One trillion dollars lost in one day!
The stock market meltdown triggered an avalanche of bad news from around the world.
We first had a bail-out which then became a buy-out which resulted in a $100,000,000,000 (that’s 100 billion) sell-out of Mr. & Mrs. Taxpayer – that’s you and me.
How did we get here?
Why did this happen?
Who is to blame?
What is the solution?
Democrats and Republicans joined together and brought their own votes by allotting pork barrel (unnecessary spending, wasteful pet projects) funding of more than $100 billion dollars.
Somebody is not watching out for those of us who pay taxes.
Banks for years have loaned money to people who were not credit worthy and have exceeded customer’s ability to pay back the loans.
Now we have trillions of dollars tied up in loans to people who overextended their credit and cannot pay it back.
We have abandoned old fashioned logic which says – If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it; don’t spend beyond your means.
Somebody wasn’t watching out for us. Somebody got lulled to sleep.
The same thing is happening in the Kingdom of God. Too much compromise, too much tolerance with sin has wreaked havoc with our homes, our marriages, our families, our schools and our culture.
Matthew 26:41 – Jesus warns us, “Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation.”
“To watch” means “to keep awake” and denotes giving careful attention and mindfulness in the face of danger; to be alert; to denounce all slackening in the energy of faith and conduct.
God told Adam in Genesis to “keep” the garden. He was to protect, pay careful attention to the obligations of His covenant with God.
“Watching” is an active appraisal of what is happening around us in both the spiritual and physical realms.
Today, you and I are God’s garden and vineyard and field under cultivation. (I Corinthians. 3:9)
“Watching” prevents satan from taking advantage of us.
“Watching” causes us to hear what God is saying and to know what He is doing.
-pastor tony
Monday, October 13, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Call unto Me and I will answer you
Martin Luther King once said:
To be a Christian and not pray is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.
Prayer is truly the oxygen of spiritual life. Prayer energizes us in our spirit, soul & body.
Our nation will not get back on its feet until we begin to pray and seek God’s face.
When we pray, God is moved to work in our lives and dispatch angels to assist us in our endeavors for His Kingdom.
Fervent, heartfelt prayer releases us from stress, tension, and anxiety and frees us up to boldly do God’s bidding.
Prayer’s purpose is not to get God to agree with us but to bring us into agreement with His will for our lives.
As we pray, our resources, opportunities are joined to His resources in Heaven.
God has bound Himself by covenant to hear and answer our prayers:
Jeremiah 33:3 – “Call unto Me and I will answer you.”
Isaiah 58:9 – “You shall call and the Lord will answer; you shall cry and He will say, Here am I.”
Our prayers actually become immortal:
Revelation 8:3-5 – “And another angel came and stood over the altar. He had a golden censer and he was given very much incense (fragrant spices and gums which exhale perfume when burned), that he might mingle it will all the prayers of all the people of God (the saints), upon the golden altar before the one. And the smoke of the incense (the perfume) arose in the presence of God, with the prayers of the people of God (the saints) from the hand of the angel. So the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and cast it upon the earth.”
Pray much, knowing your prayers are stored up around God’s throne until the day when He answers.
-pastor tony
To be a Christian and not pray is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.
Prayer is truly the oxygen of spiritual life. Prayer energizes us in our spirit, soul & body.
Our nation will not get back on its feet until we begin to pray and seek God’s face.
When we pray, God is moved to work in our lives and dispatch angels to assist us in our endeavors for His Kingdom.
Fervent, heartfelt prayer releases us from stress, tension, and anxiety and frees us up to boldly do God’s bidding.
Prayer’s purpose is not to get God to agree with us but to bring us into agreement with His will for our lives.
As we pray, our resources, opportunities are joined to His resources in Heaven.
God has bound Himself by covenant to hear and answer our prayers:
Jeremiah 33:3 – “Call unto Me and I will answer you.”
Isaiah 58:9 – “You shall call and the Lord will answer; you shall cry and He will say, Here am I.”
Our prayers actually become immortal:
Revelation 8:3-5 – “And another angel came and stood over the altar. He had a golden censer and he was given very much incense (fragrant spices and gums which exhale perfume when burned), that he might mingle it will all the prayers of all the people of God (the saints), upon the golden altar before the one. And the smoke of the incense (the perfume) arose in the presence of God, with the prayers of the people of God (the saints) from the hand of the angel. So the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and cast it upon the earth.”
Pray much, knowing your prayers are stored up around God’s throne until the day when He answers.
-pastor tony
great resources of power in the world
Of all the great resources of power in the world – nuclear, atomic, electrical, dynamite – none compares to the power of prayer.
Luke 18:1 says prayer should be a constant in our lives.
Webster defines prayer as speaking and making known one’s desires to God.
In the Bible, “prayer” means “wishing towards God.”
David describes “prayer” as the “turning of the soul to God.” Psalm 25:1 – “Unto you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.”
