As Spafford travelled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died. 

“When peace like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know, It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain: It is well, (it is well), With my soul, (with my soul) It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin — oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! — My sin — not in part but the whole, — Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live: If Jordan above me shall roll, No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life, Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait, The sky, not the grave, is our goal; Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord! Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul.”

I was raised in an unbelieving home. I came to Christ at 15. My mum became a Christian soon afterward. But my father was the most resistant person to the gospel I’ve ever known. He’d told me never to talk to him about that “religious stuff” again. At 84, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. One day he phoned, very upset.

“I’m in terrible pain. I’ve got a gun to my head. Sorry to leave you with a mess.”

I begged him to hold on. I made the 30-minute drive in 20, jumped out of the car and pounded on the door. No answer.

Taking a deep breath, I opened the door. On the floor I saw a rifle and a handgun. Calling out for my father, I turned the corner into his room, prepared for the worst. Eyes half closed, I bumped into him as he walked out. My heart racing, I rushed him to the hospital, where they scheduled him for surgery the next morning.

I arrived an hour before surgery, praying that in his despair, with no easy way out, my dad would turn to Christ. Standing by his bed, I opened my Bible to Romans. I began reading in chapter three. “There is none righteous, no, not one … All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Those weren’t easy words to read. My tavern-owner father had always taken hot offense at being called a sinner. I wanted to gloss over this portion, moving quickly to the good news of God’s grace. But I forced myself to keep reading, verse after verse, about human sin. Why? Because I told myself, If I really love Dad, I have to tell him the whole truth. If God’s going to do a miracle of conversion here, that’s His job. My job is to say what He says.

We made it to Romans 6, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Then Romans 10, about being saved through confessing Jesus as our risen Lord.

Finally I looked Dad in the eyes and asked, “Have you ever confessed your sins and asked Jesus Christ to forgive you?”

“No,” he said in a weak voice. He paused, then added, “But … I think it’s about time I did.”

I’ll never forget that moment. The impossible took place right before my eyes: my father prayed aloud, confessed his sins and placed his faith in Christ just before they wheeled him into surgery.

Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM), a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching biblical truth and drawing attention to the needy and how to help them.

For Christian prisoners of faith, ‘taking up their cross and following Christ’ is no easy road. Their testimony of enduring faith is both a challenge and an encouragement to their brothers and sisters in Christ here in he UK and Ireland and around the world.

North Korean, Eritrean, Iranian and other Christians who seek to share and live out their faith in theses countries often pay a high personal price- yet it is a price they accept as ‘normal’ Christian discipleship.

Their prison experience is not viewed with surprise outrage: on the contrary, they often regard the prison cell as their mission field, imprisonment as training and the whole experience as part of God’s purpose & plan.

The reality is that today in detention centres and prison camps across the world, God is doing exactly what he promised to do: building His church.

Just as He did with the early church, God is there in those cells watching over His children, pouring out His love into their hearts and reaching out in love to others, prisoners and persecutors alike. Still He calls us to ‘remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison’. (Hebrews13V3

11 September 2014

Today it is 150 days since 275 girls were abducted from the Chibok Government Secondary School by Boko Haram, on the night of 14 April. Although 47 of these girls have managed to escape, the others remain captive.

One of the girls was able to hide a mobile phone in her clothes and called her parents after she escaped with some others. The girls had no idea where they were. Their parents told them to continue walking west every evening, in the direction of the setting sun, and eventually they made it to the Cameroon border and were reunited with their families.

The escaped girls said that they were raped almost every day. Girls who do not cooperate face severe punishment.

Release sabotaged

Dr Stephen Davis, an Australian cleric, was appointed as presidential envoy in the negotiations with Boko Haram. Dr Davis was able to persuade Boko Haram to release some of the girls: “They told me they’d be prepared to release some as a goodwill gesture towards a peace deal with the government.”

The rebels brought 60 girls to a location in Cameroon as promised, but the release was sabotaged: “We travelled for four-and-a-half hours to reach them, but 15 minutes before we arrived they were kidnapped again by another group who wanted to cash in on a reward… I understand, from the Boko Haram commanders I spoke to, the girls eventually ended up back with them.”

Dr Davis has had contact with four girls who were able to escape the camp, with the help of a young man who was kidnapped by Boko Haram and forced to work as driver. However, when Dr Davis tried to make contact via text message with the young man, he got a chilling response: “The person you are trying to contact has gone on a journey from which there is no return. He was an infidel.”

The kidnappings will not end

After spending four months in Nigeria, Dr Davis returned to Australia. He says the kidnappings will not end. “It became very clear that if I was able to get 50 girls released then another group would kidnap 70 or 80 more.”

