Monthly Archives: April 2009

-“A Fresh Anointing”

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Here’s some great thoughts from Pastor Mark Batterson:

“The longer I preach the more cognizant I am of this fact: my words don’t mean anything without the quickening of the Holy Spirit. I’d rather have people hear one word from the Lord than a thousand of my sermons!
My prayer coming into 2009 was simply this: a greater anointing. Honestly, I don’t even know what that means or how it happens. Just keeping it real. But I know I want it and need it. And I feel it. I preach with more conviction now than I did six months ago.”

Response: Praise God! That is what I call an encouraging word in these troubled times—more of the Lord, more of his anointing, more of his Holy Spirit, more of HIS word. Rejoice! This is exactly what the whole American Church needs.         

-American Church: Good-Bye Cultural Christianity Hello New Reality

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(Dr. Mohler via Wikipedia)

All sorts of articles, polls, and publications have sounded the warning trumpet lately—calling attention to the ‘decline of Christianity in America. What we really are experiencing is the death of ‘cultural Christianity’—the kind that I talked about before– in the 50’s growing up with everyone in my neighborhood identifying themselves as Christians except the Jewish family down the street but they believed in the same Biblical morality as every other American.

Times have changed indeed—the culture wars are basically over and the church has substantially lost—even among a whole lot of folk who identify themselves as ‘Christian’. Here is a recent quote of Dr. Albert Mohler addressing the new cultural environment that the American church could soon be facing:

“We are going to discover that cultural Christianity is what eventually disappears in a secularized age.

Cultural Christianity has been so much a part of the environment of our ministry and of the expectation of our churches that it’s going to be a very different situation for the pastor of the First Baptist Church to worry about being arrested rather than to worry about whether he’s going to get the first seat in the restaurant.

… When you start looking at a lot of the logic of what is becoming endemic in the culture toward the future, we’re going to be in a very different situation than we’ve ever faced before.

And we’re going to discover that we are not as many as we thought we were.

… We’ve got to prepare students to be ready for that and to be able to lead churches to be able to understand what it means to be the church when we no longer have the cultural supports that we had counted on, wrongly, I think, all these years.”

—Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler Jr. [Baptist Press, 4/23/09]

-An Incredible Creative Miracle

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Here’s the testimony of an incredible ‘creative miracle’. A creative miracle is when God does the impossible and re-grows dead or missing tissue-like a missing arm or in this case replaces dead lung tissue.

This is the story of a little boy named Jacob who was one day in bed with life threatening lung disease and cardio complications and the next weekend boogie boarding at the beach on a fine warm Southern California spring day.

It is also a praise report of provision for the whole family during the crisis, and a story of unseen prayers of regular folks like you praying for healing and provision. The following is a first-hand account from Jacob’s mother:

PRAISE GOD !!!

Jacob had his appointment with the Pulmonologist this morning at CHOC.  Dr. Y. was STUNNED by the incredible difference in his CT Scan!!!!

The prior CT Scan showed his left lung was 90% filled with Nasty Battle-Droids…I mean Pneumatoceles.  The Doctors could not see ANY healthy lung tissue.  They “hoped” if they did surgery to remove the dead lung tissue and the HUGE Pneumatoceles they may be able to salvage a portion of his lung and healthy lung tissue “might” re-grow. 

Also, the border of Jacob’s lung was so damaged that it was allowing his lung to push into his heart causing pain.  The Doctor’s were worried that Jacob’s dead left lung would damage his healthy heart.  That is why then called the heart and lung surgical expert, Dr. Palafox.  If they were removing the lung and the heart had been compromised he would be the best man to take care of them both while he was inside Jacob’s chest.  They planned to remove the “dead-lung” to save the heart.  You have two lungs and can live with only one…the heart is a non-negotiable. 

The healthy lung tissue is now THERE and the Pneumatoceles are NOT!!

God did not need to wait for surgery to clear anything out of His way… He just created NEW HEALTHY lung tissue just like HE did when he formed Jacob’s lungs originally 8-years ago!!  The border of Jacob’s lung is now strong and his heart is not being touched in any way.  Praise GOD!!

<<Read the rest of this incredible testimony>>