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Missions Ethiopia

William Wagner
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Missions Ethiopia

Principalities of darkness were shaken above the city of Hosanna! Multitudes gathered together before the Lord to hear the word of God and experience His power.

Throughout the whole day, clouds hovered over the field with the forecast showing 95% chance of rain. It rained in the whole city, but the field was left untouched.

During the morning service, Pastor Andrey Shapoval taught on the importance of having a personal relationship with Jesus. The concluding service was all about God’s people being endowed with His power.
Pastor Andrey spoke about the importance of the power of God in the Church during these last days. As people rushed to the front, they cried out for the power of God to come upon their lives.
Multitudes received healing, deliverance, and activation.
All glory to Jesus!

The Four Spiritual Appointments

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The Four Spiritual Appointments

To follow Jesus is not easy. Living for Jesus isn’t easy. Do not believe anyone who presents a false version of Christianity to you. Christianity is all about following Jesus Christ and becoming Christ-like!

From the things Jesus said about becoming His disciple, it almost seemed as though He did not want anyone to follow Him. He warned different people who attempted to follow Him of the dangers of coming to Him.

Jesus Warns Us

He said, “If you come to me you must hate your parents, your family and yourself” (Luke 14:26).

He said to a rich man who wanted to follow Him: “You must sell whatever you have if you want to follow me” (Matthew 19:21).

He also said, “If you follow me you will not have anywhere to stay because I don’t even have the home that foxes and birds have” (Luke 9:58).

He said, “You cannot say goodbye to your family if you really want to follow me” (Luke 9:61).

He said to someone whose parents had died, “You cannot be involved in the burial of your father if you really want to be my disciple” (Luke 9:59).

Jesus Does Not Lower the Standards for Anyone

Obviously, Jesus did not intend to make things easy for anyone. He did not lower the bar for anyone. He did not give anyone special treatment. He knew He was inviting us to the greatest privilege ever given to mankind. The privilege of being saved by the blood of Jesus, the privilege of knowing God and the privilege of going to Heaven!

These warnings by Jesus Christ have not deterred the millions who simply respond to His awesome love. Millions love Jesus Christ in spite of the difficult conditions that He has set for following Him.

Somehow, knowing the living God and His Son Jesus Christ is more than enough compensation for any difficulties we must experience.

Don’t listen to anyone who claims that following Jesus is all about getting blessed, rich and successful. That is not Christianity. Christianity is about losing, sacrificing, suffering and dying.

The hardships and difficulties to be encountered by all Christians can be categorised into four main groups: losing, sacrificing, suffering and dying.

These are four spiritual appointments that all Christians must expect in one form or another. No one who truly follows Jesus Christ will escape these four appointments.

Don’t take any notice of anyone who tells you otherwise! He is just scratching your itching ears. In one shape, form or another, perhaps with a different name, you will experience the cross of Jesus Christ if you are really His disciple.

Our four appointments are losing, sacrificing, suffering and dying. Are these appointments scriptural? Yes, the Scriptures below show us how we are destined to lose, to suffer, to sacrifice and to die because of our faith, our calling and our spiritual destinies.

This book is intended to show how real these appointments are. It is not as bad as you may think and it will turn out to be a blessing in the end. Notice how the Scriptures below clearly outline these appointments for all of us.

Your appointment with “loss and losing”

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

Matthew 16:25

But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,”

Philippians 3:7-8

Because of Christ you will experience the appointment with “loss and losing”. This means a lot to anyone who cares to think about it.

Loss means you will come to be without certain things. There may be little or no prospect of recovering the things you will lose.

Loss means you will suffer the deprivation of certain things.

Loss means you will be unable to keep or maintain certain things in your life.

Loss means you will give up and forfeit the possession of certain things.

Your appointment with suffering

Because of Christ you will experience an appointment with “suffering”. This means a lot to anyone who cares to find out what suffering actually means. Don’t take any notice of people who do not include the concept of suffering in their walk of faith. All the great men of faith suffered because they believed in God.

Suffering means you will be subject to pain, distress, loss, injury or something unpleasant.

Suffering means you will experience adversity, affliction, hardship and misery in your life.

Suffering means you will go through misfortune, discomfort and difficulty.

Suffering means you will be tormented, be tortured and experience adversity

For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

Philippians 1:29-30

And we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith, so that no man may be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this.

For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know.

For this reason, when I could endure it no longer, I also sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the tempter might have tempted you, and our labor should be in vain.

