At 15 weeks, the unborn have eyelids, eyebrows, eyelashes, nails, hair, and defined fingers and toes!
On an ultrasound, babies can be seen sucking their thumbs, yawning, stretching, and making faces
So please don’t murder babies, simply for your convenience!
*Expect Delays*
Are you kidding me ? I was already late. But the road sign ahead instructed me to adjust my expectations: “Expect Delays,” it announced. Traffic was slowing down. I had to laugh: I expect things to work on my ideal timeline; I don’t expect road construction.
On a spiritual level, few of us plan for crises that slow us down or reroute our lives. Yet, if I think about it, I can recall many times when circumstances redirected me — in big ways and small. Delays happen. King Solomon never saw a sign that said, “Expect Delays.”
But in Proverbs, he does contrast our plans with God’s providential guidance. He wrote : _“Mortals make elaborate plans, but God has the last word.”_ Solomon restates that idea, where he adds that _even though we “plan our course . . . the Lord establishes our steps.”_ In other words, we have ideas about what’s supposed to happen, but sometimes God has another path for us.
How do I lose track of this spiritual truth ? I make my plans, sometimes forgetting to ask Him what His plans are. I get frustrated when interruptions interfere. But in place of that worrying, we could, as Solomon teaches, “grow in simply trusting that God guides us, step-by-step, as we meditate to seek Him, await His leading, and – yes – allow Him to continually redirect us”. – Adam R. Holz_
I know not what the day may bring. Tomorrow waits unknown; But this I know, the changeless God, My Lord, is on His throne_. — Anon.*Our unknown future is safe in the hands of the all-knowing God. Trade anxiety for trust. God will guide your way.*
Stay Blessed My Friend
1 Then Job replied to the Lord:
2 “I know that you can do all things;
no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3 You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’
Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know.
4 “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.’
5 My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
10 After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. 11 All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the Lord had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver[a] and a gold ring.
12 The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters.
14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch. 15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.
16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years.
After six full days of travel, Martin Luther King Jr. had finally arrived. He was met with wreaths of flowers and driven to a luxury hotel near the India Gate. He undoubtedly had jet lag, but before he could sleep it off, a news conference was set up in the lobby.
“To other countries I may go as a tourist, but to India I come as a pilgrim,” he told the two dozen reporters gathered there on Feb. 10, 1959.
They peppered him with questions. Was it true interracial marriage was illegal in the American South? Could nonviolent protest work in colonized Africa? Was he a vegetarian?
The Montgomery bus boycott three years earlier had been closely watched in Indian newspapers, particularly since King, as the young leader of the boycott, espoused the teachings of Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi. Now, he would be spending a month in India to learn more and pay homage to his hero.
King first learned about Gandhi as a seminary student in 1949, just a year after Gandhi had been assassinated. He soon wrote about Gandhi in his schoolwork as a person who “greatly reveal[s] the working of the Spirit of God.”
Six years later, after the arrest of Rosa Parks, King led the 381-day boycott that would make him famous. Of the nonviolent direct action technique, he said, “Christ showed us the way, and Gandhi in India showed it could work.”
The story of how Michael King Jr. became Martin Luther King Jr.
King had always hoped to visit India, but the civil rights movement kept him too busy for years. Finally, in 1959, a trip was organized and co-sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee and the Gandhi National Memorial Fund. His wife, Coretta Scott King, and biographer Lawrence D. Reddick joined him on the trip.
Everywhere they went, they were treated as honored guests, King later remembered. They had to turn down hundreds of invitations but still had a jam-packed schedule throughout their stays in New Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta and Madras.
One of their first stops was to the samadhi, or cremation site, of Gandhi’s remains. King and his party laid a wreath of flowers; according to one observer, King was “deeply moved” and knelt to pray for a long time.
He met with India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and vice president, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who had been close associates of Gandhi’s during India’s struggle for independence. Later, in her memoir, Coretta King said her husband compared it to “meeting George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison in a single day.”
King met with many of Gandhi’s friends and family, who gave him their blessing to continue spreading Gandhian teachings. He visited Buddhist and Hindu temples and with leaders of movements to redistribute land and eradicate the caste system.
