It is inspiring to see the power of God displayed throughout creation. The mountains, the stars, the storms, all declare His glory. And it is comforting to see God’s righteousness in His actions. He wields His power justly and rightly, according to His character. As He imparts His righteousness on us, His power sustains us.
Lord, You alone are worthy to be praised. From near to far, Your creation displays Your glory and praises Your name. Your hands alone have to power to create. You create and govern with goodness, with justice, and with righteousness, because that is Who You are. I praise You for revealing Your glory and Your goodness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Hate The term “hate” can be misleading. When used in a hate crime law, the word “hate” does not mean rage, anger, or general dislike. In this context “hate” means bias against people or groups with specific characteristics that are defined by the law.
At the federal level, hate crime laws include crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s perceived or actual race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.
Most state hate crime laws include crimes committed on the basis of race, color, and religion; many also include crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability.
Crime The “crime” in hate crime is often a violent crime, such as assault, murder, arson, vandalism, or threats to commit such crimes. It may also cover conspiring or asking another person to commit such crimes, even if the crime was never carried out.
Under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, people cannot be prosecuted simply for their beliefs. People may be offended or upset about beliefs that are untrue or based upon false stereotypes, but it is not a crime to express offensive beliefs, or to join with others who share such views. However, the First Amendment does not protect against committing a crime, just because the conduct is rooted in philosophical beliefs.
Why have hate crime laws? Hate crimes have a broader effect than most other kinds of crime. Hate crime victims include not only the crime’s immediate target but also others like them. Hate crimes affect families, communities, and at times, the entire nation.
Why report hate crimes? The Hate Crimes Reporting Gap is the significant disparity between hate crimes that actually occur and those reported to law enforcement. It is critical to report hate crimes not only to show support and get help for victims, but also to send a clear message that the community will not tolerate these kinds of crimes. Reporting hate crimes allows communities and law enforcement to fully understand the scope of the problem in a community and put resources toward preventing and addressing attacks based on bias and hate.
Experts estimate an average of 250,000 hate crimes were committed each year between 2004 and 2015 in the United States. The majority of these were not reported to law enforcement.
Terminology Hate Crime: At the federal level, a crime motivated by bias against race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.
Bias or Hate Incident: Acts of prejudice that are not crimes and do not involve violence, threats, or property damage.
Cling to Jesus as a branch to a vine. Engrave God’s word on the tablet of your heart. We’ve been given a great treasure, the knowledge of God and His saving grace. And it is something that is worth holding on to and protecting. And God gives us His Spirit, to guard our knowledge by His wisdom so that we do not lose hold of what we’ve been given.
Lord, thank You for opening my eyes to the truth of Your grace. Please fill me with Your Spirit, so that Your wisdom may never depart from me. May Your truth grow deep roots within my heart, and may you open my eyes and mind to be always discerning and watchful for the temptations and lies that would try to steal Your truth away from me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. Matthew 7:5
When we are quick to judge others, we often find that a moment of self-examination is in order. It’s not that we should remain silent when a loved one is caught in sin. But we must be sure that our own shortcomings do not prevent us from offering sincere and beneficial help. When we are blinded by our own sin, we risk inflicting more harm on those we wish to help.
Dear Father, thank You for Your deep well of forgiveness. Please search my heart and reveal any sins to confess even as I prepare to intervene in my loved one’s situation. Cleanse me by Your righteousness and fill me with Your grace so that I may see with wisdom and truth, and act with love and mercy toward others. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Having faith in God is complicated: in happy, positive times, it is easy to forget that God carried you along the way, and in difficult times it is easy to blame Him. I have looked at my faith from a narcissistic lense too often, desiring a reward for being faithful to God. I forget that faith is the reward. Believing in the Lord is what gives me peace and joy, hope and power. In happy times or times of any trouble, we are comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1: 3-4). Let us rejoice in His holy name!
Holy, holy, holy Lord. God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. The hope I feel for the future with you knows no bounds, my Lord, and I aim to please you with every moment of my life. Forgive me for my transgressions and doubts, but I pray to you with a resolve that I did not feel before. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Today in the Word logo FULL ISSUE • RESOURCES • GIVE Fear of the Lord John’s Fear of the Lord Sunday, April 28 | Revelation 1:9–18 On the Go? Listen Now!
Fear of the Lord is an important part of worship in the book of Revelation: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water” (14:7). “Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed” (15:4).
This truth is seen and the tone set at the very start of the book, in John’s vision of the risen Christ. When he saw Him, he “fell at his feet as though dead” (v. 17). A mere man like John should feel overwhelmed upon seeing a vision of the incarnate and glorified Christ. Awe, reverence, and a sense of God’s greatness literally knocked him out!
What did John see (vv. 12–16)? Christ appeared “like a son of man,” a Messianic allusion (Dan. 7:13) and Jesus’s favorite name for Himself in the synoptic Gospels. His robe with a golden sash indicates His role as both priest and judge as well as His kingly status. His white hair signifies wisdom, dignity, and eternality. His eyes of blazing fire represent penetrating insight and omniscience. His feet of glowing bronze symbolize victorious strength. The two-edged sword in His mouth is the Word of God (Heb. 4:12). His face shining like the sun suggests God’s glory.
Christ placed His hand on John and reassured him, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades” (vv. 17–18). How incredibly comforting! The eternal Lord of the universe has won the victory and is on our side.
Go Deeper John experienced his vision on the Lord’s Day, that is, Sunday (v. 10). In what ways have you experienced the fear of the Lord during your church’s Sunday worship services?
Pray with Us: Dear Jesus, You told John, “Do not be afraid” (Rev. 1:17). What comforting words! We praise You for Your victory over death, for bringing us freedom from sin, for taking away worldly fear, and giving us godly fear. Bless Your holy name!
The fact that people promote domestic violence like Late Night With Colorado Phil does. I had checked out his Facebook and I saw horrifying. He Rape Promoted and domestic violence. I talked to him about it and he said get what deserves. He says he’s a talk show host. We have enough problems therefore, we don’t need a a person promoting rape. Verbal or physical.
Britannica Dictionary definition of RAPIST. [count] : a person who rapes someone : a person who commits rape. a convicted rapist.
O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to thee; Psalm 16:2
Without God, we could have no good thing. Even before we know Him, He gave us tastes of His goodness by His grace. And now that we have received the full measure of His grace, let us draw nearer to Him. All joy, all gladness, everything that is good is a gift from our Heavenly Father who loves us.
Father God, I am in awe at the unending depth of Your goodness. Even in my sin, You chose to pour out Your love on me so that I could experience a measure of Your goodness. And know that I know You, I want to know You even more. Every blessing and joy of this life fills my heart with gratitude, for they all flow from You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Growing up, the Bible was in my bedroom but seldom opened. I believed in Jesus and cannot remember a time I felt as if God didn’t exist. God just was. However, I did not follow Him as Lord and Savior growing up. In God’s lovingkindness and faithfulness to me, that changed over time. Far from being a God who “just was,” I discovered that he is “the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come” (Revelation 1:8).
As different opportunities arose, I heard more of God’s Word through circumstances, through other believers, through music, and for myself as I started to open up the Bible and engage with it more. What I found was a book that was the very word of God, which is “alive and active… sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
Here are a selection of verses that have shaped my walk as a follower of Jesus. May they bless you as much as they have encouraged and sustained me.
Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.
If you’ve ever visited an art museum, you know that some pieces are so expertly made that they make you stop and think. They invite you to consider the artist’s mind, passion, and purpose as you take in the intricacies of the finished work. God’s creation, from vast galaxies to delicate flowers, instills the same wonder in all who seek to know Him.
God, You are magnificent and awesome. As I look at the beauty of creation around me, I am overwhelmed by the power of Your hands and the creativity of Your mind. You’ve built beauty and grandeur into everything that You have made, and seeing Your work makes me want to know You even more. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Marriage is meant to be one of the earthly representations of love. When a man and woman decide to come together as one, as one unit, one flesh, one family, and they decide to take on the world together. The best marriages are the marriages that are rooted in the love of God. Couples who choose to make Christ the center of their relationship make the journey slightly easier for themselves. Marriage is an illustration of God’s relationship with the church – we are the church.
Patience and forgiveness are major parts of marriage. Without them, no marriage is able to survive. You need to understand that there will be times where your spouse will disappoint you and you will disappoint your spouse. You will discover things about each other that will require a lot of adjusting. There are times where you will share opposing points-of-view. Instead of burning the house down with words of anger, you will have to work out your issues in love. Love is more than a feeling. It is more than the butterflies or sweet sensations you experience in your stomach. Love is a choice. Every day, you make the decision to love you partner and work with them as a team.
Love means that you are well aware of your partner’s flaws and shortcomings but you choose to see the better parts of them. Marriage is a joint effort at becoming better people. You challenge each other. You cheer each other one. When one of you is down, the other one pulls them up and vice-versa. Marriage is not 50/50. It is not about splitting the effort in half. Marriage is 100/100 – you both have to be all in all the time.
Prayers: We can’t walk out of our marriage because You said what You put together may no man take apart! I thank You for being here with us both and every marriage You have put together in Jesus name Amen
This month we begin a new theme on the topic of Sacrifice, which is fitting for this season as we prepare our hearts for Easter to honor and praise Jesus for His ultimate sacrifice.
The dictionary defines a sacrifice as: “the surrender or destruction of something prized or desirable for the sake of something considered as having a higher or more pressing claim.” A secondary definition also defines sacrifice as “an act of offering to a deity something precious.”
In simple terms, a sacrifice is something you desire that you choose to give up for a greater purpose or to a greater Person. And in reality, that’s what makes sacrificing so difficult! Because what is being given up is something valued, cherished, loved, and desirable.
Yet because we are supposed to model our lives after Jesus’ life, we are called to sacrifice on a daily basis. But we find that God invites us to sacrifice our wants, desires, and plans in order to experience something richer, more purposeful, and more in line with His desires for us.
However – because we are human – even when we know it’s what God wants, it doesn’t make it easier to lay down our desires and follow His plan. Thankfully, God has given us His Word to glean from. He sent others to pave the way and provide a roadmap that is both obedient and honoring to God.
Throughout this month, we’ll learn from a few people in Scripture—Abraham, David, Paul, and Jesus—to better understand what sacrifice looks like and how we can pursue and submit to it in our daily lives. It’s not easy, but God will give us the strength to surrender, sacrifice, and put His love on display.
Jesus!
Nobody likes to be insulted or belittled. Yet, Jesus tells us to expect opposition and rejection. When others talk down on us for standing up for Christ, it is evidence that Christ is in us and His Spirit is working through us. When we share in suffering for His name’s sake, we share in His glory as it is revealed in us.
From His triumphal entry into Jerusalem to His last breath on the cross, Jesus’ final days were marked with joy, fellowship, grief, betrayal, pain, and death. But this death was not the end. Jesus rose victorious from the grave, securing a place in Heaven for all who turn from sin and believe in Him.
Salvation Is Won” reveals the story of Jesus’ last days on the earth from His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, to His betrayal, death, and resurrection from the grave.
Father, please give me the perseverance to endure the mocking of those around me. Some days I want to run and hide, but You call me to stand firm. When others hurl insults at me, give me the power to respond only with Your love and truth. And as You work through me, please soften the hearts of my attackers so that they may see You and know You, too. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Nothing Is Impossible With Christ Jesus! Day 1
This has to be one of the most motivating Bible verses in the word of God. It sums up our Christian walk. In our own power, there are many things that we can consider to be impossible. But when we are with God, absolutely nothing is impossible. The Bible is filled with so many instances where God turned the impossible into the more-than-possible.
Abraham and Sarah were unable to conceive a child. They were both very old and neither of them was fertile. But when they encountered God, they received life in their loins and Abraham became the Father of many nations – starting with his own children.
When the Israelites were escaping from Egypt, they found themselves in front of the Red Sea. I’d like you to think about this for a moment. The Israelites were not in front of a pond or a river they could wade through. They weren’t even in front of a lake. The Israelites were faced with an entire sea. What did God do for them? He parted the sea in two and held it until every single one of the Israelites had crossed safely. It is very clear that that sea was not crossed in a day. Think of the great expanse. But God kept it open until they were on the other side!
Lastly, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was conceived through a virgin and the Spirit of God. This is a feat that still leaves many intellectuals dumbfounded in this day and age. “It’s impossible!” one would cry. Not with God, my friend. When God intervenes, all protocols are broken.
Through God and His wonder-working power the dead have been raised, barren wombs have been with child, addictions have been broken, lives have been restored, and people have received miracle provision. It is through God, the fate of our eternity was redeemed.
When you think of the numerous times that God has turned the impossible into a moment of possibility, you should become confident. There is nothing too big for God to handle. Look at who you are talking about! He is the God who created the heavens, the earth, and the universe. He knows every star by name.
1 Timothy 4:12: Day 2
When we are young, people often don’t take us seriously. It can be frustrating, especially if people are telling you to act like an adult and yet you are treated like a child. Here we see Paul encouraging Timothy to be an example. Instead of dwelling on the disadvantage of youth, focus on being worthy of being looked up to. Focus on maturing spiritually. Let your words and conversations reflect Christ. Pray that your character will reflect Christ, and above all, have faith in God.
LORD, help me to have the character that resembles You. Strengthen my faith in You, LORD. Help me to be content with my age and the stage of life I am in. Help me to do what I can do instead of focusing on what I can’t do. Conform and shape me into whom you want me to be. Above all, I want to please You. I want to do your will and live for You. Give me wisdom and insight to do so, and lead me by Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Proverbs 31:30– Day 3
Face-value, earthly things will never hold a substantial amount of value. We live in a world that is more concerned about how people look, how much money they have, and the kinds of material goods they possess. All of these things will fade away with time. The thing that will remain in people’s minds for a very long time will be our characters and the virtues we possess. Men and women of God need to ensure that their characters and their virtues are godly.
Dear God, I pray that I never become caught up in the things of this world. I know that things like physical appearance and money are fleeting; they will not last an eternity. But the things that come out of my heart will. Lord, may my heart be a reflection of your light. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
1 Timothy 5:1 – Day 4
There are likely older believers in your life. Here, Paul tells Timothy not to rebuke his elders, but to come to them the way he would come to his father. Then, he tells Timothy to treat younger men as his brothers. Similarly, you can treat older believers in your life as your father or mother. Don’t be harsh with them, but come with respect and humility. With younger believers, treat them as your sibling. Do not taunt or be rude to them. Do not act as though you are better than them. Rather, treat them with respect that you would want to receive from those who are older than you.
Heavenly Father, make me respectful and humble as I interact with those older and younger than me. If I see something in their life that needs correction, give me wisdom and humility to address it. Lead me by your Holy Spirit, and do not let me do it on my own strength. Let me correct others because I love them and you, not for selfish gain. Thank you God that you correct me in love and not wrath. Let me correct and treat others how you treat me and how I would want to be treated. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Psalm 103:5 – Day 5
“Youth is wasted on the young!” How true is that statement! The older we get the more we long for the days of our youth, when we were more energetic and our joints didn’t creak every time we took a step. When we look into the mirror and see a new wrinkle or gray hair, we wax nostalgic for the days of smooth skin and shiny locks. In this passage, we are told that youthful vitality is not lost to us, not through God. He will renew us as the “eagle.” Eagle. Not sparrow, or swallow, or hummingbird. But the strong and mighty eagle, who can fly up to 10,000 feet, who has over 7,000 feathers to keep it warm and dry, who has exceptional eyesight and seems to soar effortlessly. The eagle is a symbol of strength and grace. Through God, we have the ability to maintain our own strength, stamina and vitality. Through God, we are renewed. Through God, we are made young again.
Galatians 6:9 – Day 5
We should always strive to do good in every way and every place that we can. Our actions testify to the world of the God we preach is a good and loving God. Check your actions and your thoughts and ask yourself if you are truly reflecting the nature of God.
Dear God, I ask that you help me ensure that in everything I do, I reflect your goodness and I reflect your love. My desire is for more and more people to come into your light and the only way they can do this, is by believing in you. May my actions communicate who you are, just as much as my words do. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Isaiah 41:10 – Day 6
God has gone to the ends of the earth to make sure that you will always know that, no matter what, He has got you covered. He will keep you at rest, He will strengthen you, and He will see you through the tough times. In everything you do, every trial that you face, and in every challenge, that comes your way, you should know that you have no reason to fret or worry. God is with you.
Dear God, I thank you that I can trust in you completely, never having to worry or fret when troubling times come my way. I thank you, Lord, that I can rely on your faithfulness. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Romans 15:13 Day 7
Having faith in God is complicated: in happy, positive times, it is easy to forget that God carried you along the way, and in difficult times it is easy to blame Him. I have looked at my faith from a narcissistic lense too often, desiring a reward for being faithful to God. I forget that faith is the reward. Believing in the Lord is what gives me peace and joy, hope and power. In happy times or times of any trouble, we are comforted by God (2 Corinthians 1: 3-4). Let us rejoice in His holy name!
Holy, holy, holy Lord. God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. The hope I feel for the future with you knows no bounds, my Lord, and I aim to please you with every moment of my life. Forgive me for my transgressions and doubts, but I pray to you with a resolve that I did not feel before. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
Salvation Baptism When we repent and trust in Christ’s finished work on the cross, He saves us, and we are baptized into Him by the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body…
In this baptism, we are also given the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit to comfort (John 14:16), teach (John 14:26), guide (John 16:13) and seal (Ephesians 4:30) us.
This is the baptism of our salvation. Once again, this is not something we do, but something Christ does for us (John 1:33), and no water is involved.
Water Baptism Water baptism is a church sacrament (a church ceremony, or practice, that is considered holy and sacred because of its spiritual significance). Water baptism varies greatly among denominations in both practice and significance. There are two sacraments of baptism performed by Christians churches —(1) infant baptism or (2) youth and adult baptism (sometimes called believer’s baptism because the person makes a profession of faith). These baptisms can be performed by the sprinkling of water or by partial or full immersion in water.
Infant Baptism Many churches that practice infant baptism do so with the understanding that the baby is being baptized into the family of believers and dedicated to the Lord. It does not impart any forgiveness of sins, since only Jesus can forgive sins, and only His blood can wash us clean (Revelation 1:5).
In this type of dedication or infant baptism, both the parents and the congregation affirm their trust in Christ as Saviour and commit to raising the child in the Lord’s will and His ways. As the child grows and matures, the child still must repent and trust in Christ to receive forgiveness of sins and be saved by Him. The age, or level of maturity, at which a child can come to Christ will vary (Read more about the age of accountability), but with sound biblical teachings, even young children can understand the gospel, respond to it and be saved by Jesus.
When salvation is received, by someone baptized as an infant, they are called in Scripture to make a public profession. Churches that practice the sacrament of infant baptism also have the sacrament of confirmation. In confirmation, a believer confirms the vows made by their parents on their behalf and publicly professes their faith and trust in Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
Baptism of Youth and Adults Other denominations wait until a child is old enough, or mature enough, to understand their sin and the gospel of saving grace (the age of accountability). Once someone has repented and trusted in Jesus, and been saved by Him, they then make a public profession of faith in baptism. This is often done by full immersion into water.
By outward appearances, full immersion baptism is similar to the baptism practice of John the Baptist. However, it is very different in meaning. John the Baptist used water to baptize unto repentance (Matthew 3:10). It was a baptism of purification based on the confession of sins (Matthew 3:6). It was not forgiveness of sins since John did not have the power to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins and it is received by trusting in Jesus and being washed by His blood, not water.
Revelation 1:5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood.
The Bible is clear, water baptism is not necessary for salvation. However, there are some churches that would disagree. Search the Scriptures. It is only by Jesus that we are saved (Romans 5:9, Acts 4:12).
If Baptized as an Infant, and Later Confirmed, Do I Need to Be Re-baptized? NO. If water baptism is necessary for salvation, then the Lord erred when the thief on the cross trusted in Him and Jesus promised, “Assuredly [truly], I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” Luke 23:43
We know that the Lord did not err. His words are true and His words to the thief were a promise of salvation– yet the thief on the cross was not baptized. The thief on the cross did the only thing that was necessary for salvation. He called out to Jesus in trusting faith, knowing that Jesus is the Lord and He has the power to bring people into His kingdom.
So if you were baptized as an infant, and later confirmed, you don’t NEED to be re-baptized. In confirmation, you made a public profession of your salvation. However, if you wish to be baptized again, or your church requires it for membership, you should certainly do so. Testifying publicly to what Jesus has done for you, and in you, is always a beautiful thing. It glorifies God and reminds everyone who witnesses your profession of the riches that God has already imparted to you when He saved you.
If Water Baptism Is Not Necessary for Salvation, Should It be Eliminated? Absolutely not! While water baptism has no saving power, it does have sanctifying benefits. Water baptism is a public profession of God’s mercy and grace, whether it’s by believing parents and congregants who vow to raise a child in the knowledge of the Lord, or as a personal profession by a redeemed sinner who has been saved by the grace of God.
I do not want to be misunderstood on this, so let me clarify. Although there may be no need to be water baptized, it is a beautiful sacrament and should be practiced. If one was baptized as an infant, they must understand that they should make a public profession when Jesus saves them. This can be done in confirmation or water baptism. If one was not water baptized as an infant, they should be baptized. However the sacrament is practiced, it is a beautiful testimony that proclaims the mercy and grace of God and His goodness in saving sinners.
Do Not Let This Be Divisive Various churches and denominations have different views on what water baptism signifies and how it should be practiced. I encourage you, DO NOT let this doctrine become divisive among believers. Search the Scriptures for your understanding. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will reveal all truth.
The Bible is clear that we are to profess with our mouth that which we believe in our hearts (Romans 10:9-10), so be ready to do so. Share the saving grace of Jesus with others, by telling of what He has done for you and what He desires to do for all people.
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Addendum An email was received suggesting this is putting infant baptism “on par” with believer’s baptism. That is not the case.
Infant baptism could be considered similar to infant dedication. It has no saving power. Confirmation could be considered similar to believer’s baptism in that they are both are a profession of faith and that the person has been saved by Jesus by grace alone.
Remember, the question was whether water baptism is NEEDED. We cannot say that someone who was baptized as an infant, has been saved by Jesus, made a profession of faith, but was never immersed in water baptism, NEEDS to be baptized.
The point of this article is that the water of baptism does not save anyone. Only the baptism (washing) in Jesus’ blood (Rev 1:5) has saving power. But don’t hear me wrong. Believer’s baptism is a beautiful way to proclaim the gift of salvation and it is to be commended. Some churches require it, but others do not. And, we should not let this be divisive.
Jesus prayed for unity in the Church, not for uniformity. According to your church’s tradition, tell the world of what Jesus has done in saving you…and then never stop telling people. Especially tell those who do not know Jesus. Tell them that Jesus loves them and offers forgiveness for their sins and new life in Him. To Him be the glory!
A citizen’s arrest is when a private citizen makes an arrest, as opposed to a police officer. In some situations, a citizen can make an arrest without a warrant. All states allow some form of citizen’s arrest in their criminal procedures.
Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828:
patriotism, n. Love of one’s country; the passion which aims to serve one’s country, either defending it from invasion, or protecting its rights and maintaining its laws and institutions in vigor and purity. Patriotism is the characteristic of a good citizen, the noblest passion that animates a man in Note how the definitions have changed. With its objective actions, Noah Webster’s patriotism is very different from the vague, subjective patriotism is not just an emotional feeling; it is action.
Webster’s original definition starts with a love for the country, but moves to specific actions: service to the country, defense of the country, protection of the rights of the country, and preservation of religion and morality in public and private life. This kind of patriotism puts the needs of the country above personal or partisan desire, as well as above the favor of foreign nations.
Prayer: I love my country, Lord, and I ask You to protect us from harm. Be with those men and women in each branch of service. Guard us all in Your Name.
Promise: Hear God’s promise: “The Lord commanded us to observe all these statues, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day” (Deuteronomy 6:24).
If Christ has not risen, your faith is futile 1 Corinthians 15:17
Hear the confident declaration of American statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852):
The Gospel is either true history, or it is a consummate fraud; it is either a reality or an imposition. Christ was what He professed to be, or He was an imposter. There is no other alternative. His spotless life in His earnest enforcement of the truth – His suffering in its defense, forbid us to suppose that He was suffering an illusion of a heated brain. Every act of His pure and holy life shows that He was the author of truth.
If you knew what really happens in the spiritual realm when you pray, you would never stop praying.
In this new message, explore mercy and grace, the protection of God, the intimacy prayer fosters with the Father, and the power that moves through your life when you pray.
Colossians 1:17 tells us that He is in everything and that He holds everything together. That is good news! There is no end to the supernatural power of God that can move through your life.
Israel, a Middle Eastern country on the Mediterranean Sea, is regarded by Jews, Christians and Muslims as the biblical Holy Land. Its most sacred sites are in Jerusalem. Within its Old City, the Temple Mount complex includes the Dome of the Rock shrine, the historic Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Israel’s financial hub, Tel Aviv, is known for its Bauhaus architecture and beaches.
My heart is grieved by the recent violence and suffering in Israel. I hope you’ll stand with me in support of God’s people in these dark times.
As Christians, we know that what’s happening in Israel is not a human struggle; it is a spiritual struggle against the forces of darkness.
God has promised that His chosen people will endure forever.
Join me today by signing the pledge to commit to praying for Israel. -Pray that the Lord would do a mighty work and protect the innocent. -Pray that the Lord will bring strength and wisdom to those who need it greatly. -Pray that the Lord would bring comfort to hurting and fearful hearts.
Thank you for committing to praying for Israel.
Dear friend and supporter,
The ongoing war in Israel has precipitated an economic crisis of unprecedented scale, with a disturbing trend emerging in its wake: a thriving black market. As businesses struggle amidst the turmoil, many are resorting to under-the-table transactions and income underreporting, a symptom of the dire financial straits the nation finds itself in. Doron Arbely, the former director of the Tax Authority, underscores this alarming growth, revealing a shadow economy that now encompasses a staggering 20% of Israel’s GDP.
The war’s impact on the economy has led to desperate financial maneuvers across various sectors. Particularly noteworthy is the plight of divorced men, many of whom, grappling with reduced incomes, are seeking to lower their alimony payments. These individual stories paint a broader picture of the socio-economic challenges faced by countless Israelis during this crisis.
In response to these challenges, the Tax Authority is ramping up its efforts against tax evasion. However, regulatory measures alone cannot fully address the deep-seated issues stemming from this economic downturn. This is where the role of Feed Israel becomes crucial. Amidst the economic chaos and the distress of war, our mission is to provide not just sustenance but also stability and support to those most affected.
