Spiritual Nourishment

Why Go To Church?

A Church attendee wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday.

"I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this...

They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today.

Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"

When you are DOWN to nothing.... God is UP to something!

Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible!

Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!

"When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say, "Jesus, could you get that for me?!!"

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The salvation of J.P. Morgan

This week's devotional is entitled, "His Most Precious Blood," and comes to us from Revelation 1:5,

"Jesus Christ. . .loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood."

When J.P. Morgan, the multimillionaire, died, it was found that his will consisted of about 10,000 words and 37 articles. He made many transactions, some involving large sums of money.

But we are left in no doubt as to what he considered his most important transaction:

"I commit my soul into the hands of my Savior, in full confidence that, having redeemed and washed it in His most precious blood, He will present it faultless before my heavenly Father; and I entreat my children to maintain and defend, at all hazard and at any cost of personal sacrifice, the blessed doctrine of the complete atonement for sin through the blood of Jesus Christ, once offered, and through that alone."

In the matter of his soul's eternal blessing, J.P. Morgan's vast wealth was powerless. He was just as dependent on God's mercy as was the dying theif at Calvary.

No matter who you are or what you have done, only Christ can save you, for only "the blood of Jesus Christ. . . cleanses. . . from all sin" (1 John 1:7).

May God bless each of you.
Ted Brabham ~~ Newsletter

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Possible WAR?

from Agape Press
by Chad Groening

A national defense expert and former Defense Department official under the Reagan administration believes the Israeli defense minister was serious when he hinted over the weekend that the Jewish nation could take military action to deal with Iran's nuclear threat.

Frank Gaffney is the president of the Washington, DC-based Center for Security Policy. The former assistant undersecretary of defense believes if forced, Israel will act in its own defense.

"I believe that Israel would do what it can to disrupt the Iranian nuclear weapons program if it feels that its very existence is at stake," says Gaffney. "How well they can do it -- how long the effect would be -- what the repercussions of it might be, we can only speculate about." (Christians know)

Gaffney says Israel will act unless something else is done to prevent the Iranian regime from being able to do what the Iranian leader promised recently; namely, wiping Israel off the map.

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For most Christians, what we see playing out in the Middle East is prophecy coming true. We will see the miraculous protection of Israel and the massive destruction of her enemies.

This, in a weird way is exciting! This time period in history equates with the one where Jesus walked the earth and started His teachings and brought salvation to all the world through His sacrificial death.

I cannot imagine another time period as exciting as this one since that first one. Because, Christians know, that Jesus is coming again very soon. This time, He IS coming to, as the world says, "kick butt". What Judas tried to force Jesus to do the first time, is now God's perfect timing to accomplish THIS time.

Therefore many of us ARE following the Middle East news very closely. Ultimately, what our U.S. government decides to do will affect the American people. Many "evangelicals" feel our government will choose the wrong course and suffer the consequences for it.

Just remember, whatever befalls this nation, YOUR redemption is still possible~~until you take the mark of the beast. (Read previous blog on RFID technology).

Watch the news and watch God preserve Israel~~then know that Israel is and always has been precious to the Lord. He has never forsaken them. If He had, then they would not have survived WWII. Hitler was superb at what he did....namely, killing others. But Hitler didn't succeed. God had already promised that there would ALWAYS be a remnant of His people on this earth. What God promises, God keeps.

Ultimately, Israel will NOT need the United States.

But the United States may ultimately need Israel.

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Are Church-Going Kids Christian?

A Strange Faith from Agape Press
by Ed Vitagliano

Our youth sit in church with us week after week. If we were asked, we would not only acknowledge that they are our political and cultural future, but that they are our religious future as well.

There is good news and there is bad news.

The good news first:

Understanding the religious beliefs and practices of the nation's youth was the goal of Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton, two sociologists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They examined data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), the largest and most detailed study of teenagers and religion ever undertaken.

The results of their research, which also included follow-up, face-to-face interviews with more than 250 of the youth who participated in the NSYR, were published in their book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.

While stereotypical teenagers are said to be "deeply restless, alienated, rebellious, and determined to find something that is radically different from the faith in which they were raised," Soul Searching added, "that impression is fundamentally wrong."

"U.S. youth are not flocking in droves to 'alternative' religions and spiritualities such as paganism and Wicca. Teenagers who are pagan or Wiccan represent fewer than one-third of 1% of U.S. teens."

Instead, what Smith and Denton learned from their interviews was that "the vast majority of American teenagers are exceedingly conventional in their religious identity and practices .... When it comes to religion, they are quite happy to go along and get along." {Sounds a little too close to 'live and let live' where NO moral stand is taken.}

Religious participation seems to be having a positive effect on youth.

More religiously active kids were less likely to engage in illegal substance abuse; use the Internet to view pornography; get lower school grades (i.e., usually Cs, Ds, and Fs); get suspended or expelled from school; be described by parents as fairly or very rebellious; lie to parents; or to have engaged in sex before marriage.

Less religious involvement also correlated to a poorer self-image, greater sadness and feelings of depression.

"Something about religion itself causes the good outcomes for youth. By general implication, teens who increase their religious involvement should, net of other factors, reduce their chances of experiencing negative and harmful outcomes," and vice versa.

