Saving A Generation Endangered

Apologetiks.

2009-12-11T06:47:00.000+03:00

"The Heroic and successful defense of Cartagena in 1741 against Admiral Vernon's vastly superior English forces was led by Basque admiral Blas de Lezo, a peg-legged "half man" who had lost an eye, an arm, and a leg in prior battles."

Wow! And there is a colossal list of men that have given their lives for the love of country. Men that have kissed family good bye because there was a battle cry.

I sit perplexed with my knees shaking at the story of the colombian "half man." One legged, peg-legged, one eye, one arm. Everything on this guy was in halves. Da dream of even a full portion was far fetched let alone a double portion.

We live in an era in christendom of double portions in anointing, electronics(church projectors and stuff), finances, mansions, cars, wives...its endless. And am thinkin, whom much is given, much is expected! Half men seem to have nothing to lose.
David Brainerd after a careless comment about his professor at yale University was thrown out and skelter he headed for the bushes AS A MISSIONARY to the red Indians. With a body smitten by tuberculosis, He wrestled for the salvation of these people sometimes praying on wintry days. He died at the ripe old age of 29 but left a trail of revival among the red indians.

Two old ladies in their eighties travailed for revival in the hebrides. The revival of Duncan Campbell. One was blind completely! Anutha "half- person."
I can recount stories of other half-people peradventure we might get lines and sinkers in our spiritual digestive system but long stories are not so palatable.

The pages are painted with full blown intellectuals and mature spiritual independents. May be its time for another intellectual "half- man" like William Seymour who was son to former slaves and blind in one eye. he was denied a preaching licence because he was black, so he led hisself to a stable where he prayed with his head stacked in a crate and made the name AZuza street revival!
Let not our money, bible college tutoring, connections and collosal intellects ever take away our eternal need to depend on Jesus. Independence from God makes men a dime-a-dozen, degrees or no degrees.

on lot and ABRAHAM!

2008-02-28T17:29:00.008+03:00

At the crossroads with his uncle Abbie, He looked over and saw the plains lookin pleasant and settled in the outskirts of Sodom. Then he made a crib in Sodom and became an elder at the gates of Sodom but the people of Sodom were extremely wicked-whoremongers!!

Abraham Didnt move but God moved and made him a promise. An inheritance!!!
Not everything that glitters is gold is a tired word but sometimes we need to just chillux and wait on God. Success these days is loads of money and light skinned women but bruh, withall thy gettin, seek direction from the most high and in all thy ways, acknowledge Him. Aiight??

Lot settles in sodom with a pedigree of righteousness not his own and it turns out he is voiceless. With all thy gettin sis, have an epiphany moment of yo own and make the faith that was yo father's yo own-graduate from a sunday church lover to a Jesus freak 4realla not jut on yo t-shirt or with yo mouth and buddies!

Lot Perished. Not in sodom but in the caves somewhere after sexing his own daughters-inadvertently tho but life is wat he made it. It was too late for him to be an ambassador of righteousness in a foreign and wicked land where iniquity was galloped like water and sinfulness was militant. He was just mocked and called an outsider. In that land, there was no fear for his God 'cause he didnt take the time to rep that God from day one. He indulged in sodom with the sodomites and became a man of authority but such authority could not move mountains and giants of wickedness.

My eyes have seen evil things, my ears have heard wicked men hollering and blaspheming the name of ma lord. Chocolate souljahz deny God at the tables and frontlines of secularism,humanism and lukewarmness but God forbid that we never have those that holla AS 4 ME AND MY HOUSE WE GONNA SERVE THA LORD!!! The remnant will always show and they dont need no secular publicity or cheap popularity.
Let the sons of Isaachar and Abraham rise and let the reflection on they faces expose the flaw models and whore mongers.
One!!!

IN da shadow of da Almighty

2007-12-05T18:24:00.000+03:00

Da safest place u can ever be
Where secrets well up in yo belly
Whispers in secret(love), thunders in public(judgement)
And after u chew on that choco-late
u spit em out for men
Lighting da path for da unschooled in the secrets of da Lord

His secrets are with those that fear Him
Those dat understand His desire for men to seek His face.
Age aint nothing but a number, i pray that even the younger
Begin to hunger(Da T.R.U.T.H) for the manifestation of His glory
And begin to desire to serve Him.

I stay and will live in that place
Paradventure, He will whisper to me
And i will be safe.

Aint it cool to know and serve tha Lord?

Bring it on...anutha one.

2007-11-22T16:12:00.000+03:00

Are You Ready to Burn? Get on Fire for God!
By Julie Ferwerda with Becky Tirabassi

CBN.com – Want a bigger and better life than you ever dreamed? Are you ready to leave a lasting mark on the world? Becky Tirabassi, author of The Burning Heart Contract, is bringing a message to students nationwide who are ready for something BIG — something that will change their life, and could quite possibly change our country and even our world. By making a decision to sign The Burning Heart Contract (BHC), you too can begin the greatest adventure of your life—guaranteed!
What is a Burning Heart Contract?

II Chronicles 15:12 “They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and soul.”
BHC is a call to passion, purity, and great purpose. It is an agreement you make with God to spend an hour a day with Him for the rest of your life.
Becky says, “A Burning Heart Contract is your response to the living, loving God and what He is asking of you. It is a marker on your spiritual journey…the moment of decision when you decided to change for good. With this contract you are saying, ‘Lord, You are worthy of my total devotion and I will live a life that honors You and displays Your faithfulness for others to see. I commit to this adventure with You for the rest of my life.’ It reflects a life that is driven, compelled, and consumed with being available and usable for God’s work.”

Ignite your passion:

“When we say, ‘Speak, Lord,’ the romance begins.” Oswald Chambers
An hour! You might be thinking. What will I do for a whole hour with God? Besides, I don’t have that kind of time!
Do you have an hour to watch television? To talk on the phone? To eat lunch with your friends? “We make time for what we want to make time for,” says Becky, who has spent at least an hour a day with God for over twenty years during the busiest season of her life. “The fact is, you will never be less busy than you are now. What will it cost you to spend one hour a day with God? Probably a little less sleep and a little less television.”

The real question is, what will it cost you not to spend an hour a day with your Creator? Based on all the evidence, I can make an educated guess. Spiritually speaking, you will live out an average life. You will likely have an unremarkable impact on the world—one that will soon be forgotten when you die. You will feel little if any purpose, passion, and adventure. There’s no way around it because that’s the way you were made. The main purpose you and I were created for is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Outside of that, there is nothing else that truly excites or satisfies us consistently without regrets.

Becky assures you that you need not wait long to see the awesome results of spending time with God. In fact, she will tell you that just one hour in the presence of the King is all it takes to get your heart on fire. “God immediately shows up. He begins to do something. You will walk around saying, ‘Oh my gosh, you won’t believe what God did...’” You will be more than ready to meet with Him again the next day…and the next…

As you watch what God does with one little hour a day, this relationship with God really becomes something that every young person wants—a romance. If you make your relationship with God your most important romance, He will fill up those holes and help you avoid mistakes like getting married for the wrong reasons. Instead, you will be intent on serving God better and glorifying Him in your relationships because He will be your first love.

Purify your life:
“God is calling for great leaders. Great leaders don’t come without great cost.” Becky Tirabassi
The greatest motivation of those with burning hearts is to glorify God and to be completely usable by Him. But for many, being usable for God feels a bit out of reach.

“I just spoke to a 30’s age group.” Becky recalls. “I heard many tearful confessions of things like, ‘I’ve wasted the last ten years with my partying and drinking and sexual immorality…I’ve been running from God…In junior high I was called into ministry and now I’m 35 and I’ve never answered the call…I’ve wasted time…I’m humiliated…Is it too late for me?’

“My response is, absolutely not! Start today. But my passion to reach younger people is because, at twenty one, I had already lost six years of purity and a life that could have been spent being educated instead of being a drunk. Thirty years olds today are despondent. And they’ve got so much baggage and garbage and missed opportunities that I’m pleading with younger people to give their whole hearts to God now and watch what He’s going to do.”

If you desire to be set apart for God, and to hear Him speak, you must begin now to live your life in purity—no matter what mistakes you’ve made in the past. God isn’t concerned about past sins you’ve confessed and turned away from. He’s concerned about your present. Are you living purely today? II Timothy 2:21 makes it clear that purity is a prerequisite for achieving God’s purpose for your life. “If you keep yourself pure, you will be a special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean, and you will be ready for the Master to use you for every good work.”

Fulfill your purpose:
“Changed hearts and Spirit-filled lives are the result of prayer.” Becky Tirabassi
In BHC, Becky tells about a small group of people who made the decision many years ago to spend an hour a day with God. The result?
“They were young people with big dreams and they turned out to be movers and shakers. When Bill Bright made the decision to pray one hour a day, he was not the founder of any organization; he was just a young businessman. At the turn of making that decision, he became the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. Now almost sixty years later, there are fifty million people who’ve come to Christ through that organization. It’s proof that a solid commitment to a lifestyle of pursuing God through prayer, even when you’re young and single, can turn into something beyond your imagination.”
Becky’s own life has been a testimony to BHC too. She has had God-sized opportunities to speak at large conferences all over the country, appear on national television, publish her own line of books and resources, and to speak to as many as 20,000 youth at one time. Once she even prayed for the chance to share her testimony in Cleveland, Ohio—the city where she was born. Months later she was invited to share her testimony from the stage at a Billy Graham Crusade—in Cleveland!
Through the years she has seen her father and mother become believers, and even her father-in-law made a profession of faith at the Billy Graham Crusade! The opportunities are too many to count. But dearest to her heart are the years of praying for her only son, that he would connect with God’s purposes for his life. After eight years of praying and fasting for Jake, he came home from conference at age twenty four and announced he was going to be a missionary. Today Jake is doing just that. He lives in Spain, playing soccer with prisoners and inner city kids, while sharing the gospel.

No Excuses
“The devils greatest tool is to keep the believer from praying” Andrew Murray

“Lately I’ve been sharing a funny story from the television show, The Bachelor,” Becky shares. “These girls! They fight over what they call ‘alone time’ with the Bachelor. They push each other out of the way. They’re rude to each other. They’re miffed if they don’t get alone time. And yet we say to God, ‘I really don’t have time for you today,’ or ‘This is too much time to make a commitment.’ If you really thought Jesus Christ was sitting in your kitchen every morning waiting for you, you’d get up! There wouldn’t be a discipline issue about it.”
But what about failure? Becky hears many students tell her they are afraid to fail in this very serious commitment. Her response? “Well, then you have more respect for the enemy than for God. Fear is not of the Lord.”

The best way to stick with your commitment, outlined in the BHC book, is to form a small group of people who will join together and help you in this decision. Meet every week together as a group, but also connect daily with someone from the group for the first 90 days to encourage and hold each other accountable. “It is not easy to be alone in a culture that mocks prayer and purity and purpose. So with other like-minded burning heart people, you really have your own little set of disciples who will stand together and often alone in a big crowd.”

So what about you? Want your life to really count—to be way better than average? The Burning Heart Contract is your chance to shout joyfully to God, “I will spend the rest of my life seeking You in all that I do and with everything I have. My time is Yours. My mind, body, and spirit are Yours. My dreams, hopes, past, and future are Yours. Oh God, my heart is Yours!” When you can fully say that, get ready—the great adventure has already begun!

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him." I Corinthians 2:9
On the Net:

Bring it on

2007-11-19T20:48:00.000+03:00

Separating From the Fashions of the World

Charles Finney

This little article by Charles Finney is refreshing because we live in a fashion crazy Christian world where the modern theology for evangelism is "look like the world to win the world." He wrote it in a style common for his day, giving the question or objection first and then answering it by teaching on the principle in question.

Where is the holy testimony of the people of God in these last days? There is very little difference between the church and the world, between the born againers and the people who do not believe. The professing church seems afraid to be different. Finney testified of his own error on this crucial subject of fashions. John Wesley gave a similar report after he evaluated the results of teaching that there should be no distinction in the clothes of the Christian. There is no holiness in being different. However, if we follow the teachings on modesty in the Bible, we will be different, especially in this day when all have pursued the changing fashions with zeal.

Brother Denny

Objection. "Is it best for Christians to be singular ("if thine eye be single")? Answer: Certainly; Christians are bound to be singular. They are called to be a peculiar people, that is, a singular people, essentially different from the rest of mankind. To maintain that we are not to be singular, is the same as to maintain that we are to be conformed to the world. "Be not singular," that is, be like the world. In other words, "Be ye conformed to the world." This is the direct opposite to the command in the text. But the question now regards fashion, in dress, equipage, and so on. And here I will confess that I was formerly myself in error. I believed, and I taught, that the best way for Christians to pursue, was to dress so as not to be noticed, to follow the fashions and changes so as not to appear singular, and that nobody would be led to think of their being different from others in these particulars. But I have seen my error, and now wonder greatly at my former blindness. It is your duty to dress so plain as to show to the world, that you place no sort of reliance in the things of fashion, and set no value at all on them, but despise and neglect them altogether. But unless you are singular, unless you separate yourselves from the fashions of the world, you show that you do value them. There is no way in which you can bear a proper testimony by your lives against the fashions of the world, but by dressing plain. I do not mean that you should study singularity, but that you should consult convenience and economy, although it may be singular.

Objection. "But if we dress plain, the attention of people will be taken with it." Answer: The reason of it is this, so few do it that it is a novelty, and everybody stares when they see a professing Christian so strict as to disregard the fashions. Let them all do it, and the only thing you show by it is that you are a Christian, and do not wish to be confounded with the ungodly. Would it not tell on the pride of the world, if all the Christians in it were united in bearing a practical testimony against its vain show?

Objection. "But in this way you carry religion too far away from the multitude. It is better not to set up an artificial distinction between the church and the world." Answer: The direct reverse of this is true. The nearer you bring the church to the world, the more you annihilate the reasons that ought to stand out in view of the world, for their changing sides and coming over to the church. Unless you go right out from them, and show that you are not of them in any respect, and carry the church so far as to have a broad interval between saints and sinners, how can you make the ungodly feel that so great a change is necessary.

Objection. "But this change which is necessary is a change of heart." Answer: True; but will not a change of heart produce a change of life?

Objection. "You will throw obstacles in the way of persons becoming Christians. Many respectable people will become disgusted with religion, and if they cannot be allowed to dress and be Christians, they will take to the world altogether." Answer: This is just about as reasonable as it would be for a temperance man to think he must get drunk now and then, to avoid disgusting the intemperate, and to retain his influence over them. The truth is, that persons ought to know, and ought to see in the lives of professing Christians, that if they embrace religion, they must be weaned from the world, and must give up the love of the world, and its pride, and show, and folly, and live a holy life, in watchfulness, and self denial, and active benevolence.

Objection. "Is it not better for us to disregard this altogether, and not pay any attention to such little things, and let them take their course?" Answer: Is this the way to show contempt for the fashions of the world? Do people ordinarily take this course of showing contempt for a thing, to practice it? Why, the way to show your abhorrence of the world is to follow along in the customs and the fashions of the world! Precious reasoning this.

Objection. "No matter how we dress, if our hearts are right?" Answer: Your heart right! Then your heart may be right when your conduct is all wrong. Just as well might the profane swearer say, "No matter what words I speak, if my heart is right." No, your heart is not right, unless your conduct is right. What is outward conduct, but the acting out of the heart? If your heart were right, you would not wish to follow the fashions of the world.

Objection. "What is the standard of dress? I do not see the use of all your preaching, and laying down rules about plain dress, unless you give us a standard." Answer: This is a mighty stumbling block with many. But to any mind the matter is extremely simple. The whole can be comprised in two simple rules. One is – Be sure, in all your equipage, and dress, and furniture, to that you have no fellowship with the designs and principles of those who are aiming to set off themselves, and to gain the applause of men. The other is – Let economy be first consulted, and then convenience. Follow Christian economy; that is, save all you can for Christ's service; and then, let things be as convenient as Christian economy will admit.

Objection. "Would you have us all to turn Quakers [the Quakers were known for their simple dress, ed.], and put on their plain dress?" Answer: Who does not know, that the plain dress of the Quakers has won for them the respect of all the thinking part of the ungodly in the community? Now, if they had coupled with this, the zeal for God, and the weanedness from the world, and the contempt for riches, and the self-denying labor for the conversion of sinners to Christ, which the gospel enjoins, and the clear views of the plan of salvation, which the gospel inoculates, they would long since have converted the world. And if all Christians would imitate them in their plain dress, (I do not mean the precise cut and fashion of their dress, but in a plain dress, throwing contempt upon the fashions of the world), who can doubt that the conversion of the world would hasten on apace?

Objection. "Would you make us all into Methodists?" Answer: Who does not know that the Methodists, when they were noted for their plain dress, and for renouncing the fashions and show of the world, used to have power with God in prayer – and that they had the universal respect of the world as sincere Christians. And who does not know that since they have laid aside this peculiarity, and conformed to the world in dress and other things, and seemed to be trying to lift themselves up as a denomination, and gain influence with the world, they are losing the power of prayer? Would to God they had never thrown down this wall. It was one of the leading excellences of Wesley's system, to have his followers distinguished from others by a plain dress.

Objection. "We may be proud of a plain dress as well as a fashionable dress. The Quakers are as proud as we are." Answer: So may any good thing be abused. But that is no reason why it should not be used, if it can be shown to be good. I put it back to the objector – Is that any reason why a Christian female, who fears God and loves the souls of men, should neglect the means which may make an impression that she is separated from the world, and pour contempt on the fashions of the ungodly, in which they are dancing their way to hell?

Objection. "This is a small thing, and ought not to take up so much of a minister's time in the pulpit." Answer: This is an objection often heard from worldly professors. But the minister that fears God will not be deterred by it. He will pursue the subject, until such professing Christians are cut off from their conformity to the world, or cut off from the church. It is not merely the dress, as dress, but it is the conformity to the world in dress and fashion that is the great stumbling block in the way of sinners. How can the world be converted, while professing Christians are conformed to the world? What good will it do to give money to send the gospel to the heathen, when Christians live so at home? Well might the heathen ask, "What profit will it be to become Christians, when those who are Christians are pursuing the world with all the hot haste of the ungodly?" The great thing necessary for the church is to break off from the conformity to the world, and then they will have power with God in prayer, and the Holy Ghost will descend and bless their efforts, and the world will be converted.

Objection. "But if we dress so, we shall be called fanatics." Answer: Whatever the ungodly may call you, fanatics, Methodists, or anything, you will be known as Christians, and in the secret consciences of men will be acknowledged as such. It is not in the power of unbelievers to pour contempt on a holy church that is separated from the world. How was it with the early Christians? They lived separate from the world, and it made such an impression, that even infidel writers say of them, "These men win the hearts of the mass of the people, because they give themselves up to deeds of charity, and pour contempt on the world." Depend upon it, if Christians would live so now, the last effort of hell would soon be expended in vain to defeat the spread of the gospel. Wave after wave would flow abroad, till the highest mountaintops were covered with the waters of life.

Remarks (by Finney).

By non-conformity to the world, you may save much money for doing good. In one year a greater fund might be saved by the church than has ever been raised for the spread of the gospel.

By non-conformity to the world, a great deal of time may be saved for doing good, that is now consumed and wasted in following the fashions, and obeying the maxims, and joining in the pursuits of the world.

At that same time, Christians in this way would preserve their peace of conscience, would enjoy communion with God, would have the spirit of prayer, and would possess far greater usefulness. Is it not time something was done? Is it not time that some church struck out a path that should not be conformed to the world, but should be according to the example and Spirit of Christ? You profess that you want to have sinners converted. But what avails it, if they sink right back again into conformity with the world? Brethren, I confess, I am filled with pain in view of the conduct of the church. Where are the proper results of the glorious revivals we have had? I believe they were genuine revivals of religion and outpourings of the Holy Ghost, that the church has enjoyed the last ten years. I believe the converts of the last ten years are among the best Christians in the land. Yet after all, the great body of them is a disgrace to religion. Of what use would it be to have a thousand members added to the church, to be just such as are now in it? Would religion be any more honored by it, in the estimation of ungodly men? One holy church, that is really crucified to the world, and the world to them, would do more to recommend Christianity, than all the churches in the country, living as they now do. O, if I had strength of body to go through the churches again, instead of preaching to convert sinners, I would preach to bring up the churches to the gospel standard of holy living. Of what use is it to convert sinners, and make them such Christians as these? Of what use is it to try to convert sinners, and make them feel as if there is something in religion, and they go to trade with you, or meet you in the street, and have you contradict it all, and tell them, by our conformity to the world, that there is nothing in it? Where shall I look, where shall the Lord look, for a church like the first church, that will come out from the world, and be separate, and give themselves up to serve God? O, if this church would do so! But it is of little use to make Christians if they are not better. Do not understand me as saying that the converts made in our revivals are spurious. But they live so as to be a disgrace to religion. They are so stumbled by old professors that many of them do more hurt than good. The more there are of them, the more occasion infidelity seems to find for her jeers and scoffs. Now, do you believe that God commands you not to be conformed to the world? Do you believe it? And dare you obey it; let people say what they will about you? Dare you now separate yourselves from the world, and never again be controlled by its maxims, and never again copy its practices, and never again will be whiffled here and there by its fashions? I know a man that lives so, I could mention his name, he pays no attention to the customs of the world in this respect, and what is the result? Wherever that man goes, he leaves the impression behind that he is a Christian. O, if one church would do so, and would engage in it with all the energy that men of the world engage in their business, they would turn the world upside down. Will you do so? Will you break off from the world now, and enter into a covenant with God, and declare that you will dare to be singular enough to be separate from the world, and from this time set your faces as a flint to obey God, let the world say what they will? Dare you do it? Will you do it?

rediggin da wells...

2007-11-03T19:59:00.000+03:00

More GREAT REVIVAL QUOTES
-Sermoinindex.net

“How we have prayed for a Revival - we did not care whether it
was old-fashioned or not - what we asked for was that it should be
such that would cleanse and revive His children and set them on
fire to win others.” - Mary Warburton Booth

"The essence of prayer does not consist in asking God for
something but in opening our hearts to God, in speaking with Him,
and living with Him in perpetual communion. Prayer is continual
abandonment to God. Prayer does not mean asking God for all
kinds of things we want; it is rather the desire for God Himself, the
only Giver of Life, Prayer is not asking, but union with God. Prayer
is not a painful effort to gain from God help in the varying needs of
our lives. Prayer is the desire to possess God Himself, the Source
of all life. The true spirit of prayer does not consist in asking for
blessings, but in receiving Him who is the giver of all blessings,
and in living a life of fellowship with Him." - Sadhu Sundar Singh

"The Word of God represents all the possibilities of God as at the
disposal of true prayer." -A. T. Pierson

"What a man is on his knees before God in secret, that will he be
before men: that much and no more." -Fred Mitchell

"Whether we like it or not, asking is the rule of the Kingdom. If you
may have everything by asking in His Name, and nothing without
asking, I beg you to see how absolutely vital prayer is." -C. H.
Spurgeon

"Prayer - secret, fervent, believing prayer - lies at the root of all
personal godliness." -William Carey

"The energies of the universe, nay, of God Himself, are at the
disposal of those who pray - to the man who stirreth up himself to
take hold of God." –- Samuel Zwemer

"There is absolutely no substitute for this secret communion with
God. The public Church services, or even the family altar, cannot
take the place of the 'closet' prayer. We must deliberately seek to
meet with God absolutely alone, and to secure such aloneness
with God we are bidden to 'enter into thy closet.' God absolutely
insists on this 'closet'-communion with Himself. One reason, no
doubt, that He demands it, is to test our sincerity. There is no test
for the soul like solitude. Do you shrink from solitude? Perhaps
the cause for your neglect of the 'closet' is a guilty conscience?
You are afraid to enter into the solitude. You know that however
cheerful you appear to be you are not really happy. You surround
yourself with company lest, being alone, truth should invade your
delusion…" – Gordon Cove

"Revival, as contrasted with a Holy Ghost atmosphere is a clean-
cut breakthrough of the Spirit, a sweep of Holy Ghost power,
bending the hearts of hardened sinners as the wheat before the
wind, breaking up the fountains of the great deep, sweeping the
whole range of the emotions, as the master hand moves across
the harp strings, from the tears and cries of the penitent to the
holy laughter and triumphant joy of the cleansed." – Norman Grubb

"Prayer meetings are dead affairs when they are merely asking
sessions; there is adventure, hope and life when they are believing
sessions, and the faith is corporately, practically and deliberately
affirmed." – Norman Grubb

"I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God.
The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff
and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack
of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.
Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of
Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with
many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain." – A. W. Tozer

"Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to
the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of
one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another
standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred
worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ,
are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were
they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from
God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when
private religion is purified. The body becomes stronger as its
members become healthier. The whole church of God gains when
the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life."
– A. W. Tozer

"It is morally impossible to exercise trust in God while there is
failure to wait upon Him for guidance and direction. The man who
does not learn to wait upon the Lord and have his thoughts molded
by Him will never possess that steady purpose and calm trust,
which is essential to the exercise of wise influence upon others, in
times of crisis and difficulty." - D. E. Hoste

"I find it a good thing to fast. I do not lay down rules for anyone in
this matter, but I know it has been a good thing for me to go
without meals to get time for prayer. So many say they have not
sufficient time to pray. We think nothing of spending an hour or
two in taking our meals." - D. E. Hoste

"Should it not be recognized that the practice of prayer and
intercession needs to be taught to young believers, or rather
developed in young believers, quite as much, if not more so than
other branches of the curriculum? Unless, however, we ourselves
are, through constant persevering practice, truly alive unto God in
this holy warfare, we shall be ineffective in influencing others. I am
quite sure the rule holds that the more we pray the more we want
to pray; the converse also being true." - D. E. Hoste

"I should like to allude to a few points in the character of Mr.
Hudson Taylor which impressed me personally, and which I think
had something to do with the blessing that God granted to his
efforts on behalf of this country (China). First his prayerfulness; he
was of necessity a busy man, but he always regarded prayer itself
as in reality the most needful and important part of the work.."
- D. E. Hoste

"Out of a very intimate acquaintance with D. L. Moody, I wish to
testify that he was a far greater pray-er than he was preacher.
Time and time again, he was confronted by obstacles that seemed
insurmountable, but he always knew the way to overcome all
difficulties. He knew the way to bring to pass anything that needed
to be brought to pass. He knew and believed in the deepest depths
of his soul that nothing was too hard for the Lord, and that prayer
could do anything that God could do. " – R. A. Torrey.

"All great soul-winners have been men of much and mighty prayer,
and all great revivals have been preceded and carried out by
persevering, prevailing knee-work in the closet." – Samuel Logan
Brengle

Redigging da wells ...

2007-10-12T23:08:00.000+03:00

NOTE: Apologies for the capital letters below. That is just how
they came....

Classic RAVENHILL QUOTES:

- THE KEY TO REVIVAL STARTS IN THE PULPIT (JOEL1:13), THEN THE PEW (2
CHRON
7:14) … L.R.

- WE'LL HAVE NO BROKEN HEARTED PEWS, UNTIL WE HAVE BROKEN HEARTED
PULPITS …
L.R.

- UNLESS WE ALLOW THE LORD TO EMPTY US, THERE IS NO FILLING … L.R.

- IN THE EARLY CHURCH THEY WERE ALL AMAZED (BY WHAT GOD WAS DOING), IN
THE
MODERN CHURCH WE WANT TO BE AMUSED (BY WHAT WE WANT GOD TO DO) … L.R.

- IN THE EARLY CHURCH THEIR POWER WAS ELECTRIFYING, IN THE MODERN
CHURCH OUR
POWER IS ELECTRONIC … L.R.

- IN CHURCHES TODAY THERE'S MORE FASHION, THAN PASSION … L.R.

- THE MODERN CHURCH/SAINT IS QUICK TO JOIN A COMMITTEE, BUT SLOW TO
JOIN A
COMMITMENT … L.R.

- MOST COMMITTEES SPEND HOURS MAKING MINUTES … L.R.

- THE BIBLE DOES NOT SAY WE LOST OUR FIRST LOVE, IT SAYS WE LEFT OUR
FIRST LOVE
… L.R.

- THE PROBLEM IS NOT GETTING US TO THE CROSS, IT'S GETTING US ON THE
CROSS …
L.R.

- WE WANT TO ORGANIZE, WHILE GOD WANTS US TO AGONIZE … L.R.

- CHURCH UNITY COMES FROM CORPORATE HUMILITY … L.R.

- THE WORLDS OUTLOOK IS EXTREMELY GRIM, BUT THE CHRISTIANS UPLOOK IS
EXTREMELY
GLORIOUS … L.R.

