Philadelphia Harvest '08 With Greg Laurie

Big weekend coming up in Philadelphia. If you aren't in the area or can't make it, be sure to click on the links found here to watch the event live.

More than 350 area churches have invited Pastor Greg Laurie and the Harvest Crusades team to partner with them in an evangelistic outreach in the Greater Philadelphia area.

Harvest 08 will be held October 3–5 at 7:30 P.M. at the Wachovia Center. The event will feature some of the top names in contemporary Christian music, along with an evangelistic message from Pastor Greg.

For more than 18 years, Harvest Crusades has put on large-scale evangelistic outreaches around the United States and in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. More than 3.5 million people have attended a Harvest Crusades event in person, and more than 275,000 people have registered decisions of faith in Jesus Christ.

Harvest Crusades events are designed to be opportunities for Christians to invite unsaved family members, coworkers, friends, and acquaintances to hear the life-changing message of the gospel in an environment that is entertaining, yet nonthreatening.

The cornerstone of each event is the presentation of the gospel by Pastor Greg Laurie. Biblically-sound and culturally relevant, Pastor Greg brings a clear gospel message, providing an opportunity for people to make a decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

See you there!

Our Security in God

Wanted to post a prayer from the Presidential Prayer Team, a ministry aimed at "mobilizing millions of Americans to pray for our President, our Leaders, our Nation, and our Armed Forces." - 1 Timothy 2:1-2

Be blessed...


September 29, 2008

Dear Friend,

Treasury Secretary Paulson has worked with President Bush, leaders in Congress, both presidential candidates and other advisors on a plan to rescue our failing economy. Congressional leaders toiled through the weekend creating a plan deemed acceptable by members on both sides of the aisle.

Today, the House of Representatives failed to pass that bill. Members from both parties pointed fingers as the stock market plunged. Commentators are saying that the economy is doomed and the next Great Depression is inevitable.

Interestingly, some pundits are saying that this crisis has but one source—greed! Greed is a spiritual problem, not an economic one. And a spiritual problem requires a spiritual answer.

In this time of unprecedented uncertainty, we need God’s intervention. We need His solution, and we need Him to reveal it in such a way that we know it’s Him—and only Him—acting on our behalf.

Please, join me in praying for God’s help in this potentially disastrous time in our nation’s history. Pray that God will guide the leaders into the solution He desires. Pray for wisdom for all involved—for Secretary Paulson, President Bush, Fed Chairman Bernanke, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, Minority Leader Boehner, House Financial Services Committee Chair Barney Frank and others as they work together.

Thank you in advance for praying with us in this insecure time in our country. Together we place our security in God, and in His answers to our prayers. It will be exciting to see how He provides.

Prayerfully yours,
John Lind
President/CEO

P.S. Please help our country by forwarding this email to as many people as you can.

DIGG!

Help Doesn't Come From a $700 Billion Bailout

Our help is in the name of the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth. - Psalms 124:8

Once in awhile we get that "ah-ha" moment when we realize that there absolutely was a reason for that pastor to have been hammering out a point in that sermon long ago or maybe not so long ago.

I had such a moment when I was reading through a couple Psalms the other night and got to the last verse in Psalms 124...Our help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.

Oh, ya! My help doesn't come from a $700 billion bailout package! My help doesn't come from John McCain or Barack Obama (not even Sarah Palin)! My help doesn't come from the Republicans or the Democrats!

Then, when I was meditating on this verse some more, I remembered something else: God's word is comforting and healing. That's why it's important to have it ingrained in our hearts.

Now convicted, and recalling that I've often heard from pastors and Christians trying to embold others, I awakened again to the fact that memorizing scripture is important. Ah-hah, it certainly is!

Psalms 124

Had it not been the Lord who was on our side,"
Let Israel now say,
"Had it not been the Lord who was on our side
When men rose up against us,
Then they would have swallowed us alive,
When their anger was kindled against us;
Then the waters would have engulfed us,
The stream would have swept over our soul;
Then the raging waters would have swept over our soul."
Blessed be the Lord,
Who has not given us to be torn by their teeth.
Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper;
The snare is broken and we have escaped.
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
_______________

Photo by Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times

Paul Long: 'Be alert. Be watchful. Be ready.'

Associate pastor who died on Metrolink becomes the "object lesson" of Sunday message.

This from the Los Angeles Times:

A sermon on the lessons of Metrolink 111

Minister delivers message on life of fellow preacher who died after being injured in train crash.

