All posts filed under: z82

Sao Paulo, Brazil Credit: Leandro Centomo/Flickr/Public Domain

Espíritus territoriales: guerras fronterizas en Brasil

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English: Territorial Spirits: Border wars in Brazil He estado mirando cómo espiritus diabolicos territoriales tratan de controlar países e incluso regiones dentro de un país como una provincia / estado o incluso una ciudad. En los días de Jesús, Poncio Pilato fue el quinto prefecto de Palestina, una región que hoy constituye gran parte del moderno Israel. A su vez, Palestina se dividió en tres distritos gobernados por un Tetrarca: Samaria, Galilea e Ituraea. En mi artículo anterior, estudié una liberación que tuvo lugar en una sinagoga en Capernaum, un importante centro administrativo en el Distrito de Galilea controlado por el Tetrarca Herodes Antipas, el hijo de Herodes el Grande. Después de arrojar un espíritu malvado a un hombre en una sinagoga de Capernaum, Marcos dice que el hombre fuerte o el espíritu maligno que controlaba esa área fue derribado (Marcos 3: 22-27). Después de eso, Marcos registra lo que siguió rápidamente (Marcos 1:28 – 2:15). Hubo sanidades (Marcos 1: 40-43; Marcos 2: 1-11), muchos demonios fueron expulsados ​​(Marcos 1: 32-34) y varias personas salvadas (Marcos …

Ten Commandment outside the Texas State Capital in Austin. Credit: Office of the Attorney General of Texas/Wikipedia

British Survey: Majority believe only six of 10 commandments still important today

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A YouGov poll of people living in England released this past October discovered the majority felt only six of the 10 commandments delivered by Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 20) are relevant today. Commandments such as ‘though shall not murder’ and ‘thou shall not steal’ still did well with both receiving 94% and 93% support respectively. Note the survey properly referred to the sixth commandment as forbidding murder, not killing that was sometimes justified in cases of self-defense. It is difficult to understand why there wasn’t 100% support for the two. However, it can possibly be explained by the growing extreme left-wing beliefs particularly on university campuses where some feel there is justification in certain instances for murder and stealing. Perhaps in a less extreme agreement with this later sentiment only 61% believed “thou shalt not covet” was relevant today.  This meant nearly 40% of those surveyed felt it was alright to covet a neighbor’s goods. At times, our hearts can justify theft because its unfair that some have wealth and others don’t. There were …

Credit: -stefano-/Flickr/Creative Commons

What does surrender to God mean?

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Does surrender conjure up images of a criminal giving up his gun and surrendering himself to the police?  For many Christians this is what we envision and it terrifies us. In her article, Winning Through Surrender, Kathy Cordova writes: “For most of us the word surrender has a negative meaning because we think surrender is waving the white flag and giving up.” We consider the spiritual process of surrender with giving up, but spiritual surrender is not about defeat. It is about acceptance, joy and faith.   Spiritual surrender is about a mutual relationship with loving reciprocity between the creator and the creation. It’s about  accepting the gift of salvation and experiencing the joy of a relationship with the God of the universe who  not only loves us but knows us well. I realized that after all these years as a Christian I did not have a healthy perspective of what surrendering to God really meant. I felt that I could never live up to the traditional Christian perception of surrender. I was fully aware of …

The Mespotamia Valley where Abraham and Sarah lived before God called them on their journey of faith: Credit: Hassan Janall U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/Wikipedia

Faith through doubt: 4,000 year old marriage contract confirms story of Ishmael

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Español: La fe a través de la duda: contrato de matrimonio de 4.000 años de antigüedad confirma la historia de Ismael Though the patriarch Abraham and wife Sarah ended up in the ‘Faith Hall of Fame’ (Hebrews 11:8-11), their lives were far from a perfect display of faith. God had promised Abraham and his wife Sarah a son out of which would come a great nation (Genesis 17). Though they clung to this promise, there were times when they doubted God and took matters into their own hands. One of these moments involved Hagar, Sarah’s personal maid: Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. 2 So Sarai said to Abram, “Now behold, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. (Genesis 16: 1-2 NASV) Sarah told Abraham to impregnate her slave who would serve as a surrogate and have a child that Sarah would …

Stephen Willeford Credit: Steven Crowder Youtube show

Did the Holy Spirit fall upon a man to stop a mass murderer?

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It may challenge the theology of some. But Stephen Willeford, 55, said the Holy Spirit came upon him to help stop Devin Kelley the man responsible for killing 28 people at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas on Sunday, Nov 5, 2017 In an interview with Steven Crowder the day after the shooting, Willeford, a Christian, explained what happened. After hearing shots being fired, Willeford who lives a block away, grabbed his AR-15 rifle and ran barefoot to find out what was going on. When he arrived Kelley was leaving the church and Willeford ducked behind a truck parked in a neighbor’s driveway and the two began exchanging fire. Willeford told Crowder: “I’m a Christian, and I believe at that point, and maybe this sounds a little off to some of your viewers that aren’t Christians, [but] I believe the Holy Spirit was on me because I had the presence of mind to look at what was going on.” During the shooting, Crowder noticed that Kelley was prepared for a fight and was …

Riyadh City, Saudia Arabia. Credit: B.alotaby/Wikipedia

NEOM: What is happening in the Middle East now?

