All posts filed under: z21

Florida-based Chick-fil-A restaurant. Photo: Robert du Bois/Flickr/Creative Commons

A Christian response to the Orlando attack

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Chick-fil-A is a popular American-based fast food chain operated by Christians — the Cathay family. Over the past several years the restaurant has been in the sights of gay activists because of statements made by Chick-fil-A’s Chief Operating Officer Dan Cathay in a 2012 interview with the Biblical Recorder when he publicly came out in favor of “the Biblical definition of the family unit.” Since then gay activists and supporters have launched many boycotts and  protests of Chick-fil-A restaurants. This includes picketing their restaurants, trying to stop the chain from setting up restaurants on university campuses and most recently the New York City Council called for a boycott of restaurants in that city. After the horrid massacre of 49 people at a popular gay night club in Orlando, Florida on early Sunday morning on June 12 by an Islamic terrorist, Chick-fil-A broke one of its own cardinal rules to lend a hand. The chain purposefully closes its restaurants on Sunday, allowing its employees to go to church or spend time with their family, if they …

Jesus the Name above all names Photo: Jesus on Corcovado

Generational Curses: Part 7 — Breaking the Demonic stronghold

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This is the last article in my series on Generational Curses. We have been studying a passage out of Exodus 20:4-5, where God says he will pass the parents’ iniquity on to the children for up to four generations. In this closing article, I will look at the demonic strongholds often connected with generational curses. Iniquity and sin attract demons, like rotting flesh attracts flies. We can see this association in the life of Judas, the man who betrayed Jesus to the High Priest. In Acts 1:18, the apostle Peter declared that the 30 pieces of silver — which Judas received from the High Priest to show Jesus location — was the “reward of iniquity.” But an earlier account provides a clearer depiction of money’s hold on Judas. In this incident, we read the story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with a valuable measure of perfume. We know that Judas was the treasurer of Christ’s band of disciples and the disciples were well aware that Judas embezzled money from this fund (John 12:4-6). Judas openly …

Houseboats on Tonie Sap River in Cambodia Photo: Brian Hoffman/Flickr/Creative Commons

Pol Pot’s chief torturer comes to Christ

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The Khmer Rouge started off as a Maoist, guerilla group in the Cambodian jungles. Run by a despot named Pol Pot, they overthrew the Cambodian government in 1975 starting a four year reign of terror. In an effort to transform Cambodia into an agrarian society, Pol Pot emptied the cities forcing people into the country where hundreds of thousands were either starved to death, slaughtered or simply worked to death. Phnom Penh, the capital city with a current population of over 1.2 million, was turned into a ghost town in the late 70s. The regime’s motto was “To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you is no loss” and certainly they lived by it. There were mass executions of former government loyalists, intellectuals (this included people wearing glasses which indicated they could read) and non Cambodians such as Vietnamese and Chinese. Religious groups were also targeted particularly Christians and Muslims. Though, the Khmer Rouge were finally ousted by the Vietnamese in 1979, it’s estimated the Khmer killed 1.7 million Cambodians — nearly 20% of …

Photo: Trey Ratcliff/Flickr/Creative Commons

The first prayer

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After I lost my first-born son, Graham, to suicide, I still had my sixteen year old, second born son to care for. I watched my adolescent boy reeling from his own grief as he sat on the couch in the basement for days on end. He had made up his brother’s bed and formed the blankets to look like he was still sleeping in it.  He could not accept that his brother was gone. My perspective on life had tilted dramatically.  I knew that I could no longer “take care of everything.”  I was no longer superwoman. All that I felt I could do was pray for my son. Behind our house there was a two-mile hike up to a huge coulee.  Once you reached the top you just had to sit down and admire the scenery below. Farmers crops and cows grazed at the base of this coulee. Hues of gold, green and geometric patterns stretched out over the wide open land before me. From the rock pile on top of the plateau, I …

Photo: Giuseppe Milo www.pixael.com /Flickr/Creative Commons

How unrealistic expectations trip up your child

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One of the biggest regrets my husband and I have is the expectations we placed upon our kids especially our son in his younger years. None of the expectations had anything to do with him and everything to do with what we wanted and how we wanted to feel. Expectations are good. Unrealistic expectations are not and do not leave room for flexibility or change. Clinical Psychologist Selena Snow says,  “unrealistic expectations are potentially damaging because they set us and others up for failure.” It took awhile for us to realize that our expectations were unrealistic and taking a toll on our son. Life wasn’t fun for him anymore. He felt trapped and did not want to make a mistake for fear of losing our approval. Taking risks was no longer an option for him. When it comes to our family, our expectations must be placed in God, not our children. Putting our expectations upon our children especially at a young age can create all kinds of frustration, anger and resentment, not just for the …

