There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31
When you confessed Jesus as Lord, you did so to the glory of God. Now whatever else you do—even the most mundane functions of life such as eating and drinking—should be focused on the glory of God. That should be the underlying attitude of your life.
Jesus observed His focus in this way: “I honor My Father…. I do not seek My own glory” (John 8:49, 50). You will grow spiritually when you follow Christ’s example of ssubmit your life to Christ’s lordship, you will be characterized by His humble desire to glorify the Father.[1]
February 7
God’s Holiness Revealed
“The Lord is righteous in all His ways.”
Psalm 145:17
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God’s holiness is evident in everything He does, particularly in creation, the law, judgment, and salvation.
The whole purpose of the Old Testament is to reveal the holiness and righteousness of God, who is utterly perfect and pure. In fact, the Hebrew word for “holy” is used more than 600 times in the Old Testament to indicate moral perfection.
What are some areas in which we see God’s holiness? First, we see it in the original perfection of His creation: “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). All of creation was in tune with God’s holy character.
Later God laid down His righteous, moral law for Israel. In it He gave rules about worship and society. He prescribed penalties for murder, adultery, and stealing. He condemned lying, coveting, and many other sins. There were many rules, but they revealed a God who is infinitely right and without error, flaw, or tolerance for sin. The law showed God’s character: “The Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Rom. 7:12).
God’s holiness will ultimately be demonstrated “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thess. 1:7–9). His judgment on sin is a reflection of His holiness; He must punish it.
Perhaps the supreme expression of God’s holiness is seen in sending His Son to die on the cross (cf. Rom. 8:3–4). God paid the highest price, but it was the only price that could satisfy His holiness. Jesus Christ is Himself “the Holy and Righteous One” (Acts 3:14); so only He could “put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Heb. 9:26). God’s holiness is so infinite, and our unholiness is so great, that only the sacrifice of the God–man could pay for the enormity of our sin.
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Suggestions for Prayer: Thank God that He sent His Son to die for our sins, so we could be “holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4).
For Further Study: Some of God’s laws for the Israelites are given in Exodus 21–23. Note in particular the penalties for breaking these laws. What does this passage teach you about God’s character?[2]
FEBRUARY 7
A VOICE OUT OF THE SILENCE
And after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORDwas not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
—1 Kings 19:11-12
It is significant that the psalm in which the words “Be still” occur is filled with noise and commotion. The earth shakes, the waters roar and are troubled, the mountains threaten to tumble into the midst of the sea, the nations rage, the kingdoms are moved and the sound of war is heard throughout the land. Then a voice is heard out of the silence saying, “Be still, and know that I am God” ([Psalm] 46:10).
So today we must listen till our inner ears hear the words of God. When the Voice is heard, it will not be as the excited shouting of the nervous world; rather it will be the reassuring call of One of whom it was said, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street” (Isaiah 42:2).
It cannot be heard in the street, but it may be heard plainly enough in the heart. And that is all that matters at last. GTM018
Quiet the storms around me and still my heart, Lord, that I may hear the call of Your still small voice. Amen.[3]
February 7
Healings’ Extraordinary Confirmations
Large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond Jordan.—Matt. 4:25
The healing miracles of Jesus accomplished things that surpassed and were far more significant than the obvious, immediate benefit to those healed. First, they demonstrated He was the Son of God, since no mere man could do such feats. Jesus later instructed Philip and the other disciples, “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves” (John 14:11).
Second, the marvelous healings revealed that God, through Christ, was and is compassionate to all who suffer: “Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes; and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him” (Matt. 20:34).
Third, Jesus’ healings proved He was the predicted Messiah of the Old Testament. Jesus directly told John the Baptist’s disciples, “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them” (Matt. 11:4–5; cf. Isa. 35:5–10; 61:1–3).
Finally, the healing miracles proved that God’s kingdom is a reality (cf. Matt. 9:35; 10:7–8). Perhaps even more marvelous for us is that Jesus’ healings were a foretaste of a future kingdom: “The eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy” (Isa. 35:5–6; cf. Ps. 96:10).
ASK YOURSELF
Certainly, many in the “large crowds” came for what they viewed as a sideshow, an entertaining diversion from the humdrum. But are we often guilty of following while expecting nothing? Are you still willing to believe God for the unexplainable?[4]
FEBRUARY 7
CHRIST IS NOT DIVIDED
Jesus answered…If a man love me, he will keep my words.
John 14:23
Much of our full gospel literature and much of our preaching tend to perpetuate a misunderstanding of what the Bible says about obedience and Christian discipleship.
I think the following is a fair statement of what I was taught in my early Christian experience and before I began to pray and study and anguish over the whole matter:
“We are saved by accepting Christ as our Savior.”
“We are sanctified by accepting Christ as our Lord.”
“We may do the first without doing the second.”
What a tragedy that in our day we often hear the gospel appeal made in this way:
“Come to Jesus! You do not have to obey anyone. You do not have to give up anything. Just come to Him and believe in Him as Savior!”
The fact that we hear this everywhere does not make it right! To urge men and women to believe in a divided Christ is bad teaching—for no one can receive a half or a third or a quarter of the divine Person of Christ!
Heavenly Father, You are a wonderful Savior and Lord deserving my full obedience to all of Your teachings. Forgive me, Lord, for the times that I’ve obeyed only a portion of Your Word. Show me the areas in my life in which I am weak.[5]
February 7
The Joy of Sacrificial Giving
“… saints … who are in Philippi” (Phil. 1:1).
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As you give toward the needs of others, God will supply your needs.
Perhaps more than any other New Testament church, the Philippian church was characterized by generous, sacrificial giving. Their support for Paul extended throughout his missionary travels and was a source of great joy to him. In addition to money, they also sent Epaphroditus, a godly man who ministered to Paul during his imprisonment (Phil. 2:25–30; 4:18).
Paul was selective about accepting financial support from churches because he didn’t want to be a burden or have his motives misunderstood. First Corinthians 9:6–14 tells us he had the right to receive support from those he ministered to, but he waived that right so the gospel would not be hindered in any way. In 2 Corinthians 11:9 he says, “When I was present with you and was in need, I was not a burden to anyone … in everything I kept myself from being a burden to you, and will continue to do so.”
Similarly he wrote to the Thessalonians, “We did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we might not be a burden to any of you” (2 Thess. 3:7–9).
In contrast, Paul’s willingness to accept support from the Philippian church speaks of the special trust and affection they shared.
Apparently the Philippians’ generosity was so great, it left them with needs of their own. Paul assured them that their sacrifices were well-pleasing to God and that He would supply all their needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:18–19).
Like the Philippians, you should be characterized by generous, sacrificial support of those who minister God’s Word to you. Faithful pastors and elders are worthy of such honor (1 Tim. 5:17–18), and generous giving brings joy to you and to others.
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Suggestions for Prayer: Thank God for those who faithfully minister to you. ✧ Ask for wisdom in how you might best support the financial needs of your church.
For Further Study: Read 1 Corinthians 9:1–14, 2 Corinthians 9:6–14, and 1 Timothy 6:6–9. ✧ What attitudes and principles are reflected in those passages? ✧ How might you incorporate them into your financial practices?[6]
FEBRUARY 7
A COMPROMISE: “THE CHURCH MUST CHANGE”
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine …and they shall turn away their ears from the truth….
2 TIMOTHY 4:3, 4
Any evangelism which by appeal to common interests and chatter about current events seeks to establish a common ground where the sinner can feel at home is as false as the altars of Baal ever were.
Every effort to smooth out the road for men and to take away the guilt and the embarrassment is worse than wasted: it is evil and dangerous to the souls of men! One of the most popular of current errors, and the one out of which springs most of the noisy, blustering religious activity in evangelical circles, is the notion that as times change the church must change with them. Christians must adapt their methods by the demands of the people. If they want ten-minute sermons, give them ten-minute sermons! If they want truth in capsule form, give it to them! If they want pictures, give them plenty of pictures! If they like stories, tell them stories!
Meanwhile, the advocates of compromise insist that “The message is the same, only the method changes.” “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad,” the old Greeks said, and they were wiser than they knew. That mentality which mistakes Sodom for Jerusalem and Hollywood for the Holy City is too gravely astray to be explained otherwise than as a judicial madness visited upon professed Christians for affronts committed against the Spirit of God![7]
[1] MacArthur, J. (2001). Truth for today : a daily touch of God’s grace (p. 50). Nashville, Tenn.: J. Countryman.
[2] MacArthur, J. (1997). Strength for today. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
[3] Tozer, A. W., & Eggert, R. (2015). Tozer on the almighty god: a 365-day devotional. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
[4] MacArthur, J. (2008). Daily readings from the life of Christ (p. 46). Chicago: Moody Publishers.
[5] Tozer, A. W. (2015). Mornings with tozer: daily devotional readings. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
[6] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1993). Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith (p. 50). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
[7] Tozer, A. W., & Smith, G. B. (2015). Evenings with tozer: daily devotional readings. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
Our good friend and fellow polemicist Jeff Maples from Pulpit & Pen addresses the latest development in the sad downgrade of Perry Noble, former founder and pastor of Newspring Church:
Perry Noble’s Ended preaching Career Revived At Elevation Church
Notable former pastor and founder of Newspring church in Anderson, SC gave his tacit approval of alcohol consumption in 2013. Three years later, he was fired by his church for “falling into sin” with alcoholism. The elders of his church made the decision to terminate him from the pastorate. Less than two months later, after a 30-day alcohol rehab program, he claimed to be cured of his disease and vowed to return to ministry.
I spent 30 days in a treatment facility in Arizona from mid-July until mid-August. Being in that place allowed me to come face to face with issues from my past as well as my current struggle, and…
Our good friend and fellow polemicist Amy Spreeman, contributor to Pirate Christian Radio, presents the 8th article in her series about those who found themselves in this dreadful bondage, and what happened when their eyes were opened.
“Our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. According to my family, we are “troublemakers,” “harsh,” “divisive,” “ignorant,” and my favorite, “tricky.”
Do you have family members who are deceived? Fortunately and by God’s grace, Heather and her husband were not tricked into believing the counterfeit doctrines of the New Apostolic Reformation. But, like many of you, her extended family fell hook, line and sinker for the NAR, and is trapped in the bondage of a movement that contains doctrines of demons.
Heather has allowed me to include her story in this series about a movement called the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR for short. In this series, I want to take readers…
President Donald Trump’s executive order banning entry to the U.S. to
refugees and citizens of seven nations will take effect in Massachusetts on
Sunday after a federal judge refused to extend a temporary ruling blocking
its enforcement.