But with probing there were troubling currents beneath the foamy whitecaps. As researchers probed deeper, what they found should shake churches to the core.

Now, the bad news:

86 percent of teenagers claimed that they believed in God. But when asked, "what is the nature of the God they embrace," 63 percent of church-going, supposedly Christian teens said they believed "Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Jews and all other people pray to the same God, even though they use different names for their god."

In other critical areas of Christian doctrine -- e.g., the divinity of Christ, the resurrection, the reality of absolute truth -- the majority of church-going teenagers simply do not hold to views that are orthodox.

These statistics hold true, for the most part, even in conservative Protestant churches. {This explains how we see our youth at church, in Sunday school, at choir practice or a prayer meeting and then drunk at the Friday night football game.}

The sad fact is that very few of the nation's youth appear to be Bible-believing Christians.

The Barna Research Group has found much of the same thing. They asked nine questions which focus on core evangelical beliefs, such as whether or not a person believes salvation is possible by grace alone.

Using this more probing method, Barna found that only 4 percent of U.S. teens can be considered evangelicals. More distressingly, that number is actually trending in the wrong direction. That 4 percent figure "is a far cry from the 10 percent measured in 1995," he said.

How could teenagers who go to church so often know so little -- or at least believe so little -- of the historic Christian faith? And whose fault is it? {When churches themselves allow compromise to enter their doors~~for example: allowing unrepetant, practicing homosexuals to join the church or worse to be ordained by the church~~ how can they expect their youth to stand firm? What example has been set for them? None. So it should not come as a surprise that they fall away in their young adult hood. We have failed to armor them with God's Holy Word. We have failed in helping them to stand firm against evil. We have failed to give them backbones.}

"It appears that these conservative Protestant youth have not been very successfully inducted into their tradition's distinctive commitment to Christian particularity, evangelism, the need to accept all that the Bible teaches, and serious church involvement."

"One unmistakable indication of the brewing trouble comes from the response to a question concerning how likely teens say they are to attend church once they are independent," he said in Real Teens. "After they graduate from high school or move away from home, just two out of five teens contend it is 'very likely' that they will attend a Christian church on a regular basis, and another two out of five say it is 'somewhat likely.'

"What makes these figures most alarming is that questions of this type typically produce an overestimate of future behavior," Barna continued. "If we apply a 'correction factor' to these responses, we would estimate that about one out of three teenagers is likely to actually attend a Christian church after they leave home."

Unless Christian leaders want to contemplate a future -- much like that unfolding in Europe -- in which their youth abandon Christianity in droves, there must be a brutally honest re-examination of how we do church. After all, our youth are not only our political and cultural future, but they are our religious future as well.

That's a fact we might want to consider now, while those same teens are sitting in church with us, week after week.


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Christian Activism Begins at Home

An Interview with Voddie Baucham
Outspoken Teacher Says Culture Will Change When Christians Change Their View of Church and Family

from Agape Press
by Rusty Benson

Voddie Baucham, the Houston, Texas, teacher/author is an imposing figure in the pulpit. His simple, but persuasive, analysis of what's wrong in America and how to fix it demands attention. {Discipling our children; home schooling; stopping government control}

A return to a Christian consensus of values in America will come only when believers re-evaluate the nature of the church -- and more fundamentally -- the role of the family as the preeminent disciple-maker of their children.

Baucham contends that God intends for the home to be where Christian children are spiritually nurtured into mature adults who can influence all spheres of life for Christ. At the same time, every new generation of Christian parents must pass their faith on to their own children. He calls the concept "multi-generational faithfulness" and argues that the chain is broken when Christian parents abdicate their discipling duties to church programs.

According to Baucham this lack of discipleship in the home is why statistics show that many young people from church-going homes leave the faith during their college years and why Christianity's voice in American culture is waning.

In my opinion, this is what makes the home-school movement so important. Because you are getting children out of the public school system that has them for 45-50 hours a week and inundates them in this anti-Christian, secular humanistic mentality and into a situation where discipleship is the key to their education. It's only here that multi-generational faithfulness can take place.

In a recent sermon you referred to a study of youth and religion by the Sociology Department of the University of North Carolina. That study shows that children overwhelmingly practice the religion of their parents as long as they live at home. However you claim that other studies indicate that by the end of their freshman year in college, between 75 and 88 percent have left the church. Is there any recapturing this generation?

With Christ there is always hope, but currently I don't see any indication that that will happen. In fact, the institutions of our culture -- the public school system, the media, our universities, politics, corporate America, the judiciary -- all are perpetuating the acceptance of ungodly practices such as same-sex marriage and euthanasia.

The one hopeful sign I see is that the home-schooling movement is thriving. {Not if the liberal NEA has anything to say about it....but that is another blog} If there is an answer, I believe that is it.

The life issues, including abortion, euthanasia, partial-birth abortion. These issues are still critical because the acceptance of them indicates that we are moving further and further down the road of devaluing life. For example, right now I believe we are quickly moving from a discussion about the "right to die" to the "obligation to die."