1 Thessalonians 3:2-5 (NASB)

Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

Acts 14:22

Your appointment with sacrifice

Because of Christ you will experience the appointment with “sacrifice”. This means a lot to anyone who cares to find out what sacrifice actually means. Please do not listen to Christians who don’t preach about the sacrifice we have to make as Christians. Sacrificing is part of the religion that we belong to.

To sacrifice means to offer up your material possessions to God for worship.

To sacrifice means you will surrender something prized or desirable for the sake of something higher.

To sacrifice is to permit injury or disadvantage for the sake of something else.

To sacrifice is to dispose of your goods regardless of the fact that you make no profit.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Romans 12:1

By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.”

Hebrews 13:15

Your appointment with death

Because of Christ you will experience the appointment with “death”. To say that someone will die means a lot. This is why Jesus told us to take up our crosses and follow Him.

To die means to cease to exist and to function.

To die means to lose strength and to lose force.

To die means to pass gradually or fade away gradually.

To die means to be stopped permanently.

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Luke 9:23

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

1 Corinthians 15:31

by Dag Heward-Mills

https://www.daghewardmills.org/new/the-four-spiritual-appointments/

God’s Promise

William Wagner
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God’s Promise

Do you feel like you are walking under a dark cloud so to speak? Does everything in your life seem to be going in the wrong direction? Well, if it does, I want you to have hope. God has a promise for you today.

If the devil can cast a dark shadow over some area of your life, then he can cause you to lose the will to even put up a fight? That’s why he works so hard at it. He wants to create such a discouraging picture that you finally just give up and quit. But why would you do that? Satan has already been defeated and you are the victor! Remember what the Word says about you – get full of the Word and see how it will change your perspective. That dark cloud will go away.

Why? Because when you get full of the Word of God, you find out a few things. You find out that you are the one with the weapons that are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. You find out that you’re the one with the authority. You’re the one with the power through the name of Jesus. You find out that Satan has already been defeated. And when you stand up to him with the Word of God in your mouth and command him to flee, he runs away in stark terror.

Now I am not trying to deny the reality of sickness, financial problems, marital problems, or anything like that, but what I am acknowledging is a higher form of reality. Jesus said, “Thy Word is truth.” (John 17:17, KJV). The dictionary definition for truth is “the highest form of reality that exists.” Yes, sickness is real. Financial problems are real. Stress is real. Depression is real. But the Truth is a higher form of reality. When you apply a higher form of reality to a lower form, all things being equal, then the lower form must bow.

I don’t live in a fantasy world. I live in faith. I live in the Word. I live in the highest form of reality that exists. When problems come, I don’t say, “This is not really a problem.” No, I say, “Hold it right there, problem. Let’s see what the Word says about you.”

Whatever you are going through today is not the highest form of reality. No matter what shadows the devil casts at you, if you hold on to God and His Word, they will get you out of trouble. That is God’s promise. If you allow Satan’s shadows to darken you, then you lose sight of that promise. You are not remembering your covenant. God is saying, “Trust me! I will never let you down.”

 

Jerry Savelle

‘It’s All About Christ’: Decision America Tour Is Florida-Bound

William Wagner
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‘It’s All About Christ’: Decision America Tour Is Florida-Bound
Franklin Graham is hitting the road early in 2020, sharing the Gospel in six Florida cities from the Panhandle to Key West. Starting January 11 in Jacksonville Beach, the Decision America Sunshine State Tour then rolls to Plant City, Panama City Beach, Key West, Boca Raton and Fort Myers. Christian artists Jeremy Camp and Dennis Agajanian will share testimonies of Jesus’ love and lead the crowd in worship.

More than 1,900 people attended kickoff prayer events for the tour. During a gathering in southwest Florida, Christ-followers learned how to get involved and reach their neighbors for Christ.

Pastor Bill Mobley of Calvary Chapel Gold Coast in Fort Myers said his church is thrilled the tour will bring “a great dynamic of the Holy Spirit with Franklin Graham and the team” to their city. Pointing out that their building is surrounded by thousands and thousands of people who stay home on Sundays, Mobley explained that doesn’t mean they don’t believe in God.

“I think the reason is because people have grown frustrated with the ‘churchianity’ [practices of the church] they grew up in,” he said. “Many weren’t ever introduced to the Word of God.”

Mobley wasn’t, either, even though he grew up in church.