President Donald Trump said the process for coming up with a replacement
for the Affordable Care Act could stretch into 2018, a longer time frame
than he previously indicated.
Political uncertainty across the globe is acting as a unifying force for
European Union countries after the U.K.’s “sobering” decision to leave,
according to the nation that’s gearing up to take on the bloc’s rotating
presidency in July.
58 percent of the top executives at Britain’s biggest firms that responded
to the Ipsos MORI “Captains of Industry” poll said the vote to quit the
bloc has had a negative impact on their businesses. Two-thirds of the chief
executives, chairmen and directors interviewed for the survey said they
believed the business situation would worsen in the next 12 months.
About 140 Somali refugees whose resettlement in the United States this week
was stopped by President Donald Trump’s executive order have been sent back
to their refugee camp instead.
U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley plans to take a close look at United Nations
peacekeeping operations as part of a goal to reduce contributions to the
international organization.
Billionaire bond investor Bill Gross says investors should plan for asset
purchases by global central bankers to continue to dominate financial
markets and keep interest rates artificially low. “For now, investors must
go with, indeed embrace this financial methadone QE fix,” Gross wrote.
Gold will climb about 6 percent through the end of the year as investors
seek a shelter from the rising political risk surrounding President Donald
Trump, according to Independent Strategy Ltd.’s David Roche, who has about
45 years of experience covering markets.
Australia has ordered the sale of 15 properties illegally acquired by
overseas buyers as part of the government’s crackdown on breaches of its
foreign investment laws.
AP Top Stories
An Afghan diplomat was shot and killed by his security guard inside the
consulate in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Monday, officials said.
To support those affected by President Trump’s recent executive orders on
immigration and to protest his selection of “anti-LGBT nominees and
appointees,” an LGBT Solidarity Rally took place Saturday at New York’s
Stonewall National Monument in the area surrounding the Stonewall Inn, the
famous gay bar.
After mass protests t have rocked the country for days, Romania’s
government announced that it will repeal a highly controversial emergency
decree that decriminalizes official misconduct.
A teenager was hit by a train while taking pictures with her friend in
Florida on Friday, according to reports. According to a police report, she
wanted to get a picture of herself with an oncoming train in the background
and she stood next to the track.
The family of an Iranian infant who was temporarily banned from coming to
the United States for life-saving heart surgery is “overwhelmingly relieved
and thrilled” the child will now be able to have the treatment, their
lawyer said Saturday.
Seven percent of Catholic priests were accused of abusing children in
Australia between 1950 and 2010 but the allegations were never
investigated, “shocking and indefensible” data showed Monday during an
inquiry into pedophilia in the church.
The Trump administration has for now backed off a draft executive order
that would have called for a review of whether the United States should
reopen overseas “black site” prisons, where interrogation techniques often
condemned as torture were used, U.S. officials have told Reuters.
More than 120 migrants including women and children were rescued by Libyan
coastguards Sunday off the coast of Tripoli after their boat ran into
trouble.
Syrian troops and allied militia on Sunday chipped away at territory held
by Islamic State jihadists on several fronts across the country, state
media and a monitoring group said.
In the labor market we’re seeing another trend that casts some doubt on
just how strong the hiring environment is, employment at big US companies
is slowing for the first time since the recession.
BBC
Thousands of blue blubber jellyfish have washed up at an Australian beach,
surprising locals and marine experts.
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan have hit a new high, including a
ten-fold increase in casualties from attacks linked to Islamic State (IS)
militants. In its annual report, the UN said 3,498 civilians were killed
and 7,920 wounded in 2016, a 3% rise on 2015. The number of children killed
or injured jumped by a quarter to its highest level to date.
Heavy snow and avalanches have killed more than 106 people and injured
dozens in Afghanistan.
WND
Sanctuary cities receive over $27 billion each year from the federal
government, giving President Donald Trump significant leverage over cities
such as New York and San Francisco to enforce immigration law, according to
a new report.
As officials around the world have faced a confusing barrage of attacks
dedicated to the Islamic State, cases offer troubling examples of what
counterterrorism experts are calling enabled or remote-controlled attacks:
violence conceived and guided by operatives in areas controlled by the
Islamic State whose only connection to the would-be attacker is the
internet.
“Get involved in the upcoming revolution!” That’s what a Columbia
University student was telling passers-by on campus as he handed out flyers
for a Thursday event calling for a new socialist order in response to
Donald Trump’s presidency. If the “revolution” indeed started on Thursday,
it amounted to gushing over how much political violence can accomplish for
socialism.
The Briefing 02-06-17
Capitalism, consumerism, and the quintessential American spectacle of Super Bowl LI
Lab-made mini-brains are sprouting their own blood vessels Now, the researchers have discovered something new about these mini-brains: the neural cells are growing their own blood vessels too, opening the door for better studies of stroke, Alzheimer’s and concussion.
The Final Jihad What do Islamists really want? Clarion Project delves into the deep, dark vision of radical Islamic jihadis. (video)
Trump Is Driving the Worst People Crazy Greg Gutfeld said Saturday that President Trump’s actions during his first few weeks in office are driving the “worst people” crazy. “No one can handle Trump,” he said, including the “frantic media [and] bed-wetting celebrities.”
USS Cole Deployed Off Coast of Yemen After Suicide Attack on Saudi Vessel On Monday, a Houthi rebel boat loaded with explosives rammed into a Saudi Al Madinah-class frigate in the Red Sea, killing two and wounding three. Two defense officials told Fox News after the incident that the attack was intended for an American vessel.
Planting the Seeds of the Third Temple – Literally! The nascent Sanhedrin is setting out to reinstate the Biblical Temple forest as part of their ongoing effort to bring the Third Temple into existence and has already begun planting around Israel to provide the agricultural needs of the Third Temple.
Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.
Turkey: Earthquake strikes near western coast An earthquake of 5.2-magnitude struck near the western coast of Turkey on Monday morning, according to media reports. The earthquake, which occurred in the wee hours of Monday, was located 26 kilometers to the west of the Turkish town of Ayvacık, according to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre.
Column one: The Trump way of war The PLO is disoriented, panicked and hysterical. Speaking to Newsweek this week, Saeb Erekat, PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s chief conduit to Israel and the Americans, complained that since President Donald Trump was sworn into office, no administration official had spoken to them.
U.S., Japan successfully conduct missile interception test The U.S. Missile Defence Agency announced that the ‘USS John Paul Jones’ detected, tracked and took out the target ballistic missile using its onboard Aegis Missile Defense System and a Standard Missile-3 Block IIA interceptor, reports the CNN.
NOAA Scientists Manipulated Temperature Data To Make Global Warming Seem Worse Bates said NOAA scientists made a “blatant attempt to intensify the impact” of global warming to eliminate the “pause” in temperature rise since 1998. The Daily Mail claims Bates showed it “irrefutable” evidence NOAA’s study relied on “unverified” data.
Putin disagrees with Trump: Iran not a terrorist state
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman told reporters on Monday that the Kremlin did not agree with comments by US President Donald Trump that Iran was a terrorist state. But differences between Russia and the United States should not stop the two countries from building a mutually beneficial relationship, said Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman.
IDF fires at Hamas targets in response to Gaza rocket attack on Israel
A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip landed in the Ashkelon Coast Regional Council in southern Israel on Monday morning. Security forces were sweeping the area for remnants of the projectile. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage in the attack. The IDF fired tank rounds at Hamas targets in northern Gaza in response to the rocket fire, the military said.
Iran: ‘Only seven minutes needed for the Iranian missile to hit Tel Aviv’
“Only seven minutes is needed for the Iranian missile to hit Tel Aviv,” senior member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission and former Revolutionary Guard official, Majtaba Zonour, told semi-official Fars News Agency Saturday. His comments follow days of heated exchanges between US and Iranian officials.
Fall armyworm ‘threatens African farmers’ livelihoods’
Scientists are calling for urgent action to halt the spread of a pest that is destroying maize crops and spreading rapidly across Africa. The fall armyworm poses a major threat to food security and agricultural trade, warns the Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International (Cabi). It says farmers’ livelihoods are at risk as the non-native larvae threatens to reach Asia and the Mediterranean.
7% of Australian Catholic priests allegedly abused children, inquiry told
An inquiry examining institutional sex abuse in Australia has heard 7% of the nation’s Catholic priests allegedly abused children between 1950 and 2010. In one order, more than 40% of church figures were accused of abuse. Almost 4,500 people claim to have been victims between 1980 and 2015, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse was told.
Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data
The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that…the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change…(NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders…at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.
China protests U.S. sanction list on Iran that hits Chinese firms
China on Monday said it had “lodged representations” with the United States over Washington’s new sanctions list targeting Iran, which includes Chinese companies and individuals. The sanctions on 25 people and entities imposed on Friday by President Donald Trump’s administration, and came two days it had put Iran ‘on notice’ following a ballistic missile test.
Pentagon failed to disclose up to thousands of air strikes: report
The Pentagon has failed to disclose up to thousands of air strikes the U.S. military carried out over several years in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan against militants in those countries, the Military Times reported on Sunday. Last year, the United States carried out at least 456 air strikes in Afghanistan that were not documented in a U.S. Air Force database, the website reported.
Japan’s Mr Yen says dollar could fall below 100 yen by end-2017
Japan’s former currency czar Eisuke Sakakibara said the dollar could fall below 100 yen by year-end on U.S. President Donald Trump’s perceived support for a weak dollar, but cautioned that any yen-selling intervention by Tokyo might be counterproductive. Sakakibara, who was known as “Mr Yen” in the 1990s when he actively led currency intervention to stem a strong yen…
It’s Time To Start Worrying About China Again
The central bank on Friday increased the interest rates on reverse repo by 10bp – the last time the PBOC raised OMO rates was more than two years ago in 2014. The PBOC also increased SLF rates, in what some have dubbed “the Most Important Unnoticed Global Event.”
France’s Le Pen launches election bid with vow to fight globalization
France’s far-right party leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday told thousands of flag-waving supporters chanting “This is our country!” that she alone could protect them against Islamic fundamentalism and globalization if elected president in May.
The U.S. military’s stats on deadly airstrikes are wrong. Thousands have gone unreported
The American military has failed to publicly disclose potentially thousands of lethal airstrikes conducted over several years in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, a Military Times investigation has revealed. The enormous data gap raises serious doubts about transparency in reported progress against the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Taliban, and calls into question the accuracy of other Defense Department disclosures documenting everything from costs to casualty counts.
