IN THE LAST DAYS MANY WILL COME TO CHRIST

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Most of us are familiar with the story of the 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt who held fast to their faith and were beheaded by ISIS in February, 2015. But did you know that only 20 of them were actually Copts from Egypt? Did you know that one of the martyrs was from Chad, and he had not been a Christian prior to the day of his beheading?

All 21 men had been working in Libya when they were kidnapped by ISIS. But as can be seen in pictures where they are lined up on the beach to be killed, one of them had darker skin and different facial features. This was the man from Chad.

The Coptic Christians were given a choice to deny Jesus or die. They refused to deny Him, knowing it would cost them their heads.

When the terrorists ordered the man from Chad to deny Jesus or die, he answered, “Their God is my God,” thereby sealing his fate.

That’s how moved he was by the faith of these Christians. Their refusal to deny their Saviour, even at the point of death—literally, at the point of a knife to their throats—moved him to make a profession of faith, one that would cost him his head as well. Can we grasp the intensity of this story?

The man had not been a believer. All he had to say was, “I don’t believe in Jesus” or “Jesus is not the Son of God,” and he could walk away a free man.

He would be with his family again. He would not die a brutal death. He would live to see another day.

How many Christians would be sorely tempted under such circumstances? How many would waver and, for that moment, deny their Lord, just to avoid beheading?

Yet this man, who had not been a follower of Jesus before then, was so moved by the dedication of these Christians that he became a believer on the spot.

“Go ahead and behead me,” he was saying. “Your god is not my God. Their God is my God.”

That is the power of the gospel, and that is how we overcome Satan, by not loving our lives to the point of death (Rev. 12:11).

That is why this story needs to be told and retold until the faith of those martyrs becomes our faith, until people look at our lives and say, “Your God is my God, whatever may come my way.”

And here’s something striking. As I have listened this week to the stories of persecuted Christians, even hearing from family members of martyrs, I have not heard a word of self-pity. Not a word.

I have heard words of courage and dedication. I have heard words of great love for Jesus. I have heard requests for prayer and help. But I have not heard any self-pity.

The daughter of an Iranian pastor martyred 20 years ago spoke of her own life experience and of her father’s refusal to back down. Now, 20 years after her father was buried in an unmarked grave, she could speak of multiplied hundreds of thousands of Iranian Muslims coming to faith in Jesus. Her father’s blood was not shed in vain.

That is how a seed planted in the ground first dies and then produces much fruit (John 12:24-25).

A Syrian Christian leader shared how a radical Islamic group offered to arm them to fight against another radical Islamic faction. He replied, “We already have two arms: love and forgiveness. We don’t want to become another militia.”

That is how we overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). Some Christians even said to ISIS, “Thank you for helping to unite us!”

Yet it would be wrong to think of these suffering believers as super saints, which is another lesson for us all.

Most of them are just ordinary Christians, not preachers or pastors and certainly not big-name evangelists. They are mothers and fathers, young people and old people, laborers and housewives, educated and uneducated. Yet they have remained faithful under hellish pressure, enduring unspeakable suffering.

Yet rather than curse God, they bless Him, and rather than retaliate against their enemies with hatred and vengeance, they offer forgiveness and love.

Earlier this year, a couple told me about their trip to Ethiopia where they met with family members of the Ethiopian Christians beheaded by ISIS. They spoke with the widow of one of the martyrs, who was pregnant when he was killed, making his death even more painful.

But when they talked with this young woman, rather than bemoan her terrible loss, she said to them, “How is it that I had the privilege of being married to a martyr for Jesus?” She was an uneducated woman with no social status, and she was humbled beyond words that she was chosen to be the wife of a martyr.

This is why radical Islam will ultimately fall before the name of Jesus, and why every other force that seeks to wipe out the church will fail in the end. It’s also why we should stop feeling sorry for ourselves when things get a little rough. Are we not also more than conquerors through Him who loved us? (See Rom. 8:37)

Extract from article by Dr Michael Brown in Charisma News

HOW DO YOU INTEND TO LIVE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?

