Berean Research has the story:
“How can faith transform your life, your career, your happiness? How can you live a life of blessings?”
That’s the intro to Dr. Mehmet Oz’s new Faithful Fridays show. The Muslim television TV celebrity doctor known for teaming up with Saddleback’s Rick Warren to launch the “Daniel Plan” diet, small group, and sermon series is now teaming up with The War Room’s Priscilla Shirer and Hillsong New York Pastor Carl Lentz, among others.
Study – Grow – Know warns that the Buddhist – Hindu practice of TM has been changed to mindfulness but what hasn’t changed is that it is a meditative practice that clears the mind and takes the practitioner into an altered state of consciousness:
We’ve written before on the subject of mindfulness, here and here. However, since awareness and practice of it has been growing seemingly by leaps and bounds, another warning regarding that system is probably a good idea.
Time recently published a special edition that deals completely with the area of mindfulness. Though the cover price was $13.00, it was beneficial to understand the spin placed on this growing problem. First thing to notice is that right on the cover, Time calls mindfulness, “the new science of health and happiness.” Whenever something like mindfulness is referred to as “science,” red flags should go up.
After all, mindfulness is dealing with the area of philosophy, but is presented in a way that is intended to make people believe that it is based in hard, cold, scientific fact. It’s not. It used to be called Mindfulness of Purpose, but has been shortened to simply mindfulness. That is also a clue. Often, names and labels are changed completely or shortened to make them more scientific sounding, so that people will have a difficult time disagreeing with them.
See Our Research Paper On Contemplative Prayer
According to Breitbart:
Retail giant Target has abruptly shuttered two high priority projects which were intended to guarantee the company’s future, amid the public boycott provoked by the company’s insistence on transgender-friendly, mixed-sex, dressing rooms.
Target announced the end of two projects as the stock price fell 64.77 at market close on Feb. 8. That’s down from $83 dollars when the boycott began once the company made its transgender policy change on April 19. The stock price drop has slashed roughly $10 billion from the company’s value on Wall Street.
Target announced it was shutting down a project billed as the “Store of the Future.” The project was aimed at developing a new outlet design that would consist of a smaller upfront retail store fronting a warehouse with robots picking items for the customers up front, recode.com reported. The closure was so sudden that it caught the project’s manager by surprise.
11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. 15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. Colossians 2:11-15 (NASB)
The more I deal with “professing Christians,” no matter how conservative they appear to be, it can be somewhat trying at times to encounter the immaturity of the growth of Christ’s nature in some of them. There are some who are so ruled by their flesh that the only fruit that I ever witness in them is of this world, full of bitterness, anger, resentment, and a complete disregard for the commands from our own Savior to forgive, turn the other cheek, et cetera. I know that in my own case that my flesh must be continually kept reigned in and controlled or it will cause me to slide right back into those habitual sins it loves so much. However, the mark of one who has been truly made alive together with Christ is not sinless perfection, but rather one who is actually fighting this fight. That being said, let’s look at two passages in which is found the only New Testament occurrences of the Greek Word συζωοποιέω or suzōopoieō, “to make alive together with another; to make a sharer of the quickening of another.”
According to Breitbart:
Almost seven out 10 Democrats believe Islam “encourages violence… about the same as other religions,” according to a new CBS poll.
The trusting attitude towards Islam is revealed in the February 2017 poll follows 17 tumultuous years of attacks against Americans motivated or shaped by Islamic ideology throughout the United States—from the 9/11 atrocity to the Pulse nightclub attack in Florida committed by an observant, orthodox Muslim man from a Muslim family.
Merely one-in-seven Democrats believe that Islam is more violent than other religions, such as Christianity, Mormonism, Judaism, and Buddhism. One-in-ten Democrats believe that Islam is less violent that other religions, according to the poll of 1,019 adults, which was taken Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.
In contrast, Republicans have a far colder view of Islam. Sixty-three percent of Republicans view Islam as aggressive compared to other religions, and only two percent view Islam as more pacific than other faiths.
