"Your Grace Still Amazes Me" Phillips, Craig & Dean

My faithful Father, enduring Friend Your tender mercy’s like a river with no end It overwhelms me, covers my sin Each time I come into Your presence I stand in wonder once again

Voice of the Martyrs - Algeria Update

Algeria: Update: Church Burned

On Jan. 10, Muslim extremists set fire to Tafath church in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria, damaging church property, according to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts.

The Tafath church has been threatened since December, when extremists disrupted a Christmas celebration. “As Christians continued to come for worship to this church despite the increasing intimidation, the Muslim extremists decided to burn the church,” VOM contacts said. “The next morning, the church members were able to retrieve some unburned stuff from the church and move it to a safe place.”

Read more here.

The Bible Isn't Boring, Avatar is! - John Piper

Worship - The Valley of Vision

Glorious God,

It is the flame of my life to worship thee,

the crown and glory of my soul to adore thee,

heavenly pleasure to approach thee.

Give me power by the Spirit to help me

worship now,

that I may forget the world,

be brought into the fullness of life,

be refreshed, comforted, blessed.

Give me knowledge of thy goodness

that I might not be over-awed by they greatness;

Give me Jesus, Son of Man, Son of God,

that I might not be terrified,

but drawn near with filial love,

with holy boldness;

He is my mediator, brother, interpreter,

branch, daysman, Lamb;

him I glorify,

in him I am set on high.

Crowns to give I have none,

but what thous hast given I return,

content to feel that everything is mine

when it is thine,

and the more fully mine when I have yielded it

to thee.

Let me live wholly to my Saviour,

free from distractions,

from carking care,

from hindrances to the pursuit

of the narrow way.

I am pardoned through the blood of Jesus-

give me a new sense of it,

continue to pardon me by it,

may I come every day to the fountain,

and every day to be washed anew,

that I may worship thee always

in spirit and truth.

Amen

From The Valley of Vision page 358

Preach the Gospel For the Perishing and the Saved - Matt Chandler

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16

The gospel of Christ is powerful enough to justify us, it is powerful enough to sanctify us and it is powerful enough to glorify us.

Cross Eyed - Life - Dr Arturo Azurdia III

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,Look full in His wonderful face,And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,In the light of His glory and grace.

Art Azurdia Cross Eyed Life Sermon Jam from Josh Gunter on Vimeo.

Evangelist Slams Priest for 'Pulpit Betrayal'

MEDIA ADVISORY, Dec. 28 /Christian Newswire/ -- An Anglican priest in the northern English city of York told his parishioners that poor people struggling to survive should steal food and other essentials from shops, rather than raise money through prostitution, burglary or mugging.

Best-selling author and evangelist, Ray Comfort, said, "What may sound like compassion is actually pulpit betrayal. Rather than a sermon telling his hearers to steal from businesses, he should be telling them to take what they need from his own church's collection plate. If he didn't do that because his church is feeling the economic pinch, that brings into question his motive. If his parishioners take his advice and his weekly collection increases, he is benefiting from the crime he instigated and therefore complicit to it. The question also arises as to whether or not the priest personally practices what he preaches. Does he himself shoplift? If he doesn't, he's a hypocrite. If he does, then he's a criminal. If he says that he doesn't need to shoplift because he is financially sound, then he should be giving to his poor folks, rather than making them into thieves."

Britain's Daily Mail reported, "He told parishioners it would not break the eighth commandment 'thou shalt not steal' because it 'is permissible for those who are in desperate situations to take food that they might not starve.' The Yorkshire Evening Post reported that he said, "'My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift,' he told his stunned congregation at St Lawrence and St Hilda in York."

Comfort said, "The twisted advice of the Reverend is nothing new. The religious leaders at the time of Christ also perverted the Ten Commandments. In Matthew 15 they changed the Fifth so that they didn't have to honor their father and mother, and they even tried to soften the Seventh. But in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warned that God considers lust to be adultery of the heart.

"This all comes from something called 'idolatry,' which is the sin of making a god in your own image. Once you do that, anything goes. The Bible says that if you steal, even in the case of dire need, you pay back seven-fold. Sex becomes okay "if you love someone." Lying becomes morally okay if they are lies that don't "hurt" anyone. Adultery becomes acceptable if the marriage is boring, and the murder of children in the womb is permitted if a pregnancy is an inconvenience. But the Bible is clear that all liars, adulterers, murderers and thieves will end up in Hell."

The Rev. Jones added, "I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither." He said that people shouldn't steal from small, family businesses, but from large national businesses.
Comfort, who spent a lot of his time feeding the homeless in Los Angeles' infamous McArthur Park, said, "This is what happens when unconverted men go into the ministry. Many of today's preachers should have been plumbers, motivational speakers or bankers, rather than what the Bible calls 'preachers of righteousness.' The moral Law is meant to show us that we are sinners and that we need a Savior. The Ten Commandments don't need changing. We do. We may change them to suit ourselves, but they will still be the standard of judgment on Judgment Day. God wrote them in stone for a reason."

He Calls You to Another way - John Piper

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Romans 8:16-17