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Obviously the decision is yours to make, but as we are living in the “last days”, ETERNITY and where you spend it hangs in the balance. This article by Fulton Sheen, which I received at the end of 2014, should challenge you, as it did me then and NOW.

The Decision is Yours (12/24/2014) Fulton Sheen

Like the rain washes away the dust and the dirt and replenishes and purifies the rivers, the streams and waters in the earth for all living things to continue to live and flourish, so My Spirit waits for those to enter, that I may do the same to the hearts and spirits which have freely yielded to Me. It is a decision and act and every decision and act has consequences. What will you do today, how will you live the moments which have been given to you? Will you yield; will you live the day I have set aside for you? Will you follow the path I have laid for you to walk or will you find your own way? This choice, this decision is yours to make every day and every morning, for every day is a new beginning. The consequences of that choice and decision will determine whether you go deeper into My plans and purposes, you stop short or you regress.

For those that regress and choose another path, they will drink of the consequences of that decision. They will step out of the walled city which they had previously chosen to inhabit and are now on their own. They have made themselves subject to the world and have rejected My will and replaced it with their own and they rejected My plans, My purposes and My protection. They have chosen their own path. In these days and the days to come, retracing ones steps and taking back ground will become more difficult and the consequences greater.

For those who stop short, you will continue to walk in the revelation and grace you had been given up to that point, but the former revelation and grace will not be sufficient. It will be harder and harder to stand your ground without fresh revelation and grace. You will be like a stagnant pond, no longer connected to the river which once replenished, purified and allowed it to expand. In time you will become polluted with things which can only grow in water deprived of cleansing and eventually dries up and disappears.

But for those who daily choose the path I have laid out for them, for those who have chosen My will, My plans and purposes over their own, they will not be disappointed. They will receive fresh revelation, fresh grace for the day and they will move forward and the enemy will not have his way with them. I will renew their strength, I will give them wisdom, insight and direction they need for the day and for the days to come. The consequences of this choice will be peace, joy and rest in the midst of the battle. They will have eyes to see, their ears will hear and their mind will understand what My Spirit is saying. Like the sons of Issachar they will understand the times and they will know what to do.

THE DECISION IS YOURS?

 

GET BACK TO THE GOSPEL – RICKY DOES A GREAT JOB

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Join Ricky in his prayer for you at the end of this powerful sermon, based solely on the Word of God. It is a sound exposition of 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 & 2 entitled “When your actions speak louder than your words”.

You need 45 minutes for this sermon, but it will be worth your time. It is a sermon that needs to be heard in our time.

Sadly, we are in the time that Paul wrote about in 2 Timothy 4:3-4. “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.

HOPE ETERNAL COMES FROM KNOWING GOD

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“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast….  Hebrews 6:19

In his book about hope, Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie wrote, “Hope is not wishful thinking…. Hope is not simply cheery optimism. Hope certainly can produce an optimistic attitude, but an optimistic attitude is no substitute for true hope…. Hope is a gift of God through Christ that produces a confident, unshakeable trust in His faithfulness, and a vibrant expectation of His timely interventions in keeping with His gracious promises to us.”

Hope sustains us as we wait on the Lord. In fact, in the Bible it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between the words wait and hope. Isaiah 40:31 in the New King James Version says, “But those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength….” But in the New International Version, the same verse says, “…but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.”

eagles-wings

Hope is simply waiting expectantly and eagerly for the day God will perfectly fulfill every promise and do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or imagine.

Hope is a deep-seated confidence in God that anchors our souls, even in rough seas. Make very sure your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock.

Authentic hope is always a by-product of a personal relationship with God. It comes from knowing God.
Lloyd John Ogilvie

HOW RELEVANT IS THIS WORD FOR THESE LAST DAYS?

