What the Bible says about Jesus

The True Light "In him, (the Lord Jesus) was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world,…the world didn’t recognize him." John 1:4,9.
The Good Seed and the Weeds The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seeds in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. Matthew 13:24,25.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

What does the Bible really say about taking in Syrian refugees?

Not what the left, the media and quite a few Christians would have you think.

Author
By Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives  November 20, 2015
Reblogged from canadafreepress.com


It’s always problematic when you look to the mainstream media and other left-wingers for an understanding of what Scripture says. To listen to them, you’d think Jesus was concerned with little more than sending checks to the poor, installing solar panels on roofs and surrendering to any and all foreign enemies.

That’s why it’s been easy for those who only crack a Bible when they’re looking for something to justify an agenda to claim that “Christian compassion” demands we take in Syrian refugees without regard for the potential threat of ISIS terrorists who slip in among the crowd.
Is that what the Bible actually says? Of course not, and David French does a nice job of getting the conversation started over at National Review:
Indeed, Scripture draws a clear line between the responsibility of the individual and the role of the state. Individuals are to forswear vengeance, leaving justice to earthly rulers as God’s “agents of wrath” who bring “punishment on the wrongdoer.” The state has an affirmative responsibility to protect its citizens, even to the point of bringing a sense of “terror” to those “who do wrong.” There is no contradiction between personally welcoming the “strangers” among us while our leaders endeavor to protect us from a genocidal terrorist force that uses refugee status as a shield and disguise to perpetrate brutal attacks against innocent civilians.
This is not to say that Scripture creates a paradigm of compassionate individuals and heartless governments. Throughout the Bible, entire nations — not just individuals — are condemned for injustice, including unjust treatment of the poorest and most vulnerable members of society. But to say that the only way to meet that standard is to open our doors to migrants when we know our enemy intends to plant terrorists within their ranks is once again to read far too much into Scripture.

French is quoting Romans 13, which lays out clear lines of responsibility for governments - particularly the imperative to protect the innocent from wrongdoers. Now that might seem to contradict Luke 10, in which Jesus teaches the importance of being a neighbor to someone in need, even if that someone comes from an enemy camp.
But there is actually no contradiction. As liberals often do, they take directives aimed at individuals in the Bible and try to make them the responsibility of the state. More than that, they insist that the only way the directive can be fulfilled is in the manner they prefer.

What was extraordinary about the actions of the Samaritan in Jesus’ parable is that Samaritans and Jews typically would not associate with each other, yet in this case the Samaritan who found the Jew beaten alongside the road picked him up, tended to his wounds and brought him to an inn - where he instructed the innkeeper to look after him and even paid the bill. And yes, that is absolutely the sort of love and compassion to which we are called as Christians, even when we’re talking about someone we typically regard as an enemy.

But it’s important to recognize a couple of things. First, the Samaritan did not take the man into his own home. He paid the bill, but he did not in any way put himself at risk of harm from the man. Even more importantly, the Samaritan made a free choice of his own will to help the man.

What the left wants to do in the case of the Syrian refugees is use the power of the state to force an entire nation to welcome people into their midst without any effort to ensure that members of ISIS with evil intentions were filtered out. That’s not compassion. That’s national suicide. And if you think God wants nations to commit suicide, just skim through the Old Testament and consider the many instructions He gave to Israelite kings to attack foreign armies - even killing and plundering those they conquered. When it came to warfare, God instructed the kings of Israel to be pretty ruthless in dealing with their enemies.

The Syrian refugee situation is a tricky conundrum because there surely are many among the group who have no evil intentions and genuinely need help. America should want to help. But there are ways to do that without risking our own security. It would make more sense for them to be resettled in majority Muslim countries anyway, and we can do a lot of things to support that process.

But the responsibility of government is to protect its people from harm, and the government is well aware of the fact that previous terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by people who slipped in as refugees or asylum-seekers. Knowing full well that this one of the enemy’s tactics, and doing absolutely nothing to prevent them from succeeding at it, is not “Christian compassion.” It’s a dereliction of duty.