He also gave lectures at several universities. In Bombay (now Mumbai), he had a particularly spirited discussion with African students who challenged him on whether nonviolence could be effective in the struggle against colonialism in Africa, according to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.
“They felt that non-violent resistance could only work in a situation where the resisters had a potential ally in the conscience of the opponent,” King later said. “They, like many other students, tended to confuse passive resistance with non-resistance.”
Coretta joined King at many of these talks, and “the Indian people love to listen to the Negro spirituals,” King wrote later in Ebony magazine. “Therefore, Coretta ended up singing as much as I lectured.”
While in Bombay, King was also invited to stay at Gandhi’s private residence. He wrote in the guestbook, “To have the opportunity of sleeping in the house where Gandhiji slept is an experience that I will never forget.” (Adding “-ji” to a name signifies reverence.)
Toward the end of the trip, one of his guides observed “both the Kings (especially King himself) are JUST PLAIN EXHAUSTED.”
Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed by a deranged woman. At 29, he almost died.
King gave a final news conference and radio address on March 9, the night before their departure, telling listeners he was leaving India “more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.” (You can listen to the audio here.)
King had another news conference when he arrived back in New York City a few days later, but it doesn’t appear to have been well attended; neither The Washington Post nor the New York Times mentioned it.
Four days later, he returned to the pulpit for a Palm Sunday service. He preached to his congregants about Gandhi’s life and martyrdom, comparing him to Jesus and Abraham Lincoln. He told them — six years before the march from Selma to Montgomery — about the Salt March in 1930, when Gandhi led millions on a 218-mile nonviolent protest of an unjust law. Hundreds were beaten by British authorities and more than 60,000 arrested, but, “the British Empire knew, then, that this little man had mobilized the people of India to the point that they could never defeat them,” King said.
Jesus once said he had other sheep who “were not of this fold,” King reminded the congregants, before concluding, “It is one of the strange ironies of the modern world that the greatest Christian of the 20th century was not a member of the Christian church.”
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was no stranger to suffering. Known in his day as the “Prince of Preachers,” Spurgeon faced trials of various kinds throughout his life, some physical, some circumstantial, some internal and personal.
Such a man—one so saturated with Scripture and seasoned through suffering—has much wisdom to offer us. This is wisdom for everyone, because the question of suffering is not a question of if we will face it, but when. Suffering is one of life’s certainties, as is the good which God produces through it. We would therefore do well to listen to the Spurgeon as he offers counsel to prepare us for the suffering we will face.
In an article entitled “Sweet Fruit from a Thorny Tree,” Spurgeon provided insight from his own experience of suffering. He describes himself as one “who ha[s] of late been a prisoner of the Lord in the sick chamber.”[1] Yet his time in the figurative cell was not wasted, as he goes on to say that his experience of darkness and depression and difficulty has yielded good fruit. It is the fruit he wishes us to taste, so as to strengthen us to face the thorns.
The first lesson Spurgeon learned from suffering and shared is that “pain teaches us our nothingness.”[2] When we’re healthy, it’s easy to think we have the world by the tail. When we’re strong and not facing the uncertainties of biopsies and tests, it’s tempting to enlarge our sense of self-sufficiency and self-esteem. When this happens, our inflated self-perception becomes unmoored from reality. According to Spurgeon, it is in the experience of limitation and weakness that we discover the truth about ourselves. “How,” he writes, “have I felt dwarfed and diminished by pain and depression!” He goes on to describe his experience: “The preacher to thousands could creep into a nutshell, and feel himself smaller than the worm which bored the tiny round hole by which he entered.”[3]
Most of us are far too great in our own estimation. Often, God chooses to use sickness and disappointment and heartache in order to confront us with our frailty. In other words, He must discipline us as a loving Father. And while the discipline is unpleasant, “it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).
The second lesson from Spurgeon is that “heavy sickness and crushing pain shut out from us a thousand minor cares.”[4] Some forms of suffering leave us unable to tend to our normal affairs—life’s “minor cares”—forcing us to entrust to the Lord all the things we are helpless to do. We often experience this in our own lives and ministries, when we have been totally incapable of fulfilling our usual duties. What a gracious reminder to see that Jesus Christ is well able to take care of everything without our help! The experience of suffering reminds us of our reliance on God. Even the apostle Paul, himself well acquainted with sorrow, confessed that one divine purpose of his suffering “was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God” (2 Corinthians 1:9).