- WE'VE GOT MUSLIMS READY TO DIE FOR THEIR FAITH, AND CHRISTIANS WHO
AREN'T
READY TO LIVE FOR OURS … L.R.

- WE'RE QUICK TO WEAR A CROSS, BUT SLOW TO BEAR A CROSS … L.R.

- WITH THE BIBLE ITS NOT WHETHER ONE GOES THRU THE BOOK, BUT WHETHER
THE BOOK
GOES THRU ONE … L.R.

- GOD'S NOT INTERESTED IN OUR ABILITY, HE'S INTERESTED IN OUR
STICKABILITY …
L.R.

- THERE ARE ONLY TWO KINDS OF PERSONS: THOSE DEAD IN SIN AND THOSE DEAD
TO SIN
… L.R.

- GOD’S NOT LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIP WITH US, BUT OWNERSHIP OF US … L.R.

- WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO TO SPEAK IN TONGUES ON SUNDAY, THEN CURSE AND
GOSSIP ON
MONDAY? … L.R.

- WE MUST DO WHAT WE CAN DO FOR GOD FIRST, BEFORE HE WILL GIVE US THE
POWER TO
DO WHAT WE CAN’T … L.R.

- FOLK MAY CHASTISE YOU FOR TAKING GOD'S WORD SO SERIOUSLY, GOD WILL
CHASTISE
YOU IF YOU DON'T … L.R.

- SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT ARE THE DEVIL'S OPIUM TO THE MASSES … L.R.

- SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT ARE THE DEVILS SUBSTITUTE FOR GOD'S JOY
…L.R.

- IF JESUS HAD PREACHED THE SAME DILUTED MESSAGE AS MANY CHURCHES DO
TODAY,
THERE'S A GOOD CHANCE THAT HE NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN CRUCIFIED … L.R.

- THE FIRST TIME CHRIST CAME MEN HANDLED HIM ROUGHLY, THE LAST TIME HE
COMES
HE'LL HANDLE MEN ROUGHEST … L.R.

- THE MAN OF GOD NEEDS TO SPEND MORE TIME BEFORE GOD ABOUT MEN, THAN
TIME
BEFORE MEN ABOUT GOD … L.R.

- THE WORLD IS NOT IN NEED OF A NEW DEFINITION OF CHRISTIANITY, IT’S IN
NEED OF
A NEW DEMONSTRATION OF CHRISTIANITY … L.R.

- WHEN THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE BIBLE THAT CHURCHES/SAINTS DON’T LIKE,
THEY
CALL IT "LEGALISM … L.R.

~Source - Sermonindex.net

SHUTTTING DOWN a WITCH-Kris Franklin

2007-10-02T03:29:00.000+03:00

At a recent county fair a psychic had a booth where she was
reading tarot cards and doing typical witchcraft over people. The
Spirit of God began to stir me and I decided to challenge the
power of her demons with the Holy Ghost. I sat in line waiting on
my turn. When I walked into her booth I asked her if she could tell
the future. She said she couldn't tell all of the future, but could
tell
some of it. I told her I could tell tell her not only her condition,
but I
could also read her future. She immediately became interested...

God gave me a word of knowledge. I began to tell her that she
was raised Catholic, but that she currently practiced wicca and
she was using a gift God had given her from birth for selfish gain.
She was absolutely stunned because she was from Indian decent
and not many Indians were Catholic.

I then told her I could tell her future. She was now marveled at
what was taking place. I began to read from the Bible in Ezekiel
about the women who prophesied falsely and from Deuteronomy. I
told her God has ordained this moment in time to give you a
chance to repent and come to know Him or the judgment of God
would fall. She declared that she was a good Catholic and right
with God. I told her without Christ as Lord and you renouncing
your ways she would spend an eternity in hell. She cursed me
out and rejected Christ. I rebuked the demonic powers that
allowed her to channel spirits and declared that her psychic
business would no longer profit. To my amazement she packed up
her stuff in the booth and left the fair. No more reading that day.

I told her works of darkness were rebellion against Jesus Christ.
She began trying to pronounce demonic curses on me, but froze
unable to speak. She stuttered for a minute or two and then made
the most amazing testimony I have heard...

In the midst of trying to curse me she said, "I can't do anything -
the Blood of God is protecting you."

How about that - a witch defying the power of God had to recognize
her attack was in vain. Not because I was anything, but because
the blood of Christ protected me.

In the 10 years God has called me into service into His kingdom,
I have been blessed beyound measure to see His Spirit show up
strong. We have seen demons cast out and healings, but nothing
is more wonderful than watching the Spirit of God fall on a group
of people and they began weeping under the conviction of the
Holy Ghost.

I do believe there is a remnant here who really speaks truth and
has a love for Christ. The one thing I have seen and don't fully
understand is how so many people called to the prophetic carry
such a persecution complex. I pray that people would not let the
offense take them down or cause them to shut themselves off to
the body. I have had to deal with rejection and persecution, but I
think a lot of people need the mercy of God to set them free from
the spirit of rejection. I believe it can pollute. It can alter our
perception of what we see prophetically...

Kris Franklin,

WEBSITE - http://www.suddenministry.com

COMPLETE IN CHRIST!

2007-09-29T10:45:00.000+03:00

From; WHY REVIVAL TARRIES By Leonard Ravenhill, 20th Chapter

"Knowing the terror of the Lord he persuaded men" (II Cor. 5:11).

Paul accounted men as lost! The other night I saw a picture thrown onto a screen; but in its blurred state it had no meaning. Then the operator's hand reached out and focussed the slide. What a difference!
Even so, we Christians need the Divine Hand to sharpen the picture of the lostness of men to our eternity-dimmed eyes.

Because Paul loved His Lord with a perfect love, he also hated sin with a perfect hatred. Thus he saw men not only prodigals but also rebels - not just drifters from righteousness but conspirators in wickedness, who must be pardoned or punished.
With the fierceness of Love's intensest blaze, he burned at the injustice of men subordinate to demon power.

His watchword was "This one thing I do." He had no side issues, no books to sell. He had no ambitions - and so had nothing to be jealous about. He had no reputation - and so had nothing to fight about. He had no possessions - and therefore nothing to worry about. He had no "rights" - so therefore he could not suffer wrong. He was already broken - so no one could break him. He was "dead" - so none could kill him. He was less than the least - so who could humble him? He had suffered the loss of all things - so none could defraud him. Does this throw any light on why the demon said, "Paul I know?"
Over this God-intoxicated man, hell suffered headaches.

Spirituality that saves men from hell and keeps men from vulgar sins is wonderful, but, I believe, elementary. When Paul went to the Cross, the miracle of conversion and regeneration took place; but later when he got on the Cross, the greater miracle of identification took place.
That I believe is the masterly argument of the Apostle - to be dead and alive at the same time. "Ye are dead," Paul wrote the Galatians. Suppose we try this on ourselves first. Are we dead? - dead to blame or praise? dead to fashion and human opinion? dead so that we have no itch for recognition? dead so that we do not squirm if another gets praised for a thing that we engineered? Oh sweet, sublime, satisfying experience of the indwelling Christ by the Spirit! We, too, can sing with Wesley:

Dead to the world and all its toys!
Its idle pomp and fading joys!
Jesus, my glory be!

Yes, Paul was dead. Then he added, "Nevertheless I live, yet not I." Christianity is the only religion in the world where a man's God comes and lives inside of him. Paul no longer wrestled with flesh (neither his own nor any other man's); he wrestled "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world." Does that shed any light on why this demon said, "And Paul I know?" Paul had been wrestling against the demon powers. (In these modern days, this art of binding and loosing that Paul knew is almost forgotten or else ignored.)

On the last lap of his earthly pilgrimage, he declared, "I have fought a good fight." Demons could have said amen to that statement, for they suffered more from Paul than Paul suffered from them. Yes, Paul was known in hell.

Paul was so conformed to the image of the Son that he could say, "What things ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do" (Phil. 4:9). To copy copies is not normally safe, but it is safe to copy Paul, for he was fully surrendered, wholly sanctified, completely satisfied, yea, "complete in Christ."

SHUTTIN DOWN a WITCH-by Kris Franklin

2007-09-28T00:41:00.000+03:00

Pentecost-Leonard Ravenhill

2007-09-25T01:54:00.000+03:00

Lord Montgomery, that unpredictable British field Marshall, said recently that England went into the Second World War equipped to fight the First World War. This was a polite way of saying that in World War II England was way behind the times in battle equipment and strategy.

When Sir Christopher Wren designed the great St. Paul's cathedral in London, he planned a thing of lasting beauty and unfading charm, but did not order it air-conditioned. When George Stephenson built his rocket engine, it was not smooth, herculean diesel, but a low-powered hissing machine. In other words, both Wren and Stephenson underestimated the needs of our day, and designed for their day.

Many today have a benevolent patronage of the church of Jesus Christ (or what they mistakenly think is the church of Jesus Christ). These "wise ones" think that the psalm-singing saints are as much out of line with the atomic age as a penny-farthing bicycle would be on a motor-crowded four-lane highway. Was Jesus Christ guilty, then, of underestimating the need of this twentieth century? Is the Church which Christ founded a cumbersome, slow-moving thing, badly needing a gigantic overhauling and a government subsidy to get her up to date and moving? No! The church does not need state support.

We concede, however, that the Church does need a mighty overhauling by divine Hands, that is, she needs the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire. When the Lord Christ ascended into heaven from Mt. Olivet, He charged the disciples that they should "wait for the promise of the Father" - the "baptism of the Holy Ghost" with its resultant power.

This promise was exclusive - "Ye shall receive power." Who was to receive the promise? Only the followers of Christ.

The promise was exciting - "Ye shall receive power." In eager anticipation of this blessed enduement, the waiting ones could see all their weakness evaporating in the baptism of fire.

The promise was explicit - "Not many days hence."

The promise was expanding - This thing was not to be done in a corner, nor whispered among the redeemed. It would reach out through them to Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

This promise was exalting - In the whole world of created things there is no greater power than that of the Holy Spirit of God. They were to be filled with the Spirit of the living God. Earth has no greater honor than that.

Angels, behold and wonder!

Every thing in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters above the earth - all these are the work of His fingers and this Mighty one is He who condescends to come and indwell mortals.

But though Pentecost meant power to the disciples - it also meant prison to them. Pentecost meant enduement - it almost meant banishment. Pentecost meant favor with God - it also brought hatred from men. Pentecost brought great miracles - it also brought mighty obstacles. Pentecost brought anointing for the upper room preachers - it also brought appointing a deacon and under the enduement he turned Samaria upside down.

In Europe Pentecost Sunday is always called Whitsunday (White Sunday), and the children usually dress in white. The disciples were "made white" at the first Pentecost - that is, their hearts were "purified by faith" (Acts 15:8, 9). This purification is a lost accent these days in interpreting the Baptism with Spirit. Under the title of Spirit-filled churches, there are some weird and wanton things operating at present.

If too much stress has not been made of the gifts of the Spirit, then too little has been said of the fruit of the Spirit. Note how few books are available on the fruits of the Spirit, but how many on the gifts of the Spirit. Yet the Son of God said, "By their fruits ye shall know them."

The first essential for the coming of the Holy Ghost into a heart today is that the heart should be cleansed from sin, for the Holy Spirit does not fill an unclean heart. What God has cleansed, He then fills. Finally, whom God fills, He uses. A holy life is the authentic sign of being filled with the Spirit.

Today we need a revival of holy living. Why do we have to hang a sign outside our church to announce that we are Fundamental and Biblical? Because without a sign, no one could identify us? When I passed through a town that a few days before had been torn apart by a tornado, I assure you I had not to be told a mighty wind had cleaved the place. A fire is self-announcing. A conflagration needs no publicity. When the fire of the Holy Ghost falls again and the mighty wind of the Spirit comes (I am positive He is coming), then our "bush" will burn too, and a Moses will turn again to see the great sight. Even so, come Holy Ghost! Come quickly!

Ma heart on a platter!

2007-09-21T14:46:00.000+03:00

i dont like it peeps givin props sayin life is gud wen you pay bills and wen u aint payin yo duffed, like peeps appreciate you wen u can pay some Bills. Who gives us grace and blesses us? Many make the mistake of judging success by how much dime they gat. Peeps think am here havin fun. Man, am a death-bound man and i think some shud even prepare their hearts to be disaapointed if they think finally God brought me this far to make money and make our lives easy. Life is easy whether am eating grass, paying bills or eatin nothing at all.Its all about how we define life. Life is mooo than degrees, reputation, status, big bank accounts, light skinned women, position and blah blah. U aint no better jus becos u cruize a benzo or live in a white neighbourhood. I can be in a grass thatch n ctill be rockin. na mean?

How i despise such mindsets,such sentimens,and opinions. All i need is the Holyghost.Men with the holyghost need no status symbols. The system dont dictate for us, we dictate for the system. We cant be outdated, outfashioned, outpassioned or irrelevant. We have grasped eternity. We live in the heavenlies far above human rulership and wickedness in high paces. Na mean?

John the baptist lived his calling to the fullest with wild honey, locusts and carmel skin for clothes, a dessert for a home, then from the dessert to block C(jail) and to his head served for a carnibal princess!. But jesus spoke of him thus, "... of those born of men, there is none greater than John!" Now humanists even in church corridors holla '...the times are different...' Poor people!, cos they have put too much attachment to ease,materialism and success-uncivilised civilisation!

John Wesley shook the whole of England, a man on fire for the Lord. Wen he died, he left only some spoons, plates and cups,a gown, torn and worn out and seven pounds. He asked that the seven pounds be given to the men that were to carry his casket. No will! But God was very glad. Through this man, He received the reward of his suffering. John Wesley made money through his preaching, lots of money but all that was spent on kingdom building. He touched souls with money and the Holyghost. He set up orphanges and schools for the orphans. How about that?

We are greedy, and are soo earth bound, not storing up treasures for heaven, we are soo materialistic and the blight on our souls is proof enuff. But those foundations are so deceitful, and at the end of the day, you ctil walk with yo face dustward and you hang with yo back against the wall.

This jus came off like that. Hope you see wat i mean. Am heart broken y'all! Didnt mean to come outta hiding da S.A.G.E.
Peace...

EVAN ROBERTS

2007-09-14T13:31:00.000+03:00

Of all the names that are linked with the 1904 Revival, Evan Roberts is the most well known. At 26 years of age in the Autumn of 1904, he was to become an instant spiritual celebrity in Wales as the local and national newspapers of the day chronicled the spreading Religious Revival.

His celebrity status was highlighted by the fact that he was a precious ‘unknown’. He wasn’t even a fully licensed preacher in 1904 – he was merely a trainee attending a grammar school to prepare him for the ministry course. He had left school when only 11years and nine months old to help his father in the local coal mine. Having worked in coalmining for 12 years he then became an apprentice to a blacksmith for over a year. He left that calling when he felt a greater call to reach people for Christ. The only avenue that seemed available to him at the time was the Presbyterian Ministry and it was whilst he was in pursuit of this that God radically changed his plans.

Evan Roberts had been a committed Christian from his early teenage years. He had not lived a profligate life – he was a tea-totaler committed to abstinence, a regular attendee and contributor to the on going life of his local church. He was a well-respected Sunday School teacher – someone who prayed publicly in the prayer meeting and rarely missed the other mid week meetings. Friends of his at the time remember him as a committed Christian in word and deed. His private spiritual life also matched his public profession, private prayer and bible study. These were essential components of his spirituality from an early age. But it was in the spring of 1904 that Evan was to experience an even greater feeling of God’s presence. One night he was woken from his sleep and led into a deep communion with God for hours. This experience was to continue every evening for the next few months until he went away to the school at Newcastle Emlyn.

This change of scenery had an immediate cooling effect on his spiritual fervour but it wasn’t to last long. Two weeks after arriving at the school, Evan attended a Convention at nearby Blaenanerch and it was here that he received what he termed as a fresh ‘Baptism of the Spirit’ as he responded to the prayer ‘Bend me oh Lord’. This empowering of the Spirit transformed the young student into a Revivalist with a message for Wales.

Within a month he felt compelled to share this message of the reality of God and the possibility of complete forgiveness of sins with his home youth group at Moriah Loughor.

Summing up the message in 4 parts, Evan pressed it home to the astonished church

1. Confess all known sin
2. Deal with and get rid of anything ‘doubtful’ in your life
3. Be ready to obey the Holy Spirit instantly
4. Confess Christ publicly

By the end of the last week over 60 responded. By the end of the second week Evan had already started on a whirl-wind tour of the South Wales valleys with his team of 5 girl singers and within a year or so 100,000 converts were said to be added to the Welsh Church

What was the secret of this young man's powerful ministry? I’m sure that there may be many answers including his upbringing, his bible reading, his prayer life etc.

Perhaps a concise way of answering the question would be that he was willing to bow to God’s Sovereign purpose for his life. This did include being a teacher of a great Revival but firstly it meant being willing to let God have this Divine way in Evan’s own life.

This involved a struggle between Evan’s way and God’s and as at Gethsemane it meant a conscious choice of “not my will but Thy will be done”.

At Blaenanerch on Thursday 29th September 1904 at 9.30 in the morning, Evan took that step – one seemingly insignificant step for mankind yet one that lead to the greater advancement of the Kingdom of God worldwide.

Savonarola

2007-09-07T12:26:00.000+03:00

When revival came to Florence, Italy, during 1496-98, God’s instrument was the Italian Roman Catholic monk Savonarloa. At that time, Martin Luther who was greatly influenced by Savonarloa was just a small boy. Savonarola was shocked by the vice and immorality of the world and by the corruption that existed in the Roman Catholic Church. As a youth he would walk beside the River Po, signing to God and weeping for the sins, the injustices, and the poverty of the people. He wept and grieved over the lewdness, luxury, and cruelty of many leaders of the church. He would lie for hours prostrate on the altar steps in the church, weeping and praying for the sins of the age and the sins of the church.

Although he was a devout Catholic, his prayers and Spirit-filled life helped prepare the way for the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther called him a Protestant martyr.

For years he studied the Bible, waited for God and prayed. Suddenly one day God gave him a vision: the heavens opened and a voice commanded him to announce the future calamities of the church to the people. Filled with a new powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit, he began to preach to the people.

When the Spirit of God came upon him, the voice of Savorarola thundered as he denounced the sins of the people. Revival power gripped the whole area. His audience – men and women, poets and philosophers, craftsmen and laborers – all sobbed and wept. On several occasions, while seated in the pulpit, all in the church could see his face seemingly illuminated with a heavenly glow, and he would sit in the pulpit lost in prayer or in a trance for up to 5 hours at a time.

According to his words of prophecy, the city ruler, the pope, and the king of Naples all died within a year. The revival brought tremendous moral change. The people stopped reading vile land worldly books. Merchants made restitution to the people for the excessive profits they had been making. Hoodlums and street urchins stopped singing sinful songs and began to sing hymns in the streets.

The corrupt pope, the cardinals, and the priests were outraged. Savonarola and two companion monks were brought out to be executed before a mob of thousands of onlookers. An awesome silence gripped the whole crowd. His last words were, “Should I not die willingly for Him who suffered so much for me?” He then communed so deeply with God that he seemed unaware of what was happening around him. He and his two friends were hanged in the public square, and then their bodies were burned.

Savonarola and the Protestant Reformation

2007-09-06T20:54:00.000+03:00

The people of Florence are far from considering themselves ignorant and benighted, and yet Brother Girolamo Savonarola succeeded in persuading them that he held converse with God. I will not pretend to judge whether it was true or not, for we must speak with respect of so great a man; but I may well say that an immense number believed it without having seen any extraordinary manifestations that should have made them believe it.

---Machiavelli, The Discourses (Book I, Chapter XI)

If he was good, we have seen a great prophet in our time; if he was bad, we have seen a great man. For, apart from his erudition, we must admit that if he was able to fool the public for so many years on so important a matter without ever being caught in a lie, he must have had great judgment, talent and power of invention.

---Guicciardini, History of Florence (Chapter 16)

In 1489, the Dominican friar, GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA (1452-1498), was called to the city of Florence in order to preach to the people. Florence needed Savonarola. From 1490 to his death in 1498, this evangelical preacher, this man of God, took the city of Florence by storm. It has been said that the people of Florence who came to see Savonarola and to witness his miracle-working first-hand, fell to their knees in ecstasy. These followers of Savonarola, his children if you will, were aptly called The Weepers. The de Medici family looked upon Savonarola with suspicion and disbelief. The Medici, after all, had led the humanistic revival of Florence and here seemed to be a man who was preaching a new spiritualism which hearkened back to medieval morality.

THIS WILL BE YOUR FINAL DESTRUCTION was the message of Savonarola. He railed at the people, exhorting them to return to the ways of the Church. He painted horrific pictures of Hell and damnation which easily rivaled those poor souls who gnashed their teeth, pulled their hair and defiled their bodies in Dante's Inferno. Once, in obedience to a voice he heard and interpreted as the voice of God, Savonarola preached one of his most terrifying sermons:

Rethink you well, O ye rich, for affliction shall smite ye. This city shall no more be Florence, but a den of thieves, of turpitude and bloodshed. The shall ye all be poverty-stricken, all wretched, and your name, O priests, shall be changed into a terror. . . . Know that unheard-of times are at hand.

When Lorenzo de Medici -- Lorenzo the Magnificent, as he was known -- was on his deathbed in 1492, it is said that he called the very popular Savonarola to his side and begged him to administer the last rites. Savonarola agreed, but on the condition that Lorenzo would grant three wishes to Savonarola.

ONE: Lorenzo, you must truly repent…agreed. TWO: Lorenzo, you must give up your wealth…agreed. THREE: Lorenzo, you must renounce any claim on behalf of the de Medici family to rule Florence and you must allow the city to become a democratic republic. Lorenzo flatly refused. Savonarola therefore refused to administer this most sacred of the sacraments. (I have recently heard that Savonarola may have indeed administered the last rites to Lorenzo, but since I cannot verify this with evidence, let's just say this episode is questionable.)

I relate this story to you now because I believe that it highlights three fundamental dimensions of the Reformation which we have to consider. These three aspects can be considered the points of a triangle -- all three must be present. The Reformation was not simply the result of the NINETY-FIVE THESES of Martin Luther (1483-1546). Nor was the Reformation an overwhelmingly religious phenomenon. Instead, I think we need to pay close attention to Savonarola for there we find a three-pronged attack. This attack took the shape of first, a religious protest, second, a protest against wealth and splendor and third, a protest of a political nature. So, the three ingredients are clearly Religion, Economics and Politics.

With Lorenzo dead, Savonarola controlled the city of Florence until 1498. He called on the population of that city to burn all its books, paintings, sculptures, luxuries and fineries -- everything, in a word, that drove men away from higher spirituality. He wanted the people to return to the simple, unadorned ways of God, ways which once had been but which were now subsumed in possessions and possessiveness. The Weepers were urged to make "bonfires of the vanities" in the Piazza del Signoria -- great conflagrations in which their worldly possessions were sacrificed. Savonarola, a man born and bred in the Renaissance, rejected humanism, rejected modern art, rejected the new science, rejected anything that was not oriented toward the divine presence. And who would know more about what God wanted than Fra Savonarola -- after all, he was in constant communication with God and the angels.

Wigs, disguises, volumes of the Latin poets, especially Boccaccio, Dante and Petrarch -- all this, and more, was to be tossed into the bonfire. Jewelry, perfumes, soaps, silks, mirrors, hair combs, harps, chessboards, playing cards were brought out of Florentine homes by the wagonload. But why? Why would the people of Florence part with their possessions? Paintings, especially those depicting naked women -- pornographic, in the eyes of Savonarola -- were also destroyed. A wealthy merchant from Venice was said to be present at one of these bonfires -- he approached Savonarola and asked if he could buy one of the paintings about to be burned. The painting was, after all, a portrait of his mistress. Savonarola picked up the canvas itself, looked at it for a moment, and then tossed it onto the flames.

While Savonarola oversaw these great conflagrations, these great acts of collective purgation, he was also preaching some of his most memorable sermons. On the popes in general he said, "Popes and prelates speak against pride and ambition and they are plunged into it up to their ears." Compare this statement with those various remarks by Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) in the Praise of Folly. Is there a difference? Well, on the surface, such a remark could have been said be either man -- not only that, I imagine you could have found any number of others saying exactly the same thing. After all, the same criticism is evident in Dante's Divine Comedy as well as Boccaccio's Decameron. The major difference is that Dante, Boccaccio and Erasmus were writing satire and parody -- Savonarola, on the other hand, was dead serious.

Like Dante, Savonarola called the Vatican "a house of prostitution where harlots sit upon the throne of Solomon and signal to passersby: Whoever can pay enters and does what he wishes." And of Pope Alexander, Savonarola said, "he is no longer a Christian. He is an infidel, a heretic, and as such has ceased to be pope." Such language, even coming as it was from the mouth of a Dominican friar, was bound to get Savonarola in trouble. And as we shall soon see, it did. But Savonarola was a man who believed he was made of sterner stuff, and in fact, he believed that he had God on his side in more than just a spiritual manner. Savonarola regarded himself as an instrument of God and believed that nothing -- not even Lorenzo the Magnificent -- could stand in his way. Florence was to be reconstructed as a "respublica Christiana," a Christian republic, a republic in which the true sovereign was God and God alone.

To produce such a Florence, Savonarola was forced to manipulate the conscience of the people. And this required thought control. A new morality would be enforced. Gambling was prohibited. Frivolity was prohibited. Clothing was to be more simple and more uniform. He also went as far as to take the young boys of Florentine families, instruct them in his holy ways and then have them spy on their parents for signs of any infidelities to the new moral order. If some of this reminds you of the theocratic dictatorship of a John Calvin (1509-1564) or Jean Jacques Rousseau's (1712-1778) offhand remark that those who do not conform "will be forced to be free," or the totalitarianism of Stalinist Russia, well, then, you are getting the point.

By 1497, Dominicans, Franciscans and the Church authorities at Rome had enough of Savonarola's evangelicalism. They were set to act. Things had gotten out of hand. Savonarola was actually winning converts! Early in 1498, Savonarola held his last bonfire of the vanities. This time, however, riots broke out on the Piazza del Signoria. In April, Fra Savonarola was brought to trial for heresy -- he was said to have falsely claimed to have seen visions. He was found guilty by a council of eight and on the morning of May 23, 1498, Savonarola made his final prayer. "Pray God for me," he implored, "that He may give me strength at my last end and that the Enemy may have no power over me." He then followed a raised walkway ninety feet into the Piazza. At the far end of the walkway, on the very spot where he had held his bonfires of the vanities, stood a circular wooden platform, heaped with combustibles. In the center was a wooden column some twenty-three feet high. A transverse beam was attached to the column, and from it hung three nooses -- one for Savonarola and one each for his associates, Silvestro Maruffi and Domenico de Pescia. As the three heretics walked to the gibbet, some young boys plunged sharp sticks through the cracks in the walkway. To the crowd's disappointment, the three were oblivious to the pain. Silvestro was the first to go. The executioner tightened the noose and then pushed Silvestro forward. But because the rope did not draw tight, it took several minutes for him to die. Luckily, Domenico died quickly and then it was Savonarola's turn. He asked for a cord to tie his tunic at his ankles so that the crowd would not see his genitals but the executioner refused. He followed the hangman up the ladder. At the top, he paused and looked from side to side. Most of the crowd were awaiting a word or sign from him, something that would have given them some hope for the future. But Fra Savonarola had his thoughts on the Savior on the cross at Cavalry. Faithful to his decision to emulate Christ, he silently offered his neck to the hangman. Savonarola died quickly, unlike the less fortunate Silvestro and Domenico. The flames reached the three within minutes and the great Savonarola was gone.

By the start of the 16th century, everyone who mattered in the western Church was crying out for reformation. For more than one hundred years, western Europeans had sought a reform of the Church "in head and in members." They failed to find it! If you were to conduct a survey of those people calling out for reform, it would be nearly impossible to find any single point upon which they all agreed. The Pope intervened in nearly all matters of Church and State -- men talked about limiting his authority. But, these same men needed the Pope's help to manage the Church in their respective lands -- they used his power as a loophole to escape the workings of canon law. Everyone protested that the practice of simony, that is, the buying and selling of Church offices, was wrong and in need of correction. But, from the standpoint of the Church, to pay fees on entry into office could be defended as a form of taxation.

