All posts filed under: z39

Park Rangers destroying one of 6 Marijuana fields found in North Cascades National Park Complex Photo: Park Ranger/Flickr

The second big winner in the US presidential election

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There were two big winners in the American election held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. Donald Trump was of course elected president in what was clearly a surprising outcome. Maybe not so surprising, the other big winner was marijuana. Three states that voted in favor of Hillary Clinton for president — Massachusetts, California and Nevada — also legalized the use of recreational Marijuana through referendum votes. Another Clinton state, Maine, also appears to have made a similar move in its initiative ballot. Though marijuana activists have declared victory, there were only a few thousand votes separating the ‘no’ and ‘yes’ sides on the ballot which has not yet been fully counted. They join five other jurisdictions that have already legalized recreational marijuana — Colorado, Alaska, Washington, Oregon and the District of Columbia, Arizona which voted for Trump rejected a similar initiative with 52% of the people voting against legalizing recreational use. In addition three states approved marijuana for medical use — North Dakota, Arkansas and Florida. Currently the federal government prohibits the recreational use of …

Breaking the yoke of insecurity off your neck. Credit: flintlocker/Flickr/Creative Commons

Dealing with Insecurity: The workaholic

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If you are insecure, you do things that can break your heart. In 2 Kings 4:8-22, we read the story of an older couple who were prominent in the community (v 8). Undoubtedly, they were wealthy. The man was a farmer and had a number of servants working for him (v 18, 22). They were the rich and famous of Israel. The man’s success defined who he was and he had an image to uphold. They had everything except a child. When the prophet Elijah showed up in the community, the wife cordially invited him to stay at their large home. When Elijah was ready to leave he asked Gehazi — his servant — what type of gift he could give the woman for her generosity. Gehazi said she was without a child. Elijah went to the wife and prophesied she would have a child by this time next year which occurred exactly as Elijah predicted (v 17). Between verses 17 and 18, someone hit the fast forward button. We are not told how much …

Carl Lentz during his interview with Oprah. Credit: Youtube capture/Own Channel

Carl Lentz tells Oprah faith is a journey

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Recently Oprah Winfrey interviewed Carl Lentz, the popular and well-known pastor of Hillsong Church in New York City. Lentz is often referred to as the ‘rock star pastor’ with a ‘come as you are’ approach. He sometimes preaches in night clubs and theaters. New York’s Hillsong Church is known for its passionate worship that draws people from all genres, particularly the younger generation. Speaking of his church Lentz states, “we’re a cool church preaching an ancient message” and his mission is to transform the way people experience God. His message is about God being interested in us as a work in progress. He firmly believes our faith involves a journey. Justin Bieber’s baptism s a great example of what Lentz is talking about. Lentz along with Judah Smith, Justin’s pastor, baptized the pop star late one night in a friend’s seven-foot bathtub. Lentz is proud of Justin Bieber wanting to be baptized in the middle of everything he was going through at the time. Baptism showed his desire to start fresh and begin pulling himself …

A scene near Hampshire England. Credit: Neil Howard/Flickr/Creative Commons

Encourage Yourself?

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I recall someone saying there are times when you can encourage yourself in the Lord. Well, maybe I remembered that, but I sure didn’t feel like doing it. After being sick for a few weeks, I was more into the ‘please pray for me’ mode. Now there is nothing wrong with asking for prayer or talking to someone when going through a hard time. But I know there are also times when I just need to go to God. The Bible says this is what David did when he went through a very discouraging event. At one time David and his men had returned home to Ziglag, where they found it burned, looted and their wives and children taken away by the Amalekites. Because of this David’s men became embittered against their leader: And David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God. (1 Samuel 30:6 …

Washington DC Credit: Jason OX4/Flickr/Creative Commons

How the spirit of Jezebel captures a nation

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At the beginning of his vision of the end times recorded in the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John provides messages to seven churches of Asia –Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. We know churches existed in these cities during John’s day and in some ways he seems to be addressing situations taking place when he wrote this book while banished on the island of Patmos. But the Book of Revelation was a prophetic vision of the end time — of future events that would culminate in the return of Christ. Because of this, many believe the warnings that John sent to the seven churches are also prophetic and reveal demonic attacks the end-times churches will face. One of these involves an attack by the Spirit of Jezebel. In chapter two, John describes a situation taking place in the church of Thyatira involving a woman called Jezebel. 20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so …

The trap of offense

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“Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” – Michael Hyatt from ‘Why leaders can’t afford to be offended’’ The other day I did it again and took offense at a comment on Facebook. I chose to make it personal and kept going over it in my mind until my emotions got the better of me. I quickly typed in a comment to straighten that person out. Thankfully, before I hit the send button, I called my husband and shared my offense with him. He calmly advised me to let it go because it would not accomplish any great purpose and probably create more misunderstanding. Not what I wanted to hear! But, I did take his advice because I knew it was wisdom even though I was itching to press the send button. After calming down, I decided I really wanted to get on top of my emotional response to the offense. I was reminded of this verse in the Bible; “It is necessary that temptation come, but woe …

You are significant in God's eyes.

