Dear Family of Jesus,
Do not be in such a hurry today that you miss the Lord and Holy Spirit……..
If Satan were to stand before the Lord right now, would your character be such that God would boast of you to him?
Thank you for stopping by for a CUP! I just love having a CUP with you! In this CUP you will find a Posting on Pulpit Freedom Sunday which is this Sunday. I will be Preaching at Pastor Tom Bozone’s Rock Rio Church in Rio Rancho at 9:30am. www.rockrio.net Saturday at 6pm on KAZQ Ch 32 on Dewey and Friends Pastor Leonard Navarre will be my guest and we will talk about being Salt and Light and Pulpit Freedom Sunday. Dewey and Friends also airs on KTVS Ch 36 Monday thru Friday at 1pm.
I also want to remind you that I am working part-time at KAZQ/KTVS and if your are interested in having a program or message on KAZQ/KTVS I can help you. Please call me 505-681-0331 or email me. I am very thankful for this opportunity that Pastor Ray and Brenton Franks have provided me.
We also ask for your prayers here at www.fggam.org for the upcoming Revival in Efland, NC with Karen Rowe of Hope In Today Ministries. I will be heading there on Thursday!
As I go about my days people ask me how is it going? As my Dear friend Karen Rowe was posting yesterday, she said she was trying not to get ahead of the Lord! AMEN! Let us all follow in the footsteps of the Lord. Be filled with the Holy Spirit in everything we do , every second of the day! I was screaming of joy yesterday in the car as to what the Lord is doing with the Revival in Efland, NC! The Revival is already underway!
Please keep the Moede family in your prayers as we continue to walk in faith! We are so thankful for your support of our efforts for Jesus Christ. Please visit us at www.fggam.org ;
My Life verse is Acts: 20:24…But I don’t place any value on my life, if only I can finish my race and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.
This morning I open with the tearful story……….Let us be in prayer……..
Oakland Athletics and former Twins relief pitcher Pat Neshek said that his newborn son has died.
The right-hander posted on his Twitter account late Wednesday night, Oct. 3, that he and his wife lost their first child 23 hours after his birth “with no explanation.” He asked for prayers, and words of support began flooding Twitter.
Neshek took a flight home to Florida to be at the birth of Gehrig John Neshek on Tuesday.
Neshek is a graduate of Park Center High School in Brooklyn Park.
“Our hearts go out to Pat and Stephanee, and we share in their sorrow of losing their young son,” the A’s said. “The entire A’s organization will keep the Neshek family in our prayers and thoughts, as they try to come to grips with this tragic occurrence in their lives.”
Matthew 18:1
“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2 He called a little child, and had him stand among them.
3 And he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
4 Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.”
Matthew 19:13
Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.
14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
15 When he had laid his hands on them, he went on from there.
and this from Godvine……………
Tell Them
Some 14 years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our opening session in the theology of faith. That was the day I first saw Tommy. He was combing his hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders. My quick judgment wrote him off as strange – very strange. Tommy turned out to be my biggest challenge. He constantly objected to or smirked at the possibility of an unconditionally loving God. When he turned in his final exam at the end of the course, he asked in a slightly cynical tone, “Do you think I’ll ever find God?” “No,” I said emphatically. “Oh,” he responded. “I thought that was the product you were pushing.” I let him get five steps from the door and then called out. “I don’t think you’ll ever find Him, but I am certain He will find you.” Tommy shrugged and left. I felt slightly disappointed that he had missed my clever line. Later I heard that Tommy had graduated, and I was grateful for that. Then came a sad report: Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to me. When he walked into my office, his body was badly wasted, and his long hair had fallen out because of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his voice, for the first time, was firm. “Tommy! I’ve thought about you so often. I heard you were very sick,” I blurted out. “Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer. It’s a matter of weeks.” “Can you talk about it?” “Sure. What would you like to know?” “What’s it like to be only 24 and know that you’re dying?” “It could be worse,” he told me, “like being 50 and thinking that drinking booze, seducing women and making money are the real ‘biggies’ in life.” Then he told me why he had come. “It was something you said to me on the last day of class. I asked if you thought I would ever find God, and you said no, which surprised me. Then you said, ‘But He will find you.’ I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time. But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging against the bronze doors of heaven. But nothing happened. Well, one day I woke up, and instead of my desperate attempts to get some kind of message, I just quit. I decided I didn’t really care about God, an afterlife, or anything like that. I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more important. I thought about you and something else you had said: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you loved them.’ So I began with the hardest one: my dad.” Tommy’s father had been reading the newspaper when his son approached him. “Dad, I would like to talk with you.” “Well, talk.” “I mean, it’s really important.” The newspaper came down three slow inches. “What is it?” “Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that.” Tommy smiled at me as he recounted the moment. “The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I couldn’t remember him doing before. He cried and he hugged me. And we talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning. “It was easier with my mother and little brother,” Tommy continued. “They cried with me, and we hugged one another, and shared the things we had been keeping secret for so long. Here I was, in the shadow of death, and I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to. “Then one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with Him. Apparently He does things in His own way and at His own hour. The important thing is that you were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for Him.” “Tommy,” I added, “could I ask you a favor? Would you come to my theology-of-faith course and tell my students what you told me?” Though we scheduled a date, he never made it. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed. He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of humanity has ever seen or the mind ever imagined. Before he died, we talked one last time. “I’m not going to make it to your class,” he said. “I know, Tommy.” “Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for me?” “I will, Tommy. I’ll tell them.” Amen! and this…………….. Be careful [anxious or distracted] for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication [be specific] with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. – Philippians 4: 6 Amen and Amen! Brothers and Sisters!! Hello Everyone: Once again, it is time for the Body of Christ to gather to ENGAGE in a victorious warfare prayer rally for this city, state & nation. Attached is our flyer. “THE OCCUPATION”: Please mark your callendar to attend. Let us join in united prayer for the healing of our nation. Looking forward to praying with you. Forever His Co-laborer, Barbara Gould AWESOME Barbara! Barbara is also a Board member of FGGAM! We are praying for this pray gathering! This Sunday is Pulpit Freedom Sunday and as I have already shared with you I will be Preaching at Rock Rio Church in Rio Rancho at 9:30am and on Dewey and Friends this Saturday night at 6pm on KAZQ Pastor Leonard Navarre is with me to talk about it also. Dewey and Friends also airs Monday thru friday on KTVS CH 36 at 1pm. John Hancock 1st Signer of the Declaration of Independence |
On Sunday, a group of pastors led by Skyline Wesleyan Church’s Jim Garlow will turn explicitly political on the pulpit as part of “Pulpit Freedom Sunday.” Some will directly endorse a presidential candidate – most likely Mitt Romney – while others will tell their congregation they should vote based on issues like abortion or same-sex marriage.
The event, in its fifth year, is designed as a provocation to the Internal Revenue Service in order to challenge the legal prohibition on tax-exempt organizations engaging in partisan politics under the Johnson Amendment. The pastors plan to record their sermons and send them to the IRS in order to encourage an audit – which they would then challenge in court in hope of getting the law to be declared unconstitutional. Garlow estimates that 1,500 or more pastors will participate.
I spoke to Garlow on Thursday. A transcript of our conversation, which has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity, is below. A Pew survey earlier this year found that a majority of Americans (54 percent) believe that churches should keep out of politics, while 40 percent say religious institutions should express their views on social and political matters.
How, in your mind, does the law violate religious liberty?
GARLOW: The Johnson Amendment in a sense changed 166 years of freedom in the pulpit, when there was no speech restrictions put on pastors at all. That, of course, changed on July 2, 1954, and the history of it very simply is that Lyndon Baines Johnson, then senator, returned from Texas upset with two businessmen who had opposed him through their 501(c)3s – their not-for-profit corporations. And since there was a tax overhaul going through the Senate at that time, Johnson added what would become later known as the Johnson Amendment, a very short statement that 501(c)3s cannot endorse, directly or indirectly, or oppose a candidate.
There are 29 different categories of 501(c), but the speech restriction was put only on 501(c)3, that one category. Johnson’s chief legislative aide would later admit that they didn’t have churches in mind at all, he was directly wanting to impact the two businessmen in Texas, but churches obviously were swept into it. And that changed the dynamics. Prior to that time it had never been questioned whether or not the church had full, complete separation from the state, and there was no capacity on the part of the government to control or censor any kind of speech on any topic. Religion, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, guaranteed with the first amendment was unquestioned at that point. We have evidence of pastors all the way back to Thomas Jefferson’s election, 1800, where they spoke out very strongly from the pulpit, either in opposition or in favor.
But churches can engage in partisan activities now, if they’re willing to give up their tax-exempt status. Would you be willing to give up that status in exchange for the right to endorse a candidate from the pulpit?
GARLOW: The presupposition of your question is in err. There was no trade-off ever done, there was no exchange that ever took place where pastors said, ‘OK, we’ll be silent on political speech in exchange for tax exemption.’ That is not at all the way it occurred. The tax-exempt status occurred from our founding fathers. That predated 1954 by a long time. It predated the founding of the IRS – that was around 1862. Tax-exempt status stems from the founding fathers’ understanding of the separation of church and state. The Supreme Court would rule that to tax the church would be able to control or destroy the church.
