All posts filed under: z138

Do We All Worship The Same God?

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When we pray, do prayers from all religions go up to the same place? Yes, no, and this might be a scam. Recently, a famous American politician, U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, made a controversial statement about our prayers. If you know about her, she always makes controversial statements. My belief is that some politicians are controversial to get free attention and publicity, and avoid the high cost of advertising. I don’t believe she was trying to change the world; I think she was being shallow and flippant, but she said that “all of our prayers go to the same place.” This has started a few arguments because she made the statement about Muslims. It sounds like she was saying ‘it doesn’t matter what you believe, all religions are the same’ which means the Muslim religion, and the Christian religion, and anything else that people believe, are really all the same. RELATED: Was AOC correct when she suggested all religions worship the same God? Experts weigh in: Fox News So, where do our prayers go? Are …

Maybe it’s more than a coincidence? Israeli paratroopers discover ancient watchtower

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It was more than a bit ironic when soldiers with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) discovered an ancient watchtower associated with the days of King Hezekiah during the 8th century BCE. The IDF paratroopers had set up a base on a hilltop in Southern Israel when they accidentally discovered the tower. After making the discovery, the soldiers actually participated in the dig. The remains of the tower were about 6 feet (1.83 m) in height and archaeologists estimate that it was originally 15 feet (4.57 m) high with a diameter of 10.5 feet (3.2 m). This was a significant structure as the foundation stones weighed about 8 tons. According to the archaeologists this tower, built on top of a hill, would have provided ancient Israeli military commanders an excellent view on activities taking place in the Philistine nation, particularly one of its major cities Ashkelon. Israel built a series of towers and fortresses along the border that were within view of each other, so it would allow a tower to send up a warning using …

God’s extraordinary voice leads female Pakistani jihadist to Christ

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God has amazing ways of communicating with people and desires to speak to us today, as directly as He did in the Bible. One of the extraordinary ways that God communicates is through dreams. Is every dream we have from God? No. But I believe the Holy Spirit will clearly highlight those that are. A single verse in the Gospels tells of a dream that God gave the wife of Pontius Pilate as he dealt with the charges being brought against Jesus. 19 While he was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent him a message, saying, “Have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him.” (Matthew 27:19 NASV) And obviously this dream even impacted Pilate, as he initially tried to gain Christ’s release. Years later, Origin, an early church father (184 AD to 235 AD), said Pilate’s wife, Procula Claudia, had become a Christian after Christ’s resurrection. Whether that is true or not we can’t be sure. But a dream did result in …

Are Hong Kong protesters in a battle of good versus evil?

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Christians are playing a major role in the massive protests taking place in Hong Kong in recent days. Millions of people have taken to the streets demanding freedom. The protests were sparked by the Hong Kong government’s introduction of an extradition bill that would allow the government to extradite people to countries where they committed crimes. The bill was sparked by a Hong Kong man who killed his girl friend while visiting her in Taiwan. The man fled back to Hong Kong and the Taiwanese government asked for his return. However, if passed this law would also allow China to demand extradition of Hong Kong citizens for prosecution, essentially giving China partial control of Hong Kong’s justice system. Currently, the people are allowed to freely express their views in Hong Kong, including criticism of China’s communist government. If this extradition law is passed, many believe the Chinese government will trump up charges against anti -communist Hong Kong activists and demand their extradition and begin to slowly weed out opposition in this way. Many also suspect …

U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of Christian bakers in Oregon

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The US Supreme Court has just issued a decision  favoring two former Christian bakers based in Oregon. In 2013, a lesbian couple had asked Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery, owned by a Christian couple Aaron and Melissa Klein, to create a wedding cake. The Kleins refused, stating because of their faith they could not create a cake for a marriage they did not agree with. According to reports, the Kleins had previously made a cake for one of the members of this lesbian couple but balked at using their artistic skill to create one promoting same sex marriage. The Lesbian couple took the Kleins before Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries that fined the bakery $135,000 for the emotional damage inflicted on the Lesbian couple for not creating a cake worth about $400. The commissioner at the time allegedly took to social media reporting on his disdain for the Kleins before even coming down with his decision. This fine eventually led to the closing of the bakery. The Kleins appealed the case to an Oregon …