Another thing I'm concerned about is the nature and role of the government in our nation. We have moved so far toward a socialist mentality, largely through our schools, that many people believe with all their heart that it's the government's job to take care of people. That misunderstanding impacts many other issues including the role of family.

{Look at the colossal failure of socialism and communism. Americans need to STOP this in its tracks and demand that our Republic be protected. Kick those in politics out who are socialists or communists. They SHOULD not be representing us. Can't tell? Watch how they vote for certain bills~~it becomes more obvious then.

Personally, I think it may already be too late......the majority of the American people don't care. They are too busy trying to make ends meet to pay any attention to what our leaders are doing or they expect to be taken care of through the largesse of government....

Only God can turn this nation around. The question is, will He? Or will He instead allow America to reap what she has sown the last 40 years? A godless nation deserving judgment...}



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Let our children go

from Agape Press
by Fred Jackson

...A conservative columnist claims the recent federal court decision to bar the teaching of theory of intelligent design in the Dover Area School District in Pennsylvania is yet another reason why parents should get their kids out of public schools.

Columnist Cal Thomas says the ruling should awaken religious conservatives to the futility of trying to make a secular state reflect their beliefs. He contends that, since the 1960s -- when prayer and Bible reading were effectively outlawed in public school classrooms -- too many people have wasted too much time and money trying to get these spiritual disciplines and a lot of other positive things restored in the schools. {Render unto caesar what is caesars. Render unto God what is Gods~~namely, our children....}

Thomas says many parents who would never send their kids to a Sunday school that teaches false doctrine are content to place those same kids in state schools five days a week where they are taught doctrines and ideas in conflict with their faith.

According to the columnist, rulings like that regarding the Dover Area schools should persuade parents who have been waffling on this issue to join the growing exodus from state schools to private or home school environments where their religious values are supported. {Let the godless people have the godless schools. It is what they wanted; now let them deal with the consequences of their choice.}

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The Great War of 2007

This is written in the "future" tense. But the reasoning is very sound....
C~B~N
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The origins of the Great War of 2007 - and how it could have been prevented
By Niall Ferguson

Are we living through the origins of the next world war? Certainly, it is easy to imagine how a future historian might deal with the next phase of events in the Middle East:

With every passing year after the turn of the century, the instability of the Gulf region grew. By the beginning of 2006, nearly all the combustible ingredients for a conflict - far bigger in its scale and scope than the wars of 1991 or 2003 - were in place.

The first underlying cause of the war was the increase in the region's relative importance as a source of petroleum. On the one hand, the rest of the world's oil reserves were being rapidly exhausted. On the other, the breakneck growth of the Asian economies had caused a huge surge in global demand for energy. It is hard to believe today, but for most of the 1990s the price of oil had averaged less than $20 a barrel.

A second precondition of war was demographic. While European fertility had fallen below the natural replacement rate in the 1970s, the decline in the Islamic world had been much slower. By the late 1990s the fertility rate in the eight Muslim countries to the south and east of the European Union was two and half times higher than the European figure.

This tendency was especially pronounced in Iran, where the social conservatism of the 1979 Revolution - which had lowered the age of marriage and prohibited contraception - combined with the high mortality of the Iran-Iraq War and the subsequent baby boom to produce, by the first decade of the new century, a quite extraordinary surplus of young men. More than two fifths of the population of Iran in 1995 had been aged 14 or younger. This was the generation that was ready to fight in 2007.

This not only gave Islamic societies a youthful energy that contrasted markedly with the slothful senescence of Europe. It also signified a profound shift in the balance of world population. In 1950, there had three times as many people in Britain as in Iran. By 1995, the population of Iran had overtaken that of Britain and was forecast to be 50 per cent higher by 2050.

Yet people in the West struggled to grasp the implications of this shift. Subliminally, they still thought of the Middle East as a region they could lord it over, as they had in the mid-20th century.

The third and perhaps most important precondition for war was cultural. Since 1979, not just Iran but the greater part of the Muslim world had been swept by a wave of religious fervour, the very opposite of the process of secularisation that was emptying Europe's churches.

Although few countries followed Iran down the road to full-blown theocracy, there was a transformation in politics everywhere. From Morocco to Pakistan, the feudal dynasties or military strongmen who had dominated Islamic politics since the 1950s came under intense pressure from religious radicals.

The ideological cocktail that produced 'Islamism' was as potent as either of the extreme ideologies the West had produced in the previous century, communism and fascism. Islamism was anti-Western, anti-capitalist and anti-Semitic. A seminal moment was the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's intemperate attack on Israel in December 2005, when he called the Holocaust a 'myth'. The state of Israel was a 'disgraceful blot', he had previously declared, to be wiped 'off the map'.

Prior to 2007, the Islamists had seen no alternative but to wage war against their enemies by means of terrorism. From the Gaza to Manhattan, the hero of 2001 was the suicide bomber. Yet Ahmadinejad, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, craved a more serious weapon than strapped-on explosives. His decision to accelerate Iran's nuclear weapons programme was intended to give Iran the kind of power North Korea already wielded in East Asia: the power to defy the United States; the power to obliterate America's closest regional ally.

