Monday, March 31, 2014

Stand Firm in Your Faith! Engage With God and He Will Bring His Dreams to Fulfillment - Catherine Brown

Catherine Brown:

to Fulfillment

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this Gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2

Apostle Paul opened up his letter to the Church in Corinth by reminding the Believers of the simplicity of the Gospel truths on which they had taken their stand. He instructed them to hold firmly to what they had originally believed, otherwise it was all for nothing. In this regard Paul's words are timeless in their principle and effect.

The Gospel In A Nutshell

Paul preached the Gospel "in a nutshell" in verses 3 through 5 of 1 Corinthians 15. Sometimes we have to be reminded of the simple truths of the Gospel.

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons by John Singleton Copley)

Paul's Own Personal Testimony

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God. 1 Corinthians 15:9

With great humility and gratitude for his salvation, Paul described his encounter with the risen Christ and his ensuing salvation experience. It's important we understand that he was not wallowing in self-pity and neither was he raising himself up in pride. He was just being honest about where he had come from. He had a balanced picture of his past, but his focus was on the future and he comprehended that all of this was made possible only by God's love and grace.

We Can Stand Because We Are Transformed By The Power Of Grace

But by the grace of God I am what I am... Verse 10a

Paul acknowledged the amazing work of God's grace in his life. He was reflecting on the fact he had been saved by grace, redeemed by grace, and kept by grace. He knew he had a past and considered himself the worst of the worst, yet because of grace he knew he was being transformed to be more like Christ Jesus.

...And His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Verse 10b

(Photo via Flickr by Tito & Eva Marie Balangue)

Grace affected every aspect of Paul's life: his sonship (identity); his destiny (present and future potential); his inheritance; his life on earth and his life after death in Christ; his self-image and his service to, with, and for God. God's grace is such a magnificent gift to the Church!

May we never reach the end of understanding the magnitude and mercy of God's grace.

Addressing Half-Truths, Mis-Truths, And Heresy

Paul went on to teach about the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of Believers in Christ. He was addressing mistruths, half-truths, and potential heresy in the Church, which was dangerous and could have led the Believers astray. By verses 56-58 Paul reminded the Believers of the victory they had in Christ over sin, law, and death:

"The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain."

Paul had opened up his teaching letter by exhorting the Believers to hold firmly to the word of God in which they had first placed their faith, and he ended his exhortation by encouraging the Church to stand firm on its faith foundation. Paul's message is as relevant to us today as it was to the Church in Corinth!

We must choose to stand firm in our faith no matter what circumstances we experience, whether in the valley or the mountain top.

(Photo via Flickr by Ryk Neethling)

Paul encouraged the Believers to give all to Jesus and to serve Him in whatever capacity they were graced to do so. He reminded them that they had an inheritance and a reward in Christ.

How You Can Stand Firm

The Bible speaks of "standing firm" in many contexts. How do we stand firm? Here are a few practical, Bible-based hints to do just that:

• Don't return to old idols; old lifestyle; empty, religious ritual; or other gods: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).

(Photo via Flickr by Mish Sukharev)

• Be self-controlled and alert/resist the devil:"Resist him, standing firm in the faith..." (1 Peter 5:9).

• Be patient, don't grumble, don't judge: "You too, be patient and stand firm..." (James 5:8).

• Stand firm and hold to Biblical teachings/truth: "So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you..." (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

• Be consistent in prayer and with the armour of God: "Stand firm then, with the belt of truth..." (Ephesians 6:14).

• In surrender and service to God: "...give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord..." (1 Corinthians 15:58).

• By not giving in to temptation: "But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so you can stand up under it" (1 Corinthians 10:13).

What Are Some Of The Effects Of "Standing Firm In Our Faith"?

• Deliverance the Lord will give to you today: "...Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today..." (Exodus 14:13, see also 2 Chronicles 20:17).

• You will go from the pit to the mountain top/firm foundation: "He lifted me out of the slimy pit...He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand" (Psalm 40:2).

(Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

• You will be positioned to intercede for nations: "...stand before me in the gap on behalf of..." (Ezekiel 22:30).

• You will have righteous confidence on the day of judgment: "...For we will all stand before God's judgment" (Romans 14:10).

• However, the wicked cannot stand before God – they will perish: "Therefore, the wicked will not stand on the day of judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous" (Psalm 1:5).

Let's thank God for His wonderful mercy and abundant grace today! God's deliverance births His destiny dreams in our lives. If we will stand firm in our faith and engage with God, He will bring His dreams to fulfilment in us. He can use our surrendered hearts to reach out to others in His love, for His desire is that none should perish and all should come to repentance.

