Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news and prophecy.
Hamas Admits Most Killed at Gaza Border Were Terrorists
Thursday, May 17, 2018 | Israel Today Staff
A Hamas official admitted in an interview with Arab media this week that the vast majority of those killed during mass riots at the Gaza borders were members of the terror group.
According to Hamas official Salah Bardawil, 50 of the 62 claimed fatalities were Hamas terrorists.
In other words, the international community is bellyaching and demanding committees of inquiry because Israel put down 50 terrorists. Does this make any sense?
In truth, Israel should be applauded not only for so effectively combating a recognized terrorist organization, but for managing to keep civilian casualties to such a bare minimum during such a massive violent demonstration.
No other nation, certainly none in this region, would have bothered to take such care to avoid civilian casualties when its borders were being assaulted.
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It annoys me when Christians force people to fit in neat categories. For years we've done this with gender. I wish I had a dollar for every time a preacher has claimed that "all men hide their feelings" or "all women are domestic" or "all men refuse to ask for directions."
Those are stereotypes. While God made only two genders, men and women come in all types. Our uniqueness is shaped by our bodies, skills, interests, personality quirks, communication styles, ethnicity, life experiences and so much more.
Christians also love to fit people into personality types. The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates invented the concept of the "four temperaments"—choleric, sanguine, melancholy and phlegmatic. He believed the levels of our bodily fluids caused these traits (what?!) yet his theory stuck around even though it was totally unscientific. Christians started imposing these rigid personality types on each other after author Tim LaHaye wrote the book Transformed Temperaments in 1971.
In the 1990s, family counselor Gary Smalley updated the concept of the four temperaments by describing them as animals: "Beaver," "lion," "otter" and "golden retriever." This began a cottage industry of "personality assessment" that continues to this day. It's based on the idea that every human being on Planet Earth fits into four groups.
More recently, Christian organizations invented questionnaires and tests to determine a person's spiritual gifts. I've taken all of these tests, and sometimes they helped me understand myself better. Yet I always end up feeling like a misfit because I don't stay inside the lines. I certainly don't fit the stereotypes.
For years I've struggled to put a label on what I do in ministry. Am I a prophet? (Prophecy often flows out of me when I minister in a church setting.) Am I a teacher? (I teach regularly in ministry schools.) Am I a pastor? (I don't lead a local church, yet I mentor and disciple many young leaders.)
A few weeks ago I went through an identity crisis. I was tired of people asking me, "What are you?" and my response was to blankly stare back. I wanted a label. I wanted to fit in a clear-cut category. Yet I felt like a weirdo because I don't see my odd combination of gifts and talents in most surveys.
I decided to take my own gifts assessment test by asking some friends to describe my ministry in their own words. I asked them to text me one sentence, but many of them wrote paragraphs. They often used words like "prophet," "teacher," "encourager," "apostle," "mentor" and "father's heart." But I noticed one common thread:
Fernando said: "Your ministry is versatile. Don't worry about fitting in a box."
Kent said: "Don't let people put you in a box."
Ray said: "You don't need to feel any pressure to fit a mold."
Grant said: "You can't be put in a box. There is too much 'cookie-cutter' identity in the church today."
I wanted to categorize myself. But God's answer was a pleasant surprise: I don't need to fit in! Rather, I just need to stay connected to God and let Him manifest Himself though me however He wants!
Many people follow horoscopes because they think their destiny is determined by which Zodiac sign they were born under. That's dumb, because people don't fit in 12 cosmic categories, much less four personality types. And even though there are a limited number of spiritual gifts listed in the Bible (the "power" gifts of 1 Corinthians 12 and the "motivational" gifts of Romans 12), these gifts come in an infinite number of combinations.
Besides that, the "package" those gifts come in—you—is totally unique. Did you know that one DNA molecule in your body has enough coded information to fill 100 30-volume sets of encyclopedias? That's more than 2.25 million pages of computer code! If all the DNA in your body were joined from end to end, it would stretch 94 billion miles. And that code is different from any other person who has ever lived.