Photo: ndsunewsdept/Flickr/Creative Commons

North Carolina State University requires permit to talk about Jesus

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Grace Christian Life (GCL) is a Christian organization registered with North Carolina State University. The organization recently launched a lawsuit against the university alleging they need a permit if they wanted to talk to anyone about Jesus at the university or even invite them to attend religious events. The Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization that takes on free speech issues for Christians, is representing the GCL. According to the group, they received a permit from the university to set up a table displaying materials about their organization. However, they were not allowed to leave their table or distribute materials. ADF believes under the US constitution, the university is not allowed to limit free speech of any group or person, Christian or not. However, in this case it alleges the university even went further and specifically limited the free speech of the Christian organization, while giving other groups freedom to hand out their materials. On its website, ADF alleges: “The group obtained a permit to set up a table in the student union in January …

Jameel McGee with the former "dirty cop" Andrew Collins

Former ‘dirty’ cop and the innocent man he framed now preaching redemption and forgiveness

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In 2005, Jameel McGee, 35, was arrested and charged with dealing crack cocaine and eventually served four years for the offense. The only problem was McGee who lives in Benton Harbor, Michigan, did not have any drugs on him, but the arresting officer Andrews Collins, 33, falsified the police report accusing McGee. Collins knew the drugs belonged to another person in the car that McGee had been riding in. But no one else knew and the courts sentenced McGee to ten years in prison for a trafficking crime he didn’t commit. Though McGee’s insistence he was innocent is a common enough claim for those arrested for drugs, in this case he was eventually proven right. In an AP story, Collins admitted he was a dirty cop. It began when he worked narcotics with the police department. It started small but escalated to the point he was stealing drugs and even money and planting drugs on people and falsifying reports to get a quick arrest. Meanwhile as he sat in prison, God began working on McGee …

Three of the pottery shards from Arad Fortress revealing troop movement and costs for fort provisions. Photo credit:PNAS, Faigenbaum-Golovin et al

How words written on 16 pottery shards screwed up Liberal theories, again

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Throughout the Old Testament, there are many references to people recording historical events as they were happening. Liberals of course have long disagreed with this. They believe writing was not widely in use during Biblical times and people wrote these stories long after they occurred. They then of course go the next step and insist these historical records and the people named in them were simply made up. This meant Biblical books ranging from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings were written centuries after the events cited in them took place, despite the Bible treating them as eye-witness accounts. Those Liberal views just came crashing down after researchers analyzed writing found on pottery shards discovered in a Jewish frontier fort named Arad, dated to 600 BC. Researchers from Tel Aviv University used computer programs, often employed by forensics to compare writing samples and banks to verify signatures, to find out if the same person wrote them. The research team was made up of a diverse group of people including archaeologists, physicists and mathematicians, After they scanned the …

Boy raised from the dead in California

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With 67.5 million members and 384,000 ministers, the Assemblies of God is the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination and fourth largest religious organization. It appears one of those pastors, Eric Angeles, who lives in Bellflower, California and pastors New Hope International Christian Church in nearby Norwalk, raised a boy from the dead. Eric was at home one December morning preparing for a board meeting at the church later that evening when a pick up truck hit a boy on the street outside his house. After hearing the noise, Eric and his wife Ruth rushed outside to see a young boy lying lifeless on his back with his mouth and eyes open. The collision had thrown him 50 feet. The Montanez family who lived on the same street had also heard the commotion. Looking out they saw their son lying on the road and the distraught parents were gathered around their son when Eric and his wife got the scene. While others were checking his pulse to see if he was still alive, the Holy Spirit impressed …

The Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem seen from the Mount of Olives. Photo: Boris G./Flickr/Creative Commons

If you want to be a Temple priest in Israel, make sure you weren’t born in a hospital

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Jerusalem’s Temple Institute has just announced it is accepting applications for priests to serve in a yet to be built Jewish Temple. The Institute, which started in 1987, is dedicated to seeing a third temple built in Jerusalem replacing the Temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Over the years, it has completed a number of items in preparation for this third Temple. This includes constructing 70 pieces of temple furniture part of which one is a massive altar, that can be taken apart and moved to the Temple once it is constructed. Everything was meticulously prepared according to Biblical instructions.  They have also ordered the architectural drawings for a third temple. This is a tricky task because it must meet Biblical specifications as well as modern building practices. The Institute is even creating a herd of red cattle using imported embryos from red Angus beef in America. An unblemished red heifer is necessary for some of the Temple sacrifices. Recently the Temple Institute announced it is now accepting applications for positions of Temple …