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Bishop Dag Declares 2018 As A Year Of Good Things!

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Good music, good dancing, good preaching, and good prayers! This is how the young people of the First Love Church entered into the new year. It was a taste of the good things that Bishop Dag Heward-Mills has declared for the year 2018. 

The hall was bursting at its seams, as thousands of young people gathered to be led by their prophet a d pastor, into the new year. The atmosphere was charged and electrifying, and had a rippling effect among the large crowd. One gentleman said that although it was his first time at the First Love church, he enjoyed the service because the excitement was so contagious.
Bishop Dag preached about what it means to have good things, and gave examples of some good things. He explained that Christians were to expect good things because Jesus Christ is the heir of good things. Towards the end of his message, he emphasized that the Holy Spirit is the best good thing that a Christian could receive.
After this, it was time for the moment that everyone had been waiting for – the time when Bishop Dag would pray for, and lay his hands on every single person present. People had travelled across the country for this. And why not? Why not enter the new year with a special blessing from the servant of God? Why not receive a prayer that will keep and preserve you for each of the 12 months of the new year? Like someone said, the quality of your life is directly proportional to the quality of hands that are laid on you.
The service at the First Love centre ended on a high note with great music from the singing stars, and vibrant moves from the dancing stars.

British Missionary Kidnapped In Nigeria Has Been Killed

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A British missionary who was abducted in October by a Nigerian cult has reportedly been killed.

According to Open Doors USA, Ian Squires was shot after leading a group in singing “Amazing Grace.”

“This missionary, Ian Squire, he was a real person,” said David Curry, of Open Doors USA. “He’s a real human being who was giving his life to try to help these folks in the south of Nigeria, and he was kidnapped and killed for his faith.

“And there are many people like him in Nigeria who have names and faces and families. They’re not all British, most of them are Nigerian themselves but they love Jesus and they’re dying for their faith.”

Squires was one of four British missionaries who were abducted by the Nigerian cult in the country. He was working to help provide eye care for people in the country.

“It’s just another example of what’s happening in Nigeria, although in a different vein,” Curry said. “Nigeria is a country that’s divided into—you’ve got the southern portion that’s largely Christian, but you have tribal factions in the north. You have these extremists from Boko Haram. It’s a country that is being pulled in a lot of directions.”

In November, a child suicide bombing killed more than 50 people in a mosque attack and another conflict between herders and farmers killed at least 30 people.

Nigeria is ranked number 12 on the Open Doors World Watch List of countries where Christians face the worst persecution.

“We are a particular people called by the name of Jesus,” Curry said. “We are called in Scripture to care for, to pray for others who are in chains or persecuted for the name of Jesus, and we have not done it. We do it on an incidental basis if we hear about an episode.

“This needs to be integrated into every church, every small group, every person’s prayer life that you’re praying for what God is doing in Africa, in Nigeria, those imprisoned and hurt and attacked, because we’re family.”

Government Officials Break Into Jiangxi Church, Assault Elderly, And Vandalize Property

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International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that on the morning of November 21, more than 100 government officers in uniform raided the Beimen (North Gate) Catholic Church in the city of Ji’an in Jiangxi Province. They tore religious posters, shattered religious icons and statues, and injured four elderly Catholics who were defending the church.

These officers from City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau, commonly known as Chengguan, are part of city management agencies responsible for handling daily aspects of urban life. They are notorious for their use of violence and capricious crackdowns. In this instance, they were employed to confiscate the church property, although they had no legal basis for doing so.

According to UCA News, Bishop John Baptist Li Suguang of Jiangxi asked priests to spread news of the raid to the public. The next day, priests and approximately 70 Catholics from the area marched with banners to Ji’an City government offices and demanded apologies from the authorities and that those responsible for the violence be punished.

Fearful of the situation getting out of hand, the Ji’an government has agreed to negotiate with the church, investigate the use of violence by Chengguan, and compensate the injured. Priests already began negotiation with the government on November 27.

After 1949, the Communist Party has illegally occupied a large amount of church property and religious venues throughout China. According to the document enacted by the State Council in 1980, government agencies shall return all the property to the churches and religious groups. In reality, that rarely happens.