Under different circumstances, it would not have been difficult to thwart Ahmadinejad's ambitions. The Israelis had shown themselves capable of pre-emptive air strikes against Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981. Similar strikes against Iran's were urged on President Bush by neo-conservative commentators throughout 2006. The United States, they argued, was perfectly placed to carry out such strikes. It had the bases in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. It had the intelligence proving Iran's contravention of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But the President was advised by his Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, to opt instead for diplomacy. Not just European opinion but American opinion was strongly opposed to an attack on Iran. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 had been discredited by the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein had supposedly possessed and by the failure of the US-led coalition to quell a bloody insurgency.

Americans did not want to increase their military commitments overseas; they wanted to reduce them. Europeans did not want to hear that Iran was about to build its own WMD. Even if Ahmad-inejad had broadcast a nuclear test live on CNN, liberals would have said it was a CIA con-trick.

So history repeated itself. As in the 1930s, an anti-Semitic demagogue broke his country's treaty obligations and armed for war. Having first tried appeasement, offering the Iranians economic incentives to desist, the West appealed to international agencies - the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Security Council. Thanks to China's veto, however, the UN produced nothing but empty resolutions and ineffectual sanctions, like the exclusion of Iran from the 2006 World Cup finals.

Only one man might have stiffened President Bush's resolve in the crisis: not Tony Blair, he had wrecked his domestic credibility over Iraq and was in any case on the point of retirement - Ariel Sharon. Yet he had been struck down by a stroke as the Iranian crisis came to a head. With Israel leaderless, Ahmadinejad had a free hand.

As in the 1930s, too, the West fell back on wishful thinking. Perhaps, some said, Ahmadinejad was only sabre-rattling because his domestic position was so weak. Perhaps his political rivals in the Iranian clergy were on the point of getting rid of him. In that case, the last thing the West should do was to take a tough line; that would only bolster Ahmadinejad by inflaming Iranian popular feeling. So in Washington and in London people crossed their fingers, hoping for the deus ex machina of a home-grown regime change in Teheran.

This gave the Iranians all the time they needed to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium at Natanz. The dream of nuclear non-proliferation, already interrupted by Israel, Pakistan and India, was definitively shattered. Now Teheran had a nuclear missile pointed at Tel-Aviv. And the new Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu had a missile pointed right back at Teheran.

The optimists argued that the Cuban Missile Crisis would replay itself in the Middle East. Both sides would threaten war - and then both sides would blink. That was Secretary Rice's hope - indeed, her prayer - as she shuttled between the capitals. But it was not to be.


The devastating nuclear exchange of August 2007 represented not only the failure of diplomacy, it marked the end of the oil age. Some even said it marked the twilight of the West. Certainly, that was one way of interpreting the subsequent spread of the conflict as Iraq's Shi'ite population overran the remaining American bases in their country and the Chinese threatened to intervene on the side of Teheran.

Yet the historian is bound to ask whether or not the true significance of the 2007-2011 war was to vindicate the Bush administration's original principle of pre-emption. For, if that principle had been adhered to in 2006, Iran's nuclear bid might have been thwarted at minimal cost. And the Great Gulf War might never have happened.

• Niall Ferguson is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University
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Like I stated above, sound reasoning........I believe we are closer to this than the world knows. I'm not sure it will be in 2007~~we could just possibly be closer than that.

As a Christian, I believe it will tie into the war of Gog and Magog thus heralding in the "end times". In other words, this war won't end in 2011....it won't last that long. The anti-christ will bring "peace" to the region by signing a 7 year peace treaty with the nation of Israel and this will be the beginnings of the tribulation.

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Our God is an Awesome God

Moses and the people were in the desert, but what was he going to do with them?

They had to be fed, and feeding 2 or 3 million {I have never heard this figure before on the size of the Jewis people~~but 3 million or 300,000~~it still took God to deliver them!} people requires a lot of food. According to the Quartermaster General in the Army, it is reported that Moses would have to have had 1500 tons of food each day. Do you know that to bring that much food each day, two freight trains, each at least a mile long, would be required!

Besides you must remember, they were out in the desert, so they would have to have firewood to use in cooking the food. This would take 4000 tons of wood and a few more freight trains, each a mile long, just for one day.

And just think, they were forty years in transit.

And Oh yes! They would have to have water. If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes, it would take 11,000,000 gallons each day and a freight train with tank cars, 1800 miles long, just to bring water!

And then another thing! They had to get across the Red Sea at night. Now, if they went on a narrow path, double file, the line would be 800 miles long and would require 35 days and nights to get through. So there had to be a space in the Red Sea, 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5000 abreast to get over in onenight.

But then, there is another problem...............each time they camped at the end of the day, a campground two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island was required, or a total of 750 square miles long....... think of it! This much space for camping. Do you think Moses figured all this out before he left Egypt?

I think not!

You see, Moses believed in God. God took care of these things for him.

Now do you think God has any problem taking care of all your needs?

May the Lord bless you and guide you and protect you as you go along your way....

His love is always with you, His promises are true, And when we give Him all our cares, You know He will see us through.

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The Evidence of His Love

Powerful flash movie: The Evidence of His Love

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RFID

Many ask what? What is an RFID? When it is followed by "Chip" then everyone goes, ah, yes, ok. Without giving it another thought!