Feed Israel stands as a pillar of hope and aid in these tumultuous times. We are committed to offering a sense of normalcy and compassion to those displaced by the conflict and those struggling with the war’s economic fallout. Our efforts extend beyond meal distribution; we provide essential support that helps rebuild lives and communities shattered by the war
Israel, country in the Middle East, located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bounded to the north by Lebanon, to the northeast by Syria, to the east and southeast by Jordan, to the southwest by Egypt, and to the west by the Mediterranean Sea. Jerusalem is the seat of government and the proclaimed capital, although the latter status has not received wide international recognition.
Israel is a small country with a relatively diverse topography, consisting of a lengthy coastal plain, highlands in the north and central regions, and the Negev desert in the south. Running the length of the country from north to south along its eastern border is the northern terminus of the Great Rift Valley.
Israel Home Geography & Travel Countries of the World Geography & Travel Israel Also known as: Isrāʾīl, Medinat Yisraʾel, State of Israel Written by , , See All Fact-checked by Last Updated: Dec 15, 2023 • Article History Recent News Dec. 15, 2023, 10:49 AM ET (AP) Live updates | As fighting rages in Gaza, a US envoy is set to meet with the Palestinian president Dec. 15, 2023, 9:04 AM ET (AP) US and Israel discuss when to scale back Gaza combat but agree fight will take months, envoy says Summary Read a brief summary of this topic Israel, country in the Middle East, located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bounded to the north by Lebanon, to the northeast by Syria, to the east and southeast by Jordan, to the southwest by Egypt, and to the west by the Mediterranean Sea. Jerusalem is the seat of government and the proclaimed capital, although the latter status has not received wide international recognition.
Israel flag of Israel Audio File: National anthem of Israel See all media Category: Geography & Travel Arabic: Isrāʾīl Officially: State of Israel or Hebrew: Medinat Yisraʾel Head Of Government: Prime Minister: Benjamin Netanyahu Capital (Proclaimed): Jerusalem; international recognition of its capital status has largely been withheld. Population: (2023 est.) 9,153,0001 Currency Exchange Rate: 1 USD equals 3.834 Israeli shekel Head Of State: President: Isaac Herzog Israel Israel Israel is a small country with a relatively diverse topography, consisting of a lengthy coastal plain, highlands in the north and central regions, and the Negev desert in the south. Running the length of the country from north to south along its eastern border is the northern terminus of the Great Rift Valley.
The State of Israel is the only Jewish nation in the modern period, and the region that now falls within its borders has a lengthy and rich history that dates from prebiblical times. The area was a part of the Roman Empire and, later, the Byzantine Empire before falling under the control of the fledgling Islamic caliphate in the 7th century CE. Although the object of dispute during the Crusades, the region, then generally known as Palestine, remained under the sway of successive Islamic dynasties until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, when it was placed under British mandate from the League of Nations.
Even before the mandate, the desire for a Jewish homeland prompted a small number of Jews to immigrate to Palestine, a migration that grew dramatically during the second quarter of the 20th century with the increased persecution of Jews worldwide and subsequent Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. This vast influx of Jewish immigrants into the region, however, caused tension with the native Palestinian Arabs, and violence flared between the two groups leading up to the United Nations plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab sectors and Israel’s ensuing declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948.
Israel fought a series of wars against neighbouring Arab states during the next 35 years, which have resulted in ongoing disputes over territory and the status of refugees. Despite continuing tensions, however, Israel concluded peace treaties with several neighbouring Arab states during the final quarter of the 20th century.
Despite its small size, about 290 miles (470 km) north-to-south and 85 miles (135 km) east-to-west at its widest point, Israel has four geographic regions—the Mediterranean coastal plain, the hill regions of northern and central Israel, the Great Rift Valley, and the Negev—and a wide range of unique physical features and microclimates.
The coastal plain is a narrow strip about 115 miles (185 km) long that widens to about 25 miles (40 km) in the south. A sandy shoreline with many beaches borders the Mediterranean coast. Inland to the east, fertile farmland is giving way to growing agricultural settlements and the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa and their suburbs.
In the north of the country, the mountains of Galilee constitute the highest part of Israel, reaching an elevation of 3,963 feet (1,208 metres) at Mount Meron (Arabic: Jebel Jarmaq). These mountains terminate to the east in an escarpment overlooking the Great Rift Valley. The mountains of Galilee are separated from the hills of the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the south by the fertile Plain of Esdraelon (Hebrew: ʿEmeq Yizreʿel), which, running approximately northwest to southeast, connects the coastal plain with the Great Rift Valley. The Mount Carmel range, which culminates in a peak 1,791 feet (546 metres) high, forms a spur reaching northwest from the highlands of the West Bank, cutting almost to the coast of Haifa.
The Great Rift Valley, a long fissure in Earth’s crust, begins beyond the northern frontier of Israel and forms a series of valleys running generally south, the length of the country, to the Gulf of Aqaba. The Jordan River, which marks part of the frontier between Israel and Jordan, flows southward through the rift from Dan on Israel’s northern frontier, where it is 500 feet (152 metres) above sea level, first into the Ḥula Valley (Hebrew: ʿEmeq HaḤula), then into the freshwater Lake Tiberias, also known as the Sea of Galilee (Hebrew: Yam Kinneret), which lies 686 feet (209 metres) below sea level. The Jordan continues south along the eastern edge of the West Bank—now through the Jordan Valley (Hebrew: ʿEmeq HaYarden)—and finally into the highly saline Dead Sea, which, at 1,312 feet (400 metres) below sea level, is the lowest point of a natural landscape feature on the Earth’s surface. South of the Dead Sea, the Jordan continues through the rift, where it now forms the ʿArava Valley (Hebrew: “savannah”), an arid plain that extends to the Red Sea port of Eilat.
The sparsely populated Negev comprises the southern half of Israel. Arrow-shaped, this flat, sandy desert region narrows toward the south, where it becomes increasingly arid and breaks into sandstone hills cut by wadis, canyons, and cliffs before finally coming to a point where the ʿArava reaches Eilat.
The principal drainage system comprises Lake Tiberias and the Jordan River. Other rivers in Israel are the Yarqon, which empties into the Mediterranean near Tel Aviv; the Qishon, which runs through the western part of the Plain of Esdraelon to drain into the Mediterranean at Haifa; and a small section of the Yarmūk, a tributary of the Jordan that flows west along the Syria-Jordan border. Most of the country’s remaining streams are ephemeral and flow seasonally as wadis. The rivers are supplemented by a spring-fed underground water table that is tapped by wells. Israel has a chronic water shortage, and its hydraulic resources are fully utilized: about three-fourths for irrigation and the remainder for industrial and household water use.
Soils The coastal plain is covered mainly by alluvial soils. Parts of the arid northern Negev, where soil development would not be expected, have windblown loess soils because of proximity to the coastal plain. The soils of Galilee change from calcareous rock in the coastal plain, to Cenomanian and Turonian limestone (deposited from about 99 to 89 million years ago) in Upper Galilee, and to Eocene formations (those dating from about 55 to 35 million years ago) in the lower part of the region. Rock salt and gypsum are abundant in the Great Rift Valley. The southern Negev is mainly sandstone rock with veins of granite.
Encyclopedia Britannica HomeGames & QuizzesHistory & SocietyScience & TechBiographiesAnimals & NatureGeography & TravelArts & CultureMoneyVideos Israel Home Geography & Travel Countries of the World Geography & Travel Israel Also known as: Isrāʾīl, Medinat Yisraʾel, State of Israel Written by , , See All Fact-checked by Last Updated: Dec 15, 2023 • Article History Recent News Dec. 15, 2023, 10:49 AM ET (AP) Live updates | As fighting rages in Gaza, a US envoy is set to meet with the Palestinian president Dec. 15, 2023, 9:04 AM ET (AP) US and Israel discuss when to scale back Gaza combat but agree fight will take months, envoy says Summary Read a brief summary of this topic Israel, country in the Middle East, located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bounded to the north by Lebanon, to the northeast by Syria, to the east and southeast by Jordan, to the southwest by Egypt, and to the west by the Mediterranean Sea. Jerusalem is the seat of government and the proclaimed capital, although the latter status has not received wide international recognition.
Israel flag of Israel Audio File: National anthem of Israel See all media Category: Geography & Travel Arabic: Isrāʾīl Officially: State of Israel or Hebrew: Medinat Yisraʾel Head Of Government: Prime Minister: Benjamin Netanyahu Capital (Proclaimed): Jerusalem; international recognition of its capital status has largely been withheld. Population: (2023 est.) 9,153,0001 Currency Exchange Rate: 1 USD equals 3.834 Israeli shekel Head Of State: President: Isaac Herzog Israel Israel Israel is a small country with a relatively diverse topography, consisting of a lengthy coastal plain, highlands in the north and central regions, and the Negev desert in the south. Running the length of the country from north to south along its eastern border is the northern terminus of the Great Rift Valley.
The State of Israel is the only Jewish nation in the modern period, and the region that now falls within its borders has a lengthy and rich history that dates from prebiblical times. The area was a part of the Roman Empire and, later, the Byzantine Empire before falling under the control of the fledgling Islamic caliphate in the 7th century CE. Although the object of dispute during the Crusades, the region, then generally known as Palestine, remained under the sway of successive Islamic dynasties until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, when it was placed under British mandate from the League of Nations.
Even before the mandate, the desire for a Jewish homeland prompted a small number of Jews to immigrate to Palestine, a migration that grew dramatically during the second quarter of the 20th century with the increased persecution of Jews worldwide and subsequent Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. This vast influx of Jewish immigrants into the region, however, caused tension with the native Palestinian Arabs, and violence flared between the two groups leading up to the United Nations plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab sectors and Israel’s ensuing declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948.
Flags of all countries of the world. Flags of the world. National flags. Country flags. Hompepage blog 2009, history and society, geography and travel, explore discovery Britannica Quiz The Country Quiz Israel fought a series of wars against neighbouring Arab states during the next 35 years, which have resulted in ongoing disputes over territory and the status of refugees. Despite continuing tensions, however, Israel concluded peace treaties with several neighbouring Arab states during the final quarter of the 20th century.
Land Relief Physical features of Israel Physical features of Israel Israel: Ḥula Valley Israel: Ḥula Valley Crops and fish farms in the Ḥula Valley, Israel.
Despite its small size, about 290 miles (470 km) north-to-south and 85 miles (135 km) east-to-west at its widest point, Israel has four geographic regions—the Mediterranean coastal plain, the hill regions of northern and central Israel, the Great Rift Valley, and the Negev—and a wide range of unique physical features and microclimates.
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The coastal plain is a narrow strip about 115 miles (185 km) long that widens to about 25 miles (40 km) in the south. A sandy shoreline with many beaches borders the Mediterranean coast. Inland to the east, fertile farmland is giving way to growing agricultural settlements and the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa and their suburbs.
In the north of the country, the mountains of Galilee constitute the highest part of Israel, reaching an elevation of 3,963 feet (1,208 metres) at Mount Meron (Arabic: Jebel Jarmaq). These mountains terminate to the east in an escarpment overlooking the Great Rift Valley. The mountains of Galilee are separated from the hills of the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the south by the fertile Plain of Esdraelon (Hebrew: ʿEmeq Yizreʿel), which, running approximately northwest to southeast, connects the coastal plain with the Great Rift Valley. The Mount Carmel range, which culminates in a peak 1,791 feet (546 metres) high, forms a spur reaching northwest from the highlands of the West Bank, cutting almost to the coast of Haifa.
Dead Sea Dead Sea Columns of salt rising from the extremely saline waters of the Dead Sea.
The Great Rift Valley, a long fissure in Earth’s crust, begins beyond the northern frontier of Israel and forms a series of valleys running generally south, the length of the country, to the Gulf of Aqaba. The Jordan River, which marks part of the frontier between Israel and Jordan, flows southward through the rift from Dan on Israel’s northern frontier, where it is 500 feet (152 metres) above sea level, first into the Ḥula Valley (Hebrew: ʿEmeq HaḤula), then into the freshwater Lake Tiberias, also known as the Sea of Galilee (Hebrew: Yam Kinneret), which lies 686 feet (209 metres) below sea level. The Jordan continues south along the eastern edge of the West Bank—now through the Jordan Valley (Hebrew: ʿEmeq HaYarden)—and finally into the highly saline Dead Sea, which, at 1,312 feet (400 metres) below sea level, is the lowest point of a natural landscape feature on the Earth’s surface. South of the Dead Sea, the Jordan continues through the rift, where it now forms the ʿArava Valley (Hebrew: “savannah”), an arid plain that extends to the Red Sea port of Eilat.
The sparsely populated Negev comprises the southern half of Israel. Arrow-shaped, this flat, sandy desert region narrows toward the south, where it becomes increasingly arid and breaks into sandstone hills cut by wadis, canyons, and cliffs before finally coming to a point where the ʿArava reaches Eilat.
Drainage The principal drainage system comprises Lake Tiberias and the Jordan River. Other rivers in Israel are the Yarqon, which empties into the Mediterranean near Tel Aviv; the Qishon, which runs through the western part of the Plain of Esdraelon to drain into the Mediterranean at Haifa; and a small section of the Yarmūk, a tributary of the Jordan that flows west along the Syria-Jordan border. Most of the country’s remaining streams are ephemeral and flow seasonally as wadis. The rivers are supplemented by a spring-fed underground water table that is tapped by wells. Israel has a chronic water shortage, and its hydraulic resources are fully utilized: about three-fourths for irrigation and the remainder for industrial and household water use.
Soils The coastal plain is covered mainly by alluvial soils. Parts of the arid northern Negev, where soil development would not be expected, have windblown loess soils because of proximity to the coastal plain. The soils of Galilee change from calcareous rock in the coastal plain, to Cenomanian and Turonian limestone (deposited from about 99 to 89 million years ago) in Upper Galilee, and to Eocene formations (those dating from about 55 to 35 million years ago) in the lower part of the region. Rock salt and gypsum are abundant in the Great Rift Valley. The southern Negev is mainly sandstone rock with veins of granite.
Climate of Israel Israel has a wide variety of climatic conditions, caused mainly by the country’s diverse topography. There are two distinct seasons: a cool, rainy winter (October–April) and a dry, hot summer (May–September). Along the coast, sea breezes have a moderating influence in summer, and the Mediterranean beaches are popular. Precipitation is light in the south, amounting to about 1 inch (25 mm) per year in the ʿArava Valley south of the Dead Sea, while in the north it is relatively heavy, up to 44 inches (1,120 mm) a year in the Upper Galilee region. In the large cities, along the coastal plain, annual rainfall averages about 20 inches (508 mm) per year. Precipitation occurs on about 60 days during the year, spread over the rainy season. Severe summer water shortages ensue in years when the rains come late or rainfall totals are less than normal.
Average annual temperatures vary throughout Israel based on elevation and location, with the coastal areas adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea having milder temperatures—ranging from about 84 °F (29 °C) in August to about 61 °F (16 °C) in January—and higher rates of humidity than areas inland, especially during the winter. Likewise, higher elevations, such as Upper Galilee, have cool nights, even in summer, and occasional snows in the winter. However, the coastal city of Eilat, in the south, despite its proximity to the Red Sea, is closer to the climate of the Jordan and ʿArava valleys and the Negev, which are hotter and drier than the northern coast; there, daytime temperatures reach about 70 °F (21 °C) in January and may rise as high as 114 °F (46 °C) in August, when the average high is 104 °F (40 °C).
Encyclopedia Britannica HomeGames & QuizzesHistory & SocietyScience & TechBiographiesAnimals & NatureGeography & TravelArts & CultureMoneyVideos Israel Home Geography & Travel Countries of the World Geography & Travel Israel Also known as: Isrāʾīl, Medinat Yisraʾel, State of Israel Written by , , See All Fact-checked by Last Updated: Dec 15, 2023 • Article History Recent News Dec. 15, 2023, 10:49 AM ET (AP) Live updates | As fighting rages in Gaza, a US envoy is set to meet with the Palestinian president Dec. 15, 2023, 9:04 AM ET (AP) US and Israel discuss when to scale back Gaza combat but agree fight will take months, envoy says Summary Read a brief summary of this topic Israel, country in the Middle East, located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bounded to the north by Lebanon, to the northeast by Syria, to the east and southeast by Jordan, to the southwest by Egypt, and to the west by the Mediterranean Sea. Jerusalem is the seat of government and the proclaimed capital, although the latter status has not received wide international recognition.
Israel flag of Israel Audio File: National anthem of Israel See all media Category: Geography & Travel Arabic: Isrāʾīl Officially: State of Israel or Hebrew: Medinat Yisraʾel Head Of Government: Prime Minister: Benjamin Netanyahu Capital (Proclaimed): Jerusalem; international recognition of its capital status has largely been withheld. Population: (2023 est.) 9,153,0001 Currency Exchange Rate: 1 USD equals 3.834 Israeli shekel Head Of State: President: Isaac Herzog Israel Israel Israel is a small country with a relatively diverse topography, consisting of a lengthy coastal plain, highlands in the north and central regions, and the Negev desert in the south. Running the length of the country from north to south along its eastern border is the northern terminus of the Great Rift Valley.
The State of Israel is the only Jewish nation in the modern period, and the region that now falls within its borders has a lengthy and rich history that dates from prebiblical times. The area was a part of the Roman Empire and, later, the Byzantine Empire before falling under the control of the fledgling Islamic caliphate in the 7th century CE. Although the object of dispute during the Crusades, the region, then generally known as Palestine, remained under the sway of successive Islamic dynasties until the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, when it was placed under British mandate from the League of Nations.
Even before the mandate, the desire for a Jewish homeland prompted a small number of Jews to immigrate to Palestine, a migration that grew dramatically during the second quarter of the 20th century with the increased persecution of Jews worldwide and subsequent Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. This vast influx of Jewish immigrants into the region, however, caused tension with the native Palestinian Arabs, and violence flared between the two groups leading up to the United Nations plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab sectors and Israel’s ensuing declaration of statehood on May 14, 1948.
Flags of all countries of the world. Flags of the world. National flags. Country flags. Hompepage blog 2009, history and society, geography and travel, explore discovery Britannica Quiz The Country Quiz Israel fought a series of wars against neighbouring Arab states during the next 35 years, which have resulted in ongoing disputes over territory and the status of refugees. Despite continuing tensions, however, Israel concluded peace treaties with several neighbouring Arab states during the final quarter of the 20th century.
Land Relief Physical features of Israel Physical features of Israel Israel: Ḥula Valley Israel: Ḥula Valley Crops and fish farms in the Ḥula Valley, Israel.
Despite its small size, about 290 miles (470 km) north-to-south and 85 miles (135 km) east-to-west at its widest point, Israel has four geographic regions—the Mediterranean coastal plain, the hill regions of northern and central Israel, the Great Rift Valley, and the Negev—and a wide range of unique physical features and microclimates.
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The coastal plain is a narrow strip about 115 miles (185 km) long that widens to about 25 miles (40 km) in the south. A sandy shoreline with many beaches borders the Mediterranean coast. Inland to the east, fertile farmland is giving way to growing agricultural settlements and the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa and their suburbs.
In the north of the country, the mountains of Galilee constitute the highest part of Israel, reaching an elevation of 3,963 feet (1,208 metres) at Mount Meron (Arabic: Jebel Jarmaq). These mountains terminate to the east in an escarpment overlooking the Great Rift Valley. The mountains of Galilee are separated from the hills of the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the south by the fertile Plain of Esdraelon (Hebrew: ʿEmeq Yizreʿel), which, running approximately northwest to southeast, connects the coastal plain with the Great Rift Valley. The Mount Carmel range, which culminates in a peak 1,791 feet (546 metres) high, forms a spur reaching northwest from the highlands of the West Bank, cutting almost to the coast of Haifa.
Dead Sea Dead Sea Columns of salt rising from the extremely saline waters of the Dead Sea.
The Great Rift Valley, a long fissure in Earth’s crust, begins beyond the northern frontier of Israel and forms a series of valleys running generally south, the length of the country, to the Gulf of Aqaba. The Jordan River, which marks part of the frontier between Israel and Jordan, flows southward through the rift from Dan on Israel’s northern frontier, where it is 500 feet (152 metres) above sea level, first into the Ḥula Valley (Hebrew: ʿEmeq HaḤula), then into the freshwater Lake Tiberias, also known as the Sea of Galilee (Hebrew: Yam Kinneret), which lies 686 feet (209 metres) below sea level. The Jordan continues south along the eastern edge of the West Bank—now through the Jordan Valley (Hebrew: ʿEmeq HaYarden)—and finally into the highly saline Dead Sea, which, at 1,312 feet (400 metres) below sea level, is the lowest point of a natural landscape feature on the Earth’s surface. South of the Dead Sea, the Jordan continues through the rift, where it now forms the ʿArava Valley (Hebrew: “savannah”), an arid plain that extends to the Red Sea port of Eilat.
The sparsely populated Negev comprises the southern half of Israel. Arrow-shaped, this flat, sandy desert region narrows toward the south, where it becomes increasingly arid and breaks into sandstone hills cut by wadis, canyons, and cliffs before finally coming to a point where the ʿArava reaches Eilat.
Drainage The principal drainage system comprises Lake Tiberias and the Jordan River. Other rivers in Israel are the Yarqon, which empties into the Mediterranean near Tel Aviv; the Qishon, which runs through the western part of the Plain of Esdraelon to drain into the Mediterranean at Haifa; and a small section of the Yarmūk, a tributary of the Jordan that flows west along the Syria-Jordan border. Most of the country’s remaining streams are ephemeral and flow seasonally as wadis. The rivers are supplemented by a spring-fed underground water table that is tapped by wells. Israel has a chronic water shortage, and its hydraulic resources are fully utilized: about three-fourths for irrigation and the remainder for industrial and household water use.
Soils The coastal plain is covered mainly by alluvial soils. Parts of the arid northern Negev, where soil development would not be expected, have windblown loess soils because of proximity to the coastal plain. The soils of Galilee change from calcareous rock in the coastal plain, to Cenomanian and Turonian limestone (deposited from about 99 to 89 million years ago) in Upper Galilee, and to Eocene formations (those dating from about 55 to 35 million years ago) in the lower part of the region. Rock salt and gypsum are abundant in the Great Rift Valley. The southern Negev is mainly sandstone rock with veins of granite.
Climate of Israel Israel has a wide variety of climatic conditions, caused mainly by the country’s diverse topography. There are two distinct seasons: a cool, rainy winter (October–April) and a dry, hot summer (May–September). Along the coast, sea breezes have a moderating influence in summer, and the Mediterranean beaches are popular. Precipitation is light in the south, amounting to about 1 inch (25 mm) per year in the ʿArava Valley south of the Dead Sea, while in the north it is relatively heavy, up to 44 inches (1,120 mm) a year in the Upper Galilee region. In the large cities, along the coastal plain, annual rainfall averages about 20 inches (508 mm) per year. Precipitation occurs on about 60 days during the year, spread over the rainy season. Severe summer water shortages ensue in years when the rains come late or rainfall totals are less than normal.
Average annual temperatures vary throughout Israel based on elevation and location, with the coastal areas adjacent to the Mediterranean Sea having milder temperatures—ranging from about 84 °F (29 °C) in August to about 61 °F (16 °C) in January—and higher rates of humidity than areas inland, especially during the winter. Likewise, higher elevations, such as Upper Galilee, have cool nights, even in summer, and occasional snows in the winter. However, the coastal city of Eilat, in the south, despite its proximity to the Red Sea, is closer to the climate of the Jordan and ʿArava valleys and the Negev, which are hotter and drier than the northern coast; there, daytime temperatures reach about 70 °F (21 °C) in January and may rise as high as 114 °F (46 °C) in August, when the average high is 104 °F (40 °C).
Plant and animal life
Natural vegetation is highly varied, and more than 2,800 plant species have been identified. The original evergreen forests, the legendary “cedars of Lebanon,” have largely disappeared after many centuries of timber cutting for shipbuilding and to clear land for cultivation and goat herding; they have been replaced by second-growth oak and smaller evergreen conifers. The hills are mostly covered by maquis, and wildflowers bloom profusely in the rainy season. Only wild desert scrub grows in the Negev and on the sand dunes of the coastal plain. North of Beersheba, most of the country is under cultivation or is used for hill grazing. Where irrigation is available, citrus groves, orchards of subtropical fruit, and food crops flourish. Millions of trees have been planted through a government reforestation program.
Animal life is also diverse. Mammals include wildcats, wild boars, gazelles, ibex, jackals, hyenas, hares, coneys, badgers, and tiger weasels. Notable among the reptiles are geckos and lizards of the genus Agama and vipers such as the carpet, or saw-scaled, viper (Echis carinatus). More than 400 species of birds have been identified in the region, including the partridge, tropical cuckoo, bustard, sand grouse, and desert lark. There are many kinds of fish and insects, and locusts from the desert sometimes invade settled areas. Several regions have been set aside as nature reserves, notably parts of the ʿArava in the south and Mount Carmel, Mount Meron, and the remains of the Ḥula Lake and marshes in the north. The Mediterranean coast and the Jordan and ʿArava valleys are important routes for migratory birds.
Jewish immigration in the 20th century greatly altered the settlement pattern of the country. The first modern-day Jewish settlers established themselves on the coastal plain in the 1880s. Later they also moved into the valleys of the interior and into parts of the hill districts, as well as into the Negev. Small cities such as Haifa and Jerusalem grew in size, and the port of Jaffa (Yafo) sprouted a suburb, Tel Aviv, which grew into one of the largest cities in Israel. Jewish immigrants also settled those areas of the coastal plain, the Judaean foothills, and the Jordan and ʿArava valleys evacuated by Palestinians during the war of 1948, thereby becoming the majority in many areas previously inhabited by Arabs. Although the majority of the Bedouin of the Negev left the region when Israel incorporated the territory, the desert has continued to be largely the domain of the Arab nomads who remained or returned following the end of fighting.
Is it loving to condone sin or participate in it? It’s amazing how often people say that we need to be like Jesus in accepting the behavior of sinners, even though Jesus himself called everyone to repent and to accept the Kingdom. Jesus clearly did not come to leave people in sin, although we hear […]
As the sun sets on this daymay we pray to rememberthe good that surrounds us,the good that can be. Help us to find our wayto a kinder world.May each of uscontemplate sameness. Our sameness. Our humanity.May leaders from all countriesall religions, all ethnicities,strive for gentle caring. May we look in the mirroreyes and hearts open,and […]
If i could talk to the animals – just imagine it, speaking with a Chimp in chimpanzee! Imagine talking to a Tiger, or chatting with a Cheetah – what a neat achievement that would be! If i could talk to the animals, learn their languages – maybe take an animal degree… I’d study Elephant and […]
Isaiah 62:6: “I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night.”
And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak. 2 Corinthians 4:13
SPEAKING OUT IN FAITH Do you know that as God’s child, you can speak positively into your negative situation and see it change for the better?