The question of suffering is not a question of if we will face it, but when. Suffering is one of life’s certainties, as is the good which God produces through it.
Spurgeon says, “The reins drop from the driver’s hands, the ploughman forgets the furrow, the seed-basket hangs no longer on the sower’s arm.” In other words, nearly all of us eventually reach a point in life where we cannot do the tasks that we so often take for granted. And this experience, he says, cuts us “loose from earthly shores” and provides us with a dress rehearsal when our life’s work will end and we will be no more.[5] What an invaluable lesson that can be learned through no other means!
Spurgeon also observes, “Pain, if sanctified, creates tenderness towards others.”[6] Without the grace of God, the pain, disappointment, heartache, sadness, and sickness we endure may simply harden our hearts and make us resentful. But when grace sanctifies our pain and sickness, our trial may become the occasion for our hearts softening and genuine sympathy prevailing. Indeed, we may be equipped through it such that “we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:4).
The way Spurgeon puts it, suffering will open doors of ministry that would have otherwise remained closed to us: “The keys of men’s hearts hang up in the narrow chamber of suffering, and he who has not been there can scarcely know the art of opening the recesses of the soul.”[7]
Finally, sickness and other trials may cause us to become all the more focused and diligent when we have been favored—if we have been favored—to return to the place of our service. “Pain,” says Spurgeon, “has a tendency to make us grateful when health returns.”[8] The “wasted” months may lead to an economy of life wherein we’re more earnest, more careful, more prayerful, more dependent upon God, more passionately committed to doing the work of the Gospel than before we went in the chamber and found the keys hanging on the hook.
We do not know what kind of suffering we will face. But how encouraging it is to see the fruit God has produced through the suffering of His people! There are lessons in the school of suffering that we could not otherwise learn, and God Himself will walk with us through each trial. He has brought us thus far, “through many dangers, toils, and snares,”[9] and He will lead us home. The Lord Jesus—the Suffering Servant of Isaiah’s prophecy—was a man of sorrows, was acquainted with grief, and yet endured it for the joy set before Him (Isaiah 52–53). We now go through our sufferings in His footsteps, enduring no darkness that He has not endured before us and for us. And so our suffering will make us like Him—and that will be the sweetest fruit of all.
12 The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. 2 The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,
3 but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.
4 “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”
5 David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die! 6 He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”
7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.
8 I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.
9 Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
2 Samuel 12:13-15 NIV
13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.”
Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for[a] the Lord, the son born to you will die.”
15 After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.
Why Love Begets Hate
If there is one thing believers in Jesus should be known for, it is Love. They are to serve one another in Love, love their neighbors as themselves, live a life of Love, and love with actions and in truth.
‘True Love’ is sacrificial action and selfless generosity displayed both in speech and in actions.*
So, if Jesus and His followers are all about love, why do some people love to hate them ? Why are there, according to one estimate, 200 million persecuted believers in the world today ?
Jesus told us why. He said to His disciples, “Everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed”.
Jesus is the Light. When He walked this earth, people hated Him because He exposed the darkness of their sin. We are now His light in this world; therefore, the world will also hate us. Our task is to be channels of God’s love and light, even if we are hated in return. – Dave Branon_
Some will hate you, some will love you; some will flatter, some will slight. Cease from man, and look above you, Trust in God and do the right -Macleod “Love in return for love is natural, but love in return for hate is supernatural.”
Three Words On Your Bill
One of the most frequent visitors at our house is a fellow called “bill.” Yeah, every month lots of bills come to our home. You probably have bills that you see coming to your house frequently too.
But there’s one bill I’ll never forget. One of our children had needed the attention of a medical specialist, and it cost a lot and the bills were coming.
And since he was a caring Christian brother, and he understands a little bit about ministry income, he was pretty gracious. He put us on this extended pay plan.