Perhaps we should.

Many Evangelicals believed the scan-able barcodes would herald the "mark of the beast". We have believed this since their advent in the 70's. The RFID chips are just the next logical step to the barcodes.

Chips were first introduced by the veterinarians in the United States as a way to reunite lost animals with their owners. Sounds like a wonderful idea. Who wouldn't want to be reunited with a lost pet?

I have heard the rumors that the boys of Prince Charles and Princess Diana have these "chips" implanted in their arms.

Once again, to "protect" our children who wouldn't consider this? It certainly would make it easy to find lost or abducted children.

Retailers use this technology sewn into the clothes they sell for supposedly inventory purposes.

But society needs to look with further depth into technology and not just stop on the "good" aspects of any technology. Because where there can be good there can also be evil.

We have all heard the tales that men who invented certain things regretted their invention......the rifle, the bomb, gun powder. Items by themselves that are not evil; but become so when they are put to use to dominate, control or conquer others.

The RFID chips are the same way. On the surface, they look like a wonderful god-send technology to help those most helpless. But that is just the surface.

To learn the truth, you must scratch below the surface to see what evil lurks.
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Agape Press by Jim Brown

Many see this technology as the precursor to the "Mark of the Beast" that Revelation speaks of.

The Resistance for Christ, a Christian group, is calling for the boycott of these RFID chips being utilized in the public schools to track students.

Recently, one California school used RFID technology in a test of an experimental attendance monitoring system.

RFID and similar technologies are already in use, and their incursion into everyday life is a rapidly growing trend.

For instance, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has already announced its intention to make use of "contactless chips" or "proximity chips" or "contactless integrated circuits" in passports and identifying documents in the coming years. {Passports are good for 10 years. If you want one without this technology, this will probably be your last year to get one!}

John Conner ,a spokesman for The Resistance for Christ group, contends that RFID tracking technology is a predecessor to the universal sign that will be mandated by the anti-Christ during the period of history described by end-times scholars as the tribulation.

What these devices are going to do is just, ultimately, turn over ever last bit of privacy that we have to this global system," Conner says. Potentially, he warns, RFID will become a form of technological oppression that "dehumanizes every student and every person who is forced -- mind you, forced -- to take these beastly tracking devices, and this opens the door for limitless abuse." {Your refusal to accept this "mark" will be your death sentence. But to accept it, has eternal consequences~~eternal death or separation from God.}

This is the precursor to the 'mark of the beast' -- the 666 Satanic mark that the Bible talked about," Conner says, "and [the proponents of the RFID technology are] implementing this system under the guise of security and [saying] it's going to keep your children safe." But, ultimately, the San Diego activist warns, "what it's going to do is it's going to turn every single one of us into a piece of inventory -- not a human being -- a piece of inventory, a number."

Conner is urging people everywhere to boycott RFID technology and to oppose its incorporation into schools or other aspects of daily life in America.

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So, perhaps this technology is not a god-send, but rather devil sent.

C~B~N

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Here is a very clear explanation of how the RFID chips work from Kim Komando, computer guru:

RFID is a passive chip that contains information. As a product goes from place to place, scanners read the chip. That keeps inventory controls up-to-date. {Think those big cream colored "tags" attached to clothing...}

If RFID can be used to track products, it also can track humans. That makes it very controversial. Building RFID into products such as iPods would theoretically give governments the ability to track the owners. Lots of people get upset over that idea. {Not being too "techy" myself, I've often wondered why GPS cannot "track" people? If so, why would you have technology that can be used to destroy freedom?}

Interested in subscribing to Kim's newsletters which are fabulous! go here: Kim Komando Newsletters

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Putting on the Armor of God

from Agape Press by Jody Brown

A Christian education resolution considered by the Southern Baptist Convention earlier this year -- and eventually passed in modified form -- seems to have ignited a fire under Christian leaders in several states.

Associations of Southern Baptists in as many as 28 states have now introduced measures warning of pro-homosexual policies and material in public schools, and calling on parents to get involved in protecting their children from that influence. {Also, any student who speaks out against abortions, homosexuality or "evolution" is ridiculed or slapped down for his/her beliefs. There is no respect given for differing viewpoints any more in the public schools~~much less in society of today.}

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. In June 2005 he suggested in a column that "responsible" Southern Baptists across the country begin developing an "exit strategy" from the nation's public schools. That strategy, he wrote, would affirm both the "basic and ultimate responsibility of Christian parents to take charge of the education of their own children" and the "responsibility of churches to equip parents, support families, and offer alternatives."

"One of the great tragedies of American Christianity has been the near universal failure of its leaders to boldly proclaim the inherent dangers lurking within America's government-owned and controlled schools," Roger Moran, a Southern Baptist leader from Missouri, says in a press release. "But now, in the context of Southern Baptist life, that is beginning to change."

And Dr. Baucham feels that Christians are carrying out the Great Commission by "rescuing" children from government-run schools -- particularly those from low-income or single-parent families, who he says are often most vulnerable to the messages being delivered by homosexual activists. {Or the local street drug pusher...}

"The mission field is not just overseas; it is right here. And this mission effort requires a more serious commitment than just handing out tracts or sharing a testimony."