Let me show you some scriptures about faith and speaking that will help you. Romans 10:9 tells us that “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved”. Our Lord Jesus also said, “Whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says” (Mark 11:23).
Now, reread what the apostle Paul wrote in today’s verse. Do you notice a pattern here? Faith involves believing in your heart as well as speaking with your mouth. You and I, we are made in God’s image. When God first saw darkness, He didn’t say, “Gosh, it’s so dark.” What did God do? He called forth light by speaking. He said, “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3).
In the New Testament, our Lord Jesus spoke to the storm and it subsided. He spoke to the fig tree and it withered. He spoke to the demons and they fled. He spoke to the sick and they were healed. He spoke to the dead and they lived.
Similarly, when we are faced with darkness in any area of our lives today, or trapped in a storm of challenges, let’s not be mired in looking at the problems and despairing. We should also call forth what we want to see! If we find ourselves caught in a dangerous situation, we should declare, “The Lord is my refuge and my fortress.” If there is a sickness in our body, we can call forth our healing by saying, “Thank You, Jesus, by Your stripes I am healed!” Start speaking forth your protection, your health, and your victory today!
Shalom Friends,
Messianic Israelis and International Believers call for 1,000,000 to Pray One Hour for Israel on Yom Kippur.
A coalition of ministries will broadcast the online prayer meeting on Yom Kippur/The Day of Atonement between Jerusalem and Kansas City.
As Jewish people fast (Lev. 23:27), and believers will pray for the salvation of Israel.
GOD TV will host the feed at 10AM EST/5PM Israel on September 25th.
Over 5,000,000 believers came together this spring from May 7th to May 28th to pray at least one hour a day for Israel. This initiative was the brainchild of Mike Bickle and the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. Their initial goal was to see 1,000,000 believers take their stand on the walls of Jerusalem, drawing inspiration from Isaiah 62:6: “I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night.”
Bickle was overwhelmed when 5,000,000 believers and 12,000 different ministries pledged to pray. They opened Isaiah62fast.com to be a hub to promote prayer for Israel. These 12,000 ministries, “put their information on the Isaiah 62 website,” shared Mike Bickle. “That website is only a mobilizing website for Israel prayer. It is not a conference website, it’s not a book website, [and] it’s not a ‘come and hear us’ website. It is a ‘here’s the people that will mobilize people in their geographic area prayer for Israel.”
Yom Kippur Hour of Prayer
Last Yom Kippur, Ron Cantor, president of Shelanu TV in Tel Aviv, organized a one-hour prayer event on GOD TV during Yom Kippur. “The idea was to see believers praying for Israel at the very time that Jewish people worldwide are praying and fasting.” Ron, who moved to Israel in 2003, says the goal was always to get to one million people, but he was willing to wait. “I felt it would take at least five years to build that kind of momentum.”
But when he saw the success of the Isaiah 62 fast campaign, he contacted Bickle. “I was on the rooftop of a hotel in Jerusalem praying the morning after the final event for the Isaiah 62 fast. It was as clear as day to me that I needed to recruit Mike. “I said ‘Mike, if I call people to pray on Yom Kippur, we might get a few hundred people, maybe 1,000. But people trust you as an international prayer leader. Would you put your voice behind this effort?’ I knew if he did, we could see more than 1,000,000 people praying for Israel on September 25th, Yom Kippur. He didn’t hesitate; he immediately said yes.”
Bickle says the goal is to “[Mobilize] believers around the world to stand together on Yom Kippur, to cry out to the Lord for a visitation of power upon the Jewish people across the world.” During Yom Kippur, “Millions of Jewish people are posturing themselves in a place to hear God; they are making themselves vulnerable to the Holy Spirit—whether they know it or not. And then, we’ve got a million believers around the world crying out for a visitation upon these hearts.”
Cantor, who also serves as GOD TV’s Israel director, explains, “The ultimate world- wide, end-time revival is contingent on the Jewish people accepting Yeshua (Jesus). If you look at Romans 11:12, Paul says that Jewish rejection caused the book of Acts revival—what Paul call ‘riches.’ Then he says, if Israel’s rejection caused an unprecedented, worldwide, spiritual earthquake, imagine how much of a greater revival—or in his word—’greater riches’—will come on the world when the Jewish people accept the gospel!”
The plan to is to gather at 10am EST/5pm Israel to pray for one hour for Israel. You can tune in to a special simulcast between Jerusalem and Kansas City. This will air on God TV’s Facebook page here.
“We are asking 1,000,000 of you for one hour” says Bickle, “on Yom Kippur.” During the May event, “twos and threes met in homes. Twos and threes even met in cars with their cell phones; they met in dorm rooms. Some of them met in the church foyer….”
“Isaiah 62 speaks of God placing watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem,” says Cantor. “If the prophet is speaking to the people of Jerusalem, then the watchmen are obviously not Jewish—they are from outside of Israel. I believe that Isaiah is looking ahead to a time when more than a billion non-Jews will have embraced the Jewish Messiah, Jesus. They will recognize that the gospel came to them through the Jewish people and will commit themselves to be Watchmen for Israel, contending for her salvation.
“God tells these watchmen to give themselves no rest and to give God no rest, till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.’”
Beloved, you’re so precious and loved by the Lord. If you’re trusting the Lord for healing for yourself or your loved ones, can I encourage you to keep looking to Jesus and see His finished work that has paid for your healing? His heart is to see you happy, healthy, and whole! To help build your faith during this season
The Gospel of Mark was written by John Mark whose life was shaped by three men. First, his cousin Barnabas invited him to join him and Paul on their first missionary trip. Sadly, Mark deserted Paul and Barnabas along the way. That upset Paul, who was the second great influence on Mark’s life. Paul refused to take the young man on their next trip, and Paul’s rebuke must have stung like a rod.
That’s when Peter stepped in. We know from trustworthy traditions that Peter took Mark under his wing, traveled with him, and used him as an interpreter. Mark listened to Peter’s stories of Christ over and over, and Mark put it all down on paper, writing his Gospel based largely on Peter’s accounts.
God sends various people into our life. Some encourage us. Some rebuke us. Some help us recover. They all play a part in shaping us to be the person God wants us to be, and we should be thankful for them. What people have left a mark on your life?
The kindly tutelage of Barnabas…. The stern discipline of Paul…. The influence of Peter…. The Holy Spirit may well have used all three factors…to perform his marvelous work [in Mark’s life].
Ezekiel 28:1 – 32:32 (nkjv) PROCLAMATION AGAINST THE KING OF TYRE 28 The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, 2 “Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, ‘Thus says the Lord God:
“Because your heart is lifted up, And you say, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of gods, In the midst of the seas,’ Yet you are a man, and not a god, Though you set your heart as the heart of a god 3 (Behold, you are wiser than Daniel! There is no secret that can be hidden from you! 4 With your wisdom and your understanding You have gained riches for yourself, And gathered gold and silver into your treasuries; 5 By your great wisdom in trade you have increased your riches, And your heart is lifted up because of your riches),”
6 ‘Therefore thus says the Lord God:
“Because you have set your heart as the heart of a god, 7 Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers against you, The most terrible of the nations; And they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom, And defile your splendor. 8 They shall throw you down into the Pit, And you shall die the death of the slain In the midst of the seas.
9 “Will you still say before him who slays you, ‘I am a god’? But you shall be a man, and not a god, In the hand of him who slays you. 10 You shall die the death of the uncircumcised By the hand of aliens; For I have spoken,” says the Lord God.’”
trading; Therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, And I turned you to ashes upon the earth In the sight of all who saw you. 19 All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; You have become a horror, And shall be no more forever.”’”
PROCLAMATION AGAINST SIDON 20 Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
O Pharaoh king of Egypt, O great monster who lies in the midst of his rivers, Who has said, ‘My River is my own; I have made it for myself.’ 4 But I will put hooks in your jaws, And cause the fish of your rivers to stick to your scales; I will bring you up out of the midst of your rivers, And all the fish in your rivers will stick to your scales.
Ezekiel 28:1 – 32:32 (nkjv) 5 I will leave you in the wilderness,You and all the fish of your rivers;You shall fall on the open field;You shall not be picked up or gathered.I have given you as foodTo the beasts of the fieldAnd to the birds of the heavens. 6 “Then all the inhabitants of Egypt Shall know that I am the Lord, Because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel. 7 When they took hold of you with the hand, You broke and tore all their shoulders; When they leaned on you, You broke and made all their backs quiver.”
8 ‘Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Surely I will bring a sword upon you and cut off from you man and beast. 9 And the land of Egypt shall become desolate and waste; then they will know that I am the Lord, because he said, ‘The River is mine, and I have made it.’ 10 Indeed, therefore, I am against you and against your rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from Migdol to Syene, as far as the border of Ethiopia. 11 Neither foot of man shall pass through it nor foot of beast pass through it, and it shall be uninhabited forty years. 12 I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate; and among the cities that are laid waste, her cities shall be desolate forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them throughout the countries.”
13 ‘Yet, thus says the Lord God: “At the end of forty years I will gather the Egyptians from the peoples among whom they were scattered. 14 I will bring back the captives of Egypt and cause them to return to the land of Pathros, to the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom.
15 It shall be the lowliest of kingdoms; it shall never again exalt itself above the nations, for I will diminish them so that they will not rule over the nations anymore. 16 No longer shall it be the confidence of the house of Israel, but will remind them of their iniquity when they turned to follow them. Then they shall know that I am the Lord God.”’” BABYLONIA WILL PLUNDER EGYPT 17 And it came to pass in the twenty-seventh year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 18 “Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to labor strenuously against Tyre; every head was made bald, and every shoulder rubbed raw; yet neither he nor his army received wages from Tyre, for the labor which they expended on it. 19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Surely I will give the land of Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; he shall take away her wealth, carry off her spoil, and remove her pillage; and that will be the wages for his army. 20 I have given him the land of Egypt for his labor, because they worked for Me,’ says the Lord God.
21 ‘In that day I will cause the horn of the house of Israel to spring forth, and I will open your mouth to speak in their midst. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.’”
EGYPT AND HER ALLIES WILL FALL 30 The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, 2 “Son of man, prophesy and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God:
“Wail, ‘Woe to the day!’ 3 For the day is near, Even the day of the Lord is near; It will be a day of clouds, the time of the Gentiles.
4 The sword shall come upon Egypt,And great anguish shall be in Ethiopia,When the slain fall in Egypt,And they take away her wealth,And her foundations are broken down. 5 “Ethiopia, Libya, Lydia, all the mingled people, Chub, and the men of the lands who are allied, shall fall with them by the sword.”
6 ‘Thus says the Lord:
“Those who uphold Egypt shall fall, And the pride of her power shall come down. From Migdol to Syene Those within her shall fall by the sword,” Says the Lord God. 7 “They shall be desolate in the midst of the desolate countries, And her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are laid waste. 8 Then they will know that I am the Lord, When I have set a fire in Egypt And all her helpers are destroyed. 9 On that day messengers shall go forth from Me in ships To make the careless Ethiopians afraid, And great anguish shall come upon them, As on the day of Egypt; For indeed it is coming!”
10 ‘Thus says the Lord God:
“I will also make a multitude of Egypt to cease By the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. 11 He and his people with him, the most terrible of the nations, Shall be brought to destroy the land; They shall draw their swords against Egypt, And fill the land with the slain. 12 I will make the rivers dry, And sell the land into the hand of the wicked; I will make the land waste, and all that is in it, By the hand of aliens. I, the Lord, have spoken.”
13 ‘Thus says the Lord God:
“I will also destroy the idols, And cause the images to cease from Noph; There shall no longer be princes from the land of Egypt; I will put fear in the land of Egypt.
14 I will make Pathros desolate,Set fire to Zoan,And execute judgments in No.15 I will pour My fury on Sin, the strength of Egypt;I will cut off the multitude of No,16 And set a fire in Egypt;Sin shall have great pain,No shall be split open,And Noph shall be in distress daily.17 The young men of Aven and Pi Beseth shall fall by the sword,And these cities shall go into captivity.18 At Tehaphnehes the day shall also be darkened,When I break the yokes of Egypt there.And her arrogant strength shall cease in her;As for her, a cloud shall cover her,And her daughters shall go into captivity.19 Thus I will execute judgments on Egypt,Then they shall know that I am the Lord.”’” PROCLAMATION AGAINST PHARAOH 20 And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 21 “Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and see, it has not been bandaged for healing, nor a splint put on to bind it, to make it strong enough to hold a sword. 22 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Surely I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will break his arms, both the strong one and the one that was broken; and I will make the sword fall out of his hand. 23 I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them throughout the countries.
24 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon and put My sword in his hand; but I will break Pharaoh’s arms, and he will groan before him with the groanings of a mortally wounded man. 25 Thus I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh shall fall down; they shall know that I am the Lord, when I put My sword into the hand of the king of Babylon and he stretches it out against the land of Egypt. 26 I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them throughout the countries. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.’” EGYPT CUT DOWN LIKE A GREAT TREE 31 Now it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude:
‘Whom are you like in your greatness? 3 Indeed Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon, With fine branches that shaded the forest, And of high stature; And its top was among the thick boughs. 4 The waters made it grow; Underground waters gave it height, With their rivers running around the place where it was planted, And sent out rivulets to all the trees of the field.
5 ‘Therefore its height was exalted above all the trees of the field; Its boughs were multiplied, And its branches became long because of the abundance of water, As it sent them out. 6 All the birds of the heavens made their nests in its boughs; Under its branches all the beasts of the field brought forth their young; And in its shadow all great nations made their home.
7 ‘Thus it was beautiful in greatness and in the length of its branches, Because its roots reached to abundant waters.
8 The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it;The fir trees were not like its boughs,And the chestnut trees were not like its branches;No tree in the garden of God was like it in beauty.9 I made it beautiful with a multitude of branches,So that all the trees of Eden envied it,That were in the garden of God.’ 10 “Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have increased in height, and it set its top among the thick boughs, and its heart was lifted up in its height, 11 therefore I will deliver it into the hand of the mighty one of the nations, and he shall surely deal with it; I have driven it out for its wickedness. 12 And aliens, the most terrible of the nations, have cut it down and left it; its branches have fallen on the mountains and in all the valleys; its boughs lie broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the peoples of the earth have gone from under its shadow and left it.
13 ‘On its ruin will remain all the birds of the heavens, And all the beasts of the field will come to its branches—
14 ‘So that no trees by the waters may ever again exalt themselves for their height, nor set their tops among the thick boughs, that no tree which drinks water may ever be high enough to reach up to them.
‘For they have all been delivered to death, To the depths of the earth, Among the children of men who go down to the Pit.’
15 “Thus says the Lord God: ‘In the day when it went down to hell, I caused mourning. I covered the deep because of it. I restrained its rivers, and the great waters were held back. I caused Lebanon to mourn for it, and all the trees of the field wilted because of it. 16 I made the nations shake at the sound of its fall, when I cast it down to hell together with those who descend into the Pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the depths of the earth. 17 They also went down to hell with it, with those slain by the sword; and those who were its strong arm dwelt in its shadows among the nations.
10 Yes, I will make many peoples astonished at you, and their kings shall be horribly afraid of you when I brandish My sword before them; and they shall tremble every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of your fall. 11 ‘For thus says the Lord God: “The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon you. 12 By the swords of the mighty warriors, all of them the most terrible of the nations, I will cause your multitude to fall.
“They shall plunder the pomp of Egypt, And all its multitude shall be destroyed. 13 Also I will destroy all its animals From beside its great waters; The foot of man shall muddy them no more, Nor shall the hooves of animals muddy them. 14 Then I will make their waters clear, And make their rivers run like oil,” Says the Lord God.
15 “When I make the land of Egypt desolate, And the country is destitute of all that once filled it, When I strike all who dwell in it, Then they shall know that I am the Lord.
16 “This is the lamentation With which they shall lament her; The daughters of the nations shall lament her; They shall lament for her, for Egypt, And for all her multitude,” Says the Lord God.’”
EGYPT AND OTHERS CONSIGNED TO THE PIT 17 It came to pass also in the twelfth year, on the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
18 “Son of man, wail over the multitude of Egypt, And cast them down to the depths of the earth, Her and the daughters of the famous nations, With those who go down to the Pit: 19 ‘Whom do you surpass in beauty? Go down, be placed with the uncircumcised.’
around it, All of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, Though they caused their terror in the land of the living. 27 They do not lie with the mighty Who are fallen of the uncircumcised, Who have gone down to hell with their weapons of war; They have laid their swords under their heads, But their iniquities will be on their bones, Because of the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. 28 Yes, you shall be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, And lie with those slain by the sword.
29 “There is Edom, Her kings and all her princes, Who despite their might Are laid beside those slain by the sword; They shall lie with the uncircumcised, And with those who go down to the Pit.
30 There are the princes of the north,All of them, and all the Sidonians,Who have gone down with the slainIn shame at the terror which they caused by their might;They lie uncircumcised with those slain by the sword,And bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit. 31 “Pharaoh will see them And be comforted over all his multitude, Pharaoh and all his army, Slain by the sword,” Says the Lord God.
32 “For I have caused My terror in the land of the living; And he shall be placed in the midst of the uncircumcised With those slain by the sword, Pharaoh and all his multitude,” Says the Lord God.
Poison frontman, rock star and Pennsylvania native Bret Michaels spent the day ahead of his show at Hollywood Casino volunteering at Fort Indiantown Gap National Cemetery, where his father is buried.
PennLive spoke with Michaels at the cemetery just before he met up with some friends and veterans to replace tattered and torn American flags along the cemetery’s roads. Michaels’ “Party-Gras” show is currently touring the United States. His show at the casino at the Penn National Race Course is set for 7 p.m. Saturday night.
What brings you to Fort Indiantown Gap?
“I am here today for three reasons. Number one, to visit my father. My father is buried here, he’s a Navy veteran, and I come up here and just spend some time at his memorial. Number two, my good friend Rob Taylor, and all the veterans, are here today and we’re going to help them to lower flags, repair them, do maintenance on them. They’re putting me to work early…So we’re mixing all of this, it’s like a trifecta of awesomeness of being able to be here, lower the flags. Every one of these flags that’s here hanging, that they do maintenance on, was draped over the coffin of a veteran, including my father’s. So we are just here to honor the men and women. As I say, no politics, just here to say thank you for the freedoms we get, and the most important is the freedom of opinion, it’s amazing.”
What does it mean to you to volunteer so close to home?
“You know I was born in Pittsburgh, I grew up in central Pennsylvania. My dad when he finished out in the military, finished his whole career at the Mechanicsburg Naval Support Center. To come back here, I feel like I am at home with my friends. And then to be surrounded by all these incredible veterans, that I love and respect, that’s a great day.”
Do you have any specific, fond memories of central Pennsylvania? How often do you try to come back to the area?
“I have so many great memories of central Pennsylvania. I captured it in my latest single, it’s called ‘Back in the Day.’ I love sports and I love music, so most of my memories are here racing dirt bikes, paying football, baseball, you know I was a Mechanicsburg Wildcat. So for me, it’s a great feeling, and then tonight at the concert. All of my friends, all of them. Family, friends are all going to be out at the show. We have a VIP pit area just for them, and there’s like 211. It’s like a high school reunion, coming tonight. It’s going to be awesome.”
“All of my memories, like tubing, all that stuff I had talked about so many times. I just took a bunch of friends of mine out tubing a couple weeks ago when we were here and it was great. When you grow up someplace you remember all the great times you had there, all the great friends you made. It’s organic, that feeling I get when I come back to central Pennsylvania is a good feeling.”
Who is your show tonight for? Is it dedicated to anyone and what does it stand for?
“I created and produced this show called the ‘Party-Gras Mardi Gras,’ and what it means is it’s a celebration of the fans, the bands, the music. Tonight I asked my friends from Warrant to come. They come out they do a great song, a great set. We mix up our songs, it’s all killer hits, no filler. And then what the show is dedicated to is all of our hometown heroes here and hometown musicians. There’s so much talent in this area. I just think tonight to honor those amazing hometown musicians. Shay Quinn is going to join me from the Sharks. We were there together since the beginning of our career, playing every paradise, moving the pool table out of the way. We’d help each other move it over so we could fit the drum kit in, and it just never deterred me. I think honoring them and letting them know how talented they are, we’ve got a lot of local bands joining us on my songs, on the Poison hits and the Bret Michaels hits. So they’ll come in, interweave and join together and make it a great show.
You mentioned that your latest single, “Back in the Day,” has some ties to central Pennsylvania. Will tonight be the first time you perform the song in central Pennsylvania?
“We were in Philly, we were in Pittsburgh, but not central Pa., so this will be the first time for me tonight. And if fans want to check that out go to BretMichaels.com, check out the song ‘Back in the Day,’ check it out on YouTube. It’s a really fun, unique video with archived footage. You’ll see a picture of me playing the guitar by the Christmas tree when I was like five years old, just strumming my first acoustic, and the next picture is me at the stadium here in Hershey. The song is just a catchy, good rock song with a good riff.”
This one might be a tough one… but do you have a favorite song to perform? I know you have quite the catalog of hits!
“As the father of two daughters, it’s like your songs are like your kids. You love all of them for different reasons. But probably the one that I enjoy the most is at the very end of the night, for the upbeat, is ‘Nothing But a Good Time.’ I love it, it just hits. And ‘Talk Dirty to Me,’ we open the show with ‘Talk Dirty to Me,’ because it’s an insta-hit, it was our first big hit. And we close it with ‘Nothing But a Good Time.’ And then for the ballads obviously ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn,’ and ‘Something to Believe In.’ So there’s four kids! But like I said, I love each of them for a different reason and I think that’s what’s helped us cross over from rock, pop, country. Music is such a universal language meant to unite us, not to divide us. It’s the soundtrack to my life. And as a diabetic, it means the world to me and it saved my life.”
Yes, a couple things I want to hint. Number one, having the local musicians coming up, and great musicians, join me. We’re also going to on ‘Something to Believe In,’ bring in all the hometown heroes, our veterans and our first responders, frontline workers that do so much for us, and bring them on stage. Tonight’s a celebration. We’re designing out how everyone is going to enter. I actually have people that work on my crew who put the Mardi Gras beads on people, hand out guitar picks and just welcome everyone to the show.”
The Party-Gras Tour has been going on for quite some time, do you see an end to the tour or does the Party-Gras never end?
“There is no end in sight for the Party-Gras tour. We’ll use your quote, the Party-Gras never ends. The 1.0 Party-Gras has been – we do the spring version, summer, fall, winter. So right now we’re ending the summer Party-Gras and we go into the Fall Ball Party-Gras. And then next year with LiveNation, they’ve already signed on for all the dates, we’re going to do the same thing next year. We’ll be back here next year again, and it’s going to be incredible. And each year, different musicians, different people. We make some that are mixed with pop artists, rock artists, country artists, it’s pretty incredible.”
How would you design the city of the future? Show the love of God!
Dear God, we value both the physical and spiritual bodies You have so delicately created. We will protect one another and work harder to build each other up spiritually. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. Corinthians 3:17
There are a variety of ways our bodies can be destroyed both physically and spiritually. We can be physically abusive by fighting or intentionally disregarding safety protocols. We speak hurtful words, gossip or lead others into sin, be it intentional or not. We know to treat our own body as a temple, and we must be sure to treat those around us the same. We will protect one another in all physical settings and build each other up spiritually.
We have set up the Harvest Maui Relief Fund to provide tangible support for our church’s local relief efforts. Enable images to see what you’re missing from Harvest Ministries.
Friday, August 25, 2023 Impact Without Compromise
LISTEN “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.”
—Matthew 5:14
Years ago, I arrived home during one of California’s rolling blackouts. All the power was gone. The Internet was down. Even the streetlights were off. There was no light anywhere.
However, I did have my cell phone, which had a low battery. Still, there was a little light emanating from it, and I was able to use it to find my way around. And I discovered that a little light goes a long way.
We live in a very dark time culturally, and a little light will go a long way. We have an entire generation of young people who seem to be adrift morally and spiritually. That is why the world so desperately needs the gospel.
The Bible clearly teaches that our culture will grow darker. It isn’t going to get better; it’s going to get worse. Even though humanity has increased in scientific, medical, historical, educational, psychological, and technological knowledge to an astounding degree, we have not changed our basic nature.
Our confidence has increased, but our peace of mind has diminished. Our accomplishments have increased, but our sense of purpose and meaning have all but disappeared. Instead of improving the moral and spiritual quality of our lives, our discoveries and accomplishments have simply provided new ways to show ourselves for what we really are: depraved, sinful, and wicked.
The spiral is downward, not upward.
As Christians, we might be tempted to withdraw to our own subculture. But that is not what we’re supposed to do. The objective of believers is not to isolate but to infiltrate. It is not to evade but to invade.
Jesus said, “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14 NLT). We need to impact our culture without being compromised by it.
Psalm 145:17-18 (nkjv) 17 The Lord is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works. 18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth.
Psalm 145:17-18 (nkjv) 17 The Lord is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works. 18 The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, To all who call upon Him in truth. Before God began to form the earth, it was formless, empty, and dark. Even in that state, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). On day three of Creation, God pulled back the waters and dry land appeared. Chaos turned into order on earth.
In Psalm 46, the psalmist seems to call upon that Creation imagery. Instead of the land and mountains appearing out of the sea, he sees the earth being “removed” and “the mountains [being] carried into the midst of the sea.” The sea roared and was troubled (verses 2-3). Instead of God bringing order out of chaos, as He did at Creation, it seems that the psalmist’s life (and Israel’s) is devolving into chaos. But he knows one thing is true: Just as the Spirit of God was hovering over the earth, so God is “a very present help in [his time of] trouble…. The Lord of hosts is with us” (Psalm 46:1, 7).
When you sense that chaos is replacing order in your life, remember that God is your always-present help. Call on Him to calm the chaos and restore the order.
If you don’t surrender to Christ, you surrender to chaos. E. Stanley Jones
Ezekiel 5:1 – 8:18 (nkjv)
A SWORD AGAINST JERUSALEM
5 “And you, son of man, take a sharp sword, take it as a barber’s razor, and pass it over your head and your beard; then take scales to weigh and divide the hair. 2 You shall burn with fire one-third in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are finished; then you shall take one-third and strike around it with the sword, and one-third you shall scatter in the wind: I will draw out a sword after them. 3 You shall also take a small number of them and bind them in the edge of your garment.4 Then take some of them again and throw them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From there a fire will go out into all the house of Israel.
5 “Thus says the Lord God: ‘This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of the nations and the countries all around her. 6 She has rebelled against My judgments by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries that are all around her; for they have refused My judgments, and they have not walked in My statutes.’ 7 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have multiplied disobedience more than the nations that are all around you, have not walked in My statutes nor kept My judgments, nor even done according to the judgments of the nations that are all around you’— 8 therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Indeed I, even I, am against you and will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. 9 And I will do among you what I have never done, and the like of which I will never do again, because of all your abominations. 10 Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in your midst, and sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments among you, and all of you who remain I will scatter to all the winds.
