.”

The Current Movement
Mike and Cindy Jacobs are presently leading an initiative to pray for the highways of our nation, focusing on I-35. Apostolic Prayer Thrusts are arising throughout our nation. Dutch Sheets has developed the National Governmental Prayer Alliance. Those interested in the area of governmental intercession should be aligned to pray for and to encourage the type of prayer initiatives he shares. I will continue to surround our nation as I did when I visited the major port cities in our nation in 2005. (We are now more clearly seeing the reason the Lord said to go to all these key ports.)

One of the greatest models of corporate praying has developed in Oklahoma . John Benefiel and Jay Swallow have brought a revival to the Native People and connected them into the movement of God for this season. Kansas and other states have joined with Oklahoma to advance the prayer army in that region of our nation. Apostles Jay and John along with Jean Steffenson have stood faithfully to see the Host People of our land restored and are trusting the Lord for the Resolution of Apology to move forward. Jean visited all the rivers in her state last year. Venner and Bill Alston, Regina Shank and many others are leading initiatives to pray for the river systems of their state. James Nesbitt led a group to pray for the Great Lakes . Barbara Yoder has led many initiatives in Michigan , including a 40-day watch for the city of Dearborn , where Islam has its greatest concentration in our nation.

New York and New Jersey have two of the most vibrant territorial movements that have focused on praying the prophecies over their states. California has a great grass roots movement and has been leading teams to pray for the District Court System. Tammy Alsup in Tennessee and Alabama developed the first State Apostolic Councils to move forward and see a region transform. Prayer Centers are developing in Chicago and Las Vegas , and we are developing a Watch Center in Denton , Texas .

God is leading us into new levels of strategic praying so that the enemy does not overtake us and defeat us in days ahead. This is a season of building for our future. We are maturing into the revelation that Peter declared - that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. The Lord then said “Upon this revelation I will build My Church.” In Hebrew, the concept of building actually means to add sons and daughters. Jesus added, “The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it [the Church]. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom...” If the Church is built properly then we have the authority to unlock His Kingdom purposes in the earth.

Changes have been made in our communications in the prayer movement. With wars increasing and warfare intensifying we must get more “intense” in our praying. The U.S. Global Apostolic Prayer Network is there to serve you. Each state has an apostolic leader and team that we rely upon to share major changes. Global Harvest Ministries continues to connect the Army of God in the United States . My role is to find every praying group and leader in a state and connect them together. With next year being an election year, Dutch Sheets and I are planning to rally God’s people from region to region around our nation so we touch God and declare change for the future. We are planning twelve regional gatherings that revolve around the concept of “Awakening and Declaring His Glory!”

We have an archive of state prayer focuses on the website. Then as key state issues arise we desire to communicate these prayer needs since we know that many of you intercede as a result of current key crises that need intervention rather than from a historical context. If you sense things in your state that are of utmost importance, let’s get them out so prayer warriors all around the globe can pray over that issue.

Praying for Transformation
The Prayer Movement must move into the next dimension of influence in each state of this nation and other nations throughout the world. As we pray, we must make “social transformation” become more than a buzzword. Transformation must become a reality. The apostolic gift and functions associated with this gift must mature from territory to territory. Divine connections must occur for the army to communicate efficiently and effectively. The key leaders of the societal mind molders must align. Communication comes from your connections and commitments. Transformation comes when we align with the mind of Christ and have a common purpose in each territory to reflect His will for that territory. We must know where and how our message is connected, what communication network(s) are operating in a region, and what audiences we are influencing.

Prophets must mature in their prophesying. Here is a question I have asked many: Are you wine or wineskin? Do you feel like you flow predominately in the category called wine (revelation) OR do you feel like you are developing a wineskin for others to pour into? If you are wine, what are you being poured into? Where are you being poured? If you are a wineskin, who pours into you?

God is raising up a Kingdom Army of Prayer Warriors who know their sphere of authority! We are being SENT again! Global Harvest Ministries has embarked on training, sending and commissioning the next phase of the prayer army that will affect the earth. Peter and Doris are focusing our attention to pray for the Muslims in our states and the nations of the earth. My main call is to serve you in seeing the enemy defeated and his works destroyed (1 John 3:8 ). GHM is a key entity that is communicating to the Body of Christ shifting paradigms and assisting in the development of strategies to unlock the nations of the earth. I take my first trip into the 9/11 Window this Fall. I will take a team to meet with leaders from those nations. Our goal is to bring Light, Life, and Love to the Muslim Peoples.

GOD BLESS!

GOD IS ON THE MOVE!

2007-05-04T15:37:00.000-07:00

We are in a pivotal time in history. It’s a time of revelation. There is a clarion trumpet sound calling God’s people to a new level of awareness and anointing. Heaven and earth are connecting and God is calling His church to ARISE in new strength and SHINE with His Glory! It is a time to be strong in the Lord, bold and full of God’s power. The Body of Christ is awakening and being transformed to His glorious Bride.

What the Lord Values!

2007-04-28T12:02:00.000-07:00

By: Katherine Kehler

"The Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20)

I have been reading a set of books in my devotions by Charles J. Rolls, in which the author writes, in great detail, about the attributes of God. He writes about names and characteristics of God which I had not considered before. One of these names is: God, the Valuer.

Throughout the Bible, there are many examples of what God values. He values what we give to Him. One example is in a passage is in Leviticus 27. Here the Lord commands priests to place an estimate on the value of all things that were donated to God by the people of Israel. In Leviticus, the expression, "thy estimation" is used twenty times. God places a value on the things we give to Him. Christ wields the prerogative of estimating the value of all gifts and services that are rendered in His name - gold, silver or stubble.

Take the story of Peter - after he had been fishing all night and caught nothing, Jesus asked for the use of his boat to teach the crowds. Then He told Peter to launch into the deep and let down his nets. Even though Peter was reluctant because they had fished in vain all night and were tired, he did it anyway and God rewarded him for the use of his boat, by giving him two boatloads of fish. Christ is no man's debtor.

There is also the story of Mary who poured the expensive, perfumed oil on Jesus feet. Jesus valued her precious act of worship and told the cynical disciples that this woman's act of kindness and adoration would be remembered wherever the gospel was preached. He valued her sacrifice of love.

Christ never undervalues a kind word spoken, or underestimates a loving deed done in His name. He noticed the widow who gave two mites. He understands what giving costs.

He also takes notice of neglect in giving thanks to Him for benefits received, as in the case of the ten lepers who were healed and only one came back to give thanks. Jesus asked where the others were.

Charles Rolls states so clearly, "He weighs the burden of sigh, he measures the pain of our heartaches, he senses the sorrow of severance from our loved ones, he perceives the motive of a desire, and discerns the aim of an aspiration. He fully knows, sincerely loves and gently cares for each one of us, His people."

The value that Christ puts on our life never changes. He paid the ultimate price for us. He loved us so much that He paid the price (an unbelievable cruel death) to redeem us from the bondage of sin and death.

As in Ephesians 1:18, He considers us "His own precious treasure." God is the Valuer and places the highest value on who we are, what we do for Him, the time we spend for Him and what we give up for Him. God, the Valuer.

Do you know He values you?
~God, we recognize that You place a value on what we do or don't do for You, but we also realize and are so grateful that You value us so much that You paid the ultimate price for us by dying for us. Thank You! Please give us wisdom and courage to value the things that You value. Amen.

About the Author:
Katherine J. Kehler is the director of the Secrets of Success.com web site. Among her accomplishments as an innovator and entrepreneur, Katherine has founded and directed numerous websites. In addition, she has authored her own book, When Dreams Come True: Women Today Online and a daily devotional e-book called Inspiration, Meditation and Reflection. Her Daily Inspirations, which help to encourage people in their life's journey, are published on numerous web sites around the world.

Riches in Glory

2007-04-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

By: Dr. Bill Bright

"And it is He who will supply all your needs from His riches in glory because of what Christ Jesus has done for us" (Philippians 4:19)

God has faithfully met the needs of this great worldwide ministry (Campus Crusade for Christ, International) since its inception. He met our needs when there were only two of us - Vonette and I - on the staff. He meets our needs today (1983) with more than 16,000 full-time and associate staff members serving in most communities of America and in 151 other countries.

He met our needs when our budget was a few thousand dollars a year. He continues to meet our needs when our budget is approximately $100 million a year. During this exciting, incredibly rich and rewarding adventure with our gracious Lord, we have never had an extra dollar at the end of any day. We get only what we need - and no more.

During these years, there have been many dramatic demonstrations of His faithfulness, when He has led us to undertake major and frequently expensive projects. He has always supplied the funds to pay for what He orders. We have learned many lessons concerning God's faithfulness.

First, whatever He leads us to do He will enable us to do by supplying the manpower, the finances and the know-how - oftentimes dramatically - if we continue to trust and obey Him.

Second, "we have not because we ask not" (James 4:2 KJV).

Third, we do not receive when our motives are impure.

But of this we can be sure: if our hearts are pure, our motives are pure and we do what we do for the glory of God - to help fulfill the Great Commission through the winning and discipling of men for Christ throughout the world -we can always be assured that God will supply our needs. Not to do so would be a contradiction of His attributes, for the idea of the Great Commission began with our Lord.

LET YOUR LIGHT SO SHINE

2007-04-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

By: Former Florida Senator John Grant

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5:16).

The point was simply this: the light from one cell phone is miniscule, but a hundred or more together can make a lot of light. It's the same way with people. Together as a team, we can do far more than the sum of our efforts individually. The achievements of an organization are the result of the combined efforts of each individual.

While the word teamwork doesn't appear in the Bible, the concept is there. In Ecclesiastes 4:12 we read: "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."

Have you ever heard a friend say, "I've got your back"? That's a military metaphor. When two warriors stand back to back they have a 360 degree defendable field of view. When your friend is "at your back" you are less vulnerable.

But defense is just part of the payoff. The real value of teamwork is how it multiplies effectiveness and makes truly great things possible. One person can only do so much. Two people, working together, can accomplish far more. God made us this way. We were designed to work in teams.

Teamwork is a vital part of life in the body of Christ. God's work involves many different individuals with a variety of gifts, talents and abilities. There are no superstars in this task, only team members performing their own unique roles. We can only become useful members of God's team if we are prepared to set aside any desire to receive glory for what we do. We should never seek or encourage the praise that comes from people. The praise of men is always short lived and of no real or lasting value. Instead, we should always seek approval from God.

Whose team are you on? Are you on anyone's team? God wants us on his team and there is a position for everyone to play... batter, catcher, infield outfield, God has a place for you.

So, as we are in the forty day season of Lent, leading up to celebration of the resurrection on Easter Sunday, let us all focus on how we can be a more effective team player for God and let us shine our light together, focused on Christ.
(a thought on life from John Grant)

About the Author:
As a former Florida Senator, John Grant has served in federal, state and local government in both the legislative and executive branches, including twenty one years as a member of the Florida House of Representatives and Florida Senate. He is a lawyer by profession, specializing on life resource management and estate planning from a Biblical perspective. As Chairman of the America's Board of the United Bible Society, he oversees the distribution of Bibles through twenty nine national Bible societies and forty different countries in the western hemisphere. Currently he is Chairman of the Florida Capitol Advocate Group, a government consulting firm in Tallahassee and Washington. He and his wife of 40 years live in Tampa, Florida, USA.

How God Makes A Man

2007-04-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

"The life of Joseph in the Old Testament (Genesis 37-50) is a classic example of the mysterious providence of God at work to shape a person's life".
--Chuck Lloyd

I. JOSEPH'S PRIDE

God had a purpose for Joseph's life, a purpose he partially revealed to him in his youth through dreams. God showed Joseph that he would be given a position of prominence above his family.

Because of this destiny, it would not be good for Joseph to have such a destructive characteristic as pride, since in his position of prominence he must act for the benefit of others rather than for his own personal esteem, profit, or revenge.

Yet pride seemed to be characteristic of Joseph in his youth. Joseph's father loved him more than any of his other eleven sons, which made Joseph's brothers extremely jealous. Knowing this, Joseph could have decided not to tell them about the dream he had which exalted him over them. But he did tell them, and they hated him even more.

Joseph could have kept his mouth closed, but instead his pride found a way of expressing itself.

In Proverbs 27:2 we read, "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth;someone else, and not your own lips." Our pride causes us to try to gain honor from other people. But in God's plan, he gives us honor as a result of our humility. "Before his downfall a man's heart is proud, but humility comes before honor" (Proverbs 18:12).

II. JOSEPH'S FAITHFULNESS

On the other hand, another strong characteristic of Joseph's youth was faithfulness. He was faithful to carry out his father's wishes (Genesis 37:12-17). He could be counted on to do a task properly.

God is looking for men and women who are faithful to him in the little things, so he can give them the more important work of helping his people.The quality of faithfulness is essential.

III. GOD AT WORK

To replace Joseph's pride with humility, and at the same time to strengthen his faithfulness, God tested Joseph.

First his jealous brothers sold him as a slave, and he was taken to Egypt Then in Egypt he was falsely accused and sent to prison as a criminal.

Once Joseph had gone through this testing he was ready for the position of prominence which God had planned for him to have.

We read this about Joseph in Psalm 105:18-19 -They bruised his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons, till what he foretold came to pass, till the word of the Lord proved him true. Joseph later was released from prison and became administrator of all Egypt second only to Pharaoh. He was therefore able to save his family from starvation in a terrible famine.

Again in Psalm 105, we read this in verses 16-17 about God's plan: He called down famine on the land and destroyed all their supplies of food;and he sent a man before them-Joseph, sold as a slave.

Joseph had matured. When his brothers arrived in Egypt for help, Joseph's thoughts were not on revenge. Even though they had sold him into slavery,Joseph knew that God's sovereign hand was on his life. "You intended to harm me," he told them, "but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Genesis 50:20).

Walk in the Light

2007-03-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

By: Dr. Bill Bright

"Later, in one of His talks, Jesus said to the people, 'I am the Light of the world. So if you follow me, you won't be stumbling through the darkness, for living light will flood your path" (John 8:12)

The living room of our home was dark when I quietly slipped a key into the lock and opened the door one night, walking slowly and softly so as not to awaken Vonette and our sons who were very young. Though they had been trained to put away their toys, somehow in the rush to get ready for bed that night they had left cars and a train and other favorite play things scattered throughout the living room.