“I believed in God. I believed in Jesus,” he recalled. “But it was just very brief sermons and never got into the meat of the Word.”

That’s until his girlfriend, who later became his wife, invited him to her church—which was Biblically sound. Before long, he was hooked on reading the Bible. “I just had a tremendous hunger for the Word of God,” Mobley said. During a 10-year period of diving into Scripture and being born again in Christ, he was led to become a pastor.

Florida is also where Billy Graham felt God calling him to a lifetime of ministry. The evangelist studied at Florida Bible Institute and preached on the streets of Tampa.

Now his son, Franklin Graham, is following God’s lead in taking the Gospel across America and around the world. In October, he traveled through North Carolina leading more than 65,000 people across eight cities in prayer for government leaders and their communities as a whole.

Billy Graham To Be Honored With Statue In D.C.

William Wagner
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Billy Graham To Be Honored With Statue In D.C.
It’s been just under two years since Mr. Graham went to be with the Lord, and now there’s an opportunity for you to continue his legacy for generations to come—from our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C.
Legislators in North Carolina are honoring the evangelist’s lifelong ministry with a statue in the U.S. Capitol, and you can be part of it.

Billy Graham grew up as a dairy farmer’s son in Charlotte, North Carolina, later settling his family two hours west in the mountains of Montreat. This pastor to 12 presidents preached to more than 215 million people worldwide, holding several Crusades throughout his home state of North Carolina.

In 2013, North Carolina’s General Assembly named Billy Graham North Carolina’s Favorite Son. Two years later, the state general assembly voted to have Billy Graham’s statue placed in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, and by last December, the North Carolina Statuary Hall Committee officially set these plans in motion.

The Architect of the Capitol estimates that 3 to 5 million people visit this historic building each year.

Regarding this honor, Franklin Graham said, “Our hope is that adding his likeness to Statuary Hall will continue to bring awareness to my father’s life work of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and allow the message he preached to be shared with those who visit for many years to come.”

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is coming alongside the North Carolina Statuary Hall Committee to help raise the funds for this project.

Each state can have two statues, for a total of 100 statues throughout the U.S. Capitol, a meeting place for Congress. Other statues include George Washington, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Edison and Hellen Keller.

Charlotte-based artist Chas Fagan, a self-taught sculptor and painter, will create the statue of Billy Graham. Fagan also sculpted the statue of President Reagan for the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

Billy Graham’s granddaughter, Cissie Graham Lynch, helped choose the artist who will honor her grandfather’s life and message.

“I think one of the greatest parts of my grandfather’s testimony is that he was a farm boy from North Carolina,” Lynch said. “This is something for North Carolinians to be proud of and to always remember that God can use any of us as long as we have a life and a heart that surrenders to Him and is obedient to His calling on our life.”

Louie Giglio Reflects On Changes In Ministry In The US, Francis Chan’s Move To Asia

William Wagner
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Louie Giglio Reflects On Changes In Ministry In The US, Francis Chan’s Move To Asia
Best-selling author and Bible teacher Francis Chan recently revealed that God is calling him to move to Hong Kong to “bring relief, share the Gospel, and plant churches among” the “ultra poor,” and Passion City Church pastor Louie Giglio says he thinks it’s a “beautiful decision for him.”

Chan’s decision comes after feeling that American Christianity has caused him to “drift” over the past 20 years. Giglio, who is gearing up to hit the road in 2020 with Winter Jam, said he has also seen a big change in American Christianity over the years, but believes many of the changes are positive.

“I think some of the biggest changes have just been more of a focus on building community and not just simply hosting events,” Giglio said in an interview on Friday. “I think the generations that are emerging are highly relational and value the relational aspect of life. It used to be enough just to say, ‘Hey, let’s gather at XYZ point and have a service of some kind.’

“But really what the church needs to be about, and I think is now shifting to be a lot more about, is to be more driven around relationships and around community, around people doing life with other people. That’s been a really big shift. I think that’s happened.”

Giglio said he loves the fact that modern day technology has made it possible to share the Gospel globally and even see what others are doing in Christ’s name around the world.

“We are living in a more globalized world than we were 10 years ago, certainly more than we were 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, your friend had to move to Asia, spend some time there, write you a letter and then come home and tell you about it and show you the photographs that they took on a camera that they had developed at a film developing place,” the speaker and author shared.

“Now, you just open your phone and click on Instagram and you see what they did today in Laos, or in Cambodia or in Myanmar.”