Chelsea Clinton Is the Last Thing the Democratic Party Needs
Since Hillary Clinton’s presidential election loss, rumors have circulated that speculate about what she will do next. In trying to predict Clinton’s future—from running for mayor of New York City to hosting her own TV show—the idea has also been advanced that her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, may enter politics herself. Though being the progeny of the widely-disliked Bill and Hillary should disqualify Chelsea, the Democratic Party’s cultist obsession with her family’s access to a vast network of wealthy donors leaves any congressional race of her choosing open to Chelsea if she wants to run.
TRUMP: ‘If something happens,’ blame the judge who blocked my immigration order
President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested the blame for future terrorist attacks would lie at the feet of a judge who blocked his executive order temporarily barring immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US.
Bay Area Conservatives Keep Meetups Secret Fearing For Their Safety
Some East Bay conservatives say they live a secret life. They can never tell anyone what they really feel like in fear of their safety. Robert Ward is coming out conservative, but in a place he says is risky for those who share his beliefs.
Radiation inside one of the damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power facility has reached an “unimaginable” level according to experts. Because so much nuclear material from Fukushima escaped into the Pacific Ocean, there are many scientists that believe that it was the worst environmental disaster in human history, but most people in the general population seem to think that since the mainstream media really doesn’t talk about it anymore that everything must be under control. Unfortunately, that is not true at all. In fact, PBS reported just last year that “it is incorrect to say that Fukushima is under control when levels of radioactivity in the ocean indicate ongoing leaks“. And now we have just learned that the radiation level inside reactor 2 is so high that no human could possibly survive being exposed to it. (Read More…)
When debt grows much faster than GDP for an extended period of time, it is inevitable that a good portion of that debt will start to go bad at some point. We witnessed a perfect example of this in 2008, and now it is starting to happen again. Commercial bankruptcies have been rising on a year-over-year basis since late 2015, and this is something that I have written about previously, but now consumer bankruptcies are also increasing. In fact, we have just witnessed U.S. consumer bankruptcies do something that they haven’t done in nearly 7 years. The following comes from Wolf Richter… (Read More…)
A Love of Hate: The Addiction of the New American Left
“No Trump! No KKK! No Fascist USA!”.
Damning. Morally righteous. A call to arms against darkness. This is how the new American left views itself and its opposition to President Donald Trump: a bulwark against a perceived tide of evil, where only leftists’ pink hats and calls to #resist stand a chance to prevent a historic cataclysm from a caricature of an administration believed to embody all the elements necessary to be categorized as evil.
The lawsuits largely stem from organizations bankrolled by billionaire leftist George Soros and Democratic state attorneys general
More than a dozen lawsuits and counting have been filed against President Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily blocks visas from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. Looking beyond the handful of emotional personal stories that are gaining the media’s sympathy, there is a more predictable political power dynamic at play.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has carried out a political vendetta against Trump, led 15 other state attorneys general in a joint statement condemning what they called an “unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful executive order.” The Democratic AGs also said, “Religious liberty has been, and always will be, a bedrock principle of our country and no president can change that truth,” a curious statement from the party that targeted the Little Sisters of the Poor.
George Soros: Donald Trump Will Fail And Markets Won’t Do Well
Last August, George Soros’ son, Alex Soros, posted a picture of himself with Schneiderman on Instagram, and wrote, “Great to meet with #newyork attorney general @ericschneiderman who recognized that @realdonaldtrump was a fraud way before many and has courageously taken him on!”
Schneiderman, as well as Democratic attorneys general in Virginia and Massachusetts, intervened in existing lawsuits. The lawsuit brought by Washington State Attorney General Robert Ferguson has achieved the most success, bringing the case that blocked the order nationwide.
The lawsuit convinced a federal judge of the state’s standing on the claim the order is “separating Washington families, harming thousands of Washington residents, damaging Washington’s economy, hurting Washington-based companies and undermining Washington’s sovereign interest in remaining a welcoming place for immigrants and refugees.”
Democrats are even raising money off the lawsuits. In a Facebook post, the Democratic Attorneys General Association said, “Stand with Attorney General Bob Ferguson and all Democratic State Attorneys General fighting for what’s right!” It added, “Chip in to support Democratic AGs fighting for progressive rights and freedoms.”
Outside of the politicians, Soros’ Open Society Foundations, which advocates for open borders, is financing several advocacy groups that initiated litigation against the order.
Leading the way in these lawsuits in several states is the American Civil Liberties Union, which has gotten at least $35.5 million from the Open Society Foundations, according to the Capital Research Center, a Washington think tank that investigates nonprofits.
Soros also gave $4.6 million to the National Immigration Law Center, which has been involved in litigation, according to the CRC; and $621,000 to the Urban Justice Center, which has an appendage known as the International Refugee Assistance Project that has jumped into the lawsuits, according to the CRC. source
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God made everything out of nothing, including you and me. His main purpose in creation was to bring him pleasure.
The chief way in which we as humanity do this is through loving, obeying, and enjoying him perfectly.
Instead of this, we have sinned against our loving Creator and acted in high-handed rebellion.
God has vowed that he will righteously and lovingly judge sinners with eternal death.
But God, being merciful, loving, gracious, and just, sent his own son, Jesus Christ, in the likeness of man to live as a man; fulfilling his perfect requirements in the place of sinners; loving, obeying, and enjoying him perfectly.
And further, his son bore the eternal judgment of God upon the cross of Calvary, as he satisfied the eternal anger of God, standing in the place of sinners. God treated Jesus as a sinner, though he was perfectly sinless, that he might declare sinners as perfect.
This glorious transaction occurs as the sinner puts their faith (dependence, trust) in the Lord Jesus Christ as their substitute. God then charges Christ’s perfection to the sinner, and no longer views him as an enemy but instead an adopted son covered in the perfect righteousness of his son.
God furnished proof that this sacrifice was accepted by raising Jesus from the dead.
God will judge the world in righteousness and all of those who are not covered in the righteousness of Christ, depending on him for forgiveness, will be forced to stand on their own to bear the eternal anger of God.
Therefore, all must turn from sin and receive Christ Jesus as Lord.
There is no greater message to be heard than that which we call the gospel. But as important as that is, it is often given to massive distortions or over simplifications. People think they’re preaching the gospel to you when they tell you, ‘you can have a purpose to your life’, or that ‘you can have meaning to your life’, or that ‘you can have a personal relationship with Jesus.’ All of those things are true, and they’re all important, but they don’t get to the heart of the gospel.
The gospel is called the ‘good news’ because it addresses the most serious problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this: God is holy and He is just, and I’m not. And at the end of my life, I’m going to stand before a just and holy God, and I’ll be judged. And I’ll be judged either on the basis of my own righteousness–or lack of it –or the righteousness of another. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has done for me what I couldn’t possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the justice and the righteousness of God.
The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn’t concerned to protect His own integrity. He’s a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter. It cost the sacrifice of His own Son. So valuable was that sacrifice that God pronounced it valuable by raising Him from the dead – so that Christ died for us, He was raised for our justification. So the gospel is something objective. It is the message of who Jesus is and what He did. And it also has a subjective dimension. How are the benefits of Jesus subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by our deeds, but by faith–and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ’s life and death is by putting your trust in Him–and in Him alone. You do that, you’re declared just by God, you’re adopted into His family, you’re forgiven of all of your sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity.
The Gospel In A Nutshell
Now, with regard to this rule of faith—that we may from this point acknowledge what it is which we defend—it is, you must know, that which prescribes the belief that there is one only God, and that He is none other than the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing through His own Word, first of all sent forth; that this Word is called His Son, and, under the name of God, was seen “in diverse manners” by the patriarchs, heard at all times in the prophets, at last brought down by the Spirit and Power of the Father into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, went forth as Jesus Christ; thenceforth He preached the new law and the new promise of the kingdom of heaven, worked miracles; having been crucified, He rose again the third day; (then) having ascended into the heavens, He sat at the right hand of the Father; sent instead of Himself the Power of the Holy Ghost to lead such as believe; will come with glory to take the saints to the enjoyment of everlasting life and of the heavenly promises, and to condemn the wicked to everlasting fire, after the resurrection of both these classes shall have happened, together with the restoration of their flesh. This rule, as it will be proved, was taught by Christ, and raises amongst ourselves no other questions than those which heresies introduce, and which make men heretics.
Tertullian, “On Prescription Against Heretics,” Chapter XIIl
What exactly do Christians mean when they talk about the “gospel of Jesus Christ”? Since the word “gospel” means “good news,” when Christians talk about the gospel, they’re simply telling the good news about Jesus! It’s a message from God saying, “Good news! Here is how you can be saved from my judgment!” That’s an announcement you can’t afford to ignore.
Why Is the Gospel Good News?
So, what is the good news about Jesus Christ?
Since the earliest Christians announced the good news about Jesus, it has been organized around these questions:
Who made us, and to whom are we accountable?
What is our problem?
What is God’s solution to our problem?
How can I be included in his solution?
Christians through the centuries since Christ have answered those questions with the same truth from the Bible.
We are accountable to God.
Our problem is our sin against him.
God’s solution is salvation through Jesus Christ.
We come to be included in that salvation by faith and repentance.
Let’s summarize those points like this: God, Mankind, Jesus Christ, and Our Response.
God
The first thing to know about the good news of Jesus is that “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). Everything starts from that point, so if you get that point wrong then everything else that follows will be wrong. Because God created everything—including us—he has the right to tell us how to live. You have to understand that in order to understand the good news about Jesus. To understand just how glorious and life-giving the gospel of Jesus Christ is, we have to understand that God is also holy and righteous. He is determined never to ignore or tolerate sin. Including ours!
Mankind
When God created the first human beings, Adam and Eve, he intended for them to live under his righteous rule in perfect joy—obeying him and living in fellowship with him. When Adam disobeyed God, though, and ate the one fruit that God had told him not to eat, that fellowship with God was broken. Moreover, Adam and Eve had declared rebellion against God. They were denying his authority over their lives.
It’s not just Adam and Eve who are guilty of sin. The Bible says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Sin is the rejection of God himself and his authority over those to whom he gives life.
Once you understand sin in that light, you begin to understand why “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That’s not just physical death, but spiritual death, a forceful separating of our sinful, rebellious selves from the presence of God forever. The Bible teaches that the final destiny for unbelieving sinners is eternal, active judgment in a place called “hell.”
But . . .
Jesus Christ
The word “Christ” means “anointed one,” referring to anointing a king with oil when he is crowned. So, when we say “Jesus Christ,” we’re saying that Jesus is a King!
When Jesus began his public ministry, he told the people, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news!” As Jesus died on a cross, the awful weight of all our sins fell on his shoulders. The sentence of death God had pronounced against rebellious sinners struck. And Jesus died. For you and me!
But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus the Crucified is no longer dead. The Bible tells us that he rose from the grave. Jesus’s rising from the grave was God’s way of saying, “What Jesus claimed about who he is and what he came to do is true!”