The bill came regularly and we were trying to pay it off in these little installments. Then one day the bill came showing the large amount we still owed, except this bill had three words stamped on it by the amount we owed: Paid In Full.
I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Three Words on Your Bill.”
Now, our word for today from the Word of God, John 19, beginning at verse 28. The scene is Skull Hill outside of Jerusalem. “Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’
A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
Now, if you and I were reading those verses in the original language of the New Testament, the Greek language, when we got to “It is finished” we would read just one word “tetelestai.” They actually found that word in an archeologist’s dig some years ago. It was a tax collector’s office that had been buried under layers.
And they found it pretty much as it had been the day the tax collector died apparently. They went in and they saw the various slates that were stacked up, and there was one stack that was obviously the people who still had a debt that had already paid. There was one word on top of it: tetelestai – paid in full.
When Jesus died for you and shouted “It is finished!”, in essence you know what He was saying? “Paid in full!” He was talking about your bill with God, my bill with God, the darkness, the sin of our life, the way we’ve hijacked our lives – even the most religious of us – we’ve lived it for ourselves other than for Him. Every time you thought, or said, or did something outside of God’s laws, that’s what Jesus was paying for. That’s the bill that had to be paid; could only be paid by dying. It’s a bill too big to pay! I don’t know what religion you are, and it doesn’t matter. No religion on earth can pay your bill. It would take an eternity away from God in hell to pay the penalty for that sin.
But that’s the miracle of the cross. The One who was sinned against paid the penalty for that sin. Today maybe you’re saying, “But could I really be forgiven even for that?” Jesus says, “It is finished.”
There’s no sin He did not cover when He died. But you’ve got to do something with what He did for you. You go to that cross in your heart, you renounce your sin, you bow before Him and say, “Lord, I ask you to be my personal Savior for my personal sin.”
If you’ve never done that, don’t go another day without having your sins forgiven. Why risk another day carrying the sin and the death penalty for it in your own soul, when it could be gone if you just cry out to Jesus and say, “I’m Yours.”
Our website’s been set up just for a moment like this, where you can find what you need to know to be sure you’ve begun your relationship with Jesus. Would you go there today? It’s ANewStory.com.
A man I know stamped three incredible words on a huge debt, and Jesus wants to stamp those words on your bill with God: “Paid In Full.” You don’t ever have to carry the weight of your sin again, because Jesus said, “It is finished!”
10 When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not go into their house to get what is offered to you as a pledge. 11 Stay outside and let the neighbor to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge out to you.
12 If the neighbor is poor, do not go to sleep with their pledge in your possession. 13 Return their cloak by sunset so that your neighbor may sleep in it. Then they will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the Lord your God.
14 Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. 15 Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
16 Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.
17 Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. 18 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.
19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.
20 When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.
21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.
By Ann Voskamp…
The problems of hard times are answered in the presence of Himself: *God is with us.* Today, we’re praying not so much for the danger to pass but for the fear to flee — because God. is. with. me.
I know how it can feel like life’s got us in a prison — but on the inside, where God is making new life, we’re free. It can feel like we’ve lost — but not a day goes by without His unfolding grace that. makes. us. win. this. race.
It can feel like the night has won — but nothing can ultimately steal us from the One Who is. So! “…we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, *not a day goes by without His unfolding grace.*” 2 Corinthians 4 MSG
A grace that holds you when everything is breaking down and falling apart—and whispers that everything is somehow breaking free and falling together.
The bottom line, and the finish line, is simply this: just one foot in front of the other here & let today bring out the BEST in you — the joy, the hope, the grace, the beauty, the love of Jesus in you! That hard road: let it bring out the best hope in you.#TheBrokenWay
Have you ever met a Pagan? No, I don’t mean someone who simply doesn’t go to church but someone who self-consciously identifies themselves as a Pagan. You may not know it, but you may have Pagan neighbours. What an opportunity for the gospel!
Modern Paganism is a collection of new religious movements. Though they are really only a few decades old, they claim a continuity with pre-Christian religions.
The word ‘Pagan’ comes from the Latin paganus referring to rustic peoples who lived in the villages. It was first used by early Christians to refer to the peoples of the Roman Empire who had not yet become Christian. Over time it took on a derogatory connotation and was often used to refer to anyone outside the Abrahamic religions.
