Bugged Room Gospel

Years ago when China was very difficult to enter, 30 mission leaders from the Philippines took a special trip (sponsored by Open Doors) to carry Bibles into China. We stayed in a hotel and were warned that the rooms were bugged so be careful what we said.  My roommate and I had a wonderful time sharing about how we each came to faith in Christ. In fact, we shared daily in great detail about how people had witnessed to us, what we read in Scripture, how we had been convicted of sin, and how Christ the Sovereign Lord, God Himself, had sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins taking our penalty. We spoke of how we were now clothed in the righteousness of Christ and going to heaven inheriting eternal life, not because of any good thing we had done but because of Christ and His righteousness.

9 Things You Should Know About Human Trafficking

by Joe Carter

Human trafficking has been identified as the largest human rights violation in the history of mankind. Here are nine things you should know about modern-day slavery.

1. Modern-day slavery, also referred to as "trafficking in persons," or "human trafficking," describes the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.

2. There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In fact, there are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history, with an estimated 21 million in bondage across the globe.

3. For most of human history slaves were expensive, the average cost being around the equivalent of $40,000. Today, the average slave costs around $90. A 2003 study in the Netherlands found that, on average, a single sex slave earned her pimp at least $250,000 a year.

4. Trafficking in persons is estimated to be one of the top-grossing criminal industries in the world (behind illegal drugs and arms trafficking), with traffickers profiting an estimated $32 billion every year.

5. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, it is more profitable for a trafficker to prostitute a child than to commit other crimes such as dealing in drugs. "For one, the commodity (child) is reusable. In addition, technological innovation has allowed traffickers to reach a wider client base and connect more quickly with buyers."

6. Human trafficking disproportionately affects communities of color. Including here in the United States, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that over 77 percent of trafficking victims in the United States are people of color. According to a report by the FBI, confirmed sex trafficking victims were more likely to be white (26%) or black (40%), compared to labor trafficking victims, who were more likely to be Hispanic (63%) or Asian (17%). Four-fifths of victims in confirmed sex trafficking incidents were identified as U.S. citizens (83%), while most confirmed labor trafficking victims were identified as undocumented aliens (67%) or qualified aliens (28%).

7. Nearly half of all incidents investigated by U.S. law enforcement agencies between January 1, 2008, and June 30, 2010, involved allegations of adult prostitution (48%). Forty percent involved prostitution of a child or child sexual exploitation. Fourteen percent of cases contained allegations of labor trafficking.

8. Traffic of children in Asia assumes a more significant proportion of overall trafficking than in other regions of the world. Younger children are found in the sex industry as customers seek to avoid AIDS, and much Asian sex tourism features children and minors of both sexes. In India, children are maimed to be more effective beggars. In China, babies are trafficked for adoptions abroad, with boys commanding more than girls. In Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and the Philippines, children are trafficked as child soldiers.

9. The average age a teen enters the sex trade in the U.S. is 12 to 14-year-old. According to Shared Hope International, children exploited through prostitution report they typically are given a quota by their trafficker/pimp of 10 to 15 buyers per night, though some service providers report girls having been sold to as many as 45 buyers in a night at peak demand times, such as during a sports event or convention. Utilizing a conservative estimate, a domestic minor sex trafficking victim who is rented for sex acts with five different men per night, for five nights per week, for an average of five years, would be raped by 6,000 buyers during the course of her victimization through prostitution.

Dead in Summer or Working While the Sun Shines?

Why are so many ministries, mission offices, and churches dead in the summer time?

There is so much to do and many opportunities for outreach of the gospel locally and worldwide!

Enlist many volunteers young and older to answer the phone, do repairs, type, stamp envelopes, help with special projects, go door to door, have lemonade stands to bless others with a cool drink and the gospel, go to garage sales for items to ship to ministries worldwide, serve lunch to staff, and so forth.

We are not to be busy for activity's sake but to be about our Father's business for His glory and the gospel to the ends of the earth!

Good news! It is Tea Time!

On one occasion I was meeting with the leaders of a ministry in England and was impressed with the number of volunteers serving in this efficiently-run office with ministries worldwide.

Around three p.m. there was a soft knock on the board room door and two ladies came in to our meeting pushing a little cart with hot tea and biscuits (cookies).  They graciously served each of us in the meeting with a delicious cup of British tea and refreshments.  They then left the room quietly and served everyone in the outer office. 

I asked the director about this and he responded, “Oh, yes, we have a wonderful group of volunteers who serves each missionary and staff in the morning, afternoon, and on occasion, even prepare lunch.”