We know our fingerprints are unique from everyone else. Now, researchers have discovered that scanning the iris of the eye is five times more effective than fingerprinting because there are 240 unique features in your iris to prove it's yours! Scientists are also discovering the same uniqueness in our retinas, our faces, our insulin and the protein molecules in one strand of our hair.
David wrote: "I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well" (Psalm 139:14, NASB). If you are this unique in a biological sense, how much more is it true in the Spirit? We have been fashioned by the Creator to manifest His power in a unique way.
Don't be so eager to put a label on yourself. Don't try to be a copy of someone else. It's okay to break the mold. You can't be summarized, categorized or boxed in. You are a unique vessel of the Holy Spirit. Let Him flow through you without limitation
J. Lee Gradywas editor of Charisma for 11 years before he launched into full-time ministry in 2010. Today he directs The Mordecai Project, a Christian charitable organization that is taking the healing of Jesus to women and girls who suffer abuse and cultural oppression. Author of several books including 10 Lies the Church Tells Women, he has just released his newest book, Set My Heart on Fire, from Charisma House. You can follow him on Twitter at @LeeGrady or go to his website, themordecaiproject.org.
Regarding the Bible's influence on America, Andrew Jackson, America's seventh president, declared, "That book, sir, is the rock on which our Republic rests." Born in 1767, Jackson's life overlapped that of the founding generation, and his statement reflects the general sentiment of the founding generation toward the Bible.
George Washington Honors and Esteems the Bible
When, for example, George Washington chose to place his hand on a Bible to take the oath of office it was no mere formality, but a declaration that the Bible would be the ultimate source of wisdom and guidance for his administration. He also once said, "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible" (Hyatt, 5 Pillars of the American Republic, 13).
While president, Washington's nephew, Robert Lewis, served as his secretary and lived with him. Lewis said that he had accidentally witnessed Washington's private devotions in his library both morning and evening and that on those occasions he had seen him in a kneeling posture with a Bible open before him, and that he believed such to have been his daily practice.
James Madison's Biblical Worldview
James Madison, the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution, had a thorough Christian upbringing and training. At the College of New Jersey, he was mentored by the school's president, John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian Reformer and signer of the Declaration of Independence, who once declared, "Cursed is all education that is contrary to Christ."
After completing his studies, Madison remained at the college where worked on a project translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into English. His estimation of the Bible was demonstrated when as president, in 1812, he signed a federal bill that provided economic aid for a Bible society in its goal of the mass distribution of the Bible.
Dr. D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe were right when they said, "Madison's worldview was one shaped by the Bible more than any other source" (Hyatt, 5 Pillars of theAmerican Republic, 14).
The Founders Primary Authority
From the beginning, the Bible had been incorporated into all the learning of the schools in Colonial America. For example, The New England Primer coupled Bible verses and church doctrine with the learning of the ABCs. The letter "A," for example, was associated with "Adam" and the statement, "In Adam's fall, we sinned all." Children in early America learned to read with their primer in one hand and their Bible in the other.
Knowing how the Founders esteemed and reverenced the Bible, it comes as no surprise that The First Continental Congress was opened with Bible reading and prayer. It is also no surprise that when Benjamin Franklin called the Constitutional Convention to Prayer, he quoted from both the Psalms and the Gospels (Hyatt, 5 Pillars of the American Republic, 14).
Indeed, a ten-year project instituted to discover where the Founders got their ideas for America's founding documents found that by far the single most cited authority in their writings was the Bible. They were people of the Book and consciously and unconsciously used it as the standard for measuring all other writings both ancient and modern.
Congress Recommends the First English Bible Printed in America
The Founders' respect for the Bible was highlighted when the first English Bible printed in America in 1782 included a recommendation from Congress. The producer of the Bible, Robert Aitken, had written a letter to Congress in which he asked for that government body's sanction on his work. In the letter, Aitken called this Bible, "a neat Edition of the Scriptures for the use in schools."
Congress enthusiastically responded to his request and offered the following recommendation to be included in this first English Bible printed in America.
Resolved: That the United States in Congress assembled, highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion as well as an instance of the progress of the arts in this country, and being satisfied from the above report, of his care and accuracy in the execution of the work they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States and hereby authorize him to publish this recommendation in the manner he shall think proper.
