Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. 1 Corinthians 16:13.
Let all bear in mind that the Christian ministration is not a work for drones. God calls for men who will do and dare danger. Hold no parleying with Satan, but meet him with “It is written.” “Quit you like men, be strong.” Faith alone, unfeigned, can be the basis of our actions and prove by a clean, pure example that it is possible to be active, “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord” (Romans 12:11), and then all commercial enterprises will be conducted on Bible principles….
We wish to repeat over and over again, until it is indelibly imprinted upon the heart, the blessed invitation, Abide in Me. Read the Word, and in the light of a “Thus saith the Lord,” meditate upon it. Pray until the lesson and meaning of abiding in is fully learned, accompanied with its claims and its promises. The Holy Spirit, Christ’s representative, is now in our world to bring all things to our remembrance, that His claims shall not be forgotten or neglected. Read the Word and pray. Meditate on the Scriptures until the understanding, the gate to the door to the heart, is opened to comprehend its requirements and our dependence. Those who will wait to hear what the Spirit saith unto them shall not hear in vain. Fix the eye upon Christ alone in quiet waiting upon Him to hear His voice saying, “Abide in me, and I in you.” …
There are many who come to the Saviour in a feeble way. They receive baptism and yet there is no apparent change in their character. We would invite all to come, all to abide in Christ, to advance daily in the perfection of character by abiding in Christ. As they do this, they find that rest that can come only through perfect obedience.
But I warn you, be careful how you settle down in the middle walk between spirituality and worldliness. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). You will be wholly on one side or the other…. Christ draws to His side; Satan hangs out every attraction to draw on his side. Whom will you choose? Under whose banner will you stand?
It started on Twitter and it continues to be a driving force there, with trending topics almost always beginning with #. Although it’s now been cited more times than some can count, the research on Twitter suggests hashtags can’t be overstated.
A hashtag is a label for content. It helps others who are interested in a certain topic, quickly find content on that same topic. A hashtag looks something like this: #MarathonBombings or #SmallBizQuote. Hashtags are used mostly on social media sites.
Using hashtags to categorize posts by keyword:
People use the hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (no spaces) in their posts to categorize those posts and help them show more easily in a status.online Search.
Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other posts marked with that keyword.
Hashtags can occur anywhere in the post body — at the beginning, middle, or end.
Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics.
Using hashtags correctly:
If you post with a hashtag on a public account, anyone who does a search for that hashtag may find your post
Don’t #spam #with #hashtags. Don’t over-tag a single post. (we recommend using no more than 2 hashtags per post.)
Welcome to the world of Godinterest weblogs, (or blogs), and the cyberspace they all inhabit, known as the blogosphere. Godinterest bloggers connect to mainstream news sites, other non-faith blogs, and online collaborative knowledge networks such as Wikipedia and can be anything from personal diaries to daily screeds about current events. Some are highly opinionated and include funny personal stories. But their content is also unique as many spiritual blogs are written by people seriously engaging with their faith. Some bloggers write specifically about sacred texts. Others are more culturally oriented, covering the ways faith intersects with the arts and politics. By chronicling how they experience faith in their everyday lives, Godinterest bloggers are not only connecting with the wider public, but also to themselves and are gradually carving out their own section of the blogosphere.
Godinterest is a project of designer, journalist, social & new formats editor and grateful christian dad, Dean Jones.
Daniel answered and said, “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever: for wisdom and might are His. He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings, and sets up kings.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who know understanding; He reveals the deep and secret things. He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with Him.
I thank You, and praise You, O God of my fathers, Who has given me wisdom and might, and has made known to me now what we desired of You”¦.”
– Daniel 2:20-23
Daniel was giving thanks to the Lord for revealing to him Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its interpretation. Less familiar portions of the Bible can have gold nuggets hidden in them, and so it is here. There’s a lot of treasure for prophetic people in this short passage, so let’s take a look at what God has for us.
God desires to share His wisdom with us.
Daniel starts out by extolling God for His wisdom and might. He mentions that these two qualities belong to the Lord: they are His. He ends with thanking and praising the Lord, “Who has given me wisdom and might.”
Isn’t it amazing that the Lord of the whole universe delights to bestow on us what He possesses? Paul says in Romans 8:32, “He Who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” He also stated, in 1 Corinthians 3:21, 22, “”¦All things are yours, whether ”¦ the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours.” We so easily take the gifts of God for granted, but if we would think about them more deeply, our hearts would be inspired to overwhelming awe.
All true wisdom originates with the Lord. We cannot get it anywhere else. We should not even attempt to glean wisdom from so-called wise men who do not worship the true God, nor should we attempt to use their techniques for achieving peace or revelation. In Christ alone “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). Furthermore, “Beware, so that no one spoils you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ: for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:8, 9).
