Finding Freedom From Islam by John Beehner

(A year ago I had the opportunity to interview an American Pastor who we called Errin to keep his identity private)

Errin was born into a Muslim home in Cyprus, of Turkish decent, before his family immigrated to Africa.  He was taught to hate the cross and all Christians.  As a young teenager he mocked, degraded and disrupted any activities of Christian kids he met in his school.  Even with all that, the Christian kids treated him with kindness.

But he met and started dating a beautiful young girl whose mother insisted she go to church.  He agreed to attend with her but wanted to have nothing to do with faith or Jesus.  He saw a miracle healing in church that completely puzzled him, but decided in his macho way he would meet with the pastor and challenge and blast his theology.  

When he got to the pastor’s office and he opened in prayer, Errin’s mind went blank and he could hardly speak.  Finally, at the end of the meeting the pastor led him in the sinners prayer.   Errin felt like a new man.  All his guilt, shame and bitterness left him.  Yet, he did not understand it and mocked the experience.  People said this phase would leave him. 

Yet, he went back to church and two weeks later he tried to resist being water baptized, but the encouragement from others was so strong that he finally agreed and was submerged.  He said it was like he was struck with lightning.  He felt the power of the Holy Spirit like a new man filled with love and compassion.

Word spread throughout the community and his father told him at the dinner table to renounce Christianity or pack his clothes and “get out.”  He took his belongings and walked ten miles to the church where they let him sleep.  He never really ever talked to his father again. 

Today, he is a pastor of a fast growing church is the USA.  He says, “the Lord completely turned me around.”  As a Muslim, the weight, guilt, shame and sin weighed on him.  He says, “hate is the god of many Muslims,” yet he attests that thousands of them are having dreams of knowing Jesus, creating strong opportunities for missionaries.  God is moving through his Holy Spirit to change hearts.

Shortly after his conversion, he saw another miracle at his church as the leg of a young child grew out before his eyes.  Then a neighbor said his daughter had to go into the hospital for eight operations to fix her deformed leg at just five years old.  Errin told them about his church and gave them the address.  They carried the child to church and she was healed too.  They took her back to the doctors and they were astounded and wanted to see the girl in the x-rays.  The same neighbor saw Errin again, twenty years later and told him that same daughter might make their Olympic team in track.

According to two directors of a Islamic Missions for a major missionary group, “While Islam is evil, the problem is not Muslims. They are victims of a false religion.  But Jesus still loves them and wants them set free.  The biggest fear of Muslims is Judgment day.  Freedom in Christ removes the fear.  They are amazed at the Bible and they love the peace of mind they receive once they come to His saving Grace.”

The amazing and exciting news from all the missionaries I spoke to is that thousands of Muslims are receiving a dream of meeting Jesus Christ. 

 

So what are you going to do about it?  The first solution is prayer.

We need prayers to move nations.  

Forgiveness is Freedom by Deidra Manning

Locked in chains, I sit bound and shackled to memory and regret. Shivering cold, darkness blinding, I hunch low in a damp corner blaming it on them – their lies, their hate, their indifference. They’re the reason I’m here. Simmering hatred bubbles deep in my heart, warming like a blanket wrapped from inside out, a heavy cover shielding from the pain of introspection, guarding against twinges of cold, hard reality.

The truth: I’m here because I choose to be. My prison: unforgiveness. The door to my cell isn’t closed; I can walk out any time. The chains are locked, but I hold the key. The shackles are cuffs I prefer to wear – they prove to everyone just how wronged I was. I’m tormented here, but it’s easier to judge, blame, and despise those who mistreated me than it is to break free.

Breaking free is painful. It takes effort, determination, and love. It requires a decision – it demands grace. Forgiveness acknowledges injustice, but gives opportunity to walk away. Forgiveness identifies depravity, but decides to look beyond. Forgiveness is bold and graceful; it emancipates those bound to mistakes and regret. Forgiveness is messy and painful; it’s full of blood, sweat, and tears. It’s intentional, it’s costly, it’s emotional, but it’s the only way to ever truly be free.

Freedom is never free – someone always pays. Christ paid the price for our forgiveness – the freedom to accept and give grace. He made the choice to look beyond my faults, to love me in spite of all my wrong-doing. He who is perfect and knew no sin became sin for me. He chose to die so I can live freely. His forgiveness makes it possible for me to release myself and others from the guilt of sin.