There is a saying that goes, “What would we ever do without our friends?”  There is another which says, “What would we do without volunteers?”  

It is the volunteers in ministries and churches who serve meals and refreshments, clean toilets, type emails and letters, stamp envelopes, answer the phones, vacuum floors, scrub walls, wash windows, mow the lawn, fix plumbing, wire sound systems, and prepare the building for Sunday morning worship. 

Churches and ministries which seem to be dead, could be beehives of activity to the glory of God by simply enlisting and training godly, zealous volunteers for God’s glory!

“Therefore, my beloved brethren [and sisters], be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15: 58, nasb).

“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10a, nasb).

John Wesley on the Importance of Reading

from Randy Alcorn

One of his biographers says that evangelist John Wesley "rode 250,000 miles, gave away 30,000 pounds...and preached more than 40,000 sermons.” (Edward T. Oakes, John Wesley: A Biography, First Things, 2004.)

250,000 miles on horseback? That’s a staggering distance. It’s equivalent to circling the globe ten times…on a horse! (I’d advise against trying this even once, with the oceans and all.)

Often, Wesley had a book open in front of him as he rode. He loved to learn, and read books incessantly, which gave freshness to the sermons he preached about three times a day. Whether at a desk or on a horse, Wesley wrote this letter to a pastor, John Premboth, on August 17, 1760:

What has exceedingly hurt you in time past, nay, and I fear to this day, is want of reading.
I scarce ever knew a preacher read so little. And perhaps, by neglecting it, you have lost the taste for it. Hence your talent in preaching does not increase. It is just the same as it was seven years ago. It is lively, but not deep; there is little variety, there is no compass of thought. Reading only can supply this, with meditation and daily prayer. You wrong yourself greatly by omitting this. You can never be a deep preacher without it, any more than a thorough Christian.
O begin! Fix some part of every day for private exercises. You may acquire the taste which you have not: what is tedious at first, will afterwards be pleasant.

Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily. It is for your life; there is no other way; else you will be a trifler all your days, and a petty, superficial preacher. Do justice to your own soul; give it time and means to grow. Do not starve yourself any longer. Take up your cross and be a Christian altogether. Then will all children of God rejoice (not grieve) over you in particular.

If I were President ...

By Ken Hutcherson, Special to CP

August 7, 2013

If I were President, there would be no special treatment for anyone entering our country illegally. I would send a special delegation to Israel to study how to build a fence, secure it and then electrify it.

After the border is secure, I would put out a clarion call that all illegal aliens have six months to register and the clock starts ticking when the fence starts construction. When we catch them after that, there will be no citizenship possibility and then we would deport them. My concern would be for those who have been here for years and sought legal ways to gain citizenship and I would work with Congress to put them on the fast track like they do inmates on death row in Texas, fast and efficient. I would be sensitive to not breaking up families because that would be inhumane of course, so if you are caught after six months, then you and your whole family, whether your children are born here or not would be deported because you had six months to make it right. I would work with all illegal aliens if they sign up to do everything possible to get their green cards or work permits. However, if someone is attempting to gain citizenship, they must go to the back of the line.

If I were President, I would make a new commitment to Israel and announce the Muslim brotherhood as a terrorist organization, stop all shipments of money, weapons and planes to Egypt until a free government is elected that we deem is free and not a threat to our greatest ally, Israel. Syrian leadership must go and no one on either side will get help from us until we deem it safe for Israel and America. Iran would have one warning to disarm or we will stand with Israel to do it for them.

I would demand a special prosecutor for the IRS, NSA, Benghazi, CIA and Fast and Furious scandals. There would be no need to investigate Eric Holder because I would fire him today for his past incompetence and malfeasance.

I would work to re-establish our Supreme Court so it would return to being the third branch of our government instead of another arm of our politically driven system. I would start by appointing true constitutional judges instead of democrats or republicans. With a true and balanced Supreme Court, marriage would be turned back over to the states, where it belongs and not in the halls of the court.
If I were President, there would be no welfare support for any unwed mother or father after their first child because anyone can make a mistake but not three, four or five times. That is not a mistake, that is a lifestyle and I would refuse to help support that kind of subsidiary lifestyle, especially when each child has a different father.

I would cut the food stamp program by two-thirds tomorrow with further cuts coming soon in the near future.