The examples could be extended but the point is clear: what one honest man believed to be an abuse, another honest man defended. Everyone wanted reform but how to go about it, or what to reform, was an issue of imprecision. Some reformers created new orders -- prayer and study sects. Bishops compelled the monks to live according to the monastic rule. At the administrative level, the quest for reform was indeed present. Between 1512 and 1517, an ecumenical council met at Rome. The council agreed that heresy should be suppressed, that the Turks were a danger to Christian Europe and that bishops ought to have more authority over the monks. They also argued that no one could preach without taking the sacrament of Holy Orders; that university professors must teach the doctrine of the soul's immortality; and finally, that the printing of all theologically unsound books should be stopped. All this underlies some spirit reform, however, few outside the Church would admit that this would signify the necessary "reform in head and in numbers."

When men of the Church spoke of reformation, they were almost always thinking of administrative, legal or moral reformation -- they rarely, if ever, spoke of a doctrinal reformation. They looked at canon law and Church bureaucracy and argued that it bred inefficiency, graft, injustice, worldliness and immorality. And these pleas were sometimes intermingled with calls for a general intellectual improvement. They wanted popes and bishops to be less secular, monks to practice the rules of their order and the parish clergy to be better educated. They sometimes talked of a theology less remote from the common man -- a faith less external and closer to the teachings of the Lord. But to gain these ends, few would have expected anything like doctrinal change.

The first question regarding reformation then, was not "is the teaching of the Church true?" In doctrinal matters, there were heretics like the Lollards, Hussites, Waldensians and others -- these were the sectarian groups who uttered sedition and blasphemy. The cry for reform meant the suppression, not the encouragement of these abuses. Many of the more obvious abuses were committed by the highest of Churchmen. For instance, Linacre, the personal physician of Henry VIII, had the been rector of four parishes, a canon at three cathedrals and precentor at York Minster. On the surface, this seems sound. But Linacre held all these positions at one and the same time -- that's where the abuses lay. However, all this was perhaps a corruption of state rather than a corruption of the Church. Furthermore, what this example tells us, at least for the case of England, was just how close the state and church actually were.

Graft, inefficiency and immorality seemed to be the worst when they were perpetrated by clergymen in their own interests. After all, the clergy were keepers of public conscience -- it was their duty to restrain avarice, sanctify poverty and excommunicate kings if they chose. If reform was needed, it was up to the clergy to proclaim it. They looked to the Pope and expected that he and he alone could bring peace, justice and integrity to the people. No Pope, not even a Hildebrand or an Innocent III could live up to those aspirations. The morally puritan of the Middle Ages saw the love of money as the root of all evil. Here lay the most painful contrast between religious ideals and clerical practices. Men like St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) or Thomas à Kempis (1379-1471) and countless others believed poverty was central to the moral life. But by 1500, the holy mendicant orders were no longer respected -- too many had been revealed as frauds. Erasmus remarked in 1509 that the monks:

stay as far away from religion as possible, and no people are seen more often in public. . . . They cannot read, and so they consider it the height of piety to have no contact with literature.

And then there was John Calvin who, almost thirty years later wrote that the monks:

are all completely unlearned asses, though because of their long robes they have a reputation for learning.

The moral, ascetic ideal, furthermore, was reacting to vast social and economic changes. Still, there were those who agreed with Thomas à Kempis who nearly a century earlier had written in The Imitation of Christ:

It is vanity to seek riches which shall perish and to trust in them. It is vanity to pursue office and climb high rank. It is vanity to follow the desires of the flesh…vanity to wish for long life . . . vanity to love what passeth away so quickly, and not to hasten where abideth joy everlasting.

The moral idea for the followers of Kempis and the Brethren of the Common Life was other-worldly, still monastic and ascetic. This is true of the Franciscans as well. But Europe was changing fast and the mendicant orders, the best and worst of them taken together, were finding it increasingly difficult to "compete" with the material comforts of the City of Man.

Meanwhile, educated men and women of the middle classes, weaned on Renaissance humanism, a secular art and life in the cities, drank deep from the literature of Greece and Rome. They were delighted with the City of Man -- here they found a society of growing wealth, wealth which was beginning to fall into their hands. Here, in the City of Man, they found an incongruity between the ascetic ideal and their everyday life. The old values of the past were now in conflict with the intellectual strivings of the present. The love of money was the root of all evil -- and in the realm of money, the holy city of Rome had absolutely no power. Erasmus was in Rome in 1509 -- Luther made the trip in 1511. Neither of them liked what they saw.

The word reformation shows that the quest for something better was perhaps characteristically medieval. It was backward-looking. Indeed, the medieval thinker saw early Christianity and the primitive Church through rose-colored glasses. Once, they thought, there was a golden age. Once there was devotion, piety, fervor, religion, holy priests, purity of heart. But now, the ancient age had turned from gold to silver, from silver to wood and from wood to iron. This was nothing new -- three hundred years earlier, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) wished that before he died he would like to see the Church return to its ancient ways. His was a typical, medieval appeal. And during the 16th century, an educated humanist like Erasmus believed in a lost age of holiness, sanctity and purity. The Reformation always looked backward.

But the demand for reform grew -- and it did so by channeling its energies into itself. To demand reform is to denounce abuse -- to denounce abuse is to raise doubts in the public mind, to criticize officials and to hold them accountable. To demand reform was to diminish the prestige of Pope, bishop, monk, friar and parish priest and thus open the way for further criticism. So, anti-clericalism seemed to be the buzzword. In 1502, Erasmus made the offhand remark that a lay person felt insulted if he were called a cleric, a priest or a monk. The cry for reform -- the demand for reform -- went beyond the academicians. It grew into the clamor of the people. Reform was attempted toward the end of the 15th century -- but it failed. The tragedy of Savonarola gives a sense of this failure in dramatic form. When he was hanged and then burnt at the stake in 1498, his cry for reform was uttered in medieval fashion. So too was his cry for reform silenced the medieval way. And twenty-five years later, Erasmus could only look at Savonarola as a sad example of what could be found among any Dominican friar.

One question which the previous discussion suggests is why were the calls for reform so potent in the early 16th century? Were Church abuses more numerous? Were they of a more heinous nature? Well, John Calvin listed some of the evils of his day -- evils which he found in the Church and in human nature as well: self-love, ambition, pride, greed, wanton sex, dancing, adultery, drunkenness, frivolity, gossip, hypocrisy and a hundred other things. "Young people have lost that deference to their elders on which the social order depends," wrote Calvin.

they reject all correction. Sexual offenses, rapes, adulteries, incests and seductions are more common than ever before. How monstrous that the world should have been overthrown by such dense clouds for the last three or four centuries, so that it could not see clearly how to obey Christ's commandment to love our enemies. Everything is in shameful confusion; everywhere I see only cruelty, plots, frauds, violence, injustice, shamelessness while the poor groan under the oppression and the innocent are arrogantly and outrageously harassed. God must be asleep.

According to Calvin, men and women had a great deal to worry about. Temptation and lust seemed to be everywhere and so men and women had to be constantly on their guard to prevent contamination. So, it's no accident that the sort theocracy Calvin created was one based on the ethic of self-control, a sort of worldly asceticism. "Each of us should watch himself closely," Calvin wrote.

The passions must be repressed and chained up, we must make every effort to beat down the impetuous frenzy in them.

The Reformation came to Europe not so much because Europe was irreligious but because it was religious. The abuses now condemned by Luther, Calvin, Erasmus and others had always been abuses and in fact, they had been around for quite some time. A great many priests were ignorant in 1500 -- a great many were also ignorant in the year 910 as well as the year 1996. The reformers were under an illusion in looking back to some golden age of the past -- they perhaps there found what they wanted to find. Again, the abuses were not worse -- but, the awareness by more people of those abuses was heightened. The point is simple: more people were becoming aware of the nature and scope of abuses at all levels of high medieval society. It is true, as Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) once remarked that "we Italians are more irreligious and corrupt than others. . . ". He qualified this by adding that this was true "because the Church and its representatives set us the worst examples."

Despite this proclamation, what is undoubtedly true about the late 15th and early 16th centuries is the extent of religious and devotional practice. For instance, Henry VIII is said to have heard three masses on days when he was hunting and five masses on other days. There were also new forms of devotion as well and they emerge as new forms of piety. Savonarola was characteristic of the new, perhaps misdirected piety. And in 1507, Pope Julius II sanctioned the cult of the holy house at Loreto, a house believed to be the Lord's house miraculously transported to Nazareth by angels. And then we have Michelangelo Buonarroti's (1475-1564) Pietà, the virgin of pity, with her dead son. All this was accompanied by a significant growth in the cult of the saints and their relics. And, all this existed alongside superstitions and popular beliefs. In 1500, witches were being tortured and burnt at the stake. So too were Jews experiencing persecution. But this was nothing new. It had been a fairly common occurrence for a number of years. But, in 1500, what was new was not the practice of these things but the way the leaders of opinion were beginning to regard them. In general, the gap between the religiosity of the literate few and the illiterate many was widening to a point in which the gap was unbridgeable. And while all, this was going on, the printing press was busy publishing more than one hundred editions of the Bible between 1457 and 1500 (see Lecture 4). One result is that the upper classes -- the rulers and merchants -- were becoming better educated. The presses were working and were multiplying. Libraries, though small, were adding volumes upon volumes to their once meager numbers. An information revolution was certainly taking place. Books were now being published in impressive numbers and could also be purchased more cheaply. More people were reading. Knowledge was increasing. So too were the tools for critical study.

There is a connection between the Renaissance and the Reformation but historians have had a difficult time defining that connection. Overall, the moral energies and spirit of a St. Bernard was more responsible for the Reformation rather than the critical spirit of a man like Abelard. The reason may be clear: the Reformation was more a movement of faith than it was of reason.

The Renaissance humanists were as varied a lot as possible. They had little in common except for their general respect for classical antiquity. Italian humanists lived in an entirely different atmosphere from their peers in Germany, France or England. Italian humanism was literary, artistic and philosophical whereas northern humanism was more overtly religious, even theological. In France, in Germany and in England, there was a movement taking its stimulus from the Italians and their renewed love of Greek and Latin antiquity, but transformed it into a decidedly religious context. This northern Christian humanism was best represented by DESIDERIUS ERASMUS (1466-1536).

As a young man, Erasmus believed that northern Europeans knew nothing of classical antiquity -- his career sought to remedy this barbarism. Between 1498 and 1514 he lived at Paris, Oxford and Italy, taught for two years at Cambridge and then settled at Basel in Switzerland until 1536. More than any other northern humanist, he wrote books intended to educate the conscience of his northern readers. The bookshops couldn't get enough of his works. A Parisian bookseller who heard that the Sorbonne might condemn Erasmus' Colloquies as heretical, rushed 24,000 copies through the presses. As a writer, Erasmus was a master of style and scholarship -- he was witty, cynical, amusing and humorous. He was far from superficial and in general, his intellect was unrivaled. He was known and respected throughout Europe -- one of his friends was confessed: "I am pointed out in public as the man who has received a letter from Erasmus."

Among all the targets to which he aimed his pen, he directed his most penetrating attack on the abuses he observed in the Church. The Netherlands of his youth were the home of zealous reformers, especially the Brethren of the Common Life. The Brethren were the paradigm of medieval piety and they also just happened to be Erasmus' principal instructors. But unlike the Brethren or their spiritual father, Thomas à Kempis, Erasmus did not write devotional literature. He did, however, despise ignorance, superstition, obscurantism and wished to supply the remedy.

Educated men all over Europe were mumbling about the clergy, monks and the popes -- mumbling about corruption, graft, popular superstition and idolatry. Erasmus brilliantly expressed what most men were barely articulating. And so, educated Europe laughed along with Erasmus. Their laughter, however, soon turned to serious approval. Erasmus had struck a nerve and the educated classes knew it. But, by 1517, Erasmus had become accepted by the established order. In other words, his biting criticism became part of a general awareness of Church abuses -- it was not up to Erasmus to institute change. More than any other single man, Erasmus lowered the European reputation of pope and clergyman, monk and friar, and above all, the theologian, whom Erasmus described as "a scab of a fellow, theology incarnate." The theologians had, for centuries, defended a creed with methods which had, by the time of the Late Renaissance, become nearly obsolete. Theology had become entangled with philosophical principles which philosophers themselves had ceased to believe. For more than two hundred years, Nominalist philosophers had conquered the universities of northern Europe. They were skeptical of the power of reason to reach true metaphysical conclusions. They were skeptical of the Thomistic synthesis as well. They did not think that Church doctrine was untrue. But they managed to drive a wedge between truth as known by revelation and the doubts of a rational mind. They did not seek concord between faith and reason. The Nominalists, then, simply did away with Scholasticism.

For men like Erasmus, the vocabulary of the Scholastics was meaningless, absurd. On top of this came a humanist criticism with its genuine lack of interest in philosophical inquiry and system-building. Criticism was certainly gaining ground. For instance, in 1505 a university professor was trying to prove that Paul and Augustine were not Saints. Erasmus himself had written that he doubted John was the author of the Book of Revelation. While they intended no critique of dogma, the humanists could not trample over the theologians without at the same time bringing into question the very foundations of the medieval Church. Erasmus intended to announce the discovery of a program for the recovery of what he called a true theology. In 1503, he published his Handbook for the Christian Warrior. The theology of the Handbook was simple, more Biblical, less tangled and caught up in Aristotelian logic. The Handbook contained a theology stripped of layers of glosses, authorities and commentaries.. And in 1516, Erasmus translated and published a German version of the Greek New Testament, and also included a Latin translation as well. He wanted everyone to be able to read the Bible for themselves and this meant that the Bible had to be printed in the vernacular. How else to break the stranglehold of medieval Christianity then to give the Word to everyone? So, Erasmus cast aside centuries of glosses and commentaries on the Bible -- he didn't care whether these glosses were of European or Eastern origin. It's obvious what he was trying to do. By eliminating the past interpretations of the Scriptures, Erasmus was trying to force a return to the source of all holiness, all sanctity -- a true theology.

Erasmus remained impatient and angry with the penchant for superstition among the people. The cults of statues, the devotion to the relics of the saints -- hair, pieces of bone and finger nail clippings -- and visits to Madonnas with rolling eyes were vulgar to a man like Erasmus. The people, he thought, cultivated a religion of external acts and substituted pilgrimages, indulgences and relics for truth faith. After all, what else had the Church really taught these people? Erasmus wanted a true religion, stripped of centuries of medieval baggage. "Perhaps thou believest," he wrote, "that all thy sins are wasted away with a little paper, a sealed parchment, with the gift of a little money or some was images, with a little pilgrimage. Thou art deceived."

With Erasmus, the contrast between the ideal and reality merged into a contrast between the Bible and the religion practiced in the Church. So, with Erasmus, more people became aware that what the Church practiced was not what it preached. More important, more people now understood that the religion of the medieval Church was far removed from the religion practiced by the original followers of Christ. Europe wanted reform -- it was clearly not expecting revolution. Most men, Erasmus included, perhaps would have rather ridiculed the Church into action. However, there were more potent forces at work -- forces to maintain the existing state of the Church which would not be altered without a violent attack.

What is Revival? Unknown

2007-08-28T18:46:00.000+03:00

When men in the streets are afraid to open their mouths and utter godless words lest the judgments of God should fall; when sinners, overawed by the Presence of God tremble in the streets and cry for mercy; when, without special meetings and sensational advertising, the Holy Ghost sweeps across cities and towns in Supernatural Power and holds men in the grip of terrifying Conviction; when "every shop becomes a pulpit; every heart an altar; every home a sanctuary" and people walk softly before God, this is Revival!

Today the word Revival has largely lost its real meaning. Our present generation, never having witnessed the mighty moving of God in nation-wide spiritual awakening such as has taken place in past generations, has little conception of the magnitude of such a "visitation."

Heaven-sent revival is not religious entertainment, where crowds gather to hear outstanding preachers and musical programs; neither is it the result of sensational advertising - in a God-sent revival you don't spend money on advertising; people come because Revival is there! Revival is an "awareness of God" that grips the whole community, and the roadside, the tavern, as well as the church, become the places where men find Christ. Here is the vast difference between our modern evangelistic campaigns and true revival. In the former, hundreds may be brought to a knowledge of Christ and churches experience seasons of blessings, but as far as the community is concerned little impact is made; the taverns, dance halls, and movies are still crowded, and the godlessness marches on. In revival, the Spirit of God, like a cleansing flame, sweeps through the community. Divine conviction grips people everywhere; the strongholds of the devil tremble, and many close their doors, while multitudes turn to Christ!

The grand Old Testament prophet Elijah is symbolic of a revivalist. Elijah stood up in the midst of the people steeped in worship of Baal, and cried, “The God who answers by fire, he is God” (1 Kings 18:24). Elijah prayed a simple prayer, “O Jehovah, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God” when the holy supernatural fire of God descended from the heaven and burned up the sacrifice, wood, stones and dirt and evaporated the water in the trench. When God pours out His revival fire on the earth, it burns up things that are not of God.

Study of the church history shows that one lone man, totally surrendered to God, burning with passion for the lost souls and with a hunger for revival in the churches, had turned the tide against the evils in the churches, in the governments and the lives of the people. One prayer warrior by the grace of God can be used to turn the tide and prepare the way for a mighty revival. Why cannot you be such a vessel of God?

Throughout the church history, God raised many individuals to usher in revivals in the churches and the nations. During revivals God accomplishes more in hours or days than usually results from years of faithful evangelistic ministry. Though revival involves preaching and evangelism to some extent, revival is far more than evangelism. During the early years of 20th century, revival fires broke out in Wales and many places in England, Scotland, Ireland, USA, India, Korea, Manchuria, China, Japan, Australia, Madagascar, Norway, parts of South America and the Caribbean islands. In the middle of this century, God sent revival to some of the American Christian colleges and outpoured His Spirit on some of the Hebrides islands.

This season in ma life REVOLVES ROUNND the study of revival with a desire and burden for all to be captured by the passion for God to sprinkle nations through revival, as we advocate for theocracy in these times of militant godlessness. May our hearts buurn with SUCH passion as we gladly lay our lives down at the alter of tru worship BEING symbols of the sacrifice in the days of Elijah laid up for the all consuming fire of the Lord that nations mite know and worship our Lord the GOD.
This time will be dedicated to men that sprinkled their nations AND THE WORLD for the lord in Revival.

Upnext...SAVONAROLA.

JAMES CAUGHEY-Revivalist" by David Smithers

2007-08-25T16:16:00.000+03:00

J. A. Stewart has rightly said, "Apart from the mighty enduement
of the Spirit of Pentecost, all our Gospel services will be in vain.
The natural, unregenerate man cannot comprehend the things of
the Spirit. His darkened mind can only be enlightened by the
divine intervention of God, the Holy Ghost. He cannot be argued,
fascinated, bullied or enthused into accepting Christ as Savior. It
is not enough that we clearly expound the Gospel. It must be
given in the demonstration and power of the Spirit and then
applied by Him." It was this burning revelation that radically
transformed the ministry of a young Methodist preacher by the
name of James Caughey.

James Caughey was born in Northern Ireland on April 9, 1810. The
Caughey family later immigrated to America while James was still
very young. By 1830 Mr. Caughey was working in a large flour mill
in Troy, New York. Between the years of 1830-31, he was soundly
converted, along with thousands of others during the Second Great
Awakening in the "Burned-over District." Two years after his
conversion, he was admitted as a Methodist preacher into the Troy
Conference. He was later ordained in 1834 as deacon and after
two more years was finally ordained as an elder of the Methodist
Episcopal Church. Initially he seemed to be merely another
sincere but quite ordinary Methodist preacher. His first ministry
labors were not distinguished by any uncommon results; therefore
his friends and family did not entertain any lofty hopes for his
future ministry. However, Mr. Caughey had already begun to
embrace his own desperate need for a genuine upper room
experience. He resolved to fully yield and entrust his ministry to
the power and influence of the Holy Spirit. Burdened and burning
with conviction, James Caughey vowed to God to always submit
to the following points;

"(1) The absolute necessity of the immediate influence of the Holy
Ghost to impart power, efficacy, and success to a preached Gospel.

(2) The absolute necessity of praying more frequently, more
fervently, more perseveringly, and more believingly for the aid of
the Holy Spirit in my ministry.

(3) That my labors will be powerless, and comfortless, and
valueless, without this aid; a cloud without water, a tree without
fruit, dead and rootless; a sound uncertain, unctionless and
meaningless; such will be the character of my ministry. It is the
Spirit of God alone which imparts significance and power to the
Word preached, without which, as one has expressed it, all the
threatenings of the Bible will be no more than thunder to the deaf
or lightning to the blind. A seal requires weight, a hand upon it in
order to make an impression. The soul of the penitent sinner is the
wax; Gospel truth is the seal, but without the Almighty hand of the
Holy Ghost, that seal is powerless . . .

(4) No man has ever been significantly useful in winning souls to
Christ without the help of the Spirit. With it the humblest talent
may astonish earth and hell, by gathering into the path of life
thousands for the skies, while without the Spirit, the finest and
most splendid talents remain comparatively useless . . ."

From this time Mr. Caughey's labors were more fruitful, but not so
as to distinguish him above many other Methodist preachers of the
day. He pastored and occasionally evangelized in the Northeastern
United States until 1840. Caughey was then impressed of the Lord
to leave his church and go preach in Britain. Almost immediately
he began to minister with a new anointing and power. He obtained
permission from the Methodist Conference to visit Europe, and
quickly set out to bring reformation and revival to the heartland of
Wesleyan Methodism. In July 1841, James Caughey arrived in
Liverpool England and began an extensive tour of Britain that
lasted until 1847. For nearly seven years Caughey was the
ordained means of sparking revival in one industrial city after
another all across Britain. Throughout this continuous season of
revival, Caughey preached on an average of six to ten times a
week, resulting in 22,000 souls converted and thousands more
refreshed and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Mr. Caughey's revival
ministry repeatedly emptied the public drinking houses and
miraculously transformed entire communities. Most of his converts
were young people, between the ages of sixteen and thirty years
old. One of those especially impacted by Caughey's preaching
was a tall and gangly youth named William Booth. Mr. Caughey's
ministry gave the young Booth hope and courage to step out in
faith and start a street preaching ministry in the forgotten city
slums of England. This ministry quickly grew and was later
officially established in 1878 under the name, "The Salvation Army".

Mr. Caughey's ministry consistently left an intense impact on all
those who attended his meetings. Often his services were filled
with the sounds of hundreds of hungry souls simultaneously
sobbing and crying out for more of Jesus. In the autumn of 1843 in
Hull England, Mr. Caughey recalled the following miraculous events:
"At this moment an influence, evidently from Heaven, came upon
the people suddenly; it seemed like some mighty bursting of a
storm of wind upon some extensive forest. The entire congregation
was in motion; some preparing to flee from the place, and others in
the act of prostrating themselves before the Lord God of hosts.
Cries for mercy, and piercing supplications for purity of heart were
heard from all parts of the agitated mass -in the galleries, as well
as throughout the body of the chapel; While purified souls were
exulting in the loftiest strains of adoration. The scene was, beyond
description, grand and sublimely awful. It was God's own house,
and heaven's gate. Poor sinners were amazed, and fled; but some
of them fell down, some distance from the chapel, in terror and
agony. Many however remained, repeating the publican's plea,
'God be merciful to me a sinner!' My soul, full of holy awe,
trembled before the majesty of God. Like Elijah, who covered his
face in his mantle when the Lord passed by, I was glad to have a
place of concealment in the bottom of the pulpit. The
superintendent minister, the Rev. Thomas Martin, who was with
me in the pulpit at the time, was so overpowered, that he could do
nothing but weep and adore. Thus it continued for about twenty-five
minutes, when the Lord stayed His hand, and there was a sudden
and heavenly calm, full of sunshine and glory. The number
converted and sanctified on that night was great. It appears the
influence was almost as powerful outside the chapel as within. An
unconverted man, who was standing outside at the time, waiting to
accompany his wife home, said, when she came out, 'I don't know
what has been going on in the chapel, or how you have felt, but
there was a very strange feeling came over me while I was
standing at the door.' A few such shocks of almighty power would
turn the kingdom of the devil in any place or city upside down, and
go far to convert the entire population."

On occasions the manifestations accompanying Mr. Caughey's
ministry went far beyond the accepted norms usually associated
with modern, English Methodism. As we have already noted,
extended seasons of intense weeping and piercing cries were
quite common in Caughey's meetings. However, there were also
some occasional instances of a more drastic nature. In Ireland
there were manifestations of exuberant jumping and rejoicing
accompanied by others being violently overcome with
uncontrollable shaking and trembling. As a result, it was not
uncommon for Mr. Caughey to be accused of promoting emotional
fanaticism by those who were resisting his reforms among the
Wesleyan Methodists. The following comments from Mr.
Caughey's book "Revival Miscellanies" are indicative of how he
responded to his critics. He writes, "I understand the design of
such names as 'fanatics, enthusiasts, madmen, etc.' These
names are fastened upon some of the zealous servants of God for
the same purpose that the skins of wild beasts were put upon the
primitive Christians by their persecutors, that they might more
readily be torn in pieces by the hungry lions in the arena of the
amphitheater. Yet they were Christians still, notwithstanding
these deforming skins, and so are we, though some cover us from
head to foot with the hideous imputations of fanaticism."

Those who were closest to the revivalist were often asked how Mr.
Caughey managed to consistently flow in the power of the Holy
Spirit. The answer was almost always the same. -Knee work!
Knee work! Knee work! This was his secret! James Caughey was
a man committed to faith-filled, travailing prayer. "He spent many
hours of each day on his knees, with his Bible spread open before
him, asking wisdom from on high, and beseeching a blessing from
God on the preaching of His Word. This was his almost constant
employment between breakfast and dinner." Caughey's anointed
ministry was merely the outward fruit of a lifestyle of constant
praying in the Holy Ghost.

Mr. Caughey's lengthy revival ministry in Britain had brought about
an unexpected refreshing among the common people of the
Wesleyan Methodist Church. As a result, his ministry naturally
empowered the growing, Methodist reform movement. These
Methodist reformers sought to encourage spiritual renewal and
ministry-participation among the common English people. They
understood that a lasting revival would prepare and empower the
common man to take his rightful place in the Church. Thus, they
strongly supported James Caughey, as he challenged the
Wesleyan people to return to the apostolic roots of John Wesley's
Methodism. Eventually, Mr. Caughey was stubbornly opposed and
censored by England's Methodist leadership. Finally, in 1847
Caughey reluctantly consented to close his revival meetings in
England and quietly return to America.

Revivals are seasons of intense and rapid spiritual growth, and
such growth always involves change. Growing children demand
new and larger garments, just as growing trees need room for their
expanding roots. The sincere seekers of lasting revival must be
willing to change and yield to the Spirit's control. The wind, water,
and fire of the Holy Ghost are ever moving elements that require
plenty of room to breathe. We must beware of quenching and
smothering the influence of the Holy Spirit by our predetermined
preferences and stiff religious traditions. True revival will not come
through our fleshly might or organizational power, but ONLY by
God's Spirit! Have we given the Holy Spirit permission to change US?

~SOURCE: http://www.watchword.org

THE SILVERSMITH-author unknown

2007-08-24T13:51:00.000+03:00

Malachi 3:3 says: "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver।"
This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God।

One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study।
That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work।
She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining Silver.
As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up.
He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.
The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: "He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver."
She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.

The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire.
If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed.The woman was silent for a moment.

Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you know when the silver is fully refined?"He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it."If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.QUOTE - "Life is a coin. You can spend it anyway you wish, but you can only spend it once."

Gems from sages of old

2007-08-21T19:23:00.002+03:00

"He who is too busy to pray will be too busy to live a holy life. Satan had rather we let the grass grow on the path to our prayer chamber than anything else." E.M.Bounds

"True prayer is measured by weight,-not by length. A single groan before God may have more fullness of prayer in it than a fine oration of great length."
C. H. Spurgeon

"Example is more forcible than precept. People look at my six days in the week to see what I mean on the seventh."
Robert Cecil

"Men give advice; God gives guidance."
Leonard Ravenhill

"Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer." John Bunyan

"...a man who kneels before God will stand before men." Leonard Ravenhill

"Seven days without prayer makes one weak." Allen E Vartlett

"he that is never on his knees on earth, shall never stand upon his feet in heaven." C. H. Spurgeon

"Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work."
Oswald Chambers

"In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart." John Bunyan

"A sinning man stops praying, a praying man stops sinning." Leonard Ravenhill

"I live in the spirit of prayer; I pray as I walk, when I lie down and when I rise, and the answers are always coming." George Mueller

"No man - I don't care how colossal his intellect - No man is greater than his prayer life." - Leonard Ravenhill

"A holy life does not live in the closet, but it cannot live without the closet."
E. M. Bounds

"Prayer is not a hard requirement- it is the natural duty of a creature to its creator, the simplest homage that human need can pay to divine liberality."
C. H. Spurgeon

"I invite you to bow your head and quietly whisper the prayer that will change your eternity: Jesus I believe in you and I receive you." Rick Warren

"Free Him, He is an Idiot"

2007-08-13T11:42:00.000+03:00

In Mainland China, a sword was put to the chest of a Christian.
He was asked, "Are you a Christian?"
He answered "Yes."
He would have been killed if an officer had not said, "Free him; he is an idiot."