A wealthy French Catholic widow donated the land, as well as an ancillary building, rectory, convent, hospital, and farmland to Ji’an North Gate Church in the late 19th century. Ji’an’s local Press and Publication Bureau of Culture, Radio and Television has sought to occupy the church for its use, but only successfully occupied the ancillary building after rounds of negotiation with local Catholics.

Ironically, on September 10, the priests of North Gate Church held a public cross installation ceremony and the news was even reported on Chinese Catholic website Xinde Net, as vetted by the government.  Yet two months later, the government took brutal action to claim something they don’t own.

In a prayer request published on a Chinese website, the author asked Catholics to “pray for the Lord to watch over the faithful there so that they will be treated in a fair and just manner. Based on the principle of rule of law, we will also use non-violent, peaceful means to fight for what we should get and what was ours originally.”

Gina Goh, ICC’s Regional Manager, said, “While it is not uncommon for the Chinese government to illegally occupy confiscated church property meant to be returned to the church according to State Council, the use of force and menace against innocent believers is barbaric and contradicts rule of law which President Xi Jinping has faithfully promoted. The Ji’an government should investigate the thug-like behavior of its workers and return all property to the faithful of North Gate Church, where it belongs.”

From Mail Room To Missionary Evangelist: Meet Reinhard Bonnke’s Successor

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World-renowned German Pentecostal evangelist Reinhard Bonnke preached his farewell crusade in Nigeria over the weekend, and now he passes the leadership torch of his international ministry, Christ for all Nations, to missionary evangelist Daniel Kolenda.

Who is Kolenda? He is the president and CEO of Christ for all Nations, and according to the ministry, “has led more than 17 million people to Christ face-to face through massive open-air evangelistic campaigns in some of the most dangerous, difficult and remote locations on earth.”

“Daniel is a gifted, fifth-generation preacher whose ministry is marked by a powerful evangelistic anointing and incredible miracles after the model of Jesus; preaching, teaching and healing,” according to the ministry’s website.

“The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear — he has even seen the dead raised — but most importantly, the poor have the gospel preached to them,” the website continued.

Bonnke presented Kolenda to those attending the farewell crusade and prayed for his successor, asking them to pray for him as well.

“The Lord specifically told me that He has appointed and anointed Daniel Kolenda as my successor,” Bonnke said, according to TheNewsGuru, an online news outlet in Nigeria.

Kolenda has been under the guidance of Bonnke for around a decade. He graduated from Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida and the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry in Pensacola.

But according to the Christ for all Nations website, Kolenda’s “greatest education has come from the years of ministry side-by-side with his mentor and spiritual father Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke.”

“Daniel Kolenda is an outstanding preacher with a message of salvation. He knows how to throw the net out and he knows how to pull it back in,” Bonnke told Charisma Magazine in 2011. “Many people are coming to salvation as a result of it.”

Charisma reported that Bonnke originally met Kolenda when he served as a postal clerk at Christ for all Nations’ headquarters in Orlando, Florida. Kolenda took the job for additional income to provide for his family while serving as a church-plant pastor.

From Mail Room To Missionary Evangelist: Meet Reinhard Bonnke’s Successor

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World-renowned German Pentecostal evangelist Reinhard Bonnke preached his farewell crusade in Nigeria over the weekend, and now he passes the leadership torch of his international ministry, Christ for all Nations, to missionary evangelist Daniel Kolenda.

Who is Kolenda? He is the president and CEO of Christ for all Nations, and according to the ministry, “has led more than 17 million people to Christ face-to face through massive open-air evangelistic campaigns in some of the most dangerous, difficult and remote locations on earth.”

“Daniel is a gifted, fifth-generation preacher whose ministry is marked by a powerful evangelistic anointing and incredible miracles after the model of Jesus; preaching, teaching and healing,” according to the ministry’s website.

“The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear — he has even seen the dead raised — but most importantly, the poor have the gospel preached to them,” the website continued.

Bonnke presented Kolenda to those attending the farewell crusade and prayed for his successor, asking them to pray for him as well.