Now, the Holy Spirit might enlighten us to a portion of His wisdom through another person. He does that through sermons, godly counsel, and the word gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10. We should also expect to receive wisdom directly from the Lord. But there is no other source of wisdom besides Him, and we get ourselves into a mess of deception if we go looking for it outside of Him. We can have confidence that, if we ask Him, He will be eager to give it, because He has already promised, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, Who gives to all men liberally and does not upbraid [reproach], and it shall be given to him” (James 1:5).
God changes the times and seasons.
Whether it is what is going on in our personal lives, or in our nation and the world, we need to stay keenly aware that God has specific times and seasons for things. When His season is up, He moves on. We must stay attuned to Him, so that we don’t miss His shifts from one thing into another. When He is breathing life into something, it continues, increases, and thrives. But when He is done with it, it’s dead. You can enthusiastically kick that horse all you want, but without the Lord’s life in it, it’s not going anywhere.
Most of us like staying put in what is familiar. Change is disconcerting. Jesus commented on this tendency, when He likened the old and new covenants to wineskins. He said, “No man also having drunk old wine immediately desires new: for he says, ‘The old is better’” (Luke 5:39).
When upheaval is happening in our personal lives or in the nation or world, it is often because God is preparing a new thing. If we understand this, we will not let what we observe in the natural make us afraid. Keep your eyes on Jesus, Who does all things well (Mark 7:37), and be ready to move with Him – even quickly. There is blessing for the person who is open to the new works of God.
Lately I have been praying, “Lord, help me to recognize when You are shifting the seasons, give me Your understanding of how to respond, and help me to keep up with You!”
There are a few more lessons we can learn from Daniel 2:20-23. We’ll continue with them next time.
A rich man looked through his window and saw a poor man picking something from his dustbin ”¦ He said, Thank GOD I’m not poor.
The poor man looked around and saw a naked man misbehaving on the street ”¦ He said, Thank GOD I’m not mad;
The mad man looked ahead and saw an ambulance carrying a patient ”¦ He said, Thank GOD am not sick;
Then a sick person in hospital saw a trolley taking a dead body to the mortuary ”¦ He said, Thank GOD I’m not dead;
Only a dead person cannot thank God;
Why don’t you thank GOD today for all your blessings and for the gift of life ”¦ for another beautiful day;
What is LIFE? To understand life better, you have to go to 3 locations: ?
Hospital2. Prison3. Cemetery;
At the Hospital, you will understand that nothing is more beautiful than HEALTH. ?
In the Prison, you’ll see that FREEDOM is the most precious thing;
At the Cemetery, you will realize that life is worth nothing. The ground that we are walking on today will be our roof tomorrow.
Sad Truth* : We all come with Nothing and we will go with Nothing ”¦ Let us, therefore, remain humble and be thankful & grateful to God at all times for everything.
Could you please share this with someone else, and let them know that God loves them 96% of people won’t share it, but if you are 1 of 4% share this truth to your friends.
In my early years, the Kingdom Hall was spiritually grounding for me. My mother and Father introduced me to God at a very young age. It wasn’t until my late teens that I began to realize that the God that what my parents introduced me to was the God of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He was God no other place except for being God of the Watchtower. Nevertheless, I was willing soldier ready to die for what I thought were my own beliefs. I was religiously preoccupied and a zealot for the Jehovah’s Witness organization. This would lay a foundation for the diagnosis I would receive many years later: Bipolar 1 depression with hyperreligiosity. My illness was exacerbated by trying to keep up the demands of the leaders of my high control religious group. I have suffered many losses as a result of my decision not to go back to the religion( finances, community, family, business contacts etc.) Over the last year, I have run into Jehovah’s Witnesses who are supporting the decision by the Leadership to shun me as a ” spiritual leper” which means actively ignoring me. Some say that when a Jehovah’s Witness is excommunicated or “disfellowshipped”, that it feels like a death in the family. The Leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses has convinced their followers that shunning is a loving practice, designed to “wake the person up “to their senses and come back to the organization. ( Watchtower, April 15,2015).
I remember a few years ago, I was going back to the meetings to be reinstated back as a Jehovah’s Witness and I was told by the elders that I was not ready to become a Jehovah’s Witness again. A year before they would accept me back into the congregation. The elders showed me a few scriptures during that meeting that were out of context but I called them on it. They also told me that I had to wait for a little over a year. They told me that if my husband took the family in service more than it may speed up the process It is my belief that it is not until Jehovah’s Witnesses go through the judicial system that many began to realize that something is wrong with the religion. Though my judicial committee was unnecessarily traumatizing it was my reinstatement meeting that “woke me” up. It was only then that I realized something was wrong and begin to reexamine my faith.