He told Open Doors that in April they were dealing with three separate factions of Boko Haram that had agreed to work together. However, Boko Haram has now unified and changed. The involvement of other groups such as Al-Qaeda, IS and Al Shabaab is further radicalising the group.

There are also allegations that high ranking politicians and international sponsors are in collusion with Boko Haram, further complicating any settlement.

There are several verses in the Bible which specifically talk of thankfulness.

eg Give thanks for everything  Ephesians 5 V20

Always be thankful  Colossians 3 V 15

Sing with thankful hearts  Colossians 3 V 16

Have a thankful heart  Colossians 4 v 2

Be thankful in all circumstances  1 Thessalonians 5 v 11

Be thankful for the unshakeable kingdom Hebrews 12 v 28

The Question is. Can the Christian really expect to be thankful in ever circumstance given the bad things that happen in this world?

http://www.careforthefamily.org.uk/events/parenting-events/parentalk

CARE FOR FAMILY EVENT

The problem with parenting is that normally by the time we get the hang of it – we’re redundant!  Parenting is a mixture of highs and lows … and everything in between. It can bring some of life’s biggest joys, but also its greatest challenges. For most of us, a bit of encouragement and a reminder that we’re not alone can make a real difference.

During this event, we’ll look at key issues such as communication with our children, setting boundaries, helping them grow in independence while keeping them safe and, above all, building strong bonds with them that will help us weather those teenage storms. We’ll share practical tips that you can take away and put into action at home straightaway. It certainly won’t be dull – there will be lots of humour and you may even shed a tear or two. The aim of this event is to have you leaving inspired and empowered as a mum or dad.

Jesus was always being asked questions. He also answered people with questions. And questions about whether Jesus is unique are not new.

For example, when faced with Jesus on trial, Pilate the Roman governor represents all the political and religious tension of the time in his question in John 18:33: “Are you the king of the Jews?”

Pilate is in this immense conflict within himself. Something within him is prompting him to say that this trial is a charade. But he’s trapped between the political manoeuvring of Rome and the Jewish authorities he’s subjugating. And he asks the crucial question: Who is Jesus? Is he unique?

We often hear that all religions are the same, but this is not true. They are superficially the same, but they are fundamentally different.

How is Jesus different? There are a number of ways:

The Human Condition

Fundamental is Jesus’ description of the human condition. He talks of the alienation of the human heart by being separated from God. He says that the heart is in rebellion against God: so deep is this, that morality alone cannot solve it. It goes beyond mere good vs bad. The heart is in need of something greater than just pulling ourselves up by our moral bootstraps.

The  Unique Solution

Second, Jesus offers a unique solution to the problem. The provision he gives for you and me is absolutely unique, and it is not cheap. It is the cross. That’s why you will find an Easterner, when they come to Jesus Christ, literally sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, because they have felt the anguish of what sin is. Their recognition of the graciousness of forgiveness is very, very unique. Islam says, to get to heaven your good deeds will have to outweigh your bad. In other words, you pay. When Christ comes and says to you and me that he is offering forgiveness and doing so through the payment of his life on the cross, it is an extraordinary truth. The Bible says that we need a Saviour and we need forgiveness.

Love, Forgiveness & Justice

There is only one place in the world where love, forgiveness and justice come together: justice was being revealed, love was being demonstrated and forgiveness was being offered. That is on the cross of calvary. Jesus Christ claimed to be the way, the truth and the life because he is what the absolute truth really is. Repentance is an anguished moment, but your tears are wiped away with the joy of forgiveness. This truth of Christ’s grace is unique.

Sinless

Thirdly, Jesus was unique in that he had no sin. Even Pilate said, “I find no fault in this man”.

The Resurrection

Finally, the resurrection is the ultimate demonstration of his uniqueness. Jesus shows that he is the Son of God through his rising from the dead. And, through his death and resurrection, Jesus conquered through evil, not in spite of it. It shows that there is a hope that comes from beyond the grave.

This is a precis of a talk given to the Keswick Convention 2014. The audio is available free here and will be summarised in a BBC Radio 4 broadcast on 24 August.

For some, “God doesn’t believe in atheists” is just a clever (nor not-so-clever) jab directed against the faithless in our culture. But based on the findings of secular researchers, the statement may not be so far from reality.

That is because multidisciplinary research is increasingly backing the idea that human beings are hard-wired to believe in God, according to Science 2.0 writer Nury Vittachi in an article titled, “Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that’s not a joke.”

“[A]theism is psychologically impossible because of the way humans think,” Vittachi cites avowed atheist Graham Lawton as writing in New Scientist. “They point to studies showing, for example, that even people who claim to be committed atheists tacitly hold religious beliefs, such as the existence of an immortal soul.”

Even atheists hold to several tacitly religious concepts, including the existence of an immortal soul, according to Lawton. The article also cites another atheist researcher who demonstrated that all people engage in internal monologue, regardless of whether the person to whom their thoughts are directed is actually present.