11 ‘Therefore, as I live,’ says the Lord God, ‘surely, because you have defiled My sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you; My eye will not spare, nor will I have any pity. 12 One-third of you shall die of the pestilence, and be consumed with famine in your midst; and one-third shall fall by the sword all around you; and I will scatter another third to all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.
13 ‘Thus shall My anger be spent, and I will cause My fury to rest upon them, and I will be avenged; and they shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it in My zeal, when I have spent My fury upon them. 14 Moreover I will make you a waste and a reproach among the nations that are all around you, in the sight of all who pass by.
15 ‘So it shall be a reproach, a taunt, a lesson, and an astonishment to the nations that are all around you, when I execute judgments among you in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I, the Lord, have spoken. 16 When I send against them the terrible arrows of famine which shall be for destruction, which I will send to destroy you, I will increase the famine upon you and cut off your supply of bread. 17 So I will send against you famine and wild beasts, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood shall pass through you, and I will bring the sword against you. I, the Lord, have spoken.’”
JUDGMENT ON IDOLATROUS ISRAEL
6 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying: 2 “Son of man, set your face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, 3 and say, ‘O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God! Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, to the hills, to the ravines, and to the valleys: “Indeed I, even I, will bring a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places.
4 Then your altars shall be desolate, your incense altars shall be broken, and I will cast down your slain men before your idols. 5 And I will lay the corpses of the children of Israel before their idols, and I will scatter your bones all around your altars. 6 In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate, so that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, your idols may be broken and made to cease, your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. 7 The slain shall fall in your midst, and you shall know that I am the Lord. 8 “Yet I will leave a remnant, so that you may have some who escape the sword among the nations, when you are scattered through the countries. 9 Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations. 10 And they shall know that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would bring this calamity upon them.”
11 ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Pound your fists and stamp your feet, and say, ‘Alas, for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel! For they shall fall by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. 12 He who is far off shall die by the pestilence, he who is near shall fall by the sword, and he who remains and is besieged shall die by the famine. Thus will I spend My fury upon them. 13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when their slain are among their idols all around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, under every green tree, and under every thick oak, wherever they offered sweet incense to all their idols.
14 So I will stretch out My hand against them and make the land desolate, yes, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblah, in all their dwelling places. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.’”’” JUDGMENT ON ISRAEL IS NEAR 7 Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 “And you, son of man, thus says the Lord God to the land of Israel:
‘An end! The end has come upon the four corners of the land. 3 Now the end has come upon you, And I will send My anger against you; I will judge you according to your ways, And I will repay you for all your abominations. 4 My eye will not spare you, Nor will I have pity; But I will repay your ways, And your abominations will be in your midst; Then you shall know that I am the Lord!’
5 “Thus says the Lord God:
‘A disaster, a singular disaster; Behold, it has come!
6 An end has come, The end has come; It has dawned for you; Behold, it has come! 7 Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land; The time has come, A day of trouble is near, And not of rejoicing in the mountains. 8 Now upon you I will soon pour out My fury, And spend My anger upon you; I will judge you according to your ways, And I will repay you for all your abominations.
9 ‘My eye will not spare, Nor will I have pity; I will repay you according to your ways, And your abominations will be in your midst. Then you shall know that I am the Lord who strikes.
for them. 12 The time has come, The day draws near.
‘Let not the buyer rejoice, Nor the seller mourn, For wrath is on their whole multitude. 13 For the seller shall not return to what has been sold, Though he may still be alive; For the vision concerns the whole multitude, And it shall not turn back; No one will strengthen himself Who lives in iniquity.
14 ‘They have blown the trumpet and made everyone ready, But no one goes to battle; For My wrath is on all their multitude. 15 The sword is outside, And the pestilence and famine within. Whoever is in the field Will die by the sword; And whoever is in the city, Famine and pestilence will devour him.
16 ‘Those who survive will escape and be on the mountains Like doves of the valleys, All of them mourning, Each for his iniquity. 17 Every hand will be feeble, And every knee will be as weak as water. 18 They will also be girded with sackcloth; Horror will cover them; Shame will be on every face, Baldness on all their heads.
19 ‘They will throw their silver into the streets, And their gold will be like refuse; Their silver and their gold will not be able to deliver them In the day of the wrath of the Lord; They will not satisfy their souls, Nor fill their stomachs, Because it became their stumbling block of iniquity.
TEMPLE 8 And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I sat in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell upon me there. 2 Then I looked, and there was a likeness, like the appearance of fire—from the appearance of His waist and downward, fire; and from His waist and upward, like the appearance of brightness, like the color of amber.
3 He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my hair; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the image of jealousy was, which provokes to jealousy. 4 And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the vision that I saw in the plain. 5 Then He said to me, “Son of man, lift your eyes now toward the north.” So I lifted my eyes toward the north, and there, north of the altar gate, was this image of jealousy in the entrance.
6 Furthermore He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel commits here, to make Me go far away from My sanctuary? Now turn again, you will see greater abominations.” 7 So He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, there was a hole in the wall. 8 Then He said to me, “Son of man, dig into the wall”; and when I dug into the wall, there was a door.
9 And He said to me, “Go in, and see the wicked abominations which they are doing there.” 10 So I went in and saw, and there—every sort of creeping thing, abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed all around on the walls. 11 And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of the house of Israel, and in their midst stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan. Each man had a censer in his hand, and a thick cloud of incense went up. 12 Then He said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the room of his idols? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land.’”
13 And He said to me, “Turn again, and you will see greater abominations that they are doing.” 14 So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the Lord’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.
15 Then He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn again, you will see greater abominations than these.” 16 So He brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house; and there, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east.
17 And He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. 18 Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.”
He’s in his junior year as a computer science major at the University of Maine. He made the dean’s list last spring. He’s a prodigy who also plays tennis, loves his pooch, and stands up for his family.
So when his mother, a respected pediatric intensive care doctor, was fired from Northern Light Health’s Eastern Maine Medical Center after raising concerns about patient safety, Samson took action. He researched the topic, finding news articles and watchdog reports that backed up his mother’s concerns. He started a Change.org petition addressed to his congressman. He published a letter to the editor in the University of Maine campus newspaper. Northern Light didn’t appreciate Samson exercising his First Amendment rights. So it threatened to sue — his mother, for defamation — by claiming with zero evidence that she wrote Samson’s petition and letter to the editor.
“Young people have free speech rights just like everyone else,” said Samson. “I have the right to stand up and speak my mind without being bullied into silence.”
When those with deep pockets want to shut someone up, they can threaten a strategic lawsuit against public participation. Lawyers call them SLAPP suits, and they threaten free speech with litigation that could bankrupt an ordinary citizen. “It’s nothing more than censorship by lawsuit,” explains FIRE senior attorney Jay Diaz.
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I would not listen to anything this doctor has to say. We have been eating blueberries since the beginning of time.
How do you plan your goals? O Lord my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me. Psalm 30:2
I ask God everyday to guide my steps!
God revealed Himself to His people Israel by a series of covenant names, one of which was Jehovah Rophe—“the Lord who heals.” Having redeemed His people from Egypt, God told them if they would walk in His statutes they would be spared from the diseases He brought on the Egyptians—“For I am the Lord who heals you” (Exodus 15:26).
Psalm 41:1-3 (nkjv) THE BLESSING AND SUFFERING OF THE GODLY To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. 41 Blessed is he who considers the poor; The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. 2 The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive, And he will be blessed on the earth; You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies. 3 The Lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness; You will sustain him on his sickbed.
Conversely, if Israel failed to walk in obedience to God, they would suffer the diseases of Egypt and more (Deuteronomy 28:60-61). Part of the covenant expectations that Israel had of God was that He would forgive all their sins and heal all their diseases (Psalm 103:2-3). The coming Messiah would be “bruised for our iniquities” and we would be “healed” by His “stripes” (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). Healing, or salvation, was considered to be inclusive of both body and soul. So it is no surprise that we find the psalmist David praying for healing in Psalm 30. And it should likewise be no surprise that God answered his prayer (verse 2).
From your head to your toes, if you are in need of wholeness and good health, ask the Lord who heals you.
Any sinner may be healed if he will only come to Christ.
Jeremiah 44:1 – 46:28 (nkjv) ISRAELITES WILL BE PUNISHED IN EGYPT 44 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who dwell in the land of Egypt, who dwell at Migdol, at Tahpanhes, at Noph, and in the country of Pathros, saying, 2 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘You have seen all the calamity that I have brought on Jerusalem and on all the cities of Judah; and behold, this day they are a desolation, and no one dwells in them, 3 because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke Me to anger, in that they went to burn incense and to serve other gods whom they did not know, they nor you nor your fathers. 4 However I have sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, “Oh, do not do this abominable thing that I hate!” 5 But they did not listen or incline their ear to turn from their wickedness, to burn no incense to other gods. 6 So My fury and My anger were poured out and kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as it is this day.’
7 “Now therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Why do you commit this great evil against yourselves, to cut off from you man and woman, child and infant, out of Judah, leaving none to remain, 8 in that you provoke Me to wrath with the works of your hands, burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have gone to dwell, that you may cut yourselves off and be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? 9 Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, the wickedness of the kings of Judah, the wickedness of their wives, your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives, which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 10 They have not been humbled, to this day, nor have they feared; they have not walked in My law or in My statutes that I set before you and your fathers.’
Jeremiah 44:1 – 46:28 (nkjv) 11 “Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will set My face against you for catastrophe and for cutting off all Judah. 12 And I will take the remnant of Judah who have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to dwell there, and they shall all be consumed and fall in the land of Egypt. They shall be consumed by the sword and by famine. They shall die, from the least to the greatest, by the sword and by famine; and they shall be an oath, an astonishment, a curse and a reproach! 13 For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence, 14 so that none of the remnant of Judah who have gone into the land of Egypt to dwell there shall escape or survive, lest they return to the land of Judah, to which they desire to return and dwell. For none shall return except those who escape.’”
15 Then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to other gods, with all the women who stood by, a great multitude, and all the people who dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying: 16 “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you! 17 But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and saw no trouble. 18 But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked everything and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.”
19 The women also said, “And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make cakes for her, to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands’ permission?”
20 Then Jeremiah spoke to all the people—the men, the women, and all the people who had given him that answer—saying:
21 “The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them, and did it not come into His mind? 22 So the Lord could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which you committed. Therefore your land is a desolation, an astonishment, a curse, and without an inhabitant, as it is this day. 23 Because you have burned incense and because you have sinned against the Lord, and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord or walked in His law, in His statutes or in His testimonies, therefore this calamity has happened to you, as at this day.” 24 Moreover Jeremiah said to all the people and to all the women, “Hear the word of the Lord, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt! 25 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying: ‘You and your wives have spoken with your mouths and fulfilled with your hands, saying, “We will surely keep our vows that we have made, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” You will surely keep your vows and perform your vows!’ 26 Therefore hear the word of the Lord, all Judah who dwell in the land of Egypt: ‘Behold, I have sworn by My great name,’ says the Lord, ‘that My name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, “The Lord God lives.” 27 Behold, I will watch over them for adversity and not for good. And all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by famine, until there is an end to them. 28 Yet a small number who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah; and all the remnant of Judah, who have gone to the land of Egypt to dwell there, shall know whose words will stand, Mine or theirs. 29 And this shall be a sign to you,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will punish you in this place, that you may know that My words will surely stand against you for adversity.’
30 “Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life, as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, his enemy who sought his life.’”
ASSURANCE TO BARUCH 45 The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch the son of Neriah, when he had written these words in a book at the instruction of Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, saying, 2 “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to you, O Baruch: 3 ‘You said, “Woe is me now! For the Lord has added grief to my sorrow. I fainted in my sighing, and I find no rest.”’
4 “Thus you shall say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Behold, what I have built I will break down, and what I have planted I will pluck up, that is, this whole land.
5 And do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek them; for behold, I will bring adversity on all flesh,” says the Lord. “But I will give your life to you as a prize in all places, wherever you go.”’” JUDGMENT ON EGYPT 46 The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet against the nations. 2 Against Egypt.
Concerning the army of Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, which was by the River Euphrates in Carchemish, and which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah:
3 “Order the buckler and shield, And draw near to battle! 4 Harness the horses, And mount up, you horsemen! Stand forth with your helmets, Polish the spears, Put on the armor! 5 Why have I seen them dismayed and turned back? Their mighty ones are beaten down; They have speedily fled, And did not look back, For fear was all around,” says the Lord.
6 “Do not let the swift flee away,Nor the mighty man escape;They will stumble and fallToward the north, by the River Euphrates. 7 “Who is this coming up like a flood, Whose waters move like the rivers? 8 Egypt rises up like a flood, And its waters move like the rivers; And he says, ‘I will go up and cover the earth, I will destroy the city and its inhabitants.’ 9 Come up, O horses, and rage, O chariots! And let the mighty men come forth: The Ethiopians and the Libyans who handle the shield, And the Lydians who handle and bend the bow. 10 For this is the day of the Lord God of hosts, A day of vengeance, That He may avenge Himself on His adversaries. The sword shall devour; It shall be satiated and made drunk with their blood; For the Lord God of hosts has a sacrifice In the north country by the River Euphrates.
11 “Go up to Gilead and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt; In vain you will use many medicines; You shall not be cured. 12 The nations have heard of your shame, And your cry has filled the land; For the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty; They both have fallen together.”
BABYLONIA WILL STRIKE EGYPT 13 The word that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah the prophet, how Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon would come and strike the land of Egypt.
14 “Declare in Egypt, and proclaim in Migdol; Proclaim in Noph and in Tahpanhes; Say, ‘Stand fast and prepare yourselves, For the sword devours all around you.’ 15 Why are your valiant men swept away? They did not stand Because the Lord drove them away.
Create an emergency preparedness plan. Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.”
On this day in 1978, a hot air balloon landed in Miserey, France, about 137 hours after taking off from Presque Isle, Maine. The Double Eagle II was the first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean, piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman.
Did you know that prayer is how God often opens doors for sharing the gospel?
Serving with Navigators Nations Within, Alex and his wife, Mary, saw God create opportunities to share the gospel with their Seattle neighbors through the power of prayer.
They knew these neighbors previously from living overseas in Asia, but now had a greater opportunity to invite them to follow Jesus.
Be inspired by their story to “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him” Psalm 37:7 (NIV). Then watch for the opportunities and connections He creates.
Tenacious Faith
1 Peter 2:9 (NIV®) You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Our generation has witnessed a steep decline of Christian influence on the culture. I believe that is because we have been content to call ourselves Christians while we display a polite, compliant faith. Not long ago, we routinely prayed publicly in Jesus’ name. The Ten Commandments were displayed in public buildings. Honesty and purity were highly regarded and encouraged. We let those things go without much complaint, and now, our society has difficulty deciding who is a man or a woman! The spiritual complacency we have settled into is not sufficient to address the challenges we are facing. We need to realize what it means to be God’s chosen people. Like Peter, we need to be willing to publicly declare that His way is the best way. We need to come to terms with what it means to have a living and active faith that makes a real difference in our own lives and the lives of others.
THINK ABOUT IT Does your faith make a real difference in your life and the lives of others? Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with a new kind of faith—a tenacious faith that will empower you to be a more effective ambassador for God’s Kingdom.
PRAYER Heavenly Father, I am Your child, Jesus is my Lord, and the Holy Spirit is my Helper. You have designed me to make a difference for Your Kingdom. I choose Your path with my entire being. Grant me the determination to complete the course You have chosen. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Dear Delana,
Please join us in praying for the people in Maui who have lost so much in the recent fires, and for those who are doing their best to help them recover. Let’s pray for God’s supernatural comfort, courage, and strength, and for stories of His faithfulness to emerge from the tragic circumstances.
While we’re praying, let’s also ask for God’s mercy on our cities. They are in disarray far beyond what’s being reported, and we need His help!
Let’s pray:The corporate prayers of God’s people make a difference. When God’s people care enough to join together and invest their time, energy, and effort in prayer, it has a unique impact in Heaven.
As Arizona Governor Doug Ducey criticized the Biden administration for failing to halt the flow of illegal immigrants, individuals were observed walking over a crack in the US-Mexico border barrier. Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls talked to the media while a reporter for a local NBC station videotaped a group of “nearly a dozen” migrants entering.
According to Nicholls, they’re seeing a lot more drug trafficking in our neighborhoods, affecting our schools. He claims that “drug trafficking affects our schools and the entire community. We appreciate the governor’s assistance, as well as the National Guard and Border Patrol officers.”
Moreover, Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona held a news conference in Yuma, accusing the Biden administration of “upending logical, successful measures like the Migrant Protection Protocols” and then reinstating them months later only when a court ordered it. He added that “thousands of migrants have been pouring into the United States every day along the Mexican border for many days.”https://lockerdome.com/lad/13456309840218726?pubid=ld-6133-2018&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fthecongressionalinsider.com&rid=&width=280
Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona has urged President Donald Trump not to restart the Mexico-US Population Protection Program (MPP), which forces asylum applicants to wait in Mexico before appearing in immigration court in the United States. In October, Border Patrol officers encountered 164,303 migrants at the southern border, bringing the overall number of interactions for the fiscal year to 1,734,686.
The Transportation Security Administration is being investigated by Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas). TSA Administrator Pekoske was contacted by Gooden, along with Reps. David McKinley (W.Va.) and Mary Miller (Ill). Gooden was concerned that the TSA actively aided illegal aliens traveling across the nation without appropriate documentation.
Representatives from both parties have written to Transportation Secretary Pekoske, requesting an explanation of how the TSA screens non-US/Canadian people who do not have passports or travel papers issued by the United States. It accepted additional forms of identification, including a Notice to Appear (NTA) in court, the TSA wrote in an email to Gooden’s office. Agents scan a migrant’s biometrics, take pictures, and run their fingerprints through immigration and NCIC databases before issuing an NTA.
Moreover, by permitting these unknown and unvetted migrants to board aircraft and fly across the nation, the TSA and non-profit organizations are putting millions of Americans traveling for Christmas in danger. The TSA claims to have found other forms of identification for use in certain instances, such as when non-US citizens or non-nationals do not have an approved form of identification. TSA contacts the National Transportation Vetting Center (NTVC) for travelers under typical situations, seeking to verify a traveler’s identification.https://lockerdome.com/lad/13456309840218726?pubid=ld-6133-2018&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fthecongressionalinsider.com&rid=&width=280
Furthermore, the TSA says it seeks public input on adequately screening persons who enter the country without valid identification. That’s excellent, but remember that nearly none of the 82,000 Afghans who arrived in the US before August were screened beforehand. There may be jihad terrorists and other criminals among them, but there’s no way of knowing until they conduct crimes.
Once again, the Biden administration wholly opposes the American people’s interests. Biden’s managers are opening the door to all kinds of criminal and terrorist activities by permitting illegal migrants to travel without appropriate identification. And it begs the question: Are they truly this stupid? Is it possible that the safety of Americans isn’t a top priority for their handlers?
According to Joe Biden’s managers, millions of illegal migrants fly the friendly skies without ID, paid for by who knows who and might be very explosive. If they had forgotten since the Obama administration left office, they now see what it means to have an America-Last administration.
WE have Enough Problems In America; Human Trafficking In Pennsylvania
I wish Josh Shapiro was around when I was trapped in human trafficking in Scranton Pennsylvania the was 1992 when my life was turned upside down. I did go to the Scranton Police Department and the Lackawanna Sheiffs Department. At that time i was told by both departments it was my fault. For 30 years I was caught in this horrable crime without help for any government. I have true stories to tell and I will be writing more about the unlawful government of Lackawanna County Pennsylvania. There are also a few judges I can write about as well. I am Praising the Lord for saving my life and never leaving me. My faith in Jesus has helped me as well. God bless everyone who reads this post, in Jesus name Amen. HARRISBURG — Two men who coerced six victims into prostitution with the false promise of easy money and then used drugs, violence and threats to control them have been arrested for human trafficking. Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office worked closely with the Pennsylvania State Police and other law enforcement agencies to build the prostitution and trafficking case. Crowell was taken into custody by authorities outside Chicago over the holiday weekend, and Schiff, currently incarcerated in York County, was arrested as well. The men are charged with trafficking in individuals, corrupt organizations, involuntary servitude, conspiracy, possession with intent to deliver, prostitution and related offenses. Kenneth Crowell, 34, and Barry “Bear” Schiff, 50, coerced six women into a forced servitude as prostitutes in a human trafficking ring that operated in Lancaster, Montgomery, Philadelphia and York counties and southern New Jersey from 2014 until October 2017. “This is a horrible case where women were lured into prostitution by the false promise of easy money,” Attorney General Shapiro said. “When the victims tried to leave, these criminals used violence and threats of violence to keep them working as prostitutes against their will. Law enforcement collaboration and the use of a statewide investigating grand jury built this case. We will use every tool at our disposal to prosecute these kinds of human trafficking cases.” Click here for a video of Attorney General Josh Shapiro. The arrests mark the second human trafficking case brought by the Office of Attorney General and Pennsylvania State Police in recent weeks. Earlier this month, two defendants were held for trial on human trafficking charges in Montgomery County in a case broken open with the help of an Uber driver who alerted police to the existence of a trafficking victim. The charges against Crowell and Schiff stem from a joint investigation by the Office of Attorney General and Pennsylvania State Police, with assistance from Northern York County Regional Police, Dallas TX police, Millville NJ police, the North Star Initiative of Lancaster, and the Salvation Army of Greater Philadelphia Anti-Human Trafficking Program. The ring was uncovered when a woman reported to police that she was a victim of human trafficking during an undercover prostitution sting. “The Pennsylvania State Police are committed to investigating individuals and criminal organizations involved in the trafficking of humans for financial gain,” said Cpl. Gregg J. Kravitsky. “This investigation shows that by working cooperatively with law enforcement and other partners, we can bring those who commit these heinous acts to justice.” On April 4, 2017 two undercover Pennsylvania State troopers responded to a prostitution advertisement on the website Backpage. Using the listed phone number – later linked to a second number tied to nearly 350 similar ads over two months – the troopers arranged a meeting with the victim at a Lancaster hotel. After the troopers identified themselves, the victim told police she did not feel safe and wanted to “get out.” She said she was recruited by Crowell and Schiff as an escort while she was working at a York gentlemen’s club. The victim told the troopers Schiff bragged about selling opioid pills and heroin to the women working for him as a means of control. When she told Schiff she didn’t like him buying and supplying heroin in the hotel room where she worked, Schiff threatened her with a knife. A second victim testified before the grand jury that she needed money to fuel her addiction and began working for Crowell and Schiff believing they ran an escort service, not a prostitution ring. She testified she rarely slept and was sent in an Uber to buy large amounts of heroin for Schiff multiple times. According to the grand jury presentment, a third victim testified Schiff told the women his name was “Frank Luchese” and impersonated a mobster to intimidate them. She said she joined what she believed was an escort service run by Crowell and Schiff to pay off a drug debt to Schiff. When she tried to leave, Schiff told her he would “chop her up into little pieces and throw her in the river.” Victim four worked for Crowell and Schiff at various times between 2014 and 2016 as a way to obtain heroin and support her addiction. She testified Crowell tried to strangle her on several occasions, causing her to lose consciousness during one confrontation. A fifth victim who began working for Crowell and Schiff in 2015 testified that Schiff controlled her with prescription opioids and heroin. This victim testified that one time, after she refused Schiff’s demand for sex, Schiff slammed her head into a bucket of dirty water containing shards of broken glass. The victim suffered severe cuts and scarring on her knees and legs. After that incident, the victim sought help during a “date” from an undercover police officer and gave a full statement to police before being taken to the hospital for treatment. Because of the complexity of trafficking cases and the importance placed on them by Attorney General Shapiro, the office has specially designated Senior Deputy Attorney General Heather Castellino to prosecute human trafficking cases.
I wish Josh Shapiro was around when I was trapped in human trafficking in Scranton Pennsylvania the was 1992 when my life was turned upside down. I did go to the Scranton Police Department and the Lackawanna Sheiffs Department. At that time i was told by both departments it was my fault. For 30 years I was caught in this horrable crime without help for any government. I have true stories to tell and I will be writing more about the unlawful government of Lackawanna County Pennsylvania. There are also a few judges I can write about as well. I am Praising the Lord for saving my life and never leaving me. My faith in Jesus has helped me as well. God bless everyone who reads this post, in Jesus name Amen. HARRISBURG — Two men who coerced six victims into prostitution with the false promise of easy money and then used drugs, violence and threats to control them have been arrested for human trafficking. Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office worked closely with the Pennsylvania State Police and other law enforcement agencies to build the prostitution and trafficking case. Crowell was taken into custody by authorities outside Chicago over the holiday weekend, and Schiff, currently incarcerated in York County, was arrested as well. The men are charged with trafficking in individuals, corrupt organizations, involuntary servitude, conspiracy, possession with intent to deliver, prostitution and related offenses. Kenneth Crowell, 34, and Barry “Bear” Schiff, 50, coerced six women into a forced servitude as prostitutes in a human trafficking ring that operated in Lancaster, Montgomery, Philadelphia and York counties and southern New Jersey from 2014 until October 2017. “This is a horrible case where women were lured into prostitution by the false promise of easy money,” Attorney General Shapiro said. “When the victims tried to leave, these criminals used violence and threats of violence to keep them working as prostitutes against their will. Law enforcement collaboration and the use of a statewide investigating grand jury built this case. We will use every tool at our disposal to prosecute these kinds of human trafficking cases.” Click here for a video of Attorney General Josh Shapiro. The arrests mark the second human trafficking case brought by the Office of Attorney General and Pennsylvania State Police in recent weeks. Earlier this month, two defendants were held for trial on human trafficking charges in Montgomery County in a case broken open with the help of an Uber driver who alerted police to the existence of a trafficking victim. The charges against Crowell and Schiff stem from a joint investigation by the Office of Attorney General and Pennsylvania State Police, with assistance from Northern York County Regional Police, Dallas TX police, Millville NJ police, the North Star Initiative of Lancaster, and the Salvation Army of Greater Philadelphia Anti-Human Trafficking Program. The ring was uncovered when a woman reported to police that she was a victim of human trafficking during an undercover prostitution sting. “The Pennsylvania State Police are committed to investigating individuals and criminal organizations involved in the trafficking of humans for financial gain,” said Cpl. Gregg J. Kravitsky. “This investigation shows that by working cooperatively with law enforcement and other partners, we can bring those who commit these heinous acts to justice.” On April 4, 2017 two undercover Pennsylvania State troopers responded to a prostitution advertisement on the website Backpage. Using the listed phone number – later linked to a second number tied to nearly 350 similar ads over two months – the troopers arranged a meeting with the victim at a Lancaster hotel. After the troopers identified themselves, the victim told police she did not feel safe and wanted to “get out.” She said she was recruited by Crowell and Schiff as an escort while she was working at a York gentlemen’s club. The victim told the troopers Schiff bragged about selling opioid pills and heroin to the women working for him as a means of control. When she told Schiff she didn’t like him buying and supplying heroin in the hotel room where she worked, Schiff threatened her with a knife. A second victim testified before the grand jury that she needed money to fuel her addiction and began working for Crowell and Schiff believing they ran an escort service, not a prostitution ring. She testified she rarely slept and was sent in an Uber to buy large amounts of heroin for Schiff multiple times. According to the grand jury presentment, a third victim testified Schiff told the women his name was “Frank Luchese” and impersonated a mobster to intimidate them. She said she joined what she believed was an escort service run by Crowell and Schiff to pay off a drug debt to Schiff. When she tried to leave, Schiff told her he would “chop her up into little pieces and throw her in the river.” Victim four worked for Crowell and Schiff at various times between 2014 and 2016 as a way to obtain heroin and support her addiction. She testified Crowell tried to strangle her on several occasions, causing her to lose consciousness during one confrontation. A fifth victim who began working for Crowell and Schiff in 2015 testified that Schiff controlled her with prescription opioids and heroin. This victim testified that one time, after she refused Schiff’s demand for sex, Schiff slammed her head into a bucket of dirty water containing shards of broken glass. The victim suffered severe cuts and scarring on her knees and legs. After that incident, the victim sought help during a “date” from an undercover police officer and gave a full statement to police before being taken to the hospital for treatment. Because of the complexity of trafficking cases and the importance placed on them by Attorney General Shapiro, the office has specially designated Senior Deputy Attorney General Heather Castellino to prosecute human trafficking cases.