Come on, Church, it's time to love the nations into the arms of our Beloved Saviour.Our Heavenly Father gave us everything in Christ. Can we, by grace, now give him more of our lives so that others may come to know our beloved Jesus?

God bless you today and always,

Catherine Brown
Founder/Director, Gatekeepers Global Ministries
Co-Founder, Scottish Apostolic Network

Email: admin@gatekeepers.org.uk
Website: gatekeepers.org.uk

Catherine Brown is the founder/director of Gatekeepers Global Ministries (GGM) and is a sought-after national and international preacher and teacher. She is presently leading a global evangelism and discipleship mission entitled "GGM 7 Million Souls" and is working with her team and valued partners from many nations to achieve the vision objectives.

Presently, there are 34 GGM global partner nations with 126,400 new disciples and 109 church plants. Catherine operates in an impacting apostolic/prophetic mantle with a strong revival thrust on her preaching, serving the Church and the lost through Christ's Gospel of love. She has ministered in Europe, Africa, Israel, and the USA and has had the privilege of seeing people saved, baptized, healed, and delivered in the glorious outpouring of the Holy Spirit, with signs and wonders following.

Catherine's passion for Christ and His Kingdom is contagious, and wherever she ministers people are envisioned, equipped, empowered, and mobilized. She is married to Stephen and they have four lovely children and live in the West Coast of Scotland.

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Anti-Israel Groups Shakin' in Their Boots

Monday, March 31, 2014 | David Lazarus ISRAEL TODAY

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Support Israel

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, those Israel-hating, apartheid-mongers are cooked. Obsessively accusing Israel of everything from stealing water to targeting Palestinian children, these anti-everything Israel junkies have gone too far. Their compulsive Israel-hatred has stirred a massive grassroots counter-attack. Synagogues, churches, students, businesses and everyday folk have heard enough. They will be silent no more.

And it's not only Jews, or even Christians rising to the battle. Young Israeli Arabs, Druze and even Bedouins are up and out telling the world what Israel means to them.

Heeb, a 27-year-old Bedouin Muslim who participated in a "StandWithUs" pro-Israel advocacy program, said he was happy to have the opportunity to dispel the damaging myths perpetuated by Israeli Apartheid Week organizers. "I wanted to meet students and tell them the truth. This is one of my goals – to bring our image of Israel… Some did not know there are Arabs in Israel. A lot of people were surprised," said Heeb, a University of Haifa student working on an MA in public policy.

Another new innovative program is sending Israeli college students to speak at at university campuses, schools, synagogues, and churches across North America as part of their IDF reserve duty. These young people are passionately sharing about the real Israel with tens of thousands of students and community members each year. In 2013, groups sent by "StandWithUS" visited 150 different events and reached countless numbers of people through press coverage and social media.

"I see how Israel is misrepresented in the media," says Tepper, co-founder of Word Swap, another pro-Israel upstart. "They're accusing Israel of apartheid… and you know it's not true, but if you don't stand up and say it's not true, a lot of people are going to believe these lies."

Bader, a 23-year-old Tel Aviv University student studying for his BA in computer science and economics, said he meets university students who are shocked to learn that Arabs live in Israel. He tells them, "I am living proof," in Arabic of course, his mother tongue.

"Most of the people we talk to are from the Middle East, from Yemen, from Saudi Arabia, from Syria, from Lebanon. To them, Israel is just an entity – they call it Little Satan," says Bader. "I'm an Israeli Arab, my grandparents have lived there, I've lived there, I have full rights, I've served in the IDF, I work in Tel Aviv, I don't face discrimination. How can you say that if you haven't even been there?" he challenges them.

When students at a well known university in the US wanted to boycott Israel's Ben Gurion University, Heeb, the Israeli Bedouin, told them, "Listen guys, Ben Gurion University has the most Arab girls, Bedouin girls, studying there, more than [schools in] Arab countries." Heeb explained that he is a Bedouin student from the University of Haifa, and that the faculty would not be able to exchange their knowledge if there is a boycott. "They didn't answer," he said.

Never has there been a time when so many different people from so many places around the globe are working together for Israel. Synagogues and churches are running "Buy Israeli Goods" campaigns. Students of all ages and backgrounds are organizing lectures and debates on college campuses. But most impressive of all are the millions of everyday, work-a-day folks speaking up now because they are no longer willing to stomach the vicious lies about Israel. Join the gang! God IS on our side!