You guessed it! I stepped on one with wheels that almost threw me to the floor before I could regain my balance. Many a person has broken a leg or an arm under similar circumstances, and some have even fallen and hit their heads on sharp objects, resulting in a fatal accident.

So it is in the spiritual realm. If we insist on walking in the darkness, we will inevitably stumble and take risks that can greatly jeopardize our spiritual health and, in some cases, lead to our spiritual death by cutting ourselves off from God.

Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness." In the first epistle of John we are told, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not tell the truth. If we walk in the light, as God is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses [and keeps on cleansing] us from all sin."

There is only one person who qualifies to be the light of the world. That is Jesus. So how do we follow Him? What does it mean to walk in the light? Basically, it means that there is no unconfessed sin. It means that we are filled with the Holy Spirit, that we are feasting upon the Word of God and obeying His commands which include sharing our love for Christ with others.

Bible Reading:
I Thessalonians 4:5-8

Today's Action Point:
Through the enabling of the Holy Spirit, I shall walk in the light with Christ who is the light of the world, and reflect His light in such an attractive way that those who walk in darkness will be drawn to the light as moths are drawn to a burning candle.

Making His Words Mine

2007-03-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

by : Marilyn Ehle

"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." (Luke 23:46)

In many churches these words are heard only on what is called Good Friday as Christians gather in sad quiet to remember Jesus' death on a cross. We ponder their meaning: Jesus' ultimate surrender and sacrifice to pay the required price for the salvation of men and women who deserve nothing yet are offered everything by a loving God.

But what could happen in our lives - and in our world - if every morning before embarking on the day's busy schedule and heavy responsibilities, we offered such words with strong conviction to God. "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit - my entire self. Thank you in advance for the people and circumstances I will encounter today. I acknowledge that you are in control and I can trust you. You have only my good and your glory in store. Grant me peace and courage today."

After three days in the tomb, Jesus, by the power of God, was resurrected to new life and the miracles have not ceased. God wants to bring new life to our tired minds and bodies. And we can be used as instruments in the world to extend that life to others. It all begins with committing ourselves to Him.

Thank you, Lord, that I can with full confidence commit my life to you. Please give me grace to trust you with all that I am and all that I have.

About the Author:
Marilyn Ehle has worked closely with businesswomen in the USA setting up and participating in luncheons and discussion groups which focused on issues pertinent to today's employed woman.

In addition to this Marilyn's has also worked for an international religious organization.for 39 years which took her and her family to Germany, Canada and the U.S. During this period Marilyn taught at seminars, workshops and small groups on subjects pertaining to priority planning, time management and biblical principles.

Marilyn was born in Michigan, USA and currently resides with her husband Bob in Colorado Springs, Colorado; they are the parents of three sons and one daughter and have four grandchildren. Marilyn enjoys reading, writing and walking.

Shout "My Fear Shall Laugh!" (3)

2007-03-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

A Month Filled with Hidden Blessings
Esther and Mordecai worked together for Deliverance! Haman, who used astrology and the casting of lots, was overthrown by God's ordered timing. God is raising up new Mordecais and Esthers to influence the world in days ahead. These individuals will do radical exploits in His name. In the time of Esther, we find that the enemy had entered the gates and was planning to overthrow the covenant blessings God had for this people. In the book of Esther, Mordecai had exposed the enemy's plan and taken his authority at the gate. The Lord says in Matthew 16: 18, "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." This is not a time for hell to prevail at your gate.

Esther is a book where we can see an example of the legislation of God's covenant plan for a people at the gates of a city. The gate of a city was where all business transactions and legal matters occurred. The city gate was also the place where entrance into the city was permitted or forbidden. A Biblical gatekeeper was one who guarded access to a place. Mordecai was a good gatekeeper. He knew the enemy had a plot and plan. He overheard the plan linked with Haman to annihilate God's covenant people in the land. Haman had prepared a noose for God's covenant people. The enemy will attempt to set a decree against you. Mordecai also knew he had to have a connection to prevent the enemy's plan from prevailing. Esther was his connection who had been positioned by God for "such a time as this." Many of you are being positioned to see the plan of the enemy. Others of you are being positioned to be the connecting point to overthrow the enemy. I am praying for you that any plot of the enemy to try and stop the covenant blessings of your inheritance from coming forth in your life would be revealed. Find your divine connections and overthrow the enemy's plan!

This is time to overthrow decrees that have been set against God's covenant people that would stop us from corporately advancing. Those anti-Semitic decrees hate God's sovereign plan for the Jews as well as Christians that have been grafted into that plan. Nations that profess Christianity must rise up now. Esther prayed and fasted three days prior to setting the wheels in motion to overthrow the enemy's plan. She had faith to go into the King's court because she was fully prepared at the end of these three days of fasting. Fasting helps prepare you for what you must face for your victory ahead. Esther was at the right place, at the right time, and did the right thing. Therefore, she had victory over the enemy. Your faith can overthrow any decree the enemy has established against you. The enemy prepares a noose to tighten around God's promised plan for your life. Faith breaks the power of that noose. Declare your Haman's noose will begin to break.

What does this say to us? If we allow the anointing of God to rest upon us and allow the beauty of holiness to surround and transform us, we can gain great favor. If we allow bitterness to cause the fragrance of the Lord to rise from us, we can have great influence in days ahead. We are seeing a generation of women arising that represent and demonstrate this same characteristic of Esther. Godly, obedient, grace-filled women are being positioned to overthrow the enemies of the future.

Face Your AMALEKITE and Break the Power of his Noose
The celebration of Purim begins on Saturday, March 3. Purim, of course, is the story of how Esther overcame Haman. Haman was an Amalekite. The Amalekites would come behind the army and begin to pick off the stragglers. The word Amalekite means "to toil or work under hard labor". This is a time for you to break out of legalistic, hard labor. The Amalekites were a nomadic tribe of formidable people that first attacked the Israelites after the Exodus at Rephidim. Amalek, the grandson of Esau (Gen. 36:12), inhabited the desolate wasteland of the northeast Sinai peninsula and the Negev. They were the first to attack Israel after the Exodus (Num. 24:20). This is where the Lord revealed Himself as Jehovah Nissi. He declared that we would war with Amalek from generation to generation. The antichrist spirit today is linked into this Amalekite spirit. Israel won the initial battle (Ex. 17:8-16), but later was driven back into the Sinai wilderness by a coalition of Amalekites and Canaanites (Num. 14:39-45). Because of their atrocities, God commanded Saul to exterminate the Amalekites (1 Sam. 15:2-3). Saul disobeyed, and the Amalekites were not defeated completely until late in the eighth century B.C. (1 Chron. 4:43). Haman the Agagite (Es. 3:1-10; 8:3-5,) thought by the Jews to be Amalek's descendant, from whence sprung Haman's hatred toward their race. Prepare yourself and watch your Haman be hung on his own gallows. Break all compromise. This simply means, during these next few days, your enemy will overplay his hand and you will end up victorious! Cross over and watch your new doors form!

Securing victory and overthrowing our enemies can often involve several stages of war. Whereas Esther and Mordecai successfully warred to secure a decree that would allow the Jews to protect themselves, this was only another step in their deliverance. It's quite possible the Jews could have survived the day that their enemies hoped to overpower them, solely based on the new level of fear their enemies had for the Jewish people. However, if they had not gone on the offensive and destroyed their enemies as their decree allowed them to, they would not have secured lasting protection. In that case, in due time, under new leadership (like the Hebrews in Egypt with a new pharaoh), the Jews could have been oppressed and targeted for destruction once again. In this Seven Year War Season, we must not be content to settle for preserving victories and the issuing of righteous decrees. Rather, we must fully war to the end of our battles to see complete deliverance and victory enforced, and the opposite of the enemy's plans occur. So along with the book of Joshua, Esther provides one of the clearest examples for the role of war to secure rest from one's enemies.

Receive the blessing of this month and enter into new strength! - Register Your Email for Free Newsletter from us

Source : Global Harvest Ministries

Shout "My Fear Shall Laugh!" (2)

2007-03-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

Month for Transformation and a Healed SPLEEN
Your true identity should be reflected this month. There is an identity for you in the invisible world that gives you authority. Guard yourself from idolatry. Begin to change your wardrobe - both spiritually and physically! The Lord made the body and relates His Body to our body. This is a month that we should concentrate on the spleen. Ask the Lord to heal your spleen. The spleen is a very important organ. The spleen works with the stomach to produce an accurate and efficient digestive system. The spleen plays an essential role in the transportation and transformation of nutrients. The spleen controls the blood flow. If you are overly anxious, your spleen is probably not working efficiently. An inefficient spleen is responsible for heightened anxiety and muscle weakness. The stomach digests the food we eat, and then the nutrients are transformed by the spleen. Then the nutrients are transported to all parts of the body. These nutrients are used for production of blood and body fluids. Chronic fatigue and digestive disorders are, many times, linked to a dysfunctional spleen. Lack of energy can produce depression and fatigue, and fluid build-up and stagnation causes toxins to poison the blood system. Pray the following :

Declare that any root of depression and despair break. I suggest a fruit and vegetable diet for 3 days.
Bind any confused communication or miscommunication. Declare your words and expressions will be clear.
Ask the Lord to remove your worry and anxiety over supply. This is the month to overturn worry through the release of supply. - Declare that you will find your supply in "hidden" dimensions.
This is the month that we should mount up and be at our strongest peak. Declare anything that is robbing your joy will be detected and removed. Declare that you will be stronger by mid-March than you were at the beginning of the month. Read EXODUS 23 and ISAIAH 40. Wait for the Lord's saving grace to be released in a new way and divine judgment to work against your enemies.

Let the Deliverers of the Future Awaken to the Call of God Today
This is a time for leadership to awaken. Adar was the month that Moses was born. Your deliverance is forming. This Pharaoh (in Exodus 1) had an anti-Semitic heart. His goal was to destroy all of Israel by removing the male children that would be the future leaders of Israel. His decree that every newborn son was to be cast into the river resulted in a death curse on the wombs of the Hebrew mothers. Moses was God's prophetic choice to redeem Israel. The astrologers of Egypt thought that the deliverer of the Jewish people would suffer misfortune through water (The Book of Our Heritage, Volume Two: Adar - Nisan, Feldheim Publishers, 1996, p 358). That is why, I believe, Pharaoh decided to have all the newborn boys thrown into the water. Moses' mother redeemed this curse by trusting God and placing her son in the water. Trusting in God is one of the ways that you overthrow a curse. One of the keys to Moses' life was that he was ordained as a prophet from birth. Even though his insecurity would tell him he could not speak, God had ordained him as a prophet. His mother and father's faith would eventually result in delivering all of Israel. This would also give Moses authority to split the sea for the escape of God's people. He also would receive the Law that would set the commandments and boundaries for mankind. There are new boundaries for you to obtain this month. Let the prophetic gift arise in you. Let a new level of deliverance begin.

Faith Overthrows the Enemy's Decrees
This is a time for decrees set against you to be broken. At the beginning of the year when we were worshipping at Starting the Year Off Right in Denton, I heard the Spirit of God say: "There is an intense period of prayer and fasting coming to the Body. Ten days of travail will come upon my people in March. This period will be your shifting time for the season of revival that is now upon you. This will be a period of removal. This will be a period of restoration. This will be a period of preparing the way and setting the course for the future. This will be a time to go through narrow, confining places in your life. By pressing through the confining places, I will begin to define your future. I will remove weakness, infirmity, and that which has bent you over and kept you from advancing in the past. This will open the door for spiritual BREAKTHROUGH - even doors that have been sealed tight. Do not fear the intensity of this time in your life but receive My strengthening. I will remove religious spirits that are stopping My Kingdom from advancing. This is a time for your enemies to be fully defined, and strategy developed for their exposure and overthrow."

2007-03-10T21:55:00.000-08:00

Shout "My Fear Shall Laugh!" (1)

2007-03-10T21:32:00.000-08:00

Be blessed and filled with the Spirit of God. May you have favor with the Lord and with all of those in your path. This is the Month of Adar (February 18, 2007- March 19, 2007, the year Samekh Zayin). The Lord designed time with a built-in blessing for us to claim and walk in! Over the weekend, I sensed the Spirit of the Lord instruct me to write and release the blessing of this month over you. There is great power in blessing. If you will receive the blessing of God each month, the power of the blessing will begin to work in your life and develop your identity. You will eventually go "from blessing to blessing until blessings overtake you."

Be Swift to Praise
Every month is linked with an understanding of one of the twelve tribes. Each tribe has a redemptive blessing. We are grafted into the blessings of Abraham and his descendents. This is a month linked with the tribe of Naphtali, "a deer (hind) let loose". The blessing of Naphtali included the concept of being swift and the ability to harvest quickly. The crops of the allotted land for this tribe would ripen swiftly. During the war with Sisera under Deborah's leadership, the valiant warriors of Naphtali were nimble, quick and played a leading role in Israel's victory. Naphtali was filled with praise because of the abundance of produce from its tribe's crops. They were more quick and agile than any other tribe and their communication secured Jacob's inheritance. On Galilee's mountains, this troop "brought good tidings" of Jesus (Is. 52:7). One of the best verses to shout out loud this month is, "The Lord will make my feet like hinds' feet." We should decree that we will skip and jump on the mountains of the circumstances in our lives. We should decree that our fortunes can increase and become strong. This is the month that joy must increase so we are propelled into a season of deliverance.

Remove the Mask of Sadness and Turn to Laughter
This is the month of the sense of laughter, abounding joy, the power of barrenness being broken, the advantage of light over darkness, and witnessing how light and revelation break the power of darkness around us. Decree any curse that has been spoken and set against you will be overturned. Declare the bitter will become sweet. Shout--"My Fear shall Laugh!" This is a month to celebrate! Declare deliverance from any deep hidden grief. Ask the Lord for joy and laughter to arise in your emotions. Declare your emotions are healed and restored.

Source : Global Harvest Ministries

Book Review : Praying for Purpose for Women: A Prayer Experience That Will Change Your Life Forever

2007-02-27T14:56:00.000-08:00

Praying for Purpose for Women: A Prayer Experience That Will Change Your Life Forever

By Katie Brazelton / Zondervan

Open your mind and heart to hear God's voice as you seek his purpose for your life! Sixty days of thought-provoking meditations, study questions, and reflections from influential Christian women inspire and motivate you as you discover your unique life calling. Learn from Kay Warren, Denalyn Lucado, Arvella Schuller, Florence Littauer, and others.