Isn’t there a concern, though, that if the church has a tax exemption and can also be an explicitly political organization, then the church is getting a subsidy for its free speech? Something other folks that are engaged with an explicitly political organization that’s not affiliated with a church aren’t getting?
GARLOW: Quite the contrary. There are, as I indicated, 29 different categories of 501(c). And they don’t have speech restrictions on them. A labor union, for example, does not. There’s a host of other organizations. And if you’re going to have the government dictating to the church what it can say, then you’re going to have to have a device for monitoring. If you’re going to have to monitor, there’s 300,000 churches, you’re going to send pulpit police to go around and check what pastors are saying. The core of the question is who decides what’s going to be said on the pulpit. And it’s either going to be the government, or it’s going to be that local pastor and that local congregation. And we believe that the Constitution grants to those pastors and their congregations that authority, based on the first amendment.
Is there any downside to inviting an IRS audit?
GARLOW: Well I suppose there would be any time you go to court. The challenge is that it’s not been to court. It is intriguing, is it not, that in 58 years the law has not been successful in getting it to court? And why would that be. When the IRS challenges a church, some churches simply say, ‘ok, ok, we won’t do that again.’ When a church lawyers up and says, ‘we’ll meet you in court,’ what has happened is the IRS has simply at that point backed away after a period of time and said we’re going to close your case.
Part of the reason that an administration or a government wouldn’t want to be critical of a church that does this is they wouldn’t want to be accused of going after a religion. You and your supporters are largely conservative. Is this at all in any sense about the notion that the Obama administration is engaging in a ‘war on religion’? And if they went after you, would it amount to a ‘war on religion’?
GARLOW: Well, you’re incorrect. This first occurred before Obama was even elected. This was started before the 2008 election. So this didn’t start because of Obama. And you’re also incorrect in the assumption that this is only for conservative churches. We have a number of churches of a liberal mindset signed up for it, and we strongly encourage them to do so. Our contention would be a pastor could speak out on the opposite side of the issues that I might share. The point is he has freedom in the pulpit as much as I do. Jeremiah Wright – I disagree with his content, but I support totally under the First Amendment his right to say what he wants from his pulpit, and what he feels that God has directed him to say. That is what freedom of religion and freedom of speech is all about in this nation.
A pastor now can talk explicitly now about an issue and allow people to draw their own conclusions – they can say, for example, that abortion is murder. Why isn’t it enough to talk about the issues and let people come to their own conclusions? Why do you have to be able to specifically say, ‘this is the candidate you should support’?
GARLOW: And why would you suggest that I couldn’t? Why should you limit my speech at all?
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
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The children in the Philippines need your help. Good things are possible for even the poorest of the poor of them. They need nutrition and education and Jesus. Just a little from you will help a lot.
October 5, 2012. Jesus has been my Chief Physician for many years. In my forties, my doctor discovered hypertension and in effect said I might not live long. Thirty years later, another doctor told me he could do nothing else for me. Today, I got the results of an extensive blood test. All measurements were amazingly normal with a few marginal concerns. I will talk to my Chief Physician about these as I watch and take care of myself with good personal care in nutrition and exercise. By the way, I have been fasting and praying since September 28 on my way to November 6. Praying keeps me connected with my Chief Physician. It also allows me to pray for others with power. Lord, protect my saltiness! Matthew 5:13-14 (MSG) “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? Ras Robinson Subscribe to “What the Lord Is Saying Today” October 5, 2012. There are fears you have. They have been simmering within you but you have told no one. They have been reinforced by some recent news. You don’t have to tell anyone but Me. But you do need to tell Me every fearful thought that has come across your mind no matter how small it is. Don’t allow those thoughts to rumble around in your head. Get them all out in the open to Me. Most have no power at all unless you let them. Even then the fear itself is not destructive, but the thought of it is. The ones that are destructive I will take care of. Trust Me. Isaiah 41:10 (NIV) “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”Bev Robinson Scroll down to see “Photo of the Day” from our ministry to children in the Philippines. October 5, 2012. In the natural my nose is very limited in smelling odors. I can primarily smell foul odors and briefly smell pleasant aromas. Supernaturally I can strongly smell the sweet floral, fruity presence of my Lord at various times which delights my spirit. The Lord says, “You carry within your innermost being the wonderful fragrance of Me. In the Old Testament people offered burnt offerings to honor and bless Me. Being part of the old covenant it was pleasing to Me, but not completely sufficient. My Son came to minister the new covenant to you and you’ve become a sweeter aroma to Me filling the earth and the heavens.” 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 (NIV) “But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God. Kevin Robinson
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