Thank you

I just wanted to take a minute to thank my friends, my faithful readers and the new visitors for your visits and message of encouragement on Facebook. Although most of you are anonymous, you are the ones that help me build it and I appreciate your support in  helping when you pass it on to your friends. A special thanks to the faithful followers, I don´t know who you are but I can tell that you follow this blog because of the same city and country names coming up very regularly.

I hope and it is my sincere desire that you have benefited from the posts I have written and that it has helped in getting closer to our Lord who is the One who inspires me and who keeps me going. I can only give freely what I have freely received. I am deeply and immeasurably indebted and grateful to Him because of the demonstration of His love, grace, mercy and pardon for my sins through His self-sacrificial death on the cross and the free gift of eternal life through His resurrection from the dead.

God bless you and may all together continue to lift up the Holy Name of our Lord and Savior our God, the Father, Jesus-Christ, his Son and the Holy Spirit who reveals to us who they are and what they have done for us. Maranatha.

Jean-Louis.

The Feet of the Messenger of Peace

Original French written and posted by Jean-Louis in 9/2010
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Isaiah 52:7¹⁴

And with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the the gospel of peace. Ephesians 6:15 
So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶ Very truly, I tell you, servants^[a] are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. ¹⁷ If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. John 13:14-17

The Feet of the Messenger of Peace
To My lovely Wife Mírian 

It´s been two months now

Since you appeared at my door

You came in gently without fanfare

And simply sat on the floor

Your grateful sheepish smile

Welcomed my invitation

To let you sit down

In a corner for a while

Like a young aphonic boy

His head  among the stars

Under the veiled power

Of your unveiled charm

I invited you to sit on the throne

For it is not proper to offer the guest

A corner of the rug belonging

To the devoted servant

Then, taking a cushion

To rest your feet

Tired from the long voyage

I removed the used sandals

Full of dust covering

Their rare beauty

I took a basin and tenderly

I washed and dried them

Then, leaning to pray,

I warmed and blessed them

For these beautiful and fragile feet

Belong to the docile messenger

Proclaiming the Gospel of Peace. 

Jean-Louis.

Related posts:

• Distance, separation and the Cure

•  What Would Jesus Do?   
• Preparing the Way for the Second Coming of Christ 
• The basin and the towel 

Which Thief Are You?

By STLloyd March 3, 2012 faith Forgiveness God thief

Reblogged from: Serve Him The Waiting
 
Forgiveness can be a hard thing for sinful humans to understand, embrace, and practice.
First of all, there is a difference between being hurt, and being harmed.  Most of us Christians are pretty quick to forgive when hurt, but often find it much harder when they have been harmed.  Allow me to explain.  If your husband forgets your birthday, it is understandable that your feelings would be hurt, but there is no real harm done by the momentary memory lapse, (unless of course you choose to hold it against him).   Now if your husband “forgets” the vow he made on your wedding day, and is unfaithful,  then very real harm has been done.   See the difference?  One offense is much weightier than the other.

When King David lusted after Bathsheba, acted upon that lust, then compounded the sin further by having Uriah killed, whom did he sin against?  (2 Samuel 11)
If Jesus died to balance the books on the sin of the whole world (Isaiah 53:6), then who am I to hold the sin of another against them, even if it was directed at me?  Regardless of whether that person has been washed in the blood, we who have nothing to recommend us to God other than the blood of Jesus that covers us, are in no position to exact payment from anyone who has done us wrong, and how much more egregious is it to hold a debt against a fellow blood-bought believer?  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, says the prayer.

Matthew 18:23-35 says the Kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain king.  Which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents, but when that servant could not pay, rather than sell the servant and his family and possessions in order to recoup the debt, the master had mercy and forgave him his debt.  Yet the servant then went right out to collect a debt from someone who owed a much lesser amount of money to him. 