Someone later asked him later, "How could you confess Christ with such courage?"
He replied, "I had read the story of Peter's denial of Jesus, and i did not wish to weep bitterly."

Here is a true message:
"If we died with Christ, we will live with Him. If we dont give up, we will rule with Him. If we deny that we know Him, He will deny that He knows us. If we are not faithful, He will still be faithful. Christ cannot deny who He is."
Paul the Apostle
Martyred in Rome, 65AD
(2 Timothy 2:11-13 CEV)

From Jesus Freaks
A book by DC Talk and The Voice of The Martyrs

JOHN G. LAKE - "PRAY, PRAY, PRAY"

2007-08-10T22:32:00.000+03:00

QUOTE: "All decays begin in the [prayer] closet; no heart thrives
without much secret converse with God, and nothing will make
amends for the want of it." - Berridge.
********************************************

Portion of a VISION given to JOHN G. LAKE (-1920):

Reaching for the Bible, he opened to the book of Acts, ran his finger down over the second page, that portion where the Spirit of God came down from heaven.

Proceeding through the Book of Acts to its great outstanding revelations and phenomena, he said. . .

"This is Pentecost as God gave it through the heart of Jesus. STRIVE for this. CONTEND for this.

Teach the people to PRAY FOR THIS. For this, and this alone, will meet the necessity of the human heart, and this alone will have the power to overcome the forces of darkness.' When the Angel was departing he said, 'Pray. Pray. Pray.

Teach the people to pray. Prayer and prayer alone, much prayer, persistent prayer, is the door of entrance into the heart of God." -END OF VISION.

PROPHETIC CHURCH-Mick Haines

2007-08-10T22:23:00.000+03:00

A prophetic church will always be a suffering church, a sacrificial church.” So writes Jesus Fellowship apostolic leader, Mick Haines.

“Mick Haines is dead.” I wrote these words in the back of my Bible many years ago when the Jesus Fellowship was first being formed. There was a call to surrender to Jesus fully. It was a call to “take up our cross” and live wholly for Jesus.

I’ve never been the same since that moment. It was a consecration in the manner that Jesus Himself spoke of: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it produces much fruit” (John 12:24). Death to self has led me into fruitfulness for Jesus.

Any truly prophetic church, called by God, will tread this way of the Cross. A prophetic church will always be a suffering church, a sacrificial church – and because of this, a fruitful church.
Of course, it is not as simple as “die today, be blessed and fruitful tomorrow”. Often “taking up our cross” involves an ongoing embracing of suffering for Jesus’ sake, trusting that such suffering carries enriching power to shape us, deepening our fellowship with Him.
I had to endure scathing criticism from close family members who were highly critical of my commitment to the Jesus Fellowship.

Then there was the article opposing the church (complete with my picture) which appeared in a local newspaper just after I’d started a new teaching job. The head teacher told all the other teachers not to talk to me. One parent wrote to the mayor, who ordered an investigation into my teaching to ensure that the children weren’t getting “damaged”. The school would have loved to get rid of me, though I’d been well on the way to a deputy headship before joining the church.
I had to die to ambitions and endure the scorn. I thought, “I’m going to take up the cross and keep going”. (Three years later, when I’d been offered a job elsewhere, key educational people in the area said to the school, “We can’t lose Michael Haines; you must keep him – give him whatever he wants!” It was a vindication – a resurrection experience.)
Opposition was painful, but not as painful as betrayal. During the same time of persecution as the newspaper article, three elders left the church I was leading in Birmingham. I wept and wept over them – but came out the other side enriched and shaped by God.

Then there are the sufferings that just don’t seem to make any sense at all. In 2001, I felt the Lord telling me to give up my job and go and live in Manchester for a few months with the church there. I intended to take a brother called Adrian with me. It was my last day at the school I worked in. At twenty to nine, I had a phone call. It was Barney, my fellow-leader. “I’ve got some sad news for you – Adrian’s died”. He had had a severe asthma attack. It was a complete shock and I wept (again) – right there on the playground. But I had to carry on, learning the determination to press on through.

In the Cross, even seemingly futile griefs and set-backs can be transformed into something positive. Carrying the cross has nothing to do with being a misery guts! Living crucified means that Jesus and others are first, my heart is receiving grace and I’m thankful. The opposite is living for self, revolving around “my” problems, wallowing in self-pity – and truly being a misery guts!
Certainly, my experiences of suffering have made me more compassionate and understanding, more able to empathise with people. Just this morning, I had a call from a leader in the church – a leading couple in his region have said they’re moving out of community, they may be leaving the church. He knows I understand. I’ve been there. So I’m able to encourage him to stand firm.

As the Jesus Army, crosses feature prominently in our image. In our badges, on our jackets and vehicles, round our necks – crosses (flourescent ones at that!). This is excellent, but it must point to a reality in our lives. It is no use wearing a cross, but refusing to live crucified.
If our church is to be what she is called to be, then she must be a prophetic church which means being “crucified to the world” (Galatians 6:14), seeing the cross practically between us and our relationships with everything and everybody: my family, my work, my colleagues – and the brethren.

Despite our cross-centred image, there are areas in which we are inclined to avoid sacrificial living. Take seeking “sympathy” when we’re going though hard times – this seems innocent, but can be a cover-up for self-pity. Too much “sympathy” has taken people off the cross and away from the place that God put them, in which they would have been fruitful if they’d held on and pressed though.

There’s a lack of accountability. Do we really confess our sins to one another or hide behind vagueness? There are complaints: rather than finding more of God in our difficulties with that brother or sister, we moan about them. There are limits on our sacrifice (refusing to stay up late for a meeting, not wanting to drive people home...) Do we choose every opportunity we can to lay down our lives?

Yet if we are to be God’s prophetic church, prepared “for such a time as this” we must be made of sterner stuff. The tide is turning in the UK and it is turning away from Christianity. Secularism fights with Islam for supremacy. There will be difficult times to come for Christians. Prophetic churches will need to set a clear standard for others to rally to.
Jesus Fellowship is called to pioneer – in Christian community, in sacrifice, in enduring opposition. Bold, courageous, out front – like the early church. My passion is that we shine brightly in the UK, a beacon of light. As our sacrificial heart is strengthened, we will shine brighter and brighter.

DIE 2 LIVE!

2007-08-08T19:14:00.000+03:00

"I aint no writa, am jus a messenger!"Renee emcee of LVC

We’re trying to show them that for Christ we live Help ‘em understand for Christ we die Man the cost is high You gon’ say ya good byes

Cause part of you gon’ have to die Yeah, the cost is high.

Adopted from da Open Book Album

by a brotha in da faith-Da T.R.U.T.H.

The God man is come, I’m trying to help ‘em understand this thing

How we lift Him up and stand for His standards man

He’s running this thing and if you wanna run with the King

Then it’s gon’ be some giving up of some things

For some who ain’t wit the Son it might sound like something insane

But for us who living it, we loving this thing

The Spirit tucked in our frames

His love flowing through the blood in our veins

Finishing the race pays off like we was running for change

Since we’ve been saved that’s our steelo

But it ain’t nothing in me bro

When they see me they call me crazy like I was Cee-Lo

He humbled us; put us under the One like we was zero

But we don’t flee, we gon’ seek to please Him

we gon leave, No No we live and die for the Father

Making disciples, recycling Christ—His light is inside us

Holla, we see the price that He was willing to pay

The true cost followed the Father even into the grave Yeeaaaa

Black tie, black suit welcome to my funeral 26 years in this life and I gotta few to go

Long as I live I’m a die, it’s unusual

Couple ways in which I die and I want you to know

I love Sean’s line, seen hot baby phat Won’t wear Sean John, won’t see that on my lady’s back

No I ain’t gon’ blind, won’t stare at a ladies back Side when she’s going by, rib like baby back

Yes sir I’m gon die like 1980’s rap

Older in the faith now, outgrown Baby Gap

But some of what I struggled wit is internal the kind of stuff that you only write in journals

The kind of stuff that’ll injure you

That’s why I got certain channels on my television blocked

Plus I let some friends go, got up out that fish bowl

Even though I hurt knee deep inside, man I know I gotta die

I know some, dudes that are Christians that produce for the wicked

And I know some musicians that use their gift in the church

But the same musicians that use their gift in the church

Produce and play for the wicked, but they call it work

And they try to justify and say that its just a job

But that’s the customized line, that they use to compromise

Just adjust the knob on your radio

Here we go, another song a saint produced Is producing lust and lies

It’s another side to the coin, I know you know where I’m going

This is bigger than trying to stay employed

And I’m so convinced that’s it’s more

Cause if these same producers were writers, they wouldn’t write for Playboy Oh boy,

I know I sound kinda stern

But if they majored in communications they wouldn’t work for Howard Stern

I know they’re more concerned about the dollars earned

Than they are God’s glory

I ain’t talking outta turn

When you help the same people that’s working against the Kingdom

You ain’t taking it back by force, you making matters worse

And they all try to get off by saying I ain’t the star

It’s like saying I ain’t robbed the bank man I just drove the car

You ain’t gotta shoot the ball to put points on the board

All you gotta do is pass to help the other team score

So even if you on the board you still guilty as charged

On that tour, by the way God didn’t open that door.

Epilogue
Following Jesus means dat we gotta make alota sacrifices. At some point, sacrifice hath got to be dropped from our voca.

Yea, da road will always be narrow and less appealing for our hormones to follow. You cant marry whomsoever you wish,

drive watsoever u like, work werever u can gets a job, wear watsoever you likes. Nam sayin?

Hang out wit whomsoever u dig-watever class, watch warrever is on TV. Yeah! Woman of ma life, Big Bro...hhhm...and all dat crap! Yea!

It is a call to die daily. Woe unto them preachaz or christians that try to make christianity acceptable.

This call is a call to death, even socially. Yo friends will be pretty few, a sign you bouncing on cross lane. Yea, ctill u gotta be enthusiastic cos this aint no road you sacrifice to tread on, this a walk you embrace cos u love God.

We aint abstaining from sex caz we afraid we mite get burned-catch a disease. Nah! We abstain cas we love God. Yea!

If you come out offish and highish to some christians who love the world 2 death, get ready to be excommunicated by them too.

U stand alone but u is a majority against the hoards against you. Being otherworldly. Word!

Godly Infatuation: By Julie Ferwerda

2007-08-03T15:17:00.002+03:00

Resisting A Ministry Affair

“I’ve been totally attracted to this certainman.”

Stephanie admitted over mugs of chai at my kitchen table.
Trying to appear unruffled by this startling declaration was a challenge. I love that my good friend honestly admits her deepest struggles, but her latest temptation was a bit surprising to me.

Besides the fact that she’s married to an awesome and attractive godly man, she’s also the women’s ministry leader at her church and rock solid in her walk with God.

“I hate to admit this because I know how terrible it sounds, but I really want to share with you how God is getting me through this.” She went on to explain. “You remember that mission trip last month I took into central Mexico with our sister church. Well, the man happens to be the worship leader from that church.” Mounting concern forced my eyebrows up.

“It’s crazy, I know. I have a great husband who loves me. I’m not unhappy or unfulfilled, or even looking for anything else. But I was so…caught off guard. This guy was amazing in so many ways—fun, wise, discerning, tender-hearted, a great leader, and his passion for God was exhilarating!”
“Anything else?” I piped in with a hint of sarcasm.
“Listen,” she ignored me. “Have you ever met those people who seem to spill out joy, faith, and passion? Being around this guy I felt like a moth drawn to a light bulb!”

I mulled her last statement in silence, wondering if Stephanie would have even had this struggle, had her husband been able to accompany her on the trip. Being away from him and in close proximity to another attractive godly man for two weeks—in a new and difficult environment—made her more vulnerable, and I told her as much.
“You’re right about that. Since my hubby wasn’t there, this guy sort of stepped into the protector role, looking out for me the whole trip. He was so attentive; it was like having a guardian angel. Tell me how any woman stays objective under those circumstances!”

I thought about her experience and remembered times in my own life when I’d been temporarily captivated by different character qualities of godly men whom I’d known or served with in ministry. I could totally relate. Especially when it came to feeling exceptionally protected or attended to. I wondered if it was possible a guy like that didn’t realize the effect he was having on her. Under the circumstances, I was pretty sure the attraction she was feeling was somewhat normal. After all, temptation isn’t the sin. But what she did with it was going to be critical.

Heart vs. Head

“So how did you deal with it?” I fully expected that since she was being so honest, things were under control.
“It hasn’t been that simple.” Stephanie explained. “You wouldn’t believe the battle going on between my head and my heart. It’s like a giant tug of war. My head has all these super-spiritual answers, you know, the ones I tell other women all the time. Dwelling on him is wrong, thinking I would be happier with someone else is a total lie, I can’t get away with sin, and this is a test I must pass…”

After watching the results of this path in so many others’ lives, she certainly had all the right answers. If anyone knew that following her misguided desires would lead down a lonely road to destruction, it was Steph. I could tell, however, that there was a “but.”
“What threw me when I left Mexico were the more powerful arguments coming from my heart. First, I really missed him. Then, when I made up my mind to quit missing him, it drove me crazy wondering if he missed me. It was like some irrational obsession made me want to know if he was as captivated by me. It was so hard to let go of that control.”

From my own personal experience, I thought about this weird approval game women play in their minds, wanting to know we have power over the heart of a man. I wondered how much of it could be resolved if we understood we had already captivated the Man of our hearts.

Drastic Measures
Anxious to hear how Steph dealt with her heart, where emotions take over and secret sins can easily be cherished in the dark, I asked how she actually made progress in that area. I was amazed at her course of action. “The first thing I did to defuse the situation was to go to my husband. God told me that if I wanted this consuming gravitational pull to lose power over me, I needed to get it out into the light…either expose it now or be exposed later when the damage is done.”
“What? You told Andy!?” I was mortified. “Weren’t you scared of his reaction? Didn’t he feel totally threatened and betrayed?”
“You know my husband. He’s pretty understanding and secure—he didn’t take it as a personal attack. Besides, he’s my life partner. I needed his prayers and accountability, and for him to know what I’m dealing with.”
“What did he say?”
“We sat down the first night and I told him the whole thing. And get this,” her relief was tangible, “the first thing out of his mouth was, ‘I think it’s a normal struggle under the circumstances.’ Then he went on to tell me that he’d be a total hypocrite to be mad at me, considering his own battles of the heart and mind.”
Without a doubt, Andy was one in a million. There weren’t many guys who could handle the truth like that, offering such extravagant grace.

High Stakes
It had now been a month since she’d come home, and my hopeful curiosity showed through. “So how are you fighting temptation to think about him now? What’s keeping you on the right path?”
Steph leaned forward intently. “Do you realize what’s at stake here? This man has a far-reaching worship ministry in a great church. If I was in any way responsible for bringing him down, many lives and budding faiths would be hurt or ruined. And think about the women I’m working with. How many of them have I counseled through this very thing? Even one little compromise in this area could destroy two people’s impacting ministries, not to mention the individuals who would be devastated in our personal lives. If I have any sincere love for the work God is doing through him, I should do whatever it takes to protect him, from me, if necessary. I should be praying for him to be strong for the sake of his ministry and the lives he’s touching through it.”

All that was powerful stuff, but Steph’s greatest revelation on the matter came after she finally surrendered this struggle completely to God. Her eyes grew warmer as she explained. “God and I had this long heart-to-heart, and He showed me something amazing. It was suddenly so clear that the person I was really attracted to was Jesus in this man, not the man. I realized all of the enchanting godly qualities this man exemplified, ones that women get weak in the knees over, were really glimpses of his Creator. But as soon as any boundary of impropriety is crossed, the Jesus part is lost, and the man becomes just another fallible, broken, sinful person without the qualities I was drawn to in the first place.”

I couldn’t help but think about how her husband, Andy, had been a stellar example of this kind of Jesus-beauty shining through. It was obvious that his unconditional grace and acceptance made him more attractive to her than ever through this experience. I realized most women would probably be better off telling a close friend or counselor, but I was inspired by Andy’s remarkable response just the same.

Jesus Side of Beauty
After talking to Stephanie, a godly woman with so much wisdom and spiritual discipline, I wondered how many Christian women out there are experiencing the same kinds of struggles, yet terrified to talk about them. I mean, who’s a woman going to tell that she’s obsessed with one of her church leaders? Who will help her figure out what to do about it? She risks incredible rejection and judgment. And if it’s a battle for someone like Steph with such a great guy at home, how much more tempting would that kind of man be for a woman who feels unloved in her marriage?

It’s all a great reminder to be ever vigilant around godly men, and to make sure I get the right elements of protection in place. Most of all to realize that, when I’m fascinated by earthly men, no matter how godly and wonderful, it’s actually the heart and beauty of their Creator that I’m drawn to. It’s the Jesus side of them I’m really in love with. There’s no man on this earth who will ever compare or captivate me continuously like the Man I’ll share eternity with.

Julie, a CBN Guest Columnist, is the author of The Perfect Fit...Piecing Together True Love and has written articles for other publications such as Marriage Partnership, Brio & Beyond, HomeLife, Discipleship Journal, and Revolve III Biblezine Project for teen girls (Thomas Nelson). To order the book or to find out more go to: www.JulieFerwerda.com.

FOUNDATIONS DONT LIE-the intro.

2007-07-29T11:42:00.000+03:00

$$$If them foundations be cracked down, wat can them righteous peeps do?$$$

Anutha rhetoric at S.A.G.E church!

The falcon done stopped listenning to da falcona. Them foundations falls apart. The midnite is blackest among the friends of Jesus-the church.

He sed, 'Amma builds ma church and dem gates of hades aint no gon prevail!!!'

But hades crosses his legs and puts em on the heads of His friends-the Church. Paradventure, this aint no church He was talk about.

Chocolate souljahz, from the corrupt seed of Gehazi... Somebody shout it to them from da grafitti wall on ya block,

" This aint no time to take gifts from the people we pray for!"

These gifts aint no gon bring blessing cos they is cursed, God aint mandated em fo sho. Y'all dig this. Like, this aint no time for sells, this is da time for souls y'all. Alas, we stumble in the oblivion of material hodge podge.

The rich man dont wanna forsake his riches for heaven.

'...money is ma god, wat is heaven??...'

Now listen to his answer.

' Heaven is marble flows, plasma screens, a posh car and phat bank account plus a lite skinned woman'.

That woman aint even yo wife dawg!

This richman wanna go to hell cruising in his BMW or Hummer. Eeeehe!!

This hommie is probably gon have a blast in hell caz gasoline there is free of charge. U jus have to be there. But the burns are first degree and aint no doctors and anaesthesia up in that piece.

Flip...

If them foundations be cracked down, wat can them righteous people do?

There are men in christendom who knew to be abased and to live in abundance at the same time. Men who celebrated in need and celebrated in plenty.

In our need, we smite God, and on the extreme side, we forsake Him-go bak to hunting mice in wordly corridors.

He gat cattle on a thousand hills, He can take any army on a battle field aint no revelation to us like it was to Paul the Apostle.

These men walked with they heads in the skies but was never outta step with wat was happening in they times. They was of earthly gud too and they needed not alota money to be used of God.

Some say God aint Gonna use a poor man among the rich. It is the pop creed. And so we gotta rock million dollar suits as servants of God??? Nah men, the Holy ghost will still move whether am clad in sack cloth or baggies from Owino Market.

Men like Tozer prefered public transport on a yellow bus with they wives to cruising a Rollo! They didnt have no private jets but they was mightly used of God and they spiritual legacy lives on.

Today in Christendom, young men and women of God with Holyghost fire burning in they hearts are employed by rich men 'to serve God' and given alota money but some sections in they sermons are edited by they employers. Probably, this is why revival tarries!

Others fancy servin God caz they look at it as blueprint to money making and gal hunting!-but He who wants to serve me must carry his cross, deny hisself first and follow me or he aint worthy to follow. Thats da qualification-the cross!

Pastors ride Hummers, pimped with personalised number plates. If on ya first day on duty peeps put 80 dollars in the collection basket, U smite and probably go join a Unit Crew wea money is a thing. Bling!

Why do u think gud gals gets hooked by bad guys?

Why do Church gals lose they virginity to ghetto presidents?

Why do peeps lose they fire after getting jobs?

Why do peeps lose a passion for the Lord after they married?

Why are Pastors all over the nus?

Why dont this generation wanna serve God?

Why do them lil hommies( even in christendom) want 50 cent, Blu3, Bobi Wine, Ciara, Rihana, JayZ not Cross movement, Da Levite Clan,

DaT.R.U.T.H and many in the faith?

Why is ma Born Again home gal J bin charmed by a drunken dude since senior two?

Why is the church sooo losta than the lost heathen?

Why are Pastors collecting taxes?

Rhetorics. Huh?

The answer, citizens of both Christendom and worldlydom is in the foundations.

If them foundations be broken down, wat can them righteous peeps do??

Happy BD 2 hisself!

2007-07-27T16:03:00.000+03:00

Redeeming da time because da dayz are evil than evil itself.
Henceforth, let da pilgrim walk circumspectly,
Sober in the world, gettin outta pace with its lings!

Dilly dallyin noooo mooooo
No gettin drunk on cheap ambition
And confused by da glitter.

Havent you told yaself many a time?
You nat live by da things eyes picture
They pass away or fade...beauty, money, gals, fame, sells, status!

Set ya eyes therefore on things only da eagle heights hobnob with
Things hidden 4 eagle eyes to see.
Men who walk with they heads up in the skies
And tok with they feet down for ties.

Happy BD to you then.
This is all i can give you hommie.
WORDS FROM A HEART DESIRING DA OTHERWORLDLY.

This day aint like no other BD's...this day is prophetic and this year ushers me on a holy coaster of prophetic fulfillment. Matter of fact, i feel like this ma first day among the sons of men.

Forgettin wats behind me and pressin forward for wats bin set befoe me.
I have made mistakes in ma past years...but i thank God for the grace to learn from ma mistakes. Ma desire is not to go back to ma vomit but to walk in a constant clean act.

Ma bad to all those av wronged in many different ways and most especially to the sisters whose emotions i took for ma toy gun.
Ma bad to the hommies i tried to pimp for otha than inspire them to aspire to know God's perfect will for they lives.

Nuff love to da lady that hath loved me thru thug and T.H.U.G. You are a weak man's dream. When the block put a price on ma head u was there for me. Shed tattoo tears cas of them visions u was seein. Visions of innocence and love. I have turned ma back on you many a time but aint no warm place like home. U kno?
Thanks for da grafitti expressing the longings of yo heart and da many times u sed love to this T.H.U.G dat was kinda indifferent and hardcore 4getting ya Birthday. U are ma strength thru love!

Yea, God is carving a man outta a bouy. Age aint jus a number i bin told. Am gettin to them chocolate times.
Happy Birthday to me with ma hand on you ma plough. God forbid that i look back!!!

Tagged Aint Hugged!

2007-07-22T08:13:00.000+03:00

The Rules are:-
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Da Cypha
This is probably one of them lightest moments at S.A.G.E Church. Amma shoot two bird with one stone. First, am tryin to please them that tagged me. Second, i will try to provoke some love for my Lord and saviour especially from the young gunz dat ex-plode everyday.
8 Krazy Cool Random things bout me:
1-This is probably off da chain 4 them that earnestly desire to speak in tongues. Many times wen i pray, 80% is in tongues. It is like eating ice cream n praya ceases to be a drudgery. I guess its because many times am prayin 4 abstract things.
Tongues is ma AK 47, ma 44...
Ma faith catapaults everytime i pray in them tongues. Boldness gushes out like piped water. This is when i feel like, 'with God nothin is impossible!'
But this has had its own hard knocks. I remember after ma first course at Uni, i went to serve in ma home church for a year. I started out cleaning the church every saturday...then, settin up machines on sunday morning...then leading prayer before the service...and then worship and praise.
I wud sit befoe the Keyboard and start worshippin...then quiet tongues...then soft tongues, then loud tongues, then louder tongues and finally groanings that sometimes embarrsed 'well groomed' church folk. But in such moments, my heart would be sooo ablaze with His love and ability that i would cry out in worship.
One moment, a white lady who had been attending church complained about my 'noise' and in my innocence i was hurt. See, this came from the deepest deep of ma spirit and i was so overwhelmed everytime the spirit took me on a rolla costa into the holy of holies past the gate of praise where the congregation sung their praise.
I went to ma Pastor and shared this n he comforted me by sayin, 'Continue doing wat u do'.
At the end of ma one year, i was meant to go back to Uni 4 anutha course and the youth handed me an opportunity to be their preacha the sunday they was supposed to bless the church.
I preached on revival preperation. At the end, this same lady came up to me, gave me a chokin hug, a book on prayer and some pocket money with these words,'God hath annointed you!'

Fast rewind, before that, at some point wen i wud be leadin prayer, she would come and turn down the volume of the machines and some dude in church would come and turn it up again. One time wen this happened, she stormed outta da church but the day she sed those words, i knew God had vindicated me... or was she probably thankful that i was leavin?

The gud side:
Befoe i finshed ma first course, one of ma Lecturers with a doctorate would invite me to her home to pray with her and her only daughter. Everytime i closed ma eyes, she would whisper'pray in tongues'.
Now, this woman was krazy for the Lord. She didnt speak in tongues but everytime i opened my mouth, she told me she would be like one watching a movie. She was like a commander, tellin me wen to start and wen to stop.
Then she would narrate to me wat she was seein as i prayed in tongues. Mighty exploits. And this aint no elementary intellectual woman. She's bin scooled from da finest secular institutions of this humanistic day that seeks a religion dat dont defy logic, from Nigeria to Maryland, USA.
I didnt see nothin but with every utterance came an intensity and urgency.
For mooo on this testimony of exploits with a heavenly language, hit me!!

I LOVE SPEAKIN IN TONGUES N BLESS GOD FOR THIS GIFT! All gud gifts are from da Lord. That was loooong but stay with me.
2-Am krazy about marriage. I want to invite the devil, the flesh and the world for ma wedding. The devil dont want to see people get into marriage convenants. He knows healthy marriages breed healthy homes and these are the basic Units wea lil souljahz are raised to terrorise him. So, wen good people succeed in gettin into this convenant, he still comes to smite n seperate wat God hath put togetha. God gathaz, the devil scatters(Divorce).

If he kills you befoe yo born(befoe yo convenant)then you probably end up a homosexual or Lesbain. But marriage was never meant for a man and fellow man or woman and fellow woman. God says it is an abomination. It is not how you wea made. Nat yo genes!!

The flesh dont want you to wait and have sex wen yo married. Da flesh wants you to get laid. Abstinance aint the rule. The flesh shrinks wen u abstain but this dont mean u gonna die. Abstain!! Then wen all is said and done, the best gift you can give yo hubby is the gift of virginity. Practice its secondary but also mandatory caliber if u got laid yesternite or yester years.

The world wants you to cohabbit cos thats its bad habbit. It also wants you to be unequally yoked if you are a believer in Jesus. Shun the allure to conform to the standard of the world.
Roll with the word of God. Aiight?
All this gives me the heart to invite these three adversaries to the wedding banquet with ma miss world of ma world and to be a sign to those that follow.Marriage aint no blister, its bliss when its God's perfect will.

3-Am standing out on this one. We have heard sooo many say, they was virgins wen they got married. Let us learn to say it now without flinching. I aint been laid yet. Glory to God! This mite help the gal with a purity ring on her finga. It aint jus Elijah dat aint kissed Baal...we is in trillions lil hommie. Lets keep our zips tite. Aiight?
"I dont have a harder story, God kept me in ma youth i give Him all the glory..."
This probably will be ma testimony song wen i walk down the aisle. Am 20 some years,matter of fact am making 26 this friday the 27th of July and am ctill virgin. Bling!!!
But following Jesus' rule,"He who looks at a woman lustfully hath already committed adultery" dawg, am a criminal on that one! But i give Him all the glory and i aint counting how many years i gat left cas i aint doing time livin single, and i aint dying to marry and start havin sex.