PHOTO: Ishmael Khaldi, a Bedouin Arab spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is a regular visitor to university campuses around the world

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After Chick-Fil-A Success, Mike Huckabee Pushes 'Hobby Lobby Day' - GINA MEEKS, Charisma News

The Family Research Council has organized a 'Hobby Lobby Day,' and Mike Huckabee is urging people to show their support for the company by participating. (Nicholas Eckhart/Flickr/Creative Commons)

After Chick-Fil-A Success, Mike Huckabee Pushes 'Hobby Lobby Day'

When Chick-fil-A came under fire for comments CEO and President Dan Cathy made about homosexuality, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee asked customers to show their support. Now he’s doing the same for Hobby Lobby.

The Supreme Court began hearing arguments this week in the arts-and-crafts retailer’s case opposing the contraception mandate in Obamacare. The Green family will be forced to pay $1.3 million per day in fines or cancel health care coverage for their employees if they lose this case.

According to a poll commissioned by Family Research Council and Alliance Defending Freedom, 59 percent of likely voters disapprove of the HHS mandate (including 54 percent of women ages 18-44).

The Family Research Council is asking Christians across the nation to show their support for Hobby Lobby on Saturday.

An event called “Hobby Lobby Day” on Facebook asks people to change their profile to show support, shop at Hobby Lobby stores or online on Saturday, say thank you with a card, and share a photo of the shopping trip on social media with the #HobbyLobbyDay hashtag.

“If Obamacare forces Hobby Lobby ... to provide abortive drugs, even though the privately run, family-run business opposes it on moral grounds, then the government has decided that you can only believe so much," Huckabee said on his Fox News television show Saturday. "And when there’s a conflict, the individual loses to the government. Now that, my friend, is a loss of liberty. This is a fundamentally outrageous action to anyone, liberal or conservative, who believes the Constitution was created to keep us free, not to keep us from being free.”

Huckabee says Hobby Lobby Day gives people the opportunity to show their support “and to express appreciation for [Hobby Lobby’s] courage in risking the very existence of their business to stand for what should be clear-cut, constitutional rights.”

Huckabee adds, “If religious liberty and freedom of conscience doesn’t exist for Hobby Lobby, how long will it be before it’s taken from you? Enough of government thinking it’s God and trying to act like it. We not only owe it to our children and grandchildren, but we owe it to the founders who meant to guarantee our freedom.”

Here’s Why Not to Give Up - HEIDI BAKER, Spirit-Led Woman

Heidi Baker

Here’s Why Not to Give Up

3/30/2014 HEIDI BAKER

We may be afraid of how bizarre we will look trying to achieve them. We might start out trying to paddle a kayak alone to islands many miles away only to find the task much harder than we ever knew. Nonetheless, we can be confident that He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion (Phil.1:6).

Scripture says Paul prayed for the church to have patience and endurance (Col. 1:11). Sometimes we give up too quickly. I might have given up when my kayak idea turned out to be laughably inadequate. I might have given up when our first real boat sunk and we found ourselves shipwrecked.

Never mind the boats—I might have given up on Mozambique in general many times before that. I might have given up when people shot at me or when gangs were chasing me. I might have given up when we were in deep psychological distress after friends of ours in the Congo were dismembered with machetes in a church. I might have given up when I was reported in the newspapers as a drug dealer because of mistaken results at a lab, where they were testing some vitamins that were donated to us. I might have given up on the fifth, sixth, or seventh occasion when crowds began to stone me for preaching about Jesus.

Most especially I might have given up when my husband, Rolland, got cerebral malaria and suffered a series of micro strokes that almost killed him. Though he was eventually healed, for two years he lost his short-term memory and was totally unable to function in ministry or administration.

The only reason I did not give up any of these times was because I know the One who placed His promises within me. When you know Him intimately, you never give up, because He is worthy!

You have to wait a long time for some promises. I was 16 when the Lord told me I had a destiny in Africa, Asia and England. It took me over 20 years before I reached Mozambique and began to step into that piece of my calling.

Truthfully, I am being overshadowed more now than I have ever been before. At times it is still very uncomfortable. There are days when I feel terribly stretched as God’s promises grow within me, but even those days are a joy because I long to birth what God has given me.

Continue to carry your promises faithfully. Nurture them as they grow. It does not matter how old you are. It is never too late. The Lord wants to take you beyond who you are and what you can do. God is the One who can take a barren woman in her old age and make her fruitful for the first time, just as the angel told Mary.

“Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:36-37).

Two things will come from being overshadowed. The first is a particular promise from God that is naturally impossible to fulfill. The second is a general promise from God that nothing is impossible with Him.