Today’s Pagans have adopted the term for themselves, using it in a positive sense.
Pagans believe that they follow the oldest religion in the world and assert that they follow a non-dogmatic form of spirituality. Nevertheless, most pursue their religion within one of the various traditions of Paganism, including those that draw on the older pre-Christian religions of Northern Europe.
Generally, Pagans believe in many gods or they believe that all is god. They also believe in the worship of nature. Many worship goddesses and reject what they see as patriarchal monotheistic religions (as they view Christianity) as inherently oppressive.
In some circles it is common to identify Paganism with Satanism and the New Age Movement. Although there are some similarities and overlaps, Pagans themselves usually deny that the movements are identical.
In the West, Pagans seek to recover an older religion that was replaced with the advance of Christianity over the first millennium AD. As such, Pagans are often consciously rejecting Christianity. One group of Pagans, those of the ‘Northern Tradition’ often prefer to call themselves ‘Heathen’. Other popular traditions are Wicca and Druidry.
Modern Pagans are also disenchanted with modernity, with its rationalism and its emphasis on science and technology. In its place is a re-enchantment with the ‘Otherworld’: a world of spirits, such as elves and fairies. Pagans believe that there is constant communication between the natural world and the Otherworld. This can happen by going into a trance or by reading the runes (usually stones with symbols on them) or interpreting the patterns of tealeaves left in the cup.
Pagan rituals include the offering of bread, milk or beer to images of gods, along with singing, chanting and the lighting of incense.
As a nature religion, seasonal festivals are significant, especially spring and harvest and the summer and winter solstices. Pagans gather at important sites such as Stonehenge to celebrate the turn of the sun’s course.
Some Pagans view nature itself in a religious way. Many Wiccans, for example, are drawn to Wicca by the desire to practise magic (sometimes spelled magick) because it conveys a sense of power and because they are attracted to the idea of being initiated into secret knowledge. Magic (also called ‘witchcraft’, from Wicca) is generally accepted by Pagans as a valid activity, except where this is used as an attempt at unfair personal gain or to inflict harm on others.
When that knowledge and power are situated in a story that has a primal feel that attraction is very strong. Although the author of The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, was a strong Roman Catholic Christian, it is interesting that the fantasy world that he created is not so very different from the cosmology of the Heathen tradition. Tolkien was drawing on Germanic myths and legends, originally in an attempt to create a full-fledged English mythology. The sense of place and its rootedness in the soil that are so important for the hobbits of the Shire resonate strongly with many younger people, especially in an age of globalized entertainment and commercialization that are so effectively carried by technology that they leave people feeling rootless.
18 Appoint judges and officials for each of your tribes in every town the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall judge the people fairly.
19 Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the innocent.
20 Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the Lord your God is giving you.
8 If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge—whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults—take them to the place the Lord your God will choose.
9 Go to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict.
10 You must act according to the decisions they give you at the place the Lord will choose. Be careful to do everything they instruct you to do.
11 Act according to whatever they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left.
12 Anyone who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the Lord your God is to be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel.
13 All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.
1 Thessalonians 2 (Weymouth Translation)
1 For you yourselves, brethren, know that our visit to you did not fail of its purpose.
2 But, as you will remember, after we had already met with suffering and outrage at Philippi, we summoned up boldness, by the help of our God, to tell you God’s Good News amid much opposition.
3 For our preaching was not grounded on a delusion, nor prompted by mingled motives, nor was there fraud in it.
4 But as God tested and approved us before entrusting us with His Good News, so in what we say we are seeking not to please men but to please God, who tests and approves our motives.
5 For, as you are well aware, we have never used the language of flattery nor have we found pretexts for enriching ourselves–God is our witness;
6 nor did we seek glory either from you or from any other mere men, although we might have stood on our dignity as Christ’s Apostles.
7 On the contrary, in our relations to you we showed ourselves as gentle as a mother is when she tenderly nurses her own children.
8 Seeing that we were thus drawn affectionately towards you, it would have been a joy to us to have imparted to you not only God’s Good News, but to have given our very lives also, because you had become very dear to us.