Our Response
What does God expect us to do with the information that Jesus died in our place so we can be saved from God’s righteous wrath against our sins? He expects us to respond with repentance and faith.
To repent of our sins means to turn away from our rebellion against God. Repentance doesn’t mean we’ll bring an immediate end to our sinning. It does mean, though, that we’ll never again live at peace with our sins.
Not only that, but we also turn to God in faith. Faith is reliance. It’s a promise-founded trust in the risen Jesus to save you from your sins. If God is ever to count us righteous, he’ll have to do it on the basis of someone else’s record, someone who’s qualified to stand in as our substitute. And that’s what happens when a person is saved by Jesus: All our sins are credited to Jesus who took the punishment for them, and the perfect righteousness of Jesus is then credited to us when we place our trust in what he has done for us! That’s what faith means—to rely on Jesus, to trust in him alone to stand in our place and win a righteous verdict from God!
Ravi Zacharias explains the gospel in two minutes:
The five main components of the gospel can be remembered on 5 fingers of one hand. Here they are:
1) Jesus’ birth 2) Jesus’ life 3) Jesus’ death 4) Jesus’ resurrection 5) Jesus’ ascension
Obviously each point can be elaborated on depending on how much time you have. Here’s the short version:
1) Jesus’ birth – Jesus, God himself, the creator of the universe, the Messiah, became a human being – took on flesh, and was born of a virgin.
2) Jesus’ life – Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience to his Father. Though he was tempted in every way as we are, he never once sinned.
3) Jesus’ death – on the cross, Jesus himself took all our sins and paid for them. God the father counted all our sins to Jesus as if he himself had personally committed them. Then Jesus bore God’s wrath towards sin – the punishment we deserved – as a substitute for us.
4) Jesus’ resurrection – within 3 days, Jesus rose physically from the dead, proving that his sacrifice for sins have been accepted by God, since the punishment for sin was death. Jesus was seen by numerous people after he rose including 500 at one time (1 Corinthians 15).
5) Jesus’ ascension – Jesus ascended physically into heaven where he reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords. And someday he will return to the earth.
That’s the gospel, the good news, and if we believe in Jesus Christ and this good news and call upon him he will save us from our sins and give us eternal life.
That’s a simple way to remember the gospel – five fingers. Even a child can do it. So ask God to give you opportunities to share his good news today.
Please take the time to watch this clip, so that you might understand the authentic Gospel
This is the Gospel:
Friend, God is holy. There is a God in heaven who has created you and me, and He is the authority over both of us. He is perfectly holy. “In Him is Light, and there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). And the problem with that is that if we want to have fellowship with God, we have to be light and no darkness at all. And yet here’s the problem: we are darkness. We are sinful. We’ve all broken His law. We’ve all lied, stolen, we’ve all looked with lust, we’ve all been angry with our brothers in our hearts. We’ve all fallen short of the glorious standard of perfection that God requires (Rom 3:23). And there’s nothing we can do about it. No amount of works, no amount of contrition, no amount of bad feelings, no amount of church attendance, no amount of Bible reading, no amount of evangelism can earn forgiveness of our sins and the righteousness which God requires (Titus 3:5; cf. Isa 64:6).
And yet God is gracious, and He loves us, and as His creatures He wants to display His glory in us by rescuing us from that. And so He sent His Son—God in the flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ—to be born as a helpless little baby (John 1:14; 3:16; Col 2:9). God of the universe, Sustainer of the universe, Himself being sustained in the womb of a teenage Hebrew girl, and upholding the world by the word of His power (Heb 1:3) while He is upheld by the nutrients from her own body! Unspeakable! And in great humility, He grows up with the growing pains of life in a fallen world, though He Himself never being with any sin—without sin entirely (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15; 7:26). And He lives a perfectly righteous life. The way that you and I have failed to live before God—the way that we have failed in thought, word, and deed, and fallen short of God’s glory—Christ never did. Not even a thought. He loved God, His Father, perfectly. He always walked in perfect righteousness. He lived the life that you were commanded to live, that I was commanded to live, that we failed to live. He lived that perfect life that God is worthy of.
And not only did He live for us, He died for us. He went to the cross. Our sin demanded death. Our sin demanded eternal punishment. Our sin demanded wrath—just wrath exercised on us for eternity (Rom 6:23). But because of the infinite worth of Christ’s person, He was on that cross. And on that cross, God exercised upon Him the full fury of His own anger (Rom 3:24–26; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:10–14), that was rightly due to me and rightly due to you, and that you will experience if you don’t turn from your sin and trust in this Messiah. Christ was born, lived, died, and was raised (1 Cor 15:3–4). And He rose from the grave after being dead, demonstrating His victory over sin and death.
And now God promises that if you turn from your sin, if you repudiate all that you are and all that you were and all that you love, and you turn away from a life of pursuing sin—and if you repudiate not only your bad works but your good works, if you turn from trying to earn your salvation by all the good deeds that you might want to do as a moral person—if you turn away from all of that (Acts 17:30–31), and you trust in Christ alone for righteousness (Phil 3:7–8; cf. Rom 3:28; 10:4), God promises that He will forgive you. He will have treated Christ on the cross as if Christ lived your life. And He will then treat you, justly and legally and righteously, as if you lived Christ’s perfect life of righteousness (2 Cor 5:21). And you can be saved to know the God you were created to love and enjoy. You can have the fullness of joy, the eternal pleasures that are at the Father’s right hand in heaven (Ps 16:11), and begin even now, because eternal life is to know God (John 17:3).
Friend, would you repent? Would you turn from your sin and trust in this perfect Savior to avail for you before God, to pay for your sin and to provide your righteousness?
A Gospel Presentation
God is Holy
The Bible teaches that the entire universe was created by God. And that God who has created everything has spoken to humanity in the Bible. And the Bible tells us that a fundamental characteristic of God is that He is holy. 1 John 1:5 says, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” That’s a way of saying that He’s entirely pure. God’s character is one of perfect moral uprightness. He is the essence of all that is good—so much so that, as the verse says, He can have absolutely no fellowship with “darkness”—no fellowship with that which is not perfectly holy, righteous, and pure.
God’s righteous character was expressed in the law He gave to Moses and the Israelites. You’ve heard of the Ten Commandments. They summarized the perfection of God’s character. These laws were directives for how people who were in a proper relationship with God must act.
We are Sinful
The problem is: all of us are sinful. We have all broken God’s law. All humanity has “gone astray like sheep, and each one of us has turned to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6). We’ve tried to live our lives without God, according to our own standards, in our own ways. Whether we’re drug addicts and murderers, or white collar, well-to-do, upstanding citizens, we do what we do because we want to do it, with no consideration for God and what He would have us to do. The Bible calls that sin. It is the missing of the mark, the falling short of God’s standard of righteousness.
And in your heart of hearts you know you’re a sinner. I don’t know anyone who would say that they are perfect, even by their own standards. Ecclesiastes 7:20 says, “There is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.” And if God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all, then in order to have fellowship with Him, we’d need to be perfectly holy like Him. But we’re not. Romans 3:23 says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” We are stained by the “darkness” of our sin. And this is a problem, because if darkness can’t dwell with light, and we’re darkness and God is light, we’re cut off from a relationship with Him. We become absolutely incapable of doing the very thing we were created and designed to do: to enjoy a relationship with our Creator.
There is a Penalty for Sin
But it’s not just that we and God can’t be friends. There’s a penalty to be paid for sin. The Bible tells us that that penalty is death, Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death.” But the death that Paul talks about there isn’t just physical death. It’s not like we pay for our sins by going out of existence. The death talked about in that verse is a spiritual death. This is hell: eternal conscious torment. Jesus Himself calls it “a furnace of fire,” where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:50).
The idea of hell grates against the sensibilities of modern people, because nobody thinks they’re really bad enough to deserve something like eternal torment. They might admit that they’re not the greatest of people, but surely they don’t deserve that. But their reasoning is skewed. The punishment for sin isn’t merely measured by the sin itself. In other words, while there are qualitative differences in the experience of divine punishment, murder, lust, and lying all receive the sentence of an eternity in hell. That’s because punishment for sin is measured by the One sinned against. All sin is fundamentally a sin against God, and He is infinitely holy. Therefore, sin against an infinitely holy God demands an infinite punishment. That’s why the punishment is so serious: because God is actually that righteous.
And so the bad news is that we’re sinful, separated from God, and doomed to spend eternity in hell. There’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t simply tell God we’re sorry and we won’t do it again. What would you say about a judge who let a guilty, convicted criminal go free because he was sorry and said he wouldn’t do it again? You’d call him an unjust judge. But God is a perfectly just, perfectly righteous Judge. God’s justice demands that sin be punished, and the only payment is eternal spiritual death.
God Became Man
But the Good News is: God saw the miserable condition of humanity, and took pity on us. He knew that there was no way we could ever earn our way back to Him. We could never pay for our sins. But just when man was absolutely hopeless, when we were all doomed to spend eternity in hell with no way to pay our penalty, God the Father sent His Son to the earth on a mission. He was miraculously born to a virgin. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit miraculously conceived Jesus in Mary’s womb. And so being conceived by the Holy Spirit, Jesus was God. And being born to a human being, He was human. This is the greatest mystery in the universe. As finite human beings, we can’t entirely wrap our minds around this, but it’s true: Jesus was fully God and fully man.
He lived for 33 years on the earth. He grew up just like every other child. He became a carpenter like Joseph, His earthly father. The great difference, though, between Jesus and every other human being, was that He never sinned. Never once did He ever break God’s law. He always loved God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength in everything He did. He never sought satisfaction outside of the Father Himself. He never disobeyed His parents, He was never selfish, He never spoke sinful words. In a word, He lived the life that you and I should have lived, but failed to live. He lived a life totally worthy of God, a life that was purely “Light,” like we said before, with no darkness at all.
Jesus Paid the Penalty
And because He was perfectly righteous, He was fit to be the substitute for sinners. The Bible records for us that the Jews plotted to kill Jesus because He preached a message that was very different to the religious establishment of His day. It was against the Jewish law to put people to death, so they sought help from the Romans, who were the governing body in Israel. Because the governor, Pontius Pilate, feared that the people would riot if he didn’t give them what they wanted, he agreed to crucify Jesus.