4. Am a holy hip hopper
A perfect oxymoron for all y'all religious folks. But thats wea da testimony lieth. God catches an unholy man in an unholy world, makes him holy by the blood of the lamb, puts him bak in an unholy world and keeps him holy.Ya'll dig?
If u say hip hop is fallen, then dont dare call yoself holy cos holyU is a oxymoron.
God hath put me here wit a mic in ma hands. I embrace the positive elements of hip hop and use them for God's glory. Rock slang without bein vulgar, put on ma baggies draggin on the floor without showin ma draws. Feel me?

5 I love corns with rows but i and i dont mind a bald too!
The bible says, men should not plait their hair...eh! did i phrase it rite? The bible also says, God hath a problem with them that eat the flesh of pigs. I aint givin u them verses so u can go read the good book from genesis to revelation. Gotcha!
The problem aint in cornrows or wat u eat and flaunt. The problem is in yo heart. We major in judging minors. The guy with a marine hair cut mite turn out to be mooo criminal than the criminals. The other problem is not wanting to bend yo head for them corns to be eaten by the razor.
Kati, over Christmas, i think ma 'mama inlaw' cut me out. Some dude was barred from attending a church service cos he had cornrows. Ha ha ha! it was all over the news and the whole neighbourhood knew me as a cornrows zealot and i was spottin ma favs then. 'Mother in law' tells daughter after listening to da news, "Ogwe tomu Rass wawe?" translation, 'Isnt that yo rasta?" Hmmmm!
Some Bishop invites me to come on Nu years day and preach a sermon behind beats at his church with a condition, "Unplait yo hair first and wen yo done u can have yo corns bak!"
For me it takes money to unplait and plait considering ma hair is sooo nappy. I did that. Becoming all things to all men that i mite win sum. It turns out, this 'good bishop' in a suit and smart short hair is moo wicked than wicked hisself. I wont go thea. He is still doing evil exploits tha last i heard. This mite make me turn out 'holier than thou'. Far from it, i do have ma own closet that i open to the Lord to clean. But am krazy bout cornrows like word!

6- I love spiritual women.
For me, true beauty is a reflection of the human soul when holiness is born. It aint sahm manufactured in a facial mole or bought from a beauty parlour. Far from it. Wen u lose yo nose in an accident, u ctill wont lose yo spirituality and the fear of the Lord...this is priceless and it seperates the spice gals from the Estaz! The spiritual woman is full of regal grace!
7-I love french fries but dont dig irish potats. I dont know why. Guess am jus a junk food person. 8-Lastly but nat least. I tok too much. Rather 4 pleasure nat audition.
Sighs!!! The load is off ma chest.

Ma Taggarees-Cypha da nextday!
Ma main man, the kidd..., Val, Urban Butterfly, Meleasa, Samlady, YZee, Gerald, Duksey. Let me go tell em bout this.

Hope all y'all was a pleasure knowin me a pinch.Catch u on da crossroads. One!

Wen ur Hero Falls

2007-07-20T13:15:00.001+03:00

Peter after the death of Jesus quickly went back to fishing...He didnt kno his Hero represented the reality of the third day theory. " Destroy this temple and i will build it in three days" (Ma paraphrase). And the temple was mad big! They coulkdnt nat figa wat He was tryna communicate. But on the third day, the stone was rolled away. The Roman souljahz were also blown away! Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, our God could not be contained among the dead. There was a crown waiting for Him. The crown is for those that overcome up to the end in Christendom. The righteous person might fall seven times, but he still stands. The hallmark of righteous people is their tenacity and desire to stand wen they lick the dust. The blood of the first born warrior flows thru they veins. it is blinding red to adversity and opposition.

I wonder how the followers of Haile Selasie feel or Muhammed...and all the dead wombs that represent pitiful religions and cults.

See, our Hero aint fallen. The Romans tried to down play the authenticity of the truth sayin his clothes were stole away. Nah! He is home wearing a crown. First, it was one of thorns, now its of pure Gold!

We have to be found in the lowliest of places before we can be raised far above principalities in High places with Christ Jesus.

Am thinkin...was thinkin in the watches of las nite. Wat if my hero falls?
I do have a Hero on Blogger...tuff times we are in rite now. Found this poem and decided to share cos i know you love them poems...

Let me jus keep the author unknown. He taught me to pass Literature Paper One bak in the old scool.

WHEN UR HERO FALLS

when your hero falls from grace
all fairy tales r uncovered
myths exposed and pain magnified
the greatest pain discovered
u taught me 2 be strong
but im confused 2 c u so weak
u said never 2 give up
and it hurts 2 c u welcome defeat
when ure hero falls so do the stars
and so does the perception of tomorrow
without my hero there is only
me alone 2 deal with my sorrow
your heart ceases 2 work
and your soul is not happy at all
what r u expected 2 do
when ure only hero falls
????????????????????????????

Gon be prayin 4 ya!!

In da Event of my demise.

2007-07-17T08:48:00.000+03:00

Death is sweet when the lord walks you through it.It becomes our everyday experience if the Lord chooses us to be the wombs FOR THE DESTINIES OF NATIONS.
Many are called but few are chosen. U can have a calling in yo belly but if you depart from the event of dying daily And instead love the world and yo life that u can pay not to lose it, then a calling miscarriage is inevitable.

We live paradoxical lives as fallen men.
Why?
Because we have not learnt to embrace death. This way cannot be grasped by reason. It is grasped by revelation. It is grasped by knowing the way of the lord and the lord of the way. That true destiny is in Him alone.

Everything cannot be counted as dung if the glory of the lord aint a revelation but a head knowledge thing.

The way of Beckham, 'Blessed' with good looks and a celebrity wife will never be appealing to a man that dates the cross everyday. This way is dim and soo despised by the man with the bling-bang of the cross becos he sees a oneway ticket to blissful damnation. Yet the way of the master too offers one ticket...'He who puts his hand to the plough must nat look back'.But the destiny of Christ avenue is a good end. ' I know the plans i have for you...2 give you a gud end"Am constantly reminded of the profet who received an explicit command from the lord not to return the same way he had come. He was not to even eat with the king or anyone else for that matter. An older profet profelies to him and this profet goes with him to his home and dines. Once he is full with this meat and drink, he forgets and returns the same way he had come and a lion tears him up.

Once the lord delivers us from our folly, we are not to return to those things. In this our walk with the lord, the world and the flesh beckon. When we flirt with the world abit, we rise up full of the world's meat and drink and are found in a perfect state by the devil to disobey our lord Jesus. Like the prophet in question, we walk back into the things that have been waiting to destroy our very blood purchased lives.

I woke up btn 2;30 and 3am this morning to walk in Ezekiel 33. The lord impresses his watchmen to stand watch. God forbid that we fall into suchj foly-that instead of watching for his people, the devil watches us stumbling into our death traps. But it hath turned out that am in on watch for a very dear souljah. And this aint no shout from this grafitti wall, it is my love letter to her.

In the event of my demise, when i give up the ghost of all my hopes and dreams,
Death is bitter sweet but the sweet supercedes the bitter becos this death aint no period, its a coma...an open door to living life completely. Our light distresses are but for a moment and the glory they work for us, cannot be compared to the bling of hip hop cos this glory is eternal.

In the event of my demise, when i give up the ghost of marrying a diva like Beyonce, paradventure the lord wont let me surrender to the dogs, the souljah that i have grown to sooo passionately love in a space of three months with all her imperfections.

This is probably the best love letter i have written to you cos i wrote it as i read aloud in the hearing of the public! This tep of transparency is probably my strength and vindication in the event of my demise as we grow in one love, one faith, one God, one spirit.

Yours truly,
Fellow souljah in the same struggle against the flesh, the world and the devil.

In the event of Holyghost ochestrated Randomness

2007-07-12T13:11:00.000+03:00

Da foly of da modern day preacher is thinkin him/herself as the emmergency wo/man of the day.But seeing beyond the farcade, onething only stands tall, "We wana stay in the league".
Prophets gave a message and vanished for years until the message was obeyed.Jeremiah would wait for the word of da Lord seven days, keeping the whole of Israel on tip toe!

We are gud story tellers,poetic poets, rather than rhema bringers,life harbingers,HIS truth slingers,poetic prophets, and giant slayers. Therein lies our peril n our bringing forth of unbelieving believers becos their epiphany moments came thru the preaching of dead men's brains/theology(tombs)other than Holyghost inspired words(wombs). The letter kills but the spirit giveth life. With all thy gettin preacherwo/man get unctioned by the Holyghost. There in lieth power to quicken dead hearts and deflate the egos of the worldlings.

If, we dont guard against livin in the immediate and doin things outta a sense of fashionate duty to our fans( the blogren) other than a sense of passionate love and personal jealousy for the glory of God, our burn out is but a now-word cos everything was happening first from the soulish realm!

God hath sent his son Jesus Christ toward us wo/men (John 3:16) once and for all and given the Holyghost to indwell those that receive the son (whoever believeth in Him). The same Holyghost that quickened Jesus from the dead is ours for the receiving in His fullness.
When we have Him in the fullest measure not just as a seal, where men that snub him bribe, we glide into our purposefulness.

Suspicion gives way to discernment and we begin to truly 'test the spirits'. Where prayer is a drudgery for many, we are like those that soar on wings like eagles, like those that eat chocolate without a caustic after taste.
He giveth us expression through groanings,and sighings beyond what our passing realm of the flesh can fathom or deal with.

And this aint no constipated spirituality!

We need the fullness of the spirit. We have got to break off our prejudices and venture into the cloud of the unknown. The disciples had never known anyone close to them walkin on water...wen Jesus beckoned, they dubbed Him a ghost. The magicians in Pharaoh's era could only get thus far contending with the God of Israel and Moses. Wherever there is a counterfeit is enuff proof for the authentic. The counterfeit can only try to fashion itself against the real.Like a form of godliness that denies the power...more than the power as a manifestation but also power as a profess-ion through a zealous yearning and walk for His holiness without which our christianity is watered down to a magician's affair.

Without real humans, men would not try to clone men from cats, the influx of counterfeit money is proof enuff for the presence of the real bill.

In this seemingly dark moment against the church of christ, when the devil, the flesh and the world mudsling God's name, the clarion call only gets louder and the baby from the remnant only leaps higher...this darkness is kickin its last cos the light comes speedly. The devil hath had a peep into the Church glorious that will prevail against him and his wicked hodge-podge and he shudders but smites also so that God's people faint. But being with the blood of the sons of Isaachar, this only propells us to spend ourselves mooooooo as cups being offered daily for the sake of God's glory.

Maranatha come quickly!

Can A Nation B Born Again???(Part one)

2007-07-07T12:49:00.000+03:00

Its bin said that revival always precedes judgement like the darkness precedes the dawn.
Now, who wants to pray for revival? Yet, in this our darkest midnite when men blaspheme the name of our Lord and the fear of the Lord is a bygone word, it is imperative that we pray to God to send the rain of revival.

While the secular press is busy turning words into money in a deceptive alliance with telecommunication companies, flaunting how men in the church hunt mice in the form of 'sowin seed', many years ago, when the Lord chose Wales, the least of the principalities of the British Isles, Secular Tabloids were covered from page to page with news on the revival.
The Welsh revival was infact the spark for the Azusa street revival from the little Azusa street mission in Los Angeles. And one way the sparks from this revival flew was thru written accounts of the revival that got in the hands of three black pastors from Azusa whose hearts burned in them to seek the Lord for Revival. May this spark a fire in our hearts for revival in our hearts and lands.

One account goes like this;
Before the revival, there had been almost a plague of drunkenness and gambling. During the revival, taverns were either closed or turned into meeting halls. Instead of wasting thier earnings on drinking and gambling, workers started taking their wages home to their families.

I heard these words once in my sleep;
"The evidence of revival will not be realised until the situation is taken outta our hands"
To me, this means that no man can promote,run or organise a revival. When it comes to revivals, God is sovereign. Thats why, when they was lookin for a souljah in army fatigues, God sent the savior thru a manger(in biblical times, a stable was the most offensive place), born in the most despised Country-IZRAEL and was raised in the most despised town-Nazareth! Only revelation not reason seperated the boys from the men, the gals from women concerning who Jesus was.

In the 'bleakest' moments, God will show up, offend the minds of people when men have long stopped running His business.

Now, revival is not mass crusades or mass evangelism although during revivals, mass evangelism is usually a hallmark. When the bones rattled in the valley of dry bones(Ezekiel 37), there was still no life. So, rattle should never be mistaken for revival.Smoke is not fire, action is not unction, reformation is not transformation...

One SAGE of old said that revival is when God moves in a city/village/nation and the fear of God so grips that locality that people who before never had any religious inclinations begin to seek God. The fear of God in this case is synonymous with having deep anti-sin sentiments.No one wants to flow or condone sin even when some picture it as a cool thing or a blueprint to money making.

The following is yet another account from the Welsh Revival:

The famous Welsh singing festivals(Ebigunda Byomwaka) which had been so popular closed down during the revival because their famous vocalists, such as the "Sankeys" and "Alexanders" were now singing hymns in the revival meetings. The theaters and football stadiums like wise closed down for lack of interest. Political meetings were canceled or abandoned. Many of the elected officials, even those from London, abandoned their seats in Parliament to participate in the revival meetings. Businesses founded upon honorable trades and products prospered. Those that traded on vice went out of business. Possibly never before in history has an entire society been so profoundly transformed by a spiritual revival in such a short time

Its bin said that the effects of the revival on the nation of Wales are remarkable in all of history. The first and the second Great awakenings undoubtedly changed the genetic codes of Britain and America, but history simply reveals no other examples where changes in society equaled what happened in Wales.

Like Gideon we simply live with a history book on the accounts of what the lord did in our fathers' times (Google the East African Revival that dubbed East Africa as Africa's Azusa Street) but the Lord commands His mighty warriors to arise and shake their nations for His name's sake. In a generation of boastful sinfulness, where young men and women drink iniquity like water and depart from the way of the Lord to follow the poular creeds of the modernistic and humanistic hodge podge-'with all thy getting bra,get thee money even if it costs u yo soul. U will repent later'

So, we have counterfeit churches in the name of Bars where the bartender is the Pastor, girls dressed to appeal are ushers and after a drink peeps speak in tongues.

Young girls serve at these alters as the devil's worship teams( Obsession, Kombat, Blu3...) They usher in the devil spirit, then men, instead of going home to be with they wives and kids, they walk to Speke to get some human thighs not chicken thighs cos they are angry(with God like the devil their father) not hungry like kids in Somalia.

Ok! you modernists and humanists (the vampires of modern times) are probably arguing out something for the sake of the economy and development, both personal and national. Yes, but we want our folks to get to heaven even if it takes an amputation dawg! Why should we stroke to hell cos we is phat on ice cream and junk from Miss Uganda berbecue??

We have probably spent half of our lives tryna be cool so that all you cool peeps can join our social clubs(Churches). But our coolness hath trampled on our spirtuality and the devil hath gotten phat on yo soul in the process. Our bad! May God not count the soulks of those we have already lost in our foolish and vain preoccupation.

Many a Pastor hath 'led a soul to christ' at gun point with no Holy Ghost conviction at all. But this revival that that makes ma palms sweat, thinkin of the souls we gonna harvest will not get Juliana volunteer for the lord, Noooooooo! She will give her heart, her Ouma, her lungs and Kidneys for the cause of christ the Son of the most High God and her Soul will be better than her designer shell. If you do not get in too, u will only fly faster than than Airforce One banging her old songs on yo way to hell dawg with visions of her once open navel dawg. So, be there for the lord or be square!

As for the lady's wine now turned president, there wont be no Kiwani if he dont return to the Lord, its gonna be real. Death spiritual already dons the bra but even those that sleep among the dead can listen to the voice of God cos it aint no echoe(Ask Lazarus dawg). But once death physical takes u on a rollercoaster down town, u can only pray amiss to Abraham like the man that learnt to pray sooo late and prayed sooo wrong( to Abraham) in hell forv relief from his agony.

Ah! but the Love of the lord redeems from a place far beyond the grave. Uganda and the nations of the world are candidates for revival because they have fallen soooo much into idolatry. May God open his book of remembrance and let His face shine on us in this generation.

Reflections from the Welsh Revival:The World Aflame: Guidance from the greatest revival yet and the greater one to come
By Rick Joyner

"RE-THINKING THE POPE??"- by Andrew Strom.

2007-06-29T20:34:00.001+03:00
If u are born again and desire the passion for otherworldliness, Read the article before this one entitled; OTHERS MAY: U CANNOT-and if u are sick of being sick and if u hasten that u might be losed from the deception of religion, this is for u;RE-THINKING THE POPE?? Meet you at the comment box. One!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the great outpouring of grief and eulogy that have accompanied the death of the Pope, there is something that disturbs me greatly. I hate to always be the one to "rain on the parade", but there are some pretty basic issues that I believe we need to look at here.
There is no doubt that the last pope was a man of very great accomplishments. He broke through many barriers and was truly one of the most effective leaders the Catholic Church has had in modern times. I don't think we can question that.

But what I would like to question is the organization that he was heading, and the 'gospel' that he represented. It truly disturbs me when I hear of Evangelical leaders praising his overall message and even calling him a 'great evangelist' or a 'great Christian leader'. Is the Reformation null and void, then? Shall we simply fold up our tents and go back to Rome?

There is something very disturbing in the reaction that has come from these quarters - including the 'prophets', the Pentecostals and the "Protestants" (so-called). It makes me very uneasy.

Much has been made of the estimated 100 million Catholics who have now been baptized in the Holy Spirit. This is certainly worth rejoicing over. But what of the other 900 million who are locked inside a system that preaches no "new birth" and no conversion - but rather salvation by works, rituals and the 'sacraments' of the church? Is such a "gospel" acceptable?

Is it acceptable to 'sprinkle' little babies and then tell them they are "saved" so long as they go to Mass and go to 'confession' and receive the other 'sacraments'? Is it acceptable to pray to Mary (the 'Queen of Heaven') or to the saints, or to ivory statues? Is it acceptable to call a man 'Holy Father'? Is it acceptable to forbid ministers from marrying, thus bringing about a deluge of sexual abuse and scandal? Is any part of the way the Catholic system is set up actually acceptable at all? Does any of it have even the slightest resemblance to the New Testament?

The fundamentals of Catholicism have not changed since Luther's day. The last pope altered little or none of these fundamentals. They have not changed since the Dark Ages. And they make up a system that is sending millions upon millions of people to an eternal Hell. They simply offer NO SALVATION WHATSOEVER. But what they do offer is a "counterfeit" version of salvation - that keeps millions in chains of darkness.

Go and visit Latin America sometime, and see the dark superstition that often passes for Catholicism in those countries. Watch as they parade their statues through the streets for the crowds to bow down to. This is no "Christianity" at all. And it holds MILLIONS in its sway.

We need to remember that when elected Pope in 1978, Karol Wojtyla dedicated his papacy to Mary and had words of devotion to her embroidered on his papal robes. In his 1994 autobiography he said: "During the Second World War, while I was employed as a factory worker, I came to be attracted to Marian devotion.... Mary is the new Eve, placed by God in relation to Christ, the new Adam." John Paul II venerated Mary on every occasion, private and public. It was his custom to pray the Rosary before an image of Mary on the first Saturday of every month. He continually exalted Mary in his sermons. We are told that on his trip to Latin America in 1996 he "ended every speech by exalting Mary" (Christianity Today, April 8, 1996, p. 94).

I knew an intercessor in New Zealand who was an ex-Catholic. She was one of the most anti-Catholic people that I knew. Why? Because she spent over 20 years of her life brought up in that system - diligently seeking God. Going to Mass, saying the 'Rosary', going to confession and so-on. And she was in complete spiritual DARKNESS unitl she came out and embraced the true gospel. If she was still in there she would probably be UNSAVED STILL.

I am sorry to have to be the one to point out all of this. But why is it that the current crop of leaders seem so willing to give up 500 years of Reformation truth in order to be "politically-correct" and find "unity" with the Catholic system? I received the following email last week, which helps bring all of this into focus:

(From an Ex-catholic priest):

When a man bows before an idol of ivory, begging for salvation, and you tell him it cannot answer - is this hate?

When someone's little girl...must tell her thoughts, her emotions and temptations to an unmarried priest in the confession box, and you tell her she need only confess to Jesus - is this hate?

When a poor grieving widow pays from her meagre substance for Masses for her dead husband, desperately hoping to end his pain in purgatory, and you tell her there is no purgatory - is this hate?

When one billion souls, for whom Christ died, trust a well-fed pontiff dressed in gold and fine linen to give them the keys to Heaven, and you tell them they need no one but Jesus - is this hate?

When Jesus, God's gift of love to all mankind, pointed his finger at the Pharisees and called them so many snakes - was this hate?

When the Apostle Paul stood on Mars Hill and dared tell the philosophers of pagan mystery religion that they were too superstitious - was this hate?

NO!

To free a man from Satan's chains, you must first tell him he is a prisoner. You must convince him that he is lost and without hope... There are those who call [evangelical] literature "hate literature." But they do not know the true meaning of hate.

True hatred hides the gospel in beautiful words that upset no one, and therefore bring no conviction of sin. True hatred stands in selfish silence as hell's population grows.

[-Source: 'Battle Cry', May-June 1993].

---------------------------------------

To comment on this article, please send an email to- prophetic@revivalschool.com

OTHERS MAY: YOU CANNOT--by G. D. Watson (1845-1924).

2007-06-29T20:27:00.000+03:00
If God has called you to be really like Jesus He will draw you into a life
of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience,
that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by
other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other people do
things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful, may
push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans,
but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such
failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their successes, of
their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such
thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification
that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy
left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants
you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence
upon Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by
day out of an unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden
in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice fragrant fruit for
His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let
others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him
and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without
knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more
precious He may let others get credit for the work which you have done,
and thus make YOUR REWARD TEN TIMES GREATER WHEN JESUS COMES.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and
will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time,
which other Christians never feel distressed over. So make up your mind
that God is an Infinitely Sovereign Being, and has a right to do as He
pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which
puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell
yourself to be His love slave, He will wrap you up in Jealous Love, and
bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the
inner circle.

Settle it forever, then that you are to DEAL DIRECTLY WITH THE HOLY
SPIRIT, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or
chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not seem
to use with others. Now, when you are so possessed with the living God
that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this
PECULIAR, PERSONAL, PRIVATE, JEALOUS GUARDIANSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT OVER YOUR LIFE, then you will have found the vestibule
of Heaven.
_______________________________________
(-from Faith, Prayer, & Tract League:
Tract #76; Grand Rapids, MI 49504)

I Have Not Resisted Unto Blood (Heb 12:3-4)

2007-06-26T18:52:00.000+03:00
I was reading the following back at Pea's and had to lay back and let the accounts sink in deep.Do i still wanna be a missionary???

THE 12 APOSTLES:

1. Andrew - whipped severely by seven soldiers, and then crucified - tied to a cross with cords to prolong his agony. Preached to tormentors (while on the cross)for two days until he died.

2. Bartholomew - beaten then crucified.

3. James, son of Alphaeus - stoned to death.

4. James, son of Zebedee - beheaded.

5. John - boiled in a basin of boiling oil. Survived miraculously. Exiled for his faith; later freed; died of old age.

6. Judas (not Iscariot) - stoned to death.

7. Matthew - speared to death in Ethiopia.

8. Peter - crucifed upside down.

9. Philip - crucified.

10. Simon - crucified.

11. Thomas - speared to death in India.

12. Matthias - stoned to death and then beheaded.

Stephen: Stoned to death.

James, the brother of Jesus: Thrown over 100 feet down the temple on refusing to deny his faith. He survived his fall; when this was found out, he was beaten to death with a club.

Paul: Tortured by Emperor Nero and then beheaded.

When we preach, we are quick to promise men gold. 'God will give you this and that...a light skinned woman, a VISA to th US and so n so's Range Rover...' All this is in a bid to swell church membership cos this is wat this generation of apostasy wants to hear. So, wen they take in the bait, we even promise them dinner if they join our churches!
The result is hot house christians, ENEMIES and STRANGERS of the cross that no not of the way of the master. Sacrifice is never underlined up in their VOCA book n wen persecution comes they way, they donno how to bless, they smite!

But this is our heritage as servants of the Lord even death in block c. No servant is greater than his master.

THERE IS AN OLD TREASURE FOR UGANDA: A WORD FROM THE LORD!
Uganda hath the mandate to preach the cross and send prayer missionaries to the nations. But we send merchants abroad in the name of the lord and player worry-us instead of praya warriors. Oh yeah, our pews are full but full with empty hearts.

We mistake rattle for revival and action for unction. God hath blessed us with many churches and ministries like America but wickedness in n out of God's sanctuary reigns supreme.
Who is fooling who??? God cannot be mocked.

We hav soo many volunteers in His vineyard but the called and chosen are few. At the sound of the trumpet, the volunteer does not heed the call. He is playing not slaying!

Christian, befoe u venture into God's vineyard, pledge yo head to heaven cos this is the ultimate destiny for the tru servants of the Lord, even death in Block C!

"TO the YOUTH of AMERICA" by Andrew Strom.

2007-06-22T21:29:00.000+03:00
I write this as a musician and a radical. Christian Youth of America, your generation is dying, and I need to ask if you are EXTREME enough to provide the answers. We know there never was anyone more "Extreme" than Jesus. But what about you?

Christian Youth, I need to ask why you sit in the padded pews of your fathers while all around the darkness takes your cities and your friends.

I need to ask why you worship the great god of Entertainment, just like your parents before you - but a bit 'louder' - and think that is "radical".

I need to ask why you think it is "extreme" to slam and mosh, when all the while the devil owns your streets, and fat Record Companies line their pockets with your cash.

I need to know why you have allowed the system to make you a slave - a "consumer" - a clone. I need to know why you can be sucked into buying $150 shoes and $200 sunglasses - while 30,000 children die of starvation every day.

I need to know why you will not cry out to the rich money-preachers "REPENT". I need to know why you still enjoy it when they tickle your ears and never speak of Hell. I need to know why you accept it when their gospel sounds like a toothpaste commercial - all slick and no substance. Well-dressed drones with plastic smiles, selling you the latest line in snake-oil. WHEN WILL YOU WEEP?

I look at your piercings and your tattoos and your hair and I still have to tell you: You are nowhere near EXTREME ENOUGH. The outward appearance will not do.

The time is coming when an army of young warriors will hit the streets - fearless and bold beyond anything we have ever seen. Even death itself will hold no fear. They will cry to the church "REPENT" and to the comfortable, "SELL what you have and GIVE TO THE POOR". They will be hated and despised by religious authorities. They will openly decry the TV preachers and eschew the watered-down pap that passes for 'gospel' in our day. They will reject sin and love people - even the homeless and the very least. Utterly pure of heart, they will befriend the prostitutes and the gang bangers. They will look and sound just like Jesus.

With great daring and ruthless aggression, this army will make war on the devil and the darkness. Their music will be hymns of battle. Their sound will ROAR over the crowd. Truly these shall be the 'Sons of Thunder'.

Christian Youth of America, can you not hear the call of God in this hour? All heaven awaits the moment when you will arise and ACT on behalf of your generation.

To the Christian Youth of America I say:

It is time to get "EXTREME".

To respond to this article, write to- prophetic@revivalschool.com

TROUBLESMAKERS in the CHURCH by David Wilkerson

2007-06-16T13:28:00.000+03:00
We need more troublemakers in the church! I pray that every
member of the body of Christ would become a troublemaker! We
need an army of troublemakers who have become so full of the
Holy Ghost they will stir up and trouble New York City and every
other city around the world; trouble their wicked institutions -
challenge the established dead churches - trouble the leaders,
the mayors, the city councils, the community leadership! In other
words, we need Holy Ghost troublemakers moving in the Spirit,
proclaiming the kingship of Christ so effectively that whole cities
are stirred!

Paul and Silas were two the world's biggest troublemakers! The
Bible speaks of "men that have risked their lives for the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 15:26, NAS). Paul, Barnabas, Silas,
and Timothy were such men, walking in the power of the Spirit.
As seen in Acts 16, when the Holy Ghost forbid them to speak
the Word in Asia, they obeyed. When they tried to go to Bithynia,
but the Spirit would not permit them, they went instead to Troas,
under the Spirit's direction. Paul then had a vision of a man
calling them to Macedonia, so they set out immediately to
Philippi, the chief city of Macedonia. When they arrived, a fortune
teller followed them about, crying, "...These men are the servants
of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation"
(Acts 16:17). After enduring it for many days, Paul turned and
"...said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ
to come out of her. And he came out the same hour" (Acts 16:18).
Suddenly the whole city was in an uproar: this fortune teller was
apparently a big tourist attraction, but now she was healed and
praising the Lord!

