Claimed, gathered and sent

Evil in Disguise The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity, or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on our traditional ethical concepts, while for Christians who base their lives on the Bible it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil....Who stands fast? Only those whose final standards are not their reason, their principle, their conscience, their freedom, or their virtue, but who are ready to sacrifice all this when they are called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God - the responsible ones, who try to make their whole life an answer to the question and call to God. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer - from Letters and Papers from Prison 2,4 from A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer Carla Barnhill, Ed., HarperSan Francisco, 2005 On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler is made chancellor of Germany

The following article is located at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/40686 Home > 2007 > February (Web-only) Christianity Today, February (Web-only), 2007 Fatah Police Seize Gaza Baptist Church As cease-fire agreements between Fatah and Hamas come and go, a church is literally caught in the middle. Deann Alford | posted 2/07/2007 08:20AM F ive Fatah police officers remain stationed on Gaza Baptist Church's sixth floor as a tense truce has brought at least momentary peace to the tiny strip of coast teetering on the brink of civil war. Related articles and links Tuesday afternoon, fights between the secular Fatah party and its rival, the militant Islamic party Hamas, flared on Gaza's side of the Egyptian border as Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh passed through Rafah Crossing en route to reconciliation talks. The 10-minute gun battle not only threatened to shatter the latest cease-fire but also trapped Hani Fazah, a Christian Gazan doctor and f

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All Christians have their own circle of those who have requested them to intercede on their behalf, or people for whom for various reasons they know they have been called upon to pray. First of all, this circle will include those with whom they must live every day. With this we have advanced to the point at which we hear the heartbeat of all Christian life together. A Christian community either lives by the intercessory prayers of its members for one another or the community will be destroyed. I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner. That is a blessed discovery for the Christian who is beginning to offer intercessory prayer for others. As far as we are concerned, there in no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife, that cannot be overcome by

The psalmist proclaims, " When I am afraid, I will trust in you" (Psalm 56:3). This is what I was meditating on this morning. Of course, my mind wandered to that song "You are my Hiding Place" from Psalm 32 and the chorus, "Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in you." Fears take on many forms. Children are afraid of the dark, of the absence of their parents. We as adults fear losing those we love through distance or divorce. My greatest fear right now is that my words and actions might discredit my Lord. The past couple of weeks at work have been difficult for all of us. Last week I raised my voice in response to my supervisor. At lunch I wept over my lack of self control. I had read and meditated in the morning on that portion of scipture, "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight..." (Psalm 19:14). I was so far off in left field from that. As that day progressed, perhaps my words were better

Today's reading from the Revised Common Lectionary is Jeremiah 36:11-26. Baruch the scribe, recorded the words of Jeremiah which were then reported to the king. The king responded by burning the scroll containing them piece by piece, later ordering the arrest of Jeremiah and Baruch. God's response? "But the Lord hid them" (Jeremiah 36:26b). Psalm 46 beautifully speaks to this issue of the Lord's protection. "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1). In verse 7 , God is "the Lord Almighty...our fortress." Verse 10 is the key to the experiential knowledge of knowing this deliverance in our lives. "Be still, and know that I am God." Everything in our world seemingly demands our immediate attention. Let us turn our wholehearted attention to the One who deserves it.

It has been a week of being recreated from the inside and that is painful. God has brought me to the Spiritual Formation course through Regent University for "such a time as this" (Esther 4:14). The means of being taken apart and put back together by God has been spending more deliberate time in his presence by the use of an ancient method called lectio divina or divine reading. More about that in another post. Of course, living the truth God shows you is quite another matter. For me this week has been difficult at work. We had a staff meeting followed by individual meetings with our supervisor where we each got "our ears boxed" so to speak. My prayer all week has been that God would make me more like Jesus. The means however, is through the school of hard knocks. The kicker was the verse I was meditating on yesterday, "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer" (Ps 19:14).