Book Review : Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God's Deliverance from a Former Pit-Dweller

2007-02-27T14:22:00.000-08:00

Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk about God's Deliverance from a Former Pit-Dweller

By Beth Moore / Thomas Nelson

Beth Moore wants readers to know if God could lift her out of the pit, He can get anyone out! She admits she wasn't just a visitor; she was a pit-dweller in need of deliverance from acres of life-accumulated dirt and mind-numbing confusion. She shares the permanent lessons of hope she learned in this very personal book. While empathizing with the hows and whys of life in the pit, she continually points readers to the deliverance that awaits.

The Passion of the Christ

2007-02-25T11:58:00.000-08:00

Remember The Passion of the Christ Film Directed by Mel Gibson? This Day in 2004 is the first launch of The Passion of the Christ, the most dramatic movie which depicts the sacrifice of Jesus Christ

The film opens (in media res) with Jesus in the midst of an agonizing struggle between his human and divine wills in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the Mount of Olives. He temporarily leaves his prayers, and finds Peter, James, and John sleeping against a tree. Jesus wakes them and asks why they could not watch one hour with him. They respond with concern, asking whether they should summon the other Apostles. Jesus responds that he doesn't want them to see him in such a horrid condition and tells them to keep watching and to pray.

Judas Iscariot meets with the Sanhedrin. Caiaphas, the High Priest (see Kohen Gadol), offers Judas, as is their agreement, thirty silver pieces to reveal where Jesus is. Judas accepts.

We return to Gethsemane Jesus praying, where we see he is being endlessly tempted by Satan (portrayed here as a sexless, albinese-like figure) to abandon the idea that one man can redeem the sins of the world. Jesus agonises over his coming death, but resists all temptation by calling on his Heavenly Father. Guards from the temple arrive with Judas so that he can identify Jesus. Jesus tells the guards calmly and unhesitatingly who he is. Judas then steps up and kisses Him on the cheek (Before coming to the garden, Judas told the guards that the one he kissed was who they wanted). Jesus berates Judas for betraying the Son of Man with a kiss. As Jesus is being shackled up, St. Peter attacks one of the guards, Malchus, with his sword slicing off Malchus' ear. Jesus picks it up and holds it against the guard's head, while telling Peter to drop his sword. Peter does so, and we see the guard's side of his face is healed as though nothing happened to it. Malchus is stunned and the Apostles flee in terror. Jesus is then dragged away by the guards, leaving the previously injured Malchus kneeling there, amazed and deeply touched by what has just happened.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, awakes from what seems to be a nightmare. Mary Magdelene is concerned and asks whether Mary is all right. Mary, instictively knowing that there is something wrong, responds by quoting from the prayers of Passover, "Why is this night different than other nights?" Mary Magdalene responds, "Because once we were slaves and we are slaves no longer." Suddenly John bursts in, telling them both that Jesus has been arrested.

As Jesus is being taken to the palace of Caiaphas, he is beaten with his chains and is repeatedly punched in the face, leaving one eye swollen shut. Judas is sitting under a bridge when Jesus is thrown over it by the Temple guards. Judas looks on with agony and shame. A demon appears from out of the air and sends a terrified Judas running away.

At the temple, Jesus sees Mary, Magdelene, and John. Jesus then recalls a tender memory of building a table for a rich man (possibly Joseph of Arimathea) and joking about it with his mother. We then cut back to Jesus standing before the Sanhedrin, including Caiaphas. Mary, Mary Magdelene, St. Peter, St. John, and Judas watch from afar as the temple priests denounce every doctrine that Jesus has taught, including that he is the King of the Jews, and the events of the Last Supper. Jesus is asked if these accusations are true, and He says yes, declaring further that they will see him sitting at the right hand of the Father. Horrified by Jesus's "blasphemy", Caiaphas tears his garments and screams in frustration. The infuriated priests beat Jesus and spit in His face. Jesus is then condemned to death.

A horrified Peter attempts to flee, but is seized by several people who point out that he is a disciple of Jesus. Peter denies it each of the three times it is pointed out. As Jesus turns around and bores into him with His uninjured eye, Peter is overwhelmed with guilt and shame. When the Virgin Mary attempts to comfort him, Peter flees, crying that he is unworthy and bewailing what he has done. Judas goes to Caiaphas and pleads with him to release Jesus and take back the money. However, Caiaphas refuses to take it back, declaring that if Judas thinks he has betrayed innocent blood, it is his problem. Judas angrily throws the money on the Temple floor and runs off grief-stricken. As he sits by a fire, two children approach him and ask him what's wrong. When Judas curses them, they turn into demons. They chase Judas, tormenting him as he flees outside the city walls(Satan is visible among them). After they disappear, Judas finds a dead donkey which is being devoured by maggots. Overwhelmed with despair and unable to live with his shame, Judas takes the rope which was on the donkey and hangs himself from a tree. Meanwhile, the Temple priests bring Jesus to the court of Pontius Pilate, so that he may be crucified under Roman Law. Pilate angrily demands to know whether they always punish their prisoners before they are tried. After Caiaphas responds that Jesus has declared Himself the Messiah, Pontius privately examines Him. He offers Jesus a goblet of wine, but Jesus, having vowed to no longer drink the fruit of the vine at the Last Supper, politely declines. Pilate asks whether He is the King of the Jews. Jesus responds that His kingdom is not of this world and that if it were, His servants would never have allowed Him to be handed over to His enemies. He further declares that all who hear the truth hear His voice. Pilate cynically retorts, "What is truth?"

Pilate returns to the crowd, tells them that he finds no crime in Jesus and orders the priests to bring Him before King Herod Antipas, because Jesus is a Nazarene, and thus one of Herod's subjects. Caiaphas angrily protests but grudgingly obeys. Herod is an effeminate bisexual, deeply impressed by reports of Jesus's miracles. But when Jesus remains silent and will not respond to his pleas to work "a little miracle for me", Herod mocks Him, laughing that Jesus is just "crazy." When the priests return him to Pilate, he is not pleased. He forces Caiaphas to choose between the release of a "notorious murderer" named Barabbas and clemency for Jesus. Caiaphas is so filled with hatred for Jesus that he cries "Release Barabbas!"

Pilate asks them what they feel a fair punishment would be, and the crowd, bribed by the Temple priests, scream out "Crucify him!" Pilate refuses, fearing that Jesus's followers will revolt and that the ensuing bloodshed will turn the Emperor against him. Instead, he orders Jesus to be flogged, hoping that the sight will make Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin reconsider their desire for the death penalty.

We are then taken to Jesus being shackled to a broken pillar. Two Roman soldiers are to carry out the flagellation. They each pick up wooden switches and commence striking Jesus on the back. He is bruised, bloodied, and beaten, and sinks to his knees. Mary, Mary Magdelene, and St. John all watch, utterly shattered. To everyone's astonishment, Jesus wills himself back to his feet, even after the beating has exhausted the guards. They angrily put down the rods and each pick up a barbed scourge and continue. Jesus' flesh is further mutilated to the point where his left rib cage is visible. He seems on the brink of death before Abenader, the centurion who will later become St. Ctesiphon, angrily orders the flogging to cease, saying that they were not authorized to scourge him to death. The soldiers grudgingly put down their whips and release Jesus, but they have to drag him away because his agony is too great.

The Virgin Mary and Mary Magdelene are presented with linen towels by Claudia Procles, Pilate's wife, who is just as crushed as they over what has just happened. They both go down to the courtyard and begin mopping the blood with the linen. Magdelene weeps as she remembers how Jesus saved her once from being stoned to death when she was still a prostitute.

Jesus is seen in a barn-like room, sitting against a wooden post. The two Roman soldiers who flogged him drive a crown of thorns into his scalp and spit on him. He is given a red soldier's cloak and mockingly treated with royal homage. "Hail, King of the Worms", laughs one of the guards as he bows. Jesus is then brought back to Pontius Pilate who is disgusted by how badly beaten Jesus is. He asks the rioting crowds if they are satisfied, but Caiaphas demands more. He still demands that Jesus be crucified. Pilate disgustedly washes his hands of the whole affair and declares, "I am innocent of this man's blood." He orders Abenader to do as Caiaphas demands.
We then see Jesus walking between two other criminals being crucified. The two beside him are tied to just a part of their cross--Jesus has to carry his own huge cross. Jesus embraces His cross, prompting mockery from one of the thieves. As He carries it through the streets, He is endlessly beaten and yelled at by the crowds and the Roman soldiers alike. Mary, Mary Magdelene, and St. John follow him.

Down a small alleyway, Jesus trips and falls with the cross. The cross crushes him, Mary runs to her son, flashing back to a time when he fell as a small child. As she reaches him she tries to comfort him, saying, "I'm here." Jesus looks at her, and wills Himself up to carry His cross, and, quoting the Book of Isaiah declares "Behold, Mother, I make all things new." He rises to His feet and continues on his way. As Jesus keeps walking, He continues to fall under the weight of the heavy cross. The guards mock Him and whip Him each time. Abenader approaches again and, noting how weak Jesus has become, orders the soldiers to help Jesus carry the cross. Instead of doing this themselves, they find a man in the crowds, Simon of Cyrene, to help Him carry it. He grudgingly agrees to help.

As the two keep going, Jesus falls without the cross. Simon is shocked at the weight which he cannot carry by himself. A riot breaks out, with groups of people fighting to get a chance at beating Jesus. Guards fight them off, and as that happens, St. Veronica approaches Jesus with a cloth and a pitcher of water. Jesus uses the cloth to wipe his bloodied face. However, as he goes to take a drink, a soldier walks over and kicks the cup over, and drives Veronica away. As the procession continues the viewer sees that Veronica's Veil has been imprinted with the image of His face.

While the soldiers continue to beat Jesus with whips, Simon angrily threatens to not help with the cross if they don't stop what they're doing. They scornfully call him "Jew", but they oblige. The procession continues, headed for Golgotha, or "The Place of the Skull."

Once there, Simon is ordered to leave. As he is driven away, he looks into Jesus's one open eye with love and pity. We see Mary, Mary Magdelene and John again. It is interesting that Jesus seems to eagerly climb onto the cross thus reinforcing the belief that he willing died to save mankind. They all watch as Jesus is stretched onto the cross. They nail both of his hands, dislocating His right arm in order to make his hand reach the pre-drilled hole for the nail. In the midst of His agony, Jesus prays for mercy for all the sinners of the world, crying "Forgive them, Father. They do not know..." They then bind and nail his feet. They flip the cross over on Jesus' front side. However, Jesus is elevated off the ground. The guards then flip the cross back over and raise it. As the cross is raised, we are taken to a flashback of the Last Supper, considered by Catholics to be the first Mass. We watch as Jesus elevates the Host.

On the cross, he is mocked by Caiaphas and the Temple priests, and by the thief to his left, who tells Him to save them all if he is truly the Son of God. Jesus prays, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do." The thief on his right tells Caiaphas, "Listen, He prays for you." The Good Thief then tells Jesus his punishment is just, and that Jesus would be justified in condemning him, but he says, "Lord, remember me when I come into your Kingdom." Jesus tells the thief "On this day, you will be with me in paradise." As the other thief cackles with laughter over this, a crow comes from the sky and plucks at his face.

Jesus is getting weaker; simultaneously, the skies are turning darker. Mary and John approach Jesus on his cross. Jesus declares, "I thirst!" A sympathetic Roman soldier named Cassius, later to become St. Longinus, puts a sponge on a spear and soaks it in water. Jesus tastes it and then turns his head aside. The Virgin Mary pleads with Jesus to let her die with him. Jesus then tells Mary that John will now take care of her, and tells John that Mary is now his mother. Jesus then cries out in Aramaic "Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?" ("Eli, eli, lamai sabactani?") Jesus then looks down upon them, saying, "It is completed." Mary Magdelene weeps. Jesus then looks upward and gasps "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." The pupil of His one open eye dilates, and He exhales his last breath.

Suddenly there is a very violent earthquake. All the spectators of the crucifixion flee, and the soldiers are ordered to break the criminals' legs, in order to hasten their deaths. The Roman soldier Cassius breaks the legs of the thieves to Jesus' sides, but when he comes to break Jesus' legs, there is another tremble from the Earth. He tells Abenader that Jesus is already dead. Abenader orders him to make sure. Cassius then drives a lance into Jesus's side. Blood and water pours from the wound as Cassius falls to his knees. It is at this moment that everyone, Romans and Jews alike, realize they have indeed killed the Son of God. Meanwhile, back at the temple, the earthquake has shattered it in half and the Holy of Holies is revealed. Caiphas, stricken with horror and shock, begins to weep.

In the depths of Hell, Satan screams in impotent rage, knowing that his power has been broken forever.

That night, Jesus is removed from the cross. Mary embraces the body of her beloved son in a manner reminiscent of Michelangelo's Pieta, kissing him one last time. The Virgin Mary stares blankly ahead, her eyes a mirror of her broken heart.

We are then shown the interior of His tomb three days later, on Easter Sunday. We hear a rock rolling and as the morning light slowly streams into the interior, we see Jesus resurrected and his scourging wounds healed. He opens His eyes and stands up, and we see the hole in His hand from the nail. He walks out of His tomb to triumphant music, and the credits roll.

Taken From : thefreedictionary. com

Love affection

2007-02-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

On an emotional level, love is affection and attachment. Yet there is a great difference between loving one another and being love for one another.

Inviting the love of God to express tenderness, acceptance, and compassion through us, we express divine qualities that allow us to perceive the presence of God in everyone and everything. We build ourselves up, and we help support one another.

With invisible sacred links, divine love unites us as couples, families, friends, and all creation. Looking at one another and our world through eyes of love, we recognize the good in all people and all circumstances.

With a willingness to love and to be loved, we open ourselves and our lives to unlimited blessings. Because God is love, we open wide our arms and our lives to God. This is how I picture you: as God's love in expression, and what a beautiful sight you are!