9 For you remember, brethren, our labour and toil: how, working night and day so as not to become a burden to any one of you, we came and proclaimed among you God’s Good News.
10 You yourselves are witnesses–and God is witness–how holy and upright and blameless our dealings with you believers were.
11 For you know that we acted towards every one of you as a father does towards his own children, encouraging and cheering you,
12 and imploring you to live lives worthy of fellowship with God who is inviting you to share His own Kingship and glory.
13 And for this further reason we render unceasing thanks to God, that when you received God’s Message from our lips, it was as no mere message from men that you embraced it, but as–what it really is–God’s Message, which also does its work in the hearts of you who believe.
14 For you, brethren, followed the example of the Churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judaea; seeing that you endured the same ill-treatment at the hands of your countrymen, as they did at the hands of the Jews.
15 Those Jewish persecutors killed both the Lord Jesus and the Prophets, and drove us out of their midst. They are displeasing to God, and are the enemies of all mankind;
16 for they still try to prevent our preaching to the Gentiles so that they may find salvation. They thus continually fill up the measure of their own sins, and God’s anger in its severest form has overtaken them.
17 But we, brethren, having been for a short time separated from you in bodily presence, though not in heart, endeavoured all the more earnestly, with intense longing, to see you face to face.
18 On this account we wanted to come to you–at least I Paul wanted again and again to do so–but Satan hindered us.
19 For what is our hope or joy, or the crown of which we boast? Is it not you yourselves in the presence of our Lord Jesus at His Coming?
20 Yes, you are our glory and our joy.
1Bina Mukesh
Transsexualism, also known as transgenderism, Gender Identity Disorder (GID), or gender dysphoria, is a feeling that your biological/genetic/ physiological gender does not match the gender you identify with and/or perceive yourself to be.
Transsexuals/transgenders often describe themselves as feeling “trapped” in a body that does not match their true gender. They often practice transvestism/transvestitism and may also seek hormone therapy and/or gender reassignment surgery to bring their bodies into conformity with their perceived gender.
The Bible nowhere explicitly mentions transgenderism or describes anyone as having transgender feelings. However, the Bible has plenty to say about human sexuality.
Most basic to our understanding of gender is that God created two (and only two) genders: “male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). All the modern-day speculation about numerous genders or gender fluidity—or even a gender “continuum” with unlimited genders—is foreign to the Bible.
The closest the Bible comes to mentioning transgenderism is in its condemnations of homosexuality (Romans 1:18–32; 1 Corinthians 6:9–10) and transvestitism (Deuteronomy 22:5). The Greek word often translated “homosexual offenders” or “male prostitutes” in 1 Corinthians 6:9 literally means “effeminate men.”
So, while the Bible does not directly mention transgenderism, when it mentions other instances of gender “confusion,” it clearly and explicitly identifies them as sin.
What about the possibility that those suffering with transgenderism have a brain that functions as one gender while the rest of the body is biologically the other gender? The Bible does not even hint at such a possibility.
However, neither does the Bible mention hermaphroditism (a condition in which a person has both male and female sexual organs), which undeniably occurs (although extremely rarely).
Further, people can be born with or develop all kinds of different brain defects or malfunctions. How can it be said that it is impossible for a female brain to be in a male body (or vice versa)?
With hermaphroditism as evidence, it cannot be said that if the Bible does not mention something it does not occur. So, it might be possible for a person to be born with a brain wired in such a way that it contributes to gender dysphoria.
This could also be an explanation for some instances of homosexuality. However, just because something might have a biological cause does not mean embracing the effects is the right thing to do.
Some people are wired with a sexuality on hyper-drive. That does not make it right for them to engage in sexual immorality. It is scientifically proven that some psychopaths/sociopaths have brains with severely weakened impulse-control mechanisms. That does not make it right for them to engage in every deviant behavior that crosses their minds.
No matter if the gender distortion has a genetic, hormonal, physiological, psychological, or spiritual cause, it can be overcome and healed through faith in Christ and continued reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit.
Healing can be received, sin can be overcome, and lives can be changed through the salvation that Jesus provides, even if there are biological/ physiological factors.