Notice the passage does not say he was trying to collect this debt in order to pay back the master.  No, it was just a shakedown!  This guy wanted his money, but when his debtor could not pay, he had him thrown into prison until he should repay it all.   When the master learned that his servant had no compassion over a small debt even after he himself had been forgiven such great debt, the master was “wroth and delivered him to the tormenters until he should pay all that was due unto him”. (Vs. 34)

Since we know that salvation is eternal, does this mean if we don’t forgive others, God won’t forgive us?  Or does it simply mean what it says: we will be delivered unto the tormenters?  If we find ourselves wondering why the devil seems to have been given permission to personally torment us, why we are miserable under circumstances that seem unrelenting, perhaps it is time to go before the Lord and ask Him to reveal to us the unforgiveness in our own heart.  It is a sin, to hold someone else’s sin against them. But just as was the case with King David; against God, and God only, has my enemy sinned. (Psalm 51:4) 

 That person may have harmed me, but they did not sin against me, they sinned against God, and I have too.  We are each like the two thieves who hung on either side of Jesus when He died.  Both guilty. Which one went to paradise? The one who understood Jesus was hanging there because of that thief’s own personal sins.  The other guy was still casting stones and adding crimes to his own rap sheet right up until his last breath. 
Which thief are you?

2014 July 8 Breaking News Labs Mixing Human DNA Animal DNA Trans-humanism Last days news

Via http://servehiminthewaiting.com/

As Israel strikes back, fake Gaza images dominate social media

A BBC report has found that many of the photographs used to illustrate the situation in Gaza are from years ago, and even from the conflicts in Iraq and Syria.

Aryeh Savir, Tazpit News Agency

Latest Update:  07.08.14, 21:10 / Israel News

Reposted via http://servehiminthewaiting.com/

A significant part of any battle nowadays is waged in the media, as each sides tries to garner public support through the exploit of images and footage used to influence popular opinion.

• Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter

A report by the BBC shows that Palestinian supporters are using fake images to illustrate the suffering in Gaza.

"Graphic images are being shared on social media to show how people have been affected by the renewed tensions between Israel and the Palestinians," the BBC reported.

"Over the past week the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack has been used hundreds of thousands of times, often to distribute pictures claiming to show the effects of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza."

The hashtag has received 375,000 retweets in eight days.

The network found that several graphic photos, that spread through social media proporting to show killed Gazans and destruction caused by IAF strikes in recent days, were actually photos taken several years ago, some of which in other war areas like Syria and Iraq.

"BBC Trending," a show that examines trends in social media, checked the veracity of widely spread photos on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack.


Over 300,000 posts were made under that hashtag. In one case, a picture of a neighborhood being bombarded was posted with the caption "This happened today in gaza while ramadhan.Our prayers always be w you. Israel is the real terrorist! (sic)"

But a BBC investigation found that the photo was taken during an IAF strike in 2009 in Beit Lahia during Operation Cast Lead.

In another instance, a photo of blooding children was posted with the caption "This is not a matter of religion. This is a matter of humanity."

According to the BBC, the photo was taken in Aleppo in Syria and not in Gaza. Another photo in the same post was taken in Iraq in 2007.

The British broadcaster also spoke to one of the posters who shared a photo under the #GazaUnderAttack, even though the photo was taken in Syria. "I deleted one of my posts that has the image in there," she said. "It's disappointing that images get shared quite quickly. I guess that's the different between the internet and credible newspaper publisher where pictures are from a source."

A Ynet examination found that photos that are not from the IDF's current Gaza operation are still being shared on Twitter.

A search of the hashtag found a photo of two men rescuring a boy severely wounded in IAF bombings with the caption "The world is silent as Israel wipes out Gaza with airstrikes. Another kid, one of many, says goodbye." with the #GazaUnderAttack hashtag.

But a search of Google Images found the photo was taken in 2012 during Operation Pillar of Defense. The boy in the photo was killed along with his family in an Air Force attack.

Hamas has used this tactic in the past too. Tazpit's Anav Silverman reported in 2012 that during Operation Pillar of Defense, the militant organization used fake images of Gaza with false headlines, inciting a flurry of comments on Facebook against Israel.

The photos were of massacres that occurred in Syria the previous month, but were depicted as massacres of Gazan families by the IDF. Other such incidents reoccur persistently.

Ynet contributed to this report.

The Glazov Gang - Jamie Glazov Interview

The mega church culture: A toxic export

Reposted from http://www.wnd.com/ 

Published: 12 hours ago

Joshua Charles 

 I’m in the home stretch of my nearly month-long trip to the Middle East, and my heart is heavy and my mind contemplative. To say that this research expedition has been life-changing would be an understatement, and it still isn’t over.
One of the greatest privileges I have had here is to meet with local Christians. The Middle Eastern church has its own issues, just like we in America do, but actually meeting and fellowshiping with them has been extremely enlightening.