Equally demonstrable is the intrinsic human tendency to believe in divine justice. Vittachi describes both religious and non-religious persons as possessing the innate sense that “If I commit a sin, it is not an isolated event but will have appropriate repercussions.” This sense of cosmic justice is credited for the popular belief in “karma.”

This idea, he writes, is played out on a number of differently levels—including narrative literature, where even atheist authors invariably write stories that “exist to establish that there exists a mechanism or a person—cosmic destiny, karma, God, fate, Mother Nature—to make sure the right thing happens to the right person.”

Even the staunchest nontheists are not exempted from such habits, according to the writer. “If a loved one dies, even many anti-religious people usually feel a need for a farewell ritual, complete with readings from old books and intoned declarations that are not unlike prayers,” Vittachi writes. “In war situations, commanders frequently comment that atheist soldiers pray far more than they think they do.”

According to the writer, atheists tend to exhibit the same sociological, psychological dependence on the intangible as religious folk do, even if the former reject the existence of anything supernatural. “Statistics show that the majority of people who stop being part of organized religious groups don’t become committed atheists, but retain a mental model in which ‘The Universe’ somehow has a purpose for humanity,” says Vittachi.

While Vittachi attempts to connect all these theistic proclivities to an evolutionary source, missing one key bit of evidence: it is the biblical Christian worldview, not the secular humanist worldview, which accurately predicts a human bent towards belief in God.

In Romans 1:18-23, the apostle Paul writes that “what can be known about God is plain to them”—that is, all men—and that “his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” He then goes so far as to state that all such people “knew God” (v. 21). The implication, thus, is that man innately assumes the existence of his Creator until he convinces himself to think otherwise.

This biblical teaching is not unique to Paul. Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding,” echoing the same sentiment of other Old Testament passages. In essence, one cannot truly possess wisdom and knowledge if one denies the essential fact of existence: that the transcendent God is the ultimate measure of reality.

While Vittachi may be a few steps short of walking down the aisle at the next altar call, the findings he describes lead to one critical conclusion: perhaps it is atheists, not God, who truly do not exist

Charisma News

Atheists and secular humanists consistently make the claim that religion is the  cause of violence and war throughout the history of mankind. One of hatetheism’s key cheerleaders, Sam Harris, says in his book The End of Faith that faith and religion are “the most prolific source of violence in our history.”

While there’s no denying that campaigns such as the Crusades and the Thirty Years’ War foundationally rested on religious ideology, it is simply incorrect to assert that religion has been the primary cause of war. Moreover, although there’s also no disagreement that radical Islam was the spirit behind 9/11, it is a fallacy to say that all faiths contribute equally where religiously-motivated violence and warfare are concerned.

An interesting source of truth on the matter is Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature, which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars. However, when one subtracts out those waged in the name of Islam (66), the percentage is cut by more than half to 3.23%

That means that all faiths combined – minus Islam – have caused less than 4% of all of humanity’s wars and violent conflicts. Further, they played no motivating role in the major wars that have resulted in the most loss of life

The truth is, non-religious motivations and naturalistic philosophies bear the blame for nearly all of humankind’s wars. Lives lost during religious conflict pales in comparison to those experienced during the regimes who wanted nothing to do with the idea of God – something showcased in R. J. Rummel’s work Lethal Politics and Death by Government:

Non-Religious Dictator Lives Lost

• Joseph Stalin – 42,672,000
• Mao Zedong – 37,828,000
• Adolf Hitler – 20,946,000
• Chiang Kai-shek – 10,214,000
• Vladimir Lenin – 4,017,000
• Hideki Tojo – 3,990,000
• Pol Pot – 2,397,0003

http://carm.org/religion-cause-war (thanks to the writer & Editor for this article, Robin Schumacher & Matt Slick)

The Bible in James (naturally) agrees with Christ when he says: “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel,” (James 4:1–2).

Country Unspecified.(outside Uk)

Three men were walking down one of the streets in the shanty town, specifically looking for people who needed prayer for healing.

One of the gentlemen then had a strong sense that “the next man they would come across would have neck pain and God would heal him”.

They stopped outside the next shop. The 45yr old man standing there had had neck pain for several years, unhelped by medicines.

He was asked ,”can we pray for you in Jesus name”. He agreed willingly.

They prayed together for about a minute and then stopped to ask how he was feeling. With almost expressionless face he said “yeah, the pain in my neck has completely gone but my back still hurts” So the three man prayed for his back for another minute. That also improved. (He has been seen several times since & remains well)

Note.

Miracles on their own do not bring people into relationship with Jesus. People are often willing to have their illness prayed for but the idea of repenting & turning to a new faith is not so popular.

Extract from “GO” July -Sept 2014