“The Lord specifically told me that He has appointed and anointed Daniel Kolenda as my successor,” Bonnke said, according to TheNewsGuru, an online news outlet in Nigeria.

Kolenda has been under the guidance of Bonnke for around a decade. He graduated from Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida and the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry in Pensacola.

But according to the Christ for all Nations website, Kolenda’s “greatest education has come from the years of ministry side-by-side with his mentor and spiritual father Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke.”

“Daniel Kolenda is an outstanding preacher with a message of salvation. He knows how to throw the net out and he knows how to pull it back in,” Bonnke told Charisma Magazine in 2011. “Many people are coming to salvation as a result of it.”

Charisma reported that Bonnke originally met Kolenda when he served as a postal clerk at Christ for all Nations’ headquarters in Orlando, Florida. Kolenda took the job for additional income to provide for his family while serving as a church-plant pastor.

Momentous Crusade – Reinhard Bonnke’s Farewell Gospel Crusade

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Reinhard Bonnke (born April 19, 1940) is a German Pentecostal Evangelist, principally known for his gospel missions throughout Africa. Bonnke has been an evangelist and missionary in Africa since 1967. Bonnke has overseen 75 million recorded conversions to Christ.

Reinhard Bonnke was born on 19 April 1940 in KönigsbergEast PrussiaGermany. He was born again at the age of nine after his mother spoke with him about a sin that he had committed.[3] He left for missionary work Africa at the age of 10 and says that he had the experience of Baptism in the Holy Spirit. He is the son of a pastor and ex-serviceman in the German Army.

Bonnke studied at The Bible College of Wales in Swansea, where he was inspired by the director Samuel Rees Howells. In one meeting after Howells spoke of answered prayer, Bonnke prayed, “Lord, I also want to be a man of faith. I want to see your way of providing for needs.” After graduation, he pastored in Germany for seven years. He began his ministry in Africa, with which he is principally identified, preaching in Lesotho in 1967. He has subsequently held evangelical meetings across the continent.

Early on, Bonnke encountered poor results from his evangelistic efforts and felt frustrated at the pace of his ministry. Bonnke claims to have had a reoccurring dream featuring a picture of the map of Africa being spread with red and heard the voice of God crying “Africa Shall Be Saved”. This led him to adopt large-scale evangelism, rather than the traditional small scale missionary approach. He rented a stadium in Gaborone, and preached with little cooperation from local churches. Beginning with only 100 people, the stadium meetings grew.

In 1974, Bonnke founded the mission organisation ‘Christ For All Nations’ (abbreviated CfaN). Originally based in JohannesburgSouth Africa, the headquarters were relocated to Frankfurt, Germany in 1986. This was done primarily to distance the organisation from South Africa’s apartheid policy at the time. Today CfaN has 9 offices across 5 continents.

Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, Founder of Christ for all Nations (CfaN) will return to Nigeria for his final African Gospel – Crusade in November, 2017. While certainly not CfaN’s final African crusade, Evangelist Bonnke’s return could inspire another historic global attendance as that of the Lagos, Nigeria Millennium Crusade in 2000, CfaN’s largest crusade to-date.

During the Lagos Millennium Crusade in 2000, over the course of 5 nights, 6 million attended and 3.4 million decisions for Christ were made. In November 2017, CfaN anticipates many decisions for Christ in response to Reinhard Bonnke’s farewell message. One of the highlights of this amazing crusade will be during the day sessions, to have a PASSING THE BURNING TORCH Conference for leaders and all kind of church-workers. Evangelist Bonnke is believing for many thousands of pastors and evangelists from around the globe to be inspired to evangelism.

Ever since God gave Evangelist Bonnke a vision for a blood-washed Africa—a continent washed in the blood of Jesus Christ—over 40 years ago, he has been filled with a burning commitment to win the continent for Jesus. Evangelist Bonnke has said, “Whether I am eating or drinking, awake or asleep, the vision is ever-present. It never leaves me.”

Will Christians In America Face More Persecution?

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A New Jersey teacher was suspended for giving a student a Bible. A football coach was placed on leave for praying on the field. The Atlanta fire chief was fired for self-publishing a book defending Christian morality.