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Could you find the city of Neom on a map? It hasn’t been built yet, but it is a serious proposal. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a proposal to build a new super city in a remote place near the Red Sea. The cost is estimated at 400 billion and if it is built, it should be like a combination of Las Vegas and Hong Kong, in the Middle East. The proposal includes a bridge to Egypt and links to Jordan; and this is never mentioned in the literature, but it will be very close to Israel. RELATED: Saudi Arabia Just Announced Plans to Build a Mega City That Will Cost $500 Billion If you could stand on a boat at the north end of the Gulf of Aqaba, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, you could turn your head and see four countries; Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. All four countries converge at that location. Saudi Arabia has huge oil deposits about two thousand kilometres from Neom, on the eastern …

Credit: Christian R. Hamacher/Flickr/Creative Commons

Struggling to love unconditionally

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Loving others unconditionally (without any conditions, or expectations attached) does not come naturally for me or anyone I know. The question is how does one DO unconditional love (live it out, act and think). In order for me to extend unconditional love to others  I must have  a reason. What would motivate me to love others unconditionally and withhold judgement. Glynnis Whitwer from First5.org ministry says that we must ‘find the why’ and reason for our motivation to love unconditionally. The Apostle Paul writes: “For we were once thoughtless and senseless, obstinate, deluded and misled  . .  But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of anything we had done, but because of His mercy.” (Titus 3:3-4) Everyday, I must be mindful of the reason I choose to love unconditionally which is  to  honor God’s gift of grace to me by reflecting it back into my world. In the Old Testament, the Jews had rules and regulations to please God and the Greeks lived to appease their …

Anne Hathaway and Denzel Washington at the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize concert. Photo Harry Wad / Wikipedia

Denzel Washington and director prayed every day while shooting ‘Roman J. Israel, Esq’

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Denzel Washington, 62, has won two Academy Awards, one for Best Supporting Actor in the 1989 movie Glory and Best Actor in 2001 for his role in Training Days. He has also won a Tony Award and three Gold Globes. Gospel Herald recently interviewed Denzel about his most recent movie, Roman J. Israel, Esq. Though, not overtly Christian, Denzel said the movie is filled with Biblical themes including sacrifice as a man gave up a successful career for a cause he believed in. The movie is scheduled for release on November 22, 2017. In the interview, Denzel shared a couple of things I found interesting. First, Denzel and Dan Gilroy, the producer and writer of the movie, prayed and read a Bible devotional together every day during filming. Denzel said, “Dan and I have been prayer partners during this whole collaboration.” It is tough for Christians to speak out in Hollywood, when fellow celebrities not only oppose faith in God, but blatantly mock it. Such as former Star Trek: The Next Generation star Wil Wheaton …

Moscow's Red Square Credit: viktor/Flickr

The 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution and the birthing of the first Communist state

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I remember as a university student walking the halls crowded with tables of various communist groups peddling their wares. We had the Leninists, Maoists, Marxists and Stalinists. Each with their table full of booklets, leaflets and books promoting their particular brand of the ‘glorious’ revolution. Of course, communism in its various forms was birthed in the heart of German Karl Marx (1818–1883) who along with Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto that became the staple for modern communism. November 7, 2017, marked the 100th anniversary of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution that paved the way for the world’s first communist state. It was the first of many countries that would eventually fall to this evil philosophy. Ironically, the communist revolution that claimed to be the savior of the people resulted in the slaughter of over 100 million people world-wide. This was the estimate presented in book published by Harvard University Press, The Black Book of Communism. Published in 1997, its numbers are a bit outdated. The Black Book records there were 20 million killed during Stalin’s bloody …

Credit: Taema/Flickr/Creative Commons

White Privilege and Lido Pimienta

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Are people with white skin privileged? Do we need to give special treatment to people with dark skin? People are talking about this. On October 19, 2017, a singer named Lido Pimienta went on stage at the Halifax Pop Explosion music festival to sing. Halifax is in Nova Scotia, Canada, and Lido is a woman, originally from Colombia, South America. Before she sang, she told white people and men in the audience, to move to the back, and she instructed women with dark skin to move to the front rows, close to her. Some people argued that this was racism, and a female photographer with light skin stayed near the stage to take pictures. She was ordered to move to the back several times, and then security removed her from the festival. Organizers have since apologized to Lido Pimienta for the photographer’s overt racism. RELATED: Halifax music fest apologizes for overt racism at Polaris winners concert Arguments have ensured. One quote from the discussion in the Global News article is: “I’m sorry but isn’t that …