Several recent decisions by the Supreme Court have helped restore the foundational freedoms that made the United States, though far from perfect, the greatest nation on earth. Yet we must realize that there is no real freedom apart from God and the acceptance of personal responsibility. There can be no effective government without responsible citizens living under moral order. If we do not live under control with the freedom Jesus offered to all captives, we can never hope for our society to support and maintain the principles that enable freedom.
With an understanding of the importance of personal freedom, we may rightly ask the question, “What about national freedom?” It is my firm opinion we are in danger of losing it, along with the opportunity it offers. It is my prayer that all believers will learn that we must live to protect what others died to provide.
We are in the process of forfeiting the freedom our founders established – a freedom built on moral absolutes and a strong, but limited, government. Enemies of faith and true freedom don’t even want to acknowledge the supernatural power that influenced America’s birth or the importance of God, faith, family, and the principles necessary for freedom. They stand hell-bent in opposition to undeniable, absolute, transforming truth.
It’s time for people who understand the value of faith and freedom and its foundation to stand together like a mighty army – an undeniable spiritual force. We must reclaim the land of promise birthed through faith, prayer, and personal sacrifice to bless the American people and the nations of the world. Our freedom can only be preserved with the same determination, diligence, and supernatural unity Jesus prayed for and freedom’s champions understand.
The framers of the Constitution knew that the true liberty they offered demanded responsible citizens. Benjamin Franklin was asked if the meeting in Philadelphia had created a monarchy or a republic. Franklin answered, “A republic – if you can keep it.” Franklin, along with the other founders, knew that in order for liberty to be maintained, it would have to be supported by principled statesmen who were actively engaged in the task of governing themselves, encouraging all citizens to hold fast to truths espoused in the Declaration of Independence.
John Adams, our second president, said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
We are on the verge of losing freedom’s blessings as morality is under assault. Sadly, the church has not fully understood the importance of living under the control of God with the powerful spirit of God providing the strength for us to not only enjoy the privileges and possibilities of freedom, but also to protect them.
Jesus commissioned His followers to share the truth that sets people free and keeps them free. He said, “When the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.”
Ronald Reagan observed, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on to them to do the same or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States when men were free.”
I do not want to be found among those who will be asked what we were doing when freedom died. By the grace of God, with His help and the help of those who share common concerns and with Christians of conviction, I will not be indifferent and allow freedom to die on my watch. I will continue to pray, preach, and openly call for a return to God-given principles.
America’s founders believed they were on a journey similar to that of Israel’s exodus from Egypt to God’s Promised Land. Moses was their hero. His farewell address delivered on Mount Nebo references the choices God offers those desiring true freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr. invoked these words the night before he was assassinated in 1968, and Ronald Reagan repeated them while standing at the base of the Statue of Liberty celebrating our nation’s birthday in 1986:
“See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and adversity. For I command you this day to love the Lord your God to walk in His ways and to keep his commandments. But if you turn away, you will certainly perish. You shall not long endure on the soil that you are crossing the Jordan to enter. I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse, choose life that you and your offspring shall live.” (Deuteronomy 30:15-19)
The life being offered was a life of freedom, fullness and fruitfulness. God has granted us both the privilege and responsibility of being overseers, good stewards of all that He had entrusted to our care. You can be the guardians, the gate keepers, the restorers of the foundation and the wall builders maintaining our precious liberty. Let not your hearts be troubled. Keep the faith. Fight the fight as a good soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ with the whole armor of God and the sword of the Spirit, don’t bend and don’t bow before the godless influences of this world and you will not be crushed and enslaved by the powers in this present world!
When God rules in individual lives, sound principles will prevail in our land. Leaders will no longer be chosen because of personality, party affiliation, or skillful communication. They will be chosen because of their commitment to God-given principles necessary for the survival of true freedom.
I am praying to God and appealing to caring people to help restore America and freedom. It will not be easy, but together, and with God’s help, it can be done. This is the greatest hour for people of faith to become a guiding light.
Several recent decisions by the Supreme Court have helped restore the foundational freedoms that made the United States, though far from perfect, the greatest nation on earth. Yet we must realize that there is no real freedom apart from God and the acceptance of personal responsibility. There can be no effective government without responsible citizens living under moral order. If we do not live under control with the freedom Jesus offered to all captives, we can never hope for our society to support and maintain the principles that enable freedom.
With an understanding of the importance of personal freedom, we may rightly ask the question, “What about national freedom?” It is my firm opinion we are in danger of losing it, along with the opportunity it offers. It is my prayer that all believers will learn that we must live to protect what others died to provide.
We are in the process of forfeiting the freedom our founders established – a freedom built on moral absolutes and a strong, but limited, government. Enemies of faith and true freedom don’t even want to acknowledge the supernatural power that influenced America’s birth or the importance of God, faith, family, and the principles necessary for freedom. They stand hell-bent in opposition to undeniable, absolute, transforming truth.
It’s time for people who understand the value of faith and freedom and its foundation to stand together like a mighty army – an undeniable spiritual force. We must reclaim the land of promise birthed through faith, prayer, and personal sacrifice to bless the American people and the nations of the world. Our freedom can only be preserved with the same determination, diligence, and supernatural unity Jesus prayed for and freedom’s champions understand.
The framers of the Constitution knew that the true liberty they offered demanded responsible citizens. Benjamin Franklin was asked if the meeting in Philadelphia had created a monarchy or a republic. Franklin answered, “A republic – if you can keep it.” Franklin, along with the other founders, knew that in order for liberty to be maintained, it would have to be supported by principled statesmen who were actively engaged in the task of governing themselves, encouraging all citizens to hold fast to truths espoused in the Declaration of Independence.
John Adams, our second president, said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
We are on the verge of losing freedom’s blessings as morality is under assault. Sadly, the church has not fully understood the importance of living under the control of God with the powerful spirit of God providing the strength for us to not only enjoy the privileges and possibilities of freedom, but also to protect them.
Jesus commissioned His followers to share the truth that sets people free and keeps them free. He said, “When the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.”
Ronald Reagan observed, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We don’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected and handed on to them to do the same or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States when men were free.”
I do not want to be found among those who will be asked what we were doing when freedom died. By the grace of God, with His help and the help of those who share common concerns and with Christians of conviction, I will not be indifferent and allow freedom to die on my watch. I will continue to pray, preach, and openly call for a return to God-given principles.
America’s founders believed they were on a journey similar to that of Israel’s exodus from Egypt to God’s Promised Land. Moses was their hero. His farewell address delivered on Mount Nebo references the choices God offers those desiring true freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr. invoked these words the night before he was assassinated in 1968, and Ronald Reagan repeated them while standing at the base of the Statue of Liberty celebrating our nation’s birthday in 1986:
“See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and adversity. For I command you this day to love the Lord your God to walk in His ways and to keep his commandments. But if you turn away, you will certainly perish. You shall not long endure on the soil that you are crossing the Jordan to enter. I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse, choose life that you and your offspring shall live.” (Deuteronomy 30:15-19)
The life being offered was a life of freedom, fullness and fruitfulness. God has granted us both the privilege and responsibility of being overseers, good stewards of all that He had entrusted to our care. You can be the guardians, the gate keepers, the restorers of the foundation and the wall builders maintaining our precious liberty. Let not your hearts be troubled. Keep the faith. Fight the fight as a good soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ with the whole armor of God and the sword of the Spirit, don’t bend and don’t bow before the godless influences of this world and you will not be crushed and enslaved by the powers in this present world!
When God rules in individual lives, sound principles will prevail in our land. Leaders will no longer be chosen because of personality, party affiliation, or skillful communication. They will be chosen because of their commitment to God-given principles necessary for the survival of true freedom.
I am praying to God and appealing to caring people to help restore America and freedom. It will not be easy, but together, and with God’s help, it can be done. This is the greatest hour for people of faith to become a guiding light.
The Constitution of Pennsylvania: The Publice Defenders Office of Lackawanna County is allowing The District Attorney’s Office to Violate the Contstitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This is Human Trafficking at it’s Highest.
§ 14. Prisoners to be bailable; habeas corpus. All prisoners shall be bailable by sufficient sureties, unless for capital offenses or for offenses for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment or unless no condition or combination of conditions other than imprisonment will reasonably assure the safety of any person and the community when the proof is evident or presumption great; and the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. (Nov. 3, 1998, P.L.1327, J.R.1)
I know for a fact Lackawanna County ignore every law that has been signed into law. I was a victim of Domestic Violence for most of my life. By God grave I am still alive. In 2005, I was beaten bloody the man went to jail. Lackawanna Counry court dropped all charges. Eight years later the same man SHOT me. The man thrend to kill my kids and my family. I had to draw him away for them. There is so much corrution in Lackawanna County no body does anything. THEY, elderly because they are scared of the drug dealers. When worked a Pub Charlies, I had seen police, probation officers, and judges in there. One probation officer got hig with me while I was on probation. He would go get the drugs. I can tell you true about the corruption. I left in 2007 because of the abuse I suffered in Lackawanna County. I was gang-raped, I went to the Scranton Police Department to report what happened and they blamed me for what happned to me. This county need to be charged with human trafficking chatges
A Proclamation on National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, 2022
Forty years ago, the President’s Task Force on Victims of Crime was established to help those who had experienced crime and their families — an important step toward the protection of and support for victims’ rights. Over the years, crime victims’ rights have evolved. Dedicated professionals have worked to develop support and services for survivors that are more holistic, trauma-informed, and effective at overcoming systemic barriers that certain communities face in prosecuting offenders and obtaining justice. However, more work remains to be done to advance these goals. During National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, our Nation renews our commitment to providing survivors of crime the support they need to heal. We honor the dedicated victim service providers who support crime victims, and we continue to advance this important cause for all people.
Delivering true justice requires that we provide all victims with the support they need. Persistent barriers still prevent many survivors from receiving the services they need and the justice they deserve. Many crimes — including violent crimes, such as rape and sexual assault — often go unreported to law enforcement because, among other concerns, victims fear placing themselves in further danger and negative interactions with the criminal justice system. My Administration is also working to tackle the epidemic of gun violence, which is a public health and public safety crisis. In the absence of necessary Congressional action, my Administration is taking action to get illegal guns — and those who would use them to commit crimes — off of our streets.
Victims of crime not only face physical and emotional costs, they often suffer a serious economic toll as well, and this is another area in which my Administration is making progress. The Crime Victims Fund, established through the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA), helps provide critical resources for victim services and victim compensation programs throughout the country. That is why, last July, I signed the VOCA Fix to Sustain the Crime Victim Fund Act into law to strengthen VOCA and increase the revenues to support survivors of crime and victim services organizations. My Administration is supporting innovative programs like sexual assault telehealth services and hospital-based victim assistance, enabling providers to quickly reach more survivors and reduce repeated victimization. I am also proud to have recently signed into law the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which funds programs that provide services to survivors of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. This reauthorization of VAWA also expands the rights of victims of technology-facilitated gender-based violence and also includes historic Tribal provisions to protect Native communities and help them pursue justice.
Strengthening public safety also means addressing the trauma and inequality of victimization experienced by communities of color, Native American communities, the LGBTQI+ community, the Asian American community, and other historically marginalized groups. People of color suffer higher rates of victimization, and violence is disproportionally concentrated in neighborhoods that have been harmed persistently by racial discrimination, segregation, redlining, and disinvestment. Breaking the cycle of violence enhances public safety, public health, and equity. We also know that members of the LGBTQI+ community are more likely to be victims of violent crime.
My Administration is committed to using all tools at our disposal to ensure every survivor of crime has equal access to the resources and services they need to recover from their ordeals and regain a feeling of safety. To address a surge in hate crimes and bias-motivated attacks — and to provide law enforcement with the resources to identify and investigate hate crimes, I signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act into law. As part of this law, we have funded a new Center for Culturally Responsive Victim Services to help local programs better serve historically marginalized communities.
In addition to supporting crime victims, we must also hold offenders accountable. That is why the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security are committed to investigating and enforcing our criminal and civil laws and ensuring that Federal, State, local, territorial, and Tribal law enforcement officers and prosecutors receive the training and resources they need to deliver justice to victims.
It takes enormous courage and extraordinary strength to emerge from life’s most painful moments. As a Nation, let us all work together to stop crimes before they happen and to give victims the support they need to restore a sense of trust and safety and to move toward healing and justice.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 24 through April 30, 2022, National Crime Victims’ Rights Week. I call upon all Americans to observe this week by participating in events that raise awareness of victims’ rights and services and by volunteering to serve victims in their time of need.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-second day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-sixth.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a crime becomes a hate crime when there’s an added element of bias. For example, a murder is labeled a hate crime if the victim was killed because he was gay. Or black. Or Muslim.
“Hate crimes are different from other crimes. They strike at the heart of one’s identity,” FBI Director James Comey said in a speech at the Anti-Defamation League National Leadership Summit in 2014. “They strike at our sense of self, our sense of belonging. The end result is loss: loss of trust, loss of dignity and, in the worst case, loss of life.”
They’re motivated by bias, said David Stacy, government affairs director of the Human Rights Campaign.
“In a hate crime, the victim is targeted because of his characteristics,” Stacy said. “These are bias-motivated crimes, and often they are much more violent than traditional crimes.”
Counting the hate
The Civil Rights Act of 1968, the first law that dealt with hate crimes, protected people against attacks related to their race, religion or national origin. Violence triggered by gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability was not charged as a hate crime until 2009. The FBI says that a hate crime can target either a person or property and can be motivated in whole or in part by biases, meaning offenders can have other motives besides hate.
The Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, signed by President George H.W. Bush, required the US attorney general to report hate crimes annually. The law was inspired by a violent attack on three black men in Howard Beach, a mostly white neighborhood in Queens, New York, in 1986.
Walking out of a pizzeria, the men were confronted by a gang of white teens, who called out racial slurs and chased the men. One man, Michael Griffith, 23, was killed by oncoming traffic. Another was severely beaten but survived. The third managed to run away.
To track attacks such as these, the FBI now collects voluntary reports of hate crimes from local jurisdictions across the country.
Since the data collection began, the FBI has published hate crime statistics from 1996 to, most recently, 2015. In 2015, there were 5,818 hate crime incidents reported, the majority of which were biased toward race and ethnicity. There were about 340 more hate crimes in 2015 than in 2014.
“Hate crimes occur during a period of heightened rhetoric, like a presidential election,” said the Human Rights Campaign’s Stacy. Whenever a vulnerable group is given national attention – whether the attention is positive or negative – people who are biased against the group may lash out, he explained.
The FBI reports that the numbers of hate crimes have decreased over several years, with the exception of 2015. Regardless of the year, however, the hate crime count is underreported to the FBI, explained Stacy. Some state, city and local police agencies simply don’t collect or disclose the data.
“Crimes happen, and the cop on the beat checks the motivation of the crime to state in the police report,” Stacy said. “Often, they say there’s not enough evidence to say it’s a hate crime. There’s an underreporting of hate crimes in general.”
Tracking hate crimes against the LGBT community
Stacy joined the Human Rights Campaign in 1999, an important time for the LGBT community. The previous year, Matthew Shepard, 21, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was beaten, tortured, chained to a fence and left for dead by two men he had met at a bar.
The case caused a stir, but it wasn’t clear whether Shepard’s attack was an anti-gay hate crime. The two offenders confessed to pretending to be gay in order to lure Shepard into their truck, but they claimed their motive for the murder was robbery. However, LGBT activist groups nationwide, including Shepard’s mother, Judy, argued that the student was killed because he was gay.
Stacy took the activists’ message to Congress, where they lobbied for laws that would protect victims attacked because of their sexual identities. They succeeded 11 years later, in 2009, when President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded hate crime laws to include sexual orientation, disability and gender bias.
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania, recently proposed a law that would prevent hate crime offenders from buying guns. This bill comes in response to the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub, a gay club in Orlando where nearly 50 people were killed in June.
“If you have proven you will commit criminal acts based on hate, you absolutely should not have access to a gun. It’s common sense,” Casey said at a news conference after the shooting.
“No one in America should ever be afraid to walk down the street holding the hands of the person they love,” remarked President Obama when he signed the 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
The act “was a huge victory for us” Stacy said. Still, he noted, much work needs to be done to raise awareness of anti-LGBT hate crimes.
As of now, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act protects LGBT victims from violent crimes only where the federal government has jurisdiction. Since most crimes are tried at the state level, many victims aren’t protected based on their gay or transgender identities.
The Movement Advancement Project, a Denver-based think tank that advocates for LGBT equality, maintains an online map of which states have hate crime laws that protect LGBT people. According to the map, 17 states have hate crime laws that cover sexual orientation and gender identity. Thirteen states have laws that cover only sexual orientation.
The project reports that 15 states have laws that cover neither sexual orientation nor gender identity, while five states (South Carolina, Georgia, Indiana, Arkansas and Wyoming) have no hate crime laws in place. Without protections in these states, it’s hard to track how many hate crimes against LGBT people occur.
In 2013, the FBI began recording hate crimes motivated by gender and gender identification biases – for example, attacks on transgender people. Crimes motivated by gender identification rose from 31 in 2013 to 114 in 2015, according to FBI reports.
Stacy says the lack of support for LGBT victims of hate crimes is troubling. In an environment that doesn’t recognize hate crimes motivated by homophobia, he explained, victims don’t feel safe reporting attacks. And because these crimes aren’t always recorded by the jurisdictions, FBI data do not reflect these incidents, Stacy said.
The 2015 data reveal that anti-LGBT hate crimes rose by about 5% but remained below 2013 levels. Still, the Human Rights Campaign suggests that this increase is an understatement: “The number (of LGBT hate crimes) likely only represents a fraction of such cases given that thousands of law enforcement agencies throughout the country did not submit any data,” it said in a statement.
Tracking hate crimes against Muslims
Three years after Shepard’s death, in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, a wave of anti-Islamic hate crimes surfaced. In 2001, 481 incidents of hate crime were recorded. Incidents, as defined by the FBI, may include multiple offenses. Comparatively, only 28 incidents against Muslims were recorded in 2000, according to the FBI.
The increased attacks against people who appeared Muslim showed most drastically in the religion-biased crime count. Before 2001, crimes motivated by ethnicity made up a little more than 10%, on average, of the total number of single-biased hate crimes. In 2001, ethnicity-biased crimes counted for more than 20% of the total, according to the FBI.
After 2001, the numbers of hate crimes against Muslims dropped, but they remained higher than before. Between 2010 and 2013, attacks against Muslims made up about 13% of religion-biased offenses. Comparatively, anti-Jewish crimes counted for about 60% of those offenses.
But in 2014, anti-Muslim offenses increased again, counting for more than 16% of the religion-biased offenses. Interestingly, this was the only religion within that category of hate crimes that increased in the 2014 FBI report, and the total hate crime count in 2014 was the lowest it had ever been.
In 2015, the hate crime total increased by 356 single bias incidents, and anti-Muslim incidents surged again. Over 20% of attacks on religious groups in 2015 targeted Muslims, according to FBI data. The FBI reported 257 hate crimes against Muslims in 2015, an increase from 154 crimes in 2014.
Why the surge? The Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based organization that monitors hate crimes across the country, points to the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and the “exploitation of these attacks by right-wing media and political figures” in the US as encouraging hatred toward Muslims, according to recent blog post.
The law center also noted that the anti-Muslim hate crime count in 2015 may be even higher because a handful of anti-Sikh hate crimes (a new category for 2015) were also reported last year. Because Sikhs are sometimes mistaken for Muslims, an offender may have intended to commit a hate crime against a Muslim but instead attacked a Sikh. In this case, the crime would have been recorded as an anti-Sikh crime.
The center suggests that President-elect Donald Trump may have influenced the uptick in hate crimes.
“What was likely even more important (than terrorist events in Europe) was Trump’s attacks on Muslims, including his infamous call for a ban on Muslims entering the US,” it said in a blog post.
The law center continued, “In addition, many of Trump’s aides and surrogates embraced similar rhetoric. The Trump campaign also maligned blacks, Latinos and other minorities.”
Tracking hate crimes against blacks and minorities
Historically, about half of all hate crimes have been racially charged, according to the FBI reports. Of these race-biased crimes, the majority have targeted black people. In 2015, there were 1,745 anti-black hate crimes reported, far outnumbering the 613 anti-white incidents and 299 anti-Hispanic or Latino incidents.
The recent report reveals a nearly 8% increase in hate crimes against blacks from 2014 data, which cited 1,621 anti-black hate crimes. Prior to 2015, the race-biased crime numbers had steadily decreased since 2008. In 2008, the same year Obama was elected, there were 2,876 anti-black hate crimes reported, nearly 37% of the total number of hate crimes that year.
“There was an uptick in hate crimes (against black people) after Obama’s election,” confirmed Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. That year, the law center saw churches with predominantly black congregations burned to the ground, among other incidents, she said. With a black president in the White House, “people were angry,” she explained.
Though the number of race-biased hate crimes has decreased over many years, tensions between races were still strained in the years following Obama’s election. Incidents of police officers killing young black men, including Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Garner, launched the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, which advocates for racial justice.
But the hate didn’t stop: In 2015, nine people were killed in a traditionally black church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white supremacy supporter. The shooter, Dylann Roof, was charged with 33 federal counts, including nine counts of violating the Hate Crimes Prevention Act resulting in death and three counts of violating the act in an attempt to kill. Roof confessed to the killings and was convicted December 15 on all 33 charges.
South Carolina does not have hate crime laws, so Roof couldn’t be charged locally for hate crimes. The city of Charleston reported four hate crimes in 2015, according to the FBI. The report doesn’t specify whether Roof’s crime was among those four hate crimes.
At the Southern Poverty Law Center, Beirich tracks hate incidents from current media headlines and individual reports from victims. As the center’s data are updated daily with new hate crime incidents, she can observe how the crime counts ebb and flow depending on the political climate.
Beirich compares the spike in race-biased hate crimes after Obama was elected to the surge of crimes after the tumultuous 2016 election.
“Now, (the hate crime offenders) are happy,” Beirich said. When Trump won the US election, she explained, the reaction among a segment of his supporters was similar to reactions to Brexit in Europe: a heightened sense of nationalism and increased hate for minorities, particularly blacks and immigrants. In the week after Trump’s win, the law center counted more than 700 hate incidents, the majority of which targeted black people and immigrants, it said.
In addition to tracking hate crimes, the law center monitors active hate groups in the country, including white supremacy groups, black separatists and general hate groups. Actions by these groups – or in reference to them, such as a spray-painted swastika on a building – contribute largely to the hate crime count.
According to the law center, there were 892 active hate groups in 2015, an increase from 784 in 2014. Of the hate groups, about 20% are KKK branches, 20% black separatists, 20% general hate, 10% neo-Nazis, 10% racist skinheads and 10% white nationalists. Neo-Confederate and Christian identity groups made up the rest of the total. General hate groups include groups whose biases aren’t specified and groups with multiple biases, such as both anti-black and anti-gay.
“Reacting to demographic changes in the US, immigration, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Islamist atrocities, these people fostered a sense of polarization and anger in this country,” the law center commented in a blog post.
Invisible hate crimes
Beirich and Stacy emphasized that FBI hate crime statistics are grossly underreported, mainly because the hate crime reports are handed in voluntarily. Several large cities, including Honolulu and Portland, Oregon, didn’t report in 2015, according to Stacy.
“There was a big drop in jurisdictions reporting,” Stacy said. In past years, participating agencies have increased: About 12,000 submitted data in 2001, about 12,400 in 2005, about 15,000 in 2010 and about 15,500 in 2014. But in 2015, fewer than 15,000 agencies reported, according to the FBI. Of those that didn’t report, 21 were cities with populations of more than 100,000 people, the Human Rights Campaign notes in a statement on their website.
However, even the data cities do report may not be reliable. Every year since the FBI began tracking hate crimes in 1996, more than 80% of jurisdictions have reported “zero” hate crimes. In 2015, only 11.6% of participating law enforcement agencies reported hate crimes. The vast majority of participating jurisdictions – 88.4% – said not a single hate crime occurred in their cities.
“It’s bogus,” said Beirich. Not acknowledging hate crimes skews the data, she explained, because some states appear to have much more hate than others. “States that are good at reporting, like California and New Jersey, look like they have a lot of hate crimes, while most states in the deep South don’t report hate crimes.”
Areas with histories of racial tensions like Mobile, Alabama, and the entire state of Mississippi reported no hate crimes for 2015, according to the FBI.
In the places where there are no local hate crime laws, hate crimes must be charged at the federal level, as was the case for Roof in South Carolina. However, charging someone with a hate crime in a jurisdiction without local hate crime laws can be much more difficult than in places with the laws, Stacy says.
Stacy adds that jurisdictions don’t admit hate crimes, which may be why the FBI numbers seem to be severely understated. Part of the problem, Stacy suggests, is that police officers don’t acknowledge that crimes are hate crimes when they happen, either because there are no local hate crime laws or the officers are biased themselves.
“Communities are much more likely to report bias-motivated crimes when they don’t trust the police,” Stacy said. In these areas, he continued, “there’s much more willingness to report hate crimes.”