Paul had upset the status quo. He had challenged the devil who
had been having his way for years. The slave-owners of the
delivered woman then dragged Paul and Silas into the market-
place to stand trial before the city magistrates. The charge was,
"...These men... do exceedingly trouble our city" (Acts 16:20).
"And the multitude rose up together against them: and the
magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them.
And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them
into prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks" (Acts 16:22-24).
It looked as though Satan had won. The new converts must have
been stunned! But all the power of God is with Holy Ghost
troublemakers! "And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and
sang praises unto God... and suddenly there was a great earth-
quake, so that the foundations of the prison was shaken: and
immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands
were loosed" (Acts 16:25-26). The jailer, seeing what had
happened, even fell down before Paul and Silas, saying "...Sirs,
what must I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30). Those city officials
and religious leaders went to bed thinking, "We did it to them!
That's the last we will hear of those vagabond troublemakers. We
really shut them up and scared them!" But what a commotion the
next day! I can imagine sergeants knocking on the doors of the
mayor, city council members, and the religio us leaders, telling
them, "Quick! Get down to city hall - we've got a big problem!"

In a state of shock, the officials probably responded, "What? An
earthquake? The prison doors opened? Their chains all fell off?
They didn't even try to escape? The jailer joined their faith?
They're Romans?!?" Now, they were really afraid. It was a crime
to beat Roman citizens (Paul and Silas were both Romans).
"What do you mean they won't budge from our jail? They demand
what? For us to come down and apologize and escort them out
of jail? " And they came... and brought them out... begging them
to leave the city" (Acts 16:39).

I love it! Here they were, not flaunting their spiritual authority, but
merely acting as ambassadors of King Jesus. As they had
witnessed Christ's power being mocked, Paul and Silas now
wanted that little riverside prayer group to see how God manifests
His power to those who stand up against the forces of hell. They
went directly to the house of Lydia - and what a meeting that
must have been! I would think Paul told that house group, "See!
The devil can rage, the powers that be may threaten - but God
has all the power! God will stand by you if you take a stand!"

I preach a great deal on prayer and I believe in the effectual,
fervent prayer of the righteous. But praying alone, praying by two's
and three's, or even in a large prayer meeting will not alone shake
a city! Elijah was a man of powerful prayer, but it was more than
his prayers that shook Ahab's kingdom and enraged Jezebel: He
called the false prophets to Mount Carmel and challenged them.
Jezebel had slain God's prophets and led Israel into apostasy
and the horrible idolatry of Baal worship - and no one had
challenged her! Seven thousand believers had not bowed, but they
were silent, unknown, and afraid. So along comes Elijah, the
troublemaker! Ahab called him "the troubler of Israel!" (1 Kings
18:17). Elijah ended up at the Brook Kishon with a sword in his
hand, slaying hundreds of Baal's false prophets "in the name of
Jehovah."

Elijah was not a polite gentlemen with the devil and his crowd.
While "...they leaped upon the alter... Elijah mocked them
[derided them]" (1 Kings 18:26-27).

The church of late has cowered before the powers of darkness
due to the lack of holiness, for the Scripture tells us, "...The
righteous are bold as a lion" (Proverbs 28:1). Some will say, "But
Jesus was meek - He never opened His mouth or resisted when
they took Him to be crucified!" But that was because the hour
of darkness had come, the hour He was to be given into the hands
of the enemy. He was not silent in the temple when driving out
the money-changers. He was not silent when calling religious
leaders serpents - blind guides - whited sepulchers - a brood of
vipers (see Matthew 23). He even told some boldly that Satan
was their father!

Many churches today are full of silent, gentlemanly diplomats,
not wanting to make waves! Nobody wants trouble! So the devil's
kingdom goes unchallenged. We have more than enough smiling,
mousy Christians!......

~SOURCE: http://www.tscnyc.org/

2 B or nat 2 b!

2007-06-14T10:39:00.000+03:00
Bona Bagagawale! And i aint bout 2 be converted to politics.
I like to give peeps i aint agree with much, a benefit of the doubt. I know you aint no beta cook than ma Mams but amma accept the invitation to have lunch prepared by you.

Show people the strength of ya faith by listening to them. It wont hurtcha if the Lord is ya rock.

I was at Namboole. Yea! Had a rolex and fasted after biting it to death. That was ma breakfast and lunch. A bit of ma crazy world but am aiight.

ME @ MA KRAZY WORLD:

Am one that would lovingly embrace poverty if its God's calling for me.

Even if i was stinkin rich, i wud take a bus on a date or forego the Humvee cos i love simplicity like ladies love shopping sprees.

I like hangin out in the cloud of the unknown. Stay back stage...have a problem bein in the spotlight. Probably why i aint down with mad publicity.

I prefer bein a missionary to Brazil or some village in the UK...explains why i aint gona be no rapper 4 eternity.

Prefer:Tents to mansions,Mats to beds(Ask ma big sis!)

Dont really like hangin at Cineplex-Garden City(even if its the inthing)

I dont like irish potats but i dig french fries(mite have bin a result of ma mams and ma paps spoilin me as a lil kid)

Am krazy bout corns with rows but i think am bout to be like Elisha anyway!(bald in like a yea)

I hate secular education but i gotta pay ma dues to ma Mams and Ceaser.(but Ceaser gat beef with me dawg!)

Yo! wat i was tryna say is; I LIKE ME A SIMPLE LIFE!

Prosperity hath bin ma Cinderella(most unloved woman) from way back cos ma understanding of it was twisted(thot she was a hooe).Them 'prosperity preachaz' i listened to was 'materialism preachaz.' I RAN AT THEIR ECHO!

The man with a dollar for a name jus blew me away las nite but ctill, the bottom line is this:WATS GOD'S WILL 4 ME AS TUMUKUNDE aka Renee emcee of LVC?

Its aiight to prosper BUT an unregenerate man with a phat bank account is one who hath bin ensnared by money and is about to discover its a dead womb and a tomb!(un able to bring human happiness to fruition or buy the joy of the lord)

Money in itself is insufficient in defining prosperity. Prosperity that dont don yo soul, spirit and body aint prosperity at all.

You can be loadus with alooooot of money but you are jus another pig with bling if u dont gat J master J(Jesus) as lord and savior of ya life.

Prosperity hath to be preached(Prophetically)cas poverty is a mentality in yo nut, like that stubborn strand of meat lodged btn ya teath.

The world brags of materialism. For us church folk, God gives us, not to hoard but to bless. This is where the sheep and the goats are seperated.

Muller of them Orphanages once said, the secret of receiving is giving. And u aint tryna let yo butt know it wen u give. Aiight?

Love the Lord with all thine heart and yo neighbour...This is the foundation to all the laws even the laws of prosperity.

I was there, i saw and i bin set free.

'Katwale katwale! Katonda aja kukuwa Omukazi ne visa!'
I jus learnt that dont work. U gotta find some to do cos God blesses the works of yo hands. This aint no 'lay back, mix ya juice with ya figa and God will bless u' prosperity Gospel.Nah! U gotta be deligent, u gotta save and u gotta do some, u gotta live within ya means.Dont get trapped in debt. Aiight?

At the end of the day, it is;'God wat do u gat for me. WATS YO PERFECT WILL FOR MY LIFE?'

The peril of this is that many unbriddled will dash in with thier heads not their hearts. And we mite see Christain Oprah wanna be's and every body wanting to own a private jet! Yet God also wants to have Him some Mother Theresa's, John the Baptist's, Elijah's, Apostle Paul's(Possesing nothing but owning everything).

Tru prosperity however begins with accepting Jesus the son of God as yo personal Lord and savior. If the wealth of this land was predominantly in the hands of wo/men that submit to the Lord, Uganda would be the America of Africa or the manifest Pearl of Africa.

WISDOM:
If ya stingy and hold on to ya money, you dont have it. IT HATH U! The love of money begins with not sharing it with those that dont gat like u gat. U is a captive but u can take that money captive by captivating others with it. Bless othaz by sharing!

AM A FREE MAN. Trust!

LEVI'S COVENANT

2007-06-11T09:56:00.000+03:00
"I have made a covenant with ma eyes not to look at a woman lustfully!"

Cleavage here, cleavage there. Yo! will this lil hommie keep his covenant?
The species are bamboozled, young gunz explode at them hyptotising sights.

Do u see they eyes? they done crossed!

Optic nutrition at them beaches they say is good to relax they minds.
But wen the nite come, he wanna get hisself a prostitute.

On the streets, gals flash like photography, supercedin they mama Eve with their nakedness.

How about that idol chilluxing on the corner of ya livin room?
Move ya body like a snake now shuts ya ear drums, catches you lickin thy lips and ya eyes wana pop out, ya palms are sweeatin?

Is it ok for me to touch ma gal?
How about a kiss of peeeace?

Aiight! It is the fashionate thing. Them G strings. And the death merchants dont even give a hoot flaunting it on they sunday magazine jus for the sells.
With all thy gettin bra, gain the world. Its a capitalist world baby. U bling and bang our nuts to the hellish realm. Blood on ya hands dawg!

This is wat sells. Over sexism. Carry them sexual innuendos, but if u have Jesus, abstinence, purity, holiness up in every line, u cant get no record deal.

Ladies! u gotta be sexy in ya appeal. Its aiight if u cant dress to kill, jus dress to appeal.
Yo! dat dont even sound right!

U go for an audition. U wana dance in ma video? u gotta be beautiful. See, their definition of beauty is twisted. Jus show some thigh and u iz on, u iz on.Feel me?

Can lil hommie keep his covenant in these crazyandalous times. The plague. Gotta buy hisself some spiritual guggles. See only that which is pure and acceptable.

But u is in the world dawg? Yea, but that dont mean amma be mesmerised by them covenant haterz dawg! I can be holy unto the lord, seperate and sanctified, renewing ma mind thru His word constantly.

QN:How can a young man stay pure????
ANS:Bury hisself in the holy word of God. And meditate on the holy things there in.(Seellin ya TV wont do)

Problem is, u cant keep the covenant if u hobnob with TV 24/7, storm rock nite at Mateos, visit them Kimansulo flesh pots. Its aiight to watch TV but it aint AIIGHT! Feel me?

If i was president, i wud not beef with ma political beefers, i wud beef with them covenant haters. Impose a tax that they will spend their whole life tryna raise. Nam sayin? For the sakes of them weak brothaz.

BOTTOM LINE: Da battle belongs 2 Da Lord! O yea. Lil hommie can keep da covenant.

"I have made a covenat with ma eyes not to look at a woman lustfully."

Da Sound of a crushing Church

2007-06-09T10:45:00.000+03:00
Worldly men are busy inventing death. The church is busy hunting mice. All this is Vanity. Our paralysis of preoccupation is chasing da wind.

We want to prove to a fallen generation that seeks a sign that our God is 'cool'.It is a paradox cos in this our paralysed preoccupation is when the world sees our God as pitiful. We have failed in the closet, so we seek status symbols. We turn God's house into a market place in the pursuit of material honour. We seek the same platform to compete with fallen men.

One pitiful prodigal sought to clean the studios of the wicked fire base crew for a record deal. Wat shame! Wat pitifulness. He probably does not know his heritage(my peeps perish for lack of knowledge)

HolyGhost filled men do not need no status symbols. You do not even need to debate with the world about the authenticity of the virgin birth or the resurrection. You do not need to engage the world on any intellectual platform. No! Demonstrate the power of the Holyghost and say, 'If the lord God is God, serve Him!'.

John the Baptist didnt need no miracles to pull crowds (but Miracles will always follow you). He needed holyghost inspired arrogancy. He didnt need no TV AD for his crusades. He just set hisself ablaze and the world came to see him burn, even noble and cultured men. He wasnt even dressed like our celebrity pastor in a million dollar suit.

QN:Where is the mystery of the Gospel?
ANS:It hath been sabotaged by our pitiful preoccupation-'tryin to gain respect from the world!'

If the church's preoccupation in these evil days was God's preoccupation in the days of old Jerus, He wouldnt have sent Jesus thru a manger. He would have probably made room in a five star hotel.

Jesus' earthly father wouldnt have been a carpenter but a Bill Gates or Rupert Murdoch. His mama would have been one of them pitiful models and his cronnies G G G G-Unit! Talk of a humble pedigree and using the weak and foolish things to confound the strong and wise even the wisest of this age. That is the mystery of the Gospel. U see? we do not need no respect from worldlings. One folk broke ma heart on TBN talkin of gaining respect from the world by gaining material superiority. The spirit behind such ambitions is not the spirit of Christ!

On Jesus still. He wouldnt have died on a tree, the sign of ultimate shame. He would have smoked His enemies like Peter tried and get carried in a Chariot of fire and wear a crown of bling instead of thorns.

If Jesus was our contemporary, God would send Him to the finest instittutions of learning like Harvard to gain the wisdom of the world. But God sent Him to a University in the dessert to be tempted of the devil.

Why in the world would God pass by the intellectuals in John the Baptist's time for an uncultured man? John was spirit bred and filled. The intellectuals of his time were bred on the brains of dead men. Had God chosen an intellectual, they probably would have mobilised for funds to organise the baptism of folks. See? Our natural abilities are sometimes our stumbling block. They always pop their heads as a best alternative.

Holyghost filled wo/men do not need no human crutches.

God always offends our minds to reveal the heart. He goes on to choose a click of low bred men to become Jesus' disciples. Men unrecognised and despised that even when they spoke languages they had never learned, the skeptics scorned. But after the infilling of the holyghost, fellow country men were mesmerised seeing as,'these men were unlearned'.

Wat Jesus died to purchase for us, worldly church merchants are tryna trade for peanuts and doughnuts. What Christ purchased for us is priceless. Money cant buy the holyghost or replace the spirit of God for that matter.

One man of old tried to buy Holyghost power and got a curse for that blasphemy.

There are merchants in the church today and they are from the Venice of hell.
The gates of hell prevail today because men are busy filling church pews with empty hearts whose heads get phat on theology but no nothing of Holyghost transforming power. Alas, the world looks at us as pitiful. We substitute agonising for organising, praying for playing and paying. Deacons should be men full of the spirit but we have men slack in prayer filling those sits.

Such men cannot bring in the harvest. The pastor who is not praying is playing and getting paid. Tombs beget tombs and wombs life and moooo life!

What is it that would make a man sell everything or leave the comfort and affluence of his home in search of that treasure?

It is a pity that even men called to the frontline seek the unregenerate as their Joshua and Hur. How can the unregenerate stand on the frontline without the breastplate of righteousness or the shield of faith in a mighty battle for the unregenerate against principalities and the very wickedness in the high place the unregenerate celebrate??

Which regenerate Man of God with a harp needs Chameleon or 50 Cent to soar in the heavenlies?

This is another absurdity that we pursue in church because the light of His glory shines dim against the allure of hollywood lights.

Jesus said that He will build His church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail. The master waits that we pull down the sign posts infront of our churches,'MEN AT WORK' and allow Him to build His Church that will prevail.

A MUST READ!

2007-06-03T18:09:00.000+03:00
Today's Sleeping Giant
By Leonard Ravenhill

Solemnly and slowly, with his index finger extended, Napoleon Bonaparte outlined a great stretch of country on a map of the world. "There," he growled, "is a sleeping giant. Let him sleep! If he wakes, he will shake the world." That sleeping giant was China. Today, Bonaparte's prophecy of some one hundred and fifty years ago makes sense.

Today Lucifer is probably surveying the church just as Bonaparte did China. One can almost behold the fear in his eyes as he thinks of the Church's unmeasured potential and growls, "Let the Church sleep! If she wakes, she will shake the world." Is not the Church the sleeping giant of today?

Some years ago the newspaper headlines carried the story of a young Chinese student who "flunked" his exams here in America. So humiliated was he and so withered by anticipated scorn that for three years the youth hid in the belfry of a church and became skin and bones. Because of his shame, he froze in winter and blistered in summer under that church's thin roof. As today's Church of Jesus Christ thinks about the day of reckoning that is surely coming, oh that a holy fear would come upon her (even if it drives her to extremes) in order to arouse her from her present paralysis!

Consider Samson's fall. He didn't get drunk; he didn't commit murder; he didn't steal. Samson fell simply because he succumbed to the natural, and fell asleep.

That one small act put him into captivity, made a false god popular, and scattered the forces of the true and living God.

If even yet you feel a hangover of the old interpretation that the Samson of the Bible is a distant relative of Hercules or Atlas (famed in mythology for carrying the world on his back), then think again. Samson was no human monstrosity. He was no super-edition of a Goliath. If Samson had been a colossus, then why did Delilah ask the question, "Wherein lieth thy great strength?"

Let the final word be from the Word of God itself, for in telling the story of men mighty in faith, the writer to the Hebrews says: Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson,... who through faith ... stopped the mouths of lions" (Heb. 11:32-33). Only two men in Scripture stopped the mouths of lions--Daniel and Samson. But no giant could single-handedly, as Samson, "put to flight the armies of the aliens," or toy with opposing armies.

Here, Samson slays a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass; there, he kills another thirty men.Here, he takes the gates of Gaza for a ride;

there, he tears a lion like paper.

To add insult to injury, the Spirit's comment is "he had nothing in his hand."
Note well, yea, read for yourself the whole story of the secret of this mighty exploiter, this more-than-conquering believer: "The Spirit of the Lord rested mightily upon him. " Everything in the story adds up to this staggering fact: Supernatural power was upon Samson.

Now turn back ten chapters in this wonder book of Judges and have a little peep into the life of Gideon. Surely as a boy, Gideon had heard from his father the hair-raising stories of a mighty Deity. In Judges 6, Gideon is older, and while threshing corn, is fearing an attack of the Midianites. For seven years, the once liberated slaves of Pharaoh had again become captives. Dens and caves were their homes. No longer were they able to sing the Lord's song.

It must have sounded like a fairy tale when that angel appeared to Gideon and informed him, "God is with thee, thou mighty man of valor." Yet he shot back the answer, "If God be with us, where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of?" This answer makes clear that Gideon was expecting some supernatural evidence. To him, the seal of the Lord's presence would be something that could not be rationalized.

Alas that today there is more evidence of religious sensation before our eyes than evidence of spiritual regeneration and supernatural phenomenon! Not many Christians today can forget the fact that the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, but we seem to have lost sight of the fact that the Lion of the tribe of Judah has defeated the roaring lion of hell, and therefore every anointed Samson or Gideon or church can also slay the lion of hell. Though wicked men are doing wickedly, God's promise to us is that "the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits" (Daniel 11:32).

This much is sure:

If we could merit revival by fasting, there would be many martyred by starving.

If we could organize revival, we would pool our thinking to outwit the powers of darkness.

If we could buy this elusive revival with the mammon of unrighteousness, we could get a score of what we call Christian millionaires to underwrite the thing for us.

If we could blast the devil from this present world, we would pledge the politicians for an atom bomb.

God pity us that after years of writing, using mountains of paper and rivers of ink, exhausting flashy terminology about the biggest revival meetings in history, we are still faced with gross corruption in every nation, as well as with the most prayerless church age since Pentecost.

This is a plea for the return of the supernatural; but I must also give this a word of explanation. For a decade, all over this land there has been a ministry of the miraculous (more or less), and thank God for all who honor Him and remain faithful. But having said that, here is a plea for sane thinking and a spiritual evaluation of the evangelistic field. To a large degree, have we not substituted seeing for hearing? In Acts, Philip the evangelist could have transferred the Ethiopian eunuch to a city seething with revival fever where the eunuch could have seen "the lame leap like an hart and the tongue of the dumb sing." Instead, he pitched right into the Word of the living God, and beginning at the same Scripture preached unto him Jesus. We need the miraculous but we also need Christ-centered teaching. Our crucified, exalted Christ must have preeminence over all other slants of truth, for while the Church is languishing, the world is perishing. "Awake, awake, put on strength, 0 arm of the Lord..." (Isaiah 51:9)

Again let me say, Samson's size was not the secret of his strength. The fact that he was the same size after he backslid negates the idea that he was a giant. His only external peculiarity was his long locks, uncut because he was a Nazarite. Nor had his long hair in itself any abnormal power. Samson's secret was obedience. As long as Samson trod the straight and narrow path of obedience, he was invincible.

Let us remember, too, that Samson, who began in the Spirit, fell into the flesh, and so had a prison term to bring him to his senses. Finally, by one last mighty miracle, he finished in the Spirit. Backslider, this is a word for your recovery, for God can restore the years that the cankerworm and the caterpillar have eaten. He who is able delights in mercy.

Samson's final act of power was the crowning achievement of a spectacular life’s work. After he had slipped out from under the harness of obedience, he was forced into separation from the world in a prison. Once an army trembled at his very sight; later a single boy came to lead the blinded Samson into the temple of Dragon, the fish-god. How the mighty had fallen! Yet now, God took this "weak thing" into a temple full of lords of the Philistines and set him between the pillars. "Samson took hold of the pillars ... the one with his right hand and the other with his left ... and he bowed himself with all His might" (judges 16:29-30) Holy jealousy gripped him. Mighty as he had been in other things, Samson now proved mightiest in prayer: "Lord, strengthen me ... this once!' (vs. 28) Would to God that every professed believer in the whole of Christendom would borrow this prayer and mean it. Then with dramatic conclusion, Samson sealed the doom of many more of the enemies of God in his dying than in his living.

Is this the dying hour of this dispensation? Many say it is. Some Christians have already hung their harps on the willows, and yet others seem to delight in speaking of the Church's present lapse as a proof of divine inspiration. But I myself believe that if the Church will only obey the conditions, she can have a revival any time she wants it. The problem of the Church is the problem in the garden of Gethsemane-sleep! For while men sleep, the enemy, sows his seed through his cults. Lest men sleep the sleep of eternal death, 0h arm of the Lord, 0h Church of the living God, awake!

If the church is going to attain to her potential in this last hour, it is apparent that we are going to have to dust off an old word that many of us have forgotten is in the English language -- DISCIPLINE! To some, this word discipline will have a monastic flavor, for it smells of the Middle Ages or throws onto the screen of the mind a picture of an unwashed hermit or a hollow-eyed anchorite. Be not deceived. Every smart "top brass” military expert has arrived there because he wore the harness of discipline. Leonard Bernstein in his music-talks holds his baton like a magic wand over mesmerized million because of discipline. This brings to mind the words of the poet:

The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward through the night!

If any man wants to write a bestseller, let him attempt a book on How to be a Saint in Six Easy Lessons. Such a writer would be fishing with bait that this generation of believers wants; but I, for one, would not swallow it.

In a brilliant sermon called "Discipleship," G. Cambell Morgan says, "Jesus Christ could speak to the sorrow-burdened heart of humanity words so full of mother-love and father-love as to make men crowd and press round Him. On the other hand, He could suddenly speak words that flashed and scorched and burned until men drew back in astonishment." Bracketed in the last group would be these two commands: "Take my yoke upon you" and "My disciple, take up your cross and follow me." Both of these words imply discipline.

When we sing in a sunlit church "Oh to be like Thee; Oh to be like Thee," we get weepy and feel an emotional lift. But permit this simple challenge:
Do we really mean 'Oh to be like Thee' -- like the Christ of God, who was a man of discipline?

Do we really mean 'Oh to be like Thee' -- fasting alone in the desert?

Do we mean ‘Oh to be like Thee' to touch the depths of prayer that make us cry, 'All Thy billows are gone over me.'

Do we mean 'Oh to be like Thee' -- to become habituates of the fastness of the prayer chamber?

Do we mean 'Oh to be like Thee' -- in a will like His, for He said,

"I always do the will of my Father." Is that not discipline?

The religious sentimentalist who sings "Just a closer walk with Thee" but walks close to the ungodly and sits with the blasphemers, is not taken seriously in either heaven or hell. Be very sure, friend, that this vile world is not "a friend to grace to help on to God." We need to pray the Father to put some blood into this "water" that runs through our veins. Our Simon-like natures need the Upper Room fire to clean us out and the discipline of the Spirit to shape us into soldiers.

Twenty-five years of discipline in a crow’s nest of an office up behind his church in Chicago brought about a Dr. A. W. Tozer, who produced a book, The Pursuit of God. This in turn produced on the ocean of spiritual teaching waves that lap their way to the ends of the earth.

After I spoke at a session in the Bible School of Wales, Mrs. Rees Howells called me for a private talk. We stood on the veranda of her home overlooking beautiful Swansea Bay I can see her finger upheld as she said, "Many talk of my husband's buying this place with a shilling (fourteen cents) in his pocket. What they forget is that he prayed twelve hours a day for eleven months to know the mind of God." Brethren, that's discipline!

Today, immediately when one gets out of step with a nearby Christian, he is considered a legalist. Just remember, in "that great day of Judgment" when we must an stand before His throne, no man will be ashamed he was dubbed over-spiritual, though many will weep, groan, and "suffer loss" because of lack of discipline. Discipline is a harness by which we enable the Spirit to get the best out of our frail humanity. The Apostle Paul was a disciplinarian like his Master:

He disciplined his body: "I keep my body under."

He disciplined himself to loneliness: "All men forsook me."

He disciplined himself to scorn: "We are fools for Christ's sake."

He disciplined himself to poverty: "We suffered need."

He disciplined himself to rejection: "We are despised."

He disciplined himself to death: "I die daily."

He disciplined himself to suffering: "Persecuted, but not forsaken."

May this be our prayer, "Oh Lord, I bow my neck to Thy yoke!"

Since the hour Adam first rose to his feet, man has not stood, as today, between such potential and such peril. America is still the richest nation in the world. It is a mighty crucible into which refugees of almost all modern nations are poured. It has far more Bible schools than any other nation. In these Bible schools is dedicated manpower. Here, too, is wealth to get this manpower to the ends of the earth, and here is linguistic ability unmatched in the annals of time.

Even the gathering at Pentecost had not the potential, humanly speaking, that this vast nation has. Do you wonder, then, that from every angle, hell has America under cross fire? This mighty land is cursed with blessings . I fear that unless she awakens, repents, and puts on the whole armor, of God, she will be blessed with cursings. Already other nations are in the slavery of oppression. Can America and Britain long remain free? Unless we are to have the war of wars that will usher us into the night Of nights and the judgment of judgments, we must have the revival of revivals. Pale, pathetic, palliating preaching must be driven from the church like the idols it promotes. It is time for the church to cry again, "Where is the God of Elijah?"

Ambrose Fleming called the resurrection of Jesus Christ "the best attested fact in history" Yet at Easter time, vain effort is made to rationalize the stupendous event of the Resurrection in order to try to save face before pseudo-intellectualism, which boggles at the fact that the Lord of glory died and rose again, triumphant over death, over hell, and over the grave. Who, then, can dispute the following biting statements of Murdo MacDonald in his book, The Vitality of Faith: "Ever since the Renaissance, men have been trying to water down the Christian creed. Give us a religion purged of everything that defies logic, a religion stripped of the supernatural and emptied of miracle, a religion that is smooth and palatable and rationally acceptable-this has been the popular cry" Surely the church, weak in heart and courage, has gone out of the way to oblige.

The doom of this decaying civilization is spelled out in our crowded divorce courts, our all-time high of alcoholics and drug addicts, the number of illegitimate births or the number of abortions. A Gallup poll shows that these days most people accept lying as part of everyday business. Virtue is scorned.

Truth lies fallen in the street!

Somewhere in the archives of the British Admiralty at Whitehall, London, they have the record of a fine piece of maritime strategy. Ships of five nations were anchored in a bay in the South Pacific. A fierce storm was gathering offshore. The British captain decided to run, not away from the storm but into it. Everything available was battened down. Out crashed the ship into the boiling seas-pitching, tossing, rolling, and shuddering. Indeed, she did everything but go down. A couple of days later, buffeted but not broken, she returned to the port to find the ships of the other nations piled up on the beach.

The storm of the ages is about to break. Let the church call its crew to a new dedication. Remembering that Christ is at the helm, and with Christ's Crest as our ensign, let us run into the storm. After the storm, we, too, shall return-to see upon the shores of time the battered, piled, wrecked, hell-inspired ideologies of the hour.

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COPYRIGHT/REPRODUCTION LIMITATIONS: This data file is the sole property of Leonard Ravenhill. It may not be altered or edited in any way. It may be reproduced only in its entirety for circulation as "freeware," without charge. All reproductions of this data file must contain the copyright notice (i.e., "Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas"). This data file may not be used without the permission of Leonard Ravenhill for resale or the enhancement of any other product sold. This includes all of its content with the exception of a few brief quotations. Please give the following source credit: Copyright (C)1996 by Leonard Ravenhill, Lindale, Texas - http://www.ravenhill.org/

Seperating the holy from the HOLY

2007-05-27T14:23:00.000+03:00
This is not an era in need of good men/women. Men that try to remix the gospel and make it acceptable and appealing.