According to Baucham, it is also an issue of accountability: "No passage in the Bible suggests that God is concerned about our churches having large sanctuaries or elaborately produced music. He will, however, hold us accountable for our stewardship of our children."

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from Agape Press by Jim Brown and Allie Martin

Individuals and groups within two mainline Protestant denominations are urging attendees at their respective annual meetings to take a stand for righteousness in the public square by considering resolutions addressing the secular education their children are receiving in the nation's public schools.

Pastor Steven Warhurst of Kingsport introduced the resolution on the floor of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) General Assembly in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Warhurst's resolution also states that "sending thousands of PCA {or SBC} children as 'missionaries' to their unbelieving teachers and classmates has failed to contribute to increasing holiness in public schools." The pastor says he grew up attending public schools, but that when he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, he had to "unlearn" many of the things he had been taught.

"We are people who drank heavily from the trough of state education and realized that it's poisonous," Warhurst says, "and now we've found cisterns of living water, so to speak -- and we'd love other people to join us. I'd love to see every family in the Presbyterian Church in America take their children out of the public schools and train them in the fear and admonition of the Lord."

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I thought these were interesting.

As an educator who has worked in both environments~~the private Christian school and the public school system~~ I prefer the former; even though it means less money to me to work there. It is a better environment to work in; it is a better environment for our children.

While it is good to be a "light" unto the world, to expect our children to be that light, when God allowed his prophets many, many years , well into adulthood, before sending them out into the world tells me that our children need to be nurtured and protected and equipped with the Godly armor they will need to go forth and become those lights~~in their own adulthoods!

They shouldn't have to be doing it at such tender ages. Especially when there are so many godless educators to squash them in their tracks. Just an opinion from an educator who has worked in both environments....
C~B~N

2005, a Big Year for Christian

Persecution!

From Agape Press by Allie Martin

Dr. Carl Moeller, president of Open Doors USA says there was a noticeable increase in persecution of Christians throughout the world in 2005. That international ministry has released a review of persecution against believers worldwide across the last year.

The Open Doors review found that there was an increase in persecution of Christians in such countries as North Korea, Indonesia, and Eritrea.

Many believers in the U.S. and other free nations are largely unaware of the oppression and hostility faced by fellow believers in many parts of the world. He feels some of the countries most hostile to the Christian faith are simply not "on the radar screens" of many in the church.

{ To ignore the plight of our sisters and brothers in Christ is wrong. We need to daily lift them up in prayer to God and Jesus to sustain them. Our faith has been under attack since the 60's~~prayer was taken out of the schools; Bible study, which insured an excellent education was also taken out. During the past decade we have felt the beginnings of persecution in the United States for those of the Christian faith. There will no doubt come a time when we will need prayers from those same sisters and brothers in Christ~~as the end times draw ever closer, Christian persecution will only worsen~~worldwide but also, in the United States. Even with all this guaranteed to happen, Christianity will NOT be destroyed. Because truth cannot be destroyed! Keep the faith. Pray hard.}

"Eritrea doesn't make the news very often because it's not either an ally or an enemy of the United States; but it is a country where millions of people are subjected to a Marxist-influenced government that is drumming up fear in a war with Ethiopia. Also, in Eritrea 26 pastors and 1,700 evangelical church members are currently imprisoned, and some have been tortured by government military forces..."

In North Korea, an estimated 400,000 Christians face daily persecution, including torture in prison camps.

Even though this has happened more this past year there are some positive developments that have occurred in the past year. For example, he says the evangelical church is growing rapidly in many of the countries where persecution of the church is common -- even in some parts of Asia and the Middle East that are dominated by Hindu, Buddhist, or Islamic majorities.

{This is not surprising~~the more the enemy tries to destroy Christianity, the stronger it becomes.}

Some of this growth can be attributed in part to Christian disaster relief efforts -- particularly the church's response to the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 and the Pakistan earthquake.

Open Doors' ministry to the persecuted church has likewise gone forward in the past year. Moeller says the ministry was able to send more than three million bibles and other Christian study materials to China for underground house churches, and has continued to send resources and support to persecuted believers in other nations all over the world.

Want to help? Then donate your Money

or Volunteer Your Time

Be sure to Pray!

Also visit Voice of the Martyrs for updates on Christian persecution.

Iran: A martyr's story This brother in Christ paid the ultimate price.

Americans, even if you are not a believer, you should still support those who are IF you believe in FREEDOM FOR ALL.

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Romans 12:9-11

Paul, in the book of Romans, was trying to teach the people how to worship, to be loving Christians, & to be forgiving. He was grooming them to become the first “churches.”

4 Pictures:

1) Roman Church~~the first "church" met in people's homes. Jesus had lived and been resurrected at this time; but the "doctrine" of Jesus as a Savior was new. Churches and preachers were not heard of ~~prior to this time they did not exist. Many in the city of Rome were opposed to this new doctrine of Jesus. Those who did worship God and accepted Jesus as their Savior, met in their homes secretly. They were very careful about whom they invited into their homes. Why? When we are told to spread the good news of Jesus would they do this? Because in this time period, the Romans would soon begin to feed the Christians to the lions. The good news spread in spite of what the Romans tried to do to stop it.