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Jesus revealed to the disciples in Matthew 24 what we can expect to experience in the last days before His second coming. Moreover, God is revealing to those who are seekers after the truth in His Word, the many prophecies in both the OT and NT that are unfolding in our time and hence, also, what is to come before His second coming.

James Goll has identified  a number of KEY paradigm shifts: breakdown of the denominational barriers and structures. Part of that is a multitude of prayer networks that are emerging, that cross those denominational barriers. I am involved in one that has just started up in the Southern Region of Sydney – South Eastern Sydney Prayer Network – contact Ps Ron Brookman 0425 225 386 or myself on 0414412740 to get on the mailing list.

James Goll originally wrote this twelve years ago but has just up dated it. I have not reproduced the entire article but what I believe is relevant for today.  Sadly, as prophesied, we are also going to see a great falling away in the denominational churches as persecution intensifies.

“Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” Matthew 24 11-13

Only those who are totally sold out for Jesus, and who recognise we are in the “end times’, and are prepared to face whatever persecution comes there way, in the knowledge that to die in Christ is GAIN, will be saved.

Paradigm Shifts for the 21st Century

James W Goll

by James W. Goll

As we have crossed the threshold of a new era in the Lord, there will be a lot of shifting taking place in the church and the world. It is the time of completing unfinished business, a time of cleansing, and a time to get prepared for a “spiritual church-quake” to transpire in the life of what some prophetic voices call the “Third Day Church”.  With this view in mind, let me present some bullets on Paradigm Shifts for the 21st Century.

  • An Apostolic Relational Mandate is being released emphasizing “networking” versus vertical authority structures. This fresh emphasis on cross-pollination will replace much of the inbred church associations, which are strife ridden by the spirit of competition and control.
  • While in worship I was given the following phases: “When the Apostolic is Made Personal (AMP) there will be Mighty Authority in the Prophetic (MAP) in that day. The Lord will amplify His voice in those relational renewal centres and the Holy Spirit will put them on His map.”
  • Confrontation shall come with the “political spirit”. Even as the “prophetic movement” exposed and confronted the “religious spirit” in the church, so an “apostolic movement of grace and truth” will expose and lay an axe at the historical root of the “political spirit” in the church.
  • The restoration of David’s Tabernacle as prophesied in Amos 9:12 and Acts 15:16-18 shall escalate resulting in authentic 24-hour houses of prayer and praise, worship and intercession sprinkled across the nations. New creative songs and sounds shall emerge as it was with the radical ministry of William and Katherine Booth’s Salvation Army bands. Praise, once again, will not be confined to the “four walls of the church” but will spill out into the open-air arena.
  • In the church world, there will be a continued theological shift away from the false theory of cessationism (spiritual gifts passed away with the closing of the cannon of scriptures and/or the second generation apostles of the early church.) In other words, cessationism is going to cease!
  • A new Signs and Wonders Movement is growing. Healing Rooms and Centres will be instituted in many cities devoted to praying for the sick and casting out evil spirits (Luke 10). Parades of people healed of various diseases will once again occur as in the days of life of John G. Lake in the 1920’s.
  • A renewed Quietest Movement will emerge as believers in Christ find the “secret place” of the Most High to truly be their dwelling place (Ps. 91). A fresh revelation of intimacy with God, communion with their lover/husbandman and master will come forth. A generation in the spirit of Mary of Bethany will arise and gladly “waste their life” on the Lord!
  • A fresh Holiness Movement will spring up in the church worldwide. Its emphasis shall be one of the Father’s mercies mixed with an authentic spirit of conviction of sin (John 16) causing many to repent and their stained garments to be experientially cleansed by the power and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
  • The body of Christ will awaken to her call and responsibility to reach and lift up the poor and oppressed as stated in Isaiah 58:7-12. Finances will be released to care for the widow and the orphan as declared in James 1:27. Chains of orphanages will come forth as the church awakens from her self-centered life styles and hilarious, joyful giving is restored.
  • We will see tremendous transfers of wealth into the Kingdom of God through the ministry of “market place apostles and prophets”. Those with anointing for business, administration and creativity shall be blessed – not resisted – by the church. The wall between clergy/laity and secular market place/spiritual ministry shall come down.
  • An extravagant Youth Movement is coming to the global body of Christ that will “rock the nations”.  Public events will be led by youth to pray and fast for revival, which will spread rapidly around the nations. This will be a “trans-generational anointing” where the hearts of the fathers are turned to the children and the hearts of the children to the Father (Mal. 4:5-6).
  • A wave of “Identificational Repentance” will overwhelm a remnant of the Gentile church causing her to repent of her historical wrongs against the Jewish people. In response to this, a revelation of the “Sabbath rest” shall be released from the throne of grace that will be non-legalistic and result in healing for many.
  • It is the devil’s strategy to precipitate another type of holocaust – but God will raise up trumpeters like Mordecai who shall prepare the corporate Esther (the church) for such a time as this. Radical prayer will open a hedge of protection for the Jewish people as the shields of the earth belong to the Lord.
  • A “Convergence of the Ages” shall come upon us. The anointings of Pentecostal fire, the healing and deliverance crusades, the Latter Rain presence, the Evangelical burden for the lost, the Charismatic Gifts, the Jesus People zeal, the Third Wave credibility, the revelation of the Prophetic movement and the relational networking of the Apostolic Reformation shall all merge together into a tidal wave that will be greater than the impact of “reformation of 500 years ago.” This will ultimately create what could be called The Great Revolution in the Church“.
  • Radical deeds of identificational repentance, acts of mercy to the poor and the oppressed, presence and power encounters to the sick and the demonized, warrior praise and intercession arising over cities will mount as a Revolution comes upon the global body of Christ and creates a great societal awakening! If history books are written of the years that lie ahead, they might be termed “The Days of His Glorious Presence“.