Love and blessings,

~ Yogha

More Than A Paycheck

2007-01-14T11:44:00.000-08:00

By: Vonette Bright

"But you shouldn't be so concerned about perishable things like food. No, Spend your energy seeking the eternal life tha I, the Messiah, can give you. For God the Father has sent me for this very purpose." (John 6:27).

Amy had a burden for some of her co-workers. She began to pray for them. Then Amy had an idea! She decided while her co-workers fed their bodies, she could feed their souls with God's Word! She invited them to a noontime weekly Bible Study.

Well, the response was so positive! It wasn't long before there were groups meeting four days a week!

Friend, wherever you work, remember your job is more than just nine to five. It's an opportunity to share God's eternal love.

Begin by praying for your co-workers. Look for ways to care for them.Invite someone out for lunch to talk about spiritual matters. Or ask permission to host a Bible Study during lunchtime or after work.

Bring home more than a paycheck. Make an investment in eternity!

About the Author:
Vonette Bright is the co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International and host of Women Today with Vonette Bright, a series of national radio spots

Daily Treasure

2006-12-10T09:13:00.000-08:00

By: Vonette Bright

"Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord" (James 5:14).

Suzanne doesn't mind telling people her age. And she doesn't call the small lines around her mouth and eyes "wrinkles." She calls them "opportunities."

Suzanne was diagnosed with cancer when she was 32 years old. She was given only a 10 percent chance of surviving five years.

But 13 years later Suzanne is thankful for cancer in many ways. It taught her to prioritize her life. Suzanne now spends more time with God and with her family. She celebrates each day as a precious gift.

The Bible says, "life is like a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes."

Friend, your life on this earth is short. Dedicate each morning to God. Ask Him to show you His plan for your life every day.

Remember...life is a gift. Treasure each "opportunity" God gives you.

About the Author:
Vonette Bright is the co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International and host of Women Today with Vonette Bright

Also Visit my New Website :

http://AffiliateProgram.Co.Nr

http://Asuransi.Co.Nr

Being Christian means knowing Jesus personally as a friend

2006-09-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Being Christian is not just about listening to God's word and understanding his teachings, it is also about getting to know Jesus as a friend and personally discovering who he really is, Pope Benedict XVI said.

Jesus "in fact is not only a teacher but is a friend, indeed, a brother. How can we know him from afar? Intimacy, familiarity, routine" are what help people discover who Jesus really is, the pope said.

The pope.s remarks came during his Sept. 6 weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square. The large number of people requesting tickets to the audience prompted organizers to move the venue from the smaller air-conditioned Paul VI hall to the spacious square in front of St. Peter's Basilica.

To shade himself from Rome's intense sunlight, Pope Benedict wore for the first time in public a Roman "galero," the wide-brimmed red hat often worn by Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. The last time a pope wore the shady, lightweight, ecclesiastical hat was when Pope John Paul II visited Mexico in 1979.

In his address, the pope continued a series of talks on the apostles, this time focusing on the life and example of Philip.

Even though Jesus had told the apostles, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father," Philip still asked Jesus to show them God the Father so as to know and see him, the pope said. Jesus assured Philip that "I am in the Father and the Father is in me," adding his surprise that "you still do not know me, Philip?" Pope Benedict said.

Jesus, in fact, invited all the apostles not just to listen to him, but to be with him, to take part in his life and become his friends so that they would know God, said the pope.

The pope said, "The important thing is to learn Christ, not only and not just by listening to his teachings, but even more so by knowing him in person, that is, his humanity and divinity, his mystery, his beauty."

This friendship with Jesus and truly getting to know him is like any real friendship in that "it necessitates closeness, it even exists in part" on being close to each other, the pope said.

But Christians are also called to share with others and show the way that leads to Jesus, he said.

When bystanders asked Philip to show them Christ, he did not just "announce the Gospel like a theory," the pope said, but he invited the others to experience Jesus in person.

"This teaches us to also always be ready both in welcoming questions and requests from wherever they come and in directing (people) toward the Lord, the only one who can fully satisfy" people's needs, said the pope.

The faithful must be "an open road" that leads others to Christ, he said, adding that living without the "indispensable fellowship" of Jesus is living a life of solitude, of being "ever more alone."

In greetings to pilgrims in Italian, the pope said he hoped his upcoming visit to Germany would help the German people experience "a renewed springtime of faith and civil progress."

He thanked God for the opportunity to visit his homeland in Bavaria for the first time since he was elected pope more than a year ago.

Among the 25,000 pilgrims present in the audience was a group of Tendai Buddhists from Japan. After the audience, the pope personally greeted the monks who had attended the Sept. 4-5 Interreligious Prayer Meeting for Peace in Assisi, Italy.

Overcoming Anger and Fear

2006-09-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

The evangelist shares practical steps for dealing with destructive emotions.
- By Billy Graham

Emotions That Destroy: Anger and Bitterness

Every destructive emotion bears its own harvest, but anger's fruit is the most bitter of all. Uncontrolled anger is a devastating sin, and no one is exempt from its havoc. It shatters friendships and destroys marriages; it causes abuse in families and discord in business; it breeds violence in the community and war between nations. Its recoil, like that of a high-powered rifle, often hurts the one who wields it as well as its target. Anger makes us lash out at others, destroying relationships and revealing our true nature. The history of the human race is largely the history of its anger.

Nor are Christians exempt from anger's grip. After Jesus' arrest Peter angrily denied his Lord: "He began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, 'I don't know this man you're talking about"' (Mark 14:71). Paul had to urge the Ephesian Christians to "get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice" (Ephesians 4:31). How many churches have been torn apart by someone's anger? How many people have been turned away from Christ because of a Christian's anger? We get angry when others hurt us, both by what they say and what they do.

We get angry too when we don't get our own way or our plans and dreams are frustrated. Anger may arise in an instant erupting like a volcano and raining destruction on everyone in sight. Often, however, anger simmers just below the surface, sometimes for a lifetime. Like a corrosive acid, this kind of anger eats away at our bodies and souls, yet we may not even be aware of its presence.

Some people are angry at God. Sometimes I get letters from people who have been touched by tragedy—but instead of seeking God's help, they angrily blame Him for what happened. As a result they cut themselves off from the peace and joy He alone can give us, even when we don't understand.

Is anger ever justified? Yes—when it is caused by injustice and sin instead of our selfishness or hurt pride. God is angry when His righteousness is scorned; Jesus forcefully drove out from the temple those who were callously making money from God's people (Matthew 21:12-13). We must be careful, however; sometimes our so-called 'righteous indignation' is little more than a cover for lovelessness or self-righteousness.

Anger and bitterness (as well as hatred, jealousy, and resentment, their offspring) aren't identical, but they are closely related. Bitterness is anger gone sour, an attitude of deep discontent that poisons our souls and destroys our peace. My wife has said that a bitter, sour Christian is one of Satan's greatest trophies—and she's right. The Bible says, "See to it…that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many" (Hebrews 12:15). Are anger or bitterness keeping you from becoming the person God wants you to be?

Conquering Anger
Can we overcome our anger, instead of constantly being overcome by it? Yes—with God's help. Peter's anger was channeled into boldness for Christ. Paul's anger against Christians was replaced with a burning passion to spread the Gospel. The Bible commands us "to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:23-24). Is this your goal?

How should we deal with anger? The answer is decisively! The first step in gaining victory over unjustified anger is to want to get rid of it—and the key to that is to see it for what it is: sin in God's eyes. Jesus warned, "Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment" (Matthew 5:22).

This means we must stop making excuses for our anger or bad temper—blaming it on our parents, for example, or claiming we have every right to be angry because of something that happened to us in the past. We also must face honestly the toll anger and bitterness take on our lives. They are our enemies! The Bible says, "An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins" (Proverbs 29:22). It also says, "Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; …it leads only to evil" (Psalm 37:8). Never underestimate anger's destructive power.

Divine Nature

2006-04-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

Living from my inner divine nature, I honor the Christ Presence within all.

I imagine the scene as Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a colt. In honor of Him, first one person and then another spread a cloak or a leafy branch on the road before Him.

I honor the Christ by spreading the good news of the Sacred Presence within all. I think and talk about myself and others from the understanding of our divine nature. There is potential for good that lies within each one of us. This good is waiting and ready to be recognized and expressed.

I am living life from my inner divine nature. I honor my own divinity and that of others as I give recognition to the sacred within all.

"Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting,'Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!"
--Mark 11:9

Pattern of Life

2006-04-11T11:51:00.001-07:00

The Christ Spirit moves through me as truth and life. I am a whole and holy being.

A drop of water seems so insignificant when compared to the magnitude and power of an ocean. Yet that drop of water contains the essence of the ocean. Its intrinsic nature is that of the very ocean that is calling it back to reconnecting with its source.

Because each individual contains the essence of the Christ Spirit, I never let myself think of another or myself as insignificant. Jesus was the model for the expression of Christ qualities, and as I follow in the footsteps of Jesus, I am following the way, the truth, and the life that Jesus demonstrated so powerfully and faithfully.

The Christ Spirit moves through me as truth and life. I am a whole and holy person who knows I am fulfilling a pattern of life that enriches me and every life I touch.

"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth,and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' "

--John 14:6

MOTHER THERESA

2006-03-28T09:02:00.000-08:00

Mother Theresa lahir pada tanggal 27 Agustus 1910 di kota Skopje (Yugoslavia) dengan nama Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Orang tuanya berasal dari Albania. Pada usia 18 tahun gadis Agnes masuk orde Zuster van Loreta di kota Dublin, Irlandia, yang aktif dengan pengiriman misi ke India. Setahun kemudian Agnes dikirim oleh ordonya ke Cacutta di India dan sejak itu memakai nama zuster Theresa. Sejak tahun 1946 pada usia ke-36, zuster Theresa menjadi guru di Sekolah Menengah St. Mary's di Calcutta. Zuster Theresa juga banyak menolong orang sakit, terutama anak-anak. Karenanya anak-anak di Calcutta sangat menyayangi zuster Theresa dan memanggil beliau dengan sebutan akrab, Mother Theresa. Syukur alhamdulilah, masyarakat Hindu India tidak kerdil jiwanya, sehingga Mother Theresa tidak dituduh hendak "mengkristenkan" India. Orang Hindu India lebih menghargai karya kemanusiaan Mother Theresa ketimbang meributkan perbedaan agama.

Tahun 1948 pada usianya yang ke-38, Mother Theresa bernaturalisasi menjadi WN India. Di tahun itu juga Mother Theresa meninggalkan ordonya untuk hidup di tengah-tengah orang miskin dan memilih memakai pakaian khas India, gaun sari putih sederhana dengan kerudung kepala bergaris biru di sekitar kepalanya. Beliau sudah menguasai bahasa Bengal secara fasih. Gadis-gadis Calcutta muda usia yang terkesan ke pada karya sosial Mother Theresa menawarkan tenaganya secara spontan untuk membantu. Grup sukarelawati India itu berkembang pesat, sehingga pada tahun 1950 sebuah ordo baru pun lahir dengan nama "Missionarissen van Naastenliefde" (Misionaris Kasih Sayang Sesama). "Kasih sayang terhadap sesama" memang adalah inti dari ajaran agama Katolik. Ordo baru "Misionaris Kasih Sayang Sesama" di India itu telah diakui resmi oleh Vatican, karenanya kini berada dalam struktur organisasi Gereja Katolik Roma.

Mother Theresa, 1910 - 1997.
Ordo baru asuhan Mother Theresa itu hanya mempunyai satu misi, yaitu menolong kaum miskin yang paling miskin di Calcutta/India. Kemudian misinya berkembang sampai ke luar India, di beberapa negara didirikan klinik, barak penampungan orang miskin, dapur umum, panti asuhan dll. Di tahun 1979 Mother Theresa menerima Nobel Perdamaian. Almarhum Sri Paus Johannes Paulus II yang sangat terkesan dengan karya Mother Theresa, telah menyediakan waktunya beberapa kali untuk menerima audiensi Mother Theresa di Vatican. Tahun 1997 Mother Theresa wafat dalam usia 87 tahun di Calcutta, kota di mana beliau menghabiskan sebagian besar dari hidupnya untuk berkarya, menjalankan kasih sayang Tuhan. Karya Mother Theresa kini dilanjutkan oleh zuster Nirmala, orang asli India.

Pemerintah Albania telah menambah satu hari libur nasional ekstra, yaitu tanggal 19 Oktober, hari ditentukannya Mother Theresa sebagai "orang suci" oleh almarhum Sri Paus Johannes Paulus II, enam tahun setelah wafatnya Mother Theresa. Buat Albania, tanggal 19 Oktober 2003 adalah juga permulaan dari pesta nasional setahun penuh yang dinamakan The Year of Mother Theresa. Karena belakangan kota Skopje di Albania menjadi ibukota negara Macedonia, maka sempat terjadi ketegangan antara Albania dan Macedonia, masing-masing meng-claim Mother Theresa sebagai berasal dari negaranya. Beruntung keributan itu tidak berlanjut. Albania menyebut Mother Theresa sebagai "tokoh rakyat Albania", sedangkan Macedonia mengelu-elukan beliau sebagai "putri dari Macedonia". Apa pun yang terjadi, Mother Theresa telah berbuat banyak buat sesama manusia, karya seni ciptaan Allah yang paling sempurna ini. KASIHILAH SESAMAMU, MAKA KAU TELAH MENGASIHI TUHAN ALLAH-MU.

Oleh : Danny Lim, Nederland

Sumber Lain : http://nobelprize.org/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-bio.html

Ingin Beli Tas Notebook Harga Rp.80.000 saja? Klik Disini

Kolekte

2006-03-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

Ada keluarga pas-pasan dengan 1 orang anak (sekolah),1 istri (tidak bekerja), 1 suami (bekerja).

Setiap hari Jumat si suami mewajibkan dirinya untuk bertanya kepada istrinya: "Ibu, apakah Ibu sudah menyiapkan kolekte untuk Misa Hari Minggu?"
Si Suami akan lega jika jawaban dari istrinya:"Sudah, Pak."

Jika jawabannya belum/tidak ada uang,maka sang suami akan bekerja pada hari sabtu agar dapat memperoleh rejeki yang dapat dipersembahkan kepada Tuhan dalam kolekte.