We can help and we should. But not by putting ourselves in jeopardy. If individuals are called by the Lord to take a risk and help a potentially dangerous person, then those individuals should trust the Lord. But for the leaders of our nation to decide that we all have to take that risk is neither scriptural nor moral. It’s just plain wrong.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

What is Yoga?

Reblogged from www.truthbehindyoga.com
Picture Did you know yoga is not a series of stretches? It is actually an ancient religion with its own god, practices, and doctrine. The poses and breathing are only one aspect of the religion. These components have only recently become popularized, but the religion of yoga has been practiced for thousands of years. 

Yoga means “to yoke.” It is often explained that this means the goal of yoga is to yoke together mind, spirit, and body. But that is not the truth of the term. "Yoga" actually refers to the goal of the practice: to attain "ultimate knowledge" by losing one's sense of self and uniting with the Divine (or Supreme Consciousness, Godhead, or other names depending upon the tradition) in much the same way a drop of water loses itself and becomes one with a body of water, like an ocean or a puddle. 

The term “yoke” also explains the yoking of energies, or spirits, that are invoked to aid in the deepening of practice. These energies are invited into the practitioner and their practice in multiple ways: by the practice of worshiping deities and energies with poses of the body (for example, the sun salutation is a series of movements that pays homage to the sun god), by repeating mantras (each sound, word, and phrase invokes its corresponding spirit), of specific breathing exercises (Ujai breathing is one example, also called “Serpent Breath” or “Breath of Fire”), or by setting the intention to invite the spirit of a specific teacher, loved one, or deity to yoke with the practitioner and help deepen the practice. This is where Christians are encouraged to plug in Jesus and make it a practice for him.

But yoga is not a universal, religiously neutral practice that Christianity can be plugged into, as is being propagated. Yoga is an ancient spiritual pagan practice. The religious doctrine and the practice it outlines are completely 
opposed to Biblical teachings. Yoga was thought to have been practiced for some time before its religious text, called the Yoga Sutras, were recorded around two thousand years ago. This text explains paths of practices with the final goal of ultimate "freedom" from all attachments and sense of self--of becoming one with god and reaching "ultimate knowledge."

The Lord of the Bible repeatedly and strictly commands against having anything to do with pagan gods. He tells us that they are not gods at all (He is the only real God), but demonic forces disguising themselves as deceptive powers (see Bible
). The pagan god of yoga, called Ishvara, is claimed by the Yoga Sutras to be the source of all knowledge (Yoga Sutras, 1.25). This god Ishvara is represented by the symbol and sound of "Om" (1.27). Practitioners are instructed to repeat this name (mantra repetition) to deepen their practice (1.28-29). Practicing the movements of yoga paired with breathing techniques and meditation are also said to deepen the practice (2.46-55). I was taught across varying New Age paths that meditation was necessary to develop in order to "open" oneself and to "progress" on the spiritual path. Yoga is one of these paths. The Yoga Sutras expands on reaching the goal of ultimate knowledge by practicing meditative exercises.

The Yoga Sutras outline a path of sorcery and divination through developing meditation. These practices are repeatedly and adamantly prohibited in the Bible. The Lord reveals that the truth behind these practices is that the "knowledge" and "power" are coming from demonic spirits, often masked to appear as esoteric experiences of light and goodness (see Bible
). The Yoga Sutras explain that by following this yogic path, the practitioner can attain special abilities to tell the past and future (3:16, 3.22), discover spirits and communicate with master spirits (3:25, 3:32), enter into another person's body (3:38), levitate (3:40), speak with animals (3.17), discover knowledge of past lives (3.18), read the minds of others (3.19), not feel hunger or thirst (3:30), and other attributions of sorcerers and mediums. According to the Yoga Sutras, mastering of meditation lays the groundwork for these powers and leads to what is called "absolute knowledge of all that can be perceived" (3.5). It states that one can also open oneself to such "supernatural powers" with drugs, mantras, and yoga (4.1).