(Note: James wrote this 12 years ago and it was published in his book The Coming Prophetic Revolution. He has looked at these declarations again, edited them slightly and thought it would be good to post them for you once again.)

source: James W. Goll

LIKE PAUL & HARRY, WE NEED TO ASK, WHAT SHALL I DO, LORD?

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So I said, “What shall I do, Lord?” And the Lord said to me, “Arise and go….”  Acts 22:10

In his autobiography, Our Incredible Journey, Word of Life co-founder Harry Bollback and his wife, Millie, wrote about their years of missionary service in Brazil, where they lived in very primitive circumstances. “Living under these conditions was truly difficult,” Harry wrote. “But neither of us thought of it as being hard at the time. We had made a decision to serve the Lord, and we were just doing what we thought the Lord would have us do. We were enjoying the good hand of God’s blessings.”

In Acts 22, the apostle Paul recounted his conversion for the Jewish Ruling Counsel. He told them of the light that blinded him on the Damascus Road, and he recounted the two questions he asked God: “Who are You, Lord?” (verse 8) and “What shall I do, Lord?” (verse 10)

When we come to Christ for salvation, we need to ask, “What do You want me to do?” Then, we just need to have a submissive spirit to His guidance, and He’ll use us in ways beyond our expectation.

I’m convinced that when you are serving the Lord, there is never a question of sacrifice. It’s just doing what we are supposed to be doing for His glory. You don’t think of the sacrifice—you think of your mission.
Harry Bollback

WHAT IS GOD DOING IN YOU & YOUR CHURCH?