The greatest question that comes to mind (at least at the moment) after these meetings is “what kind of ‘church’ is America exporting?” The church in the Middle East (speaking specifically of Jordan) is heavily influenced by the Western church, particularly the American church, far more than I realized. For instance, ministries receive millions of dollars despite the relative lack of growth. According to some local Christians we met with, those ministries spend millions, send back reports, use anything they can to show how “effective” they are, and use local Christians as, in their word, “trophies” to testify to their supposed effectiveness, and thus justifying why they should continue to receive millions more. 

According to them, ministries such as these, despite the best of intentions, have transformed the Church into a corporation, an organization, rather than the Body of Christ made up of the people of God bound together by familial ties.
Additionally, these same Christians are very concerned that these ministries bring a particularly American brand of Christianity. What does that mean? In addition to a more corporatized vision of what “church” is, they bring with them several other things (according to them): theological superficiality, an inability to speak honestly about sin (better not to bring it up) and naiveté about both the region and the culture. One of them called this the “mega church culture.”

Does any of this sound familiar?
They should, for these are, unfortunately, many of the defining characteristics of a large and growing portion of the “church” in America: a corporation based on an organizational structure that does not survive without lots of money, and at the same oftentimes lack precisely what Christians should excel at – being the FAMILY of God!
Many of these Jordanian Christians had visited the United States and preached there. They have a deep love for the United States and the American people. According to them, “Americans are the nicest people in the world.” But that does not allay their grave concerns both for the American church, as well as the vision of “church” it exports around the world.

According to one pastor who was incredibly gracious and hospitable in welcoming us into his home, a man of great wisdom and love, “In American you can’t talk about sin! What is the gospel even for if there is no sin?” This came from a man in a Muslim country, in which Christians and Muslims live relatively peacefully, but on the condition that Christians don’t share the Gospel. The question struck deep. He then followed it up with his own opinion of what the corporatized, organization-centric vision of “church” in America has done to us. The words that followed eerily reverberated with a palpable sense of undeniable truth: “In the United States, the church is very busy doing activities. LOTS of activities, people going here and there and everywhere. But where is the presence of God?”

I could not answer him, and I literally had tears well up in my eyes, because I knew what he was saying was true. Was he saying every American church? No. Was he saying every self-described American Christian? Of course not. He even emphasized that the Jordanian church had its own problems, and they were by no means perfect. But his words were true, and they reminded me of a story a mentor once told me. He used to work at a huge ministry most would instantly recognize. When he visited the corporate offices of this ministry, he saw something in the lobby that shocked him: They had come up with a formula by which they determined that by donating a certain amount of money, someone could literally “save” a particular number of people. 

 And I think that is precisely what our Jordanian brothers and sisters were trying to warn us about – we have made ministry, “church” and evangelization into a formula – something ultimately independent of God and whose success is based entirely on whether we execute the right methods, the right tools of manipulation and marketing, rather than whether God is with us or not. In the meantime, we lose perhaps the most precious aspect of daily Christian life: the sense of family with other Christians. We replace family with organizational membership. And to this, the Jordanian pastor asked us perhaps the most ominous question of all: “And what will happen when persecution comes? What will happen when your organizations come crashing down under the brunt of persecution? Will you have true Christian family to turn to?”

This sense of family has not been forgotten by our Jordanian brethren. In praying for us as we left an amazing night of fellowship, they prayed: “Dear dad, we love you so much. And we thank you for this precious gift of new family from the other side of the world now brought near to us.” Organizations change, corporations come and go, but family is forever. No wonder Jesus and all the Apostles referred to the people of God in familial terms.

Meeting with our Jordanian brethren also brought home both how many myths there are about this part of the world, but also how truly dangerous it is at the same time. There are lots of concerning things taking place, but there are also many good, loving and generous people as well. God has planted his seeds even in the darkest of places, and for this reason we still can and must hope. One young man I met, a brilliant apologist with a premier apologetics ministry, left me with this exhortation for American Christians, particularly the young: “Research. Don’t fall for the headlines. Ponder, meditate and think. It is your Christian duty to be knowledgeable and wise about the world around you. Don’t forget that.”
Amen.