Conversely, in communities that strongly support law enforcement – such as traditional, right-wing Southern towns – the public is not as likely to question an officer’s judgment, according to Stacy. This compounds the problem: First, hate crimes are less likely to be acknowledged in these districts, which creates an unsafe space for vulnerable individuals; secondly, since the crimes aren’t reported even if they occur, areas with high rates of hate crimes may be overlooked by the FBI.
Even for the states that reported hate crimes in 2015, the numbers were still exceedingly low, according to Stacy and Beirich. Wyoming filed just two incidents, while Arkansas reported five. Comparatively, Maine, whose population is half the size of Arkansas, reported 38 hate crimes, according to the FBI.
Bringing hate crimes to light
By tracking hate crime in real time, the Southern Poverty Law Center wants to expose hate incidents that may not be accounted for by the FBI.
Beirich suggests hate crime data are better represented elsewhere. “Instead of looking at the FBI data, we should look at the crime survey data” administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, she said. In 2012, the bureau conducted a hate crime survey that measured hate crimes perceived by victims.
The survey was administered to people age 12 or older and asked every six months, for a three-year period, whether they had experienced victimization, which could be nonfatal personal crimes (rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated and simple assault, and personal larceny) or household property crimes (burglary, motor vehicle theft and other theft). They were also asked what they perceived as the bias for the attack (anti-race, anti-LGBT, etc.) and whether they reported the crime to the police. Responses from the sample of people who took the survey were then weighted to represent the total population of the US.
After calculating the survey responses, the bureau estimated that 293,800 hate crimes occurred in 2012: 50 times more crimes than the FBI reported in 2012. The survey estimated that 60% of the hate crimes submitted weren’t reported to the police.
“It’s our responsibility to get out this information,” Beirich said. “We need a much more aggressive program of reporting.”
The Bureau of Justice Statistics numbers differ from the FBI statistics because they are victim-reported, rather than reported by the police. They are also estimated from a sample population, which means there is a margin of error between the estimated number of hate crimes and the real number, according to the survey. Additionally, since it was victim-reported, bias-motivated murders were not included in the Bureau of Justice Statistics report.
The Southern Poverty Law Center accumulates both victim-reported hate crimes and hate crimes reported by the media, but these data are updated daily, and the center does not keep an annual report of total hate crimes. Of the three sets of hate crime data, the FBI statistics are the only statistics that track physical hate crimes across the country year after year.
In his 2014 speech, FBI director Comey addressed the flaws with the hate crime statistics. “We need to do a better job of tracking and reporting hate crime to fully understand what is happening in our communities and how to stop it,” Comey said.
“There are jurisdictions that fail to report hate crime statistics. Other jurisdictions claim there were no hate crimes in their communit, a fact that would be welcome if true,” Comey continued. “We must continue to impress upon our state and local counterparts in every jurisdiction the need to track and report hate crime. It is not something we can ignore or sweep under the rug.”
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The Human Rights Campaign proposes requiring districts to report hate crimes. “This would provide a more complete picture of hate based violence in the United States and allow for targeted efforts to address areas with high levels of crime,” the campaign said in its statement.
Stacy makes an analogy between hate crime and domestic crime, using the example of a woman who is beaten by her husband. If there’s a domestic abuse center in town, she is much more likely to report the attack. Without a support system available, however, the woman will probably suffer in silence.
“The same thing is true for hate crimes,” Stacy said. “If the services are there, victims are more likely to report.”
Legislators in the Pennsylvania House and Senate have moved to introduce a comprehensive legislative package to address hate crimes.
Across the nation and in Pennsylvania, hate crimes are on the rise. Pennsylvania’s laws have not kept pace with modern society and need to be updated.
The legislation, sponsored by state Reps. Dan Frankel and Ed Gainey, both D-Allegheny, state Sen. Jay Costa, D-Allegheny, and state Sen. Larry Farnese, D-Phila., will bring Pennsylvania’s hate crime laws into the modern era, extend protections to threatened communities, and give law enforcement the tools it needs to prevent and address hate crimes across the commonwealth.
For information about the legislation introduced in the House and Senate, read the hate crime legislative guide. Or read about the individual bills below.
This bill would step up civil and criminal penalties on those who target individuals or groups because of their race, color, religion, national origin, actual or perceived ancestry, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity. It would also provide tools to fight Civil Rights Violations such as preliminary and permanent injunctive relief against continued violators and people who solicit or provide aid to such violators.
With the number of hate crimes increasing by 17% across the nation according to the U.S. Department of Justice, it is time we provide our law enforcement officials with the tools they need to properly investigate, identify and report crimes of ethnic intimidation.
This legislation would require postsecondary institutions to offer online and anonymous reporting options for students and employees. Anonymous online reporting alerts campus police of a possible hate crime while at the same time serving as an early point of contact, when a victim can learn about the steps required to file a formal report.
This legislation would require, as a condition of probation or parole, an individual who is convicted of ethnic intimidation to perform community service or complete educational classes relating to the motivating factor of the underlying crime. For example, an individual convicted of ethnic intimidation against an individual who is Jewish would be required to take educational classes relating to Judaism.
The legislation would require, as a condition of probation or parole, an individual who is convicted of ethnic intimidation to perform community service or complete educational classes relating to the motivating factor of the underlying crime. For example, an individual convicted of ethnic intimidation against an individual who is Jewish would be required to take educational classes relating to Judaism.
Under this legislation, MPOETC will be required to train all law enforcement agencies under its jurisdiction on how to investigate, identify and report offenses based on race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, age or disability of the victim.
Senate Bill 946 would require postsecondary institutions to offer online and anonymous reporting options for students and employees. Anonymous online reporting alerts campus police of a possible hate crime while at the same time serving as an early point of contact, when a victim can learn about the steps required to file a formal report.
This legislation would give the Attorney General the power to track hate group activity across the state in an information database system, allowing for better protection of our constituents, the marginalized, and other communities that are often the primary targets of hate. The information in the database would only be accessible by law enforcement agencies across the state, to better inform them of the hate group activity in their region.
Reported increases in far-right violence have led policymakers to search for new solutions. Because these attacks on vulnerable communities are often investigated and prosecuted as hate crimes or violent crimes, part of the solution is ensuring that they are accurately tracked and reported. Unfortunately, federal hate crimes data is flawed and incomplete. This is due in large part to the Department of Justice’s reliance on voluntary reporting from state and local law enforcement to fulfill its obligation to report national hate crimes data.
There are wide disparities in the protections provided by the various state hate crimes laws, resulting in unequal protection from similar violent crimes in different jurisdictions and the frustration of efforts to collect and maintain accurate national data regarding these attacks. Six Five states — Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, North Dakota, South Carolina, and Wyoming — do not even have hate crime laws.
The table below illustrates the differences in hate crimes laws among the states and U.S. territories. It includes all state hate crimes statutes as well as laws that protect against activities commonly understood as hate crimes, such as displaying a noose or burning a cross. The table tracks whether the statutes establish independent hate crime offenses or if they are used to enhance penalties on underlying crimes. It also notes statutes that require data collection, hate crimes training for law enforcement officers, or provisions for alternative resolutions to addressing the harms caused by such crimes.
In this passage, God gives us several examples of how he protects us: both in fire and flood. These are two of the most destructive elements on earth, yet God promises to keep us safe from the harm of both the “sweeping waters” and the “flame.” He promises that we will not be overcome, even in the midst of danger. What a mighty God we serve! What a Savior is this!
When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.
This is one of my favorite Gospel Passages. It’s a question that I have often used for meditation both for myself and for classes I have taught to both teens and adults. It’s a question that I think we need to reflect upon often as we can lose sight of the importance of Jesus in our lives. And the answer can change. He might be friend, brother, Lord, Savior, shepherd, leader, companion – or just someone we have heard about. One teen answered the question by saying that Jesus was a nice man. Is that all he is? What about the Son of God – Divine? Does it make a difference in my life if I believe that Jesus is God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity who came to save me from eternal death by his dying on a cross? Does it make a difference in how I live if I believe that this is not the end? This is a time for getting to know him better so that I can also live eternally in heaven with the Father. I know this because of the resurrection. Yes, Jesus can be my friend and companion, but he is so much more than that. By his life, I know how to live. By his dying and rising, I can face my own death and the death of those I love because he has shown me that this is not the end. In this today’s gospel, Jesus tell us that we must pick up our cross and follow him. Are we willing to deny ourselves in order to follow Jesus? What am I being asked to change in my life, right now? I am so glad that we are reminded each we read this question that Jesus asks – not just the disciples – but us as well. Who do I say that Jesus is for me, today?
This is my favorite Proverb. It talks about two things that are so important to following God’s will. Honesty is so necessary in life. The person who lies has two things going against him. The first is kind of obvious. Once you know a person lies or is dishonest in business, how can you trust him or her? Even when the person is telling the truth, you don’t believe it. You wonder if you’re being cheated in business dealings. But there’s another problem for the person himself. The dishonest person can’t trust anyone else either because he or she figures everyone else lies or has an agenda that is out to get him or her. The second half of the proverb concerns balance. How much does any person need? I’m not asking how much a person might want, but need. It’s hard for the rich to realize their dependence on God. This is why Jesus said it was easier for a camel to walk through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. And the very poor can be tempted to steal in order to take care of their families, and thereby break the commandments and offend the God they love. When we think of the early Christian church, they seemed to understand this and they made sure that their goods were distributed so that all had enough, and no one had an excess.
Ecclesiastes is a fun book to read. About the only thing people recognize is in chapter three where we read about a season for everything – a time to live, a time to die, etc. – but we have much to learn from this book. I’m sure you have heard the phrase, “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” This brief passage expresses the same idea. Just like the Israelites made the same mistakes over and over again, so do we. Yes, there are inventions today that we take for granted today that would never have entered into the imagination of peoples of earlier times, but they repeated the cycle of obeying God, enjoying prosperity, forgetting about God, doing their own thing, falling into the hands of the enemy, begging God for forgiveness, promising to do better, being forgiven by God and obeying – for a while, and so it went. How many times do we promise God that we will do better, we will treat people better, we will be more honest in our dealings with others, work better with our communities for justice – if God will just give us what we need now. How long did the promise last once our prayers were answered? We fall into the same cycle as the Israelites, we do the right thing or say the promised prayers, or whatever we promised for a while and then fall into bad habits and wonder what went wrong. Ecclesiastes is a short book, take some time and read it through. There’s a lot to learn here.
Many people do good things. The question here is, why? One summer I worked in the office of a major university where I recorded the donations that came in on cards with the name of the donor on them. I came across many names of prominent people who were quite familiar to me, but there was a notation on the top of many of those cards that said “anonymous.” Many of these people actually had two cards, one for the public and the other not. The public one was for far less money. They wanted to support the college, but didn’t want credit for their generosity. Obviously, people will be rewarded here for a generosity of spirit, they will be known for performing acts of heroism. We know the names of people who have worked to spread the gospel message and those who work tirelessly for justice. This does not take away from their sacrifice. But, there also are people who want to be known for their good acts and it is these that Jesus warns about. It is one thing for people to come to know the goodness of others; it is another for that person to call attention to what they are doing for their own glory. Do we act because as followers of Christ we are called to do what we do? Or, do we want attention?
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This is a praise of joy in the Lord. The writer of this Psalm rejoices in the Lord. So should we. We should exalt in the Lord, the Highest. He is all things to us. We should praise His Holy name forever. He is worthy of all praise. Praise is one of the most powerful weapons against the enemy that we possess. When we praise, we affect ourselves, God, the enemy. When we praise, walls fall and troubles disappear. The lack of praise conversely affects everything in your life. While almost everyone would agree that praise is a good thing, many people don’t see the responsibility to praise God even when we don’t feel like it. When we give this “sacrifice” of praise unto God, we are overcomers. Praise comes naturally when we recognize the goodness in our lives. We should make it a point to praise Him every day.
The Christian life is a wondrous adventure, full of twists and turns, good times and also difficult challenges. Through all of it, God’s Word is our greatest resource for insight, wisdom, hope, and guidance. Every problem we face has its solution in the Word of God. Where there is a need for comfort, peace, or courage, He provides it. To find His wisdom, there is simply no substitute for spending time alone with Him in prayer and the study of His Scriptures. Each year I receive countless letters from people who ask if there is a way for them to know God’s will for their lives. The answer is yes. But before He will reveal this to us, we need to get to know Him—the way He thinks, acts, and demonstrates His love for us.
Are you tired of trying to overcome sin on your own? Are you worn out from trying to be perfect, in your own power? Have you tried to be righteous on your own and found yourself seriously wanting? Here is the good news: you don’t have to do this on your own. Jesus Christ paid the price for us, so that we could be saved from our sin, and so that we could also be partakers of the Father’s inheritance. The life of Christ is an unburdened life, filled with rest and blessed assurance.
Dear God, I thank you for the rest and peace I have in you as a result of what your son, Jesus Christ, did for me. Lord, I have struggled with my sin and I have grown weary from trying to be perfect on my own. Thank you, Father, for removing the burden from my shoulders and helping me overcome my struggles. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Even Jesus rested, and He encouraged his apostles to rest. He wanted them to take breaks and rest. To take the time to go away and eat. There is nothing wrong with needing rest. God meant for us to take a Sabbath just as He did. He created the world in six days, and He rested on the seventh. You are not greater than God; take a rest.
Even Jesus rested, and He encouraged his apostles to rest. He wanted them to take breaks and rest. To take the time to go away and eat. There is nothing wrong with needing rest. God meant for us to take a Sabbath just as He did. He created the world in six days, and He rested on the seventh. You are not greater than God; take a rest.
The are no more God fearing Police Officers in America. Most police officers today are only cops because they got beat up in high school.
The police today are murdering people and its legal. To get judge to forget about it because they are in on the criminal side as well.
The police are targeting reformed sex offenders. Entrapment is against the law and yet the police brake the law and get with it.
Hearsay is against the law and yet warrants are written. Magistrates fet paid by how many warrants they write.
Prophets did not always bring good news. The role of a prophet was to tell God’s truth. We don’t always want to hear the truth. Jeremiah was trying to tell the people of Judah that they were on a collision course with destruction. No one wanted to listen and Babylon soon overtook Judah and sent the citizens into exile. We don’t like prophets either. We don’t like it when we are warned that we need to change our behavior or we will run into a problem. Now, that can be as simple as letting the gas in your car get down to the warning light believing that you will always be able to find a gas station before you run out and then you get stuck because of an accident and you run out of gas on the highway. Don’t you just hate those people who were always warning you not to do that! It can be as serious as the world’s refusal to believe that over use of fossil fuels and the decimation of the world’s rain forests will result in weather changes we won’t like. But, these last few years have brought problems we now have to find ways to either fix or better prepare to survive. We are often no different from the people of Judah. We don’t want to think about what can happen when we disregard the teachings of Christ. It’s too late for us to join the group that wanted to kill Jeremiah, but we still might not want to listen to him. Let us use this time to remember the warnings of Jeremiah and also those of Jesus and work at following God’s will.
Have you ever wondered how Joseph must have felt when he found out that Mary was pregnant? He had plans, he had found a woman he loved and was getting ready to welcome her into his home. But not like this! According to the law, she had committed adultery and the punishment for adultery was stoning. What was he going to do? Joseph believed the angel who appeared to him in that dream and welcomed Mary and Jesus into his home, raising Jesus as his own son. We can learn so much from Joseph. He believed that God had a plan for him and he was ready to accept it. How do we react when our plans don’t work out the way we want them to? We can be like Joseph, in love planning our future with the one we love and boom! It could be that he/she decides he/she is not ready for marriage and backs out. Maybe he/she dies. Maybe the wedding takes place and a few years later, it just isn’t working. Do we get angry with God thinking he has failed us? What do we do? Joseph is the perfect model. He was willing to accept that God had a better plan for him, trusting him to be father to his Son. God has a plan for us as well. If we are patient and pray, God will show us the path that will lead to happiness.
Think of the people you know. Who do you trust? Who makes you feel good to be with? When you find out that someone has lied to you, how can you know when they’re telling the truth? If you lie, how can people trust you? The people we feel good to be with are ones we can trust, who are kind. They are the ones who follow through with their promises, who are always ready to help out, who go out of their way to do acts of kindness. And, when we are with them, we want to treat them the same way. If we want to be treated well, we need to be those people! When I taught, it wasn’t always easy to get through the hallway crowded with teenagers trying to get in their lockers and make their way to the next class. One day in the faculty lounge, one of the teachers was complaining about the rudeness of the kids who never even bothered to hold the door. I commented that I didn’t have that problem. The kids usually held to door for me, and of course I would hold it for them if their arms were full. She just shrugged her shoulders and said that she wouldn’t hold a door for those ruffians. The way we treat others does matter. If you are judgmental, don’t be surprised if you find yourself judged. If you gossip, you may find yourself the object of gossip. The reverse is also true. If you are forgiving, you will be forgiven. If you are kind, you will be treated with kindness. It’s your choice and mine.
One of the biggest fears that most people have is being made a fool. They are afraid to trust others because they don’t want that trust to be misplaced or misused. Often people will speak of having “acquaintances” rather than “friends”. They’re afraid to get too close to anyone or let anyone get close to them because they are afraid that their trust will be betrayed. It’s easy to transfer our feelings about people to our feelings about God. There are so many people who are afraid to trust God because they’ve been betrayed by other people. They have major trust issues with everybody and God the Father is certainly not excluded. David also had a difficult time in trusting people. His own father-in-law tried to kill him. He was on the run. He had to hide to save his life. Still he put his trust in God. David put his faith in God. He says here that he has taken refuge in the Lord. He has placed his confidence in the Lord and prays that trust will not be unfounded and make him “ashamed.” David has reached a point where he can trust no one, but he trusts God to deliver him. We can take this to heart, as well. Even when the world has let us down, we can trust in the Lord and he is faithful to deliver us with His righteousness.
Father, I thank You for being my refuge. I trust You and I know You are faithful to deliver me. I know that I will never regret my decision to follow You. Amen.
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”
Matthew 28:18-19 (NIV)
One thing is made very clear in Scripture: God wants you to tell people the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ. In fact, some of the first and last recorded words of Jesus were about sharing the hope you have in him.
In Matthew 4:19, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus gathered a small group of fishermen and carpenters—just ordinary people—and said, “Follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” (NLT) These were some of the very first words Jesus spoke to his followers.
Do you see Jesus’ logic in that verse? If you’re not fishing for people, then you’re not really following him. The proof that you are truly in God’s family is that you’re bringing other people into the family.
Later in the book of Matthew, Jesus talked again about sharing your hope. This passage is called the Great Commission. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18-19 NIV). These were some of the very last words of Jesus before he went back to heaven.
Why does Jesus have “all authority in heaven and on earth”? Because he created the universe, so he’s been given all authority over it. Jesus authorizes you to go make disciples. This means you are God’s agent!
Is anyone going to be in heaven because of you? Have you ever led anybody to faith in Christ? Follow the first and last words of Jesus, and people will one day say to you in heaven, “Thank you! I’m in heaven today because of you.”
What Are the 4 Spiritual Laws that Every Christian Should Know?
What Are the Four Spiritual Laws in the Bible?
The term “Four Spiritual Laws” does not appear in Scripture, but the principles do. CRU’s goal was to create an outreach tool that would organize biblically based steps for salvation into a straightforward, easy-to-understand format. The introduction included in the little booklet states that “Just as there are physical laws that govern the physical universe, so are there spiritual laws that govern your relationship with God.”
This four-point evangelistic model has been used by Believers for decades to introduce the plan of salvation to anyone who hasn’t yet heard about Jesus. What makes this method different than similar witnessing tools is that the steps begin on a positive note.
Law #1 of the Four Spiritual Laws focuses on God’s nature and his intent toward humanity. Using John 3:16 as a reference, this first law describes God’s love for the world, as demonstrated through the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus. This law also emphasizes God’s favorable plans for mankind through salvation. “I came that they might have life and might have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
Many believe this biblical representation of God is an essential part of effective evangelism. The idea that our Creator loves us and has good plans for the world may seem like a no-brainer to Believers, but it’s likely a foreign concept to many who were raised in other religions. God’s loving nature and benevolence also may come as a surprise to an increasing number of unbelievers who have only seen and heard about God through warped representations in secular media and cynical culture.
The first section of the pamphlet concludes with the question, “Why is it that most people are not experiencing the abundant life?”
Law #2 answers the question with a definitive statement. “Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.”
The pamphlet cites Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” then expands upon the Scripture’s truth by defining sin in real terms and explaining the consequences associated with sin. According to this law, humanity was created to experience a close and loving fellowship with our creator. But because we preferred our own will to His, our rebellion caused a rift in the sacred relationship that ultimately led to a death sentence (Romans 6:23).
A simple diagram in the pamphlet illustrates the first law by depicting God’s holiness as opposed to humanity’s sinfulness. The gulf between the two points seems impossible to bridge because man has no means of reaching God through any human effort.
Law #3 shows the reader that the only way fallen mankind can ever reunite with a Holy God is through Jesus. “Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Through Him, you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life.”
Using Romans 5:8, 1 Corinthians 15:3-6, and John 14:6, the third law not only shows the reader the Way to God, but also explains the Truth about the cost of our salvation, and the Life it required—all pointing to Jesus.
The diagram accompanying this law illustrates Jesus as the only bridge for the eternal gulf that separates God from man. His Son died on the cross in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.
Law #4 is the action step that provides readers with practical instruction to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This law uses John 1:12, Ephesians 2:8-9, and John 3:1-8 to explain what it means to receive Christ through faith and what it means to be born again.
Next, the fourth law reveals Christ’s invitation for salvation (Revelation 3:20). Through the use of another diagram, repentance and surrender are emphasized as crucial prerequisites for salvation, and a clear warning is issued about emotion-based or half-hearted decisions. “Just to agree intellectually that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for our sins is not enough. Nor is it enough to have an emotional experience. We receive Jesus Christ by faith, it is an act of the will,” the pamphlet explains
For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.
Who has the right to boast? Someone who is a gifted artist, a musician, the top student in class, the wealthy man or woman, the top model, the award winning actor? That’s a partial list and you might add a few more. But what right do any of them have to boast? Who gave them the artistic ability, the musician’s ear or voice, the intelligence, the looks, the opportunities? The answer of course, is God. We didn’t earn the right to be born with any of these gifts. Nor are people who have fewer advantages being punished. As St. Paul says, if we are to boast – glory – let it be in the Lord. All that we have is gift! We didn’t earn it, we don’t deserve it, but we do have a responsibility to use and develop our gifts. The artist didn’t just get up one day, pick up a paint brush and bring the first attempt to the museum to be welcomed with open arms.
I have known intelligent people who sailed through high school and flunked out of college the first semester because he/she never learned how to study. We also have been gifted with faith. But faith, like any other gift needs to be practiced. I might sound like a broken record, but we do need to take advantage of this wonderful season to check and see how well we are doing. Let us show our gratitude for the gifts we have been given by thanking God and using them to the best of our ability.
Throughout the New Testament, we see examples of Jesus giving water to those who are thirsty. While this holy water is symbolic for the water of life that only comes from believing in Jesus, Jesus also tells his followers that if they give actual water to those who are thirsty because they follow him, they will be rewarded. Those serving Jesus should not just be sharing the Gospel with others, but also giving to those in need of food and drink. We are called to help those in need – sometimes it begins with offering a cup of water.
Dear God, allow me to see those who are in need and show me how to meet their basic needs as well as their spiritual needs. Help me not to overlook how serving in simple ways shows the love of Jesus. Give me opportunities to love others following your example. Thank you for sending your son, Jesus Christ, to not only save me from my sins, but to be an example of love for all mankind. May I live a love of love that brings others to you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;
This is great advice for anyone, but here it is specifically given to older women. They are to have holy character reflecting Jesus. They are not supposed to drink too much or falsely accuse people. Lastly, they are to teach good things. It is interesting that older women are instructed to teach. Knowing they have a lot of wisdom, they are instructed to pass that wisdom on.
I find this passage interesting. Hate goes against God’s laws. God is love, so there is no hate in God. Even in the story of Cain and Abel, God marks Cain so that no one will kill him. So how can we hate? It’s okay not to like someone, we all do that, but hate implies that we wish someone evil. That’s not okay.
To love our neighbor means that we don’t wish him any evil. This doesn’t mean that we have to approve everything our neighbor does. No, not at all, in fact this passage tells us it’s okay to rebuke someone, even a friend or family member and not get involved in behavior contrary to God’s law. Going back to Cain and Abel, revenge is also contrary to God’s will for us. So much violence would be avoided if people didn’t seek revenge.
As I mentioned the other day, today, a person who feels disrespected often gathers friends to “get even” with that person. This leads to a larger group of friends getting even with the others and so on and so on. Feuds of this sort have become commonplace among many groups of young people as we have become such a “them” and “us” society. Some feuds seem to last one generation to the next and often people don’t even remember when the bad feelings began, nor do they know the cause. How do you want to be treated? How do I? If I want to be treated kindly, with respect, then it is my responsibility to treat others the same. It’s not always easy to love those we don’t like, but that’s what God not only expects of us, but commands.
God created both male and female in his image. From the beginning, he made both man and woman and caused them to fellowship with him and with each other in the garden. And God gave Eve to Adam to be his wife, and this was for a picture of the Church, the bride of Christ, whom the Father would give to the Son.
O Lord, we know you have created men and women both in your image and for your glory. You have given them each their proper strengths and roles. Some you call to serve you as singles, and devote fuller time to your kingdom. Others you call to marriage, and this is a picture of your love for your Church. May we all be content with the calling you have called us with.
God dwells in us as a result of His Love. How does He dwell in us? Through His Spirit. We have accepted the Spirit of God to reside in us and this means that we are subjected to his counsel and his guidance. We are not slaves to our selfish cravings or desires. We are now able to rise above them and live according to the way of the Spirit.
Dear God, I thank you that I am now one with you as a result of your Spirit living within me. Father I ask that I will always pay attention to your will for me and not what my selfish demands. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Everyone faces temptation every day. It may be something as unimportant as having an extra piece of candy, or skipping exercise, but it could be as serious as giving in to road rage, drinking too much, cheating, gambling, taking drugs, or – insert your favorite vice! Jesus was tempted to let us know that this is something we all must overcome. When you face a temptation, how do you respond? Jesus looked to scripture for the answer. The other day I was reminded of the old WWJD bracelets that young people wore to remind them of how we should act. A good question to ask ourselves – What would Jesus do? I have often said that the first commandment is one of the hardest to keep. “I am the Lord, your God. You shall not have strange gods before me.” Think you don’t have a problem with this one? Think again! Every time we put our needs before God, we set ourselves up as gods. Every time we choose pleasure, money, sports before God, we have created idols for ourselves. We believe that the Holy Spirit who lives within us will give us all the strength we need to overcome the temptations that come our way. But we need to listen to God, not to the music, movies or TV, to help form our consciences so that we know what is right and what is wrong. In other words, do as Jesus did and look to the Bible for our answers for how to live and we will be armed to fight the daily battle that is sure to come our way.