This is an era for 'bad men'. Men that will not let up or shut up. Men that wont settle for the common but constantly pursue the uncommon-what the world brands as foolishness and extremism.

Men/women that would rather be cast away.

They follow in tjhe footsteps of Elijah who starved a whole nation for three years at the command of God whose repercussion must have awed even the most religious Jews that conservantly followed the logos. (Ravens and a heathen widow???)

John the Baptist had the audacity to call 'noble men' broods of vipers...yeah, Holy Spirit inspired audacity and HOLY indignation.

These are men that will not stop only at following the written word but will be driven by their consuming passion to obey the revealed word. Men otherworldly. Men that will not appeal or appease.

While Worldly men are trapped between doing good or bad, Godly men must rise from doing good to doing GOOD. Seperating the holy from the HOLY.

While worldly men swagger on the streets for good deeds (giving money to the poor-charity and orphanages, going to church every sunday, not touching the bottle or fornicating with sisters), the church must weep because the non believer man thinks himself better than some church folk and therein implies, 'Why do i need yo Jesus then?'
But brag not oh worldly man, for the lord sees yo vanity and yo self righteousness is like the smell of the under clothing of a woman in her Ps.
The Lord cries out to His peeps, 'Come out from among them (the worldlings) and be ye seperate.

Men of God who are nat Godly men misrepresent Jehovah. There is pomp in being a man of God and oblivion in being Godly coz you die everyday, you become less so that HE might be glorified see? might be glorified. See?
You can be a man of God or woman of God but still BURN!

In a generation of Humanistic appeal, God is calling His peeps to seperate the holy from the HOLY. God's perfect will must be held in high esteem and the permissive will looked at as elementary.

Godly men do not pursue girlfriends. No! They seek for wives.

We are not to choose friends for ourselves in Christendom, God should lead the way because herein lies the deception and recipe for eternal damnation or bliss and the fulfillment of our purpose in life.
Friends are like signposts to our destiny. Hell or heaven.

It aint enuff to be goodly, we must be godly in works, speech and character.

Seperating the holy from the HOLY and i have barely scratched the surface.

The word'MEN' hath been advertently chosen to represent both sexes by the writer.

PERSONALITY CULTS-Dead wombs

2007-05-12T15:09:00.000+03:00
PERSONALITY CULTS - Dead wombs.

“Blessed is the man whose heart is set on pilgrimage…”

On this road less traveled, it no longer haunts the soul that has known the midnite to be a best friend and the rollercoster that cruises it closer to its maker, seein that livin holy is as rare as seein black folks playin hockey, only reinforces this cliché among pilgrims, ‘The spiritual man must walk alone’.

We live in an age where the modern species would rather not look ‘His way’ because His way is a threat to the crowns humans have bestowed…

The cult of personalities-Celebrit-ism scoffs at the way of the master-the cross. This cult even hath the audacity to ooze its way into the house of Jay Master Jay like mucus from a septic wound.

We have come a long way dear brethren and we now have our own celebrities-Celebrity Pastors, evangelists, musicians, profets…

In every generation, God will always have a remnant. This breed of people know like their master that the very people that cry ‘Hossanah…’ as they set you on top of a mule are the very same people that will cry, ‘crucify’ hours later. The prophets know that their daily bread is affliction not celebration. He who is celebrated has his ego elevated, which is anti Christ. Christ and the cross are synonymous and the cross will always advocate for the slayin of the ego. The man with a cross around his neck is the ‘’modern day’ celebrity, while the one with the cross on his back is a dead man walkin. In most cases, if not all, he has very few companions. The road he travels, no one dares to tread alongside him because he is a man walking to his own funeral. The paradox is, He walks to his death only to meet his resurrection.

Again, I will echo what master Ravenhill once voiced. We need entertainment today, because there isn’t enuff joy in the house of the lord. Because entertainment is, the devil’s substitute to the joy of the lord.
Because there isn’t enough power in the house of God, people are always looking for the latest scientific development, and their hair stands up when they see some fancy show on TV.

Fleshpots beckon and even the Lord’s elect follow. Into the corridors of reveling they are found, mouth split open with saliva forming at both corners of the mouth-Mesmerized?
We amuse ourselves to hell. Reveling dear blogren, is noted among the lusts of the flesh. This is where the carnal and the spiritual are separated.
Me going to be amused at secular fleshpots…P square…s square…whatever…only makes God want to throw up.

Blogger like any other spot suffers the danger of becoming a tomb that forms personality cults where men would rather be celebrated and praised. We put men on a pedestal and would rather look at the merry side of things. A vice versa comment will catch many a blogger throwing tantrums like Da Brat, and the innocence of the blog is betrayed by the mass of tantrums that blogren will throw in an attempt to defend ‘their own’. This is where the strength of our faith (wat we livin for) is tested.

Our superficiality comes to the surface as we smite those that would rathet tell us the truth than hype us.

For the Christian blogger, you have only one relevant audience, so I bin told. Yo posts are first of all, incense unto the lord. If that incense is acceptable, then the lord in His sovereignity will sprinkle it on whomsoever He wills. I bin told, I have to post at least one story a week to allow time to generate more comments. Many a time, I have sat down and words come gushing like water through a broken pipe. My pen has been like the tongue of an eloquent speaker. Other times have I sat quietly as the mid nite oil burnt silently but hardly has a single phrase or word come through. The lord afflicts me with His silence at the mid nite hour as I patiently wait. I must eat before I serve, so I first chew His burden before it can translate into words from my innermost being.

Fellow pilgrims, our success is, not measured by how many comments our graffiti walls peck, but how many saints our words make.
The folly of 1000 comments is that not one of them will be genuine leave alone talking about the honesty of the heart hyping us. Their morality to please/hype us is not pure morality at all.

On most occasions, they will drop comments but mourn the fact that you aint visiting their graffiti walls. Something fishy , about their motives. See?

Alas, we suffer the peril of falling into the trap of the personality cult that I have barely scratched on the back. The desire to stand well with even our ‘religious’ friends destroys originality and makes imitators out of us. But the way to escape this snare is simple. Make a complete surrender to God, love Him with all your heart and love every man for His sake. Determine to obey your own convictions as they crystallize within you as a result of prayer and constant study of the scriptures. After that, you may safely ignore the expectations of your friends as well asv the criticism of your enemies.

Jesus would not commit himself to those who praised Him because He knew their hearts. The very lips that praise you today will shout ‘crucify’ tomorrow.

As I conclude, let me repeat this. THE PROPHET WILL ALWAYS BE HOUNDED AND WOUNDED (one gal in the palace asked for John the Baptist’s head for a birth day gift and Jezebel put a price on the head of Elijah). But faint not for this is the destiny of every true servant of the lord-even death on the stake! Befoe you venture into the lord’s bizz, pledge yo head to heaven. Flee any appearance of evil. Let us lose ourselves from any carnal fear and act from within with a total disregard of the opinions of others coz we write, speak and live for the opinion of the hosts of heaven. AMEN!

Just How Christian are u Anyway-By the Ambasador

2007-05-03T18:17:00.000+03:00
Whether we claim to be a "Christian rapper," a "Christian hip hopper," or just a "plain Christian," the question should be asked of us, "just how Christian are we?" The best Christian rappers are not just good rappers but, good Christians. The best Christian hip hoppers are not just cool hip hoppers but, good Christians.
The best "plain Christians" are not those who have perfect church attendance, but those who live all of their life submitted and obedient to Jesus Christ. This is my burden and focus in 2007—the amping up of real Christians who are potent in their Christianity!
Will the real Christians please stand up and stand out? Christian crowds are now easier than ever to amass. We've got our own celebrities, our own festivals, our own award shows, etc. Through the right marketing and promotions we can "do it big" these days, but in the midst of all of this I'm still plagued with the question, "just how Christian are we?"

This almost sounds like a trick question because it seems impossible to judge something like this. How do you judge how Christian someone is, or how Christian you are? I'm not sure that a "right answer" will be agreed on, but certainly we should be able to answer how much of the essentials of Christ's character and concerns are easily detected in us? Out of the darkness of secular culture God has clearly snatched for himself individuals and placed them into a union with His Son Jesus Christ.
After this transfer, a lifestyle change is supposed to visibly and tangibly demonstrate the difference being in Christ makes. Christ is supposed to take over a person and live his life out through them. Therefore, I look to my generation and ask "just how Christian are you?"

I labor missionally in the hip hop-saturated urban sphere on behalf of Jesus Christ. In the last decade I have personally been apart of, and a witness to the continued improvement of artistic skill among this group. The improvement of skill is just as difficult to "judge" but most people who have followed the journey of Christian hip hop would probably agree with me. But while I have to admit that there has been an improvement of skill on the mic and the drum machine, I have not seen an equally impressive improvement of Christian character and kingdom concern. We are excelling in ministry giftedness, but not necessarily as much in spiritual weightiness.
Due to the stereotypical image of hip hoppers (saved and unsaved), it has been my personal aspiration to display weighty Christianity, and not simply hip hop skill. The necessity of this was never more illustrated than during the rise of Craig Lewis and similar critics. Since his attacks against Christian hip hop and the Christian hip hop community, it becomes even more apparent that Christians must display robust Christian-ness whether they are hip hop or not. Let's look at some things that should be true of us as Christians living in an age of religious compromise.

Our Christian-ness Should Be a Public Affair

Christians are "cities on a hill which can't be hid" not under-cover agents (Matt 5:14). According to Jesus Christ in Matt 5:13-14 Christians are considered "light" and "salt" partly because both their presence and the absence are readily detectible and significantly impacting. If it is not obvious that you are a Christian, then you are probably not, or you have a Christianity that is weak in its Christ-aroma. Many Christians, especially in the pop-world have learned how to keep their Christian-ness so undercover that nobody either knows that they are a Christian or no one cares. One of the most harmful and deceptive beliefs that exists among believers, especially those who want worldly acceptance, is the idea that Jesus can be buried deep in our heart and only peek His head out if someone expresses interest in our personal religious beliefs. This is the sentiments of many Christian artists who have very little public boast in Christ, very little mention of Christ, very little public dealings with Christ, but declare that backstage or "on-the-side" they are slipping Christ into the picture. Jesus Christ did not redeem a people so that they could sneak Him into the party. He is not meant to be slid through the cracks, but rather to be broadcasted loud and clearly by those of us that he has redeemed (delivered). Our faith is not a private matter, but a public affair. The Lord Jesus is to be our boast and our life, and we are to be his proud and public representatives—on and off the stage. In 07 let us not have a Christianity that is so private and personal that it never affects the public or the corporate surrounding. As Christian artists, as well as those of you who may be Christian celebrities, let us not just be known only for "backstage exploits", but let us have "onstage exploits."

Spiritual Affections Should Dominate our Passions

The struggle to live as though dead is a universal struggle for all of God's people. Regularly we see our natural affections being nurtured and displayed more than spiritual ones. Our natural appetites are fed more than our spiritual ones. Zeal for earthly passions eclipse zeal for heavenly realities, and knowledge of earthly topics far exceed knowledge of theological topics. Too often Christians are diesel in their craft, but frail in their faith. They are the geniuses and "Einstein's" of their vocations, but remedial in their grasp of the biblical realm. Church youth groups run the risk of falling into this category because today's youth programs are entertainment heavy, but doctrinally skimpy.
I pray that 2007 we will depend on the Spirit to boost our godly affections and decrease our longings for "worldly" delicacies. Let us spend more time in the Scriptures than TV, and spend more time in cyphas around God's word than cyphas around other things. As diligently as we study for a degree, let us diligently show ourselves to be approved workers who do not have to be ashamed. As the world marvels at our skills and abilities, may heaven rejoice to see our faith and devotion to Him who sits on the throne.

Christ's Followers Don't Fade, They Keep Following.

Are we marching to a different beat today? In regard to this world, I hope so, in regard to the faith, I hope and pray not. Christianity is a relay race—a faith that is passed down and passed on. We will never outgrow the need and the command to join the saints through the ages whose lives were built on personal and corporate prayer, worship, assembling with the saints, evangelizing and discipling, grappling with the Scriptures, and engaging in acts of kindness (Acts 2:42-47). We'd better not start replacing these Christian basics with beats, rhymes, hobbies, and business-moves that are supposedly for Christ's benefit. It is real easy to hide out in the ministry today, because ministry can be big business today. For some, they never had it so good until they started "doing ministry." The sad thing is that I meet so many people that see themselves in ministry that neglect the fundamentals like corporate prayer, studying the Scriptures in community, and faithfully assembling with the saints. I did not learn Christ this way.Lately I have been more keenly aware of the new generations of believers who are learning what it means to be a Christian from those of us that have been screaming about Jesus Christ over the microphone. Just when we were ready to kick our feet up and enjoy the work of other committed Christians, the call for us to join the work came from on high. That is why I pray that our lives will demonstrate what our lips say. If we tell people that they should pray may they be able to see us in intense prayer. If we tell them that they should be a solid participant in a particular community of God's people, I hope that we are such participants. If we tell them to rally with other believers and form solid community with them, we should be doing the same. In regards to the Christian basics, there is no need to march to a different beat. We are the leaders of today and tomorrow, so we must begin leading today. For those who have been sucked up into the grind of Christian hip hop, or just "civilian affairs" we must not allow the daily grind to hinder our spiritual grind. Selah—pause and think about that.

Christ's Followers Refuse to Be Sons of Pharaoh Since They are Sons/Daughters of God?

Christians reject worldly exaltation in order to heighten their chance of remaining faithful to God, and keep a connection with the people of God. (Heb 11:24-25). Their motivation is like Moses' in Hebrews 11:26, "He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt...." In this age of "Christian celebrity-ism" it is hard to imagine this being many people's desire. From celebrity pastors to singers and actors—so few Christian celebrities deflect human exaltation that if someone does it, they are looked at as "over-doing it," or being needlessly offensive. This idea of tempering one's personal exaltation is not radical however, but it is actually rather Christ-like or Christian. Moses rejected pharaoh's throne so that he could please God and lead His people. John the Baptizer rejected an opportunity to ride the wave of his own popularity which he was gaining as Messiah's forerunner (Jn 1:19-21). Jesus would not let the crowd make him their kind of king, but chose to remain faithful to the mission of the cross (Jn 6:15). Warning! The world has plenty of money, power, and respect to offer us, but it comes with a hidden cost. We must not be afraid to let their exaltation go, so that we will receive God's exaltation in due season (1 Pt 5:6). When God grants us legitimate exaltation among the people of this world we must use it for godly purposes. I know—this is easier said than done.

As believer in Jesus Christ we will often be offered opportunities to improve our earthly situations by gaining favor with the world. It's no secret that when the world likes you, they will support and even exalt you (Jn 15:19). However, Jesus said that the world didn't like him but, rather hated him (Jn 15:18). So the only way for the world to hate Jesus, but like those of us who belong to Jesus, is by us making some sort of compromise. By luring us away from Jesus and his despised people (true believers), the world begins to tolerate us because the smell of Christ that was once on us begins to fade. Once the world makes a once despised Christian a "star", it becomes more difficult for that Christian to live out basic Christianity. The pressures of staying liked, and doing well will take its toll.

The world is known for digging into God's pot of believers and luring them out from the community of faith into the "den of snakes". The world recruits from God's stash and then employs them for the devil's work. Before long, the Christian celebrity is forced to primarily exist among the other worldly celebrities that are apart of the same godless "world." Over time the Christian develops tighter relationships, and greater solidarity with the godless "stars" of show biz, than they have with the "regular" Christians of the world. I see this frequently, and may never get too many "amens," but this is a trustworthy statement.
"For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are…" (1 Cor 2:26-28). Let us be careful to stay grounded in the community of faith, and monitor how much human exaltation we accept. Too much is spiritual toxic.

Christ's Followers Make God's Priorities Their Priorities.

Christians prioritize God's passions over their own, and therefore alter their personal pursuits in light of His revealed plans. God has passions and we have passions. God has plans and we have plans. The question on the floor is, "when our plans and passions clash, who's gonna win?" I know we would quickly respond by saying "God of course," but this is no usually the real. I find that it is rare for those of us with "American appetites" to yield our passions in order for God's to prevail. God has provided examples of people whose personal priorities were not separate, but one with His priorities.
What made Nehemiah take a leave of absence from his lofty job in the king's palace and journey to the ruins of Jerusalem to rebuild the city wall?

(*) What made the postexilic community of Israel leave the prosperity of the Persian Empire and return to the rubbles of Jerusalem?
(*) Why did God send the prophet Haggai to rebuke His people about their failure to rebuild His temple?

These people's passions had become one with God's. God had revealed a dominant passion for both the city of Jerusalem, and the temple in Jerusalem. While God loves cities in general, He has revealed a special love for Jerusalem. While God empowers all mankind to do many great things, He provided special empowering grace for the building of the temple. He has always given a greater measure of grace for the accomplishing of His priorities, however, sometimes God's people ceased to make God's passion their passion.

Today God has a special passion for His glory, His church, Hs mission, and His gospel. Of course many other things are good in God's sight, but not many things rival these passions of God's. These priorities should become the individual and corporate priorities of every believer. There is so much to say about these, I'll stop and save it for another time.

Conclusion

May this year be a year of dedication to God's passions and not just our dreams. This is what Christians do—they do the will of the Father. How Christian are you? Answer this question this year by the choices you make, and the passions you pursue. Can we get back to the fundamentals of our faith? Being cool is cool, but being Christian is essential. In 2007 let's go to war together, contending for the faith once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3).

Chocolate Souljahz

2007-04-29T23:00:00.000+03:00
They fear the gashes the enemy of souls might inflict upon them let alone the weight of public opinion. Therefore, they would rather not rock Christian extremism. Consequently, they come out as acceptable, relevant, loving, sweet and not harsh in their doctrine and theology. They are celebrated and heralded even in the corridors of humanistic hodgepodge.

Their hearts once bled as they left the warmth of companionship and their blankets because in the greatest warfare, the world has ever known and for the greatest captain of time and eternity, they rose to pray and skip blankets for many nites.

They know nothing of sacrifice now; they are terrible enemies, of the cross. The word of God cannot come to them ‘cause it is like throwing precious pearls away. They do not give people what they need but what they want.
In a generation, of arrogant apostasy, where the ears itch for love melodies, their silver tongues seek the applause of men. They are phat on human applause but they quietly ‘stroke to death’.
They know nothing of ‘I will not defile myself with the King’s meat’, so, they comfortably sit at secular tables instead of at the table of grace.
They major in cosmetology and physical therapy-the designer shell that must ‘bling’, their reputation among ‘civilized’ folk, their acceptability, and predictability… They dread being misunderstood yet the master’s voice will always carry innuendos in a world that would rather not look His way-Holiness first and a must!

Therefore, they spice God’s word with human reason hence robbing it of its power, its bluntness and authority. They would rather not hurt/insult folk ‘cause their face must stay in place.
They would rather not sound extreme lest they are misunderstood as harsh, abusive, ‘holier than thou’ or pharisaic.
But like I always say, ‘we don’t do this for audition but for pleasure ‘cause our meat is to do our father’s will’.
I bin told, we have only one relevant audience!!. That is all that matters. Not everyone will understand us. He cannot be rejected (the holiest man) and we be accepted. The servant is not phatter than his master.

This is a trumpet call to all profet-souljahz. The preacher is heralded but the profet must be hounded and wounded. Faint not though. The times for world dominion-the dominion that was spoke for us in the beginning, to subdue and rule over all the earth are now. Nations are ours for the taking, the industry, the political arena, socio-economic platform, the intellectual flesh pots should be redeemed for the lord with a Holy ghost revolution ousting evolution to where it belongs- in a tomb. Agnostics should fall at the master’s feet with agony of soul that will not let go of them until they are re made by regeneration. There were giants in the church alas; we now have merchants hunting mice in church corridors. Nevertheless, the warriors have to rise at the sound of the trumpet because the clock sits still and the moon is held until…It is an hour of emergency. Chocolate souljahz will not do but prophets will. Men and women who hear the voice and obey and cry out and spare not-their voices raising those that sleep among the dead telling Israel of its sin and Jacob of its transgression. This is the clarion call.

U once heard the master’s voice and it was as incense but u done sleep among the dead for so long. U don’t feel the master’s convictions nor do u hear His voice. At that, yo words do not convict yo godless friends. Matter of fact, you have become voiceless; you cannot sing the Lord’s song in a strange land. Sit down, remember Zion, weep and return to yo father’s house. Your conscious message will not raise the dead. It is a pat on their backs. You lie prostrate on the dead but are unable to raise them up like Elijah of old because there is no power in you to deliver. You sold that inheritance for a plate of acceptance in the marketplace of compromise.

Come out from the dead and be ye separate. You do not belong there! Yo pen was meant to be a liberating tool but you now turn words into money instead of turning them into souls for Jesus.
You know nothing of sacrifice, even yo rite to privileges, counting everything as dung.

Ambition is the sparkle in yo eyes but to the master, it is as the eyes of the goat whose throat hath been cut deep with a sharp knife. U choose ambition over direction, so, u would rather be rich and celebrated as a TV personality and many others in that bracket.

The way of the cross u despise which yo master embraced that u might have life. Listen and see what shame the godly men of old bring upon us modern species so cold.

CT Studd, a famed English cricketer deserted the playing field for the battlefield of world evangelism.

David Brainerd lost his place at Yale University and offered his young body so that the Red Indians might know God. He died at a young age of 28 because of o praying and fasting, which made his health give way. He coughed blood at a certain stage in the event of his demise. However, wat he accomplished, the chocolate souljah will not dream of even wen granted the blessing of longevity form the man up yonder.

His rich father disowned Francis of Assisi because he preferred the ministry to his father’s business empire. At this, he took off all the clothes his father’s money had bought him and dashed for the bushes with these words. ‘From this day forward, I will say not my father on earth but my father who art in heaven’. St Francis chapels are named after this man with a volcano for a heart.

There were giants in the church.
Savonarola of Florence in Italy rejected the priest’s hat from the Vatican saying the only hat he’d gladly wear would be that of a martyr, signed in his own blood.

Chocolate souljahz, see how much we love our lives and yet we are told that he who loves his life will lose it and he who hates his will gain it. The one who loves mother, father, friends and companion more than God is not worthy of the kingdom. It is time for the chocolate souljah to rise and put on the armor of a warrior and live like a dying man to a dying world.

I will say this again. Despise what the world glamorizes- money, fame, social standing, intellectualism, human achievement, material possessions, and all these things that wont see the light of New Jerusalem.
With Grit and gumption, let us riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiise!

The church of God is calling, in duty be not slack; you cannot fight the good fight while lying on your back. We are slackers and as far as I can discern, at the judgment seat of Christ, there will be no medals for slackers.

May this find a resting place in the heart of the searching pilgrims. Affectionately in Christ. Amen!

"THE PERIL OF THE IMMEDIATE"

2007-04-17T17:32:00.000+03:00
Christian peeps are supposed to be like sojourners on this rusty rollercosta called the world.
Like Abraham of old, we are to walk as men captivated by the vision of a city built by God himself.
We are to live like Moses of the Red sea fame, who seeing through the space in time, chose to give up his comfort in the Egyptian palace for years in the dessert, so as to deliver his people from the hand of the Egyptian.

He considered the reproach of christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. Off he went to the backside of the dessert, not for four days, but forty years-one third of his life!
Jesus despised the shame of the cross to give His father a family of those that believe-Christians. Elijah was told to hide in a cave. He goes in there for three whole years!

We live in an age of fast foods, fast cars, fast lanes and a first kiss...dotcoms and gimme gimme gimme some mooo. Most of us cant stand three hours without turning on the TV to watch woman of my life or listen to Roberto late through the nite on capital FM, yet we loathe dating the Holyghost one overnite a week.

Try three days, try three weeks, cutting yoself off from everything external, everything worldly that has been labeled and poisoned by the world systems...No oneder God does not go before us no more. His voice calls from behind 'cause we have fallen from classic to ashes. His voice is strange in the land and there is no prophet to call His peeps back. We are busy courting the mundane and hunting mice in the corridors of materialism.

Someone once said, 'Lock yoself up for a week with only the bible as the only book, bread and water and the HolyGhost as the only visitor. You will either breakthrough or breakdown'
We cry for human companionship and at 22 the las will mourn the fact that she dont have a boo yet.'I aint getting any younger', she moans.
Blogren, without a vision peeps perish! Many a young gal has bailed outta marriage not because of marrying the wrong dude but because of marrying too early. Before long, she is worn out with the responsibilities of being a mother and a wife. Just because all yo galfriends got men dont mean you should go too!

"The peril of the immediate." We are living in the framework of the immediate. We live there as much as other men. We are not supposed to. We are to live as men branded for eternity. Ephesians 2:7 Paul tells us that the things that are seen are temporal and the unseen are eternal. We need to be careful of living in the visible all the time.

Visible values, the durability of things that are only for a time. Alas we go for the temporary pleasures of sin instead of long time rewards that come with being obedient to the call by despising temporary suffering.

We live too much in this world. We are earth bound. How many of us are eternity conscious? If we were, we would be cleaning up house through repentance 'cause jesus is coming for a bride(The church) untainted by the world-with no spot or wrinkle. Do u think the church is that today? Jesus says she is poor, wretched, naked, blind and pitiful. That is how we look when we aspire to be like them worldly icons. We are supposed to be otherworldly like Abraham and inspire Lot out of materila slumber sorrounded by sin in Sodom.

One fact should be already decided in our hearts and that is to live with cruelty towards our lives, and abasement of our lives in this present evil world. But many will cry out that they have been insulted if their compromise is hinted on and when you try to smite them outta their complacency. But we are to cry out aloud and wake up the sleeping giants in christendom. Those who are intimate with god are worthy of this call because man cannot intimidate them.
We live for the everyday and that's our peril. We are to be eternity conscious and hold eternity's values in view and high esteem.
DO U THINK A PERSON WHO IS READY FOR ETERNITY WOULD MISS A PRAYER MEETING? we have got to get to a place were we confidently say like Paul that we have nothing yet posses all things. I want to be so God possesed even when my dear friends call it fanaticism.
We must allow God to be in complete control of us with no ambitions of our own, with no concern but to glorify the father. There is not much time left. We are not in the last days. We are in the last of the last days.
More and more and more, we should be the light in this dark world. Unashamed of the gospel(Romans 1:16) even in bloggosphere or our work places and amongst our very friends who have fed us on props in the name of vanity rides.
You may not know what a wonderful privilege you have of being an example to young men and women.
SHOW THEM
YOU AINT TIED UP WITH MONEY,
YOU AINT TIED UP WITH POSITION,
YOU AINT TIED UP TRYING TO BE THE NEXT TV CELEB...
LIVE CLOSE TO GOD DAY BY DAY
The spirit bears witness. I count all things but dung that i may glory in only one thing-THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST AND PROMOTION OF HIS HEAVENLY AGENDA!

May this stir the passion and zeal for otherworldliness

2007-04-14T11:09:00.000+03:00
A NEW BREED of MODERN PREACHERS-by Greg Gordon
A new movement of fearless uncompromising preachers:

God is raising up a new breed of preachers in our day. People are sick of modern-day soft preaching that does not move ourconsciences anymore then a worldly movie would.

God is going toraise them up, they will not be bred in modern day seminaries orbible colleges. They will speak against the whole system that israising anemic preachers and teachers.
Their messages will bebold, strong, pointed, it will offend many but save many.
Theirpreaching will bear witness to their calling. God will be in theirmessages and the fear of God will come with their message.
God has always been faithful to have a voice in every generation.Surely we find ourselves in a time as the Psalmist lamented:“There is no more any prophet, neither is there among us, anythat knoweth how long.” Yet they will come!
They will come with messages that will sear our consciences, Oh how we need amodern day prophet. Will the modern day prophet agree with allthe theology and comfort of American Christianity?
No, his message will so contradict all of what we know of Christianity thatwe will hardly believe he is from God.
Jeremiah was a prophet thatheard from God and he prophesied: “behold, I will make my wordsin thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.”
These new breed of preachers will be men that are shut-in withGod and hear from him and their words will be as “fire” and thepeople “wood.”

D.M. McIntyre spoke of this same heavenly principle:
“Before thegreat revival in Gallneukirchen broke out, Martin Boos spent hoursand days and often nights in lonely agonies of intercession.Afterwards, when he preached, his words were as flame, and thehearts of the people as grass.”
Oh these men will be “much withGod” and “little with men.” The things of earth to them will growstrangely dim.
They will be strange men to the ways and systemsof the world. They will speak against the hypocrisy in the pewsand the hirelings in the pulpits. The fear of man will not have anyhold on these men, the holy fear of God will be their overwhelmingvision. They will speak the “word of the Lord” in due season andnot refrain from being a mouthpiece in the hand of the Lord.