For more than 13 hours, Pastor Tony Amatangelo had prayed and watched over his friend and fellow minister as he lay in a county hospital after being pulled from the wreckage of Metrolink 111. Paul Long died, and four hours later, physically and emotionally spent, Amatangelo returned to his Moorpark home.

Sunday service was coming. What would he say? The pastor felt chances were slim that the sermon he had written for the service would be relevant after the crash.

Then he remembered....

I wanted to do one pullout quote before you go to read the full story that I highly recommend.

"We didn't see it, but as those trains collided just on the Chatsworth and Simi Valley border, Pastor Paul saw the sign of the Son of Man," the pastor told a hushed church. "We looked at a body that was bloody and bruised. Pastor Paul saw glory. He would tell us to comfort yourself with this thought: 'It didn't look to me like it looked to you.' "

Full Story

Note: The head-on collision with a Union Pacific freight train on a bend in Los Angeles County's Chatsworth punched the Metrolink's locomotive right into the first car. At least 22 of the 24 passengers killed in the Sept. 12 crash -- the engineer also died -- were riding in that car, according to the coroner's office. LA Times crash victim story.

His Open Door Policy

Now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away from God are brought near. - Ephesians 2:13

This from Max Lucado's Grace for the Moment, Volume 2:

AN OPEN DOOR

Nothing remains between you and God but an open door.

Something happened in the death of Christ that opened the door for you and me. And that something is described by the writer of Hebrews.

"So, brothers and sisters, we are completely free to enter the Most Holy Place without fear because of the blood of Jesus' death. We can enter through a new and living way that Jesus opened for us. It leads through the curtain–Christ's body" (Heb. 10:19-20).

To the original readers, those last four words were explosive: "the curtain–Christ's body." According to the writer, the curtain equals Jesus. Hence, whatever happened to the flesh of Jesus happened to the curtain. What happened to his flesh? It was torn. Torn by the whips, torn by the thorns. Torn by the weight of the cross and the point of the nails. But in the horror of his torn flesh, we find the splendor of the open door.

_______________


Reading a Max Lucado book is as comfortable as having coffee and conversation with a close friend. He Chose the Nails: What God Did to Win Your Heart is signature Lucado: warm, conversational storytelling blended with scripture, humor, and vulnerability. Lucado invites us to understand the symbols surrounding Christ's crucifixion and celebrate the significance of the promises they offer. From the sign in different languages tacked to the cross ("I will speak to you in your language") to the burial clothing ("I can turn your tragedy into triumph"), he speaks of each symbol as a "gift of grace" that reveals God's love for mankind... - Amazon

Moving From Sunday-Only Christians

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. - James 1:22(NKJ)

I've heard about a week of messages, starting last week, pertaining to this very topic...on my favorite radio station, KWVE, the message I heard on Sunday (Sept. 7) at Revival Fellowship, and friends and bloggers like Yvette... seemingly everywhere else I stop and listen!

This from Yvette Nietzen at Fresh Wind Ministries:

BE DOERS OF THE WORD

My husband was speaking to a friend of ours who went to do some work at a couple´s home. The worker commented that the couple did not portray their Christianity, and that he is routinely treated very poorly.

It is sad to say, but these stories are common today. We act like Christians on Sunday, and during the rest of the week we are someone completely different. We behave and say the right buzz words with our Christian friends, but then face the world and act like them during the week.

The word above says that we are to be doers of the word. In other words, be Christ-like in every area of our lives.

I am particular when it comes to treating people. We are all God´s creation, saved or unsaved, and when we interact with others we portray Christ in us. We portray Christ with our words and actions. We are Christ´s representatives on earth.

I would be saddened to hear of someone speaking about me, that person not having a clue that I have Jesus in my heart. I then began to think; If I was belittling a fellow Christian, don´t you think that the Lord would be saddened as well?

Let us learn to be doers of the word in all areas of our lives. Our speech, our manner of treating others, and our actions towards strangers. If we struggle, we have a helper with us that will teach us and guide us every step of the way.

_______________

Fresh Wind Ministries has been birthed with a passion to serve the Body of Christ. Our desire is to impart and teach the deeper things of God to the believer and to lead them onto a new path where they will rise up in the authority that the Lord has already given them.

Our goal is to reach the English speaking people living in Latin America, as well as other countries where the Lord leads. This way we can minister to them in their native language, and have them be refreshed by His Spirit. We believe the End Times Church will rise up in power and authority, and that signs and wonders will be manifest on the earth.

Fresh Wind Ministries believes that we will see a great outpouring of His Spirit upon the earth, and we wait and listen to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. - Fresh Wind Ministries