At the same time, Scripture also tells us that God sent His Son to die this way. It was all part of God’s plan. God used the sinful desires of the Jews and the Romans to accomplish something for His own good purpose. On the cross, Jesus suffered for sins. But He didn’t suffer for His own sins. He had no sins. He lived an entirely perfect life. No, on the cross, God “caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”
The verse right before that, Isaiah 53:5, says, “He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.” What was happening on the cross was: God was carrying out the punishment against my sins—i.e., the pouring out of His wrath—on His innocent Son. Jesus voluntarily laid down His life in order to pay the penalty for sins. On the cross, God treated Jesus if He lived my life. And because I believe in Him, He treats me as if I lived Jesus’ life. See, because God is perfectly righteous, the only way to get to heaven is to be perfectly righteous. But because Jesus was perfectly righteous, and traded places with me on the cross, the perfect righteousness I need to go to heaven is His righteousness applied to my account.
After Jesus died, God miraculously raised Him from the dead three days later in order to show that He was satisfied with His sacrifice. Jesus was dead, but then He came back to life! It was a miracle. The Bible says God did this to “furnish proof to all men” that this message is true (Acts 17:30-31).
Law or Gospel — Which comes first?
Sometimes in life, the question is posed to us, “Which do you want first — the bad news or the good news?”
In response to this question, some choose to hear the good news first. It appears they desire to be thoroughly overwhelmed with the positive before getting their dose of the negative.
Others choose differently. They would rather hear the bad news first, get it out of the way, and put behind them their wonder and worry. Then, after processing the ramifications of the bad news, they hope to soothe the pain an end the conversation on a good note with positive vibes.
Well, Scripture does not offer us options. The Bible makes the choice for us, and it chooses to present the negative before the positive. The Bible declares bad news before declaring good news. It first presents the holy, wise, beneficial and condemning Law, then it publishes the “good tidings of great joy” or the Gospel. (Is. 60:1-2)
Understanding God’s Law
God’s Law was first presented in the opening chapters of Genesis. Some of it was stated; all of it was written upon man’s heart. Adam and Eve were to be entirely holy and obedient. They were to worship God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, all the time. Whether they ate, or drank, or whatsoever they did, they were do to it all for the glory of God. As image-bearers, they were to keep up God’s image. As men and women created in his likeness, they were to be like God. Vocationally, they were to enjoy and steward the garden and all God’s creatures. Relationally, they were to love one another and populate the planet. Ceremonially, they were to enjoy and glorify the Lord by walking with him in the cool of the day and never eating from the forbidden tree. These were some of their obligations, and as long as they performed perfectly they were guaranteed life in the family and kingdom of God.
However, things soon went from glorious to ghastly. Outside of them, they experienced the testing of God and the temptation of Satan. Within them they chose to question God’s truth, wisdom, and affection. Then, drawn away by their own lusts and enticed, they followed their internal sinful inclinations and externally ate of the forbidden fruit. Therefore, the holy, wise, and beneficial Law became a harsh taskmaster. It showed them the standard, showed them their guilt, and plagued their consciences. It encouraged them to hide, fear, and religiously self-medicate. It declared them wicked, separated from God, at enmity with God, and deserving of death, and it promised this for both them and their children. Yes, the Law of God promised to give them that which they deserved. It promised to pay them based upon performance, and this proved to be very, very bad news.
Understanding God’s Gospel
God, through the Law declared to Adam and Eve who they were, what they had done, and what they had justly earned — condemnation. Then God mercifully, graciously, and lovingly went to work. He performed on their behalf and promised them an eternity of undeserved blessings:
He predetermined to love his enemies.
He sought out his enemies while they hid from him in fear.
He called to the man and woman who vainly had self-medicated themselves.
He promised to rescue them and their children; they would be removed from Satan’s family.
He promised to do so by means of a special Son – one to come who would be fiercely bitten yet ultimately victorious.
He promised to damn the Evil One.
He then covered or clothed Adam and Eve by means of his ceremonial sacrifice.
He perfectly performed for and made promises to them who had performed so wickedly for him.
Friends, are we seeing the difference? The Law presents our duty to perfectly perform, and it only results in bad news. For there is none who keep all the Law, all the time, both internally and externally. However, the Gospel is not like the Law. The Gospel presents not our duty to perform for God, but it presents God’s performance and promise for us. Through the Law we lose our credentials to be a part of God’s family and enjoy his kingdom. Through the Gospel we gain credentials that cannot be earned or lost.
A Great Illustration
Perhaps nowhere is the distinction better seen between Law and Gospel than on Calvary’s cross. On that day, the Law had placed a criminal beside Jesus. There he was guilty, vile, dying, hopeless, and still hurling insults at the Son of God. He was getting that which he earned and deserved. He was being treated justly and fairly. His payment was based upon his performance, and he had hell to pay. The Law had nothing good to say to the thief on the cross. But then God went to work; Jesus granted the Law-breaking criminal complete pardon, intimate communion, and never-ending paradise. These blessings were not based upon any labors of his own, but only based upon the performance and promise of God. These blessings were not earned; they were a gift. A divine swap occurred. Jesus (The Law Keeping Man) received that which he did not deserve so that the thief (The Law Breaking Man) might also receive that which he did not deserve. And this is a fantastic picture of the Gospel. Communion with God that was lost by man seeking to keep the Law, was granted to man as a gift of God.
Responding to the Gospel
Therefore, how should we respond to the Gospel? While believing in divine sovereignty, what is our human responsibility?
Let us make the Gospel our Gospel. Along with the Apostle Paul let us call it “mine.” The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit offer this gift to you. They command you to receive it and enjoy it. If you find yourself with faith, willing to repent and receive, call out to Jesus in prayer right now. Call Jesus, “My Jesus.” Call Jesus’ righteousness, “My Righteousness.” Call Jesus’ Gospel, “My Gospel.” (Rom. 2:16; 2 Tim. 2:8) Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. As a matter of fact, if you draw near to God, it is only because he has already been drawing nearer to you.
Let us not water down the Gospel. This is always our tendency, to add human works to the sufficient work of Jesus Christ. Friends, re-read the letter to the Galatians. If we must perform, it is not Gospel. If we must labor, it is not Gospel. If it involves our works, it is not Gospel. If it is conditioned upon us in anyway, it is not Gospel. If it is a contract, it is not Gospel. If it can be lost, it is not Gospel. The Gospel represents the unilateral work of God on behalf of men. The Law ought never be divorced from the Gospel, but it must never be confused either.
Let us celebrate the Gospel. William Tyndall wrote of the Gospel, “It makes a man’s heart glad, and makes him sing, dance, and leap for joy.” It is the best of news. It means we can sabbath. It means we can boldly approach the throne of grace with confidence. It means we are seen as Christlike image-bearers. Give God the celebratory praise he deserves. He has labored perfectly on your behalf, give him reverent and radical praise and worship.
Let us not be ashamed of the Gospel. (Rom.1:16) Paul wrote, “Woe if I do not preach the Gospel. (1 Cor. 9:16) He wrote, “How beautiful are the feet of those who spread the Good News.” Friends, just as Adam and Eve were to physically reproduce, we are to spiritually reproduce around the world. This is our mission. This is our great mission. This is our Great Commission. Let us be humble, for we cannot make someone believe. Let us be zealous, for God has a tendency to honor those who labor hard. And let us become flexibly relevant in order to better spread the Gospel. (1 Cor. 9:22-23) As Gospel-lovers and Gospel-beneficiants, let us do that which is Lawful and bring in the Gospel-harvest.
Then, let us live Lawfully in accordance with the Gospel. Now that we have been saved from having to perform, let us perform. Yes, with Gospel-eyes, let us look at the Law and enjoy practicing that which is holy, wise, beneficial, and worshipful. Living in the power of the Gospel, let us enjoy becoming more and more like Jesus — the Author and Finisher of our Faith. And when we look at the Law, let us not get frustrated and despondent. Instead, let us glory in the Law, for there is the description of who we are in Christ today, and it also shows us all we will be in glory tomorrow when our old flesh is finally exterminated.
Bottom line, the Law shows us how to perform for God, but the Gospel shows us how God performs for us. This is radical. This is crazy. This is beautiful. This is truth.
Our Response
And now, God promises that…
if you acknowledge that you are a sinner—that you have broken His law,
and if you admit that there is no way that you could earn His favor and His forgiveness,
and if you purpose to turn away from your life of sin and commit your life to Him,
and if you trust in Jesus’ righteousness alone for your acceptance before this holy God,
…then He will have treated Jesus as if He lived your life, and will treat you as if you lived Jesus’ life. You will be saved from the penalty of your sin, and will be able to enjoy fellowship with God forever in heaven, and even fellowship with Him starting now.
In other words, if you believe that you’re a sinner and deserve God’s punishment because of your sin, but you also believe that God sent Jesus to endure that punishment in your place, and that His sacrifice is the only way you can be forgiven, then God promises that He will forgive you and you will be saved. You’ll know the God who created you.
Don’t Waste Your Life
God designed your soul. And He designed you so that, just as a car engine is designed to run on gasoline, you’re designed to run on Him. He is what life is about. All of the disappointments, discouragements, and uncertainties of your life find their resolution in Him. And all of the satisfactions, fun experiences, and joys of life find their consummation in Him. Everything good in our lives is like a trail of breadcrumbs that leads us to the feast of God Himself. And everything bad in our lives is a reminder that life lived apart from knowing God in Christ is not the way it was meant to be.
And I also don’t want to see you waste your life. God created us for the purpose of rightly knowing and worshiping Him. That’s the meaning of life. That’s where true happiness and satisfaction are found. When you don’t live your life for that purpose, you waste it. So many people go through life seeking that happiness, but never find it because they don’t know what life is really about. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to suffer God’s wrath eternally for your sin. I want to spend eternity in heaven worshiping God with you, praising Him for how gracious He was to forgive our sins because of Christ’s sacrifice.
Receive Forgiveness
So would you receive Christ? Would you acknowledge your sinfulness before God and admit you can’t do a thing about it? Would you turn from your sin, and seek to live your life in submission to Jesus Christ? Would you trust in Jesus alone for your righteousness before God? Would you join me in worshiping the God we were created to know?
With that brief question Jesus Christ confronted His followers with the most important issue they would ever face. He had spent much time with them and made some bold claims about His identity and authority. Now the time had come for them either to believe or deny His teachings.
Who do you say Jesus is? Your response to Him will determine not only your values and lifestyle, but your eternal destiny as well.
CanIKnowGod.com is a website inspired by LifesGreatestQuestion.com, with new content, images, audio and video that will help you understand more about who God is and how to know Him. The site is mobile responsive and has an infinite scroll which makes for a very user-friendly experience. After you indicate a decision on CanIKnowGod.com, you are directed to a page that details what it means to have a new and transformed life through Jesus Christ. There’s even a Facebook page for daily updates, encouragement and scripture sharing.