2) Today, 2006, in rural Utah there are Baptists trying to set up churches. The non-Baptists will not support them if they know this. These Baptist missionaries have businesses that need to be patronized so they can live. So, in 2006, they too are careful about whom they invite into their homes. Even so, the truth of the Gospel is spreading in Utah. This is happening world wide. Wherever you find persecution of Christians, you will find people who meet secretly to learn about Jesus and God and the “good news” spreads in spite of the persecution!

3) The early church was not buildings like we have today. It was the people and their homes where they met. A building representing a place of worship came several centuries later.

4) Jesus, was exposed to all these same things. Yet, He allowed us (sinners) into His house~~ He was NOT careful about whom He invited in~~ALL were welcome.


vs. 9 "Don't just pretend that you love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Stand on the side of good."

Paul is telling the Roman church that you must truly LOVE others. You must stand up for righteousness. You must hate evil.

Simply put, you love the sinner, hate the sin.

Boy, this can be hard! It is so easy to hate that homosexual or child abuser or wife beater or rapist or thief or adulterous spouse or murderer……

But Jesus set the example we are meant to follow. He allowed us into His home~~sinners that we were & still are; we can do no less. We too must allow “sinners” into our home, our church.

God and the angels rejoiced when we “came home” and acknowledged our Savior. They will do so when the next sinner sees the errors of his ways and repents.

When you "pretend" to love others; it is very obvious. This is what gives the secular world the view that Christianity is just a bunch of hypocrisy. What they fail to grasp, is that not ALL Christians are like this.

They grasp a generalization; which we all know is a bad thing to do; and apply it to an entire group of people. This is no different than stating that ALL blacks are poor, welfare supported, and ignorant. The intelligent person knows this simply is not true. Yes, there are blacks like this, but not ALL are.

Or what about the white race? There are many who believe they ALL are self-serving, greedy, manipulative, grasping, selfish, bigots. Once again, the intelligent person knows this simply is not true. Yes, there are whites like this, but not ALL are.

We could go on and do this for every race that exists on the planet. Because, people being people, have flaws. But to make generalizations about a "race" of people is WRONG. It is bigoted to do this. It is ignorance speaking.

And it is UNLOVING. You cannot profess to be a Christian if you pretend to love people but then believe these negative things. You then ARE a hypocrite~~and you haven't fooled anyone.

Those in the church who are hypocrites sometimes get involved so they can reap praise and adoration~~when they should be getting involved because they want to serve the Lord and their fellow human beings for God's Glory~~not theirs.

Or they get involved to help their businesses. They want patronage from their fellow "Christians".

The body of Christ knows there are hypocrites inside the church. They haven't fooled us. But it is our hope that someday, they begin to understand what it truly is all about. And then they will want to “serve” for the right reasons.

vs. 10a "Love each other with brotherly love..."

There are many types of "love". Brotherly love is different from sexual love. When Paul told the roman church to love each other with brotherly love, he was trying to teach them that we love each other but without a "sexual" context.

Being Southern and naturally friendly, I will hug someone I know. But I don't go around hugging everybody in church! Nor do I go around kissing them. This just is not appropriate. Churches that do this, ARE crossing a line. They are not practicing brotherly love anymore and are getting perilously close to a love of a sexual nature. That is opening doors to allow sin to enter in.

On the flip side, nor should you be curmudgeonly with affection. Giving a smile to someone can improve their day. Giving them a compliment or a kind word can help a bad day to become better. What has it cost you? Nothing!

Too selfish with affection is just as bad as being too affectionate. There is always a "happy medium"!

vs.10b "...and take delight in honoring each other."

As Christians we should support each other. We should do so because we WANT to do so. We should shop at our Christian brother's business, eat at our Christians sister's restaurant.

We should also support each other emotionally.

vs.11 “Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically.”

Often times, a person, new to Christ will start out enthusiastic and on fire. Then over time, they become more lackadaisical. Or we make a new year’s resolution to tithe our 10% every Sunday or attend church every week; then over the weeks we are less enthusiastic about it.

Personally, some Sunday mornings I lie in bed thinking how nice it would be just to “sleep in”. But I get up anyway. And you know, I am always blessed in some way for making that effort to get to church! It has never failed~~I was GLAD I had made the effort to go!

In order for a “church” to be strong, we must practice all the above verses of teaching that Paul shared with the Roman church. He was grooming them.

In teaching them, he has taught us.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following things can split or destroy a church.

1) Joining a committee to influence and “control” the rest of the church members.

2) Serving the church, but then quantifying the amount that service cost and deducting it from your tithe. Or bragging about your service for adulation~~when it is supposed to be done for God’s glory! We are serving the Lord, not ourselves.

3) Screening people to see if they “deserve” to be members of the church. Some churches will not let a homosexual to enter their church much less join. Some will not let a minority to enter much less join.

This type of screening is wrong. They have missed the whole point of Christ’s sacrifice! Jesus let them enter into His home, who are they to treat others this way then? How can they do less?

Flawed, sinful people have sat in judgment and then determined that someone is not worthy of forgiveness! There is no way they can justify their actions~~Jesus who forgave them can also forgive the very ones they are trying to exclude.