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Us Christians, we should be continually astounded by what God has done and is doing for us and those in the world around us. Consider just a few of his mind-boggling blessings:

  1. You have been forgiven. If you’re a Christian, you carry absolutely no guilt for your past sins. Like a criminal who was released from death row, you have been declared not guilty, and you no longer face punishment. When you wake up every morning, you should pinch yourself as you realise how merciful God was to pardon you!
  2. The Father has adopted you. Adoption is a foreign concept in many cultures. There is not even a word for adoption in some languages. Yet God loved you so much that He brought you into His family, called you His child and shared His eternal inheritance with you. Have you taken time to ponder what that means?
  3. You can read and treasure God’s Word. There are still many people today who do not have the Bible in their language. There are others who live in countries where Bibles are restricted. Do you realize how high a price was paid by previous generations so you could have the Bible now? Do you read it with a sense of grateful humility? Do you realise it prepares us for coming events? There are more prophecies about Jesus second coming, than there were of His first coming, and there were over sixty of those. The Pharisees and Sadducee’s did not get His first coming, what about the church and His second coming. Is the church asleep, as were the ten virgins in that parable, five had oil in their lamps but all were asleep at the time of their Lord’s coming? I believe we are in the “last days” and as we watch events unfold, particularly in the middle east, we can line them up with the O.T. and N.T prophecies. As the world descends into increasing darkness, just as the Bible prophesied, is your church preparing you for these events?
  4. You have continual access to God’s presence. In the days of the Old Covenant, people who worshipped the true God could only do it from a distance. They stood outside the door of the temple while priests made sacrifices for them. You should pinch yourself now! Because we live in the New Covenant era, every born-again Christian can approach the throne of God with confidence. We worship the Lord in “spirit and truth” as Jesus prophesied to the Samaritan woman at the well.
  5. The Holy Spirit lives in your Spirit. Before Jesus came, the Holy Spirit only “came upon” certain people—prophets, kings or special messengers and sometimes only for a specific purpose or season. But today, because of Jesus’ atonement, the Father sent the Holy Spirit to rebirth your Spirit (died at The Fall). The Holy Spirit now lives in you 24/7. He is your counsellor, your comforter and your teacher. He prays for you, refines you, refreshes you, empowers you and leads you deeper and deeper into God’s truth. He is the one that produces the nine fruits of the Spirit in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness, kindness and self-control. He is also the one that enables your use of the nine spiritual gifts: Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith, Healing, Miracles, Prophecy, Discerning of Spirits, Speaking in Tongues and Interpretation of Tongues. Shouldn’t you be in awe of a God who does that?
  6. You can enjoy God’s house and His people. Jesus said when we gather together, His presence is there. He dwells in His congregation. Yet many Christians have given up on the church because they got hurt, or because pastors weren’t perfect. But do you realise that the church is a miracle? It is the living body of Christ, and until He returns it will be the place where God accomplishes His purposes but find a church that stands on the authority of God’s Word. Don’t miss this profound blessing!
  7. You get to experience the Holy Spirit moving all around you. Ministries such as that of the Danish evangelist Sorben Sondergaard are experiencing Church as in the time of the “Book of Acts” where Holy Spirit healings and miracles are commonplace. The Holy Spirit is moving in profound ways today. Churches are growing rapidly in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, and many new churches are now being planted in the United States which stand on the authority of God’s Word. Instead of focusing on the negative trends you see in the media, you should stand in awe that we live in a day that ancient prophets longed to see.
  8. You are going to heaven. No matter what pain, sickness, disappointment or trial you face during your short time on Earth, you are going to step into an eternity where there is no darkness, no death and no tears. As Paul said, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Phil. 1:21. When this life is over, you are going to live forever. It will take an eternity to comprehend a God who would treat us so mercifully.

Please take time to ponder God’s marvellous, mind-blowing love. Pinch yourself and be reminded that the truths we read in the Bible are not just words on a page or dry doctrinal concepts. They are living realities that should shake you to the core and produce the purest form of wide-eyed, awestruck worship.

Modified article by J Lee Grady former editor of Charisma Magazine.

 

HOW A WELL KNOWN SECULAR JEW CAME TO FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST

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Edgar Award-winner and New York Times bestselling novelist tells of his improbable conversion from agnostic Jewish-intellectual to baptised Christian and of the books that led him there.
No one was more surprised than Andrew Klavan when, at the age of fifty, he found himself about to be baptised. Best known for his hard-boiled, white-knuckle thrillers and for the movies made from them—among them True Crime (directed by Clint Eastwood) and Don’t Say a Word (starring Michael Douglas)—Klavan was born in a suburban Jewish enclave outside New York City. He left the faith of his childhood behind to live most of his life as an agnostic in the secular, sophisticated atmosphere of New York, London, and Los Angeles. But his lifelong quest for truth—in his life and in his work—was leading him to a place he never expected.
Klavan’s coming to faith took place over a process of many years where he wrestled with many philosophical quandaries and the author is quick to point out that reason can only get you so far.

CP asked Klavan how important he thinks experiencing God is in light of how contemporary culture values thinking over feeling, particularly the reasoning that what we think is objectively true and the things we experience are subjective and therefore invalid.

Among other things, Klavan noted, the subjective experience of falling in love with his wife over the course of many decades was an epiphany of sorts; love showed him that just because something might be subjective it does not mean it is not real.

“That led me to start to think ‘Now, wait a minute, maybe if you can be deceived in your subjective perceptions, then maybe you can be right in your subjective perceptions,” Klavan said.

Along the way, Klavan’s rejection of atheism was in part because he found important truths in places many devout Christians rarely look. Klavan told The Christian Post that one of the most important engagements he had with a work of art was with French author and philosopher Marquis de Sade.

“De Sade wrote some of the most sadistic pornography — some of the most disgusting stuff I ever read — and his books are laced with atheistic philosophy. And when I read that atheist philosophy and I saw that pornography that accompanied it, I said to myself, ‘That is honest atheism. That is only true, truly reasoned atheism I ever saw, that if you wanted to be an atheist, this was the logic of it and it turned me away.’ I turned my back and walked away from it.”

“So here’s this ugly guy but writing brilliant art, brilliant psychopathic art, that contained a truth that I needed to find,” he continued.

“The one thing I would love to see Christians do, is to stop leaping to condemn art that doesn’t immediately echo their deeply held beliefs. Because I truly believe that all great art is speaking truth. God is god of the real world, he’s not God of fantasy land. When you shut people off from the ugliness of life, from the physicality of life and the passion and the lust that are in the Bible and in the arts, you shut people off from the real God,” he said.

“I think that the arts are one of the ways that human beings relate their inner experience to one another. And I think in that inner experience is where we are going to find our faith and find our God. So learn how to read the arts, learn how to read something that repels you, it actually may have a truth inside that people need to know.”

When asked what he would most like readers to take away from his memoir, Klavan reiterated the importance to examining the evidence for faith for oneself, against the fierce cultural tide of unbelief.

“You have to step out of that current, as hard as it is, and see the world fresh and start to find the truth from there,” Klavan said. “Because as the X-files always told us, the truth is out there. And it really is staring you in the face, and it really is speaking to you, singing to you, virtually, from every corner of the world.”

“The Jews are the chosen people of God and they brought the notion of God back into humanity after we lost track of it after The Fall, they were the doorway for God to re-enter the world and people hate them for it. To take it even one step further, people hate the Jews because they hate God, and you hate God because you hate yourself. I really do think that that is the failure to accept original sin.”

“And I feel like if you will experience my story with me, it might resonate. You might turn to your own life and say, ‘You know, once I start to listen I hear that song and it might help to draw you out of this tide that is washing you in something that is utterly untrue,” he concluded.

Andrew Klavan’s story demonstrates that God can use whatever, whenever to bring us to a knowledge of the truth – His truth about His world. A world which He judged on one occasion (Noah’s worldwide flood that laid down all the fossils), and He tells us in His Word that He will pour out His wrath upon all the earth again in the not to distant future, if my reading of the signs are correct.

 

 

 

OLYMPIANS WHO UNDERSTAND THEIR ABILITIES ARE FROM GOD

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They all  give the glory to JESUS their Lord and Saviour. You will be inspired by these amazing stories of dedication, struggle, defeat and victory. They are all winners even in defeat.