Christian News has a report that Bible believing Christians will find disturbing:
Discussion is stirring over how Trump Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch might rule on issues such as homosexuality and abortion should he be confirmed. His former law clerk told reporters last week that Gorsuch was supportive of his “gay marriage,” but reports also note that Gorsuch outlined over a decade ago that he does not believe the courts are the place to effect social change.
Joshua Goodbaum served as a clerk for Gorsuch in 2009, and now works as an attorney. He told Reuters on Friday that on the week of his 2014 “wedding” with his partner, Gorsuch expressed his support.
“He said, ‘This is a wonderful thing. You’ll see how your relationship grows,’” Goodbaum recalled.
“I have never felt the least whiff from him of homophobia or intolerance toward gay people,” he added.
28 For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? (Luke 14:28 NASB)
Postmodernism : A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one’s own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.
Postmodernism is “post” because it denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody – a characteristic of the so-called “modern” mind. The paradox of the postmodern position is that, in placing all principles under the scrutiny of its skepticism, it must realize that even its own principles are not beyond questioning. As the philosopher Richard Tarnas states, postmodernism “cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself.” – From Faith and Reason
Pragmatism: Function: noun Date: circa 1864
1 : a practical approach to problems and affairs <tried to strike a balance between principles and pragmatism> 2 : an American movement in philosophy founded by C. S. Peirce and William James and marked by the doctrines that the meaning of conceptions is to be sought in their practical bearings, that the function of thought is to guide action, and that truth is preeminently to be tested by the practical consequences of belief
Postmodernism is a term that is claimed by the Emergent Church movement. This philosophy in the first part of the 21st Century has come to dominate Western thinking. In each area of thought within it we find that, invariably, pragmatism is its root. Pragmatic philosophy says that everything is relative because ultimate, transcendent truth does not exist. This makes reasoning with a pragmatist extremely frustrating. Also, there are moral and absolute standards in our society that are continually under attack and, seemingly, are crumbling under our feet all around us. The culprit behind this is Pragmatic philosophy coupled with postmodernist thinking.
In a post over at LifeZette, Alex McFarland declares: Free speech, free thought, and a student’s true potential are all casualties of a PC culture.
McFarland makes the case that “Unless you send Junior to a solidly Christian and/or conservative college, there’s a very good chance you’ll be spending your hard-earned savings for an eight-semester politically correct indoctrination program.”
After interviewing hundreds of students, professors and administrators, McFarland is convinced that “College education is less about the pursuit of truth and more about imparting a carefully guarded, often forcefully imposed narrative of economic socialism, political globalism, moral relativism, militant secularism, and personal meaning through hedonism.” Read it and weep:
“College costs four years and $100,000 to discover that you can’t know anything.”
Variations of that sentiment have been circulated by trend watchers, cultural commentators and worldview speakers like myself for years now. Over a decade ago, in his excellent and heavily footnoted work “Brainwashed,” author Ben Shapiro observed that a college “education” at many universities today amounts to “a four-year attack on America and God.”
Shapiro had been fired from the UCLA Daily Bruin for writing an op-ed piece around the radical idea that the nation of Israel should not be forced by the U.N. to give up land for peace. Though extortion-like “land-for-peace” agreements have never brought lasting peace to the Middle East, and though such arrangements have never served the best interests of the nation of Israel, approval of such has been the accepted party line for much of Western academia for years.
Yahoo News reports:
Seven percent of Catholic priests were accused of abusing children in Australia between 1950 and 2010 but the allegations were never investigated, “shocking and indefensible” data showed Monday during an inquiry into paedophilia in the church.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard that 4,444 alleged incidents of pedophilia were reported to church authorities and in some dioceses, more than 15 percent of priests were perpetrators.
Australia ordered the Royal Commission in 2012 after a decade of growing pressure to investigate allegations of child abuse across the country, with the inquiry now in its final phase after four years of hearings.
“Between 1950 and 2010, overall seven percent of priests were alleged perpetrators,” said Gail Furness, the lawyer leading questioning at the inquiry in Sydney.