The leaders refused to let me back in the proverbial “ark” for years. To me, that was worse than kicking me off the ark. A few days later after the judicial decision, a sister who was having doubts asked me whether I believe in the 1914 doctrine taught by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I replied no. As she was telling me that she didn’t either I fully expected to go to this website to call out the author as an apostate. Instead, my eyes were open. I knew that they were wrong about Jesus being established as king in 1914. But could they be wrong about the heavenly hope? I bought a new bible as the New World Translation Bible that I grown up with I discovered had many errors. From the point on I was determined to research their teachings. In my mind, if the Bible I was reading was badly translated then the teachings had to be off. I went months of just studying with a few other active Jehovah’s Witnesses online in a forum. My journey climaxed with giving my life to the Lord in August of 2014 and being rebaptized in a Church in August of 2017.
World Leprosy Day: Gospel for Asia-supported workers’ hands-on care for sufferers brings practical help and spiritual hope to those still marginalized by long-feared disease. WILLS POINT, Texas – Gospel for Asia (GFA) is spotlighting its efforts to bridge the historic social gulf caused by the disfiguring disease that leaves sufferers disadvantaged and often despised–one outstretched arm at a time. As Gospel for Asia-supported workers prepare a series of events offering hands-on care to sufferers across Asia, to mark World Leprosy Day, Sunday, Jan. 27, the organization is also publishing a special report on worldwide efforts to eradicate the disease.
A GFA-supported pastor helps a leprosy patient as part of the Reaching Friends Ministry caring for those afflicted by the stigmatizing disease.
The latest in an in-depth series of GFA reports addressing key global issues, “Leprosy: Misunderstandings and Stigma Keep it Alive” examines how leprosy continues to see those infected shunned despite breakthroughs in treatment, and the fact that most people are naturally immune to the disease.
Though there have been significant medical advances, more than 210,000 new cases were diagnosed in 2016–the majority of them in India. Millions more around the world are suspected to be infected but are not yet symptomatic because the disease’s incubation period is so long.
While doctors and scientists continue to work on prevention and treatment, GFA-supported workers are providing practical and emotional help to those affected. Often losing fingers and toes because leprosy’s nerve damage means they are unaware of infection and injury, many sufferers are left physically unable to work, or as a result of being shunned.
Through associated local churches and members of its Sisters of Compassion ministry, specially trained women missionaries, GFA helps provide practical care, from cooking and cleaning to bathing and dressing wounds. As well as providing physical help, these healing touches also seek to tend to emotional wounds by demonstrating to leprosy sufferers that they have not been rejected.
“When we were completely lost and dejected, Christ came to us and lived among us,” said GFA founder Dr. KP Yohannan.
“By serving these precious people who happen to be afflicted with leprosy, we are not doing anything extraordinary or special. We are simply extending the love that was first given to us.”
GFA’s ministry also endeavors to release patients from the guilt many carry because, the report notes, over the centuries many have believed the disease is the result of some great sin of theirs.
“Eliminating discrimination and false conceptions of leprosy is key to eliminating the disease itself,” the reports adds. All too frequent are “the stories of men and women abandoned by their spouses, in-laws, or even kicked out of their homes by their children.”
The World Leprosy Day outreaches are being arranged in addition to GFA’s ongoing ministry to care for patients. GFA-supported workers have reached thousands of leprosy patients since the Reaching Friends Ministry, as it is called, began in 2007. They visit some of the isolated colonies in which many patients are forced to live, often cut off from the rest of the world.
“We thought we would name the ministry differently, where they won’t have to remember their sickness or feel the stigma of it,” said Tarik, the pastor who helped launched the initiative.
“We thought, ‘Let us call them “friends” because they have been created in the image of God, like us. It is only the sickness that keeps them different, but let us not make that a barrier. Let us accept them as friends.’ “
Among the Sisters of Compassion reaching out is Sakshi, a former leprosy sufferer whose story is shared in the report: at one time she considered suicide because of her despair. Receiving treatment and care, and coming to faith through Reaching Friends Ministry, she now offers help and hope to others.
“Nobody wants to love them, hug them or to come near to them to dress them,” said Sakshi. “They have so many inner pains in their heart, because they also are human beings. They also need love, care and encouragement from other people.”
Observed internationally each year on the last Sunday in January, to raise public awareness of the disease, World Leprosy Day is marked on Jan 30 in India, to commemorate the death of leader Mahatma Gandhi, who championed concern and care for sufferers.
To read more news on World Leprosy Day on Missions Box, go here.
Gospel for Asia (GFA, www.gfa.org) and its worldwide affiliates have–for almost 40 years–provided humanitarian assistance and spiritual hope to millions across Asia, especially among those who have yet to hear the Good News. Last year, this included more than 70,000 children, free medical services in over 1,200 villages and remote communities, 4,600 wells drilled, 11,000 water filters installed, Christmas gifts for more than 200,000 needy families, and spiritual teaching available in 110 languages in 14 nations through radio ministry.