Look to Jesus
Have you ever felt a little lost and wished there was a quick-start guide to your relationship with God? This is it!
30 Day Next Steps
John Beckett, a leading Christian businessman, has written a series to read over 30 days for new believers.
New Believers Guide
The New Believer’s Guide is a series of articles designed to show you how to walk in the new life Christ has given you— a life of faith and freedom.
Jesus Booklet
Jesus is the Savior of the world. Discover who Jesus is today in this series.
It is not just a handful of texts that teach the perseverance of the saints: the entire gospel sustains and confirms it. The Father has chosen them before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4), ordained them to eternal life (Acts 13:48), to be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:29). This election stands (Rom. 9:11; Heb. 6:17) and in due time carries with it the calling and justification and glorification (Rom. 8:30). Christ, in whom all the promises of God are Yes and Amen (2 Cor. 1:20), died for those who were given him by the Father (John 17:6, 12) in order that he might give them eternal life and not lose a single one of them (6:40; 17:2); he therefore gives them eternal life and they will never be lost in all eternity; no one will snatch them out of his hand (6:39; 10:28).
The Holy Spirit who regenerates them remains eternally with them (14:16) and seals them for the day of redemption (Eph. 1:13; 4:30). The covenant of grace is firm and confirmed with an oath (Heb. 6:16–18; 13:20), unbreakable like a marriage (Eph. 5:31–32), like a testament (Heb. 9:17), and by virtue of that covenant, God calls his elect. He inscribes the law upon their inmost being, puts his fear in their heart (Heb. 8:10; 10:14ff.), will not let them be tempted beyond their strength (1 Cor. 10:13), confirms and completes the good work he has begun in them (1 Cor. 1:9; Phil. 1:6), and keeps them for the return of Christ to receive the heavenly inheritance (1 Thess. 5:23; 2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Pet. 1:4–5).
In his intercession before the Father, Christ acts in such a way that their faith may not fail (Luke 22:32), that in the world they may be kept from the evil one (John 17:11, 20), that they may be saved for all times (Heb. 7:20), that their sins will be forgiven them (1 John 2:1), and that they may all be where he is to behold his glory (John 17:24). The benefits of Christ, which the Holy Spirit imparts to them, are all irrevocable (Rom. 11:29). Those who are called are also glorified (8:30). Those who are adopted as children are heirs of eternal life (8:17; Gal. 4:7). Those who believe have eternal life already here and now (John 3:16). That life itself, being eternal, cannot be lost. It cannot die since it cannot sin (1 John 3:9). Faith is a firm ground (Heb. 11:1), hope is an anchor (6:19) and does not disappoint us (Rom. 5:5), and love never ends (1 Cor. 13:8).
(Alternative News, Apologetics, Current Events, Commentary, Opinion, Theology, Discernment Blog, Devotionals, Christian Internet Evangelism & Missions Activist).
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— Augustine
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Blogger, author and book reviewer Tim Challies has a new series: Deadly Doctrines. In his first installment he defines what doctrine is and has a helpful table. He reminds us that, “The Christian’s responsibility is clear: We are to learn God’s truth by searching God’s Word. We must carefully evaluate every teaching according to God’s unfailing standard. What passes the test is sound doctrine, and what fails the test is false doctrine.”
Challies lays out eight terrible consequences of false doctrine. Discover what those consequences are. He writes:
The heaven tourism fad, there was the best-selling novel that reframed the doctrine of the Trinity. Meanwhile, the largest church in America is led by a man whose platitudes are indistinguishable from fortune cookies. But it’s not just authors and church leaders who are swerving away from the truth. Theologians and laypersons alike are abandoning traditional understandings of manhood and womanhood, of marriage and sexuality. Never has it been more important for Christians to commit themselves to rejecting false doctrine and pursuing sound doctrine, to ensure they are following teachers of truth, not peddlers of error.
In a new series of articles, we will consider false doctrine, sound doctrine, and how to train ourselves to distinguish between them. We will see how God calls us to respond to false and sound doctrine, as well as false and sound teachers. In this opening article, we will briefly define the term “doctrine,” examine the two different kinds of doctrine, and then suggest eight terrible consequences of false doctrine.
Jeff Maples of Pulpit & Pen shares what is going on in the life of disgraced pastor Perry Noble after a 30 days in alcohol rehab — he’s preaching again! Noble fans have his pal Steve Furtick to thank for returning him to the spotlight. Maples writes:
Notable former pastor and founder of Newspring church in Anderson, SC gave his tacit approval of alcohol consumption in 2013. Three years later, he was fired by his church for “falling into sin” with alcoholism. The elders of his church made the decision to terminate him from the pastorate. Less than two months later, after a 30-day alcohol rehab program, he claimed to be cured of his disease and vowed to return to ministry.
I spent 30 days in a treatment facility in Arizona from mid-July until mid-August. Being in that place allowed me to come face to face with issues from my past as well as my current struggle, and placed me in a place to successfully overcome my overmedication via alcohol.
Now, I’m not sure if what he said after that is a result of his years of intoxication, or if he’s simply playing some kind of mind game, but he went on to say,
I can honestly say I am excited about the future God has for me and my family. The one thing I keep hearing from Him over and over again is that He is not finished with me.
T.D. Jakes says that God eternally exists in three manifestations, not three persons. Greg Boyd says God knows some aspects of the future, but that other future events are outside of his knowledge. Creflo Dollar says because we are created in the image of God, we are little gods. Mormonism says God revealed new scripture to Joseph Smith that supersedes the Bible. Roman Catholicism says we are justified by faith, but not by faith alone. This world is a murky madness of true and false. For every doctrine we know to be true, there seems to be a hundred pretenders.
No wonder, then, that John tells us to “test the spirits” and Paul says, “test everything” (1 John 4:1, 1 Thessalonians 5:21). It is our sacred responsibility to examine every doctrine to determine if it is true or false. But how can we distinguish sound doctrine from false? How can we distinguish teachers of truth from teachers of error? In our opening article, I said that putting a doctrine to the test is the best way to determine if it is true or false. As we test the doctrine, we learn our responsibility toward it: We either hold to it or we reject it. I am returning to those tests today to explain them in greater detail. They provide a grid that is useful for testing any doctrine.
The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.
A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.
The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists…
Anyone who knows how to research and vet information on the internet knows that “Global Warming” is a U.N. ruse to control the world’s economies. It is just another step toward realizing the NWO: Take control of every nation’s economy – that is the plan.
Now, a high level whistle blower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has exposed the manipulated data used to push world leaders to instate “Green policies” worldwide.
From the dailymail.co.uk(This article is quite long but worth the read)
Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data
The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.
The phrase it is a trustworthy statement is unique to the Pastoral Epistles, appearing five times (cf.. 3:1; 4:9; 2 Tim. 2:11; Titus 3:8). These statements were familiar, recognized summaries of key doctrines. That they were common in the church by the time of the writing of the Pastoral Epistles indicates that a well-articulated theology had developed. Paul indeed quotes them as if they were common knowledge. This one and the one in 1 Timothy 4:9 have the phrase deserving full acceptance appended for added emphasis.
The trustworthy statement in 1:15 acts as a condensed articulation of the gospel. In only eight Greek words is found a marvelous summation of the gospel message. Each word is chosen carefully. Christ Jesus is the word order preferred by Paul in the Pastoral Epistles. He uses it twenty-five times compared to six uses of “Jesus Christ.” Bound up in those two words is all that He is. Christ is the anointed King who came to redeem, and became the earthly Jesus at the Incarnation. That He came into the world implies not only His incarnation but His preexistence. Note carefully that it does not say that He came into existence, or that He was created. He existed somewhere else before coming into the world. This phraseology is used frequently by John, who often speaks of Christ’s coming into the world (cf.. John 1:9; 3:19; 6:14; 11:27; 12:46; 16:28; 18:37).
The world refers to the world of humanity, blind, lost, and condemned to hell because of its hostility to God (cf.. 1 John 5:19). It is into that world of sinners, of darkness and unbelief, that Jesus came. John 3:17 says, “God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him” (cf.. John 12:46–47).
Christ’s purpose in coming into this fallen world was to save sinners. Before his birth the angel told Joseph “it is He who will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). In Luke 19:10 our Lord stated the purpose of His coming into the world: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” To save is to deliver from death and darkness, from sin, hell, and judgment. Sinners was a term used by the Jews to describe Gentiles (cf.. Gal. 2:15), but our Lord used it to refer to all of fallen mankind (cf.. Matt. 9:13). It denotes man’s constant violation of God’s law; men are sinners by nature.
In the realm of sinners, Paul saw himself as foremost of all (cf.. 1 Cor. 15:9; Eph. 3:8). Many in our day would hasten to correct Paul’s self-image and restore his self-esteem. But that was a healthy self-view for Paul because it was accurate. It’s hard to imagine anyone worse than a blasphemer of God and persecutor of His church. Such a view of himself also served to keep Paul humble and grateful.
If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9
To give glory to Christ, we must confess Him as Lord. That’s a part of salvation, not a subsequent act. Salvation is a matter of confessing that Christ is God and, therefore, that He is sovereign in your life.
If you have never confessed Jesus Christ as Lord, you have no capacity to live for His glory. You cannot say, “I deny Christ. He is not my Savior or Lord,” and then expect to glorify God. If you dishonor the Son, you dishonor the Father (John 5:23). So salvation is the necessary beginning for glorifying God and, therefore, for spiritual growth. You cannot grow until you are born.[1]
February 6
God Is Holy
“There is no one holy like the Lord.”
1 Samuel 2:2
✧✧✧
God’s holiness means He transcends everything else and is completely righteous and separated from evil.
Holiness is arguably God’s most significant attribute. The angels don’t sing, “Eternal, eternal, eternal” or “Faithful, faithful, faithful” or “Mighty, mighty, mighty.” Rather, they sing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty” (Rev. 4:8; compare Isa. 6:3). His holiness sums up all He is. The psalmist says, “Holy and awesome is His name” (Ps. 111:9). Moses sings, “Who is like Thee among the gods, O Lord? Who is like Thee, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?” (Ex. 15:11). And Hannah prays, “There is no one holy like the Lord, indeed, there is no one besides Thee, nor is there any rock like our God” (1 Sam. 2:2).
What does it mean that God is holy? The words translated “holy” in the Bible have the root meaning of “separation.” God’s being and character transcend everything else. He is not subject to the frailties and limitations of His creation. God is completely without sin. He does not just conform to a holy standard; He is the standard.
God’s righteousness is related to His holiness. Holiness is the standard, and righteousness is its active fulfillment. Or you might say His holiness is His complete separation from all that is sinful, and His righteousness is the manifestation of that holiness.