Joshua witnessed many mighty acts of the Lord as God led the Israelites through the desert with Moses. The people of Israel served the Lord while Joshua was alive and while others who had seen God’s works were alive. It is much easier to have faith when you witness things first or second hand. It’s harder when you believe without seeing. Jesus said that those who believe without seeing are blessed. Let’s have faith in our great God even though we have not seen.
Heavenly Father, You are great. Your character has never changed. You were the same yesterday and You will be the same tomorrow. I can always count on You. I have not seen Your face, but I have read of Your works throughout history. Make my faith stronger, and help me to believe. Have faith for me when I lack faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might know our affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts.
The “whom” Paul mentions here was Tychicus, who was a fellow minister, who was sent to the people of Ephesus to bring news of Paul. This was long before the days of phone calls and emails, so Paul had to have a way to communicate with these people. Messengers such as Tychicus were often used to communicate messages between Churches in that time. Paul has been imprisoned in Rome and surely the churches where he has preached wondered about his welfare. Tychicus, would have brought a measure of comfort to these people who had formed relationship with Paul. To know that he was surviving, almost thriving, through his trials would have brought them great comfort, as would the letters that Tychicus would have brought them from Paul. Even today, letters from missionaries to their home churches are encouraging. Such letters give those who are unable to go into the field a chance to encourage and pray for those who are giving their lives in the mission fields.
Yesterday, we thought about doing God’s will. Today, we think about building up ourselves in faith. What are the ways that we can build ourselves up in? For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.” Faith? I had to give some thought about how I try to do this.
The first thing that came to mind is prayer. My grandmother told me that God waited at the end of each day for me to talk to him and tell him about my day. This habit is one that has lasted for over 70 years. I didn’t even realize that this was prayer until when I was older! Such experience gives me time to reflect on my day, give thanks for the good things, thanks for getting me through the difficult ones and asking for help both for myself and my friends and family. I usually end with a formal prayer and then remember the other things and people I need to pray for. I find comfort and inspiration in my church community. After all, the word “church” originally meant the gathering of the people, not a building.
Reflecting on Scripture brings me closer to the Father as well as to Jesus. How can we follow Jesus if we don’t know what he did and said? Studying the Bible with others gives me insights that I might never have seen. So, I guess that prayer, reflecting on Scripture, both alone and with others, and immersing myself in the Christian community are the ways that I try to build up myself in this holy faith with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. What are your ways?
We can never afford to be know-it-alls because we will never know everything. The moment we think we know best, we start to distance ourselves from God’s counsel – and that is when errors are bound to happen. Don’t try and take God’s place in your life. Trust in Him and resist all pride – which is a form of evil.
Dear God, I pray that I never get to a point in my life where I think that I know it all. I can never know more than you and I know that you know what is best for my life more than I do. Lord, may I always pay attention to your counsel and no one else’s. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
There is no better image of love and protection than the image of a baby bird safe under the wing of his mother. Under her wings, he is safe from every harm, from foul weather, from cold. Under her wings, he is warm and dry and comforted. This is the image we see in this verse. It is focused on the sense of security found in God. When we dwell in the secret place of God–that is, the very essence of God, the place where we meet intimately with Him–we find ourselves in the shadow of the Almighty, often read as the shadow of His wings. We are in a place of safety and security. When we are in the secret place of God, we are protected. No harm will come to us and we are comforted by His presence.
Father, I want to dwell with You in the Secret Place. Put me under the shadow of Your wings and keep me safe. Comfort me with Your presence. Amen.
Father, thank You for sending messengers to us to lift us up and encourage us when we worry. Thank You for taking care of Your people, no matter their location or their circumstances. In Jesus name Amen
I may have mentioned it before, and will probably do so again, but I don’t worry about the end of the World! There’s no promise that this will happen before my time on earth is up. So what does this passage say to me?
For me it means that I need to live each day doing the will of God as best I can because I don’t know when I will die. There was a famous Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, who wrote a prayer that I have always loved because it gives me hope. In it he writes that he tries to do God’s will even though he’s not always sure what that is, but he believes, as I do, that the desire to do God’s will pleases God. We can’t always be sure that we’re on the right path given the choices we must make each day, but we can ask God’s guidance each day to help us not stray far from his plan.
We do get a hint of how to keep to God’s will from this passage – don’t give in to sins of the flesh! Our society keeps telling us that if it feels good, we should do it! Then we are surprised at the increase in the presence of depression, feelings of guilt and a lack of self-respect. God made us, he knows what makes us happy, and following his commandments, trying to do his will, is the way to happiness in this world as well as in the next.
This is a truth that will never die: we will never find anyone who can ever measure up to God. God is never moved by the problems we face because they cannot shake Him. No man, no power, no principality can even dare to come to us and try and convince us that they are greater than God. Who can compare to the One who created the heavens, the earth, and everything in between? Who can say they can stand on the same ground as the God who made the ultimate sacrifice of love, to save those who didn’t even know they needed saving? No one.
Dear God, no one can compare to your greatness. There is no one, not a single being, in this universe that can try to stand up to you. I pray that all the earth will come to the knowledge of your greatness, O God, and that we will all come to worship you and give you the praise that is truly due to you. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
In order to live a fulfilling and truly meaningful life, we have to follow God’s leading. God’s leading produces life; the world’s influences lead to sorrow and even untimely death. We follow God’s leading through prayer and reading His Word.
Dear God, I ask that I will remain in your guidance and not in the influences of the world. May my life be meaningful in your eyes and not just in the eyes of man, because it’s your view that matters the most, Father. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
In Romans Chapter 6 the Apostle Paul contrasts the state of being a slave to sin with the state of being a slave to righteousness. Each state receives something.
Those who are “slaves to sin” are those who do not have faith in Jesus Christ as their personal LORD and Savior. They receive “wages” for their sin. This is a payment for the work they have done. Slaves to sin work at sin and receive a wage for their work as a result.
Those who are “slaves to righteousness,” on the other hand, are those who have faith in Jesus Christ as their personal LORD and Savior. They do not receive a wage for their righteousness. Instead, they receive a gift. Unlike a wage, a “gift” is not given as a payment. A gift is given for free. Slaves to righteousness receive a gift rather than a wage because they did not work for their righteousness. Their righteousness came to them simply by faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:22).
The wages for those who work at sin is death. “Death” here does not simply mean physical death. It means spiritual death. Spiritual death is alienation from God and it can be experienced both in the present and for all eternity. Ultimately, spiritual death means eternal alienation from God in hell.
The gift of those who have faith is “eternal life in Christ Jesus our LORD.” Like spiritual death, eternal life in Christ can be experienced in the present and for all eternity. Ultimately, eternal life means an eternity spent with God in the new heavens and the new earth (Revelation 21).
Stating the stark contrast between being a slave to sin and being a slave to righteousness begs the question: why would anyone ever want to be a slave to sin? The end result is death, eternal death, and alienation from God. Sin may seem rewarding for a while, but it is ultimately unfulfilling in the present and it leads to an eternity in hell.
And why would anyone not want to be a slave to righteousness? The end result is life, abundant life in the present (John 10:10), and eternal life with God. The righteousness of God is rewarding in the present and for all eternity.
Insight What problems David faced! He was scoffed at, mocked, insulted, humiliated, and made the object of citywide gossip. But still he prayed. Challenge When we are completely beaten down, we are tempted to turn from God, give up, and quit trusting him. When your situation seems hopeless, determine that no matter how bad things become you will continue to pray. God will hear your prayer, and he will rescue you. When others reject us, we need God most. Don’t turn from your most faithful friend.
As all the rivers run into the sea, so all delights centre in our Beloved. The glances of his eyes outshine the sun: the beauties of his face are fairer than the choicest flowers: no fragrance is like the breath of his mouth. Gems of the mine, and pearls from the sea, are worthless things when measured by his preciousness. Peter tells us that Jesus is precious, but he did not and could not tell us how precious, nor could any of us compute the value of God’s unspeakable gift. Words cannot set forth the preciousness of the Lord Jesus to his people, nor fully tell how essential he is to their satisfaction and happiness. Believer, have you not found in the midst of plenty a sore famine if your Lord has been absent? The sun was shining, but Christ had hidden himself, and all the world was black to you; or it was night, and since the bright and morning star was gone, no other star could yield you so much as a ray of light. What a howling wilderness is this world without our Lord! If once he hideth himself from us, withered are the flowers of our garden; our pleasant fruits decay; the birds suspend their songs, and a tempest overturns our hopes. All earth’s candles cannot make daylight if the Sun of Righteousness be eclipsed. He is the soul of our soul, the light of our light, the life of our life. Dear reader, what wouldst thou do in the world without him, when thou wakest up and lookest forward to the day’s battle? What wouldst thou do at night, when thou comest home jaded and weary, if there were no door of fellowship between thee and Christ? Blessed be his name, he will not suffer us to try our lot without him, for Jesus never forsakes his own. Yet, let the thought of what life would be without him enhance his preciousness.
Daily Light on the Daily Path
Exodus 17:15 Moses built an altar and named it The LORD is My Banner;
Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
Psalm 118:6 The LORD is for me; I will not fear; What can man do to me?
Psalm 60:4 You have given a banner to those who fear You, That it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah.
Psalm 27:1,3 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the defense of my life; Whom shall I dread? • Though a host encamp against me, My heart will not fear; Though war arise against me, In spite of this I shall be confident.
2 Chronicles 13:12 “Now behold, God is with us at our head and His priests with the signal trumpets to sound the alarm against you. O sons of Israel, do not fight against the LORD God of your fathers, for you will not succeed.”
Psalm 46:7 The LORD of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah.
Revelation 17:14 “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful.”
Psalm 2:1,4 Why are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing? • He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them.
Isaiah 8:10 “Devise a plan, but it will be thwarted; State a proposal, but it will not stand, For God is with us.”
Daily Light on the Daily PathGalatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
1 John 4:16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
Romans 5:5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
1 Peter 2:7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone,”
2 Corinthians 5:14,15 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; • and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
1 Thessalonians 4:9 Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;
John 15:12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
1 Peter 4:8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.
Ephesians 5:2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.
In the previous verse Romans 8: 10, Paul has been discussing the power that death still has: have power over the body. In this verse he tells us how God has made provision for the power death has on our bodies. The spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead (he’s talking about God here) is in us. If he raised Jesus from the dead, then he’s also capable of doing that with us as well. He tells us that we have the very same spirit living in us which Christ has been living in Him; therefore God will do the same work in us that He did in Christ. When our physical death comes on this earth, just as Christ’s physical death came, He will resurrect us just as He resurrected Christ. Paul tells us here that, even though death has power over our physical bodies, it does not have power over our eternal life. Because we believe in Christ and because the Spirit of God dwells within us, we will never have to fear eternal death. We will be resurrected into eternal life. We will be clothed in our heavenly robes. The sting of death cannot touch us.
Father, I know that the same spirit inside me dwelt inside of Christ and that what You did for your son, You will also do for me too. I know that I have to face physical death on this earth but that it’s just a momentary hindrance because You have ensured that I will be with You, that I will live eternally by Your side. I thank you for this promise and I thank you for the reminder that I am eternally Yours. Amen.
Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
Peter had good reason to question Jesus as he had just told them that it was harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the narrow gate. Many people believed that riches were how God showed favor to a person and that poverty showed his displeasure. There may even be some people today who think the same way. But Peter had forgotten about Job. After all, he had lost everything and his friends kept after him to blame God who had certainly been the cause of all his misfortune and he must have done something to displease God. Just as Job was rewarded, Jesus tells Peter that he, too, would be rewarded for his sacrifice. He could expect persecution, but he would have eternal life. We can also be persecuted for following Jesus.
There are people and practices that are not compatible with living for Christ and the Gospel. A woman I know lost her job because the people she worked for were dishonest with their customers and expected her to cover it up. When she refused, she was fired. Most of us will not have to choose to give up our livelihood for the sake of the Gospel, but perhaps we will have to give up people whose lives are incompatible with our beliefs and who lead us into sin. Living for the sake of the Gospel is not always easy, but life on earth is transitory, eternal life with Jesus is eternal. We need to choose.
God’s protection is around the clock. There is never a time we are removed from God’s presence. He will always protect us and He will never leave us in harm’s way – not even for a second.
Dear God, I thank you that I can trust in you and dwell in you at all times. Thank you, God, for protecting me from the wiles of the enemy. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
We need to live a life that is dedicated to expressing gratitude and attitude of gratitude and praise towards God because time and time again He has shown and proven his faithfulness. God is the God above all. He is mighty in all his ways. He is the one that deserves all the praise.
Dear God, my heart will always rejoice when I think of your love and the Grace you have gifted me with. It is because of your Son, Jesus Christ, I am free from the power of sin and death. I no longer have to fear death and destruction or the threats of the enemy because I am resting and hidden in Christ. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous.
It is far better to be a Christian who does not have much in this world, in comparison to being a wicked person who abounds in wealth and material possessions. There will come a day where all of these earthly things will pass away and we will be faced with what matters the most – our eternity. Those who have believed in God and followed His ways will be given eternal life. Those who have chosen to be wicked will, unfortunately, face eternal damnation.
Dear God, I pray that I will never lose sight of what truly matters in this life. May my mind always be concerned with your Kingdom, Lord, and not in amassing wealth on this earth. I know that everything I attain on earth is temporary. May mind never lose sight of what truly matters – spending eternity with you. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
Contentment. It’s what we seek in our everyday lives. To be content with what we have. No matter what it is. It keeps us from being disgruntled, angry individuals. When we are discontented, we become petty and bitter. It causes all kind of problems. Paul tells us in this passage that he has learned to be content in all circumstances. This is accomplished only when we trust in God to take care of our needs. We can be content when we can rest in the promises of God.
People sometimes “bite off more than they can chew.” They want big things, but they don’t prepare to handle the big things. We see this with money. Everyone wants to be rich, but we can’t be trusted as good stewards of the money we have. We want a bigger, better job, but we don’t give 100% to the job we have. We want a newer car, but we neglect the car we currently have. It is ridiculous to think that God will give us more, when we haven’t shown ourselves capable of handling the small things. Here, God–in this parable, the “master”–rewards His servant–us–who has been faithful in the “small thing” by putting him in charge of many things. So God does with us, if we are faithful.
Father, Help me to be faithful in the small things. I desire to make You proud by taking care of the things You have given me. Help me to show myself worthy of great things and help me to be faithful, not only in the “small things” but also in the “many.” Lord, Help me to be content in what I have, no matter where I am. I trust You to take care of my needs, so I am content to bloom where I am planted. Thank You for taking care of me. Amen.
Here Jesus entreats us to seek the kingdom of God above all things. But what exactly does this mean? It means making the things of God a priority. How do you spend your time? Energy? Money? On God things? Or things of the world? Where your treasure is so is your heart. It’s easy to tell if we’re putting God first if we look at our calendars and our bank accounts. Jesus tells us here that if we are faithful to put God first, then all of our needs will be met.
Lord, Help me to seek You above all things. Let me put my energy, time, and money into building Your kingdom, not my own. I trust You to take care of my daily needs as I seek after You. Amen.
1. Compare Jesus’ Behavior before and during End Times
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Before the end times commence, Jesus is filled with love and compassion for the woman who touched his robe in hopes of a healing. He has loving compassion for the woman about to be stoned by the Pharisees. He protects Mary after the disciples criticize her for wasting perfume on Jesus.
Only once did Jesus ever describe his personal character. “For I am gentle and humble in heart.” (Matthew 11:29)
Isn’t that a beautiful picture of Jesus?
On the other hand, during His second coming, Jesus comes riding on a white horse with a sword to kill and bronze boots to stamp on those who have warred against him (Revelation 19:11-16, Revelation 1:15). There is nothing heartwarming or attractive that can be said about his activities during the end times. He comes in judgment and vengeance.
It’s interesting to reflect for yourself: which picture of Jesus do you like best? Are you enjoying his love and compassion? Or, are you still choosing to worry that He’s upset and angry with you, far away, or ashamed of you?
2. Jesus Reveals His Weeping Compassion
Do not hurry past this verse:
“Oh Jerusalem, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings but you were not willing.” (Matthew 23:37-39)
Have you ever thought that perhaps Jesus is praying for you? He is weeping with compassion? We so often see him as angry, upset, disappointed, distant, or inspecting when we sin and disobey.
Maybe it’s more likely that he is brokenhearted and weeping over our sin and behavior.
Ask yourself: do I see the real Jesus? Or an unbiblical made-up version?
3. Not Even Jesus Knows the Secret Timing of His Return
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Many have tried but all have failed. They figure out days and months and timings and hours and all that they come up with are wrong guesses!
But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Matthew 24:36).
I recall a man who came to our city claiming to know the day and hour of the Lord’s return. Over the next several months he gathered a large contingent of followers. He encouraged his followers to sell all they had because none needed possessions after the second coming. His date came and went and we never heard him again.
As far as I can tell, this is the only secret that the Father ever kept from the Son (Matthew 24:35).
Have you figured out yet what day the second coming will occur? I’m just kidding!
4. Jesus Opposes Deception
Jesus was deeply concerned about his followers being deceived into following a false Christ.
“Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name claiming, ‘I’m the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” (Matthew 24:5)
The best way to be undeceived is to know the truth. This is why saturating our minds with the Bible is so critically important. When we know the truth, we can spot the error.
Jesus used the book of Daniel to show that the antichrist would be the best deceiver of all time. (Matthew 24:15)
Jesus spoke often warning his disciples about slipping into deception. If he were so deeply concerned, we are to be as well. Here are some tools Satan might use to deceive:
– Distorting or misinterpreting the Bible
– Denying the divinity of Jesus
– Rejecting the virgin birth
– Promoting teachings of and associating with an individual who gathers a following
– Rejecting the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross for our sin
– Not realizing that following the teachings and principles of a false teacher will lead to hell
False teaching will add to or subtract from the importance of faith. The salvation by faith formula is, “Faith plus absolutely nothing else produces salvation” (is freely given by grace).
False teaching often claims to have secret knowledge known only to the false prophet and to no one else.
Take a moment and evaluate now, how well you know the Scriptures. Do you feel secure in your Bible knowledge that gives you confidence you’re on the right track? Could there be anything in your life that might be construed as deceit? Think about the Christians you know. Are there any that need to be undeceived? Do you feel comfortable approaching them if you feel that they are in error?
5. Jesus Identified the Sign of the Antichrist
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Jesus identified the sign that would herald the coming of the Antichrist to begin the seven years of tribulation.
Jesus quotes from the book of Daniel: “So when you see standing in the holy Place, the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand…” (Matthew 24:15-16).
Let’s be certain that we all understand. I’ll make it as simple.
From Daniel’s time, God’s prophetic time schedule for Israel was 490 years. The prophetic clock stopped seven years early at 483 years when Jesus entered triumphantly into the temple on Palm Sunday (the numbers work out to about 30 A.D.) There is now one seven-year period remaining. The book of Revelation is all about that seventh year (often called the Tribulation or the Great Tribulation) which concludes with the second coming of Christ.
When the Antichrist signs a peace treaty with Israel the seven-year prophetic clock will restart. After the first three and half years he breaks the Israeli peace treaty (Daniel 11:21) and slaughters a pig on the temple altar. He sets up a little image called the Abomination of Desolation.
“He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’ he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.” (Daniel 9:27)
We are looking forward to the rapture when the Saints are taken up into heaven. However, Jesus makes it clear that the most critical sign is the signing of that peace treaty with the Antichrist.
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”
There are countless pictures of the rapture, removing God’s people, before destruction. Noah, Lot, the children of Israel and Red Sea are just a few.
So, for reflection: explore the Old Testament stories and look for pictures as well as prophecies. What do you observe?
Jesus was quite concerned that his followers understand the activities that will ultimately occur in the temple.
The placing of the abomination of desolation is the signal that tells Israel to scatter and run because the greatest wave of anti-Semitism ever known is about to commence (Matthew 24:23).
7. Jesus Said His Second Coming Will Be Quick, Surprising, And Devastating
So be ready!
“That is how will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field, one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; while be taken and the other left. Therefore, keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” (Matthew 24:39-40)
He could come at any moment.
Few people are anticipating the rapture. Most people never give it a thought. Take a moment and imagine what happens emotionally to those left behind when thousands of Christians rise up to meet the Lord. Are you ready? Consider how embarrassing to be caught in sin when he arrives?
“In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:52).
How fast is the twinkling of an eye? It will take the speed of light (183,000 seconds) to move from the front of the eyeball to the back. Blink your eyes! That was too slow.
Now, imagine that you’ve just heard the trumpet call “when the Angels gather the elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other” (Matthew 24:31). Julie and I are planning to hold hands as we ascend.
8. Jesus Spoke Often about How to Handle End Time Persecution
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“Before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, all on account of my name…then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death.” (Matthew 24:9-13)
A number of church leaders declare that more murder or persecution against Christians is happening in this generation than ever before on earth.
This reminds me of Polycarp. He was the beloved 2nd-century Christian bishop of Smyrna. When the time came to pledge allegiance to the Roman Emperor he flatly refused. He was so loved by the people of Smyrna that they begged him to hide away until it was safe. But he refused: “Eighty-six years I have followed Jesus. I have no intention of deserting him now.”
He died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to consume his body.
“At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:10-13)
Think about whether or not you have decided to follow Christ no matter what the cost.
But do not worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdoms that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict” (Luke 21:13-15).
9. Jesus Spoke Often about Devastation Before His Second Coming
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“Then, he said to them, nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines, and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven” (Matthew 21:10-11).
Jesus also mentioned war and many other catastrophes. In fact, the cataclysmic events during the second coming will rival the creation of the universe (Matthew 24:21).
Think about how the weapons of war have increased since’ Jesus’ time. In his day, soldiers fought with swords and spears and arrows. Today, the thermonuclear killing zone stretches all the way around the world.
10. Jesus Invites All
Jesus is no respecter of only certain persons. He invites people of all races, cultures, and creeds to open their lives and let Him come in.
“So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me” (Revelation 3:20).
His last words before His ascension in Acts 1:8 compelled His disciples to preach the Gospel to all nations.
Perhaps you have seen the picture of Jesus standing before the door a house inviting those inside to open the door and let him come in! If you look carefully, you’ll see there’s no outside doorknob. He will not crash in. He only comes in when we open the door ourselves.
Jesus has much to say to us. It’s all right for us to shout something back to him! Why wait? Take a moment and get down on your knees and join the millions who one day will shout in unison, “Jesus Christ is Lord!”
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11)
Dr. Roger Barrier retired as senior teaching pastor from Casas Church in Tucson, Arizona. In addition to being an author and sought-after conference speaker, Roger has mentored or taught thousands of pastors, missionaries, and Christian leaders worldwide. Casas Church, where Roger served throughout his 35-year career, is a megachurch known for a well-integrated, multi-generational ministry. The value of including new generations is deeply ingrained throughout Casas to help the church move strongly right through the twenty-first century and beyond. Dr. Barrier holds degrees from Baylor University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Golden Gate Seminary in Greek, religion, theology, and pastoral care. His popular book, Listening to the Voice of God, published by Bethany House, is in its second printing and is available in Thai and Portuguese. His latest work is, Got Guts? Get Godly! Pray the Prayer God Guarantees to Answer, from Xulon Press. Roger can be found blogging at Preach It, Teach It, the pastoral teaching site founded with his wife, Dr. Julie Barrier.
We have all been chosen to be disciples of God, to spread the Good News concerning the coming of the Kingdom. We might be afraid that we are not up to the task, much as Jeremiah was. But just as God spoke to Jeremiah promising to help him, he is with us as well. The without the witness of the early disciples, we would not know of Jesus. Without our witness, how will future generations come to know Jesus? How will we know what to say? What will others think about us? But God is by our side helping us, giving us the words we need at the right time.
Our job is to look for opportunities. Once on a cruise ship, a woman stood next to me and the conversation turned to God. We had a wonderful conversation about our faith, our trust and confidence in God. I don’t know if anyone else heard us, but we didn’t care. Sometimes these conversations begin when a friend tells us about a loved one being sick and we offer to pray for them. Sometimes it comes after a political ad or speech. More often a discussion might evolve because of a tragedy, either from a weather incident or after one of the many terrorist attacks the world has dealt with in the past few years. In any case, it’s important for us to be open about our faith and also willing to listen to the views of others. We have been appointed; we need to accept the responsibility to spread the Good News.
If a person claims to love and know God, but it is clear in their actions that they are not loving towards the people around them, then this means that they actually do not know God. God is the epitome of love and we cannot have a relationship with Him if we do not express who He really is.
Dear God, I pray that I may never be ignorant of the way I treat people. Lord I want to know you completely and I know that in order for me to do that, I need to be loving to every single person around me. May you help me live this out, Lord. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
The Christian life is also a life about work. As God’s children, we have tasks that He has given us that we are to carry out in our lives. These tasks all revolve around making sure that the world comes to the knowledge of Christ. Every Christian has a part to play. When we do our work for God, we should be joyful in it.
Dear God, I ask that as I carry out what you have called me to do, may I always do it with a glad heart. I do not see this work as a burden but as a blessing, because it is a privilege to do anything for you, Lord. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
RCCG Redeemed Christian Church Of God 2022 50 Days Annual Fasting And Prayer Points Day 21 RCCG, Redeemed Christian Church Of God, 2022, 50 Days Annual Fasting And Prayer Points, Monday, January 31st, 2022, Prayer Against Natural Disasters This Year, BIBLE TEXTS: Genesis 6:17 Psalms 46:1-3 Natural Disasters are…
As Christians, after receiving the life of Christ, we focus on letting go of our former, sinful ways. The reason we need to let go of those ways is because that they are not healthy and they lead to pain, sorrow, and even death. God helps us overcome our sinful habits and thoughts with every day that we trust in Him and communicate with Him.
Let’s pay particular attention to the opening phrases of this passage. Faith teaches us that we are all God’s children and have a responsibility for others. It’s easy to go through life not paying attention to the needs of others. That way, our consciences won’t be moved to do something. We can be quite comfortable by not looking at others in pain whether they are on the streets of our city or on a continent far away. We don’t have to go far to see examples of injustice. The real question is, “What do we do about it?”
Our works can take different directions depending on our circumstances. For those who have enough money, they can make donations to organizations that help with food and housing. For those with time, they can volunteer at food banks or homeless shelters. For some, they can volunteer for educational trips to other countries to help teach better methods of sanitation or purification of water. Everyone has some ability to help others. There are many people who do good things for others. Does that mean that they have faith?