The possibility of supernatural powers and "wisdom," of earning one's way to ultimate freedom may sound exciting and appealing to some. It is supposed to sound appealing because it is a trap. Demonic forces are behind these supernatural experiences of seeming peace, light, and supernatural knowledge and powers. I both experienced this firsthand and discovered numerous scriptures in the Bible explaining this reality. It is the goal of these powers to keep people separate from the real and living God, the only God--the Lord--who says one can't 
earn his or her way to freedom no matter how hard he or she may try. It's something the Lord gives freely to anyone as a gift. One simply has to choose to accept by faith that Jesus is who is says he is: the only path, the only Savior, the only God. For more on this, see Salvation


What About My Yoga Class?
The yoga we know in yoga studios and gyms is one of the practices along this path outlined in the Yoga Sutras. The path encourages 
meditation to quiet and open oneself to the spiritual, esoteric realm. Yoga is a movement meditation. See Yoga "For Jesus" and "Exercise Only" for more information.

Monday, November 9, 2015

The True Danger of Preaching False Conversion

Reblogged from www.blogos.org
By Gary Meredith


[NOTE: The following is not offered as a systematic refutation of "false conversion" teaching, nor an attack on its proponents, whose motives are surely sincere. My purpose is to show how this doctrine of questionable value can do serious harm to the Body of Christ.]
We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. Acts 15:24
The young believer was apparently having his first serious crisis of faith. He wrote:
I've recently realized that I'm a so called 'false convert' and never really got saved. I've already called upon the name of the Lord for quite some time to save me from my sins with a heartfelt conviction of the gravity of my sin but nothing really happened. I repented from my sinful ways and did quite well in the beginning to abstain from sin but it didn't take long before I succumbed back to some of my sins. I continue to repent, and desire and value the Word of God more than ever, but my momentum and desire to read it starts to lessen. Should I continue to call upon his name to save and regenerate me, and only then follow Him?
Aside from his obvious Christian faith, I was struck by how closely his words paralleled Paul's:
Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Romans 7:21-24
This young man's misdiagnosis of his problem as false conversion — what some preachers call "Hell's best kept secret" — directed him away from the only cure, which Paul reveals in the next verse: "Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:25). Apparently no mature believer had explained to him that he already has been, is being, and will be delivered from sin by his continuously interceding Savior (Hebrews 7:25). His ignorance about the real Christian life, and the false explanation for his struggle with sin, disabled him from resting in and growing in that assurance (Matthew 11:28; Romans 8:35-39; Philippians 1:6).

Years before hearing the term "false conversion," a few young believers opened up to me about their private insecurities regarding their own salvation. It usually went something like this:
Maybe I'm not really saved, that I'm just another unsaved hypocrite. Everyone else at church seems to have a solid walk with the Lord, but I still struggle with sinful thoughts and emotions and failures. If they really knew me they probably wouldn't think I was saved. Our pastor probably wouldn't. He says Christ gives us daily victory over the world, the flesh and the devil — I'm losing all three battles! Maybe I should just leave the church and figure out what I really believe.
The correct response is: You wouldn't care if you weren't saved.

Distress about your sins is a healthy sign of a saved soul, not a symptom of false conversion. tweet Sanctification isn't instant or easy, it's a lifelong, painful, humbling process. Real false converts don't care about their sins and don't know they aren't saved. Our warnings to them fall on deaf ears — ears which cannot hear (Jeremiah 6:10). That's because "the person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:14). False converts may call themselves Christians, attend church and use a lot of "God talk," but most are unaware and unconcerned that they are not reconciled with God and still destined for hell.

False conversion is presented as the reason for rampant immorality in many churches today — drug and alcohol abuse and addiction, sexual sin, divorce and more. That may be partly true (actually, the failure of church leaders to understand and counter the enormous power of modern culture is a fuller explanation).

But Scripture is far more concerned about false teachers than false converts (1 Timothy 1:3; 4:1-2; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 4:1; Galatians 1:6-9). The most dangerous false converts by far are those who infiltrate the Church into positions of leadership in order to tear the flock apart and lead it astray (Matthew 7:15; Luke 21:8; Acts 20:29; Romans 16:17). While the sinful behavior of a few members may infect others, they are a small problem compared to our real enemies, false teachers, who have wiped out entire Christian denominations, leading millions of followers to tolerate and even celebrate, in the name of Christ, doctrines of demons (1 Timothy 4:1) and the evil behavior from which Christ came to set them free (Romans 6:11-18; Galatians 5:1).