David understood how holy and righteous God is. He says, “The Lord is righteous in all His ways” (Ps. 145:17), and “Thy righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens, Thou who hast done great things; O God, who is like Thee?” (Ps. 71:19).
Sadly, many today completely misunderstand God’s righteousness. If they really understood how holy God is, do you think they would live the way they do? But they ignore God’s standard, thinking He won’t really judge them because they’re basically good people. But “God is a righteous judge, and a God who has indignation every day” toward the wicked (Ps. 7:11). Since God is holy, the penalty for any sin—however small that sin might seem—is death (Rom. 6:23).
Don’t let the world corrupt your view of God. Don’t treat your sin lightly. Instead, confess it, forsake it, and seek to please a holy God.
✧✧✧
Suggestions for Prayer: Ask that you would have the same righteous hatred of sin that God does.
For Further Study: Read the Book of Habakkuk. What are the prophet’s questions? ✧ What are God’s answers? ✧ Study in detail Habakkuk’s response in chapter 3.[2]
FEBRUARY 6
BE STILL TO KNOW
Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
—Psalm 46:10
Our fathers had much to say about stillness, and by stillness they meant the absence of motion or the absence of noise or both.
They felt that they must be still for at least a part of the day, or that day would be wasted. God can be known in the tumult of the world if His providence has for the time placed us there, but He is known best in the silence. So they held, and so the sacred Scriptures declare. Inward assurance comes out of the stillness. We must be still to know.
There has hardly been another time in the history of the world when stillness was needed more than it is today, and there has surely not been another time when there was so little of it or when it was so hard to find. GTM012-013
Lord, in today’s world stillness is so rare but so needed. Quiet my world even for these few moments and speak to me in the stillness, I pray. Amen. [3]
February 6
Healings Validate Jesus’ Earthly Ministry
The news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them.—Matt. 4:24
Jesus’ miraculous healing ministry powerfully augmented the divine veracity of His teaching and preaching ministry. But any completely honest observer will concede that our Lord’s words alone provide sufficient evidence that He was the Messiah. The apostles left everything to follow Him before He did any healing or performed any other miracle. Many who heard and believed when Jesus taught in their villages had no need for healing, and neither did their relatives or friends. In that sense they were like those who believed John the Baptist’s message even though “John performed no sign” (John 10:41).
Yet in spite of the overwhelming adequacy of Jesus’ verbal teaching, His Father saw fit to provide a healing ministry to supplement it. Alexander Maclaren has written, “It may be doubted whether we have an adequate notion of the immense number of Christ’s miracles. Those recorded are but a small portion of those done. Those early ones were illustrations of the nature of His kingdom; they were His first gifts to His kingdom subjects.”
Concerning the gospel of the kingdom, Hebrews 2:3–4 says, “After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.” Like Christ’s words, His healings and other miracles provided a preview of His glorious earthly kingdom.
ASK YOURSELF
How dependent are you on the specific, visible, measurable acts of God on your behalf? How often does His Word alone brighten your heart, even when your prayers seem to be waiting on His answer? What does one do to get his or her heart operating this way?[4]
FEBRUARY 6
TRUTH IS A PERSON
Then said Jesus…And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:31–32
Let me say boldly that it is not the difficulty of discovering truth, but the unwillingness to obey it, that makes it so rare among men.
Our Lord said, “I am…the Truth” (John 14:6). And again He said, “The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Truth, therefore, is not hard to find for the very reason that it is seeking us!
So we learn that Truth is not a thing for which we must search, but a Person to whom we must hearken! In the New Testament, multitudes came to Jesus for physical help, but only rarely did one seek Him out to learn the Truth. The whole picture in the Gospels is one of a seeking Savior, not one of seeking men.
The Truth was hunting for those who would receive it, and relatively few did, for “many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14).
Thank You for this truth, Lord, that You came “to seek and to save that which was lost.” I don’t want to keep this truth tucked in my back pocket. Give me an opportunity to share Your good news with someone today.[5]
February 6
The Joy of Sainthood
“… to all the saints in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:1).
✧✧✧
Every Christian is a saint.
Many people think of saints as men and women who are or were especially holy or who have been canonized by an official church body. Usually only those who have been long dead and have extraordinary religious accomplishments to their credit qualify.
God, however, has a different perspective on sainthood. Paul called the Corinthian believers “saints” (1 Cor. 1:2), then went on for many chapters correcting their sinful practices. He called the Roman, Ephesian, and Colossian believers “saints” too, but they weren’t perfect either.
What, then, qualifies someone as a saint? The answer is in Philippians 1:1—“to all the saints in Christ Jesus” (emphasis added). That’s the criterion. Sainthood is not reserved for the spiritually elite. It belongs to every believer because every believer is “in Christ Jesus.”
If you love Christ, you are a saint. That might come as a surprise to those who know you best, but it’s true nonetheless!
The hallmark of sainthood is holiness. In fact, the Greek word translated “saints” in Philippians 1:1 (hagios) literally means “holy ones.” It is used throughout the New Testament to speak of anyone or anything that represents God’s holiness: Christ as the Holy One of God, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Father, holy Scriptures, holy angels, holy brethren, and so on.
To God, you are “holy and beloved” in Christ (Col. 3:12). You have received a saintly calling (1 Cor. 1:2) and a saintly inheritance (Col. 1:12). You have “redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:14) and every other spiritual blessing (Eph. 1:3).
With that privilege comes the responsibility of living a holy life. That’s why Scripture admonishes you to present your body as a living and holy sacrifice (Rom. 12:1) and to live in a manner worthy of your saintly status (Eph. 5:3).
The power for godly living is the Holy Spirit, who indwells you. As you yield to Him through prayer and obedience to God’s Word, the characteristics of a true saint become increasingly evident in your life. Make that your commitment today.
✧✧✧
Suggestions for Prayer: Thank God for choosing you as one of His holy ones. ✧ Pray that your life will be a consistent testimony to the reality of true sainthood.
For Further Study: What are the privileges and responsibilities of saints as outlined in Psalm 34?[6]
FEBRUARY 6
GOD TELLS US IN THE BIBLE WHAT HE IS LIKE
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
ACTS 2:3
Just because God cannot tell us what He is, He very often tells us what He is like, and by these “like” figures He leads our faltering minds as close as they can come to that “Light which no man can approach unto.”
Through the more cumbersome medium of the intellect the soul is prepared for the moment when it can, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, know God as He is in Himself. God has used a number of these similitudes to hint at His incomprehensible being, and judging from the Scriptures one would gather that His favorite similitude is fire.
In one place the Spirit speaks expressly, “For our God is a consuming fire.”
With the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the same imagery was continued—for that which came upon the disciples in that upper room was nothing less than God Himself!
The God who had appeared to them as fire throughout all their long history was now dwelling in them as fire. He had moved from without to the interior of their lives. The Shekinah that had once blazed over the mercy seat now blazed on their foreheads as an external emblem of the fire that had invaded their natures.
This was Deity giving Himself to ransomed men and women.
The flame was the seal of a new union. They were now men and women of the Fire![7]
[1] MacArthur, J. (2001). Truth for today : a daily touch of God’s grace (p. 49). Nashville, Tenn.: J. Countryman.
[2] MacArthur, J. (1997). Strength for today. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
[3] Tozer, A. W., & Eggert, R. (2015). Tozer on the almighty god: a 365-day devotional. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
[4] MacArthur, J. (2008). Daily readings from the life of Christ (p. 45). Chicago: Moody Publishers.
[5] Tozer, A. W. (2015). Mornings with tozer: daily devotional readings. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
[6] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1993). Drawing Near—Daily Readings for a Deeper Faith (p. 49). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
[7] Tozer, A. W., & Smith, G. B. (2015). Evenings with tozer: daily devotional readings. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers.
A video going around on Facebook has been viewed over 40,000,000 times in just a few days since being released.
The video shows past footage from former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in which they discuss the issue of illegal immigration. If the statements coming from Clinton and Obama sound familiar, well they should. They say a lot of the same things that President Trump is saying.
So what then is the difference between Trump and the two former Democratic Presidents? Trump is a man of his word who is acting on what he said he was going to do whereas Obama and Clinton just made speeches and did little to nothing in terms of getting results.
Why is the left all of the sudden outraged now when former Democratic Presidents said a lot of the same things that President Trump is saying now?
Look out, Lady Gaga. Pope Francis is joining the Super Bowl frenzy.
“And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”Revelation 17:5 (KJV)
EDITOR’S NOTE: Boy, the Devil is sure loading up this Super Bowl with “messages to the world”. First Lady Gaga, now Pope Francis, what’s next? Remember when it used to be about football? Not any more. Now it’s nothing more than a launching pad for the Illuminati and the New World Order.
Pope Francis has recorded a video message that will be shown during Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons.
In the video, which the director of the Vatican Press Office posted on Twitter on Sunday morning, the Pope says that sporting events like the Super Bowl are “highly symbolic” and demonstrate that it is possible to build a world of peace.
“May this year’s Super Bowl be a sign of peace, friendship, and solidarity to the world,” Pope Francis says in the message.
A Vatican spokesman says the message is expected to be played on the screen at NRG Stadium in Houston either before the game or during the first quarter.
Pope Francis is an avid sports fan who often speaks of how sports can bring about social change. He has previously taken to Twitter for the Olympics and soccer’s World Cup. This is his first Super Bowl message. source
(Washington, D.C.) — Never have the American people needed a solid strategic alliance with friendly Sunni Arab Muslims more than it does right now.
Never has a new American President and his administration had more to gain from carefully listening to — and truly partnering with — a Middle Eastern leader who shares our goals and actually wants to help us.
At a time when the Assad government is destroying Syria, when the Islamic State is slaughtering Muslims and waging genocide against Christians, and when the ayatollahs of Iran are hell-bent on becoming the dominant military power in the Middle East, we urgently need Muslim friends who oppose Radical Islam and Apocalyptic Islam and have the courage to stand against the forces of violent extremism.
At a time when millions of refugees are fleeing from Syria and Iraq, we also need an ally in the region with the compassion and the capacity to take these refugees in and care for them with food…
Nothing better illustrates the hypocrisy of those protesting the Muslim ban than their silence while the Obama regime destroyed millions of Muslims. Look at the before and after-bombing photos of major cities. This is what pre-Trump Washington said was “bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East.”
In a Fox News interview set to air at 4pm on Sunday, just ahead of the Superbowl, and which is sure to unleash a fresh firestorm of accusations that president Trump is a Kremlin puppet, the US president will defend Vladimir Putin on national TV, saying he respects the Russian leader and accusing the US of not being as innocent as it may seem.