How can I, having accepted His forgiveness, not extend the same to others? If I bear His name, I must bear His cross and follow in the way of forgiveness. Unforgiveness is the easy road, the wide path that leads to destruction. Forgiveness is the narrow way, the decision to work through pain.

I choose to release myself and others. I choose to accept His grace and give it away. I choose to unlock the chains, take off the shackles, and walk out the open door – His gift of freedom to me. I accept His gift of forgiveness. Will you?

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. – Matthew 6:14-15 (NIV)

Stay-at-home wife and mother of three, Deidra holds an M.S. in Psychology and is a blogger, free-lance writer, and author of Devotions from the Middle. She writes daily about her faith and life-experiences at The Middle. 

http://manninginthemiddle.blogspot.com

He Always Wins by Phyllis Robshaw

We can’t really realize and appreciate that we have freedom until we see that we need release from something.  It is easy to think of our salvation experience as a picture of that. O how He has set us free!

I have been a passionate follower of Jesus for over 40 years and am continually humbled by how much I still have to learn. I know that life comes at you in seasons and thought I had walked through some of the lowest lows and highest highs in those seasons already. I felt “seasoned” by experience.  When the tactics of the enemy encroached on my life as I was well aware that he would, the approach was so different and so strong that for the first time I was actually totally disabled. Under the oppression that hit me, I lost “me” for a season…my praise, vision, joy, energy, smile, laugh and strength shrunk in massive proportions. I had long ago learned that praise defeats the enemy but my heart was so beat I found it hard to be free to truly praise. I knew how to claim truths and pray scripture and wait for God to move in mighty ways but now I was unable.    

Being a housemom to 7 teen girls in a Christian children’s home, I spent every night praying with these precious girls and claiming the very things I needed to hear over them. They never knew my internal battle.  Such a surreal feeling, when I was so beat down. It felt like I was watching myself from above when I prayed over the girls. At the time, no comfort, release or freedom seemed to be mine. My husband and I were on this journey together and he was praying for me and watching me in this process of being thrown into a prison of sorts. I needed freedom from the oppression that was upon me. Right when it felt like I literally wouldn’t make it another day, a huge door opened and God released me/us from the circumstances of the oppression. I remember myself saying to the girls, “God is never late, always on time and cares about every desire of your heart. His thoughts about you outnumber the grains of sand on the earth.”  

SO true!  We love to bike ride in our gorgeous seaside town. Last week, we rode to the bayfront and sat on our favorite bench. The water was perfectly glassy and a group of seagulls looked like they were at a seagull spa right in front of us. …splashing, bathing, cooing, fully enjoying the calm water. I heard the Lord in the quietness of my heart say, “Enjoy this season of refreshing and freedom. I wasn’t late. I heard. I will not waste a moment of your life.” Praise in my heart has tripled in the 6 weeks since that freedom came. I am drinking in the Word of God like I have always loved to do again. I am sharpened and refined in new ways. I am rejoicing over what God did in spite of the oppression that blanketed me. I see miracles in the lives of our girls!

The enemy seeks to kill, steal and destroy and when we are sold out to God he is relentless in the attack. If you are under that attack in this season of your life in serving the Lord, don’t believe what you feel, think or see…believe what you know…God is faithful! He IS there in the midst of your circumstances and He WINS every time!   

Today's guest author is Phyllis Robshaw.  Phyllis has a passion for praying the Word on paper and believing the promises within it! She has been involved in lay ministry and formal ministry working with children, teens and college students alongside her husband Billy for over 30 years.  They have 2 married children and 3 grandchildren who are part of building up the Body of Christ in the U.S. and AU. 

Visit her blog at: http://asachild.christianblogsites.com/blog/

Economic Freedom and China

Again, thank God for our Founding Fathers who used the Bible and wrote our constitution to set in motion our values and principles that guide the Freedoms that we enjoy today.  Without a Moral Compass we would have not enjoyed such prosperity and blessing from the fruit of our labor.  It may not seem like it in times like these, but we still have economic strengths and resiliency by the Grace of God.   We have our share of cheaters but in the long run, the Golden Rule still builds repeat business success.