Sepulang sekolah pada hari Jumat Si Anak ditanya oleh Si Ibu "Nak, hari ini uang jajanmu utuh, apa kamu tidak jajan?"
Si Anak hanya menjawab: "Tidak, Bu."
Kejadian seperti ini selalu berulang setiap Hari Jumat.

Setelah terjadi berulangkali itulah Si Ibu menanyakan apa maksud Si Anak melakukan hal ini, dan jawabannya adalah: "Saya berharap dengan uang ini saya bisa membayar ongkos angkot ke gereja dan sedikit untuk kolekte."

Lepas dari cerita itu fiktif atau sebuah kisah nyata rasanya sangat bijak untuk direnungkan

Sumber : cuplikan dari milis SerayuNet

Anda Berminat VCD From Glory to Glory?

2006-03-21T03:33:00.000-08:00

Khusus bagi Bro & Sis yang berminat mendapatkan VCD Dokumentasi Kesaksian From Glory to Glory

Saya masih ada koleksi pribadi sebanyak 8 buah saja. Sangat pas juga untuk menyambut KKR Benny Hin :)

From Glory to Glory
VCD ini berisi kumpulan mujizat yang dilakukan oleh hamba-hamba Tuhan baik dalam dan luar negeri. Anda akan menyaksikan betapa Bapa kita yang dikenal melalui Yesus Kristus. Ingin mencurahkan kuasa-Nya di akhir jaman.

Dalam perjalanan pelayanan banyak hal baru uang Allah Bapa tunjukkan melalui Yesus Kristus dalam kuasa Roh Kudus. Hal-hal baru berupa mujizat yang silih berganti datang membuat iman menjadi lebih bersemangat untuk mengikut Tuhan.

Melalui VCD ini semoga Anda terbangun imannya, makin mantap mengikut Tuhan Yesus, dan makin bersemangat untuk menjadi pekerja di ladangNya yang subur.
VCD ini memuat kesaksian mujizat dari beberapa Hamba-Nya :

Silvania Machado - Diamond Dust
Pnt. Dorcas Daud - Gold and Diamond Dust
Rev. Joe Poppel - Memanjangkan Tulang
Harold & Kaye Bayer - Mujizat Manna
Rev. TB Joshua - Mujizat Kesembuhan

Jangan ketinggalan dalam perlombaan iman, Ayo Ambil Urapan baru! dan Maju bersama dalam Iman!

Bagi Bro & Sis yang berminat mendapatkan VCD diatas dengan mengganti biaya pengiriman , yg tidak seberapa yaitu Rp. 30.000 ( P. Jawa) dan Rp. 35.000 (Luar Jawa) sebagai persembahan kasih Anda

Untuk memastikan ketersediaan barang silahkan SMS terlebih dulu ke : 0852 2802 5480

Untuk pembayaran silahkan kirim ke :
* Tiga digit terakhir sesuaikan dgn no HP Anda utk menghindarkan dari kekeliruan dan salah kirim ( Misal no HP Anda xxx.xxxx.123 maka Transfer Anda adalah Rp. 30.123 / Rp. 35.123)

BCA - KCU. SOEKARNO-HATTA - BANDUNG
Acc. 346-1600-652
A/N : ROBERTUS HARDIANTO

Konfirmasi Pembayaran dan alamat lengkap bisa via SMS ke : 0852 2802 5480 atau email yogha01@yahoo.com.sg

Demikian informasi-nya dan terima kasih utk waktu Anda

Salam

~ Yogha

Harmony

2006-03-16T09:01:00.001-08:00

As an instrument of God's peace, I speak and act in harmonious ways.

With a desire to create more harmony in a situation, I look past any seeming disagreement to the good intentions that are there. For instance, people who disagree on fabric color truly agree that they want the color that is best. People who disagree on what direction to take share the goal of wanting to move in the right direction.

I am being an instrument of harmony in the world when I trust God to work through me and everyone else to generate accord. I listen for the underlying agreement that is always possible, and I speak words that will uncover the expression of harmony that is always possible. I am a peacemaker.

"If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind."
--Philippians 2:1-2

Secure

2006-03-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

The presence of God is my source of abundance, wholeness, and peace.

When writers of the Old Testament wanted to reassure the people of God's protecting, guiding presence, they described God as a rock. A large rock is unmovable by human strength alone, solid in every way.

God is the solid presence on which my life is grounded. In a quiet time of contemplation, I go within to this sacred inner presence for reassurance. Here I receive guidance in ways of peace and safety, and what is mine to do is revealed to me.

The presence of God is my source of abundance, wholeness, and peace. Each day, I build on an awareness that reflects the strength and solidity of God. Secure in this awareness, I know that all is well.

"For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, and all his ways are just."
--Deuteronomy 32:3-4

KASIH

2006-03-11T03:27:00.000-08:00

KASIH ITU SABAR

KASIH ITU LEMAH LEMBUT

KASIH PASTI MEMAAFKAN

KASIH MEMPERBAIKI KESALAHAN

KASIH ITU MEMBIMBING

KASIH ITU MELAYANI

SEMUA AKAN MENJADI INDAH DENGAN KASIH

Law of Dominant Thought...

2006-03-05T00:17:00.000-08:00

by Delton Doucet

Earl Nightingale, the great success writer, speaker, and broadcaster spoke of the Law of Dominant thought in his famous recording The Strangest Secret by calling it the key to success when he stated We Become What We Think About.

Over the centuries many others have came across this powerful knowledge as well like Ralph Waldo Emerson who stated A Man Is What He Thinks About All Day Long and even the Bible speaks of it many times, especially in Proverbs 23:7 As A Man Thinketh In His Heart, So Is He.

Many people attempt to change their thinking process yet many fail to change their thought patterns and the reason for their failure is that they do not make it their Dominant Thoughts.

They simply change their thoughts to positive thoughts for a few minutes a day and expect life altering changes and it simply does not work that way. Do you expect to run a marathon by simply jogging 1 mile a day? Its simply not going to happen.

To get the changes you desire you must take full control of your thoughts all day everyday till it becomes a habit. You must make your positive thoughts your Dominant Thoughts in all areas of your life. It is only then that you will begin to see the changes that you desire.

Change your thoughts and you will change your life.

Heavens, Asia's going Christian

2006-03-02T19:41:00.001-08:00

By Michael Vatikiotis

SINGAPORE - The official guide to churches and Christian organizations in Singapore runs to more than 390 pages. With names like God@work, Great Shepherd Assembly and City Impact, there are 44 registered churches from the US-based Assemblies of God alone in Singapore. A Christian from Myanmar, a Korean Christian, even a Thai Christian can find services in their own language - though for the most part Chinese is the language of the Christian faith here.

Singapore is one of the fastest-growing Christian communities in Asia, along with Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. In fact,

Asia is projected to become one of the largest Christian populations in the world, on pace to eclipse Europe in the next 30 years. The US State Department estimates there could already be as many as 100 million Christians in China, even though the official tally of believers is below 50 million.

The US-led "war on terror" has focused worldwide concern on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism as a precursor to violent militancy. Moderate or secular behavior among Asia's Muslims is considered the long-term antidote to religious fervor. But in the wider context encompassing Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, the trend in Asia is anything but moderate or secular. Across the region, charismatic sects are springing up and drawing young people to religious faith. And new Asian converts to Christianity are arguably outpacing the spread of Islam.

The new believers are often Asia's upwardly mobile, although the dirt-poor and desperate still flock to Christianity's promise of eternal salvation. Far from embracing materialist and consumer values and completely abandoning religion, middle-class Chinese residents of Singapore, Taipei and Hong Kong all regularly flock to Pentecostal or charismatic churches.The houses of worship offer relief from the stress of modern existence to the accompaniment of pop music - and some throw in fresh coffee and broadband Internet for good measure. They are active in social welfare, and sometimes in politics - the Pentecostal Church of Taiwan has advocated independence from China for the island, which Beijing still claims is a renegade province. In Hong Kong, the church backs the movement for democracy.

The trend toward religiosity in Asian societies is plain, if not predictable. As Asia's economies have grown, many at a breakneck pace, so too have social inequalities and uncertainties. In urban areas, the resulting hardships are felt even more because migration deprives people of family or community support and breeds alienation. The church, the temple or the mosque is often the only place people facing hardship can turn to.

Every Sunday as many 12,000 people, in shifts of several thousand, cram into the Rock auditorium at the Suntech Convention Center in the heart of Singapore's business district. They are members of the New Creation Church founded in 1983, and its pastors tell their followers what they want to hear. The church's website boasts "many miraculous healings of cancers, tumors, kidney conditions and much more". The site also mentions "God's supernatural provision in the area of finances".

Not far away in Jurong district, the Reverend Kong Hee, accompanied by his pop-singer wife Ho Yeow Sun, packs in a similar number at the City Harvest Church. With a backing band belting out soft pop music in the background, the US-trained evangelist croons: "We enter the presence of God in worship, receive his spoken word that strengthens, encourages, nurtures and transforms us ..." The youthful congregation, dressed mainly in T-shirts and jeans, is ecstatic.

Charismatic pastors like Kong Hee are bringing Jesus into the marketplace of ideas and finding a pent-up demand for faith. The trend is creating a surge in Christian missionary activities, and with it spirited competition with activist Islam. Singaporean church organizations were very active in providing relief for victims of the December 2004 tsunami in strictly Islamic Aceh, prompting some Indonesian concerns about quid pro quo proselytization.

Like many Christian evangelists, Indonesian Islamic preachers such as A A Gymnastiar hog prime-time television spots during the Ramadan holy month, crooning their own brand of charismatic Islam. Their zany style is harmless enough, although without a doubt the growing appeal of strict Islamic adherence is breeding intolerance among some sections of Indonesian society.

There was a measurable increase in the number of hours given over to religious broadcasting during Ramadan last year. Nearly all restaurants serving alcohol were forced to close in line with the tradition of fasting. Supermarkets had withdrawn hard liquor from their shelves and foreign food brands are reacting by highlighting their halal compliance on packaging.

Some years ago, American scholar Samuel Huntington predicted a clash of civilizations along religious lines. Even with the growth of religiosity, in Asia that clash is yet to come to pass. Anger over the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper has been deeply felt in Asia's Muslim communities - but the anger was directed at irreverent Europeans, not local Christians.

In much of Asia, strong traditions of pluralism and accommodation have allowed Islam and Christianity to blossom side by side. Governments in Malaysia and Indonesia are promoting inter-faith dialogue to help shore up these traditions. Even nominally atheist China has recently loosened up on its hordes of Christian devotees. As Christianity takes deeper root in Asia, it is just as likely to spread without fear and resentment: a vibrant collage rather than clash of civilizations.

Michael Vatikiotis is former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. He is currently a visiting research fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HC02Ae03.html

Nilo dan Cochabamba - Patung Tumbang, Iman Kokoh

2006-02-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

John Mansford Prior, svd

Tanggal 21 Januari 2006 tepatnya pukul 10:10 siang patung monumental Bunda Segala Bangsa di Nilo, Kevikepan Maumere tumbang. Tujuh jam kemudian wilayah Maumere diguncang gempa bumi.

Kejatuhan patung tembaga ketinggian belasan meter di Nilo mengundang banyak reaksi. Umat sederhana tentu berduka; ada yang memeluk patung itu sambil menangis. Mereka datang ke Nilo untuk memasang lilin dan sembayang, lantas mereka menutupi wajah patung yang sudah mencium tanah dengan kain ungu. Umat berkabung selama empat hari sesuai adat setempat. Dan mereka, seperti banyak orang lain bertanya: apa sebetulnya yang sudah terjadi? Ada yang coba ingat kembali apakah dulu segala urusan adat dilaksanakan seperti semestinya? Orang lain menyesal bahwa patung itu tidak diatapi dan ditiup angin serta disengat sinar matahari tiap-tiap hari; pantaslah wajahnya kelihatan tidak berseri. Dan lain lagi yang ingat bahwa yang hadir pada waktu peresmian patung pada tgl. 31 Mei 2005 adalah tokoh-tokoh pemerintah Provinsi NTT serta Kabupaten Sikka. Ada yang mengingat bahwa Uskup Agung Ende serta pastor paroki setempat tidak hadir pada acara peresmian itu. Juga ada yang ingat akan Megawati Sukarnoputri, ketua umum PDIP, yang tampil gagah dan anggun membawakan sambutan kala itu dan mengatakan bahwa nanti Nilo akan menjadi tempat pembangunan vila-vila, daerah pariwisata. Dan masih banyak yang lain

Pada hari Sabtu itu ketika naik ke bukit Keling dan sendiri menyaksikan patung yang terobek di bagian kaki oleh angin kencang, saya teringat akan satu cerita dalam Alkitab. Nabi Daniel diminta menerangkan sebuah mimpi yang dialami kaisar Nebukadnezar. Daniel menjelaskan: "Tuanku melihat sebuah patung yang amat besar. Patung ini tinggi, berkilau-kilauan luar biasa, tegak di hadapan tuanku dan tampak mendahsyatkan. Adapun patung itu, kepalanya dari emas tua, dada dan lengannya dari perak, perut dan pinggangnya dari tembaga, sedang pahanya dari besi dengan kakinya sebagian dari besi dan sebagian dari tanah liat. Sementara tuanku melihatnya, terungkit lepas sebuah batu tanpa perbuatan tangan manusia lalu menimpa patung itu, tepat pada kakinya yang dari besi dan tanah liat itu, sehingga remuk. Maka dengan sekaligus diremukkannyalah juga besi, tanah liat, tembaga, perak dan emas itu, dan semuanya menjadi seperti sekam di tempat pengirikan pada musim panas dan angin menghembuskannya, sehingga tidak ada bekas-bekasnya yang ditemukan. Tetapi batu yang menimpa patung itu menjadi gunung besar yang memenuhi seluruh bumi." (Daniel 2:31-35).

Patung Nebukadnezar yang megah berdiri di atas kaki yang tidak kuat, terbuat dari campuran besi dan tanah liat, dan karena itu tidak mampu menanggung beban yang sekian berat walaupun nampaknya kokoh. Dalam konteks zaman nabi Daniel patung raksana itu melambangkan rejim militer Nebukadnezar yang pasti akan roboh nanti karena tidak memiliki dasar yang kokoh dalam masyarakat. Kira-kira sama seperti nasib Orde Baru dan sekian banyak rejim kejam yang lain. Sebuah mimpi yang menggelisahkan hati sang raja sambil meneguhkan harapan kaum kecil.