The power of Significance

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Over a decade ago a woman spoke at our church and prophesied about God’s call on my life to preach the gospel. Up until then, I was fairly mediocre in my pursuit of God and my passion to serve Him. But that night, this woman spoke into areas and dreams of my life that I had never told anyone. I dreamed of preaching the gospel in fields and stadiums to thousands of people. At that time I don’t think I had even preached a sermon. Yet, I would find myself imagining that I was an evangelist like Rinehard Bonnke. I never told a soul about these dreams and I thought they were just foolish imaginations. I didn’t even know if preaching was something I even wanted to do. So when this woman prophesied that I had dreamed of hundreds and thousands and stadiums and that God was going to give this too me, I was stunned and overwhelmed. These ideas were not my crazy imagination, but had originated in the heart of God and were …

The Prophet Elijah in the wilderness being fed by crows after fleeing Jezebel by Washington Allston (1779 - 1845) Credit: Wikipedia

My Prophetic Journey Part 4: Motives

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[This is the fourth in a series of articles on the ministry of the prophet and gift of prophecy.] In my previous article, I shared how God showed me that His love should be the foundation for my life and ministry, as “Lesson 1.” As I continued to look to Him for His lessons in the prophetic, the lessons impacting my life just kept getting better. When we leave it up to God to decide what we need to learn, it will be bound to be not what we want, but just what we need. Lesson 2 My next lesson was all about my motives. It started with me asking God for the next lesson, so I could prophesy better, and for an answer I got silence – nothing! I said to God, “Here I am,” and for quite some time I did not hear from God – not one word for anyone. It was embarrassing – it seemed everyone and their cousin’s dog were prophesying, but not me. I started to worry about what …

China’s insidious attack on the underground Church

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The Chinese government has recently instituted an insidious attack on Christians in that country after distributing a survey to all teachers and parents. The communist party who has ruled China for decades is trying to crack down on the rapidly growing Christian population. The changes are being instituted by President Xi Jinping. Described as a fanatical Maoist, he is trying to consolidate the communist party’s control of China. In an interview with the Christian Post, Bob Fu who heads Christian Aid believes the real concern is that there are now more Christians in China than members of the communist party. There are two types of Christian churches in China. One group is controlled by the state through its State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA). These legal churches are required to register with one of three organizations such  as the Three-self Patriotic Movement. There are about 57,000 government-sanctioned churches (both Catholic and Protestant). The second group is the larger unregistered house church movement. It is difficult to nail down how many Christians China has due largely …

Credit: Jonathan Chen/Flickr/Creative Commons

Does God Dance?

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A Bible verse recently caught my attention: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy. He will be quiet in his love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” (Zephaniah 3:17 NASV) The Hebrew word, ‘rejoice,’  means to “spin around under violent emotion.” The phrase “rejoice over you” literally means to “dance, skip, leap, and spin in joy.” So, the latter part of this verse is more accurately translated, “He will dance over you with singing.” I love the visualization that comes to my mind when I read this.  God is portrayed as a mighty warrior, singing and dancing over me with shouts of joy. It describes how a warrior must have felt in the Old Testament after winning a hard-fought battle and realizing the victory was his. I can envision power, authority and strength exuding from him as he steps into a victory dance. I imagine whooping, hollering, leaping, dancing and victory shouts. We see it today, as well. It’s not much …

Off to prophetic school Credit: Michael Fawcett/Flickr/Creative Commons

My Prophetic Journey Part 3: School Starts

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[This is the third in a series of articles on the ministry of the prophet and gift of prophecy.] Having wrestled with God’s call, and worked through some things involving God’s grace and work in my life as discussed in my last article, I was finally on board with God’s call into the prophetic. I read all the books and study notes that I could, and attended seminars on the prophetic. One day, either in a stroke of rare brilliance, or naivety, I came up with a plan. I bought myself a large hardcover blank notebook and said to God, Why don’t You teach me some prophetic lessons? A by-product of that would be learning to hear from God more, so that sounded great to me. God answered that prayer, and I began to fill the book with some tough lessons – be careful what you ask for! For a period of time God would deal with one thing (usually involving character and attitudes), and then would let that lesson become part of me. After …