In recent news it seems that more and more drugs, movies, toys, and electronics are being stolen or ripped off by the Chinese or other nations.  Why is this when we are literally building the Chinese economy on the backs of American consumption?  Obviously, it’s a move of God and I touch on it in more detail in my new book, but let me give you a taste of why and how China has stepped away from some of their Communist ways to take on Economic Freedom.  (This is stuff the media will never report because they don’t believe in God or it’s not negative enough.)

In 2002, the Chinese Government sent an atheist Economics Professor named Zhao Xiao to the USA to study and learn why America’s economy was so strong. China was in the midst of a growing boom fueled by American companies bringing businesses and manufacturing facilities, creating jobs and training workers in China because of its low cost of labor and facilities and honorable work ethic. Since the death of Mao and the collapse of Russia and the Eastern Block of Communist Countries, more forward thinking Chinese leadership in the Communist Party knew they were falling further and further behind the rest of the world economically.

The Bottom line is that Zhao Xiao came back with a report he called “Market Economies with Churches and Market Economies without Churches.”  He also came back a Born Again Christian.  Xiao told Party Leaders the reason for American’s success is its Moral Value system based on Christian principles of  “loving your neighbor” taught by American Churches.  He said it is the key to America’s Economic greatness.

In a interview, Xiao said, that “Puritans who settled America, had an intent of bringing Glory to Jesus Christ in doing business... its a motivation that transcends making profits and in turn motivates the Entrepreneur to constantly find ways to innovate to reach more customers.”  He continues, “in the Chinese market environment, the reason people do evil things is because the overall marketplace is not very good.”  In China business owners “do evil things to protect themselves, expecting other people will do evil things to them, so they do it first.”  He said that businesses need mutual trust among one another, as in the USA.

He says, “the strongest difference in America and China is not technology, wages, or intelligence… but churches.  In the USA there are more churches than China has banks or even Rice shops.  Churches bind America together.”

He continues, ”these days the Chinese people do not believe in anything.  They don’t believe in god, they don’t believe in the devil, they don’t believe in providence, they don’t believe in the last judgment, nor anything about heaven.  A person who believes in nothing ultimately can only believe in himself.  And self-belief implies that anything is possible---what do lies, cheating, harm and swindling, matter?

Amazingly, God has been moving on the heart of the Chinese people for the last 30 years and there are today over 138 million Born Again believer’s that have been hiding, growing and flourishing underground in home churches across China.  That's 10% of their population.

The communist party likes their economic success and that’s why they manipulate there currency to try to keep their boom going.  God allows Grace but their Grace period will end when He teaches them more and more about integrity, character and faithfulness.  Eventually they will have to set a legal system that stops and polices the con men and thieves or the USA and the rest of the nations who want to do honorable business will no longer buy from them, no matter their prices.

Economic Freedom and its principles are from the Lord and are changing the world with the Freedom he planned for mankind ever since He gave free will rights to Adam and Eve.

Ye Shall Know the Truth by Cheryl Cope

...and the truth shall make you free. John 8:32

Obviously if you look at this verse in context, it's principal meaning is referring to the word of God, but it can also rightly be applied to many other topics, including knowing the truth about weight loss.

When you are lacking information or believing lies in any area of life, the quality of your life can suffer because of it. In a sense you can be "bound" by lies or false information. This is very common in the area of health and weight loss. Even in modern literate America, people still do not know all the information they need to properly take care of their bodies. There is not a lot of teaching in the public school systems on this topic nor in the media, and what is disemminated is not always accurate.

For example, lots of people still believe that fat makes you fat. This is a myth or a lie. There is a biological cycle that occurs that is common to the human species that ends with the storage of fat on one's body. You eat food that raises your blood sugar level, which stimulates the pancreas to secrete more insulin, which signals the body to store more fat. Carbohydrates have the most effect on our blood sugar levels, protein has some effect, and fat has no effect. Scientists figured this out and researchers have proven this over and over to be true.

A different kind of lie that you might be believing which is inhibiting your freedom to be healthy or to lose weight, could be something like, "I don't believe I can ever be thin. I've always been fat, so I always will be."  You may have started believing something like that in your childhood in response to someone else's comment or opinion of you. No matter where a lie like this came from, the fact that you are believing it, is keeping you bound and not free. You may be believing something like this on a subconscious level.

To gain freedom to be healthy and lose weight ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any lies you are believing about your health habits, weight, or body image and to reveal to you any information that you may be lacking for success in this area of your life. He is faithful and will lead and guide you into all truth, whether that is the truth about your inner self talk or the scientific truths about weight loss or about any other truths you need.