Lain ceritanya devosi umat. Devosi rakyat berakar pada iman yang tulus dan karena itu dasarnya kokoh. Di Nilo pada hari Sabtu naas itu, iman umat tetap tegar, tidak goyang apa lagi roboh.

Empat belas bulan lalu saya berada di kota Cochabamba, negeri Bolivia, di jantung Amerika Latin. Ada pertemuan para misiolog Katolik. Sore hari kami pesiar ke atas bukit El Cristo de la Concordia dari mana kami memandang seluruh kota. Ya, sama indahnya jika kita memandang kota Maumere dari bukit Keling di Nilo. Di atas bukit itu didirikan sebuah patung monumental, Kristus Raja Damai. Patung itu lebih tinggi dari patung Cristo de Corcovado yang terkenal di Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Patung Cochabamba disusun dari ribuan batu pualam besar. Malah di dalamnya ada anak tangga sampai ke dada Kristus. Dari lobang-lobang angin orang yang naik tangga di dalam patung bisa lihat ke luar. Banyak sekali anak muda pesiar ke sana untuk 'gaul'. Sambil berpacaran sebebas-bebasnya teman-temannya mengambil foto. Tidak ada satupun yang berdoa. Maklum, tidak ada suasana sakral sedikit pun. Di negeri miskin Bolivia di mana lebih dari 70% penduduk hidup di bawah garis kemiskinan, patung Cristo de la Concordia dibangun oleh wali kota Cochabamba bersama konco-konco saudagarnya. Bukan patung religius, bukan patung devosional, melainkan patung wisata.

[Mirifica e-News]

Appreciate Life!

2006-02-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

I joyously celebrate the sacredness of all people, all life.

God has given us such a beautiful, diverse world in which to live--one that is filled with creatures large and small, plant life in abundance, and people of infinite originality.

Appreciating such beauty and diversity, we learn from and celebrate the uniqueness of our individuality, our traditions, and our cultures. We know that each of us on this planet we call home is a child of God,and we bless one another with love and acceptance.

Living from a loving heart and with an appreciative attitude, we honor our own beliefs and those of others. We respect one another as unique individuals who are willing to learn about and from one another. We joyously celebrate the sacredness--the spirit of God within--that unites us, one and all.

"And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit."--Mark 4:20

World Leaders

2006-02-21T04:06:00.000-08:00

I trust God to guide the leaders of the world, uniting all humanity in peace.

I hold the leaders of the world in prayer today. I thank God for spiritual and community leaders and for the leaders of all nations that form the global community--now and throughout history--who serve in roles of great responsibility.

Although I may not understand some decisions leaders make, I trust in the order of God to guide them. I know that as they work in harmony with God's laws, they assure that peace will prevail.

I pray, affirming that through the spirit of God within, leaders of the world are unified in thought, purpose, and understanding. I envision them inspired to right action for the good of all humankind. I pray for leaders and for all those they lead and serve.

"I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life."--1 Timothy 2:1-2

Best Nutrition For The Leaders to knowing their purpose

Faith

2006-02-19T13:12:00.000-08:00

I pray in faith, knowing that my prayers are being fulfilled.

My faith supports me in everyday matters and in my dreams for the future.

Before I leave home, I pray with faith for a safe arrival at my destination. I pray with a faith that assures me that my loved ones and I are safe and successful in all that we do.

I bring my hopes and dreams to my prayer time with faith that the spirit of God is at work in me. Spirit is bringing about the desires of my heart.

"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1). In the deep knowing that faith provides, I am patient and assured while I go about the activities of my day, take action on my dreams, and pray for the success and well-being of my loved ones and the world.

"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going."--Hebrews 11:8

I Love You

2006-02-18T15:13:00.000-08:00

Dear beloved Readers

Maybe we hear of even say words : I Love You many times in this day

But do you know the meaning of the words above?

How many expressions of I love you will we give today?

Sometimes an I love you rolls off the tongue as easily as if it were good morning.

Other times love wells up from within and breaks free to express a deep, abiding heart-and-soul connection with those held most dear.

Is there an I love you unsaid? Then today is the day that we can let that pure essence of our being come forward as words of love that move out from God's spirit within us to touch, soothe, and embrace one another. What a good feeling it is to let love flow out from a reservoir of God's love within us.

And remember that however love comes from us or to us--in thought, word, or deed--it has the power to uplift us and carry us through times of our greatest opportunities and challenges.

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Or Forwarding the articles in this Weblog to your friends by clicking the forward button below or inform this Blog URL to your friends so they can visit this Blog by Themselves

Best Wishes and May God Bless Us
~ Yogha

Schedule, Interrupted

2006-02-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

Discovering God's time-management.
by Mark Buchanan

"Teach us to number our days aright," Moses asked God, "that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Ps. 90:12).

There is a right way to tally up days. There's an arithmetic of timekeeping, and God must tutor us in it. Wisdom is not the condition for learning this arithmetic. It's the fruit of it. Wisdom comes from learning to number our days aright. You don't need to be wise to sign up for God's school. But if you're diligent, attentive, and inquisitive in his classes, you'll emerge that way

It's easy to get this wrong. God's school is not like most. It's not regimented, age-adjusted, fixed in its curricula. The classroom is life itself; the curriculum, all of life's demands and interruptions and tedium, its surprises and disappointments. In the midst of this, through these things themselves, God hands us an abacus and tells us to tally it all up.

Meaning?

Meaning, work out where time and eternity meet. Pay attention to how God is afoot in the mystery of each moment, in its mad rush or maddening plod. He is present in both. But too often, we are so time-obsessed that we take no time to really notice. I have a pastor friend in Toronto who one day after a Sunday service received a note: "Pastor Peter, I would appreciate it if you prayed shorter prayers. Your pastoral prayer this past Sunday was 12 minutes, 43 seconds in length. Please strive for greater brevity."

The note was unsigned. The only thing we know about this man, woman, or child is that the writer is so bound by time—counting the minutes—that he has never learned to number his days. This person can tell time, but not discern seasons.

Miss that, and you miss wisdom. For only those who number their days aright gain a wise heart. Only they become God's sages: those calm, unhurried people who live in each moment fully, savoring simple things, celebrating small epiphanies, unafraid of life's inevitable surprises and reverses, adaptive to change yet not chasing after it.

The Ironic Secret
I write this at a time when the church talks much about being purpose-driven. This is a good thing, but we ought to practice a bit of holy cynicism about it. We should be a little uneasy about the pairing of purposefulness and drivenness. Something's out of kilter there. Drivenness may awaken purpose or be a catalyst for purpose, but it rarely fulfills it: More often it jettisons it.

A common characteristic of driven people is that, at some point, they forget their purpose. They lose the point. The very reason they began something—embarked on a journey, undertook a project, waged a war, entered a profession, married a woman—erodes under the weight of their striving. Their original inspiration may have been noble. But driven too hard, it gets supplanted by greed for more, or dread of setback, or force of habit.

Drivenness erodes purposefulness.

The difference between living on purpose and being driven surfaces most clearly in what we do with time. The driven are fanatical time managers—time-mongers, time-herders, time-hoarders. Living on purpose requires skillful time management, true, but not the kind that turns brittle, that attempts to quarantine most of what makes life what it is: the mess, the surprises, the breakdowns, and the breakthroughs. Too much rigidity stifles purpose. I find that the more I try to manage time, the more anxious I get about it.

And the more prone I am to lose my purpose.

Truly purposeful people have an ironic secret: They manage time less and pay attention more. The most purposeful people I know rarely overmanage time, and when they do, it's usually because they're lapsing into drivenness, into a loss of purpose for which they overcompensate with mere busyness. No, the distinguishing mark of purposeful people is not time management.

It's that they notice. They're fully awake.

Zigzags and Detours
Jesus, for example. He lived life with the clearest and highest purpose. Yet he veered and strayed from one interruption to the next, with no apparent plan in hand other than his single, overarching one: Get to Jerusalem and die. Otherwise, his days, as far as we can figure, were a series of zigzags and detours, apparent whims and second thoughts, interruptions and delays, off-the-cuff plans, spur-of-the-moment decisions, leisurely meals, serendipitous rounds of storytelling.

Who touched me?
You give them something to eat.
Let's go to the other side.

Jesus was available—or not—according to some oblique logic all his own. He had an inner ear for the Father's whispers, a third eye for the Spirit's motions. One minute he's not going to the temple, the next he is. One minute he refuses to help a wedding host solve his wine drought, the next he's all over it. He's ready to drop everything and rush over to a complete stranger's house to heal his servant, but dawdles four days while Lazarus—"the one he loves"—writhes in his death throes (John 11:3), or fails to come at all when John the Baptist—"the greatest in the kingdom of heaven"—languishes on death row (Matt. 11:1-11). The closest we get to what dictated Jesus' schedule is his statement in John's Gospel: "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).

The apostle Peter, after declaring that Jesus is "Lord of all," describes the supreme Sovereign's modus operandi: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and … he went around doing good" (Acts 10:36, 38, emphasis mine). So that's it, the sum of Christ's earthly vocation: He wandered, and he blessed. He was a vagabond physician, the original doctor without borders. His purpose was crystallized, but his method almost scattershot. "My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted," Henri Nouwen said near the end of his life, "until I discovered the interruptions were my work."

Paying Attention
No, Jesus didn't seem to keep time. But he noticed. So many people along the way—blind men, lame men, wild men, fishermen, tax men, weeping whores, pleading fathers, grieving mothers, dying children, singing children, anyone—captured his attention. He stopped to tell a lot of stories, many of which arose out of interruptions: "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me" (Luke 12:13); "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25); "Son of David, have mercy on me!" (Matt. 15:22). What's more, he invited others to go and do likewise. Those driven to get and spend, to judge and exclude, he called to attention.

Look at the birds!
Look at those flowers!
Do you see this woman?
Where are the other nine?
Why do you call me good?
Who do you say I am?

Life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions, Jesus warned. And then he told a story about a rich fool who noticed all the trivial things but was oblivious to all the important ones. What matters, Jesus concluded, isn't being rich in stuff: It's being rich toward God. He explained the essence of such richness elsewhere: It's having eyes to see, ears to hear. It's to notice, to pay attention to the time of God's visitation. "The dream of my life," Mary Oliver writes,

Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees—
To learn something of being nothing
A little while but the richLens of attention.

Jesus was that "rich lens of attention."

To live on purpose means to go and do likewise. Purposefulness requires that we pay attention, and paying attention means, almost by definition, that we make room for surprise. We become hospitable to interruption. To sustain it, we need theological touchstones for it—a conviction in our bones that God is Lord of our days and years, and that his purposes and his presence often come disguised as detours, messes, defeats.

I came to you naked, Jesus says. I came to you thirsty.

"When, Lord?" we ask, startled.

When he wore the disguise of an interruption.

Think a moment of all the events and encounters that have shaped you most deeply and lastingly. How many did you see coming? How many did you engineer, manufacture, chase down?

And how many were interruptions?

Children? You might have planned as meticulously as a NASA rocket launch, but did you have any idea, really, what it would be like, who this child in your arms really was, who you would become because of him or her? The span between life as we intend it and life as we receive it is vast. Our true purpose is worked out in that gap. It is fashioned in the crucible of interruptions.

The Crucible of Interruptions
The movie Mr. Holland's Opus tells the story of a man with a magnificent ambition. He wants to be a great composer. But he still has to pay the bills, so he and his young wife move to a small town where he teaches high school music, strictly for the money. All the while, he works on his masterpiece, his opus, laying the ground for his real calling. The plan is to teach for a few years, then step into his destiny.

But life keeps intruding. One year folds into two, into five, into fifteen. And then one day, Mr. Holland is old, and the school board shuffles him out for early retirement. He packs his desk. His wife and grown son come to fetch him. Walking down the school's wide, empty hallways, he hears a sound in the auditorium. He goes to see what it is.

It's a surprise.

Hundreds of his students from his years of teaching—many now old themselves—dozens of his colleagues, both current and former, hundreds of friends, fans, and well-wishers: The room is packed. All have gathered to say thank you. An orchestra is there, made up of Mr. Holland's students through the years. They've been preparing to perform Mr. Holland's Opus—the composition that, over four decades, he hammered out and tinkered with, polished, discarded, recovered, reworked, but never finished.

They play it now.

But of course he knows, everyone knows: His opus isn't the composition. His real opus, his true life's masterpiece, stands before him, here, now. It's not the music. It is all these people whom his passions and convictions have helped and shaped. It's all that was being formed in the crucible of interruptions. This is his work. This is his purpose.

Finally, after all these years, he's learned to number his days.

In 1973, the comedian Johnny Carson nearly caused a national crisis with a single wisecrack. That was the year North America's long flight of postwar prosperity fell to earth like a shot goose in one ungainly plummet. There was runaway inflation. There were oil and food shortages. All the abundance that Americans had come to see as their due, their birthright, suddenly seemed in jeopardy.

And so, on December 19, 1973, at 11:35 p.m., when Johnny Carson walked on the live studio set of The Tonight Show and quipped, "There's an acute shortage of toilet paper in the United States," it wasn't funny. The joke had a toehold in reality: Earlier in the day, Congressman Harold Froehlich from Wisconsin had warned that if the federal bureaucracy didn't catch up on its supply bids, government agencies would run out of toilet tissue within a month or two. Carson took this shard of trivia and played it for a laugh. Then, as was his trademark, he swung at an invisible golf ball, took a commercial break, and got on with the show.

Not so the nation. Twenty million viewers flew into panic. The next morning, hundreds of thousands of frantic shoppers lined up outside the supermarkets of America, poised to dash to the paper aisles and stockpile rolls, fighting over bundles of two-ply and four-ply. There were brawls in the aisles and scrums at the checkout. Some store managers tried to limit sales to four rolls per customer, but they had no way of monitoring how many times a customer came back, and most came back repeatedly. By noon on December 20—mere hours after Johnny's flippant remark—America was sold out.

Johnny Carson's offhand gag line had sparked a national run (no pun intended) on toilet tissue.

We're generally gullible about news of scarcity. We have, it seems, an inbuilt skittishness about shortfall. This has been with us a long while, since the garden, by my reckoning.