As we lift up our souls unto God in prayer, it gives God an opportunity to do what He will in us, with us, and through us. Literally, it is putting ourselves at God’s disposal.
The most important lesson and our most important activity is prayer.
Prayer puts God in full force in us and in our world. His Kingdom work begins with and continues with prayer. When we pray, we increase and God’s Kingdom is advanced. The world then is shaped by prayer.
The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be and the mightier the forces against evil everywhere. Satan is hindered, interfered with, limited and stopped to the degree that prayer abounds.
God values prayer so much that He bestows no blessings without it. Any intervention by God on the earth is in response to someone praying. Often we think of prayer as an outlet for expressing what we need – a cry to God for help. But prayer is the asking of God to fulfill His needs.
God’s original idea of prayer is accomplishing His purpose through the prayers of believers. Even in our own personal needs, prayer helps us tap into His way of helping us.
Literally, prayer is putting God to work through us in order to accomplish His purpose.
Isaiah 64:4 – “For from of old no one has heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides you, who works and shows Himself active on behalf of him who (earnestly) waits for Him.”
To fail to pray excludes God from working in and through us and leaves us as the mere victim of circumstance when prayer could make us the master of circumstance.
Luke 18:1 says prayer should be a constant in our lives.
Webster defines prayer as speaking and making known one’s desires to God.
In the Bible, “prayer” means “wishing towards God.”
David describes “prayer” as the “turning of the soul to God.” Psalm 25:1 – “Unto you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.”
As we lift up our souls unto God in prayer, it gives God an opportunity to do what He will in us, with us, and through us. Literally, it is putting ourselves at God’s disposal.
The most important lesson and our most important activity is prayer.
Prayer puts God in full force in us and in our world. His Kingdom work begins with and continues with prayer. When we pray, we increase and God’s Kingdom is advanced. The world then is shaped by prayer.
The more praying there is in the world, the better the world will be and the mightier the forces against evil everywhere. Satan is hindered, interfered with, limited and stopped to the degree that prayer abounds.
God values prayer so much that He bestows no blessings without it. Any intervention by God on the earth is in response to someone praying. Often we think of prayer as an outlet for expressing what we need – a cry to God for help. But prayer is the asking of God to fulfill His needs.
God’s original idea of prayer is accomplishing His purpose through the prayers of believers. Even in our own personal needs, prayer helps us tap into His way of helping us.
Literally, prayer is putting God to work through us in order to accomplish His purpose.
Isaiah 64:4 – “For from of old no one has heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides you, who works and shows Himself active on behalf of him who (earnestly) waits for Him.”
To fail to pray excludes God from working in and through us and leaves us as the mere victim of circumstance when prayer could make us the master of circumstance.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
all we have to do is pray.
Stock Market dives 777.68 points!
Stock Market rises 491.19 points!
Help! Please! Somebody make sense of this.
When the world makes no sense, there is always God. To say we live in turbulent times is an understatement. Weird, crazy, scary would be more like it. How do we cope with this insanity of Democrats and Republicans acting like spoiled brats? Is it just me or does it seem like we are on a toboggan ride heading to God knows where?
Suddenly Jesus comes crashing into our mad, mad world in Luke 18:1 and says, “Men ought always to pray and not faint.”
The word “faint” literally means “out of bad.” “Fainting” has to do with what our mouths speak when we go thru difficult, severe, challenging times.
Jesus says it is best not to speak anything bad during down times.
The other New Testament word for “faint” means “loose behavior” –
Galatians 6:9 – “Be not weary in well-doing. For in due season, you will reap if you faint not.”
He (Paul) says, don’t resort to “bad behavior” just because things are not going so well. Don’t “loose” your commitment to Jesus.
Always pray – commune with God – instead of complaining, moaning, griping about the way things are.
God will make sense out of all this non-sense if we just keep on praying.
-pastor tony
Stock Market rises 491.19 points!
Help! Please! Somebody make sense of this.
When the world makes no sense, there is always God. To say we live in turbulent times is an understatement. Weird, crazy, scary would be more like it. How do we cope with this insanity of Democrats and Republicans acting like spoiled brats? Is it just me or does it seem like we are on a toboggan ride heading to God knows where?
Suddenly Jesus comes crashing into our mad, mad world in Luke 18:1 and says, “Men ought always to pray and not faint.”
The word “faint” literally means “out of bad.” “Fainting” has to do with what our mouths speak when we go thru difficult, severe, challenging times.
Jesus says it is best not to speak anything bad during down times.
The other New Testament word for “faint” means “loose behavior” –
Galatians 6:9 – “Be not weary in well-doing. For in due season, you will reap if you faint not.”
He (Paul) says, don’t resort to “bad behavior” just because things are not going so well. Don’t “loose” your commitment to Jesus.
Always pray – commune with God – instead of complaining, moaning, griping about the way things are.
God will make sense out of all this non-sense if we just keep on praying.
-pastor tony
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)