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.
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.”
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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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.
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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Every year about this time there’s an onslaught of witchcraft attacks against me—and many people I know. This year the enemy used a different tactic. Since the spiritual forces of darkness could not slow me down by day, the attacks are coming at night.
First, let me explain what I mean by witchcraft. During Lent, some people have a tendency to exalt Mary, the mother of Jesus. But we know that's not God's will. God has "highly exalted Jesus and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee must bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that He is Lord, to the glory of the Father" (Phil 2:9-11). Let me be clear: I am not Catholic-bashing here. This is not about a religion or a denomination. It's about spiritual practices in which some are engaging.
Where Mary is exalted, I believe it empowers the spirit of Jezebel and her witchcrafts. Some people in some religions refer to Mary as the queen of heaven. But Ashtoreth, the chief pagan goddess of war and sex mentioned in the Old Testament, is also known as the queen of heaven. And it’s the Ashtoreth spirit that’s behind Jezebel. The Lord speaks of the queen of heaven in Jeremiah 7, noting that the people of Judah were giving offerings to other gods and provoking Him to anger. The Old Testament Jezebel’s father, Ethbal, was the high priest of the goddess.
What Witchcraft Feels Like
Again, exalting Mary seems to empower the queen of heaven, also known as Jezebel. When Mary is lifted up to a place where only Jesus belongs, it unleashes demonic activity in that territory. As demonic activity increases, people report feelings of oppression, fatigue, strong spiritual warfare against the mind that makes you feel like quitting, and even physical manifestations for which doctors can’t find a reason. Are you experiencing any of these things?
When witchcraft is particularly heavy in the spiritual climate, my eyes actually burn. Everything seems like a much bigger deal than it really is because witchcraft works to take your eyes off Jesus by magnifying the problem. The enemy can use people to release witchcraft against you through word curses, but this spiritual force seems to sometimes hang over your head like a dark cloud—unless you break it.
This year, witchcraft couldn’t get me by day. I was ready for the onslaught. So instead, witchcraft attacked me at night—in my sleep. I have had some of the worst nightmares in the last two weeks that I’ve ever had in my entire life. Things I won’t even speak out loud because the power of death and life is in the tongue. Indeed, the enemy wants me to speak out the disturbing pictures he offered to give them life. But I refuse. And I break that assignment in the name of Jesus!
What’s more, I’m waking up to especially nasty messages via email. Although it’s not unusual to get a nasty message, the religious spirits have come out in droves to attack—out of the blue. They are releasing shame upon me, making false accusations and otherwise releasing word curses over my life. I bind them in the name of Jesus, bless those who curse me, and move on.
Pushing Back Powers of Darkness
Of course, these witchcraft nightmares left me exhausted. Don’t you know it’s so much more difficult to work with one hand and battle with the other when you are physically exhausted? And to wake up to a string of email attacks from the religious spirit starts your day focusing on the wrong thing if you let it.
And if you let it, it’s all downhill from there. The devil wants your thoughts and words because then he can sway your actions. Thankfully, I discerned what was going on, and I’m changing my battle plans. I've spent many, many hours in worship and prayer seeking revelation on how I can better gird up the loins of my mind.
Always remember, we aren’t wrestling against flesh and blood, yet we do need to put on our whole armor and engage in the battle. Passivity isn’t going to deliver you from Jezebel’s witchcraft.
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled” (2 Cor. 10:3-6).
When it comes to witchcraft, we have to withstand it. The Amplified Bible says to “be firm in faith [against his onset—rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined]” (1 Pet. 5:9). It’s easy enough to give in to witchcraft, especially if you don’t know what is attacking you. So again, when you feel like giving up, when you feel tired for no reason, when you have strong confusion, when you are fighting an intense battle in your mind and when infirmities are manifesting, it could be witchcraft. Resist it at its onset. Cast it off. Submit yourself to God. "Resist the devil [stand firm against him], and he will flee from you" (James 4:7, AMP).
Again, submit yourself to the lordship of Christ. Exalt His name. Thank Him for His blood. Rejoice in the Lord. Praise and worship carry breakthrough. That’s often all it takes to change the spiritual climate in your home. And worship is where we should start because He is worthy of our adoration.
If worship doesn’t break the witchcraft, take authority over it in the name above all names. Witchcraft has to bow at the name of Jesus. But make sure you don’t have any common ground with the enemy. Repent for any rebellion in your heart, and surrender your will anew to God. Remember, we are more than conquerors in Christ, and no weapon formed against us can prosper—not even witchcraft. Our job is to be spiritually discerning enough to catch the devil at his onset, resist him, rebuke him and praise God for the victory. Amen.
There are some unbelievable natural formations located all around the globe. Due to distances involved, many of us never have the chance to visit these sites.
Thefollowing photos display a mountain range called " Rainbow Mountain " located inChina . I thought you might enjoy seeing these photos. The mountains are part ofthe Zhangye Danxia Landform Geological Park in China . Layers of different coloredsandstone and minerals were pressed together over 24 million years and thenbuckled up by tectonic plates. I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I did.
It reminds me of the little joke I recently saw about a little girl who saw such a beautiful thing as that and remarked that it's even more wonderful considering God did it all left handed. Somebody asked why she thought He did it all left handed?
She answered, "Because the Bible says that Jesus sits on His right hand...."
There are many competing claims at play in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the simple question of who was here first, as childish as it might sound, remains central to the contest.
That is precisely why, in addition to leveling all sorts of other accusations at Israel, the Palestinian Authority is engaged in an effort to invent a new historical narrative that puts the Palestinians in the land long before the Hebrews ever arrived from Egypt.
If, as the Palestinians also claim, they are part of the wider Arab world, then this new narrative is easily debunked by any number of historical documentation and archeological finds. And yet, it is catching on at an alarming rate with those who would likely consider themselves cognizant of regional history.
One of the latest proponents of what can only reasonably be labeled a “fairytale” is chief Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat, who told a diplomatic gathering in Munich last month that his particular tribe had been residents of Jericho thousands of years before the arrival of Joshua Ben Nun, the Israelite leader following Moses.
In a thorough expose, Ambassador Alan Baker of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs picked apart Erekat’s assertion and those like it.
In summary, Baker noted that Erekat’s own genealogy, which is easily researched, puts his ancestral Huweitat tribe back in the Arabian peninsula as recently as the 19th century. Only after the Jews began returning to the land en masse did the Huweitat tribe take up residence near Jericho, Jerusalem and other parts of what are now Israel and Jordan.
“Several leading scholars of Middle Eastern studies and Islamic history have confirmed that the Palestinians do not have ancient roots in the area and are trying to invent origins for themselves that predate the Jewish people’s presence,” wrote Baker.
By contrast, “the historical presence of the Jewish people in the ‘Holy Land’ is well-documented, not only in the scriptures of all three monotheistic religions, and visible in extensive archeological remains, but also in historic writings by early Greek, Roman, pagan, and other visitors to the area,” he continued.
Baker’s full essay on the topic is well worth a read. Click here to do so.
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