According to Christian News:
Vice President Mike Pence defended on Sunday President Donald Trump’s decision to retain an Obama-era order banning groups that contract with the federal government from “discriminating” against homosexuals and transgenders in their business or non-profit organization.
“I think throughout the campaign, President Trump made it clear that discrimination would have no place in our administration,” Pence said during an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” according to a transcript of the discussion. “He was the very first Republican nominee to mention the LGBTQ community at our Republican National Convention and was applauded for it. And I was there applauding with him.”
“I think the generosity of his spirit, recognizing that in the patriot’s heart, there’s no room for prejudice is part of who this president is,” he stated.
4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith. Habakkuk 2:4 (NASB)
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “ But the righteous man shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17 (NASB)
11 Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, “ The righteous man shall live by faith.” Galatians 3:11 (NASB)
37 For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. 38 But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. Hebrews 10:37-38 (NASB)
The real author of Sacred Scripture is the Holy Spirit. When the Spirit of God frequently repeats Himself, He thereby appeals for special attention. Look closely at Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:37-38. Since the right doctrine comes from the Holy Spirit and He has declared that the righteous shall live by faith so often we must discern that this is doctrine and it is of highest importance. Also, these truths, this doctrine, must be preached and taught to believers as much as possible. Since all genuine believers have the Holy Spirit they should unhesitatingly receive this doctrine by their regenerated faith, which is a gift from God.
What’s Up With That posted a story from The Daily Mail entitled “How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data” that has the details of yet another global warming data scandal. According to the report, fake data was made up prior to the Paris accords:
The Mail on Sunday today reveals astonishing evidence that the organisation that is the world’s leading source of climate data rushed to publish a landmark paper that exaggerated global warming and was timed to influence the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.
A high-level whistleblower has told this newspaper that America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) breached its own rules on scientific integrity when it published the sensational but flawed report, aimed at making the maximum possible impact on world leaders including Barack Obama and David Cameron at the UN climate conference in Paris in 2015.
The report claimed that the ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ in global warming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scientists in 2013 – never existed, and that world temperatures had been rising faster than scientists expected. Launched by NOAA with a public relations fanfare, it was splashed across the world’s media, and cited repeatedly by politicians and policy makers.
But the whistleblower, Dr John Bates, a top NOAA scientist with an impeccable reputation, has shown The Mail on Sunday irrefutable evidence that the paper was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data.
Jeff Maples of Pulpit & Pen shares what is going on in the life of disgraced pastor Perry Noble after a 30 days in alcohol rehab — he’s preaching again! Noble fans have his pal Steve Furtick to thank for returning him to the spotlight. Maples writes:
Notable former pastor and founder of Newspring church in Anderson, SC gave his tacit approval of alcohol consumption in 2013. Three years later, he was fired by his church for “falling into sin” with alcoholism. The elders of his church made the decision to terminate him from the pastorate. Less than two months later, after a 30-day alcohol rehab program, he claimed to be cured of his disease and vowed to return to ministry.
I spent 30 days in a treatment facility in Arizona from mid-July until mid-August. Being in that place allowed me to come face to face with issues from my past as well as my current struggle, and placed me in a place to successfully overcome my overmedication via alcohol.
Now, I’m not sure if what he said after that is a result of his years of intoxication, or if he’s simply playing some kind of mind game, but he went on to say,
I can honestly say I am excited about the future God has for me and my family. The one thing I keep hearing from Him over and over again is that He is not finished with me.
Blogger, author and book reviewer Tim Challies has a new series: Deadly Doctrines. In his first installment he defines what doctrine is and has a helpful table. He reminds us that, “The Christian’s responsibility is clear: We are to learn God’s truth by searching God’s Word. We must carefully evaluate every teaching according to God’s unfailing standard. What passes the test is sound doctrine, and what fails the test is false doctrine.”