The Corinthian believers are an example of such a change: “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). There is hope for everyone, transsexuals, transgenders, those with gender identity disorder, and transvestites included, because of God’s forgiveness available in Jesus Christ.
23 “Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness.
2 “Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, 3 and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit.
4 “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. 5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.
6 “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits. 7 Have nothing to do with a false charge and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will not acquit the guilty.
8 “Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the innocent.
9 “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.
10 “For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, 11 but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.
12 “Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.
8 Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For,
“Whoever would love life
and see good days
must keep their tongue from evil
and their lips from deceitful speech.
11 They must turn from evil and do good;
they must seek peace and pursue it.
12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their prayer,
but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”[a]
The first Black performer to win the Academy Award for best actor, for “Lilies of the Field,” he once said he felt “as if I were representing 15, 18 million people with every move I made.”
Sidney Poitier, whose portrayal of resolute heroes in films like “To Sir With Love,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” established him as Hollywood’s first Black matinee idol.
Sydney Poitier, was the First Black Man to Win an Oscar and a Titan of Cinema, and Hollywood.
He helped open the door for Black actors in the film industry, died on Thursday night at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94.
It is interesting that a much higher percentage of people believe in the existence of heaven than believe in the existence of hell. According to the Bible, though, hell is just as real as heaven.
The Bible clearly and explicitly teaches that hell is a real place to which the wicked/unbelieving are sent after death. We have all sinned against God (Romans 3:23).
The just punishment for that sin is death (Romans 6:23). Since all of our sin is ultimately against God (Psalm 51:4), and since God is an infinite and eternal Being, the punishment for sin, death, must also be infinite and eternal. Hell is this infinite and eternal death which we have earned because of our sin.
The punishment of the wicked dead in hell is described throughout Scripture as “eternal fire” (Matthew 25:41), “unquenchable fire” (Matthew 3:12), “shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2), a place where “the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:44-49), a place of “torment” and “fire” (Luke 16:23-24), “everlasting destruction” (2 Thessalonians 1:9), a place where “the smoke of torment rises forever and ever” (Revelation 14:10-11), and a “lake of burning sulfur” where the wicked are “tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).
The punishment of the wicked in hell is as never ending as the bliss of the righteous in heaven. Jesus Himself indicates that punishment in hell is just as everlasting as life in heaven (Matthew 25:46).
The wicked are forever subject to the fury and the wrath of God. Those in hell will acknowledge the perfect justice of God (Psalm 76:10). Those who are in hell will know that their punishment is just and that they alone are to blame (Deuteronomy 32:3-5).
Yes, hell is real. Yes, hell is a place of torment and punishment that lasts forever and ever, with no end. Praise God that, through Jesus, we can escape this eternal fate (John 3:16, 18, 36).
8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. 9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”
11 The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. 12 But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring[a] will be reckoned. 13 I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”
14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she[b] began to sob.
17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer.
Humility of Mind
The story is told of a group of people who went in to see Beethoven’s home in Germany.
After the tour guide had showed them Beethoven’s piano and had finished his lecture, he asked if any of them would like to come up and sit at the piano for a moment and play a chord or two.
There was a sudden rush to the piano by all the people except a gray-haired gentleman with long, flowing hair.
The guide finally asked him, “Wouldn’t you like to sit down at the piano and play a few notes?” He answered, “No, I don’t feel worthy.”
That man was “Paderewski”, the great Polish statesman and pianist and the only man in the group who was really worthy to play the piano of Beethoven.
Humility of mind in its distilled essence means a mind brought low. A gentle person is one whose emotions are under control. It describes the attitude that submits to God’s dealings without rebellion, and to man’s unkindness without retaliation.
It is best seen in the life of our Lord Who said, “Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls”.
How often people rush in and do things when they have no gift for doing them. We say we have difficulty in finding folk who will do the work of the society, but there is another extreme – folk who attempt to do things for which they have no gift.
We need to walk in lowliness of mind. – Precept Austin “The humble person is not one who thinks meanly of himself; he simply does not think of himself at all!” — Andrew Murray
Stay Blessed My Friend