In the interview, Bill O’Reilly asked if Trump respects Russian President Vladimir Putin, to which the he replied, “I do respect him. Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get along with them.”
After O’Reilly asks why, Trump answers: “He is the leader of his country. I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not, and if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS – which is a major fight – and the Islamic terrorism all over the world, that’s a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.”
O’Reilly pressed Trump on his statement, saying, “But he’s a killer though. Putin’s a killer.”
Trump shrugged the comment off, saying: “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country is so innocent?”
Shortly after midnight, WikiLeaks was quick to point out Trump’s statement:
As RT reminds us, it is not the first time that Trump has made such comments when journalists question his stance regarding the Russian leader. At the end of 2015, the host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe told Trump that Putin “kills journalists,” to which the unfazed then-presidential candidate replied, “I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.”
“I’ve always felt fine about Putin. He’s a strong leader. He’s a powerful leader,” Trump added.
At the end of January, Putin and Trump held their first official phone call, which, according to the Kremlin, was “good and constructive.” “Over the past years, the lack of mutual respect became the main reason for the deterioration of relations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added. Another important thing is that Washington is prepared for dialogue, the spokesman concluded.
“This is what President Putin called for rather consistently but where unfortunately he did not see reciprocity over the past years,” Peskov said.
Earlier in January, however, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized that the first meeting between Putin and Trump may “happen in months to come,” not “in a matter of weeks.” Peskov also said, “it is maybe the biggest mistake on the part of Western analysts to think that Trump is ‘our man.’ He is an American man.”
In any case, as expected, the liberal media has already canvassed the nation’s mood and has found that as of this moment, America is “outraged” by Trump’s comments, which unlike his predecessor, refused to slam Putin:
The Daily Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 2015 UN Climate Conference held in Paris was based on a lie. NOAA published false data that they knew was false in order to leech billions of dollars from the world’s governments. Barack Obama was one of the main “champions” leading the charged based on a lie. President Trump is going to rightly rip up those agreements, and begin to dismantle the phony climate change industry.
A high-level whistle-blower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.
The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers.
But the whistle-blower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data.
It was never subjected to NOAA’s rigorous internal evaluation process – which Dr Bates devised.
His vehement objections to the publication of the faulty data were overridden by his NOAA superiors in what he describes as a ‘blatant attempt to intensify the impact’ of what became known as the Pausebuster paper.
His disclosures are likely to stiffen President Trump’s determination to enact his pledges to reverse his predecessor’s ‘green’ policies, and to withdraw from the Paris deal – so triggering an intense political row.
A Trump Presidency And The Future Of Climate Change | TIME
Sorry, Time, but today’s revelations prove that the Paris Climate Change conference was based on false data. President Trump is 100% right to want to remove America from this fraudulent accord.
In an exclusive interview, Dr Bates accused the lead author of the paper, Thomas Karl, who was until last year director of the NOAA section that produces climate data – the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) – of ‘insisting on decisions and scientific choices that maximized warming and minimized documentation… in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming pause, rushed so that he could time publication to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy’.
Dr Bates was one of two Principal Scientists at NCEI, based in Asheville, North Carolina.
Official delegations from America, Britain and the EU were strongly influenced by the flawed NOAA study as they hammered out the Paris Agreement – and committed advanced nations to sweeping reductions in their use of fossil fuel and to spending £80 billion every year on new, climate-related aid projects.
The scandal has disturbing echoes of the ‘Climategate’ affair which broke shortly before the UN climate summit in 2009, when the leak of thousands of emails between climate scientists suggested they had manipulated and hidden data. Some were British experts at the influential Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
NOAA’s 2015 ‘Pausebuster’ paper was based on two new temperature sets of data – one containing measurements of temperatures at the planet’s surface on land, the other at the surface of the seas.
Both datasets were flawed. This newspaper has learnt that NOAA has now decided that the sea dataset will have to be replaced and substantially revised just 18 months after it was issued, because it used unreliable methods which overstated the speed of warming. The revised data will show both lower temperatures and a slower rate in the recent warming trend.
The land temperature dataset used by the study was afflicted by devastating bugs in its software that rendered its findings ‘unstable’. The paper relied on a preliminary, ‘alpha’ version of the data which was never approved or verified.
A final, approved version has still not been issued. None of the data on which the paper was based was properly ‘archived’ – a mandatory requirement meant to ensure that raw data and the software used to process it is accessible to other scientists, so they can verify NOAA results.
Dr Bates retired from NOAA at the end of last year after a 40-year career in meteorology and climate science. As recently as 2014, the Obama administration awarded him a special gold medal for his work in setting new, supposedly binding standards ‘to produce and preserve climate data records’.
Yet when it came to the paper timed to influence the Paris conference, Dr Bates said, these standards were flagrantly ignored.
The paper was published in June 2015 by the journal Science. Entitled ‘Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus’, the document said the widely reported ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ was a myth.
Less than two years earlier, a blockbuster report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which drew on the work of hundreds of scientists around the world, had found ‘a much smaller increasing trend over the past 15 years 1998-2012 than over the past 30 to 60 years’. Explaining the pause became a key issue for climate science. It was seized on by global warming sceptics, because the level of CO2 in the atmosphere had continued to rise.
It’s not the first time we’ve exposed dodgy climate data, which is why we’ve dubbed it: Climate Gate 2
Some scientists argued that the existence of the pause meant the world’s climate is less sensitive to greenhouse gases than previously thought, so that future warming would be slower. One of them, Professor Judith Curry, then head of climate science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said it suggested that computer models used to project future warming were ‘running too hot’.
However, the Pausebuster paper said while the rate of global warming from 1950 to 1999 was 0.113C per decade, the rate from 2000 to 2014 was actually higher, at 0.116C per decade. The IPCC’s claim about the pause, it concluded, ‘was no longer valid’.
The impact was huge and lasting. On publication day, the BBC said the pause in global warming was ‘an illusion caused by inaccurate data’. One American magazine described the paper as a ‘science bomb’ dropped on skeptics.
Dr John Bates’s disclosures about the manipulation of data behind the ‘Pausebuster’ paper is the biggest scientific scandal since ‘Climategate’ in 2009 when, as this paper reported, thousands of leaked emails revealed scientists were trying to block access to data, and using a ‘trick’ to conceal embarrassing flaws in their claims about global warming.
Both scandals suggest a lack of transparency and, according to Dr Bates, a failure to observe proper ethical standards.
Because of NOAA ’s failure to ‘archive’ data used in the paper, its results can never be verified. Like Climategate, this scandal is likely to reverberate around the world, and reignite some of science’s most hotly contested debates. source
The Clinton Foundation’s long list of wealthy donors and foreign government contributors during the 2016 elections provoked critics to allege conflicts ofinterests.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Far from being a “charitable organization”, the Clinton Global Initiative was nothing more than a matrix for which money to flow to the Clintons in exchange for state influence. 22 donor nations abandoned Crooked Hillary and company when she lost the election, and not only that, many have now opened up investigations into the shady activities of CGI.
Clinton partisans defended the organization’s charitable work, and dismissed claims that it served as a means for the Clintons to sell off access, market themselves on the paid speech circuit, and elevate their brand as Hillary Clinton campaigned for the presidency.
But as soon as Clinton lost the election, many of the criticisms directed toward the Clinton Foundation were reaffirmed. Foreign governments began pulling out of annual donations, signaling the organization’s clout was predicated on donor access to the Clintons, rather than its philanthropic work. In November, the Australian government confirmed it “has not renewed any of its partnerships with the scandal-plagued Clinton Foundation, effectively ending 10 years of taxpayer-funded contributions worth more than $88 million.” The government of Norway also drastically reduced their annual donations, which reached $20 million a year in 2015.
On January 12, the Clinton Foundation received more bad news: a WARN notice was filed with the New York Department of Labor. The main office of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City would be closing, laying off 22 employees. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN) “offers protection to workers, their families and communities by requiring employers to provide notice 60 days in advance of covered plant closings and covered mass layoffs. This notice must be provided to either affected workers or their representatives (e.g., a labor union); to the State dislocated worker unit; and to the appropriate unit of local government.” The reason for the filing was stated as the “discontinuation of the Clinton Global Initative,” after CGI previously announced layoffs leading up to the general election.
The Clinton Global Initiative was created in 2005 to serve as a networking platform for the Clinton Foundation. Both the initiative’s mission and its own definition of what it seeks to accomplish are vague. “Rather than directly implementing projects, CGI facilitates action by helping members connect, collaborate, and make effective and measurable Commitments to Action—plans for addressing significant global challenges,” states the CGI website. The Clinton Global Initiative and Clinton Foundation director of media relations have not responded to requests for a comment.
WikiLeaks revealed several criticisms of the Clinton Foundation were true, as pay-to-play schemes and the foundation’s corrupt management were exposed. On October 26, The Washington Postreported a memo detailed how the Clinton Foundation was used to boost Bill Clinton’s income.
“The memo, made public Wednesday by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, lays out the aggressive strategy behind lining up the consulting contracts and paid speaking engagements for Bill Clinton that added tens of millions of dollars to the family’s fortune, including during the years that Hillary Clinton led the State Department,” reportedThe Washington Post. “It describes how Band helped run what he called “Bill Clinton Inc.,” obtaining “in-kind services for the President and his family—for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.”
The Clinton Foundation‘s downward trajectory ever since since Hillary Clinton’s election loss provides further testimony to claims that the organization was built on greed and the lust for power and wealth—not charity. source
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson: let’s take a look at the facts
Here is Dr. William Lane Craig giving a long-form argument for the historical event of the resurrection of Jesus, and taking questions from the audience.
The speaker introduction goes for 6 minutes, then Dr. Craig speaks for 35 minutes, then it’s a period of questions and answers with the audience. The total length is 93 minutes, so quite a long period of Q&A. The questions in the Q&A period are quite good.
Introduction:
Many people who are willing to accept God’s existence are not willing to accept the God of Christianity
Christians need to be ready to show that Jesus rose from the dead as a historical event
Private faith is fine for individuals, but when dealing with the public you have to have evidence
When making the case, you cannot assume that your audience accepts the Bible…
When debt grows much faster than GDP for an extended period of time, it is inevitable that a good portion of that debt will start to go bad at some point. We witnessed a perfect example of this in 2008, and now it is starting to happen again. Commercial bankruptcies have been rising on a year-over-year basis since late 2015, and this is something that I have written about previously, but now consumer bankruptcies are also increasing. In fact, we have just witnessed U.S. consumer bankruptcies do something that they haven’t done in nearly 7 years. The following comes from 
(Washington, D.C.) — Never have the American people needed a solid strategic alliance with friendly Sunni Arab Muslims more than it does right now.
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