Challies lays out eight terrible consequences of false doctrine. Discover what those consequences are. He writes:
The heaven tourism fad, there was the best-selling novel that reframed the doctrine of the Trinity. Meanwhile, the largest church in America is led by a man whose platitudes are indistinguishable from fortune cookies. But it’s not just authors and church leaders who are swerving away from the truth. Theologians and laypersons alike are abandoning traditional understandings of manhood and womanhood, of marriage and sexuality. Never has it been more important for Christians to commit themselves to rejecting false doctrine and pursuing sound doctrine, to ensure they are following teachers of truth, not peddlers of error.
In a new series of articles, we will consider false doctrine, sound doctrine, and how to train ourselves to distinguish between them. We will see how God calls us to respond to false and sound doctrine, as well as false and sound teachers. In this opening article, we will briefly define the term “doctrine,” examine the two different kinds of doctrine, and then suggest eight terrible consequences of false doctrine.
LifeZette reports:
New Live Action video shows women being refused care if they want to keep their babies
Over the past couple of weeks, Live Action has released new investigative videos — shedding light on the true nature of what goes on at Planned Parenthood.
While the organization attempts to market itself as dedicated to women’s health care, it seems that if a pregnant mom actually wants to keep her baby, then Planned Parenthood is not the place to go. In a new video, undercover journalists are shown calling 68 Planned Parenthoods around the country — and only three of them agree to do an ultrasound to check the health of the unborn baby.
“No, we don’t do any ultrasounds for prenatal care. We do them when we’re doing abortions, but not for any other reason,” said a Planned Parenthood worker from Council Bluffs, Iowa.
1 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, 2 “Go and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, “I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, The love of your betrothals, Your following after Me in the wilderness, Through a land not sown. Jeremiah 2:1-2 (NASB)
As I think back on that startling, abrupt, life-changing time immediately following God graciously bringing me into knowing Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, justifying me and placing me on that narrow road of sanctification, I remember my deep devotion to all things related to my faith. Some of those things were obviously part of the trappings of religiosity, but, primarily, I remember not being able to get enough of God’s Word and that is still the case. He has since that time chiseled and burned away much of the dross and worthless stuff from me that hindered me in my pilgrimage. It should be no surprise though that much of what was taken away were things, ministries, and people that I clung to desperately thinking they were vital parts of what made up “my walk.” In my case, my “first love,” which at times had diminished as I served religious things and worked at my religion with much vigor, has actually grown much deeper as the focus has been removed from all that to simply loving and obeying my Lord.
12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— 13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:12-13 (NASB)
God is Holy. God is Righteous. God is Just. God is Sovereign. Yehōwāh (יהוה) our Adhōnāy (אדן אדון), God our sovereign one, our Lord, our Kurios (κύριος), is also Love, Mercy, and Grace. We must not have a view of God that emphasizes His love, mercy, or grace over His Holiness. We are commanded to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phlippians 2:12). We are commanded to delight in God and come boldly to His throne of Grace, yet we must never take His Holiness for granted. This is why we have so much exhortation in the Bible to put to death the deeds of the flesh and then become Spirit-filled thereby walking in repentance.
Jesse Johnson of The Cripplegate discusses whether or not believers should have non-believers as close friends. Watch “Ask A Prof.”
Well there are two biblical concepts at play in this question—the first is the principle of purity and the second is the mandate for evangelism.
The Principle of Purity:
Christians are called to be pure. We are supposed to guard our hearts, our thoughts, and our ways. The danger of a friendship with a non-believer is that might bring the Christian down. It could bring a Christian down morally, intellectually, and spiritually.
The Bible says that “Bad company corrupts good morals” (1 Corinthians 15:33). Be spending time around those who don’t love Jesus or fear the Lord, we run the risk of negatively impacting our own morality, hampering our world-view, and compromising spiritually.
That is not a prohibition to Christians against these kind of friendships; but it is a warning—a warning that our friendships we guard our hearts, minds, and affections.
According to the editors of Technocracy “Musk fears that AI will turn him into a house cat, so he says we must merge it into our brain via ‘neural lace’ or other implant. Musk is a poster-child for Technocracy and Transhumanism.” Jasper Hamill of The Sun has the story. He writes:
The Tesla tech mogul Elon Musk is preparing to unveil new computers that can be fitted directly into the human brain.