Most of us live afraid that we're almost out of time. But you and I, we're heirs of eternity. We're not short of days.

We just need to number them aright.

Mark Buchanan's latest book, from which this article is excerpted, is The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring the Sabbath (Word, 2005).

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today

God's love unites us--heart and soul.

2006-02-15T11:40:00.000-08:00

God is love. Divine love has created a reservoir of goodwill,patience, kindness, and generosity within me that is waiting to be released. As I express the love of God to others, I connect with them in a bond that unites us heart and soul.

A bond of love with a special person is a source of joy for me, and it teaches me about the limitless generosity of Spirit. I give freely and authentically of my time, attention, and ideas. I become aware of the great value that a relationship founded on sharing the love of God is to both people involved.

Desiring only good for my loved ones, I pray that they have confidence in themselves and trust in me. We are united by a love that makes us more complete as individuals and also makes our relationship more fulfilling.

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."--Galatians 5:22-23

Did Jesus exist? Case dismissed

2006-02-13T20:40:00.000-08:00

ROME, Italy (AP) -- An Italian judge has dismissed an atheist's petition that a small-town priest should stand trial for asserting that Jesus Christ existed, both sides said on Friday.

Luigi Cascioli, a 72-year-old retired agronomist, had accused the Rev. Enrico Righi of violating two laws with the assertion, which he called a deceptive fable propagated by the Roman Catholic Church.

"The Rev. Righi is very satisfied and moved," Righi's attorney, Severo Bruno, said. "He is an old, small-town parish priest who never would have thought he'd be in the spotlight for something like this."

Cascioli, a former schoolmate of Righi's, said he had not expected the case to succeed in overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Italy.

"This is not surprising but it doesn't mean it all ends here," he said, adding that he's considering taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

"This is an important case and it deserves to go ahead," he said.

Judge Gaetano Mautone said in his decision that prosecutors should investigate Cascioli for possible slander.

The ruling was released Thursday in Viterbo, a town north of Rome where the priest is based. Cascioli filed a criminal complaint against Righi in 2002 after Righi wrote in a parish bulletin that Jesus existed, that he was born to a couple named Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and that he lived in Nazareth.

Righi, 76, said substantial historical evidence proves Jesus' existence.

Cascioli claimed that Righi's assertions violated two Italian laws: one barring "abuse of popular belief," or fraudulently deceiving people; and another barring "impersonation" or personal gain from attributing a false name to someone.

Find this article at: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/10/italy.christ.ap/index.html

Serving Gods purpose in your generation.

2006-02-11T17:39:00.000-08:00

by : Jeannette Turton

A single woman who has an absolutely brilliant mind, but who, because of feelings of inferiority & fear of failure, chose jobs far below her capabilities rather than attending graduate school& pursuing a professional career, she shared with an older friend a troubling dream she had. “I saw a hand sorting through a large file of manila folders in alphabetical order. The hand pulled out the file that had my name on it, and then right across the front was stamped one word in big red letters: WASTED”.

Like this woman many Christians are walking around feeling as though their lives are counting for a divine, definite purpose, but feeling like your missing something. These Christians know they are saved & will make it to heaven, but wander around feeling unfulfilled.

A sailor when asked where he sailed responded” I’m only restricted by the ocean.” Maybe you are like that. Void of direction. Drifting aimlessly through life, without purpose.

A saying I’ve heard,”A saved soul but a lost life…”

2Timothy 1:9 God has saved us… & called us according to His purpose.

Why is there so much boredom, restlessness, & unfulfillment in the Church today?

David Ravenhill says I believe the problem stems from the fact that many believers have no sense of vision, no understanding of God’s divine purpose for their own lives or for His church as a whole.

For many Christians the bible seems like a huge jigsaw puzzle with thousands of bewildering pieces. They never have grasped a glimpse of the whole picture together- they simply lay aside the scriptures convincing themselves that it is too complicated to understand. Is it any wonder then that we have no sense of vision. Satisfied with salvation alone, we give little thought to understanding God’s divine purpose, or finding our own place in God’s plan- the destiny for which you were created.

Acts13:22 & 36.

I have found David, The son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will…For

David after he had served the purposes in his own generation, fell asleep, & was laid among his fathers…

Serving the purposes of God in our generation that is our high calling. That is where we find true fulfilment. Nothing satisfies apart from it. To be joined together with Christ, labourers together, united in spirit, intent in one purpose. What a privilege! What a calling!

When Christian Herter was governor of Massachusetts, he was running hard for a second term in office. One day, after a busy morning chasing votes (and no lunch) he arrived at a church barbecue. It was late afternoon and Herter was famished. As Herter moved down the serving line, he held out his plate to the woman serving chicken. She put a piece on his plate and turned to the next person in line.

"Excuse me," Governor Herter said, "do you mind if I have another piece of chicken?"

"Sorry," the woman told him. "I'm supposed to give one piece of chicken to each person."

"But I'm starved," the governor said.

"Sorry," the woman said again. "Only one to a customer."

Governor Herter was a modest and unassuming man, but he decided that this time he would throw a little weight around. "Do you know who I am?" he said. "I am the governor of this state."

"Do you know who I am?" the woman said. "I'm the lady in charge of the chicken. Move along, mister."

Do you know who you are?

Do you know what authority you have?

Do you know your purpose?

Abraham was called into the purpose of God.

Genesis12:1-3

Get out of your country, from your family & from your fathers house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you & make your name great; & you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, & I will curse those who curse you & in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Abraham’s blessing was only to be retained but released. God’s desire was that through Abraham all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

If you read the readers digest, you know that a condensed form of a best selling book appears in the back of the magazine each month. Whilst leaving the basic message & essence of the book in tact, the editors reduce the book to a fraction of its original number of pages.

That’s remarkable but Jesus gave us the ultimate condensed book when He reduced the entire old testament to two verses Luke 24:46-47! During Christ’s appearance to His disciples after His resurrection, He said:

…these are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses & the prophets & the Psalms concerning me. And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, & thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer & to rise from the dead on the third day, & that repentance & remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”.

We are witnesses of the gospel, not in the sense of witnessing a car accident, but in the sense of being responsible for & proclaiming the message of the gospel.

But as important as that message is Jesus told His disciples not to rush out immediately but instead he commanded in

Luke24:49 Tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.

Endued:- filled or clothed with power. This only comes from spending time in His presence.

God is looking for people who do what He wants them to do

Neil Marten, a member of the British Parliament, was once giving a group of his constituents a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament. During the course of the visit, the group happened to meet Lord Hailsham, then Lord Chancellor, wearing all the regalia of his office. Hailsham recognized Marten among the group and cried, "Neil!" Not daring to question or disobey the "command," the entire band of visitors promptly fell to their knees!

More about Oswald Chambers

2006-02-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was born July 24, 1874, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Converted in his teen years under the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he studied art and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh before answering a call from God to the Christian ministry. He then studied theology at Dunoon College. From 1906-1910 he conducted an itinerant Bible-teaching ministry in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

In 1910, Chambers married Gertrude Hobbs. They had one daughter, Kathleen.

In 1911 he founded and became principal of the Bible Training College in Clapham, London, where he lectured until the school was closed in 1915 because of World War I. In October 1915 he sailed for Zeitoun, Egypt (near Cairo), where he ministered to Australian and New Zealand troops as a YMCA chaplain. He died there November 15, 1917, following surgery for a ruptured appendix.

Although Oswald Chambers wrote only one book, Baffled to Fight Better , more than thirty titles bear his name. With this one exception, published works were compiled by Mrs. Chambers, a court stenographer, from her verbatim shorthand notes of his messages taken during their seven years of marriage. For half a century following her husband's death she labored to give his words to the world.

My Utmost For His Highest , his best-known book, has been continuously in print in the United States since 1935 and in this, the last decade of the century, remains in the top ten titles of the religious book bestseller list with millions of copies in print. It has become a Christian classic.

What Makes the Gospel Good News?

2006-02-09T21:51:00.000-08:00

Personal salvation is nice, but delighting in God is better.
by John Piper, excerpted from God is the Gospel

The best news of the Christian gospel is that the supremely glorious Creator of the universe has acted in Jesus Christ's death and resurrection to remove every obstacle between us and himself so that we may find everlasting joy in seeing and savoring his infinite beauty. The saving love of God is his doing whatever must be done, at great cost to himself, and for the least deserving, so that he might enthrall them with what will make them supremely happy forever, namely, himself. Therefore, the gospel of God and the love of God are expressed finally and fully in God's gift of himself for our everlasting pleasure. "In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" (Ps. 16:11).

Christ Is a Soul Satisfying Portion
Those who have seen God most clearly in the face of Christ and have savored him most fully tell us something of what this is like. Jonathan Edwards opens the window on his own soul and on the meaning of the gospel with these exultant words:

They that have Christ, they have a soul satisfying portion. They have the truest pleasures and comforts. Here is to be found the proper happiness of the soul. Least liable to accidents and change … Here is the best employment for the understanding … Such as have Christ, they have better and greater riches than others … Better honor … Far better pleasures than sensual men. The joys are more exquisitely delighting than ever was enjoyed by the greatest epicure. [There are] no pleasures like those that are by the enlightenings of the Spirit of Christ, the discoveries of the beauty of Christ and the manifestations of his love.

This is why Jesus said that the pure are blessed because "they shall see God" (Matt. 5:8). It's why David said, "One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple" (Ps. 27:4). Beholding the beauty of God has always been the supreme desire of those who know him best.

Praise Is to the Ego What Sex Is to the Body
The upshot of saying this is that the love of God and the gospel of God are radically God centered. God loves us by giving us himself to enjoy. The gospel is good news because it announces to us that God has acted in Christ not just that we may have heaven, but so that we may have God. "Everyone who … does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God" (2 John 9). The greatest good of the gospel is "having God" as our treasure forever.

The God centered love of God is foreign to fallen human beings, especially to those who like most of us have been saturated for decades with doctrines of self esteem. We have absorbed a definition of love that makes us the center. That is, we feel loved when someone makes much of us. Thus the natural, human definition of love is making much of someone. The main reason this feels like love is that it feels so good to be made much of. The problem is that this feels good on wholly natural grounds. There is nothing spiritual about it. No change in us is needed at all to experience this kind of "love." This love is wholly natural. It operates on the principles that are already present in our fallen, sinful, and spiritually dead souls We love the praise of man. It feels good. Praise is to the ego what sex is to the body. It just doesn't get any better as long as we are spiritually dead.

The ground of natural love is finally me, not God. If you make much of me, I feel loved, because I am the final ground of my happiness. God is not in that place. He should be, but he is not. That is what it means to be unconverted and natural. The deepest foundation of my happiness is me.

A Personal Test for What Is Ultimate in Our Hearts
We should test ourselves with some questions. It is right to pursue likeness to Christ. But the question is, why? What is the root of our motivation? Consider some attributes of Christ that we might pursue, and ask these questions:

Do I want to be strong like Christ, so I will be admired as strong, or so that I can defeat every adversary that would entice me to settle for any pleasure less than admiring the strongest person in the universe, Christ?
Do I want to be wise like Christ, so I will be admired as wise and intelligent, or so that I can discern and admire the One who is most truly wise?
Do I want to be holy like Christ, so that I can be admired as holy, or so that I can be free from all unholy inhibitions that keep me from seeing and savoring the holiness of Christ?
Do I want to be loving like Christ, so that I will be admired as a loving person, or so that I will enjoy extending to others, even in sufferings, the all satisfying love of Christ?

The question is not whether we will have all this glorious likeness to Christ. We will. The question is: To what end? Everything in Romans 8:29 30, all of God's work, his choosing us, predestining us, calling us, justifying us, bringing us to final glory is designed by God not ultimately to make much of us, but to free us and fit us to enjoy seeing and making much of Christ forever.

Not Finally Being and Seeing, but Delighting and Displaying
Perhaps we have not posed the question in the best way. In asking whether seeing God or being like God is the greatest good of the gospel, we may have stopped short of what being and seeing are for. Perhaps neither is ultimate. Would it not be better to say that the ultimate benefit of the gospel, which makes all its other parts good news, is neither being nor seeing, but delighting and displaying, that is, delighting in and displaying "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). In other words, is it not the case that we behold and thus become (2 Cor. 3:18; 1 John 3:2), and that we become and thus behold (Matt. 5:8; 2 Cor. 4:6) in order that ultimately we might delight in and display God? Becoming and beholding are a means to the end of delighting and displaying.

Jesus points in this direction by the way he finishes his prayer in John 17. In verse 24 he prays that we may be with him where he is, to see his glory. The emphasis falls on the great gospel gift of seeing the divine glory. But the final statement of Jesus' prayer in verse 26 is a promise that calls attention to the delight we will take in seeing this glory: "I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

This is an awesome promise. He is not merely saying that we will see his glory, but that when we see him, we will love him with the very love that the Father has for the Son " … that the love with which you have loved me may be in them." This is a love that consists of supreme delight. The Father has infinite joy in the glory of his Son. We are promised a share in that joy. This means that seeing and being, by themselves, are not the ultimate benefit of the gospel. Seeing leads to savoring or it is not good news at all.

HONESTY IS A SPIRITUAL QUALITY THAT CANNOT BE EVALUATED IN TERMS OF MONEY

2006-02-09T04:43:00.000-08:00

There are many practical reasons to practice honesty. It requires far less effort to be truthful than to be deceitful, and in the long term the risks are fewer and the rewards greater.

But in today's complex society, the boundaries of acceptable behavior have been blurred until they are sometimes indistinguishable.

Laws and codes of ethics establish minimum standards of behavior. Make sure you establish standards for yourself that exceed such minimums, a standard below which you will not allow yourself to fall, regardless of what others may do or say.

Your own set of standards will allow you to decide quickly and easily upon an appropriate course of action when faced with a difficult problem.

By Napoleon Hill

Coretta Scott King - A Woman of Faith and Devotion

2006-02-09T04:10:00.000-08:00

Coretta Scott King, a Woman of Faith and Devotion, Dies at 78
One of the country's most famous pastor's wives was a civil rights leader in her own right.
by Adelle M. Banks

Coretta Scott King, who died Tuesday, held firmly to her faith as one of the nation's most famous pastor's wives before becoming a civil rights leader in her own right.