Our God is the God of the impossible. He can take a barren ministry and breathe His Spirit into it. Even in your old age, He can breathe over you and cause you to bear a ministry, a promise, or a revelation—a beautiful gift that will carry His glory to the ends of the earth. He can take the most barren and broken life—even the kind of life that has aborted its own promises many times—and in it plant a glorious new promise, along with all the strength needed to carry it to full term.

We have a mighty calling to carry God’s heart and to reveal His glorious love to the world. None of us can fully imagine or expect what the Lord has for us or what the journey to its fulfillment will look like. I don’t think Mary was expecting to carry a child before she was married or to give birth to the Son of God. She could never have anticipated the magnitude of the call or the price she would have to pay.

If we are wise, we will make the choice to say yes to God many times a day. We say yes to taking the time to worship, to having a positive attitude, to releasing people, to stopping for people when we might be in a hurry, to trusting God for a seemingly impossible financial situation. Our yes is a daily choice. There is a daily sacrifice and a daily joy as we participate in God’s dreams for this world. As we do this, we participate with Jesus in the sacrifices He too made for the joy that was set before Him. What an awesome privilege!

Adapted from Birthing the Miraculous by Heidi Baker, copyright 2014, published by Charisma House. In this book Heidi Baker weaves true stories from her life and ministry together with the biblical story of Mary’s pregnancy with Jesus to show you how to become a catalyst for God’s glory here on earth. Learn to believe for the impossible and watch God do the miraculous through you. To order your copy click here.

Prayer Power for the Week of 3/31/2014

This week choose to say yes to God every day. Declare that you will submit to His will in your life as He reveals and unfolds His promises. Thank Him that His plans for you are perfect and that you can trust Him to do the work He promised. As we enter the Easter season, pray that hearts will turn toward Him as His story is told through church services, television programs and motion pictures. Ask Him to use you however He can to carry His love and message to those in desperate need. Remember those who have lost loved ones, either through natural disasters such as mudslides and fire or the Malaysian plane crash. Pray that God would accomplish His purpose through Israel, the spread of the gospel worldwide and our own nation. Col. 1:11; Phil. 1:6; Jer. 29:11.

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Report: Dutch Christians Break Anti-Israel Boycott - ISRAEL TODAY

Report: Dutch Christians Break Anti-Israel Boycott

Monday, March 31, 2014 | Israel Today Staff

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Last year, a number of Dutch supermarket chains began boycotting Israeli products, or at least products from Israeli Jews living in the contested areas of Judea and Samaria, the so-called “West Bank.”

Chabad representatives in Holland are now telling Israel National Newsthat pro-Israel Christian groups in the European country have managed to at least partially break the boycott.

According to the report, the Christians threatened to in turn boycott the chains in question if they continued to bar Israeli products from their shelves. At least one chain is said to have acquiesced and returned Israeli products to its shelves in time for Passover.

The development is yet another high-profile failure for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to isolate and economically damage the Jewish state in service to the Palestinian nationalist cause.

Recently, Hollywood superstar Scarlett Johansson made waves when she refused to bow to BDS pressure and renege on her deal to become a spokeswoman for Israeli soda-maker SodaStream, which operates a factory in the West Bank that employs hundreds of Palestinian Arabs.

Johansson even ended a long-time relationship with UK-based humanitarian group Oxfam over the fiasco. She accused the group of unfairly singling out Israel for criticism.

And, while their supposed supporters in the international arena are bullying others into boycotting Israeli goods, the Palestinians themselves have actually increased imports from the Jewish state.

Recent reports published by the Palestinian Bureau of Statistic reveal that imports from Israel are up by over 17 percent over the past year, while imports from other countries are down by over 16 percent.

As we previously reported, Palestinian Arabs simply prefer to buy “Blue & White.”

In related news, the BDS movement recently showed its ugly side when activists at the University of Michigan reportedly shouted racial slurs and issued death threats against both Jewish and non-Jewish students who refused to support a motion to divest from Israel.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, numerous students were called “dirty Jews,” and at least one was on the receiving end of “physical threats” from BDS activists during a gathering at the student government’s headquarters to discuss the issue.

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NOAH - The Movie

Noah - The Movie

We made an alternative NOAH movie—1/4 million views in 4 days:

“I would pay for people to watch this. So eye opening.” Daniela M Vega
“I am speechless!!!” David Azofeifa
“I'm sitting here stunned after watching this…. Breathtaking film.” Jen Hemmings
“I watched it just now and it made me realize how I am a sinner, forgive me Lord, I pray. Wonderful movie, Sir.” Ash Kachui (India)