In a tweet, he confirmed his firm was working on this potentially world-changing technology and promised to reveal details of the research “next month”.
He made the astonishing confession after being asked if Tesla was working on “neural lace”.
Denny Burk, Professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College, has a warning for people of faith:
There is a controversy brewing in the White House that religious voters had better start paying attention to. As I wrote yesterday, there is one faction that wants to keep President Obama’s 2014 LGBT executive order in place, and there is another faction that wants to oppose it with an executive order protecting religious liberty. Politico reports today about who is leading the factions and where this conflict is going:
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump helped lead the charge to scuttle a draft executive order that would have overturned Obama-era enforcements of LGBT rights in the workplace, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO.
A draft executive order on LGBT rights — which outlines how to roll back former president Barack Obama’s protections and expand legal exemptions based on religious beliefs — has been circulating among journalists and worried progressive groups this week.
But two sources close to Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who have in the past been supporters of gay rights, said the young couple were both in favor of putting out a clear statement from the president, promising to uphold the 2014 Obama executive order and stopping the momentum for the turnaround in its tracks.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, 19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Ephesians 6:17-20 (NASB)
Ungodly focus is the focus that everyone has except for the Spirit-filled believer. This focus is oriented to self. Believers who are self-focused are either baby Christians or they have succumbed to Satan’s attacks against them. These attacks are designed specifically to render each believer powerless and without a Christlike testimony. He does this with temptations, fiery darts, that are designed to bring believers to be self-satisfied, self-sufficient, and spiritually arrogant. Of course, these are the marks of a Christian who is not humble, but whose pride is in control.
According to Christian News:
Reports state that President Trump might soon issue an executive order protecting the rights of religious groups following his decision to keep an Obama-era order banning groups that contract with the federal government from “discriminating” against homosexuals and transgenders in their business or non-profit organization.
The outlet The Nation obtained a leaked copy of the order, which allegedly protects faith-based entities “when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with federal, state or local governments.”
It also reportedly protects the tax-exempt status of any group that “believes, speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of life.”
From Berean Research:
Steven Kozar of Messed Up Church takes on the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). You will come away from reading his piece with no doubt in your mind as to why this is such a dangerous movement and why discernment bloggers continually warn of the pitfalls of the NAR. I for one have been warning my readers for over a decade. Thus, I can attest to the fact that NAR leaders are, as the late Ken Silva so aptly put it, wing-nuts. And that’s not name calling. That is a fact. Take it from one who’s been researching/reporting on these people since they first managed to infiltrate the Christian Right. Many of you will find this hard to believe, but the pro-family movement is literally teaming with wolves.
But what you’re about to read has nothing to do with the Christian Right and undiscerning pro-family leaders. It’s about a growing movement that’s at the root of the collapse of evangelicalism. In this must read piece, Steve Kozar brings to light the reasons this movement is considered dangerous; likewise, he shows the effects it’s unbiblical teaching has had on those who become a part of it — and it’s not pretty. Steve makes if very clear why professing Christians mustn’t involve themselves in any aspect of the bizarre, unholy, mystical movement that has hijacked evangelicalism. It’s not Christian. It’s not of God. It’s a theological cult. And its leaders are wolves! Run!!
If you’ve been a part of a church that adheres to some of the “New Apostolic Reformation/Signs and Wonders” , there’s a good chance that you have nagging doubts and concerns that keep popping up from somewhere in the back of your mind.
That’s actually good.
For example…
According to The Telegraph:
The British Medical Association has said pregnant women should not be called “expectant mothers” as it could offend transgender people.
Instead, they should call them “pregnant people” so as not to upset intersex and transgender men, the union has said.
The advice comes in an internal document to staff outlining a raft of common phrases that should be avoided for fear of causing offence.
“The elderly” should be referred to as “older people”, “disabled lifts” called “accessible lifts” and someone who is “biologically male or female” should be called “assigned male or female”.