Leaders with connections to the King family and the civil rights movement recalled how the 78-year-old widow of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., blended a commitment to her marriage with a determination to achieve justice for others.

Bishop Eddie Long, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, said he asked her how she handled having a husband who was away so often, working on movement causes.

"She went into that marriage with the gift of her own progressive education and her own skills and talents and she used them marvelously for our freedom," said Gilkes, who teaches in Waterville, Maine.

The widow of the civil rights leader assassinated in 1968 had her own experiences with racism that led her to strive for justice along with her husband.

Since Coretta Scott King grew up in rural Alabama, she "probably saw more rigid, vile prejudice and discrimination than did King 'cause King grew up in the city," said Bishop Woodie W. White, a retired United Methodist bishop who lives in Atlanta, the hometown of Martin Luther King Jr.

White, who attended meetings with Martin Luther King Jr., to plan a civil rights march in Detroit months before the 1963 March on Washington, writes an annual "Dear Martin" column updating the status of race relations.

"One of the things that I observed over the years after Dr. King's death was that the causes for which King had become renown were actually her causes as well" White said. "She didn't just carry on his legacy. She carried on the fight against injustice because that was who she was as a person."

Often photographed on the arm of her husband at the front of civil rights marches, Coretta Scott King sacrificed a career as a classical vocalist as well as the privacy of her family for the public role to which she ascended with her husband. After Martin Luther King's death, she was behind efforts to honor his memory with a national holiday and establish an Atlanta-based center in his name to encourage social change without violence.

On Tuesday, praise for Coretta Scott King crossed racial lines.

Said Clarence Jones, a former adviser with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference her husband helped found: "Coretta was the bedrock of the household and family of Martin Luther King Jr. … She was also a source of invaluable advice and support to Dr. King's leadership of the civil rights movement."

Added Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission: "Together, Dr. and Mrs. King did more for racial reconciliation in this nation than any couple in our history. As anyone in ministry knows, it would have been impossible for Dr. King to carry out his ministry to the nation and the world without the invaluable support and counsel of his wife."

Bishop Vinton Anderson, a retired African Methodist Episcopal Church bishop who lives in St. Louis, was among those impressed by Coretta Scott King's commitment before and after Martin Luther King Jr.'s death.

"It always seemed obvious to us who knew them that Coretta was completely dedicated to the work of her husband," Anderson said.

"I think you can't ask for more than that."

The Rev. Shelley Henderson, founder of the First Ladies Summit, an annual Washington gathering of wives of pastors of prominent African-American churches, saw her as the key role model for her group.

"She is the ultimate first lady," said Henderson, who was "devastated" by the news of Coretta Scott King's death. Last February, Henderson had invited her to speak at the summit held on the weekend of the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

As Coretta Scott King's health declined, Henderson learned she would not be able to address the group.

"I knew that she had wisdom that she could share with them," said Henderson. "One sentence from her, I thought, could take them through the next 10 or 20 years."

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today

Faith Raising, Not Fund Raising

2006-02-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

Does a building campaign change the way a church teaches stewardship? For our congregation, the answer is dramatic, but not in the way you might expect.

You see, for 15 years, our church did not own a building. Saddleback Community Church grew from a few people meeting in an apartment, to renting facilities in various schools, to meeting in a tent. Then in 1995, with over 10,000 regular weekly attenders, we built our first building. And now we're in the process of raising $14 million for additional facilities for our Children's Ministry Center.

Recently a journalist asked me, "For years your church found much of its identity in being a people without property. You had a pioneer mentality, not a settler mentality. Now you've got a multi-million-dollar campus, and you're adding on. How has that changed you, especially the way you teach stewardship?" My answer surprised him.

"It hasn't." And it's true.

Our pastor, Rick Warren, is an entrepreneurial evangelist, whose personal anthem is "reach one more for Jesus." He's committed to seeing the church grow. In fact, he believes we're never going to stop growing, not because we simply want to get bigger, but because there are people around us who need Jesus. He doesn't want us to become settled in or satisfied with the status quo. He told us, "If any building gets in the way of reaching this community, we'll blow it up. If it starts making us feel too comfortable, we're moving."

This commitment to growth, spiritually and in community impact, has influenced every aspect of our church, including how we create a climate for growing generous givers.

Rather than viewing stewardship development as a "fund raising" program or annual giving campaign, we integrate it throughout our church ...

Becoming a Purpose-Filled Woman

2006-02-05T14:01:00.000-08:00

by Jane Johnson Struck

Why are you so passionate about women living lives of purpose?
Because for years after my divorce, I didn't. The angst of purposelessness almost tore me apart. But one of the most important components of my healing was learning that "finding purpose" is a universal heart cry. I wasn't alone in yearning for a life that had significance!

If God has a purpose for us, why do we often feel as though we're simply going through the motions of living?
That's because when we're in "robot mode," we let busyness, noise, fear, or impure motives drive out that purpose. We guilt ourselves into doing the hard work of becoming holy in the day-to-day grind instead of experiencing the reward of fulfilling the reason God put us on earth!

I know I used to be more concerned with religious to-do lists and endless faith-driven obligations than with unearthing the buried passion God instilled in me. There was a time when I'd routinely ask myself, Am I happy? I was so unhappy, I couldn't even get the question out before I started sobbing.

We women need to discover our purpose in life for two reasons. First, fulfilling our purpose gives glory to God. Second, it releases us from the captivity of hopelessness and despair.

How do you define "purpose"?
For Christians, purpose is being and doing what God intends us to be and do: doing today what God asks us to do in our family, church, and community; being more like Christ; and then doing the distinct, bold work God designed us to do before we die!

Scripture reveals the "pathway" to follow. It's spelled out in the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:36-39) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). In The Purpose-Driven Life, my friend Rick Warren says these verses tell us we're ultimately made for fellowship, discipleship, ministry, evangelism, and worship.

But to discover our more unique life mission, we should pray specifically for God to reveal it; we should meditate on pertinent Scriptures, such as Psalm 37:4, Amos 4:13, Matthew 14:27, and John 17:1; and we should clear away some of the mental and emotional clouds that block us from his revelation.

What do you mean?
The Bible says, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).

After my divorce, I lived in manic mode; I'm amazed now I actually thought I could find God's purpose in the midst of my frantic life. I numbed my pain with overspending, travel, and work. It didn't occur to me numbing my pain became my purpose.

I had no idea how much my past influenced my everyday life. I needed to put my anger, regret, bitterness, and pain behind me before I could focus on the race God set before me. It took me years to hear God's voice over the noise and confusion in which I lived. As an immature Christian and an introvert, I didn't realize I needed more mature Christians who could help shed light on what God was saying to me about his will for my life.

So you're saying we can't be a lone ranger in this discovery process?
That's right. A woman trying to find her life purpose is like a novice trying to run a marathon. Both need a partner who can prepare them for the challenges and risks that lie ahead. Many women fail to fulfill their significant life purposes because they have no Christian mentor or adviser to help them reach the next mile marker. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!"

God designed our purpose in life to happen in community—whether it's in person, online, through a telephone relationship, letter writing, or as an intercessory prayer warrior. Giving and receiving love is part of God's design, and nothing substitutes for interpersonal communication.

But community takes time—and we're all so busy!
Yes, but God's creative in bringing spiritual friendships into our lives. Christian community can happen anywhere: at a church Bible-study group, babysitting co-op, corporate lunch-time prayer group, gym, ministry setting, sports event, or hobby show.

One fun way I've developed community is to belong to a "Dreamer's Lunch Bunch"; we meet once a month at a salad bar for the sole purpose of holding each other accountable to God's call on our lives.

Being in community means I'm authentic in a group I trust. Because of the dangers of a "lone ranger" lifestyle, I rely on others to walk alongside me.

Is there a difference between having a purpose and having a passion?
Our purpose is being a woman of God and doing what he asks. Our passions are meant to be godly purpose-indicators. They are the things that make our heart sing; they help us identify and complete our purpose. For example, my passions include jigsaw puzzles, travel, and Sherlock Holmes mysteries. God's purpose for me is to help women figure out his call on their lives.

How can we become content with God's purpose for us, especially if it seems less visible or exciting than we'd envisioned or hoped?
The Bible warns us not to despise the day of the small things (from Zechariah 4:10). It says we need to look forward to when our Master says to us, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!" (Matthew 25:21).

The best shortcut I've found to guard against jealousy over someone else's ministry is to invite God to reveal his vision for your life and to believe with all your heart he'll do so. If you find yourself envying others, confess it to them or at least to God; pray for them; and support them in their endeavors.

What's the bottom line on living purposefully?
In Acts 20:24, the apostle Paul says, "I don't care about my own life. The most important thing is that I complete my mission, the work that the Lord Jesus gave me—to tell people the Good News about God's grace" (NCV). And 1 John 2:17 says, "The world and its desires pass away, but the [wo]man who does the will of God lives forever." God wants us to heed the apostle Paul's counsel: "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25). God wants us to be guided by the Holy Spirit.

I love the way God takes any willing Christian—no matter how broken or scarred her past—and weaves every thread of her life into his kingdom-building plan! He doesn't shy away from our hurts and failures but specializes in hope, second chances, and resurrections.
I never imagined my tough experiences would give me the substance I now need to minister to others. I had no idea God was preparing me to offer the same hope to other women he provided me every day. Our ordinary routines and daily roles—no matter what they are—can provide incredible opportunities to help others become more like Christ.

In the end, purposeful living is about hope. If you can hang onto the hope that God does have a plan for your life, as the Bible promises in Jeremiah 29:11, you'll make it through the tough days of the unknown and later, the tough days of fulfilling the bold purposes God assigns you.

Katie Brazelton, Ph.D., is a licensed minister at Saddleback Church in California, the best-selling author of the Pathway to Purpose™ series for women, and founder of Pathway to Purpose Ministry, which trains Christian women as Life Purpose Coaches™.

How do you maintain morale and momentum when you're filling the gap between ministry leaders? A short guide for interims.

2006-02-01T14:18:00.000-08:00

by Angela Yee

Matt met with our senior pastor to break the news that he had accepted a job offer from the city police department. This meant in two weeks he would be stepping down as worship pastor.

"How'd it go?" I whispered afterwards.

"He looked like he was going to die," muttered Matt.

As word got around the church, there were similar reactions—shock, dismay, surprise. It was hard to imagine what was going to happen to the worship ministry with Matt gone. He was an effective and much-loved leader.

Although he had been the worship pastor for only three years, his strong leadership had developed our worship ministry to a high level of excellence. People were happy that Matt was able to pursue a job he had wanted all his life, but questions lingered.

How would the ministry continue? How would we make it without our fun-loving leader, Matt? Who would lead in the short term? How would we find a new worship pastor? How long would it take?

Transitions are an uncertain, even frightening time. The stability of the organization is suddenly upset, the future is a big question mark.

Not surprisingly, the key to a successful transition lies in leadership. Whoever takes over during the transition time faces this challenge: how do you lead the transition so the ministry strengthens instead of stagnates?

Find someone you trust
Although I did not realize it at the time, preparation for our transition began more than a month before Matt formally announced his leaving. He sat down with me when he began testing for the police department.

"I've been thinking about what would happen if I got the job," he said. "We will need a leader for the worship ministry until a new pastor is found. I think you're the obvious choice."

My first reaction was dismay. Just a few weeks earlier I had said to him, "I am glad you are in charge because I would never want your job!" But Matt explained his thinking. He said that I was the only person familiar with all aspects of the ministry, everyone knew me, and I had already been attending the staff meetings. He made sense and eventually I agreed to accept the role.

Rather than tapping an outside leader, the best option is often to have a known and respected person within the ministry take the interim leadership. Such people have developed relationships, established credibility, and have proven themselves responsible. Their strengths and weaknesses are already known and won't surprise or disappoint people.

In some cases, however, it may be wiser to bring an outsider to lead the ministry. Examples may include traumatic situations where people are too emotionally damaged to take leadership, or where significant healing is required. Sometimes an outsider may be the only option if a ministry has no capable leader to take over.

Once a temporary leader is selected, the next step is to establish firm support. The outgoing leader's affirmation of the new leader makes a world of difference in how the new leader starts. People have fewer doubts concerning who is in charge, especially if the decision is clearly supported by the senior pastor and church leadership.

Before he left, Matt announced to the ministry that I would be taking over and encouraged everyone to support me. The senior pastor also stepped in to take any heat that might come my way. "Just send all the complaints to me," Pastor Mark said. Without their outspoken support, my leadership would have been much more difficult.

to be continued....

36 Christian Ways To Reduce Stress

2005-12-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

An Angel says, "Never borrow from the future. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it doesn't happen, you have worried in vain. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice."

Pray
Go to bed on time.
Get up on time so you can start the day unrushed.
Say No to projects that won't fit into your time schedule, or that will compromise yourmental health.
Delegate tasks to capable others.
Simplify and unclutter your life.
Less is more. (Although one is often not enough, two are often too many.)
Allow extra time to do things and to get to places.
Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over time; don't lump thehard things all together.
Take one day at a time.
Separate worries from concerns. If a situation is a concern, find out what God wouldhave you do and let go of the anxiety. If you can't do anything about a situation, forgetit.
Live within your budget; don't use credit cards for ordinary purchases.
Have backups; an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in thegarden, extra stamps, etc.
K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut). This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amountof trouble.
Do something for the Kid in You everyday.
Carry a Bible with you to read while waiting in line.
Get enough rest.18. Eat right.
Get organized so everything has its place.
Listen to a tape while driving that can help improve your quality of life.
Write down thoughts and inspirations.
Every day, find time to be alone.
Having problems? Talk to God on the spot. Try to nip small problems in the bud. Don'twait until it's time to go to bed to try and pray.
Make friends with Godly people.
Keep a folder of favorite scriptures on hand.
Remember that the shortest bridge between despair and hope is often a good "Thank you Jesus."
Laugh.
Laugh some more!
Take your work seriously, but not yourself at all.
Develop a forgiving attitude (most people are doing the best they can).
Be kind to unkind people (they probably need it the most.
Sit on your ego.
Talk less; listen more.
Slow down.
Remind yourself that you are not the general manager of the universe.
Every night before bed, think of one thing you're grateful for that you've never beengrateful for before. GOD HAS A WAY OF TURNING THINGS AROUND FOR YOU. "If God is for us,who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)

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