I would cut unemployment benefits down to six weeks, with few exceptions for hardship cases and see if we can get American citizens to take some of those jobs that people talk about only illegal aliens wanting. The Bible teaches if a man does not work, he does not eat, especially when he is capable of getting up every day and doing so, but you say there are no jobs, well there would be if I was President by following my policies.
I would ensure we build the Keystone pipeline from Canada to the gulf. I would find ways to improve fracking, to give permits for companies to drill in our own gulf, Alaska, and any other states that have oil. And I would make sure our people have the money to build more refineries. I want to produce jobs and cut cost and make sure it is not the payback plan for unions to give to a particular political party. Oh by the way, I would push for the freedom to not join a union or for the freedom to direct where you would like your dues to go.

If I were President, I would find a way to abolish the Department of Education and give it back to the states.
As President I would find ways to cut taxes and overbearing regulations on businesses, especially those within the coal industry.

As president I would put an end to this prejudice, jealousy and class warfare we see so regularly and start legislation on passing a flat 10 percent tax on everyone.

If I were President I would eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency and turn that control back over to the states.

Then I would get in there and help lead to make sure the legislature had enough votes to de-fund Obamacare.

If I were President, I would give the American people enough reason to help me win the Senate and keep the House and if for no other reason, than to get rid of Harry Reed, who is not good for this country.
Just sayin', if I were President, this is what would start happening in this great nation of ours.

Dr. Ken Hutcherson is Senior Pastor of Antioch Bible Church outside Seattle. He is a former Seattle Seahawk and Dallas Cowboy linebacker who lives with his family in Redmond, Washington.

“But He’s Not My Neighbor”

by Matt Perman

It seems to me that we have, perhaps, inadvertently reversed the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Jesus’ point in the parable is that our neighbor is anyone in need. In order to make this point clear, he tells the story of the Samaritan coming across a man who was beaten and robbed. Even though this man was culturally his enemy, he takes action and helps.

Jesus’ point is: don’t let yourself off the hook of the command to love your neighbor as yourself by limiting it only to a narrow group of people. Love even your enemies, do this sacrificially (as the Samaritan did), and be willing to risk (as it was a dangerous road).

I think precisely because of this parable, few people in the world who are familiar with the teaching of Jesus would be callous enough to walk by a person bleeding on the side of the road. Or, if they did, they would know it was deeply wrong (unlike the religious people in the parable, who apparently didn’t even get that).
But that’s only half the point. In fact, I would suggest if that’s all we get from the parable, we’ve totally missed the point — even if when presented with the exact circumstances of the parable, we would stop to help.

The reason is this: we don’t very often come across people who are bleeding on the side of the road. So how does the parable apply to us the rest of the time?

I think we’ve inadvertently taken the parable and restricted the meaning of our “neighbor” in the other direction, thus doing the very thing Jesus is forbidding. We’ve come to think that our neighbor is only a person in extreme need — the person bleeding on the side of the road.
But what about the person who is not bleeding on the side of the road, but has other, much smaller but still very real needs?

We tend to just pass on by. “He’s not my neighbor — my neighbor is the person bleeding on the side of the road.” And yet it never crosses our mind to say, “Hmm…; isn’t it strange that I’ve never actually come across such a person in my entire life?”

Jesus told this parable to teach us something that is to apply to us every single day of our lives. He gave an extreme example to counter the common notion of the day that limited the scope of who we are to love. But then we’ve strangely seized on the example he gave and limited the meaning of “neighbor” in an entirely different direction, to mean only those in extreme need. That was not Jesus point.

Overlooking seemingly ”small,” everyday, and ordinary needs is also a great sin. Your neighbor is not just the person in extreme need, but the person right before you at work, in your neighborhood, in your community. Your client, business partner, employee, co-worker, person who comes off the street into your business asking for directions, or person who attends your church and has a concern. Anyone and everyone who has any need is your neighbor.

If you think you’ve got it together because you don’t pass by people who are beaten up on the side of the road, but overlook issues of everyday need in the people right before you, you are missing it.
And don’t we all need to hear this? I know I do.

So, let’s get with it. Let’s about the world with our eyes and ears open to seek out, identify, and meet all types of needs that the people have whom God brings across our paths. Let’s ditch this notion that our neighbor is only someone in extreme need. Let’s be proactive in meeting less extreme needs as well.
And, as we do that, then we will be truly obeying the point of the parable, even if we never literally come across someone beaten up and bleeding on the side of the road.

And, we just might come to see that this seemingly “small” needs aren’t quite so small after all.

Source:
http://whatsbestnext.com/2013/07/but-hes-not-my-neighbor/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=5575&utm_campaign=0