“You’re instantaneously aware of and connected to a grand story. I think the biggest difference of ministry right now is I can influence people on every continent in the next 60 seconds by posting something on my Instagram. Where before, 20 years ago, I had to go get on an airplane and fly to India if I wanted to influence someone in India, or they had to read a book or hear a message that they got on a compact disc or whatever. It’s just a bigger conversation. It’s a more instant conversation,” Giglio continued.

Days after announcing that he and his family are moving to Asia in February 2020 to become international missionaries, Chan specified that the exact destination is Hong Kong.

“I love that Francis is moving to Asia to reach young people. I think that’s a beautiful decision for him, it seems like a great move for Francis,” the Atlanta-based minister said of his peer.

“I love that I can stay in Atlanta and build up that local church here and in the same way can influence somebody all across Asia, who hopefully will have a bigger heart and a bigger vision to influence an unreached person today as well,” he concluded.

 

Jeannie Law, Christian Post Reporter

Kanye West To Appear At Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church

William Wagner
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Kanye West To Appear At Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church

In what is expected to be his biggest “Sunday Service” audience yet, rapper Kanye West will be joining megachurch pastor Joel Osteen at his Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, on Sunday for a conversation that promises to be epic.

Sources with knowledge of the planned appearance told TMZ that West is expected to chat with Osteen for about 20 to 30 minutes during the church’s 11 a.m. service.

“Our sources say Joel wants his congregation — which stands 45,000 strong — and his TV audience — which stands at 10 million in the U.S. alone — to hear how Kanye has overcome significant adversity in his life,” TMZ noted. “As one source put it, ‘Kanye used to be about nothing greater than himself. Now it’s all about a higher power.’”

The outlet further noted that both West and Osteen have been talking quite often recently, particularly since West has continued to profess his devotion to God.

Lakewood Church told KHOU 11 that they will release more details regarding West’s appearance later this week.

West started his popular Sunday Service events, which generally include prayer and live music, in January 2019. At the time, his wife, Kim Kardashian West, said her family was on a path to spiritual enlightenment.

The journey has since led to West’s recently released first faith-based album, Jesus Is King which has gone on to make history on Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs and Hot Gospel Songs charts. The set opened at No. 1 on both the Top Christian Albums and Top Gospel Albums tallies (dated Nov. 9) with 264,000 equivalent album units earned in its first week (ending Oct. 31), according to Nielsen Music.

 

Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter

Fewer Americans Are ‘Convinced’ Beyond A Doubt That God Exists, Gallup Says

William Wagner
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Fewer Americans Are ‘Convinced’ Beyond A Doubt That God Exists, Gallup Says

While nearly 80 percent of Americans were “convinced” just over a decade ago that God exists, only 64 percent of Americans today are so strongly persuaded in their belief in God, a new analysis from Gallup says.

Citing responses the question of belief in God asked in three different ways in recent years, Gallup found that when respondents were simply asked “Do you believe in God?,” some 87 percent of respondents say “yes.” When asked if they were “convinced” that God exists, that number dropped to 64 percent.

“The array of Gallup results leads to the conclusion that putting a percentage on Americans’ belief in God depends on how you define ‘belief.’ If the standard is absolute certainty — no hedging and no doubts — it’s somewhere around two-thirds. If the standard is a propensity to believe rather than not to believe, then the figure is somewhere north of three-quarters,” Gallup’s Zach Hrynowski said.

Gallup’s analysis comes on the heels of a new study from the Pew Research Center in October that says only 65 percent of Americans now identify as Christian.

The study showed significant growth among Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated — a group which includes atheists, agnostics and people who don’t identify with any religion.

This group now represents 26 percent of the population. The drop in the number of Americans identifying as Christian reflected a 12 percent decline when compared to the general population 10 years ago. The decline was visible across multiple demographics but particularly among young adults.

Latest research from the General Social Survey shows an even more dire state in the number of Americans who are convinced that God exists without a doubt.

Figures from that survey showed 65 percent of Americans said they were convinced of God’s existence in 1993 while only 53 percent said they know God exists and had no doubts in 2018.

In a recent report from the series “Leaving Christianity” by The Christian Post, it was pointed out that millions of Americans who were once committed Christians have continued to increasingly disengage with their religion in recent decades, and churches have been struggling with the culture shift in which there are no absolute answers.

