Hello!
I hope you had an excellent weekend.
Have you heard about Spirit West Coast? SWC is a three-day Christian music festival that takes place May 25-27 at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego County. This huge event features concerts on eight stages by over 50 artists including tobyMac, newsboys, Third Day, Kutless, Todd Agnew, Delirious, Salvador, and dozens of others. Speakers include evangelists Miles McPherson and Bob Lenz, author Josh McDowell, and author Mark Mittelberg (Becoming a Contagious Christian).
SWC also features children's activities and ministries, action games, Christian comedy, camping and much more. For complete details or to request a free event newspaper, go to www.spiritwestcoast.org or call 1-831-443-5399. Single-day or 3-day tickets are available locally at Berean Christian Stores, 8807 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. (858-292-8052).
Welcome to the new readers of this message! Here is your Devotion, A Moment of Introspection, JCSM's Challenge, the Word of the Week, a faith-builder from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained," and the Quotes of the Week. Have a fantastic week and God bless you!
Love in Christ,
Jason Gastrich, Ph.D.
Contact Us: http://jcsm.org/contact.php
JCSM's Weekly Devotions (click here to listen!)
"Evangelize As Much As You Can"
Matthew 28:19, 20 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.' Amen."
Matthew 24:35, 36 "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only."
Luke 19:10 "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
Luke 22:41, 42 "And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, 'Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.'"
Romans 10:14, 15 "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: 'How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!'"
2 Timothy 4:1-5 "I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."
Insight: Are you ready to share the good news? Know the scriptures and the gospel and start preparing to share it. God will give you opportunities. Pray for boldness and take advantage of your opportunities. There are people that you will see today that need to know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.
Prayer: "Dear Lord, help us to evangelize more. Help us to be bold and courageous and not care about the consequences. Thank you for dying for our sins and loving us so much. Help us to understand You and be like You. There is no other like You! Thank you for being our everything. Let us pray for those who are on their way to Hell. Remind us that we are here to do your will and not just ours. In Jesus' name, Amen."
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-1893), the 19th President of the United States, had served as a Major General in the Civil War, a U.S. Congressman and a three-term governor of Ohio. In his Inaugural Address, March 5, 1877, President Rutherford Birchard Hayes acknowledged he was:
"Looking for the guidance of that Divine Hand by which the destinies of nations and individuals are shaped." - March 5, 1877. Benjamin Weiss, God in American History: A Documentation of America's Religious Heritage (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1966), p. 103. Willard Cantelon, Money Master of the World (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1976), p. 120.
President Rutherford B. Hayes declared:
"I am a firm believer in the Divine teachings, perfect example, and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. I believe also in the Holy Scriptures as the revealed Word of God to the world for its enlightenment and salvation." - Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, Oregon: American Heritage Ministries, 1987), p. 233.
If you'd like to have the citations for the footnotes above, please email us. If you'd like to see more quotes from those who framed and founded America, please click here: http://jcsm.org/AmericasFounders/.
I don't want anyone I know to not know Christ.
Tell someone about the love of Jesus Christ! Share your testimony and the gospel message. Do all you can to lead someone to Christ for salvation. Don't forget to be in prayer before, during, and after your interaction.
God bless you as you meet this week's challenge!
didasko (Greek, see Matthew 19:20): to learn, to teach (broad implication)
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained
"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible" claims:
Exodus 21:10 - God's instructions for taking a second wife.
"The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained" responds:
This passage is a classic example of God meeting people where they are and loving them. This is just like Jesus' answer to the Pharisees about divorce. God never wanted men to have more than one wife or divorce his wife. This was clear from Genesis. However, God saw people doing these things, so He gave them laws trying to curb their sinful desires.
This kind of lawgiving has been seen in every country in the world. Many citizens commit immoral crimes, therefore laws are put in place to curb these crimes. However, when laws are suddenly in place that require people to completely abstain from something they're used to doing, then there is a large problem (we saw this in the U.S. when there were laws against alcohol called prohibition laws - there were riots, illegal alcohol sales, people getting sick and dying from homemade liquor, chaos, and even more depravity). The most effective way to deal with this problem was to pass laws to curb the poor habits and behaviors associated with drinking alcohol, like no drinking and driving, no drinking until 21 years of age, no getting drunk in public, no giving alcohol to minors, etc.
Matthew 19:3-9 reads, "The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason? And He answered and said to them, 'Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.' They said to Him, 'Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?' He said to them, 'Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery.'"
(This explanation came from "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained", by Dr. Jason Gastrich. This book is on CD and gives over 4,000 answers to alleged Bible errors, regarding the entire Bible at http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.org. There is also a 300 question workbook that accompanies the CD-ROM.)
These quotes are from my upcoming book called, "10,000 Wise Quotes and Spiritual Sayings" (ISBN 978-0-9732797-8-8), which will be released in September. The following sayings are from the chapter called "Evangelism."
You will see people in violent opposition to Christ and Christian values.
I cannot remove the offensiveness of truth.
There will be responses when you have an influential life.
There will be no evangelism in Heaven.
As a result of your faith, relatives may give you a hard time or friends may write you off.
If you are truly obedient to Christ, if you take the Scriptures to heart and attempt to live them, you will inevitably come into conflict with the world.
There may be some people in your life that are only receiving prayers from you.
There are people that we've known that are burning in Hell right now.
I want to do more than talk about someone else's religion.
If you'd like to read more quotes, we have thousands in our archive! Visit http://quotes.jcsm.org.
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA 92169
Jason Gastrich, Ph.D.
JCSM's Director
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