The Founders Not Impacted by Deism
The Founders lived at a time when the European Enlightenment and its exaltation of reason was drawing many on the European continent away from the Bible. However, the Enlightenment and its religious counterpart, Deism, never gained popularity in America. The late Harvard professor, Perry Miller, called Deism an "exotic plant" that never took root in American soil. America's Founders saw no dichotomy between Biblical revelation and reason. The well-known Catholic scholar, William Novak, says,
Everywhere that reason led, Americans found the Bible. If they read Francis Bacon, they found the Bible. If they read Isaac Newton or John Milton, they found the Bible. In Shakespeare, they found the Bible. In the world of the founders, the Bible was an unavoidable and useful rod of measurement, a stimulus to intellectual innovation (Hyatt, 5 Pillars of the American Republic, 16).
The Bible Impacted All of American Life
When the French sociologist, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America in 1831 to study her institutions, he said, "The religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me." In describing the opening of America's western frontier, he was impressed with the character of those adventurers, whom he said "penetrated the wilds of the New World with the Bible, an axe, and some newspapers."
Yes, Jackson was right. The Bible was the rock on which the early American republic rested. This profound influence of the Bible on the founding of America was confirmed by her 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, who said, "No other book of any kind ever written in English has ever so affected the whole life of a people."
What Christians Can Do
How far we have fallen! The Book that made America great has become an object of disdain and ridicule by an arrogant, narcissistic cultural elite. America's Founders would be astounded to know that the book they so revered is now banned from public schools and that government officials are threatened with lawsuits for holding Bible studies with their colleagues.
Yes, this un-American hostility to the Bible is a marker showing the extent to which the nation has been severed from its roots. It also serves as a wake up call for Christians in America to repent of their burning desire for acceptance by modern culture and become salt and light to this generation and begin praying for another great, national spiritual awakening.
VIDEO: Hamas Leader Admits Gaza Protests are Not Peaceful
Wednesday, May 16, 2018 | Israel Today Staff
For those seeking the truth of the situation along the Gaza border, the leaders of Hamas, which rules the coastal enclave, are only too happy to oblige.
"...when we talk about 'peaceful resistance' we are deceiving the public," Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahar unabashedly pronounced in an interview with Al-Jazeera.
In fact, Al-Zahar seemed somewhat miffed that his interviewer suggested that the Gaza protests were "peaceful."
Hamas' rivals in the Palestinian Authority are likewise pulling no punches when it comes to the real nature of what's happening in Gaza...at least when they speak in Arabic.
In a Friday sermon two weeks ago, Mahmoud Habbash, a senior adviser to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, lambasted Hamas for sending children to the Gaza border to violently confront Israeli soldiers.
The truth is out there, and readily available.
But it's convenient for the international community, and in particular the mainstream media, to ignore what's said in Arabic as they pursue an agenda that's grossly biased against Israel.
Rick Joyner "Can The Media Go Any Lower"
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Rick Joyner has authored more than fifty books, including The Final Quest Trilogy, There Were Two Trees in the Garden, The Path, and Army of the Dawn. He is the Founder and Executive Director of MorningStar Ministries, a multi-faceted mission organization which includes Heritage International Ministries, MorningStar University, MorningStar Fellowship of Churches and Ministries, and CMM/MorningStar Missions—an umbrella organization serving over five hundred missionaries in the field and over ten thousand churches, schools, and ministries around the world. Rick and his wife, Julie, live in South Carolina and have five children: Anna, Aaryn, Amber, Ben, and Sam.
You can visit Rick Joyner website here: https://www.morningstarministries.org/
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Jonathan Cahn At The American Embassy in Jerusalem: Join Him in Dedicating it to God's Purpose
To get in touch with Jonathan Cahn’s ministry, to receive more, including Free Gifts and Updates, or to be part in the Great Commission, go to: http://www.HopeOfTheWorld.org – or Jonathan Cahn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jonathan-Cah... - Or write to: Hope of the World, Box 1111, Lodi, NJ 07644 - To get Jonathan’s books The Paradigm, The Book of Mysteries, The Harbinger, & more just go online or off to wherever books are sold.