Cheryl Cope is a Christian woman's weight loss and habit change coach, helping women achieve healthy and sustainable weight loss, greater health and closer intimacy with God. She helps her clients change their eating, exercising, health, thinking and spiritual habits for the better. She incorporates prayer, biblical principles and the leading of the Holy Spirit in all aspects of her work. Cheryl offers private and group coaching programs. Sign up to get her free report, Eleven Weight Loss and Nutrition Myths, at http://eepurl.com/XtHE   For more information on Cheryl or her services, please visit http://www.cherylcope.com or email her at cheryl@cherylcope.com.

Religious Freedom is Our Foundation

Today one of the “hot issues” that is creating a lot of the talk show buzz is the question of our Religious Freedom.  Obviously, our Founding Fathers selected it as the First Amendment which prohibits the federal government from making a law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

What was it that the Founding Fathers saw that some Americans can’t see today?  They realized that they had won freedom from Great Britain not because of their military superiority but it was their calling from God.  His Spirit guided and led them to be an example for other nations.  It was the Spiritual move of God through His believers to set a new standard from the self centered Kings and Monarchs who had controlled this world.

Let me share just one illustration that again confirms my perspective:  In 1562, (56 years before Plymouth Rock), the French Huguenots landed in the USA in a settlement they called Fort Caroline, at the mouth of the St. Johns River, part of Jacksonville, Florida.  The Huguenots were Protestant Reformists (Calvinists) who wanted to avoid the wicked religious persecution they experienced in France.  They longed for a new life to worship, as they felt called.

Yet, the Queen of Spain learned about the settlement and worried that France would try to claim the Florida peninsular they had wanted.  So they sent soldiers to massacre the Huguenots.  The Spanish then settled in St. Augustine near by. But as the legend goes that before the massacre, the Huguenots had dedicated the land and all of North America to Jesus Christ. 

In 1998, a friend told me that the Lord had directed him to go to Fort Caroline, with descendents of the Huguenots and Spanish (who did the massacre) and pray for forgiveness and reconciliation.  Two pastors would lead prayers and ask for blessings and by chance, I was invited to go as well.  None of us took this lightly.  After several prayers together we moved to different parts of the Fort to pray individually. 

While I prayed and ask for forgiveness for our Nation and ancestors, and within a few minutes I started to see a vision of blood pouring like waves out onto the land and spreading.  But then as the blood started to flow it began to turn white.  It was as if God was purifying the land with His blood of forgiveness.  It was a site and experience I will never forget.

Joshua Youssef of Leading the Way Ministry said recently, “The Blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the church.”  History often proves that early missionaries lose their lives, as Christ did, for the Church to take root. 

Our Religious Freedom has a solid foundation from Jesus Christ and His Spiritual leading and sacrifice.  America is special and called of God to emulate the ways and purposes of Freedom around the world.

Freedom to Slow Down by Pete Wilson

Many of us have become convinced that speed is a necessary idol you have to worship in this time addicted culture.

When we pursue ambition and speed we lose wonder and awe.

When life becomes all about getting from Point A to Point B as fast as we possibly can, it comes at a cost.

I want to be filled with…

More questions and less conclusions.

More mystery and less assumptions.

More wonder and less equations.

The Sabbath is a day for me to stop and notice the gifts of God around me.

To watch the sun slowly drop out of the sky.

To lay in the hammock with a good book.

To slowly hike a trail with my boys.

To sit around the table and enjoy a long, unhurried meal with friends.

The Sabbath is a day to stop working, and just rest in the finished work of Jesus, to stop impressing God, and start enjoying him. It’s a weekly marker which so gently reminds us to stop doing things for him, and acknowledge what he’s done for you.

The Sabbath is a gift. A day God has created for us to celebrate our freedom in Him. If we ignore this rhythm then we miss an incredible opportunity to sit under the spout of God’s grace, and we are far less blessed than we could be.

Today's guest blogger is a husband, father of 3 wild boys, and a Pastor at  Cross Point Church.  He is also the author of "Plan B: What do you do when God doesn't show up the way you thought He would?" available in paperback and as an ebook.  For more information on Pete, his ministry, or his book, please visit http://withoutwax.tv/