A Marine was court-martialed for refusing to remove a Bible verse on her desk. A senator castigated a political nominee for his evangelical theology. Christian groups like InterVarsity Christian Fellowship have been expelled from college campuses.

It’s hard for evangelical Christians not to feel that our culture is increasingly antagonistic toward our faith and values today.

I raise this topic because of a fascinating report released yesterday. Sociologist George Yancey shows that those who oppose evangelical Christianity have become wealthier in recent years and thus have more money to bankroll their viewpoint. In other words, we can expect intolerance to continue and even escalate in coming years.

Obviously, American Christians should not compare the opposition we face with the persecution being suffered in countries such as North Korea, Somalia, and Iraq. But Mary Eberstadt is right: “Something new has snaked its way into the village square: an insidious intolerance for religion that has no place in a country founded on religious freedom.”

How should we respond?

God wants his people to work for the common good regardless of how society treats us. He instructed his people exiled in Babylon to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf” (Jeremiah 29:7). The apostles led a movement that met physical, social, and spiritual needs so effectively that they won “favor with all the people” (Acts 2:47).

Conversely, one of the ways God redeems persecution is by using it to remind us that this world is not our home: “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). We are “sojourners and exiles” in this fallen world (1 Peter 2:11), knowing that this life is a journey and heaven is our destination.

In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis famously noted:

“The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment, he has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy.

“It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bath or a football match have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”

Paul called his ministry team “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20). He courageously advanced the agenda of his King in distant lands while preparing every day to return home.

Whose agenda will you advance today?

EU Suing Poland, Hungary & Czech Republic For Refusing Islamic Migrants

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The European Union (EU) is accusing Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic of refusing to share the “burden” of allowing Muslim migrants into their countries.

On December 4 the European Commission — the governing body of the European Union that proposes legislation and implements the EU’s decisions — launched “infringement procedures” against the three countries, claiming they are “in breach of their legal obligations.”

The EU ruled in 2015 that 160,000 refugees be distributed throughout most member countries of the EU.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were required to take in about 8,000 Muslims migrants. Poland and Hungary have not taken in any migrants while the Czech Republic has taken in 12 people.

After the massive jump in Muslim-perpetrated crimes in countries like Great Britain, Germany, France and Sweden — Poland’s leaders have pledged to protect Polish citizens.

Beata Szydło, Poland’s ex-Prime Minister, maintained “it is impossible not to connect” the uptick in European terror attacks and the influx of Muslim migrants.

Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister asserted, “No one will lift the duty of providing public safety from the Polish government.”

Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s Prime Minister, has called Muslim migrants “a poison,” claiming “every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk.”

safety from the Polish government.Tweet

He has been fighting his own battle against globalist George Soros, a secular Jew born in Hungary who has been using his billions of dollars to fund progressive programs like Muslim immigration, the acceptance of homosexuality and legalization of abortion and euthanasia.

Orbán slammed the EU in August when he declared there was a concerted effort to de-Christianize Europe and that Muslim migration was part of that program.

“We can never show solidarity with ideologies, peoples and ethnic groups, which are committed to the goal of changing the very European culture, which forms the essence, meaning and purpose of the European way of life,” he warned. “We must not show solidarity with groups and ideologies which oppose the aims of European existence and culture because that would lead to surrender,” he asserted.

Hungarian government minister András Aradszki called Soros’ work “satanic,” commenting that Europe is bowing to a “globalist agenda,” noting that Christianity itself is under attack:

We see this with abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage and the forced politicization of gender theory. The Soros mercenaries do not cite the Holy Father’s thoughts on this. We see the great European attacks against families, in which Soros and his comrades want to destroy the independence and values of nation states for the purpose of watering down the Christian spirit of Europe with the forced settlement of tens of millions of migrants. But the fight against Satan is a Christian duty. Yes, I speak of an attack by Satan, who is also the angel of denial, because they are denying what they are preparing to do — even when it is completely obvious. They frantically try to prove that there is no quota, there is no compulsory settlement and the Soros Plan does not exist.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are claiming the EU cannot interfere with their sovereignty and that they will fight to keep the Islam out of their nations.