PROPHETIC Preaching

A.W. Tozer spoke of this new breed of preachers in his shortarticle ‘prophetic preaching’ - this is the need of our day and it willcome:
“If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation, it must be byother means than any now being used.

If the Church in the secondhalf of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered inthe first half, there must appear a new type of preacher.
The proper,ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestlytype of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks noquestions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how tomake the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these havebeen tried and found wanting.

Another kind of religious leader mustarise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man whohas seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne.
When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many),he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking,smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce andprotest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and oppositionof a large segment of Christendom.
Such a man is likely to be lean,rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world.
He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to diefor the glory of the One and the salvation of the other. But he willfear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.
This is only to saythat we need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to theChurch.
And it is my belief that the one gift we need most now isthe gift of prophecy.”Uncompromised, unsettled, unyielding, unmovable, unshakable!

These men will come with unbelievable message to those steepedin unbelief. David Wilkerson said once, “only praying men touchGod.”
These men will be ‘men of God’ that touch God and hearfrom Him. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Joel, Hosea, Zechariah,these men will find good company with the coming prophets. Theywill be fully accepted of God and fully rejected by men. God willcall them ‘blessed’ and men will call them ‘cursed.’

PICTURE of a PROPHET

Leonard Ravenhill in his book “America is too young to die” speaks of the true picture of the coming prophets to Christendom. Oh how sorely we need them: “The prophet in his day is fully accepted ofGod and totally rejected by men. The group challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from aperishing world in their warm but untested theology are not likely tovote him ‘man of the year’ when he refers to them as habituates of the ‘synagogue of Satan!’"

He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality andspirituality. In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers,there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to Godfor a prophet! He has not price tags. He is totally ‘otherworldly.’

"He lives in the heights with God and comes into the valley with a‘thus saith the Lord.’ He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow.
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted whendead! He walks before men for days, but has walked before God for years."He announces, pronounces, and denounces! God talks to himabout men. He talks to men about God. There is a terrible vacuumin Evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranksis the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness.

The man totally otherworldly. the man rejected by other men, even othergood men, because they consider him too austere, too severelycommitted, too negative and unsociable."Let him be as plain as John the Baptist. Let him for a season bea voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and stagnantchurchianity. Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle.

Let him,too, say and live, ‘This one thing I do.’ Let him reject ecclesiasticalfavors. Lim him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting,nonself- righteous, nonself-glorifying."Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself, but only thatwhich will move men to God. Let him come daily from the throneroom of a holy God, the place where he has received the order ofthe day. Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions whoare deaf through the clatter of shekels milked from this hour ofmaterial mesmerism."
Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because hehas seen a vision no man in this century has seen. God send usthis Moses to lead us from the wilderness of crass materialism,where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where enlightened men,totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.God have mercy; send us PROPHETS!”

RUN for YOUR LIFE
The message of these men will seem strong and extreme to most.They will call for utter immediate implicit obedience to the commandsof the Lord. They will call for a turning away from sin and from sinfulpractices. They will preach a God-exalting and men-abasing message.

They will not be worried about men’s self-esteem orhappiness but rather their clarion cry will be: “Holiness Unto the Lord!”
Their message might sound like this excerpt of a messagepreached by Carter Conlon: “Run from gospels that focus on yoursuccess and prosperity.
Run from those that use the name ofJesus Christ only for personal gain. Run from those that are pickingyour pocket in the name of Jesus.
Run! Run from gospels that focusonly on self-improvement, or on three steps to a better personality.Run from churches where men and not Christ are glorified. Run,get out of that place! Run from churches in America and Canadawhere there is no Bible, no cross, no searching Word, norepentance from sin. Run when there’s no mention of the blood ofJesus.

It’s an unclean place, so run! Run from churches where theworship leaves you cold, where there’s no sense of God’spresence, because they don’t know God. Run! Run from churcheswhere you’re comfortable in your sin. If you enter God’s house withsin in your life, but you’re not convicted of it, you’re sitting at atable of devils. Run! Run from pulpits that are filled with politicallydriven men who use the pulpit of God for a personal agenda.
Run!Run from those who preach division between races and cultures.Run! Run! Get out!
Turn it off. They know nothing of God. Run fromungodly, spasmodic movements and endless empty prophesying.Beloved Church. Run for your life! Run from preachers that stand,who tell only stories and jokes. Run like you’ve never run before.

Run from those that are only after money and they use onegimmick after another to get your money. One foolish thing afteranother to get your money. Run.”God is going to get the attention of us. He is going to shake“everything that can be shaken.” We should be on our face brothersand sisters. Great times of shaking are coming. Are we standingfirm on truth of God or are we allowing the world and its cares tochoke our spiritual life? God is going to raise up a new modernbreed of preachers that will be uncompromising and unrelenting intheir proclamation of the heart of God.

Hear this blunt blaring word from the late Dr. Joseph Parker: “Oh, ye white-faced, weak-kneedbelievers! Believers in what? Ye shifty speculators, stealers ofprophetic mantles! go, drink yourselves to death, and go to yourproper devil! Ye are not the Church of Christ, might well be thespeech which ascended Pauls might deliver to us, as we reshufflethe theological cards, and rearrange our credenda, and modifyand dilute our doctrinal positions and enthusiasms.”

Let us also hear one of Mr. Ravenhill’s often quoted lines: “Our pulpits todayare occupied with puppets rather than with prophets, withorganizers rather than with agonizers.”
Does that smite? It is true!Let us start praying to see God revive, restore, renew andrevolutionize the Church as we know it. We need a mighty touchof God’s Spirit and men that will speak with that anointing fromheaven. God is raising a new breed of preachers in these lastdays. Oh how we need them!

SOURCE: www.sermonindex.net

Uganda Is too Young to Die

2007-04-09T12:01:00.000+03:00
I was spiritual mapping on our streets and am sooo amazed how many gods peeps worship.
There is atleast one counterfeit church on every street corner. The bartender be the pastor, secular bands lead worship and girls dressed to appeal are ushers. Peeps come in anytime, have a drink and speak in tongues.

Contemporary Uganda brags of an era where sin is popularised, sex advertised and the peeps are mesmerised. Iniquity is drunk like water.

The recent decriminalisation of adultery condemns us into further condemnation. Tha pages however bear witness as history repeats hisself. We arrogantly walk on in the shame of our wicked ways as the the fame of the death of Jesus Christ is trampled underfoot even among his own friends-THE CHURCH!

Adultery dear fellow country men is no longer a jewel courted by unsaved folks but is also a mistress dearly beloved by the brethren.

political and religious leaders are supposed to be like fatha figa symbols, men and women to emulate but alas, the prospect of wat our heritage might be leaves us the youth dancing late into oblivion, as we meditate the proverbial 'like father like son'.

Uganda is too young to die and WE are not going to listen to the jackels wen the voices of the fathers of this nation still echoe thru the sound system of time. Uganda is the only nation this side of the big hood, whose sons laid down their lives willingly for the sake of the gospel of Jesus christ. Uganda is the apple of God's eye and his jealousy over this nation is written over events past, present and future. Uganda will not go to the dogs!

At this, let me sound the warning to every human principality in the name of music celebrities leading the peeps of this beloved country into baal worship. To the powers that be, passing court rulings that are anti christ, to every adulterer/adulteress, prostitute, pimp, thug and hustler, every fornicator, every foreign god or godess, false prophets and teachers, every witch and wizard, every godess of fashion flashing like photography and superceding mama Eve with yo nakedness...
God is arising over this country with holy indignation and is shaking everything that needs to be shaken for the sake of His name and His glory. For the sake of the covenant that was made by our fathers and signed with their own blood. UGANDA WILL SERVE NO FOREIGN gODS!!

U are late. go back to india, the west, Arabia, wherever yo coming from. Uganda is betrothed to king Jesus.

Let the voices that bear witness rise to a crescendo-UGANDA IS TOO YOUNG TO DIE!!!

CHILLUXING WITH DA EASTER SEASON

2007-04-07T19:56:00.000+03:00

The Most Celebrated Easter Sermon JOHN CHRYSOSTOM

Is there anyone who is a devout lover of God? Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!

Is there anyone who is a grateful servant? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!

Are there any weary with fasting? Let them now receive their wages!

If any have toiled from the first hour, let them receive their due reward;

If any have come after the third hour, let him with gratitude join in the Feast!

And he that arrived after the sixth hour, let him not doubt; for he too shall sustain no loss.And if any delayed until the ninth hour, let him not hesitate; but let him come too.

And he who arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not be afraid by reason of his delay.For the Lord is gracious and receives the last even as the first.

He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, as well as to him that toiled from the first.To this one He gives, and upon another He bestows.

He accepts the works as He greets the endeavor.The deed He honors and the intention He commends.Let us all enter into the joy of the Lord!

First and last alike receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together!Sober and slothful, celebrate the day!

You that have kept the fast, and you that have not, rejoice today for the Table is richly laden!Feast royally on it, the calf is a fatted one.

Let no one go away hungry. Partake, all, of the cup of faith.Enjoy all the riches of His goodness!

Let no one grieve at his poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Let no one fear death, for the Death of our Savior has set us free.He has destroyed it by enduring it.

He destroyed Hades when He descended into it.He put it into an uproar even as it tasted of His flesh.Isaiah foretold this when he said,"You, O Hell, have been troubled by encountering Him below."

Hell was in an uproar because it was done away with.It was in an uproar because it is mocked.It was in an uproar, for it is destroyed.It is in an uproar, for it is annihilated.

It is in an uproar, for it is now made captive.Hell took a body, and discovered God. It took earth, and encountered Heaven.

It took what it saw, and was overcome by what it did not see.O death, where is thy sting?O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!Christ is Risen, and the evil ones are cast down!Christ is Risen, and the angels rejoice!Christ is Risen, and life is liberated!

Christ is Risen, and the tomb is emptied of its dead;for Christ having risen from the dead,is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be Glory and Power forever and ever. Amen!

Copyright © 2007 Christian History & Biography

Blessed Easter Season 2 u all from S.A.G.E

2007-04-06T17:06:00.000+03:00

May the meaning of this season bring a whirl wind of fulfillment to all u all.

Blessings
S.A.G.E

A CALL TO BE FEARLESS by Danny Korakas

2007-04-04T22:18:00.000+03:00
The "fear Of Man" is no secret and an increasingly relevant issue that must be addressed as the days ahead unfold. Many within the church body are in the grip of this paralyzing mindset.

Those called and commissioned within the prophetic umbrella cannot possibly be God's messenger and mouthpiece and yet, fear man.
It becomes increasingly more frustrating to move in obedience to the Lord's voice if there is a tendency to withdraw out of anxiety or a fear of another's opinion or response.

I am sure that many (like me) have prayed for the Lord to "use me, write through me, and speak through me." If you have prayed this prayer, then be certain that the Lord will begin dealing with elements of the fear of man in our lives. (It is essential that we understand the impact of this work in our lives as a prophetic people to fulfill the mandate in our time of destiny).

Many out of pride may already be rejecting this word in their lives. However, we are all guilty to one degree or another and this refining work will enable the fullness of prophetic ministry to flow in and through our lives to others in a practical -- everyday way of life in producing fruit that remains.

I have read that we are afraid or fear others because we are too in love with ourselves. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement and many times we don't even realize it. When the Lord deals with the love of ourselves -- He simultaneously addresses the fear of man. Simply put, the fear of man is but a symptom of self (ish) love. Overcoming our love and protection of self is certainly an important key to our prophetic destiny.Our "love" for affirmation and the acceptance of others can be a hinderance of our prophetic impact.

The longing for others to "understand our heart" and to comprehend our words and actions can be a bondage to our kingdom liberty. Far to many are stagnated in the mire of the fear of being misunderstood or misinterpreted. Our love and desire that others embrace our words can easily taint and water down the truth that may change lives. The anointing upon a message is not graded on a curve and there must be greater accuracy beginning to arise upon our voices. The words of the kingdom today must be shared with the purity of fearlessness and the confident assurance of the word being from the Lord.

If we choose to speak or write a word that we declare to be from the Lord but are eaten up with man's approval -- the word will be tainted with wordy additions of the flesh and emotion rather than Holy Spirit. We must be content with the approval of the Lord in obedience to His voice and the exercising of wisdom of when and when not to speak. (The learning of this "wisdom" has been very painful at many seasons in my own life).

On the other hand, Jesus was many times misunderstood and His words were rejected. However, He never justified Himself for the sake of approval and theadmonishment of others. We can be content that if the words we speak are from the Lord -- Those who reject it, do not reject us, but the Lord.

To overcome our fear of man, we must be willing and expect to be misunderstood and unappreciated. Only then, will we have the kingdom liberty and anointing to partner with Christ in changing the world around us. Not only that, but without recoginizing the neccessity of dealing with rejection...We will not prophetically mature.The fear of acceptance and the longing for a title of validation will likewise render our words in a polluted state.

The conflict of interest is obvious in that those who give titles cannot be offended or challenged by those who seek the title of validation from their hand. (Simply put, we don't bite the hand that feeds our desires and needs -- both good and not so good). Even friendships and forums such as this may find the fear of man hindering our genuine spiritual growth. We must admit that the tone and intensity of many words we speak are predicated on the desire of another's feelings about us.

We need to speak soft when the Lord directs and we need to speak firmly when the Lord directs. Again, we must be obedient to the Lord within our calling and not a slave to the feelings and fear of man.Certainly, it is the love of self and our desire to protect the sacred cows of our pride and presentations that stunt our spiritual growth.

I have stated in the past that pastors will continually have a difficult time in bringing a clear, lasting, and life-changing ministry to fruition if they rely upon the finances and recognition of those whom they preach to. Again, a definite conflict of interest arises that creates a religious line that must not be crossed without offending and thus, cutting off the money and support of one's ministry.

Do many of today's "leaders" fear man more than God? In overcoming the fear of man, we must not look to man for our ministerial support and approval...But to the One who graced us with it.Abraham rejected the gifts of the King of Sodom, and afterwards the Lord said to him, "Fear not, for I AM your exceeding great reward." Since the Lord is our Provider as well as our Provision, we must look to Him alone.

We do not look to gain "seed"supporters, "seed" partners, "seed" pledges, weekly tithes, and weekly offerings. We look to the Lord to anoint and empower our prophetic commission through a life of the giving of ourselves.
This does not mean that other people will not bless us. Yes, the Lord will use others to richly bless us and He delights in this.The point is the position and understanding of the fear of man and the effect that it has had upon the church.
It has crippled our supernatural ability and made us a laughing stock to the discerning folks of everyday life. We have become a caricature of the church that Christ left us because we have created a system built upon the fear of man for both spiritual validation and promotion.

A CALL TO BOYCOTT

2007-04-04T21:25:00.000+03:00

This is wat happens wen we hang around secular fires to warm ourselves. Like Simon Peter of old; we are possesed by a spirit that denies Jesus Christ.
The Bible talks about revelling among the lusts of the flesh. Why wud we even need to 'escape' to the secular table? This is another form of baal worship that gives Christ a beat down even among His own friends-the church!
We are called just to entertain Church folk but not minister to them. I wonder why even grown folks in Church cant look at the music ministry as something legit.
They will 'hire' you with a warning to 'just entertain folks' and in a bid to swell church attendance, just because you are some sort of celebrity worldly musician with a gospel trak on yo album to brag about, you dont have to take yo shoes off standing on holy ground.
I watched Beyonce with a grieved spirit on TBN being hosted by one of my favorite female preachers.
One of the big churches in Kampala is planning to show case Holywood's The Pursuit of Happiness by Will Smith on Easter Sunday. God forbid that i become a part of these fleshly endeavours.
My call right now is to boycott anything that is not of the spirit, The arm of the flesh will profit us nothing dear brethren. Anything that misrepresents the ultimate, which is to walk in the spirit, i give it a cold shoulder. Wat the world celebrates i want to despise henceforth.
I will not buy yo CD if you preach a conscious message. I will not attend yo block party if it showcases gals flashing like photography and carries an air of anti Christ. I will not come to yo church if all you do is ask for my seed for God to bless me financially. If yo a christian and condone sin, the spirit of comradely does not exist between us.
I have chosen to be a lonely man becos i refuse to flow with the times and hang with the click or marry a woman that stoops low and gives baal a kiss.
If u accept this call to boycott, get ready to fight the flesh, the devil and the world. Since the devil rules this turf right now (his territory), be sure yo companions will be few but this is yo signpost to greatness cos great women and men walk alone just like eagles fly alone. You will be a giant in todays church and the devil will relinquish his turf to you for it is yours for the taking.

THE TIME HAS COME by Dan Blythe

2007-04-04T19:24:00.000+03:00
LUKE 1v37

People are feeling it, smelling it, tasting it, !! The wall has been built and the barriers are high! but on the horizon there is a breakthrough, there is a revival which is going to flood this nation! No wall is too big to smash, no barriers too big to crumble, nothing can stand in the way of the MIGHTY JESUS CHRIST!

He is the most famous, most talked about, most loved yet most mocked. The bible, a book written about him is translated in 2,200 languages! There is one sold every second of every minute over the last 2 centuries. It has sold more than Harry potter, the Da vinci code and Lord of the rings put together! It is the most stolen book, the most smuggled book, the most talked about book. People have died trying to get one, people have died holding on to one. People say that they would build their whole life on it! why??? Because this book is the life of Jesus and the life of Jesus is a message of Grace and Love and Grace and Love are the ingredients which are going to smash down the walls! what does Like 1 v 37 say??

FOR NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

2007-04-03T19:11:00.000+03:00
The Grammy from Hell!

I had planned to boycott the megamix awards but my faint heart failed me. I dont want to hurt folks.
Ma rap band was 'flaunting skills' under the hip hop category but we didnt even vote for ourselves cos we dont believe in 'grammy awards' in Church.

The essence of christianity is selfless love. It was expressed by Jesus' redemptive love on the cross and has been expressed again and again since in every artless deed of kindness done by His followers for each other and for a suffering world.

The essence of competition is self love. Men compete to gain something for themselves, and in doing so, they must of necessity cause someone else to lose wat they gain. From this, wqe gather that the two spirits are opposed to each other. We cannot be selfish and selfless at the same time. Nothing spiritual can be gained from competition.

We should not encourage ambition but seeking God's will in every matter. If Chameleon is making millions, idont fret. Ma father owns cattle on a thousand hills.

to be continued...

4 The Christian Livin In Hip hop Times

2007-04-03T19:02:00.000+03:00
Holy hip hop? I thot i was done pimpin 4 hip hop. I call it the Cinderella of this world-THE MOST UNLOVED WOMAN.

I even cut off ma cornrows cos i dont want to major in minors no more. Whether hip hop is a fallen culture or from Hell, the bottom line always remains dat God came to save a lost and fallen world thru Jesus, cultures inclusive.

To me a holy hip hopper is one who still identifies with the positive elements of the culture like slang, fashion, grafitti and b-bouying but submits them to the Lordship of Jesus. Like i rock slang but i aint vulgar cas am done with the F' word...and the like.( I was havin beef with one blogger cos she done changed especially with her choice of diction). I dont need to be vulgar to sound cool. I love fashion but i aint the kinda brother dat will spot ma baggies and flash ma draws too. Nam sayn?

I mean it aint the culture that is intrinsically evil but its the corrupt hearts of its patrons. U cant listen to 50 cent without getting offended if u r well groomed.

Holy hip hop is an oxymoron to many 'high' folks but thats where the testimony lies. If i call myself a holy man, i hope u aint gonna beef with that. We was born in sin(from Adam fall) and his story describes the fall of man after sin. God came to an unholy world(the 2nd Adam), found unholy men and made them holy thru the blood. Now we can brag and say we r holy if we r set apart for God, sanctified and submit totally to the Lordship of Jesus.

If God can use a horse to speak, He sure can use hip hop for His Glory. The devil has been the undisputed king for long in this culture but its time we dispute him with grit and grumption. Our weapons aint against flesh and blood but principalities.

I SAY THIS 2 OUR SHAME

2007-04-02T10:55:00.000+03:00
They say, 'Times have changed, we gotta move with the times'.
Do not let them woo you. God is bigger than time cos He created it. He is eternal.

Hey! Times aint even changed but man( male and female) has changed. We fold our arms as iniquity walks on our blocks with a swagger and folks fly to Hell faster than airforce one but still have da audacity to yap dat we crazy for the lord. The Jehovah witnesses (with no unction but action) flank our doorsteps making hell phat infinite than phat Albert.

The sin of passivity and complacency besets us. We walk in the cold with our boos but cant go for overnites and we say we was born in a womb not a tomb. Our once enigmatic and powerful movement has become a monument. We are like a spectacle for tourists( New and false religions).

We have organisers not agonisers in church corridors, payers not pray-ers and fashion not passion. 'A form of godliness that denies the power'

We are more worldly than the world. Pastors are no longer co Laborers but competitors. The gospel is sold not told ( 'Sow a seed!')

God's voice does not go with us anymore. His voice is behind calling us back!!!

SODOM HAD NO BIBLE

2007-04-02T10:25:00.000+03:00
God always offends the mind to reveal the heart. Can u imagine that He even had the audacity to tell Abraham to go sacrifice his own son?

In a day where being good and cultured has become a religion, modern day Abrahams can be sooo rare to find. But this is the fame that we aint been told about. We know about Jada Smith Pinkett, Bill Gates, Diddy, Beyonce, Brad Pitt, and Prison Break. We aint heard of the profets of old. Men like Elijah who locked heaven, pocketed the key and aking was on his knees because there was no rain for three years. Men that knew the heart beat of God. Men that death could not intimidate or governments incacerate.

The list is eternal even in contemporary times. The chronicles of the things of God honour Charles Finney who walked in cities and his presence melted hearts to repent. Voices not echoes!!. David Brainerd who lost his place at Yale University because of an unnecessary comment about a lecturer but found his position in God among the red Indians. He died in his twenties because he prayed and fasted for revival and this had an effect on his health. Robert Evans of wales shunned theatre and football matches to listen to the sage's of his time and God used him in revival.

Back to my title. Sodom had no bible and they perished. We have a bible!!! I guess perishing will be an understatement. We try to throw prayer out of schools and when you open yo mouth against homosexuality, you might go to jail for...???,,,.

God is calling for soujahs against militant Godlessness in this generation. Men who will defy kings and shut the mouth of lions. Atleast we do have a bible.( Watch out for part two)

Uganda Is too Young To Die

2007-03-31T09:31:00.000+03:00
In an age were Sin is popularised, sex advertised and the youth mesmerised...(to be continued)

I do have a past-THUG THESPIAN

2007-03-30T09:53:00.000+03:00
Growin up alone wasn’t easy. Without a father figa and mama Just getting busy.
We was raised on da block mama earning little money aint no ravens from above to put some bread on da table.

The ghetto is increasingly becoming a fashionate thing and a cult of sorts. People are mad hectic at clamoring for ghetto presidency, smoking leaves and having beef is a hall mark of street credibility. The cool dude flaunts Baggies, the kind dat flow but don’t glow. Listening to hip hop music and having a strong affiliation to hip hop (the Cinderella of this world) is regarded as ‘being urban.’
‘U gotta be a G’2pac

I have spent so many years pimping for hip hop even after graduating from Gangsta to holy hip hop. My conscience fails me now. I don’t wanna hustle or bustle and flex a muscle, I wanna glide and ride on the wind. Nam sayin?

When the barber’s razor kissed ma scalp, I breathed an air of freedom, liberty in fact cos freedom carries innuendos. Am not saying it is bad to have cornrows and be fashionately cool. Far from it! But good has always been the enemy of best. The spiritual man and the moral man are miles apart. The spiritual man always has to choose between two levels of good while the moral man chooses between bad and good. Which side do you belong?

Ma heritage speaks of a drunken pap but thank God am free. It speaks of a dead thug who said; ‘smoke weed everyday, niggas die smokin’ but thank God am free. It speaks of growing up in da hood and learning to smoke la la at 9 years old but da devil cud not kill me even in ma mama’s womb. Heeeey! Thank God am free! It speaks of catching HIV and dying young but am still breathing. Living proof-there is a God if you need a reason.

A young heart with, an old soul. 25 years with 20 years of experience. I do have a past. I was a thug thespian. Feel me?

On Da Pursuit of Happiness

2007-03-29T08:32:00.000+03:00
"A selfish desire for happiness is as sinful as any other selfish desire"
AW Tozer
"The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law nor can it do so"
Romans 8:7
Lately, i bin thinkin really hard. What happened to the innocence we once bragged of? I remember growing up and how falling in love during our teenage years was for free.

A few days back i was bouncing with this really cute las whose charm overshadows her beauty. To the undiscerning, its easy to fall prey. Remember true beauty is the reflection of the human soul wen holiness is born. Never marry for physical beauty. Sometimes it's even a product of money.(Facial moles and beauty parlours). We was conversating bout marriage and how no modern gal would want to marry a broke brother. I like to say that gals ride bikes while lookin at the wheels-they dont look beyond into the future. They kinda live in the immediate(no disrespect to the ladys cos am sure there is a remnant). This is the peril of living in the immediate-They end up with the rich dude and miss out on God's dude. Co habitting has become a fashion statement, unwanted pregnancies, abortions, divorce...to mention but a few, all in the pursuit of happinerss! God is left with an eye roaming, seeking for a man/woman on the earth to stand in the gap.

Master Tozer calls this the hedonistic philosophy of old Grecian days misunderstood and applied to everyday living in these ' modern' times.

But this destroys all nobility of character in many a young person's life even if its quite the popular creed of the masses. 'That we are born to be happy is scarcely questioned by anyone'. No one bothers to prove that fallen men have any moral right to happiness, or that they are in the long run any better off happy. The only question these days is how to get the most happiness out of life. The thesis of almost all popular movies, plays and books is that personal happiness is the legitimate end of the dramatic human struggle.

Now, i submit that the whole hectic scramble after happiness is an evil as certainly as is the scramble after money or fame or success. It springs out of a vast misunderstanding of ourselves and of our true moral condition. No one who really knows himself can ever believe in his right to be happy. A little glimpse of his own heart will disillusion him instantly so that he is more likely to turn on himself and own God's sentence against him to be just.

The effect of this modern hedonism is felt also among the people of God. The las in question is a confirmed and proffessing christian-Born again at that! Our argument revealed the true heart of some of God's people. We are more likely to yoke with unbelievers at the expense of God's word and many times its under a fallacy of 'we are gonna change our mates'.(Bobi's wife)

Many a young gal has blurted; "If he can make me laugh, then i will marry him"
This has also been reinforced by the foolishness of those who propose to these gals in the name of 'God spoke to me that you will be my wife' which is boldly rejected by; "Well, He aint spoken to me yet". But the breast they put their head to grin is not God's either. Just because it glitters dont mean its gold.

My sweet gal, praised the man upstairs for finding me still in ashes and cheap doo rags. She said her prayer was to find a man whom she would grow with spiritually and financially( build a house and buy our first car together). Wooosh!
That did sound uncommon but time changes everything (God forbid). She went on to assert that she was happy she met me before the spotlight of journalist's comin to have an interview with a rap thespian and asking to interview his wife too.
Her faith is still untainted and am praying for the biggest miracle. God findind an unholy person in an unholy world, making him holy and keeping him holy in that same world.
God is more concerned about yo holiness than happiness cos wat use is it if u gain the world and lose yo soul in the process.

God raise up many of a like mind to shame the world!

INSPIRED BY A HERO OF DA FAITH-AW Tozer

livin phat!

2007-03-28T19:00:00.000+03:00

Woke up with a sweat clad body. It was only 5 oclock in the morning n I wasn’t even thinking bout Nonchalant. Hey, am bout to make 26 and I don’t even gat a job or a bank account. Holla if u hear me. Ma banana cake don’t even like da name no mo and her mama thinks am a thug. I have been tryin to save a reputation dat I even don’t gat. This cruel world! Ma only solace has bin ma cornrows like Makaveli and his girlfriend (short gun).

Ma world has bin fallin apart but dat falcon still can listen to the falconer. Dats why I even cut off da rows and ate the corns. Like before u serve da meal to them dyin folks, u gat to eat da meal first even wen its like bitter herbs from grandma’s orchard.

WARNINGThis is how I received da call and this blog aint gonna b popular but I aint doing this 4 audition not even in da heart of da best blogga in Ug.