Tragically, false conversion preachers re-aim the big guns of church condemnation from the primary target — false teachers — to our weak, stumbling brothers and sisters who desperately need God's love, and ours, starting with the reassurance of the forgiveness of sins (Luke 1:77). In extreme cases such preachers may actually serve Satan's disabling function as accusers of the brethren (Zechariah 3:1-2; Revelation 12:10), rather than the edifying role of the Church under the direction of the Holy Spirit for the fruitful conviction of sin (John 16:8; 1 Corinthians 14:24-25; 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5).

Preachers of "false conversion," however sincere, exploit a potent reality: that all of us sin (1 John 1:8-10). So there is always plenty of "evidence" available for every believer that he or she was never saved. That is a lie, and a faith-damaging distortion of the Christian life. It also misses a fundamental reality — that we saints are capable of some very nasty behavior.

J. D. Farag - Mid-East Prophecy Update


John Haller - Prophecy Update - 2015 08 11


Yamandu Costa and Dominguinhos


Thursday, October 1, 2015

Palestinian flag flies over U.N. as Hurricane brews in Atlantic

Palestinian flag flies over U.N. as Hurricane brews in Atlantic
from wnd.com 

Note from this blog´s author: 
Is it not interesting to see that the 2015 season was considered low in the hurricanes total and now this one named Joaquin (in Hebrew meaning "established by YHWH") comes right at the time the world is trying to mess with God´s established eternal covenant with Israel? 
One must be totally blind ignorant or defiant of God´s sovereignty to miss the connection.

  
This is what God says in his Word:

Job 38:22-30
"Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, Or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, Which I have reserved for the time of distress, For the day of war and battle? "Where is the way that the light is divided, Or the east wind scattered on the earth? read more."Who has cleft a channel for the flood, Or a way for the thunderbolt, To bring rain on a land without people, On a desert without a man in it, To satisfy the waste and desolate land And to make the seeds of grass to sprout? "Has the rain a father? Or who has begotten the drops of dew? "From whose womb has come the ice? And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth? "Water becomes hard like stone, And the surface of the deep is imprisoned.

This is the solution provided by God himself: a contrite heart, crying out in repentance for our sins, turning toward and accepting God´s pardon, and in faith trust that God keeps his Word that will prevail in every instance, gratitude and praise will follow.


Psalm 107: 23-32
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
24 These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.
25 For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
26 They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
27 They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.
28 Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
30 Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
31 Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
32 Let them exalt him also in the congregation of the people, and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

Now from the New Testament:
Jesus Stills the Sea Mark 4:35- 41
35 On that day, when evening came, He *said to them, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 [a]Leaving the crowd, they *took Him along with them in the boat, just as He was; and other boats were with Him. 37 And there *arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. 38 Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they *woke Him and *said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” 39 And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and [b]it became perfectly calm. 40 And He said to them, “Why are you [c]afraid? Do you still have no faith?” 41 They became very much afraid and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

 The Lord Jesus can bring on a storm and calm it as part of a manifestation of his power for our benefit. 
I hope that this latest warning will cause people to repent, and turn to God who will act in mercy as he has promised in his Word. 

Look at this image and draw your own conclusion!   














Image taken from weather.com 

More reading on storms by this blogger

Poem:
http://lightnseed.blogspot.com.br/2014/03/peace-be-still.html

Essay on Paul´s shipwreck on Malta Acts 27 Part I and Part II
http://thelightseed.blogspot.com.br/search?q=A+ship+named+relations

http://thelightseed.blogspot.com.br/2011/01/ship-named-relations-study-on-human_25.html


A Short Single Sentence that Saved my Life

Finish What you Started - Part 3

  Written and published by Jean-Louis Mondon This is my testimony of one of the experiences with my Heavenly Father´s provisions that he pr...

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