Southern Baptists do a type of screening. Anyone is welcome to attend church. But to become a member you will have to be a repentant sinner who has accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. That is our doctrine or belief system.

We welcome anyone into our worship service. We hope you will hear the truth of the Gospel. When it comes time to join, you will have to share either your salvation experience, or a letter from your previous church.

Our doors are open to you no matter your color, your sex, your education level, your previous religious experiences. We will openly worship with the homosexual; the adulterer; the wife-beater; the child abuser; the thief; the murderer.

But to join, you will need to be a repentant homosexual; adulterer; wife-beater; child abuser; thief; or murderer.

The Good News is there is NO sin too great for God to forgive!

Jesus loved YOU, already knowing the sins you would commit. He willingly died because of them, for YOU.

YOU are precious to God and Jesus.

And remember, after your conversion, to open your arms to the sinner and to continue to spread the “Good News”! After all, YOU can do no less!

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Who's your daddy?

A seminary professor was vacationing with his wife in Gatlinburg, TN. One morning, they were eating breakfast at a little restaurant, hoping to enjoy a quiet, family meal. While they were waiting for their food, they noticed a distinguished looking, white-haired man moving from table to table, visiting with the guests. The professor leaned over and whispered to his wife, "I hope he doesn't come over here." But sure enough, the man did come over to their table.

"Where are you folks from?" he asked in a friendly voice.

"Oklahoma," they answered.

"Great to have you here in Tennessee," the stranger said. "What do you do for a living?"

"I teach at a seminary," he replied.

"Oh, so you teach preachers how to preach, do you? Well!, I've got a really great story for you." And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple .

The professor groaned and thought to himself, "Great ... Just what I need ... another preacher story!"

The man started, "See that mountain over there? (pointing out the restaurant window). Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother. He had a hard time growing up, because every place he went, he was always asked the same question, 'Hey boy, Who's your daddy?' Whether he was at school, in the grocery store or drug store, people would ask the same question, 'Who's your daddy?'

He would hide at recess and lunchtime from other students. He would avoid going in to stores because that question hurt him so bad.

"When he was about 12 years old, a new preacher came to his church. He would always go in late and slip out early to avoid hearing the question, 'Who's your daddy?' But one day, the new preacher said the benediction so fast he got caught and had to walk out with the crowd.

Just about the time he got to the back door, the new preacher, not knowing anything about him, put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, Son, who's your daddy?

The whole church got deathly quiet. He could feel every eye in the church looking at him. Now everyone would finally know the answer to the question, 'Who's your daddy?'

"This new preacher, though, sensed the situation around him and using discernment that only the Holy Spirit could give, said the following to that scared little boy ... "Wait a minute! I know who you are. I see the family resemblance now. You are a child of God. "

With that he patted the boy on his shoulder and said,
“Boy, you've got a great inheritance. Go and claim it.”

"With that, the boy smiled for the first time in a long time and walked out the door a changed person. He was never the same again. Whenever anybody asked him, 'Who's your Daddy?' he'd just tell them, ‘I'm a Child of God.'"

The distinguished gentleman got up from the table and said, "Isn't that a great story?"

The professor responded that it really was a great story!

As the man turned to leave, he said, "You know, if that new preacher hadn't told me that I was one of God's children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!" And he walked away.

The seminary professor and his wife were stunned. He called the waitress over & asked her, "Do you know who that man was who just left that was sitting at our table?"

The waitress grinned and said, "Of course. Everybody here knows him. That's Ben Hooper. He's the former governor of Tennessee!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Someone in your life today needs a reminder that they're one of God's children!

"The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of God stands forever." ~~Isaiah

YOU'RE ONE OF GOD'S CHILDREN!!! HAVE A GREAT DAY!


The shortest distance between a problem and
a solution is the distance between your knees
and the floor!






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More Church Signs

Author/Artist Unknown~~came via Email

U R

Life is Hard
Afterlife is Harder!

Even though you can't see Him, GOD is there!


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Dear Abby's oft-requested list of New Year's Resolutions

Adapted from the original credo of Al-Anon.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will live through this day only. I will not brood about yesterday or obsess about tomorrow. I will not set far-reaching goals or try to overcome all of my problems at once. I know that I can do something for 24 hours that would overwhelm me if I had to keep it up for a lifetime.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will be happy. I will not dwell on thoughts that depress me. If my mind fills with clouds, I will chase them away and fill it with sunshine.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will accept what is. I will face reality. I will correct those things that I can correct and accept those I cannot.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will improve my mind. I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration. I will not be a mental loafer.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will make a conscious effort to be agreeable. I will be kind and courteous to those who cross my path, and I'll not speak ill of others. I'll improve my appearance, speak softly, and not interrupt when someone else is talking. Just for today, I'll refrain from improving anybody but myself.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will do something positive to improve my health. If I'm a smoker, I'll quit. If I'm overweight, I'll eat healthily -- if only just for today. And not only that, I'll get off the couch and take a brisk walk, even if it's only around the block.

JUST FOR TODAY, I will gather the courage to do what is right and take responsibility for my own actions.

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