Media wishing to interview Joshua Charles, please contact media@wnd.com.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/the-mega-church-culture-a-toxic-export/#fAxO8PFWHg0Hrgg8.99
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/the-mega-church-culture-a-toxic-export/#fAxO8PFWHg0Hrgg8.99

D.L. Moody on "Stony Ground Hearers"

By STLloyd July 4, 2014 D.L. Moody

Posted via  servehiminthewaiting.com 

“When a man is not deeply convicted of sin, it is a pretty sure sign that he has not truly repented. Experience has taught me that men who have very slight conviction of sin, sooner or later lapse back into their old life. For the last few years I have been a good deal more anxious for a deep and true work in professing converts than I have for great numbers. If a man professes to be converted without realizing the heinousness of his sins, he is likely to be one of those stony ground hearers who don’t amount to anything. … I believe we are making a woeful mistake in taking so many people into the Church who have never been truly convicted of sin. Sin is just as black in a man’s heart today as it ever was” 

–D.L. Moody, “Results of True Repentance,” from The Overcoming Life and Other Sermons, 1896. (From F.B.I.S. Friday Church News Notes, volume 15, Issue 27)

Mid-East Prophecy Update

Jesus Calling Inspired by a Channeled New Age Book!

January 14th, 2014 | Author: Lighthouse Trails Editors

 

 

God Calling is a book of messages reputedly delivered by Jesus Christ to two women in England in the 1930s.(1) The women referred to themselves as “The Two Listeners,” and the messages they received from “Jesus” were conveyed through an occult process known as spiritual dictation. This is when a spiritual entity conveys information from the spirit world to willing people who act as “channels.”

The Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs published by Harvest House Christian Publishers describes God Calling as a channeled New Age book. It explains that channeling is a form of mediumship and that this practice is expressly forbidden in the Bible (Deuteronomy 18: 9-12).

In the Encyclopedia chapter on channeling, in a section titled “Impersonations and Denials of Christianity,” the reader is warned that God Calling is “replete with denials of biblical teaching.”(2)
Numerous examples are cited. However, in an interview with the the Christian Broadcasting Network, Sarah Young clearly states that her journey into receiving messages from “Jesus” began with her reading of God Calling:

My journey began with a book (God Calling) written in the 1930s by two women who practiced waiting in God’s Presence, writing the messages they received as they “listened.”(3) (parenthesis in original)

In her Introduction to the original 2004 copyrighted edition of Jesus Calling [still on the market today], Sarah Young writes that she was inspired to receive personal messages from “Jesus” after reading God Calling. She describes God Calling as “a treasure to me” and emphasizes that her journey began with this channeled New Age book:

During that same year [1992], I began reading God Calling, a devotional book written by two anonymous “listeners.” These women practiced waiting quietly in God’s Presence, pencils and paper in hand, recording the messages they received from Him . . . [T]his little paperback became a treasure to me. It dove-tailed remarkably well with my longing to live in Jesus’ Presence.
The following year I began to wonder if I, too, could receive messages during my times of communing with God . . . I knew that God communicated with me through the Bible, but I yearned for more. Increasingly,  I wanted to hear what God had to say to me personally on a given day. I decided to listen to God with pen in hand, writing down whatever I believed He was saying.(4) (emphasis added)

Because of Sarah Young’s endorsement, God Calling has resurfaced in Christian bookstores and is now a popular “Christian” book in its own right. It is grievous that as a longstanding Christian, Sarah Young did not discern God Calling for what it is—an occult/metaphysical book filled with false teachings and advocating a number of spiritually dangerous New Age practices like channeling and spiritual dictation. Instead, she began to channel her own messages from “Jesus”—many of them with serious New Age implications. Now Jesus Calling and God Calling—often sitting side by side in Christian bookstores and other retail outlets—are bringing meditation, channeling, spiritual dictation, and New Age terminology into the church. Both of them with messages similarly arranged as a Christian devotional.  
           

Notes:
1. Two Listeners; Edited by A.J. Russell, God Calling (Grand Rapids, MI: A Spire Book published by Jove Publications Inc., for Fleming H. Revell, 2005), p. 5.
2.  John Ankerberg & John Weldon, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1996), pp. 80, 103-104.
3. Q&A with Sarah Young, Author Profile, The Christian Broadcasting Network (http:www.cbn.com/entertainment/books/JesusCallingQA.aspx).
4. Sarah Young, Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2004), pp. Xl-Xll
To understand more about Jesus Calling and God Calling, read “Another Jesus” Calling by Warren S. Smith.

Posted in Book/Film Reviews, Book/Music Excerpts, Contemplative Practices, Contemplative Spirituality, New Age movement, Spiritual Deception, The New (False) Spirituality | Tags: "another jesus" calling, channeling, deception, emerging church, god calling, jesus calling, mysticism, New Age, sarah young, thomas nelson, Warren B. Smith

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