Ryan Burge, an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and pastor of First Baptist Church of Mt. Vernon, Illinois, also noted in another recent report published by the Barna Group, that younger generations raised in the church are also no longer typically returning to church when compared with members of the “Baby boomer” generation born between 1945 and 1964.

“Many pastors are standing at the pulpit on Sunday morning and seeing fewer and fewer of their former youth group members returning to the pews when they move into their late-20s and early-30s. No church should assume that this crucial part of the population is going to return to active membership as their parents once did,” he explained.

“The data is speaking a clear message: the assumptions that undergirded church growth from two decades ago no longer apply. If churches are sitting back and just waiting for all their young people to flood back in as they move into their 30s, they are likely in for a rude awakening. Inaction now could be creating a church that does not have a strong future,” he said.

 

Leonardo Blair, Christian Post Reporter

Disabled Pastor In Mexico Leads Hundreds Of Unreached People To Jesus

William Wagner
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Disabled Pastor In Mexico Leads Hundreds Of Unreached People To Jesus

Some might underestimate the impact of packing shoeboxes during the holidays for Samaritan’s Purse, but a disabled pastor has used the ministry project to witness to an entire village of unreached people in a remote mountainous area of Mexico where they now have their first church.

Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan’s Purse, has provided an open door for people to be a part of evangelism efforts around the world by filling shoe sized gift boxes that are sent to over 160 nations, including 50 hard to reach areas.

Operation Christmas Child collects shoebox gifts filled with toys, school supplies, hygiene items and booklets with the Gospel message. The project then delivers the boxes to children in need around the world in over 160 nations, opening the door for the next generation to hear the message of God.

Last month, The Christian Post witnessed how the shoebox ministry has impacted a secluded village in Mexico.

La Laguna is home to an indigenous people called Mexicaneros, or the Nahuatl people, and up until a few years ago these people had never heard the Gospel message of salvation in Jesus Christ. It was the bold faith of Tequila resident pastor Jose Benitez that changed the spiritual fate of the villagers forever. On Oct. 22, the village dedicated their first church on the mountain.

There were over a hundred professing Christians — both young and old — at the church dedication, along with a small team from Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child and Edward Graham, a grandson of the late world renowned evangelist Billy Graham, and this CP reporter.

Benitez, a native of Mexico, contracted polio when he was 2 years old and has never been able to walk. But the pastor did not allow his disability to stop him from answering the call of God on his life. Benitez has repeatedly risked his life over the years to make a six-hour trek up the mountains to the village of La Laguna to witness to the indigenous people who live there.

After years of traveling up and down the mountain to preach and not see much fruit from his labors in the dangerous area, the minister decided to host an Operation Christmas Child shoebox giveaway in the village, which has resulted in nearly a hundred children accepting Jesus as their Lord. The children, in turn, became little evangelists to their own families who were all present at La Laguna’s church dedication ceremony.

 

Jeannie Law, Christian Post Reporter

Francis Chan Moving To Hong Kong To Share The Gospel

William Wagner
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Francis Chan Moving To Hong Kong To Share The Gospel
Bestselling author and Bible teacher Francis Chan has revealed God is calling him to move to Hong Kong to “bring relief, share the gospel, and plant churches among” the “ultra poor.” 
Days after announcing he and his family are moving to Asia in February 2020 to become international missionaries, the Crazy Love author identified the exact destination: Hong Kong. 

“Nine years ago, while we were in Hong Kong, Lisa and I both felt God was calling us to move there,” Chan wrote in an online update, adding that they enjoyed their “dependence on God in unfamiliar, uncomfortable places.”

But at the time, the pastor said he felt God tell him there were two things he had to do in the United States before he could go anywhere else. “He wanted me to display a different picture of Church and a different picture of marriage/family,” he explained.

In obedience to God’s requirements, Chan said he penned two books: Letters to the Church and You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity and noted, “I have tried to live those messages out, giving those around me an example of what I wrote about.”

In 2010, Chan stepped down from Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, California, after the focus turned to him and not the Holy Spirit, before taking his family overseas to India, Thailand and China.

For the past nine years, The Chan family has been in San Francisco, where they started We Are Church, a house church network which has grown to 25 pastors, two of whom are now part of his family and plan to move with him.

Two months ago, Chan was in Myanmar traveling “from hut to hut with a translator, sharing the Gospel with people who had never heard about Jesus.” The more he did it, the more he realized he wanted to do this for “the remainder of my life.”

 

 

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