Actually, no. In fact, I know of a gentleman who has organized a wonderful group to go to Africa to help organize the local women and teach them about maternal and child care. This man has no problem declaring that he is an atheist. His works are those of a good human being who has not faith in God, but of a good humanitarian. For those of us who declare that we are Christians, our faith needs to go hand in hand with the good works we owe our brothers and sisters who are less fortunate.
Dear God, I desire to turn from my sinful ways completely and never look back to them. I know that there is no joy in those ways so, I turn to you, Father. Thank you Lord for always being there to help me with your love, your guidance, and your patience. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
One of the most popular passages in the Bible at weddings, this verse explains that love cannot be self-seeking: love is about other people. Think about it: if your loving actions are done with others in mind, loving your neighbors as yourself and even your enemies, how easy would it be to love yourself? It is when we hold hatred in our heart that evil flows out. It isn’t always easy to control our own egos and not demand attention for our good deeds, but is the love that we spread and feel for ourselves after not enough? It surely is enough.
Infinitely loving God, I will praise you with all of my heart for all of my days. Assist me in my struggles with selfishness, O Lord, so that I can truly love the people around me that need it most. As you selfishlessly sent your only son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, help me to see the grander picture and commit to loving actions without thought of acknowledgment. I vow to love more freely and easily, praying these words to your holy name. Amen.
And David said unto Michal, It was before the LORD, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the LORD, over Israel: therefore will I play before the LORD.
Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men! We can never say enough about the goodness of God. We could praise Him night and day for all the wonderful things He’s done and it still would never fully express the boundless nature of His goodness. Here the Psalmist praises God for the goodness that He has stored up for His people and reminds us that we can “take refuge” in God.
This Proverb is another reminder of how important it is to find an excellent wife. It is both a reminder to men to look for such a woman, and to treasure her as a jewel. It is also a reminder to women of their importance as wives, that they should endeavor to be such a wife as is described in this passage.
David rejoiced greatly before the Lord with all the people as the Ark of God was moved to Jerusalem. It was an occasion of great joy, so David sang and shouted praises to God. But Michal supposed David should have been “more reserved” and “austere” and took issue with him. While all things should be done decently and in order (1 Corinthians 14:40), it is “comely” (fitting and attractive) for the upright to utter praise to God.
O Lord, let us not be embarrassed or ashamed to praise you, even if others are present. Let us not do it for show, to be seen of men, nor in a truly inappropriate manner, but neither let it be that others falsely supposing our true worship is amiss stop us from worshipping you.
Lord, I praise Your goodness. I take refuge in You. You keep me safe. You take care of me. I thank You for Your loving kindness. Amen.
Father, help us to see the importance of being a good partner to our spouse. Help us to treasure one another as a precious jewel. Thank You for reminding us of the importance of seeing each other in this light. Amen.
After the loss of a loved one there is, at first, a great buzz of activity as we make arrangements, as family and friends come together. There is comfort in the close press of friends, in shared tears and hugs, in gifts of food, in remembering. Religious services gives meaning and hope as the community gathers arounds us in love and support.
Then the services are over, relatives and friends go home, and we are left to enter a new and strange land-a land where one of the people who has given meaning to our life is gone.
God would have his children to do good to all men, but there should be also a special love and concern for doing good to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Even as members of a family care for each other, those in the family of God should look out for one another.
Engender in us, O Heavenly Father, a love for your children. Help us to walk in love toward all men but especially to be ready to help and give our time and effort to the household of faith. Let us act like true brothers and sisters towards those who are, in fact, our spiritual siblings.
Praise the Lord! God has a purpose for everything and everyone in Jesus name I pray Amen
While there is such a thing as righteous indignation, times when we ought to be angry, ungodly anger is sin and gives the Devil a foothold in our heart and life. Even like a beachhead must first be secured by an army invading by sea, before a land can be conquered, even so the Devil must have some space from which to conduct his assaults. When we deny him that “place” or “foothold, ” he cannot overcome us.
O Lord of our hearts, let not anger lead us to sin. Let it not create a foothold for the Devil in us. Let us not go to sleep at night without such anger being already quenched and dealt with. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of darkness that rule this fallen world; let not our anger be focused on men but against our true enemies: the world, the flesh, and the Devil.
For all those who might think that Jesus only listens to Christians, this should give them pause. Of course the people listening to this exchange were Jews, who thought that the Messiah was only for them. They and we are both wrong. This passage is only one example in Scripture where the healing power of Jesus acts in the life of a non-Jew. If we have any questions about it, these should answer them.
Jesus came for all. He answers the prayers of all. No one has an advantage, we are all God’s children, we are all brothers and sisters of Jesus. One difference might be that we know God better and know what is expected of us more clearly than others who do not believe. For that reason, more might be expected of us in return. For those of us who claim a special relationship with Christ, it is not an option whether or not we follow the rules and examples that have been given to us.
We understand the importance of love and forgiveness, mercy and working for justice. The first letter of John tells us that God is love and anyone who loves is of God. Love is the key word. The woman who came to Jesus for healing for her daughter knew love and she trusted in the mercy of Jesus. And he didn’t disappoint. When we reach out in prayer, he won’t disappoint us either.
Only by obeying the Gospel from the heart can we be saved. Merely repeating a prayer or walking down an aisle at a religious event can never save us. The cry still goes out today, “Repent and believe!” And His sheep hear His voice and follow Him, and He gives to then eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Our hearts, O Lord, were enslaved to sin, unable to respond in love to you, but now you have made us alive to righteousness. Help us to continue to obey you from the heart and grow by the sanctifying power of your Word. Help us to strive after godliness for the purpose of honoring you in all things.
Given how generous God is with His love and gifts to us, one would think that He might be a bit vengeful and spiteful when people reject His word. In fact, the exact opposite is the case. God shows extra patience and of course he does not want anyone to perish. If He did, why would he have ever sent Jesus to earth?
Forgive me almighty God for going back on my promises. I have lied and deceived people for selfish reasons, thinking that my needs are more important than theirs. I am therefore, so ashamed and also so grateful that you do not behave as I do. No, you are always there for me as long as I ask it. I ask you today, Lord, to always be there for me as you always have been, and remind me that you always are. In your name I pray. Amen.
People are willing to endure great pain if the outcome is desirable. Take tattoos, piercings, plastic surgery, for example. All of these body modifications are painful. Yet people are willing to endure the pain because the outcome is desirable to them. Sometimes they will endure the pain again and again. We’ve all seen people walking around will full body tattoos or multiple piercings. Childbirth is another area where the outcome far outweighs the pain. That’s why some women have two or more children. If the end result wasn’t worth it, no one would endure that pain more than once. This scripture says that we will have suffering–as long as we are on the earth, suffering is a guarantee–but that the suffering we endure is nothing compared to the glory that awaits us. Ask any new mom. “Was the suffering worth it?” “Absolutely.” When God’s glory is finally revealed to us, we will feel the same way.
Father, You have promised that my suffering on the earth is temporary. Even so, when I am in the midst of it, it feels eternal. When I am caught up in my present circumstances, remind me that it will soon pass and every minute of suffering I endure here will be nothing compared to the Glory that You will one day show me. Amen.
There is an old distinction between “profession” and “confession” which seems to apply here. To profess is to simply make a claim with your mouth to be a Christian; to confess is to give witness from the heart of what you know to be true. Those who confess Christ and are not afraid to do so before other men, will have their reward from Him.
People are willing to endure great pain if the outcome is desirable. Take tattoos, piercings, plastic surgery, for example. All of these body modifications are painful. Yet people are willing to endure the pain because the outcome is desirable to them. Sometimes they will endure the pain again and again. We’ve all seen people walking around will full body tattoos or multiple piercings. Childbirth is another area where the outcome far outweighs the pain. That’s why some women have two or more children. If the end result wasn’t worth it, no one would endure that pain more than once. This scripture says that we will have suffering–as long as we are on the earth, suffering is a guarantee–but that the suffering we endure is nothing compared to the glory that awaits us. Ask any new mom. “Was the suffering worth it?” “Absolutely.” When God’s glory is finally revealed to us, we will feel the same way.
Father, You have promised that my suffering on the earth is temporary. Even so, when I am in the midst of it, it feels eternal. When I am caught up in my present circumstances, remind me that it will soon pass and every minute of suffering I endure here will be nothing compared to the Glory that You will one day show me. Amen.
A time of refeshing is coming from the Lord. It was prophesied long ago by God’s prophets. It will come upon all the earth when the Kingdom of God appears, first for a thousand years and then on into eternity with a New Heaven and New Earth. The Jews were not wrong to expect an earthly Kingdom, for it had been promised to them, but they forgot about the spiritual nature of the Kingdom. They supposed that entrance into it could be based on being physical sons of Abraham. Instead, repentance is required to enter the Kingdom of God.
Jesus continues his journey proclaiming the Good News of the coming of the Kingdom and his fame spread throughout the area. Word of the healings that had taken place encouraged people to bring their sick to him wherever he went. They just wanted to touch his clothing hoping to be cured. We often go to Jesus begging for healing as well.
The problem often is that the answer we get from God is not always the one we want. The one suffering from cancer dies. The illness is not cured and the person continues to suffer. Jesus didn’t cure everyone either as we learn from further reading of the Gospels. Today there are people who are known as healers and God continues to heal in order to give witness to his power, But, again, not everyone who goes to Fatima, Lourdes, or Medugorje seeking healing are healed. And healing does not mean that those who are healed have more faith than those who are not.
I have a friend whose first 2 children were born with birth defects. She was angry with God to the point where she denied his existence. One day at work she fell and shattered her elbow. In spite of surgeries and physical therapy, she was unable to life her arm above her shoulder. Her mother heard of a well-known healer who was coming to the area and convinced my friend to go with her to the service. During the course of the service she felt heat in her arm. Doctors examining her later said that nothing short of a miracle was responsible for the total healing of her elbow.
We know that God’s ways are not always our ways, but we still don’t like it when God says no, or I have a better idea. Healing can be physical, spiritual or psychological. For many people, healing comes with a sense of peace that everything is in God’s hands. This can be more of a comfort for us than any other form of healing.
Lord Jesus, we wait for the coming of your glorious Kingdom to earth, for the time when all of the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of Christ. Your rule will be perfectly righteous, and you will rule with a rod of iron and dash evil doers to pieces like a potter’s vessel (Psalm 2). But even now, rule and reign in our hearts. Help us repent of our sins and turn to you in a true and living faith.
It was the truth concerning Jesus Christ in the Gospel, God’s Word, that came to us by God’s providence at some point in the past. And when we believed that Word, we were saved from the guilt of all our sins and given the Holy Spirit whom Christ had promised to send to his people. The Spirit’s presence in us is a “down payment” (earnest) of the full and final salvation to come at the time of resurrection of the saints.
Seeing the work of the Spirit in our hearts and lives, O Lord, we know that our conversion was real and that you have yet more blessings in store for us in the future. Help us to patiently wait for that day when our salvation from sin’s power and from even physical death is complete. Let us work while we wait and be found diligent servants of you at your coming.
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
1….2….3….3 and one quarter…3 and one half…Oh, the rally cry of many parents. We want to discipline our children, but we also want to give them every chance to do the right thing. So we delay our counting. Our friends laugh at us and see us as weak. They think we give too many chances. What they don’t understand is that we don’t want to have to punish. So we count…slowly. And we give punishments that we “forget” to enforce. It isn’t that we are slack. It’s just that we love our kids and we don’t want to have to follow through with something that we know will hurt them. This is how God works with us. He has promised us that there will be a judgment. And on that day, some people will be welcomed into Heaven and some will be doomed to Hell. But He desires that no one perish. So, He slows the count. He wants everyone to have a chance to turn from their wickedness. However, let us not mistake God’s kindness for weakness. He will keep His promise. And on that day, a price will be paid. The time to come to repentance is now, while He is still counting.
Does anyone sin anymore? We have a problem with admitting the existence of sin in our world today. We feel little responsibility to ask for forgiveness or to acknowledge that our actions have consequences. And so what happens with guilt? In today’s psalm, there is joy in the knowledge that God has forgiven the sins of the psalmist. He talks about how he felt carrying the guilt of his sins. They can be a heavy burden. Just because the moral code of today doesn’t like to admit that sin exists, our psyches as well as our bodies bear the brunt of our feelings of guilt. Many years ago I read an interesting piece of advice. Guilt can be heaped on us by others who didn’t get what they want from you and is therefore not real, and it can be because of something we actually are responsible for. The advice was to hang onto guilt for no more than 3 hours – enough to suffer for something false and enough time to ask forgiveness for anyone we might have hurt. One of my neighbors once came into my yard and stole an item he decided I didn’t want. When I confronted him and asked for it back, he gave it back but didn’t speak to me for 2 years, blaming me for his theft. It wasn’t until he acknowledged that he was to blame and asked for my forgiveness that he could relax and be a neighbor to others. Psychologists and psychiatrists have couches full of people whose guilt is wearing them down. How easy and difficult is the answer – acknowledge our sinfulness and ask God’s forgiveness.
As Christians, we long for the day we will meet our Savior face to face. We cling to the promise that our Lord will reappear and we will spend eternity worshipping him. Even on our toughest days, we hold to this blessed hope. When the world feels dark and troubling, we know this is just our temporary home. Our home is with our savior, Jesus Christ. It is this blessed hope that keeps us pressing onward and sharing this hope with the rest of the world.
Dear God, there are many days when I am reminded that this fallen world is not my home – my home is with you for eternity! When the weight of the world begins to overwhelm me, help me to cling to that blessed hope. You are returning! No one else in history has been resurrected and no one else in history will return to Earth except for you, O Lord. Hallelujah! It is this knowledge that gives me hope to press on and help others find hope in you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Father, Thank You for Your mercy. You desire that no one perishes, but that all come to Christ. Thank You for the many opportunities You have given me to make the right choice. Thank You for not ending the count before I came to my senses. Amen.
Surviving Human Trafficking! And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away
I am a 47 year old Native American woman who has servived being raped, being beaten and being shot by my husband who then selflessly killed himself in front of me. Seven years have past but I still can’t get the image out of my head. But, I thank God for keeping me alive. My past is my experience. An experience you can’t get in any class room. It was a hard challenging life, but By the grace of God I am here. Only to be a true testimony for the living God. To glorify His Holy Name. Fasting and prayer work hand in hand with each other. You cannot fast without praying – otherwise you will simply be on a hunger strike. The point of fasting is to sacrifice earthly needs in order to focus more on communing with God. Prayer is how we commune with God during this time of fellowship. It is in these times we can receive visions, revelation
I am a 47 year old Native American woman who has servived being raped, being beaten and being shot by my husband who then selflessly killed himself in front of me. Seven years have past but I still can’t get the image out of my head. But, I thank God for keeping me alive. My past is my experience. An experience you can’t get in any class room. It was a hard challenging life, but By the grace of God I am here. Only to be a true testimony for the living God. To glorify His Holy Name. Fasting and prayer work hand in hand with each other. You cannot fast without praying – otherwise you will simply be on a hunger strike. The point of fasting is to sacrifice earthly needs in order to focus more on communing with God. Prayer is how we commune with God during this time of fellowship. It is in these times we can receive visions, revelations of God’s word, and a refreshed assurance I got through this. He saved my life on the cross. There were times I felt abandoned so did Jesus on the cross. He said ABBA ABBA, why you for forsaken me. Trouble is a part of a Christ fill life.
Lieff Cabraser is investigating reports of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation occurring on social media platforms across the country, including on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, OnlyFans, Facebook, Backpage, and Craigslist. Our investigation has revealed that such companies knowingly permit and financially benefit from sexual abuse that occurs daily on their websites, including by ignoring requests to remove posts that advertise trafficked people for sex and/or solicit and distribute pornographic images of children and other vulnerable people.
We understand that talking to anyone, let alone a lawyer, about these kinds of cases can be difficult and daunting. We also understand that every survivor brings a different level of comfort to the facts of their individual case. While the law does require victims to file suit sooner rather than later, we encourage you to take the time you need to marshal your emotions and gather your energy before using the secure, 100% confidential contact form on this page
Do not be deceived by the party culture. Do not be lured by alcohol. While wine and beer and other alcoholic beverages are popular and promise a good time, more often these drinks make fools of us. Too much alcohol leaves one intoxicated. When someone is intoxicated, he/she does not make wise choices. When we listen to the crowd or the promise of fun or relief alcohol claims, we are being foolish. True relief only comes from faith in Jesus Christ. Ask him to help you resist the temptation today.
There is an old distinction between “profession” and “confession” which seems to apply here. To profess is to simply make a claim with your mouth to be a Christian; to confess is to give witness from the heart of what you know to be true. Those who confess Christ and are not afraid to do so before other men, will have their reward from Him.
…You will keep my commandments! Doesn’t that sound easy? But, like the Rich Young Man in the Gospel, and the scribe who wants to know who is his neighbor, it’s just not that simple. Today’s world makes it a lot more difficult to figure out what the commandments mean. On the surface, many of them sound easy to keep because we don’t think we adore other gods, and we don’t believe in murder, and what does covet mean anyway? When we dig a little deeper and realize that the god we worship is often ourselves, or those curse words that slip off the tongue are just part of today’s speech, or who doesn’t tell a little white lie occasionally, we realize that the commandments are more difficult to keep than we originally thought. Perhaps it’s time to review the seven deadlies and see how they work into this equation. Do I let pride make me put God or others at the end of the line? Am I envious of the good fortune of others? Do I fuel the fires of anger instead of forgiveness? Do I allow lust to take root in me so that unhealthy relationships enter my life – in person, or electronically? Does gluttony for the good things in life rule my days so that work or the desire for money is more important than family? Perhaps sloth is a problem. Am I too lazy to pray, to go to church, to help my neighbor? You see, when these sins are rooted out, the commandments become a lot easier to follow, and that goes for the most important commandment at well – love others as Jesus has loved us. And as Jesus tells us, we don’t have to go it alone, the Holy Spirit is there to help us. All we have to do is ask.
While the laws of the world may change, the law of the Lord remains forever. His Word never changes. His Word is holy. The church is the Lord’s house. His house, the church, is holy because it recognizes His Word. The church should strive for holiness and service unto the Lord. Much like the church, we should also strive to honor God’s Word in our hearts by how we live our lives. If the Lord lives in our hearts, then we should make this a holy house for him as well.
Dear God, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God. We bow reverently before your throne. May we honor your laws which you gave us in the Bible. While we know things of the world may pass away, we know that your Word lasts forever. It does not change. Allow our hearts to fix on your truths above all others so that we may live holy lives. Help us to honor your laws by our actions and our hearts. May our hearts by a welcome home for a holy savior. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal exploitation of a person. Anyone can be a victim of human trafficking, and it can occur in any U.S. community—cities, suburbs, and even rural areas. The FBI works human trafficking cases under its Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking program. We take a trauma informed, victim-centered approach in investigating these cases.
Here in the United States, both U.S. residents and foreign nationals are being bought and sold like modern-day slaves. Traffickers use violence, manipulation, or false promises of well-paying jobs or romantic relationships to exploit victims. Victims are forced to work as prostitutes or to take jobs as migrant, domestic, restaurant, or factory workers with little or no pay. Human trafficking is a heinous crime that exploits the most vulnerable in society.
Under the human trafficking program, the FBI investigates:
Sex trafficking: When individuals are compelled by force, fraud, or coercion to engage in commercial sex acts. Sex trafficking of a minor occurs when the victim is under the age of 18. For cases involving minors, it is not necessary to prove force, fraud, or coercion.
Labor trafficking: When individuals are compelled by force, threats, or fraud to perform labor or service.
Domestic servitude: When individuals within a household appear to be nannies, housekeepers, or other types of domestic workers, but they are being controlled and exploited.
Report Trafficking & Get Help
If you are a human trafficking victim or have information about a potential trafficking situation, call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) at 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733. NHTRC is a national, toll-free hotline, with specialists available to answer calls from anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also submit a tip on the NHTRC website.
If you believe a child is involved in a trafficking situation, submit a tip through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline or call 1-800-THE-LOST. FBI personnel assigned to NCMEC review information that is provided to the CyberTipline.
Human Trafficking Task Forces
The most effective way to investigate human trafficking is through a collaborative, multi-agency approach with our federal, state, local, and tribal partners.
FBI Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Forces operate within nearly every FBI field office. The ultimate goal of these task forces is to recover victims and investigate traffickers at the state and federal level.
The Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team Initiative builds human trafficking enforcement efforts and enhances access to specialized human trafficking subject matter experts, leads, and intelligence. Each team develops and implements a strategic action plan, which leads to high-impact federal investigations and prosecutions. The initiative is a collaborative effort among the FBI, the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Labor. Twelve FBI field offices participate in the initiative, including Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, El Paso, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, Minneapolis, Newark, Portland, and Sacramento.
The Enhanced Collaborative Model Human Trafficking Program is a multi-agency task force initiative funded through the Department of Justice’s Office for Victims of Crime and Bureau of Justice Assistance. This program supports the development and enhancement of multi-disciplinary human trafficking task forces that implement collaborative approaches to combat all forms of human trafficking. These multi-disciplinary task forces include members from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, local prosecutor’s office, federal law enforcement, state/local law enforcement, and a community service provider, with the goal of proactively identifying and recovering victims of human trafficking.
Investigations
Human trafficking investigations are conducted by agents within the human trafficking program and members of our task forces. Investigations often begin through:
Tips from the public
Calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline
A referral from a law enforcement agency
A referral from a non-government organization
Proactive victim recovery operations
Outreach to state governments and community entities
Victim recovery is the primary goal of trafficking investigations. The FBI’s multi-disciplinary team of agents, analysts, victim specialists, and forensic interviewers work together to ensure a victim-centered, trauma-informed response. FBI victim specialists work with local state and federal resources to provide immediate assistance (shelter, food, clothing) and long-term support (counseling, education assistance, job training). After recovering a victim of human trafficking, field offices seek to arrest and successfully prosecute the traffickers.
Over the past decade, the FBI’s human trafficking investigations have been responsible for the arrest of thousands of traffickers and the recovery of numerous victims. The FBI will continue to take part in multi-agency efforts to combat the threat.
Trafficking Victims Protection Act
The 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) was the first comprehensive federal law to address human trafficking. In addition to the protections offered through immigration relief for foreign national victims of human trafficking, it focuses on prevention through public awareness programs, both domestically and abroad, and prosecution through new federal criminal statutes.
The TVPA granted the FBI the statutory authority to investigate matters of forced labor; trafficking with respect to peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor; sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion; and unlawful conduct with respect to documents in furtherance of trafficking.
The TVPA gave law enforcement the ability to protect international victims of human trafficking through several forms of immigration relief, including Continued Presence and the T visa. Continued Presence allows law enforcement officers to request temporary legal status in the United States for a foreign national whose presence is necessary for the continued success of a human trafficking investigation. The T visa allows foreign victims of human trafficking to become temporary U.S. residents and apply for permanent residency after three years. The TVPA also established a law requiring defendants of human trafficking investigations to pay restitution to the victims they exploited. More on human trafficking laws.
Innocence Lost National Initiative
The FBI, in conjunction with the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), launched the Innocence Lost National Initiative to address the growing problem of child sex trafficking in the United States. In the years since its inception, the initiative has expanded to 86 dedicated Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Forces. These task forces, with the Offices of the U.S. Attorneys and the FBI’s Victim Services Division, have successfully worked to identify and recover thousands of children.
The FBI is committed to ensuring that victims receive the rights they are entitled to and the assistance they need to cope with crime. Treating victims with respect and providing them with assistance benefits victims and helps us build better cases.
Slothfulness and idleness do not bring any rewards. Think about it – how is a man going to achieve any gains if he spends his days sleeping? Those who are unmotivated end up suffering. While we need sleep, too much sleep will render us useless. In the same way, we need food, but those who are idle do not work. If one does not work, then he will not be able to eat. In your spiritual life, these same metaphors apply. Those who do not care about their spiritual lives will suffer and perish because of it.
Dear God, thank you for sending your son, Jesus Christ, to save us from our sins and show us what true love looks like. As we go through our days, give us eyes to see those who need your love today. Help us to help those who are suffering and forgotten. Let us be your hands and feet, O Lord. And, Father, forgive us for the times we have had evil thoughts against anyone else. We know we are all your children and we are precious to you, so remind us to treat others as you would treat them. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1 NLT
Scanning through social media, I landed on a post about a group of misbehaving teens. The comments that followed showed frustration with their actions.
As I read, a knot grew in the pit of my stomach because it brought back memories of my own questionable choices. Choices I wish I could take back or at least get a do-over. But I couldn’t. So those feelings of guilt came creeping back without warning.
When we give our lives over to Jesus and accept God’s gift of eternal life, God forgives us. No doubt about it. Yet the consequences of past sins may last beyond what our grieving hearts can handle. So, what do we do when guilt surfaces, long after we’ve become new creations in Christ? Is there a way to live in peace, knowing the wrongs of our past?
“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1 NLT
You notice that I didn’t ask IF there are demons today. The Gospel speaks of Jesus driving out demons and we are still in need of this! True, we can think of personal demons such as drug abuse and alcohol addiction, but what of more systemic demons such as violence and discrimination, poverty, hunger and greed. We have been commissioned as disciples of Jesus in order that we may carry on his mission. I can already hear the wheels turning: How can I make a difference? The answer is one day at a time. Every journey begins with one step at a time. For those who may be affected by a personal demon, there is help available once we recognize that we can’t do it alone. For systemic demons, it’s a little harder, but we can choose to be part of the problem or part of the solution. Doing nothing is being part of the problem. Let’s take violence. Think about your language. Are your words hurtful or helpful? Do you put people down or raise them up? The tongue is the first line of defense when it comes to violence. We may not be able to stop the violence in the world, but we can limit it in our homes, our neighborhoods and in our city. Once kindness replaces violence, it will be easier to replace discrimination with respect, poverty and hunger with sufficiency and greed with temperance. We each have a role to play in driving out today’s demons, are you up to it?
Because we have been shown extravagant love, we are called to love others. When we think of those society tends to forget (the widows, the orphans, the strangers, and the poor), it is up to us to extend love, mercy, and compassion. But, this verse also goes further than just helping those in need, we must also avoid even thinking evil against others in are heart. Our hearts should be brimming over with love and compassion because we are Christ followers.
Dear God, it is easy to have days when we do not want to do anything, but we know having this attitude can have long-term effects. Help us to seek you rather than grow stagnant or complacent about you. Forgive us for the times when our slothfulness has kept us from doing as we should and prevented us from growing in our spiritual lives. Thank you for your forgiveness and for renewing our spirits. Help me to be motivated to give my best to my job, studies and spiritual life in order to serve you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Human Trafficking Survivor; God and Country, Without God There is No Country/ Judeo-Christian / America Belongs to God 