The Big Leagues

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I like to think of myself as a full service preacher. I like to preach and nobody has fallen asleep since that time when I got everybody to quietly just leave their shoes and jackets on their seats. We all snuck in the back room and blew a trumpet really loud. Poor guy! Thought he missed the rapture! Okay, I didn’t do that but if anybody actually does fall asleep… Sometimes I can get pretty happy in my role. You know I start feeling good and confident. And then someone says it’s prayer time. I can prayer with the best of them. For about five minutes. The other day I was invited to an intercessory prayer meeting. For those of you who don’t know, this is not for the faint of heart or the simple-minded. This is the equivalent of being asked to try out for your favorite professional sports team! My wife, Stella, and I head out to the meeting. I entered the room with confidence. After all not only was I a preacher, …

For An Opportunist, There is No Truth

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You might know the story of Galileo Galilei, the Italian astronomer, sometimes called the father of modern astronomy. He discovered ‘Heliocentrism’ which means the Earth revolves around the Sun, and not the other way around. For this, he was tried and condemned by the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church, forced to repent of his sin, and placed under house arrest for life. RELATED: Galileo Galilei: Wikipedia It turns out he was correct, but his research interfered with the powers of his time and place. Truth was less important than the opportunity to gain and hold power. This happened at the time of the Protestant Reformation, and it’s one of the reasons why we have Protestants today. Clever people moved north to Protestant regions, and initially research and industry were mostly in the northern parts of Europe, in countries like Germany and Sweden; the wealthy countries, today. That was a big mistake for the Catholic Church, and they are still embarrassed. The story of Galileo is also a warning to us today, especially religious believers …

The Armour of Perfection

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I still find myself afraid to make a mistake. I don’t like looking foolish or weak in the eyes of others and in the end I find myself lost in a forest of perfection, feeling small, insignificant and unworthy as I look at people who have their act together. For so long the message of the world has been that doing everything right will make you happy and that true happiness lies in doing and saying the right thing all the time.  As Koren Motekaitis says, “Chasing perfection is exhausting” because we think the approval of others will make us feel better about ourselves. It won’t, because we can never be perfect. The opposite is what happens though, shame shows up when we make a mistake and fall short of our hopes to be truly loved and accepted. It puts us under pressure to be someone we are not. We work so hard at not being judged by others and end up feeling worse instead of better as we fall short again and again. We …

From deep water to joy

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When I work with people who have gone through deep waters – whose life experience includes trauma that overwhelmed their resilience and robbed them of their ability to cope – I sometimes recall my own traumatic journey and the path I took to wellness. From that journey, I learned to embrace joy – not the faux emotion we sometimes confuse with happiness, but the deep, abiding awareness that even in the midst of the worst of life experience, it is possible to align your spirit with the God who is the source of all that is good and glorious in the universe. Joy is to happiness as celebration is to gratitude. And it is in that realization that I gained an insight into one of the most essential and consequential truths of mental wellness – a realization that has made me a far more effective therapist. It has long been a mainstay of mental health treatment to encourage those suffering from depression to cultivate and foster an “attitude of gratitude” – to identify those things …

Does Pinterest have a secret anti-Christian bias?

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If you are a Christian using the social media site, Pinterest, to post inspiring messages and even Bible verses, you may want to consider another social media alternative. With over 290 million monthly users, Pinterest is a popular social media site that allows users to use photos or images and to a lesser extent videos and gifs to communicate to other users and followers. Founded in 2009, Christians have used Pinterest to create colorful images displaying Bible verses and inspirational quotes, many of which end up on other social media sites such as Facebook. But Pinterest is also based in California, where other similarly-based social media sites are being accused of having an anti conservative and anti Christian bias. And according to a recent expose by Project Veritas, it seems that Pinterest has joined that mob. On the organization’s Youtube Channel, Project Veritas’ founder James O’Keefe explains its mission this way: “The mission of Project Veritas is to investigate and expose corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions …