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| You alone, oh Lord, are worthy of our praise! We read in the 2nd Psalm: “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.” Psalm 2:1-3. Lord Jesus, we ask your help for Fathima Rifqa Bary, a background Muslim believer who has chosen You as her Saviour and desires to direct her life in obedience to Your will. We pray for her brother, who has expressed his contempt of women and girls on facebook. We pray for her parents, who attend the Noor Islamic Cultural Center in Columbus, Ohio. This center is noted for it’s Islamic extremism, and has ties to terrorists and Al-Qaeda. Lord Jesus, we realize that all schools of Islamic law prescribe death for Islamic “apostates”, and we fear that if Rifqa, who is 8 months shy of her 18th birthday, is returned to her parents, she will become a statistic of Islamic Sharia law and “honor killings”. Lord Jesus, we pray for Jama Jivanjee, Rifqa’s pastor and for Brian Williams who baptized her. We pray for her legal team and that the church would rise to the occasion and stand with Rifqa as a result of her powerful testimony for You. We pray for Franklin County Children’s Services and the Franklin County Juvenile Court. We pray for Divine protection for all of us who have chosen to stand with Rifqa Bary, and we thank you, Jesus, for the miracle of salvation in her life. Lord Jesus, we ask that you would continue to reveal Yourself in visions and dreams to the dear children of Ishmael. We pray for the millions of other Rifqa Barys’ in this world who have declared that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that it is only through the Name and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we can be saved. Oh Lord Jesus! We don’t want more martyrs, we want more brothers and sisters who will proclaim Your Name joyously and courageously to the sons and daughters of Adam. Hear and observe the cries and tears of Your Saints, Oh Lord. Show Yourself powerful on the behalf of your struggling Saints! We submit to Your Will. You do all things well. “He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them(His enemies) in derision.” Psalm 2:4. “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.” Psalm 2:10-12. Lord, You alone are worthy of all power, glory and dominion forever, Amen. We ask all Christians reading this to send cards and correspondence to: Rifqa Bary
c/o Angela Lloyd
255 C. Drinko Hall
55 West 12th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210 May the Peace and Protection of the Lord Jesus be upon you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne0MdUyJ1GU | | |
| Greetings from the Land of Burning.
I sometimes get this urge to die for Jesus. It usually is for the wrong
reasons (posthumous glory of same morbid type), and thus to this point have
been disqualified. Unlike other faiths, in Christianity if you try to be a
martyr it does not count. To date my head remains attached to my shoulders
as God surely knows that even if lopped off it would quickly find a way to
swell.
Not so for some humble Sudanese saints this last week.
God is doing some amazing things in Darfur. Muslims are coming to Christ,
forming little gatherings, and sharing their faith. Earlier this month two
new believers bravely headed to a village with a stack of Bibles. Filled
with passion for their lost Muslim friends and relatives, they wanted to
give them the written voice of God. Once in the market, one of the men
slipped away on an errand. When he returned, he found his colleague stabbed
to death, body and Bibles burned. A few days later, another member of the
new believers was brutally bludgeoned to death.
If I give my body to be burned, and have love. It profits everything.
Please pray for those that remain. Both men leave young widows and small
children. Pray that the burning love of the Holy Spirit takes these
faithful few through their fire and onward in obedience. Pray that this is
the spark that lights broader revival in Muslim Darfur.
In that hope. An Assemblies of God Missionary in Sudan | | |
| Ladies and Gentlemen....The President of the United States! During his speech Mr. Obama criticised defenders of traditional marriage, saying they “hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes”. “You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.”
And he urged his audience to continue their campaign against “fellow citizens” who “hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes; who fail to see your families like their families; who would deny you the rights most Americans take for granted”.
Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, said: “One thing was clear from Obama’s speech – his goal (like that of homosexual activists) is not simply equal legal rights. “It is, rather, to overturn millennia of moral teaching that has acknowledged the harms of homosexual conduct and the unique benefits of marriage between a man and a woman.” I suppose one advantage of Obama's speech, if there is any, would be that Evangelists will have even more reasons to alert their audiences to the dangers facing the traditional family today. From the above comments by the President of the United States, I would conclude that he is more humanistic than Christian. We Christians certainly aren't perfect, but it takes a believer in the Bible to confess and call sin for what it is...sin. Mr. Obama believes in humanistic utopia, not the inspiration and infallibility of the Scriptures. I confess he is not different than the socialist planners of Europe in years gone by, who rejected the Holy Scriptures in favor of their beloved utopian agenda. I might now part ways with some of my Christian colleagues, I feel no urgent need to change the direction of our nation. While I certainly mourn and pray for our country, the laws passed by those enamoured with humanistic utopia will not affect my beliefs, but will undoubtedly give true Christians greater challenges and opportunities to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a western world that is growing tired of "outworn arguments and old attitudes". Perhaps we could benefit from the counsel of Scripture to "remove not the old landmark" and "stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls". Proverbs 23:10 and Jeremiah 6:16. How typical and relevant to today the words: "We will not listen" Jeremiah 6:17. God will not be silent: "Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it.". Jeremaiah 6:19 | | |
| "One wonders why no one in church history has ever been considered a heretic for being unloving. People were anathematized and often tortured and killed for disagreeing on matters of doctrine or on the authority of the church. But no one on record has ever been so much as rebuked for not loving as Christ loved. Yet if love is to be placed above all other considerations (Col. 3:14; 1 Peter 4:8), if nothing has any value apart from love (1 Cor. 13:1-3), and if the only thing that matters is faith working in love (Gal. 5:6), how is it that possessing Christlike love has never been considered the central test of orthodoxy? How is it that those who tortured and burned heretics were not themselves considered heretics for doing so? Was this not heresy of the worst sort? How is it that those who perpetrated such things were not only not deemed heretics but often were (and yet are) held up as "heroes of the faith"? If there is an answer to this question, I believe it lies in the deceptive power of the sword. While God uses the sword of governments to preserve law, order, and justice, as we have seen, there is a corrupting principality and power always at work. Much like the magical ring in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, the sword has a demonic power to deceive us. When we pick it up, we come under its power. It convinces us that our use of violence is a justified means to a noble end. It intoxicates us with the unquenchable dream of redemptive violence and blinds us to our own iniquities, thereby making us feel righteous in overpowering the unrighteousness of others." The Myth of a Christian Nation, Gregory A. Boyd, founder and senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church, a mega-church in St. Paul, Minnesota. | | |
| LUTHERANS TO ALLOW SEXUALLY ACTIVE GAYS AS CLERGY MINNEAPOLIS – Leaders of the nation's largest Lutheran church voted Friday to allow sexually active gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy. Gays and lesbians are currently allowed to serve as ministers in theEvangelical Lutheran Church in America only if they remain celibate. The proposal to change that passed with 68 percent approval. At 4.7 million members and about 10,000 congregations in the United States, the ELCA is one of the largest U.S. Christian denominationsyet to take a more gay-friendly stance on clergy. The final decision on whether to hire gay clergy in committed relationships will lie with individual congregations. Some critics of the proposal have predicted its passage could cause individual congregations to split off from the ELCA, as has been the case with other Christian denominations, including the Episcopal Church. The debate over the so-called "ministry recommendations" got under way first thing Friday, and delegate Al Quie, a former Republican governor of Minnesota, proposed an alternative: "Practicing homosexual persons are excluded from rostered leadership in this church." The proposal, which would have left the church's policy more or less unchanged, failed. Conservatives had lost an important vote Wednesday night when the convention's 1,045 delegates approved by a two-thirds supermajority a "social statement on human sexuality" that said the ELCA could accommodate diverging views on homosexuality. The Rev. Katrina Foster, a pastor in the Metropolitan New York Synod, pointed out that the church has ordained woman and divorced people in violation of a literal interpretation of scripture. "We can learn not to define ourselves by negation," Foster said. "By not only saying what we are against, which always seems to be the same — against gay people. We should be against poverty. I wish we were as zealous about that." Katrina Foster's remarks caught my attention. Perhaps the problem with the professed Church today is it's growing unwillingness to take a literal interpretation of scripture. Do we need to depart from a literal interpretation of scripture to extend grace and mercy to a world lost in sin? Perhaps the least we could do would be to keep those from leadership positions in the Church whose lives are in violation of a literal interpretation of scriptural norms. I could more readily be longsuffering with those struggling with sin in the laity, those in positions of leadership in the Church need to be an example of Christian piety. Leaders who fall could certainly be reinstated after due repentance. We need to take a robust stand against societal sins like divorce and homosexuality. | | |
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